"But I don't know about these two, they're relationship is pretty rocky."

"Yeah, first they get married, a year later they're getting divorced, then they make-up and now another year later they're seperated. They should just call it quits."

Now that McKayla thought about it, MTV was begining to become a pretty annoying channel. Ever since Carson left TRL they started hiring these stupid people who think they're hot like Vanessa, who's always whinning and Brian with his 'I'm so cool, look at the white boy' posh attitude (though she had to admit that he and Gideon were kind of cute. Well, Gideo was cute before he ditched the glasses, shaved his head, and grew stuff on his chin.) Then there was Lala and her loud annoying voice always telling someone that her Uncle did security for Nsync and that she knew Justin on a 'personal' basis.

McKayla'd chocked him for 60 seconds before he admitted they madeout when he was 18 and absolutely nothing more.

"I honestly, seriously, think girlfriend needs to say cry me a river and let it go."

McKayla shut off the TV and rolled away from it, onto her side. Her hand slide from her hip to her stomach. She'd gained two pounds in the last week and a half since the ball. Her dress size hadn't changed, but she could tell the difference, in her back, in her tummy. She could feel her body chaning even if she was only five weeks along.

She'd gone to the doctor two days before, just to b she was indeed carrying a child. She definately was, and she hadn't stopped thinking about her husband since. The entire situation was confusing. Did she want a baby? Didn't she want a baby? Wasn't she supposed to? That's what she was supposed to do, get married and have babies. But she was so young. Then again, it's not like she had a ton of things to cross off her list of things to do. And maybe she wasn't really all that young. She didn't want to be old and crippled with her child was in highschool right?

McKayla sighed and closed her eyes, his face popping into her mind. Was it bad that she missed him so much that she wasn't sure which was the cause of her vomitting, this or the morning sickness. It was probably a good sign right? It meant that their relationship wasn't completely over yet. What she needed was someone or something to take charge. Something to tell her absolutely undenyably that she was supposed to have this baby and be with this man. Something like the feeling she was getting in her stomach right now. A rumbling kind of twisting that was painful. Something like... wait.

McKayla jumped off the bed and scurried over to the bathroom, a hand over her mouth.

Justin stepped off the jet, a back slung over his shoulder as he followed Trace up the ramp and into the airport. He'd just spend a week on the go in Europe and all he really wanted to do was go home, find his wife waiting for him with a smile, and then get into bed. He knew that middle part wasn't going to happen, but he could go home and get in bed.

As soon as they rounded the corner from the ramp to the waiting area, reports and TV cameras were shoved in his face. Mike stepped in protectively, his body blocking any shots. A path was laid out for him, four bodyguards encircling he and Trace as they slowly made their way towards the door.

"Justin! What can you tell us about your relationship with McKayla!"

"Are you back together again? We saw you together at the Ellington Ball."

"With this being the second time you have split from your wife in the past three years, do you consider your relationship destructive?"

Finally they made it to the limo waiting at for them the curb, and climbed in, the door slamming shut behind them. Ofcourse, that only meant that the reporters were jumping in their vans so they could follow him.

Justin let out a sigh as he shrugged off his jacket. The entire situation was stressful. People were always asking, pocking, prauding. The part that ticked him off the most was that he didn't know. He couldn't say, 'Yeah, we're together, but I'm not telling you.' because they weren't together, and he didn't know if they ever would be again. But he had to keep hope alive and trust her, and trust that she would come back to him.

"Have you talked to her?" Trace broke the silence with a question that had been burning on his tongue.

Justin shook his head 'no'.

"Man, you know I hate to say this, and I'm yours and Kay's biggest supporter. But, maybe you should think about letting go and moving on."

Justin turned sharply to glare at his friend.

"I will not," he said, "She is my wife, I love her and she loves me. We're seperated, not finished."

Trace nodded apologetically.

He did love her, and he knew that she loved him. She was just confused, hurt even. He knew that, he understood that. How come Trace didn't? Because Trace knew nothing about love, that's wh. Love that was strong enough to survive racism, stereotypes, seperations, and hurtful words. A love like theirs.

McKayla stood outside on the porch, her hands shaking violently.

She'd only been back in town for a few house, but ever since she stepped foot off the plane she was overcome with the strongest desire to come back to this place. Knowing that he was so close by, made her want to see him, stare at him for an hour, tell him the truth. And now here she was on his porch, calling herself an idiot for coming.

Now that she was there, she had no idea what to say, but her fingers didn't care, and reached out to ring the bell anyway. He answered a moment later, slightly out of breath and a shocked expression on his face.

"Hi."

"Hey," she didn't have anything else to say. That was it, she could go back to the hotel now.

Justin looked her over before stepping to the side.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked.

McKayla hesitated for a moment, "Uh... sure."

After stepping into the house, she glanced around the room as he shut the door. Everything was in it's place, except for the bags near the foyer table.

"Did you just get here?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Where were you?"

"I did some promo stuff in Europe."

"Ahh. Well if I had known I would have given you time to settle back in."

"No, it's alright," he said, thanking God she hadn't.

The couple stood there a moment before Justin spoke again.

"So, what brought you by?"

"Uhh...," she looked at her hands nervously, "Well, I just... how are you?"

He gave her a strange look at the sudden irrelevant question.

"Fine. I've been good, you?"

"Pretty good. Alittle sick."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I thought it was just the flu, but it was lasting along time so I uh... went to the doctor, to see what was up and make sure everything was alright," she was more talking to herself than him, looking down at her hands and talkin in to her chest as she led him into the living room.

"Did they find anything?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, definately something. Something big," she sat down on the sofa and looked at him expectantly.

"Well, what?"

The way she spoke, made it sound serious. He eased himself onto the sofa next to her, preparing himself for anything. Cancer, tumors, irregular hormones. Whatever it was, she would have the best of care in the world, he would see to that. McKayla's mouth opened and closed, not quite sure of how to word it.

"Well they---they found a--a baby."

His brow crinkled.

"I'm pregnant Randall."

She knew that this was something he wanted, and something that he would be extatic over, but for some reason she was still nervous about his reaction. It was probably just a woman thing, because you know that unlike a mother, a man can walk away from a child. Maybe it was an unfair thing to say, but it was true.

"You're.... you're pregnant?" his voice wavered.

McKayla nodded.

Justin stood up, his hand going to the back of his neck as he paced the floor for a second. Then, before she knew it, his hand had latched onto hers and she was pulled to her feet and into his arms. His smell was intoxicating as she was held captive there in his strong embrace that had always felt so warm and secure.

Standing there, being held, feeling the excitement growing in his body as they hugged, her mind made itself up. It felt too good and seemed too right, she couldn't ignore it. She was keeping this baby.

His arms tightened around her even more as the sentence clicked over and over in his mind.

'I'm pregnant Randall.... I'm pregnant Randal....I'm pregnant.'

"I'm gonna be a Daddy?" he was more thinking the thought outloud than asking it, but he smiled when she nodded against his shoulder.

"This is so great. I can't wait-wait, is this great?" he pulled back to look at her now beaming face.

"I--I think so," she smiled.

He pulled her back to him again for a moment before he stepped back and slide his hand around to her tummy, watching it like something amazing was going to happen right then and there.

"Oh my God, I can't believe this. Is it a boy or a girl? What are we gonna name it? We need to start fixing up a baby room. What room should it be? Probably the one closest to our room huh? Wait till Mama finds out about this, she's going to freak."

McKayla's smile faded slowly as he rambled on and on, talking like everything was back to normal and nothing had happened.

"What?" he noticed the distant look in her eyes and knelt down alittle to look into her lowered eyes.

She turned away, "I just..."

"This doesn't change anything does it? Everything is still messed up."

"What did you expect? Having a baby would make everything okay?"

Justin shrugged, looking very much like a little boy. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected.

"This does change things," she said, "I'm just not sure how. It makes me think, but I'm still hurt and I know that your still hurt."

"But I'm not," he interupted, "Yeah it hurt and it was hard to deal with it. But I'm done with it, I'm over it. You know this."

"Yeah I've heard that," she said, "But that's not all there is. I need some time to myself to figure this thing out and to figure out what I want and what I need to do."

"It's been over a month Kay. Isn't that enough time?"

"No it's not. I need more. I need to figure out me."

Justin sighed and sat down on the sofa.

"Do you not wanna be with me Kay? Do you not love me anymore? Cause if that's it I'd rather you just say it instead of-."

"No," she knelt down infront of him, "It was never about not loving you Justin. I love you more than anything you know that, but there's so much more that goes into this. This is about differences and lifestyles and beliefs and wants. There's so many things we don't have incommon."

"That doesn't matter. Love is enough. Love is all people, it's all we need. If you love me, you won't leave again."

"That's not true. It's because I love you, that I wanna be sure I should be here."

"Ofcourse you should be here," he spat.

This was really beginning to piss him off. His wife was always thinking things over and trying to be sure. She never just jumped in and she rarely followed her heart. That's why their relationship was so screwed up, not because they had differing opinions on somethings.

"Do you know that?" she asked, "What if I shouldn't be Justin? What if I was never supposed to be here, to live here, to be with you."

His eyes rolled.

"You always do that Kay. You always pull that 'what if' shit. What if the fucking world fell off it's axis and into a black hole? What if what if what if. Stop running from me," he grabbed her hands, "Stop trying to hide. Stop trying to ruin this because you're not going to. If you were going to get rid of me I would be gone by now. Stop trying to push me away because you know you wanna be here as much as I want you here."

McKayla's eyes closed as she stood, the words hitting too close to home.

"I'm not running Justin. I just want to be sure. This is my life okay, not a rehersal, not a show, my life. I only get one shot and I don't want to spend the next 30 years in something that's only going to hurt me in the end."

"I swear to you I won't hurt you," he put her palm against his chest over his heart, "And if it does end 30 years or whatever from now, isn't it better to just be together for the next 30 years, then to spend them apart and be wanting to be together?"

It was like those, 'If you knew that the next person you fell in love with, was going to hurt you, would you still fall in love anyway?' questions.

McKayla pulled her hands away from the steady, strong rythmn of his heartbeat and headed towards the door.

"I've got to go. I have an appointment."

Justin knew there was no appointment, but he wasn't going to hold her there either.

"What do you need McKayla?" Justin stepped into the foyer as she opened the door, "Do you need the fairytale? Do you need me to come in on a white horse and steal you away? Cause if that's what you need I'll do it. I'll do it right now."

"No," she said, "I don't need you to come save me. I need to figure out if I wanna be the damsel in distress or not."

Justin watched as she walked out the door, again, and moved to sit down on the stairs. He was getting his baby, but at what price? Because one of the most joyous day of his life was turning out to be one of the worst ones.

Justin was sitting on the couch, just getting over the sting of his conversation with his wife the day before, when Trace came barreling through the door.

"What's got your ass on fire?" Justin chuckled to himself.

"Dude, have you seen this?" he handed Justin a paper.

Justin removed his feet from the coffeetable and sat up instantly. His picture was on the cover, along with a very familiar looking girl.

"Isn't this-?"

"That chick from the bar? Yeah."

"She sold her story?!" Justin shouted, hastily flipping through the pages.

He finally found it and his already glaring eyes bugged out of the pages.

"My night with the heartbroken Timberlake?"

"Keep reading."

Justin did as told, growing angrier and angrier with every word.

"'I'd been making out with the 20-something year old soon-to-be divorced stud for nearly half an hour when he was pulled away by his security team. He shouted that he'd call me tomorrow, but he was so drunk he forgot to get my number.... He didn't appear to be to broken up about McKayla. Infact, he didn't even care, never mentioned her once that night. If you didn't know about all the drama, you'd have had no idea anything was going on. He was just drinking and dancing the night away.' Is she fucking serious?"

"It gets worse."

"I'll bet," Justin tossed the magainze on the table, "This shit is filth. No one reads this right? Right?"

Trace simply shrugged. It was a nationally destibuted magazine that, despite it's outrageous and usually untrue stories, sold millions of copies. Chances were, someone was going to read it.

"Yeah, you're right," he assured is friend finally.

Justin reached up to rub his bald head, his eyes suddenly beginning to hurt, when the phone rang. It was Johnny on the caller ID and he groaned inwardly.

"Hi."

"Have you seen-?"

"Yeah, Trace just handed it to me."

"Justin, tell me there's no truth to this."

"Ofcourse not! I barely gave the tramp a peck on the lips, and can I say in my own defense, that I was drunk off my ass?"

"No you can't! What the hell were you thinking? You don't go cheat on your wife at the most popular bar in LA, Justin."

"I know! And I didn't, she's lying. All that bull about security dragging me away and promising to call and dancing around, it's crap."

"But you did kiss her didn't you?"

There was guilty silence on Justin's end.

"Do you know what's going to happen when MTV picks this up?"

"Johnny, you can't-."

"You know as well as I do that she's going to give an interview as soon as they flash her alittle cash. Think about ET."

"Don't let them! Flash her more cash. Suit her for slander or liable or whatever. Do something to get rid of this."

"I'll try, but with all the publicity surrounding you and McKayla, it's going to be hard. People are going to grab whatever 'story' they can."

"That's exactly why you can't 'try' Johnny. You have to do it. This is my life we're talking about Johnny, my marriage. Make it go away, and make it go away now," Justin hung up the phone and threw it against the wall before dropping his head into his hands.

This had to go away before it got out, before anyone big picked up on it. Their already rocky relationship couldn't withstand this blow. This secret had to come from him, from his lips, immediately followed by an explanation and an apology and groveling. She had to be told gently, delicately. Perhaps after a few drinks, ofcourse that would mean waiting till after the baby was born. She was always a little bit looser when she had a little wine. And chocolate, wine and chocolate calmed her down. Then again so did a nap. Maybe he should tell her while she was asleep?

Luckily, he knew that McKayla would never believe anything in a cheesy magazine like that, so he didn't have to worry about it as long as no one picked it up. But if it got to someone even half respectable, she was going to ask questions. He knew that if she asked him, he'd have to break down and tell her, and he knew that if he did it would be all over.

There was no chance of getting his girl back after this.