Nick lay sprawled on his bed in Brian's guestroom with his five-month-old goddaughter propped up on the pillows in front of him. She gurgled happily, reaching for the shiny, jingling keys Nick was keeping just out of her reach.

"An-na," he sang softly. "Catch the keys, Anna. Catch the pretty keys."

She squealed as he danced them on her nose. "Eeee-eh-ee!"

They laughed together.

Brian watched silently from the doorway. He couldn't help but beam like the stereotypical proud father, seeing them together. It was at moments like this that Brian knew he'd been right to insist on Nick as her godfather. It had been quite a fight with some of their relatives, getting them to allow, if not accept, his gay, non-Baptist best friend as his daughter's godfather, but with Leighanne's help and Kevin's back-up, he'd won. Leighanne's sister was her godmother and fulfilled the role of necessary Baptist who would teach Anna about her faith. Nick couldn't tell his daughter the first thing about being a Baptist, but he would surely teach her everything about love.

"Don't let her eat them," he warned.

"I won't." Nick didn't turn away from Anna, but his body language quickly got a lot more tense.

"I know." Brian eased himself onto the bed. Nick tucked the keys into a pocket and contented himself with tickling the baby. "You've been here two days, Nick. We've barely seen Anna. Sure, Jeremy's a handful all by himself, and LeighAnne appreciates her new babysitter, but..." He laid a hand on Nick shoulder, rubbing gently with his thumb. "Ain't it time you told me what's up?"

Nick sighed, rolling onto his back away from Anna. Brian picked his daughter up and got them both comfortable on the bed.

"Why can't I just call him?"

Brian stifled his questions, more than familiar with starting in the middle of a conversation with Nick. "Maybe you don't want to?"

"No." Nick shook his head once in firm denial. "I want to." He slammed the coverlet hard with a fist. "Fuck, I want to."

"Ahem." He tried his best Kevin impression. The best he could manage without fake eyebrows, anyway.

"Sorry, Anna."

Brian grinned and reached out to tickle his friend. "She's only five months. You got a few months to practice, anyway."

Nick raised his head and grinned back. He extended a hand. Brian shifted Anna a little and joined in a one-handed version of their secret handshake. For a minute they were just Frick'n'Frack again. Then Nick dropped back onto the bed.

"Frick, why'm I such a screw up?"

"You're not!" Brian denied instantly. "You have... bad timing, sometimes."

"There's an understatement."

"He came along at a bad time?"

"The worst." Nick groaned. "I mean, there was earlier. Hell, now that I'm thinking about it there was *much* earlier. And there'll probably be later. But no, he picks the most complicated moment in my life." He chuckled a little. "Typical. Little bas... um... joker. Yeah."

"But you still want to call him?" Brian prodded. He knew his role in these talks was as a sounding board, not an advisor. He needed to get Nick to figure out exactly what he thought about a situation without really giving any advice at all.

"I'm an idiot."

"You're a romantic idiot," Brian agreed. "The best kind."

"Ask Leighanne, right?"

"Absolutely." They both laughed.

"Remember that time you wanted me to dress up as Cupid?"

"You should have!" Brian kicked at him a little.

"Yeah. 'Cause me wandering around a hotel half-naked is always a good idea."

"Cupid for Christmas. She would have loved it."

"Probably. But I think the love song went over pretty well without me." Nick kicked back knowingly. "Wasn't that about when these two were conceived?"

Brian knew his face was at least a little red. "Weren't we talking about you?"

"No."

"I've never seen you think about a relationship so much before."

"This is not a relationship. It's... two, maybe three nights. We slept together once - does that make that night a date?"

"Nope. Sex does not equal date. You know that, Nick."

"That's not what you told me when I was fifteen."

"Yeah, cause you were fifteen and I didn't want you telling my mother I was having casual sex. You used to suck at keeping secrets, Frack."

"Pretty good at it now."

The challenging tone to Nick's voice was supposed to be part of their banter, just kidding around. But Brian couldn't help sounding subdued when he answered. "Not so sure it's a good thing."

"Hey." Nick pulled himself into a sitting position, worried. "Hey. I'm not getting myself into trouble, I swear. It's all on the level."

"Yeah but... what happened to the little Frack who used to tell me everything?" Brian hugged Anna a little harder than he should have.

"I still do. I just... I hold out longer." Nick patted his thigh reassuringly. "C'mon. I come to you about everything."

"Even this mystery man," he answered, changing topics before he started regretting life changes that couldn't be undone.

"Yeah. Even him. Nobody else knows about him. Aaron, sorta, but not really."

"Is that the problem?"

"Maybe? It could be - for him. Keeping it that way... that's mine."

"Sounds like you need to make that call."

"I know." Nick reached over and tickled Anna. "I suck."

Brian kept up his search for just the right question.

"Does he... like you back?"

Nick snorted. "Are we in fourth grade or something? Hello, we slept together. He doesn't hate me."

"Is he sitting somewhere with his best friend, mooning over you?"

"Doubt it." Brian knew that casual tone.

"What's wrong with hoping he is?"

Nick picked at the counterpane.

Anna murmured softly into the silence.

"I'm scared," Nick finally admitted. He looked desperately in need of some more baby therapy so Brian handed Anna over. "If I stop and think about it, it's just two nights. Times I needed somebody and he happened to want to help out. He stroked Anna's soft head. "You keep telling me I fall too fast. I think maybe I fell way before now and didn't even know it."

"We're not talking about Howie again, are we?" Brian asked sharply. Nick's six-month romance with their bandmate had ended badly, but everyone knew it was for the best.

"No." Nick cuddled Anna absently. Brian watched the wheels turn in Nick's head. "It's... He's... I mean..." He gave Anna back. "Dammit, I gotta talk to him."

When he tried to call Chris and got the answering machine, Nick left a short message, said goodbye to the Littrells and got into his car. The house his parents lived in was full of bustle when he walked in, everyone preparing to head to New York for a New Year's Eve thing Aaron was doing, or something. Nick ignored it all, gathered up some stuff he'd left at the house over Christmas and went back to his car.

Leslie was sitting in the front passenger seat.

"Hi," she said with that falsely bright smile he and all his siblings had acquired over the years. "I'm coming with you."

That was the difference between Leslie and Aaron, he thought, pulling out. Aaron was his little bro and Nick would die a thousand deaths for him, but he was too much of a pop star. He expected that things would be more or less handed to him. Leslie knew better. She knew the only way she was going to get what she wanted was if she went after it herself. She had learned that lesson the hard way. B.J., with all her problems, was still trying to survive as a model. Angel might not have been all that interested in fame, but Aaron wouldn't let anyone breathe wrong near his twin. Leslie had the nerve to get dropped from her label, automatically becoming the black sheep of the Carter family.

If anyone had asked these days, Nick would probably have said Leslie was his favourite.

"Are we going to your place?" she asked casually.

"Yeah. You wanna help me with the cobwebs?" He glanced over at her.

She stared at the road ahead. "I hate you."

"I know." He'd called Leslie a few times since starting at Columbia but she'd been characteristically incommunicative. She had developed an independent streak and didn't like having her battles fought for her. Nevertheless, she needed backup sometimes and Nick hadn't been there. He bit back a slew of excuses and guilty words.

"You're so protective of him."

"Somebody has to be." One of Kevin's lectures rang in Nick's ears. You're not their Dad. You're only human, Nick. You do too much. Too much still wasn't enough, was it?

"What about me?"

Sensing they were going round in circles, Nick went on the offensive. "You don't need anybody, Les. Ain't that what you keep telling me?"

Teenage pride warred with the genuine hurt he knew she was feeling. When her voice cracked on her next sentence, Nick felt relief. His job with Aaron was to protect him from the world. His job with Leslie was to keep her from retreating from it.

"Fuck you Nick Carter."

He kept driving in silence.

"Where the fuck have you been? I'm stuck in that house and at school with those brainless morons and you're off somewhere safe and quiet and... fuck you!"

He repeated his mantra from the last few months. "This time, I had to protect me."

"You think I don't fucking know that's what you're doing? You couldn't protect both of us?"

"Not without letting them know where I was."

"Because they really care when I go off by myself." He wondered if she'd been going off alone often.

"They do, Les." He reached out a hand and tugged gently on her ponytail. "In their own way, they do."

"Says you."

He let his hand fall to her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"You're always sorry!" she snapped. Nick didn't remove his hand, and Leslie kept watching the road, pretending the tears weren't trickling down her cheeks. Finally, she sniffled, wiped her eyes and looked over at him. "I know. It just... it makes it worse that I do know. Why you can't kidnap me. That I wouldn't kidnap me either if I was you."

"If you want, I can tell mom I kidnapped you."

That earned him a watery giggle. Then she remembered something.

"Mom thinks I know."

Nick groaned.

"She yelled at me for like, an hour when she got back without Aaron."

"God Les, I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

Leslie shrugged. "Used to it. But you owe me one."

"So!" she switched moods with the frightening speed of any teenage girl. "What are we doing for New Year's? Party at AJ's?"

"I was kind of thinking of sneaking backstage at the NSYNC concert at the Ice Palace."

Leslie's eyes widened. "Oh, you are so telling me everything."


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