Hello readers. I've returned with stories for you guys. I'm hoping to make up for lost time on all the stories that are incomplete since I feel bad for not even touching them lately. Anyway, this is a songfic that's been on my mind lately and I finally sat down and wrote it. The song is Why by Rascal Flatts. This song really hits home for me and I decided to apply it to The Phantom of the Opera and give it a go. So I hope you all like it. And as someone who has lost a friend to suicide, and has contemplated it myself, my inbox is always open for anyone who needs to talk; I am more than willing to share my personal experience with suicidal thoughts and my battle with depression/anxiety. So I'm always here for you guys. Thank you for reading this incredibly long and drawn out author's note and I hope you enjoy the story. See you soon! And as always, Please review and let me know what you guys think. Xoxo ~Creaturess of the Night~
A/N: Song Lyrics= Bold, Italic, and Underline, Flashbacks=Bold, and the Story is broken up into chapters for a part of the song that relates to each character (You Will Figure Out What I mean)
Disclaimer: I do not own the song Why (It is owned by Rascal Flatts and the other people who helped to write it) or any characters associated with The Phantom of the Opera (they are orignally owned by Gaston Leroux and some of them are owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber).
You must've a been in a place so dark, couldn't feel the light
Reachin' for you through that stormy cloud
Now here we are gathered in our little home town
This can't be the way you meant to draw a crowd
*Meg*
Meg sat in the carriage outside her home waiting for her mother. She was dressed in mourning black and had her blonde hair pulled back from her face. Her cheeks were wet with tears but she couldn't stop shedding them. She looked out the window and remembered the event that brought them to this day.
-Meg looked around at the opera house and smiled. It had been finished being reconstructed a few weeks ago and was ready for reopening. She sat down at the piano and started playing a song that had been on her mind lately. She was thinking of playing it for Erik, wondering what he would think about it since he enjoyed music so. She looked up when she heard two pairs of footsteps approaching her direction. She blinked in shock when she saw her mother leading Raoul de Chagny out of the main entry doors. Once he was gone her mother turned to her. Meg hissed "What the hell did he want?" Madame Giry answered "Christine was here to visit Erik a couple of days ago. And I am going to say judging by your surprise; was a fact that he neglected to mention to us both." Meg asked "So what did Raoul want then?" Madame Giry shrugged and answered "I do not know Meg; but these two visits back to back spell trouble for Erik's emotional and mental recovery." Meg felt a bad feeling tugging at her gut and she stood up quickly from the piano as she answered "I am going to go check on him." Madame Giry nodded and turned to head back to her office. Meg turned and headed to the chapel to go through the entrance to Erik's layer that she had found hidden there. She opened the entrance and headed quickly to the main part of Erik's layer. She arrived and felt dread and fear fill her at the unnatural quiet that filled the cavern. She tentatively called out "Erik, are you here?" She entered the cavern where all the candles and musical instruments were. She looked around and felt panic surge through her when she didn't see Erik anywhere. She headed towards the swan room as she called out "Erik, are you home?" She pushed through the curtain and froze at the scene in front of her. Erik was lying in the swan bed with a monkey music box on the table next to him along with a rose tied with a black ribbon and engagement ring. Meg saw his stillness and rushed to his side. That's when she stepped in something wet and slick. She looked down and gasped in horror at the blood pooling on the floor. It dripped on the pure white mask and ran off it to cover the floor next to the bed. She noticed the unfinished score next to him as she ripped off a strip of her dressed and wrapped it tightly around his bleeding wrist. He whispered brokenly "I'm sorry Meg, I just couldn't deal with it anymore. You were the little sister that I've always wanted and I could never repay you and your mom or thank you guys enough. Tell your mom thanks and that I love her and she will always be my mom and friend." Meg nodded as tears slid down her cheeks rapidly, she saw him take a shallow small breath before he finished "Tell her that I will always love her and that she will always be my angel. Thanks for finding me Meg, you are the greatest friend and sister I've ever had. I love you Meg." She whispered "I love you too Erik, all of your beautiful self." He smiled slightly as she leaned down and kissed his deformed cheek. He took one more breath, before his chest stopped rising and falling. Meg clung to his lifeless form and sobbed. She screamed "MOM!"-
Oh why, that's what I keep asking
Was there anything I could've
Said or done
Oh, I had no clue you were
Masking
A troubled soul, God only knows
What went wrong and why
You would leave the stage
In the middle of a song
Meg was broken out of the flashback when her mother stepped into the carriage. The driver started heading to the little small town where Erik was born so they could commence with the funeral. She felt her mother's arm around her as the tears slid down her cheeks again.
She looked at the sky and thought 'Erik, I wish you would have stayed. You had so much potential, there would have been plenty in attendance to all your operas that you were going to publish. That can't the way you wanted to gain your audience.' She turned to her mother and whispered "Why mom?"
Madame Giry kissed her temple and answered just as quietly "I don't know Meg. I just don't know."
Meg wished that Erik could have seen the light that was trying to touch him through all of his darkness; and she started to think. She rambled "I should have been there for him, I should have done more, I should have…"
Her mother interrupted her ramblings "No Marguerite. Don't do that to yourself. There was nothing we could have done, he hid the signs so well."
Meg sighed; but she knew that her mother was right. She knew that Erik was troubled, she just wished she had known how much that he was masking of himself. Meg looked at the unfinished music score in her hands that she found next to him and remembered all the times of determination and persistence that he had to finish other scores and songs; God only knew why he would choose to leave the world (his stage) in the middle of this song without finishing it.