A/N: I didn't think I would continue this, but I got inspired. This is going to be a short little thing, with just one more chapter after this one. Enjoy! --Larissa

I flew out as soon as I got off the phone with Maureen. Las Vegas paid decently, but last minute plane fare was fucking expensive. I put it on my credit card and told myself I'd worry about the cost later. That didn't matter right now. The only thing that mattered was Mark.

The only flight they could get me on made two stops, in Chicago and in Cleveland, which was annoying as hell, but there wasn't much I could do about it at this point. It gave me a lot of time to think, in any case. About what I'd left behind. About what Maureen had screamed over the phone at me. About what I was about to face when I got off the plane in New York.

He has AIDS, you stupid shit! He's dying!

I'd known Maureen a long time, but I'd never heard her that mad before. She'd called up out of the blue, insisted I fly back to New York, and went apeshit on me when I said I couldn't possibly get away at the moment. She said this was all my fault, and I didn't even have the balls to come back and face what I'd done. When I lost my temper and demanded to know what the fuck was going on, she told me.

Mark had AIDS. Had had it for months, in fact. He hadn't been taking his AZT, and now he was in the hospital with pneumonia.

A narrow airplane seat was not the best place to be struggling with a mixture of guilt and rage, I thought to myself, squirming uncomfortably. Maureen was right. This was my fault. I'd killed Mark, just as if I'd wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed until there was no life left in him. Mark had AIDS, and I was the one who'd given it to him.

I was mad at myself, all right. Why had I gone along with this? Why had I put my selfish pleasures above Mark's health? Oh, I was fucking pissed. But I was also furious with Mark. After everything I'd been through after my own diagnosis, all of Mark's nagging to take my AZT, and eat something, and take care of my health, what did he do? Get sick, for one. Land himself in the hospital. Practically kill himself.

"Oh, no, you don't," I muttered to myself, not caring that the gray- haired woman sitting to the left of me was staring at me in alarm. Mark hadn't let me self-destruct. I was hardly about to let him do it to himself.

After what felt like forever, the plane finally landed in New York. I sprinted through LaGuardia to the street, where I flagged down a cab, giving the driver an extra twenty to get me to the hospital as fast as possible. Mark's room was on the eighth floor, they told me at the front desk. By this point, I was too worked up to wait even thirty seconds for the elevator, so I tore up the stairs, taking them two, three at a time.

I'm coming, Mark, I tried to tell him. Just hold on.

When I burst out onto the eighth floor, the first thing I saw was my friends, huddled together at the end of the hall. Joanne was hugging Maureen to her, and it looked like they were both crying. This didn't look good.

"Hi." If any of them seemed surprised by my appearance, they didn't show it. "How's Mark?"

Maureen glared fiercely at me. "You fucking bastard."

"What?" I protested. "I came as soon as I could."

"Oh, Roger." Collins looked at me sympathetically. "Mark died half an hour ago."