Teardrops on My Guitar

Disclaimer: I don't own the song or the movie. Shame. I'd be so rich and talented if I did.

Arabia groaned in pain as Chocolat laid her down Marie's bed.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his eyes searching her face nervously.

"Of course I'm alright," Arabia sneered sarcastically. "One could take into account that I've just had the shit beaten out of me, but other than that, I'm perfectly fine." She glanced at his face. A large bruise covered the entire left side of it, and the sigh of it made Arabia cringe inwardly. She felt guilty for feeling some strange joy that he'd taken it for her and that she'd been unable to defend herself against the men who'd injured them. She then wondered what Harold had been thinking when he'd let the mercenaries hired by the French and British crowns to fight in the Africas into the Moulin Rouge when he had two people of African descent there. Look at what had been done to them because of it! Sometimes that man was just too in love with his money.

"I'm sorry," she added, smiling brokenly. "I guess you took your knocks getting them off of me? I suppose you're my knight now?"

Chocolat snorted slightly, and Arabia found herself laughing along with him. That was, until pain shot up her ribs, and she gasped.

The door swung open, and Marie entered.

"China Doll told me what happened," the woman declared. Arabia tried to ignore the way Chocolat looked up at the mention of the Chinese courtesan's name. "Oh, Harold what were you thinking, letting them in here after they've come back from Africa? Oh, my dear, look what they've done to you."

"It's not so bad, Marie," Arabia said through clenched teeth.

And she meant what she'd said. The pain kept her from thinking on how she wanted there to be truth in that statement. She didn't bother to reflect on how their strange friendship. She didn't bother to reflect on how he talked to her too and put up with her teasing before she gave him advice about how to live and work in the brothel that she'd been in longer than he had or whether or not he should waste his money on some whore who would never be her because not purchasing her was his strange way of respecting her. There was one other whore on whom he would never waste his money. And Arabia couldn't help thinking that if they'd lived elsewhere and if that whore wasn't in there lives, their friendship could be an affair.

Drew looks at me.

I fake a smile so he won't see

That I want and I'm needing everything that we should be.

Arabia cursed herself mentally. She had no right to wish China Doll gone. After all, the girl was her only true friend in the Moulin Rouge, besides perhaps Chocolat, and the closest thing that she had to a sister. Even when she'd been living among her people in that place that foreigners called Arabia, she'd had only brothers, and she hadn't seen them since she was thirteen.

Arabia closed her eyes, trying to pack away the memories of that man who'd fancied himself a descendent of Marco Polo in the place where they belonged in the back of her mind. He'd already had an eleven year old China Doll by the time he'd taken Arabia, who hadn't been Arabia then but Phoulan. China Doll had had another name too: Ch'ai. They'd been friends then despite their differences.

Ch'ai was beautiful, quiet, and intuitive while Phoulan was witty, sharp-tongued, striking instead of pretty, and at times insensitive. Ch'ai had had many sisters, all of whom she'd loved while Phoulan had never gotten along with her three older brothers who hated her sharp-tongued, over-opinionated ways. Ch'ai had come from wealth and privilege while Phoulan's family had always been low-ranking and poor. But perhaps when there is no one else, one goes to the only person who is close. Besides, Ch'ai was an avid listener, and Arabia a witty talker, and it was because they managed this friendship that they'd escaped their master and come to the Moulin Rouge where they became China Doll and Arabia and left Ch'ai and Phoulan back wherever their hearts lay.

I'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about,
And she's got everything that I have to live without

"Oh, stop putting on a brave face, Arabia," Marie chided, and the courtesan was grateful to her. Memories of Phoulan, Ch'ai, and the unnamed adventurer didn't belong in Arabia's head.

Marie began to pull out various herbs and balms, and when Arabia began to move away from her, Chocolat said, "Listen to her, Arabia. You're pretty badly off."

Arabia looked up so that she met his concerned eyes, and she hissed in pain as Marie applied the burning ointment to the bruise on her hip.

"You," she teased, looking up at him. "You were distracting me."

"You needed it," Chocolat replied.

Arabia laughed hollowly.

"Don't try that," Marie chided.

Marie was right after all. She'd laughed like that a thousand times before. She tried to stop herself from remembering another time that she'd laughed when nothing was funny.

"And then there was Angelique. She made me write her all these poems about how much I loved her—and they were bad, mind you— before her father found out and threw me out of the house and married Angelique off to the first man who made the offer just because he figured that she had to be lose if she was letting me court her," Chocolat continued, tipping his absinthe bottle. A single drop fell onto the floor. The stage manager frowned. He needed more liquor if he was going to tell Arabia of his romantic disasters. Of course, it was probably liquor that was making him recount them to his mocking friend.

"You're all out," Arabia teased.

Chocolat reached forward and tried to take her bottle.

"Now, now," she chided, "you can't be getting drunk off this. A little farther, and you'll have to pay me." Never mind that she wanted him that way. Never mind that she thought about him whenever she was her customers, particularly the unsavory ones.

The laughter died from Chocolat's face.

"Oh, I couldn't do that to you even if—er when—or is it for—anyway, I'm drunk," Chocolat said.

A genuinely hurt expression that seemed mocking nonetheless crossed her face. He didn't want her even a little when so many other men were driven mad with desire by her cancan and the promise of her body?

"Why not?" she forced herself to ask.

"Well, it wouldn't be fair, what with China Doll…"

"You're in love with China Doll?"

"Well, she listens, I mean not like you don't, but she's like me, I guess, and she's beautiful, and she understands me," Chocolat said. "She's been nice to mean. I mean, not like you're not nice. Well, you're not, but you're—I dunno—amusing, I guess. But she is too. Just in a different way. I guess I just like it better."

Arabia spitefully drained the rest of her bottle. As if she didn't understand him. When she looked back at her friend, she saw that he'd already passed out.

Drew talks to me.

I laugh cause it's so damn funny
That I can't even see anyone when he's with me.

He says he's so in love, he's finally got it right,
I wonder if he knows he's all I think about at night

"It hurts," Arabia replied. "I don't need more pain."

"You don't need Harold to throw you out on the streets because your face is ruined by bruises either," Marie replied. "Besides, it'll be better once it's done."

Once it's done? Arabia thought. Once what's done?

The night with the mercenaries back from the African wars, perhaps? Chocolat's love for China Doll? Arabia's strange desire to play the sitar that the misinformed Marco Polo had bought for her India that she still kept under her bed? The mournful sound of some love ballad whose lyrics were unknown that echoed in her head? Nini's random taunts stemming from the time that she'd seen Arabia playing the sitar and crying just a little? Her lingering belief in Allah if only because she needed some higher power to whom she could petition for a way out of the Moulin Rouge and her love mess with China Doll and Chocolat?

Her love was stupid. She was a whore. She shouldn't have fallen in love with anyone, especially not someone in love with another, not even the only man in her life who had ever been kind to her, the only male in the Moulin Rouge who would ever fight for the Diamond Dog's safety, and the only man in her life now who was of her race and her ideal of male handsomeness. Why in Allah's name couldn't she get out of it?

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do

"There, it's done," Marie said. Arabia opened her eyes and looked up.

"Honestly, I've never known you to get so distracted," Marie told her.

"Well, at least she's letting you tend to her without cursing, hissing, and complaining every step of the way," Chocolat remarked. Marie looked up at him for the first time.

"Oh, China Doll did tell me about your face," she said. "Here, I'll put something on it so that you can go back to work."

Chocolat sat down and allowed the stinging ointment to be applied to his wound without even flinching. Arabia gave him credit for that. He was stronger than she was. He was taking his heartbreak far better than she was. He wasn't feeling bitter towards China Doll or anyone else who didn't deserve his bitterness. She also doubted that she could have pulled those drunken men off of herself if she had been in his position or withstood the blow from the drunk whose reflexes hadn't been tampered by alcohol. She would bet that everyone else thought that she could have though. Everyone thought that nothing could touch her. Even China Doll still thought that. That one time that anyone could have seen the way that the dark-skinned stage manager took her breath away, even her closest friend and the most perceptive person that she knew had failed to take notice. Or had she?

"Ooh, China Doll, he's looking at you again," Urchin said in a loud whisper, coming up behind the other whore's chair.

Arabia's eyes snapped up from the newspaper she was reading.

"Who's looking, Urchin?" China Doll asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. Well, at least she'd sound puzzled to Urchin. Arabia knew that China Doll knew very well to whom the gossipy dancer was referring.

"Chocolat," Urchin replied.

"Hm, so he is," Arabia said, striding up to Urchin and China Doll so that she stood directly behind the younger girl. Urchin turned and nearly smacked Arabia with her hair as she did so. Her eyes widened at seeing the much taller courtesan behind her.

Arabia's eyes flickered from her two-inch long, immaculately manicured nails to Urchin's face and back again.

"Was there some more pressing matter of which you wanted to inform us?" Arabia asked.

"No, not really. I just thought that you'd find it interesting is all," Urchin said a little too brightly. She was obviously trying very hard to play it cool.

"Why would we find what's obvious to us all to be so very interesting?" Nini asked, coming to lean on one side of China Doll's chair. "Now shat, streetrat."

Urchin slid out of the only opening left to her and darted back to Babydoll, who seemed to find the whole situation very amusing.

"Do you want to teach Babydolls her own lesson?" Nini asked Arabia.

"It's tempting," Arabia admitted, "but I don't think that we should draw too much attention to the situation."

"I agree," China Doll said, tilting her head back to look at Nini and Arabia. "No use getting Chocolat in trouble because Babydoll and Urchin can't keep their mouths shut."

"What's wrong, my two countries?" Nini asked. "Why so protective? Hm?"

"It's just not worth the trouble," China Doll said simply.

Nini raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to say something.

"Oh come on, Nini, It's just Babydoll. Does she really bother you that much?" Arabia inquired, placing her hand on Nini's shoulder and squeezing it.

Nini hissed in pain as Arabia's sharp nails pierced her skin.

"Careful now, Arabia." Môme Frommage's rich voice echoed throughout the Four Whores' reserved corner. "No use scratching up poor Nini's skin anymore than that last man did."

Nini glared at the other woman when she placed her puffy hand on the spot that Arabia had just scratched.

"Now, China Doll, you're right about what you said," Môme Fromage continued. "Just don't let little Urchin or Babydoll hear you say it, or they'll assume that it's more than you just trying to protect the only man in the club who can be paid to regularly keep watch on us." Arabia was relieved that Môme Fromage's voice carried over to Babydoll and Urchin's corner.

"Well done on putting those two idiotic, ignorant sluts in their places, Môme," Arabia put in. Babydoll's painted mouth dropped open. Arabia had just used a term usually reserved for streetwalkers, not Rouge girls. "That's just what I was thinking. Now, China Doll, be nice to him, won't you?" She patted her friend on the shoulder. "He's my friend, and I think he's all of our friends."

Never mind that he can't ever be more than that, and that he wants to be more than your friend, and I want him to be more than mine, she thought. Just treat him right. He deserves it from her even if she can't give him all that he wants. You're lucky, China Doll. She didn't say it though. It mushier and stupider than anything that she would say, and may God damn her for thinking it.

"I will be, Arabia," China Doll said.

"What else is she ever?" Nini asked.

"Some men like nice, Nini," China Doll said.

Arabia's mouth almost dropped open in surprise. Had her friend just talked back to Nini Leg-in-the-Air? That was her job. Oh well. No use complaining.

"Does Chocolat like it?" Nini asked.

"Do you think that she's stupid?" Môme Fromage asked. "She wouldn't risk it. None of us would. It's the way it always must be."

Arabia overlooked the fact that Môme Fromage's and China Doll's eyes both focused on her at that moment.

"Listen to the old wise one, Nini," China Doll said, noticing Môme's gaze and Arabia's mouth, opened and ready to retort. "Arabia, let's see if you can out-dance me."

"Old?" Môme whispered to Nini. "I'm twenty four."

As both girls took the stage, all eyes focused on them. They were two of the three best dancers in the Moulin Rouge, and nobody ever ignored them when they were performing. As she whirled around and then leapt up in the air, Arabia noticed Chocolat watching them. Or rather, watching China Doll. He only glanced at her occasionally. She spun directly in front of the girl, putting herself into his line of vision and then kicked up into the air, forcing China Doll to duck, which the girl did with her usual grace. They continued to circle each other, kicking, spinning, and leaping whenever possible. Neither won as neither ever did. It was a tie as it always was. In the end, no matter which one was more beloved, richer, smarter, kinder, or wittier, they were equal on the dance floor, in employment, and in fulfilling any love that they might have had.

Drew walks by me.

Can he tell that I can't breathe?
And there he goes, so perfectly,
The kind of flawless I wish I could be.
She'd better hold him tight,

Give him all her love,
Look in those beautiful eyes

And know she's lucky cause

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.
He's the song in the car I keep singing,

Don't know why I do.

"Take her back to her room now, Chocolat," Marie ordered.

Chocolat complied and lifted Arabia from the bed.

"I can walk," she said. No use letting him know that she loved the feeling of just being in his arms despite the fact that she'd been held so many times before. Then again, when had a man held her that gently? She couldn't remember any other than the time that Chocolat had carried her from her bordello that night.

"You can't walk just yet," Chocolat admonished. "Try tomorrow when there's China Doll to help you."

Arabia cursed herself for being glad that he was still carrying her and that she had somebody to fall on when she needed it even if it was only for a moment. She might as well have been thirteen or fourteen year old Phoulan with some strong herder. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe it was because she'd once told Chocolat her true name when she'd been drunk. Maybe it was because he had that part of her that was her heart. Maybe that was why he could break it without even knowing it. Because he was breaking Phoulan's heart and not Arabia's. But then weren't they really the same thing? Maybe they were and maybe they weren't. It wasn't as though the difference mattered anymore. Nobody called her Phoulan, not even China Doll.

So I drive home alone, as I turn out the light
I'll put his picture down and maybe get some sleep tonight.
He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart.
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do.
He's the time taken up, but there's never enough,
And he's all that I need to fall into.

When they passed the stage, Harold came rushing over to them.

"She's alright?" he asked.

"She will be," Chocolat said gravely.

"Oh good," Harold said. "Wouldn't want to lose you, Arabia. You're so good at what you do."

Of course. That was all that she was good for. Making money. Allah forbid that anyone should tamper with Harold's need for gold, silver, copper, and paper.

"Well, Chocolat, just have Audrey take her up to her room. We need you to look after everyone else," Harold continued, summoning the other stagehand to them in seconds.

Chocolat opened his mouth to protest until Harold leaned in to whisper, "China Doll has a particularly rough one right now, and I don't know if I can trust the Argentinean to watch her. You know how he is, always fainting at random."

Harold had said the magic words, and Chocolat passed Arabia off to Audrey with only a glance.

Arabia gave him her signature grin as he walked away, leaving her alone with her injuries and her broken heart to go make sure that the same didn't happen to China Doll. Such a shame that he only saw half of what had been done to her.

Drew looks at me.

I fake a smile so he won't see.

I'm not unhappy with it. I think. I just hope that that was in character for everybody. Well, please review.