04

in which a friendship is forged. 

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Meg lounged on the mattress, Frankenstein propped on her knees, though she wasn't paying much attention. She felt stiff and sore and nearly ached to dance - no, definitely ached, her toes tingle with excitement at the thought of wrapping her feet in pointe shoes - but there was barely any room for two people, much less three.

The blonde sets the novel down, her bookmark buried in its pages. She couldn't stop thinking about the ghost outside her room, and strange emotions began to swirl in her chest. He was rude - incredibly rude - but she understood his appeal that must have confused Christine. He was incredibly large - his hands and fingers were ridiculously long, his shoulders broad, and he was well over six feet - and obviously skilled and wealthy. There was also an air of something dark and alluring, which was enticing to herself, as she was sure Christine was too. Meg shivered, remembering his eyes, which unsettled her, but prompted her to never look away, and even draw her nearer.

But he also doesn't have half a face, Meg reminds herself, which she deemed almost fair considering his person. Resentment and fear filled that empty place inside of her, remembering Buquet falling above her, the dead body of Piangi, and Christine being dragged away, horrified and screaming. At the thought, a burning, angry thing overwhelmed her, and she wished she had the courage to find the Gendarmerie herself.

"Meg," her mother beckons from the other room, knocking on the door. "Breakfast is here."

"I'm not hungry," she lies, though in actuality, she could have eaten enough to feed all of Paris.

"Never once have I known you to skip a meal," her mother teases lightheartedly.

"I'd rather starve than spend another moment with him," Meg grinds out, her voice a snarl, though half the reason being that she would rather die a thousand times than be attracted to him. She hated herself for even thinking it earlier.

A low chuckle rumbles from the other side of the door, and her lips press angrily together. "What's so funny, Monsieur?"

"You are, my dear," another chuckle, and then, "Ow!" he cursed at her mother, and this time, Meg could hear the whack.

Meg stands, wrapping a thin blanket around her shoulders. She opens the door, finding a grumpy phantom, his arms crossed and nearly pouting in his corner. She sends a triumphant smile toward him, and he spins away in a huff, rolling his eyes.

She heard Maman tsk before turning to Meg. "They forgot to leave us milk. I'll go grab some quickly downstairs."

Meg throws a quick and hurried glance at the brooding man, who was slathering butter on a slice of warm bread.

"Maman, don't leave me with him," she hisses. "Just let me go and fetch the milk."

"Neither of you are to leave this room until we leave," she replies, raising her eyebrow sternly.

"I understand him," she starts, to which he retorts, "where am I to run to? The fish?" She ignores him, continuing with, "but what am I to do for a week?"

"Meg, until we leave Europe, you must remain hidden from the public's view. I'm frightened you may be mentioned or pictured in Parisian newspapers."

So perhaps she would be recognized, Meg realized. While that gave her brief elation and purpose, she also felt deflated for what her career could have been. She felt more pinpricks of anger toward the masked man in front of her.

"I'll only be a few minutes, Meg. And you," she says, pointing a finger at the phantom. "Behave." With that, she leaves the room, and the silence is so thick in the small space that the pair could hear the Madame's footsteps down the hallway.

Meg was dumbfounded that her mother had trusted this man with her. Who was he? Why did Maman trust him so much?

Al courage fled her body, and now she felt terrified, setting her fork down as tremors ran through her fingers. She felt his eyes on her, then, and she glanced up at him warily.

"Are you frightened of me?" He questions, and Meg nods, inhaling and exhaling slowly, remembering his harsh grip on her wrist, his vile words, his hand covering her mouth.

"Can you blame me?" She mutters, breaking eye contact and glancing down in her lap. She had half a mind to to dart out of the room and scream for help. Meg counted down the seconds until her mother would return, though the time wasn't going nearly as fast as the girl thought it should.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Especially not with your mother's threats," he replies, his words seeming careful and precise.

"So you would hurt me if my mother weren't here?"

She hears his sharp inhale more than she sees it. "I never said-"

But Meg cuts in before he can finish. "Like you hurt Christine?" Nothing more than a whispers, but it had the effect of a scream, and she immediately regrets it, remembering what happened last time.

His hand slams down on the table, and Meg flinches, tears filling her eyes. Gauging her reaction, his fist clenches as if in regret, and he lunges toward the small room.

"I . . . I didn't hurt her," he grits out, as if trying to convince himself. "Enjoy your breakfast, Mademoiselle." And with that, locks himself in her temporary room.

Tears stream down her face, staring into her lap, her mind blank of everything except for how she somehow landed herself into this mess. When she hears her mother returning, she quickly wipes away the evidence of her crying. If the Madame notices, she doesn't mention it, and instead sits with Meg, a hand covering hers.

"Please understand, Meg. He's like a son to me."

Shock, betrayal and confusion tangle in her mind. All she can respond with, however, as jealousy reared its ugly head, is, "But I'm your daughter!"

"I know," Maman says, and wraps her arms around the small blonde. "He wasn't always like this, and I truly believe this will help him."

"How can you say that? What he's done, he can never come back from," Meg spits, burying her face into Maman's shoulder.

"Meg, if you had done the same, I'm selfish enough to whisk you away to a second chance," she explains quietly, gently rubbing the ballerina's back."

"I don't understand," Meg whispers, "and I don't think I ever will, but I'll do whatever you ask of me, Mother. Whatever you say."

"I love you, ma choupette."

"I love you too, Maman."

Erik sat on the other side of the door, overcome with emotion at being called her son, someone's son, someone's family. His mask sat at his side, knees bent upward and hands cradling his face.

Regret was a harsh surface, sandpaper scrubbing and peeling his heart as he desperately wished to change the past, to win back his Christine. He missed her something terrible, her angelic voice haunting his thoughts and plaguing his dreams. He'd done nothing to be deserving of Antoinette's kindness, and yet she gave it freely.

It touched him just as deeply as that little girl, unafraid, kissed the damaged side of his cheek, just because it looked like it hurt.

His fingers prodded the kiss that had seared into him all of those years ago, and then to his lips, where another had happened just a few days before. His mind reeled to the hotel room, where Meg had been terrified of his bare face. That look rivaled her horror, he realized, when he had been violent with her.

"Perhaps you're right, my Christine," he whispers, a tear trailing down his damaged cheek. "Perhaps it is in my soul."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

He stayed in the smaller room for nearly the entire day, which Meg found she certainly didn't mind. She was, however, beginning to miss her novel, so she asked Erik quietly if he could return it to her. After a moment's hesitation, she saw the auburn copy passed beneath the door, and she waited a few seconds before snatching it into her hands and dashing away to her spot across the room.

Meg read for the rest of the morning, eventually dozing off when her mother began to rub her back again. When she awoke next, she could barely remember a dream with something flowing red, maybe silk, and dancing on clocks at dusk, but it was becoming more and more vague as the seconds passed.

"I'm going to fetch lunch for us," she announces softly, and Meg nods, sitting up now and pulling the quilt tighter around her shoulders.

Meg felt childish and immature for wanting - and needing. If she was being honest with herself - an abundance of comfort from her mother. She never sought it out unless she auditioned poorly or hadn't gotten a role that crushed her. The last time that she'd cried this much, Meg surmised, was when Papa had left. But she shook away the thought of him, that dormant, age-old ache fighting to surface.

She felt the urge to fight her mother again, but instead, remained quiet. As long as he stayed in the other room, and she, out there, she could live with the discomfort for a little while. Besides, she rather thought the room was accommodating enough for her to stretch.

"Alright, Maman," she agrees, a small and sad grin plastered on her mouth.

"I won't be too long," she promises, and her heels clicked out of the room and down the hallway, same as before.

Meg's gaze slid across the room to the small bathroom in the corner, with a mirror above the sink, which Meg found swung open to reveal a medicine cabinet.

Turning around, she moved the couch on the far wall to next to the bed, creating more of a rectangular free space. The table and chairs were next, to which she piled next to the couch. She opens the curtains, sub spilling into the room, illuminating Meg's grin as she looks upon her work. Though her shoes were in the locked room, that didn't matter - turning would be difficult regardless on the carpet.

She placed her blanket on the couch, removed her overskirts and struggled with loosening her corset. After, she began to roll out her incredibly stiff neck, shoulders, wrists and ankles, and when she began to stretch her feet, the door unlocked and swung open.

Meg's arms crossed over her chest and she backed away in fear, but her gaze was stony and cold. He, however, seemed weather and exhausted, and the blonde wondered what had prompted him to leave the safety of his isolation, and why he seemed so . . . sad.

Though she resented and feared him, a twinge of sympathy struck her. She felt the burning in her chest begin to extinguish itself. "Are you alright, monsieur?"

He looked about the room, and the edge of his mouth that she could see twitched briefly into a grin. "I see you've redecorated."

If his verbal observation was meant to disarm her, it worked. He didn't seem angry, which relieved her enough to uncross her arms and take a few steps toward him. "I needed somewhere to dance." He doesn't respond, and Meg decides not to mention how he seems unaffected by her state of undress. He also watched in during their ballet rehearsals, so perhaps she shouldn't be surprised. While that realization troubled her, she also appreciated that she didn't have to wear the heavy and suffocating clothing in his presence now. "Why did you come out?" A beat, and then "Did you want to talk?"

"I think you'll do enough of that for the both of us," he snarls, and Meg's mind whirls with frustration, and a burst of courage floods her.

"I have done nothing to be deserving of your insults! You are the one who has ruined my life, Monsieur, and it angers me to no end that you feel as if you can treat me this way! I don't expect us to become best friends, but I am deserving of respect, which I am willing to give in return, even though you've committed horrible sins." She exhales sharply, squeezing her fists together and glancing away for a second, attempting to settle the waves of red rippling her vision. "I don't like fighting, Monsieur. It's not in my nature, and it drains me. I'm willing to put effort in, if you are as well."

He was quiet, and Meg watches his eyes, the emotion passing through him, thrown wide-open and vulnerable. She begins to notice that the half-mask was not the only mask he hid behind, and perhaps his eyes were the only honest trait about him.

After a few seconds passed, Meg began to regret everything she said and wished she'd ignored him when he stepped into the room, but continued to hold his gaze. She could feel herself shrinking before his eyes softened, and she released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"You're right, Meg. I apologize. You aren't deserving of my anger." A shaky breath, and then, "You aren't the one I'm angry at."

After the shock of his admission - and Meg thought that was rather brave of him, too, as he didn't seem much of the talking-about-his-feelings type - she realized that he was projecting emotion onto her. It still wasn't okay, but at least he recognized it.

"I think you're in a lot of pain, Monsieur," Meg says softly, coming to stand closer. "And I think you've always been in a lot of pain. But us, fighting and hurling insults at each other won't help. I can promise you that."

"Call me Erik, if I am to call you Meg," he says, and light returns to Meg's eyes.

"Erik," she says simply, and grins at him, ignoring the thoughts telling her to sprint out the door as quickly as she could. "So what did you think of Frankenstein?"

And so began their dubious friendship.