Author's Note: I apologize for the delay on this chapter. I needed to give myself a few days off, I've been getting some very, very bad migraines lately. (You know, the ones that are right behind your eyes and spread into every other area of your face? …Yeeeah.) The break was much needed, and hopefully I'll be able to write the next chapter soon.

To some extent I'm not sure how frequently updates will appear in the coming weeks, not necessarily because I am busy, but because I have quite a great deal of research and planning to do before writing them. I will tell you that I've written out about 13 pages worth of plans, and I'm extremely excited to turn them into chapters to share with you! But for now, enjoy 21! C;

Dearest Madame and Meg,

I am unfortunately writing to tell you that I no longer require your assistance regarding my surviving on my own. Do not be alarmed, as I am perfectly well and in no danger.

All my love,

Christine

No matter how many times she read it, it never seemed to make sense to her. She'd received it approximately two and a half weeks ago, returning home to find it had been slipped under her door. She had immediately recognized the handwriting as Christine's and all but snatched it up immediately, unfolding the paper and devouring the words on the page with a worried eye.

She sighed and set it on the table in front of her again, placing her hands over her eyes for a moment to try and clear the scrambled thoughts from her head. For an hour or so she'd been at it, trying to decipher the words in an attempt to find some sort of underlying hidden code that she wasn't even sure was actually there.

Perhaps that was the problem. She was convincing herself that there was obviously something wrong solely because she didn't want to believe that Christine could be managing on her own. Knowing that she depended on them was a way of being able to keep track of her; there was a sense of security in knowing that she hadn't actually been murdered somewhere on the streets or met her demise via starvation or disease. With every visit Antoinette was able to release a sigh of relief at the sight of her living and breathing form. Every time she left she could feel the insecure tension forming in the back of her neck and crawling down her spine, knowing that she would only have to wait a few more days to a week to see if she could feel that sense of relief one more time. It felt like a gamble to let her go, and now she was beginning to feel as though she had gambled one too many times and had come up short. Something about this screamed that she should be alarmed.

She ran a hand over her hair before picking up the parchment once more, her eyes scanning the text for what had to be the hundredth time as she prayed that perhaps this time she might find something different hidden beneath the emotionless front that they seemed to put on.

It wasn't like Christine. It wasn't like her to just send a note dismissing someone and telling them to not be apprehensive in such a bland, direct manner. Christine had never been a woman of few words when it came to things like this – any time she had to break such news to a person it often came with a thousand redundant apologies. This just didn't fit. How was she supposed to simply brush this aside and not be alarmed when the note did nothing to reassure her in the way it was apparently intended to?

"Are you still worrying over that, Maman?"

Meg had appeared in the doorway, her sweet little face showing evident signs of unease at the apparent distress her mother felt. Antoinette reached up to finger the locket that hung around her neck, the locket that Christine had given her the day that she'd shown up on their doorstep, back from the dead and delivering gowns. It had become somewhat of a consolation to her, something for her to hang onto when she felt anxiety looming overhead.

She didn't have to speak - Meg already knew the answer.

"I know that it troubles you, I, too, have felt that there isn't something completely… right about it. But dwelling on it isn't good for you either." Meg stepped further into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from her mother. "Perhaps we ought to trust it, after all it is undeniably Christine's writing. She wouldn't write to us saying anything that she didn't mean."

Antoinette sighed, nodding slowly. There was truth in the statement to some extent, but it did little to put her mind at ease. Meg stood from her place at the table and stepped around to her mother, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and hugging her before kissing her on top of the head.

"It's late. You should go to bed, Maman, and rest your mind." She nodded, staring at the candle in front of her solemnly, and Meg gave her shoulders one last squeeze before disappearing into the other room, the sound of her footsteps on the creaking stairs drifting down to Antoinette's ears, almost like a reminder that that her own bed was waiting for her.

Her eyes drifted from the flickering flame and back to the note before her. She stood, collecting it in one hand and the candle in the other before retreating to her parlour, the parlour where Christine had explained herself what seemed like such a short time ago, and sat down at her desk.

She pulled a piece of parchment from a drawer and dipped her quill in the ink, staring at the blank paper and formulating a way to start. After deciding she pressed the quill to the paper and began to write.

Erik…

This one would not be burned.

A full day had passed since what he liked to refer to as the 'incident' in the bathroom. It seemed like a rather fitting title, considering how he assumed that neither of them had intended for such events to take place. Though whether he was using the word 'incident' to refer to their amatory exploits or to the deliverymen interrupting them he wasn't quite sure.

What he did know, however, was that his mind had been chomping at the bit, so to say, ever since that moment. His hands still hadn't forgotten the sensation of her lovely body reacting to his touch, nor had his lips fully erased the sublime way they'd felt with hers pressing against them. Each time he had seen her since then had been a trial. It had been virtually impossible to keep himself from reaching out to touch her once more.

What was worse than trying to contain himself was wondering what would have happened if he didn't. Hadn't it been her that had essentially initiated all of it the last time? Hadn't it been her who had told him that she had missed him, who had uttered his name so pleadingly that he had felt as though there had literally been no choice but to give in?

He understood now that this was what kept him from touching her again. Hindsight, it was too simple to see that in his foggy state of mind he hadn't been able to interpret her intentions. She was lonely, broken. She wanted arms around her, she wanted a man to touch her and make her feel something again, even if it was just the brief sensation of her body coming to life in a way that it hadn't for so long. It would be something that she hadn't felt since the loss of her husband. It didn't matter that it was him, it just needed to be someone, and it just happened to be that he was there and so was she, and everything had been so perfectly convenient - from the way she had fallen onto the floor and brought him back into the room, to the way that those long, lithe legs of hers, dripping and shining with water, had greeted him so temptingly.

It was as if it had all been a trap, a trap to lure him into letting go of his self-control and comforting her through physical intimacy. His mind attempted to rationalize it hour after hour, creating solution after solution instead of considering that her intentions could have been completely honest. It wasn't that she felt anything for him. It wasn't, it couldn't be. He wouldn't let himself believe that it could be, for it would only turn around to spit in his face once more.

There had been something so startlingly obvious about it, something that screamed her true feelings for him, and in return he'd only managed to give away the secret of the extent of his undying fidelity to her. In that there was something humiliating, something that whispered in his ear about how apparent it was that she had the upper hand, that she barely had to lift a finger and he would give in to every whim. It was this obviousness that he couldn't handle, he wasn't able to accept that it was displayed so simply before him.

He'd been trying to ignore it ever since, deciding with firm insistence that there was more than what met the eye, that the unmistakable answer that her apparent emotional proclamation through physical action was nothing more than a lonely woman making a desperate plea for some sort of attention, apparently the sexual kind.

Thinking along these lines did nothing to make him any more optimistic about where their already mangled relationship was going. It made him feel used. Manipulated. Things that he hadn't felt since their time at the Opera. It only reiterated the sentiments that the negative voice in his head had been telling him since she'd arrived – she didn't want him out of love. She wouldn't want him out of love. How could she? No, her intentions for such primal emotion couldn't be because she truly wanted him with love. She wanted him to fill the blank space where Raoul should have been standing. He was her fall back plan, the man that she wanted only when she had no one else.

Even so, these thoughts did little to quell the fire that burned away at him beneath the calm façade. He still struggled to keep his composure in her presence and not whisk her off her feet with the intent to ravish her.

He stood at the window of the drawing room, peering out into the fading sky as he downed the last of the liquor in his glass. Even with the harsh reassurance of the negative voice nagging at him, he still couldn't bring himself to be completely confident in the thought. He didn't want to be completely confident in the thought. More than anything he wanted to think that she yearned to have him love her because she loved him, but he knew too well how easily he'd been scorned the first time.

Perhaps that was hope trying to plant its roots and grow up through the crack in the walk. It was trying to tell him that perhaps if he just let himself believe…

No. How could he do that when the last time he had let himself believe that she could love him he had been so horribly wrong? He had filled himself full of so much false hope that in the end it had been his ultimate undoing - he hadn't been willing to let go of it. He couldn't let himself become so dependent on such hope again. He couldn't handle that kind of hope destroying him again. He could handle that she had brought out the monster that was undoubtedly buried within him. He would always be a monster.

He swore that he wouldn't allow himself to become hope's victim a second time.

She had managed to regain enough of her strength to move about freely on her own now without having to worry about suddenly becoming dizzy or her legs giving out. Her appetite had returned to some extent, she was eating more than she had been and could consume more than just fruit and broth without her stomach becoming terribly upset and wanting to heave it back up.

Much to what she soon discovered was her dismay, she'd also come to the point where she was able to draw her own bath without having to alert him of her intentions.

Erik had given her consent to go about her business and do what she liked. She'd taken that as far as what was safe to assume with Erik, knowing that regardless of what she really would have liked to be doing that there were still some sort of unspoken guidelines hidden beneath the veil of that statement dictating what she could and could not do.

With that in mind, she'd chosen to play it safe and sit on the bench back of the house on the small brick patio. She'd gone back into the servant's house and – after sorting through the mess that had either been left by Damien when he'd fled or created by Erik upon discovering he'd fled - had dug around through one of the closets with the intent of finding something to do and had come up with a shabby embroidery hoop from God knows where. With a bit more rummaging around she found an interestingly shaped scrap of cloth shortly after. It hadn't taken her long to find a needle and embroidery thread, as she'd left some in her old bedroom in case she should ever need to fix any of her dresses.

She sat and stared down at the material, pushing the needle up through it and then back down, each new stitch feeding the creation of some abstract pattern. She had no intention of creating anything worthwhile. Well, she couldn't exactly when this material was so awkwardly shaped anyway. It was merely serving as something for her hands to do, something to keep her occupied as she passed the endless hours in the morning sun, the breeze occasionally stealing a curl to toy with as it brushed the back of its hand against her cheeks, leaving her wishing that instead of the wind it was the gentle touch of his hand grazing over her skin.

Two days… He'd been acting distant ever since, just as she had essentially been able to predict. Time was working against her. The longer they each refused to resolve the issue - whether it be physically or verbally - the more damage to whatever growth they'd achieved she felt she perceived. No tender moments, no soft caresses to her face, or burning gazes penetrating each other. More than that, it was as if he had decided that she was well enough to take care of herself simply because of what had transpired and rarely came to her room for anything. It was as if he was using her restored health as an excuse to keep himself from having to be around her. It did little to silence the flaming desire inside of her, if anything it heightened it purely because his sudden estrangement was keeping her waiting and gave it more time to build up. The times she did see him it flared and roared within her, clawing for some sort of release only for her to have to silence it.

It frustrated her, to say the least. Had she not made any and all feelings rather clear? Then again nothing concerning love was ever clear to Erik, she'd learned the hard way how his mind worked when it had to assume things. It was never steered in the proper direction and instantly lost any hope of ever going close to the proper direction after that point, then became so hopelessly lost that any attempt to reassure it and redirect it was in vain. She should have known that if she didn't spell it out that something like this would have happened.

But how much clearer did she have to make it? Was nearly making love on a sink not enough?

She stabbed the needle through the fabric once more, tugging the thread through forcefully to the other side, her jaw clenched. Until now she had thought that the two of them had made progress, that he had relinquished his hold on whatever kind of grudge he might have held against her for what she'd put him through and was merely grateful that they now had their chance without any third parties dictating either of their decisions. She thought that he had seen how he had uncovered feelings in her that had been ebbing away at her for so long since their separation, that he had seen the true intent of her actions. Apparently that unfortunate interruption had created more problems than simply pulling them from one another's yearning arms.

What she would give now to have felt those arms firmly clasped around her, to be sitting anywhere but on this damned patio sewing. Sewing! For the love of all things good, days before she'd been seconds away from what had held promise for being passionate lovemaking with a man she'd only ever dreamed of being with, and now, because of one minor fault that had apparently lifted the mask of desire from his eyes, he all but refused to touch her!

She would not play this game of him passionately resisting and relenting in a moment of weakness then turning around and virtually avoiding her as if she were everything in life that he so strongly despised.

She continued impaling the fabric with her needle, stitching swirls and other various shapes that held no significance to one another. So many emotions had been revived and heightened since she'd arrived here, emotions that she'd never expected to be able to act upon. Too many times she'd had love taken from her, and one too many times she'd turned love away. Was this love avenging itself for the way she'd so blatantly spurned it? If it was she found that she was nothing short of deserving. But had she not served her time in the two years that followed the fateful night below the Opera? Were none of the many nights of endless longing for his presence enough?

If not, then surely she was carrying out her punishment here, where every day she had to witness his actions as his graceful form made her heart swell with such terrible hunger and desire for the feel of it against her own, for his lips upon her skin…

For his love.

"There was something in the letterbox this morning that I thought might interest you."

Her thoughts were interrupted as she watched his hand place the opened envelope on the table beside her, her pulse quickening anxiously at the sound of his voice. She set her rather obscure embroidery on her lap, his eyes following it questioningly as he took in the bizarre shapes and meaningless black stitches. His gaze shifted to her hands as she pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it, instantly recognizing the writing.

Erik,

I know that it may seem strange to suddenly receive such a letter when we've not corresponded for a while, and I have no doubts that the content of this message will shock you. I feel it is not my place to let you know, but by this point my heart tells me that I have no choice in the matter.

Word of Christine's death has undoubtedly reached you by this point, and I pray that you are not still struggling with whatever grief you may have felt upon receiving such news. However, the news I am about to impart upon you may upset you more than the news of her death.

Christine did not die in the fire. She lived, and hid amongst the rest of Paris whilst working in a dress shop, concealing herself as the city mourned her loss. She happened upon my doorstep one day with a delivery for Meg and myself, and it was through this that I learned of her being alive.

She told us of what happened and we offered to help her with food and other necessities, which she accepted. She visited us as frequently as she could, however, that is where the reason in which I tell you this lies. Approximately two weeks ago I received a note from her, a note that had been slipped under my door, telling me that she no longer required our help, and that we should not fear for her. Alas, I have not been able to listen to this request, and I fear the worst for her. I know that it is unlikely that you have heard of her survival until now, but I do not know where else I can turn. Of all the people in the world you are the one who I would expect to be able to produce such information.

If by chance you have heard of her whereabouts or you know anything of her, please make haste and respond as soon as you can to put my troubled mind at rest.

Yours,

A. Giry

She placed it back on the table and moved her embroidery there as well, preparing to stand when his words halted her.

"I took it upon myself to reply already, you've no need to worry about that." Her brow knit, perhaps mildly irritated that he'd done so. "What do you give me that look for? It was addressed to me, it's only right that I should reply to it."

"What did you say?"

"Why does it matter?"

Christine crossed her arms over her chest, obviously displeased with such a reply, her mind having shifted from her previous thoughts to something new, the previous ones still lingering but not at the forefront. Now was not the time for such trivial banter, not when putting Madame's mind at ease was the source of the conversation.

He seemed to sense this emotion radiating off of her if it hadn't been obvious enough from her stance, and chose to consent to her question and answered rather tritely.

"I told her she had nothing to worry about."

Christine's face showed her mild skepticism all too plainly.

"I say that with the utmost honesty, Christine."

She pursed her lips and glanced down at the letter on the table one more time before collecting her embroidery and beginning to step past him.

"Still you doubt me?" He was almost tempted to ask her what reason she had for not trusting his word, then realized all too soon that she had every reason in the world to be apprehensive of him when he recounted some of the more prominent details of their past. She must have been suspicious based on the content of the message, for it would not have been easy to reply so simply in a way that explained their entire situation, and had he been anyone else it wouldn't have.

"No. But I believe that I will write to her as well," she stated.

If anything, she merely wanted to know what details he had enclosed to her. Had he spoken of all that had happened, or had he merely written what he had told her just now? It wasn't necessarily that she didn't believe him, but when one's discovery could always potentially be at stake, even if Madame already knew, she preferred to handle such matters herself. It ceased to matter that she felt that she knew he could be trusted to handle such a situation wisely.

"I cannot help but feel that it would be best if you did not." His voice stopped her as forcefully as if he had reached out and physically touched her. "Now that Damien is not here to hand deliver any mail that you might wish to send you'll have to be more careful if you want to keep your secret."

His tone stung like a slap to the face. Something in it shattered what confidence she currently had in both retaliating and in deliberating confronting him about his recent behavior, or at least about eventually attempting to prove to him that she wanted something more than just a quick fling of delight to patch her wounded spirits. She would need time to build the proper courage, not just fleeting bravery that appeared and vanished the instant it was challenged. For now, she knew that continuing on with such petty arguing would do nothing to aid her cause.

She looked away, unable to meet his gaze, the shame of her deception all too fresh in her mind. She knew that he was right. Sending a letter could potentially risk some form of recognition by anyone who handled the mail. She couldn't really go by herself now, going into the city proved to be a risk in itself, and now with Damien missing who knew what kind of threats waited for her there.

Even in his determination to try and keep such thoughts from his mind, he couldn't keep his eyes from wandering over her face as the gears in her mind turned, obviously thinking over what she would be saying. He could remember how soft and lovely her cheeks were, or how plush and delicate her lips had managed to feel against his even as she ravished him with them hungrily and forcefully. He could remember the saccharine scent of her damp curls, and the way her warm breath danced across the sensitive, exposed skin of his face that wasn't covered by his mask. He could almost perceive the faint haunt of the trembling in his spine as she'd wrapped her legs about his hips and drew him to her, virtually begging for the contact that he eagerly ached to give her more than he would have liked to admit.

It was her voice, hollow yet still firm, that helped him to shake such delusions from his mind and bring him back to the present.

"Fair enough." She managed to meet his eyes once more, silently pleading for him to understand that what they were doing to each other was foolish. Regretfully, she couldn't bring her voice to say this or anything more, and upon realizing such he gave her one last glance, something almost sorrowful wrapped inside of it as though he was pleading for her to speak as well and keep him from going, and abruptly retrieved the letter from the table and turned to leave.

In watching him retreat her mind was revived from its apparent catatonic state, something spurring it into action and compelling her to try and stop him. Her previously slighted confidence began trying to stand on its feet again, making one last surge for an attempt at bringing up the conversation that could potentially clear what she could only assume was the misunderstood air between the two of them.

She took several steps after him as if she was going to suddenly say something to stop him, and he paused as if he understood this. He turned his head to his shoulder, looking over it just enough to catch her figure in his peripheral vision. He felt something stirring within him against his will. He soon realized that such a feeling was the desire to hear her beautiful voice form words that would hush the negativity inside him once again, words that would affirm that she truly wanted him, that he wasn't just a pawn in her journey towards acceptance of her loss.

He waited, perhaps more hopefully than he ought to have, for he could have anticipated the outcome that befell him with every passing second that she didn't speak. Perhaps he should have given her a second more, or urged her to voice what she was trying to find the words to say. But he didn't, he felt too certain that neither would work in his benefit.

It was clear that she wasn't going to say anything.

He left, and she remained on the patio clutching the edge of her tattered embroidery hoop, fingering the fabric as she watched him go, feeling completely and utterly helpless to stop him. She became aware of the threatening sting of tears behind her eyes, a horrid reinforcement of this fresh failure that she wanted so desperately to avoid. He'd been right again.

Of all the things he wanted to hear, she'd never known what to say.