Chapter 31: Bliss and Chaos

The Next Day

Erik's POV

She loves me.

She really loves me!

It's about time someone told somebody that they loved them. The Voice replied, a joking tone in His words.

At the moment, the two of us were presently spending the morning blissfully in the library with me taking a seat on one of the chairs to read and Evangeline deciding to take a seat on my lap as she took a quick nap, the bottom part of her plaid and blue dress (A/N: outfit is above) draping one of the armrests as I stroked the loose curls on her head.

Oh, I felt my heart become full of joy as she snuggled deeper into my chest, a sweet sigh escaping her precious lips. My wound was still healing and very sore, but I didn't care. She was here with me and that was all that mattered.

Our breakfast, which consisted of oatmeal made with cinnamon-sugar and cream and some fruit, were on the table as we sat in content, blissful silence.

As the hands on the clock turned to reach 7:30, I knew that it would be soon time for her to leave for the world above and I was almost regretting her becoming the Prima Donna. Almost!

I gently began to nudge Evangeline awake.

"Mon amore, you need to get up. It's time for you to leave."

"Noooo." She whined, "Five more minutes."

I chuckled as I continued to coax her to open her chocolate-colored eyes, but she wouldn't budge.

"How about this: if you wake up, then I shall bake those chocolate-filled croissants that you like so much for dessert after dinner. "

Almost immediately, she sat up and proceeded to get off of my lap, giving me a quick peck on the lips as she ate her bowl of oatmeal and grabbed a piece of fruit on her way out, me slowly following her in pursuit.

"Erik, I'm gonna have to stay out a little later than usual." She suddenly said as I caught up with her, "Will you be okay until I get back?"

"If you are talking about the wound, then don't worry. I will be just fine, but may I ask why you have to stay out late today?"

She gave an agitated sigh.

"Well, I sort of promised Robert that I would talk with him after rehearsal was over."

I felt my eyes dialate in distaste.

"Why?"

"I'm sorry, babe. It happened last night when I was taking you home. I just agreed to it so that he would leave me alone. He was about to enter my dressing room so I had to agree to talk with him later on today."

I wound my arms tightly around her torso, trapping her into my embrace and lowering my head to her shoulder.

"I don't want you to leave." I huffed as I held her close. She reached and ran her fingers through the top of my head, ruffling my black hair and kissing my unmasked cheek in the process.

"I know, Erik. But if I don't leave, I'll be late and if I'm late then Johnny boy will use that as an excuse to fire me."

I reluctantly let go of my beloved, my arms aching to hold her once more as she retreated to her room to grab her satchel and back into the kitchen. Then, she reappeared as she hopped onto the gondola and rowed away from the lair.

"Hey babe, I had already prepared your lunch. It's in the fridge." She called as the boat moved further and further away.

"Don't you mean 'ice box'?" I teased.

"Whatever!" She laughed as she soon became out of sight.

As I headed back to the library, I gave a long, happy sigh as I began to read the L'Époque as it detailed my lover's success at the gala, my mind clouded in an strong yet calming feeling of contentment.

This was total bliss.

Robert's POV

I placed my copy of the L'Époque inside the lining of my waistcoat, smiling a little as I headed downstairs for breakfast.

I was right all along.

Miss McKenna was a great success!

"Good morning, son." Ma greeted the servants started to set down plates of freshly made French Toast on the dining room table. Pa only grunted in greeting, his nose buried in the L'Époque, not even giving me a sideways glance.

"Hello, big brother!" Maggie replied as she began to eat her food as I sat down at my normal seat.

"Ma, Pa, about what happened at the gala-"

"Save it. I don't associate myself with negro sympathizers." My father huffed as he turned the page of his newspaper.

"But Pa, negro or not, she is still bringing us money. We need her!"

"No we don't! There were plenty of fine white girls during that audition, but because of a threatning letter and my son catching jungle fever, we were forced to hire a field wench to do a white woman's work!"

Ma and Maggie said nothing as they watched the two of us argue.

"But think about this, Pa: if we had hired one of the white girls to be Prima Donna, do you think that any of those new patrons would have been interested to see a show after the gala? That ticket sales for the opera next month would have been sold in advanced as fast as it was after they had heard her sing? Do you?"

A sudden hush fell on the four of us as my father became silent.

"Well, um... I think that it is time to continue on with breakfast." My mother said, trying to break the tension.

After we finished eating, Pa and I entered our carriage, the tense silence following us from the house as Pa sat at the other end of the seat, seething.

"I can't believe that that little picaninny has turned my son against his own race." He huffed.

I tried to talk to him, but he ignored me all the way to the Opera Garnier, a glare etched onto his face.

As I opened the main entrance to the house of the theatre, I was met face to face with the "picaninny" in question.

Evangeline was already onstage, songbook in her hands, her satchel on one of the chairs in the front row.

Her wild, unruly, black hair made her look entirely mad as she rehearsed , coincidentally enough, The Madness Song in which Lucia looses her sanity. Her haunting, beautiful voice echoed throughout the entire house as the song varried from a fast tempo to a slow one.

At that moment, I became unaware of my surroundings as her voice lured me to listen, as if she had a spell casted over me.

I was able to feel her, or more rather, Lucia's anguish and her descent into incurable madness and I soon started to question my own sanity.

Ever since I was a youngin, I had always agreed with Pa with everything he said. He would often look at me with triumphant pride in his eyes as I would sit and he would tell me about the kind of world we live in.

With my father, it was always this one doctrine that he held near and dear to his heart: Anyone who was not white was, by default, subhuman and was therefore were made to be subservient to our race.

Especially those of African origins.

He had taught that they were the offspring of Cain, the child of Adam and Eve who committed the first murder and that God had cursed him to have dark skin which was then passed down to all of his children.

And it was not only my father who taught me this.

Our old family minister, Reverend Crow and the other members of his clergy all taught that the only way to save the "race of heathens", as they had so dubbed them , was to force them into slavery and hard labor.

If they were ever to be saved, we would have to make them, quite literally, pick up their cross to follow Him.

But everything changed when I first met Evangeline.

The first time we ever met, we had only spoken a few words to each other, but I knew that I wanted to meet her again.

And it seemed that I was to have my wish granted when I saw her just a few months later, auditioning as Prima Donna.

My father hated her from the moment she came on stage and his hatred had only gotten stronger as time went on but so had my infatuation with her.

But now it has come to the point where I am starting to question my entire upbringing just because of the color of our skins.

And that, I believe, is where true madness lies.

It is one thing to question someone's authority, but to question your whole entire life was quite another.

Everything that I was taught, everything that I believed in was suddenly turned upside down as she made snide remarks to my father when we hired her and stood up to me in front of the patrons and guests during the gala.

I felt as if my mind had decided to empty itself of any kind of sense or sensibility as Evangeline sang the final piercing note which seemed to mix in well with the madness that was slowly creeping its way in.

My mind was in total chaos.

And talking to her will solve it.

She must solve it!

A/N: Hello my fellow Phantom Phans!😄

Thank you guys SOOOOOO much for the 37.3k views, the 2.6k votes, and all of your compliments!

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So, how's the chapter?

Aren't they already #RelationsGoals ?

The song used is from Lucia di Lammermoor and is being sung by Pretty Yende at the Bastille Opera House.

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