Author's note-- this is a huge WIP that started complicated and has grown to mind-bending, waking-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night complexity. I have completed up to chapter six, but there's still a lot of work to be done on it, so updates may be sporadic. Many special thanks to Anna & Mindy [I've put your names in alphabetical order, because I didn't know who I should thank first ;-)] for reading this along the way and telling me very nicely that it didn't suck. lol. And yes, I know I shouldn't be starting something new when I still have so many unfinished WIP's, but this was a persistent little bunny, and I still maintain that Just to Love *will* be finished. Soon. *g*

It's rated PG-13 for now, but be aware that the rating might change. I doubt it'll go up to NC-17, but if it does, you'll be able to find it at http://www.sepia-gold.net and http://sarahlouise.livejournal.com

~Chapter One~

Looking back, I can see that it all began with that letter. It was December, the sky was grey and lifeless and my eyes were still fuzzy with sleep. I barely stumbled through breakfast and polite conversation, the winter chill was deep despite the fire in the grate, and there was fury in the wind as it hurled itself against the shutters. Although a newspaper was open in front of me, it was as forgotten as the cold piece of toast on my plate. I ought to have been getting up and beginning the day, but just as I thought of stirring myself, Mary, our silent housekeeper, dropped an envelope by my hand. The neat, hand-written address made my stomach lurch. I didn't usually receive personal letters, and an instinctive voice whispered that this couldn't be good news. I I tore it open with shaking hands and a sense of foreboding.

All my instincts were answered in Satie's tight, sloping handwriting. He didn't waste any time on pleasantries, and the words stumbled all over the page in the chaos of grief. Toulouse was dead.

The news didn't register, not in any real sense. Everything seemed small and deliberate--the breakfast dishes clattering about me, the rain splattering the window, a clock clanging nine in the distance. There was a hollow in my heart that must have been sorrow. Dead. Before Satine, I don't think I knew what the word meant. I didn't understand then, you see. Didn't understand how long forever is, or the way the future suddenly falls into grey-blue twilight.

The news didn't surprise me; Toulouse had been drinking himself to death long before I'd left Paris. That didn't help much, though, and the letter fell on the table with the dull thud of grief. I glanced outside wearily. The sky was hazy, shades of winter and grey, and leaves lay on the ground in colourless piles. I shivered as the December wind shook the windows and pushed the fog damply about the sky. Toulouse was dead.

Another link in the chain of my former life had disintegrated, yet there weren't any tears. Not for Toulouse, not for anyone. They'd all been cried, long ago- they'd almost drowned me in their salty tracks. Yet here I was still, the bohemian carefully disguised with starch and a collar, the poet with shuttered eyes and empty heart.

Somehow, over the years, I'd found ways to lock away the things that hurt me the most, and there was only one place for this letter. My chair scraped cruelly as I pushed it away from the breakfast table, one step steadily following the other to my quarters at the back of the house. I dug in the top drawer of my desk, finding what I wanted amongst a mess of pens and ink blotters. It wasn't much to look at- a simple key, tarnished with brown freckles. Considering what it held locked away, I sometimes fancied that it should be more; gold and ornate, fastened with a satin ribbon, perhaps. But it was just an ordinary key, no matter how much this offended the poet that refused to die completely.

This drawer, and what it contained, was the edge of the abyss. I avoided it as much as possible; little wonder that it sighed unwillingly as I wrenched it open. I think I sighed unwillingly, too. Symbols of broken dreams lay neatly stacked within; an illusory order that hid melancholies so deep that escaping them was like outrunning the wind. I'd cried over these items, hurled them at the wall, slept with my face pressed against them wailing for a chance to wake up in a different morning.

The program from that fateful opening night, wrinkled with old tears. A letter Satine had left on my pillow early one morning. "Bon matin, mon cherie." A poem that had arrived on one of those summer nights when day lends the night its fairest face and dresses it in a finery of stars. Satine had waited for me to scribble the final lines, laughing in pink silk. Then the evening-blue had deepened and the poem was forgotten in poetry of our own making; showers of kisses and warm fingertips, cinnamon scented candlelight and mumbled breath. The paper was yellowed, the edges marked with inky fingerprints.

Deeper down was the manuscript-our story, the one Satine had begged me to write. I'd never had it published; it held too many shadows of my heart. I couldn't bear to hand it over, to share that final piece of her. I couldn't bear the questions and the pity. It was selfish, denying Satine her chance at redemption. I knew that. Somewhere deep down, I suspected I was denying myself the same thing. It didn't matter though. No matter how sternly I talked to myself, I couldn't let it loose.

Even the silk kimono still lay there, softly folded. It tumbled through my fingers as I held it, slippery as time and memory. Its scent was still fresh as a smile and as it mingled with the heavy mahogany, my heart caved in despite the years.

Then there was the photo. I can still summon the day it was taken in every detail. Words were my castle, but this photo made me an artist. Expressions, features, every stray strand of hair and delicate eyelash were caught lightly in my mind's eye. Perhaps that's why it has always seemed so… well, alive. After all these years, I've hardened to almost everything else, but this photo… it's like touching the past.

The past. Sometimes I imagine that time, too, can crack, the same way hearts and dreams crack and break. Sometimes I wonder if there are ways to slip through, places outside memory and faded photographs where those we loved live on. Even after four years, I sometimes hear Satine's voice behind me, and turn with a smile at my lips. There are days when I awake with a poem like a half-remembered dream, and run for the typewriter, forgetting that I sold it to pay the rent one foggy morning.

That was before I'd foregone Paris for good, when I was struggling to keep a crumbling roof above my head and food on the table, all the while questioning the point of either. It was before I'd locked my secrets away and crept home, to a job in my father's bank and the knowledge that one morning, quite soon, middle age would creep upon me.

---

My return home hadn't exactly been greeted with enthusiasm. It had been winter then, too-almost Christmas, in fact. It seemed the perfect time to be welcoming home a prodigal son.

The snow had flung itself at my feet as I dragged luggage and a heavy heart through the streets. Through the frosted windows, I'd seen Christmas trees, decorations, all the trimmings of the season. I'd wondered briefly what a Christmas with Satine would have been like; I think I enjoyed punishing myself endlessly for the sin of being alive and cold and hungry when Satine was gone. The freezing wind froze the tears on my face, but it didn't matter, because I didn't have time for the luxury of hot, coursing tears now.

Father had answered the door that day, dressed in a suit on a Saturday afternoon. His voice was thin with disdain.

"Ah. So, you're back. I'm not surprised." He'd turned his back, leaving me to carry my luggage alone as his footsteps echoed in the hallway.

It's different here. I'd become used to crazy schemes and laughter, but this is a place where you could find a rut and stay in it undisturbed. The house might be big, but it holds its neglect quietly, hiding it in dark corners. The housekeeper misses spots because she knows that my parents don't see the dust as well as they used to, and the furniture in the living room is rubbed and becoming threadbare. It's the kind of musty house that gets left to an ungrateful heir, who sells it immediately and is glad to be done of it. There's money to fix it all, of course, but there's no inclination.

"It's too difficult," my father says.

"What's the point-nobody sees it but us."

Father's getting older, and his voice rasps slightly as he rants and yells. He fills his space less impressively now; there's a hint of a stoop to his shoulders. Mother is as she always was; a faded blonde butterfly, cowering inside clothes that are fashionable without making a statement. She was always my ally when father wasn't looking, but she'd never found the strength to stand up to him. She'd slipped me Á100 when I'd left for Paris, along with furtive whispers to keep in touch. I'd tried; faithfully posting edited highlights of life on the hill above Paris, hoping that they reached her.

She doesn't fight for me anymore, though. It's as though my loss has communicated itself to them, insidiously. They're tired; I can feel it in their shuffling footsteps and murmured conversations.

I have quarters at the back of the house; a bedroom, this office, a sitting room. It's all dressed in shining antique furniture that isn't comfortable, but which might have cast a lovely glow about the room if the sunlight ever reached it.

It isn't all bad. It's a far cry from Paris, where the roof leaked and my one blanket was falling into holes. There are acquaintances at the bank who are almost friends. They're not Toulouse and I'm thankful for that, because Toulouse would've called me on the shadow I'd made of my life. They don't, they just invite me home for dinners and Sunday lunches, parading their carefully dressed children about as though a slice of family life might be just the tonic I need. I just smile politely on these occasions, feel welcomed yet know I don't belong. I praise the new dining table and the roast beef, offer an unconsidered opinion on the best school and what colour to redecorate the entrance hall, but it's a thin charade.

I didn't care on the day I stepped of the train, and I haven't come to care in the years since. This isn't living, but it's a life-one I can survive, if not celebrate. My scars set me too far apart to allow anything else. Living like this is necessary, I say. It keeps angry landlords and well meaning friends away, but it keeps other things away too. Coughing, sawing breaths; walking the line between life and death with rose petals in my hair. The way blood stains pure white fabric.

Yet even here, amongst all the chilly mahogany and wealth, my mind still strays sometimes. I can't help it; I'm a refugee in a land that is safe but strange, and sometimes I long for days full of poetry and bright lights

I know they whisper about me, my family and acquaintances. They wonder at the depth of my silences, and about the way I make the piano ache with melancholy late at night. They wonder what stole the light from my eyes and the lustre from my dreams. They don't ask anymore, but I overhear their earnest conversations sometimes. There's always that thrill to their voices, telling me that the speculation delights them far more than the truth ever could. The truth would leave them nothing to wonder over, and they enjoy wondering; they're dogs tearing at a bone.

Yes, he's never been the same since he arrived back from Paris. Mopes about, you know. Needs to pull himself together. No, nobody knows why, although of course, you hear the most dreadful stories. The things that go on over there! One wonders what he might have been mixed up with…

---

The photo's still there, staring up at me quietly. Despite its frayed edges and old-tea colouring, it scares me. It sweeps me up in such desperate sorrow that I feel myself draining away, becoming a shadow. That's when I know there's no real end to this tunnel. There are sunny days and candlelight but always, always beyond that lies darkness. This photo just confirms that I can try to outrun my grief, but it still lurks around every corner. But I'm feeling reckless today and I refuse to avert my eyes.

Satine and I stand in the garden of the Rouge. It was one of those summer days where nightfall is like slipping into a deep, dark pool, and it shows on our faces-relief mingled with exhaustion. It's an unexceptional photograph, really. The composition is flat and the shades are too dark. Only hindsight makes it special. Despite the pain, today I can't help but smile when I look at it.

Photography was one of Harold's enthusiasms. In those black and white squares, he'd found the perfect combination of showbiz razzmatazz and plain old business opportunity. All he needed was a photographer willing to hand the world a peek behind the red curtain; the costumes, the lavish sets, the tale of forbidden love. And, of course, Satine, the dazzling centrepiece of it all, the one who would set the ticket sales jumping.

I'd hated the idea. The thought of having everything I held pure-my work, my love- sold off before a camera revolted me. I refused to be involved, beyond one obligatory, brooding photograph. I couldn't leave Satine to walk home alone, though, so I'd sat outside in bad grace the whole afternoon, twirling cigarette papers in my hands and throwing the scraps on the path. The heat made me irritable, my clothes scratched at me and the bench I sat on was hard and uncomfortable. It all dragged on until one by one, the cast succumbed to the haze of late-afternoon and there was nobody left but Satine, the photographer and I.

It was all Satine's idea. It had seemed unlike her, at the time-- she wasn't usually sentimental. She'd insisted on this, though, grabbing my hand and dragging me through the garden, whilst charming the photographer into cooperation and secrecy over her shoulder.

"It's a great secret. If you could just deliver the picture at noon tomorrow -and don't let anybody see you!"

There I am, four years younger, my face alight amongst the creeping shadows. I'd almost forgotten that I could look so--unburdened. I smiled easily, my arm slung around Satine's waist. It was a stolen moment; one we could be natural in, and there's not a hint of foreboding. If there had been, perhaps I would've held her more tightly, would've kept one eye on her even as the photographer demanded we smile. My hair's a damp mess-summertime hair, and there's a smudge of ink like a shadow on my cheek. Satine had laughed about that later, affectionately exasperated.

"My poor Christian, always with his head in the clouds. Whatever will the fashionable citizens of Paris make of our great writer, all smudged ink & floppy hair?" she'd teased.

As always, my focus drifts back to her. This photo stood apart from all the others. I had pictures of her trapped in glitter & lace, fiery & innocent, lost & found. Flirting, pouting, smiling sweetly, playing every pretence. But this one was just the Satine I'd known in the quiet moments before dawn. As the camera had clicked, she'd whispered something. The picture had just caught it, and even though the words were lost, I could still feel the rush of breath against my cheek, warm and soft like spring. Even now, I silenced myself as I held the photo in my hand. It seemed to quiver, and I strained to catch those lost words.

There was nothing though. Not a sound, not a murmur. There never was, just the drumbeat of blood in my ears. Disappointment squeezed me in its vice, and I threw the photo back in its locked drawer, leaving us to smile on endlessly in our immutability.

---

I suppose it's still there. Paris, that is. I wouldn't know- Paris now seems like a mythical place, more metaphor than fact. It's become a symbol of my loss. I remember the colour, though-the bursts of flowers at every street corner, the skirts flashing on the dance floor, the electric avenue that was Boulevard de Clichy. When I dreamed of Paris at all, I dreamed in colour. No doubt, though, the Seine still flowed majestically about the city and people still brushed shoulder-to-shoulder along the narrow streets. Perhaps they still flooded the shiny boards of the Rouge, those citizens of sin, stamping their feet to their own rhythm, wild and lost in expectation and painted debauchery. It was oddly comforting, to think that it might not have changed. It was still a place that Satine would've recognized.

---

The days picked up speed; I'd designed it this way, to hide the empty moments. In the forced rush, I forgot that the photo lay mouldering in the darkness. This was how I'd survived the past four years. Not by being strong, not by rebuilding the shattered pieces into a life, but through frantic busyness.

By 6pm on a Friday the decanter of whisky was the only thing in my office worth looking for. A quick nip before dinner; a habit I'd fallen into easily. The drawer remained safely locked up and if the photograph was not exactly forgotten, it was at least out of mind.

Nonetheless, it found me. I almost placed my whisky glass on top of it, buried as it was amongst the scattered papers. A single lined corner peeked out.

I'd put it away; I was sure of that. Yet here it was. My thoughts picked up speed, jumping back three nights. I'd been standing here, I'd opened the door, locked it-- the key was still exactly where I'd left it. Surely I'd put the photo away-- hadn't I?

There was the tiniest hint of a shiver about me as I picked it up. It felt warm, as though it had been lying in the sun all day. The light was dim; it was dark outside and Father wasn't much for electricity. Lamps bathed the room in an antique glow, forcing me to peer very closely at the photo. There was electricity in my fingertips, it made me feel as though there was something terribly important that I'd forgotten.

My nose grazed the paper in my eagerness. I'm not sure what I was looking for-did I hope to find something, or to confirm that nothing had changed? I don't know, and it was irrelevant anyway, because something had changed. We were still there, still frozen on the page, but spilling across the sepia was the faintest trace of colour.