Disclaimer: As much as I wish it were true, I don't own Mark or Roger or any other characters from the play/movie RENT. This isn't the happiest chapter, but at least it's something.

December 31, 1990, 5:12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time:

The film is dry. Paige cuts it into strips and selects one of them to enlarge.

Mark abandons his camera once he sees the lighting in the dark room. Even with the amber lights he can barely see. Paige has no problem finding the enlarger, and slips the negative into the machine. She flips it on and focuses the image onto an easel. She turns the enlarger off again and places a strip of paper on the easel.

"What are you doing?" Mark asks.

Paige holds a piece of cardboard over the paper, letting only a tiny bit of it show. She turns the enlarger on for two seconds, turns it off, and uncovers a little more of the paper. She repeats the process until the entire paper is uncovered. She holds up the paper. "This," she says, "is called a test strip. I use it so I know how long to expose the picture when I enlarge it."

She drops the paper into a tub of chemicals and waits until something appears on the paper. She moves it to another tub for a few seconds, pulls it out again, and then to a final chemical. A few minutes later she rinses it under water.

She flips the light on. Mark can finally see.

On the paper is a spectrum of light on one image. At one end the photo is too dark; on the other it is too light. In the middle it is perfect.

Paige flips the light off again, leaving Mark once again partially blind.

She fits another piece of paper, this time a whole one, into the easel. She sets the timer on the enlarger for six seconds and flips it on. When it shuts off again she removes the paper and develops it.

She opens the door to the dark room. Light floods in, stinging their eyes for a second. She clips the photo to the clothesline to dry.

Mark can see the picture clearly now. It is the one Paige took of the group helping Mimi inside. "When did you take this?" he asks.

"The night I moved in. I heard some yelling outside and saw you guys downstairs, so I took a picture." Mark is silent, thinking something over. "I'm sorry, I can get rid of it if it bothers you."

"No, don't do that, it's a good picture," he says. "It's just weird seeing it from this angle."

Another silence descends the room, but it isn't as comfortable as before. Paige's curiosity gets the better of her. "What happened to Mimi?" she blurts out.

Mark looks confused. Paige points to the picture. "Oh," he says uncomfortably. "Um…"

"You don't have to tell me," she stops him. "I shouldn't have asked."

Mark takes her hand and leads her to the couch. He sits and pulls her down with him. He stares at her hand, still clasped in his, while he tries to decide what to say. He takes a deep breath and looks up at her slowly.

"Mimi has AIDS," he says calmly.

Paige tries very hard to hide the sadness and shock of the words as they register in her mind.

"She and Roger had a fight, a long time ago," he continues. "Roger ended up going to Santa Fe for a while. Mimi had been in rehab for heroin, and she went back to the drugs. She stopped working, and ended up sleeping in Central Park."

Mark sighs. He takes Paige's free hand with his own, rubbing her knuckles with his thumbs.

"The night of that picture Joanne and Maureen found her in the park. She was freezing and sick, and they brought her back here. For a minute we all thought she'd died, but somehow she came back again. Like a miracle or something."

Paige is silent. She can't believe that Mimi, one of the strongest women she knows, could have AIDS. How could she be so sick, and not show it now?

"Collins and Roger have it too," Mark says, somewhat bitterly. "Angel had it; he died last Halloween."

Paige only knows Angel through Mark's film. She wonders if he was as afraid as she would be if she were dying.

"I'm so sorry," is all she can say.

January 3, 1991, 11:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time:

Paige is sitting on her couch, rubbing her hands together over her last candle. The power is out again, the second time this week. She has her coat on, as well as several long-sleeve shirts and two pairs of pants. She is still freezing.

The snow is piling up outside on the fire escape. It hasn't stopped snowing in two days. If she had heat, Paige would love the snow. At the moment she hates it.

She hears tapping on the window. Mimi is outside, shivering in her coat. Her heels slide a bit on the slick metal. She knocks again.

Paige opens the window and pulls her inside. Mimi continues to shiver. "It's just as cold in here as it is out there," she laughs. "I was going to go see if Roger and Mark would start a fire. Wanna come?"

"Anything to get warm," Paige says.

Together they climb the stairs, both praying that Mark and Roger have something they can burn.

The guys are way ahead of them, they find, as they open the window and step inside the much warmer room. Mark and Roger have collected a pile of paper, and are feeding it to the fire.

"What are you burning?" Mimi asks as she brushes against Roger's side and warms her hands over the flames.

"We've been saving junk mail for emergencies like this," he answers. He rubs her arms in an attempt to warm her up.

Paige stands next to Mark, letting the warmth seep into her frozen body. Mark throws the rest of the paper in his hands into the fire and wraps his arms around her. "Hello," he whispers into her ear. He kisses her lightly and places his forehead on hers. "Haven't seen you in a while. Been busy?"

She nods. "Trying to find a job," she says. "I'm out of money."

"Jobs are highly overrated," he purrs, kissing her again. She sighs contentedly against the kiss, enjoying the feel of his hands on the small of her back.

"Food is nice, though," she breathes when they come up for air. "I'm really getting sick of peanut butter."

Roger and Mimi have disappeared. Paige notices that Roger's bedroom door is closed. She doesn't want to think about what they're doing in there.

She sits on the couch and peels off her coat, her limbs slowly absorbing the warms. Mark grabs another handful from the stack of paper and throws it in. He sits next to her, and she leans against him. She watches the light from the flames dancing on the walls and ceiling. "This is nice," she sighs. He kisses the top of her head.

January 4, 1991, 8:11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time:

Paige opens her eyes to find herself somewhere that is not her bed, with her head on top of something that is not her pillow. After a moment of confusion she realizes that the somewhere that is not her bed is actually Mark and Roger's couch, and the something under her head is Mark's collar bone. She notices that Mark has fallen asleep with his glasses on, and she gently removes them and places them on the table.

She hears some rattling in the kitchen. She peeks over the arm of the couch and sees Mimi's mess of hair searching through the cupboard for something.

During the night someone was kind enough to drape a blanket over Paige and Mark without waking them. Paige fingers the worn fabric, and nestles closer to Mark. She closes her eyes and sleeps again.