Title: Dark Screen
Author: AC
Feedback: is love. 333. Especially sense I have to get up at four tomorrow, and I'd be so happy to see a little piles of reviews right here. Oh yes. Oh yes.
Pairing: Implied Mimi/Roger.
Rating: G.

Summary: In a way, we feel that they are saying goodbye.
Notes: Okay. I wrote this like a screenplay. No idea why. This is just sort of the feeling I got from this song, even though it doesn't really relate. I guess the end did, but I almost like it better with out that last little Mark and Roger scene. Opinions? I apologize that this has basically, nothing to do with the prompt. But this song played over and over again in the background, and caused this idea to come to my head, thus... the word inspired? -dork- If you like, I sort of saw it as Mimi reminding Roger to be all... alive-ful. So. Yeah. I should of written something during RENT like I saw, but this just kind of threw it's way up.
Special Thanks: To my literary book. That has all these directions on how to right a screenplay for some... very weird reason.
Spoilers: N/A
Warnings: Character Death.
Disclaimer: I don't own RENT. If I did, then... yeah. I'd be cooler then you are. /b

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The dark screen slowly begins to assume color: a pale, fuzzy navy gray. For several beats it is impossible for us to distinguish what we are seeing. Then, rather quickly, an image begins to resolve- a couch, an old loved couch with patches of duck tape and patches and the appearance of a spring here and there. Otherwise, all we can really see is a large dark shadow, huddled over on the couch- the only thing we can really make heads or tails of in the darkness.

Now the first sound: the distant but clear drawing of some curtains that brings in some moonlight on the couch and reveals the landscape of beaten old furniture. We know see that is was not one 'shadow', but two and that they are now people- a man and woman.

The man is the first thing that catches our eyes, the woman is a bit hidden in the light. His attention does seem on the other though, face wrinkled up in a quiet concerned expression. His hair is short- bleached, obviously- and a combination of the two makes him see impossibly thinner then we would like to think. There is a guitar on his lap and his hands are poised around the strings, but he does not play. His lips are drawn in a straight line, and they slowly crack into a smile. His face- and it's tight countenance- practically melts into a warmer expression. We can only guess it was something the woman on his left said, although we can not hear it. For a second, we must think it's odd that we can hear the curtains click but not the person only a few feet away speaking. With the same soft smile, at danger of crawling farther then it's contained place, the man turns and motions at the camera bit.

A pause. We hear the curtains click again and we catch our first glimpse of the woman as the camera slowly draws in on her. She's even thinner then the man, her face sunken and her large brown eyes seem to be wide and constantly look misplaced on her face. Delicately and finely bones, there's hint of beauty, but we're too distracted by her sickly appearance to notice or care. Her willowy tiny fingers are brought up on her face, fingers almost delicately touching this mark on her neck. A bruise? A cut? No, we've seen this happen too many times to wonder for half-second what it might be.

It's a lesion. She knows it, and he knows it, and we know it.

For a second, she smiles- slowly, it's too large for her face and almost causes her eyes to be completely closed as she does and for a second, there's a second of childlike innocence that the place had lost a time ago. It's an feeling only sweetly recalled now. And for the second it's there, it's gone.

She coughs, gently, delicately, into her hand. She doesn't even put much effort into it, just a light cough that her hold body bends to before she relaxes. No one else seems startled. He's heard the sound- like sand paper against each other or the a car motor sputtering before it dies- many times before. The other person we know is present- the one who pulled the curtain and controls the camera- doesn't seem alarmed.

We, however, are.

The camera begins a slow pullback from her face and settles on them both again, and there is eerie the sound of all three sighing at once. The woman laughs and throws back her head a bit before coughing again, violently this time, and alarmed, the man breaks from his own smile and seems to lead her back into the pillow and whips out a blanket- like magic, and offers it to her. When she is finished, she takes a few breaths before reaching out and accepting it.

There is more sweet, comfortable silence as the young woman curls up against a pillow and closes her eyes for a moment. She is not asleep, but she is trying. We know it's in vain. We know that she's sick and that she is dying and that she dare not sleep through the last nights, last hours and last minutes. Eyes still shut tight, her breath smooths, and the addresses a man that we feel like is not there. Her words are quiet, and are again, not picked up by the camera. It's only the sight of her lips moving and a little laugh after she is finished.

For the first time, we see the man appear from behind the camera. He looks somewhat healthy in comparison of the both of them, with a more natural shade of choppy blonde hair and dark square glasses on his face. He looks directly at the camera, at us, smiles shakily and then steps over to the couch, sitting on the far edge. He is alien, distant, scared.

The woman laughs again and the taller man sets down the guitar and laces his fingers through hers, and she laughs more. We get the feeling that she is laughing only because she's happy she can.

They talk. We really don't care what they say, for the conversation is idle and their only passing time. They're only trying to make memories.

In a way, we feel that they are saying goodbye. She is saying goodbye to them and their words hold double meanings and are too quiet and too careful. They're afraid to shatter one another.

The conversation slowly drifts off into silence, and the woman's grip on the man's hand slowly goes off. She is asleep. Both pair of eyes land on her, watching her chest raise and fall.

In and out. In and out.

There is a silent prayer that she'll wake up in the morning.

They look from place to place for awhile, either lost in their thoughts are at a loss to keep out of them. Slowly, the wiry cameraman raises and goes around to the camera, and we hear him flicking around with various buttons before the scene fades again.

It fades gradually, less quickly than it rose, and we suddenly realize that we are saying goodbye as well. To the cameraman who seemed to hold this final shot a bit longer then needed. To the worried rocker who has now snatched up his guitar and began silently playing with the strings and to the young thin girl on the couch who we know didn't make it through the night.

He knew it, she knew it, and now we know it too.

The screen slowly begins to assume it's first color, an inky, dark black.

The illusion of the film is gone. She's gone and they're sitting in a room trying to recreate her. Trying to make her relive again by playing that clip over and over again so many times that they can memorize the way she moved, the way she used to be.

In the overwhelming black of the loft, he hears Roger forcefully, huskily demand, "Play it again."

Mark leans over and flicks the switch on, and the dark screen slowly falls into light.