A/N: This is experimental. If you enjoy this and wish to read it as a full story, then please let me hear from you (review, people! LOL!) Make no mistake, it's unlikely that I will post anything more for some time – I am currently working on another project with someone else on something non-POTO related; but I wrote this before that ever came up… and I want to know if it will be received AT ALL well when I am finally ready and have a concrete plot. There may come a chapter two very soon, but please don't expect a chapter three any time in the imminent future… I can only handle so many works at a time. But I would love the feedback.

He had never been in so much pain before… or cared so little about his own life or death. He had never been in a position that left him longing for life to simply hurry up and end. His entire world was agony… and all because she was gone.

Christine…

He saw it in his head… over and over and over… so strong in his mind that it was like having the most vivid of hallucinations. It didn't merely haunt him – it hounded him. She had chosen The Boy… and now they were somewhere in a brilliant world of sunlight and color that he knew very little about. They were preparing for a life of happiness that he could only dream of.

Even the happiest moments in my life have always been tainted by something dark…

He knew Christine was better off with the handsome, young, and very wealthy Vicomte de Chagney. The man could give her everything her heart desired… and in his beauty he would be able to give her all the things that Erik never could. Erik had never been able to give any woman that simple gift… the kind of freedom only plain or beautiful faces could provide.

He'd lost track of the days since she left… but based on his more regular eating habits having emptied all his private stores, he supposed it had to have been at least a month. He'd been eating less and less… slowly becoming more and more unaware – or at least uncaring – of the pains in his stomach that normally drove him to seek nourishment.

All he had left in the entire household was liquor, sugar, and tea. The lemons had long since rotted, and he'd been forced to dispose of them in the lake before he started losing his strength. As his rarely-there appetite decreased with his despair, he spent more and more time in the Louise-Phillipe room; stroking his fingertips across the sacred items in what had become: the Shrine of Christine.

Now he could barely do more than roll around the floor; aware that his death was coming for him. It had been days since he'd taken in a single morsel of food or liquid. Honestly; if the fires hadn't burned out long ago, he probably would have died sooner. The temperatures in his house had plummeted without the warmth of his hearth, and the cold he could barely feel - or care about - seemed determined to make his agony last. All he could do was curl into a ball on the floor. He could not bring himself to commit the grave sin of crawling into Christine's bed… the one that had also once been his mothers'. It would have been poetic, to die in the bed where he'd been born… but he couldn't bring himself to do it… He could have done it no more than he could have brought himself to re-enter his own bedroom and close the lid of his coffin over his own head. Some things… no matter how he craved death… were simply too morbid to condone thinking about or acting on.

At least he'd left the front door ajar, so that Ayesha still had a safe and dry place to live. He'd heard her outside the door to the Louise-Phillipe room many times, scratching at the wood and yowling in her stubborn, determined way to be let in. He hadn't the heart to as much as look at her now; knowing that she would be fully capable of forgetting his very existence within a few days. Her home here would be safe and warm and dry… and probably clean enough during the rest of her days. She wasn't particularly young by cat standards, after all. It would take months or years for the proper decay of his home to settle in and make the place as depressing as the rest of the cellars. As guilty as he felt for ignoring her or abandoning her; he knew just how fiercely independent and capable the little minx was.

With the thought that death couldn't possibly be far away, he drifted for a time with his eyes closed. After a length that was impossible to measure; he felt his body roll itself onto its back as though releasing all the energy it had taken thus far to keep himself huddled up… sighing in relief as some of those muscles let go. For the briefest of seconds, it was a kind of bliss that eclipsed his mental and emotional agony…

Then the darkness swelled into him once more like a slowly incoming tide.

He was startled awake by the feel of something wet on his bar face.

Rain...?

Confused, Erik's weakened body could do no more than flinch slightly at the unexpected sensation. With a soft guttural noise, he forced his eyelids open little more than a crack and saw the silhouette of someone with long hair bent over him. Considering how long ago he'd lit the final candle of his life, the light was very low and probably was going to go out any minute… but the candle had been perfectly fresh.

How had he not heard the bedroom door opening? Why hadn't there been an alarm? He winced, almost closing his eyes and falling asleep again in his weariness and weakness. Another pattering of liquid splattered his face, and he realized that the person leaning over him was crying. That was the unexplained moisture that had surprised him into nearly full consciousness. Still confused; but with an instinctive surge of hope, he turned his head slightly to realize there was something under his head; and that his body was now at a slight incline…

"Chris… tine…?" he asked uncertainly; his voice hoarse from lack of use and thirst. Although his arm trembled badly; he reached up to brush his fingers across the face of the silhouette above him. His hand caught the hair dangling down on either side of the female face (he had rarely seen a man with such hair) and was only further confused by how dark the strands were.

Christine has blonde hair…

The figure leaning over him sucked in a startled breath when his fingers made contact with her face, and she jerked back a little so that the candlelight briefly caught the edges of her face through the curtain of dark hair. Both of her hands – which had been resting on his shoulders, apparently – lifted as though to push his seeking fingers away. But then they froze; not following through with the action. One hand grasped his wrist instead; while the other seemed to consider returning to its light perch near his neck.

The candlelight caught on a ring on the woman's' left hand, and he focused on it instantly because it was the one hesitating by his shoulder. The angle was all wrong to identify the actual ring… but it did draw his eye to where the light did catch. The way the dim candlelight reflected from the hand ornament could have been from little other than orange and red stones. The color was just too clearly complimented by the tiny fire.

Then, there was her actual hand. The skin of the woman was dark… Not like the skin of those in Persia or Egypt, perhaps, but dark all the same. She was also wearing a rather form fitting red dress; which hugged what appeared to be soft curves. He wasn't looking at her closely enough as yet to know for sure… but he had a natural eye for such things. Even imminent death couldn't steal such gifts.

"E-Erik?" a soft low voice whispered.

Instantly, his previously calm but confused heart started hammering painfully in his chest.

I know that voice!

It had been literally decades since he'd heard that soft alto voice; so much lower than one would expect from such a young woman. It had always had an alluring huskiness that appealed to him; even though it had absolutely no musical talent whatsoever. It went perfectly with the deep olive toned skin and dark hair that looked black; but was truly a dark brown with hints of impossibly dark red. The voice, the skin, the hair… it also all went with the red dress and gold-toned ring he'd barely caught sight of.

"M-ma belle?" he managed to breathe out, although it seemed his lungs were incapable of drawing in – or expelling – proper air. They were utterly frozen with disbelieving shock.

But that's impossible! She's dead! She had died in front my eyes! I buried her!

Arabella…

I'm not dying… hethough dazedly. I'm dead.…

He had to be dead. It was the only possible explanation. Had she come to collect his soul and bring it onward?

But… that made no sense either… Arabella had been much too good of a person… the complete opposite of what he'd become since her death. Why would she be the one to escort him to Hell? But… maybe he wasn't going to Hell? Maybe this was purgatory?

Why would Arabella be stuck in limbo?

"Erik!" Her voice came stronger this time, just as startled as before; but now joined by a sob of some sort. It was strange how she sounded… excited and bewildered. His mind absolutely spun with the struggle to cope with his stark recognition of her. "Erik! You… you feel me? You seeme…?"

A dream… he decided suddenly, trying to turn his body and lift it into a crawling position. Nothing about this situation made sense. Arabella was dead… but… in his house? Maybe he was dead. But then… why was he still feeling so weak? Why could he barely move? Slightly bemused by her words - in spite of his own confusion - he found himself giving the ghost of a smile at how she stared at the thin wrist she grasped in her hand. He hadn't managed to pull from that strong but birdlike grasp. He hadn't even succeeded in anything but a roll onto his stomach that left his chin in the valley between her red-clad thighs.

The tears… her hand on his wrist… her lap under his head… her very presence in his house. None of these things had ever happened to him in a dream. He'd never even dreamed of Arabella – at least vividly. Usually she was a far-off presence he couldn't reach or make contact with. Considering the years he'd spent composing Don Juan Triumphant, using her given Romani name as to the main character, his dreams of her hadn't actually had anything to do with her.

"I'm dreaming…" he murmured in bewilderment; unable to directly answer her as his mind continuing spinning around in circles. Her grasp on his wrist didn't go away; even as he continued trying to push himself onto his hands and knees. His position over her lap was simply indecent now that he was face down over it! "I'm dreaming about you because it's easier than dreaming about her."

He could actually feel her flinch under him as he shakily forced himself up onto his palms. He was trying to move to the side so he could see her better… but he wound up nearly toppling onto her. Arabella fell back under his weight; her shoulders shaking the night stand directly behind her and nearly toppling the single candle that remained dimly lit. She gasped, and her arms seemed to instinctively circle his shoulders to catch him. There was no concern for her own predicament in the tumble.

His face barreled into the side of her stomach before she rolled him from her and carefully lowered him back to the floor. Erik moaned, dark blots dancing in his vision. His head was spinning physically as well as mentally now, and his cheeks heated with sheer embarrassment at his gracelessness.

"Real…" he murmured in stunned disbelief, knowing that no dream would ever let him be so clumsy in front of his late wife. Even though she'd known him for almost all his flaws at that time… she'd only ever paid real attention to the grandest parts of him. She'd loved the grace in him. He'd nearly hypnotized her so many times with a mere wave of his hand.

His late wife…

It was the first time he'd thought of Arabella so solidly in years. He watched dazedly as she turned to the side and tossed her hair out of her face. He could see her so clearly now, even in the low light. There was no pretending – had it occurred to him – that he was mistaken about her identity.

"Real…" she echoed, staring down at him with enormous caramel colored eyes that shone with the gentle but stubbornly beautiful soul he'd once known so well. Her mouth hung open in astonishment that equaled his. "God… this is real! You can… I'm here! Here, here!"

Blinking hard, Erik squinted up at her as though he might be able to see through the hallucination he was still half-convinced she simply had to be. In spite of how he'd said it was real… he hadn't meant true. Trying to protect himself, he was trying to act as though it was an intense hallucination… but was that just denial? He couldn't wrap his brain around what was happening; or why.

"Oh god…" she whispered, catching his hand again as it unconsciously reached toward her face. "You're freezing cold, Erik! You're so weak!"

He let his body shake once with a harsh laugh his body didn't have the appropriate strength for. She must have noticed how clumsy he was by then – consciously, at least. That… or his hand had been visibly shaking as he impulsively reached for her.

He could recall all the times he'd unconsciously reached his hand out to touch her and had to force his hand back down.

"Yes." He acknowledged bitterly; hating the truth of it.

"You need food." She stated in a half-panicked voice that reminded him of conversation in their past about abusive fathers and spreading infections. "I need to get you something to-"

"No!" he protested in a half-yell that was still painfully hoarse. He could feel his vocal chords straining due to its' recent disuse, and the dryness of his throat. She'd tried to stand, but he'd gripped her hand in his as hard as he could before she could release it.

He didn't understand… but she was at least a perfect distraction from all his recent agonies. As terrible as his torments involving her loss - and what it would do to him when this strange event ended - anything was better than the heartache that had driven him to this slow and painful death. He'd dealt with this grief for so long that he thought it would be manageable.

"No! Don't leave me!"

She dropped back to her knees and leaned over him, her free hand pressing comfortably against his cheek. It was an action of such comfort and affection that his eyes might have welled up with tears – had he been hydrated enough to form them. He wanted to close his eyes and bask in the sensation; but was terrified of losing sight of her. She might just vanish if he did.

"I won't this time." She promised. "Not if I can help it… Not yet. You… you just need something to… You need tea, and warmth, and food!"

"Why?" he demanded, wincing at the sulkiness in his voice. Her words had brought to mind the day she'd died, and how he'd pleaded the exact same thing to her. His voice had been far more depressed than panicked… but they had been the same words. No wonder she had promised she would stay 'this time'.

"Because you'll die without it!" she replied almost shrilly. The hand on his cheek slipped down to grip the nape of his neck, and the determination in her strong but small hand told him – more than nearly anything else – that he couldn't possibly be dead, dreaming, or having a hallucination. The feeling that she could be anything beyond utterly real was fading. "If I'm here… if you can see, hear, and feel me; and I can do something about it… I can't just sit here and watch you die!"

Erik stared at her with brand new misery. He could recall just how miserable it had been to sit by helplessly and watch her die. Whatever this was… whatever was happening… he didn't want her to suffer the same fate. She looked just as she had the day she'd died – in terms of age, at least. Her weight was back up to a healthy level; and she clearly wasn't ill. Her skin wasn't pale or flushed with fever… But she was still just a girl in her mid-teenaged years. She was a girl who had no knowledge of the Parisian society he lived beneath. She would never find her way from this place alive… his maze and traps were far too clever. Whatever this was… could he risk her being here in reality and being left behind to die slowly as he'd been willingly doing?

Feebly, anxiously, he released her with a nod and a heavy exhausted sigh.

"All right…" he whispered.

Even though his hand slid from her own and landed in his lap with a definitive plop, Arabella hesitated. Through heavy lidded eyes; he stared at her. The candlelight was catching her face mostly from above, highlighting her forehead and cheekbones so that they seemed more high and womanly than in reality. Arabella was most certainly a woman and not a mere girl… but only just barely. She'd been blessed with early curves – which had undoubtedly been partial catalyst for the abuse her father had inflicted upon her. But he'd never seen a fully grown and formed woman before him in the old days. Here… in this lighting… it was terrifying just how the woman and the girl in her fought for dominance and acknowledgement as he stared.

The fact that he was trying to notice her womanliness over her girlishness in such a moment sickened him.

"You need warmth." She noted again. "Erik… can you… do you have the strength to get up?"

He glanced uneasily at the night stand. He considered whether it was strong enough to support him if he tried to claw his way into an upright position. The wood was strong and the structure sturdy… but he was so weak that it had rendered him outright clumsy. The idea of falling again, in front of her, was nauseating…

"Miri kom?" she demanded with worried impatience. "Can you-?"

"I think so." He decided uncertainly; reaching up with one nearly skeletal hand to grab at the higher and nearest sharp corner. His other arm shifted and he struggled to one elbow for extra leverage. At once; Arabella stepped over his legs to position her body behind his, bracing his shoulders with her hands. Had he fallen again; she would have been trapped beneath him. He'd finished growing after her death; and even as thin as he was through life and with how much loss of weight he'd endured from his prolonged starvation; he was solid and would have easily crushed her.

By the time he made it to his knees, arms folded across the top of the night stand with the pinkie and ring finger of one hand stabilizing the candle that had once more nearly toppled; he was panting for breath and fighting off the grayness that swam into his field of vision. The pathetic light of the candle swayed violently with each puff of air his lungs forced out.

"What happened?" he demanded; turning his head slowly to stare at her. She was kneeling inches away; her face so close to his he could have pressed his forehead to hers. She had a steadying hand on the center of his upper back, while the other took his lead and held down the candle that seemed desperate to light the place aflame. "How did you get here? You… you were dead."

"I know I was." She replied simply; beginning to gnaw on her lower lip. It was such an endearingly familiar tic of hers… something he'd utterly forgotten about through the passage of time. When her teeth released the now slightly swollen bit of flesh, he was sorely tempted to reach up and soothe it with one thumb… but he didn't have the strength or courage. Arabella had never encouraged advances from him; even though she'd been regularly adamant that she wouldn't turn them down once made. "I… I don't know how this happened. One minute… you were dying… and all I could do was sit here and watch… and the next… the next you were talking to me!"

There was bewildered joy in the depths of her desperately worried eyes. Erik felt a pang in his chest as he considered the emotions she'd always so clearly shown him. Arabella; although limited due to her own life experiences, had never been the type of woman to hold back what she felt or thought. Her passion – in every sense of the word – was something she'd worn on her sleeve. There had been no code that had held her back. She had ignored nearly every tried and true Romani tradition necessary when she finally found something she found deserving of her passion.

Even now… I can't believe she decided I was the one who deserved her…

"You were… watching me die?" he asked ashamedly. "For how long?"

Arabella set her jaw and shook her head.

"Let me get you into the bed." She insisted. "Or do it yourself; if you think you can. Then I can at least get some blankets on you; and go about with setting the fire and making you that tea… When you're a little stronger; I'll go above for food."

Erik furrowed his brow in deep concentration as she pulled back the counterpane and top sheet; and it remained that way as he laboriously sat himself on the edge of the bed. To his amazement; sweat was beading on his brow and his limbs shook like the twigs of a bush under a hard wind once he was mostly settled. Arabella had knelt once more – this time by his feet to remove the slippers he wore by habit. The way she worked so hard to seek out his health and comfort was instantly heart-warming to him… and he again thought he might cry.

He was also trying to figure out why she was avoiding answering his question.

He was so tired… so weak… no wonder his emotional guard had completely evaporated! No wonder he couldn't think straight!

Together, they managed to shuffle him toward the center of the mattress until he was eased back onto an enormous pile of every single pillow available. Then; as though she knew his home by heart, Arabella not only pulled the blankets on the bed over him; but found and pulled out every single extra one stored in the room! And his storage compartments were mostly camouflaged into the walls!

"How did you…?" he demanded as she began tucking him in under at least four quilts and then started lighting every candle or lamp she could find. "You… know my house? You know there is an up to go to for food?"

She smiled at him… and that smile seemed to light up the entire room.

"Yes."

"But… how?"

"I told you I would never leave you – didn't I?" she demanded lightly as she shook out a match that had nearly burned her fingertips. After he stared at her – dumbfounded – for several long seconds, she merely gave one of her characteristic one-shoulder shrugs. "Well… I kept my promise. Now… you just stay there and relax. I'll set up the fire and the tea."

He understood that he should have felt indignant. He'd been ready to die… to move on to whatever hell awaited him. Now here had come this young dead woman from his past to prolong his sorry life? She was looking at him weak and virtually helpless… a veritable wreck of a human being… bustling about his home as though it were her own! But… he was too stunned to feel anything but numb shock.

His mind had struggled – after Persia – to remember the details of the girl he'd fought so hard to put behind him. He'd have done anything to remember specific details about her. He'd kept some of those details over the years – like her basic personality, her true name, and the low key to her voice. But hallucination or dream; he'd never have remembered all the details being shown to him now. The Arabella of his dreams would never have been so stubbornly determined to save his sorry hide! She'd have beckoned him to her side in the next world! As a matter of fact… he could almost remember the ghost of one dream – ages ago – in which she had!

"Wait!" he entreated when she turned to step from the room once more. She placed one hand on the door frame and turned to him; her brilliant red performance dress just as he remembered it the day he bought it for her.

He narrowed his eyes at the hand on the door, focusing on the ring with its' many tiny rubies in the shape of a phoenix's tail. Every detail was so particular… even the little freckles on the back of the same hand and wrist… He could think of nothing to say to her; particularly when she frowned at him in annoyance at being held back from what she'd decided to do. He couldn't even lift his head from the pillow without lengthy recovery at this point; and his voice became a hopeful whine of desperation. "Mira kom?"

The frown on her face melted away into another one of those amazingly beautiful soft smiles that had rarely been given to anyone other than him.

"I'll be right back." She promised reassuringly. "Would you like me to sing; so you know I'm still in the other room? I can barely believe it myself!"

He could only stare at her, flabberghasted; and Arabella's soft laughter – so rare and as exquisite as a priceless gem – floated back to him as she hurried to complete her mission. They both knew she couldn't sing – not really. Her voice was pleasant enough for a lullaby to a baby, perhaps, but nothing more. It was simply something that wasn't painful to hear.

Another harsh pain twisted at his heart when he thought about Arabella singing lullabies to a baby. He could recall the tiny red thing he'd once held in his hands and prepared for burial… how he'd identified with the literally soulless dead thing more than he ever had with any living human.

"Bella…" he whispered. "Ma belle…"

Delight was beginning to replace his shock and disbelief. It wasn't overpowering… but it was a luminous presence in the deepest recesses of his soul. He could almost literally feel it opening doors that had been closed for yearswithin him. Doors the acts and drugs of Persia had locked.

He drifted then; listening even as she began to hum out in his parlor and made a horrendous amount of noise trying to light the fire and start a pot of tea. He wondered how easy she would find it to light an indoor fire instead of one in a tent or out of doors completely. Would she know how to handle the utensils he now used for his tea? Would she find all she…

His body lurched at the realization of what she'd said earlier.

"I promise… I will never leave you."

Those might not be exactly the words she'd spoken – but it was exactly what she'd meant.

The idea she'd been capable of keeping such a secret was something that would have changed the entire course of his life… had he so much as suspected it all these years.

The delight drained away from him almost instantly. Shame and mortification replaced it, weakening him even further so that he actually had to fight to remain awake – even in his remaining stubborn shock.

No… No, no, no… It can't be… She can't have…

If she never left… why the hell is she here?