One Shot Wednesdays -After 'The Paradise' (Patreon)

Hello everyone! I got an ask request to my tumblr asking if I'd ever do a 'Phantom of the Paradise' movie one-shot again and I said sure :D

Hope you enjoy!

-Britt xoxo

Winslow Leach woke up in hospital two days after the ‘disaster’ at The Paradise Theatre. The young woman seated beside his bed only realized he was awake because his heart monitor suddenly increased as he became anxious waking to the bright lights and the sounds of the machines he was hooked up to.

“Winslow! Winslow it’s alright,” she soothed in her rich tone, “It’s alright I’m here. You’re okay; you’re safe.”

Her words did nothing to soothe him. He tried to sit up but failed, still weak from his operations, still weak from his encounters with death. He tried to speak but with horror realized that all he could do was make horrible sounds issue from the depths of his throat and it terrified him. His heart rate jumped up even more, then.

“Winslow! Winslow relax!” she begged, trying to calm him with a hand on his arm but he pulled away and cried out with a sound of sadness and alarm.

Just then the nurses entered, drawn by the sound of his heart monitor, and they tried to calm him. The young woman was forced to stand outside the room as they did their work; eventually sedating him when he thrashed around so much he almost knocked one to the ground. The young woman cried, then. She hated to think of her Winslow being so upset. She hated her first memory of speaking to him after all they’d gone through two nights ago had to be like this.

The next time he woke it was with restraints and with a doctor there to guide him through; explain things to him. His heart rate again spiked but he didn’t struggle when he started to finally listen to the doctor’s words. He was finally able to understand why he had woken up here, why he felt so weak and tired, why he couldn’t speak. He learned that he’d suffered a stab wound and had lost a lot of blood. His heart had stopped but luckily paramedics had arrived on scene in time to save him, get him to a hospital and into immediate emergency surgery to save his life. Medically, he had been dead when they’d found him at The Paradise Theatre, had flatlined once more in the ambulance and again during surgery. Three times he had technically been ‘dead’ and they’d saved his life; brought him back. He didn’t remember any of that. In fact, he didn’t remember anything.

Once it had been properly determined who he was, with help of the young woman who had been brought in with him in the ambulance, his story had been pieced together even for her. Winslow had been sent to prison, had escaped the prison and had gone to trash one of the factories that produced the records for Death Records Label run by a Mr. Swan, now deceased. How it had been recorded that he’d fallen into a working record press and had suffered major injuries to his face and neck and how the security guard on duty that night had been so horrified and scared that he’d shot his weapon at Winslow who had crawled outside and fell into the river. It was assumed he had died; body never recovered, but here Winslow still was.

Only now, he couldn’t tell his side of the story of what had happened after the river. All anyone was able to discern is that Winslow had terrorized the theatre on two documented occasions and, according to the young singer, confronted her on a rooftop one night begging her to reconsider devoting her life to Swan and the fame she was sure to receive at ‘The Paradise’. She’d refused him, unable to understand then who he truly was and why he’d begged her so profusely to leave. The next time she’d seen him he’d arrived on stage in the chaos of Mr. Arnold Philbin being shot in front of the audience and pandemonium ensuing as the theatre erupted into an excited frenzy; thinking the ‘death’ of Philbin, the arrival of the masked figure and the stabbing of Mr. Swan who had suddenly resembled a demonic creature with burning flesh was all part of the elaborate show; the entertainment that Swan had brought to ‘The Paradise’. The young singer herself even got caught up in it all until she realized that the figure who had unmasked himself was someone she’d seen before long, long ago when she’d first auditioned at ‘The Paradise’ for a part in the chorus.

Winslow didn’t remember any of that, however. He had to be told who he was and without any other options he accepted it though he could not remember it.

Finally, after some sessions with doctors and therapists to assess his condition, Winslow was allowed to receive his visitor again.

“Hello Winslow. May I come in?” she asked shyly, knocking on his door frame.

He nodded, still unable to properly speak. His ‘voice box’ that Swan had designed for him back at ‘The Paradise’ had been destroyed.

The woman with thick, wavy dark brown hair and a light blue summer dress sat down near his bed in the available chair and crossed her hands in her lap and looked up at him with sad, soulful hazel-green eyes. “I’m told you don’t...remember me,” she began ever so slowly and watched as Winslow gently shook his head back and forth on his pillow, “but I wanted to come and tell you about me and about our...friendship. I wanted to say it myself so that you knew it from me. And because nobody else really knows it anyway,” she went on.

He nodded slowly to allow her to continue.

“Over a year ago now...or maybe it’s not been so long,” she corrected herself -realizing her memory was a bit hazy still from all of the drugs and alcohol that she’d been given during her brief ‘affair’ with Swan, “No, it’s been more than a year now. Anyway, a record producer called Swan was holding auditions at his New York manor house, called ‘Swannage’, for young women to be in a chorus for a new piece of work he was going to open his new theatre with. The theatre was ‘The Paradise’ where you… where they took you from when you had your injury,” she gestured and he made a sign of acknowledgement. “I was there, hoping to get a part singing because I love singing most of all out of anything in this world,” she smiled briefly, feeling shy to say it but he seemed to enjoy her enthusiasm, “and as I was singing a young man came in with huge glasses and blond, curly-wavy hair and a tan trenchcoat and a briefcase. And he approached me and we sang together. That man was you,” she smiled and he smiled a little too, liking her description of this memory, “and you told me that you wrote the music but that you didn’t know Swan was opening ‘The Paradise’ with your music. You’d come to speak to him that day but they wouldn’t let anyone in who wasn’t a girl singing for the chorus. Well, there was a reason for that but…” she blushed, “anyway I never saw you again after I ran out of there, embarrassed and ashamed that their auditions were a different kind and that I’d been taken for a fool. But you were so nice to me that day, Winslow. You’d promised me that you’d help me in any way you could. But I never told you my name.

“I tried to find you a couple of times after that but everything was a dead end. I decided it wasn’t worth looking for you; that maybe you’d been in on the whole thing. Somehow I didn’t quite believe that but I didn’t know what else to do. And then I guess is when you were in jail; you were probably framed,” she guessed, “Swan probably had someone get you thrown in jail for something so that you’d leave him alone.

“Many months later I read an article in the paper that you’d died; escaped from a prison and was shot trying to vandalize a record shop or...or warehouse or something.

“My heart broke to read it. There was something about you that day I met you that...that I couldn’t just let go of no matter how many times I had evidence that you might not be a good person. And I know now in my heart that I was right Winslow: you are a good person. The best person!” She reached out and put her hand on his and before she could pull away shyly he put his other hand on top of hers with a tiny smile.

“You… you got me the audition with Swan, I think,” she told him, “a proper one where I could sing and dance and I got hired on as a background singer. And although I think you were working against Swan; trying to destroy his empire, you always made sure that I was safe from it all and I got my spotlight eventually because of you. Only, Swan took proper notice of me and he tried to use me as he has probably done to so many more people. I was too excited by the people cheering my name to really understand how wicked he was.

“You yourself even tried to warn me one night but I didn’t believe you; I wouldn’t listen. I was frightened by you, by your appearance, by your words and I was frightened that I would never feel again the way I felt when I sang in front of all those people that night that… that Beef, uh the singer, died and that I was put up there to sing for everyone and they cheered. Oh how they cheered, Winslow!” she lamented sadly.

“I should have listened to you but I didn’t. I let myself be intoxicated by the spotlight, and by Swan’s words and by his...his terrible drugs and alcohol.” Her eyes filled with tears and Winslow squeezed her hand in support so she wiped them away with a small smile, “And then you saved me, again, from Swan. Something went wrong; they’re still trying to figure it out. But Philbin died, and Swan died that night. A-and even you. But not me. I was safe. You...you made sure of that,” she smiled through her tears. She kissed his hand and Winslow smiled a little, his one good eye glistening and tearing up too.

“I think you’ve always been looking out for me; like an angel of music and song trying to lift me up and keep me safe from all you suffered at the hands of Swan and his entire enterprise. I owe you so much gratitude and...and love Winslow. And I wish that I could give you your memory back so that you could remember that you deserve happiness now.

“S-so I just want you to know that. And I want you to know that you’ve got a friend, if you’ll have me.”

He smiled and tried to speak but the words were cracked and muffled and he shook his head gently and turned her hand over and wrote with one long, pale finger on her palm in a delicate touch that almost tickled. Y E S

She smiled and nodded her head gratefully.

Y O U R a pause N A M E

She smiled then, a happy and genuine smile, one that tugged at the edges of his lost memories from the day they’d met. “Phoenix.”