"You know," Joey started, taking a seat next to Lance on the couch to put on his shoes. "I still don't understand why both Chris and JC knew about Liz's morning sickness and didn't say a word about it to us. I mean, this is huge news. We were with JC at the game all night. Why didn't he tell us?"

Lance shrugged, leaning back against the cushions. "I don't know. It doesn't seem like much of a secret since Emma found out from Chris. If she knows, then maybe Justin knows, too. If he does know, then he didn't say anything either."

"What? Were we the only ones they were hiding it from or something?"

"I understand if Lizzie didn't want to tell us because maybe she wanted to wait until both she and Jace could talk about it and celebrate quietly together before they started telling people. It wouldn't have exactly been our business at that point."

"But Chris AND Justin AND Emma AND, obviously, Lynn, and none of them told us!"

"Maybe they forgot?" Lance suggested, weakly.

Joey rolled his eyes. "I'm going to whoop JC's ass tonight when I see him, just because he didn't tell us about any of this. Hey man, we had a right to know. They're our best friends. Why wouldn't they tell us about it?"

"We'll just bring it up in the limo tonight and congr-"

"What's going on in the limo tonight?" Lynn asked, speed walking into the living room area of the hotel room Joey and Lance shared. She was in the process of fixing one of her earrings when she went over to the two guys who were still on the couch. "We're leaving in a few minutes. Are you two just about done?"

Joey nodded, pulling down the rest of his pants that he had rolled up to his knees so that he could fix his shoes.  "Yea, I'm about ready."

"Me too," Lance said, sitting up. "Who're we waiting on?"

Lynn checked the silver watch on her left wrist and did a quick count on her fingers. "Johnny and Melinda are downstairs already, Lonnie's outside the door and JC is still getting ready. I think Chris is, too, but I heard him on the phone when I passed by his room to check on him. Oh! And I can't find Justin anywhere!"

Lance frowned. "Where is he?"

Lynn sighed, exasperated as she checked the screen of her phone. "I don't know. He's not in our room and I think my phone is running out of charge. The charger is in my purse but Justin was holding my purse."

"I'll text him for you," Lance chuckled, pulling his phone out of his pocket and flipping it open. "He's probably in one of the gift shops here or something."

"Probably," Lynn shook her head, taking a seat on the couch opposite the two guys. "Tell him to meet me in here."

Lance nodded, closing his phone after the text to Justin had gone through.  

"I'm glad I don't have a date tonight," Joey grinned. "There's gonna be tons of girls there for me to get my grind on!"

Lance rolled his eyes but Lynn simply chuckled.

"And there's gonna be lots of paparazzi to get pictures of you getting your grind on if you're not careful. And don't get too drunk. You have MSG rehearsals to wake up for tomorrow."

"We fly out to Pennsylvania on Wednesday or Thursday?" Lance asked.

"Thursday afternoon," Lynn reminded them. "The booking goes Madison Square Garden tomorrow night, then again on Monday night when you guys film the special and your final shows in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday night."

"Four nights in Madison Square Garden," Joey grinned. "And this is only the first leg of the tour."

"We got six more months of touring," Lance pointed out. "Is Liz going to be with JC for all that time while we're on the road?"

Lynn frowned. "I'm with Justin for the rest of the tour so I'm sure Liz would want to stay and JC loves having her out here with us. Why'd you ask?"

Joey looked at Lance and shrugged. "We just assumed that with her morning sickness, she'd probably want to head back home to Orlando instead of flying around with our crazy schedules all the time."

"Yea," Joey agreed. "I mean, we love her being out here but now that's she's pregnant, isn't it a concern to her health if she doesn't get sufficient rest or something? She can't get sufficient rest if she's out here watching JC work twenty three hours out of a twenty four hour day."

By now, Lynn's eyes were wide and her eyebrows were raised. "Hold on a minute. Since when do you two know about what's been going on with Liz?"

Lance and Joey looked at each other.

"Well," Lance said slowly. "She is pregnant, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is, but what I want to know and I want to know now, is how the two of you know about that!"

"Know about what?" Justin asked, walking into the room casually, Chris following closely behind.

Lynn glared at her son while Joey and Lance, in confusion, just looked on.

"Justin Randall Timberlake!" Lynn got up from her seat. "I cannot believe you told them!"

Justin frowned. "Told who, what?"

Lynn glanced and Chris, who looked just as confused as Justin but obviously curious, and sighed. "About... You know..."

There was a second of silence before Joey stood up, impatient. "Emma told us that Liz was pregnant!"

Justin's eyes widened at his realization of the situation. "I didn't tell them anything!"

Lynn turned back to Joey. "Emma knows?! How the hell does Emma know?!"

"Chris told her," Lance said.

Justin spun around to face Chris. "You told people!"

"Chris knows?!" Lynn's eyes were blazing by this time.

Justin turned to face his mother. "He heard you talking to me about her morning sickness at the game!" He then turned back to face Chris. "You promised you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"I promised I wouldn't tell JC," Chris corrected. "And Emma's her best friend. I wanted to see if she knew about it."

"What'd you mean you promised you wouldn't tell JC?" Lance asked, standing up to join the rest of them. He folded his arms. "Doesn't he know?"

The room fell silent for a moment as Justin, Chris and Lynn all looked at each other.

Joey broke the silence. "Hold up! JC doesn't know about any of this, does he?"

Lynn quickly counted up to ten in her head so that she wouldn't lose her cool and calmly answered Joey.

"No, he doesn't. And the four of you, plus Emma, aren't supposed to know about any of this either."

"Not to be rude Lynn," Lance said. "But if we're not supposed to know, and JC doesn't know, how do you know?"

"I walked in on Liz in the bathroom while she was throwing up this morning and well... It wasn't that hard to figure out what was going on with her at that point."

"And Justin?" Joey asked.

"I walked in when mom was helping her out in the bathroom," Justin said.

"And you promised you would not tell anyone," Lynn gave her son a look.

"I didn't!" Justin defended himself. "Chris was eavesdropping and heard everything you told me! Then he went and opened his big ass mouth and called Emma and told her."

"That's how we found out," Joey said, referring to him and Lance. "She called and asked us about it."

"Good going Killpatrick," Justin muttered.

"Have any of you brought up any of this around JC?" Lynn asked.

"I was going to talk to him about it tonight," Joey answered. "We haven't had a chance to see him yet."

"No, no, no, no, no," Justin shook his head. "Liz would kill us if she found out we told JC about what's going on. We can't tell him anything. It wouldn't be right."

"I agree," Lynn nodded. "It's bad enough that more people than intended found out something she wanted to keep to herself for a while, so you four have to swear to me that you aren't going to say anything to anyone."

"You hear that, Chris?" Lance said accusingly.

"No more people are going to find out, jeez."

"Good. So then make sure that-"

"Unless..." Justin murmured out loud.

"Unless what?" Joey asked.

"Unless Liz has told him already now that he's back. That's probably why he's taking so long ‘getting ready.' He probably knows by now."

"That's simply an assumption. Until JC says something to us, we know nothing."

~~~~*****~~~~

1:30 AM - Liz & JC's hotel room

 JC wandered into the bedroom suite, kicking his shoes off and tiredly pulling off his shirt and letting it fall to the floor. The room was dark except for the dim light that came from the bedside table lamp, which he used to make it way into the bed and under the covers next to his wife who was lying on her side, away from him.

JC took off the light and let his head fall against the pillow. He mentally made it a rule in his head to never again trust Joey in buying him drinks that he realized were way stronger than Joey had described them to be.

He yawned, pulling the covers up to his stomach and he turned on his side to face Liz's back.

Little did he know that she was still awake...

JC moved closer to her warm body and wrapped an arm around her and pulled her as close as possible to him, burying his face in the crevice of her neck in which some of her hair covered.

Liz smiled, feeling JC's lips on her skin. "You had fun at the party?" she asked softly.

"You're awake," JC said, but it came out as more of a question than a statement. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I've been awake for a while. I was just lying here waiting for you to come back to bed. Was the party good?"

 "Yea, it was pretty good. Lotsa people, lotsa fun. It was a good time."

"I'm glad you had a good time then."

"Mhmm," JC nuzzled her neck. "The guys kept giving me weird looks though. Especially Justin. He kept bringing you up, asking if you were okay here."

"I-I guess he missed me."

"Probably."

"Can we talk now?"

"About what?"

"I told you I wanted to talk to you earlier and you told me we'd talk when you got back. You're back and we're both awake. Can we talk now?"

"I'm tired baby," JC groaned. "I don't want to talk right now."

"It's important babe," Liz told him softly.

"You smell good," JC told her. "What're you wearing?"

"Soap?"

JC chuckled.

"You smell like alcohol," Liz muttered. "You have rehearsals and a concert tomorrow. You shouldn't drink so much."

"You can blame Joey. It was a party and I didn't even drink that much. I'll be fine after a few hours sleep."

"Fine," Liz mumbled, pulling away but JC groaned in protest, trying to pull her back to him.

"Stay here," JC said.

"I need to use the bathroom," she told him and he let go.

"Fine."

Liz got out of the bed and made her way to the bathroom. Her second attempt at telling JC what was going on had failed. She knew that by the time she got back to bed, JC would already by sound asleep. And she knew that by morning, he would either completely forget about her wanting to talk  or he would simply ignore it until he got some time on his hands.

God alone knew how long that would be...

~*~*~*~*~*~

"You!"

Liz looked up at Justin coming toward her. She sat in one of the empty seats closer to the MSG stage, reading a book. JC was on stage talking with some people from the *NSYNC tour crew, probably about the sound system or something.

"Me!" Liz responded to Justin's greeting.

"What're you doing?"

"Reading."

"I was trying to text you from the Toy Room but you weren't replying."

"Yea, I think I lost my phone. I had it with me a couple days ago but I think it's under some clothes in my luggage or something. I didn't bother to search through my clothes to look for it this morning so I just brought a book to keep me company. What's up with you?"

"I've been waiting all day to get to talk to you alone. I couldn't talk to you in the bus because JC was there."

"Well, here I am. What's going on?"

Justin took a seat close to where she sat and looked at her. "How're you feeling today?"

Liz shrugged, setting the book down. "I'm okay."

"Any throwing up?"

"Yea, a couple times."

"And JC still hasn't figured anything out?"

"I haven't given him any reason to assume anything anymore. I got up an hour and a half before he got up and locked the bathroom door. By the time I was through throwing up he got up and I pretended to just be coming out the bathroom. I'm leaving it alone for a while."

"You know," Justin said. "You probably should be seeing a doctor now that you're sure. But, I don't see how you're going to be pulling this off if we're always on the move."

"Well, you see..." Liz smiled, turning more to the side to face Justin.

"You came up with a plan, didn't you?"

"I had to! And it's not a bad one."

"Okay, tell me."

"I got your mom to book me a flight back to Orlando on Wednesday around the same time you guys fly to Pennsylvania. I told Josh this morning that Emma emailed me  and told me that she needs help with some planning for our clients back home for a week or two. During that time, I'll go to the doctor, get whatever prenatal vitamins I need and all that, take some time for myself and then I'll come back out on tour. By that time I'd have some things straightened out and I should have the mindset to tell him. Everything works out."

Justin looked at her with a blank face.

"What?" Liz asked.

"Do you know what's going to happen if that plan backfires on you?"

"What?"

"You're going to be screwed."

"Now, how am I going to be screwed?"

"You're lying to your husband."

"I've already thought about it. It's fine. Until then, I'll just be careful. I'm not drinking any alcohol, I'm trying to eat what I can without getting sick, and by the way you guys travel, that's enough exercise. As long as you and your mom don't say anything, I think I can pull it off."

"Whatever you say Liz."

"Hey Jus?"

"What?"

"You haven't told anyone have you? I mean, you promised me."

Justin hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Yea, I know. I haven't told anyone, so don't worry."

Liz smiled. "Thank you."

"Uh huh," Justin said under his breath.

"Hey J!" JC called out from the stage. Lance, Chris and Joey set down their water bottles and went to join JC in the middle of the stage.

"You guys ready?" Justin shouted to them.

"We're doing ‘Digital Get Down' now," JC said, this time into his mic so he wouldn't shout. "Get up here."

Though he was talking to Justin, JC looked at Liz and winked.

Liz giggled, shaking her head.

"You guys are weird," Justin told her, getting up.

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "We're weird? Your hotel room is right next to ours. You don't think we hear you having your own Digital Get Down when you're video calling with Brit when your mom's not in the room at night?"

Justin's face turned red. "Shut up."

Liz laughed, getting up and folding in the corner of the page she was on to bookmark her book. "Tell Jace I'll be back in an hour."

"Where're you going?"

"I want to talk to your mom about some stuff."

"Is that what I'm supposed to tell JC?"

"Either that or you can be like-" Liz cleared her throat and started talking seductively. "-‘Yea, baby. Work it for me, just like that. Come closer to the camera and-"

Justin shook his head and nudged her, stopping her imitations of him during his Digital Get Down.

"Just go!"

"And you thought no one heard you that night," Liz giggled.

^~^~^~^~^~^~

After MSG Concert 1

"Lizzie in there?" JC panted, running up to Lonnie who stood by the door to the *NSYNC tour bus. The four other guys followed closely behind, running straight from the stage.

Lonnie nodded, looking above JC's head to make sure he was seeing a head count of five.

JC ran inside, only in his pants from Bye Bye Bye and his black wife-beater, grinning when he saw Liz sitting on the couch of the bus, waiting for them - or, him.

She had left right after It Makes Me Ill because of the noise the fans were making, even though she had in the earplugs she wore to every show. It had given her a headache and thinking about the headache was just overall making her feel upset to her stomach.

She had, however, put on a smile for JC when she saw him.

"Babe, that was-" Liz started to get up but JC crashed his lips onto hers, pushing her back onto the couch. The force of his kiss was continuous and JC soon had her flat on her back, his body hovering over hers while their tongues tangled together.

"That's five!" They heard Lonnie shout, and the door to the bus slammed.

The presence of the other four guys wasn't made known until Chris said, "You just got off stage! Get off her or get a room!"

JC pulled away, leaving both him and Liz panting but he didn't move.

"Damn, you're really up for it tonight, aren't you?" Liz told him.

JC kissed her again. "It's the adrenaline."

"And the bulge in his pants that's been there since Just Got Paid," Joey joked, pulling off his shirt on the couch he sat in. Justin and Chris were leant up against fridge and the sink and Lance sat on the floor - all four guys breathing heavily.

"You feeling any better than when you first came back to the bus?" JC asked, the sweat dripping from his face landing on Liz's chest and neck.

"After that kiss you just gave me, I'm feeling a lot better now."

JC chuckled. "I can help you make a full recovery if you join me in the back of the bus there."

"You don't want to wait until we get back to the hotel?"

JC groaned, kissing her again and Liz bit down on his bottom lip when she felt one of his arms grip the side of her waist.

"Wait till we get back!" Lance told them. "I don't want our bunks or this bus reeking of sex!"

"That's the next worse thing after Joey's fart diffuses through this place," Justin said, wiping his face with a hand towel. "Wait till you get back!"

Liz smiled up at JC. "It's not that long a wait."

*~*~*~

To JC's disappointment, and to Liz's discomfort, the wait that was only supposed to last from the MSG venue to the hotel turned into a wait that JC didn't know would end up going on for God knows how long.

Upon getting back to their room, though he was dead tired, JC made the not so wise decision to order food to the appetite he worked up on stage.

He figured he'd order the food from room service, be able to use the adrenaline still running through his body to get a quickie in with Liz, be done with that by the time the food arrived, eat, and then go for another round of sex before crashing that night.

Things would have been fine if JC hadn't started reading out the types of food from the hotel menu and then describing what they may or may not taste like in front of Liz, who, at that point, had to make a run to the bathroom to throw up the rest of the chicken sandwich Lynn had forced her to get down while the guys were still in rehearsal.

Though he was disappointed, and Liz knew he was, JC had helped her clean up herself and had even helped her get into bed where she fell asleep just minutes later.

Still reading off the menu, JC heard a knock on the door. Dragging his body from off the couch, he sighed, opening it only to be greeted by Justin and Chris' face.

"What'd you want?" JC asked. "And why aren't you guys asleep yet?"

"We're starving and it's only been forty minutes since the concert," Chris pushed past JC and Justin followed. "I'm predicting that within the next twenty minutes, when all this adrenaline wears off, we're gonna collapse so sorry if we end up spending the night here."

"Why are you guys even here?" JC asked with a sigh. "And where's Joey and Lance?"

"The two of them probably are already asleep," Justin said. "And we wanted to see how much porn we could hear from your room, assuming you'd be in the middle of ‘doing it' right now, so we came to see what we could hear."

"Yea dude, we didn't even expect you to open the door," Chris said.

JC shook his head. "Nah, nothing tonight. I was just gonna order something quick to eat and then crash."

"Lizzie awake?"

"She's asleep."

"Burrnn man!" Justin cried out, laughter in his voice. "She fell asleep on ya!"

JC rolled his eyes. "No, she ended up feeling sick and started throwing up again so by that point I knew the night was over. I feel bad though. She's been sick like that for a couple days now. I'm starting to think I should take her to a doctor or something. It's starting to affect our sex life."

Justin and Chris exchanged glances.

"Uh, Jace..." Justin started. "Maybe you should take her to a doctor. Or, at least, you know, ask her what might be triggering the constant urge for her... sickness."

Before JC could reply, a beeping started sounding through the room.

"Damn, what is that?" Chris asked.

"That's the second time since I got back here that I've been hearing that," JC said, looking around the room. "I don't know what the hell it is."

Justin got up, walking around the room in an attempt to trace the source of the noise. It took his about thirty seconds before coming to a clothes pile near the door of JC and Liz's bedroom suite.

He bent down to scatter the clothes, JC and Chris watching him, and under a pair of shorts that were obviously Liz's own, he pulled out a flip phone and the beeping got louder now that nothing was covering it.

"It's this stupid phone," Justin said, standing up.

"Why'd it beeping?" Chris asked.

"There's a voicemail from a caller that's on the speed dial."

"That's Lizzie's phone," JC said. "Toss it here."

Justin threw the phone over to his friend and went back over to where they all sat.

JC opened the phone and called the voicemail to check what message was causing the phone to beep.

"You guys can order something from room service in the meantime," JC told them.

About a minute had passed before Justin and Chris noticed that the room was oddly silent. They both looked up from the menu Chris was holding in his hands and over to JC who had a visible frown on his face with the phone still to his ear.

"Jace?" Justin called out to him uncertainly. "You okay there?"

"Listen to this," he mumbled, pressing a couple buttons and then hitting ‘Speaker'.

Chris put down the menu and both he and Justin leaned in to listen to what JC was about to play for them.

A few seconds later, Emma's voice came through.

"Hey, I've been calling you forever but you keep missing my calls! What's going on over there? How're you feeling with the morning sickness? Yea, you didn't tell me yet but I Chris called and told me. I know you've probably got a million thoughts running through your mind and you're probably either nervous or celebrating or something or you're probably too sick to get up the energy to actually call me up and tell me so I'm gonna let this one slide. I need to talk to you though! I miss you and I can't believe that this is finally happening to one of us! How'd JC take the news? Call me back when you hear this message, kay? Stay safe. Love you Lizzie! And tell me future niece or nephew that I love them already! Ugh, I'm getting excited. Pick up your phone, dammit! We need to talk! Okay, I have a meeting now so I'll try calling you back tomorrow. Call me back if you get this before then. I'll talk to you soon, kay? Bye."

The voice message ended and Justin and Chris didn't dare look at each other because they knew they'd give away the fact that they knew something that JC didn't.

"What was that about?" JC asked, frowning. "What's she mean by ‘morning sickness'? And ‘niece or nephew'? What's that about?"

Justin and Chris remained silent.

"Is she talking about Lizzie?" JC asked impatiently. "The morning sickness... Is she referring to Liz?"

Chris sighed. "JC, there's something you should kn-"

"We can't tell him that Chris!" Justin hissed.

"He already heard the message, J! It doesn't get any more obvious than that!"

Justin sighed, shaking his head.

"Tell me what?!" JC asked, folding his arms. "Am I missing something here?"

"JC," Chris began slowly. "Like I was saying... There's something you should know."