I'll be just fine
Pretending I'm not
I'm far from lonely
And it's all that I've got
The Used, "All That I've Got"

Roger reluctantly moved in with Mark two weeks later. He wouldn't reveal where he'd been staying previously, but he was seemingly gracious of Mark's hospitality. He could see, also, that Mark did not want to be alone.

"What if Steph comes back?" Roger asked as he put his bags down in the spare bedroom once Mark flipped the light switch. It was sparse: a brass daybed, a dresser, a desk and chair. The furniture looked second-hand, but Roger could have cared less. The floor beneath his feet was wooden, but there was a blue shag rug by the daybed. Or maybe it was gray. The dimness of the room made it difficult to tell.

"She won't," Mark replied, so surely, so forcefully that it kind of scared Roger. He glanced around the room. It was painted yellow, a soft baby duck yellow, a fuzzy yellow that reminded Roger of blankets and pacifiers. He had a sinking feeling that, if Steph and Mark had had a kid, this would have been their room.

Mark sighed. "I'll let you unpack." He turned to leave.

"Mark?"

"Yeah?" He faced Roger.

"Was Steph…did you…I mean, was she ever—"

Mark froze. How the hell did he guess? "The same year we were married," he answered reluctantly. "A few months after our wedding, she was pregnant. But…she lost it, in her fourth month."

"I'm sorry."

"How'd you…I mean, we didn't tell anyone."

"The room. The color."

"Oh. Steph did that, when she found out she was pregnant. I told her she was rushing things," Mark said softly. "Does it bother you?"

"No, not at all," Roger shook his head. He cleared his throat. "I'm an uncle again, did I tell you?"

"No. Congratulations. Calvin and Layla had another baby?"

"Yeah, a little girl. Her name's Sarah. Cal named her after our grandmother."

"How old is Will now?" Mark leaned against the doorframe.

"Eight, can you believe it?" Roger hoisted one of his bags onto the bed. The mattress squealed.

"Hardly," Mark gave a small sideways smile. "Makes me feel old."

"The fact that you're married makes me feel old." Roger unzipped his bag and rifled through it for his medications. "The fact that Joanne and Maureen have kids makes me feel old." He no longer took AZT, but rather a cocktail that HIV/AIDS patients were being prescribed now. "I'm sorry, by the way, for missing your wedding."

Mark pursed his lips. This was a touchy subject. "It's okay."

"I know you wanted me as your best man."

"Collins filled in."

"I heard from Maureen. Mark, I really am sorry. All those years you were there for me—that one time I wasn't there for you."

"You're here now. That's all that matters. I appreciate it." A silence settled in. Roger rolled one of his little orange pill bottle in his palm. Mark broke it moments later, "Can I get you anything? Something to drink? Eat?"

"Nah, no thanks. I'm still full from lunch," Roger replied. "Actually, some water, maybe? I need to…" he held up the bottles.

"Oh. Oh, right. Yeah, I'll be right back." Mark headed off in the direction of the kitchen. Roger took this opportunity to slip off his shoes and wiggle his toes, making fists with his feet, thinking about how he really didn't want to be here.

Roger awoke at four AM from a dream that he was falling. His eyes snapped open like window shades just as he hit the ground, and was now unable to get back to sleep. He wandered into the living room, to find Mark sitting on the couch, watching a video.

"Hey," Mark said in greeting, noticing Roger out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey. Mind if I smoke in here?" he turned the Marlboro pack over in his hands.

"I don't care."

Roger tapped a cigarette out of the pack and positioned it between his lips, lighting it with a lighter. The somewhat sweet smell of tobacco wafted into the air. "What are you watching?"

Mark paused. "My wedding video, from when I married Steph," he added, as if it needed clarification.

Roger turned his attention to the television. Stephanie was wearing a medieval-style wedding gown, with a square neckline and an empire waist. Mark looked uncomfortable in his black tux, which had a sage green vest beneath the jacket. They were already reciting their vows.

"Repeat after me, please," the rabbi was saying. One thing Mark's mother had insisted on during the wedding planning: if her only son was to marry a shikse, at least have a Jewish ceremony. "'I, Stephanie Rose Braddock'."

"I, Stephanie Rose Braddock," Stephanie recited.

"'Take you, Mark Benjamin Cohen…"

Roger chortled, "Benjamin? I never knew that was your middle name."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "You never asked."

"I never cared."

Mark smirked and rolled his eyes. He knew Roger's middle name, Jay, from when Roger married Mimi.

Roger watched the wedding video as he smoked his cigarette, ashing it into an empty coffee mug, studying the devoted puppy dog look in Stephanie's eyes, the unreadable expression on Mark's face. Nervous? Regretful? Trying to repress projectile vomiting? Regardless, anyone could plainly see, just from the wedding video, how utterly in love Stephanie was. After several minutes of silence between the two men, Roger reached out and thwacked Mark on the back of the head.

"Hey!" Mark snapped, whirling around. "What the fuck was that for?!"

Roger shrugged and turned around to retreat to the guest bedroom. "You know what that was for."

"That really hurt!"

"Get over it."

"Were you wearing a ring or something?! Jesus!"

"Oh for fuck's sake, Mark. Stop being such a baby. Grow the fuck up, find your wife and beg down on your knees for forgiveness." Roger slammed the door to the bedroom, the noise resonating throughout the apartment, acting as some sort of punctuation.

A/N: In my Rent fics, I tend to use the same names over and over with the canons, such as Mark Benjamin Cohen. At the time, Roger Jay Davis derived from the fact that Adam Pascal's middle name was said to be Jay…until Adam stated on his MySpace blog that he actually didn't have a middle name and that IMDB, specifically, had gotten it wrong. However, I never really found another name that flowed as well with Roger's, so Jay it remained.

Oh, and "shikse" is the Yiddish word for a non-Jewish girl.