(no subject)

[axeslade]

GRRRR. I think I missed Char. oh well. what I've written of a story I'm working on, including the latest chapter for Char...well, part of the latest chapter, it's not done yet.

Disclaimer: Not mine. This is what happens when I've watched Moulin Rouge one too many times.

Title: Soulmates
Rating: R
Reasons: Sexual content/mild violence/death
Genres: Supernatural/Romance/Drama

~It seems it's written, but we can't read between the line. Hush, it's okay, dry your eye. Dry your eye. Soulmate dry your eye. Dry your eye. Soulmate dry your eye. 'Cause soulmates never die~-Placebo 'Soulmates'

I was watching her again. Not like I really ever stopped watching her or the girls, as there was no one else I cared to keep an eye on. But I remember I was watching her alone, specifically watching her get ready for bed. She went through the same routine every night, a routine that really differed very little from what she had done before I died. Taking her clothes off and slipping into that gorgeous hot pink nightie, brushing her hair for a few minutes, then saying her prayers. I had occasionally made fun of her for doing this, saying she sounded like a little kid. Now, I appreciated the act. Despite what you might have heard, the dead can't hear everything on Earth, mostly just things that are directed at them. Thus, in the two years since my death, my wife and childrens' prayers had become music to me.
"....And tell James I love him, and that...I know it's wrong to say this, but...that I can't wait to join him."
"She won't be waiting much longer."
I snapped out of my dreamy state, looking at the physically middle aged woman beside me. I didn't know her well, nor do I now. Just that she died sometime in the forties and seemed to know quite a bit more about the 'goings on' of the afterlife then I did.
"What do you mean?"
"I'd figured you'da found out, seeing as you were her husband all. She's dying."
I had been going to snap 'I am her husband', until that last word slipped past the woman's lips.
"How do you know?"
"Heard it through the grapevine."
I wanted to strangle her, even if it wouldn't do any good, for lying like that.
"Stop torturing me."
"I'm just tellin' ya."
"I don't believe you."
"She has that...whats-it....HIV, right?"
"Yeah, s-", I stopped short. No. It couldn't be. She looked fine.
"No....she can't...she's been just fine for so long..."
"She mighta stopped takin' all that medicine the doctors give her, or maybe it's just her time."
"She's too young...."
"Really? Isn't she nearly fifty?"
I swallowed. I forgot, sometimes, that the world had continued after I left. Mandy still looked just as beautiful as she had in those last seconds, when I was so far gone that in my mind she really was an angel. I remember she'd just smiled, humoring me as she always had. It wasn't until quite some time later that I heard her howling, saw her on the bed with my body in her arms...
"Hellooo? Anyone home? I said isn't she nearly fifty?"
I blinked a few times, nodding,
"Y-yeah...yeah she is. She just doesn't look..."
"Like her thread's about to be cut?"
"Stop it."
"Hmm, all right. Just thought I'd give you the heads up", she left me with my thoughts then. I kept watching Mandy, trying to imagine her going through the pain I had at the end. She'd never handled any pain well, and the thought of her suffering just a tenth of what I had made me shudder. I couldn't bear the thought of her going through that alone.
I heard something else then. Jamie's voice. It brought a small smile to my face. She was living in London now, working on a play of some sort. I'd been unable to figure out the gist of it from the scraps I heard. Now, I heard her mention me to one of her friends
".....About my mom and dad."
"Was your mom a prostitute?"
"No, but she had sex with a lot of people and Dad got her out of that life."
"Who's playing...Satyn?"
"Sateen! I think I've convinced Mom that if I get her in a wig and some makeup she'll look just fine."
"And Christian?"
She sighed,
"I don't know. I know she'd feel uncomfortable with anyone but Dad...."
And right then, I knew what I had to do.


I still can't remember how I quite convinced the proper connections to let me back, just to be with my wife one more time before she died. But I did it, on the conditions that I was to return as soon as the curtain fell on Jamie's show. That was connected with something else, of course. The fact that I could not tell anyone who I really was, nor could I tell Mandy when she would die or even that her life was ending. At least not directly. If, however, in the course of the time Mandy and I spent together she found these things out on her own (as I said she would, knowing from years of trying to hide the smallest things from her that she wasn't dumb), I would not be forced to suddenly leave her. I would just have to make it known to her that no one, not even Jamie, could find out. I agreed to the terms, and almost instantaneously-well it's hard to describe.
I didn't feel any different, though I knew I must look so. Nobody seemed to be staring at me strangely which I took as a good sign. I saw I was outside a large theater and seeing no other option, I walked in.
I saw a score of young men standing by the side of a stage and a small group of people sitting in the front row. Then I looked at the stage. Mandy. My beautiful, beautiful Mandy. Of course she looked different. Now that I was really near her, I saw the lines on her face. But those were easily erased with makeup. The noticable thing was her red wig and long red dress. She looked up for a second, her eyes meeting mine. She barely noticed me, though, turning back to the young man standing beside her,
"I can't fall in love with anyone."
"But a life without love, that's terrible", the boy spoke in such a cold voice that I wasn't surprised when I heard Jamie's voice cut off Mandy's next line,
"NEXT!"
I laughed a little and got in line with the other boys. All of them seemed to be overactors or just plain fakes. When Jamie...my gorgeous little girl...had dimissed all the ones ahead of me, I felt my hands start shaking. In fact, I tuned out so much that she had to yell at me twice,
"I said NEXT!"
I smiled nervously and got up on the stage. Mandy glanced at me, handing me the script and pointing to the line they were at. I read through it quickly. I could easily see how Jamie had based it off the beginning of our affair.
Mandy cleared her throat,
"Christian, I'm a courtesan. I can't fall in love with anyone."
I put myself back in that moment (had it really been over two decades past?), when I had been standing at that bus stop, begging her to come with me,
"But a life without love....that's...that's terrible!"
Unlike all the other boys, Jamie didn't cut me off. I saw her chewing on her pen, staring at us as Mandy went on,
"No! Being on the street, that's terrible!"
"No!", she gaped at me, much like she had when I was telling her how much I loved her that first time,
"Love....love is like oxygen!"
"What?"
"Love is a many spledored thing!", I admit I was getting carried away now, but I was trying so desperately hard to get the part, since I knew the Fates didn't care for me much,
"Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love!"
"Please...don't start that again."
I grabbed her hand as she pretended to walk off,
"All you need is love..."
"All right! That's a wrap!", Jamie clapped her hands and Mandy immeidatly broke away from me as if I were an alien. Jamie walked up onto the stage, standing sideways between me and Mandy. She looked at Mandy, then me,
"So what do you think Mum? Do we have our Christian?"
"Darling, you know I'd only be happy wit-"
"Mum."
Mandy sighed and I saw her looking me up and down. Her eyes locked with mine for a moment and she stepped back,
"Well...he does look like...a little, I mean."
"Umm, I can hear you, you know."
"Oh, I'm sor-oh god, that sounds just like something...", her hand flew to her mouth and she started crying a little bit. Jamie smiled at me apologetically, wrapping her arm around Mandy's shoulders,
"I'm really sorry. My dad died a few years ago and...well, this character is based off of him in a lot of ways."
"I understand completely. So, do I have the part?"
"I'll call you tonight after I've had a chance to mull it over."
"All right", I panicked for a moment, worrying that she'd be asking for a phone number. But, apparently, that had all been filled out on the audition applications, not that I could remember doing it. Jamie smiled,
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Ford."
I smiled back, feeling very strange shaking my daughter's hand,
"The pleasure was mine to drink in the beauty of you ladies", I grinned, taking Mandy's hand and kissing it softly,
"You're a wonderful actress, madam, and I'm sorry for your loss."
"T-thank you Mr. Ford..or can I call you Ewan?"
I smiled, nodding,
"Of course." Ewan. That name sounded so strange. I'd have to find a mirror to see if it fit my new look.
"Well then, thank you Ewan, and I hope my daughter finds you fit for the part."
I just smiled again and walked out, letting my feet lead the way since all I could think about was the pained look in Mandy's eyes and the awful fact that I couldn't tell her who I was.


Of course I got the part. Early the next morning I got a call from Jamie, and it took all my strength not to say 'hello sweetheart', when I heard her voice.
That afternoon, I went down to the theater to meet the rest of the cast. I wasn't suprised when I saw a few people I knew. My old secretary Ursela had taken the part of a bitter prositute Jamie had eloquently named 'Nini-Legs-In-The-Air', Jack Fairy took the part of a Bohemian named Audrey and Angel; one of Brian's old entrouage, had amazingly been cast as an old madame called Marie.
I waited around with these people for about half an hour, chatting and tamping down the urge to gossip about people who were old mutal friends. Finally, Jamie, and Mandy swept in with a chaotic grace only my girls were capable of with my son Sean coming up behind them, fumbling with a stack of papers. Jamie plunked herself down in the front row, clapping a few times before quickly losing her temper,
"SHUT UP!", I chuckled a little as everyone stared at Jamie and she calmly composed herself again,
"All right, now I know you all know the story behind this work, and that many of you knew my father personally. I thank you for agreeing to take these roles to help me honor him. For those of you who didn't know him, if I ever lose it I'm quite sorry, this work just has a lot of emotional ties for me. That out of the way, on with the show. I'll assume some of you actually spent a little time looking at your scripts so we don't have to start from the beginning for you to understand what the hell's going on. Let's start from the top of scene five, everyone on stage."
I followed some of the other men on stage in a daze as I watched Mandy slip a silver sequined jacket over her white blouse, put on a bit of lipstick and place the red wig, along with a glittering top hat, on her head. When she got on stage, Jamie smiled a little,
"Sorry if this isn't the greatest costume guys, I just wanted to give you some idea as to what you're supposed to be drooling over. And I know there's really supposed to be a trapeze right there, but we're still trying to find someone to make the damned thing."
I paid little attention to her, though, since I was staring at Mandy. I could barely stop trembling, wondering how just a few items had made her look so young again.
The man next to me must have said his line, but since the script just said for me to 'stare in dumfounded awe', Jamie didn't say anything. The music just came on and I felt a shudder run down my spine when Mandy started to sing,
"The French are glad to die for love, they delight in fighting duels. But I prefer a man who lives", she smiled a little bit,
"And gives expensive...jewels"