They froze waiting to see if something was going to happen. They looked at each other and then started chuckling quietly.

“We’re really letting this movie get to us,” Lance said as the chuckles died down. It was obvious that nothing was going to happen and that the door slamming combined with the movie freaked them out.

It was silent for a few minutes before Joey asked, “Why did the door slam?”

Everyone just looked at each other and shrugged.

“Maybe it’s ghosts. Oooh!” Chris said, jokingly. Lance stopped typing, and JC gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting on so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

Chris had been expecting the others to laugh at it and was surprised to find they weren’t. “C’mon, guys, it was a joke.”

“It’s not something to joke about, Chris, and you know it!” JC yelled.

“Well, sorry for trying to make you guys laugh. Geez, JC, lighten up.”

“I just can’t believe that you’re making a joke about it when you know what we’ve all been through, including yourself.” JC left the room and slammed the door on his way out.

“Should someone go after him?” Justin asked concerned about his friend.

“No, just leave him be. He needs some time to cool down,” Lance answered, knowing that JC didn’t want to deal with anyone right now.

Shortly after Justin, Joey, and Chris vacated Lance’s room for their own. The fun had died down and they decided that they should get to bed because they had to be up in a few hours.

Lance had thought about going to talk to JC, but decided that JC would probably be sleeping by now. Lance went to bed knowing that he would talk to JC tomorrow before they left for the arena.

-------------------------------------------------

JC tossed and turned in his sleep, moaning when a particularly painful memory flashed into his dream. He always dreamt about the same thing and it disturbed him to no end. Normally dreams were a way to escape reality, but not this time.

He was in the middle of another bad dream when there was a sudden knock at the door. JC, who was once known as the heaviest sleeper, jumped up in bed. His heart racing in his chest as he tried to assess where he was and what woke him. There was another knock at the door and he realized that must have been what woke him up. He ran over to the door and opened it.

“Hey,” he panted as he opened the door and saw Lance.

“Hey,” Lance replied. “What’s got you all out of breath?”

“Oh I just jumped up and ran to the door,” JC said.

Lance raised a skeptical eyebrow, but said nothing. He knew that something was up, but didn’t want to dive into it right away. JC would avoid the question for as long as possible anyway.

Instead Lance asked, “Why aren’t you dressed? We have to leave for the arena in an hour.”

“Give me a break. I just woke up.”

Lance frowned a little at hearing this. Everyone else had already been up for two hours, but then again JC was known for sleeping as much as he could. Lance decided he was reading too much into it and pushed it to the back of his mind.

“Are you okay?”

JC turned from where he was sifting through his bag. “Of course I am.”

Lance was silent letting JC’s answer and his reaction to last night roll around in his head. Finally after a few minutes, he said, “Chris didn’t mean anything by it. You know that.”

“Of course I do.” JC sighed. “I just overreacted last night. His comment just caught me off guard.”

“Just like Joey’s did,” Lance said. Both of them laughed recalling Joey’s answer to the crayon question.

“What do you think is up with him anyway?” JC asked.

Lance shrugged. “I think he was just really tired from partying.”

“I’m sure you’re right. It’s certainly not serious enough to bug him about it,” JC agreed. “How much time do I have left?”

Lance looked at his watch. “About 45 minutes. Just enough time for you to get showered and dressed.”

“I’ll see you in a few then,” JC said before he shut the bathroom door. Lance let himself out and went to Justin’s room to make sure the others were ready.

Lance knocked on Justin’s door and waited for an answer. He heard a thump from inside before he was greeted by Justin who was red faced and was holding his side.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lance asked as Justin stepped aside to let him in.

“Nothing. Chris and I were just fighting over the remote and I fell off the couch.”

“Why can’t ya’ll just grow up?”

“Because you and JC are too serious. We balance the group out,” Justin explained.

“What does Joey do?” Lance asked.

“I help play pranks on you and Jace, but I’m also mature,” Joey said.

“Mature my ass,” said Chris. “You think you’re all wise now that you have a kid. That’s a laugh considering you’re still one big kid yourself.”

“At least I don’t look like a kid,” Joey retorted.

Chris stepped closer to Joey and raised himself onto his tiptoes. “Are you making fun of my height?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Shorty,” Joey said stepping closer to Chris.

“All right, guys, that’s enough.” Lance stepped between the two of them in order to stop the wrestling match that was about to ensue. Both men laughed at Lance’s attempt, but decided to comply with him.

“What time is it?” Justin asked. “Shouldn’t we be heading for the arena?”

Lance looked at his watch. “It’s almost 10:30. We can’t leave with a fifth of the band missing.”

“Could you imagine the headlines that would appear?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, I can see it now. ‘Favorite *NSYNC member kills second favorite *NSYNC member’,” Chris laughed.

“Speaking of him…how’s he doing?” Justin turned to Lance looking concerned.

Lance sighed. “He says he’s fine.”

“But you believe differently?” Joey questioned.

“No, I never said that. You just know how JC is when it comes to talking about himself.”

“Yeah, he’s a closed book.” Chris hesitated before asking, “Is he still bugged about last night?”

“No, he knows you were joking. It just caught him off guard and he didn’t know how to deal with it. We’ve never really discussed it openly, you know,” Lance explained.

“Do you think we should?” Joey asked.

“No, it’s over and done with. No use raking up the past.” Lance figured that was the best way to handle it. Besides Lance didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking about it either. The four of them continued to watch TV until there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it!” Chris volunteered as he jumped up from the couch and ran over the door. He opened it and standing on the other side was JC who was clean and freshly shaven.

“About time! We’ve been waiting forever,” Chris exaggerated.

“You couldn’t have been waiting forever. You only got up three hours ago,” Lance spoke up from the couch.

Chris stuck his tongue out at him. “Whatever. We’re all here and in one piece. Can we go now?”

“Why are you so anxious to leave? You normally stall until the last second.” JC looked questioning at Chris.

Chris smiled innocently. “Oh, no reason.”

JC looked over at Lance. “I don’t like that look.” Chris laughed evilly with a glint in his eye.

“I don’t either, but Johnny will kill us if we’re late,” Lance said moving towards the door and motioning for the rest to follow him. The five of them migrated into the hall, down the elevator, out the front doors of the hotel, and into the limo that was parked right out front.

It was a short ride to the venue. Once there they were immediately directed to the stage where they ran over the choreography for the show twice before they were given a short break. It was a half hour break for lunch.

Lunch was pretty uneventful. They just sat around chatting away about nothing while they ate their lunch. JC had eased up a lot since they arrived at the venue. He had been waiting for Chris to pull some prank all morning. However, the entire morning had gone by with no such thing, allowing JC to breathe easy again.

Before they knew it their break was over and it was time for sound check. They all loved doing the sound check with the fans because they got to goof around with the fans for an hour before the show and let them sample a few songs that were part of the show.

The guys walked onto the stage carrying their water bottles with them and Chris bringing up the rear. They settled down onto the stools where they looked out at the 100 fans that were participating in this sound check.

“How’s everyone doing?” Justin asked. The crowd, mostly teenage girls, screamed in response. Justin and the others smiled.

“It’s nice to see so many smiling faces,” JC said as the sound of pictures being taken could be heard. “Let’s get started with a small piece of a song that you’ll be hearing tonight.”

The five of them sang into the headset that was still attached to them. They were so used to having the three pound piece of equipment attached to them that they hardly felt it anymore. They sang and the crowd just ate it up by singing along and swaying to the melodic tunes.

The piece ended and the five guys smiled at each other. They loved how they sounded together.

“Now we’re going to do a question and answer session before singing one more piece,” JC said.

“JC?” Chris asked with his arm behind his back.

“Yeah?” JC turned to look at him only to be squirted in the face with water. Once JC wiped the water out of his eyes, he saw that Chris was holding a water gun. JC shook his wet head and sent water spraying everywhere.

“Hey!” an indignant Joey cried when he was hit with water from JC’s hair.

“This means war!” Justin yelled before water went flying. All of them uncapped their bottles of water and were chucking the water at each other. By the time all the water was gone, they were all soaked from head to toe.

The fans had gone crazy laughing and snapping as many pictures as they could. The guys finished up sound check in wet clothes. Everyone left the stage very happy and it definitely showed in their performance that night. It was times that like this that they forgot about their problems.