Homeward Bound
Chapter Five: Home, Where My Music's Playing
Author's Note: Due to circumstances beyond my control (that's not saying I would change it or anything) I will be on vacation in Florida for two weeks, from July 28th to August 11th. So I'll be walking on the beach and riding Small World (don't ask, lol) at Disney during that time, leaving me little time to write and probably no time at all to be online! I don't know if I'll make it. So, you'll have to survive for awhile without the last chapter. (Will the next one be the last? Don't ask me, ask him. *points to the plot bunny lurking in the corner* He won't stop growing! He started out all nice and manageable, but he's out of control now...) Anyway, here's an extra-long chapter just to hold you over! :-)
A/N II: Yes, sneaking the title song into the ending of this chapter is a bit of an anachronism. But how many REAL Parisian nightclubs were singing "Teen Spirit" in 1899? The whole premise of the movie itself is quite anachronistic. So forgive me.
**I have NO idea what they eat for breakfast in England, so they eat the same things we would eat here in Ohio, if we ever ate something that could be considered a normal breakfast. (They're not eating Cheerios and cold pizza, which is what I had this morning.)**
Disclaimer: I own nothing; I am getting no monetary reward for this. Don't make me sic my trained attack chipmunks on you!
~~
Homeward Bound
Chapter Five: Home, Where My Music's Playing
For the first time in weeks, Christian woke up without wishing to be dead. It was, he thought, the lack of a hangover that robbed him of his usual despondency. If he thought dying would assure him an eternity with Satine, he'd take his own life in an instant.
But before his side trip to Paris, Christian had been brought up a good Catholic boy, and according to the local priest, suicide was unforgivable.
Christian did *not* want to die for her, then wind up in Hell for eternity due to an oversight. Although now that he thought about it, prostitution was a sin, and Satine had never been ashamed of her job, so perhaps that was where she had gone...
The idea of Satine in eternal torment horrified him, and sent him spiraling back into the melancholy he'd grown so used to. Well, it was familiar territory, at least.
He realized that it was only seven-fifteen, that breakfast might not be over yet. He dressed and headed downstairs, wondering if he'd even have an appetite.
~~
His parents were sitting at the table. *Damn it,* Christian thought, trying not to glare at his father. *Why hasn't he left yet?*
"Robert's already gone to work," his mother explained unnecessarily. Christian hadn't even noticed his brother's absence.
"Speaking of which," his father muttered, "when are you planning to find employment around here?"
Christian sat down. "I'll look for a job when I decide where I ought to be," he replied quietly, hoping to avoid a confrontation. It was too early to argue.
"What's that supposed to mean?" his father returned sharply. "You belong here in England."
"I think that's for me to decide," Christian said calmly, accepting a platter of biscuits from his mother. "I've been gone for awhile, and I'm not sure London is where I want to be any longer."
"You'll not be going back to that sinful country," his father warned.
Instead of replying, Christian concentrated on his breakfast. He wondered if his face was red, as it seemed to be burning. He wanted to retort, in fact, he even had one ready...
But it always hurt Margaret to see father and son fighting, so he let it go. For ten minutes, it seemed that the storm had blown over. Then Peter opened his mouth again.
"If you've gotten of those whores pregnant, you'll marry her, and you'll bring both the streetwalker and the child back here. If you're lucky, no one will question the baby's legitimacy."
Christian's face didn't feel like it was burning anymore; rather, he felt cold all over. When he set his biscuit on his plate, he noticed that his hands were shaking.
Margaret winced at her husband's words, but he couldn't have known what a horrible thing it was to say. She saw the color drain from Christian's face, and he looked alarmingly like he was about to faint.
When he finally found the composure to speak, he murmured coldly, "I hope to God you speak out of ignorance and not out of spite." He thought he would feel anger, but instead there was nothing. Just a cold blankness in his mind.
"Ignorance?"
His father had raised his voice again, and this was going to be an argument. Christian gave his mother a wanly apologetic glance, but let his father finish.
"In what way am I *ignorant,* son?"
Christian had never known any man to make such an endearment as "son" sound so cold. He stood up. He didn't realize that he was doing it on purpose, to look more imposing, perhaps. His father still seemed to labor under the impression that his son was just a boy, a misconception Christian was ready to disprove. "You are ignorant of the truth, Father. You have not asked me what happened in France; if you had, perhaps you would understand. Instead, you immediately assume that I spent every waking hour with various loose women, and that I spent the entire ten months in a drunken stupor. You don't know what really happened, or perhaps you would not judge so quickly. Your assumptions make you ignorant."
Peter would never have expected an accusation of bigotry to pour forth from his son as softly as it did, but the tone made it no less of an accusation. "Do not presume to preach your foolish idealism to me in my own household. This business about the Bohemian revolutionaries is trash, and to be taken in by it makes you the ignorant one."
"Maybe it does," Christian agreed sadly, and the expression on his face was to Margaret far worse than any verbal battle. His shoulders slumped, and he looked completely defeated in body and spirit. She had never seen him capitulate to Peter in any way ever before.
Christian walked slowly away from the table, heading for the stairs and the solitude of his room.
"Don't you walk away from me!" Peter shouted after him.
Christian stopped momentarily, but he didn't turn around. "Va au enfer," he muttered colorlessly.
Margaret gasped. "Christian!"
He started walking again. He didn't really want to be nearby when his father found out that he had just been told to go to hell.
"Margaret, what did he say? Was he speaking that French again? If he was, so help me - "
"It was harmless, Peter," she lied. "Just an expression."
"Then why were you so shocked?" he asked shrewdly.
"Well, he'd...told me he would do better about speaking only English when you're around. I was disappointed that he'd made a mistake."
Christian chuckled mirthlessly from the top of the stairs. Well, his mother was defending him; too bad the rest of the world was allied on the opposing side.
~~
He was getting very used to spending all his time in one room; he had done so in Paris after Satine's death, and now he was sequestering himself here. He had found an English copy of Les Miserables on the bookshelf in his room, and for a time he thought no more of Satine.
But when Fantine's character made herself present, he dropped the book. A dying courtesan, one who still believed in love even though she had to sell herself. Suddenly Christian had had enough of long-ago France, and he tossed the book away and fell into a dreamless doze.
He woke up, any number of hours later, to a soft but persistent knocking on his door. "C'min," he called indistinctly, more than half asleep.
Margaret entered with a tray of food. "I thought you'd be writing," she commented with mild reproof, gazing at the unused typewriter. "I brought you some food," she added, "since if left to yourself right now you'd probably starve."
"Thank you."
She knew he had no intention of eating, but maternal instinct made her bring him something anyway. "It's long past teatime," she informed him gently. "You really ought to eat something."
"Mm." It was a complete non-answer, more of an acknowledgement that he'd heard her than anything else.
She sighed. "I'll be here, if there's anything you need, or if you just want to talk."
He rolled over and stared blankly at the ceiling. "I don't think talking will do any more good."
"Talking to your father might."
He snorted. "Closed-minded old bastard won't listen to me. Maybe I've lost faith in Bohemian ideals, but he's never known what it's like to believe in them. Truth, perhaps he understands somewhat. Beauty? Paris was beautiful, in a way he'll never want to comprehend. Freedom, no. He doesn't want me to have mine; he wants me to end up just as he has, and I've no intention of doing so. And love..." he trailed off. "Perhaps he feels love, but he will never understand it."
"Of course not; he lacks your poetic mind. But he does love, Christian, and he does love you."
"Right," he returned disbelievingly.
Margaret thought it best to let this go. She set the tray down on the desk by the typewriter, smiled at her eldest son, and left the room without another word. He would eat when he grew hungry enough.
~~
Christian spent a few more hours in his room, barely moving. He watched the sunlight slant through his windows. After a time, the sun itself appeared between the open curtains, glowing a bittersweet red-gold. He was glad his room faced west; he had always preferred sunsets to sunrises.
Eventually the sun, too, disappeared, and the first stars dared to shine in the twilight. They grew slowly in number until the sky looked like velvet strewn with diamonds.
Diamonds...
Christian sat up, wincing at the vertigo that seemed to be tilting the floor.
The tray was still lying untouched on the desk. He drank the tea; it was cold, but bearable. The sandwiches, too, were palatable, but the bowl of soup was a complete loss.
He only ate a bit of the sandwiches, as he still didn't seem to have any appetite. Then he sat back down on the edge of the bed. The only trouble with sleeping all day was that when nighttime came, one was too awake. The clock in the front hall had chimed its loud eleven a few minutes ago -- surely everyone else was asleep by now.
He recalled the half-bottle of absinthe in the kitchen cupboard with a glimmering of interest. He shouldn't...his father was already upset, and there was no point in bringing Christian's apparent alcoholism into this mess. But as long as he didn't get *too* drunk, perhaps no one would be the wiser.
Of course, he better stay lucid enough to be in control. He vaguely recalled launching an empty bottle at the Duke (whom he had imagined to have seen in Satine's elephant) while under the influence. Other times the absinthe sent him into a deep grief, during which he cried unabashedly for hours.
But such occurrences were rare, and he was willing to take that risk. He opened the door quietly, then headed down the stairs, skipped the appropriate squeaking step and walked down the hallway to the kitchen.
He opened the top cupboard and brought out the glass bottle. It was a little more than half-full: plenty of absinthe on which to get drunk. He pulled out the stopper, then hesitated. He could get a glass, but then, he planned to drink the remainder of the bottle anyway. Why bother with a goblet?
He stared at the absinthe for another instant and sighed. "Christian, you are an addict," he muttered, then lifted the bottle to his lips.
A few sips later, the room began to feel comfortably warmer, and he started to wander the house. It wasn't really a mental decision so much as something that just *happened.*
He looked into the dining room and remembered the morning he had told his father he was going to Paris. He probably should have waited until after breakfast, as the ensuing fight had allowed the meal to grow cold.
Enough of the dining room. He had just come from the kitchen, a room in which he had spent very little time. He thought about the first time he had tried to cook dinner -- he had been eight years old, and his mother was sick with a cold. So he had tried to make dinner for her, and ended up burning the food and ruining one of the pots. Ah, childhood.
The parlor looked the same as it always had. There was the couch on which he'd had his first kiss, stolen from a neighbor's daughter when their respective fathers had briefly left the room. And the mismatched lamps on the two end tables; he remembered playing some sort of ball game with Robert, and the ball knocking over one of the old blue lamps. They'd agreed to stick up for one another, no matter what kind of torture the two of them were put to, but in the end they had blamed the incident adamantly on each other.
On second thought, the parlor didn't look quite like it ought to have been. Something was missing from it, something he realized was fairly important, but couldn't quite place. He drank a little more absinthe, and succeeded in only further muddling the situation. (He had, by this time, imbibed more than half of the remaining drink; he wasn't even very drunk.)
He hadn't seen the living room yet. That was where he'd spent most of his time: The dining room was for meals only, his room furnished only the purpose of sleeping, and the parlor was for teatime and company. The rest of his life seemed to have been spent curled up on one of the wing chairs by the fire, reading this or that novel.
He stumbled clumsily -- not drunkenly -- in the doorway, grabbing the closest piece of furniture in order not to fall flat on his face. He smiled; this was what the parlor had been missing, and it hadn't been discarded or chopped up for firewood. The old upright piano stood against the living room wall, covered in a white sheet. He tugged the sheet off, and the wood glinted in the dim glow of a gaslight just outside the window.
Why did the sight of the piano make him so sad? Oh, right: The last time he had played, he had been in the Moulin Rouge, composing with Satine. He took another drink from the bottle -- only a little left now -- and set it on the floor beside the piano. He stood there for a minute, considering, then slowly sat down at the bench.
No one had touched it since he'd been gone; the last song he'd played before leaving was still perched on the music stand. He didn't even notice it as he lifted the cover from the keyboard. His hands seemed to start shaking as he positioned them over the smooth ivory keys. The house was large enough, and the bedrooms far enough away, that the sound shouldn't carry and wake anyone up.
His fingers brushed the keys in a quick broken chord, four pleasant rolling notes. He pulled back quickly, as though surprised by the warm sound. There; he had established that the piano still functioned. It was in relatively good tune, as well.
Now all he had to do was find the will to really *play.* He let his left hand drop, barely touching the keys with the fingers of his right hand. He hit three brief notes, then pulled away again.
Never knew...
But it had sounded too staccato, too sharp. What was he forgetting? Ah, the pedal. He played a few more lines, one-handed but more smoothly.
I could feel like this
Like I've never seen the sky before
Want to vanish inside your kiss
Everyday I love you more and more
Listen to my heart, can you hear? It sings
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you
Until the end of time
He wasn't sure of the point at which he'd brought his left hand up, but by the first refrain he realized suddenly that he was playing harmony as well.
Come what may
Come what may
I will love you
Until my dying day
Everything seemed to fall into a different perspective then. The dazzling, sordid splendor of the Rouge; Satine as the Sparkling Diamond; making love to her in the elephant bedroom. He remembered her *alive* and in his arms.
His hands moved on to the next verse, Satine's part, and he saw her singing in his mind's eye. He saw her turn on the half-finished rehearsal stage, singing to him instead of the sitar player. He saw himself standing on the stage with her, directing the sitar player to "kiss her like this" and demonstrating, taking Satine in his arms and dipping her back just a little. The Duke had been furious, but then, the Duke didn't matter.
And there's no mountain too high
Nor river too wide
Sing out this song and I'll be there
By your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide...
"But I love you," he whispered, his hands falling from the keys, "until the end of time." It didn't seem necessary to play any more of the song. He had accomplished the purpose he didn't know he'd had: he could think of Satine now. He was still in love with her, with her memory, but it didn't hurt to remember her anymore.
He sat at the piano motionlessly as the shock of this new revelation sank in. Then he looked up, and his eye caught the title of the sheet music.
"'Homeward Bound,'" he said softly. And suddenly he knew where he belonged.
TBC
Chapter Five: Home, Where My Music's Playing
Author's Note: Due to circumstances beyond my control (that's not saying I would change it or anything) I will be on vacation in Florida for two weeks, from July 28th to August 11th. So I'll be walking on the beach and riding Small World (don't ask, lol) at Disney during that time, leaving me little time to write and probably no time at all to be online! I don't know if I'll make it. So, you'll have to survive for awhile without the last chapter. (Will the next one be the last? Don't ask me, ask him. *points to the plot bunny lurking in the corner* He won't stop growing! He started out all nice and manageable, but he's out of control now...) Anyway, here's an extra-long chapter just to hold you over! :-)
A/N II: Yes, sneaking the title song into the ending of this chapter is a bit of an anachronism. But how many REAL Parisian nightclubs were singing "Teen Spirit" in 1899? The whole premise of the movie itself is quite anachronistic. So forgive me.
**I have NO idea what they eat for breakfast in England, so they eat the same things we would eat here in Ohio, if we ever ate something that could be considered a normal breakfast. (They're not eating Cheerios and cold pizza, which is what I had this morning.)**
Disclaimer: I own nothing; I am getting no monetary reward for this. Don't make me sic my trained attack chipmunks on you!
~~
Homeward Bound
Chapter Five: Home, Where My Music's Playing
For the first time in weeks, Christian woke up without wishing to be dead. It was, he thought, the lack of a hangover that robbed him of his usual despondency. If he thought dying would assure him an eternity with Satine, he'd take his own life in an instant.
But before his side trip to Paris, Christian had been brought up a good Catholic boy, and according to the local priest, suicide was unforgivable.
Christian did *not* want to die for her, then wind up in Hell for eternity due to an oversight. Although now that he thought about it, prostitution was a sin, and Satine had never been ashamed of her job, so perhaps that was where she had gone...
The idea of Satine in eternal torment horrified him, and sent him spiraling back into the melancholy he'd grown so used to. Well, it was familiar territory, at least.
He realized that it was only seven-fifteen, that breakfast might not be over yet. He dressed and headed downstairs, wondering if he'd even have an appetite.
~~
His parents were sitting at the table. *Damn it,* Christian thought, trying not to glare at his father. *Why hasn't he left yet?*
"Robert's already gone to work," his mother explained unnecessarily. Christian hadn't even noticed his brother's absence.
"Speaking of which," his father muttered, "when are you planning to find employment around here?"
Christian sat down. "I'll look for a job when I decide where I ought to be," he replied quietly, hoping to avoid a confrontation. It was too early to argue.
"What's that supposed to mean?" his father returned sharply. "You belong here in England."
"I think that's for me to decide," Christian said calmly, accepting a platter of biscuits from his mother. "I've been gone for awhile, and I'm not sure London is where I want to be any longer."
"You'll not be going back to that sinful country," his father warned.
Instead of replying, Christian concentrated on his breakfast. He wondered if his face was red, as it seemed to be burning. He wanted to retort, in fact, he even had one ready...
But it always hurt Margaret to see father and son fighting, so he let it go. For ten minutes, it seemed that the storm had blown over. Then Peter opened his mouth again.
"If you've gotten of those whores pregnant, you'll marry her, and you'll bring both the streetwalker and the child back here. If you're lucky, no one will question the baby's legitimacy."
Christian's face didn't feel like it was burning anymore; rather, he felt cold all over. When he set his biscuit on his plate, he noticed that his hands were shaking.
Margaret winced at her husband's words, but he couldn't have known what a horrible thing it was to say. She saw the color drain from Christian's face, and he looked alarmingly like he was about to faint.
When he finally found the composure to speak, he murmured coldly, "I hope to God you speak out of ignorance and not out of spite." He thought he would feel anger, but instead there was nothing. Just a cold blankness in his mind.
"Ignorance?"
His father had raised his voice again, and this was going to be an argument. Christian gave his mother a wanly apologetic glance, but let his father finish.
"In what way am I *ignorant,* son?"
Christian had never known any man to make such an endearment as "son" sound so cold. He stood up. He didn't realize that he was doing it on purpose, to look more imposing, perhaps. His father still seemed to labor under the impression that his son was just a boy, a misconception Christian was ready to disprove. "You are ignorant of the truth, Father. You have not asked me what happened in France; if you had, perhaps you would understand. Instead, you immediately assume that I spent every waking hour with various loose women, and that I spent the entire ten months in a drunken stupor. You don't know what really happened, or perhaps you would not judge so quickly. Your assumptions make you ignorant."
Peter would never have expected an accusation of bigotry to pour forth from his son as softly as it did, but the tone made it no less of an accusation. "Do not presume to preach your foolish idealism to me in my own household. This business about the Bohemian revolutionaries is trash, and to be taken in by it makes you the ignorant one."
"Maybe it does," Christian agreed sadly, and the expression on his face was to Margaret far worse than any verbal battle. His shoulders slumped, and he looked completely defeated in body and spirit. She had never seen him capitulate to Peter in any way ever before.
Christian walked slowly away from the table, heading for the stairs and the solitude of his room.
"Don't you walk away from me!" Peter shouted after him.
Christian stopped momentarily, but he didn't turn around. "Va au enfer," he muttered colorlessly.
Margaret gasped. "Christian!"
He started walking again. He didn't really want to be nearby when his father found out that he had just been told to go to hell.
"Margaret, what did he say? Was he speaking that French again? If he was, so help me - "
"It was harmless, Peter," she lied. "Just an expression."
"Then why were you so shocked?" he asked shrewdly.
"Well, he'd...told me he would do better about speaking only English when you're around. I was disappointed that he'd made a mistake."
Christian chuckled mirthlessly from the top of the stairs. Well, his mother was defending him; too bad the rest of the world was allied on the opposing side.
~~
He was getting very used to spending all his time in one room; he had done so in Paris after Satine's death, and now he was sequestering himself here. He had found an English copy of Les Miserables on the bookshelf in his room, and for a time he thought no more of Satine.
But when Fantine's character made herself present, he dropped the book. A dying courtesan, one who still believed in love even though she had to sell herself. Suddenly Christian had had enough of long-ago France, and he tossed the book away and fell into a dreamless doze.
He woke up, any number of hours later, to a soft but persistent knocking on his door. "C'min," he called indistinctly, more than half asleep.
Margaret entered with a tray of food. "I thought you'd be writing," she commented with mild reproof, gazing at the unused typewriter. "I brought you some food," she added, "since if left to yourself right now you'd probably starve."
"Thank you."
She knew he had no intention of eating, but maternal instinct made her bring him something anyway. "It's long past teatime," she informed him gently. "You really ought to eat something."
"Mm." It was a complete non-answer, more of an acknowledgement that he'd heard her than anything else.
She sighed. "I'll be here, if there's anything you need, or if you just want to talk."
He rolled over and stared blankly at the ceiling. "I don't think talking will do any more good."
"Talking to your father might."
He snorted. "Closed-minded old bastard won't listen to me. Maybe I've lost faith in Bohemian ideals, but he's never known what it's like to believe in them. Truth, perhaps he understands somewhat. Beauty? Paris was beautiful, in a way he'll never want to comprehend. Freedom, no. He doesn't want me to have mine; he wants me to end up just as he has, and I've no intention of doing so. And love..." he trailed off. "Perhaps he feels love, but he will never understand it."
"Of course not; he lacks your poetic mind. But he does love, Christian, and he does love you."
"Right," he returned disbelievingly.
Margaret thought it best to let this go. She set the tray down on the desk by the typewriter, smiled at her eldest son, and left the room without another word. He would eat when he grew hungry enough.
~~
Christian spent a few more hours in his room, barely moving. He watched the sunlight slant through his windows. After a time, the sun itself appeared between the open curtains, glowing a bittersweet red-gold. He was glad his room faced west; he had always preferred sunsets to sunrises.
Eventually the sun, too, disappeared, and the first stars dared to shine in the twilight. They grew slowly in number until the sky looked like velvet strewn with diamonds.
Diamonds...
Christian sat up, wincing at the vertigo that seemed to be tilting the floor.
The tray was still lying untouched on the desk. He drank the tea; it was cold, but bearable. The sandwiches, too, were palatable, but the bowl of soup was a complete loss.
He only ate a bit of the sandwiches, as he still didn't seem to have any appetite. Then he sat back down on the edge of the bed. The only trouble with sleeping all day was that when nighttime came, one was too awake. The clock in the front hall had chimed its loud eleven a few minutes ago -- surely everyone else was asleep by now.
He recalled the half-bottle of absinthe in the kitchen cupboard with a glimmering of interest. He shouldn't...his father was already upset, and there was no point in bringing Christian's apparent alcoholism into this mess. But as long as he didn't get *too* drunk, perhaps no one would be the wiser.
Of course, he better stay lucid enough to be in control. He vaguely recalled launching an empty bottle at the Duke (whom he had imagined to have seen in Satine's elephant) while under the influence. Other times the absinthe sent him into a deep grief, during which he cried unabashedly for hours.
But such occurrences were rare, and he was willing to take that risk. He opened the door quietly, then headed down the stairs, skipped the appropriate squeaking step and walked down the hallway to the kitchen.
He opened the top cupboard and brought out the glass bottle. It was a little more than half-full: plenty of absinthe on which to get drunk. He pulled out the stopper, then hesitated. He could get a glass, but then, he planned to drink the remainder of the bottle anyway. Why bother with a goblet?
He stared at the absinthe for another instant and sighed. "Christian, you are an addict," he muttered, then lifted the bottle to his lips.
A few sips later, the room began to feel comfortably warmer, and he started to wander the house. It wasn't really a mental decision so much as something that just *happened.*
He looked into the dining room and remembered the morning he had told his father he was going to Paris. He probably should have waited until after breakfast, as the ensuing fight had allowed the meal to grow cold.
Enough of the dining room. He had just come from the kitchen, a room in which he had spent very little time. He thought about the first time he had tried to cook dinner -- he had been eight years old, and his mother was sick with a cold. So he had tried to make dinner for her, and ended up burning the food and ruining one of the pots. Ah, childhood.
The parlor looked the same as it always had. There was the couch on which he'd had his first kiss, stolen from a neighbor's daughter when their respective fathers had briefly left the room. And the mismatched lamps on the two end tables; he remembered playing some sort of ball game with Robert, and the ball knocking over one of the old blue lamps. They'd agreed to stick up for one another, no matter what kind of torture the two of them were put to, but in the end they had blamed the incident adamantly on each other.
On second thought, the parlor didn't look quite like it ought to have been. Something was missing from it, something he realized was fairly important, but couldn't quite place. He drank a little more absinthe, and succeeded in only further muddling the situation. (He had, by this time, imbibed more than half of the remaining drink; he wasn't even very drunk.)
He hadn't seen the living room yet. That was where he'd spent most of his time: The dining room was for meals only, his room furnished only the purpose of sleeping, and the parlor was for teatime and company. The rest of his life seemed to have been spent curled up on one of the wing chairs by the fire, reading this or that novel.
He stumbled clumsily -- not drunkenly -- in the doorway, grabbing the closest piece of furniture in order not to fall flat on his face. He smiled; this was what the parlor had been missing, and it hadn't been discarded or chopped up for firewood. The old upright piano stood against the living room wall, covered in a white sheet. He tugged the sheet off, and the wood glinted in the dim glow of a gaslight just outside the window.
Why did the sight of the piano make him so sad? Oh, right: The last time he had played, he had been in the Moulin Rouge, composing with Satine. He took another drink from the bottle -- only a little left now -- and set it on the floor beside the piano. He stood there for a minute, considering, then slowly sat down at the bench.
No one had touched it since he'd been gone; the last song he'd played before leaving was still perched on the music stand. He didn't even notice it as he lifted the cover from the keyboard. His hands seemed to start shaking as he positioned them over the smooth ivory keys. The house was large enough, and the bedrooms far enough away, that the sound shouldn't carry and wake anyone up.
His fingers brushed the keys in a quick broken chord, four pleasant rolling notes. He pulled back quickly, as though surprised by the warm sound. There; he had established that the piano still functioned. It was in relatively good tune, as well.
Now all he had to do was find the will to really *play.* He let his left hand drop, barely touching the keys with the fingers of his right hand. He hit three brief notes, then pulled away again.
Never knew...
But it had sounded too staccato, too sharp. What was he forgetting? Ah, the pedal. He played a few more lines, one-handed but more smoothly.
I could feel like this
Like I've never seen the sky before
Want to vanish inside your kiss
Everyday I love you more and more
Listen to my heart, can you hear? It sings
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you
Until the end of time
He wasn't sure of the point at which he'd brought his left hand up, but by the first refrain he realized suddenly that he was playing harmony as well.
Come what may
Come what may
I will love you
Until my dying day
Everything seemed to fall into a different perspective then. The dazzling, sordid splendor of the Rouge; Satine as the Sparkling Diamond; making love to her in the elephant bedroom. He remembered her *alive* and in his arms.
His hands moved on to the next verse, Satine's part, and he saw her singing in his mind's eye. He saw her turn on the half-finished rehearsal stage, singing to him instead of the sitar player. He saw himself standing on the stage with her, directing the sitar player to "kiss her like this" and demonstrating, taking Satine in his arms and dipping her back just a little. The Duke had been furious, but then, the Duke didn't matter.
And there's no mountain too high
Nor river too wide
Sing out this song and I'll be there
By your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide...
"But I love you," he whispered, his hands falling from the keys, "until the end of time." It didn't seem necessary to play any more of the song. He had accomplished the purpose he didn't know he'd had: he could think of Satine now. He was still in love with her, with her memory, but it didn't hurt to remember her anymore.
He sat at the piano motionlessly as the shock of this new revelation sank in. Then he looked up, and his eye caught the title of the sheet music.
"'Homeward Bound,'" he said softly. And suddenly he knew where he belonged.
TBC