All the Rules Rearranged, Chapter 4

[igenlode]

I've been fiddling and fiddling with the important bits of this and then putting things back the way they were before, so I think this is probably as good as it's going to get...

"Je me voyais mal faire chanter à Raoul The beauty Underneath, mais le cœur y est !"

---

Chapter 4: Dead Souls

Her aim shook so much that Raoul scarcely dared take his eyes off the weapon. But at that range she could hardly miss. For a moment they were a frozen tableau.

“Back.” She gestured with the gun, and Raoul obeyed, backing step by reluctant step away from the terrified betrayal in the child’s face.

“Papa...” It was barely a whisper, but Raoul’s heart clenched, helpless.

“Miss Giry—”

“It won’t be long, Vicomte. It won’t be long for any of us now. Just until he comes... and then it can all be over, all the hurt and all the wanting and all the shame. You feel it too, don’t you? You’ve wanted the same thing...”

The weaving mouth of the gun beckoned, mesmerising, like an endless tunnel into blackness spiralling down, and she laughed. “For years I tried and he never noticed. But he won’t let the boy go — he’ll have to notice now. He has to, has to... Why isn’t he here? Oh, why did you have to come? Don’t you know whose child this is? Don’t you know what it means? Or are you sunk so low for her that you’d do anything, anything”—her voice broke—“like me?”

“I know,” Raoul said softly, watching the echo of his own despair on her face as the tears ran down. “I know what she told him. I know what he believes. It’s too late now for any of us to stay blind...”

He took a deep breath past the tightness in his throat. “And I’ve come for my son.”

Gustave; Gustave, whose eyes clung desperately to his from a smeared white face. Who understood nothing in all this save that the world had fallen out from beneath his feet, and the dream he’d been promised had turned to nightmare.

Like Raoul’s own. The taint of the Opera wound through all their lives, staining innocence with madness — even little Meg Giry, with her love and her ambition, who’d fled far across the sea in the Phantom’s wake. And the more they tried to fight it, the more ruined they became...

Defiance welled up in memory, Christine’s face like a blazing banner: What makes you think I’d ever sing for you again? And the scent of her hair swimming through his senses as she clung against his breast... there’d been a chance for them, he knew it, a chance for them then, before— before—

Before what? It was a hard inner voice that cut through maudlin wanderings: the pitiless voice he’d fled for years. But there was no veil of drink or rage to blur it now in the grey dregs that remained.

Before what? it asked. Before you played into his hands — before you threw away every chance you might have had together over a transgression ten years old? Before you let taunts and wounded pride tell you it was him she truly wanted, when you’d seen her stand there fresh from your arms and fling accusations into his face? You knew what power he could wield over her. You saw her hold him off — saw him threaten her through Gustave. And you did nothing, said nothing... chose instead to turn your back on her and wallow in your own self-pity and your belief in betrayal.

For ten years you never questioned her love — only whether you had deserved it. In the depths of your heart you have called yourself a coward and a failure, Raoul de Chagny. Did you think— did you really think you were disproving that after she came to you for comfort... and you left her there with him and walked out on her tonight?

For a moment, as the cold wind ebbed around the pier, he did not know which was worse: the accusation or the horrible, treacherous suggestion of hope. If she needed him, oh God, if she did need him and he’d abandoned her... The waves sucked below in an endless hungry hiss, and Meg Giry hung in torment on the brink with a terrified boy in a death-grip; and with something like a groan the Vicomte de Chagny held out his hands to his son. All that mattered — right here, right now — was the aching uncertainty in the Giry girl’s face.

“Gustave—”

Gustave, what did you think you were doing? Gustave, why didn’t you come straight back? Gustave, your mother and I were worried sick about you— All the old frightened, angry words, tugging endlessly at the heels of a child too bold and bright to be kept much longer at his mother’s apron-strings... and somehow it was far past the time for any of that between them.

“Gustave... don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.” The words came out too quickly, on a brave gasp that gave them the lie. “Papa, I— I just want to go home!”

“We’re going home, I promise. Just as soon as—” He caught himself short, sick at heart. “Just as soon as we possibly can.”

Leave this place behind... He no longer knew if he’d won that accursed bet or lost it; or won it and lost her both at once. The future loomed hopeless and dark, and there was no place for him that he could see in it anywhere. What kind of home would there be for any of them — now?

But Gustave was a barely-glimpsed shadow pinned behind Meg Giry’s skirts as the pier-end lantern swayed, and the woman who’d once been his wife’s loyal friend held him off at gun-point, braced and shivering, for one final grand gesture before an unheeding audience; there were more ruined lives than one out here in the wake of an aria that never was. The opera was over... but the last notes had yet to be played. And it seemed to Raoul that they were his to carry after all.

He knelt down, slowly, though every instinct cried out against it; spread empty arms before her, harmless and wide. Bareheaded in the dark, there was nothing he could do if she chose to make a move. The knowledge of that hung between them in a desperately tenuous thread of trust.

“Let the boy go. Please. You’ve made your point. You don’t need to do this... Give me the child, Miss Giry. We won’t leave, if that’s what you ask; you don’t have to be alone. We’ll wait, all of us together, until he comes. Just let me have Gustave safe, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to help. You tried to help me, last night — do you remember? I should have listened... If I’d listened to you then, we’d be far across the sea by now, and you would have been the one on that stage tonight...”

He scarcely knew what he was saying; only that he must keep the words going somehow and keep alive that tiny bridge of connection that might draw her away from the edge. But something in it had woken a spark of response.

She had taken a step forward — unconsciously, he thought.

“On the stage? You said she didn’t sing!”

“She won’t sing for him — not tonight. She was in no state to sing by the time I left...” He’d meant it as some kind of reassurance, but Meg Giry’s face twisted in response.

“And how did you manage that, Vicomte? Throttle her a little, maybe? Mark her up enough to show? It takes a lot to keep a girl off the stage, believe me — why, men never guess how much you can hide with the right lights and a bit of extra paint. Even if it took more than one of them to do it.”

And it wasn’t Christine she was speaking of now, not in those dragging bitter tones... He tried to keep sick understanding from his face; failed, and saw her scorn. What kind of life, what kind of men had she known, when she sold herself... and came back and danced for her idol — for him?

“No — Miss Giry, no! Do you think I— She was distraught, that’s all. She’d been weeping...”

“What a sheltered life you lead.” It was a flat statement of fact. “I went on again for two shows in the evening, after Senator Jackson; I took one of Mother’s pills. The Senator had friends, you see. They liked to party... hard.”

And then she’d gone out to swim, Raoul thought. Alone in the cold grey dawn, with no-one to watch and no-one to care — and yet she’d come back, and pulled on her hard professional smile, and taken up the threads of her life again after doing what needed to be done. While he... he had fled again and again from facing reality, and squandered more happiness along the way than she’d ever dreamed of. His mouth tightened, and the split lip hurt in reminder.

“Listen to me...” He caught his breath, trying to hold those shadowed eyes with his. “You don’t need the gun. You’re stronger than I ever was — I think we both know that. There’s no place for pride between us: you’ve seen me in the hell of my own making. You’re destroyed, you’re haunted, you’re full of anger and hate towards the world that made you what you are and towards yourself for being weak enough to fail in what you thought you could be — I know. Give me the gun, Miss Giry...”

The strain of it was already a visible burden on her slender wrist, and her aim was no longer more than a gesture in his direction. In a few minutes she would have to release her grip on Gustave’s collar and use both hands on the weapon if she still meant to hold him off; and from where he knelt, isolated and exposed on the cold timbers of the decking, it was not as if he could rush her even if he had intended it.

“Give me the gun, and your trust, and a chance — give me my son, Miss Giry...” He could see her falter; for one dreadful moment, as her head came up sharply and she tensed, he thought she meant to turn the gun on herself or Gustave. But her hand shook, and she let the muzzle fall.

“You should leave this place.” The thought escaped him on impulse and he came to his feet, stretching out one hand towards her. “It’s as poisonous to you as it was to us... leave your mother and her ambitions and go. Take your talent and find some place that’s new and clean and kind...”

“It’s too late for that.” Her laugh was a desolate little sound that the wind snatched away; but she had allowed Gustave to edge round her, her fingers still twisted tightly at his neck. It seemed to Raoul as if the boy was almost drawing her forward despite herself. “And I’ve sold too much of myself to get Phantasma built for me to walk out on it now.”

To walk out on it... or walk out on him. The shadow of the unspoken words lay open and aching between them like a shared wound; and if it was one that could wake only loathing in Raoul, the taste of that pain was all too intimately familiar still.

“You can’t — buy love.” The words were jerked from some deep place against his will. “No matter how much blame you pile on yourself, how much you risk or give up to earn it back, you can’t buy the love you want. Not with all the heartbreak in the world. Miss Giry, please—”

She’d come a few paces further forward as if in a dream, with Gustave frozen under her grasp like a small wild creature too frightened to take flight. “I’ve known that all along — longer than you.”

And it was another name now that hung unspoken in the air between them.

She yanked the boy round with a jerk that tore a stifled cry from him, and thrust him out in front of her until Raoul could almost brush the small fingers that clutched for his. “Take him, then... what difference does it make? Seems I can’t even buy one moment of attention away from her...”

She would release Gustave. He could see it in her face. Then a few swift running steps to oblivion; the fall, half-stunned, and the final, feeble struggles of the body against the will that bore it down and the clutching merciless water. He’d lived it over and over again in his dreams. The Seine had not been gentle on Boncarré — betrayer, bankrupt, friend — when they found him.

“Don’t.” Memory brought it out more harshly than he’d intended. “You don’t have to; he can’t make you... Listen to me. You’re bruised and overlooked, but even if he can’t see it you’ve got talent of your own — bright, funny, engaging... you make the world a happier place for hundreds of people, and God knows that’s more than most of us can say. We can’t all be like—”

He’d thought he could say it. Thought he could lay the ghost that was haunting both of them. But his voice broke on the name, and he heard quite distinctly Meg Giry’s tiny gasp.

Raoul closed his eyes against the memory. “—like Christine...”

“Christine? Christine — always Christine!” She caught in a great shuddering breath that echoed his.

“Papa!”

Raoul had moved without thinking the moment he heard the boy’s cry. But Gustave was clinging hard against his leg, shivering, and it was a woman’s cold hands that found his grasp and her weight that collapsed into his arms in a torrent of sobs; the muffled words were blurred beyond recognition, and all he could do was hold onto her in the shared agony of that dark with the child’s small body pressed close against his own. He freed one hand; gripped Gustave’s shoulder tightly.

“Miss Giry...” She was too slender, her arms fragile around his neck where Christine’s were firm and strong. And her body fitted against his in different places; he had not thought another woman’s hold could feel so... wrong.

One clutching hand still held the gun. He drew it loose, gently — skin crawling cold now at the realisation of what might have happened — and broke it open to shake out the load: one, two, three four... and the empty chamber it had been stored on.

Gustave had raised his head at the movement, eyes wide. Raoul managed a smile for his son, with a sudden ache of pride that took him by surprise. The boy had been brave — brave beyond belief. If there were to be nightmares from this, better they should be Raoul’s alone...

“Here.” He reversed the empty weapon in his hand and held it out, offering it to the child. “Your turn to keep guard. Miss Giry won’t mind playing the game a little longer — will you?”

Her face came up to meet his, tear-drenched and wild, and their eyes met almost fiercely.

“He’s seen enough,” Raoul said under his breath. “For the boy’s sake—”

An almost imperceptible nod. He watched her regain control: felt her grip on him slacken, and loosed his own hold with a brief, inadequate pat on the back. She, too, had courage... but then she would scarcely have lasted this long without it.

“Why don’t we walk back, then? I’m sure Gustave can make sure I don’t run away...” Even to Raoul’s ears the playful tone almost rang true, and she held out her crossed wrists as if they were to be bound together, offering them to Gustave’s wary gaze. “What will you do with me, Vicomte?”

But there was a very real question in that beneath the pretence, and she was trembling. Raoul took both her hands in his under the guise of urging her back along the pier, the boy trailing them with fierce concentration.

“I—” Half his attention was spared for the light sound of his son’s footsteps behind, and the answer came out hopelessly disjointed. “I suppose— Nothing... I— I don’t know.”

What on earth was he to do? She’d threatened Gustave — she’d meant, he thought, to go through with it, at least where her own life was concerned. He could have her committed to a cell or under a doctor’s care for what she’d done. But he’d brought her back from the edge almost without meaning it, and instead of one rescue on his hands, in a sense he now had two.

“I want my mother.” It was less an outcry than a statement of implacable intent; Gustave caught up with them at a run, circling wide, and marched backwards, covering Meg Giry with his weapon in a manner that made Raoul profoundly thankful it was empty. “She”—an accusatory glare—“said Mother was looking for me...”

“She is, I promise you — she is.” Raoul caught his breath even as the woman beside him clutched at his arm: was that a shape — two shapes — detaching themselves from under the shadows at the end of the pier... beginning now to run? “And the moment she has you safely back with her, she’ll be free to decide—”

He broke off.

“Decide what?” Gustave demanded, stopping dead in his tracks.

“Decide... about going home,” Raoul said slowly, the words wrenched out of him. He watched the lantern-light fall across Christine’s face, the hair half-tumbling loose from its pins, and the glory of relief and love that shone out for Gustave, all for Gustave, as the child turned at last towards the sound of her hurrying footsteps and she swooped down upon him.

Fresh tears gleamed unheeded on her cheeks. “Gustave—”

“Mother!”

Raoul waited, as if at a great distance. Why did that other hang back? Was he so confident then in his power to call her whenever he wanted — to claim the family of his desire?

Meg Giry’s weight was heavy on his arm, and Raoul caught hold of her as she swayed.

“Here — take her. Help her.” He looked up into the face of the masked shadow that paced towards them. “You owe her that much, for ten years’ service.”

But the jibe was little more than a ghost of defiance; it seemed to Raoul that he no longer felt anything much any more.

“Meg. Little Meg.” It was barely more than a breath, murmured with more gentleness and regret than he would have credited. “Madame told me—”

“I don’t think Madame Giry told you the half of it,” Raoul said quietly. “I don’t think she knew. I hope to heaven she didn’t... if she is any kind of natural mother at all.”

He had an impulse to tell the man — to fling in his face what had been done for his sake. But the knowledge was not his to give: and for a creature like that, he told himself, doubtless it would be no shame... Meg’s body against his own was slack and unresponsive, as if the taut strings that kept her upright had yielded in a final merciful collapse, and he thrust her into the Phantom’s grasp.

“Take her. Ask her the truth — if you can spare a moment from your happiness. It’s you she wants... God knows why.”

The half-face twisted beneath the mask in something that Raoul, unbelieving, could only read as pain. “It seems then, Vicomte, that we bear the same message for one another...”

Left at a loss, Raoul stared at him in dull incomprehension. Beyond them, the woman and child were oblivious beneath the lantern, lost in one another’s arms.

The other man’s gaze had followed his. His voice, haunting still in its power, held a last trace of contempt at Raoul’s expense; but the bitterness was turned inwards in a painful echo.

“It’s you she wants — God knows why.”

A moment later, and he was lost in the shadows. Meg Giry was gone. The cold wind stole around Raoul and left him uncertain and alone.