The two men walked up the short staircase and onto the porch and Sulley reached out and rang the doorbell. Justin heard the somewhat familiar sound of the dog barking and Riley's footsteps coming to the door and then it opened and for the first time Justin was officially face to face with his daughter. Mrs. Thatcher was immediatly standing behind Riley ushering the men inside and shuting the door behind them.

"Hello, hello." She said cheerfully, "I assume we have good news?" she looked from Justin to Sulley and Sulley nodded silently.

"Wonderful." she clapped her hands together and then knelt down near Riley. "Hey Riley do you remember Justin?" she asked.

"Uh huh." Riley nodded.

"Well... Justin is your daddy." Justin breathed in a little more noticably when he heard the words and Mrs. Thatcher looked at him quickly with a reassuring smile.

"My daddy?" Riley looked confused at first.

"Yes. And he's here to take you home. You're gonna have your own room, and a big house and a family. Isn't that great?"

Overall she was probably too young to comprehend the turn of events but she was, for the most part, agreeable. "Can Scout come?" she looked up at Justin.

It took him a second to realize she was speaking to him and he immediately sunk to the ground. "Of course Scout can come, we can't leave him behind." Riley smiled and allowed Justin to pick her up. "Does she have any stuff?" Justin looked back and forth between Sulley and Mrs. Thatcher. The older woman nodded.

"We packed up a small duffel bag with her clothes and then there's a few toys and Scout."

Justin nodded quickly and watched as Mrs. Thatcher left the room momentarily and then returned with a black duffel bag and another canvas bag with a couple stuffed animals sticking out of the top. She attached a blue leash to Scout's collar and handed Justin the other end.

"Okay Riley, say goodbye to Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Sulley, we're gonna go home."

"I am home."

Justin chuckled a bit "No Sweetie, your new home. My house."

"Oh." Riley reached out to give Mrs. Thatcher a hug and then waved at Sulley. Then Justin and Riley somewhat uneventfully verntured off into their new life as a family. Riley no longer an orphan and superstar Justin Timberlake, the world's most eligible bachelor, a single father.

It took Justin nearly 20 minutes to buckle Riley into her car seat, get Scout situated and load the bags into the back. No sooner had he pulled out of the driveway, he was on the phone with his mother.

"Yeah. I just picked her up, I have to go meet Johnny at the office and do a little interview with People magazine." Justin paused for a moment.

"No Mom, it's not going to be like Lance's 'I'm Gay' annoucement, I'm not going to have them print 'I'm a Dad!' on the front cover. It's just going to be a short interview and no pictures but I gotta do something." Another pause.

"Mom, don't worry. I'll meet you at the house later we gotta go shopping and get Riley some more clothes and I wanna do it before the article goes to print. There are already rumors because Star Magazine got a picture of me at the lawyer's office but I don't really want them to get a picture of Riley." Justin took a deep breath "Mom, I gotta go. I love you. Bye." He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat.

"Jussin?" Justin heard the little voice call his name from the back of the car.

He breathed in and gulped "Call me daddy." he said before he could tell himself not to.

"Daddy?" she asked again and nothing could have prepared him for the sound of that word. He smiled.

"Yes Riley?"

"Who was that?"

"That was your Grandma. You met her yesterday do you remember?"

"My Gramma?"

"Uh huh." Justin glanced at Riley through the rear view mirror as he made a turn onto the road that led to the office complex where he had to meet his manager.

"Oh." Riley was silent for the rest of the short drive. Justin parked the car, rolled down the windows a bit so that Scout would have air and then he got both himself and Riley out of the car and headed into one of the big buildings with her on his hip. He wasn't too worried about someone getting a picture of them now, the compound had a gated entry that only let permitted people on site unless there was an appointment and the People Magazine staff had already been told they were not allowed to take any pictures of Riley so he had all his bases covered. He entered the main building and Stacy the secretary at the desk immediately smiled and stood up when she saw the two of them.

"Oh my gosh is this her?" she asked unnecessarily and plucked her out of Justin's arms. "Shes adorable. Hi Cutie." Stacy turned her attention to the little girl who seemed suddenly shy and reached out for Justin.

"Daddy!" she whined begging Justin to take her back and he gladly obliged.

"Oh my God." Stacy's hand covered her mouth when Riley called Justin 'Daddy.'

"I know." Justin chuckled and offered Stacy a giddy smile. It was a new feeling, but a good one. "I have to meet Johnny and the People people." he chuckled again at what he had said, "Where are they?"

"In conference room three." Stacy said, taking her seat at the desk and flipping through some files.

"Thanks." Justin waved goodbye to Stacy and headed down on of the halls to the room he was supposed to meet Johnny in. He peeked through the glass window to see that Johnny was already there with a man and a woman dressed in business suits and a couple notebooks, and a tape recorder in front of them. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath before he walked into the room.

Johnny and the others stood up the second he came into the room and Justin realized they had not been informed of the entire situation when their jaws noticably dropped. Johnny came closer to Justin.

"Riley?" He directed his question at the child in Justin's arms and she nodded shyly. "Justin she looks just like you." Johnny smiled and patted Justin's shoulder. "Let's get this started shall we." Justin pulled out a chair and sat down with Riley on his lap.

"It should be obvious now, why we have called you here, and why we asked that there be no camera crew." Johnny now directed his statements to the two reporters, who nodded in response. "We recently were informed that our Justin here is a father and in order to squash any immediate rumors we wanted to get this cleared up and out in the open the right way." Johnny sat down across the table from Justin who gave him a very confused look.

"Johnny they don't know anything about Riley at all?" Justin asked as Riley tugged at his shirt and whined that she had to 'go.'

"Just one second Riley." Justin said, not really knowing what she was trying to tell him. Johnny shook his head no in response to Justin's question.

"Justin I didn't tell them anything other then the fact that you had some important news and that they weren't allowed to bring a camera crew to the interview.

"Okay, well obviously the news is that I have a daughter. I just recently found this out myself, I had no idea of her until about a week ago. I don't want a big spectacular article written about this but I didn't want it to seem like I was trying to hide it either."

The male reporter was furiously scribbling on his notepad and the woman had immediately clicked on the tape recorder the second he'd started talking. "What would you like us to include in this article then?" She asked.

"The M-O-M was in a car accident and D-I-E-D so first of all that is why I suddenly have her in my life. Not that I am complaining, she's wonderful. She is 3 years old, her name is Riley and tha'ts really it."

"Is that all you have to share with us today Mr. Timberlake? Does this have anything to do with your break-up with Cameron?"

"First of all, I don't comment on my personal life, except in rare cases. Second of all, Cameron and I separated before I even knew Riley existed. This meeting is solely about my daughter thank you." Justin stood up and again situated Riley on his hip. "Johnny, can you just call me at home if you need anything else?"

"Sure, I'll give you a call later."

"Great." Justin said goodbye to the reporters and to Johnny, and then excused himself and left the office building. He got all the way to the car before Riley started acting up again.

"Daddy." She whined "Daddy, I have to go."

"What? Go where?" He asked her, clearly confused.

"I gotta go potty."

"Oh." Justin's mouth literally formed an 'O' and he whipped around and quickly headed back into the offices. He paused outside the bathroom doors, not quite knowing which door to take her in to. Ultimately it seemed a better idea to bring her into the mens room then for himself to go into the womens room, so he pushed open the door hoping to find it empty. He was in luck and went directly into the handicapped stall and locked the door. After that he was at a loss as to what to do next. He knew she obviously had to sit on the seat but he felt a little strange standing there. Not knowing what else to do he pulled his cell out of his pocket and dialed his mothers cell phone.

"Mom, I have a problem." His eyes closed as she immediately went into mom freak out mode because she knew he had Riley.

"Mom!" He shouted after a moment. "She has to go and I don't know what to do." he paused again. "Go to the bathroom. Yes I'm serious." He defended his need for assistence when she chastized him for not being able to figure this out on his own. "I know I can't always call you for help. Okay. Thank you. Love you too, bye." He sighed and jammed the phone back into his pocket and then knelt down to where Riley was standing, staring up at him waiting for help.

"Okay Riley lets do this." He unsnapped her little jeans and pulled them down along with her pull-up and then awkwardly held her over the big tiolet. He made a mental note to buy a lot of pull-ups and a kid sized toilet as well because he did not want to be doing this 8 times a day.

"Okay Riley, you good?" she looked at him strangely but nodded. Justin then rearranged her clothes and helped her wash her hands. Then together they headed back to the car and after a relatively quick stop at the local grocery store they were headed home. Fortunatly Justin had the benefit of no one suspecting him as a father, or to be seen with a baby for that matter. Anyone who may have noticed him at the store passed him off as a look-a-like because of the child in his cart and the lack of bodyguards surrounding him. Why on earth would the Justin Timberlake be shopping in the middle of the day, without any protetion and with a child when he was supposed to be on a world tour?

When they got home he got Riley out of the car first and unlocked the house and then started lugging in the groceries. A half hour later he had all the groceries inside and put away. He was standing in his kitchen with a glass of water when he looked around and realized Riley was nowhere in sight.

Panic immediately overtook him. He quickly scanned the kitchen again, and then peeked into the garage. She wasn't there.

He looked outside in the backyard and then went outside to make sure she hadn't fallen into the pool or something. He check the side yards and the front yard also. When he was satisfied that she wasn't outside at all he went back into the house and checked the kitchen again.

"Riley!" he shouted. "Riley! Please don't hide from daddy!" It still felt weird to say that word and be referring to himself but now was not the time to be concerned with that. He checked the living room, the bathroom and what was now his office and even rechecked the kitchen again.

Then he climbed the stairs and looked down the long hallway of closed doors. He walked all the way to the end of the hallway and opened up the door to another bathroom but it was empty.

Next he checked his master suite, but both the bedroom and bathroom were clear.

The last room on this floor was the room that would soon be hers, but when he opened the door and saw that she wasn't there he completely panicked.

He again pulled out his trusty cell phone and called his mother. "Mom! I can't find her... Riley. I've checked every room in the house and she's no where." he rambled quickly.

"The closets?" he asked when his mother suggested checking in all the closets. She told him that when his parents first divorced and he had to move to a new house with her, he liked to hide in the closets as a way to protest. While still on the phone, he jogged back downstairs and immediately pulled open the door to the coat closet near the front door. Much to his relief, there, scrunched down in the corner of the closet clutching a teddy bear, was Riley, her eyes shut tight and tears on her cheeks.

"I found her Mom." He said into the phone "Thanks, bye." he hung up and put the phone in his pocket again. he quickly scooped up the crying child and she clung to him tightly, her little body shaking. Justin silently walked into the living room and sat down on the couch trying with all his might not to break down and cry himself.

He had never felt so angry, so scared, and then so relieved all at once. But he knew now was not the time to reprimand her for hiding.

"Riley." he said softly "Riley what's wrong?"

She shook her head and clung to him even tighter.

"You scared me so much." He said, "Please don't hide from me like that again, okay?" He kissed the top of her head and held on to her just as tightly and she was holding on to him. She nodded a little and finally her tears stopped falling. Trying just as much to calm himself as her he rocked back and forth, and hummed a tune that he created as he went and soon enough Riley was asleep in his arms. Justin smiled and carried her upstairs toward his room. Her bed wasn't there yet so he went into his room and put her on his bed, with a couple pillows on either side of her so that she wouldn't fall off and then he went back downstairs to make something for dinner.