Finally, the day Justin had been waiting for had arrived. The day when he would be released from the hospital and was allowed to go home.
Everyone was scheduled to come and pick him up mid-afternoon, and time seemed to be crawling all morning. Well, to Justin it seemed to be crawling. At one point during the morning, he even ran into Docs room to check his clock, convinced that his had somehow stopped and that it was later than he thought. But he was disappointed to find that his clock was right, and it was only eleven in the morning.
To pass the time, Justin and Doc engaged in yet another of their famous debates, this one on the topic of whether Justin would come back and visit Doc once he was released.
"You're gonna go home and forget all about that poor old man across the hall." Doc said in a lonely voice.
Justin rolled his eyes at him, leaning back in his chair as he stared at Doc, who was laying comfortably in his hospital bed. "Oh please," he said. "Knowing you, you'll track me down and Ill come out one morning to get the paper and find you sitting on my front step."
"How did you know I was plannin' that?" Doc teased.
Justin laughed as he adjusted his broken leg, which was propped up on another chair across from him. Over the last two days, he had gotten pretty good at using his crutches. He practiced a little, but tired quickly. And he didn't get to use them much when Chris had stolen them and was racing Doc up and down the hall the day before.
When Chris realized Justin was getting crutches, he began to whine that he had never gotten to use any before. Grabbing the crutches from their place against the wall, Chris ran out into the hall and began to speed-hobble up and down the length of the corridor. Doc came out to watch, challenging Chris to a race. Chris with the crutches verus Doc with his walker. Some of the nursing staff tried to stop them, but they were tricky and the moment the nurses turned their backs, they were off. Chris was in the lead until he tripped himself on a crutch, losing his balance. This giving Doc the opportunity to catch up. They were neck and neck, until Doc pushed Chris over, causing him to crash to the floor as Doc crossed the finish line first. It was never a dull moment around here with those two.
Justin was really going to miss the nice old man. He had made things much easier for Justin. If he hadn't come and visited him some nights when Justin couldn't sleep, or just been there for someone to talk to, Justin would surely have gone crazy.
Sitting in the quiet room, Justin began to think of everything he had been through over the last month. Never in his life would he have believed that something like this would happen to him. It was the kind of thing that always happened to other people, but never you. The kind of thing you read about in the papers or saw on TV. Accidents happened every day, but never did you think that you would be the one involved in the accident.
Justin hadn't heard anything else about the man who had hit him other than that he had suffered minor injuries and had been released the next day. Justin was hoping for the man to at least come and see if he was alright, or even to apologize, but that never happened.
Lynn had asked her son what his lawyers were advising him to do as far as a law suit went, but Justin wasn't sure what he wanted to do. A law suit would only bring media attention to something that he didn't really want to have to think about let alone have publicized to the entire world.
He hadn't talked about it with anyone other than his lawyers, who were saying that it was his decision whether he wanted to peruse legal action. Ryan had mentioned it once, but Justin just said that he didn't want to talk about it, and she let the subject drop. No one else ever mentioned it or asked him about it at all, and he was thankful for that.
Justin was not the kind of man to hold a grudge, and he felt that if he pressed this subject, that he would not turn out well. Surely, the other man was at fault, but for some reason Justin felt like he would be the one on trial mainly because of his career. Everything he said and did made headlines, so the thought of a law suit against a man who injured him made Justin more wary than anything else. It had been so long now, that bringing things up again would probably be more of a pain in the ass than anything, so he was pretty sure he was just going to let it slide.
He knew that if he told the other guys that he was just going to let it go, that they would probably say he was crazy. The mans careless driving almost cost Justin his life, and he deserved to pay for it. But what was really going to happen? He would probably lose his license for a couple of years, or pay a fine. Chances were that he would not get a hard charge, and the entire ordeal would end up worthless.
"What are ya thinking about?" Docs faint voice broke Justin from his thoughts.
"Huh? Oh, nothing." Justin said, turning his eyes to the clock above his head. It was only a little passed noon.
"Did you ever hear from that man that ran into you that night?" Doc asked, shifting his weight around on the bed.
Justins eyes shot up to Doc. He couldn't believe that Doc had actually asked something that he was just thinking about. The old man got scarier every day.
"No." Justin said plainly as he scratched his knee beneath his cast. He hated how he could never reach the spot that was irritating him and always had to strain himself trying to relieve the feeling.
Doc nodded as he looked down at his feet. "You know, I was in an accident once."
"Yeah?" Justin said, still trying to reach the little spot under his cast. Damn it, why weren't his fingers longer?
"Yeah. No one got hurt, but it still shook me up. I was the one at fault, and all I kept thinking about was what if things had been worse? What if someone had actually gotten hurt, and it would have been my fault? That thought scared the hell out of me for a long time, and I didn't even come to see the people for a couple of weeks. I wanted to say I was sorry for causing such a wreck, but I wasn't really sure what to say. Finally, one day, I just called them up. I apologized, that they were really nice about it."
Justin stopped his attack in his leg to look up at Doc. The fact that he was telling Justin this story made him wonder what was going on in the little mind of his. "Why are you telling me this?" Justin asked.
"I don't know. Maybe just to give the guy who hit you a break. I don't like to think badly about anyone, so I always try to think of reasons why they do the things they do."
Justin smiled. He did that alot, too. He hated to think that the guy hadn't come to see him because he was an asshole. Justin knew that if it had been the other way around, and that he had been the one at fault, that he would be nervous coming to see the person he had injured. He would have done it, though.
"Can we not talk about this anymore?" Justin asked as he ran his hands over his face.
"Sure" Doc agreed, before changing the subject. "So, you gonna come visit me at all, or are you going to go back to your little popstar life and leave me here, alone, with no one to talk to." The adorable pout on Docs face made Justin smile.
"Yeah, Ill come visit you. Maybe Ill bring Lois along, cause Lord knows she's somehow wormed her way into your heart." Justin grinned at the old man.
Doc smiled. "Yeah, she's a good kid."
"Hey, maybe one day me and Ryan will come and take you out for the day. They'll let you out for a day of fun, wont they?" Justin asked.
"If not, we'll sneak out. I'm sick of being stuck in here, and I need to get out and meet the people. I'm too much fun to be stuck in here with all these sick people."
Justin laughed, and shook his head at his new friend.
A soft knock at the door sounded, as a familiar nurse entered the room.
"Well, good to see you're behaving yourselves today." she said, grinning at the two who had been the cause of many headaches for her over the last few weeks.
"Yeah, we're being good. Aw, com'on and admit it. You're gonna miss me!" Justin taunted.
"About as much as a hemorrhoid, Justin." the nurse teased as she made her way over to Doc. "How you feelin' Doc?"
"Great. I think its about time I got out of here and saw some sunshine. Look at this skin," he said, holding his pale arm out to the nurse. "I need some color! I'm about as white as the boy over there."
"Hey!" Justin complained. "I'm not pale!"
"If you were any whiter, I could see right through you."
Justin started to laugh. "Just when I think I'm going to miss you, you go and say somethin' like that."
"Justin, are you all packed up and ready to go?" the nurse asked, ignoring the pointless bickering between the two men.
"Yeah. Joey and Lois came by yesterday and packed up all of Chris' hospital survival kit stuff."
"What's the deal with those two?" Doc asked, giving the nurse a little smile as she fluffed his pillows.
"Oh who knows. They are both strange, and I quit trying to figure them out a long time ago. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason. Ive just seen them showing up here together a lot lately. I thought maybe there was a little romance blossoming."
"What?" Justin gawked at Doc, who just looked at the young man seriously. "Between them? I doubt it."
Just when Doc was about to say more, another knock sounded at the door. Joey came into the room, Lois right on his heels.
Doc shot Justin a triumphant grin, before smiling at the two young people. Justin could only stare at them bewildered.
"Hey you two." Doc smiled sweetly.
"Hey Doc. How's my favorite man?" Lois said as she leaned over to hug Doc.
"Good. What have you two been up to?"
"OH! You guys wont believe what we did!" Lois bounced excitedly. "We went rock climbing!"
Joey groaned as he sat in the chair beside Justin. "She's out of her mind, ya'll. I swear, she almost killed me more than once."
"I did not almost kill you, you whiner. Just because you fell a couple feet, you'd think that he dove off of a building or something." Lois said, turning to Doc.
"A couple of feet! Girl, you dropped me from almost half way up the freaking wall!" Joey gawked at her.
"Yeah, but you landed on your butt, so you had a soft landing." she returned.
"Why did you guys go rock climbing?" Justin asked.
"Because she saw an ad on TV at two o'clock in the morning." Joey said, glaring at Lois. "She woke me up to tell me that we had to go."
"Wait a minute," Justin interrupted. "She woke you up?" he asked, giving Joey a questioning look.
Joey and Lois shot each other nervous glances before Joey stuttered. "Um, uh, yeah."
"He had come by to fix something, and fell asleep. I stayed up and was watching infomercials, and when I saw the one for the new rock climbing place downtown, I woke him up to tell him about it." Lois lied, her eyes darting around the room nervously.
"Yeah," Joey agreed. "Thats it"
"Oh. You know, a better lie would have been for you to have just called him in the middle of the night to tell him about the rock climbing place." Justin said, smiling antagonizingly at his friends.
Lois and Joey shot each other another look, before Lois groaned. "Yeah, that would have made more sense."
"I told you!" Doc shouted from his bed, pointing at Justin.
"You told him what?" Joey asked.
"That you and Lois were all hot for each other." Doc answered, smiling up at Lois happily.
Justin had never seen Lois embarrassed before, but he was about to now. She tried her best to brush it off with a nervous laugh, but it didn't fool him. She was turning more shades of red than Justin ever knew were possible.
"Why didn't you guys just tell me?" he asked, giving Joey a pathetic look.
"I don't know." he said, looking down at his hands. "We've just been hanging out for the last few weeks. You know, since your accident and all. Its been kinda nice having someone to talk to."
"Yeah, like all you've been doing is talking. Whatever Joey." Doc teased, causing Lois to turn yet another shade of red.
"Hey, I think its great!" Justin said, giving Lois a reassuring smile. "Ive been wondering when the hell you were going to find a permanent victim, Lois."
"Shut up, Justin." she whined.
Joey quickly changed the subject, and the four friends spent the next two hours chatting away.
Justin had completely forgotten about the time, and was surprised when his mom showed up at the door.
"Hey, baby." she smiled as she entered, heading straight for Justin.
"Hi Mama." he answered, reaching up to her like a child wanting to be picked up. Lynn hugged her son tightly before standing to look over at Doc.
"How are you today, Doc." she asked, placing a hand on Justins shoulder.
"Good, ma'am." Doc replied, tipping his head politely at her. "You know, I'm actually gonna miss your son." Shaking his head, Doc looked confused. "Whoa, did I just say that? I think they messed up my medication, and now I'm just talkin' all crazy like."
"You know you're going to miss me, you old fart." Justin teased. Lynn smacked him in the back of the head, scolding him for speaking to his elders that way. Doc stuck his tongue out at Justin as he whined to his mother that Doc started it.
"Where is everyone else?" Justin asked, looking behind his mother to see if anyone was out in the hall.
"Oh, they're not here." Lynn said, sending a knowing smile in Lois' direction.
"Why not?" Justin pouted.
Joey stood from his chair, stretching his back with a groan. "Because, they're at home setting up your surprise party."
"What!?" Justin yelled, his eyes shooting to Joey.
"Damn it, Joey!" Lois scolded, throwing her head back against the chair.
"What? Wasn't he supposed to know?" Joey asked, giving everyone a confused look.
"That would be why it is called a 'surprise party' you dumbass." Lois said, giving Joey a 'duh' look.
"Really? They're throwing me a surprise party?" Justin said, smiling around at the others in the room. Pushing himself out of his chair, Justin picked up his crutches and placed them under his arms. "Well, lets go then! I'm ready to par-tay!" he called as he hobbled towards the door.
"Hey!" Docs voiced called out to Justin. Shuffling around to head back into the room, Justin looked over at him.
"What?"
"Don't I even get a goodbye hug?" the old man pouted, sticking his lip out as he extended his arms to Justin.
Justin smiled before wandering over to Doc, and hugging him lightly. "See ya later, you old fart." he whispered in a voice low enough for his mother not to hear.
"Later, you young whipper snapper." Doc smiled. "Hey, now I can tell my granddaughter that I got a hug from the one and only Justin Timberlake. She's gonna be so jealous." he teased as Justin punched him playfully in the shoulder. "Hey watch it, sonny. You break me you buy me." Doc smiled.
"Ill be back in a couple days to visit you, I promise." Justin said as he turned to head out of the room.
"You better! Remember, jail break!" Doc called.
Lois, Joey and Lynn all said their goodbyes to Doc, before following Justin out into the hall.
As the door to his room closed, Doc smiled contentedly up at the ceiling as he laid his head back against the pillows beneath his shoulders.
Justin had come a long way since the day Doc first met him. He had been to hell and back, and still managed to have a positive outlook. He had a great support system in his friends and family, and was confident that he would be able to work through everything and return to his normal life without much trouble.
As he listened to the bickering across the hall in Justins room between Lois and Joey, who were still fighting over whether Justin was supposed to know about the party or not, Doc laughed to himself.
With people like that surrounding him, Doc was sure that Justin was going to be just fine.
