Britney hadn’t been able to help it. The interviewer had asked her about her relationship with Justin—because of course the rumors had started flying within days of the breakup occurring—and she just hadn’t been able to lie any more.

Their publicists had told both her and Justin to deny the rumors. "Ease the public in," they’d said. "Everyone will know it’s true, but if you say it’s not, then there won’t be a huge outcry when you do announce, because it will be old news."

So, although she hadn’t been happy about it, she’d denied. She’d expected Justin to deny, too, because the first rule of pop stardom was to do exactly what the publicists told you to—they were publicity gods, after all—but he hadn’t. He’d remained silent, somehow managing to avoid any and all questions about the two of them and their now defunct relationship. To her, though, his silence had been louder than any words he might have spoken.

When she’d gotten together with Lance, it had become easier to deny the rumors because she actually saw a reason for it. As long as people thought that she was still with Justin, they were less likely to question why she was acting like she was in a relationship, why she had gone to one of their concerts, why she was still hanging around with ‘N SYNC.

But now she wasn’t with Lance, she wasn’t with Justin, she wasn’t in any relationship at all, and to lie and say she was, well. It just wasn’t working for her.

She hadn’t meant to tell the truth, but the question had come—like it had come in almost every interview recently—and she hadn’t been able to make herself lie again.

"I’m not in an intimate relationship right now," she’d said and suddenly her singleness seemed so *real.* It had felt real when she’d broken up with Justin, and she’d thought it had felt real when she and Lance had parted ways, but.

It was worse this time, because now she was truly on her own. She didn’t even have a lie to cling to. She felt empty and alone and ached in places that she didn’t know could ache, like the place inside of her that her laughter came from.

"I think you were right," she said one night while she was talking on the phone with Felicia. She was curled up in a chair in her living room, the same chair she’d spent most of the evening in, wondering what had possessed her to buy such a large house. She had the money, yes, but she didn’t need that much space. Not when it made her feel small and young and inexperienced.

"I’m always right," Felicia said, her voice brimming with laughter. "But what was I right about this time?"

"I think you were right about me using Lance as a rebound," Britney said softly. "I didn’t think I was, but. I didn’t feel this… *raw* after Justin and I should have, I think. I thought I was pretty much over him when I ended it, but now I’m starting to think that I repressed those feelings and grabbed onto Lance and now I’m dealing with the pain from both breakups at the same time."

Felicia was silent for several moments before she replied. Britney could hear her breathing.

"Or maybe you really were over Justin and you are in love with Lance."

Britney coughed. "Excuse me? Fe, you were the one who was telling me that I was using Lance because I didn’t know how to be single."

"And now you think that I was right and I think that maybe I was wrong," Felicia said softly, thoughtfully. "I don’t know, Brit. You’re really the only one who knows how you’re feeling, but. I watched you after the breakup with Oscar. I watched you after the breakup with Justin. And this one is different."

Britney felt a lump slowly rising in her throat. "How?" she asked.

"Because I think you actually loved him," Felicia said. "Not, of course, that you weren’t in love with Justin or Oscar, but you. You *let* Lance go."

"And doesn’t that just say that I’m not willing to fight for him?" Britney asked. "If I really loved him, shouldn’t I have fought for him? Would I have let Justin just *go* if some conflict had come up between me and the group?"

"No," Felicia said quickly, "but I think you would have held onto him because *you* weren’t ready to let them go. It would have been in your best interest rather than his."

"And it was in Lance’s best interest for me to not fight?" Britney’s voice was small and sad.

"Exactly," Felicia said. "Do you see the difference? If you’d said, ‘no, Lance. I’m not going to let you go,’ he would have said, ‘okay. I’ll start looking for a house in LA. I’ll move my business there. I’ll announce that I’m quitting the group tomorrow.’"

"He wouldn’t have said all that," Britney said. "But I wasn’t worth all of the pain it was causing him. You said so yourself."

"That’s not what I said," Felicia countered, "and he thought you were. You are worth it, Brit. Any guy would be lucky to have you."

"I miss him."

"I know, hon." A pause. "If you could have Lance, Justin, or Oscar back, which one would you choose? And I mean, if you could have the good times with any of them back, not the time when you were getting ready to dump Justin or when we discovered that Oscar was a walking dick. Who would you choose?"

The name popped into Britney’s mind immediately; the word sat on the tip of her tongue ready to be spoken, but she didn’t say it.

"Not Oscar," she said instead, "because he was just a high school crush and we both saw his true colors. Bastard."

She wondered why the name that popped into her mind hadn’t been Justin. She’d been madly, deeply in love with him for so long. Most of her happiest memories were with him. He’d been her best friend for what felt like forever, not to mention her first kiss, her first real love, and when times had been good, they’d been *oh* so good. She missed him more than she’d ever thought possible, but.

She wanted to be with Lance. She was pretty much in love with him. She *was* in love with him, she thought, and maybe she had been since the first day he’d spoken to her, when she’d met him at Justin’s house. It was a different sort of love than she’d felt for Justin, though. There were still the tingles and the gushy feelings, but she felt older, too, and words like ‘long term’ and ‘next year’ floated in her head, even though she’d known that it couldn’t be, no matter how much she’d wished.

"Lance," she said softly. "I would give just about anything to have things be different."

"Because you’re in love with him," Felicia said.

"Because he made me happier than I had been, maybe in forever," Britney said. A month into a relationship was too early to say the ‘L’ word. And it was too late because she wasn’t even in a relationship with him anymore.

She heard Felicia sigh. It wasn’t a cute, ‘aww’-sigh, but a sigh that sounded like Felicia didn’t like what she was about to do.

"What?" she asked. "You were the one who asked me, you know. If you didn’t want to hear the answer, you shouldn’t have asked."

"No," Felicia said quickly. "It’s not that. I just can’t believe I’m about to say what I’m going to say, what with everything I already told you, but." She took a deep breath. "Maybe you should go talk to Justin. He loves you, Brit. And he loves Lance, even if he can’t remember why right at the moment. And maybe you can sit down with him and explain everything, so that he doesn’t feel like you abandoned him so that you could hook up with Lance, and then you and Lance could…"

Britney laughed bitterly. "That’s rich, Fe. Let me go ask my ex-boyfriend for permission to date one of his best friends. He threw a vase across the hotel room. He mangled flowers. He was *this* close to hitting Lance, and I have never been afraid of him before, but I was that night. You didn’t see his face, Fe. You didn’t hear the way he said what he said."

"And that was not the way you meant for him to find out. Remember how you were all going to go out to a nice dinner, sit him down, and make him understand. He was shocked, Brit. Of course he reacted violently. But now, if you go talk to him, maybe he’s more used to the idea and you could get through."

"He wanted to quit the group." Britney closed her eyes. "That’s not the action of someone who’s growing used to the idea. It’s better this way, okay? Lance and I both knew that it would eventually come to this conclusion, and as much as it hurts right now, that will fade—"

"But you could have him," Felicia interrupted. "If you explained it to Justin and tried to get him to see how much you really care for Lance, then maybe it would all work out happily ever after for everyone involved."

Britney remained silent for several moments, then, "I couldn’t, Fe. I don’t think that I could stand the thought of having him within my grasp and then losing him again. I just couldn’t."

"But now that I’ve brought up the idea, won’t you always wonder what if?" Felicia laughed in a semi-evil manner and Britney couldn’t help but smile.

"Bitch," Britney said softly, fondly. "You want me to forever be in a state of relationship turmoil, don’t you."

"It’s my evil plan to keep from doing school work," Felicia said. "Your life is fifty times more fascinating than biology, let me tell you."

"It had better be," Britney said. "But Fe, seriously, I. Why should I go plead my case with Justin? You know he’s not going to want to hear it, and it could just ruin things for all of us. It might ruin any hope that I have that he’ll ever speak to me. It could ruin the tenuous friendship that Lance and I are managing to maintain, because then he’ll see that I want to be more than friends…"

They had talked on the phone twice since they had ended their relationship. The conversations had been strained, but Britney had felt some hope that eventually they could get back the friendship they’d once had. She didn’t want to do anything that would screw that up.

"But if you’re successful," Felicia said. "You could have both of them back—Justin as your friend, Lance as your boy toy. What more could you want than that?"

Nothing, Britney thought, as she closed her eyes and wondered if she strong enough to get on a plane and fly to wherever they were so that she could confront Justin and get back the man she wanted.
--

Lance’s life had settled into a routine almost. He would wake up in the morning and breakfast with the other guys, wherein he would drink a lot of coffee and practice his smile for the day, laughing at their jokes that no longer seemed funny to him. Then he would do whatever ‘N SYNC stuff had to be done, do a concert, then go out with the other guys at night and pretend he was happy to be there.

He *had* been happy the first night that he’d gone out with them again; because it was good to have Joey, JC, and Chris talking to him. Justin, of course, was still giving him glares of death, but really, Lance hadn’t expected any less.

It had been another week before Justin started talking to him again. It had been in the middle of an interview, and the younger man had leaned over, asking him to clarify something for the interviewer. Lance had just about died of shock and had had to have the both Justin and the interviewer repeat the question again. The number of words a day that Justin had said to Lance had increased gradually from then on. Now, almost two weeks later, they had had and actual conversation about Joey’s movie, *My Big Fat Greek Wedding* and how they wished it would come out already so Joey would stop saying, "and just wait until you see this one part! It’s *so* funny."

Lance was living his life, but he felt as if he were only doing the motions. He sang, he danced, he talked, he smiled, he signed autographs… That was what he’d become. He *wanted* to do ‘N SYNC, that was the choice he’d made, but he wasn’t feeling any of the joy it was supposed to be giving him.

He wanted the joy back and he didn’t know how to get it.

"You made the right choice," Joey had told him earlier that week. "You think you’re upset now? Can you even imagine how upset you’d be if you’d chosen Britney?"

And he would have been upset. To give up ‘N SYNC and everything associated with it would have been just about the worst thing that he could imagine. But for the first time, he genuinely thought that it might have been something that he was willing to sacrifice, that maybe ‘N SYNC should have been the thing to go.

"We’ll find you another woman, Bass," Chris had told him that morning, smiling lewdly and slapping him on the shoulder. Lance guessed he’d looked even more depressed than normal. He’d called Britney the night before and she hadn’t answered her phone, nor had she returned his message. "Someone who’s more mature."

Lance had smiled weakly, nodded, and hadn’t said no when Chris had told him that gosh darn it, he would be going out to the strip joint with them all that night.

He was standing outside of Chris’ door with Justin and JC when it happened. He had just raised his fist to knock, his knuckles were already falling forward, and… the elevator doors at the end of the hallway opened. He turned to look and see who it was, and he saw her.

Long blond hair. A thin frame.

Lance’s heart twisted and then plummeted into his stomach, because he hadn’t seen her in a month, and he’d missed her. He’d made himself forget what the mere sight of her did for him, to him, and he’d broken up with her. He had absolutely no clue what she was doing standing in the hallway of his hotel when as far as he’d known she was in Los Angeles getting ready to go out on tour.

Britney smiled in his direction and he was already smiling back before he realized that there were two other men behind him whom she could have been smiling at. He couldn’t help himself, though, so he lifted a hand and waved and he was gratified when she waved back.

What was she doing there?

As she approached the three of them, though, she turned away from Lance. He saw her smile fade into a frown.

"Justin," she said, and Lance felt sick, even though he had no right to, not anymore. He hated her saying his name. "We need to talk."

Lance was suddenly aware of Justin standing directly behind him. He could feel the tension radiating off of the other man, waves of anger crashing into him. All of the progress that he and Justin had made, he realized, had more than likely been wiped away. Out of sight, out of mind. That was how the saying went and Britney being there would remind Justin of… everything.

"We don’t have anything to talk about," Justin said. His voice was hard and cold, like steel.

"No, we do." Britney stopped beside Lance. He wanted to reach out and touch her. "You and I need to talk, Timberlake. It’s something we probably should have done a long time ago."

Lance turned so that he could look at both Justin and Britney. He saw them glaring at one another, veritable sparks flying through the air. They had loved hard, Joey had said, but there was such a thin line between love and hate.

"I have nothing to say—" Justin started. He said the words slowly, like that would add more power to them.

"But I have things to say to you," Britney finished. "I flew out here to talk to you, Timberlake. You are going to talk to me. Then, if you never want to see or hear from me again, fine, but we’re going to talk now."

Chris chose that moment to open his door. "What’s going on out— Brit?"

Lance could feel the older man’s gaze on him so he shrugged, hoping Chris would believe he was telling the truth. He didn’t think he would.

"Brit and I apparently need to talk," Justin said. As far as Lance could tell, he’d put as much hate and malice and sarcasm into each word as he could. 

Justin started walking down the hallway, not waiting for anyone to answer, and Britney followed behind. She turned, though, and smiled softly at Lance. He smiled back. As large a smile as he could muster anyway, what with JC and Chris glaring at him.

"You still want to go out, J?" Chris called as Justin was opening the door to his hotel room.

"I’ll meet you there," Justin said, right before he and Britney disappeared into his room. Alone. It was a sight Lance never wanted to see ever, ever again.

"I think I’m going to stay here tonight," Lance said before Chris or JC could say anything to him, before they could ask why Britney was there. Then, "I didn’t know she was coming."

"Bullshit, Bass," Chris said.

Lance just shrugged and turned away from them, he started walking back down the hallway, towards his room.

"Bass," Chris called again.

Lance didn’t look up, not even when he slid his keycard into the door and pushed it open. He heard a, "Lance!" from JC, but the door was already open, he was already inside, and then it was closed and he was alone in his—thankfully—quiet room.

"Britney," he said softly, leaning back against the door. "Why are you here?"
--

"Talk," Justin said. He hadn’t invited her to sit down; he hadn’t sat down himself. They were standing facing each other in the middle of his room. His arms were crossed over his chest, but she kept hers carefully by her side. She was on the offensive after all, she refused to let him put her on the defensive. 

Britney had planned out exactly what she was going to say every night for a week, then again on her plane flight, but now that she was here, none of the words seemed right. None of the words conveyed what she’d felt when she’d seen Lance standing in the hallway, smaller, paler, less confident than he’d been even a two weeks before, the last time she’d seen him on television.

"Tell him that you didn’t abandon him for Lance," Felicia had said, and Britney thought that that would be a stupid thing to say, that of course Justin would know that, but now, looking at him and how unsure he was…

"I didn’t leave you for Lance," she said softly. "I just wanted you to know that."

Justin looked startled for an instant, but his expression quickly settled back into a scowl. "I didn’t think that," he growled, but given the ferocity with which he said it, Britney realized that part of him had. She and Lance had always been friends, after all. She shared a bond with him that she hadn’t shared with any of the other guys, so maybe Justin really had thought that something was going on between them that had caused her to break it off with him…

"You *did*," she said. "Justin, I loved you."

He barked a laugh. "And then you go getting with one of my band mates. Love you too, Brit. What should I do to show you how much I love you? Key your car? Kidnap your dog?"

A tendril of anger rose inside of her, but she wasn’t going to let him get to her. She was there to reason with him, not to yell. She suddenly realized that maybe Lance had been right. Maybe they would have needed a moderator if they’d actually managed to hang out together in Seattle. She hated that she apparently couldn’t have a rational conversation with Justin.

"I didn’t come here to fight with you," she said. There was a watery edge to her voice that showed Justin was getting to her, as much as she didn’t want him to.

"Then tell me what you came for so that I can go join Chris and JC and your darling Lance at a *strip joint.* That’s what us single boys do after all." He was laughing suddenly, and not laughing in a nice, ha-ha funny fashion, either.

Britney felt as if she’d been punched in the gut, but she took a deep, calm, steadying breath, and made herself keep speaking. She wouldn’t gain anything by storming out of his room.

"I came here to tell you that I love Lance," she said simply. If she hadn’t felt so guilty, she would have felt a little thrill that she’d been able to stop Justin’s laughter so quickly.

"I really don’t think that’s something you should be telling me."

"But it’s something I need to tell you," Britney said, "because you’re the one who was going to quit the group if Lance didn’t break up with me."

"How would you feel, Britney, if you had to look at your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend every single day?" There was a wild, pained look in Justin’s eyes. Britney felt slightly sick.

He had a point. If Justin’s new girlfriend had been one of her dancers, Britney probably would have had her fired. Screw finding a good reason, the girl would have just been gone.

"I would have hated it," she said.

"Then tell me we still have something to talk about," Justin said. "I really want to hate you, BJ, but. I think I’ll always be in love with you and it absolutely kills me that I can’t make you happy in the way that *Lance* apparently can. Tell me what he has that I don’t."

"This wasn’t about you, Justin, okay?"

"But it is about me," he said. "You break up with me after we pledged forever and then two weeks later you’re kissing Lance. Tell me how I’m not supposed to view that as a slight against my person."

"Justin…" Britney closed her eyes and then opened them again. She took a deep breath while she searched for the correct words to say.

"*Don’t* ‘Justin…’ me," he growled.

"I wanted to love you forever," she said softly, "but we were so young when we got together. We were two entirely different people, and I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore."

She watched Justin’s face crumple.

"We’ve both changed so much," she continued. "We were just two aspiring pop stars, you know? We had no clue about contracts or tabloids or photographers being everywhere that we went. And you have so much talent, Justin. You’re at a point where you need to put your career first and I think I see that now, whereas maybe I couldn’t see it before."

"I never—"

"You did," Britney said. "That was what was the breaking point for me, because you weren’t ever at our house, you weren’t spending time with me. You were spending time on songs you were working on with Wade, songs that you were working on with Nelly, songs for the solo album… And that’s not a bad thing, but… we changed."

She paused, waiting for Justin to say something. He didn’t.

"I was so happy with you for the majority of the time we were together. You were my first everything, you know? My first kiss, my first love, my first ‘I can see myself with this person for so many years to come….’ And I will never regret being in love with you, and I think part of me will always wish that I’d been able to keep loving you the way you deserve to be loved."

"But now you love Lance."

Britney nodded. "And I want to be with him, but I can’t be unless you are able to accept us."

"How can I watch him kiss you, BJ? Do you know how much it hurt when I walked in on you two? How I died inside and I’m still not sure that I’m completely alive again?"

"I am *so* sorry," she said, because she was. "We didn’t want you to find out like that, Justin. We were going to tell you that night. We were going to try to ease you into it."

Justin snorted. "I don’t think there’s anyway to ease someone into their ex kissing their best friend."

"Probably not," she said. "And I’m sorry, but Justin. Please."

"What," he said. "You want me to give you my blessing? You want me to willingly subject myself to listening to him talk to you on the phone for hours on end? To know that that dopey grin on his face is being caused by you?"

Britney slowly nodded her head. It sounded so unreasonable when he was saying it, but when she thought about what she wanted, it didn’t seem unreasonable at all.

"How can you ask me to do that?"

"Because you love both of us," she said, "and deep down, even if you don’t feel it now, you want us to be happy."

She watched the tears pooling in Justin’s eyes, felt tears filling her own.

"I’m not willing to ask Lance to give up ‘N SYNC because of me," she continued, "but I’m going to ask you that question. Is it really worth giving up everything you’ve worked so hard for because of us? You will find someone else better than me, Justin. You will. But I don’t think you will ever find anything better than ‘N SYNC."

Justin took a step towards her, and Britney made herself stand still. She wasn’t sure what he was going to do, hit her, kiss her, she didn’t know. Instead he placed his hand underneath her chin and nudged it upwards so that she was looking him directly in the eyes.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you love him," Justin said. His eyes were so blue, so intense, so pained that she wanted to look away. She didn’t.

"I love Lance," she said. "I want to be with him."

A tear dripped down Justin’s cheek and she couldn’t help it, she reached up a hand to brush it away. He leaned into her touch, and for a moment Britney’s heart ached, wondering if she’d given up on them too soon. But she thought about Lance and why she was in Justin’s room in the first place and knew that she hadn’t.

"Then go," Justin said. "And if Chris and JC are still out there, will you tell them I’m not much feeling like going out anymore?"

"You’re serious," Britney said, even though she knew it was the wrong thing to say. She wanted to make sure she was hearing what she thought she was hearing. "You aren’t going to change your mind in ten minutes?"

"You’d better go before I do," he said, but he was smiling, and she knew that he was attempting to joke with her. "Go see Lance. He’s in room 1546. I’m sure he probably stayed here, too. He’s probably sitting there thinking that we got back together."

Britney nodded and smiled, feeling suddenly giddy, but guilty too, because Justin looked absolutely heartbroken and like he was trying to hold it together until she’d left.

"Thank you," she said, and the words were little more than a breath. "I’ve missed you."

He smiled again, but it crumbled quickly. "Just go," he said. "Get out of here. Tell him he’s a lucky guy."

She nodded and turned, her throat suddenly convulsing as she tried not to cry. Her hand was on the doorknob when he spoke again.

"I can’t say that I’m be happy for you guys, okay? But I’ll try."

"That’s all I can ask," she said, looking back at him. She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, then, and she could already hear Justin’s quiet sobs when she closed the door.
--

It had been a good fifteen minutes that felt like fifteen hours when Lance heard the light, feminine knock on his door. He stood up from where he’d made himself sit on the bed and tried not to run to the door. He wasn’t successful.

He opened the door and saw Britney standing there, her eyes rimmed red, but she was smiling.

"Is everything okay?" he asked, even though that wasn’t what he’d meant to say right off. He’d meant to ask her what the hell she was doing there and why the hell hadn’t she told him that she was coming?

She nodded and smiled some more.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked. He stepped away from the doorway and motioned for her to enter. She did. It was when she was sitting down on the bed and he was sitting next to her—a good foot of space between them—that he spoke again. His voice sounded hesitant to his own ears. "What did you and Justin need to talk about?"

"You and me," Britney said simply. 

"Okay," he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. Luckily, it seemed as if Britney had a plan.

"You know, Lance," she continued. "When you and I started whatever we were doing, dating, we said that we knew it wasn’t going to last forever, but that it was what we wanted now."

He nodded.

"And that was why I let you break up with me without so much as a protest," she said, "because we’d both known that, and I thought it was what was best for you."

Again, he nodded. He was starting to get an idea of where she was taking the conversation but he wouldn’t let himself believe it. He couldn’t let himself.

"But then Felicia and I were talking and. The only thing really standing between us was Justin, so she suggested that I go talk to him and try to make him understand our side. He’s not happy, but. He seems to understand that sometime in the last four years I fell pretty much in love with you."

Lance’s heart stopped beating in his chest. Love. Justin okay with him, Lance, being with Britney. Britney. Love. Him. 

Fuck. 

He started coughing, choking, and he nearly passed out when he felt Britney’s hand rubbing his back with soft, gentle circles.

"Don’t die on me here," she said, amused. "Breathe, Lance."

"You can’t be serious," he said. "Justin was ready to quit the group three weeks ago, Brit."

"But he wants us to be happy," she said. "He didn’t tell me that, but he does. He loves both of us and he wants to see us happy."

Lance didn’t know what to say, so he closed his eyes and then opened them again, staring into Britney’s brown ones. "I pretty much love you, too, you know," he said, because he hadn’t said that yet. For the first time it felt okay to say the words.

Britney smiled widely and he wondered how he’d ever thought that it was the right choice to let her go. Not when she looked that happy, that jubilant, at the opportunity to be with him. It was something that he’d spent years thinking he would only be able to dream about.

"So if I were to kiss you right now" he asked, "it would be okay?"

"More than okay," she said, and she was the one to lean forward to press her lips gently to his.

It was more this time, Lance thought. More real, more right, no underpinnings of guilt and wonderings of ‘what if’ and ‘how could they’ and then he decided to stop thinking.

Britney was the first one to pull back, but she just leaned even farther forward, to wrap him in a hug.

"I’m not going to promise you forever," she said, "but this is what I want right now, and things *are* different, so, we can try again, right? We can do it right this time."

Lance nodded and kissed her ear because it was the closest thing to his mouth, then he kissed her cheek, and the corner of her lips, before moving his mouth back to where her ear was.

"Here we go," he said. "One more time, everybody feeling fine…" He had too much emotion in his voice to actually be on key, but it had the desired effect. She laughed and slapped him on the shoulder blade and pulled back from the hug.

She grabbed his hand and as Lance looked down at their interwoven fingers, he was happy.