"Can I get a number seven?" Pacey grabbed a straw from the container on the counter and tapped it on the smooth surface.

"For here or to go?" Bessie barely looked up from her notepad. "And do your parents know that you're not at school?"

"Surely Joey told you about Pacey Witter's last stand." He looked wounded. "You mean I didn't even merit a mention and denouncement from the lovely Miss Potter? Oh, excuse me," he nodded in Bessie's direction, "the other lovely Miss Potter."

"Flattery gets you nowhere with me," Bessie tapped him on the end of his nose with her pencil. "I'm immune to the Witter charm."

"You weren't always."

"That's a good way to get your fish delivered by way of the garbage can, Pacey." Bessie rang up the order and held out her hand. "Five bucks."

"What if I want a drink?"

"Believe me, Pacey, I'd be thrilled to charge you for every drink you've ever had here at the Icehouse, but my mother made a deal with you and, in honor of her, I'm sticking with it." She narrowed her eyes. "For now."

"You're the best, Bess."

"Tell me something I don't know." She headed back toward the grill where Bodie was working, snapping Pacey's order into the carousel. Pacey watched her for a moment before turning on his stool and facing the door.

He kicked his heels, looking around at the few patrons in the restaurant, realizing he didn't recognize any of them. Which meant it was pretty safe that none of them knew who he was either. He spun back toward the counter and smiled, causing Bessie's eyes to narrow.

"What?"

"What, what?"

"You're smiling. With a Witter, smiling is never a good sign."

"You shouldn't paint all of us with the same brush you paint my brother."

"Oh, I don't. I paint your dad with the 'I'm just doing my job, and I realize that it's going to ruin your life, but I don't care' brush. Your mom I paint with the 'here's a casserole to make up for the fact that you don't have a mother anymore, but don't eat it because the only thing I can actually cook with any degree of ability is toast' brush. Your sisters I tend to paint with the 'we'll be your friends so long as your parents aren't dead or in prison so, oh, sorry' brush. You, I paint with your very own 'I'm up to no good and, if I can manage it, I'm going to bring down everyone around me as well' brush."

"Wow. That's a lot of brushes. But it's good to know that artistry does run in your family." She fought her smile. "What brush does Doug get? Or does the answer still involve weird sexual things that I don't ever need to hear?"

"Pacey…" she warned.

"Order up."

"Bodie just saved your life, you know." She looked over his shoulder. "Although that may not matter if you don't move your ass out the back door." She grabbed his shoulder and pushed him off the stool, guiding him toward the swinging door beside the wall. "Out. Now."

"Doug?" He ducked and hurried past her toward the kitchen. He grabbed the basket Bodie held out to him and headed for the back of the building, slipping out into the alley. He dodged the trash cans and dumpster, sneaking around the side of the building toward the docks. He watched Doug through the windows as he stood at the counter, surveying the room much as he had done just a few moments before.

Shaking his head, Pacey headed down the pier, starting for the more expensive boats. About halfway down the docking, he settled on a pylon and grabbed a fry. It hovered in front of his lips as he recognized the person on the end of the empty dock. Sighing, he dumped it back in the red basket and hopped to his feet, taking his time as he climbed down the stairs and sank down beside her.

"Fry?"

Joey looked up at him, obviously surprised. "Uh…sure."

He waited until she'd taken one before grabbing one for himself. He chewed it, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "Now, I know why I'm here. I'm suspended and hiding out from the long arm of the law."

"They didn't call your parents?"

"They don't bother anymore. Besides, Dawson and I pulled a Ferris Bueller on 'em."

"You're an asshole, Ed," she drawled, imitating the movie. She reached over and took another fry.

"Exactly. Anyway, I know why I'm here. What brings you here? And, more specifically, what brings you here during school hours?"

"I've got study hall and one of my teachers called in sick, so it's just a sub. So I thought I'd take a few hours to myself to get my head on straight." She paused. "No pun intended."

"So, tell me, do you think I owe you an apology too?"

"What do you mean?"

"Upsetting your life like this." He shrugged and fished out another fry. "I mean, Andie thinks that I stood up for Jack simply to make her life more difficult. Jack thinks I should have just stayed out of it. And Dawson thinks that I'm an idiot."

"I've always thought you were an idiot." She grinned and grabbed his fish burger and took a bite. "So nothing's changed there." She watched his face, searching it for the typical signs of amusement. "I think what you intended…you maybe did the wrong…" She blew out her breath. "Mostly I wish that my boyfriend wasn't the subject of intense humiliation in the halls of higher learning. To be honest, Pace, I really haven't given your role in this all that much thought."

"Should I be thrilled or offended?" He grabbed the sandwich from her and took a bite.

"Jack wrote the poem. And Peterson was a dick. You stood up for your friend." She shrugged. "You did the wrong thing for the right reason."

"Peterson was singling Jack out because of me."

"Jack told me."

"Jack tell you that he wishes that I'd stayed the fuck out of it?"

"Yeah, he did." She shrugged and stole another fry. "But he also mentioned that it was nice to have someone stand up for him, regardless of what the poem was or what it meant. He told me that he honestly thought you were the only person in the world that didn't give a fuck if he was gay or straight or something in-between."

"I'd care if he was into animals." Pacey grinned, his cheeks dark with embarrassment. "Although it would go a long ways in explaining his attraction to you."

"You're about to end up in the creek, Witter."

Pacey laughed and handed her the last fry. "Doing the right thing's never felt so hard. Or so wrong."

"You're just suffering from sex deprivation since Andie's mad at you."

"No," he shook his head, his sadness obvious as he refused to meet her eyes. "No one seems to think I did the right thing. Everyone seems to think I just picked a fight to pick one, that I'm just doing this all for me."

"There isn't a little bit of you that's getting off on this?" She notched her eyebrow slightly, no teasing in her voice. "I mean, you spitting on Peterson would be the talk of the school if it weren't for my boyfriend's ambiguous sexual orientation."

"Jo, if it weren't for Jack, I wouldn't have spit on Peterson. This isn't some personal crusade and, believe you me, I'd be thrilled if someone else had stood up to him. But I wasn't about to let anyone, much less a friend and my girlfriend's brother, be humiliated just so some old man could get his rocks off."

"There's an image I didn't need."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged and finished eating his sandwich.

Joey sat beside him silently, staring out at the water. "You did the right thing, Pace." She leaned over and kissed his cheek then quickly got to her feet. "Thank you."