Many thanks to my pioneer reviewers. I would normally wait to accumulate more, but I figured I should get in a little Roger/Mimi time. Again, I reiterate my decision on taking a great deal of creative license on Roger's past. Remember, this is AU!

Chapter Two
Cannot Forget This Regret

Roger Davis frowned when he heard the click on the other end of the line, signifying that the mysterious (and supposedly mute) caller had hung up. He stood there for a while merely holding the phone in his hand before ultimately shrugging and hanging up. Perhaps it had just been a wrong number…or one of his drunken friends had accidentally dialed his number. He could remember quite a few "drunken Maureen" calls not long after she and Mark had broken up.

"Who's on the phone, babe?"

Roger turned to meet the gaze of his girlfriend, Mimi Marquez, as she waltzed into the loft carrying a box. The box looked crumpled and dilapidated, with what looked to be old reels sticking out of the top. He wondered where she had managed to find that stuff amidst all the rest of the junk he and his roommate had allowed to pile up over the years.

Since it was almost springtime, Mimi had suddenly been inspired to clean and rearrange everything. Roger had figured it was all due to the rehab program and her newfound outlook on life. She struggled through withdrawal by acting out in obsessive-compulsive tendencies, most of which could be quite amusing. Her energies and attention were being completely refocused, and for some reason she had picked out being a "neat-freak".

She had just started perusing through all of his old junk, calling him and Mark insufferable "packrats". For his part, Roger couldn't believe they had actually accumulated so many things with the small amount of cash they had possessed over the years. They certainly had been forced to sell a number of things to buy food and his AZT.

"Don't know. Whoever it was, they hung up…didn't even say anything. Guess they got the wrong number," he said dismissively. He sauntered over to the sofa and sat down beside Mimi, who was currently routing through the box.

"You do know Mark won't let you throw those away," he pointed out.

Mimi rolled her eyes at her boyfriend's remark. "Wasn't going to. I thought it would be fun to watch them. Some of these go back a few years before I even came here."

Roger's heart skipped a beat as he remembered how different things had been only a few years ago. His eyes flew to the box, seeing it in a completely different light now. He had half a mind to rip it from Mimi's grasp and stash it away back to whatever cramped corner she had dug it up from. There were still quite a few things about himself that he had yet to tell his girlfriend. They had both entered into this almost accidental relationship with heavy baggage. Mimi had practically laid out all her baggage at his feet, thinking Roger had done the same. He had, after all, told her about April—the girlfriend he had still been mourning over when he met Mimi. However, April had not been the only girl in his life before Mimi came along.

"Regan? Who's Regan?" Mimi asked. She was holding an old, dusty film reel. (Mark had never been able to afford modern camcorders; he had bought the vintage reel one at a flea market.) A yellowed peeling label was stuck on the reel with the words "Regan's Sweet Sixteen" written on there in large black ink.

Once she saw the reaction her question had engendered, she automatically regretted asking. She laid the reel back in the box and pushed the thing aside, putting an arm around her distraught lover. Roger looked away, laying a hand on his forehead and running his fingers through his hair. He reached over and picked up the reel, brushing off the thick layer of dust that had amounted. The two of them sat there in complete silence, Roger within his own melancholy pensive mood and Mimi burning with questions but too afraid at the moment to ask them.

Was Regan another old girlfriend of his that had either dumped him or died on him? But, if the label was correct, the girl was only sixteen a few years ago, which was how old she judged the reels to be. She knew Mark and Roger had been living together for at least that long. Roger would not have had a girlfriend that young. At least, she would hope he wouldn't.

"Roger…Baby, are you okay?" she asked hesitantly.

He sucked in a ragged breath, squeezing the reel tightly in his grasp before flinging it back in the box and abruptly rising from his seat. He walked towards the window, leaning his head against it and fighting the urge to let tears spill on his cheeks. Seeing that reel had opened up so many memories he had long ago locked away. Hearing her name spoken aloud after all this time had been even worse. Ghostly voices flitted through his mind, voices filled with righteous anger, sorrow, and fear.

Of all the things in my life I wish I could undo…that night is one of the top ones.

Roger could never forget the terrible things he had done that night to the person he had loved most. His mother had charged him on her deathbed with the responsibility of taking care of his sister, and he had so utterly and completely failed. It appeared his life was just a long series of failures, one trundling in the footsteps of another. How could he have strayed so far? How could he have done such a thing to his beloved sister? He could not blame her for running away. He certainly couldn't blame her for never forgiving him or never wanting to return…if she still lived.

"Roger?" he heard his girlfriend say tentatively. She was slowly approaching him with an expression of deep concern etched into her beautiful face.

He let her wrap her arms around him. He rested his head against her crown of dark brown hair, breathing in her sweet floral scented shampoo. Mimi's presence alone was uplifting to Roger, enabling him to take a firm grasp of his wayward emotions and channel them back under his realm of control. For a long while, the two lovers just stood there in each other's embrace. Mimi was deeply troubled by her boyfriend's behavior, but she had learned in the few months she had been living with him that he needed to work through his feelings first before trying to talk about it. This girl Regan had struck a chord within Roger, a chord that probably had not been struck for quite a while.

Damn it, Mimi, this spring-cleaning shit was a bad idea. Maybe you should have started with Maureen and Joanne's place.

Before long, they ended up back on the sofa with Roger's head nestled in Mimi's lap and Mimi stroking his sandy blonde locks lovingly. She was humming their song softly, the same song he had serenaded her with when right before she died—though her death had lasted only thirty seconds. The significance of their song went beyond that of other love songs couples shared. It had taken Roger a year to write the song, for he had been looking in all the wrong places for inspiration until Mimi came along. When he finally realized Mimi had been his long sought-after "song", it had been almost too late.

"Regan was my sister…my little sister," Roger finally admitted, his green eyes glistening with tears he refused to shed.

Mimi was somewhat astounded she had not even considered the possibility of this Regan being Roger's sister. He had never mentioned ever having a sister, as had no one else. For them to omit something so obviously important, there must be far more to Regan and why she was no longer around than Mimi suspected. Strangely enough, it didn't occur to her to be affronted by this, especially after seeing how strongly her boyfriend was affected. He was on the verge of crying, and she knew Roger was not the type who cried in front of people if he could help it. The only times she had seen his tears had been at Angel's funeral and last Christmas when she had nearly left his life forever. Even mentioning his dead girlfriend had not brought on such a reaction.

"What happened to her?" Mimi asked solemnly. She continued to stroke his hair.

Roger's eyes lingered on the reel lying on the floor in front of the sofa. He swallowed to alleviate the constricting sensation in his throat. "I don't really know what happened to her. She…left one day in November three years ago and never came back."

Mimi's brow furrowed. "She left and never came back? Roger, that can't be all that happened."

For someone who was only twenty and an exotic dancer/ex-junkie, Mimi could be awfully cognizant of his inner feelings. She had not been lying when she had told him she was "old for her age", for though she had made some definite mistakes in her young life she displayed a stunning amount of worldly knowledge and a stunning lack of naïveté. It was a shame, in a way. It appeared oftentimes that Mimi had never actually experienced a full childhood, but, then again, Roger had never really experienced "childhood" in the vernacular meaning of the term either. And neither had Regan, no matter how hard he had tried to make it otherwise.

Roger sighed heavily. "We—Regan and I—had a fight that night. It was the week before Thanksgiving. She had caught me using with April a few weeks before that. She wouldn't talk to me for a week after she saw us…and it didn't help any that she was never fond of April to begin with." In spite of the somber story, Roger had to quirk a little ironic smile at that.

"I mean, it wasn't like she didn't know I was doing smack before that. There was no way she could not have known. I tried to hide it from her, protect her, ya know. But Regan was pretty smart. She had to have figured it out. I guess actually seeing it made her snap. Maybe she had just been in denial before…I don't know. All I know is that when I came home from a gig that night, she was hell bent on confronting me about it."

Roger sat up beside Mimi, who was listening intently. There was no judgment to be found in her beautiful brown eyes, only understanding and compassion. If anyone in this relationship was prejudiced and quick to jump to conclusions, it was definitely him, Roger thought to himself. Mimi was an absolute saint to put up with him. Perhaps Hinduism was the right religion and he had done something extremely noble in a former life. That was the only way he could imagine he would deserve the gorgeous young woman sitting beside him, or, even more, deserve a second chance with her after almost foolishly throwing his first one away.

She nodded to urge him to go on, taking his hand in her own and squeezing it supportively. He drew in another tremulous breath, looking up at the ceiling so the laws of gravity would force his tears back. "She was holding my personal stash. To this day, I still have no idea how she found that shit. She must have been searching all day for it. I told you she was a smart kid. Things probably wouldn't have gone down so badly if I hadn't gotten so drunk before coming home. And the real bitch in this matter is that I can remember everything. You would think that since I was so drunk, there would be holes in my memory. But everything is still so crystal clear. I saw her holding my stash and I got scared. I told her to hand it over to me and she said no, obviously. She told me I needed to get help and that I was going to kill myself with this shit…and then she brought April into the problem. Regan had never liked April right from the moment they had first met. She blamed April for the drug-use."

"She was probably just jealous. Big brother is giving all his attention to someone else. She probably resented April for that," Mimi commented sagely. "How old was she, anyway?"

Roger blinked, figuring up the dates in his head. "When April and I first started going out, Regan was fourteen and a half. When Regan…left…she was sixteen." He gasped, his eyes widening. He turned to Mimi, taking her hands into his own. "Oh my God! Mimi, she'd be twenty by now. Her birthday is on January 29th."

"Oh," Mimi replied, not really knowing what else she could say to that. She and Roger both knew the unspoken phrase was "if she were alive." Apparently, neither of them was quite willing to voice that.

Roger was still thunderstruck by the fact that his baby sister would be twenty by now. It was such a huge thing to finally realize; it made the length of her disappearance all the more noticeable now. The last birthday she had celebrated with them was on that old reel—her sixteenth birthday.

Oh God, has it really been that long? Has it really been a little over three years since I last saw my sister? What would Regan look like at twenty? She was always so skinny, but that was because she never ate enough. What am I saying? What are the chances she's alive or in any good condition? We looked for her for so long. We would have found her…but, then, Regan was always a resourceful stubborn little brat when she wanted to be. If she didn't want to be found, could she actually still be…Is it possible that she's living a good life now, better than the one I was able to give her? Oh, that would be…great.

Mimi broke Roger's frantic train of thought by saying his name in a worried tone. He shook his head and surveyed his surroundings almost as if he wasn't quite certain as to where he was. When Mimi laid a hand on his face to turn him towards her and said his name again, his wits returned.

"Sorry…I drifted off for a second. It's just kinda hard to believe my baby sister would be twenty by now. I missed her eighteenth birthday. I really wanted to do something special for her on her eighteenth, and then her twenty-first. Although she was already smoking and drinking before then, which I kind of did nothing to stop, seeing as how I did it when I was her age. I was such a piss-poor substitute parent. My mother's probably been rolling in her grave for years," Roger muttered sullenly.

Though in all honesty, Regan had turned out rather well. Roger had not been alone in "raising" her or caring for her. He, Mark, Benny, Collins, Maureen, and Angel had all taken up the roles of the "village" per se, each giving his or her own personal touch to Regan's latter childhood years upbringing. Mark, Benny, Collins, Angel, and Maureen had all loved Regan as if she had been their own sister, and they were all just as protective of her as Roger had been. Through the poverty, the cold nights, the hunger, through whatever hardship crossed their path, they had still managed to create a happy family out of such a motley crew.

Everything began to shatter when Regan ran away. Her disappearance created a hole, foreshadowing the eventual unraveling of the entire family. First Regan left. Then April committed suicide after finding out she had contracted HIV and passed it on to Roger. Then Benny went and found himself a wife among the greedy wolves of the money mongers. Then Collins left for MIT, taking Angel with him. Of course, Collins and Angel always came back to visit; Benny had rarely ever dropped in. It was like he had severed all his ties with them. Then Maureen dumped Mark for the sassy lawyer named Joanne. And then they lost Angel to AIDS only last October.

Roger stopped to consider the possibility that he was being completely "glass-half-empty" about this. True, Benny had gotten married to Alison Grey, but was it fair to expect him to continue living the bohemian "starving artist" life with them when fate had given him an out? Roger had to concede that it wouldn't be fair, though he and the rest of his friends still couldn't help but feel betrayed. And Maureen was still around; even more, she had brought Joanne into their lives. The straight-laced lawyer had carved herself a niche into the family, something April had never been able to completely do. So, in effect, her leaving Mark had ultimately added to their family.

Then there was Mimi, the most important addition to the family of all, in Roger's eyes. He smiled at his lover, wondering where he would be right now if it weren't for her. He certainly would not be as radiantly happy as he was now. Okay, so perhaps radiantly happy was a bit of an exaggeration, but at least it was not a gross exaggeration, only a small one. Had he felt like this around April? He had loved her, he was sure of that. But had he been so head over heels in love that he could not even think straight at times? Well, perhaps he would know the answer to that question if he and April had not gotten so heavy with the drug use. Roger struggled to remember moments between he and April that had not been tinged in some way with their rotten habits. He found a few, but the shadow of their addictions had always been hanging around like a cloud of doom. It had tainted their relationship. That was probably why the group had never fully accepted her. And Roger hoped it was more than petulant jealousy of stolen attention that prompted his sister to dislike April.

This was one of the first times he had ever truly evaluated his past, especially when it came to April and Regan. In hindsight, he came to realize he had loved April, but it was nothing to what he felt for Mimi now. When he thought Mimi had been dead for those dreadful thirty seconds, he honestly wanted to go with her. He asked himself once if he truly would have taken his own life not long after. It would scare everyone to know that he had found the answer—and the answer was yes.

When he and Mark had found April's body, her blood staining the bathroom floor, he had certainly felt a great deal of shock, grief, and all that goes with it. He had nose-dived into a deep depression before his friends convinced him to check into rehab (most of the depression was, in part, due to learning he was HIV positive), but he could not honestly remember wanting to die. (He was not counting the severe pains of withdrawal that often pushed him to wishing for death. Just about everyone in rehab suffered that.) If anything, the only other time besides with Mimi that he had desired death was when they had been forced to give up the hopeless search for Regan.

"This whole drifting off bit is starting to get a little bit creepy, Roger," Mimi interjected.

He smiled sheepishly. He leaned in and softly kissed her on the lips, taking her somewhat by surprise. But she was always one to rise to the occasion, so she eagerly met his spontaneous kiss before breaking it and saying, "That was nice, babe, but don't think it's getting you out of telling me the rest. It's occurred to me that there's still a lot I don't know about you or your past."

"Mimi, I—" Roger stammered.

Mimi shook her head, smiling reassuringly. "It's okay, Roger. I know everyone has their secrets and I respect that. Your past isn't exactly glamorous and neither is mine. There are some things I haven't told you about me, and, well, there are some things I probably will never tell you. I'm guessing you're gonna turn out the same, and that's fine with me. I never believed people in relationships have to know everything about each other. It takes all the fun out it, anyway. Hell, if you know everything already, there's no mystery left. That's the key to drying up the passion."

My God, she sounds almost exactly like Regan. Okay, you definitely do not want to equate your girlfriend—the one you have sex with every night…and everyday—to your baby sister. That is forbidden and disturbing territory, man.

As disturbing as it could get, Roger could not deny the similarities between Mimi and Regan. Mimi had the same endearing forwardness, the same proclivity to waver between being tremendously blunt and extremely subtle. They both could be stubborn beyond sanity at times, although Roger was really no judge because stubbornness was like a Davis family trait. And their tempers were frighteningly identical: unpredictable and somewhat destructive. Sometimes it would only take a short, seemingly insignificant matter to set Mimi off, as it had been with Regan. (Roger never wanted to say aloud that he chalked this up to "female" problems.). Other times, matters that would normally really light the fuse on Mimi's temper would seem to not faze her at all. Regan had been the same way, although her teenage-hormone driven temper had been even worse and even more unpredictable.

Would Regan have liked Mimi? Now that was an interesting question. Roger liked to think the similarities between his girlfriend and his sister could have acted as a common ground for a potentially strong friendship. April had never managed to establish a rapport with Regan, and she never really attempted to. The two of them had been so different, perhaps too different. The dislike between the two had been quite mutual, everyone knew, but April was far more discreet about her feelings. Regan had been rather vocal. Literally.

"What are you smiling about?" Mimi questioned.

Roger just shook his head. "Just the fact that I think I may have finally found a woman my sister would approve of."

Mimi laughed, kissing Roger on the lips before snuggling up in his arms. "I suppose I should be flattered by this news."

Roger leaned his head against the crown of Mimi's head. "Probably. She was a lot like me—slow to trust people most of the time. We had to be, growing up. For a long time, the only ones we could trust were each other."

Mimi stroked his arm, which was wrapped tightly around her torso. "It must have been tough. How old were you when your mother died?"

Roger's voice was completely level when he answered. "I was seventeen, Regan was only twelve. Our lives before living here were not that much different. Hunger and hovering just above the poverty line were a way of life for Regan and me. Even when my mom was alive she was drunk half the time, but she still loved us and cared for us when she could…when she was sober enough. The drink, of course, fucked up her liver and killed her. Regan and me, we had to learn how to fend for ourselves early on. Of course, I did the fending for both of us most of the time."

Mimi was quiet for a moment, taking in all this new information. Then she asked in a timid way, "What about your father?"

She felt her boyfriend stiffen from what she assumed could only be anger of some sort. Again she had asked a question that had produced such emotional reactions from her lover. Would she ever stop doing that?

"My father…you mean the sperm donor of my sister and I? He was…" Roger trailed off, his voice dark with malevolent ire.

"Conspicuously absent?" Mimi tried.

"Oh no, he was around. Being conspicuously absent would have been way too much of a blessing for Mom, Regan, and me," Roger spat, his tone thick with resentful rage.

He didn't have to go any further, for Mimi was intuitive enough to guess what Roger's father had been like. Questioning him about it would probably not go over very well, so she wisely decided to keep her mouth shut on the issue. It made her heart ache even more for her boyfriend, for she had had a very loving, wonderful father in the seven short years he had been in her life. He had no idea what he and Regan could have had, and she did. It was probably best that he remain ignorant as to what he had missed out on.

"He was the reason I took Regan and left home after Mom died. She was the only reason I stuck around, but I shouldn't have even then. I should have taken Regan and run for it when my mother told me to. My stupidity almost got Regan killed. The day of my mom's funeral, after we got back from the cemetery, I was in my room, smoking a cigarette. My father and my sister were in the kitchen, and she was still crying about Mom. I heard my dad tell her to shut up, but she didn't. I mean, Christ, how the fuck are you supposed to tell a twelve-year-old girl who just lost her mother to not cry about it? I don't know why I hesitated so long to run to the kitchen. I guess I was still so fucking numb from everything my brain wasn't making the right connections. I heard him call her…something you don't call your twelve-year-old child and then I heard this awful crashing noise. That was when I ran into the kitchen."

Mimi's breath hitched in her throat, though she had been barely breathing the entire time Roger had been recounting this. She couldn't tell whether he knew he was talking to her, or just getting it all off his chest. It didn't matter either way, for something told her that this story had never been told aloud before. Not even to Mark. She felt a sick sense of privilege at being the one to hear such a dark memory retold.

His voice was taut with repressed rage as he continued. "I had seen the fucker hit my mother, and I had done nothing but try and shield Regan from it. He had even slapped me around a few times. But I had never seen him hit her…ever. But when I went into that kitchen, I saw her lying on the floor…her head was bleeding and she looked so pale. I thought she was dead…and I took a chair and flew at my father. I beat the fucker black and blue before I heard Regan cry out a little."

"I left my father where he was; I didn't even care if I had killed him at the time. I should have cared, because if I had killed him, I would have been sent to jail and Regan…they would have sent her into foster care. All we had were each other, I couldn't lose her and she needed me. So, I took what money and valuable possessions we had, packed up some of Regan's and my things and we left. I was too scared even to take her to the hospital, even though she had been knocked on the head pretty badly. I did a few more illegal things, like getting papers to say that I was her legal guardian so if we were tracked down I would have some kind of legitimate claim to her. Somewhere along the line we met Mark and Benny and Collins and ended up living here with them. And then Maureen, Angel, and April came along later."

Mimi was astonished by all of this. She had sensed her boyfriend had come from a broken home, but she had never imagined the great lengths he had gone to in order to protect and care for his sister. Hearing this made it all the more obvious how wonderful was this man she had fallen so deeply for. A small tear formed at the corner of her eye, which she blinked away.

"And Regan…when we moved in here and she was enrolled in the local school it was like all that shit with our dad had never happened. I thought she was gonna be traumatized and in serious need of therapy for the rest of her life, but she was so much stronger than I ever gave her credit for. I mean, she wasn't completely unaffected. When we first moved in here, the first few months took a lot of adjusting, and she was constantly having these nightmares. But soon she bounced back into the swing of semi-normal life. She and I never really talked about our lives before living here…and we never really told the rest of them much about it."

Mimi sat up and leaned her head against Roger's. His confession had explained so many things about himself and his past to her, but it had also opened up some incredibly complex questions, questions she was not sure she possessed the courage to ask. She hated to put him through any sort of pain—physical or emotional. Heaven knew she had already done enough of that to last them both a lifetime. She had wanted to focus on the short amount of time she had left with him; she had wanted to focus only on happiness and content.

Who knew how long she had before the virus flowing through her bloodstream would become full-fledged AIDS? Roger had not had HIV as long as she had, though he was four years older than her. He probably had a few years more than she, God willing. They hadn't talked about the incident almost three months ago, nor did they speak of the ticking biological clock within Mimi's body. When she had gone off her medication and allowed her body to be exposed to all of the wintry New York City elements, she had severely weakened her system. Even though she was back on track, she knew that mistake she made would cost her precious time. The only question was, how much time? She didn't dwell on it though. Focusing on when the time came for her to die was not how she wanted to spend what was left of her life.

No day but today, she had told Roger. Forget regret or life is yours to miss.

This regret that her lover carried within him, however, was not something he could easily forget. She had not even heard the full story of what had really happened that November night that had caused him to drive Regan away. She was not exactly sure she wanted to hear all the details, for it appeared as if Roger had gone through enough guilty suffering. She didn't want to make him relive any more painful moments from the past—painful moments that still ate away at his soul.

Mimi's eyes landed on the forgotten reel with Regan's name pasted on the surface. She retrieved it from the box, running her nails over the ink in a thoughtful way. Roger was watching her with a questioning look in his green eyes. She smiled broadly at him and kissed him on the forehead.

"What do you say we watch this old movie and put all those demons inside you to rest for good? You can't undo the past, Roger. There's nothing you can do to help Regan now. You need to let her go, for your sake and ours. There's a chance she's okay and doing real well…so think of that. You did say she was a smart kid, after all," she said softly.

Roger closed his eyes for a moment before reopening them and leaning into Mimi's embrace, laying his hand over top of her hand, which lay on the reel. "I know, baby, but it's not as easy as that. If I knew what had happened to her, maybe I could let her go. But this uncertainty, it's always been hanging around me for the past three years. I'll never know if she's scared, or if she's hungry, or if she's hurt, or if she's ever forgiven me, or…God, I sound like an anxious mother whose just sent her kid off to college."

Mimi was grinning in amusement, her brown eyes glittering with mirth. "Yeah, and it's really kind of cute."

Roger snorted, wiping at his wet eyes and sniffling. He picked up the reel, regarding it closely for a moment before rising to his feet. "Ah, what the hell? I'll go get the projector."

Something that I feel should be cleared up is the whole HIV or AIDS dilemma. Now, I know in the movie they kept mixing the two together as if they were the same thing. A lot of fanfiction stories here have followed suit, and I cannot blame them. However, since I'm going pre-med, it has always bothered me how the two terms get confused. Roger, Mimi, and Collins are HIV positive, they do not have AIDS yet. HIV is the virus that causes the syndrome known as AIDS. Basically, having AIDS is worse than being HIV positive. Some of the characters in the story will mix the two up as they have done in the movie, but I want to ensure the readers are aware of the difference.