Which brought him here. To Joey. He'd done a lot of thinking and everything he'd thought led him to this moment. To telling her that he was sorry, to telling her that he wanted to try again.

To telling her that he loved her.

He knocked on the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet with barely concealed excitement and anticipation.

The door opened and he looked around for Joey. "Hello?"

"Yes?"

The Jamaican accent startled him and he continued looking for the source of it. "Uh…Jo?"

"Joey is busy right now, okay?"

The direction finally became clear and Pacey looked downward. There, standing in the opening of the door was a…a shrimp. "Who…what…are…you? And where's Joey?"

"She's cleaning up. We got a little flustered."

"What?" Pacey practically spit out the word, his unsure and nervous gaze locked on the small creature. "Who are you?"

"I am Pepe."

"Pepe? The…the what? The shrimp?"

"I am not a shrimp. I am a King Prawn!"

"You are, baby. A king in so many ways." Joey dropped the towel she was using to dry her hair away from her face and stopped in surprise. "Pacey? What are you doing here?"

"I think the better question is what the fuck is going on?"

"This is Pepe. You remember him, don't you? He lives over by Tobey? With his friends. Remember the alien?"

"That weird blue guy?"

"Gonzo is a fine, fine creature," Pepe stated flatly. "He built me a Jacuzzi."

"The guy from the spaceship?" Pacey was staring at Joey in complete and utter disbelief. "The weird guy with the nose from the freakin' spaceship?"

"I don't go around making remarks about your friends," Pepe told Pacey matter-of-factly. "Although I could. I've seen the blond guy, okay."

"Joey," Pacey tried to adopt a reasonable tone. "What is this…shrimp doing here?"

"He's not a shrimp, Pacey. He's a king prawn."

"He's a shrimp. He's the first fucking item on the menu at half the restaurants in town. He is food."

"So are you to a monster." Pepe's black eyes were honed on Pacey's blue ones. "And I know a lot of monsters, okay?"

Pacey took a step back then caught himself, wondering why the hell he was backing away from a shrimp. "Joey? Can I possibly talk to you alone?"

"Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Pepe. He's…he's my future, Pace. Like you never could have been."

"He's a FUCKING shrimp!"

"KING PRAWN!" Pepe and Joey shouted the words in unison, their eyes meeting as they realized what they'd done. Joey dropped to her knees and gathered Pepe to her chest.

"You know I love you, darling."

"I know you do, okay?" Pepe nuzzled the skin above the neckline of Joey's tank top, his stalks turned in Pacey's direction to watch his anger boil. "Perhaps you should let me talk to him, man to man."

"You're not a man!" Pacey's hands were shaking as he watched Pepe move even closer to Joey. "You're a shrimp!"

"King prawn." Pepe didn't shout this time, but the threat was clear in his cold tone. "And if you insist on yelling at my girlfriend, I will spank you. I will spank you like a bad, bad donkey, okay?"

"No." Joey pulled him back to her, squeezing him softly. Her voice dropped to a thick, husky whisper. "I thought all the spankings were for me."

Pepe chuckled and slipped from her embrace, staring at Pacey with appraising eyes. "So you are the one who thinks he was man enough for my Joey-prawn, eh?"

"J…j…Joey." Pacey's face was red, nearing apoplectic. "Joey. Prawn?"

"It's our pet name."

"Fitting, since you can keep a fucking shr…" Pacey caught himself, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to calm down. "Prawn as a pet."

"You don't understand, Pacey. It's okay. I didn't expect you to. You're so caught up in the everyday world, you can't see beyond your species."

"I wasn't aware you were quite so open-minded, Jo."

"Pepe has made me see things in a new light." She looked at Pacey meaningfully. "Wasn't it you who told me you can't choose who you love?"

"Yeah." The anger and bitterness was back in full force. "Who. Not what."

"Is okay," Pepe assured both Joey and Pacey. "You still have feelings. I understand. She is quite a woman. And what a tiger in bed, eh?"

"Tiger." Pacey was shaking with fury and he forced himself to take a step back. "You're…sleeping with this…this…thing?"

"Well, we don't do much sleeping, okay?"

Pacey made an uncontrollable sound of rage and dove toward Pepe, grabbing him off the floor and fitting his large hands around the small neck-like area. Joey screamed and grabbed him, hitting and punching him until he released Pepe, the small reddish creature, gasping for air.

"Get out, Pacey." Tears stood in Joey's eyes. "I don't ever want to see you again."

"Jo…"

"Get. Out." She allowed the tears to fall as she faced the man she once thought she loved. "You're worse than Dawson, Pacey. Refusing to see what is right in front of your face, just because you don't want to believe it." She captured Pepe in her arms and held him close. "I love him, Pacey. And you're just going to have to accept it."

"Fine." Pacey held up his hands in a mixture of disgust and defeat. "Whatever. Have your shrimp. But tell me one thing, Jo. When you go down on him, I suppose you have to dip him in cocktail sauce, yeah?"

Joey started after Pacey in her own cloak of fury, stopped only by one of his four arms. "Don't let him bother you, honey. Come back to the bedroom." He raised one eyebrow in promise. "I got some loose Jell-O, okay?"