A/N: This chapter was fun to write. It's a lot of fluff, and perhaps a foreshadowing of sad things to come? I'll let you guys decide that for yourself haha. A little piece of good news is that I should be able to get my posting schedule back to normal now, probably every Monday night after this post... (it's just past midnight here, so it's already Wednesday). There aren't probably that many chapters left but I haven't written any at all, so I'm going to be a busy bee writing!
Nikki1991: Hahaha then she would be a lousy nurse to everyone else X)
marial0789: I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint then!
Masked Man 2: I know, WHY, Raoul, WHY? I wish I didn't make to make him like that, but someone has to be the bad guy sometimes. On the brighter side of things, Raoul will probably stop being such an annoying person soon.
Lydia the tygeropean: Oh dear, so much hate for Raoul haha :')
E-man-dy-S: Definitely!
TierneyMacDonald: Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoy it (:
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Chapter 52: Before Don Juan Triumphant
Paris, 1899
Raoul walked Christine to the room where she practised, noting the little skip to her walk and the excitement on her face. She seemed happier now that her teacher was back, now that she was singing with him again. Raoul disliked the fact that her teacher had been the one to put that delight back on her face, to bring back the life in her eyes, the spark that had been gone from her in those months of absence of the Opera Ghost. He tried not to let it in, but jealousy clawed at his heart anyway. He loved her so, and he would have done anything to restore the gleam in her eyes, the life in her face. But nothing he had done had changed anything, and only the return of her teacher had brought her back.
When they reached the room, she gave him a kiss on the cheek shyly. "I'll walk myself back later, Raoul. Thank you for walking me here."
He smiled at her, lifting a hand to touch her cheek gently, and yet hating himself for what he was about to do after he left her. She beamed back, and entered the room. Raoul heard the click of the lock behind her.
She always locked the door.
Raoul knew it was because the fact that the Opera Ghost was her teacher was still a secret from the rest of the opera house, but every time he heard that lock click, it felt like a gunshot to his heart. Like an insurmountable wall she put up every time.
He rubbed his hand over his face wearily.
Tonight, it would all end.
And then he would take her away from this place, this town filled with the oddest memories, take her far away, where they could forget everything before coming back again.
Perhaps the beach where they had first met.
He walked briskly through the opera house to the manager's office. There was no time to waste.
"Ah, monsieur le vicomte." Firmin stood and bowed in greeting.
"The gendarmes," Raoul said shortly, "are they here yet?"
Firmin nodded. "They are already in the theatre. Shall we?"
He rubbed his hands in anticipation, and Raoul thought he almost saw eagerness in the manager's pudgy face. Yes, no doubt, the managers had to be as glad as him to be rid of the Opera Ghost at last. After all, they had been under his torturous reign for long enough. Raoul followed Andre and Firmin out of the office, to the theatre.
There, a handsome police officer stood, dressed in his uniform, directing his subordinates around. "You, there, you will stand behind that pillar. Jacques, you'll be amongst the audience tonight. Up there on the balconies, how many men do I have?"
He paused when he saw the approaching party, and turned to bow to Raoul. "Monsieur le vicomte."
"Yes, my good man," Raoul nodded grimly, shaking his hand. "How are things here?"
"All ready, as you can see," the officer gestured to his policemen stationed around the theatre. "I have stationed many men around the place, as you can see."
"Very good." Raoul turned to the theatre, waving his hand to get the policemen's attention. "Now listen. You only shoot upon my signal. Do you understand? Only upon my signal! I do not want gunshots to go off and alert the madman."
"Yes," came a chorus of voices from around the room, and Raoul nodded, satisfied.
Everything was ready.
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After his lesson, Erik took a walk around the opera house. He travelled through the secret passages, running his hands over the age-hallowed stone and the chipped bricks. This place held a lot of memories for him.
Both good and bad.
And by tonight, it would all be over.
His life as a spectre would be over.
Yes, perhaps finally he would be able to walk in the light as a flesh and blood man.
But still the risk remained. He knew the vicomte's plan. He knew his own was not foolproof. He was only human, after all.
He stopped before a door and knocked.
Antoinette opened it after a few moments, and looked shocked to see him there. "Erik! What are you doing here?" She looked around the corridor hastily.
"May I come in, Antoinette?" He asked mildly. She hurriedly ushered him in, and he walked into her apartments, looking around. So little had changed in this place after all these years. He sat himself down at the table and poured himself a cup of tea from the steaming kettle.
"What brings you here, Erik?" Antoinette sat opposite him, pulling her cup of tea over. He shrugged, and she raised her eyebrows. "Do you expect me to believe that you came all the way here just to drink a cup of my 'tasteless' tea, as you so put it?"
He chuckled. "Ah, Antoinette. It shocked you, did it not, seeing me standing outside your door just like any other normal person? Perhaps one day it will happen again, and you will not look so shocked anymore."
She understood, as always. Antoinette had always known his dream.
"Tomorrow is the debut of Don Juan, Erik," she said gently. "Tomorrow, everything will be as it should be. And you will be free."
He regarded her silently, running a finger over the handle of his cup. "One can only hope."
He sighed. "We have known each other a long time, have we not, Antoinette? Longer than I can remember."
She nodded in agreement, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly in remembrance. "Do you not remember the night I met you, Erik?"
"I remember," said the flowers in the vase on the table. Antoinette looked startled for a moment, and then she laughed. Erik smiled wryly, looking down at his gloved hands.
"I was so young back then," she reminisced. "Saving a boy from a gypsy fair, with no idea what to do next… whatever possessed me back then?"
"Indeed," Erik murmured. "Whatever made you do it?"
"The way the flowers sang made me see a whole new world," she said contemplatively, not really speaking to Erik, a far-away look in her eyes. "It was magic. And magic like that should never be locked away in a cage. No, it deserved to see the light of day."
"Then I have failed you, Antoinette, for I have spent the past years of my life after you rescued me, in my own cage, in the darkness of the night."
"You've never failed me." She tilted her head, looking at him. "Because, Erik, I know that the bars of that cage are breaking soon."
He smiled again. His smiles were less rare now, she noted. He looked happier, and yet, a little sad somehow. His visit had been a little sudden. Unexpected, but not unwelcome.
They spent a good amount of the time talking about the past, and Antoinette smiled more in that afternoon than she had smiled the entire week. She recalled how she had first seen him in the dirty tent, a small boy surrounded by flowers. She recalled how she had first brought Amélie back to the opera house, and how the young Erik had been so enamoured by the small child. The first time she saw him smile. The first time she had danced on stage as the prima ballerina.
Antoinette smiled, and Erik smiled too.
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"Hello, Erik," a voice said pleasantly as Erik entered his house. Erik swore under his breath as he hung up his cloak.
"I should never have told you how to enter; now I cannot get rid of you," he grumbled.
"Oh, you'll never get rid of me, Erik," his visitor said conversationally. "I intend to be sticking around for quite some time indeed."
"So, speak. What are you here for?" Erik threw himself into a chair opposite the daroga.
The daroga had the audacity to look hurt. "Can this not be a courtesy visit between two friends?"
"No," Erik told him pointedly. "You have a reason for coming here."
The daroga laughed. "Ever so intuitive, Erik. Very well. But I came here today merely to wish you luck for the debut of Don Juan tomorrow night. I will be in the audience, waiting with anticipation."
"Thank you," Erik said stiffly. The daroga reached over and patted him on the shoulder affectionately.
"I am glad for you, Erik. I had hoped, all those years we were apart, that you would somehow make a mark for yourself in this world, walk out of the dark shadows Persia put you in. And then I arrived here, and I found you masquerading as a ghost. It was not what I'd thought you would become, but still… tomorrow night, Erik. Tomorrow night marks the night you start to break free."
"One never knows what will happen in the future," Erik murmured softly. "Daroga, tomorrow… I might not succeed."
The daroga's expression sobered. He knew what Erik was referring to, the possibility that his plan might not work out, the chance that he might have to flee Paris should his identity be discovered. It was a very real possibility.
"One can never know what the future holds in store for us, Erik," he began cautiously, but Erik waved a hand to stop him.
"I am not afraid, daroga." He leaned back against the chair, rubbing his mask absent-mindedly. "I have back-up plans."
"Then why…"
"Why do I sound so worried? You must be wondering—Erik, the man who never hesitated once in his mad plans or even worried about the consequences… why is he seemingly so reluctant now?" He looked away from the daroga, toward a little tin ballerina sitting upon a chest of drawers. "If by any chance… if somehow I do not make it out tomorrow night, daroga, please help me take care of her."
The daroga followed his gaze to the small statue resting serenely upon the chest of drawers. He nodded his head. "For a debt so dear that it can never be repaid, Erik. For Reza. Yes, I know I owe you nothing, as you have told me a multitude of times before. And yet, I owe you too much still."
Erik nodded contemplatively. "Tomorrow, all the entrances will be sealed up once I leave for the debut. Nobody will be able to find any trace of my house beneath the Palais Garnier. I am telling you this to give you fair warning, daroga. You will not be able to enter this place. Should I succeed, I will come back to unseal all my entrances, but should I not, the house of the Opera Ghost will remain forever silent and untouched. It will be as if the Opera Ghost never existed."
"By sealing up your house, you are sealing your very fate, Erik, should you need to find a place to escape to."
"Ah, daroga, if the gendarmes wanted to, they could tear down this building, and my house would be revealed anyway. It is no hiding place. No, if my plan fails, I will go somewhere else, somewhere I will not be found."
The two sat in silence for a long while, in companionship, with no need for words to be said.
Then Erik looked at the daroga. "A last game of chess, perhaps?"
The daroga laughed.
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"Where are we going, Erik?" Amélie whispered as the two walked quietly down the deserted corridors of the opera house. It was early morning and many were still abed, but they were cautious anyway, with Erik walking in the dark shadows cast about by pillars.
"Somewhere special", he replied cryptically. "I have something to tell you."
"Do you, then?" Amélie asked lightly. "Lead on, monsieur. But I have to warn you first, you'd better have a good reason for waking me up so early—oh!"
Erik had gestured to her to stop, and Amélie had seen the wall before them. She looked at him curiously.
"Do you not remember this wall, Amélie?" He asked in a neutral voice, though she could not help but imagine that he had an undercurrent of sadness in his tone. "Do you not find it familiar?"
She looked at him silently, and he held out a hand toward her, sighing at her lack of response. She took it, and stepped forward with him as he opened the passage in the wall.
It had been many years since the passage had been used. How many years had it been?
Erik looked toward Amélie, who was taking in the surroundings curiously in the dim light streaming in from the corridor. Erik slowly closed the passageway, engulfing them in the darkness. Amélie was used to the dark tunnels in his secret passageways, but still her hand held his firmly.
"Once upon a time, Amélie, I found a little girl sitting before this very wall that we are hidden behind now," Erik remarked. "That was… many, so many years ago. And that little girl and I… we were friends."
"Great friends," Amélie intoned dully. "Best of friends, even."
"Yes," Erik agreed, misinterpreting her statement as a question. "I would think so. And almost every day, I would meet that little girl, and I would walk with her through this very passageway we are walking through now."
"I know. I remember," said Amélie quietly, and Erik inhaled sharply in surprise, his hand tightening around hers momentarily.
"And every day," continued Amélie, "that little girl would be so enthralled to listen to new stories in that room where the boy brought her to. Stories of knights and dragons and princesses. She loved those times. I think she loved that boy, even back then. Until that boy disappeared one day. She thought she would never see him again. But one day, he did come back."
They had reached the store room, and Erik turned the handle, pulling the two of them into the dark room. He carefully lit one of the candles in the sconces on the wall, casting a dim glow around the room, and walked back to where Amélie stood, regarding him quietly.
"How long have you known?" He asked.
"Quite some time," she replied. "I'd known from the time you gave me the music scroll for my birthday."
He took a sharp breath. "That long?"
"Did you take me for a fool, perhaps, Erik?" She raised her brows at him.
He laughed. "I should have known better."
Erik crossed the room to sit on a box, gesturing for her to come closer. When she shifted closer, eyeing him suspiciously, he reached out to grasp her around her waist, pulling her onto his lap. She squeaked in surprise.
"Your legs will break, Erik," she told him sensibly. He laughed.
"You used to sit here, do you not remember?" He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. She laughed.
"I remember."
"I loved you, you know. Even back then. And now."
She adjusted herself to sit beside him on the box, so that she could look him in the face. "You are being strangely sentimental, Erik."
"Perhaps it is the age catching up with me, Amélie," he said vaguely. "Time makes all these memories that much more precious to me."
She reached out for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "We have all the time in the world to make more memories, Erik. You know that."
He smiled thinly, smoothing a hand over her hair. "I know," he said, before he leaned forward and kissed her softly. "I know."
When they parted ways later in the opera house, Erik let her go with a heavy heart, knowing that the past moments could very well have been the last memory he would have with her, should his plan fail tonight. He stood in the corridor, watching her disappearing figure as she walked back to the dormitories, drinking in the last sight of her.
And then he turned to leave, to seal up all the passageways into his house, wondering if they would, indeed, remain sealed forever.
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A/N: Ah, cliffies. Now I need to go think about what will happen next, see you guys soon! xx hazel