Chapter Six: It's Over
She is gonna… okay, maybe she won't kill me. That's nice.—Hero's Quest, Lee (w/Tyrone)

Mark still hadn't been able to spend a night in his room, despite the fact that April and Maureen had moved in a week ago. Mark and everyone else (well, everyone else except for Maureen and Roger) had begun to worry that this might become a permanent arrangement, with Mark sharing the futon in the front room, and Maureen and Roger having taken over what used to be Mark and Roger's room. But that setup fell apart in a matter of days, when at 7:14 in the morning the inhabitants of the loft woke to raised voices from Roger's room.

April sat bolt upright as she heard a loud, oddly hollow thumping noise and Roger's exasperated shout of, "Maureen!"

She sat there for a few seconds, silent, then sighed. "Oh… damn."

Mark blinked, bleary-eyed and with his hair sticking up at odd angles, and started hunting for his glasses. "What happened?" he mumbled. "What's going on?"

April located Mark's glasses for him and handed them to him. "I'm not sure, but I have an idea. It's not good."

The door crashed open so hard that it slammed against the wall, bounced back and almost hit Maureen in the face as she stalked out of the room. She shoved it roughly aside once more, and hadn't made it more than a few steps out the doorway before Roger followed her, all but shouting, "The world does not revolve around you, Maureen!"

She spun on her heel to face him. "No, it doesn't. In your mind, it revolves around you and your God AWFUL band! If for one second you would think about anyone but yourself and actually—"

"Are you kidding me? You can't be serious! You, of all people, you actually—"

Mark and April exchanged a quick look and got to their feet, about the same time that Collins and Benny emerged from their own bedroom. "What the hell…?" Benny asked, still half-asleep. And amid the confusion, Roger and Maureen were still shouting.

Maureen strode halfway across the loft, with Roger following close behind—and Maureen half-screaming at him the entire time. "—such a goddamn bastard, and you don't give a damn about anyone but you unless it's because—"

Roger started shouting back at her just then, and Maureen didn't fall silent, so neither one of them could be understood at all. April hurried towards her friend and grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her away from Roger before she could hit him; it almost looked as if she might. Frantically, with her free hand, she gestured for one of the boys to do the same with Roger, and almost immediately Collins stepped forward and interposed himself between Roger and the girls. Probably best—Benny didn't have any sort of control over Roger, and while Mark might have been able to talk to him, he wasn't big enough to restrain him if necessary.

April pushed Maureen back a few steps and made her sit down on the futon. Maureen opened her mouth to protest, but April held up one finger and glared at her, and somehow that kept her silent. April turned to face Roger and Collins. "What the hell is going on? What did she do? Or what did you do?"

"She's… she's a bitch!"

"So are you!" Maureen screamed back, standing up to glare at him over April's head.

April shoved her back down and glared at her until she shut up. "It took you that long to figure that out?" she asked Roger sarcastically, then shook her head. "And that's not a reason to wake up everyone this early. What happened?"

"She… she kicked my guitar?"

Mark blinked. "She did what?"

"She kicked it!"

April tilted her head to one side, considering. "Well, that explains what that noise was…"

Collins rolled his eyes. "She didn't break it, did she?"

"Well, no…"

He nodded. "Then Roger? Stop trying to kill her for it."

April sighed. "She didn't just decide to kick your guitar for some reason. What'd you do?"

"I just—" He didn't get more than two words in when Maureen stood up and started arguing at the top of her lungs, and immediately Collins and April leapt to quiet them down. Roger fell silent before Maureen, and her last two words rang out clearly.

"—it's over!"

For a moment, no one moved, spoke… April could have sworn that no one breathed until Roger simply shrugged, still glowering at Maureen. "Fine by me," he said at last, and jerked roughly away from Collins, walking back to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him.

There was another long, awkward silence as no one really dared to meet each other's eyes, but finally Maureen stood up and forced a bit of a smile, though it didn't entirely succeed in convincing anyone. "Well," she said with false brightness, "now that everyone's up… April, could you make us some breakfast? I'm hungry."

April sighed. Well, at least this was better than Maureen screaming at her or Roger at the top of her lungs… "Sure."

April sighed as she walked back up the stairs to the loft. She'd forgotten to grab her notebook on the way out the door, and of course had to run back to get it. Now she was bound to be late to work for this. "Just brilliant," she muttered under her breath.

She reached the door of the loft and started to open the door, but had only just cracked it open when she heard voices. The boys. She would have gone in, but something made her stop and just stand there, with the door only a tiny bit cracked open, enough that she could hear… not enough that they would notice her.

"Roger, she really hasn't done anything." Mark's voice.

Then Benny, somewhat sarcastic and amused. "Unless you count breaking up with you a crime. Which I don't blame her for, by the way. I don't know how she put up with you for that long."

Collins, reproving. "Benny." Then, apparently to Roger—because it was in that "you're being an idiot" tone April had only ever heard him use with Roger—he said, "If you want to make her leave, you're going to have to come up with a more substantial reason than 'she's a bitch.'"

April froze. Oh God. Roger wanted Maureen to leave? But… Shit. Well, she should have seen this coming. The two of them had been unbearable in the few days since the fight, any time they were near each other. She shifted the door open a little more to peer inside and watch the boys as they talked.

"I… I can't live with her," Roger said with a sigh. "I just can't."

"Well where's she going to go, Roger?" Mark asked. "She's got nowhere else."

"I don't know! She can find somewhere."

Benny rolled his eyes. "You know, you're the only one here who doesn't get along with her. Maybe you should leave."

"Besides which," Collins pointed out, after a sharp look at Benny, "it's not fair to April."

April could see that Roger was taken aback by that. "What about April?"

Benny sighed. "Gee, I don't know, how about she's Maureen's best friend, they moved in together… Do you need any more reasons?"

"Well I don't want her to leave. Just Maureen."

Mark sighed. "And you invited her to move in, in case you've forgotten. We're not going to…" He trailed off, looking at Collins. "What?"

Collins' eyes were on the doorway. "Hi April," he said simply. The other three turned toward the door.

April jumped back, and fought to regain her composure quickly, stepping inside the loft and strolling to the table, ignoring the flush that crept up her cheeks. "I was just getting… I forgot my… um…" She grabbed her notebook off the table. "I'll just… go now." She rushed out before any of them could so much as say hello—or ask her how long she had been listening.