Yay! You've made it to the end!

---

He just lay on the couch with the blanket over his head. It was several days later, but that horrible feeling was still inside of him. The one that had come during the funeral when he had realized that Mark was really gone for good.

I'm all alone, he thought.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to die, not Mark.

How could this happen?

"Roger."

"Joanne," he mimicked.

"Time to take your medicine."

Roger did not even have the grace to remove the blanket from his head. "I'm not taking that shit. Get it away from me."

"Roger, don't go there again." There was warning in her voice. She snatched the blanket away.

"No," he told her calmly. "I'm done with it. I don't want it anymore."

She must have sensed the determined stubbornness in his voice.

"Fine. Don't take the antibiotics. But you have to take your AZT."

"No I don't."

"Yes, Roger, you do." She held the bottle of pills out to him.

His eyes flashed. "No."

"Damn it, Roger!" Joanne yelled, shaking the bottle in his direction. "Take the stupid pills!"
"NO!" He stood up angrily and knocked the bottle out of her hand just as Maureen came around the corner.

"What's going—" She stopped and stared at the pill bottle by her feet. "Roger, why is your AZT over here?" She picked it up and held it out to him.

"Because I'm not taking it anymore," he told her levelly. "I don't want to."

Maureen looked at him blankly. "But… if you don't take it, it'll kill you."

Roger just shrugged.

Now Maureen's eyes narrowed angrily. Her body tensed up and she moved toward Roger before he knew what was happening.

"You take these pills," she said dangerously, getting right in his face. "You will not do this to me. I've lost more friends than I can handle, I won't let you. Take the fucking pills before I shove them down your throat."

"Take them yourself, I have nothing to live for."

Maureen snapped completely.

"TAKE YOUR GODDAMNED FUCKING PILLS!" she screeched, her face turning red. "I'LL SHOVE THIS WHOLE BOTTLE UP YOUR FUCKING ASS!"

Roger grabbed the bottle from her hand, taking a few steps backward. Then he dumped them onto the hardwood floor and began stomping on them.

He jumped on them and used as much force as he could, turning his AZT to powder, to dust, to crushed flour. He wouldn't take it, he wouldn't take it….

Maureen screamed as if she had been stabbed. She started hitting Roger as hard as she could, threatening him, sobbing, shouting. Roger took the blows, hardly flinching. The pain was nothing to what he felt inside. Joanne stood helpless with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide until Maureen collapsed into a screaming, sobbing ball on the floor.

"Mark!" she wailed. "Mark, I love you, come back, please come back! Talk some sense into him! I love you, I love you!"

Joanne scooped her up into her arms and held her close, whispering soft platitudes in her ear. Roger picked up a glass figure off the mantle and threw it against the wall. He continued around the room, shattering anything breakable he could find, glass animals and statues, vases, mirrors, plates, slamming it at the walls, the floor, the couch. Maureen was still moaning horribly. Roger felt as though he may explode.

He left the apartment as quickly as he could.

It was dark when he arrived at the cemetery. He took the long way through the graves, acknowledging those he knew so well. Those deaths that had devastated him, but yet had not broken him. He had always had someone to be there when these deaths occurred. Now he had no one. He had Joanne and Maureen, but they were essentially no one.

Mark had been the only someone. The only person Roger had ever really cared about. He realized it now. What the term "soul mate" really meant. It didn't have to be a romantic thing. You could have a romance, be in love with April or Mimi, but not be their soul mate. Mark and Roger's souls had been connected in a different way. It wasn't romantic. It was more than that, so much more. Collins and Angel had been lucky because they were soul mates and lovers, but it was obvious to Roger that it didn't always work that way.

He arrived at Mark's grave. The dirt was still fresh and flowers surrounded the stone that read Mark Cohen and revealed that he had died before he even reached thirty.

"How could you leave me alone, Mark?" Roger said into the darkness. "How could you? It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to die first, it was supposed to be me! I was supposed to die all weak in a hospital bed like everyone else and have you there with me telling me I'd be fine when I wouldn't be and NOW YOU WON'T BE THERE, MARK!" He kicked a bouquet of white lilies. "I'm going to die all by myself! All alone!" he started to cry as hard as Maureen. "You were supposed to be the one left alone! You and Joanne and Maureen, and I would be dead with Mimi and Collins and Angel and April and you would go on without me there to hinder you. You wouldn't have my outbursts or my hangovers to deal with, and you were supposed to be a real filmmaker and now you won't be!" He sobbed painfully hard. "I'm all alone without you, I…."

He began to cough. He coughed horribly hard and he couldn't stop.

Roger leaned on the tombstone for support, coughing uncontrollably, so hard that he threw up, right on a flower wreath. His body felt weak and shaky. He collapsed onto his knees, shaking, still coughing, the cold, wet dirt soaking through his black jeans….

Luckily for Roger, Joanne had insisted on following him. She later admitted to him that she had heard a voice that sounded strangely familiar tell her to go find Roger. She thought it was Mark. He just thought she was bullshitting him, and she probably was.

Roger continued to refuse any medication.

The same way Collins had when Angel died.

Roger didn't know that for a fact, but he figured it was probably true.

After all.

Collins had been in the same place Roger was:

Very healthy, considering he had no immune system.

But just like Collins, Roger had lost the most important thing in his life.

Best friend. Soul mate.

Glory.

Screw glory.

Mark deserved glory more than Roger did.

So let the virus take hold

Like a sunset.

---

And this is where I leave you. Hope you liked it! Give me some feedback if you will, but pretty please no flames even if I deserve them because I write this stuff for fun and to DEstress. Oh! And I appoligize for the Jewish funeral, because I'm not Jewish and I don't know how they work and I've only even been to one Christian funeral, so I'm sorry for things that aren't quite right! I love you for reading this far! Thanks!