A/N- just thought I'd stop by and see how you guys are doin'! I also wanted to thank those of you who reviewed- glad you like it so far. Those of you who haven't reviewed- you know you want to! (pouts)

3- Double Shift

"Oh God. I don't know how you guys keep doing this," she moaned, turning her head this way and that to loosen the tight muscles of her sore neck. Her back hurt, so did her feet. This has been her routine so far, ever since she got to New York City, almost a month ago. Work, work, and work again. It was her second double shift that week, her third week as a waitress at the Life Café, an extremely popular spot for the Village inhabitants. Yet she couldn't complain. This was work. She needed it; she had to keep it, for she couldn't rely on her own savings forever. She was doing this for her own living. Thinking about it made her lips curl in a small, satisfied smile. She needed no one to support her. She was finally independent.

"You get used to it. Don't you worry about it," promised Roxanne. She was her first friend in New York. They met at the train station when she first got there, and Roxanne was such help from the very beginning. She moved in with her, but it was only temporary, until she could find her own place. The apartments she had checked so far moved from completely unlivable to extremely expensive, so she was glad she had a place to stay until she'd find something she could afford. Roxanne worked at the Life for two years, doing as many shifts as she could. She needed the money to feed her daughter, a beautiful three-year-old named Mia. With Roxanne working there, it was easy for her to get a job there as well.

She eyed Roxanne skeptically. "Do you?"

"You have to," said Steven, who was another waiter, and one of the few straight men in the city who didn't try to get her into his bed the first time he met her. She loved him for that. "Must be very nice though, having all those guys staring at you. Some girls, too."

"Oh, poor Steven, the new waitress stole your fans?" asked Roxanne, rolling her eyes.

She shrugged. It wasn't something new. "So they're staring. They always will."

"Some girls, too," repeated Steven, as if to remind her.

Roxanne burst out laughing. "Come off it, Steven."

"Boys, girls, it's out of my control. Let them stare, that's what I say," she said indifferently. She kind of got used to it by now. They've always been staring at her. And she always loved the attention. What was the harm? It was just staring, anyway. And some flirting, when she felt like it.

"I know about at least one of them who sat here at the bar for hours yesterday, just waiting for you to get here. I didn't have the heart to break his heart and tell him you finished your shift already."

"What? I didn't hear about that one, when was it?" asked Roxanne.

"Yesterday afternoon, when you took couple of hours off to take Mia to the doctor. I felt really sorry for the poor guy. He just sat there, drinking his tea, glancing at the front door when he thought no one was looking. He looked really miserable, especially in the end when he couldn't pay for his tea."

"You're being very nice," she frowned, even though she was flattered to hear that.

"I know. Charming, aren't I?" said Steven, rolling his eyes. Roxanne laughed and hit his arm jokingly. One of the waiters shot the three of them a weird look and nodded towards the area in the back, near the windows, where a noisy group had just found a seat.

"Your area, Maureen," said Roxanne, her laughter slowly dying.

"I know, I'm movin'," she answered tiredly, making her way to the tables in the back. She recognized some of them. In the three weeks she was working there, she had seen them quite a lot. They never sat in her area though, but today the table they usually occupied was taken. She envied them. They always looked so happy and careless, always loud and laughing, and every time they got there, there was always some sort of commotion. They seemed to know everyone, and everyone knew them. They were obviously living quite some time in New York.

Her head stuck in her notepad, she tried to calculate how many hours she had left until the end of the shift. She didn't even look up, just followed the noise until she got to their table. "How can I help-" her voice drifted off as she raised her head to meet the familiar grin of a familiar guy. Her favorite guy. A huge smile formed on her face as she let out a squeal. "Collins!"

His grin grew wider as he stood up, and she flung herself into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. "I can't believe my eyes. This was faster than I expected," he said, slowly letting go. His eyes sparkled. "When the hell did you get here?"

"About three weeks ago. I was about to try and locate you, but it's all been crazy with this new job and-"

"That's okay, honey. I wasn't around. I got back this morning." He did one step back, observing her with a small smile. "You're looking as fabulous as ever."

She frowned, looking down at the apron she had to wear as uniform. "It's a bit less glamorous than I hoped."

"You'll get your chance. I know you will."

Someone at the table coughed as if to draw Collins' attention. She looked away from him and to take a closer look on those guys that drew her attention from the first day she got there. She never had a chance to look at them closely, since they never sat in her area. They were three, more or less her age. "Collins man, aren't you going to introduce your friend?" asked one of them, a bit confused. Then he turned to look at her, and a slow, sly smile curled on his lips. Ugh. She hated being looked at like that. On his one side sat a guy who looked like those guys she used to date during her short college experience. Handsome, masculine, she could notice a tattoo on his arm, where his sleeves were rolled up. He was attractive, and just her type, but he looked kind of down, as if his mind was elsewhere. The last one looked a bit younger than them. He was blonde and she could notice his glasses, although he was hunched over an old looking camera and hardly took notice of her.

Collins laughed. "Sure. Guys, this is Maureen Johnson, she's an old friend, I was teaching a seminar in her college. Maureen, these are the guys," he said simply. The blonde guy raised his head as Collins acknowledged them, and their eyes locked for a moment. His eyes were remarkably blue behind those glasses, she noticed. He looked thunder-stricken for just a second, but then he blushed and looked back down. "This is Benny, and Roger, and that's Mark. He's kind of shy," said Collins, looking fondly at the blonde guy. She could tell by the sound of his voice that he really liked the boy. "So when are you off?" he asked her.

She sighed. Like she needed someone to remind her that. "In way too many hours."

"Do you have anywhere to stay?"

"One of the girls that works here had a spare room, so I-"

"Why don't you move in with us?" Collins cut her off.

Caught off-guard, she looked at him dumbfounded for a moment. "What?"

"Move in with us. The loft is pretty big, and we can share the rent. It's gonna be easier for all of us. If no one objects," he added, turning to look at his friends, who shook their heads. Benny looked thrilled. He nudged Roger's elbow, but Roger didn't seem to notice. "Good. It's settled then. If you want."

"How soon can I move in?" she asked smiling. Thing were going better than she could ever expect.

"The sooner the better. We can move your stuff in after your shift, or tomorrow."

She thought about it for a moment, and as she did, her gaze wandered from Collins to Mark. He was staring at her. Caught in the act, he blushed and looked away. She smiled. He was almost too cute. She couldn't help but wonder if he could possibly be the one Steven had just told her about. "Sure. But I gotta go back to work now, or this would be my last shift ever. So let me take your order and we'll talk about this later?"

"Okay sweetie," said Collins and hugged her again. "I'm so glad to see you here."

"I know. Me too."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Although his friends left some time ago, Collins waited until the end of her shift. He was sitting by the bar, and she had stopped by to talk with him whenever she could. She didn't even realize how much she missed him, until she saw him sitting there.

They walked back to Roxanne's apartment once their shift ended, and Collins helped her pack and move her bags out. It was almost midnight as they made their way to the loft, and freezing, since it was the middle of January.

"So you didn't waste much time," he said, sort of amused.

"Nope."

"Weren't you supposed to be at Jersey for the holidays?"

"I didn't stay. I left two days after I got there. Things got really ugly when I told them, so I didn't see any point to stay."

"So you just got yourself on a bus here?"

She laughed softly. "More or less. I packed what I could and wrote to Belinda to keep the stuff I left at the dorms until I'm settled here." She sighed sadly, realizing she didn't even say goodbye to her. Then she looked up at him, and felt safe at the thought that he was there with her. She wasn't entirely alone. "Enough about me. Let's talk about something else."

So he told her what he has been doing since the last time she has seen him. Although he made efforts to sound cheerful, she could tell something was wrong. She stopped on her tracks in the middle of the street once she realized that.

"Why'd you stop?" he asked, surprised.

She eyed him seriously. "What are you not telling me?"

Collins looked as if he was about to deny, but soon he gave up on that. "Nothing escapes you, huh?" he asked, his voice a bit desperate. He sighed. "Okay. I didn't want to tell you so soon, but I guess the sooner I'll get it out of my system the better."

Now she was kind of worried. "Collins, what happened?"

He took her arm gently and led her to a park nearby. There were no benches around, so they took a seat on two swings in a deserted playground. She looked at him, curious and afraid at the same time. "Couple of weeks ago I… I found out I was sick," he started, almost in a whisper. He raised his head to face her. His eyes were glistening. "I have AIDS."

A gasp escaped her before she had a chance to hold it back. That was the last thing she expected to hear. AIDS… No, that was impossible. Not him. Not her Collins… "But… how did you-"

"Well, apparently this was Greg's reason to break up. He found out he was sick couple of months ago and he was afraid to tell me, so instead he decided we should break up, making that ridiculous excuse about how we hardly meet because I'm never around. I stumbled over the truth when I had my annual blood tests. When they told me I was positive he was the first person I called to. So he told me the truth. I felt so guilty that I might have gotten him infected, and eventually it was the other way around," he concluded, shaking his head sadly.

She left her swing and approached him. He was still sitting, and therefore a bit shorter than her. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Don't," he said, laying his head on her stomach, holding her close. "I'm okay. I'll be okay. I'll fight."

"I know you will," she smiled in spite of her tears. Inside, she was screaming. "Did you…" she took a deep breath. You can't fall apart now, she scolded herself. She had to stay strong for him. "Did you tell your friends?"

"No, not yet. This is why I wasn't in town. I told them I had a teaching gig someplace, but the truth was that I had to get away for a while to think. And now I just got back home, and I didn't want to upset them. Anyway I think I'll need a few days to think about how the hell am I going to break this to them. Unlike you, they weren't blessed with female instincts. They didn't suspect something was wrong."

"Guys, you know," she said quietly, holding back tears. One tear managed to escape though, and she could feel it sliding down her cheek, warm and tickling.

He laughed softly, standing up and kissing her forehead. "Yeah, go figure them out." He brushed her hair away from her face. "You must be tired," he said gently. "Come on, let's get you home."

She hated to admit that she was tired. His news still echoed mercilessly in her ears, though. AIDS, oh God… She slipped her hand in his as they left the park. "It looks like they mean a lot to you," she said. They had to talk about something, anything, or she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it.

"They are. We're all like a family here. I met Mark more or less the way I met you. He was a student in Brown. My best student. Benny was his roommate. Roger and Mark are friends for so many years, I think they lived next to one another or something. They got here after Mark's graduation. His parents almost got a heart attack, according to what I've heard."

She smiled. "Why is that?"

"Roger made them sound like Jewish, over-protective psychos, but I dunno. I think it's his dad he really has issues with. His mom always calls to make sure he's warm and safe, well-fed and doesn't use alcohol or drugs." She smiled. If that wasn't over-protective, she didn't know what was. "But Mark never talks about this. I do know that both his mom and dad weren't very happy with the route he decided to follow."

"Which was?"

"Filming. That's his life obsession. He told me once that his great-grandfather was a photographer, until the German destroyed his photography shop during the Second World War. His son, Mark's grandpa, survived the war and started his own photography business, in the memory of his father. He always had such passion to photography, and Mark became fascinated by it himself. They were pretty close, until the man died, on the night of Mark's Bar Mitzvah."

She could almost imagine the boy's face on that day years ago. It nearly broke her heart. "Oh, poor Mark."

"Yeah. Roger told me that he was heart-broken. But the old man didn't leave him with nothing. He left him his old video camera, and got him a new Leica. So from that day on, Mark knew that was what he wanted to do. No one in the family approved his grandpa's occupation, so you can imagine how his parents flipped when Mark told them he was about to follow this man's way."

She smiled. That sounded pretty much like her own parents, and the way they felt about her old Broadway dream. For a moment, she could pretend to hear their protests again, her brother's protests. She shook them off. It was final. She was where she always wanted to be. There was no going back. "And Roger? What's his story?"

"Roger… is completely a different story. That's why I was so surprised these two were such good friends. He never tried to apply to college. He says that he always knew he'd end up in New York. It was like his childhood dream or something. His parents actually encouraged him to go, to follow his dreams. They're nothing like Mark's parents. They came to visit here couple of times. Once they even showed up at the club where Roger plays with his band. The Well Hungarians." He frowned. "They suck, but they think they are the greatest." She laughed. "Hey, maybe we can get him get you a gig or something."

"Really?" That would be so great. Maybe she could join their band, no matter how much they sucked. It was a start.

"Yeah. I mean I'm not sure if he'll be up to it right now, he's just going through major breakup." She knew something looked wrong with him. "I think you're gonna like Davis. He can be a jerk sometimes, but he's a great guy. They all are. Even Benny has a nice side, deep, deep inside of him."

"You care about them a lot, don't you?" she asked gently, giving his hand a small squeeze.

"Of course I do. They're my brothers. You'll see that in no time, you'll care too. It's unavoidable." As he said that, he stopped in front of an old looking building. He nodded towards the top floor. "Up there. Home sweet home." He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. She followed him up the stairs and into the loft. It was dark and quiet, except for a small lamp in the far end of the room. Someone raised his head as they opened the heavy metal door. He was rubbing his eyes, as if they woke him up.

Collins didn't look so surprised to find him there so late. "Mark, what are you doing here?"

Mark got up and stretched, then took his glasses from the table and put them on. "I was working and… I guess I fell asleep." Then he noticed her, and smiled shyly. "Hi," he whispered, running a hand through his tousled blonde hair.

So cute. She hoped she wasn't blushing. "Hi."

"You wanna help us to get Maureen's stuff in her room?" asked Collins. Mark nodded and walked towards them. He avoided looking at her as he took one of the bags from her. She followed him and Collins into one of the rooms, which looked as if they used it so far for storage. There were clothes and carton boxes all over the place. "Here. That's my room, but you can have it and I'll share a room with Mark."

His room? She thought they had one spare room or something, or he wouldn't have offered her to move in with them in the first place. She shook her head in protest. "No, Collins, I won't take your room from you, no way. I can stay on the couch."

"You ain't sleeping on no couch," said Collins, his voice as determined as hers. "There's another spare room over there, at the end of the hall, but it's a real mess and it's too late to start organizing it right now. So don't argue, take this room. You won't win, you know."

She smiled. "I'm too tired to argue with you anyway."

"Good. So let's go to sleep, it's been a long day."

But she couldn't sleep. No matter how tired she was, she just couldn't. She laid on Collins' shabby mattress and stared at the ceiling. At some point, the light in the living room died out and Mark went to bed as well. She sat up and reached for her purse, looking for her cigarettes. She took up smoking during college, because it helped her relax before the exams. Now she rarely smoked, mostly because she didn't want it to ruin her voice. After she found them, she snatched a lighter, threw a sweatshirt on her shoulders and left her room. She spotted the fire escape when they first entered the loft. She could use the fresh air. She wasn't surprised to find Collins there, having a smoke.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked as he noticed her.

She shook her head. She didn't want to tell him he was the reason that kept her awake. She was still thinking about what he had told her earlier. She lit her cigarette and blew the smoke into the chilly night air.

"I get out here a lot at night, to think," said Collins.

She leaned back on the cold metal bars, so that she could take a better look at him. "What are you thinking about now?"

"You know," he looked at her sadly. Then, as if to change the subject, he gave a knowing-all smile. "So, you like our young filmmaker?"

She looked at him confused. "Who?"

"Mark. I think he likes you. I mean, I know he likes you," he said smiling.

"You're only here for 24 hours, how could you possibly figure out such a thing so quickly?" she laughed nervously. She really didn't know why. Even if it was true, Mark wasn't the first guy to have a crush on her. And he surely wasn't the last.

"I can. Mark is pretty transparent. Aside from the fact that he couldn't stop telling me about the pretty new waitress they had at the Life Café. Why do you think we were all there tonight?" he looked at her jokingly, then did a double take. "I'll be damned. You're actually blushing!"

Was she? Oh, shit. "Shut up, Collins," she muttered, taking another drag from her cigarette.

"This is really cute. Although I've never thought about guys like him as your type."

She wasn't sure of he was teasing her or being serious. "He's not. But maybe that's just the problem. Maybe a change is what I need. Maybe all my other choices were wrong."

"Coming here was right."

"Yeah," she smiled. "It was." An involuntary wave of uncertainty hit her full force. She sighed. "I hope so."

"It's not like you to be so hesitant. You're safe here with us." They sat in silence for couple of minutes, just smoking their cigarettes and watching the stars. She was so occupied with her own thoughts, that when Collins spoke again, it startled her. "He's an amazing guy, in case you do want a break from sex-craved scums," he said seriously.

She laughed softly, her thoughts drifting towards the blonde, shy filmmaker, now sound asleep in his bedroom. "Thanks. I'll think about it."