The More Things Change 1
By Diana
Author's Notes: Isn't it amazing that writer's block can strike you just as you FINALLY have time to write? Well, you've all waited long enough... let's get the party started! I've been feeling a little decline in the series' quality lately... I hope this story helps it go out with a bang. If you like or dislike where the story's going, e-mail me and we'll talk. ;)
Disclaimer: The song featured in this chapter is "We Are" by Vertical Horizon.
This is a joke.
JC Chasez hadn't actually SAID those words as he stood at the door to Justin's bedroom. But it was definitely the first thought on his mind. This HAD to be a joke; after everything they'd suffered through to come this far, fate couldn't possibly be cruel enough to inflict yet another blow.
But it was, and it had. Justin Timberlake, the man he loved, the man he'd shared everything with, was staring at him in wide-eyed fear and confusion. As though they'd never met before.
The blonde edged further up the bed, never taking his eyes off JC. It was like he expected the other teen to attack him at any moment. Standing by the bed, Lynn Harliss stared at her son in speechless disbelief.
"Who are you?" Justin asked again, more forcefully this time. JC opened his mouth, but no sound came out. How could he answer that? It had been so long since ANYONE had asked him that, but this was Justin. His best friend. His first lover. What could he possibly say?
At last, he spoke. A single word, a name, a whispered plea.
"Justin..."
Justin's eyes narrowed. "How do you know my name?" His fear was quickly being replaced by agitation. "Dammit, answer me! Who the hell are you?!"
When Dr. Amy Harper emerged from Justin's room, she looked anything but optimistic. JC felt his heart sink as she gave him a glance that could only be pity.
The young therapist cleared her throat. "Why don't we all sit down?" she suggested, indicating the living room downstairs. A personal friend of Lynn's, Dr. Harper had been summoned to examine Justin. After ensuring total patient confidentiality on the doctor's part, Lynn, JC and Britney then proceeded to "debrief" her on her patient's history. To her credit, she was able to digest the raw, horrendous information with relative ease, needing only a few moments to take some notes before walking in to confront Justin.
Once they were all settled in the living room, Dr. Harper turned to Justin's mother. "Justin IS suffering from a form of amnesia, Lynn. But most of his family memories appear to be intact. He knows exactly where he is and who you are. Furthermore, my examination shows him to fit the profile of a mature twenty-year-old."
Dr. Harper then turned to JC. Again came the look of pity and sympathy. "But I'm afraid other parts of his memory have been damaged."
JC swallowed hard. And though he knew the answer, he asked the question. "Which ones?"
The therapist paused, considering her words. "Before we go into that, I'd like to point out that amnesia victims don't always lose a linear block of time. In fact, in most cases there's no chronological order at ALL..."
"Just spit it out!" Britney shouted. With every procrastinating word coming out of her mouth, JC sank lower and lower into despair.
Startled by the young woman's vehemence (but understanding its cause), Dr. Harper nodded. "All right. In short, he doesn't remember the Mickey Mouse Club. Or N'Sync."
Britney went pale,. "That's impossible." the pop princess blurted, simply because she couldn't find any other words to describe her shock.
Dr. Harper shrugged. "I'm sorry. But I interviewed him extensively, and he was completely unfamiliar with anything pertaining to his time as a celebrity. Names, lyrics, song titles, nothing sparked a reaction."
JC just sat there, staring straight ahead with a blank look on his face. Britney, however, was not satisfied with that answer. "How could something like this happen?" she demanded. Justin couldn't have FORGOTTEN them.
"It's not that uncommon." the therapist answered. "People unable to cope with trauma often repress associative memories, to completely block out the event. In this case..." Dr. Harper locked eyes with JC, forcing him to meet her gaze. "To forget Jack Matthews, Justin would have to forget who drove him to Jack in the first place. And since his bond with you is the foundation of N'Sync, those memories have been blocked as well."
It made sense. Too much sense. JC rose, fighting to breathe, to keep from breaking down completely. "I want to see him." he said. "I want to talk to him."
Dr. Harper shook her head. "He doesn't KNOW you, Mr. Chasez. At least not at the moment. Forcing him will only make things worse."
"So what do we do?" Lynn asked, her voice almost cracking with emotion. Only yesterday, she had been dead-set on ruining JC for betraying her son. But this... no one deserved a punishment this cruel.
"The amnesia is only temporary." Dr. Harper explained. "He's dealing with his experiences at a subconscious level, a little at a time. There's not much you can do other than putting him back in touch with his life. The more integrated he becomes with his past and present, the easier the transition will be."
Her eyes suddenly grew hard, and she fixed Mrs. Harliss with a warning glare. "Whatever you do, Lynn, do NOT pressure him. He's very unstable, and if you push too hard..."
She didn't have to finish the sentence. It was very clear that things could still get worse.
And they would.
Again, a knock at the door. Again, Britney answered. But this time, there were three men in the doorway.
"Well? Where is he?" Joey Fatone demanded as he walked in, followed by Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass. First to enter the living room, Joey immediately halted at the sight of an ashen-faced JC sitting on the sofa, looking like he'd just lost his best friend.
Moments later, Lynn Harliss appeared at the top of the stairs, holding her son's hand as she led him down into the living room. Joey's face lit up at the sight of the curly-haired blonde, but Lynn was anything but enthused. The reason soon became obvious: When Justin looked at them, there was no warmth, no familiarity. Only discomfort and confusion, like he was looking at total strangers.
When they reached the bottom step, Lynn cleared her throat and indicated the other members of N'Sync. "These are your friends, Justin." she said, in a tone that left no doubts whatsoever as to Justin's condition. The blonde eyed Joey shyly and stuck his hand out.
"Hi." he chirped happily. But when the shocked Joey made no move to return his greeting, Justin's friendly expression ebbed slightly. "Oh... you already know me, right? Sorry." He sheepishly drew his hand back, but Joey quickly reached out and took it, squeezing the slender fingers slightly.
"Joey Fatone." The Italian teen felt silly, introducing himself to one of his best friends. But the huge smile on Justin's face was enough of a reward.
Wandering past his new flame-haired friend, Justin approached Chris next. The oldest member of N'Sync was unusually pale; he'd been struck full-force by the cruel irony of the situation. The heart of the team was back, but now he was even farther away from them.
Justin paused in front of Chris, and the black-haired man finally mumbled his name in a numb tone. When it was Britney's turn, she did her best to act casual, but the hurt still flashed in her eyes when Justin gave her that empty, unrecognizing look.
Then he came face to face with Joshua Chasez.
They stared at each other for a moment, and in the back of his mind JC remembered a similar event five months ago, in this very house. They had looked at each other across the kitchen, and JC had grabbed Justin, pulling him into their first real kiss. At the time, Justin's eyes had betrayed his own inner struggle, his love for Jack against the undeniable longing for JC. But now those crystal-blue eyes revealed nothing at all. They were someone else's eyes.
"I'm Josh." He bit his lip to keep from saying more, from saying everything, from yanking Justin to him and kissing him until there was no more air in their lungs. But Dr. Harper's words (He doesn't KNOW you) came back to him, haunting him, reminding him that this person had never met him before in his life.
Justin merely shrugged and turned to the last teen in the room. Lance Bass was standing in the corner like a punished youth, eyes downcast in shame. The amnesiac blonde cocked his head slightly and touched Lance's chin gently, raising the other's gaze to meet his. The guilt was present in Lance's eyes; the blame was absent in Justin's. And it became amazingly clear to Lance that this boy before him didn't know who he was, what he'd done. It felt good somehow, to know that, at least for the moment, there was one person in the world who didn't hate him.
"Are you my friend too?" Justin asked, catching Lance completely by surprise. The older teen's eyes wandered to JC and Joey, and he could see the death glares they were shooting him. They were waiting to see if he had the nerve to say yes, after everything he'd put them through.
Shifting uncomfortably, Lance nodded. "Yeah. Um... yeah. I'm Lance."
Again Justin shrugged, as though asking how he could form an opinion on people he'd just met. He turned back to his mother. "So... are they going to stay here? I mean, being my friends and all."
Lynn nodded, still rendered speechless by what she was witnessing.
"Okay." He smiled weakly. "Well, I'm gonna go upstairs. See you guys later, I guess." And then he ran up the stairs like he was desperate to get away from them.
"Jesus..." Joey whispered, collapsing onto the couch. This was the scenario he'd feared most, that Justin would suffer some kind of mental breakdown. Joey prided himself on his ability to get through any problem involving a clearly-defined enemy. He could take on Jack Matthews a thousand times and come out on top.
But Jack was dead now, and Joey didn't know how to fight something he couldn't see.
JC's shock was starting to wear off; his impartial face cracked, exposing a grief deeper than a sea of tears. Without a word, he turned and chased after Justin. Sensing that JC was on the brink, Joey and Lynn quickly followed him upstairs, leaving Chris and Lance alone.
The blonde swallowed, glancing at his bandmate. He could remember a time when he'd admired all his bandmates, for various reasons: Chris' wisdom had helped Lance through a lot of problems. Joey was in complete control of himself, cutting loose only when he chose to. JC had a voice that could soothe a wild animal. And Justin had, at that stage in his life, had an infectious love for life that could always make Lance smile.
Lust and jealousy had robbed him of two friends, and the consequences of those sins had taken the other two. He didn't belong here anymore.
"I think I should go." Lance whispered quietly, turning towards the door. But Chris immediately stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder.
"You're not going anywhere." he replied coldly. "You're still a part of this group, whether you deserve it or not. And we're going to get Justin through this together."
Lance felt tears brimming in his eyes, but would not let them fall. Was that his fate, then? To be the outcast, a formal member of N'Sync and nothing more? He couldn't bear that. If only he could make Chris see how much he loved them, how much he needed them...
The blonde just nodded, and he felt Chris' reassuring touch slip away. Yes, that was how it would be: Never to be touched, never to be looked at or talked to again. His punishment for putting himself before his friends would be to suffer in isolation.
He would break in six months, maybe a year. It would probably start small: anxiety attacks, hallucinations... when he broke down completely and started clawing at his eyes, they would calmly call the men in the white coats to drag him off to some God-forsaken mental hospital.
James Lansten Bass would suffer the fate of his accomplice: insanity. Most likely followed by death.
JC felt his heart pound faster and harder as he crept towards the door to Justin's room. He felt ashamed of his fear; he had lived in this house, had spent countless nights in the same bed with Justin beside him. As children, they would watch scary movies under the blankets, while during the hot summer afternoons they spoke of girls, sex, college and the future. As young adults, almost a decade later, they had made love for the first time, giving their bodies to each other with perfect trust and love.
Opening the door just a crack, JC peered inside. Justin was aimlessly wandering around the room, moving from one end to the other. After a few seconds, he stopped at the large stereo set on his desk. His fingers danced across the controls, and "Bye Bye Bye" started playing. JC realized Justin was playing "No Strings Attached".
But to JC's utter horror, Justin seemed completely disgusted by the song. He stabbed a button and the CD skipped to the second song. But that only made his frown deeper.
After rapidly moving through the rest of the tracks, the young blonde removed the disc and threw it over his shoulder. It clattered on the floor by the garbage can; their best work, the one thing N'Sync could truly be proud of.
JC watched, mouth ajar, as Justin tore into his CD collection, sifting through them, searching for something he couldn't seem to find. The Christmas album skitted across the floor and came to a halt under the bed. Britney's debut album hit the floor with such force that the cover cracked. Even the Backstreet Boys' "Millenium" (a gag gift from Joey) went flying. And as he did this, his young face contorted deeper and deeper into hatred.
Finally, Justin returned to the stereo and flipped a switch, turning on the radio. He spun the radio tuner dial randomly until a song came on, prompting a wide smile on the teen's face. He immediately climbed up onto his bed and started jumping up and down, singing the words loudly and completely out of tune.
"Take a listen through the window
Take a lover on the radio
Ask her if she's got an answer
Do you know
Time enough to get a good one
Though they never seem to get done
I am standing for a reason
Do you know
'Cause I don't know how
I don't know where
We are, we are
And I don't know why
I don't know if
We are, we are..."
The sight, in and of itself, wasn't unusual. Justin was often prone to such energetic outbursts. But the song... JC vividly remembered hearing it on the tour bus on some nameless, dateless day, and Justin had avidly proclaimed how much he hated it. He had even gone as far as switching the station himself to avoid listening to it.
And now he had a dumb grin on his face as he jumped, like this was the best song he'd ever heard.
"Isn't that Vertical Horizon?" Joey's amazed whisper came from behind JC as he too recognized the lyrics. But before JC could reply, Lynn joined them and immediately noticed the mess.
"Justin!" she scolded, bursting into the room. Their cover blown, JC and Joey followed her in, both feeling like they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
The sight of his mother, though, only made Justin jump higher. "Hi, Mom!" he yelled over the wild guitar music. He then catapulted himself off the bed, landing not-so-gracefully next to Joey. For a moment he staggered, but Joey caught him and set him back on his feet.
The blonde shot him an exhausted grin; he looked pretty winded. "Thanks, Johnny." he breathed.
The taller teen looked like he'd been shot. "Joey."
Justin's face fell as he realized his mistake. He shrugged apologetically, as if to ask how he was supposed to remember names of people he'd just met.
"What is going on here?!" Lynn demanded, shutting off the radio and shooting Justin an angry glare. "Justin Randall Timberlake, I just..." At that moment, her eyes fell upon the discarded CDs and her face softened.
"Justin..." She knelt and picked up the "No Strings Attached" disc. "Why are you throwing your things away?"
A look of utter shock passed over the younger blonde's gentle features. "MY things?!" He grabbed the disc cover from Lynn, and his eyes widened as he saw his own self, bound by rope and strung up like a helpless puppet.
"That's me." he whispered, as if it was the last thing he expected. "But those songs were so dumb!"
"You wrote some of them." Joey blurted, and Justin sighed in frustration, setting the CD down on his desk.
"I wonder what I was thinking back then." he murmured. When the teen rubbed his eyes, everyone present could see tears shining on the back of his hand. "Could you all just... leave? Please?" His voice was wavering slightly. "Just for a little while. I need to be alone."
And they respected his request, leaving the room single-file. Joey, bringing up the rear, paused at the foot of the stairs and turned back.
Justin was standing by the door, staring at him with sad eyes. A moment later, he walked into his room, shut the door and locked it.
10:00 PM
The Harliss house was utterly silent save for Lynn's distant voice: She was on a conference call with Randall, Lisa and Paul, filling them in on this most recent development in their son's life. Chris was in the tour bus (parked a few blocks away), trying to explain Justin's situation to their management without revealing the full story. Britney was gone, having taken a brief leave of absence to visit her parents in Kentwood.
Lance was still in the living room, afraid to move for fear of encountering one of his bandmates. Fortunately, they were all so preoccupied with Justin's condition that no one had found the time to fill Lynn in on Lance's part in this tragedy. Lance knew from experience how protective Lynn could be; she would crucify him when she learned of his betrayal.
Joey was aimlessly wandering around the house, deep in thought. The look of intense sadness on Justin's face as he'd gone downstairs still haunted him. He always got frustrated when someone he loved was hurting, but Joey had never failed to cheer Justin up, time after time. But Justin wouldn't smile at their little in-jokes anymore, or be comfortable enough with Joey to go out to some nightclub and get drunk.
Still absorbed in his musings, the Italian failed to notice anyone else in the kitchen when he walked in. But the muffled sniff tipped him off, returning his full attention to reality.
JC was sitting at the kitchen table, red-eyed and miserable, with a bottle of whiskey resting in front of him. Joey winced as his friend pressed the bottle to his lips and took an inhumanly long swig.
"JC?" Joey called softly. The other teen looked up and silently motioned for Joey to join him. As Joey sat down, JC offered him the bottle, and Joey gratefully took it. He definitely needed a drink.
"Funny the way things turn out." JC snorted bitterly, slurring just a bit under the influence of the alcohol. "All this time, I thought the worst was over. I thought things would get better for me and Curly." He shook his head slightly. "Now it's like he never existed."
Another long gulp of whiskey. "Maybe it's a sign." JC muttered. "Forgetting me like that. There's always something keeping us apart. Maybe we're just not meant to be."
Joey didn't know what to say. He'd spent so much time being angry at JC, thinking he'd cheated on a vulnerable Justin. There had been so many legitimate reasons to believe that, and he'd said and meant a lot of awful things to his friend. Try as he might, he couldn't just erase those feelings.
"You can't quit." He didn't know why he said that, but the words were coming faster than he could think them over. "I mean, maybe your happy ending is right around the corner. Maybe all you have to do is hang on, just... get through this last problem, and everything'll work out."
"What if he never remembers?" JC countered, salty drops of water running down his cheeks. "I'll never... he..." He raised a trembling hand to his mouth. "I'm losing him, Joe. Oh God, I'm losing him..."
Tentatively, Joey stood, pulling JC into his arms. Maybe their friendship would never be the same, maybe they'd never be totally comfortable around each other again.
But for the here and now, whatever they had was enough.
Lance's knees shook as he knocked on Justin's door. No one replied, so he hesitantly turned the knob and stuck his head through the door. "Justin?"
The curly-haired teen was clad in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt, staring out the window with his back turned to the other blonde. "Yeah?" he answered nonchalantly.
All the words disappeared as Lance stood there. He'd meant to apologize, but Justin wouldn't even know what he was apologizing FOR. It was almost comical: The only potential friend he had left was the very man he'd betrayed. It wouldn't be right to take advantage of Justin's situation, Lance knew that... but the thought of complete isolation chilled his bones. He couldn't be alone, he just couldn't. Even if he deserved it.
Shaking his head, he just smiled. "Good night." And with that, he retreated, closing the door.
Justin just stared out the window with a blank face. Then a corner of his mouth perked up in a dark smirk.
"Good night, Scoop."
To be continued...