Love Never Dies

Chapter XIII

I come panting into the room and head for the nearest hiding place. My father was showing Gustave all his inventions. I had seen some of them before, but he had some new ones he had been working on. Much like Gustave, I see the beauty in all the things my father does. People look to his things for amusement, but really, they should have been looking at it with amazement. These people were beautiful, not freaks. My father was not a freak, he was a genius.

"It's so, so beautiful!" Gustave exclaims, running from one invention to another. As much as my father likes to hide it, I could see the pride on his face.

"Gustave, would you like to the see the true beauty of this world I have created?" He nods eagerly.

In less than a minute, I watch as Gustave's life changes. My father takes off his mask and I watch in terror as Gustave shoves him away and runs screaming. Suddenly, Christine comes running up the door of the workshop and grabs a hysterical Gustave.

"Horrible, mother! It's horrible!

"Gustave! It's alright! It's me!" She looks to Papa and notices him hunched against the piano. "Gustave-" She notices the mask on the ground and she pushes Gustave to Meg. "Please- take him away." She moves over to my father. "I am so sorry! Please forgive him- he meant no harm-"

"When were you going to tell me?" He growls. "Tell you what?"

"Did you just think I would never find out?" He yells in her face. She cowers away, and I resist the urge to speak out.

"Tell me!"

"Yes!" Christine finally screams out, falling to the floor. "Yes! He is yours." My father stumbles away from her. "I have a- a son?" He stammers. "You left!" Christine shouts, tears beginning to fall. "I wanted to tell you- god I wanted to tell you! But you left! If you had stayed..." She pulls herself up with the piano, rising to his height. "I was going to leave him."

"What?" My father says. "I was going to leave my marriage! I woke to tell you, but... you were already gone! I pretended all these years... to protect us. You."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Gustave wasn't my half-brother at all.

He was my brother. My flesh and blood. I watch as Christine walks out of the workshop, casting one last glance over her shoulder at Papa before slipping out the door.

Gustave had run away, Christine had left, and my father was simply staring at the floor in shock. He begins chuckling.

"I have a son..." He rose his voice, "I have a son!" He was so excited, I'd never seen him like this ever. "I promise Christine, I will make myself worthy! Everything will be his!"

I was a little shocked. His? What about me? Was I nothing to him? He went running out of his workshop, leaving me with my thoughts.

Was everything really going to be Gustave's? I know that it's customary in some parts of the world that everything goes to the male, but wasn't I worth more to Papa than some stupid custom?

While I was thinking very hard, Aunt Giry managed to sneak in. I only realized she was there when she began speaking.

"All shall be his..." She moves to the piano, her foot tapping on the ground. "A little boy... who just waltzes in and everything is his..." Suddenly, she flings everything off the piano and screams in rage. "What have we done for him? Everything! And now this bastard son comes in and gets everything?!" She straightens her hair and dress before taking a deep breath.

"Not if I have anything to do about it."    

AN: Heyo, how's everybody's day?