Title: We Never Thought
Category: Rent
Summary: Mark had always been afraid of what would happen when Roger died. Roger never imagined that Mark would die first.
Pairings: All the Bohemian gang are involved, but mostly Mark/Roger
Date: May 25, 2008
Author: blindasabat
WE NEVER THOUGHT
Roger stared down into the coffin that held Mark's body and felt the ache in his heart resound even more. Just three short days before, Mark had been fine. He'd been excited about his new job at the local news show. But one crazed gunman in the local grocery store had changed all that.
Mark had never made it to the hospital; he'd been killed instantly when the bullet struck his brain. In a way, Roger was grateful. He didn't think that he could have handled another trip to the local hospital. Someone started crying behind him. Roger turned around and the sight broke his heart all over again.
Mrs. Cohen, Mark's mother, and Cindy, Mark's sister, were sobbing and holding on to each other. They had both insisted on having Mark's funeral here. This is Mark's home, they said. Roger went over to the two of them and sat back down. It was then that the funeral started.
Maureen stepped up first. She had obviously been crying herself. Her face was red and slightly puffy. She stood beside the coffin, taking a brief look at Mark before she began.
"I honestly don't know what to say..."
Roger tried to listen, but he couldn't. For what seemed like the thousandth time in the last seventy two hours, Roger went over the events of the last three days in his mind.
Mark climbed out of bed and went into the main room of the loft. Noting that it was late morning, he briefly panicked. He was late for work. After a moment or two, he realized it was Saturday. Breathing a sigh of relief, Mark stepped over to the refrigerator and noted, to no surprise, that there was no food there. He thought briefly about leaving the apartment quietly so as not to wake Roger, his sleeping roommate. But, Mark thought, if I wake him up, he'll get annoyed. And Roger is so funny when he's annoyed. He decided that the benefits outweighed the risk.
"ROGER!" he yelled.
Roger jumped out of bed. Mark never yelled like that unless something was wrong. He ran into the main room of the loft...forgetting one important detail.
"What?" he mumbled, obviously still asleep. "What happened?"
Mark burst out laughing. Roger had forgotten that he'd borrowed Angel's pajamas the night before, due to the loss of all of his in a fire the week before. But there Roger stood, half asleep, hair in a mess...in pajamas so pink they glowed in the dark. As soon as Roger realized that everything was fine, he was furious.
"MARK, YOU LITTLE...!" he yelled.
That just made Mark laugh even harder. He had only meant to annoy Roger. But now he was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. He doubled over; his stomach started to hurt.
"Shut up, Mark." Roger said from across the room.
Mark took a deep breath, attempting to steady himself. When he saw that Roger was blushing, and that his cheeks now matched the color of his pajamas, he had to fight the urge to laugh again. He gathered his strength, and asked, still with a smirk,
"I'm going to get groceries. Need anything?"
"No." Roger said irritably.
"Okay." Mark said as he crossed the room to the door. Roger headed back to his room. Mark called back,
"Hey, Rog?"
"What?"
"Pink is a good color for you."
Roger picked up the nearest shoe and hurled it at Mark, who blocked it by closing the front door. Roger could hear Mark laughing down the hall. When he knew his friend was safely out of earshot, he let out a small chuckle himself.
Roger was suddenly snapped out of his memory when he noticed Mimi walking up to speak next. She looked at him and smiled a bit. As hard as this was for Mimi and the rest of the gang, everyone was most concerned about how Roger was coping. Roger and Mark were more than brothers. Mimi came first to Mrs. Cohen and Cindy, gave them a hug, then did the same with Roger. As Mimi began her eulogy, Mark was brought back to the memory of a few days before.
A few hours after Mark had left, Roger sat on the apartment couch, strumming his guitar like usual. He had passively wondered why Mark wasn't home yet, but wasn't worried about it.
Someone knocked on the door. Roger put down his guitar and went to answer it, thinking it was Mark with too many grocery bags.
"Coming, Mark, hang on a minute..."
But when Roger opened the door, it was most definitely not Mark standing there. Two uniformed officers stood there, one male, one female. Roger was shocked. What were they doing here?
"Oh, I'm sorry..." was all Roger could think to say.
"Roger Davis?"
"Yes?" Roger asked. Boy, this guy gets right down to business, he couldn't help but think.
"Mr. Davis, my name is Sergeant Carmichael of NYPD. This is my partner, Sergeant Allison. Do you know a Mark Cohen?"
"Yes." The panic in Roger rose slightly. Mark was either in jail or...well, Roger hoped he was in jail. The other possibility was one he didn't want to consider.
"Mr. Davis, we're sorry to tell you this, but your roommate was wounded this morning. He died a few hours ago."
Mimi finished with her eulogy and walked back over to Roger. Collins walked up to take his turn. Roger smiled a little; this is a real boho funeral, he thought. Not very many people get six eulogies. As Collins began what he had to say, Roger was lost once again in the memory of the day that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
"Died?" Roger asked, breathless. "What happened?"
"He was shot in a robbery this morning at..." Sergeant Carmichael started to say.
Roger's stomach tied itself in knots. "McClellan's Grocery."
"Yes. How did you know?" Sergeant Allison asked.
Roger walked over and sat on the arm of the couch for support. This could not be happening. Mark was not supposed to die first. He was supposed to be there for Roger when he died. Mark was perfectly healthy. How could he be fine one hour and then be dead the next?
"Mr. Davis?" Sergeant Allison broke through Roger's shocked silence.
"Huh?" Roger only said. He then remembered the question. "Oh. Mark told me he was leaving this morning to get groceries. When he didn't come home, I just assumed he had made other plans."
"I see." Sergeant Allison said. She seemed to be genuinely concerned about Roger. "Mr. Davis, are you going to be alright?"
'Alright' was one thing Roger definitely was not. Mark was gone. His best friend, his brother, the only person who took care of him, was gone. How was he going to be alright?
"No, I'm not. Mark and I are very close. We've been friends for almost twenty years."
Sergeant Allison looked at the young man with concern; she could see he was in real shock. She had assumed that the two were only roommates; she hadn't thought they were that close. She asked him,
"Do you want us to stay here, Mr. Davis, until someone else comes?"
Roger thought about turning her down, before the thought of Mark's mother passed through his mind. Did she know?
"Have you contacted Mark's family?", he asked, concerned.
"Yes. We did as soon as we identified the body. They're on the way here."
What? Why would Cindy and Mrs. Cohen be on their way here? Roger figured that they would have wanted Mark's body flown out to Sarasota for the funeral.
"Why are they coming here? Aren't they having Mark's funeral in Sarasota?" Roger asked.
"Mrs. Cohen told us over the phone that she wanted to have the funeral here. She said she and her daughter were going to call you as soon as we contacted you. That's when we came over here."
Roger nodded. But he had one final question.
"How did you find me?"
"We found this in Mark's wallet."
Sergeant Allison handed something over to Roger. It was a small card. On it was a note written in Mark's handwriting. Roger almost broke down as he read it.
"My name is Mark Cohen. In the event of an emergency, please contact not only my family, whose number is listed on my ID card, but also my roommate, Roger Davis, at the address:..."
"Mr. Davis, will you be okay?" Sergeant Carmichael asked from across the room.
At that moment the phone rang. Roger and Mark's familiar voice mail message rang through the apartment.
"SPEAK!"
"Roger, this is Mrs. Cohen..."
Roger raced for the phone and picked it up. He spoke to Mrs. Cohen for a few moments, and they both agreed that Cindy and Mrs. Cohen were going to stay with Roger until Mark's funeral. When Roger hung up, Collins came to the door.
It was now Joanne's turn to speak. Just like all the others, Joanne took a quick look at Mark before she began. Roger was once more drawn into his own head.
Collins stopped dead at the sight of two officers. He looked at Roger, and his first instinct was that Roger was being busted for something. He looked suspiciously at the officers, then back at Roger. It was then he realized that Roger was not being busted for anything. Roger's face was as white as a sheet. And, worst of all, he had been crying. Something bad had happened. Something very, very bad.
"What's going on, man? Where's Mark?"
"Collins." Roger said. It was all he could get out before having to take a deep breath. The two officers left the loft.
"Roger,
man, what's going on? You're scaring me."
"Mark's dead."
Roger whispered.
Roger noticed Collins getting back to his seat, and prepared to do what he and the rest of the bohemians had planned on for two days. Roger moved to the coffin, stood up, gathered his strength, and began.
"Well, um, I guess I have to confess something first. I'm sorry guys; I haven't heard a word of what you said today."
The Bohos laughed; they weren't really surprised. Roger rarely ever paid attention to them. Roger continued.
"I didn't hear it because I was too busy thinking about Mark. Not one of us here ever believed that Mark would be dead before we were. He was the youngest of us, he was the healthiest, and he was the only one, besides Joanne, with a steady job."
This was going to be a lot harder than Roger had imagined. He had done this at Angel's funeral, and he had resigned himself to the fact that he would likely be doing it at Mimi and Collins' as well. But it seemed that, once again, his life had dealt him a surprise.
"When Mark's dad died, he told me that he didn't know what he would do once all of us were gone. I told him not to worry about it; that we would all help take care of him until we took our last breath. Even then, we would all haunt him until his very last day."
During the funeral, Mrs. Cohen had been listening to the rest of Mark's friends give their eulogies. But when Roger stepped up, Mrs. Cohen noticed something very different about him. Roger seemed to be even more torn up than the rest about Mark. She saw the most pain, the most suffering, in Roger's eyes. It was at that moment Mrs. Cohen knew she had made the right decision. Not two months before, she and Mark had discussed what would happen at each other's funeral. Mark had expressed a clear desire to be buried at home, in what he called 'Bohemia'. Mrs. Cohen had promised him then and there that it would be done. Only she had never imagined that she would be burying her son.
Roger suddenly moved back to his seat and reached under it for something. He pulled out a medium sized cardboard box and knelt down to Mrs. Cohen's eye level. Mrs. Cohen, shocked, looked into Roger's eyes as he explained what he was doing.
"Mrs. Cohen, we thought you and Cindy should have this. It's all the things of Mark's we could find."
Mrs. Cohen was touched. The one thing she had dreaded was going through Mark's things; his friends had spared her the task. For that, she was truly grateful.
"Thank you." was all she could say.
Roger smiled up at her. He stayed there as Mrs. Cohen opened the box and started to rummage through it. The first thing she came upon was Mark's scarf, the one he had worn every day for more than ten years. She pulled out some old photographs, a couple of letters Mark had received from various people, and a few knick-knacks she had given him to spruce up his apartment. Then, at the bottom of the box, there it was. Mark's camera. The camera Mark had used to film anything and anyone he thought he would want to remember later in his life. More than anything else in that box, Mrs. Cohen felt a connection to her son through that camera. She looked at Roger, eyes shimmering with tears, and she saw that he was crying for the first time. In that moment, even though they barely knew each other, Mrs. Cohen and Roger were connected to each other.
"Thank you." She said again.
The friends and Mrs. Cohen stayed there, at the cemetery, for a little while longer. There was crying, hugging, and even some laughing. As Mark was buried, all seven people held hands and stood in silence. Mrs. Cohen, unable to take much more, left immediately after Mark was lowered into the ground, escorted by Cindy and Roger. The rest of the friends left in their own time, Collins being the last. Mrs. Cohen left the next day. As difficult as it was, the rest of the Bohemians carried on with life, clinging to each other the entire time.
Mark Thomas Cohen
Devoted Friend, Brother and Son
Viva La Vie Boheme!
A/N: This is my first story in a while, and my first ever RENT fanfic. Please R&R. And please be nice. I plan on doing a prequel and a sequel to this, but I want to know what everyone thinks about it first. The prequel will be about Mark's experience in McClellan's and his last thoughts before his death. The sequel will be about Roger meeting and confronting Mark's killer. I hope to have these finished soon; however, please note that my time is constricted at the moment, due to the fact that I graduate high school in less than two weeks. (Aye!!)