Joey wandered around FAO Schwartz in a funk. He'd went to see what was new, even checked out the aisle holding the NSYNC dolls, shaking his head at the craziness of it all. In his head he could hear Mel's voice teasing him about his plastic fantastic red hair and about Justin's fro. He took a deep breath and sighed. Over on another aisle, he could hear voices. Security was with him, letting him shop by himself.

“Momma, it was Joey from NSYNC...I know it was,” a little girl's voice said on the next aisle.

“I know, honey..but the workers said he was shopping. He probably doesn't get to do it much by himself...” an older woman's voice replied. “We have a lot of other things to do today, Ashleigh.”

Joey couldn't help but step closer to the end of the aisle, listening. He knew what an excited kid sounded like, and this was one, but something in her voice stopped him from just going on to the next aisle, figuring the kid's parent could get a concert ticket. He wasn't heartless, but he'd learned a few years ago that being in a music group came with a big sign that made him a target for those who would take advantage of him.

“I..I know,” the little girl's voice said softer. “I just wanted to say hi.”

Hearing the disappointment, Joey raised an eyebrow at Mo, making him follow as he went around the end cap and to the aisle where he stopped in his tracks. It was indeed a little girl, looking at him with wide eyes and a grin spreading across her face from ear to ear. His heart beat faster as she looked at him. Joey could see she was sick.

“Hi, sweetheart. What's your name?” he asked, kneeling down in front of her wheelchair when he got to it, studying her short brown hair and light brown eyes.

Ashleigh blushed profusely, the smile on her face getting wider. “I'm Ashleigh. This is my mom, Kelly.”

Joey looked at Kelly and smiled, “Nice to meet you,” he told them both and then went back to Ashleigh, peppering her with questions about her life and how old she was, what she liked and why she was in New York. He found out she loved purple, the race car driver Jeff Gordon and that she could sing every song off of their albums.

“I'm gonna be on Maury later today, so Mom said I couldn't get too tired out. I know you don't get to come places by yourself...sorry if I ruined your shopping,” she said, looking a little downcast.

“No...not at all,” Joey assured her as they walked around to the end of the aisle and back to where he'd been, the aisle of Barbies and NSYNC dolls. It was a little girl's paradise. “How about we do some shopping? I mean, the rest of the guys wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't help you get all of the new stuff out. He went and picked out the newest things, all of the NSYNC dolls, plus a brown haired Barbie and the Corvette to ride them around in. It was fun and by the time they were done, Ashleigh was laughing at him being silly, singing words to songs that didn't match.

“What's your favorite song we sing?” Joey asked her, wanting to know so he could tell the rest of the guys.

“This I Promise You,” Ashleigh told him, giggling as she hugged her toys to her, ripping the boxes open with the help of one of the employees that had come down the aisle to 'help'.

He stepped back for a moment to Kelly, watching Asheligh arrange her Barbie-now named Ash- to ride between the dolls of him and JC in the front of the Corvette. “How sick is she?” he heard himself ask quietly, hating that kids had to go through things that adults couldn't even handle with grace and dignity.

“She's pretty sick. It's a brain tumor... The chemo keeps her tired, but her spirit is so willing, Joey. Ashleigh loves life. This made her day, probably her year,” Kelly said, watching her play, grinning at her daughter.

Joey hated to leave, but Mo was getting edgy with people crowding around and he knew he had sound check to go to. “Thanks for meeting me, Ashleigh. I had a great time,” he said, hugging the little girl after giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, swallowing a lump in his throat when she hugged him back tight.

“I'm gonna call my Aunt Susie tonight and tell her I met you. She'll never believe I met you,” Ashleigh told him, hugging him once more.

Joey said his goodbyes, getting out of the store after paying for the little girl's toys and back into the car he'd come in, Mo getting in next to him.

“That was great, huh?” he told Mo, shaking his head at how he could make someone's day just by meeting them for a little while and getting them a toy or two. It wasn't that he had to do it or she asked, but it was what he wanted to do. He was just being Joey. A frown came to his face as he quickly flipped his phone shut, open to call Mel and tell her what had happened. She'd have loved to hear the story, but he wasn't going to call her. He could do this, he told himself, watching the hustle and bustle of New York pass by.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

Melissa sat her suitcase down on her bed with a thump. She didn't bother opening it, or her carry on bag, leaving them both on her bed. She looked around her room and took a deep breath. Pictures of her and Joey took up a lot of the space. Stupid pictures, funny pictures, serious pictures. All of her and the man she thought she'd known inside and out.

Pulling one down that was stuck to her mirror, she let out a muffled sob and a tear fell. One of them six months after they'd met. Joey's hair was blonde on top, and he was whispering something to her, making her laugh, a smile on his face, his head turned towards her ear, his arms around her as her hands were trying to hold on to him. She let that picture fall to the floor, then pulled others out.

She worked for a couple of hours, putting pictures up in a drawer. When she was done, the remaining pictures were re spaced and she went and got a black trash-bag, opening up two drawers in her chest of drawers. Men's socks and underwear, shorts and shirts were in there. Melissa pulled one out and sniffed it, letting more tears fall. Joey had his own laundry detergent at their house, using Tide, while she used Purex. It smelled like Tide and his soap..him. Her heart twisted as she threw the shirt in the bag. “Jerk,” she said, angry tears coming down as she cleaned out the drawers, calling him very ugly names before going to her bathroom and getting rid of things in there too.

Two full trashbags later, Melissa hauled them out to her car and was getting in when her mother's ringtone came up on her phone.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, trying to keep it from sounding like she'd been crying.

“Hi, baby. How's New York? I haven't heard from your brother...he probably forgot his phone on the tour bus again...” her mother went on about things before she stopped. “I don't hear your shadow trying to get the phone. Where's Joey?”

“I..I'm at home, Ma. In Orlando,” Melissa said, pursing her lips together. “I decided I needed to come home and do school. It was going to be too hard to do all the classes online.”

“Oh,” Linda Bass' voice sounded a bit odd, like she wasn't quite buying the story. “Well then, you'll have to come and meet me at Chico's for dinner. Six is good right?”

Melissa rolled her eyes at her mother's request. She would tempt her with her favorite Mexican place. It was a ploy to get her to talk. “Six is fine, Mom. I will text Lance and tell him to call you.”

“Okay, sweetie. I will see you in a little while.”

She breathed a big sigh of relief when her mother hung up, making her way over to Joey's. Melissa could drive it with her eyes closed, and got there in the usual time of fifteen minutes. The longest part was waiting for the guard at the gated entrance, who always tried to flirt with her.

Pulling up into the driveway, Melissa got the two bags out and carried them to the garage door, punching in the code and waiting for it to open. There was another code to disarm the house alarm and her key to get in. She put the bags on the table, along with the key. His house was spotless, since the housekeeper came, along with Joey's parents, to make sure it was being looked after.

She flipped open her phone, shaking her head as she did. It pained her to call, even if it wasn't Joey she was calling.

“What's up my baby chica?” Justin answered in a very bad Spanish accent.

“Tell...” her voice got a little tight, and she swallowed, “tell Joey I put all his stuff on the table with his key. And I'm getting my stuff from his place.” Melissa heard Justin do something and then more voices. She put a hand to her forehead as she heard him hiss meanly to Joey that his shit was at his own casa and the goddamned key was on the table and he hoped Fatone was fucking happy. “He wants to talk to you,” Justin came back on the line, the joking tone his voice held when answering was gone.

“I don't have anything to say to him,” Melissa told Justin, hanging up before the conversation could go any farther.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Justin looked at Joey, closing his cell phone. “You screwed the fuck up. I don't know what you did, Joseph Anthony Fatone, June-yer,” Justin drawled out the last part of his name, shaking his head, “but you'll be lucky if she ever gives you the time of day again.”

“I don't see why you fucking care so much, Mister Superstar. You're dating Britney Spears,” Joey snapped back, turning to leave before Justin turned him back around, shoving him back a few feet.

“The two of you made sense! All of those goddamn songs we sing...you had that with her! Even if you were too stupid to realize it. I mean, shit..I love Brit. I love her, man..but we don't have quite the same connection as you and Mel. She loved you.”

Joey raised an eyebrow at his friend, wondering if Justin had gone crazy. “She has a boyfriend. She didn't love me. Girls that love guys tell them. They act all stupid and giggly, not like she did.”

Neither of the men noticed that they now had an audience of Chris and JC, who had slipped into Justin's hotel room, finding a spot on the wall to stand.

“She wouldn't tell you! You were worth more to her than that for just some half baked fling or just a stupid fucking kiss in a game. You know what? I'm glad she went back to Florida. I don't give a shit if the rest of the tour sucks ass. You fucking deserve it, dawg,” Justin yelled, then saw JC and Chris, staring at them. “If Mel calls my phone, answer it, but don't give it to the dumb fuck,” he told them, handing them his cell phone as he slammed the door to his bathroom.

Joey looked at the both of them, pissed off, hurt and wishing he could crawl under a rock. “This is your fault you know! If you hadn't dared me to kiss her, we'd have been fine!! She'd still be here!” he yelled at Chris before leaving and going to his own room. He wouldn't admit things had been fine until he'd opened his big mouth. He had an hour or so until they were supposed to be at sound check and practice. Laying down on his bed, Joey threw his arm over his face and laid there, trying to not think about Mel, his thoughts turning to Ashleigh and her condition. His heart ached for both situations and he let a few tears fall silently, knowing the first was his fault. Now there was nothing he could do about it.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

“So you came back to go to school because...” Linda asked her youngest child, watching Melissa push food around her plate before taking a bite of her chicken enchiladas covered in white sauce so she wouldn't have to answer. “I will call your brother and find out. Or better yet, call Joey.”

Melissa swallowed her food and shrugged, digging into her rice. “It's Joey's fault. He...he told me that the reason he was being so nice to me, that he kissed me,” she looked down at her plate, “was so that he didn't hurt my feelings that he was in love with Kristen.”

Linda looked at her daughter, surprised. She knew Melissa and Joey were close, but not that any romantic feelings were there. “And so that warranted you coming home? Travis was there..your brother and the other guys,” she said and raised an eyebrow.

“I was basically told that I was a prude...and I told Joey something similar but that he could go do it to himself...And that was the end of it. He told me to pack his things and drop them off, so I did. Let's talk about something else.” Melissa took a drink of her Dr Pepper and continued eating, hoping that she could get to a point where everything didn't make her think about Joey.

Linda went on to other subjects, watching her daughter pretending to be interested. “Just give it some time,” she said, putting her hand over Melissa's. “you'll be busy with school before you know it. The guys are busy. Time heals all things.”

“Sure, Mom. Just keep telling yourself that,” Melissa muttered when the waiter came with the bill. She wasn't interested in time healing anything, she just wanted to forget the last few years of being in love with someone who she couldn't have, who would never feel the same. It felt like betrayal that she didn't feel that way about Travis as well, knowing that she should since he was her boyfriend. “Thanks for dinner, Mom,” she said, scooting her chair out and grabbing her purse, hugging her mom tightly. “I got stuff to do at the house.”

“Okay. Come over tomorrow to the house so you can get your stuff and go register for classes. I was going to do it, but since you're home...” Linda told her daughter, hugging her back, smoothing her hair and then the worry lines in her forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Ma.” Melissa turned and left quickly, making it out of downtown before the tearrs fell. The radio station was playing an NSYNC song and she couldn't make herself change it.

“Why didn't I know it,” JC's voice sang, “why didn't I show it, when I had the chance...oh I had the chance.”

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Joey felt the glares to his back. He'd felt them the whole practice, ignoring them for the most part, except when Justin had purposely almost knocked him over during Bye Bye Bye, apologizing with a wicked grin on his face. He'd tried to catch Lance's eye, but the other man wouldn't even look at him.

“Okay, break time,” JC announced, going to grab one of the bottled waters out of the cooler sitting at the back of the stage.

“Lance,” Joey said, wiping his head where sweat was, glad when Lance turned to him. “Have you talked to your sister?” he asked, giving Justin the finger.

“She texted me and told me to call my Mom,” Lance replied with a shrug. “She probably won't call...least for a few days. What did you do?”

Joey sighed hard, running a hand over his face. “Opened my big fat mouth and said something I shouldn't have.”

“Apologize,” Lance told him, putting down his phone to look at Joey, staring hard at him. “You mean to tell me you said something to my sister you can't tell her sorry for? Or it's bad enough she was serious when she told me you two weren't friends?”

Joey swallowed hard and halfway nodded, not meeting Lance's face. “I told her to take all of my stuff back to my place and leave the key,” Joey's voice got louder as Lance started walking away. “I have a girlfriend! She was just a distraction...trying to get me to break up with Kristen,” he explained, sighing heavily when he realized his other best friend had quit listening to him. Flipping his phone open, he saw one missed call. Joey frowned, hitting delete. It wasn't from who he wanted it to be from and he was damned if he was going to call her. His Italian streak was coming out, and he wasn't about to be the first to apologize. It would be a cold day in Hades, he decided, shoving his feelings down when JC barked out it was time to practice once more.

“What song we doing?” Chris asked once they all had microphones, pulling up a stool.

“I Thought She Knew,” Lance said, not missing the pained look on Joey's face. “We keep it in the songlist.”

“You all are bastards,” Joey growled, giving them all the middle finger.

“Takes one to know one,” Justin snapped. “I am glad at least your black beating heart was nice to that girl in the toy store. Good to know you're nice to perfect strangers.”

Joey took that verbal insult, closing his eyes. He reminded himself that he didn't need Lance's sister. He had a girlfriend, family and friends that loved him, no matter what. For the first time in a long time, Joey felt nothing while singing, other than that his heart was empty.