Little Meg Giry attentively listened to her mother as she told her the fascinating story of the Opera Ghost

DICLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Gaston LeRoux. I simply borrow them and play with them a little I also used some dialogue from the PotO libretto (the story Madame Giry tells)

Author's note: Although the scene here can be connected with the musical and 2004 movie, the physical descriptions of Christine and Meg are from the book.

Also, thanks to my beta phantomphan1992!

I dope you enjoy this story and please review!

Meg tossed and turned restlessly in her bed, desperately wanting to fall asleep. . Today had been a particularly exhausting day after all, physically, mentally and emotionally. It was the opening night of Don Juan, and the performance was going quite well until it was frightfully interrupted by The Phantom's abduction of Christine. It all happened very fast. The kidnapping, the fire, the search for the man she knew was no murderer. Thankfully, the fire was put out before it spread too far, but it was enough time for Erik to escape. And now she wondered if shed ever see him at all.

After what seemed like an endless amount of time, she threw her off her covers, as it seemed sleep was determined to avoid her. She got off her bed and lifted her mattress, producing the perfect white porcelain mask. As she contemplated it, she thought of the last time her mother told her the story she had heard so many times.

--

Little Meg Giry listened attentively to her mother as she told her the fascinating story of the Opera Ghost. She was no stranger to the story, for she asked her mother for it almost every other night.

"Mama, won't you tell me about the Phantom of the Opera?"

"Again, child? But you know the story better than I do!"

"Oh Mama, please? I love that story so!"

"All right, my dear. Only because it's your birthday. But let this be the last time. The Opera Ghost is a secretive man. "

"Mama! I would never tell, you know that"

"I know, darling. But even the ears have walls. Surely you can understand that you're beginning to turn into a young lady. Promise me this is the last time you'll ask for the story"

"I promise, Mama"

"Many years ago, I came to the Opéra Garnier. I was very young, studying to be a ballerina, one of many, living in the dormitories of the opera house.

One day we visited a fair that was traveling in the city. Gypsies. There were many strange things. A man with skin that could stretch as if it were made of rubber, a bearded lady, A man who could eat fire…The final stop was in a dim tent. There was a cage. I wondered what sort of strange animal they had locked up there that could surpass the many strange things we had already seen.

There was a sign hanging over the side 'Devil's Child.' I was frightened. I didn't know what would come out of the tarp…and then suddenly a man came out dragging a…why it was a boy! Just a young boy, perhaps only a year or two younger than I!

There was a burlap sack in his head. I couldn't help but think 'How awful!'

The older man was cruel, he beat him and poked horrible fun; and then, he removed the sack from his head. All the girls shirked away from him screaming in horror, shallow as they were. All they saw was his mangled face, but I saw his eyes, and, oh, what sad eyes! He seemed to be carrying all the sadness of the world.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the torture and embarrassment of this poor boy ended, but to him it must have felt like a thousand years.

I turned to leave, and was almost gone when I heard an unpleasant noise. The following minutes went by as a blur I looked back and, the boy! He must have gone mad! He grabbed a rope of the floor and began strangling the man who had caused him so much pain and suffering, and after a second, if that at all, the man fell to the floor and he was no more. Someone must have heard the fall, because someone came rushing in and started crying 'Murder! Murder!' The Gypsies began to come in and I rushed forward before they could get to the boy and grabbed his arm, and ran. I ran back to the opera house and led him to one of the dungeons, through a loose bar window. I went back through a side door and reported to the dormitories, before anyone noticed I was gone. But I quickly made my way to the dungeon where I met Erik. Yes, he told me his name that day and I told him he could live underneath the opera house, that I would make sure he was safe.

I hid him from the world and its cruelties. He has known nothing else of life since then. And now this is his opera house .It was his playground and, now, his artistic domain. He's a genius. He's an architect and designer. He's a composer and a magician. A genius."

--

"He is a genius Meg. Don't you forget that."

Those words echoed in her head every time he was accused of yet another disaster. She could hear her mother saying them to her with her ears.

Yes, it was true that he was behind many of the strange occurrences at the Palais Garnier, and yes, he had indeed written all the notes he so mysteriously signed O.G. but he had not once committed murder (except for those many years ago at the gypsy fair)

She remembered the burning anger in her mother's eyes when he was accused of Joseph Buquet's murder. They were the only two who believed him innocent. It was true that Buquet had angered the ghost and he had taken it upon himself to haunt the man, and unfortunately, he was driven to insanity and hung himself. Piangi on the other hand, was not murdered at all, simply knocked out.

The phantom was a complicated man.

His story was sad, but so fascinating. She wondered if she'd ever see the face of the man she had pictured so many times in her thoughts and dreams. She knew he was deformed, she knew he hated anyone seeing his face, or even seeing him at all, but she knew she would not be disgusted. She knew from her mother the kind of man he was and she knew to look past any disfigurement and see the soul inside.

But would he ever understand?

The last time her mother dared tell her the story was on the eve of her tenth birthday. She missed hearing the story, even though she knew it by heart (by the age of six).

She knew her mother began to fear what would happen if the Ghost found out that she was retelling the story of how he came to be in the opera house and refused to tell her the story again.

She understood the man, but wished he knew more of the world than his terrible experiences as a child and his dark days living beneath the magnificent Opéra Garnier. She wished she could somehow tell him, somehow show him that there were people who would understand, that there was at least one person he could trust.

He had chosen the wrong person.

Yes, it was true that for some time Christine became fascinated with the Angel of Music, a man who dared not reveal himself to her, yet seemed to care for her and who took her under his wing. At first, it was wonderful. The Angel had never been more at peace.

Christine confided in her, and she felt terrible at not being able to tell her the truth.

Christine was sure that her father had sent her the Angel of Music. She even wondered if the angel could be the spirit of her father. Meg had to act as if she as well, knew nothing, when in fact she knew everything!

She looked back at the empty bed that was once Christine's. She remembered when the young diva had asked for her usual bed in the ballerina's dormitories only one night after she had been transferred to the ex-Prima Donna's quarters.

Meg knew exactly why. She remembered searching for her friend that night, finding the passageway that was hidden behind the mirror. She recalled her excitement at finally finding the entrance to they mysterious' ghost lair, but had only advanced a few feet before her mother stopped her.

The Viscount's arrival had ruined everything. The Ghost had thought he had at last found a soul to share his life with. Christine's betrayal ruined him, destroyed every last hope he had deposited in humans.

But Meg knew he had gone the wrong way about it. She understood the young girl well; she had every reason to be frightened when the phantom's madness was unleashed.

Meg always wondered why the Phantom chose Christine. He did not seek beauty, for it was beauty that had shunned his ugly face.And perhaps she envied Christine. Not for her blonde locks or magnificent blue eyes; not even for her angelic voice. She envied her because the ghost...her ghost fancied her when there was nothing particularly remarkable about her, after all her voice had actually been quite ordinary before the phantom's tutelage. Yes, she had a right to call him her ghost. She was the only one, apart from her mother, that knew the truth. Perhaps the only one who would ever understand him.

She was drawn back to reality by the melancholy wail of a violin. She recognized the piece, The Resurrection of Lazarus. She made her way to the open space in front of the window, so moved by the piece she began to dance. It was no choreographed dance; she simply let her body react to the music and the emotions that welled within her. She fell into a dream; and danced with more passion than ever before.

Meg was so deep in her dream that she did not sense the pair of piercing, calculating eyes that watched her every step, nor did she see the shadow of the man who slowly came from behind the statue on the roof.

He played his piece for her and she danced for him, and a time of mourning became a time of new hope.