Disclaimers and summary on first chapter

Special Note: Joy2, your review made me cry. Thank you so much, you have no idea what that meant to me. And thanks everyone else for your reviews too. I can't live without them, you know. ;)

Notes: Hard, hard, hard, hard, HARD chapter to write. My last Roger chappie, I wanted it to be good, but really had no idea what to do. I wrote most of it last night, revised the first part this morning and then wrote the rest just tonight. I hope I did ok. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 59 -Epilogue for Roger- -This Is Your Second Chance-

Roger's POV

I wake up to Mark's touch. He's stroking my hair. He smiles gently at me when he sees I'm awake.

"Hey."

I groan in reply and try to roll away.

"Hey, don't do that. Come here."

I let him pull me back to him. He lies down next to me and wraps his arms around my body. I smile to myself and rest my chin on top of his head.

"Are you alright?" He asks softly.

"No." I tell him honestly. "But I will be, I think."

We're silent together for a few minutes. I concentrate on listening to his breathing, and my own and matching the rhythms. Soon after, I realize Mark's fallen asleep. I smile to myself and pull gently out of his grasp. He moans softly, but doesn't wake. I slip out of bed and pull on a shirt and stretch out my back. I take my guitar and a pack of cigarettes I bought recently out of the case and quietly leave the room.

Mark doesn't know I've been smoking them, and I don't intend for him to find out, but I'm sure it's inevitable that he will. It's not like before, when smoking was only the start of even worse mistakes I could make. My gateway drug. I sit outside on the fire escape and light one. I watch the smoke curl above my head when I exhale and stare down at the glowing tip. Eventually I tap it to knock off the ash, then place it back in my mouth and hold my guitar properly. I pluck a few strings casually, no real tune at all.

"What are you doing out here?"

I shrug absently, holding the guitar with one hand so I can hold the cigarette and exhale some smoke. Mark climbs out beside me and takes the cigarette. Instead of chucking it or reprimanding me as I suspected, he holds it up to his lips and inhales. I smirk at him when he coughs and go back to my guitar.

"Shouldn't inhale unless you know how." I tell him.

He says nothing, but I can feel his eyes on me. G chord. D chord. F Lydian scale. He moves closer until I feel his body press softly against mine.

"Play something, Rog." He says.

"We're outside, it's 6am. Don't you think that's pretty shitty of me?"

He shrugs. "Thought you didn't care what people think."

"Well, I wouldn't want to be woken up by some wannabe asshole with a guitar early in the morning. Would you?"

"You're not a wannabe." He says quietly, laying his head against my shoulder.

"Just an asshole with a guitar?" I ask him, taking the cigarette back.

"Sure." He says, dreamily.

He watches me pluck the strings and strum some random chords for a few minutes and then he speaks again, surprising me greatly with his choice of conversation.

"What did you mean when you said that I didn't know what I gave you?"

I look down at him in confusion. "What?"

He doesn't move or speak for a few moments and then he digs in his pocket and pulls out a worn piece of paper. He opens it up and points at a line near the end.

"This. What does this mean?"

"Mark, I can't believe you kept this." I take it from him and read the line he points at.

"What did I give you?" He asks softly. "What did I do?"

"You don't know?" I ask him, surprised.

He shakes his head and looks up at me expectantly.

"I don't know, Mark. I just, I feel like a better person when I'm with you. Like the fact that I've fucked up everything in my life doesn't matter. You don't know what it's like to know that there's always going to be that one person that will love me no matter what, that doesn't care that at the end of the day all I am is me and that's good enough. I've always had that with you. I've never known that anywhere else, from anyone."

"I know what that's like." He says softly, after a long pause.

I blow out the last bit of smoke and stub the cigarette out next to me. "Oh fuck, Mark. I don't deserve you. I've known that forever."

"You're too hard on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, Roger."

"What about you? What have you done? I don't see you making any life- shattering mistakes!" I pull away from him and hold my guitar defensively. "Why does it seem like the only person who ever fucks up is me?"

"Roger. . ."

"Oh and I fucking forgot, Mimi fucked up too and she died for it. She fixed her life and then fucking died a few months later. And I'm gonna die from it too."

"Rog. . ."

"Don't I get a second chance? I'm done, you know? I'm finished doing stupid shit and look what happens anyway. Congratulations, fucking AIDS."

"Roger, don't be an ass." He says firmly, his tone forcing me to shut up. "You quit after you got HIV, not before. Don't try to glorify that." He puts his hand over my mouth when I angrily try to protest. "And don't you get it? This is your second chance. Sure you won't live to be 100, but what more do you want? You could have died a long time ago, but you didn't. You're still alive, and you're still healthy. And best of all you've got me, and I've still got you."

He takes his hand away when he sees I've calmed down. "Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, why don't you try to fucking appreciate it for once?"

He gets up and climbs back inside and I watch him go, still holding the fucker of a letter I wrote to him back in high school. I've hated myself everyday since I shoved it in his pocket when I kissed him goodbye. I force myself to climb in after him.

"Mark?" I call, once inside. I set my guitar down on the table and go to find him. He's sitting on the bed, staring at the floor. I watch him for a few seconds, then hold the letter I wrote up in the air and tear it in half. He looks up in shock.

"I've never forgiven myself for leaving you with this." I tell him, kneeling in front of him and holding the pieces for him to see. He takes them from me gingerly, as if he's afraid to touch them.

"Why did you?"

I shake my head. "Why did I do any of the shit I've ever done? I don't know. But I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. Anything. I do appreciate you, and the fact that I'm still here. I know you don't think I do, but it's true. I thought my life was over after I left. When all that shit started to happen. When the band was officially over, when April was so fucked up she had to send me out to buy her more shit. The first time I shot up, I accepted the fact that I was probably going to start ending my life. I thought it was over and then you were here again. You were just here and you were beautiful and perfect and forgiving and I hated myself so much for leaving you. And. . ."

He lays his hands on the sides of my face and kisses my forehead. "It's ok. It's ok, Rog. I didn't mean it, I really didn't."

I shrug. "It doesn't matter. You need to know anyway."

His eyes fall onto mine and he smiles. "Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."

I crush him against me in an embrace that probably knocks the breath out of him. He adjusts quickly and lays his head against my chest and I feel his hands making comforting circles of warmth over my back.

"It's alright." He tells me quietly. "You're alright."

I sniff and pull away from him. "I love you."

He again smiles gently and brushes my hair back away from my face. He doesn't say anything at first, but kisses me softly on the mouth, his lips warm and sweet on mine.

"Marky. . ."

"I know, Roger. I love you too."

---Things we never said come together

The hidden truth no longer haunting me

Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken

That kind of understanding sets me free---

Lyrics from Elton John and Bernie Taupin's 'The Last Song'. And of course that one line Mark says is from 'Your Eyes' by the same two gents. Forgive my Elton obsession. And Bernie too, I suppose. ;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Notes Continued: I'm pretty fucking happy with that. I hope you are too. I can't believe there's only one chappie to go. I promise Mark's won't be a sob-pity-Roger-hating fest. I've got some good ideas for that one. The only reason I'm not going to write it tonight is cause I've got original shit to attend to. Certainly you'll forgive me? Tomorrow, I promise. Oh fuck it all there's a chapter named that. How horrible. Well, thankies for reading, thank you very much. I love you all. Really. I really do.