Bonjour, good readers!

This chapter requires little explanation in itself, so I shall be brief.

myecho and musiclover106, I love you guys! You review so often, and I am so very glad you do. Thanks.

To the others, including Nota Lone, cyclobaby, solitairebbw218, and invaderoperaghost: your reviews bring smiles to my face. Please continue to let me know what you think about each chapter, including the direction of the story. I said I would be brief, and I am dearly trying.

Adieu, fair readers, until the next chapter (which I should be posting simultaneously).

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Cecily made her way silently back to the bedroom. She knew she should feel at a least a little guilty over his cuts because her thoughtless kiss had driven him to it. Strangely, though, she didn't. She felt no guilt over his scrapes. What surprised her most though, was that the remorse for the kiss itself was beginning to fade. He may not be like any other dweller of l'Opéra, but she was in many ways. She did not have to cater to him in every single one of her reactions. She bit her lip, a bit nervous at the determination of her thoughts.

The bookshelves that had drawn her attention when she first followed Erik down attracted her notice once more. She had never seen so many books in one place. She ran her hand over several of them, the feel of dusty leather completely foreign to her fingers. She hesitated for a moment before pulling one down. Its weight surprised her a bit, and she laid it on the bed, sitting down beside it. Gingerly, she opened the cover. The smell of long disuse rose from that first page and made her sneeze.

It was the sneeze that Erik heard. He had risen from his seat in the alcove and was going to play on the organ when the soft sound escaped the room. He went back to the darkness of his most secret place and pulled out a bag full of curative herbs. Really the herb did no more than distract the sick person from their cold, dulling the throat to the pain of the cough. He remembered what one of his philosophy books, by Voltaire perhaps, had said. "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

It seemed that Erik could only aid her medically. It was an unexpected advantage of his training. Of course, it had been unexpected training for an assassin at the time. He had to admit, though, it had proven itself quite useful. Living as he did, he could not simply call for a physician or an apothecary. Treating himself, amusing himself as the disease took its course, was his only option. For once, he found himself able to help someone else. She could, he supposed, go out into the streets. There was an apothecary only a few blocks away that would be able to help her for little money. But, he acknowledged smugly, she had no need of an apothecary if she was in his care.

In his care. It was a phrase he had not consciously thought before in regards to Cecily, or anyone for that matter. It was a thought that both disconcerted and fortified him. The thought that there was another human being that depended on him for everything other than the breath she took was a new one. He had, naturally, held men's' lives in his hands before, held them so tightly that their last breaths were taken before they knew there was danger. But that had been then. Never before had he felt the need to cradle the spark of life, allow it burn brighter. He had never before wanted to feed the flames until its existence was obvious to everyone around. By God in heaven, what was this simple chorus girl doing to him? Soon he would be too weak to defend himself. He resolved to not give in that far. To accommodate her, but not change himself.

He paused by the door into the bedroom to make sure she was alright. He realized he had yet to express his gratitude for bandaging his hands, and meant to do so, as much as he bristled with the thought of thanking her, but the sight of her stopped him. She was bent over a book, her finger tracing each line as if it might either spring from the page into her lap or disappear with the next breath she took. He smirked and moved away. He would wait. She was apparently engrossed in whatever she was reading. It dawned on him then that her sneeze had come not from illness, but from the dust of the book.

Drawing water from the pipe he had rigged, he set it over a newly lit flame. He had no need to give her any medicine then, only plain tea. He let the water come to a boil and went to look for cups. One was easy enough to find. He drank tea occasionally, and water more often. It was better for the voice, and Erik would not forsake his music for anything. He had decided to brew himself a cup as well. It had been quite some time since he had last had one, and the thought of discussing a book over a steaming drink, as had been done in the coffee houses of Persia, was enticing.

After some rearranging of the shelves, Erik found a second cup. It was a small miracle of sorts, as he really only had one set of everything. He had never needed another. Perhaps he could remedy that as well. He was getting ahead of himself; he shook his head to clear his thoughts. He found he had been doing more of that in the past few days than he had in years. Without changing himself, hmm?

The steam from the boiling pot caught his attention and he poured two cups. He lifted both cups and flinched. The cuts on his hand had surprised him with the throb, but he was a master of controlling pain, and would do it now. He carried it through his lair and set it on the table next to the bed. It was a silly thing, the bed. Shaped like a ridiculous bird. He was not sure what had possessed him to obtain it. As art, the sculpting was good enough, but as a place to sleep? A coffin was enough for him, most of the time. The bed was there for times he wanted to be free of the confines of that small space, for the few times he wanted to forget that he appeared as nearly a skeleton anyway. It had come to good use, he supposed. He could not very well expect the girl to sleep in a coffin.

Cecily saw him and started. "Erik, I…" she trailed off. Suddenly, her eye caught the two cups on the table, and she smiled broadly. "Thank you, Erik." She took a cup in her hands and breathed in the steam. "This is brilliant. I love tea."

"It's green," he offered. When he got no response but the sound of her sipping the tea, he decided to launch headlong into it. "Cecily, you bandaged my hands." Why did he say such obvious things?

She chortled. "I know." She knew he was trying to thank her, and she wasn't going to let him off easily.

"Well, no one has ever done that for me before, and it, I mean to say, I…Thank you." Now was her cue, he knew. She could mock his tripped-up tongue and half-formed words.

"I'm glad I could help. I owe you so much."

He cocked his head slightly. Not so much as a barbed tone to her voice. He glanced down at the book. "What are you reading?"

She shrugged. "I don't know; I just got it off the shelves."

"I've read all of these, at least give me some topic," he prodded. He could not discuss a book she would disclose nothing about.

"You've read all of these?" She looked in awe from him to the bookshelves. "But there's so many!"

"I've read all these, the ones in the other room, and many that you haven't seen. But come; tell me what you were reading."

"I can't." His annoyed look induced her to explain. "Erik, I can't read."

"What?" He had not expected this, but he should have. Not all of the chorus could read, particularly those who were from outside Paris. Cecily's accent told him she was. He should have suspected this. "But you were looking so closely at it."

She held the book up to him, as if for inspection. "I can guess it is about art. There are so many paintings and drawings. I looked mostly at those. I had a sister who painted. The words were a mystery to me, but, I suppose this sounds silly, I thought that maybe by looking at them closely enough, I could figure out what they were trying to say."

He took the book from her and looked down at it. It was a book about Renaissance art. There were plenty of images, to be sure, but the words told the story of the book. The words relayed the lives of da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and others, including their works, their struggles, and their triumphs. That was where the value of the book lay. He looked up at Cecily, who was watching him warily. "Oh, Cecily. Would you like to know what it says?"

She threw herself at him, holding his forearm as if it were her last lifeline in the middle of the ocean. "Oh, I would! Could you tell me?"

He smiled slightly, the curl in his lip nearly disguising the expression. He sat down in the chair and she positioned herself at his knees, like a child to a storyteller. Satisfied with himself, he began to read about the life of da Vinci.