A couple days later, Fantasia was on the bus with the guys. They were on their way to an interview and an autograph signing. On the way there Chris’s neck was bothering him so Fantasia gave him a massage.

When she was finished Chris stood up, stretched and said, "Thanks, Fantasia. You’re the coolest!"

"Cooler than Ultraman?" she asked. All five guys stopped dead in their tracks and stared at her. "Because, you know, you did say on TV that Ultraman was the coolest. So which is it? Me or Ultraman?" Fantasia continued in a mock serious tone.

Chris blinked a few times. He was still stunned that she even knew that! "Well, uh, Ultraman has a lot of cool powers, but you got those magic fingers that always make me feel better." Chris replied with a goofy grin. Fantasia just smiled at him.

"How’d you even know that?" JC asked.

"I have a video tape of some of the TV appearances you did in Japan after No Strings Attached was released. I even have the show where Chris got to meet his hero." she explained.

"Hey, Fantasia. I just thought of something. If you’re such a big fan, why haven’t you asked us for our autographs or anything?" Justin asked.

"Because when Johnny hired me he told me that if I asked you guys for even one autograph he’d fire me on the spot." she explained. The guys all looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"I’m sure he just said that because he didn’t want you bothering us while we were working." Lance said.

"No, I asked about that." she said, "I’m not allowed to ask even when you have free time. I’m supposed to leave you alone so you can rest."

Once again the guys started howling with laughter.

"Would you want our autographs?" JC asked.

"Well, duh! But I’m not going to risk losing the best job I’ve ever had over an autograph. So I’m not asking." she said, but her eyes were begging them to offer.

Suddenly Chris threw his arms up in the air and screamed, "*Nsync huddle!"

The five guys huddled together and started whispering. Every once in a while Chris’s head would pop up and he would grin at Fantasia. She couldn’t help giggling a little at how silly they looked.

When they broke apart Chris said, "After the concert tonight how about we give you a private autograph signing. We’ll sign anything you want."

"You would do that?" Fantasia asked in disbelief.

"Sure!" all five guys replied.

"But what about Johnny?" she asked still worried about her job.

"We won’t invite him." Joey said with a grin.

"But if he does find out and tries to fire you, come tell us. We’ll take care of it." Justin said.

"You’re the best physical therapist we’ve ever had. We’re not going to let anybody fire you." Lance said.

All five guys surrounded her in a big hug. For the first time in her life Fantasia felt completely accepted in a group and she knew everybody loved her. It was the perfect moment until Chris made a noise that sounded like he farted.

"CHRIS!" Fantasia and the other four guys screamed at once before dissolving in a fit of laughter.

That night, as soon as the concert was over, Fantasia raced back to the hotel room that she shared with Joey. She started pulling all her *Nsync stuff she had with her out of her bags. Just as she was finishing spreading everything out on the bed, there was a knock at the door.

"Fantasia, are you ready?" Joey asked.

"Come on in guys!" she replied.

The five guys walked into the room laughing and joking, but when they saw Fantasia they froze. Fantasia was sitting in the center of the king-size bed and the whole bed was covered with *Nsync stuff! When she noticed the rather panicked looks on their faces she said, "Oh, relax. I’m not going to make you sign every single thing here. Your hands would fall off before you even got half way through."

JC was the first to recover his voice. "So, uh, where do we even begin?"

"Well, first of all I have one thing that’s just for you." she said to JC. Fantasia handed him a CD case.

JC took it from her and shrieked, "You actually have this!?!"

"Of course! What kind of fan would I be if I didn’t?" she replied.

"What is it? Let me see!" Chris asked rushing over and trying to take the CD from JC.

"No!" he said not letting go of the CD. Chris and JC were now playing tug of war with the CD case. Chris could now see that it was the Mickey Mouse Club CD that JC sang on!

"But I wanna listen to it!" Chris whined.

"No!" JC screamed.

As they continued to fight over the CD case, Fantasia just smiled. She picked up her CD book that held all her *Nsync CDs, took out the first CD, put it in the CD player and hit play. As the music started to fill the room, JC and Chris stopped fighting over the CD case and froze. The CD that Fantasia had put in was the Mickey Mouse Club CD!

"If you would’ve bothered to check, you would’ve noticed that the CD wasn’t even in there." she said calmly. Chris and JC just stared at her while the other guys burst out laughing. Chris finally let go of the CD case so JC could sign it.

When he finished he handed it back to Fantasia and asked, "Do you have anymore embarrassing items?"

"Just one more, for you and Justin." she replied. Fantasia picked up a white T-shirt and unfolded it. It was a Mickey Mouse Club T-shirt! Justin and JC groaned a little before signing the shirt.

The guys made themselves comfortable while Fantasia started pulling out items for them to sign. She picked up a very thick binder with several folders in it. This was the binder where she kept all the pin-ups and posters that she had collected from magazines over the years. She started pulling out two or three of her favorites for each guy. Then she switched binders and started pulling out group pictures of the guys.

After Justin signed his couple solo pictures he picked up one of the group posters to look at it. It was of all five of the guys standing in a swimming pool. The picture was dated 1997!

"Can we just burn this one?" he asked.

"No!" Fantasia shrieked, "That’s one of my favorites! You need to do more like that."

"No!" all five guys replied firmly.

"Why not?" she asked, very curious.

"Because we didn’t want to do that one." Lance explained.

"Please?" she asked, batting her eyes and trying to look cute.

"Ok!" Joey said. With that the other four guys tackled him.

"No! We’re not doing it!" JC screamed.

"Guys! Don’t kill him! I was just kidding." Fantasia said. The guys all stopped and stared at her. "Since when do you do what I tell you?" she asked confused. The guys started laughing and went back to signing her posters.

Chris picked up a poster with several smaller pictures on it. All the pictures were of the guys goofing off at the beach. There was no date on the poster, but the pictures were from around the same time as the other poster.

"Man! This is worse than the pool picture." he said.

"What? Let me see!" Justin said leaning over. Chris opened the poster up and laid it on the bed so all the guys could see it.

"So, which one’s your favorite?" Lance asked Fantasia.

"Hmm…. I’m not sure. I guess it’s kind of a tie between that one and this one." she replied pointing to two different pictures.

The first picture was of Joey wrestling an inflatable alligator. Joey just grinned happily. The second one was of Lance and Chris in an outdoor shower. In the picture Lance was spitting water in Chris’s face.

"How could you like that one?" Chris asked.

"Cause it’s funny and I have a feeling that you probably deserved it." Fantasia replied with a smirk.

"I did not." Chris pouted.

"Yeah, ya did." Lance shot back playfully. Fantasia looked over at Lance. She could not wait to hear this! "You stuck a sand crab down the back of my shirt!" Lance reminded Chris.

"Oh, yeah…. That was so funny!" he said with a snort of laughter.

"No, it wasn’t! That thing bit me where the sun don’t shine."

Fantasia just sat there grinning as she watched the two guys bicker over something that happened four or five years ago. After a couple minutes Joey interrupted by saying, "That was five years ago! Can we move on?"

Fantasia passed out the TV Guides where each guy got their own cover, the Rolling Stones where they each had their own cover and a few other small items. As she passed out the Rolling Stones, JC asked, "Hey, where’s mine?"

"I was never able to find yours. I looked everywhere! I can’t even find one online." she explained sadly. Fantasia felt like this was the one dark spot on her collection. How could she not have the whole set? The guys could tell that she felt bad about not having it.

Without saying a word, JC jumped up and ran out of the room. Fantasia and the other guys looked at each other rather confused. When he returned JC had a copy of the Rolling Stones with him on the cover. "I knew I brought this for a reason." he said a he signed the cover and handed it to Fantasia.

"But I can’t take your copy." she protested.

"Don’t worry about it. I got half a dozen more at home." he shrugged.

"Why on Earth do you have so many?" Justin asked confused.

"Because everybody in my family bought me a copy." he explained.

After the guys finished signing Fantasia’s stuff they offered to help her pack it back into her bags. But she insisted that they get to bed. Chris hung back until JC had left, then he turned to Fantasia and asked, "Can I borrow that Mickey Mouse Club CD?"

She giggled and said, "Sure."

Fantasia retrieved the CD for him and he gave her a hug before leaving for his own room.

Once the guys were gone Joey helped Fantasia put her stuff away. As they did this, a small plastic box fell out of one of her bags. Joey picked it up and opened the flap that was held closed by Velcro. Inside the box was a deck for the Pokemon trading card game.

"You play Pokemon?" he asked shocked.

"Yeah." she replied. She was waiting to see how Joey was going to react.

"So do I!" he exclaimed, happy that he finally found something Fantasia didn't know.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed back. Joey’s face fell a bit.

"Ok, how’d you know that?"

"Well, I didn’t know for sure. It was more an educated guess." she explained, "It was just one little thing that tipped me off. Let me show you."

Fantasia opened the thick binder that she had been trying to cram back into her bag. She found the folder with a lot of smaller pictures and dug around until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a small picture of all five guys. In it Joey was wearing a red and white baseball hat with a green symbol on it. It was a replica of the hat that the main character wears on the Pokemon cartoon series.

Joey looked at the picture and said, "Damn it! I thought I’d finally found something you didn’t know."

Fantasia just smiled and said, "I’m going to take a wild guess and say Chris plays too."

"And Lance." Joey mumbled.

"Really!" she replied with a big grin.

"So are you any good?" he asked putting her deck back in her bag.

"I’m alright." she shrugged.

"So when do I get to battle you?" he asked wrapping his arms around her.

"How about tomorrow? In the morning you guys have that photo shoot. It’s going to be about a 45-minute drive. Plus you’ll have lots of free time while they do solo pictures."

Joey smiled and shook his head. Fantasia was beginning to know their schedule better than Lance. "Deal." he said before giving her a kiss.