Chapter Nineteen-My Love For You Will Never Die

Chapter Nineteen

My Love For You Will Never Die

Spencer stared silently at Melanie as the curtain went up and the beginning of the aerie began. Phillip and her Master were on either side of the stage. Reid could take him now, but it would cause a scene of panic, and how many would die in the chaos? Gustave was in the Prima Donna suite, sleeping. JJ was with him, petting him as he sighed in his sleep, her hands holding another case file.

     Melanie's eyes were glowing and her expression of escasy showed as the music swelled around her. Her breathing was heavy and ragged and Spencer wondered what it was like to have one's stomach in so many knots. Her chest rose and fell more urgently as the music quieted, allowing the song bird to ready her voice. She stared into the audience as she began:

"Who knows when love begins

Who knows what makes it start

One day it's simply there

Alive inside your heart
It slips into your thoughts

It infiltrates your soul

It takes you by surprise

Then seizes full control
Try to deny it

And try to protest

But love won't let you go

Once you've been possessed," With a sparring glance at her Master, Melanie stepped forward toward the audience, smiling as she sang:
"Love never dies

Love never falters

Once it has spoken

Love is yours
Love never fades

Love never alters

Hearts may get broken

Love endures

Hearts may get broken

Love endures,"She looked at her feet, the reality in her words scaring her. She held her stomach, as if to keep her together, as if she might fall apart at any moment.
"And soon as you submit

Surrender flesh and bone

That love takes on a life

Much bigger than your own
It uses you at whim

And drives you to despair

And forces you to feel

More joy than you can bear
Love gives you pleasure

And love brings you pain

And yet when both are gone

Love will still remain
Once it has spoken

Love is yours

Love never dies

Love never alters
Hearts may get broken

Love endures

Hearts may get broken
Love never dies

Love will continue

Love keeps on beating

When you're gone

Phillip sighed, he spared one glance at his fiance, and mouthed an "I love you" her way. She would never see it. He slowly backed away from the wings, planning never to see his childhood love again.
Melanie smiled. The light tickling her skin, her eyes glowing, her arms raised. She loved this.

"Love never dies

Once it is in you

Love may be fleeting

Love lives on

Love may be fleeting

Loooooove liiiiiiiivessss on."

   Melanie's tears sparkled down her face as the crowd cheered she watched as the flowers were thrown her way. Roses. Roses in all colors. White, Yellow, Blue, Pink...Red. The curtain closed and Melanie ran off the stage. Reid had called the whole team (minus JJ) to come backstage and be ready for her master. They had him. Melanie looked around, seeing nothing but looking frantically.

"Ah, Melanie-" Melanie turned to look for the face to her master's voice. "Ah, Melanie-" he crooned again, and Melanie ran into his arms. "What a triumph you gave me tonight. Melanie...all the dark silent years now set right...Melanie," he gripped her tight as he spun her 'round and 'round.

Melanie removed herself from her master. "The song was beautiful...it sounded beautiful...every note, every word. And it felt beautiful and I felt beautiful!" Melanie twirled like a little girl in her dress, sighing. "Lost in the music once more, feeling it rise up and soar, alive once again!" Melanie bounded into her dressing room, but stopped dead at what was on the desk.

     A red rose was tied to an envelope with a navy ribbon-the one Melanie had lent Phillip for his hair. Melanie opened it and read aloud:

"My dearest wife," she put a hand to her mouth. "Melanie, I beg you, forgive me...Phillip, no...Melanie, forgive me. What fools we once were, long ago, in our youth, at Ardely, at the opera. Romantic idiots. Those two people...are gone. Now I must go, our choices are made. The opera is done, and those notes have been played. May your master of music watch over you now, and give you what I wish I gave you, somehow. Yours, in regret...Phillip."

Her master reached out for her, but she pulled away.

"You...made a bet? That's what this whole thing was about? If I had known...Oh, God, I'm going to be sick..." Melanie put a hand to her mouth. "Where's Gustave?" she whispered. "Where is he?!" she growled.

"With JJ," Spencer blurted out. Melanie turned. She hadn't noticed the BAU.

"You're here for him." she stated. "Don't take him. Please." Melanie whispered, hanging on her master's arm. "Please," she pleaded plaintively.

"I'm sorry, Mels," Morgan whispered. He took out his gun, and leveled it at the Master's head.

"Damien Maguille, you are under arrest for 12 counts of first degree murder and the human trafficking of Melanie Wilkes," Derek said.

"No he's not," Melanie whispered.

"Mels, he used you as a prize in a bet."

"So? I didn't say he could keep me or anything. I'm going to find Phillip."

"Melanie!" her master screamed. "I saw you on the stage tonight and I looked into your soul and I saw what was inside. You belong on that stage, Melanie. What are you going back to? A drunk husband and a brat that isn't yours?"

"Hush," Melanie whispered.

"A job that was chosen for you. A wardrobe that you've never loved. A family whose abandoned you. A world that doesn't care. Melanie, I care."

"Stop, Master...please..." Morgan's gun was still leveled at her master's head, and Melanie stood in front of him. "Damien, you have to go. Leave here. They will kill you. You can't die...you can't."

"I love you," he wept.

"And I love you. As a father and a master. You must go."

"You chose me..."

"I swear if you leave here now, I'll tell my children about you. About the man who made me stronger. Killed my grief. Inspired my voice. I promise, if you leave here now, my love for you will never die."

"I love you," he whispered. The team blinked and he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

***

Morgan called Phillip, and explained to him all that had happened. The Vicomte was already on his way to France, but once their he planned to catch the first flight to Quantico. Gustave slept soundly once he knew that his father hadn't abandoned him, and his mother wasn't going anywhere, but the face he saw would haunt him night after night.

***

Melanie sat on the side of the stage, Morgan's arms around her. Morgan had leaned in for a brief hug and now she was hanging on him like a safety blanket.

"Keko," she whispered.

"What?" Reid asked.

"Keko! She ran off! Where?"

"Melanie!" Peter flew in over head. "Hurry!" he picked Melanie up from under her arms and flew. Morgan and Reid started at a sprint behind them. "Ceto's got her."

"What's happened?"

"We found her down at Suicide Hall. Melly, she tried to drown herself."

"God," Melanie whispered. One of her tears flew down and hit Reid's cheek. He let it slide off him and into the wind of Coney, were it belonged. "Is she-?"

"No...not yet. She was far off and Lind and I came back and got Ceto. Can your guys get her to a hospital in Manhattan. No witch doctor here can do what needs to be done."

"Yes, they will. I'm coming Keko...I'm coming..."

***

Melanie came to say goodbye to her friends, gathered on the stage after all five performances of the day. They were tired. It was two in the morning, and after all that had happened that night, Melanie wanted to find a hole and stay there.

"The Master left," Lind whispered, stroking his snake.*

"I know," Melanie whispered, sitting beside him.

"What are we supposed to do?" Ceto cried out, her tank sloshing as she hit it angrily with her fists. "What's to become of us?!" she sobbed.

"You can do anything," Melanie whispered.

"We're freaks, Melly. You can do whatever. We belong here. It's the only place we belong."

"Run the freak show yourselves. Do you know how much money the master has in his office? Enough to feed you all for twenty life times. Keep up with the performances and everything. Pay the bills. You will be fine and you will do great."

Lind grabbed his friend's hand. "Don't leave us," he whispered.

"I have too." Lind sighed. Looking down, he let a tear drop onto Melanie's palm. She leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"Howwabout a kiss for me?" Peter asked, his voice still down cast. Melanie kissed Peter's forehead, and she repeated this for all the freaks in the room.

"This is your time. When the hospital releases Keko, bring her straight here. Watch her. Always. Keep her safe."

"We will," Scorp sighed, shaking his blue hair.

"Goodbye," Lind whispered. Melanie shook her head.

"I'll be back. Maybe not soon, but I will come back. Too much of me is here. So it's not really goodbye at all." Ceto grabbed Melanie's bag off her arm and pulled out her shawl.

"The black blanket. You still have this?"

"I can't sleep without it," she smiled.

"Does it still have all our stitching inside?"

"Yes."

Ceto reached for Melanie's hand and kissed her palm. "I will miss you. Until we meet again, Alianna, Angel of Song." Melanie closed her eyes, but the tears pushed through onto her smile.

"Do you ever wish you could freeze a moment and keep it?" she asked. Peter squeezed her hand.

"All the time."

***

On the plane, the team slept soundly. Melanie hummed to Gustave quietly, until he fell asleep in her lap. Spencer sat beside her.

"Just four days and I've learned so much about you. You've always been nothing but a mystery."

"So that's why you hung out with me?" she smiled.

"No. Because you're amazing."

"He'll come back for me eventually. You couldn't understand the love he has for me. I'm the only thing he's ever known he could love...Do you think Philly will forgive me?"

"Yeah. You're too precious to let go." Melanie blushed.

"I think I should just stay in Quantico for awhile...think about what I want to do. I think this is what God called me to do."

"You're staying with the BAU?"

"...Yes. I think for quite some time. Until I'm married at least....Maybe after. Maybe I can talk Phillip into it-"

Spencer laughed. "Yes, Special Supervisory Agent Vicomtesse Melanie Dufour." Melanie laughed too, careful not to wake anyone on the plane.
"You never did say what happened on Coney while you were there," Reid reminded her.
"...The Master had a son. The son was raised by a woman-who was a rape victim-and her husband. I'm not sure the husband knew the boy wasn't his biologically, but whatever. I was doing a vaudville circuit at the time. Mouth closed, Spencer. The woman came back for the master, but he got shot. The Master tried to claim his son, but I sent him away with the father that raised him. To this day, Damien doesn't know I did this. He doesn't know what became of his own son."
"...Why did you do it?"
"I didn't want that boy to live in, what I know is considered, hell on earth."
 She let her head slump onto Reid's shoulder as she slipped into another nightmare, but she didn't cry out because of the safety blanket on her lap and the man on her side.