Don't Forget to Remember by Ygrawn
Parts 1 in the series
Disclaimer:
I don't own Dawson's Creek, and I'm making absolutely no money from this
(which is why I'm so poor…)
Rating: PG-13
Category: Dawson/Joey
N.B: In order to understand the story, the following information is
pertinent. Joey left Capeside (the reasons are revealed during the story)
shortly after she and Dawson broke up. So pretty everything after "The
Dance," isn't counted. While I love Andie and Jack, I haven't included them
in my story; maybe next time.
Dawson looked around his room, trying to commit it to his mind, his
memory that was taking in so much this auspicious day. He could see it any
time he wanted, but he'd never see it in the same way. His eyes would never
see what they saw now, their outlook would change as he did; as he grew and
learnt and changed and became this adult he was destined to be. He would
never feel the same way about his small room. His sanctum, his private
place-where his dreams had been born and killed, where he'd lived through
every triumph and humiliation of high school.
The posters were staying where they were, adorning the walls. For
some reason, Dawson couldn't bear to see them any other place then his
bedroom and he didn't want to pick and choose over them. Mostly he was
taking his clothes and photographs-things like that.
His photographs. He had pictures of him and his parents-God he was
going to miss him. They were almost ready to throw him out into the world
without so much as a goodbye. He knew they loved him, but they wanted him
to go out there and experience all those things he couldn't in Capeside.
He had an old favourite photo: him and Pacey when they were six.
Pacey had Dawson in a headlock; both were smiling at the camera, infectious
young grins in the sun at the sea.
Finally he had a picture of him and Joey. Joey…
The sound of a rattling ladder broke through Dawson's thoughts. He
stared at the window until Pacey's head appeared. In an easy motion, Pacey
swung himself inside Dawson's room.
"Hey man," said Pacey in his usual every day style.
Pacey had been torn for months over the choice of his career. What
did he want to be? He'd spend months bugging Dawson with possible
suggestions. An astronaut-Dawson had laughed at that one. An English
teacher-Pacey had discarded that one by himself. Things had been completely
up in the air when Pacey had been told he was valedictorian. When Pacey
told Dawson, he'd laughed himself silly at his best friend, until he'd
realized Pacey was deadly serious.
So now, Pacey was pre-med at the University of California to the
extreme delight of his surprised parents, shocked sisters and frankly
disbelieving brother. As Dawson had said, when he'd finally stopped
laughing:
'We never really thought you'd apply yourself that much.'
Pacey sat on the stripped bed, suddenly cold and lonely against the
empty, yawning room. If he faced facts, the bed had felt like that for a
while now-and on Saturday's it was worse, the bed somehow knowing. Dawson
flopped down beside him. Dawson looked at his hands for a long time. He
finally spoke.
"You know, when I thought about doing this-about leaving, and we
always knew we were leaving. We knew we'd have to leave Capeside to go to
college, I always saw the three of us doing it. You know, going down to the
beach where we played as kids, and sitting in the sand, and promising to
write and phone, and hugging and crying and laughing together.
"I never thought it'd just be the two of us." There was a silence
and Dawson said in a low voice. "I never thought I'd be doing anything
without her." He could feel a lump in his throat, and fought to keep it
back.
"You weren't the only one. It was always the three of us-the Three
Musketeers. But that was the deal Dawson. It was Alex or us and we
promised never to blame her for choosing Alex. Dawson, what she gave up for
him-what she went through in those two months was incredible Dawson.
"I wish she was here-I wish with every bone in my body. You know
she pissed me off and everything, but she was my first friend; the two of
you were, and she was the first person that ever got my isolation. The
first person who ever got me.
"But I promised her I wouldn't begrudge her for her decisions."
"At least you got to promise her something," Dawson said a little
sharply.
"I wasn't the one with my tongue down someone else's throat at the
time," Pacey bit back. "It's time to let go Dawson. Time to look ahead."
But Pacey gripped Dawson's hand and held him in a headlock just like
when they were six.
The two of them said their goodbyes that afternoon. They stood at
Dawson's boarding gate-Pacey's flight was ten minutes later over at the next
gate.
"Final call for Chicago," the man said over the speaker.
"Well, see ya man," said Pacey, gripping Dawson's hand, giving him a
mock salute. "I'll call you when I manage to find a phone. Don't hold your
breath."
"I won't." Pacey backed away a little and turned, starting to walk
away. Dawson forced himself not to watch. Dawdling as much as possible, he
began to walk towards the ticket machine.
"DAWSON."
Dawson spun and there was Pacey. Dawson dropped his bags and grabbed
Pacey in a bear hug. They hugged each other in a vice grip as both realized
they wouldn't see each other tomorrow. Or the day after, or the next week
or month.
"This doesn't make me gay," said Pacey gruffly. "I'll find a phone
as soon as I get there."
With a smile, Dawson boarded his plane.
Tiredly Joey opened the door, pushing hard to get it unstuck. No
matter how many times she told Will the super, he never fixed the damn door.
Struggling with her bags, Joey flipped the lights, dumping the mail on the
couch, the bags landing on the floor.
"Come on sweetie," she said, turning as Alex made it up the last
step. He toddled along on his short legs, finally making to his aunt, who
scooped him up, with a little groan. "You're getting too heavy," she said
to the two-year-old. It was his birthday in a week.
"No I'm not," he replied, tugging at a loose piece of Joey's hair..
"Not at all." Joey decided it was safer not to argue.
"Okay, you're not. Now, I'm going to run the bath. You play with
your blocks. They're over in that box."
Joey crossed the living room to the far left door off the living
room. The small bathroom wasn't cosy at all-it was tiny, and annoying. She
turned the squeaking taps on listening to the complaints of the plumbing
before water spurted out. She checked its temperature. Sometimes the cold
tap dispersed hot. Tonight, it had decided to be nice.
The clattering of Alex's blocks echoed throughout the tiled bathroom.
Joey leant over half a foot and flicked on the heater. Even at the
beginning of fall the entire apartment was freezing. Strategically placed
heaters circumvented the problem.
"Alex," she called.
"Coming Mom." Joey wondered again why he'd started calling her
that. When he'd started to talk, she'd made sure he called her Aunt Joey..
About a month ago, he'd called her Mom out of the blue. She hadn't the
heart to try and explain the situation.
Truth be known, Joey was pretty much swimming in the dark when he
came to her parenting. Everything she did for Alex, every decision she made
was made out of instinct, done with gumption. She had no one to point
things out, no one to reassure her, no one to help her.
Alex arrived, and Joey pulled his clothes off. He was humming a
song.
"What's that you're singing?"
"Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star."
"Would you sing it out loud for me? I'd really like that." Alex
climbed in the bath and began to sing while Joey soaped him up,
"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky…" he petered off as Joey cupped water in her
hands and let it run over his head. The dark hair grew slick, sticking to
Alex's scalp.
"Who's Dawson?" he said as she was helping him out of the bath ten
minutes later. Joey nearly dropped the poor boy.
"Sorry?" She forced herself to take control. "What did you say
Alex?" She wrapped him in a large towel, holding him to her and rubbing him
so he didn't get cold.
"I said who is Dawson? You said his name last night when we were in
bed. You were asleep." Joey took the door adjacent to bathroom that led to
their shared bedroom. It was the second largest room in the house, and
fitted the cupboard, the two beds and the dresser easily.
She placed Alex on the bed and grabbed his pyjamas.
"Well you met Dawson. He was there when you were born. He was my
best friend before we left Capeside."
"And now?"
"Now we don't talk to each other. Guess it's too hard for us both.
Now, let's got eat our dinner."
"What are we having tonight?"
"Bodie's special pasta. Come and give me a kiss."
Alex complied, and followed it up with a few others.
His dorm room was four blocks away from the university and surrounded
by fascinating shops filled with antiques, and strange books. The move
theatre was across the road and Dawson wondered if it was a coincidence or
deliberate. A few cafés were dotted throughout the rows of stores, and a
couple of restaurants charging a varying range of prices were very close to
him.
He found that most people he met were nice enough. He wouldn't have
called them friends, but he talked to them and sat with them in lectures,
and went and saw movies with them.
The film school was taking up most of his time anyway. Dawson loved
it. To be completely, utterly and totally immersed in making films, in
directing was and always had been his dream. Here he met minds like his, he
was taught by people that saw his talent and made him use it. They
challenged him and forced him to be better then he could on his own.
Pacey had found a phone almost twenty minutes after landing and rung
Dawson. They talked every day on the phone, commiserating over each other's
daily problems. Dawson almost felt like he was there with Pacey, but to not
be able to see him was still a little raw.
Winter came by very quickly and Dawson learnt how severe Chicago
winters were. The Windy City-it was a fair statement. The snow was awful
and the four blocks it took to get from the dorm to the college and back
always left him numb no matter how many layers he wore.
The first thing he'd done was put his photos up. His parents sat on
the wall, Pacey and him sat on the desk, but Joey was on the beside table.
It was a picture of them before she'd had to leave. They sat on the
swing, beside each other. Joey lay curled up against Dawson's side. His
arm held her tight, her legs hanging over the swing, long and brown. She
wore her beautiful smile, with the wide lips, white teeth and shinning eyes.
Her face was the last thing he saw when he went to sleep and first
thing he looked at when he awoke. And his heart always twisted when he did.
She'd taken drama on a whim really. She'd never grown out of her
Saturday night Movie viewing, and she figured drama would be a nice easy
subject. She was pre-law at the University of Chicago. It was a good
college, not very far away from their measly apartment. They even had
childcare facilities. She dropped Alex off in the morning, took him out for
lunch and picked him up in the afternoon. Every chance she got, she went
and saw him at the childcare centre. She didn't want Alex to grow up
without at least somebody.
So, she took drama. The rest of the students in it knew a lot more
then her, and were far more experienced, so she kept quiet most of the time,
wrote the essays, was very thankful that they hadn't actually done much
acting.
It was the first month of winter when their teacher finally announced
their first big assignment.
"Now," he said in his booming voice, "we have actors and the film
school near the old movie theatre has the directors. You'll work in
conjunction. One director for one actor. Next lesson they'll be coming
here, so be on time.
"You'll get your assignments then."
Dawson looked around the lecture room. The rooms were bigger here at
the University of Chicago. Large windows, almost floor to ceiling were to
his right. The door was behind him, opposite the windows, at the back
corner of the room.
Outside, in a view lent to him by the large windows, swirling eddies
of snow that never seemed to touch the ground in their pure, white form blew
through running students, frozen teachers and settled on trees. When the
snow did touch the ground, it fell in a slushy, grey colour and form.
The path outside the window was one of the main ones in the college,
and large, stripped elms bordered it on either side. The trunks were so
huge, that people were lost from his vision as they walked past them. The
branches of one tree never touched their neighbour, meaning there were large
gaps between each of the large trunks. Patches of pale green grass could
still be seen and in the spring, Dawson knew people would be scattered all
over them. Studying, talking, eating, listening to music, their clothing a
riot of colours against the vital green of new leaves and healthy grass.
He loved to watch large groups when they didn't know he was observing
them. Each group told a different story-each couple was a different kind..
Voices could never be distinguished, so it was body language that told every
tale. A good director had good observation skills. That was one of the
first things they'd been told.
He glanced at the people in the room. Half he knew half he didn't..
He was in the middle of the room, surrounded by his friends. Both teachers
stood near the blackboard, laughing at a private joke. Dawson's own teacher
Mr. Cornwall was a swarthy, well-built man, with a fast mind, wicked sense
of humour and no tolerance for lazy students. In contrast, the other
teacher was almost as tall as Dawson was, with a lanky frame, drooping mouth
and blue eyes that took everything in.
Both teachers turned to face the class and the students grew silent
after a few moments. Dawson had his pen out, ready for his assignment. He
couldn't wait to work with a real actor. He hoped he got a woman-his story
idea would work better then. The class door opened and closed and Dawson
resisted the urge to turn around. It was time to pay attention. And the
person who'd just arrived was late.
Joey found her seat in a hurry-the only seat left, and took the
disapproving glance of Mr. Farson, her teacher without an ounce of guilt.
What would he know anyway? The man was childless. He didn't have a
three-year-old who'd thrown a tantrum this morning.
Alex was moving into a phase even Joey knew a little about. Mothers
always talked about the terrible two's. For some reason Alex's tantrums had
started coming late-he was three now, ready to push the limits with his
aunt. He wanted to know how far he could push Joey before he was severely
reprimanded. And even Joey, without her ounce of guidance knew she had to
lay the ground rules.
This morning he hadn't wanted to eat his breakfast. He'd started to
throw a royal tantrum. Stomping and kicking the bench, crying and wailing.
Quite calmly, Joey had picked him up, narrowly avoiding being kicked in the
stomach and carted him to the bedroom.
"You can stay in there until you come out and eat your breakfast,"
she said in a loud voice and went back to the kitchen. She read the
newspaper and finished her own breakfast. There was nothing in the bedroom
he could do any damage to. She knew he was jumping on her bed, but after a
while that had stopped.
Fifteen minutes after she'd put him in the bedroom, he was back.
He'd eaten his breakfast in contented silence and apologized afterward.
"Sorry Mommy."
Joey hadn't said anything, but she'd smiled at him.
Mr. Farson spared her another glance-he knew about her situation. It
seemed most people did. That fact didn't bother Joey. It never had back in
Capeside, and it didn't now.
Capeside. She never really thought much about her hometown these
days. She just didn't have time. And the thoughts always bought back
painful memories. Memories she'd rather avoid thinking about. Most of the
things that reminded her of it were kept in a box. Thousands of photos and
old belongings, all the other things she'd had in her bedroom. Bessie and
Bodie's things were also in boxes, though some of it was used. Most of it
she was keeping for Alex. Most of the time Joey felt like her life was in
boxes. Everything that had once been in their house by the creek was stored
up. Firstly it had been because her cousin in Seattle had everything they
needed, and now it was because there just wasn't the room.
That was what she wanted to give Alex the most. A house-their old
house. They still owned. It had cost next to nothing when Joey's father
bought it, and miraculously he'd paid off the loan. It was one of the
codicil's to the will that she could not be forced to sell it, and a small
sum had been set up for it's upkeep. She wanted to give Alex a back yard
and a small town mentality. She wanted to give him the ocean and the sea,
and even grumpy Grams across the creek. She wanted to give him a Mom who
didn't try to balance raising a three-year old and getting a degree at
college. She wanted to give him every second of every day to spend with
her; she wanted to give him a Dad.
She even wanted to give him the stupid things like a TV, and a large
bathroom. She wanted to give him all the expensive toys he couldn't have,
and all the holidays and trips they couldn't take.
The teacher began talking. He had a very pleasant voice. Low and
filled with humour: like he knew something you didn't. It was time to pay
attention. Capeside and her life there was another one of those things that
she had to give up thinking about. She couldn't have it back, so she
shouldn't think about it. Life had taught her that much.
Mr. Farson and Mr. Cornwall spent most of the lesson talking about
the basis of the assignment and how they would be assessed.
"The first part will take place next lesson," Farson was saying.
"Those from the directing class will be using an interview technique with
those from my acting class. My actors have to be themselves, and the
directors have to try and bring out some secret or hidden part of a
personality. This will be done in the next class on Wednesday.
"Part two is when you'll be doing your films. A silent film-you'll
be given the plot line and then working together, you'll make it into a
short film.
"That's all. Dismissed."
Joey quickly exited. She had to go and take Alex to lunch and buy
him some new shoes-his boots wouldn't last out the winter. Hopefully they
wouldn't be too expensive.
Peter Farson and Jack Cornwall had been best friends for years.
They'd grown up in the same middle-class urban area of Chicago, had gone to
the same high school, attended different colleges and both come back to the
Windy City to teach after their careers never made it off the ground. It
was there they bumped into each other again and had simply carried on where
they'd left off.
Jack had helped Peter through two failed marriages, a sister who died
from renal failure and countless financial crises. On the other end, Jack
probably wouldn't have made it through his prostate cancer scare or his own
divorce after fifteen years of marriage.
Now both single men, they lived in apartments a block away from each
other and regularly went to dinner together. The night after the lecture
was the night they usually went to the local pizza joint, a family
restaurant that was more often then not frequented by couples without
children or single people.
They met at seven, both hurrying in from the snow five minutes apart,
Jack first, snagging their usual table at the back of the restaurant.
"Hey Pete," said Jack, as his friend sat down, discarding his coat,
scarf and beanie, signalling Sarah the waitress for his usual hot coffee.
Jack was drinking his lemon, lime and bitters.
"Hey Jack. How's your mom?" Jack's mother was the bane of his
life. She lived in Brooklyn and called her son almost everyday.
"She's doing just fine today. Only complained about a leaky roof, a
noisy dog next door and the cold. She didn't even pull the usual guilt trip
about me living so far away."
"Lucky you. Of course, the fact that your brother lives in Rhode
Island is something she continually ignores." Peter rolled his eyes as he
spoke.
"Come on, you know Eddy. Never visits mom if he can get away with
it." The waitress arrived with the coffee and Peter warmed his fingers.
"Even when he was growing up he spent more time out then in," Peter
said, remembering Jack's large family very well. He still saw a lot of
them. All of them, except for Eddy in Rhode Island and Anna in Atlanta
lived in Chicago. Jack's parents were Catholics and like good Catholics had
produced a large brood. Jack was one of four boys and three girls. Peter
who'd only had his two sisters had always envied Jack's large,
happy-go-lucky, teasing family. There had always been someone had Jack's
house, including countless aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
Jack was speaking again. "My insane mother aside, we've paired up
half the class, and the rest is going to be pretty easy, but I need to talk
to you about one of my students.
"Name's Dawson Leery. Comes from a very small town somewhere up
past New York. Cape River or something like that. He came to us with three
award-winning films, mostly in the genre of horror, but I know he can do
better thing.
"To cut it short, he's very talented. Aspires to being a Stephen
Spielberg and quite frankly, he is going to go further. This boy's got fame
written all over him.
"He finds my class unchallenging. He loves it, pays attention,
hands in very good work, but he finds it boring. I can't cater for
everyone-he's the only one that'll probably get anywhere. But I'm trying to
get him to come to me. He needs to get his blood racing-he needs a project
that's going to challenge him.
"Point is Peter, I need him to be paired with your best student. I
don't mean the one that follows the book, plays things properly in theory..
I want the one with the rawest, greatest talent. I want the one that'll
intrigue him and make him work. He needs an actor or an actress who pushes
his limits. One who he has to draw out. The one he can make a brilliant
five-minute film with."
Peter let his breath out. "You think this Dawson's that good?"
"Shit yes. Let me put it like this-I'd give the kid an Academy
award now to save the time. The first film he makes is going to be
brilliant, and he's just going to get better. I may be waiting for him to
come to me with the goods, instead of me pointing it out to him, but I can't
have bored for too long. Otherwise, he's going to loose interest and my
chance to shape his talent will be gone.
"I never had the talent of this kid, and I'll never be half as good
as he is, but I can teach him Peter. I can teach him stuff he doesn't even
know exists."
Peter's muddy brown eyes stared at Jack's blue ones for a long
moment. "Okay Jack. This kid's as good as you say, there's only one
student in my class that could do.
"She intrigues the hell out of me. Got this smile that weakens the
knees. She didn't take drama in high school, but she's better then anyone I
have. Her talent is absolutely untouched, and I don't think I could teach
it.
"If this kid is that good, he'll make it work-he'll get her doing
what he wants, because he can direct. She'll follow his lead, but she'll
make it better then he ever dreamed."
"You sure?" In a similar fashion to Peter, Jack was a little
doubtful, not wanting his best talent on a wild goose chase with an
over-estimated actress, but for the sake of his friend's good judgement he
was willing to go with it.
After all, Peter was the one who'd said his wife got bored easily.
And he'd been right-she'd been so bored she'd run off with the plumber.
Joey looked at her reflection in the mirror. It was a full-length
mirror, but it was spotted with rust, and irremovable stains. A crack ran
all the way down, a little to the left of the centre. It jarred her image,
creating a sense that half of her was broken off from the rest. Alex sat on
his bed, talking nonsense to his teddy bear.
Shortly after she'd started at Chicago, she'd realized that the
childcare centre at the university was under-funded, in desperate need of
responsible child-minders and facilities. So, she'd removed Alex taking him
a local child-care centre that was next door to the kindergarten.
Tonight, Annabelle Ryan, the woman who ran the centre, and was
responsible for the children along with three other minders had organized
for the parents of the children to go a dinner together. The parents would
come along with their children and meet each other.
There were only twenty places at the centre, and Joey had had to
practically kiss Anabelle's feet to get Alex the last spot. Annabelle in
truth had taken pity on the eighteen-year old girl, trying her hardest to
give Alex everything in life. If nothing else, Joey loved that boy like he
was the most sacred treasure in the world and Annabelle respected that.
Annabelle would have bet that on Joey's list of priorities Alex was number
one, two and three.
Joey hadn't really wanted to go, but Alex had said that everyone
else's parents would be there, and he'd pouted, and that had made the
decision for her. As well as the fact, that inadvertently Alex had played
to her greatest feeling of guilt. Her fear that she wasn't an adequate
mother, let alone fulfilling the duties of a father was something that
plagued her a lot.
So, here she stood, looking at her dressed up reflection in the
mirror. She would never admit it, even under pain of death, but she felt a
tiny bit insecure about meeting these people. Not only could they legally
drink, but also most of them had proper careers. They were all married-Joey
knew this for fact, all of them had left college, and most importantly of
all, they made her feel like a young, immature, inept person, incapable of
looking after a human life.
In a bid therefore, to counteract her insecurity, she'd made herself
look good, hoping it would make her feel good. She felt slightly more
confident, though inside, her stomach was kickboxing with some butterflies.
"You look pretty Mommy," said Alex, looking at her from where he
sat, little legs hanging over his trundle bed.
"Thank you Alex. You look pretty good too. You make a good date
for Mommy. We should go."
"Let me put teddy to bed." It was a nightly ritual Alex always
performed. He put teddy to bed. The old ragged, half-eaten, fur-deprived
teddy that Alex cherished had once been Joey's and she herself had performed
the act of putting it to bed. The bear had actually been a gift from Dawson
when the two of them were about three but Joey forced herself not to think
of that.
She looked at her reflection again, while Alex pretended to brush
teddy's teeth. She'd dragged out the best clothes she'd owned, which was
probably not a good thing if she thought about it.
She wore a dress that went to her knees, following her body all the
way down. It had a black under layer, with a dark green chiffon layer over
the top, black stitching on the bodice. Her shoes were black, high-heeled,
with a slender strap and a pointed toe. Her hair was on top of her head,
and she wore minimal make-up.
"Ready Mommy," said Alex. "Kiss teddy good-night," he ordered.
Joey crossed the room, and bent, kissing teddy's lopsided face.
"Good night Teddy," she said. "Now, let's go and have some dinner.
Are you going to have pizza?" Joey asked her nephew as she locked the
door behind her.
Taking Alex's small hand, they began to descend the stairs. Their
neighbour Gemma looked fondly at them from her doorway. That girl Joey was
so good with her nephew, Gemma sometimes wondered if he couldn't be her son.
