A/N: So, I actually wrote this because of a prompt from catcorsair: "#5 (things you didn't say at all), E/R or Pharogaaaa". But it kinda took on a life of its own XD

In the end, I was all he had left.

When the young soprano walked away with her vicomte, I was the one who stayed. Erik tried to get rid of me, told me to leave him alone in his sorrow and heartache. But I was just as stubborn as he.

He tried—oh, how he tried—to make me go. Cursing me, yelling as much as his weak heart could take.

"Daroga, you great booby! Why must you meddle in affairs that do not concern you? Why must you continue to torment me with your presence when I have asked you to leave so many times?"

I knew the answer, yet I could never find the courage to say it out loud.

Instead, I would stare at him in stoic silence or deflect with curt replies. He would always threaten to toss me into the lake and feed me to the siren, but he never did. Despite all of his protests, I knew that he did not want to be alone.

I could not let him be alone, not when he needed me the most.

This was a recurring theme between us, a lifetime of him falling apart while I pick up the pieces. We have known each other for far too long, and I can barely remember what my life was like before he came into it.

He was so young when I first met him, a magician traveling across Europe and Asia, a man known for having the voice of an angel and the face of a devil. How I wish that I could turn back time and make sure that Erik never made it into Persia.

Perhaps, he could have been free to roam the world, to break away from the pains of his past and forge a different, better future. Instead, I had led him to the Shah's palace like a lamb to slaughter.

They stained his hands with blood, twisting his genius and artistry into tools for torture and death. I remember him plunging a needle down his arm, poisoning his body so that he could calm his mind and numb his heart, while I only stood there and watched.

I could have gotten him out sooner. I let them break him, and I wanted to believe that I could still piece him together.

.

After our escape, I followed him to France. How could I not? It had blinded me, this protectiveness I felt for him, this overwhelming urge to fix the mistakes of the past.

When we parted ways, I had made him promise to change. I didn't tell him that I would be there to make sure he did.

.

It was agony watching him fall back into old habits, watching him destroy himself and everything in his path. I made a conscious choice when I led the vicomte into his lair, and I do not regret doing so, no matter how betrayed Erik felt.

All he wanted was her love, the one thing she could not give him. I wanted to tell him that he was loved, but not by the person he expected. The words died in my throat every time, choking me, paralyzing me.

The girl showed him compassion, let him kiss her forehead. And they cried together, tears mingling and entwining.

With a heavy heart, he let them go.

When all was said and done, when her absence in his life tore him apart, it was I who was there to hold him together.

.

I cared for him even as he asked me to leave, tried to entertain him with stories and games, made sure he took care of himself.

But some broken things can't be fixed, no matter how much you tried to make it right.

.

"Daroga, why did you stay?"

He asked me once more as he lay in the coffin that he called his bed, once-beautiful voice reduced to a whisper. Years of abuse and neglect have finally taken its toll on his body, and, despite my best efforts to help him improve his health, there is only so much I could do.

"Because you needed me," I replied, trying not to let my voice betray my emotions.

For a while, he stared at me contemplatively, as though he were solving a complex puzzle in his head. But if he saw through the façade and into the deepest recesses of my soul, he did not say. Instead, he gazed at me with those strange golden eyes and whispered, "I never thanked you."

"I didn't know you were capable of it," I said with a wry smile.

Something almost resembling a laugh sounded from his lips, and it both warmed and pained me to hear it. I had not seen him smile in so long.

"Thank you for never giving up on Erik."

They say that regret is like an insatiable thirst, an ache for what could have been and grief for what was. The feeling can seep into your skin, gnaw at you until there's nothing left.

I have many, many regrets. Things I wish I didn't do, things I wish I could have done differently. But the worst are the unspoken words, the ones I could have said that day.

I could never give up on you, Erik. You think that no one loves you, that no one has ever loved you, that no one will love you until the end of your days. But I'm here. I've always been here. I stayed not just because you needed me…

I needed you too.

When my wife, my Rookheeya, died, I thought I could never love another. You were not the only broken soul looking to be fixed. In your own unusual way, you saved me, even though you weren't trying to.

I love you, you miserable, bull-headed man. You self-loathing fool. I love you!

However, no matter how hard I tried, I could not make myself tell him. I had been keeping the emotions in for too long, and now the words were stuck inside me. Like a parasite, killing me from within.

Instead, I said, "You're welcome." I didn't know that this was the last conversation we would ever have.

.

I cried when I found him the next day. All pretenses, all efforts to remain passive and stoic melted away as soon as I realized that he was gone. I don't know how long I stayed there, holding his lifeless body, kissing that horrid face as tears violently fell from my eyes.

All the things I wish I'd done, all the words I didn't say, came crashing down on me, burying me, adding to the weight of my grief.

In the end, I was all he had left. And he was all I had left. I wish I had been brave enough to tell him how much he meant to me.

Some broken souls can't be fixed. But I hope that, in whatever afterlife Erik finds himself in, he's finally free.