A/N-Based on a drawing by accursedugliness on Tumblr, showing a happy Carlotta hugging Ubaldo Piangi from behind, and based on the ALW musical.
There...I fixed it. Hope you enjoy. :)
~R
Aftermath
Riene, 2017
"Ubaldo!" she shrieked, the scream rising to a crescendo pitch as the red-haired diva flung herself over his prostrate body, oblivious to the chaos around her; the gendarmes' whistles, the alarms, the screaming from the audience. Dimly she was aware that the Managers' plan had gone terribly wrong, that the Ghost had somehow outwitted them again, but her world had coalesced to a pinpoint, the contorted, purple face of the man sprawled on the prop bed beneath her.
Hands were dragging at her, pulling her away from the man she loved. Loved? Yes, this was love, this desperate agony pulling at her heart, her mind. Why had she not seen it before, this love for a man who patently worshiped her? But she'd been so arrogant, too blind with her own self-importance to see it. And now it was too late.
Carlotta watched numbly as the stagehands lifted him, preparing to take him elsewhere, anywhere but this stage where myriad eyes watched and voices cried out. Stumbling on her costume, wig awry and makeup streaked, the Prima Donna of the Opera Garnier staggered after them in the wake of their passing.
"His room," she begged as the men looked about helplessly, wondering where to lay a corpse, and relieved, they followed her command, placing his body on the chaise in his dressing room. One arm slid from his chest, falling limply to the floor and Carlotta collapsed into his chair, sobbing anew. Ubaldo…she would have to be the one to do for him; he had no family in this dreary country.
The door to the dressing room was thrust open and the house doctor burst in, tie askew and face flushed. "Where is he?" the man demanded and strode across the room, lifting Piangi's fallen arm. Carlotta buried her face in her hands as a fresh wave of sobbing overcame her normally stoic control, and did not see the expression on the man's face change.
Doctor Cardin frowned, feeling the slight warmth of the arm and raised it, searching for a pulse. The faintest flutter beneath his sensitive fingers, and he dropped the arm, fumbling instead at the tenor's throat. "This man is not dead!" he exclaimed and Carlotta raised unbelieving eyes.
"Not dead? But how…?" she gasped as the doctor tore the tight bands of rope from the tenor's throat, easing his head back, blowing air into his lungs. Piangi shuddered, then gasped and sputtered, retching, his limbs twitching. Carlotta grasped his hand. "Ubaldo! Speak to me! Oh Ubaldo!" The purple color was ebbing from his face, but the eyes he opened barely a slit, so swollen they were, were the stuff of nightmares, red from the burst capillaries, but warm and brown, undeniably his.
"My diva," he whispered, his once-beautiful voice cracked and broken, as Ubaldo Piangi raised her plump white hand to his lips and gently kissed her fingers. "My lady."
Tenderly she brushed back his hair, where a lock of it had fallen over his broad forehead. "Don't speak, my love, you heard what the doctor said." He nodded once, and she pulled the plaid wool blanket up to his shoulders again. "Rest, my love."
Not caring what gossip surrounded them, she'd ordered him taken to her flat to convalesce. Days in the sunny solarium, soft foods, a daily visit from the physician, had slowly convinced her he would live. The ugly purple marks around his neck were slowly fading, as was the horrific color in his eyes. It was too early yet to know of any permanent damage to his voice, the smooth tenor that had lifted him from the streets of Italy to a position in the cathedral choir to the opera houses of Europe. But it was of no importance to her if he never sang again, never raised his voice to twine around hers in a glorious rush of music to reach to the very rafters of the opera house. He was here, safe in her arms, and in her heart, at last. Her Ubaldo, her love.
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