Kay fix-it fic, courtesy of the Persian. Angst, humour, romance, and Erik in the closet because hey, why not?

Disclaimer: I love these weird bouts of inspiration, but sadly all they produce is nonsense about other people's characters.

With Friends Like This

I have gotten into some truly eerie situations over the years thanks to Erik. His unpredictability and sheer madness at times has made him a strange friend to have, but a good one. After Christine Daae had emerged weeping from the bedchamber where he lay, Erik's bloody cat curled up in her arms and her vicomte standing by to take her away, I fully expect to have to bury him. Bury my old friend, who was probably still naked after finally getting to know a woman intimately at this late stage in his life. Still, I couldn't help but recoil from the thought of seeing him naked. It is not his ugliness that repels me, but rather the fact that it is Erik, my friend. I shudder.

So the sight of him sitting up in bed, buttoning his shirt came as something of a surprise. "Allah!" I shout in blasphemous shock, and Erik turns to look at me, a manic grin stretching across his face. Yes, he definitely had a good night.

"Daroga! Capital to see you," he says, standing (thankfully wearing trousers) and easing his shoes on. "I trust you're well?"

"Well?" I shout. "What about you? Last night you were on your deathbed!"

"Ah, that," he replies casually as though I have merely mentioned the weather. "Yes, that was rather a convincing act, wasn't it?"

I breath in and out in an attempt to hold my temper. It doesn't really work. "Why... on earth... did you need... to convince me... you were dying?"

Erik shoots me a look of pure condescension, his bare face the least shocking thing about him at the moment. "Everything is not all about you, Nadir," he says slowly, as though talking to a child or a simpleton. "I had to convince Christine I was dying so she would leave with her boy."

The expression of dumbfounded confusion on my face is probably enough to make him elaborate.

"I can give her no proper life," he explains, sober for a moment. "No children, no family, and probably not more than a few years. She loves the boy, and how he loves her. They will be well together."

I sigh. There's no arguing with him when he's got that ugly head of his made up. "So you're really not dying."

"Fit as a fiddle," he grins at me, death's head leering.

"Excellent," I reply, and before I know it I have knocked him hard across the jaw. He is sprawled on the hard floor, expression utterly bemused. "I was terrified for you!" I roar at him. "I thought you were dying! For good, this time! Do you know what I've suffered, what I've feared - "

He barks out a laugh, holding one hand to his jaw. "Always knew you loved me after all, Daroga," he quips, and before I know it I am laughing too, sinking to my knees to embrace him as a brother. He is stiff and unyielding in my arms but he pats my back tentatively, even as I pull away to dab at my eyes. "Old woman," he grumbles, and I shove him amiably in the arm.

"I take it you're coming home with me?" I ask, hauling my old bones to my feet. Erik does the same, but far more gracefully, tying on his mask.

"I suppose," he replies with an air of being thoroughly put upon, but as we begin to leave his battered and broken home I am surprised by a hand on my arm. "Thank you, Daroga," he murmurs, as though one telling a secret, and tramps on ahead, leaving me to follow (and yes, once again at the mercy of my emotions).

Adjusting to Erik as a permanent fixture of my home has been both trying and pleasant. He is a cross, violent, unpredictable man, a fiend in every sense of the word, yet I am inexplicably fond of him. And I know he enjoys my company, even if he seems to invent new insults for me every time he sees me. It is just his way. I am getting used to being beaten at chess by him once more, and we no longer wage money but rather favours and chores and the odd bet. Erik for once lost spectacularly three months ago (although he had a migraine at the time) and had to accompany me to the opera. We have returned every week since, although we have always arrived late under the cover of darkness to disguise the fact that between the two of us we are a foreigner and a masked man.

It is not always an easy cohabitation. I am old and set in my ways, and now so is Erik. The first time I convinced him to go out in public with me, two aging men ambling about having a walk and a chat, he lasted barely two minutes before racing back to the flat. I returned with haste (although less than him) to find him in the hall curled up in the foetal position, balled up impossibly small for a man with such long limbs, hands over his face, whimpering. But the second time he lasted five minutes, and then ten, and then half an hour, and then a whole hour, and finally now it hardly matters how long we remain out... as long as I am with him, of course. Sometimes I do feel for him, think him a poor fellow scorned and crushed by the world. And then he beats me soundly at chess and taunts me about it, and I return to thinking him a fiend once more.

He suffers from frequent and virulent nightmares. He has warned me to steer clear of him at these times, but sometimes he roars so loudly one cannot help but go to him. There are the neighbours to think of as well, after all. The first time I attempted to wake him, I received a slap across the jaw for my pains. The second time, I was unceremoniously yanked off my feet and into his arms, where I remained for the rest of the night as he rested his monstrous head on my shoulder and occasionally snuggled into my sleeping shirt like a child. Darius gave us some very odd looks the next morning. I haven't let Erik live it down since.

And so the months have passed and we are now here, a full six months from that night when Erik let his prima donna go to be with the young and strapping hero. Except it is not night, it is day, and the sun floods in the open window. Erik basks in it, masked face turned up to the light. It's amusing, watching him bask like an oversized cat, reminiscent of nothing more than the Shah's pet beauties sunning themselves in the gardens.

We are at chess yet again. He is thrashing me unmercifully, only half of his attention on the game as he sneaks glances at the newspaper (my newspaper, I might add) on the sofa.

"Someone to see you, sir," my manservant Darius addresses me, poking his head through the sitting room door from the hall.

"Who is it?" Erik asks lazily. Darius scowls at him.

"A Mademoiselle Daae, sir," Darius replies with his customary deference, speaking to me even though it was Erik who asked. I nearly spit out my tea.

"Daae?" I repeat in shock, as simultaneously Erik breathes incredulously, "Mademoiselle?"

"That is what she said," my implacable servant replies, levelling only a hint of a glare at Erik. They have never gotten along. "Should I show her through?"

"Yes," I reply.

"No!" Erik counters.

Darius looks between us, his shoulders lifting only a little and a hint of a smirk in his voice as he replies, "She'll be here in a moment." He disappears.

"Damn him," Erik growls. "I need to hide!"

"What?" I ask, but my surprise is tempered by amusement at the famed Phantom of the Opera, the khanum's Angel of Doom, running all around my sitting room looking for somewhere to hide from one young woman. "Have you run mad? Well, madder," I amend, and receive a filthy look for my trouble.

"Have you?" he argues. "I'm dead to her! I have to be! So she can move on and have a normal life!" His voice is rising, his eyes darting all about like a trapped animal. I take pity on him.

"The closet," I sigh, waving a hand toward the small room where Darius keeps a few cleaning supplies and odds and ends. Erik sighs gustily in relief, practically running towards it in his fervour to get away from Mademoiselle Daae.

"Brilliant! You're brilliant, Nadir," he replies.

"I'll remember that next time you call me a Persian fool," I reply dryly, and he makes an obscene gesture at me as he disappears into the closet. I sink back into my chair with a sigh of relief, only to jump up again moments later when the girl herself walks into my sitting room. I eye her warily. She looks well, a little plumper in the face, giving her a look of health rather than the aura of misery and despair which hung around her last. Her dress is simple and pretty, but far too plain for a Vicomtess, and her shawl wrapped around her looks more like a shield against the world than a simple bit of fabric.

Darius looks a little disappointed that 'the masked fiend won't be getting a scolding from the visiting Madame' - I can practically hear him saying it in my head - but escorts her in anyway, bringing fresh tea and another cup. I thank him with a nod, inviting Mademoiselle Daae to take a seat with a wave of my hand. Her eyes alight upon the chess set, the two cups. "I am not interrupting you?" she asks in her pleasant, light voice. I shake my head and try to not let my eyes wander to the closet in which Erik is hiding.

"Of course not, Madame," I reply, testing her with the honorific, offering her the seat Erik had formerly been occupying.

"I'm still a mademoiselle," she replies with a little laugh. She is charming, there is no doubt about it. There is little wonder Erik felt so keenly for her. "Besides, Monsieur, surely we have seen enough together to warrant you calling me Christine."

"Christine," I repeat, trying out the name. She smiles. "May I offer you some tea?"

"That would be wonderful," she replies, and mindlessly we dispense with the usual trivialities that occur when two near-strangers meet. I have seen this girl bedraggled and terrified, seen her touch Erik with brutal, beautiful intimacy, but I know so little of her, other than what Erik let slip in those few days between letting her go and her return.

She is supposed to be with the Vicomte. He had taken her away willingly enough, after all. Erik, in one of his rare moods of willingness to talk about her (he had been drunk), had stated several times he expected them to be married by now.

"What brings you here, Mademoiselle Daae? I thought you and the Vicomte..."

"Yes," she says with contempt, her weary little face hard, "the Vicomte." I cannot help but wonder what he has done to deserve such fury. She sips her tea. "He is a very good man, do you know that? He is sweet and morally upstanding and utterly nothing like Erik." Her blunt introduction of him into the conversation is a little shocking; talking of Erik always feels mildly forbidden to me, as though he can overhear no matter how many miles separate us. In this instance, however, it is not miles, but merely a few feet. "No, he is nothing like Erik, and for that I cannot help but loathe him." Ah. The disgust is not for the poor, honest Vicomte, but herself.

"Why is that, mademoiselle?" I ask, insatiably curious but attempting not to show it.

"I love Erik," she says baldly, and I hear a muffled thump from the closet, as though someone has suddenly fallen into the wall. "I adore him, and his death has not changed that fact."

"Well... that's good to hear," I reply. "However, I fail to see what it has to do with me."

Her smile is too old for such a young woman. "Neither do I, sir," she states. "I don't know why I'm here. I suppose because you were such a dear friend to Erik, and he so dear to me, I feel closer to him in your company. Also, I feel he might have wanted you to know."

"Know?"

She stands, drawing her shawl from around her. There is a distinct thickness around her midsection from the last time I saw her... "I am with child," she says, as though I don't notice. Her voice is very quiet, as though she is telling me a secret, and I wonder if he heard. She takes her seat again as I stare helplessly at the bulge beneath her dress. There is no sound from the closet. I hope he hasn't had another attack from shock.

"What..." I squeak, and Mademoiselle Daae just smiles serenely.

"Perhaps I should start from the beginning," she says, and I nod. She nods back at me decisively, drawing her shoulders back and lifting her chin as though steeling herself to deliver unpleasant news. "Erik is dead," she says in a businesslike tone, but the rattle of the porcelain gives her distress away. She sets the saucer down gently. "He had given me to Raoul like a baggage mercifully rid of." I wince at the leashed anger in her voice. "And no doubt he expected that after his death I would marry Raoul like a good girl, doing as I was told..."

xx

"There is no doubt, miss," the doctor said, looking down at me with weary, kindly eyes. "You are eight weeks along, at the least."

I wiped tears from my eyes, and the doctor's own eyes were drawn inexorably to the lack of a wedding ring on my hand. His eyes narrowed but otherwise gave off no other sign of disapproval, but I still felt the need to have him know the truth.

"He died," I whimpered pathetically into my sodden handkerchief. "The ring is... too terrible a reminder, you understand."

The old doctor's eyes softened. He gave me his own handkerchief to replace mine and advice to help me through the rest of the pregnancy. He was gentle and kind and probably a little older than Erik and the thought made me feel a little ill. If only he knew! If only they all knew! Sometimes I thought I was mad but I was just grieving, grieving the marvellous and beautiful - yes, beautiful, don't look at me like that - man I had given everything to. My voice, my body, and above all my soul.

Raoul did not understand. He had wanted to wed me the moment we left the Opera, but I had kept him at bay for a month. I told him I wanted him to be sure, quite sure, that he wanted to marry me, and then when the month was done I held him at bay for another. He had had his month, and now I needed mine. I asked him not to visit me, and I walked much and thought more; I laid so many of my old ghosts to rest, if you will pardon the expression. I did so much thinking that month and when it had elapsed, I was sure of two things: one, that I was with child, and two, that I could never marry Raoul.

I broke the news to him on the last day of that second month. He had bounced into my flat, beaming, probably expecting me to be contrite and blushing, returned by some alchemy to the Christine he had known before. It had angered me in a way I did not understand and so before he had even had time to take of his hat and coat, I had blurted, "I am with child."

He had stopped dead, staring down at my midsection in shock and then growing horror for a good few minutes before he worked it out and whispered, "Erik's child?"

I could only nod. What else was there to say? That I was sorry? I wasn't. I would not give up this child for all the riches of the de Chagny estates - I would not even give up this child to have Erik back, as awful as it sounds. This child was dear to me beyond anything else in the world now, a creation of Erik's and my love for one another, and I would protect it to my last breath.

Still, he managed to get control of himself enough to say, "It doesn't matter." He really is such a good man, you know. "We can - I can raise it as my own, and we can still wed - "

"No, Raoul," I interrupted grimly. "I will not marry you." You see, I was already married. Erik might be dead but he was and is still the only one to hold my soul. I honour him now as I did not in his life. I am afraid that he loved a woman who was far less than him, and now, I can only strive to be worthy of him.

Raoul didn't see it that way. He saw it as a grandiose betrayal, as my choosing what he termed 'that monster' over him. His anger was terrible, and it was hard for me to bear without breaking into tears or hysterics. He broke two chairs, three lamps, and table before he was able to regain his temper. And then he wept, and that was ever harder. But I was strong now, Erik had made me strong and this child would make me stronger, and I refused to give in to the sea of emotions roiling in my soul.

He left in a great temper once again, slamming my door and knocking a portrait of my father to the ground, smashing the glass. It was the last time I have seen him since and do you know something, Monsieur? I think it was the last time I ever would. And so there went another ghost of the past. I wanted to weep but I forced back my tears, and then I began to plan. I had little money and less skills, other than dancing and singing. No one wanted a pregnant performer. I eventually got work as a seamstress in a shop, concealing my stomach as best I could for as long as I could. The owner, however, was a kind woman who had had many children and soon noticed, accepting without question my story of my dead husband. I wore Erik's ring every day, not for deception's state but because I knew I could never love another.

I was not happy but I was content. I scraped together enough money for a ticket and revisited the Opera, saw a group of laughing aristocrats in Erik's box. The diva was not as good as me but not as awful as La Carlotta - Erik would not have been too disapproving of her. There certainly would have been no scenery dropped on her head. And then after I carefully made the trip below the Opera, to his home. It was as I had last seen it, when you were there, Monsieur, and when I had last seen Erik. I took from that place scraps of his music - I know I can never restore it, but it brings me comfort - and a few trinkets. Tiny pieces of his beautiful home are now in my small one, and of course, Ayesha. In losing him we have found common ground, and I found that after my journey below the Opera I was freed of yet another ghost.

I saw you, Monsieur, crossing the street. It has been six months since I saw you last but I knew it was you at once - you are rather a distinctive looking gentleman, you know. I followed you to your house - I am sorry, sir - and perhaps I would never have done anything about it. But yesterday a package came for me, anonymously, two little portraits. They were Erik's mother and father, he showed them to me once, and I couldn't imagine who had sent them. But I thought if it was anyone, it might be you, and so here I am, now. I don't know why I came, I only know that it felt right.

xx

"... And so that is the end," she finishes calmly. There are tears on her cheeks but she bats them away impatiently, as though lacking the patience to deal with such frivolous rubbish. "I have nothing else left. I will wait until my child comes and then set upon my way."

"What if the child is like..." I can't continue, but she knows. She is not a stupid girl.

"If this child is like Erik?" she asks. "If this child has his genius and his kindness and his strength and his warmth? I would be the happiest mother alive."

Yes, all the wonderful attributes in the world, and a death's head for a face. But one look at the girl's soft smile as she lays a hand on her belly tells me she would not care if the child was monstrous, she would adore it regardless. I am reminded suddenly, like lightning from the past, of Rookheeya, of her swollen with life and beautiful, at the door to our home, smiling, welcoming me back. Her hand outstretched and the other on her stomach, feeling the life burning within her and glorying in it. And so easily snuffed out.

I feel suddenly very old. "Mademoiselle, why are you here?" I ask tiredly. I want her to go. I want her to go so Erik and I can go back to the simple life of these past few months, so I do not have to see my dear mad friend go through the tortures and agonies of spurned love I saw him labour under for so long. I very much desire to see him happy, but I cannot believe that Christine Daae will be able to do so. And I cannot betray him to her; he would never forgive me and I would never forgive myself. Besides, he will not reveal himself to her - wait, unless she...

I am very still and very calm, and I wait for her to speak.

"I came to lay my last ghost to rest," Christine says tiredly, framed against the window. "And to thank you for the portraits, of course. " I have no idea what she's talking about; I certainly have never seen them before. "I am done now, done with this damn city where I have felt nothing but pain and sorrow. I don't know where I'll go or what I'll do, whether I'll starve in a gutter or sing again in an opera house or merely raise my child for the rest of my days, but it will be on my own terms, Monsieur, of my own will. And I think that of anyone, Erik would have respected that."

Silence follows her little pronouncement; I sip my tea and wait. Three, two, one...

"I bloody well would not!" explodes the closet, revealing my masked friend in all his glory and in a towering rage. "In the gutter? My child? You? Christine, you damnable little fool! I told you to go with him and you have defied me yet again!"

Christine's eyes are impossibly wide, her pretty face drained completely of colour. "Erik?" she gasps, swaying on her feet, one hand reaching out to him as the other braces against her belly. "Oh, God," she whimpers, taking one staggering step forward, and falling limp to the ground.

Erik turns and shoots daggers at me with his eyes. "Look what you did, Daroga!" he says severely, as though it's my fault he jumped out of the closet and terrified the poor girl half to death, and crouches down by her side. Exasperated beyond belief, I join him as he tenderly smoothes back a curl of the girl's dark hair from her forehead.

"What the hell am I to do?" he demands. I shrug in bemusement.

"Kiss her? Marry her? Oh, sorry," I amend at his glare, not sorry in the least. "You'll be wanting the other options then. Run away? Flee? Leave her alone and unmarried to raise a child with no means and no education?"

Erik looks more than a little ill at that, supporting Christine's head so he can slip a cushion underneath it. She stirs a little, nuzzling her nose into his bony palm - they are trembling, I can't help but notice. Christine's eyes open, widening when she sees Erik hovering over her like a great black bat, her small hand clutching at his as he strokes her forehead. "Erik," she breathes out in pure joy. "Oh, my love, tell me I am not dreaming."

I can tell that my old friend is grinning like a lunatic beneath his mask. "Christine," is all the response he gives her, and all at once they are in each other's arms, her head on his shoulder, one of his long pale hands resting incredulously on her swollen stomach.

I think they are both crying.

Standing, I pick up my newspaper and turn to the door. At the threshold I take a look back at the couple entwined on my sitting room floor. She has pulled the mask from his face and his ugly head is hidden in her loosened hair, buried in her neck as though he will never stir from her arms again. They rock back and forward, murmuring to one another in mad sweet little murmurs as reunited lovers do.

My friend's face reappears suddenly, as ugly as ever, but lit up from within like a candle inside a great, ugly pumpkin. I do not flinch. He nods, just once, and returns to breathlessly kissing every inch of Mademoiselle Daae's face in delirious joy. Satisfied, I pull the door closed behind me.

Hopefully now he won't be such a surly bastard. I open my newspaper, ready to put all of Erik's dramatics and machinations behind me, if only for an hour or two before those two no doubt start fighting again...

"YOU LIED TO ME! YOU BASTARD!"

"Ow! Christine, stop slapping me!"

What do you reckon? Continue?