CHAPTER 14

DISCLAIMER: I've forgotten about these a bit, but never for a moment did I think I was Jonathon Larson. I'm sorry. Not mine.

He stood beside her in the waiting room at the clinic, awkward and shifting his feet. Maureen looked at him.

"Roger, you don't have to be here. You can go back to the loft."

"No, this is my fa-"

"It's no one's fault." Roger gave her a harsh look and she amended her statement. "It's both of our faults, but that doesn't mean you have to be here."

"Yeah I do. I wasn't about to make you come here on your own, like I had to."

Oh right. April. Maureen gave him an odd look, then placed her hand in his, interlacing their fingers and mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he said quickly, at the same time she added, "You know it's not your fault." And they both almost smiled.

"Maureen Johnson?" A nurse called. They both turned.

"You may come in now. This way please." Maureen pulled Roger behind her, her hand tight around his.

A few minutes later, Maureen was gritting her teeth, looking anywhere but at the needle in her arm.

"Does it really bother you that much?" Roger asked, slightly amused. She nodded rigidly, unsmiling.

"We're not all used to jabbing needles in our arms whenever we feel like it, Davis." He didn't even rise to her cruel remark. Over the past week, they seemed to have gotten past the low comments. It was only her intense discomfort from the needle that made her lash out.

The nurse looked sharply at Roger and he just smiled innocently. "Diabetes."

Maureen snickered slightly at his explanation, but the nurse looked mollified. Roger smirked at Maureen, who only shook her head slightly with a small smile of her own.

Finally it was over, and a taped bit of cotton obscured the mark in her pale skin from her worried eyes.

Positive? Negative? The answers were in her blood, traveling her veins, maybe even spreading the disease.

"When can we expect the results?" Her voice was higher, strained, and Roger looked sad when he realized she'd returned to those thoughts.

"We'll send the blood in to the lab, analyze it, and send you the results, so I'd say you can expect the results by…next Friday?"

The nurse ended his sentence as if it were a question, which short-tempered Maureen found highly unprofessional. She just nodded curtly.

"That's fine. Thank you very much." Roger spoke for her politely, then led her out of the clinic. "What next?"

She looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "You're asking me?"

He shrugged. "Well, yeah."

"I don't know… we should probably get a pregnancy test kit, just in case." He looked at her sharply and she raised her hands defensively. "What? Just in case, don't worry!"

"Don't worry? Don't worry! Maureen, it's bad enough that there's a possibility that I gave you HIV, and to even suggest that you might be carrying my child- a child that could very well be infected- is awful!"

Her lip quivered. "I got enough of this from Joanne. I don't need you yelling at me too."

Roger started to respond, stopped himself, then looked directly into her eyes. "Maureen, you have to understand what I'm feeling. If I gave you HIV, if you're pregnant with a kid that has it and it's my fault, I couldn't live with myself."

"We already went through this! It's not your fault! I was the one who came in there with a bottle of vodka-"

"I should have put my foot down and said no." He loudly spoke over her. "It's my fault- I should've at least remembered to use a damn condom!"

"Roger, stop! We both are holding ourselves responsible, but Roger, do you blame me?"

"Not like I blame myself."

"Well, I don't blame you. So what's the point in hating yourself over it? It won't change anything."

"I just can't believe it…"

"I know. Me neither."

He looked down, shrugging. "We can get one of those… tests at a liquor store can't we? A 7/11 would carry them."

"Yeah." They began walking down the block, side by side but not touching. After a few more moments of silence, Maureen reached out and touched his arm, pulling him to a stop outside the 7/11.

"Can't we be together and be okay? Without the fights and the tears and the yelling?" She gently took his hands in both of hers. "Can't we just be like this?" She began to lean in towards him, but Roger sidestepped her quickly.

"No." He said sternly. "We can't do that."

"Why not?" Tears of rejection threatened to enter her eyes and Maureen blinked suddenly, looking away. She pulled her hands out of his grasp.

"Maureen, really." He spoke as if explaining something obvious to a child. "Given our history, we can't exactly start a relationship can we?" Roger was saying it almost offhandedly, like it was impossible. Like he didn't even see it as a realistic option.

"Why not?" She asked again, almost pleading.

"Maureen, this isn't what you want- I'm not what you want." He sounded tired, but Maureen wasn't giving up.

"You don't know what I want."

"The other night, we didn't mean for that to- we were drunk." Roger said weakly, not looking at her.

"But what if it wasn't just me being drunk and screwing things up? What if I meant it, what if I wanted things to be like that between us?"

He looked at her, weary and uncertain. "What do you mean? You wanted a kid?"

"No!" That was not what her intentions had been at all. His look of confusion and exasperation deepened and Maureen tried to take it back. "That's not what I'm saying. I mean, maybe someday, but that's not exactly why I came into your room that night."

"I don't understand you."

She tried to explain it as simply as she could. Looking into his eyes, Maureen just let the words spill out. "Roger, I… I was drawn to you the moment I saw you. Back when we first met, up until now."

"But- no." Roger looked slightly alarmed. He fumbled in his speech. "You were with Mark, then Joanne-"

"That wasn't anything, not compared to y- it's like, I'd sleep with guys just for the sake of sleeping with them. No emotional attachment, no seeing each other again, nothing. That wasn't what I wanted, but I think I was trying so hard to avoid being hurt, and I guess I thought I could avoid it by hurting other people. But when I met Mark, and I saw you… I had to stay with him. I needed to see you. At first I thought it was because I needed to see if you were in pain, or if you would recognize me, but I don't think that was it. I wanted to be with you."

Maureen blinked at the ground, exposed and uncertain. She was honest, completely honest, about everything she hadn't wanted to know or admit, these undeniable truths she'd been keeping stuffed in, out of sight. She bit her lip, wondering at his lack of response, afraid to look up from the ground, but then she felt his arms came around her haltingly, carefully, cradling her against him.

Maureen eagerly leaned into his embrace with a sigh, grateful for the secure way he held her. She closed her eyes, trying to commit his scent-

faded cigarettes, worn out clothing, sweat, and something musky, something more-

to memory, trying to imprint how it felt right now to have Roger holding her forever in her mind, because who knew how long it would last? The embrace could end in a moment; their relationship (relationship?) could end in a moment; the delicate balance that everything hung on (his issues with Mimi, her breakup with Joanne, their issues with each other, whether or not she was pregnant and/or HIV positive) could be tipped in a moment, and things would be messed up beyond repair. But right now…

Right now, everything felt okay.