Dedicated to my beloved Allegratree, who has volunteered to beta for me!

Chapter Twenty Three: Empty Fairytales

Leah

"Child," Mme. murmured gently, "this is your roommate, Leah."

She was uncharacteristically calm and affectionate around the large bed's sole occupant. Had I not been fixated on the girl myself, I might have laughed out loud at how strange it was to see my ballet mistress being so very motherly. She gave the girl an encouraging rub on the back, and then stood up.

And with that, she was gone.

I stood motionless in the middle of the minuscule room, unable to move any part of my body for fear of upsetting the little girl any more than she already was. I could only look at her and sense the awkward tension in the room.

My tongue had melted fast to the roof of my mouth.

She was younger than I, perhaps no older than Meg. But I couldn't be sure. She was so tiny that pinpointing any age was difficult. She looked like the ghosts of my abuelo's fairytale bedtime stories. She was so frail that it seemed she might float away with a puff of breath. . She looked like a wispy cloud slumped over on our dark brown quilt. But it wasn't her otherworldliness that truly captured me. It was her face.

I had never seen anything so sad. Her colorless face seemed to have been drained of life, like the victim of a fairytale vampire. Her untidy hair hung limply at the sides of her face, edging her features in a frame of dark blond. Her tears had long since dried into brittle tracts on her creamy cheeks, drawing my gaze to her shy, down cast lashes.

Only then did I notice her eyes.

The color reminded me of the shallow water in the lake at our summer house in Italy. Set in any other face, her muted cobalt pupils would have seemed cheerful and picturesque. Hers were simply blank, as though she had completely exhausted the well of her emotions. She had nothing left to give. No happiness, no anger, no pain, no sadness. There wasn't even any weariness in them. She seemed so utterly lost, so drained. She gave a minuscule hiccup as another tear dropped off the tip of her nose, joining a puddle in her lap.

I'll never know just why it happened. Maybe Beth's compassionate attitude had finally made an impression on me. Maybe it was the gradual weakening of all my defenses. Perhaps it was because I understood what it was like to feel the absence of a father. The answer could even have been as simple as a surge of hormones. Looking back, I can't be sure.

But something in me finally snapped.

The last wall I had built to protect my heart came crashing down, rousing my legs from their paralyzed condition. With each quiet step closer to the bed, my fears and worries of inadequacy melted away. My heart was solely saturated with compassion for this shivering, friendless little girl. All I could think of was comforting her in her pain.

The bed groaned at the added weight as I shifted myself onto the bed. Any words of reassurance disappeared as she looked up at me with waterlogged eyes. They held no power to console. I could only wrap my arms around her.

She leaned into my shoulder, clutching my chest as though I were the last threshold separating her from oblivion. A fresh shower of tears fell on the pale pink lace of my blouse. Her weeping returned with a vengeance, as though I had given her the strength to release her pain. That small thought of fulfillment at being able to help her was drown out by the torrent of anguish I felt for the child in my arms.

This was the price I would pay for finally learning how to care about someone this deeply.

"Remarkable," I thought distractedly, "that a total stranger would be the person to let me see."

But soon the prospect of any thought was soon dismissed in the face of the sorrowful arms around me. She was a quaking aspen, uprooted and dying. Her whole body began to tremble violently as she was wracked with powerful sobs. Each tremor hit me like a knife in the side, filling me with empathy. I could only do one thing.

I began to cry with her.

I cried for the sorry state of the world, that someone so needed could be so easily taken from it. I cried for a little girl who would never again know what it was to feel her papa's proud smile beaming down on her.

And for the little girl who never had.

Most of all, I cried for the weakness in me that didn't know how to ease her suffering.

We stayed like that for what must have been hours. She clung tightly to my chest like a starfish on a clamshell, and I clutched her quivering form as close as I could. Our weeping ebbed and flowed like the tide as the night wore on, dampening our clothes and heating our clammy skin. Sometimes it was only a whisper, but often it came like a flood. I was surprised that our duet was never interrupted by rudely wakened ballerinas, for the foundling in my lap exorcised her grief like a peal of thunder.

Her keening wail belonged to the banshees of Alana's Irish tales. She howled with every ounce of her pain, like a kitten dying in the rain.

We fell asleep there, both of us empty for reasons of our own.

Eric

I saw them fall asleep in an empty heap.

I had been unable to pull myself away from the sight of that tiny crying girl. The look in her eyes tore into the harden scabs on my soul, divulging the secrets of my past without even a spoken word. Every scar that I had bandaged with the bitterness of my life laid bleeding and raw in the harsh light of another's sorrow. For the first time in nearly twenty years, my face felt the damp strokes of tears. The loneliness of this nameless nymph faintly echoed the hurt in my twisted excuse for a childhood.

I ached to soothe away her pain. To hold her as that Leah chit did now. My previous desires for the little ballerina were all but forgotten in the wake of the friendless heart in her arms. I wanted to save her from her misery. To scale the walls of the tower of her sadness and play the charming prince to her Rapunzel.

I decided that somehow I would ease her heartache.

If only I could figure out how.

Author's notes:

Ok, I'm not sure if hormones had been discovered yet. So sue me.

Yep, my Christine is not movie based when it comes to looks. I figured blond and blue eyed fit the whole Swedish immigrant idea a little better than the whole massive mop of brown curls thing. Not dissing the movie or the musical mind you, though both had their pros and cons, I always kind of thought of her as a blond. I always felt it made her a little more innocent, angelic, and/or childlike. But hey, whatever floats your boat!

Also, I know I ought to apologize for the really descriptive, short chapter when every one tends to tell me to get on with the plot. But I'm not going to! I like this chapter and I felt I needed it, so turnips to you! But don't take it to heart dears, next chapter will probably be another more plot focused affair.

Responses:

Allegratree: Regarding the floor plans, your help has been invaluable. If you do have a copy of the stage plan, I would love to see it! Thanks for all your hard work!

As for beta-ing, you are a GODSEND! When I am done with the next chapter, it's all yours! (Sorry, I just couldn't help posting this one :S) Also, as I get the time I will get my outline into comprehendable form and e-mail it to you asap. (She presents thee with table top sized cheesecake and does a frenzied happy dance!)

JPT: Your suspicions may just prove correct. Enjoy the wait! Muhaha.