Disclaimer: I'm running out of creative ways to say that I don't own RENT, so I'll use a boring way: I don't own RENT. This story was inspired by the song "Immortality", by Céline Dion (don't look at me like that, my sister's the fan), and I don't own that either.

I have found a dream that must come true
Every ounce of me must see it through
-"Immortality"

Whatever else anyone said about him, he was no fool.

For months-for years, really-he had known it was coming, that he would end up alone. He had kind of accepted it, at least, as much as anyone could accept losing everyone that mattered to him. Well, he thought that he had. As it happened, he had not accepted it, which he only realized afterwards. When it was too late.

That was when he had been reduced to a caricature. He had been a person, with hopes, and dreams, and beliefs, and loves, and individuality. He had been his own man, always linked to them, but separate at the same time. After he lost them...he lost everything. Apparently he had never been as separate as he believed.

But what had he ever been, really? He had been separate, but what had he ever accomplished, or really wanted to accomplish? Of course, he had had his own little projects here and there, but really, he was the inspiration. He helped the others along, always preferring to stay out of the spotlight. He had listened to the songs, watched the performances, given his input. He was almost never the artist, however hard he worked; he was only ever the helper, and at some point, both he and the others had begun to think of him that way. So when "the others" were not there, when they were gone, when only he was left...there was nothing. He was nothing without them, maybe even with them.

But now, now when they were all just so irrevocably gone, all of them, he had found something to focus on, something to do. Of course, it had nothing at all to do with him: his big project was going to be something that had been in the back of his mind for a while, something to memorialize them. It sounded stupid, even to him, but he had to do it, had to do something. It was not only because it was a sort of memorial of them; it was something; they had always wanted him to do something big and beautiful with his life, but they had given up hoping for it. He had to do it, to prove them wrong even while proving them right.

But even so, he just could not dwell in the past. He had to go on; he had to accept the future as it was, so alone, not as it should be. And he realized that he could never again love any group of people so deeply and completely. He was not entirely sure if he was even capable of it anymore, but in any case, he would not. He had to live his life thinking; feeling was just a way to get hurt. He would remember them, cherish them, but he would never have any other real friends. He was socially dead at the age of 27.

He had, albeit briefly, considered suicide when he was finally the only one, but he knew that he just could not do it. It was not only because he had always thought that it was a weak, cowardly thing to do, or that he hated it for already having claimed two of their (now only his) number; it was because he was the last one left. He just could not die; he had to live forever, had to persevere in their memory. He had to.

He was a coward, though; he had never been able to really make waves by himself. In their company, everything was easy, but alone, he just plodded along, living life as it came to him. He tried to make it the best that he could, but he hated drawing attention to himself, the only one in the group who was genuinely shy. Without them, he knew that he would just live, that he would stop defying the odds, that he would just go along. But only God knew what life had in store for him, what kind of karma he had built up in those stolen years. He had no idea what was in store, even less than he normally did.

But he knew that he would try to keep their memory alive, that he would try, despite everything that had happened, to remember them. His only purpose, really, was to make sure that the world never forgot them, that they never just drifted into the ranks of the various, anonymous dead artists of New York. They were special, they had to be.

Of course, they would never approve of his life. They had always believed in living, of being in the moment, of not doing a single thing to look back on and regret. They would have wanted him to mourn them and then get over it. They certainly would never have allowed him to give up on people, to give up on love. He could imagine them arguing against it, could hear exactly what each one would say...but they were gone and he was alone and they would never know.

There was one thing of his current life with which they would agree, however: he knew that he had to make a mark. He would never draw attention to himself or get over their absence, but he would be remembered. He would remember them, and everyone would remember him, so surely, that meant that everyone would remember them. And now he finally understood their complete focus on their art; he thought of nothing but them, how he could keep them around in his mind, how he could never forget them. They were the sole thing of importance in his life, something that he had never had before.

He had never admitted out loud that he would be alone in the end, that they would all leave him. He had put on a smile so fake that he had no idea how none of them saw through it and pretended that losing them all was no big deal. He had only gone to two funerals, and he had never gone to the hospitals. He had thought that that kept them all focused on the good times. All that had really happened was make it worse for him when they finally left, and maybe it made it worse for them, to think that he did not care. Maybe he had never really been trying to help them; maybe he had only ever been denying that it would happen. Maybe he had thought that not talking about it would keep it from being real.

He knew that he would never use that word to describe them, however unhealthy denial was. They were always "gone", or "not there", or some such term. Even now, when they were all gone, and he was all alone, Benjamin Coffin III refused to move on.

I'm sorry I don't have a role for love to play
Hand over my heart I'll find my way
But you are my only
-"Immortality"

A/N: I don't really know what to say about this. Please review!

Oh, I thought of something: if it jumps around, or seems inconsistent, it's supposed to. Benny's kind of messed up at this point in time.