Hunter
By Leia
Time ain't
nothing but time
It's a verse with no rhyme
Man, it all comes down to you
Change ain't nothing but change
Just the faces and the names
But you know we're gonna make it through
I'll believe
When you don't believe in anything
I'm gonna hold you 'til your hurt is gone
Be the shoulder that you're leaning on
I'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
If it all should end tonight
I'll know it was worth the fight
And we'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
I, when I think that I'm losing my mind
It all comes back to you
And you, you know that it's true
After all we've been through
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
Stand by me
And I would gladly give up everything
I'm gonna hold you 'til your hurt is gone
Be the shoulder that you're leaning on
I'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
If it all should end tonight
I'll know it was worth the fight
And we'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
I'm gonna hold you 'til your hurt is gone
Be the shoulder that you're leaning on
I'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
If it all should end tonight
I'll know it was worth the fight
And we'll be standing here
For the next 100 years
*~*The Next 100 Years by Bon Jovi*~*
“Pacey, I bought some milk!”
Joey called in as she walked through the door. It had been two weeks since she had first moved in with Pacey,
and she had successfully avoided Cici... until then. Joey walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to put away
the groceries.
“Did
you buy any skim?” a voice from behind her asked.
Joey
jumped and turned around to see that familiar short blond. She was dressed in a black cocktail dress
and had a purse slung over her shoulder.
Her soft blond hair was in an upsweep.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said with a small smile. “We haven’t met... well, properly,
anyways. I’m Cici Roberts.”
She
held out her hand. Joey smiled back and
shook it.
“I’m
Joey Potter... technically, Leery, but um, I like to forget about that part.”
“Ah,
ex-husband, huh? Oh, no, soon to be ex,
isn’t he?”
“As
soon as possible.”
“Yes, Daddy had awful trouble with that before. His third wife was rather... clingy. Well, to put it nicely.”
Joey
took in her observations about Cici.
She was around Jen’s height with dark blond hair and lighter
highlights. She was very pretty and had
a certain elegance about her. She kind
of made Joey feel like that too-tall, awkward tomboy from the wrong side of the
creek. Not that she was be-littling by
any means. She seemed to have a
genuineness about her, despite her obvious background of being filthy rich.
“My
ex-husband is rather ‘clingy’ as well.
He has a few issues with putting his pen to those divorce papers.”
“I
wish you the best of luck with that son-of-a-bitch,” Cici said as she took a
seat at the counter.
Joey
cracked a smile at Cici’s bluntness. It
seemed odd for such an elegant and obvious debutante to have such a blunt
personality.
“Cici’s not much with tact,” Pacey said as he walked into the kitchen,
fully decked out in a tux.
He
held out his bow tie for Joey to tie.
Joey rolled her eyes.
“Men, ever so helpless,” she muttered.
“Well, who would’ve thought that Joey Potter, the girl from the wrong
side of the creek could ever tie a bow tie.”
She
narrowed her eyes as she finished and pushed him away slightly.
“Bite me,” she said with a smirk.
“Don’t wait up for me, Josephine,” he said as he took Cici’s arm. “You know how those old-timers like to
rattle on at these kind of events.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going out,” she replied. “Out to get myself knocked up by some random cowboy.”
Cici
laughed.
“Bye, Joey,” she said as she walked towards the door with Pacey.
“Well, yee-haw,” Pacey said, deadpan.
“Don’t turn into a pumpkin, Cinderella.”
He
closed the door.
“In
order to be Cinderella, I’d have to find a Prince Charming,” she muttered,
turning to call Sandra.
I
think I’m up to sitting around and watch Sandra have fun all night...
*~*~*~*~*
Joey
worked diligently. She had received her
first huge project. It was a
full-fledged advertising campaign with a prestige and well-paying client. If she could pull this off, she would have a
reputation that was to die for. Not bad
for only two months on the job, although she had barely socialized with anyone
except for Pacey, Jen, Jack, and Sandra.
She was well-liked by her co-workers, but she never sought out
companionship with any of them.
“Miss
Potter?” Joey’s secretary buzzed.
“Ashley, I already told you,” Joey said into the intercom,
agitated. “I don’t want any calls
unless its absolutely urgent. I’m in
the middle of a large case for a very good client.”
“But
someone’s here to see you, Miss Potter.”
“Who
is it?”
“He
says he’s your husband.”
Joey
froze. What should she do? She had managed to avoid any direct contact
with Dawson for the past couple months that she had been in New York. His lawyer would call her lawyer and vice
versa. Zero progress had been
made. She sighed.
“Miss Potter?”
Joey
shakily pressed the button.
“Send him in.”
She
silently prayed that it was Pacey or Jack playing some ridiculous joke. That one of them would walk through that
door with some balloons or something.
She prayed and prayed to a God that she wasn’t even sure existed.
The
door slowly opened to reveal the frame of a blond man.
“Shit,” she whispered to herself.
“Miss Potter, huh?” he said as he sauntered into her office.
“What do you want, Dawson? As
you can see, I’m very busy, and I don’t have time for-”
“Your husband? You don’t have
time for your husband?”
She
sighed.
“I
don’t have a husband. Not anymore.”
“Ah,
but our marriage license seems to say otherwise.”
“And
that marriage license will be null and void if I have anything to do with it.”
“Joey...” he said, his tone softening.
“My little Joey Potter. What
ever happened to you?”
“I’m
still Joey Potter, Dawson. Now more so
than I have been in a long time. More
than I have ever been during our relationship.”
He
knelt down beside her desk.
“Please, Jo,” he pleaded. “I’ll
move to New York. I’ll give up
everything in Boston... just please.
Give me a second chance.”
“Dawson, no. Please, just
leave.”
“Joey, I’m begging you!” he cried, grabbing her hands. “I’ll be everything you ever dreamed
of! I’ll fulfill your every
expectation.”
She
gently slid his hands off of hers.
“No,
you won’t. You can’t. Maybe for some other woman, but you can’t be
everything I ever dreamed of.
You can’t fulfill all of my expectations. You can’t do it.”
“Joey-”
“Dawson, please leave,” she commanded firmly. “Leave, or I’m calling security.”
He
slowly got up.
“Joey, I’ll make you see. I’ll
make you see that we belong together, and you won’t want that divorce. I promise you.”
And
with that, he walked out the door.
“Fucking psycho,” she muttered as she got back to work.
*~*~*~*~*
Joey
walked into the apartment with a heavy burden upon her shoulders. Dawson was in New York. Would she ever be able to escape him?
Pacey sat on the couch, trying to fix the toaster. As he heard the door slam, he knew something
was wrong. He watched Joey’s slouched
figure walk in with her downcast expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She
turned slowly towards him.
“He’s here,” she whispered shakily.
He
shot up from his seat and went to her, taking her hands in his.
“What happened? When did he get
here?”
“He
showed up at work, Pacey,” she said, her voice full of tremors. “He told me that he was going to ‘make me
see’... God, I just want it to be over.”
She
began to break into sobs... repeating and repeating her last words. He pulled her close to him and rocked her
gently. He gently kissed the top of her
head as she clutched on to him tighter and tighter.
“When will it ever be over?” she sobbed. “I just want it to be over.”
“I
want it to be over, too, Potter. More
than you know.”
“I
thought... I thought that I was going to be okay. That, eventually, he’d get the point and leave me alone. That I could just be alone. I just want to be alone!”
“Jo... you can’t be alone,” he whispered into her ear. “Not while I’m here. You won’t be alone.”
She
cried harder as she held on to him.
“I
don’t deserve you,” she joked through her tears as she sniffled.
He
smiled, wiping away some of her tears.
“Nah, you probably don’t.”
She
slapped his shoulder playfully.
“Well, any doubts that I still loved him, or had any thoughts of him
that didn’t involve some sort of expletive have been completely banished from
my mind,” she said.
“He
didn’t deserve you, Jo,” he said as he pulled her into another hug. “He never did.”