Nadir looked at the mail from the day and smiled. Like clockwork, the reply to the letter he sent three days ago is here, just like it always had been for the past several years now.

They haven't always kept such close contact - there hasn't always been so much to discuss in the past. Opera Ghosts can be notoriously hard to hold a conversation with.

But after it had all happened, all of the terrible business with the mob in the catacombs, he had revived a short note to assuage his fears as to the fate of his old friend. Nadir had sent a reply asking questions he honestly was not expecting the answers to, and was surprised beyond belief when Erik had sent page after page answering those questions - pouring out every detail, every emotion, every thought, as though giving his confession to a priest. It was very unlike Erik, he had thought. Perhaps it had all finally become too much for him. So Nadir wrote back again with his thoughts on Erik's thoughts, and Erik had replied with questions of his own, and Nadir had answered them as best he could, and before either of them knew it they both had large stacks of their correspondence in piles and piles.

Nadir has kept them all, and unbeknownst to him, Erik has also kept all of his. Erik, however, knew that the Daroga would be keeping all of his letters to him - that's just the kind of person he was. With everything written in Arabic, there was next to no fear of the letters being read even if they were intercepted along the lines, so both saw fit to delve deeply into all sorts of matters. Each one is typically rather long, but snippets here and there get to the heart of the matter very often.

"She kissed me, Daroga, and wept. I sent her away, and I feel now that I am dying - dying of love for her."

"Death is never the end of the story, old friend. Let die the things in you that must, and dare to rise again from the ashes of them, like a phoenix. You will survive this, even if it doesn't feel like it now."

"I dream of her often, Daroga. I don't know what to do with myself without her here."

"One must have a reason for going forward in life that isn't another person. It does not do to wrap ones life around another, because as you've found, should life's journey take them on a different path than you, you are now left with without purpose and direction. You must find a way now to pick up the pieces and move forward without her."

"I am ashamed to admit that sometimes I wonder if I should have let her go, if perhaps instead I should have sent the boy away alone and kept her here with me. She did, after all, choose me, did she not?"

"It was the right choice, Erik. A love that seeks to possess is but a poor imitation of love - in its attempt to fully dominate the object of its affection it ends up choking the life out of it. Sending her away was the right thing to do - very likely the only right choice you made in that whole sorry affair. She may have picked you, but you coerced her into doing so, and that is not a true choice."

Nadir does not hold back when he feels there is something to chastise Erik over - and he finds plenty, especially after reading what happened with Christine and Raoul under the Opera House. Though he always tries to word things in the most gentle manner, he gets replies on occasion that make him chuckle because he can just picture Erik bristling with indignation as he wrote them.

"You must better yourself in this regard, Erik. You do yourself no favors with that mentality, and it's surely one of the things Miss Daae found very offputting."

"Daroga - this is exactly the kind of thing I can picture you saying. In fact, I have already pictured you saying it before you saw need to waste precious moments writing it down to me. This begs the question of why I bother to write you when my own mind can provide the very same words you send me?"

Though he might send the occasional insult, he still always replies, always poses another question, so his feelings cannot be to terribly hurt by the truth of the matter.

"She came back Daroga - she is back! Christine, here! This is urgent, please, I do not wish to frighten her away again. You must help me, as I'm to be her teacher once more at her own request."

"You have been making many improvements, friend. Keep up the path you have been traveling on and things will go smoothly. I'm certain you remember everything we've discussed, and that you'll remember that Christine is not a prize to be won but a woman to be respected."

"I never thought I would see her again, and yet here she is with me daily now. It's rather humbling, I must admit, after all I put her through... Her voice is still beautiful, Daroga, and not a day goes by that I am not immensely grateful for this opportunity. I can't help but wonder, sometimes, if her continued lessons mean that, perhaps, on some level, she still cares for me... She doesn't love me, Daroga, I'm well aware of this, but surely it would not be too far of a reach to hope that she cares for me, just a little bit?"

"I will be blunt with you, old friend. After everything that happened, Daae would be well within her rights to hate you. However, as you have correctly guessed, one typically does not choose to voluntarily spend so much time in the company of a person one hates - so I do suppose you could infer, if not actual care towards you, at the very least an absence of a great hatred."

"My Christine is leaving me, Daroga. Yes, I know that she is not mine, I surely have no claim to her - but even still I cannot help but think of her as such - I still love her just as much as I always have, if not more. But she is leaving, and I must let her do so - she will be touring, and I know she has dreamed of this for ages now. She is purely ecstatic over it, to the point that I cannot help feeling joy over it as well - but then I remember that the cause of her happiness will mean sorrow for me, and that does put a bit of a damper on it all. I want her to be happy, I want her to achieve her dreams, I want nothing more than that - but am I cursed, Daroga, that her happiness must come at the expense of my own heart?"

"You are not cursed, Erik. You've simply found that you value her wants above your own, but that does mean you no longer feel those wants. I heard her sing at last nights performance, and I'm not at all surprised that there is demand for her to tour - you should be quite proud of your student. All of the hard work both of you have put in is paying off, and perhaps you can find some comfort in the thought that it was you who made it possible for her to achieve her dreams."

"I do not think a moment goes by that I do not miss her - it's terribly quiet here without her. I so looked forward to our lessons each day, but now I find I can look forward to articles in the newspaper about her. She sends letters every so often to Giry, and she always closes them 'give my regards to our mutual friend' - her friend, Daroga! I even asked Giry if I could look at the letter, because I thought for certain Giry was merely adding that part in when she'd read them to me in an attempt to cheer me up, but it was truly there in Christine's own beautiful penmanship, 'our friend'! It does so warm my heart to know that she thinks of me fondly, even though we must parted for now. Do you know what she wrote in her last letter, about her visit to the conservatory in Madrid where she sang? She said that it was beautiful and that she 'wished her teacher could have been there to see it with her'. I nearly wept when I read those words - that in the midst of such beauty her thoughts turned to me and she wanted me there with her."

"I am pleased to hear these things, Erik. Her friendship is truly something to cherish, especially knowing that it is given to you freely."

"Im afraid I've hurt her once again, Daroga, entirely without meaning to. She was so afraid to see me, you should have seen her weeping on that couch. But it turned out all right - or as all right as it can be, considering what has happened. My poor Nightingale will never sing again, and the entire world is the less for it."

"My sympathies to you all. It is not easy to lose something so precious. The world may seem very dull indeed for some time afterwards, but trust that there will come a day when loss is not felt so keenly - though, of course, it may never go away entirely."

"Daroga - she asked me to go to the masquerade with her. What do you think this means?"

"I believe that it means, dear Erik, that she wishes to go to the masquerade with you."

The letter arrive approximately two to three times a week. In this manner Nadir is kept up to date on the happenings in regards to Christine.

But now the letters have ceased to arrive for a long while. He almost starts to fear that perhaps Erik has relapsed into his olds ways - perhaps he's too busy holding Daae prisoner to write - but he maintains confidence that Erik is sincere in his desire to change, and hopes that nothing too troublesome has occurred.

When the next letter finally does arrive, the envelope is awfully thick.

"Dear Daroga-" he raises an eyebrow at the opening. Dear, is it?

"I don't know how to tell you this."

Concern furrows his brow.

"But Christine and I are getting married."

A pause. He reads that sentence again.

"I asked her, and she agreed. Or rather, she asked me in the form of an opera and I said yes - and then I had to ask her again because I could not believe my luck in this matter. Nevertheless, for some unknowable reason the poor girl has seen fit to be the wife of a wretch like me, so enclosed is an invitation to the wedding. I do hope you can make it, because otherwise it will just be me and Christine and Giry and her daughter and the priest, and I fear that it would be dreadfully awkward with only two witnesses. Yes, Daroga - a priest, you read that correctly. And at my own suggestion, too - there's very little I would not do for her - in fact should she ask it of me I might even break that promise I made to you all those ages ago. (That was a joke, Daroga, please do not get your feathers ruffled over it. Christine is terribly squeamish over such things, she would surely never ask me to murder anyone.) Anyway, I await your reply. Can you believe it, Daroga? Me - a married man - me! I can scarcely wrap my mind around it. I am counting on you showing up, you know, because I have already told everyone that you will, you see - and if you don't then I will look quite the liar when I said I had a friend, and I feel they already don't believe me in this matter. If you could prove them wrong in this, it would be greatly appreciated."

Nadir chuckles with amusement. He would not miss the day of Erik's wedding for the world.