Perhaps madness was simply a symptom of actually living, he decided as he beheld Christine's tear-stained, stricken face. He had only felt alive since actually touching her, all those fateful months ago, and since then, he had been mired in the deepest, most unforgiving madness.
Above them, a glorious blaze consumed his papier-mache principality. Could fire melt crystal? He did not know. He did not care. Christine stood before him, dressed in white, calling him a madman. But she wore his wedding gown. Soon she would wear the tiny gold ring he kept in his pocket for her.
He proclaimed his love for her. He laid all the agony of his lonely soul at her feet, his plea sounding more threatening than beseeching, but it was beggary nonetheless. He swore she would be his most cherished bride, his beloved wife, the angel of a new, pristine house with a new, pristine life.
And then that boy…that boy…pretty in face and pretty in soul…
He had come, like a swashbuckling hero to the aid of his damsel. His damsel! A thousand times no! Christine belonged to the angel of music. She had said as much on that rooftop, even as she had turned her lips to the boy noble's gentle kiss.
Damn! His head pounded, his vision was blurry, pulsing with each beat of his tortured heart. He did no know what words he spoke. There was rope in his hands, he made sounds like ragged roars that could have been threats or pleas – he knew not which. He was surprised the water of the lagoon did not steam about him as he stood knee-high in it, so hot was his body with rage and fear…oh the fear…the fear of the sorrow that would surely kill him if she left him now.
And then she had kissed him. Sweet, soft kisses. Pleading kisses. Kisses that masqueraded as love, that whispered a promise with a forked tongue.
He knew the difference in kisses. Like a cool breeze, the thought of Rose washed over him. The fiery rage he felt was doused by the memory of her kisses, her hungry, clumsy, innocent kisses. He remembered her in his arms, twining her fingers around the ruffles of his shirt and pulling him down with her onto the bed…
As he looked into Christine's uncertain eyes, he saw Rose, her goodness, her sorrow, her honesty. Rose, who had danced for him with a broken heart. Rose, who had stood firm before his fearsome temper. Rose, who cried for his unhappiness, sitting on his bed with her own broken wings.
Oh God, what had he done?
Feeling as though death was near, he stepped back from Christine. He saw the confusion, the flash of fear in her eyes. He murmured broken words, sending her away. The fairy princess had earned her fairytale ending by kissing the monster and setting him free.
He still felt the enormity of his love for Christine. It welled up within his heart and spilled over, running off his body like heavy rain. He called his love to her one final time, clutching the ring she had given him.
There was a strange, exhausted peace for a moment. A few brief heartbeats when he was alone, after the prince and princess had left the dragon's lair and before the village mob set upon him with pitchforks and torches.
Rose…Christine…oh that he wished his heart had never learned to beat!
But that was false. In six months, he had tasted of more glory, more pain, more life than in thirty years. And in the end, he had discovered who he truly was.
He was a man. Just a man.
It was all gone. Empty. Shattered. No more illusions. No mask to hide behind. Nothing to shield him from the truth.
And oh, the agony of truth! Oh, its beauty, its terror, its fragility! Behold the strength that the sweetest of emotions could give one – this strange and terrible thing called love, as intangible as breath and sand, and as irreversible as words and water poured out, but pure enough to redeem the devil.
And in that moment, he knew that there was only one person who truly loved him…and whom he truly loved.
There was one person who had never turned from him, never feared him. The ballet teacher had introduced a gift horse into Troy, and his world had been shattered. He had been the pot calling the kettle black when he mocked the ballet teacher's obsession with the young ballerina. Though Carthage had fallen, she had carried Hannibal on her delicate shoulders, dancing as beautifully as Christine had sung. And it was in that first springtime of her dance that he had felt something more, and yet something less. This girl who had called the ghost a git and chased him like a billy goat through the perilous passages made him feel like a man…and just a man, even if all he could ever be was the dregs of humanity. Only she could have laughed at his cape and then taken it back with a sweet humility that stemmed his rage.
He shattered the mirrors in a final, empty act of senselessness, then slipped away into a secret passage to find his Madonna of the rocks.
Madame Giry had never known herself to be this weary, not even in those distant days of her youth when she had ached from fatigue from her dancing.
Finding a place to live, collecting what remained of their belongings and taking care of Meg and Rose, all the time consumed with fear for what had happened to Christine, to Raoul, and to him – well, it was exhausting.
The only mercy had been a note delivered by a solicitor to her as she stood on the steps of the charred and ruined opera. When she demanded whom he represented, and how did he know to bring this note to her, he demurred, simply saying that he had standing instructions that in case of a disaster at the opera, he was to deliver this letter to Madame Giry, former ballet mistress of the Opera Populaire.
Inside the letter had been the number of a bank account, set up in her name, that held an ungodly amount of money. Enough money to never have to work again. Enough money to see Meg well married. Enough money to repay a fealty that she now saw as baptized in blood and dissolved by death.
But never in the frantic 48 hours after the fire had she expected to open the door to her anonymous flat near Montparnasse and see him standing on the threshold.
A dismal, rainy night had fallen on Paris, as evidenced by his drenched, shadowy figure.
"You!" Madame Giry gave a strangled cry, her reserve cracking under the strain.
He bowed his head, the thin hair on the good side of his skull hanging damply in his face. Madame Giry felt a faint wave of nausea at seeing him like this on her threshold. Without his mask, his wig, his cape…he seemed naked, smaller, human. He was the boy in the cage whose eyes had filled with tears when the bag had been ripped from his head.
He was just a lost man on her doorstep.
And yet, seeing him there was the final blow that convinced her dizzied senses that this was indeed real and no nightmare. The world had changed because one man had changed. And it would never be the same again.
"May I…come in?" he whispered, his head still bowed. His voice sounded raw and awkward as it tried to frame unfamiliar social words.
Silently, Madame Giry stepped aside and allowed him to enter. He stood in the small foyer, uncertain as to what to do in such a conventional setting. He squinted in the uncomfortable brightness of the gas lights, regarding the plain, rented furniture of the hallway.
"Thank you," said Madame Giry unexpectedly.
He looked at her dazedly. He was still mad, he decided. This woman had just thanked him.
"For the money," she added.
He ducked his head again, the good side of his face visible to her in profile. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
"Your daughter…she is safe?" he asked haltingly, grudgingly pacing his inquiries.
"Yes," Madame Giry said simply. "She sleeps in the other room. She was very brave that night. If you wish to know who held the mob at bay, it was Meg. She bullied and ordered and cried to spare a man she did not even know. Obviously, she gave you enough time to get away."
He could hear the question in the woman's voice. She wanted to know what had happened. She wanted to know if Christine and Raoul were safe. Oh, even to think those names and the madness they had inspired made his body hurt with shame. But this was his penance for his last act of monstrousness.
"No doubt the future vicomtesse will write to her and relate the circumstances of my escape in lurid detail," he said, his bitter words wobbly and clumsy, the speech of a man who lived in silence and spoke only in song.
Madame Giry's tired shoulders relaxed imperceptibly. She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement. She knew what his next question would be, but he would have to ask it. The answer was not something one just volunteered.
"And Rose?" he managed at last, his voice barely a whisper.
Madame Giry remained silent, suddenly torn between rage and grief.
"Rose?" he asked again, more urgently.
When the older woman did not answer, he turned and advanced on her, his eyes growing wild and frantic.
"Where is she?" he panted, his voice rising, his body towering over the former ballerina. "Where is Rose? You know! Tell me!"
When she simply looked up at him with all that she felt in her eyes, he stumbled back as if struck.
No…no…not that! Not that! NOT THAT!
"Did you call my name, Madame?" came a weak, scratchy voice from the door to the parlor.
He nearly collapsed in relief when he heard Rose's voice. For a moment, he had thought that the blood of one more innocent was on his hands…that he had committed his worst sin yet. But no, she lived.
But barely, it would seem.
Rose limped into view, stopping in her tracks as she caught sight of him. He couldn't contain his anguish, and it played openly over both his ruined and his good features.
Her brown hair hung down around her shoulders, but in haphazard locks – clearly indicating that some of it had been cut off – or burned off. The right side of her face was bruised and scratched, with small, angry red blisters of burns dotting her skin. She wore a loose white nightshift that made her look all the more fragile, and both her hands were completely bandaged.
But even more than that…she stood with crutches, holding one foot up, wrapped tightly and splinted. Her delicate face was a mask of physical pain, while her eyes shone with the holy torment of pure emotion.
He dropped to his knees, crushed by his grief.
Madame Giry watched him dispassionately, enjoying his anguish for a brief moment. It was no less than he deserved, though she felt a twinge of shame at such an unworthy sentiment.
"When Piangi was discovered dead, Carlotta refused to leave him," Madame Giry said coldly. "Rose tried to drag Carlotta from Piangi's side. But the proscenium crashed down around them. Carlotta did not survive. Rose did. But she will never dance again…thanks to you."
His face crumpled with utter despair. He would have wailed if his voice was not raw from all the tears he had already shed. What had he done? What had he done? Oh God! What had he done?
"Things change in life, Madame," Rose said quietly. Despite the unceasing pain she felt in her body, the feverish ache and the indescribable torture of the burns and broken bones, her heart felt a torment a thousand times worse at seeing this wretched man on his knees.
Rose hobbled over to him, her sorrowful eyes on his anguished ones. She reached out a bandaged hand to touch his shoulder, caught sight of the bandage and thought better of it. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed him on the top of his head.
He raised his hands to her in a gesture of imploring. Tears sprung to her eyes, as the love and hurt and joy and sorrow in her own heart welled up. For a moment, she swayed on the crutches she leaned on. Instinctively, he placed his hands on her hips to steady her.
"We are all lost," Rose murmured, the tears running freely down her face. "But no one should be bereft of comfort where there is yet some to be had."
She looked to Madame Giry, whose own eyes were suspiciously bright.
"We have no extra bedrooms," the older woman said softly, addressing him. "But you may stay in the parlor until things become clearer."
"Rose," he whispered, her name lingering on his lips like a prayer.
The girl turned to him, her serious, sorrowful face etched with lines of pain and beauty.
"What is your name?" she asked simply.
He paused, flashes of his life playing out. Devil's child, phantom, opera ghost, angel of music, Erik…Those names belonged to a monster. He was just a man.
"I have no name," he said simply, raising the hem of her nightdress to his lips and kissing it reverently. "You will have to give me one."
Fin
A/N: Okay…this kind of surprised me. I didn't mean to end the story there. But it just happened that way. It just struck me as poetic and sweet and right. I'm sorry if anybody wanted more chapters. But I'll offer this as a consolation – I will probably start a new Phantom fan fic very soon
On a more serious note, I wish to thank everyone that has reviewed, emailed me, encouraged, questioned and cajoled. Your feedback has made all the difference and given me a reason to keep writing. Just to know that someone was reading what I wrote was the most amazing experience I've ever had. And therefore, a thousand thanks.
I remain your obedient,
Kate September