Disclaimer- I don't own MR, Baz does.
A/N: This story touches a lot on religion. If you don't feel comfortable with that, please hit the back button. This is my second MR fic, and I'm not quite sure if I keep Satine in character. Please read and review. No flames please.
Her mother had taught her to believe in God. Her religion had been explained to her simply, good people go to Heaven with the Lord and bad people go to Hell where they must wait forever in it's burning flames. Yes that is what she was brought up to believe, and as a child it was all she knew. God made the world, ruled it, watched over it, he rewarded good people and punished the bad. That was all there was.
So as a child of seven she could not understand why it was that two mean men had attacked her mother on the way back from church one autumn day. She didn't understand why they pushed her and took the little money her mother had and left her on the dirty wet street to die. Had her mother been a bad person? Had she done something God saw unfit and so he had struck out at her? Was she a bad person she wondered? So bad that no one would give her even the smallest bit of food as she sat on the corner hungry and shaking from the horrid winds that swept the streets, curling her feet and legs up beneath her so as to keep them warm. She would go to the church almost every day then. She would kneel and pray and ask for help. But she had no money for a candle, so perhaps God could hear her like her could the others who came in a lit one, two, even four candles sometimes. Her mother had always saved enough money so that they could buy at least one candle, and they had been all right then.
One day it had been raining and she had been inside the church, praying as she normally did, and she noticed that a lady had brought three candles but only lit two before leaving. It only seemed right to light it for her and send her own pray along with the woman's. Yes, no harm could from it after all. Quickly she made her way over to the large iron tables where all the candles were left and lit it asking God to help her, even if only a little bit. A little help was all she needed, she would make due with the rest. She was a good person she reminded God, she did not steal or hurt others and she went to church at least once a day.
Bowing her head she made her way slowly out of the church. She'd slipped on one of the last steps and fell right into a woman who was leaving before her. The woman stumbled forward causing her to fall all the way, face hitting the mud.
"You all right there, doll?" Soft hands took her arm and lifted her up easily from the floor.
"You're a right mess love. But I can tell you're a pretty one. Where's your mum deary?"
"My mother's dead ma'am." The woman gave her a pitying look.
"And you father?"
"I never knew him ma'am."
An odd look crossed the woman's face and she peered into her face. Her free hand came up to wipe at her face with a handkerchief wiping away months worth of grime.
"Aye you're a pretty one, all right. Not that the chaps will mind if they're lonely enough." She said to herself more than to her and then she leaned down and puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Listen love. Want to come home with me? There'll be food and new clothes and company. Just took in two other girls about your age. What do you say?"
She didn't have to think too long: Food, shelter, and clothing. She nodded.
"Good then, my name's Marie just so you'll know. Come long this rain is getting terrible." Then Marie took her hand and led her up the long streets until they reached the entry to the one part of town that her mother had never let her enter. She didn't stop though because the rain was getting worse and she was looking forward to whatever meal might be waiting for her. In retrospect she would decide she hadn't been the wisest child, depending too much on blind faith and desires. But that night she ate and bathed, and given new clothes and she met two girls: loud and bossy Nini and quiet, almost mousy Mary. And then a very jolly man with a funny moustache came over to her after she'd bathed and ate and told her she was beautiful and that in exchange for shelter and food and clothing, would she be willing to work for him. Simple jobs, cleaning rooms, washing clothes, things of that nature. She'd agreed and he couldn't look happier.
So she earned her keep, as Nini said. She washed extravagant skirts in outrageous shades of yellow and red, beaded and embroidered beautifully. She helped polish the large wooden floor in the great dance hall until she could see could see herself in the wood. Sometimes one of the older girls would teach her a song or a dance and she would do it to entertain Nini or Mary or Harold, and he seems to be the one who gets the biggest kick out of it. She has talent he says, she will go far. And then once every three months or so she would go with Marie to church and say thanks for everything she'd found.
One day when she was fifteen she danced in her first number and she decided she loved the thrill she found in dancing for a crowd of cheering onlookers, all of who had eyes only for her, in her beaded corset and full ruffled skirt. It was not long before she begun sleeping with those onlookers and though it was painful she did it anyway because she could not think of denying any request Harold might have for her, he had been so kind to her after all. After that first night he gave her a ring, a pretty ring of gold with a small green gem that reminded her of a ring her mother once had to sell so she could pay the rent. After that she stopped going to church with Marie because God had given her her little bit of help and she had made due herself. And years went by and little by little she forgot the things her mother taught her and learned new things, things that were more useful in the new life she led. She met many people, some who stayed and some who went.
"Bad people," they said in the streets, "whores and pimps. Selling away their bodies for diamonds and such. Unclean woman who do such work." She cared little for these whispers. She had all she needed, that was all that mattered; she saw nothing wrong with what she did. The people she knew were not bad people. They looked after themselves was all. Were they to be considered indecent for that?
One day she met a man. He was kind and gentle, and spoke pretty words that made her heart quicken within her chest. He was a beautiful person who reminded her so much of herself with his blind faith and simple beliefs. Heaven and Hell, good people and bad people, wrong and right. It hurt her to kiss him; because she knew each kiss moved him farther way from those idealist beliefs of his, and she worried he would simply cease to be without them. But the pain of those kisses were overshadowed by the joy she found in them and she realized that she still depended too much on her desires. But she would not be there if she hadn't been. The desire to be a star, to have pretty diamonds, the desire to please, and then the desire that ruined her: The desire to save him.
She had broken his heart to help him, left him in shambles only to run back to her own room and break.
She had left the Moulin Rouge then, for the last time.
She had made her way past the shabby houses and down trotted shops filled with people. She had left the place her mother had never allowed her to come and went into the building she had not entered in too many years. She went to the front of the church and prayed for forgiveness. She had hurt him, a man who had done nothing but love her, so she begged that God might hear her again and forgive her, help heal him, keep him from harm.
Then she lit candles, one every year since she'd last come to church.
The rain fell on her way back as it had the first time.