Disclaimer I own nothing (
To my reviewers, thanks a billion! Its great to see that I actually have people who read my stories… this one took a little longer to post, because I had a serious case of writers block, so I had about a page for the past two months, but then I found a muse, so hopefully I'll be able to post more often. Without any further ado, here's Chapter Four!
Chapter 4- Sadness of the World
As Christine stepped over the threshold of the doors, she was trembling from head to toe. She looked at the beautiful place, which had always been so busy with workers of the opera, the managers fighting, people buying and selling tickets, maids cleaning, but now there was none of that, none but a few silent maids who looked up in terror as she walked in. They were afraid because they knew that the two ex-managers had gone insane after the performance of Don Juan Triumphant. They had taken to accusing everyone of being in line with the ghost, and that the whole of the Opera House was out to get them. They had fired many good workers since the fire, and the remaining staff were afraid of them, for although they were no longer the managers, they still had a say in who was to remain at the opera house, until new managers were brought in.
When the maids saw who had stepped into the entrance hall, most of their fears were removed, for tonight at least they did not have a reason to fear for their jobs, but they regarded Christine with dislike, for it was mostly her fault that things had changed in the opera house. As Christine walked gently into the room, she felt a grave change in the atmosphere of the once magnificent Opera House. Where once was happiness, joy and laughter, always mixed with a bit of nerves; now was fear, sadness and anger, and most of all, the air of nervousness was overwhelming. Christine felt all this, and was gravely saddened for she felt it was all her fault.
Without warning, a high-pitched scream pierced the silent entrance hall, and a thundering of footsteps was heard crashing down the elegant stairs. Christine was startled, as were the silent maids, and all of a sudden, all the wind was knocked out of her, and her vision was obstructed by a mass of long blonde hair. Christine smiled as she hugged her friend. As the girl stepped back, Christine noticed tears streaming down her face, through her smile.
"Oh, Meg, what is wrong? Why are you crying? Has anything happened?" she asked worriedly. Christine thought for a wild moment that something had happened to Madam Giry since she had last seen the two women.
Meg answered, "Christine, I am only crying because I have missed you so much since you left. I can hardly believe you are standing here. You don't know how it has been here without you. No one smiles anymore, they are too afraid. Everyone can hear sobs coming from the walls, and I know it is the Phantom, but no one has seen him since the final performance. His cries are so mournful, like he holds all the pain in the world. And I don't even have my best friend and sister here to share everything with. But now you are standing here, a future Visountess." Meg cried out again and hugged her friend once more.
Christine hugged her friend, and then said, "Meg, I am not a future Visountess. I have left Raoul for good, for I do not love him. And you say you hear the Phantom sobbing? Oh, Meg, I fear he is crying for me, what if he never wants to see me again? What if he turns me away from him? He truly does hold all the sadness of the world, and it is entirely my fault. Meg, I have discovered that I truly love him; it was the biggest mistake of my life when I left here without him."
Meg looked at her friend in shock; she could not believe that Christine had left the Viscount to come back to the opera house, a place in ruins. She didn't know how Christine could leave a man of wealth and power to come back to a broken man, a man who had nearly stolen her freedom. Yet as Meg looked at her friend, she saw the truth in Christine's eyes. She truly loved the man who all feared. She smiled at Christine and said, "Come, lets get you back to your old dressing room, you must be tired from your journey. But first, will you come with me to see Maman? She has been hoping you would come back and visit. She misses you as much as I did."
Christine smiled and said, "Of course I'll come see Madame Giry. And Meg, I'm not here to visit, I'm here to stay, that is, if Madam Giry and Monsieur Reyar allow me to stay after all the trouble I caused." She made a face, which told the world that she was afraid of not being permitted to stay.
"Of course you will be allowed to stay here, we need our diva back! We lost both of our divas last week because La Carlotta fled with Piangi after the final performance. And you are the most talented singer in all of Paris."
Christine looked up at Meg and then exclaimed, "Piangi? He is still alive? How is that possible? I thought that Erik- well, you know." She blushed at the fact that she thought that Erik had killed Piangi.
"Christine, Erik killed no one! Everyone thought he killed Piangi when he was found backstage, but he was just knocked out. He had a lump on his head, but he was alive and well when Carlotta went to him. And you remember Joseph Buquet? They found a suicide note in his dorm room. So Erik has no price on his head. The police have stopped hunting him and promise to keep their distance. Erik is a free man, and yet he still hides form the world. I don't understand why."
Christine gasped when she heard that he was innocent and that he was a free man, and then frowned when she heard Meg talk about him hiding from the world. "Meg, you saw how the world treated him! How could you even think that he would show himself when the world has been cruel to him? Even I have been cruel to him, he has the right to hate me and to hide. He may look different, but on the inside, he is no different from the rest of humanity. He is a genius, and though I may be the only person who will say it, I think he is beautiful. His face may be scarred and destroyed, but it is only on his right side that he is distorted; his left side is so very handsome and perfectly flawless. And his deformity is what makes me know that he is human, for without it, he would be the angel that I grew up knowing, and even with his deformity, I know he is perfect, he is a perfect soul, and I love him."
Meg was about to say something, but there was a wail of grief that rang out through the whole of the Opera house. Christine felt her heart break as she listened to her angel cry. The two friends began to walk up the elegant stairway toward Madam Giry's room. When the wails finally subsided, Meg sighed and said, "Maman gets so upset every time she hears him cry, because he hasn't allowed anyone to go to his home since that night. He wont contact her, and the only way she knows he is alive is because she can hear him cry. But this is the first time I have heard him cry like that, it sounded different somehow, not so much sadness, but grief. And Christine, I know that he still loves you; he could never hate you. He wouldn't cry for you if he hated you. If you listen, you can hear him say your name through his sobs. The girls in the Ballet who are still here only know him as the Opera Ghost, and they fear him, yet they say that they have never heard of such a sad spirit."
The two girls passed through the ballet dormitories, and a few of the girls looked up at Meg and waved at her, but when their eyes fell upon Christine, their gazes turned cold. One of the little girls cried out, "She is back? Surely they can't allow her to come back here after all the trouble she caused. What if it all starts up again, and someone actually dies?" Many of the little girls nodded in agreement. Christine's face fell and she felt the tears well up in her eyes, she saw a few of the older girls, girls whom she had grown up with looking at her scornfully.
Meg snapped at them, "You silly ballet RATS. You girls grew up with Christine, and now because she has gotten to the place you want to be, the star of the Opera, you turn against her? You say you dislike her because of the problems with the chandelier and with the Vicomte and with the Opera Ghost, yet I know you have been jealous of her since she made it to the top. You all disgust me. Especially you Little Jammes, you so looked up to Christine, how can you look at her now with such loathing?"
The young girl looked at Meg, then looked at Christine, and her eyes softened. She walked up to Christine and said in a small voice, "Mademoiselle Daae, I am sorry for my actions, and I do look up to you. You were once one of us, and when you left us, I for one felt betrayed, and hurt because you said that you would never leave us, but now, Mademoiselle, you are at the top, where all of us hope to be one day." The young girl sighed as Christine smiled at her, all was forgiven.
Meg tugged Christine's arm and they left the ballet dormitories to find Madame Giry. They finally wound up at Madame's dormitory, though before Meg had the chance to knock on the door to ask permission to enter, the girls heard a voice in the room, the voice of a man! Christine silently gasped, for she knew that voice, it was the voice of her angel! She pressed her ear to the door to hear what he was saying.
"… Madame, I know you think me foolish, but I swear to you that I heard her, and saw her. She is here, Madame, I swear it to you. She told your daughter that she loved me. Madame, she said that I was beautiful. How can a beautiful angel call a horrid demon like me beautiful? How can she love me?"
"Erik, if only you would come out and show yourself to me, I could look you in the eye and yell at you for calling yourself a demon. I don't know if what you say is true, or if you are wishing it would happen, for I do not know if Christine is here, but if it is true that she is here, then you MUST learn not to eavesdrop on a person's personal conversation."
Christine and Meg looked at one another and Med knocked on the door. They heard Madame Giry tell Erik to be silent and leave so he would not be noticed. Then she opened the door.
"Christine! My goodness! What on earth are you doing here? My child, come in! How long have you been here?" Madame was acting as though she did not know that Christine had come back.
Christine answered, "I wanted to come home. Nowhere else in the world will ever feel like home. This is the only place in the world that I was ever truly happy, Madame. Do you know why?"
The Madame shook her head and hoped that Erik was gone, that he wasn't listening to this conversation. "Why were you only happy here, child? Did Raoul not treat you like a queen?"
Christine's lovely face contorted with anger, "Raoul, don't even speak to me of that pampered prince. He was never the man I loved, and I know that now. Madame," here her voice softened, "the reason that I am only happy here is because of Erik, my angel. Oh, Madame Giry, how I love him. I longed for him for the week I was not here. I miss his voice, his face, his embrace, and his soul." Christine broke off and started to sob uncontrollably. Madame Giry turned to her daughter and Meg understood that her mother wanted her to leave. Respecting her friend's privacy, she left.
"Christine, little Christine, you have grown up so quickly, too quickly. You left with your childhood sweetheart, and yet you are here now, barely 19 years old, and you say that you love a grown man. Erik is 25 years old, my dear, so very much older than you. And he is an incomplete man, he has never known life outside this Opera House, other than the Hell he knew as a child. All he knows of are man's cruelties, man's hate, and anger. The only kind voice he has ever heard is yours. Even I am sharp with him. A man such as Erik deserves so much, yet he receives nothing. I doubt he has ever been happy for an entire day in his life."
"Madame, he deserves the world, and I wish to be the one to give him the world. I wish to give him the beauty of this world that he has never known, I want to show him the meaning of happiness, and to give him all the love I posses. I want to smother him in love. Of the Hell he once knew, I know not, but I never want him to remember his horrid past. I only want him to remember the happiness we will share in our future together, if he will take me back. I hurt him so badly Madame, I tore out his heart and left him to bleed." Christine started to sob again, then collapsed to the floor in hysterics.
Madame looked at the young girl in pity, and n wonderment. Christine truly did love Erik. He would be the happiest man in the world when he found out. But looking at the young beauty in front of her, she saw that Christine was in no condition to see Erik now. She had dark circles under her eyes, her eyes were red from crying, her face was deathly pale, and she looked as though she hadn't eaten for days.
"Christine, have you been eating?" Madame Giry asked sharply.
Christine looked up at her through her tears and said shakily, "No, Madame, I haven't eaten since the day of Don Juan, nor have I slept. I have been hoping to die, because without Erik in my life, I had no reason to live. The day of Don Juan was the day my life ended." She looked down in shame.
Madame Giry looked at the young girl in pity, for she too knew what it was like to feel that there was no point left to life. She looked at the young girl and then said to her, "Christine, you are not well, and though it pains me to say this, I cannot allow you to see Erik until you are better. It would kill him to see you this way, he would feel horribly guilty that it was because of him that you have wanted to die. My dear child, come with me, and we will find you somehting to eat, then we will go and get you somehting else to wear, some of your clothing is still in your dressing room, so we will go look there. Christine, you need to eat before you can see him again."
The poor girl nodded her head and said, "I understand Madame, but how long will it be untill I can see him? For I long for him so."
Madame Giry thought about her answer before she said it. "As long as it takes for you to get well child, as long as it takes."
A/N not exactly the best chapter, but it leads to a better one... sorry no EC ... soon, I promise