Author's Note: I know, if I'm going to work on anything, it should be "What Is This Feeling." (No, not "Seasons of Love." Chapter eight is posted.) Anyway, this has been in my head for a while, and it kind of changed from what it would've been. I say it "could be a one-shot" because if you want more, tell me and I'll add it. I just…I think that these scenes are so powerful, and I used an opportunity to kind of focus on Mark for a while, and how he must've been feeling. I don't own RENT. Review please.

Mark watched.

He watched the pews slowly filling with grim looking, black-clad people.

He watched Roger walk over to him and sit down without so much as a glance at Mimi.

He watched Mimi, looking like death, alternate between watching Roger and the door, like she was expecting Angel to come through it any second.

He watched Maureen sit far away from Joanne, a far cry from the crazy, vivacious diva that she usually was.

He watched Joanne stare straight ahead, her face a completely unreadable mask.

He watched Collins trying to pull himself together…for Angel.

And he watched Benny, an outsider in the life that he had once been a part of, with an arm around Mimi and a miserable, thoughtful expression on his face.

It was strange, Mark thought. There'd been trouble in the Bohemian family even before Angel had started getting sick, but now that she was dead it seemed like there was no reason for the rest of them to stick together. It was like they'd just given up. He surveyed the tattered remains of what had once been a group of best friends and bit his lip. What could he do?

Collins was staring at the ceiling as though he was trying to keep the hot tears from coursing down his cheeks, but it wasn't doing any good. Mark glanced away, his ice-cold fists clenched tightly together in his lap.

This was horrible. It was completely unfair that Angel had come in a blaze of color and excitement only to die a slow and painful death ten months later. Ten months. It just wasn't enough time.

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"How did we get here; how the hell?"

He was walking away from Angel's gravesite, the shouts of his friends still echoing in his mind. Angel's gravesite. It was final now. She was dead.

"Pan left. Close on the steeple of the church." He held his hands up to frame the church in a desperate attempt to distract himself. If he treated it like a movie, maybe it would stop hurting.

"How did I get here; how the hell? Christmas. Christmas eve last year." That was when it started. She'd met Collins, a random guy who'd just been mugged and left to die in an alley, and what had she done? Taken him to her place and fixed him up. She hadn't considered her own needs for a second. She never did.

"How could a night so frozen be so scalding hot? How can a morning this mild be so raw?" If we would have known that night that everything in our entire lives was about to change…would we do anything differently? I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. He swallowed hard against the enormous lump that had suddenly risen in his throat, refusing to cry. He knew if he started, it would be a long while before he could stop again.

"Why are entire years strewn on the cutting room floor of memory when single frames of one magic night forever flicker in close up on the 3D Imax of my mind? That's poetic." Who did he think he was kidding?

"That's pathetic." Everyone knew that Angel had been in huge amounts of pain, particularly towards the end, but there was nothing they could do no matter how hard they tried. She wouldn't be the only one to die that way. Soon…who knew when?…Mimi, Roger and Collins would all join her. And then Maureen and Joanne would leave. Whether they would be alone or together, he had no idea. But why would they stay in Alphabet City with only him as company? Why?

"Why did Mimi knock on Roger's door and Collins choose that phone booth back where Angel set up his drums? Why did Maureen's equipment break down? Why am I the witness? And when I capture it on film will it mean that it's the end and I'm alone?"