Mrs. Chasez waited patiently outside her son's front door. She could hear him speaking to someone on the phone and smiled at him when he opened it for her and motioned for her come inside.

"Well I really need to speak to Attorney Harper as soon as possible, so an appointment next week just won't do. Is there anything else any sooner than that? I don't care how early or how late it is."

Concern dawned across Karen's face as she watched her son walk into the living room with the phone stuck to his ear. She could hear the stress in his voice and watched him hang up the phone, throwing it down on the couch.

After taking a deep breath he looked over at his mother and said, "Hey."

"Everything okay? You guys don't have to go back into court again do you?"

"No. It's nothing like that."

"What is it then?" she asked as she took a seat on the couch.  She reached down and picked up Nikky who was on the floor playing with some toys and placed him on her lap. 

"Just when I think that things are getting better, they go and get ten times worse." JC looked over at his mother and noticed she seemed extremely worried. "Well, before I get into all that...How are you, Mom?"

The two of them sat and talked briefly about how the rest of the family was doing. Mrs. Chasez watched her son as he played with Nikki and still managed to keep his attention focused on what she was saying

.

Karen looked around the area and asked, "Where's Rachel?"

"Out and about with that new friend of hers."

"Oh. How was your trip to Chicago?"

"Very eye opening." JC mumbled as he pulled a toy car out of Nikki's mouth.

"And what exactly does that mean? You didn't have fun?"

"Well, me and Joe went over to that car show, which was pretty cool. Rachel was off doing her own thing...as usual. But the thing that sticks out the most was when Joey bumped into Laura."

"Laura?"

"Yeah."

"Was she in town for the car show too?"

"No."

"Recording?" Karen was getting tired of guessing.

"No...She lives there."

Karen was shocked, "What?! Why Chicago?"

"I really don't know."

"Did you get to see her too?"

"Not initially...You know when you get a certain feeling in the pit of your stomach pushing you to do something?"

"Yeah."

"Well, something was pushing me to see her."

His mother couldn't stand it when he danced around a conversation.  She just wanted him to tell her the entire story already, but he always had to add the dramatics.  "And I am assuming that you finally did?"

"Yea."

"And? What happened?"

"She's in the hospital."

"What?! Okay...Where did this story suddenly take a sharp turn? What happened? Is she okay?"

"When I left she was doing better."

"What was wrong?"

"Probably too much stress." He looked up at his mother and slowly said, "She's pregnant, Ma."

Karen's mouth dropped wide open. "Holy shit!"  she quickly covered her mouth remembering that the baby was still in the room.  "What are you going to do?" she whispered.

JC hardly heard his mother curse around him or anyone else for that matter.  It sounded so strange coming from her lips and he couldn't help but slightly grin.  He got up off the floor and started cleaning up,  "She doesn't want me around. I don't even think I want me around."

"I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear you say that. What does Rachel think about all this?"

"I haven't told her yet."

"Well that should've been the first thing you did. She is going to be your wife very soon. You can't keep secrets from her.  You should have learned that by now."

"I'm going to tell her. I just need to find out what my options are before we discuss this together...That's why the emergency meeting with my lawyer."

"Does anyone else know?"

"No. So please don't say anything just yet to dad or anyone else."

"I won't."

The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon together. Mrs. Chasez did her best to take her son's mind off of current events in his life before she headed back home. JC would have a meeting with his lawyer in a few days and she knew he was going to have to make a huge decision.

~~~~~~~~~

"Get off my back, Jerry! I'm pulling into the parking lot now." JC said before flipping down the screen of his cell phone.

Once he was upstairs he scurried into Jerry's office.  "Why the hell are you so late?" Jerry asked.

"I had another appointment earlier. It was longer than expected."

"Well, have a seat." Jerry motioned as he sat down at his desk and leafed through some documents. "I spoke to Laura today."

"She's not coming to meeting?"

"No. She says she can't make it. Medical reasons or something." he shook his head.

"Oh."  JC pretended to not know anything.  Jerry was standing in the corner at his small machine, running off copies. "She faxed over a list of what she will and won't agree upon as far as this duet goes."

"Which is?"

Jerry handed him a copy of the hand written sheet. "All footage of full body shots must be edited to only show the shoulder up. Why? I don't know, but whatever..." Jerry continued to read through the list. " She also states that she will only be spending a week here to get all this done. Recording, editing, production, video, taped interviews, etc. No outside press or photographers. Just our in house people. She wrote down a few names for us as well."

"And you're agreeing to her terms?" JC asked in disbelief.

"Yes. The big boys upstairs have approved it. They wanted it like yesterday. We're trying to play off of your popularity in the media right now. With all the rumors back and forth about what is going on behind the scenes, we thought this duet enhanced CD footage would sell like hot cakes."

"Anything to make money." he said as he shook his head.

"Yep. And you are on the 'make check payable to' list, so don't act all self righteous with me, JC." Jerry rolled his eyes.

Rather than start an argument with Jerry, JC decided to move on, "When do we start recording?"

"Next week."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. She says she needs to get all this done before she starts a new project. She wouldn't give details, but the sooner the better is fine with us."

JC thought about Laura's pregnancy and how people might react.  "Wow. I would have thought she'd wait till..."

"Wait till when?"  Jerry asked.

"Nothing."

"Well call me with the actual date that we will be in the studio and I'll be there."

"Great."

Once the meeting was over JC headed home. The house was pretty quiet. He called out to Rachel, but there was no answer. As he closed the fridge he noticed the usual sheet of paper with messages on it. He went to sit down at the table with the newspaper and was startled by someone walking in through his back door.

"I didn't mean to startle you, JC."

"It's ok, Laticia."

Laticia leaned down under the sink and placed the bucket and gloves back in their place.  "I just finished cleaning off the back patio area. Is there anything else you need done before I head out for the day?"

"Nope. Thanks though."

"No problem. I'll see ya tomorrow." she said before heading out of the kitchen to leave. JC looked over at messages on the fridge and a light went off in his head. "Hey Laticia?" he called after her.

"Yes?"

"Do you remember ever taking messages from Laura awhile back?"

"Yes. That was months ago though. There were quite a few. I posted them on the refrigerator like I usually do. Laura seemed urgent to speak with you and I even asked Rachel if you had received them and she said you did. Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, no no no. It's okay. I was just double checking something. That's all I wanted to know. I'll see ya tomorrow."

"Okay."

JC had never remembered getting any messages off the fridge during that time. He didn't even recall seeing any messages posted there."

When Rachel returned home a few hours later, she struggled with the door. She had Nikki in one arm. His diaper bags in another. As well as five large clothing store bags. She looked around and noticed the house was quiet, but had seen JC's car was in the driveway. She called out to him, but there was no answer. She figured he must have went out with one of the guys. She got Nikki ready for bed and put him down for bed and decided to take a hot bath before settling in for the night. When she reached the bedroom she saw JC lying across the bed, seemingly fast asleep. She smiled at her fiance and just basked in how peaceful he looked, before heading towards the bathroom to run her bath water.

"We need to talk." JC spoke clearly.

"Jesus! I thought you were asleep." Rachel yelled in surprise. "What do we need to talk about?"

"Sit down." he said as he lifted his body up off the mattress to face her.

She sat next to him on the bed and started rubbing his thigh. "What's up, babe?"

JC removed her hand and looked her straight in the eye.  Her pulse was racing with fear. 

"A few months ago, Laura called here and left me a few messages. You know anything about that?"