Disclaimer: The Phantom belongs to Leroux and Kay and Webber and all those people, I make no profit writing this Jazz, M'kay?
A/N: I've been debating whether to put this up or not for a long time, but I caved, and here it is. This was a OneShot I wrote a while ago, as an experiment/entry to a Phiclette Challenge. The theme was 'a servant/friend returns to Erik three months after the events of the story'. Or something to that effect. Please R+R.
Somebody's Angel
"Erik?"
Her small voice echoed emptily in the expanse of the cavernous lake chamber, bouncing off jagged walls and glass-like water.
She steered the black gondola deftly across the calm lake, making it clear she had done this before.
She looked down into the lake's unfathomable depths to find the black eyes of the Siren staring back at her.
She snapped her deep-brown gaze away, forcing herself to concentrate on reaching Erik's front door.
A gasp burst from her full Middle-Eastern lips as a milky white shape bumped and rocked the little boat.
The girl struggled to keep her balance, and punted the gondola hard.
She whimpered into the silence around her and called again, quieter this time.
"Erik? Mon Ange?"
At last she saw the slippery algae-covered bank of the lake, and jumped hastily from the gondola.
She tied the vessel up, dusted herself off, and pulled a rope beside the door that she knew lead to an unseen bell.
When she was not at once answered with the customary rumble of 'Who comes ringing Erik's bell and calling Erik's name?' She began to feel uneasy.
Nadir, who she had met on her way down to the Lair, had told her that Erik was a broken and violent man, and now she did not know what to expect.
She looked closely at the heavy wooden door, and saw that it was hanging precariously off of its hinges.
She gently pushed it open with a resounding creak, to find Erik's house in chaos.
Furniture was smashed and strewn about in pieces, porcelain plates and cups had been thrown at walls.
Then the girl noticed something that made her breath catch in her throat.
Beside the broken violin and ruined harp, Erik's organ was in a hideous mess.
Its pipes were bent and snapped, keys ripped from their places. She had known of Erik's temper, but never of destruction like this. The ghastly shape of the ruined organ looked like a crouching monster, half hidden in the gloom.
She began to breathe quickly, worrying for her old Master. "Erik? Erik, please… It is Kara."
She wandered slowly around the wrecked house, treading carefully to avoid debris, to the door of Erik's bedroom. Kara knocked gingerly, ready for any outburst, but instead she was answered with a weak grunt, and a torrent of coughing.
It brought tears to her eyes to hear her Master's voice brought down from his smooth, pleasing baritone to a rusty murmur.
She poised her hand over the door handle, steeling herself for what awaited her in Erik's room.
Kara pushed open the door, and fought back the urge to recoil. The room was furnished simply, with a huge bed and deep red curtain adorning the window, veiling its false light.
Erik lay on the wide bed in the dim room, looking more skeletal than ever before.
His mask was cast aside and shone faintly in three pieces in the half-light. His yellow eyes glowed weakly, and his parched yellow skin was deathly white.
Kara ran to him, "Oh, Master!" She cried as she knelt at his bedside.
She noticed the pillow either side of his head was bloody and stained, as was a handkerchief he clutched in his long fingers.
"Oh Master… What has France done to you?" She gasped. "She is… gone?" Kara knew of Christine. The Soprano who had caught her Masters' eye… From the beginning Kara had known that his infatuation would come to nothing, yet she remained silent, and let the doomed love story run its course.
Another deep cough racked Erik's tall, bony frame, his misshapen lips were flecked in deep red blood.
"She… left me… for the young man…" He gasped, his thin chest rising and falling shallowly, looking pale through the fine, once white shirt. "I sent Nadir away… No one shall… see the Opera Ghost again… No one shall find my Lair…"
"No! Erik, please don't give up!" She blinked back the tears that threatened. "There is plenty to live for, even for an Opera Ghost! What will the Opera House be like without its infamous Phantom?" She whispered, "You can't leave me… I'll have no one… Please."
She realised she sounded like a selfishly pleading two-year-old. She could not stop death in his precise and unprejudiced tracks.
Then her tears came; she reached up and did not falter as she caressed his ice-cold skin.
She poured him a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside, and held the cup to his lips.
Erik spluttered, and drank a little, turning the water red. His head flopped back onto the pillows, and he struggled for breath.
Erik's burning gold eyes flickered closed, but Kara gripped his cold hands tight and squeezed, willing warmth back into them. "Don't leave me Erik… Remember the happy days… The rosy days… Mazenderan, Erik. Remember the day you took pity on the orphan in your torture chamber? She was a local, and had haunting brown eyes. Her hair was the tangled mass of a street-child, yet it was beautiful, shimmering and raven coloured… Her peasant parents had died of the Consumption…" -She looked forlornly at the blood spotted rag in his hands- "She was young and beautiful, or so you thought, and you took her under your wing. She was me Erik, she was me," Kara brushed his sparse hair away from his closed eyes. "Remember how we were. Yes, how we were. Now look at what the world and its cruelties have done to us…"
At this, Erik opened his eyes again, and looked upon Kara's wasted beauty.
A life of hard work and long travel had worn her skin, and her eyes looked tired, but she still had her beautiful, long silken hair. Erik's eyes burned a little brighter, and he ran a weak hand through its length.
"Dear Kara… You've been extraordinarily kind to me… When all others ran screaming from Erik…" He sighed, "With a few exceptions. I thank y…" But Erik never finished his sentence.
He coughed and wheezed, Kara thought he would never stop. A small trail of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and frail –there was a word Kara never thought would be associated with her Erik- as he was, ever the gentleman, he mopped it up with his smudged handkerchief.
"Nadir was wrong. The Opera and the Press are wrong… You are no monster." Kara climbed onto the bed and lay next to Erik, letting her curved body mould to his angular one.
Erik took his first deep breath in what seemed like forever, and Kara smiled slightly at this seeming improvement.
Then with a final whimper, the Phantom's breathing stopped, and the light at last faded from his golden eyes.
Kara looked at his still form for a long time, her tears falling onto the front of Erik's bloodied shirt.
She leant forward and closed his sightless eyes, and placed a single kiss on his cool forehead.
"Thankyou Erik. You were somebody's Angel."