I lowered my sunglasses against the glare of the flashing lights of the paparazzi. I raised my arm and waved at my fans, they had come to greet me at the airport with signs and cameras, just like they always did when I had done something noteworthy that had made me get in the plane in the first place. Really, I didn't want to be swarmed at the airport; I mean, I'd just flown from California to France, I'd gotten connecting flights in who knows where and flown for ten hours. I was tired and my butt hurt. Really, all I wanted to do was find my bed for the next month and sleep, order room service, and sleep again. God, why did these people even want to see me? I look like hell warmed over.

"Salut, Danielle! Welcome to France!" I smiled back at the reporter.

"Salut Mademoiselle, Merci beaucoup!" That only started a whole slew of other questions aimed at me. Bad showboating. I just smiled and walked to the waiting car. The driver pulled away and began driving me to whatever hotel I was staying at. I slumped against the seat; I wonder how many celebrities the driver had seen brought down like I was now? I tried to keep my eyes open as we wound our way through the confusing map of roads they called the Paris streets. I cringed at the thought of having more people waiting for me at the hotel, I didn't want people to pay attention to me when I looked like this.

"We are coming up on your hotel, Madame, just a few more minutes." I almost felt bad I didn't know what to call him when I thanked him, but I was too tired to care right now. I looked up at the grand, old building that was going to be my home for the month. For a moment my exhaustion was wiped away.

"Oh my." I couldn't form a complete sentence. It seemed like someone had turned an old palace, or French noble mansion, into a five star hotel. I was shocked at the luxury that I was afforded, not only was I being paid to sing some of the most beautiful songs that had ever been written, but I was living here, God, I was afraid to even walk in the door; I look like a homeless person compared to the people I see milling about outside the door. Quick as I could, I took out my phone and used it as a mirror while I wiped smudges of makeup off and fixed my hair into some semblance of order. Too soon we were stopped at the door and more lights were going off. Slowly I got out of the car and the driver pulled my bags from the trunk. Fast as I could I smiled, waved, and fast walked into the hotel lobby where there were, thankfully, no cameras.

"Hello, I'm checking in; Danielle BellRose?" The clerk typed my name in and handed me a room key.

"Here you are, Madame BellRose; shall I call a bellhop for your bags?" I shook my head.

"Thanks, but I can do that myself." I hung my bag on my arm and pulled my rolling suitcase behind me. I stood in the elevator by myself and pressed the floor number I was staying on. They didn't have elevator music here, I wonder if that's a French thing, or just a this hotel thing. The word for hotel is weird in French, mainly because the French have pretty much deleted the letter from the beginnings of most h-words. So hotel is ôtel with a silent h in front, and ôpital instead of hospital. I don't know why silent letters bug me so much; but if they're not going to be pronounced at all, why be there in the first place?

The doors slid open into a nicely lit yellow walled hallway lined with doors. I looked down at the number in my hand: 12; my lucky number. I felt dead on my feet, all I wanted was to go get in my new bed and sleep until they had to drag me to rehearsals, sigh; such as a day in the life of someone fresh off a nine hour flight. My back hurts. My bones hurt. My everything hurts. Ugh, my poor human meat.

Someone was standing in front of the door to my room, their hands in their pockets.

"Blaise!" I dropped my bags and ran to hug him. I could feel the tears in my eyes, even after all the time he had been back, I still cried a little whenever I saw him; I could always see him lying in that bed, dying, while I could do nothing. I remembered the day when I saw him again.

I stood, nervous and almost shaking, waiting for the director to come and talk to us. I knew all the songs, all the lines (what few there were), and practiced the dancing. Now we were getting together for the first time to run it through as a group. This was my first real, big time, play; you know, in this century. My heart was hammering. Why do I do this to myself? I should run. I could hide out somewhere where they would never find me, become a hermit, grow a beard, and shave it off, and live happily ever after. Somewhere in the middle of this rant, someone had snuck up behind me and covered my eyes.

"Guess who?" My mind went blank. The storm of emotions broke, giving way to complete and utter sorrow. If I had a real guess, I'd say Blaise; this man had the same voice, a little lower and rougher, no French either. It was enough to get me to fight tears. I took a breath, an unintentional sob came out. "No, no Danielle, c'est moi, it's me!" The hands pulled away from my eyes and turned me around. I must be crazy.

Because in front of me was my dead friend.

I knew it couldn't be true. To me, it had been over a year since he died, for the Earth, it had been 150 years. A few rogue tears dropped out of my eyes and I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep from howling in sorrow. He looked like him too. But bulkier and taller. His hair was also brown instead of black. And his jaw was squarer. But he had Blaise's eyes. And his curls. And the lips that were stretched into a look of panic.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know you'd cry; I just figured that since we'd be working together we'd see each other eventually and I wanted to try and make it casual! I never meant to hurt you." He put his larger now hands on my arms and rubbed them up and down. I broke out into an all out storm front.

Blaise wasn't dead; not any more. He was right here. I cried so hard I gave myself a headache and ruined the makeup I'd worked so hard applying. Blaise tried to get me to stop, but all he did only made it worse, not that having everyone stare at me like I was insane helped either. Finally, I pulled myself away from him and hid in the bathroom. I don't know how long I was there for, trying to calm myself down. Taking deep breaths just made me dizzy as I hyperventilated. I need to go home, before this goes any further. I can apply to the community college, buy my textbooks online and figure out what else I'm good at and do that, be a normal person and have a normal life, try to forget everything I ever wanted and occasionally do community theatre. Or never act again, that's cool.

"You thinking about coming out?" I rubbed my eyes, trying to get all the moisture off my lashes while salvaging some of my makeup. I'd exhausted myself with crying. And once again in my life, I could blame Blaise.

"No, I'm mapping out my new life in here, you know, around all the people barging into my new apartment." I blew my nose hard on some bunched up toilet paper. "Don't talk to me." He laughed. "Don't even laugh. I can't stand it."

"Well, what do you want me to do? I can't leave you here, they're expecting you." I dug my fingernails into my palm, trying to distract myself from the inside pain, with outside pain.

"I don't want you here, at all."

"Harsh." I kicked the door.

"Do you know how hard it was to lose you? To have to sit there and watch you die, knowing there was nothing I could do? You meant the world to me. I sat as people bad mouthed you, realized they were wrong and dealt with the fallout. The only comfort I had was that you weren't in pain anymore, that you didn't have to deal with this world anymore. And when I've finally been able to move on, try and live life to the best of my ability like you would've wanted me to, you pop out of the fucking woodwork! No one told me that it's a possibility that the person you watched die would just come back from wherever the hell they prance off to after death. Do you understand how any of this makes me feel? It's like you kicked me in the head, pulled out my guts, and God knows I know how that feels! How could you do this to me Blaise?" I started to cry again and sat on the ground blocking the door.

"How could I die, or how could I get the nerve to come back?" He sounded like he was trying to smile. I don't want him to smile, I want him to know what he's doing to me, how he's killing me.

"Both!"

"Look, I don't know about the logistics of the last, and I don't got a good answer for the first. People die, it hurts the people they love and it burned me really bad, dying like that. In my prime. Happy with where I was in life. But I was stupid, I was drunk. I made a bad choice that I couldn't take back."

"And I had to be the one to bury you, for God's sake I'll be the one to bury you again!" I balled my fist and smashed it against the door. "I was the one who chose where you rest, I was the one who bought the oak crate they lowered you in, I commissioned a sculpture for your headstone, so don't walk up to me like nothing happened and expect to be forgiven, just because you weren't there to see me suffer your death." I was past the hyperventilating stage and on the track to calming myself down; thank God the rage was replacing sorrow. "I loved you, stupid. Didn't you know that? And you died, died, then it was like I had no one. I know there were people there for me, but you were the only sane one, you knew all my secrets, everything in me. How could you leave me alone?" I broke down again. Why did this have to happen now? This was supposed to be the most exciting moment of my life, now I just feel sick. I want to throw up, I wanted to drown myself. I just wanted this to stop.

"Danielle, I know I hurt you. I know that you might not forgive me. I thought it would be easier if we pretended that nothing happened, so I tried that. I think I knew it wouldn't work, but I didn't want it to be like this between us. I just wanted us to be friends again, without all the trouble of talking about my death. I just wanted our friendship back."

"you're stupid, even if you hadn't metaphorically killed me when you decided to pop back into existence, you know me better than that, I always need to know everything, we would've ended up just where we are now." I pressed my forehead against the door, trying to cool the feverish heat of face. "Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong."

"Bowie."

"Yeah."

"Gonna come out now?"

"No."

"Come on."

"Say it in French."

"Manger de la merde."

"Liar."

"Now come out." I unlocked the door and buried my face in his chest before slamming my fist into his stomach. He groaned, and slid to the ground.

"If you ever do that to me again, I'm going into Hell to drag your sorry gay ass back myself." I offered him my hand. He pulled me down on top of him.

"Thanks. And with that, we're even." I pulled myself up and began to walk away. "Hurry up." Blaise pulled himself off the floor and followed me.

"So, you ready to get this on? In Paris?" I dropped my bags and opened my door, kicking the heavy shoulder bag into the room, pulling the rolly one after me.

"I'm ecstatic; it's so good to be back in the motherland." He lay back on my bed, making himself at home. I put all my bags in the hotel closet. God, this room was big. I started feeling a little smug through my weariness. I was the high baller at this hotel now. I stood and surveyed my land. Large, well lit bedroom, walk in closet. I walked over to the bathroom, ready to see what I had gotten. A large bath tub greeted me with pristine white tiles. I almost wept. This was some kind of beauty. If only this could be my home away from home.

"Are you excited to see what they did to our opera?" Blaise had been busy kicking off his shoes; one thumped to the floor, then the other.

"It's not our opera… is it?" I turned and nodded. "But it can't be. It's not the same name."

"They shut it down for a while, when they reopened it, they had changed the name to Opera Garnier, because they figured that the Opera Populaire was cursed." Blaise clenched and unclenched his jaw, something he had come to do when he was thinking.

"Is this a bad idea? Are we testing fate?" I raised my eyebrow.

"Fate's a dimestore bitch with a bad haircut, don't listen to a word she says. Besides, we signed contracts, we have to do it." He groaned, falling back on my perfectly puffed pillows and complimentary chocolate. "Come on, Monsieur Phantom, it'll be fun."

"I'm not so sure about that, Madame Daae; last time I was in Paris I died. And I bet they're doing my riggings all wrong." He added petulantly. I went and sat next to him.

"They're not your riggings anymore, you've immigrated to the stage." I kissed him on the cheek, trying to lessen his frown.

"Fine. But I am so checking them. Can I sleep here tonight?"

"Of course you are. Fine, but I get to be big spoon." We shuffled our clothes off, brushed our teeth, and went to bed. I'd be lying if I didn't say I pressed my frozen feet to the back of his legs.

My heart was hammering in my chest. I looked up at the impressive visage of of the once Opera Populaire. I suppose the unpaved streets made it look more impressive back 100 years ago. My God, what would these halls say if they could talk. Where the stables were, now there is a loading zone. Where there were once flames, now there are beautiful walls. Antiques, they called them. I reached out for Blaise's hand and grabbed it.

"You were right, this is a bad idea," I said. Blaise nodded, in reverence of the massive opera house we had both once left behind. "I can't believe that you never came back here after you remembered who you were."

"Well, I didn't want to go back to an Opera house that didn't have anyone I loved still in it." Blaise had told me that he always had remembered who he was when he was growing up. His memories had come gradually through the years, only remembering his death around age 15. He remembered me next to him. What a nightmare to wake up from. And he was like six years older than me. When he remembered who I was, he was already too late to stop what my father did to me; he said that it was his greatest regret.

"I wonder if we could get down to Erik's lair." The boat would surely a rotted memory on the lake bottom by now. Oh God, would we have to swim? I don't even know where that water comes from, I don't want to swim in it.

"Wouldn't we have to swim to it or something?" Blaise said, echoing my thoughts.

"Not unless we sneak a kayak down there or something." Blaise smothered a laugh.

"Well, we can figure something out. I mean, we're hot and smart; we could probably do whatever we wanted if we put our minds to it." He tried to pump himself up.

"Yeah, except go into an old opera house." We both looked up at the Populaire with dread. Blaise groaned in frustration.

"We're stupid."

"Yup."

"Moronic."

"Yup."

"Completely masochistic."

"Oh yeah."

"Ready?"

"Not at all. Let's roll." I squeezed his hand and marched forward. This was going to be hard. And I think I might throw up.

Though the doors we met a stage hand that was sent to meet us. The entrance was as grand as I remembered it. More so because of the electricity. So many memories came flooding back to me; ending up here, meeting Erik, dancing at the masquerade, the opera burning. The ghosts of those memories walked the halls, almost blinding me to what was happening in front of me. I focused hard on the man standing in front of me.

"Please come this way, everyone is assembling on the stage for pre-production. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to them." We smiled and followed him, both of us desperately trying to keep the ghosts of our lost loved ones from preventing us to work.

The stage looked like it had over a hundred years ago. Even the actors milling around talking to each other reminded me of all the people I left behind years ago. I dug my nails into Blaise's hand as we walked up, reminding him not to let them see how much this was affecting us. I put on my best showman's smile.

"Hello everyone, it's so wonderful to see all of you again." Blaise echoed me, and everyone was put at ease. I tried to pay attention, but my mind kept wandering to everything else. I wonder if we're going to sing today, or are we just going the introduced to our new surroundings. I looked over at Blaise. He was looking up into the riggings and frowning. I looked up too. There was someone tying a knot and walking away. Before I could stop him, Blaise stood up and began yelling.

"Hey, you donkey-monkey! That's not how you tie a bowline! Do you want that to come crashing down on us?" I stared at him blankly. I couldn't even tell what it was attached to. Silently I reached up, grabbed his shoulder and sat him down. The knot-tier sheepishly went back and fixed his knots. "That's right, you fix those sloppy knots! Remember: a good knot is all the difference between an actor and a man with a dented-in head. Don't make me come up there to check those for you!" Blaise threatened. I let my face fall into my hands. He looked back to his work and saw that everyone was looking at him.

"I tried to stop you," I said as I looked down at my own script, already thick with the notes I'd been making for the last months. Blaise lowered his eyes to his script, pretending to look at the direction. I mouthed 'sorry' to the rest of the cast and the humiliated man above. We went through the staging a few times on stage, not singing yet. At the end of the day we were all being ushered to the door.

"Hey Blaise, wait." I caught him by the arm and we hung back, walking slowly, trying to not attract attention. He looked at me, not knowing where I was going with this. "Do you think we could try searching the catacombs?" His eyes widened before he looked around, conspiratorially.

"How'll we ditch the bodyguards?" I snapped my fingers and rushed to the side and through a doorway while no one was looking, dragging Blaise behind me.

"Come on, I know all the ways down and all of the Phantom's tricks. I just… need to see it." He nodded, understandingly. If anyone knew what I was going through, it was Blaise.

"Okay, let's do this crazy biz. Lead the way." I pulled him along behind me, somewhat afraid that he would get lost and I would turn around and he'd be gone, never to be found again.

I lead us down the long spiral staircase, the scraps of banners from long forgotten shows still littering the walls. I kept close to the railing and skipped the steps that chad been turned into boobytraps. Walking down takes forever, and I have no idea how we would've made it without our cell phone lights. After a while we got to the dock.

"Time to strip down and swim from here?" Blaise looked in the water, not impressed with the greenish cast.

"Drop something in, see how deep it is." He looked scandalized.

"Like what? My phone?" He said in his sarcastic voice. I looked around, seeing nothing that could be use as a measuring device. Seeing no other option, I stripped off my socks, shoes, and pants. Blaise looked horrified. "You're not going in there." It was more of a statement. I tied up my hair in a bun, squirming my toes.

"I have to." I tensed all my muscles and slid into the water. I jumped as the water swallowed me up to the bottoms of my breasts. "Chilly underboob!" I held my light high above my head, thankful that my hair was up. I felt a disturbance in the water next to me, I looked around and saw Blaise with a supreme frown on his face, pantsless next to me. "Ready?" He gave me a look, clearly displeased.

We walked on, phones shining light off the water around the cavern. It was nothing like I remembered. With Erik, it had seemed like someone was caring for it, but now it seemed abandoned and creepy. I walked the directions my body could never forget, despite never walking before. It took about ten minutes of walk wading until we saw the portcullis. I felt a lump rise in the back of my throat. It was up, rusted into position. The dark pit beyond seemed to swallow up our lights and turn the beams to nothing. We walked up the bank, almost banging into some candelabras. I found an ancient match and lit all the candles I could before turning back to face Erik's home. Everything was in disarray, covered in dust and cobwebs thick enough to hold back a human hand. I lifted a bright candelabra in front of me trying to survey the scene best I could. Blaise looked incredibly fascinated, reading the few musical pieces that were left on the once shining oak desk. The mirrors were still smashed but the curtain was pulled back and the emergency exit was left a black, ominous passage. I started to shake. I walked up to what had been Erik's bedroom. It was an even worse state than the other part. It looked like someone had left in a hurry and never come back. I started crying. I had loved this place, why did it have to turn out so horrible? What did I do to deserve this?

"Erik." I called through sobs. "Erik, come back. Come back to me." I knew Blaise could hear me, but he knew me well enough to know that I wanted to cry this out alone. "Erik." I called again, looking at the beautiful swan bed I once dreamed we could share. But I'd always known that it would be nothing but a dream. "Je t'aime, Erik. Je t'aime tellement." I sat, in my underpants on the cold, hard ground and wept like I wouldn't allow myself to until now with his voice ringing in my ears, calling my name.

ERIK

Another Aria. Another sleepless night with a heart of nothing but ice and emptiness. Another night with nothing but the memory of her voice to keep me company. I felt gutted and empty all over, my pain would usually give my music wings, but now it only makes ungodly noise upon an instrument that I once loved. I pushed the music sheets away from me, not even enough heart to fly into a rage. I couldn't write music, I could hardly manage my opera. What was I good for then?

"Danielle." If she were here could tell me, she could show me. She would never let me feel as useless as I felt now. My beautiful Danielle.

"Erik." I hear a voice. Her voice. Like the crack of a whip I pull myself up. After all this time I know my delusions from reality. "Erik." She called for me again, water in her voice. Had she been crying. I ran to the bedroom, where it was coming from. There she stood, near naked from the waist down and soaking wet. And crying. My heart snapped.

"Danielle." I fell to my knees and reached for her, but my arms went right through her. I tried again with the same effect. "So close, yet so far. This must truly be hell, where I cannot even comfort my love." She sobbed on.

"Erik, come back. Come back to me." She called to me.

"I am here my love, I am here." I called back. She slid to the ground in front of me, becoming so small so fast.

"Je t'aime, Erik. Je t'aime tellement." She looked right at me, yet right through me.

"I love you too, my Angel. I love you," I said, helpless to comfort the ghost of my grieving love.

Yep. I'm back. For now. I know I promise to regularly upload a lot, so I'm not going to now. I've got a new job and every day I'm not at school I'm at work. I finished this chapter after not sleeping for 28 hours, so this is the best I got. I hope you haven't given up on me because I'll never stop writing this story, not before it's done. Well, Enjoy, I certainly did.