A/N: I've been away for a long time, changing jobs and getting married. I have written a lot in the last year but none of it developed past more than a few chapters… expect for this.
I've got a lot pre written but the chapters will at least need me to re-read them as I haven't touched them for a while. My new job means that my postings might be irregular but frequent reviews tend to help.
CHARACTER DEATH: If you don't like these turn away now.
A little graphic at times but rated T for now. Might change later, although this is unlikely.
I don't like flaming particularly and I'd appreciate anyone who doesn't like my style or storyline to kindly just go away. I do this simply for fun, because I enjoy it, and hopefully to give a few fans a little enjoyment too. If you don't like it, I am sorry but I won't change the story or my style for you. So, don't review, just click off.
Anyway, to those who haven't seen anything from me in a while and have been waiting, I'm sorry… forgive me.
I'm prone to lapses in concentration so forgive that too.
This story will be dark in places but is essentially a drama about love and friendship and hardship and all of the things that go with it.
Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, do not own the Phantom of the Opera but I do love it. This is fun and I am making no profit or any income at all for that matter.
Read, review. Happy 2009.
Aftermath
Chapter 1
Raoul took the first bullet right in the centre of his chest.
The wind was knocked out of him and he staggered, reaching out for help, his eyes wide, until eventually he fell to his knees on the cold, wet floor. The second shot was loaded fast and found his temple and Erik watched as the young Vicomte's blood sprayed out, his head no longer completely it tact.
To his horror he was finally realising that the worst fear in the world was not that you were going to die but that someone you loved was going to die. He glanced to his right where Christine stood completely motionless, staring at the dead body of her husband, his almost headless form face down on the dirt.
She was shaking her head, all thoughts now on Raoul and the fact that the man she loved was dead but all Erik could think was that Christine was next, it was the only way.
His heart was pounding in his chest with such ferocity he thought it might actually beat its way out. He looked down at his hands which were perfectly still but they were empty and he was reminded, once more, that he was weapon-less.
The gun man raised his pistol again and pointed it at Christine, beautiful, innocent Christine. 'Where is it?' he asked of her but she shook her head, still too shocked to register the severity of her situation.
The man with the gun, in the mask, was not going to be easily dissuaded from his task and he took another step closer. His arrogance was sickening. 'Where is it?' he repeated, unaccented. When Christine looked up at him, Erik caught the sight of tears in her dark eyes and he immediately felt his heart sink.
She blinked but said nothing.
'I want it,' the gunman said, with a calm that Erik would have admired under different circumstances.
'I don't have it,' Christine finally answered.
'Then you're no use to me,' he shrugged his shoulders.
Erik leapt forward, placing his body between the man's and Christine's. He had no idea who he was facing but what he did know was that this man was a ruthless killer and there was no way that Erik would allow him to take Christine whilst there was a slither of hope that she might live.
'What are you doing?' the gunman asked, staring at Erik.
'I have what you want,' Erik said, keeping his voice as even as he always did, even under the circumstances. He stared back at the young man with the gun, taking in the colour of his eyes, the timbre of his voice, his height, his weight…
'Where is it?'
'I'll take you to it,'
He felt Christine tense up behind him and he reached back, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. The man with the gun thought about it for a second and then nodded his head.
'Let her go,'
The man shook his head. 'You're in no position to negotiate,'
Erik knew that this was true yet he also knew that he must make the effort to free her, so that she would be safe, so that she could live.
'Walk,' the man with the gun instructed them and they did as they were told, much to Erik's utter disgust. After a brief walk they were at the end of the alleyway and Erik felt the gun man's pistol touch his back. 'Don't do anything that might give me a reason to use this,'
Erik's stomach bubbled with anger. 'I won't,' he said, not that he meant it particularly, given half an opportunity he would kill the man and would take great pleasure in it but the situation was risky. Erik was still completely unarmed and though his hands had proved useful weapons in the past, against a pistol it was very unlikely that both he and Christine would survive and that was, after all, the plan.
The stench of the Thames hit him like a fist as he turned the next corner in the pitch black London night. He was slowly becoming used to it but often wondered how the locals coped day in day out with the disgusting smell.
'Where are we going?' the gun man asked.
Erik glanced back over his shoulder. Christine was staring at the floor, her eyes a sad shadow of what he remembered them to be. The man was doing well to keep a distance large enough so that Erik could not spin around and catch his pistol arm but close enough that he could shoot either of them with very little aim.
'We need to walk towards the Houses of Parliament,' Erik answered, trying to keep the disdain from seeping into his tone.
'Why?'
'Because I hid what you're looking for there,'
The gun man said nothing else but prompted them with a grunt to keep moving. Erik led the way carefully along the side of the river which wound creatively through the centre of London. The Houses of Parliament slowly came into view and the gun man told them to walk faster, which made Erik smile… the man was getting nervous.
'What is your name?' Erik asked, but continued to walk. He wasn't foolish enough to expect the man to actually answer his question but it seemed a useful sort of distraction, conversation.
'I'm not telling you that,' the man said firmly.
'You know my name,' Erik said, reasonably, it felt childish but he stuck to the task.
'I don't,' the gun man answered to Erik's astonishment.
He turned around and looked at the gun man. 'You don't know me?'
The gun man stopped nervously, the mask on his face covering his expression but the tension in his body told Erik all he needed to know.
'No,' he said, being careful to stay well back from Erik.
Erik began to laugh, hoping the sound would be as off-putting for the man with the gun as it had once been for the occupants of the Opera Populaire.
It seemed to work and as the gun man began to look increasingly worried Christine did something that both amazed and pleased him.
As the gun man focused all of his attention of Erik, nervously stepping from foot to foot and attempting to work out what his employers had got him in to, Christine swung her leg around and kicked him as hard as her small frame could muster, in the shin.
The gun man yelped in pain but was not incapacitated for long, fortunately though, Erik was quick. He leapt onto him, pushing him to the ground, grabbing his wrist firmly in his hand. As the man struggled to retain the grip on his gun Christine walked to the side of him and kicked him, hard, in the side of the head.
Somehow the man managed to remain conscious but Christine was not done yet and with another swift kick the gun man lost most of his resistance and his hand loosened on the pistol. Erik grabbed it and stood up, pointing the barrel down at the would-be-assassin.
Christine had calmed momentarily. She reached down and removed his mask. He was young, with smooth cheeks and dark hair. Erik did not recognise him but Christine's gasp suggested that she did.
His eyes blinked and he opened his mouth to speak but she wound back and planted another kick into his ribs.
'Do you know him?' Erik asked, as the sky began to fall and drops of rain spattered all around them. The street was eerily quiet but for the sound of thick raindrops hitting the ground around them. It was a sound so unique to England.
Christine nodded slowly. 'He is… was a friend of Raoul's,' her eyes shone with tears.
'You didn't recognise his voice?' Erik asked, surprised.
She shook her head, 'We only ever spoke once but he and Raoul would often go out shooting on the estate,'
Erik sighed at the thought of her living on an estate, it just didn't seem right for her. She was too headstrong, too free…
'Did you really hide it at the Houses of Parliament?' Christine asked him.
Erik smiled. 'No,'
'What would you have done when we got there?'
He shrugged. 'I didn't really intend to get there,' he watched as she turned away from him. 'I'm sorry,'
'Why?'
'I'm sorry about Raoul,'
She laughed sharply. 'You're not, Erik,'
'I'm not sorry that he is dead, Christine,' Erik said, simply, and if his comment surprised her she did not show it. 'I'm sorry that you're hurt,'
'I love him,' she said and Erik felt as though he had been stabbed right in the heart.
He swallowed, 'I know,'
She turned and looked over her shoulder in the direction that they had come. Her eyes were misted with her tears, her face sagged with a grief fighting to escape yet trapped by disbelief. Erik longed to reach out for her and pull her into his arms, where he knew, even if she didn't, that she would always be safe.
Instead, he did what was sensible and began to walk again through the haze of rain that smudged the horizon, hiding the tips of the buildings in the distance. Eventually, without being asked, Christine began to follow. Over the splashes of rain he could hear her quiet footsteps behind him.
When she spoke her voice was strained, 'We should go back,'
He didn't turn around because he couldn't bear to look at her, he simply could not bear to see her pain. 'For what?' he asked, fully aware of the cold tone of his voice.
'For Raoul,' she replied simply.
'We can't go back,'
He heard that her footsteps had stopped and so he too came to halt. She sighed loudly. 'We can't just leave him there like… that,'
'We've got to, Christine,'
'I can't leave him…'
Finally Erik turned around and looked at her. Tears were still threatening in her eyes but none had made it to her face. 'The police will be there soon, and then what?'
'How…'
'Someone will have heard the pistol shots Christine, they were certainly loud enough,' he knew that he was being overly sharp with her, in a way he even knew that it was unfair, but he needed her to understand that it was over with Raoul.
'We'll explain to the police,' she said resolutely.
Erik laughed. 'Explain what?'
'What happened,'
Erik stared down at the pistol in his hand, loaded and ready. 'We can't go back for him,'
'You have changed,' she snapped.
'I'm no different to the man you left behind in the cellars, Christine,' he said.
'You're weak!' she shouted, rather too loudly. He looked around him quickly. 'You're a coward now, you're a coward… you never were before but you are now, Erik, you're a coward,'
He knew that the words came from a place that he could never truly understand. Erik had lost her once but not in the way that she had just lost Raoul and he knew that she needed someone to blame. Still, the words she spat out cut him deeply and so he walked back towards the man lying on the floor.
'What are you doing?' she asked, running after him.
'I'm showing you that I'm not a coward and that this is not my fault,' he said simply, keeping the hurt from his voice.
The man was still lying on the floor, he had dipped in and out of consciousness and Erik could only assume that the blow to his temple and ribs had done him more harm than he had first expected.
'You are angry, Christine,' he explained. 'But you are not angry with me,'
She blinked as raindrops rolled onto her eyelashes.
He pointed down at the man groaning on the floor. 'You are angry at him,'
She stared from the man to Erik. 'He killed him,' she said quietly.
Erik nodded.
'How could you?' she asked the man.
He managed to look up but he didn't answer, he chose to ignore her question.
'Shoot him,' Erik said finally, watching as she stared at the man in the gutter in utter disgust.
She turned and faced Erik. 'What?'
'Shoot him,' Erik repeated.
'Why?'
'You're angry with him,' Erik shrugged. 'He has killed your husband, he has attempted to kill you, he kidnapped you… and if you allow him to live he will come again for whoever he is working on behalf of,'
He held the gun out but she shook her head. 'I can't,'
'Does that make you a coward?' he asked.
She closed her eyes. 'I think it does,'
Erik stood for a moment in the quiet London road, letting the rain soak through his white shirt. 'Let's go,' he finally said.
Nothing had changed with in Erik, he was still the man he always was and as they moved away he felt a sharp twinge in his stomach, a firm sensation that spread through his veins and escaped into his mind. Christine continued on ahead of him, assessing the situation and assessing herself and once she was a few yards ahead, Erik turned, pointed the gun at the man on the floor and without a second thought or a moments hesitation he simply pulled the trigger.