AN: Yay! I'm updating when I said I would! Props to me! Now that I'm done celebrating miniscule achievements, it's time to thank those wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people who reviewed. Here's my reply for the anonymous people:

Kaiya – Aw, thanks. Glad you like it. Enjoy!

Amber the lost cause Rent head – So here's the deal; you write more, I write more. And we never abandon our fics midway like those evil people who just stop midway. Grr them! And thanks for saying that about the voices. It was the one big thing I worried about. I don't like Mark and Roger either, not because I'm anti-gay (because is it possible to be an anti-gay RentHead?) but for the same reasons I don't like Harry/Ron, for example. They are just better as friends, and I think some of the things I love about their relationship would be compromised if they became a couple.

Meg - Read on to see exactly where this going.

Chlochlo – I can't spell, either! You should see my stories before I sic spell check on them. It's bad. And that seems to have been a popular line. Hmm. Perhaps I will reuse it, like Disney did with Mulan in that awful sequel, and therefore make it less interesting ... nah. Mark would come out of my story and bash me on the head. I wouldn't like that.

Lesley – I'm glad you asked in the first place. It's nice to know someone was paying attention enough for that to stand out to them, and to matter. Though your question isn't entirely answered yet, it will be son. And no more waiting for the next chapter. It's here!

Disclaimer: If I owned Rent, I would be rich. And then I'd a computer with internet that doesn't take three hours to load.

War of Drama Queens and Coffee

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

Mimi winced. How the hell had she gotten herself into this? "It's ok, Mo," she tried, using soft placating tones. "We're only a few minutes away ..."

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE 15 MINUTES AGO!"

She shot a death glare at Mark, who smiled at her innocently. She grinned back wickedly, an idea coming to her head. "Oh, come on, Reen. It's not our fault," she whined pathetically into the phone. Mark's eyes widened and he began to make large negative gestures with his hands. Mimi ignored them all. "We were ready on time." Dramatic pause. Then slowly, in a sing-song voice, "Well, everyone except a certain skinny, Jewish filmmaker we know ..."

"Give. Him. To. Me."

Mimi handed the phone to Mark with a smile. "Serves you right for the crack about my coffee," she informed him as took the phone with trembling fingers, looking at it as if it were about to blow up.

Mark looked her straight in the eye and gulped. "This is not the same. At all."

Mimi shrugged, still smirking, and leaned back into Roger. It was a little squished in the back seat of the car as it was, but she wanted to be as far away from the phone as possible when the yelling started.

"Hi, Mo." It was remarkable how pale Mark could get.

"HI, MO? HI, MO? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING? I'M GETTING MARRIED IN TWO HOURS, AND MY BEST MEN AND MAIDS OF HONOR ARE LATE BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU ARE SUCH A ..."

Mimi listened contentedly as Maureen told Mark exactly what he was, and what she would do to him (castration was the least of it), as Roger whistled and hugged her close to him. "Remind me never to get on your bad side," he murmured in her ear.

She leaned up and kissed him. "Never," she growled at him playfully, then kissed him harder.

"Hey, quit it!" Dave complained from the front seat of the car. Mimi turned to see him frowning at them quite empathetically. "I can't hear what she's threatening him with when you do that."

Collins laughed. "All you have to do to hear Maureen threaten someone is insult her hair."

Dave pulled a sad look at Collins. "But then she'll be yelling at me." His face broke into a sun-shiny smile, and he practically chirped as he added, "It's much more fun when it's Mark!"

Mark promptly flipped him off.

Mimi laughed, then began to admonish Mark. "Now don't get mad at Dave for being an ass. He lives with Collins. He can't help it."

Both Mark and Dave glared at her. Collins looked at Roger in the rearview mirror. "Man, try to control her. Maureen and Joanne are getting married. Don't you think that'll be enough drama for the day without her dragging these two into a bitch fight?"

Dave smacked Collins on the arm while Roger laughed (Mark was distracted by Maureen's dire predictions that every girl he would ever meet would go lesbian on him if this was how he planned on treating them) and replied, "If you want to try and stop her, go ahead. I got her off of drugs. I'm done for now."

"Hey!" Mimi glared at him until he kissed her lightly on the nose. She settled back into him, sighing contentedly as he began to play with her hair. Even though she had acted offended, she was glad the subject of her former drug addiction was something Roger could joke about now. It had been a painful year, but she had never once gone back to drugs. She had celebrated being clean an entire year on Thanksgiving, just a month ago. Who else but Maureen would have a wedding on Christmas, she thought with a grin. Maureen had decided that since everything significantly good that had happened to the group had happened at Christmas, it was the perfect time for the wedding. Mimi just hoped she was right. She really didn't want Maureen and Joanne breaking up again. It was just too much drama for her.

Anniversaries brought up other memories. Like ones about Benny. She barely saw him anymore. She knew Mark had started to strike up a tentative friendship with him, and that Collins and Dave saw him once a week for lunch. She missed him, as a friend, but she was going to wait for Roger's ok this time. She really didn't want to screw what she had with him up. But she was nervous about the wedding. Benny had been invited. What was she supposed to do? Or say? Was she going to have to deal with another of Roger's jealous rages? She sighed a little."

A hand began to run itself comfortingly up and down her arm. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at Roger at gave a small grin. "I guess I should probably save Mark now," she told him, gesturing at him as he clutched his camera and tried to reason with Maureen.

"You can't do that! No, not because it's illegal, I know that's not a problem for you ... you can't do that, Maureen, because I am taping your wedding and will therefore need my hands!"

Roger paused in consideration, then whispered slowly, "Well, we can't pay the rent without him ..."

Mimi chuckled as she grabbed the car phone from the filmmaker (who was currently being detailed in the ways he could film Maureen's wedding with no hands, and, if he kept pushing it, no dick as well) and sang, "We're he-ere!" into it, before banging it back down decisively in it's place.

Mark looked at her, drained. "Thank you. I can even forgive you getting me into that in the first place."

Mimi smirked at him. "And I can almost forgive your comment about my coffee." She brushed past him on her way out of the car, then turned back around and faced him. "Almost."

As she headed up the stairs of the hotel she heard Mark begin to narrate. "December 24, 11 am, Eastern Standard Time. Maureen Johnson's and Joanne Jefferson's wedding. May we all live through it. Zoom in on Mimi, local bartender, who tortures her so-called friends for her own sadistic pleasure ..."

AN: I have no idea if car phones were invented, or lesbian civil unions allowed in New York, in 1991. For the sake of my fic, let us all assume there was. However, for devices such as car phones, inform me if those don't exist yet, so I won't use them again. So? Love? Hate? Just review! And I will love you forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever...