A/N: Now, I don't actually know how plausible the second half of this is in real life, but it was a bit important to the story, so please disregard any errors I make. Thanks again! Reviews are the food of life, btw…

Wisp

Chapter 02

"December 25th, three AM, Eastern Standard Time. Mo and I have awaited Winnie's fate in the waiting room long enough. We decided to take a tiny, but firm, leap of faith and go outside in the snow."

"Marky," Maureen whispered loudly. "Shut up."

Mark scowled. "Why?"

"Because you left your camera at the Life. You're annoying me."

"Sorry, it's a habit." Mark sighed and lay down in the snow arms spread wide. "Did you ever used to make snow angels, Maureen?"

Maureen lay next to him, eye looking straight up at the thousands of stars obscured by the clouds. "No. I actually hated the snow. My mother locked me outside one night when it was snowing. Every time it began to snow, I'd remember that cold, lonely feeling I had that night and I'd lock myself in the bathroom and take the hottest bubble bath I could stand."

"I never knew that…" Mark said softly, looking at his ex-girlfriend with a new found respect.

Maureen shrugged and began to make a snow angel. "I don't tell many people. Only Joanne knows. She was a fall-down drunk."

"Who? Joanne?"

"No, my mother. She'd always yell at me and call me names. Sure did wonders for my self-esteem. So I'd look for positive attention in other places and found it on the stage. That's when I began to sleep around, too. I read somewhere that girls who have low self-esteem tend to have sex sooner, and boy did I…" She laughed softly. "I was the slut of the town."

Mark laced his fingers together and used his hands as his pillow, his elbows just barely touching the edges of Maureen's angel. "You never told me."

"You didn't ask…" Maureen said quietly, her arms and legs slowing to a halt.

"You really love Joanne, don't you?"

"Yeah…"

"I loved you, you know."

"Yeah…"

Mark sighed and took off his glasses. They were beginning to get wet from the snow. He rested them on his chest.

"Mark, aren't you cold?"

"No, why?"

"You aren't wearing a coat."

"Oh. Yeah." Mark hugged his arms around him tighter, remembering where his coat had gone.

"Mark, that box that was on the bathroom floor… It looks like the one I've seen you carry around for the past year." Maureen sat up and stared at him. "The razor didn't come out of the box, did it?" Mark refused to meet her gaze. "Did it?"

Mark sat up and grasped his feet, allowing his glasses to fall into the snow, and stretched out his sore muscles. "It…" He shook his head, sighing harshly. "Yes, it was mine. Oh God, this is all my fault…" A few tears dripped down his face. "She must have found it in my pocket."

"But why, Mark? Usually carrying around a razor means you're… Oh God! You're not suicidal are you?" Maureen screeched, leaping to her feet.

Mark grabbed her hand and pulled her back down gently. "Shh, Maureen! Yes, I've been… Contemplating it. Only contemplating. It's complicated."

"Mark, you never let on! Oh God, I'm such a bad friend… I didn't have a clue."

"Maureen, it's OK," Mark grabbed at Maureen's hands. She was talking with them again and it was getting on his nerves. "I'm good at hiding things. And anyways, I'm feeling guilty as it is. Because of me, that girl could die."

Sighing, Maureen shook off Mark's grin on her hands. "She won't die. I think we got her here in time. Anyway, hoe do you know her?"

"I met her at the Life. She was shivering so I offered her my coat. She wouldn't let me touch her. She seemed so scared of everything."

"She looked like she was fifteen."

"A runaway?"

"Maybe."

They were silent for a moment.

Then Maureen tentatively spoke up. "Do you know who she reminded me of?"

"Who?"

"April."

*          *          *

When Winnie opened her eyes, there was bright blinding white. Everything white… She was clad in a white hospital gown; her wrists were bandaged in white gauze, as was her right hand. She glanced around her surroundings, using only her eyes, not moving the rest of her body.

The walls were painted white. She hated white… It was unnerving. There were nurses in white uniforms, the sheets were white, the fluorescent lights gave off a creepy white light that made her pale skin look even more transparent. There was another bed in the room, also stark white, but it was occupied by a person that was almost shocking compared to the stark surroundings.

A young woman, about twenty or so, with wild dark hair and medium-dark skin. Of Spanish descent? She turned her head to get a better look. The woman's eyes were wide open, but sad looking. She was certainly pretty, but her complexion was, at closer inspection, quite sallow and unhealthy.

The girl turned her head and smiled weakly. "So you're awake. It's been lonely."

"You too?" Winnie shivered and pulled the sheets around her tighter. She winced when her wrists stung.

The girl nodded. "Yeah. Christmas and stuck here. I'm just hoping my boyfriend comes to visit. And my friends. I bet they will…"

Winnie sighed. "I wish I had people who could visit me. I don't know anyone, really. Just this guy from last night. And a loud woman. But it was kind of woozy. All I can remember is that she was very loud."

The girl grinned. "Sounds like a friend of mine. I'm Mimi."

"Winnie," She said softly.

"Well, if you don't have anyone to visit you, you can share my visitors. If they decide to come." Mimi scowled but flashed a soft grin to Winnie. "My boyfriend, Roger, has been a little strung out lately. Last I heard he'd locked himself somewhere in the loft he shares with his roommate, Mark."

"I met a guy named Mark last night. Why's your boyfriend strung out?"

"Because I'm dying."

"Oh…" The small smile that Winnie had been working on immediately dropped. "I'm so sor-"

Mimi interrupted. "Oh, don't be sorry. Nothing you can do. Nothing I can do. Nothing the doctors can do. Roger's dying too, actually…." She said softly. "You met someone named Mark last night? Where?"

"The Life Café. He gave me his coat when I got cold."

"Was it Mark Cohen by any chance?" Winnie nodded. "Well, that's Roger's roommate. He's a doll. Just be careful. If you get too close to him, he sticks a camera in your face."

Winnie smiled, remembering seeing him film all the people having a late dinner the night before. "I noticed. I think he already filmed me."

"Ah. Poor thing. So, what're you in for?"

Winnie grimaced and held up her bandaged wrists.

Mimi scowled. "I'm not going to lecture, because you're going to get a lot of that later. But I will say, when you're like I am and don't have much time left, you realize just how much you'll miss living. Even if you think you have nothing to live for, sometimes life throws you a loop and you find you do have something to live for."

Winnie nodded. "I have nothing to my name but a bit of money that a stranger gave me last night, a hat, a scarf, a pair of gloves and the clothes I wore yesterday. And the borrowed coat. But it's kind of, well, ruined now…" She glanced down at her wrists and winced. If there was one thing she'd remember forever, it would be the blood. "I have no home; my family is now family to me, no friends, no nothing."

"Well," Mimi began, "I can say that you have a lot more than I did when I first met Roger. Maybe I had a few more material possessions, but materialism's shit. You're here, aren't you? Unless you did that right here in the hospital, someone had to rescue you and bring you here, right?"

She shrugged. Yeah, they saved her, didn't they? If it wasn't for Mark and that loud woman she'd be dead.

Dead… Just a final word. It didn't have any chime to it like reincarnation or birth. It was just as it was. Dead. Finality. One tiny syllable, easy to say. Dead. The type of word that rolls off tongues like when gum slips out of her mouth when she laughs. Like when she was in elementary school and she didn't do her homework. She'd say, "Man, I'm dead." But she wouldn't be. She'd be alive. Like she was now…

"The loud woman that was with him… A friend of yours?"

Mimi nodded. "If it's who I think it is, it's Maureen. She saved me once too, actually. Well, sort of. I was sick and freezing on a park bench and she and her girlfriend, Joanne, found me and brought me to Roger and Mark's. And then I died. But Angel saved me."

Angel… Angel… Why did that name sound familiar? Winnie's eyebrows shot sky high. "Angel? Was she – erm, he? – a drag queen?" When Mimi nodded, Winnie nearly smiled. "She saved me last night, too. Or, sort of. I was out on a park bench and then someone stole my coat and scarf and hit me. She picked me up and brought me to the Life Café and gave me money. But then she disappeared…" She scrunched her forehead. "I don't know what happened to her."

Mimi's jaw dropped. "Honey, but… Angel's dead. She died of AIDS over a year ago."

"Well, maybe it was someone else…"

Mimi shrugged. "Maybe. There isn't a shortage of drag queens around here. Angel was special. She really lived up to her name. She was the seams that kept us together through some rough patches. She and Collins…" She was interrupted by deep hacking coughs. Her body shook so violently that Winnie thought she was going to pass out. When Mimi had finished, her face was beet red. She smiled apologetically at Winnie. "Sorry. Getting over pneumonia."

"That's OK." Winnie was beginning to realize that the girl's scratchy voice really was horse.

"Anyway, Angel was a godsend. Her funeral was a bit of an undoing for us."

"You keep referring to 'us'. Is that you and your friends."

Mimi nodded sadly. "Yeah. There's Roger, Mark, Maureen, Joanne, Collins and well… I don't know if I really want to count Benny now. So you don't sound like you're from New York. You have a different accent. Where are you from?"

Winnie sighed. "Gloucester, Massachusetts."

"Did you like it?"

Winnie shrugged. "I don't really…"

"Oh," Mimi interrupted. "It's OK. Stupid question. Of course you hated it. I bet it was smothering. Why else would you be here?"

Winnie was about to answer when the door opened and Mark entered, knocking a few times on the doorjamb. He had his camera in his hand, claimed from the Life very early in the morning.

"Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, happy Hell!" Mark grinned widely. "They called me this morning, Winnie. Said you'd probably be discharged before the week's over. So I came to visit and found that you were rooming with darling Mimi so you made my lazy ass excited." He collapsed in one of the hard plastic chairs by the window.

Winnie nearly cracked a smile. "By the end of the week? Gotta be a catch."

Mark shrugged it off. "Of, of course. But they told me nada. I guess they'll update you later. And Mimi, Roger's on his way. He's just… Well, venting."

Mimi sighed. "How this time?"

"Having a sheet music burning."

"Why didn't you stop him?"

"Didn't have the chance. I was already here and figured that there's nothing I can do. His music was already gone by the time I called. I'd just agitate him by going back and arguing with him."

Mimi hugged her arms around herself. "I wish he'd visit more."

"He'll be here. He promised."

Winnie sat in silence, watching the interaction between the two. Mimi looked more and more lost and Mark looked like his heart was breaking but he still kept a strange, neutral tone in his voice.

"Mark, I have a favor to ask…"

"Anything."

Mimi bit her lip and swallowed once, closing her eyes. "I already know that I don't have long left. I want to die at home. With you and Roger and everyone. Not here in a hospital."

A sob escaped from a person standing in the doorjamb. "Mimi…" Roger rushed to her bedside and held her hands in his, kneeling beside her. "Mimi, don't say that."