NOTE: I own nothing except Orva.
Her eyes flickered open. It took her a few moments of lying still before she could remember everything, and promptly gasp in surprise and sit up. She looked around herself, surprised to find that she was in her bed. Last she remembered, she'd been sitting in the carriage as Erik took them both back to the Opera House. Could she have fallen asleep on the way back? It would make sense, she had been awfully tired. But then, how did she get to bed? He couldn't have carried me, she decided. He hated her too much. I suppose it doesn't matter so much. With a sigh she got out of bed, and starting walking to Christine's room.
"C-Christine?" she asked, knocking on the door. It quickly swung open to reveal a rather guilty looking singer.
"Oh, hello Orva," she greeted, letting her in. "What happened to your eye?" It had already turned yellow.
"H-he p-punched me." Orva paused at the sight of Raoul sitting in the chair. There was a stern look on his face.
"O-oh, h-hello Raoul," she greeted casually.
"Why didn't you want Christine to tell me all about what you two were doing?" he suddenly shot out.
For a few minutes, Orva stood still. Then she slowly turned to face Christine. "Y-you t-told him?"
"I had to, Orva!" she reasoned. "I couldn't lie to him forever, especially not after he risked his life for me."
Orva face palmed. "I-I d-didn't want h-him to know b-because he's too heroic!" she complained.
"Too heroic?" Raoul repeated.
Orva nodded. "I-if w-we'd let y-you in on th-this, then undoubtedly you w-would've kept doing something to t-try and protect us both. What's m-more, these operations have to be kept a-as secretive as possible; no one is supposed t-to know." She sighed. "B-but I-I suppose i-it doesn't matter a-any more. We've now r-reached a point where we w-would've have had to fill you in a-anyways."
"Orva, what comes next? Surely you have a back-up plan?" Christine asked, lightly touching her arm.
Orva raised an eyebrow. Nice to see you're worried about yourself here. Without answering, she slowly walked over to the bed and sat down on it, her back slouched and her head bowed low. "I-I d-didn't want i-it to come t-to this, above all e-else I wanted to stop th-this before we got so close t-to it."
"So close to what?" Raoul asked.
"...Th-The P-Point of N-No Return," Orva answered softly. "I-it's th-that point th-that I wanted t-to avoid at all c-costs. If we hit that p-point, then everything we've been doing u-up until now will be wasted effort. Th-things can never go back to the way th-they were before after that. No matter what, we c-can't let it happen, or at least not in the w-way I've seen it happen." With a sigh, she looked up. "I-I d-do have a-a back-up p-plan, but it's one I-I wanted to avoid because o-of how risky it is."
"What is it?" Christine asked.
She pushed herself back onto her feet. "W-we're g-going to p-perform his opera, D-Don Juan Triumphant. There's a-a song in that titled Th-The Point of No Return. Disguised a-as Christine, I will go out there o-on the stage and pretend to be performing i-it. Christine, meanwhile, will hide below the stage among th-the musicians, doing the real singing. The Phantom will appear, h-having taken the place of Piangi in the production. He and I-I will sing, but at the end of the number he will s-switch to a completely different song, and confess his love. I will go a-along with it, and hopefully we'll just jump through a trap-door in the st-stage. That's when you and maybe Raoul must disappear from the Opera House forever. Either w-way, you can never be seen there again."
Silence. "S-surely there must be another way-" Raoul started to say.
"N-no R-Raoul," Orva snapped. "Th-there i-is no o-other way. Trust m-me, I wish there w-was some other way, but th-there isn't. See? This is why I-I didn't want to tell you. Already y-you're trying to be heroic. But your heroism w-will do nothing for us this time. This time, w-we can only rely on cunning and lies." Raoul bowed his head. Orva relaxed. "I-if w-we tried d-doing this some o-other way, I'm certain th-that a great deal of p-people will die, just like how I-I saw it in the vision. If w-we want to avoid such a tragedy, you're g-going to have to trust me on what I s-say, and follow my instructions implicitly."
"...Alright," Raoul agreed. Suddenly, they heard a scream from down below. They all quickly rushed out of the room in the direction of the screams, which ended up being in the back-stage area. "What's going on?" Raoul asked, catching a fleeing chorus girl by the arm.
"It's one of the stage hands, he's dead! The Phantom's struck again!" she quickly relayed before running off.
Orva felt her heartbeat pick up. "Th-this w-way!" she said, running to the source of the cries. As they got closer, Orva looked up in the air, and then froze. She could only stare in shock and horror. Somewhere deep inside of her, she felt something drop at the sight of who the corpse was.
It was Nathan.
0-0-0
He sat playing at his organ, completely relaxed. He'd been meaning to kill Orva for such a long time, yet had never managed to do so yet. It'd been driving him up the wall, so after a while he'd settled on murdering her friend. And by God did that put his mind at ease. While not exactly the same, it was comforting enough that he killed someone who was actually very close to her. Perhaps he should start killing her other friends, just to satisfy himself some more...
He shook his head, turning back to the music. Maybe some other time, but for now there's no reason to. After all, it was Orva he wanted to kill in the end. I think...