This story is fiction and not intended to imply anything about the true sexuality of any of the artists mentioned in the story.

Author: Angel

Getting it Back

Chapter 2: The Beginnings of Justice

It was two hours more of exhaustive aerobic, strength training, and endurance workouts before Wade finally let Britney and JC out of the studio. Everyone else had left, so they showered together, holding each other up for fear of fainting from exhaustion.

"JC, I just can't, I can't do this anymore." Britney was practically in tears, Wade had come down hard on her for switching from the medicine ball without being told to, making her do dozens of sets of reps on the two heavy, 20 lb weights as punishment.

"I know, it's ok Brit, it's ok, it's over for now, and we'll go home, and get pizza, and take a nap, and start planning what we should do." He hugged her tightly as she let the warm water run over them both.

"Ok." She whispered weakly, but his reassurance seemed to have perked her up a little bit. They helped each other wash, ridding themselves of the sweat and exhaustion.

After they were done, the pair walked back to their lockers, Britney popping open the one that should have been hers. "What the hell? Where is all my stuff?" She asked, turning around to face JC, who was toweling off.

"Well, where did you put it when you brought it in from your locker room?" He asked, remembering that Britney had been using the ladies' locker room when the day began.

She stopped for a moment, looking around. "Oh, shit!" She yelled, realizing she hadn't remembered to grab her stuff beforehand. The last thing she wanted to do was change back into her disgusting workout clothes so she could go grab her bag.

She was sure that Wade was standing right outside the door too, just waiting for them to come out. Britney didn't think she would be able to handle it alone.

JC saw this, and scrounged around in his bag, looking for some extra clothes. All he managed to find was a white tank-top that he had accidentally shrunk some in the washer, and then stuck back in his gym bag, thinking it might be good for a light workout somewhere on down the road, and in an outside pocket a pair of black thong sandals that he had forgotten he had. He tossed them at her.

"Here, this is all I've got."

She caught it thankfully and slipped the tank on over her head. It was loose in the shoulders, but stretched tight over her chest. She was just thankful it fit. There was, however, a vital portion of her still uncovered.

"Anything else?" Britney asked hopefully, eyeing the purple-blue boxer shorts JC had just slipped on.

The brunette man followed her gaze, and sighed when he saw her objective.

"Oh all right fine." He stripped off the loose-fit boxers and handed them to her. "I'll just go commando then." He sighed as if it was a great strain on him.

She grinned and smiled, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "Thanks J, I appreciate it." She slipped them on, folding over the waist band a few times so that they reached only to mid-thigh.

Somehow Britney managed to look trendy, with the tight tank, small shorts and black flip-flops, though JC wasn't sure how she managed it.

After they were both dressed and groomed, JC opened the locker room door quietly, looking around, but finding no trace of Wade present. "The coast is clear." He said happily, and they both stepped out, smiling.

Smiling, anyway, until they saw the state the gym was in.

"What the hell happened here?" Britney asked, stunned.

"Jesus, it looks like a tornado came ripping through." The workout equipment was spread haphazardly across the floor, two of the treadmills had been upended, and the naudaliss machine was lying prone on its side. From what they could see through the office window even that room looked a mess, papers strewn everywhere, and all the drawers emptied atop the desk.

After a moment Britney spotted a piece of paper on the door, a note from Wade, she was sure. JC saw it at the same moment, and growled.

"C'mon, let's go read it." He uttered fiercely, already guessing what it said.

She ripped it from the wall, scanning it, while JC did the same over her shoulder.

He had drawn a cocky smiling face after that, and it made Britney want to spit, or throw up on the piece of paper.

Anyway, you had better get to work cleaning it up. I want to see it spotless when I get here tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to tell management about the tantrums and bad behavior from both of you today. Oh, and what you did together after practice as well, I'm sure they would be very interested in knowing that.

"That, that arrogant son of a bitch!" She screamed, crumpling the offending piece of paper and throwing to the ground.

It was made worse by the fact that it was all true. Wade would go straight to management if they didn't follow his demands exactly to the letter. He would make up outrageous tales of how they had acted, only briefly connecting to the truth.

It didn't matter either that their open-locker-room policy was completely innocent, even the thought of the reprimand they would be put through if management ever found out that she and JC had showered together made her shudder. After all, the public announcement of Justin and Britney's breakup had not yet taken place, and nor was it going to, if the public relations firm that their record company employed had their way.

"What are we gunna do?" JC moaned unhappily, looking around. "I REALLY don't want to clean this up." He exclaimed, as if he thought she did.

"Don't worry, we aren't going to." She reassured him.

"We aren't?" He sounded pleased but surprised as well. Britney looked around for a moment, thinking.

"No, no we aren't. I've got a plan. Do you have 50 cents on you?" She asked, beginning to stride towards the door.

"Uh well yeah I think so." JC reached into his pocket and began digging around, coming up with some change. He quickly counted out fifty cents and slipped it into her palm.

"Thanks." She said shortly, walking out the door with JC in tow. She quickly glanced around, then made a bee-line for the pay phone which was sitting on the other side of the parking lot.

"Brit, what exactly are we doing?" He asked, a little concerned now.

"You'll see." Was the short reply as she picked up the corded phone and began to dial, seemingly out of memory.

"Who-"

"Management." She replied to the question before he could even finish it. Someone must have picked up then, for she began to talk, albeit in a deep voice which closely resembled Wade's. "Hi Anna. This is Wade Robson, I need to talk to Tom Shah for a moment." She said, naming the top man at their management firm who was in town at the moment. "Oh he's in a meeting is he?" A shadow flickered over her face for a moment, but then she seemed to recover, thinking up an alternate, even craftier plan. "Well could I have his voice mail then please? Thank you, Anna." She stuck her hand over the mouthpiece while she was being transferred. "JC quick, what time is it?" She asked, gesturing for him to hurry.

"A bit past five." He said succinctly, sensing that this was not the time for a longer reply.

The voice mail must have picked up then, for she waved him away once more. She used Wade's voice, but made it sound angry, quivering, and irritated. "Hi Tom this is Wade Robson calling. It's around 3:30 pm right now, and I just let Britney and the band out of rehearsal. I'm having a tough time over at the gym, just some really irritating equipment problems, most of it's complete crap. I was hoping you could drop by so that I can explain what all is going on. Thanks Tom, I'll see you in a little while if you can break away for a bit to help me out." She hung up then, and squealed in excitement. "Ok, now give me your phone."

JC handed it over without asking why, he had decided that he would probably get the whole story after she was done.

Britney quickly found the speed dial number for Joey's cell phone and pushed the call button.

"Hello?" He answered after what seemed an inordinate number of rings, but Britney decided not to comment on it.

"Hey Joe, it's Britney."

"Oh, hey Brit, how are you doing?" He asked, sounding a little sleepy and talking around a serious yawn.

"I'm fine thanks." She forwent the tedious process of asking him how he was, she knew Joey didn't really care anything for pleasantries like that anyway. "You hate Wade right?"

The man was rather startled by the sudden question and for a moment didn't answer.

"Quick Joey, this is important."

"Well, I don't exactly hate him really, but-"

Britney cut him off; she really didn't have time for anything but decisions. "Ok, but you like JC and I more, right?" She could only pray the answer would be yes.

"Well yeah of course I do. I mean, Wade is just our choreographer, you guys are, well, you know what you are." Joey certainly didn't feel like explaining why they were like family to him, which was good, because Britney didn't have the time for it.

"Ok great! So would you be willing to lie for JC and me to get us out of some trouble?"

"Uh, well sure I guess. What did you do?"

"Nothing, that's the thing. We're just going to be blamed for it."

"Oh, well ok then. What is it that you need me to do?"

"Nothing much, just if anybody asks, no matter who it is, you have to tell them that you, JC and I have been hanging out at your house since around 3:30, ok?"

"Sounds easy enough."

"Thanks Joey, you're a doll." Britney drawled, smiling.

"Umm, ok."

Britney laughed.

"So, since we're supposed to be hanging out anyway, are you guys at all hungry?" He asked, and she supposed that his stomach must have just begun to growl at him.

"Well I am, big time. But let me ask JC." `Dinner with Joey?' She only mouthed the words, holding her hand over the receiver. JC nodded curtly, he was both hungry and confused by this point.

"JC says that he thinks that sounds great!" Britney told Joey perkily, and JC had to role his eyes.

No one should ever take Britney at face value over the phone.

"Ok, so you wanna go to Fargo's? At six? Ok, yeah, we'll be there. See ya Joe, bye!" She hung up the phone, handing it quickly back to JC. "Ok, just one more call and a bit of scribblin' and then we are out of here!" She crowed happily, jogging back across the parking lot.

"Mind explaining to me what exactly we are doing??" JC wasn't irritated, merely curious, as he couldn't seem to make sense out of any of this.

"Yes, I do mind, because I don't think we have much time, but I can guarantee you, it's going to be good." Britney tossed out one of the sweet smiles that she stored away for when she was extremely pleased with both herself and the person she was smiling at.

JC understood those smiles, he used them himself from time to time.

Needless to say, he didn't ask again.

Britney flung open the outer doors, and did the same to the girls locker room, JC following her in as she rifled through her giant hot-pink gym bag.

"Phone phone, where are you phone?!?!" Finally she found it, seizing it from the bottom of the bag. "Ahah!" She quickly dialed Wade's number, hanging up as soon as it rang for the first time, assuring that she would be counted as a missed call. Then she dialed another number, one which seemed to JC to be identical to that which she had pressed into the payphone earlier.

"Hi, this is Anna, right? I thought I recognized your voice! Oh no don't worry, it's nothing bad at all, I was just in the other day and you were so cute and perky then that I figured `oh it has to be her!'"

JC knew then that Britney was back on the phone with management, the woman's familiar name tipping him off.

"Oh it's Britney by the way!" Unlike Wade, Britney was a one-namer at the management offices, where everyone simply adored her. "Imagine me not mentioning that first thing!" She laughed in a high-pitched sort of way. "Oh you recognized me too? Well what an efficient assistant you are! Tom is lucky to have you!" Britney was really slicking the woman up, she must want something bad, JC decided, trying to stifle his laugh.

Britney could be very innocent, yet so conniving at the same time.

"Oh by the way, speaking of that guy, could I talk to him for just a second? Oh he's in a meeting right now? Do you think he would mind being interrupted for just a moment?" She continued speaking rapid fire, not even giving the hapless Anna a chance to eek out a word.

"You see, the thing is, I was talking to his girlfriend earlier," Britney silently hoped that Tom had a girlfriend, and that Anna didn't know her. "And she said that they were supposed to go on romantic dinner date tonight, but I do think that he has plum forgotten! You know how these men are!"

JC thought he might die, he wanted to laugh aloud at the show Britney was putting on, but knew he couldn't for fear of being heard.

"You will?! Well thank you so much Anna, you are just a doll!" There was a pause for a moment while the other woman spoke, JC presumed. "We should do lunch sometime!" Britney exclaimed happily, twirling her hair on a fingertip. "Tell you what, I'll be in the office sometime in the next few days to gripe at that man some more, you know I can't keep away!" Britney laughed again, and JC put a hand over his mouth to control the laughter from bubbling up.

"We'll discuss it then, ok? Ok great! Thank you again!" Britney slipped a hand over the small phone. "Transferring." She said, giving him a small smile, letting JC know he could laugh. And he did, loudly, right up until the second she signaled him to stop.

"Tommy baby hi!" She said, very familiar with the man on the other line.

"Ahh Britney, the light of my life, what can I do for you, my dear?" He always complimented her like this, and Britney enjoyed it, for his way of phrasing things never made her uncomfortable, only at ease.

"Well first off, I'm sorry to interrupt your meeting-"

"Ahh piff, you need not worry a wink about it, they are only number crunchers after all, they can wait for you."

"Why thank you." Britney smiled, though she privately thought of Tom as a bit of a snoot.

"Well I just wanted to call and ask if you had talked to Wade yet today?"

"No, why? Is something wrong?" He didn't really sound concerned, and Britney decided she would have to get him that way, and quickly.

"Well see I'm not really sure, that's the thing. I mean, he let all of us out pretty early from practice, and then JC and I stuck around because yesterday we ate like an entire pizza just the two of us, so we figured we better get in some extra time and work it off." She lied blithely, smiling all the while.

"But after like a half hour he told us to get out of there, and he seemed pretty pissed that we hadn't already left! There was a lot of rage going on in there, I can tell you that!"

"Oh, well that certainly doesn't sound good."

"That's not all, there's more."

"Oh, well go on." He sounded reluctant to hear the rest, so Britney began pumping it up.

"Well, see Joey and JC and I have been hanging out for the last couple hours and decided to go get some pizza at Fargo's, I absolutely adore that place," She interrupted herself for emphasis.

"So anyway, we decided to call him up and see what was going on. Y'know, see if he wanted to come with us or whatever."

"Right of course."

"Well so I called him, and his phone picked up, but I don't think he meant it to, because he wasn't really talking to me, all I could hear was him screaming and yelling at something or somebody, though I think it must have been himself because I didn't hear anybody reply, and then all of a sudden there was the sound of all this paper being shuffled around and I could hear things like falling over and crashing to the ground, and all the while Wade was still yelling curse words at everything!"

"This sounds serious, what happened then?" He asked, now intent on her story.

"That's the thing, I don't know! We went through a tunnel then, and I got cut off! The reason I decided to call you was cus Wade had mentioned something earlier about wanting to talk to you, so I thought he might have already. But I guess not."

"No, no he didn't. Well I'll tell you what, why don't you three go to dinner and not worry your pretty little heads about it, and meanwhile I'll try and get a hold of Wade, and if all else fails, I'll even send someone to check out the gym you all were using this morning, ok?"

"Ok, thanks Tom, that would really take a load off my shoulders." She said, sounding genuinely relieved. Who knew, maybe she was.

"No problem Britney. Thanks for letting me know, and have a great dinner, ok? Put it on the company charge."

"Oh ok, well thanks Tom! I'll see you sometime soon ok? Thanks again! Bye!" Click.

Britney smiled. "Excellent."

"C'mon." She said, stuffing the clothes and equipment back into her gym bag. "We have to make a quick visit to Wade's little office." On the way there she picked up the note off the gym floor where she had thrown it, un-crumpling it. She scanned it once more and held it tight in her hand.

She opened the unlocked door and trampled intentionally over the papers that had been left there. She searched around and soon found a pad of paper and a pen.

"You're good at faking different people's handwriting, aren't you, JC?"

"I'm a pretty quick study." He admitted. He had at one time or another forged each one of his band-mates signatures on necessary forms when one or more had been either sick or inexplicably absent.

"You think you could copy this?" She asked, thrusting Wade's hastily scrawled note at him.

JC looked it over quickly, then nodded his head. "Yeah no problem. It's so messy that I could scribble almost any type of hand and it could pass for his." JC seemed a tad condescending, and Britney knew why.

"Unless, of course, you used your actual script." She smiled, remembering.

JC's writing was graceful, with loops, twirls, and frills that were inherent within it. He hadn't ever taken a calligraphy class or been taught that way, it was just how he wrote. She had once commissioned him to create all eighty invitations for a Victorian-themed costume party she had held at her Louisiana mansion. There hadn't been a single guest who hadn't commented on the beautiful script.

"Maybe." He said modestly, laughing. JC was like that sometimes.

"All right," She propped her legs up on the desk-top, kicking the papers aside, and JC suddenly got the feeling that she should be wearing bulky, brown-leather cowboy boots, not faded black thongs.

"Well first off we need to make it look like this is something he just jotted down randomly and left behind by accident, like it wasn't meant to be seen. Can you handle that?"

JC nodded and adjusted his grip on the pen, slanting the pad to the side so that his letters would look crooked and lopsided even if he wrote them straight across.

"Ok, start with this: `I hate this stupid gym, and I despise those 6 idiot pop-stars I have to train here! All of them together aren't worth even one of me, why can't anyone see that but me!?!?! Dumb-ass outdated gym, full of crappy, falling apart equipment. I should just torch the whole place, except that then I'd have to explain it to Tom, that stupid full of himself jerk-off of a man who can't even remember my last name. Whatever. I'm getting out of here, who the fuck knows what'll happen next. Whatever.'" Britney sounded like she might continue, but was interrupted by the ringing of a phone.

Both looked around, startled. Britney was sure that it wasn't either of their cells going off.

She shifted the papers around on the desk, and quickly spotted the source. She grabbed at it, and held up Wade's garishly colored, orange-plastic encased cell-phone.

"What have we here?" She asked mischievously, winking at JC, who looked surprised mightily surprised.

Britney quickly glanced at the caller ID and realized the call was from Tom, following up on her request, just as good as his word. She realized, however, that the sooner they got out of the gym the better, because his errand boy would most probably end up here soon.

"JC," She asked absently. "Does Wade still have that call plan where your home number and your cell number are the same?"

"Umm, I think so. I remember Lance was excited about it when Wade told him, and I haven't heard anything else since then, so yes, he probably does." JC couldn't see the twisted paths Britney's mind was running down, but then again, she was oft times much craftier than he.

"Excellent. What's the name of his home security system provider?" She questioned, flipping rapidly through his address book entries.

"Jeez, I don't know. I think he used the one that Chris recommended, didn't he?"

"Yeah, I think so." The fleeting half-memory of witnessing the conversation came back at her. She couldn't remember much anything else about it though.

"It was like, American Protection Service, or Citzen America, or, or something like that, I don't know."

Britney flipped back a few, resting on one where she had hesitated a moment before.

"ProtectAmerica?"

"Yeah, that's it!"

Britney smiled evilly and hushed JC as she pushed the call button.

She spoke in her mans voice again, but this time sounded shaken, as if she were on the verge of a panic attack. "Hello, this is Wade Robson. Yes, I think my house may have suffered a break in. No, I'm not inside the house, I'm sitting in my car about a block away. There's a strange, dark blue sedan parked out front, and when I drove past I thought I saw a broken window. No, none of my neighbors are home, they wouldn't have seen anything. Yes, I'll stay where I am. Ok, you'll come out, you'll be here quickly? Thank you, yes, thank you." Britney let her end go dead.

Somehow, things seemed to be going just too well. Britney stuffed the phone back underneath the papers where she had found it. She grabbed the strap of the her gym bag and slung it up over her shoulders. Grabbing the note pad, she cast it carelessly on the desk, though making sure it was still visible, and threw the pencil towards the corner, landing it in the trashcan.

"Let's get out of here." She smirked, and stuffed the original note from Wade into her back pocket, grabbing JC's hand. They jogged out the door and to her newly re-painted Porsche, both of them thankful that they had decided to carpool that morning.

She sped out of the parking lot, her wheels sqeualing, scared now they would be caught near the gym. She glanced at her watch, there was still half-an-hour until their meeting with Joey, plenty of time to get there.

They were on the highway, the roof of the car down, before JC turned to her to speak.

"We got him good, didn't we?" He asked, smiling.

"I think so." She replied, grinning with all her teeth.

At a questioning glance from him, she quickly sketched in the breadth of her plan and reasoning.

"You see, everyone thinks now that he was the last one there, we have an alibi! So when somebody discovers that ripped apart gym, they will know it was him! Better yet, he won't be available to defend himself, because he will be at home, dealing with his security company when they get to his house!"

"I sincerely hope he is there." JC laughed and Britney smirked.

"Me too."

"Who knows, he might not even have a car to drive to work in tomorrow!" JC exclaimed, excited.

"He won't? Why not? Are we gunna go slash his tires or something?" Britney looked like she might be up for that type of activity, but the brunette only laughed.

"No! Because they will probably seize his car, the security company!"

"What??? Why in the hell would they seize Wade's car?"

JC smacked his forehead. "Duh! They think he's in his own car a block away from his house, right? Well, you said that there was a dark blue sedan parked outside."

Britney only looked more confused.

"That's what he drives! And you know he never uses the garage, so it's gunna be parked on the street! They're gunna think it's the robber's car!"

Britney almost crowed, she was so delighted. "Oh this rocks, this really really rocks."

"Ok, so I understand about calling Tom and Joey and everybody now, setting up an alibi, and making sure someone went to see the trashed gym. But why in the world all the phone switching?" He asked, still thoroughly confused by that leg of the plan.

"In case they check the phone records of course!"

JC was immediately impressed that this had even occurred to her, let alone the fact that she had taken care of it.

"I had to call Tom from the payphone, cus it couldn't be like Wade was calling from one of our phones, and we didn't know we had Wade's then. Then I used mine to call Tom the second time because that call was supposed to be from me for real. And then when we found Wade's phone to call his security place with, well, that was just icing on top of the cake."

JC couldn't help but laugh, but then a thought occurred to him, and he turned to Britney, a little downcast.

"Are we done?" He asked, sad that the plan they had conceived of just that morning might be over so soon.

"Done, what do you mean?"

"Well y'know, we had decided to get back at Wade, but that was as far as it went. I mean, we pretty much already did that, don't you think, with what we did back there and all?"

"Oh JC, honey, that was just a freak opportunity that came up out of Wade's own stupidity! Oh no, it is far from over, we still have quite a few things in store for that evil little prick, now don't we?" She winked at the brunette, who laughed and smiled.

"We just have to start planning our ultimate comeback." He said craftily, and Britney agreed.

Suddenly she threw her head back and laughed, her first really satisfied laugh in a month.

"Our fun is just beginning!" She shouted up at the sky, intent on their plans.

In that moment, JC could almost feel sorry for Wade.

Britney was out to get him.

***********

So what did you all out there think??? By the way, I'd like to thank the people who emailed me, especially Jimmy and Phoenix. I hope you all like the way things are going! Let me know! :-) AngelAshling@Hotmail.com

-Angel