Author's Note: This gets kinda disturbing...sorry if that bothers you. Also, I'm sorry there aren't divisions in this decided to be evil and not let me put them in.

Chapter 5

(Mimi)

A cold front blows in the first week of December.

Of course it would. Naturally. It's been warm all season, but now of course, now that I have no place to stay, it gets cold.

I sit in the park and keep The Man company, making sure to hide whenever I see Mark coming home, on his way home from work or wherever it is that he goes now.

"My star customer," The Man says, running his fingers through my hair. "Stay on that bench as long as you like. You're a hell of a lot easier to look at than the rest of this fucking filthy city."

He laughs, displaying a set of horribly yellowed and cracked teeth.

My stomach turns, threatening to embarrass me, but I force myself to smile back.

The Man would be angry if he knew how much I hated him.

And fuck it, I need him too much for him to be angry.

You're thinking like a fucking teenager with her first crush, Mimi, I tell myself. But I know it's not him. Could never be him. It's what he has to offer.

I shiver, and start to go in my coat pocket for money, then stop myself. I need to get clean, I tell myself over and over again. But it's so cold it hurts to breathe, and my head is pounding.

The entire world looks gray.

Soon, I tell myself. I'll do it soon. I just can't…not right now.

I get up and walk over to The Man. He smiles at me, that sickening cracked smile.

"I know what you want," he says softly. "I bet I have just the thing."

I reach into my pockets for money. My heart skips a beat. There's nothing there.

"I—I don't—someone must have stolen it while I was asleep," I stammer, realizing I don't know whether I spent the last of it or if it was stolen.

The Man just keeps on smiling.

"That's all right, love." He puts a hand on my waist. I resist the urge to kick him. "You can pay me in other ways."

He leans in and kisses me. I swallow, tasting bile at the back of my throat.

I've done this so many times.

Why do I never get used to it?

(Mark)

"Mark!"

Someone starts banging on the door. I try to ignore it and put on my headphones, forcing myself to concentrate on the clip I'm editing. I can still hear the noise.

The banging gets louder, and I start to worry that they're going to break down the door. Which I can't afford to fix right now.

I get up and go to the door, then stand in the entranceway, trying to work up the courage to actually open it. It's been a week since Mimi left and I haven't seen or heard from her. Only Collins knows what happened, but evidently now he's told the others, because that is definitely Maureen's voice screaming at me from the hallway and I can't think of anything else I might have done to piss her off.

"Mark! Open the God damn door!"

I throw the door open, preparing to yell at her, but what I see makes me lose my conviction. Maureen, Joanne, and Collins are standing out in the hall, looking at me none too happily.

"Hi?" I say lamely.

"Mark," says Collins gently. "We need to talk."

"Okay," I say cautiously, ushering them all inside. Maureen sits on the aluminum folding table, Joanne on the couch. Collins stands a few feet away from me. It's the first time I've seen him since the day of the funeral.

"What?" I snap.

"Mark—"

"Look, I know I fucked up, okay?"

"Mark—"

"I'm not Roger, you know. I'm not clueless." And then of course I feel terrible the moment I've said it. There's a moment of awkward silence.

"Right now you're acting like it," says Maureen at last.

I go over and sit at the far end of the couch.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just…got mad."

Collins comes over and stands beside the couch, leaning a little on the back of it.

"No one's saying this is easy. Or that it's going to be. But we can't just…stop trying. All we have is each other. If we lose that, we're nothing."

"I know," I say again. "I know. I just…don't know what to do. I got mad, and then I let her leave and…I wouldn't even know where to start looking. I don't know her like Roger did." They all look at me strangely. "Does." I add belatedly.

"Well, we have to start somewhere," says Maureen. "You know she didn't have any money."

"And if she did," says Joanne, "she wouldn't be spending it on…anything useful."

"So…" says Collins thoughtfully. "Start with the park?"

"Already tried it," I say.

"I thought you hadn't looked for her at all," says Joanne.

"Well…not really," I admit. "But I look every time I go by on my way home."

"Doesn't matter," Collins decides. "We're going to the park and we're going to ask around. And we're not coming back until we know something."

(Roger)

It's the middle of the night by the time I get home, but I can still see a light coming from under Sam's door. Again. It's there every night. The light flickers a little, dims for a moment, then brightens again, and I realize suddenly that it's not coming from a lamp. It has to be either a flashlight or a candle.

I lie down on the couch and tell myself to ignore it, not to risk getting too involved. Ever since Thanksgiving, Sam's been pushing. I grab a pillow and hug it to my chest, trying not to wonder what's going on at home. Which isn't home anymore.

I shake my head at my own muddled thoughts and sit up. The light's still there.

"Sam?" I call. I almost don't want to know what she's doing in there.

There's not answer. I get up and go over to the door, knock on it.

"Sam?" I call again.

Still no answer. Suddenly I have a bad feeling about this. Part of me wants to just go back to bed and forget about it for another few hours, find out what's happened in the morning. But the other part of me, the lonely part, wants nothing more than to just go in there and fall asleep next to someone.

"Sam?" I call a third time.

Nothing.

Slowly, quietly, I open the door, waiting for some kind of explosion, something telling me that what I'm doing is wrong.

Sam's sitting on the bed, her back to me. Four candles are sitting on her desk, lit, but slowly burning down.

"Sam?" I say softly.

She turns around and suddenly bursts into laughter at the sight of me. For a moment I think that I've done something wrong, that I'm not thinking straight. But then I see her eyes, shining in the candle light.

Big, brown, and completely empty.

I can't help myself. I turn and run, stopping only to grab my old acoustic guitar on my way out.

I've seen that look too many times. Far too many times.

I go out the door, not even stopping to get my jacket, and just keep going.

It starts to snow just a little as I run, and the coldness of the air makes my chest burn. I start to cough, but I don't even care. I just keep going.

By the time I reach the gas station, I can't feel my toes and the snow is falling so thick it's getting hard to see. I stumble into the parking lot. It's deserted. My old car sits off to the side, not even under the overhang of the building.

I fumble in my pocket for the keys, deciding to chance it.

I get in and thrust the keys into the ignition. It starts. And keeps going.

I swallow against the acid in my throat. She lied. Told me it was still broken so I wouldn't leave.

I step on the gas and drive until I can't drive anymore, then pull over on the side of the road and stretch out in the back seat. It's freezing.

One image is burned into my mind, haunting me as I try to sleep.

Brown eyes. Empty brown eyes.

And suddenly I know what I have to do.

I sit up and lunge for my guitar in the front seat, playing until I can't feel my fingers anymore in the cold. The pain feels good. At least it's not numbness anymore.