Chapter 10

Kirsten was out soon after she lay down in her boyfriend's bed, but Mark couldn't sleep that night. He was lying awake thinking about how much it would crush Roger to loose another person that he loved to a disease that he never tried to get, especially if it was his daughter. He was just rolling over when he heard guitar chords being strummed in the other room. Giving up on sleep, Mark got out of bed, careful not to wake Kirsten, and made his way into the main room.

Roger was sitting on the couch playing his guitar with Danni sitting beside him reading a thick book that she'd borrowed from Collins. This was the closest the two of them had been in while when they weren't either fighting or crying. Seeing them like that made Mark smile.

"Mark, you can join us you know." Danni said without looking up from her book.

"Yeah dude. Don't just stand there gawking. Come share in the love." Roger added. Danielle raised an eyebrow at the word love but didn't argue the point. Mark grinned and came to sit on the couch beside Roger.

"You guys couldn't sleep either, huh?" The filmmaker said.

Roger shook his head and began to play Muzetta's Waltz for the first time since Mimi had died. "I won't be able to get any rest until I know that Lizette's going to be okay. Just being here at home with her all the way at the hospital…" he trailed off. "It brings back memories of when Mimi was dying."

Mark nodded. When Mimi was starting to get sicker Mark, Maureen, Joanne, Angel, and Collins had all insisted to her and Roger that she needed to be in professional care. The argument got so bad at one point that Joanne had to yell at Roger that his kisses and canned chicken soup were not a cure for AIDS. They got the dancer to the hospital in the end, not that it did much good.

"It's for the best Dad." Danni said looking up for the first time. There were unshed tears in her green eyes as she looked into her father's which were nearly a mirror image of her own.

"I know." The musician replied and finished the song smoothly. He glanced at the clock. It was a quarter till three. "I just want tomorrow to be here already."

"Technically it is tomorrow." Mark responded with a chuckle. "You know what this reminds me of Roger?"

Roger smiled. "Yeah, back when Angel was in the hospital, when they found out she was going to be okay and Collins came over here at fucking four in the morning with two bottles of Stoli and made us get out of bed and get drunk with him."

"That was crazy!" Mark grinned at the memory. The philosopher had been so happy that his beloved was going to live a while longer that he'd come all the way to the loft and the three of them celebrated until noon and then passed out into drunken stupors. "We should do that again sometime-" He broke off with a look at the underage Danni.

"That's hardly the problem here." Roger replied. "I was two years younger than you when I first got drunk with Maureen and Mark."

"Then what's the problem?" Danni asked.

"I can't get drunk while my daughter is in the hospital. That would be wrong. But I promise that as soon as I know that Lizette is okay then I will get drunk off my ass with you all. But until then…"

Mark nodded in understanding. "Okay." The three of them lapsed into a comfortable silence that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. At some point Roger began playing his guitar again and Danni fell asleep, still leaning against her father. Before any of them knew it, it was a quarter till seven.

Roger's fingers came to a halt on the strings of his guitar and he sighed. Mark had moved over to the kitchen and was making enough coffee for the people who would be arriving soon. "We should start getting ready." Mark said.

The musician nodded and nudged Danielle awake. "Hey Danni, it's time to wake up. We gotta get ready to go see your sister." The teenager opened her eyes and yawned. She nodded and got up to take a shower. When she emerged, Roger and then finally Mark went in.

There was a knock on the door not long after and Roger yelled "Come in!" as he made his way to the kitchen.

Maureen slid the door open and entered followed by Joanne. "You guys ready to go?" she asked.

Danni nodded. "Yeah as soon as Mark comes out of the bathroom we will be." She giggled as Roger burned his tongue on his coffee.

Kirsten emerged from Mark's bedroom fully dressed and ready to go. She put her arms around Danni and turned to Maureen. "Are we waiting for Collins and Angel?" she asked.

Joanne shook her head. "No they're going to meet us at the hospital. Collins said that he we were fucking insane if we thought he was getting up this early, but that he'd meet us there."

A few moments later, they were all ready to go. They piled into Joanne's suburban and headed at top speed (which for Joanne was still slightly under the speed limit) to the hospital. Joanne parked, and together all the Bohemians made their way into the waiting room.

Dr. Wilson was in there talking to a couple and he looked up in surprise to see the group heading towards him. "Mr. Davis, I wasn't expecting to see you until eleven." He said.

"Well I was worried." Roger answered. "How is my daughter doing?"

"She's looking fine. Her vitals continued to improve over the night and her white blood cell count is excellent considering her condition. There was a point at," the doctor looked at his chart. "6:42 am when her temperature spiked, but it came down quickly."

"What caused the spike?" Mark asked.

"At this point we can't tell, but whatever it was didn't seem to have caused any damage." Dr. Wilson checked his chart again. "In fact, she seems to have done all the recovering that she's going to, so we can wake her up now if you'd like."

Roger took a breath and looked at Danni. She nodded at him and he nodded at the doctor. "Okay, let's do it."

"Alright, one of you can come back with me and we'll bring her out. Once we make sure everything's in working order, she can have visitors."

They all nodded and Roger followed the doctor back to the room where Lizette was being kept. He almost cried when he saw his little girl hooked up to various machines and looking so small and overwhelmed in the hospital bed. The doctor did his thing (A/N: I have no idea what this would be) and Roger went over to clasp Lizette's tiny hand in his larger calloused one. Dr. Wilson put something into the IV that was going into Lizette's arm and her eyelids fluttered and opened.

Roger breathed a sigh of relief as the young girl looked at him and smiled. "Hi Daddy." She whispered.

"Hey Lizzie." The musician said back. Tears streamed down his face as he stared into the aqua eyes of the child he had almost lost. "I'm so glad you're awake."

The girl bobbed her head happily. "Me too. Where's Mark and Danni?" she asked. "And everyone else? Where are they?" she looked around. "Where am I?"

"You gave us a scare baby." Roger answered. "We had to bring you to the hospital to make sure you were okay. Danni, Mark and the others are all outside waiting to see you." The tears were falling faster before Roger even realized he'd started to cry.

"Why are you crying Daddy?" Lizette inquired curiously. She reached up and touched her father's wet face.

"I thought-" his voice broke. "I thought I was going to lose you Lizzie. I'm just so glad you're okay."

"Of course I am." The girl replied with a giggle.

A/N: Okay so this is going to be the last update for a while because I am officially on Winter Break and I am going home! There's no Internet at my house so that means no updates. But, I will be writing like crazy while I'm at home so I'll have a bunch of new chapters in the New Year. Hopefully some of my other stories will updated as well! Happy Holidays everyone!