Well, FullMoon-insanity, at least you care about Artus... ;) I'm so glad you all still like it, I do my best and rewrite until I'm satisfied...

here's the next part - R&R... Atrice

Part 19 - Lonely thoughts

A touch, a kiss… a whisper of love… Erik sat by his piano, trying to concentrate on himself. Lucille had fallen asleep again, but he couldn't stop thinking about her. The kiss – when Christine kissed him, she did it to save Raoul. She may have loved Erik in her own, twisted way, but it wasn't the love he had felt when Lucille kissed him. Lucille had shed a tear when they finally let go of each other, but wouldn't say why. Last time he was kissed, it was himself who cried. He felt the aura of her presence, even though she slept. He wanted to return to her, and do nothing but stay there – was this how love really felt? You didn't want to leave the other alone for just a moment? Erik had troubles with these feelings, he was so used to be alone, to think alone and do things alone. And now he was going to marry a girl, like any other couple, and live with her, and do things with her and not alone. Somehow he felt trapped into her whispers of love, and this was the point of no return. 'No, Erik… don't just think, take action!' he thought to himself – he could think about things for hours, making strange conclusions and ideas from the thoughts, and he was already getting there now. Sometimes he felt he would go crazy if he kept doing like that. He had to do something, and put on his cape.

Once again she had slept for hours, when she finally woke up. Erik didn't lie by her side this time, and she sighed, wishing he had been there. It had been so nice, after they kissed… she had nestled into him, feeling warm and safe there; he had put his arms around her. But he must have gotten up, and she wondered where he could be? Lucille sat up in the bed, listening. She couldn't hear him.

"Erik?" she called out in the dungeon from the bed, but her voice just echoed against the walls and the ceiling, making the place sound really large. Lucille got up and walked in the direction where she meant Erik would be – by the piano. But she walked into something on the way, hit her head on it and fell from the surprise it gave her. She felt on the thing in front of her while sitting there – a cold and hard surface, it must be a mirror or something. Lucille helped herself up again, and decided it was best to feel the way to walk, and followed the mirror in the direction she thought she would walk in. Curtains hang in free air and covered something, and she put them aside. She clapped quietly, to hear what was behind from the sound. A small room, nothing more than a big closet in fact. What would he keep in such a small room? Lucille felt her way in there, bumping into something standing in the middle. She felt on it, and it was like a person, only not alive. A dummy – with a corset on, long and curly hair and a veil on the head. Feeling down one arm, the dummy had a rose tied to the hand. A rose to which a ring had been attached with a velvet lace. What was all this? She turned to get out again, a little worried that she hadn't heard Erik at all. "Erik?" she called, even louder this time, but still there was no answer. He had left her all alone while she was asleep, but he couldn't expect her to sleep forever.

Lucille got herself upset, being alone with her thoughts. Why hadn't he told her he would leave? Where had he gone, and why? It was just like the time when he said he would return soon, and then she didn't hear a word from him in the next two weeks. He kept disappearing! Was that a way to treat a girl you loved?

"Often dreamed, out in the world, there are arms to hold me. I've always known, my… mind was on its own. So laugh in your loneliness, child of the wilderness…" she sang to herself in the stillness. The first song she ever heard him sing. The song which she sang to Artus, and he fell in love with her. Then she sang it to Erik, and he too fell in love with her. And now she had left Artus behind to stay with her Phantom forever. What would become of Artus? He had said she was the only girl in the entire world he ever wanted – and now he was wounded, after the fight for her. And she didn't even care that much about it, but she still felt bad about it. He had been hurt for her sake, and she still turned against him. She had left her entire life behind, for a life in a dark dungeon with a man who sang songs about light and darkness. Had she been wrong, would life ever be what she expected it to be? Lucille sat down on the floor, she had reached the bank where the boat usually lay – only now it was gone, which meant Erik had taken it. "Learn to be lonely… learn to love life, that is lived alo…" she stopped as she heard a distant sound of something gliding through the water, far away. But she definetly heard it. And now she also heard the voice that always carried her away, the voice which had actually – together with sweet music – made her faint…

"Sing once again to me, my light in dark. Your power over me, grows stronger yet! And in this labyrinth, where love is blind – your Phantom in the Opera is here, just near your mind… sing, sing my light – sing for me!"

he had heard her song through the dungeons, and wanted more of it. But she didn't feel like singing, she wanted to talk to him. Her power over him, grew stronger? Which power, it actually didn't sound like such a good thing right now. And blind love; that meant immature love, a love that was only there because they didn't know any better. Lucille didn't feel like that at all, so she declined to sing back to him. He wouldn't get another chord, before he told her why he had left her alone, and why love was blind! In her loneliness, in that time where he had been gone, her mind had created strange thoughts about their relationship.

But she didn't give it a second thought, that this might be the reason he had been gone – because loneliness in dark places wasn't always such a good thing, and he had to deal with that, so that it would't have to happen again.