Justin blinked a few times trying to adjust to the bright lights.  It didn’t take him long to realize that he wasn’t in the basement any more.  There were strange sounds all around him as he glanced around the room finally coming to rest on the last person he expected to see, his mother.

“Mom?  What are you doing here? Where am I?” Justin asked.  Lynn leaned over and ran her hand over her son’s arm, trying to comfort him.  She was so happy to see him, when his agent had told her that he was missing she became so worried, it wasn’t like Justin to keep things from her.  He wouldn’t have just run off without telling her where he was going.

“You are in the hospital.  Someone called the cops; they found you passed out in some strange house in the middle of nowhere.” Lynn explained.  Justin groaned and tried to sit up; His head was killing him, likely from the booze.  “You were missing for 9 days. Baby what on earth were you doing there?” She added.

Justin quickly did the math in his head and that number sounded about right, but he wasn’t sure what so say at this point.  He wanted to talk to the other guys first to see if they knew what had happened and to talk about what they were going to tell people.

“Where are the others?  Are they alright?” Justin asked. 

“They are here too. So are the police, they are going to want to talk to you before you see the guys.  Your record company reported you missing a few days ago; they said they couldn’t get a hold of you and got worried.  What were you doing out there with the guys?  I thought you said that part of your life was over?” Lynn explained.  Justin groaned again, he really didn’t want to talk to the cops right now; he just wanted to see the guys and go home, where he could start his search for the mysterious girl, whom he only knew by her first name.

“It is, but we are still friends.  I just missed them and I wanted to see them.  I just needed a little break.  I am sorry I should have told you where I was.” Justin half lied.  His mother wasn’t completely falling for it though but before she could push further a man in a suit entered his room.

“Mr. Timberlake, my name is detective Hopkins and I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.  I have already talked to a few of your friends.  Would you like for your mother to step out?” The man stated, getting his pen and note pad ready. 

“No, she can stay if she wants to.  I have nothing to hide from her.”  Justin explained. 

“We found a drug commonly known as the date rape drug in your system do you have any clue how if got there?  Or how you ended up in the middle of nowhere?”  The man asked.

Imagines from the night before came back to him, but everything was a little fuzzy.  He knew he had wanted to say something to Katy but couldn’t recall if he had actually told her.  It hurt Justin a little because he knew he hadn’t been accidently drugged, someone had slipped him something and the fact that Katy was nowhere to be seen made him think it had been her.  But why would she drug him and run off, she had to have been scared.  He was trying to put himself in her place and consider what he would have done.

“Mr. Timberlake?” The man repeated.  Justin shook his head and stared at the guy, he really didn’t feel like answering questions right now.

“Sorry I was trying to remember what happened exactly and I have to tell you that it’s a little fuzzy right now.  Could that be a side effect of the drug?” Justin asked.  The man just nodded and then offered to come back a little later and try again, once Justin has had some time to rest.  His mother left with the detective to ask some questions of her own and to find Justin something to eat.

Justin laid there a minute letting his mind wonder back to the strange woman that he had just spent over a week with.  She was beautiful and fun.  Justin hadn’t lied to his mom when he said that he needed a break the only thing was that he hadn’t realized that until it had been forced upon him, getting away from his crazy life had really opened his eyes.  And seeing the guys again made him realize just how much he had missed them.  Maybe his life wasn’t really so perfect after all.

Chris forcefully cleared his throat; he had been standing there watching Justin for a little while after he saw the detective leave.  He was trying to be careful not to be seen by Justin’s mom or staff members, since they weren’t really supposed to talk to each other until after they talked to the police.  Justin looked up at him with sad eyes, he felt betrayed by Katy somehow.

“Are you okay?” Chris asked softly.

“I am fine, are you okay?  What happened?”  Justin asked pointing the bandage on Chris’s head.  Chris rubbed it and groaned after all it was still a little tender. 

“I fell.  I guess I hit my head when I passed out but I am fine, it’s not that bad but they tend to get carried away when it comes to head wounds.”  Chris explained.

“I thought everything was going well, I thought we had a plan.” Justin said.

“We did, but apparently the girls had their own plan and well theirs was better than ours I guess.” Chris paused to let it all sink in before continuing.  “I have talked to the others; we had to modify the story we had originally come up with so the police and our families won’t get too worried.  It will allow the girls to return, if they chose to down the road.  You never know Justin, she could come back.”  Justin thought about it, he still felt hurt by her.  She left him for crying out loud.  That was going to take some time to get over.

“Yeah, we’ll see.  I am going to need some time to think about everything that happened.  I can’t help but think that Katy planned the whole thing.  Did I do something wrong to make her not want to be with me?” Justin asked.  He certainly wasn’t used to rejection.  Chris wanted to confirm that Katy had done it but something just wouldn’t let him.  Justin was hurting and Chris could see that, so maybe now wasn’t the best time to spring it on him. 

“I think they were just scared, they didn’t know what we were going to do.  But if we show them that it’s cool maybe they will come back and then you can talk to her about it.  At least that way you can have closure.” Chris explained.

“Okay so what is our story?” Justin asked.  Chris smiled and then quickly went over the story.  They were just going to be short and not give a lot of details to avoid getting caught in their lie.  But basically they were going to say that they just needed a break and they ran off together to a cabin in the woods for a few days but they lost track of time.  They would add that they had invited a few girls to join them for a party but the girls must have slipped them something in an attempt to rob them, but they hadn’t had much cash or valuables on them so they really didn’t get away with much.  After all stealing is a lesser offence than kidnapping, not that the guys planned to press charges either way.

Justin agreed and then rolled over as Chris slipped back to his own room.  As much as he wanted to tell the truth and blame Katy for everything he couldn’t do that to Justin and it was still unclear how Justin really felt about Katy right now.  He did however promise himself that if he ever saw Katy again he was going to slap or taze her for what she had done to him.  They could have just talked about it; she didn’t have to drug him.  Chris knew that he didn’t want to let Brandi go but if they had just explained it to him, he would have under stood.

As the taxi pulled into the drive JC cursed under his breath, he was so tired and it had been a long couple of days.  Right now he just wanted to go crawl into his own bed and not come out for a few days. He was sifting through the mail that had built up in his mail box since he had disappeared, as he made his way inside.  The others had all gone home as well and JC suddenly felt very alone.  It was a feeling you would have thought he had gotten used to since they split up.  That was when a strange envelope caught his eye.  It was addressed to him, which was odd because he rarely got mail at his house that wasn’t a bill or from family.  This hand writing he didn’t recognize.

He opened it carefully and peeked inside.  There was a flash drive, copies of the lyrics and a DVD.  Since the return address on the outside appeared to be the cabin in the woods, JC wasn’t really sure who had sent it to him but he knew what it was.  He was excited and dying to see it but nervous at the same time, so he called Justin.

“Did you get a package?” JC asked, not even bothering to say hello.  Justin glanced at the caller ID again to make sure that he was talking to who he thought he was before answering.  He looked at the mail he had spread out over his dining room table.  He had been avoiding sorting it but now seemed like a good enough time.

“Can you be more exact?  I have a ton of mail to sort through.  What exactly am I looking for?” Justin asked.

“It’s a yellow envelope; it should be addressed to you personally.” JC explained.  Justin picked it up and held it in his hand for a minute.  He made his way back into the living room so that he could sit down and get comfortable.

“Yeah, I found one.  Why who is it from?”  Justin asked falling back onto his sofa. 

“I think it’s from the girls.  It’s the video.  You know the one that we didn’t get to see.” JC said.  The phone went silent as Justin just looked at the package in his hand.  He had started to think that there hadn’t really been a video.  That it was just something the girls had made up to keep them there longer.

“Did you watch it?” Justin asked after the long pause.  JC could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Not yet.  I… I don’t really want to watch it alone.  Can you come over later?  So we could watch it together?” JC asked.  He wasn’t sure if he could watch his love scene with Kim and not lose it.  But if someone else was there then maybe he could make it through it. 

“Yeah man, of course.  Chris and Joey have left for Orlando already but I can call Lance too if you want?” Justin offered. 

“That sounds great I will order some pizza or something, we can make a night of it.” JC said.  They chatted awhile longer and then hung up.  That had to have been the longest conversation the two of them have had since shortly after ‘N Sync broke up.  Maybe if nothing else good came out of this at least it appeared that they had gotten their friendship back, later that night they gathered at JC’s house and even put Chris and Joey on the speaker phone so they could watch the video as a group.  They were shocked to see the video and what Katy had really done.

The video had captured more than any one thought.  It showed their new romances but it also showed their old friendship.  It was almost like it had been before they had become famous.  The video wasn’t about the money it was all about the music again.

“You know this is probably the best music video that we have ever made, it would kind of be a shame not to share it.” Lance sighed as the video wrapped up.  There were other chapters on the DVD that just contained random footage from the nine days they had spent together.  They sat there for awhile letting the DVD rotate through the videos and photos, while they processed all the stuff that had happened. 

“We could release it, find away to show the girls that we didn’t rat them out, we could claim that we were off recording and filming the video in private and the girls were just actresses, if we go public with that story maybe they will see that we aren’t going to tell the truth and then come back.”  Chris rambled out loud. 

“But the girls did all the work; it wouldn’t be fair for us to talk all the credit… and money.” Justin explained.  He knew that the guys had done the singing but it was at the demand of the girls, it was their idea.

“We could donate all the proceeds to charity, and then we wouldn’t be making a profit.” Lance suggested, after all the guys had been very supportive of Children’s charities during their career and a few of them even had their own charities to help troubled youths.  Chris nodded in agreement; he knew the other guys couldn’t see his head shake but he thought the girls would approve of them using the money for a good cause.

Justin put his head in his hands a groaned loudly before announcing that he was going to head home.  He couldn’t deal with this anymore; his heart was still hurting as he was sure the others were too.  He loved the guys but right now he just needed to be alone with his thoughts.

At his house he went straight upstairs and fell onto his bed.  When the phone rang again he didn’t even bother to look at the caller ID, he instinctively just answered it. He must have been half asleep because when a woman’s voice came from the other end he sat up and responded with an excited hello, only to realize seconds later that is was his girlfriend calling.  She began to lay into him about his whereabouts the past few days and why his phone hadn’t been on.  He rolled his eyes and fell back into the bed and just waited for her to take a breath.  In reality he wasn’t in the mood to talk to her and her biggest concern seemed to only be his lack of interest in her life and the drama there in.