A/N: Last chance if anyone wants to guess who Rene really is. I haven't been keeping it as much of a secret as it might feel like, but there's also one other surprise in store. All shall be revealed next chapter, however.

"It was only in the theatre that I lived."

Oscar Wilde

"I am abandoned and ache greatly."

Federico Garcia Lorca, Midnight Is Gone

"There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge in the other."

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

"Among the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest?"

Angela Carter, Night at the Circus

"He had suddenly no pride, no pleasure, no desire; nothing but a sort of dull resentment against everything. He turned back; shut the door, and slipping between the heavy curtains and his open window, stood looking out at the night, 'Full of misery!' he thought. 'Full of damned misery!'"

John Galsworthy, "The Juryman," Five Tales

The purchase of the opera house by one Erik Portmanteau was news even larger than the exoneration of the phantom.

All of Paris thought the opera might sit vacant for many years, not just a couple of months, nor be bought by someone so unknown as this entrepreneur.

Until the rumors got out, and then Erik was surely thriving with the attention on him. His renovation team was hired at an immense cost which should have kept them all quiet, but he did not trust them anyways. More pay induced quicker work, as did their terrifying employer. The foreman was actually a good man who seemed happy to merely have work to do and such clear instructions with which to follow.

In fact, Erik was actually pleased with the man's competence.

Nadir Khan became a crucial part of everything as well, for he played acting manager when Erik was elsewise occupied. Also known as unable to pull himself from the bed of his missing lover. He did not try to seek her out, but he did often find that some days were harder than others to not have her company pass by, and when a month came, twice the time he had even known her, it was the hardest day yet.

But time forged on, and soon there was an empty shell of the most beautiful opera to have ever existed.

Even Erik was impressed with himself.

He stood in the grand entrance, on the left side facing the door, and watched over the empty space, feeling the golden rails underneath his hands and admiring his handy work. Sure, he had not been the one to do the hard labor, but Erik was the one who laid every plan as carefully as physically possible. He was almost obsessive over it.

They were to be conducting interviews that day, and by they, he really meant himself and the Daroga who was there for complete moral support only.

It was a long, arduous process, for which he hired people to do the hiring for certain divisions of the opera because as much as he would have liked, not every person could have been personally picked by him. What was mostly surprising was the amount of people willing to work for him. Men and women alike looked at him with nothing much other than a strange glance before saying they were willing to be employed. It was a powerful moment Erik never could have imagined.

Then came the talent. It was going to take him weeks to find suitable musicians and actors alike, if not months considering he might need to curate some himself. He was not above teaching an under-developed talent their craft just a bit further, but there would be not a single diva stepping through these doors unless it was as a patron.

Which was unfortunate because by the time he had a functioning staff, he and Nadir needed to begin making money soon lest their investment turn into a leach.

But regardless of that, Erik was shocked when it came time to find talent and he auditioned actual names in the opera industry that would pull crowds from miles. Still, talent was his top priority, and no one batted an eyelash at him as time moved on. Unfortunately a diva or two might have slipped through the cracks.

The interaction with the public came in small doses for him, yet when it could not be avoided, he actually did come around to being surrounded by groups. He'd done it once when he attended the Masquerade ball, but that was different as he had his eyes on one prize alone.

When Erik received benefactors to the opera, that was when he knew there was promise.

The first one came with the hiring of a spectacular ballerina who was followed by one of the deepest set of pockets Erik had ever seen. Though, after witnessing her talent, he knew why.

It was amazing to see these talents come before him, a mixture of undiscovered and renowned ones alike forming the group which was now the new Paris opera house.

Seats to the first set of performances were already sold out, if only by his name alone, but Erik was excited to say that there were a few renowned musicians floating about his company.

He did not play at director, though it might have been fun to see the people interact with him on a daily basis. But the director was merely a puppet anyway. Someone who listened to his every whim and did as told, like the men who worked on the opera to get it running again had.

And now that it was nearly six months since Rene had left him, Erik was more than ready to get everything up and running.

He and Nadir would be seated in box five for that evening's performance, and while the insinuation was slightly on the nose for those who still hated him, he didn't care a lick. He also tried not to care that the de Chagny's, settled and returned back to a normal family affair, had rented box three, right next to his own.

It was fine, really, for he did not harbor any of those things for his past lover, but the only problem was that they were the ones to give him this chance, as was Rene who he had not received a peep from. Erik was at least hoping she might be able to get a letter to him if her family had taken her, but at this point he was somewhat assured she might have been a fevered dream despite the Daroga and his freedom.

Part of him wanted to ask the Comte and Comtesse if he didn't already want nothing to do with the either of them besides the brief and single letter of thanks he put in their box.

Nadir had advised against such things, but doing it anyway wasn't hard.

Having rehired the Madame Giry and her wonderfully talented and artistic ballerina of a daughter, Erik was going to be more than comfortable in his box that evening. There were several people of higher status Erik had in mind for introducing to the girl, but he needed to make sure they were worthy first.

Sitting in his office with guards outside, Erik looked over the profits for the evening and chuckled. It was a wholesome sound that spurred the Daroga from his own desk across the way in the large room.

"Jovial, are we?"

"You have seen this, yes?" He held up the aforementioned parchment of their finances.

Nadir smiled.

"Seen it, checked it, disbelieved, checked it again. Yes."

"Well, tonight will tell if this shall continue."

"Why wouldn't it?" The Daroga got up, his fine suit for the evening one unlike his usual attire. "You have done a lot of work… work I never thought you capable of."

"I continue to do it for Rene. I wouldn't have this chance without her."

"I know."

Erik stood too, ready to head out to the foyer where he would be mingling with the elite opera goers. God, the sentence would have never crossed his mind before this.

He was a veritable ball of nerves suddenly, his Phantom façade completely gone in the privacy of his office. His office in his opera playing his choice of work with a cast, crew, and orchestra all hand picked by him. It was surreal.

"Ready? Doors are opening," Nadir said, pointing out the rush of noise coming from the other side of his door.

"Ready as I ever shall be."

"Let us show our faces then."

Erik swept through the door and put up his best walls to protect himself from whatever high society might say to him. At first, he kept to the overhang, the upper floor where he and Nadir simply watched people come in ahead towards him if they so deemed. And with his white mask and gloves, the elite were actually not horrible to him. Most asked him mundane questions of this or that about business, and others were so bold as to offer him some type of cordial friendship. It seemed he had become an intriguing figure that most wanted to get to know due to the Chagny's declaring his innocence.

Which reminded Erik to look out for that specific couple so as to not have to interact with them.

Still, the public's favor was something completely foreign to Erik, and to say it was overwhelming might have been a slight understatement.

The house opened, which thinned out the crowd in the foyer, but that did not reduce Erik's keen eye for the people he was looking for. And it wasn't that he was avoiding her for any other reason than their benefit, for he could be civil, and would be, if it came down to interacting with them. There was no ill will any longer, as he had his time with Rene which taught him more than enough about love to last him the rest of his life.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't looking for her, too.

He was momentarily distracted by a couple who praised what he had done with the opera house when interrupted by the Daroga who pulled him back to the overhang with prudence.

"Look downstairs, right by the guards," he whispered semi-casually, Erik's gaze going there without a single thought to any type of decency.

For the first time in over half a year, Erik Portmanteau saw Madame de Chagny.

His hands would've crushed the metal below him if it were anything less than the highest standards. But it wasn't because of his old songbird, she was beyond him and always had been, his vision was fixed on the familiar face next to hers, the one with dark brown curls and much more plump face than Erik recalled, as well as an abdomen in the same shape.

It was Rene near his old pupil, and his heart had stopped at the sight of her not only with the de Chagny's, but also on the arm of a man, dressed to the nines, and pregnant enough to be at least six months so or more on the way. Not that he was well versed in those things, but the opera had had enough pregnant ballerinas and chorus girls alike for him to be aware of the stages.

He was seething.

It was obvious that he was missing some part of the puzzle, that her family might have seen her disappearance as disobedience and married her back off as quickly as possible, but she was far too pregnant to have only just conceived that child less than six months ago. That wasn't the objective, however, and Erik tried to pry his eyes away, but he couldn't as Nadir talked nonsense at him about how he should not go down there or tempt fate at all.

But hadn't fate brought her back to him?

The man whose arm she was on looked brutish, if Erik had anything to say for it. He was tall and just the bit overweight with curly hair that resembled the Comte's own blond mess. Rene's smiles were not genuine, and he imagined they wouldn't be considering she had deemed that she loved him, not this man who was carting her around as though she were but a bout of parchment that he needed to keep with him at all times.

She looked absolutely enchanting, pregnancy and all, but he didn't have the nerve to approach her quite yet, especially considering how snugly close they were staying with the de Chagny's. And he followed them all the way to box three where Erik recalled with great discomfort that Rene, the man she was with, and the Comte and Comtesse were to be in the box in front of him the whole show.

Erik was standing in his box, looking over the crowd as they filled in the seats while the performance loomed closer and closer on. He breathed less easy than he thought he might at this point, as people glanced towards him from below and around. None seemed too bothered.

The only people who didn't look were those before him.

Erik didn't know why, but he hoped that either head of curls might turn and just glance… to see if they could catch his eye or the tiniest sight of him that might signal something.

He expected less from the blonde than he did from the brunette.

Nadir came up to his side and sighed.

"It looks like it shall be a wonderful evening."

Stoically, Erik shook his head in reply.

"It will be something, Daroga."

Leaning over, attempting to keep from glancing to his left, he watched the flutters behind the curtains that no one else would notice. The small little movements in the shadows which only he could see, that only he would be able to scorn the cast for unless they pull through this performance without any other follies.

"Let's sit. You are worrying the crowd, and if the performers see you lingering, they shall become anxious as well."

He conceded with little argument and pushed from the railing, seating himself next to Nadir, a small sheet of parchment and a fountain pen tucked away just in case he may need it.

Despite his focus being abysmal, Erik was proud of the show he was able to put on, as his leads were spectacular and not a single thing went wrong. The only thing sitting there so close yet so far from Rene had done to him was make him know that he was going to talk to her, no matter what he had to do.