Author's Note: This idea for a story came into my head a few nights ago, and I've been fooling around with it ever since. I've become quiet attached to my little Meg, so of course, we have an eventual E/M pairing. The story is rated for later chapters, and you'll have to excuse the first few, as I'm just getting back into writing from a four month long writer's block.
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The mirror. How could a single pane of glass become such an object of fascination? How many times had she been punished for returning here? The room had, after all, been Christine's. In all those moments of despair and confusion, the tranquility of the room had eased the young soprano's suffering. And now, Meg Giry prayed it would have a similar effect on her. The fire had been two years prior, but the repairs to the Opera Populaire could not hide the emotional scars still left visible within the building. Two angels were lost that fateful evening, assumed to have been claimed by the waters of the cellar. The young patron of the Opera House, a man whom Meg had never gotten the chance to know. Raoul, she remembered his name with ease. He'd been so charming, and she was not above admitting that she'd secretly willed his eyes to meet her own on more than one occasion. But that had been so long ago, or so at least it seemed. His eyes had never met her's the way they met Christine's. Meg's throat tightened instinctively as her mind brushed over the name. Thinking back on it now, it was painfully obvious to her that the friendship between them seemed closer than it really had been. So many secrets had been kept silent, and there should never be secrets between friends. A single tear leaked from Meg's eyes. She wasn't the crying type, but Christine deserved the show of grief. Even though their relationship had faltered in those last few months, Meg missed her deeply. Their whispered conversations in the dead of night, and their silly laughter during rehearsals. They were fond memories tucked safely away in the back of Meg's thoughts. This room brought each memory forward, and allowed the dancer to dwell on them in silence.
Blonde ringlets hung beside her face as she bowed her head in prayer. Fate had been cruel that day to many people, but aside from allowing her to live, it had been cruel to Meg ever since. The Opera House had been closed f or a year and a half, leaving every singer, dancer, and crew member not only jobless, but homeless as well. Fortunately Meg's mother maintained a small cottage in town, but in light of the disaster, the girl had found it hard to appreciate the bed she had. In the months since the building had reopened, Meg had spent each possible moment in this room, much to her mother's displeasure. Madame Giry did not care much for grieving. She'd spent a day in solitude after the fire to honor Christine's memory. After all, the girl may as well have been her own daughter. But the next day, life went on, as it should. Meg on the other hand had been keeping mostly to herself, not like her usual social persona. It wasn't the sobbing, tear your hair out kind of grief, but rather a deeper desire to understand what had pulled Christine from her. Hence the reasoning for coming here to this particular room. It had been a sort of sanctuary for the girl, not to mention the birthplace of the famous, or rather the infamous, angel of music. Meg had never heard this "angel's" voice until the day of the fire. Rumors had been spreading the weeks before, no thanks to the crewmen's heroic tales of seeing swishing capes and glances of white masks in the darkness above the stage. But that night, everyone had seen him. The mysterious phantom had appeared before an unknowing crowd, his voice exactly as Christine had described it, angelic. The notes of the son flowed effortlessly to the rafters of the Opera House, and not a soul present was strong enough to remove their eyes from him. It wasn't until Christine, in a moment of pure desire for the man who stood before her, removed the thing black mask covering his face, revealing his identity. Surrounded by the horrified screams and shouts of the other dancers, Meg felt her knees go weak. Never in her sixteen years of life had she seen something so magnificently human. Some time later Meg remember being roused by her mother, and after scrambling quickly off the stage floor, had followed blindly after Madame Giry and the unorganized mob headed down after the phantom.