A/N - Happy New Year, everyone!
I went to see Phantom on the fourth, and it was SO good! I cried so much though, I'd forgotten just how sad the ending was when you see it live ... *sob* Seriously though, it was AMAZING - if any of you get the chance to go see the LC, then do! John Owen Jones is unbelievable, he's absolutely heartbreaking at the end. :*(
Aaanyway, enough with my totally irrelevant rambling, on with the chapter. :)
Lisa; I know the chapters are few and far between! I'm sorry! :s But it wasn't me who brought Nadir's woman of dubious reputation in, it's a quote from SK's Phantom ... wow, for once I was sticking to the guidelines set! :)
Avelera; *shrug* Hey, why not Nadir and Christine? I'm damned if I see why Erik should be the only one to suffer!
Christine
I fell to my knees beside him, catching hold of his hand and pulling the cloak away from his body. The blood from the wound, which I could now see had been caused by a stab from a knife of some sort, was spreading with frightening speed over the pristine white of his dress shirt.
His hand closed around my wrist with a grip of intense desperation. His breathing was ragged and the burning amber of his eyes seemed to dim, but summoning the last reserves of his considerable strength, he pulled me closer to him and began to speak, his voice hoarse but intense.
"Christine, listen ..."
"Shh, I'm here ... it's all right, Nadir will be here soon and he'll know what to do ..."
He fell back with a bitter sound which could have been taken for laughter.
"Nadir. Always Nadir."
"What?" I breathed incredulously. "He's your friend!"
He closed his eyes, and his grip loosened on my wrist.
"You're so young ..." he managed.
"Oh, shush!" I said, more sharply than I had intended. He turned his face away from me, his hand reaching automatically to his side, staining his long, skeletal fingers with blood.
"Erik ..." I said, suddenly very afraid. He remained still, his breath coming in harsh, painful gasps, his hand lying limp on the floor.
"Erik!"
He turned his head back towards me, a slow, painful movement that made me go cold with fear.
"Listen ..." he managed, the words forced and laborious. "You must ... listen ..."
I nodded, unable to speak past the sudden unbearable ache in my throat.
"You didn't ... you didn't believe ..."
I didn't believe ... what?
"Shh ..." I murmured. "It's all right, I know ..."
He shook his head. "No ...you don't ... you don't understand ... I ... I have to ..."
I shook my head gently, placing a finger on his lips to silence him. A tremor ran through his body, but he fell silent, and for a moment, the only sound was of his shallow, laborious breathing.
"Don't waste your strength," I told him with as much calm as I could muster. "You've just got to stay calm and it will all be all right."
He smiled faintly through the pain, his eyes closing as he lay back, his hand slipping out of mine.
"Erik!" I could hear my own voice rise, sharp with alarm.
With a great final effort, he opened his eyes and smiled at me, taking hold of my hand and raising it slowly to his lips before his eyes closed and his head fell backwards, his body going limp in my arms.
Nadir
I wasn't sure whether or not I should go to Erik that day ... our final parting had hardly been on friendly terms, and with Christine still having not returned, he was liable to be in an absolutely foul mood.
But in the end, I decided that his frame of mind might have altered, and he might be more willing to accept the idea that we should follow her. Even if he wasn't ... we had been friends too long to fall out over a woman.
Even if that woman was Christine ...
I rang the bell and waited patiently outside. But when the door opened with a crash, it was Christine who stood in the doorframe, her face wet with tears and her dress stained with blood.
Too shocked to react for a moment, I stood and stared at her in absolute incomprehension. A whirling mass of thoughts shot through my mind with dizzying speed, condensing into a jumble of incoherent feelings displaced with a growing feeling of apprehension and fear without name.
With an immense effort to clear my head, I pushed her as gently as I could out of the way and, catching sight of Erik fallen on the carpet, moved to his side with all speed and a stifled curse.
I was vaguely aware of her hovering behind me as I knelt on the carpet beside him. The carpet squelched beneath my feet; for a moment, too shocked to take it in, I stared at the sticky red pool forming on the dark velvet without comprehension, then I swore vehemently and with full feeling as I realised the implications of this amount of blood ...
I touched the wound, my fear fading infinitesimally as I realised whatever had been used to stab him had missed the lung. Taking control of myself, I turned to Christine.
"All right," I said firmly. "I think it's just a flesh wound, it shouldn't have caused much of a problem except for the blood loss ... we're going to have to stop the bleeding."
She nodded. "What do you need?"
I thought for a moment. "Clean water ... towels ..." I shook my head in frustration. "There's nothing much we can do after that except sit and wait."
She disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind her and, for a few minutes, I could hear her rummaging around in drawers and the splashing of water into a bowl.
Carefully, I pulled the shirt away from Erik's body, exposing the wound and praying that he would forgive me for this new humiliation.
It may seem odd to European readers that I managed to gather myself and take control of the situation with such ease; one must remember, however, that in my home country, Persia, fights are commonplace and my knowledge of knife wounds and elementary treatment is extensive; secondary only to poison antidotes ...
She reappeared, carrying a ceramic bowl brimming with water and an armful of clean white towels. She stopped abruptly as she caught sight of Erik, causing the water in the bowl to slop over the sides, soaking through the dark velvet carpet and leaving a faintly damp mark.
Recovering herself, she steadied the bowl and came over to me, her eyes fixed on the sticky red wound and the blood surrounding it, staining the carpet and his clothes.
"He wouldn't like this," she murmured.
I took a towel and, dipping it into the water, began to clean the wound as gently as I could.
"What?" I asked.
"You and me ... seeing him like this. He'd hate it."
I shrugged and rinsed the towel in the bowl, turning the water red.
"Yes, I daresay he would."
She knelt down beside me and brushed his hair out of his eyes, touching her fingers lightly to the unforgiving surface of the mask. I saw a tear squeeze out from behind her closed eyelids, sliding down her cheek to land on his chest.
"This is all my fault," she whispered, her voice breaking.
I folded a towel in two and laid it carefully over the wound, watching it turn red with alarming speed.
"What happened?" I asked finally, laying another towel over the previous one.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath.
"I ... I was lost, I didn't know where to go ... I asked a man, but ..." Her voice broke and she buried her face in her hands, partially obscured by tangles of hair. "He tried to ... and then Erik was there ... God knows what he was doing there, I ... there was a fight ..." She fell silent, her shoulders shaking as she relived the scene inside her head.
I frowned slightly, trying to make some sense of her incoherent ramblings, and failing utterly.
Finally she sat up, took a deep breath and pulled her hair back from her face. Suddenly almost frighteningly composed, she stood up and moved across the room to light an oil lamp on the dark wood of the table.
Without turning round, she asked, "Is there any way to move him? I don't know that he should be on the floor all night."
I considered the problem for a moment. She was of course right, if we could move him to a proper bed it would definitely increase his comfort and possibly speed the chances of recovery, but I wasn't sure whether moving him at all was a very good idea.
I could feel her eyes on me, questioning ... she had grown up a lot in the last few weeks, and her increase in composure was impressive, but she was still the little girl at heart, looking desperately for advice for someone older and - hopefully - wiser, or at least more knowledgeable.
"Right," I said, making a snap decision. "We'll chance it. Which room is yours?"
Much later, we sat in her room, lit by the flickering light of the candles, the oppressive semi-darkness and tension weighing on me like an anvil. I had assured her, time and again, that it was not a serious wound, that damage was minimal and that he was only still unconscious because of the massive blood loss he had sustained. I stifled the urge to tell her that he had had no sleep within the last few days, so it was hardly surprising that his body needed time to recuperate ... somehow I didn't think that would help matters.
She sat in silence, staring at Erik with a concentration so deep that you could almost touch it.
She traced the outline of one of the many scars lining his torso with her finger, not quite touching it, staring at it as if she couldn't believe such a thing.
"A knife?" she asked, without looking up.
I sighed.
"A whip, I'd say."
She shuddered, her hair falling forward and concealing her face. I'd been noticing this more and more from her of late, the way she used her hair as a shield ... the protection it gave her when it covered her face, the way she would dip her head and toy nervously with a curl when she wanted to avoid having to answer a difficult question ...
There was a long silence, the she spoke again, her voice flat and expressionless, betraying just how tired she was.
"Will he be all right?"
"Undoubtedly." She didn't turn, the flat rejection of her back showing me just how little she believed my assurance. "It's only a flesh wound ... the only real problem was the blood loss and we've dealt with it."
She finally looked round at me, her face tired and drawn in the dim lighting.
"Definitely?"
I looked at her and sighed. There was so much of Rookheeya in her, even when she was upset and tired out of her mind ...
"I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true."
She smiled then, the lovely genuine smile which lit up her face, and for one fleeting moment, the carefree little dancer she had once been shone through the exhausted, exterior which was so much older than her years.
She rose slowly, her face lighter and her mind evidently eased by my positive assurance.
"I need something to drink," she said, her eyes smiling in a way that reminded me so much of Reza that it made me catch my breath. "Can I get you anything?"
I shook my head and moved automatically to take her place by his side. She graced me with her smile once more and disappeared into the kitchen.
I looked down at Erik and shook my head.
What am I going to do?
Christine
I made my way towards the kitchen, my heart considerable lighter. He was going to be all right ...
Catching sight of Ayesha perched on top of the bookshelf, I stopped to talk to her. I knew better than to reach up to try to stroke her or anything so foolhardy, but she was Erik's cat and deserved my respect ... sort of ...
"Hello, Ayesha," I said brightly, in the voice most people use to address small children.
She shot me a look of the utmost contempt, rose slowly, turned round, and sat down again with her back to me. Impudent cat! I laughed softly, imagining Erik's reaction.
Turning to enter the kitchen, my eye caught sight of a newspaper lying on Erik's desk through the open door to the study.
Despite everything, the paper sparked my interest. I had never seen Erik with a newspaper in the house; yet another example of his stifling indifference towards the human race he considered himself so loosely a part of. I picked up the paper and glanced at the page it had been folded open to ... and my heart stopped.
Vicomte dies in tragic Seine accident.
The body washed up on the banks of the Seine yesterday evening was today identified as being that of the Comte de Chagny's younger brother, Raoul. It has not been disclosed as to exactly what death was due, but a verdict of suicide is expected at tomorrow's inquest.
Raoul de Chagny was recently at the head of a scandal regarding his wife, the former opera singer Christine Daaé, who disappeared from their Place de Rouens mansion in the middle of the night with no reason left and no trace of her seen since. At the time, the Vicomte's only comment was "I don't know where she's gone, and I don't know whether she's coming back."
His elder brother, Philippe de Chagny, passed no comment on today's events; it is reported that he and Raoul had not spoken since the aforementioned marriage, upon which Philippe had cut his younger brother out of the family estate and severed all ties with him, both personally and professionally.
I let the paper fall from my hand as I collapsed into one of Erik's black armchairs, only able to see the first line reproduced in my head again and again ... my husband was dead.
He was dead ... and I had killed him.