No Matter the Cost
The arm around her waist felt like iron; she'd tried to make the man release her by driving a heel into his toe, then her own toe into his shin, but it was to no avail. Though a grunt and a wince were given for her trouble, he only retaliated by releasing her arm, and taking hold of her waist. Satine pulled at the arm, but despite her height, her build was still thin, and her illness had caused her strength to wane. Therefore she was left to simply watch, helpless, as Christian turned back for her, even though she tried to protest, to tell him to go—they had to be after her, didn't they? It would be the Duke behind it, if anyone . . . she had broken her contract . . . he wanted her.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
"Let me go, you don't understand, she's dying—we can't stay here, we have to—we have to go—don't you understand!?" Christian yelled out with a vehemence Satine had rarely heard in his voice, but then this was no ordinary situation.
"Arrest him, arrest him!"
The voice registered flickered familiarity at the back of her mind, but was soon enough disregarded as she was instead forced to choke back a scream, watching Christian be struck on the back of the head. With renewed strength, she pulled herself free just as the man she loved crumpled to the snowy ground in a heap. She hastened toward him and fell to the frozen earth on her knees beside him, heedless of the cold and the frost.
"You can't—you can't do this," he mumbled, showing no sign of responsiveness to her touch as she brushed his hair back from his forehead.
"Christian . . ." Satine shook her head, glaring up in anger at the gendarmes, who gazed back without sympathy.
Then the fourth figure approached, a cane planting itself into the snow just at her side.
"You can't walk away from love . . ."
The Duke tipped his hat toward the distraught former courtesan, and his lips curved up into a smirk.
"Hello, my sweet."
Satine stared for a blank moment at the blonde-haired man, then scrambled to her feet, for once making no attempt to veil her contempt for him. "You bastard," she spat, then promptly raised her hand and slapped him across the face.
The Duke's moustache twitched noticeably as he fought to remain calm in reaction, and his own hand lifted to cover the red handprint appearing on his cheek, before he coldly turned to face the man who was clearly the figure of authority in the situation.
"Take him away, Inspecteur Bertrand."
"No!" Satine immediately cried in response, wheeling around to face the uniformed man. "You can't do this—what are the charges?"
"This man is under arrest for the kidnapping of Mademoiselle Satine Desmerges," he responded dispassionately, directing his two companions to pick up the collapsed writer.
"What?" She gaped at him in a moment of shock, but then remembered suddenly—
"The show's writer has gone mad and kidnapped her!"
"Oh, no. No, no, Monsieur, I am Satine Desmerges, and I went of my own free will! This man is guilty of nothing!"
"I am sorry, Mademoiselle, but I am only following orders. There is nothing I can do—you will have to take up this matter with someone else."
It took Dr. Dieudonné and his wife to calm her down as she was forced to watch them take Christian away. Satine knew it was unjustified, unfair—the maharajah commanding his guards to take the penniless sitar player away and lock him in the dungeon—but then when should any less have been expected of the Duke?
"Well. I suppose we can take up this matter later, my dear," he stated with false politeness, turning back to her after a beat. He seemed to be relishing this just as much as Satine hated it, taking pleasure in his revenge. "I'm quite certain I might have a proposal that should be of some . . . interest . . . to you."
Then that half-smile, half-smirk reappeared on his face, and he pivoted around on a heel and fell in step for the carriage where Warner waited for him.
A great amount of willpower and restraint (though not self-restraint, rather the physical hold Dr. Dieudonné had on her arm) in the next few moments to prevent her from lunging after the Duke and throwing him into the snow, but as he disappeared from view, her anger seemed to dissolve away into despair, and she slumped against the older man and buried her face against his shoulder.
Christian thought, not for the first time in the past two hours that being confined to a jail cell would have been far easier if he knew Satine was all right. But now that everything he could remember had been pieced together, he could only fill in the hazy blanks of grey with his own conclusions, and had reached the unfortunate decision that the Duke probably took Satine and intended to leave him there for the rest of his life—that was, if the Duke hadn't corrupted the police to a point where Christian would end up dead out of the situation.
Groaning, he laid back on the bench with his hands over his face, trying to sort out his plight. He was in jail for, as best he could figure, something he wasn't guilty of, though he still had yet to figure out what the charges were. He hadn't seen anyone to ask since he'd been thrown in the cell—and, well, at that time, he wasn't exactly in any condition to be asking questions.
The idea of being a martyr for love should have appealed to his romantic sensibilities. He was like Romeo, banished from Verona, but Romeo didn't have to worry about the safety of Juliet, until—
No, he really didn't need to allow himself to think like that.
"Oh, Satine . . ."
"Oh, Christian."
Satine ceased her pacing up and down the length of the Dieudonné's parlor, and pivoted around on her heel to face the doctor and his wife, who sat at the table in the room, watching her with sympathetic concern. The children had been dismissed from the room, having gone to the kitchen to prepare tea.
"What am I going to do?"
They had been lucky, at least, in that the gendarmes did not show any interest in implicating the doctor and his wife in the harboring of a wanted man—they simply assumed that the Dieudonnés had not been aware of Christian's presence there.
"I have no way of helping him," Satine stated with a dejected sigh, sinking down to sit in one of the empty chairs that was pulled up to the table.
"There must be some course of action you can take," Dr. Dieudonné stated, grey eyebrows knitting together in thought. He was concerned not only for the plight of the two young people to whom he and his family had become quite attached in the past few weeks, but also for Mademoiselle Satine's health. It was no favor to her condition that she was to remain there, exposed to the harsh winter, and to have to be burdened with so much worry besides . . .
"We aren't married," she responded with a shake of her head, doing a mental inventory of what belongings she and Christian had. There was little of value, aside from her jewels, and most of those were already gone. "And I have no money."
By now, though she would not tell the doctor and his wife as much, she was beginning to think that whatever the Duke's demands would be, she would have to fulfill them. There was a great possibility she would have no other choice.
"And," she continued after a moment's hesitation, leveling her gaze on the couple that had been so kind to them, "we haven't been entirely truthful with you. I am . . . was . . . a courtesan. I worked at the Moulin Rouge before we left Montmartre and came here."
She held her breath after that, awaiting the negative reaction that she knew had to come, but to her great surprise, neither of them seemed entirely scandalized or even put out by the knowledge.
"We know, mon cher," Giselle offered kindly, leaning over to rest a comforting hand upon Satine's shoulder. "But it does not matter to us."
"Oh, but it does matter," Satine corrected her, shifting her gaze downward to focus on the tabletop. "The Duke, the man who had Christian arrested, he . . . he was courting me, when Christian and I left. It's his jealousy that's causing this now—and he's a powerful man. I have no idea how to fight back."
The doctor smiled slightly, his head canting to the side in a thoughtful manner. "But perhaps there is yet an avenue you have left unexplored . . ."
Author's Note: Satine's last name is taken from the early draft of the script that is included on the DVD—since it was provided as Olivier's, I would also assume it to be hers. Also, I would like to note for anyone who is curious that the last name Dieudonné happens to mean 'God given.' I thought it was fitting, since they were like a blessing to Christian and Satine.
This chapter is dedicated to someone who most likely knows who they are, in recognition of the passing of one year . . . the happiness and the tears, I wouldn't take any of it back. Votre amour m'a donné des ailes . . . your love gave me wings.
I miss you so much, love, you don't even know.