The Phantom of the Red Mill.

by LiltingBanshee

Author´s note: Ok, I decided to do a story that is a little different from my other stories
(meaning it doesn´t involve Erik and Christine having a baby together), but I hope some of you will read it anyway:)
There will be a slight alteration in history to make my story fit. I know the Moulin Rouge first opened in 1889, but that doesn´t really work with my plot, humour me ok...
And please let me know what you think of it...:)

In the middle of the night with the cold rain pouring down it didn´t look to be the wonderful place that everyone said it was.
Well, those who truly found it wonderful was probably only those men who had money enough to pay their way through a night of entertainment in every way. One night of joy to escape their responsibilities and problems.
He doubted that it was just as wonderful for those people who were forced to work there to ensure their existance.

He sighed, he was now one of those who were forced to to apply for a job to keep from starving or freezing to death. He had been dead inside for years, but God had not bothered to end his miserable life no matter how many times he had prayed for it.
The first time he had ever truly wished himself dead was that night many years ago when she had left him.
Yes, he had let her go, but she had gone willingly and only returned for a second to, for some reason, give him her ring. A gesture he had never fully understood.
Oh how he had wished to die that night, but God had let him escape both the fire and the angry mob. He had been emotionally wrecked for years after that. Only the gentle care from his long time friend ans saviour Antoinette Giry had kept him alive. Her precious daughter, little Meg Giry had not given up on her career and had secured herself a good position in an Italian ballet troupe. Madame Giry had turned down her offer to follow her due to her slightly poor health and her desire to care for him. Together they had lived a poor, but manageable life.

When Antoinette had drawn her last breath a few years ago he had again prayed for God to end his life. Again God had failed to answer him. He could of course have taken his own life, but he had once been a proud man and whatever little pride he still posessed kept him from it.
Now it had come to this. He was alone, without money or a place to live.

'It´s a place for the creatures of the underworld. Everyone are welcome there.'
That was what the drunk old man in the bar had said to him a couple of nights ago. He let out a bitter laugh at the irony of the whole thing.

'A creature of the underworld!' Wasn´t that what he had been all his life.

The Devil´s Child – a childhood he wished to forget all about.

For an amount of years he had been the King of the underworld. That was at least how he liked to think of it.
His beautiful lair from where the greatest music had flown. A place where he had felt safe and which had seemed even more special to him on the rare occasions where she had been there.

Her sweet beautiful face and her long dark curls that he had always wished to run his fingers through whenever she was near him.

Those days were over. She was probably living a happy secured life with her loving husband and a bunch of sweet children. That was what he had wanted for her. It was something he could never have offered her. Ever since that night he had lived on the bottom of society and now he was forced to go back to beg for a job in a place that made money on it´s visitors´amusement.
His only comfort was that this time it hopefully wouldn´t be his face they would pay to see.

His emotions were taking over and he knew it. With an angry growl he turned his face away from the Moulin Rouge. He was in no mental shape for asking for a job tonight, instead he would find shelter for the rain and then try his luck tomorrow.

The rain continued through the night and the water was still dripping from the trees when he made his way through the wet streets of Montmartre. He coughed and pulled the slightly torn cape closer around his body. Another night in an alley surrounded by drunks and whores had not offered him much sleep. He was not young anymore, he could feel his body reacting to the rought restless nights and it remained a mystery to him why he had been spared from the consumption that killed so many people around him.

Before he knew it he was once again staring at the wings of the red mill. What little glamour that had been about the place on a rainy night had completely disappeared in the morning hours.
He carefully knocked on the wooden door and waited.
After a few minutes the door was slowly opened and he felt himself nearly pass out at the sight that met him.

That face. Those curls.

"Christine...?" he gasped.