1990–2003
Mark returns to Albert Square in August 1990 as a changed man. He is more caring and stable, having grown out of his rebellious stage. His new maturity is due to the fact that he has contracted HIV, which has forced him to become more responsible. Mark develops a close friendship with Diane Butcher (Sophie Lawrence) and initially does not tell anyone about his HIV status. However, as he and Diane grow closer, he finally tells her the truth. He believes that he contracted the virus from Gill Robinson (Susanna Dawson), his girlfriend in Newcastle, who visits briefly later that year but leaves when she sees him kissing Diane. At first Mark tells Gill that he is not infected, but later admits the truth to her. Mark's relationship with Diane never becomes serious, but she is a good friend and confidante to the point where she persuades him to have counselling at the Terrence Higgins Trust. Mark initially turns on his male counsellor, relaying his bitterness at being a potential AIDS victim, but later feels the benefits of the counselling. Mark loves Diane for keeping his secret and he asks her to marry him but she gently refuses and leaves Walford to live in France.
Later that year, following the example of a friend Joe Wallace (Jason Rush) who had told his parents about being gay and HIV-positive, Mark decides to tell his parents. By now, he is dating Rachel Kominski (Jacquetta May), who advises him not to but Mark is tired of the pretence. On Boxing Day Mark tells Pauline and Arthur that he is HIV-positive. They sit in stunned silence while he scatters helpful leaflets around the house and then goes away for a while. On his return, he faces Pauline's irrational terror and Arthur's hostility. Arthur's ignorance is apparent initially as he fears that Mark will pass HIV on to him; he even bleaches everything Mark touches to avoid infection. Pauline and Michelle are understandably distraught, so they managed to help Arthur to understand the illness; in turn Arthur becomes more supportive for Mark. The situation seems to ease on Mark afterwards, but soon his relationship with Rachel collapses to the point where they break up; the subsequent animosity between them at home prompts Mark to go back to his girlfriend Gill, who moves to London and becomes seriously ill. Gill's HIV has already progressed into AIDS and her deterioration is rapid. She is diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and goes into a hospice. Mark realises that he is in love with her and asks her to marry him. Mark and Gill marry, and their honeymoon consists of one night in a hotel, before Gill returns to the hospice and dies.
Mark later befriends local teenage tearaway Mandy Salter (Nicola Stapleton), but their friendship is severely tested when she becomes obsessed with him. Mark, still grieving for Gill, is horrified when he discovers that Mandy has been reading his late wife's diary and has dressed up in her clothes. Despite this, he invites Mandy to live with him after Den's friend Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) throws her out. On Christmas Day, Mandy goes to visit her mother but is attacked by her stepfather; Mark arrives just in time to rescue her and invites her for Christmas dinner at the Fowler household.
Mark takes over running the family fruit and vegetable stall in the market after his uncle, Pete (Peter Dean), leaves the square. He also begins casually dating his sister's housemate Shelley Lewis (Nicole Arumugam), but is reluctant to tell her about his HIV status. Whilst on a trip to Amsterdam, Shelley makes it clear to Mark that she wants to sleep with him – forcing him to admit his HIV status. Shelley is furious that he did not think to tell her this before and tells Mark she never wants to see him again. Mark takes the rejection badly and stops taking his HIV medication. During Christmas that year, he is rushed to hospital after collapsing. Mandy visits him in hospital and learns that he has HIV. When Shelley finds out that Mark is ill, she returns and admits that she really cares for him and they reconcile. However, Shelley tries to rush things by asking Mark to meet her family and go on holiday with her parents. She becomes infatuated and tries to spend as much time with him as she can. Mark fears that the relationship is moving too quickly and Mark decides to end it. When he tries to tell Shelley this, she uses emotional blackmail to stop him, saying that she has risked her health being with him so he owes her. When this does not work, she threatens to tell everyone about his HIV status, but leaves Walford when her bluff does not work.
Following Joe's death of an AIDS-related illness, Mark meets a Scottish woman named Ruth Aitken (Caroline Paterson); she is there visiting a friend. After a brief conversation, the two decide to go for a drink together. They start dating and Ruth copes with his HIV status but her father, a strict Presbyterian minister, refuses to give his blessing to her relationship with Mark and disowns her when she announces her plans to marry Mark. They marry in Scotland but problems surface in their marriage. She persuades Mark – and herself – that she is happy about not having children (due to the inevitable spread of the AIDS virus to herself and the baby), but it is soon clear that she is fooling herself.
Mark is injured in a pub brawl during which he saved the square's local hardman, Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp), from getting glassed by a punter. However, after calling the ambulance, Grant overhears Ruth telling the paramedics about Mark's HIV status. Around this time, Mark wins money at an illegal poker match that takes place at the Bridge Street Cafe run by Steve Elliot (Mark Monero) and gives the money to Arthur to put towards his Wilderness Flowering Fund. However, problems emerged when Arthur is arrested and charged with embezzlement after being framed for the crime by his old friend Willy Roper (Michael Tudor-Barnes). Realising that he needed to account for his share towards the fund, Mark tells the police but he needs a witness. He asks Steve to help, but Steve is not willing to help due to fear of repercussions with the two gangsters who organised the game. Arthur spends a stretch in prison, leaving Mark devastated. Steve eventually decides to help, but is then forced to leave Albert Square when he is threatened by the criminal firm. Arthur is eventually released.
To add to his problems, Mark is further devastated when Arthur dies of a brain haemorrhage in May 1996 – after being injured in a prison riot several weeks earlier and the Fowlers are in mourning. During this time, Mark's HIV issues escalates when Kathy's infant child Ben (Matthew Silver) becomes seriously ill and Grant informs his brother Phil (Steve McFadden) – the child's father – about the situation. Grant blackmails Ruth, telling her that she has until Arthur's funeral to give up babysitting Ben or he will tell the whole square about Mark's HIV status. Soon enough Phil and Kathy find out the truth about Mark's condition, which causes Ruth to lose her job as a child minder. Mark confronts Grant after learning he blackmailed Ruth about his HIV status, but Grant reassures Mark that he will not tell anyone else. On the day of his father's funeral, Mark becomes angry that Willy had attended and assaults him at the cemetery. He believes that he was the one who caused Arthur's death.
Mark's HIV status becomes public knowledge after an argument in the Queen Victoria between Pauline and fellow punter Ted Hills (Brian Croucher) is overheard by Phil and Grant's mother Peggy (Barbara Windsor). She hears Ted tell Pauline that he knows that Mark has AIDS. Peggy spreads the gossip around the Square and the residents begin to boycott Mark's fruit and vegetable stall, fearing they will catch the virus; this shows their ignorance on their knowledge of HIV or AIDS. Pauline springs to her son's defence before she and Peggy have a vicious fight, but even Pauline cannot defuse the prejudice; at one point Mark comes home to find the words "AIDS scum" graffitied on his wall. This is too much and he decides to present his neighbours with a few facts about his illness in The Queen Victoria; firstly by telling them that he does not have AIDS but is HIV positive, which is a non-contagious virus, forcing them to acknowledge their bigotry. Grant speaks to Mark the next day and tells him that no one is barred from The Queen Victoria unless he says so. Peggy remains uncertain, but is forced to realise that Mark might appreciate some support when she herself is diagnosed with breast cancer.
It is then Mark and Ruth foster a six-year-old girl named Jessie Moore (Chelsey Paden), but returning her to her mother proves too heartbreaking and their marriage goes into crisis. When his cousin Conor Flaherty (Seán Gleeson) shows a romantic interest in Ruth, who secretly comes to question her marriage by this stage, Mark becomes jealous and the relationship falls apart. After they divorce, Ruth succumbs to Conor's charms and becomes pregnant by him. Ruth subsequently leaves Walford after realizing she had to put the baby first and could not do so while still in Walford, so she leaves alone without Mark or Conor; henceforth Mark is left heartbroken once more.
In 2000, Mark's past troubles resurface when Nick returns to the square and the two embark on a longstanding feud. This soon gets Martin (now played by James Alexandrou) involved when Nick attempts to ensnare him with drugs in a similar manner as he once did with Mark. Towards the end of the year, Nick gets one over Mark after giving Martin ecstasy. When Mark discovers this, he decides to settle the score with his tormentor once and for all. Mark spikes Nick's drink, leads him up to the Walford viaduct, and watches delightedly as the intoxicated Nick falls – just as midnight strikes and 2001 commences. Nick survives the fall, but is left severely crippled and vows revenge against Mark. He enlists his son Ashley (Frankie Fitzgerald), who had recently befriended Martin, to take revenge on Mark. However, when Ashley is hesitant to kill Mark himself, Nick takes matters into his own hands and drains the brake fluid on his motorbike. The next day, Ashley – not knowing that his father had done – steals Mark's motorbike and attempts to run him over in a last-ditch attempt to impress his father, but is killed after he ends up crashing into the launderette. On the eve of Ashley's funeral, Mark and Nick have their final showdown when Nick attempts to kill Mark with a knife. Mark overpowers Nick, who then blurts out that he should've been the one on the motorbike instead of Ashley – thus exposing his involvement in his son's death. Mark berates Nick for causing his own son's death, then leaves him to be disowned by his mother Dot (June Brown) – who had just overheard Nick confess to his role in Ashley's death. At the end of Ashley's funeral, Mark watches as Nick leaves the square shortly afterwards and mutters to himself "Some people you're just glad to see the back of"; their rivalry is brought to an end as Mark and Nick would never see each again afterwards.
By 2001, Nick was not the only enemy Mark had been clashing with throughout the year. He embarked on a conflict with Phil after learning that he had been mistreating his girlfriend Lisa Shaw (Lucy Benjamin), whom Mark has been growing fond of from that point. Mark soon takes Lisa to live with him after she leaves Phil, and they start dating – much to Pauline's speculation. Mark also defends Kathy's son Ian (Adam Woodyatt) from Phil on several occasions, particularly when Mark witnesses Phil attacking Ian and is forced to separate them. When Phil is shot on the night his nemesis Steve Owen (Martin Kemp) and Lisa's best friend Mel Healy (Tamzin Outhwaite) get married, Mark becomes a prime suspect as the police gather information on his hatred for Phil – which leads his godson Jamie (Jack Ryder) and cousin Billy (Perry Fenwick) to each separately accuse Mark of shooting Phil. One month later, Mark learns that Phil has recovered and checked himself out of the hospital to exact revenge – prompting him to find Lisa in order to protect her from Phil. When he finds them at her house, Mark learns from Phil that it was Lisa who shot him. Lisa confesses to shooting Phil. Despite this, Mark continues to defend Lisa and tells Phil that she is not totally responsible for the crime – stating that the abuse Phil had inflicted upon Lisa is what set the course of his shooting in the first place. Phil grudgingly comes to accept these terms, and decides to cover Lisa's involvement by framing his ex-business partner Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass) for the crime. Mark and Lisa observe Phil planning to incriminate Dan in the shooting, even going as far as to get Steve and Mel involved with his plan. However, Dan is found not guilty and he takes revenge on Phil and Steve by kidnapping Mel and fleeing the country with a money ransom – all the while believing that Steve had shot Phil, meaning that Dan was never aware that Lisa had shot Phil in the first place.
At the point Phil's when actions have resulted in Dan fleeing the country and Steve's marriage with Mel were left on the verge of facing jeopardy, Mark and Lisa conduct a plan to pretend that she is expecting Mark's baby – as he had grown to love Lisa ever since her troubles with Phil had started. To facilitate their lie, Mark insists that he had taken all necessary precautions in relation to his HIV, and they fool everyone for a while. He later proposes to Lisa, shortly after her baby Louise is born. However, Mark is devastated to learn that Phil is actually the child's biological father. Eventually, Phil discovers the truth when Grant's former wife Sharon (Letitia Dean) informs him about Louise's true parentage, and Phil vows to take an active role in his daughter's upbringing. Mark and Lisa marry, but their happiness is short-lived: Lisa is still very much in love with Phil, who then decides to use this to his advantage by seducing her in order to get more access to Louise. After Sharon discovers Phil's intentions, she talks him out of his plan and he ends the affair with Lisa; but this later becomes meaningless when Mark finds out, and after just five months of marriage, Lisa leaves Mark and resumes her affair with Phil. This causes Mark to break down by the time he eventually discovers this. After confronting Phil about the discovery, Mark almost rapes Lisa. Horrified by his actions, Mark leaves Walford for a short while. However, Lisa soon realises her mistake when living with Phil, and wants to reconcile with Mark, but Pauline refuses to tell her where Mark has gone. Mark eventually returns at Christmas, when he supports Martin to deal with the aftermath of running over Jamie.
In January 2003, Mark's doctor tells him that his body is rejecting the medication that will prolong his life and slow down the onset of AIDS. Accepting that he will not live for much longer, he decides to leave rather than let his family see him endure a slow, painful death. On 14 February 2003, he makes a tearful farewell to his family and friends and rides off on his motorbike, although he remains in contact with family. In April 2004, Martin receives a telephone call from Mark's nurse, informing him that Mark has died from an AIDS-related form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. [2]
His body is returned to Walford and he is given a heartfelt send-off by the residents. Following his death, Mark would be referenced by his own family and friends during the subsequent years that go on in the square; particularly in 2011 when Mandy returns and reminisces about their friendship in conversation with Ian Beale, and again in 2015 when Nick returns and, after recalling to Dot the time he tried to kill Mark, Nick ultimately dies from a drug overdose.
