Spoilers: Read and learn.

Rating: Steamy Windows

FAR AND AWAY
Part 2
Only You
By Kit

---FYI--Note to my readers--there is a scene in the middle of this part where Dawson and Joey get a *little* frisky. However, this will not turn into a D/J romance story--despite the fact that they are nekkid, their conversation is important because it has this little literary technique called ‘fore-sha-do-wing’. It’s a big one, I know, but try to bear with me. I’m not trying to be condescending--but *everyone* so far has asked me that and it gets *ANNOYING*.

Andie was the first of the three to awaken. The sun was low in the sky.

“Wow,” she said, “you want me to drive for a while?” she stretched, rubbing the back of Pacey’s neck, gently.

"The way you drive? Forget it!”

“Shut up!” Andie hissed, pulling her hand back.

“Look-we’re almost there,” Pacey pointed at the road sign, posting Starboard as five miles away. Andie sat up in her seat, alert, and started pointing left and right at the appropriate turnoffs. Dawson woke up slowly, as Pacey pulled into a long gravel driveway. He shook a warm and rosy Joey out of a peaceful slumber. Pacey parked as a tall, elegant woman emerged from the large, Victorian style home.

“Aunt Elaine!” Andie screamed, jumping out of the Jeep. She danced over to the woman and nearly toppled her over.

“Auntie, this is Pacey Witter, my best friend, and these are our friends, Dawson...um, Dawson..” Andie racked her brain for his last name.

“Leery. Dawson Leery, and this is Joey Potter.”

“Joey?” she asked quizzically.

“Josephine, ma’am,” Joey corrected, taking an instant liking to the older woman.

Dawson could *not* say the same. Something about the woman was a little odd.

“How long have you children been driving?’ Mrs. McPhee asked, concerned.

“All day, Auntie...are our rooms ready?” Andie threaded her arm through the older woman’s as she led the way back into the house.

Pacey and Dawson looked at each other warily, but grabbed the bags from the trunk of the car and followed them inside.

The quartet marveled over the polished wood floors and staircases, and the large, picture windows, looking out over the crashing waves and dusky cliffs. Each room had a large oak, four poster bed with a hand-stitched quilt. Dawson put his bags into his room, and went immediately across the hall to Joey’s room. Andie, Joey and Mrs. McPhee were too busy looking at the framed pictures on the wall to notice his

entrance. “Well, do I get a tip?” he joked, watching them look. Mrs. McPhee, startled, turned around quickly. “Young man, maybe you should stay out in the hall and wait for us there. ’Tisn’t proper for a gentleman to enter a lady’s room.”

“No problem,” Dawson was respectful.

Behind her aunt’s back, Andie rolled her eyes at Joey, but thought better of telling her aunt that Dawson and Joey had been sleeping in the same bed since they were children. During dinner, Mrs. McPhee gave the boys disapproving looks over the tops of her glasses, a fact which escaped no one’s attention.

“So, Mr. Witter--what exactly are your intentions with my niece?” Mrs. McPhee began to grill him as soon as he had taken his first bite of pumpkin pie.

He nearly choked on his pie, but managed to swallow it-- Andie flamed crimson and put her head in her hands.

“Well, ma’am, I’m not sure about Andie--but I consider myself a good friend. I like to participate in school activities with her--as well as activities after school and on the weekends,” Pacey managed.

“So...what are these ‘activities’?” Mrs. McPhee asked defensively.

“Well, just recently, ma’am, Andie and I went together to the school dance...”

“Andie can’t dance,” Mrs. McPhee said sharply.

“Yes, ma’am, I know,” Pacey grinned at Andie, but dropped it when Mrs. McPhee scowled.

“Are you courting her, young man?”

“Not that I am aware of, ma’am,” Pacey was surviving this well.

“What are your future plans, Mr. Witter?”

“Auntie, that is *enough*,” Andie finally spoke up, from behind her hands.

“No, dear, I’m afraid it’s not. Since your mother is...incapacitated...I feel it is my duty...” Mrs. McPhee began.

“No!” Andie cut her off, “stop there. We can discuss this later.”

“But...”

“Later!” Andie lost her temper, and threw down her napkin and stalked out.

Everyone heard the front door slam. Pacey hastily followed her. Dawson and Joey sat, uncomfortably, as Mrs. McPhee turned to them sweetly.

“Would either of you like another piece of pie?”

“Don’t let her get to you,” Pacey said loudly, over the whipping wind.

“I didn’t.”

“Pacey, when she lived her with us, she was exactly the same. She alienated every friend I ever had--finally I stopped bringing them home,” Andie said sadly.

“So, why this? Why now? Why are *we* here?” Pacey asked, confused.

“She swore to me she had changed--that she was ready to accept that I had friends. I thought you guys loved me enough as my friends not to hold it against me,” Andie cried, hopelessly.

“We don’t,” Pacey assured her.

“What about Dawson and Joey?”

“They wouldn’t either. Trust me, they have both seen and heard more bizarre scenes than we just went through,” Pacey pulled Andie into his arms and kissed her forehead.

She arose awkwardly, and pulled him, by the hand, back into the house.

After a gourmet meal, the four retreated to the small sitting room adjoined to the kitchen to talk quietly and watch television. Finally, Joey, and Dawson retired, yawning and whispering quietly. After four yawns from Pacey, Andie finally got the message that he was ready to go to bed, too. She bade her aunt a harried good night, and hastily made her way up the stairs, allowing Pacey to follow *very* closely on her heels. She led them up to her room and as he escaped inside, she leaned against the door. From Dawson’s room, the next door down, they heard a muted moan. Smiling knowingly, they hastily retreated to Pacey’s room instead.

Pacey stripped down to his boxers and a white T-shirt, hopped up onto the bed and leaned against the headboard of the beautiful oak headboard. Andie sat at the foot of the bed and rested against one of the posters.

“You *can* get closer, you know--I’m not contagious,” Pacey assured her.

“I know,” Andie sighed, “it just seems a little strange. This is the house I grew up in--me and Jack.”

“And how come Jack didn’t want to come?” Pacey raised his eyebrows.

“Oh--he had to work. So Joey could take the time off,” Andie stretched, “he wouldn’t have liked it here with us, anyway. He’s not a big participator, if you haven’t noticed.”

“C’mere,” Pacey pulled her by her arms onto his chest. She sighed restlessly.

“Maybe we shouldn’t--my aunt is downstairs, and...”

Pacey put a finger to her lips, “two floors down and I bet she already has her hearing aid out.” Andie sighed again, but tilted her head up for a sweet kiss.

Across the hall, pale moonlight washed over arms and legs, hands and feet, hair and faces. Dawson sighed a soft, but heavy groan into Joey’s hair as he moved his body to spoon her smooth, naked back.

“Oh, *Dawson*,” Joey said softly as he absentmindedly ran his fingers up and down her arms.

“Hey, Jo,” he asked, distracted, “does something seem strange about this woman to you?”

“Oh, no,” Joey groaned, “I think I know what you are going to say and I think your imagination is running away with you again.”

“No seriously. There is something a little too Donna Reed/Betty Crocker/Martha Stewart wholesome about this woman...” Dawson pointed out.

“Don’t go there, Dawson,” Joey rolled her eyes.

“Seriously, Joey. She’s just too prim and proper.”

“I noticed at dinner she practically fed us to death--we’ve got her on gluttony, Dawson. I wonder if we could get a warrant for that,” Joey said, mocking him.

“Okay--example--at dinner she was mentioning the importance of a strong man in a woman’s life--very conservative. Then she grilled Pacey about his honorable intentions with Andie--or the lack thereof. She almost had an aneurysm at the thought of me in your room.”

“I wonder how wiggy she would get if she knew you come into my *body* Joey sighed erotically.

Dawson was losing more and more of his concentration. “Even the prim Mrs. Ryan allowed Jen and I to work in our rooms during the Econ project--this woman seems too nineteenth century to me,” Dawson managed to stammer out as Joey flipped over onto her other hip in his arms. ‘She is so beautiful,’ he thought.

Joey jumped onto her knees, “I think we need a midnight rendezvous to investigate,” she quipped.

“Well, you have the rendezvous part down,” Dawson said, pulling her by her hips back down to the bed with him, “way down.”

Pacey awoke to the sensation of a heavy body on his chest. It was enough to give him a stiffy, but he controlled himself for the sake of the beautiful girl on his chest. His mind wandered back to the Homecoming dance, when she’d put her tiny hand in his and danced with him at the dock. That night had been their first kiss; certainly not his first, but most probably hers.

He thought about the night of their “study session” when she had topped the sex quiz at a purity level of a whopping 92 points. He’d hurt her that night--intentionally, at that. Some might say he had done wrong by telling her the truth. But wasn’t the truth what everyone “wanted” in their relationships? He did just as well with secrets, personally. But he couldn’t say that--not to Andie, anyway.

Andie groan as he cradled his arms around her and flipped over so as to gently deposit her on the bed and leave her there. She squirmed a little, but didn’t wake up. She murmured his name--and he knew if he didn’t get off of her, she was going to get the ugly truth about erections before she was ready. Pacey kissed her forehead, and gave her one last look before he escaped out the door and down the hall. He needed to clear his head.

He walked gingerly down the stairs and out the front door. The wind was blowing, but it wasn’t really cold. The wind chimes tinkled softly from overhead, and Pacey spied a very comfortable-looking padded porch swing. He went to sit, and he put his head in his hands. His head shot up as a tall figure slipped out of the front door. He almost choked when he recognized Mrs. McPhee looking around shiftily, and then hurrying to her car. She started the car and drove very slowly down the driveway with her headlights off. When she reached the road, she turned them on and took off like a shot towards the small town. Pacey’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Oh, would he have something to tell Dawson the next morning...