Chapter 9

All I ask of you

Albert Chevalier closed his eyes, remembering the conversation and wondering if the plan would work.

"Albert, I will ask you one last time, are you certain this man deserves this chance we are about to give him? Are you completely sure he will never again commit a murder or threaten society in any way?"

"I'm sure!" Albert answered without hesitation, and once again his almost magical power of persuasion made his brother cast the doubts aside.

"Then I have found a way to help him."

The next morning all of Paris had stared with disbelieving eyes at the front page of their morning paper. The headline read: The Phantom of the Opera Framed!

Remy Artois, a 43-year-old former chorus singer in the recently restored Opera Populaire was killed in a police chase last week after strangling his lover, Jiselle Lebeu also a former employee in the same opera. New evidence shows Artois to be the man behind the two murders formerly believed to be the doing of the mysterious Phantom of the Opera. Letters which prove his guilt were found by the police in his apartment. Neighbors confirm that Artois drank a lot and was often violent. Joseph Bouquet, the first victim in the opera, whose death was initially considered an accident and then put on the Phantom's bill, turned out to be a rival for Giselle's heart. Hanging him on stage while she danced was meant to be a kind of a demonstration. The letters also suggest that the opera principal Piangi was killed out of envy for his fame and better voice. Artois goes on to describe how he found him tied up and gagged after the Phantom had taken his place on stage and he used the opportunity presented to him by fate to kill him, framing the Phantom.

According to the chief of the police, Jaques Chevalier, the great fire that burned down the opera house could be attributed to a simple accident, caused by a frightened man who was being wrongly accused and chased by a mob of people. The question remains, have we been unfair to the Phantom of the Opera?

Three days later there was an article in the same paper titled: Celebrated police chief Jaques Chevalier retiring.

"Would anyone buy this?" Albert asked suspiciously.

"Most of my people won't." Jaques shrugged. "But as far as they're concerned, both the Phantom and Artois are dead. When it turns out that one of them isn't, it would be too late."

"I didn't mean for you to quit your job."

"Once you have stepped over the law you can't be a policeman any more. It was time for me to retire anyway; the job was getting to me. I only hope your friend doesn't disappoint us."

"I hope so, too." Albert sighed.

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Erik put the paper down and looked incredulously at Meg who was practically bouncing up and down in front of him.

"How did that… Who…"

"Albert and his brother." she interrupted his stuttering. "He's giving you a chance to start anew. And he asked me to deliver this." She handed him a sealed envelope. "This man is just too good to be true. Maybe God has sent you an angel."

"A little late." Erik murmured.

To Meg's mild surprise he stood up and started pacing restlessly in front of the harmonium. Now what was his problem? Just when she had expected him to be happy. Obviously something was wrong. With the situation or with him, she wasn't sure yet.

"Erik, do you realize what this means?" she ventured.

"It means nothing, Meg."

"How can you say that! The police are no longer looking for you; you can come out now and…"

"Of course. Your big-blue-eyed little prince got two murders off my bill and that solves everything? He has saved me and now we all live happily ever after? I don't think so, Meg. It never mattered whether I did something or not! I was punished for nothing long before the first man I killed. After that they just had a real reason to punish me but it didn't make much of a difference to me! You think society will suddenly accept me? Then you have less of a brain than I thought."

Meg's cheeks turned red in anger.

"Well, I won't take insults to my intelligence from a man who's obviously too blinded by hate to see reason and too scared to even try being happy because being miserable is so much simpler!"

"I tried being happy!" he shouted. "With Christine!"

"One girl! You've loved one girl in your life and she said no! Do you realize that the rest of us usually search a lot longer and receive a lot more negative answers before we find what we're looking for or declare that this is it, we've given up on love altogether?"

"She was the only one who trusted me!"

"And she only did so because she was naïve! I love Christine but what normal woman would believe a mysterious man that seems to spy on her to be an Angel of Music?! It wasn't even real love! You picked her because you could manipulate her. And because of her beautiful voice and because she was pretty! You two have never even had a real conversation! She was a dream to you, not a real person and to her you were a supernatural creature!"

He was shaking with anger at that point. He grabbed her wrist with one hand and pulled off his mask with the other, his face inches from her.

"Look at me! What else could I have done but manipulate her? Waltz into her room with flowers and candy to have her treat me with either fear and disgust or pity? I had to be her master, her tutor, I had to make her respect and adore me! I have never had another chance at being loved!"

"You have one now and you're wasting it." Meg said trough gritted teeth.

He blinked and let go, stepping back.

"You don't realize what a foolish thing you just said. You're a silly child who thinks she's living in a fairytale. You don't see reality. I am not going to turn into a beautiful prince, Meg. Now leave."

Meg wanted to slap him. Anger boiled within her, both at him and at the circumstances that had made him what he was. Why was it so easy to do wrong and so hard to correct it?

"I'm fine where I am, thank you." She said firmly.

"You don't belong here." He stated turning his back to her.

"Oh? And Christine did?"

"Of course she didn't." He waved his hand. "It was foolish of me to believe… No one belongs here but me. Sometimes I don't even know whether I live in this place or it lives in me. There's no coming out of one's own mind and mine's a pit. It's mostly filled with darkness and fear. Not much room for love."

"Silly me. I really somehow convinced myself you loved me. I guess that on top of not having Christine's talent I'm also stupid. So you don't love me at all, do you? Then can I at least borrow some of your depressing music so I could lock myself in my room and play it?"

He whirled around and strode to her, pinning her to the wall. Which, in a less serious situation, she would have even enjoyed. His intimidation tactics were definitely not working on her.

"You want to stay here?" he shouted. "You want to spend the night in this dungeon? Is this the man you would willingly go to bed with? Is this the face you want to see when you wake up?"

Meg calmly returned his look.

"Yes. It's exactly the face I want to see when I wake up. Your face."

His blue eyes locked with her brown ones. He was the first to look away.

"You're impossible. Simply impossible." He murmured, letting go of her again to go sit by the lake, head in his hands, still going on about how impossible she was.

She felt the sudden urge to laugh. After all, he was just a man. Stubborn as most individuals of his gender. What he needed was a woman to knock some sense into his thick head. But gently, so she wouldn't disturb the spiders sleeping in the part of his brain where his common sense ought to be.

Not to mention that this was Erik. He just loved theatrics so much that sometimes he believed his own little performances. Which would have been fine if the only thing he managed to convince himself of wasn't his own doom. For a moment even she had fallen for it.

Crossing the distance between them, she sat beside him on the stone floor with her legs crossed and started humming a familiar song, at first just the melody, then the words, making it sound overly dramatic on purpose.

No more talk of darkness,

Forget these wide-eyed fears,

I'm here, nothing can harm you,

My words will warm and calm you.

Let me be your freedom,

Let daylight dry your tears,

I'm here, with you, beside you,

To guard you and to guide you…

"Come on, Erik, you're the better singer here, help me out."

He was torn between laughing and getting more depressed. It was their song. And he hated hearing it… or maybe he hated the fact that he wasn't part of the duet. In spite of himself, he hummed the next line.

Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime.

Say the word and I will follow you. Meg replied.

Share each day with me, each night, each morning…

Say you love me. Erik sang, turning to her.

You know I do. She shrugged.

Love me, that's all I ask of you. They finished together before their lips met.