The hours flew by. Immersed in his work, Erik hadn't even noticed when Miss Vanucci left the office. He knew he should go home and rest. He'd only been allowed to return to work today because he promised he would take it easy for the first few weeks back.

"I am taking it easy," he reasoned with himself. "I didn't go to the job site and it's still," he spared a quick glance out the window, "daylight."

The telephone on his desk rang and he ignored it. The only person who had his private number was the Persian, and Erik already knew what he would say. He'd probably say it in every language they both knew.

The outer office door opened and Erik stiffened. He wasn't expecting anyone and he knew it wasn't yet time for the night cleaning crew. His hand closed over a silver letter opener as he stood and moved silently to his doorway. A figure entered and Erik braced for attack.

"Oh, a letter opener? Last time it was a penknife. I'm not sure if I should be amused or insulted." Benjamin Sholokhov walked in and pushed the letter opener aside. "Hello Erik, aren't you supposed to be home by now?"

"What do you want, Benjamin?" Erik sat back down behind his desk, dropped the letter opener and picked up a pencil. "I don't recall that we had an appointment."

"So I need an appointment now to stop in and check up on my favorite patient?"

Erik watched as Sholokhov sauntered into the office. The man looked nervous, putting Erik on guard. "What's wrong Benjamin?"

Sholokhov held his hands up almost defensively. "I'm just the messenger here." He looked back to the outer office. "She insisted."

"She?" It couldn't be. The only 'she' Erik thought of was dead. Unless this was her surrogate, in which case he wanted nothing to do with her.

"Hello, Erik." Christine Daaé walked into the office. She looked at him with her head held high. "I know you don't want to see me, but I made a promise and I intend to keep it whether you like it or not." She opened her handbag and pulled out an oversized envelope, holding it out to him. "Take it so I can fulfill my promise and go."

He snatched it from her hand, tearing the envelope in his haste. "There. You've delivered it." He turned his back to her. "Now you can go." Something slipped from the envelope and fell to his feet. Another envelope with Christine's name on it. Wordlessly he held it out to her.

"Ah, yes," Sholokhov said softly. "Lillian wanted me to make sure you both received the missives enclosed." Christine and Erik both looked at him surprised. "I don't know what she wrote, only that she felt it was important for you both to be together when you did. I, on the other hand, do not intend to stay while you do. Erik, I expect that you, as a gentleman, will see to it that Miss. Daaé gets safely back to her hotel suite. Good night." Looking at each of them, he bowed slightly and left.

Erik realized he was still holding the envelope with Christine's name. "Here, this is for you." She took it, nodding thanks and turning away. "Wait. There's more." Erik held out a folded piece of paper fastened with a small wax seal. "It's from Lillian." His voice cracked slightly at her name. "It's addressed to us both and marked 'read first'." He looked at Christine, unsure of what to do.

She looked back at him, equally unsure. "Well, this is uncomfortable."

He could only nod. His voice seemed to have deserted him momentarily.

She saw his hesitation and decided to take matters into her own hands, just as Lillian would have done. "Let's sit down over there." She gestured to the small seating group in the far corner of his office and headed to a chair.

Erik followed her, sitting in the chair opposite. He blinked rapidly, speaking softly. "The last time I sat here was when Benjamin told me of Lillian's death." He was surprised at how much pain he still felt at her passing.

"I promise, the pain will lessen in time." Christine looked at him. Even with half his face covered, she could still read his expression. "You've never lost anyone you loved before, have you?"

He looked at her sharply. He'd lost the only woman he'd ever loved years earlier—how could she not know that? "Lost to death, you mean?"

"Yes." Her voice grew softer. She wanted to reach out and touch him, enfold him in her arms and comfort him over Lillian's loss. But she knew she didn't dare touch him right now. She'd have to let him work through the pain alone. "When Mama died I had Papa. And when Papa died I had my guardian, and when she died I had Meg and Madame Giry…and you." He wouldn't look at her as she spoke. He just stared off into nothing.

Finally, he shook his head. "There was never anyone who loved me to lose until her."

"Were you in love with Lillian?" Christine held her breath, afraid to hear the answer.

He smiled slightly then. "I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her." He looked down at the torn envelope in his hands, feeling another smaller envelope inside it. "We had a whole discussion on that fine difference. Does that even make sense?"

"Oh yes," Christine agreed, smiling back at him. "It took me a while to understand it, but I do now. There are people I love because they became a special part of my life and in some ways they are always with me. I suppose Raoul is one of those people. He'll always remain in my memories and in my heart but I know now it's the boy Raoul I knew on a sunlit beach, not the man at the opera.

"Lillian became one of those people, too. I felt it the first afternoon we met. I knew she would become one of the most special, and loved, people in my life. But I've only been in love with a man once." I still am, she thought, but knew he wasn't ready to hear those words.

"I never had anyone to create memories with." His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Not good ones, anyway."

"Not even Nasir?"

He took a deep breath, expelling the air slowly. "My relationship with Nasir is complex. At its barest essence, yes he's my friend, probably as close as I'll ever come to a brother. We've been through a lot over the years. If I'm being honest, I'd risk my life for him as he has for me." Erik shook his head slowly, thinking back. "But he's the only one."

He looked at her, knowing what she was going to ask. "Yes, I'd risk my life for Lillian, I suppose you could say I already have during the earthquake. But that was a special circumstance, not day-to-day living.

"It's odd to think it, but you, Christine, spent far more time with Lillian than I did."

"That doesn't make her any less important to you." Christine said. "I don't think it's about how much time we spend with people, but about how much of an impression they make on our hearts." She watched him carefully, trying to judge how much of an effect her words were having on him. She desperately wanted the unyielding Erik to bend towards her, just a little. She gestured to the sealed piece of paper, still held in his hand. "Are you going to open that?"

He looked down, as if surprised to see it. He'd been so deep in thought he'd forgotten he held it. Nodding slightly at her, he slipped his finger under the wax, breaking the seal. He read the paper quickly, then handed it to Christine.

"My dearest friends," she read aloud. "Please talk to each other. Don't be constrained by the people you were, instead be who you are today. Don't let past fears and mistakes destroy what could be. I love you both. L."

Christine looked up at Erik as he stood and walked to the window. She could feel the waves of reticence rolling off him. It was up to her to make the first gesture. Rising, she went to him, placing her hand on his arm. She could feel him trembling, but he didn't pull away. It's a good beginning, she thought. "We can't avoid it forever, you know." She watched him nod and continue to stare out the window.

"So, " he began, "what do you want to do?"

"Benjamin asked you to take me back to my hotel suite. Why don't we just go and have a quiet dinner there?"

He looked at her sharply. "Your hotel suite?"

She straightened her spine, looking straight at him. "Yes. We have to talk, Erik. You know that. We can have dinner brought up and speak openly and privately without constantly being under scrutiny."

"Why not my club? We have a dining room."

She could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea of being alone with her. Why? What was he afraid of? Then she knew. It was the same fear she carried. Fear of facing the truth between them. They'd both built walls after that night at the opera. Walls she'd only begun to tear down within the last month. She didn't know if he was ready, if he'd ever be ready to risk his heart again.

But she also knew tonight was their last chance. She was leaving the city to return to Europe. She had an engagement to sing at La Scala and had to be in Milan for rehearsals in four weeks' time. Whatever was going to happen, or not happen, between them would happen tonight. There was no time left for anything but the truth.

"I'm going back to Europe tomorrow."

Her words surprised him. He knew she wasn't staying in San Francisco. He'd even wished her gone. But now that her departure from his life was imminent, he found he didn't want her to go. What was wrong with him? Why was he so torn? Didn't he want to finally be free of Christine? That's what he kept telling himself over and over these past weeks since she reappeared in his life. But was that true? Or was it just another lie he told himself to get through the day?

He looked her full in the face, seeing the image of the girl at the opera overlaid on the woman's face. He had to stop looking at her and seeing the past, had to stop living in the past. And he had to be honest with himself. No more lies. Lillian knew the truth, even though he tried to deny it. She'd seen through to his heart. He owed it to her memory to do as she'd asked.

"All right, dinner at your hotel." He stuffed the other envelope in his jacket pocket intending to read it when he returned home. He knew it contained Lillian's final message for him and he wanted to be alone when he read it.

. . . .

As soon as they'd arrived at Christine's suite she excused herself and crossed to the bedroom. "I think it's going to be a long night, and I want to change now so I can dismiss my maid for the evening.

"There's a room service menu on the desk. Why don't you order for us?"

"Of course." He picked up the menu, perusing the contents. Knowing this was going to be an uncomfortable dinner for them both, he selected simple food: roast chicken, potatoes, and vegetables. "Do you want wine with dinner?"

"You're French and I was practically raised in that country," she said, peeking around the bedroom door. "Of course there should be wine with dinner."

After ordering, Erik went to the windows, gazing out at the view. It wasn't the same as before the earthquake, but he didn't mind. A new city rose up from the ashes of the old, bigger, brighter, and he hoped, better than before.

It occurred to him that he was like the city. Everywhere else he'd lived, he carried with him the burdens from his past. Here, especially in the years since the disaster, he felt freer than he'd ever been before. No more looking back, he vowed. From tonight onward, he'd only look to the future.

Christine came back into the living room wearing a plain skirt and shirtwaist. She'd taken down the elaborate upswept hairstyle she'd worn and pulled her hair back behind her head tied with a ribbon. She looked like a simple country girl instead of the world-famous opera singer. It reminded him of when he'd first known her all those years ago wearing a modest dress as she walked the halls of the opera house.

She smiled seeing him standing stiffly by the window. "I know this is a bit informal, but it's comfortable and I won't require my maid to wait up to help me get into bed later."

"It's thoughtful of you to think of her."

"Why don't you take off your jacket," she suggested. "Then I won't feel so badly underdressed."

"Of course." He shrugged out of the jacket, folded it and lay it over a chair back. Then stood awkwardly facing her. Why was it so hard to just be in the same room with Christine? "I shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" she asked.

"It's not proper."

"Ah, propriety. What a stupid, useless word." Christine walked over to the sofa and sat down. "I stopped worrying about propriety when I gave Raoul back his engagement ring." She gestured to the chair alongside the sofa, knowing he wouldn't sit next to her on the cushion.

"Why did you?" Erik sat down, leaning into the high back of the chair. "After everything you went through together, why didn't you marry him?"

"That's a difficult question to answer. I did want to marry him at first. He was my hero." She smiled fondly, remembering the golden young man who risked his life to save her. "But as time went on, I realized that it was a mistake on both our parts.

"His family, especially his older brother Philippe, was very much opposed. It was perfectly all right, even acceptable, for Raoul to engage in a dalliance with an opera girl, but soon enough they started using words other than 'girl' to describe me. Rumors began spreading through society that I was sleeping with him in order to trap him into marriage. We were ostracized as a couple, although Raoul was welcome everywhere so long as I wasn't with him.

"It took its toll on our relationship. It's very hard when it feels like the entire world is against you."

"Yes, I do understand," Erik said.

"That was your whole life, wasn't it?" Christine looked into his eyes, seeing sympathy for her reflected back. "I never quite understood that before.

"What you said about the world showing no compassion for you. I thought it was just a ploy to manipulate my feelings. But it wasn't. You were simply being honest. And I didn't understand."

"How could you?" His voice was soft. "You'd been loved and cherished all your life. That was all you knew. It was inconceivable to you that love was an alien concept to me. I knew the word, I'd seen what I thought were examples, but I never truly understood what it meant. All I knew was that it was denied me, and that made me want it all the more."

"You're right," she said. "I can't imagine what it was like for you growing up as you did. I never knew until Lillian told me how you and she first met. And even then, it never occurred to me that the boy in the cage was the man I knew at the opera."

"What did she tell you about me?" He was suddenly nervous wondering what Lillian shared with Christine.

Christine thought back to their conversations in the dower house. "She didn't really say a lot. She told me the story of the boy was true, and that she'd met you again in San Francisco. She told me how you saved her and others after the earthquake. "

"I remember there was a sadness about her when she spoke of you." She looked at Erik, her own eyes swimming with tears. "I think she regretted leaving you that last time. She loved you, you know."

He nodded, blinking away his own tears. "I know. I loved her too, but it wasn't a romantic love."

She nodded silently, giving him a moment to contain his feelings. You're so wrong, Erik. Maybe it was just that she was a woman, but Christine felt in her heart that Lillian's love for Erik was so much more than he knew. More than he would ever know. What was the point of telling him now? It would only hurt him more. No. She would have to enfold Lillian's love for Erik into her own love for the man.

Dinner arrived and they both stood awkwardly as the waiter set up the table, uncovered the plates, and poured the wine offering a small sample to Erik for his approval. Christine met his eyes and winked at his discomfort, after all, this was her room, not his. Still, he nodded his approval and was holding out Christine's chair as the waiter left the room.

"Well," Christine said as she slid her chair up to the table, "I hope that didn't make you too uncomfortable." She leaned forward, sniffing. "Mmm, that smells wonderful. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until just now."

"It does smell good." Erik agreed, sliding a napkin into his lap. "I'm sorry about the wine. He should have offered it to you for approval."

"How was he to know?" Christine brushed off his words. "I'm quite used to it. Whenever I'm at dinner with a man, the waiter automatically looks to him for approval. That's just the way things are."

"You're right. Well, in that case, I'll stop by the front desk and pay for dinner."

Her first instinct was to argue, but then she let it go. If it made him feel better to pay, so be it. "Thank you." She picked up her fork, seeing that he was waiting for her to begin. "Bon appetite."

Dinner was quiet. Neither knowing quite what to say. There was too much history between them for small talk. Finally, Christine set down her knife and fork and pushed back from the table. "We can't put this off any longer can we?"

"No, I don't suppose we can." He rose quickly, moving around the table to help her from her chair. "How do we start?"

Christine refilled their wine glasses and then carried them over to the low table in front of the softa. "Sit here with me." She took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. "I'm scared, Erik. I don't know what to say to you. I don't know how to make you believe how very sorry I am to have hurt you. I was such a fool that night."

"No, Christine, you weren't a fool at all." He looked past her, down the long tunnel of the last ten years to that fateful night. "You were the bravest person I've ever known. I could see your terror when you realized that it was me on that stage singing with you. But there was something else in your eyes, too. You were afraid, but not for yourself, I think."

"No," she admitted. "I was afraid for you. I knew about the armed men stationed around the opera house. I knew Raoul's plan to capture you. I also knew that even though he truly wanted you caught alive, that there was no way to predict what would happen.

"I thought if I could stop you without them shooting, you'd have a chance to get away. I didn't want you hurt. I never wanted you hurt."

"You only wanted me gone."

"Yes. No." She grasped his hand. "I didn't know what I wanted. I was so torn. I thought I was in love with Raoul, that I truly loved him, but I couldn't stop thinking about you. About my angel, who'd given me my voice and so much more."

"And then I dragged you back down to my—"

"Prison," she finished his sentence. "That's what it was. I see that now. Even though you'd built it yourself, built it for yourself as a safe haven, it became just another cage."

"Yes." He finally admitted the truth to himself. "It was. A prison of my own design. How could I not know that? I still don't understand, even now."

She smiled at him, placing a soft hand along his uncovered cheek. "I do." She read confusion and hope in his eyes. "It was all you knew. To you, 'home' was just a word, it had no real meaning. You never had a real home. You only saw what other people had and that was what you wanted. You didn't know that 'home' has no real meaning without love and happiness attached to it."

He looked away, not wanting her to see the tears coming unwillingly to his eyes. "You're right. Even now, even here, my 'home' is just a place to sleep out of the rain. It's above ground this time, but there's nothing special there that calls to me. Nothing that makes me want to be there."

Christine nodded slowly, thinking back over her own life. "When I was a girl, I had a home with my parents and even after Mama died, wherever I was with Papa was still home. It wasn't the same with my guardians, even though I knew they loved me in their own way. I didn't really feel I had a home again until I came to the opera house."

"You had friends there who loved you." His voice was soft, remembering how young and innocent she was then, the way she came alive with music.

She took his hands, clasping them tightly. "I had an angel who loved me."

"No," he said, trying to pull away. "Not an angel. I lied to you. I manipulated you. All for my own ego. You were my creation, Christine, the vessel to display my genius. You were to be my masterpiece. The face I could finally show to the world.

"And instead of being my creature, you broke free and showed the world the truth of what I am. The monster who thought he could be a man."

"No!" She grasped his arms, feeling the tension cording the muscles beneath the linen shirtsleeves. "Not a monster. You were only a monster in your own mind because that is what you were always made to believe. No one ever looked beyond your face to see the man. Not even me." She pulled in a deep breath, realization striking her full force. "No one but her."

"Lillian." His voice almost broke on her name. "But even she never saw me as a man she wanted for her future. I was her Boy."

"You're so wrong, Erik." Christine released him, rising and crossing to the windows. "She loved you as a woman loves a man." She saw him shake his head in denial. "She did. I know because I looked into her eyes as she spoke about you.

"We woman are trained to lie to men, to conceal our feelings, to be proper ladies. We're not allowed to reveal our true feelings for a man until he speaks first and sometimes not even then if the man is unconventional or not whom society dictates we should match. It's stupid and such a bloody waste of time." She saw his eyes widen at her word choice and she laughed. "I suppose Lillian rubbed off on me a bit more than I thought.

"But my point is, she said what she did because she wanted to spare you pain. She had already committed to a marriage before she came to San Francisco. She didn't care about her reputation, but she was trapped by society's mores, as so many women are. Throwing over her fiancé would have hurt her family and more importantly—"

"It would have hurt her Foundation." Erik nodded. "That was the most important thing in her life, even more important than I was. She couldn't let down the children who depended on her."

"Yes." Christine crossed the room and turned on a table lamp. The sun had set while they talked, and she didn't want him to think she was hiding in the dark as they spoke. "Did you know that he'd already thrown her over before she returned?"

"What? No. Why didn't she come back, why didn't she reach out to me?"

Christine shook her head. "I honestly don't know. She never said. Later that year she received her diagnosis, and you know the rest from Benjamin."

Erik rose from the sofa. He felt bombarded by so many feelings, he had to move to try and make sense of it all. "But why? She could have come back. Or I would have gone to her. She didn't have to be alone." He realized what he'd said the instant the word left his lips. "I'm sorry, Christine. She wasn't alone. You were there, and I'm very grateful that you were. I'm glad she was with people she loved, who loved her." His voice broke as grief choked him.

She ran to him, enfolding him in her arms. He held her just as tightly as they both wept for the loss of a loved one. Then he pulled back, sniffing and wiping his hand across his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"No. Never be sorry for loving someone. Only be sorry for not showing them that love." She looked up into his eyes. "As I am." He started to turn away, but she held him fast. "I know you don't want to hear it. But I have to say it even if it's the last thing I ever say to you. I love you. I always have. I love the angel and the teacher and the ghost and even the phantom who risked everything for me. But most of all I love Erik, the man who you were then and the man who you are now."

She let him go then. Watching as he backed away slowly and sank down onto the sofa. He was overwhelmed, she knew that. She read him so well, even all those years ago in the opera at the end, she could read every emotion in his eyes. She remembered how he trembled like a sapling in the wind when she kissed him the first time. The wonder and fear and love in his eyes when she kissed him again. Then she saw the utter devastation as he realized that he had to let her go. It almost broke her as it broke him.

She sank onto the sofa beside him, pulling him against her. "I love you Erik. I loved you then and I love you now. Please," she looked into his eyes, holding him tightly, "please don't let my cowardice then destroy what we can have now." She felt all the resistance leave him and for a moment, he sagged in her arms. Then he pulled himself together and she felt the strength of his resolve.

He was terrified; then his arms tightened around her. He felt the soft curves of her body molding against the hardness of his own. His mind warred with his heart. He wanted her desperately. He loved her. He had to let her go. He couldn't. His mouth came down on hers and he felt her yield. Then her mouth opened, inviting him with a strength of desire that matched his own. He pulled back for a second, looking deeply into her eyes and surrendered. "My Christine."

"Yours," she said, hungrily meeting his mouth with her own. "Always yours. Only yours."