A/N: Again, sorry about the delay here, but I'm getting better. This chapter will be more introspection, now that we are getting ever closer to the end of their stort. Please keep reviewing, you know how happy it makes me!
When I returned, Erik was awake, though not entirely responsive. When I asked him how he was feeling, he looked at me somewhat blankly, then shrugged somewhat dismissively. I took that to mean that he was fine, and didn't press the question. I needed to figure out how to diplomatically broach the subject of leaving, learn his feelings on the matter, and then come up with a decent argument for why he shouldn't stay, if what Madame Giry warned me was true. Considering my lack of rhetorical training, this could be difficult.
So, I let him just lie there, a faraway look in his eyes, while I kept myself busy racking my poor, overused, undertrained mind for a way to force him from his lethargy. For a whole day and night, I walked around uselessly, changing Erik's bandages once, but otherwise just wandering the limited confines of his home. On the second day, I hoped to find him more responsive, but though he greeted me with a look that resembled a smile, he merely asked for something to eat, and when I brought it, pleaded with me with those eloquent eyes of his to leave him alone. I thought it best to acquiesce.
Too full of worry to enjoy reading, and too easily bored to be happy in the cave that was beginning to seem more and more like a prison, I ventured into the ashy hallways of the opera house. The more I studied my surroundings, the more I realized that a hasty reconstruction would be possible: most of the most important foundations were still in place, and entire hallways were unscathed, just covered in the dust and ash that resulted from the fire. Most of the statuary was also intact, coated with the same dismal gray blanket as the rest of the building, but one could make out the beauty beneath. The farther I wandered, the more I began to feel like a ghost myself, albeit an ineffective one that haunted a house already thick with death.
As I explored, my mind ran over the past few days. It was a terrible revelation to me that all the progress I seemed to have made, growing close to Erik, making him trust me, appeared to have vanished into the endless night that surrounded us. He was as distant now as he was when we first met, no doubt drawn into a contemplation of all he could do once the Opera Populaire reopened. The only difference now was that he was willing to look me in the eye; and that was only a cold comfort.
How many hours before had it been since I had burst through these doors for the first time, desperate and full of pure, animalistic fear? How many hours since that first brush with Leon's men, when I first saw Erik's face? How many hours since I had again entered the opera house, this time with my heart full of the promise of love, the idealism of a girl who believes that anything is possible, as long as her love is returned? The days, hours, minutes, seconds, all bled together in a murky haze, time having no meaning in a place with no light, no way to track the sun as it makes its rounds. I began to feel hot tears well in my eyes, blurring my vision, not as though there was much to see in the dim light a single lantern afforded me. They ran slowly down my cheeks, leaving tracks in the grime that inevitably stuck to my face as I tramped down the hallway, raising ash in my wake.
Ash and tears, darkness and blood, all ran together in my mind, a complete picture of life in this wasteland. One was the girl so full of hope; now there was only desperation once more, bringing my emotions ful circle, back to my first arrival. This time though, the walls were not a comfort, a hiding place, but a trap. First there had been desperation to get in, to find a dark place to hide. Now there was only the need to be gone, to enter the sunlight once more. Stolen glances from a rooftop would never be enough, nor would hasty trips to the marketplace. I had to live in the world, to interact with people. I didn't realize until the Girys were gone how much I had missed conversation, even as strained as it was with Madame Giry. I was still sure that I loved Erik, still sure that I wanted him with me for my whole life. I still felt my heart quicken when I felt his eyes on me, or remembered the way it had felt to just lie next him and fall asleep to the sound of his heart beating.
There was another thing I had yet to think of, one of many that needed to be turned over in my mind now that I had the time and relative sanity to think. When he woke up and found me next to him, what was he thinking? Was he happy, annoyed, confused, all of the above, none of the above? One would think he could have managed some small semblance of a reaction, but there was nothing readable in his eyes, nothing that I could make upon waking. Granted, he was in a lot of pain at the time, but even that didn't show. Furthermore, there was the slight matter that in comparison to his past love, the beautiful, young, talented opera star, with the voice of an angel and all that, I was hardly anything to look at. At my best, I looked decent. Now, however, I was mostly scraggly, possibly pitiable, and decidedly unattractive.
Damn Christine Daae and all her angelic looks. I comforted myself with the thought that she wouldn't have survived what I had, that she might have been beautiful, but I was of a hardier breed. She was prettier, that was certain, but would she have had the strength of character to achieve all that I had, when seeing Erik's face had been enough to send her running? I was immediately ashamed of myself for judging the poor girl so harshly when I didn't even know her. After all, she was only, what, seventeen? Of course she had fled, I would have as well, as I told Erik. Will to survive, will to tenaciously hold on to what little you have, those only come with age and experience, once you have realized which things in life are worth the fight.
I almost smiled to myself at the thought that I was thinking like someone's grandmother, at my advanced age of twenty-eight. Not that my life was that of the average twenty-eight year old; I like to think I had picked up more wisdom than most women my age. Never mind that with all my supposed life experience, I still couldn't think of how to make Erik leave this place.
Strange, how when left to its own devices, the mind will drag one around in circles, always coming back to whatever subject one least wishes to consider. So it was with me; every step I took, I seemed to find another hint that Erik's continued presence here would destroy him, even if I stayed, an event that was highly unlikely. Interesting that I considered myself the cure for his ills. Was that realistic of me, or just pompous?
In any case, I had to stop thinking. My head was starting to hurt, though that headache could have been induced by me squinting to attempt to see in the thick darkness. Erik must have eyes like a cat to do what he did, all his wandering through tunnels and leaping through rafters.
Alright, enough was enough. He'd had three days to recover; surely that was plenty of time for him to get better. I knew that was entirely unreasonable, but I had to just finish this. I had to know whether I was to go to Marseille alone, or with Erik at my side. Surely, even if he was not physically able to leave, he could still decide that he wanted to. He must have the mental clarity to know that he should come with me; he would agree, and then I could wait for him to make a full recovery in a much lessened state of anxiety. Once I knew that he was staying, I could just relax, and be a companion to him, instead of wandering around the halls of the soon to be rebuilt Opera Populaire, like some restless spirit.
He would agree. He had to agree. Much as I would have liked to think that my intentions were entirely charitable, that I was only doing what was best for him, I knew that I wanted him beside me for more than just the warm feeling one gets from helping someone less fortunate. I was afraid of beginning my life anew, even with the loyalty of a good friend awaiting me. I was scared that once I again emerged into the light, I would find myself the same as I was before; either a boring old maid with aristocratic pretensions, or a scared witless little rabbit, who could not sleep for fear of the vivid dreams that come to her when she did.