"You okay?" Claire ventured to ask Justin, who was looking at the alien surroundings of his other self's house with not a small amount of incredulousness.

"This is some whacked out dream I'm having…"

"Umm…" She shifted uneasily from foot to foot, not sure how exactly how to talk to him. The boy seemed determined to stay in denial, and until he accepted the situation he was in she couldn't risk leaving him. That made her nervous, because she really needed to go drop in on his counterpart and give him a good left hook for sheer idiocy.

"Fuck… this is…" He was staring in wonderment at a platinum disc on the wall. There were many of them around, a lot of familiar looking awards too - Teen Choice surfboards, moon men - but he was staring at a platinum disc for a Justin Timberlake album he'd never made.

"What can I do to convince you that you are not going to wake up and find this is all a dream?" She finally decided to just ask him. "I know this has to be a total head trip but it's real and you need to get with the program, mister, the faster the better."

They had landed back in what appeared to be the study of the other Justin's house. The place was very sterile, all white walls, black leather and pale wood surfaces. There was a complicated looking phone and fax system on the desk, as well as a very expensive looking laptop. If it hadn't been for the awards and discs placed on the walls and on shelving, there wouldn't have been a drop of colour in the room. Even the carpet was a pale shade of beige.

Claire had vainly hoped the jump through dimensions would allow it to hit home, but he remained stubbornly resistant. In all honesty, she understood. It was a hard enough concept to grasp when you wanted to believe it - and few people in her experience ever wanted to believe it. It had taken Renee some time to accept it herself. The other Justin when faced with his body swapped girlfriend had only believed it because he'd had a lot more time to observe the weirdness; there had also been that business where she had still been incorporeal and he had watched Renee fall through her. Just to hammer it home, she had then disappeared into thin air - and all this while he knew he was already awake. This Justin probably had grounds to believe he was still asleep.

"Holy… Renee?"

Her head immediately shot around to look where he was. He had picked up a picture frame from the desk; he was staring at it in disbelief and… was that disdain? He certainly wasn't impressed by what he was seeing. Moving over to stand next to him, she struck a casual pose and looked over his shoulder.

"Yep," the brunette replied nonchalantly, trying to play it just right. "In this dimension, you never went out with Britney or Cameron or whoever. You've been dating Renee since you were… oh, gotta be eighteen or nineteen. She's the Teen Queen of Pop around these parts, always has been. You ask anybody here about Britney Spears and they look at you and ask who the fuck you're talking about."

"Huh?"

It was almost comical, the confused expression on his face. His left eyebrow was practically up by his hairline. Dream or not, the idea that he had never dated Britney was inconceivable, let alone the idea that she who couldn't visit a bathroom without making headlines wasn't famous. No Cameron, either? It was weird to think about what his life would be like if he'd never been involved with either of them. Not to mention his music… well, he supposed that would explain the difference in CD covers. You couldn't write Cry Me A River without a Britney to piss you off first.

Wait, why was he thinking about this like it was real?

"The… the hair… and the boobs, God, they look too big for the rest of her body to hold 'em up. Who told her that was a good look?"

He couldn't help it - the hair must have had the hell bleached out of it, and he couldn't help comparing it to the striking chocolate colour of his girlfriend's hair. It might not have been natural, but it was well looked after and glossy and it suited her. The bleach job in the picture he was holding made her hair look like straw. He'd never been a fan of boob jobs, either, but he could at least admit that when well done they looked okay. This woman was obviously carrying boobs far too big for her worryingly thin frame, and it did not look good.

Again, why was he talking like this was an actual person and not a figment of his imagination?

"All questions Renee asked, when she did her accidental body swap," Claire informed him, perching herself on the desk and failing to catch his eye. "The woman you see in that picture is a puppet making music she doesn't believe in and wrecking her body trying to live up to an image that has never been her. Sad as that is, it's a good chunk of what made your girlfriend the woman she is today, the one you fell for. Because she saw it, had to spend some time in that overly coiffed body and decided that 'to thine own self be true' was more important than record sales. And if I may say so, I'm fucking proud of her. She seems… calmer, than when I last saw her. Content. Kudos on that by the way, I think you helped on that score."

"Let me get this straight…" Justin said sceptically. Noticing a clean sweater hanging off the back of the desk chair, he swapped the stained t-shirt for it. Maybe it was just a dream, but he felt unkempt. He wondered if there was a shaving kit anywhere in this dream, too. "Renee body swapped with some alter ego…"

"Before she got famous in your reality." Claire nodded.

"And you expect me to believe that she dated some alternate version of me and this little trip changed her life and made her go make music and… now you expect me to believe the same shit has happened to me? What am I supposed to be learning, exactly?"

"Nothing, because you have only made this trip because your alter ego is fucked in the head," she informed him bluntly. "And she didn't exactly date him, she just had to fill in until she could undo it all and get back to her own world where she belongs. And yes I do expect you to believe it, because it has happened, and once again I'm really sorry it has but you need to deal."

"Wouldn't that mean she only came to me to try and replace him?" Justin grouched.

Claire pounced on this with a cat like grin. "Wow, are we getting jealous over something we don't even believe happened? And no, it means nothing of the sort. Why do you think she turned you down for like a year straight?"

"Six months!" He corrected her with an evil glare.

"Whatever. She wasn't going to use you as a substitute, that's not Renee. Turns out she just likes ya. And if I may say so, from what I've seen she likes ya a lot more than him. You make a lovely couple, by the way. Did you really write SexyBack about her?"

"W-w-what?" Justin stammered in disbelief. How in the world could she know that? That was a private joke between him and his girlfriend.

"See? Now how I would I know that unless what I say is true and I've been watching? Not anything too intimate though," she hastened to add. "There're some things I don't need to see."

Justin squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, trying desperately to reconcile all this information. If this was really a dream, then the only reason dream lady would know his secrets would be because it was his mind working through them in his subconscious. However, he was still struggling with the incredible physicality of all that had happened, and the fact that he was dreaming about a dead woman who had died at the age of fourteen and whom Renee had only mentioned about once in the entire time he had known her.

He couldn't say he had ever been a spectator of his own life in his dreams, either. He'd never seen himself from a third person's perspective in them.

"Okay…" He finally opened his eyes again, blinking far too much before seating himself at the desk chair. "Tell me the story, the whole story, from beginning to end. I'm not saying I believe you, I just… whatever. Tell me."

Looking nervously at the clock, desperate to go to the other reality to find wish boy, Claire began to launch into the whole tale.

"Well, it begins one night with Renee - your Renee - finding a magic necklace but not realising that it's magic…"

***

Justin was fairly horrified to see that Claire had just materialised in front of him, doing that strange black mist thing that she did. He couldn't believe she'd had the audacity to do it while he was with Renee, but Renee was happily staring at the TV screen, laughing away at a Friends rerun. She was standing in front of the television, blocking his view but obviously not his girlfriend's, and she looked entirely like she meant business. Her entire demeanour was icy and her eyes were blazing in a way that remind him all too much of hellfire. Even her outfit had become scarier - she stood in front of him in an entirely black and mildly dominatrix-looking get up.

"Oh that's right boy - be afraid. Be very afraid."

He desperately wanted to respond, but obviously talking to thin air was not the way to convince Renee he was the Justin she had been dating for the past year. He had a horrible feeling Claire had known that and done it on purpose; she had picked a time when he couldn't easily extract himself and it was impossible for him to answer her back.

"You, Justin Randall Timberlake, are the most inconceivable halfwit I've ever had the misfortune to come across. Do you have any idea what you've fucking done? You're completely defrauding Renee, you completely screwed over poor Justin who I just left sitting in your room completely head-fucked by what you just did and totally afraid you're going to take advantage of his girlfriend, after no less than three hours of trying to convince him this is all real, I might add, poor guy thought he'd been fed some kind of hallucinogenic, and what's more you did it on purpose, knowing what kind of shit you're asking for using that necklace. What kind of shit are you trying to pull?"

He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and bit his lip. Apparently being dead meant run on sentences and not needing to stop for breath as you reamed somebody out. He badly wanted to yell back at her but he had no choice but to sit back and take it. Renee was already looking at him oddly, clearly unused to the fidgeting.

"Here's what's going to happen. You are going to tell Renee what you did and who you are. You are then going to find out where she put that necklace, and you are going to make a little wish to put yourself and the other Justin back in your rightful places. The faster you do this, the easier it'll be on you and I'm not just talking abut how much I'm going to kick your ass for this, which as you have noticed I am now capable of."

Justin's blue eyes met her dead ones defiantly, and he saw the anger which flared up in her face.

"You have precisely three weeks from today to put this right, asshole. She's happy and she's fulfilled for once in her damn life and I am going to make sure she stays that way, you understand me? If you even think about keeping up this bullshit, there's going to be Hell to pay. Because let me tell you, if you let the time run out and thus fuck up my girl's existence there, I am going to haunt your every waking moment. Don't think I can't do it. Tell her and then find that necklace. That's not a request. She already made her decision, you weren't it, now grow the heck up and respect that. You don't belong with her, he does. And let me tell you…"

Justin really didn't like the way Claire's eyes had clouded over, the long pause or the way her voice had suddenly gone quiet with that last sentence.

"…messing with destiny never ends well, Justin - nothing good will ever come of forcing yourself in where you don't belong. There's a reason they say curiosity killed the cat."

With an odd gleam in her eye, Claire disappeared in what could only be described as a rather violent explosion of black mist. It was so vigorous in fact that he couldn't help coughing as it enveloped his face. Apparently Renee didn't notice, for she immediately twisted round in her seat to face him, looking somewhat alarmed by the suddenness of it. It wasn't like he could actually breathe it in, but it was swarming his face and his throat felt horribly dry until finally it dissipated and he could bring the involuntary hacking to an end.

"Are you okay, baby?" She asked, concern on her face as she rubbed his back soothingly.

"Yeah, yeah… just got this sudden itch in the back of my throat," Justin replied weakly before gently tugging at a strand of her raven hair with his fingers. Tenderly they stroked the ends before he leaned forward and kissed her briefly, pulling away with a tight smile. "See? All better."

Looking at him with troubled eyes for a moment, Renee tried to brush off her feelings and settled down into his embrace, nestling herself under his arm. Her arm stretched lazily across her stomach as she tried to focus back on the TV, but she couldn't help the nagging sensation that something was up.

Justin for his part was brooding on Claire and her excessive rage. He found it just a little unbelievable - when Renee had visited his reality, there had been a huge question of whether she should stay or go and apparently Claire had been very supportive in helping her make her own decision. There had been none of this 'hell to pay' business, that was for sure. How come he wasn't being afforded the same treatment? How come she thought it was okay to order him around when it was his wish and his choice?

More to the point, why was she so convinced that if he stayed around he would ruin Renee's entire existence? Why would he do that? Was she trying to say he had some virulent touch and that she would get messed up the way his Renee had become messed up? Who said he couldn't love her just as well if not better than that other guy? Who said he was the most perfect best little Justin? He also didn't see how Renee would be taken advantage of any more than she had taken advantage of him when pretending to be his girlfriend without his knowledge, and he had been cool about that (or, okay, after a brief moment of fury he had been cool with that).

He stewed on that, convincing himself that what she had said was completely baseless and unjust and that he would not take orders from her. Justin Timberlake could make his own damn decisions, but he still had to smile at the passion in it all.

Apparently death had never stopped Claire being Renee's best friend - loyal to a fault, and protective in a most tigress-like manner. It'd be sweet, if it wasn't so damn irritating.