Phantom of the Opera 1. Prologue The Waiting Mind, Injured Man

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31 March 1889

PARIS WORLD FAIR

They come to see her. Thousands of people on opening day for this cursed World Fair. All of these people intruding on Paris, crowding these streets. My streets.

I despise all of them.

But she came back as well. She is a deity standing before the great red sentinel Gustave Eiffel built. It is a garish display, one the artist community loathes. Nothing more than a phallic symbol with a flag perched on it. A tribute to France or an insult, I wonder? Perhaps in a hundred years the damned thing will fall. It doesn't matter. No one will be alive to see it. Let the artist community balk as much as they desire.

I care nothing for the artistic community.

The cannon salute still rings in my ears. Damn them and their tributes to something that cannot feel, cannot hear, cannot appreciate. Men marvel at such pathetic feats as steel and stone.

I care nothing for men.

From a distance I watched her take the small platform to the flutter of the crowd.How delighted they were to see her after her absence from the Parisian stage. For so many years—nine to be exact—she wandered far from Paris. Far from France, in fact.

But not far from me.

I watched her smile beam, her coffee brown eyes twinkling in the midday sun. She blew a kiss to the adoring crowd and waited for the maestro to begin.

I heard her voice again after all these years. I heard her sing; pure as an angel, so beautiful it brought a tear to my eye. Long have been the years since I have stood so near.

She did it for me. She sang for me, for her teacher, for the one who loves her without end. She sang for me.

And I wept in gratitude.

Nine years ago I gave her the freedom she desired in exchange for one moment, one single heartbeat of happiness. I have kept it with me, this little memory. I have nurtured this warmth within my soul, this fire of passion that strangles everything I do, everything I see. At night, I dream of her. The days—the long and dreary days I spend in the darkness of my home—I do nothing but think of her and bleed my heart out wishing she was here with me where she belongs and not with that boy.

There is another boy here who wishes to see her.

I'm afraid I can no longer tolerate being only in the distance. Christine, you had your freedom. You had your time with your precious little boyfriend but now, now it is my time.

Welcome back to Paris, my love.


	2. Disapproving eye

_A giant thank you to Carol, my newest beta and also to Tywyn for her help with grammar. Without them, I was a drooling idiot. Things haven't changed. You'll see. _

Ch 1

Madeline Giry held her tongue when she saw me return from the opening ceremony. Her face, which seemed so youthful for a woman of her age, was frozen, her lips pursed. Only her eyes moved as I walked past her and towards the narrow staircase. I had half the mind to retire for the day without a word to her but I stopped at the top of the stairs, my hand wrapped around the maple railing. God knows why, but I stopped.

"You may say whatever you wish," I said with my back turned.

She exhaled hard as a reply.

"Approval or not, I will not stop and you know it. What nerve you have to assume your opinion means anything to me," I growled.

She made not a sound. No utterance that she was upset or fearful. I thought perhaps she knew my temper and decided it was best not to meddle. But I knew her too well to think so foolishly for long. Her silent reprimand irritated me. I turned.

"She is happy," Madeline said sharply. Her eyes narrowed in an attempt to shame me.

I turned from Madeline again and stared at the doorway leading to my darkened room. My jaw twitched. I felt the ache of so much pressure, so much pent up agony pulsing through my teeth and into my face, both the wretched side and the acceptable.

"I am not happy," I replied, and with that I retired for the day.

Truth be told, I have enjoyed Madeline. She has never betrayed me, and for that I have compensated her life with my funds. She has always been the face that does my bidding, my personal contact that has my clothes tailored, my pantry filled, my money managed. She has never said it to me personally—for in truth there are few words we exchange on a daily basis—but her daughter has said before that her dead father was a brutal man. Meg remembers little of her father just as I remember little of mine. It seems we have much in common: our fathers left a bruise that should never heal. It is that reason that I believe Madeline so readily agrees to my demands. I hold her by fear of what may come. She does not know I would never strike her, and strangely I feel no shame in using her to my advantage. Leeching off one another, after all, is what humanity does best.

But Madeline has been a good mother to Meg and in some ways to me as well. She mothered me by accident. I never asked her to be matriarchal and she never offered, but some things happen without thought or question. Fate, I think is what it is called. But she has been a lenient, unbidden mother and I have been a violent, insolent son. We have disappointed each other, I think.

Meg was waiting for me in my room when I returned. She looked tired, her usually pretty face drawn, her eyes dark underneath. I could tell by how still and stiff she sat that something was wrong.

"Where is Alexandre?" I asked as I hung my coat in the wardrobe and unbuttoned the cuffs of my shirt. I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and tore the cravat from my neck. Madeline kept the house ungodly warm for March. The woman has the worst blood of anyone I have ever known. To her, Hell would need another log added to the fire.

"I thought he was with you," Meg replied. She stood, wringing her hands.

"With me?" I questioned. I stood staring at her reflection in the oval floor-length mirror. She had gone pale, which for her was astonishing as she had always been fair-skinned.

Meg looked away. "He never came to lunch or to his lessons."

I evaluated her words in silence. Meg's husband, Charles Lowry, was quite a well-learned man. He spent two years studying in Oxford, a year in New York, and another year traveling through Africa. His extensive studying and knowledge of several languages made him an ideal teacher. His injury after the Franco-Prussian War made him grateful for the roof I allowed him. He only has to teach AlexandreCT1 and I give him shelter and a small allowance for his enjoyment.

Even I have a soft spot for the maimed.

"The Universal Exposition," I sighed, turning to face her.

Meg nodded back nervously. "I believe so," she said, still not looking me in the eye.

I waved my hand to excuse her from the room and she scuttled towards the door, no questions asked. She would rather be sent away than face my wrath.

"When he returns, send him to me."

"I will look for him if you wish," she offered.

"No," I said quickly. "If something should happen to him, it is his own damned fault."

I watched her eyes darken at my harsh words. She thought that I was heartless and uncaring towards the boy.

Odd how after all these years, she has never seen past the mask I wear. She has no idea how my gut had tightened at the thought of my own son disappearing from home. He is the only piece of Christine I have had these past nine years. Should something happen to him…

I dare not say what hatred I would release upon the world.

* * *


	3. Waiting Game

Ch 2

For weeks Alexandre has asked to see the Columbian Fair Grounds. God knows the commissioners have been working for months on their project of bringing the world to our city. I suppose depending on what sort of person you are, it really is magnificent. I don't blame Alexandre for wanting to see it.

I imagine in the four hours he was gone, he saw much of it but I didn't ask him. He came into the foyer quiet as a mouse and attempted to sneak past Madeline. Had it not been for her, I would never have known he had returned. She howls worse than the Basset Hound Alexandre charmed me into allowing into the house last year.

The dog, Bessie, was asleep at my feet when Alexandre returned. Lazy and fat, the animal did nothing more than wriggle her tail in delight at her master's return. I scratched her head and listened as Madeline's shoes clicked the wooden floors. I was glad for the diversion.

"Mon Deiu! Your father will be furious, Alexandre!" Madeline exclaimed. Such an actress. There are days I wish I had promoted her on the stage, that woman.

The boy made no reply. Bessie and I exchanged glances, our thoughts somehow connected for a moment.

"Where have you been, young man?" Madeline demanded.

I heard Alexandre stomp up the first three steps, then stop. Madeline had caught him. My jaw clenched as I waited for her to strike him. She had nannied him since infancy. Lord knows she has slapped his ears in the past. Although she knows I prefer that he not suffer physically, sometimes there is no stopping her.

And sometimes Alexandre is far too much like me.

"Go," Madeline said. "And pray on your way up the stairs."

I exhaled sharply and glanced over my shoulder to see Bessie scurry under the bed. Not even she wanted to see the torrent that would pass between father and son.


	4. Alexandre Ch 4 Julia

**These chapters were fairly short so I'm including 3 and 4 together**

Ch 3

He is his mother by appearance, thank God. The dark curls of hair, the eyes that match. His face is hers if she were a man. I watched as he came through the door and for a moment forgot that I should be furious with him for abandoning his lessons in search of adventure. If I had been blessed with his cherub face most certainly I would have roamed as freely as he desires. But that is not the point. It is different to be the charge of another's life, to make the decisions and see them enforced.

"Where have you been?" I asked grimly, keeping my voice low and lips straight.

He ignored me, just as I assumed he would. He went about removing his jacket and underlying brocade vest and tossing them on my bed, which he knows I cannot stand. He hesitated a moment, then hastily folded his garment and placed them onto the coverlet.

He was growing far too fast for the clothes Madeline just purchased a month ago. The seams looked like they were about to burst, the buttons giving way as soon as his fingers slide over the satin covering. I watched him in the mirror as he brazenly stared back at me as if he dared me to ask him again. I obliged.

"Alexandre—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded as he whirled around to face me.

"Because I do not serve you, boy," I replied smoothly.

His nostrils flared, his face flushed as his anger escalated. I know his temper. It is my temper as well, though my frustrations were borne of denial while his are borne of being a spoiled brat.

"I wanted to see her."

"Why?" I demanded. I rose from my place at the desk in the corner and folded my arms over my chest. To him I am a monolith in the room, a dark brocade tower. My power over him has faltered since he discovered a note tucked within Madeline's coat pocket. The sneaky boy. I should have punished him but his stealth impressed me.

"Because," he muttered. He could say no more. His throat had tightened.

"That is not an answer," I said under my breath.

"Because I want to know her," he shouted, his chest heaving. By the look in his dark eyes I knew he wanted to throw something at me, to add to the ugliness he knew was before him.

"You don't need to know her," I growled back.

Alexandre was beside himself. "Whether you like it or not, I will see her," he spat at me before he walked stiff-legged from the room and slammed the door behind him.

It was quite some time before Bessie found her nerves again and came out from under the bed. She nudged my hand to pet her and I glanced down at the long face staring up at me, begging for a kind word. That beast had become my only companion since she came into the home. One cannot always be fastidious when it comes to relationships and that damned dog with her sad eyes and wagging tail had sadly become my greatest confidant.

"This," I said as I felt her tongue flick along my palm. "Is what I will go to hell for."

Yet strangely I had no regret in using my flesh and blood to ensnare Christine.

* * *

Meg and Christine kept up correspondence over the years. If Meg had not voluntarily told me of her letters to and from Christine, I would have found it on my own. Ieventually read every single letter that had come from Mlle Daae—and to me she will forever be Mlle Daae. A thousand times over I had caressed each line, memorized each word and then burned it in the hearth so that Alex would not find it.

Yet just as I always knew, he stumbled upon one.

That was how I discovered that Madeline had received a letter from Christine. How long the two had kept in contact I cannot say, though I imagine it had been the entire nine years. At least eight, when Christine first dropped Alexandre at the doorstep as a screaming, red-faced ball of rags.

I loved and hated her in that moment when she rang the bell and shoved her son—my son—our son—into Madeline's arms. She had frantically glanced behind her as she explained a feeding schedule for the wailing infant. Nothing she had said registered in my mind. She had refused to see me. Utterly refused to see me! I stood behind the door, anxious as would be any man who suddenly realized that one encounter nine months past resulted in this thing that was screaming in an ungodly pitch.

Beyond all of my fears and hatred I loved her for giving me this child. And I wanted to make dozens and dozens more with her. But she left. Disappeared. She simply abandoned her own child in Madeline's hands and flew down the steps and into the streets. I had wanted to go after her but Madeline was quite insistent.

"Take your son,"Madeline had demanded. "And forget the foolishness of pursuit."

I swore one day that I would tell Alex how he came to me. How his own mother had abandoned him and how she now had two legitimate daughters of her own with the man she chose over my affection.

I knew in my heart that I could notever tell him, no matter what he did or how much he asked. It would shatter his heart. The pain of my own mother's rejection has not yet dulled, not in all the years since I have grown to manhood without her nurturing touch. Alex has suffered enough as it is by simply being my son.

He has many questions, and he doesn't understand that I have some of my own for his mother. For eight years I have wanted answers:

Why did you give him to me? Why did you removeyourown happiness and allow me joy? Why do you give me hope that you love me?

Ch 4

It comes as no great surprise that Christine is the first woman who allowed me to take her to my bed. The first time it happened quickly, the two of us tearing away at each other's clothing in a desperate, primal need to mate. I still remember as I entered her how she swore that the first time it was impossible to create a child. Her body wouldn't know what to do, how to accept my offering. Her temple, I had thought at the time, would discard a gift from the devil.

Five weeks later she let me have her again, when she was certain that she was with child and she desired to feel the same rapture of pleasure throughout her body, before she could give into the pleasures of flesh she desired with the little Vicomte. That was when she decided not to return to me, not after what I had done to her. She had told me that there were ways to rid her body of the unwanted life. I fell to my knees before her and begged her to give birth to our child. How I wept and clung to her ankles, how I howled in anguish at the thought of something I had given her out of love destroyed.

Christine could be cruel when it suited her mood. She said she would terminate the pregnancy and agree to marry the de Chagny boy. He would never even know, she swore to me, that her virginity had already been claimed. She would prick herself with a needle to show him that she bled and he would be none the wiser.

She rejected my final plea and left with the man she said she truly loved. The last time I saw her, I cradled the ring she had placed in my hand and cried for the child I had thought already destroyed.

Alexandre coming into my home, as you would imagine, was an unexpected delight. Through the letters from Mlle Giry to Mlle Daae, I learned that she had taken a sabbatical of sorts. She traveled up into Sweden where no one knew her. It is there that I believe she gave birth near the Baltic Sea. Alexandre's early years were as violent as the ocean, constantly changing like the tide. I can only assume he was born by the ocean on the night of a full moon when the pull of the universe is at its strongest.

There was never any mention of the child being alive in her letters. She only said that she was alone, which I knew meant she was without her precious new husband. I wonder still what she told him was her reasoning behind her leaving after weeks of marriage. She could have—if she wanted to—pass the child off as theirs but I know she had reservations. I, of course, had reservations on the birth even though I desperately wanted this baby to survive.

If the newborn appeared as I had at birth there would have been questions asked. In hindsight I see that it was wise for her to venture north. I only wonder what she would have done had the child been born a replica of my macabre appearance. Released it to the sea? Accepted the horrid beast?

In the years since she disappeared and reappeared only to leave yet again, I have found no one to replace the cavern in my heart that she left. She has become a sore within my mind that I want to dig deeper. I will not forget her nor let her go. She belongs to me. She is part of me and I am part of her. Alexandre is proof of our union.

But she is not the only woman I have been with.

Darkness crept with a heavy hand over Paris. I could still hear the churn of crowds and commotion streets away as the Exhibition swelled with more admirers. I glanced out the back window into the yard and the stone house on the other side of the high stone fence.

Julia had left the light on in the second window. Just the sight of her invitation aroused me in every way.

What exactly led to our paths crossing, I do not wholly remember. It may have been that I pursued her, or it may have been that the suffering widow first approached me. Such details are unimportant. What matters is that she has given me somewhat of a normal life in that I come to her and we find fulfillment in one another, usually while laying in her bed.

Placee, the French call it. She is my mistress. There is no money exchanged between us as I am not the sort of man who would pay for such encounters. It is not the sex that I desire. I have too many years behind me to think only of the immediate gratification. I want more.

Julia has been perfect in that sense.

Tonight she was irritated with me. I saw it on her face the moment I walked quietly through the back door and into the small kitchen. Her daughter, Lisette, was already tucked into bed just as Alexandre was asleep in his room or silently reading by candlelight.

I said nothing as I entered. I simply stood and waited for to speak her mind.

"Did you see her?" she asked, her arms folded across her chest.

"Indeed."

"And?" she prompted.

I stared at her, at this woman that has warmed so many of my nights but who has failed to nestle into my heart in the same manner as Christine.

My hand ran over the first button of my vest as I ignored her comment. Even though I was fairly certain she would not be undressing, I made an attempt to salvage the night. I suspected it had all gone to Hell the moment she heard that Christine was singing at the inauguration. But by the time I saw her standing with her light brown hair loose over her shoulders and a simple deep purple dress I couldn't help myself from at least hoping to end up on top of her. It reminds me of something Charles Lowry has explained. He met a fellow once, Ivan Pavlov I believe. The light in the second window is like a steak before a dog. I see it, thus I want it. This Pavlov is perhaps onto something. He's young still. In time perhaps history will remember him with fondness.

Julia snickered in disgust and I stopped what I was doing and turned my head to the side.

"She sang beautifully," I offered.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to turn away. "Did she see you?"

"No."

That seemed to satisfy her for the moment. Her oval face softened, her hazel eyes claiming me with a long, unwavering gaze. We both wanted the same thing. Something physical first, then perhaps more when the exchange of heat and sweat and passion was over and we were more than rutting beasts caught in a tryst.

The vest was nearly off when she placed her palm to my chest. "Was she still beautiful?" she asked in a husky voice.

The perfume she wore tempted me to lie. The scent of Sandalwood told me that if I wanted to take her to bed all I had to do was say no,Christine has not aged well. But I admit I am a fool. Thus, I told her the truth.

"She will always be beautiful."

Her hand left a cold spot on my chest. "Good night, Erik," she mumbled as she started up the stairs.

Well, Hell, I thought. It would be quite some time before she lit a candle for me again.

* * *


	5. Julia Seuratti's past

_Author notes: Someone had mentioned not liking the idea of Erik having a mistress. In 1889 it still wasn't the taboo it is today to have a woman on the side. I hope that in this chapter and the ones to follow that Julia Seuratti is established as much more than a woman who lays on her back for him._

Ch 5

Frustration is something I know well. That Julia denied me a soft moan and a gentle caress was no great burden I hadn't carried for years in the past. She is good company at night, but that wasn't what I needed from her. I had wanted much more.

She knew it. I find her mind intriguing, though we both prefer the masquerade that our desires are purely physical. Anything else would seem rash for a woman with enough of an inheritance from her dead father and the money left behind by her spouse to wed a man who fears the light of day as much as Dracula himself.

Well before we began our secret engagements I knew Julia's husband. Not personally as only Madeline, Meg and sometimes Charles speak to the neighbors, but I had heard him many times. His name was Louis Seuratti and he was an utterly piggish man. All he needed was a tail and he would have been fit for the swine pen.

In the days before his drinking took him down to meet the devil, he woke me during the night. The cracks of his hand against Julia's face certainly had to wake half the houses, but not once did any man rap upon the door or notify the police. He was large; a barrel-chested naval officer with his share of women tattooed on his arms and the smell of a brewery leaving his mouth. None dared to trifle with M Seuratti. He was a violent man with a trained arm in combat. His uncle also worked for the commissioner in Paris. Even if someone did call for help it was likely no officer would appear at the door.

I grew tired of her begging him to stop in the middle of the night, of hearing little Lisette wake crying while her parents argued or her father drunkenly beat her mother. He did many things to Julia, things which I heard from my desk as I sat late into the night writing music. He swept the songs right out of my mind each time he struck her. My work suffered, my music became flat.

Julia, I think, still has no idea that the rope around his neck was no small accident. Perhaps she doesn't know better. She is an educated woman though I doubt her extensive reading has taught her that if he had hung himself there would have been marks around his ears where the rope rode up as he danced at the end. Instead there was only a thick bruise where he was strangled.

He took three years away from my music. I saved my craft, my art and nothing more. What a terrible liar I am that I cannot even convince myself that I did it for the sake of song and not this woman.

For a woman. The very thought makes me want to retch at such a romantic and absurd notion. Love is nothing more than a lie, a feeling that comes and goes. True love. What ever does that mean?

Still, I wish I had killed him the first time I heard Julia cry.

I sat in her kitchen and waited for her to return to the parlor and read a while. She would find nothing more galling than me at the table having helped myself to a cup of tea, which I had. I was even so spiteful as to use the very last tablespoon of honey in the cupboard.

The clock chimed 12 and I knew that I was only wasting time. She had retired for the night. Leaving the cup and saucer on the table, I quietly walked out the back door, down the stone path shadowed by trees and into my own yard. I stood for a moment and stared at the darkened room where I longed to be entwined in her arms.

I would blame her in the end if my plans went awry and my demands were unfulfilled.

Curse her and the upper hand she held over me and my primal needs.

* * *

I returned home to find Alex waiting for me on the bottom of the stairs. I glanced from him to the clock and then back at him with a brow raised.

"You should be in bed," I said as I started past him.

"Julia must have been rather fast tonight," he muttered, keeping his eyes on his feet.

What he wanted was an argument. He must have sat there from the moment I walked out the back door and waited for me to return as he knows that not once have I stayed through the night in Julia's home. As sinful as it is that we use one another's company for our own pleasures, there is something about spending the night and morning in a widow's bed that seems much worse.

"Go to bed," I yawned.

"You know you ruin her reputation every time you go to her. She is nothing more than a—" His voice trailed off as he could not say the word.

He was attempting to instigate a fight with me over his mother. I knew his intentions, his belligerent nature. I gave him nothing.

I closed the door. He must remember that he is still a child and that this is my house. Heshuld have considered himselffortunate that my own childhood was filled with bullet-holes of harsh words and heavy hands. He will never feel my pain.

Yet I see far too much of me in him already. I have wounded him in a different way, one which I also know quite well.

* * *


	6. When all is dark and quiet

_Authors Notes: Suspension of Disbelief is in order for the next chapter. I used the real dates for the building of the opera house in this chapter which means that Erik would have lived there from around 1861 to 1880. I know that this jars the timeline a bit so please keep in mind that I'm using artistic liberty to give him 19 years of living there. Assuming from this point on that he was around 10 when he moved below, that makes him around 40 in this story. Just a little FYI so please don't complain that the timeline makes no sense compared to GL, SK or whoever elses books you've read. _

_Ahem..._

Ch 6

There was one reason in particular I found this stone house on the western side of Paris to be so intriguing. While Madeline enjoys her room for sewing and Meg and her husband Charles enjoy the small solarium in the rear, I find my own amusements in the darkness of the upper floor.

My quarters alone occupy the upper half and though I allow them into the room I have made my own, none know what lies beyond the fabric walls.

The house was built in 1856 in the midst of industrialization of France. It is one of thousands erected during the Second Empire, well before the days of the Great Depression. Though it was created at a time when everyone seemed to be building something, it has qualities I find suit me better than any other.

One reason being it was designed by Charles Garnier, the same Charles Garnier who designed the opera house. Any fool could imagine what secrets lay in a simple two-story structure designed by that talented Frenchman.

At least it appears as a two-story structure. There are many deceptions Garnier planted behind walls and floors, most of which I believe I have already found in the nine years since I purchased the property.

The former owners apparently knew nothing of the architect. Few would realize that M Garnier designed this lackluster abode when his work is always on a grander scale. But I have found the rolls of plans tucked into hiding and have seen his signature in the bottom right-hand corner. A mysterious man, is the famed architect. But his name as of now pales in comparison to M Gustave Eiffel and the monolith atrocity that has become the attraction at that damned fair.

The wall to the left of my room, the Master Room, move without a sound thanks to rollers set at a level several inches below the wooden floorboards. A press of a button within a swirl of ivy green and a blue rose on the decorated walls and a soft click signals that the wall will open with a soft push. I admit that I found it by accident one day when I was hammering a nail into the wall for the placement of a portrait. More than astonished I was delighted to discover the house I expected was to be my eternal cage now had passageways leading into tunnels beneath the street.

One such tunnel leads to a door several miles from the home. Beyond the door, which I broke long ago, is an entrance to the opera house itself. I have walked the distance once and it took four hours and much crawling and contorting into spaces not even the rats would care to travel. I suspect Garnier stayed within this house while he was building the opera house. Perhaps he had a placee of his own staying here years back.

The farthest I care to roam is beneath the main level, where I can hear Madeline as she hums and sews and Meg and Charles as they do as the blissfully wed do behind their closed doors. Alexandre I hear as well when he thinks I do not hear him. It is his conversations to Madeline that affirm my beliefs that we are more strangers than father and son.

The house had settled by the time I ventured down into the unknown cellars as the hour was quite late. I lit the few candles I had bothered to bring down into my new lair as I suspect that Madeline is a veracious counter of how many candles she buys each month and how many disappear. I don't doubt that she knows I take them. After all it is my funds that purchase goods and I have every right to take what I wish but there is a look she gives me. I am acutely aware of her intentions and I sometimes find my own burgeoning desire to tell her what I am up to.

Had I done that long ago I wouldn't be here now. Some lessons need to learned more than once.

After I had lit the candles and opened a dusty chest with the few items I recovered from the opera house, I sat for a while. Out of everything that was destroyed one thing did manage to survive. One thing that I care for deeply.

I unlatched the small door above my head and quietly eased the trap door down, carefully moving the Persian rug set over it out of the way. With an old barrel used for pickling I stepped up and pulled myself into the study and listened to make certain no one was coming.

Madeline hides her stationary in the bottom drawer of her desk. There is a lock but it's broken and a jiggle or two of a pin within the lock gains entrance. I rummaged through until I found her stationary. She would be sending word to Christine soon, and inadvertently sending a message from me as well.

My note complete I slithered back into my underground world, neatly tossing the rug over the entrance and latching the door into place. The candles had burned down farther than I had expected. I glanced around and saw my beloved still waiting for me, so patiently waiting for her Erik.

For hours I held her and cherished each unfeeling curve. The paint along her face has rubbed off to my constant display of affection. The smile has faded, the dark eyes have diminished but it still belongs to me, only to me.

I held her to my lips and kissed her, caressed her, gave her the love I wanted to show the flesh and blood that had graced the platform before that monstrosity. This was merely a reminder of what once sated my cravings so many years ago.

"My Christine," I whispered to the figurine of the only woman I have ever desired. I removed the mask from my face, laid down on the dirt floor and closed my eyes, imagining what it felt like to hold her against me all those years ago.

In this secret lair only we exist. In days to come, it will happen again.


	7. Concerns without Voices

Ch 7

Being gawked at for many years of my life due to my appearance has made me acutely aware of when someone is staring. Without turning, I knew that Madeline was burning a hole into the back of my head.

"Where is Alex?" I asked as I flipped through the morning paper.

After having slept on the cold, unforgiving ground for a number of hours, my back ached and my throat was sore. I was still cold, and the breakfast she had made was doing nothing to sate my appetite or warm my insides. Christine was back in Paris. It was the only thought in my mind and the news was filled with the same cries of joy I felt fluttering through me.

"Sleeping," she answered. The tea kettle landed on the iron pot holder with an angry thud that made me jump in my chair.

"I only went to chat," I mumbled, still not lifting my head. I had seen her shadow in the window when I walked through the back gate after midnight. My business was my own. She works for me. Had I not allowed her to live here she would be on the street. Of course, had I not destroyed the opera house she would be living there, but even so, I didn't have to extend the hand of my wealth to her.

Madeline grunted. It is so very English of her to make such a wretched display. There are times when I forget she lived for several years in London before her parents had the sense to bring her to France.

"Your relations with Mme Seuratti are none of my concern."

"True enough."

Another page turned. By God if the Leather Apron wasn't walking through my paper all the way from White Chapel. It's been nearly a year since the last murder and now the reporters think he has come to the Paris World Fair to claim another lecherous woman of the night. I glared at Madeline as she went rummaging through the cupboards with her back to me. There was something else she wanted to say. I could just tell.

"It's Alexandre," she said under her breath.

I sighed. "What has he done now?"

Madeline glanced at me from over her shoulder. Even when angry—and it seems she is frequently angry with me—she is a decent looking woman. There are days when I look at her and wish I had fallen in love with a more sensible woman than the one Fate shoved into my heart.

"He hasn't done a thing."

"Of course not," I replied as I reached for the cup of tea she had set on the table earlier. "He's not out of bed yet."

"Oh, Erik," she said scornfully.

For the first time our eyes met and I knew what she meant. Immediately I turned back to the paper and stared at the words I had no interest in reading. A pile of horse manure would have been more welcome than her scorn.

"He has a good home, a good education and the funding to continue the life he already knows. And quite comfortably, I might add," I said in defense of something I had yet to be accused of.

"That is not enough," Madeline said quietly. She turned her back on me as she spoke. Coward.

"It's more than I ever had," I growled, tossing the papers aside. It angered me that they didn't fly out of the room. How pathetic that all of my boiling rage did nothing more than make a lackadaisical journey to the floor beside that lazy dog.

"Is that what you want for him?" she asked.

My jaw clamped shut at her words. I heard her draw in a breath and knew she had not meant to voice her thoughts aloud.

Shoving my cup and saucer aside, I snatched the papers from the floor and crumpled them up into a ball. "You have a letter to send," I said over my shoulder.

"Erik, no."

I tossed the papers to the ground and Bessie snarled and ripped into them. "Take it to her hotel now. She has always been an early riser. See to it that she knows dinner will be served at nine."

"Erik, please."

Her pleas meant nothing to me. I stood in the doorway, my right hand gripping the frame. "Send Alexandre to me when he finally decides he is ready to start his day."

* * *

Charles Lowry was waiting in his wheeled chair when I walked into the library. He gave a nervous smile as he looked up from one of his books. As a war veteran, there are many things that make Charles leery of his surroundings and for that I cannot blame him. The man lost a leg in combat and then lost use of the other one when he injured his back. His arms are not strong enough to support his weight day after day and so he sits all day in his chair while Meg, Madeline or even Alexandre take him from room to room.

I can only imagine what a prideful man he once was, what with his traveling about in his younger days. He's a handsome man, a fine, distinguished fellow with jet black hair and black eyes. His skin is always an olive tone and he wears his hair to his shoulders which makes him appear younger than thirty-two. I can see why Meg is attracted to Charles. He's quite possibly the most intellectual creature I've ever met and it is an honor to have him teaching my son. However, Charles believes that I am the one who blessed him as no university would have him teach. He cannot make it up the stairs to reach his class room. Therefore his vast mind is contained in my home.

"Latin today?" I asked merely because he continued to glance at me as he read.

"Ancient Egypt," Charles replied. He marked his page in the book and folded his hands. "He takes great interest in building, architecture, design."

"Good," I said amiably.

Charles went quiet for a moment and I went about searching the bookshelves. The only sound in the room was the floor creaking beneath my feet and Charles breathing, something I found so distracting I had half the mind to tell him to hold his breath until I was gone.

"Monsieur, if I may, Alexandre asked me last night if I could…perchance…if it met your approval…of course…"

"No."

"It would provide a most unique learning experience for Alexandre…"

"I said no."

He was flustered as I hadn't given him the chance to even voice his question. But he would not offer another moment of trouble. From the reflection in the window, I watched him bow his head.

"Yes, I'm sorry, Monsieur, I didn't mean to offend."

"You will see to it that he does not ask again," I instructed firmly as my fingers found the book I wanted and slid the heavy tome from the upper shelf, bringing with it a dust mote that danced in the morning light.

"As you wish, Monsieur."

He was still a military man able to take orders from his superior. I quite enjoyed his company when it was strictly professional. Without another word, I left the library with the hollow book beneath my arm. I wanted to read some of Christine's old letters before we were reunited tomorrow at dinner.

* * *


	8. Secretly I love and mourn

AN: I have nothing against Italians. :)

Ch 8

She will only be visiting for five days, then she plans on going to Venice, Italy to sing

before the ungrateful Italians who think that they have something more to offer than the French.

Tomorrow I will attempt to change her mind.

For the past two years I have thought of this moment, this second chance at winning back lovely Christine. She knows I want her back. I think she would have known even if I had not written to her over the years.

Truth be told, I hadn't meant to send her anything. I had seen the letters with her return address on the envelope and knew that should I write anything—anything at all—she would break correspondence with Meg and Madeline. I could not afford this loss for even if she was not near me at least I knew where she was and what she did. I was still part of her.

My quiet eavesdropping ceased when my lovely diva traveled to Africa. At the time she had a daughter with the Chagny boy, a little thing named Suzette that she worried about constantly. Had the infant been weaned she would have left her with a nanny.

I still remember how I read and re-read the letter she addressed to both Madeline and Meg. My hands shook and my eyes drained of tears until I was in such a state that I became ill. Little Suzette had caught malaria. She died on her half-brother's fourth birthday.

What could I do but offer her my sincerest condolences? After all I had once mourned Alexandre, whom I had thought dead well before his birth. Of course I couldn't ask Mother Giry or her daughter to send word on my behalf. They knew I read their letters but would never agree to send one.

I had to have them send my message without them being aware, which also meant my note might go unnoticed.

Being that she was still in Africa, however, I expected she would see my writing and know I cared for her and respected her enough to mourn the child she created with another man. In heat-sensitive ink, I wrote three words: my deepest apologies.

If she saw this she would expect to see more, I rationalized. From that moment on I began sending messages with each letter Madeline and Meg sent out. I wrote my letter before they did—just as I had done this past night, in fact—and knew without a doubt that she would have my love for her, seen or unseen.

For months I took the letters, once the Giry's finished reading, and held them over a fire, hoping beyond hope, beyond reason, beyond everything that she had done something for me. It didn't matter what she said. I would have even been happy with her telling me to leave her alone. At least I would know that she had seen my words and knew my feelings for her had never changed.

Ironically it was a week before Christmas when she sent a letter to Madeline. It was a very short note—as most of her letters had been since little Suzette had been taken back to France and buried. Christine was in Spain singing to the Spanish Royal Family at the time. Her husband was back at home handling finances and politics. I pitied her being so alone during the holiday, without a man to love her or a child to cherish. She said that Spain was beautiful. That was all she had said to Mme Giry in her note.

But on the back, just for me, in letters that would disappear seconds after she wrote them it said quite simply: Thank you, Erik.

My God, I had thought. She still thinks of me. She knows. She cares. Christine cares for me.

Why else would she have responded?

So now, like the lovesick fool that I am, I stand before the fire and read her words again, tracing with my finger the lengths of eloquent penmanship she sent to me. She drew a small rose in the corner of the page, a long-stemmed rose with black petals.

And no thorns.

How I love this woman.

BREAK

By the time I saw Alex, it was well past noon. Exactly when he dressed and came down for breakfast, I had no idea. I had locked the door and sat down to read the few letters that had not been committed to the flames. Each one looked as as it did the day she mailed them from Sidney, Rome, Cairo, New York, Madrid and Budapest. I kept them safe within this cedar box in the shape of a book in the astronomy section, the one subject Alexandre finds of no interest.

For hours I read them word for word, memorizing them word for word, imagining how her lips would move if she read them aloud to me. I thought about how she sat at a desk with her legs crossed at the ankles, pen poised in her right hand as she sat on a terrace or an outdoor café. I imagined the wind in her hair, the way she played with her necklace, smiled at a child passing by.

Alex knocking on the door dissolved the little illusion of Christine. I neatly folded everything, taking great care to maintain the exact creases, and returned them to the box. I placed the false book under my bed and opened the door.

"Why can't I go?" he asked the moment the door swung back.

I sighed in disgust. "How long have you been avoiding your trip up here? Didn't Madeline tell you I wanted to speak with you?"

"She was gone," he shrugged. "I made myself breakfast."

"And M Lowry? Have you even begun your studies for today?"

"There was nothing to eat. I fixed myself something and missed my morning lesson."

"How very utterly convenient," I murmured.

Alex said nothing in return. His pouting was intolerable when there were so many greater issues at hand. I turned away from him. Even though I knew the answer, I asked anyhow. Sometimes it is better to say something, anything rather than allow silence within a room.

"Where did Madeline go?"

Alexandre was quiet. He was perceptive. I forgot that he is no longer an infant barely aware of his surroundings. He knew she is here, his mother, and it angered hi m that I w wwould not mention her before him.

"Why can't I see her?"

"Is that all you intend to ask?"

He exhaled sharply. "I could have taken the letter myself," he mumbled.

I ignored him and returned to my desk. There was business at hand: operas needing to be sent to different houses in hopes of publication and performance, bills needing to be paid, statements from the bank needing to be looked at. I gave him a chance. I would give him one last opportunity.

"M Lowry said Egypt interests you," I commented.

He held his tongue as he stood unmoving in the center of the room. I could see him from the corner of my eye, his body rigid, hands balled into fists. He was nothing short of furious.

His temper was worse as a toddler. He chipped one of his teeth when he threw himself on the floor and hit his face on a stool. Every time something failed to agree with him, he made his anger into a theatrical performance and fell onto the floor. Madeline was surprised he made it past the age of five with all of the flopping about that he did in his early years. He has changed much. Now when he is in a fit of anger, he stands allows his anger to boil. He has a wall build up, one with apathy for bricks and confusion and misunderstanding as mortar. Each day the wall grows higher and my son is lost behind it. We have put much effort into this terrible contraption. Still, we do nothing to bring it down.

"Father," he said at last. He hesitated, waiting for me to turn and face him.

"What?" My fingers tapped the masked side of my face, staring at the numbers on the receipts. Madeline had been a bit free in the last month with purchases at the meat market. When she returned from the hotel I would ask her about the expenses. "Speak," I ordered, flipping through my bank book.

Alexandre said nothing. It wasn't until the door clicked shut that I even realized he had left the room.


	9. Unexpected Invitation

Ch 9

The confrontation with Alexandre ate away at me for the remainder of the day. Although I had told Charles to make certain that he stayed indoors and read it was not even an hour later that I heard him in the yard with Lisette after her classes finished for the day. He had disobeyed. I couldn't blame him. I was keeping him from the woman who had given him life. Had he known that she had never wanted him perhaps he would not have argued. He would have been grateful that I had taken him in.

He would be grateful when I allowed him to see her for the first time.

According to her last letter, she was staying in a suite at the Wisteria. She had invited Madeline and Meg over for lunch. I had expected that Madeline would reply and accept the invitation, which is why I had wanted her to send the letter by hand. While she was away at lunch, I would prepare for dinner. I have no doubt that Alex intended to invite himself to lunch. I am certain that was why he wanted to send the letter: to add a note of his own.

I couldn't help but think of how sly he was, how very similar the son was to his father. No wonder we aggravate each other so often.

No one bothered me for the rest of the day as I reacquainted myself with all of Christine's letters. Before I knew it the sun had faded and the lamps in the room needed to be turned up.

To my surprise, the light was on in the second window of the Seuratti house before the supper hour. Every time I passed the window of my room I stared at it to be certain I wasn't mistaken. Sure enough, Julia's invitation flickered, kindling my own desire.

There are rules, though unspoken, that we established long ago: I am not allowed to request her company, and she is not allowed access to my physical self above the neck.

Of course my boundaries are complicated as I much desire to feel her lips against mine, to taste the sweetness of her flesh. We are intimate, yes, but her hand is not permitted to venture along my face, both good side and bad. Our lips do not touch, and I have made certain that she has never seen me without the mask. Not once has she asked and never would I attempt to be in her company without something over my face.

That, at least, is a lesson I have learned all too well.

On occasion, though she knows I find no joy in it, she touches the back of my neck or my hair. She knows that it is nothing more than an illusion as my hair never grays or changes in length, but she has never said a word, even when irritated with me, and for that I am a grateful man. Julia is a good woman, one I nearly consider a friend. Nearly.

As much as my mind was filled with Christine, I could not help but notice how my blood pulsed hotter and faster through the regions most associated with my masculine desires. I do dare say that thinking of her body tangled in the sheets gave me a taste of dessert before dinner.

Imagine my shock and utter dismay when I ventured down to dinner and discovered there was not a setting for me at the head of the table. The moment I walked in both Meg and Alexandre looked down while Charles moved his napkin from his plate to his lap.

"Where is the food?" I asked, so uncouth in my physical yearning.

"Julia left a note. Didn't Alexandre give it to you?" Madeline asked. She rose from the table and glanced at Alex. I imagine she scowled at him as I did.

"A note for what? To starve me?"

Madeline placed her hands on her hips. "She asked you to join for her supper." She glanced at the clock on the mantle. "You'll be late, Erik, best go now."

"I never said I agreed."

"I thought you had agreed. I didn't make enough food, I'm afraid."

Inwardly I screamed at all of them sitting in silence at my table in my house eating the food that belonged to me.

"Fine," I sneered.

With that, I left the dining room and returned to my room where I sat at my desk and stared out the window. The candle was still lit, a golden beacon in the night luring me to her room. Her invitation still stood.

But this was not part of our arrangement. We were not dinner partners. Julia and I did not discuss theater or the latest in politics over coffee. True, we did talk as I dressed and she tidied up the room but it was nothing more than casual conversation taking place before and after our mating rituals. Somehow it was meant to lessen the shame of what we did, of what we still considered a secret despite half of Paris probably being aware that the recluse and the widow met once or twice a week after supper.

Dinner at Mme Seuratti's home, I scoffed as I threw the cravat on the floor. I'll be damned if I dress for dinner in her house. How dare she assume that I would even attend. The very thought of her gall made me stomp step after step down the stairs, the rage I felt accentuated once by the slamming of the back door and again by the gate.

"I knew you would come," Julia smirked the moment I entered her garden.

She stood with her hands clasped behind her back and the most repulsive grin on her face, as though she found my presence amusing. Women and their beauty, their soft voices and graceful manner, are only bits and pieces of heartache and deceit. The Bible would have all men believe that women were created for our benefit but there are women such as Julia that make me think that we have been wrong. They are intoxicating, worse than liquor, more troublesome than gambling. Women are traps few men can escape and I, standing at her mercy in a moonlit garden, had been ensnared.

"Well?" I questioned. "What do you want?"

Her grin widened, the little Cheshire cat. Lewis Carroll would have been damned proud of her. "Good evening, Erik."

I looked her over. She was not dressed for our usual encounters. There were far too many buttons and laces, too many skirts and cumbersome clothing covered all but her face. Apparently this would be the second night in a row where she lured me in and denied me all physical pleasures. Damn this woman and her control. If I did not believe in being a gentleman, I would have had her heels-up in the flower patch with her skirt over her head.

"Don't give me that look," Julia scoffed. "Dinner first." Her eyes twinkled, lips puckering. "And then we shall see."

"This is not part of…our…agreement." That was as tactful as I could manage given the extent of my anger.

"Then find a woman you may pay one hundred francs," she retorted. "Put an advertisement in the paper and perhaps then you will have your sated your physical demands."

"Are you breaking our arrangement?" I asked, my body stiffening. She mocked me by insinuating that I hire a woman for company. It was utterly ludicrous to even suggest such a thing. I have more sense than to bed a common prostitute, some unrefined tart lurking in shadow.

"I invited you for dinner."

"I decline."

She crossed her arms. "Oh? And why is that?"

"I owe you no explanation."

That woman walked away from me at that moment. Not another word left her mouth as she sauntered up the stone path and disappeared into her home. All she did was glance back once and smile again.

The table was set with a single candelabrum in the center. It was simple, just as I would expect from Mme Seuratti as she was not a woman who demanded jewels and furs and extravagant furnishings. She was always a quietly sophisticated woman. She had managed her funds well and though her home was sparsely decorated, I have always found it pleasant and welcoming for more than the reasons I come to see her.

"Sit, please," she said.

I helped her into her own seat and then stared at the opposite end of the table where I was supposed to take my place.

"Why tonight?"

Julia straightened. "To celebrate," she said.

Her hand touched mine. I wanted her caress too badly to leave the dining room. Her hand was so soft, so warm, so gentle as she moved it from my fingers to my wrist. Later it would be different. She would dig her fingers into my shoulders, run her hands down my back.

"To celebrate," I agreed as I joined her for dinner.


	10. At an end

Ch 10

My patience soon waned as I sat across from Julia. I wanted to know what exactly the purpose was of this dinner. My hunger, however, was the first thing on my mind as the smells of breads and meats and juices from cooking filled the air. Questions could wait. Otherwise, I had a feeling that Madeline would tell me to find something cold for dinner.

Julia has no one to serve her as I have Madeline to tend my home so she had removed the middle leaf in the table to make the food accessible on both ends. Still there was a strange distance between us in the form of plates and steaming dishes laid on iron potholders. She had made enough to completely cover the lace tablecloth. I would guess there was enough on her table to feed half of France.

We sat in silence for the first few minutes, allowing our forks and knives to replace what would have been conversation to a couple. I caught sight of our reflections in a rectangular mirror just as I brought my fork up from the plate. Julia was watching me intently, a strange expression on her face. My eyes moved from the moving portrait of us on the wall to the living and breathing woman across from me.

She knew I had seen her. Her eyes turned back to her plate.

"Do you like everything?" she asked suddenly, glancing up.

"Yes, it's fine," I answered. Why was she staring? What purpose did this dinner serve?

"Madeline said you enjoyed red potatoes," she commented.

I snorted. "Most likely because it is cheap and she can buy herself more perfume," I replied.

Julia chuckled softly. I had never heard her laugh before.

This is how dinner would be with Christine. We would eat in her hotel room; sitting across from one another while candles blazed and the hundreds of bouquets that admirers had sent to the hotel would permeate the room. I could not wait another twenty hours to see her again, to see her face, hear her voice. I starved for her all of these years. Everything within me needed her.

"I hear M Lowry knows M Eiffel," Julia commented.

I nodded.

"Must be rather exciting to know a person of such fame as M Eiffel. I'm sure Charles is very proud of his colleague."

I shrugged and reached for the gravy. It was fairly good, a bit salty, but Madeline never adds enough salt. Apparently she thinks salt will disappear from the face of the earth so she uses it sparingly. I intended to slop up as much meat, gravy and potatoes as possible while sitting at the table.

"Lisette wants me to take her to the Exposition. It's all she has talked about since she returned from school." Julia placed her fork on the plate and gulped down half of the wine in her glass. I raised a brow at her consumption. She would be forthcoming indeed if she kept up her drinking at the current pace.

The glass was placed on the table and refilled. She offered me more and I declined with a slight shake of my head. Drinking never interested me much. The reasons for celebrating in my life have been few and I have seen what becomes of men who drink to abolish their sorrows.

"I would rather avoid the crowds," Julia said. She was rambling. Of course she hadn't much of a choice as I had said nothing in return. "I told her that perhaps one evening we could have a look around. Maybe the hordes of fairgoers will lessen once it is about to close. Or right when it opens one morning though Lisette has never been much of a morning person. What do you think?"

"I think it's a waste of time," I replied.

Her fork clattered to the table and I looked up from dinner and stared back into the mirror. She had finished her wine again. My concerns were growing that she was going to pass out cold at the table.

"When will Mme de Chagny sing again?" Julia questioned.

I glared at her. Not once have I ever referred to Christine by her married name. I despise the name Chagny, the surname that claims her as the bedmate and love of another man. She was mine first. She should be mine again. She will be mine again.

"The second of April," I replied.

"And will you see her then?"

Her questions were merely to uncover information. Her curiosity had absolutely no charm. She thought I would say 'no', that I would not see her again when she sang as I rarely leave unless it is night. Yesterday was pure madness to leave in broad daylight, I admit. But I needed to see her. I needed to hear her voice again.

"Yes," I answer to see Julia raise a brow or choke on her dinner. Choking would serve her right for her meddling.

She made no visible sign of being surprised. I should have excused myself and gone home, demanding my dinner be brought to my room even if it was cold and lacked salt. But I stayed and waited, expecting, savoring the exchange of words rather than physical desire. I do admit I enjoyed the banter as senseless as it was.

"Good," she answered. "And I expect you will take Alex."

My body rose before I realized it and suddenly I stood over her. "How dare you mention my son! Don't you ever mention my son!"

"Erik," she gasped.

I dragged her chair back from the table. "She is mine! He will know her when I see it is fit! Do you understand me?"

Julia shuddered. "Sit," she whispered, keeping her head down. "For God's sake, Erik, sit."

She was beside herself. I knew how her husband treated her and I didn't care. I hoped she was frightened so much so that she would never dare to say such things again. I wanted her to remember each time Louis beat her in the middle of the night. She needed to remember her place. She was a placee, a mistress. She was little more than a body.

Her eyes flickered up. So childlike and small she seemed in her chair, shrinking before me in hope that my hand would not raise. "Please sit," she said again. Her voice barely made it past her lips.

"You said you wanted to celebrate," I said through my teeth. "Does your offer still stand? Tell me now."

Her hands moved slowly as she folded her napkin and placed it beside her plate with trembling hands. Not once did she look at me as she moved her chair from the table.

"Wait for me upstairs."

BREAK

I couldn't find it in myself to move from where I stood above her. My God, I had become Louis Seuratti. I had become the violence she had known for years, the haunting figure, the heavy hand, the humiliation she had escaped five years ago.

Sexual desire drained from me as I stared at her. She would not deny me tonight, I knew. If I grabbed her by the wrist—or by the hair as I had seen Louis do in the window—she would go without protest. She had told me to go upstairs and wait for her but I couldn't move. I could not touch her. More than anything I wanted to vomit.

I am an animal attempting to be human. I am a creature so long devoid of emotion that acting—for often I see myself as only an actor—the part is impossible. But what I felt was real as there are two emotions I am most familiar with and one I had already experienced: rage. Now it was time for shame, so often the companion of the first.

My hands felt hot, my fingers tingling and I wanted to touch her. Not in a way that would bring passion but something different, something…human, compassionate. I owed her an apology.

And I knew it.

Words or expressions of regret have never left my mouth. Why should I apologize to anyone? I have been wronged a thousand times over and not once has anyone showed me the compassion I long deserved. Life is suffering. For years I have been poisoned and bled of my pride but still I stand, always the weed in the vast fields of flowers like Christine and even Julia.

But the words I spoke, the anger I showed to her were without warrant. My vile ways have strangled my relationship with Julia. She will do as I say out of fear, not out of her own desire.

There was nothing of interest to me in a moment built of intimidation. What little we once had was nothing.

Before I could say anything, Julia rose and ducked beneath my arm. She collected her unfinished plate, her wine glass and my plate and scurried from the dining room into the kitchen. A sob escaped her before the door swung behind her and muffled her emotion.

My reflection looked on in disgust at what stood alone in the dining room. I could not meet my own accusing eye. In silence, I went upstairs and waited for Julia.

Tonight we would say good-bye.


	11. Her face, memorized

Ch 11

I hadn't the nerve to undress. I merely sat on the end of the bed and listened to Julia wash the dishes. The clock ticked miserably and loudly, consuming everything else in the room and muting the outside world. I should have been used to living alone. I _was_ used to living alone. But this was different. This was her house, her life.

I should not have walked these stairs.

Dishes clanked together as she dried and returned them to the cupboard. There was nothing else—the clock taunting and the dishes berating me for what I had done in the dining room. Lisette was off playing as she often did on the nights Julia invited me over. Sometimes she played with Alexandre and sometimes she walks across the street to another girl's house. Julia had mentioned the other girl before. While I sat and waited, I attempted to think of what the girl's name was. That was how desperate I was to clear my mind that I resorted to racking my brain over a ten year-old girl's name.

I didn't even know exactly what I was waiting for.

For the first time I looked around her room without the distraction of my own expectations. She had a small dresser in the corner with various jars of perfume and creams and whatever else women dose on their skin and into their hair. Why do women torment themselves so? Another meaningless thought, I knew, as I attempted to dry up the sea of misery I had created.

How cruel I was to her. How good she had been to me over the years. I sighed in disgust.

The lamp was turned down low, as always, and the room still smelled faintly of Sandalwood. That alone should have done something, anything, to encourage my desire but there was nothing within me. Absolutely nothing that made me believe that tonight would go as I had wanted. Now I wanted nothing but to crawl through the removable wall and slink into the cellar. Hide. I wanted to hide.

This night shouldn't have mattered. Tomorrow Christine and I would enjoy dinner. Even if she refused me physically I would see her again. Of course I wanted to feel her but her voice…I could live only on her beautiful voice, devouring each note, consuming her every melody, ravaging her glorious range. She was part of me, just as music was part of me. In darkness there is nothing to see. Sound is what guides, not sight. I could be led to my death by her voice. In many ways I have already been executed by her and tomorrow I will resurrect myself quite possibly to fall victim again.

Julia's shoes clicked on the wooden stairs and I lifted my head to see her. She must have stayed downstairs long enough to dry her eyes but not nearly long enough for her complexion to clear. She said nothing as she entered the room, closed the door behind her and turned the lamp down so that all I saw was her shadow drifting in the darkness.

Her jewelry clinked into a small bowl I had seen on her dresser. The earrings came off first, then the wedding ring she wears as comfort to her daughter. I heard her draw in a breath as she reached around for the clasp on her necklace. The pearl at the end caught the moonlight for a moment before it dropped onto the wooden surface, the thin gold chain landing in the container with the rest of her jewelry.

She turned in the darkness and faced me, her fingers moving down the buttons from her neckline towards her stomach. It was too dark to make out her features but I imagined everything: the laugh lines that were forming around her eyes, the small bump on her nose, her high cheeks and arched brows. I could see her smile and the way it creased her eyes and brought out the roundness of her cheeks.

Julia. My God, I knew her face. Even without light I saw her in my mind. When had this happened? When had I memorized her?

Julia knelt and placed her hands on my knees. Her breaths were warm on the backs of my hands as she leaned forward. I knew what she would do if I sat before her. My eyes closed in the night and again I saw her face, the same startled look she had shown when I had snapped at her.

I shuddered. The sensation of her skin against mine, the feel of her breath on me made my eyes widen in the dark. I panicked, without reason, without thought, I bolted to my feet. I brushed her away and stumbled over her. My heart raced, thundering through my body, reaching out to every nerve and muscle.

Without a word I left her, half running, half falling down the stairs. How exactly I managed to make it from her back door to mine I haven't any idea. The only thing I know for certain is that her image was still with me as I wrenched the gate open, tore through the garden and into the solitude of my home.

That night, as I lay atop the coverlet, I dreamt of my former placee.


	12. Empty Letter

Ch 12

Madeline Giry is a bird of the earliest hour. The sun never even thinks of rising before that woman. On any other night I would not have even noticed the bristled brush scraping along the wooden floor at the top of the stairs. I would not have heard her humming a song that I wrote long ago. I wouldn't have heard her curse the bucket as it overturned and toppled down the stairs. Nor my name mentioned for tracking mud in the previous night.

"Must you do this?" I sneered as I pulled the door open. The house was so dark that I scolded only the hallway.

I heard her sigh in disgust, which gave away the spot in which she crouched on the floor.

She didn't even look up to acknowledge me as she crawled backwards down the stairs. She muttered at me to wipe my feet and that was it. I didn't see her after that for several hours.

She left a puddle of suds before the door. I believe it was to mock me.

After that I returned to my room and locked the door. Once I collapsed on the bed again Bessie joined me. The nudge of her nose against my face made me close my eyes. Leave it to a stinking dog to find acceptance in the mutilated and refuse of the world.

Alone I laid for several hours. No one bothered me until the doorbell rang. By that time I was ravenous and irritated.

From a small, round window overlooking the porch, I saw a boy not much older than ten standing with a leather pack slung over his arm. He was moving back and forth, shifting his weight and tapping his hands on the railing. It was difficult not to swing the window open and tell him to stop. I imagine that would have scared the Holy Hell from him.

"Yes, what is it?" Meg said when she answered the door. Apparently I wasn't the only one in a questionable mood this morning.

"A letter, Madame. Are you Madame Madeline Giry?"

"No, I will get her," Meg replied. She then screamed for her mother. Good God, no wonder she was never a singer. A pretty thing, Meg Lowry, with a voice as pleasant as a sow. I thought for one fleeting moment my ears would bleed.

Madeline stomped through the house to the foyer. I waited impatiently though I knew exactly what was about to happen. The boy was delivering a letter from Christine. Hours remained until I would see my angel, my illustrious angel. Hours until I could drink in her beauty and feast on her voice, that wonderful voice. My creation….my Christine.

My jaw tensed as the door closed and I waited. First I started towards the door, then I pulled away. No, I would come down and see the note for myself, the proof that Madeline and Meg would have lunch later this afternoon. Everything was set into place, each pawn set on the chess board. This was what I had waited nearly a decade for: to see her again.

Madeline came up to me at once. She looked flustered as she handed me the note and turned away.

"Read," she muttered.

I scanned through the note several times before I folded it neatly, tucked it inside the envelope and returned to my room. Madeline made no protest to me keeping the note. Christine had cancelled their meeting. She had no use for it.

With trembling hands, I lit a candle and took a deep breath. She had cancelled lunch with Meg and Madeline. She had not turned me down. If she saw my note—and I knew she would look for my secret message—she would tell me what time to meet her for dinner.

She had to meet me for dinner.

I held the single sheet of paper over the flame and waited. Nothing. My fingers felt as though they would burn to ash but still I held it, enduring the pain in hopes of dulling another pain, a much worse anguish that tore through every other feeling part of my body.

The page caught fire and I stamped it out with my fists, banging out the flames until blackened ashes rose into my face.

Where was her note? Where was the message to me?

"No," I said aloud. I smoothed the paper again and placed it above the flame. My pounding had sent a river of wax over the desk that stuck to the wooden surface and the bits of ash. The paper dropped from my hands as the temperature grew intolerable.

"No," I said again. There was still nothing. Not even a rose in the corner as she had done before.

A soft knock at the door startled me. Hastily I threw the burnt, crumpled paper into a desk drawer and stormed across the room. Who would dare disturb me?

"Father?" Alex said meekly. He stepped back, sensing my rage.

"What? What is it? What do you want?"

"I….nothing," he mumbled. He turned and started to walk away.

There was only so far I could alienate him from me. With a sigh, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Tell me," I said sternly.

He succumbed to my grasp and obeyed the pull of my arm. For an instant he lifted his arm and touched my hand. It was then that I remembered how much I once had loved him, how it had been before….before this nonsense with the Exposition.

* * *

Strange as it seems, Alexandre has never seen my face. He has only questioned the mask once, when he was much younger than he is now. In his childish innocence he had looked into my eyes, his tiny hand reaching up. He touched the cold surface, the skin that had become my skin. I had held my breath in dread.

"Papa," he had said, "why do you wear this?"

I had ignored him and went back to reading. I had hoped he would sit on my lap and forget that he had asked anything at all. But he was a curious child—and because he is my child—curiosities don't just die when they are left. They flourish.

He tried to take the mask from my face.

I stood up and in doing so he fell to the floor with a heavy thud. He said nothing. He uttered a small whimper and slunk across the floor. Looking back, I know what I should have done: I should have apologized. But I had instead left him in the parlor in favor of my room. I left him, my son, my proof of the one moment I had enjoyed with Christine. I left him and damned myself.

It has been years since Alexandre has questioned the mask. Once in a while he would look on with curiosity but he never said a word.

He has been a blessing in every way, an elixir to the misery I have always felt. After Christine, it was like being at the bottom of a barrel. Losing her was like slipping through a crack and falling further, into solitude and remorse so dark and so deep that one never thought it could exist. The first time I held him I didn't just see that I had someone else, I felt it.

The greatest joy I felt was when he smiled at me or laughed when I dangled a toy before him. There was nothing else like it, no greater feeling than pleasing him. This was mine. He was still mine, yes, but now he had thoughts of his own and many had turned against me. I could no longer please him with simple games or words. I had not tried to please him with simple things. Christine was coming.

"What did she say?" Alex asked at last.

We had sat for several minutes with him in my armchair while I sat at the desk. This was why he had come upstairs. I knew when I saw him at the door that he would ask.

"She said no," I replied.

Alex looked away. It dawned on me that he may not have known what that meant. He sat in silence and scratched the dog behind the ears.

"Madame Giry and Madame Lowry were to have lunch with her," I explained.

"I know. I was going to ask Mum Giry if I could go with them," he whispered with his head down.

I turned away and felt myself smile. I knew him well, even when we did not see eye to eye or communicate often. "I know," I answered.

"Father," he murmured.

My eyes closed. He was asking me again why I wanted to keep her from him, why the man who was so much a mystery gave him nothing but a shadow as a mother. He had more in Christine than I had ever had in my own mother. How lucky he was. I wished I could tell him that knowing nothing was better than knowing hatred.

"Someday…"

"She will be gone in four days," he said before I could finish.

I nodded.

"She doesn't have to know who I am," he said. There was such fever in his voice, such determination to plead to me, to his father, why he should be allowed to know her. "I could see her from a distance."

No, I thought, distance is worse. Separation brings about longing for something more. I had done this for years, for too many years. I could not let him do as I had done, to create a Hell of wanting.

"I want to know what she looks like." His voice cracked and he covered his face in shame for crying.

Before I could speak, Madeline tapped on the door. "Alex? Leave your father alone a while. Come down for breakfast."

"He's fine," I protested.

"His food will be cold," she replied. The door opened and she appeared. "Ah, you're dressed. Good. Both of you, downstairs."

With a nod, I motioned Alex up. He trudged from the room, passing Madeline who gave him a warning look. She then turned to me.

"You should let him see her just this once," she said quietly, taking my arm before I passed her. "I will take him with me to meet her at the fair. Please, Erik."

"He will meet her," I said back, avoiding her eyes.

Her hand gripped my arm even tighter. "Erik…" she started, "by the week's end, there is one thing you will have for certain. Remember that."

It was as though she knew my wicked thoughts.


	13. Onanism and the morning paper

_Those of you who like history might find this interesting. Those of you who loathe history should still find it amusing. I hope! I couldn't find an exact date for when Mark Twain gave his famous little speech but if you google it, the whole thing is pretty funny (and he did do it in 1889 at the Stomach Club). Then you'll know what onanism means, since I don't want to boost up my rating to R because of the author notes. _

Ch 13

Mark Twain took Madeline and Meg's place as company for Christine. He and his wife Olivia Langdon most certainly had amusing tales of their travels. I hear he has performed at the Stomach Club. There was a little article about it in the paper regarding some sort of speech entitled 'Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism.' Leave it to the Americans to be so tasteless. Leave it to the Americans to intrude upon and gather in Paris to talk so vulgar. Twain favors drink, as his pen name cleverly implies. He often used his pen name to slyly order two drinks rather than one, the lush. I could only assume that added to his uncouth nature. I wonder what excuse the rest of the Americans would use for snickering at his crude attempt at literature. Onanism. Pah!

So this is what she chooses over two old friends: a boorish American writer. It made me wonder about who she would see for dinner. Thomas Couture, according to my worldly little Charles Lowry, was supposed to return for the Exposition. He would have been a good dinner companion. Couture shunned Paris long ago, after some of his work was criticized. Painters are so temperamental. All artists—true artists—are the same way. But unfortunately old Couture missed one final moment in Paris. He died the day before the Exposition opened. I wonder if he is looking down at the tower in disgust or up in envy.

My mood has been rather cynical lately. I wanted to see her tonight. I needed to see her tonight but she canceled. She never even left a word for me. She toys with me. Undoubtedly she knows that I wait for her letters, that I read them over and over in my room until my eyes can no longer see the pages. Why does she do this? Does she enjoy these games, these terrible games of a cat playing with the miserable little mouse that I am? There are some days when I think she has always enjoyed leading me to her and pushing me away. I understand what it is like to be a lamb nurtured by the farmer only to be led to the slaughterhouse. And yet I learn nothing for I still return to her in mind and spirit.

"Eat," Madeline said from over my shoulder.

"It's cold." Such a childish complaint, I admit.

"It wouldn't be cold if you ate," she retorted.

Touché, Madame, I thought as I glared at her. "Where is the paper?"

No one said anything. Not Meg who sat beside Charles at the far end, not Alexandre who was enjoying the exchange and certainly not Madeline who knew there was something in the paper that she didn't want me to see.

"Where is the paper?" I asked again.

"The parlor," Madeline muttered at last.

And I left the kitchen table in favor of the parlor, glancing once over my shoulder to see that Madeline and Meg stood side by side. Meg had her hands on Alexandre's shoulders, keeping him in his seat.

I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Not one of them was able to conceal anything within the house. The moment I walked into the parlor I knew that there were dozens of places to hide a newspaper mostly because I have hidden everything from keys to candy in this room alone.

The parlor wasfairly small. Madeline used it as a sewing room while Charles prefered the library across the hall for studying. Because itwas rarely occupied, therewas never anything out of place. I had expected the three of them to at least attempt to hide it but no, there it was on the desk Madeline uses for writing her letters to Christine, sitting on the same side of the desk as the drawer I stole into in order to write my own notes.

"Erik," I heard Madeline say from behind.

My hand shot out and silenced her as I snatched the newspaper from the desk with the other. At once I felt the tinge of anger that reddened my ears and sent heat up the back of my neck. The headline did not concern me; the senseless babble of reporters did not catch my eye. Only the picture.

The boy had come with her, that contemptuous, sniveling, Vicomte. There he was on the front of the paper, on the front of my morning paper with his handsome face and finely groomed hair. He smiled back, that beaming smile of his, that thief's grin as he mocked me.

Damn you to hell, boy, I wanted to scream. May you burn for eternity you little brat.

He stood so proud in that moment the tin captured him, so boastful in his triumphant moment there on the front of the paper, knowing full well that I would see him. He dared to mock me and my desire.

In Paris, no less with his fine garb and neatly trimmed hair. With his arm around Christine. Christine. My Christine. My angel. My student. My lover. Mine. She belongs to me.

Damn him! I wanted to scream it from atop the house, from atop that ugly contraption in the center of the Exposition. For nine years I had waited for Christine and now?

No, he would not have her much longer. He had come to me, intruding on my domain.

And I considered his bold entrance to be an invasion. Once, I had allowed him to leave. That was far too generous a move to allow him such freedom. But this time? This time I would kill him. As I bloody should have the first time.

Damn him to hell.


	14. The Parlor Incident

Ch 14

When it had started to rain I have no idea. I stayed in the parlor and glared at the boy until I heard Charles and Alexandre finish morning studies in the library.

"Very good, Alex, very, very good!" Charles praised him. "Now try this and you'll be excused for the rest of the day."

"Really?"

"Quality is rewarded," Charles replied. Hewas a good teacher and a good man. He enjoyed teaching and it showed with the exuberance hedisplayed each day in the library. Charleswas a man who deserved to teach at the finest of universities in halls filled with a hundred brilliant scholars. I would like to think that Alex proved a worthwhile student.

It wasn't until I heard Alex working out an arithmetic problem that I realized it was 11:30. I had spent almost three hours staring at the front page, at that smiling ignorant face.

He was not supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in Belgium or Munich or the moon for all I cared. Anywhere but here with Christine. My desire to see her turned into frantic need. This could not wait another day. I could barely think of waiting until nightfall.

I wouldn't wait. I drove the letter opener into his forehead and slammed my fist into the desk top. There was no desire in me to stop there. I would strike him a thousand times, this paper and ink image that continued to smile despite the glaring wound through his skull.

She chose him over me, the beautiful one over the beast, the angel over the devil. A little playmate over a lover. Did he even know how much I still wanted her as mine? Had he ever seen the notes I sent her, the intricate words of love woven onto cold, flat sheets of paper? I hoped he knew and I hoped he loathed me for it.

Again the letter opener raised in my fist.I had noidea how many times I had struck him. The paper was torn. I could barely see him but I knew he was there. Always there. Always watching. I hated him. I hadalways hated him and his perfect face, his angelic laugh his...I hated him more than anything in the world.

I would show him my apathy.

This time I would impale him straight through the heart and make him feel my pain, my terrible anguish, the burden I have carried since birth. For once he would suffer, but it would not compare to all I had endured.

Never was I loved. Never was there a soft hand, a warm caress, a kind word. He had everything, the ungrateful son borne of privilege. He had no idea how precious a gift he was given the moment he came screaming into the world. He had not known the sheer look of terror my appearance drew just as I had never known the joy of someone meeting my eye and not recoiling from my presence.

He deserved pain. He deserves my hate. He did not deserve Christine. He had not suffered to earn her hand. How I despised him with every boiling drop of blood in my body. The rain outside pelted the windows, the wind rattling at the panes. My hatred grew like the storm outside only my rage was contained to this small room. I could not hold back a moment longer. I would gouge out his eyes.

Splinters richocheted from the table surface below as I stabbed through layers of paper into the fine cherry wood. I let out a gurgling scream of bloodlust as I struck him again and again, cursing, howling like a damned animal.

Then I stopped and I stared. There was nothing left of him there before me. He was only in my head. In my head. Always in my head. Every day, every night he had plagued me. Never again, I swore. I screamed it, too, I think. I would finish him for good.

Only God knows how the letter opener remainedin my sweating, trembling hand.

Or perhaps, more fittingly, only the Devil.

Madeline took my wrist before I could stab his likeness again. It was then that I realized how violently my hand was shaking and how my nose had started to run. I blinked and color returned to the room. There was blood smeared across the table and what was left of the newspaper. Blood. Not the vicomte's blood but my own crimson stain. I had stabbed myself between the thumb and forefinger without even realizing it. Damn him! I had bled because of him.

"Your son is watching,"Madeline whispered as she took the letter opener from my grasp and shoved it into a drawer. She leaned against the desk, keeping me from retrieving my weapon. The damage had already been done.

Alex had watched everything.

I glared at her, my nostrils flared and body tense. She was moon-white, shaking as well at my display. She swallowed hard, keeping her eyes fixed on mine, fearing to look away, to break the trance, to release me from her hardened stare. If she had backed away, I dared not think what I would have done.

She didn't say it but I saw it in her eyes. _Don't you dare do another damned thing._

For once, I obeyed.

From the corner of my eye I saw Alex standing in the doorway, a mute ghost unable to move. He said nothing as I turned to him, a fiery hatred still looming in my gaze. His jaw tightened, his lips straightening.

The look in his dark eyes was something I had seen a thousand times before. He feared me, as well as he should have. He had seen the monster that had sired him.

My eyes closed and I shuddered, feeling something worse than loathing. Alex was slipping away from me.

Before I could even speak, he took a step back and returned to the library where Charles sat in his wheelchair. Charles, the most placid man in the world, staring at me in disbelief. We had talked only the previous week about the fall of theRoman Empire. By the look in hiseye, I had turned into a rabid lupine.

But Charles was not my concern. The door shut behind Alex, an invisible door I had felt between myself and my son. He had seen a darker side, a violent side, something he had never quite seen before.

Once, I had dumped him on the floor and walked away from him. The extent of my anger had been ignoring him for several hours.But in the study, he had seen the difference between anger and complete madness.

He had seen the truth.

* * *

From the window overlooking the backyard, I watched lightning splinter down onto Paris. Julia's house stooped in the rain while the light in kitchen windows showed that she must have been downstairs. I had often watched her before in the summer when she had the windows open at night. There is something alluring about watching someone who doesn't know you are there. 

But I didn't want to think of Julia and I had no interest in looking into her windows. I was trying to forget her.

The sky darkened as evening approached. My appetite had vanished despite not eating at all throughout the day. If not for Madeline, I would starve. She reminds me when it is time to eat as quite often I have no interest in food. But not even Madeline cared to see me have lunch.

She was right in denying me a meal. I deserved to starve.

The more I pried away at what had happened in the parlor, the more I felt the weight of shame upon my shoulders. It is unbecoming of a man my age to lose his temper so easily, no less before a child. Not once in the eight years since he has been mine have I ever lashed out so violently.

My mind went blank. Thunder rolled through me and I drifted with the sound, unable to keep the thought from my mind that Christine had made a terrible mistake in giving him to me.

The pity I felt for myself was short-lived. Meg came tapping on the door.

"Alex wants to know if he may go to Madame Seuratti's home for dinner," she said when I opened the door to her.

"Why didn't he come and ask me himself?"

We both knew the answer though Meg would not say a word. Fear and good manners made her shake her head. Compared to her mother, Meg is the most compliant creature on Earth. Everything that happened with Christine makes her obedient to me.

Around the time I noticed Christine, I took notice of Meg as well. She is angelic with her blond hair and doe-eyes. But there was such a stigma attached with her being Madeline's daughter. Each time I noticed her beauty or how well-endowed she was becoming, I wanted to vomit. If Madeline was a mother to me, Meg should have been a sister. Now she is only wary.

"Did Julia invite him?"

"I believe so."

"He may go. Tell him to see me first."

"Yes, of course."

"Tell Madeline not to set a place for me. I will not be here as well."

She gave me a strange look, a sense of alarm passing through her eyes. She nodded once and started to leave but stopped and gathered her nerves.

"Will you be gone long?" she asked.

"I have not yet decided," I retorted. And that was the truth. How long my venture took depended on whether or not the boy was with Christine, and how much of a struggle he would put up once we were reunited.


	15. Gift from a Father

_AN Finally we see that Erik has something more than obesession and madness. He has passion as well. Any thoughts on this chapter are VERY welcome. Not sure if it will come off as too sentimental._

Ch 15

There is nothing more galling than being angry with one's self. I found that there was plenty of time to rake through my discontent as I waited for night to cloak Paris in darkness.

When Alexandre came to live with me, I swore that he would live as I had always dreamed. There were few moments that he spent crying as an infant. Against Madeline's advice, I held him day and night, sometimes sleeping in the nursery so that I would hear him at once if he demanded a bottle. These were in the days when I expected Christine would never come to Paris again. He was all I had left of her. I cherished him not only because he reminded me of her but because he was my son. There was nothing better than holding the person you have helped create. He was a gift to me. My gift to him was a warm home free of pain and degrading words. I have always maintained that he is to feel safe here in my presence and beneath my roof. There are many other things I wish I had also wanted to give him, many things he has lived without.

The gifts I received from my father were bruises and broken bones. Once he broke my finger for playing the piano, another time my rib, though exactly why I don't recall. Born ugly, he made me all the more repulsive. From him I carry the gift of hatred always dangling in my heart. Likewise, from my mother, the gift of sorrow. Not once did she ever smile at me. I don't even remember her ever uttering my name.

Compared to my own rearing, Alexandre has lived like a prince.

The disappointment I felt for showing him an outburst of anger took a heavy toll on me. The man I had feared and eventually despised was tearing through my soul and reaching out to the grandson he had never known. Unable to control myself in this Hell and whirlwind of madness, I was glad Alex would be out of the house but slightly alarmed that he was dining with Madame Seuratti.

She was still in my mind as well. From my window, I saw Julia standing by the sink cutting vegetables. I wondered what she was making for dinner and remembered suddenly that I was ravenous. In an attempt to ignore my growing hunger, I watched the light fading into the horizon. In an hour or two more, it would vanish from the streets.

It is only by nightfall that I roam the world behind a hood and scarf. As much as I have always been separated from society, there are nights when even I desire a moment of disappearing in a crowd. Tonight I could not wait to be rid of my confinement in search of fresh air and new sights. The last thing I wanted was to confront Madeline. She had not said anything after I had destroyed the paper but there was enough in her eyes that told me an earful awaited.

Of everyone within the house, she was the only one who dares to shake her head when she disapproves of something I have said or done. My plans to see Christine would appall her. Though despite Madeline not saying a word, I was well aware that she knew my plans for tonight. I wondered as I dressed and fixed my appearance for supper if she would send a letter back to Christine's hotel and warn her.

I would think not, as she knew I intended no harm. All I wanted was a moment, which Madeline thought was far too much. She thought I should be satisfied with having Alexandre under my roof when he could have been anywhere. I was quite happy with him but it was not enough to have only a son. He was a reminder of what I wanted. I wanted Christine. I had always wanted Christine. Madame Giry didn't understand. From a distance the previous day had not been nearly enough. It was nothing more than a memory drifting through my mind, but I could still faintly taste Christine's lips from all those years ago.

She gnawed at everything inside of me. She was worse than a cancer, for as long as she eats away at me she will never quite kill me.

Once the rain had turned to a drizzle, I opened the window and allowed the breeze to enter. Bessie sat on top of my feet as I tried to convince myself that there was music in my head that needed to be committed to paper. After a half-hour of angry scribbles, I relented and threw a ball of paper into the trash can, then nudged her away and sent her downstairs. The damned animal growled at me. How very convenient of me to turn away my last loyal friend.

Alexandre eventually came to the door, which for once I had left unlocked. I wasn't prepared to see him yet when he knocked. What I wanted was more time to decide what I would say to the questions I expected he would ask. God knows he had questions. After all, he had just seen me attack a newspaper that morning.

Alex shuffled into the room with his head down and sat on the end of the bed.

"Madame Lowry said you wanted me to see you," he said as he smoothed his hand over the coverlet. He had no desire to meet my eye. Really, I didn't blame him. When an animal attacks, the worst move in the world is to look it in the eye. I've read before that predators find that a challenge, an invitation for further confrontation.

"I did."

"Did you decide differently?" he mumbled.

I studied him a moment. His curls of hair were hanging past his ears and his shirt was partially unbuttoned. It surprised me that Madeline hadn't straightened his clothes or combed his hair back. He looked like a vagrant flopped down on my bed.

"What time does Lisette expect you?" I questioned, ignoring his inquiry. "And look at me when you speak." That, I admit, is one of the irritating habits I acquired from Madeline.

"Eight," he answered.

"Is this how you plan on dressing?"

His face burned, his hands curling into fists. He looked away from me and chewed on his bottom lip. "I'll change," he whispered. He paused, glancing at me. "May I please have dinner with Madame Seuratti and Mademoiselle Lisette?"

"Who invited you?"

"Lisette."

"Does her mother know?"

Alex nodded. "She invited you as well. I told her you were not feeling well. I—I'm sorry. Madame Lowry said you were…leaving."

He was fortunate that I was not in a mood for quarreling or else I would have rammed a rod down his throat and turned him over a spit for answering a dinner invitation on my behalf. Having done enough for the day to alienate him from me, I offered a smile.

"You may," I replied.

He nodded solemnly as though I had told him to stand before a firing squad. I suppose if his time at dinner went as mine had the previous night, then he would have the same amount of pleasure as a man shot to death.

"I must gather my hat and umbrella," I said, expecting we were done with our conversation.

"Father," he said, still not looking up.

I leaned forward at my desk. There was more. By the tautness of his face it was something I knew in my heart I didn't want to hear.

"Yes, Alex."

"That man in the paper," he started. He glanced at me once then looked away again. His dark eyes were hardened. I had never seen a look of vengeance on his face. For once he looked more like me than his mother.

"Raoul de Chagny," he said. "The Vicomte."

I knew he would ask about the Vicomte. His words were like dried wood to my rage, dropping one by one on a fire I had tried to quell since that morning. I felt my nostrils flair, my shoulders tense at the sound of the boy's name. "Father, is that who the man in the paper is?"

"Yes."

"The one that took her?"

I merely nodded. If I bothered to speak it would be nothing but a gurgled shout of hatred. If I made even a noise I would tell Alexandre that this is the man she chose over both of us, over her son and her lover. This was the handsome substitute to a life with her family, her first family.

Alex swallowed hard and moved his legs, crossing his ankles once and then deciding on sitting up straight. His eyes remained fixed on the floor with his brow furrowed. Each second that ticked by coiled another thread of anxiety through me. He knew the Vicomte. He knew this was his mother's husband. Now he would want to meet him as well, and most likely the two girls that were his half-sisters.

"Father," he started. I could barely breathe. My God, I couldn't allow him to see her now. Alex would meet with the boy and discover every bit of inadequacy I had shown over the years. The past twelve months I had done nothing for Alex. My heart, my mind, my every action were enslaved to the memory of a woman I spent two nights with in bed and nearly a decade longing for.

Alex looked up at me for the first time, his face contorted. "If you hate him, then I shall hate him as well."

So this was the gift I have given my son. The gift of hating a man he does not know.


	16. Everything Left Unsaid

_The good news (or bad) I will posting two chapters fairly close together._

_The bad news (or good) Is that this a very short chapter but I would really appreciate feedback on this one. _

Ch 16

For a moment we regarded one another in uncomfortable silence. He looked away first, then I did the same thing and found my checkbook before me, already completed. Well, damn, I thought. I had no diversion.

And I wanted a distraction. From my own son, from the child I had spent countless nights awake holding and softly singing to as he battled upset stomachs and fevers, as he cut teeth and suffered through colds. Madeline and Meg had always tried to come into the nursery and send me off to bed but I felt a great obligation to Alexandre. Always in the back of my mind was Christine's threat to terminate him before she married the Vicomte. I had wanted him when he was nothing more than a heartbeat, and I had wanted him as an inconsolable infant.

Had I slipped so far in the last year that my love for Christine betrayed my affection for Alexandre? I glanced at him then quickly turned away. There were no words I had for him, nothing that remained unsaid lingering in my mind. All that I wanted was for him to leave so that I could travel five streets away to the Wisteria Hotel. So that I could see his mother while he sat at a dinner table with Julia.

What a despicable creature I was to sit there mere feet from my child and turn my back to him. But even as I thought of what I did, I made no attempt to rectify my action. Most certainly I would not invite him to come with me to see Christine. It was not yet time.

"Alexandre," I started to say.

"I know," he said before I could finish. The bed creaked as he stood. "I'll change clothes before I leave for supper. I won't embarrass you, father."

That wasn't even near what I was going to say to him. His words made me shudder that his clothing was my greatest concern. I couldn't get my mouth to move, to correct his assumption.

I only nodded.

Alexandre shuffled towards the door, hands thrust into pockets and head bowed. He left as he had entered, gaining absolutely nothing in his time with me.

I hated myself. My eyes closed to keep the burn of tears at bay.

"Father," he said.

My eyes flickered up and I watched him as he turned and looked at me for a moment. He stood in the doorway, his hand around the doorknob. Then just as quickly as he had called to me, he turned away and started to leave again, shrugging off an unspoken question.

"Alex, what is it?" I asked as I rose. This was something I had to do. If he left without speaking to me I knew without a doubt that I would lose part of him forever. Already there was too much missing as a result of the last year. I had barely noticed him within the house as the newspapers printed rumors of Christine coming back to Paris.

He refused to turn and look at me again and for a moment I thought he would leave without a sound. He trembled. Even from where I stood at the desk I saw him tremble. There is nothing worse than seeing ones own flesh and blood fearful of something, especially when it is the parent who has caused the trepidation.

"Father, do you…" he paused. My life came to a halt as I waited for him to finish. Whatever he wanted to know I would tell him, whatever he asked of me I would do it, even if meant not seeing Christine. I was at his mercy. If he asked it of me, I would be on my hands and knees before him. I would beg for him to forgive all I hadn't been in this past year.

"Father, do you love me?"

Of course I loved him. No matter what, I would love him until there was nothing left of me in the world and even then, what I felt for my son from the moment he was born until my last breath was drawn, the affection I had for him would resonate an eternity. That was what I would have told him, what I would have offered to quell his anxiety, his second-guesses that I did not care for him.

Only I hesitated to answer and instead gave him nothing but an opened, empty mouth. And as the door closed and I was left alone, I knew in my heart that this was exactly what he expected from me.

Nothing.


	17. Disgrace and Disappointment

Ch 17

By the time I reached the bedroom door, Alexandre, who runs like one of the damned Thompon's Gazelles Charles has talked about, had made it to the back door. Madeline shouted for him to stop, stating that he couldn't leave the house dressed like a vagrant.

"What does it matter?" Alex shouted, pulling his shirt completely out of his pants.

"Do not raise your voice at me! And tuck your shirt back in this minute. You look like a disgrace," Madeline replied.

"No," Alex answered before he opened the back door. "I look like a disappointment."

He stared past her as he spoke, and though I doubt he saw me standing in the shadows, he caught my eye as I stood in the middle of the stairs, unable to move.

"You're speaking madness. Go to your room," Madeline ordered.

Without another word to Alex, Madeline spun around and made her way towards the stairs, giving Alexandre ample time to storm from the house. I could hear the rain pelting down as the door opened and slammed shut, causing the house to shudder. He left without anything to protect him from the rain though I suppose at the time he didn't care. He was away from me and that was all that mattered.

"Is this your doing?" Madeline asked. She pointed her finger at my chest as she stomped up the stairs.

"Mother," Meg gasped. She made it out of the dining room with Charles directly behind her.

I looked past both of them and stared at the back door. He was gone. My son was gone and I could not blame him for being angered. I doubt that his disgust with me was anything like what twisted around in my own gut. He deserved so much better than what he had been given in the last eight years.

Madeline was still seething and spitting and muttering whatever it was she thought would shame me. Not one of her words found a way into my head. Without a sound, I turned and went back to my room, quietly shutting the door. I didn't remember turning the lock.

How I wished I could forget this night.

* * *

A year ago things had been different between us. By no means were we an ideal paring of father and son, but we had a relationship. He talked and I listened.

But then one day the morning paper came, and as she does every morning, Madeline set it on the table beside my breakfast. Having no other glimpse of the outside world, I rather enjoy reading the news from around the globe.

The date was the 21st of February, 1888. I remember exactly how the sun shone through the windows, a light lacking warmth on a frigid winter day. I will remember it until I die. I sat slumped over the table eating oatmeal with cinnamon sprinkled on top when everything around me burned with rekindled passion. I read it several times, a small column on the second page that stated:

Vicomtess C. de Chagny asked to perform, Exhibition.

My breath had caught in my throat. As much as I hated seeing the name Chagny in the paper, I was overwhelmed with joy. She was coming home.

Truthfully I never expected to see her again. She had traveled everywhere in the world save back to Paris. In one of her letters to Meg she had said that Paris was nothing more than a bad memory as she had come here following her father's death. I suspect that she knew I would read her letters as she never mentioned anything of me, her angel. Not one single line in nearly a decade of correspondence queried on how I fared. Meg and Madeline would never mention my name to her either. But I did wonder if they ever said how Alex was doing or how he was growing. As much as I didn't want to think of it, I really did become a phantom to her.

On that 21st of February my hopes were stoked back to life. This was the chance I had been waiting for, the chance to appeal to her again for her affection.

Over the years I have seen her name appear here and there as she sang in Germany and England and even in the United States. Most are no bigger than an inch long but it sustained me for years. Even when I was not with her I knew what she did and how she was doing. Most of the articles I have collected and placed inside a box. These I keep in the library where Alex could see them if he wished. Alex…

I had abandoned him for my own dream. His mother had abandoned him for her own dreams.

Alex….

Something roused me from my trance of self-loathing at nearly one in the morning. At first I thought someone was knocking on the door. I sat up with a shiver and realized that I had left the window open. The knocking was the window rattling against the outside of the house. The moment my feet hit the rug I felt sheets of music flapping like flat birds at my ankles. Some had caught on the rug and the cape I had let fall on the ground.

On my hands and knees I collected my compositions and piled them onto the desk. I used a book to weigh them all down and then made my way to the opened window. In the darkness I nearly tripped over the dog, who had remained my loyal companion. My only ally in the house was Bessie and the only reason she stayed at my side was for the promise of food. Still I cursed her for being in my way.

The air was cold and damp but the rain had stopped. Through the spreading clouds I could see a half-moon high in the indigo sky. The silver light painted the barren trees and dormant grass beaded with drops of rain. There was no sound and that was what I hated most. There is a loneliness that is weighted at such hours of the night. I felt it more than ever.

Another shiver prompted me to close the window. It was then that I saw the light at the Seuratti Residence. Julia was inviting me over.

There was nothing between us. The arrangements we had held over the years had ended the previous night. If she invited me over….

Purely physical? I wondered. That seemed doubtful as she has far greater self control than I ever had.

Had I changed out of my clothes already, I never would have walked down the stairs and towards the back door. There was no reason for me to visit her as we were no longer bound by any relationship, and even if we were, I had no desire to see her after what had happened the night before.

Julia, I realized, was still in my thoughts as well. On and off throughout the day I found myself gazing out the window at her house. There was nothing to see but an ivy-covered wall but I watched nonetheless.

As I stared at the wavering candlelight I discovered that I was relieved to see she had extended an invitation to me though I expected it had to do with something Alex either said or did. Whatever the case, she would tell me before he did. My mind made up that I would see her, I picked the cape up from the floor.

There was no harm in going over there, I thought. Bedding her was the last thing on my mind. Besides, it seemed senseless to have prepared for leaving the house only to remain inside. That was what I told myself as I walked down the stone path and entered her backyard.


	18. Longing

Ch 18

Julia never even gave me a moment to speak. I assume she had been waiting for me as the back door flew open before I reached for the doorknob. The light in the window had been the Venus Trap and I had been the ignorant fly.

"How dare you," she snapped.

"Good evening," I replied sardonically. If she planned on irritating me, I would irritate her as well. All is fair in war, and by the way she decided to start the conversation, this felt like war.

The woman flew out of her house, splashing barefooted into the puddles until she had me by the shirt collar. It crossed my mind that perhaps she was angered by how I had left her house the previous night.

"If you do not wish to see me ever again, that is one thing, Erik. But you do not come between Lisette and Alexandre. They are friends. Let them have that at least."

What in the hell was she talking about? I pried her fingers away from my throat but she refused to back away. Her anger was strangely arousing. My feelings for her were stronger than I would have liked to admit.

She released an angry sigh and glanced down at her wet feet. "Leave," she said. "I have nothing else to say to you."

Julia whirled around like a tornado in a white night dress.

"I have plenty to say to you," I replied before she could slam the door in my face.

"Save your words," she seethed. A wolfish smile crossed her lips. "From now on, save everything you have for Christine." The door slammed shut.

That was enough to turn my vision red. She had invited me to her house. I would not be so easily discarded.

I kicked her door open and heard it crack against the wall as I stormed through after her. Julia let out a strangled scream and sprinted across the kitchen but I was far taller than her, and for each stride she took it was a mere half-step for me. She made her way around the table and I went in the opposite direction.

She underestimated my speed as well as my girth. Exactly what she thought she would accomplish by running directly into my chest, I haven't any idea. She did nothing more than stumble back and lose her footing. To keep her from falling, I grabbed her shoulder and held her up.

Then she slapped me.

The left side of my face tingled but that was secondary to the rage that bubbled up into my chest. My hand instantly went to the right side, the masked side. I had to be certain she hadn't jarred the mask. She had not. God save her if she had.

"Oh, God," I heard Julia say.

My pulse drummed through my ears. No one had hit my face, not since I was a child and I would be damned if anyone ever did so again.

She realized her mistake in striking me. Within heartbeats I had her by the wrists, pinned to the dining room wall. Her arms went limp above her head, her knees giving as she started to sink to the ground. She turned her face away and swallowed hard, her eyes closing. I let her go.

"Please," she said in a trembling whisper. "Lisette is upstairs."

She thought I would strike her back. Her greatest fear was not pain; it was her daughter hearing her beaten. Lisette would be fully aware of what happened if I slammed Julia into the wall or punched her in the belly as I had seen M Seuratti do late in the night.

With a heavy sigh, I pulled her up from the floor and waited until her feet were beneath her. She was still limp, so I held her up against my chest. I rested the good side of my face against her shoulder, forgetting my anger as I held her like a rag doll. The heat of her body rose through the thin cotton nightdress. She smelled painfully intoxicating. Involuntarily, I leaned into her, pressing in vain against the barrier of my clothing.

I had been mistaken in thinking I would not desire her. I would have taken her right there, on the dining room table if need be. But that wasn't why I had come to see her. How difficult she made it to remember why I was there.

"Please, just listen to me" I whispered. How I hated to grovel for her to listen but without giving in, I knew she would not agree, not without physically hurting her, and I would never hit any woman. "I just want a word with you. Nothing more." I could feel the aching of my lies pulsing through my veins as her body burned against mine.

"About what?" she breathed into my neck, her lips whispering against my skin.

It took every ounce of self-control not to abandon all reason and give in to passion. There I had her, between the hard wall and my own body. She was so soft, so warm, so very much what I had wanted for several days. The contact was becoming too much to bear.

Her wrists slipped from my grasp and slid down the wall until they were at her side. I could feel the hesitance in her motions as she placed one gingerly against my hip. She had to know I would have preferred it someplace else, anywhere else.

As much as I didn't want to move, I forced my head to raise from her shoulder. We were still connected, our torsos pressed against one another. Julia looked up as well once I moved, and for a moment in the quiet darkness, she stared at me.

There was never an instance when I wanted her lips against mine more. She was a goddess with her hazel eyes glistened in the night. Her hair was pulled back, exposing the gentle slope of her neck where the side of my face had rested. The right sleeve of her gown had fallen from her shoulder, leaving her milky white skin naked to my eyes. What fine cuisine her flesh would have made for me that night if only I had told her how I starved for her.

Without a word, she put her face against my shoulder and I breathed in the scent of her hair. Everything about her made me shudder with unfulfilled desire. And she had no idea how much It was nearly impossible to restrain my hands from sweeping her up from the floor and carrying her to the bedroom. Or maybe she did and she wanted something as well but was far too much a lady to say it blatantly.

Either way it didn't matter. I had just told her that all I wanted was a word. That was what I would settle for, a moment of her time spent in conversation with clothing left intact and passion left in checked. Damn my lips for speaking without the consent of my masculine needs.

At last I cleared my throat and forced every primal urge away, drawing my body from hers. I pulled at my shirt cuffs and straightened the collar she had grabbed. Julia looked away while I brushed the sleeves of my overcoat.

"What did Alexandre say when he came over here?"

Julia lifted her head and looked at me quizzically, her eyes narrowed. "Erik, he never came to dinner."


	19. A Stranger Inside and Out

Ch 19

There had been a time, when Alexandre was three or four years of age, and influenza swept a deadly hand through Paris. Madeline had been quite vigilant in boiling all of the sheets, the clothes, everything that could carry disease. She allowed no one to enter or leave the house for fear of us all catching ill. I had understood her fears as Alexandre was so young, and poor M Lowry was not a healthy man following the war.

Madeline had been the first to catch a fever, and Alex followed in her footsteps. For three days I sat with him and did not sleep, bathing him in cool water, feeding him broth that Meg had brought to the room and willing him to survive. There was no possible way I could live if he had died. He was everything to me. He had always been my life since the moment Christine had left him.

I had to remind myself that Christine had not only left me, she had left Alexandre as well.

I found my way to a seat at the kitchen table and tried to make sense of what Julia had said. Alex had not come to dinner.

"He walked out the back door," I explained. My words turned to rambling. "He left the house in only a shirt. He walked out the back door. Madeline told him to change. He'll catch a fever, he'll…no, he walked out the back door. He came here."

Julia called my name. It sounded so distant.

"Did he say where he was going?" I asked but what she answered—if she did answer—I had no idea. "He must have said. If he knew. Did he know? What did he say? God almighty, woman, tell me what he said."

Her fingernails dug into the back of my hand and I sucked in a breath. Physical pain stopped my jumbled words.

"You aren't making any sense," she said gently. She had sat down beside me, her knees up against my thigh. "Slow down and tell me what happened."

"He's gone," I answered.

"When did he leave?" Julia questioned. Her voice was so calm, so soothing. It matched the gentle stroking of her fingers moving up from my hand to my arm.

"I don't know."

"Erik, calm down. You're shaking."

She was right. I was shaking. "I have a right to shake," I growled at her. "My son is missing."

"Did you check his bed? Maybe he's asleep."

Somehow I walked from her kitchen into the back yard and through the gate. The next thing I knew, I was standing at the back door of my own home, kicking and beating the wooden barrier I had locked on my way out. Even though I knew I would be the one to fix the damned thing, I would have broken it down if no one bothered to get out of bed and let me back inside.

* * *

Ten months before the Exhibition was to open, I knew what I had to do. I wanted Christine back, there was no doubt. But I knew that she would not come to me without reason. She would want to see her son again after all of these years. It was really quite simple. To have her back, I would tell her that she must agree to stay with me if she wanted to see her son again. What choice did she have? 

At the same time, I would deny Alex all hope of ever meeting her. He knew of her. He always knew of her, but only through the papers. The letters, the intimate details of her life, remained only mine.

They were to be the puppets and I the master, pulling their delicate strings until they met on my stage.

In the end, they would both thank me.

Despicable, to say the least, but I admit that in the moments I pounded on the back door, the thought crossed my mind that Alex, the little heathen, had ruined my plans. That is a thought I most certainly expect would send me straight to the gates of Hell.

"Open the damned door!" I shouted.

The lock flipped. Madeline was ghost white when she saw me in my fit of rage at the back door. Her face was twisted in anger as she glared at me.

"Have you absolutely lost your mind?"

Her expression changed when she spotted Julia following behind. I glanced back to see what she was staring at and saw Julia struggling to clasp her cloak at the throat.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Madeline whispered as she looked at the two of us. "After what happened tonight, you going over there…how could you?"

"Where is Alex?" I asked as I pushed past her and made my way through the kitchen. Julia followed and I heard her attempt to explain to Madeline what had happened while I stormed through the house. Meg emerged from her bedroom at the end of the hall and stared silently at me.

"Is he in there?"

Meg shook her head, flinching as I approached. "I'm not sure."

She moved aside as I swung the bedroom door open. The room was empty. The first thing I noticed was that the bed had not been touched. But there were papers everywhere, scattered on the floors and across the bed. He had gotten a hold of my compositions and, in his anger, had dumped them from the neat folders where they usually stay. More than anything he knows how I despise clutter.

But then I saw an envelope. And another. And another. Postmarked Belgium, Cairo, New York, Rome. All in Christine's handwriting. These were her letters to Meg and Madeline. The letters I had saved. And never allowed him to read.

He had taken them. Somehow he had found a way into the bedroom and taken the false book and stolen them from me. The balance between my concern and anger tipped.

"Is he in there?" Julia called out.

On my hands and knees I gathered each letter and carefully arranged them into a pile, smoothing the edges and tucking them back into the envelopes. After three or four, I realized what I was doing and stopped.

"Is Alex in there?" Julia questioned again.

The letters were unimportant. They were only memories that I could salvage later.

Alex. I had to find Alex before he became nothing more than a memory. I climbed to my feet and turned to find Julia, Meg and Madeline standing behind me, grouped together like three frightened hens corned by a fox.

"We should just leave him," Meg suggested. Her timid nature made her turn away as she spoke.

"No," Madeline said. She turned to Meg and patted her hand, then nodded for her and Julia to leave. Without a sound, they trudged away from the bedroom door. The last thing I heard was Meg asking Julia if she wanted something to drink.

Madeline entered Alex's bedroom once they were gone and shut the door behind her. She motioned towards the bed and I sat as she wanted, unable to do anything else. The expression on her face was stern. Few have been stern with me over the years. I am a man accustomed to having what I want when I desire it, with few willing to stand in my way and protest my actions.

"He is gone," she said. She pulled up a chair and sat down across from me.

"I realize that," I said irritably. "Quite obviously he is missing." I shook the handful of letters into her face. "And what, pray tell, do you imagine he is out doing this very moment?"

"Something he had to do for himself," she answered, casting her eyes away.

"For his own good, I will bring him back here where he belongs."

I rose to my feet, but Madeline grabbed my arm. She was stronger than anyone would think by looking at her.

"For your own good, not his and you know it," she barked. The tone of her voice made me sit again. She had never been so bold before.

"Don't you ever speak to me like that again!"

"This is not about you. For far too long I have stood and done nothing more than watch you, but I cannot stand to see this any longer. Who is the one who will suffer in the end, Erik? Have you even considered that?"

"I have suffered all of my life!"

"You've been given chances, many chances. But what about Alex?"

"He's had more chances than I ever did!"

"You only think of yourself. This is how you've always been."

With that I stood again, this time towering over her. "In all honesty, Madeline, I do not want to know what you think or how you feel. I have never wanted to know what you think, what your damned daughter thinks, or what the hell anyone else in the world thinks of me!" That, I think, only emphasized her point. She rolled her eyes in disgust at my juvenile behavior. She was not herself that night. She was worried about Alex.

"You'll wake everyone in Paris with your shouting," she said, making one last attempt to pull me down before her.

"Good. Then everyone will know where to find me," I raged as I threw the letters, my precious mementos, to the floor and stormed out. "The Wisteria! The bloody Wisteria Hotel!"

Madeline came running after me and grabbed my shirt cuff. "For God's sake, she has her husband and children with her! You can't do this, Erik. Just leave her alone. Just leave her alone."

Alone.

Was there any greater fear to be had in the world than that? I turned one last time and looked at Madeline, at the one person who had shown me mercy so long ago. Her life had become a nightmare since that fateful night when we first met. She looked at me one last time with nothing but disgust in her eyes at all I had become. She didn't say it, but I felt her thoughts as our eyes met.

_You're only going for Christine. You care nothing for Alex._

She was right, in a way. She looked at me with her accusing eyes and I knew that she saw a stranger. That was where I agreed with her. I was a stranger. Even to myself.

"She has her family with her," I said, feigning amusement. "What a brilliant surprise it will be to have me as their guest."

"Erik, consider what you are doing," Madeline warned.

"No. She has everything. A husband, two daughters, a lovely career and now…and now she has our child with her as well. She has everything," I murmured, opening the front door. The walls and door disappeared in my blind rage. With my back to her, I spoke. "I will not be alone. I will not be left alone again."


	20. Disappearance of a Son, Sanity and all P...

Ch 19

Once I felt the crisp night air against my skin I hoped my nerves would finally settle. What I wanted more than anything was to be away from Madeline. She had never raised her voice at me and had I thought of it any earlier, I would have told her that she would never say such things ever again. Her insolence would not be tolerated.

The door slammed behind me and I released a pent-up breath of pure anguish. My lungs actually throbbed from the pain I felt inside. I had spent far too much time arguing with Madeline while Alex was missing. Each minute that passed he was gone he was forgetting me. I could not blame him. Not at all.

The overwhelming urge to sob replaced my anger once my feet touched the first step. A slight trembled passed through me and I gripped the ice cold railing. Somehow I found my way down the three steps and onto the sidewalk, my eyes clouded with tears. There I stopped, my feet turned to lead and my heart dropping into my stomach.

Alexandre had gone to her. By now he knew everything. There was no need for me to go out and search for him. All I had to do was sit and wait for him to return. But he wouldn't return, not here, not to me. What reason did he have to come back to me? What reason indeed.

My vision turned to blackness, my stomach churning with sickness. I made myself physically ill.

Absently my trembling hand managed to pull the pocket watch from my trousers. I'll be damned if I hadn't forgotten to wind it. What was the hour? It had been one in the morning when I had come to Julia's house. My best guess was that it was now near two. I hadn't heard the church bell toll at all but that meant nothing. Do church bells ring when one has fallen into the pits of hell? This was everything I imagined hell was like; lonely, dark, cold. Never mind fire and brimstone. My hell was solitude. It would always be solitude. How I despised the very thought of living alone ever again.

And here I was alone in the unforgiving night, chasing the memory of the son I hadn't bothered to notice for twelve months.

The door behind me opened and closed with barely a sound. Julia padded down the steps and stood at my side, shivering as she pulled her cape around her shoulders. Her delicate hands draped a scarf around my shoulders, which she draped carefully over my neck. As much as I wanted to thank her, I couldn't. I couldn't say a word to her.

Julia was silent for a while, respecting my torment as I stood with my hands balled into fists and nostrils flared. She waited until I had my bearings on exactly how I would go about retrieving Alexandre.

Was I going after him?

Julia's breath rolled through the night air and I inhaled the gentle flow that came before my face. Somehow it felt comforting to have part of her entering my lungs. And somehow it infuriated me that she was standing near enough where I could smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her body beside mine.

"What are you going to do?" Julia asked quietly.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and saw that she was staring across the empty street. For a moment I wasn't sure if she had spoken aloud or if it was only my imagination, an inner consciousness asking the question I feared to consider. When she glanced at me, I knew she had said something. She repeated her words.

"Find him." I had to. He was the only thing I had. Without him in my life…I couldn't lose him, not to Christine. He could not have her and leave me. He could not have her.

"What if he is sleeping in the room?"

"I don't give a damn what he is doing, I'll find him."

She went silent again, bristling at my harsh comment. I saw her shoulders drop as she took a seat on the steps, resting her head in her hands. She had no right to come with me into my house uninvited. She had no right to even invite my son to her house for dinner.

"Do you want me to come with you?" she murmured as a last attempt.

"No," I replied sharply. "I don't want anyone."

"It was only a question," she said under her breath.

How very coy, Madame Seuratti, I thought.

"I am trying to help you, Erik," she said with a sigh.

"I do not need you or your help! We are nothing! You are nothing to me! You do not question me, ever" I shouted at her, ignoring the hour of the night and the silence of our street. "No one questions me, do you understand that? No one!" My words echoed and disappeared down the empty boulevard.

There was no expression on her oval face. Her eyes looked dead, as haunted and empty as they had looked earlier when I had held her by the wrists. Perhaps it was only the cold but her eyes grew damp and she turned away, preferring to stare at a crack in the sidewalk rather than me. I could hear her as she sucked on her teeth. I had beaten her in a completely different way from Louis Seuratti. I may have beaten her worse.

With a deep breath, she rose from the stairs. The last of her tolerance for me came out in a hushed voice that was the most damning thing I had ever heard.

"Sometimes when you speak, it is what comes out of your mouth that makes you uglier than anything I could imagine is concealed behind that mask," she said evenly. I felt myself shudder with shame and rage. Her nails pressed into my shoulder, a slight physical pain that would never match what I felt inside. "Even if there is nothing between us, I still care for you and Alex," she said.

Then she walked away.

* * *

Over the years, as I have passed windows and puddles, I have discovered that it is far less conspicuous to wear a scarf over my face than a mask. The bone white of leather covering one side of my face draws far greater attention than wearing nothing at all, thus I tuck my mask into my cloak.

Rain and vacant streets have a way of reminding me of the Leather Apron, of quiet nights in White Chapel turned silent for some by Jack's madness. The very thought sent a shiver up my spine as I jogged across the street towards the Wisteria. One never knows what types of people will be drawn to Paris during the Exhibition, especially at the hour of the night I traveled.

In all my years of living here in secret, I have never seen the hotel for myself. The Wisteria is amongst many thriving bakeries and shops in the heart of Paris. During the day I imagine the perfume boutique and the florist battle one another for air. The hour I traveled the streets was far too late for either to have their doors open and far too early for the baker to start his day. The only smell was rain, and there was plenty of that in the air and on the ground.

My fingers had gone numb by the time I rounded the corner and found the pale pink and stark white façade washed over in wavering lamp light. The brick exterior was lined in a ring of bloomless trees and shrubs behind a short brass gate. A fountain not yet filled for the season graced the front entrance where two black carriages waited with patient horses. Guests had returned for the night. By the way the two gentlemen walked they must have enjoyed a night of drinks. Many drinks. They had no idea they were being watched with quiet vigilance.

So this was where she slept, I thought as I stared at the building. It was a fine hotel, perfectly suited to the lifestyle she maintained over the years. Her voice was strong, her beauty unmatched. Everyone wanted her near them, every opera house wanted to call her their own if just for a night. My hand dug into my trouser pocket and found her note to Madeline. I had read it so many times that I knew her room number but I had to see it again: Suite 241.

The two men exchanged handshakes as they stood before the first carriage, waiting to pay their driver. The second carriage contained two women who had already gone in for the night. Their laughter cut through the damp air but the men ignored them. None noticed me slosh through the street on my way to the front entrance.

"Are you certain?" a man's deep voice rang out.

"She's far too tired," came another man slurred. "And she sings tomorrow as well. God knows she needs to rest herself as well as her voice. I know she complained about the cold at the opening ceremony. Draft, I think she said."

My gait stuttered nearly to a halt but I pressed on, driven by their exchange. They were speaking of Christine. They had to be talking about my angel. The opening ceremony, the singing, they had talked about my Angel.

"And she doesn't mind if we go to art gallery alone?" the first man asked

"Not at all," the second man said with a laugh. "As long as we bring her back a bottle of white wine from the Dupree Vineyard tomorrow night. She's ready for a rest, I think, just a night with her daughters."

I knew that voice. Nine years had passed but I knew that damned voice. That was the Vicomte de Chagny exchanging words with one of his many aristocratic friends as he walked from the carriage. My heart raced, my jaw tightened.

His face, his cherub face. Burned in my mind was that last look he gave me as he left with Christine. There was relief, yes, but there was something more, something I saw in my sleep: pure satisfaction. He had won and he had known it. In all of my misery I still knew a man when he gloated.

I neared the front of the hotel unabashedly, storming across the street without a care to who may have watched. He was leaving tomorrow night. The little boy she had chosen would be with friends. Christine would be alone, or as alone as I wanted her.

"Is she rescheduling her dinner?" the man questioned.

The little vicomte shrugged. "There are some old friends she wanted to see while we are here. You know Christine, she adores her true friends. I wouldn't doubt it she snubbed all the riches of the world vying for her attention to spend dinner with her old ballet teacher."

Her teacher, indeed. What about her music teacher, I wanted to ask the boy. Insolent little weasel! If there had been a foot of rope I would have strung him up by his lovely little neck.

The boy!

He would enter and find Alex. My God, I thought as I stormed towards the building, what would he do if he saw his wife's son? What would be his reaction to the son that was hers and not his own sitting in the room, on the couch beside her?

Oh Alex, I thought as the men disappeared into the hotel, you had not considered this meeting, had you?


	21. A Terrible Mistake

Ch 21

The man that had walked in beside the boy was worse for wear than I had originally thought. He apparently stumbled on his way down the hall as when I entered behind them he was on his hands and knees with the helpful, kind-hearted little brat kneeling beside him. The heroic vicomte fanned the man's gin blossom face, as he called for assistance. In their concern for the downed aristocrat, the bellman and the vicomte never saw me walk up the stairs.

Perfect.

I smiled to myself as I closed the door at the top of the stairs behind me. There was a chair in the hall, a beautiful green armchair and a small cherry wood table with a glass-shaded lamp. I moved the chair before the door and the side table against the wall until both pieces of furniture were wedged into place. No one would open this door. Not from down stairs, at least.

Given the hour, there was no one about. Still, I walked with caution down the plush carpeted hall, breath held and muscles tense. Suite 203…Suite 205. She was quite a ways down the hall. My pace quickened. This was not part of my kingdom. My control in the Wisteria was limited as I was not familiar with the lay out.

219….221…I was getting closer and closer to seeing her again, my love, my angel. My heart thumped against my ribcage. 223…225…This was as close as I had been in eight years. The day of the Exhibition hadn't counted as I had stood in the back. The last time we had been separated—near yet separated—was by a door The day she abandoned Alex. Alex—was he here?

She had refused to see me that day. 235….Closer and closer. I could almost smell her lilac water perfume. 239….Her lips, her eyes, the cascade of dark hair down her back were burned like a brand into my mind. Everything about her returned to me in dreams. The first day I had seen her, the first time I had touched her…the last moment before she left with her precious lover.

241. This was it. Her hotel room, Suite 241, where her dark curls rested on a silken pillow, where she laid at night with her chosen one. Where he crawled on top of her, looked into her eyes, and enjoyed every ounce of pleasure I had ran through my mind day after day, week after week until time turned into long, maddening years.

Suite 241.

I stared at the brass numbers. This was it, the place where nearly a decade of longing would come to an end. I'll never know why I did it, but rather than knock I tried the doorknob.

The damned thing turned. I dug a fingernail into the palm of my hand. This was not a dream. Try again, I thought. Same result. Ah, but of course. The boy. She left it unlocked for the boy. I wondered then if he drank often, if he spent late nights at bars while she stayed in the hotel with their daughters. Poor beautiful Christine perched on a chaise lounger, knees curled up to her stomach as she read a book. How lonely, how sad, how in need of an angel.

Maybe he was a piggish man like Louis Seuratti. Perhaps he had beaten Christine on occasions when he returned from a night of drinking and womanizing. As far as I was concerned, that was all the more reason for her to come to me.

But who would hit Christine? What sort of man would lift a hand to such a gentle creature? And, in the back of my mind, a little devil emerged and shook a fist made of flame. The Devil's Advocate tisked me. Who would hit a gentle creature indeed? What was Julia then, if not another helpless angel? The thought made me shiver. So many undeserving suffer.

I was stalling. Everything I wanted was behind that door. I swallowed and brushed the little devil from my mind. This was what was important. This is what I wanted.

Christine Daae was what I needed. She belonged to me.

* * *

The room was surprisingly large. That was the first thing that I noticed. Large and still fairly well lit for 2:30 in the morning. I expected that I was correct in that the little boy must have spent many nights gone. Why else, then, would she not have been waiting at the door for her to come in, her soft brown eyes filled with concern.

I left the door open behind me, afraid that the click of it shutting would wake her or rouse the children. Madeline had said that her children were with her. I didn't recall reading it in the note but that was hardly something to dwell on as I stood on the marble foyer scanning the room.

This is what I had given her: a life of luxury. Without my training, what would she be but a girl in the chorus, a ballet dancer slowly fading into retirement? She had a beautiful room with velvet chairs, lace curtains and the thickest wool carpeting I had ever seen.

She would be grateful, if anything.

I wiped my feet on a simple rug and moved quiet as a cat across the length of the room. There were two choices where lights shone down the hall. Both, I assumed, were bedrooms. One must have belonged to the children, the other to Christine. Somehow I found amusement in her children needing a light to fall asleep. Alexandre had always preferred complete darkness.

Alex. Damn him. Where was he?

A soft, unrecognizable sound emerged from the room on the left. I held my breath and heard another noise. A book, I realized. She had closed a book. I heard a drawer slide open and quietly close. The bed creaked. She had been in bed reading. Waiting and reading. For him.

Withdrawing the mask from the inside of my cloak, I stood in the hall and waited a moment. If she turned down the lamp, approaching her in darkness would frighten the daylights out of her. If I approached her with the lamp on…

There was no going back. I stood in her hotel room, in her hallway. What was left to do but appear in the bedroom doorway?

"Don't scream," I whispered as I slid into view.

That, of course, was wasted breath.

* * *

She managed to stifle the sound leaving her throat. Her hand raised, trembling as it hit her gaping mouth.

"You…" she whispered.

All I did was nod. A moment or two and it would not seem as alarming. There was no need to move in or out of the room. Wait, I thought to myself, just wait.

"How did you find me?"

A peculiar question. I said that aloud, I think. Of all the people in the world, she should know my ways. Her eyes narrowed on me, slit like a snake's glare.

"How did you get in?"

"The door."

Obviously.

She had not yet settled enough to think rationally. As glad as I was to finally see her, the ignorance of her questions irritated me. Time was passing, time for the boy to find a way around my blocked door. Enough of her questions, it was time for one of my own.

"Where is he?" I asked.

She hesitated, pulling her lace gown to her ankles. "He'll be back soon."

"You sent him out?"

"It's really none of your business."

"Tell me."

She looked away. "Friends of his stopped by yesterday, old friends. Is that what you wanted to know?"

We weren't talking about the same person. Damn her, she was only toying with me, buying time for her savior to return.

"I care nothing for _him. _Where is Alexandre?"

Her expression changed. She went blank, the color slipping from her face, her eyes turned to nothingness. It was as if she had no idea who Alexandre was.

"Who is Alexandre?" she asked.

Before I knew what I did, I was across the room and at her bedside, pointing a hand in her face. "How easily you forget your past," I said, doing everything to keep my voice low. "How you have pushed us aside for so long."

"Is that what you named him?" Christine asked. She recoiled as I hovered over her.

My body shook with rage. "I've told you about him. The letters, the letters, the damn letters over the years."

She stared at me in terror. By the look on her face I had either turned green or was speaking a language she didn't understand.

"Listen to me," I demanded. "The letters, after your daughter died in Africa—"

"How dare you!" she said boldly though she moved farther across the bed.

"I wrote to you!"

She slid off the opposite side. "You've gone mad. You've gone completely mad. If you say one more word to me, I swear to God I will scream and the whole hotel will come in here and find you. Is that what you want? Do you want that all over again?"

All over again, she said. Don Juan Triumphant all over again.

"Are you threatening me?" I asked through my teeth.

"Get out of here and leave me alone."

"No."

Her eyes went from blank to determination as she glared at me, loathing my presence, my terrible hidden face. Somehow I think she looked past the white leather and saw what was beneath.

"I had forgotten you," she said bitterly.

"The letters," I said again. "In Africa."

"What in the hell are you talking about? The letters in Africa? What sort of game are you playing this time?"

"I want to know why!" I shouted. I stepped on the bed and jumped down before her, grabbing her by the arm with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. "Listen to me! For one damned moment, just listen to me and tell me why you did it."

She had no choice but to nod, and once she swore that she would not scream or fight, I released my hand from her perfect lips and settled myself enough to speak in what I hoped was a calm voice.

My hands touched her shoulders, her soft, small shoulders. One managed to find a way to her neck and I stroked the curve beneath her ear. Such a perfect, beautiful woman.

"When I heard about the death of your daughter Suzette, I cried for you. For days I could not imagine what you had gone through."

Tears welled in her eyes. She hated me for bringing up her poor little girl but I refused to silence myself. I needed to know.

"I wrote to you. On the back of the paper."

She started to shake her head. No, Christine, no I couldn't stop. Not now.

"The ink was sensitive to heat. I told you I was sorry for your loss."

"Erik—"

"Let me finish," I said. My voice rose. I stroked her hair, a silky strand of heaven that trailed down her shoulder. "You wrote back and you thanked me. You thanked me for thinking of you."

She waited a moment, unsure of whether or not I had finished or not. I leaned forward, wanting to smell her hair but she pushed her hands against my chest and I obeyed her. This was close enough, as close as I would be to her.

"I never saw a note," she said in a whisper.

"But you wrote back."

She shook her head. "No, no I never wrote back, Erik, I never saw a note. You imagined it."

"I did not."

"Then you've gone mad."

She thought I was delusional. I shook my head as well, pushing past the block she had wedged between us. I would leave her knowing everything or I would not leave at all. At least not alive.

"There was a note. I have kept it for years. I have kept you for years. Don't you understand? I've been waiting for this, for you to return. Alex and I both—" I paused. Alex. Where was he?

"Erik, just go home," she pleaded. "I don't want them to find you."

"Why did you do it? Why did you leave your son?"

Christine looked away. She looked past me and I turned to follow her gaze. Two little dark-haired girls stood in the doorway clutching dolls.

"He's a friend," Christine said. She glared at me from the corner of her eye, telling me with barely a glance that it was all a ruse to protect her daughters. "Go back to bed and shut the door."

Moments passed and their bedroom door closed. She glared at me again.

I asked her again. Why did she leave her son?

"He was never my son," she mumbled.

I was about to unravel. I could feel my head pounding in frustration.

"I waited too long," she continued. "Too many weeks of going to the physician and changing my mind. When I was certain I could go through with it, they said I had waited too long." She shook her head. "I either had to give birth or…it could have killed me, what I knew was my other choice. Birth seemed less dangerous. I could always take him somewhere once he was born and…leave him."

My voice abandoned me. I wanted to vomit over her words.

"When I returned to Paris, I saw Meg. The baby wasn't with me, Alex, you named him? He was with the Sisters of St. Fay. I had left him with the nuns and they were finding a couple to take him. But then Meg mentioned her mother, and I knew…I knew she would take him. I didn't know you were with them. Not until it was too late."

"Too late?" I had no idea if I managed to say it aloud or if it was only in my mind. She was going to leave him with her ballet teacher and when she discovered that the father of her own child was there, she had second thoughts.

"Once I found out that you were there, I had my doubts. But Meg and her mother swore they would take care of the baby andf that I would never have to think of him again. That was what I wanted. I never wanted to think of him again. My God, I never even named him. I asked Madeline to never mention him in letters to me so that he would disappear."

If there is something within the soul that can crack, mine most certainly shattered and bled. There were tears in my eyes as I stared at her, nearing the point where I could not believe what she said. She had given him life and yet she wanted nothing to do with him. She hadn't even named him.

"I took care of him," I said. And I know the words left my mouth by the look of disbelief on her face. "My son, _our_ son, _your_ son, I took care of him. All these years I took care of him when he was sick, when he was upset. I stayed up with him at night, I rocked him to sleep. I took care of him. Imagine it, Christine. Imagine the monster, the devil himself looking after your son."

"He's not my son. He's not even our son."

"He _is _our son."

"No, Erik, if he belongs to anyone then let it be you," she replied. "I don't want him. I never did."

"Why did you do it, then? Why did you ever give yourself to me?"

She shook her head. "Don't do this," she whispered.

My fingers dug into her shoulders. I didn't want to hurt her, God knows I would never want to hurt her, but I needed to know. I needed to know everything.

"Because then you would know," she answered, not looking me in the eye.

"Know what?" I demanded.

Her eyes shot up. If I wanted to be humiliated, her eyes said to me, then so be it. Here is all of your misery, served on a silver platter and garnished with hatred.

"For one time in your life, you would at least have the pleasure of a woman. I did it out of pity, Erik, plain and simple, I gave you my gift out of nothing more than pity. At least you would have a memory."

If she did not think I was a pathetic, miserable fool yet, I proved myself when I spoke. "And the second time?"

Her face darkened. "One of the dancers said before that when she was with child, she slept with a man and suddenly the baby went away. I had hoped it would be the same for me."

There was nothing inside of me. No feeling, no sensation of any sort. Not for a long time after she spoke. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on her bed and she was gone from the room. She was an insulting woman in every way. She had insinuated that I would not be capable of caring for a child. She had offered her virginity out of pity, not love, not gratitude—and I would have settled for gratitude—but no, she slept in my bed out of pity. What greater slap to the face could there have been?

Emotion returned. Hatred. Loathing. That was what I felt for her. No longer love, no longer need or want or desire but pure disgust, utter rancor for Christine. All these years spent waiting for her to return and now….

Now where was Alexandre?

Voices in the other room made me aware of where I was sitting. I stumbled to my feet and started towards the hall.

The boy met me there, his angelic face stern and red from drinking. Two other men stood behind him and I could see the bloodlust in their eyes.

This was it. This was my reward for coming here. Not a fight, I knew, but a beating. I could already see my death in their eyes.


	22. Shattered Inside and Out

Ch 22

Honestly, they wasted no time on words and I wasted no time with blubbering for forgiveness. Christine was no where in sight. Can't imagine why she didn't stay to watch them beat the holy hell out of me. After all, she had administered the most lethal blows.

"If he comes here," I shouted, me and my vindictive, belligerent nature. "Tell Alex there will be hell to pay for leaving so late at night, even if it was to meet his mother for the first time. Christine. Are you listening to me, Christine?"

At least I felt slightly satisfied in stirring the pot.

"I should have known you would appear," the boy said.

"Then you should have been more prepared," I replied. There was a sense of bravery in knowing there was nothing I could do to escape. If I jumped out the window, I would break a leg, be found, and either jailed or beaten to death on the ground.

They all smelled of alcohol as they neared me. That, at least, gave me hope. Perhaps I had a chance to fight back.

My fingers moved swiftly over the buttons and I rolled up my sleeves. I had been beaten without a fight before, worse than any dog. More times than I could count I was defenseless but not this time. I had no intention of standing there while he, of all people, beat me to death. No, there would be a fight. There would be hell.

"Raoul," came Christine's voice. "Don't."

A flint spark of hope struck my heart. My mind reeled back to when her lover had nearly skewered me with a sword. A merciful action, one that I regretted for years afterwards. Had he ended it that day, that stark white day in the graveyard, none of this would have transpired. She either cared or wanted to further my grief.

Why did I ever think she cared?

"You'll wake the girls," she said. And with that she disappeared into the bedroom.

They escorted me outside, down the stairs at the opposite end of the hallway. I hadn't even noticed that there was another doorway. I covered my face again with a scarf and headed into the crisp night. For a moment I thought that was all that they wanted, to make sure that I left. I crossed the street, hearing the bells in the distance. It was either three or four, I didn't count the times the bells tolled. Couldn't even concentrate as they were behind me, directly behind me where I could feel their drunken breaths. Intimidation. What a fine tactic.

"This is far enough," the boy said.

I hadn't even turned around to face them when one of them—and I had no idea which one—grabbed my arm. I spun around and hammered my fist into a face. It didn't matter who I hit, all three of them would eventually make me pay dearly for whatever I did. But at least I would leave a mark. That was my only intention. Something for Christine to see in the morning.

Hands clubbed my back. I kicked, I swung wildly, I growled like a feral beast, sometimes catching an arm or a torso, mostly swinging and doing little to no damage. For all of my effort they drove me to my knees, fists and feet connecting with my chest, my stomach, my legs, and my back until eventually I threw up in the alley. They shoved me into the wall and tore at my clothing, clawed at my face—which was fully exposed. They punched me once in the jaw well after I had stopped fighting. They possibly did more, but if that happened I was too dazed to know it. All that I recalled was the copper taste of blood that I swallowed and a dull throbbing pain that consumed my body.

And then there was nothing. Sound faded, and I faded, too.

* * *

"What did you see?"

A voice, a faint voice without gender called in my ear, replacing the silence. Something splashed through a puddle. Footsteps. There were people around. Oh God, I thought, there are people around. I should be dead.

I struggled to move. Couldn't do it. Far too weak, far too bruised and bloodied to even roll from face down to face up. A blessing, perhaps. None could see my face if I remained with my head to the ground.

"They beat him. Three of them."

The answering voice I knew. Oh if there was a sweeter voice, I had not heard it. So familiar, so much what I needed. At last, what I needed. There was nothing to fear now. Alexandre was beside me. My son, the one I alone had wanted and cared for. How I wished I could speak but, as it was, I had little control over my consciousness. The darkened world began to fade again but I fought to keep my wits. If only I could see his face, if only I could have erased the last twelve months.

"Who beat him?"

"The vicomte. The rest I didn't know."

"Did they see you?"

"No."

"Good."

"I should have killed all three of them."

"Alex, don't say such things."

I knew this voice as well. Another person I would never have expected. Why had she come here? Why would she help me? After everything, what did she gain from this?

"Take his arms but do it gently."

A moan escaped my lips as one of them—and who it was I didn't know yet—touched my shoulder. It must have been Alexandre, judging from what Julia had said.

"It's out of the socket," Julia said. She muttered a curse. "Be very careful. When he wakes he'll be in pain."

The pain she said would come about like a lightning-strike through my body. That was what brought me fully aware. I groaned again, feeling the need to vomit, but I stopped it. I already smelled vile retching in the air and remembered how the impact to the belly had forced a swell of sickness from me.

"Oh good," Julia said. That hardly seemed like a word appropriate for what I felt at that moment. "You're awake. That's a good sign."

She was standing too near, even in the darkness.

"My mask," I said. The first words to leave my mouth were not words of praise or gratitude. I needed my mask. As if that would do anything to hide the ugliness. "Don't look at me! Either of you, do you understand? Just put it in my hand. And get away!"

"You stubborn ass," I heard Julia mutter.

Alex placed it into my left hand. He lingered a moment, his fingers touching mine. Without a word, he stepped back and let out a small sound, a little noise that I knew was a sob.

Refusing their help, I managed to sit upright. It took forever, but I managed to sit up. My hair, by some miracle, had not been removed. I touched along my hairline to be certain it was straight.

And then I felt the mistake of sitting upright wash over me. I couldn't control it any longer and I bent to the side and vomited again into a puddle already swirling with blood, my blood. There was nothing inside of me, nothing at all. Only the burn of stomach acid in the back of my throat, which made me cough. From there it was a chain effect. Blood gushed from my nostrils, entering my mouth. I spit and cursed and pushed their hands away. But mostly, like an infant, I sobbed. And I couldn't stop myself, as much as I tried, I couldn't stop.

I cried for my pathetic self, for my foolish dreams, for the deep cavern of loneliness I had plummeted into in all of my ignorance. But I also cried for Alexandre, who suffered greater than I did that night. And for Julia, who came without reason. And I cried because I loved them and hated them—loved them for caring and hated them for the same reason. Because they cared, and I had not—because they still cared and I couldn't even bring myself to say that I returned their affection.

"Leave me," I said at last when words found a way from my throat.

There was no protest to my words. For a moment I thought that they had already left me, and the sadness I thought had reached the end of my tolerance burrowed deeper. These were walls I built by hand to keep the world away. The barriers I hated and still insisted on making higher.

But then there was a hand, Julia's hand, on my shoulder. She dabbed my face with a handkerchief. I sighed at her touch, at her gesture. And then I pulled away. She would not treat me like a child! She would not add to my humiliation.

"Do it yourself, then," she murmured, and she placed the bloodied rag in my hand and stood.

But of course that was impossible as my arm hung useless, ripped from the socket. And the fingers of my other hand were bent and jammed from punching my three attackers. If she thought for a moment I would beg her to help me, she was mistaken. Teeth grinding together, I made my fingers move, forced each one to bend until I held the handkerchief in my grasp and managed to dab at my nose.

Miserably I sat on the cold, wet ground, pants saturated, body bruised and numbed. My eyes remained fixed on the rag as though it was the most interesting thing I had ever held. All I could think of was Christine. Damn her to hell, but she was still on my mind standing in the most unflattering light.

"Your son found an old wheelchair belonging to M Lowry," Julia said at last. "If you can stand…" her voice trailed off. She knew me well enough, at least, to know I would have protest anything at that point. Even if they had torn both of my legs off, I would have insisted that I could walk home. "Erik, please. They only left a while ago. You don't know that they will be back—and if they see Alex?" She stopped again and I knew whatever she would say next was going to be something I didn't want to hear. "What do you think he would do to Alex if he saw him?" Her voice lowered. "Since you told him."

"I told him nothing," I hissed.

She decided not to argue with a liar. "Since you will refuse our help, it is up to you to find a way to stand. If you should decide that for once you can put aside your stubbornness, Alex is beside you. If he chooses to help you now, then he is a better person than I am. Good night, Erik."

"Julia, don't!" Alex pleaded. I turned and found that he was crouched beside me. His tear-streaked face was tight as he tried to keep himself from crying. "You promised me."

Julia lingered a moment longer. She crossed her arms and turned her back, more to me than to Alex. But she didn't leave. For Alexandre, she stayed and waited for me to make a choice.

There was really no need to make the correct choice. I had spent the last two days doing nothing but satisfying my own madness, so why should I have thought of anyone else in that moment? Alex sensed I would not look to him for assistance. He moved away on his arms and legs like a crab.

My dignity was all but gone. There was nothing else I could do to humiliate myself. The only thing I had left to lose was my son.

"Where are you going?" I forced myself to ask. I glanced at him from over my shoulder and he tried to hold back a smile. It was useless. For once, I let him see that I needed him.

For once, I felt good. For once, I felt human.


	23. The Former Placee's Home

Ch 23

From how long it took to travel from the alleyway outside the Wisteria to home, it suddenly felt like we lived in Cairo. Therewasno other way to explain it taking well over an hour to reach the front steps. I sat in Charles' old wheel chair, doubled over like an old man, completely relying on my former _placee_ and my son to help me home.

Everything about the journey home was dreadful. Charles was considerably smaller than I ever was and my hips were pinned on either side, adding to my discomfort. His short legs resulted in mine being nearly up against my chest, and the high arm rests on the archaic chair meant I was shrugging the entire time.

My lungs felt as though a snake had coiled around them. I could barely breathe, and when I did take in air it was through the mouth. Several times I coughed andwas reminded ofmy armnot beingwhere it should have been—and that the mask over my face no longer fit properly.

Alexandre did his best to keep away from bumps and cracks. The night was dark and he did well for maneuvering blindly. When he did hit one, I stifled a curse and harsh word. He winced along with me each time, andwhen we reachedthe front door, the poor boy was lathered like a race horse. He weighed no more than ninety pounds. I don't know how he managed to push a wheelchair even a block.

Once we reached the house there was silence between the three of us. None of us had considered the front door.

Stairs. Curse them. Managing into the wheelchair had been a nightmare. I couldn't even begin to imagine how I would make it up these first three steps then up an additional twelve to my bedroom.

Julia stood and stared at the door, her brow knit in frustration. How very appropriate that we had traveled from the middle of China all the way to our home planted for the night in Egypt. Not even my stubbornness would get me up the stairs. I was far too exhausted to even move, and my arm ached in a constant murmur of pain.

The boy should have finished me when he had the chance. Ignorant, drunken brat.

"The neighbors—" Julia started.

"No," I said before she could finish.

"Meg and Madeline—"

"They aren't strong enough."

"But if Alex and I—"

"I said no." Sometimes she is more stubborn than I am. How could she even think that the four of them were going to carry me inside? If there was even an ounce of dignity left, that would be ripped from me as three women and a child hoisted me up the stairs of my own house. I would have to be dead before that would ever happen—and even then my ghost would protest.

"You need—"

"I realize that, Julia," I snapped.

"Then what, Erik?"

She seemed surprised that I let her finish a sentence.

"Through the back door."

"No," she said. I had half the mind to ask if she was only mocking me.

I wanted to scream. Honestly that was far beyond the last straw upon the camel's back. I glared at her, my eyes slit open from the swelling on both sides. I tapped my foot on the sidewalk impatiently, calling her every name I could think of in my mind. We had exhausted all options.

"And why not?"

"The stone path is narrow. You'll be stuck in the mud."

I laughed. And why not laugh? It was only appropriate that the night ended here. I was bloodied and beaten outside of my own home, seated in a wheelchair that belonged to my son's tutor after visiting a woman I now had no understanding of why I loved her. This night had slipped farther than I would have ever guessed possible. How very fitting this night seemed to the rest of my existence over the last thirty odd years.

"My house has no stairs," Julia said under her breath.

"Maybe I'll stay with you," I said dryly.

She didn't laugh. Either she was serious or appalled. With a nod toward Alex, she told him to go inside and tell Madeline he was safe. She looked at me sternly once we were alone.

"It would hardly be the most inappropriate thing we have done together," she reasoned.

"Yes, but I always leave once we're done," I said dumbly, as if that made sleeping with a widow any better. If anything it was worse tosleep wth her anddisappear before dawn. I caught myself too late and sighed. "That wasn't what I meant."

A crooked smile graced her lips. At least she found it amusing and not insulting. If she slapped me again, I had no choice but to sit and take it. Icouldn't imagine her beingso cruel. In her eyes, She probablythought I suffered enough. Women are always sympathetic.

"There's a guest room," she said after a long pause. "It was once a library but I sold all of Louis' books. In a few hours I could find a doctor."

"No doctor," I snapped.

She sighed in disgust.

I was not about to let her win. I tilted forward as though I would stand, though with what agony I was already in the movement it was little more than an act. Still, it worked. Julia, that foolish woman, waved her arm in protest and told me to stay sitting down where I wouldn't hurt myself. Of course I paid for my deception. The pain that ripped through my chest proved me foolish as well. For half a minute I couldn't even breathe, another minute passed before I could even speak.

Julia forced herself to nod. She would not call a doctor. "I know a little about wounds from the war," she said absently, looking across the street. Once or twice before she had mentioned being a volunteer nurse, but I knew little of her experience in nursing. There was no reason to have her explain the gruesome details of being a wartime nurse when I was at her house after dinner for physical pleasures. "But if there is something serious—a broken bone or whatnot—you must have someone see to it. Infections could spread, fevers could spike, Erik—"

"Why?"

"Because if you don't…" she paused and turned away.

I finished her sentence. "I'll be horribly disfigured for the rest of my life."

Julia shook her head. Not even she was that cruel. "You'll be in tremendous pain," she corrected me for the sake of being right. She added, "Or you could die."

"Pity."

"Alex would be devastated."

Exhaustion made it useless to argue. I realized no matter what, she was going to persist. I sighed again. "A guest room?"

"It's nearly as big as the master bedroom. There's a reading lamp, a nice window facing south, and the water closet is down the hall."

There was no need to convince me further. I glanced at the stairs and thought of how difficult it would be to make it up to the door. I knew already that if I managed that far, I would be laid outin the foyer for hours if not days. Eventually they wouldcall a doctor, or a coroner.

"Fine," I said at last.

Julia pushed the wheelchair along the street just as dawn broke in a pallid streak across the horizon. I had the strength to protest one last time as she ran the left wheel into the grass but felt no reason to fight her a moment longer. My night of fighting had come to an end. God have mercy, my night had come to a bloody, miserable end.

As foolish as it was, I still wanted to see Christine and ask her if this was what she wanted. All I ever wanted was to make her happy.

* * *

By the time we made it through the wrought iron gate in the front of her home, I was feeling pensive. I needed to understand the night and all that had transpired. 

The last thing I remembered was the attack. Though distorted in my mind, I at least knew more or less what had happened. Itangered me. Out of the boy I had at least expected something more chivalrous than an attack of that nature. But there was nothing I could do about it at the present moment. My mind trudged on, where darkness and uncertainty clouded the night. That was when I passed out. Nothing would ever return those moments.

Once I recovered my senses, however, nothing made sense. Alex had been missing from around eight that night until nearly dawn. He had spent an entire nightaway from home. Apparently he had not been with Christine unless she was lying about seeing him. After all that had happened, I didn't doubt she was hiding something from me, the little tart.

Alexandre came by shortly after we reached her front door, but Julia sent him back home to bed.He frowned but did as she said and walked out the back door of Julia's home with Meg at his side. Meg, Julia explained, had come to stay with Lisette. There were times when I forgot Lisette existed. I'd only seen the girl a handful of times and, as one might expect, each encounter was brief.

"Tell Madeline that at least for the night, Erik will be here in the guest room," Julia told Meg before she and Alex returned home. "Maybe tomorrow he'll be feeling up to returning home."

Naturally Meg nodded, though there was a peculiar look in her eyes as though she accused us both of something. What faith she had to think I would even be able to find the strength to please Julia—or myself.

"How do you feel?" Meg asked me. It was just like her to ask something so ridiculous but of course she was attempting to be polite. She was always a nice girl, so much like her mother. If she had not been afraid of me for so long perhaps we could have spoken to one another rather than me always glaring at her and little Meg cowering and running away.

"Tell your mother not to worry," I said to her.

The look on Meg's face told me that the beating had been quite successful. Her eyes were drawn again and again to the center of my face, where my nose had bled quite freely. For the first time in my life, I wanted a mirror.

Meg left without much else to say, escorting Alex out in front of her. Alex looked back one last time as the door closed. His eyes looked exactly like his mother's. And then he was gone.

I suddenly became very uncomfortable.

"I want to sleep," I said once Julia wheeled me down the wood floor of the hallway. She maneuvered the chair through the doorway and carefully over the rug.

"You should be cleaned up first," she suggested.

"In the morning. _Late_ in the morning."

She left me in the wheelchair beside the bed and walked around to close the curtains since the sun was rising. "All of my linens are clean. I would hate to have them all bloodied by you."

"I'll sleep sitting up. I'll be fine in this chair." The moment I spoke, I started to silently pray that she would protest my words. It was impossible to remain sitting up for much longer.

Julia grinned, amused by the banter. She had no idea what tremendous pain I was in or how badly I wanted to close my eyes. I had forgotten how exhausting pain could be. The last time I had been beaten so mercilessly I was only ten.

"You can sleep if you want," she said. She held her hand over her mouth and yawned. "I'll clean the blood away while you rest."

As reasonable as it sounded, there had to be something. There is always something. I started to sit forward and, using my dislocated left arm, nearly passed out from the pain.

"Put it back into place," I said through my teeth. "For the love of God, put it back into place."

Julia turned from where she stood and sucked in her cheeks. She swallowed visibly and gave a weak nod. "I've never done it before."

Oh, Julia! I turned away from her and stared at the wall. She had good intentions but not much else. I was almost certain I could have made it up those stairs at that moment.

"But I've seen it done before."

I turned toward her and watched as she wrung her hands nervously. She hesitated a moment then began rambling on about needing a water basin and clean towels for the cuts. I closed my eyes and wished that the back of the chair was high enough to rest my head. Each time I dozed, and I did start to doze off, my body fell forward and stopped in a rush of pain. There had to be a rib broken. There was no other explanation for why it hurt to breathe so damned much.

Without warning, Julia lifted my arm and pushed it back into place with a sickening crunch. The curse that left my mouth seemed to linger in the room long after she had finished. The first clear thought on my mind was if I ever saw the vicomte again, God save his miserable neck.

"I'll be back in a moment," Julia promised.

Frankly, I never wanted to see her again. I kept my watering eyes shut and listened as she walked out of the room. The floorboards creaked as she walked. I tried to concentrate on the steady sound. There was nothing else to do as I sat shaking, biting my lip to keep from sobbing in agony. All I wanted to do was sleep. Couldn't she understand that? Why did she torture me? By the time I would wake in the afternoon I was certain the pain would have dulled. Damn her, she wouldn't let me sleep.

Time ticked by slowly as I waited for her to return to the guest room. There was far too much time to spend thinking.

This was all Christine's doing. I had dedicated years of my life to giving her a voice. I had dotted over her, cherished her, and had done everything within my power to see her succeed and for what? To have her sleep with me out of pity once and spite the next time. Out of pity! To grant me a son she wanted nothing to do with and, as she had said, had never intended to birth. If she had ever seen Alex, she would have known it was a mistake to have considered harming him.

After all, I was quite familiar with mistakes. All of those years in the opera house spent for nothing. Each night I came to her and trained her voice, praised her progress, sang her to sleep did nothing. All of those years only to have her husband and two of his drunken friends follow me into an alley.

A warm, slow tear slipped down my face, hidden only by the mask. No one else would cry for me. Might as well resort to self-pity. And damn it if Julia still hadn't returned! She needed water and towels. Her house was as big as a postage stamp. It should have taken half a minute to fetch what she needed.

My hands began to shake and my body felt cold. I didn't even want to think of testing my newly repaired arm otherwise I would have retrieved the blanket at the end of the bed. For some reason, I shut my eyes and hoped that I could block out my misery.

Julia returned a while later. I opened my eyes and noticed how exhausted she appeared. She had probably been awake the entire night worrying over Alexandre.

She sat down on the bed and placed the bowl of water on the end table beside several towels. She stood again and left the room. I was about to scream at her to get in here and do whatever was needed but she returned before I could open my mouth. She placed a white pitcher and a matching glass on the table then brought me closer to the bed. She started to hand me the glass of water but realized that I couldn't even hold it.

Humiliated, I refused but she insisted and brought the cup to my lips. I drank down two full glassed before I felt that my thirst was gone. She wiped the corner of my mouth, to which I glared at her, then she flopped down again on the bed. I watched as she pulled her light brown hair back into a pony tail, which made her eyes look even darker underneath. She was strangely beautiful. I was fascinated by her.

She caught me staring but said nothing.

"Your mouth is bloody," she said. "Let me see your teeth."

I opened my mouth as far as a split lip would allow and she craned her neck for a better view. With a nod of approval, she turned to her bowl of water. I was glad when she looked away from me. I could watch her again.

"Did you see her?" Julia asked quietly. She dipped the first rag into the water and wrung it out, carefully averting her eyes. The bowl of water smelled medicinal, though what was in it I didn't know and didn't bother to ask. Medicine has never been an interest of mine.

"Who?" I asked. If she was going to blatantly ask me such a question, I would make her labor for the answer. This, I expected, would stop her meddling.

"Christine."

I sighed in disgust. I should have known she would ask me outright. "Yes."

"You found a way into the hotel?" She dabbed the rag along my neck and I lifted my chin. Either the water was extremely cold or I was running a fever. I shivered as she rubbed the towel against my ear and she paused, allowing me a moment to adjust. A bead of sweat dripped down the bridge of my nose and answered my question as to whether or not the water was cold or I was becoming ill.

"I followed him inside."

"Who?"

"Who do you think?"

Her hand pulled away.

"Her husband," I answered, harnessing my tone. I looked away from Julia and stared at a painting on the wall. It was a portrait of Julia and Louis when Lisette was an infant. All I could think of was why she had kept that, of all things? Why keep a painting of the man who had hurt her for so many years? Why would she ever want to see that disgusting, despicable man with his greased back black hair and small, cruel eyes? What did she ever see in him to begin with, I wondered.

"He didn't see you?"

Her words startled me and for a moment I didn't know what she was talking about. I glanced at her and then at the dresser. I had no desire to meet her eye. "He was drinking."

She was silent for a while. The cloth turned the water bright red as she dipped it in and wrung it out over and over again, clearing away the mask of blood from my neck up to my left cheek. Eventually it became impossible to keep my eyes open. Fighting the sensation was futile and the next thing I knew Julia was waking me.

"You should lie down for a while. Let me help you to bed."

"I'm fine."

She watched in silence as I leaned forward and used the momentum to rock to my feet. Everything hurt and I let out a ragged sigh. Standing was a mistake to do alone. I was falling. Straight to the floor.

Julia pushed me in the opposite direction and I collapsed on the bed with a grunt. The mattress gave enough so that, though it was uncomfortable, it was not as painful as it would have been had I fallen to the floor.

She said nothing, thank God, as she removed my shoes and lifted both of my legs onto the bed. Once she finished, she seemed slightly disgusted.

"I should have asked about your coat. Are you going to be comfortable?"

"A coat is the least of my complaints," I murmured with a yawn that stretched my busted lip to the limits.

If she said another word I didn't hear it. Flat on my back and completely dressed, I slept. It was nightfall when I woke again.


	24. No Longer a Mystery

Ch 24

_Two of them were standing before me, one at my back, holding me up under the arms. My body was limp and heavy and I felt like I was falling. Falling…fast…straight to hell.A journey to meet the devil had to be better than what I felt in the alley._

_A hand, a smooth, cool hand, took me under the chin and lifted my face._

_"Look at him," the vicomte said. "Look at his face and tell me what spell Christine would have to be under to ever touch him?"_

_Laughter, mocking laughter, the one sound in the world I was most familiar with in my lifetime. Even after the time I spent with the gypsies, I have lived inside a cage. I lifted my eyes, stared at the little boy past lashes thick and heavy with my own blood. I spit at him, spit blood at his fine clothing._

_"I touched her twice," I dared to say. "Before you ever did."_

_A fist clubbed me in the temple. A sliver of time escaped me. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground choking on bile and stagnant water from the alley._

_"He'll pay for this. You'll both pay for this."_

I lay half asleep and half awake. The dream became reality, and reality became an illusion. Something cool and damp touched my chin. I swallowed and groaned, mumbling to myself. My eyes would not open. They were sealed shut from swelling and caked closed with blood. How much blood had I lost? By how weak I felt I could only assume it was much more than was healthy, though I suppose it isn't healthy to lose blood at all.

"I'm sorry," Julia said. She sounded so distant. I caught the tone of her voice, the pain she felt—or the regret.

SuddenlyI knew why she had apologized. Her fingers moved along my cheek and hairline. She started to pull at the mask.

"Don't," I protested.

"The cuts," Julia murmured. "I have to clean the cuts. You need a compress on the bruises."

I started to fall again, faster than I had before. The blood had sealed the mask against my face. She pulled again, wiping at the edges with a damp cloth.

"Don't," I said again.

"Tell me if it hurts," Julia whispered.

"It hurts," I said at once.

"Erik, stop it."

"Get out of here. Right this minute, damn you, get out of here."

And still she persisted, lifting the edge at my temple, peeling away the mask until I felt the rush of air against my skin, against the swollen redness of flesh that was in no way human. My fingers clutched her wrist. She didn't force me away but she moved her hand, moved until she had entwined her fingers in mine.

With one final wrenching pull she lifted the mask away. I released a hollow moan of useless protest. Warmth trickled from my eyes, tears she wiped away before they fell down the sides of my face. She said nothing though I felt the tremble of her hands as she worked diligently to clean the cuts. Those damned cuts. I would have prefered blood poisoning to this artful torment.

"God no," I said. No, I didn't say it, I wept it. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't see her expression; see the horror on her face I knew had to be there. Instead, I imagined what she looked like, here oval face taut, her lips strained to keep from screaming out in sheer repulsion. I thought she would leave the room and retch from what she saw, for what she revealed.

She viewed everything. Every last macabre detail of ruined flesh, of a monster's face. She saw the folded lump of skin along my cheek, the rising mound at my temple, the dragged down appearance of my left eye…the brow that never grew. Not even I wanted to see it in a mirror but that was when I was without bruises and cuts. When she saw me, I had been butchered, andall of my morbid self was displayed for her satisfaction.

"Is that what you wanted to see, Mme Seuratti?" I growled through my teeth. "Are you not yet fully disgusted?"

"Don't move," she whispered. Her voice was so low I could barely hear her. "I don't want to get this into your eye."

"Don't look at it," I begged her. "Please, don't look at any of it."

She sniffled. Why was she crying? What right did she have to shed a tear when she was not the one being ridiculed? I turned away as best as I could but my neck was bruised. It hurt to do anything.

"Erik," she managed. She sniffled again.

"Leave me alone. Just leave me alone."

"There's a cut that needs to be stitched," she said. "Please, just hold still and I'll do it quickly." She paused and brought my fingers to her lips. Pleasure before the deepest pain of all. "It goes into your hairline."

I went numb. I have no idea what I said to her as I struggled to hold onto the top of my head. Whatever I said was in vain. She placed her fingers under the wig and lifted it up. I swatted her away, catching her in the side, I think. All I remember doing was screaming at her and arching my back. One eye I managed to force open at last though it made little difference. She was only a blurred image waving back and forth through the salty shield of tears.

She looked at me when she saw I had fought so hard I could see her through my bloody eyelashes. She had blood all over her hands, all over her green blouse and even her cheeks. My blood, she had my blood covering her as I had fought her tooth and nail.

Even though I couldn't see her clearly I knew she was frustrated. Her hair was stuck to her forehead, her face sheened in sweat.She placed one hand against my chest and told me to stop, to just stop. She was tired and didn't want to fight me all night long. She said something about Madeline and Alexandre. It made no difference what she said. Her hand pressed harder, her trembling hand resting over my heart.

"Just stop it, Erik," she pleaded.

And I stopped fighting her. Exhausted and limp I did nothing more than lay at her mercy, lips trembling, body shaking like a pathetic child. I was reduced to nothing. There was nothing left to fight for.

She apologized once more for what she was about to do and then it was over. I felt her pull off the wig in one swift motion. The cool air touched my sweating head where the hair grew thin and in scattered patches, barely covering the rivers of blue veins running beneath the surface of tightly pulled skin. The rag ran over the newly exposed disaster, the wretchedness of God's most loathsome creature. I howled with tears and anguish, pounding the mattress several times with my fists before pain outweighed frustration. If she still wept for what she forced herself to see I didn't know.

I wondered if she regretted each night I had spent with her. I wondered if the memories made her sick to her stomach. This strange beast was what had crawled into bed beside her and left well before the dawn. This was what she allowed to share her company. I hoped to God she was satisfied.

"I hate you," I said aloud. I know I said it aloud and that she heard me because she started to cry. But she didn't understand that I wasn't talking to her.

I was talking to myself then, and to whatever sinister maker had designed such a face.

* * *

The doorbell woke me with a violent start. I jolted in bed, the nightmare of all that had happened in the alley resurfacing in my mind yet again. 

Disoriented, I groped along the sides of my body and discovered the sheets and the edge of the bed. Suddenly I panicked, my breathes turning ragged, my muscles tightening, thoughts racing through my mind. I couldn't see again. My hand touched my eyes and I discovered there was a compress placed over them. I ripped it off and tossed it aside.

Slowly I remembered I hadn't returned home from the Wisteria. This was Julia's home. She and Alexandre had brought me back at dawn after the boy and two of his aristocrat friends had beaten me within an inch of my life. I felt as though I had been killed and resurrected.

With a groan, I shifted in bed. Then I remembered Julia coming into the room. My mask! My God, I hoped it was nothing more than a nightmare, a strange vision. Had she given me anything for pain? Perhaps the White Goddess played tricks with my mind.

My hand touched my face and my hair, my missing hair and unmasked face. It hadn't all been a nightmare. Julia had seen it. She had seen it all.

Emotion threatened me again but I forced myself to stay quiet. I heard footsteps along the wooden floor and the groan of the front door opening. There was someone there. Again I felt a rush of panic. If it was a doctor I would crawl out the window if need be. I had warned her. I had told her no doctor.

"He walked past the house twice," I heard a woman speak. I held my breath and listened. Madeline. I knew her voice like no other. "The second time I thought for certain he would knock on the door but he didn't. He just walked by and continued down the street, glancing over his shoulder."

"He was alone?" Julia asked.

"Yes, as far as I know. But still, on his own, he would…I don't even want to think about it, Mme Seuratti. He might be out there now for all I know. I really shouldn't be gone long. I don't want to leave Meg and Charles alone in the house, not after last night."

The boy, I knew, they were talking about my dear little friend the vicomte. He had come past the house but hadn't the nerve to call. Perhaps he wanted to finish what he had started. If he wanted someone to torture me, he should have very well called Julia, that vile and hateful woman.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," Madeline added after a brief pause.

"He can stay here as long as he needs to," Julia replied. "Really, it's no trouble."

"But you have Lisette," Madeline protested.

"She's old enough to take care of herself. I can manage two at once."

It was galling to think that they were making arrangements. What nerve the two of them had to decide where I would stay without my consent. As soon as I was able to walk again, and I expected that this would be soon, I would return home. Then I would wait for the boy to come past the house. He would regret ever stepping foot on my street.

"But you already have Erik to look after. Really, I don't want to burden you with Alexandre as well."

My breath caught in my throat. My God, they weren't talking about me. It was Alex. I leaned toward the edge of the bed and waited for them to continue. Why were they talking about Alex?

"No, no, if he was threatened at all…if you think he is at all safer here than your home, by all means he may stay with me. He's a good boy. He'll be no trouble."

Threatened? No, there would be no threats against Alex. Never would anyone threaten my flesh and blood. I would kill the vicomte if he ever even thought ill of my son, if he dared to even assume he would take anything ever again that belonged to me.

Madeline sighed. "Oh, thank you, Madame. I'll pack him some clean clothes and have Meg bring him here in a few hours. I'll be certain to bring fresh clothes for Erik, too. How is he?"

"Do you want to see him? I could wake him, if you wish."

There was hesitation. I couldn't blame her if she said she had no interest in ever seeing me again.

"From what Alex said, his father needs his rest. I cannot believe Raoul would do such a thing, but from what Alex overheard? I hate to say it but it seems as though Erik brought this on himself."

"Erik said he never mentioned Alex."

Madeline sighed. "Someone had to mention Alex and I know it was not Christine. I don't think Alexandre would lie to me about what he overheard. He was too distraught when he came home, the poor child. No, Julia, it was Erik. It had to be Erik."

"If Erik thought his son would be in danger, I don't think he would do it. He loves him. I know he does, even if he doesn't want to believe it himself."

Madeline made no reply. She couldn't convince herself any longer.

"What will you tell him if Monsieur de Chagny inquires?"

"I'll tell him Erik is dead and Alex ran away. What else could I tell him?"

"Do you think he will believe you?"

"No."

They both went silent. There was nothing else they could say to one another that would affect me. I was devastated. Alexandre was in danger, terrible danger. And it was all my doing.


	25. Arrangement

Ch 25

Louis Seuratti's likeness stared at me when I woke again. I would have strangled him all over again had he been alive, him and his mocking glare. I expected he glared at me from hell as I occupied his guest room. Perhaps he enjoyed this arrangement better as now I would no longer be spending time with his wife.

My eyes struggled to stay open through the swelling. I had thought that I had slept for quite some time after Madeline had stopped over but the room was still dark, save for a single lamp by the bedside. As much as I knew I should stay conscious, I didn't want to be awake, mostly because I had no desire to speak with anyone.

I felt terrible. Lack of restful sleep had made me groggy, while the lack of food made me feel nauseous. The pain had not dulled as I had hoped. If anything, I felt worse than I had before. Time had made me acutely aware of every bruise, scrape and laceration. I was aware of myself. In loneliness I thought too much, and there was nothing to befriend me more willingly than solitude.

A burden rested on my shoulder; the weight of regret which I had never felt before. Alexandre was on my mind. Alexandre, my son, who had more at risk than anyone else did. He would not meet his mother, not now, not ever. I had made certain ofthat whenI was escorted from Suite 241.

There would be heartache for Alexandre though that he could tolerate. I feared for his safety. What would happen if he met the vicomte? He had wanted me dead, there was no doubt, but he had failed to kill me—or succeeded in making me remember my misstep for a long time. I had a feeling it was the latter as the vicomte didn't seem like the sort of person who would be denied. He did, after all, win Christine. Luck to them both, as far as I was concerned. They deserved one another.

Alex deserved none of what had happened—and what I feared would happen.

My eyes burned and I knew my emotions had the best of me. I hated the feeling of emotion, hated the weakness it showed. I blamed it on my pain, on my physical pain but there was something much worse that I couldn't deny. The physical pain I could harness. The physical pain I could tolerate, if not control. But everything inside my head was beyond my capability. I had betrayed my son.

My anger had boiled over by the time Julia came into the room. I had pulled at my eyes as I waited for her, plucking out what felt like all of my eyelashes. It hurt like all hell but I could see, and what I saw when she walked through the door was a look of surprise and remorse. She must have thought I would still be asleep and blind when she came into the room again.

Her face paled when she looked at me, when she dared to look at it. In a heartbeat I decided I hated her. She had no right to disarm me so completely. The mask was one thing, but my wig as well was nothing more than degrading. There has never been much to my appearance. I have always realized it. How callous and uncaring, how vile and disgusting she was in my eyes. I hated her. I had to hate her for what she had done to me.

"Where is the compress?" she asked. That was her placid greeting. I had a greeting of my own. If she thought I had forgotten how she had humiliated me she would have another think coming.

"The floor," I answered her, keeping my eyes on her as she walked the length of the room and retrieved the compress. "Give me a towel. Now. And find me something for the pain."

She looked at me sharply but did as I asked, mocking me by retrieving a soft white hand towel that was already on the bed. She said nothing before turning away to pick up the compress I had tossed aside. Once she looked away, I covered my face with the towel and arranged it over my head.

"Oh, Erik," I heard her mutter once she turned around to face me. She brushed dust off the compress and turned it over in her hand, refusing to look me in the eye. Served her right to avoid my gaze after all she had done. "The skin won't breathe if you keep it covered."

"Are you satisfied now?" I snapped at her, ignoring the remark.

She sat down by the bedside and reached for the pitcher of water. "I left some extra pillows earlier. If you can sit up—"

"Answer me. Now. Right now. Answer me. Is this what you wanted? Does this satisfy you at last?"

She looked at me again, her hazel eyes narrowed, questioning. She brought the cup of water to my lips but I refused.

"You need to rest."

"I said answer me."

She scratched her head and sighed. "Did I want the next time we saw each other to be you lying in an alley? No, Erik, no I didn't. Why would I want that?"

"Did you do this," I started again, purely for the sake of arguing with her. I searched the side table and grabbed the mask streaked in red and shook it at her. Had I known what she had done with the wig I would have thrown it in her face. I was so enraged, so completely humiliated by her. "Did you do this so you would know?"

"Know what?"

"Everything!" I shouted, pointing at the covered half of my face. I slammed the mask onto the desk and heard it crack, then I lifted the towel in hopes of frightening her away. "Everything!" I screamed again, letting the towel fall into place.

She leaned forward and ran her finger along my forehead, moving the towel aside. "You've stretched one of the stitches." Before she finished speaking, a warm trickle ran between my eyes. Of course she was correct. I had busted a stitch far enough to draw blood again. She turned to grab a washcloth. "Hold still."

"Just leave it," I muttered.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can, Julia. Put the rag down and leave. If this is to be my room, then leave me in it."

"Your son will be staying here soon," she said quietly. "I imagine you heard Madeline when she came over earlier. I have no other room. He must stay with you."

My heart sank but foolish pride won out. "He is not allowed in here. Do you understand me? I won't have him in this room."

"Where will he stay?"

"It's your house. Find a place for him or send him back to Madeline." I don't know what I would have done if she would have sent him back home, though I knew without a doubt that she wouldn't do it.

"He's your son."

"What of it?"

I could see it in her eyes. She understood without words that Alex had never seen what I looked like without the mask and hair. She frowned at me out of remorse for my own vanity.

"There is more to love than appearances," she muttered. She glanced across the room at the portrait on the wall of her handsome dead husband. "Kindness, for one."

How I hated Julia for not arguing with me, for not telling me how juvenile my words were, for not at least meeting my tone of voice. She wet another rag and squeezed it out over a fresh bowl of water. Sheturned back and stared at me a moment. I knew what she would do. She would remove the towel. She would test her bravery again, hers and mine.

"Why are you doing this?" I persisted.

"It will be infected if I let it go."

"Why do you care? We have nothing. Nothing."

"But we did."

"No, we didn't."

"Erik we had a relationship for how many years?" she started.

I don't know why I insisted on her hating me. She was the only thing I had left. Alex I had still as well but already I refused to see him before he was even staying in the house.

"Erik—"

"We never had a relationship," I said before she could finish.

Julia paused. I saw in her eyes that she was mustering the strength to continue. An intelligent woman, she had to have known I was acting only in spite. After all she had done to refuse my games, she finally relented and played. She had reluctantly given in to my malevolence.

I watched in terror as she dropped the rag into the bowl and sat back, folding her hands in her lap. She said nothing for a moment as she considered my words. I regretted it, but as much as I regretted what I had started, I would never take it back. We both knew that.

"Then what was it?" she questioned at last. Her lips pursed with anticipation. She knew it would not be something she wanted to hear but she had to know.

"An arrangement," I answered.

Her head turned to the side. I could almost feel her placing a cigarette into my mouth. All I needed was a blindfold to await my own execution. I had certainly drawn back the hammer and handed her the pistol.

"An arrangement?"

"Nothing more."

Her brow arched. "For your benefit?"

"I'm a virile man. Why else?"

"Then to you I am nothing more than a whore?"

"No," I said, and I drove my own dagger deep. "I never had to pay you."

She stared at me for a long time andweighed my words, judging me as she well deserved to do. The clock ticked in the corner, counting out the seconds that passed where neither of us moved. She appeared different than I ever remembered. Older, perhaps, more tolerant as well. I had never seen her wear anything lilac in color before and I couldn't help but let my mind wander away. The color made her skin look paler and her eyes more green than blue. I should have told her how painfully green her eyes looked, how exceptionally serene and…beautiful. She looked beautiful. But I didn't.

Eventually she shifted and I expected she would leave but she didn't. She wrung out the wash cloth, lifted the towel covering part of my face and my head, and cleaned the wounds, not once batting an eye as she washed the terrible half. When she was finished, she poured a glass of water and left it on the table for me.

"I doubt anyone has ever told you before. I can't imagine why anyone would want to speak with you, you're so condescending toward anyone who dare think anything of you," she said as she gathered the sullied linens and prepared to leave. "As much as I would rather not, I care for you and I want you to know something: There is something much worse than being ugly on the outside. I could look at you with indifference as long as you never spoke to me again."

She looked at me once, her eyes red, her face swollen with the urge to sob. She was stoic not to break down before me, stoic and stubborn as well not to show weakness. We were both the same in many ways, which made everything worse.

"If you were not in such terrible pain I would never forgive you for what you said to me." Her eyes flashed to the painting on the wall of her dead husband, her murdered husband. Then she looked back at me. A tear fell down her cheek but she ignored it. "No one has ever hurt me the way you just did, Erik. I'll remember what you said for as long as I live."

That was a thousand times worse than being beaten in an alley. My face flushed.

The door opened and she walked into the hall. I could barely see any longer. With her back turned, she added. "God knows why, but I'm warming broth for you. If you're awake in an hour, I'll have Alex bring it to you." She stopped and I heard her sigh. "Along with something for the pain."

There was nothing in the world strong enough to remove the pain I felt seeing her stand there after all I had said to her. The door started to close behind her but I called out, a noise so feral that she jumped when she heard it and turned immediately.

I couldn't let her leave this way.I looked her straight in the eye and forced myself upright in bed. For a moment I thought I would pass out again but I didn't.

She dried her eyes as she turned and stared at me, unwilling to be the first to speak.

"I'll regret what I said for as long as I live," I blurted out.

"Because it's only about how you feel in the end, isn't it? Erik, go back to sleep."

"No, wait," I pleaded. There was more. I knew there was more struggling to come to the surface, begging to be set free. For so long I had kept my foot over all feeling save anger.

Julia did as I asked and stood with her back against the door frame, bloodied towels and a water basin cradled in her arms. She no longer cried. She was beyond tears for herself and far beyond shedding a single tear for me. As much as I wanted to be a coward, I held the gaze when I said something I hadn't even realized.

"I'll regret it because I do love you. I've always loved you."

For a moment we stared at each other. I waited for her expression to change, for her to nod or smile. That moment felt like balancing precariously on the tight rope a hundred feet above the ground. All of the pain I had felt drifted away as I waited for her to answer me, to say something, anything in return.

As much as I expected her answer, it didn't make it any easier to accept.

"You know lust, you know obsession, you know how to keep yourself guarded, but love? You don't know love. Neither of us do. That's why our 'arrangement' worked so well."

"Julie—" I had never called her Julie before, only Julia, and usually I didn't even use her name. It made it easier to leave her each night. But now I didn't want her to leave me.

She snorted and glanced back one final time then continued out the door, shutting it behind her with her foot.

I knew Julia had finally shut me out.


	26. The Visitor in the Guest Room

Ch 26 

Julia's words made the oil and canvas likeness all the more unbearable. I turned down the lamp and attempted to fall asleep again, but I knew he still stared, that he gloated over the confrontation. Louis would have enjoyed hearing what Julia had said. No one had hurt her the way I had. One sentence, one ignorant sentence outweighed five years of him hitting her nearly every night. He had slapped her face and pulled her hair, shoved her against the wall and attempted to throw her down the stairs. I was the one who had hurt her.

I wondered if she would have preferred him still alive. Even if she did, I did not regret killing him. Not then, not ever. He would rot in Hell for eternity.

All of her words brought on a Hell of my own. Over and over I heard the words: I knew lust, I knew obsession but not love. Neither of us knew love. That was why our arrangement worked so well. Our arrangement, as I had so crudely put it.

So this is what the fly feels like when it is caught in the spider's web. How lonely I had become, how tangled in the silk and paralyzed by poison. Only the web was my own creation, and the poison I had spoon fed myself in arrogance and ignorance. Equal doses, of course; I would have it no other way.

I shifted in bed, feeling considerably colder than I had earlier. I wanted to call Julia but couldn't bring myself to demand that she find me another blanket, not after all that I had said. We had done enough to each other.

For God's sake, I had told her that I loved her and she had not believed me. While I lay alone, I was starting to wonder if I believed it. The timing, if nothing else, had been convenient.

Still, my need for her grew simply because she was not there. In my mind, I still had her. It would be the only way I would ever have her, and it would never be enough.

I listened to the clock and the sounds of the house settling and thought of Julia. Her face was etched in my thoughts, penetrating the darkness, keeping me company. Upstairs she talked to her daughter. Though I couldn't hear her words through the floor, I had her voice in my head.

An hour passed. She did not return with food or medicine as she had promised though neither concerned me. More than anything I wanted to see her again. I had to be sure I had memorized every detail of her face; the curve of her lips, the exact shade of her eyes, the widow's peak of her hairline.

My task borne out of boredom and frustration was cut short by someone pounding on the front door. The sudden commotion startled me into sitting upright in bed. A wave of agony traveled through me like the tremors of an earthquake as I upset the bruises to my stomach and ribs.

"Julia! Please Julia!" Meg screamed. By the sound of her one would have thought she was being murdered. "Please open the door!"

I lay with my eyes wide in the dark as Julia ran through the house to answer Meg's frenzied plea. Julia sounded like she practically fell down the stairs and I know without a doubt that she misjudged her speed and slammed into the front door. The whole house must have shook. I shuddered on her behalf.

"Meg? Where's Alex?"

"He isn't here?" Meg questioned.

Julia hesitated. "No…Madeline said you would bring him over."

Either they went silent or they decided to whisper to one another. I counted forty-three seconds of silence between the two of them before Julia asked when Alex was last seen.

"Upstairs. Madeline told him not to go up there but he wouldn't listen," Meg told her. She stopped again. "And then…._he_ came to the door."

By 'he' she meant the boy. That was evident by how her voice had turned lower. She knew I was listening. They both did. Go on with the story, Meg, I thought, tell me what has happened to Alex. If the boy had done anything to him—talked to him even, I would strangle that insolent brat with my own bare hands. I would crawl across the earth to see him to his death.

"He never came down?" That was Julia. I heard her walk Meg farther into the house, away from the guest room where they could speak in private.

"He wasn't in there when Mother went up. He must have gone out the window."

Meg's voice had turned higher. Having known her since she was a child, I knew what the change in pitch meant. She wasn't telling the truth. She knew Alex hadn't gone out the window. She may not have known where he went, but she knew he hadn't gone out of the house through the upper window. Without a trellis against the house, he would need to jump like a squirrel to make it to a tree. With all of the time he spends studying with Charles; Alexandre was hardly an agile squirrel.

I knew where he was. The chill had given him away.

"You may stay if you don't turn the lamp up," I said quietly.

A shadow shifted, nearing the bed. "Yes, father," Alexandre answered.

* * *

He stood for a while until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. 

"Close the window," I told him. "And tell Meg you are here or she'll be worried to death."

His head bobbed then he made his way across the room until I could no longer find him in the dark sea of shadows. He was leaving the room.

"Alex," I said as his hand jiggled the doorknob.

Silence. I knew he hadn't gone yet because the door hadn't opened. His voice emerged meek and trembling. "Yes, Father?"

For a moment I hesitated. Deep inside I wanted to beg him to stay, to grovel for his company, though I would not beg for anything. Once upon a time I had fallen to my knees and treated Christine as a goddess. I would never do it again. My dark kingdom was my own. I would bow and beg to no one.

"Tell Julia you may not wander about the house long. An hour at the most and I expect you in bed."

The doorknob turned. Light fractured the darkness as he opened the door.

"It would be inappropriate for you to stay anywhere in the house," I added, desperate to keep him. "For their dignity, you may only stay here. Is that understood?"

The silence he returned was unbearable. It angered me, his blatant denial.

"Make your decision," I growled. "Either you stay here or you return home."

"I want to stay," he answered frantically. His voice lowered, trembling as he continued. "With you, Father."

The corners of my mouthpulled into a blind smile of gratitude. There was someone still with me, someone still there. He had no idea what weakness lay beneath my gruff tone, the dampness to my eyes once he finally spoke. I had not yet savored the moment when the door opened and his child's silhouette disappeared into the hallway.

As soon as the door opened, both Julia and Meg gasped and rushed toward him, swarming onto him. Theythoroughly checked him over to be certain he was unharmed. I could hear them first cooing at how happy they were to see him, then both snapping at him for the manner in which he left. In darkness I smiled at my magician.

He was as keen as I was at his age, if not more so. Education sharpened an already veracious mind. There were many times when I would find him in the library pulling springs out of an old German clock Madeline had received from a friend Through a mirror I would watch him as he arranged everything that was once inside the clock and placed it on the table. He would rebuilt the complicated apparatus, placing the cuckoo bird in backwards or changing around the little figurines to see if Madeline would notice.

We mirrored one another in actions often. Indeed, I had an idea of how he managed to leave unseen but I had no desire to explore it. Too many secrets unraveled if he pulled that fateful string.

"Father said I could stay with him," Alex said once the two hens stopped clucking.

"Alexandre…" Julia started.

"May I stay with him?"

Her sigh was proof of her skepticism. "Are you hungry?" she asked to change the subject. "There's supper in the kitchen. Save some for your father."

His heavy shoes stamped down the hallway and I heard Lisette's high voice greet him.

I wanted him back with me. The space left in the room once he left grew, swallowing everything.

"Is the vicomte still there?" Julia asked. Her voice lowered. "Careful what you say. He's listening."

Her audacity made me smile.

"Mother was still talking to him when I went upstairs. The last I heard, he had insisted on coming into the house. He had said something about walking all the way from the Wisteria just to see us but I hardly believed that. He's been past the house half a dozen times."

I would kill him if he ever stepped foot in my house. He was the last person welcomed in my home. Madeline would never hear the end of it if she allowed him in for tea.

"Alex is safe here," Julia assured Meg. "He can stay as long as he needs, until this madness has finally passed."

Something else had to have been said but they had decided not to share it with me. I leaned so far over the edge of the bed that I thought I would fall on the floor.

"Did she agree?" Julia asked.

There was a long pause and I was certain that Meg had either nodded or shook her head to whatever they were discussing. My head found a way back to the pillow and I closed my eyes, defeated. They would divulge nothing else to me.

Then Meg spoke again, her voice hushed but still loud enough for me to hear. Yet another form of torture.

"Mother had no other choice."


	27. The Elephant in the Room

Ch 27

A short conversation about how clothes would be taken to and from the home followed. Meg promised she would have a new lawn shirt and trousers for me in the morning as, in her rush to find Alex, she had forgotten to bring anything over. New clothing would have done nicely as I wallowed in blood-stiffened shirt and trousers. My waistcoat, cravat, and vest had all disappeared. None of that mattered, and I didn't expect that Madeline would deliver anything more than what was practical; undergarments, a simple white shirt and a new pair of wool trousers. A vest would wait for later.

Bored by their conversation, I turned up the lamp and dug into my pocket. The note from Christine to Madeline was wrinkled and wet. The lines I had worked diligently to memorize had blurred into nonsense. How appropriate that seemed.

Her words still galled me. How could she say she had never written a note? I saw it. I know I saw it. All of it was there, on paper, not in my mind.Damn her. Women are irritating creatures, each and every one of them in their own magnificently deceptive ways. I crumpled up her letter and shoved it back into my pocket. She lied to me, straight to my face.

At last I heard Meg return home and Julia eventually walked into the kitchen. Again I was alone. I turned the lamp down and prayed that I would fall asleep but knew it would not happen. My mind still prodded at what Meg had said. _Mother had no choice_. Could she have possibly made it more ominous? Meg has always been one for dramatics. I believe she alone added more to my legend than the entire ballet put together over a decade.

To my utter astonishment, Julia came into the room a half an hour after Meg returned home. I hadn't expected to see her until at least the next morning, if even then.

"I didn't forget about you," she murmured as she walked slowly into the darkened room. "I would have brought supper earlier, but as you heard, Meg came to the door. Raoul de Chagny has stopped by."

My hand reached out to the lamp on the bedside table and I turned the light up enough for her to see the room. The wheelchair was between the door and the nearest side of the bed and I thought it quite considerate on my part to keep her from tripping and hurting herself.

She didn't meet my eye as she walked in carrying a white wooden tray. Steam rose into her face from a bowl in the center, bringing with it the smell of stew. From where I lay, I could see a slice of bread and a cup of tea. Seeing her reminded me of how ravenous I had been for food and company.

"What does he want?" I asked.

She walked to the bedside, poured a glass of water, and showed me a pill between her fingers. Without a word, she put it in the palm of my hand. Then she turned away, taking the emptied water pitcher from the side table. She walked into the hallway and returned a moment later with fresh water. Soon, I would need the water closet to relieve myself.

"His wife left a note with him to give to Madame Giry." She glanced at me from the corner of her eye as she moved everything from the side table either into the already crowded drawer or into a basket she had slid from under the bed. "She asked Madame Giry and Madame Lowry to meet her for dinner on Friday."

Christine's brash request left me speechless. Why in the hell would she want that after all that had happened?

"She agreed," Julia said hesitatingly.

The words tumbled out of my mouth. "She had no other choice."

Julia turned and looked at me as though she was surprised that I had actually listened to their conversation. There was something in her eyes that I didn't like. She turned away before I could figure out what exactly was in her mind.

"Your son wanted to stay with you," she commented without looking at me. That wasn't what she was thinking. She had looked away to change the subject. "But I had already decided that Lisette will stay with me for the night. Alex is in her room so that you have your privacy."

"Hardly appropriate for a boy his age to take a girl's room," I replied quietly.

She stiffened. "He is already undressed and in bed."

"He couldn't have fallen asleep yet."

"I am not about to drag him from bed at this hour. Erik, it's half past eleven."

"He's my son."

"And this is my house." She sighed, her patience wearing thin. In the heat of the moment, she had forgotten herself to my need for bickering. Though after she had given me something for pain, I was feeling less ornery and realized we were getting no where with one another. She had allowed me a second chance after a near-fatal blow earlier in the evening. To disregard it would be foolish. Wisely, I relented.

"I told him he could stay here," I explained. "He'll think I deceived him."

She set the tray down on the dresser at the foot of the bed and left the room. My eyes followed her out, and then returned to the food out of my reach. My mouth watered as I watched the steam roll away from the top of the soup bowl and dance away.

Quite literally my dinner was no more than six feet away. That was simply inhumane, I thought as I heard her walk down the hallway. Cruel and unusual punishment to place food at the feet of a man who could not yet move from bed, I muttered to myself. She truly despised me. For the life of me I couldn't think of what I had said that would earn this treatment. Was this about sleeping arrangements?

I was too hungry to let her leave me for the night.

"Jul—"I started to yell.

She returned and stood in the doorway holding a crumpled white sheet in both hands. Her shoulders dropped and she walked past the threshold. I assumed she was that irritated with me that she had to force herself to walk into the room again.

"The mask is drying. I didn't realize there was felt underneath when I scrubbed the blood away." She looked away, rising slightly on her toes. "I apologize. In the morning I will find glue at the costume shop."

She looked away for a moment as she parted the sheet in her hands. "I had it cleaned this morning," she said, not bothering to look at me or the black mass of hair she had hidden in the sheet. "Madeline said she will bring the other one over if you wish."

Fire rose up the back of my neck until it reached my forehead. Beneath the bruises I doubt she could have seen my shame.

"Oh, God," I whispered as I turned away.

I cared more for her seeing me without the wig than without the mask. The mask was obvious. The mask was replaceable by a careful hand, but my hair? There was nothing to do, no way to hide. I looked away, unable to watch her standing there holding my black hair. It felt like she had waded through my insides and taken a vital organ.

She attempted to reason. "If Alexandre stays in Lisette's room, you have one more day for the stitches to heal. You'll need the time for the one," her voice grew quieter, more foreboding; "…the one at your hairline to go down in swelling before you can wear it without discomfort."

I shuddered at her words. She held onto my manhood, onto everything that made me feel virile and competent.

"And you think this is not discomfort?"

"I don't want to risk infection, which will hurt more than your faltering sense of worth. Already the stitches appear red."

"You despise me this much that you'll stop at nothing to torture me?"

"This isn't punishment. How dare you insinuate that I would be so juvenile and petty." She snorted at me. "Really, Erik, do you think I would do such a thing?" She turned her head to the side. "You're irritating, like a fly before the rain, but I won't seek revenge on you, if that's your concern."

"Then give it to me. If you do not intend to punish me, honor my request."

The gruffness I wanted was lost to the tremble in my words. I couldn't for the life of me say what it was that she held. It was degrading and I refused to call it anything, least of all a wig. Even when I sent it to Madeline for cleaning I never called it anything. I simply wrapped it in brown paper and gave it to her along with a twenty franc note. The sum of money kept her from saying a word as she took it from the house and brought it back a day or two later. The cleaning bill was a meager ten francs. She did well in doing what I could not.

"Erik—" she started.

"Give it here."

"He's already in bed. It would be silly to wear it now. Besides, you haven't even washed."

She could not bring herself to say it either. Her unwillingness to relinquish what was mine grated on the last of my nerves.

"Alex is not my concern."

"What is your concern? You'll be alone and asleep once you eat."

"Right now I'm neither. For God's sake, I've asked you for nothing else."

There were so many ways she could have pointed out that I was wrong but she saved my dignity from falling any further and decided to say nothing.

"Haven't you seen enough for a lifetime?" I questioned, eyes focused on my legs beneath the covers. How useless they were to me now, bruised to the bone. "What more do you want?"

"I've seen more of you than just this," she replied softly. She didn't look at me, either. It was easier to speak if we didn't meet one another's eyes.

"That's hardly the same."

"Because it's dark when you come into my bedroom?"

"Because it's different and you know it."

She regarded the wig for a moment and my discomfort increased as she straightened the back with her fingers. I hated her touching it even when I wore the damned thing. Always I pulled her hand away, concerned that she would remove it in the heat of our passion. Nothing would have been more mortifying.

"Did you think I was so ignorant that I didn't know?" she asked quietly. "Did you think I preferred this," she lowered the wig, "to what was there?" She stared up at my nakedness, her hazel eyes softening as we stared at one another.

I looked away first. It had been years since I was bombarded by such shame, since I had been seen without my hair and mask.

"There is nothing beneath," I muttered under my breath. "There has never been anything."

She made no reply. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she walked towards the end of the bed. Without a care, she let it flop to the side so that strands dangled over the edge. As much as my jaw hurt, I still clamped my teeth together at her heedlessness to something I wanted so badly. I tried again.

"May I have it back? Please."

From the dresser mirror, I watched her move. She was deep in thought. I had seen her through my bedroom window as she sat downstairs and read in her sewing room. Her brow would furrow and her lips would protrude. Not the most flattering of expressions, but one that was telling.

She kept her eyes down as she stirred honey into the tea and rearranged items crowded on the back of the dresser. She hadn't bothered with her appearance much. Her hair was twisted and pinned into a bun at the back of her head, just high enough to allow a view of her neck. No amount of make-up would hide the circles beneath her eyes though the dab of crimson to her lips made her complexion more sallow.

As much as she tormented me, I did love her. I couldn't help but follow her every move. I realized that I loved her in the most unbearable way. Nothing she could ever do to me would stop me from feeling something for her.

My lips parted. The feelings I had for Julia were different from what I had felt for Christine.

The spoon in her hand clanked to the floor and I stopped myself before I could begin speaking.

She stood very straight, gathering all of her strength. "No, there is something beneath, Erik," she said with her back turned. "I've seen it. Your son has seen it. Perhaps you have seen it as well."

"Why are you saying this?" I murmured. She made it hard to speak. She made it hard to breathe, to think, to do anything at all.

"Erik, there has to be something left. Christine couldn't have taken it all from you in one night."

I wanted to say something but I caught her eye in the mirror and she refused to look away, even through the brimming of tears. My God was she beautiful, just as I had pictured her. Every detail from the shape of her eyes to the arch of her brow was branded into my mind.

She turned with the tray in her hands and walked to the side of the bed. "There is more than deceit inside of you. For Alex's sake, there has to be something left, something worth his affection for you."


	28. Confessions

_Notes before the story always make me feel pretentious, like I have something so fascinating I must share it with you. I'm only writing an A/N today because I had told my beta, Tywyn, that nothing that happens in this chapter was planned. If you're a writer you understand that characters sometimes decide for themselves what they want to say and what they want to do. I am going to go with it and hope it works out in the end. If you aren't a writer,I probably sound crazy. Also true._

_And as always, thanks to all of you for the feedback, both in reviews and in emails. I might slow down with the story since I'm writing a mainstream novel at the same time called The Countess of Suburbia. Shameless plug:) _

_Without further ado, I believe Erik has something he wants to say. :)

* * *

_

Ch 28

Julia had a way of making me feel both elated and disgusted.

By the time she had sat down at the bedside there was nothing more she could do to strip away my masculinity. I was at her mercy, forced to remain in her guest bed while the deep bruises to my legs healed and I could walk again.

Julia insisted that I change out of my clothes, which, for the most part, I had been wearing for well over a day. The once crisp white shirt was painted in splatters of deep red dried blood and black streaks of mud. Tears exposed scraped skin beneath as well as various other marks from the fight.

Like a child, I was forced to undress from my sullied clothes before she would allow me to eat. Fighting her would only prolong the inevitable, and I said nothing as she unbuttoned my shirt, helped my arms through, and set it aside. That was how she left me, explaining that she needed to clean the scrapes and examine the bruises.

Her eyes narrowed in sympathy pain as she took in the canvas of vibrant colors that had become my chest, stomach, and back.

"They should all be ashamed of themselves," she said under her breath. "I'll bring you more medicine in the morning. Laudanum if I can find it. For now, one of the pills should see you through the night. I'll leave you something should your stomach betray you in the night" She then pulled her chair closer and turned the lamp higher so that she could see the wounds better.

My stomach growled. The smell of food in the air was unbearable.

"Must I ask for permission to eat or do you intend on governing that as well?"

She ignored me as she touched my left eyelid. I pulled back slightly at the pressure and she stopped, half-smiling as she started to reach farther up, where the hair I had all of my life grew thin. I would have preferred going bald completely, I think, to a hairless patch of skin at my left temple and a thin, dull covering of light hair over my skull.

"Please don't do this," I whispered. "Bring me a mirror and I will do it myself."

"Close your eyes," she replied. As she spoke she still insisted on touching me and I shuddered as her fingers lightly traced along what no one had ever touched before.

My eyes closed slowly and I felt the chill of a damp rag at my temple. "I'll fix another compress but you must keep it over your eyes all night long, is that understood?"

"If I may finally eat, I will agree to anything," I replied.

"How useful are your fingers?"

A wicked thought crossed my mind and I almost snidely invited her into bed to find out. With a smirk, I flexed my hand and she held out a spoon. She started to place the bowl in my lap but stopped herself. I glanced up at her face and she returned my expression.

"You're in enough pain as it is. I'll save you from burning," she said. Then she rolled her eyes as though her thoughts were not as lecherous as mine. "There is nothing endearing about your vulgarity, and don't even start with me. I see everything you're thinking in your eyes."

"I suppose you're thinking of nothing more than sewing and spice gardens?"

"Women don't think as lewd as men."

"As lewd? Meaning that they do indeed have improper thoughts," I said for my own amusement of watching her blush. My days beneath the opera house proved without a doubt that the thoughts in the minds of women were far more perverse than anything I had ever heard in my own mind. Dancers, I would say, should have always been required to go straight from the stage to confession to keep them from Hell.

"Not as improper as you. Now sit quietly or I'll put your supper out for the tramps."

"Not as improper. Pah! Apparently I'm delirious," I muttered.

"Then eat something. The medicine will disrupt your stomach."

Her change in demeanor stopped me from reaching for the bread. There was something she wasn't telling me. For a moment I stared at her, studying her expression. The smile on her face, though faint, was forced. I could tell by the way it contradicted the sadness in her eyes.

A thousand times before I had seen her feign mirth. If Louis beat her but didn't bruise her face, she would be out the next day chatting with Madeline about gardening or her neighbor, Penelope, about cooking. She would laugh and talk for hours, showing a mask entirely different from mine. Her mask was transparent. There was still sadness in her eyes, tucked neatly into place behind the charade of contentedness with a man she feared.

Her sudden forgiveness for all I had said was a bold-faced lie. She was doing to me what she would have done with Louis the morning after. There were no words to describe the shame I felt lying in bed, allowing her to care for me. I had become him, different yet the same, inflicting pain and being rewarded.

"I would never strike you," I said suddenly. Too suddenly. She looked up from my ribs and narrowed her eyes. As quickly as she had looked up, she glanced away. I decided to continue, to press on through the mangled mess I had already gotten myself into. "I shouldn't have raised my hand at you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said under her breath. "Now sit still. I think you've broken a rib."

"Julia—" I grunted more than said her name. There is no doubt on my mind that she pressed two of her fingers into my flesh to force me into silence. However, pain didn't easily deter my intentions.

"Erik, it's been a long day and it's very late. I have two children up stairs, a household to tend to in the morning, and I would rather not spend an hour arguing with you down here. Now please—"

"In your dining room, when I came to look for Alexandre, I forced you against the wall and you thought I would strike you," I said without taking a breath.

She had drawn her hand away from me and sat staring at the edge of the sheets. "I had hit you first." She was breathing harder, her chest rising and falling.

She had hit me first, but that wasn't the point or even a concern. "You are a woman," I replied. She visibly shuddered. "I would never hit you, or Madeline, or Meg, or even Christine."

Julia turned away and opened the bedside drawer. "How many nights did you watch?" she asked. Her voice had turned higher, deceptively more pleasant as she struggled for her composure. She was still treating me as she would have treated her dead husband.

"Watch?"

"Him hit me. And don't say you never watched because I saw you at your window one night, the last night."

That was the night before I stopped his hand forever. He had done more than just hit her. He had forced her to please him as well. At my writing desk, I heard the familiar sounds from their house of a one-sided argument. Julia had started to close the windows, knowing that his voice would raise. Silence had come too soon. I looked out the window and saw what he was doing to her within sight of the neighbors. That, more than anything else, had led to his death. It would be an insult to swine to call him a pig.

I had always known why her rule in our relationship was that I was not allowed to request her company. The candle in the window was power, strength she had not possessed that night, that final night. She could offer or deny me as she saw fit, sating her needs over mine.

"How many?" she persisted.

"Once was too much."

"More than once?"

The insistent need for a confession released a trap door inside of me. There was no farther I could sink. Dante's Inferno was mistaken as I had found the darkest, most malevolent corner of Hell. And I intended to explore it thoroughly.

"What does it matter? Once, twice, a thousand times? Enough that I am a worse person than he ever was," I replied. "May his soul rot for eternity."

"And what about your soul?"

I glared at her. "The first night I sat at my desk and listened to him hit you, I lost my soul."

"And every time after that?"

My eyes fell away from hers. I had never expected to tell her this. I had never expected to tell anyone. "After that there was nothing. Anything considered self respect left me long ago, well before I ever knew you. If there is a list of wrongs that the Devil keeps, then I shall be his most prized gift."

"What about the night you killed him?"

* * *

Wide-eyed I stared at her, busted lips parted, bruised face unable to show that I had blanched. "How did you know?"

"I heard you talking when you strangled him," she said. She looked away as she spoke, staring at the dresser. "I thought you would come into the house and kill Lisette, then rape me, so I hid. I couldn't let anything happen to her, and I was," she paused and swallowed, 'sore from the night before. I took her from her bed and hid her in the cellar. She fell asleep in my arms, and I listened to you tell him exactly why he would die."

She had known. For years she had always known that I had killed him, that I had strangled him in the garden. She heard—and possibly watched—as I took his body under the arms and dragged him down the path, tossed a rope over a branch, and hung him.

"After I heard you speak, I knew you would not harm me, at least not physically. That was why I approached you."

"As a favor?" I asked. How I hoped that wasn't true. How I prayed that she had not given me the last five years of something as near to joy as I would ever know out of gratitude. I wanted her to love me. I wanted her to care for me as much as I realized I cared for her. My reason for killing Louis Seuratti had always been music. I couldn't write if he hit her, if he threw her against the wall or forced himself onto her. But there was more. I couldn't write because I couldn't think and I couldn't think because she was on my mind.

She had been embedded in my thoughts far longer than I had ever known.

"No, it wasn't a favor."

"Then why?"

"Because I could hear you playing music late at night when the windows were open in the summer. Once in a while, I could hear you singing softly and no matter what had happened, it made me feel safe and it made me dream things…"

"Things?" I asked, barely able to speak.

"Things that were beautiful."

Whatever she had given me for pain had to have made all of this into an elaborate hallucination. I purposely dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand. God in Heaven, it was all real. Everything she said was real.

"Beautiful?"

"Things that made me…I don't know what it made me but I asked Madeline about you and she said nothing. She tried to tell me there was no one else in the house but I told her I had seen you. I tried for weeks," she paused, deciding whether or not to continue, I'm sure. We were like two drunks sitting in a pub, divulging the most fragile parts of our souls. Perhaps she had taken a pill as well.

"What did you try?" I whispered.

The clock chimed midnight and stole the rest of our conversation. My heart sank, knowing she would soon leave me for her own room. I was tempted to ask her to stay with me just once so that I could feel the warmth of her body beside mine when I woke.

With a deep breath and a yawn, she tossed bandages into the drawer, stirred my soup, and did a final survey of the room.

"Do you need anything for the night?"

Her question was one that would not receive an honest answer. I shook my head. Then she left. I never touched my food. I was hungry in a way that food would never fill.


	29. Trap Door Opened

Ch 29

_Recap: (told by Erik) I was surprised to learn that Julia has always known that I killed Louis Seuratti. She brought me dinner and I never ate it. The only hunger I had was for her._

That was fun. :) Penkitten suggest recaps to keep everyone up to date since no one is reading just one story.

* * *

By the sheer mercy of God, I managed to slide my feet over the bed, steady myself for one pathetic step, and collapsed with the grace of a rock into the wheelchair. My shins were on fire, my upper legs fatigued by the pressure of weight, and my ribs suffering from movement. Julia never said if she suspected one being broken, though from the feel of it, I assumed it was so. My father had very kindly given me the experience of a broken rib before in my youth. The inability to inhale deeply was similar to what I remembered in youth, as was the blackened eye and dislocated shoulder. A broken rib, however, seemed like the last of my concerns. For at least ten minutes of torment, I thought my stomach would erupt. Thank God it was nothing more than a feeling. 

A few deep breathes and muttered curses and I squeaked and creaked my way down the narrow hall, scraping a path against the walls on my way to the water closet. I hit my already bruised knuckles against the walls as I teetered back and forth. Another storm growled somewhere outside of Paris, and my path was illuminated by the occasional wink of lightning. I imagine I must have looked like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein in a moaning wheelchair.

Once I returned to the bedroom undisturbed, I knew without a doubt that I wouldn't sleep. There were two reasons, one of which made me wonder if I was going mad. Ever since Alex insisted bringing her home, the Basset Hound, Bessie, has slept in my room, usually in my bed. For weeks I howled and made a stink over it since the dog was supposed to be his responsibility. I threatened to take it somewhere and leave it but Madeline swore she would take on the duty of caring for the dog. Not even a day later, the thing was scratching at my door, whining and crying and begging to be allowed in for the night.

Not having her warm, wet nose against the back of my neck or her nails digging into my spine made it impossible to sleep again. One would think that for once, I would have been able to rest. But there was no one. Even Julia would have sufficed, though I imagine if I would have told her she was replacing a dog, she would have poisoned me.

But I couldn't close my eyes. If I fell asleep again, I knew I would wake the whole house. A childhood spent beaten and a lifetime as a recluse made nights anything but restful. Before I locked my door at night, Madeline would come in and wake me with a violent shaking. She would force me to change from sweat-soaked clothes so that I wouldn't catch a cold. Only once did she stay with me until I fell asleep again. I will never forget the childlike delight I derived from feeling her hand in mine. She has always been my mother, as much of one as I had ever known. She has tolerated much for my sake.

Around three in the morning, I heard the floor creaking upstairs. The sound moved down the stairs, light and devious. It was either Alex or Lisette, and since Lisette was with her mother, I knew it was Alex. He was coming down the hall when I turned down the lamp.

"You should be sleeping," I said when the door moaned open.

He was quiet for a moment and I smirked. He was sly, but he wasn't as practiced as I was for lurking about unseen. "How did you know?"

"I know everything."

He chuckled then as he padded into the room and stood beside the bed. "May I stay here for the night?"

Since he couldn't see me, I turned over in bed and sighed. "It's rude of you to go walking about the house at night, Alexandre. You are a guest. I trust you will act properly."

"Yes, father."

"Sit," I ordered, fearing he would leave me. Wide awake and restless, I had no desire to be alone. In darkness I could speak to him as I should have long ago. There was always such safety in darkness. Lightning flashed again, spreading through the gap where the curtain didn't quite touch the window sill.

Alexandre flopped into the chair that Julia had occupied earlier. "May I turn up the lamp?"

"No. Why are you awake?"

He hesitated. All I could hear was his breathing. "Madame Seuratti told me I had to stay in Lisette's room. I told her that you said I could stay here and she refused. I lay awake until I knew for sure she was asleep."

He had me both appalled and impressed. There was no question that he was my son. Still, he needed to be reprimanded. My path in life would not be his.

"In the morning, I'll have Madame Seuratti bring me an ink pen and paper. Your list of punishments is growing, Alex, starting with you disappearing the other night. You should not have left."

He gasped, undoubtedly wishing he had remained in bed for the night. "I was angry."

"Anger is not a reason."

He muttered something under his breath and moved in the chair again.

"Open your mouth when you answer me, Alex. I will not tolerate you murmuring."

"I said you've used it as an excuse. Sir."

He made a valiant attempt at the end to save himself from trouble, one that would not work. As much as I had not intended to argue with him, he was speaking in a manner I did not care for. Not at all.

"And look where it has taken me," I muttered back. A fine example of do as I say, not as I do if there ever was one.

Neither of us spoke for a while. His silence made me increasingly uncomfortable, especially since he decided to tap his fingernails on the bedside table.

"Father?" Alex said at last.

I grunted.

He was silent again. I picked out his silhouette in the darkness as he sat slouched over in the chair. He was really nothing more than a head tilted down and a body cut off at chest level. By the movements of his shoulders and arms, he was fidgeting.

"Did Madame Seuratti put honey on the wounds?"

There were times when he spoke and I had no idea what he meant by his words. My first instinct was to laugh at the absurdity of his question. "No," I replied dryly. "She didn't have enough ants."

"Oh."

He didn't understand. It was difficult to think of him as a child sometimes as he was amazingly advanced in mathematics, history, science and language. Literature was the only thing that didn't interest him, and I found his indifference to books kept him out of my library.

"It's a form of torture," I explained. At least there was something I could teach him, something good for a change. Like torture. "The honey attracts ants, the ants bite."

It really was ironic, given the situation. Honey drawing something that would invite danger and pain.

"Ancient Egyptians used honey to cover wounds. It keeps out infection," he explained.

Not exactly the discussion I had expected, but he amused me. His enthusiasm was something I had always lacked. His retention of the most bizarre facts always made me smirk.

"I thought he had killed you," Alex said suddenly.

For a moment I stopped breathing, unsure of how much he had seen. My greatest fear was that he had witnessed all of it, every kick, every punch, every bit of the fight.

"You're fortunate he didn't see you. And that I didn't see you as well."

He said nothing as a reply. My eyes closed in the darkness. He had come close to danger, closer than I found necessary. It was foolish for him to be out that night and even more so that he was looming around the hotel.

"He did see you, then, didn't he?"

"Yes," came the weak reply.

"How?" I asked. Again there was silence borne of frustration and humiliation. "Alex, I asked you—"

"I threw a rock at him," he answered through his teeth. "So that he wouldn't kick you again, I threw a rock at him." His body shuddered. "They…"

"They what?" I demanded.

"They took off the…" he stopped, unwilling to say it.

"The mask," I said for him. The words came easier than I had expected. He nodded in the dark and brought a hand to his face. He sniffled and wiped his eyes. "He was going to break your nose, I think. So I threw a rock at him and he chased me."

"Oh, Alex," I sighed. That had been my fear, that the vicomte would see my son, his wife's son. If he knew what Alex looked like, he would be able to find him. And now he knew that I had told the truth for Alex is the mirror image of his mother. No wonder he had come to the door. He would be looking for Alexandre now.

"I heard what he said about you, father. He's a liar. He's a liar and a pig and I would do it again. He's wrong about everything."

"What did he say?"

"I would kill him next time," he said, ignoring my question. "I would smash the rock into his face and I would kill him…I would kill him," he panted.

"Don't say that," I whispered. He was a good son, an intelligent youth. Despite my own hatred, I didn't want him to feel as I had for so long. Hatred was a disease that constantly needed to be fed. If there was anything I had to say about it, I would starve his loathing.

He inhaled a ragged breath to stop his tears. "I never want to meet her. I saw her. I know what she looks like but I never want to see her. Not ever."

"Did she watch?" I murmured. I had expected that if she could see from the hotel that she would have stood by the window and observed.

He didn't answer. The chair scraped against the wooden floor and he rose, his hands groping in the darkness to find his way from the room. "I know what she looks like." His form moved towards the door. He lingered a moment in silence. "Father, I know what you look like as well."

I thought he had walked out of the room. I could no longer see his shadow in the darkness, not past my tears. I started to reach for the lamp when I heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."

"Alexandre?"

"Father, I'm sorry."

The door closed behind him and I heard his footsteps shuffle up the stairs again.

Once I heard the bedroom door upstairs close, I sat up in bed and turned on the light. There were two things his parting words may have meant. He could have been very sorry indeed for seeing my terrible face. Or he could have regretted ever stepping foot in my room. The proof of his boundless knowledge sat on the table, a disappearing painted smile smirking at me.

The figurine of his mother, which he had left on the bedside table, looked into my eyes.

_This is my gift to you, _she said. _The gift of one night, a compensation for your misery made out of pity._

My hand swept out and knocked the wax figure on its side. So that was what he had been holding the entire time, what he had been fidgeting with while we spoke. I knew then that this figurine was the reason why he had come into the bedroom in the first place, a wordless confession. He knew the way into my locked room. He had discovered the path into the cellar, and God knows what else. Far too much, I suspected.

He was more like me than I could have imagined, trap doors and all.


	30. Temptation and Impure Thoughts

_Recap (by Erik) Alex crept downstairs and spoke to me in the night. When I turned up the lamp, my figurine of Christine was left on the bedside table._

_On a different note, Gabrina would also like you to know that she will not be in town on Sunday 4/17, thus I will be unable to continue my story until Monday afternoon. Tell her she mustn't leave ever again. It irritates me to no end that I must suffer because of her needs._

Ch 30

Silence has always been a form of torture. Most of my life has been spent alone and always feeling dejected. Even as I shared the same house as Madeline, Meg, Charles and Alexandre, I have never lived with them. They existed in a world separated from mine. I felt the gap expanding as I laid awake in an unfamiliar room with the portrait of a dead man staring at me.

Given far too much time, I did nothing but think. I was beginning to think I was to blame for my own misery. It was not a flattering thought, not in the least. For as long as I could remember, it was always my face that had impregnated in the minds of those around me that I was more a creature than a human. My corpse's face drew people back aghast, spreading horror like disease. Though Madeline had seen me unmasked long ago, and now so had Julia and even my own son. It wasn't my appearance that would drive them away. There was another ugly beast, one more vile and disgusting than the thing on the outside.

That was a beast even I could not tolerate.

Julia came to check on me as the dawn peered through the bottom of the curtain with a slit of gray. Rain still pelted the windows. I was near enough the wall to be able to draw back the curtains and gaze at the drab start to the day. For a while I watched the rivulets streak the windows like tears against a clear face. It almost seemed like a shame that something so easy to see through had nothing to reveal. Julia had made me feel like a pane of glass.

I listened to Julia in the kitchen as she removed pots and pans from the cabinets. For a while I stared at the wheel chair and contemplated wheeling myself to the dining room table, though as much as I wanted to see her, I didn't want to confront her. All I could think of was how she had asked if I need anything and the only thing I could think of was that I needed her. She would never believe me. I had made certain of that.

Before long, however, there was no choice but to confront her again. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted down the hall and I knew she would be bringing breakfast soon enough. This, I thought, must have been how the lion at the zoo feels: his pride diminished, his every need controlled by a hand outside the iron bars.

While I waited, I thought about Alexandre. The wax figurine he had left in the room had been shoved into the drawer and removed a dozen times. Each time I looked at the damned thing, my anger increased. She had betrayed me, and I couldn't help but wonder if I could change her feelings towards me if I saw her one last time. Thinking of her gave me the strength and anger to straighten my fingers back into place.

Alexandre concerned me more than Christine. He had no right to be in my room nosing around like a pig through. Since I had purchased the property, I had always required my privacy. Alex had invaded that privacy by entering my bedroom unescorted. He knew he was not allowed on the upper floor. No one, other than Madeline, was ever allowed to enter and she was only allowed to clean when I was present.

The figurine left behind was a mockery, complete disregard from all trust I had put in him. He had not only wandered around the bedroom, he had rummaged through the cellar. From there, I had no idea where he had gone. For all I knew, he had gone up through the trap door and entered the library or had wandered about all the way to the old opera house.

I only knew for certain that he had taken the figurine and that in and of itself was horrific. He would have seen where the paint was most warn, along the face, the carved breasts, the center of the hips. It angered me that he had found it and that I had left it to be discovered. I could only assume the little heathen had gone through Christine's old letters as well. The letters…He had to have seen all of the letters.

Julia knocked on the door. Startled, I tossed the figurine into the drawer and slammed it shut, nearly catching my finger. She assumed that my stifled curse was an invitation to enter.

"You look terrible," Julia commented as she walked in backwards with a tray in hand.

"Flattery will get you no where," I grumbled. It was painful to look at her. The moment she entered, I looked away. Meeting her eye would only promote lust, and I knew she would deny me.

"Didn't you sleep?" she interrogated me. I made no reply.

She walked towards the bed and stirred the soup again. "You didn't like it?"

"Never tried it."

Her head tilted to the side as she examined me. She leaned forward and gently placed the back of her hand against my forehead, then each cheek until she grunted. The concern I had held before of her seeing me without my normal appearance had left me. I knew there was indifference in her hazel eyes. She saw something entirely different than I had ever seen.

"There's no fever."

"I never said I had a fever."

"No, but you did run a temperature yesterday and it's best to be certain that it didn't return." Julia looked towards the table again and I followed her eyes. The drawer had not closed completely. I couldn't let her see the wax replica of Christine. My hand shot out and slammed the door shut before she could touch the handle. She glared at me, then shook her head, deciding not to ask what I was up to.

"You were starving to death last night," she said as she removed the untouched bowl from the table and set breakfast down in its place. "What is it? Why didn't you eat?"

"Given the circumstances, I would expect you know already," I answered irritably.

"Didn't I tell you to eat? Your stomach is probably upset."

"There is nothing wrong with my stomach."

"Starving children in the world, orphans left to die in the streets,and you waste your perfectly good supper," she mumbled.

"Then send it to them," I snapped. "Find everyone in need of charity and welcome them into your home."

She refused to look at me. "You are simply impossible," she said under her breath. "Nothing will change that, will it? You can't even have sense beaten into you."

"Apparently not," I replied.

Julia didn't appreciate my need to have the last word. She slammed the door shut and left for a while with the soup bowl in her hands. While I picked at breakfast, I heard her as she stomped down the hall and woke the children. The back door opened and closed and I assumed she had sent Lisette down to the bakery or out to run an errand. It was nearly nine when I saw Julia again.

"What happened?" I asked when she entered the guest room. I had found a book stowed beneath the bed and, with nothing else to do, had read myself into boredom over Norse mythology.

"It's still raining," she replied.

Her hair was damp, as was her face and dress. She held up a cloth sack, though with how her clothes clung to her body I had no interest in the bag.

"I have your belongings," she said as she turned to the side and pulled the drawstring apart. "Madeline said she would stop by later. She has a letter for you."

"From who?"

Julia looked away. "I haven't any idea." That was a lie, but I said nothing. I already knew the answer.

For all I cared, Julia could have been speaking Chinese. There was nothing on my mind other than what was beneath the layers of wet clothing. Her curves were unmistakable, leaving nothing to my ravenous imagination. My desire increased. I set the book on my lap and folded my arms.

Julia glanced up and sighed as she noticed me at last. She placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. "Honestly, Erik," she scolded. "Have you no self control?"

Being caught brought no shame and I didn't even bother to look at her face. It had been exactly eight days since she had last invited me to her home.

"Erik," she warned.

My eyes met hers. "Why didn't you say you were going to visit Madeline? There are things I wanted you to retrieve." I couldn't help but look away, wishing my hands could be in the same place as my eyes.

Julia crossed her arms and forced me to look at her face again. Her cheeks had flushed by my brazen interest. "Retrieve? Such as what?"

"Alex's dog."

She forced a smile from her lips, knowing very well that calling it Alex's dog was a fabrication. "Absolutely not, Erik. I'll not have a dog in my house. They're filthy creatures."

"The dog makes less of a mess than Alex."

She rolled her eyes and began folding the clothes into a neat pile. "Well, it seems your dog and your son now have something in common." She walked the clothes over to the dresser and moved several items out, setting them on the dresser. Men's clothes, I realized, and Louis Seuratti's clothes at that. That gave me a sense of satisfaction. "Did you know your son threw a rock and hit the vicomte?"

"I knew he threw a rock." I would have shook his hand had I known actually hit the boy.

She looked away again, not realizing I could see her smile reflected in the mirror. "Your dog bit his hand."

"Good. Now if Meg and Madeline beat the holy hell out of him, I'd say we were even."

"This is serious. He threatened to have the gendarmes come down and take the dog away. Madeline said she hid the dog in your bedroom all night."

"I'll kill him if anything happens to that damned dog."

Julia turned and looked at me, her eyes sliding downward. I followed her gaze and realized she was staring at the dark bruises. Her eyes lingered a moment before she swallowed hard and turned away, fixing her wet hair behind her head.

"You should dress. It isn't healthy to lie around like this. You will catch a fever if you sit around half-naked," Julia commented. She opened the drawer she had just closed and removed a shirt I had watched her fold. Without meeting my eye, she neared the bed. By all appearances, she was flustered. "I have a thousand things to do today and not a moment to spare to you and your dawdling. Come on, lift your arms."

She leaned over me and threaded my arm through the new shirt, which would have been humiliating had it not been for her position at my side. I stared at the outline of her breast, drinking in each detail with unabashed delight.

"I have half the mind to sock you in the eye, Erik," she murmured as she sat on the bedside and buttoned my shirt. It never ceased to amaze me that she was more aware of my roving eyes than I gave her credit for. Still, I refused to look away.

"Perhaps you should not be so tempting," I muttered.

Something came over me, a strange spell of sorts as her fingers grazed my skin. She smelled different than I remembered, sweeter, perhaps. There were so many things about her that I noticed for the first time, like the way she moved her mouth as she fitted each button through the hole, counting as she went. I was mesmerized by way she moved her tongue over her upper lip when she concentrated, as she did when she stopped and checked a long scratch across my stomach. She had me completely entranced, awestruck by the warmth of her smooth fingers and the gentle scrape of her nails as they moved deftly from my neck down to where I feared she would notice my interest in her. But I couldn't look away. I stared at her painted lips and envisioned them red and swollen from hours of kissing, damp from the contact with mine.

More than anything, I wanted to know what her kiss tasted like. Sex seemed secondary. I had slept with her. I had the pleasure of touching her, of kissing her shoulders, her neck and wherever else she allowed, but never her lips. Not once. Not ever. I felt like I was missing something, a strange secret that the world enjoyed but that had always eluded me, that I had denied myself.

"There. Good. I'll be back in an hour or so, the children will be upstairs…" she started to say. She began to rise but I caught her by the wrist and she stopped, perfect lips agape as she stared down at me. "What is it?"

My heart was thundering so loudly, I couldn't even hear my own thoughts. "If you closed your eyes, if you didn't have to see it, would you allow me to kiss you? Just once?" I blurted out. "Just once."


	31. A Kiss Denied

Ch 31

_Recap (by Erik) Gabrina has returned! For three days as she went and trotted down to St. Louis. Then had problems with this website. She claims she will update twice today. _

_Earlier, I gave Julia all hell though I discovered I was very attracted to her. At the end of the chapter, I was suspended with my final question: I requested a kiss from Julia._

* * *

"Just once…" I whispered. "And then never again."

The moment I finished speaking, I inhaled a sharp, violent breath as though that would somehow draw the words back inside of me and banish them forever. My eyes closed to my own foolishness. There was nothing I could have done to sound more pathetic than begging her for a kiss.

The last image burned in my mind was the exact thing I wanted so badly: her perfect oval lips slightly parted, moistened by her tongue, opened as they would have been to my mouth had she agreed. But they had opened in horror, in questioning, in repulsion of my blatant and inappropriate request. And she had not said a word.

Her continued silence prompted my eyes to open and I saw that her hand remained extended. The same expression was still branded on her face as well. Riga mortis would have set in had she stayed as she was a moment longer.

"Oh Erik," she said under her breath once I glanced at her.

That was as good of an answer as any. I turned away, wanting to rise from that damned bed and crawl back home if need be.

She sighed and I felt the bed lower as she sat down beside me.

"There's a doctor who lives a few streets away," she said, keeping her voice low and irritatingly pleasant. "His name is Dr. Cordell and he has seen Charles a few times, I believe. We worked together during the war when I volunteered, and I believe that if I ask him, he will allow me a small amount of morphine for your pain. You'll sleep, you'll get your rest at last, and then in the morning, you won't be in such terrible pain."

"That will not stop my pain!" I shouted. I glared at her, chest heaving, nostrils flared. "I don't need for you to sedate me! I didn't ask for you to drug me! Did you even hear my question? I asked you to kiss me. Just tell me yes or no and nothing more."

She sat back, most likely assuming that I was out of my mind and very much in need of being sedated after screaming in her face and demanding such an answer. With more calm than I could imagine, she folded her hands in her lap and licked her lips.

"Erik, please," she started. Her words never finished any farther than that. She shook her head and looked away.

I shuddered at her words and nodded slowly, mourning my loss of her intimacy. My right hand rose to my face, and I covered all that I could of my hideous, repulsive flesh. The violence of my own action resulted in a self-inflicted slap and a rush of pain as my fingers pressed onto the stitches. The tingle turned to fire, and the fire stoked my rage. Through my fingers, I watched as she tilted her head to the side and frowned.

"Don't look at me," I demanded through my teeth.

"That has nothing to do with my answer."

Like a wounded animal, I snarled and hissed and begged her to come after me and administer a lethal blow, something so horrendous I would never recover from for as long as I lived. As I sat there, I could only hope to die soon.

"Then what does?" I asked bitterly. My hand lowered and I pointed at my eye, running my fingers down along my cheek and then back up to my temple. "This does not play a part in your decision, Madame? Don't lie to me! Tell me why you refuse!"

She sighed again and shifted, moving so that her knee was against my leg. I started to reach for her and stopped. I could barely stand it, everything I felt inside: anger, resentment, shame, desire.

"I didn't refuse," she said quietly.

Christine had given me hope and ripped it away. The world had offered little glimmers like shiny pieces of glass to ignorant primates. I had been ensnared by what had seemed a sweet treat, only to have my fist caught in a trap, my insides removed as I was still awake and acutely aware of my punishment.

I would not look at Julia again, I would not find the glint of her hazel eyes to draw me in, the sparkle of her lips damp and waiting.

"Erik, look at me."

Having not an ounce of self control, I did exactly as I swore I would not.

"I will not kiss you," she said slowly.

My terrible face twisted in disbelief. Her method of torture was meticulous, each blow planned to create the desired effect. She had me bound by the wrists and ankles, hot coals settled over my heart and bamboo rods jammed beneath my nails. She had said she hadn't refused me only to draw me into her game and slice me, hack me, chop me into the smallest, most pathetic pieces possible. There was never a moment I wanted to die more than when I looked into her eyes. She had masked her cruelty with excruciatingly beautiful detail. Even through the pain, I wanted to touch her. I would have returned to her on hands and knees if she would have allowed it.

My want for her was no better than my want for Christine. It was worse, if anything.

Everything inside of me began to shut down. My eyes closed, my lips and hands trembled, and a rush of cold replaced the heat of my anger. She had rejected me in a way I had never imagined, in a way so complete that it felt like an earthquake where the shock would resonate for days, months, years, decades longer. This would take a lifetime to grasp.

Her hand touched mine and I glanced up, startled by the contact. The torment continued as she allowed a mere taste, a bone given to a starving dog while the feast is laid out before him.

"I will not kiss you. Not until you give me a reason to kiss you," she said.

"A reason?" I stammered.

Julia sat back and looked at her folded hands. "This last year, the last three days in particular, you have been impossible. You have gone out on your own accord, stirred up trouble, and suffered the consequences of your thoughtless behavior."

The motherly side of her reared its head as I sat beside her, helplessly fascinated by her every word. There was hope that I would kiss her yet, and I very much wanted to touch her lips.

"You are far too accustomed to getting your way. Madeline, Meg, even I have been guilty of keeping you content—or as content as you will allow. You do as you wish without earning a damned thing, taking what you want without giving back. Those days, it seems, have caught up with you at last. If you wish to be shown affection, you must earn the privilege."

"How?" I asked before she had finished her sentence. My hand lowered, my interest piqued in the labyrinth she had designed for my desires.

The slightest of smiles tugged at her lips. "You are not so helpless as that, Erik. You already you know the answer. Once you decide to admit it to yourself, perhaps then you will have what you want."

My anger rose again. "You do this out of pity."

She turned her head to the side and rose from the bed. "For you, I do nothing out of pity. I am not Christine."


	32. The Man in the Painting and the Disaster...

_In the last chapter, Julia refused to kiss me. She also made the comment that she is not Christine.

* * *

_

Ch 32

Just as Julia said, she disappeared for quite some time. My bladder needed emptying again and I needed to try my strength once more. I sat upright and rolled my pant legs as far up as I could, which was to the knee. The dark bruises to my shins had turned yellow in spots, which seemed like a good sign. The bruises were already starting to heal.

For most of my life, I had enjoyed good health. Perhaps my body knew that there would be no one to care for me and that sickness would be fatal. Whatever the reason, I was the last one in the house to ever catch any illness and wounds healed remarkably well.

Counting to five, I forced myself out of bed and steadied myself on the bedside table, maintaining part of my weight on my arms. Slowly, I stood upright and felt a sharp pain race up my shins to my knees. I cursed several times, then took a step. To my surprise, I stayed upright. One by one, I stepped across the room to the door. The pain diminished with each step, and, bracing myself against the wall, I walked to the water closet and back down the hall without event.

The mishap, as of course there had to be something of disaster, happened when I returned to the room. The moment I walked in, I stared at the family portrait. Little Lisette sat perched on her mother's lap. She had been a toddler in the painting, a miniature of her mother in every way. The two sitting together would have been angelic had it not been for the devil beside them. The longer I stared the more hellacious my anger turned and the more determined I was to destroy the memory of him.

"You hit her as well," I said to Louis Seuratti. "I heard you the week before you died how you struck Lisette. I nearly came for you then for slapping her little face but the moon was full and I couldn't come for you then." I paused, waiting for his expression to change, willing him to come back to life so that I would have the joy of killing him again.

My legs had healed enough so that I could walk, and though I knew I could return home by nightfall, I had no interest in that canvas staring at me a moment longer.

"Julia is mine now. I will make her mine," I said to him as I inched forward. "You never deserved her, you son of a bitch."

Two steps from the wall, my foot caught against the wheelchair and I pitched forward, catching myself on my hands, but not before I hit my forehead on the dresser. In the back of my mind, I heard Louis Seuratti cackle in delight of my mishap.

A red sheet of blood flooded down from the reopened wound and I rolled from face down to sitting on the floor. I pressed both hands to my face and drew them back. The amount of blood made me nauseous. Without thinking, I smeared the crimson stain onto the wooden floor and onto my pant legs, then attempted to stop the flow of blood by pressing my fingers onto the injury.

"Laugh all you want," I muttered bitterly. "I will sleep in her bed again, and you? You know nothing but worms and rot."

The blow to the head made me dizzy after several minutes, as the shock of what I had just done sank in. To keep the room from swirling, I laid my head down on the floor, back in my own blood, and breathed through my mouth. Time passed. I did nothing but wait, unable to maintain balance and my stomach.

"My God," I heard Julia's voice after a while. "What in the hell are you doing on the… You're bleeding…what happened to your head? What in the world are you doing?"

I groaned and opened my eyes. "I hate him."

For a moment I blacked out. The next thing I knew, Julia was attempting to roll me from my stomach to my back. That I found amusing in a cynical way, as I outweighed her by at least sixty pounds, if not more. She was muttering something under her breath as she held half a dozen towels to my head.

"Stupid, stupid, prideful man," she scolded. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"If you didn't give me so much water, I wouldn't be out of bed."

"Sit up. You've got blood everywhere; my floors, the dresser, your shirt, pants. I should have known that the children would keep the house neat and you, confined to one room, would make it into a sty." She sighed again in frustration. "Must I tie you to the bed?"

Despite the pain, I smiled at her. "As you wish, Madame."

Julia attempted to keep her anger but she failed miserably, allowing a slight laugh to escape her lips. "Idiot," she muttered. "You are maddening, do you know that? You dreadful pig of a man."

My hand replaced hers in keeping the towels in place. "Take the painting down. I can't stand it a moment longer."

"Is that why you are out of bed?"

"No, I told you why I was out of bed." Did she ever listen to me? She was quick to assume I was up to something. What would ever give her that impression, I wondered? "But I don't want to have him look at you—or me."

She regarded me a moment but eventually nodded, deciding not to question my hatred for a portrait. I watched as she rose to her feet, went to the wall, and removed the painting. She left it facing backwards, propped up against the wall. When she turned, she knew I was staring at her from behind and shook her head.

"Worse than a dog in heat," she said as she crossed her arms and stood over me. "Up with you, Erik. If you managed to make your way down the hall, I trust you can stand again. I'll stitch you up again once I clean my hands."

She left again and I managed to crawl to the bed and climb back beneath the covers. She returned and shook her head in disapproval. "You can't lie there covered in blood. Change your clothes," she ordered. She went to the dresser, pulled out a new shirt and pants suitable for sleeping, and left them hanging over the bedside chair.

"Are you staying?" I asked.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed in disgust. "You have ten minutes. If you are not properly dressed when I return, you may stitch yourself up."

I nodded, deciding not to grate on her nerves any more than I had. My comments thus far had done nothing to warm my bed.

Once I was redressed, she knocked on the door and entered. Her face appeared flushed, her chest—which of course I noticed—rose and fell in rapid movements.

"What is it?" I asked as she plopped into the chair and rubbed her eyes with her fists.

"Nothing. Close your eyes and lay your head back."

"You look exhausted," I commented. I did as she asked and closed my eyes to her, finding it easier to speak when I didn't meet her gaze.

"You are not the only one who needs to be cared for in the house," she commented.

Julia cleaned the wound swiftly, so swiftly that I was barely aware of what she was doing before it was over. I heard her snip the end off her thread. Without notice, she pierced the bruised, swollen skin.

My back arched and I sucked in a breath. "My God, that hurts."

"I expected so. Relax."

"Relax? There is a piece of curved metal moving beneath my skin," I said under my breath.

"Had you not been so concerned over a portrait, you wouldn't be stitched up again."

"I hate him."

"So do I," she whispered, concentrating on keeping my head together.

Each time the needle passed through, I flinched. My eyes began to water from the continuous pain and soon my sinuses were draining. She handed me a towel to hold to my nose.

"Then why do you keep it?"

Julia paused a moment. "For Lisette."

"So that she may cherish a man who hit her mother?" I asked angrily. She didn't know that I had seen Louis hit Lisette and I decided it was for the best not to mention it now, while she held an object of great pain inches from my eyes.

"So that she may know her father and love him. She has no one else besides me. If she can look at it and find peace in his image, so be it," Julia muttered. She sighed again. "You're still bleeding badly. Hold the towel a moment. I need something more to clear the blood."

Before I even knew what she was doing, Julia opened the drawer and rummaged through for something to clean the reopened wound. My eyes popped open. I watched her in horror, my face flushed, my eyes widened to witness every macabre detail. She placed several cleaning clothes and an amber bottle on the table top. Then she stopped.

That damned wax figure, I thought. How could there possibly be another space for a nail in my coffin?

She shut the drawer and turned back to me and her eyes settled on my forehead. She hadn't seen it. Or she had and ignored it.

"It looks like the blood has stopped flowing so quickly. Close your eyes again."

"Why didn't you ever marry again?" I asked suddenly, still bothered by Louis Seuratti, who remained in the room with his back to us.

"I had you."

That made me grunt, despite her mocking me. "You'd be happier if you weren't here alone," I replied. It seemed appropriate though I hoped she would never marry for my own selfish reasons.

Julia stopped and I opened my eyes. She smiled forlornly and dabbed my head again. "I never wanted to marry in the first place," she said quietly. "Louis was my grandfather's design. They knew each other from the army. Pappi thought he would be good. He said he would tame my spirit." She paused. "There is a saying: _blue eyes, soul of the devil_. He was always certain that I was possessed by something. He and Mammi both."

Exactly how I knew her maiden name was unclear. Perhaps Madeline had mentioned it at one time or another, but I had always known that Julia was a Falchetti, a Sicilian girl from a strict Catholic family. Half of her family had moved just outside of Paris when she was ten. There were hundreds of Falchetti's in and around Paris as, being Catholic, there were eighteen children in her family and all, aside from Julia, had a large number of their own offspring. All of them were slaughter house workers or politicians. Frankly, it was impossible to tell one from the next.

Julia was the only one not married, and, because of her status, she was the only one separated from the family. None of her sisters or brothers came to visit her, even after their parents had passed away. Only once had she ever mentioned it to me. It was the only time I had ever seen her cry before the incident with the boy, which had led me to her home.

"What does an arranged marriage have to do with you never marrying again?" I persisted.

"My brother, Antonio, would find me a suitable match. He thinks I am still in mourning. No, I take that back. He knows I was never in morning. He suspects I have become a woman of low station. He thinks it is perverse that there is a man who comes to my home several times a week."

"He knows?" I wondered if she talked about me. The idea was arousing.

"He suspects. The last time I saw him, he told me that when I came to my senses, he would find a man forgiving enough to take me."

There was no way to continue with the conversation without my irritation flaring again. Her own brother insulted her.

I decided to change the subject.

"Why do you look so terrible—" A perfect segue. I recovered quickly, for once, "Your eyes are red. Why are you so tired?"

"I can't sleep," she said as she pulled the needle and thread through my skin. "And don't you even say a word that I need someone with me at night."

She could have tortured me far worse physically if I said a word. I gave a wry smile as a sign of a truce to my lecherous thoughts. "Why aren't you sleeping, then?"

"I don't know."

"This is excruciating. The least you could do at the moment is tell me the truth."

She hesitated, "It's Alexandre."

"What has he done?"

"No, he's done nothing. I'm…I'm afraid for him, Erik. Every time I close my eyes, I see the vicomte. I think he'll know that Alex is here. I keep seeing him knock on the front door, push me aside, and take Alex. If he tried, there is nothing I could do to stop him and it frightens me. I don't want him to hurt Alexandre."

I felt the ends of the thread pulled, forming a knot, and I opened my eyes. Her face was streaked in tears, her lip trembling.

"He won't come here."

"You have no idea what he would do."

"No, I don't, but if he comes here...if he comes near Alex, I will kill him. If he so much as touches you—if he even thinks of touching you—I will rip his head from his shoulders."

Julia shook her head and wiped the corners of her eyes. "A pleasant thought," she said as she sniffled. She rose from the bed, straightened her dress, and opened the drawer again.

The thread in her hand dropped back into the drawer and she paused, moving something out of the way. My heart stopped. I knew she had seen it.

She swept Wax Christine up from the drawer and turned the figurine over in her hand for a moment, curiosity piqued. I imagine she tried to identify it first as one of her daughter's playthings, which made everything a great deal worse when she finally turned and looked at me. How I wished there had been medication available for humiliation.

At first she said nothing. She simply went back and forth between looking at me, then the object in hand. Perhaps this was far beyond the perversion she ever conceived even I was capable of. My only hope was that she didn't laugh. As ridiculous as it was, it had been mine for years.

"This is her?" Julia asked at last.

With eyes averted, I nodded, feeling yet again the burn of shame. This thing, this simple object, was not something I had ever been proud of keeping. All of my loneliness was contained in this one simple figure of longing. She was my obsession, my heartache, my every need for the majority of my life. She was my deepest pain, my greatest joy, my most unbearable regret. This is what I sat awake with at night and caressed, what I held for hours on end and stared at.

She had driven me mad. I hadn't even realized it until Julia had held it in her hands.

"I suspect you have no explanation to give willingly?" Julia asked at last. She straightened, tossed Wax Christine back into the drawer, and folded her arms. To my relief, she said nothing more.

"No."

Julia shook her head and turned away, staring at the backwards painting. "I find it quite ironic that you cannot accept that there is a picture of my dead husband within my house when you have a wax figurine of a woman who left you for dead in an alley at your bedside."

She said it to shame me, I know, but in the back of my mind I thought of what she had said earlier. I couldn't fight with her a moment longer. The trench of vile words and actions I had dug needed to be filled and forgotten.

I opened the drawer, removed the figurine that had served as a replacement for Christine, and slammed it into the table. It broke it into two pieces against the edge, with small crumbles falling to the floor.

"That is how much I think of her," I said, and I tossed the two pieces onto the dresser, into the heap of bloodied towels and bandages, into the pile garbage where it belonged. "That is how much I need her memory."

Neither of us said another word. Julia turned around and stared at the two chunks of painted wax for a moment. She looked at me, straight in the eye, and leaned over. With one hand on the bed to brace herself, she pushed back what little hair there was from my face, and kissed me once on the cheek.

My eyes closed and I shuddered with the warmth of her touch. She felt like sunlight, like purity, like everything I had ever needed to survive. That was the single most pleasurable moment I had ever experienced in my life.

And when it ended, I wanted more.


	33. Kiss of Heaven, and Hell at the Door

Ch 33

Wheels turned, apparatuses within my soul that had never moved, had been turned into motion. I sat as still as I could, unable to breath, unwilling to open my eyes. She had kissed me. Not on the lips, no, not on the lips but on the cheek. But it was a kiss. It was a kiss on my face. _My face_. The right side of my face, no less, that not even I wanted to touch. She had touched her lips to my flesh. She had kissed me. She had done it. A kiss. A kiss from Julia to me.

She had given me life, existence I had never known.

The spot where her lips had touched my face was still warm after she had pulled away. My mind wrapped around the sensation, tracing the spot where my nerves were aflame with disbelief. She had kissed me. She had kissed my face.

"Why?" I asked in a hollow whisper. My fingers pressed over my cheek as though somehow it would compress the memory of her touch farther into my mind. My eyes opened at last and we regarded one another with curious expressions.

Her fingers lingered over mine. The sensation of her skin against mine was unbearably comforting. No one had touched me. Not like this. It was strange and beautiful, and suddenly Julia became a stranger to me, something that I had thought I had known, like a box with a secret compartment I had suddenly found. There was so much more to be known, so much more that I had never seen.

"This is the first time in five years that you have bothered to care for anything outside of your own gratification."

It was then that I realized I had started to weep in pure joy.

Julia draped her arms around my neck and pressed my face into her shoulder, muffling the moaning sounds drifting past my lips. A fortress had been torn down, a disease cured by something profound. An army of disgust and loathing disbanded at her touch. A touch, a simple gesture none would find monumental aside from me, a wretched creature who so long had lurked in shadows, a beast, a corpse, a deadened thing roaming the night.

For the first time, really, I felt something. Human, I felt human. At long last I had experienced something that elicited pure delight. Better, so much better, than rutting. A whore would lie down, but just a kiss, a simple kiss? No, a whore would not offer a kiss. No, this was compassion, this was something….indeed, this was something.

She had kissed me.

And she hadn't recoiled.

No, she hadn't drawn away or shrieked. She had stayed, perched on the bedside. And she held me to her afterwards when I broke into a thousand pathetic pieces of bliss and terror and disbelief. My hands lifted, one then the other, and I embraced her as well. It struck me then, as I felt her heartbeat against my palms, that I had never held her before. Slept with her, yes, I had taken her to bed. But it was nothing, it meant nothing. Our time was gratification after short conversations. Our time was a prelude to a brief moment where I would dress and she would talk about the art museum she had gone to, or the new herbs she had planted. Her words rarely reached my ears. I had what I wanted, what I thought I had wanted, and the rest was inconsequential. Anything else would mean there was potential for something more. I feared potential.

I feared the rejection that came with potential. I didn't deserve anything that was not rejection.

My head lifted from her shoulder once I found control of my emotions. I looked into her face. Her hair, which had dried, hung against her forehead, partially obscuring her left eye. Slowly, as if I would break her if I touched her too hard; I lifted the dark blonde strand and moved it behind her ear.

Then I noticed a scar. Had she always had a scar? No, I would have noticed it, this little white, triangular imperfection at the outside corner of her eye. My thumb ran over the mark, tracing it.

"When Lisette was born," Julia said. Her voice was so low I could barely hear her. "Louis threw a vase of flowers at me."

My eyes met hers, silently demanding an answer. She looked away from me. In the back of my mind I prayed to God to resurrect that man so that I could kill him again. I would have drawn him with a butter knife and quartered him with chariots of the slowest horses.

"He wanted a boy, Erik," she replied.

From the scar I moved down along her cheek, to her jaw, then swept over towards her lips. My eyes met hers and I silently asked for permission to touch her lips with my finger.

A smile played at the corner of her mouth.

Damn it if the doorbell didn't ring. I nearly poked her in the eye when I flinched at the sound. We both turned away at once as though we had been caught doing something inappropriate. Exhaling, I thought of every curse I had ever heard. Damn damn damn!

Julia sighed and rose from the bed with dignity, smoothing her hands over her dress. She fixed her hair and looked at me as though nothing had happened, nothing of which should have caused my stomach to flip over half a hundred times.

She cleared her throat. "There is someone at the door."

Which, of course, I assumed by the door bell. Strange that she mentioned it. Perhaps she was flustered as well.

"Don't be roaming about, do you hear me?" she said with a shake of her finger before she left.

On my life I swore not to move again. I had no intention of leaving her home. None at all.

I couldn't be away from her. I couldn't bear the thought of solitude, and being parted from Julia, from Alexandre as well, would have been the deepest pit of seclusion.

"Who is it, Lisette?" Julia asked as she marched across the hall.

"There is a woman at the door, mama," Lisette said.

"Of course, my dear, you know Madame Giry."

Good, I thought, Madeline was here. I had wanted to speak with her about the vicomte stopping by for a visit. And I wanted to tell her to bring the dog over so that I could make sure someone was feeding her.

"No, mama, it isn't Madame Giry. I've never seen this woman before."

Oh God in Heaven…Why do You allow Hell to return?


	34. The Grashopper and Scorpion

_In the previous chapter, I was mesmerized by Julia's kiss to my cheek. I noticed a scar for the first time, a small trianuglar mark from her husband. Just before I touched her lips with my finger, the doorbell rang._

_Damn it. _

Ch 34

The doorbell rang again, echoing through my ears, raging into my mind. Of all things, of all the times in the world it had to be at that exact moment, when I was so close to Julia, when redemption had been palpable for once. Even without the door being open, I knew who it was. There could only be one person who would intrude on such a moment. Julia, I think, knew as well.

My eyes darted around the room as I contemplated what I would do. Of course, I had to do something. I couldn't sit in this room and idly listen.

But I feared leaving all the same. Even though I swore to myself that she meant nothing to me, I didn't want her to see me like that; so disheveled, so utterly naked. I needed something. The mask was still upstairs. I wondered why Julia hadn't brought it back down to me. I blamed her for keeping it away from me. My hair still lay disjointed on the dresser, flopped to one side like a ridiculous black spider. That, she kept from me as well. It was close enough to see but far enough away where I couldn't obtain it.

Slowly, my gaze went back to the dresser and the bloody mass of rags with the wax doll in the center. How appropriate it seemed that she sat on a blood-covered pedestal. I had bled for her, my little prima dona. Not voluntarily, but it was poetic nonetheless.

My heart raced. I saw my own trembling hand snap out and grab the figurine. I could repair it, I thought suddenly, erratically, hopefully. I was becoming mad with hope, with desire, with…with all of the potential that I could see but knew didn't truly exist. Melt it over fire, I thought, and meld her back into one, make her whole again, repaint her face, make her mine, make her…

No, I couldn't. That was a foolish thought, I knew. Christine was a mirage. She was nothing. She had betrayed me. She had denied me. She had insulted me. Why did I still want her? Why was my heart racing at the thought of her, my palms sweating as I pictured her standing outside the door in a wide-brimmed sunhat and elegant lilac dress. Why did I dress her—and undress her—in my mind?

Purposely, I pressed my hand to my forehead as a reminder that I had been stitched up. The debilitating pain should have been more than enough to convince me that I wanted nothing to do with Christine. Yet still I wanted another damned chance.

Julia sighed loud enough to where I could hear it through the closed door. The ringing had turned to a rap upon the door.

"Lisette, upstairs right now and don't make a sound. You either." Alex must have been downstairs at well. They were closer than the front door. They must have met Julia almost outside of the bedroom door.

"Mama, who is she?" Lisette asked.

"No one."

Perhaps in Julia's mind that was true. Her response made me grin wryly while I sat alone in my little guest room. She is no one indeed, Madame Seuratti, I thought. This was no one but a vicomtess and beloved singer calling at her door. Secretly, I hoped that it was raining outside and that her wide-brimmed hat covered her eyes and sank onto her head. I hoped her dress…no, I didn't hope anything about her dress other than it was ruined. Damn her and her dress.

"May I stay with Father?" Alex asked.

"Not now, my dear. Go, both of you at once. Not another word until she is gone."

Two sets of feet tromped up the stairs, heavy with disappointment. Once the bedroom door closed and several heartbeats passed, the front door squeaked open.

Oh God, she was here. I just knew she was at the front door. The scorpion before the grasshopper.

"Yes?" said Julia.

"Hello, I'm sorry if this seems a bit odd—" That was her. I knew from the first word that it was her. That was Christine, beautiful, talented, ungrateful Christine. Julia didn't even let her finish.

"Who are you?" As if Julia didn't know.

An awkward laugh escaped Christine's lips. Served her right to feel awkward for once, I thought. After how she had disgraced me time and time again, for once she should have been the one to squirm.

"My name is Christine."

Silence on behalf of Madame Seuratti. Quite clearly she was unimpressed by the woman I had lusted after for so long. Or was she regarding her in a different light, perhaps? Maybe she realized my longing, perhaps she justified my behavior? No, no she wouldn't do that. She was unimpressed by this rose I had worshipped, this flower that couldn't fade.

"I'm looking for someone."

"There is no one here."

"No, there is."

The door creaked. She was shutting the door, Julia was shutting the door on the most famous soprano ever to come out of Paris. What gall that woman had! My brow rose. She had impressed me.

"Good day," Julia said.

"Wait! Wait, please."

My feet slid over the edge of the bed and onto the cold wooden floor.

Julia sighed. "I'm sorry, Madame, but there is no one here besides myself and my daughter. Perhaps you have the wrong door."

"That's not true," Christine blurted out. She either hit the door with her foot or her hand by the sound of it. "Please, I know that's not true."

I paused before the dresser mirror, black strands dangling into my eyes as I pulled my hair into place. The pain was nauseating from the pressure of the band against the stitches but I suffered through it.

"Are you insinuating that I, a widow, have a man hidden in my home? Do you dare insult me, Madame?"

"No! No, please, give me one moment. Please, I have walked several streets to find you."

That, I expected, was a bold-faced lie. She would have taken her carriage down the street, not walked. She couldn't have walked. Someone would have seen her and I suspected her husband would have protested her roaming about alone. It was some sort of trap, I concluded. In my mind I could see Christine at the door and her precious vicomte looming in the Hydrangea bushes.

Really, at just the sound of her voice, I was at my wit's end.

My mind painted pictures of a cavalry of horses lined up on the street, led by the vicomte. They sat in their saddles with sabers drawn as they waited for Madame Seuratti to release the prisoners for execution.

Christine was clearly still driving me mad.

"Madame, I will ask you once to leave if you do not say something of worth at once," Julia replied.

"He's here."

Julia said nothing. I froze before the mirror, staring over my shoulder at the closed door. My insides began to betray me. Hearing Christine's voice was making me ill. She knew I was here. Or was it Alex? I couldn't even concentrate, couldn't keep my own thoughts straight. If she was here, then her husband most certainly had to be near. And if he was with her…Alex wasn't safe.

"I saw him," Christine continued. "You brought him here. From the alley, you brought him here."

My mind reeled. Both of my hands grasped the dresser to keep me from falling to the floor. She was talking about me. She was asking about me. She knew about…but how? How would she know Julia had brought me here? Madeline? No, Madeline wouldn't dare do such a thing for fear of Alexandre being hurt. She must have followed us that night. But why? What in the hell did she want with me?

"Madame, with all due respect, you have only given me your first name and nothing more. Now you tell me that you are looking for someone. No, you don't tell me, you insist that I have brought someone here to my home, from an alley, and you haven't given me a name for this person. Now please—"

"Oh God, he's possessed you, hasn't he?" Christine gasped. "He's inside your head. He's claimed you."

The bedroom door creaked open and signaled my disobedience. Julia didn't bother to turn, though by how she stiffened, I knew she had heard it. She had to have expected that I would not stay put, especially since I could hear everything from my little prison.

"I apologize, Madame, but you are speaking nonsense. No one has claimed me."

"His voice. His voice is hypnotizing, soothing almost if you close your eyes and just listen. It's only mesmerizing and dangerous if you listen and don't see him. Oh God, if you see him…Please, Madame, he is dangerous, he is very, very dangerous."

"Perhaps I could call you a carriage?" Julia suggested.

"You know who he is. You know exactly who he is, that monster."

"Monster? My dear lady, monsters are nothing more than ploys to frighten children. They are not real." Julia stepped back from the door and crossed one ankle behind the other. She glanced at me from the corner of her eye as I stood at the end of the hallway, my hand over the right side of my face, lingering no more than ten paces from the door.

"Yes, yes you're right and you're wrong. Monsters are meant to frighten children, and in my childhood there was no bigger threat, no darker shadow than what he was. But he is coy, Madame. I had no idea what he was until it was too late. He is real but he is not." She was raving. She sounded like I had often sounded. "He is a coy one, a conniving one. Please, you must help me. You don't know what he is, not really. You don't know what he's done. He has killed, he has…"

"Good day, Madame."

"Wait!" She smacked the door with her hand. This time I saw her attempt to continue the conversation. Julia reached out to push her hand away but Christine managed to lodge her foot up against the door, making it impossible to close without Julia shoving her to the ground.

Clearly, she didn't know Julia.

"Give this to him," Christine said quickly. She held out an envelope. "Give this to Erik."

She used my name. She had only used my name a handful of times. My heart skittered at the sound leaving her lips.

"What is it?" Julia asked.

"It's a note."

"For this monster you speak of?"

There was no reply.

Julia snatched the letter from Christine's hands but didn't say a word. When she looked down to examine the sealed document, Christine leaned forward, peering into the house.

She saw me standing in the hallway almost immediately. She stared at me as I grasped onto the wall to keep from falling. My legs were still weak, the pressure of weight against bruises almost unbearable. By how they felt, I could have sworn that my shins were on fire. Even breathing seemed to hurt as well and my head was spinning. But I ignored the pain and stared at her, watching as her lips parted and eyes widened.

Scream, I dared her. Scream all you want, my little princess, at the repulsive beast you came looking for. Take in each macabre detail, fill your heart and your mind and your soul, if you ever had one, with my wretchedness. Be grateful that your bed at night is filled with a perfect angel, I wanted to shout at her.

The first night she came to me, when she allowed me her body, I remembered it then when I saw her. I recalled what for so long I had shoved into the deepest place in my mind. She had insulted me even then, even when she let me touch her. The thought made me shudder, the rush, the suddenly flash of memory made my knees buckle.

"Please, would you give this to him still sealed?" Christine asked. Her voice gave me strength, gave me something fueled only by how much I resented her.

She would never have sung a single note had it not been for me. Christine would have been nothing more than another chorus girl, a dancer on the stage blending in with the rest of the little beauties. It was my work that had set her apart, my genius that had set her free, my life that had been exchanged for hers.

_You ungrateful, sniveling brat_, I mouthed at her, amongst other things that no gentleman should ever say to a lady.

I hoped she took in each bruise to my face. I hoped that she understood each word I mouthed to her in silence. My blood boiled with disdain for her. For once, I looked at her and hated everything that I saw. She cared nothing for me and nothing for Alex. She had left us, buried us, turned us into nothing. She had turned us into refuse.

Suddenly, I could have stood in that hallway, bruised, battered legs and all, and stared at her disparagingly for all of eternity.

Without even thinking, I unbuttoned my shirt cuffs and rolled up the sleeves so that she could see the marks on my arms, the bruises and scrapes and welts from her beloved little husband and his darling aristocratic friends. I started to unbutton my shirt so that she could see the marks on my chest but stopped.

My eyes stared past her to the street beyond. Her husband, from what I could see, was not with her. My body tensed. I didn't trust him, but he hadn't attempted to enter the house yet. He must not have come with her. I sighed in relief, then turned back and stared at Christine. She grasped the doorframe several inches above her head, allowing her sleeve to hang down, exposing her wrist.

She showed her own bruise. He had bruised her. Everything stopped. Another feeling for her emerged, one that shamed me. I cared for her still when she had proven beyond doubt that she had never cared for me.

I was a bigger fool than I would have liked to admit.

"Very well," Julia said at last, snapping my eyes away from Christine. She tucked the note beneath her arm and began to close the door again.

Christine startled and turned back to Julia, who had glared at me from the corner of her eye. She knew exactly what had happened. She knew we had both seen one another. I had no idea why, but she ignored me in the hall and said nothing to Christine.

"If you will excuse me, Vicomtess de Chagny," Julia said in the bitterest tone I had ever heard escape her mouth. "I must make lunch for my daughter."

"Thank you, Madame. I have one last request, if you would be so kind."

Julia sighed and waved her arm, a rude gesture if there ever was one.

"Tell him that I want to see my son."


	35. Pretty, but not 10 years of waiting pret...

_In the last chapter, Christine came to Julia's door with a letter for me. She wants to see Alex. For the first time, she called him her son._

Ch 35

This was madness that not even I could cope with any longer. I screamed as the door shut and slammed my hand into the wall. The pain meant nothing aside from that I was still alive and still feeling every ounce of agony.

I could barely think anymore. She had said she wanted nothing to do with Alex. She had said it. She had said it!

Everything she ever promised was nothing but lies; everything she did to me was poison. She had said in her hotel room that she didn't want the boy to find me yet she let him escort me from the room. She knew damn well what would happen. All of these years I had waited for her, I had bled myself dry for her memory, I had ached until there was nothing but numbness and I was more a shell than a man.

And now she wanted Alex. She wanted the only thing I had left from one night I had spent with her, one night that felt like the heaviest of weights and the deepest of scars.

Now she wanted my son, because at that point he was only my son. He had always been mine, never hers. She hadn't even had the nerve—no, no it had nothing to do with nerve. She hadn't had the love, the compassion, the dignity to give him a name. I had named him. I had forgotten that I had named him the moment Madeline hesitantly placed him into my arms. A three month-old infant given to his father, to a beast, to a thing that no one ever wanted to see. He was nameless, screaming for his mother, eyes pinched shut at the horror before his little gray eyes. He had no idea that I wanted to weep as well for his future, that I had silently sworn he would be protected. He just didn't know that his protector would be a monster.

Suddenly, I felt that there was a greater monster in the world than even I for I had loved him. I just hadn't always shown it. That angered me as well.

My anger was short-lived. Julia was furious with me. I didn't see her coming down the hall until it was too late.

She stormed towards me, seething in anger, and tore my hand from my face, blocking the shield I had put over my right side while Christine was present. She looked me in the eye, her mouth hardened as she shook her head so lightly that I barely even noticed.

My mouth opened to speak but she glared at me and I stopped.

"Look me in the eye and tell me honestly: have you prevented her from knowing her own son?"

At first I said nothing. She couldn't have possibly known that I had wanted to bait Christine by keeping Alex from her. The very idea to me, as I looked Julia in the eye, seemed more contemptuous than I had ever thought. It was as though I saw myself from someone else's eyes and the ugliness I witnessed had nothing to do with my mangled face. The thought disturbed me so greatly that I stood stock still and stared into nothingness.

What had I done?

"Erik, have you kept this woman from seeing her own son?" Julia asked more assertively than before.

"No, I haven't."

She didn't believe me. Of course I didn't blame her. I wondered even as I spoke if I was telling her the truth.

"Erik—"

"Alex is upstairs. What she said to me, I don't want him to hear," I stated plainly. "He doesn't need to…he doesn't need to hurt that much."

Julia nodded, understanding, at least, that I was protecting Alex from something. She moved her hair away from her face and sighed sharply at me. "Well, she has a letter for you. Come, get yourself back into bed. I'll check on the children and fix them both lunch. When I return—"

"You want to read the letter."

Julia straightened and crossed her arms. Of course she wouldn't go out and say that she wanted to know what the letter said. "I want the truth, Erik. I want to know exactly what I have gotten myself into." She looked away from me and glanced down the hallway to be certain the children had not appeared. She stepped closer, so close that I could feel her breath on my face when she looked at me again.

"He's not safe here," she whispered. She exhaled sharply and turned away. She stared for a moment at the staircase, then turned back to me. Her nerves were on end. She had to keep her voice quiet. The last thing she wanted was for Lisette and Alex tohear her despite undoubtedly wanting to scream at me for leaving the bedroom. "She knows he's here because you're here. Her husband will know he is here and then what will happen? What will they do?"

"Not a damned thing," I answered brazenly.

"You are driving me mad! Why couldn't you listen just this once?Why couldn't youstay inside the guest room? She wouldn't know you are here if you had just once done as I asked you. Have you learned nothing at all? How can you be so selfish, Erik? How is it even possible?"

"They already knew," I said, attempting to remain calm. She was losing her temper with me. If she struck me I would have to hold her by the wrists until she calmed down.

"They know you are here because you made yourself seen!" she shout-whispered, poking me in the chest with her finger.

"She knew before that. If she didn't know, she wouldn't have come here," I replied, keeping my voice low.

"For a ghost, you aren't very clever in moving about and going unseen. If you had wanted…" She paused, her eyes narrowing. "No, you are clever. You wanted her to see you…and you wanted to see her as well, one last time. One last time, Erik, how dare you."

"That wasn't why I was out in the hallway."

"Of course not," she snapped. "Why on earth would you want her to see you again? Certainly you didn't do it to win her back and certainly you had no intention of making a fool of yourself in front of her yet again, then what? My God, she's pretty but not pretty enough to wait ten years for, you fool."

"It's been nine years," I corrected her.

"Even worse!"

"How can that be worse? It's a year less than what you just said."

"Because you probably know to the day how long it's been since you were this close to her before." She turned away from me. "You…you're hopeless. You are utterly hopeless, Erik." Julia spun on her heel and faced me again, prepared to insult me again.

"I didn't walk out here to see her! The only thing I could think of when I saw her was how much I despised her for everything," I shouted suddenly. "You have no idea how I felt for her. How I still feel for her. How I hate her for everything."

"Keep your voice down and don't you dare lie to me. You walked into this hallway to see her face and nothing more. Don't you dare look me in the face and tell me anything so bold. You are incapable of hating her!"

"I do hate her. I hate her almost as much as I hate myself for ever looking at her in the first place."

She grunted at my boorish display. "Then why did you have to come running out here, holding your hand over your face and tossing on that ridiculous thing," she said as she pointed at my head.

"Quit insulting me! I'm tired of you, of all people, mocking my appearance!"

Her expression changed from anger to remorse and her voice lowered. "I would never mock your appearance. Why do you think I've kept the mask away from you? If I didn't want to look at you, I would have torn holes in your pillow case and told you to cover your face."

I shuddered at her words. She had not asked me to stay hidden from her. She had unmasked me in every way possible and not once flinched. The thought crossed my mind that I should have fallen to my hands and knees at her feet and thanked her for allowing me to stand before her in my miserable condition. To keep from weeping, to keep from breaking down like a child, I continued to shout out at her, using my disdain for Christine to shout again. "He could have broken down your door!"

"What on earth are you talking about? What does this have to do with anything I just said?"

"I'm telling you why I came out into the hallway! The vicomte, the boy, her husband, the man who nearly beat me to death, Julia, damn it, who do you think?" I continued to shout, far too agitated to care if Alex and Lisette heard what I had to say. I grabbed her by the shoulders and held her against my chest. "If he was here, if he wanted to enter your house he would have. That's why I came out. To protect you from him. You said yourself that you feared he would come in here."

Julia struggled against my grasp but decided it was useless and gave in, allowing me to hold her. The feel of her, the warmth of her, steadied my erratic breathing and forced me to lower my voice.

"I don't want him to hurt you," I said.

"I am not the one in danger."

"Do you think that honestly?" I let her go then. She took a half-step back from me, enough so that we were no longer up against one another but not enough to display a sense of fear at being near me while I was unmasked.

"I don't know what to think."

"He bruised her wrist."

Julia snorted at me. "Why would you even care what happens to her?"

Again, I shouted. "Because I'm a damned fool and I still care for her!" I took a deep breath and settled myself enough to speak in a voice suitable for being indoors. "Until the day I die, I will probably still care for her! She could slit my throat and I wouldn't think ill of her. You don't understand, Julia, how long she has been on my mind. Nearly twenty years of my life. I can't just forget her. I can't."

She stared at me long and hard, debating on whether or not she had to dig farther into Pandora's Box. At last, she decided not to delve any deeper. "And what good would it be for you to stand out in the hallway? If he was here, what would you do? Antagonize him and finally have him kill you?"

"I would have fought him long enough for the three of you to escape. Then I would have killed him."

"Oh, Erik! You can barely stand!"

"I don't need to stand to kill him!"

She stared at me, hatred in her eyes turning into something I had never seen before. My arms tensed, my hands turned to fists and jaw clenched. If she wished to argue, then so be it. I would fight her word for word.

But she didn't say anything. Not for a while. The anger left her eyes completely. At first, as her face contorted, I thought she was about to cry. Tears would have been worse than arguing with her. I was prepared to have her yell at me, but I wasn't prepared to handle any other emotion. But her eyes never grew moist, thank God. Something equally unexpected happened. She was amused. Damn her, she found my outburst amusing.

She laughed then unabashedly. She crossed one arm over her chest, turned her face away and laughed into her hand. I stood appalled by her reaction.

"Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Even for you, that's delusional."

I turned away, staring at the opened guest room door. "I want to lie down again," I said, tiring of her banter.

"Your lunch will be ready within the hour. If you'd like, I'll draw you a bath once you're done eating." She tapped my shoulder and placed the letter in my hand.

"Fine," I grumbled. "But tell Madeline I want to see her at once with the dog."

"No dogs, Erik, I told you that already."

"Only for a moment. Knowing Madeline and Meg, the creature is probably starving. I'm not returning home to bury some stupid animal."

"You told me before you were going to tie her up and leave her at the back of a restaurant," Julia said as I reached the doorway.

"She's far too old now. No one would eat her." I smiled grimly. "That goes for the dog as well as Madeline."

With one hand against the wall, I reached up and pulled the front of my hair up, then slid it off my head. It felt good to be rid of it again. The stitches beneath had throbbed in agony the entire time I had worn my hairpiece.

Julia came in quietly behind me and stood in the doorway as I climbed back into bed. She watched for a moment, then came forward and removed the used towels and the wax figure broken in two. My face twitched. She would throw it away. I would never see it again.

"What do you fear about love?" she asked suddenly. "You care for your son, you care for that dog, but you cannot say it aloud. Why is that?"

My gaze stayed fixed on the blanket. I studied my hands still holding the black hair I had removed. Artistic hands, I thought. Hands that had created designs for fantastic buildings, hands that had created the most tragic of compositions, hands that had created things that were beautiful yet unfeeling.

I realized then how absolutely lonely I truly was, and how at the same time I was terrified to want anything at all. Each time I even thought of something I desired, it was taken away. If I told Alex I loved him, then he would know. He would hurt me, I thought. He would leave me. The dog? Well, the dog already knew I cared about her. But she was only a dog.

And my best companion had become a creature that never needed me to tell her how I felt. She was the only thing I could care for that would never betray me, the only thing that looked at me and saw nothing wrong.

Her question made me start to tremble again. I cleared my throat and tossed the hairpiece onto the table where the rags and the wax figure had sat beside me. "They know that I love them. It doesn't matter if I say it aloud or not."

"Would it matter to you if I said it aloud?"


	36. Three Small Words

In the last two chapters, Christine came to Julia's door and gave her a letter for me. She said she wants to see Alexandre. Julia and I then had a confrontation about Christine and my affection for her. She also mentioned that while I love Alex and the dog (and I don't love the dog, it's just a dog and i need to make sure someone is taking care of it), I never said it aloud. I told her that they know that I love them (fine. I like the dog.). She then asked if it would matter to me if she said it aloud...

Ch 36

Often, especially in the years when there was no one to speak with, I started to talk to myself. There had been no other choice. There was only so much time one could spend playing the organ, writing music, reading books, or eavesdropping on the dancers, who quite frankly had nothing of importance to say and walked around in the nude so often that it became mundane.

I had been my only companion. Even to myself, I was never a good friend.

It took everything inside of me to fight the urge to look at Julia. I was convinced that this was a delusion. The day had been stressful, too stressful. The only explanation was that I was making myself physically and mentally ill. There was no possible way she could say the three words I so desperately wanted to hear, the three small words no one had ever bothered to say to me.

Three words. That was what Julia offered me as she stood in the doorway. Three words that I had often heard echoing through the many corridors and tunnels of the opera house I once haunted. Words spoken in haste as men unlaced bodices and women unbuttoned trousers, words spoken from mothers to their children, and from little ones to their parents on the street.

My God how it hurt to want something so small yet so profound, how it ripped everything inside me.

"Erik?"

Julia waited for me to answer her. The silence was so complete that I was afraid I was going mad. I was afraid that she had gone back into the kitchen and that the voice I had heard was something detached, something that only existed within my mind.

I nodded though I couldn't look at her. There was too much at stake, too much she may have offered that I wanted so badly. If she wasn't real, I would scream. I would bang my head against the wall, jump out the window, hang myself, or slash my wrists. Something. I would do something. I couldn't take it a moment longer. This was torment unlike anything else. First there was Christine coming back for Alex and now Julia at the door one moment then at the bedside the next.

Julia wouldn't be there if I looked up, I told myself. She was only in my mind. She couldn't care for me. She just couldn't. No one could. I was too old for this wanting, for such foolish desires.

"You don't have to say it," I whispered. My hands balled into fists and I glanced up at her. "You were right."

Julia was silent for a moment. "Right about what?"

"Everything you said before…lust, obsession…I don't know love."

Christine had been my obsession. After everything that happened, she was still my obsession.

"Oh, Erik, I owe you an apology," Julia said quietly. Her hand touched mine and I exhaled hard as if the contact had punched the air from my lungs.

"What I said then, what I said today…You are not beyond hope," Julia said. I could barely hear her she was speaking so low. Her fingers laced through mine as she rested her palm on the back of my hand.

We had never held hands before, not once in five years. I had never kissed her, I had never held her hand, I had simply climbed on top of her. That was the extent of our relationship. A beautiful, young woman had sacrificed five years of her life to me for what? For nothing, absolutely nothing in return.

"You're not," she said again. "You're not hopeless. Forgive me for saying that."

I merely nodded. She had no idea how hopeless I felt, how absolutely lost I was within my own body. There had been a stranger contained within a mind, a stranger who had strived for something that had been impossible for years. There was a madman who **had**, for the last year, wanted to use my son as bait for an indecent, ludicrous dream.

That stranger was **me**. And I had forgotten how much Christine had destroyed me the first night I told her that I loved her, the first night she had gifted me with her virginity but taken away so much more than mine. She had humiliated me and I had allowed it. Because I loved her and I thought she would change her mind, because I wanted her and thought that in time I would have her.

"You're a good man, I know you are. You love your son, you even love that dog. I know you do. I care for you, Erik, I honestly do, but if you love Christine—"

"May I tell you something?" I asked suddenly. The words came out before I knew what I was doing.

Julia nodded.

"When she gifted me with herself," I began hesitatingly.

Slowly, like a bit of rock from a wall, the thought, the anguish that had built an entire mountain range within my mind, began to crumble. I hadn't even said anything but already nine years of pain began to diminish. I knew I would tell her everything. I would tell Julia what I had never told anyone.

"You flatter her far too much," Julia said under her breath. "She gave you a son, Erik. That was the only gift she gave you."

I nodded and squeezed Julia's hand tighter. My eyes closed to the memory, to the complete humiliation of that night.

"She asked me to take her from behind," I whispered. A shudder rattled through me, starting up from my bones to surface of my skin. "So that she would not see my face when I…had her…for the first time."

Julia's fingers twitched. The smallest breath left her mouth.

The mountain I had kept for so long cracked **right** down the middle. I had told her. I had told someone what for years had haunted me, a ghost.

"I did as she asked because I loved her…and I wanted to make love to her. Both times she came to bed with me, I did as she asked, hoping she would stay with me. Over and over I told her that I loved her. She smiled wanly at me—no—not even at me, she looked in my direction, but said nothing. Then she left me. For weeks she was gone. For weeks, I wanted her back.

"The second time she came to me…the second time…we…she allowed me to have her, I even wore a scarf over my head so that if the mask fell off..."

"Oh, Erik," Julia whispered. Her fingers tightened over mine. I heard her draw a breath in through her nose, a quick, sharp breath.

"Everything I did, I did for her and only her. Every day that I woke, it was to hear her voice, to train her, to strengthen her for the stage. She knew I loved her, she knew I wanted her success, she knew that I wanted her with me, that I would have done anything for her. She knew everything. She knew that she took everything from me that night, that first night." My eyes opened and stared at the letter on the desk. "And now she wants the only thing I have left."

Reluctantly, I removed my hand from Julia's grasp and took the letter from the desk. The moment my hand ripped the wax away, a rush of anger hit me square in the chest.

She had left me a letter. She had said that she wanted to see _her_ son and she had handed Julia a letter addressed to me. After all these years of thinking that we no longer existed. After she had said she wanted nothing to do with us, after she had abandoned her son, after she had allowed me to teach her, after she had sucked out the last bit of dignity I possessed.

She wanted Alex.

Julia shifted on the bed and straightened her skirt as I pressed my fingers harder into the envelope. "The children—"

I unfolded the paper in my hands and tossed the envelope aside. I glanced up at her and nodded. "Feed them."

Julia nodded and rose from the bed. "I'll return as quickly as I can. I should probably clean the stitches and check on your bruises. The bathwater—"

I reached for her wrist before she could finish, holding her with me a moment longer. From the placement of my finger and thumb, I could feel her pulse beating through her wrist.

My mind had constructed all that I wanted to say to her but cowardice pushed my eyes from hers. I could still see Christine as she rose wordlessly from the bed, dressed, and mumbled that she wanted to return back to her room. She had not even looked at me as I led her to the boat and took her across the lake. She said nothing as I helped her onto the shore and tried to see her to her room. She waved me away from her, crawled into bed, and went to sleep. I returned to my lair alone, empty, and in no way proud of what I had done or what I had become. My love for her had turned shameful.

"Why didn't you ever face away from me?" I asked Julia, averting my eyes.

Julia touched my chin and I stared up at her, fearing humiliation but craving her attention. I could still feel her pulse, her life in her veins, in my grasp.

"Because I love you," she answered.


	37. The Note

_In the last chapter, I shared my greatest moment of humiliation. My love for Christine now seems rather foolish. Julia, after I told her what I have been holding inside foralmost ten yeras,said that she loved me. _

Ch 37

Her words made me shiver.

There was weight to hatred that I had never known existed, a stone within my chest that had rumbled around and killed everything else. Forty years this weight had existed, increased as the years went by. Forty years of suspended hope, of praying until my voice was hoarse and I could no longer weep. Forty years of kneeling until my knees were bruised from groveling for God's mercy. Four decades of shaking with fear for my pathetic fate and the redemption I was certain would never come.

I had waited all of those years, knowing those three words would never be said to me no matter what I did. All of my life had been spent despising this thing that I was, of cursing the horrors both inside and out.

And then Julia, who came in like the Blue Faerie of Collodi's tale, offered a chance to be real, to shed my heart of stone, to leave behind wooden limbs…to live.

But why? What was in it for her? What did she want from me?

Julia looked at me with an enigmatic smile, a living, breathing _Mona Lisa_. I released her wrist and swallowed hard, attempting to absorb her words.

_Because I love you._

Suddenly I shook my head. There had been too many years of cynicism, of being bitter and melancholy to accept her words as they had come.

"Why?" I asked. No, I demanded. I spoke through my teeth and watched as her eyes widened. Forty years of waiting for this moment and I didn't even have the decency to show gratitude for her words.

Julia exhaled and sat down in the chair. "Oh, Erik, I should have known you would ask such a thing." She sat back and glanced at the painting propped up against the wall. "When my grandfather first brought me to meet Louis, I was beside myself with joy. I ran to every house on the block, every friend I had, and squealed out to them how lucky I was to have such a handsome fiancé." She shook her head. "I thought there was no way I could have been more fortunate than finding Louis."

Julia had rarely mentioned him, aside from in passing when it had something to do with Lisette. She knew I had no interest in her dead husband.

"Two months before we were married I discovered that I was pregnant. He accused me of sleeping with another man because he himself had slept with several girls and not one of them had conceived a child. He threatened not to marry me. He threatened to tell my grandfather, my father, all of my brothers. But I told him that if he did that no one would believe him. My mother, my grandmother, my sisters wouldn't believe a word of it.

"So he stayed quiet. We married, and on our wedding night, he left. He told me I was already used up and he went out for the night. We didn't consummate our marriage for a month. He had other women to satisfy him, other women he had slept with before he had ever agreed to marry me. Eventually I found out that there were two other women who had daughters of his, one in Florence, one here in Paris."

Julia was quiet for a moment. Her eyes looked so distant, her complexion sallow, as if the very thought made her ill. It sickened me to think of her in pain. It sickened me to think I hadn't strangled Louis Seuratti the day I moved into my home and first saw him.

She laid her hand over mine and smiled wanly. "And then I saw you one night in the window, and I heard you sing and play the violin. It was beautiful…I felt something… different."

It alarmed me that I had not been more careful to keep her from seeing me. When I looked at her, I knew why I hadn't.

I had wanted her to see me.

"You concentrated so much on your music that you didn't notice me. I turned down the lamp and just sat for hours, listening with my eyes closed. When Louis finally came home he was the ugliest man I had ever seen. I hated him for leaving me every night, for how he ignored Lisette, for everything. I hated him for everything.

"And I told him. I slapped him across the face and I told him that I hated him and he was nothing to me, that he was lower than garbage. He beat me that night and he forced me into bed with him. Then he went to my grandfather the next morning and told him that their grandchild, that their beautiful granddaughter, belonged to another man, that I had confessed to him the night before." She blinked once but did nothing to stop the tears rolling freely down her face. "They believed him and they never spoke to me again. He could do anything with me that he wanted and he knew it. He knew no one would protest him and that I wasn't strong enough to fight him."

My lips parted in astonishment and the letter from Christine fell from my grasp. My emotions balanced between absolute rage and the hot stabbing pain of sorrow. Somehow I found her hand and we sat together doing nothing more than breathing and clinging to a half that was just as broken as ourselves.

"You love me because I strangled him?" I murmured. She could not love me for anything else but the relief I had granted her.

Julia shook her head. Her lips tightened as she searched for her voice. "That isn't love, Erik, that's gratitude."

"Then why?" I breathed. There was a reason, a reason for her words. I needed to know what that reason was, why she had dared to say such a thing.

"Because you've been good to me all these years. You've only come to me when I've asked for your company. Not once have you raised your hand at me, not even when I deserved it."

I shook my head, doubting that there could be any reason for a man to strike her.

"There are things you do that are maddening, absolutely blood-boiling sometimes, but you're…" She smiled and moved her thumb over mine. The movement mesmerized me. "Do you remember when you brought me chocolates?"

As terrible as it was, I didn't. I shook my head.

"Two years ago you brought me candy a week after St. Valentine's Day. You had opened it, but you still brought it over," she laughed.

I nodded, remembering it was candy that Madeline had bought for herself and Meg. She hadn't known that it was dark chocolate and neither of them liked dark chocolate. Alex had made himself sick with indulgence, so I sent the box over to Julia to punish him. She seemed far too impressed and contented for me to ruin her mood with the truth.

"You're a gentleman, Erik, even without intending to be one, you've been a gentleman. You're gruff, you're eccentric, but you're a good man." She paused and searched my eyes. "Everything that I wanted in Louis, everything that he wasn't, you've been to me."

She overwhelmed me. For each word of praise, a dozen more criticisms popped into my mind, a thousand moments that I had said something she didn't deserve to hear, a thousand evenings where I had laid with her and left in the middle of the night. There was nothing chivalrous about the manner in which I left; nothing of a gentile nature about my sneaking into and out of her house.

"No, I haven't been good to you," I mumbled. I sat upright in bed and let go of her hand. "If I had been good to you…I wouldn't be here, not like this, not under these circumstances."

Julia half-smiled. "God knows why, but even though you have made me so mad I thought I would have kittens, I…I have enjoyed you being here. It reminds me of my parents' marriage and how my father would make my mother want to throw things at him." She sighed and her smile widened. "Though I would have rather taken you in for a different reason than this, Erik, I like not being here alone."

If there was anyone who understood the pain of solitude, it was me. I did nothing more than nod.

The clock chimed twice. She started to rise from the chair.

"Lisette and Alex are probably starved to death by now. Erik, I must—"

I grasped her arm and sat her beside me on the bed. Brazenly, I placed my hand against her cheek and smoothed away the tears on the left side, then did the same on the right side. She closed her eyes and lowered her face, exhaling slowly to my touch. Her reaction surprised me. She was…soothed. The slight smile on her face encouraged me to run my finger along her smooth cheek, down to her chin where I stopped.

Her lips caught my attention again. As much as I wanted to kiss her I knew that I shouldn't, not then, not when we were both so wounded. I settled for running my thumb lightly over her lower lip. Another tear slipped from her right eye yet she did something unexpected.

She kissed my thumb. She started to speak but I shushed her and pulled her forward, resting her head against my shoulder. Her arms draped over me and I felt her begin to sob.

Without a thought, I told her that I loved her too.

* * *

Julia curled up into a ball and cried herself to sleep against my arm. I heard her breathing even out after a while. Her arms went limp and I knew she was exhausted. I would have left her sleeping though I knew she needed to check on Lisette and Alexandre and make them lunch. My arm had also turned to pins and needles, though I didn't mind. I would have amputated my arm to keep her with me. I would have done anything to keep her from leaving. 

She awoke reluctantly at first, though once I told her what time it was she let out a muffled curse, begged God to forgive her, and ran from the room. I smiled to myself as I heard her yell to her daughter and my son that they needed to wash up for lunch.

"We already made food," Lisette replied. "Your food is on the table."

Finally someone was taking care of Julia. Her daughter was a good girl. I hadn't seen much of her, mostly because Julia didn't want her daughter around to witness our evenings together, which I understood and preferred. Despite knowing very little of the girl, I expected that if he hadn't already Alex would soon be developing a strong interest in Lisette.

"May I ask Father to join us?" Alexandre asked.

Julia hesitated. I looked up from the letter I had retrieved again and glanced at my hair. My forehead still throbbed from donning it the first time. The last thing I wanted was to wear it again. No, the last thing I wanted was for Alex to see me without it.

"Wait until dinner, Alex."

There was no reply. I knew he was upset.

After a while, the conversation picked up between the three of them and I gathered Christine's note in my hand. With a heavy sigh, I drowned out the sound of them eating lunch in the kitchen and read her letter.

_Erik,_

_What happened the other day was quite unfortunate. Please understand, I didn't want anything to happen to you. I will be forever grateful to you for being my teacher, my Angel of Music. But now I must ask you for a favor._

_I must see Alexander. I believe I have made a mistake, a terrible mistake no mother should ever make. When he first came to live with Mme Giry, I didn't realize that you were also inside the household. I wouldn't have given him to her had I known. I wouldn't have put him through this._

_Please understand. I must see him again. I must know who he belongs to. _

_C Daae_


	38. The Apple with a Snake Attached

_Christine left me a most galling letter in the last chapter. Not to be completely pessimistic, Julia and I did say that we loved one another. _

_A thank you to Teresa for assistance with evil Biblical/Mythical women._

Ch 38

My first thought was to tear up the letter or send it to the hearth. For God's sake! She couldn't even spell his name correctly yet she wanted him back! Dreadful, callous woman!

Her words meant nothing to me. I balled the note into my fist and tossed it onto the desk. How dare she ask for him, how dare she even assume I would relinquish what was mine, what she had discarded without a thought.

My anger scattered, running like horses quartering a man. The note found a way back into my hands. I smoothed the paper onto my lap and read it again. And again. Twice became three times, then four, then…then I lost count.

So much of what she said galled me. Each word, each line left me trembling with pure revulsion, complete abhorrence for her. She wanted Alexandre. She wanted to take him from me.

Little things began to stir my already boiling blood. She called the previous day unfortunate. Indeed it was unfortunate. The day she first came to the opera house was the greatest misfortune of all. Delilah, I muttered, a little Jezebel, a perfect little Eve offering up the apple with the snake still attached.

She didn't want anything to happen to me. What a lovely Siren song to befall deaf ears.

She was nothing more than Circe poisoning the blood in my veins, Medusa rattling her snake tails to charm.

Insult after insult and she still wanted more from me. She would receive nothing! She must see him, she wrote. She said she must see him, her son, her own son that she abandoned, that she hadn't even named—whose name she didn't bloody know!

She would never see him. Never! I would not allow her near him! For as long as I lived, she would not have the opportunity to hurt him in the manner she destroyed me.

And she thought I could not care for him. How dare she insinuate that I could not care for him! She wouldn't have given him to Madeline had she known I lived within the house. Who else would have owned the damned place? Who else had the funds to purchase property of the size, in the location of our home? A ballet teacher? Never! Fool of a woman!

My anger consumed me until I read the last line again. It became the only line I could read, the one sentence that thrust the knife deeper than any other.

_I must know who he belongs to._

That line stole the breath from my lungs.

It was impossible. He was mine. He was my son. He was everything in the world to me. For the past nine years, I had lived for him, not for Christine. My nights had been filled with cradling him in my arms, with soft-spoken words and whispered lullabies. Alex was my son. He was mine, damn her, only mine.

I could not have taken in another man's son. I couldn't have. I couldn't have…

The note was once more balled up in my fist. I slammed it into the drawer and stared at the latch still swinging back and forth.

Another man's son, I thought, the one person who had kept me alive for nearly a decade may have belonged to another man. A man I hated with every ounce of energy, no less.

No, she was playing another game. Alex was mine. I didn't care what Christine said. She wouldn't have the chance to ever look at him, to ever wonder if he was mine or not. She already knew the answer. We both did.

He had to be mine. He couldn't belong to the boy, he couldn't, damn it, Alex couldn't belong to him. Christine and her letter made me want to scream. I knew I had to keep quiet unless I wanted Julia to come running back into the guest room. My anger needed to safely be snuffed out on its own before my poor Julia came into the room again. It would be a while, I knew.

Everything Christine had taken from me paled in comparison to this. Each time I turned she waited with a white glove to slap me in the face knowing full well I would not act against her. Why would she do this to me? How could she wake each morning and never think of him but now suddenly want him back? She had a family of her own. She had someone with her always, wherever, whenever she traveled. She had children of her own, legitimate children of her own.

Her own conniving ways stumbled back into my mind. She had a family of her own, a family of all girls living beneath her roof. The vicomte? For all I cared he was considered part of the fairer sex as well and that was where I suspected the problem.

Three daughters, two living.

No sons.

Only mine.

I knew in my heart that no matter what she claimed, Alexandre was my son. Blood of my blood or not, I had raised him. He was my child, not Christine's and certainly not that damned vicomte of hers. Alex would always be my son.

For three months she had kept him. That was long enough to pass him off as her husband's child, assuming they had consummated their marriage at once. She could have said he was born early. It would not have been unheard of. What did she think when she relinquished her son to Madeline? She probably envisioned an entire household of little boys running about. Not once, I expected, did it ever cross her mind that her womb would only produce girl children.

No sons. No heirs to his money, no carrier of his name, no followers in his footsteps. Some might consider that a fruitless wife, one of which was slowly reaching an age where she would not be able to bear children. With her career, I wondered if she had interest in birthing more babies. The ones she had already were far from infancy.

Frantically, I dug into the drawer and removed the letter. I read it again, line for line as though there would be something more. I don't know what made me do it, but I turned the page over. Even if she said she had never left me a heat-sensitive message I knew that wasn't true. Nothing she had ever said to me was true. Each moment that I had worshipped her was all in vain.

Cursing her, I was about to light a candle and hold the page over heat but paused. The message was unintentionally quite clear.

It was nothing more than a smear, a splash of red meeting blue on the stark white page. I ran my finger over the two colors and blended them into one.

She must have forgotten my love of art is broad, and that in my years of solitude I spent many years reading about painting and sketching and the Old Masters. When my muse for song abandoned me, I swept up charcoals or paints that Madeline brought and tried my hand at different forms of art. I imitated the crème de la crème, attempted miniature Sistine Chapel's and more modern Monets and Renoirs. Christine saw my work though I doubt she would remember it. If she had remembered, then I would have hoped for to use a bit more care.

Christine, it seems, was lazy. As any artist knows, a blend of blue and red makes one color.

Purple, a deep, dark, painful shade of purple appeared before my eyes.

I rubbed the stage make up onto the back of my hand and grit my teeth together. How very clever, indeed, Christine, but not nearly clever enough for my mind, my dearest. Stage make up, which I was quite familiar with over the years. A fine trick indeed, though one of which was poorly executed. After all of my deceptions she should have known better.

If this was how she thought she would steal Alexandre from me she was sorely mistaken.

I'd be damned if she ever saw my son after that. Ever.


	39. Orphan to Princess

_My sincerest apolgoies for all of you who had no idea what the red and blue had to do with anything. My muse, Gabrina, swears upon her life that she will allow me to explain as I wish. The letter from Christine stated that she needed to know who Alex belonged to. The tart._

_I have much still to say. If you fancy a cup of tea, please, sit down and listen a while.

* * *

_

There was nothing real about Christine, not even a bruise. From so many years of hiding my own disfigurement I knew much about blending colors and creating something that wasn't there—or something meant to hide the truth.

The truth. How I hated the truth.

The chances of me throwing my plate or destroying something increased with each tick of the clock. Christine deserved no more of my time, I knew, but her letter was too damned good to be tossed aside. She had put much thought into stealing Alexandre from me. I had feigned sleep earlier in the day when Julia brought a rather late lunch. I felt terrible, but the letter from Christine had me so agitated that it was for the best that Julia and I didn't speak to one another. She wouldn't have wanted to hear a word from me with the state of mind the letter had put me in.

"Mme Giry wishes to see you later on this evening. Meg came by during lunch and brought something from her mother. Cookies, for the children," Julia said as she cracked the door open.

Light filtered in from behind her as she opened the door, making it impossible to see her face. She had put her hair back into a bun and had changed into a different dress, one with a larger bustle than usual.

"Fine," I yawned, though I wanted to know why Madeline never made anything for me.

Julia's arm extended as she walked into the room and I saw the stark white of my mask in her hand. As she neared I noticed a round mirror cradled between her arm and her body as well.

"I wasn't sure if you wantthis or not when Mme Giry come**s** to visit," Julia said as she moved my empty lunch plate off the table and placed the mirror and mask down beside me. "The room is dark…"

"Thank you," I replied before she finished. My gaze switched between the mask and the mirror and the hair that was partially hidden beneath both. "She knows my appearance. If the dimmed light suits her, she may enter. Warn her first."

After that I thought she would leave but she lingered a moment still. I couldn't see her face well enough to know where her eyes had fixed.

"Alex has been asking me for the last four hours if he may see you."

I sighed though I was happy he wanted to see me, as undeserving as I was of his attention. "Once Madeline returns home he may stay for a while, for the night if he wants."

Julia nodded. She turned the lamp up and straightened the linens over the bed. "I forgot all about your bath. The children, the house—"

"Sit down," I said. I scratched my head near the stitches and winced. Julia hadn't said anything but the bruising from my fall must have added a knot the size of a crabapple.

"But Mme Giry—"

I blew air past my lips. "Sit here long enough and she'll likely let herself in and clean the house for you."

"Erik, it's rude—"

"Please, just sit."

She knew I wouldn't stop until she either left the room or did as I asked. Fortunately she sat and folded her hands in her lap.

With a heavy sigh I looked at Julia and pushed the letter into her hands. She squinted at it and then glanced at me. "Are you certain you want me to read this?"

The more I listened to people speak the more I realized that words are often useless. I wanted to shake my head at her. Quite frankly, that was the most ridiculous question she could have asked. If I didn't want her to read it I wouldn't have handed it to her in the first place.

"Yes, of course," I answered.

From the many times I had watched her sit by the window and read I knew she was well learned. By how long she took to read the letter, I knew she had read it several times.

When she looked up at me at last, she appeared haunted. She handed the note back to me and once again I crumbled it up and tossed it onto the desk.

"Erik—"

"Just listen to me. Please, no questions. Just listen." I looked away from her.

I had to tell her the truth. How I despised the truth.

For years I had often thought about the last day I had seen her in my lair. Her face was branded into my mind. Every day that had passed, I still saw the tears glistening in her eyes, the remorse on her face as she saw the angel, wings clipped, staring longingly at her. She would never know the complete devastation I felt when I lost her for good.

I looked away from Julia when I spoke though it didn't much matter. She stared at her hands, afraid of what I would tell her, what I would reveal in her guest room.

"I realize what a fool I've been. The kiss, the ring, all of it was for naught. She had acted out a beautiful moment, one of which had been the pinnacle of my life for so long." I paused. I had kept the ring inside the cellar, along with the wax figurine and several of her letters.

"She had a pretty little stage of smoke and mirrors and a master who turned into a puppet once something better appeared before her eyes."

Julia touched my hand and I turned towards her. "Erik, I don't understand."

I took a deep breath and realized I had started to speak more to myself than to her. No one had ever listened to anything I had said. Having her beside me willingly was almost surreal. "She was only a chorus girl when I first saw her but I changed her. I kept her disciplined and I made her work on her voice. I made an orphan into a princess."

Julia sat farther forward and took a pillow from the bed. She rested her elbows on the pillow and placed her chin against her palms. She smiled softly, prompting me to continue, allowing me safety in gentle light eyes. I would have confessed anything to her in that moment, to that angelic face.

"Everything was my doing. My fixation with Christine allowed her the upper hand, which I hadn't even realized. There was nothing I wouldn't do to see her happy, to make her smile and she knew it. Physically, I could do nothing for her. She tempted me, there was no doubt, and I persisted to win her but nothing ever came of it."

Julia nodded. "You were a gentleman."

"Not for lack of trying to be a louse. After a while, I tired of coaxing her into the bed chamber and having nothing come of it. I settled on satisfying her emotionally. By her own free will she came to me again and again, even when she had engaged herself to the boy. I taught her how to make her way down into the opera house. I gave her everything. I shared everything with her gladly.

"For days Christine would stay in my dark castle, even after the boy had come back to court her. There would be gifts for her each time, rewards for her company. Jewelry, chocolate, hats, shoes, flowers - anything she ever mentioned that she fancied I would have for her. Madeline was instructed to keep two thousand francs each month from my salary so that gifts could be purchased for Christine."

"Two thousand francs?" Julia asked, placing her hand against her heart. "How much did you receive?"

"Twenty thousand."

"For what?"

I shrugged. "For leaving them be."

Julia stared at me a moment. "This, we will discuss later. With all of that money you could have bought her France."

Her words made me smirk. "Don't think it didn't cross my mind. I spared nothing for her. I thought she was happy to visit me. She would sit and listen to me play; she would have her music lessons, play with her gifts, tell me how much she adored the trinkets and then be gone for weeks."

"You spoiled her," Julia replied.

"I thought I had earned her company. As I returned her to her room, I would beg her to tell me why she wouldn't stay a little longer. Perhaps it was selfish of me to want companionship but the only moments I found joy were when she sat by the organ and sang, or when she fell asleep in the bed I respectfully left to her—and I did leave her alone. She gave me enough attention, just enough hope that she would love me and that she would stay with me for a lifetime."

Julia turned away from me. She didn't tell me to stop, but she didn't look at me.

"Then, before I left her at her mirror, she would tell me that I tricked her and deceived her and that she hated me. On my knees I would grovel for her to forgive me. Yes, I had come to her as an Angel of Music but there was no other way. She knew of the Phantom, of the terror in the darkness. There was no way I could communicate with her without first becoming her Angel. Somehow, she always found it in her heart to forgive me, after I promised her that I would find her something better, something brighter than before."

"She didn't forgive you, she returned because you would give her pretty things," Julia said. She crossed her legs at the ankles. I knew by the look on her face that she bit her tongue. "You made a nice benefactor."

I nodded. "But then, after a while, she no longer protested the manner in which I gained her trust. I thought it was a good sign, that perhaps she had accepted me. Then, three months passed and I didn't see her. She ignored me at night when I called to her and I knew why. She left me once the lessons did not improve her voice." My voiced trailed away. "And once she knew for sure about Alex."

A shudder ripped through my body. I had forgotten how angry I was when she stopped coming down to see me. "For days on end I stayed in bed and didn't bother to write. I destroyed things, candles, candle holders, sketches of her. I loved and hated her all in the same breath, all in the same heartbeat. I panicked, knowing I would lose her forever."

Julia still said nothing. I wished she had said something, anything at all. She gave me no choice but to continue.

"_Don Juan Triumphant_ was to be my final plea to her…"

Julia's eyes widened as I told her of the last stand to acquire Christine's love and her hand, and the baby she had conceived.

"She was the only thing I thought about. I forgot to eat, I failed to sleep. I didn't even change my clothes. All I did was think of her…"

I closed my eyes and felt my jaw tighten. "For days on end I would stare at the sketches I had made of her. I would stay awake at night and hold her wax figurine, stroking her hair, staring into her lifeless eyes. I had to make another hole in my belt because I had lost so much weight. I didn't even notice, not until well after when Madeline forced me to eat something and practically forced me into a bath.

"None of that mattered to me. I wanted her to look at me as she looked at her fiancé. Even as I took the stage for my opera I knew it was all in vain. But when someone wants something, when someone believes that they deserve something as much as I believed I deserved her, no amount of reasoning can stop such a plan."

Julia nodded as though she understood.

"Besides," I told Julia wryly, "I expected that once the gendarmes knew it was the dreaded Phantom who had replaced that fat Italian, I would have been riddled with bullet holes."

Julia shook her head at me. "That isn't amusing, Erik. It's…it's terrible. It's tragic…it's…"

"It's the only thing I could think of for months. If I couldn't be in her heart for love, I hoped Christine would at least pity me or allow me to die in her arms. I couldn't even get a death wish to go as I wanted. Not even hell would have me at that point."

"Yet you still love her," Julia said under her breath.

I pressed my knuckles into my eyes. "I want to prove that I am more than a monster to her. I want to be more than just a beast who heard a voice. That's what I want."

Julia looked at the closed drawer where the note had been tossed. "Will you tell Alex?"

"No."

Julia pursed her lips together. "He may have heard her come to the door earlier…"

My eyes flickered up to her face. By the lamplight she appeared even more exhausted than before. "I have no doubt he heard her." I sat back against the pillows and sighed. "But I don't care. This he does not need to know."

"But if his father—"

"I am his father," I said.My voice started to rise but I caught myself. Both of my hands squeezed together. Living alone had one benefit the company of others did not: the leisure of breaking whatever I wanted without consequence. I reached for the note again and showed her the back. "I know I am his father."

She looked at me as though I had gone mad, which I suppose was feasible. Two primary colors obviously had nothing to do with conception.

"The bruise on her wrist," I started to explain. She stared at me. With a sigh, I began to show her my own hand but that would have made no difference as the backs of my hands were both scraped and bruised. Instead, I shook the letter at her. "Stage make-up, blue and red stage make-up blended to create the illusion of injury. She made her own bruise."

Julia looked away and thought it over, brows knit and lips moving as she worked through my words. "But why would she do this? She has—"

"Only daughters. Three girls, they had three girls together and nothing more. The youngest is four from what I recall."

Julia stared at me. "I think you've jumped to conclusions, Erik. The bruise, for one, is a bit outrageous."

"No, not for Christine."

"But why would she bother?"

"She knows how I despise men beating women. She once broke a vase of mine and I saw the terror in her eyes as it turned to dust. I swore to her that I would never lay a hand on her, that if any man should harm her, he would pay," I said. Sitting in bed all day had made me sore. I twisted and turned attempting to find comfort. "She had a bruise on her wrist, one that she went to great efforts to show me. It was only an illusion, I'm sure. Only a small trick and not even a very good one. I taught her far more fascinating magic games with mirrors, fire, ropes—many things. I taught her many little things beside music. Most were nothing more than sideshow attractions but they amused her, just as they would have a Persian princess or a Sultan."

Julia didn't dare ask what in the world I was talking about and for that I was glad. There were things that I never wanted to tell her. Even then I said more than I should have.

"Erik," she said quietly. She handed me the note again. "Do you think Alex looks like him?"

I shook my head. "He is Christine, her dark curls, her dark eyes, her complexion."

"Then how do you know, Erik? Please understand…I want nothing more than for Alex to belong to you, but how will she know, how will you know if he is your son by blood?"

"He's more than my blood. He's my life. There is nothing that concerns me past that."

I started to open the drawer but I heard the familiar howl of a dog.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I hobbled over to the window and glanced out. The pain seemed sharper than earlier, though it diminished faster. At last, something good.

"I'll see her in," Julia said.

I glanced back and nodded.

She started to close the door but stopped and smiled. "And Erik, if you're planning on staying here much longer at least attempt to limp."


	40. Madeline

_Julia knows everything. I've come to the conclusion that Christine would replace Lucifer should Satan needa vacation from Hell._

Ch 40

The dog let out another howl. She had picked up my scent, I thought with a smile. Madeline pulled back on the leash but the animal lunged forward. Madeline was dragged along. I heard her mutter something under her breath as she was whipped forward.

Once I heard the back door open I closed the curtain and looked about the room. For a guest room it was a descent size, though I suspected it appeared larger because there was little within it. Until my rendezvous with the vicomte I had never been down this hallway. Really, I had only passed through Julia's kitchen on my way up the stairs to her bedroom. The rest of the house was a mystery.

Julia and Madeline talked for a while. Lisette and Alexandre took the dog back out of the house which irritated me. I could hear the thump of a rubber ball hitting the side of the house every few minutes followed by the hound baying as she charged after it. Naturally the one time I actually wanted to see the dog and be certain that someone was caring for her was the day Alex decided to play with her.

I brought the lamp to the wardrobe and discovered several boxes in storage. One contained men's clothes, which was of no interest to me. The second, however, contained books, and the last one I bothered to take down had what looked like nothing more than broken jewelry and empty jewelry boxes. That box went directly back to the shelf as did the box of clothes.

The books interested me the most. I thumbed through the musty tomes, blowing dust from the spines before flipping through some of the pages. I needed to tell Madeline to bring the false book from my own library over. I still wanted to read the letter Christine had sent to Madeline, the letter in which she swore she hadn't written a message of her own to me.

Eventually my legs began to atrophy and I took the box of books and sat down on the bed again. My confession to Julia had left me exhausted both physically and mentally. The longer I looked through the volumes the less I could see on the pages. I hadn't even realized that I had fallen asleep until Julia knocked on the door.

"Mme Giry is here," she said quietly.

I sat upright and yawned before moving the box of books onto the ground. The lamp was still turned up from my attempt at reading. I turned it down so that the light wasn't as harsh. Madeline would be grateful, I suspected.

"How do you—" she started to ask. She caught sight of me and the last word merely slipped from her tongue, "feel."

Madeline looked horrified. She tip-toed toward me with her hands held over her mouth. Even though I knew the bruises alarmed her, the look on her face elicited a stir of shame up from my gut. I looked away, unable to keep eye contact with her. I had seen that look before, well before I had been led into an alley. Years had passed since she had seen my face.

"I would most certainly feel better if for once you made something for me rather than Alex," I muttered.

"My God what did he do to you?" Madeline asked. She sat down by the bedside and began to cry. "Oh, Erik, I didn't know it was nearly this bad. If you want me to leave—"

"Have you been taking care of the dog?" I asked merely to change the subject. And because out of the three of them still in the house, none of them ever filled a water bowl or slid a beef bone under the table.

Madeline looked stunned by my question. She dried her eyes with a lace handkerchief and nodded. "Well, yes. She's been in the cellar."

"The cellar? Why on earth would she be in the cellar?"

"She—she was scratching at your bedroom door and howling all night. The only way to stop her was to put her downstairs. I would have let her into the room but I know you wouldn't want her on the bed."

There was a twinkle in her eye when she spoke. She changed the linens twice a week and knew I wasn't the one shedding on the coverlet. Still I said nothing. She had caught me talking to the dog on more than once occasion.

"She bit him, did she?" I asked.

Madeline nodded and looked away. "He walked across the threshold with a note and she nipped him. That was why I wanted to see you. Erik, she wants to see him. On Friday for lunch she wants to see Alexandre."

I crossed my arms. "She can go to hell."

"Erik, she's quite insistent."

I reached down into the box for something to distract me and found a book bound in soft leather. "She can be as insistent as she wants. She will not see him."

"You need to read this," Madeline replied.

When I glanced up she was holding a note out to me. I glared at her for a moment and snatched it from her hands. Madeline said nothing. She was still staring at the bruises while I read the letter.

"So this is what she wants to do, is it?" I muttered as I handed the note back to her. "She's threatening me?"

Madeline put the note back into her coat pocket. "Only if you refuse to let her see him. Erik, he's not only yours. If she wants to see him I will take him with me."

"Absolutely not."

She crossed her arms and leaned forward. "Quit being so bull-headed," she whispered. "Do you want the gendarmes at the door? Do you want to be tried and executed for everything you did, all of those…lives?"

Madeline was never able to bring herself to say I had killed someone. She knew Buquet's death was more of an accident than anything. Had he not insisted on struggling he would have passed out and been found with his flask at his side, not dangling from the catwalk. The chandelier? Well, that was on purpose. But Buquet had been an accident.

"She won't see him. I will not allow it."

"What will happen to Alex? If you're carted away what happens to your son?"

"She has another think coming if she expects that I'll give him up without a thought. We'll leave. I'll take Alexandre out of France."

"Erik, where would you go? Where would you go that no one would recognize you? You can't do this to him."

"I can do whatever the hell I wish to do! He's my son!" I yelled.

She grabbed my hand then and pressed into the bruises, which, I expected, was unintentional. "You don't mean that. I know you don't mean that."

_She had no other choice._

Meg's cryptic words came back into my mind as I stared at Madeline. There was no other choice. If I kept him with me she and her vicomte would send the authorities straight to Julia's home. Madeline was correct. Uprooting Alex would do nothing but keep us a step ahead. Running would make it worse for Alex. He wouldn't understand, and I certainly didn't want him to know my past. There were days when not even I wanted to know all that I had done.

My eyes closed. Every ounce of energy had been sapped from my body. The conversation had to have removed five years from my life and the unspoken dread I felt brewing in my gut at least another ten. By all accounts and purposes, Christine had killed me.

"What time are you meeting her?"

"Half past two."

"Where?"

"The hotel."

Eyes still closed, I shook my head. "Our house. At three. She either accepts or does not see him at all."

"Erik—"

My tone grew sterner. "She either accepts or does not see him at all, Madeline. Tell her exactly what I said. I'll write her a damned note if you want."

"What if she refuses?"

I looked at Madeline then. "Do you honestly think it matters to her? If she sees Alex or not they'll come for me by Friday night. Of that I have no doubt."

Madeline began to cry again. I turned away from her and looked down at the book in my hands. There were hand-written notes inside, logs or entries of some sort. Julia's father had owned a grain store and I suspected it was a book he kept for sales.

"The deed is in your name. You should probably bring it over here tomorrow. I should look it over and see if I need to sign anything before Friday. Make sure it stays in your possession. If Alex should ever return, he may have it."

That made her sob even harder. Her emotions bothered me immensely. She had spent enough years either disappointed or in tears because of what I did.

"Is there anything else?" I asked gruffly.

She shook her head and dabbed at her eyes.

"Then send Alex in."

Madeline glanced up at me and met my gaze. She hesitated to speak though I guessed already what she was about to say. Her eyes switched to the bedside table where the mask and my hair had become lost in the foray of books.

"I'll give you a moment," Madeline whispered.

"With all that has happened in the last three days this will be the least of his concerns," I muttered. "Just find him. And tell him to bring the dog."

"The dog is fine, Erik."

A crooked smile touched my lips. "We'll see. You know I don't trust any of you."

Madeline nodded, understanding me as she always did. Her hand brushed against my shoulder and she bent down. I knew what she had intended. She would have kissed the left side of my face, the good side, if there could be one side considered good. I took her hand and held it a moment and she stopped. She sighed, either from relief in not having to show affection or disappointment that I had turned her away.

"You've always been good to me," I said to her hand.

Strange how the prospect of execution prompts one to rectify what can be changed. I was fairly certain that it would be my last chance to show her that I had cared for her. Though she began to cry once more, I pressed my lips to the back of her hand, to the hand of the only mother I had ever really known.


	41. Gift from a Son to a Father

Ch 41

Madeline left the guest room and spent a while speaking with Alex, Lisette and Julia, who had started dinner. It smelled like pot roast although I didn't much care what she made for supper. My thoughts were on Alex, not hunger. I could hear him telling Madeline how he and Lisette had found a toad in the back yard. By the sound of him, one would have thought the toad was made of gold.

"…and we kept Bessie from eating it, because she thought it was the rubber ball, so we moved it away from the house and put it in our backyard, well, Father's backyard. And do you know why we moved it? Because once Charles told me thattoads can be poisonous…"

He never once took a breath. Quite remarkable, really, that a child of his age could say so much in one breath.

"….and Father would be furious if Bessie ate a toad. Why, she would be sick on his bed. And if she was sick on his bed he would tie her up and leave her someplace. Or if she died, he would be the one who would have to bury her, and he doesn't want to dig a hole in the yard…."

I thumbed through the book I had found in the box and chuckled to myself. He watched me closer and listened better than I had ever guessed.

Once he was more aware of the world, when he was around the age of five or so, I assumed I would be the last thing he would notice. He had Madeline to wash his clothes and fed him and holler at him for ridiculous things. He had Charles to teach him and tell him of the world. He had Lisette as a playmate and Meg as an aunt who listened to him ramble without ever batting an eye. He even had Julia as a nanny when he bumbled through the backyard and walked into her kitchen.

For the most part, he had a good life, with plenty of people around him to watch over his every move and pay attention to what he did. What had I been to him other than a grim figure that rarely looked him in the eye?

The older he became the more I realized I was afraid of him. When he was merely an infant or a toddler who knew no better it was simple to love him, to hold him close and speak with him. While I wrote music, he sat on the floor and played contentedly at my feet. Sometimes he sat on my lap while I read and begged me to tell him what the books were about. I obliged, wrapping one arm around his body, feeling his rib cage rise and fall.

He would close his eyes as I read to him things that no child of his age would find interesting. He stayed mostly because the sound of my voice lulled him to sleep, and once he told me that I read better stories than Meg.

But then he grew. As the years passed he gazed longingly outside and came to realize that my lap and the library were, in a sense, nothing more than a cage. When he grew old enough Madeline took him down to the market and Meg took him by the stock yards to watch the auctions. He knew that there were larger, grander, better things available. Things I would never show him.

Never had the threat of losing him seemed closer than while I sat and waited for him to speak with me. Now that Christine was here, he would find opportunities I could not give him. He would see the grandeur of the world as he had never seen before, the things he had only known in the books Charles made him study. Christine would offer and Alex would see what it was to be the peer of royalty. He would see everything while in her care...Russia, Africa, the United States, the Far East, Australia…everything. She had everything.

In two nights, she would flash a lovely smile, open her arms to her bastard son, and tantalize him with the world in the palm of her hand.

In two nights, he would hear me ask him to stay with me. Out of mercy, out of compassion, I would ask him to remain with me, with his father. With a ghost.

And in two nights, I would see him leave forever.

The book page I had absently stopped at grew wet with a single tear. Christine could have done anything else to me, but not this. She couldn't take him from me, not when she didn't know how to spell his name, when she had never even sent him a letter. She had done nothing but give him life and even that had been a mistake

Everything else I could still forgive her for, but taking Alexandre? Never. I would hate her for the rest of her life should she take him from me.

My hands began to shake. My breaths turned to gasps for air. She would steal him from me out of my own house.

The door creaked open and I quickly glanced up, running my fingers over my eyes. By the tapping on the floor I knew who had come to visit me: the dog.

"Well what do you want?" I asked. I closed the book in my hands and slid it under the pillow.

Bessie cocked her head to the side and whined. I tapped twice on my leg and she tried to gallop toward the bed. The wooden floors didn't agree with her four feet and she ran in place for a moment, ears flopping from side to side, tongue lolling from her maw. Somehow she managed to gain momentum and ended up slamming into the bed with a grunt.

"Honestly," I said with a shake of my head. I leaned over the bed and scratched behind one of her ears, chuckling at her antics. Basset hounds have always been the most ridiculous creatures, highly intelligent but lacking grace.

Her limbs were far too short to climb onto the bed, but she tried her best to scurry as fast as she could, leaping into the air on her back legs. I watched her for a moment as she struggled but then she growled at me, finding no amusement in her failure. I grabbed her under the chest and placed her on the bed. Once I managed to get her to sit, I ran both hands along her sides. Someone had fed her, it seemed, as I couldn't feel her ribs, though I suppose three days weren't enough to turn her into a bag of bones.

She continued to shift and thrash me with her wickedly excited tail. She had gotten this way before when I went down to the cellar and walked all the way to the opera house. I had been gone for several hours longer than she had apparently found necessary. She bayed at me, then squatted.

"If you pee on the bed, I'll toss you out the window," I threatened as she whined. "And then once Julia finds out I let you on the bed, I'll be in the yard beside you."

She stared at me as though it was the most marvelous thing she had heard in her life.

"I suspect you've been worse off than I have, what with Madeline caring for everyone in the house. God knows what Meg would do if she was forced from the nest. She can barely care for herself, that girl. You're probably better off in the cellar than around the rest of them."

Bessie made a half-growl half-yawning sound in protest.

"They know I care for them," I assured her.

Her entire body trembled, her tail whipping through the air. She stared at me from beneath her wrinkled brow and I finally relented, shifting towards the headboard to allow her fifty pound frame additional room. Once I moved, she rolled onto her back and stared at me impatiently, back legs kicking at my shins.

"Demanding, gluttonous creature, aren't you?" I whispered as I rubbed her chin. "As well you should be. I hear Madeline has kept you in confinement? I also hear you bit someone?"

She whined again and I smiled at her.

"You should have drawn blood."

The reason I always appreciated Bessie was that she spoke her own mind in her own tongue oblivious to the obvious borders that hindered our communication. When no one else would listen, I had two velvety long ears always willing. She scraped away at my loneliness, at the solitude I had insisted upon.

There were nights when I wondered if Alex had wanted her at all or if he had insisted on a dog for my benefit. I had heard him ask Madeline if I was angry at him. It was a week after the first article claimed that Christine was coming back for the Columbian Exhibition.

"Why doesn't Father come downstairs?"

"He just likes being alone," Madeline had told him.

"But why?" Alex had persisted. He was stubborn, insatiable when it came to answers.

Madeline hated his persistence. Perhaps she feared it would lead him in the direction I had strayed. "Because he does. Because he doesn't like people."

"But what if—"

"Hush. Just leave him be, Alex. Just leave him be."

The very next day twenty francs ended up missing from my writing desk and a ball of hair sat whining on the kitchen floor. I stood, arms crossed, jaw tight as I looked from the dog to Alex. He had looked so elated as he knelt beside Bessie that I waved a hand at him and said that if the dog urinated anywhere in the house, I would throw it in a bag and drown it in the river. I returned to my room, not even turning once he thanked me for letting him keep the dog he had 'found'. There was no way I could have made him return her. In so many ways I had disappointed him by denying him days at the park or walks down to the bakery. If he wanted a dog, then so be it. At least he had something.

In the past year, I had done nothing for him. Where once I stood in the doorway and watched over his afternoon lessons, there was nothing. I found myself preoccupied in scouring newspapers. Hour after hour I stayed locked in my room as I dug up information on whether or not Christine would attend. My German and English became better as I went through pages of every newspaper I could find.

Then one day, the dog was sitting at my bedroom door with her leash tied around the doorknob. Alex had left for the day with Madeline. I stared at the animal and she stared at me. Infuriated I allowed her into the room to keep her from barking. Once she came into my room for the afternoon and had strips of beef feed to her there was no making her leave. She slept in my room that night. Not once did Alex say a word of it.

That had been his way to enter my world, to creep into my heart; I realized as I sat in bed and listened to him talk about the toad. Bessie had been a gift, an offering of companionship from a son who had stood on the outside for so long. A dog, a simple animal, was a present from a child who had no idea that his father feared losing him; that dreaded the day he would see me unmasked. A seven-year-old child, _my_ child, groping in vain for the entrance to the dark gates I had built.

My God, what had I done?

Everything I did to keep him with me, to keep him wanting, had pushed him away. He had always been everything to me, the reason why I knew I still woke in the morning when I had never deserved to take that first breath.

I wondered if he still searched for a way into my heart, for a way to my affection.

He never knew he was already there, that he had always been there, and that nothing would ever take my love for him away. Not even his own mother.

Bessie licked my chin, undoubtedly tasting the salty rivers that trailed from my eyes.

"It seems we've both been in hell," I muttered.

Bessie whined again and continued to lick my hand, washing her warm tongue over the bruises and scrapes.

I looked away from her dark eyes and stared at the window that Alex had used to enter the room the previous night. Two days. I had two days left until Christine's lunch with him. Two days until she would make her rounds like a vulture. She had slowly circled in the air and waited for the perfect moment to indulge in the last glorious feast of my suffering. She descended down to pick the last of my carcass clean. I thought there had been nothing left to take from me yet she had found something. It was only a scrap, but I could feel her reach through my ribs and tear away at the bloody remnants of my heart. Once again she had it, my waiting, writhing, suffering heart.

Without intending toI pushed Bessie from the bed and curled up on my side, shaking with soundless sobs. Each movement sent a wave of sharp inside and out. Already I began to mourn Alex leaving me for good. Alone I embraced myself, gripping onto my own arms as I drew my legs up to my chest.

I made the sign of the cross. Slowly, I rolled to the floor and sat on my knees, teeth grit together through the throbbing pain of cuts and bruises. I would suffer anything for my words to be heard. Flames, knives, any form of torture would seem like a blessing compared to what lay ahead. My hands clamped together and I bowed my head.

"Oh Father, if you still know me, if you still remember your morbid creation," I sobbed. "Show me mercy just this once and let him stay with me. Send me to Hell for eternity, but let me keep my son. He needs to know it, Father. He needs to know that I do love him, that I've always loved him. He needs to know. He needs to, he deserves it…he deserves something better than this. Oh please don't take him from me, not now."

I sank farther until I was on the ground with the left side of my face against the cold wooden floor. My chest tightened, my insides churning, threatening. My entire body felt cold and empty. Empty and denied an answer. I kept my eyes closed and thought about praying for death. That, I thought, God would give me but not soon enough.

There was nothing else to feel, I was certain. I willed myself to die and be done with this anguish weighted down by the world, by earthly suffering and expectations but something happened. Warmth, there was warmth on my shoulder. A hand, an angel's soft touch. There were no words but I knew without opening my eyes who had come to me.

It was Alex.

My son. My prayer had been heard.


	42. Fear turned to Love

_My turn to talk before Erik! I will be gone on Saturday and possibly Sunday. Last update will be Friday afternoon/evening. Erik? I think he would like to recap.

* * *

I could sink no further than begging God for mercy in letting me keep my son. As I slipped into the farthest reaches of Hell, Alex showed up.

* * *

_

Ch 42

Ch 42

There was nothing left.

My dignity had been removed. I was raw, stripped of my hide like a carcass in a butcher shop window. I was nothing more than a mass on the floor unhindered by false hair and a white mask.

There was nothing left.

The hatred I felt for myself could flare no brighter; my shame could dig claws no deeper. I was crucified by my own foolishness, guillotined by my pursuit for Christine, and fed to the lions of my own deceit. I was executed for false hopes and resurrected only to lie on the floor and beg for mercy.

There was only one thing left to do.

"I need to sit up."

Alexandre said nothing. I heard his shoes rub against the floor followed by the lamp rattling as he pressed his back to the nightstand. He softly apologized, then accidentally kicked me between the shoulder blades and apologized again. The bruises to my upper back let out a resonating scream of fiery pain but I only shook my head.

Sitting upright made me feel worse. My head pounded at the temples and in the middle of my forehead where I had split my stitches the previous day. To keep the room from making a vicious spin I closed my eyes and pressed my palms to the cool floor.

"Do you want me to leave?" Alex asked under his breath.

"No," I answered him quickly. I exhaled slowly, waiting for my stomach to settle.

He was quiet. I knew without looking at him that he had been staring at the back of my head.

"Alex—"

"Did Mme Seuratti make your hair fall off?"

Despite his education he couldn't help but inquire in ways that were callous yet expected for his age. My mouth opened as I thought of an answer. Nothing elaborate seemed appropriate as I knew that no matter what, any answer would open a Pandora's Box of questions.

"No."

I glanced over my shoulder. Alex sat with his back up against the nightstand. His legs were drawn up to his chest and his wrists dangled over his knees. He looked away once he saw my head turn.

There was nothing left to hide from him, nothing left I could keep in secret a moment longer. He had seen something far more grotesque over the last twelve months, something I wished he had never seen in me.

I turned back towards the wall and felt myself shudder. "Alex—"

"Mme Seuratti wouldn't let me see you earlier. She's making me stay in Lisette's room even though I told her you said I could stay in here."

"Alex, this is Mme Seuratti's home. You must listen to her and do as she asks."

"Do you have to listen to her as well?"

He amused me in even my darkest hour. "I respect her."

"Does that mean you don't have to follow her orders?"

"It means that you should do as she tells you and not argue." My tone was unduly harsh and I caught myself and sighed. "It is no different here than it is at home. Julia deserves the same respect from you as the adults in our home."

He was silent for a moment. I started to turn again.

"Father?" he said before I had a chance to address him. He had moved nearer as we spoke so that he sat with his right side against the bed.

"Yes, Alexandre?"

"Father, did you fall? Is that why you weren't in bed?"

"Farther than you know," I whispered.

"May I stay a little longer?"

"You may stay as long as you wish," I replied as I started to climb to my feet. "But get off the floor first. It's too cold for you to sit down there. You'll catch a fever."

Alex scrambled up and took my left arm, then knowing my pride and foolishness, quickly backed away. Standing up was far better than being on my knees but I reached back and blindly searched the air. I needed him. I wanted him to know that I needed him.

"Alex?" I asked without turning.

His hand met mine and I pulled him towards me, wrapping my arm over his shoulder. He supported none of my weight but he didn't hesitate to wedge himself up against me as though he was much stronger than he looked.

I could feel how tense he was, how uncertain he felt in my presence. His head stayed bowed as it usually did when we were together. I couldn't even remember the last time when I had spoken to my own child and looked him in the eye. The only time I seemed to look at him was when he was being reprimanded for something and Madeline sent him to me.

"You may turn down the lamp if you wish to stay," I offered.

His head shook, rustling the dark curls. "How will you read, then?"

"I'm too tired to read any more tonight." That wasn't what I wanted to say to him. I was sick of my own excuses. "The books can wait. I wanted to speak with you."

He glanced up but looked away before he ever made it to my face. "Am I in trouble?"

"Not with me. Should you be?"

His shoulders dropped, his arms relaxing as I pressed him closer. "Are you going to punish me for running away?"

"Not this time." My legs had turned to knots the longer I stood upright. I stifled a groan of sheer agony and stared at the bed. "Alex, I must lie down again."

Alex helped me to sit, carefully staying to my left. Once I was sitting he moved into the chair and slunk down low averting his eyes.

"Alexand—"

"Father."

We kept verbally running into one another. I felt like I was drowning, like I was looking up from the bottom of the sea and watching him. He had fought—tooth and nail—he had fought and struggled as the waves beat him, tossed him. If only I had realized sooner that I was the one who controlled the tide.

"What is it, Alexandre?"

He hesitated and tapped his fingers together. I turned to fully face him knowing he would not lift his eyes.

"Father," he started again. A ragged breath left his parted lips. "Did you want to see her so that she would take me back?"

The bits of my heart which had shattered turned to dust. Not only did he think that I didn't love him but he thought that I wanted to be rid of him.

"No," I answered before I lost a chance to tell him anything.

He nodded, his face visibly contorted. He had received about as much as he had come to expect. There were no longer lengthy conversations, no longer reading the morning paper or flipping through books. His time was spent studying and aggravating Meg and Madeline. My time was spent elsewhere, on nothing that seemed important.

"Alex," I started. He sucked in a breath through his nose and wiped his face. He had thrown plenty of tantrums before me but tears were rare for him. We were both easily irritated, prone to reacting before thinking, though never emotional beyond that.

"Sit with me," I whispered. I stared at the bedside table, at the hair he had never seen me without and the mask that he had once tried to remove. I moved over on the bed. "If you want…"

He moved at once and sat on the bed with his back to me. He wiped at his eyes again but said nothing and the silence between us blanketed the room. There were so many things I wanted to tell him, most of all that I loved him. I could tell God that I loved my own son but I couldn't bring myself to tell Alex how I felt about him. It had been too long, I had wasted too many years, and I had not done enough.

"Did Mme Seuratti take your…your other face away?"

The mask. For as bright of a boy as he was he thought of the mask as my other face.

"No, she didn't take it from me, but I must wait until my face heals before I can wear it again."

"Oh. How long will that take?" he asked. He turned his head to the side and risked a glance but thought better of it and stopped.

"A week I would think."

He nodded. "Then I may see you again?"

There was such shame in not knowing what to tell him. I said the first thing that came to mind.

"I have another face. It's not like the other one."

He turned his head again and looked at me from the corner of his eye. "Do you want to put it on?"

I looked away from him for a moment and regretted never showing him before now. This would have been easier had he been a toddler, not a boy slowly becoming a young man. "Alex, it's not a mask, it's real. It's skin. Like…like your skin." I closed my eyes and felt along the inside of my mouth with my tongue. "You may look if you wish to see it."

The bed creaked and I knew that he faced me. My eyes opened slowly and I found that he was staring at the middle of my chest. His gaze flickered up and met mine, and he forced a half-smile then looked away. The corners of his mouth twitched but he said nothing. Another attempt at eye contact failed both of us.

"Were you scared?" he asked under his breath. "When…they…"

"Yes," I admitted before he could finish. I swallowed hard. My heart was racing. I had expected him to stare only a moment before he screamed and ran from the room.

"Me too," he said quietly. He moved closer and clasped his hands together. His eyes flashed up and he stared at my nose before he looked away again. "I thought they would kill you."

"You shouldn't have been there, Alex."

"I wanted to see her."

"I know."

"But not anymore. I don't like her. I know I won't like her."

"Alex—"

"And I hate him. I hope he dies. I hate him."

"Alex, don't say that."

He let out a single sob. "I hate her too for watching, for doing nothing. I hate her standing there on her balcony. I hate her. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her."

"Alex—"

He hit the bed with both of his hands and I grabbed him around the chest and drew him toward me. I brought him to me the way I did when he was a small child, when he would hold his breath or throw himself down. Madeline hated how I would coddle him rather than reprimand him after his tantrums.

His fists balled around the back of my shirt, his face pressed against my chest as I held him and he cried. It was the first time in four years that he had been this close to me. His heart was pounding, his body trembling. He suddenly felt like a toddler again, like a frightened boy clinging to his father.

And he was a frightened boy, a child confused and injured. With my eyes closed, I kissed the top of his head and felt drops of warmth in his dark curls. I couldn't lose him. I couldn't bear to ever think of him gone from my life.

"I'll hate her forever," he said as he caught his breath again.

My own hatred was a terrible lump in my throat that I forced myself to swallow. I didn't want him to feel as I had felt for so long. I didn't want him to despise her as I did. "You mustn't say that, Alexandre. She's…she's your mother."

He was quiet for a while and I expected that he had exhausted himself and fallen asleep. I pressed my cheek to the top of his head and closed my eyes, listening to him breathe, feeling his body move as he sighed. Slowly, his arms slipped down from my back. I held him closer.

This was my last moment to hold him, to cradle him as I had when he was an infant. This was the ending to the years I had wasted on mourning what was not yet gone.

Two more days and she would claim him. I dreaded that moment. He would think I had lied to him, that I did see Christine to send him away.

"Alex, I love you," I whispered as his breaths evened out. I kissed his head again, the warmth and wetness against my cheeks growing. "No matter what happens I will always love you."

"I love you too," he whispered back.


	43. Algerian Bazaar

_Gabrina fails to take the blame for the apparent disaster that occurred when posting this chapter. She apologizes for wasting not only your time but my time as well. My little muse would also like to thank Hermine for pointing out that by your standards--and in American dollars--I made roughly 130,000 a year in the opera house. Hermine was crucial for executing this chapter as without her, Gabrina would have been a bumbling idiot. Well..._

_On with the show, I say. There is little need for a recap. Who could forget that I told Alex that I love him, and that he told me that he loves me._

Ch 43

Neither of us moved for quite some time. His arms tightened around my back and pressed against the bruises on either side of my spine. He apologized softly and loosened his grip when I flinched.

Alex sat upright and rubbed his reddened eyes. He stared at me a moment, his gaze narrowed on the center of my forehead. He pushed his hair up and showed me the thin horizontal scar.

"Do you remember that?" he asked softly. His voice was raspy from his emotions

"I remember everything you did." I smiled at him. "Madeline would have slapped your ears back if she hadn't thought you would bleed to death."

He exhaled sharply and looked away.

"I didn't know what to do," Alex said suddenly. I made no reply. If I waited a moment he usually clarified what he was talking about. "Mother Giry was asleep; Charles would take too long, Meg…" He didn't say anything about Meg. Interesting. "I know Julia is up late because you talk to her only at night."

"You did well," I replied. It was still difficult to look him in the eye. Considering his parentage he was docile but I dreaded him asking too many questions.

"I thought he would chase me home," Alex continued. He glanced at my lips and my cheek and made a slight grimace. From the bruising and scrapes and the stitches in my head I had no idea what he made of me. "He called me a name. He…" Alex looked towards the door and lowered his voice. I wasn't sure who he was hoping wouldn't hear. Julia, I suspected, who apparently demanded more respect than I did. "He called me a bastard. Is that bad?"

"It isn't a compliment, but I don't want you to be shamed."

"What is it? Charles and Meg wouldn't tell me."

"It's complicated. I doubt even the dictionary would know," I lied to him.

He nodded and grew silent a moment. By the way he pursed his lips together I knew that there was something more. I looked away from him for a moment.

"You forgive me then?" He stared at his hands.

"Alex, I was never angry with you in the first place."

Even without looking at him I could see his lips trembling, his emotions faltering again. Tears welled in my own eyes as I knew that what upset him was undoubtedly my doing.

"Then why…" He tried his best to remain stoic but a tear dripped down his cheek. "Why did you stop speaking to me?"

I touched my knuckles to my swollen lips and shut my eyes. He blamed himself for our silence. "It was never you. None of it was your fault," I whispered.

He nodded. "If you were angry with me would you no longer speak to me?"

"Alexandre, I would never hurt you, not intentionally." I paused for a moment, attempting to think of the most sincere apology I could offer a boy his age.

"I touched an Algerian woman at the Exhibition," Alex blurted out as he looked up at me.

What could I have possibly said to that? I stared at him as he sat twisted around on the bed. Curls of dark hair hid his uneven shirt collar. No wonder Madeline had been beside herself over how Alex looked like a ruffian.

"They had a street that looked like one of their villages, with tents and everything. M Lowry said it was called a 'bazaar'—and he was right! It was! I looked it up."

"What were you doing going about touching people you don't know?"

He shrugged. "She didn't _know_. When she wasn't looking, I touched her."

Lovely, I thought. Now the gendarmes would come for me and a band of Algerians would be after my son.

"Alex, that's quite inappropriate." I tried to be stern but couldn't help but chuckle.

His smile widened. He searched my face, his gaze drawn to my right temple for several seconds as he took in the uneven bruised flesh. At last he was settled enough to see what was before him.

I wasn't even sure what an Algerian was when he mentioned it. Desert dwellers I thought, though my knowledge of Africa was limited. Travels had taken me there once and it was nothing I wished to recall. Executing one criminal was quite different than slaughtering entire families from infants to elders. Even the thought of my travels to Africa made me shudder.

Still, I couldn't help but ask him. "Where did you touch this Algerian woman?"

"At the Exhibition."

"No, no. Her hair, her arm, her…her hair." Lord knows where he could have touched some poor unsuspecting woman.

"Her arm. She had a veil and everything just like in books so I couldn't see her hair or her face; just her eyes really."

"Yes, well, let's not make it a habit to go about touching people. You don't know anything about them."

"She was probably a Sunni Muslim," he answered. "She probably came from the Sahara Desert. Most Algerians live by the sea. Did you know that? Did you know there are sand oceans?"

I shook my head. He knew more about the world than men in their forties. The more I listened to him the more I suspected that he knew more than I had, even about the countries I had visited. I couldn't help but think that Christine would be able to show him an authentic village not one transplanted into a fair.

"The elevator for the tower was too crowded. Did you know you could ride an elevator? Two elevators!"

Frankly I didn't much care. Eiffel's erection would be torn down after the fair and hopefully forgotten shortly after.

"I didn't," I answered him.

"It's magnificent! You should see it, Father!"

He excitedly told me as fast as his lips could move each detail of his four hour excursion to the fairgrounds. From what he said he must have ran like lightning as he had seen the Faerie Gardens, the tower, some sort of Edison exhibit and of course the Galeries des Machines which he swore I would love.

All the while he looked me in the face. Once in a while he would switch his gaze to my forehead or to temple but he was far too concerned by sharing his day at the fair than ogling what had been hidden from him for years. I wondered if he expected that the beating was to blame for everything. It didn't matter. He was happy. For the first time in months he seemed happy.

And he looked at me when he smiled. That hadn't happened since he was a toddler.

"May we have a phonograph?" he asked just as he told me about a woman who had watched a demonstration next to him. "Her name was Hermine, I think. She smelled very nice. Lilac water, I think but not as strong as what Mother Giry wears sometimes."

He would barely take a breath so I nodded at each thing he said.

"She told me there was a place where they could record your voice but I didn't see it. I must have taken a wrong turn but it didn't matter because there was a tea garden. Have you ever seen a tea garden? It's not what you would think. I didn't see any tea at all, but of course it could have been the plants. Do you think it is plants? Perhaps I should look again, Father."

"A tea garden?" Julia stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. "Monsieur Alexandre I believe it is time for you to dream of tea gardens and phonographs upstairs in bed."

Alexandre slumped forward as though his body had suddenly doubled in weight and there was no possible way he could move. He moaned in dramatic protest but Julia would not tolerate his show. She hauled him upright and pulled him off the bed.

"Wash your face and change your clothes. It's already past your bedtime. Your father must eat and do the same."

"But Father said I could stay—"

Julia gave me a sharp glance and I merely nodded for Alex to be on the way. "Tomorrow if you listen and are good all day. Now go."

He turned; a baleful look in his eyes as he once again stared at my chest. His arms slightly rose from his side and I nodded. It was a shame that I had to give him permission for an embrace, but it was better that he asked than stood there and did nothing.

He put his chin to my shoulder and sighed on my neck.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He pulled back one last time and looked at me. Though I had no idea what he meant by his apology I had a feeling it would be something difficult to forgive in the end.


	44. Ten Years

_Gabrina insists that this must be earmarked for sensuality. _

CH44

Julia watched Alex trudge reluctantly from the room. She kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair.

"Sleep well," she said brightly.

Alex yawned and dragged his feet. He glanced over his shoulder once and disappeared from view.

Julia shook her head and turned back to me. There was an enigmatic smile on her face, one that I found enchanting. "You did very well by him."

I nodded but made no reply. Her appearance was distracting. The nightdress she wore was robin's egg blue, with long sleeves and a white lace hem. Her hair was braided, which I had never seen her wear before.

"There's a bath drawn," she said as she walked into the room. She glanced at the clock. "It's almost eleven but I suspect you wouldn't mind cleaning up and changing clothes."

"And dinner as well. You never brought anything for me."

Julia raised a brow. "When you're situated again I'll have dinner prepared. I apologize for it being so late. Mme Giry stayed longer than I had expected. I would have drawn a bath two hours ago but—"

"Have you taken a bath yet?"

She tried not to react but her lips still managed to pull up into a smile and her cheeks reddened by my question. She knew exactly why I had asked.

"This morning." She scoffed at me and turned away to fold the blanket that had been at the end of the bed. "Though, honestly it's none of your concern."

"This morning isn't, but tonight is," I replied. She had her back to me and didn't see me smile. Her straight laces were tied in knots and I knew it.

"Quit grinning," she snapped.

I had forgotten the mirror. I laid back and watched her fidget with various items on the dresser top. "How big is your bathtub?"

"It's only big enough for one person. Erik, your behavior is not amusing."

"You could sit—"

"Your son and my daughter are upstairs. This is highly inappropriate."

"If it's inappropriate then how do families ever have more than one child?"

She crossed her arms and turned around. "Being this irritating must be terribly exhausting."

"Then sleep with me."

Julia pretended to cough to keep from laughing. "Don't be so presumptuous. Your bathwater is getting cold. I suggest you…"

"Undress?"

When she looked at me, her face had turned redder, which I hadn't thought possible. She refused to give into my persistence. "There is a wicker basket in the water closet already. Go and…disrobe…alone. Oh for God's sake, Erik, quit looking at me!" She sighed in disgust.

She was charming, really.

"I'll warm your dinner while you bathe. The clothes Madame Giry brought over are hung up for you. She brought you a robe as well, though I think I left it in the kitchen. I'll put it on the bed for you when you are done. Leave the dirty clothes on the floor and I will take care of them once you've finished bathing."

Julia saw me still staring at her. She exhaled sharply and marched from the room without another word to me. I could hear her muttering for quite some time afterward as she removed a pan from her kitchen cabinets. Something metallic hit the floor and she cursed to herself.

* * *

By the time I managed to get out of bed and leave the guest room, I found Julia standing outside the water closet door. She was fixing the lace string at the nape of her neck where the braid began. She paused when I hobbled toward her then looked away. Her presence startled me but I was quite pleased to see her. I had hoped she would change her mind and join me.

"There are fresh towels for you," she said as she turned back to face me. She kept her arms crossed as I stood before her, though I noticed her expression more than her posture. She was still smiling in the same way she had when she first walked into the guestroom.

"What?" I asked.

"That was nice of you."

"What was nice of me?"

"What you said about Alex. That was good for him to hear."

I looked away from her and stared at the framework. "What did he hear?"

"Everything he needed to hear."

I nodded. Somehow I had known he had heard my prayer for him. I hadn't expected that Julia had heard it as well.

"It shouldn't have been necessary. He should have already known. He should have…"

Her hand touched my chest and I turned back to face her. "He always knew that you loved him," she whispered. "He just needed to hear you say it."

In silence I watched her undo the top two buttons of my shirt. She paused and straightened my collar, a slight smile on her face. "Take your time. Dinner will be ready when you're done. If you need anything…and you know what I mean so don't you even start with me again…there's a bell on the floor by the tub."

I rolled my eyes. "I could be drowning and I wouldn't use a bell. That's ridiculous. A bell indeed!"

Another button, then another drew my eyes away from her face. "Madame," I said hoarsely. "If you wish to end up in the tub, by all means continue."

Her fingers grazed my bare flesh and I sighed to her touch. This was the moment, I thought, this is where I would kiss her.

She tapped me twice on the chest with her index finger and leaned forward. "Wash up. You smell like a horse."

The kiss would have to wait.

* * *

Even with the door closed I could hear Julia in the kitchen. Had I not been starving, I would have stayed in the tub longer and allowed the knots in my back to loosen. Nothing else seemed to cause as much pain as the spots beneath my kidneys. From what I had seen in the mirror, and from what I remembered, they had kicked me several times. My skin was raw where the sole of a shoe had made a burn against my flesh. Looking at it made me grimace.

The smell of dinner drew me from the tub. I dried and dressed, feeling the start of a headache pounding in my head. I wiped the fog off the mirror and stared at my reflection. The wound was still closed but the skin beneath was so bruised and red that I looked like a sewn up rotten tomato. No wonder Alex had stared. Anyone would have stared, ruined face or not.

To my surprise, Julia met me in the hallway as I shut the door and headed back to my room. She looked startled by my presence.

"Your robe," she said. She handed it to me and turned away, placing her hand on the side of her neck. "Your dinner is done. Do you want to eat alone?"

"Are you offering to join me?"

"Only for dinner," she answered quickly.

With a slight smile I nodded. "Shall we?"

Though I could have managed to walk down the hall and turn the corner, Julia brought dinner to me in bed. Just as I had suspected she had made a pot roast.

"Have you devised a room charge for me yet?" I questioned.

"You've been more trouble than money is worth," she replied. She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Then I'll pay you in another way," I said softly.

"Oh, Erik," she sighed. "How can you even think like that in your condition?"

"Quite easily. I look at…" My voice trailed away and I quickly stuffed my mouth with food.

Julia opened her eyes and sat up. "You what?"

To buy a little more time I shook my head. She was only the second woman I had ever been intimate with, but there were too many things I didn't know about her, too many things I could say that would seem foolish.

"Tell me," she insisted. By the tone of her voice I could tell that she assumed something terrible.

"It was nothing."

"Then if it was nothing tell me. Right this minute tell me what you were going to say," she said. Her voice rose, her fingers pressing into the arms of her chair.

"Fine," I said, matching her tone. "I look at you and nothing hurts."

She stared at me, lips parted in astonishment. Turning away, she flipped her braid over her shoulder and untied the ribbon at the bottom. I heard her sniffle and I lowered my fork from my lips.

"I'm sorry. Go ahead and eat. I'll be fine."

"Julia?"

"No really, I'll be fine." She sniffled again. "It's just that…No one has ever said that to me before," she whispered. "Louis would tell me that he only had to look at me to go to other women. He told me that on our wedding night, when I was two months pregnant with his child."

"He never deserved you. Not one day of his pathetic life did he deserve you."

She pressed her eyes shut and said nothing. I didn't know if she believed me or not until I saw her mouth the words 'thank you'.

I abandoned the dinner plate and fork onto the bedside table and leaned forward. Something came over me, some intoxication of being beside her, of wanting her closer.

"Lay down with me," I whispered.

She started to shake her head but I took her arm. "I'm not asking for you to sleep with me."

"Erik, don't—"

"You've exhausted yourself. You need the rest. Stay only for a moment. You don't even have to stay the night, just for a moment," I rambled.

"If I lay down I won't want to get up."

"Then stay."

"But the children."

"They're fine. They're both sleeping." I grasped her hand and she rose hesitatingly. "Just for a while. Just a little while. I promise…I swear I won't even attempt—"

"After everything you've said tonight? I hardly believe that."

"I swear it on my life, Julia. Just once I want to fall asleep and feel someone else beside me."

She sat on the bed with her back to me and sniffled again. "Why did you always leave in the middle of the night, then? Why did you dress as soon as you were satisfied and return to your own bed?"

I hesitated to answer. It was insulting for me to use her body and not stay until dawn. I came to her home, got what I needed, and left her asleep. Often she would walk me to the back door but she never said a word, never asked me to stay. Not after I had denied her the first time.

"I didn't want you to see me in the light of day."

"That's ridiculous. I saw everything else of you."

"Would you have let me come back had you seen it?"

"It. It? What is 'it', Erik? It's your face, not some…some foreign object."

"If you had seen my face would you have asked me to come back?"

Julia sighed in frustration. "That was five years ago. I don't know what I would have done."

"And now that you know would you let me stay the night?"

"You honestly don't know the answer by now? I married Louis, the most handsome man I had ever seen and what did I get from him? I got beaten once a week, I had women come by the house looking for him and I got raped when I complained about his mistresses. That is what I got from him. The ugliest thing in the world was his betrayal, his treatment of me and his own daughter. I would have preferred waking to you every day of my life rather than finding him beside me for even one morning."

She went silent, her head dropping down to her chest. Without another word she lay down slowly and moved from her side to her back.

I wanted her to stay with me but I was too proud to ask her for more than she had reluctantly given. I moved over further on the bed to allow her more room. She didn't move for a while. Even though we lay a foot apart from one another I could feel the heat of her body and smell her sandalwood perfume.

Julia reached over and turned down the lamp. She turned over on her side and faced me just as my eyes adjusted to the dimmed lighting.

Her hand rested on the right side of my face and I shuddered at her touch. My first instinct was to pull her hand away but I couldn't. She moved closer so that her legs were against mine.

"This," she said softly. "This is what I wished was beside me each morning for the past ten years."

She moved in closer, so close that I could feel her breaths against my nose and my lips.


	45. The First Time

_**This has what I hope is tasteful sexual content following the second break. This chaper is probably more sensual than sexual as it is not graphic. I marked the last two paragraphs as over pg-13. The rest should be fine. As I did with Shadows I have marked this for the readers who have found it helpful to bypass sexual situations. Now Erik...**_

_I tried to convince Julia to stay the night with me after dinner. _

Ch 45

Julia's hand pressed against my hip and I turned onto my left side to face her. Her fingers moved up my arm, up my shoulder and neck until she stroked the damaged skin along my cheek. All of my doubts raced back as I searched her eyes. Had I been able to conjure a voice I would have asked her why she did it, why she lay down beside me when I was nothing like what she had first known.

She touched my lips with her fingers and I closed my eyes, savoring the unearthly sensations that roared through every nerve in my body. My breaths hitched in my throat, her presence overwhelming me like nothing else I had ever known.

Again Julia inched closer until there was no space between us. She had to have felt how much I wanted to do more than just lie beside her. She had to. But she said nothing. Her hand moved along my temple and into my hair. It was too much to bear, too much to take in at once. I shuddered for her sake as she raked through the thin mess of hair. My eyes opened again, and I drank in her oval face, her hazel eyes and tempting crimson lips.

"Julia…"

"Shhh."

My hand pressed against the small of her back, urging her closer when there was no room. We both leaned in. Not just me, not just Julia but both of us. Her lips parted and I did the same.

Without a word I looked into Julia's eyes and I kissed her. She sighed as our lips touched. Her hand moved from the right side of my face until she cradled the back of my head and gently ran her fingers down the back of my neck.

We pulled away and looked at one another for only a heartbeat. I moved my hand from behind my head and Julia smiled shyly as she leaned back and felt my arm slide under her. She kissed my cheek once before I slowly kissed her mouth again. There was nothing else that compared to her soft caress, to the feel of her breasts smashed to my chest, to her rushed breaths against my face and the fire of her tongue searching for mine.

Everything about her; the way she smelled, the way she felt, the way she looked in the shadows made me want every inch of her. But I had made a promise to her that all I wanted was to lie beside her. Even when I looked into her eyes I could see a glimmer of fear, a little egg of despair that cracked open from her marriage to Louis Seuratti. She knew that even while injured I was stronger than her, that within seconds I could have pinned her down and had her against her will.

My thumb ran along her cheek as I pulled back from her at last. The temptation to kiss her once more couldn't be denied and I pecked her quickly on the lips. Julia gave me a questioning look as I pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Rest well," I whispered to her.

Julia smiled and nodded as her eyes closed. Her body softened in my grasp as she relaxed. My own exhaustion was taking a toll but I forced my eyes to stay open and watched her for a while. I marveled at her face, at how her lips appeared slightly swollen and her eyelashes looked longer. I traced along the outside of her eye and covered the triangular scar with my finger. The mark made me want to weep. It branded her as still belonging to Louis Seuratti. He would always own part of her, always hold her, always suspend her in memory of his treachery.

Eventually I closed my eyes as well. It was then, just before the line between wakefulness and dreams was crossed, that Julia pressed her lips to mine one last time.

* * *

Her touch woke me just before dawn. Julia's hand rested on my chest. Her fingers drew circles through the hair followed closely by her lips on my throat. She sighed and propped herself up on her elbow once she knew I was also awake.

There was no need for words. Other senses worked better than communicating through speech. Our eyes met as I slid my hand beneath her and moved her closer. She let out a slight giggle as she rolled and found herself resting against my left side with her leg draped over mine and her arm sprawled over my chest.

Julia closed her eyes as I nuzzled her neck. She let out the softest sigh, a sound of bliss that I had never heard from anyone before. Her mouth opened to mine and I kissed her again, deeper than before. I felt her legs move against mine, the heat of our bodies against one another.

Everything about Julia seemed different. Her perfume had faded over the hours. She smelled like the warmth from lying in bed. Her hair was mussed from sleeping on her side but she looked well-rested, her skin glowing even in the lightless room.

My fingers ran along her satin cheek and down to her chin. Her skin was still heated from lying partly against the pillow and partly on my arm. She kissed my fingertips, nibbling gently on the tips.

The sensation was like every nerve being stirred into existence. This was what it must have been like to wake from a cocoon and stretch for the very first time. No other encounter, no other night mattered. Being with her now was like rebirth.

We kissed; long and deep and warm and wet, breathing against one another, tongues touching, searching. We did nothing more than kiss. Our arms were wrapped around one another, torsos joined, her legs straddling my hips. Within seconds we could have tossed our clothes aside but neither one of us moved, dared to spoil the moment. There was something more, something far beyond what we had ever done before.

Her hands moved along my arms, nails gently pressing into my shoulders. Although she touched the bruises I only exhaled against the pain knowing full well that there was something better to come.

Her tongue pressed to mine. My breath hitched as she placed her knee between my legs and ran her fingers through my hair. Briefly I opened my eyes and saw that Julia had closed her own as she lost herself to the moment. I gripped her tighter, my hands running down her back, along the soft cotton of her night dress. Julia released a soft moan that voiced her needs. I broke away from her lips and studied her face. Her eyes sparkled. There was a gentle ring of gold that surrounding the onyx center of her eyes. I had never noticed how brilliant the contrast was between the gold and the hazel, how it spread like fire.

And how she had spread like fire into me.

* * *

(second break)

Julia pulled away from my lips and rested her head against my chest. She was breathing harder, electrified in the same way I was by her touch. Julia glanced up, smiled again, and kissed my chest. A ragged sigh left my throat. She continued to tempt me, to tease me in a way that was pleasurable torture. I released the string that kept her hair back and ran my fingers through the silken strands. Her waves of hair fell around her face and down her shoulders. The ends dropped down and ran along my chest and stomach, and I shivered.

"You're still bruised," she whispered between kisses. "We should stop."

I wanted her. I wanted to be inside of her. From the placement of her leg she had to know that the last thing I wanted was to stop.

"Do you want to stop?"

Julia sighed. "It isn't about what I want. It's about what's best. And for you right now I think it's best if we stop."

"Why?"

"Why? What did I just say?" She rolled to her side and adjusted the hem of her nightdress back down to her ankles. "Are you even listening?"

"You're distracting at the moment."

"And you're hurt."

"That was three days ago. I'm fine."

"And in a week," she said as she propped herself up on her elbow and kissed me on the cheek, "you will be even better."

I laid my head back and closed my eyes. "In a week I'll be dead from lack of blood flow."

Julia playfully tapped me on the chest. "Oh, hush."

"And now you're adding to the bruises."

She smirked. "From where my leg is at the moment another bruise should be the least of your worries."

I rolled her onto her back and hovered over her, kissing the side of her neck. "Tell me that you honestly want to stop."

"Erik, I'll kick you."

That got my attention. "Julia, I'm serious. I'm fine, but if you don't want to, then tell me right now and I'll stop."

She ran her fingers along the back of my neck and smiled. "I know you will. And I don't want you stop, but—"

My mouth closed over hers. She tried to speak but gave in and pulled me closer. Her hands moved slowly, barely even touching my back. Her fingers made their way along to my sides. I shifted to my knees and put more pressure on the painful bruises. The moan I had tried to keep inside escaped as I kissed the corner of her mouth.

"What did I tell you?" Julia mumbled against my left cheek. She helped me out of my pajama pants while I wrestled with her night dress.

"_Ma petit _there are no need for words," I said against her skin.

She moved her knees apart and I knew she wouldn't protest, not when our bare flesh touched, when our hands found minds of their own with which to explore. Speech was abandoned for other much more satisfying endeavors. I kissed her deeply, passionately, leaving her mouth for lazy, wet trails along her throat and below her ear as I unbuttoned the top of her night dress and cupped her breast in my hand. She moaned as I rolled her nipple between my finger and thumb.

"Did you lock the door?" she whispered as I made my way to her bellybutton.

I paused, resting my chin on her navel. I looked her in the eye despite the temptation of two perfect milky white breasts. "Yes."

Julia, of course, didn't believe me. She started to sit up but I pushed my hands against her ribs and crawled over her. She looked alarmed once I held her wrists in each of my hands but I kissed her gently.

"It's just us. No one else."

Julia searched my face for a moment. She nodded and relaxed beneath me, her fingers playing at the back of my neck. Our lips met again, open and wanting. Supporting my weight on my knees and one hand, I ran my hand through her long hair. Her hips rose from the bed as I massaged her scalp.

over pg-13

Julia took my face in her hands as I entered her. Her knees squeezed around my hips and she moaned hot in my ear. As we moved together, slow and sensual, I looked into her eyes and watched her kiss-swollen lips quiver. Her fingernails pressed into my back. Julia nibbled along my neck and sighed my name. A hundred times before I had penetrated her, impaled her for what was mutual pleasure. This time was different. This was not sex with a woman. I kissed her harder and moved within her. She touched the right side of my face, caressed the damaged skin. Her hips pressed up into mine and she moaned louder. I realized, as my tongue teased hers, that in the most deeply sexual way I had remained a virgin.

For the first time I no longer slept with a woman. I made love to Julia.


	46. One Step Forward, Twelve Steps Back

_In the last chapter Julia and I finally enjoyed a romantic moment together. _

Ch 46

As much as I insisted that Julia remain in bed with me for the rest of the day she still insisted on getting something done. Once she had redressed, she sat on the edge of the bed and asked what I needed from home. Julia got nothing from me. I traced her spine from the nape of her neck to her lower back and eventually lured her back beside me. She knew what I was doing and tore away again. Her finger wagged at me but that was the extent of her scolding. She knew that I only wanted to kiss her. I could have kissed her for an eternity.

By the middle of the afternoon it had started to rain. Meg came over with some books for Alex to continue studying but Alex asked if he was permitted to return home for a while. It didn't seem to make much difference either way at that point. Christine had seen me in Julia's home and it could only be assumed that Alex was somewhere either in Julia's house or back in our own home. I didn't expect that Christine or her vicomte would have the audacity to call a day early, so I permitted him to resume his studies.

Alex stayed with me after breakfast for an hour and told me about the Roman Empire. Charles was having him read something other than Egypt, which had been Alex's favorite for the last year. The idea of animals as gods tickled him to no end.

I didn't want Alex to leave me but his education won out over sitting around and telling stories. Before he left I hugged him once and told him to listen well to Charles. He nodded and smiled though in his eyes there was something different. He knew as I did that Friday would change us both forever.

Once Alex was gone Lisette helped her mother with housecleaning. With her hair twisted up into a bun Julia came down the hall and knocked on the guest room door. She wore a white apron over a simple house frock. Even while cleaning she looked inviting.

"I am going to the doctor's home in a few hours to see if I can find you something better for the pain." She walked into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I don't need anything. I'm fine," I replied immediately. One of my first experiences in torture had been administering morphine and opium for several weeks in high doses then removing the drugs. The effect of withholding something so pleasure-inducing was interesting but the torture took too long.

Instead I designed and built a forest made of mirrors. The sultana had been delighted.

"Lisette will come with me so you needn't worry of being disturbed. Do you want to eat dinner at the table today?" Julia asked.

"What about your daughter?"

"What about her? I said she was coming with me."

For a moment I stared at Julia. "No, I meant at the dinner table. She's never seen me…like this."

"True. But you can't stay holed up in one room forever."

There she was wrong, but I didn't say anything. My days in Persia were nothing I wanted to express aloud, especially when I was happy for once. I nodded and Julia smiled. She placed her hand over mine.

"Where's the dog? Did Meg take her back?"

Julia clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "I'll have you know that your dog spent the night in my bed. I had to change the sheets this morning. How do you sleep with all of that hair and drool…oh it's just dreadful."

I made no reply. She clearly didn't understand the importance of that damned dog.

She ran her fingers lightly over the back of my hand. "Tonight," she said, her voice dropping lower. "Meg offered to have Alex and Lisette come over to make desserts for Friday."

Julia leaned forward and kissed my cheek. I watched her rise and walked from the room with a slight smile on her lips. The look on her face made me speechless.

After that all I heard was mother and daughter cleaning upstairs. That left me to find my own entertainment or sleep. I turned on my side and slid my arm under the cool side of the pillow. Something fell behind the headboard and I instantly knew what it was: one of the books I had found in the closet. I turned over on my belly and managed to get my arm between the mattress and the wall.

At first glance I knew that this was not a store log after all. The initials on the front caught my breath in my throat: JCF. Julia C Falchetti. This was a sacred book of secrets that should have gone back into the box and onto the dusty shelf.

Instead, I opened it.

Lightning didn't strike me dead as I had expected so I flipped through the pages. Every few sentences my eyes flickered up and I checked the doorway. I was fairly certain that I could have heard someone coming down the hall but didn't want to take a chance.

The further into the book I got the less I paid attention to it. My mind was too concerned with being discovered that the words no longer registered.

Not until I saw my name.

_21 May, 1884_

_I met him on his way back home. His name is Erik. If t wasn't for his dark hair I would think him Scandinavian. He said little to me though later that night, as always, I heard him play. By sound I have fallen in love with him. I must be mad. I don't even know this man._

There were several pages torn from the book. The next date was in August.

_4 August 1884_

_I invited Erik over for tomorrow night. He declined. He played late in the night but Monsieur Tedoux complained by shouting through his window. Tedoux is a fool._

_10, August, 1884_

_Again Madame Giry told me not to inquire about the man in her house. I thought he was her son but she told me he is not. 'Like a son' she said. Adopted, perhaps. Erik's son has started to play with Lisette in the back yard. I am glad Lisette has another child to play with now. Alexandre is very smart. He has told me much about his father. They must be very close. _

_21 October, 1884_

_It's starting to get colder out. Erik finally agreed to come over though he seemed somewhat distracted. I believe I startled him when I saw him walking down the street. We agreed on meeting tomorrow at midnight in the garden. _

That date was burned into my memory. That was the date Madeline and Meg had received the letter from Christine. That was the day I discovered little Suzette had died in Africa on Alexandre's fourth birthday.

Around midnight I had left the house and walked further than I had ever walked before. It was nearly dawn when I started on my way home. Julia had been on her way to the bakery when she walked up and said hello. I always knew we had chatted before I started coming to her house but nothing of our encounters ever stood out in my memory. It was as though she had never existed, that somehow I had just ended up in her home one night.

But now I knew that night. I stared at the book page and knew why I didn't remember any of it. Christine had been the only thing on my mind. She was the reason why I didn't remember sleeping with Julia. I had imagined that Julia's home was Christine's home, that Julia's dead husband was Christine's dead husband, and that Julia's body was really Christine's. Could there have been a bigger insult? Did I still insult her?

I don't remember shutting the book. I don't remember Alexandre knocking on the door. The next thing I knew Julia ripped the book from my hands and shooed my son back to the kitchen.

I hadn't even realized it was late enough where Alexandre would have returned but there was no time to ask about him. Julia was so angry she could have had kittens.

"Where in the hell did you get this?" she shouted as the door slammed shut. She flipped through the pages then glared at me.

"The closet."

"What were you doing going through my belongings? How dare you!"

Her journal was the least of my worries. I had disrespected her in a far greater way. Without looking at Julia, I glanced at the box I had set between the bed and the wall. "I didn't know what it was."

She turned the cover towards me.

"Yes, I know, but it was in a box of books. I looked through all of them, not just that one."

She sighed in disgust and walked around the side of the bed. "That does not excuse your prying. How can you do this? How can you honestly take one step forward and then take a dozen backwards? This is mine! My personal belonging, my words, my feelings! Erik this is mine!"

"I know," I answered blankly. "I only read a few pages."

She raised her hand but decided against slapping me. Instead she stomped on the floor. "Is nothing sacred to you?"

"I don't know."

She pinched my arm and I looked up at her for the first time. It was a relief to see her face and not Christine's. I wanted to smile at her but she was so enraged that her face was twisted and her cheeks crimson.

"What do you mean you don't know? Why would you do this? Why?"

"I saw my name."

Julia blanched. She hugged the book tighter to her chest and looked away from me. "Don't you ever go through my things again. I should make you leave right this moment."

I nodded.

She walked towards the dresser shaking her head. I thought she was going to leave the room but she turned and threw the leather bound book at my head. It hit the wall and fell against my shoulder, landing once more in my lap. "Do you know why I came in here? I came to tell you that you needed to dress for dinner, the dinner I prepared for you. I came to tell you that Madame Giry invited me to lunch tomorrow so that you would not be alone. I came to ask you if you wanted me to come with you in the first place. Everything I do around here is for you! And you don't even have the decency to respect me!"

"What do you want me to say?" I asked softly.

"Nothing, Erik. That's what I have come to expect from you. I have bent over backwards to care for you, I have done everything—more than everything—to take care of you and what do you do?"

_I thought you were Christine._ Those were the words running through my mind. A sigh left my mouth and I looked up at her again as I held the book in both hands.

"21 October, 1884. That was the last date I read up to."

Julia's mouth dropped open as I flipped through the pages and made my way to the back of the book. "What are you doing?"

"Reading the entry for the 22nd of October."

"Erik—"

"Fine. Then tell me this: did we sleep together the first time I came over to your house?"

She shifted her weight, her eyes narrowing. "What?"

"The first night you invited me over did we sleep together?"

It didn't occur to me that this could have been a worse insult. She started to shake her head. "I cannot even believe I have to answer a question like that. You don't remember?"

"The past always differs from a man's views to a woman's."

"Why don't you tell me what happened? From a man's point of view."

"Because I'm not that much of a fool, that's why."

"This is insulting…."

"That's not my intention. Please, just tell me what you remember."

She sighed again in disgust. "We had tea and that was it. You came over and sat in the parlor and told me you wrote and submitted operas under a pen name. You talked about music, your favorite composers, and ate all of my crumpets. That was all that happened. I told you good-night and asked you to come by again sometime."

"Was that what you wanted?"

She tried not to smile. "It was a lovely evening. What are you trying to do? Get me to say something lewd?"

"No," I replied. My relief was visible judging by Julia's reaction.

"Why are you smiling, then?" she asked.

"I did respect you," I replied. "That was what I wanted to know."

Somehow that softened her expression though I knew she would hold it over my head for the rest of my life. She hefted the box of books up from the ground and marched them back to the closet. The journal she snatched from my hands again once the rest of the books were stowed away.

"You are far from forgiven, Erik. Get dressed. Lisette and Alexandre already ate at your house."

"Why am I dressing?"

Her annoyance returned and she threw her arms in the air. "Because we are dining together, fool."

"And why in the hell would we do that? The last time it didn't go very well. Or don't you remember that?" I spat back.

"Of course I remember that. It was only five days ago! We're eating together because I want to talk to you, you dolt!"

"Fine, then what are we talking about?" I asked waving my hands about to imitate her.

Julia lowered her voice and looked away. "Your son. I'm concerned about your son."


	47. Tea and Crumpets

_In the last chapter I was a true dolt who took the liberty of reading Julia's journal._

_A/N from Gabrina: Hermine inspired the very last lines of this. And Penkitten, bless her heart, reread and reread more times than any beta should ever have to. Thanks you guys!_

Ch 47

Both Alex and Lisette were running about upstairs and rattling the floors when I stepped into the dining room. Julia had just walked in from the kitchen with two bowls that she set on the table.

Julia had dressed for dinner in a gown that matched her eye color. It was only the second time I ever remembered seeing her wear something elaborate. Usually she was prepared for bed. It seemed a shame that she had bothered to look so beautiful and I had trifled with a crisp white shirt, pressed trouser, brocade waist coat and cravat for sitting to dinner. I wished we could have sat at dinner to celebrate rather than discuss.

"Are Lisette and Alexandre joining us?" I asked.

"They are staying at your house. Madame Giry said Lisette could stay with her until morning and Alex has been clamoring about sleeping in his own bed." She half-smiled and waited for me to push her chair in toward the table. "It was a little mortifying to ask Madame Giry if she would watch the two. Obviously she knows of our previous arrangements…"

"Did she say something?"

"No, but she looked at me."

I knew the look. Anyone who had ever come into contact with Madeline knew that accusing, disapproving stare. "You survived the look. That's a good sign."

Alex and Lisette came galloping down the stairs before Julia could reply. The moment she heard them coming Julia pushed her chair out and marched out into the hall. She knocked on the wall and yelled at the two of them. Lisette the Timid stayed in the parlor but Alexandre the Bold ran down to the water closet. The door slamming shut startled me. I hated it when he did that.

"Why did they come back here?" I asked. "I thought they were helping Meg."

"Alex said he needed something."

"His books? Whatever he needed could have waited until morning when the rain stopped."

Julia silently began shoveling spoonfuls of chopped asparagus onto our plates. She glanced up at me and sighed. "He knows about lunch tomorrow with the vicomtess. I think he just wanted to see you again before the end of the day."

My eyes closed to her words. We had until 3 the next day before lunch. Less than nineteen hours before Christine would take him from me. I slammed my fist onto the table and nearly knocked my wineglass over.

Without entering the dining room Alex and Lisette raced through the kitchen, waving and squealing, before sprinting out the back door. We could hear them up until they entered my kitchen and Alexandre slammed that door as well.

I grit my teeth. "If she takes Alexandre with her I will never see him again. She'll never come to Paris. Not while I'm here."

"She said she wanted to see him. She never said she wanted to keep him."

"She insinuated that he belongs to her precious vicomte."

Julia thought a moment. "What do you think?"

"I don't want to think. I want to keep him."

"Yes, I know that, but knowing you as I do, you have nothing civil to say to Christine or her husband. You'll shoot yourself in the foot if you meet them tomorrow as a ranting, raving lunatic."

"He's not allowed in my house," I muttered.

"Who? Her husband?"

I turned away from Julia. Even the thought of Christine at my table was irritating and I had no desire to think of her little vicomte. "Nothing I say will matter. The gendarmes—"

"The gendarmes?"

She didn't know about the conversation I had with Madeline. Reluctantly I told her about Christine's threat to call the authorities if I didn't allow her to see her son. Julia paled when I told her they would send the gendarmes no matter what. My past had sealed my fate.

We picked at our food in silence for a while and the tension increased. My stomach was in knots just thinking about her taking him away from me. He would have two younger sisters, nannies, tutors, a suitcase with stickers from around the world. He would hear music as it should have been heard and not on one of those phonographs. The pyramids, the Sphinx, everything in Egypt he wanted to see. Algeria, I thought, she would take him to Algeria. And Russia, and Italy, and everywhere else he had read about in books.

"He would have the world," I said under my breath.

Julia glanced up at me.

"If he went with her he would have the world. He would see everything. Here…I can't give him anything." I looked past her at the mirror on the dining room wall. Alex was so much like her, each feature perfectly carved. They belonged together as a perfect family. What was I but an unfinished carcass, a thing meant to live in solitude?

Julia dropped her fork onto her plate and pulled her chair away from the table. I knew then when she looked at me that I had said more than I should have aloud. Her arms draped over my shoulders for a moment and she brushed her lips across the terrible side of my face.

"Why do you say such things?"

I made no attempt to reply. I grabbed her hand and ran it from my temple down to my chin, pressing her fingers over the lumps of reddened, scarred, unholy flesh. This was what Alex had in his life; a cold beast that had offered his seed to an angel.

"Come upstairs with me," she whispered. She moved her hand away from mine and tugged on my wrist. I rose from the table and bowed my head. My wineglass tipped over but Julia told me to ignore it. "There's something you need to see."

Julia took me to her bedroom and told me to sit down. I watched her open her dresser drawer and thought for a moment she had designs for sex. The only reason she ever opened that drawer was to retrieve something to prevent pregnancy. Before I could protest she held up the leather-bound book I had found several days earlier.

She hitched up her dress and sat down beside me with her legs folded under her body. I watched her flip toward the back of the book.

"What are you doing?"

"The 5th of June, 1885," she read. "Alexandre came over today and spent an hour telling me about how he and his father read an entire book about the Orient. Alexandre said 'The Orient does not interest me but Father says it is fascinating. I much prefer Egyptian civilization'. He is a little parrot of his father even at the age of five. The child could talk for hours about Erik. I wish Lisette could do the same. She still wakes up screaming at night thinking she hears her father pounding on the walls."

Julia glanced up at me and flipped through several pages. "The 22nd of July, 1885. Alexandre brought a book over to show Lisette. The two of them spent hours drawing pictures in the blank book. Erik had told me a week ago that he wanted Alex to start drawing and I can see why. He's very talented. Alex was beside himself when he showed me his new treasure. His initials were on the cover."

She looked up at me and tilted her head to the side. "How many more do you want me to read? There's at least a dozen more before the end of that year alone."

"What does it matter?"

"Not once have I ever heard him mention Christine. Not even once, Erik, but he could talk about you forever." I started to shake my head but she grabbed my chin. "You are everything to him whether you realize it or not."

We sat in silence again. Julia sighed at last and placed her chin on my shoulder. "Maybe if she knew she would change her mind, find some—"

"Sympathy? Compassion? Never."

She drew back and looked into my eyes. "Something in common with you as a parent who loves her son."

I scoffed at Julia and rose from the bed but she pulled on my belt and made me sit with her again. I hated her and loved her in the same moment.

"If she cares for him at all she'll see this is a selfish endeavor."

I stared at my folded hands and leaned forward on the bed. My head was pounding. Bile rose into the back of my throat. "Christine gets what she wants; the stage, the fans, a family. This will be no different. I meant nothing to her ten years ago. I will mean nothing to her tomorrow."

Julia flipped through several more pages and placed the opened book into my hands. Her hand ran along my shoulders and she kissed me once by the ear. "I'll be up in a moment." She paused and tapped the open page. "Here. October the 22nd. Since it interests you so much."

She closed the door and left me with her journal.

For a while I blankly stared at the page. For all intents andpurposes this had to be some sort of trick. Entrapment, I suspected, though I couldn't imagine Julia lurking behind a two-way mirror as she watched me succumb to temptation. Perhaps she didn't have vindictive reasons for handing over her journal. Curiosity won over prudence and I found myself reading the opened book.

_22 October, 1884_

_Normally I don't write much but I can't stop thinking of Erik._

_He was late. I thought for certain that he wouldn't show at all and I admit that the more I thought about it the more I hoped he wouldn't come over. How lascivious of me to take a man I don't even know to bed six months after my husband was buried. _

_Still he isn't like a stranger to me. For years I have heard his music late at night and, no matter what, I have not been alone. I imagine the melodies as arms wrapped around me, each note a kiss. His voice is the most magical thing I have ever heard. He could be reading a summons for my death and it would be heavenly. _

_Erik came through the back door just like a ghost and stood in the middle of the kitchen. I asked him if he wanted to come upstairs and he declined. He asked if we could sit a while in the parlor. That was nothing short of a relief._

_We talked until nearly dawn. He said that his son's mother recently lost a child of her own. Even in the darkness I have never seen such melancholy in a person's eyes. He must care for her still._

_He agreed to come back next week. For the crumpets and tea more than my company, I'm sure._

_JCS_

_p.s._

_The mask, though a bit eccentric, is mesmerizing. Something about his eyes has captured me. Everything about him stirs me. It shouldn't. He's the Phantom of the Opera. No one has said anything but I kept one of the clippings. Madame Giry's name was in the article about the fire. From meeting Erik and reading of his treachery certainly these are two separate people. _

_And of course the paper claimed that he died three weeks after the disaster._

Naturally I turned to the following week to see if I did return.

_28 October, 1884_

_He was amazing all night long. Something must have inspired him. He is a master! A true master of the violin. I wish he had stopped by this evening but he must not have noticed the candle._

Again I flipped through the pages until I found some mention of sex in December.

_28 December, 1884_

_Tomorrow will be the night he stays. I'm almost certain he will come to my bed. He will make love to me at last._

That last date mentioned I remembered. That was after Madeline received a letter from Christine and there was no message for me on the back. I had missed months of time spent with Julia fretting over Christine. I stared at the date, tracing my finger along her words. I remembered the 29th of December. I remembered walking through the snow and cursing my wet shoes and trousers. I remembered Julia greeting me at the back door in a black robe.

I remembered the 22nd of October, too. It was the first time I had tried Russian tea with lemon. Madeline only made tea the English way, with milk, which after a bit of lemon seemed strange to me. I must have told Julia a hundred times that I preferred Russian tea.

"I'm pleased that you like my tea," she had said warily. Our expectations had been polar opposites for that night.

We had sat as far from one another as possible in the parlor. I had purposely moved my chair into the shadows to keep her from staring. When she had left the room to boil water, I had stood and moved her chair to the far wall near the desk. She looked confused when she returned but said nothing. She poured my tea, set a tray down on a small table and went to her own seat.

"What are these?" I asked.

She craned her neck and squinted in the darkness. "Crumpets."

"Are they good?"

She pursed her lips. "I hope so. I…I thought I would make something for….after…."

It was beyond my wildest beliefs that she had invited me over for anything other than tea. Her words flew past me unnoticed. Christine had plagued my thoughts for the previous forty-eight hours. I thought for certain that Julia had invited me over to hear me moan about Suzette's death. Could there have been another reason to invite a man over to a dark house at midnight?

"They look like muffins," I had commented. I had picked and prodded them as well. "I don't much care for muffins."

"They're moist. Muffins are usually dry," she said. She looked at me curiously and moved her chair closer.

With a mouthful of crumpets I had nodded. "They are good."

"Do you like it? Really?"

"Better than a damned muffin," I had muttered before gulping down my tea and scalding the back of my throat.

I didn't remember ever mentioning music though I could only hope I said something far more worldly than rambling on about food. And Suzette, whom I distinctly remember mentioning.

Julia came back into the bedroom when I had just closed the book and set it aside. She had taken her hair down. The necklace she had worn earlier was promptly walked to the dresser and tossed into a small jewelry box.

"Well?"

"Crumpets."

She gave a closed-lip smile that contained her chuckle and walked around to the bedside.

I twisted around to watch her. "Why do you put up with me?"

She grinned. "I quite obviously suffer from delirium."

"You were twenty-two when you became a widow. Your brothers could have found you someone."

"A pox on my brothers. They would have found me another man like Louis and that was the last thing I wanted."

"Instead you pursued a phantom."

She stared at me from over her shoulder. "Instead I pursued what I wanted."

"A violin player?"

"A sweet melody," she countered. "The sweetest, most passionate sound I had ever heard in the world. I wanted to know where it came from."

"It came from a shadow in a window," I said skeptically.

"It was written and performed by a neighbor I hadn't yet met."

"From an unknown man," I said bitterly.

"By a man I didn't yet know."

"But you did. You said so yourself." I lifted the book and shook it at her. "You had seen the article."

"I put little faith in the newspaper." She closed the drawer and stood at the end of the bed. "We could argue all night and get nowhere, Erik. Is that what you want?"

"There are better things to do all night," I admitted.

She held out a plate that she had taken from the drawer. A plate of crumpets. "Better things indeed, but none of which you will be doing tonight, Monsieur."

I took a crumpet and stared up at her. "Tell me this. Did I do something right or did you do something wrong?"

She kissed me full on the lips. "December the 29th," she replied with a sly smile.

That had been a good night.

"Stay here. I should clean the stitches for you again."

"Wouldn't you rather reenact December the 29th?"

Julia turned her head to the side. "You are still in a great deal of trouble."

"For what?"

Her eyes narrowed. "For what indeed."

She disappeared for a moment and returned with a basket of cleaning cloths and amber-colored bottles.

"You gave me the book. I thought I was forgiven."

"Forgiven? No," she laughed and looked away. "Far from it."

I stood up beside her and locked my hands at the small of her back. She made no attempt to free herself when I kissed the side of her neck. "I could apologize," I said against her throat. She started to pull away from me and I released her at once.

"Or you could die of gangrene and stupidity. Now sit." She pushed on my shoulder until I was sitting again. Her hand ran across my chest but she didn't look at me. "Once your stitches are looked at….we'll see."

She unscrewed the cap to one of the bottles and held a cloth over it. Her movements were quick and sharp unlike anything I had seen from her previously. There was something wrong, and even someone as daft as I realized it. Before she began cleaning the wound to my forehead I took her wrist and pulled it back down, resting her arm against my knee.

"Erik—"

"Look at me," I whispered.

She did. And what I saw brought tears to my eyes.


	48. Tears for a Dark Fate

_(A/N) I would like to let everyone know--and also thank whoever nominated me--for the phanfiction awards. Voting opens in two weeks so...vote for me! I'll give more details later on when I have them._

_I'm pretty much assured that I won't win because I'm up against a story with a much greater fan following but if you wouldn't mind voting for me I would really really appreciate it! The nomination totally made my week and I must say that Erik is also quite pleased that I can type fast enough to keep up with his story. Thank you for considering this story worthy of a nomination. I cannot thank you all enough for reading not only this but for having the faith in me to look at Goddess Noir. I swear that this won't become second fiddle. This will continue with regular updates as long as Erik continues to tell his story. Without further ado, my lovely "ghost" writer. _

_E/N (Erik Notes)Julia began to cry at the end of the last chapter. Women are such difficult creatures to figure out._

Ch 48

Tears spilled down Julia's cheeks as she stared up at me. Her bottom lip quivered; her nose running. She had clearly been on the verge of crying for quite some time for her face to be so puffy and her eyes so terribly red.

More than anything I didn't want her to cry. Anger I could tolerate. Her irritation I could understand, but not her tears. Never this, never, ever this display of sorrow. Weeping reminded me of execution, of women lined up with babes in arms and shot one after the other. If I had known that there was to be women and children executed I never would have suggested that they be shot one at a time; one dying the rest listening. Their husbands I didn't care about one way or another but the rest of the family exterminated bothered me deeply.

Goosebumps rose along my arms as I thought that I had put her up against the wall. In some way I had executed her. The only thing I could think to tell her made her cry harder.

"Please, please don't cry." I had to wipe my own eyes. Every time I blinked I saw her in the line of fire. I had never really regretted my days in the Orient until I realized my affection for Julia. She pleased me. She pleased me because she accepted me and made me want to try harder at….something. Change, I suppose.

I wanted to comfort her but didn't know what to do. Julia sank to the floor and dropped the cloth and the little bottle onto the rug. A high-pitched sob escaped her lips just before she covered her face with both hands. It was the most shrill, most terrible sound I had ever heard.

"Julia, please don't cry."

She was inconsolable. Her body trembled and I had no idea what had brought on her sudden outburst of emotion. I collapsed on my knees beside her and put my hands on her shoulders. She pushed me away and buried her face in the coverlet.

I had upset her and I had no idea what I had done or how to remedy the situation. Slowly I sat back from her and looked around the room. The door was still open and the thought crossed my mind that I should leave her alone. Maybe all this would pass if I just let her gather her composure.

Another sob escaped and I knew I couldn't leave her alone. That would have been cowardly and unforgivable. Already I had tested the boundaries.

"Julia, please tell me what to do."

"You don't understand, do you?" she squeaked.

Nothing I said would have been the right answer. Somehow I knew that. I sat with my back against the bed and closed my eyes. If I had a blueprint of her mind that would have done me better than attempting to guess.

"I haven't any idea. Please don't cry."

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "How many days have you been here now?"

I had lost count. "Six."

"Four. But it honestly feels like six."

From the way she bit off her words I knew that was deserved. I opened my eyes and frowned at her. "If you wanted me to leave you should have said something."

She started to cry again for another unknown reason. Just when I thought we could actually talk she broke down again.

"Julie—" I have no idea why I called her that but it seemed appropriate. Maybe an endearing pet name would cauterize the wound I had unknowingly opened.

"Why don't you ever apologize? Are you that ungrateful? Are you that inconsiderate?" Julia yelled at me. She balled her hand into fists and pounded it on the floor.

My head lowered involuntarily. So that was why she was upset. "May I tell you now or have I lost my opportunity to do so?"

She hiccupped. That seemed like enough of an invitation to continue. I lay down beside her on the floor and rested my head on my arm. As soon as I was facing her, she closed her eyes and sniffled again. Though she didn't move any farther away she did fold her arms over her chest to shut me out. Regret knifed through me. I stared at her swollen face, at the tears my own foolishness had created.

"I've never had to apologize to anyone," I whispered. The urge to just touch Julia, to hold her, to be nearer to her made my fingertips sting with longing. I tightly closed my hand and kept it over my chest. "I don't know what to do."

She turned over and faced away from me. Her gesture left me teetering on the edge of anger and remorse. I was trying, damn it, I was trying to apologize.

"The list is fairly long. Would you be so kind as to narrow down exactly what I'm apologizing for?"

Julia released another sob. Her emotions were beyond my ability to tolerate. I moved toward her and placed my hand around her soft belly. Like a rat I attempted to navigate my way through her labyrinthine mind.

"I would not try to hurt you. Not ever. As much as I would rather not see you cry for my own selfishness if you…" _feel you must? No, that would not work. _"Julia, my God, please look at me. I would rather have you rip out my stitches than keep your back to me."

Her body continued to jolt with hiccups for a while after that, and though she didn't turn to face me, her hand reached down and touched my wrist. I thought for certain that she would lift my hand from her and moved it away but she didn't. She let me hold onto her.

"You cannot bring yourself to say it, can you?" she whispered.

She was right. More difficult than saying that I loved her was saying that I was sorry I had hurt her feelings. The longer I contemplated the more I realized that they were phrases that went hand in hand. With a deep breath I forced the words into my mind and prepared myself to tell her.

"I'm sorry."

She said nothing for a moment and I almost sighed in relief. No reply at all was better than her rejecting my words.

"For what?" she asked.

Well how the hell would I know if she wouldn't tell me? Why was I the only one putting out effort? I sat upright and turned my back on her in frustration.

"For everything. Does that cover it all? Birth, I'm sorry for surviving birth. I apologize for being a healthy child, for…for making it out of Persia alive…the opera house…"

Julia groaned. "You make it about yourself. Don't you dare try to twist this around you deceptive, ignorant, selfish fool."

"I'm sorry I don't know how to do anything at all!" I shouted at her. I scrambled to my feet and stormed out of the room and slammed the door. I was about to head down the stairs but I didn't want to leave her alone in the bedroom. I spun around and headed back inside finding she had not moved at all. "What in the hell do you want me to tell you? I told you I was sorry and I don't know what else to even say because I don't know what I did. Specifically, I mean, because as I said I know, at least, that the list is longer than St. Peter's list of souls. You have a thousand reasons to hate me. Tell me where to start and I will apologize to you. Just…" Slowly my anger faded and I regretted raising my voice at her. She had buried her head in her arms the moment I started yelling at her. "Just tell me what I need to do for you to speak to me still. Please."

She lifted her head and showed me her tear-streaked face. "My journal."

"I'm sorry I looked." I crossed my arms and turned away. "I didn't even read very much of it before you found me." Without her saying anything I continued. "I apologize for being difficult. But you know how I am."

She sighed in disgust. "Forget it, Erik. Go downstairs and go to bed."

"No. I'm going to apologize to you," I said. I turned back towards her and knelt down on one knee. "What else? Let's have it right now."

It sounded a bit threatening but I didn't realize it until I had finished yelling at her and demanding that I be allowed to apologize.

"This isn't how it works. Just go, Erik. Just leave me alone and I'll see you in the morning."

"No, no I'm not going to leave you crying on the floor." Without thinking about it in my irritation with myself, I grabbed her under the arms and hefted her into bed. She bounced when she landed and stared at me as I sat down beside her. "Don't be angry with me. Tell me what I have to do so that you aren't angry with me."

"I'm not angry I'm upset."

My mouth twitched. "What's the difference?"

She laid her head back and closed her eyes. Her voice had turned gravely from crying. "Do you even realize how many times you've hurt my feelings over the last four days? For God's sake the first night you were here you told me that you hated me when I was trying to help you. Did I say anything to you? No, not at all because you were in so much pain I couldn't bear to put you in more."

"I would never say that to you. Not ever."

"Then who were you talking to?"

"I don't know; to God, to myself, to anyone at all but not to you, Julia."

"You'll be struck down dead for saying something like that," Julia said under her breath. "For one man you say so many hurtful things."

Julia turned her face toward me. She was still crying but not nearly as hard as she had been earlier.

"You being here last night and this morning was like being married again."

"Is that slander or a compliment?" This time I was ready to apologize.

She shifted to her side and curled up like a cat. "You reminded me of the pleasant parts of being married. Falling asleep beside you was…comforting. And it had nothing to do with sex. Then you have to go and do something I should really come to expect from you. How can you be so inconsiderate?"

"I really don't know."

"Well what do you know?"

"I know that when you cry it's the most horrific sound in the world. I never want to hear it ever again."

Julia looked at me strangely but shook her head. She sat up in bed and I did the same, crossing my legs like a tailor. She turned away and dried her eyes. "You're so uncouth. For such an intelligent man you certainly haven't a clue about anything a book cannot teach you."

"No, I suppose I don't."

"Oh, you in the last four days have been more exhausting than four years with both Lisette and Louis to take care of. You're slowly sucking the life out of me, Erik, you're simply draining me."

When she turned to face me I knew that there was something more that was on her mind. Her face was still taut, her eyes still filled with sorrow. I took her hand and squeezed her fingers.

"When you told me about the gendarmes I thought my heart would stop. I don't want anything to happen to you or to Alex."

"Nothing will happen to Alex," I assured her. "He'll be well cared for no matter what."

"And you?"

My face darkened. I tried desperately to hold onto her hand but I couldn't. "I don't yet know. But you needn't worry about me. I'll have Madeline give you part of my funds—"

She started to cry again. "I don't want your money. I've never wanted your money."

"You've been good to me. You deserve something."

"_We_ deserve something after all of these years. I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you."

She threw her arms around my neck and at last I knew why she wept. She shed the tears I still could not force to fall from my eyes, the tears for my own dismal fate.

I almost missed someone knocking on the front door because she was crying so loud. As much as I wanted whoever it was to just go away I knew that I should answer it.

After all, not many people call at a quarter till midnight.

Julia apparently heard it as well. She rolled off the side of the bed and wandered out of the bedroom. She told me to stay put but of course I followed her. In the back of my mind I feared it was the vicomte paying an early visit. With a silver candlestick in hand I stood behind Julia when she opened the door.

Madeline stood wringing her hands. Her bonnet was soaked as was her dress.

"Where is your umbrella?" I asked. The woman was trembling and soaked to the bone.

She pushed past Julia and stood in the foyer, her eyes searching the halls. "Alex returned here."

"What?" Julia and I asked together.

"He had to come here," Madeline murmured. "He's not at home. He must be here."

Without making a reply Julia ran up the stairs and I went down the hall to the guest room. All three of us began shouting his name at once.

I turned up the lamp and immediately knew we would not find him. There was a note on the bed. A note where my son should have been.


	49. The Note

_Alex was missing in the last chapter._

Ch 49

The candlestick dropped from my hand as I fell to my knees. This is where Alex should have been.

I was confused as to how the note had arrived on my bed. He had not been in the room aside from the morning and if he had left a note I would have known. There was no other time during the day that he had been inside the house. He had returned to his studies with Charles.

Then I remembered Alex and Lisette running through the house like banshees before dinner. He had come down the stairs just ahead her and…the water closet. That was the only time he had been down the hall since early in the morning. He had dropped the note off on his way to the water closet.

Damn it, he was sneaky.

In my haste to open the letter I ripped the page in half. My trembling hands could barely hold the document together, though it didn't much matter.

_'I'm sorry'. _

Only two words on a piece of paper and nothing more. No trace of where he was or what he was doing. Alex had disappeared yet I could only assume where he had gone. My son had left me for his mother. The words on the page were the same as the ones he had told me the previous day. He was sorry. He knew he was going to leave. I could only wonder how long he had planned this escape from my hellish domain.

"Is he—" Julia came to a sliding stop in the doorway and found her question answered. She was breathing heavy when she sat down on the bed. "Lisette said she didn't know where he went. She thought he had gone into the kitchen for more tea but he never came back."

My despair quickly gave way to rage. I knew in my heart that he would not leave me for her. He would not leave, I told myself a thousand times. Not like this, not after the other night. He had come to stay with me, he had heard me tell him that I loved him and he had said that he loved me as well. He couldn't leave! He couldn't!

No, not like this. That left only one other explanation: he had been stolen from my house.

But how? The vicomte? No, he wouldn't have the stealth. Christine? That seemed more likely, though I couldn't imagine Alex going with her after all he had said. He wanted nothing to do with her.

Maybe he wasn't with them at all.

I turned around and saw Madeline standing in the doorway. She clutched the doorframe with both hands. "Sit down before you faint," I told her. I climbed to my feet and pulled her into a chair where she collapsed and buried her face in her hands. "Where were they playing?"

Madeline looked up at last. "In the library, Monsieur," she replied blankly. She never called me Monsieur. Obviously she was beside herself in anxiety. I hadn't even thought to blame her as I was more concerned with finding my son than reprimanding her for losing him.

"What were they doing?"

Madeline shook her head. "Reading, I think. They were being very quiet so I didn't disturb them."

"Where were you?"

"The kitchen."

"Doing what?"

She looked a little wary when she shrugged. "Nothing. Just reading the paper."

"And the study?"

Madeline moved her hand over her heart. "The door was shut."

"What about Charles and Meg?"

Madeline shrugged. "All I know is that I was in the kitchen with Meg and Charles was in his room writing letters."

"Did he go upstairs?"

"Monsieur, I don't know. Lisette came to the kitchen to look for him. I went to his bedroom. That was the first place I looked. We checked everywhere for him—"

I rose to my feet before she could finish and tucked the note into my waistcoat pocket. If I was going to go out into the night I would need my hair again. Everything sitting on top of my hairpiece ended up shoved to the ground.

"Where are you going?" Julia asked.

"The hotel first," I said. I glanced at her in the mirror as I fit the band over my head and adjusted the hair behind my ears. My forehead still smarted from the pressure but there was nothing I could do about that. There was strength in my illusion, power that I had never found without my mask and hair.

"What do you mean first? Where else are you going?"

I made no reply. I opened the guestroom wardrobe and pulled out my overcoat.

"Let me go with you," she offered.

"Absolutely not," I replied from the hall. I raced up the stairs and glanced around her bedroom.

Julia was on my heels. "You can't just walk up to the hotel—"

"The hell I can't. If they have him I will kill them both. Where is the mask?"

She opened her dresser drawer and handed it to me without question. "You can't just…kill him. It isn't right."

"That's all a matter of perception," I muttered.

Julia grabbed me by the back of my collar and dragged me to a stop by nearly choking me. It was almost impossible to pry her hands away without hurting her but I managed to shake her loose. She reached for my lapels but I stopped her and took both of her wrists in one hand. Nothing would stop her struggling and I ended up walking her backward and leaving her on the bed.

"You're going to get yourself killed!" she shrieked as I sprinted down the stairs.

The tone of her voice more than her words kept me from opening the front door. I stared at my hand gripped around the handle and listened to the stairs creak beneath her as she descended. When I finally turned to face Julia I found Madeline at her side. They clung to one another like children, both of them pleading me in silence to reconsider.

"You're safer here," I reasoned.

"Erik—"

"Damn it, Julia, I told you no."

Madeline stepped forward. "Erik, don't yell at her. We're trying to help you."

Julia spread her hands. Her expression and voice softened accordingly. "Someone should go with you, otherwise you'll be outnumbered."

I rolled my eyes at her. "What good would you do me? You're not going to even the odds by being there. If anything you'll make it worse because I'll have to defend you as well."

For how red her face was she spoke with surprising calm. "If Alex is in there and you go to their hotel ranting and raving they'll call security and have you taken away. But if you go there and are civil you stand a better chance of taking him back."

We were either going to leave together or argue all night long. With a curt nod I waited for her to grab her cloak and mine and follow me down the front steps.

It didn't really matter if she came with me to the hotel. I had a strange feeling he hadn't gone there in the first place.

Julia walked and I limped down the street in silence. My shins burned with every step but I clenched my jaw and pressed forward. The night sky was clouded over thanks to the rain. It still fell in light sheets that were much more an annoyance than hindrance. We both pulled up our hoods up and pushed forward down the street.

He wasn't going to be there. I was almost positive that he wasn't going to be there but I needed to be certain. Christine was done singing. There was nothing to keep her in Paris and I feared that if she had Alexandre with her she would disappear. Communication with Meg and Madeline would be broken and Alex would be gone forever.

If he was where I thought then he was relatively safe.

If he was with Christine and the boy…What I wouldn't have given for a Punjab lasso.

"What?"

I looked at Julia. "What?"

"You said something about a Punjab lasso."

Well hell. I quickened my pace. "I'd like to strangle him," I replied.

"Erik," she warned.

I glanced back at Julia who, despite having two good legs, had fallen behind to my longer strides. "If anything—and I mean _anything_—has happened to Alex I will kill him without a second thought."

"Forgive me for saying this but why would he hurt a child that may be his own?"

My feet slid to a stop on the damp cobblestones. "He knows Alex doesn't belong to him. He called him a bastard. He knows damn well that isn't his son."

I turned away from Julia. The Wisteria loomed ahead greeting us in grim silence.


	50. Trust Me

_The Search for Alexandre begins when Julia and I travel to the Wisteria Hotel. Gabrina would like you to know that she just discovered that Wisteria is the name of a street on a tv show. And she thought she was soooo terribly original. _

Ch 50

Storming the castle didn't seem like a brilliant plan once we were a mere fifty paces from the front entrance. In all likelihood I would be restrained, jailed, recognized and tried, and eventually executed. If the shah knew where I was I would then be revived, tried, and executed again.

Julia and I stood with our shoulders touching as we stared at the Wisteria Hotel. The streets were quiet because of the weather and the hour. Without anyone to see us, I threw back my hood and touched the inside pocket of my cloak just to be sure that the mask was still there. My legs instantly began to atrophy from the brisk walk to the hotel and the sudden stop.

"Why don't you stay here and I'll speak with the man at the front desk?" Julia suggested. Her teeth were chattering from the cold. "Sit down a moment."

"We don't have time," I argued. As much as I wanted to be stubborn I still sat. My body sought revenge for the pace I had insisted upon.

"I'll be back in a moment."

"You are not going in there without me," I replied with a groan. Every muscle in my legs had knotted. By the feel of it my calves would soon be burned to ash.

She crossed her arms and shook her head at me. "You, with your mask and your temper, cannot just walk in and expect to reach their suite without some sort of altercation."

"So?"

"So you'll never reach the room. If I go in first and have a word with the clerk you stand a much better chance of seeing the Vicomte and Vicomtess de Chagny and finding out about Alex." Julia stepped forward and tilted my head up. "Your forehead is bleeding again. Must you wear that thing?"

"Yes." My finger slid under the front of my hair and pulled it up enough. I hadn't even noticed the throbbing pain. It didn't even contend with how my shins and thighs felt.

She scoffed at me and took a handkerchief from the inside pocket of her cloak. Once she folded it neatly she pressed it against my forehead where the closed wound disappeared into my new hairline. "Why? Because you like the torment?"

I glared at her. "For fear." She stared at me a moment but made no reply. "They remember me as a sniveling, weak fool in the end. They remember me unmasked. But I have no doubt that when the boy closes his eyes at night his fears will return." My finger ran along the mask. "He sees this and he knows that if I so choose he will be strung up by the neck. He will not have an advantage again."

"You would kill him before your own son?"

She earned a scowl from me. How galling that she had to have valid points! No wonder she wanted to come along! To make certain that I had a conscious!

"I won't kill him," I sighed in disgust. "As long as Alex is unharmed."

Julia sat down on the bench beside me with her hand still holding the handkerchief to my head. "Do you honestly think he would come here?"

"I'm not sure." Even I knew that was a lie.

"You're coming here for revenge, aren't you?"

I took the handkerchief from Julia and turned away. Her hand fell to my shoulder.

"Where is he?" she whispered.

"If he isn't here he's safe."

She could have argued with me over where he was but she didn't. "Then why are we here? If you don't think he's here…"

"I can't take that chance. Look at what he did to me," I said between my teeth. "Tell me if you think for a second that he wouldn't do the same to Alexandre, to the son conceived out of wedlock—to my child. If I'm wrong, if Alex is here, he's dead."

Before I knew what had happened I felt the warmth of tears on my cheeks. Emotions forced me to my feet.

"You honestly believe he would kill another man's son?"

"Anger can evoke anything," I murmured.

Julia stood up beside me. "Erik, even you wouldn't kill a child. You—" she stopped and stared at me, her eyes locked on mine. It frightened me that she couldn't continue. With a shuddering sigh she looked away, arms hugging her body tighter. "I pray to God you would never do such a thing," she said under her breath.

Prayers were never enough to erase the past. If simple words could take away all that I had done my life would have started with the day Alexandre came to me and would have skipped and skittered like a rock across the water to the day I first met Julia. Torture chambers, extortion, kidnapping….I wouldn't have done any of it had I thought I would ever meet someone like Julia. Had I known I could lose someone like Julia.

"The storm is getting worse," I murmured. "We better go before it starts to pour."

Julia warily nodded.

We walked across the street together and I thought in silent misery that it really was ironic how the past came to haunt a ghost.

The front of the hotel was empty aside from a doorman snoring in the foyer. I could see him through the carved glass, head tilted back and mouth gaping open. Julia warned me under her breath not to touch anything or talk to anyone while she was at the front desk. Condescending, I thought, but I didn't argue. She stood a distance away from me and I felt it. There was a curtain of doubt that had been drawn between us and no cord that I could find to lift it again.

"I'll only be a moment," Julia assured me. "Find some scrap of patience and wait here."

The tone of her voice had changed. Only someone who had spent a great deal of time involved in music would have noticed it. She didn't even meet my eye, even when she turned to straighten my collar.

"Julia—"

"He's been missing for at least two hours now, Erik. We can't stand around and chat all night. Not when you won't tell me where you think Alex is at."

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you anything."

"Wait here."

"No, listen to me—"

"Wait. Here."

She started through the double brass doors but I called out to her before she disappeared. Her movements were slow but she did stop and turn to face me. From a distance I couldn't see her eyes clear enough but I hoped her gaze lacked the fear I felt in my heart.

"Do you trust me?" I asked.

The door closed and she was gone.


	51. The Wisteria

_Julia and I have made it to the Wisteria Hotel. I think Julia may have lost her trust in me._

Ch 51

The night air grew considerably colder once Julia had disappeared into the hotel lobby. My teeth started to chatter. Feeling abandoned my exposed hands. My face had also turned numb. The only consolation I could find was that my forehead had stopped bleeding. I placed the mask over my face and waited.

There was something greater missing, not just Julia, and it was driving me mad. I wanted her to trust me, to have faith in me. She had no idea what I would have done for her to gain her trust again.

Odd how after all of these years of wanting to be feared and finding power in being something else I now no longer wanted that skin. If I were a snake I would have shed my treachery and hoped for shining innocence beneath. Now was not the time for catharsis.

Rain dampened my hair and dripped down my forehead and into my eyes. I sniffled and clenched my jaw to keep from trembling but it didn't keep my teeth from clattering.

Even though it was only raining I had a wicked hope for lightning to strike me dead and end my misery. That, I knew, was too much to ask. It would be easier to be struck by a lightning bolt than face Julia, and eventually I would have to face her.

A carriage jingled up to the half-circle drive in front of the hotel. I sat upright and covered my face again before the driver jumped down to let the guests out. The sound woke the bellman and I had to step back before he hit me with the door. The second he ran out he turned and headed back inside the hotel.

"Umbrella!" he said to himself. "Mustn't forget the lady's umbrella."

I stared at him from beneath my hood as he ran back out again. In the back of my mind I knew that this was going to be Christine and her husband. I just knew it.

But it wasn't. That would have been too merciful of God and the powers of the damned universe to just let me confront them without Julia looming over my shoulder. A man, the oldest man I had ever seen, helped a woman just as old as he from the carriage. They clung to one another as he held the umbrella over their bent forms. When they were near the entrance the bellman held the door for them and told them to have a nice night.

I despised the two of them. They mocked my dismal disposition and my terrible fate. By the way they held one another it was apparent that they were in love. In love! And what was I? Cold, wet and alone I stood waiting for a woman. Not just any woman. A woman I had slept with twice. Pelted by rain I waited for her to come out with her husband and the woman I had slept with a hundred times. The entire situation seemed utterly ridiculous the more I thought about it.

Julia was retrieving Christine and the man who had nearly beat me to death from their hotel room. I could only imagine her telling them that we had come in search of Alex. If there was any doubt in her mind that I was an adequate parent, I suppose I did drop my own guillotine. A cynical chuckle escaped my lips.

This was perfectly tailored to the rest of my hellish life.

My nerves could nary tolerate another moment of waiting. It no longer mattered that Julia had been gone less than five minutes. I have never had any patience. Absolutely none and this night was no different.

Just when I could no longer hold back a scream the double doors opened. The vicomte appeared first though he didn't meet my eye. He stood like a guard before Christine. Julia was the last one out the door. None of them looked at me.

To hell with all of them, then!

"Is he here?" I asked Julia.

"You lost him?" Christine accused.

"Oh, shut up," I snapped.

"How dare you!" Christine shrieked.

The vicomte stepped forward to protect his darling little wife from my venomous tone and I stepped forward to meet him head-on. Julia wedged herself between us and pushed on my chest to keep me back.

"They have kindly agreed to show us inside," Julia said evenly.

"How many others does he have waiting for me? Ten, twenty men waiting upstairs to finish me off?"

Julia leaned into me and pinched my upper arm. "Stop acting like a child or I'll leave you to your fate right now," she threatened in my ear. I glared at her but allowed her to push me back until I was against the wall.

"Where is he?" Christine demanded.

Julia stepped forward. "He was at home the last time Madame Giry saw him," she said. The calm in her voice further irritated me.

What have you done with our son?" Christine asked. Her voice trembled. She had just enough emotion to feign heartache.

"Madame, no one is to blame. He left a note—"

"Let me see it." Christine stepped from behind the boy and held her hand out.

Her hand lingered before me, palm up and long fingers splayed. Her presence paralyzed me, cowed me in the most horrific way possible. My breath caught in my throat. This is what Oliver Cromwell must have felt when he was buried, exhumed and beheaded. Damn it if I didn't dig my own grave by coming to her hotel.

She flexed her extended hand impatiently. I couldn't look away from her long, delicate fingers, the gentle slope of her palm or her thin, milky white wrist. She stood close enough for me to touch her if I had just lifted my hand to hers.

The thoughts racing through my mind caught me by surprise. I still had feelings for her. After everything that had happened I still had feelings for Christine. That was nothing less than appalling.

"Erik," Julia prompted.

"I thought you were inviting us in," I sneered.

The vicomte and his wife both hesitated but the boy nodded at last and held the door for both Julia and Christine. He let the door fall back into place just before I reached it. My jaw tightened until I felt my head begin to pound. I would have kicked the door open had Julia not peered back to fetch me.

"I know, I know," Julia said quietly.

Her hand wrapped around my wrist and I realized I was so angry I had started to shake. The warmth of her touch made me release a pent-up breath. I looked at her and nodded once.

"For tonight, I will trust you," she whispered. She gently kissed my shoulder.

I was glad she had come with me.

We walked through the lobby and up to the second floor without another word passing between us. The boy walked a step behind Christine which I found rather insulting. As if I would harm her. As if I had ever put her into danger.

The two little girls I had seen several nights before were with their nanny when we walked inside the suite. Christine trotted off scolding them that it was far too late to be up. They both gave soft but useless protests before going off to their room with their nanny directly behind them. The bedroom door closed and Christine returned.

"Well? Where's the note?" Christine asked.

I reached into my waistcoat pocket and handed over the note. Our fingers touched but I made the exchange without looking Christine in the eye. She said nothing as she disappeared behind her precious vicomte.

While she read I stared at the boy nervously twisting the toe of his shoes against the inlaid stone foyer. My face had scraped across the ground with the same sickening drag of his sole against the floor. I could still feel his foot against my ribs, still hear the wind knocked from my lungs as he and two of his friends clubbed me in the back and in the chest. I ran my fingers along the palm of my hand and felt where the skin was still raw with scrapes, where gravel had become imbedded under my skin and beneath my nails.

Christine had disappeared behind the protective wall of her husband just as she had gone back to her room the night they had escorted me from her suite. She had turned her face away knowing full well what would happen in the streets below her hotel room.

She had left me for dead.

My hand rose to my forehead and I touched the stitches again. Pink stained my fingertips. I stared at my hand, at the blood and the bruises, the scrapes and the swelling. She had turned her back to me as she had so many times before. She had given permission, given her blessing for them to kill me if they were so inclined.

My eyes were fixed on my own hand and I felt a sudden tremor of rage rising up. For dead. She had left me for dead. She had abandoned her own son, spent nine years erasing us and left me for dead in an alley. This was the woman I adored, the singer I worshipped.

Julia reached into my overcoat pocket and removed the handkerchief. She blotted my forehead and lightly touched my chest, her fingertips skimming past my heart. She had no idea that she saved my life with a simple touch.

"That's it?" Christine asked. She folded the note and handed it to Julia who handed it back to me. "It says nothing."

"It says he's sorry," I said under my breath.

She sighed. "And it says nothing more. Frankly I think you're wasting time. Is this a ploy to keep me from him?"

"No."

"How ironic that the day before I asked to see him again he disappears from Madeline's home."

"My home," I corrected.

"What does it matter? I knew this would happen. I should have taken him in when he first came to me. Raoul, call the front desk. Tell the commissioner—"

"It's only been a few hours," Julia blurted out.

I stepped in front of Julia and made my way toward Christine. "What do you mean when he first came to you?"

"That is none of your business."

"He's my son. Everything he does is my business."

We stared at one another in the center of the room. The boy started to come forward but Christine waved him back. Julia didn't make a sound.

"He's my son as well."

"You lost that right nine years ago when you left him at my door and walked away," I said between my teeth. My eyes flashed to the boy. He looked away at my words. I took a step forward fully expecting Christine to recoil but she stood her ground. "Tell me why he came here."

"You know why he came here."

"What did he say?"

"That is private."

"Damn it, what did he say?" I shouted.

Julia said my name softly and I glanced at her from over my shoulder. When I turned back Christine had stepped away from me. I looked from her to the bedroom and then the boy.

"Come with me," I said through clenched teeth. Before she could reply I stormed toward her and grabbed her by the wrist. "Don't you even think about lying to me again."


	52. China Doll

_Short chapter. We apologize but alas my Muse has another man in her life and it happens to be his birthday. On with my story..._

_Julia and I are now in Christine's suite. I was about ready to drag her to the bedroom and get answers from her._

_Gabrina thought that Fiesty Phantom and Punk-ass Vicomte would have been an appropriate title for this chapter. Please do not humor her. _

Ch 52

The China doll in her hand dangled at her side, the dark hair covering the doll's expressionless face. I wasn't sure but I thought the child's name was Isabella. In Suzette's death this child had become the oldest daughter.

We stared at each other for a moment, this child and I, locked in some unwavering gaze of horror and disbelief. I had released her mother the moment I had seen her standing in her little blue night dress with her hair twisted in a bun. I didn't know if she had seen me holding her mother by the wrist but I felt as though I owed this little girl and explanation of why I was there in their suite. I also wanted to ask her why in God's name she was still awake at half past one in the morning.

"Mommy, your friend is back," she murmured. She clutched the doll against her chest and continued to stare at me.

"I know that sweetie. Go on to bed," Christine replied. She didn't turn to face her daughter. She glared at me. They both did. The whole room had centered on me.

"Mommy," the little girl yawned. "I'm thirsty and I need to go to the potty."

"Have Nanette take you. Go right now," Christine said in her sing-song voice.

I lowered my head in a nod and the girl did the same. She turned slowly to her father and held out her hand. "Daddy?"

"Nanette will take you," the vicomte said. He started to wave her off but the girl started to moan in protest.

"Bella, I said go right now," Christine ordered.

"Mommy, is that man going to yell again?"

"No," I replied before anyone else could speak on my behalf. "We'll be out on the balcony. I apologize for disturbing you, child." I forced a slight smile that she half-heartedly returned. Christine finally came to her and led the little girl back to her bedroom. Before the bedroom door closed behind them I heard her snap at the nanny.

"You need to leave now," the vicomte ordered. He stepped towards me but stopped once I turned to face him. His voice dropped. "You leave now or the gendarmes come at once."

"I leave when I know what my son said," I replied. I looked toward Julia. She stared uncomfortably at the bedroom door where Christine had disappeared with her daughter. I have no doubt she was waiting for the nightmare to end.

My eyes flickered from the vicomte back to Julia. My jaw had clenched so tightly that I half-expected my teeth to crack from the pressure. "Did you hear what I said? _My _son! I don't give a damn what she says he is mine; my blood, my soul, my son, mine." It was nearly impossible for me to keep my voice down. It was nearly impossible not to grab him by his scrawny, perfect neck and not strangle the life from his aristocratic body.

I watched him from the corner of my eye. To my surprise the boy didn't argue. He simply stood there with his arms hanging at his side and his head bowed. I took a step toward him.

"She never told you, did she?" I asked.

"You have made my life a living hell for far too long. You have no right to be in my hotel room insisting that you…you did anything with my wife."

"She wasn't your wife then."

"There is not even a remote possibility that this boy is your son, do you understand me?"

"Then tell me why you called him a bastard or I will break your neck."

His face turned crimson. "Christine has been faithful! She would never even have a nightmare as repulsive as you. Now I said you need to leave," he replied through his teeth.

His voice trembled. It was like the smell of blood in the air to a predator. I stalked toward him oblivious to everything else within the room. "Do I frighten you now that it is only us? Now that the odds are even and there is no one who can save you?"

"You need to leave at once." He backed away into the door. All he had to do was find the doorknob and he could run screaming into the hall.

"Tell me."

Silence. I would not tolerate silence. My hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat.

Before I could apply pressure and leave bruises in the shape of my fingers Julia took me by my free arm and attempted to pull me away.

"We've been here long enough," she said. "Your bloodlust is not going to find Alex."

She was right. This wasn't going to find Alex but it felt too damned good to have my hands around his neck. My grip loosened and he fell to his knees. With his hands to his throat he gasped for his next breath.

"You son of a bitch," the boy coughed.

"Answer me."


	53. Two Bulls in the Same Pen

_In the last chapter--if anyone remembers that far back--the boy and I were at odds. I nearly choked him to death_

_I_Ch 53

The boy never took his eyes off me as he wobbled to his feet. The cravat was torn away from his neck enough to display the reddened indentations beneath.

Once he had his legs beneath him I lunged forward and drove him away from the front door. He leapt away from me and managed to reach the wall to my right. He groped along the wall and bumped a small table. The vase of red roses on top slid to one side and precariously balanced on the edge.

There was nothing along the right wall aside from bouquets of roses and calla lilies probably delivered to the diva after her performance. There had been so many other things on my mind that I didn't realize how much it smelled like a funeral parlor.

"I said answer me," I growled through my teeth. My legs were starting to atrophy again, which only added to my foul disposition.

The boy stared wide-eyed at me with one hand against the wall and the other at his throat. He was terrified. Slowly I withdrew from my darling little vicomte and waited for him to continue moving farther into the room. Whenever he stopped I stalked forward. His mind was more knotted than my legs. He had no idea what I was doing. He made it rather easy to lure him into the corner.

The boy held his hands up, palms out as a plea for mercy. I held my own palm up and showed him the long, reddened lines where the streets had torn my skin open. He would get no mercy from me. He was a bigger damned fool than I had thought if he assumed I would show him benevolence.

"You know he's not your son," I said through my teeth. "I don't give a damn what Christine has said to you! Both of you know he is not your son."

The boy stumbled over an armchair and fell on his back. The moment he was sprawled out I stood over him. I drew my foot back and aimed the toes of my shoe at his ribs.

"An eye for an eye," I snarled.

"Erik, don't. You'll regret it later," Julia warned. I glanced at her and obeyed her request.

The boy turned onto his side and dabbed at his mouth with the back of his hand. Blood smeared across his chin. He must have bitten his tongue when he fell.

He scrambled to his feet and attempted to run past me but knew there was not enough room to escape. He gave up and doubled back finding himself trapped. He stared at the doorway where Christine had disappeared and realized he was a million miles away.

"What did you say to Alexandre?"

The vicomte made a futile attempt to move around me. He couldn't find momentum and I rammed him in the chest with my shoulder. The impact jolted him backwards and he hit the wall behind him. As excruciating as it was I drew back and hit him again, punching the air from his lungs. He glared up at me, his eyes filled with terror. He groped at my lapels and I stared back at him. Something else lingered beyond the fear, something I wanted to beat out of him.

Julia called out to me but I missed her words. I opened the balcony door and grabbed the vicomte by the overcoat. He had no idea what was happening when I shoved him onto the balcony. A rush of bitterly cold air stung the exposed side of my face before the glass rattled shut and I locked the door. The vicomte let out a muffled cry and pounded on the glass, rattling the door in the frame.

"You let that man back in here this minute," Julia demanded.

The tone of her voice startled me almost as much as her storming across the room. Before I even knew what was happening, Julia stood before me with her finger pressed against my chest.

"He's fine," I argued.

"Erik, I came with you to help you find your son, not torment and taunt this man. Let him back inside."

"He beat the hell out of me. He deserves to suffer."

"You've already made him suffer."

"Not nearly enough."

"Didn't you hear what he said?"

"I don't care what he said."

Julia briefly turned away from me. "He said 'Don't hurt my daughters.'"

"I haven't even threatened his daughters but he has threatened my son."

"When did he…?" She grumbled in disgust. "Erik, let him back inside."

Her matriarchal side reared its head at me. "Whose side are you on?"

"Quit acting so infantile! There are no sides to take, Erik! The only person I care for right now is Alex. You should be ashamed of yourself for wasting your time on petty endeavors when your son is still missing."

"He's hiding, not missing."

Her expression changed from anger to perplexity. "What does that mean?"

"It means I know where he is. And I think both of them know it as well."

"Where is he then?" she asked. She placed her hands on her hips as she interrogated me.

"The opera house," I answered. Before Julia could ask me further I opened the door to the balcony and stepped into the night.

Julia followed directly on my heels.

The boy had his back to us when we walked outside. He leaned over the wrought iron railing and gazed at the damp streets below. The rain had passed on for the night though a light fog drifted over the ground. Given the hour it was quiet save the sound of wind rattling through the barren trees.

The vicomte glanced at me over his shoulder but said nothing. Steam left his nostrils and clouded my view of his face. He turned back to the street. I realized after a while that he was staring at the alleyway.

"I never said a word to him," he said at last. "I never said a word to Alexandre."

"Yes you did. You called him a bastard. He told me you called him a bastard."

"I shouted at him, but I never spoke to him," the boy replied. He dabbed at his nose to check for blood. "He started to throw rocks at us and I chased him to the end of the street."

"If you had dared to hurt him, I swear to God—"

"I didn't hurt him. I would not have hurt him no matter what."

"Then why did you come to my house looking for him?" I asked. My anger was rekindled by his words. He was a damned liar. He had every intention of harming my son.

"To see what he looked like. I wanted to know. I had to see him for myself."

Chest heaving, I paused and stared at him. "And what do you know?"

The vicomte went silent and shook his head. He looked away from me before he spoke again. "I know his face." He exhaled and his breath rolled out before him on the damp, cold air. "You know who he looks like. You know exactly who he looks like. His eyes, his hair…"

"I don't care who he looks like. Alexandre is my son! He's been in my house for eight and a half years and I will be damned if you think you will take him from me." My voice rose again and the sound of my anger reverberated in the quiet night.

"The only thing we know for certain is that he is Christine's son." He looked at me then. Right in the eye, he stared at me. "I would never hurt Alexandre. I would never know if I punish my son…or another man's child."

The devastation in his eyes caught me off guard. I had come here expecting him to hate Alexandre as much as he hated me. A ragged sigh left his lips. He glanced away from me and I followed his gaze to the bedroom door.

"All these years," he said under his breath. "All these years of thinking we were happy and then this." He turned and leaned over the balcony, his hands balled into fists. "You've given me countless reasons to hate you. For the past nine years I have been constantly looking over my shoulder. At every performance I search each shadow, watch each step, expect each curtain fall will be the last time I see my wife. You're never there when I search. Yet I know you're always there.

"I don't know who Alexandre belongs to, but those are my daughters in there," the boy blurted out. "When I came home and Christine told me you were in our bedroom…I wanted to kill you. You have no right to be around my family."

I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him toward my face. "Look at me and tell me we are even. You have a wife, you have two children and you are allowed to see the world. I had my son."

"I never took your son from you! He left of his own accord." He brushed my hand away from his neck. "You had that coming to you after all these years," he said between his teeth. He pointed at the darkened alleyway and took a step toward me so that our chests nearly met. "I would gladly beat the life from your body if you dared to come near my family again," he shouted in my face.

As much as I wanted to kill him I still respected him for that. Perhaps we had something in common after all.

We remained inches from one another, two bulls stuck in the same pen. "I wasn't coming for your family."

"You came for my wife!"

"Your children were safe."

"And my wife?" The boy challenged. "Is she ever safe from you?"

I started to reach for his throat again but restrained myself. "I would never hurt her. She…she was dear to me for a very long time. No matter what she did to me, I would not harm her or her daughters."

His hardened stare never wavered as I spoke. The night dripped with anxiety as we confronted one another, both of us too damned full of pride to back down. Had Julia not stepped onto the balcony with me we would have grappled or come to blows until one of us was tossed over the railing. Blood would have been spilled, I have no doubt, and most likely it would have been mine. Already I was exhausted from overexertion. Blood had dripped and caked onto my eyebrow from the stitched-up laceration.

"Gentlemen," Julia said quietly. That was the only thing she said but it was a one-word warning. We backed away from one another out of shame more than duty.

It was a long time before either of us spoke. Julia put her hood over her head and huddled closer to the building. From the corner of my eye I could see her trembling with cold. As much as I wanted to put my arm around her I knew she would not allow it. She was attempting to remain impartial. Her only concern was Alexandre.

The vicomte lowered his head. "She took it hard when our daughter died," he said suddenly. He was breathing heavier than before. "There were nights when she would wake and tell me Suzette was fine. She would check on the girls, come back to bed and tell me Suzette was with Madame Giry. I had no idea why she would say such a thing. Now I know why. All of these years of silence and she's thought of him. Not once did she mention him but she must have always thought of him."

He looked at me strangely. "I thought she was thinking of you. I suppose in a way she still was."

"Why would you tell me this?" I asked. "Sympathy?"

He turned to fully face me. "I don't want your sympathy just as you do not want mine."

"Then what do you want?" I demanded.

"If there is any chance—any chance at all that Alexandre is my son I must see him again. I must know for certain if he is my blood…and I willWe all will."

He looked past me at the balcony door. "I must find peace," he whispered.


	54. Truce and Utter Madness

_In the last chapter I had an argument with the vicomte. While we were on the balcony I learned a great deal about Christine's psyche over the last nine years._

Ch 54

We had never formally acknowledged one another before. For many years I had hated him more than anything or anyone and yet not once had I uttered a word directly to Raoul de Chagny. I still wasn't fond of the boy but my abomination for him had diminished. He had not lived the princely life I had expected for a man of his station. He had suffered greatly for his affection. He would suffer for an eternity. They both would. As we stood a distance apart on the balcony I expected we all would share the same dismal fate.

The night air seemed to have grown colder now that I was no longer fueled by infinite hate. I pulled my cloak around tighter, then undid the clasp and draped my warmed garment over Julia's shoulders. She half-smiled and moved closer to the wall again to avoid the breeze.

"A truce?" I asked.

The vicomte seemed taken aback by my words. He ran his hand over his hair and turned away from me. He looked at Julia when he spoke. "I want to see Alexandre. If a truce is needed to see him again then I will gladly extend an olive branch."

Julia nodded with understanding but neither agreed nor disagreed. She knew the final word was mine and showed no sign of sympathy toward the vicomte. She probably also assumed she could sway me one way or the other if need be and knew she didn't have to speak yet. She had conditioned me very well.

"An olive branch?" I asked pensively.

My adrenalin, which had built as I expected to kill him, had worn off and the debilitating pain in my legs and back had returned. I needed to sit down soon or continue moving. My only hope was that I wouldn't feel the urge to vomit, as that seemed less becoming than collapsing.

Now that he had finished weeping out his unfortunate story there were many questions I had to ask him. "What about the gendarmes?" I asked.

The vicomte stammered. "I don't understand."

"Your wife said she would call the gendarmes."

"I—I had no idea."

My belligerence returned as well. "You had no idea."

"No, monsieur—"

"You want to call a truce but it gains nothing for me."

He stood before me in shocked silence, unnerved by my petulance.

"You will have peace of mind that I will not kill you. You will see Alexandre and persuade him with pretty things, and your wife will steal him from me. That is the benefit of a truce."

"I'm not trying to steal him."

"You simply want to see the child and nothing more?" My tone of voice made it sound preposterous.

"As a man who has lost his own daughter I would not take another man's child, even out of spite. You have my word. If there is no indication that this boy is my son I will make no attempt to take him from you this night or any other."

"What about your wife?"

He looked away. "I cannot speak for my wife."

"It seems you've done quite a bit of speaking on her behalf already."

His jaw twitched then as he found his own irritation escalating. "As I have previously said, monsieur, no matter what happens he is still her son."

Hardly, I thought. Christine had obviously mislead her precious vicomte into believing that she actually cared about Alex, that she might have it in her heart to love. I thought about enlightening the boy as to the true nature of his wife, but quickly thought against it. I wasn't ready to admit it even to myself.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she had suffered in those years of abandoning one child and losing another to illness but I had little sympathy for her. She had not suffered when Alexandre was conceived. In those days she had been a spoiled brat and I had built her the highest pedestal of all.

He looked toward Julia again. "This is hard enough already and I don't want to make it any more difficult. You have no idea what it does to my heart to think she had a child…without me," he said making every attempt to lighten his insult.

"You have no idea what it is to cherish and love something to the point of madness and have nothing in return."

"She—"

"She what? Betrayed you? Gave you hope? Don't tell me of suffering, vicomte. You're describing hell to the devil himself."

The door swung open and Julia walked through. She didn't even bother to turn and scold us. The door slammed shut behind her and we both jumped at the sound. The vicomte and I exchanged glares one last time but said nothing further. We both hesitated to continue the conversation but neither of us wanted to back down and leave the balcony. We were at an impasse.

In the back of my mind I hoped it wouldn't last long. My nose had started to run and my eyes began to water but I would be damned if I suggested we walk inside and do our best to rationally discuss our differences.

"This cannot be about Christine any longer. I am willing to put differences aside if it means finding Alexandre safe. If only for tonight would you do the same?"

I would be damned if he was going to shame me. "For Alexandre I would do anything. You have my word for tonight."

The vicomte nodded and reached for the door. He stepped aside like the perfect gentleman and allowed me to enter before him. I simply nodded in return, then, in my distrusting nature, turned to see if he was going to club me in the back of the head.

He wasn't even looking at me. His eyes were fixed ahead of us both. Before I had the opportunity to see what had caught his interest Julia screamed and glass shattered on the inlaid stone floor.

* * *

Christine walked on a lake of blue tinted glass. She held what had once been the handle of a flower urn in one hand and shook the jagged edge at Julia, urging her toward the corner where I had held the vicomte captive.

Julia held up a hand dripping a red river of blood. She nearly lost her footing on the mix of roses and glass shards floating in a puddle of water. Christine raised her fist and brandished the shard like a dagger.

"Madame, please, Alexandre is missing," Julia said quietly.

"Don't you dare try to replace me," Christine snarled as she approached. "Don't you dare try to become my son's mother."

"My only reason to be here is to have Alexandre back safe," Julia replied calmly. The blood began to drip faster down her hand and she clutched her wrist in a vain attempt to stop the flow.

Blood. In that moment I no longer saw Christine. It was Louis Seuratti standing before Julia, threatening her life. It was his piggy eyes that glared at my Julia, his gin blossom face and thick lips speaking of peril.

I would not tolerate anyone ever hurting Julia. She was mine—not in the sense that I owned her because I never thought of her as an object to possess, but in the sense that she was mine to protect. The night I put her suffering to an end and strangled Louis Seuratti, I swore to myself that no one would lay a hand on her again. After I killed him, I swore a vow of protection. I promised to have and to hold, to cherish and protect, in sickness and in health for as long as I lived.

The vicomte attempted to run past me but I bolted through the door and raced to Julia's side. If there was anyone in danger of being hurt it would not be Julia. Like a protective beast, I draped my arm around her and pushed her safely behind me. Christine could cut me to ribbons, slice my throat like some animal for slaughter, but she would not dare hurt Julia.

"You are not welcome here," Christine hissed. Her gaze switched back and forth between Julia's face and mine.

"Leave her alone and we will leave," I replied. My words came out calm despite the war I wanted in my mind. Julia's fingernails dug into my arm. She was murmuring something, a prayer by the sound of it.

"I want you both to stay away from my son," Christine seethed.

The vicomte came up beside her and put his hands out, palms up as a sign of peace but she swiped at him with her free hand and drove him back. He reached into his trouser pocket and showed her a small amber-colored bottle but she barely glanced at him. Christine had focused all of her anger on me.

"We need to find Alexandre," the vicomte said calmly. "My dear, come with me. You will make yourself ill if you continue."

"Call the gendarmes," Christine demanded.

"Lay down awhile and rest yourself," her husband continued.

"I will not rest! He is not allowed near my son," Christine said through her teeth. "He is not allowed to have anything to do with my children. He! He stole my son from me! You wicked, wicked man, with your tricks and lies and your voice—your angel's voice in my head. Don't you ever come near me again, do you understand me?"

My hands had started to shake from the shrill, ungodly sound leaving her mouth. For such a beautiful, gifted creature she sounded like something from hell.

"Let us out the door and we will never return here again," I replied.

She clutched her ears with her palms. "Don't speak to me!"

"Christine!" the vicomte whispered. "Come with me and I will see them out. Take your medicine and lay down."

She turned to him for the first time. "You should have killed him! After all he's done to me, you should have killed him!"

She was raving. The look in her eye was like nothing I had ever seen before. Her brow was damp, her hair mussed. She had cut herself on the back of the hand but paid no mind to the thin rivers of blood running down to her knuckles. She must not have noticed the blood because she wiped her face with the back of her hand and spread a red sheet across her nose and cheeks. War paint, I thought, she was prepared for war.

"Christine, the girls," her husband reminded her. "Hush, my dear, the girls are sleeping."

Christine turned back to me. "You will never see him again," she said slowly. Her dark eyes looked deeper, cruel and demonic. The lividness of her gaze made me hold tighter to Julia, shield her from the creature that had possessed the soprano. "He knows. He knows everything about you. You want to know what I told him? I told him the truth."

In the very bottom of my gut I had a terrible sinking feeling. This was my son's mother. Whatever she had said to him was going to kill me. Whatever she said would take Alexandre away for good.


	55. Laudanum Dreams

_Christine is not anything likewhat I expected.Her rage continues._

Ch 55

Christine infuriated me to the point of speechless stupor. A loathsome river flooded my mind and washed away each defense I would have made against her. All I did was stare at her, fuming in silence, slowly dying inside.

"You should be dead," Christine seethed. "You should be dead somewhere—anywhere, dead and unnoticed, rotting away like a corpse. You deserve nothing. You never did, you never will."

"For God's sake, Christine, come with me," the vicomte pleaded.

"What did you say to him?" I whispered.

"What a nightmare for that poor child. All of these years! All of them! Left in a house without escape, without love."

That was an insult I would not tolerate.

"You abandoned him as an infant! How dare you even insinuate that I never loved him! I was the one who wanted him—"

"Erik, don't do this," Julia begged. "Let's just leave."

Christine knew nothing and I would be damned if she said another word. "I loved him more than anything in the world! Everything I did for the past nine years was done with him in mind!"

I did all I could to control my voice. Those girls were in their bedroom undoubtedly listening through the door. This was what they had experienced all of their lives. This was what I had wanted for nine years and what the little vicomte had fought to keep. None of us had won. There was nothing to gain and it had never been clearer than at this moment.

Despite the weapon in her hand I stepped forward. Julia, with her good hand wrapped around my coat, snapped forward with me. "I loved him more than anything. I still love him more than anything, even you. No, more than you. I love Alexandre more than I ever loved you."

"I would ratherhave drowned him than let him suffer. If I had known you were there—"

"You always knew I was there with him. You knew since I wrote you—and don't say that you never saw my note because you did! I know you did!"

"What a curse you have been to me all these years! First my son, then my daughter! You are worse than a plague! But you will never do anything more, not when they come for you, and they will come for you. You'll never find them—either of them. They do not belong to you! They are mine! Mine and only mine!"

She was a rambling mess, a miserable, incoherent woman. I stepped away from her with a flare of pity beginning to smother my hatred. Something had happened to her. Was this…my doing?

"What have you done to Alexandre?" I asked.

"Don't say his name! He rejects you!" she continued to yell. "He will never come near you. No one would be blind enough, no one would ever be foolish enough to love you! Look at yourself, look at your frightful, sinful self. Now he will never have to look at you again! Now he will join Suzette."

"What have you done to Alexandre?" I asked again. She was mad, yes, but I couldn't believe she was capable of murdering her own son.

"Taken him away where he will be loved at last," she answered cryptically.

"When did you last see him?"

"Eight years ago."

I tried again. "When did you last see Alexandre?"

"Four nights ago…three nights ago….an hour ago."

The vicomte grabbed Christine in a way that looked every bit as bad as it sounded. She gave a gurgled cry as he knocked her to the ground and pinned her on her back. Christine struggled like a feral animal foaming at the mouth, biting and snarling. He pinned her wrist to the ground and the glass shard came loose from her grasp.

As Christine fought him, the vicomte looked to Julia and nodded toward the door. His plans of finding Alex were all but gone. He couldn't leave his wife. Not like this, in this strike of pure madness.

Again he showed her the bottle in his hand as he stroked her hair and spoke to her in a voice barely above a whisper. She nodded at last and murmured something in return.

He was drugging her. Laudanum, I thought, the cure for everything. She drank the contents down willingly and opened her mouth when she was done to show him she had swallowed all of it.

"That's it," the vicomte said to her. "Close your eyes and rest awhile. You'll be safe in bed when you wake."

"And Suzette?" she asked.

"Suzette is with the angels."

The words didn't seem toregister as she only giggled as though it was some marvelous jest. The drug was taking effect, gripping her tightly and calming her faster than I could have thought. Christine's movements became lethargic, like a wind-up doll whose song was about to end. She would be out cold within moments.

"And Alexandre? You won't let them find our son, will you, Raoul?"

"I don't know where he is, Christine. Tell me, darling, tell me he's not with Suzette." His voice broke when he whispered to her. "Tell me he is still alive."

"Alive? Yes, he's alive. He told me he was never loved and then I told him to go to the lake—the dark lake. I told him I didn't know the way but that there was an angel there—a glorious angel who sings. He told me he would wait for the angel. He was very happy, very happy indeed."

The vicomte allowed her to sit up. She draped her arms over his shoulders and began to weep. Through her tears only a few words she spoke were clear. She said her husband's name, three names which I assumed were her daughters, and then she said my name as well.

"Tell them I am sorry," she whispered.

Her head fell back and she was asleep. The vicomte cradled her in his arms. He wept as well with his face buried in her dark hair.

An odd silence fell over the room. With the help of the nanny, who looked nonplussed by the situation, Christine was carried back to the bedroom. Julia and I stared at the wall for a moment. I was in such shock I didn't realize at first that Julia was crying.

What a miserable wretch I felt like when I turned and saw Julia standing there, bleeding and trembling. She didn't notice me watching her. Her attention was focused on the laceration.

Like a child fearing reprimand, I stepped toward her and took hold of her wrist. "Let me see," I said quietly.

"She—she cut me."

Julia didn't protest as I pried her fingers away from her wrist. I turned her hand over and examined the cut across the meaty pad of her hand. It didn't appear deep but the wound stretched from the tip of her thumb to the top of her wrist. The wound had already started to heal around a sliver of glass.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as I pulled the sliver out and took my handkerchief from my overcoat pocket. She made no remark and barely flinched as I wrapped the wound with a makeshift tourniquet.

"Does it hurt?" I asked obtusely. I wanted desperately to help her in some way. Pulling glass from her hand only made her bleed again. She had done everything for me. The least I could do was show some competence.

Her head struck me in the chest, her free arm wrapping around my back. "No, it doesn't really hurt. I thought she was going to kill me," Julia cried.

If I had held her any tighter I would have swallowed her up in my embrace, melding her heart and soul with my own. I would have assumed all of her fear and all of her pain and freed her from this shared hell.

The only thing I could think to do was kiss the top of her head. She tilted her face up and looked at me with moistened, reddened eyes and I kissed her forehead.

"I'd like to leave now," Julia said blankly. "Before she comes back."

Julia pulled her hand from mine and stared at the door. Gone was the assertive woman who kept me in line with a simple glare. She was terrified of Christine. I couldn't blame her.

I nodded and started toward the door with Julia still clinging to my side. The vicomte emerged from the bedroom the moment we reached the front door. He said nothing as Julia walked into the hall. What could he possibly say? He couldn't ask to come with us in search of Alexandre, not after what had happened.

"How long will she sleep?" I heard myself ask.

"Well into the morning," he replied.

"Then she won't notice you stepped out for the night."

The look in his eyes was somewhat similar to Bessie's expression when she saw me take out her leash.


	56. The Green Man

_Gabrina here (Erik has almost 3000 words so he can calm down and let me talk for once!) I was just going to say that the page with my profile--click my pen name--you can get to my website and there you'll find the link for the contest. We only have about three chapters and this story is over! I might write a part two. We'll see._

Ch 56

Julia cleaned off her hand in a restroom outside the hotel lobby while the vicomte called for his horse and carriage. I sat in the front of the hotel and stared at the ground. For the first time in many years I was glad to be alone. My own version of reality was better than this.

We should not have come here. My desire for revenge had ended with Julia injured and Christine raving and eventually drugged. My past obsession and my only true love, one I no longer wanted and the other I was certain I had lost.

I had spent a lifetime assuming no one had ever suffered more than me, but now here I was, simmering in a pot filled with despair. There were rarely times when I felt guilty, but sitting on a miserably cold stone bench on a bitterly frigid night, I had never before been so filled with a greater sense of culpability.

The vicomte—because I couldn't call him 'the boy' anymore—headed back toward the lobby entrance with his gloves in hand and a sullen expression on his face. His eyes appeared heavy, his footsteps dragging.

He stood silently nearby with his head down. I made no attempt to acknowledge him. I hadn't even figured out why I had suggested he come with us to the opera house. The one man with the potential to steal my son away and I had asked him to join the search party.

He had to know the truth, to see it with his own eyes. If I forbade him from seeing Alexandre, the vicomte would be a bitter man always on my conscience.

I was becoming soft, compassionate. Was I weaker or stronger, I wondered. I settled on tired and delirious. Maybe I was the one who needed laudanum. What I wouldn't have given to be in bed with the dog kicking me in the spine.

Julia emerged from the lobby a moment later and sat down beside me. She was still visibly shaken by the ordeal though she remained silent. She threaded her arm through mine and rested the side of her hand on my leg. I had taken two taper candles from the hotel room and placed them into my overcoat pocket. I was surprised she didn't say anything about the candlesticks against her leg. It had to have felt unusual.

"Do you want me to take you home?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I want to find Alex."

"It's very late."

"I don't want to argue with you, Erik. I just want to see Alexandre and know he is safe," she said with a note of irritability in her voice.

Head bowed, I let it pass until I could stand it no longer. I pressed my arm tighter around her side. "I'm sorry for this," I whispered.

"Don't be sorry. Just find him."

Julia spoke mildly though she had every right to give me a piece of her mind, a colossal, jagged slice, impossible to swallow. Instead she sighed and rested her head against my shoulder. At least for the moment she still found comfort at my side. A creeping fear spread through my mind, a wicked little weed chanting everything would be over. Not just the night, but any sense of happiness I had with Julia. There was no bigger mistake I could have made than coming to the Wisteria.

No one spoke again until the carriage came around and the weary driver opened the door. The vicomte instructed him to drive a street away from the opera house. He climbed into the carriage and sat across from Julia and myself.

"How is your hand…Madame?"

"Madame Louis Seuratti," Julia replied.

My hold on her loosened. I wanted to turn her to face me and tell her she was mistaken. Her name was not Madame Louis Seuratti **- **her name was Julia Seuratti. I felt deeply ashamed of myself, as if something I did could have changed her name.

No one spoke again until the carriage lurched to a stop a street away from the opera house. The vicomte told the driver he could leave and the young man gave a bleary-eyed nod and slapped the reins to the two dapple gray horses and disappeared down the dark street. Once the glow of the lantern bobbed away, Julia and the vicomte looked at me.

I could have closed my eyes and found a door to the opera house. Anyone could have found a way in if they had looked closely enough. There was a main entrance at the front, an entrance for the dancers, one to the stables, and another for deliveries, all on the eastern side. A door to the chapel and a small archway with an overhangthat led to the managers' office were located on the western side. There were at least a dozen more I was aware of but none of those had names. It was amazing no one robbed the place blindaside from me, but I considered it my home and would do with it as I saw fit.

We made our way down the street and around the corner. The opera house stood like a proud old sentinel in Paris, lightless windows staring into the bleak night.

In nine years the locks and bolts had rusted, wood had rotted, and chains had weakened. It wasn't a matter of how to enter but where. The point nearest our home, and where I expected Alex had ended up, was on the western side. We walked westward until we stood in shadows. Two gendarmes on horseback clopped past but didn't take notice despite the vicomte breathing like a damned horse.

Though I didn't know for certain, I expected Alexandre had taken the boat docked on the western shore and rowed his way east toward the apartments. If he knew how to get there, I also assumed he had been there before without my knowledge. Still, despite his insolence, I was glad I had disabled all the traps from the cellar to the apartments. I had a feeling when he was five years old and taking apart Madeline's good German clocks, he would soon be aspiring to much more enticing adventures.

We entered through what was once an admission booth on the western side. Squatters had loosened two nails in a board and made it easy to maneuver through the boarded-up doorway.

Just before we entered, I pulled two candles from my coat pocket and handed one to Julia. I glanced at the vicomte. "They belonged to the hotel," I muttered as I struck a match and lit both wicks.

"I hadn't even thought of that," he replied. He glanced over his shoulder as I held back the wooden board and helped Julia into the abandoned building. "Are we…safe?"

"I have no idea," I answered, which, if not comforting, was at least truthful. When I glanced back at him I knew he hadn't meant safe from being discovered. "I'll walk first, then Julia and lastly you, Monsieur de Chagny."

"Call me Raoul," he insisted nervously. He placed the board back as it was and peered ahead. "We've known each other, or at least of each other, long enough, I think."

I preferred the more formal address but didn't argue. We were not friends. We would not enjoy drinks or sit around a fire chatting. As far as I was concerned, I would never see him again after this night. Unless he took Alexandre, and that didn't seem like a possibility any longer.

Julia made a sound of disgust as we entered. "It smells…dead," she complained. The acoustics played with her voice.

"Musty. The ceiling is damaged," I answered. "The fire weakened it."

We passed the dilapidated stage on our way to the back stairs where we would make our way down to the cellars. The vicomte paused for a moment and stared, his eyes shifting from center stage to Box Five. He visibly shuddered. The hairs on the back of my arms and my neck stood on end. We were both thinking the same thing.

Don Juan Triumphant.

Julia walked several steps ahead of me and I was forced to move. There had never been any lethal traps on the main floor, but there were trap doors used by the theater, ones I had not designed.

"Monsieur…Raoul, if you will," I said. I felt like the butcher coaxing the steer to the killing shed. He remembered the place well and knew I could have killed him without a second thought. No one would have found him, which couldn't have been a comforting thought for him.

The vicomte broke the uneasy silence with a ragged sigh. "So now you know."

I glanced at him. He was silence again as he pressed forward.

"I suppose you now find there is nothing envious about my life. With _our_ life." The vicomte came up alongside Julia and glanced at her for a moment before turning away. There was not much to see with only two candles to light an entire theater, but he looked. He had to do something to avoid looking at me. "She's not always this…sick. There are good days," he added quickly.

I merely nodded and continued to the rear of the stage where scenery was shifted and props were designed. He was talking a great deal, more so than I would have ever thought possible. I had scarcely heard him speak in the past. He was eloquent, I'll give him that, gregarious but a good speaker.

"There have been…episodes…for a while, longer than you know. Of course no one really understood because she was a dancer. All dancers have their fits, and singers? Yes, when she was a young singer it was worse and no one was any wiser. She was a diva—she is a diva. Her fits are expected." His voice turned low as if what he had to say had become a secret he was afraid to speak. "She's been ill for a while. It wasn't just giving up Alexandre."

'Giving up' was a rather nice way of putting it, I thought. I turned my head to be certain he was still following and watching his step.

"Though that made it worse for her." He paused and swallowed hard. "As did Suzette's death, which you knew about. You did, didn't you? In Africa."

"Madeline and Meg," I said quietly.

"Ah, of course. Madeline—Madame Giry—it's difficult to call her by her first name. I saw the note you sent her, the one with the brown ink. Lemons, wasn't it? Very clever. I assume she did write you back, but who knows? What was I saying? Oh, Madame. Well she knew Christine's father. She knew how his sickness progressed and how…it was very difficult for Christine. Before that summer, she was happy. A vibrant girl, Little Lotte, bright-eyed and just simply happy to run around and cause trouble. That's how I remembered her."

I assumed he meant the summer her father passed away. We descended a spiraling stairwell. Rats screeched at our presence and darted away before they were seen. I always hated rats. For a while I had kept a cat but she was attacked by a group of rats. I never saw her after I heard the fight.

"When she started all this nonsense about her father sending an Angel of Music I just assumed it was something she dreamed up. If you had known her back then you would have known she had quite an imagination. Always saying she heard brownies in the attic—the Green Man—have you heard of the Green Man?"

I nodded. It wasn't important to get into details.

"Yes, yes, she was very fond of the Green Man, faeries, anything at all. So the Angel of Music was just one of those little tales. But then she swore that this thing—this _angel_—was a real person, a real man who lived behind the glass. And he was strict! Very strict, she said to me with this stern expression.

"But I didn't say anything because it upset her when anyone told her something wasn't real. She needed something, I suppose, something to make her feel like she wasn't alone. It's really quite sad, this beautiful little girl living a strange dream."

Julia lifted her head. "You blame Erik for this?" she asked. Her voice lacked emotion, the words hollow. The expression on her face, the toneless sound of her voice, it was as if part of Julia had died.

The vicomte ground his teeth for a moment. We both still wanted desperately to hate one another but we lacked reason. Christine was terribly ill, maimed emotionally beyond recognition. Even I could not throw it in his face. It hurt to think of her, of all her talent and beauty wasting awayher life controlled by a small amber vial. None of her letters had ever indicated the extent of her suffering—or if they had I had failed to notice. I wanted her to be perfect. For so many years she had been the immaculate diva.

"No. He never intended to hurt her. Even when I hoped to save her from something evil, I knew in my heart he would never put her in harm's way. He had no way of knowing. She hid it well for fear of being sent away." The vicomte met my eye. "You never knew she was so devastated by her father's death. You knew she was lonely, I think, but you didn't know she…was ill."

Yes, I nodded, yes I knew she was lonely. Her pain, her solitude, was like mine. Night after night I heard her pray, heard her cry. It was the worst sound ever heard, the torment of a child.

I saw in Christine Daae the most beautiful, most fragile thing in the world. I would nurse her like a sparrow with a broken wing, repair her and make her into something grand—a swan, perhaps—or a songbird. Together we would find happiness and belonging in our suffering. Everything had started out with good intentions. All I wanted was her happiness, her love…her respect.

We walked down two more floors without conversation. The vicomte and I kicked in a door while Julia held both candles. Fire had not damaged anything this far below the surface. The air smelled different, heady like soil. Millipedes scurried before us and spider webs curtained the doorways. We were near the furnaces and incinerators. There were three more cellars before we reached the lake.

The vicomte cleared his throat after a while. He coughed into his sleeve as the air thickened with dampness. The dank air didn't bother me as it did the vicomte and Julia. Neither of them had ever lived underground.

"I don't want your pity," the Vicomte de Chagny said suddenly. His words stopped me in my tracks and I turned to look at him curiously.

"You don't want my pity and I don't want yours," he continued. "I didn't tell you this for you to feel sorry for us. I love her. With all of my heart, I do love her and I would never, ever abandon her. She needs me, I think. She needs someone to watch over her. And she's not a bad person…she's not. Deep in her soul she is good. She gets confused. When she takes her medicine, when she's…."

Sedated. If he had been able to form the word in his mouth he would have said sedated or drugged.

We walked awhile in silence. The vicomte exhaled sharply, the sound echoing through the cold stone confines. "I'm surprised."

For a moment I stared at him from over my shoulder, unsure of whether or not he would elaborate. He stared back at me, challenge evident in his dark blue eyes. Quite frankly I was too exhausted to fight with him any longer.

"By?" I asked.

He looked away. His cheeks flushed when he spoke. "I expected you would gloat or use this against us."

"He is not spiteful," Julia snapped. Those were her first words in almost an hour.

I would have liked to have thought she was correct. After everything, I didn't want to disappoint her.

"Serves no purpose," I replied curtly.

He didn't protest though he knew very well how I could have ruined him. Madeline and Meg or even Julia could have gone to _L'Epoque_ and slandered her terribly. The world would have looked upon her with great disfavor had they known she suffered bouts of madness and delusion. She would have fallen from her pedestal and I would have guaranteed Alexandre a place beneath my roof.

Yet I still didn't want her to suffer. Enough had happened to her. I would not wish anything more, least of all total humiliation. I knew what it was like to be completely strippedof everything.

Christine could not raise Alexandre. She should never have borne children—not even Alex. Her daughters, though, were not my concern.

I paused at the fifth cellar and shuddered. Perhaps Christine had not been so callous after all. Perhaps in good conscience she had given up a child she knew she could not care for in her condition.

"Are we close?" Julia asked. She held the candle at an angle and watched the wax drip onto the ground.

I nodded toward a crumbling doorway. We had made it to the bottom, to the very pit of the opera house. I hesitated for only a heartbeat before ducking through the small doorway.

There was a light up ahead, a soft yellow glow forming a halo around a small figure.

My son.


	57. Snake Skin

The vicomte, Julia and I made it down to the opera house cellars. We found Alex where I had expected. He appeared safe.

Ch 57

It was as dark and as hopeless as I had remembered. All the pieces of my dead mother's furniture remained exactly where I had left them. It was all I had ever received of her. The colors were muted by dust, the curtains damp and sagging with mildew and moth holes, but it was the same house of misery I had known for years.

Alexandre had lit several candles throughout the room, which cast long shadows on the walls. In the contrast of darkness and the golden hue surrounding his form, he looked so small.

He reminded me of Christine, of a lost child in an unforgiving world. The first time I had seen her was in the chapel, a living angel against a backdrop of stone. She sat before a lone candle as though the wavering glow would lead her home again. Now her son, nearly twenty years later, sat alone in the same building mourning a different loss.

From a distance it was impossible to tell if she had hurt him physically. So many wounds were not easily found. I was well aware of pain that never stretched across flesh.

I glanced back at Julia and the vicomte. The vicomte looked away while Julia and I exchanged half-smiles. Water from the ceiling dripped onto my head as I ducked through the doorway and entered the old apartments.

"Let him do this," I heard Julia whisper. I heard the vicomte quietly agree.

Their voices caught Alexandre's attention. He turned and glanced over his shoulder. With the light behind him I couldn't see his face, but his body remained relaxed. He was not afraid. He knew I had come for him.

Alex sat a little straighter once I stood behind him. His actions were borne out of habit as we were always demanding he sit like a proper gentleman. His head remained tilted down, eyes averted, as I moved alongside him. Slowly he turned away. He must have expected he would be in trouble for running away again.

I pulled up an old armchair and sat near him. Instantly he took his elbows off the table. He glanced at me timidly.

"I wanted to see her." He looked away before he finished speaking.

Even though I knew he had come to her, I wanted to know what had happened. "Did you see her?"

Only a nod.

"When?"

He hesitated. His left hand balled into a fist. "The night you saw her."

I nodded. His chin nearly touched his chest.

"And two days ago."

"The night the vicomte came to the house?"

Another nod followed by a sigh of frustration. "She was sitting at a desk with a lemon and a knife. She said she was writing letters to her daughter but the knife tore right through the pages and she didn't even notice. It didn't matter anyways. She threw them into a fire." He looked at me again, at the mask on the right side. "Why would she do that?"

"Your mother has been very ill."

"She didn't look sick."

"Sometimes, when people are very, very ill, they look perfectly fine. It's worse that way, Alex, sometimes it's much worse that way."

"Are you sure I'm her son?" he asked quickly. He didn't give me a chance to reply. "She didn't know who I was, Father. She said she never had a son."

"Alex, you must forgive your mother."

"Because she's been very ill?"

"Yes," I nodded.

Alex laid his hands on the tabletop and laced his fingers together. He stared at the table for a while and said nothing. Finally, he tapped his thumbs together and sighed. "She says some horrible things, horrible, hateful things."

My eyes closed. "I know."

"Mother Giry would have yelled at her just like she yells at you when you say some of those words. Why would she say mean things?"

"She's confused sometimes," I said to him.

He went silent again and stuck his lips out. "She told me I could come with her to Egypt," he said quietly. "After she burned all the letters and sent them to her daughter."

Egypt. Alexandre had been enthralled by ancient Egypt for the last two years. Mummies, hieroglyphics, animal gods and pyramids were all he would talk about for hours on end. Charles bought him half a library in books on Egypt to encourage his eagerness. Alex had even asked me once after he had been yelled at if we could mummify Madeline when she died.

More than anything, Alex wanted to go to Egypt. I swallowed hard. How would I explain to him that I didn't want him to go with Christine, with his own mother? While he spoke, I wondered if he understood what I meant when I told him Christine was unwell.

"Alex—"

"She promised I could go with her and her husband and their daughters," Alexandre said.

He looked at me, his face flushed. "I told her I would have to ask you first even though I knew you would tell me absolutely not. When I told her, she was very, very cross with me, Father." He looked away from and went silent again.

If she had hit him….What anger I would release upon Christine if she struck Alexandre! No one would ever act against him physically. I would not tolerate him suffering the childhood I had experienced.

I squeezed his shoulder, my anger resurfacing. "What did she do to you? Did she hurt you? Look at me, Alex, did she bruise you?"

He shook his head but still wouldn't meet my eye. "She yelled at me and told me you never wanted me. She said if I told her I never loved you she would take me to Egypt."

I looked away from him and found Julia standing in the doorway listening.

"Alex—" I started.

He ground his teeth together, nostrils flaring in frustration. "She's mean. Why didn't you tell me she was so mean?"

There was a choice to be made. I took a deep breath.

"She's not mean," I replied. "Alex, you must understand; your mother has been very ill. There are many things she says but doesn't mean. Her ailment sometimes causes her to act improper."

God Almighty, was there anything more obstinate than trying to tell my son his mother had emotional difficulties? I didn't want to frighten the poor child any more than he had undoubtedly been traumatized by their meeting.

He didn't want to listen. Bottom lip protruding, he crossed his arms. "I will never forgive her. I….I hate her, Father."

He was starting to tremble with emotion. He was livid just thinking about his mother. The distorted expression on his face, the mangled, abominable look was something strangely familiar to me. I knew his hatred. It was deep-rooted, set within the marrow of my bones.

For years, many long and dreadful years, I had hated the world.

There had always been cruelty before my eyes and betrayal breathing down the back of my neck. From my childhood home in Northern France to my travels throughout the Orient, I was kept at a distance and viewed as more a thing than a person. Few would meet my eye, none would dare touch or speak to me.

Not even the woman who had birthed me.

The older I got the more I wished I had never known her. She refused me all comfort. Had the church not insisted she keep me fed, I would have died. She would not nurse me. She placed a burlap sack over my face and turned away as she put a bottle in my mouth and propped it up.

For a long time I wondered if I had been so extraordinary that I remembered this cruelty, or if she had told me so many times to shame me that I made it part of my memory.

Once I left her home, I no longer knew her face or the sound of her voice. I forced myself to forget. Parts of her remained over the years; her cold fingers forcing the sack over my head, her hard hand slapping me so hard the mask—the only thing she gave me in life—was swiped from my face. Cruelty, boundless cruelty and words as sharp as knives blamed me for ruining her life.

Like a fugitive seeking asylum from war, I moved into the opera house. I came in search of darkness, in search of somewhere that the world did not exist to me and where I did not exist in the world. Escape, I told myself, I would escape from the pain.

Day after day melding into endless night, my abhorrence for the world was fed in darkness. Years passed, anger grew until I felt nothing but frustration. From a distance I saw smiling dancers, laughing chorus girls, neat little pieces fitting one by one into a mural, a tapestry of life and happiness.

I had not fit.

Isolation turned to violent encounters, genius turned to mindlessness. Music replaced conversation and I became spiteful, cynical, a caged animal poked and prodded by despair.

Hopelessness turned from a small crack to an abysmal cavern. I wanted revenge, but I still wanted love. The two were not part of my own small tapestry, the little thread I had become snipped from the grand masterpiece of life. By then I was a man.

Madeline's offers to help me sounded condescending. As much as I needed someone I refused. I would not show weakness. I had convinced myself that my solitude had become a show of how brave I was, how stoic I had become. Like a weed, I needed no one to survive, least of all Madeline, least of all a woman who reached out a hand and tried to take hold of a wandering son.

The vicomte's beating had been a strange poison, one that humbled me considerably but still fed me something I had lived without for so long.

Compassion.

Julia, Alexandre, Madeline, even Meg, had all shown me compassion. Without them I would have died in an alley, but still I had shown little gratitude. Needing them in my life was shameful. I didn't need anyone, ever.

I realized as I sat beside Alex that a child who had despised his mother and the world had become a man who hated himself.

I couldn't let Alexandre harbor such demons. God willing he would never hate anyone the way I had loathed the human race.

I rose from the chair and sat beside him on the bench. "I cannot make you love her."

"I won't," he blurted out.

"Listen to me, Alex." He nodded and bowed his head. "I cannot make you love her, but I want you to try to forgive her."

"Why?"

"Because…because everyone, no matter what they have done, should be allowed to find forgiveness somewhere."

"She wanted that man to kill you. How can you forgive her?" Alexandre pressed.

"I don't want to be angry with her. I loved her very much; even when she was very ill and I didn't know it." I stared at the candle, at the wavering flame. "I was not well, either."

"Are you feeling better now?" he asked.

The concern in his eyes was almost unbearable. He didn't understand what I meant but he was alarmed by my condition. I nodded to quell his anxiety. "I think I am feeling better. I have you, Madeline, and Madame Seuratti to thank for that, and perhaps Madame and Monsieur Lowry as well."

The expression on his face changed. He was staring at the mask again. "How is your real face?"

A tinge of pain chilled my heart. There would never be a change in my appearance, not as I would have liked. "Quite bruised."

He started to reach up slowly, his movements hesitant. Alex had done this before and ended up dumped from my lap onto the study floor. I wondered if he remembered how I had punished him the way I remembered how my mother had punished me.

His eyes narrowed when his fingers touched the cool leather. Ours eyes no longer met. He kept his gaze carefully away from mine and pulled his hand back.

"Alex, the skin will never—"

"I don't really like the fake skin. It's cold."

He would clearly never let me finish a sentence again. Either I needed to speak faster or never even think of trying to voice a complete thought.

I nodded. I had no idea what to tell him.

"Do you like it better?" he asked.

"Sometimes."

"You're like a snake," he mumbled.

My eyes widened. It certainly didn't seem like a compliment. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're like a snake," he repeated. "You shed your skin."

Leave it to an eight and a half year-old boy to conjure up something suitable to compare to my likeness. A snake, of all things.

"The skin beneath the mask doesn't change though, Alex. It always looks the same."

"But the snake doesn't change that much, either. It grows, but it's still the same," he said. His tone was almost condescending and I looked at him sharply. His cheeks reddened. "Monsieur Lowry told me. He said we could go to the zoo one day and see one. What's underneath is always better." He paused nervously and strained to look me in the eye. "I like your real skin better than the fake skin. It's warmer."

He liked my real skin better. There could not have been a more sincere compliment than the one Alex had given me, as backhanded as it had sounded.

I turned away from him. How could this be? How could he possibly prefer my face of melted wax, of pale flesh and blue veins to a smooth, white outer shell?

"Father?" he asked once I said nothing in return.

"Yes, Alexandre?"

"Why do you like the fake skin?"

It sounded asinine to say I preferred to hide behind a mask. My pride would not allow such an answer.

"It's more aesthetically pleasing," I said. He still looked at me, and I thought he would ask me if I knew what the word meant. With a heavy sigh I turned away from him and slipped my fingers beneath the corner at my cheek. I pulled the mask off and set it on the table. "It was easier before."

"When you weren't feeling well?"

"Yes, when I wasn't feeling well."

"So now that you feel better….do you need it?"

I turned and faced him. "I suppose not."

Alexandre studied my face for only a moment. A smile crept onto his lips and made creases at the corner of his tired eyes. I felt his hand slip around my back as he leaned against my side and rested his head on my arm.

"I told her I wouldn't go to Egypt," he said. His voice had changed to something slow and drawling. He was starting to fall asleep. It had to be at least two in the morning, if not later. "She made me leave after that but I didn't care anymore."

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Julia and the vicomte standing in the doorway. Julia's candle had burned down to nothing.

With my anxiety over his well-being vanquished, I was starting to feel weary as well. It was time to go home. "Alex—"

"Father, will you punish me?"

"Yes, I believe I will in a few days."

"If I swear I will never run away again, may I come home with you?"

I kissed the top of his head. "The only place I ever wanted you was in my home."

He rose first and turned to see Julia. Instantly he turned back to me, his face pale and eyes wide. "That man followed us."


	58. A Ghost and a Shadow

_Alexandre was apprehensive about seeing the vicomte._

Ch 58

Alex hid partially behind me and watched Julia walk through the threshold with the dying candle in her uninjured hand. He gasped and pulled on my overcoat. "He's got her! Father, he's got Madame Seuratti."

"He came with us," I said as I held firmly to his shoulder. I looked down at him and offered a smile. "He means no harm. We have a truce."

"A what?"

He knew what 'aesthetic' meant but he didn't know the word 'truce'. "We have a peace agreement. He came down with us to help find you."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because we agreed to find you together."

"But he tried to kill you."

"Well, that was days ago," I said, hoping it would quiet him down.

Julia trotted to Alexandre's side and wrapped her arms around him, carefully holding her injured hand away from him. She took Alex off to the side and looked him over in perfect motherly fashion, running her hand through his hair and along his face then checking his ears and his teeth. Hardly necessary, I thought. He was a child, not a racehorse. Still, I was glad for it. The brightness in her hazel eyes had returned. My Julia flickered back to life as she ran her hand through Alex's dark curls and kissed his cheek.

If only she would have been his mother, I thought ruefully.

I looked away from them. The vicomte hadn't moved through the doorway. He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets and watched Julia scold and praise Alex in the same breath. The smallest of smiles touched the corners of his lips, one which struggled between relief and longing.

My eyes went back to Alexandre. His face was oval. Though more angular now, I wondered if the vicomte had been a cherub-faced youth. I had never seen them in close proximity before, and now that they stood several paces from one another I searched for similarities, to links between a stranger and a child, my enemy and my son.

It terrified me. Did he have Alexandre's veracious need for knowledge and explanation? Did he furrow his brow as he read? What did he do that my son may have inherited? What made Alexandre more the Vicomte de Chagny's son than mine?

Suddenly I didn't want him to speak with Alex. We were alike, I thought, Alex and I, but I wasn't certain. Nothing was certain.

I needed a son. I needed to have Alexandre with me.

The vicomte needed a son and successor. He needed a child to carry on his name and legacy. He needed a man to take his estates and manage his business affairs.

His needs were different but not more important than mine. His was a matter of carrying a name, mine was a matter of continuing my life. There was no doubt in my mind that losing Alexandre would be fatal. I couldn't even imagine living without him.

My mind was made up. I would fight to keep Alexandre. To hell with our truce, I wanted my son and no bloody aristocrat would take him from me.

Before I had boiled over in anger, Julia left Alex and came to my side.

"He would like to see Alexandre," she said calmly. She touched my chest. "He agreed to have me stay with them. But you—"

"Absolutely not. I will not have him—"

"Erik, Raoul is not going to toss Alex over his shoulder and run away with him. I've spoken to him in the hallway while you were with Alex and came to an agreement."

"I agreed to nothing!"

"You agreed to let him come down here to find Alexandre. Raoul just wants to see Alex. He gave you ample time with your son. Let him at least speak with him."

"I owe him nothing. Why in the hell are you using his first name? Friendly with him, are you?"

"After everything that has happened, I think you know where I stand." Julia looked at me sharply and walked back to Alex without another word. She gently took Alex by the hand and started toward the door but Alex stopped abruptly.

He ran back to me and hurled himself against my torso. The pain was beyond words but the rising lump in my throat prevented any protest from leaving my lips. I held him to me for a moment, the shortest moment of my life, and pulled him back to look him in the eye.

"Madame Seuratti will stay with you."

He started to panic. The fear in his eyes tore me into two pieces: one which knew he had to do this and another that made me want to row him across the lake and be gone from that terrible place forever.

"Where will you be?" he asked frantically.

"Right here. I'll be right here for you."

He hesitated. "I hit him with a rock."

"Yes, I know."

"He won't be very happy, Father."

"No, he won't. But I think he will forgive you."

Alexandre made a face. "Do I have to ask him?"

He made me chuckle. Despite my fears, he still made me laugh. "If you wish to have him forgive you. As a gentleman, I require you to be civil to him. He is a man to be respected."

"Do you respect him?"

"I pride myself on being a gentleman," I replied. He made no further protest, so I gently nudged him toward Julia. If I didn't have him go that moment, I would have changed my mind. "Go with Madame Seuratti. She will stay with you."

He looked back at me with consternation but didn't say a word. He trusted Julia enough to go with her and not argue. I hoped he could trust me as well but that was entirely up to the vicomte and what he did. Nodding was the extent of my reply. Once Alex turned and followed Julia, I stood in the parlor.

As I had always been at the house on the dark lake, I stood alone.

* * *

Walk, I told myself. Pass time or the moment would last forever. I stared at the old organ for a moment and frowned. It probably didn't work anymore. The poor thing had been neglected for years.

After several moments of aimless wandering, I stood before the room where my mother's old bedroom furniture was kept. Hesitating, I drew back the curtain and stretched my arm out before me, lighting the room with a three-taper candelabrum. With a shuddering sigh, I entered the darkened room.

Of all places, this was where I felt the greatest surge of emotion.

I remembered everything about her furniture when it had been inside the old house. The Forbidden Room, I had secretly called it. Her room was the one I was never allowed inside. My father had beaten me more times for entering this room than for anything else.Those were the only times I really understood why he hit me.

Even after years had passed, it still felt sinful to stand in the presence of her belongings. If I looked over my shoulder, I expected to find my father's dark ghost looming in shadows, belt in hand and unearthly form smelling of alcohol. I sucked on my tongue, waiting for the familiar taste of blood to stream down my throat.

"Why?" I asked the ghosts I felt around me. I turned to the dresser and set the candelabrum down. For a long time I stared at a small figurine of a baby within a cradle that sat on a moldy lace doily.

This small figure had been their hopes and dreams, their perfect son. A cherub's face, alabaster skin, gentle blond curls and bright blue eyes on a round face. Perfection. A lovely little angel cooing from the cradle, smiling up at their adoring faces.

Alexandre was the perfect baby, the crimson-cheeked infant my parents had wanted.

Raoul de Chagny was a perfect baby. As was Christine. As was Julia. As was Meg, and Madeline and Charles before he had gone to war and lost mobility.

I brushed the dust from the small figurine with my shirt cuff. The little doll had become a trophy for me. Despite the beatings, despite the cruelty, I would steal this reminder of the dreams I had destroyed. I would will myself each night to become this porcelain doll, to become perfect. I prayed my heart would stop beating, my skin would grow cold and shiny. I wanted to be this doll, this little thing my mother talked to at night.

Not to stop my father's hand. Not to stop my mother's cruel words. None of that mattered to me. All I wanted was one moment of affection, one embrace, one kiss. Only one small show of affection, one kind caress, one gentle word.

"Everything would have been different," I said to the figurine. The hairs on my arms stood up as I drew in a ragged breath. "Why couldn't she kiss me once? Why did she run from me?"

Thirty-five years I had waited for one show of compassion. That was why I couldn't hate Christine. She had given me something. We had shared something. Perhaps it was all a lie, but up until then it was all I had ever known. False was better than nothing. From her voice emerged hope, swelling like the tide. She had pulled it away from me but something had remained. My pearl. My son left on a doorstep.

I glanced around the room at the armoire and small chest and blinked away the single tear against my eyelashes. My mother would have hated me having her furniture. She would have been disgusted knowing I had any part of her. My poor mother, I thought, my poor unhappy mother always running away from me in terror. No amount of music, no amount of trying desperately to please her had ever worked.

The figure found its place on the dusty dresser once more. I kissed my fingertip and pressed it to the little blond head. I shed no more tears for my life or for my mother's unhappiness. I blew out the three candles and waited for the orange tips to go dark, for the white curls of smoke to become nothing. When the room was quiet, when my heart stopped hammering, I turned from her room and walked to the door. The soft glow of candles greeted me from the parlor.

I stood in the threshold and felt the ghosts draw back from their phantom son. The air was cold, as cold and damp as the places I hid in their house, bloody mouthed and emotionally broken.

"I forgive you both," I said quietly. "I forgive you for everything because I have known happiness. True happiness."

I looked up to the hallway and saw Julia through the doorway. She stood with her hand on Alex's shoulder.

"I have known true happiness, and none will take that from me."


	59. The Space Between

Erik notes: If you have enjoyed my story, please vote for my darling Gabrina. She has kindly offered up her mind for my amusment and has posted at least every three days, with many updates every single day. Voting has opened on www freewebs (dotcom backslash) phantomficawards (see Gabrina's website which is linked to her profile). You may also email Gabrina at mollymeows (at) aol.

We are excited to be in second place. We appreciate your votes so much! And we thank you for the nomination, but most of all for reading!

Ch 59

They were speaking, the vicomte and Alexandre. _My son_, I reassured myself though it had become difficult to believe once I saw them framed in the doorway. Alexandre stood at a distance but he nodded politely while he clung to Julia.

I didn't want them to think I was eavesdropping, so I made my way through the parlor and along the wall until I stood with my back to the lake. They couldn't see me standing there but the acoustics carried their voices to me. It was pathetic and dishonorable of me to stand there listening but I didn't give a damn. I wanted to know what they said. I needed to know if I would have to kill the vicomte in the cellars as I had wanted to nine years ago.

"Are you educated?" I heard the vicomte ask.

He wanted to know what sort of tutor Alexandre would need once he took him to live with his daughters.

"Yes."

"Privately?"

"Yes, sir."

"What is the name of your teacher?"

"Monsieur Lowry."

"Charles Lowry?" the vicomte asked, his words thick with surprise.

"Yes, sir. Madame Lowry is married to him. I call her Aunt Meg."

"Charles Lowry is your tutor?"

"Yes, sir." For Alexandre, this was amazing patience. He despised people asking him the same questions over and over.

The vicomte paused. "How on earth did he acquire Charles Lowry? I had no idea he was still teaching. The dean at Oxford would be livid to know he's teaching one child in Paris." He must have turned to Julia.

"A very bright child, Monsieur. Erik spares nothing for Alexandre," Julia replied.

"I see. Alexandre, what interests you most?"

"Egypt, sir. And the Algerians now." He was excited, agitated by the notion of sharing his love for Africa. I only hoped he wouldn't mention what he had done at the Algerian Village Exhibit.

"Did you go the Exhibition?"

"Yes, I did. That's how I saw the Algerians."

"Who attended the Exhibition with you?"

"No one."

Another pause. If he dared to hold this against me, I would strangle him with my bare hands.

"Aren't you a bit young to be off on your own?"

"Yes, I wasn't supposed to be there. I didn't tell anyone."

"Have you been punished?"

Alexandre groaned. "Nooooo. Not yet. But I will be. Father never forgets anything."

_Thank you, Alexandre,_ I thought with a roll of my eyes.

"How does he punish you?"

"He tells me not to do it again." He imitated my voice in a baritone growl. "'Alexandre! What were you told? Have you ears, child?'"

"Hush, Alex, that's rude," Julia said. She knew I was listening. She had probably turned to see if I was blatantly standing there listening in on their conversation.

"Well, he does," Alexandre protested.

"Would you like to visit Africa someday?" the vicomte asked.

"With my father, perhaps," Alex answered.

I shuddered at his words. The vicomte would be more than willing to take his new son around the world.

"Or maybe with my wife someday."

No one spoke for a moment. I leaned into the cave wall and waited for the vicomte to make his beautiful offer.

"Monsieur de Chagny, I know your daughter died in Africa. I would like to see where she is buried some day."

"She was buried in Northern France, though I appreciate the sentiment. When you are older I will be certain to give you the name of the cemetery."

"Her name was Suzette."

"Yes, that is her name," the vicomte answered.

"She would be…my part-sister?"

"Half-sister," Julia corrected. "Or…I'm sorry, Monsieur?"

"You may call her your sister if you wish, Alexandre," the vicomte replied.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. What a perfectly executed plan. The vicomte was quite sly in offering his family to Alexandre by offering him siblings first. Alexandre had always been a content single child but he might enjoy a sister or brother. Lisette had been a nice playmate but I didn't know if he thought of her as sisterly or if he had developed more complicated feelings for her.

"You may call Lola and Isabella your sisters as well."

I wondered if he had a deed in his pocket or a contract waiting in his carriage to make Alexandre his son. He was advancing with haste to take him away. Julia was doing nothing to moderate his words, which irritated me.

"What's the difference between a sister and a half-sister?" Alex asked.

"Alex," Julia warned. "Don't ask questions."

"No, he's perfectly fine. I appreciate a question from an intelligent young man," the vicomte said with his jovial tenor voice. "What do you think the difference is?"

"She's only half-related to….me?"

"Not exactly. A half-sibling would mean you shared only one parent."

"Oh. How does that happen?"

I pursed my lips together to keep from laughing aloud. The vicomte had stepped into the curiosity of a boy on the verge of turning nine, a child becoming more and more aware of the female body. If de Chagny had wanted this, God help him. He would need it when it came to Alexandre's relentless questions.

"Well….it's….when a mother and a father…." The vicomte started. He cleared his throat. "Perhaps that's a question your father would rather answer."

My lips parted in a gasp. Raoul de Chagny admitted it. Alexandre was my son, not his. My child, not his heir. I nearly sank to the floor and wept in relief.

The vicomte continued. "Well, I apologize for taking up so much of your time, Monsieur. It was a pleasure speaking to you."

"Did you apologize to my father?" Alex asked quickly.

"I…oh….no. No, I didn't."

"You should."

"Alex," Julia warned again. "Thank Monsieur de Chagny for speaking with you."

"Thank you for speaking with me," Alex said reluctantly. "Will you apologize to my father for hurting him?"

"Alexandre!" Julia scolded.

"Isn't that what a gentleman would do?" Alex asked.

"Yes, most certainly, Monsieur, I will offer my apology at once. You are a very bright young man, Alexandre. I'm sure you make your father very happy."

They continued to speak as I lumbered away from the wall and attempted to appear inconspicuous near one of the tables. I dusted off an old composition which crumbled in my hands.

"Monsieur," the vicomte said to gain my attention.

He entered cautiously with Julia and Alexandre staying behind. Poor Alexandre appeared exhausted, which served him right for disappearing from home. He leaned into Julia with both arms around her and closed his eyes.

I said nothing as he approached. He stared at the right side of my face with stifled repulsion evident in his eyes.

"Alexandre is a wonderful young man. His education impresses me greatly," the vicomte said. He stood with a certain stiffness attempting to mask his disappointment.

"He will go on to school in a few years and be the head of his class," I said confidently.

"Yes, I believe he will." The vicomte paused and took a breath. "My wife—Christine—if she was herself, would agree that Alexandre deserves the very best."

"Which I have provided," I defended myself.

The vicomte held up his hand. "Yes, I realize this, Monsieur. I'm not disagreeing with you. But I have two things to offer."

_First, I want to steal your son. Second, I would ask for your forgiveness._

"No," I said suddenly, agitated by my own assumptions. "No, I don't want anything from you."

Julia sighed from the doorway.

The vicomte lowered his voice. "You can guess how much I would like to take Alexandre with me and raise him myself."

This was it. He was going to make me kill him.

"His attributes displayvirtually nothing either of us can claim physically. I would like to say he has my nose, but at the same time he has your smile. When I saw you with him…the look on his face… We would be mad to pin either of our features to him. Physically he's his mother's son.His intelligence--"

Insult me, damn you, I thought. Give me a reason to string you up, you miserable whelp.

"He shows much of your boundless intelligence. I, of course, don't know your level of education but regardless, he seems very much like you."

His compliment still irritated me. I wanted him to leave me alone. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to consider something. You don't have to agree or disagree now, but please listen to me. I've thought about this all night." He waited a moment but I said nothing.

"I would like to make him an heir of sorts. Not as my son," he added quickly. "But as a….more of a nephew. My brother never had children but I believe I could pass Alexandre off as a Chagny in time. My brother has been dead nearly ten years. By the time Alexandre is of age, he could be claimed as my brother's son without consequence. If, of course, you would have Alexandre inherit estates and responsibility, Monsieur."

"Your family name, your family estates and your family's responsibility," I snapped. "What purpose would it serve?"

"For you?"

He had turned it around on me. I suddenly felt very selfish for asking. "He has an inheritance. His last name will be respected, if that's your concern. Already it is known. You've heard of the composure E.M Kire, haven't you?"

He nodded.

I gave an exaggerated bow.

He thought a moment. "Your first name spelled backwards? Clever."

"Alexandre needs nothing from you or Christine."

The vicomte made no reply. He stood grinding his teeth and looking off to the side. When he saw Alexandre, he stepped farther into the room and looked back at me, lowering his voice.

"If you want to argue, by all means, argue. But if you can put aside the past for one damned moment….I want to do what is right for Alexandre. I know he cannot live with his mother. I know this and I hate it. But I will not attempt to take him. His place isn't with us."

"And you question my child-rearing?"

"Did you think I would not? After everything that happened, did you think I would assume this child was cared for?"

He had a point. Damn him.

"You have my word. I will make no attempt to bring him into my household," the vicomte said. "I will offer my respect by recognizing Alexandre as your son. Your son with Christine." His voice trembled. "And as Christine's son, as my wife's son, he should have access to funds that will be given to her children."

I started to protest.

"Please, let me finish," he insisted. "I want to do this. For Christine. If she knew him the way she should know him, she would want this. I know she would want to see her son provided for in every way. Please consider this."

He wasn't going to allow me to say 'no'. "I'll take it into consideration," I said at last. He was more difficult to silence than Alexandre.

The vicomte seemed satisfied. We stood in silence for a moment. I heard Julia speaking to Alexandre. He wanted to return home.

"Your son wants me to apologize to you. I gave him my word that I would do so."

"So I heard."

The vicomte didn't appear surprised that I had eavesdropped. Given our history it was expected.

He gave a curt nod. "Would you accept my apology?"

"For Alexandre's sake, yes, I would." With my son looking on, I accepted his handshake.

The last of my demons had left me. It was time to take my son home.

I turned toward Julia and Alexandre and realized there was still a demon left, one standing between Julia and me.

_This is not the end. You'll see THE END when it's over. :)_


	60. The Egyptian Heart

_I still need your votes in the fic contest! Thanks to all of you who voted already! And for all of the nice comments people made! You really made my week. _

_A/N Anyone who read GL or SK POTO will know the casket references. Those of you who haven't read the book: the non-ALW Phantom slept in a coffin. Not exactly a romantic swan/eagle bed._

_Erik, have something to say my dear?_

Ch 60

The consternation in Julia's gaze was something I should have expected. She was standing five floors beneath an abandoned opera house in the middle of the night with a phantom, a boy who had run away, and an aristocrat whose wife had attacked her earlier in the evening.

Frankly, I was surprised she didn't run from the cellars screaming.

Instead she stood cradling her bound hand. Her eyes moved slowly around the parlor and took in every macabre detail. Truthfully, there was nothing absurd in what could have been considered a living room. Though covered in dust, the pieces of furniture had always been in good repair. The modest space was a bit crowded and there was clutter everywhere, but it was really no different from her home. If her home had suddenly plummeted five stories into the earth, I suppose.

_Don't go into the bedroom,_ I thought. I hoped she would be too exhausted to bother with exploration but the morbid curiosity in her eyes had me concerned. My former bedroom was different than the one which stored my mother's old bedroom set. For years I had slept in a casket. A damned casket, of all things!

"Julia," I called to her before she could wander. "We should leave."

She nodded slowly and turned to the vicomte, who had walked back toward the doorway. The vicomte graciously allowed Julia and Alexandre to pass before him into the hall. The three of them together looked irritatingly pleasant, a perfect, happy little family.

I lingered in bitterness for a moment, my mouth forming a hardened scowl. They disappeared from my sight.

Julia had seen too much of my past. Now that we had found Alexandre, she didn't even look at me. She passed through the doorway with the vicomte at her side. She had taken a liking to him, a preference to the handsome little hero, the kind boy who had offered up his assistance to find my son.

Julia. My Julia.

What did she have with me but a vast, colorful lie? Once we left the opera house, once I took her home, I would never see her again. The house would be put up for sale or rent and she would leave. I was certain she would travel as fast and as far as she could to get away. Already she had distanced herself. She had used her dead husband's name when the Vicomte de Chagny had asked for her name.

I shuddered at the thought. She was not my Julia.

She would never stay with me. What reason would she have? If I was such a mastermind, such a genius, then I should have been able to convince her to stay with me.

But I didn't want to cajole her into my life.

I wanted her to stay because it was her choice, because I was her heart and she was mine. No more conniving, no more threats, no more lies and deceit. I wanted Julia.

This damned place, these damned, foolish dreams! This damned foolish man! I had lost her.

My hope betrayed me. Perhaps I should never have left the darkness, I thought. Perhaps I should have remained in that coffin, in thatdeep, dark, hellish hole. Perhaps….

"Erik? What are you doing? I thought you were ready to leave," Julia said. She walked to me and squinted at my face. "What is it?"

"I think I owe you an apology," I replied without meeting her eye.

She sighed and took my arm. "A night of rest will suffice for now. Please, I'm exhausted and my hand hurts."

"I'm sorry you saw this," I blurted out.

She nodded once. "Tomorrow," she said in a low voice. "You have time tomorrow. Please, let's leave this place."

We gathered several candles and joined Alex and the vicomte in the hall. Alex had perked up enough to start sputtering on about Egypt and how mummies were embalmed. It took me a moment to register what he was talking about. From what I initially heard, it didn't sound like appropriate conversation.

"They take a hot poker, and they stick it up the dead person's nose and they scramble the brain—just like an egg! Do you know why they did it?" Alex never let anyone answer his rhetorical questions. He barely took a breath when he spoke of something that interested him. It always surprised me when he wasn't blue in the face by the time his dissertation ended."Because they didn't think the brain was important, it was the heart."

"I never knew that," the vicomte replied.

"They thought the heart was responsible for everything and the brain was useless. So they pulled it out through the dead person's nose before they embalmed them."

"Fascinating."

"Would you want to be embalmed?"

"I don't believe so."

For a while longer Alex strived to repulse the vicomte on everything from sacrifices to archaic medical techniques. He certainly passed the time as we made our way through the five cellars to the ground floor. Alexandre was adamant about convincing the poor vicomte that the extraction of his internal organs and the mummification process wouldn't hurt because he would, in fact, be dead.

Aside from the topic of conversation, Alexandre and Monsieur de Chagny were hitting it off like grand old chums. Chagny even agreed that if Alex became a practicer of ancient embalming techniques, he would donate his body for the sake of science. I rather thought it was for the sake of silence.

"Alex, I believe Monsieur…Raoul…has heard enough about the intriguing Egyptian civilization," I said over my shoulder. "What more do you want from him? You already have his body for science."

The vicomte was grinning at the absurdity of the situation. As much as I had expected he would still annoy me, I found my little vicomte tolerable. He was no longer a threat. He was nothing more than a man. Strange.

The vicomte waved his hand around. "He's done no harm. His retention of facts and information is mind-boggling," the vicomte commented. He still couldn't look me in the eye. The unmasked side of my face was far too much for him to bear.

"As you wish," I mumbled.

From there on out, I considered whatever Alexandre decided to tell him was something he brought upon himself.

Once we made it to the second cellar, I heard the vicomte asking Alexandre questions about Rome. I found myself almost chuckling at their conversation. This was as close as Raoul de Chagny would ever come to having a son.

A son.

Strange as it was, I found the thought more disheartening and something I would not gloat about. He was in love with a woman,and by swearing his loyalty to Christine had killed his own name and legacy. The more I thought about it, the deeper it burrowed into my conscience. He wasn't a pathetic little worm after all. He was…dare I say…honorable?

As we reached the stage door and entered the auditorium, I was acutely aware that I did indeed have a sense of right and wrong. It had been a long time since I had felt remorse for anyone other than myself. It had been a long time since I had cared about the feelings or fates of others.

But now I had a peculiar thought rattling around inside my head, a strange downward pull to my heart. I felt a great injustice had been done to Vicomte de Chagny. Raoul de Chagny! Of all people!

Julia, who had not said a word since the fifth cellar, squeezed my arm as Alex continued on about the history of the world.

"Do you think what he said is true?" she whispered.

"About the brain being pulled out through the nose?"

She made a sound of disgust and lowered her candle. "About the heart being more important than the brain?"

I contemplated her words a moment. There was really no need to think it over. The entire journey up through the opera house had me convinced.

"Yes," I said. I looked down at Julia's face, at her beautiful oval face and smiled. "Yes, I think it is."


	61. The Night's End

_We have come to our ending. I do hope you have enjoyed our time together. Gabrina has proved so entertaining to me that I assure you, we will return with a Sequal called A Ghost's Shadow. I have no desire to leave my muse just yet. There is still much to be told of my legacy, like what happens to the dog._

_Gabrina reminds me that this is a long chapter so, I have one last message from her (she irritates me sometimes!). This last chapter is dedicated to all of our beta readers, but one in particular. _

_Here's to Life._

_And to the rest of you reading, we thank you. Well, Gabrina thanks you. I tolerate your presence. You've come to expect that from me._

Ch 61

The three of us walked through the auditorium to the back of the theatre where Julia, the vicomte and I had initially entered. One by one, we blew out our candles and exited the abandoned building. I glanced up and saw the familiar horseshoe the dancers touched on their way to the stage. My hand raised and tapped the cold iron decoration. Never had I reveled in absurd superstitions, but I thought it would be nice to ward off a ghost, to keep a phantom where he belonged.

This place was no longer part of me. I stepped into the night and breathed a sigh of relief.

Dawn was still hours away and no one walked the streets. My watch had stopped earlier this evening and I had not thought of winding it before frantically leaving Julia's home. Calculating how long it took us to walk down into the cellars and back up again, I assumed it was around three in the morning.

I shivered as the wind picked up and beat the loose wooden boards against the deserted building. The air seemed much colder than it had when we had first entered. While I waited for Alex to emerge, I realized it had started to drizzle again. I threw my hood over my head but decided I should offer it to either Julia or Alexandre.

The vicomte had trotted off toward the street corner. I assumed he searched for his coach and driver though I was certain that the young boy had taken the horses back to the stable.

"Do we have to walk home?" Alexandre asked me.

I had half the mind to tell him yes, we did, and none of us would have been out in the rain had it not been for him running off. Exhaustion made me highly irritable, as did the rain and a newly realized pang of hunger. My back was starting to hurt and my head pounded because of my stitches and my confounded hair.

I did my best to remain civil. "I'm not sure yet. It isn't terribly far. Only seven or eight streets."

"Seven or eight streets?" Alexandre moaned.

To hell with being civil if he was only going to moan about the situation. "Hardly my doing now, is it? If you didn't want to walk home you should have considered that before you left," I snapped.

He crossed his arms and moved toward Julia, who draped her arm over his shoulder and held him protectively to her breast. I removed the clasp from my cloak and began to hand my outer garment to Julia but she shook her head. She glared at me for my tone of voice.

"Alex, why would you go down there in the first place?" she asked gently.

He shrugged and sucked on his bottom lip.

"Oh come now, that's hardly an answer, young man. You had me worried sick."

He glanced at me for a moment before burying his face against Julia's chest. "She wouldn't come for me there. I knew she wouldn't come for me if I hid down there and I never wanted to see her again. She was very cross with me."

My aggravation with him suddenly vanished. I was ashamed of myself for treating him so harshly. Christine had frightened him.

Julia shot me a forlorn look but said nothing to me. She turned her attention back to Alexandre and smoothed his hair. "You should have gone to your father."

"But she would have called the gendarmes and they would have taken Father away."

"Alex, as considerate as it may seem to you now, I don't believe that is an acceptable reason for running away from home. Do you?"

Alexandre shook his head.

"How did you get there?" Julia asked.

"The tunnel," Alex answered. "Father's tunnel. There was a boat tied up on the shoreline." I was tempted to tell him it was moored, not tied, but a surly nature would be counterproductive. "I rowed all the way to the other side."

Julia gave me a questioning look. Yet another question she would have for me. "You shouldn't have gone down there, Alex. You could have been hurt. You realize that, don't you?"

"Yes…but…." He lifted his head, his eyes wide as the wheels in his head turned faster. "If we lived in Venice we could take a gondola home. Did you see the boat on the lake?"

His sudden turn of conversation startled Julia. "No, I did not."

"The bottom is starting to rot." He looked at me again, completely forgetting that I had just snapped at him. "Father, do you think we could make a new boat?"

Before I could answer, Raoul de Chagny rejoined us.

"My driver returned to the hotel but I've arranged for a cab to take the three of you home," the vicomte informed us. He shielded his eyes from the rain with his hand and looked solemnly at the three of us huddled together.

"How did you hire a cab?" Julia asked.

"There was a carriage at a house down the street just finishing a ride. He'll be here in a moment or two. I've already paid."

The vicomte gave his overcoat to my frenetically inquisitive Alexandre, who had started to ask Julia what sort of wood was best suited for shipbuilding. Three in the morning and he wanted to be Napoleon.

"That was unnecessary," I said to the vicomte. He would not show me up with his boundless chivalry. I whipped the cloak from my own shoulders and placed it around Julia.

"Then don't take the carriage. Allow your son and Madame Seuratti to ride home sheltered from the rain and if you prefer, walk," the vicomte replied.

_You miserable bastard, _I expected him to say but he held his tongue.

"Madame Seuratti," I said under my breath. "Madame Seuratti indeed."

Nobody listened to me. Julia was still listening to Alex talk about ships. His words had started to slur together as he exhausted himself, but he valiantly pressed on with as much exuberance as he could muster. The vicomte had turned his back on me and had focused his attention on Alex as well.

Damn it, I thought. Why did I have this burgeoning desire to fight tooth and nail? Perhaps I was my own worst enemy.

"I'll have compensation sent to your hotel later in the morning," I said rather loudly to gain their attention.

All three of them stared at me a moment. The vicomte nodded. "It's in no way a requirement, but if you feel it is necessary, I will not argue."

Of course he wouldn't argue. He was civilized, curbed and leashed like a perfectly trained aristocrat. He turned away from me again and shook Alexandre's hand.

"It has been a sincere pleasure to make your acquaintance, Monsieur."

"Thank you," Alexandre replied. Julia nudged him. "It has been….a…." Julia whispered in his ear. "Sincere pleasure to acquaint with you."

The carriage horses clopped up and snorted as they stood impatiently at the curb. The driver hopped down and opened the cab door. Julia handed me my cloak since we stood in the presence of a stranger. I accepted it without question.

I turned my face away from the driver and donned the cloak, pulling the hood up quickly.

Alex helped Julia into her seat and followed close behind her.

"Thank you," Alex said as he turned around and handed the vicomte his damp overcoat.

"Of course, my boy," the vicomte replied as he shrugged into his coat. He held onto the door for a moment and forced a smile. "Best of luck with your future studies and travels. I have no doubt you will be one of the most integral members on an Egyptian expedition. You'll make your father very proud—if he could be more pleased with you."

He lingered a moment longer as though he would say something more but he didn't. There was nothing more for him to say. With a soft sigh, Chagny stepped away and turned in the direction of the Wisteria Hotel. He looked me in the eye and knew it would be the last time our paths would cross.

"Good night to you, Monsieur Kire." He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a quick nod to avoid another handshake.

"Are you walking?" Alexandre asked suddenly, his head popping back out into the rain.

"It's only a few streets."

My newfound conscience would not allow him the displeasure of walking to his hotel in the rain. Since I no longer wanted him dead, I assumed if I allowed him to wander about at night he would either be mugged in an alley or suffer death from pneumonia. I would be damned if I was marked with his death after all that had transpired.

"Perhaps you and Alexandre may continue the history of Africa on the ride home," I said. He met my eye with wide-eyed surprise. "And perhaps you could explain in greater detail the plans you have drawn up for my son's future."

"Why, well, y-yes, of course."

His blubbering made me smirk. "I trust you will have something finalized before supper time tomorrow?"

"I—I could." He glanced over my shoulder at Alexandre. By the look in his eyes he was barely able to believe I had considered his offer. He wasn't the only one. Julia sat with her mouth agape. It was interesting to see a look of utter astonishment that had nothing to do with disappointment.

"Is that your decision?" the vicomte asked cautiously, switching his gaze back to me.

It wasn't in my nature to make it too damned easy for him. My gruffness returned with a hardened gaze as I looked at him. "I haven't made a decision. I merely want to see what you have intended for my son," I said harshly. I stepped aside and ushered him into the coach.

"We will discuss this at Julia's house tomorrow night. Nine sharp, is that understood?" I said to him without first consulting Julia. I glanced at her and raised a brow as a silent apology for overtaking her home but she made no protest to my assumptions. She half-smiled and sat back as the coach lurched forward into the night.

No one spoke on the ride to the Wisteria. Alexandre fell asleep against my side while Julia dozed as she sat beside the vicomte. I thought Chagny would nod off as well but he didn't trust me enough. He reluctantly kept his eyes open while his body swayed with every bump of the carriage.

He glanced at Julia and Alexandre and then turned and looked at me. He sat far forward as the coach slowed and tapped his fingers together. "You've been….fortunate." He paused, waiting for me to acknowledge his words. He rested his temples against the palms of his hands briefly before continuing with his eyes averted. "As strange as this sounds, it is almost a relief to find you alive and with a family. I don't know why, but it has been a regret of mine to hate you for so long."

I didn't reply immediately. I had been more tolerant of him than was necessary given our history. Still, if he had something to say and had been brave enough to say it then I would say what I had thought as well.

"I will only say this once so I suggest you listen closely and dare not ask any questions," I began. I stared out the window and saw the familiar shops along the street. We were steadfastly approaching the hotel.

"I am not going to thank you. You've been a burden on my mind for far too long. But I will say this: if you had not attempted to kill me, I wouldn't have Alexandre and Julia here with me. Take that as you will."

The coach creaked to a stop and the driver jumped down and opened the door.

"Tomorrow at nine sharp," the vicomte confirmed. "Madame Seuratti's home."

"Julia," Julia murmured. She sat upright and rubbed her eyes with her uninjured hand. "You may call me Julia."

"Good night, then, Monsieur Kire, Madame Julia," the vicomte said politely. He hesitated. "Let me know what the bill is for your hand. I will bring my checkbook. If there was more—"

"It's a shallow wound," Julia replied. She looked at me for a moment. "It will heal."

Alexandre became unbearably heavy against my side. He was deep asleep, as was expected for the hour of the night and the amount of excitement he had experienced over the past few hours.

Julia had perked up and was watching Paris drift past the window. The horses moved at a steady trot. The night was almost at an end. For a man that had always loved darkness, I could not wait for the sun to rise.

"What time is it?" Julia questioned.

"My watch stopped. Near three, I would guess."

She nodded. "It's been a long night."

"Yes, it has," I agreed. "I should not have allowed you to come—but I'm glad you were here. If I didn't have you—"

"Erik, you cannot come to my home as you once did."

I nodded ruefully, feeling like a scolded child. I couldn't bear to look her in the eye and see her disappointment in me.

She was ending it. After a night of peril and utter disaster, Julia was ending our arrangement, our agreement, our relationship. Whatever the hell it had been, it was coming to an end. Yesterday I had hoped we could have something more than what the past had proved as merely tolerable. I wanted something livable.

"It's for the best," she added. "For both of us, Erik, not just for me. We both need time."

I sighed and nodded. Five years of spending the night in her bed and I couldn't think of a damned thing to say to her. It angered me that I was still so far from being human. A basic conversation seemed impossible. I could read a book in Latin but I couldn't talk to the woman I loved.

"I want something more than an occasional bedmate," Julia said quietly. "I want something….something real. Don't you?"

Something more than a phantom, I thought morosely, something more than I would ever be to her.

"I want you," I said with a shiver.

Her eyes looked glassy when she stared at me.

"May I at least walk you to your door? Or do you wish to be rid of me immediately?" I questioned bitterly.

Julia tisked me for being so melodramatic. "Oh, Erik, quit being so pessimistic. You always assume the worst without even hearing what I say to you."

I bowed my head.

"Now, I didn't say I never wanted to speak to you again, but I want…something different."

My body tensed. There was hope, a proverbial light at the end of my dismal tunnel.

"I would like you to come for dinner some night," she said. "Not as you have planned for this evening with the vicomte, but sometime in the future."

"To dinner?"

"Yes, to dinner. Dinner and nothing more, so don't even ask me to take you upstairs."

"Why would I come over--" I caught myself before I threw away my final chance. "Why would you have me for dinner?"

"I want you to sit down and tell me everything about your past."

Her request left me speechless. I looked away from her and shook my head. "I—I—no, Julia, I can't do that."

"Yes, you can. It can't possibly be more disturbing than what I've seen tonight. After Christine…trust me, Erik. You can tell me anything. I think I've earned the right to know you more than I do now."

There was so much I feared to tell her, but if it meant seeing her again, I would do anything. "For how long?" I asked.

She sighed in disgust and checked to make sure Alex was still asleep. "Long enough for you come to see me and not my bedroom, you wicked fool."

I smiled at her words. It was a relief to hear her jest. "You should be flattered," I said under my breath. "And you know I only come for your crumpets anyway."

She shook her head and tried not to chuckle. "You will never learn how to be civilized, will you?" She sighed and pulled her braid over her shoulder. "But honestly, Erik, after tonight, I need a holiday from you."

My deepest fear returned. "You won't see me?" I asked.

She lightly shook her head and stared out the window to avoid my gaze. "Erik, you make it sound worse than it is."

"For how long?"

"I don't know yet," she replied.

The carriage began to slow. If she held true to her words it could be days or weeks before I saw her again. My eyes widened in the dark and I willed myself to soak up each detail of her face, her hair, her posture as she sat.

"We will see each other tomorrow," she reminded me.

That was not nearly enough to sate me.

The carriage jolted to a stop, waking Alex enough that he shifted and rested his head against the side of the carriage instead of my arm.

I stepped out of the cab first and helped Julia down the step. The driver, sensing our need for privacy, climbed back into his seat and mumbled something to the horses.

She took my arm and allowed me to walk her to the front door. The light was on in the window and I saw Meg poke her head through the lace curtains. Once she saw us, she closed the curtain again. She had undoubtedly stayed with Lisette.

"Good night," I said, simply for the sake of saying something. My words barely filled the night. As soon as they faded, the emptiness was more apparent, my disappointment heavier in my heart.

"Erik," Julia sighed. She stepped forward and placed her head against my chest. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating, drumming for her to say to hell with all of her plans. I wanted to hear her say I could come for dinner the following day and spend the night with her.

Her body felt so warm against mine. My head tipped forward until I rested my chin against the top of her head. She still smelled like sandalwood. She intoxicated me so much that I didn't want her to go into her house, not unless I could go with her. Not unless she let me stay forever.

She tilted her head up and looked into my eyes. I wondered how such a beautiful woman could tolerate such a wretched thing as me, but she didn't even blink. She had never scrutinized my face, even after I had insulted her and hurt her in the most damnable ways possible.

Julia put her hand against my right cheek and stroked the ruined flesh with her thumb. I inhaled sharply, every sensation flitting through my body magnified by our close proximity. I wanted to question her actions, interrogate her on why she would ever place her long, slender hand on it but I already knew why.

"Julia, I—"

"Erik, I know. I know," she whispered.

Without a word, I touched her chin and drew her face upward. If she wouldn't have me say it, I would show her. I would show her how much I loved her.

I closed my eyes when our lips met and pressed my arms tightly around her body, melding us together. She kissed me back, a perfectly innocent closed-mouth gesture that left me wanting more.

I knew she had done it on purpose. She was maddening.

Julia placed her hands against my chest when she pulled away. "I will see you tomorrow evening."

"And then what?"

"Then we shall see."

I tried to kiss her again but she stopped me and took my hand in hers. She squeezed my fingers gently and half-smiled. There was a look of longing in her eyes that I hoped would change her mind. Even though I knew she would not decide differently, I still wanted to hear her ask me over for the night.

"Good night."

"Good night," I replied. I brushed a kiss against the back of her hand before she slipped away and walked into the house. She didn't glance back at me before the door closed, which stung worse than any pain I had ever experienced. I wanted to scream out in agony.

With a sigh, I turned and walked back to the carriage. It seemed ridiculous to have a horse and driver take us a street away, but standing before Julia's house alone had left me feeling cold inside. I desperately wanted to knock on her door but I feared she wouldn't answer. Or she would answer and tell me never to come back.

I trudged along and opened the cab door. Alex was sitting upright when I stepped back into the carriage. From the look on his face I had a feeling he had seen me kiss Julia.

"Father?"

It was somewhat embarrassing to have been caught by my own son. As triumphant as I felt in having kissed Julia, I merely replied with a grunt.

"Do you think someday Madame Seuratti could be my mother?"

I sat with my arm around him and thought for a moment. Julia Kire did sound better than Julia Seuratti. The idea brought a smile to my face.

"Is that what you want?" I asked Alex.

He yawned against my chest. "I like her. She would be a good mother."

I had never put much consideration into a living, breathing wife, but I couldn't imagine waking up to any other woman. My insides warmed; my grief dissipating as the coach rounded the corner and slowed before our front steps. This was the woman who had healed me, who had bandaged wounds I thought would last forever.

Julia. My Julia, I thought with renewed hope. My beautiful wife, Julia.

Perhaps tomorrow at dinner I would ask her.

The End.


	62. GHOST'S SHADOW PROLOGUE

_We have returned! Part Deux of my story! _

_As a forward note, Gabrina and Teresa (one of the three betas, also similar to the Three Graces) will be going over the first half of Heart and making it into a physical book in the next few months. Gabrina's website will have details, as will the updates if this story takes that long._

Ghost Shadow

Once again my companion for the night was a ball of hair. After helping Alexandre to bed and answering Madeline's questions in grunts and headshakes, I retired for the night with Bessie, who greeted me with an array of sounds that in her native tongue sounded like ecstasy.

She sat thumping her tail on the ground while I dressed for bed. The first thing I did was remove the wig, and it felt like a blessing to have it off my head. The tension released from my forehead made me sigh. Though I absolutely despised leaving clothes scattered around the room, I removed my cloak and tossed it onto the chair with my shirt, trousers and socks. I was too tired to redress completely and settled for only pajama pants. I saw the dog staring at me and knew that her kicking would cause me to wear a shirt or remove her from the room.

I hadn't seen her in days, I thought, as I buttoned my shirt and lay down in bed.

It was a shame, I thought, as she clawed me in the spine and licked the back of my neck, that some people didn't live for ten years and some dogs didn't live for fifty. Bessie snorted against my ear and pushed me farther across the bed.

"Calm yourself," I whispered. I reached back and tugged on her ear. "You'll be replaced by a woman soon enough."

She growled at me. I wasn't sure if it was because she thought I had insulted her or she didn't appreciate me pulling her ear.

I closed my eyes and sighed. Thank God this night had ended.

Over and over again I envisioned the last kiss I had shared with Julia, the way she had touched my face and not cried out or flinched or run from me. Her compassion, her acceptance, made my lips quiver.

I needed to sleep. Thinking of her was making me too emotional, draining me inside and out. There was nothing as completely debilitating as love. And now it was forbidden love, again.

I hit the mattress with my fist for thinking like a love-sick poet. I didn't need to dote over Julia. We would see each other tomorrow like two civilized adults and have a pleasant conversation. Then I would suggest she accept my offer and marry me.

It would be simple. My eyes grew heavy and I dreamt of the song I would compose for our wedding. A nice song, I thought, no longer the need for a requiem.

* * *

A knock at the door woke me. I could have sworn only a moment or two had passed, but when I opened my eyes the sun was shining brightly through the gap in the curtains. Well, hell.

"Are you awake?" Madeline asked.

I turned over and looked at the clock. It was only ten in the morning, which normally would have been ungodly late, but since I hadn't gone to bed until four, it was far too early.

"What do you want?" I grumbled as I sat up.

She took that as an invitation to try the door. Finding it unlocked, she barged in. I wondered what she would do if I slept undressed at night. That would certainly teach her to not enter uninvited.

Madeline looked frazzled. She stood wringing her hands and glancing about the room, carefully avoiding my gaze. "Today I take it to be cleaned but…but…I can't find it." Her eyes scanned the dresser and saw the wig tossed aside. "Oh…."

Normally it would have been on a wig stand or nicely wrapped for cleaning but I had merely tossed it onto the cherry wood desk and forgotten it in my need for sleep.

Her face flushed as she stared at it in complete horror. She wouldn't turn to face me.

"Where's the other one?"

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Julia's house."

"It needs to be cleaned."

I wondered if she was more concerned about the payment she would receive for its cleaning or for my personal comfort. With a yawn I rose to my feet. "Take this one," I said with a wave of my hand.

"But you need it."

I yawned again. "I will retrieve the other one from Julia tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Raoul de Chagny is stopping by her house for dinner."

She looked at me, wide-eyed as though I had completely lost my mind.

"What?" I asked.

Madeline turned away. "You should not go over there," she said under her breath.

I crossed my arms and regarded her a moment as she opened one of the drawers in my desk and removed a sheet of brown paper. With great care she placed the wig on top and carefully folded the paper over it. She treated it as she would some fine religious relic.

"He wants Alex to inherit his fortune," I said.

Her reaction made me smirk. Her body straightened and she turned swiftly to stare at me. "Why would he do such a thing?"

Because he's a damned fool, I thought. "Because Alex is Christine's son."

Madeline studied me a moment. She searched my eyes for deceit but found nothing worth arguing about. With the wig folded into the paper, she walked to the bedroom door.

"You would be wise to be careful," Madeline said with her back to me. She took a deep breath and looked at me from the corner of her eye. "I don't want Alexandre to lose his father. I don't…I don't want you…I don't want to worry about you, Erik."

While she spoke I had moved across the room. I stood directly behind her and touched her arm with one hand while holding two twenty-franc notes over her shoulder with the other one. She stared at my hand a moment and reluctantly took the money. Before I pulled away she ran her thumb down my fingers.

"Don't worry. Everything is signed over to you," I whispered.

"Oh, Erik."

"Stop at the bakery," I said before she could finish. "Pick up two—no three croissants on your way home."

She turned and looked at me. "Meg made breakfast."

"I'm sure she did, but with the two of you inheriting my house I would rather not be fed arsenic," I said with a smirk.

She tried her best to glare at me but decided it was easier to turn away. "Welcome home," she said before she walked out the bedroom door.

It hadn't even been a week and still it felt like a month had passed since I had been home. Meg had conveniently left a stack of paperwork for me on the kitchen table. She had placed bread and preserves at my place setting along with bills from the butcher's shop and tailor.

There was no one in the kitchen when I finally came down for the morning. It felt surreal to walk about the house without my mask and hair. For a half-hour I had combed my own thin strands and attempted to make it presentable. Over and over I tried to reassure myself that if Alexandre could accept this beast as his father, the rest of the house could tolerate a gruesome carcass as the benefactor.

Charles and Alexandre had holed themselves up in the study while Meg was humming to herself as she swept out the foyer. I saw her on my way down the stairs but didn't turn.

Meg and I had always had a rather strange way of going about our business without interacting. She only spoke to me when something involved Alexandre, and even then she preferred to keep her distance.

The older dancers had teased her when she first came to the ballet. They had told her that the opera ghost was looking for a little blond child to steal away. She went crying to her mother and said that I would take her away and use her for doll parts. I thought it was amusing but Madeline felt differently. To quell Meg's anxieties and to make an even preposterous claim, I left her a note ensuring her and her mother that one day I would make her Empress. Meg Giry, Empress of France. She was very proud of that unearned title. The dancers talked for weeks.

Meg, of course, came into the kitchen and heard me chuckling as I sifted through a bill for the cobbler. She was careful not to look at me as she pulled off her ring and set it on the counter. She always removed her ring before she prepared to clean the dishes.

Since she was Madeline's daughter, I had generally left Meg alone. She wasn't particularly enjoyable to toy with as she gasped and turned white at the slightest sound. Time and again she swore I had taken her ballet slippers when she was the one who never put them in the same place twice.

Meg took away the challenge and my enjoyment. I sometimes wondered if she laughed as easily as she shrieked.

I stared at her while she did the dishes. I suspected she didn't feel comfortable standing with her back to me as her posture was rigid. It made no difference. It gave me time to think.

I tapped my fingers on the leather cover of my checkbook. If I was going to ask Julia to be my wife I would need a ring to present to her along with all of the reasons why she should agree. I had eight hours to devise a list.

The ring….

"Meg," I said. The word came out harsh. The poor thing jumped and glanced over her shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For being here. In your way."

"Well, to compensate for your burden, tell me what you paid for the gold band."

Meg stared at the ring she had removed. "Charles gave it to me," she stammered.

I sighed. "Well what did he pay for it?"

"He never told me."

My fingers tapped faster. She was irritating me and wasting my time. I still needed to draw up my proposal and decide what I would say to the vicomte's offer.

At my wit's end, I rested my chin in my palm. "Could you estimate?"

She hesitated. "Five thousand francs?"

There were operas that sold for much more than that. I could write one act for an opera and command that amount. "Five thousand?"

She nodded. "Are you….pawning it?"

"No," I replied.

She started to speak again but stopped herself.

"What?" I snapped.

It took her quite some time to muster the courage to speak again. "I was going to say that if you didn't want me to write Christine, I would stop. I saw what she did to Julia's hand and…and I understand."

"Understand what?"

She stammered again. "I don't quite know."

Meg's nerves had the best of her. Despite my irritation, I found her amusing. I rose from the table and took the bread and preserves with me, deciding it was best to leave her alone. Too many years had passed between us and none of them had been good.

Before I walked from the room she spoke again. "I was worried about you," she blurted out.

I paused and turned.

"Is the ring for Julia?" she asked as she leaned against the sink.

"It's been a consideration of mine," I replied.

She simply nodded. I knew she continued to search the right side of my face as though the skin would change but I didn't say anything to her. There was no need. We had finally communicated.

"Do you still want to be Empress?" I questioned.

Meg blushed furiously. "I had forgotten that," she said quietly. A slight smile pulled at her lips. "The older girls mocked me for weeks."

"I know. Why do you think there were always chocolates in your ballet slippers?"

"I could never find my ballet slippers," she said with a slight giggle.

I stared at her for a moment and saw her coyly smile. It was the first time we had ever really spoken at all in nine years and it was strangely tolerable At last I nodded. "They're in the cellar. In a box with several playbills."

Without another word, I went upstairs.


	63. Longevity and Love

After a conversation with Meg, I went back to my room.

Ch 1

The afternoon passed without much activity. Just as before my rendezvous with the vicomte, I stayed upstairs and worked while Meg and Madeline cleaned and did whatever else was normal for their day. Madeline returned late in the afternoon and tapped on the door. She sounded horrified when she told me how she had forgotten about the croissants. She offered to go out again but I had no interest. I didn't even notice when she left the room.

I'll be damned if the checkbook wasn't balanced. Not even a week yet eleven hundred francs were missing. However, money was least of my worries.

I went about planning for the meeting with the vicomte first. My mind was made up. He would not claim my son as a nephew. I had no interest in Alexandre assuming the Chagny name. He would have my name and no other. If the vicomte didn't like it then he could go to hell.

And to hell with the truce. I owed him nothing.

If he wanted to set up funds for Alexandre, he would need to do so through a third party. Meg and Charles had become Alexandre's legal guardians as I needed a married couple to become his guardians should I die. Anything regarding Alex would be done through their solicitor

Which reminded me, I still needed to ask Charles if he would agree, and to ask him what he paid for Meg's ring.

My Julia.

I was hell-bent on finding a convincing reason for Julia to agree to marriage. There had to be something I could tell her that she would find remarkable.

I would capture it on paper and take it with me for my after-dinner proposal.

Alexandre knocked on the open door a few hours after his studies concluded for the day and provided a queer distraction. He rushed in and asked if I thought a bear could defeat a lion in an arena fight. With this question I assumed Charles had moved on to Roman studies.

"The lion, I think," I answered. How was I supposed to know?

"Why not the bear?"

"The lion has teeth and claws."

"But so does the bear."

"Then the bear."

Honestly, I wasn't sure where the difference was between Alexandre's erratic words and Bessie chasing her tail.

Alex stayed for a while and gave valid reasons for and against the bear and the lion. He sat on the bed as I looked over the newspapers I had not read while incapacitated at Julia's home.

It was still a struggle to speak with him. I had a feeling it would be difficult for quite some time.

At last Alex decided that he wasn't sure which animal would win though he was leaning toward a bear, depending on its species. He asked for permission to play with two boys across the street whom I had never heard of before and I consented.

He hugged me from behind before he left. He buried his face against my shoulder and pressed against my neck. I no longer had the heart to reprimand him for leaving the previous night, though I suspected his show of affection was part of a greater scheme.

I turned up the lamp at my writing desk as late afternoon became early evening. After hours of sitting hunched over, I needed to stand and stretch. My body was still sore from several days spent in bed and a long night of walking up and down stairs.

My frustration continued to grow as I sat at my desk. I couldn't think of any reasons for Julia to marry me save one: Longevity.

We shared five years but that wasn't going to be enough to persuade her to stay with me. I stared at the page with the single word I had written hours ago and felt like slamming my head into the wall.

There had to be something more profound.

I loved her.

Ink splattered across the page as I collapsed in the wooden chair again and jotted my second reason down. Just as quickly as I had become excited by my new thought I was just as quickly disappointed. The rest of the paper remained blank.

I folded the list into my overcoat pocket and glanced at the clock again. It was already a quarter past nine.

A quarter past nine!

The vicomte, of course, had reached Julia's home in a timely manner. Before I opened the back door I heard their voices. Julia was laughing.

He was making her laugh. On the night I would ask her to consider marriage, the vicomte was making her laugh.

"…most amusing, Monsieur. Your daughters sound simply delightful."

"The oldest one would love Lisette. Your daughter is a beautiful girl. You can tell she's just like you."

"How very kind of you to say."

I mocked her in disgust before I opened the door, before I ruined their perfect little chat.

He was not supposed to be entertaining Julia. The night was about business, not jovial banter.

The vicomte would not ruin my evening. As much as he tried, I would not allow his inappropriate conversation to destroy my night.

Their pleasant talk ended the moment the door opened and I walked through Julia's kitchen into the dining room. Both of them turned to stare at me and my delayed arrival. It irritated me that they said nothing.

"I apologize," I said through my teeth. "Though I see it made no difference to either of you."

Julia rose and took my cloak without a word, which left my snide comment lingering in the room.

"Good evening," the vicomte said politely. His courteous nature was grating on my nerves.

I nodded, barely glancing in his direction. His perfect hair, face and clothing made me well aware of how my attire only emphasized what a disaster I truly was. My anger flared as Julia returned to the dining room.

"Would you like something to drink? Dinner should be finished shortly."

"What do you have in your cellar?" I asked.

Julia walked toward the kitchen. "Raoul, would you like something as well?"

He respectfully declined and Julia told me to follow her. The moment we reached the cellar door she turned and glared at me.

"Your disrespect is completely unnecessary," she said quietly.

"Disre--? My what?"

"You know very well what you said was rude. I expect you will be civil tonight for Alex's sake or I will ask you to leave."

She was treating me like a child. I would not be treated like an infant. "So you will be alone with him again? Is that what you want?"

Julia's hazel eyes narrowed. "Are you…jealous? Of the two of us talking?"

"What a preposterous claim," I scoffed.

She sighed and shifted her weight. "I suppose you expected that I would just sit there and stare at him in silence until you bothered to make an appearance?"

My fingers found the folded list inside my overcoat pocket. Longevity and love, I thought, I would hold my tongue for the sake of longevity and love.

I did what I had to do to appease her.

"You're right," I said. My insides were burning. It took every ounce of self-control to say those two words. She wasn't right, there was nothing to be right about, but if it stopped her from yelling at me on the night I wanted to ask for her hand, then so be it.

Her expression changed. Julia was both amazed and delighted about my change of attitude. She nodded slowly. "Thank you," she replied. She patted me on the chest and told me to wait for her. A moment later she returned with a bottle of wine. "Shall we begin?"

I nodded. The sooner the vicomte left the sooner the enjoyable half of the night could begin.

Raoul de Chagny was absurdly prepared for the evening. He brought points, counterpoints, balances, proof of estates and receipts from his daughters' education as further certification of his financial stability.

In the hour and forty-five minutes he spent explaining his plan I kept thinking of how I would approach Julia. My proposal to Christine had been very concise. I gave her the gold band and asked if she would marry me.

She refused.

While the vicomte continued his rambling, fear began to worm its way into my mind. What if Julia rejected my proposal? I had not entertained the idea of her refusing me.

Oh God, she could very well say no.

The thought terrified me.

"Erik?" Julia said.

She startled me. I looked at her and then at the vicomte.

"Do you need more time to decide?" the vicomte asked.

I needed to think things over. "Give me a month," I said.

The vicomte began shuffling papers and filing them neatly into his leather folder. "I have left my address for correspondence with Julia. I thank you both for a pleasant evening," he said as he rose.

He was leaving. I hadn't listened to a word he had said since I arrived.

"Have a safe trip," Julia replied. She stood with him and went to fetch his coat.

The vicomte nervously wrung his hands as we remained alone in the same room. He had no reason to be apprehensive. I couldn't have cared less that he was still there.

"I know you don't want him to have my name and I don't blame you. I would not want my son to carry another man's name either." He paused and licked his lips. "However, would you consider giving him both names? Chagny and Kire?"

"I'll consider," I muttered.

He nodded and Julia returned to the dining room with his cloak, gloves, and hat.

"Well…" he started.

"Well, good night," I said before he could finish.

His face hardened but he said nothing. He donned his outer garb and started to the front entrance. Julia glared at me but followed the vicomte without protest. I rose as well, deciding it would be in my best interest to see him to the door.

"Where are you traveling to next?" I asked in an attempt to sound interested.

"Lyon," he said.

I realized I had nothing to say to him. "Is it…nice….there?"

"Yes, quite," he answered. He apparently had nothing to say to me either.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," Julia said. She faced away from me as she spoke. "When you are in Paris again, don't hesitate to bring your daughters by the house."

"Oh, of course, of course," he said. "You've been a most gracious host."

Apparently I had become furniture in the way of their coupling.

"Good night," Julia said as they shook hands.

The vicomte looked at me one last time. "Thank you for agreeing to meet tonight."

His placid nature irritated me. "Anything for Alexandre," I said.

He finally left. Once the door closed, I wished I hadn't shoved him so quickly from Julia's home.

"If you think I am taking you upstairs you have another think coming," Julia seethed. "I told you last night—"

"I know what you told me." I took the note from my pocket. Longevity and love, I told myself, I would look past her anger for the sake of longevity and love.

She turned her head to the side. "What is that?"

"It's a list."

"A list of what?"

"Of things I wanted to discuss with you tonight," I answered. My hands had started to tremble. She could have at least had the decency to be more civil at such a crucial moment.

Julia started to reach for the list but I pulled it away and shoved it back into my pocket.

"Erik—"

"May we sit down?"

She stared at me a while suspecting I was up to something lecherous. With a sigh she nodded. "The parlor," she said.

I followed her into the study and pulled up a chair beside hers. She folded her hands in her lap and sighed.

"Now what was so urgent?"

"I have something I would like to present for your consideration," I started. She stared at me with an unwavering gaze that made me increasingly uncomfortable.

She rubbed her eyes with her uninjured hand. "Well, say it then, Erik."

"I want you to agree to marriage," I blurted out. She had me so damned flustered that I shouted out my words.

"You…what?"

"Marriage, to marriage, I want you to agree to marriage."

"You're proposing?" She held her hand to her heart.

"No."

"No?"

"Not unless you first agree."

We stared at each other for a moment. She tried very hard not to smile but lost the struggle and let out a soft chuckle. Her response angered me. The last thing I wanted was to see her laugh at my proposition.

"You won't ask me to marry you unless I agree to marry you?" she asked.

I rose to my feet, my skin rising with gooseflesh and my neck flushed with embarrassment. Not even Christine had laughed in my face.

"So now you're going to leave?"

"Are you refusing my offer?"

Julia crossed her arms. "You've hardly made an offerErik."

"Good night, Julia," I said gruffly.

She took my hand and had me sit again. "What is the list for? Persuasion?"

"Not anymore."

Julia was quiet for a moment. I couldn't bring myself to look at her.

"May I hear the reasons?" she asked quietly.

"Longevity and love," I said under my breath. "Damned longevity and love."

"Longevity?"

"Five years," I snapped. "We've had five years together."

She considered my words for a moment. "So I should agree to a proposal because you bedded me for five years?"

"If that's how you so crudely want to put it. And because I love you," I said. I sighed and started to stand again. "Forget it. I've changed my mind."

"Erik, you are the most maddening, juvenile creature I have ever known. First you ask me to marry you and make it into the most dreadful-sounding business proposal I ever heard. Then you didn't even give me an opportunity to answer."

"Then answer."

"Fine. My answer is no, I will not agree to your proposal."

I was surprised I could still breathe after she denied me. I looked away from her and wanted to sob. Nothing had come out right. I had made an ass of myself.

"I will, however, agree to courtship."

I turned and faced her. "To what?"


	64. The story continues

Just as an FYI for anyone who didn't know…the rest of this story will be posted under A Ghost's Shadow. If you saved story updates and not author alerts please change your settings over to A Ghost's Shadow.


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Phantom of the Opera, Angst, Drama