AN: Originally written for a tumblr prompt with the sentence "Please don't let me be alone" inspiring/featured, with the pairing Charoga. Not quite Charoga though. more Charogerik in theory. I love a thripple. Especially a sad thripple.

Unedited, but I didn't think it needed it.

At this time of night the pounding fists on the door to his flat could only have one possible owner. And yet Ismael had to remind himself, hesitantly, as he shuffled into his maroon night robe that Erik is dead and it was a stranger who roused him from sleep.

Pausing briefly in the hall before the door to adorn his balding head with his Astrakhan cap lest the winter chill reach it, he looked into the mirror. It was a different man who studied back, one who, yes, had lost hair due to stress and… loss… Who had neglected the upkeep of his graying beard and let it run wild, only somewhat smooth due to his hand being a constant companion to his pensive chin. And his eyes… well, they'd never looked quite that sage before, had they?

If the pounding hadn't been frantic, he might have scrubbed his face with a hot towel, to rid himself of the sallowness of lonely hours. He rubbed his tired cheek and turned to unlock the door.

On the other side was a visage no more well kept than his, only decidedly more feminine and paler. Much, much paler than she ought to be. Except for the red of her swollen eyelids and the plumpness of her bitten lips, she looked the part of a corpse's bride more than she did when it might have been true.

Her mouth hung open, a gaping void where sound struggled to release. She was shivering from the cold outside, and possibly the storm she weathered inside herself. "I… I…" she gasped. "I-I cannot…" Dull blue searched and searched for answers in his equally dull green, and it was only then that she held out the thing which she'd been concealing in the folds of her cloak.

A rain-slicked copy of that morning's L'Epoque.

Christine need not turn the pages for him to know where her frustration lie. After all, he'd placed the advertisement himself.

Ismael's face remained of stone, unable to feel anymore pain for this man. He parted to the wall of the threshold immediately, bidding her to enter with a languid sweep of his arm. She clutched the paper back to her chest and rushed inside.

"Shall I make some tea, Mlle. Daaé?" He came up by her side to gently guide her to an armchair in the den, lest her legs buckle beneath her. In the low gaslight which illuminated the room, he caught a flicker of diamond on her hand. "Or is it Madame now?"

She stared at nothing, not even as he bent to light the coals in his fireplace and the flames began to flicker. Her knuckle was lodged in between her lips. "N-no… we are not married, yet."

That was the last she said for a while, and during this silent time he went into the kitchen to prepare the tea. When he returned, he had expected to find her crying, but not this. She had shirked her cloak had made her way to the fireplace, where she carelessly tore through layer after layer of the newspaper, throwing it into the fire and sobbing his name into the flames which licked at them.

He quickly rushed the tea cups to the low coffee table and joined her by the fire, bending slightly so that his hands might reach her quivering shoulders. "Mademoiselle, please… I am tired and can handle these types of dramatics no longer."

It was only a fortnight or so before when he'd entertained the cause of her misfortune as he had desperately spun the details of his impending death. How he would notify him via a package containing his most personal items. How he was to publish the news immediately so that she… How she was to return to him, and bury him with his cherished gold ring.

This was not the ring that adorned her finger.

Her wailing did not end, only intensified at his thoughtless words. Allah, he thought warily to himself. Why must I continue to pick up after Erik, even when he is gone?

"I-I-I don't know w-what to do, Monsieur… M-monsieur?"

The Persian sighed. Bending down and shifting the pool of her expansive skirt aside, he knelt beside her and retrieved a handkerchief from his dressing gown. This he held out to her, and while she blew gently from her button nose, he removed his cap and turned it over in his hands. "Call me Ismael," he offered.

It was only the lifting of her smile that caused him to regret his words. Through the tears she uttered a hollow, bell-like laugh, and he raked a palm across his ashen face. "God, not you too…"

"I have often wondered why he laughed so when he read to me from Monsieur Melville…" she said while twisting the handkerchief around her finger, pronouncing the American name rather remarkably. He imagined English must share the same syllabic resonances as her native Swedish.

"Why do you think he insists on calling me Daroga? Since he read that godforsaken whale manuel he cracks up every time he hears my name!" Even though they laughed together, and he was glad to dry at least some of her tears, it did not escape either of them that he had briefly spoken of Erik in the present tense.

The last of their laughs dying in their throats, Ismael swallowed back a cry of grief. He sunk deeper into his kneeling position, and she seemed to slump more thoroughly into the peaks and valleys of taffeta skirts. Her tears picked back up, but he made no move to comfort her now.

"That horrid man… leaving us like this."

It was Ismael who spoke the words they were both thinking.

"After all he has done to you… And still you must face him once more. Or have you already…?"

Christine shook her head violently, dissolving into a quake of strangled noises. He steadied her with a hand to her arm, to which thankfully she took no offense. Ismael rubbed his forehead before moving to stand. "You should go… You have a fiancé to comfort you now, do you not?"

"Raoul… He cannot understand this… this…" she cradled her empty hands close to her gut, hovering them as though that unnamed emotion spilled over them from her navel.

Ismael understood.

He sat back down and took her hands. She was not shocked, but she did resist slightly, only he held them tighter, closer even. She breathed in, wiggling her nose to rid herself of inept speech. She spoke more clearly, now.

"I unfolded the paper this morning and couldn't breathe… couldn't speak. And there was Raoul, buttering his toast and chatting merrily at me. Now that P-Philippe's funeral is over, and the inquest is finished, he wants us to marry as quickly as possible. How can I burden him with this, when he has been through so much? He nearly died because of… of... the man I am mourning."

Her gown was not of dark crepe, she wore a brooch and small earrings, and decorative pins dotted her golden hair. And yet, every inch of her was clothed by the blackness that inked both their hearts.

"I do not even understand this myself. He frightened me so, threatened thousands of lives… And still I do not hate him! How can that be?"

She squeezed his hands tighter before Ismael had the chance to do so himself. He shielded his face from the warmth of the fire, lest the embers reflect in the tears nesting on his waterlines.

"It is a mystery I gave up solving years ago, mademoiselle."

"Please, call me Christine."

Ismael lifted his chin, and he found she offered back his handkerchief. He waved his hand to the side. "Keep it," he said, bringing that hand to wipe away whatever had not yet fallen. "To remember old Daroga by."

His legs shifted to stand, but the hand which still held his strengthened its bond. "Oh, no please… Not yet." Her gaze returned to the fire, where her tears were drying but her voice remained dull and strained. A shell of its former glory, and yet still so beautiful, he remarked to himself.

"Please, don't let me be alone. Not tonight."

Alone. Restless nights, sullen days Constantly lost without him. He passed a shaking hand across the top of his head. The gray in his beard had been Erik's mischievous doing, but never would a healthy man of Ishmael's age begin to bald so quickly had it not been for the burrowing of anger, frustration, and melancholy that came with his passing. Oh, yes, Ismael understood quite well.

Sighing one last time, Ismael went from his knees to a more comfortable position. "If I may," he whispered, and his brown hands encircled themselves gently around Christine's waist. She was startled, at first, but when he made no move other than to rest his cheek upon the top of her head, she gratefully sank into him.

As they sat gazing at the fire long into the night, their hearts thawed, their tea went cold, and a ghost sat between them.

The first of many ficlets from tumblr I'm publishing on here. Mostly so I don't lose track of them and more people can access them without me having to reblog them constantly! Haha.

Read and review please!