Author's Note: I do apologize for the shortness of this chapter. The next chapter deals with our villains, and things start to get heavy from here on out. So this may be the last thick bit of fluff we see for a while. But that doesn't mean that fluff will be completely diminished. ;)

Never fear, my loves.

Your obedient servant,

G.P.


Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

John Donne


October 21, 1921

It is...strange to think that I have been to three funerals at seventeen. My earliest memory was attending the funeral of the late Comte de Chagny, a man whom I believed I was related to for so many years, a man who I thought to be my paternal grandfather...All I remember is looking at the black casket through my mother's chocolate curls, holding onto her.

My second funeral was my mother's...It was one of the worst days of my life...I cried and cried, holding onto my real father's hand. I watched as he knelt and tossed the first handful of dirt into the hole, shining tears dripping from his mask. He was a study in contrasts that day: white face, black hair, white lapels and a complete black suit of satin. I wore a similar ensemble...but I wished so much that I wasn't there, that none of it was real, that I wasn't real, that she was still with me...I would've given my own life that day to have her back...at ten years old.

What was startling and tragic about this third funeral was not that two family friends were dead. It was that nearly a fourth of Phantasma's performers were dead...The building that had burned down was owned by my father, kept exclusively for the show's performers and oddities. He wanted a sanctuary for freaks and bizarre, so he brought it to existence.

As soon as he'd shown me the newspaper, he and I - putting aside everything that had gone wrong between us that day - went straight for the burn site. We did not agree on many things, the Phantom and I. But where the show was concerned, we were a partnership. And where the Girys were concerned...we looked out for them as much as they did for us. And this was a failure I knew neither of us would forgive ourselves for.

I only managed to keep my mind clear through the frigid coldness that investigation demanded. We didn't find anything in the way of foul play at first, but even more peculiarly, we didn't find any evidence of a natural, accidental cause of the fire. No cigarette ash (not many of them smoked), no signs of ignition by any other means...it's as if by spontaneous combustion. I only knew one person who could make fire appear seemingly out of nowhere, and I was related to him. He obviously didn't do it, he was preoccupied with whatever it is he's been up to in his off hours.

Towards the end of our visit to the site, my father did find an empty box in a trash heap just outside the neighboring building...with dynamite residue inside...not unlike that, he commented, used in the Wall Street bombings last year.

We doubted it was the same perpetrators. So then who would kill Phantasma performers? At the moment… I didn't much care.

Looking over at my father from the Giry graves...he was thinking the exact same thing.

We were going to make those responsible pay for what they've done. Slowly. Painfully. Without remorse or regret. They will learn to keep their hands at the level of their eyes.


His lips felt soft and hard at the same time, battling Pepper's in the rain. She remembered this moment, her first kiss, as a mix of fire and ice. Cool rain beating on hot skin that made her head swim, her heart thunder in her chest and her breath pass in a tug of gasps and sighs. His hands were strong and urgent, as if kissing her would save his own life.

She had never been in love. She had never been liked even remotely with this intense, artistic and beautiful adoration. She had never been with anyone so much like her...

Gustave was...the boy she loved.

A sharp knock on her window jolted her awake at her desk. She must've fallen asleep...Again. She mused to herself that she really ought to invest in something to prop her head up so she wouldn't fall asleep studying. She looked over at where the noise had come from, smiling. Pepper could only see his silhouette against the early morning sun, picking out Gustave's disheveled hair and his long pianist's fingers as he waved at her.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and her cheeks. She was sure there was a red mark from sleeping on her books. She undid the latch on the window, whispering, "Gustave, what are you doing here?"

He opened it and maneuvered his lanky limbs through, hugging her tight as soon as his hands reached her. She then noticed he was wearing an entirely black waistcoat and blazer...

"Madame Giry, her daughter, and many of the performers at Phantasma... they're dead..." He whispered against her hair, his voice strained. "Burned alive...I just came from the funeral."

"My God, Gustave, " Her heart sank, holding him tighter before pulling back. His eyes were shining. "Is there anything you need? You only have to ask it."

"You. I need you." Those pleading eyes...She held his face between her hands, he turning slightly to kiss her palms. Tears slipped between his dark lashes.

They sat down together on her tattered bed, Gustave drawing her into his arms. He talked under his breath about the dead he mourned today as if they were still living. Madame Giry had been the only woman after his mother died that didn't try to replace Christine. She was a friend, first and foremost. And also the first he turned to if he needed advice. Her daughter...his mother's old friend turned reluctant murderer. There had been a time when he had hated her. Hated her like nothing else in this world. It took until two years ago to realize that the hatred of a young boy towards his mother's murderer would not bring his mother back. But his contempt for Meg only sublimed into pity. His staggering regret...for not knowing her, telling her he forgave her...it was eating him alive. Pepper admired Gustave's strength in admitting this, but her frown was directed at his pain, wishing she could relieve it. Of the performers, he told her that the shark toothed woman he had bought Pepper's flowers from was among the dead...The possessed fiddler from the west that performed at Phantasma attended the funeral, he had said. The fiddler apparently had been in love with the shark toothed woman, but had never told her.

Gustave held her hand then, trying to smile. "I am very glad that I do not keep my love a secret from you..."

"Me too." She reassured him, "You've made me the happiest I've ever been..."

The smile he was forcing onto his face fell. Fell into a slight frown.

"Gustave...what is it?"

"My Melody..." He seemed uncomfortable. "Part of why I've come here is also...to say goodbye. We have lost a lot of talent...my father and and I leave for Philadelphia tonight to board a train west to replenish our roster."

All of the color drained from Pepper's face. "Goodbye...?"

He scrambled for words suddenly. "Not forever- certainly not forever. I'll be gone a week, nine days at most. And then I'll be back."

She felt hot tears spring to her eyes, and she fought them back. "Gustave..."

"Love..." He brought his cool hands on either side of her neck, his thumbs tracing her porcelain jawline. His eyes were filled with warmth then, as emerald gazed into cinnamon. "I will miss you every second of every day I am gone, every moment we are parted I will be thinking of you...All I ask of you is that you keep me here." He touched her chest briefly, above her heart.

"Of course, Gustave... " She grinned, then remembered something, "And what of the gala?"

"I will return in time, I'm sure. Two, three days before." He said, touching her nose with his. "Never fear, precious. But I urge you to practice without me, so that when I return, we don't have as much to worry about."

He stood then, pulling her up with him. His hands encircled her waist, long fingers he inherited from his father inches from overlapping at her back. His eyes raked her, trying to commit this moment to memory for the days ahead. His love was as innocent as ever, but even with yesterday's lapse of self control...he found himself with this new, unfamiliar desire for her beyond a need to bring her voice into artistic fruition. She returned this...but he would need the words. Those three words he had longed to hear…

"I want you to have this," He said after a minute of holding her like this, stepping back and reaching into his inner breast pocket. From it, he produced a small box. Gustave had battled with himself in whether to give it to her, but at last, he'd decided that she would put it to better use wearing it than sitting in his nightstand gathering dust.

Pepper took it into her little hands, before insisting, "Gustave, you didn't-"

"-I didn't spend a dime, doll," He smiled his mother's bright beam. It was astonishing how he could be full of sorrow and just being inside her atmosphere of optimism brought him to euphoria. "Please, open it."

He called me 'doll', a pink dusting colored her cheeks beneath the freckles. She did so; inside was the angel necklace Gustave he had held onto...the one he'd saved up for and, with the help of Madame Giry, purchased. White porcelain robes around a tiny frame, brunette curls cascading down her shoulders, and delicate, lily eyelids closed on the angel's face. The chain was of fine silver. Gustave had replaced the original chain, which had been falling apart and the new one was bought out of the young man's pocket. Pepper stared. She had never seen any piece of jewelry so beautiful before.

"Gustave it's…" She trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Before you say anything," He cautioned, turning her around so he could fasten it on her. "I've had this since I was twelve...so I'm trusting you with it. I hope it reminds you of me in the days ahead...my...angel of music."

When he saw her face again, she was grinning through tears.

Without the frustration of yesterday or the heat, he bent down to press his lips to hers. This was a goodbye kiss, both knew, but that did not stop Pepper from bringing both of her gloved hands to his face. Her fingertips brushed his sharp cheekbones and the hollows beneath them. He crushed her to him, Pepper giving a tiny surprised squeak in the back of her throat, using much of his strength to convey just how much he needed her in his life. His fingers curled around the fleece material of her blue dress at her hips, a visible sign of his self control.

All he wanted was to kiss her and kiss her and not let her go, not for a single damned second. In this way, he was exactly like his father...in the inner battle between passionate abandon and self-contained propriety when in the act of kissing. He liked kissing her...she was all he wished he could be. Silently strong, soft, brave, fiery, full of spunk...Kind, generous…And more forgiving than he could ever hope to be.

Strong footsteps sounded up the hall, and Gustave broke apart from her, whistling out the window for the horse he'd ridden over to the Irish quarter. He pecked her cheek, her mind whirling and as Allistor Logan opened the door, Gustave leapt through the window. He immediately dropped into a roll to break his fall, sprinting towards the horse that was galloping towards him. A flash of ginger and gray hair went by her, shouting out the window.

"What d'you think yer doin', lad?!"

Gustave mounted the horse in the height of a jump, and reared it back, hollering back with a boundless grin Pepper caught. "I apologize, monsieur! I do not believe we have been introduced! I'm your futur fils en droit!"

"Ger'off my property, ya scoundrel!"

The young man rode off without another word, and Pepper's cheeks changed from pale to a tomato red. Allistor stood by the window for several moments, before he asked over his shoulder at his daughter. "Wha'd he say?"

Pepper regained her composure for a split second, trying not to laugh as she spoke, "He said that he's your...future son-in-law."