~~~~~*~~~~~

Clare woke to the sound of her and Libby's names being called from somewhere in the apartment. At first she disregarded it as simply the end of a very strange dream, but as the sound grew louder and more urgent, Clare found herself unable to tune it out. She reluctantly opened her eyes, but very soon regretted it.

The bright sunshine that was filtering in through her window stung at her eyes, and Clare let out a groan before trying to hide her face in her pillow. She'd completely forgotten to close her blinds the night before and now the room was flooded with bright light. Clare was surprised that it hadn't disturbed her up until now. Normally she woke at the first signs of daylight—a throwback to her days spent in the UK, where the occasional sunny day was worth waking up early for.

Turning her head to glance at her bedside table, Clare noticed that the numbers on her small digital bedside clock were flashing. Somehow she'd managed to completely sleep through her alarm, which was set to go off at eight o'clock. She’d known that she was going to be having a late night, and yet she’d completely forgotten to turn it off. Its flickering light continued to warn her that she'd overslept.

Groaning again, Clare gave herself a second to prepare for the onslaught of headache that was bound to appear the moment she was somewhat vertical. She tentatively slipped her legs out from underneath the covers, rose to her feet and shuffled her way out of the bedroom.

"Who's shouting?" Libby asked as she appeared from her bedroom just as Clare was passing by. Libby's hair was sticking up on one side of her head and she let out a loud yawn as she rubbed at her tired eyes.

"God knows," Clare replied as she offered her friend a weak smile.

They both made their way along the hall and into the open plan kitchen where they found Lisa. She was leaning slightly against a kitchen counter with her right hand grasping at the handle of the kettle as she waited for it to boil. 

At their arrival, Lisa turned her head and flashed them a bright smile. "Morning!" She said cheerfully as the kettle light switched off to indicate that the water was boiled. Lisa turned back around and began to fill several mugs with the hot water.

"Coffee?" She asked Libby and Clare.

"It's the least you could do," Clare said dryly as she accepted the mug that Lisa held out to her. "Waking us all up at ridiculous o'clock and using up our coffee granules and milk."

"What's the big idea anyway?" Libby asked as she politely declined Lisa's offer of coffee and instead went about fetching herself a glass of water from the faucet.

"What's going on?" Another voice asked from the doorway and Clare span around to find a very grumpy looking Chris standing there. His clothes were still crumpled from a night spent sleeping in a chair and he had a nights worth of stubble around his usually well–trimmed beard. "Who's shouting?" He complained.

"Lisa," Clare explained as she gestured to where Lisa was standing. "She thought she would pop round to wake us all up with her vocals!"

"Great," Chris quipped dryly as he reached past Lisa's back to whisk up one of the mugs of coffee that she'd made. Taking a long sip, he swallowed and let out a happy sigh as the hot liquid settled in his stomach.

"I came around because I have some news," Lisa told them with a grin as she took a sip from her own mug and peeped at them over the rim to gauge their reactions.

Clare, Libby and Chris all exchanged a look.

"And this news couldn't wait until a decent hour?" Clare asked her pointedly causing Lisa to laugh.

"No," she said.

"Hmm... something's up," Libby said as she regarded her friend suspiciously. "What happened last night?"

"Is everyone awake?" Lisa asked as she glanced around the room. She'd been hoping that everyone would be awake by the time she arrived, but she'd yet to see half of the people that she'd been expecting. She'd assumed that the group would have converged at Clare's the night before, but hadn't been expecting to see any of the members of *NSYNC there. Nevertheless, she was still happy to be able to share her news with them.

"I'm sure they've all heard you shouting, if that's what you mean," Chris replied sarcastically. Lisa pulled a face at him and rolled her eyes.

"I want to tell everyone at once," she explained as she took another sip of her drink.

"Well, tell us first and we'll pass it on," Libby said impatiently as she nodded encouragingly at Lisa. Her interest was already raised and she couldn't wait to hear Lisa's news; whatever it was.

"No way," Lisa replied with a chuckle as she shook her head at her friend. "This is big news and I want the whole group to hear."

Clare and Libby exchanged another look. Big news? She wants the whole group to hear?

Clare narrowed her eyes at Lisa and tilted her head to one side to regard her more carefully. "Okay, Lis. You've got our attention. What exactly happened last night?"

+ + +

Having his voice—and courage—finally return to him, Joey slowly got up onto one knee. He looked Lisa straight in the eye and took a deep breath, all the while hoping that he didn't look like too much of an idiot. The adrenaline surged through his body and he tried his best not to lose his nerve. 

"Lisa..." he said in a tentative, soft voice.

"At last!" She quipped back playfully as she reached out to slap him on the arm. "We've made a breakthrough! You really scared me, you know!"

"Lisa..." Joey continued as he ignored her teasing. He was so focused on what he needed to say that he wasn't even paying much attention to her interruption. "I love you, Lisa. I've loved you for a long time, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Jo–ey, what are you doing?" Lisa asked as she put two and two together and realised where he was heading. She reached out for one of his hands which she realised was shaking.

Joey allowed her to take his hand and gave her a nervous smile. "Lisa," he continued. "Will you please marry me?"

+ + +

"Oh, my gosh!" Libby squealed as she listened to Lisa's story. She'd had her predictions about what Lisa might say but Joey proposing hadn't been one of them.

"He did what?" Chris exclaimed. He'd been taken completely by surprise by Lisa's announcement and was shocked that Joey had popped the question without any of them knowing that he was even contemplating it.

"He proposed!" Lisa squealed as she beamed at each of her friends in turn.

"Who proposed?" A sleepy voice asked from the doorway and the group turned around to find Justin leaning against the door frame. He yawned, and as an afterthought raised a hand to cover his mouth.

"Joey did," Clare explained as she met Justin's eyes. "He proposed to Lisa on the beach last night."

"Wow," Justin replied. He was unsure of how to react to the news and glanced at Chris quickly to gauge his reaction first. Chris met his eyes and shrugged as he slowly began to shake his head in disbelief. He wasn't upset that his friend had kept the news from him; he was more bemused by it all.

Realising that the small group of his friends seemed to be watching, and waiting, for his reaction, Justin turned back to Lisa and gave her a warm smile. "Congratulations, Lis."

"Thank you," Lisa replied, blushing slightly from all the attention.

"So what did you say?" Libby asked as she lifted herself onto the kitchen counter top behind her and swung her legs over the side. Her words were met by chuckles from the others and she shot them all a warning glare. "What?"

"Isn't it kind of obvious, Lib?" Clare asked as she shot an amused look at Lisa.

"Actually, no," Libby said defensively as she began to frown. She didn't think that she'd said anything especially amusing. "Just because he asked doesn't mean that she answered."

"I didn't," Lisa giggled, causing Clare to turn to her in surprise as her mouth fell open slightly. It had been the last thing that Clare had been expecting her to say. Libby crossed her arms as a smug look crossed her face. She didn't say it out loud, but inside her head she was thinking, see... told you so!

"You turned him down?" Chris asked in barely contained surprise.

"No," Lisa assured him. "I told him that I would have to think about it. It was such a shock that I felt it was a reasonable answer."

Chris and Justin simultaneously sucked air in through their teeth creating a loud, hissing noise. All three of the girls turned to glare at them.

"What?" Libby asked them with a frown.

"That's not a good answer," Justin explained as he met Libby's eyes.

"And how would you know?" Clare asked him as she tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. "It's a big decision accepting someone's proposal and Lisa is entitled to take her time deciding. But... you are going to say yes, aren't you, Lis?" Clare asked, turning to Lisa suddenly. It just occurred to her that her friend may be stalling her answer because she wasn't sure how she was going to reply.

Lisa beamed once again and this time her cheeks turned an obvious shade of red. "Yes," she whispered and hid her delight by taking another sip of her coffee.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Libby emerged from her bedroom an hour later fully dressed and carrying her book bag over her shoulder as she prepared to leave for college.

She entered the living room and looked around for Clare, but found only Justin sprawled across the couch. His attention was completely absorbed by the music channel that he was watching on the television and he didn't look up when he heard her enter.

"Where is everyone?" Libby asked him as she picked up a green apple from the bowl of fruit that Clare liked to keep on the coffee table. Since she'd been so busy chatting with Lisa earlier she'd missed her usual breakfast, and so she'd decided to grab something to eat on the go.

"Clare, Jamie, Chris and JC are at work; Sara and Jason went for breakfast and Lisa left to go and call her mom," He replied, his eyes never leaving the screen.

"So... it's just you here," She remarked pointedly as she found her car keys and checked in her bag that she had all the books that she needed. "I've gotta leave for college," she told him. "I've got a math exam this morning."

Justin broke away from the television for the first time and flashed her a winning grin. "Good luck!"

"Thanks," Libby replied as she met his eyes and chuckled dryly. "After getting practically no sleep last night I'm going to need it!"

~~~~~*~~~~~

Back at the Compound, Chris had made his way to Jamie's office in search of some Tylenol that he knew she had stored somewhere in her desk. Jamie suffered a lot from headaches—due to the stressful nature of her job—and so she kept a ready stash of pain relief in her desk so that they were in easy reach for when she needed them.

"Here you go," she said as she fished a packet of pills out of the top drawer of her desk and handed them to him. Realising that she was able to help him and that he wouldn't have to continue his search for pain relief, Chris decided that he could afford to stay for a little while and so perched himself on the edge of her desk.

"Thank you," he replied with a tight smile as he took the tablets from her. "I guess I'm getting a little old for pulling all–nighter’s and guzzling down wine," he chuckled, and then raised a hand to clutch at his forehead. "Ouch."

"I think that's what you're supposed to be doing at your age," Jamie replied with a chuckle of her own as she watched him attempt to get the packet open whilst cringing through the pain. She sighed and retrieved the packet from his hand before opening it herself, removing two Tylenol tablets and reaching out to place them in his palm. He smiled gratefully at her.

"It's probably dancing and singing in front of teenage girls that you might be a bit old for!" She teased with a wink.

"Hey!" Chris objected and then clutched at his forehead once again as the pain shot through his nervous system. "Oooch..."

He held his palm out flat before him and tossed his hands backwards, sending the two tablets flying into his open mouth. Anticipating his movements, Jamie offered him a sip from her mug of coffee so that he didn't have to swallow the tablets dry.

As he took a sip from her drink, Chris peered at her from over the rim of the cup as she turned her attention back to her computer screen. It wasn't easy to distract Jamie from work for long; she was officially an addict.

Thanks to also waking that morning with a pounding headache, Jamie hadn't bothered making much effort with her appearance. Usually she would style her hair each day, but today it was scraped back into a messy ponytail.

Jamie's plans for the day were simple; she was going to spend the day working on the final preparations for the tour, leave work on time—hopefully—and spend her evening taking a leisurely bath and possibly watching a movie at home with her cousin. She hadn't seen the point in washing her hair that morning only to get it wet again later.

Feeling his eyes on her, Jamie glanced up quickly only to blush when she caught him staring. She quickly averted her gaze back to her computer screen.

Ever since Clare had told her about the suspicions that she had about Chris, Jamie had tried her best to shrug it off as idle gossip. She'd never been particularly attracted to any of the members of the group, but she could admit to herself that Chris' fast wit was one of the most attractive things about him. That and his dark eyes. He also made her laugh and had an easy of getting along with people, which she liked. However, his childish streak sometimes irritated her and she often found his attempts at humour rubbed her up the wrong way.

Despite going on two tours with the group and planning a third, Jamie usually spent more time in the office than she did with *NSYNC. It was only due to Clare and Libby's involvement with the group that she'd begun to know the guys on a more personal level. This was mainly due to Clare inviting her to spend more time with them all outside of work.

She couldn't say that she was particularly close with any of them. Out of all the guys she probably had the most things in common with Chris, but she'd never really had an occasion to get to know him properly. It was only now that Clare had put the idea in her head that she'd even began to consider the fact that he might be interested in her. Up until now, she'd never considered him to be anything more than a colleague.

"Jam, you got plans for dinner?" Chris asked casually as he picked at his finger nails and avoided her eyes, causing Jamie to raise a questioning eyebrow at him. It hadn't sounded like an invitation and so she decided to just assume that he was just being friendly. Even so, she was surprised that he'd asked.

"Well, I do intend to eat something," she teased with a smile.

"So you have plans?" He asked a slight hint of disappointment evident in his voice. The smile dropped slightly from Jamie's mouth. Maybe he wasn't just being friendly, after all...

"No..." she replied tentatively as she studied his face carefully. He continued to stare at his hands as though their conversation held no real interest for him.

"So you're free?" He asked, the hope rising in his voice even as he maintained his poker face.

"Yes..." Jamie replied, willing him to look up so that she could properly read his face. It sounded more and more likely that he was trying to ask her out, but she still wasn't sure.

"Great. Do you wanna go out to dinner with me then?"

Jamie felt her mouth fall open. After all that hesitation, he'd had no trouble uttering the words aloud. Her eyes bugged slightly out of her head as she tried to comprehend what was happening. One minute he'd been asking her for headache tablets, and then...

Jamie felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she considered her answer. "Err..."

At once she felt the panic begin flood her body. Did she want to go to dinner with him? What if they went out to dinner, and it was a complete disaster? Would things be really awkward between them? Or worse, they went out to dinner and got on really well but working together proved to be too much? Would she have to leave her job?

Jamie juggled the options in her mind as Chris waited patiently for her answer. By now, even he'd extinguished his fascination with his hands and had turned to look at her with a hopeful expression on his face.

As the moments ticked by, Jamie felt her common sense kick in and she forced herself to stop worrying about things that might never happen. What was the big deal? She never gave so much thought about the other men that she'd agreed to go on a date with, so why should things be different now? He wasn't proposing. He was just asking her to dinner. She repeated it several times in her mind so that it sunk in. It's just dinner... She pushed the negative thoughts to the back of her mind and met his eyes.

"Dinner sounds great," she told him with a smile. "Thanks."

~~~~~*~~~~~

Libby sat in the college's auditorium surrounded by her fellow students as they pored over their math exam. Despite having studied as well as she could for the exam, Libby still couldn't get past the first page of questions.

As she stared at the booklet of questions in front of her, the words and numbers on the page began jumping around. She could barely concentrate on reading the problems, let alone focus enough to answer them.

How was she supposed to fill in pages and pages of maths questions on basically no sleep? And why was it that despite being as prepared for the exam as possible, she couldn't stop thoughts of Justin constantly creeping into her head?

It wasn't anything major. Just little moments that they'd shared. Silly, stupid little moments that had slowly weakened her heart and made her love him. Like a few days ago, when they'd had lunch together at the Compound and she'd tried to steal a few of his fries...

+ + +

"Those are mine," Justin complained as Libby reached forward to snaffle a few fries from his plate. He reached over and playfully batted her hand away but it was too late; she'd already shoved the fries into her mouth and had started chewing. Justin glared at her across the table but Libby simply grinned back devilishly.

"What's the big deal?" She asked him with a grin as she rolled her eyes. He lifted a hand and held it in front of his plate as a barrier to protect it from any further onslaughts. Libby burst out laughing at his immature reaction.

"…it’s my food," he told her as he took a bite from his cheeseburger and continued to glower at her. Even though it wasn't a particularly attractive moment for him, Libby couldn't help but find him adorable.

"Yeah... and?"

Justin continued chewing and said nothing. To annoy him further, Libby reached forward once again towards his plate, but this time Justin anticipated her movement. He whipped up the plate from the table and twisted around in his seat to get away from her grasping hand.

"Mmmn...” he grumbled as he hunched his shoulders and pulled the plate to his chest. "Stop!"

Libby grinned once again at his childish actions. He was such a baby. "Share!" She told him as she got to her feet and skipped around the table towards where he was sitting. As Justin was too busy cradling the plate to his chest he had no hands free to defend himself from her, and so it was so easy for Libby to steal another fry from right under his nose.

She grinned and waved it in front of his face before tossing it straight into her mouth. "See, it's not so hard, is it!"

+ + +

Or the day her car had gotten a puncture, and he'd offered to drive her to and from work for the day. It'd been another occasion when they'd chatted about everything and nothing just like the good friends that they were...

+ + +

"How’s the new 'hobby' goin’?" Justin asked her as he momentarily looked away from the road to grin at her.

Libby beamed back and shrugged. "Okay, I guess. Still getting the hang of it. I've gotta admit it's kinda harder than I thought it'd be."

Justin laughed and shook his head. "Not surprised. No offence Lib, but you don't have much upper body strength!" Libby gasped and pretended to be offended.

Justin glanced away from the road once again to check her reaction to her words. Seeing the expression on his face he once again began to laugh. "What? I'm sorry but it's true..."

"Bollocks!" Libby retaliated huffily. "There's nothing wrong with my upper body strength, thank you."

"What about that time you couldn't get out of the pool?" Libby pouted and tried her best not to laugh as she remembered back to the incident that he was referring to.

They'd both been mucking about in the swimming pool at the Compound and Justin had made her laugh so much that when she'd swum to the edge of the pool and tried to climb out, the muscles in her arms had given way beneath her. She'd slipped back into the water with a loud splash and had had to tread water for several minutes before she'd gotten her laughter under control. It was only then that she'd been able to try again, much to Justin's obvious amusement.

"That was completely your fault and you know it!" She argued as a reluctant smile lit up her face. "Besides, you promised not to mention the," she lifted her fingers and made 'quote' marks in the air, "'new hobby'."

"I haven't to anyone else," he said, "but you didn't say I couldn't talk to you about it. Besides, I don't see why you're keeping it a big secret, anyway."

Libby rolled her eyes. "I don't want to say anything until I'm sure I'm going to continue with it. I don't want people giving me the old 'told you so' if I choose to quit.

"Who'd do that?" He asked her seriously. "They'd be proud of you for having a go. I think it's pretty brave."

"Really?" Libby asked sceptically as she pulled a face at him. Justin turned his head and grinned back at her.

"Sure it is," he said, ignoring her scepticism. "You know, it's always scary to take a chance on something when you don't know where it's gonna lead..." His eyes lingered on her face for a few seconds too long, and Libby felt her heart begin to hammer away in her chest. What exactly did he mean by that?

As if realising the double meaning behind his words, Justin quickly pulled his eyes away from her face and stared back at the road as he cleared his throat awkwardly. "You know... I think you're brave tryin' something new."

"Err... thanks..."

+ + +

Stop it! Libby chided herself as she blinked several times to clear her head. You have to complete this exam. You have to pass! You cannot be a drop out. It just isn't an option!

Re–opening her eyes, she re–read the question that she had been staring at for the past ten minutes. If she could just focus on one problem at a time and work her way steadily through the booklet then she'd be fine. She just had to keep reminding herself how hard she'd already worked and how much getting her degree meant to her. In her mind, there was no option to fail.

~~~~~*~~~~~