Personal message: Hi! It's me, Matahari. I'm sure you all know that by now. Well, part 10 is here if you don't know the roman numerals. Okay...just to tell you all, Andie is introduced in this one and there is some bits with her and Jen, Pacey and Dawson. Don't worry! I'm still writing Dawson and Joey in this fanfic though! Imagine this...camping out in the ruins, a beautiful sunset, a full moon... I won't let you guys down! I also added a bit of a christmas rememberance because I wasn't able to have a Christmas story. Well, happy reading!

My website is at : this address. Please check it out. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer or AOL to view it, you should hear I'll Stand by You by the Pretenders which was played at the end of the Pilot episode. Think back to those good old days...

Disclaimers: There is a poem used here by an author whose e-mail address is written underneath. I did not write this poem! It's also ironic how the authors' e-mail addy has Sweet Dreamer in it. I got them from this site, http://www.lovingyou.com

Spoilers: Well, you know the drill.

Rating: I just don't know anymore...Did you know that Home Alone II was rated PG-13?

Setting: Dawson's house, Ruins, Capeside Video...

Thanks so much to all the people who read and write fanfic! Especially Ally who helped me with some of the details through im! I don't expect as many comments as before because school is in session, but if you can just write "I read it and it was good" or something like that, that would be great! Just to know that you're still out there! Happy Holidays!

Maybe It Could Get Better

Outside Capeside High about 2:45 pm...

"Bye, Christy!" a blond shouted to the senior cheerleader. Jen stared at her curiously. There was something very familiar about her, but she just couldn't put her finger on it...She looked so out of place in that pool of blue and gold with her plaid skirt, headband and light sweater. She seemed very eager, bright-eyed and perky. She was a little shocked when the girl she had been analyzing, (a habit formed since her first few days with Dawson) started to come in her direction. She did look awfully familiar.

"Hi!" the girl greeted Jen cheerfully and a little nervously, wringing her hands together.

"Um, hi," replied Jen a little less enthusiastically, but definitely in a surprised tone.

"You're Jen, right? You have English 5th period in room 130?"

"Yes. How did you...Oh! That's why you look so familiar! You're that new girl right? Andie Mc...Andie McBride? No... Andie MacBeth? No, that isn't it. Andie...I know I know this!" Jen racked her brain thinking out loud. What could her last name possibly be?

"McPhee. Andie McPhee," Andie offered.

"Yes! That's it! It was at the tip of my tongue!" Jen laughed, glad for a distraction from the other sadness going on in her life.

"Well, I'm new in town as I'm sure you know, and I was wondering if you knew where my partner for my English project would be. His name's Pacey, right? I feel like a total idiot for not knowing, but can you please help me?"

"Don't worry about it," said Jen warmly. "It was not long ago that I was the new girl myself. I can definitely relate."

"You were the new kid? It's kind of hard to believe. You seem as much a part of this town as anyone."

"Well, you'll learn how to adjust. Don't worry."

"Thanks," replied Andie. "About the Pacey thing?"

"Well, Pacey's kind of a friend of mine. He works at Capeside Video after school. Just go down that street for a while until you come to a bunch of stores. You can't miss it. There's a sign out front in green telling what it is."

"Thanks so much!" Andie exclaimed.

"Don't mention it," said Jen. "You better get a move on. It starts to get dark after a while nowadays."

"Thanks again!" Andie shouted behind her as she ran to her car.

"Nice talking to you." Jen said a little amused. It was kind of nice acting like a resident of Capeside she realized as she watched her new acquaintance speed away.

~~~*~~~

Capeside Video, about 3:30 pm...

After she had gone through a few wrong turns and stopped for help multiple times, Andie finally found herself standing just outside Capeside Video. As she entered the door, she heard the cash register ring and a male voice with a very slight Canadian accent saying, "And remember! Be kind! Rewind!"

A man in a gray overcoat and scarf brushed by her and when she looked up at the front desk, her breath caught slightly. Despite the fact that his hair looked like it had been caught in a dryer, she had to admit that the guy behind the counter looked pretty hot. Was this Pacey? She blushed at the thought of spending so much time with this guy to do her English project.

~~~*~~~

Pacey looked towards the door after he had just finished his latest rental. A blond-haired girl had just stepped in. He had never seen her before in his entire life. It kind of reminded him of the first time he had met Tamara, but this girl was nothing like his confident, mature, former English teacher. She seemed a bit unsure of herself and pretty nervous, blushing as she came up to the counter.

"Hello," Pacey said charmingly, "how may I help you?"

~~~*~~~

Dawson's house, 3:30 pm...

Earlier that afternoon, Joey and he had gone over the lines for the video that they were going to tape that very night. Each of them had already virtually memorized their parts due to the fact that both of them had been constantly replaying that fateful event during English class in their minds. However, when it came to the part where the kiss was written in the script, they both hesitated for a while and after a brief pause, proceeded directly to the next part.

"I'd say that we've got that scene pretty much down." Dawson said brightly. He looked at Joey anxiously waiting for a reply who smiled back nervously at him. "What do you think, Jo?"

"I'd have to agree, Dawson. So, what do you want to do next?" Joey asked.

"What do you say that we give it a little rest. Maybe get ready and meet at the ruins at six?"

"Sure. Great...See ya, Dawson." Joey said looking back a little longingly as she stepped through the window to the roof.

"Wait!" Dawson shouted.

Joey stared at him quizzically.

"Don't go down the window!"

"Why not?"

"What if you have another fainting spell? You could seriously injure yourself! Maybe it'd be better if you went out the door...maybe I should just walk you to your house..."

"Dawson!" Joey was a little exasperated. "I am not a child! I'll agree to going out the door, but by no means are you going to walk me to my house. Okay?"

"Okay, Joey," Dawson said softly, but Dawson was already coming up with something in his mind and was staring thoughtfully at his closet door.

"Great," said Joey. Hey, that was way too easy. He *never* gives up so fast...there must be something that he has planned. Oh well, I'll just have to find out later on.

Dawson waited until he saw Joey come out of the door and start to head for her house when he rushed to his closet door and opened it. He took a pale, white, piece of cloth and something very silvery out as well. He wrapped them all in a piece of paper then advanced to his desk to write what appeared to be a note. He attached to note to his package and then rushed out the window, barely being careful that his feet touched the rungs of the ladder.

Joey looked behind her back and then forward again. She had been so sure that he would have followed her. She just had this feeling that his presence was there with her. Maybe she didn't know him as well as she had thought. She sighed and stared at the ground for a while. She walked up to the dock and untied her boat. She rowed into the sun not knowing that just a few yards away was Dawson, breathing heavily, hiding behind a tree with package and note in hand, staring at the person that he loved more than all the world and ready to come to her aid at a moment's notice.

~~~*~~~

Capeside Video, about 3:40pm...

"Um, hi! I was wondering. Would you know a Pacey Witter?" asked Andie staring, alternating from the ground to her hands.

"It would depend on who was asking." Pacey was flirting...it was kind of a habit, but it seemed to make this girl even more nervous.

"I'm Andie McPhee. I'm new here. Pacey and I were assigned a project for English together. I haven't seen him yet, but I wanted to talk out the details."

Oh! So this is who Jen was talking about! Pacey thought. He looked her over. She was okay looking. She didn't seem to be too bad. However, he wasn't really ready to get into a discussion about the project. Maybe if he sent her on a wild goose chase she'd be too tired to talk...

"Well, I'm sorry. Pacey's not here at the moment, but I could tell you where he might be," Pacey said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Would you?"

"It'd be my pleasure." he said. Her naivety was very endearing. It gave him a twinge of regret about what he was going to do next. "Well, go down this street for a while until you find the Rialto. He might be watching a movie. If he's not there, hang a left to the police station. His dad and older brother work there. They might be able to tell you where he is. If he's not in those two places, go past Capeside High and look in the Icehouse. We hang out there a lot. If he's not there go down a quarter of a mile and find the supermarket. It think he was supposed to go shopping...If he's not there, well, I guess I can't help you."

"Thanks so much!" said Andie, closing the notepad in which she had written the directions on very diligently. "And you would be?"

Pacey hesitated for a while. "Let me think." he thought. He glanced over at the television. It was playing his favorite movie of all time. The Mighty Ducks. "Charlie. Charlie Conway at your service," he said, smiling and giving a mock bow. He watched Andie wave good-bye, run to the door and drive away. He kind of felt sorry for her, and a tiny bit attracted as well. He couldn't explain why...The feeling would surely pass.

~~~*~~~

Joey's house, about 3:45pm...

Joey sat down and stared at the creek for awhile as the rays of the sun glinted off the water. She waited for a while and then entered her house. She was so exhausted. She decided to take Dawson's advice and rest a while. She flopped on to her bed and fell asleep with her hair framing her face on her pillow.

Dawson was glad when he saw Joey get into her house without anything more major than getting a little mud on her shoes. He quickly got into his boat and went over to her house. When he arrived at his destination, he glanced over at Joey through her open window. She was so beautiful and peaceful lying there. He looked at the package in his hands and threw it over next to her on the bed. He made sure that the note was facing up. After a while, he decided it was time to get ready himself. He gave one last glance, then started back over to his house.

~~~*~~~

Joey's bedroom, about 4:00 pm...

Joey woke up with a start. She had had the strangest dream. Dawson was there and he and she were in this glittering pool of light and all of a sudden he dissapeared. It was quite disconcerting. She looked to her right to see what time it was. Four o'clock. That left her with about an hour and a half to get ready. After processing that information, she realized that beside her was a package with a note on it. It was from Dawson.

Dear Joey,
Even though you told me not to walk you to your house, I followed you anyway. I'm sure you might have suspected as such. Well, I was just thinking about how nice you looked in the dress you wore for my movie. How pretty and vulnerable you looked and I thought it would be perfect to use as your Juliet costume. I know you don't really own that many dresses... Also, here's your tiara from so long ago...Do you remember that Christmas? I thought it would give you some good memories.

Joey smiled, relieved that she and Dawson still had that connection. Yes, she did remember that Christmas:

It was about four years ago and Dawson had just gotten his first camcorder and Joey had been given a video of Sleeping Beauty.

After Christmas dinner, Dawson and Joey had went up to his room to watch the movie. When they went back downstairs to sing Christmas carols, Dawson suddenly had the greatest idea...or so he said anyway. He decided that Joey and he would provide the entertainment. It was his first venture at directing. Joey was in a silvery dress lined with gold. ( her parents had forced her to for Christmas) and Dawson was wearing a suit so they had pretty good costumes for what they wanted to do. "What was it?" do you ask? Well, they decided to put on their own version of Sleeping Beauty.

The adults were ecstatic over the idea. Joey and Dawson's mothers were especially pleased. They had been talking over for a long time how cute they thought the two were together and even toyed with the idea of them getting married someday. However, whenever they mentioned this idea to their children they both vehemently declared it would never happen. A little too vehemently.

Just before they had begun the play, an eleven year old Dawson had whispered into an eleven year old Joey's ear that he thought she looked *very pretty*. She had been a little bit shocked. He had never said anything like that before in the tone he was speaking in. She paused for a moment. She knew what she would say next might change her whole life, but maybe she was over- analyzing. She decided the best idea was to blow off his compliment with a light, "Thanks. You look nice too." and start back to the play. He looked a little disappointed and confused, but started to smile again after he had gotten into the idea of him really *directing* a play.

Dawson suddenly took it into his head that Joey needed a crown of some type. She *was* a princess after all wasn't she? Her mom and his had exchanged glances. Mrs. Leery nodded to Mrs. Potter then proceeded to go up and then come back down the stairs. Mrs. Potter held a medium-sized tiara in her hands. It glittered like the stars in the sky. She had explained, "My mother gave this to me when I was about your age and now I think that it's time to give it to you. It was over at Dawson's because Dawson's father was considering making a restaurant based on medieval times and wanted to use it as a kind of blue-print for making uniforms that the waitresses would wear."

Joey and Dawson had often joked about his father's quest to come up with some new kind of themed restaurant. Joey was mystified though at the extravagance of such an item as that tiara. Her mother had lovingly put the object over her head and smiled. Ah, her mother was so healthy then...

Joey smiled a little, reminiscing. Yes, it was much more nice remembering the happy times with her family instead of the sad ones all the time. She gave a loving glance at the tiara, almost the same kind as her mother had given that Christmas. She realized that in her contemplation, about a half an hour had passed. After taking a shower, because she had wanted to feel more awake, she dressed up in the white dress that Dawson had packaged for her and then placed the tiara on her head. She quickly set off for the ruins.

~~~*~~~

Around Capeside, about 5:00pm...

Andie was seriously getting mad. She had been all over Capeside trying to find the infamous Pacey Witter. When she went inside the movie theater trying to find him, she instead, broke up a couple when they were otherwise...involved, and she then got out of there right away.

At the police station, she had met Pacey's big brother. He seemed a little egotistical and tried a little too much to sound like a stud. He declared his brother a plight on mankind and got severely angry when she had told him that she could not find Pacey at Capeside Video. "What kind of trouble is that little rat getting into now?!" he had declared. Andie had then excused herself politely to go search the Icehouse.

The Icehouse was wonderful even though she couldn't find Pacey. Since she was a little tired from running around so much, she decided to have a drink and a bowl of the soup du jour...New England Clam Chowder. It was delicious. She paid the for her order and left.

Now, after she was almost finished searching the supermarket...and finding not a trace of Pacey Witter, she heard a commotion down the aisle. Oh no! Her mother was having another one of her episodes...

"Mom. Come on. Don't you want to go home?" Andie asked the woman with the bedraggled hair.

"Oh, I was just speaking to all these nice people. I was just getting some things to make Tim's favorite dinner. He just came back from Columbia you know."

"Yes, mom. I know. I'm sure he'd really like for you to come home though."

"Yes. Yes. It would be good for me to spend some time with him," she mumbled as Andie led her away.

~~~*~~~

Around Capeside, about 5:30 pm...

Dawson thought about what had happened that afternoon as he set off toward the ruins to meet Joey. It was near dusk and the sun was just beginning to set over the creek. He was elated about the fact that, for at least one night, Joey and he would be able to think about nothing but each other. They had both decided to camp out there, but also not to do anything that would have permanent repercussions.

As he plodded along with his video equipment in tow, he thought about how lucky he was. Joey Potter loved him and he loved her. Yet, again, the sense of their impending parting threatened his thoughts of happiness. He hoped that his "present" had made her happy. He could just imagine her smile and her eyes when she opened her "gift".

He remembered the Christmas that he had mentioned in the note very well. It was his first directional debut and she was his first actress.

After Joey had gotten her tiara, she was glowing. She was a little dazed, but Dawson decided to let her have her moment. He was confused about their relationship but there was no doubt in his mind that they were always going to be best friends. His dad was going to tape everything so that he could act.

When they acted the play out, they were really good together. It was almost like pretending to play out Jaws in his closet he surmised. It was kind of fun pretending that he was the prince and Joey was the princess that he would have to save, because he knew that she would never let him do so in real life. That was something that needed to be worked on, but they had their whole lives ahead of them to do so.

Then there was that kiss at the end of the play. It was wierd. He had this feeling in the pit of his stomach that there was something so right in that action. He couldn't explain why he felt that way. It was only a kiss on the cheek, yet he had felt a burning sensation and Joey had blushed profusely. Maybe it was just the excitment.

Dawson thought back and smiled. He was glad that the little boy he had been, figured out why he was feeling those feelings that Christmas.

~~~*~~~

Around Capeside, about 5:40 pm...

Andie was exasperated. She had spent almost her whole afternoon looking for Pacey Witter whom she had never met. Or so she thought anyway. "He had better be worth this!" she had muttered to herself while running down the streets of Capeside. On her journey, she saw a person with a lot of equipment. He was about her age and had dirty blond hair.

"Hi!" she said a little breathlessly. "Would you know where Pacey Witter is?"

Dawson looked up from his thoughts to see a blond, very tired girl in a black Saab. Hmm...Pacey hadn't mentioned any interest in a girl besides Tamara before. "Sure, actually he's one of my best friends. He should be down in Capeside Video."

"Really? That was the place I started!" she sighed and looked back at Dawson. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. I hope you find him."

"So do I. So do I." said Andie. So, for the second time that day, Andie set off toward Capeside Video.

~~~*~~~

The Ruins, about 5:55 pm...

Dawson finally entered the ruins. The last rays of sunlight glittered on the water on the lake. The swans were the gliding across the blue water as the glanced across the marble columns. Then suddenly his eyes met with a beautiful sight. There was Joey. She really did look so pretty and vunerable in that dress. The glittering of her tiara mingled with the glittering of the water as the folds of her dress and wisps of her hair fluttered in the light breeze.

Overhead the sunset was magnificent. The sky seemed to start in the sun, which was a pale yellow, then slowy draw outward, turning a dusky orange, a reddish pink, then a light blue. Almost like turquoise. The turquoise faded into midnight blue then turning into an expanse of black foretelling the night to come.

Dawson slowly walked up to Joey and sat next to her on the bench. At first she didn't notice, but as the darkness began to cover most of the sky and the stars started to peep out overhead she turned her head to lean against his chest.

"Don't you wish it could always be this way, Dawson?" she asked wistfully glancing up at him.

Dawson looked up at the full moon gracing them, it's light dappling the ground. He looked at her slight form against his body, her eyes gazing into his.

"I don't know, Joey. Maybe it could get better."

There's a longing in my soul.
The longing is for thee.
For they tender touch is all I need.
Please bring they love to me.
How my soul hungers for the. It hungers to be set free.
Set free by the wings of love
Only you can give to me.
For you are my soulmate. You are my world.
Come dance with me under the moonlight.
Tell me of they love for me,
That it will last an eternity.
For my love and hunger for the grows stronger each day.
You quench the thirst of my soul and turn the darkness into light.
For I shall always love you, you are my life.

~~~*~~~

Feedback: I love feedback! I wouldn't say I live off it, but it's like chocolate. You know? You don't need it, but you know you want it. Come on! Pretty please with a cherry on top? So send ideas, suggestions, comments,questions and whatever else you have to: Matahari91@aol.com

Thanks!

P.S. Do you think it's over? Sure this would make a pretty okay ending, but I have so much more in mind! Don't worry! This will be going on for a pretty long time!

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