A/N: Little angst-ficlet right here. Sort of weird around the ending (shrug). Credit to missxflawless for some MaureenAngel issues. Warning: fic includes MaureenCollins and MaureenRoger friendship. (sigh and shrug again)

I hate hospitals.

I really do. I hate them worse than I hate shrimp or homophobes or that horrible scratchy wool hat that my mother always made me wear on cold days. I hate a lot of things—I live in the East Village, I'm a master at complaining—but hospitals are the worst. Every time I go into one, someone I love dies. My cousin, my miscarried baby brother, my grandpa, my best friend's mother…Collins was with me for that last one, but it was still one more death, one more loss. I stopped trying to deal with it and just avoided hospitals. Big creepy places…too clean for anyone, sick or healthy, and so grim that I want to start screaming because then people will stop looking sad and start looking freaked out. Welcome change, in my mind.

When I was twenty, Roger convinced me to go "roof-hopping" with him as a celebration of leaving my teens. I agreed and got just drunk enough beforehand that three roofs in, I fell and my elbow went crunch. I heard later that Collins, Benny, and Mark practically beat the crap out of Roger for letting me get up there in the first place, but at the time I didn't give a shit. All I cared about was how scary the hospital was, and somewhere in my mind a little voice was saying that this time, I would be the loved one who died. I actually started crying at one point; the doctors who were setting my arm awkwardly tried to shut me up until I kicked one of them. Then they backed off and I calmed down by myself, though it took a little while. I've never cried in front of anyone but my closest friends since then.

When Collins got AIDS, I got furious: first at him, then at his bastard of an ex-boyfriend, then at the virus itself, then at the world in general. Collins took the matter into his own hands. He came into the loft one day, grabbed me by the forearm, and sat me down on the couch. Keeping me there with one hand, he reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of AZT. He said, "Just look at it. Look at it so hard that your eyes water. Keep looking at it until you can accept that I take these to keep me alive longer, and sooner or later I will die. Maybe naturally, but you and I both know it's much more likely that AIDS will kill me. And when this starts to happen, I am going to need you. I am going to need all of you. So look at this until you get over yourself and then let me know." Then he dropped it in my lap and went into the room he shared with Benny.

But he didn't know the whole story. He didn't know that I had nightmares at night about the long, too-bright halls of a hospital and Collins, swallowed up by those halls, calling for help. He didn't know that half my dread was seeing him inside that goddamn building.

Maybe it was easier when Roger got AIDS. There was so much going on at the time…April's death, Roger's withdrawal, and my internal struggle about whether or not to tell Mark about Joanne, with whom I was approaching the three-week milestone of dating behind Mark's back. It didn't seem real that Roger had AIDS; somehow it didn't fit in the jigsaw puzzle of our lives right then. And when it did fit…it was months later. I didn't have nightmares. But I still couldn't look at him without seeing an IV drip attached to his wrist for quite a while.

And now it's Angel. Angel, who's beautiful and happy and funny and kind and sarcastic and such a good dancer that she should be a national icon. Angel, who's so much better than I am, who deserves so much more and gives everyone else all she can. Angel, who's like my sister. Angel, the love of my best friend's life. Angel, who holds our dysfunctional little family together. That Angel…is in the hospital.

And I don't think I can cope.

Roger turned the corner and nearly smashed into a nurse. "Sorry," he mumbled, and stepped around her. He didn't need to stay and hear her snort of disapproval and offense. He didn't need to deal with that right now. What he needed to do was find—

" Maureen!" The name burst from his lips as an orderly pushing a cart passed and he saw her, curled up on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest and her head tilted back against the wall. Her eyes were closed and Roger could tell that her hands were shaking. She didn't appear to have heard him. Dodging another nurse, he ran over and knelt beside her.

"Jesus, Maureen, I've been looking all over this fucking hospital for you. Angel's awake now, and she wants to know where you are," Roger said, putting one hand on Maureen's knee cap. Her eyes stayed closed, but she made a slight shrugging motion. Roger frowned and removed his hand, sitting back on his heels. The hospital personnel ignored them: maybe because they were grungy and dirty-looking, or maybe just because they were grieving and you cannot work in a hospital without learning to overlook grief.

" Maureen?...What's your deal?" Roger asked slowly, his eyebrows rising slightly. Maureen seemed to be ignoring him at first. But then her eyes cracked open and Roger immediately saw the tears, sparkling like crystal on the edges of her eyelashes. She did not look at him; instead, she stared at the ceiling for a minute or two. Then, very softly, she spoke.

"I can't be with her."

"Why?" Roger asked quickly. Maureen took a shaky breath and shook her head.

"Because…because I look at her and I see the tubes in her arms and her nose and those fucking machines keep beeping and doing whatever they're supposed to do…and I just can't deal. I can't look at Angel when she's like that. And Angel… Angel shouldn't—she shouldn't be here…" Tears were sliding down her cheeks now, and Maureen seemed to be choked up too badly to talk. Roger gave her a moment; he sat and silently watched her as she took deep breaths and unconsciously wrung her hands. Then, when she seemed calmer, he gently took one of her hands in his and said, "Say it. Get it out of you…trust me, it feels better in the long run."

"D—does it?" Maureen sniffled, gazing at him with a sort of blank questioning. Roger nodded slowly. Maureen mirrored his nod and gave a sort of watery laugh that wasn't really a laugh. Wiping her eyes with one hand, her gaze grew glittery-hard as she stared at Roger.

"All right. Goddamn it, it's got to be better than this…she couldn't breathe. She'd been coughing all week and you know that, but she kept saying it was nothing and I wanted to believe her, and then she moved too fast when we were walking through the park and she couldn't catch her breath. And it was the most horrible thing I've—you have no idea what it's like, to see Angel look so helpless and sick. Roger…Roger, she wasn't her anymore. Angel wasn't Angel, she was this sick person I felt like I didn't know…but I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle feeling like that, so I told her not to get help. I don't know really why but it seemed right… Roger, what if I killed her? What if she'd gone to the hospital and gotten checked out back then, when they might have done something? I told her not to because I—I hate this place, I hate hospitals…but I made her stay away, I made her stay away until she fucking passed out and then it was too late and…and I really, really hate hospitals," Maureen finished, burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook as she wept and strangled sobs were coming from her mouth. Roger felt frozen in place, as though her words had turned him to stone. He didn't know how to tell her that it was not her fault; that Angel's sickness was not on her head. But he didn't know what to say. So he sat there and awkwardly touched her arm as Maureen sobbed under the bright fluorescent lights in the long, too-bright hallway.

I hate hospitals. And I have good reason to.

I have good reason to.