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“Are you ready to go on?” Nini asks Satine, because even though Harold promised her one more show, Nini wanted to be certain Satine hadn’t seen reason and changed her mind.
“Yes.” Satine turns away from the dressing room mirror and, instead of walking toward Nini, her knees appear to give out, and she nearly falls.
Nini lunges forward to catch her before she can hit the ground. This isn’t the first time Satine has lost her balance or needed support in order to remain upright since they’ve all learned about her consumption, but it is the first time that Satine hasn’t seemed able to regain her balance even with help. Panic flares in Nini’s chest as she realizes what must be happening.
It’s too soon, she thinks, lowering them both to the floor, trying to settle Satine gently while the other woman coughs, apparently too weak to even hold the handkerchief over her mouth any longer, arms dangling limply at her sides. Not now. Please not now. Please—give her more time.
“Stay here,” Nini says, stupidly, needlessly, because where else would Satine go? “I’ll find Christian.” Never mind that they haven’t seen Christian all day, never mind that no one even knows where he is. Nini will locate him and get him here before—well, before. Because Satine needs him. Because if she has to die, she deserves it to happen with the man she loves here, being held in his arms. Because, “He should be here. He should—”
“No!” The hand Satine wraps around Nini’s arm to stop her as she attempts to extricate herself from under Satine is weak, though her voice still has an impressively sharp edge to it. “Don’t go. Stay. You have to stay.”
Nini shakes her head in protest. “Christian—”
“—isn’t here.” Satine swallows hard, finishing the sentence for her. “You are.”
That two-word sentence lands like a kick to the chest. Nini doesn’t know what to do with that so she ignores it. “Don’t you want him here?” Nini asks, her voice so high it could potentially be classified as shrill. “Don’t you want—”
“Yes, Yes, of course I do. I love him,” Satine states, still attempting to catch her breath though they both know that will never happen again. “Or maybe I don’t want him here. I–I can’t bear to break his heart again; I’ve hurt him so much.”
“He’ll forgive you,” Nini insists. What he might not be able to forgive is not being here for this. Nini moves to get up but Satine digs her nails into her arm, intent on keeping Nini here by whatever means necessary.
Satine’s eyes are wide, sorrowful. “There isn’t enough time. Please, don’t leave me alone to…” A tear slips down her cheek.
“I’m right here. I’m not leaving,” Nini promises, brushing hair out of Satine’s face. Tears fill Nini’s own eyes and she tries to blink them away. “It isn’t supposed to go like this,” she protests, even as she settles in to stay, positioning Satine so Nini is supporting her upper back and keeping her head up, holding the other woman carefully in her arms. She can’t leave Satine to die all alone. She won’t. But it isn’t supposed to be Nini’s here, Nini’s arms holding her tight.
“If things went as they were supposed to, I don’t think I’d be sick. Things never work out that way; they just happen. They just are.” Leave it to Satine to become philosophical on her deathbed, talking about things not working out the way they should have as if the idea of what might have been isn’t going to haunt Nini, to keep her up at night.
“I meant—maybe this still has to be a tragedy, but you’re supposed to—this is supposed to happen with Christian here, not me. Like Romeo and Juliet or something.” Nini doesn’t even know what to say in this scenario. There’s scripts for this sort of thing when you’re both in love with each other—hundreds and thousands of stories like Christian and Satine’s being told throughout the ages—and Nini knows those lines, has memorized those parts; but they weren’t written for her.
She’s not the love interest being left behind to mourn her soul mate, she’s just—she’s just Nini, whatever the hell that means to Satine. Even Nini doesn’t know how to define what she is. A sister? A rival? A friend? A jealous bitch? An annoying pain in her ass?
A maybe? A might have been, a possibility, a perhaps, if Nini’d been brave enough to admit—
Nini might be any of those things, but there’s one very important thing she isn’t to Satine and that’s—
Perhaps in some other lifetime Christian is here, or Nini is still the one here but Satine had been in love with Nini the whole time instead, or Satine never fell ill at all, or—
But they aren’t in any of those lifetimes; they’re in this one. They have to deal with this one, and all of the wrong things happening within it.
Satine coughs again, weakly, her body arching upward with it. There’s less blood this time; Nini doesn’t think that’s a good thing. “It isn’t so bad,” Satine rasps.
“What—dying?” Nini asks incredulously, a humorless laugh spilling out of her and then her chin quivers when she realizes what she’s said. They’ve all been so careful not to use that word.
“You’re here,” Satine says simply. “I’m loved.”
Nini freezes, her heart seizing in her chest. “You’re—”
“I know the way you feel about me,” Satine says, studying Nini’s eyes intently. “You tried to hide it but, I know.” Nini can only blink, frozen, as Satine reaches up to cup her cheek. “Just because we weren’t in love doesn’t mean it mattered any less.”
Nini begins to laugh, almost hysterically, and then—as quickly as the laughter started—it devolves into sobbing. She doesn’t know whether she’s surprised that Satine knew all along that Nini loves her, or upset that Satine so blatantly misunderstood in what way, and now she’ll never be able to correct her.
“Oh, darling,” Satine says, trying her best to brush Nini’s tears away with her thumb but it’s no use; they just keep falling. “Shh, you’re alright.” Nini may be but Satine isn’t; that’s the problem. Nini lays one hand over Satine’s, holding her palm flat to Nini’s cheek. Satine’s fingertips are cold. “It’s alright,” Satine says, and then she’s interrupted by another coughing fit. When it’s over, blood slicks her teeth, has speckled her lips. “Your secret’s safe with me,” Satine continues, her voice rough.
Neither of them points out that this is a stupid thing to promise. Satine can’t tell anyone because she won’t be here to tell anyone. She’s dying. She’s dying right now, in front of Nini, in her arms.
Nini forces herself to get her tears under control. The sobs continue to spasm in her chest, but she does her best to hold them in. Satine only had weeks left, perhaps days. Now she only has minutes left, perhaps seconds. Her last moments will not be spent comforting Nini, or watching the other woman cry inconsolably. Nini can save that for afterwards; she doesn’t need to burden Satine with it.
Besides, there’s something else she needs to say; something she needs for Satine to hear, even if Satine misunderstands the way Nini means it. It’ll be enough to say it. Nini has thought about saying the words hundreds of times and hundreds of ways, never brave enough to actually go through with it. She won’t miss this chance—her last one.
“I do, you know,” Nini informs her, taking the handkerchief from Satine’s grasp and using it to carefully wipe the blood from her lips. “Love you, I mean.”
Satine’s breath rattles in her chest. Her answering smile is lopsided, like it takes too much effort to get all the muscles in her face to work properly. “I love you, too.”
Nini closes her eyes, relishing the words she’s always wanted to hear falling from Satine’s lips finally, finally being directed at her. Never mind that they’re being said the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. If it is enough for Satine to feel loved in this way, then it will be enough for Nini as well. It has to be; there’s no time left for this to go any other way.
“Oh, Nini, I think this is goodbye,” Satine says, making Nini’s eyes snap open once more.
“No,” she protests uselessly.
“But this—Christian’s beautiful show. We did it, all of us. And my part in it is now yours,” Satine says, as if Nini needed the reminder. Nini’s going to be the star, the headliner. She doesn’t want any of it anymore, not if it’s becoming hers like this. “You’ll perform beautifully, I’m certain of it,” Satine says, and more tears slip down Nini’s cheeks. All the time Nini spent being a jealous bitch because Satine had the role she wanted, and now that she’s going to die and leave the role to Nini, Satine doesn’t seem jealous. She doesn’t even seem upset. She’s just tired, and resigned. Kind. Wanting to give Nini her blessing before she’s gone.
Breathing seems to be becoming increasingly difficult for Satine now, and she’s visibly weaker than she was even moments ago. Nini suspects they’re down to seconds.
“I can’t lose you,” Nini admits, choking on tears while Satine chokes on her own blood. They’re quite a pair, the two of them.
“Keep performing,” Satine encourages. “Every time you’re onstage, I’ll be with you. That way we’ll always be together.”
It’s going to feel wrong, performing without Satine here to get every role Nini’s ever wanted. Nini will continue to perform—because she has to in order to survive, because she’ll be damned if she doesn’t fulfill Satine’s dying wish—but she suspects that, far from enjoying her time in the spotlight, she’s going to miss her days in Satine’s shadow.
“Always,” Nini promises.
And then she’s gone. If anyone could have made dying beautiful, it would have been Satine. But it isn’t beautiful; it just is. It was peaceful, at least. No more coughing. No more blood. No more pain—for Satine, at least—and that’s what matters.
Before Nini can collapse into sobbing once more, she looks up at the sound of approaching footsteps, careening rapidly toward her.
“What—” Christian says, voice strangled. He takes in the scene: the blood-soaked handkerchief, Satine’s lifeless body, Nini’s tear-streaked face. He puts the pieces together almost immediately, which is good because Nini can’t speak past the lump in her throat that’s just returned. “No,” he sobs in agony, collapsing to his knees, shaking his head in disbelief. He takes Satine from Nini’s arms—impossibly gentle, as if Satine were still here to be harmed—and Nini lets him, feeling guilty.
Christian experienced so many moments with Satine that Nini would have given anything to be hers, so Nini figures she deserved at least one of those moments.
But it should not have been this one. It should not have been the final one.
Nini stands on shaky legs, unable to do anything else as she watches Christian sob into Satine’s unmoving chest. She’s still clutching Satine’s handkerchief in her hand; the blood on it starting to dry, turning tacky and brown.
“She told me—” Nini says, voice weak, and Christian jerks, staring at Nini as if he’s forgotten she was even there. Nini wets her lips, tries again. “She told me to tell you she loves you.” It’s not an outright lie—Satine professed her love before she died to one person, and it wasn’t Christian—but she did mention loving him, and Nini suspects if he’d been here to hear it, Satine would have said it. So it isn’t a lie, not really. It’s just that Nini’s presence—and Christian’s absence—altered the natural progression of events, took something that should have been Christian’s instead, and gave it to Nini. Now Nini is trying to give it back to him as best she can.
“Thank you,” Christian says, his eyes wet and shining and meeting hers before he looks back down at Satine, brushing hair off her cheek.
Nini nods, stiffly. Even though it’s too late, Nini slinks back into the shadows, leaving Christian alone with the body in his arms, feeling as if she’s gotten something she shouldn’t have, something that should have belonged to Christian.
This part—the lover’s role—was never hers to play in this tragedy.