A/N: This is a short but hopefully sweet one!
The next morning Erik sat at his pipe organ, inspiration for his latest piece gone.
He knew somehow that he would not write today. He would not play.
His heart was too full and at the same time staggeringly empty.
Meg's absence frightened him; he was so used to looking after her. She left him with nothing.
A sudden burst of fury made him strike his keys with a balled fist, causing them to cry out in sharp protest.
"What have I become?" He snarled aloud.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
Christine. He must think of Christine.
He wondered why he should feel such guilt and self-loathing at wanting one girl when before he'd created a whole fantasy world around his infatuation with Christine.
Were his emotions evidence of his lack of respect for Christine, or Meg?
He shuddered away from the thought.
No. He respected them both. He revered Christine.
And Meg –
Meg.
He tried so desperately not to think of her.
Every time he closed his eyes, every time he tried to turn his thoughts elsewhere, he'd still see her bright hair, hear her tiny breathy voice, see that curious light in her eyes.
And his heart would fill and warm with something frighteningly close to joy.
Christine. Christine. Think of Christine.
He still heard her voice. He would always hear her voice. But somehow quite slowly something changed. Instead of cherishing that haunting voice as a lover does his true love's song, he now appreciated it with the distant devotion a parishioner has for a hymn in church.
It was love still, surely, but…the romance, the passion…was it still there?
Yes, of course it was, he assured himself hastily. But –
But then why, whenever he tried to focus on her image in his mind's eye, to clearly hear her voice sing an entire aria rather than just faintly hear her in the back of his brain, did he instead see a flurrying figure in a white tutu? Why did he hear a whisper of a voice rapidly reading aloud a serial?
He struggled to gaze again at the luminous moon, but the bright sun was in the corner, blocking his sight.
Another strike of his fist on the organ's keys. He relished the harsh, disharmonious sound. What better demonstration of his wicked, contrasting feelings?
He was not in love with Meg Giry. He was not. Christine owned his heart. Only Christine.
Forget the fact that when he thought this, he felt no leap of fire. Only a gentle melancholy.
Thoughts of Meg….
Thoughts of Meg always brought fire. Often an irritating and intrusive fire, but fire nonetheless.
Agitated, he rose from the bench and paced his lair.
How dull and dark and plain it was, compared to the cozy Giry home, the hint of cherry blossoms outside the dining room window.
He once convinced himself – and tried to convince Christine - that this lair was a mystical kingdom far removed from and superior to the garish, bright, painfully ordinary lives and dwellings above the surface.
Yet now, ever since Meg kissed his deformed cheek as if he were anyone, how his perspective changed. He felt a terrible secret yearning for a permanent place at her table. For a house of his own, and a wife he could take out on Sundays. A pretty little wife reading aloud a serial, as he sat beside her near the fire. Just like anybody else….
But no. No. He was Erik. The Phantom of the Opera. He refused to be like anybody else. If he could not have the grandeur of the king, with his beautiful siren queen at his side, he would have nothing at all except despair.
Nothing is more poetic than tragedy in the wake of lost love. Erik always strove for poetry as the backdrop to his life, the comfort to his pain.
He stopped in front of a vase on one of his end tables. On Meg's last visit she'd filled it with yellow roses. They stood out starkly in the blackness of his lair. He…he wondered if she knew he'd been the one to leave the rose for her after La Belle et La Bete's opening night.
Of course she knows, you fool. Who else would have?
He damned his foolhardy act that could be interpreted as romantic. What must the girl be thinking?
Would she like the idea, or be disgusted by it…?
He disgusted himself for even wondering.
Scarcely aware of his own actions, he reached out and gently caressed the petals of one rose between his fingertips.
Yellow roses...according to folk superstition, yellow roses symbolized infidelity. And wasn't that appropriate when it came to him and Meg? Erik had pledged his love to Christine forever, and yet now, in spite of his vows, he felt inexplicably drawn to the little dancer. He felt unfaithful to Christine, though she would never claim his love. Never.
Jealousy was another trait associated with the yellow rose.
Stephen Marcus.
Rage similar to what he once felt for the vicomte burned in his chest. However, now there was the added nausea of uncertainty, of not knowing where Meg stood with the officer. That plus the uncertainty of how he even felt for the wild young girl made Erik feel sure he was about to go out of his mind.
As he absently studied the rose's petals, he thought of that Persian orchard again.
He remembered what yellow roses often symbolized in the East: strength. Wisdom. Joy.
He saw her flowing golden-red hair, so close to the rose's color. He saw her eyes.
He picked up the rose he'd been fondling and unconsciously held it to his heart.
Infidelity, jealousy, strength, wisdom, joy.
Yes, all these and more encapsulated how he felt about Meg.
No wonder his knees were weak, no wonder he felt himself in a constant state of almost-panic.
And above it all right now, one emotion more gnawing and aggravating than the rest:
Worry.
She'd left Paris for an unknown destination all on her own.
Where are you, Meg?
He squeezed the flower tighter.
Where are you?