Disclaimer: I own nothing much. Certainly not Phantom.
Chapter 15
For a jittery second, Leah looked at the figure of her dark Angel, deducing whether or not he was an illusion.
A smile worked its was across the slightly misshapen lips, Leah could tell from where she stood they were parched.
She could hesitate no longer.
A squeal burst from Leah's lips as she rushed forward, hitting Erik's chest with a resounding thump.
Erik had risen slowly from his chair and smiled, shushing her and murmuring sweet nothings to her as he rested his chin of her hair.
"Hush, Mon Ange, I am here." It was only Erik's staying arms that prevented Leah from leaping into his arms.
She buried her face in his shirtfront and breathed slowly, swallowing, trying to prevent the tears that pricked behind her eyes. He smelt no longer of musty roses, but of dust and dirt, and she couldn't have cared less.
"I though you were-" Leah's words where lost in a hiccough, and she squeezed him tighter.
"Laissez-les venir, let them come," Erik said softly to her, and Leah did, she held tight to him and sobbed, letting everything from the past few day flow out of her like water.
For quite a few moments they stood like this, Leah's sobs gently fading, Erik whispering, "Je suis retour, votre ange est revenu à vous, votre ange vous aime, mon cher... Je n'ai jamais voulu vous laisser. Je suis ici, silence maintenant..."
Leah finally parted from him, and looked up into the eyes that she believed she would never see again, but they were changed…
"Je t'aime," Erik smiled down at her and Leah looked up at him with her red and puffy eyes. This time she understood completely.
"Je t'aime aussi," She said, sniffing.
It was now that she stepped back from Erik's tight embrace ad really looked at him. He had a gash on his forehead, and was listing to the right slightly.
"My God, Angel, what has happened to you?" Leah gushed, wiping at her eyes and heading for the jug of water on one of the many side tables. Her head was spinning, her brain just refused to believe that he was back, with her.
"I did have a nasty run-in with some falling masonry, but apart from that, the last few days have been marvelous," Erik said dryly.
Leah blushed, and spilt more water down her dress front as she tried to pour the water with shaking hands, as well as the fact that she really didn't want to take her eyes off of Erik for more than a few seconds at a time. It was as if he might disappear at any second…
"I'm sorry, it's just… I though you were dead!" Leah handed him the glass, and he took it slowly. "Here, you look as if you need it."
Leah noticed that he too was quivering, and insisted that he sat down. He did so grudgingly, and took out a smudged handkerchief to sponge at the wet patches on the chest of her dirty dress.
Leah closed her eyes for a moment, feeling her chest rise and fall with her breathing under his soothing hand. It was odd that he was the one calming her, when he was the one who had been missing for three days.
"I leave you for only a short time, and look what has become of you," Erik said, putting his handkerchief down and taking her hand that shook worse than his.
Leah's eyes opened and she let them wander to a mirror. It looked as if she had aged a two years in days. Her eyes were dark and her skin and hair was dull, and all over she was encrusted with dust and grime.
"You have not even changed your dress!" Erik exclaimed, taking up the ripped skirt.
"I… I didn't know where the other clothes were… But what about you!" Leah bent her head slightly to the gash on his head, and lifted a finger to it. The wound was dry but dirty, and it had not inflamed with infection; Erik had been lucky. Leah didn't know if the medicine in Erik's time had yet advanced past bleeding and tea.
She picked up his handkerchief and dampened it in the water. "The mask, it will need to come off," She said. Without waiting for an answer, she removed the white tough leather and put it aside.
Erik turned slightly from her, he was still sensitive about his 'deformation', but Leah did not flicker and eyelid. Gently but firmly she turned his head back to her, and kissed his red and welted skin.
"I've missed you so," She purred sensually. Leah couldn't have told anyone where the sudden flood of feelings where coming from, but she knew they were there.
Erik shifted his position, and murmured back to her. She cleaned his wound, it was deep and would probably scar, but it would not need stitches. The left side of his face was covered in tiny scratches that Leah sponged, but that still didn't explain the leaning to the right.
"My leg," Erik explained, and Leah crouched to examine his left ankle. It was cut, too, and slightly swollen.
"You've been walking on it, so most likely a sprain. I'll strap it tight."
Erik directed her to a bandage he kept in the Lair, and Leah strapped his ankle, making all the lingering caresses and delicate touches she could.
"Thank you, Mon Ange," Erik said appreciatively.
"Now you must sleep." Leah helped him up and led him to the swan bed, where he removed his coat and Leah untied his neat cravat.
She brushed brick-dust from his body as he unbuckled his boots and lay down. His eyes were closed before Leah could look into them properly, and he sighed heavily.
Leah would have to make her own curiosity and yearning wait for the morning, her Phantom was tired, and battered. He was back with her, and she had maneuvered throughout an hour with him back in the Lair with calm level-headedness. She was proud of herself.
Erik's chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, and Leah whispered, "Know I will always love you."
He had forgotten the mask entirely; it lay discarded on the rocky floor, his 'terrifying' deformation out in the open air.
The reddened skin had cooled, and now it was almost a normal color, his nose melting into his cheek was hardly horrible, the constant chafing of the mask had made it worse that it really was for so many years.
She fought the temptation to caress his welted cheek again, and left him to sleep.
Leah stretched and cracked her back, almost bursting out with a wild laugh. Again the strange feelings, both relief and delight washed over her as she moved to find a new dress.
Leah sorted through boxes and glass-fronted cabinets, and came across what appeared to be a wardrobe in a dusty corner of the Lair. It had a heavy keyhole, which Leah found slightly odd, but it wasn't locked. She sighed thankfully; a treasure hunt in the Lair for a key wasn't what she fancied at the present time.
The old hinges creaked as she levered open the stubborn door, protesting at what appeared to be their first opening in many years. What she discovered, though, proved evidence to the fact that it had, in fact, been opened recently and often.
As well as numerous black and faded dinner jackets, both tailored and unfussy, and also complete suits, hung rows and rows of Punjab Lassos. Leah's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp, and she let go of the door in revulsion. The thick, tough catgut ropes and cords varied from the old and worn to those that looked as if they had been made yesterday.
Leah swallowed he lump that had formed in her throat, and tried to reason with her screaming brain. She knew that her Angel used the infamous Lasso, she had always known this; she had always known him to be the murderer that he was.
As her friends joked, that was part of the reason she was drawn to Erik, he was ruthless and 'evil', a little like her. But watching the deadly havoc and devastation of the Punjab on the silver screen and on stage was very different to looking at one in real life, as she had just found.
Knowing the lethal reality of Erik's weapon of choice, and then stumbling upon his secret store of them in his Lair was shocking. Leah supposed that living with him and knowing him as a human being, loving and reasonable in all respects was deceiving; she had forgotten that he was the silent assassin; The Phantom.
But in that moment, it seemed that Leah accepted all that Erik was and had been. Her Erik may have been a murderer to many people, but he was her Angel. He loved her, and she returned his affection with all her abilities.
Leah gulped again, and shut the door gradually and slowly, as if the pieces of rough cord would come alive and try to throttle her on their own.
After her faith and resolve had been tested so harshly, Leah abandoned her quest for clean clothes, and decided to stick it out for one more night in her old dress.
She collapsed (as gently as she could) on the Swan bed next to Erik, but she was sure that not even a crescendo from his own organ would wake the peacefully slumbering Phantom this night.