AN: Taking over this prompt for a friend - reviews will definitely light the fire under my fingers to type up new chapters!
Disclaimer: I now own a prompt. That's pretty much it.
Beginnings
It is a city of perpetual rain where our tale begins. The sky is more slate than azure, more prone to sorrow than sweetness. It is a large city where everyone may as well be a stranger – and where a man could easily be lost among many. It is ideal for those who don't want to be found, and painful for those yearning to be discovered.
Here is where the tale begins, and it begins with a man who is not quite a man … a man who was a match for this dreary city in every way. Once upon a time, there was a very gray man who lived in a very gray city…
There was a boy …
A very strange, enchanted boy –
They say he wandered very far … very far,
Over land and sea…
A little shy, and sad of eye,
But very wise was he.
And then one day – one magic day- he passed my way!
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings,
This he said to me:
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return!"
"Eyes are a delicate organ, requiring extreme care before, during, and after a surgical procedure. To allow for one mistake or bit of carelessness is to invite infection and irreparable harm. Slide, please."
There was a click and the lecturer spoke clearly as he used the laser pointed to indicate areas of red swelling in a cornea. The audience murmured, and one or two were pale. The lecturer took a moment to nod at them knowingly.
"This distresses you now, I understand. But if you're considering leaving the room, don't. You must be prepared for the realities of such delicate surgery before you advance in your coursework. Emotional responses in surgery will lead to disasters like this." He again circled the image being projected.
"What we're seeing here is …," he spoke slowly, seemed to lose his train of thought as he peeked over the heads of the seated medical students. The light of the projector affected his own line of vision, but he'd seen it – a shadow to the left in the back.
"Dr. Khan?" One of the medical students in the front row piped up. Khan quickly cleared his throat and smiled.
"Yes, sorry. What we're seeing here is the result of an unhygienic eye wash post surgery. The film of the eye had yet to heal and was covered using sanitized wraps, save for the eye wash. Negligence was suspected and the doctor was sued for malpractice. You see what can happen. Slide, please."
The next slide was less repulsive, it was a surgeon positioning a laser machine over an awaiting patient's eye.
"A good ophthalmologist must be able to identify the need for specific procedures and be responsible not only for the surgery itself but the quality of the course of treatment. Many university programs allow patients to specify if they want to be operated upon by the consultant or the resident fellow. Put yourself in the shoes of the patient – here you have your sight, the sense you rely on the most, and it's potentially compromised. If you needed to save your eyesight, if there was even the barest chance you could lose it all in your attempt to save it, what kind of doctor would you want?"
The auditorium was silent save for the students clacking away at their computer keyboards. Khan repressed the bite in his tone and his urge to roll his eyes. "I'm actually asking you. What would you want?"
It took a moment, but the medical students slowed their typing and looked over at one another. Finally the medical student in the front row piped up.
"Well, I'd want the best," she explained. "If there's the potential for me to lose my sight, I need to go with the best doctor I can find."
Nadir Khan looked up at the shadow on the left and nodded in agreement.
"Next slide, please."
The end of lecture was a flurry of overachieving medical students wanting his card, asking questions about his specialty and hoping to network. Dr. Khan handled these with as much patience as he could muster – he had to weather it, he was already through the first part of his plan and the next part required the students' exiting the auditorium. Playing nice fit into the scheme.
Once the last student was gone and the projector turned off and the assistant dismissed, the shadow at last deigned it fit to leave its hiding place.
"You lost the room for a second there, Khan," he quipped. Nadir shrugged and neatly sorted his notes on the podium, before filing them away in his briefcase.
"Students are not my area of expertise. You know that." He looked up with a deep breath, and his dark brown eyes connected with the shadow's piercing green orbs. "Dr. Navara asked me to cover this lecture. I owed her one, otherwise she couldn't get me to step foot into a second year's lecture. I would much rather be in my office and have a patient discuss their goals for breast augmentation."
"Hm," the man replied noncommittally. He narrowed his eyes. "And yet here you are. You taught the lecture and took pains to invite me to sit in. Now, why is that?" The man took a step forward, his fine leather shoes making no noise on the floor. He showed no surprise when Nadir slid a manila folder from his briefcase and held it out to him.
"No."
"Erik, just look at the –"
Khan couldn't get another word before the man, Erik, turned violently around and took two steps towards the exit. Nadir followed him and said the only word he could think of.
"Daae!"
That, finally, stopped him. Erik's shoulders arched up with his deep inhale. "I thought I told you that I was done. I don't think I can make it any clearer."
But his voice was smaller now. Nadir seized his chance and walked over to him quickly, holding out the folder. Erik let out a slow exhale and took the file. He examined it while Nadir nervously examined him. His green eyes were focused on the papers he shuffled through, and the white mask he wore prevented Nadir from watching for any other facial cues than the thin line of his mouth.
"When did it happen?" Erik asked, eyes still on the papers.
"She was in the car with Gus," Nadir murmured. "It's been four months."
"And she's been through a few surgeries already," Erik muttered to himself.
"Two for the right ankle – she's still in recovery for her leg – and one for her-"
"-and it failed."
Nadir was losing him, he was sure of it, and so he pressed on.
"She'll be here this afternoon if – if you want to see for yourself."
Erik's chuckle was dark and bitter chocolate. "So you haven't given up hope. Perhaps you should," he said as he closed the file. "After three surgeries on top of everything else she's had to lose, it might be best if she learned to live with it. " He added a rueful smile as he stepped away, "I wonder what's so blessedly wonderful about seeing, anyhow? It certainly never made my life any easier."
"Erik!" Nadir shouted, temper rising at last at his friend's callous language. But it was no use, Erik was already out the door, determined not to have anything to do with the patient – no matter whom she was related to.
"Why am I here today?"
In the solitary corridor, her question and Mrs. Giry's steps seemed to echo forever. The wheelchair that she was in was soundless by comparison.
"We're here so that Dr. Khan can give you a proper follow up," Mrs. Giry reminded her primly.
"But we're not on the fifth floor – isn't that where his office is?"
For a moment Mrs. Giry's steps slowed, taken off-guard by her ward's response, but she recovered quickly.
"Well, we're at the top floor today. It's a research level, but Dr. Khan did insist we go there…"
Her ward's hands, which ha been very neatly folded on her lap, slip to the armrests. "Mrs. Giry, do you think I could –"
But Mrs. Giry continued to drive the chair forward. If anything she began increasing her pace. "Nonsense, my dear. Your dear father didn't leave you in my care just to have you injure yourself further by a trip or a bad fall."
The hands gripped the rests a moment longer, than retracted back into her lap. She knew Mrs. Giry was right – it would cause more hardship if she injured herself further.
"Of course, Mrs. Giry," she replied, and allowed herself to be wheeled up to the room without further questions.
Erik had not been in the hospital for some time, not since the funeral, and yet he was compelled by an unknown force to visit his office once he'd left Nadir's side. With the prowl of a cat he'd stepped into a side service elevator and pulled out his access card. He held it out to a screen and pressed his thumb underneath. A green light flashed and then the doors closed. Erik leaned against the wall and again thanked Dr. Daae for his willingness to install it just for him. He'd known better than most just why Erik had needed multiple, hidden access points to the medical buildings. It had been a hard-fought battle, but they'd compromised at last.
And now that compromise had ended. Gus would never return to the hospital. Once he packed his few treasures, neither would Erik.
The finality of it turned his thanks into ash in his mouth. Erik had always been alone. He'd preferred it. But Daae had been generous; he would not expect to meet his equal again in this lifetime.
The elevator doors gasped open and he quickly stepped out, tired of being caged in with his thoughts. He was immediately faced with a thick door and pulled out his key. It bore no special markings or plaquard marking it as his, but the room had never been assigned a number and was not in any directory in the hospital. It was a solid, dark wood door that had allowed him to shut himself away as he worked, dealing with disease but not the people it afflicted as much as possible.
Well, he chuckled, how many of those patients would have ever trusted a doctor with a rotting face?
Another bitter smirk made it to his features as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was dark, dark cherry wood was chosen for the desk and bookshelves, and two fine chairs made of black leather sat on the hardwood floor. The only sources of light in the room were a couple of lamps and a large window that was draped shut with a dark red curtain.
Turning slightly he was able to turn on the nearby lamp when something caught his eye. On the other side of the bookcase there was a door, meant to be used only if absolutely necessary – only if a patient needed to be seen by Erik. Only then would the door between his private lab and the exam room be opened.
The door was unlocked to room 900.
Nadir! He cursed inwardly. Only he could have left it unlocked.
He moved closer to the door in order to lock it firmly when he heard the door to room 900 open. He froze.
"Here we are," a woman's voice said brightly.
He knew that voice. He'd met her once, through Dr. Daae …
"Oh, it's dark in here," She continued. "And there's no one here – no nurse or Dr. Khan. Perhaps he's in the next room …"
Erik planned to wring the good Dr. Khan's neck for this. With another sharp mental curse he did the only thing he could think of – he dove, quickly, behind the curtain just as he heard her approach.
He could hear her look around the room and he held his breath. He heard her step closer to the curtain, and he hoped and held his breath as she approached.
Don't open the curtain, don't open the curtain…
There was a loud peal of thunder. Like a mother cat, Giry retreated into the other room – much to Erik's relief.
"Christine, are you all right?" He heard Giry ask. And then he heard a soft voice reply.
"Yes, I'm fine, Mrs. Giry. Does it look like rain?" She asked.
"I suppose so," Giry trailed off. Erik could practically hear the frown in her voice. "This is ridiculous, I'm going to find Dr. Khan."
There was another round of thunder and then the sound of the first pelting rain.
"Will you be all right, Cherie? I'll be back soon."
"Yes," replied the young woman's voice, "yes, I'll be quite fine. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore."
Erik listened intently to the sound of Giry's footsteps and heard the exam room door close. Once he knew she was gone he slipped to the open door. He saw the chair, pointed towards the window. He saw a head of dark curls just above the back of the chair. She was quiet, observing the rain. And even though she had said she was not afraid, Erik could tell with a glance that it was untrue. She held her head too high and braced the armrests. At any sound of thunder she gripped them tightly. She was afraid.
"In the velvet darkness of the blackest night, burning bright …there's a guiding star," her quiet voice forced attention on his ear. He listened.
She smiled as she spoke to herself, imagining light encompassing the room.
"No matter what or who you are …," she sang on. And her feet touched the floor, and she found the strength to stand from the seat of her chair. Erik watched, listening with rapt attention.
"There's a light," she trilled, "there's a light, in the darkness of everybody's life …"
He watched her, a hand trailing up to his thundering chest. He saw her in the dark. He saw himself there with her.
'Darkness must flow down the river of night's dreaming,' Erik could hear his song, could speak it if only he knew she would not hear. 'Flow, Morpheous, slow, let the sun and light come streaming into my life…'
"There's a light –"
'Into my life –"
Her cry of surprise brought them both back into reality. Unused to standing, she had wavered and lost balance. She felt herself fall only to suddenly be braced between two arms.
Her soft hands were the first to react. He held her up and felt her hands seek and lock on to his biceps and her thanks to Mrs. Giry died in her throat. This was not Mrs. Giry. Her hands, too curious for their own good, explored downwards to feel sleeves, then a cuff, then a wrist. And then, suddenly, she was quickly backed into her wheelchair.
"Are you all right?" A brusque voice intoned. A male voice.
Erik had caught her to keep her from falling. But the touch had been too much and he pulled away as safely and quickly as possible. After placing her in the chair he raised his eyes and looked at her, really looked, for the first time.
"Yes. Yes, thank you very much. I'm afraid I'm still healing from surgery."
She wore a simple blue skirt and a sft looking sweater, her long hair flowing free around her. Her mouth offered an embarrassed smile. But it was her eyes that caught his breath.
The milky gray irises looked at him, and past him, and into nothing.
"I'm Christine," she said, holding out her hand for his. Erik looked at it a moment, then touched his hand to hers in a soft grip.
"Erik."
Review?
Song used:
Nature Boy, performed by David Bowie
There's a Light from Rocky Horror Picture Show