A ghost. It must surely be a ghost before her. A ghost wearing his face with his dress suit and his bearing, but a ghost nonetheless. They've told her he's dead. Told her in the most uncertain terms. Very sorry to inform you…believe you were involved with (and that was the first clue, were)…drowned last night…
Drowned. A man does not simply come back from drowning, and so it cannot be him, not really. She must have dozed. Someone must be playing a cruel trick on her, someone who cannot understand. Perhaps it is down to the laudanum in her tea. A simple hallucination brought on by stress and the influence of the drug. She has heard of it happening to other people, though it has never happened to her.
Until now.
She does not know what to say. It cannot be polite to ask a ghost if he is a ghost, must actually be highly offensive, and besides, her throat is too tight to speak, all of the unshed tears from earlier catching now, and she blinks back the ones that well in her eyes because a ghost is bound to get blurry and she will not have her tears be the cause of him getting blurry prematurely.
A frown wrinkles the brow of the ghost, and the corner of his lip twists. She has kissed those lips so many times in life, and to see them twisting now is a mockery, a parody of the real man, and the room sways as he takes a step towards her. "Emanuelle, what—"
Emanuelle. The way he says her name, the same way he has always said it, soft and gentle though this time with an undercurrent of concern and his voice is so real, is just how it has always been and it seems to fill the room even pitched low, and that voice fills her heart and oh, it cannot be a ghost. No ghost could ever say her name like that!
And the tears trickle from her eyes and she is running into his arms, and he pulls her close to him, holds her tight, and she can feel a muffled heartbeat beneath his layers of clothes and no ghost ever had a heartbeat.
And she is crying into him, his coat damp, and he is kissing her hair and whispering into her ear, "I'm sorry, Emanuelle, oh I'm so sorry, they were never supposed to tell you before I could, it was all part of the plan, I'm so sorry," but his words all account for nothing, and she pulls back, and he is looking at her with tears in those blue eyes that she has always loved, and she reaches up, touches his hair, and it is faintly damp too, like his clothes.
Comte Philippe de Chagny. Back from the dead and here before her. So it was not true after all.
Was not true. And she thought him dead, was certain of it because the gendarmes had told her how they had found him, and she has not left her parlour since though she is supposed to be attending a rehearsal (is there even a rehearsal after what happened last night?). But Philippe is not dead because he is very definitely here, is very definitely real against her.
So all of that pain inside of her was for nothing? That twisting pain, and the dizziness, and the numbness that she thought would swallow her whole? It was all for nothing?
And before she has even realized what she has done, she has slapped him hard against the cheek. His head snaps back, eyes rolling, and for a moment he sways, arms dropping from around her, but then he regains himself, and blinks, and raises his hand to his cheek, which is already pink, deepening into red.
"Don't you ever," and she cannot help the venom in her voice, has a good mind to slap him again for what he's done, "do that to me again."
He blinks, and nods, and swallows. "I think I rather deserve that."
"Damn right you do." And then she is pressing her hands to his cheeks, and pulling him close to her, kissing him hard on the mouth. He gasps, fingers tightening between hers, and when her tongue slips into his mouth, her heart twists, and she knows that everything is right with the world.
A/N: Written because Wheel of Fish suggested it to me. Plus we all need more Philippe/Sorelli content.
Please review!