Marital Bliss...?

The next year of their lives was filled with so much love, so much happiness, and so much growing for not only the couple and the family, but also for the group. Their third album had been released and another tour had made its way across the country.

And Abby had been there every step of the way. Braeden and Chance had also made the great trek across the country, and a tutor had been hired to start Braeden in on his education.

JC had been pleased to find that after his plea to the fans to remove their hate sites, many of them had indeed been removed from the World Wide Web. Those that hadn’t been, he had managed to get removed, and his heart didn’t feel quite so heavy for making the comments in the first place. Their fans had made them who they were, and he hated thinking ill of them, but Abby, Braeden and Chance were not something he would so readily give up to preserve the daydreams of half the population of thirteen-year-old girls in the world.

Shaking the thoughts of the last year from his mind, he tuned back into the conversation he was having with his mother as he lay on his stomach on he and Abby’s bed. “Yes, Mom…I promise that as soon as we get the boys packed up, we will make the plane and be on our way to Maryland.” He smiled to Abby as she walked into the room, her arms full of clothes to be folded and packed into the suitcases on the bed.

“Is that your mom?” she asked, throwing the clothes on his back as she started to fold him.

He looked over his shoulder, shooting her a dirty look before turning back to his conversation. “I promise, we will be there; we’re packing as we speak.”

“WHO is packing?” Abby asked loudly, giggling as JC winced.

He held the phone away from his ear as his mother began to yell at him for making Abby do all of the work. “Mom, Mom, MOM! I can’t help her pack until you let me go, okay? I will call you before we get on the plane tomorrow, all right? Okay, I love you too. Goodnight.” He rolled over under the warm clothes on his back and legs, and looked at her. “Mom’s excited about Christmas,” he said, reaching for a pair of her silky black underwear.

Rolling her eyes, she took it from his hand, folded it, and put it into her suitcase. “Get up and help me or I’ll tell her you made me do everything, and then…” She touched his nose before kissing him. “You’ll be in trouble.”

JC grinned evilly, pulling her down on top of him before rolling them both over. He began to kiss her and moved his hands to her lower back, slipping them under her shirt. “I like trouble,” he whispered against her soft lips, still loving the excitement of kissing her. “Get me in deep, DEEP trouble,” he added in a growl, reaching a hand up to run it through her hair.

Neither of them heard or saw the door creak open or the six-year-old boy that peeked around it. “EW! You guys are GROSS!”

JC jumped off Abby quickly and began to fold some of the clothes as she slithered off the bed and hurried into the closet to ‘get more clothes’, both of them breathing heavily. JC looked over his shoulder as the boy made his way into the room, trying to smile through his embarrassment. “Brady, buddy, shouldn’t you be heading off to bed? We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Braeden eyed his parents carefully before crossing the room and sitting on the bed beside his father. “I know, but I forgot.”

Abby stuck her head out of the closet door as she pulled a sweater off a hanger. “Forgot what, sweetie?”

Braeden handed JC the white envelope in his hand. “When you guys were upstairs getting the Christmas stuff, the mailman gave me this when I was outside playing. I forgot to give it to you.”

JC furrowed his brow and tore into the envelope, pulling out the official-looking documents. “What is it, babe?” Abby asked, walking out of the closet with more clothes, brushing her hair out of her face.

“It says it’s from Ben’s lawyer,” he replied, perusing the document.

“What?”

JC continued to scan the words on the paper. “It’s in response to our request for him to drop all legal rights to Braeden so I can adopt him. He claims that he still has a place in his life and isn’t willing to hand any rights over to me.” He glanced down at Braeden as he toyed with his pajama bottoms before looking up at his wife. “He wants to go to court.”

~*~

JC leaned his head against the seat and looked across Braeden’s lap, staring out the window. The little boy mumbled something incoherent in his sleep and snuggled closer to the warmth of his father’s side. The man’s eyes moved from the stars to the child beside him and he felt them welling up with tears.

Turning his head as he felt a hand on his leg, he smiled to Abby as she rocked Chance to sleep. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, holding her hand open and smiling as he moved his own into it. She tightened it around his own and brought it up to her lips to kiss the back of it. “I thought I told you to relax and don’t think about this.”

His eyes met hers and he sighed, squeezing her hand. “I can’t help it. How are you so calm about this? This man, who Braeden doesn’t know at all, wants to take him away from not only me, but you as well. Baby, how can you be willing to let him take your son away from you?”

That was the last straw for his wife’s patience. Granted, she understood that he was upset with this roadblock so soon in their marriage, but did he honestly think that this wasn’t getting to her as well? Turning in her seat, she released his hand and slammed her palm against the armrest. “Joshua, do you honestly think that I would be willing to let Ben take Braeden from me? Are you so stupid and idiotic to actually think that I would just let him pull him out of my life when Braeden really has no clue who he is?”

JC’s eyes widened at her outburst and he grabbed her hand, attempting to shush her. “Shh, baby…I didn’t-“

“You DID. You insinuated that I would just let ANYONE take Braeden away from me. Away from us! He belongs with us, and I know this more than you could possibly imagine. DON’T even think about suggesting that I’m not worried about this. It’s tearing me apart inside, the possibility that Ben could end up with him and that he would be out of my life. Braeden’s been all I’ve had for so long; losing him would be the end of my world. So excuse me for not sulking over it like you are, but the only way I can deal with it right now is to lock it up inside and try not to think about it. The trial is months away; I have that long to worry about it, and I’d rather have a nice Christmas than think about those things.” Glaring his way, she readjusted Chance in her arms and reached for the headphones to his CD player. Putting them over her ears, she leaned her seat back and closed her eyes.

JC furrowed his brow and looked across the aisle to the older couple that was looking back at them. “Sorry,” he mumbled, turning to look at the boy beside him that was still miraculously asleep. Looking to his wife one last time, he reached for the magazine in the pouch on the seat in front of him and started to flip through the pages.

A soft smile crossed his face as he saw the wedding photo that they had released to the press printed on those pages. Running his finger down the length of her dress, he sighed. He hated fighting with her, and this fight was affecting both of them more than they would admit. He knew she was worried and stressing out about this whole idea that Ben wanted Braeden in his custody, but he wasn’t sure if she understood how much he treasured that little boy. Braeden had managed to do what he didn’t think anyone would be able to do: he had been the one deciding factor in his success in getting over Shaina and his painful past. He had been it. Granted, Abby had been huge in that as well, but Braeden had been the one to burst into his already crazy life and make him want something more. He wanted a family, and now he finally had it.

The article was covering the marriages of that year. There was the most expected unity, the most surprising marriage, the most expensive, least expensive, most attended, and then there was theirs...

Our most controversial marriage of our quickly fading year was that of *N Syncster JC Chasez and one Miss Abby Garner. The couple was actually joined in holy matrimony last December, but the turmoil from that union has rocked the waves of this entertainment world throughout this year as well.

Mr. and Mrs. Chasez met four years ago, according to the singer, after she picked him up on the side of the road with a flat tire. “It was the middle of the night…no one was driving by and I had actually been asleep in the driver’s seat for a while. I had no spare, and my cell phone battery had died, so I was pretty much stuck. Quite a few hours after I had been stranded, there was a knock on my window, and there she was, standing in the rain, offering me a ride...my wet fallen angel.”

It was fate, the couple claims. “I never stop for stranded motorists. Call me paranoid, but there aren’t too many people you can trust these days,” Abby tells us. “Something told me to stop for him that night…actually it was morning, and I did. I offered him a ride somewhere, ended up taking him to my house so he could clean up and get some sleep, and...that was it. Instant attraction.”

The couple chose to hide the newfound relationship due to JC’s high-profile job, Abby’s controversial job, and one other, huge contributing factor. “I had been working as a dancer in a club for a couple years by this point. The profession tends to be looked down upon and we’re often ridiculed, but having dropped out of high school when I was seventeen and not having the chance to further my education, I needed something to pay the bills…and this job took care of them.”

The other contributing factor: Abby’s two-year-old son. Also the reason she dropped out of high school. “That’s a story I’d rather not get into, because it’s painful and it’s in my past. But for the longest time, he was all I had, and when JC came into my life, I didn’t want to ruin anything he had with the fact that I had a son.”

Once news of a new *N Sync relationship began to circulate, pictures, video and information was provided and printed in magazines all over the world. “It was shocking at first,” JC claims. “I knew I couldn’t hide my life from the public; I learned that a long time ago, but there was just something so wonderful and precious about what me, Abby, and Braeden shared, that I didn’t want to share it with the fans. Once people started finding out about them, it was hard on all of us, but we’ve managed to get past it.”

As with our other celebrity marriages this issue, we went into the romantic side and asked the singer how he proposed to his new wife…twice. “I actually proposed twice, which admitting kinda hurts the ego. One thing that’s sort of been controversial about our relationship, other than Braeden, was the fact that we had a son together before we got married. After Abby gave birth, I tried to propose to her there in the hospital, but she wouldn’t say yes. We had been having some problems, mostly because of some fears of mine, and she said we needed to work through everything before we jumped completely into a permanent relationship. So after I officially received her family’s blessing, I asked her again. I didn’t get down on one knee or anything, I just held her in the doorway of our house and I asked her. It probably wasn’t the most romantic proposal in the world, but it served its purpose. I knew she wouldn’t say no that time.”

Abby smiles as she recalls the last year of their relationship. “Despite the bad vibes we’ve been getting from the press and Joshua’s fans, we have a beautiful relationship, a wonderful marriage, and a quickly growing family. I couldn’t ask for anything more.” The bad vibes Abby speaks of are those that surfaced shortly after the couple’s marriage was made known to the public. *N Sync fans all over the world began to speculate about the newest member to the *N Sync family’s true intentions.

“They thought she was after my image. They believed that she was just pushing her children and her mistakes on me. And after our relationship became more, she quit her job, so they also began to think that she was using me for my money and riding on my fame. We didn’t want to humor their speculations with any response, but it really got to her, so I kindly asked them to stop all the lies. It’s calmed down for the most part, but there are just some people who call themselves fans who can’t let it go and won’t believe that I am finally happy.”

JC Chasez is happy. And although their marriage was named as our most controversial of the year, we also believe that it may be one of the strongest, and that they will last for the long run. JC grins coyly as we ask what was the deciding factor in his decision that she was ‘the one.’ “I don’t know. I think I’ve loved her since I met her, our physical relationship is amazing, our emotional relationship is ten million times better, her son single-handedly helped me get over my fears of the past, and what else would I do for the woman who inspired one of my songs?”

Which song that is, he wouldn’t tell us.

He closed the magazine with a sigh and looked over at Abby where she was asleep beside him. It hurt that anyone would consider their marriage anything less than beautiful, spectacular, miraculous, and full of love, but controversial it was. Pushing the magazine back into the seat pocket, he turned away from her sadly and looked out the window again.

The silence was the worst part.

~*~

Abby smiled and hugged Karen as they stepped into the house. “It’s so good to see you guys,” she said, setting Chance down on the hard wood floor where he sat and looked up at the tall people around him. She then moved to hug Roy and turned to watch JC lug a couple suitcases through the front door. She saw the smile that crossed his parents’ faces as Braeden squeezed past him and ran into their waiting arms.

“Hi Grandma! Hi Grandpa!” Abby laughed as Roy scooped him up into his arms and hugged him close before flinging the child over his shoulder.

“Hey there, big guy. Dang, you’ve gotten bigger since I saw you last and I can’t lift you very easy anymore. Grandpa’s getting old, Broody.” Roy chuckled and moved the boy back into his arms again for another hug.

Braeden giggled and grabbed Roy’s ears. “That’s not my name, Grandpa. An’ you can still pick me up.”

He laughed again and moved the boy toward Karen so she could hug him. “Yeah, well we’ll see about that, won’t we?” He bent down and plucked the boy's brother off the floor.

Karen gladly took the six-year-old into her arms and hugged him tightly. “You ARE getting so big.” She leaned in close and rubbed noses with him, whispering in a quiet tone that caused JC to look up. “What has your mommy and daddy been feeding you?”

Braeden giggled again. “Food, Grandma.”

JC remembered her using that voice with him when he was younger, and seeing her use it with his son brought a small smile to his face. Turning his head toward his wife, he saw her look away. Sighing, he pulled the rest of the bags inside and started carrying them upstairs.

“I’ll help you,” Abby offered, reaching for some of the bags at the door.

“Don’t go out of your way or anything,” he mumbled, trudging up the stairs.

Karen stopped her teasing with her grandson as she heard the tone of her son’s voice. “Joshua-”

Abby held up a hand before grabbing the bags at the door. “Don’t, Karen. It’s been a long trip…I’ll talk to him.” She leaned over to kiss Chance quickly with a smile to Roy. “Can you guys watch them for a few minutes?” she asked hopefully.

Karen smiled and kissed Braeden’s cheek, and laughed as the boy wiped it off with a look of disgust. “We sure can. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ve raised three babies of our own…two more is no big deal.”

The young woman smiled and started up the stairs with the last two bags. Making her way down the long hallway, she paused outside JC’s old room and nudged the door open slowly. Peeking into the room, she saw his back as he was unpacking things into a chest of drawers. Walking softly into the room after shutting the door behind her, she placed the bags on the bed and approached him. “What is your problem?” she asked loudly.

JC turned to look at her and she could see the tears in his eyes. “You would ask,” he muttered before going back to the open suitcase on the bed.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she replied, her fists on her hips.

He faced her again and sniffled slightly. “You have this complete outburst on the plane, telling me how much this whole thing is tearing you apart inside, and while I can’t seem to get a brave-front no matter how hard I try, you’re down there with MY family, acting like all is right in the world.” She turned her head down to the ground and he fumed. “Look…at…me, Abby…because it’s my turn for an outburst.”

He waited until she looked at him before continuing. “I can’t help but look at my parents with Braeden, talking to him like they used to talk to me…and I just want to break down and cry, an-and SCREAM…because he could be taken away from that. Not just from me…not just from you…not even just from us. From THAT. Having two grandparents…FOUR grandparents that love him more than anything in this world. So excuse me for being moody and not being able to let this go, even for Christmas as you so desire…but I can’t stop thinking about what OUR lives would be like without him in it. He was the first grandchild my parents have ever had…real or not. He deserves to be spoiled by them, and they deserve the chance to do it. So pardon me for not being able to ignore this like you so easily can. Although I don’t know what kind of mother you are, if you can ignore something this big.”

His speech had been bringing tears to her eyes, but his last comment replaced them with fire. “Where do YOU get off saying that to me? I sit home with those boys when you’re across town in the studio. I watch them when you’re onstage performing for thousands of screaming, SHRIEKING teenagers, and you think you can tell me that I’m no kind of mother? WHAT THE HELL, JC?”

~*~

Karen left the boys on the couch with Roy as she heard the doorbell ring. Casting a glance toward the noise upstairs with a sigh, she pulled it open and smiled as she saw her other two children at the door. “Oh, my babies!” she hugged each of them in turn and pulled them inside. “Everyone’s in the living room…well…the kids and your grandpa are, anyway.”

“WHAT THE HELL, JC?”

Tyler looked toward the upstairs as he heard Abby’s scream. “Uh…is Josh getting dismembered up there or something?” He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the end of the banister.

Karen smacked him lightly. “They’re working through some problems. Go in the living room.” She turned and took her daughter’s coat and cringed as she heard JC’s loud voice echoing downstairs.

“I’M SO SICK OF YOU PRETENDING THIS IS NOTHING!”

She ushered her younger children into the living room and looked at the young kids on the couch in worry. “How about some tv, huh?” And she hurried to turn on the television. “Surely there is something on.”

~*~

JC glared back at her through his tears and scoffed at her comment. “You think that all of that makes up for this? A year's worth of following your husband around the country, toting our kids along when they could be living such a better life? That isn’t the issue here, though…I’m getting sick of THIS. I’M SO SICK OF YOU PRENTENDING THIS IS NOTHING!”

That was it for her. To be called a bad mother by his fans was one thing. Being called a bad mother by her or his family would be an entirely different thing. But this was unfathomable. “I don’t need to listen to this,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “If you hate the way I’m raising OUR children…I’ll stay home with them while you are off traipsing around the country. I won’t be there for your pre-show good luck hug and kiss. I won’t be there for your backstage impromptu make-out sessions that you’re so fond of, once you get Mike, one of your guards, or one of the guys to watch the boys. What kind of FATHER is THAT? Pushing your kids aside so you can get a little action? Fine, JC…now you won’t have to worry about any of that. Because I’ll be HOME in ORLANDO, trying to be a good mother, bathing your kids in OUR bathtub, feeding your kids at OUR table, tucking your kids in to THEIR beds, and then going off on my own to sleep ALONE in OUR bed. If that’s what you want…I’ll gladly grant you that.” She sighed, brushing some hair from her face. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be a bad mother and take a LONG shower.”

She grabbed one of the bags and carried it into the bathroom with her, slamming the door behind her. He winced at the sound and sat down on the bed with a sigh. The hot tears continued to fall as he sat there with his head in his hands. He wondered if this was Ben’s plan: putting this fear into their lives and slowly tearing them apart.

After brooding over his thoughts for a while, he stood up and made his way toward the bathroom door. Having heard the shower start a few minutes earlier, he assumed that she was already in, washing away the stress of the trip, and her added worries that he had just offered her. Knocking softly, he opened the door and peeked in, expecting to see her silhouette through the shower door. He didn’t expect to see what he saw.

A soft sigh escaped him as he made his way across the bathroom floor in two long strides, falling down in front of the shower and enveloping her shaking body in his strong arms. She had been sitting there, fully clothed, between the shower and the sink, her back leaned against the wall…tears flowing freely from her eyes. He held her close, stroking her hair and whispering against the side of her head. “Shhh…baby, I’m so sorry.” He pulled back and pushed her chin up so he could see into her eyes. He saw so much pain in them and winced as he realized that he and Ben had collectively put that there.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, brushing the tears from her face. “I didn’t mean anything I said. I-I…I’m just upset and stressed over this whole thing, and it just gets to me that you can deal with it better than I can. You’re so much stronger than me because you’ve been doing this alone before I ever came along, and I’m a horrible, HORRIBLE person for making any assumption against you.” She still hadn’t said anything, and he was beginning to wonder if they were going to be sleeping in separate beds that night. His worries were vanquished as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her again.

JC adjusted himself in her arms, moving down to his knees so he wouldn’t fall on her as he wrapped his arms around her again. He moved one knee to one side of her leg and the other between her own knees, then pulled her as close to his own body as he could get her. He then began to rock the both of them as he soothed her with comforting words and soft whispers. He was fighting his own tears as he realized the horrible things he had said to her. “A-Abby…honey, you are a wonderful mother…don’t let me or anyone else tell you otherwise. I-I had no right.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, just holding onto each other and crying out the tears that the impending custody battle had formed, and the ones that their own words had fashioned. JC knew he was teetering on the edge with her right now, and he wanted to stop it before they plummeted into another one of their arguments that lasted days, weeks, or months. He couldn’t handle that stress on top of everything else.

She lifted her head off his shoulder and sniffed, looking into his watery eyes with her own. “I-I need a shower,” she whispered, seeing the hope flee from his face at her words.

He nodded and pulled away, standing up and offering his hand for her to take. He pulled her up and started heading for the door. “I’ll just go downstairs then. My brother and sister should be getting here soo-”

He paused as he felt her lips on his neck, kissing up and down, before she moved around him, teasing his Adam’s Apple with her tongue. He swallowed hard, and fisted his hands into the back of her shirt. “H-honey?”

“I didn’t say I wanted to take a shower alone,” she whispered, her breath causing his skin to tingle as her nimble fingers starting the task of unbuttoning his shirt before her mouth moved its torture southwards.

JC smiled and pulled her close to him as his shirt fell off his shoulders, kicking his foot back to slide the bathroom door closed.

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