Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author's notes: More, more, more. Here it is. Thanks for all the reviews!

Mark stood in front of the hospital doors, staring at them as though some form of telekinetic power would just open them for him. Bold words were staring him back in the face. 'Scarsdale Community Hospital Main Admitting Area—Push Door To Open.'

Roger stood next to his roommate/something a bit more than friends as they had started to call it, looking back and forth between the door and Mark. "Mark, we don't have to be here." He offered quietly, stopping his gaze on Mark. "We can just get back on the bus."

Mark hadn't said much since the phone call from Cindy. He had said even less since they had gotten onto the bus to Scarsdale. Now Mark talking was nonexistent.

"I have to go in." Mark spoke glancing back at Roger. "Even if its only for five minutes to prove how much Cindy is exaggerating…because she is." He added as an afterthought.

To Roger it sounded as though Mark was trying to convince himself, which he thought was weird, considering the way Mark had never exactly loved his family. "Then the first step would be to open the door."

"I can't." Mark turned back to the door. "My family's in there."

"Then we'll go back to the bus station."

"But I have to go in."

Roger sighed. "Mark, you know that I'm going to go with you whatever your choice is, but seriously. If you don't just make up your mind I'm going to pick you up and carry you to where I want to go." He watched Mark's face flicker in indecisiveness before he took a resigned step forward, shoving the door open and walking in. "I guess that means we're going in then." He caught the door before it closed and walked in after Mark, who was waiting for a receptionist that looked less than enthralled to be there to get off the phone.

"Mark!" They didn't have to wait very long. A redheaded woman that looked about 30 was walking hurriedly down the hallway. "Mark, oh god, it's horrible!" As she got closer, they could see her face was tear streaked, eyes red and puffy, and her nose was quite red and shiny. "Come on, they're upstairs." She grabbed his arm, and started dragging him violently. After a brief moment of suppressing his laughter at Mark's forceful sister, Roger followed. Not a single word was spoken as they went up two flights of stairs down a hallway, turned right, went down another hallway went up three more flights of stairs, down one last hallway and into a small room where there was a woman lying in the bed asleep. "Mom. Mark's here. And his friend um…" She announced quickly. She didn't wake up.

"Roger." Roger filled in quietly, holding up a hand in a short uncomfortable wave towards the woman. He wasn't about to offer his hand to her. "I'm Mark's friend Roger."

"Oh right…" The woman wiped her face. "The one with…" She trailed off.

Mark looked around the room, out of breath. As far as he could tell, nothing was wrong with his mother, who was lying on the bed. She wasn't hooked up to any monitors; there was a small cut on her forehead, but that was it. She was just sleeping. "This is it? We ran up the stairs with you for this? Cindy why didn't we take an elevator? Mom's not going anywhere." His tone and his face matched. Extremely annoyed. But on the bright side Richard was not in the room. He wasn't ready for that.

Cindy gave him a look. "We didn't take an elevator because the stairs are faster. And dad will be out of surgery any minute. I wanted to be here when he got here."

"He is not our father." Mark crossed his arms over his chest, and then sighed, uncrossing them. "I can't believe you rushed me down here for him. I thought you said the accident was serious."

"It is for him. I don't understand what you have against him anyways. You never even gave him a chance." Cindy got a little agitated, seemingly forgetting her emotions from earlier.

Mark hesitated from a moment. "I can't believe you Cindy. When you called you made it sound like Mom was already dead. This is nothing." He gestured around the room, carefully dancing around the subject of his stepfather.

"I was upset! I am upset!" She shot back quickly. "God Mark, I don't understand you at all. Why aren't you upset at all! Your flesh and blood is in the hospital. Your stepfather is lying on an operating table and he could be dying."

"I hope he his." Roger muttered. It had just come out, he hadn't really meant to say it out loud. But just thinking about everything Richard had put Mark through made an intense hatred come up. He was brought back into the room by Cindy's hand colliding with his cheek. "What the hell?"

"How can you say that about Mark's family?" She challenged.

"That bastard is not Mark's family!" Roger shouted before he could stop himself.

Mark put a hand on his arm, recognizing the look of rage in Roger's eyes and hoping to make it retreat. "Roger calm down."

Cindy glared. "Who do you think you are to talk about his family? What do you know about family? Who do you have? Your drug dealer!"

"Cindy!" Mark's eyes widened at the comment.

"I've known Mark for ten years. He is my family!" Roger had taken a deep breath before saying this. It came out to be a little less harsh, but was still quite angry. "And I know more about him than you ever will."

"Just because he was a little shit and ran away because he couldn't deal with the fact that mom had moved on from our dad!"

Mark knew things were bad now, because Cindy would rarely swear. But he was also getting angrier. "You don't know why I ran away, and if you think that that was the reason then you have a lot—,"

"Oh come off it. 'You don't know why I ran away.'" Cindy mocked angrily cutting him off. "What does it matter! You abandoned our family!"

"Well if you hate me so much then why the hell did you call me!" Mark was going to continue, but his watch went off. "Shit." He muttered, turning to Roger. "Where's our stuff?"

Roger reached into his pocket, pulling out two bottles, handing one over to Mark. "Here." Both opened their bottles, taking out their doses and swallowing the pills dry. Roger took the bottles back, and they went into his pocket.

"What was that stuff?" Cindy looked back and forth between the two, her anger suddenly tamed. "Was that AZT? Mark, are you sick too?" When she didn't get an answer she through her hands up in the air, glaring at Roger once more. "Great. Now you gave my little brother AIDS."

"I didn't give him anything." Roger took a step forward, ignoring the hand that Mark had put back on his arm.

She rolled her eyes. "How else did he get it?"

"I would never do anything to hurt Mark. You might want to talk to your precious father about that one."

She slapped him again. "Richard loves Mark! He just got mad at him because he ran away and didn't try to be a good son! He wouldn't do anything to hurt Mark either."

"Could have fooled me."

"Um…excuse me?" A doctor in scrubs ducked into the room. "This is the Cohen family correct?"

Cindy's visage relaxed a little and she turned. "Yes, do you have any news about Richard?"

"Yes well…you see there were some complications during the surgery. And we exercised every option within our power, but we were unable to revive him. I'm quite sorry." The doctor left just quickly.

Roger watched Mark as he heard the news. For a moment the boy looked as though the world was off his shoulders, and then all the stress seemed to return. "So, what now?" He asked quietly.

Cindy seemed to have forgotten everything, rushing over to her mother's bedside and grabbing her mother's hand.

"I…well…" Mark brought Roger out into the hall. "I think I have to stay for the funeral."

Roger didn't understand why he would want to, but he nodded anyway and didn't say anything about it. He was still agitated about Cindy, and bringing up Mark's strange sense of loyalty wouldn't help things. He listened as Mark explained the rest of his thoughts, including how he should go back to New York now. This was where he protested, not wanting to leave Mark alone, but in the end, he conceded knowing that Mark was right. If he stayed, all that would happen would be that things would be worse in the long run.

So they ate a cheap hospital cafeteria soup together, and then Roger went back to the bus station, to go back to the city.

There's one. Glad to get Richard out of the picture for good. Next one will be up soon.