Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

"April twelfth, 1992. This is the first filming I've done in weeks, but now that the cast is off…" Mark paused and sighed. Now that the cast is off, my scars stand out in harsh contrast. "…now that the cast is off, here's Roger Davis-- smile!" Roger, for once, obeyed, perhaps because he was smiling anyway. "Roger is holding his firstborn child, his son. What's his name, Roger?"

"Uh… we're not sure," Roger admitted.

"Pan right to Mimi, still in the hospital bed--"

Mimi laughed. "Get that thing outta here, I look disgusting!"

The camera continued to film, but Mark lowered it. "No," he said, "you don't. You look beautiful."

Mimi scoffed. "Film her," she said, bouncing the baby in her arms. "She's beautiful."

"Babies are perfect because they have no influence," Roger said, musing absently. Mark trained the camera on him; Roger was too busy staring at his son to notice. "They don't choose. They can't feed themselves, bathe themselves, can't even decide when to crap, it all just happens or is done, so this… this is a blameless creature."

Mark smiled. He loved this rare, thoughtful side of Roger, the poet so few were allowed to glimpse, and as he watched with both his organic and metallic eyes, Mark knew that Roger was happy. He was happy in this life, with his girlfriend and their babies. And I'm just going to have to accept that.

Mark sighed. "That's very nice, Rog," he said. Very sickly romantic, but you live in that perfect world. Mark briefly wondered how he could. How could Roger, HIV-positive and likely about to embark on a year-long test of endurance, watching his children wither and die, be so positive and happy?

Roger raised his eyes to grin at Mark. Not one bit of the pure love filling his eyes drained as he smiled at his friend, but it was too late. Mark was gone, this time imagining himself in a desert on the brink of a rainstorm.

It's hot, even before a storm, and damn dry. You lick your lips, but that only makes your tongue hurt.

"What shall we call her?" Mimi asked. Roger shook his head. "Mark?" Mimi asked. "What would you call her?"

To him, the name seemed quite obvious. "April." But Roger and Mimi both shook their heads, and Mark felt a hot blush pattern his cheeks. "Just an idea," he murmured.

Deserts don't look barren until you look closer. They look verdant, green shrubbery flourishing beside the twisted, gnarled bristlecone pines.

"We don't want to name them after dead friends… or… y'know," Roger explained. "They have their own lives ahead of them, and no one else's behind them."

Mark nodded. That made sense, and of course Roger could not know that in the Jewish culture it was no insult to give a child the name of a dead relative. Of a living relative, now there was insult. "You could call the boy Benjamin," he said, without thinking. "After Collins!" he added quickly, when the parents stared. "Thomas B. Collins?"

"It's not Benjamin," Roger said. "It's Bernard."

"No, it's Benjamin."

Roger shook his head. "Bernard, I'm tellin' you."

"Seriously?" Mimi asked. Roger nodded. She rolled her eyes. "Another naming rule, no saddling the poor things with names like Bernard or Edmund. And no themes," she added. "I'm not raising an Adam and Eve. That's just cruel. Or Antony and Cleopatra or anyone else who fucked."

"Hansel and Gretl!" Roger suggested. He held the boy up to eye level. "You like that, Hansel?"

Mimi chided, "Don't even tease him with that! It's child abuse!"

"He could be little Vaclav."

"Roger, that's awful!"

"You know he rides a motor scooter?" Roger asked. "There's this big palace… thing… y'know, where the Catholics got defenestrated. Vaclav Havel rides around on a motor scooter--"

Mimi turned to Mark and decreed with a firm nod, "He's jealous." To the baby, she said, "Your daddy's jealous of Mr. Havel. He wants a motor scooter, too. But we really can't afford that--"

"I can do the other part for you," Mark piped. "I can defenestrate you."

Roger laughed. "Cannot, you're weak as a kitten. You're weaker than this little guy, and he--" Roger stopped talking as the baby began a screaming sobfest. Mark winced. "Hey, shh, it's okay." But the baby, only three days old at all, knew not a word of English, and continued crying.

Roger, not knowing what else to do, began to sing.

When he had finished and the baby was quiet, sleeping and drooling, Mimi laughed. "'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'?" Mimi asked. "What ever happened to 'Rock-a-by Baby'?"

In disbelief, Roger asked, "Have you ever actually heard 'Rock-a-by Baby'? The baby falls out of a tree!" He clutched his son protectively, but eased up when the boy began to stir. "Sorry."

---

"Cleo."

"Ew."

"Amanda."

"I'm not giving her a name of the period, that's worse than branding. Something timeless."

"Kaitlin."

"What did I just say?"

"Sarah?"

"Everyone and their mother is named Sarah."

"Sasha?"

There was a long pause, then Mimi nodded.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"Yes!"

Mark, who had fallen asleep in a chair, startled at Roger's yelp. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Mark." Mimi gestured for him to come. "Come hold her, she has a name."

"Okay." Mark pushed himself off the chair and plastered a smile on his face. Come hold the reason you can't have him. Come hold the proof that he's a straight-laced heterosexual. Come hold an undeniable statement of your loneliness. Stop it! Stop being such a weakling!

Mark flinched. What was his father's voice doing in his head? Then he realized that it wasn't his father's voice. It was his.

Clenching his jaw, Mark took the baby from Mimi. "So, what are you calling her?" he asked.

"Sasha. Sasha Xochitl Davis-Marquez."

"Xochitl?" Mark repeated, thinking that this one looked more Davis than Marquez. "Is that a real name?"

Mimi smacked Roger's shoulder. He flinched and mouthed the word 'ow.' "That's what he said! Ay, chicos… Yes, it's a real name. It's an Aztec name and it's beautiful."

"Okay," Mark said. "Aztec… and… Russian?" he looked questioningly at Roger, who nodded.

"Russian, Sicilian, and German," Roger rattled off.

"The German shows."

"If I was holding anything but a baby, I'd throw it at you."

"Oh, that's nice! Give me my son right now. You don't get to hold him anymore," Mimi joked, sticking out her tongue at Roger.

TO BE CONTINUED!

To clarify about last chapter, no, Roger did not get a 36 on his SAT. That's impossible, since SAT scores are multiples of ten. 36 was just another number (Joanne's floor).

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