A/N: Yeah, so I'm going to probably have to space out the chapters for this fic, since this is the third chapter I've written for it. I haven't been able to publish ANYTHING for a while; I've got to post up the next few chapters of MsJ and now the first two chapters of this. Plus this is a very long chapter. I considered cutting out the part with the junkies in the middle; review and tell me whether that part was useful or not. I think I might come back to them, though...

Oh, and I noticed the other day that the abbreviation for this story is funny sounding when you say it out loud. Wimlg. WIMLG!

So, let's see what my characters decide to do now... Oh, at the end of this chapter, I will be explaining my process of writing chapters, since somebody messaged me saying they were confused.

P.S. January 1st, 12:00 PM, Central Standard Time. From here on in, I'm writing my authors notes this way. XXDD So I wrote this chapter about a week ago, and, asI think I might have said already, I'm actually finished with this fic, and I'm already writing it's sequel, which I have temorarily named 'Figuring Out My Life'. ;) It's gonna be hard to write the next one. ANYWAYS...enjoy Chapter Three of WIMLG!

.-.-.

This chapter rated PG-13 for language.

Where Is My Life Going? – Chapter Three

I must have started crying eventually, because I can suddenly hear the sounds of two distressed women sitting next to me on the couch, one of them saying over and over, "Why today? Why today?" It takes me a minute to realize my eyes are closed, but the moment I open them the tears come out harder. Shaking with sobs, I clench my eyes shut, wishing they will just leave...leave me with my hatred, leave me alone...

"Mark, calm down..." I can feel delicate arms pulling me into a tight hug, and I listen to Maureen's soft voice. "Just calm down, Mark..."

I can't. I can't calm down. I hate Roger, though why I'm not entirely sure, the tears are clouding everything in my mind...I only know that I hate Roger, I hate him, and that's all that matters, the single solid truth I understand. Nothing else makes sense anymore, but that does, for some reason. I hate him... "I hate him..."

"Stop talking nonsense, Mark," I hear Joanne say from beside me. "You both got into a fight, and you two have been friends for too long to let one fight break you up."

"I hate him...I hate him..." The solid truth, the only thing I knew was correct. My brain was slowly growing clearer, as I realized more things. I care about Angel! How dare he say I don't care about Angel, or anybody else! He acts like he is the only one who goes through anything...I have to be the one to survive...

Oh, God...what if he's right? It's like Halloween all over again...I'M BACK WHERE I STARTED...

Suddenly I'm sobbing harder than ever before at this horrible realization. Maureen's soft arms are trying to comfort me, holding me close, her warm body trying to calm my cold and shaking one. But I can't get over it..."He's right...I haven't changed..."

"Mark, what are you going on about?"

The confusion in her voice stabs me in the heart. She doesn't understand. None of them understand. They don't accept me. They know I'm never going to change. It'll never be different, because I'm such an idiot, and I can't get over my fears...I can't change.

All at once I find myself standing, pulling myself out of Maureen's tight grasp, my eyes opening, the tears still flowing down my cheeks covered in dried blood. Maureen stands up next to me. "Mark?" I stagger over to my room, throwing my bedroom door open, not even glancing at her. "Mark, what are you doing?" I furiously grab a bag from underneath the bed, grabbing random clothes off of the floor and throwing them in. "Mark..." I throw the camera in next, then a single roll of unused film. "Mark, you're shaking..." My trembling hands pull the zipper up, sealing the bag as I throw the strap over my shoulder and heave it out of my room, Maureen following me out. "Mark, put that bag down..."

"Mark, where in the world are you going?" Joanne is standing now as well, and I can hear a sort of panic in her voice. "You can't leave, not like you are now..."

"Tell that bastard he doesn't have to wait for me to crawl back to him." I turn around in the doorway, facing the two of them. "Because I'M NOT COMING BACK." With that, I turn around, running as fast as I can away from the loft, down the stairs, out of the building. I can hear shouts behind me, telling me to come back, that I'm being an idiot. Tell me something I don't know already. Soon I'm in the cold January night, rushing down the sidewalks as fast as I can.

I feel like I run for ages and ages, running from my fears, my pains, my dreams that have stabbed me in the heart too many times. I can no longer run anymore, as I wrap my scarf tighter around my neck to keep out the impending cold. I can feel my tears freezing on my cheeks, mingling with the dried blood already there. I continue to breathe harshly through my mouth as I fall against a wall, struggling to stay standing, knowing the minute I fall I will be lost. I can feel my throat wanting to dry up, and I desperately wish that I could breathe through my nose. I shiver violently, wrapping my arms around my bare arms, and I desperately with that I hadn't forgotten my coat in my hurry. I feel myself sliding down the wall, kneeling on the cold cement, and I desperately wish that I could just crawl into a warm bed and escape the cold and hide from the cruelties of the world that's closed in around me.

Tears fall silently down my cheeks, and I desperately wish that I hadn't just abandoned the only people I had truly loved as a family...

.-.-.

This tunnel, it's so long...I've been walking down this tunnel alone for so long, I don't want to go down it anymore. I want somebody to come and lift me out of this tunnel, like an angel, a savior to save me from my solitude...Suddenly, just as the thoughts come to mind, I seea glowing figurein front of me. Somehow I know who it is, even though I don't understand why I'm seeing them. "Angel?"

"You said you wanted an angel, hon." Angel smiles at me, warming me with herkindness.

I stagger towards Angel through the tunnel, but it's so hard to move forward, as if some invisible force is holding me back. "Angel...why can't I go with you?"

"Because you need to stay." Angel's smile is hauntingly perfect...I feel so incompetent next to it...

"Why me!" I cry out desperately to Angel, falling to my knees. "It's so hard..."

"You've just gotta be strong, 'cause you're something special, Mark."

"What? I don't have AIDS?" I'm extremely cynical with this remark, but the second the words escape my mouth I regret them. "Sorry...I didn't mean..."

"No, you're right!" Angel smiles at me, as if she's overjoyed at me understanding it. "You have life! You just don't understand how beautiful your life can be yet."

"But how? How can I figure that out?" I desperately try to stand, but it's too hard...

Angel's smile tells me everything. "Hon, I'm no Houdini. You're on your own on that one."

"But...Angel, I'm so confused..." Already Angel is getting blurry, slipping away, and the force that keeps me from getting to her is pulling me down. "Angel, help me..." Iam sinking, falling into darkness once again, deeper into the tunnel Icannot escape...

"Just hold on..."

"I...I can't..."

.-.-.

"I...I can't"

"Did he just say something!" I can hear a concerned female's voice, but my foggy brain can't piece together the identity.

"I think so...Hey, fella, you all right?" A man's gruff voice now. I'm having more difficulty piecing together who they are. I don't recognize them at all... "Can you hear me?"

Slowly I open my eyes, confused. Hovering over me are two very blurry outlines of people I don't know. I blink, wondering why I can't see. One of them, who seems to have dark skin, gives a sigh of relief. "Yep, he's awake."

I blink a few more times, but the blurry figures above me do not sharpen at all. "Glasses..." My own voice is odd to my ears, hoarse and croaking out.

"Oh, shit, these are probably his..." I hear the female's voice, slightly squeaky in an annoying sort of way. A moment later, I feel cold metal sliding onto my face, and immediately the image sharpens as I look at the two people above me. One is a young woman with pale skin and long black hair, and the other a man with dark skin. I have never seen them in my life.

"...Who are you?"

The woman laughs lightly, smirking. She has an odd smirk, as if she's hiding a funny secret. "We saw you collapse, so we came to help you some. You feeling better?"

I blink, looking at her, still wondering who in the world these people are. My brain is still very foggy, and I can hardly remember where I am... "I dunno...where am I?"

"The corner of AvenueA and 14th street," the man says, his voice gruff and coarse. He has a straight face, and he makes me think of one of those army officers who never lets anybody look into his soul.

I blink a few more times, wondering why I had only made it as far as Avenue Aand 14th street before collapsing, silent. The woman takes my silence as a signal to say something. "And about who we are, it's not important. You gotta place to go back to?"

Rushing back to me come the memories of a few hours ago, and I feel my stomach lurch."...No."

"That explains the bag," says the man, who has gotten up and gone over to a bag a few feet away from me. My bag. I see him pull out my camera, examining it. "You've got some expensive stuff for a bum."

I immediately want to stand up, but I'm so weak all I can do is call out, "Careful with that!"

The man looks over at me, an eyebrow raised, holding the camera idly between his hands. "You a filmmaker or something?"

YOU'RE STILL THE FUCKING FILMMAKER, STUCK WITH US! I double over suddenly, suddenly feeling like I'm going to be sick. I roll over on my side, promptly throwing up all over the pavement. Once I've emptied what little contents my stomach was holding before, I can hear a soft laugh from the woman beside me. "You just getting off a trip, filmmaker?"

I look up at her, a little dazed by her suggestion. "I don't use."

The woman puts her hands up mockingly. "Just asking." She stands up slowly, and I can see a slight swagger in her walk as she goes over to the man, looking over his shoulder at my camera. "That's a nice little thing there, filmmaker."

The man looks up from the machinery, glancing idly at me. "You gotta name, filmmaker?"

I blink. "Mark. And you still haven't told me your names." I am slowly gaining strength, and I use what little I have gained since I woke up to slowly sit up and lean my back against the cold brick wall behind me. I vaguely realize that I can breathe through my nose again, and I assume that these people must have cleaned off the blood on my face that was preventing me from doing so earlier.

"I'm Rube, and this guy right here is Gruff," the woman says, slapping the man on the back as he is mentioned. The man simply raises a hand in acknowledgement, now looking through the rest of the stuff in my bag.

I immediately grow very uncomfortable at the man looking through my bag. What if these two are just robbing me? "Why are you looking at my stuff?"

"Seeing if you've got a coat or something. Your face is almost a blue as that funky scarf you're wearing. Why the hell aren't you wearing a coat in this weather?" The man looked up at me again, his eyebrow raised once again.

I feel another pang in my stomach, but I control it, telling myself to get a grip on myself. "Long story. Look, I need to get going...I'm...going to the train station." I slowly stand up, sliding up the wall for support.

The woman raises an eyebrow at me now, and I am getting two different vibes from these people: they think I am very odd compared to them, and they are most likely junkies, judging from the woman's swagger and odd smirk. "Why you going to the train station? Where you headed?"

I shrug, now fully standing up, but still leaning against the wall for support. "Not sure yet. I just have to get out of here...Can I just have my stuff?" I hold an outstretched hand at the man, who shrugs, stuffing the stuff back into my bag and zipping it up. "Thanks for the help, but...I've really gotta go."

"If you don't know where you're going, why not wait until morning? We can get an extra blanket for you somehow..." The woman has that same smirk again that gives me yet again the impression of a junkie. I have seen it so many times in...him.

Angry at myself immediately for thinking of that idiot, my brow furrows as I take the bag from the man, now standing on my own, not as weak anymore. "No thank you." I walk out of the alleyway, out onto AvenueA and the sounds of a police siren somewhere down the street. I sigh, making my way down the street a little ways down to a subway stop.

A subway ride later, I emerge into the very quiet Grand Central Station. I look around for a clock, and it tells me that the current time is 11:20. Just as I begin making my way to a ticket counter to see what trains are leaving at this time of night, a voice behind me makes me jump a mile in the sky.

"I had a feeling you'd come here."

I spin around, my heart racing. Seeing who it is, I feel as if a knife has been shoved deep into my chest. "Collins..."

Collins gives me a smirk, but I can see a sort of anger in his eyes I don't like at all. "I thought I told you that you would never hear the end of it from me if I came back and you were gone. But I guessed it wouldn't get through your skull anyways."

I take a step back, away from him. "Collins, please...I can't stay here anymore..."

If Collins hadn't been expecting what I said, he doesn't show it at first. But I realize he's worried the moment he speaks. "I don't know what you're going on about. Come on, you're coming with me."

"I'm NOT going back to the loft, if that's what you're trying to do..." I feel like he is advancing on me, even though I know his feet are planted on the ground and I am the one backing away like some frightened animal. "NEVER."

"I'm not going to make you go back, Mark." I freeze, my eyes wide as I continue to listen to him. "You can stay ata hotelfor a day or two, or however long you need. But you're not leaving New York, because you'll regret it later."

"Why would I regret it!" My hands are shaking now, clenched into fists. "Why...It's so...I just can't...just can't..." Suddenly I was on my knees, my bag fallen to my side.

Collins is next to me immediately, lifting me up. "Come on, you're not gonna break down in the middle of Grand Central. You can wait till we get to the hotel. Come on, Mark, come on..." Speaking to me softly and offering a shoulder for me to lean on, he leads me around, back onto the subway, and eventually back to the hotel, where I fall asleep almost immediately on the couch as silent tears fall down my cheeks once again.

.-.-.

A/N: See? Big Long Chapter. NOW you get a nifty extra gift just for reading this!

How Kiwi Writes Her Fics (With ATLL as an example)

1) First, I have to get an idea. For ATLL, I simply got an idea that Mark would be trying to figure out his future by looking through his past, AKA a sort of 'bridge the gap' between New Years and Halloween, where that small gap was hardly touched on in the musical or the movie. Then I thought, 'Hey, how about I use the film as a way to look at the past?' It sounded good to me.

2) I have to figure out the main points: 'How' and 'Why'. The 'how' is usually the easy part: whose POV it is, how they view the flashbacks, what tense it should be in (past or present). The 'why' is the tricky one: what is the reason behind this fic? Why do the characters do the things they do? For ATLL, the 'how' took about two seconds to decide: Mark's POV (duh), the film, and present tense, so that it seemed to be more 'alive', going with the whole life thing. The 'why' took a while, and kinda developed as I wrote the fic, but I basically said the whole 'why' in the first few paragraphs of Chapter One.

3) I think up a few random 'what's. Now, 'what's are always least important because they're just little things in the plot, and plots are useless if there's not a good reason behind them. So, for ATLL, I thought up basically points in time I had decided long ago: the time of confusion in January, the extreme tensions of February, March, and April, and the coming back together in May.

4) So, steps 1-3 are all about planning. From then on, it's spontaneous. I think up a beginning, a way to give people a peek into what the fic is going to be like, or not. Then, I write. For ATLL, I just decided I wanted to start with Mark talking directly out of his thoughts, which only happens a few times throughout the fic. I decided he would come into the loft after a long day out doing something (didn't matter what), and Roger would probably be out. I liked the nice effect of Roger entering, the sounds he makes and his quick appearances nice ways of breaking up the action of Mark getting ready.

5) From this point on, I write on instinct. I really never plan anything I write. I suddenly envision an idea when I begin a chapter, and I go with it, always keeping in mind my 'why'. For ATLL, I never planned most of anything that ended up happening until right before I started writing the chapter. For instance, when I was about to write Chapter Three, I knew I wanted to start with Mark all weak, but that was all. After his film stops the second time, right before Roger came on the film and yelled at Mark, I was going to stop there, and I believe Roger was going to come in and they would have some weird conversation about something I hadn't really thought through yet. But then, the next thing I knew, I was writing 'OK, Mark, I dunno how the f--- you work this dumb thing.' And it just came out like I had known I would write that all along from there. The craziest chapter was Chapter Seven, the last chapter. You know why? I didn't know I was going to end the chapter when I started typing it. They were gonna walk around for a while, and they were going to go back and keep watching stuff. But I suddenly realized Mark didn't need to see anymore. What else could I point out? What would he get out of anything else? He'd seen enough. So, suddenly, I was finishing the fic. XXDD

6) One of the riskiest things about writing on impulse for me is staying in character. Since I am an actress, characterization comes easily for me. When you act, you become another person, not just act like them. You know everything about that person, from what they would eat for breakfast that morning to what color socks they were wearing and if they matched or not. That way you can know exactly what a character would do because you know that character. Of course, the more things you have in common with a character, the easier it is to characterize, which is why I think my first RENT-fic ended up being Mark POV. But whenever I finish typing a chapter, I re-read it and make sure I did all of the characters right and didn't get too carried away with whatever plot I was developing, since plots are useless when compared to the 'how' and 'why'. For ATLL, I literally deleted entire chapters and rewrote them because I felt they were out of character.

So, now you know. That's how I write fan fictions. My writing method for just normal stories is MUCH more different. I plan EVERYTHING for my normal stories. XXXDDD Thank you for letting me waste your time by reading my pointless little space-taker-upper!