Joey stared at the empty doorway.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again, hoping against hope that Justin would have reappeared, that he would still be standing there in the doorway, staring at them, a look of pale outrage on his face. 

Justin wasn’t there, though, and the doorway was still empty, and Joey couldn’t do anything but stare some more.

"Mother fucking bastard," Chris muttered from somewhere off to Joey’s right.

Out of the corner of his eye Joey saw the older man reach out towards the lamp on the nightstand. He heard the snap of the electrical cord being pulled from it’s socket and then the lamp, with its white lampshade and maroon vase-like base, flew across the room, smashing into several pieces against the opposite wall. 

"Fucking bastard, fucking dick, mother fucking *fucker*," Chris said, the volume of his voice gradually rising. Still out of the corner of his eye, Joey watched as the older man turned on his heel, as his hands came up to cover his face, fingers pressed over his eyes.  And he watched as Chris stilled.

In the silence that followed, they all heard the sound of a door slamming.

"Did he just—?" JC asked softly. 

For the first time since Justin had opened the door that should have been locked, Joey turned away from the doorway. He looked at Chris, still standing in the corner, his back to them. He looked at Lance and JC, who were sitting on the bed still, where they’d been sitting when Justin had come in, when Justin had left, when Justin had yelled at them all, had said—

Lance nodded and Joey closed his eyes. When Lance agreed to something, it seemed so *official*, a binding contract almost. And Lance agreeing that the group had just—

That Justin had just—

"We’re fucking idiots," Joey said, more to himself than to anyone else in the room. He saw JC and Lance turn to look at him, both of them nodding slightly, as if they agreed with him, and he saw Chris lower his hands, turning around to face them all, to complete the circle of four.

"*We’re* not the idiots," Chris said. His voice was flat, emotionless. "*He’s* the one who just. *He’s* the—"

"Enough!" Lance stood up from the bed and took a step towards Chris, maybe to hit him, maybe just to look threatening, Joey wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure he cared, either, because it didn’t really matter if Lance hit Chris now, did it? The worst that could happen, in his opinion, already had.

And maybe Chris deserved it, because it was Chris’ words that Justin had reacted to, had referenced in his little speech, the speech that he’d ended with the words ‘No more ‘N SYNC.’ The words that were still echoing in Joey’s ears, playing over and over, like a CD on repeat, a CD that he hated, but he didn’t know where the button was to turn the damn thing off.

He sighed, opening his eyes again, because it wasn’t just Chris, no matter how easy it seemed to be to lay all of the blame on him. That’s what they’d done to Justin, after all, what Justin had said that they’d done to him, anyway. And maybe, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, Joey could see how the kid would view it that way. Maybe.

"We’re *all* idiots," Joey said, louder this time. He looked through the space between Chris and Lance’s tense bodies and saw JC sitting there, staring up at the other two men with wide, frightened eyes.

They’d all been at Denny’s earlier that night, after all, had all steered the subject away from Mill Creek, away from the fucking pie in whatever diner Justin had been talking about. And they’d all been there for the previous six months, too, trying to pretend that *their* Justin had been the one to come back, t cddhat the four months preceding that just hadn’t happened, at all. 

And they’d *all* tried to starve the Kansas-boy out of Justin, except for Lance, maybe, too afraid that he would choose that town over them *again*.

Which he just had, because he’d just said—

Joey raised a hand so that he could rub his face, could card stiff fingers through his hair, and it was as he squished his nose with his palm that he realized that he was numb, inside and out. He turned his head to look towards the still open door, towards the still-empty space inside of that doorway, and the movement was slow, muted, as if he was moving through water, completely in shock.

Because it was real this time.

Justin’s ‘No more ‘N SYNC’ was *real*, a *real* desire to end the group, whereas when Joey had said it not so many months before, it had been different. He’d just been fed up with the inability of the other three men in the group, the same three men who were in the room with him right now, to see that enough had been enough. Enough bickering amongst themselves, enough holding onto false hopes, enough everything. 

It had been different then, though, was different now, and what had felt like a right decision given *those* circumstances felt oh so wrong now, when it wasn’t his decision. Enough *was not* enough, had stopped *being* enough when they’d gone to pick Justin up, and now that they were back on the road, just when their lives were approaching the way that they were supposed to be… 

He wasn’t sure he’d ever believe that enough was enough again. Never.

"We’re not idiots," Chris said forcefully, and Joey turned again to see the older man staring at him. "He’s the one— He fucking— Mother fucking fucking *hell*." Chris’ voice trailed off on the ‘hell’, and he sank to the ground slowly. Joey watched as Chris buried his face in his knees, and even though he tried not to listen, he could hear Chris repeating the words "mother fucking hell" over and over, like a litany, until they were being breathed, sobbed.

Joey coughed softly, trying to clear his throat, to displace the lump that had appeared while watching Chris. He looked up at Lance. "What do we do now?"

Lance stared back at him, the anger that had obviously been directed at Chris fading from his eyes. An eternity or a minute later, Lance shrugged. 

"I don’t know," he said.

If it had been any other situation, if they’d been having a good time, Joey would have laughed and said, "Lance Bass doesn’t know what to do? That must be one of the signs of the apocalypse! Everyone duck! Find somewhere to hide from the end of the world!" 

He’d said something akin to those words before, actually, and they’d all laughed, Joey ducking behind a chair, Justin and Chris both trying to fit under the coffee table, and JC managing to wedge himself under the bed, all while Lance had blushed a deep shade of red. 

It wasn’t so funny now, though, not when the world had already ended as far as Joey was concerned. Because what would his—any of their world’s—be without ‘N SYNC? Nothing. Empty. Empty nothing. 

He could barely even remember a Joey Fatone without the group and there was no ‘N SYNC without Justin Timberlake, and as of that moment, there was no Justin Timberlake in ‘N SYNC. Because he’d just—

Joey closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the back of the chair he was sitting in, felt his breath hitch in his chest, and couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

"The end," he mouthed, and Justin’s parting statement echoed in his head again, and this time he spoke along. "No more ‘N SYNC."
--

The sun had barely started lighting the sky when Justin lifted his backpack off of the hotel room floor and threaded both of his arms through the straps, feeling the pull of the light weight on his shoulders. He wrapped his fingers around the padded straps, holding them in place, balancing himself, almost, trying to hold himself together with that action.

Slowly he turned in a circle, his eyes scanning the room to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything. Once he left, he didn’t want to have to come back, because coming back increased the likelihood of running into someone, which meant conversations, which meant more awkwardness, and Justin couldn’t deal with that. Not this morning, if any hour before seven a.m. could truly be called morning.

He looked in the mirror one more time. The figure reflected back at him was slouched, looking too thin in a baggy flannel shirt and baggier jeans. There was a baseball hat pulled low over his face, but even with the shadow cast by the brim, he could see the blotchiness of his face: the tear irritated skin around his eyes, his grief bitten lips, his nose red from blowing it so often during the night before. Justin reached up and tugged on the brim of the cap, pulling it even lower on his forehead, deepening the shadows in which he was trying to hide.

Taking a deep breath, he turned again, this time towards the door, and he walked towards it, his gait surprisingly even. When he’d rolled off of the bed earlier that morning, his legs had barely supported his weight. He’d had to sit down again.

The doorknob was cool in his hand as he turned it, and then the door was open, and he was staring into the empty hallway. He looked each way and saw that all of the doors were closed and he took another deep breath, this time of partial relief. Closed doors meant that if he was quiet, there was even less of a chance of someone coming out, of someone stopping him from doing what he needed to do.

Tiptoeing almost, and keeping his breathing shallow, he stepped out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. He flinched at the sound of the door latch catching, loud in his ears at least, and then he turned once more and pressed a post-it to the door. He’d scrawled a message on it not five minutes before, just a short explanation. 

*‘Be Back Later,’* he’d written. *‘With Lonnie.’* 

There wasn’t much more he could say than that, after all. And maybe he’d be lucky and be back before they even realized he was gone. 

With deliberate steps, Justin walked down the hallway towards the elevator, his ears unconsciously strained for any sounds of movement behind him, any sounds of anything. Then he was at the elevator at the end of the hallway and he stopped, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt so that he could look at his watch. 

6:45 a.m. exactly.

He was right on time and as he looked at the door closest to him, he saw it open. He tried to smile at Lonnie as his bodyguard stepped into the hallway, too, but he couldn’t, so he just nodded his hello, his good morning. 

If it could be considered a good morning, that was.

"You ready to go, Timberlake?" Lonnie asked, after looking Justin up and down and up again. At Justin’s second nod, he continued, almost conversationally: "I was under the impression that this was a sleepin’ in morning, not a gettin’ up at the ass crack o’ dawn morning."

Justin shrugged and adjusted the straps of his backpack, shifting their positions on his shoulders.

"It’s complicated," he said softly as he pushed the down button for the elevator. "I just need to get out of the hotel, get away from everyone for awhile. You told Randy we’d be back before we were supposed to leave this afternoon?"

Lonnie nodded and pulled his jacket more tightly around him. "This ain’t one of those ‘the sooner we leave, the sooner we get back’ deals?"

Justin shrugged again, shook his head. "I can’t be here this morning. I just can’t. Last night—" He stopped, unable to say the words despite the fact that he’d said them the night before to the only people who really mattered.

"It’s getting worse, ain’t it?" Lonnie asked. "You and them, the tension’s risin’ again?"

"It’s about as bad as it can get," Justin said softly, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the door to the elevator opened without any sounds from any of the rooms behind him. He felt like he should elaborate, say, ‘hey, yeah, so in two months, you’re going to be out of a job, ‘cause guess what, I quit the group last night!’ He didn’t say that, though, couldn’t, because he didn’t know how he was going to tell anyone, not Johnny, his mother, Maggie. How did one bring up a career altering decisions in casual conversation?

Lonnie deserved more than the ‘bad as it can get’ answer, though, so as he stepped into the elevator Justin said, "I don’t think it’s possible for it to get any worse."

Although that was probably a lie, because how would he be able to know how much worse things were going to get before the end of the tour? They still had to promote the CD, after all, still had to work together every day, still had to pretend like everything was right in their worlds so that the fans wouldn’t be disenchanted with them.

As the elevator doors closed, Justin started to shake slightly, because when he thought about it that way, it felt like the worst had probably only just begun.
--

Lance awoke with a start, a sunbeam shining directly onto his face, heating his skin—his whole body—to the point of being too hot. All he could do about it, though, was to move out of the sun because he wasn’t even underneath the covers on his bed.

Quickly, Lance rolled to the side, rolled onto his stomach and away from the light, and with that movement he felt a clunk as his shoes hit against each other. In that moment, all of the events of the night before came rushing back, filling his brain with a reality which certainly could have doubled as a nightmare.

"Nightmare," he said softly, hoping it was, knowing it wasn’t, but wanting proof. As he opened his eyes, he knew that there was simple test to see if everything had been as real as he was afraid it had been.

He rolled onto his back again, his muscles too tense, and then sat up. He looked towards the chair by the hotel window, and saw Joey asleep there, his head leaning back, his mouth wide open. He looked to the wall across from him, then down to the floor, and saw the shattered remains of one of the hotel lamps.

"Sweet Jesus," Lance said, too shocked to speak softly, and he bent his knees up, pulling his thighs to his chest, and rested his forehead on his right kneecap.

He heard sounds of the body in the chair by the window shifting, heard Joey give a confused mumble, and had to resist the urge to smile, because in any other situation a Joey who didn’t know where he was when he woke up was an amusing thing. But not this morning. Nothing would be amusing this morning. He didn’t know when he thought things would ever be amusing again.

"It’s true isn’t it," Lance said, lifting his face away from his legs, and finding Joey staring at him. "I didn’t just dream it?"

Joey shook his head slowly, and Lance saw his frown deepen, the memories of exactly what had happened the night before undoubtedly returning to him as well.

"He said—" Joey said, breaking the sentence off in the middle. 

Then Joey smirked, almost, and Lance asked, "What? What are you smirking for? What is there to smirk about?" The volume of his voice was rising rapidly, he knew, and there was a hard edge to it that grew sharper with every word he spoke.

"I was doing that all last night, this morning, whatever," Joey said softly, looking away from Lance then. Down at his hands. "All I can hear is him saying those words over and over, yet when I try to think them, when I try to say them, I can’t. Ironic, right? I can still hear him saying ‘No more—‘, those *words*, and I can’t even say them."

Lance sighed and closed his eyes, his legs falling down and into the butterfly position. He balanced his elbows on his knees, and massaged his temples with his pointer fingers. He didn’t feel any of the tension in him ease.

"I don’t believe this," he said. "I mean, just yesterday JC came to me, saying that Chris was worried, and here we are, twenty-four hours later, and look at us. What is this, Joe? How did this happen? Did we wake up in an alternate dimension?"

"It feels like it," Joey said. "It does feel like it."

"And he said that he didn’t come down the hallway intending to break up the group," Lance continued. "But he did, spur of the moment like. How the *hell* could he break up the group on a spur of the moment decision?"

"I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking you that question," Joey said, leaning forward, and Lance looked up to meet his eyes. "I’m supposed to be asking you that question and you’re supposed to say something rational, ‘cause you’ve been the rational one since this whole thing started."

"He broke up the group," Lance said. "I think it’s within my rights not to feel rational."

"That’s not what you’re supposed to say, though," Joey said. "You’re supposed to say that he was angry last night, irrational, and maybe if we talk to him today, really talk this all through, then maybe we’ll convince him that this isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe we’ll talk to him and he’ll say that it was a mistake and we can put this all behind us."

Lance blinked, then blinked again, and stared at Joey.

"Did you feel like this after you said ‘no more’ last spring?" he asked. "Did it feel this wrong to you, because I don’t remember it feeling this wrong."

Joey shook his head. "This feels wrong to me, but that could just be because I’m not the one saying the words this time."

"No, this feels worse. Last spring, you were the only one with the courage enough to say what needed to be said. I couldn’t, obviously, and JC couldn’t, and we all know that Chris never will."

"Chris never will," Joey echoed. "Which leaves me and Justin."

"Justin," Lance said. He felt a growl rising in his throat, his lips pulling back into a snarl and he wondered at himself, because Joey was right. He was the one who had been rational throughout the entire ordeal with Justin being gone. He was the one who had told Justin not to come back, to do what he needed to do. So why was he reacting the way he was now, when Justin had apparently done what he needed to do?

Maybe because he’d understood the urge to get away from it all for awhile, to be that normal teenager, but he would never understand the urge to throw away everything. He’d never wanted to, not even when he’d nearly done it himself, when he’d told Justin that they didn’t know where he was, when he’d told Britney that he’d told Justin that, when JC had overheard him tell Britney that he’d told Justin that…

Joey had been the one to say the word ‘Enough’ the spring before, but it had been Lance who had done the damage.

But he’d done the damage so that Justin could at least have a chance of being whole when he returned. Or being wholer. But apparently he’d overestimated Justin’s recuperation abilities, because he’d seemed better, but it was obvious now that he so obviously wasn’t. And Lance had done everything he’d done *for* Justin, he’d known the risks, yes—because he wouldn’t have been Lance Bass if he hadn’t thought that all through—but he’d *never* wanted to quit. And he didn’t understand why any of the other guys would want to, didn’t understand how they could want to, not when the world was still their oyster and they were still reaping pearls upon more pearls.

Yet, he was still the rational one. Joey was right about that. It was his job to be rational and say things like: ‘Maybe he was just speaking in the heat of the moment? Maybe we should go talk to him? See if he really meant it?’

So he said them.

"Maybe we should go talk to C and Chris," Joey said, pushing himself up and out of the chair. Lance watched as the other man raised his hands above his head and twisted around, his back cracking with a series of small pops.

"Why’d you spend the night in my chair, anyway?" Lance asked, scooting off of the bed and standing up, too. "C and Chris left sometime after I was asleep, I guess."

"Didn’t want to go back to my empty room," Joey said. "I’m feeling alone enough right now, you know?"

"I know," Lance said. 

He walked across his room and opened the door, which Chris or JC must have shut on their way out, and stepped out into the hallway. He found himself looking directly into Chris’ room, the door open, and he saw JC sitting on the floor, his back to the dresser.

"Hey," Lance said, and it was a natural instinct to smile when JC turned to him. 

JC didn’t return his smile. Instead, he held up a small piece of paper, a post-it note, and Lance looked back at Joey for a second, noting the confused look on the other man’s face, and then walked into Chris’ room.

"He’s gone," JC said, before Lance could reach out to take the note from him, and Lance felt his heart stop. Again, he thought. He fucking left again.

"Not *gone* gone," JC continued, "but he left with Lonnie sometime before seven this morning. Randy said that he called their room at 6:15, asking if Lonnie could be ready to go at 6:45."

"Where’d he go?" Joey asked from behind Lance. "Does the note say when he’ll be back? Where he went?"

JC shook his head and brought the note back down to his eye level, so that he could read it again. "It just says that he’ll be back, that he’s with Lonnie. Nothing more."

Lance nodded and looked over at the bed in the room, where Chris was curled up in a fetal position, staring at the window of the hotel room, apparently at the building across the street.

"Joey and I were talking," he said slowly. "We think we should talk to Justin today, maybe before we get on the busses tonight. Maybe he didn’t really mean what he said."

"I’m not riding on a bus with him," Chris said, his voice raw, ragged.

"You can ride with us," Joey said before Lance could say anything. "But Lance is right, we need to talk to him. It could have just been a heat of the moment thing, right? Maybe he didn’t really mean it?"

"He meant it," Chris said, still not looking at either Lance or Joey. "You don’t say things like ‘No more ‘N SYNC’ and not fucking mean it. He meant it. He’d better have meant it."

"But we still need to talk," Joey said. "We’ve got god knows how long left in this tour. Our CD is coming out so soon and we need to talk, get the tension out of the air, you know?"

Lance saw movement on the bed, an arm working it’s way out from underneath the covers, and then he saw a hand with the middle finger raised in the air and only the middle finger raised in the air.

"That’s Justin’s problem, isn’t it?" Chris asked, sarcastically. "Oh, wait, I’m sorry. Of course it’s not Justin’s problem, just like nothing that’s been going on is Justin’s problem. Just like he didn’t fucking end the group last night."

"We need to talk to him," JC said. "That’s why I found this this morning," he continued, raising the note in his hand again. "I wanted to talk to him."

"We do need to talk to him," Joey said. "Because maybe he didn’t mean it. We can always hope he didn’t mean it, right?"

"He meant it," Chris said again and Lance let his chin drop to his chest, because he had to agree with Chris on that one. If he were living in fantasyland he could pretend that Justin had just been behaving irrationally, but in the real world, he didn’t see how that could be, not really.

Justin had lost it, had lost control of what had apparently been very tightly controlled emotions. The night before, for the first time since Justin had returned, since they’d picked him up, he felt as if Justin had been telling them all the complete and honest truth. He’d finally let out his pent up emotions, and the words he’d spoken… At least Justin had believed them to be the truth. That was what mattered.

"He meant it," Lance said softly yet firmly, "but that doesn’t me we can’t try to talk him out of it."
--

A gentle breeze played with the curls at the back of Justin’s head, ruffling them where they were pinned beneath the edge of his baseball cap. Even though it wasn’t cold out, could only really be considered cool, he shivered slightly as the breeze touched his skin, working it’s way through his clothes.

He looked around the park that he was sitting in. He was camped out on a bench at the edge of a grove of tall trees, as far away from the main pathway as he could get. He was sitting in the shadows, his flannel shirt pulled tightly around him. Lonnie sat in a sunny spot about twenty feet away. Close enough to protect, if need be, but far enough away to give Justin the privacy he needed.

Because that was why he was out there, after all. For privacy. So that he could gain some measure of control over his emotions before he had to face the rest of the guys. Because he was sure that time had to pass faster out in the real world than it had been passing inside of his hotel room.

*Did I really mean it?* Justin looked down at the journal in his lap, at the words he’d written when he first sat down. *Did I really mean what I said last night? When I said what I said?* 

He lowered his pen back to the page, writing again. *And I can’t even write those words again. Writing them makes them real. But I did mean them. I did. Because I can’t handle the things that have been going on. I don’t want to handle them; I shouldn’t have to handle them. Group means *group* and it has been them and me for too long now and maybe that’s my fault, but.*

He blinked once, twice, and swallowed.

*They didn’t even try to argue with me. They didn’t even try to stop me when I left, didn’t call out after me. Why didn’t they call out after me? I would have called out after them, right? If it had been one of them saying what I said? I did argue with them, didn’t I? Last year? When I was gone and they were here and they were saying that they were going to quit if I didn’t come back and I said that I would be back, I just needed more time. I argued with them then, but there I was, standing in front of them, and they didn’t even try to convince me not to change my mind.* 

Justin swallowed again, convulsively almost, feeling tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t think he had any tears left in him, though, not with the amount that he’d cried since he’d left Lance’s hotel room early that morning.

*Maybe they were ready for it to all be over, too. But why should they be ready for it to be over. I’m the one who’s miserable, I’m the one who they were taking for granted, and I’m the one who they were hurting. So maybe they were in shock. Maybe they were going to talk to me today, give me some time to cool off.*

*I don’t want them to talk to me today. I don’t want them to try to convince me that we should keep going, to make things like they were before. I can’t do before anymore. But if they try to talk me out of this, will I be able to stand strong? Stand up for my rights? Did I really mean*

Justin jerked when he heard his cell phone start to ring. It was one of the other guys, he was sure. Calling to yell at him, ask him why the hell he’d left the hotel and where the hell was he and what the hell did he think he was doing and… and he couldn’t talk to them. 

Taking a deep breath, he reached into his backpack and pulled out his cell phone, looking at the caller ID screen, expecting to see Lance’s or JC’s number there. Maybe Joey’s, not Chris’. Instead, though, it was Maggie.

Maggie, whom he’d called early that morning for comfort. Maggie, who hadn’t been there, hadn’t called him back after she got home from the party—although there was no reason she should have; he hadn’t left a message asking her to. Maggie, whom he’d be with again in two months, maybe less if they couldn’t manage to hold the group together until the end of the tour.

Maggie. The only person he’d wanted to talk to that morning, but who was now among the group of people that he had no idea of what to say to.

As he was staring at the caller ID screen, trying to make his finger move to press the answer call button, the ringing stopped and he realized that it had rung four times already, that he’d just avoided his girlfriend’s call.

He swallowed, fighting the gag reflex that had kicked in as soon as he’d imagined telling her exactly what had happened, and then he lowered the phone and placed it on the bench beside him.

He wrote: *I have to tell people sometime. I have to tell Johnny. I should ask my mother how I should tell Johnny. Then I’ll call Johnny. Then I’ll call Maggie back, after I’ve had some practice saying the words. Need practice saying the words. Need to make it real before I tell her, don’t want to cry about it anymore."

Swallowing again and taking his umpteenth deep breath that morning, Justin picked the phone up again and scrolled down the phonebook section until he saw his mother’s phone number. He took another deep breath and pressed the send button.

With an exaggeratedly slow movement, Justin brought the phone to his ear, and listened as it rang.

"Don’t answer. Don’t answer." He breathed the words more than said them, and even as the action of actually calling his mother belied the words, he meant them to a certain extent. If his mother didn’t answer, he wouldn’t have to tell her yet. But if she didn’t answer, he’d be no farther along than he was right then. And he wanted—needed—to be farther along.

Suddenly the ringing stopped and was replaced by a voice. "Justin, baby?"

"Yeah," Justin said, his voice rough, the word trying to catch in his throat. "It’s me."

Bad idea, he thought. It was a bad idea to call her first. He should have called Maggie, then Johnny, then his mother as soon as everything was taken care of. Or Johnny first, then Maggie, then his mother, then Maggie again so that he could let out all of his pent up emotions regarding his mother’s reaction to his news.

Not that he thought she’d truly freak out—although he was about to find out—because the only truly good thing that had happened upon his return had been his mother turning into super-supportive-mom. Sometimes he thought she was trying to win the award for Best Mom Ever after so many years of being anything but. She was still spokesperson for many runaway awareness groups, had really thrown herself into service organizations like that, and she told their story as often as she could to the media, "to bring hope to others facing the same horrible experience she had."

She had yelled at him, of course, the day after the guys had gone to the basketball game. She’d flown to Wichita with his stepfather, Paul, his father, Randall, his stepmother, Lisa, and his brothers, Jonathon and Steven. They’d all yelled and then there had been hugs and tears and more hugs and then more tears, and Steven hadn’t let go of his hand for a whole two hours.

"What’s up, sweetie?" she asked, breaking him out of his reverie, and he suddenly realized that he’d been sitting there silently for several seconds. "This is your travel day, isn’t it? I would have thought you’d still be sleeping."

"I, um," he said, then rolled his shoulders and neck, taking a deep breath at the same time. "I, um. There was. Last night, I—" He stopped speaking, swallowed and then swallowed again.

"What is it, honey?" his mother asked, and Justin cringed as she said the term of endearment, the third in as many sentences as she’d spoken.

"I, um," he said again, then took another deep breath, and spoke the next words in a rush. "You’ve been able to tell something’s been wrong, right? I mean, when we’ve talked, you’ve asked me if I’m sure everything’s okay, and I’ve said ‘yeah, sure, it’s all normal.’ Well things haven’t been okay, and last night things came to a head, and I quit the group—" Suddenly there were not only tears in his eyes, but they were dribbling down his cheeks, too. "—and I’m so sorry, Mommy. I tried. I tried, and they kept saying things and making me feel guilty, and I couldn’t take it anymore and I tried, I really did."

"Justin," Lynn said. "Justin, slow down, okay? Take a deep breath and tell me what happened again slowly, okay?"

Justin took a deep breath, one he knew she could hear, and then waited for her to speak again, to take the lead in the conversation.

"Now, yes, I knew that things had been a little tense since you went on tour, but what’s this about you quitting the group? You actually flat out said, ‘I quit the group’? You aren’t just thinking about it?"

Justin nodded. "I quit. I said ‘no more.’ Well, I yelled it, actually, or did I yell the things I said before that? I don’t remember. It’s sort of a blur. But there was yelling on my part, because they were talking behind my back *again*. And they can’t understand that I do have a life beyond ‘N SYNC now."

"Of course you do," Lynn said, "but that wasn’t the reason you broke up the group, is it? So that you could get back to your ‘other life,’ as you call it? Because remember, we talked about that, honey. ‘N SYNC won’t be forever, but the rest of the world will always be there."

"Of course that’s not the reason I quit," he growled, because it wasn’t. "I quit because of the rest of the guys. Because they haven’t given me a chance since they picked me up. Because I can’t put up with their snide comments and the daily arguments and the fact that I’m not the Justin they wanted back. I don’t want to be that Justin anymore, I didn’t like that Justin, but they don’t want me. They want him. I can’t be him again, Mommy. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t."

"Shh, baby. It’ll be okay. Just shh, okay?"

Justin closed his eyes and he could almost picture his mother walking towards him, her arms open and ready to hug him. He wanted that. He wanted a hug.

"This just came to a head last night," he said. "I got mad, I said that I quit, and now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to the other guys. I don’t know how to tell Johnny. Do I just call him and say, ‘yo, after this tour I’m done?’"

"Well, I wouldn’t recommend saying it like that," she said, and if the situation hadn’t been serious, he would have imagined her laughing. Those were the sort of words one said while laughing, anyway. "You’re ready to talk to Johnny, then? You’re absolutely positive that this is what you want to do. This isn’t just a normal group argument that got out of control."

"I’m not going to back down on this," Justin said, and his voice was watery, but there was still some strength left in it. "I can’t, don’t you see? If I do, things are going to go back to the way they’ve been. They’ll make me feel guilty for loving Maggie and being friends with Stu and missing the things that I had there, the camaraderie that I developed there. I shouldn’t feel guilty about those things, they shouldn’t make me feel guilty."

"No," Lynn said. "They shouldn’t make you feel guilty. It’s in the past; we’ve all moved beyond that. No one should make my baby boy feel guilty."

Justin felt the corners of his lips twitch, but he couldn’t smile. Not yet. His mother’s words imbued him with a slight amount of confidence.

"I chose them, right? When we got back, I very easily could have said ‘screw this all’, but I didn’t. And they don’t seem to get that. I chose them, I wanted to be back, yet… I can’t be the person they want me to be. I never will be again. I don’t want to be again, and if that means giving up the group…"

"Shh," Lynn said again. "Shh."

"I need to call Johnny," Justin said before his mother could launch into the speech that he was sure she wanted to give, trying to change his mind. But in a way she’d come to understand. 

She loved Maggie and had already made reference to her being the future daughter-in-law. (Justin had protested that on the general principle of him being only nineteen, no matter what thoughts he’d had along those same lines himself.) She’d been proud of Justin’s exploits on the basketball court, using some of her connections to get copies of every photograph of him taken at any of the games, a copy of every article that had mentioned ‘Randy Smith.’ She’d understood how much he’d loved it, although part of him thought that she’d only been so understanding because he’d been so successful there, living in anonymity. It gave her more things to brag about. Her son could do no wrong, no matter if he was calling himself Justin Timberlake or not.

"What do I say to him, to make him understand that this is what I want?" he asked. "What do I need to do to make this official?"

And those words, like he’d known they would, sent her into business mode, watching out for her baby who had been wronged. Making sure that he came first.

"Well," she said, "this is what *I’d* say to him…"
--

Maggie sighed as she pulled the phone away from her ear, the sound of Justin’s voicemail message still echoing in her ear. Not that it wasn’t good to hear Justin’s voice, of course, even if it was in message form, but it wasn’t Justin. It wasn’t Justin talking to her.

Sometimes, something as simple as that made her realize how far apart they really were, because she’d get the message and she’d have no clue where he was or what he was doing. Sometimes, on her really insecure days, she’d feel like since she didn’t know that, she didn’t know him at all.

She pressed the off button on the phone, set it down on her desk, and then folded herself down so that her forehead was pressed to the flat surface.

"Not answering?" Beth asked and Maggie nodded, a jerky movement given that her forehead was braced on her desk and that she didn’t raise her head to look at her roommate.

"That’s odd," Beth continued. "You’d think he’d want to know that you survived last night’s activities in one piece and, well, without *too* much of a headache."

"Speak for yourself," Maggie said, and she did lift her head then, the throbbing in the middle of her forehead intensifying. "You’re the one who can drink a fifth and be as perky as a cheerleader the next morning. For which, I think I should mention, I hate you."

Beth laughed, a rather high pitched sound, and Maggie cringed.

"Some of us have worked at achieving such high tolerances, you know," her roommate said. "With practice I know that you can achieve those high tolerances, too. It’s a worthy goal, M. We should work on it."

"You’re on." Maggie smirked and grimaced even at that movement. "Provided, of course, that I ever drink again."

Beth rolled her eyes. "Don’t be such a spoily-sport. So you aren’t feeling peachy-keen this morning, you were having a good time last night, right? You sure looked like you were, anyway."

Maggie couldn’t help but grin, despite the fact that the action required using muscles that her head didn’t seem to want her using.

Yes, she had had a good time the night before, what with the drinking and the dancing (once Stu had rescued her from scary boy, at least) and the staying out until nearly three, and she’d had more fun than she’d ever imagined she would. Because once Stu had started dancing with her and hadn’t stopped, even though she’d said he could, her fears that the night would be a repeat of every awkward party experience she’d ever had never come to pass.

"Well, it was a fun party," Maggie said, "and you looked like you were having a good time, too. What was up with you and that guy? The one you spent the whole night dancing with? Did you give him your number? Is he going to call you?"

Beth waved one hand in front of her face, dismissing Maggie’s question. "Nah. I wasn’t looking for anything deep and meaningful last night, just a night of anonymous grinding and groping and dancing, with optional kissage. But that’s enough about me. What I want to hear about is you and our dear friend Stu-boy. You can’t tell me that there wasn’t a little sumpin-sumpin going on there." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Maggie grinned, couldn’t really help it—it was a habit she’d developed way back when, when she and Josh had first started flirting, or whatever it was thirteen-year olds did. Emily had called her on it, crowing, "You like him! You like him!" over and over again until Maggie had been forced to hit her. She was pretty sure that she’d reacted the same way when Emily had started teasing her about Justin, well, *Randy*, before she’d even admitted to herself that she felt something beyond platonic friendship for him. Not, of course, that she thought of Stu as anything more than a friend, because that’s all he was, but, she realized, she apparently got a stupid grin on her face whenever anyone teased her about a boy.

"What about me and our dear friend Stu-boy?" she asked. "He saved me from dancing with scary boy last night. That’s all."

"He was with you the whole night," Beth said, sitting up on her bed, swinging her legs over the side, and letting her feet dangle. "He glared at anyone who had the gall to even look your way."

Maggie felt a heat rise in her cheeks and was sure that she was turning an unflattering shade of pink. 

"He did not. You’re exaggerating. He saved me from that one boy, and decided to grace me with his presence for the rest of the night because there weren’t any girls that caught his eye." She ducked her head. "That’s what he told me anyway, but knowing him, he’d probably hooked up with one too many girls there already. He used to be quite the player back in the day, you know, before he and Emily got together."

Beth shook her head, laughing. "You can believe what you want, chica, but from my position as observer last night—and I could tell this even in my inebriated state—I can tell you that he was daring any other guy to do so much as look at you. He was giving definite hands-off-y vibes."

It was Maggie’s turn to raise her hand, to brush away the statement. "Well, maybe you’re right and he was giving hands-off-y vibes or something like that, but he was just looking out for me. Knowing Justin, he probably asked Stu to. As if Justin would have to worry about other guys taking me away from him." 

She rolled her eyes, trying to look like she was just joking a little bit, poking fun at her oh-so-obvious devotion to her boyfriend. In her own brain, though, she couldn’t help but mentally elaborate on the other connotation of the sentence: that no other guy would want her, so Justin wouldn’t have to worry about her going off with anyone else, would he? Emily and Beth never let her dwell on those insecurities, though, not the few times she’d actually verbalized them to the two other girls. "Of course other guys will want you," they’d said over and over between the two of them, and Maggie hadn’t been able to do anything but smile falsely and nod, trying to end the conversation. 

She knew she’d never be able to put into words just how much she’d been scarred by Josh’s breakup with her and her subsequent ostracization. To go from feeling cared for, being loved, to not even being good enough to look at in the hallways… 

And to do it in a town the size of Mill Creek where the person that was the subject of the gossip was the last one to hear it… 

No one had wanted her for three years, not until Justin had come along as her disguised prince in shining armor, and could she really be blamed for believing that Justin was a fluke? That one day he’d wake up, smell the proverbial coffee, look at her picture—since undoubtedly he’d be on tour—and say to himself, "What am I doing this for? Why am I still with her?" and then she’d be alone again. And no one would want her.

Justin. 

She looked down at the phone lying on her desk and picked it up again, running her fingers over the smooth plastic. She wanted to call him again, to see if maybe he’d answer the phone *this* time, but she couldn’t. She’d just called, not even ten minutes before, and he hadn’t answered. The phone had rung four times, and then his voice mail had kicked on. He’d see that she’d called, that she’d returned his call from the night before, and he’d call her back when he was ready.

"You trying again?" Beth asked, and Maggie shook her head.

"It hasn’t even been ten minutes," she said. She rubbed one finger over the plastic casing again. "He’ll see that I called. Don’t want to go all psycho-stalker girlfriend on him."

"That’s not going all psycho-stalker girlfriend on him. You’re just a concerned girlfriend who hasn’t talked to her honey in what, thirty-six hours? Is that an all-time record?"

Maggie rolled her eyes and shook her head. She braced her hands on the desktop and pushed herself up, intent on getting back to her bed and crawling under the covers again, on burying her head underneath her pillow until her headache went away.

"He’ll call me back when he’s ready," she said. "He’s probably off doing something really important right now and he’ll call me back when he’s got time."
--

Joey shut the door to Chris’ hotel room and sighed, leaning back against it even as he raised his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He moved the tips of his fingers in tight circles, hoping to alleviate some of the tension that had settled in the middle of his forehead.

It didn’t work.

Five hours he’d been sitting in that room with the rest of the guys, since he and Lance had left Lance’s room and walked across the hall to read the note that Justin had left. Five hours in which Chris had attached every swear word he knew to Justin’s name, in which they’d started to reminisce about the good times in tones that suggested they knew the good times would probably never be there again. Five hours in which absolutely *nothing* had been accomplished, as far as Joey was concerned: no plans of attack, no true willingness on their side to concede anything, no nothing.

Five hours in which he’d decided he didn’t want to be the rational one anymore, but he knew that if he didn’t play that role, none of the other guys would. Chris was irrational, Lance was mad as hell, and JC was just sitting there, a statue, not trying to force his will on anyone. They’d all just sat there, bringing up every wrong that Justin had ever committed, and Joey hadn’t been able to do anything but listen to them. He hadn’t talked, hardly at all, anyway, and had spent most of the morning staring out the window, watching the birds that flew by. He’d lost count at sixty-seven.

None of the rest of the guys seemed to understand that he had as much reason to hate Justin as the rest of them did, maybe more of a reason, even. Their professional lives hadn’t changed that much when Justin had left, when he’d returned again. Lance had still been the bass, Chris’d still been the one with the high-pitched voice, and JC still the co-lead singer. 

It was Joey, *Joey* who had been the one bumped up from supporting singer to the lead position, and then when Justin returned, back down to the supporting role that he’d always played.

Yes, it had hurt. Yes, he’d been mad. Yes, nearly every night over the summer he’d bitched at Kelly for hours on end, but in the end, he’d gotten over it. ‘N SYNC was a certain way, had always been a certain way, and would continue to be a certain way until they ended it, and the fans paid to see Justin in the leading role, not Joey.

He pushed himself away from the door and pinched the bridge of his nose one more time before letting his hands fall to his sides. He stared at Justin’s door, the door that they’d all heard shut not ten minutes before. He’d left the room that he’d been sitting in for the previous five hours so he could ask Justin if he wanted to ride on the two person bus with Joey, since Chris and empathetically refused to ride with him, and JC had gotten all fidgety when asked if he’d be able to handle it.

The hallway was too silent as he walked down it. His feet hardly made any sound on the carpet, and there were no sounds from behind any of the doors that he passed. Obviously, since the other guys were all in Chris’ room still.

Then he was at Justin’s door, staring at the gold numbers nailed to the wood. He held his breath as he raised a fist to knock on the door, then, on impulse, leaned forward to see if he could hear anything, Justin. It was possible, of course, that the door they’d heard closing had been one of the bodyguards coming back, closing the one of the doors to their rooms. Joey leaned farther forward, turning his head, and pressed his ear to the cool wood.

"Tell him it’s Justin Timberlake," he heard, and Joey frowned, furrowed his brow, not knowing for sure who Justin was calling, but feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach as he realized it must be a management person, Johnny probably. Unless Justin had already called him that morning, while he’d been gone. Then, "Hey, Johnny. This is Justin."

Joey took a quick gasping breath and resisted the urge to step away from the door fully. Calling Johnny was official, was even more official than Lance agreeing that Justin had just ended the group.

Joey held his breath again, straining to hear what Justin was saying, since the kid’s voice had just gotten quieter, as if he were walking away from the door.

"Listen," Justin said, and then paused for a brief instant before starting again. "Do you think you’d be able to join us on tour this week?" Another pause. "Why? Because things are bad here, worse than they’ve been before. And I need to talk to you about breaking my contract."

The last sentence was said in a rush, but Joey hardly registered it. One of his hands had had unconsciously curled into a fist and his fingernails were cutting into his palm, the tendril of pain anchoring him in the reality that he didn’t want to be living.

"Yes," Justin continued, and his voice was getting louder again, as if he was coming towards the door. Joey decided that the kid must be pacing. "The other guys know. We had a-a blowup last night, and I told them I quit." Pause. "No, I don’t think things are going to get better." Then, "Friday? Okay."

Joey did step away from the door then. Friday. They had until Friday before Johnny came and there were broken contracts and the end of the end actually happened. He raised his fingers to pinch at his nose again, rubbing with more force than he had before. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had a bruise there the next day. He didn’t know how he was going to explain that one away.

Even though his ear wasn’t pressed to the door anymore, he heard Justin say goodbye, even heard the little musical sound as the cell phone was shut off, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know whether to ask Justin if he wanted Joey as a bus-mate, or if he should ride with the other three that night, to try to make them care enough to fight for the group when he hadn’t been able to make them care enough that morning. And he didn’t know whether *he* really wanted to spend the whole night *alone* on the bus with Justin.

He didn’t have time to truly make a decision, though, because as he was standing there, having an internal debate, Justin’s door opened and the kid, his eyes rimmed red and his curls in disarray, was staring at him.

"I thought I heard someone moving around out here, mumbling," Justin said. His voice sounded raw to Joey, and suddenly he was even more glad that they didn’t have a show that night. It would, probably, have been the worst show ever.

When Joey didn’t say anything for a few seconds, Justin started fidgeting. "What do you want, Joe?"

Joey swallowed once, rather harshly, and rubbed his sweat-slick palm over his hair. He didn’t want to talk to Justin, didn’t want to be the rational one anymore. He wanted to yell at Justin, shake him, act like the rest of the guys were acting. But he couldn’t. Because he *needed* ‘N SYNC intact, and for that, he needed to be able to communicate with the kid.

"I wanted to tell you," he said slowly, his voice infused with the sudden anger that he’d felt, that he’d just as suddenly tried to banish. "I wanted to tell you that Chris and JC are riding with me an Lance tonight." He swallowed again. "And that tomorrow we need to talk. All of us."

"I don’t have anything to say to you all," Justin said, and as Joey watched him, he seemed to lean more heavily against the door. "I said it all last night."

"We need to talk," Joey said again. "You trying to tell me that you’re never going to talk to any of us ever again? You’re just going to walk out of our lives again, truly throw away everything that we’ve worked for this time?"

Justin gave Joey a rather sickly smile. "I already did, didn’t I?"

"We gotta talk this through, kid," Joey said. "You have complaints, we have complaints. We listen to each other, try to take action and make things work. That’s how we’ve always worked."

"Maybe I’m tired of listening," Justin said.

"But maybe we aren’t," Joey said.

"Because you guys haven’t been listening at all, ever!" The volume of Justin’s voice started to rise again. "None of you all have been listening to me since I got back, and I know I said this last night." He took a deep breath, ragged. "You should have all known I wanted to be here, with you guys. But I can’t live with this amount of distrust being directed at me anymore. I shouldn’t have to, so I’m not going to."

Joey opened his mouth again, but Justin cut him off. "Fine, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll tell the rest of the guys what I just told you, and then we’ll see how much there is to talk about, okay?"

Joey jerked a nod, feeling as if a fist were tightening around his windpipe. He could see pain in Justin, but determination, too. And the kid was stubborn, almost never changed his mind once he’d made it up.

It was going to be an uphill battle, Joey could tell already, and he prayed to whatever gods looked out for struggling music groups, that he’d have the strength to see this fight through.

He needed to see this fight through.

"Tomorrow then," he said, and turned from the door, deciding to head back to his own room. He couldn’t handle the rest guys. Not yet, again, especially if he was going to be spending the entire night with them.

"Oh, Joe?" Justin asked, and Joey looked over his shoulder at him. The kid’s eyes looked damp, and his face even paler than it had been when he’d first opened the door. When he spoke again, his voice bordered on raspy. "I called Johnny. He’ll be here on Friday with contracts and stuff. If you want to tell the rest of the guys that."

Then the door was shutting, then it was closed and locked, and Joey was alone in the hallway. He started walking back towards his room again.
--

The bus was too empty, too silent as Justin walked up the stairs. Normally it seemed to be far too small, not nearly large enough to contain three hyperactive men, but right then, it was huge, cavernous, empty.

He dropped his backpack on the first empty surface he saw—of which there were far too many, because normally JC and Chris had their stuff spread out, too: notebooks and pens and video games. But now it was just him, alone on the bus, for the entire night until they got to their hotel.

This would be his life now, though, he thought, so he’d better get used to it. He’d officially built the wall between ‘him’ and ‘them’ and now he had to deal with the consequences. He had to embrace the consequences. He had to look on the bright side of things, see his actions for the good that they truly were.

Being alone on the bus, for instance, meant that he wouldn’t be interrupted when he tried to talk to Maggie. That was of the good, most definitely. And he needed to talk to her, because she’d called that morning and then again, sometime after he’d had his confrontation with Joey. The confrontation which had started him shaking again, which had started the tears welling up in his eyes again, which had led to him sitting on the floor of his hotel room, back to the dresser for some unknown amount of time.

But he needed to call Maggie. He needed to tell her. He just didn’t know what to say. Because two people down, two people told, and he still didn’t know how to say the words without stumbling over them. Stumbling over them far more than a person who was as sure of himself as Justin was pretending he was would do.

He picked up his backpack again, opened the front compartment, and pulled out his phone. He stared at the caller ID screen for a moment, then manually dialed her number. It took longer that way. But then the numbers were all there, and he’d pressed the ‘send’ button, and there was a ringing in his ear, and then there was a familiar voice saying, "Hey!" with that warm tone to it that he loved.

"Hey," he said, and he walked down the aisle of the bus, to his bunk. He crawled up and onto the mattress and pulled the curtain closed, despite the fact that Tommy wasn’t even onboard yet.

"What’s up?" Maggie asked. "I’m sorry I missed your call this morning. I was really tired when I got back last night—and a little plastered—and then I tried calling you twice today, but you didn’t answer, and I figured you must be busy doing some group stuff I didn’t know about, and."

Justin almost smirked as she paused, taking a very audible deep breath. He didn’t say anything, though, and waited for her to continue, hoping that she’d give him an opening into saying what he needed to say.

"Sorry, I’m rambling. Was there a reason you called last night?"

And there was his opening.

"Yeah," he said slowly, that goddamn lump rising in his throat *again.* "I was, um, wondering if you knew where I could get an application for Wichita U for next Spring, Winter, whatever the term is that starts in January."

He held his breath as he waited for her to say something, anything.

"Justin?" she finally said, a forever of a time later. "Justin, what are you talking about? What are you saying?"

He felt the tears come, then, the relief of finally having told her, after he’d wanted to do nothing but since he’d called her too early that morning. And he told her, just like he’d told the guys, like he’d told his mother, Johnny. She just sat in silence as he talked.
--

Maggie stared at the door in front of her, her eyes skimming over the messages on the whiteboard as she waited for Stu to answer her knock. She knew he was there, he had to be there, she didn’t know what she’d do if he wasn’t there.

"Coming, coming," she heard from inside of the room. They were followed by a muffled curse, and then Maggie though she heard someone hopping towards the door, the slap of a foot hitting linoleum repeatedly. Indeed, when Stu opened the door, he was hunched over, holding his right foot up in the air behind him.

"Mags," he said, smiling at her. He straightened up and dropped his foot to the floor. "It’s a little early for dinner, isn’t it?"

Maggie nodded. They always went and got dinner at the dining commons together, but it was only a little after four. No place would be open until five.

Looking at Stu, she felt her lip start to tremble. He was just standing there smiling, totally oblivious as to the fact that the world as she knew it, they knew it, as Justin knew it, had fallen apart.

Stu apparently saw the change in her demeanor and he stepped forward, out into the hallway, to give her a hug. "Mags? What’s the matter? Is everything okay? Your parents? Emily? Justin?"

Maggie tensed at her boyfriend’s name, and Stu must have felt that, because he pulled away from her slightly. With one index finger, he raised her chin so that she was looking at him. He was looking fearful now, too. "Justin’s okay, right? Did something happen to him?"

Maggie nodded, slightly. Technically Justin was alright, after all. Technically.

"He quit," she said softly, moving her chin away from Stu’s finger so that she could look down at the rough, generic gray carpet of the hallway again. "They had a big blowup this morning and he quit. He quit the group, Stu. He asked me if I’d get him an application here for Spring semester."

When Stu didn’t say anything for a moment or two, Maggie looked up at him, through damp eyelashes.

"He quit," Stu repeated, his voice emotionless. "Just like that."

"He wants to come back here," she said. "To us. And I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad, because I want that, oh god, do I want him back here. But at that price… He sounded so unhappy, Stu. I want to go to him, he needs me. But he said I shouldn’t. I want to go, though. I don’t feel like I can do anything from here, and he needs—"

Her voice caught, and she couldn’t keep speaking.

Stu stepped forward again, pulling her into another hug, and she nestled her face against his t-shirt-covered chest. She felt him run a hand up and down her back, soothing her.

"I know, sweetie," he said. "I know."