There was the sound of a ceramic mug falling and shattering on the floor and Mark collapsed. Maureen's heart pounded. "Ohmygod!" she cried as Mark fell onto the floor, unconscious from shock. She knelt next to him, her breathing quick and shallow, trying to revive him as she heard a door slam behind her and rapid footsteps coming nearer.

A second later, Roger and Mimi were standing over her, looking down at her with wide eyes. "What the fuck?" Roger exclaimed sleepily, his face quickly growing more alert and less sleepy. It was obvious that he and Mimi had both been asleep, their hair was both tousled and their faces still slightly flushed from sleep. When Roger finally registered what had happened he cried "Jesus!" and squatted down beside Mark, smacking his face lightly to try and wake him.

Mimi looked down at Maureen with her mouth hanging open. "What the hell happened?" she gasped out, staring at Maureen. "Did you hit him or something?"

"No!" Maureen cried, standing up with a huff. "I came here to tell him something…important…and it surprised him so much that he fainted."

Roger stopped yelling at Mark to wake up and stared up at her with eyebrows raised. Mimi looked at Maureen, too, There was silence for a moment, until Maureen looked down at Mark, still unconscious, and said, quite angrily, "Oh for Christ's sake!" as she squatted down next to Mark again, leaning in close to his face and saying, firmly, "Mark. Mark, WAKE UP."

The filmmaker blinked a little, his face still cold and pale, and looked up at her. "Maureen?" he asked foggily. "What…?"

Roger and Mimi looked at each other and Maureen trained her eyes on Mark, not letting their gazes pierce her. Mark sat up slowly and looked at her. After a moment, the memory of why he had collapsed seemed to return to him and his eyes widened again. "oh…god," he whispered. His hand flew to his forehead. "Oh…mygod."

"What happened?" Roger asked him calmly, looking at Mark intently. Mark's mouth opened and Maureen gave him a pleading, melodramatic pout and he closed it again.

Roger was staring at him expectantly and Mimi's brown eyes were boring into his as he looked around at them, finally sighing and murmuring, "Maureen and I need some time alone to talk, okay?"

Roger and Mimi exchanged another annoyed, skeptical glance but Roger replied, "All right, we'll be in our room." He stood, putting an arm around Mimi's shoulders to guide her back to their room.

Mark stood, slowly, holding himself up by the arm of the chair he'd been sitting in ad looking at Maureen, his face still white with fright and shock. "How did this happen?" he whispered, his face screwed up in amazement.

Maureen sat down, her face in her hands, and looked back up at him. "Well, we really should have been more careful," she said "I mean, we should have used protection."

Mark stared at her. "Protection! I thought you were on birth control!"

Maureen tried not to laugh as she looked him in the face. "Mark, are you freaking serious? I'm a LESBIAN. I'm dating a WOMAN. Why would I bother with birth control when the chances of getting pregnant are absolutely zero?"

Mark smacked himself so hard in the forehead that he almost fell over again. "God, how could I have been so stupid? I should have known…"

Maureen stood and began to pace. "It's all right, Mark, I'll just get an abortion and then we can forget—"

"No!" Mark cried, standing and seizing Maureen's shoulders. "No, you can't get an abortion!"

"Why not?" Maureen replied defiantly. "It's my body, it's my decision. If I want an abortion I'll get one. And there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

Mark sighed. "Please, Maureen. Don't get an abortion. Look…" He sat her down. "I know this has come as a surprise to both of us and I know that I might have reacted badly, but please don't get an abortion."

"I can't have a baby, Mark," she said firmly.

"But…but why not? I'm responsible. I'll raise a child well. Even if you don't want it, I'll take it. At least…" he looked almost tearful suddenly, choked up slightly as he looked into her face. "At least…if you have a baby…I'll have a little piece of you."

Maureen couldn't help but be moved and flattered by his commitment to the idea of having a baby. Sure, she had been thinking for a year or so now about having a baby or adopting, so that she and Joanne could raise it together. Admittedly, her biological clock was ticking and she really wanted to be a mother no matter how much she wanted to hide it and keep being a crazy, free-spirited artist. But Joanne would leave her in a second, she would never hear the end of it from the rest of her friends, her parents would have heart attacks…and she would have to raise a child with Mark. Not that Mark was so bad. Mark would make a great father. Mark would teach a child anything…everything…that it needed to know, he would care and teach and discipline all at the same time…and if she was going to choose a man to have a child with it would have been Mark anyway. Maybe this was the best thing for them.

Mark was giving her that puppy-dog look that he had perfected during their relationship, the one that counter-balanced perfectly with her crazy guilt-tripping. She took in a deep breath, her stomach turning. "All right, I'll have the baby. As long as you promise you'll be here for me for the next nineteen year, that you will commit to this baby and that you will not leave me."

Mark stared her straight in the face. "Maureen, you left me. And I didn't want you to, you know that. If I had that little part of you, that child that was still something that you and I made together, I would hold onto it forever. I could love this baby more than anything, because that's how much loved you."

He started crying, tears of joy trickling down his cheeks and Maureen felt her own throat rising with emotion. A moment later, they were hugging, both crying. They stood together and Mark looked Maureen in the face again. "Maureen, we're going to have a baby!" he cried, pulling her tight against him.

But that sweet moment only lasted for a minute, and then Maureen was plunged back into turmoil as they sat back down. "But what am I going to tell Joanne? How are we going to afford a baby? What are we going to do about Mimi and Roger and Collins? And our parents? We can't get married, Mark."

She watched Mark's face fall just a little bit in amazement. "Mark, did you really think that we were going to get married?'

He hadn't, of course. It had been enough time for him to know that even a baby couldn't force Maureen to commit that much. Just look at the engagement (the rather unsuccessful one) between Maureen and Joanne a year ago. It had caused one of their many breakups to occur. So why would he even expect Maureen to think about engagement? Even if he got down on one knee right now he wouldn't be able to get her to accept a proposal. So he just shrugged. "I guess not, Maureen. But I don't know what we're going to do about the rest of them, honestly."

Maureen rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in one hand. "Well, I guess we should at least tell the others first."

Mark nodded, getting almost dizzily to his feet and sauntered over to Roger's bedroom door knocking lightly several times. The door opened and Roger stared out at him, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Yeah?"

"Can you and Mimi come out a second? We want to talk to you." Roger nodded, and Mark turned from the door, feeling almost zombie-like as he returned to his seat in the armchair. Mimi and Roger appeared in the living room a moment later, looking very anxious.

Maureen stood up, looking at them with an expression of fright and concern on her face. "So…we wanted to tell you guys, because this is really important to everyone…well, Mark and I had a bit of a one-night thing about a month ago…and…" She removed the pregnancy test once again from her coat pocket and showed it to them. Roger almost laughed, and Mimi's eyes got so wide that you could see the whites all the way around.

"No way, " Roger said, still chuckling from shock. "No fucking way." Mimi looked to be speechless, her eyes still wide and her mouth hanging open again. "So, are you getting an abortion, Maureen?"

"No," Mark responded, standing himself. "We're keeping it, and we're going to raise it."

Mimi looked even more shellshocked, if that was possible, and finally she seemed to find her voice again. "Congratulations!" she said weakly, and gave Maureen a hug. For the first time, Maureen managed an anemic sort of smile. "You better name it after me if it's a girl, Chica!"

Mark smiled and Roger just stared at him and shook his head, a grin on his face. "Our little Marky's gonna be a daddy!" Roger said, reaching out and giving Mark a tight hug. "Congrats, man."

Mark had to admit he was a little stunned by his friends' reactions himself. He had expected this to be more…awkward, maybe? But none of them seemed upset by the news, they all seemed happy, really. Well, I guess if they're your friends they'll stick with you no matter what, he thought. Good or bad, and try to make the best out of it.

That's more than can be said for how Joanne's going to react, though, he thought with a deep sigh as Roger gave Maureen a congratulatory hug and Mimi and Maureen jumped up and down excitedly together.