March 15th, around 3

"Where the HELL is he?" Joey said, obviously pissed off.

"This is freaky, yall. What if some psycho fan-"

Chris gave him a look. "Shut up Lance."

"But what-"

"SHUT UP LANCE!" Lance clamped his mouth shut.

JC tried to be the voice of reason. "Ok, ok...listen. Everyone just chill. I'm sure there is some logical explanation for why we don't know where Justin is. Getting all worked up right now is no way to handle this."

"So what do you want us to do? Sit in a chair all day staring out the window with a stunned lock on our faces, flinching whenever someone touches us and going faster than superman when the phone rings to pick it up?" Joey said exaggerating.

For some reason that broke the tension between the 4 Nsync members. All of them managed some form of light laughter.

"That's not funny boys. That's not funny AT ALL."

Joey and the rest of the guys looked up at the doorway of the game room of Justin's house to see Lynn giving them a stern look.

"Sorry, Lynn. It was just a-"

"I know it was a joke Joey. But..." She let out a sigh and walked further in the room and sat down carefully beside Lance on the couch. "...have you guys decided what you are going to do until he gets back?"

"If he isn't back by tonight we are going to keep recording stuff but it's kinda hard. Justin is producing and the main vocals for...most of the songs. So, we cant do...too much...without..him." JC voice trailed off into a mutter as he spoke.

The room got really quiet, really fast.

Danielle who had been curled up in a comfy chair in the far corner of the room, reading a book spoke up and broke the silence. "How's Alex?"

Lynn turned on the couch and looked at her, as the other 4 occupants of the room. "She's...sitting in chair, staring out the window with a stunned look on her face, flinching whenever Mike or me go up to her and flying like superman whenever the phone rings."

"Dammit where is he?" Lance whispered.

"Lynn..are you SURE you don't know anywhere he could be?" Dani asked, trying to think where Justin would be herself.

"I- I have no clue where my son is. I'm supposed to know. I'm his-" Lynn was silenced when they all heard pounding footsteps of someone running somewhere in the house.

Then they heard a drastic, "HELLO? JUSTIN?"

They all were deafly silent. They couldn't hear anything but a mumbled voice.

All 6 of them got up at the same time and walked through the hallway and foyer to the living room where Alex was now perched in her same chair that she had been in since that morning, but now with a cell phone pressed to her ear.

"Who is it?" Lynn asked Mike, everyone else right behind her looking at Mike eagerly.

"Scott. Her brother."

"Oh..." The sigh that escaped all of their mouths was in unison and rather loud.

"I can't stand this. Anyone wanna go...do something? get food? cruise the neighborhood?" Chris asked.

"I'll go." Lance shrugged. Danielle came up and wrapped her arm around her boyfriend. "I'm not leaving you."

Chris' lips twitched upward in a grin.

"Well, I'm going to call Randall and mom again. Maybe they have heard something." Lynn scratched her head as she walked away and towards the kitchen.

JC shook his head with a frown. "She's about to crack."

"I know. And the last thing we need right now are two Justin loving females on the verge of breaking down." Joey pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to do something to ease his headache.

"If he doesn't come back. There might be a hell of a lot more than just two Justin loving females we have to worry with."

"If he is pulling a prank I swear I will-"

JC interrupted him. "He's not. You noticed how distant he was this past week. Concentrating on solely music, not joking around at all..."

"Becoming you..."

JC narrowed his eyes with a grin. "...but still. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know." Joey bit his lip and walked past JC and into the living room, sitting down on the couch, and watching Alex.

--------

"I don't know, Scott." Alex said, not really realizing she said anything as she stared into space like a girl in a coma.

"Alex? Lex? ALEXANDRIA!!!!"

Alex shook her head. "wha?" She slurred into the phone.

"Listen sis. You aren't paying attention to me. Just know that we all love you and that it's going to be ok. Ok?..ok? Alex?"

"Yeah, ok."

Scott's sigh was clearly one of defeat through the telephone line. "All right. Bye Alex."

"Bye bye." She said in a very weird voice.

She flipped off her cell phone and casually tossed it on the floor not caring at the floor was made of hardwood.

JC's voice flowed throughout the room. "Hey, someone's here."

Alex immediately left her drunken state and sobered up, hopping out of the chair and running to the front door to see who it was. "WHO IS IT?" She yelled.

JC squinted his eyes looking through the windows around the front door. "Ohh its just Jen with Jon."

Alex whimpered against the glass, her breath fogging it up one instant and then disappearing the next. "Where are you, Justin?"

JC turned to look at her when she had whispered those words. He stepped towards Alex and felt awkward doing what he was about to, but he pushed that aside for now and wrapped his arms around the girl in front of him.

At first Alex stiffened in his arms, but slowly everything in her relaxed and she fell into him. Her hands clutched his neck as her face was buried into his shoulder, crying.

"We'll find him, Alex. I know it." JC bit his lip and prayed that they would find him.

Alex didn't even hear Jon bust through the garage doors screaming her name.

"Lexy! Lexy!"

She didn't even hear Jen's voice calling out to her. "Hey, I talked with the professor today about you. He said he kinda..umm...understood when I told him you were having family problems. I got your stuff so you can do it. We still got our- well, umm...project...nevermind." Jen trailed off, seeing her body shake with her cries in JC's arms. Jen looked at JC and nodded to Jon who was looking at them strangely.

"Come on Jon, let's go talk to Joey." Jen pulled on Jon's arm.

He obviously didn't want to go talk to Joey. "What's wrong with Lexy? Lexy...." Jen pulled him away anyway.

Jen walked into the living room and smiled at Mike and Joey. She had gotten to know these guys a lot better in the past 24 hours, trying to help her friend. "Hey guys."

"WHATS WRONG WITH LEXY!" Jon almost screeched.

Joey's eyes widen and he searched for something to take Jon's mind off of Alex. He knew it wouldn't work. "Hey buddy, will you come with me to Justin's studio. We gotta go look for something for him."

"Where IS Justin?" Jon cried.

Jen looked at Mike. They knew that it was stupid for them to try and keep this from the kid. But they didn't know what else to do. Jon wouldn't know what to do if Justin was gone. He would just crumble.

Like Alex.

Joey got off the couch and bent down in front of Jon. "Come on, buddy. I'll give ya a piggy back ride."

Jon sighed and crawled up Joey's back. "What's wrong Joey?" He whispered into the older man's ear.

"Come on..." Joey pretended like he hadn't heard him at all. "...lets go upstairs."

With one last look at Alex's now still body in the arms of JC, Jon turned to the steps and uneasily said. "Oh kay."

Jon was only 7. But he knew something was really wrong.

---------

About 15 minutes later...

Jon came running down the steps with Joey chasing him. He had a big hardback book in his hand, waving it away from Joey.

"Jon, let me see that." Joey ran into the living room, receiving a chuckle from Mike.

"Noooo. I wanna look at it!!!" Jon ran over to Alex and curled up in her lap, like she could protect him from Joey.

JC and Jen smiled when Joey narrowed his eyes playfully at Jon and sat down beside the two on the couch. "What's he got?" JC asked looking at Joey.

He sighed and draped his arm across the back of the couch, behind Jen. "Justin's old yearbook."

"oohhh...from how long ago?" JC inquired.

"I don't know for sure. I think it was right before we blew up. You know how they put his picture in the yearbooks and he bought one even though he had tutors and well, didn't really attend the school." Joey sighed.

"Yeah."

"I can't imagine living like that." Jen quietly said.

"Yeah, we cant either." JC sighed. "We worry about Justin sometimes. I mean, he never got a normal life. Sometimes by the way he acts or says things we all kinda have to say..wow, you really don't know do you? Like if this is some big joke or if he ran away or something...well, just I don't know. I'm rambling."

"It's JC's nervous habit." Joey mumbled to Jen. She just nodded and looked at Jon who was nagging an uninteresting Alex.

"Lookie Alex. It's Justin a long time ago." Jon pointed to a picture that was in the thick book, but Alex couldn't look.

She couldn't bear it. She couldn't take this anymore.

"No Jon. I don't wanna look." She mumbled, staring out the window.

"FINE!" He yelled.

That was a first. Jon never yelled at Alex. That was probably the first time he ever had except for yelling her name in joy. This was a frustrated angered yell.

Lynn broke the tension. "Come here baby, show me what you got."

Jon huffed and pushed off Alex's lap and went to his mother handing her the book. "Why is everyone sad mommy? What is Alex mad?"

"She's not mad baby. She's hurting right now?"

"Why?" His eyes began to glass over as he looked between his mother and the shell of the girl cuddled into the leather chair.

"Ohh, look at her brother. Look at that hair." Lynn exclaimed with a twinge of hurt coming in her voice.

Jon didn't care about the book anymore. He just stared at Alex.

Mike was conversing with the other 3 on the couch while Lynn flipped through the pages of the yearbook. She tried to fight back tears as she saw the one of two pictures they had of him. She could remember how nervous Justin had been going back to that school after MMC, finding his crowd and then being swept away again. This yearbook was from his sophomore year. It was the last yearbook he ever owned.

Lynn pressed her lips together; she couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't bear to look at a picture of "her baby." She closed the yearbook with a snap.

Jon turned his furrowed eyebrows and narrowed expression away from Alex when he heard the noise. He pried the book from her fingers and began tearing the pages apart as he flipped through, trying to show his anger to everyone in the room.

He was mad he was the only one that didn't know what was going on. He finally flipped the book the inside of the back cover and was about to throw the book down and start a tantrum when big black writing on the white inside of the cover struck him. He read over it a little and looked at him mom. "Momma, who is Mrs. Beelaask?"

Lynn looked down, read over the words and smiled. "Ohh that was your brother's favorite teacher. She tutored him when he was in Europe a few years ago. She was the only one to sign his annual because Justin really didn't go to the school. He just had tutors from this school. And he never got the chance to get anyone else to sign it. But she must have."

Jon looked at the handwriting a little bit more, kinda confused but not ready to really commit to worrying about it. He had bigger things to worry about. Like Alex. His big eyes looked up to the girl in the chair.

She was no longer curled in the chair but staring at him intently sitting up straight almost like a plank of wood. She finally spoke. "What did you just say? What was the teachers name?"

"Mrs. Belask? Why? Do you know her?" Lynn asked utterly confused.

Alex stood up, marched over to them and gripped the yearbook, pulling it away from Jon. He protested her, she ignored him.

She lightly skimmed the message. "...whenever you need someone to talk to you know I'm here...stay strong and know you can come to me for advice...you'll always be my favorite student...Love, Mrs. Belask..."

"Oh my god..." The book fell out of Alex's hands and hit the floor, falling opening to the front page.

"Alex what is it?" Lynn asked her worriedly.

Everyone was staring at the girl with shaky hands in the middle of the white living room. "Alex? Lex? What's going on?" Mike asked in a calm manner.

She gasped and sped walked to the kitchen. "I think I know where he is."