A/N: This is my first fan fiction, so reviews would be great. This takes place 2 years after the end of Rent, and a year after the death of Mimi.

Disclaimer: Mark, Roger, Collins, Maureen, and Joanne do not belong to me, they were Jonathan Larson's creation, and I am just taking the story further from what the ending of Rent revealed.

It had been two years since Angel's funeral and a year since Mimi's. Mark, Maureen, Joanne, Collins, and Roger, all gathered around Angel's tombstone and sat in a desperate silence for a little eternity. Tears streaked every face, and Maureen sat with Collins head on her shoulder. The memories of that wonderful year remained with them all. But the memories only Collins had shared with Angel haunted his dreams. It was on days like these he feared nothing would ever take him away from the empty feeling inside. After a long tense silence, all of them headed over to Mimi's grave. It didn't say much, it didn't have to. All it said was:
Mimi Marqueze
February 24, 1976-December 21, 1997
"Give in to love, or live in fear."

Roger still barely grasped the fact that Mimi was dead. Mimi, the one who had turned his life from a dull depressing life into a one filled love and tears was dead. In the three years that she had known him, she had sparked something him, something that had been near death since April's suicide. But now, whatever light she had ignited with him, was dead, gone, and no traces of it remained. He crouched down to bring the grave to face level. Absently he began to trace the crevices with his left index finger, he didn't even notice that even the sky cried for Mimi. As the rain began to pour down even more, Mark gently put his hand on Roger's shoulder. Roger turned to look up at Mark, and Mark nodded, it was time to go or Roger and Collins would surely catch pneumonia. On the drive back to the loft, no one spoke, and it would have been silent except for the radio that Maureen had turned on. Everyone had begun to believe the next year was going to be extremely empty, none of them realized the coming year was going to be far from that. The story begins today, December 31, 1998.

~*~

"Anyone want to celebrate the coming of the new year tonight?" Mark asked as his key turned the door to the loft and the door opened, inviting them in to the frosty air.

"Holy shit it's cold in here. You'd think Benny would at least leave the heat on for us. Stupid jerk." Maureen stated trying to draw the topic away from a celebration, it was obvious that no one wanted to.

"Yeah." Collins answered.

"Um, yeah what?" Maureen asked.

"I'd like to celebrate New Year's tonight. It's a new year, maybe it'll be better than the last two."

"I agree with Collins. I didn't think I'd want to, especially since it has only been a year and a few miserable days since Mimi's death, but yeah, I want to celebrate, as long as it involves a large amount of alcohol to dumb whatever feelings are left inside me." Roger said bitterly.

"All right...I'll um, go out to the package store down the corner." Joanne stated.

"I'll join you!" Mark and Joanne stated, they two needed to get away from the suffocating atmosphere and the bitter Roger.

"I'm going downstairs, I have a few papers left to grade and I'd rather get them done tonight so I don't have to do them tomorrow, see everyone around...9?" Collins said as he headed back for the door.

"Yeah, that's fine." Mark answered, "you two go on ahead, I'll meet you down at the store." Mark told in Joanne and Maureen's direction. "You okay buddy?" He asked Roger.

"What do you think?" Roger stated in a low but firm voice.

"No, but Roger, it'll get better, I promise."

"Do you really? 'Cause I have a problem believing anything will get better, I just want it to end, but no, for some god awful reason I'm still alive. April is dead, Mimi is dead, but I am alive, I am still alive."

"Just, don't go back into hiding Rog, we need you with us." Mark whispered and headed back to the door.

"Mark..."

"Yeah?"

"Will it go away, I mean will the pain die. I don't remember what it was like after April's death and before Mimi came into my life."

"I don't think it will ever die, but I think, if you want it to, it'll put itself into a box only to be opened when you need it to."

Roger only nodded in response as Mark walked out. He walked over to his guitar and began to strum a few chords from the song he had written to Mimi. The song he had sung to her right before he almost lost her the first time. Soon he began to sing:

I should tell you, I should tell you

I have always loved you

You can see it in my eyes...

And with that he began to weep.

~*~

"I'm really worried about Roger," Mark said to Maureen and Joanne.

"I know what you mean, I remember how it was after April's death, but then it he was dealing with her choice of suicide. With Mimi though, she died because of AIDS, and I think a small part of Roger realizes that, that is how he is going to die. Even if the rest of him doesn't." Maureen told Mark as she wrapped her arm around his waist. "We don't need anymore death, how long is it before we lose Roger, a year, two, maybe five? I know he isn't exactly my favorite person in the world, but Mark, he's family, and I don't think I can take his death on top of Mimi's and Angel's. They were both wonderful people, and I have this threatening feeling neither of them will ever leave the air in which we breathe in." Silently she began to sob.

"Darling, he won't die within the next year, I have this feeling he won't. Come on sweetie, we need to put on a strong face, neither Collins or Roger need to see anymore tears. They cry their own enough." Joanne whispered to Maureen as she slowly turned Maureen to her. All three of them however stopped, and began to cry in their own circle.

The only person who didn't seem to be crying anymore that afternoon was Collins, but that was because he simply refused to cry anymore.

~*~

A few hours later, Mark, Joanne, Maureen, and Collins had all gathered in the living room of the loft. Roger sat out on the fire escape, a cigarette hanging loosely in his mouth as he stared out into the sunset. He noted that sometime during the afternoon the sun had come out. He just hadn't realized when. He began to strum a few chords, he didn't even realize that just below him, a young girl was sitting with a cup of coffee in one hand, a pencil in the other sketching the scene around her.
She, however, began to hear the guitar. She looked up into the vented ceiling above her and saw where the sound was coming from. She set aside her sketch pad and listened to the beautiful, mourning music above her. She had no idea who this man was, nor what his story was, but she new something horrible had happened in his life, and she knew it from his music. When he stopped playing she decided to speak up.

"That was beautiful."

"What?" Roger looked around but he had no clue where the voice was coming from.

"I said, that was beautiful."

"I heard what you said, but where are you?"

"Down here." Roger looked down at the vented floor and saw the young woman standing up looking straight at him.

"Oh, thanks."

"No problem," she giggled. "What's your name?" She asked him.

"Roger."

"Hello Roger, nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you new here?"

"Yup, moved in two nights ago. Still haven't completely unpacked. That probably won't happen until all my furniture and roommate arrive though."

"Yeah." Roger said becoming uninterested with the conversation.

"You celebrating tonight?"

"Huh? Celebrating what?"

"New Years Eve, genius. The start of a new year, the beginning of a new journey, the step into a new adventure, the..."

"I get it." Roger said cutting her off, god she talked a lot.

"Sorry...so are you?"

"Yeah."

"Um, neat." "Yeah"

"Well, you have an um, good night. See you around." The young woman said as she gathered her coffee mug, stuck her pencil behind her ear, picked up her sketch pad, and crawled through the large window into her home.

"Maybe." Roger said, hoping it wouldn't happen.

"Roger! Come on in, the party is about to begin." Voices cried out to him from the living room.

"Coming." Roger said as he crawled back through the window.

~*~
A few hours later, and after the group was completely drunk. They all gathered around the broken TV to watch the ball drop.

"5...4...3...2...1. HAPPY NEW YEAR!" The group shouted at each other. And it was then, in his drunken stupor, that Roger got the feeling the year was about to pick up.

A/N: Reviews please.