The gondola had never seemed slower, each ripple in the dark water marked by Erik's increasingly labored breathing. His blood stained my hands as I tried to keep pressure on the wound.

"Stay with me," I whispered, steering the boat with one hand while holding him with the other. "I know someone who can help."

Erik's laugh turned into a cough. "Another survivor... from your past life?"

"Something like that." I thought of Isabella Ravenflower, the nurse who had tended to Titanic survivors. She and her husband Gabriel had moved to the French coast after the war, running a small clinic for wounded soldiers. They were the only ones I could trust - the only ones who understood what it meant to keep secrets.

The journey through the opera house's underground tunnels seemed endless, but finally, we emerged through a hidden gate that led to the streets of Paris. The night air was cool against our faces, and Erik's mask gleamed in the moonlight.

"Mon ange," he murmured, his voice weaker now, "I fear I cannot-"

"Don't you dare," I cut him off, flagging down a carriage with desperate waves. "You are the Phantom of the Opera. You do not get to die from Cal Hockley's knife."

The carriage driver's eyes widened at Erik's masked face and bloody clothing, but the handful of francs I thrust at him silenced any questions.

"The coastal road," I commanded. "Near the army hospital. And hurry!"

The journey was torture. Every bump in the road made Erik wince, though he tried to hide it. I held him close, humming our song softly, watching the city lights give way to countryside, then to the distant glimmer of the ocean.

"The sea," Erik whispered, his golden eyes glazed with fever. "Like your eyes in candlelight..."

"Stay with me," I pleaded, seeing the familiar cottage come into view. "We're almost there."

Isabella was in her garden despite the late hour, her dark hair gleaming in the moonlight as she tended to her healing herbs. She looked up at the sound of our carriage, and I saw recognition flash across her face.

"Rose?" Then she saw Erik. "Gabriel! GABRIEL!"

Her husband appeared in the doorway, his military doctor's training evident in how quickly he assessed the situation. "Bring him inside. Quickly."

Together, we carried Erik into their clinic. The smell of herbs and medicine filled the air, so different from the dank atmosphere of the opera house's depths.

"Cal Hockley," I explained as Gabriel cut away Erik's shirt. "He stabbed him."

Isabella's hand found mine. "The man from the Titanic? He found you?"

"It's... complicated."

"It always is with you, Rose," she smiled grimly, already preparing bandages and medicines. "Your masked friend here - he's important to you?"

I watched as Gabriel cleaned the wound, my heart in my throat. "He's everything."

"Then we'll save him." She squeezed my hand. "Go, help Gabriel. I'll brew the medicines he'll need."

The next hours were a blur of blood and bandages, of Erik's fever-induced murmurs in French, of Gabriel's steady hands stitching the wound. Isabella's herbal concoctions filled the room with strange, healing scents.

"Sing for me," Erik whispered during a moment of lucidity, his unmasked face vulnerable in the lamplight. "Let me hear our song..."

So I sang, my voice mixing with the sound of distant waves, while Isabella and Gabriel worked to save the man I loved. Outside, dawn was breaking over the ocean, painting the sky in colors that reminded me of Erik's music - all gold and rose and promise.

"The wound is deep," Gabriel said finally, washing blood from his hands, "but if we can prevent infection..."

"He'll live," Isabella finished firmly. "He has something to live for." She looked at me knowingly. "Love is the strongest medicine."

I sank into a chair by Erik's bedside, taking his hand in mine. "You hear that, mon fantôme? You have to live. We haven't finished our duet yet."

And somewhere in his fever dreams, I felt his fingers tighten around mine.