Maureen charged down the stairs, her head pounding. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…As she walked onto the street, a group of kids passed. One of them was wearing a weird little zebra-print hat. It wasn't much, but it was enough to remind her who she hadn't checked out yet. Someone who might be able to help. Maureen headed down the sidewalk, trying to figure out what was going on.

If Mark didn't know me in high school, then we didn't go out and I wasn't there to convince him to come to New York…and because he wasn't going out with me, he went to the Catscratch and found Mimi. And then I wasn't there to keep him off smack, like that one time I caught him with one of Roger's needles…Collins got HIV and I wasn't there to help him through it, because I spent almost three weeks standing next to him, helping him…so he committed suicide. (Oh god…) Maybe since Pookie hasn't met me, she's not a lesbian, or maybe she just needs someone, I don't know…but how the hell is April alive? Maybe because…Mark is buying the needles, so she didn't get AIDS from a dirty one! Man, this is insane… Maureen shivered and moved faster, practically running down the cold pavement.

When she reached Angel's house, Maureen saw that the windows were dark. Maybe she's not home. But then something moved inside, and Maureen hurried up the steps.

"Angel? Baby, you there?" Maureen knocked tentatively on the door. There was no sound from within for about ten seconds. Then, the door slowly creaked open an inch.

"What is it?" The voice that rasped from behind the door was low and strange, like the croak of a wild animal. Maureen felt a crackle of fear go down her spine.

"Angel...is that you?" She squinted into the gloom of the unlit apartment, but she couldn't make anything out. Angel-or whoever was behind that door-stepped back a little. the next thing Maureen knew, the door had opened all the way.

Maureen ran down the steps of the building, gasping like she was being persued by a monster. That...that thing wasn't Angel. Oh god, it couldn't be...pale and lifeless and zombielike, the horrible eyes of the creature inside were burned into her mind as she headed towards the park again. The face was like a starved, beaten version of Angel, and the happiness that so radiated from her friend was gone. Maureen felt like throwing up. How had never knowing her affected Angel like that? Collins was dead because he never knew Maureen, and that meant he hadn't met Angel. And Mimi probably wasn't friends with Angel anymore, being her new self and all. So did that mean that this terrible new Angel was the result of having no one? Of having no love, no affection, no connections to the world? Maureen shook her head to clear it, but all she did was jumble the facts around in her mind.

Faster and faster she walked, bumping into buildings and people. She wanted to get to the park, where things hadn't changed too much yet...fuck, this was horrible, this was a nightmare. Maureen felt a sob coming up in her throat, but she forced it down. Don't cry, don't cry...she was just about to let loose with it when she glimpsed four familair figures down the block. As she neared them, she realized that Mark and Mimi were glued together like Roger and Mimi used to be, and Roger and April were smoking. What could she say to them to get them to listen to her?

"You guys!" Maureen yelled. Roger and April tunred to look at her, but Mark and Mimi just ignored her shout. Maureen stumbled up to them, the electricity of fear buzzing painfully now.

"We have to talk, I--"

"Hey, you're that weird stalker we met before! Leave us fucking alone, why don't you!" Roger, whose dilated pupils spoke of a severe high, stepped drunkenly forward and swung his fist at Maureen's head. The last thing Maureen saw before she was knocked to the ground and the world went black was April, crying out and reaching to hold Roger back.

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"Honey? Honeybear, are you okay?" Maureen heard something like a faraway call, as though someone was holding a telephone a foot from her ear and another someone was yelling from inside it. The voice got closer and closer in the blackness that she floated in, until finally Maureen blinked and saw the source of the voice, Joanne, leaning worriedly over her.

"Maureen? Oh, thank god, she's waking up! Baby, are you feeling ok?" Maureen blinked again and other faces swam into view; Roger, Mark, Mimi, Angel, and...

"COLLINS!" Maureen launched herself from the table she had been lying on. Tackling the tall black man and ignoring the sudden throbbing in her head, she knocked him over, bringing them both crashing to the floor. She heard his cry of surprise and pain as they hit the ground, but all Maureen did was hug him tighter and tighter, because he was real, he was alive, not dead or gone or whatever the others had said, he was here...

"Whoa, Maureen, calm down," said Roger's voice, and she felt two pairs of hands pulling her up. Although she tried to keep ahold of Collins, the hands pried her off and half-lifted, half-dragged her up onto the same table. She sat there, grinning maniacally at all her friends as they surrounded her, worrying about her sanity. But it felt so good to see Roger with his hands on Mimi's shoulders, Mark with his adorable geeky-boy haircut and clothes, Angel looking healthy and normal, Collins there and not gone, and Joanne, more sexy and wonderful than she had ever seemed before, looking concernedly at Maureen.

"Baby, what's with you? First you get hit by a bottle and stay unconcious for more than five minutes, then you suddenly wake up and attack Collins. Should we be worried?" Maureen felt like laughing, even though they were all wondering if she had lost her mind.

"I had this dream, see, and you were in it, and you and you and you..." she pointed at them, tingling with soemthing between relief and head pain.

"What is this, the Wizard of Oz?" asked Roger. Mimi poked him.

"Feels more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to me," Collins groaned, rubbing his sore hip. Angel threaded her arm through his and kissed his cheek.

"Shake it off honey, you've gotten worse from Mo before."

"True dat," said Mark.

"Hey, what about me?" said Maureen indignantly. They looked back at her with the familiar, 'Maureen-is-weirding-out-again' looks on their faces. She went on anyway.

"See, it was like none of you guys knew me, and everything got screwed up. Mark, you were some kind of...Benny, i guess, with massively gelled hair and a blazer." Mark wrinkled his nose, and the others looked sympathatically at him. "And you were going out with Mimi." Mimi shrieked and shrunk back against Roger, who folded his arms over her protectively. Mark rolled his eyes.

"Roger, you were all weird and spaced out and everything. It was creepy." Maureen neglected to mention April; she didn't want to upset anyone.

"What about me?" asked Angel. Maureen paused for a moment, then said, "You...had moved. Dunno where." Angel frowned, and Collins put his arm around her. Maureen didn't want to say how Angel had been either; it still scared her. The others questioned her about the rest fo the dream, and she told them most of it, leaving out Collins's death and Mark cheating on Mimi with Joanne. They viewed it as her Alice in Wonderland experience. It was just another chapter in Maureen's loooong book of freakish behavior.

As Maureen kissed Joanne, as Mimi held a napkin wrapped in ice to the large bump on her skull, as she laughed at Mark's attempts to get Mimi to stop screaming everytime he looked at her, she realized that they were her family. They loved her and she loved them, and they cared for her. There were bad things about them, and there were good things, but the best part was that they were there, and that they understood her (sometimes). Maureen knew that she would always remember what they had been like when they had never known her, and she knew that those strange, cold people would give her the creeps late at night. But for now, they did know her, and she baske din their love and energy as the night wore on and Alice left her Wonderland behind.