Hours after the celebration ended, close to daylight, Erik sat motionless in his lair.
For the first time since he brought the instrument into his makeshift home fifteen years previously, Erik did not play his pipe organ immediately after arriving back from the world above.
He simply sat on the bench, face bent toward the keys, staring. He breathed in deeply, staring intently at nothing.
Strong, invisible hands had his soul in their clutches, squeezing painfully, exquisitely.
One sound, and one sound alone, resounded in his ears.
Her voice.
The voice of Christine...Christine Daae.
Christine Daae.
Two years. For two years she had lived, breathed, and worked in his opera house, and he'd taken no more notice of her than he did of any other timorous ballet girl clutching at the Giry girl's skirt.
The fool he was, the fool!
Of course he'd been aware of her existence. He knew everyone's name and face who entered his domain, and he had a rough idea of her origins. He simmered with self-loathing as he recalled his vague dismissal of her story as that of a poor little rich girl, living off her parents' fame and her patroness's money. He'd thought her uncommonly pretty, but nothing more.
He knew she was an especial favorite of Meg's, who took in lost girls as you would stray animals. Often was the time he'd watch from far off as the two dancers sat together at the corner of the stage or in the dance studio, whispering and giggling. But he'd only been fulfilling his promise to Anahid, barely noticing the girls themselves as he surveyed the area for any leering stagehand or presumptive suitor.
Yet there had been too many errands, too many duties to attend to outside of ensuring Meg's safety to follow the Daae girl to her singing lessons. Tonight was the first time he heard her sing.
Little Meg made life especially difficult for him this evening, weaving in and out of quick dances with multiple partners, disappearing intermittently from his all-seeing gaze.
He was relieved when she dragged Miss Daae to the stage, where the two girls were the only figures he need focus on.
And he'd watched—without warning, completely unprepared—as the extremely pretty girl in the Grecian costume stepped forward and opened her mouth, transforming from a mere girl into an angel in front of his very eyes.
Angel of Music, little Giry said.
Angel of Music.
Erik trembled remembering that voice. He'd stiffened the moment the notes soared out of her mouth, untrained, untried, but-
He couldn't...
Her voice...
No, she-
She beckoned to him. With her song, she called to him. Him alone. Sweet was too saccharine a description for it, clear ineffective, pure-
Yes, pure. The tone was pure.
But more than that, more.
His was a life spent in literal and figurative darkness. He'd killed and enjoyed it. He'd looked into the eyes of mankind's wickedness and heard their laughter, their searing, unrelenting laughter.
Erik had assumed that by now, that slight but strong instinct in him to protect the small and the gentle (pretty little songbird, I mended your wing and you flew away) was dead in him. The minute he saw the lingering fondness in Anahid's eyes die and turn to hate as he threatened her freedom convinced him of this.
Yet that part of his soul, the well of kindness that yearned for solace, returned to the tune of Verdi's light aria.
The hideous blackness and the violence transformed into a beautiful angel with the moon in her crown.
Christine Daae.
He...
He gasped, struggling with the truth of it. The irrational, impossible, but utter truth of it.
He was in love with Christine Daae.
He sighed thinking the words aloud, releasing the pressure squeezing his heart mercilessly.
In love. He was in love with her.
He would live for her. He would die for her.
And he would make her great.
She had much to learn, this girl. He would take that intangible core of her singing, that rang and rang in his ears dearer than bells, and expand it, smooth it, polish it, and show Paris what true, true art was.
He rose from the bench and as if for the first time he took in his lair.
There were many changes that must be made. Dust and cobwebs coated the furniture, which needed polishing anyway. Only his coffin bed, situated now in the bedroom he built, was available for those seeking rest. The gondola needed re-painting, and it was beginning to leak.
An angel entering the darkness deserved so much more.
A bride deserved so much more.
His living bride.
A wedding dress. Yes, a wedding dress was also required.
He entered his bedroom and slipped out from behind his pillow a long-abandoned manuscript.
Opening the libretto and placing it on the organ's music rack, he studied the title page.
Don Juan Triumphant.
He began writing his opera when he first entered the lair. He himself had been full of triumph then, having staked out an empire of his own making to rule over. Of all the skills he mastered, he'd always taken the most pride in his proficiency in music. Living in the opera house was the first time he felt he belonged.
And so his opera had thrived, for a time. Then came the war with Prussia. Erik soon found himself immersed with fortifying the opera walls, the pillars, preparing for rockfalls in his lair when the shells hit. He'd been likewise preoccupied procuring food for the denizens of his opera house, sneaking in provisions to Madame Giry so the ballet rats could eat.
The weary but warm gleam that had entered Anahid's eyes when he presented her with food and clothing let Erik hope for a moment that she no longer cast him aside as a complete scoundrel.
But the war hardened everyone. Erik had previously emassed a tidy sum from various sources over the years, and he spent the majority of it to keep the Opera Populaire running and his kingdom thriving. Once the fighting ended he started pressuring Lefevre for a salary. He turned a deaf ear to the man's desperate pleading.
Erik was brutal and curt, dismissing what he deemed unnecessary personnel in those trying times. And so once more he saw the stern, unforgiving look come into Anahid's eyes. But she should have understood, damnable woman. There was no time for kindness or softness while they rebuilt their lives—and no time for composing, either.
When finally the Prussians left Paris, Erik sat down at his pipe organ again, excited to once more make his song take flight in the pages of his composition.
And nothing came.
Sporadic bursts of melody would sometimes storm from his fingertips, but they were of a disconnected turn, and to his ears crude. Granted, they were masterpieces compared to the dreck performed above on the stage, but not worthy of his life's work.
And then came tonight.
Suddenly wild and untamed refrains drifted through his mind, taking ecstatic shape. All in her voice, coming out of that porcelain-pure face.
The Don Juan saga was a sweet yet painful part of his history. To him, Don Juan was a friend in the library of his childhood, as he huddled behind the divan with Tirso de Molina and Moliere's versions of the tale. He'd flinch as his brother drunkenly stomped into the room, calling for his ugly mutt of a sibling to come out and frighten the dinner guests. And his mother, his mother not far behind, crying hysterically, "Tristan, don't you dare bring him out! I couldn't bear it, I couldn't!"
Her high shrieks and Tristan's harsh laugh reverberated against his young skull, and his eyes would burn into the pages, willing himself not to be found.
Don Juan would laugh right back, then skewer Tristan with his sword.
Never before had escapism taken hold so firmly of a young boy. But never before had a young boy needed it so much.
Don Juan was his salvation. Don Juan was how Erik coped with what came later. An identity, a mask to disappear behind. He wasn't a freak who was jeered at and screamed at in the sideshow. He was a handsome libertine who all the women shrieked with lustful joy upon seeing, and the men only sneered at out of jealousy, to challenge him to a duel.
Naser didn't drag him out in front of his court to terrify them with his face. No, the shah was simply brimming with joy that the globe-trotting nobleman deigned to grace his court with his scintillating presence.
The sane half of Erik knew these were idle delusions, but a greater part of him subsumed this imaginary role so completely that his sense of superiority over others, his desire for sensual closeness and physical power dominated him.
He'd begun his opera with all the heat and life's blood he could bring to it, but looking back at even his most inspired moments, Erik knew now that it was missing soul.
Soul.
Christine Daae was his soul now.
An obsession, a salvation. His very soul.
Tentatively placing his quill to the page now, Erik wrote the single most beautiful lines of music he'd yet written:
"No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy.
No dreams within her heart but dreams of love!"
Yes, a woman. If Don Juan is conquered at all, it must be by a woman. As Erik was.
He suddenly plunged into his work again, mismatched eyes filling with tears of happiness that at last, at last he could work again.
Christine, Christine.
As he wrote at a feverish pace, his mind went back to the times he'd seen the two girls together. He strained his memory, looking for something, anything that would allow him to approach her.
Angel of Music. He suddenly stopped with quill mid-air as he thought of that phrase again. Yes, he had heard that before, and not just from tonight.
Ah, yes, he'd stepped behind the Girys' mirror behind the dance bar Anahid installed in her flat. Meg and Christine were stretching on the floor. He gave them a quick glance, satisfied there was nothing male in the room to disturb the young ladies.
What had he heard as he'd walked away into the shadows...?
"A sort of muse from Heaven who gifts artists with genius...something my father used to tell me..."
His heart swelled now at the revelation.
Wasn't that what he was planning for her, his treasure?
Yes.
The Angel of Music.
The Angel of Music, then.
He attacked the pages again, creating a disguise for Don Juan to lure in...Aminta! A pure peasant woman with a heart of gold who grew through love into a stunning seductress. That would serve Christine's talents well. A disguise to lure in the beloved.
Just like the Angel of Music.
He laughed and hugged his arms, choking with joy and madness and love, an all-encompassing love.
Her face in the dim light, more mystical than a spirit's. Her slim body swaying to the music around her, swaying as if in need of strong arms to clasp her, keep her steady. The long river of silken brown curls, the slender neck, the dark sweet eyes.
And that voice.
That voice.
Don Juan, in the end, did not need a bevy of conquests. He just needed his Christine.
The true Angel of Music.
A/N: As Wild Concerto points out in the reviews, yes, I did pretty much steal the setting for the last chapter with Meg playing piano for Christine from the Kay novel. As I said, I'm aware of some of what happens in the book. So why not steal what I like? Heh heh...guess I've gotta add Kay to my disclaimer now.
Thanks again to Wild Concerto for the brilliant review! Awesome and thought-provoking.