Chapter XII- Once Upon A Dream

Meg roamed through the streets of Paris for a while after the meeting with the Emperor.

She had walked these streets with the Emperor once. It had been before she realized with Erik.

Meg smiled as she realized she only agreed to go walking with the Emperor to make Erik jealous.

Speaking of Erik… did he really think that she betrayed him? Oh, she hoped not. She didn't mean to. She was trying to protect him!

After Erik had told the Emperor exactly where to go, he was whisked away before Meg could even say goodbye.

And no matter how much begging she did, the matter of approval of house arrest by the Emperor was simply out of the question…

Maybe she could ask that nice bailiff to help her. Or the judge. But did they really have more authority over the matter than the Emperor? She really wasn't too optimistic.

To her right was the most beautiful jewelry store. Meg peered over the shoulders of two couples crowding the windows and looked in. She saw the most beautiful pearl necklace she had ever seen in her life… Oh, Meg loved pearls. Absolutely loved them.

And with a look at her own engagement ring, she began to miss Erik all over again.

Oh, it had only been a few hours since the meeting at the Embassy! She was an absolute mess.. She kissed the pearl on her ring.

If this was how her grief was after he was imprisoned… oh, how she would miss him after he was gone!

No, no… she mustn't think about it or she would start crying again, and the last thing she wanted to do was cry. She had cried so much over the space of… well, her pregnancy. Because that was just about where it had started. And when Meg started to cry, the whole house went into absolute hysterics.

Oh Erik!

Unable to hold in her grief any longer, Meg started to cry silently into her hands.

"Mademoiselle," Jean-Paul's voice called from behind her. She turned, but still covered her face in her hands. Undoubtedly her makeup had run down her face and she looked like a raccoon.

"Come," he said, ushering her into the carriage and closing the door behind her. "Let's get out of this place."

When they arrived home, Madame Giry and Caressa were very disappointed to find Meg had not returned in triumph, and the execution date still stood.

Madame Giry hugged her daughter and tried to comfort her, and Caressa had rattled on about how unfeeling could be at the plight of a woman. In the middle of her rant (in which Meg pretended to pay rapt attention to, nodding and saying "Yes, exactly!" at times when Caressa paused to breathe), Caressa fixed Meg a hot cup of chamomile tea.

Meg drank it all and retired to the master bedroom, suddenly feeling very run down and tired. She locked it behind her- a sure sign that she wasn't coming out any time soon.

In fact, it was about four days when she emerged with a letter for Erik.

Jean-Paul and Caressa sighed.

"Don't expect a reply, darling." Jean-Paul said, gently patting her on the shoulder.

It took a month to get a reply from Erik, and when it came, it was strictly bare bones. Almost three lines.

Meg locked herself in the room again. Madame Giry, sick of Meg's foolishness, barged into the room.

She found her daughter in bed. "Meg, you can visit Erik whenever you like!" She snapped at her, who was curled up under the piles of blankets and still in her nightgown even though it was well past noon.

Madame Giry almost dragged her daughter out of bed and called Caressa in, and once again Meg set out on a voyage she didn't want to do.

She hated going to see him in the prison… it was so dark and gloomy, she couldn't see Erik properly because there was almost no light at all, she was almost sexually assaulted every time she went in there, and Erik was almost routinely put through torture.

Well, actually, all the more reason to go. Hopefully she would put Erik out of his misery for a few minutes. So she gathered her courage and went to go visit Erik at the hell-hole prison.

She pleaded with the guards to let her talk to her husband, but they insisted on escorting her through the prison. No one dared to yell out at her, make lewd comments, or whistle as she walked by.

Meg spotted Erik in his cell and ran forward, calling his name. Erik was so pale he was not exactly very noticeable from the white stones. He looked up at Meg with extremely dull, yellow eyes, and Meg became concerned.

After a lot of tearful begging, the guards finally let Meg enter Erik's cell. He tried to turn away from her, to not let her see him like this. He coughed and looked terribly sick.

"Will you fetch water and a cloth for me? Please?" Meg asked the guards, sweetly. Maybe they felt guilty on how they were treating the poor fellow, or perhaps they were just sick of all the tears, but whatever the reason was, Meg was allowed to nurse poor Erik back to health.

Erik looked like he had given up all hope, like he had surrendered himself completely- willingly- to death. His eyes were open, but Meg wasn't sure Erik could actually see her there, right in front of him.

She laid him down so that his head was in her lap, removed his mask, and began to dab at his face, gently. His face was so dirty, and Meg knew it must have been some sort of a relief to get all of it off… she wondered if the scars on his back had been properly cleaned. Probably not.

She did all she could for him, but in the end all she could do was hold his hand, murmur encouraging words, and glare at the policemen as they tried to collect her from Erik's cell.

She stayed there all night, trying to nurse him back to health and cleaning all of the various cuts he had accumulated so they would not become infected. She fell asleep with Erik's head still on her lap.

Ohh… Erik felt so… so… sluggish. Oh, God, what had happened last night? Well, he had another nightmare about… it, and he couldn't sleep the night. He was coughing so violently, and his body had succumbed to stress- he had become ill.

…Which was absolutely laughable. Erik was never ill. He tried to get up, but his body felt so heavy and he could barely move.

Well, time to admit defeat, he was indeed sick. He closed and reopened his eyes again, and looked up. A face was above him, leaning down and sleeping. It was a woman! He jolted and his head fell off of her lap and hit the cold floor painfully.

What had happened last night? What had happened? He thought, panicking.

With a start, he recognized her- it was Meg. He exhaled with relief, and smiled, somewhat ruefully. Had this been a joke? That he was hated so much that they had to bring his wife in, to humiliate him even more? That Meg could see just how much Erik had fallen since he was arrested?

Erik sat up and looked at Meg. She had a sad little smile on her face… She had slept here, with him. Through all the night…

…With him. She risked her life so she could stay with him. Erik wanted to hit something and kiss her at the same time. He wanted to yell, to hurt something because of her foolish decision. But at the same time… well, he didn't know. All he knew was that Meg was in danger. …And that he had an earsplitting headache.

He shook Meg, and her head rocked backwards and forwards, that was, until she woke up. Alarmed, she looked around. She forgot where she was. She smiled happily when she saw Erik.

"You need to get out of here." He growled. "You never should have stayed the night. It's entirely too dangerous."

"I'm not afraid," Meg said, her happiness about his recovery slipping away and annoyance soon replacing it. "Erik, you looked so miserable last night, I just couldn't leave you alone-,"

"Meg, I'm about to be executed in less than a month. I need to know that you and the baby are safe." He said, dragging his hands through his hair. He was frantic. "You have to leave."

Erik roughly pushed Meg out of the cell and slammed the cell door closed. Their eyes met through the bars, and Meg couldn't help feeling rejected.

As she was led away by the two very tired prison guards, she looked over her shoulder at Erik's cell, which quickly became smaller and smaller with each step she took. She watched Erik move to the corner of the cell where he could see her retreating back walk to the front desk of the prison.

As she faced forward, she couldn't remember a time when she felt so desolate at that very moment. Not even when she was about to get married to the Emperor.

Maybe if she played her cards right she could maybe get the Bailiff to agree to house arrest…

The Bailiff escorted her out, with linked arms and the whole stiff manners that was her life before she moved to Anjou started into motion. Delicately, she brought up the subject of house arrest.

ARRRGH!

It's 12:47 AM! This was such a hard chapter to write… I wrote this on three episodes of Family Guy, one Quantum Leap, and Summer Stock (which is actually pretty good. I –heart- Judy Garland.)

Okay, so we're winding down on YAMOO! I'm kind of kicking around the idea of a reincarnation story… I don't know, though. It would have to take a lot of plot developing, not to mention research…

Hey, did I ever tell you guys that I never read Susan Kay's Phantom? Is it out of print? Maybe I can get it at the library… I keep bouncing back and forth about reading it.

-the curtain opens to reveal a murder mystery. The Emperor has been sporked! Who could have done this horrible crime? Policemen One, Two and Eight are investigating-

Lemony: (aside to DianaLupin)… You better hide that murder weapon.