~Chapter Three~

I lay awake all night, finally slipping beneath my exhaustion as dawn painted the first streaks of silver across the sky. I was terrified that if I fell asleep it would all be gone.

Satine fell into a haunted sleep long before I did. She tossed and turned and clung to me all night, and I was grateful in a way. It helped me to stay awake. I half wanted to wake her, to make the most of whatever time I had left in this strange world. It worried me, though. All the time we'd had together, I'd thought of how much I needed her. I'd never dared to think how much she might need me too, not until it was almost too late. Now that I knew it, how could I leave?

I doubted I'd get much choice in the matter though. The last thing I expected was to wake the next morning to sunlight and Satine's arms tangled about me, her hair flames across my grubby pillowslip. I'd forgotten what it was like to wake up with another person; to hear the soft gust of her breathing and the whispers and sighs of her dreams. To have that presence next to me, that strength and warmth, the unexpected brush of skin upon skin. I'd missed it.

Being here, still, made me want to put faith in miracles again. Every second I spent here strengthened the whisper in my heart. "Maybe, just maybe, I'm not going back."

I sat up carefully, trying to life my arm from hers without disturbing her, but she woke and sighed, burrowing beneath the sheets and into the dent I'd left on the sheets. She was far too much a creature of the night to appreciate early mornings; it was one of the first things I'd learned about her.

I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

'Good morning.'

She smiled drowsily, half asleep still, and I kissed her again, the taste lingering and delicious on my lips. Her sighs and the sunlight pouring in the window were like drowning in a warm pool. All my dreams, my memories-- they'd been a poor substitute for this. I'd dreamt in colour, yes, but not in sounds, not in tastes. I kissed her again, harder this time, and danced my fingers down her forearm, trying to wake her up.

Her breath escaped in a small sigh. "Christian, stop it," she finally protested through a yawn. "You know I don't like mornings."

"Not even with me?" I tried to grin wickedly, and raised one eyebrow at her even though it was all tempered with the stillness of someone who still can't quite believe their luck. She laughed at that, finally opening her eyes and wincing as the sunlight hit them.

"Mmmm, well, you're not much use to me like this, are you, tormenting me and opening curtains. I just don't know how you can be so cheerful at such an awful hour."

Sitting down next to her; the bed creaked under my weight and jumped against the floorboards. I leaned over her, one hand resting next to her face, trapping her beneath me so that she fell into shadows. She looked tired in this light; her eyes drawn and rimmed with dark shadows. With a sleepy smile, she brought a hand up to touch my cheek, trailing her fingers down my neck and onto my shoulders. The sheets were tangled about her, but the lines of her body showed through their thin cover and her persistent warmth and smell of morning and sleep made me dizzy. My head felt heavy and confused. Taking a deep breath, I tried to find my thoughts. Something had been bothering me.

"You didn't sleep well." It was a statement, not a question. "You were tossing and turning all night."

I broke the mood, and she sighed and dropped her hand. My voice was quiet: neither of us had ever enjoyed these conversations much. I nagged too much-are you well, are you tired, where were you, you need more rest. I knew it. Even here and now, I was still doing it. I couldn't help it.

She looked away, staring out the window and speaking quickly. "Mmmm. I had--- bad dreams. No, not bad, just--- unsettling."

I hated this gnawing feeling in my stomach. I knew too much. I couldn't bear to watch it happen again.

She sat up quickly, leaning against me and wrapping her arms about me in a sudden rush of warmth and confidences. "I dreamt that you were gone, and everything… everything was different, and you'd forgotten about me." She kissed my neck, gently, and I tried to freeze frame the moment, the sunlight dappling the floor, making the white cotton bed sheets glow, Paris waking up outside my window and Satine, sitting cross legged on my bed, kissing my neck, talking to me, alive.

"Somehow, in the dream, it all made sense. I knew why you'd--why you'd forgotten me, but I was still upset. I kept trying to talk to you and you couldn't hear me." She shrugged her shoulders. "Those dreams-- they make you feel so powerless. So trapped. Like you want to scream and can't."

I smiled weakly, wishing I hadn't brought this conversation up.

"It was just a dream," I whispered, trying to keep a tremor from my voice. "Forget about it."
---

Rehearsals were at eleven; it was all the same, and yet different. Maybe there was a message in it all for me, maybe it was just fate playing a joke. I was utterly at a loss. But I was still here, and for that I was grateful.

The dream gnawed at me. It was too close for comfort. Forgotten her. Why would she dream that I'd forgotten her? I hadn't forgotten her. I'd never forgotten her; she lived every waking second with me. And yet…

You've got to go on. You have so much to give. Tell our story, Christian. That way--I'll always be with you

She'd never wanted me to remember her in grief. She'd wanted me to go on without her, to live on through me in joy rather than tears. I knew that, but I didn't need a trip to the past to tell me that. I knew it, but I just couldn't do it. It wasn't that I didn't want to; I couldn't. I didn't know the way.

---

The rehearsal seemed to go well; I was too detached to notice and all I could think about was my next move, as though I were a pawn in a game of temporal chess. I tossed and turned ideas in my head: I knew my fiction well enough to know that I had to be careful, that any false moves could have catastrophic consequences. But I still kept coming back to the same point. I should get her to a doctor, as quickly as possible. I didn't know if it was possible to turn this world upside down, but I wanted to try.

Money was my other concern. Doctors cost money, and that was one thing that had always been in short supply. I thought of the opulence at home, the rolls of bank notes that Father kept in his pockets, and cursed it all now. I used to keep emergency money stored in a little wall cavity behind my bed- the bundle of ten pound notes Mother had slipped me as I'd walked out the door. It had been a matter of pride not to spend it, but what was pride, now?

"Nice work, family. Off you all go then, and we'll see you back here at 11 sharp tomorrow."

Harold's booming voice hadn't changed. I scurried off, hanging about in the wings for Satine.

I didn't hear her footsteps behind me, didn't even notice she was there until she slipped her hands over my eyes.

"Guess who?" she laughed, and then noticed my worried face.

"Don't worry-- they've all gone. You look so far away, Chris. " She shook her head at me, mock chiding me, but when I didn't smile back her face dropped. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I-- I need to talk to you."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "So. Talk."

"Not here." I inclined my head towards my apartment. "You know we can't talk here, there'll be someone walking by at any minute."

She sighed, whether out of frustration with me or the situation I wasn't sure. "Very well. Just let me get my coat. Will I meet you there in ten minutes? It might be best-- if we leave separately."

I nodded mutely, and hurried off.

---

My bed was heavier than it looked. I wrenched at it violently, and it moved just a few centimetres, with an alarming creak and a cloud of dust. It'd have to do. I got down on my hands and knees, crawling and sneezing in the dust flurries. It was a mess down here; scraps of notepaper, an old sock, chewed pencils. Amazing how much mess one person can make in a few months. I dug through it all, wishing I'd been tidier for once.

The skirting was loose in the corner, and with a tug it fell into my hands. There it lay, a bundle of ten pound notes. Salvation, perhaps. The door swung open as I was down there, and Satine stood elegantly in the doorway, looking at me with a perplexed expression.

"Christian? What are you doing?"

I jumped, knocking my head and scurrying backwards. She stifled a giggle, and I realised how I must look. My knees and elbows were white circles of dust, and I could feel a streak of dirt across my cheek. I would've laughed, too, but for nerves. I knew how she'd react to what I was about to ask her. Christian, you fuss too much. Christian, I'm fine.

"Oh, um.. well, I was… looking for something." I replied, brushing dust furiously from my knees.

She just laughed again. "Let me guess? A long lost poem? Your favourite pen? Hmm? Am I right?"

I smiled at that, shaking my head.

"You're being very mysterious today. What is it that's so terribly important that you had to spirit me away like this? Not that I'm complaining, mind…" she added as an afterthought.

I sat down beside her on the chaise, not caring that the dust all over me was making a mess of the furniture. It was beyond saving, anyway.

"Um, well." I started, clearing my throat. "You're probably not going to like this---"

"Christian, are you going to fuss again?"

I coloured in answer, looking down at my hands.

"Chris," she sighed. "You're very dear, you know that?" She paused, smiling as she caught my gaze. "You are, and it's, well it's lovely the way you worry about me, but really, I'm fine."

I shook my head, frustrated.

"No. No, you're not." I started tensely. She looked up at me, my tone shocking the smile from her face. I wasn't meant to be so bold-- that wasn't part of the game we played. I was meant to pretend I didn't see what was clear.

"Well, you're not. You know it yourself-- you don't sleep, you fell from the swing, you were sick here with me that night---"

"Oh, Christian, those were nothing. I was tired, that's all---"

I shook my head again, and dropped my voice an octave, trying to plead without sounding desperate.

"All I'm asking is that you see a doctor."

She sighed again. "Christian, even if it was necessary-which it's not--I don't have the money for something like that. Doctors do cost money, you know." Her voice was gently teasing, but firm all the same.

I paused slightly. She didn't have any money? What happened to it all-- the jewels from adoring patrons, the handfuls of cash? Did Harold keep it? How was it possible that she had nothing?

"The money doesn't matter. I've got money." I thrust the bills into her hand, and they tumbled to the floor and all over the chaise, falling like confetti. "See? I'll pay. I just--- please?"

A quiet look came into her eyes, and her voice dropped as though ashamed. "Christian, I can't take your money. I just-- it doesn't feel right. I don't want you to feel like you have to--- I can't take it, not from you."

I froze, remembering the night I'd thrown the money at her feet, her tears glittering beneath the makeup and stage lights. If only… if only I'd known then what I do now. I would've done so many things differently.

"Satine, it's not like that, not at all. I just want to take care of you, just for once." A note of bitterness crept into my voice. "You know none of the rest of them would-- Harold wouldn't take you to a doctor unless you were on your deathbed," I choked slightly on my choice of words. "Or, that Duke. Just--please. I worry about you- about how tired you look, how pale. Please, just this once?"

She sighed, and glanced down at the money lying between us.

"Christian, you're being--" she looked up, meeting my eyes. Heaven's knows what she saw there; I was frantic, close to tears. Her tone of voice changed.

"You're being very you," she finished finally, with a slight smile.

My shaky laughter was pure relief. "Is that good or bad?"

"Good. Infuriatingly so, but good all the same."

"So, you'll take the money? You'll go?"

She sighed, a soft look in her eyes.

"All right. Just this once."

---

The doctor arrived mid afternoon. A thin man with eyes that darted about anxiously, he refused to look directly at you when he spoke. Instead, he whispered vague pronouncements at the walls and the floor. He didn't inspire a lot of confidence; his hat was askew and he was wrapped in a brown, shapeless jacket that smelled like the damp of neglected corners and rainy days.

"Now, now--- mustn't fuss---" he muttered as he herded me out of the room.

This time of day, mid-afternoon, always filled me with empty dread. It smacked of nothing in particular, neither cold nor hot, too light to be inside but far too late to make something of the day. Every little thing tugged on my nerves, from the baby wailing next door to Toulouse's well meaning hovering.

"Satine, she ith fine, Cwisthian. You worry too much," he chided, trailing off when I met his eyes with a cold glance.

"She hawdly ever coughs anymore--" he tried again, gamely, and I got up and turned my back on him, glaring out the window instead.

It was like a bad dream. I knew what he was going to say, before the words stuttered from his mouth. The only real question was whether I was too late.

---
I cornered the doctor when he finally emerged, trying to meet his eyes.

"Well?" I demanded, rudely.

He sighed as though I were creating a terrible nuisance, and fussed with his hat, trying to set it straight while my impatience grew wings. Finally, he replied, sounding terribly bored.

"The young lady is fine, Monsieur. One really shouldn't create a fuss over a little indisposition." He continued fussing with his coat, pulling out a ragged handkerchief and dabbing at his nose as though he'd said nothing at all.

Everything seemed still and ludicrous. My voice, tinged with hysteria, shattered it.

"Fine? How can she be fine?" I spat the word out. "You're wrong. You must've---made a mistake--or---"

His eyes threw out a spark of anger. "Monsieur James, I can assure you, I've practiced medicine for longer than you've been alive, and there is nothing wrong with her that a little rest won't cure. She has a slight touch of influenza, and she's exhausted. That's all." He sounded authoritative at last, as though I'd roused him enough to make a point.

"Now, there's a small question of payment---"

I thrust the money at him, notes splaying from my fingers. He folded it fussily, placing it inside an embossed pocketbook. I barely noticed as he stalked out, his ridiculous hat jammed down hard on his head. My thoughts kept pounding--no matter how I turned it, they were jigsaw pieces that refused to fall into place.

Fine. She was fine. How could-I didn't understand. I'd been so sure I knew what was going on. I was meant to save her- wasn't I? In all my dreams, that had always been the script. Now, everything made less sense than ever.