It is a truth universally acknowledged that any fan fiction writer who has ever put finger to keyboard is going to suffer through numerous bouts of writer’s block. I, sad to say, can remember every last one of them. They’re very easily identifiable from re-reading my previous work; I basically look for the segments that make me cringe the most. We’re not just talking about the cringe of early ‘I was eighteen and had a mild case of teenybopperitis’ work, we are talking about the ‘what was I smoking’ segments. These are made all the more pitiful by the fact that I don’t actually smoke anything - I tried to be a rebel at fifteen but tobacco apparently makes me cough myself to near death. It turns out I’m about as bad as tapioca pudding.

I digress. Failed attempts at rebellion aside, writer’s block is what I would like to call a pain in the bloody arse (this is my only sadness about writing for American characters, I don’t get to use the word ‘arse’ nearly enough). Having been annoyed by stories that I got really into that then suddenly ceased to be updated for weeks on end I have a pathological fear of subjecting anybody bored enough to browse my URL to the same irritation – that’s another truth universally acknowledged amongst fan fiction writers, that writer’s block is an even bigger pain in the arse when you don’t want to keep anybody waiting for updates. I’ve been suffering from it a bit lately, not sure how I’ve managed to throw out new chapters with any kind of regularity.

Well… I have an update for everyone now, and it’s definitely going to make them ask what I’ve been smoking… heh.

Funnily enough it’s an update for a story I’ve long since finished. Even funnier, it’s an update for a story that I never had a single bit of trouble throwing out endless updates for. Depending on how kind I feel towards it, in Hollie World it is usually referred to as ‘my epic’ or ‘my monster’ in allusion to its sheer length. I’ve never had the energy to write a story that long since, not sure how I managed it the first time. Since then I have come to the conclusion that quality trumps quantity, even if only for time management purposes; I like writing and would spend all day doing it if I could but the grocery shopping does not do itself. Sadly, neither does the cleaning - that would be just awesome. I especially hate doing the floors.

This update is… well, unexpected to say the least. I’m not a big fan of revisiting finished tales. I always know in my own head how my characters’ lives go after I stop telling their story (Chelsea’s next adventure is organising an insanely huge wedding for Ms Lumos and her latest Hollywood whirlwind romance while Justin sweats over it possibly making her want a rock on her own finger) but I’m not a big fan of stretching the little universe of each particular story past its sell by date. That may just be because it seems cruel of me to be so evil to the same set of characters twice… my characters are oddly real to me. They are even more so now with this new update.

If you haven’t already been put off and you decide to read on you are, quite frankly, going to think I’m insane.

Crazy.

Stark raving mad.

Loopy.

Escaped from the asylum.

Two fries short of a Happy Meal.

Certifiable.

You are probably going to dial 911 in panic before remembering that I’m British and there’s not much they can do about me from another continent. Still, that can’t be helped. You’ll all stop talking to me and my online reputation will be mud, but I have no choice. Everything happens for a reason and this story wants to be told. It’s like that bloody Ring that wants to get back to Sauron and does everything in its power to get there, and just as evil if you ask me. Nevertheless, I will endeavour to tell this little twist to an old story as best I can. Forgive me if it’s not up to my usual standards, I’m not much used to this style of writing.

I’ve never written non fiction before.

***

It’s hard to say exactly what happened. Well, it’s actually impossible to say what happened because I still don’t have a bloody clue. My current theories include an impressively vivid dream, paranoid schizophrenia, an LSD trip or having paid too much attention to that Lost In Austen thing I watched on television last week. I don’t recall having taken any LSD recently and I don’t recall hearing any other voices in my head, but I refuse to rule anything out.

All I can tell you is that I woke up in a body that was not mine.

For one thing it had blue painted toenails - which I would never - and it woke up in the kind of enormous room that I have never set foot in at any point in my entire life. It was enormous. I’ve stayed in hotel suites smaller than it. It seems strange to ascribe a nationality to a room, but this room was just not very British. The first tip off was the weather outside the window being glorious; that just does not happen in the famously rainy British Isles. The bed was made differently. It wasn’t a couple of pillows and a duvet like British bed; it was a complex arrangement of sheets, blankets and various cushions as well as pillows. The room was made up of white walls and warm earthy tones and a lot of very complex looking technological equipment that I would not be touching. The killer was that the plugs in the electrical sockets weren’t right.

That was one thing. For another, this body was much thinner than mine and I’m kind of bitter about that. The waist was smaller (great), the thighs were smaller (even better) and the boobs were smaller (not so great but a worthy sacrifice). When my hand went to my hair, it was a couple of inches too short and not as full of choppy layers. My bangs had disappeared. My hands were a little too small and there was a watch on my wrist that definitely was not mine.

I crept out of the bed like I was trying to escape from somebody. That was ridiculous since nobody else was there, but I suppose I was hoping that this was all a dream and I was about to wake up. The dream possibility is still under consideration. I was heading for the mirrored doors of the closet, though I was staring at my feet the whole way. It took me no less than four minutes of standing in front of them scrutinising my blue toenails before I got the nerve to look myself in the face.

The funny thing is that although it was a stranger’s face staring back at me, I looked oddly familiar to myself.

The hair was still blonde, though a darker shade than my own expensively highlighted sunshine locks. The eyes were still blue, but a much more unusual colour that had more green running through it than mine. The purple circles that live under my eyes were nowhere to be seen; the nose was a little pointier and the face more oval than round like mine. She wasn't a supermodel (I was mildly disappointed) but she looked good enough to me.

At that point, my thoughts were torn between the strange familiarity of my reflection – a long forgotten face I just could not put a name to – and the absolute irony of me waking up in the wrong body when I had written no less than two stories about body swapping (which was not easy, I struggle enough with pronouns under normal circumstances). Hopefully this chick wasn't famous and dating a pop star or I really would have entered The Twilight Zone… if I hadn’t already. As a matter of fact, that particular coincidence is part of my supporting evidence for the dream theory. Maybe I’d just spent too much time editing Sides of the Coin. That is entirely probable; I have a very impressionable young mind. Still, I might also add the Twilight Zone being real to the list of possibilities too.

It was around this time I realised that I was feeling nauseous. I figured that was unsurprising, all things considered.

This feeling came on doubly strong as I heard footsteps on the stairs. It was hard to know how far away they were when I had no sense of the rest of the building’s layout, but when you’ve woken up in the wrong body and are about to go into hysterics anyone within a ten mile radius is too close. Maybe this was karma since I put as many as four characters through this entirely wretched experience. It was like wearing a set of clothes that didn’t fit right. The very skin and bone was too tight.

“Hollie?” Someone called out beyond the walls.

My thoughts on realising that this person knew my name and was looking for me were far too full of profanity to reproduce here. Suffice to say they involved many repetitions of the word ‘fuck’ and a few other pieces of colourful language. In real life conversation I don’t generally swear a lot beyond the infrequent ‘bloody’ or ‘arse’ but honestly, if you had been me you would have understood. This was a situation that required every cuss word I could recall. Because I am blonde and was being a bit slow (in my defence, I think waking up in the wrong body would make anybody a bit slow), the penny hadn’t quite dropped yet.

If it had, I would have known precisely who was about to come through the door. In all honesty, I probably should have known who it was just from the voice. I’d certainly listened to that voice enough in my own life. However, once again, before you judge me as the dumbest broad who ever lived for not working it out sooner I must impress on you precisely how panic-stricken I was at this point. If I may flatter myself a little I’m a reasonably intelligent woman, but sometimes certain situations are just too screwy for my thought processes to cope with and this was definitely one of them.

So yeah, no prizes for guessing that Justin fucking Timberlake walked through the door. I’m not sure what a stroke feels like but I could quite possibly have been having one right about that second.

Because I am a bizarre person, I nearly laughed. After all, had I not seconds earlier been thinking to myself of a certain body swapping story where I wrote of somebody waking up as Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend? I just really hoped that whoever’s body I was in wasn't a singer because I myself am tone deaf; I refuse to sing in public for fear of bursting people’s ear drums. Yes, folks, it’s true, even at this point I still had not twigged what had actually happened (I say ‘happened’ purely for ease of expression, it may still have been hallucination) and who I was actually supposed to be. This is all the more embarrassing since I’d written that one too… but again, I ask you, who the hell could have possessed even a shred of common sense in that moment?

“Hols have you seen my sweater?” He said cheerily as he pulled open the drawer next to me and started rummaging.

“Uhh… which one?” I squeaked weakly. It was all I had. The man even knew my nickname. Considering I’ve never met Justin Timberlake in my life and it’s unlikely he’s aware of my existence that was kind of peculiar.

“You know, that green zip up one you said made me look like Kermit.”

Wow. That even sounds like something I’d say. Or, more to the point, write. “Nope, sorry.”

I shrank back as he peered at me curiously. “You don’t look so hot. You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Well, feeling a bit sick,” I replied honestly.

“Maybe you should skip work today,” he said with immediate concern washing over his face. “And tell the doctor this afternoon.”

“Doctor? This afternoon?” Did I ever mention to any of my readers that when nervous in conversation I sometimes develop a parrot like tendency to just repeat other people’s words?

That got a laugh out of him. “You know, you’re right. I think pregnancy has messed with your memory, you never usually forget appointments. You have ante-natal this afternoon, three pm, ring any bells?”

Oh it definitely rang bells, but not the type he was referring to. Wow. Who did I know who was blonde, blue eyed, pregnant, acquainted with Mr JT and answered to the same name I did?

No bloody wonder she’d looked familiar. She was mine. I made her up. Her very image and appearance and EXISTENCE were all down to me because I wrote her. I wrote a very big long story about a girl named Hollie… who was never meant to be me I hasten to add and yes, I appreciate the irony of that considering I at this juncture actually was her. I can only say that if this was a dream it betrays a very twisted mind that I probably ought to seek therapy for.

So… little fan fiction writing me woke up in the body of one of my own characters. I was smack bang in the middle of Letting Go. Hollie was pregnant and clearly Justin had been told about it. That meant we’d already done the meeting, the friendship, the hook up and getting arrested parts. She might or might not have told Shannen or the *NSYNC guys about it yet and she might or might not have moved in permanently. They weren’t yet engaged. I assumed the place was Justin’s seeing as I distinctly remembered writing that the apartment was small and cosy and painted in pastels, not some huge earth tone colossus where one room was bigger than half my house. Obviously she was already pregnant but yet not showing, so the question became precisely how far I was into Letting Go and what I had to look forward to experiencing if I couldn’t wake up out of the nightmare as soon as humanly possible.

Then it struck me that I hoped this little possession or hallucination or whatever it was wasn't going to last long because I really did not fancy forty eight hours of childbirth.

Well, I will say one thing for myself, I do write an exceptionally nice leading man.

Okay, so he kept glancing askance at me with a slightly odd expression on his face. You couldn't blame him; to him it must have looked like his girlfriend had mentally checked out. That would make sense since she had, but whatever. I didn't have to lift a finger. He made breakfast and even called David for me/her and nicely said that I was feeling a little under the weather and would not be attending work. It was a good thing he did since I had handily forgotten that she worked with David by this point in the story and if I could have even found the number I would have called the magazine where she was no longer employed. Oh well, at least I would have had the pregnancy amnesia defence. It became quickly apparent that I would have to make very frequent use of it.

Since the only way I knew to restore one's self to your own body was a magic necklace and this was the wrong story for that, I had little choice but to ride it out - or, hopefully, wake up as soon as possible. Justin left to go do whatever pop stars do and I decided to test out the shower after freaking out some more. There was a brief light bulb moment where I figured I could just look at the date and judge where the story was at from there, but it turns out my bulb's a little dim since I never wrote any dates into the story anyway. Damn my lackadaisical approach to timelines. This is what I get for re-writing *NSYNC history (though it did occur to me to see if this had resulted in any new *NSYNC songs I'd never heard, sadly I got too lost in the house to even locate the stereo let alone the music collection).

I'd never written in much detail of their bathroom so it was a bit strange to walk into the kind of shower it takes NASA scientists to operate. There were spray nozzles and control switches everywhere and it took me no less than ten minutes to get a sensible heat and pressure to the water. One moment I was nearly scalding myself and the next I was letting loose a jet of water powerful enough to scour the entire epidermis and probably all subcutaneous fat from my back. It was all black marble and I was convinced I was going to slip and crack my head on something. For a moment I wondered if a good smack to the head would break me out of this whole trippy experience, but then I sensibly decided that fractured skulls and brain damage are too big a risk to take.

My one and only break through came when Justin sent a text message… and nearly scared me half to death doing so. Why the hell the woman thought Black Sabbath was suitable ring tone material I will never know; I flatter myself I know her pretty well and it was not a Hollie Masterson ring tone. My best guess was a prank by somebody - possibly Chris Kirkpatrick, who could be sure? This text message was my life line. This text message told me he'd scheduled a group meeting via Johnny. This little tidbit along with my lack of bump drew me to the conclusion that he had not yet informed any members of *NSYNC of my… ugh, HER pregnancy.

I really hate the fact that this ridiculous thing has now got me referring to a fictional character as though she's me. All authors leave a little of themselves in their characters but this is blurring the lines a little too far.

Whatever. Anyway, the point is that nobody but Shannen, her mother and presumably Justin's knew yet. This told me exactly where I was in the story and what had or hadn't happened yet. It wasn't going to help me with the day to day stuff, but it would at least mean I didn't go around prophesising the future. I don't think Justin wanted to know that he was going to have his daughter kidnapped. Speaking of which… just as an FYI, unfortunately I was at this point so consumed with trying to pretend to be a fictional character and how this could be successfully achieved that I handily forgot about that guy.

It was probably for the best. I'd already had one suspected stroke on meeting Justin, no need for a massive coronary to go with it.

This information let me know that the fictional Hollie was an overnight guest and not an actual resident of the house yet. This led me to believe that my safest course of action might be to go back to her apartment and hibernate until I woke back up in my own body. Apart from anything else, the lack of knowing whether this was a dream or drug induced or… God help me… real… meant I didn't know what the rules were. Was I actually capable of changing the story by being in it? Theoretically it should be possible to go back and fix it if I ever got home… but how many people do you know who remember every exact syllable of a story they wrote five years ago? Not many, I'd wager. My guess was that Shannen would be the easiest person to deal with; I could just stick to girly chit chat.

I will not be describing for you the farcical shambles that was me driving to her apartment. I have never driven on the right hand side of the road before and I never want to do so again. Trying to drive in a country where you are entirely ignorant of traffic laws is a minefield as it is, trying to do so while remembering that all the lanes on the road were backwards and what's normally the slow lane is actually the fast one is an accident waiting to happen. It's just a good thing I had a navigation system in the car and a bill in her bag with her full home address on it. All I'd ever written was the apartment number and in a city full of apartment complexes that's just not helpful.

The apartment was almost exactly as I imagined it to be. It was a small, cosy space that screamed 'two females live here.' I saw the coffee table and the photo album I'd written about. I saw the little kitchen alcove and the squishy cream couches. I went into the rooms and immediately identified the lemon yellow one as Shannen's and the cool blue one as Hollie's, or temporarily mine if you prefer. Both were neat and tidy, but Shannen's was somehow bolder. It was more eclectic. My leading lady's room was just like my leading lady - neat and not totally without style, but very ordinary. It was comforting right about then, any more of the extraordinary and my head was in danger of exploding.

My favourite part was the dog. The happy dog that bounded up to me with a smile and a wag of the tail, obviously delighted beyond belief to see me. I have one of them myself so this at least was wonderfully familiar. I remembered that she was Constance and I petted and tickled her and she was a bright spot of sanity in the hallucination. You may raise an eyebrow at me describing any sanity amongst a hallucination but please just humour me.

The real drama began after my nap.

I took a nap on the couch with the dog. My dog isn't allowed on couches but given how covered in black and white hair this one was, I figured Constance enjoyed that privilege. Besides, I was having a really bad day and I really needed a cuddle. Dogs don't judge you even if you are on an acid trip. I sat down, she leapt up next to me and snuggled in, and I decided that us taking a nap together was a fine idea. I was very much hoping that if I went to sleep in the dream when I woke up it would be in real life.

Regrettably this was not to be. The doorbell woke me up what I think was approximately an hour later and I was still right where I'd started. I could say I was disappointed, but that would be akin to saying that Justin Timberlake plays a bit of music; it's not strictly untrue but it seriously fails to cover the full scope of things. Anyway, you can imagine I was quite panicked. Shannen had her own keys, so that meant what I had was a visitor. I was not ready for visitors. I was not prepared for visitors. Unless it was a member of *NSYNC or some other publicly recognisable figure from the real world, I wouldn't even have a clue who this visitor was. That might get awkward. For all I knew I might be about to greet the Avon lady like she was a life long friend.

I opened the door (why oh why hadn't I written in a peephole?) and there was a man standing there. Infuriatingly, this was yet another visage that looked impossibly familiar to me, so I knew he had to be a main character. Perhaps he was David, photographer extraordinaire? They were pretty close; he could conceivably stop by to check in on his pal. I didn't dare greet whoever it was by name, so I just smiled instead and said a nice safe "hi."

Silence reigned, which was extremely odd. Whoever he was, he was content to stand at the door and stare at me. Her. Me. Her… oh fuck it, whatever.

Now, trying to wrack your brain through nearly seventy chapters of a story to think of somebody whose physical description matches the person in front of you is not a quick process. That's not good when somebody's standing in front of you looking at you expectantly with a strange grin on their face. He was tall and fairly skinny - not as buff as Justin, weedier and less muscled. In contrast to Justin's square, honest face this man was all angles and shadows, all… sinister looking.

Yeah. I'm sure you figured it out long before I did, but Carl was standing in front of me. That would be Villain Carl who inspired his very own 'Die Carl Die' club on the message board where I originally posted Letting Go (true story).

On realising this, you'd have thought my next action to be slamming the door in his face. The man was unhinged and would go on to do some really creepifying and evil stuff and I should have been putting as much solid wood and brick between him and me/her as possible, but you can understand why there was an element of morbid fascination. The guy came from some of the more twisted parts of my psyche and here he was, in the flesh. My weird little brain had created this freak show and here he was, flesh and bone in front of me. For a moment there he didn't seem quite real, it was like I was walking through an exhibit and staring at a wax figure.

Then I realised I'd smiled and him and nigh on fainted. All I could think was 'oh God, I might have encouraged him.' This was a ridiculous idea if you think about it. Me, encourage him? He was going to kidnap the baby and beat Hollie into a bloody pulp as it was, what more did I think I could make him do at this juncture? That then started a panic about the fact Carl was unaware of her pregnancy and whether he could magically tell and it turns out that I am fully capable of having a panic attack in fictional bodies as well as my own.

The bastard seemed to quite enjoy it. I write nice leading men and really disturbing arseholes too.

"I heard you weren't feeling well," he said sweetly. "Under the weather?"

"I was feeling better until I opened the door. Now suddenly I feel sick," I sniped back at him. Generally speaking I do not share the fictional Hollie's sass and smart mouth when it comes to confrontations, so I was mildly surprised at myself.

"And this is the thanks I get for showing concern," Carl replied mockingly. "Maybe Justin gave you something, have you been tested?"

Quite frankly Carl looked far more like a candidate for syphilis than Justin, but given the history and future of violence there was only so far I cared to push him. "What do you want?"

"I told you. I'm concerned."

Really, if the man had directed this concern for Hollie back towards himself then maybe he wouldn't have wound up dead after a shoot out… but then, it struck me, how could I stand there and judge him? I wrote him, after all. He was a sicko because I needed him to be a sicko for my story. He and all the grief he wrought on Justin, Hollie and their friends and family were because of yours truly. This may be extremely blasphemous, but for a moment there I kind of knew how God feels when one of his followers strays off the path - except that God has all that omniscience and his plan to take comfort in and I had nothing except the dog.

Interestingly, she didn't like him. She'd growled at him. Animals are smarter than given credit for; I'm so glad I never followed through on my original plan to have Carl do his own variant on the Fatal Attraction bunny incident. Constance is too good for that.

"I'm touched." Even in somebody else's body, my ability to lay on the sarcasm in my voice is unequalled. "You can go away now."

"But you're sick. Somebody should look after you."

It was freaky to hear it in person. Although this was a scene I'd never even imagined let alone written, he was talking in the same loaded way he did in the story: ostensibly talking about one thing while actually saying she had a Justin addiction that needed fixing. This really was the creepiest individual you could possibly imagine and I find it very worrying that he was born from my psyche.

Maybe somebody should put me through a Rorschach test to be on the safe side.

"Physician heal thyself," I muttered. "I'm just fine, thank you. But if I need some company you can rest assured you will be right at the bottom of my list of people to call." Then it occurred to me that I had already engaged him too long as it was, so finally I snapped out of my masochistic curiosity and ended it. "If you do not leave immediately security will escort you out. Buh bye now."

Slamming the door in his face was momentarily satisfying but ultimately empty. My shoulders were trembling and my breathing was still unsteady. The air had been sucked from the room and the ground felt wobbly beneath my feet… or maybe that was my feet. I already knew this feeling; I'd written the fear in Hollie's eyes a million times, but… really, there's nothing like feeling it for yourself. I don't recommend it. Seriously, if you can avoid being sucked into stories where you wrote any kind of nasty character in, do so. In fact, it may be much safer for all fandom if the lot of us just stick to Mary Sues from now on.

When I collapsed back onto the sofa, it occurred to me that at this point in the story Carl had just committed a criminal offence.

He'd broken his bail conditions and violated a restraining order; neither got lifted until much later in the pregnancy. The fictional Hollie wouldn't have known this yet - she got that news shortly before the *NSYNC bomb drop meeting I mentioned earlier - but I bet he did. I bet that's why he tried it, either because he thought she wouldn't know yet or he just wanted to rub in how ineffectual they were at keeping him away from her. I could probably expect a phone call soon enough informing me/her of it. Either way, it was still in effect now. One phone call to the police could get him locked back up in jail.

The problem was that I had written myself into a bind. Apart from the fact that I should not be reporting violations of a restraining order I had not yet been informed of, in the story Carl does not go back to jail. I felt sure that even if he had made a quick return trip between chapters, in the moments I had not written, that would be big enough to have been mentioned later on. For me to call the police and get his ass sent back to the big house where he belonged (and hopefully share a cell with Jack Knife Benny who was in the market for a new bitch) could change everything. As such and as much as it pained me, I didn't dare. I was already worried that appearing to initially welcome him might have encouraged his deluded belief that Hollie was merely playing the world's most professional game of 'hard to get' or would somehow make him tip his hand before scheduled. Whatever else I did, I had to try and stick to the story.

I'm telling you people - Mary Sue, that's the way to go.

Pre-natal exams are boring. I was hoping not to learn that until I was having my own kids rather than body swapping with some knocked up chick, but never mind.

Also, I have to say, Justin Timberlake is either the world's most attentive boyfriend or the world's clingiest. In all fairness this was a fictional version and not the real one, but my GOD he would not stop calling. I don't get it. In the very first message he figured that I'd be in the clinic and thus have the phone switched off, so could I call him back… and then proceeded to leave two more such messages. I wasn't even in there that long. Clearly if she hasn't picked up the first one yet she is not going to have picked up the second or third, so why the multiple messages? He even sent a text too. Seriously dude, back off. Breathing room is your friend. This chick's already got one stalker.

Speaking of said, I am never going to write about anybody being stalked ever again. I had not appreciated just how paranoid it makes you. That cramped feeling of dread in your stomach, the muscles in your neck getting tight, the constant running of various awful scenarios through your head. As far as I was concerned he was about to rear end the car or jump out from behind a corner at any moment; it's deeply unpleasant to say the least. Given that I was also headed for a pre-natal appointment when I did not want to alert him to any possibility she's pregnant, this was just heightened. One meeting was quite enough for my life time yet I knew she had a few more to go in hers until he finally and deservedly bit the bullet. Or, to be accurate, took the bullet in the chest but who cares about semantics?

Anyway, as I was saying, Timberlake's a little overzealous. To be fair I think this might have something to do with being a first time parent but trust me, this whole fan fiction 'perfect boyfriend' thing is not so cute in person. Really. I kept waiting for him to display a couple of faults so I could determine that he was in fact human and not a cyborg. The constant attentiveness was freaky and disconcerting. It's like the man wasn't real.

For instance, because I didn't turn back up to his house (I may have forgotten the address) he turned up at the apartment. I was already asleep when Shannen showed up so they'd apparently been chatting while I napped - though for about the last ten minutes that napping was feigned rather than genuine. I had no idea why I was constantly exhausted, but from what they were saying it was because Hollie's morning sickness is really early morning sickness. Like three am early, which if you ask me is absolutely criminal and Timberlake's not the only one who looked less cute to me after all this. Chloe's gone down in my estimation too if she requires getting up at that god forsaken time of the morning to toss your cookies. And with that I thought the following to myself: 'God, do I get to do that too tonight? Fucking hell, I hate this dream and I'd like to wake up now.'

But yep, they were now having a heartfelt conversation about how they thought Hollie was coping and the logistics of constantly going back between his house and the apartment. My weirdness that morning had been attributed to pregnancy and not their all powerful author being given a taste of her own medicine. I suppose that when you're the one it's directed at all this love and concern is very sweet and touching, but when you're an objective observer it's deeply nauseating. It's like watching those couples who can't stop with the PDA and the sickly sweet pet names in inappropriately public places. It's yet another fan fiction cliché that is not that cute in person.

In fact, take it from me, fan fiction in general is just not cute in person. This experience sucked monkey balls.

I won't recount all the saccharine affectionate parts or the boring pregnancy stuff. That part can be pretty accurately summed up by saying that Shannen was a lot more worried about Hollie than I ever let on in the story and Justin had read a lot more parenting books than I ever let on in the story. Quite frankly he could have retrained as a midwife and skipped about half the seminars. He was like a walking encyclopaedia. I will skip straight to the more intriguing parts. Or what I thought were the intriguing parts, anyway.

"Umm… not to ruin the nice congenial vibe and all, but…" Shannen started uneasily.

"What?" Justin said, suddenly on guard. I suppose years of interviews will probably give a good grounding in when you're about to get bad news. That and she'd been kind of ominous anyway.

"I will murder and disembowel you if you repeat this to Hols, but I may have bribed the security guard to tell me when anybody matching Carl's description shows up here." Wow - for an underdeveloped character this woman was sneakier than I'd thought.

Since I was pretending to be asleep and couldn't break this façade, I didn't see exactly what happened. It sounded like glass shattering, that's all I can say. It also sounded like somebody went to a cupboard and started sweeping it up. All in all, it sounded like Justin had taken something out on the nearest glass. Damn, I did give him a violent streak.

"You're about to tell me he showed up here today."

"No, I'm about to tell you maybe," she said tonelessly. "It may not have been him though, he said he didn't get a good look and he is supposed to be in jail."

"True." You've never heard anyone more relived in your life. "Richard would have called and told Hollie the second he got out anyway. And she was at my house all day before her appointment anyway."

Well THAT was a stupid assumption, since clearly I wasn't at his house all day. Oh well, no need to enlighten him. I was sticking to my 'don't rock the boat' plan and saying nothing that didn't appear in my published version of Letting Go. It was just safer that way.

"I just… I have this fear that when he finds out she's pregnant he'll do something even shittier than he already has." Points to the brunette, she was definitely not wrong. "It's only a matter of time."

"Well he's going to get found guilty and stay locked up and the restraining order's on him anyway." No points to the pop star. He was definitely not right.

"Yeah. Is it bad if I hope he gets butt raped by the nastiest looking guy in there?"

"Remind me not to piss you off."

"Well, you don't hit my best friend and then stalk her and we're good. Though you did already seduce and knock her up out of wedlock, so technically I probably owe you some pain."

"Hey, I'm not taking responsibility for that; she was the one who…"

"Do NOT complete that story. Please. I just don't need to know."

"You started it."

"Look pal, I know we're friends now and all but I just do not need to hear any tales which could lead to me picturing your scrawny white butt without any pants on."

Have you ever tried pretending to be asleep when you really want to laugh? It's exceedingly difficult and I'm no good at it. I once creased up laughing in the middle of a drama production at school too. Lucky for me I am at least enough of an actress to disguise it as a sneeze. In true clingy style, I immediately had Mr Perfect hovering over me looking worried. Sheesh, boy, it was just a sneeze. A little dust never hurt anybody or their unborn child.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"How was your appointment?"

"Appointment?" The parrot tendency was back.

"Yeah, that thing I already reminded you about once today. Didn't you get my messages?"

See? Clingy. Told you. It's just not cute.

"I just came straight home to sleep. Tired. Everything's fine though, blood pressure and stuff." That was about as much detail as I could remember at that point, since I'd been bored stiff through that appointment. I'm sure if anything worrisome had been mentioned I'd have found that a little more attention worthy.

"Cool."

Without invitation, Justin had picked my feet off the couch and sat down in their place, keeping them in his lap and rubbing my ankle. I suppose when you're in a relationship you don't need permission to disturb a perfectly comfy person instead of taking the free armchair. Instead Shannen did that, though not before ruffling my hair on her way past.

"So you feeling sick as usual babe or you want take out?" She asked as she curled her feet under her. "I have no energy to cook."

"Take out sounds good to me."

"Sorry brain trust, I wasn't talking to you." They clearly bickered gently in sibling style, if their exchanges were anything to go by.

"I know but even if she's sick I still have to eat. Thai?"

Again, without invitation he was there for dinner. I was betting I'd be sharing a bed with him that evening too. I'm sure a lot of you are sitting here wondering why the hell I'd be complaining about that since it led to the possibility of seeing the one and only JT sans clothing, but you have to understand that the whole debacle was mentally exhausting and quite frankly the idea of anything more intimate than 'hello' and 'goodbye' terrified the hell out of me. I'm not the slut who fools around with somebody else's boyfriend and also, intimacy equals familiarity and I had no idea how to keep up the act in such a situation. Hell, I hadn't had a boyfriend myself in months, I wasn't even sure I remembered how to talk to boys.

Also, there was a large chance that if I saw Justin Timberlake's penis in person that I would burst out laughing. It would just be that one step too far into surrealism for me.

"If there's green curry involved I could do Thai." That was as much as I was prepared to contribute to the conversation.

"Works for me," Shannen replied lazily. "Oh, and David called while you were asleep, I told him that unless you tell him otherwise you'll be at work tomorrow."

Great, I thought. It was the most I could do to work a disposable camera, never mind professional equipment.

***

The entire trip was full of thoughts I never thought I'd ever have. The mother of all these was "I really wish Justin would stop hitting on me."

There, I said it. Justin Timberlake hitting on me was a problem.

Never mind years of romance stories and fancying the bloke and swooning at concerts or whatever - Justin Timberlake coming onto me was hugely inconvenient and not very welcome.

Aside from previously mentioned worries about fraudulent impersonation of his girlfriend and messing around with somebody else's guy, et cetera, the fact was that I was tired and nauseous. I felt bloated. My breasts were a little tender. All in all, I was very uncomfortable and I felt kind of murderous about it. There was a serious possibility that I could wrench somebody's head off with my bare hands, and given that I'd already found his thoughtfulness overbearing and irritating Justin was first in the firing line.

I know that's unfair. His only crime was loving his girlfriend and being concerned enough to express it. Millions of women across the globe spend their time wishing their guy was more expressive and attentive in his affections and let's face it - Justin was only that way because he was a fictional character. My fictional character, so really any qualities of his that I might wish to complain about I was solely to blame for and as such should not have been threatening to kill him for like it was his fault. What you need to understand is that to process such thoughts would have been logical, and I was hormonal. Hormones do not understand logic. They understand 'crush, kill, destroy.'

It began first after dinner. With a deadpan face and only a slight raise of the eyebrow he mentioned he was going to take a shower. This was his most subtle come on and as such the easiest to side step; I busied myself with clearing up the kitchen and trying to look like I knew where everything was supposed to go. Handily, this then gave me the excuse to get into the shower as soon as he'd come out, and I am exceptionally good at taking forever over showers if it so suits me. Hollie handily had a deep conditioning treatment in her bathroom that required at least fifteen minutes before rinsing, so I made full use of that too. Hats off to me, once I'd done that and then lingered over body lotions and moisturisers and whatever else, I had wasted the best part of an hour. I had to suffer through incredulous comments about being able to watch Titanic at least twice in the time it took me to shower (which is an enormous exaggeration) but it was worth it to avoid sticking my foot in it as I am so prone to do.

Seriously, if you knew somebody else's future would you be able to avoid any inadvertent slips? It's a bloody nightmare, I tell you, especially when you're hormonal and suffering from the knowledge that if you stay in this body too long you are going to have an abnormally lengthy childbirth. I needed gas and air just thinking about it and once again, the hormones made me prone to blame him and his stupid seed for being so wily and able to circumvent not one but two forms of contraception. Did he have Super Sperm or something? Why did I write that stupid plot twist anyway?

Oh yeah, it was to save the dog from a Fatal Attraction style moment a la Carl. I figured a baby was more dramatic.

Next, he made excuses to be in the room while I was changing. The silly boy had not counted on the fact that I, unlike his girlfriend, had spent my high school years at an all girls' school and as such I was extremely adept at changing clothes without flashing very much. What can I say? The changing rooms were a cruel and embarrassing place. I purposely chose the least sexy pair of pyjamas she had, though part of that was because I felt ill and when I feel ill I need comfy pjs. As much as it pained me, I turned my back on him and pretended to be engrossed in some menial task while he was stripping behind me. That one was physically painful, I have to say. It was certainly the last chance I'll ever have to perv on JT while he's changing and I was forced to squander it.

He was unperturbed by any of this. A perennial Mr Happy, he was still chatting away despite my noncommittal grunts in response and every time he moved past me I had a hand on my back or my shoulder or through my hair or a kiss on the forehead or something of that nature. They were slightly grabby and intimate little touches, invitations to something a lot grabbier, but I pretended not to heed the message. Not being Miss Touchy Feely myself, this was an extremely odd experience. Again, given that this was the first and only chance I'd ever have I wish I could have enjoyed it a little more, but worrying about the possible effect of hallucinogenic drugs on your liver and kidneys is a very effective mood killer. Even when I rudely got into the bed and started reading, thereby practically ignoring him, he didn't seem to care; I'm not sure if he noticed how rigid I became when he settled his head on my lap. I was already annoyed enough that he'd taken my side of the bed - I suppose my imaginary counterpart preferred the other side.

"Good book?" He asked congenially. With him on my lap I was forced to rest one arm across his shoulder and it felt like I was laying it across a hot stove, the skin contact burned. Possibly with shame.

"It's okay," I shrugged. I'd already read that one myself, funnily enough.

"If it's not entertaining enough I can think of something else you could do."

"There's nothing good on TV tonight," I riposted. The one thing I was grateful to myself for was making her a sarcastic little so and so who bordered on verbal abuse with him - it meant I could play off turning him down as a joke.

"Well that was going to be my second suggestion."

"If that was a line to make me ask what the first was I'm not biting."

Justin heaved a big melodramatic sigh, jostling my arm and making the book wave in front of my face. "You know, it's really hard work being with a girlfriend who has to make everything so difficult. You could just take the line every so often you know, wouldn't kill ya."

"Yes it would. It'd defy my very nature." Did I mention it's really weird hearing yourself talk in an accent that isn't yours?

"It defies my very nature to let you abuse me so much but we all have to make sacrifices in a relationship."

"Hey, you spend half your day throwing up and then you can talk to me about sacrifices." I said that in all seriousness, I was very bitter about it. Since I hadn't been the one to open my legs I resented being the one to accept the consequences - again, the fact that she was only pregnant because I ordained it so had conveniently slipped my mind.

"Really? How bad was it today?"

Oh Lord, I'd set off the Daddy radar again. He'd immediately sat up (though if he'd sat any closer then he would have been straight back on my lap), put his arm around me and started stroking my hair. Every nerve ending she possessed was going and it was like I had full body pins and needles. It was unpleasant to say the least, when really I ought to have been enjoying this. It was irritating. In all honesty I was too easily irritated at that point, hormones, but I do feel that was genuinely irritating.

"Define bad."

"Scale of one to ten?"

This was awkward, I had no idea what the usual standard was. "Eight?" I hazarded a guess, and then hazarded a rejection. "Suffice to say that I feel sea sick enough as it without rocking the boat. Or bed."

Well, apparently my creations are at least sycophantic enough to think that I'm funny because he laughed. In a brief moment of magnanimity towards him (really I think I was just bitter that I was Justin Timberlake's girlfriend for the day and couldn't enjoy it, it wasn't his fault) I noted that he had a very melodic little chuckle.

"Rocking the boat? Lord, woman, when are you going to learn to just call it sex? You're pregnant for God's sake, it's a little late for euphemisms."

He may have found me funny, I found him less funny - probably because I was the butt of that joke. I was eighteen at the time, okay, back then I was a little more prudish about sex and it showed. These days I'm dropping the words 'fuck' and 'shag' everywhere (my latest leading ladies certainly don't have her issues), so to hear him making fun of the phase I was long since over kind of grated. As you may have gathered everything grated, I really was a crabby bitch. Pregnancy does not become me.

"What's a good euphemism for annoying bastard?" I sniped back. Infuriatingly, though I meant that as an insult he took it as a joke. Kissed my cheek and everything. Honestly, he really was touchy feely.

"You love me and you know it."

"That's debatable." I did not tell a lie. His girlfriend may have loved him but I was still on the fence.

"You love me and you know it," he repeated with a grin.

"Repeating it doesn't make it any truer."

"You love me and you know it."

"Now you're just being childish."

"Wanna fuck?"

"WHAT?" I screeched, entirely unprepared for that. Of course he immediately took that for the aforementioned prudishness rather than the utter incomprehension of what it had to do with the immediate conversation that it was, and the grin came back.

"See, I told you. You need to loosen up."

"Fine. Sure. Let's have sex now; I find people I've just called childish really hot and it's so sexy when I'm nauseous, my fantasy is to puke all over a guy while he orgasms. Giddy up cowboy."

At this point, I am willing to admit that by use of the phrase 'giddy up cowboy' I may have been guilty of the same childishness I'd just accused him of. At that point, I was ready to wrench his head off his shoulders like I mentioned earlier. On the bright side, by the way his mouth had just dropped open I'd managed to turn the tables. I can't really imagine Ms Masterson ever telling him to giddy up or talking about fantasies and orgasms. See? I really have become more liberal with the sex references since I wrote that story.

"If you leave your mouth open like that for much longer your jaw's going to seize up," I told him mischievously after about a minute of him failing to comment.

"Who are you and what did you do to my girlfriend?"

"I'm a Hollie from another universe who's taken over her body," I told him. Nobody can accuse me of misleading him - I told him the truth, is it my fault he chose not to take me seriously?

"Not like you to take my advice so seriously… or at all," he spluttered while trying to recover.

"I'm full of surprises."

"Yeah well, point taken. Next time I'll check how the evening morning sickness is going before I proposition you."

"Much appreciated," I replied. I'm sure Hollie would appreciate it too if she ever got her own body back.

Have you noticed that the more I talk about this the more I talk about it like it was real and not a figment of my insanity? I need to stop that… but just in case, could somebody get the men in white coats on standby? Much obliged.

"Do I at least get a cuddle or are you gonna be gross about that too?"

I'm not sure I've ever heard a grown man use the word 'cuddle' before - unless talking to his children, anyway. I made a big show of umming and ahhing and pretending to weigh it up while I was actually weighing it up. A cuddle couldn't hurt, right? I'd got out of the sex but he was going to think something was weird if I banned him from touching me at all. In the interests of maintaining the illusion, I was going to have to submit to cuddling. Woe is me.

"I could manage."

The book went on the nightstand, the lights went out, and after settling down properly in the bed I permitted Mr Timberlake to pull me over to him and put his arms around me. I even reciprocated. It wasn't so bad. There was a comfortable enough nook between his arm and shoulder and thankfully he was at least wearing boxers so he wasn't too naked for comfort (though in the unlikely event I ever get into this situation by mutual consent and in my own bloody persona with the real one, then I will have less of a problem with nudity).

"That really was gross, you know," he announced to the darkness.

I remained unrepentant. Still do, really. "Don't start what you can't finish."

"I worry about me sometimes for loving you. Saying stuff like that just isn't normal, you're kind of weird."

He couldn't see it, but I kind of smirked at the second sentence. I think it fair to say that one's applicable to the author too.

"Take it or leave it."

His answer was a kiss. In the interests of fan fiction and maintaining the romantic illusion I'd like to tell you it made me melt and sigh or whatever else, but actually it was very awkward because I was kissing a stranger three minutes after talking about puking on guys during sex. Also, I'd been homicidal towards the guy not long before. It was tough to relax and enjoy it. Still, points for technique. And for using mouthwash - nobody likes stinky breath.

"G'night, Hols."

"Night, Justin."

It wasn't thirty seconds before he'd opened his mouth again. "Hols?"

Lord, did this man ever shut up? "Yes?"

"You're not likely to vomit on me are you?"

I'd probably asked for that. "Not when we're laying still, no."

"Okay. Night."

"Night," I said in long suffering self pity.

I had at various points during the whole trippy experience felt exceedingly sorry for myself. I wasn't a poster child for coping with optimism and perkiness to begin with, but as the day and night progressed I found myself continually excelling myself in the sheer force of self pity I was drumming up. First it was the sheer freakishness of what I'd fallen into. Then it was the 'congratulations you are now a fictional entity' revelation coupled with the dating JT thing. Next it was LA traffic, then it was 'congratulations you've inherited a stalker,' and finally it was the problem of how to turn down your idol when he's determined to seduce you.

I feel like I ought to be locked in a padded room for even imagining such things let alone claiming to have experienced them (if I did, the dream possibility is still definitely on the table) but the fact is that it is what it is. The other problem being that I don't know what it is and that in trying to ponder it out I am mauling the English language with phrases like 'the fact is that it is what it is.' If it was a person I'd be suggesting that it sued me for bodily harm or something. It may seem weird to suggest to somebody that they sue you but really, in this case I have it coming. Lucky for me the English language would have a problem turning up in court or hiring a lawyer.

Underpinning all this, however, was the whole pregnancy issue. Quite frankly I've now been put off having children for life… or biological ones, anyway. Maybe Angelina Jolie has the right idea with the whole adoption thing, because the pregnancy I'd inadvertently written myself into was horrific - and as it turned out, I knew would have a horrific birth to go along with it, though at least the kid turned out healthy. Hollie wasn't even that far along, but as I lay in bed struggling to get to sleep everything hurt. I mean everything. For ease of description I will refer to everything as being mine rather than hers: my boobs hurt, my stomach and throat hurt after all the throwing up, and even my eyes were stinging. There is just no way to sleep through all that, however gamely I tried. Insomnia's always been a close personal friend of mine anyway, but I just could not take my mind off of the gnawing ache in my stomach long enough to clear it for sleep. I well remembered how gross it was to throw up, but I'd forgotten how much it physically hurts your chest and stomach muscles to do it.

Justin, the lucky bastard, was sleeping like a baby next to me. He wasn't quite snoring, but he was breathing a little heavily. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm and he was stretched out lazily on his back, one arm flung over his head on the pillow and the other resting lightly over his diaphragm. A lone foot stuck out from under the sheets. People look pretty daft while they sleep - a mouth slightly open or their faces smushed into a pillow - but somehow he was still managing to work the silly pose. He'd even managed to sleep through every time I rushed out of the bed and ran to the bathroom to noisily throw up. I swear I read somewhere in an interview that the real Mr Timberlake is a light sleeper; his fictional counterpart really did not share this problem. I think I would have had to let off a siren in the room before he heard anything. This was a mixed blessing - on the one hand it was less embarrassing to have a big famous dude watching you hurl, on the other some assistance and maybe a little sympathy wouldn't have gone unappreciated.

Yeah, okay, I'm a hypocrite; I'd been pushing his clingy self away all evening, but as soon as I got sick I was resenting him for not jumping to attention. I never said I was logical.

I have grown far more sensitive and prone to crying in my old age anyway, but rarely do I do it out of sheer frustration. I cry when somebody's been mean to me or upset me, or if there's something sad on TV. My tears don't normally come just because the day has been that shitty, but in this case I'd had just about enough. My stomach hurt, I couldn't sleep, I was terrified that I was never leaving that stupid story - which, hey, got friends and family of my own here and I wasn't looking to trade - and having Justin sleep peacefully beside me was just kind of rubbing the whole thing in. It was salt in the wound. Poor schmuck, he really was getting a rough time from me that day. Good job that the crappy pregnancy could be blamed, hormones are occasionally useful in the excuse department. That's about all they are good for though.

"No, Hols, no…"

At first I thought I'd woken him up with my crying. Quickly and surreptitiously I wiped my eyes and turned over with the best smile I could muster as if to say 'see, I'm fine.' I wouldn't have been kidding anybody but the good news was that I didn't have to. The boy was still fast asleep, he was just muttering to himself. Maybe it was rude of me to listen in, but hey, I wasn't getting to sleep any time soon and it wasn't like I could turn on the TV. Instead I sat up in the bed and watched his face as best I could in the darkness, the street lamp outside the window casting only the very faintest illumination through the curtains.

"What?"

"Not here."

"That's… what are you…"

Infuriatingly, he wasn't giving away many hints here. All I could discern from his inane babble was that his girlfriend was making some appearance in this dream and that he was talking to her. Apparently he didn't understand what she was up to either.

"God, Hols…" he breathed out quietly, shifting slightly in his sleep and the arm on the pillow dropping lower towards his head.

The lack of detail kind of made it all less interesting. I hugged my knees to my chest with a sigh and wondered precisely who I had to pray to in order to get out of this whole thing. Jesus, Allah, Vishnu… heck, I even thought about taking it old school and trying Zeus. At that point I was already doomed to being taken for a loon and thus, I figured, what further harm could a midnight ritual to the pond people do? My reputation was already screwed.

I was just about to give up and see if getting some ice cream would soothe my burning throat a little when Justin started getting very twitchy. He began shifting and fidgeting, little grunts and sighs coming out as he did so. It was probably a good thing I was already awake, because that would have been guaranteed to wake my poorly sleeping self up anyway. It looked like he was trying to turn over but hadn't quite worked up the energy, just little shifts and raises of his back and limbs before they fell back to the mattress and pillows again. He looked really stupid. Finally I couldn't take it and the silly whisperings any longer, so I tried a trick that occasionally used to work on my sister when she was a fidgeting toddler; this trick amounted to placing a soft but firm hand down on the stomach and waiting for them to succumb to the pressure. Yeah, well. When my sister was a toddler I never accidentally misjudged where my hand was going, and for obvious reasons even if I had I never would have never met an erect penis.

Oh yes people, that's right, I accidentally grabbed Justin Timberlake's genitalia while he was in the middle of a sex dream. The whisperings told me nothing but the midnight wood told me everything.

I immediately whipped the hand I would never stop scrubbing away from his crotch and used the other to cover my mouth in horror. My cheeks were aflame, I imagine that if the room had been lit you would have seen me go fire engine red. I also let out a horrified and barely muffled squeak. I felt like a total pervert, despite the fact that I had most certainly not been aiming for his penis - I also felt rather stupid, when you're aiming for somebody's belly button how badly do you have to misjudge to find their private parts? Had I not taken high school biology? I'd just groped a total stranger in his sleep; they arrest people for that kind of shit.

Couple the hallucination with the sexual assault and Freud would have a field day on me.

"Hols?"

The phrase 'oh crap' flew into my head when I realised that this time he was awake and really moving. My face burned even hotter. How was I going to explain the fact that I'd been feeling him up in his sleep? That was weird enough even if you were in a relationship.

"You awake?" I asked weakly.

"Yeah, yeah," he said groggily, sitting up beside me. "Why you still up? You been sick?"

"Yes," I squeaked, still unable to yank my hand from my mouth. Let him think I was trying to hold down the nausea. It wasn't a lie, I had been sick an awful lot that evening. It had taken a lot of mouthwash and gargling to rid me of the taste in my mouth.

"How bad has it been?" Sleep still laced his voice, his speech was slow and awkward, yet still the Daddy radar was back on. You could never accuse the guy of not caring.

"I may have thrown up some internal organs along with the curry," I replied, hoping that if I was gross enough he'd be too distracted to think about why he'd woken up.

I felt like a perverted little wretch when he put his arms around my shoulders and hugged me to him; then I felt sick again when I realised the way my body had fallen had my face pointing back towards his crotch. At this point, I added a new theory to the ranks of drugs and dreams - somebody on high was bored and just fucking with me for entertainment.

"I know it's little consolation," he said through a yawn as he stroked my hair and I tried not to concentrate on the fact that he was probably still… well, you know. "But they say this is only supposed to last through the first few weeks. It'll be over soon."

"You're right, that's little consolation," I said miserably as I considered the brutal and horrifying possibility that I was going to be stuck in that body for a while. "Kill me now?"

"But if I did that who would call me all those names?" Justin asked with a smile as he kissed the top of my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on the fact that he smelled nice. Not all boys do smell nice - a lot of them stink, the girls in the playground got that right - but he had just the faintest clean whiff of soap about him, no cologne. That was probably a good thing; my sense of smell was a little sensitive and apparently a key trigger for the throwing up.

"You lived for years with only Chris to do that," I offered weakly.

"Chris isn't half as good at it."

That was probably true in real life as well as in this piece of fiction - my reputation for evil is well deserved, what can I tell you? I'm a mean bitch who gropes poor unsuspecting pop stars in their sleep after ingesting one too many magic mushrooms. Or maybe it was a tab of E; to this day I'm really not sure what exactly could have caused so vivid a hallucination. I just know it had to have been something because there's no bloody way that shit was real. Unless the 'somebody on high' theory was true.

"True."

"See, what would I do without you?"

"Sleep soundly through the night?"

"Well, yeah. You do snore you know."

He was one to bloody talk, all the shit that had been coming out of his mouth. I or more accurately she wasn't the one doing sex talk in her sleep. Besides, I don't recall writing into the story that Hollie was a snorer - then again I don't recall writing in any of this insanity either yet still I was witnessing it.

Come to think of it, it was a shame that I couldn't use that whole thing against him. He was about having some kinky dream in his sleep where Hollie was throwing herself at him in an inappropriate time or place and he was doing it out loud, yet he was giving me crap about snoring when God knows I hadn't slept a wink? It really upset me that I couldn't use such potent ammo without incriminating myself. Yes, I know that's a weird thing to be upset about but haven't you already worked out from this whole ridiculous tale that I'm deranged?

"Really."

"Yep."

"Well you don't want to know the crap you come out with in your sleep, pal."

"Like what?" He challenged me.

"But if I told you that it wouldn't be half as fun as announcing it in front of the guys," I shrugged. Hell, if I couldn't tell him, I could at least taunt him with knowing something that he didn't. I'm a real bitch when I'm pregnant, God help the poor sucker who knocks me up for real - though, like I said, I'm looking to avoid that and go the adoption route if at all possible. Then Angelina and I can set up play dates.

"You got nothing," Justin said with more conviction than I suspect he felt.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night. Which, by the way, I'd like to do now."

"Okay."

From the way he continued to hold his arm around me, I didn't have much choice when he yanked me down to the pillows with him and wrapped me up like his own personal teddy bear. After the whole groping incident I really didn't feel like doing anything to piss him off or offend him, so I figured I'd wait until he was asleep to try and pull away. It's not like it exactly sucked snuggling up to him - the body really is as good as it looks, ladies - but I just felt awkward and wrong for it. I felt like I was screwing over my own character by defrauding one and usurping the other. And really, I'd done enough to those two (or at least, by the time the story played out I would, they hadn't got to that part yet).

"I know it sucks, baby," he said sleepily, "but you're doing great you know." He punctuated it with a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "It'll be over before you know it."

"Doesn't feel like it," I replied, talking about something else entirely.

"It will, promise." He shifted over until his was on his side and facing me, yanking me further into his body. I really wish I'd been able to enjoy that as it should be enjoyed, it was Justin friggin' Timberlake even if it was an imagined version. "Most people would have, like, keeled over by now or something but you're doing great. You'll be a really great mom."

I didn't correct him by reminding him that millions of women managed pregnancy without keeling over every day of the week. He was being too sweet and I'd already done enough to him that evening without adding being mean to the list.

"I'll muddle my way through." Oops, muddle was a little too British. I was supposed to be a California Girl (insert Beach Boys song here).

"Nah, you'll be the pro telling me what an idiot I am and reminding me not to hold the baby backwards," he joked. Well, it was a meant to be a joke; I heard the truth beneath the laugh.

"No, you'll be a great dad," I told him honestly. I should know, after all, I wrote it. I would have patted his back or something if I didn't think I'd already patted enough for one evening. "You will."

"You won't say that when you're reminding me that you powder the ass not the face."

Again with the disparaging joke… poor boy was insecure. "Will you stop it? You're Mr Hyper Prepared and you already read more books than I have. You'll be great, you'll pick it up like a natural and be Mr Dad and treat her like a princess."

"Her?"

Oh crap. The one thing I'd sworn to myself not to do - give away any plot twists - and what had I done? Dropped a clanger that neither of them could possibly have known, and at the same time as using Justin's personal pet name for his daughter: Princess. Fuck it, I was chock full of stupid that evening. Of course, we established that the second I mentioned I'd been transported into a piece of fiction.

"Well, if it's a her," I clumsily covered. "But for the purposes of the pep talk it doesn't sound the same when you say treat him like a prince. But whatever, it applies to both genders."

"It better not apply to both genders, treating a son like a princess is just going to lead to later life gender identity issues." Well, at least that time the joke sounded a little happier.

"Whatever. You'll be the world's best father and if I thought otherwise I wouldn't be here. Quit worrying and sleep."

"Okay, okay. Goodnight, Hols."

"Goodnight."

He really did sound a lot happier. I suppose the least I could do to make amends for being a crabby bitch who felt him up without permission was give him a little vote of confidence. Besides, I really did know what I was talking about. I wrote it, after all.

***

Well, it turned out that after going to sleep clasped to a smiling Justin like his baby blankie I then woke up alone. I woke up alone in my own room with my own stuff and in my own house. It was beautiful. Even that annoying stain in the wallpaper where the decorator overdid it with the wallpaper paste was beautiful. Reality is beautiful.

So… that's it.

That's the end of my psychotic hallucinatory tale during which I broke copious traffic laws, obtained money by deception (I used her credit card), failed to report a bail violation thus aiding and abetting a criminal and also molested a man in his sleep. Believe me or don't believe me, call the cops or don't call the cops, I'm just glad I got it off my chest. It's a relief, it was very headache inducing and my local pharmacist was starting to look at me funny for buying so much aspirin. I think she suspected drug abuse. I wish I could say there was some moral of the story but I'm not sure I learned much other than pregnancy is a terrible system for procreation, whoever created it must have been male, and to just say no. Crack is truly whack, people.

As for why this happened, you still got me. Nothing really makes sense. The idea that it really happened for whatever reason is of course preposterous, but none of the other explanations seem that great either. I have never had a dream that rooted in normality or that realistic. I have never dreamed in surround sound. The drugs would be the next thing but I have never taken drugs in my life before (seriously, even the one attempt at tobacco went badly) and I don't see why I would have started now. I wondered if telling it at such length would help me work out precisely what in blazes happened, but I still have nothing so for the rest of my life I will fear fan fiction. That's not quite as atmospheric or spooky as fearing for whom the bell tolls or the cry of a raven or whatever but people, take a cautionary warning. Don't write about stalkers. Don't write about horrendous child births. They may come back to haunt you.

In fact, there's the moral of the story - Mary Sue, people. If you write Mary Sue than nothing could possibly be that bad if you get sucked into the damn thing.

Also, maybe write yourself in so that if you do get sucked in there you can be sucked in as yourself and enjoy any sexual encounters you may have with hot pop stars guilt free.

Also… possibly if you seek regular psychiatric evaluation you can prevent this shit before it happens. Oh, and don't do drugs. Okay. Shutting up now. I won't take offence when you all inevitably remove me from your friends lists. Or call the men in white coats.

No, really, shutting up now. I need to shut up. And also a valium.