So, this is the end, dear readers. Thanks to all of you for staying with me for so long, for all the reviews and the favs. Now, on with the story!

Disclaimer: Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux. All Phantom related works, as well as lyrics quoted in the story, belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 20 - Requiem for a ghost

"You made the papers, Erik."

Daroga threw the ghost a copy of 'Le Parisien'. Erik caught the paper and stared at the front page where it read in fat bold letters:

PHANTOM STRIKES AT THE PARIS OPERA

Palais Garnier is once again the site of strange and inexplicable affairs. On the closing night of the season, the Acting Manager of the Opera, Monsieur Gilles T., had gone missing only to reappear a couple days later, dangling naked over the stage, meticulously bound with catgut rope. With him, there had been found a note accusing the man of a range of offenses, from money laundering to rape. In the result of the following investigation, Monsieur T.'s criminal conduct had been confirmed but the identity of his assailant remains yet unknown. The man himself claims it had been none other than the infamous Opera Ghost but he is considered delirious and remains under psychiatric care awaiting trial. It is curious, however, that on the same night there had also been another disappearance: the newly discovered prima donna, the Italian Carlotta Giudicelli, giving an outstanding performance as Lucia di Lammermoor, retreated to her room and hasn't been seen since. The coincidence seems suspicious enough to make one wonder whether both might have really fallen prey to the Phantom of the Opera.

Written by Gaston…

For a second Erik thought he'd read Leroux but it was actually Lacroix. Gaston Lacroix. He bet the guy was a great-great-great-grandson of Leroux' distant cousin on the mother's foster brother side or something of the kind.

"The police was here last night," Daroga said, plopping down next to Erik, who appeared to have been sitting on the same step of the Grand Escalier ever since he'd seen him earlier that morning. "They've been asking everyone all kinds of questions."

The ghost shrugged his shoulders. "They can lock me up if they want. I don't care."

"Nobody's going to lock you up. As far as the police are concerned, you don't even exist."

"I do exist and you know it. You also know that I tossed Thibault into my torture room and kept him there for two days straight."

"Erik, everyone knows you're behind this whole mess and yet no one breathed as much as a word. We all testified Thibault was a rapist pig who liked to hit the bottle. When they asked about the Opera Ghost, we said it was nothing but a myth"

Erik's brain had a hard time processing the information. The whole Opera House had put their lives on a line by lying to the police to protect him?

"You seem positively shook, Erik," Daroga observed.

"Why?" the ghost mumbled. "Why would you protect a monster?"

"A monster that had just spared a man's life."

"I only let him live because Carlotta had asked me to."

A part of him hoped she could still love him despite his horrendous appearance. Perhaps she'd read the paper and see he'd done what she'd asked of him. Perhaps it would convince her to come back.

"Say what you want but I believe there's more to it than that. You're a better man than you give yourself credit for and we all know it and that's why we didn't tell on you. Besides, who'd believe us, if we told the truth? The Phantom of the Opera coming back from the dead? They would've locked all of us up in the asylum right next to Thibault!"

Well, yes, that was definitely something to consider.

A commotion down the stairs caught the two men's attention. There were two ballet girls climbing up. One of them appeared to be pushing the other forward.

"Go on you wimp," she gruffed at her blonde friend.

"What's going on?" Erik asked the girls whom he easily recognized as Meg and Christine.

"Ekhm, hello Monsieur Ghost," Meg said with a nervous giggle. "Christine here has something to tell you."

Under his mask, Erik rose a brow curiously.

Christine just stood there with eyes glued to the floor. Meg nudged her with an elbow.

"E-Erik," she began sheepishly, "I'm sorry for screaming like I did but I didn't expect you to look so scary."

Meg facepalmed herself.

Daroga stage-whispered, "You're not helping."

"What can I say, Christine," Erik gruffed. "You certainly live up to the expectations."

"You were right, you know, when you said it could have never worked out between us because it never even did in the first place. I think our destiny was never to be together."

"I'm glad it finally sank in."

"She met a guy the other night," Meg cut in. "Some snob called Raoul."

Erik chuckled. "Told you, Christine, that there was the perfect man waiting for you out there somewhere."

Christine looked at him with pleading eyes. "You're not mad at me?"

"I am, actually, but only a little, and for a whole different reason."

"Your girlfriend broke up with you because of me, didn't she?"

Erik wished it was that simple. If Christine hadn't had pushed herself on him, Carlotta would've never seen them and gotten mad. She would've never torn his mask off. He would've gone to her room way sooner. With him being there, Thibault wouldn't have had the chance to assault her. She would've never been hurt. She would've never run off.

"Let's say your lunatic behavior that night triggered a whole series of rather unfortunate events."

"I'm so sorry, Erik," Christine cried. "I really am."

He just couldn't stay mad at her when she looked at him like that.

He exhaled di defeat. "It's all right."

In that moment Christine did something he didn't expect of her: laughing through the tears, she threw herself into his arms.

Erik patted her back awkwardly, a bit shocked that she would hug him despite her initial horror at his appearance.

"It's all right," he repeated quietly. "None of this is your fault, really. You're just a teenager. I, on the other hand, am a grown-up man who should've known better than to try to manipulate you again. All the stupid things you did were ultimately my fault."

Christine just sniffed and squeezed him tighter. They stayed like that for a few minutes until a surprised voice coming from downstairs made them break apart.

"Christine?" asked a young man of about twenty standing at the feet of the staircase.

"Raoul!" Christine exclaimed, immediately entangling herself from Erik's embrace.

"Hey there!" Erik waved at the boy who stared at him suspiciously. "You'd better take good care of this one," he gestured towards Christine, "or I'll have your neck!"

"Erik!"

"I'm just kidding." Erik winked at the girl confidentially. "Now, go and have fun."

Christine appeared hesitant.

"Go to him." He nudged her. "He's the one. I'm telling you." He'd recognize that face everywhere.

Christine smiled at him. "Thank you, Erik."

"For what?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Just for being Erik."

With that, she ran off to Raoul and they both left.

Erik glared at Meg who'd stayed behind. "What are you waiting for? Go back to your business!"

The girl bit her lip. "Can I see your face?" she blurted out all of a sudden.

"No!"

"Oh come on!"

"No! Now get out of my sight!"

Meg turned on her heel and walked off, muttering a litany of curses under her nose.

Next to him, Daroga was laughing his butt off.

"What's so funny?" Erik growled at him.

"Nothing. It's just…" the guard waved his arms around. "You've grown so much in that past year. You make me feel like a proud father." After a pause, he added, "What you did earlier, taking responsibility for your mistakes, that was very mature of you."

"It was only right," Erik sighed. "As much as I'd like to blame Christine, or just about anyone, for what had happened, it's all on me. After all, it had been I who thought a teenage ballerina could sing an operatic aria as well as to raise the dead."

"Oh yeah, that was sil-" Daroga stopped mid-sentence. "Wait, what?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Erik frowned. "I have returned after hearing a song and I had assumed it had been Christine who'd sung it. That was until Carlotta told me the other night it had actually been her."

Daroga's eyes popped wide. "Wait, you mean to tell me it was Mademoiselle Giudicelli who brought you back to life?!"

"Makes no sense, huh?"

"Actually," the guard scratched his chin, "it makes perfect sense."

"It does?"

Daroga stood up and waved at Erik to follow. "Come on! I'll explain everything over dinner!"

"I'm not hungry." Erik lied. He'd gotten used to eating regularly and the emptiness in his stomach from skipping a few meals was bothering him way more than he expected.

"Mademoiselle Giudicelli is going to be very disappointed if you starve yourself to death."

"Mademoiselle doesn't give a damn."

"Of course she doesn't", Daroga jeered, "and that's why she wasted several months fattening you up like a chicken. Now, get up!" Grabbing Erik by the hood, he forced him to his feet.

Reluctantly, Erik followed the guard down the stairs and further on to the restaurant. Finding a table in a quiet corner, they took a seat and placed their orders.

When the waiter left, Daroga said, "I've been trying to figure this whole thing out for quite some time now, you know, but nothing seemed to add up. For starters, the time. It didn't seem to be an anniversary of any kind. The chandelier accident happened on May 21st, 1896 and following the indications in Leroux' book, one may estimate your approximate time of death to the spring of 1897. You returned halfway through September. As you can see the dates don't add up. So why that particular day? What was so special about it?"

"Carlotta said it was the day when she had first had the chance to sing something important and that it was also the day when she'd first seen my ghost."

"Exactly!"

The waiter came back, bringing some cutlery, a basket of garlic bread and some water, interrupting their discourse for a minute.

"I was on shift that night," Daroga continued when they were alone again. "I saw the whole thing. The poor girl hadn't been around for long yet and was completely oblivious to your existence. Seeing your ghost, she was out of her mind with fear. When she sang I could hear the trepidation in her voice."

"Okay, Daroga," Erik mumbled, munching on a piece of bread, "it does make sense but what I'd like to know is why it was her who brought me back."

Daroga leaned back in his chair, thinking. In the meantime, dinner was served.

"That aria she sang," the guard asked, "is it a personal favorite or something?"

"It's much more than that," Erik groaned. "You see, the Jewel Song is the song that Christine - the original one - had sung when I'd first heard her."

"Really? Tell me about it."

"One night I was just hanging around when I heard someone sing so beautifully it took my breath away. The next day I found out there was a new soprano in the House, a Swedish, Christine Daaé. When I finally met her, such an angelic and pure beauty, I knew it must have been her."

"Meaning you actually never saw her?"

"Well… no, I didn't, but…" Erik stuttered, suddenly at a loss for arguments.

"Had it never occurred to you," Daroga pointed out, "that a girl barely out of conservatory, whose singing was mediocre at most before you taught her, couldn't have sung that aria so well? I think it would've taken a really well trained and experienced singer to impress such a musical genius as yourself."

"Are you saying…?"

"Erik, what if the person you heard that night wasn't Christine? What if it was la Carlotta?"

"No way!" Erik shook his head. "I heard la Carlotta sing 'Faust' before but never like that. She was just too confident to pull off a believable Marguerite. They cast her anyways, as usual, so I-"

Daroga rose a questioning brow.

"I pulled a nasty prank on her earlier that day," Erik finished, his voice barely above a whisper.

"That must have cut her confidence down."

Erik felt his head spin. He couldn't help but wonder, what if Daroga was right? What if it had been Carlotta? What would have happened if he'd set his mind of her instead of Christine? She was older and wiser than Christine. She certainly wouldn't have believed in angels or ghosts, but if he'd offered her guidance as nothing more than a man with some tricks up his sleeve, would she have accepted it? Would she have appreciated it? Would she have…

"Daroga, do you think Carlotta could have loved me?"

"I wouldn't assume that much - we both know you were an old creep back then; not much to love there - but I think she could've become your friend and kept you company for the little time you had left, stopping you from committing all those terrible things. Christine was your downfall. Carlotta could've been your saving grace."

Erik stared at his plate with vacant eyes. Was that why he was back? To set things right, not with Christine but with Carlotta?

"Do you believe in reincarnation Erik?" Daroga asked.

"You think this is what it is? Reincarnation?"

"Mademoiselle Giudicelli, Christine, Megan, now that Raoul boy and finally myself. We all seem to bear a striking resemblance to the people you used to know in the past. Say, we are them," Daroga theorized, dabbing at his chicken absentmindedly. "We all seem to have found our way in life, regardless of what happened to you, and we ultimately died feeling accomplished. We moved on and we were reborn, forgetting our past lives. You, on the other hand, must have died with a sense of loss and failure. That's why you stayed behind and became a ghost."

That actually made a lot of sense, Erik thought.

"You got stuck. You couldn't move on but you couldn't go back either, not without a mighty intervention of some sort, and that's where Mademoiselle Giudicelli comes in."

"Her love had brought me back."

"Something of the kind." Daroga sucked his teeth. "Say the two of you were meant to have some sort of relationship, perhaps just a friendly one, but still. Because of your mistake, that never happened, but once history repeated itself, as it often does, fate decided to give you a second shot at her."

"Shame I missed again."

"Did you now?"

Erik sighed tiredly. "I had once again assumed that it was Christine who'd sung the Jewel Song that night. You witnessed the consequences."

"Mademoiselle Giudicelli will be back," Daroga said with a knowing smile. "The two of you are meant to be together."

"How can you be so sure?"

"It's your destiny."

Was it?

Erik asked himself that question every day, as he sat motionlessly on top of the Grand Escalier, waiting. People passed him by, some of them stopping for a moment to take a selfie. Every time he saw a mane of dark hair or heard a word of Italian, his heart skipped a beat but it always turned out to be just another random tourist. Time moved on and Carlotta wasn't coming back.

The weekend came around again. The last tourists left, leaving the Grand Escalier eerily quiet.

"Chin up, Erik," Daroga said as he passed him by, going to change into his uniform before taking the night shift. "It's only been two weeks."

Two weeks? It felt like so much longer.

A clicking of heels on the marble floor caught Erik's attention. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at the woman standing in the hall below, her dark silhouette in stark contrast against the soft golden background of the Grand Escalier. She was looking back at him, lip quivering.

He ran down the steps, jumping two at a time until he was right in front of her.

"You came back," he murmured, staring into those beautiful dark eyes.

"Of course I did," Carlotta said, surprised. "Why would you think I wouldn't?"

"You disappeared without saying a word."

"I'm sorry about that," she dropped her gaze, "but I just needed some time to process. So I switched my phone off and went to my family's summer estate in Cinque Terre. I didn't tell anyone I was staying there. I just wanted to be alone for a while, you know, to think things through."

"I thought that seeing me for the monster I was you'd ran away from me."

Speaking, Erik touched his mask, dissolving any doubts Carlotta might have had as to what he meant.

She bit her lip nervously. "Erik, I've seen your face before."

"When?"

"The night of the masquerade, after we-"

"You unmasked me while I slept?!"

"No," she assured. "No. I just… Looking around your house I found a plaster cast of what I assumed had to be your own face. I won't deny that it was a bit of a shock at first."

Erik recalled Carlotta's strange mood the morning after the masquerade. So it was because she'd seen his face, or rather a plaster cast of it. He felt a deadweight rest on his chest as he realized what it meant.

"In all this time you knew what I looked like," he breathed out, "and yet you'd stayed with me."

Carlotta just smiled. Taking a step forward, she slipped a finger under Erik's mask and propped it on top of his head. She looked into his face with neither fear nor repulsion and then drew him in for a kiss. Something wet tickled her cheek and she realized he was crying.

There was a clapping sound that multiplied as more hands joined in. Pulling away, Erik looked around and saw half of the Opera House had gathered in around them. There was Marie and a few other seamstresses, Jerome with his boyfriend and some chorus girls, the management, the ladies from administration, Maestro Flaubert and a few members of the orchestra, Julianne along with some other singers, a bunch of stage adepts, Valentina with a few more members of the cleaning staff, even the chef and waiters from the restaurant, and finally Daroga.

Surrounded by the cheering crowd, Erik felt as if he were about to explode, not from anger but from a completely different feeling which, he guessed, had to be true happiness. Unable to contain his emotions, he grabbed Carlotta by the waist and spun her around. When he finally put her down, panting, she flashed him a serious look.

"Erik," she said, "I think it's time you leave the past behind and hit the big world out there. Quit the cellars and come live with me. I have acquaintances both here in France and in Italy. I could get you a real ID. You could become a proper citizen. All you have to do is agree to have a photo taken and I mean a photo of the real you, with no mask on. I know how you feel about your appearance so I'm not forcing you but I hope you say yes. Please, say yes. I can't stand seeing you spend another lifetime castaway anymore.

"Yes," Erik said without even thinking about it.

Carlotta stared at him in disbelief. "Yes?"

"For the love of God, yes! Whatever you ask me, yes!"

Several weeks later, Erik was staring at a blue plastic card bearing his own face and the name he'd chosen to go by. He never knew his father's name and he'd gladly forget his mother's so he went with Destler instead. It was as good a name as any other and he was already used to it. He wasn't sure when or even where he was born so he had declared: September 14th, 1981, Paris. The choice was anything but random. On September 14th, 2017, in the heart of Paris, a diva had sung a song. That day a ghost had died and man was born.

THE END

Coming out into the real world, Erik became active on social media, quickly turning into an online celebrity with hundreds of thousands of followers. His popularity gained him some interesting collaborations, not only in the music department, which translated into a substantial income. When, after a long and successful career, Carlotta retired from the stage, he returned to Palais Garnier as the new Acting Manager.

Daroga kept his post as the Commander in Chief Guard. He and Erik met for drinks sometimes and he always bragged about the phans who never stopped raiding the Opera House. The former ghost asked him to be the best man at his wedding with Carlotta. Daroga obviously accepted.

Christine quit ballet, claiming it had never been her thing. She only did it because her mother made her. Instead, with some help from Erik, she pursued a singing career, albeit not in the operatic genre. She eventually married Raoul. Her mother wasn't too happy. Neither was his father. Neither of them cared.

Little Meg kept on dancing and eventually became an Etoile. She married an older Russian oligarch who conveniently died about a year later, leaving her a small fortune. She spent the for the rest of her life bathing in luxury like the empress she was supposed to be.

Antonio returned to La Scala. He kept on being a womanizer until, in his fifties, he married and had a daughter. When his much younger wife found out he was cheating on her, she divorced him, leaving him completely broke.

Thibault underwent trial in which he was found guilty of multiple aggravated crimes and got convicted for 25 years in prison.

THE VERY END

So, how did you guys like it? Please, if you happen to read this fanfic, be so kind and leave a review behind.

I don't plan on writing a sequel to this story - it was aòwaus meant to be a stand-alone piece - but if you liked the way I portrayed the characters and have ideas for a continuation or some related short stores, like missing moments or something, go for it. I don't mind if you write and post them, as long as you credit me as the original source.

ErikxCarlotta, having such high potential, is a surprisingly rare and underrated pairing. I wouldn't mind if someone gave it another shot. If people have a hard time imagining these two together, then I can only hope my work could inspire them.