Disclaimer: Rent is fabulous, however, I don't own it.

Author's Notes: Just posting this one with three, so no notes.

Italics….you should know this by now. Flashbacks.

Chapter Four

"Oh my god…what happened to my hair?"

"December 27th, 12:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. Mark has just been allowed to get out of bed for the first time, and of course he chooses to go to a mirror." Collins was in charge of Mark's camera while he had gone into the bathroom to perform his usual bathing rituals.

Mark walked out of the tiny hospital bathroom, a look of shock on his face. "What happened to my hair?" He repeated looking at the four friends who were placed various places around the room.

Collins snickered a little, putting the camera down. "It looks to me like it's gone."

Mark sent him a look, and Joanne took over the explanation in her normal rational manner. "The doctor had to shave it off so he could properly clean and bandage your head injury."

"Don't look so depressed Marky…" Maureen almost sounded sympathetic with him, and for once, Mark ignored how much he hated it when she called him that. "It's not like your hair was your best feature or anything."

Now Joanne sent her partner a look, even though she was laughing a little.

Mark sighed, even blushed a little at the simple teasing notion. He hated being so fair skinned. He always blushed so easily. Not that at the moment anyone could notice. "Are you saying that you'd like it if your hair was suddenly gone? I look like a….a…"

"Melon." Roger filled the blank in quite easily. "Without hair you look like a melon."

"Don't listen to them Mark." Collins grinned a little. "I'm sure Angel won't mind if you borrow one of her wigs for a little while until it grows back." He grabbed the camera once more. "Zoom in on Mark…who for once will be the subject of his films until he can actually hold a camera again. Mark tell the folks at home how you feel."

Mark's only response was using his good hand to flip off the camera.

And everyone laughed. Yet again things were normal. This was attack was just a minor setback.

That was two days ago. And now they were on their way home. Mark had been released from the hospital, and now Roger and Collins were escorting Mark into the apartment. Even though he was healthy enough to be out, his lung capacity wasn't up to the standard he was used to, and the stairs had been quite the long journey.

He was still wearing Roger's coat. The coat that had a couple small bloodstains on it. His blood. And he couldn't even put his left arm through the sleeve. So he had tried to convince Roger to take it back but no matter what Roger wouldn't take it. So the entire way home Mark had wasted a jacket. At least in his opinion, but that was OK for the others.

Roger opened the door, and they all entered the loft, and surprisingly, it was warm. He hadn't known about this, considering it was his first time in the apartment in about three days. "Collins, was the heat working when you came over here?" He tossed the bag of stuff onto their defeated looking couch.

"Don't think so." Collins removed his coat, tossing it with the bag.

"Somebody better find Benny and tell him that somebody flipped the switch then." Roger smirked. "Because it totally ruins his plans of freezing us out of this place."

Mark rolled the eyes where the swelling had started to go down. "Will you just appreciate it? It probably won't last long anyways."

They were all settling around the apartment, in a silent fashion. Well, almost silent.

"Speak!" The familiar answering machine voice suddenly picked up.

"Mark, Mark, I know you're there!" Mark groaned at the nasally high-pitched voice. "Mark it's your mother." She waited and sighed. "Fine. Mark, we're worried. We heard there were some muggings in your neighborhood."

Collins snorted. "When haven't there been?"

"Anyway, Cindy told me about them. And we're very concerned." She repeated. "Will you stop screening your calls?"

"No." Mark spoke as though she could hear him.

"We're very worried because we never hear from you."

Mark mocked her singsong voice. "That's because I hate you."

But there was no more message, because as Mark had mocked, Roger had gone to the phone. "Sorry about the delay in answering Mrs. Cohen, we just got back in."

It was strange to hear the words come out of Roger's mouth. But both men knew what the rocker was doing. Mark started frantically motioning with his hand; Collins started laughing. "Of course, he's right here." Roger walked over and handed Mark the phone.

Mark covered the receiver with his hand. "What are you doing?" He hissed sort of angrily.

And there was that Roger grin again. "If you talk to her now, then she'll leave you alone for at least a couple of hours."

With a dejected sigh Mark put the phone to his ear. "Hi mom…yes I'm fine…you and Dick are coming to visit?" Just at this thought both people in the room could hear every ounce of worry in his voice. "Yes, I know his name is Richard…I told you I'm fine…."

It was two hours later that Mark was asleep on the couch. He had talked for only fifteen minutes to his mother but that time seemed to have exhausted him, because when he hung up he had fallen asleep. For a while Roger and Collins had left him there doing her own thing, but then they watched as he flopped down. His lower torso was still in the same position but his upper was now strewn across the couch.

"Let's put him in his room." Collins sighed standing up.

"Why?"

Tom looked at the position that the boy was in, with his mouth slightly open, a pool of drool about to form. " 'Cause that can not be comfortable."

Roger shook his head. "His mattress is a piece of shit. I should know it used to be mine."

"Well it's better then this couch."

This sort of convinced Roger to get up. "Fine. I'll get him you get the door."

"There's no one at the…" A knock at the door cut Collins off. "How'd you do that?"

"It's a gift." Roger shrugged, as Collins turned to the door. With a bit of a sigh, he bent over and gingerly picked his friend up. "Shit Cohen, you really have lost weight."

He carried a feather light Mark into his room. Mark's room was cleaner than the rest of the loft, but it most certainly wasn't clean. With another sigh he let go of him with one hand and pulled back the covers. Then he set Mark down, and he pulled the threadbare sheets over his friend, tucking them in around his body, before removing his glasses and placing them on the bedside table.

Standing back, he looked down for a minute. Something was missing. Roger got it soon after, and exited the room in a relaxed manner. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the apartment. And then he got into the living room area and froze. "Benny."

"Hey Roger." Benny lifted his hand in a sort of wave greeting. "How is he?"

There was no question of who the he was. "He's sleeping." Roger tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "What are you doing here Benny?"

"I thought I should come see how Mark was."

"He's fine." Despite how quiet and awkward the conversation was, this was Roger and Benny at their civilest. They both knew it was because Roger didn't want to wake up Mark. "How did you know he was hurt?"

"Collins told me." Benny shrugged. "I thought you should know that I took care of his bill."

"Why, so you can hold something else over us?" Roger's statement was bitter, not that he didn't have a reason.

"Because he's my friend too!" Benny nearly interrupted harshly. After a deep breath he calmed down. "Tom also told me what Mark was doing…"

"And what's that?"

"How he was starving himself to make sure that you got your meds, and were eating and that the rent was paid." Benny sighed. "And I plan to remedy this."

"How, more charity?" Roger wanted to die, when he realized that what Benny was saying was true. He had been ignoring it, but Mark was ignoring his own health for Roger's. But instead of his depressed tone, he went with the defensive angry one.

Benny didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm changing the rules of the building. There's not going to be any rent and utilities will always be free for anyone that needs it, as long as they're clean." For a moment nobody spoke. "It's not just for you. I've been thinking about it for a while…ever since…for a while. But with this thing with Mark, I've decided to make it official. Here's the money you gave me for this month." He handed it over to Roger.

"Umm…thanks."

"I'll go now."

Benny left without another word and Collins looked over to Roger as though reading his mind. "Want me to take it and go shopping?"

"If you want."

"It's Tom's pleasure."

Collins bowed gracefully out of the apartment, and not a moment later, Mark showed up.

"Who was that?"

"Benny. I thought you were sleeping." Roger turned around.

"I was." Mark walked somewhat gingerly to the couch. "Who put those blankets on me? It was like hospital corners."

"I did." Roger paused. "Why'd you wake up?"

"Dunno." Mark shrugged.

Roger knew. "I forgot to bring him in with you." He reached into the bag, and brought out Roosevelt, handing him to Mark. Then he was his usual self, and shoved the junk off the coffee table to lay on it. "So I heard that your mom and stepfather were coming up for a visit."

"Yeah. It ought to be a real fucking party."

"When's the date?"

"Two weeks."

"You OK?"

"No."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

There you go. I'll have much more next weekend. Including the soundtrack!

By the way, I realize that Mark probably doesn't have a stepfather, but he needs to for my plan…so too bad.