Disclaimer: I don't own Erik or any of his fellow POTO charcters. I don't own the piece by Haydn, Romeo et Juliette, Cosi fan tutte, or Les Miserables. I only get credit for Danielle, which is still pretty cool.
A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my biggest (and only) fan, cyclobaby! Thank you for caring. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Chapter Two: A Return to Betrayal
Erik
Erik stayed away from Christine's old dressing room from then on. If he couldn't vent his grief in solitude, he wouldn't vent it there. Besides, he'd known happiness there, behind that mirror, looking into the room. He couldn't expect to fully succumb to his feelings of anguish there, so he decided to return to the place where Christine had first betrayed him: the rooftop.
At midnight he opened the door leading out to the stars, shutting it silently. It was summer now and the air was warm, unlike that winter's evening so long ago, but he still shivered as he looked out onto that vista of stars and darkness. He walked over to the statue he had hidden behind as Christine and that boy talked of their blooming love.
Had it really been three years ago? Standing there, he could still see them with their lips pressed together. It had been her first kiss, a kiss that could so easily have been bestowed upon him. The pain he had experienced that night felt as raw and fresh now as it had then, the old wounds opening again to bleed, as if a knife were being dragged across his skin.
Erik was disturbed from his reverie by a sound near the ledge. He turned to find a cloaked woman kneeling at the edge of the rooftop. He could tell she was a woman by the long dark hair blowing in the breeze. Her head was bowed as if in prayer, which she must have been doing, judging by her murmuring. He briefly considered frightening her, but thought better of it. The last thing he needed was some frantic female screaming that she had seen, or heard, a ghost.
The woman lifted her head, and though he couldn't see her face, Erik was sure that it was the girl he had seen in Christine's dressing room. The girl began to sing; the voices were identical. The song was a Latin hymn by Franz Joseph Haydn.
"Gloria in excelsis,
In excelsis Deo.
In excelsis,
In excelsis Deo."
Her voice seemed to be soaring to the heavens, jubilantly praising her creator. She sang with reverence, and yet with a joy that Erik had never heard anyone offer to God. Who was this girl who left him no peace in which to grieve? Why did she praise her God on the rooftop at all when she could easily go to the empty chapel?
And most importantly, why did he care?
For years he had been interested in all of the goings-on of the Opera Populaire. The Opera had belonged to him, and he knew every secret, every detail of every event. But now, he didn't care about anything that happened in the Opera. It was meaningless to him. So, why did he care about this one girl?
What could be gained by understanding her? What purpose did she serve? None. As far as Erik was concerned, she had no meaning, no use, no life.
Erik listened to her glorious ending and realized something: he didn't care.
Erik
Erik didn't know what he was doing. He had decided to stay away from that girl, had decided that he didn't care about her, but his feet kept leading him to wherever she happened to be, for a reason he had yet to discover. Within days he had memorized her routine.
Erik would watch her and wonder if training her were possible. He wouldn't fall for her the way he had fallen for Christine; that he could be sure of. He could never love another woman the way he had loved his angel. And this girl's talent was obviously being wasted. She was the best singer and actress in the company and she was singing in the chorus, for pity's sake! He knew it was foolish, but he had to try.
For three weeks the Phantom spent almost every waking moment observing the girl. She was quite right to exclaim that she was alone because she spent most of her time in her own company. Ironically, it seemed to be by choice. The male performers positively drooled over her and would attempt to accost her at every rehearsal. Especially that Francois, a tenor of mediocre talent, who believed he was the beginning and end of every woman's dreams.
One day after rehearsal, this dandified Francois had the impudence to attempt to speak with her at length about a possible budding romance.
"Mademoiselle, really you should learn that our love is inevitable. We are star-crossed lovers. There is no way to escape our destinies. Please, grace me with your presence at dinner tonight, mon cherie, you won't regret it, I assure you," he purred, bringing her hand to his accursed lips, brushing then against her immaculate skin.
Erik tried to ignore the murderous rage that flared up inside him at the term of endearment the boy used and the free way in which he touched her (and the fact that he reacted with anger at all), instead focusing on the answer the girl would give.
"Monsieur, do you realize that the term "star-crossed" means that we are ill-fated," the girl retorted icily. "Since our relationship would only bring us pain, and perhaps death, I feel that we should control ourselves. Please, my dear, forget me, and love someone more worthy."
The sarcasm dripping from her voice couldn't escape Francois, as everyone watching the exchange laughed heartily at the boy's expense. Erik snorted in amusement at the color Francois's face had become, first turning from a sickly green to a deep beet-like shade. Erik was not, however, happy about the next thing she did.
She looked at the boy with melancholy eyes and said in the gentlest of tones, "I'm sorry, Francois, but it would be impossible for me to be with you in any way, and certainly not the way you want." So saying, she reached for the boy's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. She squeezed it!
She was always kind, but aloof with her would-be lovers. The girl was also more than willing to help or give a word of encouragement to anyone who needed it, even those who weren't as kind to her, yet she always remained distant with the people she assisted.
The girl was an ice queen, but no one walked away with the idea that she was unfeeling. It seemed to Erik that she was brimming with love, but didn't trust herself to reveal any, for it might melt her calm facade. She was quite an enigma.
Erik also noticed that everyone addressed her as Mademoiselle, or Mademoiselle D'Artoi, except for his old friend the ballet mistress, Marie Giry, who seemed to be the only person with whom the girl regularly conversed. Marie called her Danielle.
A few days into Erik's rather begrudged vigil, Danielle D'Artoi was seated by herself in the auditorium, studying her libretto for the current production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, while he was lounging in Box Five. He was feeling rather bored, knowing that nothing new would happen in this rehearsal. Erik was just considering going back to his lair to work, when the shrewish voice of one of the louder chorus girls met his ear, a name he was very interested in on her lips.
"Danielle D'Artoi doesn't deserve to be in this opera any more than a squalling cat," she boomed, from the seat right behind Danielle. "Everyone knows that she only got into the opera in the first place because she's Monsieur Firmin's mistress. It really is a scandal, you know. I feel sick when I think of how she is soiling the good name of the Opera Populaire."
"I agree wholeheartedly," declared one of the girls next to her. "Trash like her don't deserve a place on a stage so noble, or in the company of innocent girls like us. Honestly, a common, social-climbing mistress allowed a place among serious artists!"
If Erik hadn't been silently fuming at their words, he might have chuckled at the girl's bad grammar and her use of the word "innocent" to describe herself and the shrew in the seat next to her. He normally would have found her childish, jealous attack amusing if it had been directed against anyone but his future protégé, for whom he had a strange, protective feeling.
Danielle calmly turned around in her seat to face the offending faces of the offending voices, and said quite solemnly, "And isn't it odd that I never seem to get a decent role? I must not be a very good mistress. I suppose I'll have to try harder to please … whose mistress am I again? Ah, I remember now. Monsieur Firmin." She turned back around to face the stage, barely concealing the smirk that turned up the corners of her mouth at the thunder-struck look the two shrewish girls were giving her, while everyone else present stifled their giggles.
So, she's witty, too, Erik said to himself, as he watched Danielle quell the girl's gossip. He began to have a sort of respect for her then. Most of the other female performers would have vehemently denied such an accusation, even if it were true, but this one didn't seem to mind what was said of her. Not only that, but she seemed to realize that denying it would have done her no good. She simply made the idea appear preposterous. Clever, very clever.
Erik wasn't sure when admiration for Danielle's musical talent and respect for the way she carried herself turned to fondness, but turn it did. Perhaps it was the growing influence of hearing a beautiful voice again as she practiced for the upcoming audition for Romeo et Juliette by Berlioz, or her insistence that the costumers raise the necklines of her costumes when she felt they were immodest ("After all, I'm just a chorus girl. No one in the audience will notice me, and I'd rather that the actors didn't"). It might have been the way she cried when she read the end of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, or the way her eyes would turn dark green if she was in a good mood, and light grey if bad. He soon found himself regretting each night that he had to return to his lair, wishing that he could watch the young singer for a little longer.
Eventually, Erik recognized a pattern in his behavior that he had hoped to avoid. The more he saw of Danielle, the more obsessed, he became, and the more obsessed he became, the more he had to see her. This growing fixation wasn't healthy, and was potentially dangerous (he had killed for Christine, after all, which was different entirely, he reminded himself), but he couldn't stop. Erik had so little to care for that whenever he found something he did care for, he grew possessive. He had come to care very deeply for Danielle's voice. He wanted to make her the greatest singer the Opera Populaire had known since Christine Daae, and, in truth, he needed a new student. The Angel of Music needed a voice to mold into something so beautiful that the world didn't deserve the privilege of hearing it. He needed her voice.
Although Erik had stalked her for three weeks, he still knew little about Danielle's past. He would need the right angle if he hoped to win her trust. The idea of becoming her Angel of Music had occurred to him, but had been dismissed rather quickly. He was Christine's Angel, no one else's.
Erik could think of only one avenue of inquiry before actually introducing himself to the girl: Marie Giry. Erik knew he could trust Marie, but he wanted to avoid detection if at all possible, so he had decided to let Marie believe that the Opera Ghost was gone for good. Now he was getting desperate. Erik abandoned his silent watch over his student-to-be for one night. He waited for Marie Giry in her quarters.
