So, this is the first half of the chapter. I figured it would be easier to read in morsels. What's coming? Erik and Doctor Stitch will have a talk, and our boy is gonna heal and start on his quest to find his lady! Christine, well, she's still dwelling in the lair. But, let's also not dismiss the Vicomte and gendarmes. Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts! (It's all me on this story now. I really appreciate the Beta work Alfa did for me, but that time has passed. I wish her luck in her every endeavor. )- Jess

"I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes"

― Vladimir Nabokov

Erik swung his long, lean legs over the side of the makeshift cot that had served as his home for the last smattering of days. He wasn't certain of how many had passed at this point, but he made a mental note to inquire with Dr. Stitch later in the morning. As he shifted into the sitting position and dangled his lower body over the edge of the wooden bed, he could feel the blood returning to his neglected limbs, a warmth spreading through them. Carefully, he began to test his own strength, first by rocking his legs back and forth beneath the cot, and then by wiggling his toes. He smirked, and whispered to himself in a voice that had also recovered, "Well, that's encouraging." With renewed confidence, Erik pushed forward and allowed his feet to slowly alight to the chilled wooden floor. First, his long, skeletal toes, then the balls of them, and finally the heels.

"Now, to stand," he murmured in his self-talk, staring at his pale, bare feet finally touching ground again. With his uninjured arm, he shoved himself off the wooden bed in one single heave, wincing silently, lips pursed tight at the exertion it had taken from him. The ache in his upper body remained a dull and painful throb. He was standing upright now, for the first time in what felt like an eternity. To Erik, considering what he had recently endured, it was not a small victory. His tall form now erect, he reveled in the almost instantaneous feel of his strength and power returning. He had not died at the sniveling Vicomte's hand or the bumbling operations of the gendarmes. Luckily, the simple-minded little gent was a poor shot. Thankfully his aim had been fair enough to avoid shooting Christine by accident. The very idea of such a horrific possibility found Erik clenching his fingers into tightly-wound fists.

Releasing the anguished image from his thoughts, the Opera Ghost took a moment to observe the room in which he had resided over the last nightmare haze of days. The roof was formed of decaying rafters,-that he knew well- as they had served as his only focus as he lay awake these last several nights. A pail of water lay to the side of the wooden cot, no longer holding the bloodied rags from his makeshift operation. Eyeing the clean, cool water, Erik felt the intense need to thoroughly wash his entire body, battered and scarred as it was. For, though Dr. Stitch had cleaned his wound, repaired, and dressed it in fresh clothes twice a day, the rest of his body felt soiled. His thin hair hung oily, and the reek of old sweat clung to his sinews as an unpleasant reminder of the whole ordeal that had begun during the premiere of his opera and ended with him being found facedown in some muddied gutter, covered in filth and unconscious from blood loss.

There would come a time for bathing, and Erik hoped it would arrive soon. Testing the strength of his legs, Erik paced the room, examining the boarded-up windows that allowed a teasing of sunlight through the holes in their crooked slats. He had been able to mark the passage of time from the scant view of the outside world they had provided to him. His footfalls silent on the wooden floor, Erik peeked about the hallways, one leading in front of where he now stood, a tattered, and dirtied sheet hanging in place of a door, the other to his right, open and wide, with two closed doors on each side of the aisle from what Erik could surmise, as he peaked around the corner. This had been the direction from which the kind Doctor and his assistants had always come to his aid.

Erik paused for a moment and brought his left fingers to his right shoulder, checking the wrapped injury. The doctor's bandaging was caked in the drying blood of his bullet wound, staining the white clothes a deep crimson. They smelled of the unmistakable coppery rust of blood. His entire body did. A remembrance of that night. The night Christine had pledged her love to him, the night she had sung his opera. The kiss and the promise. . .

Before it had all been laid to waste with the Vicomte's bullet.

Erik's soul seethed with the fact that the sniveling boy had finally made a victory on him.. A cowardly one, at that, but still. . .The Vicomte's shot to his shoulder had served to separate him from Christine. Erik could not deny that he would have taken similar measures had he been the ousted suitor.

He had done so before, without a second thought, and with a complete lack of remorse.

He removed his hand from the wound, relieved to not have found any fresh blood on his fingers seeping through the linens attached to his right shoulder. Doctor Stitch had most certainly done a sufficient job on his injury. Thinking of his gratitude to the swarthy, well-natured surgeon, Erik found his voice and called out to him.

"Doctor Stitch, Professeur de la Suture? Bon Matin! Good morning!" Erik, much to his own dismay, still found his voice to hold a slight rasp. It was a bother to him, as was any imperfection in his voice, in his stature, the manner in which he conducted himself. He had never been able to control the distortion of his face, yet Erik had managed to present himself as a beguiling, intimidating presence. Pristine in his clothing, each seam flat. The mask and wig never fell out of alignment, for he corrected them countless times and settled them before he ventured out. His presence was commanding. He could direct his own power, his stature and his voice, in a way he could never control the devastation that was his visage. That had been enough to sustain him. The control of intellect, intimidation, and the power of his voice.

That incomparable voice.

But, all of that was lost to him now. He stood, half -naked, bare-footed and maskless in a makeshift operating room, calling out for help. Was it help or companionship he now sought? He could not be certain. Perhaps both? Solace? Empathy? He had never been one to seek companionship from another human, had been hurt far too many times by the ridicule and desertion of every individual with whom he had sought to form a connection. Humanity's rejection of him had birthed him into the haunted recluse he had become so many years past.

Until Christine. The moment he'd heard her tears and witnessed her plaintive cries in the Opera's chapel that day, his soul had forced him to seek her out. . Her honest agony seemed to mirror his own. Perhaps she was someone who felt as lost and alone as he himself did. . .

The quick shuffling of approaching feet lured Erik from his reverie, as did the sound of the good Doctor's voice. "Monsieur Erik, good morning to you. I shall be right there. One moment, please." Erik's keen ears picked up on the shuffling of fabric, the dinging of a tine to a plate. An aroma of tea and something warm and hearty to eat wafted through his distorted nostrils.

At the realization that someone had taken the effort to look after and care for him- a stranger, at that- Erik felt a sudden urge to weep. Only Christine had ever cared enough. And, his father. And both were lost to him now.

Erik recovered his voice, and straightened his appearance as best he could. "Take your time, sir. I'm just now finding my bearings."

"All well, monsieur," The doctor replied, stepping from the hallway into the room, some clothing in one arm and a cup of hot tea in the other. His eyes widened and a smile formed on his features as he took in the sight of his recovering patient. "Well, aren't you a sight, my good man!" Stitch chuckled and set the tea down on the bedside table.

"One might say I'm quite the horror, Doctor." Erik ran his long, pale fingers in a glide across his right cheek, centering his surgeon's view of reference on his deformity. "Never mind the bullet wound you so expertly sutured up: Both men stared down at the injury, took a collective breath, and then glanced up again at one another. Erik cleared the awkward tension in the air with an honest expression of gratitude, "Doctor, I don't know how to thank you for what you have done for me. There are no words."

"You don't need to thank me. Take these clothes I brought you and put them on after you have a chance to wash up." Stitch gently tossed the garments onto Erik's cot and gestured to them. "My apologies that they may be ill-fitting. I don't normally deal with patients of your rather intimidating stature. When you're done dressing, pick up that cup of tea and come to the kitchen. Eat my food and tell me all about this Christine you keep calling out for. Now, those are the words I need!"

"Thank you," Erik breathed, his every tone and his posture eluding humility and gratitude, as he slowly picked up the white linen shirt that had been given to him. He fingered the buttons as he stared down at it.

"Well, I'll leave you then. There's a washroom right in front of you, behind the curtain. I've left hot water there. . ." Stitch stammered, offered a weak smile, and shuffled out of the room in the same manner as he had entered. "Well, son, I will leave you to your preparations, and shall expect you in the kitchen in a matter of minutes."

To that, Erik looked up to his swarthy but caring host, his hands beginning to unfasten the buttons of the shirt. Assuring that he was again alone, he stepped through the dirtied curtain and began to strip himself of his blood and grit stained trousers.

"One more thing," the kind Doctor peaked his head around the corner, his hand outstretched. "I thought you might like to have these items. My boys recovered them when they pulled you from the gutter. Cleared them up as best I could."

In the man's outstretched palm lay the mask and wig Erik had scrambled for in his flight from the Garnier. Hesitantly and with an unspoken understanding, the Phantom of the Opera took the two items and placed them on the bedside table to be donned once more.

The kind Doctor left him to his ministrations with a simple nod and a weak grin.

The hot water was both a shock and a comfort to Erik as he pulled the sponge from the large pail and squeezed it over his lean frame. True, it was nothing compared to the large tub he had installed in his home next to Christine's room, but he was extremely thankful for it. Grateful to cleanse himself and hopefully begin to feel more human. As the water coursed down his skin, his thoughts turned to Christine and how he might return to her. How would it be possible? For once tasting the first embraces of an honest love, he could not desert her. He had rejected her and sent her off in the frenzy of his madness. To keep her safe? Or had his actions been the result of a lifetime of desertion? A complete lack of faith in the belief that someone could truly love him for the creature that he was?

He would search for her. That was inevitable. It was not a choice. He would not leave his Christine behind. For they were two planets pulled to one another in a singular orbit. One not able to rotate and thrive without the other.

Erik rinsed his wispy hair and damaged face, before setting the sponge back down in the nearly empty pail. As he dried himself off, he began to feel a new sense of urgency and resolve. It seemed he'd rinsed the utter defeat he'd been dwelling in as he washed off his body. Dressing himself in the donated pants and shirt, Erik began to feel more in control of himself. He had always relished being in control, or simply having the sense of such. As he buttoned up the shirt, the sleeves a bit too short for his arms' length, he eyed the mask and wig on the bedside table. Erik would place them upon his head once again, as soon as his features cleared of water.

Currently, he could smell the scent of a warming breakfast, the hint of aroma he'd been gifted before. He reached for the cup of tea and took it to his lips. The flavor of it was soothing and reassuring, the normalcy of it planting his feet into the Earth.

He observed his surroundings once more as he sipped on the beverage and dressed, noticing his boots under the cot. The doctor had indeed cleaned each item of clothing. Such a selfless blessing! Erik reached for the wig and the mask, setting his tea down for a moment. He would prepare to speak with the doctor. To enjoy a meal.

To make a friend?