"Well… you know I'm always happy to have you visit, honey…"

Renee couldn't see Faith Anderson's face over a telephone, but it was scrunched into a mildly confused expression. It wasn't often she got calls from her daughter asking if she could stop over to raid the attic.

"…What's so important about this necklace anyway?"

"It…"

Her daughter struggled for a response, and came up with only one. It was one she was probably going to burn in Hell for, but she was desperate. She silently mouthed a quick prayer to the heavens, asking forgiveness. Hey, maybe she could ask Claire to pass the message on.

"It's just that it was Grandma's, Mom, and I'd forgotten all about it but I just thought of it and… I know it's kind of silly…"

"Oh no, sweetheart," Faith said. Her mother had not long passed away, and she knew it had hit both her girls hard - Renee's sister had been particularly distraught. "I understand. Besides, it'll be nice to see you. Lou was talking about maybe stopping in so you never know, you might catch her too."

"I mean it might even have gone to Dad's…but, you know, I wanted to see you so I thought I'd check with you first."

She winced, knowing that the subject of her father was still an issue for her mother; they had only been divorced for a couple of years and it had been fairly acrimonious. It was something which had happened in both realities, although for her more famous alter ego it had happened years sooner - the fame had lit the fuse for the problems in their marriage. Another thing she had noticed about both worlds was that her father was not fond of her boyfriend in either, which was why she was hoping she didn't have to go to his home to retrieve the necklace.

Renee hoped that because she was going to have to force Justin to accompany her. It wasn't a prospect that thrilled her, but she needed to keep a leash on him. As she knew all too well, it was a minefield trying to impersonate somebody when you knew nothing about their past. Given how awkward media attention could be, it was too risky letting him run loose to make a headline grabbing slip up. She didn't want her boyfriend's reputation besmirched by an impostor.

"Okay honey. Let me know when your flight gets in and I can come pick you up."

"It might have to be late; I need to keep it quiet as possible, especially if I do bring Justin. Paparazzi are the last thing we need."

"That's fine, so long as you let me know in advance."

"Okay Mom, I gotta go but I'll call you with the details. Love you."

"Love you too." Both women hung up simultaneously.

Sighing, she pushed herself back from the mixing desk and spun around in her chair. Determined to avoid Justin for a while, she had sought refuge in the studio. Renee had that morning pulled on her slouchiest combat pants and a nice baggy turtleneck sweater: comfort clothing. Her dark hair was scraped back into a sloppy ponytail, precariously perched on the top of her head, and her face was devoid of make up. She had tried to come back and work on the song that had been giving her trouble when JC had stopped by, but it wasn't happening.

It had been impossible to do anything but cry once she had been returned to her rightful place. She had long put the whole body swap experience out of her mind, save to remember the lessons she had learned, and the fact that she had been thrown back into it gnawed at her insides. For one thing, she hated the idea that her boyfriend was off having cosy chats with a richer, more famous, skinnier version of her who was a known cheater. Still, it was entirely secondary to the utter betrayal she felt.

She was beyond angry at the other Justin for what he had done to her. She wasn't angry that he had wanted to see her, talk to her, but she was livid at the duplicitous manner in which he had chosen to make that happen. He had deceived her, pretended to be someone he wasn't, and he had snatched her boyfriend and her life away from her without a single word of warning. Had he even thought about the fact that he was purposely throwing her world into chaos? Did he care?

"Fuck," she said out loud before throwing her pen at the wall.

What it was supposed to achieve she didn't know, but she didn't dare throw anything heavier and more satisfying. She'd only have to pay for it. Oddly it registered in her mind that the room smelled of stale take out, something greasy along the line of McDonald's. Normally the studio was a wonderful place for her, a place of creativity and catharsis. Today it felt oppressive, and the beige walls strangely like a prison; that was probably because she didn't want to face the fraud waiting for her back at her hotel room.

Renee wasn't being entirely honest with herself. Certainly the iron fist gripping and squeezing at her stomach had a little anger behind it. She had a right to be angry with him. That, however, wasn't really the primary cause of it.

Mostly it was guilt. There was a little fear in the mix, but the bulk of it was guilt.

There had been a fake, a charlatan standing where her boyfriend should be. He walked and talked like her boyfriend, but he wasn't her boyfriend. Heck, she had even noticed some of his strange behaviour - but not once had it ever crossed her mind that it wasn't him. It had not crossed her mind one single, solitary time, not even in jest. Shouldn't she have known? Shouldn't she have realised somehow? How could she have felt another man's touch and looked into another man's gaze and not seen the truth behind his eyes?

It was horrible, but it was raising questions about how deep her love for her own Justin really ran. She had always pinpointed the moment she fell for him as the fourth time he asked her out. That was the one where he had responded to her complaint that she had nobody to see any girly movies with by saying that he would suffer any chick flick she wanted him to so long as it was on a date. Naturally she'd already had a little crush (it was unavoidable, given her history with the other Justin), but that was the moment she honestly thought she had begun to love him.

Now she was wondering if it was a delusion. Now she was wondering if she had been kidding herself, if she didn't know him or feel for him as much as she thought she did. How else could she have failed to spot his absence?

If that was the case, it begged the question of why she was spinning such a fantasy for herself. The unavoidable answer would be that she was using him as a substitute for the Justin who was in another world where she couldn't have him: the next best thing. That thought made her want to throw up, but she couldn't honestly dismiss it. She just didn't know, and the fact that she didn't know scared her because to her mind there ought to be an easy and unequivocal answer. That answer ought to be the man who had been with her for the past year.

All things considered, Renee was really not looking forward to the confrontation she was going to have to have with the man wearing her honey's skin. She was as afraid of his motives and feelings as her own, if not more, and she doubted the next few days were going to be pretty.

***

"So…"

In an alternate dimension, while the chocolate haired Renee Anderson was sat in a studio brooding, the blonde haired version was driving back from lunch with a similarly brooding Justin Timberlake. Naturally he was in the passenger seat; with her own boyfriend this would never be the case, but he wasn't familiar with their neighbourhood.

There had been a few photographers outside the restaurant, but it had been nothing he couldn't handle. All he'd had to do was talk and eat. He'd also briefly had to hold her hand for the cameras, but that wasn't a big deal to him either. He felt a little guilty thinking of the girlfriend he'd reluctantly parted from the night before, but he had a feeling she'd understand about the whole keeping up appearances thing. She had been through this herself.

"So what?"

"Well," Renee said, "you still haven't told me a lot about last night, and it's not like I could ask in the middle of the restaurant. What happened?"

Justin heaved a sigh. "Not much that's relevant to you, really. I told her, took a while to convince her but she got it, she's hunting down the necklace and she and Claire are gonna do whatever it is they have to for him to wish us back. Oh, but you'll be happy to know they haven't slept together. She said she noticed him acting weird, it just never occurred to her that it wasn't me."

"He…" Renee took a shaky breath. There was an odd sensation of relief in her stomach - strangely akin to the kind you felt on finally managing to get to the bathroom when your bladder was painfully full. "He hasn't come onto her then?"

"I… I don't actually know." He gritted his teeth. "I had to watch him acting like me - and I mean really acting like me, hugging her and shit. I gotta figure they've made out, but I don't know if anybody actually came onto anybody."

"Oh," she said. Her eyes clouded over.

"Okay, spill it."

"What?"

"That was a deeply subtext filled 'oh.' So spill."

It was funny how fast they had become confidantes. Part of that was probably the familiarity, the amount of similarities between the two versions of each person. A bigger part was the natural camaraderie of two people both thrown into a situation of unprecedented insanity. The side effect of being half familiar with each other already was that they were much more attuned to signs of worry or hurt than two people of such brief acquaintance would normally be - hence his uncanny ability to read her.

"I just… AHH!" She let out a loud growl, smacking her hands against the wheel. "You know sometimes I think everything's he's been doing since that last damn body swap has been to punish me for that stupid fling I had. Like, how long do I have to atone for it before we can move on? Could he forget it sometime this side of eternity?"

Having been cheated on and unwilling to forgive himself, he had to offer somewhat of a defence.

"It's hard to forgive, and harder to forget. I know when I got cheated on it drove me crazy thinking about it. I just couldn't handle this image I had in my head of somebody else with my girl."

"But, see, it's not even…"

She hated trying to defend herself when it came to this. For one thing, it always sounded like she was just making excuses - she never expressed it right - and for another she still hadn't quite convinced herself that she was worthy of defence.

For all their problems she loved her boyfriend. Seeing him half the man he was and knowing it was her fault killed her a little more inside, every day. As much as she tried to tell herself that he was a grown man and responsible for his own attitudes, every time he reminded her of what she'd done or put her down for it she couldn't help the voice in her head that told her she was making him be this way. The voice that told her she'd made her bed with the wrong man between the sheets, and she had to lie in it.

"It's not even what?" Justin asked.

Renee couldn't help the way her hands shook as she indicated and pulled into the next lane.

"I can't tell you how many times he and I went through it. So many fucking times. We agreed that we should move on and forget it. Except… he doesn't even seem to be trying. Like, I understand how hard it would be and I never expected an easy ride, I know I have to earn his trust back, but it feels like I'm constantly walking on fucking eggshells and busting my ass trying to make it up and he's not even trying to move past it. He's more interested in your fucking girlfriend and how much of a fucking saint she is."

"Hey!" Justin protested loudly. "Don't get attitude about her because he's being a bitch!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that badly about her," she said. "I'm just sick of being told she lives Renee Anderson better than I do."

"Look, you shouldn't feel bad because he's fixated on her, or me, or whatever," he began. "Sure, you hurt the guy, but that's not an excuse to be an asshole after he agreed to try and put it behind you."

"I don't think you can really understand, Justin." Renee breathed in deeply and exhaled with a shirt puff of air. "I feel horrible for what I did, I really do. I feel like shit every time I get compared to her or reminded of what a shitty thing I did, and in that second I hate him for how he's being, but then I have to remember why he's being like that: because I hurt him."

Justin stared at her with pity, and his gaze seared her flesh. She hated people feeling sorry for her; she felt sorry enough for herself without other people's sympathy.

"I feel guilty every damn second for what I did, and then I get to feel guilty for all those moments where I blame him for what's happening between us but then remember why he's acting the way he is. I spend every waking minute feeling like shit, and a few of my sleeping ones too with some of the nightmares I've had."

"Ummm…" He struggled for a way to phrase what he was about to say delicately.

"No disrespect intended, but he sounds like he's being a complete bastard. He's got you pretty much hating yourself here - somebody who's supposed to love you shouldn't be doing that."

She shook her head fervently as she pulled up to their gated community, opened the window and keyed in the code that would open the gates. There was a paparazzi van tailing them, but they weren't the only celebrities in the neighbourhood and the guys manning the security cameras were well versed in shooing photographers away.

"You just don't understand, you can't, you… there's moments when we manage to stop fighting for more than two consecutive seconds and we're alright and…" Renee breathed a deep sigh, tears stinging her eyes. "For a second I see my old boyfriend there, the one I hadn't completely screwed up, but then he's gone again. And then I feel bad again for not knowing how to keep him there. I know there's something else I could be doing, but I just don't know what it is."

Justin didn't know what to say to this, so he remained silent. Privately he was of the opinion she should be kicking his ass and taking a firmer stance with him. He doubted it would ever happen. Between her own remorse and her boyfriend's confidence demolishing remarks, she was shouldering all the blame and thus in her own mind forfeiting the right to take exception to or confront his alter ego's behaviour.

There was an insidious little voice whispering in the back of his mind as he looked at her, flashing the faces of cheating girlfriends past in the place of hers. He would love to say he saw no parallels between the body snatcher's stubborn refusal to forgive and his own, but he'd be a liar. Part of him wanted to argue that what had been done to him was worse and merited less compassion. That didn't stop him from wondering if those girls had all felt the same regret, the same sense of shame and self loathing that she was - and if he, like the other Justin, had been completely insensitive to it.

Maybe Renee wasn't the only person feeling guilty.