Welcome to the One Year Birthday of this story. I am so happy to have been around you guys this long and been around this story so long. I love it all.
You guys have been a part of my life for a year and I've been a part of your life for that same year, it's awesome. Anyway I would love to throw a party of some sort with balloons and cake. But being the fact we're all over the country and maybe in a couple countries as well.
But the thought is there and OF COURSE you're welcome to send gifts and money. (Just some goofy humor of mine)
ab auditione mala non timebit: And shall not be in fear of Ill report.
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.
Dinners around the Leroux household were always filled with friends and family. While they sheltered Erik until he left for better places it was just the family and him, and they waited on themselves just to ensure their dear friend was safe.
Rose had returned from Rome where she and her friends had gone to Carnival—just this once Papa, I just want to see what it's like—and she was more than thrilled to meet the man who sent her such a pretty mask and dress for the occasion.
She was as graceful and elegant as her mother, but as happy and full of life as her father, which made for an interesting combination. She and her brother acted like small children and squabbled over who got to sit next to Erik at the table. Rose won, as she usually did in these fights. An elegant woman she may be but she could always cow her brother when it came down to it.
The family talked in soft tones during the meal and related to Rose what had happened while she was absent from the household. She ooh-ed and aw-ed over the tale and wished she could have met the girl who Erik loved so much, which earned her a growl from the man beside her.
She just laughed it off and shook her head. Erik assumed that it was due to her father being allowed to have any part in raising her.
At the end of the meal, as they were cleaning the dishes away she leaned over and quietly whispered in his ear, low tones and a small, devious smile.
He stood stunned for a moment, whether at what she said or that she said it not even he knew. When his mind returned to him from the bottoms of his shoes he snarled furiously, threw down the plate he was holding and stormed from the room.
The family whole stared from him to Rose who smiled in a secretive sort of way. She turned back to them and gave them an innocent look before bending to carefully scoop up the shattered bits as best as she could with just her fingers.
"Rose!" Her father gasped ecstatically. The whole family was getting more enjoyment out of the scene than they should, but rankling Erik was becoming a hobby for the whole of their smiling family; though from the looks of things Rose was doing it better than any of them.
"Rose!" Her brother parroted their father. "I've never seen anyone so angry, even by his standards. Whatever did you say to him to get him to be so furious with you?" He asked.
"If he makes off with you in the night I am not doing a thing for you, you deserve it after that darling." Their mother said with a smile that belayed any anger she was trying to portray in her face.
Rose looked after the angry man and grinned wildly to herself and be damned about how unlady-like it was she laughed long and loud.
Megan stood at the center of attention of those gathered around her. They had the whole dress shop to themselves because the Baron requested it and could afford it. A man of his stood to the back of the group and her mother and the dressmaker circled her like vultures.
"It makes her look like the crème on a dessert." Madam Giry said. The dressmaker murmured something back but Megan tuned it out.
Erik was safe and she would marry the Baron as originally planned.
She understood now why he had been so willing to simply wait for death to come save him from life. She had thought that it shouldn't work that way, and that part of him had never really made sense to her.
It made perfect sense now, all the sense in the world. Her life now was about waiting for death to save her from the nightmare of her life. And this dress she was shopping for would merely be her funeral shroud.
Although she had no opera to keep her company, just days of keeping house for the Baron and nights of keeping his bed.
Although, he was twenty years her senior so it was possible she could, for a time, live the life of a widow, which would not be as terrible as being married to this horror of a man.
This man who was more monster than Erik had ever been.
Erik…
She wished he would swoop from the rafters and save her from this as he had saved her once before…as he had saved Christine.
Megan did care for Christine, but she hated her as well.
Christine had had the love of Erik and Raoul. She had them both, made a choice only for her and got to live happily ever after in money, comfort, and most important, love. She could live out her days being happy with the choice she made no matter the pain it caused Erik.
Even if Meg had been able to make a choice like that, a choice to benefit only her rather than as many people as possible, she would not have gotten Erik, because Christine had shattered his heart and he would never forget that.
She didn't get the option of choosing happiness and love. She could only attempt to find happiness for Erik and live as happily as she could with the knowledge that he was alive.
It was enough though.
She could find some shreds of contentment with that knowledge kept secret near her heart. Even in the night when…
She grew sick thinking of it and pushed it to the back of her mind while her mother and the dressmaker squeezed her into another wedding gown. She felt dizzy and as though she would expel what little lunch she had managed to swallow.
Funeral dress.
For a brief moment Megan wished—and not for the first time—that God did not look so poorly upon harming herself so that she could end her waiting here.
She may be able to read and write now but she was not skilled enough to write an opera and the Baron would certainly not allow her books to read. She would probably be expected to sew or throw parties for people she did not like and whom did not like her in return.
Maybe sometimes he would allow her to go to the Opera. Surely he would never let her dance though, no matter what he had promised before the wedding. It would be improper to show passion at all, let alone on a stage in tulle in front of hundreds of men. He would never allow it, and he would make excuses, "You could harm yourself," "We are busy today."
She would not practice and she would lose her meager skills and never dance again. That thought, with all the others terrified her. Megan was not brave, she never had been.
She seemed brave because she acted before she could think things through, but with this fate staring her in the face she had little else to do other than think of what was to come. Each realization worse and worse than the one before it.
She grew cold at the thoughts and her eating and sleeping habits had suffered. You could tell by the dark under her eyes.
You could see, even now, that she did not eat as she should. It had only been a few days since the mad attempt to save Erik and already she was gaunt, and as she changed from dress to dress she could see shadows gathering under her ribs which now stuck out from her flesh.
She was weak and pale and her mother worried for her.
"Dearest…" Madam Giry whispered to her daughter as the scared seamstress skittered away to find another dress, hopefully one that would appeal more to the dark woman and her daughter.
She would not normally tolerate such picky customers, would just find something to appease them and push them out as soon as she could, but these were customers with money to spare and she could not do without such a large payment as they would offer her once they selected a dress.
After all, this was the woman that the Baron would marry. Though the woman didn't know what he saw in this skinny brat.
The girl used to dance in the ballet, and something about the Phantom—not that she cared—that beast was dead finally.
What she couldn't figure out was what he saw in the blond. She was nothing special at all, and her mother was so fussy and picky.
The Baron was planning for their wedding as well, but with more fervor and enjoyment than his blushing bride-to-be. There were so many businesses these days who wanted to see family men.
Men who had wives to keep their wives company with tea and small cakes. This marriage would open many new avenues to him and after all she was a dancer.
He had heard the stories about dancers and men would look at him with envy that he could tear a ballerina away from the grand Opera House and come to share him home and his bed.
He could just think of the looks he would get and the stories he could tell… Even if they were not true, the men would not doubt him. None of them could talk away the ballet rats from the stage.
They were simply not as skilled as he.
The best of all this was of course that the Phantom was finally dead, proved to be a man and nothing more, so now her heart either had to lay with him or no one, and if it was not with him, nor anyone it would be alright.
If she loved another man, it was possible she would try to leave him or have an affair, both would do more harm to his reputation than this marriage would give him and he would be worse off than he had been when this all started so long ago, before even the Phantom had focused on Christine Daaè.
He laughed to himself and looked over the latest of many business documents. He was already planning trips they would take together and parties they would throw or attend. He could not hide his excitement at this wedding.
He would make friends he had no access to before and he would make all his current acquaintances jealous with his petite little dancer-girl.
They would go to Italy first. They had missed Carnival which was a shame, but there was nothing for it, she had turned him down so often…
But she would never have married him if not for that creature beneath the Opera. He supposed that in a way he had to be grateful to the man.
Meg would have continued saying "no" to his proposal if not for him.
Or at least, she would have said no for a good deal longer than she had. He was a Baron, he was Royalty. He always got his way sooner or later, just as he was now. She would marry him and do as he said, the devil was dead and everything was perfect.
He had gotten everything he wanted and more.
Everyone knows, the only thing better than everything was more than everything.
He laughed to himself and signed another document with glee evident on his features.
"Some phantom, you were nothing more than a man, just as I am. Though in the end I am a far better man than you, you are dead and hated, and I get Megan. I win in the end and that is all that matters at the end of the day. I will think of you when I claim her as mine and I hope you know even locked away in Hell where you belong." The Baron spoke aloud, which wasn't all that odd.
He thought that Erik was dead, and so why shouldn't he be able to hear the Baron speak wherever he was. It made sense at least to him.
Alexis: Glad you liked it all, it was a risk but I was proud of it and it explains a lot of the inconsistancies through his story, or at least later it will, if you're really interested you can figure it out for youself for the most part but it will come up later. And in relation to the other things you said, so as not to spoil anything MWA HA HA HA HAH HA
Kyrene once Blood Roses: Oh don't be so hard on yourself I lose the fics I love best sometimes too, all that really matters is that you're back with us again to enjoy it! (hopefully) And of course I'm going to keep going! I love this story as much as I hope you guys do.
Jen Summers: ooh a long review. AWESOME. I love those the best, they make me so happy and make me want to write tons and tons and tons. I love that I'm your favorite person, that makes me smile. I think he would put them together just because he doesn't want to admit how worried he is for her...at least that's what I thought when I wrote it...now I worry that maybe it doesn't make so much sense...what do you think? Anyway I am glad that you think I'm the best writer on this site, or at least probably. I've read a lot of very amazing people and it is really touching to think that someone likes me that much. Makes me want to write even better.
I am sorry CD broke even if it's not an important one. Did you hurt yourself? Those can get sharp!
I'm glad it makes you feel special, but I do try very hard to comment on everyone who reveiws my stories. It's sort of, encouragement for you to write more reviews, because your reviews help me know what I need to fix or change or what works. I get too close to my stories sometimes and so it helps to have so many people willing to offer their opinions. None of my friends are really interested in reading what I wrote, or they just offer compliments and compliments which are nice but don't always HELP. You know? But the way you guys point out things, it tells me what I need to know to always be improving my writing.
Plus, I love hearing stories about Raoul whimpering and being a sissy.
Forensic Photographer711: I am glad you like this so much and I don't think it matters who was clever so long as you enjoyed the scene and that you for a moment thought of them first makes me happy it makes me think you consider them so real, which I hope you do because I try to write that well. I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much.
MelodysSong: yay! I am glad you love this story and I hope you're not so tired this time around. I worry about people staying up late when they need to work and stuff the next day just so they can read my story. Even with my disclaimer I worry about you guys.