"I'm ready for this baby to come out already," Bessie Potter groaned from her stool in the Ice House. "Nine months is way to long."

"Elephants are pregnant for 22 months," Bodie told her. "So you're getting off easy in comparison."

"Yeah, well, I feel like an elephant," she complained.

"You look like one too," Joey told her as she swept into the kitchen to get an order. "You know, minus the trunk."

Bessie made to get up and go after her once she had taken the plates and left, but Bodie put his hands on her shoulders to keep her down. "Let the girl go," he instructed, "she doesn't know any better."

"You never call a pregnant woman fat! How can she not know any better." A worried look came over Bessie's face. "Do I really like an elephant?"

"Of course not," Bodie assured her. "You look beautiful."

He leaned in to kiss her just as Joey reentered the room. "That's what got you in this whole mess in the first place," she told them as she peeled off her apron and hung it over a chair. "So can we leave the PDAs for another time?"

"Where are you going?" Bessie demanded. "Your shift's not over for another hour."

"I have to meet Dawson, Jen, and Pacey for some history project, Joey sa"id. "A video timeline of all the major

wars.""All right," Bessie sighed, "just don't get home to late."

"I won't," Joey promised. "I don't want to spend any more time there then possible."

She walked out of the Ice House and down the road to Dawson's. The sweatshirt she'd been wearing all day quickly became hot and confining, and she took it off and tied it around her waist, enjoying the nice breeze that ruffled the trees as she walked.

She arrived at the Leery house too soon for her liking, and braced herself for another night with the love struck Dawson Leery, the perfect Jen Lindley, and the annoying Pacey Witter. She scaled the ladder quickly and climbed through Dawson's bedroom window to find Dawson and Jen leaning over a history book and going over which battles to shoot.

"You guys look so cute together," Joey said in a sappy voice. "I almost wish I hadn't come just so you could just sit like that all night long."

"And I wish you hadn't shown up twenty minutes late," Dawson told her. "And I Pacey had shown up period. Jen has been the general of every battle in World War 2."

Jen flexed her biceps. "They all me Stonewall Jenny," she joked.

"Funny," Joey said without a smile. "So where is it?"

"Pacey?" Dawson asked as the doorbell rang. "I'm not

sure.""Dawson," Gail Leery called from downstairs, "Pacey's here."

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late," Pacey greeted as he jogged up to Dawson's room.

"Hey Pacey, sorry you're here," Joey replied.

He put his hands over his heart. "You hurt me right here Potter, he tol"d her.

Dawson and Jen looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Swords away please?" Dawson refereed. "This thing is due in three days."

"We've been working on this for a week," Joey reminded him. "What else is left?"

"Cold war," Jen supplied. "And I am so not being that Russian guy."

"Do you mean Lennon?" Joey asked. "That Russian guy. You're worse then Pacey."

"I resent that," he told her snappishly.

"You mean you represent that."

He was about to retort when the annoying itch he'd been fighting all day sprang back to life, and he quickly pivoted to avoid sneezing on his friends. "Atchoo! Haa.Atchoo!"

"Bless you," Jen said kindly. "Are you alright?"

"Allergies," he told her, gearing up for another round. "HaAtchh! Hatchoo!"

"I don't remember you having allergies," Dawson told him. "And I've known you forever."

"I take pills. I ran out," Pacey said simply, rubbing his nose. "It would have been fine except the breeze on the way here blew a ton of pollen in my face."

"I liked the breeze," Joey supplied.

"You would," Pacey mumbled through his sweatshirt sleeve, as he had his elbow over his face to sneeze again. "Hetchoo!"

Dawson sighed. "There's no way we can put you on camera like this. I'll just go grab some benedryl from the medicine cabinet, you can help me behind the camera, and Joey can take your lines."

As he went off in search of medicine, Joey glared at Pacey. "Thanks a lot," she snapped, shoving him as she walked to the other side of the room to get a copy of the script and learn her new lines. He fell over by the still open window and hit his head on the wall.

"Ow," he groaned, rubbing the back of his head tenderly. "Thanks a lot J...Jo...Hetchoo! HeEtchoo! HATCHOO!"

Jen hopped off the bed and slammed the window shut, before holding out her hand to haul Pacey back to his feet. "You really didn't have to do that," she told Joey.

"Do what?" Dawson asked as he reentered the room holding a box of over the counter allergy medication he'd found in his parent's bathroom.

Jen glanced at Joey, who gave her a defiant ‘I dare you' look, before answering Dawson. "Nothing."

"OK," Dawson shrugged as he excepted her lie easily enough. He held the box of pills out to Pacey. "Here you go," he

said.Pacey shook his head. "OTC stuff completely knocks me out," he said. "I go kinda out of it."

"More so than usual?" Joey quipped, prompting Pacey to glare at her, but he sneezed again before e could say anything in his defense.

Pacey caught the box reflexively as Dawson tossed it over. "Just take them," he said. "That way you'll stop sneezing enough to help me and we can get some work done. We'll handle your ‘out of it‘-ness."

"Okie Dok," Pacey agreed as he dry swallowed 2 of the tablets from the box, then tossed it back to Dawson, who missed.

"Let's get started then, ok?" Dawson hoisted his camera off his bed and headed for the door. The three others followed him. Thinking quickly, Pacey shut the window Joey had entered through so the room would be virtually pollen free when they got back. ********** About two hours later, Joey didn't love the breeze anymore. Whenever she open her mouth to say her lines, strands of her hair blew in it, t was a lot colder then it had been earlier, and she was getting seriously sick of listening to Pacey sneeze. Supposedly he was medicated, so why was he still sneezing?

Then she realized he wasn't sneezing anymore. In fact, she couldn't remember how long it had been since she last heard him sneeze. Curiously, she glanced over to where he was sitting. He was fast asleep.

Once her scene at the Yalta conference was over, whatever the heck Yalta was, she was given the task of waking Pacey up. She marched over to the sleeping teen and shook his shoulder. He mumbled something and moved a little, but didn't wake. She tried shaking harder, but it had the same effect. Finally, she decided to just poke him in the forehead as hard as she could and yell "Pacey!" at the top of her lungs.

"What?" he croaked, not really awake. Then he snapped forward with another sneeze "Hetchoo!"

"Bless you," Dawson said as he jogged out of his house, where he and Jen had been going over the film after the Yalta scene. "You guys can come in now," he told them. "We're done for the night."

Joey walked briskly back to the house to escape the cold, never thinking to help Pacey. He got unsteadily to his feet and tried to follow Joey, but ended up walking into a tree instead. "Well hello tree," he chuckled as he attempted to regain his balance.

Dawson saw his trouble and came out to help his friend. Gently but firmly he grabbed Pacey's arm and steered him back toward the house. Once back in the bedroom, Dawson instructed Pacey to sit down on the bed/ He did, but sat too far on the edge and fell on the floor. "Whoopsie," he mumbled as he climbed back on the bed again.

"You weren't kidding about being out of it," Jen said sympathetically as she took her place on the bed next to

Pacey."I'm fine," he told her, "just a little groggy. It'll pass." He wanted very much to add that at least he'd stopped sneezing, but for some reason he couldn't comprehend, his nose rebelled again against some microscopic grain of pollen, and he barely managed to turn away from Jen before succumbing to the sneezes. "Hetchoo! Atchoo! HeEtchu!"

"Bless you," Jen offered briefly, then turned to glare at Joey. "I'd shut that window if I were you," she growled in an uncharacteristic mean voice. Pacey looked up. Apparently Joey had taken it upon herself to open the window he had shut earlier.

"It's stuffy in here," she told them. "It's not like I was trying to make Pacey worse. Believe me, I've heard enough of is sneezing tonight."

"You can never get enough of me," Pacey told her, walking over. He was swaying like a drunk while he walked, and Dawson stood up so he'd be able to catch him if he fell over. He made it over in one piece and put his arm around her shoulders. "You love me."

She pushed him off in disgust, and he just managed to keep from falling over. "I do not love you," she snapped. "I am repulsed by you."

"You'll learn to love me," he assured her, "just like I love you." He looked deep in thought for a minute, then got down on one knee and grabbed Joey's hand. "Marry me?" he proposed, before promptly falling asleep on Dawson's bed.

"I vote we don't wake him up this time," Joey piped up.

"You would," muttered Jen.

"Well do you want him to walk home in this condition?"

"That's a good point," Jen admitted. "Dawson?"

"He can crash here tonight," Dawson announced, then burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Joey asked curiously.

"Do you think you'll have an answer for him in the morning?" Dawson managed to say.

"Shut up!"

"Can I be a bridesmaid?" Jen asked hopefully.

"Next time we just let him sneeze," Joey decided as she climbed out the window and ran over to her rowboat to get back home.