Two days passed and Erik didn't appear from his underground home. Meg was beginning to worry about her brooding friend. Lola was off with John; everyone else was out wandering the city, as it was their day off. She decided to go down and make sure nothing was wrong. Not that she thought he had done anything to himself. She suspected he was just sulking around, waiting for Christine.

"Erik?" Meg glanced around. Coming from a different entrance gave her a different view of his living quarters. "Go away," came the feeble reply. Meg turned toward the organ. "Erik, you've been in her for two days. What's wrong?" A dark robed figure rose from behind the organ, his back to her. "Meg, it's returned." was the cryptic answer he offered. Meg made her way to him and forced him to look at her. Clumsily wrapped bandages covered the right side of his face. "Erik, what did you do?" Meg asked.

Erik looked at her mournfully. "I was stupid. It was late and I was tired. Not paying attention to where I was going, I ran into one of my many candles. Hot wax in the face." He sounded sad and hopeless. "Erik, let me take you to a doctor." She looked at the bandages. "That needs to be looked at." Erik sighed. "I suppose you know best. I'll be right out." He replied, disappearing into a back room.

"No matter what we think," Erik remarked, returning to Meg. "We are all mortal. We can and probably will get hurt." Meg asked, "Where's that from?" Erik shrugged. "I made it up in one of my many darker moments." He tried to smile, but ended up wincing instead. "Come on. We really need to get you to a doctor." Meg said. "Or you might end up worse then you did in the past." Erik glared at her. "Somehow, I don't think that's possible."

Erik had to refrain from screaming at the doctor, as he had at Christine so many years ago. The doctor didn't do much more then Erik had already done. He added a medicated salve and fixed the bandages properly. "Change the bandages once daily. Here." The doctor handed Erik a prescription. "That's for the pain. Come back in two weeks." Erik clutched the slip of paper and, thanking him, left the room.

"You look like Griffon." Meg said as Erik appeared. "Who?" he asked. "Don't you read?" Meg replied in mock amazement. "Griffon, the invisible man, from a book by H.G Wells." "Ah, the one who said, 'Good books are warehouses of ideas.' I remember now." recalled Erik. "What's the paper for?" she asked, changing the subject. "Pain medicine." Erik said shortly. "Let's just get it and go."

Ashamed of his face, Erik almost went in the Opera House by the chapel window. Meg persuaded him to go into normally since no one would be there as it was the day off. She was wrong. When she and Erik walked through the door, two figures could bee seen at the top of the stairs. A man and a woman. At first, Meg and Erik couldn't see their faces for the two were kissing. Then they turned to the side and parted, one to continue up the stairs, the other to go down them. The pair was Lola and John otherwise known as Christine Daae and Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. John pranced past Meg and Erik without noticing them. Lola disappeared up the stairs with one last look at her soon-to-be husband.

Erik trembled with shock and rage. He finally knew where his Christine was. She had not accepted her past name, but stayed with the present name's comforts. She was with Raoul. She would never come down to him. And Meg---Meg had known all along. All along and never told him. His fury blinded him. Erik rushed up the stairs and disappeared down his trapdoor. He wasn't called the trapdoor-lover for nothing.

Meg swore. He burned himself and on top of it, he finally realized who Lola was. Luckily Lola had decided to leave with Raoul, no, John, for the United States. Meg rushed to go to Erik before he did something terrible to himself, but she went a different way.