Welcome to the second chapter. I hope you are enjoying so far and I hope you'll enjoy until the end of the story.
WARNING:
The FADA (Fanfiction Addiction Detection Agency) has come to the conclusion that this story can be highly addicting. The Author cannot be held responsible for drops in the reader's grades due to new chapters. Large doeses of Requiem can lead to dependence. The Author is not responsible for withdrawal symptoms which can occur when author fails to update speedily enough.
I took care of him until my stomach ached and I noticed that it was getting harder to see. I had been working with the light of the fire in the room he had meant for Christine but when I went outside, to the lake, it was getting harder to see. I realized that the only light I had ever had was from the grates that looked up onto one rue or another and the encroaching darkness signaled sunset. Sunset meant I should worry, my mother would be furious. I looked to the phantom and knew, without even thinking about it, that I would be back. I walked around, straightening a few things up and then made note of what I would need to bring back. It was almost as though I were hesitant to leave him here all alone, which I suppose I was. Still I noticed that the phantom would need food; soup would be best.
I knew I could get him to drink it just like I had figured how to give him water. He did not need to be conscious for that and soup was easy enough to make, even though I couldn't cook nearly anything. Matches would help even if he had a few, as would some medicine. The medicine I knew I could not afford, there was no way, but everything else I was fairly certain I could manage. I found a scrap of paper that had been fancy once but was burnt to nearly nothing now and I also found the nub of a pencil. With these tools in hand I scrawled my name in my messy, squiggling handwriting. Other than that and "congratulations" I only knew my numbers. I had the Phantom to thank for knowing even that much. I would have learned my name and numbers eventually but his note on the candies, a treasured thing of mine even now, had allowed me to learn the harder word. That however would not come in handy in this case so all I could do was offer my name in childish letters and hope that if he should wake he would know what it meant.
Even if he couldn't understand what I meant, or didn't know me—why should he I was just Little Meg—I would still be back. Not that I could decipher why, I was supposed to fear the phantom and be disgusted by him, he was a murderer, he was violent and cruel and...
It didn't matter, because I was going to help him. He didn't scare me, I trusted him, and I would be back. Getting across the lake was easier without his things making me nervous and I had the experience of one try under my belt. My mother often complained about the fact that in my mind, doing something that dangerous once made me an expert. Nearly to the opposite shore I tumbled into the water and I tried to scream, gulping down water instead of air. Terror gripped my heart and I may have started crying. I managed to flail my arms in a way that got me to shore and I huddled on land for a few moments, gasping and shuddering. I coughed up water and struggled out of the basements, wrapping myself in the clothing Christine had left behind when I finally did reach the familiar parts of the Opera House. A blouse that was too big, a skirt that was too long, and a cloak that was threadbare, but they still would get me to my home. Of course the whole way my hair was dripping freezing water down my back. The hair would be difficult to explain to my mother, everything else…well, I could always make something up.
Luck seemed to smile down on me despite my desire to help an Angel in Hell.
It was late and few people were on the streets, the sky was the color of flames along the horizon only and in the dim light I didn't see the rain clouds forming. Instead, they announced their arrival with a crash of thunder seconds before they burst open, drenching me all over again. With a simple and quiet curse I pulled the cloak tighter around my shoulders, not that it did any good, and started running. Almost as though I thought I could make it home hours ago so my mother would not worry, would not yell like she usually did. I knew my mother wasn't mean, only yelled because she cared for me and because yelling was the only way you could get through to me sometimes. But just because I knew my mother loved me; just because I knew that my mother didn't try to be cruel didn't make me any more willing to listen to the older woman yell.
It wouldn't be until later that I realized what a boon the rain had been to me. It gave me an excuse for my hair being so wet and at least for now I would not have to reveal my secret about the Phantom.
The next day, even after a harsh ballet practice that left me with bloodied slippers and aches in every muscle I packed a small satchel and started towards the Phantom's home, assuring myself that today he would be better. The whole trip down was spent assuring myself that a good, long sleep and then the meal I was carrying would be all he needed and the Phantom who had always been there, as much a part of my childhood as my mother and ballet had been. I was hobbling a little as I sneaked to the path I had taken last night. Once I was to the lake I looked around. Walking around the edge of the lake was out, I had too big a satchel with me and my feet ached too much. That was when I saw a small boat I had not noticed before, bobbing merrily, almost as though it were welcoming me. I smiled weakly and dropped into the boat, finding only one long oar. I wasn't quiet sure how to use it but I found that if I stood I could push the boat along almost like with regular boats. Not that I really knew how to work those either.
As I pushed myself along I realized that it was in fact harder than it looked and the palms of my hands started to burn, the blisters earned from the bricks last night making themselves known. I reached the opposite side without much incident and when I looked back over the water I saw something move beneath the glassy surface, almost like there was a fish that had swum too close to the surface. Which of course couldn't be true because there were no fish in this lake, as firmly as Meg could believe in a magical being in the cellars, everyone knew that there were no fish in this lake, because it wasn't that sort of lake. All children of the Opera received that lecture at one time or another when they heard about the lake in the basements and got ideas about a great beach, rather than the open tubs on the roof where they normally swam. Well, the boys at least.
I managed to get myself to the other side, which in itself seemed like a miracle and when I looked back over the water I realized how terrified I should be. I couldn't swim, I couldn't even keep my head above the water. If I were to fall in the water I would most certainly drown and my mother would never know what happened to me, only that I disappeared. I would never become a famous ballerina or Prima Ballerina and no one would help the Phantom. What chilled me the most as I clung to my parcel was that of all that I would most regret that the Phantom was left with no one to help him. My mother was strong and she would get over my disappearance and move on, the pain would be there but she would move on. The Opera would not miss me much, there were hundreds of girls who could be better than me with the practice the Opera offered. The Phantom however, he had no one else and he didn't even know that he had me. He would probably go so far as to push me away when he found me caring for him. He was so secretive as to hide behind a mask and so proud that he considered the Opera his. I heard his stories more often than I ate as a child and I foolishly thought that I knew more about him than any other person. I knew that he would push me away but I also knew I could handle it.
The Phantom was still asleep when I got into the room, but his breathing was deeper and calmer, more like a real sleep rather than one born of illness even with the light rasp it still held occasionally. I built up a fire and while the soup I quickly scraped together heated I drew water from the lake and brought the bowl to his side.
For a few moments I simply looked at the man that Christine had feared and that Raoul had hated so adamantly. Other than the mar on the left side of his face he was beautiful. Both his cheekbones were high, giving him an almost effeminate look however this was canceled out by his masculine chin. I had seen his eyes before so I knew them to be a hazy sort of brown that caught the light just right to make them glow. Unconsciously I reached out a hand, which for once was steady, and touched the marred side. I ran my fingers over the ridges and marveled at how soft the flesh was, other than the bumps it was as smooth as I thought the flesh on the other side. What happened next went so quickly that I was unsure of what had happened. I could move gracefully and fast enough on stage but any of the other rats can tell you that it took practice to get me to the point where I didn't need to think about things. My father, I remember him saying that my mind was so filled with ballet it had little time for anything else.
I suddenly found myself on the floor with the Phantom sitting up in the large bed. My wrist was aching as was my stomach and it took me several moments to realize that I couldn't hardly breathe. My whole chest and stomach ached as though I'd been kicked. As I struggled to catch my breath I looked up and the Phantom was sitting up, glaring at me with those eyes, his mouth twisted into an angry frown. "What are you doing!" He bellowed, I would have probably cringed but I was still trying to catch my breath. I could figure out that he had struck me in the stomach and driven the air from my lungs and that I had tried to catch myself as I fell. I gasped like a fish for a little and he swung his feet out of the bed, scattering sheets. "I asked what you are doing! Have you come to stare at the Phantom?" I was sure that if he weren't having such difficulty standing he would have kicked me. I scrambled to my feet and curled my hands into tight fists, so tight my nails bit into the flesh. I had grown up with my mother. It had taken several men to drag her from the office of the owners when they tried to fire her. Surely something had rubbed off on me and now was the time to find out.
"Monsieur!" I shouted, throwing my whole body into the shout. "I have done no such thing to give you the right to strike me and treat me in such a manor so I will ask you kindly to stop. I came down here to return things to you and find out if you needed help!" I had more to say but when I paused to take a breath he took a moment to interject his opinion on the matter.
"No one helps the Phantom of the Opera. You're one of the little rats aren't you? I can tell by the look of you. Too small to get anywhere in ballet and too stubborn to find what you're good at. What do you want from me? Do you want me to whisper in the ears of those fools? Get you a better part?" I don't think anything hurt more than being slapped in the face with the reality of the fact that he had no idea who I was. For all my dreams, for all my silly fantasies, for all the girlish thoughts that constantly bustled about in my head, ideas that the phantom would appreciate what my mother did for him and would keep us safe. He would realize what was wrong with her and he would give her money for doctors. Or even dreams that he would find a mansion for real and hire my mother to handle his business and I could continue to learn ballet because he would be like a benefactor to me. All those dreams vanished in a puff of smoke that tore my breath out of my body more violently than his blow had done.
"My mother always spoke of you that you were refined and a gentleman. I grew up hearing tales about you so when those people got down here I tried to save things I thought you might want. Pages and pages of some opera, some ink and that mask you hide behind. I was trying to do something nice for you because you are a genius and you deserve better than a burnt out basement and nothing left." I whispered. He'd gotten to me. His harsh words had bit into my heart and burned away my dreams. I was stubborn though and I would not cry. I would make him understand that he wasn't as horrible as he seemed to enjoy thinking he was. He needed my help and I would help him because he had helped us. Even if he didn't want my help he would get it. I stormed to the dresser which was against the wall to my left and my fingers curled around the cool material. I pulled it to me in a quicker motion and took three long steps to reach his side. I thrust it at him violently. Proof that I was here to help, that was all I meant it to be and yet, as he looked down at my trembling hand something about his demeanor changed.
His hands reached slowly up to touch both sides of his face and I wondered if he could feel the heat that my fingers had left moments before. An odd thought to strike me, I knew as much but strike me it did. His fingers were pale and long with large knuckles, the hands of a pianist and they splayed out over his face, tracing the marks he must have known so well. "I had a domino on." He whispered, "I remember you now, Madame Giry's daughter. Megan. I remember you coming down here, babbling about how you wanted to help. I had a domino on." He repeated it again twice more after that, as though saying it over and over would make it true.
"I washed your face. It was rather nice and I don't know if they can get wet or not. It's over there, on the mantle." I nodded with my head, too afraid to move. He looked up at me, the confusion gone and anger in its place.
"So you've seen me now. Off to tell your little friends in the corps about the death's head and how out of all of them you were brave enough to dare look upon it. To touch it even! That should earn you respect in that world of glittering lights." He shouted, taking one step that was greater than the three of mine and coming to stand right before me. So close I could feel his great huffing breaths fan out over my skin. Both his hands reached down and enveloped mine. I was surprised that they were warm. He jerked my hands up violently, and I whimpered as he crushed the burns from the day before and the splinters from my crossing of the lake. He pressed them against his face. One against the marred half and the other against the smooth half, and he was pressing them so tightly that I was unsure how he was not hurting himself. Again, just like when I had crossed the lake the first time I was more worried about him, about everything else other than me. "Have you your fill of the monster? Have you enough stories to brag about to the rats? Would you like more? Or is it pity you feel for this face? Do you look upon me and wonder why God cursed me and no one else? Do you want to help this angel in hell?" He paused.
"You were friends with Christine weren't you?" In just the way he said her name you could feel the pain, anguish, torture, there were not words enough to explain the emotions you could hear in the way he said that name and for whatever reason a traitorous part of me reminded me that he barely even knew who I was. That the one time he had said my name the only emotion was distrust. I couldn't have told you then why that hurt. Maybe because dispite what I said I still clung to the idea that he would help my mother, and she would not have to work anymore. "You're down here to learn of her then? Well I don't know! I told her to leave and she left! She's gone with that fop to marry somewhere and live out her life, giving up our song for that handsome man." He dropped to his knees and I stumbled backwards, startled by the motion. "Stare all you like, this Phantom will be dead soon enough." He murmured from where he was huddled over on the floor.
I knelt before him, a softer motion, and reached out, hesitantly for him. I paused when he began to move and he caught sight of my palms, which after both of us treating them so roughly…well my palms were bleeding as he looked at them and he leaned back onto his heels and took one of my hands into both of his. "This is why you flinched when I touched you." It wasn't a question so much as something that he was informing himself of.
"Grabbed me is more like it sir." I whispered. Finally he was realizing. I don't know why he treated my mother so well, why he trusted her when she ended up being the one to lead everyone to his home. I don't know a lot of things and I didn't know even more things that night in the Underground.
"How did you do this to yourself?"
"I heated stones I found; my father taught me how to break a fever that way." I don't know why I didn't mention paddling across the lake, but I didn't, and that would come later to make me regret it. Though, through all that happened to me I would never regret helping the phantom. "I want to help you because you deserve help. Not out of pity, nor on a dare." His fingers, still as warm as life, smoothed over my hands, turning slightly red with blood. I stood and pulled my hands gently away, wiping them on my skirt and not paying attention to how much they were aching. "Now, we've established that I'm helping you and here I am letting you freeze to death on the floor. I've some soup that's getting cold and you're lucky I cooked at all so up you come." I was treating him like I treated the littlest rats, young and scared when they were making themselves sick.
I kept my voice light and airy and I tried to be chipper no matter the things going on around us. I was all smiles and laughs and the phantom was giving me odd looks as I tried to help him up. "Come on you're being difficult. I carried you once when you were unconscious I can do it again." I threatened with a light smile. I should have been afraid. My stomach was still hurting from the blow he'd delivered to it but I knew that he was a bit like a scared animal and I had to be careful. I would be careful but that didn't mean that I wouldn't treat him like a human.
We worked together to get him in the bed and I handed him the soup bowl, allowing him to do it himself. You could tell he was proud and I wasn't here to baby him. I left him to eat while I went to the main part of the house, the part of the house that had been destroyed and while he ate—or I hoped he ate—I tried to clean up what I could. Most of the things in his home were just gone, only the things that couldn't be stolen had been destroyed. However a lot of the chairs and things could still be used. I didn't know how he bought his things but I could get most of this ready for him to use if it was difficult for him to come by things.
After an hour—this time I had been smart enough to bring a watch—I sneaked into the room and found him standing at the mantel and looking at the two small boxes there. I walked up beside him and stood there a moment, trying to peer into them and finding myself too short. "I would think it would be easy for you to stand en pointe or do you somehow manage to avoid that on stage?" He asked, not looking at me. I glanced at him and then back to the box, seeing my reflection in the surface of the wood.
"You obviously know more about singing than ballet. Or for all the credit maman gives you I should hope you know more about it." My feet were aching more since I had completely forgotten to rub lotion or anything on them. I walked over to the chair I had pulled in earlier and sat down. I wiggled my toes in the boots and could feel the blood. I cursed silently and began untying them, ignoring the Phantom. I was going to help him but if he was going to be rude about it I would rather ignore him than reprimand him like a child.
My feet were bleeding, no worse than usual though, so I stood and started hobbling to the bathroom, figuring to wash them a little. He stopped me with a sound and I turned. He pointed to the chair. "It has been a long time since I have taken notice of a ballerina. I sometime forget what you go through for your art." He murmured in lieu of an apology. He directed me to the chair and I didn't actually speak but made a sort of indignant squawk. "I've been in that bed for too long it will do me better than you to walk." He told me, sounding as fierce as maman could when she was worried for me. I sat comfortably in the chair he directed me to and he took the pitcher I had left for him and brought it to me complete with the bowl. "You've a lotion I'm sure?" That was phrased as a question but we both knew it was true.
"I left it in the changing rooms." I told him, shrugging and starting to stand.
"Sit just a moment and I'll let you mother me as much as you need before you cease worrying about me, why ever it is you worry for me." I didn't point out to him that he wasn't making much sense. It didn't matter because he'd basically given me permission to keep caring for him and I could tell he was still weak. "Perhaps your mother wasn't as wrong as I thought when she called me a gentleman." His whispered softly. I don't think I was meant to hear that but I nodded lightly anyway and stayed seated. He brought a small glass container of scented lotion and I could tell it was meant for Christine. As I rubbed it into my aching feet I opened my mouth to thank him and realized that I couldn't I couldn't thank him because I didn't know something very important.
"You can call me Meg." I told him. Previously he had been calling me Madmoiselle Giry but that was a mouthful and it reminded me of that horrible day so long ago. He looked at me and mentioned that I was a young, unmarried girl spending time in the home, nay bedroom of a killer and I was telling him he could call me by my Christian name? "I don't see why not. And yes you killed but Papa always said that the past is in the past so long as you learn from it and don't repeat it." I told him, feeling a bit foolish but I was always one for blundering forward in the face of adversity. "Can I call you something else? You're not the Phantom anymore and I don't feel right calling you such." I told him, hoping it came out as the compliment I meant it to be.
"Erik."
I paused, waiting, and held my breath, but that was all he said. So I smiled brightly and repeated it. I didn't ask him until much later but I did eventually ask him why he smiled so oddly when I said his name.
He fell asleep soon after that and I left after about ten minutes of listening to him breathe. Of course, I was back the next day with more food and finding him just out of the bathtub. Today he was awake longer, able to speak a bit and talk of what was happening in what I still considered his Opera House. He asked how I had been getting into his home and I told him I came across the lake.
"The Lake?" He almost looked afraid.
"Yes, the little boat? It's not as hard to move as I had thought." I told him, quiet proud of myself.
"Don't ever cross the lake unless I am with you." He snapped. "It's dangerous, more dangerous than you can imagine." He told him, his eyes hard and cold. "I will show you another way into my home if you insist to continue coming here to visit me." He told me.
"I won't come across the lake anymore." I promised. I didn't know what the problem was but I knew that he didn't seem to mind me coming more so I would do whatever I had to; He took me then and there and showed me where to go. He took me into an octagonal room with mirrors for walls. I was dizzy and nearly got lost just standing there. He grabbed my wrist and shook me.
"You insisted on knowing this so focus." He showed me how to stare at the floor when I walked in here, to walk to the tree and climb into it, he showed me where to press on the ceiling and how the wall moved away and I could climb up into one of the basements. From there I could get to places I knew easily. "Can you do that on your own?" He asked when we returned to the bedroom. I nodded silently. He asked what was wrong.
"Why do you trust me? My mother is the reason your home is in tatters. Why do you trust me?" I asked, staring at my aching hands and how they curled in my lap. I didn't even look up when he started talking.
"Your mother did what I asked her because I knew what to promise her. The managers of my Opera do what I ask because I frighten them. You came down here on your own, at your own risk to help a murderer. Maybe you're lying and you do want something from me but if now. Well, no one has ever done anything for me and wanted nothing in return. Perhaps that's why." I didn't ask any more after that. His patience with me was a precious gift and I would not be the one to shatter it. I do admit that at first I felt it was a duty of mine to help, since it was because of my mother that his home was like this.
Sometime in the course of that week it changed. I didn't come because I wanted to atone for my mother's sin, I came because he needed help and I wanted to help. He was still weak and I realized that it wasn't just the illness. He had been pushing himself too hard and he was malnourished among other things. So my savings began to dwindle and my toe shoes stopped getting replaced as often as before and I stopped eating as much as I used to. I found that if I split my money in half every time I was paid, there was enough for me to eat for a week and for him to eat for a week. If I split it so he had more than he got the extra meals he needed and I could go for missing a few meals a week. Of course, I didn't figure all this out until the fifth visit. We were getting ready to reopen the Opera House and the ballet mistress was pushing us harder than usual. He knew I was going to miss a few days but I promised him a hundred times that I would be returning.
It had been four days since I had descended last and what I found when I got into his world I wished that I had never left at all. Maybe it would have prevented what happened next…
I think Domino is how you spell it, its how you say it as far as I know. Anyway its one of those little masks like what the Lone Ranger wore, only they cover a bit more and they can be insanly intricate.
Sorry about the cliff-hanger, and trust me its not anything good that he does. Anyway, I'm trying to keep him in character for the book, in which he seemed rather emotional and they BARELY spoke of Meg so she's becoming a combination of her mother and powerful women I know of from that time. Yeah okay I sort of went for more of an ALW look for Meg simply because as I start to get into her dad more it makes more sense for her to be a) powerful like she is going to start acting more and more like and b) to have that long blond hair and light eyes. I picked green randomly and because a friend of mine offered to illustrate this story for me and she colored the eyes green.
I'd like to warn you now though, this is a Gothic Romance, which means that there is going to be a lot of angsty stuff happening before this book/thing ends. Now the next update is going to be slower because I've got a bunch of other stories I'm trying ot keep updating because I just left them hanging and I feel horrible about that so you can all loiter around my bio page and see if there's anything else of mine you might like.
Remember, reviews and emails make me write faster.