Disclaimer: Do any of you honestly believe I own Rent? Please, I couldn't have come up with such fantastic characters!

A/N: My first Rent fic, inspired by the song "Calling All Angels", which I don't own either. Enjoy and review, please!

Calling All Angels

After Halloween the streets, usually so drab and dreary anyway, seemed that much darker. Their light, their Angel was gone. The spirit of giving and loving she had inspired seemed to have died with her. Tamara had heard that even Angel's other family, the people who lived in that rundown apartment, had fallen apart without her. One of the guys, Tams couldn't remember his name, had left for someplace warmer. And that tiny girl, the one Angel used to take with her to Life Support meetings, was sleeping on a bench in the park. Or at least she had been, Tams hadn't seen her for a while.

The little family of drag queens and street performers Angel had assembled seemed to have fallen apart, too. Once upon a time they had all helped each other, putting tips in each other's jars when they could, watching each other's backs. In the two weeks since Halloween Tams had heard that two of their members had been jumped, both times in front of at least one other member of the group. No one had gone to help them. Now it was every man or woman for him or herself.

Angel's whole mission had been to make them care about each other. Somehow to Tams it didn't seem right that that should die just because Angel wasn't with them anymore, at least physically. Sometimes Tams swore she could hear the queen of the drag queens, voice just as calm as it had been the first night Tamara met her.

"You aren't okay are you honey?" Tamara hadn't been able to do anything but shake her head. Blood from her nose fell rapidly and pooled in her lap. "Come on baby, let's get you cleaned up and warm." That night, that terrible night, was the first and last time she had seen Angel in person. She had heard others had similar experiences, the queen of drag coming to their aid when they most needed it. Like her namesake she came and fixed things and left.

Suddenly the thought that had been fighting to take form in Tams' mind for the past week came into startling clarity. After the day she met Angel there were people looking after Tams. The heavy set gay guy one night on 14th street, the guy in drag in the back alley of Avenue G, the elderly woman carrying an old carpet bag down one of the paths in the park, they had all protected her. And she had protected others in return, not because it was required but because it was what was right. They had unknowingly banded together, a sort of band of angels.

As this was becoming clear to her Tamara heard a whimper off to her right. She stopped, momentarily undecided, then turned into the alley littered with trashcans and garbage that hadn't quite hit the receptacles. She walked for only a moment before spotting the cause of the sound. A girl, maybe 13 at the oldest, was huddled in one corner. Her arms were scratched, her eye was turning purple, and there were chunks missing from her blond hair.

"Hi honey," Tams said as she knelt on the filthy ground.

"You must be an angel," the half-conscious child whispered as she was lifted into strong arms.

A/N2: Like it, hate it, want to throw large objects at my head? I can't improve if you don't review and tell me what I'm doing right and wrong!