A/N: I thought it would be safer to point out that this is definitely musical!RogerMimi. Rosario Dawson doesn't have the same urgency and desperation, to me, that Daphne Rubin-Vega does, and that's what I've tried to portray here. Musica!RogerMimi seem to me to generally have more angst and more passion.

...

Mimi purred contentedly and curled into Roger's chest, one leg thrown over his torso.

"That beats dancing any day," she smiled, and Roger stroked her hair absently. "Especially with all those gross…"

Mimi shuddered, the feeling of sweating, aging businessmen's fingers slipping between her underwear and her skin suddenly erasing all the pleasure from her mind.

"All those what?" Roger's hand froze, and she felt him tense beneath her.

"N…nothing." She tried to smile, to assure him that it was okay, but he propped himself up on his elbows, toppling Mimi onto the bed. Disgruntled, she sat up and shook her head, smoothing her hair off her face.

"What do you mean?" Roger asked, touching her shoulder. She shook him off, angry that she'd ruined yet another perfect moment between them.

"It's not important," she muttered.

"It is," Roger insisted. He shifted away from her, and Mimi could see that he was working out what she meant and not entirely liking it.

"God, just leave it alone, okay?" Mimi clambered off the bed and began searching for her clothes. She cursed herself for bringing up her job again. Roger had a thing about it. And really, she thought, why wouldn't he? She wouldn't like the idea of sharing him with hundreds of other people, either.

Behind her, she heard Roger inhale. She snatched her underwear up off the floor and clutched it to her chest as she turned to look at him, and he glared. "You just compared me to your…"

"Audience," she supplied, her voice catching. Roger made no secret of his disgust towards her work, and it only ever made her feel ashamed.

"Clients," Roger corrected, his voice swimming in disdain. "You just compared fucking me to-"

"Roger!" Mimi yelled, an involuntary tear slipping down her cheek and surprising her, since it usually took more than this before she started crying. "I didn't mean to, okay? I didn't mean to bring up getting groped by forty-year-old men right after I had sex with you!" She hated being so blunt, but it usually shut Roger up.

Usually. Today, it just made him angrier. "Then why did you say it?" Roger demanded, yanking his pants on and standing on the opposite side of the bed to Mimi, putting as much distance and furniture between them as he could.

"Because I can't control what comes out of my mouth, baby, you know that."

"Or what goes in it, apparently," Roger muttered.

Mimi stood perfectly still, hardly believing Roger had spoken. When he made no move to apologise, the full seriousness of their conversation hit her and shocked her into anger. She flew across the bed at him, attacking him with fists, nails, anything she could. "You fucking take that back!"

Roger pushed her away and she landed in a heap on the bed, tangled in sheets and shame. "You did it with Benny. How do I know you're not doing it with other guys too?"

A strangled sob forced its way up Mimi's throat. "Because I love you," she choked. "And you're supposed to trust me."

"How can I?" Roger turned to her, and she could see him physically swallow his anger so that he could speak rationally. He sat on the bed next to her, but refused to look at her, his whole body rigid. "How can I trust you when you're getting ogled by other guys every night? How am I supposed to trust that nothing's gonna happen when you get paid to make sure it does?"

"Because…" Mimi took a deep breath. "Because that's how it works."

Roger rolled his eyes and got up. "I'm sorry I don't like the fact that my girlfriend's a whore."

Mimi didn't rise to the bait this time. The whore thing was usually a last resort, pulled out of nowhere when Roger was sure he was losing and was only still in the argument to make Mimi see how much she'd hurt him by hurting her back. She knew he was trying to make her mad, trying to make her justify herself. Maybe I don't need to justify myself, she told him silently, resenting his every word.

"Collins said you wouldn't like me going back," Mimi murmured, and Roger turned to look at her, appalled.

"You talked to Collins about us?"

"Why not?" she said defensively, sitting up to look at Roger. "He's your best friend. He knows about you. I thought that if I talked to him about our problems then-"

"You don't need to tell anyone about our problems!" Roger yelled, turning away. He slammed his palm into the wall angrily before continuing, through clenched teeth, "That's why they're known as our problems, Mimi. Nobody else needs to know."

Mimi understood where Roger was coming from. She hated talking about her relationships almost as much as he did. Usually, however, she had reason not to talk to anyone about them; she was often the only one who saw any good in them. This relationship, though, she knew the others relied on, and this relationship she wanted to save. But the only way she saw to save it was to ask someone else for help, despite her own, and Roger's, misgivings. She knew he couldn't see that, and she hated him for it.

"But we can't fix them. So I brought in outside help." Mimi spoke as if Roger was five. She knew that was unfair, but she didn't care. If he could be irrational, so could she.

"I'm not a kid, Mimi," Roger snapped. "I can work out my own issues."

"But you can't!" Mimi yelled, frustrated. "You can't make this better, this… I can't even call it a relationship, 'cause it stopped being one of those a long time ago. This is just a string of fights and makeup sex, and, okay, the sex is fantastic, but I want something real!"

"And clearly the way to get that is to get groped by people who aren't me and try to work out my issues with people who also aren't me." Roger clapped his hands slowly and sarcastically. "Bravo, Meems."

"Roger, that's not fair."

Roger let out a humourless laugh. "Yeah, because getting paid to basically cheat on me is fair, isn't it?"

Mimi screamed through clenched teeth. "You know what? Fine! If you're so hung up about me actually earning money-"

"It's not earning money, Mimi, it's selling yourself! There's a difference!"

"If you're so against me earning money," Mimi repeated pointedly, "then consider this… whatever it is… over."

She snatched up the rest of her clothes and threw them on haphazardly, ignoring Roger as he retorted, "So you can whine about me to Collins, but when it actually comes down to working things out you run away? Very mature, Mimi."

Mimi left the apartment by the door, purely so she could slam it as hard as possible, and ran downstairs to throw herself onto her own bed, letting out a loud, anguished sob.

This was how all their fights ended. After a few hours, sometimes less, sometimes even a whole day, one of the pair would return to the other's arms, apologetic and pathetic. Mimi knew this time Roger was expecting it to be her.

Lying on her bed and staring at her ceiling rarely gave Mimi perspective; usually it sent her thoughts spiralling into oblivion and made her even more confused than she was before. Today, though, her thoughts spun out of control faster than she could really keep up with, and she was carried into sleep on a tide of misgivings and regrets.

…

The next few days were a blur: Mimi worked, came home, waited for Roger to knock on her door and beg for forgiveness, waited for Mark to knock on her door and tell her that she should go and beg Roger for forgiveness, went back to work just to pass the time.

It was early on Sunday morning when she traipsed into her apartment dragging her bag behind her, too exhausted even to take her costume off before crashing on her bed. She had just closed her eyes and was on the verge of light, troubled sleep when there was an urgent knock on her door.

Mimi groaned and called out, "Yeah?"

Mark poked his head around her door, his face pale. "Mimi? I… Roger's sick. He's in the hospital, he passed out around ten. I knew you were gonna be home late, I came as soon as I could…"

Mimi had pushed past Mark and was down the hallway almost before she'd registered what he'd said. Without speaking, they took the subway together back to the hospital, Mimi resisting the urge to huddle against Mark even though she was freezing. The only person she could bear to touch right now was Roger, and she might not even have that privilege for much longer.

The hospital was half-dark at this time of night, employing some half-assed power saving scheme at the expense of its patients' comfort. Mimi spoke desperately to the receptionist, ignoring the woman's pleas that it was well past visiting hours and that she should wait until the morning, please. She ran to the nearest elevator and pushed the button for Roger's floor desperately, some bizarre instinct in the back of her mind telling her that she was getting closer to losing Roger every second.

Mimi threw herself into the elevator with the desperation of a mother searching for a lost child. Mark followed her, much more subdued, and took a gentle hold of her arm in the silence of the elevator. Mimi flinched and stared at the ground.

"Meems," Mark murmured. "Listen. He's not dead. He's fine. He's staying here for observation, because his T-cells were a little low, but they pumped him full of drugs and he's gonna be fine. You haven't lost him yet."

Mimi sniffed and tried not to cry. "I might have," she croaked. "I didn't… I haven't apologised. What if he dies before I apologise?"

"He won't," Mark assured her softly, but even his calm security couldn't prevent Mimi from running out of the elevator and heaving open the door of Roger's room with all her strength.

Roger wasn't asleep. He was staring blankly at the wall, his fingers tapping out a vague chord progression on his arm. Mimi looked at him for a moment, then knelt next to the bed and kissed his fingers tenderly, holding his hands to her face.

"Hey, Meems," Roger murmured, and his hand twined gently through her hair again. Mimi could almost believe it had never left.

"Baby…" she whispered into his warm palm, thankful for any kind of contact with any part of him. "Are you still mad?"

...

That conludes this little series. I'm considering turning one or more of these into full multi-chaptered stories, so if you have any preferences, let me know! Thanks to everyone who took the time to review!