Summary: Paul Bartalet from Carnival! didn't become a bitter, empty man all in a day. What on earth could have happened to make him that way? P.S. This would be good to read either before or after you see the play... but alone it's going to be kinda depressing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Paul or any other characters from the play Carnival!, the movie Lili, or the book Love of Seven Dolls, all of which are likely to show up in this story. They belong to their respective creators; I'm just playing around and trying to understand them. Anyone that's an original is mine, however.

Paul grinned as the applause washed over him, following him even to the door of his dressing room. He dripped sweat and every muscle ached, but he had never been happier in his life. His first night as a lead in the Ballet de Paris had been a resounding success. He threw a grin at the stage manager, who grinned back kindly. In this moment of triumph, it didn't seem to matter that he was only a sixteen-year-old orphan from the gutter. All that mattered was the music and the dancing, and the applause.
At 16, he was the youngest dancer in the troupe, though not by much. His partner Catrine, the Prima Ballerina, was only a few years his senior at 18. He looked up to her as something of an older sister, a sage giver of advice. It was she who had seen him in the corps de ballet, and asked the manager to give him a trial as a lead. Thanks to her, he would soon have money to hire a small flat in a nice building instead of staying each night in a hotel room with a few other men, drawing lots for the bed, and the warmest corners.
Yes, there was much to be proud of and thankful for tonight, he thought as he dried his damp body with a towel, while changing into street clothes. He could not believe how far he had come from the dives where he had danced in a corner, hoping for the drunks to toss a few francs at him. He grinned again, thinking that no one would believe the lithe young dancer of today was the same as that pitiful wretch, and tossing is things into a small valise. In a habit that was a mixture of superstition and common sense, he stripped the dressing room of all his own things, leaving only bits of costume for the night. He checked one last time, and picking up his valise, he left.
He splurged his first bit of salary on a private room in a cheap hotel, feeling that he deserved it after all the work he'd done to get where he was. He fell into the hard bed as a drowning man onto the sand, and slept like a rock.
The next night's performance was much the same, and he was in high spirits, for he had begun to look for a small room or flat to call home, and to think of collecting belongings besides his ballet shoes and valise. Thus engaged in thought, he emerged from the stage door and ran directly into Catrine, who was rebuffing the advances of a powerful-looking man who had her by the wrist. Expecting this interruption, the man loosened his grip for a moment, allowing her to escape. She fled as far as the narrow alleyway, thus blocked my two men, allowed her, leaving Paul face-to-face with the brute. Without thinking, he reacted to the affront of the man's attack on his partner. His legs, strengthened by the lifts and turns of his art form, were savage weapons with which he bludgeoned the man, who had no time to react. First Paul's left, and then his right leg connected with the man's head, causing him to slump to the ground, unconscious.
Catrine, both shocked and honored by his heroics, remained leaning against the gritty wall where she had fled, staring at him. He turned to her and smiled. "Are you all right?" He enquired gently.
"Yes," came her soft answer, "you came just at the right moment." She grinned up at him to show that she was unharmed, and held out her hand. "Come. I am a lady who knows how to treat a hero." He smiled back, and taking her hand, he stepped over the large man upon the ground and followed her.
She led him to a small bistro a few blocks away, and they sat outside in the August breeze, drinking beer and eating little meat pastries. He had never had such a delicious meal in his life, but it was overshadowed by the lovely girl beside him, who seemed finally to see him as a man, not merely as a dance partner. For the first time, she looked into his eyes as she spoke his name, and he thought he had never heard such music as her voice. They spoke softly together of inconsequential things: her family, the ridiculousness of the latest fashions of the rich, the other cast members, but not of their own dancing, as if by unspoken agreement leaving their work behind them. When the bistro closed at midnight, she led him to a noisy café on the waterfront, where they danced- not as they were accustomed to, but as the rest of the world danced- in a rowdy crowd, their arms around each other.
At 4 am, having consumed rather a lot of beer in the thirst worked up by dancing, they were pushed out again onto the pavement, where hey stood several minutes just looking at each other, smiling and wondering what to do next.