you guys better be pretty fucking proud of me for getting this all typed up today(thanks to the fact that today is election day here in murr-a-lend). but i do have one thing to say that slighty irks me: the lack of comments. i write this story for myself and my friends, but the only reason i type it up and fight with to get it up here is for you guys, so when i don't get comments i assume that you guys either aren't reading it anymore or don't like it, which makes me feel like it's pointless to update. now, i know something was wrong with leaving comments a few days ago because some people sent me messages with their reviews, but i still only got three comments and i want to know what you guys think. i'm not that much far ahead in writing right now; i'm still writing chapter 8, so anything you guys say in comments for this chapter will be taken into consideration for the next chapter. oh yea, no matter what you guys say, i am not changing the newfound relationship that appears about halfway through this chapter. i had to put it in; i couldn't resist. sorry if you guys don't like it, but i have a feeling most of you will. and as for the medical thing that comes up, i kinda bs'd the whole thing, but i thought i should have an excuse for why that one person is the way they are, so if you don't like what i made up, then just ignore it 'cuz it's not really that important. so yep, i guess that's all i gots to say. hope y'alls like it, and REVIEW.

oh yea, i don't own mo, jo, or any of the other 6 people that jonathan larson came up with. i'm not that brilliant. but i do own any and all children of the characters, whether they be biological or adopted.

The next morning I woke up to Maureen trying to get the VCR to work with the TV in my room. I watched her struggle with it for awhile before finally getting it. I wanted to get up and help her, but I didn't have the strength to. She turned around and smiled when she noticed that I was awake.

"Joey, you're awake! How are you feeling?" she asked me as she came and sat down next to me on my bed.

"I'm really tired still, but I was able to sleep through the night last night. How's Roxie? Is she doing better?"

"She's about the same as yesterday, but she looks more alive today. Do you remember what today is?"

"No, I'm sorry Mo, but I don't. I don't even remember what month it is."

"That's ok, Joey. But honestly, I never would have thought that you'd be the one to forget that it's our anniversary!" she said with a small laugh.

"Oh, ok." I was too tired to show her how excited I really was. I somehow found the energy to prop myself up in my bed and turn my attention to the VCR she had been fighting with earlier. "So is today movie day or something?"

"No, silly. We're watching the tape from our wedding, just like we do every year!"

"Oh, right, I forgot. Sorry. Well, turn it on." I made myself comfortable as Maureen got the tape started. Once it was all set up she came and sat down on my bed again and gave me a kiss on my forehead.

"Happy anniversary, Pookie."

I must have dozed off during the video, because when I woke up there was someone in the chair next to my bed that was not Maureen.

"MOMMA!" Grace shrieked in excitement as she flung herself at me. "Mommy told me not to wake you up so I drew you a picture while I waited." She handed me a piece of paper with a bunch of stick figures in dresses drawn on it. There were two figures in the middle, one drawn in yellow and the other in brown that I assumed were Maureen and I. At the bottom were four smaller figures that were drawn in pink, and next to them was an even smaller one with a circle around it.

"Thank you, Gracie. I love it." I pulled her closer to me and kissed her forehead. "Speaking of Mommy, where is she?"

"Um… I think she took Kelly to the bathroom. But look," she said, obviously more interested in her picture than answering my question. "… that's you and Mommy right there. And then me, Kelly, Sissy, and Maddie are right there. And that's Roxie in that corner. I almost forgot to draw her but then I remembered that you borned her a few days ago. I drew a circle around her because I didn't know how to draw the ingupator she's in because I wanted you to know what she looks like. Mommy said that you didn't get to see her yet because you're too sick." She stopped talking when she ran out of breath. I smiled at the small mistakes she made, and then quickly took that opportunity to talk.

"Thank you very much, honey. It's beautiful. When Mommy gets back I'll have her tape it up next to my bed." Just as I was giving her another kiss on her forehead, Maureen walked into the room with Kelly.

"Joey, you're awake! Gracie didn't bother you too much while we were gone, did she?" she asked as she gave me a quick kiss before sitting down and pulling Kelly up onto her lap. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, I'm not as tired as I was earlier, but I'm still a little sore. My back is starting to hurt from being in bed for so long, but overall I'm feeling much better," I said as I adjusted myself into a comfortable sitting position.

"That's really good," she paused and readjusted Kelly, who had fallen asleep in her lap, "because I spoke with your doctor today while you were sleeping. He said that if you were feeling better then we could take you to go see Roxie after Mark and Roger come to get Grace and Kelly. Roxie's still in the NICU which means that you can't go in, but they took her out of the incubator and moved her next to the window."

"Wait, Mark and Roger? Did they go gay on us or something? What about Jess? I remember you saying something about Roger and Mimi breaking up, but aren't Mark and Jess still together?"

"Oh, sorry. You don't remember when Jess left a few weeks ago? No one knows why or where she went to; all her note said was that being a wife and a mother was too much work, so she just bailed. Roger had been staying with them after Mimi kicked him out, so when Jess left he helped Mark take care of Shontay, and, well, the next thing we knew, Roger had taken over Jess's place in bed. Personally, I always knew that they had the hots for each other, but I can't believe it took them this long to figure it out."

I just stared at her with my mouth open. Mark and Roger? Roger and Mark? "Woah. I definitely did not see that coming."

"Yea, I don't think that Mimi did, either. She said that we must have rubbed off on them or something," she said as she turned and looked over me out the window. I could tell that there was something else that was bothering her.

"Hey, Maureen, you ok, baby?" When she turned back to look at me I thought that she was going to cry.

"It's just that, well, I've just been so scared that I'm going to lose you or Roxie. I worry about you both all the time and I just want you two at home with us so we can be a family again. God, I sound like such a child," she said as she wiped a tear from her face. "I just wish that the doctors could figure out what's wrong so you can both come home. Maddie and Isabelle keep asking for Momma and I don't know how to explain everything so that they'll understand."

"Oh, Honeybear," I said as I pulled her into a hug with a sleeping Kelly in between us. My eyes had started to water and I didn't want her to see me cry because everyone knew that Joanne Jefferson never cried.

"Mommies?" I turned my head and saw that Grace had abandoned her Barbies and was climbing up on my bed. "What's wrong?"

I took my arm off of Maureen's back and held it out, motioning for her to come over to us. "Nothing's wrong, honey. Mommy's just sad that Roxie and I can't come home yet."

"I'm really sad too. All the kids at school don't believe me when I talk about Roxie because you haven't gotten to bring her yet to show her. And I really want to show her to Maddie and Sissy so that they know that they have to be big sisters now." Oh great. Now she was starting to cry.

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her into our little group hug, which now had Maureen crying into my shoulder and Kelly slowly waking up.

"October 28, 2006, 5pm, Eastern standard time. As we enter room 320 we see 4 members of the Johnson-Jefferson family embracing in what appears to be a family group hug."

"Jesus Christ, Mark. If you're going to bring that goddamn thing with you everywhere we go, must you narrate?" I turned and broke apart from the hug to see Mark enter the room with his beloved camera, followed by Roger and Shontay. As soon as Grace saw them, she was off the bed and running towards them in an instant. It took Kelly a little longer to figure out who they were, but once she was fully awake she wiggled out from between Maureen and I so that she could run at them.

"Uncle Mark!"

"Uncle Roger!"

Whenever the girls ambushed them they always went at Roger because they had heard all of Maureen's stories about what happens if you touch Mark's camera because apparently she had run into that predicament a few times back when they dated.

After Roger had hugged each of the girls and Mark had gotten a feeble 'hi' out of each of them (they were also afraid of him when he had the camera out), the girls went over to Shontay. They completely idolized her; she was like a big sister to them and she loved getting to watch them.

"Grace and Kelly Johnson-Jefferson go off with Shontay Cohen, soon to be Cohen-Davis, to go do whatever it is that girls do."

" 'Soon to be Cohen-Davis'? Is there something you two forgot to tell me?" Maureen had moved back over to her chair so I was able to cross my arms over my chest as I looked from Mark to Roger and raised my eyebrows. "Hmmm?"

"Well, um, you see…" Mark lowered his camera and began to look at the ground as he talked. I had successfully made him uncomfortable. "Roger, why don't you tell them?" he said as he looked over at Roger.

"What's there to tell? Jess left and I thought that Mark deserved better, so I decided to show him what better was. As for the Cohen-Davis thing, Mark and I are getting married and I'm going to adopt Shontay." As he finished he walked over to Mark and wrapped his arms around his waist. "Now, why Mark has to include that in his goddamn narration, I have no clue."

"Ok, Ok, that's great, but can you two get going with the girls now? I want to take Joey to go see Roxie before she gets too tired again." As Maureen said this she picked up the girls stuff and handed it to Roger as she ushered them out into the hallway. "Thanks again for taking them tonight. Tell them we love them and to be good. Call me if you need anything." I couldn't tell that she was excited. Not at all.

Maureen came back a few minutes later with a nurse who was pushing a wheelchair. The nurse unhooked me from my IV and then they both helped me into the wheelchair. I had never experienced as much abdominal pain as I did when I moved from the bed to the wheelchair. I tried not to show that moving hurt because I was afraid that they might not let me see Roxie if I did. Maureen was obviously excited; she was talking 50 words a minute about god knows what and once the nurse started to wheel me down the hall I swear she started skipping. After what seemed like an eternity, we were finally in front of the NICU, looking through the window at Roxie, our daughter.

"She's beautiful." Despite all of the tubes and monitors that she was hookup to, she really was beautiful.

"I know, Pookie," Maureen said as she kissed the top of my head. "She looks just like you."

I smiled as Maureen wrapped her arms around me from where she was standing behind me.

"Excuse me, are you two the parents of Roxie Johnson-Jefferson?" Maureen and I both turned and saw a doctor with a slightly thick folder standing a few feet away from us.

"Yes, we are," Maureen said. "Is there something wrong with Roxie?"

"I was just wondering if I could talk to you two for a few minutes in my office," she said as she pointed to a door on the other side of the hallway.

"Sure," Maureen said before looking down at me, a look of concern on her face.

We followed the doctor into her office and Maureen took a seat in the chair next to where she had parked my wheelchair.

"You probably don't remember me, but I'm Dr. Carlie Samal," she said as she shook each of our hands before sitting down in the chair behind her desk. She opened up the folder that she had been carrying and began to flip through it. "I was in the OR when Roxie was delivered, but everything was so hectic that I didn't get a chance to talk with you two. Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about the results of some tests that we've been running on Roxie the past week. As you already know, her prematurity greatly increases her risk of having any developmental issues."

She paused for a minute and flipped through the papers she had taken out of the folder. Maureen looked over at me to see how I was doing and squeezed my hand in an attempt to reassure me. I returned the squeeze before refocusing my attention back on Dr. Samal, who had pulled a paper out of the folder.

"Now, most of Roxie's test results have come back fine, and she should be able to go home in a week or two if everything continues to go well. However," Maureen took my hand in her's as Dr. Samal turned the paper around and place it on the desk so that we could see it. "The results of her hearing tests are the only thing that concerns us. We have run the tests numerous times to verify the results, and every time we have gotten the same results: Roxie is 100 deaf in both ears. Our guess is that it's from her having no ear drums, which I'm guessing is because of her being so premature. Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do right now to improve her hearing, and hearing aids or a cochlear implant will be useless because they won't be able to replace her ear drums. The only thing that I can suggest is that you both start learning sign language now, so that you can begin to use it with Roxie as soon as possible. The sooner you start using it with her, the better. I'm going to refer you to an audiologist, but I doubt there's much they can help you with. If you have any questions while you're hear you can feel free to talk to any of our audiologists."

Maureen and I just sat there, emotionless. After all of the time we spent preparing for any complication to happen, this was the one thing that we had never thought would happen.

so what did you guys think? i really want to know, and i better get some comments or i'm not continuing once i get chapter 8 finished. sorry if you guys didn't like what i did with mark and roger, but like i said, i had to and i couldn't resist. oh and my friend kelly is going to be writing this story from either mark or roger's pov, so i'll let you guys know when she starts that. i think it's gonna be pretty kick ass. i'm going to do a cross-over in the next chapter(i know, i usually hate crossovers) because i wanted to try it out. for right now i'm only doing it for one chapter, but if you guys like it i can make that specific crossover come up more often. so that is all i have to say and i am going to leave you guys with one word:

REVIEW!