AN: I think my long absence scared a few of you into thinking that I wasn't coming back...but here I am! Let me start by saying that, no, I will not be giving up on this story. The plot is in place, the wheels are turning, and the excitement is only just beginning. This chapter, however, eluded me. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the result, but all of my lovely readers deserve an update after my lengthy disappearance.
Also, this chapter is dedicated to Hot4Gerry and alance07 for giving me an extra push to get going. Thank you for the much needed encouragement!
The stage was still bustling with activity when Meg found her way back. The hour was late, but the gossip was simply too delicious for the Company to pass up now that the Opera Ghost had made a grand reappearance. Her legs were sore, her eyes heavy, and her heart fluttered madly while she struggled to gain control of her thoughts. Sleep was exactly what she needed, and with that in mind, she attempted to slip through the wings as quietly as possible.
Naturally, her goal proved to be much more difficult than she realized. She had only taken a few quick steps before she was practically assaulted by a mass of excited chorus girls, adorned in their gauzy tutus and eager to hear a firsthand account of the evening's dramatic event.
"Tell us, please, Mademoiselle Giry!"
"Oh, yes, please! We are too disappointed that we were not here ourselves!"
"Were you frightened? Tell us about the, oh, what is it called? The Strange Incident, yes! Tell us about that, we know you were here when it happened!"
Meg's head was spinning, but she didn't have the heart to dismiss the girls. Not five years past she had been a chorus girl herself, and she knew well the excitement a bit of scintillating gossip could create. Everything was different now, though. How could she tell stories of a supernatural sort knowing how very real the Opera Ghost was?
"Meg!" A new voice had entered the fray. Breaking through the crowd of young girls, Martine wasted no time ushering Meg away. "You can ask her your questions later," her friend announced to the disappointed chorus girls, marching away and turning a corner.
"Martine, you are an absolute angel, as usual," Meg sighed, looping a slender arm through one of Martine's. "I've become something of a celebrity, haven't I?"
The raven haired woman snorted, rolling her sparkling eyes in a teasing manner. "It won't be long before you're acting like La Carlotta herself. I knew your new position would go to your head."
"Don't be so wicked," Meg laughed, and despite her fatigue, despite her troubles, despite everything, she was feeling like herself again, if at least for the moment. Could Erik have had something to do with that? Surely seeing him again wasn't enough to cheer her so…
"I have always been wicked and I always will be," Martine announced dramatically, throwing her free arm into the air with great enthusiasm. "It is my job to keep you well costumed and to lift your flagging spirits with my boorish behavior and otherwise spirited ways."
"Spirited? Hardly," Meg scoffed, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Compared to the Martine I once knew, you really are an angel. As I recall, the old Martine used to sneak onto the catwalks with some of the stagehands and--"
"Really, Meg!" Martine hastily interjected, her eyes shining in good humor. "Believe me when I say that I am very much aware of my, well, sinful past. A few years in the country did work some magic on me, just as my poor mother predicted, and I am now cured of my youthful…passions."
Casting a dubious glance at her friend, Meg threw back her head and laughed again, drawing her arm out from Martine's and throwing it around her shoulders in a friendly half-embrace. "That is something I'll have to see to believe," she whispered conspiratorially into her ear. "We haven't been back long, and sooner or later I'm sure you'll find some new man to pursue with your usual reckless abandon."
Martine did not bother arguing, choosing to laugh with her instead. Their passage through the Opera House ended as they arrived at the door to Madame Giry's rooms. Martine grew serious, facing Meg and taking her hands in her own. "Your mother has been in something of a tizzy since you, well, disappeared. Again. I won't ask questions now, but I do expect to hear where it is you have been sneaking off to. Better still, I expected to hear with whom, for I am sure there must be a handsome man somewhere in the equation." If only Martine knew how right she was. Saying no more, they bid one another a fond farewell with a shared promise to spend more time catching up soon. Coming up with a plausible excuse for her friend was only one of Meg's many worries, yet she felt strangely unaffected by them now. Still feeling an odd glow that seemed to emanate directly from her heart, she slipped through the unlocked door with a small smile and let it close quietly behind her.
Antoinette Giry's apartments were not particularly large, but after serving the Opera House for many faithful years, the rooms given to her following the building's reconstruction were some of the finest offered to those who lived within the establishment. She kept them tastefully decorated, as elegant in their simplicity as the woman that inhabited them. A comfortable sitting room was the first of the rooms, and it was there that Meg found her mother pacing in an agitated way.
"Maman, I am well!" she hastily informed her parent, rushing to throw herself into her open arms.
"Yes, my child, I know," Madame Giry sighed, closing her eyes as she held her daughter close to her. "When I could not find you, I went to the Manager myself after hearing that he was the man you had last been seen with. It did not take me long to discover that you were with another man entirely." Pulling back, she held her at arms length. "It is true, then? Erik has established himself as the Opera Ghost once more?"
Meg nodded, perplexed as butterflies of excitement fluttered deep in her stomach. "It is true, Maman. And it was Erik who whisked me away from Edmund, as if I didn't owe him already for keeping me out of that man's path."
Letting her hands fall away, Madame Giry turned and resumed her pacing, walking to one side of the room and back again. "I was not afraid for you when I realized who you were with, Meg. Truth be told, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea that you and Erik seem to spend so much time together, but I am confident that Erik has no designs to harm you. I am not so sure when it comes to the Manager." She changed direction abruptly, striding to a burgundy chaise and gracefully seating herself upon it.
"I warned him that all of this rehearsal nonsense must end, or you and I would be forced to find a new place of residence to bestow our talents upon. Perhaps you will think me too hasty, my child, but I can no longer stand aside while you are used so abominably ill." Her eyes held a fire in them, and her hands were clenched in her lap as she struggled against her ever rising ire. "And to think, I found nothing wrong with him when we were first introduced! I thought him a very ordinary gentleman, in fact. I could not have been further from the truth."
Meg sat beside her mother and placed an arm lovingly around her waist. "He was, Maman, once. Long ago, when we first met, he was every bit a gentleman. Edmund was like no one I had ever met before. He was charming, handsome, and obviously extremely well-bred. Even more than that, he had a vivacity that I simply adored, and he had such a lovely sense of humor." Madame Giry regarded her daughter with a look of pure disbelief.
"He acts, then, as though he has lost his mind," she said with feeling.
"I'm afraid you may be right," Meg confided, leaning her head on her mother's strong shoulder. The inexplicable happiness she had felt moments before was rapidly fading away, replaced with a thick sense of dread that left the woman nearly shaking. The time had come, she realized with no small amount of fear and regret. There was more to her history with Edmund, and now she felt at last that she could confide those painful memories to the mother she loved so dearly.
"I have not told you everything about Edmund and I, Maman," she hesitantly began, her body stiffening. Her mother wrapped an arm about her waist in response, drawing her closer into her embrace. Meg drew in a deep breath, swallowed, and continued. "After I discovered he was intimate with another woman--and my friend, no less--Edmund came to see me. I broke off our engagement, told him to leave, to get out. His eyes…I've never seen such a horrible, ferocious look. It was like he had transformed in an instant, hardening into a stranger I had never known before."
Tears slipped silently from her haunted eyes. "He tried to…take me by force," she whispered. "He threw himself at me, attacked me... And then, just when I knew there was nothing I could do to save myself from his intentions, he stopped. I saw sanity return to his eyes, but it was too late. He didn't seem to remember where he was, what he was doing or what had happened. I turned from him and he left in a daze. Two days later, he left for London, and that was the last I saw of him until I returned to Paris."
Mother and daughter sat in silence for a long while, each one consumed with powerful emotions. Meg could feel her mother's tears dropping on her head, trailing down her forehead and mingling with her own. When Madame Giry did speak, it was with such sadness that Meg felt her heart stir painfully. "If I had known, Meg…" she began, but was quickly overcome by a choked sob. She tried again, "If I had known, I would have come to you with wings on my feet. And still you stayed and said nothing, when I am sure your heart must have longed for the comforts of a safe haven. Oh, Meg, my sweet child…oh, Meg…"
Neither of them would ever forget this moment, when mother and daughter shared in the bitterness of despair and regret, shared in love for one another and loathing for the man who would have harmed Meg so grievously. In time their tears were stopped, and Madame Giry's grief rapidly transformed into a true fury that would have rivaled any angel of vengeance. It took all of Meg's careful persuasion to convince her mother that it would come to no good to confront Edmund, even though he surely deserved to be punished in some way for his actions. "He did not succeed," she reminded her mother again and again, until finally Madame Giry was freed from her murderous rage and could see some reason.
"What is to be done?" the dance instructor sighed wearily, resuming for the second time her steady pace across the room. "You cannot answer to a man who forced himself on you and no doubt desires to try again. You would be safer in England, Meg, or Italy, perhaps."
"No!" Meg gasped, startled at such a suggestion. Madame Giry halted, bestowing a strange look upon her. "I will not be chased away," she vowed, determinedly turning away from her mother's astonished gaze. "The time for that has long since passed. Edmund may have bought himself a position here, but the Opera House is not his. When I am here, I am home. I will not leave without a fight. I know that now." Her impassioned words were truly spoken from her heart, and in the back of her mind she praised Erik for inspiring her. The battle had only just begun, and she knew with every fiber of her being that Edmund would not, could not gain a victory over her.
A reluctant smile spread across Madame Giry's face. Pride filled her eyes, mingled with that glow of determination that Meg knew so well. Going to her daughter, she took her hands and pulled her gently from the chaise so that they stood face to face. "How right you are, my Meg," she said softly, nodding slowly. "Managers come and go, like so many things in life. I cannot begin to say how I will be able to pretend that I do not know what he has done, but for your sake I will try. I swear to you, if there is anything within my power that will send that man far away from here, I will do it."
"As would I," Meg agreed. "He is fighting a losing battle. He just doesn't know it yet." She paused to yawn, smiling sheepishly. "As for me, I'm losing my own battle—to exhaustion." Laughing softly, she pecked her mother on the cheek and turned away. "We'll talk more soon, Maman. A good night's rest will do everyone some good."
"One more thing, Meg," Madame Giry interjected. "I have had a letter."
"A letter?"
"From Christine." This was puzzling indeed. Meg turned back to face her mother, frowning perplexedly.
"What reason does Christine have to write to you? She has never done so before…"
"It was to be a surprise," Madame Giry admitted, clasping her hands in front of her. "Christine and her husband will be attending the gala on opening night. Christine wrote that she simply could not miss your debut as prima ballerina. I would never wish to rob you of a surprise, but I thought that, under the circumstances, you should be prepared."
Meg knew exactly what her mother was insinuating. Prepared for Erik's reaction, once he realized that the woman he had loved enough to kill for was back in his domain. Prepared to be forgotten and cast back into a secondary role in the drama they all played in, back into the wings where she could only watch and yearn. She fought valiantly to disguise her emotions, smiling weakly as she nodded and fled the room. Fortunately her room was just next door to her mother's suites, and in a few short steps she had returned to the safety of her room.
Christine was returning. Meg should have been happy. Not long ago, she would have been overjoyed to be reunited with her childhood friend. Instead, jealousy was roiling within her, churning deep her insides and screaming for release. She fought valiantly against the urge to pick up a nearby object and throw it, settling instead to throw herself on her bed like a petulant child.
She was weary. Oh, god, how weary she was. She had exhausted all the extreme emotions she could think of, having just survived an evening so filled with confrontations and extremes that she could scarcely imagine how it had all transpired. Anger, disappointment, joy, jealousy, hope, love—
Love.
No, that couldn't be right, unless it was for her mother or for Martine, surely… Her heart screamed the truth at her, pleading with her to respond.
She had felt love. Love for Erik, for the Opera Ghost.
For her Opera Ghost, who was not hers at all. Now Christine would swoop in and—
Meg's frantic thoughts dissipated, for all at once she knew she was not alone. Raising her head from the bed, she queried into the darkness, "Erik?"
Silence. And then, "Yes, Meg. I am here."
Relief poured through her, and it took all of her remaining strength not to leap off of the bed and run to him. He approached her bed gracefully, blanketed in the shadows of the night that were so becoming of him. His mask was firmly in place, of course, but as he knelt beside the bed, Meg could detect a strange, haunted look emanating from his beautiful eyes.
"Why did you not tell me?" he demanded in a deceptively quiet voice. Meg realized that Erik knew everything. He had been listening, of course he had been listening. Knowing Erik, and she truly thought that she did, he would have kept a close eye on her until she reached the safety or her rooms. And now he knew everything.
She was tempted to turn away from him, and would have done so had he not anticipated this and grasped her chin in his gloved hand. He refused to let her look away, holding her prisoner with his gentle hand and his penetrating gaze. "He hurt you, Meg, and far more than emotionally, as you led me to believe."
"Yes, he did," she replied quietly, unsure of what more there was to say. If he had heard her conversation with her mother, then he must have been well aware of her feelings on the entire matter. "I'm through shedding tears over it," she added after a lengthy pause. "I will never forgive Edmund, but I won't cower before him, either. I've made up my mind, and my heart, as well."
Erik released her abruptly, rising and stalking to the far side of the room and into the shadows. Meg sat up immediately, peering into the darkness he had surrounded himself in. "I should kill him," he ground out, his voice low and dangerous.
"Erik, please," Meg interceded, and she heard Erik draw in a sharp breath. "Don't say things like that! Promise me."
"Promise you what?" he demanded scathingly.
"Promise me that you won't hurt him."
"How can you defend him, that wolf in sheep's clothing? Is it not obvious that his designs on you are just as sinister as before?"
"Erik, please--"
"He is ruthless, determined, insatiable…and I should know! When a man is in a state like that, there's no telling what he'll resort to in order to attain his goal. Meg, you'll never be safe from him until he's dead."
A chill descended on her, and she folded her arms around her in an effort to ward it off. "I am hardly friendless," she argued. "I have family and friends who would surely notice if something happened! Edmund would not be foolish enough to believe otherwise."
"But what makes you think that he would care?" Erik countered, stepping closer towards her. "What makes you think he wouldn't risk everything within his power to win? How can you be so reckless about your own well being, Meg?"
"It's not me I worry about, it's you!" she burst out, unable to contain her frustration any longer.
"Me?" Erik repeated, finally at a loss for words.
"Yes, you! For all the changes that you have made, for all the remorse you feel for the deeds you have committed, you could throw it all away in a moment of passion! You speak of killing him like it's little more than a stroll in the park, something simple and necessary and free of consequences! It would break my heart to see you return to that desperate, violent man that you were, and worse still if you did so because of me."
Silence followed her passionate outburst. She could not see his face well enough to read whatever emotions could have been written there, but she felt the electricity between them stronger than ever before. Was he pleased, or was he outraged? She had spoken of her heart for the second time in one evening. How would he take such an unknowing confession? And would any of it matter once Christine returned to their lives?
"You should rest." His tone of voice was almost fatherly and brooked no refusal. Wearily she nodded in agreement, resigned to the fact that there was no more to be said. Not everything could be resolved with words and explanations, not in one night. Still attired in her bright costume, Meg was too tired to even change. Lying back against the bed, she could already feel sleep creeping over her.
So close to sleep was she that she was only mildly surprised when two strong arms scooped her up. Erik pulled back the bedding and laid her gently down again, smoothing the blankets over her petite form and carefully brushing back loose curls from her face. In the morning she would doubt he had done so at all, but for now she sighed in contentment, drifting away into dreamless sleep.
"We'll talk tomorrow," she mumbled.
"Yes, Meg, tomorrow," Erik soothed, stepping away from the bed. He knew what was to be done. If only Meg knew how powerful the rage was that consumed him. He had been Christine's Angel of Music. Now he would be Meg's Angel of Vengeance. Though he had made no promises to her, still he would abide by her stipulations. The Manager would not be harmed...physically. Erik did not need to kill a man to make him suffer.
He stayed with her through the night, standing as a silent sentinel, but once the morning dawned, he was gone.