A/N: Okay, I know my last two Phanphics have been E/C, but this one is totally different and has nothing to do with them. So, with that out of the way, please enjoy!

Note: I own nothing but my OC. If I owned Erik, I would be a very happy camper.

Warning: Violence and murder in this chapter. A horrible way to begin a story, I know, but still.

Chapter One:

Five years.

Five years after the Opera Populaire had gone out of business because of the chandelier crash.

Because of me.

No, a voice in the back of my head said. A dark voice, one I didn't like at all. It was the years of insanity speaking, of lonliness, of . . .

It was Christine's fault. That voice again.

. . . Christine.

"Christine." My voice, once so strong, broke in a thousand shards and crashed to the ground in despair.

I hid my face from the upcoming passerby. I would need a new mask.

"Tuppence?" a beggar woman called. "Tuppence for a poor, miserable beggar woman?"

I dropped a British coin into her hand, whilst covering my face with my cloak.

The London night was foggy, dreary, and cold, nothing at all like Paris.

It was the perfect place to hide.

Dark and damp were what I had been used to since my childhood. Before even my move to the Opera Populaire, I was regarded with cruelty and abuse. Before even my brief stay with the Roma that ended in the murder of my keeper. By my hands, of course.

When I glanced up, I caught sight of something that made my blood run cold.

A newspaper with a drawing on the front, a drawing of a man with a mask. To be precise, a man with a mask covering half his face. The headline read: Phantom of the Opera Populaire. I picked up the paper, skimming through the article. They had spoken with Raoul de Chagny, the bastard, and he had told them everything about me. Apparently, I had been expected to leave France completely. For once, the excpectations were right.

I scowled, ripping the paper in half, tossed it to the street, then continued on my way to find lodgings for the night.

Agonized screaming startled me, then drew me to a dark alley.

"No! Please!" the voice of a woman shouted.

"C'mere!"

I dashed to the scene, taking out my beloved lasso.

The man brandished a knife, kneeling next to the naked form of a young woman with short, matted black hair. She seemed only half-conscious as I tossed the lasso around the man's neck, dragging him to my side. He had hardly the time to cry out before I had strangled him. I left the lasso around his neck and turned my attention to the girl..

She looked at me with tears in her dark blue eyes, and I took off my cloak to cover her, then picked her up. She was even lighter than her slim, wispy figure suggested.

"Thank you," she managed to whisper before falling unconscious.

I carried her out of the alley in the shadows, straight to an inn. The inkeeper and his wife raised their eyebrows in shock at my face and the girl in my arms, but gave me a room to sleep in and her medical attention. They used old folk remedies and prayer, but eventually, it did the job. She slept soundly on the bed while I brought a chair to her side, to watch and call out if she developed a fever.

I had just begun to doze off when she groaned, startling me.

"Wh . . . where am I?" she asked, her groggy blue eyes scanning the room, then landing on . . . me. The right side of my face seemed a point of fascination to her, then she stared into my own eyes. "You saved my life," she whispered, sitting up, drawing the sheets around her. She startled me even further when she wrapped her arms around my neck in an embrace. "Thank you, kind sir, thank you so much!"

When she pulled away and kissed my deformed cheek, I wrinkled my eyebrows in confusion. "You're . . . not afraid of me?" I said, unsure whether I was losing it or not.

She shook her head, smiling a bit. "No, of course not," she said. "I've seen worse. My father is—was—a battlefield doctor and sometimes had to tend to burned and injured men in the house when I was a child in Boston. Sometimes, men came in with missing limbs." She held out her hand. "I'm Chelsea Ivy."

"Erik." I took her hand and kissed it.

"Just Erik?" she asked, a wry smile on her face.

I managed to return her smile. Something about this American girl was infectious. "Just Erik. No last name that I can remember."

"Then make one up," she suggested.

What a strange girl with strange ideas.

Chelsea tilted her head with curiosity. "I know this is ruse to ask, but what happened to you . . .?" She gently touched the right side of my face in a tender gesture I had never known. The warmth of her hand startled me, and I flinched. Her eyes widened in alarm. "I'm sorry!" she blurted. "Did . . . does it hurt to touch it?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "I'm just not used to someone . . ." I sighed, not finishing that sentence. "I was born this way."

She nodded, not with agreement, but with realization. "I'm sorry if I offended you." I raised my eyebrows as her mouth widened in the biggest yawn I had ever seen.

"Sleep," I ordered, putting a hand on her shoulder and forcing her to lie down. "You're tired."

"No, I'm not," she protested, even after closing her eyes and curling into a ball. I soon found myself smiling tenderly at her sleeping form, then closed my own eyes, leaning my head back against the chair.

For the first time in years, I fell into a deep, restful sleep, without dreams of Gypsies or, worse, Christine.