about two weeks later

He laid there. Unable to sleep, and unable to make his mind settle. Too much had gone on in the past month, or months. And now, it had all blown up in their faces. He should have seen it coming, he should have intervened or done something to stop it.

But he didn't know how.

And now, he felt helpless.

He needed to do something about that mess, but he didn't have a single idea, making his brain search for something, and therefore making him become an insomniac.

He took his eyes off the ceiling to the clock beside him.

2:17 am

He moved his head the other way and sighed at the lump beside him. Her hair was strewn everywhere, he could hear her heavy breathing and he wished somewhere deep in him that she could help him.

"Hey.."

No answer.

He scooted over and pressed a kiss to her head and whispered into her ear. "Baby, wake up."

"Mmm..." She groaned.

"Pleaseee..." He said quietly but hopefully.

She groaned, "No."

"Come on."

With a huff and a angered fluff of her pillow she spoke to him in a gravely voice. "Go back to sleep."

But he couldn't have that. He desperately needed to hear her voice and have her tell him that this would all be ok. So he sat up some more and reached over to turn on the lamp on the table.

Bad mistake.

An irritated groan fell from her lips for about 15 seconds before she turned flat on her back, slung her arm over her eyes and yelled at him. "JOSHUA...turn the DAMN light off."

His voice was quiet and he tried to make it sounds as pathetic as possible. "I cant sleep. I need to talk to you."

"It's in the middle of the freakin' night! What's it about!?"

He sighed. "Justin and Mere."

Her arm slid off her face and she rested it over her stomach. "Oh." It was all that she said, and when he looked at her eyes he knew she knew how serious this was.

It was quiet for a while and finally he sighed and covered his face in his hands. "It's awful Chris. Just awful."

"I'm sorry Jace."

His hands fell back on the mattress and he looked up at the ceiling before he turned to look at her. "I just, I feel like I should do something."

She gave him a half smile and scooted closer, rubbing his arm a little affectionately. "But you cant baby, It's not your problem to solve."

"But they're, they're like my family Chris. And its doesn't just effect our friendship or whatever. Ya know they want us to release this album by Easter?"

"Yeah, you told me." She nodded.

"Well if things keep going like they are going, that's not gonna happen."

"What do you mean?"

JC's headache was coming on fast and he rubbed his forehead and in-between his eyebrows hoping it would go away. "We have 15 songs that are gonna go on this CD. 10 of which are old songs. 6 of the old songs we are redoing. Wanna know how many of those songs are finished?"

"How many?"

"2."

He watched as she cringed and bit her lip a little. Even she knew how bad that was.

"We've got less than 2 and a half months to finish it. And February is a short month so that doesn't count."

She giggled a little. "It's short by 3 days hon."

"Whatever. It's just. We haven't even talked about the 5 songs that are new. I mean I know I have a few ideas and everyone else does but still. And ya know what? If it was the old group I KNOW we could pull it off. We pulled off a whole Christmas album in about 2 weeks. But now..."

"Now..." She drug out, wanting him to finish.

"We've had about eh, 10 recording session or meetings or whatever this month. Just guess how many Justin's show up for?"

"Um, I don't know." She shrugged.

"Just guess."

"Uh, 6?"

"2"

He watched as her eyes widened and she hit the mattress once. "2?!"

"And one of those times he left early."

"Why?"

"He said he didn't feel good."

She sighed and set up a little more. "Well Josh, his marriage is fallin-"

"Don't say that." His voice came out harshly.

She sighed again and took her hair out of her ponytail holder and redid it while she spoke. "I'm sorry, I just...I mean, I've given up hope on her. I try to go over there, I try to be nice to her at work and ya know, be a friend. But its like she doesn't want a friend. And she gets rather pissed off if you try and help her. Like the other day I got so tired of her bitching me out for just asking her to come eat lunch with me and I said "if you need someone to talk to you know where I am" and she told me, "stay the fuck out of my business."

"She said that to you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Its like...I really like Meredith and I wanna be her friend and help her out, but I cant when she is acting like this."

"Yeah, Justin's pretty ugh too."

"Do you know if they've seen each other since New Years."

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Well maybe they need to. Or maybe..maybe they need to get out of the house. Ya know?"

His hands ran through his hair, grabbing at it a little. "Justin's birthday is in a coupla weeks."

"You guys should take him out somewhere."

He smiled and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Strip club?"

"No."

He reached over and tickled her stomach a little. "What?!"

She swatted him away and pouted. "You're so bad. No, not strip club but maybe just a sports bar or a club. Somewhere where he can let loose and be with the guys. Or whatever..."

"Ya know..." He looked at his girlfriend and started to grin. And then his grin turned into a massive smile.

"Josh why are you looking at me like that."

"I gotta plan." He smiled even bigger.

She laughed, groaned and then rolled over on her side, her back facing him. "Oh god."

He scooted over and pulled her back so that he was pressed up behind her. "No, I'll get Chris or Lance to go with me, we can take him out to a club for his birthday. And you drag Mere out to that same club. And they wont know each other is there, and it'll be like bam."

"Bam is right." She deadpanned.

"I mean a good bam. You know what I'm talking about." His hands reached around to her stomach and started tickling her a little lower, and he breathed gently across her neck.

She grabbed his hand and slapped it with hers a few times. "Oh hush, we are trying to save two of our best friends marriage and here you are wanting to get kinky."

"Kay I be good."

He then laid there for a while, listening to her breathe, wondering if he should go and turn the light back off.

But then she spoke. "I don't think she'll come out."

"Well, make her."

"HOW!?" She half-laughed, half-yelled.

"I dunno." He shrugged against her. "Just do it. Your good with making people do whatever you want them to. I speak from experience."

"Well where are we gonna take 'em?"

"I don't know, I'll talk it over with the guys and see what they say. We will need a place with the perfect atmosphere and stuff, ya know, we need to make this good."

She then turned in his arms completely and looked sincerely into his blue eyes. "What if this doesn't work? What if it makes things worse than before?"

"They cant really get worse than they already are." Josh said thoughtfully.

"True."

He smiled gratefully at her. "So that's the plan."

"Yeah, you feel better?" Chris's hand rubbed the stubble on his jaw while he yawned.

"Yesss, thank ya baby."

"Can we go back to sleep now?"

"Mmmhmm." He reached over to turn out the light and then rolled back over to her and pulled her into his arms, spooning her from behind.

Moments later he was still awake.

He kissed her shoulder, and then her neck and whispered, "Thank you Christina."

But she didn't respond because she was already back asleep.

-------
January 30th, lunchtime

It was a beautiful, beautiful January day in Florida. The temperature was almost 60 degrees. She was relaxed and comfortable.

Shorty was curled up in her lap on the back porch swing. She was in sweats and a long T-shirt, enjoying the peacefulness of the day.

The plate laying on the porch was still halfway full. She had only eaten one half of her sandwich and maybe 3 potato chips before the feeling of nausea hit her.

She looked down at her lap and saw Shorty's brown eyes look up at her and then closed again while he yawned.

A sigh fell from her lips and she rested her head on the back of the chair swing, petting the dog and wishing somehow time could speed up.

She was lonely and bored and her body ached and felt weak.

At least for once her mind was calm. First time in weeks her mind was at peace, not thinking, just enjoying her surroundings and for once not focused...on him.

Work now was a challenge to go to. He had managed to avoid her completely, except for one time she was at her desk doing some paper work and when she looked up he was outside her office staring in at her.

But as soon as her eyes caught his, he disappeared.

She would have thought he was just a mirage or something but then Kris had come in asking her what that was all about.

She didn't have an answer.

His words from that night had stung her bad. But he was right. And now she had to live with the fact that he had given up. Each day she woke up wanting to hit herself for saying she didn't care. She was drunk and emotional and too hurt to do anything. But that wasn't an excuse. The fact was she cared too much, so she was unable to do anything about herself, or their problem.

A week before now, she had broken down, or realized that she really did need him.

And she had called him.

Her fingers had shook while she dialed the number, she started crying and by the time the phone was ringing she was in sobs. She was ready and prepared for him to pick up the phone and for her to tell him that she needed him and that she wanted him to come over and hold her and work together and that she was sorry for everything.

But when the answering machine picked up she didn't have the courage to say those things anymore and she had put down the phone in dispair and cried herself to sleep on the kitchen floor.

He was her oxygen.

And right now she couldn't breathe.

But she really thought she couldn't breathe when someone shouted her name from behind her. She jumped causing Shorty to start barking. She caught her breath and watched the dog jump from her lap and bark and wag his tail.

"Heyyyyy Shortyy."

She turned to see Shorty sniffing her friend's shoes and jumping up on her legs. Chris picked the dog up and let him lick her face a bit before she sat him back on the ground.

"You about gave me a heartattack." Meredith glared at her.

"Sorry no one was answering the doorbell." She sat down on the other end of the bench.

"It's ok."

Chris finally looked up from the small Beagle and smiled at her. "How are you?"

She looked away and shrugged. "Fine."

"Yeah. I love that dog." Shorty had crawled over into Meredith's lap and was rubbing up against her stomach and wagging his tail.

Meredith closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. For some reason in that sentence she was reminded of Justin...he had given her the pooch. "Me too."

"So what are you doing tonight?"

"Watching Saturday Night Live."

"Sounds fun." Chris said sarcastically.

Meredith was getting perturbed by her friend and was ready to kick her out. Lately anyone that tried to push her into a conversation got on her nerves. She knew she was being bitchy, but she thought she had a pretty good reason. "Yeah, Shorty likes watching it."

"Well how about you tape SNL and come out with me."

"That's ok."

Chris pushed her shoulder a little and the urge to act like a 8 year old boy, and push her back came over her. "come on!! It's ladies night down at the Cantina. Supposed to have hot hunky shirtless bartenders."

"That's ok."

"Pweaseee..."

She looked over into her friends eyes and said coldly. "You go ahead and have fun."

"But Mere it wont be any fun without you."

"Take Josh."

She laughed and it seemed to grate on her nerves. "Honey he doesn't wanna see half naked mean."

"Take Kris."

She was quiet for a while and Meredith turned to see what she was doing. She was staring at her. "Meredith...I wanna go with YOU."

"Well I don't wanna go." She rolled her eyes and looked away.

"PLEASE!!!!!!! Pretty pretty pweaseeeeeeeee." Shorty started to bark and look up at her, while Chris begged her to come with him. "Look even Shorty wants you to go."

The barking and the pleading were starting to make her ears ring and her head throb.

"What time would you wanna go?"

Chris started to smile a little too big for her liking. "I don't know. We gotta get looking gorgeous, eat dinner, I'd say leave here by 8:30."

She didn't say anything in return. She honestly didn't want to go but was starting to think that getting out of her house would be good. Maybe she could clear her mind, with the help of a margarita or two. And maybe Chris would get off her case about doing things and going out.

She looked over at her friend. "Please, Meredith. I miss hanging out."

Meredith rolled her eyes and sighed. "I guess."

"YAY!! I'm so happy!!" Chris clobbered her in a hug. She immediately felt claustrophobic and nervous and sweaty.

Finally her friend pulled away and stood up off the swing. "Why don't you go take a nap or whatever because you look tired and I'll be back in a coupla hours and I'll bring some take out and we can chill and get all hot-looking together all right?"

She shrugged. "Whatever."

"Thank you Mere. I promise you this is gonna be a fun night." Her friend was smiling way too big and seemed to be way too excited for just a night out at a club.

She wondered if there was some secret agenda Christina had planned. But she was too tired and weak to make her brain think that hard about something. So she let it go.

"Right."

"Ok, bye Mere. See ya in a bit." The girl waved and started walking away before she turned and yelled. "BYE SHORTY!!" He barked a few times in return causing Meredith's head to start throbbing again.

"Shhhh." The Beagle seemed to understand what she wanted and laid its head on his owners lap and allowed her to pet him a few times.

She listened hard and heard the engine to Chris's car crank and then slowly the sound faded away. When it did she sighed with relief and finally, completely relaxed into her little corner of the swing. She laid her head back, closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Finally, she was where she was comfortable, use to, content.

She was in a place where nothing hurt her or bothered her or made her feel bad.

She was alone again. Back Forward