Hey people sorry this took so long and i acknowledge that this was a VERY long wait and for those who have stuck with this story over this wait BLESS YOU. my poorly contrived excuse is that I had school finals and that crash everyone knows happens after school gets out and you don't want to do anything. It wont happen again because my scatter brain moment is gone and im ready to get this story written. Reviews are loved updates will be more regular now that im out of school. Enjoy!

Chapter Seven: The Discovery Of The Obvious

Erik and Olivia sat on the divan in the center of the main room in Erik's home, Olivia resting on Erik's shoulder, a glass filled with sweet, dark wine balanced in each of their hands and the reunited friends recapped there years of separation. Erik told her of everything. The world he had created for himself just beneath the noses of the Paris aristocracy, the kindness of Madame Giry and her little girl, the little girl who stretched out her hand to welcome an orphan into her large and diverse family as her closest sister, the orphan he would visit nightly in her dreams as well as his own who would grow up to be Christine Daae. Erik told Olivia about the Viconte and the love triangle that angled itself between the three of them, and the final fall of the opera house, and his love.

Erik had emptied his glass while Olivia had barely sipped at hers; her eyes and thoughts somewhere away form him. He sneaked a glance at her profile resting casually on his upper torso. He thought of the bruises that were hiding underneath the garments that she wore. Smoothly he took a finger and turned her chin towards his face. "What happened after I left?" he asked.

Olivia's face fell as dark memories flashed across her mind. "I grew up. But the more I grew up, the more I wish I was forever a child." She sighed. "Our master saw…business opportunities…in me."

"I killed my master," said Erik harshly.

Olivia shook her head. "You killed your keeper, Erik. But you did no kill his master Erik. The master of us all, and was my keeper." She looked deep into his eyes, as if she was attempting to instill in him the fear she had accumulated in her lifetime. "Claudius Barum, the gypsy baron, the master of us all." Olivia took another breath; Erik heard the shaking in the air as it passed between her lips.

"He hurt you," Erik supplied softly. He ran his hand over her hidden bruises, careful not to touch her body. "He used you."

Olivia nodded. A little after you left, the person I selected each night was allowed to have me, and sometimes, more than sometimes Barum took me after they did." Olivia looked at him. "Apparently beauty is just as profitable a selling point." Erik didn't speak merely nodded.

"What kept you there, bound to such cruelty, for all that time?"

"Fear of what they would do if they ever found me, a fear for what they would do to you if they ever found you, because of me."

Erik blinked, confused.

"I danced to protect you, to save you from the scheming, their plots, as much of their backhand as possible. The reason why they didn't pursue you as hard as they would have was because they were soon occupied with the business had in me.

Erik let out a breath. "You condemned yourself to this life, became their star, their plaything, to protect me.

"Yes," she responded. The word was simple, yet profound. There was a beat of silence before she continued.

"When I was twenty, I had an astounding realization that you were not going to be found. With that fear gone, I slowly began to grow bolder, less compliant. But when I refused by first patron was when Barum decided to…intervene…and he broke me that night. He did not, however, break what he wanted. He cemented the idea that you were clever enough to evade capture, perhaps so was I. I imagined the life you made for yourself, and I wanted one of my own, with you. That night I left the camp to try to find you."

"And what did you do?" Erik asked.

"I did the only thing I could, that I knew how to do to make steady money in order to search Europe to find you. My only fear was that you went to America. They have a policy against admitting…prostitutes." That was the first time she said the word, and she spat it out as if it were toxic. "My only wish was that you hadn't forgotten me. Olivia drifted off into silence, moving her wrist slightly so that her wine swirled around in the crystal. She took a long sip, deliberately swallowing each mouthful.

Erik shifted out from underneath her and stood in front of her, she looking up at him with a question on her face. He extended his hand to her. "I want to show you something," he said.

Olivia took his hand and he smoothly lifted her form the divan and led her over to the hidden panel that his room hid behind. Erik walked her past Christine's bed and towards his massive organ. On the side on the instrument resting on a narrow strip of wooden paneling he reached for an object that was hidden from Olivia by Erik's back. He released her hand so that so that he could pick up what he was hiding from her. "Look," he said quietly, almost tenderly, as if her were holding a beloved child. Resting in Erik's hands was a music box with a lead monkey sitting cross-legged on top wearing beautiful dark red Persian robes. But the thing that she noticed the most were the cymbals the figurine held in its hands. The cymbals that she hand worn of one of her hands that she had amused a lost, lonely boy when she was a child. Gently she reached out and traced the edge of the brass circles with the tips of her nail. "You kept them all these years," she said. She looked up and saw the corners of Erik's mouth turning upward one half disappearing under his mask.

"I never forgot about you, how could I forgot the person that first gave me music…gave me kindness."

Olivia smiled up at him.

Days passed and Erik and Olivia eased into the brother and sister camaraderie that they had when they were children. They talked of their past more and Erik soon began to wade himself into the way he was with Christine, the ever present Angel of Music. Erik played for Olivia; he played the music he toyed with when he was a child first living at the opera house in the realm of his calling. He however stayed away from the longer darker pieces of his man hood drowning in unfulfilled want and desire, the years Christine had live in the opera. That is until that day that Erik was playing upon his instrument and Olivia was sitting at his feet, wide eyed and awestruck in the way that Christine had been, how he always dreamed she would. Erik drifted into the darker pieces lost in his memories as his soul silently bled on the ivory while his fingers crossed and re-crossed the keys, not keeping track of what Olivia was wandering over to.

"Erik," she said.

He stopped playing with a jerk, the melody being strangles as he came back to reality to see Olivia in a corner by a long table touching a rose with a jet black ribbon wrapped around the stem that lay there. "What is this?"

Erik stood and walked over to her and the rose while Olivia continued to talk to him. "I wore a rose like this in my hair when I danced, why did you make this?"

"I made more than that one," said Erik dodging the question. Olivia raised an eyebrow and waited. "It childish, really," he said but she was not to be hindered. "When you danced, I watched you. I saw you throw a rose like this at the feet of men, and when they did they always looked as if they would love you for forever. I made them, because I thought the same would happen when I gave them."

Erik turned his head and struggled to keep his face composed as he thought of how drastically untrue that was. He thought of the hundreds of roses he had given her, his Christine, how he had watched her making sure she found it, and the soft smile of her face when she did making his heart flutter, which now was nothing more than an ache. All those roses, all that hope, all for naught."

"Erik."

Erik looked down and saw Olivia he eyes trained to the door. "I am going up for a bit. I won't be long, I promise." Olivia was already out of his room before he nodded his consent. Slowly he walked out of the room to find the main room was also empty. Erik roughly sat down in a chair by the wall and ran his hands through his hair. He felt sorry for himself to be like this, and he felt sorry for Olivia to live with a person like this. Erik was trapped in the canyon that divided the time before and after Christine was lost to him and he was forever falling deeper and deeper into the blackness. Everywhere he saw memories of her, everywhere he looked, and everything he did somehow his mind could connect to her. This was only eclipsed by his dreams where she was there. Erik sighed leaning his head back, reclining the chair on two legs. He hated being like this with Olivia, he loved her too much.

Erik jerked his head up and the front legs came back to the floor with a slam. Love? His mind had thought love. How was it possible? He unconsciously had put Olivia and love in the same sentence. It seemed so natural his mind argued. He though about that. He thought about how a friendship had grown so easily between them, a friendship that didn't require him to his much of who he was. He though of how Olivia had made the burden of Christine lessen from the all encompassing it used to be. So much he had dubbed thinking of Christine as a burden, again an unconscious act. His mind was in fast forward now as he though of their weeks together how he had carried bits of her through all of his life, and how she had spent her life searching for him.

He believed it. He dared to believe it. He loved Olivia and she loved him. For the first time in months he felt his heart beat again.

Erik heard the door open and he leapt to his feet and walked towards where Olivia was entering the room. He however slowed down when he saw the somber look on her face, and stopped all together when she spoke.

"Erik, I'm leaving."

Everybody say cliffhanger! Aren't I evil (wicked laugh) So now you know Olivia's back story. What do ya think? People I am giving you a prompt for a review USE IT!!! pretty please.