AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay. This should have been up three days ago already, but my parents were out and I had such a lovely new Harry Potter video game… well you can probably imagine.
Alisendre: Ah, see who's back in action. ) Not too many old characters by now (oh well, Gaston was in it, apart from the non-original two, and Créon and Adhemar were at least mentioned), but there'll be more in this.
TheQueenSarah: You know, that really calms me. I was afraid you were one of those people who wanted to see me burn in Hell because of the pairing. Not paranoia, I had such reviews already, reviews which only consisted of protest and similar. The trouble is, I take everything seriously that is not marked with a smiley. Well, if this is so, then you can bring up your preferred pairing all over the place. Actually I would have made Raoul go for Meg if not for my sister's preferences, but here we are, jolly pairing-juggling getting even worse. Bea has a list of all possible and impossible pairings, I think, and it's rather long, a lot longer than for the first part. :D Actually, this is not my first war. Not by far. My first war fic was written when I was nine, and I do like a good battle every now and again. ;)
The Musician of the Night: How mean of you, trying to abuse my Erik! lol YOU may like his dreams, but HE doesn't. (There are five flashback chapters/dream sequences yet waiting to be shoved into the chapter list, where there are several more…)
Bea: Thinking of Boromir? Yes, this is what I did. (I also think about Boromir when I see pictures of Saint Sebastian the martyr. I call him Saint Boromir, even. My mother hates it and tells me to stop being blasphemous every time. lol) What's so exciting about the Hunter? Well, remind me to send you my lovely "Hunter/Aeternus" pic, then. ;) Gaston? And who keeps telling me she isn't into Christian Bale, eh? lol
Polly: Trust me, I got those already… Not that I wouldn't enjoy killing the fop… or no, not killing, but tormenting him a bit… evil snicker
Hotaru: Yes, I thought a bit of Shirtless Erik might please you ladies. After all, I got requests for having him take off his shirt some more in the sequel. lol No, feel free to use that pun, I don't mind… much. ;) MUFFINS! pushes basket with sticky muffins towards Phantom Phantom snatches a muffin a shoves it between his author's jaw's forcefully Mmmmff! ;-)
Ashley: Yet another appreciator of "shirtlessness" ;-) No, apparently no results of the kind you're expecting.
Nugrey: Usually sequels aren't better than originals, but I'll try hard. ;-) I have a distinct feeling I cut out too much detail about the Hunter, but he'll reappear anyway. I'm glad you liked the descriptions. And that quote you were wondering about… it was me who wrote it. And there'll be more about it several chapters later on…
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II. A perfect Opera
The city of Paris had many theatres, several of which played operas at least part of the time. Those which were solely opera houses were only three: The Opéra Comique, smallest of the three, and the two eternal contestants, as the newspapers liked to call them, the Grande Opéra and the Opéra Populaire.
During the last season, the Opéra Populaire had clearly been the public's favourite, with all its gossip and strange rumours and the scandal stories seeping out – until the fire in February, at least, which had forced the managers, Messieurs Gilles André and Richard Firmin, both formerly dealers in the department of old metal and other kinds of junk, to cease all productions for over two months. Naturally the Grande Opéra had made quite a fortune in that time, and they truly needed it, since they currently had a new opera house built, one larger and, as they said, more magnificent than that of the Opéra Populaire.
Those of the Opéra Populaire merely laughed at that. Larger it might be, they said, yet more magnificent? Never! And until it would be completely finished at last, ages would pass, anyway. Especially since now it served as a storehouse, and the many ardent struggles fought over its possession between Republicans and Communards had done considerable damage to the structure.
So what, said those of the Grande Opéra. This war would be over one day, and then the new opera house's interior would be completed, and then…
Yes, what then? Those of the Opéra Populaire could only laugh at that. The new Grande Opéra was going to be the largest in all of France, what with its seventeen floors and all, and its opening might well going to be a major sensation, one the public would talk about weeks before and for weeks afterwards, but so what? There was something they didn't have, something which the Opéra Populaire was famous for.
The Opéra Populaire had the Opera Ghost.
There were all kinds of stories about the Ghost. He was a former rat-catcher, an evil genius, an angel descended unto earth or the emperor's illegitimate son, depending on the source. They said that he could be in two places at once and could dissolve into thin air when he stepped into the shadows. Most stories had in common that he lived in the cellars, deep under the earth, but in some he lived in a house in a bizarre underground landscape he had carved from the rock himself, whereas in others he just slept on a cot in a corner, heedless of the cold and the moist ground and walls. Many said that he could see in the dark just as well as in the light. Of course he saw and heard everything, and when the walls sighed and the floors creaked, they said that this was because of his bad mood.
But who was he really? Nobody seemed to know. Some said he was human, whereas others said he was a spirit and nothing more, and there were many opinions inbetween.
What they all agreed on, however, was that he wore a flowing black cloak and a white half-mask covering only one side of his face.
Some women said that he was stunningly handsome, too. And some of those claimed that he would come to them at night from time to time, though those were the ones who squealed loudest and ran first when he appeared somewhere.
Funny, thought the Opera Ghost. How was he ever supposed to come to those rooms or dormitories, then, without waking up the entire Opera House?
Currently the Phantom, as he preferred to refer to himself, was sitting on an enormous upturned bucket in the hindmost corner of the stage, studying a letter while keeping half an eye on the rehearsal going on around him. People did not run squealing anymore, as long as he sat still, at least, but they stayed clear of him, which gave him all the privacy he needed.
Only a short time ago, they would not even have stayed long enough to look at him twice. They would have fled in terror. But now, after the whole incident with Créon and his Lost Ones, they seemed to have gotten used to him at last.
And some actually liked him.
With a small, slightly lopsided grin, he smoothed out the letter he was busy with. Actually he had finished reading it earlier on already, but it always calmed people when he was apparently busy with something else. Not that he did not want to scare them – he rather enjoyed at least unsettling them regularly – but if he seemed to be too busy watching the ballet practising, all the little ballerinas might start falling over themselves, which would annoy the ballet mistress to no end.
And once she was annoyed… Well, it was best not to be in her way, then. The Phantom was one of very few who did not dread her wrath. He merely found it bothersome. But to annoy her now, when he knew there was such a lovely-looking, freshly baked cake waiting up in her apartment, was… unwise.
The music stopped as the ballet instructor raised her slender cane slightly, and immediately she started giving out criticism. Claire Giry had been the Opéra Populaire's prima ballerina for many years before she had taken on this post, and she was just as hard with the girls as she had been with herself in her own years of training. An old sergeant would run in terror from Claire Giry, some of the ballet members joked. Yet they never forgot to add that she possessed a kind heart underneath. Clothed all in black, her blond hair braided intricately, Madame Giry moved with grace among a line of young men costumed in white and blue, demonstrating to them what they had been doing wrong, while all the others watched.
Most of the others. One of the girls, a pretty blonde one of about seventeen years, turned and sought the Phantom's eyes. As their gazes met, she winked.
With a small smile, he winked back. There were some even he considered friends.
And because the girls beside her were looking now, too, he tugged at his shirt a bit, making sure it allowed them just a little glimpse more of bare skin than they would usually see. After all, he thought, grinning to himself wryly, he had a reputation to keep up.
There were certain things he always did for that reason, like bringing his wide black cloak with him, even though it was warm enough by far to go without one. Currently the cloak lay draped over a stack of chests beside him, and he was sitting there in his bronze-coloured silken waistcoat, which he wore hanging open over a white dress shirt, on which he had left the topmost buttons open just as well. His black cravat was untied, hanging around his neck like an unknotted scarf. Well, so much for wearing his evening dress in the middle of the day, another of those things people said about him. At least he was wearing part of it. The trousers did not quite belong with it, though that was not obvious from some distance, as they were just as plain black as they were supposed to be, and neither did the boots, and certainly not the sabre which stood propped against the stack of chests beside him. But there were certain precautions one simply had to take in times like these.
Of course he wore his mask, too. He always wore it, even when he was alone. He did not suffer anyone to behold the right side of his face uncovered, and even those few who knew him well rarely ever saw what he looked like underneath. This way, he might even be considered attractive, though perhaps in a rather exotic way, and that he wore his dark chestnut hair bound together with a leather cord at the back of his neck increased that impression. But when he was unmasked… No, he did not even want to think about it.
Forcing the thought away, he bent over the letter again. The Comte de Chateaupers. He should have guessed. Gérard de Chateaupers was his most frequent visitor, and still he was polite enough to announce himself.
By now, at least. Earlier on, it had been different.
Gérard de Chateaupers was head of the Criminal Police, and the Phantom had been in quite a bit of trouble with the police during the last months, to say the very least. Now, he was not exactly in trouble anymore, yet it was best to do what Chateaupers wanted, or to follow his advice, as the man would have put it, to stay out of trouble.
Glaring at the letter, the Phantom growled throatily. Nearby, a passing stagehand jumped and ran in horror, but the letter remained utterly unimpressed.
Curse the stupid thing.
On stage, the ballet and chorus members scattered, signalling that there obviously was a break, and several of the musicians rose from their seats and left the orchestra pit. Looking up briefly, the Phantom folded up the letter and stuffed it into his trouser pocket, all the time watching the young blond ballerina, who was now coming towards him in a merry, prancing kind of step, the silly girl, already giggling about something. Meg Giry was a sweet little thing, but sometimes she was just too cheerful.
"Erik! You would never believe what Xavier just did!"
He sighed. "Yes, fine. No need to shout."
"Oh, drop it," protested a dark-curled youth who had followed her, groaning dramatically and rolling his eyes. "It's not that funny, really."
"Yes it is!" trilled Meg and poked her tongue out at him.
"Yes it is!" echoed a pretty brunette who had come up behind the young man.
"Marie? That's utterly disloyal of you," complained the youth, his boyish face contorted into a grimace of staged outrage.
The girl grinned. "You shut up, Xavier."
"Yes, that's right," Meg agreed, giggling. "You shut up."
"Lord in Heavens!" The boy threw the Phantom an agonized look. "Those women are a nightmare!"
Oh, those ballet members and their foolish little games! And actually thinking he would join in! No, he never bickered. "Well, you know how women are. Always trying to boss you around." He merely made a few remarks, that was all. "To compensate for their lack of practical intelligence."
Now it was the boy's turn to giggle, which he did in a rather girlish way.
"Now, Erik," cried Meg, waving her forefinger in the air, "I'm taking none of this nonsense from you! Lazing around in a corner and nagging, eh? And insulting decent young ladies? Perhaps you are trying to compensate for a lack of female attention and entertainment."
"A very male thing to do," remarked Marie sweetly. "They always think we're there to entertain them, when really it's the other way round." And they exchanged a glance and giggled together. Although Marie was in her mid-twenties already, while Meg was only seventeen years old, those two were very close friends.
"Oh, you pair of hags," said the boy. "Aaargh!" For Marie had poked him in the ribs with a sharp finger.
Yes, they really expected him to play along. What a bothersome lot they were. Leaning back comfortably, he lazily stretched his limbs, signalling he was at his ease completely. Although this should have been a harmless gesture, it had a tendency to unsettle others, to make them uneasy. The Phantom did not quite understand why – perhaps they saw a threat in it? – yet he noticed its effect and regularly employed it.
"Who are you trying to impress, Erik?" Meg was grinning broadly, her hands on her hips. "Wait 'til I jump onto your lap and ruffle your hair until it's over with your Opera Ghost dignity forever!"
Oh, the brat! "You watch your tongue with me, piglet, or you'll end up hanging in the flies somewhere, preferably with your legs up." Those threats were very effective usually, since everybody knew what the Phantom was capable of.
"Yes, you listen to the man, piglet," Xavier said triumphantly. "I'll be quite eager to assist him." And he beamed at the Phantom.
The idiot. But for some reason, the Phantom found himself grinning back at the silly boy. He was getting far too soft-hearted, he really was!
"You shut up, Xavier," the girls chorused.
The Phantom almost laughed.
"What's the meaning of this, being merry without us?" Four others had come to join them, a pair of lovely girls looking very much alike, except that one of them had darker hair than the other, and two men, one of them Gaston, the other a tall fellow with dark, curly hair and surprisingly green eyes. "You'll have to wait for us the next time," the girl with the darker hair continued, waving a finger in the air in mock indignation.
"Don't reproach the Lord Phantom, Geneviève," Gaston warned, frowning at her.
Oh, Gaston… Always so obsessed with showing proper respect. For all the Phantom cared, he could have slapped him on the back when coming to join him, and he would not hurt him for it. Well, not much, at least.
"Oh, Gaston, give it a rest," sighed the other girl, wearing a jolly, charming smile. "Ickle Erik can stand up for himself." And all four girls present broke into giggles once more.
Little Victorine Poussepain. Ever since the Phantom had included her and her elder sister Geneviève, both chorus girls, on his list of those precious few who could truthfully say they knew him a little better, the girl had used her impertinent little tongue on him, a tongue sometimes even worse than little Meg Giry's. But he did not truly care, not since it had become clear that Victorine practically idolized him, not unlike Gaston in a manner, though in a different way. And sometimes the girl, though not much older than Meg, would fuss over him like an old hen, which was not only highly amusing, but also earned him a handful of treats from time to time. Yes, of course he could afford all the chocolates he wanted himself, but being fed a box of them one by one was just too much fun to refuse, although it was a rather undignified way of eating chocolates. Well, sometimes you just made exceptions. Especially for a pretty girl.
Gaston merely rolled his eyes at Victorine. After all, he knew her just as well as the Phantom did.
Victorine threw her elder sister a glance, but Geneviève said nothing, just smiled and yawned. As if she had worked that hard during the rehearsal!
"So," said Xavier, grinning at her, "have you been up again all night, perhaps partying with the Opera Ghost?"
It had become a phrase by now, and one frequently heard at the Opéra Populaire, and it described doing something unusually daring or foolhardy. But in this context, it got yet another meaning: All those present had indeed done similar things already, or at least they had been up in the middle of the night having a little secret gathering in their night things with the Phantom lurking in a corner somewhere, enjoying a cool drink.
"I wish," Geneviève replied with a smile. "No, I'm just normally tired. We have a tiring chorus master." To which Victorine nodded readily.
So she liked those occasions, now did she? How nice to hear. For twice those little meetings had ended with the Phantom curled up snugly between the sisters in their bed, sleeping peacefully after having his chest patted and his hair stroked. As Meg had observed, he was becoming a kind of Don Juan as far as lovely young girls were concerned, though a harmless one, as she had concluded, since all he aimed for was a quiet little snuggle and the occasional kiss.
But the time would come when he would be known to ravish virgins, he thought, smirking to himself.
Quietly Christine slipped into their semi-circle, merrily greeted by the others, her former colleagues, and the Phantom tried not to eye her with longing. Though he did his best to suppress it, he desired her just as much as he loved her. But she was so pure, so innocent, whatever had been between her and Raoul; he could not just take advantage of her. He would never betray her trust.
And she loved another, and all he wanted was for her to be as happy as possible, even if it broke his heart…
No, he would not think about it now. Not again.
This, and those nightmares. It was eating him up slowly from inside.
Looking up again, his eyes met those of the last of the four who had joined the group recently. Serge was a serious, silent man, surrounded by an air of quiet , even mysterious dignity which was quite unusual for a stagehand. Ever since Joseph Buquet's untimely, but utterly non-regrettable death, he had taken over responsibility for the flies, and he did his duty with a quiet efficiency quite characteristic for him. He and Gaston had been the first to follow the Phantom, together with Jean Hulot, who was now dead, but he had caught the Phantom's attention before that already, because he was different from others. He did not speak much, but when he did, it became clear that he looked deeper and perceived things that remained hidden to others.
And now there was an unspoken question in his eyes, a question only too easy to read, and the Phantom wondered whether any of the others, including Meg even, had noticed at all what Serge had noticed: Serge knew that there was something wrong.
For a moment the Phantom just held his gaze, then he answered it with a short nod. Yes, he was fine. He was just fine.
He was not quite sure whether Serge was going to believe him, though.
"What are you all standing around for?" Madame Giry's voice rang out across the stage, making Marie jump. "Back to work, you lazy lot!" Everybody ran back to his place as she told them to, waving her cane at stragglers, and the jolly chaos of the time immediately before a rehearsal's beginning ensued, a chaos which sometimes continued well into the rehearsal, too. "Christine, come here, we need somebody to stand in for Cécile, she's ill."
"That's what she says," Meg muttered as she returned to the ballet formation.
Watching the others take their places again, the Phantom smiled. When observing their practising, one could almost forget that there was war outside. The Opéra Populaire was a small world of its own, a place of peace in an otherwise stormy ocean.
For how long still, though? For how long?
And then he tensed as he suddenly felt something. No, it couldn't possibly be –
Picking up his cloak and sabre, he very quietly edged away into the backstage area and into the darkness of the corridor leading down to the old chapel and into the cellars. Once he was out of sight, he began to run.