A short story that is unashamedly more about what I was feeling at the time than anything else. Stage-inspired (original, not the "reimagined" tour). Love Never Dies doesn't exist in my head canon. ;) Originally written in 2009, I believe.
Meg had kept the Phantom's mask, even though she knew that it probably wasn't particularly wise to do so. She had hidden it beneath the cloth that had covered her hair the night of the great disaster and had smuggled it out of the Opera Populaire; when she had returned to the flat she shared with her mother in the early hours of the morning, she had tucked away both items in her bottom drawer.
If someone had asked her to explain why she had chosen to keep such souvenirs, Meg probably wouldn't have been able to do it; she would not need to explain herself to anyone, though, for no one but she, and the Phantom himself, knew that he had left his mask behind as he had escaped from the Opera that night. Now, for the first time since that night, Meg took out her stolen keepsakes and examined them.
The mask was cool to her touch, and there were a few chips near the bridge of the nose. She wondered idly what had caused them – had the Phantom tossed aside the mask in a fit of rage? Had the mask been dropped or bumped against a wall? Meg would never know the answer to those questions. She could ask Christine, she supposed, but that didn't seem wise either.
Her friend had tried to put the entire affair behind her, and Meg couldn't blame her for that. Christine was now focused on the preparations that would transform her from a simple chorus girl to a vicomtesse. Meg had visited her a couple of times in the weeks since the disaster, but Christine had always seemed so busy that she didn't stay long, and it didn't appear that Christine really noticed her best friend's absence, anyway.
Meg missed the simpler times that had once been – when they had held hands and shared trivial secrets, when the most serious conversations they had were about their costumes or the male dancers' legs, when they had spent hours devising new names to call Carlotta behind her back. Those times were gone forever though, no matter how much Meg missed them. Christine didn't need her friend any longer; her life was now filled with Raoul de Chagny, and he was apparently all she required to be happy.
Meg felt her eyes filling with tears and she hastily wiped her hand across her cheeks. Christine had always promised that little would change after she married Raoul, but already Meg could see the difference in her. Christine didn't have time for frivolous little Meg Giry; she wanted to grow up, to marry and have children, and to spend her time with Raoul's family and friends. Christine certainly didn't want to waste away hours giggling in darkened hallways, whispering ghost stories into Meg's ear as they jumped at every shadow that seemed to move, like they once had. Christine was too mature for such nonsense now, and Meg felt like she had been dismissed from Christine's life completely, although Christine was too polite to say so.
Perhaps, Meg mused as she traced the raised eyebrow of the mask with one finger, that was why she kept this as a memento. Perhaps she kept it because it was a cold symbol of the death of the closest friendship she had ever had. Perhaps she kept it because it represented the night when her life had changed forever.
Or, perhaps, Meg kept the mask because the Phantom was the only other person in the world who understood what it was like to lose Christine.