Disclaimer: I still don't own it. Jonathan Larson does, and he owns any lyrics used, as well, except for Alexia's note. Those lyrics belong (with a few liberties taken) to Charles Hart and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I just own the story.
Authoress Note: Harper's Pixie didn't even know about this one, and we're co-writing this. I wrote this on my weekend in St. Clairsville, OH, and that's why I haven't updated. Sorry!
Don't hate me for this.
Chapter Five: Goodbye Love
"It's true you sold your guitar, and bought a car?" Alexia asked, her black dress swishing mournfully around her ankles.
"It's true," Roger answered, "I'm leaving now for Santa Fe," he turned to Mimi who was arm in arm with Benny, "It's true you're with this yuppie scum?"
"You said you'd never speak to him again." Benny retorted.
Now Alexia was slowly getting angry. Here they were at Mark's funeral, and the others were acting like infants. "Who said that you have any say in who she says things to at all?"
"Yeah?" Roger added.
Maureen looked at Alexia strangely, then said "Who said that you should stick your nose in other people's business?"
"Who said I was talking to you?"
Joanne then sided with Alexia. "We used to have this fight each night, Maureen would never admit I existed."
"Roger's the same way," Mimi added, breaking away from Benny, "He was always 'run away, hit the road, don't commit, you're full of shit!"
"Mimi!" Alexia gasped. She'd just lost the most important person in her life, and even though she did help to start the fight that was breaking out, she didn't want it to go any further. Mark wouldn't have wanted that.
Mimi then turned on her. "She's in denial," she said to the others, "Little Miss Alexia doesn't want to admit that her boyfriend's dead. Still clutching his scarf for dear life, like maybe it'll bring him back."
"You're in denial!" Roger spat back at Mimi.
"You didn't give an inch when I gave a mile!" Maureen shouted at Joanne.
"I gave a mile!" Mimi screamed, inches away from Roger.
"Gave a mile to who?" Roger answered angrily, and Alexia began crying again, just when she'd thought she had finally run out of tears.
Angel let her cry on her shoulder. "Come on guys, chill." Collins said, trying to help the situation. He just made it worse.
"I'd be happy to die for a taste of what you and Angel have!" Mimi now rounded on Collins, "Someone to live for, unafraid to say 'I Love You!'"
"Oh, your words are nice Mimi, but love's not a three way street," Roger was crying again. Alexia didn't think he was capable of it, but he clearly was. "You'll never share real love until you can learn to love yourself," The other could only guess that Mimi was using again. "I should know."
Alexia spoke up. "You all said you be cool today, so please, for Mark's sake. I can't believe he's gone," she turned to Roger, "I can't believe you're going."
"I can't believe this family must die." Angel added.
Alexia continued, "Mark taught me to believe in love," she turned to Mimi, Maureen and Joanne, "I can't believe you disagree."
Then they all said together, sharing the same thought for an instant, "I can't believe this is goodbye."
Then, slowly, one by one, they each approached Mark's grave, each leaving something of themselves. They weren't just leaving items, either. When Mark died, a part of everyone else died with him.
Alexia approached first. She laid Mark's camera on the headstone, with a note in the case that said, "Anywhere you go, let me go, too. Love me, that's all I ask of you. I'll miss you, and love you forever, you know I already do, Love Me, that's all I ask of you." Then, she added blue and silvery diary Mark had given her for her birthday. She nearly broke down right there.
Roger was next. He lay a blue guitar pick and a box of Captain Crunch down. He couldn't imagine never hearing his best friend, his only friend, tell him to take his AZT, or asking him to play Musetta's Waltz, again.
Joanne approached, leaving behind a pair of tango shoes. Alexia knew why, and nodded as Joanne looked back at the slain filmmaker's girlfriend, silently asking for permission. She would miss fixing the microphones before each of Maureen's performances.
Maureen left a diamond tennis bracelet, and a new roll of film Mark had left at she and Joanne's apartment. Joanne had told her to bring it, she wasn't sure if there were camera stores in heaven.
Collins added Mark's army green messenger bag, and Angel placed his copy of the torah that they had discussed when Angel asked about the purpose of Yom Kippur, and he'd had to look the specifics up (as opposed to calling his mother), on the cold, unfeeling marble. Benny just laid a spare key to the loft down.
As Alexia and Roger walked away, she broke the uncomfortable silence. "I hear there are great restaurants out west."
"Some of the best." The musician looked back at Mimi who was clinging to Benny, again. "How could she?" he asked.
"How could you let her go? You're lucky Roger. You still have her." Alexia questioned, wiping away more tears.
"You just don't know."
"How could we loose Marky?" Roger could see the love and longing in her deep brown eyes.
He wanted to help. "Maybe you'll see why, at least he not in anymore pain. At least now if you try to find who killed him, Mark's death won't be in vain." The words sounded stupid even as they came out of his mouth.
"His death is in vain!" Alexia screamed back, out of nowhere, her voice shattering the serenity of the cemetery. "I can't believe your running away to Santa Fe, I mean, are you insane, there's so much to care about. There's me, there's Mimi!"
"Mimi's got her baggage, too!" Now, Roger was screaming as well.
"So do you!"
"Who are you to tell me what I know, what to do?"
"A friend." A little compassion returned to her voice. "Mark's girlfriend."
"But," he added, angry with Mark for leaving Alexia. She loved him more than anything in the world. "Who was Mark anyway? Mark had you and his work, they say Mark lived for his work," Alexia didn't have to take this, Roger speaking so ill of Mark, so, she began to walk away quickly. Roger followed her, "And Mark was in love you and his work. Mark his in his work."
"From what?" She stopped and spun around to face him, her expression demanded answers.
"You doing the same thing." Roger spat, "You hiding from facing your failure, facing your loneliness, facing the fact you now live a lie. Yes, you live I lie, I'll tell you why! Mark was always preaching not to be numb, when that's how he thrived. He pretended to create and observe when he really detached from feeling alive."
"Perhaps it's because he was the one of you two who was supposed to survive!" Alexia screamed, tears streaming from her eyes. The others watched the terrible argument in horror. Mark would have never wanted his best friend and the love of his life arguing like they were. "Now it's just going to be me after you and Mimi are gone. I'll be in the loft, alone."
"Poor baby." Roger chided.
"Mimi still loves you, are you really jealous, or afraid that Mimi's weak?"
"Mimi did look pale."
"Mimi's gotten thin, Mimi's running out of time, and your running out the door."
"No more, no more, I've got to go." Roger conceded, beginning to walk away.
"Hey!" Alexia screamed at his back, "For someone who's always been let down, who's headed out of town."
"For someone who longs for a community of her own," Roger answered, "Who holding her dead boyfriend's scarf, all alone?" He took a deep breath, trying to calm down as Alexia cried even harder, loosening her grip on Mark's dark blue and gray striped scarf that was in her grasp. Off to Santa Fe for Roger, he mused, thinking of himself in the third person, and Alexia and Mimi we stuck here, in cold New York City. They could leave, but Roger knew they wouldn't. Mimi because she would have to find another dealer somewhere else, but, Alexia wouldn't leave because Mark was here, and would be forever. "I'll call." He said quietly as it began to drizzle fittingly. Roger looked to the sky. "I hate the fall."
Mimi approached him finally, her make-up running down her cheeks, and fresh tears in her eyes that Roger somehow knew weren't being shed for Mark. "You heard?" he asked.
"Every word." Mimi answered. "You don't want baggage without lifetime guarantees, you don't want to watch me die like Alexia had to do with Mark. Well, I just came to say goodbye love, goodbye love, I just came to say goodbye love, goodbye."
Alexia sat down in the freshly disturbed dirt at Mark's grave, and Roger and Mimi instinctively went to comfort her, and heard her say "I just came to say goodbye love, goodbye love, goodbye love, goodbye." She stood, brushing soft brown hair out of her eyes.
Roger realized just then how little time he may have left now that Mark was gone. Mortality had a cruel way of being ironic. It wasn't the one with AIDS that died so young, it was the normal one who had a good life, a great life, spread out before him. Glory, he thought, one blaze of glory, one song to leave behind. That's what I have to find.
Roger couldn't take it anymore. He ran as hard and as fast as he could to the Junker car that the money from his guitar had bought. As he was getting in, he took one last look at his best friend's grave. Mimi and Alexia stood with Angel. Collins, Maureen and Joanne were off by a tree, pretending not to notice the ensuing conversation. Mimi was shaking for another hit, and Alexia reached out to steady her.
"Please don't touch me, understand I'm scared, I need to go away." Mimi said, shaking even more violently. Angel held her.
"I know a place, a clinic," She said.
"A rehab?" Alexia questioned, interrupting Angel.
"Maybe," Mimi pleaded, "Could you?"
"I'll pay." Alexia finally answered.
"Thank you Alexia. Alexia? Alexia?" Mimi began to sound a lot like Roger, and Alexia felt cold water strike her face.
She sat up, still in the hallway outside of Mark's hospital room on the Intensive Care Unit Floor. She took a deep breath before she realized why she had fainted and dreamed what she had dreamed. Mark was dead. The surgeon had come out to tell her that, and she'd fainted.
The surgeon was no longer standing before she and Roger, who looked incredibly calm for just finding out that his best friend was dead. She, on the other hand, was hysterical. She sobbed, and Roger let her cry on his shoulder, a rare compassionante act for the musician. She sobbed and sobbed, "He's gone, oh god, Mark's gone."
Roger laughed sadly, and Alexia's eyes grew wide as she pulled away from him. "Why are you laughing?" she demanded, beating on his chest, "Why are you laughing? The only man I've ever loved is dead, and you're laughing!"
"Alexia, he's not."
"He's not what?" he didn't answer right away, "He's not what?"
"Mark's not dead."
A gasp escaped Alexia. She peered into Mark's room where he no longer lay. The bed was empty. "They brought him back, Alexia."
She was speechless, and confused. "W-w-what?" she stammered.
"He's in emergency surgery now," Roger told her calmly, another rare act on the musician's behalf as Alexia entered the empty room numbly. "He was dead, Alexia. The surgeon was coming out to talk to you, but you took one look at him and just passed out."
"I saw that look on his face that just said 'Excuse me Miss, your boyfriend's dead.'" She answered, and then Alexia remembered the conversation that the surgeon had interrupted. She turned on Roger. "You." She hissed, "This is your fault! This is ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU SHOT MARK!" she screeched.
Roger, suprising, stayed calm this time. He looked at his feet, and spoke softly. "I thought he was gone, too." Roger chocked back tears, to Alexia's surprise. She didn't think that the musician was capable of it. "If you hadn't passed out like that, if I hadn't had to catch you, I think I might have fainted too." He looked up at her, his eyes brimming with tears. "I don't want to lose him, and I know you don't, either."
How could I have ever suspected Roger? Alexia thought to herself, He loves Mark just like I do, but in a different way. "Let's go sit down somewhere."
----------------
Roger and Alexia made their way to the small cafe on the first floor, and Alexia sat sipping white tea quietly whil Roger stirred his coffee. "We need to find who did this to Marky," she said, "and make them pay." She wiped away tears and offerd her hand in a handshake. "Partners?"
Roger shook her hand, "Partners."