A/N: Thanks for the reviews and follows. Updates will probably take me around 2 weeks or so. The piece Erik plays is "Winter" by Vivaldi.
Chapter 1:
When Julianne awoke from fitful slumber the following morning, she felt as though she had been drugged. Her head was filled with fog, her neck was stiff and her lids too heavy to keep open.
After reading the letter several times over, she had scoured the room for old newspapers, for anything that would consolidate the information so casually extended to her. Unfortunately, Babette had done an impeccable job of maintaining a tidy space and so Julianne was forced to sit with her feelings of disbelief and anger without gaining any certainty.
Businesses closed when unable to stay afloat, but this wasn't just any business. It was impossible to fathom the notion that an opera house as grand as the Palais Garnier would simply shut down without generating a mass outcry. But there was nothing to it, if she wanted to know she would have to visit herself.
Disentangling herself from the sheets in a less than graceful manner, she rang the bell to inform the maid that she required assistance. Hot water arrived within minutes and washed and dressed she consented to a small breakfast before insisting that Alexandre ready the horses. At long last, she descended the stairs, the note stuffed into her handbag of dark lace and embarked on the short journey towards the opera house.
Whatever fatigue she had felt upon awakening was chased away by the rapid beating of her heart that echoed the clapping of the horses' hooves on pavement. It was a rush - that she could not deny - to be surging towards that dangerous place again. As conflicting as her feelings were, the physical sensations evoked were dreadfully inappropriate yet true.
The Avenue del'Opera was as busy as it had always been, filled with omnibuses transporting people from the south bank of the Seine to the north and vice versa. Cafés beckoned even now and the air was rich with the scent of flowers, thanks to the many vendors that had set up to sell their goods. Nothing was out of place and yet she had learned that the Palais Garnier was unique, existing almost in a universe of its very own where time moved at a different speed and ordinary rules weren't powerful enough to govern anything.
Her hands felt clammy when she disembarked and she wiped them unceremoniously on the black fabric of her long skirt.
"I will be waiting here for you, Madame," Alexandre remarked by means of farewell and she extended a grateful smile to him. He was a good boy and loyal servant.
With confident steps designed to disguise the flutter of nervousness she continued to feel, she approached the imposing building and pushed against the door that would lead directly to the office. But the wood did not relent to her touch and so she retrieved a large set of keys from her purse and inserted one after the other until she found the one that made the lock spring open with a satisfying click.
Darkness greeted her and with no means to light any of the gas lamps, she let the door fall shut behind her, praying that her eyes would adjust easier. The silence that followed was numbing, as if the building had somehow indeed swallowed up any sounds from the outside world.
In a burst of panic her pulse thrummed frantically in her neck. Memories of skeletal fingers, menacing eyes and the scuttle of little feet invaded her mind until she reminded herself of the beauty she had found underneath the rubble of pain.
He was only a man. He was only a man.
Tentatively, her feet found their own rhythm again and she proceeded cautiously deeper into the building. Her hand that slid along the length of the wall informed her when she had reached the office and to her surprise it opened up before her instantly. Moreau had either left in a hurry or Erik had given very specific instructions. Neither option was particularly reassuring.
She moved on towards the large oak desk, bumping into furniture along the way. The drawers were unlocked but their contents practically invisible in the suffocating darkness. So she re-traced her steps towards the windows, feeling about until she managed to push aside the heavy curtains. Light streamed in harshly and stirred up particles of dust which danced before her aching eyes. For a moment or two everything was cast in pastel grey hues.
It had been some time then since someone had come to clean this grand building.
Upon closer inspection the drawers contained practically nothing which was to say that they were primarily filled with meaningless content. Old receipts, unused stationary and thank you notes. The presence of her late husband and that of the Opera Ghost wiped out completely. No scandal appeared to have rocked these walls. It was as if the Palais Garnier had never really opened its doors.
With a heavy sigh, Julianne sank down on the chair that was so wide it reduced her to a mere sliver of a woman and gravely looked around the room. It was almost too easy to believe that the abduction had been dreamed up by a grieving, lost mind.
Oh, but those treacherous footprints in the dust!
A fresh surge of energy propelled her upright and towards one of the walls from which the ghostly prints emerged and led to the door. She knew the corridor that lay behind this particular panel of wood, but she would not dare go there herself. The maze was too large and the traps plentiful.
No, she would take a leaf out of the phantom's book and contact him by letter. It no longer seemed silly, now that she had proof that he still abandoned his home to wander about the opera. She would leave the curtains open also to draw his attention.
Then, with paper and pen found in the drawers, she wrote the note, hoping that it would prompt him to contact her swiftly.
Every day for a week she returned to the opera house but despite the mocking evidence of fresh footprints, Erik refused to acknowledge her. But Julianne did not remain passive. She contacted Moreau for answers of which she received none other than those outlined in the letter. He refused to cooperate but at last relented to supplying her with the addresses of former staff, chorus, orchestra and ballet members.
But although Julianne set out to work with great enthusiasm, the constant rejection and denial of knowledge soon made her disillusioned and demotivated. What else was she to do when doors were thrown shut in her face at every turn?
After two weeks of fruitless searching, she returned to the Palais Garnier like a pilgrim to a holy shrine. She had no plan and little hope left other than to encounter Erik by chance, and so she sat in the office as the minutes ticked by, staring gloomily at the untouched note in front of her on the desk.
She thought about Babette and the others in her employ whom she had treated with absent-minded indifference, fearing for their future if the opera house remained empty and she unmarried. Six months ago in the heart of the conflict and the depth of her grief, she had not taken into consideration the financial repercussions a fallout might have. Now the dangers loomed ominously ahead. If forced to choose between a hasty marriage and the dismissal of her staff, she did not believe there was an outcome she could possibly live with.
Suddenly, the faint tune of a violin reached her ears and coaxed her out of the twilit office and into the pitch-black corridor. She knew it was him by the haunting quality of the music and the emotions that latched onto her so intimately they might as well have been drawn from directly within.
Somewhere she knew that he was trying to tempt her forward, that he needed to force exposure on her first, yet she was just as unable to resist as she had been that night at his house.
The closer she drew, the angrier the tune became and Julianne realised distractedly that this was not a piece of his own making. It sounded vaguely familiar in a way that pierced her heart just like any other music to which the memory of her late husband clung.
Bumbling along in the dark without a semblance of coordination she eventually emerged at the bottom of the fly tower from which his elegantly moving figure became instantly visible, looking just as imposing as he would have wanted it to against the backdrop of the empty auditorium and the softly glowing footlights.
Julianne paused halfway through the vast structure only capable of staring at him. It had been six months, six long months of amber eyes in the dark, of revisiting conversations shared and threats made.
He was as thin and as tall as when she had last seen him, clad entirely in black except for the white shirt and mask. His long, slender fingers were moving expertly along the neck of the violin, his body swaying back and forth while his surprisingly strong right arm was whipping the bow across the strings with all the anger that so easily ignited within him.
What has happened, she wanted to ask, why are we back here once more?
Then his eyes snapped open, amber met blue and the music vanished. The silence only served to make their reunion more uncomfortable and while his name echoed through her mind, her own unfurled from his lips with damnable ease.
"Madame Doucet."
How he managed to fill those two words with such cool contempt baffled her, but the effect was instantaneous as she found herself standing straighter under his icy scrutiny.
"I thought we had agreed that it was Julianne, Erik," she answered at last, desperate to inject as much kindness into her tone as she could.
If only they could get rid of the opera ghost charade and just speak as human beings.
"Oh, you must forgive me, my dear," he said swiftly, indicating a mock bow, "perhaps I have, indeed, been too hasty in dismissing your word. You have been so truthful in the past."
Frustrated with the audacity of his remark, her own anger roared impatiently in the pit of her stomach and it required an almighty effort to rein it in.
"I have disappointed you," she acknowledged instead, taking a nervous step closer to his towering figure, "but you have disappointed me also. I thought we had reached an understanding and then you hurt me and you threatened me."
Granted, the speech had been well-rehearsed but it was thanks to it that she managed to look him square in the eye.
"I was frightened and confused and so I left."
Something in the depth of those peculiar eyes softened, but then he gripped the neck of his violin tighter and stalked off along the very edge of the stage.
"And you expected to find me ruefully grovelling before you upon your return, Madame? What a great shock this must have been to you!"
Julianne remained perfectly still, staring down at her blouse through whose slight fabric the royal purple of her chemise shimmered.
"I am not quite so naïve anymore. But I was expecting the Palais Garnier to be intact."
"I have not touched it," he laughed and the sharp staccato of his polished black boots seemed to reverberate directly in her skull.
"But you have silenced it for good and I won't allow that."
His laughter intensified, becoming more dangerous and terrifying. With feline grace, he walked the length of the stage once more until he came to stand so closely in front of her that her crossed arms were resting against his stomach.
"But you left, Madame," he said, nothing more than a soft exhalation that whispered across her face, "and now everyone is gone. You're on your own, my dear; what you allow or disallow hardly matters."
For a brief moment, the truth of his words shook her to the core but then an alternative sprang to her mind, so glorious and reckless she broke into a smile.
"But I'm not alone, Erik, I have you."
Stunned, he stared at her and despite the mask it wasn't difficult to see that he thought her raving mad.
"You wanted to be consulted, did you not, to minimise your suffering? I haven't forgotten your attempts to explain. I will be in charge of management and finances, and you will have a say in the musical and creative choices of each production."
How exactly she wanted to realise this plan, she'd rather not consider yet.
Like a restless child he rocked back and forth on his heels while his eyes offered a glimpse of the struggle that seemed to rage inside.
"No," he decided at last, the tension in his muscles evident through his clothes.
"There's no need to be stubborn!"
The angry blaze returned at once and in one swift move his hand released the bow and wrapped itself around her neck instead. Fear rippled through her and turned her numb while her mind chided her for the careless approach she had taken.
Had she really been so desperate to see him again that she had turned a blind eye to his cruelty?
"I am declining your generous offer, Madame Doucet," he now hissed, "because I do not trust you. You are a deceptive siren trying to lure me with your sweet words."
"I don't understand," she croaked, heat singeing every inch of her face.
"Of course you don't," he remarked in a saccharine voice while his fingers relinquished their pressure, "memory can be selective, after all, can it not?"
She did not dare move, did not dare look away from those eyes that were burning her alive.
"The letter, Madame Doucet. Do you remember now? The one you had so carefully hidden in your dress?"
Realisation struck so violently that she began to shake. Overwhelmed with cold nausea, she could only bring herself to nod.
Was this what had caused the rupture? One silly oversight, one act committed when they had been nothing more but adversaries?
Still, his betrayal felt so real that she couldn't help but feel ashamed.
"Erik, I…I apologise," she tried feebly, her voice hoarse from the fresh attack. "You were scaring people, killing people. I was trying to understand and I thought that Christine Daaé would have answers."
"Silence!" he bellowed, a sound that shattered something inside her. "You are not worthy to speak her name!"
His chest was heaving with the anguish contained within. Then he turned away clutching his heart.
"You have your answers now, Madame Doucet, and so do I."
The tired resignation was more terrible than his fury.
With great effort he stooped down to retrieve his bow and then slunk away towards the wings.
"Think about it!" she called after him despite herself, but darkness swallowed him up without another sound. "Has anyone else offered you a partnership before?"