Madame Giry

"I don't know, Maman…I actually think it is Christine he really likes."

I smiled fondly at my daughter as my fingers looped her locks into a thick yellow braid. "I see him talking to you much more often than I see him with Christine."

Meg shrugged her shoulders thoughtfully. "That is only because Christine doesn't talk much at all. Etienne and I get along just fine, but I think he finds Christine's reservation intriguing. I don't know how she does it, really…I could never be so shy!"

I tied a ribbon around the base of Meg's braid and nodded, but froze mid-nod as my eyes settled on the mirror. In the reflection, I could just barely see the shape of a man, and the light glinting off the white of his mask. Meg was not in a position where she could see him; he had made sure of that. "I would not attribute Christine's silence to shyness, my dear," I said, patting her shoulders, and turning her around to look at me. "Christine is just a secretive person—perhaps you could learn to keep things to yourself a bit more, yes?"

Meg grinned sheepishly. "I suppose. I just find it so exhausting to keep everything inside."

I squeezed my daughter's shoulders and smiled into her eyes. "Now run off and prepare yourself for dinner."

"Yes, Maman," she complied, and jumped from her seat.

I watched as she left the room, and waited until she had shut the door before turning around. The Phantom had revealed himself entirely, and now stood before me. For a second I was struck. His shoulders were back but his head had dropped, and his eyes were wide with both incredulity and confusion. He breathed heavily through his mouth, and his hands were open. His cape hung around his forme like a shadow.

"What is it?" I ventured, unmoving, concerned.

Without responding, he looked at me. I steadied my eyes within his gaze. I no longer feared him the way I once did; I wasn't any longer the object of his attention, and he had succeeded in falling out of love with me years before. Of course, inside he still deeply cared for me, but I was not his obsession anymore, and he held no interest in my daughter; therefore I had nothing to be afraid of for myself.

Though his eyes were on me, his thoughts were not, I could tell. It was only a rare happening that we spoke with each other; we had an understanding and were content with it. I had made myself into something like an accomplice whenever he needed me, though he did not need me often. In return, I had his respect, something no one alive ever had. On the infrequent occasion that we did entre each other's company, it was always because of a serious matter.

He exhaled shortly and his eyes fell from me; his dark forme moved past me, and the Phantom of the Opera dropped himself onto my divan in front of the vanity. I faced him, entirely unsure as to what would put him in such a state. His eyes surveyed his hands, watched his reflection in the mirror, and closed, and his head dropped into his quaking arms.

My heart quickened as I observed him in this defeated manner, and without fully realising what I was doing, I approached him from behind and laid a hand on his shoulder. I wasn't sure that he even felt it. He was not crying, but his shoulder blades were heaving with the harsh breaths that racked him. I waited for him to speak, feeling his warm body beneath my hand, and my heart ached for the little boy I brought to the Opera. He is not a little boy any longer, I reminded myself. Instead, he was a full-grown man, and seemingly an ages-old ghost. He was a genius, the most intelligent being, living or not, that I ever knew. In many ways, he was wiser than me, though his wisdom was almost always forgotten beneath his rashness and arrogance. He could never be a little boy again.

He could never be a little boy again, but moments like these, when he abandoned his intimidating, supernatural affectation, I knew that Christine's pure love was eroding his guise of indifference. In time, I thought. In time, I will have him back.

The Phantom's heavy breathing began to calm, and soon his shoulders were still. A moment later, the melodic sound emerged from the mess before me. "I…I am…" A shaky breath. "She's…too young, too pure and innocent, Madame Giry…she's perfect, and I am a monster."

My brow knit across my forehead. It had been so long since I'd heard him address me…so long since I had even touched him. He was the most mysterious human being I'd ever met—even after having raised him myself. "Explain yourself," I commanded gently, knowing I still had his respect.

His head lifted from the desk, and his eyes connected with the glowing green orbs reflected in the mirror. "Damn him," he said, and he began to straighten, still looking at himself. "It's Erik, the blasted Erik…it's all his doing, not mine, not mine at all."

I gave his shoulder a faint squeeze of encouragement, and for the first time he realised my hand was upon him. His body tensed, and I let my hand fall. "What has…Erik…done?"

His gaze burnt into the mirror, and although he was sitting, I felt completely dwarfed by him. "He will not leave me alone forever. He's yet lurking inside of me," he spat. "Damn, damn, damn, damn!" And he stood.

I tried to meet his eyes in the mirror, but instead he turned around, at his full height, to face me. I swallowed. "It is no use to try to convince you to accept him as part of you," I admitted. "You're far too stubborn once your mind is set."

Surprisingly, this did not anger him. He cocked his head a bit at me; a black look of shame passed over his eyes. "I somehow still love Christine," he said, and a shudder visibly ran through his body. "As much as I haven't let myself love her, it is no use. She is nearly my daughter." His eyes darkened with tears, like a cloud darkening with rain. "Do you finally see why I have worked so hard to abandon him, and maintain this shell without a spirit? It was always so I wouldn't have to love!"

At last, he had admitted that he did, indeed, still love her. I would not let the smile that formed in my heart spill onto my face, though he was too distraught to notice my joy. Christine would bring Erik back out of the Phantom's pit of a soul, and I knew he couldn't fight it for long. I chose my words carefully. "Perhaps it is not such an unruly thing for the Phantom to feel."

He shook his head violently, defiantly, and at once his mouth curved in that terrible smirk. "Oh, if it was only love, it would be perfectly fine. But I have explained this to you before, Madame. It is never only love, because love is a vine that branches out all manners of evil. With love comes anger, with love comes hate—and with love," he growled through clenched teeth, "comes lust!" And with that last word, his mouth twisted, and he turned and slammed his fist into the wall.

I jolted. Stunned, at once, apart from my quiet joy. A shocking, instantaneous thought sparked in my mind with that claim, and a dark feeling was sprung in my gut. "Lust?"

"Lust," he hissed, turning back to face me. "I know lust well. I knew it when I allowed my evil humanity to overwhelm me. I hated because I loved and I hurt you because I lusted. That is why I have shut Erik away all of these years, so I would not hurt those he loves again. Christine is only a child—Christine is my child." Silent, angry tears finally fell from his eyelids and coursed their way down his cheeks. "And yet my head is consumed with thoughts of her—impure thoughts, planted by Satan himself." Another shudder assailed his body. "You," he cried, "taught her to dance! A girl should never learn to parade her body in the first place—and especially not teach others to do so! Do you know how men see?"

My feet rooted themselves to the spot they had claimed on the floor as I slowly processed this revelation. Was what he was implying possibly true? Christine, little Christine, had become victim to the Phantom's lust? After had had loved her, tutored her, fathered her? "No," I said to him. This meant that he no longer saw Christine as a child, but as the woman she was slowly blossoming into. And that meant that his affection for her could easily blossom into…was it even possible? I brought my fists to my mouth, sucking in the air. Darkness flooded my entire soul as the impact of what was happening finally met with my mind—with the force of a hammer.

I had created this.

Memory after memory struck me at once. He had needed me to love him as a woman loves a man, and I refused him, giving him Christine instead, thinking that the love of a daughter to a father would suffice him and preserve his humanity. But as much as he wanted to desert his mortal needs, he was still a man…he was still a man, and a man would always crave a woman. Striking into my mind came the memory of the Phantom's rope around my neck—but it wasn't my neck any longer. It was Christine's. I sank slowly atop my mattress, and my hands fell to my heart. Breathe, Madeleine. Little girls grew up. In trying to give him a daughter, I had given him yet another woman to claim his passion.

How could I have not foreseen this?

"You can't," I forced from my constricted throat, as he watched me helplessly. "You cannot do that to her…not like you did to me." Great fear grew inside of me, as I quickly came to comprehend what might come of this, what I had inadvertently done to Christine. "You cannot let me go, only to take another into captivity. She is like your child," I said, my voice strengthening. I could not meet his eyes. "Remember that she is your child, and you are her father's promised Angel."

"I have told myself the same, again and again. I realise entirely that it is an abomination for a father to desire his daughter," he asserted, his deep voice shaking with breath, the endless shame of the whole world in it. "The darkest realms of Hades are set aside for incestuous Demons like myself. I am tormented…" he groaned loudly, his jaw trembling… "with both desire and disgust, both greed and guilt, and it is all because I am still human, after all of these years."

He was pacing about my flat now, his heavy cape sweeping papers from desks and books from shelves.

"I cannot continue to live with both of these inside of me—it is far too much for anyone to ask." The Phantom's tall, shadowy forme halted, and there was silence. Suddenly, without any warning at all, he whipped around and smashed his hand into my mirror; I screamed, and the shards tinkled over my desk and the floor around it. His gloved hands gently swam through the littering of broken glass about the desk, and his fingers closed around a long, sharp sliver. "I could end it all right now, in fact." And slowly, he lifted the glass, and with what was left of the vanity, I saw him expose his right wrist to the mirror's glare.

The meaning of his actions entered my mind, and my shock and nausea at his revelation disappeared momentarily. "What are you doing?" I gasped, rushing at him. He whirled to face me, dropping the glass, and I stopped abruptly, inches from him. My voice, however, continued. "You wouldn't take your life so rashly at passion's first solicitation! You can end this," I insisted, "without ending your own life with it!" My face contorted into a glare. "Don't you realise? You love her purely, but you don't know what to do with such an extreme and dangerous awareness! You have suppressed Erik for years…you cannot give up now!" My words shocked even me. What on earth was I saying? Was I so afraid for Christine that I was willing to abandon all of my hopes for Erik to return?

I brought a hand to my lips.

The Phantom penetrated me, and his words matched my thoughts. "What are you saying, Madame?" he smirked, incredulous. "Has it not been your intention since the beginning for Christine to restore my soul?" At my frightened expression, he nodded. "Oh, yes, I have known exactly what your plans were. You wanted me to love Christine because she loved me as well, and therefore, the Ghost would die and only the human would remain. I will tell you something now," he growled, and he took my shoulders. My skin buzzed; he had not touched me in such a way for years. His words were carefully formed over his deep, emotional voice. "I can never give you back your Henri. I can never be your son."

My lungs filled with air, and I felt dizzy. Yes. I had to protect Christine—I could not convict her to the life I had lived, just to salvage the Phantom's scrap of humanity and finally have him as my own, as one I could love, who would love me as a mother. Erik is never meant to love, I realised. He had been right all along. He could not love without becoming fatally obsessed. "I know that now," I quietly agreed. "I know that I have lost you completely." A pause. "I could not save you, and I thought Christine could. But now I see that that is entirely hopeless. It has proven too dangerous to deliver Erik back into the company of the Phantom, because the Phantom does not know how to handle human emotions. You are forever gone, and I cannot any longer use Christine to bring you back. I cannot risk her life to save yours."

His lips were pursed, and his jaw was clenched beneath them. The cool green eyes implored me, and his gloved hands remained gripped on my shoulders. Painstakingly, he took a breath. "Then neither of us has faith in me any longer."

My heart broke, and he could hear it break.

The Phantom nodded, and a fresh wave of tears crested at his eyelids. I realised, for the first time since he was ten years old, that I was looking at Erik alone—not the Phantom, not the Angel, but only Erik, as he was born to be…and I knew it was the last time I would ever see him. My whole life from that first moment had been spent convincing myself that I could protect Erik, and his until only years ago had been spent trying to give me my wish, without success. But in these last years, he had discovered what I had refused to believe: there was no redemption for him, and the Phantom would never be gone. I created the Opera Ghost, and I had expended my entire life and his trying to save him from it. And right there in my flat in the Opera's dormitories, I, the strict ballet mistress, the accomplice of the Phantom of the Opera, cried for two lives that had been wasted, and another I had helped to hurt.

I wanted to lean into his chest; instead I sat on my bed and wept for him, and for me, and for Christine. Only moments ago I had concluded that he was wiser than me in some ways; now, I fully realised the terrible truth of that revelation. "I thought Christine was the third road," I cried into my hands. "I had no idea what I was doing."

He pursed his lips, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "There is only one road, and I have taken it." His voice rose a little, strengthened. "I am not angry with you, Madame. Your quest was honourable. I cannot blame you for not seeing what I saw long ago. I cannot blame you for wanting to retain hope for me."

I nodded. One glance in his beautiful, heart-wrenching eyes, and I was struck with an outrageous thought: I loved him. All of these years, I had tried to save him, shape him into a person I could love—but I never acknowledged the fact that I already loved him, never even knew it before now. I had loved him since I helped him escape from Gypsy camp…regardless of what he didn't want, I loved him as if he was indeed my son, my own flesh and blood. I could not tell him, though. I couldn't…not now, now that I wanted him to forget what love felt like. "I don't want to believe I have failed you," I sniffed, knowing how truly pitiful I must have looked—a catlike woman in her fourth decade, sniveling like a baby—but I didn't care.

All I wanted to do was hold my child as close to me as I possibly could.

Erik looked down at me, the tears that had begun still standing in his eyes. "You did not fail me. You were never responsible for me. You rescued me before the world could destroy me, and for that I owe you everything. But I have nothing to give. I am sorry, Madame Giry."

Then he was never mine to fail. Even this admission did nothing to ease the horrible sense of defeat. "The only thing I can do, then," I said, setting my mind on a grim conclusion, "is to take Christine from the opera house, so you will not have to think of her any longer."

Erik's body jerked sharply, and I met his eyes. In fact, he was not my Erik at all, I saw. The Phantom shook his head, his jaw fixed, his eyes peering beneath set brows. "What?"

His lack of words shocked me. I repeated my decision.

"You will not do such a thing."

I furrowed my brow at him, still reeling from my new revelation, but bewildered at his. "What are you saying? You would want me to keep her here where you would have to see her, listen to her every day, and not make any contact with her?"

He crossed his arms. "Do you truly want to drive me mad? I cannot abandon her—it would be fatal to both of us."

My face was agape, I was sure. "Do you realise what you're saying?" I growled at him. I could feel the grave lines in my face deepen. "You cannot possibly expect to continue this game. Christine cannot very well idolise an Angel who sings of holiness to her and in the same moment wants her in his bed!"

The eloquent Phantom sneered. "I fear that is where you are wrong, Madame. Unless you have forgotten, I was quite able to remove thoughts of such nature from my being when I set my mind to giving you your freedom. I am thoroughly capable of again viewing Christine as nothing more than my pupil; you said yourself that I have successfully quelled Erik and his emotions for years, and I can do so again."

He had forgotten everything we had just been through entirely, then; he so often did. In the past it had always infuriated me, but now it terrified me. "What was your purpose coming here?" I demanded, as he busied himself with my jewellery. "Without any warning you appear in my room, inform me that you've loved and lusted again, decide to commit suicide in front of my eyes, and then turn around entirely to say that you will continue to be the Angel of Music and spare Christine from your desire at the same time? Are you insane? What are you doing with that?"

The Opera Ghost grinned cruelly over his shoulder, fingering a fine necklace—one I never wore, but kept to remind me of Armande nonetheless. "You've forgotten the short period between my near-suicide and my change of heart, Madame. If you recall correctly, you released me from your expectations that Erik would be redeemed; you gave me the freedom with your admittance to remain the Opera Ghost and abandon all feeling." He lifted his eyebrows at me shortly, smiling. "Though you've rightfully lost faith in my humanity, you've retained faith in my supernatural identity—do not lose that as well." He pocketed the necklace. "This will make a fine gift for my pupil."

My pulse beat at my temples. "I can see very clearly what you are trying to do; just as I once turned the tables and pretended that it was your idea to continue your fabrication as the Angel, you are holding me responsible now for the same thing."

He began to walk in my direction, but I knew he was headed for his secret door. "You, Madame, must learn to make up your mind; your indecisiveness is unattractive. First you are appalled that I would keep such a pretence. Then you are all-too-eagre to help me continue doing so…and now you are against me again?" The Phantom made his way past me with a sardonic smile.

I grabbed at his arm, but he continued, and my hand fell to my side. The intolerable thief disappeared through the door in the wall. I rushed after him, desperately fumbling about the wall, until my fingers slipped into the hidden latch. It was just like the other doors he had shown me. I flung open the door and followed him into the dark passageway that for years I had no idea was even there.

His head swivelled on his neck and he threw a glance over his shoulder at me. "What are you doing, ballet mistress?"

"I will follow you this time!" I shouted, and I quickly discovered that I needn't shout at all as my voice reverberated off the walls. In fact, in that moment, I felt uncharacteristically stupid.

His deep, musical laugh resounded as he quickened his pace. "You expressed a desire once to see my underground home, but your cowardice far outweighed your curiosity then. What has changed?"

"My own safety is no longer a concern," I retorted. "Christine's is."

"You think that I would harm her?"

"Not intentionally," I said, rushing to keep up with him in the darkness. "You never intended to hurt me, did you?"

The blackness swallowed him, and I soon found that I could not see where I was stepping. His voice drifted back to my hollowly. "I never hurt you. Erik did, and Erik is dead." A guilty pause. "…For now."

"You idiot," I growled. My footsteps rang out, and with a gnawing dread I found I could no longer hear his. "Where are you?"

No response.

It was unbelievable, that after everything we had ever been through, we were going through this now. I didn't find it funny. I couldn't decide whether to quicken my pace or stand still. I had no idea where I was going. He wouldn't lead me to fall into one of his traps, I was sure…but could he stop me from doing it on my own? "Where are you, you ass?"

"In a matter of a minute, you have called me both an idiot and an ass," came his amused baritone from…behind me. "Perhaps I've underestimated you. Most wouldn't dare speak such things aloud to the Opera Ghost. Really, you never were one to swear."

How I could have strangled him and hoped his arrogance died with him! I whipped around as a torch blared to life. His relaxed posture and contented gaze infuriated me. "You bring out the worst in me then."

He grinned, baring his white teeth. "You brought out the worst in me once too. Finally, for the first time in my life, some part of my dealings with you have not gone unrequited."

That hurt my soul—how could he value himself so little, and forget the pain we had suffered so quickly? I crossed my arms, as if to cover the blade that stuck from my gut. His lightness about the situation was more than maddening. "I should have left you with the Gypsies."

Funnily, that did not anger him at all. "Then I would have haunted a circus, instead of an opera…and I would likely have become a tutor to some hopeful young acrobatic ingénue tumbler."

All kinds of curses came to my mind, but I did not word them; none of them he would take seriously, and it would only feed his twisted humour.

"Really, Madame, I have never tolerated such blatant disrespect or invasion of my privacy this much. I don't know why I am willing to make you the exception. Do you wish to see my house?" he enquired, still grinning.

"That was not my intention."

"Then what was?"

"Anything, I suppose, that will stop you from continuing on with Christine."

He sighed, leading me along the passage. "I will never know why you worry to such a foolish extent…. You should have learned years ago that nothing you say will change my mind."

"I have changed your mind before," I reminded.

"Your arrogance will be your downfall. I am inclined now to do entirely the opposite of anything you suggest, if only for spite."

"Then clearly my love for Christine is deeper than yours," I spat, knowing that it would reach levels inside of him that he no longer wanted to acknowledge.

His stride halted abruptly and he rounded to face me. I stopped in my tracks as he cast a long, dangerous glare at me. The Phantom said nothing, though. We both stood in heated silence, the torch flickering against his olive skin, his cloak, his mask. I didn't fear him, but somewhere within me I knew I should.

We continued on without another word.

A/N…I'd like to clarify a couple of things. Erik is not in love with Christine at this point—he merely loves her with a fatherly love, and that is why he is so appalled at his lust. And this is not the end of E/G. Be a pal and review. The last two chapters didn't even get one between them.