Disclaimer: RENT and its characters do not belong to me.

Author's notes: More as promised. Thank you reviewers.

Thanks to everyone who wished me luck on my show. It went really well, and thankfully, we did find a way to get the silver make-up off of me.

And thanks to anyone who has actually stuck with this story through the hiatus. It took me really long to get this out and for that I apologize profusely.

Mark exited his room when he heard the angry pounding on the guitar in the middle of the night. He had been back in the loft for a month, and things were partially looking up. His hands were healed, he found himself able to eat, and in the majority of the time he was finding himself sleeping through most of the night. Except for now of course. Now he had woken up from a nightmare, and had been planning on just sitting in his room, until he heard the loud playing of a guitar, rather badly.

So Mark left the room, and found Roger sitting on his floor, with his guitar in hand, plucking at the strings roughly. "So are you playing for any particular reason or is this midnight concert just for my sheer pleasure and enjoyment?" Mark interrupted the playing as he leaned against the door frame.

Roger stopped playing briefly, but didn't look over. "I need to write a song." He started to play again, random chords in the hopes that they might start blending together.

"Now?" Mark questioned incredulously.

"I need to write a song." He repeated.

"And this inspiration struck in the middle of the night? Thanks, 'cause my ears were really starting to miss--."

"I don't have inspiration." Roger interrupted. "I just need to write a song. I need to leave something behind."

Mark's annoyance suddenly faded, and he entered the room not stopping until he sat next to Roger. "What about 'Your Eyes'?"

"That's not my best…I can write better. I don't want to be remembered by that song…" He leaned over to his notebook and started to scratch something onto it with his pen, but abruptly stopped. "I got a letter from Mimi. She says that she's going to stay with her parents." Mark didn't know what to say exactly, because Roger wasn't very specific. "She broke up with me."

"She broke up with you." Mark repeated the information softly. It was suddenly hitting him that this wasn't just one of Roger's moods. This was something brought on by more, an actual upsetting event.

Roger looked over. "In a fucking letter." His eyes traveled back to the guitar, but he didn't play. "I just…have to write something that's not about her."

For a moment he didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say, that he could say, that would make Roger easier to talk to, or make him feel better. Finally he just decided to ask. It would all come out in the end. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Roger answered stubbornly, and there was a short silence. "How did she just write it in a letter like that? I thought that…she got off smack for me…I thought that I meant something, couldn't she at least have picked up the phone?"

"So she could leave you a message? We don't answer the phone Roger."

"It still would have been more personal than a fucking letter."

Mark sighed. He hadn't been Roger's quote unquote therapist for awhile. He had forgotten how awkward it could be; he had forgotten how hard it could be getting through to Roger. What he hadn't forgotten was the way you had to be with Roger to get anywhere. "Here's the deal. This is something I realized a while ago that it's time I let you in on. Women suck."

"What?"

"As a general rule, all women do is screw with us." Mark laughed a little at Roger's reaction. But it was only a little, because Mark knew the truth. "Women suck. Take Maureen for example…she started out nice, and lulled me in to being thoroughly obsessed with her, and then she cheated and figured out she was in love with a woman." He looked over at Roger, who still seemed a little lost. "And think about how many girlfriends you've had that have just left you for absolutely no reason."

"Mary, Lucy, Katie, Becca…"Roger started listing them, but stopped realizing how long the list would be. "At least they all had the decency to talk to me about it…Mimi just left."

"Well women suck. Mimi is a woman, therefore, Mimi sucks." Roger laughed now, and Mark smiled at this mild success, but let it be silent for a moment. " 'You're Eyes' doesn't have to be about her."

"But it is."

"Only a couple of us know that."

"So I just don't tell anyone else?"

"I don't get why you have to…I don't explain my screenplays do I?"

"Actually…" Roger trailed off thinking back at the many long winded talks Mark had given him about the inspiration, but decided not to say anything. "I guess you're right. But I still don't want to just leave it. I can write better, I will write better."

"I think writing more might be good for you." Mark said this tentatively because that was a little bit like giving advice, which Roger didn't always like. "And I think you can write better if you want to."

"I'm going to."

"Good. But do you think it can wait until morning?"

"Uh, yeah." Roger gave him a little bit of a tentative, apologetic smile. Mark stood to leave, and but Roger spoke again stopping him. "Mark, why are you always making me talk?"

Mark turned back around, nearly faltering, but only slightly. "Because…if you didn't talk about what was bothering you than you would explode." It was the honesty that hit Roger, and didn't make him angry at the insinuations.

"So why don't you ever need to talk?"

"Because…I'm me."

The truth was that Mark lied to Roger. He was musing over this fact all during the next morning. He had lied when talking to Roger about the Mimi breakup. He hadn't lied about women sucking. That was completely true. If he had any doubts about that one Mimi had proven it through the breakup.

Mark also hadn't lied about Roger being able to write better songs. It was fully within his capabilities, and Mark knew that. Mark wanted Roger to write better songs. When he wrote the good songs he was happy.

And he hadn't made up the way that Roger would be in trouble if he didn't talk. That existed in a big way. But, Mark had lied to Roger just the same.

He realized it even more as he sat down on a cheap, old, couch, folding his hands nervously in his lap. Because if he had been telling the truth last night, then he wouldn't be sitting there now.

"Good morning, Mr. Cohen." There was a brief pause under the silence when Mark didn't respond to the smooth and low voice. "It says here in your file that you're here under the recommendation of a doctor at the free clinic we work with. Is there any place in particular that you would like to start?"

"I…uh…" Mark pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I, uh, don't like to talk to people. About what bothers me."

"Could you elaborate a bit more? Why do you think that you feel this way?"