Disclaimer: Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. All Phantom related works, as well as lyrics quoted in the story, belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 2 - Forced alliance

Carlotta was singing her part with her heart in her throat. Never before had she been so nervous about a performance but never before had she been in a situation like this.

She had known there was something strange going on in Palais Garnier since she had first arrived there. There was a shadow moving across the House. No one seemed to give it notice and she began to wonder whether she might be seeing things until one day she managed to snap a picture of the man. It didn't really show much: just a blurry form vanishing in a dark corner, but it was all the proof she needed.

"Excuse moi Monsieur," she approached a guard, "I believe there may be someone unauthorized running around the Opera House."

The man rose a brow. He was a well built middle eastern looking gal everyone at the Opera called Daroga.

"Mademoiselle Giudicelli," he said in a patronizing tone, "we have plenty of unauthorized people running around our Opera on a daily basis. I already dragged three singing girls out of box five today."

"I'm being serious," she insisted and showed Daroga the photo.

"Oh," the guard shrugged his shoulders, "that probably was just Erik."

"You know this guy?"

"Don't you know him?"

Carlotta shook her head, clueless.

"You have really never heard about the Phantom of the Opera?"

Wasn't that a musical? She vaguely recalled her aunt Luisa telling her about seeing that in London a few years ago. It was about a disfigured musician that fell for an opera singer or something like that.

"Everyone at Palais Garnier knows the story," the man continued. "In fact, that's why they nicknamed me, the Commander in Chief Guard, Daroga." He patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. "Don't be too afraid of Erik, cherie. He still occasionally pulls a little prank, but he can't harm anyone. After all, he now really is just a ghost."

"A ghost?"

"I recommend that you make yourself acquainted with the story. Things will make more sense then."

Yeah, she supposed she'd google it when she got home.

She didn't google it. At least not that evening. After a full day of rehearsals and fittings for the fast approaching gala, she was so exhausted that when she came back home she just took a quick shower and tumbled into bed. The next morning she'd already forgotten about the entire thing and just focused on her daily routines, until the ghost reminded her of his presence once more.

She was staying in late, practicing with some help from Maestro Flaubert, when he appeared on stage, only a dozen meters away from her.

The song died on her lips. The maestro stopped playing and turned around to see what had unnerved her.

"Goodness, Erik!" he fussed. "We're trying to rehearse here!

Carlotta took a frightened step back, her mind fixed on the ghost. His black-clad silhouette was out of focus as if she were looking at it through dirty glasses, and as he approached it seemed to shimmer and shake like an old movie frame. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed at her neck but the moment his fingers touched her skin he dissolved into thin air right before her eyes.

"He can't touch anyone," the maestro explained. "You'll get used to him with time, as we all did."

Carlotta gave the man a disbelieving glare.

Flaubert just shrugged his shoulders. "So, from the beginning of the aria Mademoiselle?"

Carlotta nodded and clearing her throat, she began to sing.

She hadn't seen the ghost until the afternoon of the next day. Coming across him in a corridor, she told herself that it was just an apparition, that it couldn't really hurt her and kept her cool. Then her brain registered that he neither shimmered nor shook. She could see his imposing silhouette as sharp as anything else and understood that she wasn't dealing with a phantom anymore but an actual person.

person.

It was then, in that short moment of panicked frenzy, that she came up with probably the most idiotic idea ever: she'd kiss him and when he'd go rigid in surprise she'd kick him in the groin and run for her life. There was only one minor fault in her plan. She hadn't calculated that he might kiss her back. Then she even dared to tease him about it. It could've all ended real bad if Daroga hadn't made an appearance.

Erik seemed to recognize him, and to think of it, he seemed to recognize her as well. The other day the guard had told her he'd been nicknamed after a character in a book and that she was in that book as well. Who knew, perhaps she even resembled the character physically?

If that lunatic was convinced for whatever reason that he was Erik, he might've also thought that she and the guard were their respective counterparts. Worse than that, he might want to follow in the phantom's footsteps and as far as she remembered that involved kidnapping sopranos and crashing chandeliers.

Luckily, the gala went on without any disruption. Even la Debonnaire made it to the very end neither fainting nor puking, and everyone could finally let go of the tension that had been building up for days.

All the performers and stage adepts had the next day off and Carlotta decided she'd use her free time to finally educate herself on the phantom matter. Getting herself some coffee and croissants, she powered up her Macbook and googled ' phantom of the opera' .

It was indeed a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the same one aunt Luisa had seen in London. The first link took her to its official page but there was nothing there that could be of help, just info on theaters, tickets and some photos from the various stage productions. The second link led to a Youtube video: a clip from what appeared to be a modern movie adaptation. Finding a streaming link, she got herself comfortable on the couch and played the movie. Two or so hours later she was a little bit wiser than before.

First of all, the name of the girl the phantom fell for wasn't Carlotta but Christine. There was, however, a primadonna called Carlotta Giudicelli but she looked more like la Debonnaire rather than her, and she and the phantom were no friends. There were also other details that got Carlotta thinking, like the Daroga, for example. There was absolutely no Daroga in the movie. The phantom too wasn't much like the man that roamed around Palais Garnier. Sure, it was just an actor, but still, something felt awfully off. Not to mention the name Erik hadn't been spoken once, but everyone at the Opera House knew Erik's name so they must have known it from somewhere.

Then she remembered: there was a book! Yes, Daroga told her he'd been nicknamed after a character in a book!

She quickly ran another google search and this time got some truly enlightening results.

There was indeed a book, or should she say books, but the first one, written by a certain Gaston Leroux was probably The Book. Reading the synopsis, she felt she hit the jackpot. The plot was set at the actual Palais Garnier, around the time of a chandelier accident that apparently really happened in 1896. According to Leroux, it had been the work of a man who lived underneath the Opera House and whose name was, in fact, Erik. He claimed that he wasn't just a fixture of his imagination but an actual person, one of Garnier's architects that, having built himself a house at the shore of the underground lake, took refuge there. His description of him though was so over the top that it was no wonder that nobody took him too seriously. Various details of the story, including events order and characters appearance, were considerably different compared to the musical. For starters, la Carlotta wasn't portrayed so comically. Actually, she was barely mentioned. She was also Spanish and not Italian.

Carlotta's great-great-grandma was Spanish and she was also an opera singer. Could she have been the diva of the story? Her family always told her that she resembled her famous namesake quite a lot. It would explain why that lunatic got confused. That raised another question though. In order to mismatch them, he must have known the original la Carlotta, and not just from a book, he must've known her personally. That would imply that he was indeed Erik the Opera Ghost but that was impossible or wasn't it?

He had acted very disoriented the other day, she thought as she later sank into a soothing warm bath, a glass of wine in hand. Perhaps he didn't realize how much time had passed since he had died because he had died, she was pretty certain of it. How he ended up alive again was another matter.

She decided she had to find a way to talk to him, to explain to him that this wasn't the world he used to know. In the story, the phantom and the managers communicated through notes. Perhaps she could follow that example.

After hours and hours of scrap writing, she eventually came up with something up to the point but explanatory enough for her satisfaction.

Dear Erik,

first of all, sorry for smooching you. That was plain stupid of me.

You may find it hard to believe but I'm not the Carlotta you used to know. A descendant perhaps but not actually HER. We are currently in the year 2017, which means that all the people you ever knew are long dead and so are you.

The Opera staff seems to be quite fond of you - in spite of what the book says about you - and as far as I noticed you used to live in relative peace up until now. I only hope it can remain so.

Yours truly,

Carlotta Giudicelli

Addressing the note to OG, Carlotta took it with her when she went back to the Opera the next day. Unsure how to deliver it, she left it on her vanity for the time being, but when she later returned to the dressing room the note was gone.

Suddenly she felt a presence right behind her back and spinning around, she found herself face to face with Erik who skillfully maneuvered her into a corner, trapping her between the walls and his own body.

God, did the man have the scariest eyes! They were a shade between hazel and green and the pupils, dilated in the twilight of the dressing room, glowed an eerie yellow. It was a common effect in nocturnal animals like cats or wolves, caused by a reflective layer placed at the bottom of the retina, but she'd never seen anything like this on a human. He would've had to have been kept in absolute darkness for years and from a very early age, perhaps even since birth, in order to develop such an unusual mutation. She thought of what Kay had written about Erik's presumed childhood, that his mother, ashamed of him, kept him in the house at all times. What if it wasn't just in the house? What if she confined him to a single room, a cellar or perhaps a very dark closet?

Waving the note before her nose Erik demanded, "What in the world is this supposed to mean?!"

"In case you haven't realized it yet," she said, regaining her composure, "we currently are way past the 2000s. From what I learned so far, it would appear that after you died sometime in late 19th or perhaps at the beginning of 20th century, you stayed at the Opera House as an actual ghost. That was until a few days ago when you just showed up like…" she gestured to indicate his current, very much alive state, "like this."

Erik only squinted his eyes suspiciously.

"You don't remember anything, do you?" Carlotta inquired.

"I remember being old and in terrible pain until suddenly it all just ended. Then I woke up in this place."

"In this time," she corrected. "You never put a foot out of Palais Garnier."

"How is this possible?" he murmured.

"I don't know," Carlotta replied even if she wasn't sure whether he was asking her or just talking to himself. "A couple weeks ago I didn't even know you existed."

He gave her a strange look. "You're not la Carlotta?"

She shook her head. "Nope."

"You look a lot like her," he observed, checking her out and she flushed under his scrutinizing gaze, suddenly feeling utterly inadequate. "Perhaps you're just a little slimmer."

"I could be related to her," Carlotta reminded, pointing to the note. "My great-great-grandma was an opera singer here in Paris and her name was Carlotta. I've been named after her. She later married an Italian officer, Enrico Giudicelli, and the family moved to Italy sometime after World War II. I was born in Milan in 1989.

"World War II?" he asked, confused.

"A lot of things happened while you were dead," she explained. "There first was World War I, then World War II and the beginning of the Nuclear Era and then the Cold War. But there were also some good stuff going on like the discovery of penicillin and the landing on moon and the digital revolution and-"

"Stop it" he didn't let her finish. It just felt like too much information spoken at once.

He took another look at her note and read, " ...in spite of what the book says about you... " He gave her a hard stare. "What book?" It was already the second time he heard about it.

"There's a novel about you written by a guy named Gaston Leroux."

"Leroux?!"

He remembered that nosy reporter rummaging around his Opera House and asking way too many questions for his taste!

"I can show you his picture," Carlotta slipped out of his grasp and searched her bag until she came up with some device that looked like a flat tablet with a luminescent screen on one side. "Here," she showed him a photo on the screen.

Yeah, that was indeed Leroux.

"I'll kill him!" he fumed.

"I'm afraid he's already been dead for quite some time," Carlotta said matter of factly, putting the device away.

"What was that thing?" Erik asked curiously.

"That?" She waved the tablet. "That's an iPad. You can use it to access the internet and such."

He just gaped at her.

She gave him a winning smile and said, "There's a lot of things you don't know about the modern world. Not just history but also science, medicine, and obviously technology." She then added with a sneer, "Your old tricks won't impress anyone these days. You won't make it long unless you start to learn."

Erik gritted his teeth. The damn woman did have a point there.

"We could make a deal," she suggested. "You promise not to interfere with the Opera House too much and above all," she stressed out, "not to kill anyone. In return, I can teach you everything you need to know. What do you say?"

That was plain preposterous!

"I won't be making any deals with a pesky little toad like you," he scoffed, dashing out of the room.

Carlotta just plopped down on her chair, arms crossed. Bloody ghost, she cursed him in her mind, wondering why exactly was everyone so fond of him.

In the meantime Erik snuck his way around the theater in search of the one person he believed could be his ally in this bizarre adventure: the Persian. He eventually found him near the Grand Escalier and throwing his voice, he informed him that he wished to speak with him in private.

"In case you didn't notice, I'm working," the guard replied gruffly, not at all spooked by a voice coming from a nearby lamp holder.

"I don't care."

"Of course you don't." Daroga rolled his eyes. "Perhaps I should remind you that it's thanks to us guards that the phans didn't violate your skinny ass yet."

"So far they've been mostly trying to violate my ears."

"Meet me after my shift ends in the locker rooms," Daroga finally gave up. "Just watch for Eugéne when he comes to change with me."

There was no response but the guard assumed the silence stood for yes and later when he ended his shift he lingered around the locker rooms a little longer than necessary.

He actually jumped when Erik appeared in front of him all of a sudden as if he'd grown out of the floor.

"I need your help Daroga," he stated in an irrefutable tone. "I assume I can count on you like I always have."

The guard rose a brow. "Erik, you do realize I'm not actually the Persian, right?" he said trying to read the ghost's face for as much as it was possible with his mask on. "I'm not even from Persia, or should I rather say from Iran because there's no such country as Persia anymore." Seeing Erik waver, he continued, "I was born in France and I consider myself a French. They only call me Daroga because of some physical resemblance to the book character."

"Is this really 2017?"

"Oh yeah."

"This is insane."

Daroga flashed Erik a smile. "Don't be so negative, you might actually like it. The world has changed a lot. No one minds your face anymore, or the mask for that matter. You're our beloved resident ghost." Seeing the ghost's skeptical expression, he said, "You must have noticed that we all consider you welcome here at Palais Garnier, as long as you behave of course. Speaking of which," he pointed an accusing finger at him, "if I hear that you pulled out one of your usual shenanigans you'll find the gendarmerie raiding your home in no time."

Erik's eye twitched dangerously. "The Persian was the only one who knew a way to my lair. With him gone, nobody can ever find my home."

"I'm sorry to break it to you Erik," Daroga laughed, "but the undergrounds have been thoroughly explored and your house has also been discovered."

Erik appeared unconvinced.

"There's a mechanism concealed in the wall on the far side of the lake. It opens a door to a house built within the double casing of the foundation. All guards know about it because we need to watch that some of the crazier phans, who go as far as to jump into the lake, don't find their way in there. That part of the cellars has been left unlit on purpose, you know."

Reality fell on Erik like a bucket of icy water. People knew where his home was! There was no place, not even in the deepest depths of the Opera House where he could hide from the cruel world.

He thought of Christine. Fate had given him a second chance with her but the way things were it'd take time to fulfill their destiny. He'd need to learn to live under this new and rather unfavorable circumstances until she was ready. He could do it. He would do it. For Christine.

"Fine Daroga, I will mind my own business," he promised. "In return, you will tell me all I need to know about the modern times."

Daroga gave him an annoyed look. "Erik, I have a wife, two kids, and a dog to take care of. I don't have time to babysit you as well."

"You're my only friend," Erik tried to argue.

"A friend that you meant to boil in that torture room of yours," the guard reminded him.

"It wasn't actually you. "

"You've got a point there," Daroga admitted, "but following that line of thought I could argue that I'm really no close friend of yours. Don't get me wrong," he added on a second thought, "I'm not your enemy either. I guess you could say that I'm your friend just as much as everyone else in this theater is, starting from the managers to end up with the cleaning staff." Exhaling tiredly, he finished, "Just pick someone, anyone really, and charm them into helping you. I'm pretty sure you can do that."

Erik was at a loss for arguments. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he could offer Daroga to make him comply with his request. He wouldn't help him? Whatever! Someone else would and he already knew who.

Leaving the locker rooms he took off to the backstage and snuck into Carlotta's dressing room again. Luckily she was still there.

"I accept your offer," he said plainly, startling the girl who didn't even notice his presence, busy playing with another strange device, very much like the iPad thing, only smaller.

She just gave him a defiant look and said simply, "No."

"No?" He blinked at her in surprise. "You suggested it yourself."

"And you called me a toad," she countered, crossing her arms and turning back to her device.

Erik gritted his teeth. For Christine. He was doing this for Christine.

"Please?"

Carlotta gave him a taciturn expression.

"Please," he repeated, dreading the sound of the word on his lips.

"You will do everything as I tell you." The girl's voice was stone cold.

"I will, as long as it will be unavoidable," he snuck in a little backdoor into his promise but Carlotta didn't seem to notice.

"You fuck up once," she threatened, "and you're on your own. And remember my dear Erik, no one is going to fear you these days. They will hunt you down and they will throw you in jail where you'll have more to worry about than just a bunch of squealing phangirls."

"Fine!" he shouted, having had enough of being constantly reminded that he was totally and utterly screwed.

"Let's meet here tomorrow after I'm done with my rehearsals."

He nodded in agreement and without uttering another word he left.

When he was gone, Carlotta slouched in her chair. She had a vague sensation she'd just gotten herself into one hell of a mess. On the other hand, she was thrilled because, as much as Erik enraged her, he also intrigued her.

Next chapter: Carlotta tried to help Erik fit in which turns out to be more difficult than she expected