Dear Readers,
Sorry for the delay. I know this isn't what you were expecting, but it's something that popped into my head a few weeks ago and I just now got it out. I apologize for my long absences. Time is eaten by school and work. It's constant. But I am still here. I promise.
I hope you enjoy this last bit I've pegged as Erik's last few moments. I couldn't remember the cat's name to save my life, though. :(
Your Obedient Servant,
~R.W.
She missed the damp air. Of course, she did not realize that until the small gondola finished its smooth glide across the murky water to dock on the slick, rocky incline she knew so well. Years, it had been five long years since she had been down here.
The opera house above was still nothing but charred shell, precious memories stored within its crumbled walls. Feet below the surface, the catacombs had survived exceedingly well, no thanks to their gentle caretaker. A man whom she had spent the last five years missing with all her heart. When the Persian had knocked unexpectedly upon her door, a solemn expression creasing his aged face, there was no doubt in her mind as to why.
Erik.
Her slight heels clicked ever so slightly on the stone foundation as she helped herself from the boat. The Persian gave a silent nod, as if knowing her unasked question. With a soft smile of thanks, she made her way to the Louis-Philippe room from sheer memory.
An IV ran from his left arm to a bag of fluids, the tube seemingly endless. His sunken eyes were closed, the mask not upon his face, but a bedside table. Her thoughts drifted, not to his misshapen visage but to the fact that this was the first time she had ever seen him lie in a bed rather than the ghastly coffin down the hall.
She watched his chest rise and fall in slow, labored breaths and her mind switched to his obviously deteriorating health. The Persian once, secretly and out of desperation, expressed his concern for Erik's morphine addiction. She never imagined it would progress this far.
His thin eyelids fluttered open, exposing eerie yellow eyes, their natural sparkle faltering in the shadow of mortality. In an instant, she was kneeling at his side, her small hand clutching his fearfully.
"Daroga," he whispered. His deep voice rattled painfully through his chest.
Tears burned in her bright blue eyes.
"Erik," she said softly, her voice wavering slightly.
She watched as his eyes opened a bit more and turned their attention from the bed's canopy to her.
"Christine?" There was disbelief laced in his words. Could that truly be the voice of his angel? Was she here, grasping his feeble fingers? He blinked a few times, clearing his mind of residual hallucinations. She was still there. His angel at his deathbed. Only fitting, really.
Christine gasped silently at the sound of her name on his lips. Instantly, a smile lit up her round face. Her glow rivaled that of the burning lamps mounted on the walls. Never had she been so happy to hear her name.
"Yes, Erik. It is I. I'm here." She ran her palms over his mostly-bare scalp, smoothing what few locks of hair were left to him and wiping the sweat from his brow. This moment was unfathomable. First, she lost her father as just a young girl. Now, now, she was to lose the man who gave her guidance when she had none. The only other man she had truly loved: her Angel of Music. He was supposed to live forever.
He just gazed at her weakly, wonder in his ghostly eyes.
"You cannot do this. You cannot leave me." The tears she had been hold back suddenly spilled over in a violent stream. Years of grief built upon each other.
With what strength he had stored, he lifted his free arm to rest his clammy palm against her soft cheek. His thumb stroked her skin gently. Still, touching her, he refused to believe that she was before him.
"Daroga?" he asked softly.
"Outside. By the lake," she replied. "He came to me." She placed her hand over his. She felt his paper-thin flesh stretched taught over the bones of his fingers and a bolt shot to her heart once more.
"But why come? To see the man who threatened your precious life die himself?" He tried to sound bitter, but the threadiness of his voice failed him.
The smile in her blue eyes faltered, then faded. It was appropriate, to be sure. Though she had secretly loved only her Phantom, she had failed to make him aware. Her actions made her heart seem cold.
"Hardly, my Ghost," she breathed. "I come only out of longing and affection." She kissed his knuckles gently.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes, then doubled on his side in a fit of coughing. He held a kerchief to his mouth, fluids and phlegm spewing forth to catch in the material. "There is nothing left here to be fond of, Little Lotte." He remained on his side, his breathing becoming slower as his chest became heavier.
His use of her childhood nickname made her cringe, but she brushed it off. She knew his anger was directed more at himself, and at the Daroga for bringing her here instead of letting him die in peace. He had never wanted her to see him weak with anything but his love for her. A love so crippling it had driven him mad.
She sighed heavily and sat up, towering over the side of the bed. "Do you not see?" she cried out, grasping his sweat-damp face between her small hands. "I come not for the riches of your lake-side home. I come for you. I have always been fond of you, my Angel. Always. Fear has prevented me from showing it in the past. When you first came to me, I was a frightened child, assuming you the spirit of my dead father. To find out you were simply a genius in love was quite the surprise. I am a woman now, and have been for some time. I have made poor decisions in my past; ones that have prevented me from seeking you out, preventing this." She settled down and once again became the demure and shy blonde that was in her nature. "Oh, Erik," she breathed against his cold cheek. "What have you done…?"
At last, she touched her full, pink lips to his, slight and blue as they were. Her hand caressed his face sweetly, playing with the small tuft of hair behind his ear. She laid her head next to his on the silk-covered pillow, defeat ruining her posture.
"It is you I long for, Erik," she whispered softly. "I have been bereft of proper love for too long. Now that I am ready to let myself feel, you dare to leave me." Her words became wet with the silent tears that followed them. Slowly, she crawled up onto the bed, laying her length beside his.
"I don't understand," he said quietly, to draw minimal breath. "I was here for years. Right in front of you. Why did you wait?" A lifetime of neglect and sorrow poured from his mouth in a wail so loud and painful it threatened to rip him in two.
There were no words. She could think of nothing simple or intelligible to reply with, and so kept silent. Instead, she gathered closely to him, letting him curl to fit in the curve of her stomach. She simply held him, his face pressed to her breast where he could listen the rhythmic beating of her breaking heart.
A slight shift in the bedding made Christine look up, seeing that familiar black cat sauntering to them. She curled into a ball of fur against Erik's back, wanting to be with her friend and master when he died. Her tail curved up and around his thigh in a slightly possessive manner, even.
Christine smiled sadly and Erik's weak arms encircled her waist, and he looked up at her from his place at her bosom.
"Oh, Christine," he breathed.
She kissed him once more, gently, and with more adoration than she felt possible.
"Thank you, Erik." He had been there to help raise and form her into the woman she was. She would be forever grateful. "I love you," she whispered reverently into his ear.
At those three words, he summoned every ounce of strength left in his body and drew her into his embrace, feeble arms struggling under the strain. Then he closed his yellow eyes and breathed so deeply, he knew it would be his last. He wanted his death memory to be one of her completely. Her body, her heart, her scent. Therefore, he breathed her in as wholly and as absolutely as possible, the pain unimaginable.
She held back her sobs as she felt his pulse slow impossibly and his enervated muscles go flaccid. She let her heart beat strongly for him, though inside she screamed her loss as old wounds of her past reopened and gushed with fresh pain.
In his dying moments he felt heaven and knew that, in time, he might see her again. His beautiful, fair-haired Angel.