It was almost as if he were floating over himself, watching a scene play out in slow motion. Actually, it felt like he was watching Selena in the portion of the movie that showcased her singing and stumbling as a white rose fell onto the stage before her.

He was standing on stage with Justin; Chris, Lance and Joey were to their left, all laughing and joking with the crowd as Justin seemed to speak to him on mute. His face was etched in concern, looking slightly irritated that he was not responding to what he said.

"J, I can't hear you, I-I don't understand," he said, puzzled, cringing as Justin wound his arm up, hitting him but causing no sense of pain or discomfort and pointed towards the crowd. He grabbed his wrist, motioning for him to lift up his hand and sing, but what? What the hell was he singing?!

As he dragged his eyes over the audience, he saw no one but the little girl. But she was happy, she was smiling, singing along to a song he had no distinct clue as to what it was. He tried so desperately to read her lips, startled when she started to spin, but it wasn't just one of her, it was hundreds, thousands of her. The guys saw nothing wrong with what his eyes saw, they all singing and pointing and flirting like they used to when the crowd was filled with young teenagers.

Suddenly, it was as if someone removed the mute, his ears popping from the shrieks, from the loud blast of music in his ears. Justin kept motioning for him to go ahead, to sing, so he did. He wasn't sure exactly what to sing, but he sang. Well, he belted out the note as if he were singing 'I Want You Back' was back during the PopOdyssey Tour.

It grew quiet again. His voice was lost, everything faded to grey. His nose immediately picked up the sterile smell of bleach, dirty linen and old coffee; startled at his sudden change in surroundings. He stood in the midst of a hallway, bright from the flourescents above bouncing off of the off-white walls and white lineoleum floors. He squinted, trying to make out forms of people he recognized; they were all blurs around him, moving as if they were at the speed of light. But then, he saw movement like a normal human being would move, freezing when he saw who it was.

"Mom?! Mom! I'm down here!"

She didn't hear him, didn't hear the desperate pleas from her son just down the hallway, for she had just thrown herself into her husband's arms, gripping his shirt and crying as she kept looking over her shoulder, the look of sheer panic written over both of their faces.

Then the four guys appeared, all white-faced and red-nosed. "Guys, what's going on?" He began to walk towards them, the noise again reappearing as he heard their pleads to do whatever they could.

"Justin?" He stood in front of his friend, unseen by his eyes. "Justin -"

"C'mon, Jace, hang in there ... we need you here; breathe!"

Jace.

It was him they were crying over.

His stomach lurched and he lost his entire remains of his stomach on the floor just by Joey, who seemed unphased and unknowing. He pushed himself away from the wall that held his balance, stepping into the room and seeing his transparently white form lying on the bed, lifeless with tubes connected in his mouth and a cardiac monitor just beside him as doctors continued screaming for orders.

"He's flatlining again!"

No. Nononononono ...



It had been quiet for a little over an hour. With the urgings of all four guys, Roy and Karen went back to their hotel after his breakdown had calmed, he slowly eased into sleep by the medications. Joey had kept watch over him for a little, he not saying why, but they all knew that the younger man was just as petrified as JC had been when he fell into his emotional breakdown. Chris had left, unable to take the tears, the panic; he paced the hallway up until only a few moments ago, he now sitting at the kitchen table holding a mug of coffee that Justin had given him. Lance was sitting in the other room alone, staring at his hands and deep in thought; he had not moved after the calm after the storm had begun.

And him? He had been leaning up against the counter, holding his once scalding hot coffee that did little for his reaction to the temperature, staring down at the brown liquid that was now only room temperature. His mind had been racing up until about ten minutes prior; now all he thought of, was nothing. His mind was blank, his eyes were blank, and he was pretty sure, if you were to put your ear to his chest, you'd hear monotone thumps and not the normal 'babump, babump'. He was pretty sure it was just going 'bump, bump'.

"I hate seeing him like this," Chris said softly, startling Justin out of his blank stare, "I hate seeing the one person who I thought held us all together fall apart and we can't do anything to help him put it back together. I mean, what the fuck are we doing, Justin? He's in his room, fighting the biggest battle I've ever known of and we're standing here with our thumbs up our asses!"

"Chris, c'mon," Justin said softly, "he just fell asleep not too long ago, let him ..."

"He's gonna die anyway, right? He's got forever to sleep." He slammed his hands on the table, shaking his head at himself. "Fuck. Fuck. I'm sorry, J," he put his hand to his nose, pinching the bridge as he quieted. "I just so scared. I've seen people around me pass away, but not my age, not younger than me. He's not even thirty-four yet; what the fuck are they thinking? What kind of lesson are we all supposed to learn from this, huh? I mean, come on; watching one of my best friend's die before my eyes isn't really a lesson I'm willing to learn. I don't want to lose him; I can't."

"I don't wanna lose him, either."

They both lost themselves in thought once more, neither one knowing what to really say to comfort the other. They were all handling the grief differently, though he really shouldn't have called it grief ... maybe hurt? Paranoia? Scared shitless? Whatever the definition of how they felt, all he knew, all they knew, was that they didn't want to lose a member of their family in any way.

He sipped his coffee, not even paying attention to the now cold substance. He couldn't sleep; he wouldn't be able to; not with what had just happened.

After Karen got him to calm, he nearly looked as if he were having mini-seizures, his entire body spasming every so often from his sobs and petrified shakes. Joey lifted the smaller man up from under his arms, helping him into the bathroom. They heard the water run, heard him talking to JC in a calming matter and twenty minutes later, both men emerged. Joey looked sympathetically at the others while JC kept his head down, not wanting to look at anyone. Joey disappeared into the bedroom and came out moments later, telling them all to do something and to let him keep watch over JC tonight; he'd take care of it all.

Though they were slightly uncomfortable with leaving Joey to himself (not because it was Joey, but they all felt the need to be of help), they slowly filtered away one-by-one into the living room and kitchen, Lance talking JC's parents into leaving. There wasn't anything they could do at the time, nothing the other four men couldn't help with. Mostly, it was to give the two of them a break from the burden of knowing that JC's meltdown may happen again and probably would, given the sounds that were coming from his room, he murmuring incoherently and thrashing about in his bed.

"Justin, do you think he will -"

His eyes shot up to Chris, shaking his head forcefully. "No. Chris, you gotta stop thinking like that, all right? We're all trying really hard to be optimistic about this and I know that you can't help but think of the what-if's, but you were the positive one at the hospital, you gotta continue, okay? None of us want to think the worst, but yeah, it's on our minds', we just gotta keep believing that he'll pull through and have faith that he's strong enough. Hell, he's making us into four men we weren't before. If he can do that, then he will be able to clear this with no problem."

"What do you mean that he made us into something we weren't before? I swear I'm the same -"

"Annoying old man, yes, but c'mon, Chris ... I've never seen you so fatherly. Ever. And Lance ... well, he's pretty much been the mediator between parents and friends. He never wanted anything to do with that and now he's stepping up to the plate."

"And Joe?"

"Well, do you see what he's doing right now?"

Chris nodded. "You've changed too, Timberlake."

Justin nodded in agreement. "I know."

They got quiet again, Justin sighing deeply as he looked at the time. It was nearly midnight now. It wasn't more than a half hour ago when he called Lauren and told her of the melt down. Instead of giving them a two-day window, she would be coming in around ten the next morning just to be with him. As much as he disagreed, she pressed that the four of them, along with his parents, needed a break; she'd stay, she'd keep him company and look after him for a while.

"I told you that's his future wife," Lance murmured, joking though not sounding remotely close to it.

Justin sighed again, holding the mug so forcefully between his hands that he was almost sure he'd shatter it. Maybe then, maybe with the shards of porcelain in his hands, he'd feel something. Anything.

But it wasn't his hands that broke the mug.

A loud, blood-curdling scream came from within JC's room, his mug falling to the floor as Chris startled, knocking his own to it's side on the table as both men ran through the apartment and towards his room, Lance just a few steps ahead of them.

"Joe?!"

"He's all right," Joey said, looking at the other three men, "he's having a nightmare. He's been kind of yelling in his sleep off and on for the last few minutes." He held his hand up to prevent them from coming any closer as he himself stepped away, not wanting to wake the man and scare him to death while in the midst of a nightmare. "Let him ride it out, he'll be all right."

Justin put a hand to his heart, willing it to calm to a normal pace. He had flashbacks to the day that JC had discovered his hair falling out; the anger that washed through the man's eyes as he brushed everything off of his dresser to the floor, the pain when he sunk to the floor, realizing just what it meant to have the hair littering his pillow and sticking to the creases of his fingers.

Now, nearly seven weeks later, he looked as if he had aged another ten years. His normally thick hair was thin, bare patches scattered as if he had been balding irregularly, what little hair that was left was scarce. His face was gray almost all the time from nausea, fingers white from gripping to get through the pain. Before he had gone to get the port in, he had lost another seven pounds. He was now at 155. Though 155 was okay ... it was wearing on the already thinly-built man. He normally placed between 170, 175 to 180 ... depending on his schedule and if he was touring. Most of what he lost was muscle; he could see it in his arms. He was weak, though he refused help.

He was still stubborn and it drove him crazy.

But this was not his friend. This was not the man he saw five weeks ago.

Lauren came knocking at 10 o'clock on the dot. The moment she was in the door, she pushing them all out, telling them to go out and live their lives for the day, to remember that he was in good hands and to have a good time. If she thought he was in trouble, she had all of their numbers; if one didn't pick up, she'd call another, and if they didn't pick up, she'd call another, and so on.

"Morning sunshine," she said happily, he looking at her with a blank look. "Oh, come on, no 'hello' for your favorite nurse? If you want, I can have Dr. Kleinfield get someone else," she teased, "someone more manly, if you'd like?" She got up, chuckling when his hand weakly gripped hers, stopping her from doing so. "Ah, so you are alive in there!"

"Barely," he murmured. "Why do I feel so horrible? Is it the port?"

She moved his blankets, adjusting the shirt so that she could see the port. "No, it's just fine, doll. It might be the medicine taking a late toll on you, is all. It'll get better; it usually does get worse before it gets better. But remember, even if you feel like you've hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up."

He sighed. "Then you must have heard about last night."

She sat down on the edge of the bed, nodding a bit. "A little of it. You want to talk about it?"

He shook his head, staring at his fingers. "Not necessarily."

She nodded, completely understanding. "Sometimes it's best to talk to someone outside of your comfort zone, so when you're ready, I'm willing to listen. It's not easy, but it will get better. You'll find ways of coping that you never knew were possible; plus, you've got a pretty amazing support system."

He nodded in response, letting her go about her business as she made sure his port was fine, cleaning it and then placing the gauze back over it, he looking up and meeting her green eyes. "I'm scared."

She gave him a comforting smile, sitting down on the edge of the bed and studying his face. "It's all right to be scared, Josh; even the strongest get scared. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel emotions; from my standpoint, you are an amazing one at that."

He gave her a weak smile. "How do you know that?"

"I may live in a middle of nowhere town in Tennessee, but it doesn't mean I haven't seen a television or MTV before. Besides, you're my age; I grew up with you while you were on the Disney Channel."

He felt the red creep from his neck up into his cheeks and ears. "Really?"

"Mmmhmm," she nodded, playing around in her bag as she found the pill bottle she was looking for. "If I remember correctly, you won me over when you sang 'Runaway Train'. That was my favorite song at the time."

"Really."

She laughed. "As many times as you say it, it's still going to be the same answer. But no, you weren't my favorite: Tony was. I thought you could sing the pants off of anyone, but at the time, I was totally into blondes."

He chuckled. "Tony could sing, too."

"Never said he couldn't," she smiled, his eyes widening as she picked up a needle, flicking it with her fingernail and getting the air out of the syringe. "Relax," she said softly, "it's only for the pain."

"I'm not in any -"

"Well, your red knuckles and white fingertips state otherwise," she chuckled. "As does the sweat at your temple. You can't tell me it's hot in here, either."

He sighed, turning his arm over and looking away. Though he still hated them, he began to tolerate them slightly better than he imagined doing so. "This pain -"

"Will go away. I just think your body is not liking the port much. Were you in any pain before the port?"

He nodded. "I was just constantly achy and felt like I was fighting the flu."

She nodded. "Nothing worse?"

"Every so often I felt more sore than before, but again, I could tolerate that." He inhaled sharply as the needle pierced his skin, she patting his hand when she was finished. "So how old are you, anyway?"

She chuckled. "Okay, the pain medicine isn't working that well ..."

"I just want to know, since, you know, you will be around a lot."

With a grin, she shrugged. "A woman never reveals her age."

"Oh, come on ..."

"Twenty-something."

He laughed. "I guess I can take that."

"What else do you wanna know?"

He shrugged. "Anything you want to tell me."

"Well," she sat back down on the foot of the bed, looking at her fingers. "I'm originally from Canada. I have been here about seven years now. I became a nurse shortly after I arrived. I love it here, though I miss home at times. I have an older sister. I have a basset hound who I treat as if he is my son. I think that's it."

He laughed. "Fair enough. What do you want to know about me?"

"Nothing I don't already know," she smiled as he looked at her in confusion, "you are a patient of mine, Josh. And, everything I need to know about you, I can just google it."

"Lauren, wait." He forced himself to sit up, she looking back at him as she stood in the doorway. "No one but the guys and my family knows I'm here. I kind of want to keep it that way."

She smiled warmly. "I haven't told a soul, Josh. No one has. Your secret is safe with us."

He nodded, feeling the medicine kick in as his eyes grew heavy. "Lauren?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you're my nurse."

She chuckled. "I'm glad, too, Joshua."



The guys were gone for a little over three hours, Justin the first to make it through the door as Lauren cleaned up what lunch he had ate. "How was he?"

"Fine," she nodded, they all looking at her incredulously. "He's going to be fine, guys. There's a lot on his plate; he deals with it as it comes. Some times, it's going to be horrible, other days, he is going to seem like he's back to normal. It's going to take time; just be patient."

"Define normal." Chris crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "He's not normal."

She chuckled. "All right, so he will be back to himself. Just give it time. He's a good fighter. He's going to beat this."

"How can you be so sure?"

She looked at Justin, who was frowning and looking past her towards his friend's room. "I just have faith," she smiled, picking up her bag and patting him on the shoulder. "He's been asleep for about an hour. I gave him pain medication so he'll be good to go for the rest of the day." She said good-bye then, closing the door softly behind her.

"Yep, that's his wife."

They all rolled their eyes at Lance, who chuckled at their reactions. "Oh, c'mon, guys! You know I'm right about this! She's got the hots for him -"

"Oh, stop making assumptions."

He smiled, following them into the living room. "No assumptions, just knowledge."

"Knowledge my ass, Lansten."

"Fuck you, Joseph."

Justin leaned back into the couch, sighing deeply. So far, so good. He'd have to knock on wood to make sure the rest of the day continued to be as much.