Disclaimer: I don't own Moulin Rouge or Satie and I'm not writing this for profit. So don't sue me. I have no money. That's not to say I dislike money, so if you have some you want to send me that's ok too. Songs used: Angel Standing By, Jewel and The Show Must Go On, Moulin Rouge. Italics are memories.

I've heard it said that when a person dies they must face all the things that they fear most and over come them to go to heaven. I would think I died except that the rundown train compartment looked like anything but paradise. I was trying to hide my feeling of intense sadness from Alice but it wasn't easy.

"Inside my heart is breaking, my make-up may be flaking, But my smile still stays on."

I hugged my arms tight across my chest, aching to feel my little girl against me with all my heart. I tried not to think about it but the memory of our parting forced its way into my thoughts yet again.

It was late in the day and the sun's light had become orange and cast long shadows across the all-too-familiar lawn where I had been captured by dragons and had tea parties with fairies. Slowly I lifted one shaking hand to reach for the knocker, squeezing the pudgy hand that I held with my other hand tighter as I knocked, trying to hold on for ever.

The door was answered by Martin, the same butler who had chased me away from the fruit trees in the garden and snuck sweets for me. He didn't recognize me at first, and I felt oddly empty inside. Have I changed that much? He began to welcome me in the usual formal fashion.

"Martin," I interrupted. "It's me." He merely stared at me for a second or two and then did a double take.

"No! It can't be!" he said, dropping his formal air and ran to hug me. "I knew you'd return! Your father will be so happy."

"Martin look at me," I said. my voice shaking and I was afraid I'd betray myself and Alice. I wanted so badly to see Daddy again but I knew once I did it would be all over. "I'm not going to stay, but my daughter is."

Martin looked at Juliette, noticing her for the first time and me for the last. Her great gray eyes that I had learned to love as her own not her fathers were filled with fear, her round rosy cheeks were unusually serious, the red ribbons I had wound in only this morning were already falling out of her thick curls. "I've messed up my life already, but she's got a future Martin, she's going to be someone."

"That she is," said a voice that was too deep to be Martins. I was shaking head to toe.

"Daddy!"

He emerged from the shadowy hallway and I ran to him. He held me in his arms like he did when I was little. For a while neither of us could speak for our tears. Finally Daddy spoke.

"Satine, please promise me you'll never sneak off again. I can't stand it."

I knew I'd told Alice, who was staying at a nearby hotel for she was not even able to come near the house without feeling ill, that I would be quick. Then she felt ill all the time now so it probably made little difference.

"I promise," I whispered, I hadn't meant to say it and when I did I knew it must be a lie and once I heard my own voice I knew it was true.

"Martin get us tea, you two must be hungry." I was going to deny it, find someway out of here quick, but Juliette beat me to it.

"I'm fumished!" she announced.

Somehow I ended up in the dinning room of the house I grew up in, eating biscuits and sipping tea. This was one place I'd never expected to see again. I felt empty inside, despite the cookies. Servants kept hugging me and telling me how they missed me and Rosa dropped the teapot she was carrying to us when she caught sight of me. Then she bustled Juliette off to take a bath, she hadn't been washed since we'd left nearly a week ago, leaving me alone with my father.

"Daddy, I promised I wouldn't run away again but . . ."

"Satine, I can tell you have changed. You're still young but you are no longer a little girl. If you feel you must go than I will not stop you."

"Oh Daddy!" I cried. We hugged again and I'd never wished more that I wasn't leaving.

"You'll take care of Juliette for me?"

"Of course, I've been so lonely."

"Promise me something."

"Anything"

"If I don't come back, and she grows up, let her marry someone closer to her own age ok?" Daddy just smiled.

Juliette came out of the bath, her wet curls rapped in a towel, he cheeks wet from the heat. She was wearing a pink dressing gown that I recognized as mine, it had been my favorite.

"Mummy is something the matter?" she smiled and hugged me. "It'll be ok mummy, I promise."

By now Alice was asleep and I wanted nothing more than to bury my face in my hands and cry my eyes out but somehow no tears came. Instead I was left with a numb empty feeling that was worse than crying. Perhaps my father had been right, and I had matured a little. I knew whatever I was feeling was probably minuscule to the pain Alice was in, both physical and emotional.

So in that way I had grown, when I was a silly dreamer of a child who wanted to wear glass slippers and kiss handsome princes, I had only thought about myself. Now there was Juliette to worry about, Daddy would take care of Juliette, he was a good father in so many ways better than I was a mother. He was kind hearted and generous while secretly I was still wanted to be the center of attention, I was still in so many ways a spoiled little girl.

Then there was Alice. It should be easy to blame everything on my older sister; I had done it countless times before. For some reason right then, Alice was very hard to be angry with. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she had just leaned her chalk white head on my lap and was sleeping with her mouth slightly open which put me in mind of the way Juliette looked when she climbed into my bed after a nightmare, although her skin was far whiter. Alice had always been there for me, now I got to do something for her.

When I was growing up it had been just me and Alice in a world of adults who thought children were to be seen and not heard, neither of us ever had any friends. We were very different and perhaps if we had a chance to make other friends we would have drifted apart in our different social groups. As it was, Alice was the one who taught me how to climb trees without ripping my skirt, who read me thrilling "penny nasties" and showed me how to hide them behind my mirror so no one would see them.

She had a simple charm about her that I, with all my dramatic scenes, could never match. I could lie and cheat and deceive without flinching but Alice never needed to. All she had to do was widen her big chestnut eyes and smile her in her most innocent smile to be given whatever she wanted. I had been jealous of her, in awe of her. I had worshiped her.

Then something happened that increased both my envy and my admiration her. She grew up. Alice was nearly five years older than I and when she turned fourteen, I was still only nine, much too young to care about things like boys. But Alice cared so I did too. Around that time Daddy had a new French cook. He made wonderful crepes and bread but spoke hardly any English. That's not the important part anyway. He had a son, Louis, who was studying as his apprentice but who really had no desire to follow in his fathers footsteps. I talked to him once and he told me that. He said all he really wanted was a nice wife and to have lots of children. I didn't pay much attention to him. He was older than me but not yet and adult and I was nervous around people that age. Alice on the other hand spent almost all her time watching him. I for one didn't know what the big deal was.

Then I caught them in the woods doing something strange and interesting. It was early fall and the leaves in their gold and pinks matched Alice's hair and cheeks so perfectly it was hard to tell if the trees where imitating her or her them. I remember it so clearly, that's when Alice became my god. For two years they kept themselves secret, when she was sixteen Daddy caught them together. There was a huge row. Daddy threw Louis out and fired his father. Alice for me was Juliet, the upper-class girl who was forbidden from true love.

She left a month later, she didn't tell me she was going to leave, and she played a game of checkers with me and made me cocoa and put me to bed. I should have suspected something when she let me win the game. She was gone the next morning.

I watched Alice twitch fitfully beside me. She hadn't been sleeping right I took her white hand in my own and covered her shivering body in my cloak. I kissed her on the cheek and stroked her soft curls, just as she had done for me when I was five and had had a bad dream. Now it was my turn. I was the one who would take care of her. I would sing her to sleep and make her cocoa and she'd get better and we could grow old together. She stirred and mutter something I couldn't understand.

"Satine?" she whispered. "They're coming. Don't let them get me." I hugged her although I didn't know what she was talking about. "Stay here"

"All through the night I'll be standing over you" I sung softly. "All through the night I'll be watching over you and through bad dreams, I'll be right there, baby holding your hand, telling you everything is all right and when you cry I'll be right there telling you, you were never anything less than beautiful, and so don't you worry. I'm your angel standing by."

A single tear rolled down my cheek on to her hair as we pulled up into the station where it was snowing.