Weeks of amiable peace passed, the master and servant relationship shifting into an easy friendship. The change brought about a spark of light to Elizabeth, she was happy to no longer feel a dark sense of mistrust between them. Erik was feeling much more ill at ease now that the warmth of friendship was beginning to permeate his chilled outer shell. Opening up to this girl meant risking pain, and his past warned that this pain was an excruciating inevitability. Christine and Elizabeth were nothing alike, but Christine's past betrayal formed the way he treated Elizabeth. Erik could tell that Elizabeth wanted to form a close relationship, but after Christine, he was afraid to get too close.

Elizabeth had been so diverted by the changes in her life that the note spared by the fire lay in her dresser untouched. She happened across the papers once again whilst cleaning her room. She glanced around her, glad to have shut the door, before sitting on her bed and untying the soft black ribbon from the thick parchment. The feel of the paper beneath her fingers brought about a strange sense of déjà vu.

Elizabeth stared at the paper in her fingers, a pressure building in her veins. She tossed the note into a bronzed trash bin and strode out the door. In her ambition to escape she hardly noticed the phantom standing by her door in shock, as if he had been intending to go in to see her. Elizabeth didn't stop until she was standing on the stage. She scoured the crowd of cast and crew searching for her friend as she stopped to catch her breath. Meg was standing about flirting with Charles while William looked bored and upset about some unseen folly. William's eyes brightened as he saw Elizabeth approach, and he brought attention to her presence so that the couple beside him would end their incessant cosseting. Meg instantly could tell that something was wrong when she turned to see her friend, faced flushed and looking as though she had run the entire way from the phantom's labyrinth.

Meg stepped away from the pair of boys to take her friend's hands, "My dear Elizabeth what is wrong? What has he done?"

Elizabeth frowned, "The phantom hasn't done anything." She paused as if she was arguing with herself, "I do have a question for you. You said that your closest friend from the Opera Populaire married and left not too long ago right?" Meg nodded, " Would her name happen to be Christine?" Once again Meg made an affirmatory motion with her head, "Could you please tell me about her, and her relationship with the phantom?"

Meg grew pale with the dark memory of her friend's past with the phantom, suddenly understanding that the stage was an overly public place to be holding such a conversation, she lead Elizabeth to a small dressing room on the side of the stage reserved for quick changes. The girls knelt on the ground together hand in hand as they spoke, both knowing that the comfort of touch would be required for the conversation to not spook them. Meg the began, " Christine Daae was my best friend, she moved into the Opera Populaire after her fathers death and we became close instantly. She preformed in the ballet corps with me until a strange incident led to her performing as the lead in Hannibal. Soon after she attained Prima Donna status, something that only occurred because of her voice's improvement. Christine claimed that her new tutor was the Angel of Music that her father had promised to send whilst on his death bed, but as time went on I realized that it was the furthest thing from an angel, it was the opera ghost." Elizabeth looked at her quizzically, as if she was silently asking why he would do such a thing. Meg read into her new friends question, "The phantom… well the phantom, he was in love with Christine."

Erik stepped into Elizabeth's bedroom desperate to see what has scared her so terribly. He looked about finding nothing out of the ordinary until he found a familiar black slip of cloth lying on the girl's bed, he then began to search more wildly until he found the discarded note. Tears of filled his eyes as he read what had frightened Elizabeth so.

My Dearest Angel,

It breaks my heart to think that you are now wed to that insolent Viscomte. I mourn the loss of your lovely presence at the Opera Populaire. Oh Christine, why did you leave? My heart will never belong to another.

All My Love and Adoration,

Your Phantom

Elizabeth flinched, although she had assumed as much from the note still laying in her room, hearing it confirmed by her closest friend shook her to the core. Still something didn't add up, "Well if the phantom loved her, why did she leave married to another man?"

Meg frowned the story now taking a path she didn't like to remember, " Two years ago a new patron came to the opera house. His name was Raoul De Chagny and he also happened to be a childhood friend of Christine. It did not take long for them to fall in love, but still the phantom fought for her heart. In the end it drew the phantom utterly mad, he killed two men and threatened Raoul's life just to win Christine. Still, he didn't succeed and Christine left to be with her fiancée. Christine became the Viscomtess just last year." Meg sat and watched as her friends world spun before her eyes with pity. She wished to stay with her friend for as long as possible but when the time came for practice with her mother Elizabeth didn't budge and so she left her still sitting in the dimly lit room.

Elizabeth was utterly shocked, if not by the news then by her reaction to it. She had heard her father telling her mother in hushed tones about the two murders in the Opera Populaire, and she had already come to understand that it had been the phantom who committed them. The news that made her eyes sting with tears was the tale of the phantom's passion for the long gone prima donna. She had begun to think that the phantom was trusting her and only her, and that thought had brought an unnoticed warmth to her soul. She was crushed to find out that she was not a special case, and that her level of friendship with the phantom paled in comparison to Christine's. As time went on Elizabeth realized that she could not hide away in the tiny dressing room forever, and so she got up and walked toward the only person who could clarify the situation for her.

The phantom was filled with guilt as he saw the tear stained cheeks on Elizabeth as she walked up torturously slow to meet him. She opened her mouth to speak but he stopped her, "I know that by now that Meg Giry has told you all of the dark secrets of my actions in the Opera Populaire. I know that you have read the letter I wrote to Christine. What I want to know is, do you have any questions?"

Elizabeth glanced toward the ground, "None at all Monsieur Phantom, I understand why you did what you did. There is nothing you need tell me." Elizabeth watched the phantom cringe as she addressed him. He seemed to have heard the bitterness in her words and something in his eyes told her that he was searching for a way to fix what had been done. She turned from him after a minute of silence passed, she was unable to look at the man without feeling a sense of hurt. She tried to escape to her room but she was stopped by the man's hand on her shoulder.

He turned her to face him, a look of resolution in his gaze as he held her staring into the lovely hazel eyes that had been weeping only moments before, "Please do not call me phantom. My name is Erik…"

Elizabeth's eyes widened, something about the way he said the name told her that this was something that was not known by many if not anyone at all. She looked up at him the faintest of smiles upon her lips, "Erik… It suits you." The two stood there watching each other for awhile, and for that time both forgot why they had been arguing and the woman who caused it.

She knows his name! I think our boy might just be realizing that not all girls are evil ;)