A/N: Thanks for reviews and such; as promised, I bring you a significantly longer chapter here. It was difficult to write, so feedback is especially appreciated here.

Thanks and happy (if you can) reading!

Chapter 10: The Song

When at last they reached the grate of the Opera House and crawled inside, Erik noticed Amelie's body shaking slowly and heavily, betraying her distress and the small, desperate gasping breaths at once conveying and exaggerating her panic.

"Not here," Erik hissed, grabbing her arm and leading her towards the first tunnel. "They'll hear you."

"I have had enough of being man-handled today, Monsieur," Amelie exclaimed as she tore from his grip. Erik turned to face her and pity tugged at his heart as he saw her usually stoic hazel eyes frantic with distress. The madness was written so obviously across her features that Erik knew he looked upon her genuinely now, without the mask of a governess. Though her eyes seemed pristine as they glistened and shone with imminent tears, her porcelain skin was splotched red from the cold winter air. Her hair lay in a russet, frizzy mess with tendrils reaching down across her forehead and down to her chin and her teeth bit down viciously on her bottom lip in a show of her desperate struggle. But the sight of this poor pitiful creature did not outweigh Erik's savage rage or the blistering wound of betrayal. In fact, it only served to frustrate him more and Erik felt himself growing more and more bitter by the moment. Amelie had lied to him.

"And I have had enough of your theatrics," He snapped. As they turned the corner to his first trap door, he turned her forcefully and began knotting the blindfold across her eyes. She spun and stood like a rag doll under his force, still shaking and now sobbing to herself. Erik snatched up the overflowing basket of breads and fruits and grabbed her hand ruthlessly.

"Please monsieur, loosen your grip, it's hurting me," She cried through her tears.

How had he found himself here again? She struggled and fell behind him just as Christine had when she had scorned him with the secret of her lover. Amelie's whimpers and cries echoed in the stairs and tunnels as he yanked her arm to drag her with him. Down that path into darkness deep as hell.

Each step served to fuel his fiery rage until finally they came to the house on the lake. He angrily smashed the basket onto the ledge and turned to rip the blindfold from her face, taking strands of her hair with it. Amelie cried in pain and grasped her hands to her face. Oh how she resembled Christine now. She looked upon him with horror and fear, sobbing as she resigned herself to her fate with him. A monster.

"And now do you finally feel damned, mademoiselle?" He spat. "Do you finally see what it is you have chosen? You will never have your beautiful lover, not as long as you are cursed here with me!"

"Please, monsieur, I do not understand. I have returned to you by my own free will. Did I not cast off the suitor?" The soft, bottom lip he had admired before still quaked as Amelie desperately tried to fight the tears and regain her composure, but Erik could still observe her turmoil and saw her agony. She refused to move from the ledge by the lake, so Erik violently resolved that, if she would not walk, he would carry her like a parent carries a petulant, screaming child. With a vicious growl he snatched her up, surprised by the weightlessness of her body.

"How could she have spent the weeks with him and allowed him to believe that she had intended to stay?..." Erik growled and rumbled, unable to slow the thoughts and the maddening, swelling pressure in his skull and his chest. Who was he talking to? What was he trying to say? It all felt so utterly disjointed, deranged, unhinged… He only knew he could not contain, could not control, the fractious creature that had awakened and broken from its chains within him. "She had never tried to escape and now he understands why; she was patient and biding her time until her handsome suitor would lead the mob down to The Phantom's sanctuary in the shadows!"

Had it been the first time, Erik would have expected to feel tears of rejection and loneliness filling his eyes and streaming down his face. Unfortunately for the crying, hissing, spitting creature he held tightly, those tears and whatever compassion he could have shed for her had been spent; Christine had made sure of that when she left her Angel in Hell.

"Monsieur, put me down! I demand it! I am not a servant to be manhandled!" She shrieked. Amelie's cries echoed through the underground and Erik felt them worm their way into his mind to make their home. He dropped her flailing body to the ground in the sitting room and she darted quickly to the corner most opposite him. His first move was towards the desk to replace the cloak that covered his face with the porcelain mask to which they were both most accustomed. As he turned to face her, she spat the most venomous words, "You're behaving like a monster!"

"Like a monster! A monster! The Devil's Child, of course he is a monster, you idiot child, you foolish, insolent girl! I am a monster!" Erik's mind raced with the darkest emotions, anger, hate, betrayal, and a lust for destruction and punishment. In his mind, he could feel a layer of heavy, thick grime on his hands. The blood of his previous victims soaked and seeped from his pores like the sweat that dampened his brow.

Had Erik's hand found his lasso, the following actions may not have occurred, but instead of strangling the life from Amelie's gentle neck, he found himself viciously storming towards her. Before she could protest, he thrust his mangled lips against hers and grasped her face, forcing her into a hateful kiss. She screamed into his mouth and smashed her fists against him wildly until he released her from his vice grip and assault.

They stared at each other for a moment. Erik huffed furiously. What had the Phantom done this time? Nothing she hadn't deserved, the deceitful wench. She will not betray me again. She will learn. Malicious pride filled his soul as he saw the hurt on her face and knew he had perfectly enacted his punishment. It had always been his greatest gift, knowing how best to destroy another human being. But the fear and hatred in her eyes simultaneously shredded like claws at his already torn spirit. And yet, Amelie did not run. He watched her shoulders tense and her jaw set as she resigned herself to whatever he had in store. If he were to attack her again, she would fight him and face the destruction with dignity as if she were Joan of Arc prepared for her martyrdom.

Amelie's eyes held Erik's in a furious stare of contempt, loathing, and pain, hemorrhaging emotions from her body until it became clear that Erik would not, or seemingly could not, bring himself to harm her again. Then, she turned from him and ran towards Christine's room. Erik heard her smash on the door in frustration with what he assumed was her inability to the lock the door from the inside. No matter, if she wanted it locked he would oblige. Let her never forget that she remained his prisoner.

Your chains are still mine. You belong to me.

Erik moved to the organ and violently slammed a melody from its keys that he had not played in what seemed like a lifetime.

Don Juan triumphs once again!

The dissonance filled him, at once encouraging and stifling his bottomless rage. So the wretch had not run from him and had not betrayed his secret lair or their arrangement; she did not desperately scream for help or summon the police; and she did not steal his money and leave, as he had considered she would. But she had done something worse. The girl had made it clear that she had no reason to stay with Erik. Indeed, she had a proposal, she already had one foot out the door waiting for her beautiful white gown and a gold band. The woman who had been so adamant about avoiding a proposal stood there in front of a beautiful boy truly smitten with her and received an offering of marriage; of course she could not possibly want to deny the boy for long. No, it was Erik she planned to leave and Erik she planned to betray. But the Phantom had shown her what happened to those who break faith with Erik!

He continued to smash his bony fingers against the keys of the organ, while his heart beat so quickly that he thought perhaps his old, tired body would finally give way, until the joints began to ache, begging for reprieve.

His hands shook less.

His breathing slowed.

He blinked and felt hot tears in his own eyes.

Erik knew he had done wrong. As Amelie said herself, she chose him, for whatever it was worth. She left that Monsieur Moreau in the street baffled by her rejection. It was something Christine had never managed to do and the soprano even wore Erik's wedding band until the day she thought him dead. Christine could show her dedication through empty symbolism, but could not reciprocate in any meaningful action.

"Damn her," He bitterly cursed under his breath. He sat at the organ, shoulders slumped and tired from the exertion required by wrath. "Damn you."

Erik had spent enough time agonizingly pouring over his every loss, every hurt, every betrayal, to see his own role in such events. He often antagonized those he loved and, after a lifetime of this, easily attributed it to his own fear of rejection. And in the face of rejection, both real and perceived, his wrath always escalated beyond that of any reasonable person. Now, with even a fraction of clarity, Erik praised whatever piece of him had stayed his hand from his lasso.

Though he considered, it may have been better if he had killed her. For now, he would eventually have to face Amelie and acknowledge what happened. Blast! How could he avoid her now? How could he face his one friend when she now believed him capable of that most horrendous form of assault: rape.

If only he could show her his true heart!, he lamented. Erik knew himself capable of wretched depravity; he could torture, kill, deceive, even drive victims to madness. But he was not could not complete such a vile act as rape. He could not violate another person in such a way. What forbade him from this evil in particular? He did not know. Empathy was the most pleasant rationale; and certainly it was not incorrect. He had always held a particularly bitter hatred for those who abused the weaker sex only to satiate their own ego. After his time in Persia, he truly sympathized with the plight of women, who had no status save that which was doled out to them by birth or marriage. Yes, empathy was the most pleasant rationale, but Erik knew he would be lying if he didn't partially attribute this sudden moral dilemma to the fact that he had never known the touch of a woman. Rape could not be his first act, nor any one subsequent.

Of course there were the prostitutes with which Madame Giry had tried to satiate him. But he could not bring himself to touch them. Erik was disgusted by their vapid personalities, their lack of patience, and the way they refused to treat themselves or him as a feeling, sentient person. They had reduced themselves and him to sexual vessels, if only as a means to complete the act itself, and it enraged him. Worse than that, how could he have let the go after they had been so unceremoniously, with no precautions, placed in proximity to the Opera Ghost? Everyone thought him dead; how could he release a creature who he suspected would sell their integrity, certainly any information, with the knowledge of him and his home? He could not expel the energy to track them and maintain their silence; Erik had grown old and while the young man in him could have done so, the half-century-old Erik could not. And so the lasso strangled them, and in their last moments both he and they felt human in the most terrible of ways.

Erik did not like to dwell on those or any of his killings for that matter. In fact, throughout all of his life he had desired most to forget the darkness of his soul in pursuit of whatever light remained inside him… if any. It was why he had loved Christine so. She was tragically sad, and their sorrow matched, but she was so pure. She had yet to know malice, greed, or the touch of a man, and the poor creature demanded protection. She was a devout Catholic and only came to her Angel of Music because she believed him a heaven-sent immaculate gift from her deceased father. During those moments of worship with her, Erik truly felt himself an angel. She saw the goodness in him, at least until his loathsome disfigurement tarnished their love.

It's in your soul that the true distortion lies…

Christine's beautiful, pitiful words filled his ears now with certain and perfect clarity. If he had not understood them then, he fully understood them now.

Erik grew sick and was sure he would wretch the contents of his stomach. He ran to the surface of the lake and tore his mask off, screaming his anger and sorrow into the distance. Looking back at him was his own face, his death's head. His cries of agony and hate echoed through his prison.

Then he heard it: The tiniest song of hope, a gentle sonatina that called to him, beckoning him away from the ledge of self-destruction, in Feste's voice.

Feste soared from the darkness to settle near the basket of groceries Amelie had acquired and hopped curiously, with turned head and small, dark, and inquisitive eyes, clearly seeking his daily rations. Wiping the tears he had not realized he had shed away from his face, Erik pulled himself up and over to the basket of foods he had left near the base of the ledge by the lake. He hadn't even taken the time to marvel at what Amelie had so carefully procured during their damnable trip to the outside world. Briefly he had mentioned to her that he did not enjoy eating. So instead of gathering flour and oils and ingredients for cooking complicated pies and pastries or the heavy sauces and creams as he had seen in the kitchens of the Opera House, she instead carefully curated fruits and cheeses, simple deli meats and breads, and a small collection of vegetables. She used foliage greens and carrots as a bed in the basket of her other goods and, tucked neatly in the peripheral, he saw teas of all varieties. He imagined her smiling her lopsided smile proudly to herself as she picked each one, thinking of leaving it at his door and surprising him with the varieties of herbal scents and sensations. Erik felt strangely sad that he had rushed her with the ominous and irritated rings from his bell.

Erik tried to push from his mind how horribly he had ruined that small joy for her and what an evil monster he thought himself, and took a portion of the wheat bread and tore it into small pieces. The gray songbird chirped at him and flittered around expectantly. Still whimpering from his tears, Erik managed a feeble smile. How had the bird managed to survive the darkness? Surely such creatures could not survive without sunlight. Amelie had done her best to nurture him and perhaps this was the sole reason for his survival; she would speak to him and feed him whenever she could. Though despite all her calls to Feste and all her care, the bird instead came to Erik's most pathetic of calls, his tears! What a strange creature!

But as he sat gingerly tearing pieces of bread and feeding them to Feste on the small plate Amelie left out daily, the bird's song began to devour his very being. He heard it all at once; the gentle, middle register calls of a clarinet with the brassy sweetness of a bird's call. A flute would have been too gentle and an oboe too reedy. No, this filled him with clarinet and a heavy call-and-response with cellos. The tender, dulcet tones of Feste's song filled his head with the notes that he knew corresponded to Amelie's words in Song of the Ephemeron.

Something so divine

Cannot stand the tests of time

I will hold your soul

For as long as you'll be mine.

Feste continued to sing and Erik ran to the desk to scribble down the music before it threatened to ruin him completely. The warm fifths were tainted by the occasional dissonant falls and Erik felt himself travelling through Amelie's words, a vision of Poe's worship, adoration, and cynicism. Into these notes, Erik poured every memory of beauty; his mother's youthful features, the majesty of Rome, the serenity of Luciana's beautiful features, the wonders of Persia, and even what he could muster of Christine's voice. These sounds would overtake all of him, Erik knew, as he felt the music coursing through and consuming his body. There were no thoughts; none of Amelie, of her suitor, of Erik's horrible revenge; just the music, soothing, enticing, elegant, switching from clarinet to oboe to viola to cello in the strangest of voicings he could muster but with the smoothest of notations, not a staccato in sight.

In red ink, messy and almost illegibly, Erik scribbled as much of the melody and the warm, luscious undertones as he could. Once he finished the root of the melody and the accompanying chords, he began arranging voicings, call-and-response, with two perfectly timed Codas reminiscent of the mysterious and fleeting beauty he embodied with those sounds. He worked well into the night with Feste perched nearby for company. There was no time, only music and the faintest of hopes, and then there was darkness as Erik finally, at last, found sleep.