A songphic to "Memory" from Cats...
...see, this is what comes when you listen to certain songs THIRTY-FOUR TIMES IN A ROW.
...and my first ever oneshot.
It's so SAD...(blows nose)
This takes place in the movie/musical universe...
Disclaimer: Catty no own, you no sue. Really, I don't own anything except Isobel de Chagny, Jean-Claude de Chagny, and Melody Destler. (nods) Now, let the story begin!
She had been quarantined to the guest bedroom for a week now, a week after the doctor had come with the diagnosis. He fixed the now elderly de Chagny couple with a steadfast look, and had pronounced the single word:
"Dementia." He had glanced at the Vicomtess's wide eyes as her shaky song had stopped, and then her husband's despairing face. His wife had been acting oddly for days now, but this?
"No, sir, I don't think the steak is too tough," she immediately said, her eyes snapping over to an imagined host. The doctor had gestured to Raoul, and they stood together in a corner:
"The old bat," he muttered, as if he were not speaking of a noblewoman, the Prima Donna of the Olympian Opera, here in London--they had moved quickly, after the incedent--for seven years, and a mother of three upper-crust citizens to boot, "has gone completely off her head. I've a friend who works for the local asylum, can take her off your hands for the right price--"
Raoul de Chagny had looked horrified at the suggestion, and immediately spoke out against it. The doctor had left soon after, but not until Christine had been locked in the second-floor guest bedroom, and a "Quarantine" sign had been hung on the door...as if she needed it...as if a woman nearing death could harm anyone...as if madness was a disease! She sat on the bed and began talking to the chamber pot, as if it were an old friend. The Vicomte had choked back a sob, and turned away from the door.
During her time alone, she had had various tantrums and sobbing fits, been to balls and dinner parties, and performed entire operas by herself. She had told her life story to the portraits on the wall--ALL of it, including the times back in Paris, and the person who had loved her to the extent that he had demolished the entire Opera Populaire to let her sing...
Now, though, she was calm, lying on top of the bed in her wrinkled dressing gown, a withered rose. Her dark chocolate curls had turned to a brittle, thinning mass of silver that was splayed out over the pillow. Sparkling eyes that had echoed the hue of her well-groomed tresses so well now only displayed her immense sorrow, and the the left bore a white film over it that gave her a demented look; she would never be able to see from that eye again. Her perfect ivory features were now faintly yellow, and were marred by wrinkles that accented her vulnerability and proved how far she had fallen from grace. Her breath was raspy, counting off each second before her chest stopped heaving and her eyes closed...which was soon, she knew.
Her eyes rolled over to the window, which displayed the dark sky and its slowly fading stars...the night was almost over...
Soon, the daylight would come streaming through the window...
The daylight...
Daylight...
"Daylight..." she sang out hoarsely, her voice showing the signs of age as well.
"See the dew on the sunflower..." she continued, thinking of the gardens in front.
"And a rose that is fading...
Roses wither away..." They had called her the Rose of the Olympian...she had charmed them all with her angelic voice and radiant beauty. She had been admired more than any simple flower. But every flower had to die sometime...and this was her time.
"Like the sunflower
I turn my face to the dawn...
I am waiting for the day." The croak that came from her mouth was a far cry from the sweet dulcet melodies of the glory days, when all London had bowed at her feet. She shakily sat up and hobbled over to the window, staring down at the dark city, with one lone carriage making its way down the road across from the Olympian, the grand building advertising Isobel de Chagny's performance in La Nymphe. The girl's pale golden hair and sapphire eyes seemed to glow in the lamplight, echoing her mother in that one painted pose. Her adoring public had moved on. The old Rose sighed:
"Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone." Staring at her daughter's image she saw only herself, and she sang on.
"In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan." Christine turned from the window and limped to the array of oil portraits on the wall; Raoul, with his kind eyes and unfading smile; Jean-Claude, the boy and then the man, who had made good use of his share of the fortune, investing it and then living in luxury for his now thirty-year-old life; Isobel, the lily of the London stage, who had inherited her mother's talents so she could share them with the world; and her oldest, shy, sombre Melody with her books and music and long hours spent teaching herself music theory so she could learn to compose...
Melody, who didn't know who her real father was...
She reached out with an aged hand to touch a portrait of herself on the Olympian stage.
"Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then..." Her voice wavered, and she sounded on the verge of tears as she stroked her painted cheek.
"I remember
The time I knew what happiness was..." She closed her eyes and remembered her first time performing in Paris, the masquerade, her wedding, the births of her children...
And another, more private time, underground led by a masked man with a hypnotically beautiful voice...
"Let the memory live again."
She made her way back to the bed and sat at the foot, observing the view through the window.
"Every streetlamp seems to beat," she remarked as the glow of the lantern on the pole flickered, "a fatalistic warning.
Someone mutters
And a streetlamp gutters
And soon, it will be morning..."
Outside, the carriage stopped just in front of the de Chagny manor, and two figures emerged. They stepped up to the grand front door and entered, whisking up the winding staircase, the taller of the two being led by the other, until they reached the door to the guest bedroom. The shorter figure produced a silver key from within her cloak, and the door opened a crack. She turned to her companion, thick ebony waves falling away from her features to reveal a milk-white mask that covered half her face, and whispered:
"Please don't take too long, Papa."
He nodded, an identical mask on his face luminescent in the dark, and entered the room. Christine's head swiveled around, and she laid eyes on her angel for the first time in years.
His face was lined as well, and all that remained of his hair was a swan-feather white fringe around his head. But the mask was still in the same place, and he still wore the same clothing...black jacket, white skirt, burgundy vest, black dress pants and a cloak slung around his shoulders. His eyes were filling as he gazed down at her, the woman who had caused him such joy and such grief. Erik watched her expression of disbelief turn to something like joy, which quickly faded, as she shook her head, her eyes wide.
"Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn't give in..."
"When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too..." the Opera Ghost crooned, extending his gloved hand.
"And a new day will begin," they sang in chorus, as she took it, and they slipped into each other's arms. She followed his steps as they began to waltz. The two people regarded each other with such apparent love that Melody sighed from where she was watching them. It was as if time had gone backwards...but instead of her in Raoul's arms on the ballroom floor, she was with her Angel of Music, she a young goddess all in white silk with silver snowflakes in her brunette hair, and he achingly handsome in the clothing he had worn when they had first met face-to-face. The joyful dance finally ended, but Christine's face was blissful, the biting pain in her arthiritic limbs numbed for that one happy moment. They sat together on the bed, his hand covering hers, revealing with their eyes how they had longed for one another.
"Burnt-out ends of smoky days..." Erik reminesced.
"The stale cold smell of mourning," Christine sympathized.
"A streetlamp dies," she continued, "another night is over...
Another day is dawning!" Her eyes filled with tears as she flung her bony arms around Erik's neck, and sang with her last breaths:
"Touch me!
It's so easy to leave me!"
No, it isn't, Erik thought, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"All alone with my memory
Of my days in the sun!"
And my days in the shadow...
"If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is..." Her sandpapery voice was filled with passion.
And I do, now!...
Her arm thrust out, and she pointed with a trembling forefinger at the rising sun:
"Look!...A new day has begun!..." And the last note that Christine Daae would ever sing slowly died, her arm dropped limp at her side, and the steady beating of her heart slowed and eventually stopped. Erik wept into her silver hair, and his daughter placed a hand on his shoulder. She cried as well, shedding tears for her deceased mother, Christine Daae de Chagny, her father's only love. Father and daughter sobbed over the frail old body, until finally, he tucked it in the white linens. Melody stooped to plant a kiss on the old woman's cheek, and whispered, "Au revoir, Maman. Je t'aime."
She stood and took her father's hand, and together they exited the room, leaving nothing but a black-ribboned rose behind.
(bawls eyes out)
Fictional tissues are on the table...for those of you who review.
I remain, your humble and obiedient servant--
C. F. & Co.