When Justin awoke in the morning, mildly hung over, it was to a note from Renee saying that she had recording to do and that she would see him later. This was actually fine - he wanted to spend the day doing a little quiet research of the type which would look mighty odd if she saw him doing it.

The previous evening had been a timely reminder than he had made this wish for a reason and that he ought to get along with fulfilling that little quest. It wasn't all bad; last night had allayed some of his fears that he wouldn't be able to cope with this life. He had managed to hang out with JC like they'd never been apart (and he had really soaked up every second of that) and he'd had a great time with Renee once he'd let himself relax for a moment. However, it had also hammered home that the whole point of this trip was to get a rounded view of his other self's life, and to do a thorough compare and contrast instead of just assuming it was better. Hanging out with JC and Renee, who clearly were the better elements, did not help that in the slightest.

He had known before he even came here that his other self still had JC, Lance, Chris and Joey, had Grammys, and he had known that Renee was in a better headspace. Granted, he hadn't known Renee was dating this reality's Justin, but that was more like an unexpected gooey filling in a chocolate he'd already known was there. He had basically known that his other self had a lot going well for him, and Renee was just one more thing. What he needed now was to see the flip side of everything, find out what was less perfect about his life.

Claire would have been a great first port of call, but she had yet to pay him a visit since her horrifically ominous 'I will haunt you to the end of your days' speech. She wouldn't show up on demand, so she was going to have to wait. Google, however, was at his fingertips, and he had spent a very long (and admittedly boring) morning reading up on the high and lows of life as Justin Timberlake in this reality.

He had read about the traumas of Britney Spears, and listened to the resulting songs. It was very odd to think that tiny little Britney from the Mickey Mouse Club could have screwed him over that way. He almost hated to think it about himself, but he actually considered the way he'd handled it not exactly stellar. At best it struck him as bitter, at worst outright vindictive. A little voice in the back of his head asked him whether he just wanted to make his alter ego into the bad guy. It pointed out that maybe the man had good grounds - or maybe he was just a little worried that he was as capable of it as the other guy - but still he couldn't help the disapproval.

Justin couldn't say the same of the songs however - aside from the odd filler, he had to admit it was excellent work, as was what he had heard of the second album in progress. He wondered bitterly why he couldn't manage to write songs like this when they were basically the same person. He had read with amusement the wardrobe malfunction saga (and laughed at the term 'wardrobe malfunction'), frowned a little when he saw that the media speculation and intrusion was apparently just as bad whichever world you happened to be in, and then had his jaw drop to the floor with the Cameron Diaz news. He didn't think he could get her to look twice at him in his own world.

He also noticed that the movie career wasn't going so well. One movie straight to DVD, one being held up by legal issues… the music seemed to have done spectacularly well, but the acting hadn't got off to an especially auspicious start.

It seemed to him, as he tapped a pen listlessly against the pad where he was making notes, trying to order his thoughts, that obviously the guy had at least some share of annoyances and obstacles in his life too. If he was honest with himself, he probably could have figured that out without needing to travel through any alternate realities. What he didn't quite understand, and what he supposed he wasn't going to figure out by anything except experiencing this life, was how this version of him managed to make lemonade out of those lemons when he was struggling to.

"You know what I've realised?"

"Shit!" Justin jumped about a mile out of his chair before turning around to see Claire standing behind him, looking far less threatening than she had last time in a skirt and sweater. "Don't fucking sneak up on me like that, Jesus!"

"No, not Jesus. Can't tell you whether he exists or not, against the rules." She gave him a soft smirk.

"Very funny. So, you here to yell at me again?"

"You know what I've realised?" Claire repeated again, looking thoughtfully at him.

"What?"

"I've been running around panicking about what to do. How to handle you, how to handle the other Justin and Renee…"

"Renee?" For a moment a pang of guilt speared his stomach; he had almost forgotten that he'd left her behind.

"Yep. She's fine. Extremely confused and kind of hurt after learning that you left without a word, but fine." Claire raised a pointed eyebrow at him. "But whatever, we were talking about me, right? So I'm all panicking and wondering what on Earth I'm supposed to do as a spirit guide here and what the heck I can do except lecture you all day, and you know what occurs to me?"

Justin leaned back in his chair and tossed the pen down. "No but you're about to share."

"I can sit here and yell at you all I want. Actually what I'd like to do would be to smack you upside your head and ask what you think you're playing at. But…" She looked at him with what almost passed for sympathy, and even made an apologetic gesture towards him with her hands.

"I can't force you to do anything and I shouldn't be trying. Wouldn't matter even if I did, lecturing you is probably only going to make you do shit just to spite me, which isn't good for either of us. You're obviously looking for something and I'm supposed to be the guide… so, Justin Timberlake, what are you looking for and how can I help you find it?"

He was actually rather floored by that little speech. Another lecture was what he had expected, and he'd already been complaining to himself that she refused to offer any assistance. At any rate, he certainly appreciated the turn around. He wasn't stupid, he realised she was probably doing this in order to give herself a better chance of convincing him to find the necklace and wish himself home, but she was being fairly open with her opinion and he had to respect that. Claire was probably right; even if this did suit her agenda, it was pretty helpful to his too.

"Thanks."

"It's my job." She nodded at him. "Seriously though, I need some kind of reason as to why you're so keen on living this life, because until I get that it's going to be hard offering any advice."

"I just…" His blue eyes wandered over to the piece of paper, which was full of all sorts of fun facts. "You know, right? How screwed up things are with Renee, with JC and the guys, with my career… on paper I should be the luckiest guy in the world and I'm fucking miserable. And I know the little lady is too, but then when the other Renee came for that little visit and she told me how well this guy was doing and she seemed so… I don't know. Something's right here that isn't at home and I need to figure that out."

"Be honest, Justin…" Claire hit him with a freakishly penetrating glare. "This isn't just a research trip, is it? It reeks of unfinished business to me."

"I…" he wanted to deny it, but couldn't. "She had feelings for me, I know she did. Fuck, she went and hooked up with me… I mean him… whatever. She's now with Justin Timberlake here off the back of what happened between her and me. And I can't sit here and pretend I wasn't attracted to her even when I knew she wasn't my girlfriend. And I can't help wondering if maybe she was supposed to stay."

"But she didn't, Justin," Claire told him softly. "She made that trip for a reason and she met you for a reason, but she made that choice. Don't you think if she was supposed to stay she would have?"

"And she hasn't even noticed I switched yet, and I know she's been responding to me. So this trip I made has to be for a reason, right?" He kept pressing on, on a roll now. "What if I was the one meant to be with her and we were only ever supposed to be apart for a little while? What if I'm here because I'm supposed to stay here?"

"Okay…"

Claire was very much aware that she needed to either shoot this down immediately or at least give him something to think about that would stop him taking this thought and running with it. It was difficult, because he had a point; he had to be here for a reason. Clearly he'd had a much stronger hand in this than Renee had had with her cross dimensional trip - she had been completely guided by fate whereas he had meddled with it - but he still had a point. There was a purpose in here somewhere, and it wasn't impossible that the purpose had been to make a permanent switch.

It'd be helpful if she could tell him that Renee knew and was unhappy she'd been lied to, but she had agreed that was Renee's prerogative.

"You have GOT to remember that you have four people in the palm of your hand right now. You can't just think of this in terms of yourself. What about your actual girlfriend? What about the other Justin? How exactly would this switch serve either of them?"

"Well… it just would, right? If it's destiny?" Justin responded weakly.

"You can't just look after number one and assume everything else will work itself out, JT." She didn't say it unkindly. "Take it wider. Three weeks is one thing, but forever? You got years and years of life between you and him that's different, Justin. People you've barely met who mean a lot to him. How you ever going to make that yours? How you ever going to make her yours when the guy she's spent the last year falling in love with isn't you? I know you want to think that it started because of you… and maybe it did…" she had to begrudgingly admit, "but what's gone down since has been with him, not you. How's that going to work out?"

"I thought you weren't going to lecture me any more?"

He was pouting fiercely, arms folded defensively across his chest and sock clad feet tapping on the floor irritably, but Claire wasn't biting. She merely folded her own arms and looked sharply at him.

"Giving good advice means telling you what you don't necessarily want to hear, just like you're saying a few things I'm not exactly loving right now. I'm not telling you what to do, Justin, but these are all questions you're going to need to ask yourself. Do you remember…"

Here she was about to pull out her trump card. Once she had taken Renee and the more innocent Justin back to their opposite dimensions last night (or technically this morning), she had sat down with Renee and quizzed her on exactly what had happened between her and body snatching Justin on her three week trip to his world. She had figured she needed as much ammunition as possible, and though Renee had been extremely reluctant she had eventually dished.

"Do you remember what Renee said to you, just before she left? About how your feelings for her were only about your problems with your girlfriend?"

"Yes…" Justin said slowly.

"Do you wonder if maybe that's still true?" She asked gently.

"Still? Was it ever?" He riposted, only to receive a shrug in reply.

"That's for you to answer, but I think you need to seriously think on it. It's fairly obvious to me that Renee Anderson in one or other version is where you're meant to be at, but you really need to think hard about whether what you feel for this world's Renee is honestly about her for all her differences, or if you're just looking for a short cut because you know your own relationship needs some serious work."

Justin became silent at this, and Claire decided that she had probably given him about as much as he could take for this precise moment in time.

"Okay… I need to go, I have things to do and I probably need to go check back in with the other Justin, but will you promise me something?"

"Depends," he answered shrewdly.

"Find the necklace. I'm not going to pressure you into using it, but I don't want you realising you want to go home but then running out of time because you couldn't find it quick enough. Does that sound fair?"

"Yeah. Okay." Justin nodded.

It did sound fair enough, and if he was honest it was probably the most practical thing to do. There was no point in cheating himself out of a choice, if he was going to honestly explore where it was he should be then he needed both options fully available to him. Of course it meant confessing his identity to a certain brunette singer, but in all probability he would have had to at some point anyway.

Claire gave him a pensive smile, waggled her fingers at him in farewell and then did her disappearing act.

For what was perhaps the first time since he had got here, Justin began wondering what was happening back in his own dimension. How had Renee reacted on finding out that he'd gone (he inferred from Claire that she had), and how was she getting along with the other Justin? Was he turning her head the way this reality's Renee had turned his own? Had what he'd done hurt her? Was she hoping he would come home or was she detached, unconcerned? Did she miss him at all?

Should he be worried that it had taken Claire's mention of her to make him even think about it?