Chapter Forty-Four

The Scorpion Or the Grasshopper, Revisited


When the alarm rang, Erik rose from his chair. Passing the unlit fireplace and her empty chair, he put on his cloak and his gloves. He was trembling slightly, his heart clamouring. What waited out there for him was—presumably—news of her, but there was nothing hopeful in that prospect. What would become of her, out there by herself?

He knew she had survived on the streets before. She was resilient; She could keep herself alive. But not dying is not the same as being safe, and it wrenched his stomach to think of what might happen to her—what may have already happened to her, by the time they met. Anyone who professed to love her must needs safeguard her. However capable she was at surviving, it was unacceptable that she should ever be abandoned to fend for herself. Even if she were strong enough to defend herself—and she was not physically strong, especially not while still recovering from a grievous injury, and aside from that, she had been so emaciated when he found her—she should not have to.

He could not change her life's story any more than she could change his face. Whatever abuses and wrongs and inflictions lurked hazily in her past, known to him only by a dim outline, were certainly not her own fault, nor were they his. The blame lay, Erik felt, not only on anyone who had directly harmed her, but even more heavily on anyone who was supposed to have loved her and instead had ever placed her in a bad situation; anyone who had ever cornered her with a set of circumstances that trapped her in a world of crime and villains; anyone who had ever neglected his duty to protect her, so that she did not have to protect herself.

Going forwards? That 'anyone' would forever include Erik. It was he who had shoved her into such an impossible position that she felt she had to leave. It was his actions that had driven her out into the night, shimmering in rippling green silk, bare throat and shoulders pale in the moonlight, with a large amount of money on her person. That was entirely his doing. Whatever happened to her now, he might as well be the perpetrator. He was, ultimately, taking his place in the line of men who had hurt her—and perhaps worse: neglected her.

So now, he must go out there like a man and face whatever the Daroga had come to tell him.

He found the Daroga on the opposite shore, holding a lantern. He stayed in the shadows, outside of its light. "Well, Daroga?"

Not even bothering to shine the light in the direction of his voice, clearly knowing Erik too well to think the spot the voice emanated from was where he was actually standing, the Daroga said, "I have spoken to Mademoiselle Éponine."

Just hearing her name spoken aloud was almost too much for him to bear. When had those three syllables become dearer to him than any music? He swallowed hard. "Clearly. You would be more of a booby than I thought, to risk coming here without having seen her."

The Daroga sighed. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. "She asked me to give you this. It is an address." He held it out in front of him.

"No."

"No?"

"I told you. I won't be told where to find her."

"But now it is different. She wants to be found. She wrote out the address herself. I did not ask for it."

Erik trembled, but he kept his voice steady. "Tell me how she is."

"She said she is well. She is working. As a servant, it would appear. I went to have a look at the address. A very elegant home, on the Rue—"

He swooped out of the shadows then, leaning over the Daroga, inches from his face. "DO NOT tell me. It will be the last word you ever say, booby. Put your hand at the level of your eyes all you like." Erik laughed terribly. But inside, his heart felt a little lighter, because she wasn't on the streets, at least. She was a respectable servant in some respectable home, and likely safe. But he also felt a cold despair. He had not even stopped to consider that the news might be good. Were he to hear that anything had happened to her, he would have known such rage, powerlessness, guilt—an entire flood of emotions that would probably kill him on the spot. But to hear that she was fine without him, and likely did not even miss him? This would kill him too, only much more slowly.

The Daroga calmly stepped back. "But she asked me to give it to you."

"Oh yes? What is she expecting? Am I supposed to arrive at her place of employment, some elegant house in a quaint neighbourhood, only so that I can be laughed at and spat upon, shown the door in disgrace?" A humourless laugh. He took a step back himself, holding his arms out to the sides to let his cloak spread like great black wings. "Should I knock on the door and say that I am there to call on Mademoiselle Éponine? Or should I sneak in the window like a bandit—oh yes, perhaps that would be more appropriate, given the mask. What do you think? Would she prefer to see me humiliated in daylight, or dragged away by the law under cover of darkness?"

"Erik. Please. You know that is not her intention."

"Then what, pray tell me, my dear Daroga, is she expecting?"

"I don't know. She merely asked for paper, wrote the address, and told me to give it to you. And she asked me to ensure that you are eating and sleeping. She was very worried for you. And rightly so. You look very unwell."

"How sweet," Erik said, in a quieter voice, the calmness of which was somehow more chilling. "I am a little dog, am I? To be pitied and looked in on?"

The Daroga simply sighed again.

"She knows where to find me! Why not come here herself? Why play silly games and send me an address on a piece of paper?"

"I don't know. So take it, and go ask her yourself."

Erik turned away, letting his cloak swirl behind him. "No."

And then: that booby laughed.

In an instant, Erik was towering over him again. "I seem to have missed the joke."

"I imagined you were doing the honourable thing, by not wanting me to tell you where she was. But no. It is not honour. It is cowardice. You are a coward, Erik."

He could have killed the booby so easily. If the eccentric Persian who was always wandering the Opera were to meet with an accident down in the cellars, who would even question it? But instead, he stepped back into the shadows, folding his arms. "A coward?" he asked, in a silken voice. "Do go on. Tell me, Daroga, how am I a coward?"

"Is it not obvious to you? Do you know yourself so little, after spending so much time alone? Christine Daaé did not love you, and if you forced her to live as your wife, you would have been a greater monster than anyone ever thought you were. I did not say so, when you visited my flat to tell me, but I admired you for letting her go. It was the most courageous thing you have ever done in your life. Do you know what I think, now?"

"I know you will delight in telling me."

"I think, you knew she did not love you, it is true. I think you wanted her to be happy. Perhaps you even felt remorse. But there was something more."

Erik waited in silence, his heart racing wildly, but his mind, for once, practically blank.

"I think that, when she agreed to be your wife, when she stood there before you, you were terrified."

"No—" The image arose of Christine, standing before him with her golden curls and those honest blue eyes, head bent forward just slightly. The sun—too brilliant to touch, too magnificent to be contained—had descended from the heavens, into his hellish abode of darkness, prepared to give up everything for love, but not love for him. She did not love him. She never would. While it was the hardest thing he had ever done, if he loved her, he had only one choice. There was not a real question there to be examined. He had to let her go.

But the Daroga was forcing a different question, now.

"You never believed she would have chosen you willingly."

"I—" This new question, forced into his mind unwelcomed, now spun around wildly, disrupting everything, sending everything flying into disorder. What if Christine had chosen his twisted, loathsome visage over unmarred, youthful flesh? What if she had chosen his condemned, contorted soul over unblemished, ignorant boyhood? What if she had chosen to surrender to her darkest dreams in an eternal night, rather than to soar unfettered in the light of day? What if she had faltered for a moment between the two, what if there had been a chance that she might love him? Would he have been prepared for that?

"I think that, actually, you would have preferred she turn the grasshopper."

He'd certainly expected her to. Especially after she tried to kill herself, especially because she did not know the choice meant death for so many others as well. But preferred?

"It is too easy to destroy yourself, and it does not worry you greatly to take everyone else with you, either. But to live? To be loved by someone else? To walk worthily of the person who loves you? Did you ever have the courage for that, Erik?"

His mind had become such a maelstrom, his thoughts flying past him so quickly that he couldn't grasp a single one.

"Of course, with Christine Daaé, that was never going to happen, so why consider such questions? But now, Mademoiselle Éponine has revealed the truth. You are a coward."

The Daroga's neck was unprotected. How easy it would be for the Punjab cord to come whistling out of the shadows and strangle the insolent throat that spoke such lies. But perhaps that would be a cowardly thing to do. To kill him from the shadows while the Daroga stood there in the circle of lantern light, fearlessly denouncing him as a coward. In fact, that was probably exactly what he wanted, wasn't it? He would never give this great booby such satisfaction.

After a few moments where Erik did not respond, the Daroga held out the address again. "Perhaps it is not a good thing for either of you. I worry most especially for her. But she asked me to give this to you, so take it. Go to her, or do not go to her. But at least take this piece of paper and make the decision. Like a man."

Slowly, Erik's black-leather-gloved hand reached out of the shadows and took the piece of paper.

There was a long pause, and then the Daroga turned to leave.

Before getting into his boat, Erik carefully folded the paper and slipped it into his jacket. How stupid he would feel if he were to drop it in the water, after all of that. Once he was in the boat, he called after the Daroga's retreating form. There was a lot that he could have said in that moment. A lot that he might have wished to say. But in the end, all that he could manage was three words: "Thank you, Kazem."


A/N: Alternative title: "In Which Erik Allows the Daroga to Have a Name Other Than Booby for the First Time in This Entire Fic"

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