Disclaimer- I don't own Moulin Rouge, not even the video tape. My life sucks.

Thanks for everyone who reviewed, reviews rock my world. Special thanks to Janice, my amazing beta, who answered my desperate calls for help (at three in the morning...) and even reminded me ever so kindly that there was no NYC ballet in 1900. Where would I be without her?

With out furthur ado!


Chapter 5

Danielle woke up to the sound of someone retching it the next room. The sour smell was drifting in through the open door. For a second, Danielle thought it was her mother, on one of those days where Alice didn't get dressed until evning and drank only one sip out of each glass of water they brought her. Danielle remembered the designs the light made of the wall as it sifted though the curves of the hundreds of cups left in the living room. She used to trace them with her fingers, imagining they were angels. Danielle pulled on her dressing gown and didn't leave her room. She suspected it was Juliet, forcing herself to eat because Christian was there.

Danielle thought about how Christian's effect on all the Desmereges was painfully obvious from his first night there, although none so much as the effect he had on Louise. She listened to every story he told, her eyes a big a saucers. She spent hours locked in her room, painting pictures on her walls and scratching away poems in the diary she'd never used before.

She took to wearing only an ugly, shift-like brown dress that she'd had forever. She knit herself an outrageous striped scarf and stockings to match. She stopped brushing her hair, and it became wildly curled and strangely. She could be heard singing at any chosen time, in the kitchen, the garden although not the bathtub. She had also adopted a bohemian odor.

"I love Paris in the springtime! I love Paris in the fall! I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles! Ooh, I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles!" Danielle shook her head. Louise would get over it; she had done the same with Shakespeare, Beethoven, mid-evil England, Cleopatra, horses and the brown eyed boy next-door.

Christian had become gradually become a permanent resident at the Desmereges house, something Danielle and Juliet both resented. Danielle spoke to him whenever she had a chance, but she always sounded more cold and detached than she intended to.

Pierre was silent, but since he was Pierre, this was little change. He hadn't always been quiet, although both Danielle and Louise had always over powered him. When they were little he used to be the joker, making his sisters laugh and even his parents. But the older he grew, the quieter he became.

No one dared look in Pierre's eyes anymore. It was scary to watch him, because he was never just happy. There was always something holding him back. A memory, the crumpled papers on Louise's floor, remembering that he and his sisters are almost completely alone in the world. There was always something in the way.

If you caught it Danielle was sometimes just happy, when she'd forgotten everything to laughter. Louise is angry a lot, but she's happy a lot too. Even sad Juliet has the most beautiful smile. Alice was happy and she knew how to make others happy, but Alice was dead.

Danielle barely remembered Satine. She knew she had been very beautiful, just like her sister. She remembered her best when she wasn't trying to think about her. She'd be reading a book or playing piano and she'd see Satine out of the corner of her eye.

It wasn't the Satine she remembered, the round, smiling girl with a baby in her arms. The Satine she saw now was thin and dirty, more often than not it would just be Louise, watching her in that silent Louise-ish fashion. Haughty and proud yet utterly perplexed that people acted as they did.

Spring was coming in a whirlwind of flowers and picnics. Danielle loved spring more than any other season. She didn't join the others on the boats but took would accompany them with a novel or a sketch book.

Louise looked at her critically from the boat. She was the artist, as she had made clear many times, Danielle's sketches we text book and lacked her depth and color. Even Juliet, the notorious book worm, was too drawn by the fresh air to stay on shore.

Danielle knew for Juliet, spring meant two things, the first being ballet. When the roads cleared they would ride to the studio twice a week and Juliet would have her dance lessons. All the children had taken ballet when they were younger, even Pierre.

Danielle had been the first to give it up. She knew early on she didn't enjoy falling on her face. Pierre was surprisingly good, but Mr. Desmereges wouldn't have a sissy grandson, pulled him out. "The first boy in our family in generations and they're trying to make him a girl."

Louise was of course, the top of her class. She never practiced but she had been gifted. Surely a future in the Russian Ballet awaited her. But she was Louise, fickle and easily bored with the conformist moves in the ballet classes. Besides, they didn't have levels high enough for her at the studio anymore. She quit when she was twelve, still dancing at their recitals but never going to class. Juliet alone continued to really pursue it. She wasn't a swan like Louise but she worked at it. Danielle ventured downstairs to see Christian watching her leave in a carriage with her grandfather.

"Where is she going now?"

"Ballet lessons."

"Ballet!"

"Yea, she's been doing it forever." Danielle knew what he was thinking. Out of all of them, Juliet seemed the least likely to have any dancing talent. Danielle herself wasn't particularly graceful but she didn't trip over her own feet either. Juliet on the other hand was notoriously clumsy and prone to doing just that.

Danielle was saved from any further explanation when Louise came bounding into the room, her cheeks rosy from the heat. Christian immediately lost all interest in everything else. Rather annoyed for her cousin's sake, Danielle wandered outside.

The climbing roses had already sent their vines up the side of the veranda. Several buds could be seen. In no time at all, she was sure they would be heavy with white and pink blooms. These rose's always put Danielle in mind of her mother, who planeted them all over their old garden. These ones had been planted by her as a young girl. Danielle thought of her mother a lot these days.

If anything, Satine's death had brought her mother's death to the surface again. When Alice died, her body was brought by train. Danielle remembered how Louise had asked when she'd be better and Pierre had tried to explain that death was permanent. Louise had hit him, telling him not to lie. It took Louise a few months before she actually cried, even then not grasping the term of forever, only upset because there was no mother to put her hair in ribbons.

Louise had distanced herself from the others growing up, always ahead of them, never touching. Juliet had been the opposite, clinging to Danielle ever since, when she was little, literally to her skirts and as they grew older she was dependent on her cousin, shy and meek with out her on her side.

Danielle had hoped one of them would grow up to look like Alice, she had been sure that if this happened, she would almost have her mother back. As Juliet had clung to her, she clung to that through her childhood. But Louise was red headed and didn't have a drop of maternal blood in her and Juliet was silly and ugly. Looking back she realized her fantasy had been no more real than the monsters under Julie's bed.

Danielle didn't go to dinner, it wouldn't be required when Mr. Desmereges and Juliet were both gone. When night had fully fallen, she returned to sit on the porch. Pierre was waiting for her.

"I didn't feel like dinner either," he admit, with out being asked. Danielle looked rather surprised. Twins often can read each others minds, but Danielle and Pierre weren't those kind of twins. Pierre had always been closer to Louise when they were little, although lately he had avoided everyone. For him to answer her question before she asked it was an odd feeling.

Danielle took a seat beside him on the wicker rocker. She remember how when she was little her feet had dangled above the ground when she swung on it. Pierre seemed to be remembering too, for he was rocking absentmindedly.

"Do you remember mother much?" she asked suddenly. He looked at her with his impossible to read eyes.

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "Sometimes I think I do, but I'm never sure if it's really her."

"Who else-" Danielle began. For the second time that night, he answered her before she could ask.

"You, Danielle."

Danielle sat rocking in silence. She wanted to hug Pierre for some reason, to tell him that she needed him to be there for her, but she knew she'd just embarrass him. He was far too old for hugs now.

"I'm going to bed." He said suddenly.

"Right." Danielle watched him go, unsure if she was tired. A carriage was coming up the drive. Not wanting to talk to either of the people in it, she decided she was indeed exhausted.

As she walked up to bed, Danielle caught a glimpse of someone very familiar though the half open door of the guest room. She stopped, her heart racing. With a mournful creak, she slowly pushed the door the rest of the way open, wanting to believe but not wanting to be let down again. She was being silly.

Her heart skipped a beat as she came face to face with a full length mirror. She stared into it and her mother stared back, with big tired eyes and blond ruffled hair, coming to comfort her after a nightmare, pale with the exhaustion that had killed her. Danielle shook her head. It was her own reflection, she had become her dream.