The Friend Shop (Phantom of the Opera)

Chapter 20

Author's Note:

Dear Readers,

For this chapter, I would like to personally thank a faithful reviewer on my Fanfiction.net posting of this story for giving me this idea. It really solved a lot of problems I had unknowingly caused myself. Thank you!

On another note, I don't know how much writing I will be doing this summer. I am a glutton for punishment (apparently) and am trying to work as much as possible and take a biology course without being good in biology. Then, I'm taking an online economics course and working full time. In housekeeping. I will try but no promises. Do not fear though! I will probably end up getting inspiration and bombing at least one exam because I spent the night writing.

sarahlet2999

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Chapter 20

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Dalir hesitated outside the door as he heard the weeping from within. Torn, he listened, running over and over in his head what he had found and how to reconcile it with the hurting person within the room. Death. So much death. So much we didn't even know about. But I know he loves her. She loves him. He would stop the death for her.

When the sounds of tears ceased flowing, Dalir knocked, bracing himself for whatever he would find inside the room, and what would occur when they had finished talking. He had no idea how Erik would react to his knowledge and suggestions.

"Erik, I'm coming in." He hesitated when he heard scrambling in the room. After a moment, he entered and closed the door behind him before he looked at the sick man on the bed, covered by a sheet tucked up under his chin.

"What do you want, Dalir?"

"Well, two things actually." He walked into the room and took a seat next to the bed, smoothing a wrinkle from his faded jeans and plucking absentmindedly at a loose thread. "Why did I just put Christine to bed with tear streaks on her face? She said you lost your temper."

Pain echoed in the moan that escaped the prone man.

"She saw! Dalir, she saw!" He reached up and covered his face, almost reflectively as if the mask wasn't enough to hide the abomination beneath the plastic.

"Yes, I know that. She saw it when she found you. How does that change anything now?" Dalir kept his voice as calm as he could, not feeding into the despair radiating from the man buried beneath the blankets.

"She saw. She'll never..." He trailed off, his eyes sparkling with tears. "She'll never want to see me again, or lo-... care about me."

"You're being an idiot right now, Erik." Dalir remarked, rolling his eyes towards his brother. "If she didn't care about you, would she have spent nearly a week at your side? It wasn't pretty, but she stayed, determined to see you better."

"Pity perhaps. She's so good." Erik's hands slipped from his face and tangled in the blankets tucked up against his chin.

"Yes, of course it was pity. It was 'pity' that kept her at your side every waking moment. It was 'pity' that caused her to panic every time your breathing grew a little irregular. It was 'pity' in her eyes when she watched you at night, denying herself sleep when she desperately needed it!" Dalir nearly shouted the last words at the already shaken man. I remember the look in her eyes when he slept beside her. The warmth, the feeling, the light. It is the look I see in Keeya's eyes whenever I come home safe.

It was the look in my mother's eyes when she saw my father.

"You don't have to say it so succinctly." Erik replied sullenly.