Hurray! It turns out the black lines didn't show up…I wish I had known that they would not, it would have saved me 20 minutes of fruitless attempts.
Jbwriter: Thank you a thousand times over again….your praises are like…ahh, they make me so happy! D
Invaderoperaghost: aww! I didn't mean for it to make you cry!
MJ MOD: I really didn't imagine any of you three crying…but, I suppose that means it was…appropriately bittersweet? Thanks!
After sitting next to him for an indeterminable amount of time, I left the room quietly and sought out Nadir, who had left without my knowing. I found him where I knew I would, sitting on the sofa, flipping through a book without reading the pages.
"Madame," he said, standing when he took notice of me. I nodded and sank into an armchair. I was glad not to have to say anything else, Nadir went in to the Louis Philippe's room to finish. My back ached from sitting straight for so long and my feet began to cramp. Despite soreness, my fatigue won and I closed my eyes for but a moment.
I sat up when I heard the door click open, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I stood slowly, grasping the side of the chair for support.
"Is it….is it," I could not even finish my sentence, I felt a huge weight on my chest.
"Yes," he confirmed, his face downcast. "It is done."
It is difficult now to describe the emotions and thoughts that ran through me when it finally came. This man….this near supernatural being had succumbed to such a mortal thing as death. The man I had feared and pitied.
I looked over at Nadir. His shoulder's slumped. "Sir," I began, hesitantly, "I am sorry for your loss." I realized then I did not know what they were. Friends? More the simply acquaintances, surely. He was perhaps the only man on earth who had known Erik as more then a monster.
We stood in silence for a while, I could only imagine that his thought process was the same as mine at that moment. We saw neither the present nor future, it was the recollections of the past that flooded through our mind's. Regret. In hindsight, I saw then how cruel I had been to him, which was only one more tally on his great list. My looks of disgust and my complete contempt for everything he had said. It was only a dull resentment I felt then; for his dying had not made him a saint.
It was the first silence in my life that I had endured in which I had felt neither awkward nor obligated to fill the void of sound. It was a demanded silence. A respect for the dead.
"I heard your words," began the Persian man, walking towards me he placed his hand on mine that were still resting on the back of the chair. I looked down, avoiding his sad eyes for fear of weeping. "Know that that was the greatest peace you could have brought to him. I, personally, am grateful."
I jerked my hands out from under his, putting my coiled fingers to my lips and nodded.
"I have arranged for my assistant to take care of," he searched for the correct words, "of Erik…and so we need not be concerned with that."
Finally, I thought. I'm to be going home, to be reunited with one who thought me dead…a chance to pick up my life with a husband, with Victorie, and with my child. Why then, was I not biting at the chance?
"Are you sure you would not like my…assistance?"
"You know, Madame, Erik was not one of religion. He often wanted nothing more but death, I see little point in robbing him of that joy by mourning him for an extended period."
Those words were the last straw, I felt my eyes stinging, my face began to crumble. I had been so cruel! Life had been so cruel…my God, he was only a man…
"I've taken the liberty of alerting your husband of your return by this evening, are you ready?"
I looked up at him, my eyes wide. After four months…to go home! I hesitated for a moment, "Shall I take anything?"
He raised his eyebrow quizzically, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Well, is anything yours?"
A bittersweet smile stretched over my face, "He said once, anything in that room is mine." I gestured feebly to where a true corpse now lay.
"Well, then yes, you should take something with you."
I walked through the Louis-Philippe room, realizing I could take nothing from this place. With a faint smile, I picked up the original shawl, dress and hat I had been brought here in, and put them in an old carpet bag with the embroidered C.D. on it and added the composition book still in my hand.
I stopped at the door, not turning completely to face the bed.
"Adieu."
