"Why are you being so kind to me, monsieur?"
"Perhaps because I am a fugitive myself,"
Moreau gave him a wary look. Then her eyes widened.
He read her like a book and nodded. The three policiers.
"Are they-"
"Dead. Yes."
He was expecting shock, a look of horror, or even a gasp of disbelief - but no such expression came. Indeed, she seemed to relax, and tilted her head. "Oh," was her only reply.
The Phantom fell silent as well.
She doesn't need to know any more; three murders are enough. He pushed memories of years ago to the back of his mind.
He was pleading now, like a woman. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, and his face was stark with terror. His nostrils flared like a horse's as he gulped for air. A pathetic figure of a pathetic man, pleading for mercy in the high voice of a child.
"Please, please…mercy!" he whimpered, eyes riveted on the shadow in the darkness.
"Would you have shown mercy?" whispered the shadow, young, and calm.
"Yes! Yes! Please, don't-"
The crack of a gun, and the man thudded to the floor. Stillness settled over the tableau. The only sound was her slow, even breathing, the only motion the slow, steady leak of blood from his forehead.
Manon sat up gasping,
God, not again.
She clutched her head and squeezed her eyes shut, gripping fistfuls of her hair and trying to wrench herself from the fog of guilt and dreams.
"Manon,"
The low sound of her name and a hand on her shoulder hushed the roar in her mind.
Manon opened her eyes. She could suddenly feel the pain in her side with acute clarity. She looked up, mind clearing, and found the glowing mask and stern face of the Phantom close by.
"Bad dream?" he asked evenly. With a sigh and a nod she leaned back and surveyed him.
The Phantom was sitting in his usual spot. He wore a simple linen shirt and a dark waistcoat unbuttoned over it. Well-worn leather boots rose over black trousers, worn but fine. Manon, shifting uncomfortably, turned her face slightly as she pointedly tried not to notice the way his long legs shifted easily and how, as he leaned forward on his knees, the part in his shirt drifted open.
Even in the dim light, she could see the shift of a well-muscled torso and her mouth went dry.
"Mademoiselle…" he said in a dark, mocking tone.
Manon's eyes snapped up to meet his, horrified that he had noticed her wandering eyes.
Under his stern expression, the Phantom could not help but smirk with surprised gratification. He had caught her glance.
Perhaps I still have it, he sneered inwardly.
Manon only looked back when she heard the sound of water being poured. He had risen and was pouring water into a tumbler. She reached out to accept it. She kept her face placid but as his fingers gently brushed hers, her heart quickened maddeningly.
She sipped the water gratefully. It was cooling and sobering to the heat that had risen in her breast, and by degrees she felt the thick air disperse.
Familiar silence filled the space between them. Then without a word, he stood up to leave.
"Monsieur." He paused before entering the shadows and turned to look at her.
"Are you truly the Phantom of the Opera?"
"That is what they call me," he replied dryly. After a moment's pause - "And you, mademoiselle? Do you think me a ghost?"
She ignored the quip. "Would you have a name, good Phantom?"
A soft smile appeared at the words good phantom. But he did not answer immediately. Manon watched silently as he seemed to battle with himself. He turned his back to her, and for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. But then he spoke,
"It is Erik," came the quiet reply as he disappeared into the shadows.
As Manon drifted to sleep that night, she imagined the faraway lull of music. And it was music that woke her from that sleep now. She couldn't tell where it came from, but she was drawn to it like a moth to a candle.
A soft, haunting berceuse rose and fell in the darkness. Driven by it, pulled towards it, she rose from the security and warmth of her nest of cloaks and blanket and drifted towards the sound. She could feel the cold, dusty wood of the floorboards and the sneaking chill of the air, yet her mind drifted strangely and dreamily and she felt the darkness beckoning.
Lantern in hand, she drifted towards the doorway, heedless now of the pain in her side, and stepped into the dark passage. Yet the music was faint here, and she recoiled, needing the music close to her, within her, coiled around her.
Back in her chamber the music swelled louder. She drifted along the perimeter. Finally, she came to a stop and turned. She faced the mirror, immense and foreboding.
She stared into it, barely noticing the disheveled woman who stood dazed before her with huge, staring eyes. Her hands rose to press against the silvered glass. She barely registered that this made no sense, that she was freezing, and that music could not come from a mirror. Yet somehow it did, and the beautiful, haunting sound held her and she slid down the glass, cheek pressed coldly against it, yearning.
Suddenly it stopped. Manon instantly curled in upon herself, bereft, cold, and empty. Warmth fled, silence reigned, and she could only hear her own shuddering breaths, wanting suddenly to cry. She pressed her forehead to the glass, breath fogging it. Her mind had cleared but a strange sense of desolation filled her and prevented her from rising, despite the cold and pain.
Why had it stopped? Where had it come from?
For minutes she sat. For hours? It could have been a day. Manon didn't know how long she sat there before the mirror moved.
Swinging like a door, it swung away from her and she rolled lamely forward, hardly caring what happened.
The hem of a cloak drifted over the toes of well-worn boots standing inches from her face.
Manon turned her head and let her gaze wander, slowly, up to the familiar glow of a white mask.
Erik didn't need to wonder why he had found her there. In the silence of the night, even his music from deep in the cellars could be heard.
What had he been thinking?
He didn't know what to feel. He felt angry. He felt violated. He felt obscurely aroused. His music, above all others, was an expression of the most intimate kind. What he wrote and played was a glimpse into his very soul.
He eyed the woman appraisingly. It seemed she would speak, but before she could she drifted back to the floor in a faint.
Erik knelt beside her in an instant. She was desperately pale and her skin was deeply chilled. He realized that, even by his standards, the room was now exceedingly cold.
His heart sank further as he noticed the gentle seep of blood through her shift. He made his decision.
Lifting her, Erik turned, and with Manon Moreau spent in his arms, carried her back into the shadowy passage. The mirror clicked gently into place behind them.