Title: le Visage dans le Miroir

Author: Rancid Melody

Summary: A ballerina from Rouen joins the staff of L'Opéra Populaire to prepare to take the position of a soon-retiring Madame Giry – assuming, of course, that 'all goes well.' Is there more to this cryptic reference than the ignorant Mireille Decker realizes?

Disclaimer: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra belongs to all those people who wrote it and stuff. But I reserve the right to stalk Gerard Butler. Until he notices, and gets a restraining order. Upon which I would have to use binoculars. Or something. Um. Heh.

Warning: I have not read the book. I have a Gerard-Phantom. Deal. However, my Gerard-Phantom will not be OOC. Also, there's some French in here. It's all translated at the end, if you don't mind scrolling down to check. However, most of it is easy to figure out, and what is not is not important to the story.

Chapter Title: Quel Genre de Vie

Acknowledgements: To TheSiriusSparrow, LostSchizophrenic, and Laura Kay, I extend my thanks for your many reviews and enthusiasm. To Quixotic-Feline and anyone else who was wondering, I've been pronouncing Mireille as 'meer-RAYL.' I don't know how it's supposed to be pronounced, as I've never met anyone with the name, but apparently it means 'miracle' in once of those languages that is connected to French.

To Mandy the O: Oh my dear lord! You're reading my fic! dies Yaaaaaay! And you like it! dies again Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

To anyone who was wondering, especially Laura Kay, as she so kindly mentioned it in her review cheeky grin, my audition went well, I had thought. Unfortunately, I didn't get a call-back. Ah, well.

I'm sooooooo sorry I haven't updated in… forever! Okay, like a day-and-a-half, really. But it feels like forever, because I've been so bored of being busy! And I had trouble working this chapter out, so please, my lovelies, forgive me if it's rather rough around the edges.

Now! For the moment you've all been waiting for since you finished the last chapter! Voila!


I felt clean.

It was lovely.

I suppose I must explain myself. I have not taken a bath in four days, as I asked for a screen to put around the tub, and did not receive one for an unreasonably long amount of time. Of course, when I mentioned this to Madame Giry, she spoke to the femme principale de nettoyage, who cleared the matter up immediately.

I love that woman.

Madame Giry, I mean. I'd never even met the femme principale de nettoyage.

Ahem. Anyway, I now had aforementioned bathing screen, and was in quite good spirits. It is almost impossible to not be content when one is covered to the shoulders in lime-scented bubbles and near-boiling water. I also had a new book – about a beautiful maiden, locked in a tower, guarded by an evil witch who was trying to make a spell that would steal the maiden's charms and place them upon the witch, who, by the description, was rather hideous. But then, a handsome mage comes to challenge the witch with hopes to save the maiden, and-

Well, I wouldn't want to ruin the suspense! It was quite exciting, really, and so terribly romantic. Every time the maiden or the man looked at one another, there would be at least seven lines explaining how much love was in the glance, and it almost made me frustrated at the book for mocking my possible spinsterly future.

I propped my feet on the edge of the tub, wiggling my toes cheerfully as I sunk even further into the water. Oh, good, this was the part where they would declare their love…

…..

My goodness. Lusty little creatures, weren't they? I blinked – yes, that was what it said. Oh, dear, I hadn't seen that coming at all!

Not that it was so terribly uncommon in the novels I usually choose.

Pardon, but if I am going to be a Christian woman, I'm going to have to at least understand what I am giving up! Until marriage, that is.

Assuming anyone out there would marry me, when there are so many young, doe-eyed creatures out there that would be perfectly eager to spread their legs for promises so many would know to be empty.

How depressing.

I flung the book away from me, my lower lip emerging in an overdramatized pout.

"That's not very fair." My whine had not been intended to actually be vocalized, but it surfaced nonetheless.

Dear Lord, I must have seemed awfully desperate. Well… in a sense, I was.

No, not that desperate!

But desperate enough to marry the first person that would take me. That, I immediately decided – upon recognition of this trait, that is – was positively intolerable.

So… now I'd established that. And it meant nothing to me, really.

And my book was on the other side of the room. Now what was I to do?

I slid down into the bubbles until my chin touched the surface of the water. Sighing in my innocent bliss, my eyes slid closed.

As they had a tendency to do as of late, my thoughts soon turned to Erik. Oh, he was terribly good-looking. Or perhaps my mental image was simply distorted.

Which is strange. Another of the numerous reasons I have remained unpursued in a romantic sense: I have an uncanny knack for picking out the most insignificant flaw in a person – and once I have, it is all I see.

I really didn't mean to develop this habit, but I did, and it's dreadfully annoying.

But, anyhow, when I see Erik, it doesn't happen. The pickiness, I mean. Really, I already know he's positively infuriating sometimes, and a murderer, and a kidnapper, and a blackmailer, and he's got some sort of disfigurement beneath that mask… and yet… he still draws me like a cow to a salt block.

Which is really frustrating, because I hate to compare myself to a cow, no matter the context.

I was getting distracted again.

I painstakingly dragged myself back to my original lane of thought: however awkward the topic was, even when I was only discussing it with myself, I needed to figure out the root of this ill-founded attraction.

But why was I attracted to him? He was hardly the zenith of masculinity, nor was he a saint, or even virtuous.

I knew why, of course. Those shoulders that were just broad enough; the promise of muscles under the fitted suit. The masculine jaw; the eyebrows occasionally arched in bemusement; the strong cheekbone; the smooth, if pale, complexion – on the side of his face that I could see, that is. And those beautiful eyes: a ghostly green, with yellowy gold flecks that were only noticeable sometimes.

I knew he had a mutilation behind his mask. But half of an angel's face is better than none, non?

And that voice. Meg had told me he sang. Though I never heard that – I'm sure I'd melt, so perhaps it was for the better – his voice… when he spoke, the hair rose on my arms – and only half of the time was it fear.

I remembered the plethora of emotions that had flashed through those amazing eyes of which I spoke before, last night. I remembered the almost wounded feeling that had chilled my heart; I remembered calling it jealousy. General jealousy, I had insisted to myself.

But was it?

He was, I finally recognized, the only man I'd been attracted to past an initial meeting in… years. Could it have been eight, now? Yes, because when I was nineteen therehad beenthat boy…

Anyway.

This had to mean something. And I didn't want it to mean something. I didn't want to lust after the very last man who would want me.

Lust was not the right word, I halted abruptly to note. And love certainly wasn't either, as I'm quite sure this was not what the characters in my books felt. I just… was very attracted to him. In a physical and emotional sense. He had all the qualities I had dreamt of in a man. All but one.

He didn't want me.

He wanted that salope foutu Daaé.

Who was so obviously not good enough for him.

Why didn't he see that?

Of course, I immediately assumed that I, on the other hand, was good enough for him. And, honestly, any woman as vain as I would not have thought otherwise.

But, from what I'd seen in his eyes last night, it'd be a very arduous project to coax him away from his obsession. Was I up to such a commitment?

…..

Oh, shut up.


Translations:

Le Visage dans le Miroir – The Face in the Mirror

Quel Genre de Vie – What Kind of Life

Femme principale de nettoyage – chief maid

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...Since when have I said 'oy ?'