I cradled Blaise's broken brow in my lap and cried. I screamed for help and, what seemed like an eternity later, an ambulance came. I suppose the man who had hit him had gone for it. Had the telephone been invented yet? I really need to study more in history; that is, if I ever got home. But what did it matter now? Blaise might die and that was another person gone from my life. It was almost like I was poisonous, everyone I love dies; my mother, my little baby sister, now Blaise.

"Blaise you'd better not die, because if you do I'll kill you, do you hear? I'll kill you." My eyes stung with the tears as I yelled through the door. Blaise was being operated on, they're trying to save him. "Blaise you'd better live, if you die what am I going to do?" I fell to the ground and wrapped my arms around my knees, letting my tears come free. A nurse helped me up and sat me in a chair, and asked if I needed anything. I numbly shook my head before looking up quickly.

"Can you call his family? Is there one called 'Dion' who are rich enough to go to the Opera Populaire?" She looked a little puzzled but promised she would try to find out. I didn't know what to do, was Blaise going to live? What was I going to do if he died? He was my best friend. I couldn't believe that I haven't told him anything, not about my illness, my being from the future or how I was being taught by Erik. What kind of a friend was I?

The surgeon came out after nearly three hours of surgery, it was 2:41 in the morning. "Madame BellRose? Your friend, Monsieur Dion is in critical condition, if he survives through the night, he may have a chance of living but those chances are slim. The horse kicked him in the chest and broke a few of his ribs, which caused a few cuts to the lungs and the impact of the cart caused bone fractures in his left arm, leg and skull, along with some internal bleeding. I've called a priest to give him his last rites." I covered my mouth with my hand so the doctor wouldn't hear my sobs; why did he have to die? I'd like to believe he still had a chance but if a priest was coming there must be too little hope. I wish Erik was here. The sound of footsteps coming down the hall made me look up. It was Blaise's father, towing a pale woman with dark wavy hair, just like Blaises'; this must be his mother.

"What has the boy gotten himself into this time? I've already washed my hands of him and now I'm getting people rapping at my door at all hours of the day saying he's in the hospital." Anger swelled in my chest, so I slapped him hard across the face. The woman shank back.

"What the fuck is your problem? Blaise is dying! He was hit by a horse cart and he's in the hospital! How can you act like that? He's your baby, why don't you love him?" The woman turned away and the man looked about ready to burst from anger. I let my tears spill over. "He's your baby," I said to the woman, "you held him in your arms when he was cold or scared or in pain, you fed him when he was hungry, you watched him take his first steps and say his first words. He gave you all the love he could and you push him away like he has the plague, what kind of mother are you?" She shrank at my words. I backed up and dressed them both. "Neither of you deserve the title parents and I'll be damned before I let you go in there to yell at him for getting killed."

"How dare you try to act as though you know our history, how dare you yell at my wife!" He yelled at me, I spat at his feet.

"What do you deserve? You found out he likes men and you kicked him out, thinking that he was doing it just to spite you, isn't that right? You just couldn't accept him and now he's going to die. If you had loved him anyway he would still be alive." The woman broke down.

"My baby, let me see my baby!" She ran to the door and pulled at it, "This is your fault, Jean-Pierre; if I hadn't listened to you my baby would still be alive and well!" She ran into the room where Blaise lay still and pale. She collapsed against the bed and cried.

"He disgraced us! He went off cavorting with men while we had promised him to the daughter of the Rousseau family and he refused her hand! It took a year to get back into proper society and he hardly batted an eyelash! I told him that until he got rid of such blasphemous desires he had to make his own way in the world, it was his choice not to come back!" I pulled both of them out of the room, afraid that they would wake Blaise and cause him more unnecessary pain.

"No matter what you thought of him, he is my best friend and he is the greatest guy I have ever met and if you can't accept him for what he is then I respectfully ask you to get the hell out, I'll send word if he lives." Jean-Pierre scoffed.

"Why would I care if lived or not, he is a disgrace to my name." I braced myself and set my hands on my hips.

"Not for your sake, but for hers." I nodded towards his wife. "At least she still seems to care for the child that came from the two of you." He tugged at her hand and pulled her to the door. She turned and mouthed thank you to me. I walked through the door to the hospital room Blaise was in and sat in the chair next to his bed and held his hand. Somehow, after all that yelling and noise, he was still asleep. I felt his pulse beating through his fingers, it was weak. I leaned my head on the part of the mattress next to his head and began to cry again, why was life so unfair? Blaise didn't deserve to die, my mother didn't deserve to die, and Maria, Maria really didn't deserve to die; why do all the good people die before their time? Blaise moaned and stirred a bit, opening his eyes.

"What happened? I feel like I was run over." He tried to lift his hand to rub his eyes, but grunted and let his arm relax.

"That's because you were, ya damn drunk. You ran into the middle of the street and got hit by a horse and cart, the doctor says that if you survive the night, you'll have a better chance at living through this but..." I couldn't make myself finish.

"But, I have more of a chance of dying tonight, am I right?" I nodded my head.

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"How can you?" He shot back.

"Because I'm dying too!" We looked at each other, neither knowing what to say at that point.

"What's wrong with you? I mean, you look fine, but why are you dying? Are you sick?" I wiped the tears out of my eyes.

"Yeah." I knew we might not have much time left so I decided to tell him everything, where I was from, who I was, everything I knew. "There's a lot you don't know Blaise and I'm sorry for not telling you before, but I wasn't, I don't..." I let out a burst of air, not knowing what to say. "I didn't really know how to bring it up. Or talk about it." I looked around the small room for inspiration. "First I should tell you your parents were here." Blaise groaned.

"I bet they just come here to make sure I was dead, they don't really care about me." Blaise looked even more pained than when he woke up.

"Well you dad was a total asshole, but you mom looked really upset, she even yelled at your father." Blaise looked like he was at a loss for words so I decided to trudge on. "Blaise, you know I'm not normal, it's because I'm from the future." He looked at me like I was crazy. "It's true, look." I pulled my phone out of my dress pocket.

"What the hell is that?" I pressed the button to turn it on and it lit up, making the 'turning on' noise.

"My phone, it's portable so I can take it with me wherever, it makes it so I can talk to people, even when they're not in the same room as me." He looked like he kind of understood, but at the same time didn't. "It does a ton of stuff, like call people, make calculations and take pictures."

"So, there's a tiny camera in there?" Blaise, distracted from his pain, looked at my phone with the most disbelieving eyes imaginable.

"Yeah, want to take a picture with me?" He grinned and suddenly it was like he wasn't close to death at all. It was like it was before, when we hung out together with Henri and I had hidden singing lessons with Erik. Suddenly it looked like he was going to live.

"Wouldn't you like to catch this gorgeous face and immortalize it?" He snarked at me.

"I don't think you're that hot; in a hot contest I'm sure I'd win." I tossed my hair and placed my head next to his on the pillow.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," he said. I let the matter drop as I clicked the camera on my phone.

"Smile." We took about twenty photos of us smiling and laughing into the camera, making faces and bunny ears. "Blaise, I love you."

"Love you too, Dee." Blaise had his hands folded behind his head, he looked tired. "You still need to tell me everything. If you're from the future how did you get here?"

"I have no idea, I was on a stage singing because I felt like it and then I was on stage at the Opera Populaire. Blaise where I'm from, this world is a play, it's not real to anyone; it even has a writer! I don't know how this happened; maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber worked so hard on this that it became real or something, maybe it was always here and Webber is some kind of seer of worlds." I threw my head down onto the pillows beside him, I'd confused myself.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, other than the fact that you're telling me I'm not real." He lifted his eyebrows for emphasis since his arms hurt.

"Well, you're pretty fuckin' real now, aren't you?" I said, poking him in the face; he rolled his head away from my finger. "That's not even the craziest thing."

"Tell me." Blaise had a familiar mischievous glint in his eyes.

"I've been talking to the Phantom of the Opera." Blaise formed a small 'o' with his mouth.

"No. Way."

"Yes. Way. I already knew about him and when I appeared on stage, he heard me singing and he wanted to teach me. I didn't know what was going on and ran outside; I opened the door, looked out and saw where I was and passed out, guess who caught me and brought me to Madame Giry?" Blaise looked baffled.

"The Phantom? You've been gallivanting with the Phantom? And you didn't tell me?" Figures he'd be more offended that I didn't tell him than scared.

"Yeah, his name is Erik; he's a nice guy sometimes, when he's not being a complete ass."

"He beat you!" Blaise yelled.

"Yeah, but I guess you have to know how fucked up he is to forgive him."

"How fucked up could he be to get you to forgive him?" I told Blaise Erik's story, how his parents sold him to gypsies, how they beat him, how he was paraded around as a freak for his deformity, how people laughed at him, how he was able to escape by killing his keeper, thanks to Madame Giry. I told him that no one had shown love to him all his life for something so small and insignificant as a face.

"Oh my God. Is his deformity really that bad? No one has ever seen him."

"No, it's only a small spot on his face; sure it's really creepy to see it for the first time, but it's not that bad." Blaise laughed under his breath.

"Looks like Buquet was wrong, living corpse? I think not. Well, besides the face, is he hot?"

"Yes, he is so hot, I could grind myself into climax on his sexy, sexy shoulders." Blaise laughed hard, the grunted in pain. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, I just need some water, that's all." I got the cup of water on his nightstand and helped him put it to his lips. "So, tell me the rest, what else is there?" I let a few tears come to my eyes but I blinked them away before they could fall.

"Blaise, I'm not going to live much longer." I told him the story about my father and me and how I almost died, and how I'm going to die.

"Wow, your families make mine look like saints in comparison, I'm sorry Dee." I rubbed my eyes, not caring if I smudged my mascara and eyeliner.

"Bro, that isn't even it. I know how this is going to end. That stage I was on the transported me here? I went there to see the Phantom of the Opera, one of the most well-known musical in the world. You know how you said Buquet was wrong earlier? Well, he isn't; the first story of Erik's was a book written in 1910 and he was described as a living corpse; hell, he been described in a plethora of forms, from a corpse to a normal guy raised by telepathic rats." Blaise looked revolted.

"Rats?" He spat the word, like it was something horrible.

"Yeah, it's a long and stupid story, nothing you would enjoy; I hated it, worst half hour of my life." I pushed away the talk of the crappy 1998 remake.

"You know what? I'm going to take your word for it." He lifted his hands and acted as if he was pushing it out of his mind.

"Back on the main topic; I think I'm going to go crazy if I don't say this: I know the story's end and Erik is going to try to kidnap Christine and force her to marry him when he forces the managers to put on his play Don Juan Triumphant after the christmas ball. It won't succeed and Erik will let her go with Raoul, they'll have a kid or two, I don't know that part, and Erik will live the rest of his life in misery." I threw my head in my hands. "I don't know what to do. Erik's an ass, but he doesn't deserve this."

"That's some heavy shit, right there. You're right, this is hard, I don't know how you could have kept this to yourself until now, why are you telling me?"

"Because I trust you more than anyone else; besides, you're not really mentioned in the movie." He rolled his eyes and I stuck my tongue out.

"So, is the Phantom good to you?"

"You're talking like he's my new boyfriend and you're my overprotective father trying to make sure your daughter is going on the right path. But yes, he's very nice to me most of the time and it helps that he's pretty easy on the eyes." Blaise groaned.

"When I'm out of here, you're taking me to see his sexy shoulders, no matter what."

"Yeah, I promise." I was happy that Blaise could be so positive about this.

"But on the off-chance I do die," I tried, but failed, to meet his eyes, "I want you to promise me that you won't grieve for me for a long time, I don't want my death to get you kicked out of the opera house, you're too good for that." I let the tears fall out of my eyes then.

"Blaise, I've lost so many people, how can I lose you too?" I could tell he wanted to ask me who, but he also didn't want to hurt me more. "There's something else that I haven't told you, something that Meg, Christine, Erik and Madame Giry already know. Blaise, I'm dying." I told him the entire story I had told Erik before.

"Dee, that's horrible." We held hands, trying to ease each others pain.

"It's not as bad as you think, I'm not afraid to die anymore and that's a gift to someone like me." I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled at him. "If you die, you'll surely be brought back in a better time to be gay, maybe there'll be some overlap and we can be together again." I held his hand to my cheek and kissed it. "Just remember to sat away from my men." Blaise laughed, clutching his stomach.

"I'll make no promises." We laughed until Blaise's head fell back on his pillow. "Damn, I'm tired." I rested my head next to his.

"So am I. You still drunk?"

"Not really. Hey, Dee?" I rolled my head to look him in the eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Will you tell that ass Henri I love him for me? I'm not gonna be out of here in time to see him off." I felt my heart squeeze.

"Sure I will, then he'll come down here and give you a kiss and be your prince charming." Blaise scoffed.

"He damn well better, I'm wasting all this pretty on a hospital." I giggled.

"I love you Bee."

"Love you too, Dee." The lack of sleep helped us pass out quick.

My head shot up and I opened my eyes and turned to the door, just in time to see a blond man in a long black coat and top hat leave. He must be the priest; I turned to wake Blaise up so the priest could give him his last rites but Blaise didn't respond to me shaking his shoulder.

"Blaise? Blaise?" I rested my head atop his breast and waited for his heart beat. It never came. "Blaise." I pressed my head face down on his chest and cried. Blaise, my Blaise, was dead. "Doctor! Nurse! Come quick!" The nurse came running into the room and stopped abruptly at the sight of my tear-stained face.

"Is he gone?" I nodded. She came over and pulled the sheet up to cover his face.

"No! Please. I just want to see his face for a little while." She righted the sheet and stepped back, taking in my grief.

"Was he your husband?" I laughed a bit.

"Do you hear that Blaise? She thinks we're married." I squeezed his hand, which I had been holding since we fell asleep. "If only I were so lucky. No, he was my best friend; can you call the Madame and Monsieur from before and tell them that their son is dead? Also, can you go to the Opera Populaire and get a Henri Bernarde and tell him Blaise has had an accident?" She nodded and walked out of the room. I spent the time we were alone to talk to Blaise, I told him about my friends from home, how they would have loved him and how much I was going to miss him. I heard running and shut up as the door burst open. Blaise's parents stood in the doorway.

"My baby." His mother whispered as she collapsed on the other side of the bed and took his hand, tears leaked out of her eyes. Blaise's father stood stoically at the foot of the bed, not saying a word. "My baby, my baby." She kissed his face over and over, leaving tears streaking down Blaise's cheeks.

"Are you happy now, Mr. Dion?" His eyes flashed and burned into the side of my head.

"I beg your pardon?" He spat.

"I said, 'are you happy now?'. You got what you wanted, Blaise completely out of your life. I'm sorry you didn't know him how I knew him." Blaise's father was red in the face.

"He did this to himself." He shot at me.

"You kicked him out. He found a job and friends that loved him, it made him a better person so you went to the opera to continually show what he had lost, his family, the people who are supposed to love him no matter what. You saw that you were losing because he still loved you, both of you." An insult directed at him caught in my throat when I looked in his eyes; suddenly I had to bite back tears. "You're sorry, aren't you?"

"What?!"

"You're sorry! You wanted him to grow a backbone, realize what he was doing was 'wrong' and come home! You loved him so much but you couldn't accept that he was gay so you kicked him out and every time you went to the opera, you hoped that seeing you would make him want to come home! You both are so stubborn and look where it got you! Blaise is dead and both of you are in pain. I hope you know that for the rest of your lives there will be a piece of your heart missing where it was viciously torn out by your own stubbornness today." I noticed his hands were clenched into tight fists and when I looked back up to his face Jean-Pierre had his head bowed as a tear slipped down his cheek.

"His funeral will be in three days. I don't want your money for it, but feel free to come and bring anyone else that loved Blaise too." Jean-Pierre pulled his wife up and helped her walk out of the room. I turned back to Blaise and ran the hand that wasn't already holding his down his cheek. It was cold. I rested my head on the side of the bed and sobbed and sobbed. I wish he was still with me. "Wishing you were somehow here again." I heard the door open again and whoever it was come to a full stop.

"Danielle?" I turned to see Henri, clothes haphazardly thrown on. "Is Blaise...?"

"He's gone." Henri sat next to me and gave me a one-armed hug since my hand was still holding Blaise's. Tears welled in Henri's eyes.

"I'm going to miss him so much." Henri rubbed his eyes, trying to stop the tears from coming.

"Me too." I looked at Henri, he looked at me. "He loved you, you know. Loved you as more than a friend." Henri turned to look at Blaise's body. Slowly he leaned over and kissed his pale lips, causing his tears to settle into the subtle groove between Blaise's lips.

"I loved Blaise as a friend. I loved him a lot. If I were like him, I know I would have loved him back." I smiled.

"I'm sure you would have." I let out a laugh that turned into a sob. "He would be freaking out right now."

"Yeah, in his adorable way of freaking out." We shared a hearty laugh. "I'm going to miss the way his cheeks would turn red."

"Me too." As the sun began to rise I wiped my tears away. "But he wouldn't want us to be sad, he'd want us to smile at the promise of a new day." I finally let go of Blaise's hand and placed them, one atop the other, on his stomach.

I got up and, with Henri's help, opened the window on the other side of the room, watching the brilliant pinks and oranges and yellows and blues brought by the rising sun. The cool morning air swirled in the room and brushed my cheek, gentle as a kiss. Looking up at Henri I knew he felt it too. I blew a kiss at the rising sun, saying goodbye to Blaise's soul as it swelled around us once more and flew out the window.

Yes, Blaise is dead, just remember that everything happens for a reason. I'm dedicating this to everyone that you love that has died. Think of them after you read this and please remember them. Everyone belongs to themselves and all that, review.