Disclaimer: This story was requested by Kurino. Characters not mine, I just play with them. Not for profit. The title means Silence is the Answer (not my idea.). Christine's final words imagined. Full disclaimer and explanation in the first chapter.

Glistening drops fell to the now filthy floor as Erik watched his angel leave him, glancing back at him once with a pitying look etched on her face. Yet she did not know of the damage she had done the genius that lay in emotional ruins in the fifth cellar of the Opera House that had been home to both of them for years now- a home which seemed silent and empty, crumbling as Erik's Angel of Music made her final exit from his lair. It might as well have been in ruins for how welcoming it now felt to the Phantom.

Christine's final words seemed to echo in his mind, haunting him to a degree. The last thing that the Swedish soprano has said to him was that she thought he needed help. Erik needed someone, perhaps someone to care for. Bah, caring for someone? Erik was not capable of that. He was capable of hurt, anger, and agony. -To himself and others-but love was beyond him, he was now sure of that. The abandonment of all who'd had the misfortune to encounter the self named monster had all run from him. Lied about their affection to keep Erik from becoming enraged at them, and possibly killing them. That was not love that was not even respect. That was self preservation.

Christine's words did not seem to make any sense to him. She of all people should know that he was doomed to die alone, unloved, and angry with the world. How could he ever find anyone who would love him, or even be comfortable in his presence? Erik frowned. Why did he need anyone anyway? He had become used to loneliness after his fifty or possibly more years (he did not know of his age. His birth was not a celebrated thing in his home, and he therefore did not know the date of his birth) of life.

The last thoughts that the Opera ghost had as the room around his swayed and black spotted around him, consuming the cellar he had called home for the last years of his life were that he did not need anyone, and never would. Besides, he couldn't care for anyone, could he? Not that anyone would care for him as well...