Therapy

Chapter Two: Nightmares

Disclaimer: I don't own Moulin Rouge.

Satine fell asleep quickly and settled into a dream

She was ten years old. It was summer, and she was playing outside with another child. Although the child felt familiar, in her dream he or she had no face. It didn't matter. All that mattered to her was the game of hide and seek she was playing. Satine saw herself run and hide behind a large rock. Suddenly, the wooded area she was playing in turned dark. The child she had been playing with was gone. She stood up from behind the rock, and felt something, no, someone grab her. She was dragged deeper and deeper into the woods, to a place where there were no nearby houses and more importantly to her attacker, no nearby people. Satine was no longer simply observing her younger self in the dream, she was now reliving the events. The dark figure moved closer and closer to her, and she began to cower away. She was sobbing, and yelling out for him to go away

Christian woke up upon hearing Satine yelling in her sleep. "No, please! Don't hurt me! Who are you? NO! Stop!" The yelling got louder and louder each time. Not knowing what else to do, Christian gently shook Satine's arm. "Satine, it's ok. Wake up" he said.

The man in Satine's dream didn't go away, no matter how loud she screamed. He grabbed her shoulders, and shook her violently. Everything hurt. The man continued to hurt her until he gave up and walked away, leaving a broken little girl alone in the woods. In her dream, Satine saw herself close her eyes. Suddenly, a voice snapped her back into reality.

"Satine, it's alright. Calm down" Christian was still trying to quiet Satine's cries. Suddenly, her eyes opened and stared at him. Instead of cowering into him, which is what Christian was expecting, Satine began to cower away. It was as if she was still in her dream. Even though she knew she was looking at Christian, she still saw the dark figure. When she reached the edge of the bed, she leapt off and crawled into the corner of the room. She was still crying and yelling for the man in her dream to go away. Once she reached the corner, she made herself as small as she could and continued to sob, although the pleas of "No" had ceased. Christian was confused, but walked over to Satine anyway. He slowly knelt beside her and stroked her hair.

"Satine, what's wrong? It's alright now. You just had a bad dream. I'm not going to hurt you" he said softly. Satine lifted her head and looked at him. Suddenly, she realized that she was no longer in the dark woods. She was at home, with Christian. He would make everything better. She threw herself into him, and continued to sob. Eventually, she cried herself back to sleep. Christian sat on the floor with her in his arms. "What was that?" he wondered. Satine had never mentioned having nightmares before, and the one time she did spend the night at his garret nothing like this had ever happened. He decided to leave the finding out for later as he carried Satine to the bed. He looked at the clock. It was now seven in the morning. Christian was tempted to go downstairs and make breakfast, but he didn't want to leave Satine. Instead, he simply sat on the bed next to her and watched her until she woke up, much more calmly this time. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him.

"Hey. How are you?" he asked. Satine looked around for a few moments, and remembered the events of a few hours before. She started to cry again, but not as hard as last time. "Christian, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" she said in between whimpers. Christian gently put his arm around Satine. "Baby, you have nothing to be sorry about. You just had a bad dream." He said. Satine only nodded. Christian decided now would be as good a time as any to ask her about the nightmare. "Do you have dreams like that a lot?" he asked. Satine nodded again. "Almost every night. I've been having it for years, but I haven't been that scared for awhile, though." She had stopped crying. Christian took her hand in his. "Want to go have some breakfast?" he asked. Satine nodded, and they went downstairs. Christian insisted he cook breakfast. As he was preparing the meal, he thought about last night's events. Having the same nightmare night after night for years was not normal, and what happened last night was defiantly not normal. Satine needed help. And Christian was going to get it.