Chapter 2

"Oh no you don't," she thought. There was no way she was going to get tarred with the same brush as everyone else.

"Stop it…stop it…stop it!" she shouted at him, stamping her foot like a petulant child.

"I don't wish you to cover your face; it is not the horror you seem to think or have been led to believe. Do not assume I will think as all the rest have thought. No one tells me what to think or what nightmares to have. Perhaps I shall dream about it instead, just to spite you!" she ranted, hardly pausing for breath. His head whipped back from the ferocity of her words as if she had slapped him. He couldn't quite believe this was the same little Meg Giry, ballet rat, ever curious, always where she shouldn't be and his Christine's shadow; in fact everyone's shadow. She had just decided to step into the light with a loud crash and he was still reeling from it. She was like a spitting cat, claws out, her hackles up, long hair weaving hypnotically behind her like a tail. She was considering his reaction through narrowed eyes and he was at a loss as to what to say in response to her tirade. His eyes calmed to their more usual aquamarine.

"Wh…what is it for then? The cloth…if not… if not to cover my face?" he ventured cautiously, never having remembered tripping over his words before now. He was still reeling from her threat to dream about his face and he stared at her wonderingly.

That did it. Meg's heart turned over at the look of utter confusion and bewilderment on his face and smiled back at him hoping to soften her previous attack.

"It's for your eyes you silly man. They look swollen from…well…anyway I know what that feels like. They are burning and stinging and your skin feels like it's going to rip apart doesn't it?" she suggested softly. He lowered his eyelids, undone by her insight, causing yet more moisture to chase down his cheeks like raindrops on a window pane. She held out the cloth to him and when he didn't reach for it she pressed it gently across the bridge of his nose from one temple to the other. She felt him lean his forehead into her hand, his shoulders slumping forward desperate for the comfort she offered or maybe he had just given in. Either way, she supposed it was progress.

They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, until Meg felt the cloth warm beneath her fingers. She soaked it in the cold water and wrung it out turning to hold it to his face again only to find he now lay flat on the bed; finally having given in to exhaustion. She leaned over his broad chest to press the cold compress over his eyes hoping to further reduce the swelling in his eyelids and give him some comfort in sleep. As she made to leave the bedside a hand reached out and gripped her left wrist. It was firm yet gentle and surprisingly soft she supposed; for a man. Meg nervously glanced from her wrist to her captor who could surely feel the racing pulse beneath his fingers.

"Oh please let him not notice, what is wrong with me? It's only a hand" she thought frantically.

"Meg?" he croaked, "I am sorry if I frightened you. I know you were only trying to help. You know you are your mother's daughter. Th…thank you."

Had he just apologised? At least he hadn't shouted at her again. Her mother's daughter? Hah! He didn't know much about the fairer sex if he thought that was supposed to be a compliment.

"You did not really frighten me. I know people call you the Phantom and that it has suited you to have everyone terrified but you are just a man, not a ghost and I am not afraid of you. I saw you up in the flies sometimes in your black cape and mask and…oh, your mask; I found it out there and I had completely forgotten!"

She reached into her blouse with her free hand and as discreetly as she could; drew out the mask and handed it to him. He took it from her and stared at it as if he had never seen it before. The white moulded leather was warm from her skin.

"Thank you. You really don't mind my face?" he asked in wonder.

Meg considered how she should reply to this loaded enquiry and decided the truth was probably best.

"No Monsieur le Fantome, I really don't, after all everyone's got something they're not happy with" she admitted, "but maybe you shouldn't wear the mask so much. The skin looks raw and bruised, angry and sore. When I dance for hours I get sores like that on my skin and they always heal so much better without bandages or bindings. You need to let your skin breath. You need sunlight on your face. "

He raised his left eyebrow in query and conceded, "Perhaps. The sun does not shine down here…and it's Erik."

"What is Erik?"

"My name. You cannot keep calling me Monsieur le Fantome, fitting though it was within the confines of the Opera House and for the purpose it served. The Phantom burned with Don Juan Triumphant. I am fortunate to make your acquaintance face to face at last, ma petite ballerine," he said as he moved his grip from her wrist to take her tiny hand in his large one, bowing low and dropping a kiss across her knuckles. "Goodness he's formal," she thought, considering the tiny glimpse he had just afforded her of his alter ego. Her mother had always taught to appreciate nice manners and his were impeccable. Meg swallowed and returned the pressure, relieved when finally he let her hand drop. Ma petite ballerine? She rubbed her now clammy hand down her thigh to try and calm her rapidly fraying nerves and nodded in agreement.

"I am glad to meet you too….Erik," she finished nervously.

She thought he almost smiled then before his head rolled to the side and she heard the change in his breathing that signalled sleep had finally claimed him.

She tiptoed across to the trunk full of linens and selected a large wool blanket which she draped and tucked around his sleeping form. She rummaged through the trunk and found several more thick blankets, a feather pillow and oh the joy of it - an eiderdown! She could use it as a mattress and would sleep on a bed of air tonight. This definitely beat the hard cots of the ballet dormitories hands down. Erik may have lived a life apart under the earth but he certainly made sure he was comfortable. She liked that about him. There was no point in being completely miserable. She thought back to the beautiful swan bed again and vowed to ask him about it when he woke. Had he built it himself? She couldn't recall it ever having been a part of any productions she had seen so she didn't think it came from "upstairs". She would have a bed just like that some day when she was a famous Prima Ballerina and the world was at her feet. She might even have the black lace canopy that sparkled in the light which had hung above it. What kind of man has a swan for a bed anyway? The kind of man that lives under an opera house and a taste for drama, obviously. Then she remembered the fairytale her mother had told her when she was much younger, about the ugly duckling that grew into a swan. He would look at his reflection every day and cry to his mother that he would never change. She told him that she loved him just the same and assured him that one day he would see his reflection and he would be a swan just like his brothers and sisters. Maybe Erik thought he was the ugly duckling because of his face and someday he might wake up and magically be the swan? Was that what all the mirrors were for? She had to admit she was surprised to see so many in the home of someone who couldn't stand the sight of himself. Was he hoping someday the reflection that stared back at him would somehow change, present a different reality? She shook out the eiderdown on the ground, spread the blankets across her makeshift bed, fluffed her pillow a few times and set the candelabra down beside it. Meg flopped down to pull off her knee high boots; sitting down for the first time, she realised, since Don Juan had walked on stage. "Was that only a few hours ago? "She marvelled to herself. It seemed like an age ago; so much had happened since. She crawled underneath the heavy blankets, grateful for their warmth and laid her head on the soft pillow. She felt the tension slowly ease from her tired limbs and shoulders and began to feel like she might actually fall asleep. She tried to concentrate on the sound of even breathing coming from across the room and turned to blow out the candles. She paused and feasted her eyes for a moment on the sleeping form of her new friend; the left side of his face turned towards her. His eyes weren't as swollen now and he looked calm in sleep, almost benign if that was possible. The candlelight sculpted his features in sharp relief so she could see clearly the small cleft in his chin, the strong jaw and cheekbone of his good side and that mouth. She decided that the arrangement of all his features was having an altogether unsettling affect on her and she was almost glad the two sides of his face didn't match because then he would be devastating. She blew out the candles with far more force than necessary as if to extinguish her dangerous thoughts. He really did look like a fallen angel. Erik, her broken hearted friend who needed the light. With that thought she finally fell asleep.

The harrowing sound of a grown man weeping found the farthest reaches of Meg's unconsciousness and pulled her awake with a groan. "This is worse than babysitting," she thought absently, sitting up and reaching around in the dark for the candelabra. Damn! She had totally forgotten to leave one candle burning and she had no way of relighting them. "You idiot Meg," she mentally chastised herself. She was proving to be completely useless in a crisis. The weeping across the room had developed into nonsense of half sentences accompanied by the sound of what she could only assume was Erik thrashing about in his bed. She winced at the thought, sorry that he had not been able to sleep through without a disturbing rerun of the previous night's events. Christine's name was featuring heavily in addition to the "fool" she assumed was the Viscomte de Chagny. He was shouting now and sounded like he'd gotten himself knotted up in the blankets. He seemed to be fighting off an invisible enemy.

"Christine, Christine…" he sobbed.

"Why did you betray your Angel of Music? Why? WHY? WHY?" he wailed.

The sound hurt Meg's ears and if she was honest she was just a bit afraid of the sound carrying through the tunnels. If they were found Erik would hang. She threw her blanket back and scrambled to her stockinged feet, feeling in front of her for obstacles. She moved hesitantly forward in the direction she knew the bed to be, holding her arms out to feel for its edge. Erik continued to toss and turn, seeming to get more and more agitated the closer she got. She winced as her shin connected with the corner of the bed and she bent down to rub it. Meg sent up a silent prayer for his sanity and her safety as she reached out a hand to him in the blackness. She could feel the air crackling in the velvet dark and then a split second sense of foreboding registered before she was knocked to the ground, a pair of strong hands gripping either side of her tiny throat. She shook her head from left to right to try and break free of his hold but he held fast. She was vaguely aware of pressure on the centre of her windpipe and the feel of his thighs either side of her waist which meant she wasn't going anywhere. He was ranting about Christine again, about betrayal and angels. Frantically she tried to prise his fingers from her neck but he was oblivious to her struggles. She looked up where she supposed his face to be; feeling faint now from lack of oxygen. She knew she would black out soon if he didn't stop.

"Why did you do it, no one had to see," he wailed, tears streaming down his cheeks, raining on her. "Eh...Ehhr…Ehh…Ehhrriik!" she coughed, willing him to hear her voice breaking through his terror. She was scared he wouldn't stop before she lost consciousness and she had to make him realise before it was too late.

"Eh…EHHRRRIK STOP! It's Meg! MEG!" she almost spat out with her last breath. She felt the muscles above his knees tense at her sides, his fingers stilling at her throat. If she could have drawn breath she would have held it, waiting for the signs of recognition. If she had only left the damn candle burning he would have seen her. She wouldn't be lying flat on her back between the vice like thighs of well over six foot of angry, grief stricken man; her neck a whisper away from being crushed like a dry leaf. It felt like an eternity before she finally sensed his mood shift in her favour. The tremors beginning to course through him reverberated in her as he ripped his hands from her neck and pushed himself up from his knees.

"Oh God…what have I done?" she heard him force out. Meg's hands flew to her throat rubbing where his fingers had gripped her, gasping in great lungfuls of air until she thought her ribcage would shatter. Pushing herself up off the floor, she bent over alternately coughing and sucking more air into her lungs. "Meg, I'm sorry…so sorry…please forgive me…Meg?" Erik wept in anguish. He felt her small hand touch his arm in the darkness. He pulled her by the shoulders against his chest, not waiting for her to change her mind, folding her tiny frame in his arms and burying his face in her hair.

"Ma petite ballerine, I didn't mean to…I thought you were…oh God forgive me," he whispered, desperate for her to believe him.

It all became too much for Meg then, as she shook violently against him, sobbing into his shirt.

"I know you didn't, it was dark, you were having a nightmare…I just wanted to wake you from it. I'm alright, I'll be alright. But Erik," she said lifting her head up to face him in the blackness, "you cannot ever do that again. Do you have any concept of how scary you allow yourself to get? She's gone. You can't let it break you. I won't let it break you. You have to figure out where you go now…and we don't have forever. Once the authorities leave this place it will be crawling with people looking for a piece of the Phantom."

"Also I blew out the last candle in case you hadn't noticed. I have nothing to relight them and I need to go back up and find Maman and let her know we are safe. She will be worried…and I don't know about you but I need food." She stopped to take another few cleansing breaths and waited for his reply, hoping she hadn't been a bit too hard too soon with the "she's gone" remark. She had to remember he thought himself in love with Christine and he couldn't just turn that off like a tap. Plus he wasn't exactly your normal rational thinking man at the moment, if he had ever been. She suspected everything he did was in extremes. All or nothing.

Erik stood back and held her apart from him.

"I need to leave. There is a place I can go, I planned for this. I knew this day would eventually come and I knew I had to be ready for it. There's a strongbox in the wall with enough money to get where I need to go. My lawyers have all my other financial affairs in order and will know how to contact me if you need to."

"Wait!" Meg exclaimed, not quite believing it, "you have financial affairs? Lawyers? And what do you mean by my contacting you if I need to? If I need to contact you I'll just shout."

"Of course I have financial affairs, what do you think I did with the 20,000 Francs I demanded every month? Burn it? I have lawyers to manage it for me and everything I ever composed. I didn't spend every minute hidden down here you know. There are ways of getting business done when necessary without drawing attention to one. And if you or your mother needs to contact me you will have to contact my lawyers as I will be gone from here."

"You may be planning on leaving, but I'm not planning on staying. You cannot possibly think you can get away from Paris alone? Everyone will be watching for you. How did you plan on getting out unnoticed?"

"Erik?" she demanded, just dying to hear what the genius had to say.

Erik heaved a sigh and landed heavily back on the bed cradling his aching head in his hands. Did she ever stop her incessant nagging? How did Antoinette ever cope with her? This was such a damned mess. What irritated him more than anything was that she was in fact right, though he wouldn't tell her. She would be completely unbearable if she thought she had outwitted him, not that she had and his head already felt like there was a herd of elephants running around inside it. He hadn't actually thought about that part in too much detail if he was totally honest and he hadn't envisioned having to leave in quite these circumstances or quite so soon. He always thought he would have weeks or meticulous planning for this part so that everything was perfect. He absolutely hated being unprepared.

"Riiight…and I thought you were a genius. So how do we smuggle you out of Paris? You are not the easiest person to hide. People will turn to look at you. And before you get in a sulk, it's because of your build and presence not your face that will get you noticed first. If it was me I'd fit under your cape but that's not going to work with you is it? Your face needs to be hidden but you can't wear that mask. It's too obvious and I'm not dressing up as a boy and binding my chest so don't even think it. We'll just have to figure out who else I can be without it drawing attention to us without a chaperone," she stated firmly. She wasn't about to let him bully her into staying behind now that she'd made her mind up. Left to wonder what became of him or if he even made it out of Paris alive.

Erik had never had a conversation like this before, well not with another person anyway. And taking place as it was, in the dark, it felt…strangely intimate. And it was little Meg…of course she couldn't come.

"Meg, you cannot leave here. Your mother would never allow it for one. What about your dancing? Do you not wish to be a Prima Ballerina someday? I got myself into this mess and I shall get myself out of it. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. I am responsible for so much already. You will remain here, where you belong" he decreed with a finality that defied a response.

"NO. You will NOT do this alone and something will only happen to me if you let it which I'm willing to wager that you won't, if you can help it. I am going back up to find Maman, matches and food. I will pack the essentials and be back down here before you know it. In the meantime I expect you to have figured out how we get out. Is there anything you forgot, that you need while I'm gone?" Meg enquired sweetly.

Erik gave up. If there was light she would have seen him throwing his eyes and hands upwards in submission and exasperation in equal measure. Meg would come whether he wanted her to or not. The little he knew of her told him that much and lest he forget; she was Madame Giry's daughter which should have told him all he needed to know about stubbornness in women.

"My violin. It's in a hard case beside the organ. If I cannot play I will go mad." Well madder, the thought wryly.

If there was light he would have seen the triumphant smile that spread from Meg's mouth upwards, dimpling her cheeks and creasing the corners of her eyes.

"Of course. I'll find it. Now use your impressive intellect and tell me how to get back to the mirror you smashed," she asked brightly.

He turned her by the shoulders and walked her forward to the door, grinding his teeth in irritation.

"Keep your hand on the wall to the left hand side of the tunnel and follow it all the way. It leads directly back to the mirror. You cannot get lost. You know your way from there. Be careful before you lift the curtain again."

"I will. I'll be as quick as I can. Promise me you'll still be here?" she said in a small voice, terrified she would come back and he would be gone.

Erik swallowed and nodded in the dark, "I promise." He squeezed her shoulders gently and gave her a little push out the door, waiting until he could hear her footsteps no longer. He closed the door and felt his way back to the bed and slumped down resting his elbows on his knees. He had a friend, a real friend. She was not afraid of him. She had somehow broken through his defences. How in the Devil did she do that? She wanted to help him and he had made a promise to someone for the first time in his life. He just knew he would live to regret this but conceded that he was indeed in no position to argue. He sighed resignedly and resolved to try and get some sleep while he still could, falling onto his back and closing his eyes and thought "Yes, I'll still be here, for I have nowhere else to go and it appears you are all I have" a sad smile curving his lips.