A/N: This is the first thing I've written (besides my Macabre Puppet Show piece) since I've finished finals. Thank GOD they're over. –long sigh of relief-

.-.-.

Joanne woke the next morning from odd dreams filled of Celia and that stranger...and Maureen. She didn't quite understand what it was about her, but she was so kind to her...

As she first woke, she didn't want to open her eyes. If she opened her eyes, she would find herself in Maureen's place, and it would confirm that all the events of the night before had really happened. If she just stayed here, motionless, maybe she would even fall back asleep. And then again, maybe everything she had dreamt had been one big dream. Yes, last night didn't happen. She was in her dorm right now, and when she opened her eyes, she would be in her own old bed, ready to get dressed and board the next train to New York. Yes, Friday hadn't even happened. No Mother still staring at her with wide eyes. No odd landlord. No Maureen. And definitely no Celia, coming into her dorm late at night with another girl. None of it had happened...

"OW!"

Her fantasy fluttered away as her eyes snapped open at the sound of somebody shrieking. Joanne sat up on the couch, looking around the large loft for whoever had made the sound. She saw Maureen next to the coffee maker, her right index finger in her mouth as she jumped up and down, muttering curses under her breath. Joanne rubbed her eyes for a moment before speaking. "Maureen? What's wrong?"

The young woman spun around, still sucking on her finger. "Good morning, Joanne. Stupid coffee maker...it burned my finger..."

Joanne stood up, only realizing when she stood that she was still wearing the clothes from last night. She looked around her, at the dirty windows that let in just a little bit of light. "What time is it?"

Maureen was now shaking her hand roughly, as if trying to shoo away the burn on her finger. "About ten."

It took a moment for Joanne to recuperate from this realization. She never slept this late. "T-ten!"

Maureen shrugged. "Well, you didn't get to sleep last night until about one."

Now it made sense. Joanne usually was in bed by ten o'clock. An extra three hours awake meant an extra three hours of sleeping. Now her whole sleeping schedule was thrown off. For a moment Joanne was going to worry about this, but she stopped herself, thinking to herself that is was silly to worry about things like that. "Thanks." She looked back up at Maureen and saw her fiddling with a Band-Aid. "You want me to make the coffee?"

Maureen gave her an appreciative smile. "Sure. I can't figure out that thing for the life of me..."

A while later, both of them were sitting on the couch, quietly drinking their mugs of coffee. (It had taken an extra minute or so to actually find some clean mugs.) Maureen was telling Joanne all about the history of 'the loft'.

"Well, first it was just Mark and Roger here. But then I met Mark about six months ago. He's such a sweetie. So I moved in January. Benny moved in not too long before then, but he moved out last month to marry some yuppie chick, Allison. Roger calls her Muffy, though." This caused Joanne to laugh into her coffee, a few drops sloshing over the edge. Maureen smiled at her. "I know. And, well, Collins had been Roger's friend for years, and he has his own room for when he's not at NYU. He's coming back in a week, I think, to spend the weekend."

"What does he study at NYU?"

"Oh, he doesn't study..." Maureen began to laugh softly, as if she was trying to hide the hilarity of the situation.

Joanne raised an eyebrow. "What does he do there?"

"Well, I guess he's technically a teacher..." Maureen laughed a little more. "He's an anarchist philosopher. And he's trying to establish his own theory of 'Actual Reality' in all the universities on the east coast. He's going to try MIT for the summer and fall semesters."

"...'Actual Reality'?" It was hard for Joanne to conceal her interest. She was always interested in philosophy. She had thought often that if her parents hadn't been lawyers, she might have studied it further. "How does that work?"

Maureen shrugged. "I don't get it that well. But he's so enthusiastic when he talks about it, it must be pretty good. He'll get so into it..." Maureen jumped up suddenly, feet spread apart, and spoke in a low voice and began to imitate whom Joanne assumed was Collins, complete with sweeping arm movements and foot stomping. "Our world is being destroyed by the virtual life of today! All this 'virtual reality'! Whatever happened to that grand ACTUAL reality?"

Both of them were laughing by the time she was finished making her point. Joanne had to set her coffee mug on the floor so that it didn't tip over. "He sounds like a neat guy, actually."

Maureen nodded. "He really is. I mean, all the enthusiasm he has...it's almost a turn-on." Both of them continued to laugh. "Too bad he's gay."

"Seriously!" Joanne didn't seem to be able to stop laughing now.

"Yeah!"

It took almost a minute before either of them had stopped laughing. Joanne was the first to stop after a few calming breaths. "What about Mark and Roger? What are they like?"

Maureen shrugged. "Roger...well, he's having a rough time. You see...his girlfriend, April...she died not too long ago."

This wasn't what Joanne was expecting. "Oh...I'm so sorry to hear."

Maureen shrugged again. "Yeah. She slit her wrists after just leaving a note to Roger telling him they were both HIV positive."

Joanne was stunned. "She committed suicide because she found out she had AIDS? And just left her boyfriend!"

Maureen had her eyes closed in deep thought. "Yeah, the bitch. Me and Mark never liked her, and I don't think Collins was impressed when he saw her. And Mark found out not long after April died that both of them had been doing smack pretty heavily."

Joanne put her hand over her mouth to suppress her gasp. Maureen looked up at her. "Yeah. So that's how they probably got the virus. That's why their both gone. Mark took him to a rehab place up north. Said he'd probably be back Monday. Didn't know if Roger would be coming back with him or not. That's why I think it might not be so good if you stuck around to see them back."

Joanne nodded. "I understand completely. I need to get back to Harvard to finish up my classes anyways. I'll...call the dean of students to tell her I'm switching dorms. I know another friend of mine who I'll be able to room with."

Maureen placed a hand on Joanne's, smiling. "You're always welcome here during the weekends. Do you want me to go up there myself to get your stuff?"

Joanne shrugged, picking up her almost empty coffee mug from the floor. "If you want to. I was gonna go up today anyways."

"Honey, I'll just go up there. You're welcome to stay here. Just write out directions on how to get there from the train station, and I'm good."

"Are you sure?" Joanne blinked a few times, taking her mug to the sink and turning the tap, slightly confused when no water came out. "I can just go up myself..."

"No, no." Maureen brought her own mug over, reaching around Joanne and hitting the handle as a weak stream of water suddenly came out and began rinsing out the two mugs. "I'll go up. You don't need to have to see that bitch ever again."

Joanne looked Maureen in the eye, smiling. "Thanks. That means a lot. Seriously."

Maureen smiled back, setting the two mugs full of water to soak in the sink. She walked over to another counter, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen. "Just write some directions, and I'm all good."

Joanne nodded, taking the pen and quickly writing out some directions, including which bus to take from the station to get on campus, which building she was in, and her apartment number. She handed the pad of paper to her, smiling. "Here. It's on the third floor of the building. And if the cab tries to take you to Building B, smack 'em upside the head."

Maureen laughed softly. "I'll be back by three, then! You can stay here, or explore, whichever. If you walk up 11th street, there's a nice café, Life. You can grab a bite there for pretty cheep. I'm fresh out of cash, but if you've got enough that might be a place to consider."

Joanne smiled. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind, definitely."

Then, Maureen did something Joanne didn't expect: she pulled her into a tight hug. Joanne stood for a moment, stunned, and then returned the hug. Maureen hugged her a moment longer, then let go, smiling. "You take care of yourself!" She had turned and gone just as suddenly as she had hugged her, and Joanne was left blinking in a dazed manner.

Joanne looked around the now empty loft. She saw a folder that seemed to be brimming with black and white photos. Joanne moseyed over to the folder, picking it up. There were a lot of pictures in there. Many of them were of a dark looking young man huddled over his guitar, playing a song. A few others were of the same man with a smiling girl, and Joanne immediately assumed this was Roger and April. Roger looked like he would be a great guy to know, and she could tell from the look in his eyes as he played he was loving it.

She saw a few pictures taken of a spontaneous Maureen, doing crazy things in front of the camera, posing in every possible manner. She even saw one picture in which it looked like Maureen had grabbed the camera and pulled the photographer into the picture. He had glasses and looked thoroughly annoyed that Maureen had his camera, and Maureen was laughing. This must be Mark, she thought. Even though Maureen hadn't specifically said he was her boyfriend, she could tell.

There were a few rare pictures of a tall man with Roger, laughing at Roger, probably at something he had said. Joanne assumed this was Collins from the energy that seemed to leek out of the picture and infect her with happiness. It took a great person to excite somebody through a picture, this much she knew.

She found one picture that definitely made her smile. It looked like it was the whole group: Mark holding the camera in front of them all, Roger holding him in a one-armed hug, a wide-eyed Collins hovering over them all, and Maureen cuddled up next to Mark with puckered lips. There was somebody else there, too: another man, with a light smirk, who was pulled into the picture by Collins. This stranger was looking at Maureen as he seemed to be shaking his head. Benny, she guessed. He seemed the most out of place out of them all, but even he had a light in his eyes that told Joanne all of them were happy. A true group of friends, meant for each other. It wasn't often you saw a group like that. Was Joanne destined to be a part of this group? Even though she hadn't met any of them before, she felt like she had known them, had seen their faces somewhere before...

RIIING. Joanne jumped, dropping the folder of pictures. She spun around, facing the phone as the answering machine went off. The sound of two men droning in monotones: 'Speak.'

A man's voice came over the speaker, concerned. "Maureen? Oh, you're probably out...Umm, it's me..."

Joanne hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do. Maybe she should just let the answering machine get it. If this was Mark, it would be hard to explain who she was, and moreover, why she was in his apartment.

"Umm, the specialists gave Roger a sort of plan I'm supposed to help him with for the next few months so he can, umm...get over this..." Joanne immediately felt uncomfortable listening to this. She felt like she was invading somebody's personal life. "So, both of us'll be back Monday, like I told you...umm, don't try calling here when you get this, we'll probably already be on our way down...So, the loft's still yours until Monday."

A cynical voice came on. "Bet she's burned down the building or something."

"Roger, not now!" Mark (for she was sure it must be Mark now) hissed at Roger, and then continued in his normal tone. "So, I'll see you then, honey..." The line went dead as Joanne suppressed laughter at Roger's comment. For as short of a time Joanne had known Maureen, she almost suspected that Roger had been almost serious in his joke.

Maybe she should go try getting a bite at that Life Café Maureen mentioned. Joanne grabbed her jacket off of the floor where it had fallen off in her sleep, rushed into the bathroom to make sure she looked alright (she had to wash her face), and walked out of the loft, ready to walk back out into this crazy city that had already brought so much change in the 24 hours she had known it.