Title: "All I Ask"
Rated: PG-13 for violence Summary: AU, Janine Chiry goes back to find the boy she had saved years before only to find the boy has become a man more angered and passionate than she ever imagined.
Pairing: Janine/Erik (This is based loosely off the movie version)
Disclaimer: Obviously, I am not the creator of "The Phantom of the Opera" otherwise, I'd have a WAY better computer to type this on. LOL...
For years she had heard his voice in the catacombs of the opera house and waited for him to come to her. Waited for him to thank her for helping find a place to call home, to accept her friendship. It had been nearly ten years since that night and still she had not even learned his name. It became apparent her curiousity needed to be satisfied when even her dreams at night were filled with his spirit. It was the night after the third showing of La Boheme in the Opera Populaire and Janine knew it was time.
Throwing over her shoulders a light cloak and in hand a candlestick, she delved down the dusty stairwells beneath the ballet barracks.
Janine tucked an arm around her waist, the other held up high with her candle. In her mind, she imagined a million shadows to be him following her, though none denied. Each turn was another stolen breath in her lungs as the darkness overcame her. Twenty years she was and still afraid of the dark. But this was an unnatural darkness, she believed, and even more treacherous with the memory of this young man's capability fresh in her mind. She had seen murder, for the first time, performed by a seemingly demure young boy. He had to be only an age or so younger than her by now and no doubt stronger. If her presence was unwelcome or if he did not at all remember her, what would become of her? Surely she would become as one of the many lost souls the catacombs had claimed and nothing more to anybody.
In the distance a trail of lighted torches came into view, their reflections glistening on the lake below them. Atop the lake, beside a small stairwell, was a boat chained and ready. Janine dodged heavy glances around, peering through smoke and shadow. He was with her, right now, stalking in the darkness. A whimper fell past her trembling lips before she could speak a word.
"It is I," she finally shouted with a shake in her voice, "The girl you met long ago!" Once more she felt her heart quake inside of her. Something about this man caused her blood to freeze and her legs to tremble but it did not quelch her persistance.
Janine waited. She even began to doubt at all if maybe he had survived at all. If perhaps the voices she had heard were not just figments of her imagination toying with her. For so long she had wondered about him, longed to meet him once again. She wondered if not he also thought of her as well. And now here she was, in the lair of earths darkest depths and alone, with only a thought and a memory to go on.
In her mind, Janine had imagined him gentle but withdrawn, his only wish to be accepted and loved. And to this, she felt like she could connect. At a young age, she was sent away to be taught at the school. Her Father was a military officer, her Mother a common housewife with little interest in raising any of the children she bore into the world. One at a time, she sent away her siblings. Her brothers were drafted into war, her sisters were shuttled away to boarding schools. At the age of 8, she knew it was her turn. She lived with the notion of not being wanted for many years. That was until she found her purpose. Teaching. When she taught, she felt needed and respected. Young girls looked up to her. Older ones praised her. Perhaps she could pass on to this lonesome young man this gift.
Out of the silence came footsteps, light and rythmic. First they scared her. Her wildest dreams were unfolding. She would finally meet the man she had saved years ago. Would he be as she imagined? Would he be cruel? At least if he was, she'd die knowing the truth. "Boy?" she called, her voice wavering into an echo. Before she knew it-a rope scratched around her throat and the unfamiliar taste of blood filled her mouth.
"Who sent you!" shouted a voice deeper than she had remembered. Choking, her mind flashed back to the image of that night once again. The travelling fair and the Devil's child. How could she have expected anything less? She didn't even restrain him yet stood still and brave. Somehow she needed him to believe she was not here to harm him.
"Release me." she begged though her throat was crushed from the tight knoose. And yet he did not waver.
"You should not have come." he told her, in a warning tone that echoed. "Now you can never be free." Janine's eyes filled up with blood and closed just before she felt herself float down to the ground and a leathered glove halt her fall. There was no going back for her, she realized just before losing consciousness. She had reached the point of no return.
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