There was a shuddering, whining click, and the camera coughed to life. The picture was only darkness, but somewhere in the distance came the distinctive sound of a door slamming. Then a veil was lifted from the lens. Again the grimy window, again the midnight New York skyline, again the bleached-blond hair and big blue eyes staring into the lens with a wild determination. Mark had lost the easy acceptance with which he had last spoken to the silent reels of film. Only a day had passed, yet it had burdened him again with all the tenseness, all the anguish he had shed in his hours of electronic confession. Only a day had passed, and his shoulders were tense again, his teeth gritted, his hands clenched, his eyes angry. He stepped into the picture with a childish stomping step and collapsed onto the windowsill, not even bothering to pull up a chair; yet he seemed to relax all of a sudden as his eyes caught the camera, as he locked eyes with the silent witness that waited, quiet, dusty, dark.

"Hello again," Mark said, and his voice was hoarse and weary. "Sorry for my abrupt exit last night – trying to get away from Roger's ever-watchful eye." His own eyes rolled, accenting the barely-present good-natured sarcasm in his tone. "Caught hell for it anyway. He didn't hear me, though – small miracle." He cocked his head slightly, examining the camera from a new angle. "Where was I?"

He paused a moment, a small smile emerging on his face. It was tense and angular, his words guttural and harsh. "Stupid question. I know exactly where I was. Couldn't forget, can't forget – damn." He lifted his hands to his eyes, slipping his fingers under his glasses to press at his eyelids. "Sorry," he mumbled again. "'m barely coherent, I know – didn't sleep last night. But then, you know that." He looked up for a moment, scowled, then pushed his glasses up to his forehead, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes for a long moment of silence. "Sorry. Sorry…"

He cleared his throat and looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and dull. "Yeah. I've been thinking about this all day – what to say next, what to put into this crazy little memory of mine and what to keep out, what to forget." He paused and let his gaze drift, away from the lens. His eyes eventually came to rest dreamily on something outside of the camera's sight, outside the small dim frame. His hands slackened, and he remembered.

"There was the day that Collins showed up," he recalled slowly. "He'd been gone for six months, doing whatever the hell it was he was doing – he didn't tell us much anymore – probably getting himself kicked out of some other college. God knows what. At any rate, he came home sometime in April –" he broke off suddenly, a slightly manic grin flashing across his face. "April. Isn't that – weird? That whole month I kept thinking about April. About Mimi and April... about Mimi dying in April. April is the cruelest month. I was so stark-raving mad by then that I kept thinking about, and laughing. Roger almost strangled me." This reflection seemed to sober him again, and the wild grin disappeared. "Anyway. Collins came home, burst into the loft bellowing at the top of his lungs, 'Hey, bitches, I'm home!'. He was laughing." There was a pause of heavy breathing. "I can still remember the look on his face."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Hey there, bitches! I'm home!"

The loft door slammed open with a deafening crash, shaking a cloud of splinters loose from the rotting frame. Collins came charging through the screen of dust, broad shoulders and dazzling white smile bursting out of the hallway darkness into the sunlit loft. "Mark! Roger!" he bellowed into the silent emptiness, dropping the heavy bags he carried in both arms and letting his hands drop to his sides, limp and lifeless. He waited for a moment; when there was no response, he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring indignantly at the closed doors across the room. "So I don't even get a welcome home from my boys?"

One of the doors swung open, slowly, as though in grudging acknowledgement to his echoing demands, and a tousled blonde head emerged; blurry blue eyes blinked up at him, and Mark was dashing across the loft, habitual scarf trailing out behind him, smashing into Collins and embracing him with a child's eager energy.

"Now that's more like it," Collins chuckled, pushing Mark out to arm's length and examining him; he had time only to note the weary grin and dark circles under the other man's eyes before he found himself gripped by the coat-sleeves and dragged out into the hallway, back the way he had come.

"Mark, what…?" but the door slammed behind him, cutting off his faint protest as Mark pressed his ear to the rusted metal, listening with bated breath. A moment of silence passed; Mark relaxed and turned around to face his friend, slumped against the unyielding door.

"Welcome home, Collins!" Mark said gaily, as though he found it not at all odd that he had just shut himself out of his own home and was now talking to his friend in the dark, dusty hall. "What've you been doing for the past six months? Got yourself kicked out of any other schools? You look good." His eyes narrowed, and he looked the big black man up and down. "Been taking your AZT? I swear, you and Roger –"

"Mark." Collins held up a hand to stem the rush of words, scowling in bewilderment. "Care to tell me why you've kicked the both of us out and stranded us in the god-damn hallway?"

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah." Mark's hands, which had been hanging limply at his sides, lifted and began pulling, tugging at his scarf with a sudden rapid nervousness. The exhausted smile that he had plastered on faded, and Collins found himself staring into a face that more resembled a skeleton than any friend he had ever known. "About that – Mimi was sleeping. And, Collins, I should warn you –"

"Mark?"

The door slid back with a rasping groan and Roger appeared in the gap, his hair mussed and sticking up in all directions, his eyes clouded, his face gaunt and pale. He seemed to stir from himself as his eyes distinguished the second shape in the shadows; "Collins!" he cried, and lurched forward to embrace the other man. Collins gritted his teeth as he felt Roger's bones jab into him through his skin, and when Roger pulled away he was left with the feeling that his friend had somehow diminished, grown smaller and less alive since he had been gone.

"Roger, man, you feeling okay?" he asked, eyes narrowed, a chill creeping up his spine as he imagined the end to Mark's unfinished warning.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Roger was barely listening, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the gleaming loft, awash in midmorning light. He pulled the door further open, motioning for them to enter. "What are you guys doing in the hallway? Come on in, Collins! What's new?"

Collins only smiled, noting out of the corner of his eye Mark glaring at Roger with a questioning glance, and Roger's gentle nod of reassurance. "I should be asking you guys that," he muttered, but allowed Mark to drag him back into the loft, chattering in a high-pitched, senseless wash of sound that meant he was trying his best not to give something away.

There was a faint sound from the next room, barely audible over the pounding of the city beyond the window, but Roger and Mark both froze in mid-step, heads jerking up, listening with a slightly panicked shared glance. Mark made a short, chopping gesture with his hand, and Roger nodded, stealing a regretful glance at Collins before darting into his bedroom and slamming the door shut.

"What the hell has gotten into you two?" Collins demanded angrily. "I swear, if the two of you don't –" but he was cut off mid-admonition, as the door to Roger's room swung open again, and the musician emerged, walking softly and stiffly and clutching Mimi's hand.

"Oh," Collins breathed, feeling his eyes widen at the sight of her, struck suddenly by the sense that he had had the wind knocked out of him. "That's why…"

"Collins!" Mimi cried weakly, a tremulous smile breaking out on her pale face, and Collins suddenly found her in his arms, his hands on her shoulders, holding her gently, carefully, finding himself instinctively afraid that if he exerted too much pressure on her fragile frame, she would break.

"Hey, Mimi," he breathed, feeling a thrill of fear in the pit of his stomach as he noticed how very, very thin and cold she was, how he felt as though he held a fleeting shadow in his arms. She was leaning heavily into his embrace, as though she lacked the strength to stand on her own; and though the dark, clouded haze of fear in his mind had long ago realized what had scared Roger and Mark so badly, the conscious thought for the first time entered his mind that Mimi was dying.

His arms tightened around her in response to that unbidden thought, and it was only with great reluctance that he finally let her go, holding her gently with one hand on her shoulder until Roger darted in to wrap an arm around her waist. Roger offered Collins a sad smile before pressing his lips to Mimi's hair, whispering feverishly in her ear; Collins felt iron bands constricting around his throat, felt compelled to turn away from the heartrending image they made against the rising sun. He glanced over at Mark, swallowing down a sudden burning in his throat, noting the gentle, quietly heartbreaking smile that haunted his friend's eyes as he stared at Roger and Mimi. Collins felt a wild white rush of hysteria thrill in him, the urge to scream, to cry, to roar; then a rush of memories, a sense of familiarity that cut him to the bone, and he was laughing with tears in his eyes as he stepped forward and pulled Mimi from Roger's embrace, twirling her around in an impromptu dance. "Hey, there, girl, give me a proper greeting! How's my angel been?"

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Mark spoke as he breathed, slowly, ponderously. "He was laughing, the bastard, came barging into the loft bellowing to the world that he was home – and Mimi was sleeping, had been sleeping a lot lately, so I panicked and dragged him out of the loft – he didn't know, he didn't know, I'd forgotten that he didn't know and was mad at him for a crazy second or two because I'd forgotten he didn't know and I thought he was trying to stir up trouble, trying to pull some crazy stunt. Then I saw his face – he was utterly bewildered, and a little scared, and I came to my senses. But it was too late, he'd woken her up – and Roger had this crazy gleam in his eye, that wild protective rage like he was afraid Collins would hurt her, afraid he'd accidentally break her because she was so fragile and he didn't understand how bad she really was. But he did understand – all it took was one look at her and he understood, he realized right away that she was dying."

He cocked his head to the side again, eyes narrowing as he looked at the world through a slightly skewed perception and decided he liked it. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips and for a moment he looked like a toddler, like a little boy examining the universe and passing judgment on it, liking it because it was big and pretty and sparkled at night-time. Then he returned to himself with a snap of adjusted perception, and his hands fell limp into his lap, nimble white spiders dead of some bizarre plague.

"And that's … all," he said softly, wonderingly. "That's all. All that was important, anyway. Maureen and Joanne, they weren't a part of it, not really – it's not their fault. They tried to be, tried to come over and talk to her, talk to us, but they weren't a part of it. You have to understand – they were starting over and they were new and fresh and happy, and sadness couldn't find a hold in them, not really. They were sad – of course they were sad – Maureen was crying, but –" The hands twitched back to life again, cupping air between the palms, flexing the fingers as though hoping to squeeze his meaning from the air, wring some panacea of a word from the darkness that would explain the wild images in his head. "Of course they were sad. They loved Mimi, they cried for her, they hugged her and told her she would be with Angel soon. But it didn't – it didn't kill them. Touch them." He lifted a hand to his chest now, pressing it ineffectually, bruisingly, over his heart. He flattened his fingers over the material of his shirt and it looked as if someone had splashed moonlight there, carelessly, effortlessly. "They didn't feel with Mimi the way Roger and I did. They didn't die with her. No, Maureen and Joanne weren't a part of it – they loved each other too much." Again the rapid paralysis seized his hands and they fell down to clutch nervously at his knees as he paused for breath.

"And Benny – he wasn't a part of it either, I didn't expect him to be. But he gave us heat, the sanctimonious bastard –" a faint smile stretched his pale, dry lips – "He didn't dare shut off our heat, electricity. He gave us that much. A parting gift, a mercy blow. Whatever you want to call it. The villain comes through in the end." He shrugged. "So it was warm, those days – the kind of sharp, cold days left over from winter, like the winter itself's been broken into pieces and the shards are still in the air, like a knife in the chest, breathing in. The city was a god-damn ice heap, but we had heat – didn't matter much. We were cold, all of us were still cold –" The hand lifted again, this time to clutch at his stomach rather than his heart, a mute indication. "There was ice, down in the pit of my stomach – hell, in my soul – was frozen because Mimi wouldn't stop shivering. She was cold, then; don't know how she could be, with all our blankets and you, Roger, constantly wrapped around her, but she would just lay there, pale and fragile and shivering like some porcelain doll caught in a snowstorm. And you – goddamn you, Roger – you were singing."

He laughed, a quick convulsion of the shoulders, surreptitiously brushing away the tears in his eyes. "Do you remember? You were singing – sometimes her song, and sometimes not – you were singing, and she was always cold, always tired – right up until the very last day."

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

There was a drifting upwards, a floating out of sleep, a faint twitching and a pull of protest. He felt that there was light beyond the darkness, air beyond the vacuum, sound beyond the silence; but he was frightened, and he pulled back, tried to clutch at the nothingness around him and drown in the darkness between the stars.

It was no use. Roger woke up; he was dragged back to reality, breathing harshly, his body bathed in sweat as though it had been a really physical struggle, his wrestle with the dark and unconscious. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, and coughed, trying to rid himself of the fire in his lungs; it took him a moment, his mind clouded by the clinging, dangling threads of sleep, to realize that the burn was not in his lungs but in his heart.

He breathed in a great choking gasp and held his breath; he could hear the pattering tapping rhythm of rain on the roof, could hear the syncopated half-measures as well as the echoes of faraway times when it would have inspired him to write a song. He closed his eyes; he listened to the rain drumming, listened but did not hear the gentle breathing beside him and the heartbeat that had shifted to mirror his own. Beneath the rain, all was silence. And he turned over, sat up and looked beside him with an almost-unconscious riff of music squeezing itself between his teeth, because the emotion had to find some way to spill over, and he had the choice between singing or screaming.

Mimi was curled up next to him, her arms wrapped around her knees, looking as though she was trying to make herself so small as to disappear; most of the blankets Roger and Mark owned had been wrapped about her, but had been torn open and kicked away over the course of the night, and she lay pale and still, and a half-delirious thought crossed Roger's mind that she looked like rain.

He did not notice the way her shoulders shook slightly, or her hands twitching restlessly in her sleep, all he knew was that the rain was ringing in his ears and because of its constant repeating riff he could not hear her breathing. The thought inflamed every fiber of his soul, it squeezed a sharp dagger into his brain, into his heart, and he felt every inch of his skin crawl and a wild white hysteria flare up in his mind as panic kindled in the pit of his stomach.

"Mark," he howled, his hands drifting towards her, then jerking away as if scorched by some electrical current, "Mark! Markmarkmarkmark…"

Her eyes fluttered open, her hand twitched to life and crawled across the blanket seeking his; but he had been spooked, he had panicked, and Mark realized as he burst through the door and took the scene in that the hysteria would have to be let to run its course. Mimi sharpened, some of the fog clearing from her eyes, and gripped Roger's shoulder with both hands, pulling herself up to press against him, to hold him as gasped wildly as though drowning, mourning her death.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"You knew it was the last day." the numb detachment had fled from Mark's voice, and there was a hint of something warm and almost loving in his tone. "You had some kind of dream, maybe, or a premonition. I don't know. But you woke up before her that day, and saw her asleep, and panicked – started screaming my name, started rocking back and forth, not crying, but gasping like you'd had the wind knocked out of you. Even when she woke up, you were still a little insane – it took a while to calm you down, but even then there was fear in your eyes and you and I both knew it. Everything was perfect, everything was just as you'd known it would be, deep down in that bizarre little corner of our soul that knows the things we don't want to acknowledge we know. Ignorance is bliss."

An inaudible sigh escaped on the end of the last words, and Mark's rigid mask loosened. His whole body relaxed, as though something at his core had become unclenched. His hands uncurled from fists and lay flat on his knees, his shoulders slumped, and when he spoke it was distant and came easily, like rain. "It was a gray day, one of those rainstorms where everything is blurred just a little bit – where the rain is just loud enough to hide the sense of people's words, when everything is just sort of a low murmur, an ocean thrum, and there are streaks of crystal down the window, and the whole sky is bent light so that the world draws in small and close and just a little cold, right next to your skin. It's the kind of storm that you could really, truly believe that rain comes from the ocean, because the whole day is cold and vast and murmuring."

He closed his eyes, remembering, and a tear seeped down his cheek, reminiscent of that distant rain. "And after your hysterics when you woke up that morning, I remember – you picked her up, still with that damn cautious flinching of yours, still afraid she was fragile, you picked her up and carried her out into the loft. And you stood in the doorway for a moment, hesitating, because there wasn't enough room for both of you on the couch and you didn't want to put her on the table, it would bring back too many god-damned memories; so you laid her down on the floor, too fucking gentle, and sat there next to her, with her head in your lap, your fingers in her hair." He swallowed, crying openly now, though he allowed no rough hiccup or sob to mar the soft rhythm of his voice. "And we had heat, because Benny's a god-damn bastard, we had heat and it was cold outside so the window was all misted up, and it was warm and I just sat there watching you two for hours, because you were beautiful. The two of you together, your fingers, intertwined, against that backdrop of smoke and rain – a photographer's delirious dream. I could see –" and the now the seed of something intimate and raw appeared in the glint of his eye, in a downturned corner of his mouth, "I could see you, both of you, down to the core – could see your crazy restless fidgeting, could see this kind of insane, fundamental peace that spread through her, that she radiated to you, wherever you touched. And I could see that irrational peace, that blind sort of acceptance, spreading through you – how first your shoulders got still, then your eyes, your hands last because you were touching her face and you didn't want to stop."

There was a faint smile on his face now, and it was like the sun that had not reemerged that day. "And the two of you were still, and the rain was still beating on the window, and my heart was beating with it. I remember wondering if yours were, too. And time sort of – stopped, or sped up – your eyes were closed, you were with her somehow, and the sun never came out again that day. We must have been sitting there for hours, but I remember it like a photograph – a second, a flash, then nothing. Too soon. Too god-damn soon."

Again the tears. Mark lifted his head from where he had been staring at his hands, he fixed his gaze on the camera and stared into it with burning eyes. He cried, and a flash of a smile flitted across his face and was gone; and when he spoke his voice was clear and deep and penetrating, like the ringing of a bell.

"It was too soon. And Roger, you were singing – and just as you finished the final note, when the sound was fading away, Mimi died."

There was silence. Mark stared at the camera, his eyes blazing, his mouth still hanging slightly open as though he had not finished speaking, as though there was more to say, more that the plain, simple pronouncement could not encompass. But the echoes of his words died away, and he looked down, at the hands that lay dead, palm-up, in his lap.

"I won't tell you what happened after," he said, and for the first time his voice was shaking and he cried openly, willingly, trembling with sobs. "I won't tell you what we said that night, what was the message we left on Maureen and Joanne's machine. I won't tell you the look on Collins' face, or what Roger screamed that night on the roof, hating the city, hating the world. I won't tell you what Allison's voice sounded like when we called Benny and his stupid fucking wife picked up." His voice had become harsh and quick and ragged, pounding with a new rhythm in his rage, his whole body shaking. Then he closed his eyes, and again his entire body relaxed, he slumped back into his chair. "Won't tell you that," he murmured, eyes still closed, breathing deeply. "That's sacred, that shouldn't be spoken, not yet, not so soon. Roger, you'll remember – or maybe you won't, you might have let the whole thing fade, let yourself press it down into some mist of grief. I know I did, for a while, but if you don't remember I don't want you to. Whatever can be gained by going through that again – isn't, will never be as much as what could be lost."

He looked up at the camera again, and this time his eyes were not blazing, but the tears had refracted life and made them brilliant. "Goodbye, Mimi," he breathed, and he was mouthing a prayer. "Goodbye. I loved you – love you. Roger still burns for you, his entire soul straining for you, screaming for you. He hasn't died yet – he hasn't broken his promise yet, hasn't broken the oath that we all swore him to at one time or another, that he would keep living. He screams your name every night, the deepest parts of his heart are straining so hard to follow you that it looks sometimes like it's an effort just for him to keep breathing, but he always does. He loves you, he will always love you with all of his heart and soul, and he is willing to do for you what he could never do for April – live for you. He was always ready to die for her, he believed himself half-dead anyway, but he is going to live for you. He won't lose hope. I won't let him. We won't let him." Mark leaned forward, and every syllable burned, every word blazed itself into the camera's heart.

"We love you," he said slowly, resoundingly. "It's been hell on earth for three days since you left, it hurts to breathe, but god-damn it all we're going to keep breathing, because you loved us and we didn't deserve it, any of us. And Roger will dream about you every night, and he and Collins will be with you soon, and all of you – you and them and Angel –" he was forced to stop, his shoulders convulsing with sobs, to regain his breath. And when he looked up again his gaze was gentler, and his voice was hoarse and loving and low.

"Goodbye, Mimi," he said simply. "Consider this my – farewell, my gift, my way of never forgetting and never letting Roger forget. Consider this my way –" a brief and heartrending smile lit his face, and his hand moved towards the lens, "—Consider this my way of reaffirming my faith in angels."

His voice faded into silence, there was the click of memories closing up and dying away.

Darkness fell.