Disclaimer: I wish I could say I owned it…but I don't…

A/N: OMG I JUST SAW WICKED LAST NIGHT AND IT WAS SO AMAZING AND SEB ARCELUS IS SOO EFFING HOT OMG! YAY! I LOVE WICKED SO EFFING MUCH AND FOR SOME REASON IT INSPIRED ME TO WRITE ANOTHER CHAPTER IN A RENT FIC! AHHHHH!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"Mark, it's about time you get those girls of yours named. They're two months old. They should've been named when they were eight days old! That's tradition!" Mark really couldn't bear hearing his mother screech into the phone. He hadn't gotten more that six hours of sleep in the past two days, leaving him feeling tired, disoriented, and not unlike when he had a hangover. That feeling and screeching, crazy mothers do not mix. Especially not at seven AM.

"Mom! Things have been really, really crazy around here. Interviews, twin girls. The last thing on me and Marli's minds are naming Blair and Riley. It'll happen eventually. Just give us some time, okay?" He knew it wouldn't be okay with his mom. In fact, she'd probably offer to arrange everything herself. How she dealt with his sister raising Catholic kids, he'd never know. But then again Cindy was her little perfect child. And his mother was okay with everything and anything she did. But his mother didn't know everything. He wondered how she would react if she found out her precious Cindy was a slut back in high school.

"Mark Cohen! What's wrong with you? Don't you care if your daughters are brought up Jewish? Don't you care that you should be starting them at eight days old?" Truthfully…not really. Don't tell her that.

"I do, Mom, I really do. It's just I don't have that much time to sit down and organize these things right now. In case you haven't noticed, I directed a movie that just opened two months ago to rave reviews. That means that I've been going to a lot of interviews. In fact, Marli and I are going on Letterman tonight. Okay? I'll take care of it as soon as I can. I just can't handle it now. Now I really have to go. Goodbye Mom."

"Mark, not so fast. I need to talk to you."

"Bye Mom." And he hung up before she could get another word in. Why must his mother be annoying? If that ever happened to Marli, he'd probably lock her in a room and bring food in three times a day. Never will that happen to Blair and Riley.

He walked out to the living room of their apartment. There Marli sat, playing with 2-and-a-half month old Blair, who made gurgling noises at her mom. Riley, who had been asleep in her room woke up, crying loudly.

"I'll get her," he said to Marli, giving her the okay to continue playing with Blair. He ran to the nursery, where his little Riley lay, her face red from crying and contrasting deeply with her white blonde hair. That was the only time you could really see either of the girls hair: when they cried. He picked her up and started rocking her gently. "Shhh, Ry, it's alright. Daddy's here sweetie, shh. It's going to be okay sweetie. What's wrong darling? Shh, it's ok. Stop crying." As if on demand, her whimpers faded and she stopped crying. Her face was gradually returning to it's normal color and her cerulean eyes becoming less swollen. He took her out to the living room.

"Is she okay?" Marli sounded very worried. She was always worried about the girls, as if every little cry made meant that they were hurt or sick or something. He understood though. These were her first kids. And she was worried. It was really endearing, albeit slightly annoying.

"She's fine, Mar. Don't worry. She was just cranky that's all." He smiled at his wife and turned to Riley and began speaking in baby talk. "You're okay, right? Yeah. Tell Mommy she has nothing to worry about. You just didn't like being woken up, did you? Yeah, no one likes that." He kissed his little baby daughter on the forehead and looked back to his wife. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Just tired. I think I should be off of Blair-duty. She's so fussy and is always waking up way before she's supposed to. And since I have Blair-duty, I'm the one always waking up with her. Trade with me?" She pouted and made a sad face. He could see that she was tired, but he didn't want to trade with her. It wasn't as if he loved Riley more than he loved Blair; they were both his daughters and he loved them both the same. But if he had to wake up with that child at four AM, her customary wake-up time, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. He had always tended to get really angry while working off of little sleep.

"Nope, sorry. You wanted Blair-duty, you got Blair-duty. Too late to trade, love. Sorry. I love you, but I would probably be…well it would be bad. I don't behave well when I don't get enough sleep. Let's just put it that way."

"But, Mark! I haven't slept for more than five hours—combined—in three days. I'm tired and cranky and I'm probably not going to look too hot on Letterman tonight."

"I have an idea! Let's trade off, certain nights, we each get a different baby. That way we can both get sleep at one point, because we will each have Riley at one point. Then the person who has Blair will have to deal for a day." He was a genius. An absolutely brilliant—

"Genius! This is why I love you!" She gave him a kiss. "Yes, you are such a genius! I love you, I love you, I love you! Did I mention how much I love you?"

"Only three times. But that's totally enough. I get the point. Mostly because I love you even more than you love me."

"Like that's possible! Yay! I am so happy right now." She picked up Blair, who looked very agitated at the fact that her mother was giving someone besides her attention. "So what time do we have to be there for Letterman?"

"The car's picking us up in about…two hours." He strained to see the clock because it was bit hard to look at a watch when you were holding a baby.

"Ugh, can you believe they film it so early when it doesn't even air until, like, 12:30? It makes no sense whatsoever."

"Actually, as a filmmaker myself, yeah it does. They need time to edit and airbrush and all that good stuff. Otherwise, everyone would look terrible and it would be a very long show. It works, trust me."

"Whatever. I'm just glad their letting us keep Blair and Riley backstage during the show. I feel like we've been leaving them with people so much lately."

"I know."

There was a knock on the door and Mark went to go get it. It was Roger. "Hey, what's up? How are Mimi and Adam?"

"They're doing good. They apparently like each other more than they like me. And she won't stop talking to him in baby talk. I try to tell her that he's an actually, little person and we should talk to him like we'd talk to a normal person, but then she just tells me it's no different than when I sing to him. I definitely think it's different. In one of them, there are actually being normal people words used. In the other it's just a bunch of gibberish that no one, not even the baby it's being said to understands."

"I speak baby talk to my girls…wait, so did you and Mimi have a fight?"

"Well, I guess it could be called that. But it wasn't a normal fight. We didn't yell, because Adam was sleeping in the next room. There wasn't any crying or cursing or anything like that. It's just, things have changed so much and I guess we haven't really gotten used to it yet. I just never expected it to be this hard. Since she came home, we've been having more and more of these little semi-fights. I feel like we're one of those couples that is bound for divorce." At that point Roger had sat down and put his head in his hands. Marli had taken Riley to get her dressed and also to give Mark and Roger privacy.

"No…all you need is to get used to everything. It took Marli and I awhile. We've had our fair share of little fights. Our relationship is still strong, even with the twins."

"Well of course your relationship is still strong. You guys are the perfect couple. I bet you guys even are all happy and perky when you fight. 'Oh Marli, you're so terrible. I love you, though.'" He put on his best Mark impression, complete with facial expressions. "Mimi and I…our relationship has never been stable. God, what did we get ourselves into? But anyway, talking about this is not the point of my little visit, although it was good to get that off my chest."

"Anytime, dude, anytime."

"Well, Mimi and I decided in a moment of not fighting, that we would like to take you guys out to dinner tonight. You know, to thank you for everything you've done for us. We have reservations for eight. If we aren't out of Letterman by then—yes, I said we, they asked me to perform—then we can make it later. Maureen said that she and Joanne could watch the babies because Keith is taking Ryan off their hands tonight anyway. We aren't taking no for an answer."

"Okay, we'll go. Although, I must warn you, Marli's not all too comfortable leaving the babies anywhere. Not anymore. She's become oddly paranoid and worried lately. It's weird, seeing as when they were really little, she would leave them with her mom all the time. Then her mom goes back to Palm Beach and she goes into worry mode."

"Mimi's paranoid about Adam, too. I can only imagine what she'll do when he's older, to keep him from turning out like us. That is, if we're around that long…"

Mark winced at his friend's comment. He had gotten really good at acting like nothing was wrong. "Don't say that."

"Yeah, whatever, I have to go. Gotta be ready for Letterman, you know? Later!"

It was a while later and it was just about time to go on. She and Mark waited for their cue to go on backstage. They were going to be the first interviewed, Roger going on after them. Marli was so excited. She loved interviews and this one, her second time on Letterman, was bound to be amazing. She squeezed Mark's hand. He was obviously very nervous about this interview, his first big one. "Mark, baby, don't be worried. It's a lot of fun believe me. You're going to have such a ball. David's really cool and it's a lot of fun. Kay?" He nodded and swallowed. He was so irresistible when he was nervous.

"And now, the writer and the director of the hit movie Chasing Dreams, please welcome Marli Ryan-Cohen and Mark Cohen." Marli and Mark took their cue to walk out. They held hands and waved to the audience. Marli looked spectacular, having lost almost all of her baby weight, and was wearing a gorgeous wrap dress. Her blonde hair shone into the camera, gleaming. "Marli, Mark, have a seat. Marli, it's been two years since I last saw you and a lot has happened since. You have a brand new movie you wrote that is getting a lot of Oscar buzz. You got married to the director of the movie, that's Mark, and now have two beautiful twin girls. What's that like?"

"What having twins?" She laughed and looked at David who nodded. "Oh it's great, but it's a lot of work."

"Identical?"

"Yeah."

"Mark, what's it like being the father of identical twins? Any odd stories?"

"Well, it's interesting. I actually have a really funny story. You see Marli and I couldn't tell them apart at first, so we decided to color-code their socks. Some of our friends are always over and one of them decided it would be funny to take off their socks and hide them. Eventually, we found the socks, but we didn't know which baby was which. So we ended up having to ink their feet and compare the footprints to find out which baby was which." The audience laughed at the story. Marli saw that Mark was laughing too, and cracked up. It really was a funny story.

"So how do you tell them apart now?"

"They have little bracelets with their initials engraved on them." Mark seemed to be loving this interview thing.

"I heard that you told your friends and families the initials before the girls were born so they would have to guess about the names. Marli, why did you guys do that?"

"Well, Mark has never really been a fan of disclosing stuff like that. He didn't even want to know the sex of the babies. So he said we couldn't tell anyone the names, which I was completely cool with. But then all our relatives and friends wanted to get the babies monogrammed and engraved things. So we told them the initials BHC and RAC. They all thought it would end up being like really common names, so we really surprised them."

"What did you name them?"

"Blair Hillary and Riley Ava." Marli loved her girls' names so much, and she just loved when people asked what they were.

"Well, I had the opportunity to meet these little girls you two love so much backstage and I must add that they are absolutely adorable."

"Thank you," Mark and Marli said in unison.

"But we aren't here to talk about your girls are we? We're supposed to be talking about that new movie that's getting so much attention. Marli, why did you get Mark, a relative unknown at the time, to direct this film?"

"Well, I couldn't find anyone else to do it. The producers were threatening to pull the plug on the project. I was really upset one night and was looking at pictures from college when I saw Mark. I got his number and called him…and let's just say the rest is history."

"And Mark, how do you feel about this, your first big movie, getting so much Oscar buzz?"

"It's weird, and yet very cool. A year ago, when this whole thing started, no one even knew who I was. Now, I'm a big name. I'm getting calls to direct more movies and a few studios want to release the documentaries I made a few years ago. It's completely bizarre."

"And with Oscar nominations coming out later this month you both must be really excited. The movie is rumored to be in the running for almost all the big awards. How do you feel about that, Mark?"

"It's amazing. I can't imagine even being nominated. But the rumors are enough for me now. I can live off the fact people would even say that this movie would be considered for awards that big. Sure, we won a bunch of Golden Globes…but this is a whole different ball game."

"You both picked up a Golden Globe each. Marli, you got one for Best Original Screenplay. Mark, you got one for Best Director. And the movie also picked up Best Picture. A lot of the actors won acting awards, too. It is more than possible you'll pick up some Oscar nominations."

"Yeah. We're hopeful." Marli crossed her fingers to the camera for emphasis. "But enough about this. It makes me feel like I'm jinxing it."

"Well fortunately for you, our interview is over. Next up: The man who's music is taking America by storm, since this movie came out: Roger Davis. See you back after this break."

The "break" in question was really just enough time for Marli and Mark to move over so that Roger could have the main seat when he walked out. In editing they would add on commercials. For now, all they needed was David saying that it was time for commercials so it wouldn't be weird when they edited the show.

"Now please welcome to our show, the man who did the soundtrack for Chasing Dreams, Roger Davis!" There was a collective applause and a few rowdy cheers for Roger. It just went to prove that everyone loved a rock star.

David went on to do Roger's interview, asking him about the solo album, winning awards for the soundtrack, and all that career stuff. He also asked about Mark and Roger's friendship and of course, that baby Adam he had just met backstage. It was pretty basic and Marli thought he looked like he was having the time of his life.

Then they cut to another "break" before it was time for Roger to perform. He was going to play one of the better songs on the soundtrack.

"This must be it, welcome to this New Year/ This party just sucked, I have no idea why I'm here/ maybe it's because of you, yeah just because of you/ you know who you are, you breathed new life into my existence/ usually humans suck and I'd rather stick to being lonely and angry/ but your happiness, it's just so sincere/ that I can't seem to be such a pessimist anymore/ even though it's been a crazy year/ I just can't seem to get over the way you smile/ the way I hang to every word you seem to say/ oh, I am such a girl/ I have never been good at showing emotion until now/ you're the one who will make this year worthwhile/ what can I say/ it gets better with each one of your smiles/ I'm now smiling under all the fake veneers/ because of you, I'll have a happy new year." The song finished and the crowd screamed. Marli had to admit, Roger had sounded phenomenal.

David thanked everyone for being there and signed off the show. They couldn't leave fast enough.

Later on at dinner, Roger, Mimi, Mark, and Marli sat around a table. Mark noticed how jittery Marli was. She hated leaving the babies alone, and he understood that. But he could tell something was going on and he wished Marli would at least try to lighten up, so things wouldn't feel so heavy.

"Listen, there's a reason why we brought you both out for dinner tonight, and it's not just for helping Roger take care of Adam when I was in the hospital. I greatly appreciate that, though." Mimi took a sip of her wine after she said that, exhaling deeply into her glass.

"Yeah, we have to ask you a question." Roger seemed jittery about asking the question, which made Mark even more nervous. At least they hadn't said anything about bad news.

"Shoot." Mark was ready, or at least, he thought he was.

"Well…I'm not going to mince words. Mark, this is going to be a little difficult for you to stomach. It's inevitable that we are both going to eventually die. It's the sad truth. We don't know when, and it probably won't be very soon, but it is going to happen. We just wanted to ask…if…when Mimi and I die…would you guys take care of Adam?" Roger seemed very pained at asking this, like it made his ultimate reality much more real. Technically, neither of them had full-blown AIDS yet, but eventually, it would happen and then they'd get sick, not be able to fight it off, and die.

Mark swallowed a large lump in his throat and turned to Marli, who just nodded. "Of course we will. Of course we will." Mark repeated this twice, still not knowing how to handle the question, but knowing that he and Marli definitely would do it.

"Hey, you both don't know what this means to Roger and I that you're willing to do this. We knew that we would have to name someone as his caregiver when we're gone and we couldn't think of anyone better than you both."

"Well, we're honored you would trust us with this." Marli smiled, now trying to lighten the mood. "And if you have any other kids, we'll take them too."

"Well we aren't really planning on having more kids, because of all the complications with Adam, but if we do, they'll definitely go to you too."

"C'mon, let's order!" Roger broke up the moment because he apparently wanted to eat. They all laughed and nodded, glad to have that over with.

A/N: I've been working on this on and off since Saturday. I kind of like it. And it's the longest chapter. I'm sorry I skipped the babies' first Christmas, but I couldn't handle writing another Christmas chapter. Next chapter may have flashbacks though. Maybe through another interview? Not sure. Review! Also, sorry for the crappy lyrics. Or at least I thought they were. I'm a perfectionist. But I based the losely off "Together We'll Ring In The New Year" by Motion City Soundtrack, so partial credit goes to them. I changed it a lot though.