A/N: Please drop a line and tell me what you're thinking as you read! Otherwise, I feel like I'm shouting into a sad, lonely void.

Context is largely the ALW stage musical because it's freshest in my memory, but there are touches of Leroux and also Google Earth (street views of Paris, the Palais Garnier, and the underground "lake"). You are, of course, free to imagine whichever iteration of the Phantom works best for you. :)

"He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god . . . ."

-Aristotle

Prologue

It was little comfort at the time, but the Phantom knew right after Christine Daae's departure that his grief would not kill him. He knew this because when the mob subsequently descended on his lair, he chose to go on living. Before he fled, he was even so lucid as to plant his spare mask where it would be seen, so that he might be presumed dead—or at least disappeared.

He donned a hooded cloak and took to the sewers, as usual, but he headed where he thought no one would expect: up. Tears dripped down his cheeks for the duration of his half-hour trek to the summit of the city, the butte Montmartre.

He had not been this way in a while, and he surfaced too early, near an ill-kept row of apartments. Farther down, an equally unkempt man leaned against a brick facade, sipping from a bottle of what appeared to be cognac. The Phantom produced a handful of banknotes and thrust them in front of the man's face. "All of this for the bottle," he said, and the man's eyes grew wide.

Seconds later he was on his way again, now taking long swigs of cognac. He generally abstained from alcohol, a puritan only for the purpose of preserving his voice. But what use did he have for that voice any longer? Of course, a glass would have been preferred.

By the time he reached the construction site of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica at the highest point of the city, his muscles were pleasantly lethargic. He slumped against a low, unfinished wall of the chalky white stone being used to construct the church; the reprieve caused fresh agony to churn like bile in the pit of his stomach.

Christine's ability to empathize with him in what was likely the worst moment of her life had shaken him right to his core, turning him inside out so that he was newly vulnerable, a pink-skinned infant first exposed to the harsh light of day from within the sanctuary of a loving embrace. He felt the anguish behind her pity. He saw her hopes and dreams shattering like the chandelier he had once sent careening to her feet. He had done that. To the woman whom he'd claimed to love. He had been the one to break off the kiss, because he could not stop seeing everything that he had taken from her—and yet, there she was, still giving him everything she had.

But, oh, the images of his treachery had not stopped after he separated himself from her. The vicomte's angry devastation still burned before him. And then there were Ubaldo Piangi and Joseph Buquet, and the numerous others he had harassed and extorted and manipulated without even considering until now that they had first names. Each misdeed had pierced his memory like a knife to the gut until he thought he might keel over. Only his angel's wide, probing eyes had reined in his focus.

Oh, Christine. That beloved angel of light. He had known he must get her out, for all of their sakes. He had made short work of freeing the vicomte and sending the pair on their way, his sanity dangling by a thread.

And now...now he could unravel. The grief crashed over him like a tidal wave, sobs wracking his body until it ached. Gradually, as though drowning in his tears, he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he awoke, he was flat on his back, a blanket of stars materializing overhead as the sleep left his eyes. The full moon was high and bright in the sky. He pulled himself to his feet and took in his surroundings: cool white stone, platforms and ladders, pulleys and masonry tools. The power of architecture being realized was perhaps what he relished most about the site—that and its uninhibited view of the Paris skyline. The site's elevation seemed a sharp, formidable contrast to his usual position in the underworld—but in actuality, he knew, he was just as far removed from humanity as he'd ever been. Above instead of below.

He picked up the half-empty bottle of cognac, his face burning with the shame of his uncouth consumption, and hurled what remained of it at the city. He heard it shatter somewhere in the distance.

He thought of Christine, her face when she had reappeared to return the ring that he had placed on her finger. She had been crying, and the last look she had given him was almost wistful. Was it possible that she harbored even an ounce of regret? Where would she go next? What if she sought him out again?

His thoughts then moved from her to the opera house in general. Would it stay open? How would the company fare without its lead soloists? The unknowns plagued him one by one, until he could barely grasp the enormity of what he'd done to his theater. No, the theater. He had finally acknowledged that he was not and had never been a welcome contributor to its operation; his resulting envy had turned out to be the kindling that enabled a spark of vicomte-induced jealousy to accelerate into a fiery inferno.

They knew where he lived, and they wanted him dead...but he had to go back. He had to know.

And so he began his return trip to the 9th arrondissement and the opera house contained therein, his gait now sluggish and erratic. Before he had exited the Montmartre district, a woman beckoned to him from a street corner. Her cheeks were stained with rouge, and her cleavage strained against the neckline of her dress; to call it a neckline, in fact, was a generous concession given how far from her neck it actually was. "Need some company this evening, love?" she purred, and he could not help but gravitate toward the sound of a voice that actually welcomed him. The streetlamp hit his face, and though her gaze flickered warily to his mask, she did not retract her offer. "We can do whatever you'd like," she told him, running a fingertip down his arm. "I won't judge."

Given his distorted, masked face and his complete lack of experience in the boudoir, he was not certain that he believed her. But then, he supposed, enough money could overcome most aversions. And he had a lot of money.

Christine's kiss lingered on his lips, taunting him with its singularity. He would hold fast to his resolve to leave her alone, he determined, but his desire and loneliness raged on. Now so broken that he could barely muster an ounce of self-loathing, he nodded and allowed the woman to lead him by the hand to her small quarters and help him forget his pain, if only for a moment.

And it worked, in a way. He paid for a full night's company—and for the utmost discretion regarding the same—and when he risked a stealthy return to his blessedly empty home the following morning, he was focused enough to assess the vandalism (hardly any—perhaps one of the Giry women had intervened?), and even to devise a way to deter potential future trespassers.

Over the next month or two, he found that if he cycled through enough women and moderately apportioned liquor, his anger and despair were kept at bay. When Christine married the vicomte and the newlyweds left for an extended honeymoon, he even sampled opium. He had all but stopped playing and writing music, for his muse had gone, and in music's place he allowed himself the reckless self-indulgence that he had never entertained as a possibility before.

And then she came back to fill the role of lead soprano.

It was a surprise to everyone, but when Christine and her new husband returned from their honeymoon to a freshly remodeled opera house and a prima donna role reserved in her name—Carlotta having left the country, and the Phantom presumed long dead or departed—she accepted.

But he had not died or departed, even as a husk of his former self. How could a man so easily leave something into which he had poured his blood, sweat, and tears? The theater felt like a physical extension of himself. His words, his ideas—they had shaped the management, the central nervous system that kept everything running. The orchestra pit made up his larynx, releasing the melodies that came from deep within him. The stage was his rib cage, enclosing the vital organs of the opera.

And his heart—oh, his heart. She was still beating. And as long as she beat on in that venue, he felt he must remain there out of admiration and devotion. Their destinies were intertwined, he felt, and she would surely call upon him once again.

He managed a significant reduction in his drinking, and he resumed various pursuits—architectural, literary, culinary—in order to fill his days and distract his mind. He still did not touch his pipe organ, though he began to feel occasional urges to play. Whether his continued avoidance was rooted in self-punishment, traumatic association, or some combination of the two, he could not say.

For nearly three-quarters of a year he remained, undetected and self-sufficient, in the home that he had long ago curated for himself and newly protected with a combination of physical barriers and clever diversion. Music prohibition aside, he carried on as he had for years before—but now as a hollow shell of a man, his anger and passion largely replaced by depression and guilt. Still, he thought, at least the worst had passed.

He was wrong.

Chapter 1: A Proper Vicomtesse

Sitting at the edge of a courtesan's bed, the Phantom drank deep from a glass of water before he slid his trousers back on. He was not proud to admit it, but he had developed a routine for his brothel visits. First, select a girl, usually a repeat if possible so he would not have to reiterate his terms. If a new girl, though, detail the terms: the mask stayed on; no kissing; no touching his face or hair. Second, satiate physical desires. Once she slipped into the washroom, hydrate. Get dressed. Leave generous tip on bedside table and disappear before her return, thus minimizing any exchange of words and subsequent guilt over her general lot in life and his taking advantage of it.

He patronized one of the cleanest, most discreet establishments that money could buy, but it was still a brothel, and once his shamefully primal physical needs were met, it had very little to offer. Although...was that a newspaper he spied on the nightstand? He picked up the previous day's issue of Le Petit Journal, folded open to a gossip and entertainment page. "Plebian garbage," he muttered. He was about to toss the paper back onto the table when his eye caught the phrase "PRIMA DONNA."

He was still staring at the article in disbelief when the girl returned, wearing nothing but lacy white drawers and black stockings. Her strawberry blonde locks were now pulled back into a lazy chignon, and the cloying aroma of her newly applied perfume preceded her. She slid her hands up his back and shoulders in a gentle massaging motion, peering around him to glimpse the paper. "Shame about that leading lady, isn't it?" Her voice had the high pitch and fast, stumbling cadence of a small child. "That she's leaving the stage, I mean. Rotten good luck for her, of course."

His head snapped up. "What could possibly," he asked, "be fortuitous about abandoning one's craft?"

"She'll be a proper vicomtesse!" The girl's voice lilted with romantic envy. "Soon she'll spend her days in the beautiful countryside, being doted on by her dashing husband and waited on hand and foot by servants." She raked her fingernails down his back, making him shudder. "And besides, she must have horrid memories of that theater that she's ready to part with. It's a wonder she even went back in the first place, being married to the vicomte. It isn't proper, if you ask me."

He had, in fact, wondered the very same upon the couple's return several months ago. He had been willing to overlook the oddity, clinging to the vain hope that she might one day return to her angel of music out of either desire or necessity. That hope had now been shattered by a gossip page; he felt as though his heart had filled with lead and plummeted to his feet like an anchor.

His companion, meanwhile, did not stop gibbering as she began to sashay around the small room, uncorking and pouring champagne for the two of them. "...And then I told Claudette that she would hardly enjoy the opera because she'd have to wear clothing!" She emitted a creaky, high-pitched giggle, and he briefly closed his eyes in annoyance; this was the most she had ever spoken. Now her grating voice would be forever ingrained in his memory, tainting any future carnal pleasures. He'd have to find a new girl.

"I only wish I could hear the vicomtesse sing before she leaves," she lamented, handing him a champagne flute. "I imagine she is lovely."

He took the glass absently, his soft reply surprising them both: "She is exquisite."

When Christine had first returned to the stage, he had taken to dark, hidden corners of the theater to watch her sing. She was not the same performer the company had known; gone was the childish innocence, the wide-eyed desire to appease and to learn. She still had an unoffending sweetness, but it had dulled, like a honeyed wine left uncorked a bit too long.

But heavens, she was good. It was as though she had shed her residual stage fright and tossed it onto the pile of costumes and relics from Don Juan that were ultimately torched in one large, purgative bonfire, the unnerved stagehands having pled for the destruction of the cursed objects. She emerged a full-bodied phoenix from the ashes of the Opera Ghost era, and both the company and patrons were entranced by the way she now commanded the stage. She was splendid in an operatic comedy, certainly, but the tragedy...well, that was her pièce de résistance. Her onstage anguish was palpable. He ached with pride.

Even her new husband seemed surprised by her transformation, his usual mask of protectiveness softening to accommodate a gentle veneration. They were an intolerably handsome couple, sought after for every gala and event, and their conspicuous intimacy became too much for one Opera Ghost to bear; he soon retreated into his dark, familiar solitude, surfacing only to spy on the occasional day-to-day operations.

"Now then," the girl said, trailing a finger down his chest and pulling him out of his thoughts. "I would love to hear more about your nights at the opera. Are you all set for the evening, darling, or should we have another go?"

He took in her tousled hair, her makeup, her uninhibited breasts. Suddenly, everything about her was garish and repulsive. "Quite set," he replied. He set his untouched champagne on the nightstand and shoved a few francs into her palm. "In fact, don't expect me again. This was a mistake."

"That's what they all say, darling." She smiled and blew him a kiss as he donned his black cloak and fedora. "You know where to find me."

He exited the building swiftly, slipping like a shadow between intersections of brazen women and raucous, drunken men. The weight of his despair grew heavier as he descended into the subterranean maze of sewers beneath the city. He was uncertain which upset him more, that Christine was giving up her true calling or that she was moving to the country where he could not reasonably follow. Either way, he was tired. Tired of inadvertently nourishing every hope that sprouted within his breast, only to have it systematically crushed.

As he strode through the stone passageways, his boots kicking up murky water, he considered new paths forward in the wake of the bad news: 1) Kidnap Christine, again. 2) Kill self. 3) Succumb to drug and/or alcohol addiction (essentially, a slower but possibly less painful version of option No. 2). The latter was certainly the most appealing, but not far from what he had already been doing these past several months—and, frankly, not very poetic. If he could not have music in his life, he thought as he crossed the threshold of his home, then he could at least hope for poetry.

He had spent all of twenty seconds in his sitting room before he was startled by the sound of a splash and a shriek in the distance, beyond the large metal portcullis that separated the elevated room from the waters of the underground lake. The faintest hint of a smile played at his misshapen lips. Drama and intrigue, he thought, would be a satisfactory alternative to poetry for now. And perhaps he could work off some restless energy as well.

The Phantom of the Opera readied his infamous punjab lasso and retreated to the hallway to lie in wait.

More notes, because I'm apparently Notey McNoterson today: Please excuse any weird formatting. This site is not cooperating with me at present, and I'm trying to figure out alternatives.

Also, I've taken a few liberties where factual accuracy is concerned. It's nearly impossible to find the perfect intersection of historical and geographical accuracy in every detail, plus sometimes I'm just lazy.