Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson. I'm just playing with the characters. ("Batter up! That's you, Angel!")

"The amazing thing about being upset… when you're upset, you want to be alone. I mean, you don't, obviously, you want… someone there… to hold you. Pet you. Tell you it's all right. But…" Mark chuckled. "You're too scared to realize you can have that."

He was asleep.

Mimi pulled Roger's coat on over her pajamas-- she paused, wryly amused by the thought. "Her" pajamas. "Her" pajamas were an old pair of sweats, Roger's. She had picked them out, in fact pulled them on one night well before the babies, when she still had the option of rolling off the bed, naked and slick with sweat, and knowing that Roger swiftly lost bloodflow to his brain just watching her.

To think she had once wanted that!

Mimi shook her head. She climbed out onto the fire escape and sat on the steps. Months, only months previously Mimi had been able to slide her knees up inside the zippered jacket. Now she was too bulging to do so.

"Ugh."

Mimi felt thoroughly ready to burst, yet she sat on the cusp of her third trimester. The thought of another three months of this made her want to hurl. The thought of her HIV-positive children made her want to hurl. The thought that she had been placating her boyfriend for the past three months made her want to hurl.

Will I lose my dignity?

She had. She had lost her self. Mimi loved Roger-- she knew it, everyone knew it. Mimi loved Roger. When had she decided to sacrifice her happiness for his love?

Even as she wondered, Mimi knew. She couldn't blame Roger. She wanted children, too-- but she wanted happy children, healthy little things to grow up in a secure world, to struggle with homework and have their mom and dad cry as they left for college. Her babies wouldn't have that. Even if they were healthy, they would be in foster care within their first decade, counting on Roger's luck.

And Mimi couldn't have another abortion. After the pain, the shame of the first one-- the look in Mark's eyes. Mark. It was Mark who hated her for Roger's pain.

Why does he bother? Mimi wondered. I already hate myself.

"And we don't want to be alone. No one wants that. But we don't want to be seen like this, weak, pained. So we go somewhere where we won't be followed but will be found. There are these two fears just… attacking each other: fear of loneliness, fear of companionship. Judgment."

Mimi wondered.

Mimi shoved her hands into the pockets of Roger's jacket. Something familiar crumpled under the pressure. She laughed.

"Good ol' Roger," Mimi joked, a cliché she had never before used. Good ol' Roger. We won't smoke. We won't drink. His idea, keep the babies healthy, as though skipping a few glasses of wine would keep the HIV away. Mimi felt a vague guilt as she took one of his final three Lucky's, but scoffed that away is illogical. She lit up.

Mimi liked Alphabet City, this early. She liked the quiet, the peace, the fact that she was too high up to see the garbage in the streets. This could be anywhere: an alleyway in Vienna, stretching far with buildings towering up on either side, tenements. In America it would be frightening, an alley to quicken your heartbeat. Not here, though. This is Vienna, history. And at the end of the alley, a rickety elevator, a plastiglass shaft with a staircase curled around it, the windows grungy but not graffitied up. And at the top, stairs of which to be wary in the dark, an apartment--

"Meems?"

"When we are found-- if someone knows us well enough, cares enough-- it's a moment of terror. Your heart stops. This moment will make or break… your life. And it's completely outside your control. It's… it's very… frightening. It's very frightening."

Roger climbed out to join on her. He flinched when he caught sight of the cigarette. "I… um…" He paused.

Mimi rolled her eyes, and for a moment cast off the pregnant student she had become to once more embody the sarcastic Cat Scratch dancer. "Are you gonna come sit?" she asked. Roger did. She offered him the cigarette and he took a drag.

"Oh, that's good."

"I haven't made you say that in a while."

Roger laughed. He handed the cigarette back and wrapped one arm around Mimi's shoulders. "You okay?" he asked. "It's cold." The clouds promised rain before noon.

Mimi nodded. I don't want to have your babies, Roger. I want you to take me to the clinic right now, today! It's such a lovely day for an abortion, isn't it? It's grey and gloomy and it's going to rain. You can go up to the roof and sit in the rain and drink those Guiness cans I'm not supposed to know about. I'll drop acid and feel good again. Roger, Roger, it'll be a good time. "I just… needed to think."

"A… about--"

"No." Mimi shook her head. "We're having the babies." She kissed any further words from his lips. "I was thinking about… work."

"Work?"

Mimi nodded. "As in, I don't. I can't very well dance," she said, indicating the reason. "I don't like doing nothing, though. Nothing to do, no money…"We have money, Roger wanted to say, but he bit his lip, remembering the months when he didn't work, how difficult it was to swallow knowing Mark had bought the bread while Roger still couldn't bring himself to leave the loft. "How about school?" he asked. "We could find you some correspondence courses."

"You can't think of a job, either, can you?"

"No," Roger admitted. "No, I can't." Not an unskilled job that lets you sit down… He pulled her close. "But we'll find something. Okay? And if not…" Roger shrugged. "We'll just get by, okay? Just like always."

Mimi scoffed. "We've barely been together--" then she stopped. Realizing, Mimi turned to Roger and said, "Two years. We made it two years, Roger." With copious fighting and enough drama to fill a small theater for the summer season, but nevertheless.

Roger kissed her. "Yeah, we did," he agreed. "We're going out tonight."

Mimi's first thought was: party! "Should I call Maureen and Collins?"

"For a double-date?"

"I've found that I can cry when I cut. It's... it's an identical feeling."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Both require the same belief."

"And what belief is that?"

"The belief that no one cares."

TO BE CONTINUED!

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