The London Theatre!

Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, how ever sad it is, I do not. I'd be dining with my favorite actors and actresses if I did!

A/N: Words written in italics with out the quotes ("") around them are the thoughts of Satine.

Words written in bold italics with single quote marks ('') around them are the thoughts of Christian.

Words in italics with double quotes ("") around them are past quotes from the original story.

~~Begin Chapter~~

Satine slowly regained her consciousness, the blackness becoming less dark and the light shining through… the light…the light of…a lamp?!

Satine shot up and looked around. She was in…the backroom of the Moulin Rouge?! She was still dressed in her white Hindu Courtesan dress but her headdress wasn't there. She looked around a bit, making sure she wasn't in heaven.

No, she thought, heaven wouldn't let me in…

Well, this certainly wasn't the fiery furnace! She got up and walked to the door and heard some sobbing. She gasped a little then; the corset was too damned tight for her liking. She pulled her hand back and pulled loose some strings through her dress. She breathed more calmly now. She decided to go look for the others and Christian.

She walked out onto the brightly lit stage, but the chairs of the audience were empty. She saw all the gloomy faces of everyone, but she didn't see Christian, or Toulouse, or Satie, or Tork or the Argentinean. She walked next to Zidler.

"Harold, where is Christian?" she asked. Zidler didn't look at her and shrugged.

"I'm betting he is with Satine now, dead," he said his voice full of sorrow.

"What?!" Satine gasped. Zidler looked at her, then after a few seconds he realized who she was.

"Satine!" He gasped. "You're alive?! On no! What happened? We all thought you were dead! Christian said he was going to kill himself!"

"No!" Satine gasped, tears starting to form and fall from her eyes. "Oh God, no!"

"I'm so sorry, Satine," Zidler said. "We even heard a gunshot from his room."

"No…" Satine started to cry. Everyone was then surrounding her, their eyes wide and all happy to see her, even Nini.

"Everyone back up," Zidler said sternly. "Give the girl some room!"

Marie came up and put a comforting arm around her. She whispered to her, "I'm so sorry, Satine. The doctor said you had consumption, what he gave us to help with the coughing; it must have had some sleeping potion in it as well. It must have made you pass out like a dead girl after your cough attack."

"Satine, you must leave this place," Zidler said his voice full of foreboding. "The Duke was mad with jealousy, if he found you alive he would kill Toulouse, Tork, Satie and the Argentinean. They were the most rebellious against his wishes, aside from Christian; he could destroy everything we have here."

"But without Satine, not many men would bother to go to Moulin Rouge anymore!" Nini said. "She's all we got that makes this place twice as entertaining!"

"I know that Nini," Zidler said. "But I don't think that Satine is even safe from the Duke now. You must leave, Satine, for yourself, for your friends…for the memory of Christian."

Satine merely nodded in agreement; for herself, for her friends, and for the memory of Christian. She had to leave this place, the memories of Christian would cause her too much pain. Zidler laid out the plans as he, Satine and Marie headed to Satine's dressing room.

"Satine, take the diamonds you've collected from all your numbers and take your favorite dresses with you. Move out of Paris, out of France! Don't give use a second glance! Leave this country to Spain, Italy or Germany! Go where the Duke will not find you, where no one you know will find you. Begin your life again," Zidler said. "Make it better than the underworld here. Don't take up the life of a courtesan again, my little strawberry, live a life better than here."

"I will, Harold," Satine said taking a few dresses from her wardrobe and filling her purse with the large, medium and small diamonds. Then she thought a moment and took two large diamonds, two medium diamonds, and three small ones out and put them on the dresser.

"What are you doing? You'll need all the diamonds you have," Harold said.

"No, Harold, I am giving you seven diamonds to help you get on the road to get out of debt," Satine said. "You can rebuild the Moulin Rouge, an go back to how everything used to be, before The Duke, before Christian and even before me."

Harold's eyes were full of sorrow and pity for her; he nodded and took the diamonds. He then continued, "Go wherever, Satine, just don't go to a place like this ever again."

"I won't go to anyplace like this," Satine said smiling with weak humor, "I might end up in another situation like this."

Harold looked down in sorrow, "I am so sorry, Satine."

"It's not your fault, Harold," Satine said. "I have to go now."

She had everything packed in a few minutes and walked out the theatre or the former Moulin Rouge. She heard singing, light singing from the windmill, she looked up.

She couldn't see the singer, but heard their words, "There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy. They say he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea. A little shy and sad of eye, but very wise was he. And then one day, a magic day he passed my way. While we spoke of many things, fools and kings, this he said to me, 'The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn, Is Just to Love and Be Loved in Return.'"

Satine had said the last part with the singer under her breath. A tear rolled down her cheek, a single lone tear, she wiped it away, pulling her coat tighter around her and walked on. Out on the street she hailed a cab.

"The Paris Train Station," She said. "A quickly please."

"Yes, ma'am," the cab driver said and cracked his whip at the horses as they took off at a quick paced trot.

~~In Christian's Apartment~~

Christian heard Toulouse's singing, and he wasn't happy with it. He sat on his bed, glaring at the window. He heard a voice call for a taxi, the voice sounded very much like Satine's voice, he thought am moment, but shook his head. It couldn't be her she was dead. Then he found himself at the window looking down at the street where the cab was pulling down quickly, he had missed seeing whot eh person was, but then his mind chastised him.

'It isn't her! She died right in your arms, on stage, everyone but the audience saw it!' his mind yelled. Christian scowled and yelled in frustration as he scratched at his head as if trying to make it shut-up. He looked over on his nightstand where the gun was.

He had already tried it, but ended up shooting the windmill instead. The gun would make his mind shut-up though, a bullet through the head, yes it'd work. Christian took a few steps towards it but declined from taking it.

From the distance of a few feet, the cold black metal looked appealing, but daunting. It was his ticket to the true underworld, the fiery furnace, where most of the dead were. But he didn't want to go, not because he feared it, but he feared that his love would actually be there, in that eternal torment.

He sat back down on his bed and continued to glare out the window. How he longed for a bottle of Absinthe now, to have the cool yet warm liquid touch his tongue and send him into a drunken bliss. But he didn't want to go out, he didn't want to see Zidler or the Argentinean, or Tork or Satie and he definitely didn't want to see Toulouse. Toulouse would only want to fill his head with more of the Bohemian Revolutionary preachings.

He was starting to truly doubt if he would even continue to be a Bohemian Revolutionary. He still believed in Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love…but he didn't believe anymore, that love could overcome all obstacles…

Love, it couldn't over come consumption, what could then?

Christian sighed heavily; he knew that he would never get over Satine. Life was so wonderful with Satine in the world. How horrible it was now, after loosing her. So why hadn't he pulled the trigger at his head?

"Tell our story."

The words of Satine echoed in his head, she had just said them two hours ago. Already the world seemed to have gone through an Apocalypse. A cold snowy front set in, the world was covered in a blanket of white snow and above the world was a grim looking fray sheet of cloud stretching as far as the eye could see.

He listened to Toulouse's singing, he sang the same thing over and over again, after a while it got him annoyed. He wanted to shut him up; he grabbed the gun and aimed at the windmill of the Moulin Rouge. He pulled the trigger; the gun jammed though, he couldn't fire. Christian yelled in frustration and tossed the gun aside. He sat at the windowsill, behind the sign of L'amour. A few tears escaped his eyes; even after two hours, he hadn't shed all his tears, they would continue forever.

"Never knew…I…could feel…like this…it's like I've never seen the sky…before," he whispered in an off tune voice under his breath. He continued to softly sing "Come What May" as the snow blew around. His faze was flushed with red from tears and from the coldness.

~~At the station~~

There was a two-hour wait before Satine could board the train and leave north of Paris. Satine knew just where she would go. She would go north, and then take a ship to London, England. She wanted to be where Christian use to be. She wanted to start her new life, where Christian old life use to be.

As Satine sat in her seat near the window a few sovs escaped her. The man across from her looked at her with sad eyes.

"Are you alright, miss?" he asked in a kind voice. Satine looked at him. He was a good-looking young man, with short hair that seemed to spike a little. He had blue-green eyes, a slim face. He had a slim body and was dressed in a blue suit, similar to what Christian wore. Satine nodded.

"I'm' just going to miss my friends," she said. The man nodded in understanding.

"I know what you mean," he said. "I've only lived here since summer, but it was the best six months I've ever had in my life. I met many new and interesting people and made great friends with fellow Bohemians. By the way, my name is Jude Latter."

"I'm Sa-" she paused a moment. If she was going to make a new life, she would have to have a different name. "I am Sara Christian."

A good name, she thought to herself; Sara after the great Sara Bernhard, and Christian after her only love. They shook hands.

"You're a bohemian?" Satine asked. Jude nodded.

"Yes, I lived my last six months in Paris right outside of the Center of the Bohemian Worlds," Jude said. "Many of my friends told me to go to Moulin Rouge, but I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I am a Bohemian unlike any other! I don't drink Absinte or anything alcoholic, I don't smoke, I don't sleep with as many women as there are stars at night. I prefer to just uphold the belief of Beauty, Freedom, and Truth and above all, Love. I don't think I can find love in the Moulin Rouge," Jude said. Satine laughed a little.

"You'd be surprised," She said softly.

"what?"

"Nothing."

"So where you headed?" Jude asked taking out his sketchbook and some charcoal.

"London."

"London, hehe, that's where I'm headed too," Jude smiled. He had such a beautiful smile and charming as well, it rivaled Christian's smile. "I lived there before here. But my father passed away and I'm his only child, I inherit whatever he left me, which is everything. But if everything didn't include the family business, then I'd be staying in Paris and live a penniless existence as a painter."

"So you paint? I know many painters," Satine said. "You draw too, I see."

"Yes, but when I paint, I usually don't have an under drawing, I just paint." Satine was semi-impressed, she wouldn't be fully impressed until she saw one of his paintings. She knew well that most painters have under drawings they do and when they are satisfied with it they pain over it.

"May I see some of your works?" she asked.

"Sure, after I'm finished with this drawing," Jude said sketching quickly looking up once to say "yes" to her. He finished in just two minutes. He showed it to Satine. "There."

Satine gasped, it was beautiful. It was a drawing of her, fully shaded and valued and accurate to every last detail. But it was the eyes that caught her attention; somehow, Jude had captured the sadness, the sorrow, the pain in her eyes. She reached out to the sketch and took it up into her hands, "It's beautiful, it's so realistic!"

"Thanks," Jude said he blushed slightly.

"How long have you been drawing?" Satine asked.

"Every since I was two," Jude said. I'm twenty-five now."

"Ah, you're very good," Satine said as she looked through the rest of the portfolio, starting from the beginning. She then saw a picture, just a few pages from the beginning, it was a picture of Christian…he was smiling that charming cmile of his, and his eyes showed happiness and bliss from natural highs, not Absinthe generated. He was wearing a top hat, and the shoulders were shown with a suit, Satine could tell it was when she first met him. "Do you know hime?"

Jude looked at the picture and shook his head, "no, not personally. I was just doing head drawings of random people, but I was looking through a crowd near the Moulin Rouge when many people were leaving, I was looking for alit in that crowd of darkness and I saw him leaving."

"'Crowds of darkness'?" Satine repeated. Jude nodded.

"Yes, many of the men there weren't bohemians and only showed the light of lust in their eyes. Lights of lust, anger, hatred, captivity, power hunger, everything that isn't for Truth, Freedom, Beauty, and Love," Jude said. "I could only describe them as mad, dark men with blackened souls."

Satine nodded in understanding. She had once had that life in her eye, until Christian sang to her when she had mistaken him for The Duke; it wasn't just an act. "I have seen him before."

"Have you? Are you friends with him?"

"I was," Satine choked back a sob. "I was his friend-" A little bit more than that "before he died."

Jude was silent a moment. He looked down a bit, then back up at Satine, "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she said barely above a whisper. Satine continued to look through the sketchbook and then saw Harold Zidler holding a bos of light bulbs and a wacky grin on his face. She smiled a bit, recalling when Harry had walked up in the Moulin Rouge one morning with a box of light bulbs.

"Puppet!" Harold called enthusiastically and put the box on a table and opened it, revealing numerous light bulbs. "Look here, more light bulbs for a more electric show!"

The reaction had had gotten from Marie wasn't what he was hoping for; Marie had bitchslapped him for wasting money on what she said was the devil. Satine found if ironically humorous that Marie was calling the light bulbs the devil and wouldn't stand it in the Moulin Rouge, yet what happened at night was hell itself.

Satine flipped a few more pages and saw Toulouse with the other three; they were obviously having a good time rehearsing the original "Spectacular! Spectacular!" written by Audrey. It was only obvious that they were rehearsing that script due to the look of distaste on the Argentinean's face. He had always yelled at Audrey complaining and saying, "This script's shit!"

Satine smiled at the memory and flipped more pages when she came upon the sketch of the Elephant, with two people in the window, kissing. She looked at it a bit more closely and then saw…It was her and Christian! Satine the closed the book, not really wanting to go into any more memories, especially ones that held more emotional times. Even if the emotions at those times were ecstatic and wonderful.

"They are very good," satine said hading Jude his sketchbook. Jude blushed alittle more as he took back his sketch book.

"Thank you," he said. "I was hoping to see 'Spectacular! Spectacular!' because I heard it was an actual play and it was entirely electric and an entirely bohemian play at the Moulin Roufe, but I couldn't. Before I could go, I got a telegram telling of my father's death so I had to pack and get a ticket to the next train out of Paris."

"Well, you didn't miss much," Satine said. "My friend, the one who died, was the writer of the show."

"Oh," Jude said, not really knowing what to say though. "How did he die?"

"He-" Satine paused a moment to think. "He tripped and fell on a protruding nail. It went straight into his head. He died slowly, in his flat two hours after the show. The nail was quite long, I heard from someone who was there."

"Ah," Jude said. "I must have been painful. I won't discuss this any further if it pains you to speak about him."

"Thank you," she said. She looked back out the window. Jude stared at her for a while.

"So, uh, what did you do in Paris?" Jude asked.

"I was an actress," Satine said. It wasn't exactly a lie. "I was in 'Spectacular! Spectacular!' as a Hindu dancer."

"Ah, interesting," Jude said.

Satine now had her story for a life of the past now she just had to plan out what was in store for the future.

~~At the Moulin Rouge~~

Zidler looked up at the gray grim looking sky. A small blizzard would set in soon. He looked at Christian's flat and his eyes grew more sorrowful. Toulouse and the other three walked up near him. Toulouse looked up at Harold.

"Someone is going to have to go collect his body and prepare to bury him next to Satine," Toulouse said. Zidler sighed, he wanted to tell them Satine was alive, but he didn't; he wouldn't so Satine could start her new life and all would forget her and she would forget them and everything could go well for her. "I don't think that they will ever be forgotten."

"Well, they will have to be, Toulouse," Zidler said. "We cannot dwell on the past forever. We need to continue on with our lives."

"We can continue with their memory embedded in our minds!" Toulouse argued. "Any bohemian would know that!"

"I wonder if they made it into heaven," the Argentinean said looking up at the flat of the Christian.

"They would have too," Toulouse said. "Their love was so strong; it would get them in for sure."

"They will forget us in heaven," Zidler said. "So let us forget them so we can move on."

"I can write the song for their funeral," Satie said in his quiet voice. The other nodded in agreement.

"Let's all go get him," Toulouse said. "We can lay him next to Satine."

"No!" Zidler shouted. They looked at him strangely. "We'll put him in another room, because, Satine is already in her casket!"

"Well then, we'll just get out another casket and put him int," Toulouse said. "Hold the burial ceremony until tomorrow evening."

"A burial ceremony so early?" Zidler questioned. Toulouse nodded.

"Satie, I already know the good song to sing at the funeral," Toulouse said. "You just need to get the music in order."

They all walked across the courtyard, our the gates, across the snow covered street, and to the hotel where Christian was staring at. They walked up the stairs to his room. Toulouse tried to open the door, but it was locked. He juggled the door know.

"Go away!" came a loud, cracked voice from the other side. All four of them gasped.

~~End Chapter~~

Hi, Moulin Rouge has only recently pulled me in. I've seen it twenty times in ONE week.

Anyway, Tork is the old guy with a gray beard that said, "I don't think a nun would sing that about a hill."

I can't remember his name, I can't get subtitles on the deleted scenes, though I can't get subtitles periods on a VHS. So I was just giving him the name I heard Zidler say in the deleted scene (Special Edition VHS). Assuredly I say to you, this movie is best viewed in WIDE SCREEN!!

Please review, flames accepted. If you want more, then just say so!

Jester