Raoul had locked himself away in his study, much like he did every day. He had once shown a chance of stepping back into the light, but now it seemed that he was becoming more and more reclusive. He sulked and shouted, he drank his weight in whiskey and refused to leave his room. The Viscount de Chagny was a shell of his former self.
Meg skittered around the home, cleaning and organizing to the point that she was only reorganizing her organization. Morning until evening she spent her time trying to occupy her time with something other than attempting to comfort Raoul and soothe his hysteria. His violent streaks terrified her and her left with no out but to give him the romantic attention he was desperate for. There had been a moment when this all began, where she first truly cared for him. But that day had passed and he became an obligation. He was quickly driving her to the brink of insanity and she was forced to let it happen.
Jane cradled the babies against her bosom, making sure that both were well covered in their blankets and quietly sucking on their pacifiers. She glanced at her appearance in the mirror, finding her reflection cloaked in a cape and hood, with two babies tucked into her arms. If she said that she was the mother of the babies it wouldn't be a lie. She was Isabelle's mother and had mothered Ali- no Gustave, more than anyone else had.
Tonight she would make the midnight excursion out of Bath. Down the cobblestone alleyways, past the beautiful townhouses that she had started to love. With the Baths and the Pump room distant memories she made it down past the waterway and to the train station. If anyone asked her why she was making a flight from Bath in the dead of night she would claim that her mother in Paris had grown ill and a footman had just brought her a message. With her husband away she had to make the journey alone. Perhaps they were short staffed at their home and that explained why she was alone.
But as she arrived to the train station where the coaches awaited for passengers, she found Meg standing in the pale moonlight. "Planning to leave where we?"
"I-"
Meg pushed her fingers through her hair, her eyes wide. "I want to leave with you."
"What of Raoul?"
Meg motioned for a carriage, taking a moment to pull up the sleeve of her black coat. Her skin there was purple and bruised. "Raoul is not only a danger to himself, but a danger to me. To you. To the babies." The blonde girl trembled, she was coming unhinged more every day and she needed to be free from Raoul.
"How did you know I was coming here?"
"I didn't." Meg met Jane's eyes, the fear in the ballerina's eyes clearly said why she was there. "How did you know where to go?"
"I overheard you and Raoul." Jane carefully climbed into the carriage behind Meg.
"To Dover." Meg said to the driver, moving to sit across from Jane. "I hoped that you would overhear some conversation. It wasn't safe for me to tell you where Allistair is from."
"You mean Gustave?"
Meg nodded, "I don't know why I did this to Christine. She was my best friend. My sister." Her eyes drifted to the window, staring out into the dark forests on the road out of Bath. She had never seen England before now. But she wished she never had. The English retreat that she read about in books by Jane Austen were not what she had envisioned. Perhaps if she hadn't had to return home to a deranged, drunkard it would have been nicer.
"The father…" Jane didn't know how to go about her question. "Gustave's father is the masked man, correct? The man whose name was whispered around Paris?"
"Yes. That Phantom of the Opera."
"What's behind it?"
Twirling a piece of hair between her fingers, "You don't want to know. Once you see it…" Meg shook her head. "It's terrifying."
"And Raoul?"
"Was Christine's fiancée."
"I knew that." Jane looked down at Isabella in her arms. "I know what happened there. I learned about that the hard way."
Meg looked down, "I do not believe that you will be the last to mother Raoul's child." She inhaled heavily, letting her hand rest on her stomach. "Raoul used to be such a handsome and beautiful boy. He's young still, but he lacks that vibrancy and youth that only a few months ago characterized him. The liquor is aging him before our eyes. Turning him rotten inside."
"You don't think that you are-"
"It very well may be the truth." Meg's thumb stroked her stomach as she stared out the window. "To think that the Phantom is hideous outwardly, yet bright and beautiful inside. Look at Raoul, he's beautiful and yet like a rotten apple."
"I'm sorry." Jane reached towards Meg and placed her hand softly on her knee. Meg flinched away from her touch. "We can set this all right."
"Christine will never forgive me."
~o~
Though they had worked through Erik's difficulties with accepting his new found passions and sensuality and controlling his overwhelming desires – he still found that keeping his distance was necessary. With Christine getting healthier and stronger with each day, they moved in their own separate orbits. Their own circles seemed to rarely intersect. They were living in the same home, dining together, and practising music but they didn't truly live together. A child did not necessarily make a home. But losing a child like this had destroyed their home.
Erik had reluctantly allowed Christine to return to the Opera House for ballet lessons. He hated to see Christine reduced to a broken, childless, woman sitting quietly in the dark depths of a church's underbelly. That was not the athletic and talented ballerina he had first fallen in love with. That was the creation he had forced her into. He had clipped her wings and now he was desperately trying to undo what he had done. Trying to teach her how to fly again.
He composed while she was away, diligently seeking refuge in the melodies he created to soothe his aching heart. His heart was a part of him that until Christine filled his life with love, he had not known what the purpose of the organ was. She had taught him so many things while they had lived within that rundown house. She'd opened him up to a world of intoxicating passion that consumed him just as he had written that it would.
But now he had reduced himself to a few gentle words with her, a soft pass of his hand across her shoulders, and a fleeting kiss. He knew that everything would have been different had they been allowed to keep and raise their child. He wouldn't feel so compelled to fill the void that he saw his Christine wander around with. She was half of the person she was before.
It was his fault that she was like this now.
Some nights when she would return home from the Opera House he saw that giddy girl glimmering at the surface. She would chat about little things that the other ballerinas had said to her that day. Giggling about nonsensical things. She was vibrant and young again in his eyes. But then the next day she would return in a gloom. Someone had made some comment about them. Some lewd, incorrect comment, about her life with "the Phantom".
Christine would return and through herself into his arms, tears staining her face. It had taken every ounce of power she possessed to wait until then to break down. He would brush his fingers through her entangled mass of curls and try his best to soothe away the pain he saw in his Christine. It was moments like this that he felt like a stranger to her. Her eyes would be so empty. How he wished he could bring the light back to her.
"Christine, my Christine." Erik whispered into her ear. He ghosted his hand up and down her arm. She had curled herself onto his lap, resting her cheek against his shoulder.
"Yes?" She asked softly, taking his hand in hers.
"Where has my strong and willful Christine gone?"
He heard Christine sniff slightly, "She has gone away."
"What is her address? I wish to send a note to her and beg her to return." Erik replied lightly, kissing her brow gently. "I miss the Christine who would push me past every wall I built. I miss the Christine who soared so high above me, but grace me with her presence. I miss her."
"She misses you too." Christine sat up on his lap, turning slightly to look him in the face. "I wish we could go back to the time at the abandoned house. That was exciting."
Erik hesitantly leaned up to kiss her, afraid that he might over step some sort of boundary line. But instead he found Christine kissing him back. He cupped the back of her head, pulling her closer.
"I thought you didn't want me anymore." Christine muttered, pulling back slightly. "I thought you thought I was too much trouble."
"Never." Erik groaned, pulling her back in to kiss her. He could never tire of Christine. Even when she was distant she was enough. Just to know that she was his. He had been too afraid to hurt her after she had had Gustave. He didn't understand women and childbirth first hand, only from medical books that were so sterile and stuffy that what they said didn't seem applicable to real life.
"Perhaps Christine will come back." Christine responded, pulling away his mask from his cheek. She hated that he wore it more and more again. She'd rather see his cheek bare before her eyes than the stark white mask.
A/N: I'm back with TD. It's been hard to start again. I've been stuck on "Not For Me" My Mis story. However, my description of Bath comes from my experience this summer! I'm not sure if the train station was there then, but obviously the Pump Room and the river/canal was. Anyways, Jane's "flight" from Bath was accurate ish.
Yes? No? Terrible? Good?
Glad to be back somewhat on this story.
