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: Pour Rapporter Votre Coeur
Acknowledgements: Shirl, thanks for your input. TurpentineMind, I appreciate your advice, but Mireille is mercurial. That's the point. LostSchizophrenic, your enthusiasm always amuses me. To anyone: I wrote this chapter right after I wrote and posted the last one – for some reason, that makes me happy.Yay me!
Ok, now I've got to bring these two back to the original plotline, now that they've manipulated me so deftly. I simply had to write an extra chapter to fix it back the way it was supposed to go! But, looking at the last chapter… I'm very pleased with it. Hopefully, it will strengthen my planning… mwaha. I am brilliant! goes off to note lovely idea
returns
Anyhow.
Chapter Fourteen.
Enjoy.
I thrust the oar into the water frantically, quite unaware that I was doing more splashing than anything else, and that I was only moving with every other stroke, and even then only slightly.
So, of course, that gave Erik plenty of time to collect himself.
Even still, I was around the first corner and half way down that passage before he started calling me.
It did not take much consideration to come to the decision that I would not be returning to his lair any time soon. Especially not now.
Unfortunately, I hadn't the breath to tell him this. He caught up with me quickly. My goodness, he was much quicker in a boat than I. Of course, he was using that long wooden thing to sort of push himself along… how did he balance?
"Mireille, don't be ridiculous, I didn't mean to insult you-"
"It's nothing, Monsieur, I take no offense," I rasped, still paddling in a frenzy, not noticing that my effort had actually begun to turn the boat towards him, and then around again, rather than any helpful movement.
Erik reached out to still me, but I slapped his hand away – and the slightest movement set me off-balance. The boat flipped.
Great.
With an incensed shriek, I lunged at the other boat. "Va te faire foutre!" Erik shortly joined me in the water.
"Va te faire enculer!" I continued to rage, jumping at him. This, of course, only succeeded in dunking the both of us in the water, which actually cooled my temper ever-so-slightly.
Lucky him.
When I shakily stood, I stubbornly turned my back to him, a bit too aware of how my dress clung to my upper body – most of my lower body was beneath the water – and turned my boat back over.
I was now faced with how I might attempt to get onto it.
…O-kay then…
"Mireille."
Drat him.
"Fous-moi la paix," I growled, hoping to sound intimidating.
Apparently, I didn't. I heard him slosh up behind me. "Mireille, I am sorry. You know how… she… affects me – I don't know why you continue to deliberately resuscitate those memories…"
"I do not," I replied stiffly. "You let her do this to you."
Silence.
"You started it," I said meekly. It was as close to an apology as I was in a state to give him.
He let out a shaky breath that I felt against my damp hair. Curious despite myself, I turned to him, to see his eyes glazed with tears I knew not to expect to see fall. My shoulders slumped.
Oh, great, now he'd made me feel guilty. Stupid kicked-puppy look. "Erik…" I sighed resignedly, "I didn't-"
"You did." He closed his eyes, and let out another shuddering sigh. I felt a wail rising in my throat and suppressed it, but a short whimper emerged with my tears. I did not want to hurt him! Why did he let me hurt him?
Why did he let her hurt him?
His eyes shot open at the noise I had inadvertently made. Whoops.
Hey – he wasn't wearing his mask. Maybe he forgot. That would be weird. How do you forget something you wear all the time? Or perhaps he took it off when he was alone? But whenever I made a… surprise visit, he was always perfectly groomed.
Poor guy. As they say, he was most certainly all dressed up, but with no place to go.
Actually, at the moment, he was looking quite disheveled, and rather soggy.
I ignored my tears, looking up at him speculatively. I raised my right hand to stroke his unmasked cheek with my thumb, and the slight pressure forced a tear from his eye.
He was a pretty crier, too.
If one tear counts.
I smiled weakly up at him, stilling my hand but allowing it to remain on his cheek. I could not feel the unevenness that was so blatantly obvious to the eye. For not his jutting cheekbone and the sunken hollow beneath it, his face did not feel particularly irregular.
"This face has not earned the abuse that it has received," I whispered.
Another tear stole down his cheek – the unmarred one, this time. I matched it with several of my own, and in a moment found myself collapsing into his larger frame, sobbing rather ridiculously.
How was it that I was so much more upset for his sake than he was?
Or maybe I just cried better.
Even still, if I had stopped to think, which I didn't, I might have realized that I was making a fool of myself.
But, as I said, I didn't.
He wrapped his arms around me in a decidedly chaste embrace; a hand on my back and another on my hair, as he waited for me to calm myself.
It did not take very long. I have rather good timing, as far as dramatics go.
"Mireille, your heart is too big," he murmured in an almost-chastisement, when I was reduced to sniffles. "I do not deserve your compassion – you should realize that it is ill-founded. I have… done horrible things. If you did not read the article in the-"
"I read the article," I whimpered. "I don't care about the stupid article. I don't care about what you did. I shouldn't care at all. But… my heart isn't as big as you believe, Erik. I'm just… being silly, I suppose. I'm sorry… I shouldn't have-"
"You did," but there was a smile in his voice now, though not on his face. I was rather pleased with that.
Erik's sudden, if unfortunately chaste, kiss, to be pressed against my forehead (drat) was something I had most certainly not anticipated.
Ah, well. Just a perk, I suppose.
"Come now," he said gently, "I will take you back to your room."
"But my boat…" I looked over at it, hoping my voice didn't reflect the distracted stupor that I was in. "I need-"
"However much I don't enjoy being interrupted – I will bring your boat, Mademoiselle, never fear."
As he lifted me into his boat before climbing in behind me, I leaned back against his knees, as dazedness became lethargy. "Never…" I echoed stupidly.
Translations:
le Visage dans le Miroir – The Face in the Mirror
Pour Rapporter Votre Coeur – To Take Your Heart Back
Okay, it's short, but it's kinda cute… Review please! I need verification that my fluff is not atrocious! No French, because I could not check my grammar.I believe this may become routine, unfortunately.
