Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or Moulin Rouge.

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story! I hope you enjoyed it, especially since this was my first Moulin Rouge fan fiction. And I hope you enjoy this last chapter.

I can’t move, I can hardly breathe, and Toulouse still hasn’t finished my story. I’m not thinking about that story now, though. I can’t concentrate on anything. It seems that there is too much to think about and too little time.

Outside the window it is bright. It hurts to look, but I do so anyway. The Moulin Rouge is still there, only a shadow of her former glory. I can imagine I see Satine staring back at me in the distance from the elephant behind the windmill. I always thought it funny that there was a windmill there, but now I realize that the elephant is even more curious. Why had I never thought of that before? Well, there is always something new to think about…

And then there is the rest of Paris. It looks so beautiful, and I regret not having appreciated it for what it really is. I would love to take another walk along the Seine but I can’t, so I imagine that I am walking along the river instead. Sometimes I am alone and sometimes I am with Toulouse. Most of the time I am with Satine, having conversations with her that we never got to have in reality because we never had the time.

Time. How much of it have I got left? It can’t be long now…Things are getting blurry and it’s harder and harder to breathe. Sometimes I don’t even know if I’m awake or dreaming anymore. They’ve become the same thing, anyway.

Something moves and Toulouse is saying into my ear, “I’ve finished.”

I turn my head towards him. It requires much effort. “Really?” I breathe. “What did you think?”

Toulouse sounds a bit choked up when he speaks. I wonder why. “It was the greatest story about love I have ever read.”

“It…was only…the truth.” I am interrupted by a coughing fit.

Toulouse has his hand on my shoulder, almost as though he is trying to anchor me to this earth. I find this silly; I couldn’t keep Satine here by caressing her as she died, and he can’t keep me here by holding onto me.

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn…” he trails off. “You’ve lived a full life, you know. You learned it.”

“The greatest thing?” I murmur. It’s amazing he can hear me; I can barely force the words out.

“You believed it once,” Toulouse says. “Do you still believe it?”

Do I? It would seem that after everything that happened that it isn’t true. How can the greatest thing be to learn to love and be loved in return? Where has it gotten me?

But how many people can say that they experienced what I did? There was a moment, there onstage, where Satine and I were perfectly happy because we were perfectly in love. We became one person there, ready to be with each other forever. True love and we had it, and I had never felt so great and good and full of life as I did then.

When I think of that moment, the feeling is still there, still strong. This would be a lot worse if I did not have that feeling to go by, but it has taken me until now to realize it. After Satine died, I focused more on what I had lost than what I had gained. These past few months I have slowly been learning to be thankful for what I had and have…but it was hard.

Now I know.

“I still believe it,” I tell him.

“Thank God,” he says.

I nod, and turn over. I feel suddenly exhausted and it is cold, but Toulouse sees my shivering and places a blanket over me and I feel better. My eyes close and I can feel myself slowly sinking into the bed, relaxing, and drifting off.

I fancy, just before everything goes dark, that I can hear Satine singing our song in the distance and I want to go to her and sing my part and tell her how thankful I am that she was the one who gave me true love. I want to tell her…

Now I know.