This is technically my third Phantom of the Opera fic, but it is the first that I have posted on this particular website. It is based on the movie and the musical.
Disclaimer: The canon characters of Phantom of the Opera do not belong to me. They belong to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gaston Leroux. (I sure wished I owned them, though.)
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Nathalie Leblanc pirouetted back to her room in the opera dormitories, humming to herself. She had only started dancing at the Opera Populaire a few weeks before, and she was enjoying herself immensely. The pay was not all that wonderful since she was only a new member of the ballet, but the opera house was providing her with a roof over her head and meals. She was perfectly content with that. Besides, she had always dreamed of dancing onstage. She knew that she was quite lucky to have acquired a position in the opera house at all with it being 1873 and she an orphan. Thinking of her parents dimmed her joyful mood and she stopped dancing around the room and sank onto her small cot, identical to the several other cots in the room. She was still coping with the loss of them. They had been on a carriage drive, and the weather conditions had grown perilous. The driver, not being able to see the path, had miscalculated and the coach had raced into the icy waters of the river. The bodies of her parents and the driver had been found a week later when they washed ashore. Having no remaining family living in France, Nathalie and her brother Nicholas had been abandoned to fend for themselves. In a city like Paris, this was no easy feat. They had gone to the Opera Populaire, hoping for work. The kindly Madame Giry had allowed Nathalie to dance in the opera house's productions, and Nicholas had managed to get a job working in the stables of the opera house. Now, although they rarely got to see each other, they were at least supporting themselves.
Their busy lives helped take their minds from their dead parents, but occasionally their thoughts strayed to them, like Nathalie's were doing now. As she remembered her mother's smiling, soft face and her father's contrasting strong one, she found herself crying. One of the others in the dorms, a girl named Sylvie, came over from her cot and put a kindly arm around Nathalie's shoulders.
"What is wrong, Nathalie? Is it your parents again?" she asked tenderly, handing Nathalie an embroidered handkerchief.
Nathalie nodded and accepted the handkerchief, "I just miss them so much."
"I know, but they wouldn't want for you to be miserable."
Nathalie gave her a small smile and wiped away the remaining tears from her face, "Thank you, Sylvie."
"You know that you are welcome," Sylvie said, patting Nathalie on the back one more time before going back to her cot to get ready for bed.
Nathalie felt grateful that she had met Sylvie. The two had become fast friends when Nathalie had first arrived. She was glad she had at least one person to talk to. The only other people in the opera house that she felt comfortable talking with were Madame Giry and her daughter, Meg. Madame Giry had always been very kind to Nathalie, and she had taught her a lot about dancing. Meg was a couple of years older than Nathalie, but they still got on quite well together.
Nathalie pushed her thoughts from her mind as Madame Giry came into the large room and ordered lights out. She helped blow out the candles and went to sleep.
The following morning, Nathalie woke with a groan to Madame Giry's stern voice.
"Get up, girls! Practice starts in half an hour!" she called into the room.
Nathalie groaned again and pulled herself from the bed. She got dressed and followed the other girls into the practice room. She took her place beside Sylvie, and they began their rigorous training for the upcoming play. The girls finally finished late that evening; Nathalie was exhausted. She fell asleep well before the lights out time, but she awoke in the middle of the night and found herself restless. She decided to walk around the opera house a bit. She knew she would have to be quiet; being found wandering around at night would mean trouble with Madame Giry. She got up very slowly and carefully from her bed, hardly daring to breathe in case it woke one of the other dancers from their slumber. She crept from the room, shutting the door gently so that it wouldn't creak. She glanced down the dark, imposing hallway and realized that she had forgotten to bring a candle. Well, it was too late now. Besides, she knew her way around the opera house's corridors pretty well by this point. She made her way farther out into the darkness and away from the comforting warmth of the dormitories. She reached out blindly to feel for the wall. She grazed her fingers against it and started to walk, keeping one hand on it to guide herself. Because of the darkness, Nathalie failed to notice that one of the many doors on the hallway had carelessly been left open so that it hung out in the hall. So, in a way that would have been almost comic if not for the excruciating pain, Nathalie slammed into the wayward door headfirst. She fell to the floor, stunned and gradually lost her grip on the reins of reality and consciousness.
She awoke to strong hands shaking her.
"Nathalie? Nathalie?" came the thick French accented voice of Madame Giry from somewhere above her.
She groaned and opened her eyes with some effort. She was met with an innate darkness. Her thoughts were the equivalent of quicksand, slow and unmoving. She finally was able to remember who and where she was.
"I'm so sorry, Madame Giry! I couldn't sleep. I promise it won't happen again. I'll just go back to the dorms and go to sleep, shall I?" she said in the direction that she thought Madame Giry was in.
"Sleep? In the middle of the afternoon when we need you in rehearsals? I'm going to let a doctor look at that bump between your eyes, and if it's not life-threatening you will come to the ballet practice room immediately."
Nathalie tried to take in this information. "Afternoon?" she asked.
"Yes. It is nearly three o' clock. How did you get out here anyway?"
"I couldn't sleep, and so I went for a walk. I hit my head on something...But Madame, how can it be three o' clock when it's so dark?"
"Dark? What are you talking about, Mademoiselle Leblanc? Can you not see all the sunlight streaming in through the windows?" asked Madame Giry in a tone that suggested that she disapproved of sunlight streaming anywhere.
Nathalie was thoroughly confused by this point. "Madame, it is so dark that I cannot see my hand in front of my face."
Madame Giry waved her hand in front of Nathalie's face and gasped when Nathalie's pupils didn't move or respond in any way. "Mademoiselle Leblanc, I think you may be blind! Come, we must get a doctor!"
