Lost Angel

Kathleen returned three hours later with a stack of books from the library to help alleviate Erik's boredom. He was healing, but was still in no condition to be out of bed. She came into the room determined to be cheerful and not let him anger her.

She placed the books on the writing desk and turned to see if he had gone to sleep again, for he was quiet. He was awake, but had the strangest look on his face—his jaw clenched and his eyes closed.

Kathleen rushed to his side. "Erik, are you in pain?"

"Yes," He said with gritted teeth. "But not from the wound. I need-" His face actually flushed. "All that tea I drank…"

Understanding dawned and Kathleen's face turned a bit pink as well. Fortunately she had dealt with this situation many times as a nurse. In a no-nonsense voice she asked, "Do you feel like standing or-"

Erik's face turned crimson and he wouldn't look at her. "I'll stand!" He snapped. The alternative was mortifying.

Kathleen removed the chamber pot from under the bed, putting it where he could get to it without difficulty. She then helped him to his feet and left the room, deciding she would give him a while to settle back into bed. She smiled a little as she swept down the stairs. He had actually been embarrassed! So, he was a normal human being after all.

She instantly chided herself. "Look at what he's been through! He comes to a strange country, clearly ill, and gets stabbed right off the ship, added on top of the horrors of his past. Still that nasty temper of his needs some work!"

Erik had spent the afternoon reading one of the books Kathleen brought to him, and after a light supper, he'd fallen asleep early. Now he guessed it was very late, since the house was silent. He lay and watched flashes of lightening brighten the dark room. He had awakened after dreaming of Christine again.

In the dream she was the lonely little girl of years ago, right after she first came to the opera, orphaned and grieving for her father. The pitiful cries coming from her room at night had drawn him to her, for he knew that kind of pain—belonging to no one, being loved by no one.

After she began sleepwalking, he kept a close watch on her at night and locked her door to keep her safe. One night, he heard her weeping and talking to her father.

"Papa, where is the angel you promised? Can't you come and talk to me for a little while? I miss you so!" She began to cry uncontrollably, and Erik had to put his ear to the door to hear her words clearly. "You won't play for my birthday on the violin or at night before bed! You won't write me any new songs!"

And so the Angel of Music had become real for Christine, beginning as a harmless way for him to comfort a lonely child. Erik had begun playing the violin at night to soothe her, and as she had grown, he had sung and talked to her and finally began teaching her as well.

Erik pulled himself back to the present with a harsh, "Stop it, Erik! She belongs to that fool Raoul! She made her choice! You told her to go, too."

Still he couldn't help arguing with the annoying inner voice. "By why give me the ring?"

He clamped his hand on his head, wishing he could crush the memories out. He threw back the bed clothes and staggered to the window. Rain ran in rivulets down the pane. Tears ran in parallel down his cheeks. Lightning illuminated the gardens in the back of the house. Erik saw a large fountain in the center—strange shadows danced over it as the trees swayed overhead.

He found his way out of the house by way of a servant's stairway that went out to the gardens. He had to rest at intervals to keep from being overwhelmed by dizziness. The cold rain poured down steadily, soaking his clothes within moments.

The Grecian maid in the fountain stared at him with cold indifference in the freakish blue flashes of light, and he swayed as if drunken and staggered over to her. With tremendous effort, he pulled himself up on the bowl of the fountain and wrapped his arms around the stone maiden's neck and raged at the flashing heavens, "Kill me! Strike me dead as I asked You to before! I'm good for nothing! I killed two men in hate! And I wanted to kill de Chagny for loving Christine!"

He closed his eyes and waited for the killing bolt that would end it all. Lightning continued to flash, but no death blow came.

"I'm here!" He screamed, shaking his fist above his head. "I want to die!"

His strength began to fail, and he hugged the statue to steady himself as his body shook with racking sobs. "You don't care either," He choked out bitterly, as the world spun sideways and went black.

Kathleen sat down hard on the kitchen floor with a "humph". She couldn't drag Erik's sodden bulk any further. There was no way her slender body could man-handle him up the stairs to his room.

"Stupid, daft man!" She fumed through gritted teeth. "All the time I put into saving your hide and you go out and try to drown yourself! You're lucky I sleep lightly or you could have been out there all night!" His shoulders were lying across her legs, and she gave them an ill-tempered shove. Erik groaned in his sleep, but did not stir.

"You're enough to make a saint swear, Erik!" Kathleen muttered in exasperation, thinking how uncomfortable their resting place for the night would be. "At least you have a pillow!" She looked down at his dark shape in the dim light from the kitchen stove, his head pillowed in her lap, the rest of him strung out on the wet floor.

"I can't leave you wet or you'll surely get sick again. It would serve ya right, stupid man!" She whispered sharply. She lifted his torso enough to scoot out from under him, then let his head meet the floor with a little "whack". That got a pained groan from him and he began to stir. Kathleen lit an oil lamp on the table before going to find him some dry clothes.

When she returned, he was where she had left him, only awake this time. She stood over him in dry night clothes. Her hair hung in wet black ringlets and made damp spots on her robe. Her silver-blue eyes stormed at him.

"Next time you want to rid the world of yourself, go do it somewhere else, so I don't have to deal with your worthless carcass!"

Erik closed his eyes for a moment. "Come around here, woman," He rasped out. "I'm getting a headache looking at you upside down." His eyes opened and he glared at her. "That and that rap you gave my head!"

"Shut up, Erik! I ought to take Mrs. Maloney's skillet to you!" Kathleen snapped over her shoulder. She stirred the embers in the stove and fed the fire to heat water for tea. They both needed a hot drink to warm them.

Then she turned and picked up a piece of clothing from the table. "We'd best get this dry night shirt on you before you catch a chill. I have enough to do without having you sick any longer." She lifted his shoulders and helped him sit upright. "Unbutton your shirt," She ordered. When it was done, she pulled it from his body. "Let me look at your wound."

She checked first he smaller wound on his back where the knife point had poked through, and then around at the longer cut on his side. Fortunately the knife had missed any vital organs and had gone cleanly through. "I'll have the doctor come tomorrow and check you over, but I think you're healing fine, in spite of all your attempts to prevent it."

"No doctor!" Erik said sharply, his eyes hard.

"He's been here to see you once, Erik. Once more won't hurt."

He leaned toward her menacingly. "I won't see the doctor again. You have been doing a fine job."

"But he-"

"No, Kathleen!" He ground out, struggling to rise from the floor. She had no choice but to help him to a chair. She saw to the tea while Erik sat staring moodily into the flame of the lantern.

I wonder if Madame Giry, Meg, and Christine got out of the opera house. I have much to atone for. I should have jumped overboard when I was on that ship!

"Erik, tea." Kathleen said, but he seemed to be far away, his eyes filled with tears.

"Erik?"

"Hmm?" He jerked back to the present. "Thank you," He said, acknowledging the cup in front of him.

"Here, let's get this dry shirt on you." Kathleen put the long shirt over his head and he put his arms in the sleeves. "Undo your pants and I'll pull them off for you."

He looked ready to argue, but she snapped, "Just do it, Erik!"

He stood and turned around. As he unfastened his damp trousers, he let the long tail of the shirt fall and sent his pants south.

"Sit in the chair," Kathleen said. He obeyed without comment and she pulled the pants from around his ankles.

Erik looked everywhere but at her, and the undamaged side of his face was decidedly rosy.

"I keep getting you out of tough spots, don't I, Erik?" She couldn't resist saying with a little smirk that was just a trifle mean.

"I don't want to discuss it, Madame," He sniffed. "It's not decent."

"It may not seem decent to talk about, but in both cases it had to be done," She said pragmatically. "I've long since lost any embarrassment about dealing with men's bodies. Four years of working in field hospitals during the war took care of that."

"You were a nurse?" He asked with a frown, clearly interested. "In what war?"

"The late War Between the States, of course. It started in 1861 and ended in 1865."

"Here in America?" He asked in surprise.

"Yes, here in America." Kathleen had to wonder where he had been all that time. Europe had newspapers too. Didn't he read them? Why, some European countries had even thought of helping the South for a time.

She yawned then and took the teacups to the sink. "We had better get to bed, or I'll never get up in the morning." She looked at him cockily. "Some of us don't have the luxury of staying in bed all day."

"I can't wait to get out of it, Madame," He said stiffly. "It's rather a bore to lie about."

"You mean to give life a chance then?" She said with a sideways look, pulling his long arm over her shoulder as they began the slow work of getting back up to the second floor. "I'm not doing this anymore, Erik. You're too big for me to always be draggin' out of trouble."

Erik almost laughed. He was beginning to like this woman's sharp wit, and he admitted to himself that he liked to watch her eyes turn to liquid silver when she got angry. Not many people had ever dared to stand up to him, with the exception of Madame Giry. She had been the closest thing to a friend he had ever had in his hellish life, and he wondered now where she was and if she was safe.