Disclaimer: Very little of this original. I borrowed all the characters, and most of the dialogue. So Sue me. Summary: Take Dawson’s Creek Characters and plug them into the roles in If Lucy Fell. Mild P/J shippery. Spoilers: None, really, since this has very little to do with the show If Joey Fell Joey and Pacey are best friends who share an apartment in NY. Joey’s a therapist, and Pacey is an artist. Joey wakes up and sees the guy she’s been sleeping with to the door. “ Bye Anderson.” “ Joey, I need my other shoe.” “ I’ll mail it to you.” “ But…” “ You need to go now. I’ll mail it to you.” “ Look Joey, before I go, I need to ask you, are you my girlfriend or not? We’ve been spending time together for a year, my parents like you…Are we dating or not?” Joey hugs him and gets a contemplative look on her face. “ Not the hug test, Joey.” “ No.” “ No?” “ I’m sorry Anderson. I’ll mail your shoe to you, though.” She shuts the door in his face. Meanwhile, Pacey has hopped out of bed and is about to rush to the window to spy on their beautiful neighbor, Andie. Joey walks over and looks out the window and sees Andie and a strange man embracing. “ It’s her brother.” “ Her brother? Doing that?” Joey asks, pointing. “ They’re close.” “ Very close.” She says as the strange man’s head disappears from view. “ Maybe they’re rednecks.” Pacey says nothing and storms out into the living room. He grabs a paint roller and paints over the giant calendar they have painted on a wall in their living room. Then he picks up a brush and begins to paint the squares back onto the wall. Joey wanders in to watch him. “ I saw Anderson leave.” “ Yeah, we’re through. I need to find his shoe and mail it to him.” “ He was nice, what was wrong with him?” “ He was hung, but not too much upstairs.” “ Bigger than me?” “ I dunno, I never saw you naked.” “ Yes you have, running back and forth between my room and the shower.” “ Sorry, I never really took a good look.” “ 10.” “ 5.” “ No, I said 10.” “ I know, guys always double it.” “ So if I said 7” “ 3.5” “ Really? I know a lot of guys who say 7.” “ It’s 3.5.” Pacey goes back to painting the calendar. “ Hey, it’s almost your birthday.” “ 28 more days. Pacey, remember back in college we made a pact to kill ourselves if we didn’t find love by the time we turned 30?” “ Yeah, that was silly of us.” “ I think we should do it.” “ Well, that’s not for another two or three years, right?” “ 28 more days.” “ You’re kidding.” As Joey and Pacey walk to their work places, they continue to discuss the death pact. “Do you remember when we made the death pact? I was getting over Jack who’d dumped me, and you were totally in love with that girl, Tara, no Tamara, who wouldn’t even look at you.” “ Tamara Johnson. I gave her my heart and she didn’t even know I existed.” “ So we decided that if we weren’t in stable relationships with the possibility of long term commitment by the my 30th birthday, we’d end it all.” “ That’s why I’m glad that we’re adults now, not angst-ridden teenagers.” Said Pacey, smiling. “ I think we should do it.” “ Joey, that’s insane!” “ No it isn’t. We’re not making anything of our lives-“ “ I am.” “ You’re just fooling yourself. We’re not making anything of ourselves, and we both believe in re-incarnation, right?” “ Right…” “ If we don’t have someone stable in our lives in 28 days, I say we end it all, and let god start over. It’d be selfish otherwise.” “I don’t even know what you mean by selfish…why is 30 so important? It’s not ok to find the love of your life at 31 or 35?” “ No. You have to find true love by 30, so you get married at 31, have your first kid by 33, so you won’t hit menopause until the kid is in college…if you don’t do it by 30, you disrupt everything, and it won’t work.” “ Joey-“ “ 28 more days, Pacey, or we end it.” “ I think we need to talk about this some more.” The kids from Pacey’s art school come up and ask Joey questions. Pacey tells them not to listen to her, because she’s unhinged. Joey ignores him and picks a little girl to ask a question first. “ I like a boy in my class, but I don’t know if he likes me.” “ Ask one of his friends. 25 cents please.” “ Joey, you can’t take money from them.” “ They want to give me money, Pacey. It makes them feel more grownup.” She points to a little boy and says “ You.” “ My little brother keeps taking my favorite toys and I don’t know how to stop him.” “ Play with something you don’t like as much, and pretend that it’s your favorite. He’ll want that instead, and will leave your real favorite alone. 15 cents please.” Joey sits listening to one of her clients, and yawns. The woman stops her and asks if she’s boring her. “Yes, Jen, you are boring me.” “ Well, I’m sorry if my problem bores you, Joey.” “ Every week you come in her and tell me how you’re held hostage by your day- planner. It bores me.” “ You don’t understand. I can’t do anything without consulting it. I need the order of having my days all planned out, but I am forced to do anything I right down in it.” “Forced to do anything I right down in it-“ Joey repeats along with Jen. “ Stop that. You don’t know what it’s like to see it sitting there, looking at me, taunting me for not being spontaneous.” Joey picks up the offending day-planner and examines it. Then she throws it through the closed window by her desk. She gives Jen a look that says “problem solved.” Jen smiles nervously, and laughs. One of the boys in Pacey’s art class looks woebegone and stands in front of his canvas without painting. “ What’s a matter, Buzz?” Buzz looks up and says sadly “ I don’t have a partner to paint with.” “ I don’t have one either.” Pacey says in an equally sad tone. “ Do you want to be my partner?” “ Really? I’d love to.” Joey kicks the glass off the stairs as she leaves her building, and throws the day- planner in a trash barrel attached to a pole. When she gets home Pacey asks her if she thinks that she’s helping anyone. “ Some times I wonder if I’m helping these kids, Joey. I don’t know if I’m making a difference.” “ I’m sure you’re a wonderful influence on them.” “ Do you have to have a snide answer for everything, Joey?” “ I don’t know what you mean.” “ You have these sarcastic little answers for everything I tell you, and I don’t think you even bother to understand anything I tell you.” “ What’s wrong Pacey, are you having a crisis about Andie? I can understand how you could have a crisis over someone you’ve been in love with for five years but have never had the nerve to talk to. I can understand that about you, Pacey.” “ This has nothing to do with Andie! But you know what, let’s keep your death pact. I have to talk to Andie, and you have to go out with any guy who asks you out. If we’re not in love in 28 days, we jump off the Brooklyn bridge.” “ Really?” “ Really.” “ I never thought you’d agree to this. You’re so great Pacey.” Pacey paints “ Death pact day” on the wall calendar. Later that afternoon they fetch their mail and find a fat envelope from the NY department of education. Pacey opens in because Joey claims to be too nervous too. “ What does it say Pacey?” “ The NY department of education is please to inform you that since you have the required BA in education-“ “ We have that” “ And letters of recommendation-“ “ We have those too. Come on Pacey, what does it say??” “ They’re going to fund our school! We just have to answer some questions-“ “ What questions? What are they?” “ Something about our teaching philosophy.” “ Progressive.” “ So what, they should kill themselves if they’re not happy by age 12?” “ That’s not fair, Pacey.” “ Sure it is. Joey, when do we get the building for our school?” “ As soon as we get the money.” “ When’s that??” “ Right now. Bye Pacey.” Joey says, getting into a cab. “ Whatever, Joey.” The cab drops her off in front of the minimum security prison, and she goes into one of the visitor’s rooms. Her father walks in and hugs her. “ How are you, darling?” “ Good, Daddy.” “ How is your sister and my grandson?” “ They’re good, Alexander is going into the 6th grade soon.” “ And how’s Pacey? Still a closet case?” “ You’re confusing him with his brother, again, Daddy. Pacey’s straight.” “ Oh. I guess now I’ll have to worry about you being his roommate. I always thought of it as being like 3’s Company-“ “ Daddy, did you hate elementary school?” “ No, did you, Joey?” “ Yes, a lot.” “ Oh.” “ Listen, I’ve been thinking. Well, Pacey and I have been thinking…” “ What.” “ Nothing. It’s nothing.” “ Ok. You got into med school, right?” “ Yup.” Joey plays with the bracelet her mom left her. “ You know, when I was little mom used to tell me that if I rubbed the bracelet, my wish would come true. I tried it everyday, but nothing ever happened.” “ It is like you to believe the lies your mom told you though, isn’t it, Sweetie?” “ What’s that supposed to mean?” “ Like the lies about me cheating on her when she was sick, for example.” “ Dad, you were at another woman’s house when she was dying, I hardly call that a lie.” “ Well, anyway. The person looking after the house got some mail for you there. I could ask him to drop it off or forward it to you. There’s this really weird package that he swears has a sneaker in it…” “ He can forward it. Thanks, Daddy.” “ You’re welcome sweetheart. Nice seeing you.” “ Bye.” Back at the apartment Pacey is painting while wearing a robe. He sees someone delivering menus and jumps out at the guy, scaring him half to death. “ I’ve got you!” the man takes off, but Pacey steals his bike, and won’t return it until the man agrees to deliverer a message to Andie for him. Joey stops at a café after visiting her father, and a strange man points at her. She smiles crookedly at him, confused. He walks up to her, and says “ You look very nice today.” Before she can stop herself, she says. “ And you look like a loser.” Then she remembers she’s supposed to be nice to him. “ Excuse me?” “ You look like a loser, you know, instead of one of those cold corporate winners who have no concern for anyone.” “ Would you go out with me tonight?” “ Um, that’s an interesting thought…” He gets up “ Is 8 ok?” “ Sure. Pick you up at 8 then.” Pacey sees Andie leaving the building and decides to discretely follow her. He hears her talking to the old woman, Grams, who is sitting outside the video store in the sun. “Grams, she went in there right?” “ Why should I tell you? It’s not like you’re going to talk to her.” “ I will this time.” “ Yeah sure. She’s in there.” “ Thanks, you’re my best friend. I love you Grams.” “ Yeah, I love you too, Chickenshit.” Pacey goes in and ducks behind the westerns. He lectures himself. “ Just go right up to her and talk to her. It’s not a big deal. I’ll just go right up to her and die of embarrassment. What am I saying? I’m Pacey, the ladies man. It will work out fine. I’ll just go up to her and say hi. I’m doing this, right now.” Pacey walks confidentially up to the counter and says “ Hi” to no one. She’s already out the door. The guy behind the counter laughs at him, and on his way out Grams holds her fingers up in the shape of an “L” on her forehead. Up on the bridge. “ Come on Joey, I said I’d jump off her with you, the least you can do is to have my little picnic up here. If this is going to be the place we die, I think we should get used to it.” “ I hate this Pacey. It’s freezing, and what if people can see us?” “ Joey, I think if we swan dive off of here to our deaths people are going to see. You think it’s worse they see us have a picnic? Hot chocolate?” “ Thanks. I heard you talked to Andie today.” “ Indeed I did.” “ What did she say?” “ Nothing.” “ She said nothing??” “ She’d already left the video store.” “ I’m sorry Pacey.” “ It’s ok. I’ve figured it out. To get her attention, all I’ve got to do is to have an art opening. I invite her, she sees how great I am, and she’s mine.” “ Oh, that’s very sweet.” “ You know me, Babe.”