Phantom of the Opera 1. Chapter 1: In the Dark

**Hello, everyone, and welcome to ****Take Two****! In case you didn't know, this is my second (and hopefully last) attempt at writing this story, because I didn't much like the first version and how it was.**

**If you read what I wrote of the first edition of this story, then you need to know that things are different in this one. However, if you didn't, then you're completely new to the story, which is just as good a thing.**

**Whether you're returning or not, I would once again like to welcome you to the story, and I hope you stay. And now, without further ado...**

Chapter One - In the Dark

A wind blew through the city of Montville, Connecticut, late one evening, telling its residents that a storm was coming. Because of this, the streets were almost completely abandoned. Mothers were yelling at their children to come inside for the thousandth time, people who had been out with friends and lovers late at night were rushing home, and those who were inside their places of residence were looking out the window, eying the sky nervously and hoping that the coming storm would pass quickly.

Through all of this, only one man didn't seem too concerned with escaping from the outdoors. Instead, he simply walked through a nearby park, listening to the wind blow through the trees above him as the thunder and lightning started to sound. This man's name was James Adlam.

James wasn't the type of person who particularly enjoyed inclement weather, especially storms, but he did enjoy the darkness, and since nighttime was when it was the most dark, he was always out at night, whether there was a storm or not. Nighttime was the only time where he could, for the most part, avoid the stares and whispers of others when they took note of the mask that covered three-quarters of his face, save for his lower lip and chin.

The wind blew around him, causing his hair to blow around his face, and he sighed rather impatiently, running the thin fingers of one hand through his hair and trying to keep it out of his eyes. Damn the wind. It was the source of many problems in the world, including something as insignificant as one's hair getting in one's face.

_Boom!_ A thunderclap echoed and then resonated as it faded, and it was then that raindrops began to fall from sky, hitting James's clothing and bouncing off of his mask. Because of this, for once, he was actually glad that he wore a mask, for it prevented the majority of his face from getting wet. He was, in a lot of ways, like a cat - he preferred darkness to light, for he had the ability to see quite well when it was dark, and he despised getting wet.

He took a deep breath, the rain-filled air filling up his lungs, and he then let out a sigh that was a sigh of ecstasy. The reason he went out at all was to get fresh air, for living in one's house the entire time wasn't exactly good for one's health, and the outdoors gave him the only thing that he believed he actually needed - fresh air.

Fresh air, though it wasn't all he wanted, was the only thing he was certain that he would ever get. What his mask hid from the rest of the world deprived him of the ability to live a completely normal life, so he fully believed that fresh air would be the only thing he wanted that he could get without making bad things happen.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a cry from nearby, causing him to jolt and find shelter behind one of the nearby trees in case someone came along. He didn't want anyone catching sight of him; he didn't want anyone staring at him at night.

After several moments, no one had come along, so he thought that it was safe after all and walked back onto the sidewalk, shrugging and telling himself that he had just imagined the noise as he proceeded walking. However, he was very quickly proven wrong.

There, several steps ahead of him, a figure was sitting on the ground. Quiet sobs were issued from the figure, and, judging by the form of this figure, he guessed that it was a girl.

He looked at the girl sitting on the sidewalk and crying for a moment, wondering if it would be the epitome of foolishness to approach her and if it would be better if he just turned around and walked away without acknowledging her.

However, whether it was foolish or not, he decided that he was going to speak to her, for it seemed to him that something was obviously wrong with her. He thought about how old she might be, the possibility of her having someone in the world who cared for her, and whether or not she knew where she was.

Sighing resignedly, he rather tentatively took a few steps up to where the girl was sitting on the sidewalk and looked down at her. She seemed unaware of his presence, for she continued crying without doing anything to acknowledge him being there.

He cleared his throat and very lightly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey."

Upon feeling his hand on her shoulder, she jolted and looked up at him, allowing him to see that she wasn't that old - she couldn't have been any older than fifteen or sixteen. She had on rather large-looking glasses, and tears and rain streamed down her face at the same time.

The moment she took note of his mask was obvious to him, for her eyes widened for a brief moment, and then she stared up at him, not saying anything or making any sort of movement.

"You know, it's terribly rude to stare," he said severely, any compassion that he had previously felt for this girl suddenly shriveling up dramatically. He folded his arms across his chest. "Didn't your parents ever teach you that?"

At that, she bowed her head, staring down at the concrete of the sidewalk, and mumbled something that he only got the words _parents_ and _gone_ out of.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, looking back up at him and running a hand through her hair, which was getting wetter with each passing moment. "Sorry for staring and... being in your way. You're standing here because you can't get by me, right?"

The moment she'd finished speaking, he was immediately taken aback by the humility and slight embarrassment in her tone. She hadn't meant to stare at him; he knew for a fact that it was a natural reaction whenever people saw his mask. However, though he'd scolded several people before for staring at him, none of them had ever apologized. They'd simply walked away as quickly as possible, faces flushing.

This girl was at least slightly different from the others, then. This was enough to make him feel slightly bad for her once again.

"Do you know where you are?" he inquired, not bothering to answer her question. To him, she acted as if she was a litttle bit lost.

"Yes, I know where I am," she replied, raising her eyebrows at him because the question surprised her. "I live here... not in the park, obviously. I live in this city."

"Hmm. May I ask why you're sitting on the sidewalk in the park in the middle of the night, especially when there's a storm out?" His tone suddenly became scolding once again. "You'll get sick if you stay out here, you know."

"No one cares what happens to me," she said, and though her tone was matter-of-fact, he also heard the hidden sorrow in it. She sniffed and passed a hand across her nose. "No one would notice if I got sick... or if I got abducted... or anything like that."

"What makes you say that?" he demanded rather incredulously, wondering where in the world this girl had come from. He hadn't seen a teenager act so cynical since he'd acted the same way during his own adolescent years.

"Oh... never mind," she sighed, sniffing again and then attempting to stand up. However, she winced and let out a whimper of pain. "Ouch! That hurt..."

"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly, as he hated seeing people hurt when it wasn't his own doing. He scanned her for a moment, looking from her face and then going down from there, his eyes traveling to her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach...

He then sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling terrible. He thought that this girl had a rather attractive body, especially for someone her age, but she was obviously hurt, both physically and emotionally. Besides, she was evidently about half his age. He didn't need to be desiring her; she was too young.

Opening his eyes, he glanced down to her legs and saw that she'd scraped up her knee on her right leg pretty well, for the injury was wide and rather long.

"Oh," he breathed softly, immediately squatting down next to her and examining the injury for a moment. "How did you do that, may I ask?"

"I'm terribly clumsy sometimes," she explained, sounding rather embarrassed. "I was walking through here and slipped... or tripped... I don't even know. I inexplicably fall and run into things a lot."

"And you can't get up by yourself?"

"No. It hurts too much."

He sighed inwardly, but he knew that he couldn't just leave this girl alone. God only knew how she would be able to make it somewhere to take care of herself on her own.

"All right. I'm going to take you to my house and clean up your scrape. Is that all right with you?" he asked, extending a hand down to her as he rose. "I promise that I won't do anything to hurt you more than you already are."

She glanced from the hand he'd offered her and up to his face several times, and then she evidently decided that she believed him, for she grabbed his hand in one of hers and, with his help and a moan of pain, she stood up.

"Thank you," she sighed, releasing her hold on his hand and then taking ahold of his shoulder. "Where do you live?"

"Only a few blocks from here," he replied, glancing at the hand resting on his shoulder in surprise for a brief moment, as he couldn't remember the last time that someone had touched him of their own accord. He then started walking slowly so that she would be able to hobble alongside him. "It's not that far. Come on."

They then headed out of the park and towards the place where he lived, he walking and she hobbling, until they came to a rather large house that was really probably considered a mansion by most that was surrounded by a tall iron fence.

"Wow," she breathed in awe, looking up to the top of the fence and then looking straight ahead and past the fence to his house. "You live _here?_"

"Yes," he replied, stepping to the side against the fence and punching a five-digit code into a nearby keypad. The gate opened, and they walked through it as it then closed.

They came to the front steps of the house and walked up them, and he unlocked and opened the door. When they walked inside together, her breath was taken away by what her eyes met.

All around the house, there was the nicest furniture she'd ever seen, bookshelves packed with books, and some antique items that she had never seen anywhere else. There were three floors, and there was a polished oak staircase that led up to the second and third floors.

"This place is beautiful," she said softly. "Who else lives here with you?"

"Well... no one."

"No one lives here with you?" she inquired, turning to look at him and raising her eyes in surprise. "I can't believe you live in such a huge place by yourself. But, you know, I guess that means you don't have to worry about other people bothering you."

"Hmm" was his only reply. He then motioned to the living room. "Go in there and sit on the sofa. I'm going to get some peroxide and bandages."

Her eyes widened in shock, and she shook her head fervently. "Oh, I can't do that. I mean, your stuff had to have been really expensive, and I'm all wet. I'd ruin it."

"Don't worry about it," he replied nonchalantly, waving it away and shrugging. "Most of what I own is damaged in some way, anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Go ahead and take a seat. I'll be right back."

"Thank you," she said quietly, walking into the living room and then sitting down on the sofa, trying her best to sit up straight so that she wouldn't get the sofa any more wet. However, she felt tired, so she let out a sigh and leaned back, relaxing and closing her eyes.

When he walked back into the living room with a bottle of peroxide, some cotton, and bandages, he saw her leaning against the sofa with her eyes closed and wondered if she had fallen asleep. She looked as if she'd been through a lot recently.

"Hey," he said softly, walking over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. He shook her a little. "Wake up."

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, sighing and then sitting up straight.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she sighed, rubbing her eyes and yawning a little. "I wasn't really asleep. I'm just really tired, so I was resting for just a second. I'm not trying to fall asleep at your house or anything."

"It's all right, I suppose," he replied with a shrug, grabbing a nearby footstool and sitting down on it. Then he reached out and took the leg that she'd injured, resting it on one of his legs and then opening the peroxide bottle, putting it on some cotton and then starting to clean her wound, trying not to think about how smooth the skin of her leg was.

"So... sorry," he said when he started to clean one spot of her injury and she let out a hiss of pain, pulling her leg back slightly. He took it back to where it had been before and continued cleaning it. "Are you going to tell me your name?"

"Oh, how rude of me," she said guiltily, extending a hand out to him. "I'm Stacey Burns. And you are?"

"James," he replied, taking her hand in his and holding onto it for a moment. "James Adlam."

"James Adlam," she echoed, looking thoughtful. "That's a Scottish last name, isn't it? And you're Scottish, judging by your accent?"

"Yes, it is, and yes, I am." He paused for a moment, continuing to clean her wound before he spoke again. "Now, what were you doing out in the park all by yourself at this time of night - and especially when there's a storm outside?"

"I was just looking for somewhere to be alone for a while," she said with a sigh. "Like I said, no one cares what happens to me. Besides, I didn't want to be around the people that I live with now."

"The people you live with now?" he echoed, raising his head and stopping his cleaning of her injury for a moment to look at her. "Why don't you live with your parents?"

For a moment, she simply looked at him without saying anything, but then her eyes lowered from his, and she folded her hands in her lap in a manner that he found to be rather old-fashioned. Then she finally said quietly, "My parents have died."

He swallowed hard, hoping that he hadn't sounded harsh or insensitive during the two times that he'd mentioned her parents, both in the park and just now. "I'm sorry. May I ask what happened to them?"

"Sure, I guess," she replied, shrugging. "My mom died when I was little... four, to be exact. I don't really know what happened. I think she had cancer or some other terminal illness. And my dad... well, my dad just died about three weeks ago. He had a heart attack."

For a moment, they were both silent, and then she looked up at him again, smiling slightly with tears in her eyes and finishing with a slight laugh, "He really enjoyed eating his big Irish breakfasts at the diner every morning... it clogged up his arteries."

He attempted to smile back at this, but found that he couldn't. He reached his free hand out to place it on top of one of hers, but he didn't know if she would welcome the gesture or not, as they didn't know each other very well, so he froze for a moment before pulling back without touching her.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I never knew my father," he murmured, almost in an absent manner, as he focused on her knee, which he'd resumed taking care of. "He died before I was born."

"That's sad," she said softly, her tone sympathetic. "Did your mom miss him a lot? I know my dad missed my mom."

"Yeah," he replied, letting out a rather bitter laugh for a moment as he shook his head. "I think she would have preferred to have lost me than to have lost him. She and I have never gotten along very well."

"I'm sorry," she said, clearing her throat while her face reddened slightly. "I didn't mean to bring up something bad like that... I didn't know. But I won't talk about it any more now."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," he replied with a shrug, finally stopping cleaning her wound and now placing super-sized Band-Aids on her knee to allow it to heal without having germs get inside of it or without it somehow getting injured further. "There. All finished."

"Thank you," she said, smiling appreciatively at him as their eyes met. "You really did me a big favor by helping me out. If you hadn't come along, I would have either had to stay out in the park all night or I would have had to drag myself somewhere."

"It wasn't any trouble," he said, looking into her eyes, which were a dazzling blue-green color, for a moment more before taking note of her facial features for the first time.

As he'd already noted, her eyes were blue-green, but it was hard to tell because a glare was caused by the light hitting her glasses, causing him to wonder how much more entrancing her eyes might be without glasses. She seemed to have none of the acne that was a source of worry for so many teenagers both male and female; her skin was clear and smooth. Her hair, which was stringy from getting wet and then starting to dry, was golden-blonde and fell down slightly past her shoulders. There seemed to be nothing strange-looking or out of place about her face; the eyes were perfect, her nose was just the right size for her face, her lips were full and soft-looking, and her chin appeared to be strong in that uniquely feminine way.

He was completely certain that he had never seen a more perfect, more beautiful, more appealing girl in all of his years of living. This of course meant that he would never have her, even if he wanted her.

If she'd noticed that he'd actually been staring at her during the past few moments of silence, she said and did nothing to imply it, for she rose from the sofa as best she could and said, "Well, I guess I'd better be getting back to where I live now. Maybe someone will be looking for me."

Something in him wanted to protest, as he suddenly felt a shocking, intense desire to keep her with him for a long, long, time, but he simply nodded silently and rose with her, walking by her side as she hobbled over to the door.

"Thank you for helping me, Mr. Adlam," she said politely, turning to him and extending a hand to him. "It was really thoughtful of you to go out of your way for me."

"You didn't cause me any trouble in doing it," he replied with a shrug, reaching out and taking her hand in his, noticing with slight wonder how their hands almost seemed to be exactly the same - thin and powerful-looking with the long, slender fingers to go with them.

They then shook hands, and when they'd each released their grip on the other's hand, she unlocked and opened the door, allowing them both to see that the storm had, in fact, worsened while they'd been inside the house. They just had been too absorbed in conversing with one another that they hadn't noticed it until now.

Seeing this, along with the fact that it was very poorly lit outside and the possibility that she could live a considerable distance away from him, he cleared his throat and closed and locked the door again, saying, "You know, it's late... the storm is getting worse, and it's almost pitch-black out there, as if the storm in itself isn't dangerous enough. You could get hurt again, either because of your clumsiness or because some lecher could see you and decide to come after you..."

He didn't really know how to finish, so he simply allowed his voice to trail off after a moment, and he simply looked at her before straightening himself and finishing, "What I'm trying to say is that you're more than welcome to stay here for the night, if you'd like."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes, of course. You can just sleep here for the night, and, assuming that the storm has passed by morning, you can leave first thing." He paused. "I don't have any womens' garments to let you wear, but I'll find you something if you want to stay. You won't be very comfortable if you sleep in halfway-damp clothes."

For a moment, she looked at him without saying anything, but then she nodded, smiled, and shrugged. "Okay. Yeah, I'd like to stay here, if that's all right with you."

"It wouldn't be an issue with me at all," he replied, turning and then starting to head up the nearby staircase. "Follow me, then, and I'll find you something comfortable to wear to sleep in."

They then walked up one flight on the staircase until they came to the second floor, and she followed him into a room that was packed with assorted suitcases, chests, and boxes.

"These are all of my old clothes," he said with a shrug, motioning around the room. "You can just look around and take whatever you like. I don't know what will fit you and what won't, since I don't have it all organized, but... whatever you want is yours to keep. I won't need any of it for any reason."

She turned to him and smiled, nodding again. "All right. Thank you."

"You're welcome." He then paused for a moment, clearing his throat before continuing, "Now, I'm up on the third floor. I'm going to go up there now, and I won't come down for any reason to ensure that I don't disturb you. There's a room with a bed across the hall from here, and it has a bathroom attached to it. You can sleep there for the night. Whenever you're awake tomorrow morning, you can come up and get me. I'll most likely be inside the second door to the right, so knock on the door and let me know that you're there - _don't_ open it. Then, if you're hungry and if you'd like me to, I'll cook you some breakfast before you go."

"That sounds just fine. Thank you, Mr. Adlam."

"Don't call me that; don't be so formal," he protested, shaking his head. "Please call me James."

"Then thank you, James. You've been very good to me, and I hardly know you." For a moment more, she looked at him, and then she smiled at him, stepping backwards into the room as she started closing the door. "Good night."

"Good night," he replied, standing there until she was out of sight by the door closing in his face.

For a moment, he simply stood there, but then he turned and walked over to the staircase, climbing up the remaining flight of stairs to the third floor so that he could retire for the night.


	2. Chapter 2: Morning Strangers

**I apologize for it taking me as long as it did to get this next chapter up. Thanks for your patience!**

**And now, without further ado...**

Chapter Two - Morning Strangers

The next morning, Stacey awoke with a moan, yawning and stretching as she felt soft sheets rubbing against her skin. When she opened her eyes, she found that she could hardly see anything around her.

Sighing softly, she sat up in bed a little bed and felt around until her hand rested on her glasses. She closed her hand around them and picked them up, opening them and placing them on her face. This allowed her vision to become clear.

As she then looked around the room that she was in for moment, she felt rather awed. This room had all sorts of artwork on the walls - in fact, the walls themselves _were_ the artwork. The most beautiful pictures had been painted all on the walls, and she wondered who had painted them. Whoever had done it was a fantastic artist.

Her stomach suddenly growled, causing her to jolt a little bit, and she looked down at her stomach, placing a hand on it. It then occurred to her that she had no idea when she had last eaten. Had it been sometime yesterday morning... or even earlier than that?

Upon hearing her stomach growl again, she knew that no matter how long it had been since she had last eaten, it was time for her to eat now. She didn't want to cook anything without the permission of her host, so she decided that she would go up to the third floor and find him.

Letting out a sigh, she stretched and pulled the covers off of her, rising from the bed and walking out of the room that she had slept in, going over to the nearby staircase down the hall and climbing upstairs to the next floor.

When she'd reached the third floor, she looked down the right side of the hallway and saw that the second door on that side was closed. James had said that he would most likely be in there, so she decided to try that room first.

She walked over to the door and stood there for a moment, taking a deep breath before clenching her hand into a fist and knocking.

"James? Are you in there?"

There was a silence, which led her to believe that one of two things was true - one, James wasn't in the room, or two, he was in that room and he was asleep. Judging by what she had perceived of him the night before, she didn't think that James was the sort of person who slept that much, so she was leaning more towards the former.

She turned and started to walk away, trying to find another room where James would possibly be. It was then that she heard a door behind her open, causing her to turn around and see James sticking his head out the door that she had just knocked on.

He turned to face her, and she saw that he was wearing the mask that he had worn the night before. From what she could see of his face, which was mostly his eyes, he looked like she had really just woken him up.

"Good morning," she greeted him, giving him a smile. "Did I wake you up?"

"Oh, I wasn't sleeping that much," he replied with a slight sigh, walking out of the room completely and walking over to her, closing the door behind him. "Was there something that you needed?"

"Well, I wanted something to eat for breakfast, but I didn't want to cook something without your permission since I didn't know whether you'd want me to use any of your cookware or something like that." She paused. "I also thought that you might want to eat something, so I was going to ask you if, as long as it was all right for me to cook, you also wanted something to eat. I could cook something for you, if you were hungry."

He nodded. "Of course it's all right for you to cook. You may do whatever you like here... as long as it's not something that you're not allowed to do."

She laughed a little at this. "I may do whatever I like as long as it's not something that I'm not allowed to do? Isn't that a little bit oxymoronic?"

For a moment, he simply stared at her, but then he blinked and shook his head, appearing as if he was trying to clear his head. "Sorry. I was just... distracted there for a moment. I wasn't thinking clearly." He paused, taking a deep breath. "What I meant to say was that you may do whatever you like here, but if you're ever not sure about whether I would be all right with it or not, just ask."

"Why are you saying this to me?" she inquired, looking rather confused. "You're saying it like I'm staying here."

"I know you're not staying here; you've got other people who have custody of you and who take care of you." He paused, hesitating for a moment before continuing, "But if you'd ever like to come back... you know, to visit or something like that... then I would certainly be honored to have the pleasure of your company."

She smiled a little and this and shook her head. "Wow."

Although she couldn't see it, he raised his eyebrows at her, and then he shrugged. "What?"

"I don't know," she said softly, shaking her head again. "It's just like... like you just came out of the nineteenth century or something. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything like that to someone else unless they're hired actors who are dressed in costumes in a period film. But there's more than that..."

An expression that he couldn't quite translate then crossed her face, and she stepped closer to him, looking at him with that curious expression on her face. She reached a hand out to his face, at which he immediately stepped back about five steps in a single backward stride.

"Don't touch my face," he said softly, a dangerous, warning edge that caused her to jolt in surprise a little bit coming into his voice. "That's the one thing that I know I won't allow you to do whenever you're here... if you ever come back, that is."

For a moment, she looked at him, this time with a somewhat confused expression on her face, and she opened her mouth to ask him why, but then she thought better of it and closed her mouth again, shrugging.

"Okay, then." She paused, smiling. "Well, how about that breakfast? What have you got to eat?"

"All of the conventional breakfast food," he said with a shrug, and she nodded, turning and starting to walk towards the staircase so that she could go down to the kitchen on the first floor. "I also have some items to make a sandwich... and maybe some other things. I don't eat that much, honestly, so I don't know all that I have in my house. That sounds rather strange, but it's true."

She glanced over at him as he appeared by her side, nodding in acknowledgement, and then she saw that there was a rather embarrassed expression on what was visible of his face.

"I'm sorry," he said with a sigh. "I don't entertain visitors very often... in fact, I _never_ entertain visitors. So whenever I'm around people, I tend to act strange and make a complete fool of myself. It's very obvious that I'm a recluse, isn't it?"

"You're obviously not that much of a recluse," she replied. "After all, you were outside last night. I wouldn't be here with you otherwise."

"Yes, I was outside last night - when there was a huge storm and almost no one else was outside. That's the only time that I dare to go outside... and I only go outside for the sake of getting fresh air."

She looked up at him. "Why don't you go outside during the day? There's nothing wrong with it... sunlight is healthy for you, too, you know. You could go outside for sunlight."

"I'd rather not deal with sunlight," he said somewhat shortly. "A lot of bad things happen when people are in sunlight... a lot of bad things happen to me, at least. I get stared at, mocked, pointed at, and gossiped about."

"Why; because you wear a mask?"

"That's exactly why," he replied with a sigh. "But enough about any of that. You don't want to hear about my own personal worries when you've got some of your own and they're infinitely worse than mine."

"It's all right if you keep talking about it - if you want to, that is," she said softly. A slow smile then came to her lips. "It distracts me from my own problems to hear someone else's. It makes me feel better to know that I'm the only sad wretch in this world."

He looked at her in surprise, not believing that she had said that, as he'd already perceived her to be a caring, thoughtful person who didn't know how to say anything that would hurt anybody. It therefore took him a moment before he realized that she was just joking.

"Oh," he said softly, and a faint smile came to his face as they arrived in the kitchen. "Well, I suppose we should make breaskfast now. Feel free to grab whatever it is that you'd like to eat, and I'll cook it for you - or you could cook it yourself; whatever you prefer to do."

"Okay," she agreed, and then she went through the refrigerator and the cabinets before finally deciding that she wanted to wanted to eat sausage, biscuits, eggs, and a bowl of Corn Puffs cereal. She turned to him. "Do you want anything I got?"

"I'll eat the Corn Puffs," he informed her, shrugging, and she nodded. "Would you like me to make breakfast for you, or would you prefer to do it yourself?"

"I'm just going to make it myself," she replied, shaking her head. "You've done enough for me already, so you just go ahead and sit down... if you want to sit down, I guess; you obviously don't have to."

He nodded silently and sat down at the nearby dining room table, watching her as she located some pots and pans and started cooking the food that she had pulled out.

Several minutes later, the food was finished, and she placed everything onto a plate. Then she poured some Corn Puffs into two bowls and grabbed two spoons and a fork. She then walked over to the dining room table and placed a bowl of Corn Puffs down in front of him, sitting down in the chair next to him.

"Thanks," he murmured.

"Sure," she replied, and then she folded her hands together and looked at him. "Will you pray with me?"

"No," he said rather darkly. "I don't pray. I don't believe that there's a God to pray to."

For a moment, she looked at him without saying anything, and then a smile spread across her face as she unfolded her hands and picked up her spoon. "Neither do I. I just thought that you might, so that's why I was doing it. I didn't want to risk offending my host."

"Hmm." He paused for a moment, scooping up a spoonful of his cereal and almost reluctantly taking a bite of it. "And why don't you believe in God?"

"No real reason," she replied, shrugging and following his example by taking a bite of her cereal. "I just wasn't raised in that kind of environment, that's all. Besides, I don't like the idea of a God who always judges you, which is how I've always heard Him portrayed to be. What about you?"

"Well, I was raised in a Christian home. My mother was a strict Catholic. I was a Catholic, too, but... well, then I was told that animals have no souls." What was visible of his face suddenly darkened. "You see, back when I was still living with my mother, I had a spaniel named Sasha. When I was nine, she starting to age and it wouldn't be long before she died. The priest who would give Mass at our house explained that to me, but I told him that I already knew. I also told him that since we would both go to Heaven, we wouldn't be apart forever."

"And then he told you that animals have no souls... which means that Sasha wouldn't go to Heaven."

"That's right. And I was so _angry!_ I couldn't believe that God would deny an afterlife to my only friend and give people a chance to live in Heaven when they didn't deserve it."

"That's not fair; you're right," she agreed, shaking her head. "So I suppose that's a valid reason that you wouldn't think that there is a God. I believe that animals have souls, though - the good ones, at least. Everything good has a soul in it."

"Hmm," he murmured, and then what was visible of his face darkened again for a brief moment as he silently scooped another spoonful of cereal onto his spoon and ate it, then continuing to finish his cereal. She followed his example and ate with him.

"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home," she then said some time later, after they had both eaten and placed their dirty dishes and silverware in the dishwasher. She looked down at what she was wearing, which was a pair of his old tan trousers that had been rolled up to her knees and an old white button-up shirt of his. "But I probably ought to change first. I'm sure the people I'm living with will probably think that I did something inappropriate with a man last night instead of coming home if I wear this home."

She saw him swallow hard, and she was surprised when his chin and neck suddenly turned red. "We wouldn't want that. I... I might not be able to see you again if they thought that."

"That's true." She paused, smiling as she turned and started walking towards the stairway so that she could ascend to the second floor and change into her clothes in the room that she'd spent the night in. "And I don't want that to happen. I want to see you again."

Then, before she could see his reaction, she turned entirely and walked up the stairs, going into the room that she'd spent the night in and closing the door behind her. She then checked the clothes that she'd worn last night during the storm and saw that they'd completely dried. As she started removing the clothes she'd been wearing and putting back on her clothes, she thought about James.

He seemed like a very nice person - in fact, she didn't think that there was anything mean about him at all. Sure, he'd looked angry at certain points for reasons that she hadn't understood, but that happened with everyone. Perhaps he was a little socially awkward, but so was she. That meant that they would probably get along very well. They would be each other's friends when they had no one else - and even when they did have someone else.

She wondered why it was that he wore a mask. It was probably for something serious, like some sort of injury across his face. But surely it wasn't that bad?

_Well, judging by his reaction when I reached out to his face, he doesn't want me to see what it is_, she thought to herself._ So he either is very self-conscious about it and it's not that serious or it's serious and he's still self-conscious about it. I'm sort of leaning towards the former._

After a moment, she finished dressing, and then she slipped on the sandals that she'd been wearing and walked out of the room she'd spent the night in, closing the door behind her and making her way back downstairs.

She found James sitting in the living room. His hands rested on his legs, and his fingers were constantly wiggling. His eyes were closed, and he kept swaying from side to side. It was a strange sight.

For a moment, she couldn't help but watch him, wondering what on earth it was that he was doing, but then she suddenly understood. He was pretending to be playing the piano, which was something she often did. That meant that they had yet another thing in common, or, rather, two things in common - they were musicians and they often pretended to be playing their instrument.

She couldn't believe that this was happening. This man seemed to be so much like her - they had a lot of the same person inside of them. Because of her cynicalness, she hadn't really thought it possible, but maybe there was such a thing as soulmates. Maybe two people were, in fact, the halves of another whole person...

After pondering upon this for several moments, she shook her head, clearing her thoughts of soulmates. Even if such a thing did exist, she and James couldn't possibly be that. The chances of someone finding their soulmates, especially when they were as young as she was, were one in a million!

"James?" she finally inquired.

He jolted slightly, opening his eyes and looking over at her. His hands had stopped moving, and he was as stiff as a board.

"You... you didn't see what I was doing, did you?" he inquired, biting his lip and looking embarrassed, which she was sure was something that didn't often happen. "I'm sure you thought I looked like a fool if you did."

She shrugged and shook her head, smiling a little. "Don't worry about it. I do it all the time, actually."

Judging by the look in his eyes and the way he frowned, he didn't believe her, but he said nothing in response and simply shrugged, rising and walking over to him. He was so graceful in the way he moved that she couldn't help but watch him, feeling herself go weak at the knees and lose her breath for a moment.

"Are you going to leave now, then?" he inquired.

"Yeah," she replied, nodding. "But... I'll be back to come and visit you. When are you available?"

"All the time. I only leave the house at night so I can take a walk and get some fresh air." He paused, and then he asked rather shyly, "Would... would you like to walk with me tonight?"

She smiled, glad that she was so quickly getting this man to want to spend time wtih her. She wanted a friend, and he seemed to be a good candidate. "Yeah, I'd love to."

His eyes lit up. "Wonderful! Then I suppose I'll see you tonight sometime."

"Yeah." She smiled and walked over to the door, unlocking and opening it. "Don't leave without me."

"I won't," he replied, waving after her as she walked out of the house and made her way outside, opening the gate and starting to head towards the place she lived. "See you later."

"Bye," she said, waving back at him and then turning, making her way towards where she lived without looking back at him.


	3. Chapter 3: Questions Created

**Argh. I don't care what Lewis Black says... lack of inspiration and school are the Roots of All Evil. They always have been and always will be.**

**And yes, that's my excuse and apology for my lack of an update. But now, without further ado...  
**  
Chapter Three - Questions Created

James sat on an antique sofa in the living room of his house, absently flipping through one of a countless amount books in his personal library - a book that, like every other book in his library, he'd read at least fifteen times, if not more. He knew this book from cover to cover, word for word, but he was still reading it. Of course, he wasn't actually _reading_ it. He was just doing something to kill the time until Stacey arrived at his house from school.

In the three months since they'd met, he and Stacey had become a rather odd couple of friends. Whenever Stacey had an open opportunity, which was basically whenever she wasn't at school, she was with James, talking to him, sifting through his library to borrow another book from him, eating meals with him, or just generally spending time with him, getting to know him better.

He didn't know why his new companion liked him, but it was rather obvious to him that she did. She didn't like him in the sense that she would pursue a relationship with him, of course, which didn't surprise him... she liked him in the way that friends liked each other. Maybe it was because they had a lot in common, but she always seemed to have some kind of compliment for him - especially whenever she needed help with homework in any subject and he almost instantly provided the right answer for her. He wasn't used to being complimented, so he always felt rather awkward whenever she praised him for something, but it was nice. It made him feel a little better about himself to know that someone found good things to say about him, as opposed to having her be negative about him, like many others he'd previously known had been.

She was further promoting his reclusive nature as well. No longer did he have to go grocery shopping really late at night; she did that for him, and at reasonable hours during the day, too. She also ran any other sort of errands besides grocery shopping that he needed done, so he never had to leave the house for anything any more. He was sure that she found the fact that he preferred to never leave the solitude of his home strange, but she didn't say anything. Perhaps she understood.

His fake reading was interrupted when he heard a key being stuck in its hole at the front door. There were only two people in the world who had a key to the house, and since he was inside, it was only logical to assume that Stacey had arrived.

After a moment, the door opened, and he saw Stacey, her oversized backpack on her shoulders as she carried an armful of groceries. She somehow managed to pull the key out of the door and stepped inside the house, closing the door with her foot and losing her balance when she did.

When he saw that she was about to fall over while holding a bunch of different things, some of which were probably breakable, he immediately got out of his seat and got to her with a speed that he didn't think he'd ever had, catching her just in time so that she wouldn't land on the floor.

"Oh!" she breathed, looking up at him and smiling with relief. "Hi, James."

"Hi," he replied, standing up straight and moving her forward so that she was back on her feet. He took a couple of grocery bags from her. "You all right?"

"Yeah; thanks." She paused, smiling again as they walked into the kitchen together. "I told you I fall and run into things a lot, and there was your proof."

"I believed you," he said as they placed the bags they were holding on the kitchen counter and started placing the items where they belonged. "How was your day at school?"

"Good!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up. "I got a 100 on my Algebra II test!"

"Did you solve everything the way I told you to?"

"Well, I kind of did," she replied, shrugging. "Some of the stuff you told me, I couldn't understand... you're infinitely smarter than I am. But whenever I couldn't understand your methods, I did the problems my own way, and it obviously worked. I got the 100 and I got all of the extra credit problems right... which means I actually got over 100."

He nodded. "Very good. What else?"

At this, she bit her lower lip. "Well... I met this cute guy in World History. He was really nice, from what I could tell. But he's out of my league, so nothing's gonna happen, naturally."

"What makes you think he's out of your league?"

"Well, there's the whole cute thing, you know?" she replied, using an it's-so-obvious tone that she very rarely used and shrugging. "He's cute and I'm not. I'm ugly."

He scoffed. "Excuse me, but you can't talk. What I look like under this" - he tapped his mask - "is infinitely worse than your appearance. Besides, I, ah... I don't think you're ugly at all."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Really?"

He felt his face grow hot and was glad that she couldn't see his sudden blush underneath the mask. "Yes, really. I think you're very nice-looking."

"Oh," she said, looking rather surprised, which told him that she had either never heard that before or hadn't heard it in a long time. "Well, thanks. That's really nice of you to say."

For a moment, he looked at her silently, but then he shrugged and resumed placing groceries back where they belonged. "So tell me about this boy who's supposedly out of your league."

"He is _so_ cute!" she breathed, her eyes widening as she clasped her hands together. "He has brown eyes and brown hair... he's pretty tall... almost as tall as you are, but not quite. And he has an amazing smile and laugh."

"I see," he murmured. "And his name is...?"

She sighed and shrugged. "I didn't catch that. No one called him by his name the entire time in class."

"I thought you said you met him."

"That was an exaggeration, actually," she admitted, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "I basically just stared at him the entire time we were in class. I couldn't gather up the nerve to go over to him and introduce myself."

"And why is that?"

She shook her head. "I'm not any good at introducing myself to people. I don't really know why... maybe because I think that they won't like me, and I'd rather have them not know me at all than know me and ignore me."

"I understand that," he replied, nodding. "But you shouldn't worry about that. You're a very likable person. You're just shy, which you have to get over."

"Hmm," she murmured, raising her eyebrows at him as she gave him a look. "Well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black."

He glanced up at her and saw the look she was giving him. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about _you_, obviously," she replied, motioning to him. "You're a very likable person, too. You're just shy, which you have to get over, just like me."

"I'm not shy," he said, shaking his head as he resumed putting groceries away. "I'm a recluse. There's a difference. When you're shy, you're normally not such by choice. But when you're reclusive, that's obviously your choice... that or you're agoraphobic, so you can't really help it."

She laughed delightedly. "Yeah, I guess that's true. But I don't understand why anyone would choose to be a recluse. Don't you ever get bored just staying inside this big house all by yourself all day long with nothing and nobody to keep you company - at least, not until I show up?"

"No. I actually get a lot accomplished when you're not here with me." He paused. "I read several books... or, at least, parts of them. I also work on my composition and -"

"You're a composer?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together once again. "Oh, I'd love to hear one of your pieces! Could I, please?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. Listening to my music isn't a good idea."

"Why not?" She paused thoughtfully for a moment as she tried to think of an excuse that he might come up with. "Because you think it doesn't sound good? Is that it? I mean, I haven't heard anything that you've done, but I'm sure it's great. You have that genius vibe about you."

If it weren't for the fact that he was wearing a mask, she would have seen him raising his eyebrows at her. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah. I mean, you're smart in every subject that I ask you about - which is basically everything. You tell me all this stuff that I don't think very many people know, and you say it like it's obvious. So of course you have that genius vibe."

He was silent for a moment as he looked at her, apparently surprised that she thought him to be a genius. "Okay, then. Thank you... I guess."

"So may I listen to your music now? Will you play something for me?"

"If you were complimenting me and calling me a genius just for that, it didn't work," he replied, shaking his head once again. "You're not going to listen to my music. I really only have one piece, anyway."

"Just one? When did you start it?"

He glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Ten years, eight months, two weeks, and six days ago."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You've _counted?_ You really do get bored here all by yourself, apparently."

He shrugged in a noncommittal gesture. "It doesn't really matter. The point is that you're not going to hear me play it, nor are you going to try and play it yourself. No one's ever going to hear it."

"Then what's the point of composing it?"

"I don't even know that," he said with a sigh, crumpling up the grocery bag he'd just emptied and sticking it in the nearby pantry. He then nodded towards the staircase. "Follow me."

"Where are we going?" she inquired, doing as he asked anyway and heading up the stairs behind him.

"You'll see."

They silently walked up to the third floor together, and then they came to the second door to the right, which was where he apparently liked to be whenever he felt like being alone. Then he opened the door and stepped inside, motioning her in.

As she stepped inside, she was greeted with a most amazing sight. All around her were instruments, some which she recognized and some which she didn't. There was a thick, large drawing pad atop an easel, and she could see that some drawings that had evidently been done on that paper had been tacked on the walls.

For a moment, she looked around the pictures on the wall for a moment, and then she looked at him with amazement.

"These pictures..." She paused, walking towards one of the pictures and pointing at a young woman in one of the pictures. "These people look exactly the same as those who are on some of the paintings on the walls - that is, they're drawn the same basic way, not that they look alike in the face or anything like that. You're the one who painted the walls!"

He nodded silently.

"Wow," she breathed, turning towards one of the pictures once again and placing a hand on it as she looked at it. "You have an amazing talent... the people look so real, and you can see all the emotion they're supposed to have just by looking in their eyes. I've never seen such perspective in visual art before."

"Thank you," he replied, sounding rather surprised as his chin and neck turned red - apparently, he was blushing. Then he stepped forward and walked over towards the desk that was against one of the walls. "Here; I want you to see this."

She raised her eyebrows at him silently and watched as he opened one of the drawers of his desk with a key that had been stuck in the pocket of his pants, pulling out a thick packet of paper and then straightening himself up as he turned back towards her.

"Here," he continued, walking a little closer to her and picking up each page one by one very quickly, barely allowing her to see what was on them. "This is my maximum opus, _Don Juan Triumphant_."

"_Don Juan Triumphant_," she echoed, raising her eyebrows at him. "Isn't the legend of Don Juan that he was... well, rather licentious?"

"That's the legend, yes," he replied, continuing to pick up some of the pages. "This opera is a story about him. I've been working on it for the past ten years, eight months, two weeks, and six days... and when I finish, I'm going to get into a coffin that I've got here in the house, close it behind me, and go to sleep... and obviously, I won't wake up."

She drew in her breath sharply and raised her eyebrows, but didn't move away from him, as he thought she might. "That's kind of morbid. You should work on it as infrequently as possible."

"Well, considering I haven't even gotten through the first act and I've been working on it for almost eleven years, I'd say I'm going pretty slow." He paused. "But the point is, even after I'm gone, no one will ever listen to the music. I'm going to take the manuscript in the coffin with me."

"Why won't you let people listen to the music?" She extended a hand to the manuscript. "Will you at least let me look at it?"

"No," he replied fervently, shaking his head and taking a step slightly away from her. "I know that you're musically inclined, so you'd be able to read the notes, and I don't want you to know what the music is like."

She shook her head, but hers was in confusion. "Why? Are you really shy about your music or something? What?"

"No; it's none of that." He paused, taking a deep breath. "It's just that this music is... dangerous."

"The music is dangerous?" she echoed, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "How can music be dangerous? Unless, like, it's music that you'd hurt somebody to or something."

He cleared his throat. "Well, it may make you want to do that... that or something related to it."

She shook her head and looked confused. "I don't understand..."

"You don't have to," he replied, shaking his head and sticking the manuscript back in the drawer, at which point he locked it with his key and stuck the key back in the pocket of his pants. Then he turned his attention back to her. "Just know that you will never, _ever_ hear or read the music. That's my decision and I intend to stick by it."

"Okay." She paused for a moment. "So you haven't written any other music?"

"No. I just work on _Don Juan_ every few months or so whenever I feel like I can work on it... it really wears me out when I work on it, you see. And then I draw, paint - do some sort of visual art. Oh, and I write poetry."

She smiled. "You write poetry?"

"Yes." He paused, and then, suddenly, what she could see of his face had an awkward expression on it. "Is that strange - that a man writes poetry?"

"No; I think that's really cool. I like people who have artistic sides to them... maybe because I'm sort of an artistic person. Could I see the poetry?"

He shook his head silently.

"Why?" she exclaimed, shaking her head and laughing. "Is the poetry dangerous, too?"

"No," he replied. "I just don't want you reading my poetry. Some day, maybe, but not at this moment. And now come with me - we'll talk downstairs and maybe start some dinner soon."

"Talk about what?" she inquired as they started walking out of the room together.

"Whatever you want to talk about... except any of my work. I don't feel like talking about it any more." He let out a soft sigh. "Just talking about my music made me feel kind of tired, so imagine what I'm like after I write it."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Maybe you've got some kind of sickness. I've never heard anybody get tired just talking about something that they do kind of as a career endeavor."

He said nothing in reply, instead shrugging as they descended the stairs until they reached the first floor of the house, heading towards the living room and sitting themselves next to each other on the sofa.

After several moments of silence, she turned to him, a somewhat confused expression still on her face. "You know, it's never occurred to me until now - do you have any kind of job?"

"No; I don't have an actual paying occupation any more," he replied, shaking his head. "I got myself out of the last job I had back in Europe and came here to America... and that job paid me so well that I don't need a job. I probably won't need a job for the rest of my life, actually - unless my life situation changes somehow and I start supporting others than myself, which I very seriously doubt."

"Why's that? You don't think you'll get married someday?"

He scoffed slightly, shaking his head. "Stacey, I'm a man who's got a myriad of issues, both physical and mental, and I live all by myself and never go out - and I _like_ living all by myself and never going out. And since I live by myself and never go out, I never get the opportunity to see anybody except you, anyway, so I never get to see anybody who's a prospective marriage partner. Now, what about any of that says _marriage material_ to you?"

She shrugged. "Different people are attracted to different things. If the right woman met you, I'm sure they'd be attracted to you."

"The right woman would probably be blind," he said rather darkly, folding his arms across his chest and looking something like a child who was about to have a temper tantrum.

"Oh, James," she sighed, shaking her head. "I don't know what you look like underneath your mask -"

"And you never will."

"Ever?"

"No."

"Oh." She paused. "Well, like I was saying, I don't know what you look like underneath your mask, but I'm sure it's not anywhere near as bad as you might think... or that you make me think by the way you act about it."

"Trust me - the way I act isn't anywhere near the way I _should_ act about it," he replied, scoffing and shaking his head. "It's much worse than you think - no matter how bad you think it is, it's definitely worse."

For a moment, she looked like she wanted to argue with him, but then she shrugged and changed the subject. "So what job did you have back in Europe that made you such a wealthy man that you won't have to work at a paying job for the rest of your existence?"

What was visible of his face suddenly darkened. "That's for me to know and nobody else - especially not you. All I'll say is that I'm very glad, and very fortunate, to have gotten out of the job. It was terrible."

"Terrible in what way? You had a bad boss or something?"

"Yes, my boss was bad... and the job was bad, too." He paused, letting out a soft sigh and rubbing his eyes with a bit of difficulty due to his mask. "But enough about it. It's a thing of the past and I'm not going to talk or think about it any more... and I'm most definitely not going to go back to it ever again."

"Okay, then. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want." She glanced down at the watch on her wrist and saw that it was already around 6:15 in the evening. "Well, it's about dinnertime now. Would you like to start making something to eat?"

He shrugged. "Sure; that sounds fine. Let's go."

She nodded silently in agreement, and then they both rose from the sofa and started for the kitchen so that they could decide on something to eat together for dinner.


	4. Chapter 4: Games

**A/N #1: Thanks to ****Kali Rose****, an anonymous reviewer, for giving me an idea of what to finally write for this chapter. And again, thanks for your patience and for not yelling at me when I didn't update for so long. I kind of wish you **_**had**_** yelled at me, because then you wouldn't have had to wait this long for an update, but oh, well.**

**And now, without further ado...  
**

* * *

  
Chapter Four - Games

Several days later, Stacey sat in her World History class. Her teacher was lecturing on the Crusades, but she wasn't listening to a thing she was supposed to be learning. She was instead focused on the boy whose heart she wished she could win her own crusade for.

This boy, she'd discovered, was named John - John Malcolm. He was a Cross Country star, apparently, and therefore in very good physical condition. Although Cross Country wasn't a sport most were interested in knowing anything about, she'd found out that the school's Cross Country team gained a lot of attention because of John. He had many fans who cheered him on at meets, the majority of those fans being girls - girls who she didn't have a chance of beating when it came to trying to get him to go on a date with her. And even if she did have a chance, she would never have asked him; she was too shy to approach boys unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Stacey? _Stacey?_ Is anyone awake in that head of yours?"

Stacey snapped out of her trancelike staring as she realized that her teacher, whose name was Mrs. Weiss, was calling on her to answer a question she hadn't heard, and she immediately turned to Mrs. Weiss, raising her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head to further make herself pay attention to what was going on in class. "Could you repeat that?"

"I suppose so," Mrs. Weiss replied, sighing slightly. "I was asking you if you'd heard me say how long the Crusades lasted."

Stacey hadn't heard Mrs. Weiss say how long the Crusades lasted, but she knew the answer, for she'd read the information about the Crusades in her textbook the night before in order to have some idea of exactly what would be discussed. She therefore was able to reply, "Almost two hundred years... from 1095 to 1291."

"That's right," Mrs. Weiss confirmed, looking mildly surprised and nodding. "Good job."

Stacey smiled, darting a glance in John's direction to see if he was looking at her. He wasn't - he was instead passing notes back and forth to Blair Danwick, a Varstiy Cheerleader and one of the most popular girls in school.

_Well, of course he's paying attention to Blair_, she thought to herself with a soft sigh. _Everyone pays attention to Blair - she's so pretty. And she knows it, too... she's so vain and rude... but I guess he doesn't know that for some reason. Surely he wouldn't be talking to her otherwise._

Just then, the bell rang, dismissing students from the class. Stacey rose from her seat, gathering her supplies and placing them in her backpack before walking out of the classroom and heading to her next class, which was Advanced English II.

"Hey, Stacey... wait up!"

Upon turning around, Stacey saw that Blair was waving at her, walking quickly in order to catch up to her.

"Good," Blair said, smiling as she linked arms with Stacey. "Let's walk together - you've got English next, right?"

"Yeah," Stacey replied, looking down at her and Blair's linked arms and wondering why Blair was suddenly making friendly gestures towards her when she'd thought that Blair hadn't even know she'd existed.

"Well, I've got English, too. I mean, you're in the Advanced class, but it's all in the same hallway." Blair paused for a moment. "So how are you? We haven't talked in a while."

Stacey's eyes narrowed a little. "Um, we've never talked."

"Really? Haven't we been going to school together from the beginning - ever since Kindergarten?"

"Yes. But we've still never talked."

"That's so weird," Blair replied, shaking her head in a rather incredulous manner. "Well, anyway, we're talking now. And I wanna tell you... I saw you making eyes at John today."

Stacey said nothing in response, but her cheeks turned slightly pink.

Blair smiled. "So you _do_ like him. Good. Then I won't sound silly when I invite you over to my place this afternoon for a little study group."

At this, Stacey frowned a little. "What does my liking John have to do with a study group?"

"John's a part of the group, of course," Blair replied in an it's-so-obvious tone, laughing a little. "We meet at my house every day and study for a little while... and then we play a few games."

"What kind of games?"

"Old-timey kissing games... like Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven. Have you ever played Seven Minutes in Heaven before?"

"No. But I know the rules."

"Well, you'll be able to play it this afternoon when you come over. And when I tell John about you, he'll wanna play with you... see, he likes girls who are your type best - you know, the smart, shy type. It's just that he never knows who they are because he doesn't hang out in the same circles as they do, so they have to be pointed out to him. But whenever I tell him about you, he'll wanna get to know you... and one of the best ways to get to know a person is by playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with that person."

Stacey frowned again. "I thought going on a date was the best way to get to know a person that you might wanna date."

"No, no. You start with a kissing game like Seven Minutes in Heaven... and if playing Seven Minutes in Heaven goes well, you ask that person to go on a date with you."

"Oh," Stacey replied, feeling slightly embarrassed that she hadn't known this information about modern dating a long time ago. "Okay. So... when does your study group meet?"

"Right after school... at my house. Here, let me write down the address and the directions for you."

Blair then reached into her backpack and grabbed a half-sheet of notebook paper, writing down her address and the directions for how to get to her house with a pen. Then she handed it to Stacey.

"So we'll see you there?" she then asked of Stacey.

"Definitely," Stacey replied, nodding and smiling. She now felt that Blair clearly wasn't vain or rude at all - that she was actually quite nice. "Thanks for inviting me."

"Great. I can't wait."

Stacey nodded and smiled again, then walked into her Advanced English II classroom while Blair walked down the hall and to her own English classroom as the bell to begin the next class rang.

* * *

When the final bell of the day finally rang, and Stacey quickly made her way to James's house, where she wanted to make her appearance a little bit better before going over to Blair's house for the study group. She was very excited and immediately let James know it upon arriving to his house.

"James!" she squeaked as she ran inside the house, practically slamming the door enthusiastically as James rose to his feet and walked out of the living room and over to her. "You won't believe what's happened - I got invited to a study group, and guess who's a part of the group?"

She couldn't tell, as he was wearing his mask, but she was sure that he was raising his eyebrows underneath it. "Well, based on your enthusiasm, I'd guess it's that boy who you say is out of your league."

"His name's John," she informed him, still sounding thrilled, "and yes, he's part of the group! And apparently he really likes the type of girl that I am, so when we play kissing games after we study -"

"Kissing games?" he echoed. "You play kissing games at this study group?"

"_After_ we study, like I just said," she reassured him. "But anyway, when we play, he's gonna want to play with me... and if all goes well, he'll ask me on a date!"

"Is that so?"

"Yeah! So I need to fix up my hair... my straightener's here, and I've never used it before... but I think today is a good day to start."

And without another word, she ran up the stairs and to the room where she slept whenever she spent the night at his house in order to straighten her hair.

He looked after her for several moments, and then he turned and went back into the living room, where he decided that he would have one of his "pretending to read" times until she came back downstairs and was preparing to leave.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait too terribly long, for about fifteen minutes later, he heard the soft _thud_ of her footsteps coming down the stairs, to the first floor, and into the living room. Upon looking up, he saw that she looked prettier than he'd ever seen her before.

Along with straightening her hair, which she'd done perfectly, she'd changed into a different outfit that consisted of a v-neck three-quarter-length blue shirt, which brought out the blue in her eyes, a pair of jeans that had a few fake gems lining the top of the pockets, and a pair of white tennis shoes with a few blue stripes. Her backpack was on her back, so she apparently was prepared to go.

"So?" she prompted, shrugging and glancing down at her outfit for a brief moment before looking back up at him. "What do you think?"

For several moments, he was silent as he simply looked at her, and then he said softly, "You look incredible, Stacey. I've never seen you look so nice. If this boy is really all you believe him to be and likes pretty girls who are your type, he should really want to play a kissing game with you."

She smiled, looking down at the floor in a rather shy fashion. "Thanks."

"But," he then continued, clearing his throat and straightening himself slightly. "I want to tell you that you need to be careful. Don't let the fact that you like this boy cloud your judgment. If you play this kissing game with him and it gets to be too... amorous... then you need to stop and leave. You don't want to do anything that could end up impacting the rest of your life... you know, like getting pregnant."

His chin and neck were red, telling her that he was apparently embarrassed that he'd given her a lecture about something rather personal. This caused her to smile, and she walked over to the living room and sat next to him on the sofa.

"I won't go making any rash decisions," she replied reassuringly. "But thank you for your concern."

He nodded. "You're welcome."

After they'd looked at each other for a few moments, she leaned forward and lightly pressed a kiss to his chin before rising to her feet and heading for the front door.

"I'll come back when it's over and let you know how it went... and we'll have dinner together," she announced, her voice floating from entryway to the living room. "Wish me luck!"

"Good luck," he replied softly, but he wasn't sure that she heard him, for he heard the door opening and closing as she apparently left at the same time that he spoke.

When several moments had then passed, he reached up and lightly touched the part of his chin that she had kissed. And then, much to his surprise, he began to wonder if there was any chance that Stacey might not much like this boy she was so excited to play a kissing game with...

He wondered if there was any chance that she might like him just a little bit better.

* * *

Several minutes later, Stacey arrived at Blair's house. There were several cars there, which indicated that those who were part of the study group had already arrived and that she was late - and she'd known that she would be, but if making herself look a little bit nicer proved to be some kind of factor in winning John over, she would feel it was worth it.

After she'd rang the doorbell, the door opened, and Blair stood there.

"Hey!" she greeted her in a friendly tone, smiling at her. "You changed your clothes and straightened your hair... and you look really cute!"

Stacey smiled. "Thanks. Sorry it made me a little bit late."

"That's okay," Blair replied, waving it away for a moment before motioning Stacey inside. "Come on in - everyone's in the living room."

Taking a deep breath, Stacey stepped inside the house as Blair closed the door behind her. She then followed Blair down the hall and to the living room, where five or six of the most popular people at school were sitting. John was one of them.

"Everyone, this is Stacey," Blair announced to them, motioning to Stacey. "I invited her to start studying with us, and it'll be really good for us because she's really smart - she takes advanced classes. So whatever we're learning, she'll understand it better and will be able to explain it to us if we don't understand."

There were several appreciative-sounding murmurs from the group. When John's and Stacey's eyes happened to meet, he flashed her a perfect smile, and she rather shyly smiled back, feeling her face grow slightly warm.

"Yeah. So Stacey, go ahead and sit wherever you want."

"Okay," Stacey replied, feeling that it would be a little too forward and obvious if she sat by John and therefore sitting on the floor by the coffee table. She placed her backpack on the floor and opened it, bracing herself to take out whatever was going to be studied.

"So we're talking about Jane Eyre - are you reading that in your Advanced English class right now?" Blair inquired of Stacey.

"I read it in Advanced English last year," Stacey said. "I still remember most of what I learned about it, though. What about it?"

"Well, we've got these study questions, and this one question asks what one particular person and one particular thing in the book symbolize."

"Bertha Mason for the person... and the red room for the thing. Right?"

"Yeah. I guess you got the same study questions as we did. So anyway, we think we got down what Bertha Mason symbolizes... but we don't really know about the red room. Do you remember what you said about it - and if you got it right?"

Stacey looked thoughtful for a moment. "I know I got it right. I'm pretty sure I said that it symbolizes what Jane has to overcome in order to find freedom, happiness, and a sense of belonging. It means physical imprisonment and exile whenever she's actually placed in it, and she remembers it whenever she's in some kind of bad situation that's indicative of imprisonment and exile - you know, like financial troubles, social ostracism, and exclusion from love."

"Wow," Blair said, and she and everyone else in the room appeared to be impressed. "That was really deep... and I'm pretty sure you're right. Thanks."

Upon receiving this apparent approval from the people who were higher than she on the social ladder, Stacey smiled.

"And that's enough studying - for now, anyway; I guess we can come back to it later if we really want to," Blair continued. She and the other popular students in the room shared glances and rather secretive smiles. "Now we wanna play a game involving a room that's not red... that doesn't indicate imprisonment and exile. So let's put our stuff away and sit down on the floor in a circle so we can play Seven Minutes in Heaven."

The popular students cheered, and Stacey shot John a fleeting glance. He didn't notice, however. Then everyone put their study materials back into their backpacks and then sat on the floor in a circle, with Blair obviously being the center of attention even though she wasn't separate from the others in the circle.

"So we have to pick a God who'll pick who goes into the room," Blair announced. "Anyone wanna volunteer?"

"No, I wanna be able to go," one boy said. "God isn't allowed to go."

There was a murmur of agreement amongst the other popular students while Stacey said nothing, so Blair shrugged and said, "All right. Then I'll play God for a little while... but then someone's gonna have to switch off with me so I'll have a chance to go."

Everyone nodded.

"Okay," Blair said, taking a deep breath and smiling. "For the first couple, I pick... Stacey and... John. So get up, Stacey, and I'll walk you to the closet."

Stacey nodded silently, rising to her feet and walking to the other side of the living room with Blair. There was a door there, and when Blair opened it, it was revealed to be a walk-in linen closet.

"So I told John all about you," Blair then told Stacey quietly so that the others wouldn't hear, motioning for Stacey to step inside the closet, which she did. "And he practically _begged_ me to make sure that you two got picked at some point. So I told everyone else about what was going on..."

Stacey felt a little embarrassed at that. She wasn't exactly thrilled with everyone in the group being in on trying to get her and John paired up for Seven Minutes in Heaven.

"... And they all agreed to pick you and John if they got to be God, so even if I hadn't been God, you two would have gone first." Blair paused for a moment. "But anyway, don't mess this up. You want it to go well so he'll ask you out, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Stacey breathed, nodding fervently and feeling excitement run through her veins as she thought about what it would be like to be able to date the guy she liked.

"Then make sure you do things right. Let him take the lead... but don't let him make you uncomfortable."

"Okay," Stacey replied, nodding again.

Blair smiled. "Okay. Good luck."

And then she was gone and the door was closed, and Stacey was alone in the closet.

There was a silence for a few moments, and during that time, Stacey took a deep breath and closed her eyes, silently hoping that she wouldn't mess things up and that she would take James's advice and not let things get too out of hand.

The door opened, and in stepped John.

"Hi," he said, giving her another beautiful smile like he'd done earlier as he closed the door behind him. "I'm John."

She nodded. "I know. I'm Stacey."

His smile widened a little as he stepped closer to her. "I know. Blair told me about you today... and I couldn't believe I hadn't met you before. I wish I had; she made you sound really great. We could have been together for a long time by now if I'd known about you."

"Yeah, maybe." She felt her heart pounding.

"Not maybe. Definitely." He got a little bit closer. "Have you ever played this game before?"

"No."

"But you know how it goes, right?" He placed his hands on her hips, lightly massaging them with his thumbs.

"Yeah." She took a deep breath.

"Are you nervous?"

She bit her lip, feeling slightly embarrassed as she confessed, "A little."

"Well, don't be. I'm a nice guy. I wouldn't hurt someone as amazing as you... and I won't even do that thing that has a chance of hurting you. I wouldn't wanna do something that could defile you - I mean, we don't know each other that well yet."

"You think I'm amazing?" she breathed, awestruck at his use of that word and the fact that he'd said an older word like _defile_.

"I don't think. I know." He then reached up and softly stroked her hair with his hands. "You're really beautiful, too."

All of a sudden, she felt herself growing a bit weak at the knees.

"Have you ever been kissed, Stacey?" he then asked.

"No," she whispered.

"Well, allow me..."

He began leaning his face forward so that it was coming closer and closer to hers very slowly, his hands now resting on her shoulders, and she closed her eyes and started leaning in, too.

But then, suddenly, his hands were gone from her shoulders, and she heard the sound of the closet door opening and laughter. She opened her eyes as she started to fall forward, managing to catch herself by taking hold of one of the shelves in front of her.

The laughter continued, and she turned to see that John, Blair, and the others who had been part of the study group were standing outside the closet, laughing - at her.

"Oh, my God!" John exclaimed, and he and his friends kept laughing. "She _totally_ fell for it! She thought I thought she was amazing and beautiful and that I was actually going to kiss her!"

"Wasn't this an awesome idea?" Blair demanded, grinning.

"Definitely!" John agreed enthusiastically, and the two high-fived each other.

And then the group all turned and looked at Stacey, their laughter beginning to grow back to the level it had originally been.

For a moment, Stacey stood there, feeling totally shocked and at a loss as to what to do. But then tears welled in her eyes, and she realized that all she could really do in a humiliating situation like this was run. So she ran out of the closet, picked up her backpack, and ran out of the house and all the way to James's house, crying.

"_James!_" she cried out, sobbing as she entered James's house and closed the door behind her. "James...!"

After a few seconds during which she stood in the entryway alone, James came from wherever he'd been upstairs and joined her. She could see in his eyes that he appeared alarmed and angry upon seeing that she was crying.

"What happened to you?" he demanded, sounding rather infuriated and stepping closer to her before seeming to come to a halt. "Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?"

"No," she whimpered, letting out a little hiccuping sob. "But we were in the closet together... and he was telling me all these nice things... and we were about to kiss when he moved away and opened the closet door... and then he and everyone else started laughing at me! It was all some kind of practical joke to them!"

She then started fully crying again, and he sighed. "Well, that's a lot better than what I thought he did... but now you know that he's clearly not worth your time or your affections."

"Yeah," she replied shakily, sniffing and wiping her eyes. "But I still feel so embarrassed. I totally fell for all of it."

"Well, you trusted that things were going to work out the way you were told they were." He paused. "But now you know what kind of person he really is... an immature, foolish person who has absolutely no idea that you're likely to be the best thing that _never_ happened to him because he didn't see how valuable you are."

"You're just saying that."

"No, I'm not," he insisted, shaking his head in a rather fervent manner. "You're an intelligent, attractive, wonderful young woman and any man should consider himself lucky to merely be in your presence. Those who don't are fools. So come on, now, and stop crying. That boy isn't worthy of your tears."

She said nothing and instead removed her glasses, wiping her eyes and gradually ceasing her crying. In the process, he took her glasses from her and wiped them off on his shirt.

"Here you go," he said when he'd finished, at which point she'd also stopped crying and wiping her eyes, holding her glasses out to her. "There. Do you feel better now?"

"I guess so," she replied with a sigh as she took her glasses from him and put them back on. She sniffed a little. "Did you really mean what you said... that I'm valuable and attractive and all of that?"

He nodded and gave her a small smile. "Of course. And anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot."

She somewhat weakly smiled back. "Well, thank you. That's very sweet of you."

"You're welcome," he replied, shrugging. "Now how about you go upstairs and freshen up... and I'll fix dinner. Is there something in particular that you'd like to eat?"

"Anything that involves pasta sounds good to me."

"All right."

She nodded silently, and then she turned and made her way upstairs without another word.

For several moments, he looked after her, and then he turned and made his way into the kitchen so that he could prepare dinner for the two of them.

_Good God_, he thought to himself as he got a box of tortellini from the pantry so he could cook it. _I think I just started to have a crush on her._

* * *

**A/N #2: In case you didn't catch the reference, Blair is our modern Carlotta. So there. :)**


	5. Chapter 5: Action and Reaction

**A/N: I'm sorry I haven't updated for a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately for you darling readers, I've been in a writing stupor for the past while... I've been uninspired as far as writing online stories goes. So don't worry; my FictionPress readers are feeling the same way you are. (You can thank ****Starlight Whisper**** for finally pulling me out of it.) And just to warn you all, this is probably the last time I'm going to be able to update for quite some time... purposely. See, I'm going to the great wide world of college in August... and in order to keep this one scholarship I got, I have to maintain a 3.5 GPA... and in addition to that, I have to do work-study to earn more money that goes toward my bill. I therefore have absolutely no idea if or when I'm gonna be able to write. It all depends on how rigorous my courses are and how difficult my work-study job is. But just be prepared to have to sit around and wait on me for quite some time. I'll try to update next month (and maybe try to squeeze in another update in the beginning of August), but I'm not making any promises.**

**But anyway, I'm here and giving you this chapter now... so, without further ado...**

Chapter Five - Action and Reaction

"Do you have any sevens?"

"Go fish."

It was a weekend several months later, and Stacey and James were playing Go Fish, as they were holed up inside James's house. The fact that the two were inside wasn't too surprising, since they normally stayed inside the vast majority of the time, anyway, but the difference between this particular day and most of the others was that they didn't really have the option of going outside that day. This was because there was a hideous rainstorm going on outside - one that was much worse than the one which had occurred the night the two had met, one which all the local weathermen were deeming "the worst storm Montville has had in five years."

James was a recluse, but he didn't like being inside when such wasn't occurring entirely of his own accord, which it hadn't really been for the majority of the day. The awful weather was forcing him to stay inside when he otherwise would have at least had the option of taking a walk outside, so the weather was apparently depriving him of his freedom of choice. He had therefore been in an irritable mood for several hours, and the fact that he and Stacey had done nothing but play card games that were, in his opinion, largely pointless, for most of that time wasn't helping matters.

Stacey drew a card from the deck between her and James, as James hadn't had a seven, and placed it in her left hand alongside the rest of the cards she had. She then looked at James, who only had one card left and was therefore about to win the game - something which she assumed would brighten his mood at least a little. "Your turn."

He glanced down at the single card in his hand and intently studied it as if he was willing it to be a card for which she had a match. Then he looked up at her. "Do you have a Jack?"

She briefly examined her cards and sighed rather reluctantly. "No. Go fish."

"Damn it," he muttered irritably under his breath, taking a card from the deck.

"Do you have a three?" she then asked him.

"Go fish."

She drew another card from the deck and brightened a little. "Here, I'm gonna help you. Ask me for a Jack again."

He pursed his lips. "Why don't you just pretend that I already asked you for it and give the card to me?"

"Fine," she agreed, handing the card over to him. He took it from her and placed his two Jacks down on the table alongside all his other matches. "Then it's my turn to ask again. Do you have a nine?"

"Yes, thank God," he sighed in evident relief, giving her his final card and leaning back on the sofa. "That game took forever."

"I know. But you won. Doesn't that make it even a little worthwhile?"

His response was a shrug as he closed his eyes.

"Let's move on to another game; it's become very obvious that you don't like Go Fish," she then suggested, picking up all the cards and beginning to shuffle them. "What haven't we played yet that you can think of?"

"There is one game that I can think of... it involves cards, in a way," he replied, his eyes still closed. "It's called _Let's Not Play Another Card Game; We've Been Playing Card Games for Two Hours_."

"Well, what are we going to do instead? There's not much for us to do."

He sighed. "If you're so bored here with me, Stacey, you can walk yourself back home in the rain."

"I didn't say I was bored," she retorted. "I just said that there isn't much for us to do. You don't even have a T.V. for us to flip through the channels to try and find something to watch."

"T.V.s are called idiot boxes for a reason. It's because only idiots waste their time watching them. If you can't find suitable entertainment that doesn't involve sitting and gaping at a screen for hours on end, then you obviously are an idiot."

She shook her head and sighed in the same fashion that he had a few moments before. "I wasn't trying to say that T.V.s raise your I.Q. or anything. I was just saying that if you had a T.V., we'd at least kill some time trying to see if we could even find something to watch on it. But anyway, it doesn't matter. What do you want to do?"

"I want to go for a walk outside. But I can't because of the damn storm."

"Obviously. So what do you want to do that's a viable option right now?"

"I don't know, Stacey. You think of something to do."

She shrugged. "I can't think of anything for both of us to do together that we haven't already done and that you didn't find boring after doing it for not very long."

He opened his eyes and stood up straight, looking somewhat irritated. "Well, then we won't do something together. We'll each find something to do by ourselves. I'm choosing to go upstairs and do... something. I don't know what I'll do, but it's better than sitting around and doing nothing."

"What, you don't wanna talk to me? That's not sitting around and doing nothing." She followed him out of the living room and up the stairs to the third floor.

"I've been talking to you ever since you got here. Admittedly, some of it's been asking whether or not you had a certain card or something like that, but it was talking all the same. And now I need some peace and quiet."

"Well, sorry I've been destroying your precious peace and quiet," she said sarcastically, and he could tell that she apparently had a certain amount of the irritable mood that he had. "If I'd known I would bother you so much, I wouldn't have come over. I thought you would appreciate the company, though -"

"The company's really starting to get on my nerves now," he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to her.

She heard him, however, and let out a halfway-insulted, halfway-irritated scoff. "You know, I didn't come over to be subjected to your bad mood. I came over because I wanted to spend time with you because you're my friend. But since _you_ apparently don't want to spend any more time with _me_, then I don't have to put up with you anymore today."

"Nobody's made you put up with me at all," he snapped, turning on his heel and facing her. She could see that what was visible of his chin and his neck were red, and she knew that they were such out of a certain degree of anger. "And no one's making you now. So if you want to leave, leave. I'll be glad to get my peace and quiet back."

Her eyes narrowed as she folded her arms across her chest. "Well, you don't have to be an ass about it."

He was slightly taken aback, as she had never said a curseword in front of him before, but he was more irritated at the current situation than surprised at her use of that word. "I'm an ass by nature. And you know, just because I'm being an ass doesn't mean you have to be a bitch like you are."

And then she slapped him.

She hadn't thought that she'd slapped him very hard, but she slapped him hard enough to make his mask come off. She therefore saw his face - an awful sight to behold.

He was, as she had suspected for some time, deformed, but she'd never imagined that it would be such like it was. Most of the factors of his deformity might have been considered minor, but they had affected his appearance to such a scale that it was horrible to see. His skin was deathly pale and so thin that she could see the contours of his skull and, in several spots, veins. His eyes, which looked normal whenever he was wearing his mask, were in fact sunken into his face so that it somewhat looked as if his face was made of clay and his eyes were artificial and had been shoved into that clay. He didn't have a nose; there was only a hole where it should have been. To her, his face seemed to be a living skull.

After absorbing this dreadful vision for a few milliseconds, she screamed and covered her face with her hands.

He might have only been momentarily shocked if his mask had come off and nothing had resulted from it, but he didn't get to find out whether or not that would have been true, for her scream set him off. He grabbed her by the shoulders and roughly shook her.

"BITCH!" he screamed. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? WHY WOULD YOU EVEN _CONSIDER_ SLAPPING ME?"

"Let go of me!" she cried out, still crying and struggling to remove herself from his iron grip. "I didn't do it on purpose! I'm sorry!"

"YOU'RE _SORRY?_ THAT'S NOT GOING TO HELP THE SITUATION ANY, IS IT? IT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU SAW MY FACE!" He shook her again. "I WARNED YOU, DIDN'T I? I WARNED YOU ABOUT MY FACE!"

"Yes, you warned me!" she agreed with evident terror in her tone, her voice sounding something like a hoarse screech. "I'm so sorry... I won't do it again; I'll never slap you again; I'll never do anything that would make your mask come off! Please, let go of me! You're hurting me!"

"I'M HURTING YOU, AM I?" he snarled, his voice echoing off the walls and resonating. "I HAVEN'T HURT YOU _ANY_ YET!"

And he raised a hand to strike her, the other hand taking a tight hold around her wrist. She saw the motion and tried crumpling to the floor, letting out a cry of terror and cowering so that she might avoid the hit.

He saw the way her eyes were squeezed shut in fright, how red her face was from how hard she'd been crying the past few minutes, and then realized that his hand was raised with the intent to hit her. Any anger that he'd still had within him immediately shriveled up and died, and in its place was humiliation and remorse - humiliation from her having seen the horror of his face and remorse for having frightened her so badly.

Without any more thought, he released his hold on her, at which she immediately fell to the floor, covering her face with her hands and crying harder than he'd ever seen her cry. Then he decided that there was nothing more he could do except retreat, so he turned and entered the room where he spent most of his time, closing the door behind him as he went.

"I'm sorry, James," he heard her sobbing several moments later. "I'm so, so sorry."

He slowly closed his eyes, wishing that he could take back the past few minutes and therefore prevent all that had occurred - all that had, in all likelihood, frightened away the only friend he'd had in years, the girl that he'd been growing to like as more than just a friend. Because of his horrible face and even more horrible temper, he was entirely certain that would find himself alone again not too long from that point.

Feeling overwhelmed with guilt and self-hatred for the fatal errors he'd just made, he walked over to his piano and folded his arms atop it, resting his head on his arms and willing himself to die so that he might avoid the pain that would come with being lonely once more.

Some amount of time passed, and while it did, James slept. He only woke up when he heard the sound of knocking at his door.

"James? It's me... I have your mask; I figure you want it back. May I come in?"

It was Stacey, sounding somewhat afraid but also considerably less upset than she had been earlier when his mask had first been removed. James wanted to rush over to the door and open it for her so that he might see her and see for himself that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't lost his one friend. He was still ashamed by his earlier actions, however, and he didn't want to expose her to his unmasked face again so soon after it had caused as much trouble as it had - or ever again. So he simply continued resting his head on his arms atop the piano, waiting for her to simply leave him be.

The doorknob was jiggled from the outside, indicating that Stacey was trying to open the door herself so that she might come in but wasn't having any success because James had locked it when he'd entered.

"James... please let me in. I know you're probably still really upset with me and I understand. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have reacted to your face the way I did. I just..."

Her voice trailed off, and he thought to himself, _I know what you wanted to say - _I just didn't know it was that horrible, so I guess my reaction was natural._ It's nice that you didn't say that, even though it would have been true._

"I just want to make things better, if I can and if you'll let me," she finished after several moments, not saying what he assumed she'd wanted to say. "I still want to be your friend... you're the only friend I've got and I don't want that messed up just because I unintentionally made your mask come off. So will you please let me come in so I can give this back to you?"

At the expression of her desire for reconciliation, he felt relieved, but he was still too afraid to let her in. So he just lifted his head off his arms and turned toward the door, watching it intently to see what she would do upon his second refusal to allow her inside.

There was silence for several moments, and then he heard her sigh. "All right. I'll just shove it to you under the door so you can get it and put it back on whenever you feel like it. And I'll just go ahead and leave, since I guess you're not in the mood to talk to me right now. I'll be back tomorrow... and I hope we'll be able to talk and try to fix things then."

His mask then appeared, sliding underneath the door and then sitting there on the floor, waiting for him to claim it. The sound of her footsteps departing from the door then began to sound, and he felt afraid that if he allowed her to leave now, she wouldn't really come back the next day despite the fact that she'd said she would.

He immediately rose to his feet and picked up his mask, placing it on his face before heading for the door. He opened it and stepped out rather tentatively, calling out for her.

"Stacey?"

There was a brief silence before she responded, apparently from somewhere on the stairs, "Yes?"

"Stay there. I'm coming down. Please stay."

He closed the door, walking down the stairs until he reached her. She was standing on the part of the stairs that was between the first and second floors, her head slightly down so that he could see nothing of it except her hair.

For a few moments, he scanned her up and down, trying to see if there was any visible damage which he'd inflicted upon her during his fit of rage. He quickly found that there was - a line of bruises was forming around the wrist which he'd been holding onto when he'd been preparing to hit her.

Swallowing hard to try and rid himself of the lump that was forming in his throat, he reached out and made to touch her hand so that he might better examine the bruises. He wasn't able to do such, however, because upon the lightest touch of his hand, she immediately gave a light jolt and pulled her hand away.

The fact that he'd frightened her enough that she wouldn't allow him to touch her made him feel like he'd been kicked in the stomach; he suddenly felt that despite the fact that she wanted to make things better between them, it would be a long time before he regained her complete trust due to his actions.

"Sorry. Do, ah... do those bruises hurt you? I'll get you some ice if they do."

"They don't hurt," she replied softly, gently taking hold of the hand with the bruised wrist with her other hand. She didn't look up at him. "It only hurt when, um... when you were holding onto me."

He sighed. "Oh, Stacey. I'm so sorry. I've never let you know it, but I have an awful temper... especially if my mask comes off and the reaction's not good... which it never is. I wish you hadn't found out about my temper the way that you did. But I suppose there's nothing I can do about it now except apologize. I'll try to keep it in check next time."

"There won't be a next time," she said, shaking her head. "Your mask isn't going to come off around me again... not because of me, anyway. I'm going to avoid contact with your face so I don't risk having your mask come off."

"That's probably for the best," he agreed. "And since it won't come off, my temper probably won't flare up."

She nodded silently.

He briefly bit the inside of his cheek before he asked, "So... are we okay?"

For a moment, she said and did nothing in response, but then she finally looked up at him, which relieved him. He could see that her face was still slightly flushed from the crying she'd done... but despite that, he still felt that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

"I wouldn't say we're okay," she replied. "But we're better than we were a few minutes ago. And I figure we'll get back to okay eventually."

He sighed, halfway out of relief that things had slightly improved between them and halfway out of disappointment that she'd said that they would get back to being okay "eventually." He knew that "eventually" could be a long time. But they were still friends, which was what mattered most to him.

"All right," he then replied, nodding. "All right. Then would you like to have dinner with me? Or would you rather go home? It sounds like the storm's passed."

"I'd rather stay here for now," she said. "So let's pick something to eat."

He nodded silently in agreement, and then they made their way to the kitchen together. And as they did, he silently vowed that he would do everything in his power to keep around the girl before him. Because in that moment, he started to feel that he needed her.


	6. Author's Note: Important! Please Read!

**Dear Readers,**

**I want to apologize for basically disappearing off the face of the Earth. I honestly feel really terrible for keeping you all hanging for so long… but now I am here and I must give some news.**

**For various reasons, the primary one being that I really no longer have any interest in writing it, I'm discontinuing ****Take Two****. But since I'd like to ensure that no one is disappointed by the fact that it's being completely abandoned, I'm going to offer you all a chance to pick up the pieces and make the story your own!**

**Do you think you have a good idea for the direction in which to take ****Take Two****? Let me know your ideas (as many and as detailed as possible—I would really prefer that whoever picks up the story pretty much knows where he/she is going to go with it). And if I think that your interpretation is interesting/good/etc., you'll be given the reins for ****Take Two**** and it will become your story!**

**I really hope at least one of you is interested in doing this because honestly, I feel bad for just… ditching the story. But I don't want to keep writing it, either, because I no longer feel any real motivation to do so. So if you're even the least bit interested, please notify me of your ideas via PM! I think it'd be really interesting to see my story picked up by someone else and see where it goes now that it's not mine.**

**Thank you all for how much patience you've had (if you have any more at this point; ha ha).**

**Your obedient servant, friend, and authoress,  
LovetheScottishAngel**


End file.

Phantom of the Opera, Drama