"I know the five of us are going to be together because we have a bond of love and music. If we're old farts sitting in the bathroom, still singing our a cappellas together, we're going to be as happy as we were the day we walked onstage at the Silverdome in front of (47,000) people."
-- Chris Kirkpatrick

They attempted not to meet each others' gaze as they shuffled into the small room, chosen for its acoustics and not its comfort. To do so would be to see the pain they felt mirrored in each others' eyes, and surely the pain of one was strong enough. They moved almost as one body, each far too attuned to the others' ways of carrying themselves over the years to do otherwise, and the irony was not lost on them; it would be the last time in a long while -- if at all; the thought hung in the air around them but would never be voiced -- that they would enjoy that closeness.

There were no words exchanged any longer; the goodbyes had been said, statements of undying love and friendship uttered, and they had simply reached a point where no more needed to be spoken. It had been a hell of a ride. They had their best friends, their families, their lovers; but no one would ever know or understand them the way their 'brothers' did. Bound by time and experience rather than blood, no one had lived through what they had shared. No one else had seen as much or as deeply into their souls.

They'd decided on the song before their self-imposed silence; the "Star-Spangled Banner" may have been one of the first songs they sang together, but it was too stoic, too patriotic, too wholly inappropriate for this occasion. "I Thought She Knew" was a number to which they all had an emotional attachment, but they'd performed it so much in the past years that it was now relegated into the realm of the overdone and the lacklustre. "Overjoyed" and the Beegees Medley were old and nearly forgotten, though they'd always been fan favourites. It was hardly the right season for "O Holy Night", and it was too complex to master after all this time anyways.

The suggestion they'd agreed upon had ultimately come from Chris, and now they stood prepared in a complete circle -- it was time, finally, for a full connection -- heads bowed and shoulders touching. JC chose the key and, going with the unspoken consensus, Lance's voice rang out on a solid tone that sounded a lot stronger than he was feeling at the moment. Once Joey, Justin, and then Chris had joined their voices with his, JC closed his eyes and began to sing. The odd, cruel appropriateness of the words struck him and he shook his head in wonder as his eyes filled with tears, allowing the emotion to filter itself through his voice as had always been his strength.

"Woke up this morning, and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
Lost myself in a familiar song
Closed my eyes and I slipped away..."

They reached the chorus, and perhaps it would have surprised the critics who had always said that he would be the one to go solo, the one who least needed the others, the one who demanded the attention, but it was Justin who was the first to crack. Raising a hand abruptly to his face, he rubbed stubbornly at his eye, his voice becoming thick and husky as he continued to sing. How did you move on from the segment of your life during which you had learned the most, lost the most, gained the most, loved the most, and grown the most? How did you return to the life you'd left when you were barely a teenager, when those years were behind you?

He didn't see how he could; the lives of these four men who surrounded him were inextricably entwined with his own. They had made him into the person that he now was, and he didn't see how he could live a day without recalling their impact. Justin lowered his hand, surrendering, and allowed his tears to overflow. He knew that they would understand.

Two hands simultaneously reached up to gently support the small of Justin's back, fingertips meeting, but their owners kept their heads bowed. Lance and Chris had not needed to see the tears wetting Justin's cheeks to know that their youngest brother was crying; they felt the set of his shoulders, his stifled sob. They both knew what he needed, and now they comforted him even as they each fought to keep their own tears at bay. They were into the second verse, and Justin's voice was hoarse and on the verge of breaking, but their strength was his now, and he would make it through.

"When I'm tired and I think I'm cold
I hide in my music and forget the day
And dream of a girl that I used to know
Closed my eyes and she slipped away..."

Lance's voice faltered on this chorus, the bass line dropping out entirely for a brief moment before he was able to reclaim it. He simply hadn't been able to squeeze the notes past the lump in his throat. He felt Joey glance sharply at him but kept his gaze averted; he knew he'd have to if he were going to get through this song at all. It was almost funny to him; he'd been the one with a completely different life plan, the one voted most likely to be least affected by the end of the group known as *NSYNC, and now here he was, on the brink of losing it.

He knew that he was among the most changed out of the five of them on the course of this journey. The boy he'd once been was still inside, and still surfaced from time to time... to gaze in wonder at the madness and excitement and to blush in sincere humility. But Lance was worldly now, and had lifetimes of experiences that he could never have forseen, and he would take that new wisdom and rise out of this and never be able to look back. He would never love and be loved the way these men had loved him, and he them. It truly had been the best ride of his life and now, as fondly as he looked back over the years, he almost wished that he had never lived them, because at least then he would have nothing to miss when it was over.

Which it almost was.

As for Chris, the oldest of them all let his voice ring through clearly, but he kept his mind on everything but the present. It had been so easy, at the beginning, to speculate on what they would do when this whole thing came to an end -- whether in a screeching halt or a slow shift into neutral. Ultimately, they had all agreed that it would be Chris's call when it was time to pull the plug; he'd started this grand experiment, and he alone could stop it.

And so when he finally felt tired enough, and wanted time to rest badly enough, felt that they had lost sight of the important things severely enough, and that they had fallen far enough from the pinnacle of fame, he had given the word. They had all smiled with a sad relief, the looks on their faces alone telling him he had made the right decision, even if he didn't feel qualified to make it for them. He didn't know when the tears had started, because they hadn't affected his voice, but when he felt wetness drip off of his chin he gave up his faint hope of being the strong one for the others. He slid the hand supporting Justin completely around the younger man's waist and wrapped the other fully around JC, pulling both singers to him as tightly as he could while still singing. And they let him.

The bridge of the song was, in Joey's estimation, the most beautiful part. And now, in light of the situation, it was the most appropriate to fill the moment. There were no words, and there was no lead vocalist; just five voices singing in unison, yet in perfect harmony. Each voice carried on its own journey, yet to the listener it would be difficult to separate one voice from the other. So it had been throughout their career. From time to time one or the other may have seemed to be the strong one, the silent one, the stoic one, but the truth was that they all held each other up. No one ever saw that. But that was the way it had always been.

One would think that the ever-cheerful didn't need the support of others; after all, why would you need someone around trying to bring you down all the time? But Joey knew that his attempts to cheer others up were not so much for the others as they were for himself. And without the others who made him feel needed and useful and welcome and grateful just to have them, he would still be able to maintain the cheerful mask. But it would forever hide the place in his heart where the times with his dearest friends would only be a memory.

Their voices swelled, mingling with their breath in front of them, as they came to the final chorus. JC's eyes were still tightly shut as he concentrated slightly harder on the higher notes he was hitting, and the others faded in and out, with the ease of the veterans that they were, bringing out the best in each other. Justin was eerily composed, and Lance's voice had come back to him fully now, but tears shone on each of their faces and their arms had found their way around each other somehow, without them knowing quite when. When they quieted to sing the final chords in hushed tones, Justin pulled his hand into a loose fist behind Lance's back, the conductor in him surfacing. The gesture went unseen but was somehow felt by all.

End note.

End song.

Goodbye.

Author's Notes: Um... okay, once again, I have no idea what just happened here. I was thinking about the above quote by Chris, and literally just sat down at the computer during lunch break, started typing, and... this is what came out. It might seem like I was feeling particularly bitter or melancholy, but I don't think I was. I really just don't know why this came into my head. ::shrugs::

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