You're gonna need more
You're gonna need more
You're gonna need more

You're gonna need more
You're gonna need more
You're gonna need more

Don't ask me to kick any chairs out from under you.

It was just like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When it was good, it was very, very good. But when it was bad... man, when it was bad, it was horrid. Pacey felt like his life had a bipolar disorder; the highs lifting up over the roof and the lows so deep Satan would need an escalator to find home. He was tired.

Four days were endless. There was too much time between hours; hours spent in far too much thought. He tried to work, but his mind wouldn't settle for more than a few moments at a stretch, so he would sit and stare blankly and think, writing list upon near obsessive list. The things that they would need when they found the perfect spot to live in, what Joey might be thinking at that moment, what kind of wedding they would have the minute that she was released from the hospital, what they would do if by any chance the doctors confirmed his newest deepest fear.

When they spoke on the phone it was solely to help the time pass faster. When his head hit the pillow on Monday night, he slept a Valium-induced and dreamless sleep, precisely the slumber that he needed and which had eluded him for days on end. Months, really. But then, he hardly admitted that to himself anymore. He dug a giant hole in the backyard of his brain and stowed in it the past few months of hell, leaving out only the sweet moments and the month or two that he believed that she was all right.

Everything else went into the box that only came out when he was deep asleep and had no control over the cover and the layer of earth he dumped over it. So when her therapist had said that he was looking peaked and he had admitted his sleeplessness, the doctor had given him a couple of pills. To relax. As if that was near possible.

And tonight his dreams were nothing he would fear, because you can't fear what you can't see. He didn't believe in god, the ephemeral didn't exist.

The phone rang in the middle of the night and he barely heard it, a million rings before it shattered the precious sleep he'd finally embraced. Reaching an arm towards the nightstand, he pulled the receiver to his ear and breathed heavily into it.

"Hulloh?"

"I can't do this, I can't. I just can't."

"Jo, what are you doing? Sweetie, go back to bed..." As the words tripped from his tongue, he realized how weak they seemed.

"No, Pacey... you don't understand. I cannot do this. Any of it."

"Baby, we've made it this far... hang on just a little while longer. And sleep. You have to sleep."

"I can't sleep. I keep dreaming, and I see it... dying inside me, its tiny malformed limbs twisted in my black uterus, its lungs begging for clean air, it's suffocating and it needs so much more..." her voice trailed off.

Pacey sat up; he was almost used to her wee morning calls. Not one had ever been anything but scared and near delusional, but none had ever been like this. Bleak. Angry. Terrified. Black. A macabre he'd never experienced.

"Baby, listen to me now. You have to get some rest, and if you really can't, ask the desk nurse to ring for Dr. Simmons, he'll make you feel more confident. You have to at least try to think positive, you have to have faith." Never had a string of words sounded so flaccid and fallen on such deaf ears.

"Faith? You talk to me about faith? The only faith I have is in the fact that I do not deserve anything good. Pacey, you realize that this isn't going to happen, right. You have made peace with that, haven't you?"

The anger and despair bubbled up inside him like an internal volcano ready to combust. "No. And I will not," his voice dropped to a husky growl. "And neither will you. Joey, I've done my best to constantly give you everything that you need and I need you to return that to me. Give us what we need here, and try to do this for all three of us."

"I don't know if I can." He could hear the depth of her anguish in her strained voice, sounding as if she had spent hours screaming at the walls before finally picking up the phone and giving in to the call. "I just don't think that I can." Pacey pulled the blankets tighter around him, the chill in her words icing him.

"We have no choice... Babe, please, go to bed. Please try to get through the night and I'll come up there in the early afternoon before the call. Please."

She sighed deeply, letting out a rush of air over the line. "Okay."

He knew not to be convinced that she would listen to him, she never had before, but he told her he loved her and said goodbye before hanging up the phone. He was more worried than ever. Leaning over, he picked up the last of the small blue-green triangles and popped it into his mouth. If this was going to be his last night of fitless sleep, he was going to drown out every demon that came near him.

Something told him when he awoke that nothing was in order. He glanced to the clock, it was almost noon; the final pill had put him over the edge and he'd slept like the dead. His alarm had long since run its course and quieted. Dressing slowly, he trudged to the kitchen and put on the kettle, his mind a convoluted haze of fog and mixed emotion. When it whistled through the apartment, it shocked his dulled senses.

He could see his reflection distorted in the dark liquid of the French press as the coffee brewed; eyes tilted downward, face in harsh need of a shave, lips pursed and drawn. He looked almost as ragged as she did. Pouring himself a cup, he attempted to pull himself together and get out of the house to clear his mind. He was due to get to the North Bay and make the inevitable call any time now.

The knot in the deepest pit of his stomach worried at him. It pressured him to remember her words from the disparaging early morning phone call. But he would not. He could not. He did hear them ringing like a broken church bell in his ears though, and it wasn't going to stop singing to him by any stretch.

Walking out to the fog-laden street, he sat defeatedly on his front stoop, sloping his head down into his hands. He was sluggish from too many pills, his resolve dampened by too many opposing emotions. Lighting another cigarette, his seventh even though he'd only been awake for less than two hours, Pacey leaned back onto the stairs and stared up into the grey sky. It was the perfect day for all of this to begin. Or end. Or. End.

At some point, he walked to his parked car and got inside, levering his foot on the gas and driving towards her. He had no recollection of anything to the moment he realized that he was halfway over the bridge. Welcome to Marin County. What a fucking nightmare.

When he reached the hospital, the nurse stopped him at the front desk.

"Mr. Witter, Dr. Simmons wanted to see you before you go to see Joey. He's waiting for you in his office."

Pacey's head throbbed, the day was starting to play out badly already. He knew that whatever this was, it couldn't be good news. "Is everything all right?"

"I don't have any information, I'm sorry."

Pacey walked through the long hallway to the doctor's office. He hesitated before knocking on the door. All of this probably had to do with Joey's attitude the night before, she had probably taken his advice and spoken with Simmons before finally going to bed. The doctor just wanted to talk to him about how she was reacting, and set up a way to work through what was inevitably going to be bad news.

Why did it always have to be bad news?

His knuckles rapped lightly against the tempered glass of the door.

"Come in... Hello, Pacey. Thanks for coming in, I wanted to talk to you about the phone call from Dr. Schweitzmann. After Joey spoke with her, she had an almost psychotic episode. We've calmed her down, but I'm not sure that she'll be ready to see you. I tried to phone you, but you had already left home."

Pacey hadn't heard anything beyond the words "Joey spoke with her".

"Wait-- Jo already spoke to the doctor? We weren't supposed to call until this afternoon... Where's Joey, I have to see her." Pacey made for the door, his words streaming out of his lips at a mile a minute, his voice stuttering with panic. Damnit, he knew something was wrong, he had felt it from the minute his eyes opened.

Dr. Simmons met him at the door. "Pacey, Joey didn't take to the news very well. I think that she should have some time alone to calm down. She's going to have to make a very sensitive decision and right now she simply needs to clear her mind."

"Fuck you! I have to see her, she needs me.... she needs me. Shit, do you know what Dr. Schweitzmann said?" Pacey felt the tears stinging in his eyes and throb in his head slowly becoming a loud pounding against his temples.

"Calm down, Pacey. Please. Why don't you sit down and we can talk for a little while, okay?" the doctor led him back towards the desk and Pacey slumped into the chair. "Now, Dr. Schweitzmann phoned early and I spoke with her after Joey did, it's unfortunate that we hadn't spoken first, but I had no idea that Joey would react this violently. She's fine now, Pacey, but I don't want anything to upset her more right now, and you have the power to do that."

"What's wrong with the baby?" He stopped himself dead and realized that the prognosis had surely been devastating.

"Amniocentesis confirmed a possible brain deformity. Now, it's not one hundred percent, but there's no way of completely knowing." Pacey closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. "The doctor gave Joey her diagnosis and told her that she should make her decision soon, before the risk becomes too great."

"Decision?" He should have been prepared for all of this, but he wasn't. He had kept up every ounce of faith, the faith that Joey had said he shouldn't have, the faith that they would actually prevail over the dark horse that had kicked their lives in the ass. But no, why should he have thought that they could move on from the bad parts of their lives when everything was consistently stacked against them? There would never be a happily ever after for them.

"Whether or not to terminate the pregnancy, Pacey. I'm sorry, I know that you were very excited to have this child, but you also knew that there would be difficulties. Now, there is the small chance that the child could make it through the pregnancy, but there's no way to measure how much damage there is to its brain and whether it would be able to live a normal life. You do understand me, don't you? This could cause any number of complications, or the child could be stillborn."

No words would come to his lips; he nodded dumbly towards the doctor. There was no way in hell he was leaving this building without seeing her, this decision had to be made by the both of them and she shouldn't have to be alone through one more second. He should be holding her in his arms, not sitting in the damn office listening to a stranger tell him how to deal with this.

"I have to see her," he spit out in a harsh whisper.

"Pacey, after Joey spoke with the doctor, she went back to her room and trashed it. There wasn't much to damage, but what there was ended up strewn across half the ward. We were afraid that she would hurt herself. She spent a little less than an hour jacketed, until she was calm enough for us to release her. This has been very traumatic, I'm afraid that seeing you will only bring her back to that point. She doesn't want to disappoint you again, and she's afraid that this will do just that."

"Where is she now?"

"We cleaned up her room, she's probably in there. If not, she'd be in the garden, but Pacey, I'd like it if you would please wait until tomorrow to speak with her."

"No. Doctor, maybe you don't understand this, but I have to see her. You said it yourself days ago, I need to be strong for her and help her through this. Well, no one else can do that. I love her more than you can possibly understand. She needs me... and, I need her. So, I'm not going to just walk out of here without seeing her. I suggest you take me to her. Now."

"You have to promise me that you'll be as calm as possible, she doesn't need any more agitation."

He nodded to the doctor. Even though he'd been intensely negative from the moment that doctors had even brought up that there could be a chance that their baby didn't have a positive prognosis, he had still kept up the delusional hope that this time things would work themselves out for a change. There's no way to set honestly yourself up to handle when things go so horribly bad, you can only pretend that you're holding things together and that you might have yourself under control. He was numb, but he knew that she would want him with her. She would want him to hold her close.

Leading him out the small office, the doctor took him to the elevator and they went upstairs to the ward where she had her private room. Pacey had never been up there, most of their visiting had been in the gardens behind the building or in the patient's lounge. The wards were generally just for patients and staff.

It looked like any other hospital, really. Pacey didn't know what he had expected, maybe something more wild, something out of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or the like. They knocked on the door of room 418, no answer. The doctor pushed at the door and looked inside.

"She must be outside. She loves to sit out by the ocean..."

"Yeah, she told me that it makes her feel like all of her problems are tiny in comparison to the size of the water." The words seeped out slowly and quietly, the lump in his throat growing by the second. He looked around the blank room, no sense of her coming from it at all. He had imagined it having some feeling of her, something to signify that she had been there, but there was nothing.

Pacey followed the doctor back to the elevator and out towards the gardens, the sky darkened above their heads with impending storm. There weren't many people outside at all; they scanned the landscape with their eyes but didn't see her anywhere. Pacey began to get nervous.

"Hmmmm... she must be around here somewhere. Why don't we go back inside and I'll have her paged to the front desk." The doctor didn't seem to be agitated, but Pacey couldn't support that intention. He followed mutely and listened as her name rang throughout the tinny halls and rooms over the PA system.

"I don't think she's here," he finally said.

"Excuse me?" The doctor looked to him as if he had seven heads.

"I don't think that she's here." He spoke each word deliberately, solidifying them with their utterance.

"Pacey, that can't be. She wouldn't just walk off grounds..." Even the doctor seemed astounded, but they both knew that it was a distinct possibility.

"Yes. She would. When Joey feels trapped, she would chew off her own foot to get free. And running away has been the one constant theme in our relationship. I feel it in my bones now, she's taken off." He stared towards the glass doors leading outside, his eyes cemented to them.

It would have been easy for her to leave. The hospital didn't have bars on the windows or a locked gate to keep patients inside. There was barely any security at all. If someone wanted to leave, all they would have to do is walk out through the gardens to the parking lot and gone. There was more than enough opportunity.

Pacey was completely broken. This was the end of the line for him, he realized. He had no fight left, everything he had fought for at all had been taken from him, including her. He feared her safety still, and he feared what she might do to herself, but inside he only felt vacant. She had stolen every ounce of drive from him this time.

"I'm leaving."

"Pacey, I don't think that you should do that. Why don't we go into my office and call the police, she couldn't have gotten very far from here." He put his hand on Pacey's arm and tried to lead him towards his office.

"No. I want to go home, I'll wait for her there," he lied. He was in a daze, almost too placid. But there was nothing inside him any longer. He felt no anger, no fright that she was out there on her own, he only felt blindsided.

The doctor looked at him with concern. "I don't think so, Pacey. We should talk first, and we have to get Joey back here before she does something to hurt herself." His words fell dumbly to the ground.

"You can't keep me here."

"Yes, I realize that. But you're in shock, this has been more than one person can handle in one fell swoop. Pacey, you're not super-human. We will find Joey and the two of you will be able to work this out. None of this is the end of the world, for either of you." They heard the nurse on the phone with the police department, she interjected the doctor.

"Doctor, what was Miss Potter wearing when you saw her last?"

He thought for a moment, giving time for Pacey to head towards the door. "Black jeans and a red button down. Her hair was in a ponytail." The doctor chased him outside. "I wish you'd reconsider, Pacey. You should really come back inside." His calm tone irritated Pacey.

"Call me if you hear anything, I'll be at home." He walked away from the building, away from everything that he should be staying near, away from himself. He barely made it to the truck before his stomach cramped on him and he threw up beside it, one hand holding on to the side of the hood.

This wasn't at all good, but he should have seen it coming. He should have anticipated all of this from the moment that he woke up and felt the anxiety cascade over him. Joey did love him, he knew that in his heart, but he also knew that she was too self-absorbed to think of anything but herself sometimes. He just wished that this hadn't been one of those times. They needed each other, didn't she see how she needed him? How he needed her.

He drove towards home slowly, needing all the time he could get to be alone. It started to rain as he neared the bridge, but he didn't close the windows. Icy needles of rain slapped him in the face. His entire body felt numb, his brain throbbing in its tight skull hole squeezing and trapped. There was no way to not think. There was only pain in thinking. Make it go away...

The lights were off and the curtains were drawn in his apartment when he entered. He thought for a moment that maybe she had fled to find him and he moved slowly from room to empty room with that deluded hope, finally sinking onto the floor of the kitchen beside the stove. Watching the telephone, he knew he should check for messages just in case she had called. But he knew that she hadn't, what was the sense in even fooling himself?

He thought back over the past months of his life. He had almost forgotten about her before then, years of being nowhere near her or anything to remind him of her had facilitated that. Almost. She would slide into his mind in dreams sometimes, but then her face would dissolve into the background and he could forget again. And sometimes, he would wake up next to the dark-haired woman of the month and think for the briefest moment that it was her, he would touch his fingers to her hair and realize his mistake. He had convinced himself that without looking for her, he would probably never see that face before him. The past is the past is the past, put it all behind you.

It should have stayed behind him.

But then there she was, waiting to be saved. Forgetting be damned, this was fate. Things happen for a reason and this time she had been brought back to him, a little worse for the wear, but in one piece. You have to follow fate, you have no choice. Right? The little irksome voice in the back of his head plowed at him.

You know now that you should have just let her be, don't you? She never wanted you in the first place, what the fuck made you think that she would ever want you now? And it's not only about you, it's her. Maybe she was the one who didn't deserve you?"

Pacey screamed the one syllable he was capable of, clapping his hands over his ears to drown out the sound. "NO!!!!"

He was losing it, he was sure. Through everything, even when he'd thought that he would never find a good leg to stand on ever again, he had pulled himself together and realized that no amount of self-pity was ever going to bring her back or fix her or whatever the hell needed to happen. Every time she had brought him to this point, he knew that he was just being over-dramatic. Inside him, the strong Pacey chided him and struggled to pull himself out. Usually, he could hear him in the back of his head, needling. Now, he was silent and it scared him.

Bring back the auto-pilot, I can't do this anymore.

He slid his back up and stood, reaching into the freezer and pulling out the half-bottle of vodka that he knew was there, uncapping it and holding it to his lips. When he felt the cold-thickened liquid touch the back of his throat, he closed his eyes and let it hang there. This was bullshit. He wasn't going to let her do this again. With a swift motion, he flung the bottle at the opposite wall where it shattered with a loud crash and the liquid seeped into and down the paint.

The doctor was right, there is only so much one man could take. Pacey had reached his end of the line. He only wished that he could feel more, everything inside him was tapped. What was he supposed to do next when half the senses in his body told him to go after her just this one more time and the other half raged at him to forget her and find his own life again? Did he even have a life anymore without her, or had he gotten so used to the drama that it was the only thing he had left and he needed it almost as much as he needed her?

The downstairs buzzer rang and he jumped.

"Yeah?"

"Pacey Witter?"

"Yes."

"This is Officer Princeton of the 7th Precinct, can my partner and I come upstairs for a moment?"

Pacey lay his finger hard on the button allowing them access and met them at his front door.

"Yeah? What's up? You find her?" His voice was monotone.

"We got a call from the police in Sonoma County since they thought that Miss Potter might make her way into the city. Now, we can't really consider her missing for another forty-eight hours, but we're doing the facility a favor and checking around for her now. Is there anywhere that you know she might go?"

"I don't know, her old apartment? She might go there... Or to her boss's studio, maybe? Hold on, I'll write down the addresses..." The cops were looking at him funny, he could feel their eyes burning into the back of his head as he walked over to his desk to get a pen and paper. They probably expected him to be more worried, more incited to help them. "Here. Let me know if you find anything out. And here's a relatively recent picture, that might help." He walked to the door and held it open, but the officers didn't move.

"Mr. Witter, is everything all right? Has Miss Potter been here?" They looked around the room. It stank of alcohol.

"Everything is fine. I had a little episode earlier, but everything is all right now." He pulled it together as much as he could. "I am worried about Joey, sir. Please let me know that she's okay when you find her. Okay?" His voice was still too neutral, he sounded like a child being prepped for lines.

They left him finally and he sat on the couch holding his head in his hands. Nothing left to cry, no voice in his chest to scream with, just nothing.

Each possible emotive scenario had been played out already; the sitting in the dark on the floor rocking against himself, the screaming and crying and hurling things at the walls, the days on end of quiet depression. To go about his days in any of those ways again would be redundant, and he didn't want to go there anymore. Still, he felt like he needed to do something extreme, as if he expected it from himself. There was a dryness in the air around him even though it had been raining on and off for days.

Maybe he needed to get out of San Francisco and move closer to work? Maybe he needed to get out of California completely and try to start over one more time? He could easily go somewhere where no one knew him and the chances of bumping into a face from the past were close to impossible. It sounded good in theory, but there was no way Pacey was going to just up and flee, he had to be stronger than that.

He didn't know where she was, and even though he cared, he couldn't look for her. Not this time. The police and the hospital had been calling and calling for the past few days since she'd left the hospital; he heard the messages echo through his flat, but he couldn't bring himself to answer the phone. They had nothing to give him that he needed, nothing to say that he needed to hear. And he had nothing to say in return, which felt bad. More than bad, really, it felt fucking awful... but that just brought him back to this feeling that he should be feeling. There was no feeling, only this blankness inside his heart and this frantic palpitation behind his forehead.

It had finally happened, then. She had finally tossed him over the edge where his love couldn't solve anything anymore, where their love couldn't be strong enough to hold them together or even allow him to be the man that she probably needed him to be more than ever. He had taken too many punches; this time he preferred to just lie there and have the fight called.

Was it wrong for him to just want life to go on around him, to want some peace for a change? Yeah, probably, but it had to better than this melodramatic bullshit he was putting himself through. It took days for him to degenerate to this point where he felt like he was deadened enough to go on with his life and try to pick up the pieces of what she had shattered for him. When he finally thought he could lie to himself enough, he still couldn't bring himself to leave the house. Every street corner would remind him of her, he knew it would. Everything reminded him of her anyway.

Maybe that was the way to deal with it, to just face it head on. Wander from place to place that they had shared together or even been in each other's presence -- show himself that it didn't have to matter anymore. Half the damn city fell into that category. The only person holding onto any hope for her was him and hope wasn't what he needed these days, he only needed to get out of all of this and move the fuck on. But deep inside he still cared, no matter how much he didn't.

It wasn't even about her anymore, he had stopped seeing her face behind his eyes in the days that passed and focused all of his trauma on the child that they would never have. And the life that he had deluded himself into thinking was attainable. They could have gotten past all of this, and still been married and lived a tremendous life together. There could have been other children along the way, but none of that mattered if she didn't want to be a human being anymore. Day by fucking passed day, that was precisely what she was proving to him.

So he took to the streets, feeling extremely sorry for himself and for everything that had happened since the moment he heard her voice screaming for a taxi in the Tenderloin. He had no destination in mind, just a way to clear his mind and get it all out of his head. Maybe puke it all up in some barroom toilet. Sounded like a plan.

He's done this before, he realized. And it was no more distinguished a move then than it was now. But Pacey was a sad, broken man who was feeling sorry for himself. He slid into a stool at the closest bar, the bartender stopped what he was doing and approached him immediately.

"Good morning, what can I do ya for?"

Pacey let out a long sigh, emptying his lungs.

"Coffee... and a shot of..." He scanned the shelves, "Maker's Mark."

Could he possibly be any more pathetic? He hadn't drunk anything remotely bourbon since he'd graduated college, and here he was ordering her drink. Yeah, Pacey... you'll get over her. Especially if you remove yourself from anything connected to her. That's great. Fantastic. The bartender placed the drinks in front of him and he took a long gulp from the glass of brown liquid, wincing as it touched the back of his tongue.

The bar was empty and silent, leaving him too much to his own thoughts. He sucked back both beverages and placed a few bucks on the bar before leaving.

It was too early to be drinking and too late for him to start regretting the past, but that didn't stop him on either front. The Mission had that effect on him sometimes. It was as manic-depressive as he was, one block tree-lined and pristine, the next laden with homeless and crusty street denizens. In moments like these, he wondered on which street he really belonged.

The Uptown. He shouldn't go inside and relive the site of the event that had started all of this, but after all the bars and street corners and benches that he'd already passed through this day, he could hardly not go in and stand up to his fears. It wasn't as if she would be there, and that wasn't the point anyway. Music streamed through the open door, the bar dark and moody inside, almost cut off from the rest of the world. Pacey stood in front of the open door and peered inside.

He was numbed over from shock and alcohol, the late-day sun still warming the pavement and his legs hardly strong enough to withstand his wavering body. Light from the outside poured in through the door but stopped short of illuminating anything past a few feet. Once enveloped, the room took over and held everything captive. Pacey was sucked inside, he couldn't not. It pulled him to remind himself.

He sat at the bar in the same seat that he had chosen that first night, back to the bank of booths and eyes fixed on the rows of half-filled bottles that lined the high shelving. When the bartender approached, he ordered a double, far more than he needed by this time. Nothing was working, nothing was allowing him to forget.

"You all right, honey? You don't look so good..." The pretty bartender looked at him with soft, dark eyes that passed over him slowly and honestly.

Pacey was in no mood to talk, especially not to share his life story with some stranger whose only credential was a slab of wood between she and her patients. She took his money and left the change in front of him, leaning on the bar in the same spot.

"If you feel like talkin', I'm a pretty good listener."

He turned his head towards the empty place where he had first seen Joey silhouetted by the light of the bathroom where she'd probably just sank her dose into a vein, but he hadn't known it then. Looking back towards the bartender's concerned face, he still said nothing. She leaned back and sat quietly on the beer cooler and observed him quietly. When his glass was depleted, she refilled it without prompting.

The bar filled slowly as the day darkened to dusk and hit night. Pacey faded into the background, not so interesting when he wasn't the only silent depressive in the room. Bartenders changed shifts, and customers came and went while he sat in the same chair with an ever-present glass, filled and refilled continuously. The jumbled thoughts in his head were unceasing but increasingly incoherent to even himself.

Then there was a body beside him, so close he could feel the hairs on his arms pricking up at him, smell the other man's musky breath. He didn't turn towards the rough voice when it spoke at him.

"You look as shit as she does."

"Go away."

"Fuck you, you're in my territory now. And if I want to talk, you're going to fucking deal with it. Or, you can leave yourself..."

"Why don't you just leave me alone, Zach?" Pacey shot a glare at him, then returned his eyes to his drink.

"I don't feel like it, this is entertaining to me. And I don't like you. Y'know though, kid, you can have her. I'm through with it, I can't even deal with the bitch anymore. Why don't you go back to your hero bullshit and save me from her... Wouldn't that be quite the switch?" He laughed sardonically, his upper lip curled.

"Piss off."

"It's not gonna happen. I want her out of my fucking apartment, she's a waste of my time. So take her. Again. You win, okay? That's all you've wanted, now you've got it."

"I don't want her..." His voice was stuttering and unconvincing.

"Yeah, that's damn believable." Zach's tone was biting, then it softened and lowered. "Look, man, I loved her too. I loved her when I knew that there was no point in it, and you were nowhere to be found. You were out of her life and I was in it. I never even heard your name and I still knew that there was someone else that inside she would always be holding out for. There was this underlying assurance that I wasn't the best that she could do. I knew it, I could always feel it. But I was there for her when she was more fucked up than ever... well, more fucked up then she was before... I can't be there now, she's fucked me too many times now." Zach seemed consumed himself, the only time that Pacey had seen him actually admit defeat. "Me too... I can't take it anymore. I'm not like you."

"Yeah, that's the point. You're nothing like me, and that's what she wants. She never wanted me, I was just convenient. I had all the drugs that she needed; I was just a soft arm to lie in while she waited through the highs. So come on, I'll take you to her."

"No."

"Man, gimme a fucking break, all right? Look at you. Is this your life? Please."

Pacey got angry. He didn't know why, but it raged through him, his eyes piercing and his hands clenched to fists in his lap. "No. I can't do it, not again."

"Jesus. You're fucking pathetic." He started to stand, his hand clutching Pacey's bicep. "Come on."

Pacey stood with him, not wanting to but not having any choice in the matter. His legs followed Zach to the door, hesitating and gazing back towards his empty stool at the bar. Defeated, perfect word really. His voice was caught in his chest and he could hardly stand from the long day's boozing, the hand on his arm held him tighter, taunting him.

He didn't know how far they had walked when they reached the dingy doorway and Zach pushed at the door for their entrance. The hallway fish-eyed out before him and he tried to break away from the man who held on to him. Zach pulled him back.

"Come on, little man. You wanted her, you might as well have her. Come see how she waits for us..."

They took to the stairs, Pacey's feet tripping over themselves to the third landing. When they reached the top, Zach pushed him towards the half-open door.

"Where are we?" He wanted to not be there in the roach-infested building, he wanted her to not be there. He wanted time to turn back a few days but still have the knowledge that he did in this moment. He wanted to think that he could take all of this in without the fear that rose in his limbs and spread across his belly. He wanted to roll into a ball and cry, then lash out and scream and run. He didn't want to go inside and see her there, wasted and ruined.

"She got rid of your kid today, Krishna took her."

The icy words stung at him. Zach pushed at the door and pulled Pacey inside giving him no more time to let them settle.

"Why are you doing this?"

"You wanted to win, and now you have. Go receive your fucking trophy." He pushed Pacey towards a room opening into one wall. His eyes needed a second to focus in the darkness, he could barely make out the shape of two figures on the ratted mattress on the floor.

"Oh my god. Pacey." Joey pushed the squirming body off of her, her hands pulling at a knotted sheet to cover her nakedness as the man she lay with reached to turn on the light beside the makeshift bed. He stood and walked out of the room, his laughter cackling after him. "Pacey..."

He knew that there was no place for him to be in this, his anger getting more than the best of him. His face felt flush, his entire body trembling. "Not just a junkie, but a whore too, huh? Did you have to fuck him to get off?" He didn't mean them, the only words that came to his intoxicated lips.

"No...." She didn't move, his eyes scanned the bed from top to bottom. Starting at her pallid face, her bitten lips, the stench of sweat and piss and sex permeating the filthy room; what the fuck was she doing here? What was he doing here? Two years ago he had all but changed his life one hundred percent, six months ago he had up and left everything he had known since he left Capeside and brought himself to a brave new world where his life lay ahead of him flawless. Five minutes ago he had walked into hell, and he had no idea how to get out. Tears streamed down his face as he implored them to stop. "Look at what we've done to ourselves, Joey. Look at you!!! Do you even know that guy you just fucked? What the hell were you thinking? Oh right, you weren't thinking." Pacey began pacing the floor around the stained mattress. "You were just punishing yourself for being so fucked up and this seemed as good a way as any. And all for this." He picked up the small bag of brown powder that lay at the foot of the mattress. "Is this the only thing that you care about? You don't care about yourself, you can't care about me..." His voice cracked and he strained to yell at her.

Joey's knees were pulled up to her chest and she didn't look at him. She didn't see when he picked up the bent and burned spoon and poured the powder onto it. He watched her not look at him and railed against her again.

"This is what does it all, right? This is what makes it all okay and all feel better, right? Will it make me as removed as you are? What's so fucking great about this shit???"

"Pacey stop. I'm sorry... I love you."

"No. You don't love me, you don't love anyone. You're not capable." All the paraphernalia was spread out at the edge of the bed, everything she would need to just end it all, to just take herself away from him forever. He took some water from the glass and saturated the bowl of the spoon, lighting a match under it. "Is this right? Am I doing it right, Joey? Why don't you teach me? Show me the right way so I can be a part of your fucked up life... that's what you always wanted anyway, wasn't it?"

"No... Pacey.... Nooooo..."

Drawing the hot solution into the dirty syringe, he still didn't know what his next move was. Was this for her? Was it for him? Was it for their already non-existent child? Did any of this shit solve anything, say anything? He wanted to know what made it so much more important than he could ever be. And his mind was spinning, spiraling out of any control, reeling soaked in liquor.

"Is it really that good, Jo?" He knelt next to her and she reached out for the needle, he snatched it out of her reach. "Is it that fucking amazing that it's the only thing you live for and want to die for? I don't want you to die, Jo... will you ever understand that? God. Look at you, I don't even recognize you, do I even know you?"

He stood and walked around the bed again, circling like a manic and starved shark. He stared down at her, huddled against herself defensively. "I want to know if it's worth it... is it really worth it?"

Joey said nothing. No surprise.

Pacey yanked up the sleeve of his shirt and waited for her to stop him. How could she? She never even looked up at him. The second dragged on, he kicked at the bed and she jerked her head up. Sad eyes, disbelieving. He pressed the needle to the crook of his arm. Her mouth open, face staring up at him.

"Maybe I'll understand now, huh?"

She finally shook her head to mean no, he followed her eyes with his, ignoring her silent protest. He pressed the spike through the thin skin, wincing slightly as it punctured the flesh then the vein. Zach's voice cut through the nauseous silence as Pacey weighted his finger on the plunger and the drug washed into his body.

"Wait, dude, that's too much..." And too late.

Pacey's mind cleared for the briefest of seconds before the wet heat of the heroin spread through his arm, up through his veins and hit his brain like a blunted hammer. It was faster than he would have thought, everything seemed faster and slower all at once. His feet backed him against the wall as he felt the blinding intensity overtake him and all gravity leave. He barely felt his head hit the floor before everything went completely black. He heard Joey's scream through a vacuum, muffled and thundering. For one tiny moment, he understood, he thought. But then he didn't as the pain gripped him and his heart dropped to a sputter. Then everything seized. Then there was nothing at all.

Go to the epilogue