"I said I'd pay for it," Liz sighed as she leaned against the black Mercedes behind her. "I promise you I'll pay for it."

JC shook his head while he continued to inspect the small dent and scratches on the vehicle's bumper as he knelt down on the concrete of their driveway.

The way he scowled at her when he lifted his head made Liz cringe a little.

"Josh," she started.

"I can't believe you did this to my car!"

"It was accidental!" she insisted and JC snorted.

"I'm not kidding!"

"When did this happen?"

"A couple days ago," she mumbled as shivered a bit. The cotton robe she wore over her naked body barely helped her warmth when a cool breeze blew by. It bewildered her how they could be having hot, passionate makeup sex in their bedroom one minute and then be arguing outside in the coldness of the night the next.

"Shit!" JC shook his head in incredulity and stood up, almost in a huff. "You told me you haven't been here since the accident."

"I said I haven't been in the house since the accident. I came by here a couple times to check on the pool and look out at the lake and-"

"And destroy another one of my cars," JC said, almost in a growl.

"It was an accident. I was gonna get it fixed before you came home. I didn't think you'd be home this week."

"And how exactly was this an accident, Liz?"

"I didn't realize the car was in reverse and I kinda hit the tra-"

"Why were you driving?!"

"I was curious?" Liz suggested weakly.

"You totalled my truck and almost killed yourself, and now you damage my Mercedes when I wasn't even home? Liz, I would have preferred if you had taken a rock and smashed one of the windows than hear you tell me that you were the one that was driving!"

"I was fineeeee," Liz insisted. She gestured toward the tarnishing with her left arm. "It just needs a little paint job. I can take care of that when you leave."

JC sighed and looked back at the damage. He winced. "Couldn't you just like... Tried the SUV or something? Did it have to be my Mercedes?"

"The keys for the SUV were in the house and I knew you kept the spare key to the Mercedes under the seat so I just went for it."

"Went for what?" JC asked. "Why did you try doing this?"

"I told you I was just curious. As for the money, I can-"

"I'll take it out of our damn joint account. It's not about the money. And saying that you were ‘curious' isn't gonna make me any less mad than I already am."

"I missed the independence of being able to simply hop into my own car and take myself wherever I pleased. I wasn't gonna go anywhere. I was just gonna drive down the driveway and reverse back up."

"Liz, you have not driven a car in almost five years. The last time you tried, you... It wasn't good, remember? I don't want you driving, period. I don't want you in that driver's seat and thinking of it now, I don't even think I wanna see you in the passenger seat either."

"My licence is still valid, Josh. I can still drive."

"Just because a little card with your name on it says you're a legal citizen that happened to pass a driving test doesn't mean I'm gonna let you drive around the place with your broken arm and driving history in mind."

"People drive with one arm all the time."

"You can't drive, Liz!" JC yelled. "You're not an experienced driver!"

"Then teach my how to drive!"

JC raised his eyebrows. "You want to learn?"

Liz nodded. "Yes. And if you don't trust me getting back into the driver's seat, then you teach me."

JC stared at her for a moment, amazed that he actually found himself contemplating the thought. He finally shook his head. "No."

"Why not?" Liz challenged. "Because you're scared I'll die in another car accident?"

"Don't say that."

"Third time's the charm, right?"

"Liz!"

"It's frustrating that I have to keep depending on people to take me around! I wanna get back out there."

JC took one last look at the back of the car and shook his head. He looked at her. "Just drop it, okay? I'm tired, I want to go inside, I-"

"You're mad," Liz muttered.

"You can imagine that I would be after finding out you got behind a wheel again when I wasn't even home."

"I'm sorry, okay? That part was my fault."

 "Good. I'll get the car fixed sometime this week."

"And you'll teach me how to drive?"

JC sighed as they continued on to enter the house. Liz closed the door behind them and frowned when she noticed JC heading straight for the living room.

By the time she followed him in, he was already laying on the couch, both hands behind his head.

"Josh?"

"What?"

"Don't you think our bed is more comfortable?"

"I'm too tired to walk up those stairs now."

She went over to where he was and sat down on the edge, next to his feet. She took one of his hands that rested over his stomach and squeezed.

JC managed to meet her eyes. "I really don't want the thought of you driving on your own in my head, Liz."

"But it'll be good for me to get back out there."

"I disagree," JC told her simply.

"And why's that?"

"I couldn't handle it if I got another call saying you were in an accident. Regardless of whether or not your licence is still valid, that doesn't give you the right to take one of the cars and try to drive it knowing full well that you're not an experienced driver."

"They're our cars. They're insured in our name."

"I know they are but I don't care. The road's a scary place."

"But it would be so much easier for the both of us."

"Not for me," JC muttered.

"C'mon Josh..."

"What'd you want me to say?"

"I want you to teach me."

JC chewed over the thought for a minute before finally sighing.

"Then I want you to make a compromise with me," he said.

"Fine."

"I want you to promise me that you will not get behind the wheel of another moving vehicle... Until the tour is over and I'm home for a lengthy amount of time."

Liz grinned. "You'll teach me?"

"Reluctantly, yea," JC sighed. "I rather I teach you instead of anyone else."

"So I gotta wait almost three more months?"

"Two and a half. Take it or leave it."

"Okay, okay. Gosh you sound more like a dad than a husband sometimes. No offense, that is."

"I'm sorry but I worry about you, baby," JC said. "It's my job as your husband to ensure that nothing ever happens to you. I feel like I'm failing at that job."

"You're not," Liz told him firmly. "I just... Well, we're stubborn people."

JC chuckled. "So you'll wait before you get onto the road?"

"If that's what you want, then yes."

"What I want is for you to only be on the road when I'm with you."

"Do you mean the street or on tour?"

"Both."

"I have work," Liz reminded him. "You know that I eventually have to go back. I can't keep travelling so often. You're not the only one who wants to earn a paycheck, you know."

"I know," JC nodded. "But it gets me a little down whenever I see Chris and Dani on the bus or Joey and Kelly and even when Justin and Brit are video chatting or whatever. Makes me miss you more than you can imagine."

"And I miss you. It's always nice when you come home though."

"It's always interesting, that's for sure," JC chuckled.

Liz smiled. "We're still getting used to this marriage thing, aren't we?"

JC shrugged. "Eh, we'll get better at it. We have the rest of our lives to practice. I'm having fun so far- minus all the little antics but those things keep it interesting."

"We only have half of tomorrow to do what we want together before you have to catch your flight.."

"You know, the tour's gonna be over in a couple months. What'd you say we go on vacation before I have to work again on a new album or something? Just you and me and a hotel room in someplace nice with a big bed and a hot Jacuzzi. We take these couple months to get past everything that's happened, let your arm get outta that cast and then disappear for a few days."

Liz smiled in agreement. "I like that idea."

"If we had a kid now or if you were still pregnant, we probably wouldn't be planning a trip right now, Lizzie."

"Instead, we'd be planning our route to the hospital or I'd be sending you out to get me sardines and pizza or something," she joked.

JC smiled. "I'm glad you can laugh about it now, baby."

"Yea, well..."

"I didn't mean what I said earlier, you know. I don't expect you to just get over it and move on from losing the baby like it didn't affect you. I know it did. It affected me too."

"I can't grieve forever. I gotta let time heal the wound."

"And I guess I gotta keep things under wraps," JC mused.

"Hm?"

"Well, you know, since birth control kind of failed us, I think I'm gonna have to start buying a lot more condoms now. I only have a three more upstairs. Knowing you and me, those probably aren't gonna last long either. Just so, you know, we don't have another pregnancy out of the blue. The next time can be more planned."

"Out of curiosity, what would you do if I told you a month from now that I was pregnant?"

JC pursed his lips and thought for a moment before letting out a light chuckle. "I'd probably freak out again but I guess I'd be happy about it. But, that's part of why I want us to make a conscious effort not to let that happen. If we had kids now, that would be great and I'm sure we'd be happy but it's not the first thing I want right now."

"We still young..." Liz reasoned quietly.

"We're really young. Mid-twenties. A month from now, I'd still be on tour and you'd probably be working and... I still want to go out to parties and drink and have fun and travel and enjoy different parts of the world. I want to come home unannounced and then have white hot sex with my girl at any time during the day. I want to do all those things with you before we have to do them with someone else. There's still so much I want to do and experiment with you before people start referring to us as old, boring parents."

"People do that?"

JC shrugged.

"But if the condom happens to break or..."

"If you do get pregnant, hey, don't get me wrong, I'm gonna be happy as hell."

"But you wanna get things outta the way first. I got you."

"It's easier if we plan," JC told her.

"When do you want to start ‘planning'?" Liz asked.

"Maybe a year from now? Some months after the tour is over, I guess? Some time when things aren't so heated for me career wise."

"But you do want kids though, right? After all the partying and travelling and drinking and all that?"

"With you?" JC grinned. "Hell yes."

Liz laughed.

"And we have a whole lotta time to practice," JC winked. "How much did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking maybe four or five."

JC paled. "You want five kids? We could make up our own band with that!"

"I didn't grow up with a big family. I thought it would be nice for a kid to have lots of siblings to play with. Why? How many do you want?"

"I was thinking one or two. Maybe even three but not five!"

Liz shrugged.

"You want to go through morning sickness, weird cravings, labor and then delivery five different times?"

Liz thought for a moment. "Well, when you put it like that... Three doesn't sound so bad anymore."

JC chuckled. "We got time to think about it."

"Again, I'm uh... Sorry about the Mercedes."

JC groaned. "I'm not as mad as I was before, I suppose. In a way I'm just glad that it was the car that got damaged and not you."

Liz looked down at the cast on her arm and sighed. "Like I can get any more damaged."

"The next time I see you on a hospital bed better be the moment we're about to have our first kid."

Liz smiled at him. "Deal."

JC rolled his eyes at the sappiness of his statement. "Alright," he sighed, rising up onto his feet. "Food now."

Liz accepted his outstretched hand and shook her head."I knew you were hungry."

****

Morning after

"Lizzie," JC whispered playfully. He gently poked and prodded at her arm that was resting over the comforter. "Liz-zieeee."

Liz groaned, keeping her eyes closed as she moved her arm away.

JC chuckled softly to himself as he sat down on the edge of the bed- close to where she was still halfway asleep.

"Babe," JC poked her again. "Wake up."

"Five more minutes," she mumbled.

JC sighed and sat up. "Liz, there's a cockroach on the pillow."

Her eyes shot open with panic but she sighed. She lifted her head to look at JC, who was staring back at her with a serious face.

Liz rolled her eyes and let her head fall back onto the pillow. "The last time you and Justin tried that cockroach trick you almost ended up scaring Chris into sleeping on Joey and Lance's bus that night."

JC shrugged. "It got you guys to wake up."

"Mr. Sleepy doesn't wanna sleep?" she yawned, outstretching her arms.

"I've been up for two hours now."

"What time is it?"

"Almost nine," JC replied. "I got up to take a leak and then went out on the balcony there and saw that the pool looked tempting this morning. I took a swim for an hour or so."

He ruffled his own hand through his damp hair and Liz smiled as she let the wetness spray against her face lightly.

"You ate breakfast yet?" she asked, wiping off some of the water from her cheek.

"Well, I burned my toast," JC started and Liz laughed. "So I just ate a pear. Oh, and I already called someone to get the car fixed. He'll be over either tomorrow or the day after that so look out for him."

"Sounds good." Liz sat up some more slowly, careful not to put pressure on the broken arm. "So, now that you got me up, what're our plans for today? I can't swim with this cast on."

"I actually have some work that I wanna do for a couple hours over at the studio. After that I was thinking we could just come back home and lounge around the house like it's nobody's business. I wanted to go out to the mall or a restaurant for lunch but I don't feel like being mobbed today. Wanna come to the studio with me?"

Liz raised her eyebrows and let a surprised smile creep over her lips. "You want me to come with you?"

"Of course. You're my muse, aren't ya?"

"What about your recording studio downstairs?" Liz asked.

"I don't have all the fun stuff yet."

"You're gonna play with your fancy equipment and blatantly ignore me if I come along, aren't you?"

JC grinned. "Probably."

Liz laughed and punched his shoulder gently.

"In all honest though," JC began. "I'd really like if you'd come with me this time."

"Wouldn't I be like, a distraction?" Liz knew that JC usually hated when people wanted to tag along with him to the studio. He liked to get into his own zone and focus by himself without have another party there to bother him.

"If I'm asking you to come with me, then I don't think you'd be a distraction. I just want to get a couple tunes out and see what I can do. Oh, and I can show you the new mixing console Johnny got installed the other day and all that. It'll be fun, I promise."

She couldn't help but smile at over how excited JC would get over the simplest things, as long as it was musical related. "Just lemme take a shower and grab a book and we can go. Who's gonna be there?"

"No one. I got the key to the studio. Just you and me."

"Sounds interesting enough."

JC laughed as he leaned over to peck her lips. "It will be. You don't mind me wanting to spend a ‘technically day off' in the studio, do you?"

Liz shook her head. "Nah, I love watching you all focused and intent when you're doing what you do. It's sexy."

"What's sexy is knowing that you're laying there completely naked under those covers. That's sexy."

"You're such a horn dog, Josh."

JC couldn't help but smirk. "One more thing."

"What?"

"The control booth's soundproof."

*****

3 hours later

"You can talk, you know," JC chuckled, not shifting his gaze from the computer. One of his hands were on the mouse while the other rested on the keyboard next to him. "You haven't said anything for a while."

"Hm?" Liz lifted her head from her phone. She was laying on her back on the couch opposite to JC. "Oh. I didn't want to disturb you too much."

He minimized the program and spun around in the chair to look at her. He rolled over to her, semi crashing into the couch.

"Is your phone entertaining you?" he asked with a smile before bending his head down to kiss her.

Liz shrugged. "Just deleting some emails is all."

"Random fans didn't get a hold of your email again, did they?" JC asked, concerned.

"Nah, at least, I don't think so. I'm signed into the work email."

"Can I see?"

Liz handed him the phone and watched as JC scrolled through the mail, opening every other one and scanning it.

"You can delete them after you open ‘em."

JC frowned, lifting his head to look at her. "Why are you deleting these? People are trying to get through to you to plan stuff for them. I just saw one that's asking if you're willing to plan a staff Christmas party for some company here. There are like, four weddings that I saw too."

"Yea, but, a majority of that stuff is in Los Angeles or New York. The ones with the orange tick next to it are in Florida. We don't do out of state planning."

"Babe, do you know how much money L&E Planning could make if you broadened your horizons a bit?"

"It's not about the money, Josh. Em and I like Florida. We have great clients and we're known here. It's wasting time and money to try to expand the business and then have it crash and burn."

"I don't see how it could crash and burn if all these people are trying to contact you."

"For all you know, those people probably are just gonna use me to get a hold of *NSYNC."

"Or they've seen your work and they want your help."

"Just keep deleting," Liz sighed.

"You know, when I get to L.A. tonight, I can get some people to make a couple calls to some of these people and have them link up with you. Get some new clients and see what they want, you know?"

"Our business isn't fit to do out of state planning, Jace."

"Sure it is. Does Em know you get these emails?"

Liz nodded. "She gets them too."

"I say you let me help you guys out and hook you up with some new people."

"You don't have to, Josh."

"I'm gonna have to finish those tracks while we're in L.A. anyways."

"Why can't you finish it here?"

"This studio isn't as advanced as the one over in Los Angeles," JC explained, handing the phone back to her. "This one doesn't have all the equipment and software I need."

"I don't know, Jace," Liz mumbled. "If these people really want our help to plan their stuff, Em and I are gonna have to go back and forth between Florida and Los Angeles or between Florida and New York. Not to mention that we have our assistants and employees plus our regular clients."

"I'm back and forth between Los Angeles and Florida all the time," JC reminded her. "It works out."

"Yea, but I need some sort of stability."

"What kind of stability?"

"We'd need an office in both places. We'd have to hire new people, get our name out, adjust..."

"You know L.A. You can adjust just fine."

"I've only been there maybe, five times. Four of them were with you."

"Could you imagine that though?" JC chuckled. "You and I? Working in Los Angeles? It'd be a helluva lot easier. Most of our recording sessions and publicity are in L.A. and New York."

Liz sat up some more and JC got off the chair to join her on the couch. She looked at him.

"Josh..."

"I know it's a lot to think about, but consider it. It'd be a whole new life for us over there."

"That's exactly my point. It'd be all new to me."

"But you'd get used to it, babe. You already have people lined up so you don't even have to worry that much about getting the business' name out. Think about it. You're doubling your profits. Emma in the Florida branch, you in the Los Angeles branch."

"If we both worked over there, we'd have to move there."

JC nodded. "And that's exactly my point."

Liz raised her eyebrows. "Move? Out of Orlando?"

"Why not?"

"That's a big step!"

"Are you saying you're not considering it?"

"I'm saying that I can't only think about me here. I have Emma, my employees over at the office, my regular clients. If I moved..."

"If we moved," JC began. "It'd be a great career move for the both of us. Weren't we saying last night we want to take time together to experiment and explore out options?"

"Yea, but... Moving?"

JC laughed. "Yes. Moving. Relocating. Repositioning. Transferring. Whichever one you wanna call it."

Liz smiled, rubbing the back of her neck. "That's a huge step though."

"But we'd be taking it together," JC encouraged.

"There'd be so much shit we'd have to get done though, Josh," Liz sighed. "For starters, we'd have to start looking at houses and new managing our schedules and I'd have to buy a new office for-"

"If we budget properly," JC cut her off. "We can get all that stuff done in under three months. I bet you."

"I don't know about all that, Josh," she said. "I don't know how well I can envision us doing that when all that we've ever had as a couple is in Florida."

"Liz," JC started. "My job is centred in Los Angeles when I'm not on the road or on a plane or home for a day or two. The people in the business that I might have to work with one day are in L.A. We can get a new house in L.A."

"Yea, but what about me? My friends are in Florida. My business in Florida. The entire few years of my life is in Florida. I don't know how I feel about starting a new life over in a state I'm not even familiar with. You know I'd go in a heartbeat just because it's your job but..." her voice trailed off.

"But?" JC questioned.

"It's a huge step to think about making. From my perspective-"

"From my perspective," JC cut her off. "I think it'll be fantastic for both you and me, career wise. We'd keep the house here in Florida, but, baby, think about Los Angeles. Think about the possibilites it has for both of us over there."

"Babe," Liz sighed. "It's moving away from almost everything and everyone that I've ever known since I was in college. I don't automatically adapt to new places the way that you do. Not permanently, anyways."

"I need you to seriously consider this for me, babe. I know I can't make you move but... Maybe it's actually the thing to do."

"I thought this only started out as a suggestion," Liz reminded him.

Now it was JC's turn to sigh. "I know, I know. I'm sorry."

"But I know that the possibilities in Los Angeles is something you've envisioned since back when we were dating."

"You remember that?"

"'Course I do."

"I really think it'd be great, Liz. And we can always reside in both places- L.A. and Florida. We'd be attached to both."

"I simply just don't know exactly how I feel about it completely yet, baby. There's a lot for me to consider before I decide to just up and move away from here."

"I'm not telling you that you have to 'up and move away from here,'" JC said, quoting her.

"Then what exactly are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm trying to tell you, that... I want you to make a decision."