AN: Thanks to everyone for your reviews so far. I'm a little taken aback by how many people are reading this fic. Please keep them coming, thanks.
GorgeousSmile: Yes, Maureen's in this. She, Joanne, and Collins make their first appearance in the next chapter. Apologies to Angel fans, but I'm not gonna bring her back to life for any of my Rent fics. Why? Because I personally feel that the fact that she dies makes the ending of Rent much more powerful.
"Okay, this is the place that person on the phone said Mark was, right?" Roger eyed the small horde of children that were racing around the room.
"Well, try asking someone," Mimi suggested.
"Like who? Look at this place. All kids, no adults!" Roger sighed as he stopped a random kid who was running by with a whistle in his mouth. "Hey, kid! Where's a grown-up we can talk to?" The kid stared blankly up at Roger before replying in nothing but a short blow into his whistle and hurrying off. "Hey! Come on!" Roger groaned, scowling at Mimi when she started to laugh.
"You're pretty!" a voice stated. Looking down, they saw a strawberry-blond haired, freckled face girl smiling up at Mimi.
"Thank you," Mimi smiled back at the girl. "Could you help us? We're looking for our friend."
"Oh! You must the friends of the guy on the bike!" the little girl grinned. "This way. He's upstairs with Emily and Dr. Jordan now."
Roger and Mimi followed the girl up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, coming to a room where Mark was sitting on the edge of a bed, with Dr. Jordan shining a small light into his eyes.
"Mark!" Roger said as he and Mimi walked in. "Are you okay?"
"He'll be fine," Dr. Jordan announced. "Good news, Mr. Cohen. You don't have a concussion. You're very lucky."
"Thanks again for stopping by, Dr. Jordan," Emily thanked the doctor for the second time, this time from a stool in the corner.
"No problem whatsoever, Miss Goodhall. Call me again anytime." With that, the doctor left the room.
"How'd you guys know where I was?" Mark turned to his friends.
"Someone called the loft and told us you had an accident," Mimi explained.
"Oh, so I did call the right number, good!" Emily beamed, pulling up her pant leg and rubbing an alcohol swab on her skin above the knee. "I was worried I'd called the wrong place. Once again, I love your voice mail. I'll say it again, it's really clever."
"Guys, this is Emily. Emily, these are my friends, Roger and Mimi."
"Hello to both of you," Emily nodded in acknowledgment before taking something about of the blue case she was still holding.
"What's that?" Roger froze, looking at the object in shock. When Mark looked over, he saw Emily was holding a syringe, and instantly realized that Roger was forming his own conclusions about its purpose.
"Roger, it's okay," Mark assured quickly. "It's not the type of needle you're probably thinking about. Emily explained to me before you got here. She has diabetes. That's one of her insulin shots."
"Insulin?" Roger instantly began to relax.
"Yeah, what did you think it was?" Emily cast a puzzled look at the three friends as she deposited the now emptied insulin needle into an orange canister. Mark suddenly gave Roger and Mimi an uneasy glance, wondering if he should mention it to Emily so soon. Noticing this, Roger gave a quick nod, nonverbally giving his best friend permission.
"Well," Mark began slowly. "Roger and Mimi, here. They… used to be junkies. Roger's been clean for over two years now, and Mimi is on her way to becoming clean. But, well, Roger has very little patience for people who still use heroin."
"Oh. So they were both heroin addicts," Emily nodded in understanding. Without another word, she began packing things away in the blue case, showing no sign of saying anything further on the matter.
"Wait, you're just leaving the subject there?" Mimi blinked in surprise.
"I don't think I understand the question, Mimi."
"Well, usually, when someone finds out that Roger and I were on smack,…"
"You're asking me why I'm not treating you two like a couple of lepers, am I right?" Emily chuckled. "Truthfully, the way I see it, who am I to judge? That's God's job.
"And in addition," Emily continued, turning to Roger. "You don't have to worry about me going down that way, Roger, I can assure you of that. For starters, I'm still diabetic. Insulin is not exactly cheap, you know. After the insulin, and other daily necessities, I really don't have enough money to spend on things like that."
Mark, meanwhile had started to move off the bed and started collecting his bike and camera.
"Thanks again for your help, Emily. I appreciate it," Mark stated.
"It was no trouble at all, Mark. But you'll have to excuse me, now. Since your friends are here and Dr. Jordan said you're fine, I need to get back to my duties here. You understand, right?"
"Yes, of course."
Mark, Roger and Mimi followed Emily down to the entry room, where the kids were still racing around.
"Well, then. I guess I'll see you around, maybe," Emily waved as the three friends moved toward the door. As they were about to leave however, the freckled face girl who had helped Roger and Mimi find Mark hurried up.
"Emily!" she cried, looking distressed about something.
"Penny, what's wrong?"
"It's Sammy! He's tripped and fallen in the playroom! He's skinned his knee!"
"Quick, Penny, get the first aid equipment!" Emily ordered as she hurried out of the room. After a momentary pause, Mark, Roger and Mimi followed after her. Once in the playroom, they instantly saw a handful of kids standing near a six-year-old boy, who was currently clutching at his bleeding knee in pain.
"Hey, it's that kid with the whistle!" Roger realized, recognizing the boy as the one he'd tried to ask for help earlier.
"Yes. Sammy's a mute, so he sometimes uses his whistle to communicate," Emily explained, turning as the girl she had called Penny raced in and handed her a tin crate labeled 'First Aid Supplies'. But as Emily started to go up to tend to Sammy, she saw Mark moving down to look at the bleeding knee.
"MARK, DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Emily shouted, causing the filmmaker to jump. Emily quickly knelt next to Sammy, gently but firmly pushing Mark aside in the process, and opened up the tin box, removing a box of examination gloves. Only once her hands were protected by a pair of gloves did she start to tend to the wound, making a clearly conscious effort to avoid physical contact with the boy's blood.
And then, Mark understood why Emily had freaked out when she had seen him trying to help Sammy. Looking up at Roger and Mimi, he could see in their faces that they realized it too.
Sammy was HIV positive.
As soon as Sammy's wound had been properly treated and he had hobbled off to the bedroom upstairs, with two other boys helping him along, Mark followed Emily to a small sink that was positioned in the corner of the room, where she began thoroughly scrubbing her hands.
"Emily? That boy, Sammy? He…." Mark paused before continuing. "He's HIV positive, isn't he."
"Yes. He is." Emily replied after a brief hesitation. "Him and half the children here. That's why The Center exists. Oh, sure, we do get the occasional teen pregnancy child, whose parents did not want a child or couldn't afford one. But for the most part, this place is more or less a dumping ground for the children no one wants. Children who are born HIV positive, or born with drug addictions."
"And you take care of them all?" Mimi asked, clearly stunned and touched.
"And why not? Someone's got to do it, and if not me, who?"
"But… you're really not afraid you'll get AIDS from one of them?'
"Truthfully Mimi? I'm a little more afraid of getting something like Tuberculosis. HIV isn't all that easy to get, after all, and I make an effort to take necessary precautions, as you saw a few minutes ago."
"All right, there's something I don't understand," Roger began. "You take care of these kids, knowing full well that they wouldn't be in the position they're in now if their parents hadn't gotten messed up in drugs, or gotten AIDS, in the first place, and yet, you still won't judge the parents?"
"Many people look at drug addicts and say they shouldn't have started, that they are just stupid people who brought it all on themselves," Emily explained. "As for me, I only wonder what made them start. Was it because a friend got them on drugs and they trusted the friend, following the understanding that friends, by learned definition, never lead you astray? Was it because they were simply curious and obeyed basic human instinct to test curiosity? Or is it because their life was so horrible, they'd be willing to do anything to escape the pain and sadness they felt. Either way, fault rarely lies with one person alone. It's usually a domino effect, one in which you could very easily get to the point when a bit of the blame lies with everyone on Earth. And you'd quickly become a very disagreeable person if you did that.
"As for the bit about HIV and AIDS..." Emily trailed off, and momentarily fingered a silver heart locket that hung around her neck. "AIDS, like many other illnesses, does not discriminate. No one goes out into the world asking for something like that. No one." Once again, Emily quietly fiddled with her locket.
"On that note," she stated quickly, "I really need to get back to my duties."
"Okay," Mark nodded.
Once they were outside, Roger spoke again.
"I still can't believe that girl is so willing to take care of all those kids!"
"Yeah, maybe," Mark shrugged. "It's just that… I don't know. I might have imagined it, but she seemed to get hesitant to continue talking when the subject came to AIDS."
"Well, Mark, don't forget," Mimi pointed out sadly. "She's surrounded by kids who have it all day. A lot of those kids might not make it to their tenth birthday."
"That's true," Mark nodded. "But somehow, I got the feeling it might be more than that."
AN: Only one more chapter to go, and it's the end of part one, and the beginning of part two, in which the plot begins to pick up.