Hi everyone: If you're here for the update, you need to go back one chapter, as I uploaded two as a way of penance for being such a slacker writer.

No notes on this chapter because they've been included in the one previous. Enjoy!

Charles

It's very dark when your entire life collapses. I'm reaching out and trying so hard to grasp onto something familiar, and it's all fallen to pieces.

I got home from Italy already feeling a bit down at leaving Josephine, but excited to see Father and Charles. I felt like I had been away from home for an eternity, which, if I am honest with myself, was not entirely unpleasant, but all the same, there's something so comforting in the familiar.

I planned to go in the house, eat supper, play with my son and have a drink with Father. Then, after the stories had been shared and everyone was content, I would tell Father of my plans to move to Italy.

I knew it wasn't going to thrill him, but it wasn't as if he loved Paris anyway, if he wanted to come along, I'd love to have him. If he wanted to stay, he could. Perhaps it sounds cavalier, to speak of abandoning your father like that, but Father and I had always had a casual relationship like that: Friendly, loving, but not dependent on the other for affirmation. I also knew that the idea of him not wanting to come along was fairly out of the question, if not for me, for Charles. He was so good with the boy, though I knew Charles exasperated him and enjoyed testing his limits. And Father hadn't made a lot of friends in Paris. He knew a lot of people, even at his age, he was still known (and somewhat active) in the social circles, but they weren't his friends. He was always very sure to point out the difference.

I was worried about Charles, but only slightly. His interest in structure was not fading as he aged, though he seemed less interested in playing the piano constantly (a fact I chalk up to his age and the truth that with a father who plays all the time, a child is not so inclined to follow in his footsteps. Look how interested in finance and business I turned out to be!), and I thought Italy might be a good place for him to study.

I know, his face, but you have to understand that I cease to notice it, at least when we're in private quarters, and the public reaction is something that seems to lessen when you're away from it. I found Italy much friendlier than Paris, anyway, and assumed the change would do us all some good.

I had not even thought of Angelique until I saw her at the train station. Is that bad? That the woman I was intending on marrying until I met Josephine managed to stay out of my thoughts entirely for the past weeks in light of my new love? Had I even loved Angelique?

The answer, of course, was no, and I am ashamed to admit that I was going to marry her for companionship and to provide my son with a mother. For her many good qualities, I loved her, but I was not, and had never been, in love with the woman, and just thinking of how I was planning on using her makes me feel even more terrible.

She was at the train station waiting for her sister, who was coming in for a visit, but her face lit up when she saw me, and again, I felt terrible.

"Charles!" she said, rushing over. I could tell she wanted to embrace me, but she stopped herself short and instead stood there before me, an awkward moment passing between us before I took her hand, kissed it gently, and asked how she had been.

"Oh, I'm fine," she said sweetly. Angelique was always fine. She was good, and sweet, and never gossiped or made comments that were out of line. She was beautiful, and intelligent, entirely feminine and entirely a lady, and it wasn't enough for me. Unfortunately, I think our years of friendship had made her think otherwise. I never thought she was in love with me, but the strange, hard-to-manage moments that popped up between us every now and again told me that on some level, this was not a normal friendship.

"But enough about me," she said. "I'm just waiting for Elisabeth to come in. She's going to be staying with me for a week or so, and I thought I'd come and meet her since she doesn't know the city that well." Angelique was not a native Parisian, growing up in a small village but moving here as a younger woman several years ago. "How was your trip? The papers were full of things about your concerts! Everyone is so looking forward to you playing again here!"

"It was wonderful," I said. "Italy, especially Milan, makes Paris look positively arcane!" It wasn't true, necessarily, but it made her smile even more broadly.

"Well," she said prettily, and was that a hint of flirtation in her voice? Oh, stop it, Charles, you've been in Italy too long, you think everyone's a romantic! "I hope it hasn't made you want to forget about everyone here who thinks so highly of you, even if it is a little backwater." She said it without a hint of malice, so I pushed my guilt aside and laughed along with her.

Marriage material or not, she was a friend, and I would miss her.

Fortunately, I was spared an answer, as the arrival of Elisabeth was imminent. We bid farewell with the promise to meet for lunch after Elisabeth departed (and I noticed that, unlike in the past, she did not make mention of how pretty Elisabeth was, nor how well-suited we just might be, if only she lived a little closer), and I caught a cab home.

It was getting dark when I closed the front door behind me and allowed the maid to take my cloak. I hugged Charles tightly, and noticed that he returned my embrace just as strongly. He was growing up, I noted. Even in these past weeks, he seemed to have aged, and I realized just how eager children are to leave us with nothing but memories of their younger years.

Father seemed distracted, but pleasant, and we had a nice, if late, supper, before Charles went off to his room and Father and I retired to the parlor for a brandy.

It was in the firelight that I noticed just how tense he really looked, how conflicted, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it. Instead, he quizzed me on my trip, asking more questions than he ever had about what music I played, which songs I selected, what was I working on now? We talked for probably an hour and a half about little things like that. School. Music. Women. Do I remember that song I wrote for my mother?

I stopped short at that question. I remembered the song vividly. I spent weeks perfecting it, making sure every note and every rest, every chord and key change, was in its rightful place. I was still young, but it was very good, and I labored to make it just right.

It was a song that expressed my love for her, a song that through piano alone showcased her ability to be both kind and intense, sensitive and shrewd. It started out very quickly, because that's how I remembered her when I was very small, always running from one thing to the next, desperately trying to do whatever she thought would make me the smallest bit happier, just that much more content. The middle was a bit more hesitant, which showed my own resistance to letting her into certain parts of my life. The end was slow, soft, and played so gently the notes barely seemed to connect to each other, but that was how it was, then.

To hear it and not know the story, it was simply a beautiful piece of music, to know and understand everything, which I still think is something I, and only she, could ever have done, made it a masterpiece.

She never got to hear it played. The day I wrote it was one day after the last day she ever ventured from her room. She was too weak, but I like to think that at least she heard parts of it drifting up the stairs.

I was surprised Father remembered it. Since then, I had written hundreds of pieces, some pedestrian, some that, at least technically, put "her" piece to shame, but none as wrought with emotion or as personal. My song to Rosalind was nothing more than a pretty, trite composition. My song to my son has not been written, because it seems a silly thing to do now, when he's just as good as I am.

I told him I remembered the song, and he seemed to be about to say something when the door burst open and a policeman, followed closely by the maid who, at that hour, would have been on her way out the door.

"Monsieur de Chagny?" he asked.

"Yes," my father and I both said, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of it. It was my house, but he lived here almost as much as, and these last weeks more than, I. The officer turned to address me.

"Monsieur, I am sorry to inform you, but there's been an accident."

I stared at him, confused. An accident? Involving whom? I asked him as much.

"It would appear your son was causing a commotion in the marketplace," he said reluctantly. "Some boys came over and started to give him trouble, and he fought back. One of the boys was severely injured."

"You're coming here to tell me that my son is in trouble for defending himself?" I demanded, refusing to let myself dwell on the more obvious questions: Since when does Charles fight? Since when does he go into the market at night, and since when does he sneak out, since the only way out is past the parlor or the kitchen, and either the maid or one of us would have taken note?

"I went over to try and break things up," the officer continued. "The boy who had started it all was bleeding pretty badly, and I needed to see if he needed any attention. Your son saw me and took off. Someone gave chase. I wasn't going to arrest him, but I needed to know what had happened."

"I thought you said you'd seen it." The officer looked uncomfortable.

"I did," he said. "But I have no idea what happened. One minute, there was a typical boys' fight, the next, pandemonium." Ignoring the implication that the fine law enforcement in this city apparently does not bother with kids beating each other up, I waited.

"He ran away," the officer repeated. "I yelled that they shouldn't chase him, but they did."

"So where is he now?" I demanded, realizing that in every story you hear of wayward boys getting taken home by the police, the boy is usually there with the officer.

"The light was poor, and he ran across the street," he said. "There was a cab coming, and neither could stop in time. He's been taken to the hospital."

At that moment, the silence in the room seemed to grow very loud. Father reached out to steady my arm, and I shook it off.

"He'll need some things, then," I said, heading off towards his room.

"Sir," the officer said. "I must implore you to hurry. It was quite a bad accident."

"Well then he won't want to stay in those clothes," I muttered, insanely determined that I pack him a bag before heading to the hospital. I have no idea why.

Outside the door of his room, it hit me full-force that my son was hurt, very badly injured, in very serious condition. I had seen him for all of two hours in weeks and weeks, and now he was hurt. I had no idea why he would want to go to the market, why he wouldn't have just asked.

I pushed open his bedroom door and noticed the window propped open, answering an earlier question. I went to gather some clothes, his favorite pillow, and noticed that the room was in unusual disarray. I pushed aside the textbooks and reference papers to unearth the pillow, adding pointless things to the parcel in a panic, and then Father was there, urging me out the door, telling me to stop with the nonsense of packing, there's time for that later, we need to go now, right now, I beg you, hurry, and I went.