Author's Note: Hi again. Back with the third chapter. I'm writing a lot lately, especially since I'm actually writing a manuscript and I kinda reached a roadblock, so it opens up plenty of time for this for amusement Part of this is for Rent is my anti drug, who wanted more information about Mia. I hope a little snippet of her real life in this chapter will keep you reading. smiles Alsoooo, I apologize for one of the songs in this chapter taking place where it does in the movie, and not in the show. It was just better to work with, so forgive me. Anyway, more reviews are always hoped for. This story is definitely going somewhere. And somewhere good. Thank you all !

"What was she like?" Roger whipped his head to meet my eyes; my voice had startled his silence. I was a breech of his peace, his air, his thoughts. But I needed to be, especially with how toxic I knew those thoughts were.

"How was who like?"

"Her. The girl you're waiting for." His eyes met the window again, as they had been every moment since Mark left the loft. He didn't answer. I felt him melting right there beside me and spilling out the window, onto the fire-escape. Escaping.

"What gives it away?" He broke the silence, after minutes of anticipation.

"Your eyes. How alive they are in your posters, and how dead they are now."

"But I'm alive." He groaned. As if it pained him to know it was true.

I leaned into him and put my hand on his leg. "But by how much?"

He jerked away. He always jerked away. "She killed me."

"How?"

"When she killed herself." He never turned to look at me, always spoke right to the window, to the sky, to the stars, to the past he had to leave behind.

"What did she kill?" I tried to follow his eyes, to meet him half-way.

"What I was." I could tell Roger never spoke like this. I suddenly wished Mark was there. I wanted to hold onto this moment as long as I could before he realized what he was saying. And who he was saying it to.

"Roger, what were you?"

"I was… different. Reckless. Unafraid. Daring. And happy. But then I lost her, and I lost all of that, too."

"Then what are you now?" His silence was even greater this time. I held my breath, waiting for a response, hoping I hadn't pushed too far.

"You must know, Mia. Mia Cordon. The girl who knows everything." He chuckled lightly.

"I don't know anything." I mumbled beneath my breath. He finally turned on the couch to look at me.

"Yes you do. You know Mark and I, somehow. From a different time or place, maybe. But you know much more then you should."

"Who's the judge of that?" I asked him.

"We'll kill you. I'll kill you. I killed Mark, and April killed me."

Her name. April. From his lips, she sounded like an angel.

"Awful lot of death isn't there?" My questions were punctuated by long silences, till Roger knew what he had to say.

"It's inevitable."

"Maybe. But what about birth? …Or rebirth?"

He sat watching me for a long time, trying to read an answer in my face that I didn't know was there.

"Rebirth? Of who?"

"You, Roger. April died, but you're alive."

He interrupted. "But as you said, by how much?"

"Then live harder. Better. Life's a gift, Roger. Especially when you're so close to its end."

He looked angered, like I had just stabbed him in his chest.

"…I'll take my AZT." He mumbled, looking to the window again. And I knew he would.

I grabbed his hand and cupped it in mine, giving up my warmth for him.

"You're about to live again, Roger. I can feel it."

He looked down at my hand wrapped tightly around his. For once, he didn't jerk away.

"I hope so." He finally let go and stood up, grabbing his guitar off the chair and starting to the fire escape. Passing the counter, he stopped. He looked back at me once more on the couch, exhaled and groped his bag of AZT. He slipped it into his back pocket and disappeared out onto the fire escape, where whatever he had been waiting for seemed to be waiting for him. I wondered if he found out. I would always wonder if Roger found it.

The loft was painfully silent. It's funny, the amount of things you can imagine about one particular place, but you never think of what it's like empty. I leaned back on the couch and fingered a bursting stitch. I closed my eyes and disappeared, and felt more at home in this silence in this loft then I did anywhere. It gave me a moment to think, think back on the events that had happened in just the last hour. My stomach jumped into my throat. It was so unbelievable to think I had dissolved from my old world into this one. And I started wondering just then. Wondering what was going on back at home. If maybe this meant I never existed at all, if maybe this was like some kind of strange fictional movie in which if I ever got back home, they wouldn't even know my name…except for all this was real.

How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day?

An hour ago, I was racking my brain on how I got here, and how I'd get home. But now, I could care less. Maybe tomorrow I'd wake up and be home. Maybe I'd wake up here again. And maybe, in a month, that will pain me. But right now, it was what I was praying for.

I remembered my brother then. The one who I had told my parents I was going to see for Christmas that day. But I knew I would be making a pit stop first. I remembered he was the first one to take me to see RENT. I remembered that picture that was framed on my nightstand at home, the one where my brother had to ask a passerby to try to use his decade-old camera to get a shot of us standing there in front of the theatre after the show let out, the bright lights shining behind us. I remembered how he had whispered in my ear, "Imagine you're with them right now." And that was the one thing that made me smile brighter then the lights behind us. I remembered his face, how glowing it was in that picture with his dark hair and fire-engine-red t-shirt, and I remembered his face now. He didn't glow much anymore. Believe it or not, I even remembered that camera which was tucked away in his attic for over a year now. The last thing I remembered was slipping that picture into my pocket before I left that morning. I rubbed it through my jeans, not ready to take it out. All those memories reminded me of why these people meant so much to me. Maybe the reason I'd wanted to be part of their lives so desperately was because of how much they were now mirroring my own. "Imagine you're with them right now," my brother had said.

I was with them. And I was staying.

My thoughts were interrupted by notes floating down from the fire escape. I slowly got up from the couch and padded across the loft. I leant out the Peter Pan-window and the music became louder. Out to the fire escape I climbed and I slowly treaded up the stairs to the roof. I peaked around some clutter to see Roger standing towards the edge of the roof with his guitar in his hand, screaming out to the night. He played chords as he sang, his voice raw and bittersweet, so much more then I could ever imagine. I kneeled at the top of the stairs, just enough to still be concealed but able to watch him. The notes filled me up and I found my eyes closing as his voice trickled like a leaking faucet.

Find

Glory

In a song that rings true,

Truth like a blazing fire

An eternal flame

Words I had heard a million times, but never in my life had they become as alive as they were now. I felt them, each hitting me like a tidal wave and ripping at my insides, so grim and bleak, but perfect. I smiled, despite the mood. Because these words were telling a story. And I knew the ending.

Find

One Song

A song about love

Glory

From the soul of a young man

A young man

Find the one song

Before the virus takes hold

Roger turned out so his back was more to me, and I eyed the AZT still in his back pocket. I grabbed at both of my arms as a chill ran through me. It was either the thought that Roger was dying, or that it was below freezing and my heavy brown coat was still in Benny's room. I couldn't bare the wind any longer, so I hurried back down to the fire escape before Roger's song ended.

Back in the loft, I realized the thought of Roger dying had hit me on the roof as well as the wind. Just then, fear gripped me. In the life I had left behind, I was dealing with an inevitable death. And now, in this world of escape, it was chasing me too. My head clanged, and I realized everything I had wanted to run away from, I was running to. I need to get out this door, I thought.

Just then, a new idea hit me. Maybe I was here on a mission. Maybe that was what I was meant to do, to touch Roger and give him a reason to keep living. Maybe I'd already done that. Maybe I was free. For some reason in that moment, I felt chained to that loft. I needed to leave. I was never one to stay tied down to anything, and that overwhelming need to run just ran through me. And I couldn't control it. I hurried to the door and ripped it open. But standing in front of me was not an escape from my escape, but a reminder I couldn't go anywhere.

The first thing I noticed were her eyes. How brown they were, and full. I didn't know of what, but they were overflowing with something. Empowerment, maybe. But what brought it to her? There were almost no pupils in her eyes, but a thin ring of white. Hope. The rest was a familiar brown but on her, it seemed as if I'd never seen the color before.

The next thing I noticed was that Roger's music had stopped.

Her hand was in a fist, ready to knock on the door. But since I opened it, she dropped her arm. I saw a candle laced in her fingers. I saw a smile twitching at her lips, and then I felt the silence.

"Hi." I said, to break the moment.

"Hello, I'm sorry I didn't realize –" Then she stopped and looked at my face quizzically. "What? Do I remind you of someone?"

She stepped past me gracefully, like a gazelle, into the loft. "You could say that." I muttered, shutting the heavy door.

"I always remind people of –" She stopped again. Steps on the fire escape.

"What'd you forget?" Roger was just slipping back into the loft. He jerked back, realizing who had just come into the loft was most certainly not Mark. The first time his eyes hit her; I was watching it.

"Got a light?"

"I know you – Mia, do you know her?" That was a new one, I thought. "You're shivering." He continued.

I knew this was the moment I was supposed to slip away. I walked past Roger, who looked from this girl for only one quick second to watch me leave, but then hungrily turned back to the mysterious creature. Only mysterious to him, though. I was silent as I slipped into Benny's room and turned on the light and allowed fate to take its course. There were certain things I knew I needed to get involved in while I was here, and certain things I knew I needed to stay out of. I hoped I'd know how to tread the line.

I flopped on my back on Benny's bed. That was when I finally took my brother's picture out of my pocket. There was a single crease down the center, but it was right between us, not on his face. I looked at it hard and saw how the crease divided us as his disease was in real life. But, the picture was still a whole and you could still make out the two people and what they were, no matter how disconnected they were becoming. They would always remain in the picture, no matter what happened to it.

That was the difference between pictures and real life.

I turned to the nightstand beside the bed. There was a photograph there of Benny, Mark, Roger and Collins. Guess Benny didn't need to remember them once he moved out. I looked at their faces. Benny stood on the outside, slightly more removed then the other three. Collins was besides Benny, towering above them, sheltering Mark and Roger on his left. And next to the right was Roger, who was in the center. The other boys huddling around him, protecting him, guarding him. Roger would always be in the center. As much as Roger believed he didn't need to be watched out for, he always did and would. And last was Mark, scrawny with his crooked glasses, close to Roger as always. Mark looked like he needed the protecting. But yet, he found a way to fend for himself. I was going to protect Mark, I heard myself think. Because someone had to, and no one would.

I slipped the photograph out of the frame and held it in my hands. I ran my finger across their faces, and placed the picture gingerly on the bed. Then, I slid the picture of my brother and I into the frame and stood it upright to watch us smile painlessly.

I am home.

I was going to fold the Mark, Roger, Collins, and Benny picture to put it in my pocket but quickly decided against it. This picture didn't need to be creased. I reached across the bed for the overnight bag I had with me and slipped it in. Maybe Benny didn't need it, but I did. And I would never be able to leave without it.

Then, I laid back against the bed without any thought or care. It felt as if everything was taken care of, like I no longer needed to worry. It wasn't true, and never would be, but for some reason I felt as if whatever was lying ahead for me here would happen as it did, and take care of itself. Was this my new home? Were these people my new family? Maybe it always had been, and they always were.

I heard Roger's voice coming from the other room and shut my eyes to listen to its familiar sound, how it rose and fell. Yes, this most definitely was home.

And as Mimi said her last words before she left, I couldn't help but tell Roger myself in my head.

They call her, they call her Mimi.

Author's Note: Anddddddddd, what do we think? I particularly enjoyed this chapter. Got a lot more of Mia's emotions in it, and some Roger drama. I hope you're all excited for chapter four. So review for itttt ! Thank you for reading this, I truly appreciate it. See you soon