A/N: This is, I think, the point of divergence, where this ff differs from most—if not all—the others that I have read. I am tempted to do a Shakespeare and call this "The Tragedy of Erik, the Phantom of the Opera", but it's titled already. Just be warned.

I own this not, as always. Erik is a person, and slavery isn't good. No matter how much I love him, it's for the very nature of his self that is unchained, free and dark as nightmares.

Bit of a warning; this is a very long chapter (more like 2 or maybe 3 combined) simply because I couldn't find a break. You'll note I only gave you 7 this week, as compared to eight… because I need to breathe after this last one. I hope you enjoy as 'the Phantom' becomes Erik. The quotes are particularly relevant…

The song at the end is only thought (not sung) but the words are from Pink Floyd's "wish you were here". The other little thought about fire and ice is from Robert Frost's poem of the same title.

XV: WHO IS THIS STRANGE ANGEL?

"Genius can do much, but even genius falls short of the actuality of a single human life." –Hamilton Wright Mable

"I cling to my imperfection as the very essence of my being." –Anatule France

The solidarity of it had confirmed itself in Gerard's mind. His younger brother and the 'mysterious phantom' were one and the same. Raian was the Opera Ghost.

Clever, brother, but not clever enough. Jaqueline's disappearance the night before only confirmed his suspicions. Somehow Raian had spirited her away… but she would be back. To do elsewise was for Raian to blow his cover.

But his younger brother would return… and when he did, Gerard would be waiting for him.

He had lost himself in the music for a long, long time.

It was almost strange to find it bound his soul just as securely now as it had always done. In the months since Christine abandoned him, it had been lost to him—or perhaps, he mused, had he been lost to it? In either case they met again, and the reunion had been glorious indeed.

He permitted himself a smile at the thought—a true smile, not the dark bitter twist he had sported of late. Music demanded, and she was not a forgiving goddess. But he had learned that long ago.

It had taken her to remind him. The girl, the one who looked so much like Christine.

And, like Christine, in the end she would betray him. Perhaps it was agape, this time, and not eros, but the route was the same. Love outshone pity.

For if she did not hate him, she would pity him.

"I am who I am, girl." Yes, but did she see him? No. She saw the Ghost, the Phantom, the Angel.

Like Christine.

Yes, they were so alike. But he would not be betrayed twice!

She rose when he appeared, striding out of the dark recessed corridors of his lair, his cape billowing around him. Despite all his thoughts, a strange feeling ran through him at the sight of her, dark curls falling about her face, glowing in the candlelight. For a long moment he simply stood there. Christine.

No, not she.

At that thought he started moving again, walking forward. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a stray mirror but his eyes unconsciously slid over the image without seeing, as they always did.

His eyes found hers again, inevitably, and some raw long-buried part of him stirred, uncoiling. Rage? Pity? Love? It was a ceaseless rumbling murmur in his mind, insecure and indefinable.

Somehow the distance between them closed, and she was only a breath away, a slight but certain presence against his greater darkness. Every detail stood out clearly in his mind, every nuance of expression as she tilted her head back and looked up at him, searching his unfathomable eyes.

He was unaware of his quickly indrawn breath; some deep and harshly buried aspect of his mind… hummed… with her proximity. He could not deny his love for Christine though the revelation burned with the fires of her betrayal. She was so alike. So alike.

Then her hand came up, tentatively, and fiery warning seared through every vein in him, burning with incandescent fire. Faster almost than thought he tensed, his gloved fingers catching her wrist halfway to his face.

She did not resist, only looked up at him. "Trust me." Her words were softly imploring, entreating some part of him he thought destroyed the night Christine had left him.

Touch me, trust me, his own words came back, taunting, haunting his memories.

Trust me. Why do you always have to know? Christine, Christine, why…?

Slowly, despairingly, he commanded his fingers to open, his hand to fall away. Reluctantly it obeyed.

Jaqueline's hand completed its journey to his face, running her long fingers in wonder over the hard, implacable planes of the mask. Unbidden his eyes closed. Through his life he had seen it again and again; the determination that snapped into shock, the shock supplanted be horror…

Her fingers were warm against the cold mask, delicate as they touched it. After a long moment he realized she desired only that: to touch the silent half of him, the half that remained completely and utterly alone. A strange permutation of feeling, akin to relief but not the same, swept through him. Was joy a part of it? Fear? Wonder?

Something rose out of that human half, and with a strange ferocity seized his mind.

He had thought Jaqueline and Christine alike, and surprised to find the difference. Now he bitterly realized there was no difference at all. One saw the monster, the other the mask. Neither the man.

Neither the man. Fate plays a fool against man's desires.

Unaware of his thoughts, Jaqueline looked up at him. "I love you."

He stepped back suddenly from her, breaking contact, too quickly for her to react. "Love me?" He said the word as if it were alien to him. "Love me? Not I. The shadow I represent, perhaps, a girl's dream of awe." He turned to look directly at the betraying mirror that had caught his reflection before. "Just like Christine," he said, forcing his tone into a mocking edge. "So innocent, so trusting. Pathetic."

"Phantom—"

Her voice cut short when he wheeled to face her. "Phantom," he spat mockingly, hands curling into fists, his whole body shaking with barely subdued anger. It was there in the hard lines, the taut muscles, the barely suppressed tension an instant from exploding. "You are more like her than I thought," he continued, eyes raking her in a way that caused her to step back. "Phantom. Angel. Inhuman adjectives for this creature you see before you. The irony of this mask does not escape me, girl. After all these years, every revelation laid like a coal against the skin."

A slow step forward, and a hasty step back.

The anger grew, dammed up by a hidden reserve—a powerful wall that slowly buckled under the mounting pressure, bare breaths from giving way. "So very easy to see only this mask, this material scrap, a pitiful shield against the world. Cold. Emotionless. Inhuman." His teeth bared, he exulted in the sheer power of the surge of his anger. "Or… to strip it away, lay the world bare to the deformity behind!"

Jaqueline's back hit the wall. He towered over her. "What do you see, little girl?" he taunted. "The specter or the beast?" He leaned down in cold, calculating rage, until their faces were inches apart. Fires burned in his eyes, a madness she could neither quantify nor define. She could not look away.

"I… I don't know…"

He roared in anger, both hands seizing her, lifting her and pinning her back helpless against the wall. Choking for breath a new fear lit in Jaqueline's mind. This dark apparition that held her prisoner could threaten with one nightmare beyond even Gerard… the Phantom's close proximity to her made it all the more frightening. She could feel him, pressed up against her; she could trace the alien beauty in his eyes…

God, no! I am not Christine!

A quiet voice said, "She can't breathe, sir. Phantom, Ghost, whoever you are, please…" Raian.

In purposeful disobedience the Phantom stared directly into her eyes, a penetrating gaze that swept all the way down into her soul and numbed it with cold fire.

He let her go, but did not move away. The tableau stretched for a long moment. "Phantom… please…" she echoed, venturing to break the silence.

"Am I phantom and not man?" his voice was dangerously quiet. His fingers closed painfully over her shoulders as he turned, abruptly shoving her back, and she stumbled to the floor. Raian took two steps forward and froze when the Phantom's eyes locked onto him. Fire, and power, and madness.

"I have a name!"

The cavern caught the echoes and spat them back—lightning unleashed from captive clouds, until the sound drove Raian to his knees, an arm futilely shielding his face from the palpable waves of anger.

"…I have a name…" The last echo was a human voice, so soft it was almost lost in the ringing silence. Raian dared to look up, and what he saw chilled his soul like winter's heart.

A man. Behind the mask and mirrors, a tortured soul caught in a twisted cage, whose walls were pride and gates fear.

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell

Blue skies from pain

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail

A smile from a veil

So you think you can tell.

Tear down the walls, open the gates, and die.

Did they get you to change

Your heroes for ghosts

Hot ashes for trees

Hot air for a cool breeze

Cold comfort for change

And did you exchange

A walk-on part in a war

For lead role in a cage?

"Your name…" the words were the dry whispering of parchment.

His head snapped up, his shoulders heaving with every breath. Rage rolled off him in waves. No mere anger this. He was two steps away from a killing frenzy. "Erik. That is what she called me. Erik…"

"Erik…" the word sounded strange as Jaqueline said it. "please…" the sound of his name on her lips tore his soul.

"You must return," he interrupted. There was ice in his voice, all the ice of the world, enough to freeze Hell over. But it would not be enough. Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire…"They will be missing you. You have no place here. Consider it as if it had never occurred." He looked up. Fire claimed more of him. "Both of you. Raian, take her and go."

He had the music, and that would be enough.

Fire and light and death.