Love Didn't Die

Heart to Heart

I woke up suddenly when I began coughing violently. My throat burned as I spluttered, only occasionally did I actually cough up water. Everything that happened before suddenly hit me. I shot up and looked around. I realised that I was in the parlor of Erik's lair. My eyebrows creased with confusion as I tried to figure out how I got here. The last thing I remembered was drowning.
"Good to see that your awake. I really thought you were going to die," I turned around to see Erik at the other side of the room, drenched and holding my wet coat and my heels. "Again." He added, chuckling at his own joke.
"You saved me." I said slowly, as I put two and two together.
"I also saved your favorite coat. " he teased as he held up my drenched coat to show me.
"How did you know?" I asked, confused as of how he knew that.
"You told me, but you clearly don't remember that." He informed me as he walked over to the fireplace and hung the coat above it.
"How are you feeling?" He inquired, seeming genuinely concerned. "With how much water you coughed up, I'm surprised that there's any left in the lake."
I ignored his bad joke and answered "I don't think I have anymore water in my lungs, but my throat hurts and it is a little hard to breathe."
"That's to be expected." He sighed "for someone who almost drowned herself."
"Almost drowned herself!" I repeated, outraged "If anything this your fault! I had to come down and see you ."
"Well  I guess you shouldn't have come. I thought you were  were meant to be off to America to get married today?" He defended himself.
"You know full well why I'm still here in France." I scoffed "It has something to do with the little letter you sent the managers."
"So they showed you the letter. I wasn't expecting them to but it doesn't matter." He spoke to himself more than he did to me as he walked over to a replica of the stage, complete with figurines depicting characters from Faust. Upon closer inspection, I realised that the little marguerite figurine was actually me.
"You should have let me go home, Erik. Then we both could have just gone on with our own lives." I tried softly.
"If I had let you go back Alina, maybe your life would have continued, but mine wouldn't." He pointed out. I knew he was right, maybe I could go on living my life, but there was no way for him to, especially since he was in such a different time.
"Why did it have to be like this?" I whispered as I sat down on the lovers seat and stared at the fire. I could hear Erik walk towards me but I didn't take my eyes off the fire. Erik didn't say anything and we stayed like that for a while.
"You shouldn't have threatened the managers, Erik. You know it was wrong to steal the money and threaten to kill and especially after last night..." I trailed off. Erik didn't fight back nor did he agree or apologise. No noise was made to even indicate understanding. I may as well have been talking to his figurine. The awkwardness was thick in the air and I knew that it would be pointless to stick around any longer. Besides I knew I had better things to do. Thanks to him, I had to learn a whole opera by tomorrow's rehearsal.
"I better get going." I announced, standing up and grabbing my still damp coat and shoes.
"Let me take you across the lake in the boat." He offered "It would save me from having to jump in after you again."
"I'd rather walk." I said curtly, all familiarity and affection that I used to talk to him with, gone. He was still the same Erik, very little of his mannerisms had changed, yet he still felt like a stranger and a contemptable stranger at that. From that we walked towards the shore in the same awkward silence that had been present in the parlor.  Suddenly Erik stopped dead in his tracks, grunting as he hunched his back and grabbed at his chest.
"Erik?" I asked, confused at what he was doing. He didn't respond but turned so his back to me.
"Erik, what's wrong?" I tried again, reaching up and placing my hand on his shoulder. He pulled his shoulder out of my grasp.
"Erik!" I was practically pleading at this point. I had never felt so much fear and worry flood me at once. The feelings paired with what was happening to Erik overwhelmed me. Erik didn't seem to move. It almost was as though he had been frozen in that spot. The only sign that he was a person not a statue was the sharp breathes of his that I could hear. I steeped in front of him but as I did, he straightened up immediately.
"I'm fine." He assured, trying to shrug me off.
"No your not." I contradicted. "I think you just had a heart attack or a stroke."
"It doesn't matter what you think I had because whatever it was, it is over now." Erik tried to shrug me off.
"Erik, please. For once take care of yourself. If your not going to do it for yourself, then do it for me." I probed gently but also sternly, unleashing my inner Madame Giry. He gave in and walked inside, sitting himself down on the couch. I knew that he was merely doing it to humor me and the moment that I left, he would go about as nothing happened. I sat down next to him and pulled out my phone. Shockingly, there was signal down here, which was lucky for me as I searched up WebMD. Erik watched me scroll through the pages and put in his symptoms, which was a little nerve wracking as well as distracting. Surprisingly, he didn't ask about the magic box in my had nor did he seem curious or confused.
"It says here that you either had a heart attack or a broken heart. Both are very similar. It's saying here that it's uncommon to happen to someone of your age-" I relayed the information to Erik.
"Alina." He interrupted "I'm not as young as you think I am."
"Well if you were roughly 30 back in the past and it's been 10 years, you'd be in your 40s, max you'd be 50." I calculated for him.
"It hasn't been 10 years Alina." He confessed softly. "It's been 10 years since Christine left me and I've come to your time. You died 10 years before that."
I almost dropped my phone in shock. I looked at him with more scrutiny this time. I could notice small wrinkles on the bare side of his face. One would be forgiven for not noticing the wrinkles, especially with the deformities being the salient part of his face. The wig also made look younger.
"That means-"
"In my 50s now Alina, even 60s maybe." He finished my sentence.
"20 years..." I breathed standing up. Somehow everything made sense and yet somehow nothing makes sense. If his been in this time for 10 years, then he'd be used to the technology, hence why he didn't even flinch at my phone. But if he had been in this time, why hadn't he come found me early? Why hadn't he just come straight out and told me the truth instead of lying? My mind instantly flew to what happens 10 years after the phantom of the opera happens.
"Did you- did Christine- did both of you?" I just couldn't say it.
"If you are referring to the atrocious musical Love never Dies, then do not fear Alina, nothing like that happened between me and Christine." He answered, getting what I was trying to ask. I let out an audible sigh of relief, glad that Erik had a least been faithful in that way.
"How did you know about love never dies?" I asked. I probably should have dropped the subject, as it was awkward for the both of us, bit I was just too curios.
"It was performed at the opera house. So was Phantom of the opera. I was able to watch them both." He answered curtly.
I sat back down next to him, but silence reigned supreme as the awkwardness was too thick in the air for either of us to speak.
"Why did you lie about the time?" I finally broke through the silence.
"I didn't want to loose you again. I was scared that you would decide that I was too old for you." He revealed.
"I guess you weren't expecting me to choose someone else over you." I proposed.
"No. I wasn't." He confirmed.
"Well now you know how I felt reading your book." I revealed, taking the conversation back to where we started yesterday.