A/N: I don't own it already! Yay, another chapter! It was sad writing this chapter and yet oddly inspiring... I don't know why...
Her fingers gently touched the side of the box and her instinct was to try and draw away. It was almost as if some unseen force was surrounding her. The Phantom of the Opera was closing in on her mind. Then she realized just who the Phantom of the Opera was. It was definitely not Erik. Not unloved, poor Erik. Erik was just this man being dragged down by this monster who took over his body. She pushed back her fear and that surge of the Phantom in her mind disappeared.
What was in the box that he treasured so much? What little trinket let his mind be in peace for a short period of time? She had seen him sometimes through nights stare at the box. She never saw what was in it, but it always made him sit still for hours. At these times she saw him slouch, which he never did. It seemed that it made this world, which so cruelly hated him, disappear. It let it float into his world of music and beauty. What could make the Phantom of the Opera go away for a short while?
Her mind wanted to know, but everything seemed so slow.
"Wandering child, so lost… so helpless…" She said quietly. As she said these words a man in a mask appeared in her mind. His appearance was much different than she would have imagined it. She pictured a black mask, something that hid his emotions. Then she pictured a white dress suit, not hiding his appearance.
She liked it the other way around. Unlike most, he wore the white mask. Most only wore the black mask. Although seeable, they're lost.
She tore her mind away from anything but the task at hand. She listened carefully for any sounds. Of course, Erik was too preoccupied to notice that she had not yet left, or to notice where she was. He was too stricken with grief of losing his precious Christine to notice her.
A moment of jealousy passed throughout her. She cursed Christine. She cursed everything about her for making Erik unhappy and now for putting his life in danger. She stood these thoughts immediately and sat still, guilt running through her. How could she think that? She couldn't help that she didn't love Erik. After all, who could love a monster?
She sighed deeply and let her shoulders sag. He wasn't a monster. He was a genius… he was amazing… he was beautiful in his own way. And yet he was terrifying. A murder. But this fact didn't make her want to run away… in fact it made him more of what he already was. She was so confused! She hated all these feelings!
Her fingertips reached inside of the gold box and she opened the box as quickly as she could. She felt her eyes widen in shock and she felt her feet move back in an attempt to run away from what she saw. Her hand flew to her mouth and she felt the tears that were in her eyes force their way out without her consent. Not bothering to wipe them away, she thought every possible solution in her mind. Still, she knew exactly what this ring meant to him. She knew exactly whose ring it was- or whose ring it was meant to be.
She vowed something inside herself this moment. Without realizing it she told herself silently. And then this thought grew and grew until she could finally speak.
"This will never happen again."
With that said aloud to the silent room, she learned what true hate was. She knew never to trust someone else with her heart again. She learned to hate everything that was Erik. And now, he was the same person. He was the Phantom of the Opera.
She sat at the chair like a statue. As her eyes read over complaints, triumphant, and just statues she sighed. This was what being the "manager" was. Being a "manager" was sitting in the office all day and managing paperwork. This was why she thought long and hard before she had decided to help the Phantom. In the end, it had been a song she heard. While she stood, waiting for her conversation with "the new owner", she heard a soft, heartbreaking melody float across the stage.
Of course, she had known about it all along. It was the begging in Erik's letter's that made her come back. Ever she, the strict, stern woman, and she was letting this poor soul turn her into a lamb!
This music had struck a chord. It was like all the painful memories of the world finally fell on her shoulders. It was on sob after another and that was not the worst of it. All these sobs were linked together, which was the worst! She felt like she did when her husband died. During that time, she hadn't left her room for weeks. The small child, Meg, anxiously knocked at the door only to be disappointed by her mother's behavior. She had tried to comfort the child, but how can anyone expect to help when there very presence made everyone feel better about there own situations?
Mme. Giry glanced up to the figure that stood in her doorway like a ghost. Her eyes widened in shock for the second time that day. The figure did not look like it had when she had last seen it. Clearly something had happened. Clearly this figure did pay the consequences that she had foreseen.
"Ana!" She said, and stood to help this girl that seemed like an empty shell. She walked around the desk that she was sitting at and touched Ana's arm. Ana didn't flinch. The only thing she did do was stare off beside her, farther into wherever her mind had gone.
"Ana?" She asked, leading the girl to a chair. She sat down like a doll, completely indifferent.
Then her face grew curious. Her head lifted from its slumped position and she looked to Mme. Giry.
"What happened?" The older woman demanded. She looked at the white bandage surround the younger girl's head. "What did he do to you?"
"What?" She said quietly, gazing at Mme. Giry intently. It seemed more curious than anything else. It was if she had just awoken from a dream and she wanted to know exactly what was going on. She glanced around the room.
"Child, your head." Mme. Giry said, bringing a hand to Ana's forehead. Ana looked around without changing the expression on her face.
"How long has it been since I left?" She asked, suddenly becoming aware of everything. Mme. Giry felt the young girl's hand gripped around her arm. She stared at her in the eye with a curiosity that needed to be answered.
Mme. Giry sighed softly at the child's unawareness. She took her hand off of Ana's shoulder but still held a strong gaze at her. "A month."
A month!
Oh, time had flown by! To Ana it felt like a small blur in the longest year of her life. She could see it as if it all happened within a flash. She sucked a lung's full of air and looked at the floor.
"And- when is the Opera?" She asked quietly, tearing her eyes back up to look at the older woman.
"With The- his- new ambition, it will be ready for next week." She said taking a few steps across the room. The clicking of her heels echoed across the room like an endless abyss. The older woman's eyebrow's knit together, which made her lines of age stand out more so than they already had.
Ana folded her hands together in her lap, a strange habit she had when thinking. What was she to do? Erik was in deep trouble this time! What if he could not save Christine? What if he was captured?
"You know?" Mme. Giry asked, turning on her large, black heels, as she stared at Ana.
Ana swallowed hard and nodded. "It's a trap." She said quietly, her blue orbs fixing heavily on Mme. Giry. She needed support for herself- to keep going. She needed some sort of reassurance.
"He isn't incompetent, he can see that." Mme. Giry said, turning to look at Ana. Clearly she couldn't?
The thought gripped at the hems of her soul and was scratching and pulling her train of thought towards it. How could anyone else love the Phantom of the Opera? How could anyone? If only he loved her as well!
"He loves Christine with all of himself." She said to the child. "You should care to remember that."
"What are you saying?" The woman with red curls asked, getting to her feet. "Do think I love him? That would be outrageous!"
"How did you manage to live, Mlle?" Mme. Giry asked, turning to look at this girl directly in her eyes. This was a question she was dying to have answered. After all, she was no one to the ghost… she wasn't anyone. How did she manage to live?
"I escaped." Ana said, looking to the floor through her lies. "He was using me to see Christine." She felt the tears threatening to come up but she did not want to be accused of loving him! Not The Phantom of the Opera. If she had chosen to love anyone it would have been Erik, but that did not matter anymore. Erik was dead.
Mme. Giry's eyes bore into her for a second, and she had to force herself to keep looking at the floor. She already knew that if she looked into her eyes the woman would she her lie… she would see right through it.
"If you'll excuse me, Madame… I'll see you at rehearsal." She stood, noticing that she was starting to shake with all the attention on her. Either Mme. Giry hadn't noticed this or she was giving Ana slight peace of mind. Either way, Ana was grateful as she scurried out of the room.
The halls seemed much smaller than they had the last time she had walked down them. She begged her feet to stay attached to the floor, she felt like she was going to fall through the floor from lack of support. Which is what she had- no support. It was if the wall would melt at the slightest touch of her fingers and she needed the wall to find her way! The echoing of her steps gently touched all around her as she made her small steps.
What had she meant?
She soon found herself wandering onto the stage. The red velvet and golden surrounds beckoned to her and she found that she could not resist them. They had her on a string as she aimlessly walked out onto the stage. The conductor sat at the piano stool. He had a quill pen in his hand as he scribbled things down on a piece of paper. He seemed to be in his own little world, surrounded by whatever was running through his mind. As she approached the side of the stage his eyebrows knit together. Finally, exasperated, he threw up his hands in defeat and gave a growl from the back of his throat.
Forgetting herself, Ana spoke quietly. "What's wrong, Monsieur?"
He must have jumped ten feet before residing in himself once again. He looked up, ready to accuse whoever had snuck up on him so rudely, and his jaw seemed to drop when he saw Ana. "Is that you, Ana?"
It wasn't that they were friends, but rumors of her from the Opera Ghost had come to his ears. For a month and a half rumors that she had snuck down below were all told by the galling rat girls. His eyebrow flew up, making his already curious look more exaggerated.
When she didn't answer, he found himself looking at the bandage on her head. "What happened, mademoiselle?" He asked, not overly concerned.
She averted his gaze and refused to answer. Changing the subject, she looked across to whatever he was working on. "What's this?" She asked, taking a step towards it."
He sighed and took the time to glare at the small packet. He had been reading over the score for the past few hours and each note seemed to make him more frustrated than the last. "Our newest Opera." He sighed once again and looked back to Ana, who seemed to be looking at the pages with curiosity, even though she was standing a few feet away. He saw the blood drain from her face. Clearly she had gone through something much worse than the rumors. Everyone knew all to well that the new owner had created this Opera "Don Juan Triumphant". It was also the suspicion that this new owner was the Phantom of the Opera, and how could anyone disagree?
Christine Daae was missing, a girl almost murdered, music so chilling that it was wonderful, and notes beyond comprehension. The pieces all fit together, the final question was why? What was worth risking everything again? What could this ghost really want with everyone at the Opera Populaire?
He nodded with dissatisfaction. "There will be complaints." He said this with certainty. Although everyone had been rather weary to begin with, there had been nothing to do for a few weeks- a few scores here, a few rehearsals there. All of a sudden they were to practice every moment they had free, it all started with Ana's disappearance.
His eyes shot to the innocent looking girl with the red curls, covered by a white bandage, falling across her face. Her blue eyes came to look at his sharply, as if they had seen something no one should have. Could it be that she really had something to do with this disaster?
"May I see it?" She asked anxiously. He pushed the thoughts away into the folds of his mind. There would be time for these thoughts later, at that moment he had work to do. Still, it wouldn't hurt him to take a five-minute break. He banged the paper against the piano to straighten them out. As he stood, he handed the music to the girl.
"If you'll excuse me, Mademoiselle, I'd like to get a cup of tea." He said this while hurrying to the door. Over his shoulder he called, "Please place that on the piano when you're through, Mademoiselle." Even as he walked away he couldn't get the suspicions out of his head. What connection did this foolish ballerina have with the Phantom of the Opera?
Speaking of the Phantom of the Opera, he was standing in front of a building on the other side of Paris. After getting the performance together, he had walked around his house for five hours telling himself not to go looking for them. He kept telling himself that looking for them would only cause her death. In the end, he could no longer take it. Imagine, not just five hours but an entire week totally helpless to what they were doing to his precious Christine!
"Even the king of kings needs to learn patience, like everyone else."
Exacerbated was his impulse to kill the first person that happened to cross him on the street. He was frustrated, mostly of his incompetence. Not only had he let someone find out about him being alive, but he couldn't find a simple building that held his dearest Christine! He was astounded when the urge to bend over and sniff around like a dog came to his mind. Instantly, he knew he was losing his mind- if he had it to begin with!
Finally, after mentally blowing a fuse and walking around in circles for most of the night, Erik decided to return back to the Opera Populaire. Of course, he was frustrated. As he furiously walked down the corridors he heard something familiar…. too familiar.
The destination changed until he found himself in the flies above the stage. His music drowned him and he growled a few times when the person messed up. They need to get a professional he thought darkly to himself as he thought up ways to torment the current one. They should've have been playing in an Opera house. They played like they had only been playing for a year or two.
Then he caught the red hair. The red curls that adorned someone he knew all too well. He gasped at this.
Ana had only been playing for a month, how was it that she could play this? She should have been practicing scales still, and yet she could even begin to comprehend what he had written? She had managed to surprise him yet again with her abilities.
He was proud of her, and yet suddenly very angry with her at the same time. He wanted her out of his life!
As the notes of the grand piano began to soar into his higher arpeggios he felt his rage of earlier that night begin to build up one more time. The bent screech of rage soared above any of his arpeggios until at last the notes died away and all that was left was silence. Ana said very still, wide-eyed. Her fingers, which were pointed straight out from shock, slammed down on the keys as her back straightened to an unnatural position. She looked around and glared at her surroundings.
Still, with the glare, she had a sweet voice. "Erik?" She scrunched up her nose in frustration. Why was she mad with him?
He didn't answer. Quickly, she got to her feet and ran out the door, leaving his music where it was.
Why was everything so frustrating?
If it were anyone else he was sure he would have killed them.
What did this mean?