They left Montmarte wordlessly, Satine with her head bent against the lazy snow, her slender fingers clutching the coat around her throat, and Christian with his mouth set in an involuntary frown, stealing glances at her out of fear that she would suddenly change her mind and run back to the Moulin Rouge. When they finally got out of Montmarte, he stopped, but Satine marched on, desperate not to attract any attention to herself.
Christian caught her up, now carrying both of their cases, and said,
'There won't be anywhere to stay in the small hours.'
Satine stopped, but didn't look up at him. 'I don't mean to discourage you. I don't want that at all. Satine?'
She looked up, mouth open.
'Then we'll just have to stay up all night,' she said, touching his cheek. He couldn't take his eyes off her.
They walked a little longer 'til they came to a grey stone wall that ran around a lawn in front of a large, grey stone house. The snow faded away without settling, leaving the grass bright but wet. Christian flung the bags on top of the wall then pulled himself up backwards. Satine did the same. She sighed and looked up at the bare sky. As she tilted her head, Christian saw something glint at her neck and pulled away the dark collar with his finger. He was taken aback to see the necklace. She looked at him and whispered, 'I should have left them.'
He brushed away the hair that fell in front of her eyes and shook his head. She pulled away. 'Yes,' she said, 'yes, I should have, and I shouldn't have left. Harry… and the Duke has the deeds to the Moulin!'
Christian put his arm around her shoulders and she rested her troubled head on his. She had just said exactly what he had been dreading to hear. Satine quickly fell asleep, exhausted by herself.
She awoke hours afterwards to bright, warm sunlight to find that miraculously, her bag, full of diamonds, was still there.
'Oh, my goodness-' she breathed as she realised what she could have lost. She jumped from the wall, jolting Christian awake, to rescue the bag by his side. She rummaged desperately through it, and upon finding her best friends still hidden, she collapsed over the bag with relief. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms and ran them back to her neck. Christian slid down from the wall and laid his arms over hers, holding her tight.
'Do you want to go back?' he whispered, terrified that she would answer him at all.
'Not to the Moulin –'
He closed his eyes in a wave of helpless relief.
'- But to Montmarte.'
Christian pulled away and looked straight at her, hands on her shoulders.
'What?' he asked. Satine's eyes searched for a justification in the wet road beneath her feet, and eventually shrugged out of Christian's grasp, saying,
'It's my home.'
Christian sighed, defeated.
'It's mine as well.'
She whimpered and flung her arms around him, her eyes still musical with tears.
'Christian, we could find a little place somewhere away from the Moulin Rouge, and you'll write a play and we'll sell it to a theatre. And I'll be an actress. And I don't want the diamonds, not one of them,' she cooed into his ear, 'you can sell every… last… rock.'
Christian laughed, and smiled, and picked up the bags to turn around and go straight back into Montmarte.
They walked arm in arm, their dark, anonymous coats and large bags completely juxtaposed with the bright winter sunlight and their peaceful minds. The white winter sun, very low in the sky, but very bright, picked out a few strands of Satine's hair and coloured them a glistening crimson. They passed steadily under the archway that was regarded as the gate to Montmarte, and both grew immediately tenser. But the tension did not come from Montmarte. It came from Christian and Satine, and most of all it came from the Moulin that loomed like a huge threatening ruby at the end of the street. Paris was unaware of what a disaster Spectacular Spectacular really had been. They didn't see Satine flee and they didn't know how the story was supposed to end. Only the courtesan, the sitar player, the maharaja and the creatures caught inside the theatre knew that it was rotting from the inside out.
The lovers turned down a side street and came at length to a little square with which neither was familiar. There was a very small outside café where a couple talked at one table and an old man sat drawing at another, and a small brownish pillar with a black clock at it's crown. It was a little past eleven. The square was enclosed on all sides by tall buildings with rows of windows, so that most of it was in shadow, and only the uppermost windows were blessed with any light at that time of day, and that time of year. Snatches of birdsong drifted down from somewhere on the distant rooftops.
Christian and Satine ventured past the few tables that sat on the still wet cobbles, receiving suspicious looks from the couple and no acknowledgement whatsoever from the old man. The café consisted of a large window through which a young-looking man with mussed up hair and his wife sold bread, butter and drinks, as well as he wobbly iron tables in the square. The man snapped at them as they greeted him, and, after not so very many questions, agreed to rent them the top floor of his building, which covered one side of the square. They had five whole rooms to themselves. The furniture was horribly bare, but Satine loved it because it was hers, and not Zidler's, and Christian loved it because it was theirs, and not his.
* * *
Please tell me what you think; this is actually my first fanfic so feedback would be incredibly appreciated.
I pretty much know how I want this to end but I want to know whether anybody likes it so far and/or whether anyone will actually read it before I go to the trouble of writing the whole thing. Thanks for reading.