All right, guys, I've kept you waiting long enough. Here ya go!

Vivienne

I threw myself down to the floorboard and hit the nail, scrambling back to my feet as the wall opened again. I rushed through the door into the darkness and stopped.

Erik was gone. He would have been long gone before I'd even managed to open the door. I thought briefly of going back inside to get a light and setting off after him, but where would I look? The cellars were enormous and I didn't know my way around them. If he wanted to hide, he would stay hidden.

I swiped angrily at the tears on my cheeks and called, "Erik! Come back, please come back!" I took a few more steps beyond the door and heard the lake lapping the shore nearby. "Erik! Erik!"

There was nothing. I took a few more steps forward, then halted again. I hovered there for a time, still indecisive, before I spun on my heel and went back into the house. I tried to stay calm, but I couldn't keep control. I let out a scream of anger and hurt, rushing into his room and knocking over a stack of music. The scores tumbled to the ground and the loose pages scattered everywhere and I kicked over the organ bench, then threw the manuscript he'd been working on away and reached for the violin.

I stopped again. His violin, the one he'd taught me to play on…How foolish was it to feel such love for an inanimate thing? It could never return love; it couldn't even feel love, and for that I envied it. If all this rage and pain was brought on by love, then it would be so much easier as a bit of polished wood and strings.

I picked it up and held it to my body, then went to sit on the bed. The scenes played back in my head, but from a different point of view. I could see everything as though I were a spectator. I saw Erik draw away from me as I approached. I saw myself attempt to convince him of my feelings for him. And finally, I saw myself steal away his mask and kiss him.

How could I have been so stupid? I'd promised him I would never touch his mask, that I would leave the decision to remove it in his hands. Yet in a moment of desperation, I had gone back on my word.

I hadn't done it to humiliate him; I'd only wanted to prove to him that I could love him, regardless of what he thought. But still, to do that to him was to go too far. And to kiss him on top of it was too much. How could I be angry with him for being upset?

He didn't have to go! I stormed furiously. He didn't have to leave me here! Why does he have to be so stubborn?

I rocked back and forth, fresh tears filling my eyes. When would he come back? How long would he leave me alone like this? To be fair, he probably did need time to think about what I'd said, but would he accept what I'd told him as the truth? Unexpected as it was, I was in love with him. Now the question burning in my mind was whether he could ever bring himself to love me back.

Erik

I didn't stop until I'd reached the roof, the cold air stabbing into my lungs with every breath I took. It was nearly morning; the sky to the east was turning gray with the coming sunrise. I climbed atop the statue of Apollo and looked down over Paris. The city was still sleeping, but there were a few people moving about in the streets below me.

I sighed heavily, thinking back to what had just passed. Vivienne, my little chorus girl, my lovely phoenix, loved me. Could it even be possible? Was it possible for anyone to love me?

Oh, how I hated the cruel cycle of my thoughts…I wanted more than anything to believe her words were true, but there was nothing I feared and mistrusted more. If she loved me, I could finally have the chance for the happiness that had been denied me all my life. If she loved me and I accepted it, it would leave me powerless and vulnerable to still more pain and sorrow.

How could I let myself be open to such hurt again? Every last memory of heartache weighed on my mind as I watched the dawn creep closer: my mother's rejection, my mistreatment at the hands of so many and that last devastating blow Christine dealt me. I was barely holding on to my sanity as it was, so what would happen to me if it all happened again?

But what if I did the rejecting and the heartbreaking this time? I would crush not only my own dreams, but hers as well. I could see in her eyes how she pleaded for me to believe her and take the love she offered; if I were to spurn her it would wound her already damaged heart. I cared enough about her to want to spare her that pain.

Yet if I cared about her so much, then how could I do this to her? How could I let her come to care about me and risk tainting her soul with my own cursed existence? All I could give her was a hideaway underground and she deserved so much more than that. What I should do was set her free, but it was too late for that already. I'd given her back her liberty, and she'd chosen to remain. The chains I'd first placed on her were broken only to be replaced with newer, stronger, harsher ones. It was too late to let her go, even if I could bring myself to.

I leaned my head back against the statue and closed my eyes. What was I thinking to even imagine something like this? How could she really love me when she didn't know the worst of me? When her eyes were opened at last to reality—my reality—then any love she felt for me would be dashed away. I was a monster inside and out. I was unworthy of love and condemned to remain alone.

But no, that couldn't be right! I just couldn't bring myself to accept it, and still I found myself faltering like this! Why was I so bent on running from everything I'd ever wanted?

Did I even have to ask myself again? It took courage to face something like this, whether it was a new experience or whether you already had battle scars. I was amazed at her bravery. Between us, I really was the coward after all.

Her cries sounded in my ears once more, the memory of how I'd left her a short while ago. It tore at me like a wolf hounding its prey, but I couldn't go back yet. I just…I just couldn't. Not yet.

But when?

I sighed, then climbed down from the statue. The sun was rising, and I preferred to do all my brooding in the dark.

Vivienne

Erik didn't come back that night. I sat waiting for him in his room as the hours passed so slowly, but he didn't appear. At some point I drifted off and fell asleep in his bed, still clinging to the violin as though it were a holy relic. My dreams were roiled and rife with darkness: the fire at the Opera, scenes of my weeping aunt and drunken uncle, the man on the street, and then just the empty blackness of the cellars as I stood on the shore of the lake screaming for Erik to come back.

I woke in tears.

Another day passed, and still no sign of Erik. I sat outside on the lakeshore hoping he would come until the cold forced me back inside and I continued my vigil in front of the sitting room fire. He had to come back; he had nowhere else to go. It was the long, weary wait that took its toll on me. I missed him so badly, his presence always so reassuring even when he was in the foulest moods. I was safe as long as he was around, but without him I felt so lost.

How could that be when I'd known him for such a short span of time? I needed him with me; I needed him like I needed to breathe, as so many poets had already said. I'd never known how literally they'd meant it until I suddenly found that my lungs wouldn't accept the air around me unless I was sharing it with him. I wanted him to understand that I loved him that much, but he just wasn't there.

I tried to be patient, tried to stay strong as hour followed hour, each one stretched across the span of eternity, but with every passing second I learned the next lesson my heart had to teach me: Love was so closely attached to hate. The longer he kept me waiting the more painful my love felt, and the more pain he put me in the angrier I became until I knew for certain that when he finally dared to show his face again I would likely go blind with my rage.

I stared into the fire, holding my hand out to the flames until the heat made me draw back. It was strange how one of the elemental forces of life could also be so deadly, like Erik himself and the fire he'd awoken within me. If we let it get out of control, it could become our funeral pyre—or our forge of rebirth.

Erik

I waited in the dark for two and a half days, buried in my thoughts and hiding in the darkest recesses of the Opera. She would never forgive me for abandoning her for so long, but it was necessary. I needed to stay away. I needed to summon at least some of the courage she possessed in such excess.

If this was to be my last chance…I couldn't turn away from it. If I wanted to escape the black abyss of my existence and finally feel life in my veins, I couldn't afford to be weak now. I was still afraid, but fear would not serve my purpose.

At last, I summoned enough strength to return to the cellars. My house was silent as a mausoleum as I searched the rooms for her. The sitting room was empty and as far as I could tell, her bed hadn't been slept in for days. But she was definitely here. I could sense her so close by, the light that was her spirit drawing me forward like a moth to the flame of a candle.

She was in my room, asleep in my bed with her arms wrapped around my violin. I glanced around the room and recognized the signs of her fury; my music had been scattered across the floor in a fit of contempt and misery, and even now her sleep was far from easy. I could hear her whimper softly and saw her shudder at the torment of her dreams.

Pain, physical pain, lanced through me at the sight. Not another nightmare…hadn't she suffered enough in her time awake? I went to her side and cupped her face in my hands. Her skin felt cold and clammy beneath my fingers. A cry escaped her and I said loudly and clearly, "Vivienne. Wake up now. It's only a dream." I leaned forward and pressed a shy kiss to her lips.

She opened her eyes and didn't seem to understand the sight that met her. I could read her thoughts in her gaze. I had walked out and left her alone…what was I doing back now? The brief confusion was quickly replaced by a fierce, blazing light and she sat up, pushing the violin away. "You're back," she said.

"Yes, Vivienne," I replied. "I've—I've come home."

"You left me here," she continued.

"I know, and I'm so sorry. I—had to. I'm sorry."

She was silent for several moments, then she slapped me across the face with all the strength in her body. The action took me by surprise but not nearly so much as when she continued to hit me, unleashing the full force of her anger.

"You can't just walk out and leave me alone like that and then come back and tell me you're sorry!" she shouted, striking me with her tiny fists. "I ran after you! I begged you to come back! How could you do that to me?"

"Vivienne, please!" I replied, raising my voice over hers. "Just calm down—"

"I will not calm down! I needed you, Erik, and you weren't there! You were gone! You just left me here!"

I reached out and held her by the wrists, restraining her. She glared at me with such undisguised rage that I wondered if I would suddenly burst into flame at its intensity. "I needed to go, Vivienne," I told her. "I was so confused and couldn't understand what you'd said to me that day. I couldn't make sense of any of it! For God's sake, girl, it was just…it was just so damned hard for me to think of it. You have no idea how I felt to hear you tell me you love me."

"I hate you!" she cried, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "As much as I loved you then, I hate you now!"

"I can cope with your hatred," I said. "It was your love I couldn't deal with."

"Erik, I'm sorry I took off your mask," she sobbed, "but I just couldn't make you understand! I didn't mean to hurt you! You didn't have to desert me!"

"I did," I told her, shifting my hands to her face again and looking into her eyes. "I did have to! It was too much, my dear, sweet child; I didn't know what else to do! You laid before me the most desperate dream of my heart, but my life had taught me to no longer trust my heart anymore. I didn't know how to believe what you said to me, and then what you did—"

"I'm sorry!" she repeated, still crying passionately. "I'm sorry, Erik!"

"Don't," I said, wiping her tears away. "Don't cry, Vivienne, please don't. What you did gave me the biggest shock of my life. You have to understand; no one has ever kissed me the way you did of your own free will. It was like none of it mattered to you, what I've done, what I am, what I look like…it was more than I could face at once."

"And you ran away!" she shot back. "You ran from all you say you've ever wanted like it was worthless and as though you didn't care at all!"

"I did care! I cared so much it scared me to death! That's why I ran away, I was scared that what you were saying was true and that the heaven I'd longed for was just within my reach. After you spend so long in hell, it's hard to risk joy and the agony that can come with it."

She shoved out of my grasp and said, "Well, I don't care! You said you wouldn't leave me, and you lied! You lied, Erik! I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't even breathe! I needed you so much, and I hated you for it!" She broke off with a cry of despair and pressed her hands to her face as her entire body shuddered with her sobs.

I was still unsure of myself, but I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me, praying she wouldn't push me away again and thanking God when she didn't. If what she needed was to cry, then all I could do was let her. I could wait to do what I had to until she had calmed down.

Eventually she fell quiet and gently drew away, rubbing at her swollen eyes and swallowing compulsively. She heaved a great sigh and said, "I'm sorry. I've just been waiting for you for so long and I was so furious with you…I didn't stop to think why you left."

"It's all right," I assured her. "Don't apologize." I took a deep breath. "There's…something I need to say."

"What?"

My hands began to shake, and I clenched them to keep them still. "No one has ever taken my mask off to do anything but mock and torment me. My face has been my curse. It's brought me so much pain for anyone to see me, you can't imagine. From the day I was born, I was made to believe that no one could ever think of me as something worthy of love and compassion. I looked like a monster, so I must not possess the same heart as a human and must not feel the way other humans do. My mask became more than a disguise, Vivienne. It was the only way I could even begin to be like anyone else; it protected me from their hatred; it gave me a shred of dignity.

"I wanted to prove you were like everyone else when I tried to make you take it from me because it would have made it easier on me if you treated me with the same contempt as they did. When you didn't and left the choice in my hands, it was such a gift, and then when you took my mask and didn't run away from me but actually kissed me, of your own free will—"

I stopped, unable to go on. She looked at me and waited for me to continue. A mounting sense of fear threatened to take hold of me. She might not be able to withstand this…but we'd never know if I didn't give her the opportunity. "Vivienne, I—I want you to see—" Damn it, be strong now! "I want you to see my face."

I turned my eyes away from her, not wanting to see if there was any fear or anxiety in her expression. "I want you to see," I said. "You said you wanted to prove yourself to me, and I want to prove myself as well, to both of us."

There was silence, then I heard her say, "All right."

"Just don't—don't look at me yet," I pleaded. "Please, turn away until I—until I say so." I snuck a glance at her. She had turned her head in the opposite direction.

I couldn't control how violently my hands trembled as I raised them to my mask. I could take it off when she wasn't looking…that wasn't so hard…I held it in my hands and felt the air on my face, the face I had kept hidden for so long…

The desire to flee flared strong. I couldn't do this, I just couldn't!

She sensed my terror and said softly, "It's your choice, Erik, and no one else's."

Another deep breath… "All right, Vivienne. Look at me."

I realize I might be driving some of you nuts by now, but just trust me, okay? I've got a few wild cards up my sleeve, and I'd hate to think you'd ditch me after all this time. :)