Title: Doubt
Rating: g, maybe PG to be safe—it's a bit angsty
Pairing: None, except for unrequited!Erik/Christine
Disclaimer: Look! It's Leroux!Erik! Anyway, all characters/situations/etc belong to Gaston Leroux. I don't make any profit from this.
Note: This came of extreme boredom in study hall. It seems like it belongs in the middle of a really long fic. However, I don't think I'll continue it. I don't know.
Doubt
I don't know if she knew how much her mere existence meant to me. I had been imprisoned, imprisoned, in the years before I first heard her voice—years, I recall bitterly, before she was born. I don't know if she knew. I hid it from myself. But on the days when she could not come to her lesson—they were few—I came to her mirror anyway, I pressed my palms to the smoky glass and stared obsessively at her room, at her chair. I searched that chair for where I thought I could detect a shadow, an impression, where she had sat. I imagined her sitting there, and that sweet memory compared with the pain of reality was almost too much to bear. Once I even slipped aside the mirror, crept into her dressing room, searched every corner for anything that belonged to her. I touched nothing, and when I returned to my house on the dark lake, I wept.
Time had no meaning between our lessons. It did not exist, save for a long empty space full of agony. I longed to stay when I had to leave her, and each second without her presence nearby was a century—ten centuries—eternity.
I don't know if she knew then how much she meant to me, but surely she must know now, now that I have lost everything else I had in my lonely life to devote myself to her. Everything I do, every movement I make, is merely an action that will somehow bring me to her. I need her. I admit that to myself now, and surely, surely she must know? Is she so innocent, so childlike that she really doesn't realize that I couldn't possibly be her Angel? No angel ever left roses for his mortal muse, of this I am certain.
But I am afraid. Afraid to show her what I really am, afraid to betray her beautiful innocence. I am afraid she will fear me, hate me. Of course she will fear me and hate me. Everyone else did—everyone else does, especially now that I am their Opera Ghost.
This horrible waiting must not go on. Surely, tonight something will change.
And who should he be, but some childhood sweetheart who stole her scarf from the sea, and her heart as well? He is young, handsome, rich. He is utterly unlike me. He is everything she could have dreamed of.
Why, oh why, stupid Christine, why did you tell me about him, in your childish innocence? It can only end in tragedy now.
I feel robbed of something I never knew was there.
Why, Christine? Why, monsieur le Vicomte?
Oh, why indeed, monsieur, why. You haven't seen her in so many years. She had forgotten you. All that mattered was her Angel of Music. Why return now? You've broken everything, you clumsy, perfect fool.
I can't live without her. But if I die, I will never hear her voice again.
I hate him. I hate her. I hate myself.
Why couldn't I be young and handsome? Then I could have her, maybe. If I were young and handsome, I wouldn't need her. He doesn't need her. Just leave us alone in peace, Vicomte de Chagny! You want her for your own, but you would not need her as I need her. You would not love her as I love her. She would not be your salvation, but she would be mine.
In one night, everything has been changed, broken beyond repair. I know now I can never have her. But I want her so. And she doesn't know. She doesn't know. Stupid, blind Christine.
We could have been happy, just you and I and our music. I would have written such music for you—I would have locked away Don Juan forever, because I would not need him anymore. I would only need you. And maybe, I could have had you, if nothing had changed.
