Note: Thanks Snowgirl for letting me use your stories!

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This time it was Pacey's turn to take a story off the stack. He picked up a bunch of stories and flipped through them.

Dawson: Just pick one Pacey! I don't want to have to come back here next week.

Pacey: Ok. Here's one……

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Independence Day by snowgirl

Disclaimer: there was a new show that shot in the south, but is suppose to be set in the north. all the first ep. all the creator could do was prayed no one saw spanish moss in the trees.if they can shot in the south and be set in the north then i can use their characters for my own twisted stories. but if you want you can have my cd collection.this is my story linking without authorization will imediately cause blindness, and if you link to more than one story you will die, very quickly. my preferred method is staking.

Jen: I don't understand the disclaimer.

Pacey: I didn't think you would.

Jen: What is that supposed to mean?

Pacey: Well, you haven't gotten much in these stories so far.

Jen: Ok, Pacey, If your so smart then what does it mean.

Pacey: Um well, you know it's like…..

Joey: Nice try Einstein!

Pacey: Ok, so I don't know what it means. I just know I wouldn't want to cross this girl.

Part One ~ Independence Day

"Hey Dawson," Joey says, as she comes through the window. Instead of seeing Dawson on the bed, she sees Pacey playing with something on the other side of the room. "Oh. Hi Pace, where's Dawson?"

Dawson: What's Pacey playing with? Those trinkets from The Edge?

"He couldn't come tonight, his parents dragged him on a "save the family" weekend," Pacey laughs and plops on the bed, "and sense I was here when they left, he asked my to stay and wait for you. By the way, your phones out."

Joey scowl, and starts to go out the way she came in.

Dawson: I guess she's not happy to see him.

"That's okay, you don't have to watch movies with me. I'll just go home."

"To the scream machine?" Pacey snorts, and Joey flinches. "Come on Josephine, am I so disgusting that you'd rather spend your Friday night with The English Patient, then with your second best friend?" Pacey starts to get angary, "or do you still consider me a friend, I've been having trouble figuring that out."

Jen: Pacey has a lot of trouble figuring any thing out.

"Oh, come on Pace your my friend, you're just not........" Joey stops, not knowing what she means.

"I'm just not as lovable as Dawson."

Dawson: Nope, 'fraid not.

Pacey turns around and wipes his hand down his face. "Poor fool." Pacey shakes his head and starts to leave through the door, "He has so much and all he can think about is what can be wrong. Well, Joey, guess I'll see you in school. Don't worry, you won't have to acknowledge that I exist, no one else does. Oh, wait, they do, when they're laughing at me."

Joey: Is someone feeling sorry for himself?

"Pacey, what's with the attitude?" Joey asks confused, and a little scared of Pacey walking away from her.

"Attitude?," Pacey raises his eyebrows. "I have an attitude Miss Thang? Last time I looked you were the only one who was allowed to have an attitude."

"Okay, I'll stay." Joey says, hoping to placate Pacey, but she can't help putting a barb in her next words. "What do you want to watch, Adolph?"

Dawson: At least this one is more realistic. None of the other authors probably even know what placate means!

"That's nice, you willing to stay and watch movies with Third Reich and all, but maybe I don't want to watch movies with you Joan of Arc, martyr to any cause you can milk."

Joey: What cause would I be a martyr too?

Jen: Pick one.

Joey: Oh, you're one to talk.

Pacey: You do always seem to be a victim….

Joey gets angry at the martyr jab, and forgets that she is trying to be nice to Pacey who is obviously in a bad mood. "And that's suppose to mean what Jail bait? I really would love to know what the Great Pacey thinks about poor white trash Joey. Come on Pace," Joey is as mad as Pacey and she starts to push him, "you've been wanting to do this for years, well here's your chance. There's no Dawson to stop you. What do you think about me, or am I not worth your consideration, am I not worth a second thought to the son of the police chief in this boom metropolis of Capeside."

"Do you really want to know what I think Joey, do you really want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Do you want to know what I see happening to you and Dawson, to all of us. We've all built walls to hide behind. Yeah even duffus me, the town screw up. I'm tired of trying to climb yours, so I think I'll just knock them down.

Dawson: I sense conflict.

"You hide behind your family past as a way of avoiding people and emotions. If you don't let anyone near you, then no one can ever leave you the way your parents did. Now Dawson and me, we kinda don't fit this plan, we knew you when life was a fiery tale, when nothing could ever be bad. But you pushed me a little further away. I wasn't here the summer your mother died. You were able to build your walls before I got back and I haven't been able to get in sense.

Jen: I like the metaphors in this one. It isn't that bad.

"Now Dawson, he lives in his movies as a way to avoid reality.

Pacey: True.

He thinks that if he tries hard enough the real world won't exist and his wants and needs can remain the center of the universe indefinitely. Only we don't listen to him the way we use to. The director has lost his control over the movie."

Joey is hurting. Pacey had hit the nail on the head, as usually, and she can't handle the pain. "And what about you Pacey, what is the great secret that your hide, what are your walls built of? Your were so kind to illuminate all of my greatest fears, what wakes you up in the middle of the night and doesn't let you sleep again?"

Dawson: Tamara?

Pacey crumbles until he is sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands. "I'm hiding from the fact that the one thing in life that I want, can never be mine. The walls I build are made of indifference and lackadaisy. Do you really think I'm as dumb as I act?"

Joey: You mean it's an act? Could have fooled me.

He peers at her from under his finger. "If you do that really says something about our friendship. I could pass every class that school throws at me. I could ace any test our teachers can think of."

Dawson: Although, I think he is more partial to one teacher's assignments.

Joey is trying to find stable ground again, her world has just been turned up side down. Grabbing for any handhold she can reach, she nearly yells, "Then why don't you? Why the act? What's so important that with out it you have ceased to exist?"

Sighing, Pacey mumbles under his breathe, and stands up, "Wouldn't you love to know. Irony, gotta love it." and, then in a normal voice. "What's the point of telling you, you don't care about me?"

Realizing Pacey believes she really HATES him, Joey tries to rebuild the connection she's been tearing apart for years. Grabbing Pacey's arms, she says, "Yes, I do. You're right about my having walls. I do hide behind things." Joey hugs herself, "But Pacey, you're also wrong. It's not that I don't want to feel, but I feel too much. Yes, you weren't here when my mother died. You weren't holding her hand as she slipped away. You didn't come to the funeral. You didn't have to sit there with your father hurrying the priest up so that he can go to his woman of the moment. You weren't there when that same father was taken away. You don't know what it feel's like to have your whole world disappear within one year."

Closing his eyes, Pacey says, "Yes I do, Joey. I never told you what I was doing that summer. Yeah, I was at camp, but not regular camp. I was at camp for emotionally disturbed kids.

Jen: Psycho camp?!

Doug convinced my parents I was a danger to myself and to the family. So, while Doug, my sisters and my parents where off on the vacation we'd been planning for 3 years, I spent the whole summer making oven mitts and discussing how I shouldn't consider committing suicide, because God loves me and everything will be all right. But nothing was ever going to be all right again. While I was stuck in that prison, you, my friend, the first and only girl I ever wanted so completely that I hurt thinking about it," Pacey takes Joey's face and wiping her tears away.

Joey: That was beautiful Pacey. Was this before or after you got the drugs?

"Was here, having her heart ripped open slowly without me being there to stop the pain. And when I got back, you where as lost to me as my parents were.

Dawson: I think it's were not where.

Yes, I do know what it feels like to have your life disappear. First I lost my trust in my parents, then I lost you." Pacey drops his hands and sighs.

"Did you really want to hear that, Miss Thang." Pacey jokes as if he never told her the whole truth.

Joey start to cry for real, large sobs and hiccups, with her shoulders shaking.

Joey: Why am I always crying in these stories? And my shoulders are always shaking.

"Come on, don't cry." Pacey pleads, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to blow up at you." When Joey doesn't stop crying, Pacey hugs her, pushing her head into his shoulder and wrapping his arms around her. "Joey your scaring me. Please stop crying, I don't know what to do."

Slowly, Joey puts her arms around him, then she pulls back and takes a good look at him. "I'm sorry Pacey. I pulled a Dawson.

Dawson: What's a Dawson? I am guessing whatever it is isn't a complement.

I didn't think about what I was doing to you when I didn't let you in. I didn't even think to write to you that summer. It was like everyone but Mom and Bessy and Dawson didn't exist. And then mom really didn't exist," she lays her head on his shoulder. "and I couldn't deal with it. I never thought about you and how you would feel when you got back. All I know was that you were on this great vacation and you weren't here when I needed you."

They hold each other for awhile and then Joey starts to sniffle and laughs.

Pacey pulls away and tries to lighten the mood, "So what do you want to watch, Rosemary's Baby or Johnny Depp in Cry Baby?"

Joey gets a tissue and punches Pacey in the arm. "How about the Breakfast Club?"

Pacey acts as if the punch has left him mortally wounded, "Please don't remind me. Do you think Abby has a crush on me?"

Joey: No

Jen: Yeah Pacey, she wants you!

Before Joey can answer he says, "How about Independence Day. They can blow up New York, Washington, and LA and we will still win"

"Sure" Joey sits on her side of the bed. "You can win any war if you just keep fighting. God," she moans. "I sound like that propaganda we were talking about in social studies today." Then, looking slyly at Pacey. "And some wars you just have to say that there is a fight to win."

After putting the movie in Pacey sits on the bed. "So true, so true. Friend?"

Joey nods, "Friend."

Dawson: Aww, a happy ending.

~...it's one small step for man, and one large step for mankind~

~it's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine~

Jen: I don't understand the quotes.

Joey: Yeah, What do the have to do with the story?

Dawson: I don't know. So what did you guy's think of that one?

Pacey: I liked it. Except the part a bout me going to camp psycho.

Joey: I thought that went a little far.

Jen: I liked it even though I wasn't in it.

Dawson: Neither was I except when they were making fun of me…

Pacey: Get used to it Dawson. I have.