Hello everyone! Summer's trips for my family is over and now I can update! Thanks so much to all my faithful readers and faithful reviewers: phantomsloveangel, chi, L'Arcange, rnkmaniacal, Victorian Era Drama, shinigami109, Wendi, and Othello101!

DISCLAIMERS: Phantom isn't mine, original characters with extra insanity are.

Part Eleven:

I awoke to an outrageously large appetite and a headache to match. Max, as always, bounded up and dressed quicker than I leaving me to grumble and glare at Darius who passed. I didn't feel like doing anything to annoy him just yet and I missed my coffee douse of the morning so I wasn't so cheery either. I was a little more charmed by the surprise I beheld when I walked into the kitchen. Oh yes, beheld is an amazing word. Anyways the surprise was that Erik would be joining us for breakfast and was deep in a conversation with Max who seemed to be stressing the fact that we needed to get home somehow.

He had his full mask on to my guilty relief. It's kind of difficult to eat when you have a man before you that looks like someone who's been dead for three years, amazing character or no. Daroga hovered above them, looking slightly irritated that he could not, I found, understand the English conversation. I doubt he would bother Erik about it, though.

I was, for once, happy that I was ignored at the moment besides the small flicker towards my direction from within the deep pits of the mask where Erik's eyes were hidden in. I looked for anything edible while listening in for the fill-up of the morning events.

"We came through a small room that looked like a storage place," Max continued, "So I was thinking if we can get back to where it all began…"

"You can go back in the same manner." Erik said solemnly. "Yes. Erik knows the whole Opera House; it would not be a problem to find it in less than a week."

My shoulders must have drooped more than I wanted for Daroga glanced at me curiously. I grinned and turned hurriedly away. Personally, I was happy here. I didn't really want to go back just yet. I glanced at Max whose face looked so pretty and completely relieved to be getting a chance to go home as she thanked our strange companion. But I guess it would be alright if I had a few more days to spend with the two old guys.

As if sensing my fondly insulting thoughts Max turned and waved a cheerful good morning to me. I joined her at the table, sending a grin at Erik who continued to observe us with polite interest.

"Emma, hear the plan?" she asked, smiling.

"How could I not?" I asked, nodding. "When do we get started, eh?"

Apparently it was sooner than I thought it would be. No less had I asked, Erik swung around to chatter in non-stop Daroga talk while Max hustled me out of the small corridors.

"Don't touch my clothes, alright Darius?" I managed to shout over my shoulder.

I didn't get to see whether Darius frowned or glared, either would have been fine as I knew he wouldn't understand a word I said, as we hurried out into the busy streets. People shrank or looked back in morbid curiosity at Erik who, I could tell that the fact he might be able to see something fantastic, was the only thing that kept him moving forward, his eyes never, ever moving. Max became Daroga's personal assistant about us, speaking in careful French to him.

I tried to capture our other, and by far the most mind boggling companion's attention with idle talk of what we'd already shown him. He nodded a few times to show he was listening but I had a feeling he would do just fine without conversation. Unfortunately I'm a chatty person and silence is odd with me. However, I clammed up after awhile and just took to taking peeks at him from beneath my veil, trying to burn his image in my mind for when we would leave him to go back home.

With Erik's face and wariness and Daroga's out of place I'm-not-from-here-but-I'm-stalking-a-person-I-know-from-my-homeland feel, it was a wonder of mine that we all even made it to the Opera House without any problems. Max and I were instructed to look as normal as possible (I think we both smirked at this) and to wander around like any other music fanatic. Daroga would attempt to follow Erik. I almost laughed when he worded it like that, after Max interpreted of course, but his face was serious.

"What will you do?" I turned to ask Erik, but he had already gone. "Wow…He's good."

Daroga turned towards me curiously then gave an irritated noise as he found the other man gone from sight. I think he was cursing but I couldn't, and probably didn't want to, tell as he stalked off leaving me and Max alone in front of the building. It was prettier in its proper time and I stood there with my mouth slightly open.

"C'mon, I think we can find the room better than either of those two," Max said, grabbing my arm.

We searched all over the place as well and as much as we were allowed. Most people didn't take any notice of us and often we could talk to each other with no worries of anyone overhearing with any curiosity. In an attempt to refresh our memory, we tried re-walking the tour we had. It felt so long ago but true to our memories we got part of the way until people would then turn us back.

"This is impossible if people will keep imposing," Max grumbled as yet another official looking person "kindly rerouted" us to the main dancers' lounge. "Honestly, I didn't think they'd be so pushy!"

"And yet so polite in doing so," I murmured distractedly, watching everything around us and trying to figure the best breathing exercises to work with my tight corset.

"Maybe we should take back pathways?" my friend muttered to herself. "Or perhaps…"

While her voice trailed on with different ideas, my head was elsewhere and, for once, thinking. It wasn't really about anything important like how we were going to explain our absence to Mr. Perini and Mr. Party, or how our parents' would be fretting their heads off, or even about how to find the room that would lead us back to all that. Instead, with the few people passing, I was thinking on how the two men across from us struck me as being brothers.

One was tall and handsome but way older than Max or me. He glanced once my way before with a courteous nod of the head and nothing else but a small twinge of curiosity. I flushed dully. Anyone who looked my way with even the slightest bit of interest about me and especially a guy would reduce me to slow thinking and a sharp reality check of who I was. The other man was much younger. He looked around our age, even though at least be 17 or 18. He didn't seem very interested in us to which I was thankful.

The way they acted caught my eye, and the way the older one laughed. I loved funny things. Truly, and that's not an excuse to my goggling at them because they were handsome, each in their own way. I then noticed the tall, slender woman with them, still in a dancer's gauzy tutu. She laughed and whatever the eldest said and smiled prettily though I had a suspicion she barely knew what she was laughing at. The older put a fond hand on the younger and the younger blushed girlishly. I guessed he was being introduced and or teased to the lovely lady.

"Heh, he's a blonde," I muttered to myself, grinning. "Hey, Max…"

"What?" Max turned to me with a frown, interrupting herself of a plan to raid the backstage. I was unabashed and pointed discreetly at the younger man.

"Doesn't that guy look like a chick…?"

"Don't be rude, Emma." Max said, rolling her eyes but she glanced in their direction. "Sort of, but he has a mustache."

I stared at her.

"What?" she asked uncertainly, "he does! A little one you see-…oh, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Blonde," I said softly, "a little blonde mustache, girlish complexion? An older brother who's very handsome?"

I pulled her off to the side behind a cabinet as to not let ourselves be known to the two men and lady. Max followed, confused and pulled at my arm though I could tell she was getting to where I was getting at.

"What are you saying?" she still asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I'm saying," I hissed, peeking out to watch our prey, "That those two men are our very Count and Vicomte De Chagny!"

Hopefully I can review much, much faster. Sorry for the wait!