A/N: This here lemon has quite a history.
Meg lay wide-awake the whole night, inside a guest chamber of the mansion. The walls were an inviting green color, but seemed sickly and gray in only the candlelight of the dark hours of Paris. She stared at the white void of a ceiling pondering.
Last night at this time, Meg was most likely roving the sinister soggy gloom of the Opera house sewers in search of a Phantom.
Everything since the Masquerade ball had happened so fast, it seemed that only now in this moment, as she semi-serenely rested on the crisp white sheets that everything ceased. Or at least was dawdling to let her catch up. And so she did.
The next thing she knew, her thoughts were being interrupted brusquely by harsh daylight that seemed to erupt out of nowhere. Perhaps it had been hidden by a cloud. The way Erik was hidden right now. Concealed yes, but would spring out at any moment.
Not wanting to stay cooped up for any longer than she had to be, Meg climbed out of bed and stretched a bit. Although she had not gotten any sleep, she wasn't very tired.
Apparently she was the first one up in the house. Silence greeted her as she walked down the grand winding staircase. She resisted the childish urge to slide down the banister. And she was glad of that, for once descending the flight of stairs, she realized she was not alone.
A wretched looking Raoul was seated on a couch in the living room, his clothes from yesterday still on. His head was in his hands and he was running them through his brown hair that looked as though it had been through a storm. He looked terribly exhausted. It seemed someone else hadn't slept a wink last night either.
Meg lingered upon the last stair for a moment, it creaked and Raoul looked up, taken aback that someone had been watching him. He quickly straightened himself out to the best of his ability and rubbed his blood shot eyes.
"What's wrong?" Meg questioned taking a few steps forward to sit next to Raoul on the couch where Christine had cleaned up her arm yesterday.
"Oh…nothing." He said as a sigh. "I just…I'm…well frightened to put in bluntly." He alleged.
"Of…" Meg pushed for answers.
"I don't think he is gone Meg, and I don't know what I will do if he returns." Raoul sounded utterly frozen, and Meg could feel his anguish as it poured out onto his face.
"He won't give up so easy…it isn't like him at all from what I have seen. Madame Giry…your mother I am sorry to tell you Meg…but, well, she was shall we say involved with this Phantom's life. In a very imperative way. I know she would cover for him. Even if it meant the possible lack of safety for Christine." Raoul tried to choose his words carefully. But being as disconcerted as he was, he didn't do too well. If Meg hadn't known better, she would have thought her mother was having an affair with Erik! Now wouldn't that have been a twist of events!
"My mother would never harm Christine! Or put her in danger of any sort!" Meg retorted standing abruptly.
"Meg…meg." He whispered using her name only as a way of exerting his distress. "If only you had been there. He will come again. Dead…I didn't believe it for a second. The Phantom of the Opera would never let himself die."
Meg could provide no words of comfort for the Vicomte. She put a detached hand on his tense shoulder and averted her guilty eyes.
"Ah well, enough worry for now I suppose. I got an urgent message requesting I come immediately to discuss the insurance of the theatre this morning." Raoul stated, standing promptly.
Meg's eyes widened and she gulped back a chuckle. Erik had done precisely as he said he would. The rest now was up to her.
Christine's childhood sweetheart strode over to the mirror that hung gracefully in the entrance hall and smoothed out his hair and grimaced at the sight of his raw looking eyes.
Apparently he wasn't as much of a slave of fashion as Erik had suggested. For he walked out the door dressed in his attire from the day before to congregate with some of the most prestigious gentlemen of Paris.
Meg had denied a maid's request to make her breakfast, and fixed her own, as she was not used to being waited on. She ate in silence for a while until Christine came down to join her.
"How long have you been up?" Christine asked with a chuckle.
"An hour at least." Meg said.
"Oh dear, slept in did I?" She laughed. The doorbell rang…then not a second later it rang again. Christine's eyebrows went up. "Oh no…they're here! Interviewers.!" She sounded horrified. This wasn't going well. If Christine was frightened by interviewers, how would she react to…Phantoms? This would not bode well.
"I'll take care of it." Meg pushed her chair out from under her and ran to the front door.
Sure enough, outside were at least six or seven babbling News folk, some carrying paper and pens, one with complicated camera equipment. It was great when there was a picture to go along with an article in the newspaper. Though they were rare, as it was difficult to set up the new fangled equipment.
"Ms. Daaé?" "Where is she?" "A couple questions with Christine please!" "Oh were at the scene of the Opera disaster mademoiselle?" "Just a quick interview please please!"
They sounded like a chorus of squawking birds.
"QUIET!" Meg yelled, her yell involuntarily coming out more like a whine, for she was not used to yelling much of anything except the scattered 'he's here! The Phantom of the Opera!' But she wouldn't be doing much of that anymore now would she.
"Miss Christine Daaé is not here at the moment. Nor do I know precisely where she is at the moment. But she will not be returning here anytime soon. Now if you don't mind!" Meg shooed them all away but they pushed in like a herd of cattle in a stampede. Meg spun around the door so she was inside.
A wary Christine was lurking around the corner, hanging onto a doorway. She held a look of mixed gratitude and annoyance as Meg worked to shut the door where interviewers tried to ooze their way inside. Finally it closed and Meg rapidly whirled to lock it before the outsiders could pry it open again.
The doorbell rang incessantly.
"Uhg!" Meg yelped and slid down the door crumpling. She chuckled slightly. "Well…eventually it'll die down!" Meg gasped smiling.
Christine nodded. "Thanks Meg."
But Meg's smile crumpled as she realized she was alone again with Christine. Meg had forgotten she was dreading this moment.
"Christine, I have to tell you something important." Meg stood up from her crouch at the foot of the door. The doorbell rang twice more and Christine closed her eyes in annoyance and pulled back the front few strands of her spiraling russet hair back.
"Oh please Meg, I can't handle anything too important right at this moment. Let's do something, something to get our minds off of…these things."
Meg didn't quite know what Christine was referring too, the news people, her recent abduction…Erik perhaps. But she obliged and asked what they could do.
"I KNOW!" Christine squealed like a little girl. "Let's play ballet tag!"
Meg couldn't help but laugh at this. They hadn't played ballet tag for at least five years. But the look on Christine's face was one that she couldn't resist. Christine had always been the more playful one. Meg was a bit more realistic and though not entirely serious, not a barrel of laughs either. The curly haired, wide-eyed soprano had always been fun loving it seemed, when she told Meg the tales her and Raoul's childhood schemes and games. She must have missed the good old days.
The DeChagny manor had massive rolling land behind it. A garden with stone monuments and fountains overtook most of the left side and around the border of the house. But there was still enough area to have a rollicking good game of ballet tag. If only the other chorus girls were here to play.
They crept around to the back of the house, passing the looming pine tree of the past night. Meg idly glanced behind it checking for skulking Phantoms.
Barefoot and dresses stained green, the two best friends curtsied and plied. Twirling this way and that, tagging each other as necessary.
Finally tumbling exhaustedly to the ground next to each other, Christine sighed with regretful happiness.
"You know I feel wretched. Poor Raoul is out there right now cleaning up my mess."
"What are you talking about?" Meg exclaimed, not realizing how Christine could be angry with herself right now.
"I told you about the time at the graveyard did I not?" Meg nodded. "I could have let Raoul kill him. None of this would have happened and no one else would be dead."
"Except your angel." Meg muttered.
"Pardon?" Asked Christine.
"Nothing."
Christine wound two pieces of bright green grass around her fingers.
"Well, I'll go inside and fetch some lemonade. We can have a picnic!" Christine said, wanting to do seemingly anything to get her mind off the recent events of her life. She would have to come face to face with them eventually. Hiding wouldn't work forever.
Meg lay back, basking in the glowing warmth of the sun. A few more hours. Then she would tell her. She would give her the rose and explain how Erik felt.
Or better yet…she would do it when Christine came back with lemonade…
Wow, it was taking an awful long time for her to get that lemonade.
An awful long time.
Meg sat up, looking back at the manor. The curtains were all drawn shut in the windows that were visible. She frowned. Halfheartedly she hoped Erik hadn't come through the stove to capture her.
Meg made her way back to the front door. It was open a crack. Meg let herself in.
Christine wasn't in the living room…or kitchen. There were no lemonade glasses anywhere. Meg tiptoed in her ballerina way to the dining room.
Christine had her back to her. She was hunched over the table, her curls cascading over her shoulders to the side. Her hands were propped up against the table.
"Was there anything you wanted to tell me Meg?" She asked coldly. Not turning to face her.
Meg's heart skipped a beat.
Christine spun around and thrust the front page of a newspaper in her face.
Missing Chorus Girl Spotted With the Alleged Phantom of the Opera
Yesterday at approximately noon, two volunteers helping search for bodies and valuables amidst the rubble of the Opera House disaster scene claimed to see a young girl short of stature with shoulder length blonde hair in the dormitories of the theatre. One recognized her as a chorus girl belonging to the very same Opera house. Accidentally falling out of a second story window her rescuer came in the form of a man, cloaked in a white half mask. He proceeded to pick her up and carry her off into the Sé lle Franza park to the left to the theatre. Her identity is yet to be found, though it is most likely she is among the three still missing chorus girls:
Eliza Hebert
Juliet Fevre or
Margaret (Meg) Giry.
