The Cost of Victory, a Moulin Rouge morning-after scene by Sue Castle. Not rated. No copyright infringement intended. Anyone with an ounce of romance in the soul should see this movie.

She had been his.

She had never been his.

He had desperately wanted her to be his.

He had no idea if that was love. He wasn't certain he believed in such a bohemian concept.

The Duke staggered with as much dignity as he could from the ruination of what should have been his triumphant evening. Zigler had hit him. In the face.

Before he could shoot that bloody writer.

He'd really wanted to kill that boy. For seducing Satine away from him. For being facile with words and charming with music and beautiful to look at and all the things the Duke was not and Satine preferred. He wanted, badly, to kill that boy.

Since that particular option was no longer open to him, his servant Warner had failed and he himself had been ignominiously routed, he had only one option left to him.

Close the bohemians down.

Dawn was breaking before he clarified his decision. Being hit over the head and in the face both in less than twenty four hours could addle a man, but he was determined. They would be wounded as much as his dignity had been.

Moreso.

When his servant brought in the newspapers with breakfast, the only headline he saw touted the triumph at the Moulin Rouge. There was something about tragedy in the smaller print but he didn't bother to read that far. He was too incensed at the word 'triumph' being used in conjunction with the previous evening's debacle. Sending for pen and paper, he wrote a terse note to his lawyer. Sealing it with his signet ring, pressing the wax with more force than absolutely necessary, he smiled thinly.

There would be no more triumphs at the Moulin Rouge, because as of noon that day, there would be no more Moulin Rouge.

He debated handing Zigler the papers himself, but decided in the end that the greater insult to his pride had come from the boy. He would track the writer down, no doubt with Satine still in his bed, and tell him to his face precisely what 'love's victory' had cost the people of the Moulin Rouge.

Everything.

By mid-morning, his servant had returned with an address. It was easy enough to find; directly across the alley from the nightclub. He climbed the rickety stair, giving a moue of distaste at the dust along the rail, and rapped peremptorily on the door.

No one answered.

He was in no mood to be left standing on the step like an unwanted tradesman. Raising his cane, he pummeled the door with all the frustration of the past several weeks behind his arm. Days of courtship for a woman who was no better than a common whore, being played for a fool by the boy right under his nose, led on a merry chase by Zigler -- the door gave way unexpectedly under his pounding. He stared at the open doorway for a moment in surprise before gathering his composure and sweeping in.

The bed was made. Hadn't been slept in. It was the first thing that caught his attention, and he frowned. He had been certain they would come here after the performance. After they'd publicly humiliated him. Certain he'd find them there. Together.

The second thing he realized was that the blasted typewriter, the instrument he'd imagined had been stealing Satine away from him for so long when actually it had been a much more personal instrument of the writer doing the stealing, wasn't there. That was almost as strange as the unused bed.

A sound called his attention to what he at first took to be a pile of dirty laundry in the corner. Then it moved, and resolved itself into an unshaven, disheveled man. His hair fell over his face. He had a bottle, empty, clutched in one hand. There was blood spattered all over his shirt sleeve. He looked utterly disreputable. For a moment, the Duke hesitated. Perhaps he was at risk? He wasn't used to being on his own without Warner.

Then the head lifted, and bloodshot blue eyes stared at him through the tangle of dark hair. It was the boy. But ... that made no sense. His face was ashen, his eyes red-rimmed. If this was what triumph looked like, he'd hate to see defeat. He frowned, perplexed, then retreated into his affronted dignity. Drawing himself up to his full height, he thrust his cane dramatically at the writer. After all, while the Duke wasn't particularly good at words, or wooing, or much of anything other than money, he did have centuries of breeding behind him, and by damn it was time this peasant realized with whom he was dealing.

"You may believe you have won, boy, but you have actually lost! You should have left her to me! You may have Satine, but we will see how well you survive living in the gutter! I have foreclosed upon the Moulin Rouge! I will see that you never get work in Paris again! She may not be mine, but you won't keep her for long!" So there, he thought, glaring fiercely at the writer, awaiting a reaction.

He didn't get the one he was expecting.

Christian laughed. And cried. At the same time.

After a while of this, the Duke relaxed his pose and dropped his arm, staring in confusion at the boy. Eventually, the tears won out over the bitter laughter, and Christian dropped his head atop his folded arms and sighed.

"It doesn't matter."

The words were so soft, and so sad, the Duke almost didn't hear them. When he realized what he'd heard, he was incensed all over again. "Of course it matters! You bohemians may blather all you like about truth and beauty and freedom and true love and all that nonsense -- "

"She's dead."

"-- but that's not going to feed you when you're begging on the stree-- What?" The words stopped cold in his throat. "What did you say?"

The boy looked up at him, and the Duke thought at that moment that he had never seen so much pain in a man's face ever before. And he didn't think he ever would again. At least, he hoped he wouldn't.

"Satine. The woman I love. Is dead." Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes, streaking paths down a face that was already chafed. The Duke swallowed.

In that instant, he understood. Why Christian had said that loving, and being loved, was the greatest thing one could ever know. Because he hadn't known.

And now, he never would.

Feeling a depth of emptiness inside he'd not had the imagination to anticipate, he turned on his heel and slowly walked away from the man crying softly behind him. Waving his driver away, he wandered absently, not noticing his surroundings until the glint of light off metal caused him to turn and stare into the window of a pawn shop. Sitting there, mocking him, was an Underwood typewriter.

Moved by impulse, and the weight of the emptiness within, he walked into the shop. Pointing out the typewriter, he gave the proprietor an obscene amount of money and told him to have it delivered to a one-room flat across the alley from the Moulin Rouge.

If he couldn't kill the boy, he could at least still torment him. It was a fitting punishment. For taking, and having, and being given, what the Duke never had a chance at knowing.

What it would have been like had she been his. And he been hers.

END