Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own the MIDI, the Backstreet Boys, or 'I Want it That Way'. The MIDI file is from johnsworld.com. I don't own "Somewhere Out There" either, it's from 'An American Tail', a movie that I also don't own. I don't own DC either, yada, yada, yada.
Author's Note: First off, this takes place at the end of "The Dance" episode in Season Two. I have started you in the scene in case you don't remember it exactly. Secondly, some stuff has been bothering me lately and I couldn't get 'I Want it That Way' out of my head, so if I have to suffer, so do all of you. BWAH HA HA. No, just kidding... but I would really, really like some feedback on this because it's sort of different from what I usually write. More introspective I think over a longer period of time. This is also totally Dawson and Joey. Sorry Pacey/Joey fans, but I'm planning something for them in triangle form since all my stuff is always just Dawson/Joey. Really, you'll see when I type more of it. I already wrote it out.
My Fire
Dawson walked into his room to find the last thing he expected, crying on his bed. Joey. She immediately stopped upon his entrance. "Joey..."
"Dawson, I am so sorry."
"What happened, Joey?"
"I told you, Jack kissed me and--"
"No, not Jack. This is not about Jack. About us. What is going on between us?"
"I don't know, Dawson."
"Ever since we got together I feel like you've been pulling away from me. I thought this was what you wanted, you know? I thought I was what you wanted."
"You are."
"Am I?"
"You're what I'm going to want, Dawson."
"What does that mean?"
"For so long, all I've thought about was you. All I dreamed about was you."
"What happened?"
"I got my dream and now I feel like I don't have anything else. I mean, you have your future so perfectly planned, Dawson, you know exactly what you want to do, what you want to accomplish, and I don't even know who I am, let alone who I want to be or accomplish and I need to figure that out. I need to find my something."
"So go find it."
"It can't include you, Dawson. It has to be my doing, and mine alone. You make me so happy, you know? But I have to make myself happy first. That's probably the one thing in this whole world that you can't do for me."
"So what are you saying?"
Joey sadly walked away from him and started towards the window. "Joey? Joey, no, Joey!" Dawson said in a panicked confusion. "I... I love you." Joey stopped in her tracks and walked back to him.
"I love you, too, Dawson."
Dawson took the words to mean that everything was going to be all right and leaned in to kiss her. Joey pulled away and went back towards the window. Dawson didn't understand. "Wait, b-b-but how can it be over? We can't just say I love you for the first time and have it be over!" Joey stayed strong.
"I have to go, Dawson. Goodnight," she said before climbing out the window. She stopped to lean against the house and compose herself before running off into the night. Dawson's confusion turned to anger. He violently threw whatever was in reach, hoping to make the object feel the stinging he suddenly couldn't bear. He watched Joey run for a moment before kicking down the ladder, going back into his room, and slamming the window shut.
Dawson lay awake in his bed even though it was three in the morning. To the naive onlooker, everything looked normal. The window was open again to let in the night air. The lights were all off and Dawson was still. The only sound audible was his breathing.
But everything wasn't normal. Dawson's whole world had just been ripped apart. His feet were pulled out from under him and he could not regain his balance. For two months, he had lived for nothing but Joey. He couldn't even remember what he used to think about before he started to obsess over her. There was nothing except for movies and movie nights and... Joey. How could she leave me? he thought. I wanted to fix things. She didn't. They weren't perfect, but I-- we could have fixed things. How could she leave when I finally realized-- I love her. Dawson felt his neck getting stiff, but he didn't care. He continued lying on his side, staring at the window and hoping Joey would materialize. He scoffed at his eternal optimism... it wasn't going to help him this time. Then he realized something else that he hadn't noticed yet through the silence and the darkness: he was crying.
Joey woke up from her useless sleep for the third time that night. She lay in numbness, staring at the ceiling. Joey was surprised that she could remain as composed as she did, that she actually went through with it. She stifled a sob. She couldn't let anyone else in her house see or hear her cry. She never had been able to, she always had to keep on her strong exterior. Of course, that didn't help her deal with loss too well. She knew if she didn't have the privacy to burst into tears comfortably sometime soon, it was not going to be good for her.
She swallowed and turned on her side, looking out the window at the cresent moon. She hadn't been able to stop replaying that night's events over and over in her mind. The talk with Jack, Dawson throwing a punch, going back to Dawson's room... She started to sing the only line she knew from "Somewhere Out There". She thought it was such a beautiful line she had even bothered to memorize it. That's what she got for being secretly romantic. But as she looked at the sky, she smiled briefly because she knew it applied. "Somewhere out there," she sang, almost in a whisper, "beneath the pale moonlight... someone's thinking of me, and loving me tonight."
Loving me. Joey had been wrestling with the idea that she loved Dawson for a month. Someone had told her that when you are in love, you just know. She used that to figure since she was so confused, she didn't love him as more than a best friend. But tonight she realized that she loved him all along. When they were breaking up, she was upset. It wasn't the idea of breaking up with Dawson that was upsetting her, however. It was the look on Dawson's face, the desperation in his voice. She wanted to hug him and hold him and promise it would be all right, but she couldn't. And the fact that she wasn't sure if she would be able to ever again once she left his room broke her heart. Maybe the total disregard for her own feelings was because she was the one breaking up with him, but she knew it wasn't that. The total disregard was because it was the moment she knew she was in love with him.
Dawson wondered what would have happened if he just didn't kiss her. Joey would still have been his best friend and it wouldn't be hurting. He surprised himself when he wasn't sure if he believed the famous quote 'it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all'. Is the forever optimist being reduced to a brooding darkness because of a girl? he thought sarcastically. But Joey wasn't just a girl, she was everything. And he had needed her to know that before it was too late to say it. The breakup is an awkward moment when you are still together and at your most vulnerable, but you're not together... he started overanalyzing. He raised himself slightly and landed in a way to smack his head against the pillow. What am I doing? I don't need to justify loving her and telling her. She loves me, too, she said so. Then how could she do this to me?
Joey wondered if Dawson was asleep. She tried to see him in her mind. She stretched to see what he was doing, if he was sleeping. Watching him sleep was one of the sweetest, most intimate things she could think of. If she had had one regret, it was that she never got to spend the night in his arms. She was always so afraid of what she might do physically that she never allowed sleepovers after they had decided to be more than friends. But now she regretted never getting to watch him or getting to feel safe by waking up in his arms. She tried to imagine him again, to know if he was also lying awake and thinking of her. Then she decided she was being ridiculous. She was not psychic. Maybe psychotic, but not psychic, and she wasn't going to be getting any real visions of him.
Dawson wondered why he could only know that he loved Joey after she was gone. He was not usually the masochistic type to inflict pain on himself by only wanting what was unobtainable. He was glad he had told her, though. It was better it came out then and not by accident at a future time when they were getting over their inevitable awkward period and trying to get into the friends stage. Dawson decided it was time to sleep, even though it wasn't to do him any good as Joey had already found. He had to force himself. It was a way to pass some time before he had to get up and start missing Joey again. So for the first time in many years, Dawson quietly cried himself to sleep.
Joey was also glad Dawson had told her his feelings. She would never have said it if he hadn't, even though she knew. She was too afraid of his rejection. If she hadn't said anything, though, she knew she would have been in internal turmoil and doubt. She had almost let it slip so many times before she had been sure. If she was sure and she didn't tell him, she'd be forever second guessing her decision not to speak. He deserved to know and she wanted him to know, but not at the expense of their potential friendship. He knew now, though. Joey knew it was a strange thought, but she hoped if Dawson was ever alone when he was older and felt that loneliness to an unbearable extent that he would remember her and that he could be loved. She hoped he remembered that she had loved him.
As the weeks ensued, both Dawson and Joey planned out when they would first speak to each other again. Dawson had decided on a week and three days, Joey had decided on two weeks. Three days later, though, they were speaking again. It was an empty, evasive conversation, but each felt they had achieved something. After a month of the same, though, neither could bear to keep up the charade. One of them was going to snap emotionally if someone didn't do something.
Dawson is over me for sure, Joey thought, disgusted with herself. Why am I so pathetic? But then Dawson would do something small and seemingly meaningless like wave and say 'hi everybody' when she was standing with a bunch of people he didn't know and she'd know it was solely for her benefit. She'd wonder if it meant he still loved her. Then she'd beat up on herself again for not moving on. I could move on if our friendship was the way it used to be she thought, or if he was completely out of my life. But I can't stop loving him if we're just stuck in this... this... limbo. The evasiveness was killing her. The way Dawson would talk to everyone around her but not directly to her unless she was alone was killing her, until in self-defense she had started doing the same thing. Finally, Joey had enough. It had been two months and she was still dwelling. It wasn't fair that Dawson's actions could still affect her whole mood. They were going to be friends again, no matter how emotionally draining it was going to be.
Joey began to climb up the ladder for the first time in two months. Okay, so she'd be the first to admit this wasn't the best way to go back to the way things were. It was two in the morning. Joey had decided that she needed to just stand next to the window and watch him sleep to convince her that being friends was the right thing. She had checked to make sure Dawson had put the ladder back. He had the day after he had kicked down. As she neared the top of the ladder, she was surprised to hear Dawson's voice whispering through the darkness. She stopped short under the window. Who could he be talking to? Then she realized he was talking to himself, and he was repeating her name over and over.
"Joey, Joey, Joey. I love you so much, Jo, still. What's wrong with me? So that's what I would tell you if I could. I'd never be able to say it nearly as eloquently, I'd probably forget ninety percent of what I wanted to say when I got near you."
Joey smiled. She had caught him in the middle of a conversation with himself. And it was about her.
"I'd say I still love you, although I know we can't be more than friends right now. We aren't even that. But I still need you in my life, Jo. Everything is still somehow for you. I still don't understand why we broke up and I'm still not over you and you must have been over me so long ago and yes, I'm a loser for that. But I miss you and I love you and at this rate I always will. I've finally realized enough to believe, though. Maybe because it doesn't hurt as intensely as it did, although it's still there. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I don't regret what we had and I can only pray that you don't either. Too bad you'll never hear me say it. Good night, Jo."
Joey leaned up to see him and was fascinated to see Dawson give his pillow a quick kiss after he had said good night. She was shocked that he felt exactly the same way as she did. "You're wrong... I heard," Joey whispered. "I love you, too. No regrets." She climbed down the ladder and knew tomorrow she was finally going to move on and revive their faded friendship back to its genuine state.
Joey's whisper reached Dawson as a slight rustling noise from the ladder. He glanced up to the window, but neither saw nor heard anything else. He sighed. He did feel better, though, after pouring his heart out to his pillow again, especially when he could have sworn it answered him this time. "No regrets..." Dawson slept that night actually looking forward to the morning light for the first time in a long time.
Well, I really hope you liked it. Send me feedback and tell me what you thought, please :)