Chapter 2

He made it only around the corner before grinding to a halt.

What had just happened? A woman…her wild eyes…her face…her face…

She's not my responsibility. She got her own fool self into these cellars. He continued to think this even as he turned and walked back the way he had run.

She was right where he had left her and did not turn her head towards his light as he approached her once more. They looked at each other in silence. At least, he looked at her. She stared at some imaginary distant point in her vision.

"I came here to die, Phantom," she said. "Alone. A properly dramatic, solitary death. And unless you are here to kill me, then you are welcome to continue upon your way."

The tone of her voice was still biting, metallic and sneering, impossibly coherent considering her condition. He realized only now how much obvious effort it was taking her to say them. A thin sheen of sweat covered her grotesque features, and as he watched, she trembled almost imperceptibly.

He had set his boxes down upon the ground before he was even aware that he had come to a decision. She looked up at him in undisguised surprise right before he blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness once more.

His arms found her legs and shoulders on the first attempt. He felt her draw weakly away. He lifted her in his arms; she was impossibly light and she shuddered as she left the ground.

She whimpered low in her throat, and it was a terrified, desperate sound, as if she wished to scream but had no voice to speak. And then she was silent.

He brought his head down towards where he thought hers must be, stopping when he felt the side of his mask touch her thin chest. It was moving but barely. She had fainted dead away.

He walked quickly through the hallways, his mind instinctively leading him to where he knew his boat would be. His foot bumped against the hull in the darkness; he laid the woman down in the bottom of the boat before getting in and poling them quickly across the lake.

The glowing lights from his remaining candles told him that he had reached his home. Lifting her easily once again, he stepped onto his shore and stopped dead.

Where can I take her? Certainly not…there. The floor? No, I am not such a barbarian. The thought stopped him. I am not?

The raised dais where his model of the opera house used to be was empty. He flung a scrap of what was formerly his carpet over it and then laid the woman down upon it. A bowl filled with cold water from the lake and a threadbare towel he laid at her side for when she woke. As a final thought, he ran into the other room, where the pieces of the swan bed were scattered across the floor. He grabbed several of the remaining, torn pillows and returned to slide them under her back and head, propping her up and doing his best to clear her airway. She was barely breathing and when she did, her lungs made terrible sounds.

He had a sudden, violent vision of himself pushing against her chest with punishing force as her silent eyes gazed back at him in befuddlement. Live, damn you! I will not let you die…

The vision was gone as soon as it had come and he shook his head as if waking from a deep sleep. Several more candles provided enough light for him to finally see her clearly.

She was thin, painfully so. That much was obvious even from the baggy clothes that she wore, which he could see now had most likely been stolen from the costume rooms. Her hair was wild and about shoulder length, and streaked with so much dirt and grime that he could not tell what color it had once been.

And her face…he felt something turn inside his stomach once more as he looked at it. Was it strange to feel such repulsion? Had he truly become a hypocrite so easily?

No…he was repulsed because he knew that this atrocity was not natural. The gaping wound told him that much. The cut ran from the corner of her right eye to her lips, straining against its dirty stitches. It was gangrene, and from the state of her face, it had reached its final stages.

She shifted and a soft whimper escaped her twisted lips. He was struck suddenly by how young she was. Her figure and the contours of her face visible beneath the infection belonged to a woman in her early-20s at most.

Involuntarily, a surge of an emotion he could not name rushed through him. Her statement about seeing his face had not escaped his notice. She belonged to the opera. He couldn't remember who she was. How could this have happened to her? How could I not have known about it? Her French was good but her voice, hoarse and scraping though it was, betrayed a faint Irish accent.

Almost as quickly as they had started, his thoughts ground to a halt. What was happening? Four weeks ago, he had made a promise to live out the rest of his miserable non-existence away from all human contact. And yet now, with hardly even a thought otherwise, he had taken in yet another woman in need of his help.

"Bloody hell…" He passed his hand over his patchwork mask in frustration, irritated that he could not knead his temples through the cloth. At least this one would not stay very long; she had a few hours at most…maybe a day.

His eyes moved down to her neck. The shirt was buttoned too close to her throat. He reached down and released the top two buttons, leaving her throat exposed and felt her lungs fill once again with air. His hand brushed against a chain around her neck. Almost mechanically, he lifted the chain away from her shirt and considered the locket dangling from its end.

It was the sturdy, bronze type that could be opened and filled with pictures of parents, or perhaps a lover or husband.

The locket cracked open to reveal the face of a young woman.

Even in the guttering light of the candles, he could see that she had once been beautiful. Her chin was pointed, her cheekbones high yet muted in the softness of her face. Long willowy hair so light it was almost white fell from her head in waves and curls. Brilliant green eyes stared back at him, eyes so much like his own…with a similar hardness that belied the youth of her features.

There was a scrap of paper tucked against the locket hinge and he trapped it carefully between his fingers before it fell. He turned it over to read words written in plain, un-flowery script.

This should help you have the stomach to bury me.
Theresa O'Leary

He was right; she was Irish. A wave of anger overtook him as he considered the flippant message that he was sure was meant to be her last words. How could she? She could not have been wounded more than a month ago. Before then, someone like her must have had friends, family, a lover…people who would surely noticed her absence.

I came here to die, Phantom. Alone. A properly dramatic, solitary death.

A woman like she once was didn't die alone. She had family and friends. She lived in the sunshine. She didn't crawl into the cellars like an animal, and she shouldn't be in the house of a masked madman.

Suddenly he felt as if he were about to be sick. That had been closest in a month he had come to thinking about…her. The locket fell from his nerveless fingers and thudded against the woman's chest.

She blinked and stirred. It was too late for him to run. He held himself stiffly as he waited for her to realize his presence. She blinked again as her eyes came into focus and she saw him. She shuddered. "I fainted, didn't I?" He did not respond. "How sickening."

There was no more anger in her eyes, he noticed, merely what seemed to be grudging resignation. He also noticed that her eyes were the one feature that had not been ravaged by the disease; they remained a bright and piercing green. They watched him now with sudden wariness as he dipped the towel into the bowl of water and handed it to her.

"For you…Miss O'Leary."

She froze, water dripping from the towel to run down her arm. She glanced down once and noticed the locket, open and resting against her shirt. "That was private," she said.

"So were my cellars."

She smirked. "You were supposed to be dead."

He felt the irritation starting to grow within him again as he stared into her sullen eyes. In the time she had spent unconscious, he had almost begun to think of her with…sympathy. He had nearly forgotten the appalling way she had greeted him upon being found. Unthinkable really.

"You have quite an unbridled tongue."

She shrugged. "I'm dying, why should I care?" Her eyes moved over to the scrap of paper he still clutched in his hand. "Are you going to put that back or are you waiting for me to keel over so you can do the job yourself?"

"I hardly think either will be necessary. The infection leaves you a day at the most to live and afterwards, the body will need to be cremated to kill any potential bacterial contagions," he said smoothly.

The sentence hung in the air between them like a lead weight and he could feel something within his chest crashing to the floor. If I ever doubted that I was a monster before…

Her mouth dropped slightly open as she stared blankly at him. And then the ragged black and green skin of her face stretched to the point of cracking as she laughed once, a sound that rang like a gunshot. "Oh monsieur Phantom, thank you for your unbridled honesty! I suppose that I couldn't get away with treating you like shite without getting some in return, eh?"

He took a quick, almost disbelieving breath. "Be that as it may, Miss O'Leary, it was beyond repugnant for me to say that."

"I don't mind the truth, Phantom. That's all I have left now. What I do mind is your use of my name. It was not for you to know."

He bit back a sharp retort and inclined his head. "Fair enough…woman. But I wonder how long you will insist on 'treating me like shite' while you are in my home."

"Your home, eh? Nice place. Almost as nice as the mess you caused to mine a month ago."

"You are from the Opera then," he said, uneasily realizing that she had managed to avoid his question with barely an effort. She should not be so coherent this close to death. She should be raving, in denial, sobbing, clinging to the comforting shoulders of a loved one. She should not be resigned, crass, uncaring…she should not be like him.

"In a sense…yes."

"Why did I never know of you then? And why did I never know of how you received your injury? That is an old wound, and a serious one."

Her lip curled up unpleasantly. "Oh, you wouldn't have any reason to know who I am. But I daresay you do know how I got my injury. It was quite a spectacular disaster really. The doctors say that they were surprised the piece of glass didn't cut my entire head off when it fell from the ceiling."

The world froze. He was distinctly aware that his legs had buckled and he sat down heavily in a nearby chair. Every single thought that had been running through his head focused into the single word to escape his lips. "No…"

She coughed again, the sound rattling nastily in her throat. "As I said, Phantom, after nearly being killed by that blasted chandelier…I want a properly dramatic death."

"Do you know what you're thinking right now?"

His world was cold, amorphous, as her grotesque visage swam into view. "How would you presume to know?" he said. I did this…I caused this death and despair, that's all I ever do…

"You're thinking that you want nothing more than to run, to run far, far away from this. In lieu of that, you'll settle for crawling into a dark corner and hiding there until the merciful end of your life." Her bitter tone softened. "You weren't supposed to find me. I would have died quite happily in my dark corner, to be found by the next halfwit stagehand who visited the costume room. Nondescript clothes, unrecognizable face…nothing but a name and a flattering photo to identify me. They'd bury me with dignity…the unknown lady who suffered some horrendous fate in the bowels of the cellars. Yet another reason for them to be glad that you're gone and stay out of your bloody cellars forever. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

How quickly their roles had changed! With the gut-wrenching revelation that he in fact was responsible for this monstrosity, the menacing Phantom who terrorized those around him became a trembling man who took his scathing reprimand in silence. His cynicism, however, had not left. "Woman, I find it hard to believe that you would have organized your death for my benefit."

"Oh no, not at all. I hated you with the fire of a thousand suns. I had wanted to join that mob that descended into the cellars to murder you. But weakened to the point of death, I settled for dragging myself into your basements and dying there just to spite you, just to make you see…" She shook her head, her stringy hair flying. "But then you found me. And to my unending bafflement, you brought me here and are trying to do what you can to prolong my life."

He looked down suddenly and noticed that the towel had found its way into his hands and he was dripping cool water onto her forehead. When had that happened?

"Are you a doctor, Phantom?"

"Among other things," he muttered.

"Is that what this is then? A clinical obligation to soothe your guilty conscience?"

He glared at her, furious that she purported to see through him so easily, furious that he wasn't cowing her into submission with a scathing denial, furious that she was right. "I thought you considered me a heartless monster."

She blinked. "I never said that. I said that I hated you. A monster isn't worthy of hate, simply contempt."

He was rendered momentarily speechless, unsure of whether she had just cursed him or complimented him. "You should not have to die alone," he said stiffly.

She tried to smile again and grimaced. The pain in her badly-stitched wound had obviously grown too great for simple movement. "How noble of you, Phantom. But if it's guilt that you're trying to assuage, then sitting by my side until I slip silently into that not-so-good night isn't enough. After all, it's not like you have anything better to do."

She paused, waiting for his reaction, but he was already too accustomed to her shocking bluntness to react.

"If it is guilt, then I will ask a boon of you. Your ear…and your honesty until either I keel over or am rendered dumb. The disease seems quite happy just eating my bloody face off for the moment, but I've no doubt that it'll eventually go after my brain locked up in my skull."

"I…am a poor choice of a shoulder to cry on."

The fire in her eyes nearly made him shrink back in his chair. Honestly, what is wrong with me?

"This is a deathbed confession, Phantom, not some sniveling attempt to right things in what little is left of my life. You will listen, and you will answer whatever I may ask. My forgiveness for a scrap of your soul. Surely that seems a generous…trade?"

He stared at her. What makes her think I am human enough for her forgiveness to be worth anything to me? He knew almost before he finished his thought. She was present during that performance of Don Juan. Surely she had seen him tear his heart from his chest when he asked Christi— No! NO! He would not think of her, not now. I do owe her…and she asks so little of me, and there is so little of a soul to give…

He nodded. "Very well."

"Good. Then take off your mask, Phantom."

A/N: I have quasi-poached a line from Dylan Thomas' "Do No Go Gentle Into That Good Night", the only palatable villanelle to exist. I have chosen to let the fact that Thomas wasn't born until the 20th century remain a moot point.