Disclaimer: If I owned the Phantom of the Opera I'd have better things to
do with all our time than write these stories. 0;-P~
Warnings: If you can't take pure fluff and a little bit of mild language, don't even bother. Yes, Erik swears, but only in the privacy of his own mind.
A/N: The characters don't much like Carlotta or her singing, but I don't mind it, I've heard worse (Roseanne Bar comes to mind). So I am not bashing Carlotta in this fic! :-P ::figures everyone is looking at her like she's gone off her rocker, figures they're probably at least partially right::
Thank you to everyone for your comments, especially to Liz DM (I love you, Maman!) and to everyone who's sticking with an E/M even when they're not fans of it...
I also apologize for how long it took to get this chapter out, I wasn't sure how I was going to work it until a few hours ago when I started it. I can usually manage to think my way out of the boxes I think myself into... sometimes it just takes a while. Anyway, sit back, relax and enjoy the fic!
[[ Erik's thoughts ]] {{ Meg's thoughts }} // Isabelle Giry's thoughts //
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lachesis' Weavings, Ch. 10 by AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ch. 10 - Discoveries
A gentle sound of a slow but strong and steady heartbeat brought Erik back to semi-consciousness, but not full wakefulness. His arm was around and over something that was warm and soft, his deformed cheek on something even softer and firm. He lay in a peaceful, contented state for several minutes.
Then what he was lying on moved just a little bit. A thought, like a lightning bolt from the heavens, shocked the man to full awareness. [[ What the hell is going on? ]]
He opened his eyes, praying it wasn't so...
It was. Megan Giry's golden curls lay in a tousled mess atop the heap of blanket he had wadded up as a pillow. And Erik himself was pillowed...
[[ Oh, shit. Christ, she's going to think I just crawled into bed with her. ]]
As quickly as he could, Erik left the mound of blankets on the floor and hauled out the trousers he had cast into the corner of the room, quick to move where Meg would not see him fastening the pants if she happened to wake.
Too late, he realized, as he looked around with his pants held at his waist, not yet fastened. Meg's emerald eyes, still fuzzed slightly by sleep, looked up at him from the floor.
"Mademoiselle, I apologize." The words came tumbling out, he couldn't stop. [[ I have never felt like such a fool in my life! ]] "I don't know what to say, Megan, please understand, it's not what you're thinking - I never intended... Christ, I swear I did not intend... anything... of that sort... [[ I sound like a gibbering idiot. I need to get her out of here, double-time. ]] "Miss Giry, I think it might be best if you left."
The dancer's eyebrows went up a little further with every word and she made no attempt to hide her grin at Erik's fumbling words. "And why is that? You still can't take care of yourself. Besides, no man can clean anything and those rooms need it badly."
[[ The damn girl is going to bloody well make it difficult for me! ]] "I know you'll never believe this, Mademoiselle - I swear I did not try to sleep with you. I don't know how I ended up... there... I swear I tucked you into the bed first -" Erik turned away from the young woman, knowing the good half of his face was blazing red, and barely restrained himself from cutting free with several choice words in Farsi.
"Erik -"
"Please, Mademoiselle, please go."
"Erik -" Meg tried again, rising and straightening her nightgown. She reached for the dressing-gown on the corner of the bed.
"Just go, Mademoiselle, please! It's not what you think, I swear, but go!"
Meg finished belting the gown around her waist and planted her feet, hands firmly placed on hips. {{ How does Maman get the other rats to be quiet? Something about the way she speaks, I think... }} She imagined herself as her mother and the man before her, whose whip-scarred back was turned towards her as he buried his face in a corner of the wall, as a boy of about five who had been caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar. The dancer raised her voice in the way she had heard Reyer teaching some of the more promising chorus girls: that meant straightening all the way and utilizing all the air from a full, deep breath and all the muscles in her diaphragm to project it. {{ I'm Maman, right after she's caught Sorelli in some corner with a boy! }}
"Monsieur le Fantome, be silent, if you please, and listen!"
Erik whirled to face her, eyes wide and nearly panicked. But he did not say a word.
Meg shook her head a little. She had seen the man nine-tenths dead, she had seen him angry, she had once had to help him bathe, he had even fallen asleep in the same bed with her once already, but never before had she seen Erik this flustered before. Or quite that shade of red. And she was rather pleased that she'd been able to get Erik to listen.
"Erik, I know it's not -" {{ Damn it. }} She started over. "I know you didn't intend anything. If anything, I should be the one apologizing. You were having a bad dream, it woke me up, so I held you. I guess I fell asleep, too., but I know you must have put me back in the bed because that's where I woke up. You didn't come sleep with me, I slept with you!" Meg couldn't quite make that admission with a straight face, though. {{ Oh Maman would have my ears if she could, but Sorelli would be rolling on the floor laughing! }}
The former Opera Ghost seemed thunderstruck and, in a rare but purely unguarded moment Meg read shock, amazement, anger - and then suddenly it all dissolved into hilarity as Erik's knees gave out from under him and he collapsed, sliding down the wall as his chuckle boomed out into the room and gave way to full-fledged chortles. She was laughing too, she realized: it was just too funny. The petite rat made her way around the bed to Erik's sitting form - they were both laughing so hard they were crying.
When both of them had recovered far enough to be able to look at one another without bursting into another round, Meg had an idea. "I guess that settles sleeping arrangements, then."
Which of course set them both off again.
Finally Erik sobered, though he did not bother to hide the smile on his face as he rose and helped little Meg to her feet. When her arms snaked around him, he didn't reject the embrace. "I guess it does at that, if you would be comfortable with that arrangement. Though I shudder to consider what your mother would do."
Meg shrugged. "She'd try to have my ears, but I think she likes you too much to try anything of the kind on you."
Erik chuckled again, golden eyes sparkling with the mirth that had been reawakened in him at last. "I do not know, a dancer without ears would have difficulty hearing the music to stay in time to it. As for me, she would have to find me, first, and nobody will have your ears without my having a say in it. But come, if I remember aright, 'Il Muto' opens again tonight. Who has the leads?"
"Carlotta plays the Countess, and since there's no understudy for - well, Reyer himself is taking the lead tenor."
"Oh, lords, gods and minor deities! That pair will be awful enough that it might just be amusing! Carlotta croaks from time to time, true, but Reyer croaks all the time!"
"So it's a matched duet. But... you're not. going to do anything, are you?"
Erik looked at the girl who had released him by now and was standing by the armoire looking for a dress. "Do anything? I might go see if Box Five is still clear, but there will be no falling chandeliers tonight or any other night. The Opera Ghost is dead."
Meg paused in her rummaging and her head became visible again from around the door. Her green eyes gave him that piercing stare again, as if weighing him.
"Then is this Erik that I see now?"
Erik nodded slowly. "I never was an Angel to anyone but - Christine - and that ended a long time ago. The Phantom of the Opera is at peace and will not come back. There's only Erik here now, though he still responds to the other name out of habit."
Meg's eyes were hooded somewhat. "What happened? With Buquet, I mean? And Piangi?"
Erik hesitated, but she had the right to know. "I do not know if you will believe me, Mademoiselle - Meg, but the truth is, I was behind the backdrops when Buquet fell. Remember that his position meant that he was supposed to be in the rafters during a performance anyway. I think that he saw me and wanted to frighten me off without disrupting the performance any further, but he slipped and fell to the stage instead. I never touched him. I know he told stories about me and that annoys me, but I never planned to harm the man."
"And Piangi?"
Erik recognized a test when he smelled one, and this was unmistakably a test of honesty. And, htough it hurt that she questioned his integrity so openly, he had to admit that he wouldn't trust himself, either. "He would have died if he had not been taken so completely by surprise. It was not necessary to kill him, so I hit him on the head. Perhaps a little harder than I intended, but I wanted to be sure that he would not interfere... and if you recall, by the script I was somewhat rushed for time. And he is not a bad singer, after all, when the opera is in Italian. Though he mangles French badly and his German is worse."
Meg smiled. Both of his stories checked out - Piangi had been released from the hospital only two days before.
"I believe you - Erik."
~*~*~*~
"Il Muto" opened once more as a resounding success. Carlotta performed as she never had before and erased the ignominy in everyone's mind of the memory of the last performance, when her celebrated crystal voice had broken so horribly into a toad's croaking. And Meg managed to stay in step this time, though it was a ballet that she did have trouble with. The applause was thunderous, the stage trembled beneath the feet of the cast as they took their final bows, and Carlotta sang two encores.
Box Five remained unsold, much to the chagrin and annoyance of the managers.
At last Meg made her tired way to the corps' dressing room. Madame Giry was waiting for them there.
"On the whole, nicely done, girls," she said, and the rats beamed. Isabelle Giry was the harshest taskmistress the Opera Garnier's ballet corps had ever seen and was exceedingly sparing with her praise. Only a moment later, though, the judgment they all feared crashed down. "Sorelli, I want to see your slippers. If you smudged them I will have you placed with the seamstresses during performances for the next week, and you will run from the first cellar to the rooftop during the day until I tell you otherwise, you should know to take better care of your slippers than that! Jammes, show me again how to do a proper plissee, that was disgraceful! Tanya, Carmina, to the barre, now. You too, Jammes! If you cannot dance better than that I see no reason to keep you in the corps! The rest of you, dismissed. Have a good night, all of you, rest well. I will see you all here again at nine in the morning sharp. Anyone who is half a second late will scrub the pissoires with their toothbrushes for the next two weeks!"
Meg didn't doubt the ballet mistress' threats: she'd had to serve enough of them. Isabelle Giry was as hard on the newest rat as she was on Sorelli, but she was three times as fierce with her daughter.
Wearily she made her way to her lock-closet... and paused.
In the same slot as she had found the invitation to Christine's wedding to the Vicomte, she found a light pink rose, half-opened. It was fresh: there were water droplets on the petals. With it was a note on the fine white parchment, written in charcoal.
"You were wonderful tonight, cherie."
There was no signature, but Meg was certain she knew who had delivered the blossom. She sniffed deeply at the flower and smiled, her eyes closed.
"Ooh, look what Meg has!" squealed one of the youngest rats, Marie. Instantly she was surrounded by more than half the corps.
"Who's it from, Meg?
"Oh, how romantic - is he going to sweep you off your feet like the Comte de Chagny does with Sorelli?
"Is he tall, dark and handsome?"
Meg smiled and told them what they wanted to hear, that she had no idea who it was from, but maybe he was "tall, dark and handsome" and maybe he really would come in one day and sweep her off her feet. Somehow, she had the feeling Erik was hearing every word and laughing: it was a warm feeling she had.
It was fully an hour before she was able to set the rose down long enough to change without fear of it - she had hidden the note - being swiped by the other girls. She pulled on a dark cloak over the much-patched dress, picked up the parcel the two, dropped seemingly carelessly onto the bottom of the locker, had concealed, and sneaked her way down towards Christine Daae's old dressing room and the darkness of the fifth cellar below.
~*~*~*~
Isabelle Giry was walking as quickly as she could down the corridor, meaning to get to the rats' dressing room to speak with Meg. The news that Meg had gotten a pink rose - no, a red one - no, it was a dozen red roses from some tall, dark, handsome noble who was going to come in and propose to Meg - no, carry her off like the Opera Ghost did with Christine Daae - no, marry her right there on stage next performance whether she wanted it or not (they seemed to forget the necessity of a priest, or maybe it was all already arranged without Meg's knowledge - no with her full cooperation!) - had certainly caught the ballet teachers' attention.
// Although certainly they are exaggerating. In one hour I have heard so many different versions that I find it impossible to sort out the truth. If not, I will need to have a serious talk with Meg, I will not have her running off in the middle of a season with some man without a word to me! And Miss Daae did the same, they say - except that she was running off with two men... that's still a scandal here. Even knowing what happened, I still can't //
So it was with no small amount of surprise that the older woman saw a cloaked and hooded figure slipping noiselessly down the hallway with a very large package in her arms. The figure was slipping off towards - // Miss Daae's dressing room. Why there? And why with a package - //
The older Giry stopped in her tracks. The cloaked figure didn't seem to have noticed her, but was hurrying on without a pause. // Could it be? Is that Meg, and going to the cellars? But why? And why with a package? //
Pulling her shawl more tightly around her thin, black-clad shoulders, the older Giry followed the figure she was certain was her daughter down the backstage corridors of the Opera Garnier.
~*~*~
Meg rushed down the corridor as quickly as she dared in the dim red light of the dark lantern and found Erik waiting for her at the edge of the lake. He had found one of his boats, a narrow craft like a gondola, with a long, long pole. Clad in clothes that Meg had managed to smuggle down to him, he wore his mask again. Only out of habit, it seemed, for his eyes lit up with an undisguised warmth the moment he heard her rapid footfalls and he rose to greet her.
"I was beginning to wonder if you would be able to come tonight," the masked man murmured as Meg embraced him. "I trust the rats were not too troublesome about your present?" he added as he took the dark lantern from Meg and placed it onto a hook on the front of the boat.
Meg laughed. "I thought it was you behind that. Thank you, it was beautiful, and a lovely surprise! And they let me go after only an hour of questions-"
Erik held a finger to her lips, silencing her. His keen hearing had picked up the sound of footsteps. "Someone's coming," he whispered. "I can't hide the boat, and I can't get us out of sight before they get here."
Meg listened, and now she could hear the approach as well but her ears had to be deceiving her. The only person who walked with that gait - the distinctive "click-click-tap, click-click-tap" was.
The person came around the corner, and both the rose and the parcel dropped from Meg's nerveless hand.
"Maman."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tell me what you think, please?
AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In the Language of Flowers, well-known in Europe in the Victorian era, almost all roses meant love of some kind. A light pink rose signaled friendship and deeper shades a romantic interest. Half-opened meant it was just beginning, a bud meant there was potential for whatever the color of the bud signified. (Red roses meant a sexual interest, and now you know where the Valentine's tradition of long-stemmed roses comes from, it's probably one of the last common holdovers from the Language of Flowrs still in use today. Go read my fic "Speech of Flowers" for more information there if you're interested.)
Warnings: If you can't take pure fluff and a little bit of mild language, don't even bother. Yes, Erik swears, but only in the privacy of his own mind.
A/N: The characters don't much like Carlotta or her singing, but I don't mind it, I've heard worse (Roseanne Bar comes to mind). So I am not bashing Carlotta in this fic! :-P ::figures everyone is looking at her like she's gone off her rocker, figures they're probably at least partially right::
Thank you to everyone for your comments, especially to Liz DM (I love you, Maman!) and to everyone who's sticking with an E/M even when they're not fans of it...
I also apologize for how long it took to get this chapter out, I wasn't sure how I was going to work it until a few hours ago when I started it. I can usually manage to think my way out of the boxes I think myself into... sometimes it just takes a while. Anyway, sit back, relax and enjoy the fic!
[[ Erik's thoughts ]] {{ Meg's thoughts }} // Isabelle Giry's thoughts //
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lachesis' Weavings, Ch. 10 by AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ch. 10 - Discoveries
A gentle sound of a slow but strong and steady heartbeat brought Erik back to semi-consciousness, but not full wakefulness. His arm was around and over something that was warm and soft, his deformed cheek on something even softer and firm. He lay in a peaceful, contented state for several minutes.
Then what he was lying on moved just a little bit. A thought, like a lightning bolt from the heavens, shocked the man to full awareness. [[ What the hell is going on? ]]
He opened his eyes, praying it wasn't so...
It was. Megan Giry's golden curls lay in a tousled mess atop the heap of blanket he had wadded up as a pillow. And Erik himself was pillowed...
[[ Oh, shit. Christ, she's going to think I just crawled into bed with her. ]]
As quickly as he could, Erik left the mound of blankets on the floor and hauled out the trousers he had cast into the corner of the room, quick to move where Meg would not see him fastening the pants if she happened to wake.
Too late, he realized, as he looked around with his pants held at his waist, not yet fastened. Meg's emerald eyes, still fuzzed slightly by sleep, looked up at him from the floor.
"Mademoiselle, I apologize." The words came tumbling out, he couldn't stop. [[ I have never felt like such a fool in my life! ]] "I don't know what to say, Megan, please understand, it's not what you're thinking - I never intended... Christ, I swear I did not intend... anything... of that sort... [[ I sound like a gibbering idiot. I need to get her out of here, double-time. ]] "Miss Giry, I think it might be best if you left."
The dancer's eyebrows went up a little further with every word and she made no attempt to hide her grin at Erik's fumbling words. "And why is that? You still can't take care of yourself. Besides, no man can clean anything and those rooms need it badly."
[[ The damn girl is going to bloody well make it difficult for me! ]] "I know you'll never believe this, Mademoiselle - I swear I did not try to sleep with you. I don't know how I ended up... there... I swear I tucked you into the bed first -" Erik turned away from the young woman, knowing the good half of his face was blazing red, and barely restrained himself from cutting free with several choice words in Farsi.
"Erik -"
"Please, Mademoiselle, please go."
"Erik -" Meg tried again, rising and straightening her nightgown. She reached for the dressing-gown on the corner of the bed.
"Just go, Mademoiselle, please! It's not what you think, I swear, but go!"
Meg finished belting the gown around her waist and planted her feet, hands firmly placed on hips. {{ How does Maman get the other rats to be quiet? Something about the way she speaks, I think... }} She imagined herself as her mother and the man before her, whose whip-scarred back was turned towards her as he buried his face in a corner of the wall, as a boy of about five who had been caught red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar. The dancer raised her voice in the way she had heard Reyer teaching some of the more promising chorus girls: that meant straightening all the way and utilizing all the air from a full, deep breath and all the muscles in her diaphragm to project it. {{ I'm Maman, right after she's caught Sorelli in some corner with a boy! }}
"Monsieur le Fantome, be silent, if you please, and listen!"
Erik whirled to face her, eyes wide and nearly panicked. But he did not say a word.
Meg shook her head a little. She had seen the man nine-tenths dead, she had seen him angry, she had once had to help him bathe, he had even fallen asleep in the same bed with her once already, but never before had she seen Erik this flustered before. Or quite that shade of red. And she was rather pleased that she'd been able to get Erik to listen.
"Erik, I know it's not -" {{ Damn it. }} She started over. "I know you didn't intend anything. If anything, I should be the one apologizing. You were having a bad dream, it woke me up, so I held you. I guess I fell asleep, too., but I know you must have put me back in the bed because that's where I woke up. You didn't come sleep with me, I slept with you!" Meg couldn't quite make that admission with a straight face, though. {{ Oh Maman would have my ears if she could, but Sorelli would be rolling on the floor laughing! }}
The former Opera Ghost seemed thunderstruck and, in a rare but purely unguarded moment Meg read shock, amazement, anger - and then suddenly it all dissolved into hilarity as Erik's knees gave out from under him and he collapsed, sliding down the wall as his chuckle boomed out into the room and gave way to full-fledged chortles. She was laughing too, she realized: it was just too funny. The petite rat made her way around the bed to Erik's sitting form - they were both laughing so hard they were crying.
When both of them had recovered far enough to be able to look at one another without bursting into another round, Meg had an idea. "I guess that settles sleeping arrangements, then."
Which of course set them both off again.
Finally Erik sobered, though he did not bother to hide the smile on his face as he rose and helped little Meg to her feet. When her arms snaked around him, he didn't reject the embrace. "I guess it does at that, if you would be comfortable with that arrangement. Though I shudder to consider what your mother would do."
Meg shrugged. "She'd try to have my ears, but I think she likes you too much to try anything of the kind on you."
Erik chuckled again, golden eyes sparkling with the mirth that had been reawakened in him at last. "I do not know, a dancer without ears would have difficulty hearing the music to stay in time to it. As for me, she would have to find me, first, and nobody will have your ears without my having a say in it. But come, if I remember aright, 'Il Muto' opens again tonight. Who has the leads?"
"Carlotta plays the Countess, and since there's no understudy for - well, Reyer himself is taking the lead tenor."
"Oh, lords, gods and minor deities! That pair will be awful enough that it might just be amusing! Carlotta croaks from time to time, true, but Reyer croaks all the time!"
"So it's a matched duet. But... you're not. going to do anything, are you?"
Erik looked at the girl who had released him by now and was standing by the armoire looking for a dress. "Do anything? I might go see if Box Five is still clear, but there will be no falling chandeliers tonight or any other night. The Opera Ghost is dead."
Meg paused in her rummaging and her head became visible again from around the door. Her green eyes gave him that piercing stare again, as if weighing him.
"Then is this Erik that I see now?"
Erik nodded slowly. "I never was an Angel to anyone but - Christine - and that ended a long time ago. The Phantom of the Opera is at peace and will not come back. There's only Erik here now, though he still responds to the other name out of habit."
Meg's eyes were hooded somewhat. "What happened? With Buquet, I mean? And Piangi?"
Erik hesitated, but she had the right to know. "I do not know if you will believe me, Mademoiselle - Meg, but the truth is, I was behind the backdrops when Buquet fell. Remember that his position meant that he was supposed to be in the rafters during a performance anyway. I think that he saw me and wanted to frighten me off without disrupting the performance any further, but he slipped and fell to the stage instead. I never touched him. I know he told stories about me and that annoys me, but I never planned to harm the man."
"And Piangi?"
Erik recognized a test when he smelled one, and this was unmistakably a test of honesty. And, htough it hurt that she questioned his integrity so openly, he had to admit that he wouldn't trust himself, either. "He would have died if he had not been taken so completely by surprise. It was not necessary to kill him, so I hit him on the head. Perhaps a little harder than I intended, but I wanted to be sure that he would not interfere... and if you recall, by the script I was somewhat rushed for time. And he is not a bad singer, after all, when the opera is in Italian. Though he mangles French badly and his German is worse."
Meg smiled. Both of his stories checked out - Piangi had been released from the hospital only two days before.
"I believe you - Erik."
~*~*~*~
"Il Muto" opened once more as a resounding success. Carlotta performed as she never had before and erased the ignominy in everyone's mind of the memory of the last performance, when her celebrated crystal voice had broken so horribly into a toad's croaking. And Meg managed to stay in step this time, though it was a ballet that she did have trouble with. The applause was thunderous, the stage trembled beneath the feet of the cast as they took their final bows, and Carlotta sang two encores.
Box Five remained unsold, much to the chagrin and annoyance of the managers.
At last Meg made her tired way to the corps' dressing room. Madame Giry was waiting for them there.
"On the whole, nicely done, girls," she said, and the rats beamed. Isabelle Giry was the harshest taskmistress the Opera Garnier's ballet corps had ever seen and was exceedingly sparing with her praise. Only a moment later, though, the judgment they all feared crashed down. "Sorelli, I want to see your slippers. If you smudged them I will have you placed with the seamstresses during performances for the next week, and you will run from the first cellar to the rooftop during the day until I tell you otherwise, you should know to take better care of your slippers than that! Jammes, show me again how to do a proper plissee, that was disgraceful! Tanya, Carmina, to the barre, now. You too, Jammes! If you cannot dance better than that I see no reason to keep you in the corps! The rest of you, dismissed. Have a good night, all of you, rest well. I will see you all here again at nine in the morning sharp. Anyone who is half a second late will scrub the pissoires with their toothbrushes for the next two weeks!"
Meg didn't doubt the ballet mistress' threats: she'd had to serve enough of them. Isabelle Giry was as hard on the newest rat as she was on Sorelli, but she was three times as fierce with her daughter.
Wearily she made her way to her lock-closet... and paused.
In the same slot as she had found the invitation to Christine's wedding to the Vicomte, she found a light pink rose, half-opened. It was fresh: there were water droplets on the petals. With it was a note on the fine white parchment, written in charcoal.
"You were wonderful tonight, cherie."
There was no signature, but Meg was certain she knew who had delivered the blossom. She sniffed deeply at the flower and smiled, her eyes closed.
"Ooh, look what Meg has!" squealed one of the youngest rats, Marie. Instantly she was surrounded by more than half the corps.
"Who's it from, Meg?
"Oh, how romantic - is he going to sweep you off your feet like the Comte de Chagny does with Sorelli?
"Is he tall, dark and handsome?"
Meg smiled and told them what they wanted to hear, that she had no idea who it was from, but maybe he was "tall, dark and handsome" and maybe he really would come in one day and sweep her off her feet. Somehow, she had the feeling Erik was hearing every word and laughing: it was a warm feeling she had.
It was fully an hour before she was able to set the rose down long enough to change without fear of it - she had hidden the note - being swiped by the other girls. She pulled on a dark cloak over the much-patched dress, picked up the parcel the two, dropped seemingly carelessly onto the bottom of the locker, had concealed, and sneaked her way down towards Christine Daae's old dressing room and the darkness of the fifth cellar below.
~*~*~*~
Isabelle Giry was walking as quickly as she could down the corridor, meaning to get to the rats' dressing room to speak with Meg. The news that Meg had gotten a pink rose - no, a red one - no, it was a dozen red roses from some tall, dark, handsome noble who was going to come in and propose to Meg - no, carry her off like the Opera Ghost did with Christine Daae - no, marry her right there on stage next performance whether she wanted it or not (they seemed to forget the necessity of a priest, or maybe it was all already arranged without Meg's knowledge - no with her full cooperation!) - had certainly caught the ballet teachers' attention.
// Although certainly they are exaggerating. In one hour I have heard so many different versions that I find it impossible to sort out the truth. If not, I will need to have a serious talk with Meg, I will not have her running off in the middle of a season with some man without a word to me! And Miss Daae did the same, they say - except that she was running off with two men... that's still a scandal here. Even knowing what happened, I still can't //
So it was with no small amount of surprise that the older woman saw a cloaked and hooded figure slipping noiselessly down the hallway with a very large package in her arms. The figure was slipping off towards - // Miss Daae's dressing room. Why there? And why with a package - //
The older Giry stopped in her tracks. The cloaked figure didn't seem to have noticed her, but was hurrying on without a pause. // Could it be? Is that Meg, and going to the cellars? But why? And why with a package? //
Pulling her shawl more tightly around her thin, black-clad shoulders, the older Giry followed the figure she was certain was her daughter down the backstage corridors of the Opera Garnier.
~*~*~
Meg rushed down the corridor as quickly as she dared in the dim red light of the dark lantern and found Erik waiting for her at the edge of the lake. He had found one of his boats, a narrow craft like a gondola, with a long, long pole. Clad in clothes that Meg had managed to smuggle down to him, he wore his mask again. Only out of habit, it seemed, for his eyes lit up with an undisguised warmth the moment he heard her rapid footfalls and he rose to greet her.
"I was beginning to wonder if you would be able to come tonight," the masked man murmured as Meg embraced him. "I trust the rats were not too troublesome about your present?" he added as he took the dark lantern from Meg and placed it onto a hook on the front of the boat.
Meg laughed. "I thought it was you behind that. Thank you, it was beautiful, and a lovely surprise! And they let me go after only an hour of questions-"
Erik held a finger to her lips, silencing her. His keen hearing had picked up the sound of footsteps. "Someone's coming," he whispered. "I can't hide the boat, and I can't get us out of sight before they get here."
Meg listened, and now she could hear the approach as well but her ears had to be deceiving her. The only person who walked with that gait - the distinctive "click-click-tap, click-click-tap" was.
The person came around the corner, and both the rose and the parcel dropped from Meg's nerveless hand.
"Maman."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tell me what you think, please?
AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In the Language of Flowers, well-known in Europe in the Victorian era, almost all roses meant love of some kind. A light pink rose signaled friendship and deeper shades a romantic interest. Half-opened meant it was just beginning, a bud meant there was potential for whatever the color of the bud signified. (Red roses meant a sexual interest, and now you know where the Valentine's tradition of long-stemmed roses comes from, it's probably one of the last common holdovers from the Language of Flowrs still in use today. Go read my fic "Speech of Flowers" for more information there if you're interested.)