Tuesday, December 26, 2000: Mill Creek, Kansas

Justin awoke to a creak on the stairs outside Maggie’s room. He was instantly awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins. The tread on the stairs was heavy, masculine. The footsteps were going up the stairs and Justin frantically tried to remember whether he’d closed the door to his room or whether it was cracked— the person on the stairs able to look into the empty room and see the unslept in bed.

The footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs.

Justin held his breath, hardly daring to move for fear of drawing the footsteps to Maggie’s door.

He heard the shuffle of shoes on the thinly carpeted floorboards. They were moving towards Maggie’s door. Then they stopped.

Justin heard the miniscule creak of weight shifting on the old wooden boards. His own muscles were tense and straining to stay still.

And then the feet moved again. Away from the door. Away from the room he shouldn’t have spent the night in.

Justin heard the feet start down the stairs and he exhaled loudly. He hadn’t realized that he had been holding his breath. He felt a weight shift on the other side of the bed. He looked over and saw Maggie beginning to wake up.

"Morning Randy," Maggie mumbled. She sloppily ran a hand across her eyes. "What time is it?"

Justin picked up his head and looked at the clock. "5:45." He mentally groaned when he said the time. What time had he gone to sleep? Midnight?

"What are you doing awake?" Maggie asked.

"Your dad came upstairs," Justin said quietly.

Maggie sat up in bed quickly. The blanket fell away from her chest and she shivered as the frigid air made it’s way through her T-shirt. "He did?"

Justin nodded. "I think he was getting a book from the bookshelf. He didn’t come to the door."

Maggie nodded. She smiled weakly at Justin. "That would have been bad."

"That would have been bad even if he knew the whole story," Justin said.

Maggie nodded again. "Maybe you should go back to your room. You know, in case he decides to come up here again."

Justin didn’t want to leave the nice warm spot he’d made on Maggie’s bed, but he complied with her wishes. He leaned over and gave her a slow kiss on the cheek. "Come say goodbye before you go to work, okay?"

Maggie nodded and moved into the warm spot Justin had just vacated. "I’ll be sure to wake you up."

"Okay," Justin said. He stood up fully, thankful that his shoes were still on so he didn’t have to deal with the ice cold floorboards on his bare feet. "See you later."

He walked toward the door and looked back once at Maggie, matching her smile. He opened the door carefully and quietly. He tiptoed out into the hallway and shut the door behind him soundlessly.

Justin walked into his room and shut the door as soundlessly as he could. He looked at the clock. 5:50. It was way too early for him to be up and awake. That was what his mind kept telling him at least. The adrenaline was still pumping through his system. His heart was still beating wildly, not at the thought of being caught in a compromising situation with Maggie, but being caught in her bed by her father.

He looked around the room. The light was still dusky and the gray shadows lay heavily on the walls. He sat down on the bed— the first step towards lying down— and looked around the walls. They seemed to belong to him now. There was the triangle Mill Creek banner and the obligatory Christina Aguilera poster. He couldn’t handle having even the traditional small pin-up of Britney.

His eyes rested on his laptop. He hadn’t checked his email to see if Lance had responded to his latest email— or to see if any of the other guys had decided to write him and chew him out. That would be a way to pass the time.

Or he could just wait until after TRL today to see what was said.

That was probably the wise thing to do.

The game would all be over after today.

MTV Studios, Times Square, NY

To say Lance was nervous would have been an understatement. His hair, which had been thickly gelled that morning, was now limp and soft from his sweaty fingers running a continual path through the blond strands. His cheeks were pale and his palms were clammy.

He’d been the first of the guys to arrive at MTV Studios and he’d been pacing his dressing room ever since. He felt nauseous and wanted to lie down but the blood pumping through his veins kept him in a constant state of motion.

There was a knock on the dressing room door and Lance perked up. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be alone in his misery. He started walking towards the door when he heard the hesitant voice, "Mr. Bass?"

Lance opened the door and smiled sadly at the stagehand. "Yes?"

"The rest of your group has arrived and your presence is requested in makeup."

Lance nodded and stepped out into the hall, following the stagehand down the hallway. They passed several employees in the hallway and Lance felt like they were all staring at him. He knew he was being paranoid as the feeling of eyes following him persisted. One question invaded his mind though.

Had Justin told anyone besides Carson?

The stagehand stopped and Lance realized that they were at the makeup room. He stepped into the room and smiled for the first time all day. He felt a sudden moment of silliness descend on him— the proverbial rise before the fall.

"Yo dudes," Lance said. The three other men in the room turned to him with scowls on their faces and Lance felt the silliness pass. "What’s up?"

"Just the fact that we’re going to go out there and end our careers," JC said with a scowl.

"It doesn’t have to be over," Chris said. "Like I was telling you earlier…"

"But do we really want to go back out on the road?" JC asked, interrupting Chris.

"What were you thinking Chris?" Lance asked. He walked across the room to the empty makeup chair. The lady standing by the chair immediately went to work on his limp hair.

"Charity concerts," Chris said. "For runaways or something. Runaways seem the most appropriate though."

Lance nodded. "Like a one time thing or a whole tour of them?"

"It costs so much to put on a tour," JC said. "Remember when we looked at the price list for the NSA tour the first time?"

"Yeah," Chris said with a small laugh. "A million bucks."

"We wouldn’t have to go all out," Joey said. He had his head leaned backwards and was getting his goatee trimmed. "I think people would go to just a music show, you know, minimal stunts."

"They come to see a show," JC said. "We couldn’t put on the same caliber show without Justin."

"So why even try?" Joey asked. "People sell out shows all the time where the band just sits on the stage and plays. We would still do the moves and shit, just not have like the pyrotechnics and stuff."

"I agree," Chris said. "We don’t want people to think that we’re dead just because Justin happens to be gone."

"’N SYNC is dead," JC said. His words were muffled as one of the hair ladies ran a razor around his sideburns. "We have to face that."

"What about your song though?" Lance asked. "We’re still recording that. That’s what we’re telling MTV today."

"I know," JC said. He leaned his head to the left side as the razor removed the stubble that had grown on his cheek. "But releasing one last song and putting together a tour with just four of us is completely different."

"I’m going to be the one whose taking Justin’s parts," Joey said. "I’m down with it."

"I think it sounds like a good idea," Lance said. "I’m not ready to be done with this yet, with or without Justin."

"Me either," Chris said. "Come on Jace. It’ll be like the good ‘ol days. One bus, smaller venues." Chris clasped his hands and started batting his eyelids quickly. "Puh-leeze? Fo’ me?"

JC rolled his eyes. "Let’s talk to Johnny, ‘k? I mean he is the one who has to put this all together."

"Thanks dad!" Joey said with a wide grin. He snorted softly. "I never thought I’d hear you say we should go talk to Johnny about anything. Hell must have frozen over."

JC shrugged. "I can change my opinions. And hell froze over the day Justin stepped off the bus."

Justin looked at his watch. It had been thirty seconds since he’d last checked it and that had only been a minute since the previous check. The day was taking absolutely forever. Practice seemed closer to eight hours long rather than three. Even lunch with Maggie had seemed unbearably slow and that never happened.

Since 5:50 that morning when he’d realized that this was the day the guys were going to tell the truth each minute seemed to take an hour and each second seemed to take a minute.

It was 2:58 when he finally forced himself to sit down and turn on the TV. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to watch the TV. He did. More than anything he wanted to see the outcome of today’s show. What he didn’t want to do was sit through the hour of show before they even brought the guys out. That was what MTV always did. They’d tease the audience for days and then give ‘N SYNC five minutes on the show.

Justin didn’t know how they were going to cover today’s topic in five minutes though.

Carson looked in the mirror. His skin looked pasty to him even though the makeup artist had put as much natural color on as they possibly could without making him look made up.

He knew why he looked pasty. He was breaking the biggest story since… well, he couldn’t think of anything bigger that he’d broken.

How did he go out there and face the four guys he considered friends when he was potentially ruining their careers? How did he handle the interview in a way so no one looked like the bad guy? How did he go out there and tell the world that Justin Timberlake had run away?

Justin Timberlake had run away.

Carson ran a hand across his forehead. This was going to be the interview from hell, but it would probably the pinnacle of his career.

Justin gripped the remote in his hand, the plastic bending under his tightened hands. He stared at the TV. How come the show hadn’t started yet? It was 2:59 and 45 seconds. It should have started. The sooner it started, the sooner he’d be truly free. Well, as free as any other runaway.

"Start dammit," Justin said. "Goddammit, start."

He smiled when he saw the image of the fan floating up to the MTV Studio window. Finally. Then Carson’s voice interrupted even that thought.

"Last week on TRL we watched as Britney and Christina battled it out for the number one spot and with Eminem, ‘N SYNC and Limp Bizkit completing the top five. Today we have some surprise guests with a very shocking announcement. Who will be number one, and more importantly, who’s going to leave the world speechless today?"

Justin leaned forward and then back. They were going to announce. Lance had said they would, but with modern bureaucracy you never knew. How many times had they been tentatively scheduled to appear? Of course his disappearance was probably just slightly more important than a routine appearance.

This was it.

Carson looked at the time. They were thirty minutes into the show and they were through the bottom six videos.

"And next, at number four we have ‘N SYNC with ‘This I Promise You.’" Carson paused for dramatic effect. "And girls I promise you that I have ‘N SYNC in the building."

The studio audience began squealing and about ten girls in their late teens began crying and fanning themselves. The guys in the audience began rolling their eyes and looking bored.

"Let’s play the video while they get ready to come out!" Carson said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He watched the entrance with something close to alarm. What was going to happen when the four men ran down that aisle?

The video seemed to take forever. Of course the whole day had seemed to take forever, so Justin wasn’t surprised that the video did. It was so close to happening. The truth was so close to coming out. He could wait another 4:44 at the longest.

He found his lips forming the familiar words. It didn’t seem like he hadn’t sung them in two months. His vocal chords added sound to the words and the voice sounded foreign. His voice sounded higher and lower, smoother and more nasally in turn. There was a reason though. Not singing for two months could do that to a trained voice.

He stopped singing and watched the video. He remembered the frigid bay air that had made them all shiver until the makeup couldn’t hide the blue of their features. He remembered the trip around San Francisco and the trip to 3Com park. That had been the last real break before he’d run away.

He heard the sound of claps and screams overpowering the gentle beat of the music.

He leaned back into the couch and then sat forward. He couldn’t miss one word that was said.

JC stood by the door to get into the TRL studio. His palms were sweating. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to relieve the strain that had settled into the muscles.

"And now, making their first public appearance in nearly two months, ‘N SYNC," Carson said. He was standing by the TV monitor he always stood by. The distance seemed farther than normal though. The crowd seemed more oppressive.

JC saw Chris and Joey start running. Lance gave him a tight smile and took off down the aisle. JC followed closely behind.

JC nearly laughed when he recognized the music MTV had chosen to play for their entrance. It was the heavy base beat that made the teeny-bopper’s scream. "Bye, bye," JC mouthed.

And then he was on the stage with Chris and Joey and Lance. And Carson. In front of the studio audience and the crowds that had flooded Times Square. In front of a nation full of television screens.

"Welcome," Carson said. He grinned at the guys, obviously trying to put himself at ease as well as his four guests. "It was quite a shocker to get you on the show today."

"It was quite a shocker for us too," Lance said. JC watched as his friend grinned at a girl in the front row and she dissolved into tears.

"Did you all have a good Christmas?" Carson asked. "Get to be with your families and all?"

"Yeah," JC said. He didn’t know why he’d decided to field that question. More talking early on safe subjects meant less time that had to be spent on more delicate issues. "We all went home or went to spend time with our loved ones."

"I was in New York," Chris said intelligently. "The rest of the guys had to fly in this morning."

"By the rest of the guys you mean these three, right?" Carson asked.

Chris nodded. The look on his face told JC he hadn’t meant to provide a segue into Justin discussion.

"So at the risk of sounding repetitive when you guys are here, where’s Justin?"

"Well I’m afraid we’re going to sound repetitive too," Lance said quickly. He was the one that understood the can says and the can’t says in dealing with the media. "We don’t know?"

"I swear I’m having dejavú," Carson said with a grim laugh. It didn’t do much to placate the silent studio audience. "What do you mean you don’t know?"

"We don’t know where he is," Joey said. The look on his face showed not only his group members, but also the rest of the world that he was tired of playing games. "He’s disappeared."

"That’s what you said last time," Carson said. "So there’s been no word on this ‘Where in the world game?’"

The four guys shook their heads.

"No," JC said. "We haven’t heard anything." He looked at Lance. That was Lance’s cue to jump in with the whole ‘we lied, we’re terrible people’ bit.

"We sort of made that up," Lance said. He was hanging his head and studying the floor.

JC inwardly grinned. Only Lance could make their whole lie, their whole fabrication of a ploy to get Justin back, sound innocent.

"What do you mean you made it up?" Carson asked.

"There was no game," Lance said. "The truth is—"

"The truth is that Justin walked off our bus in the middle of the night and we don’t know where he is," Chris interrupted.

JC stared at the shorter, older man. That wasn’t the way the script was supposed to go.

"The truth is that Justin got fed up with being in the spotlight," Chris continued. "He’d had enough and got up and left. Do you have any idea how hard it is for Justin Timberlake to disappear?"

"We lost his trail in Kansas," Joey broke in. "We waited a week to give him time to come back. Then we thought up the ‘game’ to see if we could get him back. I mean girls can tell he’s Justin Timberlake from a mile away."

"So you have no clue where he is?" Carson asked.

JC opened his mouth, but heard Lance’s voice. "No, we have no clue where he is."

JC turned to Lance and was met with a cold glare. "As Joe said, we lost his trail in Kansas."

"I guess all I can do now is ask what your plans are for ‘N SYNC." Carson looked like there was more that he wanted to say, but he didn’t.

"Josh?" Joey said, turning to JC.

"We’re going to be going into the studio tomorrow," JC said. "I’ve spent a long time working on a song for us four to record. We’re going to dedicate it to Justin. We’ll be filming the video soon."

"So you’re going to do a new song," Carson said. "What about a tour? All the cities you were forced to cut off the end of your last tour?"

The four guys looked at each other.

"We’re discussing it," Lance said. "If we do it’ll be simple. No Frills Attached, or something."

"Do you want to see us four old fogies go back out on the road?" Chris asked the audience. He stepped close to the front row and the girls began screaming. Screams could be heard coming out of Times Square also.

"That sounds like a resounding yes," Carson said. "Is there anything you guys would like to say to Justin?"

JC’s eyes met Joey’s, Chris’s and finally Lance’s.

"We want to say that we love him," JC said. "And that we’ll always be waiting."

"We miss you fro boy," Chris said. "And I still owe you an ass kicking."

JC noticed tears in Joey’s eyes. "We need you back Curly. None of this is the same without you."

"Merry Christmas back at you Bro," Lance said. There was a guilty look on his face. "Make sure you’re enjoying life, ‘k J?"

JC noticed Carson giving Lance an odd look.

"What I want to know is how he’s managed to remain in hiding for so long," Carson said. "I mean you guys are the only group able to shut down Times Square and probably half the people outside are Justin fanatics— simply because they aren’t old enough to get inside— so how does he disappear for two months?"

"He’s an actor," JC said. "He can play whatever part he wants to."

Justin felt like his face was set in stone. He couldn’t make the corners of his mouth curl into a smile or pull them down into a frown. It was over. That’s what he’d wanted for so long. Now it was over.

He should’ve been happy.

But he wasn’t.

Why? Why wasn’t he jumping off the walls ecstatic?

Because they hadn’t said they were going to keep looking for him.

"I don’t want them to look for me," Justin said, but he knew that he was lying to himself. His next statement was the truth. "I don’t want them to find me."

"Tour?" Johnny said as he paced the green room where the guys had retired. "No Frills Attached? When the hell were you going to tell me about the tour I’m supposedly planning?"

"We were," JC said. "After the show."

Johnny closed his eyes. "So I couldn’t say no, right? Because once you mention it on MTV it had better happen. Was I the only one listening when Erica Reese said we don’t dick them and they won’t dick us? After mentioning a tour, not following through could strongly be considered dicking them by giving them false information."

"It’ll be small," Chris said. "Like 15 cities."

"And how exactly do you propose we work this?" Johnny asked. "In case you didn’t notice you’re only four men in a five person group."

"I’m doing Justin’s part in ‘Bye, Bye, Bye,’" Joey said. "I’ll just keep doing it in the other songs."

"It’ll be for charity," Lance said. "All proceeds go to help runaways. How good would that look, huh?"

Johnny paced in silence for almost a minute. When he spoke his voice was reluctant. "It would look really good."

"You don’t want us to go away, do you John?" Chris asked. "We’ll be your best clients. Oh wait, we’re your only clients."

"Only because you guys drain my patience," Johnny shot back. "I’ll look into setting this up, okay? It needs to be bigger than 15 cities though. We need at least 20. Possibly 30. I like the no frills. How does this sound? Just the music, For the children… Needs some work."

"I’m sure it’ll turn out wonderfully," Lance said.

"You’ll need to start with Wade immediately," Johnny said. "One four person routine took you long enough. Try fifteen like that."

The four guys groaned, but there was a tinge of excitement they hadn’t felt in weeks in the groan too.

"Oh my god," Maggie said as she opened the door to Justin’s room without knocking. "So I was just watching the TRL rerun and you’ll never guess what happened."

"What?" Justin asked. He was lying on his bed rather lethargically. He tried to look interested and curious. "Did Hanson make it back to the number one spot?"

"No," Maggie said. "Justin Timberlake ran away."

"You’re kidding," Justin said. He managed not to mock the shock he knew he should be portraying. "Oh well."

Maggie hopped on to the bed and hit Justin’s arm. "This is serious."

"He’s just in a boy band," Justin said. "There’s about fifty others out there."

"But he’s Justin Timberlake," Maggie said. "He’s almost a god."

Justin tried to cover the awkwardness that he was suddenly feeling by pulling Maggie down on top of him. "Should I be jealous?"

Maggie kissed Justin lightly. "Why? It’s not like he’ll ever come here. But if he did show up…"

"Wrong answer," Justin said. He tried to keep humor and amusement in his voice. He rolled Maggie off of him and she cuddled into his chest. Justin stared up at the ceiling, unfeeling, unseeing, just knowing somehow that besides the obvious, something about the dynamic of this whole escapade had changed.

And he didn’t know why or what it was. And he didn’t know how to make himself feel better about the whole situation.