Wheee decent update. Yes, Collins is being a moody bitch (and yeah, its kinda OOC), but hopefully I'll be able to make you see his side of things in the next chapter.

Oh, and I totally realised I randomly started referring to Angel as 'he' at one point. You can just pretend I meant to do that :)

I'm loving the reveiws, please keep them coming!

Angel gave a very melodramatic sigh and Collins finished fixing the hinges on the door. Turned out that Roger had slammed it hard enough to break the bottom hinges.

"Collins...honey...I don't like this room!" She protested for the tenth time in the past half an hour. Mark had finally finished clearing out all of Roger's old junk (he hid the boxes of old tapes in an already almost full storage room) and now Angel was meant to be moving in, although she insisted she would rather sleep on the couch then in Roger's tiny room. True, it was about the last place you would look for Angel. The room was small, with nothing more than a single bed and a bedside table. The walls were plastered with old posters of various rock bands who went out of business years ago. There was a window so small that it wasn't worth mentioning, just a smell rectangle at the top of one of the walls, letting in a beam of light that highlighted one of the mucky walls.

"I don't like this room..." Angel repeated quietly into a pillow. She was curled up on the bed, exhausted by arguing.

"I know," said Collins, swinging the door back and forth to check in was in working order. "But we can't have you on the couch. One, we keep waking you up every time we come in. Two, people sometimes want to sit on the couch, Angel." His tone came across as irritable, although he wasn't annoyed at anyone, just stressed out. He had too many worries nipping at his mind at that moment. Where had Roger gone? Why wasn't he back yet? Why wasn't the heating working? Would Angel get sicker without heating? Would she get sick and have to go to hospital? Would he be able to pay hospital bills?

"I'm sorry..." said Angel softly, tucking her knees up to her chin and leaning against the wall. "I'll stop complaining now," She said obediently, turning to look out of a window, but instead being faced with a blank wall. She had thought that maybe having her own room would be a luxury. It was the kind of things she would have dreamed about a few months ago, when she only had the streets for company, instead of a group of beautiful friends.

It was about a year ago, when she was first seriously ill. It was pouring down with rain and she was absolutely soaked to the bone, damp jeans clinging to her legs and her sweater twice as heavy with moisture, hanging off her because she had lost so much weight. Angel had stumbled into an alley, hoping that the shadow of the building would offer protection from the wind and the rain. She collapsed against the wall, grazing her cheek where it hit the harsh brick. She sat there for what felt like hours, shaking from both cold and fever, biting her lip and hoping she could live through whatever was happening to her body. She clutched on to the wall, peeling off a poster advertising some rock band, on of the details of the poster stuck out in her mind 'Vocals and lead guitar...Roger Davis'. Before she could read any more, the poster went out of focus in a dizzy spell, she recovered coughing, horrible raking coughs that shook her whole body and scarred her throat.

"Hey! Are you okay down there?" Came a voice from somewhere above Angel. She looked up to see a girl hanging over the railings of the fire escape. Angel couldn't find her voice to respond, just coughed a few more times into the sleeve of her sweater. The was the clanging and rattling of the girl making her way down the steps. She rushed over to Angel and knelt by him, wearing very little considering the pouring rain. She didn't seem to mind though. "Oh my god...what the hell are you doing out in this weather? How old are you? Seventeen? Sixteen?" She fretted, looking Angel over. It was his face that made him look so young, he had an almost feminine look about him. Angel managed to stop coughing just long enough to laugh and answer the girl.

"I'm almost twenty one!" The girl's tanned face flushed with embarrassment at her mistake.

"Oh...sorry..." She went back to her usual attitude when Angel started furiously coughing again. She reached over and patted his back in a pathetic attempt to sooth him. "Hmm...sixteen or twenty one or however old you are, you don't look too good..." Angel shook his head a little, holding his hand up in protest. He had stopped coughing, but was back to shivering again.

"I'll...be...fine..." he said quietly, going to tuck his hair behind his ears, but then realising that he wasn't wearing a wig. It was always a shock when his hand met his real, short hair. "I'm Angel..." he managed to say to the girl. She grinned at the mention of his name, put at ease by the informality of it. She held out a hand to help him stand, as he certainly didn't look like he could manage it alone. The girl softened her expression and offered an introduction.

"I'm Mimi."

Angel was brought back to the present by the sound of her new bedroom door slamming. Collins was obviously upset about something, but she had no idea was it was, how she would ever find out, and how she could make him feel better. It was just hopeless. It was almost like he was mad at her for being sick, but that didn't make any sense. Angel couldn't help it. It was hardly like she enjoyed being sick, she was shaking too much to walk properly, her throat was raw from coughing and she could eat or drink without bringing it straight back up. Why would she enjoy that? Angel resolved that sleeping was probably the best thing to do. It seemed to be the only thing that Collins approved of right then. She lay down on the small bed, pulling the covers right over her head, hoping that when she woke up, everything would be right again.

"Oh common Collins...she's just a little sick..." Mark said, looking around the kitchen for something to eat. It was hopeless. There wasn't a single thing to eat in the whole building.

"No Mark. You don't know what it's like. In no time at all, a little sick can become very sick, and before you know it, they're gone." He looked pessimistically down at his feet, holding an empty coffee cup in hands. Mark was trying his best to cheer Collins up, everything seemed to be going wrong for him. Roger stressing out. Angel falling ill. Even though he was blowing everything way out of proportion.

"I do know Collins. Roger, Mimi, You...Angel, you're all my friends too. Roger had flu three months ago. He didn't die, did he? He had it much worse than Angel does now."

"April died."

"That was different. She killed herself. Angel wouldn't do that. You know she wouldn't. She's too full of life."

"She thinks she is..."

"She is."

"Maybe...but I've made a doctor's appointment for her tomorrow. Just in case." Mark shook his head, he knew that Angel would never agree to going in to hospital, she would probably rather die then go in.

"She won't go Collins."

"She will when she understands how important this is to me. Both of you are on my back for being too paranoid. If she goes in and has this check up and everything is good, then I will relax. If she refuses to go in, then I will know there's something wrong."

"Collins...she wouldn't go in even if she was in perfect health."

"We'll see..."

"Collins..."

"Just leave me alone Mark. You think I'm being stupid. I'm not. I'm being intelligent. I'm being realistic. Some of you guys need lessons in realism."

Mark couldn't be bothered to argue with Collins anymore, he was being far too stubborn. Mark just shrugged and pulled on his jacket, he couldn't be with Collins when he was acting so angsty, and creating such a tense atmosphere.

"Well, I'm going to go look for Roger. It's starting to get dark." He looked straight at Collins. "Maybe I'll come back when I can talk to you." Collins narrowed his eyes in confusion. "This isn't you Collins...just stop and think what you have been saying to me for the past half an hour. You sound just like Roger."

"Well, I have a lot in common with Roger."

"It doesn't mean you have to make the same decisions as him. Please, go and wake Angel up. Tell her you love her...and tell her about going to hospital tomorrow. Please don't just spring it on her tomorrow."

"Weren't you meant to be going out?"

Mark didn't speak again, he just gave a Collins a look and walked out of the Loft, closing the door quietly behind him.