Cut to Capeside High.
Joey enters the room, and is shocked by her surroundings. The entire place has been transformed into some kind of office. There are shades on the windows, and an old-fashioned typewriter on a small wooden desk.
JOEY: I know I’m sounding like a broken record, Dawson, but your attention to detail…
DAWSON: Creepy, I know.
JOEY: This is exactly how I pictured it inside my head. You even dimmed the lights.
DAWSON: Paper over the bulbs…not hard to do.
JOEY: If directing ever falls through, you could always go into special effects. And to think, all these years I’ve been convinced you just specialized with rubber spiders and fake blood.
Dawson smirks. Joey wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him.
JOEY: You sure you can handle this?
DAWSON: You’re forgetting that I studied under THE A.I. Brooks, Joey. He was an expert at all things film noir.
JOEY: And the sets…?
DAWSON: All taken care of.
Joey nods.
JOEY: Good.
She looks around, appearing pensive.
DAWSON: You ok?
She looks at him, wringing her hands together.
JOEY: Just a bit nervous, you know? You may be the cinematic genius, but I’m still kind of new at this. What if something goes wrong? The timing’s off? We don’t get enough people…?
DAWSON: Then we compensate.
JOEY: Compensate?
DAWSON: We work around it.
She half-smiles.
JOEY: I am getting kind of worked up, aren’t I?
DAWSON: Don’t worry about it. Believe me, I know what it’s like. There’s about a dozen times I can recall where I freaked out the day before filming. It’s just jitters, really.
JOEY: I can’t even begin to thank you for all this, Dawson. For doing this for me.
Dawson shakes his head.
DAWSON: I’m not ‘doing this for’ anybody, Jo. We’re a team, remember?
JOEY: Yeah, yeah…keep saying that. Easy for you to say, since you’ve already got name recognition in the box office.
Dawson laughs, then holds out his hand.
DAWSON: Partners?
Joey smiles, and they shake.
JOEY: Partners.