AN: Ok this is a series of confrontation like meetings set in my Till Cindy realm. So read that first, so this makes a little more sense. It will work backwards from that point explaining how things happened. Or how people found out what happened to Mark.

Any feedback is great, helps me write better, so constructive criticism is fantastic, but anything even hey I liked it, or a smiley face would be nice, so I know people read this and think something of it.

Collins

Mark had been crying. Collins could tell that just by looking at the younger man. He was sitting peacefully with an almost empty Styrofoam cup of hospital tea in the small plastic chair in the corner of Angel's hospital room. There was an empty look in Mark's eyes, eye that were rimmed in red, with tear tracks dried to his face, that empty look that Collins could remember seeing on only a few occasions, most ending with Mark falling asleep in odd places around the loft.

Collins also knew that asking what was wrong would not grant him an answer that was truthful, and it would only anger Collins and scare Mark. Collins knew that from experience as well. Mark was so good at other peoples emotions and so poor with his own, trying to save others from his problems. Collins had learned enough that asking Mark like this would only make it worse. The few times Collins had tried to speak to Mark when he was like this, only lead to more cry and yelling. Both of which scared the shit out of Collins to tell the truth. Collins liked happy, and fun, and drunk. He knew a lot, but it was hard for him to see Mark so torn. And angry, Mark angry was not fun, and Collins had learned to stop asking.

So Collins let his eyes turn to Angel. His love, his everything. Angel was watching Mark with a sad smile on her face, and then when she saw Collins she grinned. But a glance at Mark left her sad again. Worry for Mark etching itself in her features in a way that Collins had never seen, this deep sadness on her was heartbreaking to the older man.

"Mark honey, I want you to head home now. Collins is here and I know you need to sleep before you help Maureen tonight." Angel's voice was soft, yet commanding. Mark looked up at her and simply nodded an ok and walk slowly out the door, and they had to assume, to the loft to sleep. It was an automations walk, slow and mechanical, and with no life whatsoever in it. It was scary to Collins, to see that in one of his best friends.

"What happened?" Collins took a seat on the edge of Angel's hospital bed. She looked at him a moment, as though judging him and what she was about to say.

"Promise me something Collins." She finally asked him.

"Anything Angel."

"Take care of Mark when I am gone."

"Angel, honey you are."

"I'm not Collins, you know it, I know it, we all know it. If not now, it will be next time, I won't live forever love. It's almost my time, and I am sad to leave you but I have lived life as well as I could, don't morn me, and don't pity me with talk of leaving this room alive. Now promise me." She was commanding when she wanted to be. She left no room for argument that she would live that much longer. It was important, Collins got that from her tone.

"I will, but what are you talking about. I have watched out for him for years." Collins was extremely confused by this request. He had known Mark for several years, and while everyone had to remind the skinny filmmaker to eat, Mark always took care of them. Never the other way around. Mark was the care giver in the group, sure Collins was there for advice, but Mark made sure they lived. He made sure they took medication and ate. He made sure there was something to burn in the winter, and open windows in the summers.

What could possibly be bothering him this much, that Angel was this worried about him?

"What do you mean Ang?" Collins asked.

"He, I. Promise me this isn't going to be repeated. Promise me you wont try and talk to Mark about it, or Roger or anyone. Please." The desperation in her tone shocking Collins. It wasn't often Angel sounded that scared about anything. She faced life and death head on.

"I promise baby, now tell me what has you so bothered." His voice was soft, and soothing and curios.

"I can't tell you how I know this, or how it came about. I promised never to do that. But I also made a promise that he would be taken care of. So I need you to do this for me. In the loft, in the kitchen, the draw with all the silverware in the little bucket, behind that bucket is a bottle of pills. For Mark."

Collins could picture clearly that beat up drawer, full of plastic and mismatched silver wear that the loft had accumulated from various restaurants over the years. And the pale plastic little box that kept everything in the front of the drawer and away from the mold stains below it. He never remembered hearing a pill bottle rolling about behind it.

"Behind the silverware is where Mark keeps his medication?" He questioned, not believing this story.

"Mark doesn't even know its there. It is refilled every so often, and I never see it happen, it just does. The bottle is filled when it gets close to empty, I have to believe it's not Mark. You pull out the silverware, lift out the little plastic holder and reach back to get the pills. He gets one crushed and mixed into his tea. Just make the tea and stir it in. Just one and he calms down. He will get sleepy and wake up forgetting anything happened. Don't talk to him about it, just give him tea, calm him until it kicks in and then put him to bed." Angel watched Collins as she spoke, and it eerie how well he was listening while looking so disbelieving at the same time.

He was worried when she said not to talk to Mark. She was known for helping people talk about their problems and deal with them.

"He has a prescription he doesn't know about?" Collins was dubious of this. Mark knew all about medication, and when to get everyone to take theirs. For him to have his own that he didn't know about was disturbing and unbelievable.

"Yes. He, Collins I don't know what it is. But he can't be alone like this. He can't handle hospitals or big Doctors, he doesn't like to be left in that loft with no noise."

Collins could understand that. Almost all of Marks' friends were going to die before him most likely, and he was the only one without a love interest. He had a camera and old film, and nothing else. Collins wouldn't want to be alone either, though seeing Angel like this in the hospital reminded him that he soon would be. But to think of Mark as needing medication, it was hard to grasp. Sure Mark could get a little emotional at times. And sure he was quite and held everything in as he helped everyone sort out their own problems, but that was just Mark being Mark.

And of course Mark wouldn't like the silence, with the number of roommates they tended to have, silence was hard to come by and many times left the loft feeling oddly empty and void. But to need medication to deal with it?

Mark was like medication to everyone else, he soothed, and calmed and made them all as well as he could. Queit, helpful little Mark.

"You can't leave him alone unless you give him half of a pill first, to keep him calm. And if you find him like, if he is, when he." Angel broke down here, memories of the one time she found Mark in a fit vivid in her minds eye. The blood and the yelling, it was to much for the happy drag queen to take in, this side of her broken friends. "You will know, you have to get him cleaned up and you have to give him at least a full pill. But if you have to go and he wants to stay, leave him a cup of tea and he should be fine. He will stay calm enough to go out and film, or edit some film without freaking out. With out hearing those voices."

"Mark hears voices?" Crap, she hadn't meant to mention that. Just get Collins worried enough to give Mark the medication.

"Sometimes. I don't know what they say, or who they are. But he hears them, they hurt him. He screws his eyes tight and yells, trying to drowned them out, he hurts himself. God Collins he had this razor to his arm when I found him. He was alone in the corner of the loft, yelling and lashing out, and the lines on his arm. You have to take better care of him. How could you not notice this?" Angel was sad and then suddenly angry at Collins. Collins had never once seen this side of her, this possessive protectiveness. He thought back on all the times Mark had been sad, or scared.

He could remember the cries and whimpers at night when Mark first moved in with him. The way Benny would always shake him awake, bring him a glass of water. The way Roger would throw things at the wall. And Collins remembered never speaking to Mark about it. Just assuming it was the same kind of trauma nightmares that they all had of their past and their fears of the future. Though at the time Collins knew his time was taken up with his masters thesis and worry over Rogers new girlfriend.

Collins could see Mark walking around in a daze at times when he came home early from class, and would wonder what he was on to give him that sad half smile and then cause him to pass out over the editing machine or the kitchen counter of all places.

He could vaguely remember Mark with no voice when he and Roger made it home one morning after a very long night out. He looked ruff, beaten up and Roger had asked if had been mugged. Mark just shrugged and walked into the shower. That was all that was ever said about it.

When Maureen moved in it got better, but looking back it was because Mark was hardly ever alone now. With Collins, Benny, Maureen, Roger and April all living in the loft with him it was rare for only one of them to be home.

"He never"

"Said anything, you think he would? Collins whatever happened to his is so far back and so horrible he can not physically speak of it, I think half the time he doesn't think it actually happened. He's broken Collins, just watch out for him." Angel calmed down, she wasn't angry anymore. Simply tired and worried. "He never does anything for himself except film, and even that is to help others. He never talks about himself, he never buys for himself. If it wasn't for staying alive to take care of us, I have to wonder how long Mark would last."

"I promise to watch over him. And I promise to keep it to myself. Should I get him help?"

"No." Angel was angry again.

"No?"

"No, don't you see. He has all the help he needs. He has me, he has you. He has whoever gets his medication. Its prescription, he must have had professional help at some point Collins. And it didn't take, so we do what we can do." Angel told him. "Just love him Collins, that's all you can do."

And Collins would. He would watch Mark fall apart when Angel died, but watched him shut aside his own emotions to help Roger and Mimi and Joanne and Maureen, and even himself deal with the grief. He watched Mark breakdown when he though no one was watching.

He saw first hand that Mark, the Mark who was crying and screaming. He saw Mark trying so hard to forget the past.

And he saw Mark dying by inches as he beat himself up to stop the sounds the invaded the now empty loft.

Collins moved back in to watch his friend. He watched Mark come back alive when he was around, and watched him live when Roger and then Mimi came home.

And then Collins watched it all crash away when Cindy showed up. He watched everything click into place. He watched that last wall in Mark crumble as his own sister accused him of lying, even while holding the proof. And then Collins watched as Mark finally broke down at the realization of what happened. And Collins knew, those pills were not going to help anymore. This confrontation had completely surpassed the power of modern medication.