Disclaimer: I do not own Moulin Rouge or the characters.
Author's note: I don't know where this came from, but here it is--another short story. I hope you enjoy!
The first lie had hit him hard, but it hadn't hit the hardest. It was the last one that did it.
The snow fell in slow spirals to the ground, but this did not prevent the grave diggers from doing their job. A pile of dirt lay next to a hole in the ground, six feet deep. A coffin was suspended above it, slowly being lowered down and down and down lower than the dim gray light dared to go.
Christian only looked because anything his mind came up with when he was not looking was worse than the reality. It was a rarity, that reality could offer comfort rather than pain.
Those of the Moulin Rouge stood nearby, although it seemed that the young writer was somehow separated from them in his grief. He had loved her like none of them ever had. Of course his grief was different. None of them knew what it was like, to loose a lover.
Nini was the only one who had the guts to talk to him. Of course it would be her; she had the most guts of any of the dancers at the Moulin Rouge, and perhaps of any woman in Paris. As she came to stand next to the writer, he did not look at her, his dark hair hiding his eyes. But she saw him, anyway.
"Didn't turn out like you expected, did it?"
Her voice was low, but it effectively broke the silence. Christian remembered her, he didn't particularly like her, and now more than ever he wanted to be left alone, yet here she was.
"What? Gonna to ignore me?" she whispered, brushing his shoulder with her hand. "Or afraid that it's true?"
Christian turned to her. He looked the picture of devastation. His eyes were over bright and tears lined his cheeks. It was strange, though, because right now he looked more angry than sad.
"Don't talk of these things with me," he said, voice shaking. For a moment she thought he would yell. But he only added, voice even lower, "I hate being lied to."
"T'wasn't anyone that lied to you," Nini pointed out. "You did the lying to yourself."
Christian whirled around to fully face her, disturbing the calm pattern of snow as it fell. "She lied to me, the first time. She told me she chose the Duke!" He paused, took a deep breath, and then continued, "And she lied to me the second time…" He closed his eyes. "She said it would be all right."
Nini shook her head. She hated displays of emotion. She hated that the writer couldn't just admit that he had ignored the signs for too long. "You know that ain't true."
"I know the truth!" Christian snapped, taking a sharp step towards her. It was uncharacteristic of him, yet everything about him since Satine's death had been uncharacteristic, as if he left with her. Perhaps he had.
"Oh, do you?" Nini's eyebrows were raised, almost dangerously.
"I lived for truth, beauty, and love," he hissed, barely in control of himself anymore, shaking. "Don't think for a second that I hadn't thought things could go wrong. I knew what we were doing was dangerous, I just didn't know how long it could last."
Nini said nothing, but simply stared expectantly at him.
"I'm a writer," he told her vehemently. "We have the most active imaginations, and I imagined up everything you could possibly think of happening to us. And then…" Here, a deep and painful breath. "I imagined it all away, imagined it was perfect, or that it could be."
"You didn't know she was sick," Nini said.
"No, but it crossed my mind a few times," Christian admitted, "that she was unwell. But I thought that was just me, looking for things to go wrong." He laughed, a bit hysterical. "Sometimes it's hard to tell what you're making up and what's real."
"That's a dangerous game you play," Nini murmured, frowning at him. "You better get yourself straight."
She turned to walk away, but Christian grabbed her by the wrist and turned her to look at him. There was something hard in his eyes, something that Nini had only ever seen in those who had lived long enough in the Moulin Rouge to know the truth, the darkness of it all.
"Don't tell me that you don't play that game, too," he said. "You all didn't know. Even Satine didn't know until near the end. Anything to keep the show going, right?"
He let go. The chill of his words sank into Nini like the coldness of the winter could not. She turned and resumed her place among the other dancers. When she looked up, Christian was no longer watching. He was somewhere else.
Christian was staring at the hole, at the coffin now resting at its bottom, and in his mind's eye he could see her lying inside it, beautiful and resting but never to wake up again.
He could make up a thousand stories about her, he could explain away her absence in millions of ways, he could let his imagination run wild, but he would just be lying to himself.
This was the cold truth.
He said it to himself over and over and over on the walk back, for fear of being lied to.
"Satine is dead, Satine is dead, Satine is dead," just so he wouldn't have to loose her a second time. And occasionally, for emphasis,
"She's never coming back."