Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Summary: PostRENT. Mark is alone at the Life Café, remembering the friends that he's lost. SongFic to 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables' from Les Miserables.

Disclaimer: I do not own RENT nor do I own Les Miserables.

Thank you, Jonathan Larson


Mark walked into the empty Life Café, the only person there. He sat down at the table that he and his friends once used to sit at together. But now they were gone. He looked about him, and sighed painfully. He began to sing softly to himself.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.

He remembered their long nights of drinking and laughing together here at the Life. His memories seemed so distant to him now. He ran his fingers over the various names carved into the wooden tables, missing the days long since past.

Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.

He stood, and walked around the tables thinking of the time spent at each one. They'd always told each other that there was 'no day but today,' but he never realized how much truth there was in those words.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.

He hated that he was true to his words, and the one to survive. O, how he'd give his life along with theirs, and never have to face the torment and raw intensity of being all alone.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.

He looked out the window at the people passing by on the street. Was that Roger and Mimi crossing the way? Never. At the table, Angel and Collins sat laughing. Why was he seeing these things?

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

He stood to leave. As he reached the door, he turned once more to look at his past life. Hot tears streamed down his face and he watched memories play out in his mind, as if they were films, preserved through time.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.

He walked out the door, the brisk air meeting him. He walked away, growing farther and father with every step, leaving behind him his old life, and the empty chairs at empty tables.