Aaaand we're back! We got home late last night, I finished the new chapter, found that FanFiction wasn't working that night, went to Band Camp today until 5, had dinner then did the dishes and NOW I shall UPDATE! YAY! -applause-
DISCLAIMER: I have never owned Phantom of the Opera nor will I start to.
Erik stared at her for what seemed an eternity, and then it was all over when the child leapt forward into his unready arms sobbing. "Erik, Erik, why did you leave me? Was it something I did?" she clung to him tight and Erik felt his arms encircle her equally tight. She hiccupped as she apologized. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry for anything I did to make you mad, didn't I? I'm so sorry!" He felt tears burning the corners of his eyes but he ignored that and held his child in an unyielding hug. "How did you know…?" he asked softly, letting his fake voice slide away like rain in the gutters. "How could you tell it was me…?" Lark couldn't answer as she was laughing, crying, and hiccupping all at the same time. He held her away from him to inspect her but she gave a cry and clung to him again. "I-I spent the last few days when I was with you studying you." Lark laughed a little to herself. Erik felt his eyebrows rise in bemusement. "Everything you did," she continued, "the way you walked, the way your voice sounded…all so that if I closed my eyes and you faked something, I could tell it was always just you." Her hands reached out to touch his face, but he felt nothing as her fingers glided over the false mask. Lark recoiled with, what Erik thought as first was disgusted shock for maybe she thought it wasn't him after all, but it was merely with surprise that she did so. "So that's how…how you got to see me!" she said accusingly, smiling wider than Richard's smile could ever go. It changed her face immensely.
Erik returned her smile even if she could not see it and hugged her tight once more. She then poked his cheek and, giggling felt it concernedly. "Is it plastered to your face or something…?" she asked curiously. He felt a small cackle release itself from his vocal cords. "No," he said, grinning. "No, it can come off." His grin faded. "But I better not-.." Lark was already working at the corner of the mask, getting her fingers underneath it so that she could touch his face, his real face. Erik started, but relaxed; barely. Sending cautious glances towards the mostly hidden streets and the high, curtained windows of the De Chagny's mansion Erik knew it would be a strange sight to any passersby if they saw a child ripping off a man's face. "Maybe you shouldn't…" he started to say but Lark had already peeled it completely off with a tug. A cool breeze played across his bare face sending comfort to his hot skin. "There." The child said with a satisfactory air, the mask lolling from her hand onto her lap. A smile spread across Lark's face as she lifted up her fingers to his cheek. By a lifetime long born instinct, Erik flinched away. "Sorry," she murmured with a guilty grin. "Christine told me that most blind people feel their friends or new persons with their fingers to know what they look like. I have never tried it."
Erik nodded slowly then spoke as he remembered she couldn't see him nod. "I see." He shifted uncomfortably as she once again reached for his face. Lark paused and gently brushed her fingertips over his face, barely touching the delicate flesh. "I apologize," she said humbly, "I'm making you uncomfortable, but can you let me…?" Erik set his jaw, keeping very still as she traced around his eyes. "It is…necessary," he said, "So I shall not move." A relieved sigh escaped her lips and as quickly and carefully as she could, she traced Erik's whole distorted face memorizing every inch of it in her mind. "Alright, I'm finished, Erik." She said, drawing away. It was Erik's turn to sigh with relief. Close contact, especially around his face, always put him on edge. Lark suddenly beamed and stared with her glassy eyes in her guardian's direction. "You do not know how…how happy I am to see…er…hear you!" She twisted her hands together unconsciously while gazing off into the distance. "I had thought…that I would never ever hear you again even when I knew that I wouldn't be able to see you no matter..." she broke off.
"It was the same…for me as well, Lark." Erik said difficultly, shifting in his seat. "I suppose that I was more dead than alive as mademoiselle Rachel said once." Here the small child had started to laugh, more than she had ever. Erik found himself smiling and they chatted away through the day, unaware of the dark figure up in the top window of the De Chagny household.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Richard paced his study with his sibling watching him go back and forth along the rug. "You're going to create a hole into the ground, Rich," his sister, Rachel murmured. "And this is a rather expensive carpet." He spun around to send her a poisonous glare. "How can you take this so calmly?" he snapped irritably. "Erik's gone, Rachel! No note, no anything!" His sister observed him calmly over a book in her hand as he rambled on. "That man's crazy with grief, who knows where he went or what he's doing! He could have gone out and killed himself for all we know!" Rachel looked up sharply. "Don't." she said, eyes flashing. "Erik wouldn't be so foolish." Richard scowled at her and continued pacing. "Oh yes? Then if he is not foolish, why did he spend months doing absolutely nothing? He didn't even eat!" He stopped and looked out the study window. "My God, the man didn't sleep even! Just stared ahead with his eyes, his dead eyes!" A snap was heard throughout the room. Rachel had slammed her book closed.
"Can you blame him, Rich?" she demanded harshly, "Those…those people stole the only thing that kept his soul alive! Kept ourselves up and cheerful!" The man just stared at her, his face becoming red with frustration. "Rachel…" he started, but she had already stood up and marched out the door, slamming it shut. "Do not talk to me, Richard!" she screeched through the door and the stunned man heard her light footsteps stomp up the stairs, her chamber doorway swinging closed with such a force he felt the house tremble slightly. "Women!" Richard said furiously, making his own way out of the room pausing just in the doorframe. "Dramatic, silly, foolish women!" He turned and slammed the door when something heavy fell out of one of the shelves. Richard paused, it sounded rather heavier than most of the volumes he kept. Creaking the door open once again, he saw that a large book of accounts had fallen from the shelf and there on the floor half out of its cover…Richard gripped the door handle hard. "No…no, it couldn't be…" he rushed into the room and snatched the sheet up, feeling almost ill. There it was, right in his very grasp.
Rebecca's will.
Working on the next one now! Review if you like! Erik's getting tired of talking to me.
Erik: Too right, authoress.
Ouch...