My sincerest apolgoies for all of you who had no idea what the red and blue had to do with anything. My muse, Gabrina, swears upon her life that she will allow me to explain as I wish. The letter from Christine stated that she needed to know who Alex belonged to. The tart.

I have much still to say. If you fancy a cup of tea, please, sit down and listen a while.

There was nothing real about Christine, not even a bruise. From so many years of hiding my own disfigurement I knew much about blending colors and creating something that wasn't there—or something meant to hide the truth.

The truth. How I hated the truth.

The chances of me throwing my plate or destroying something increased with each tick of the clock. Christine deserved no more of my time, I knew, but her letter was too damned good to be tossed aside. She had put much thought into stealing Alexandre from me. I had feigned sleep earlier in the day when Julia brought a rather late lunch. I felt terrible, but the letter from Christine had me so agitated that it was for the best that Julia and I didn't speak to one another. She wouldn't have wanted to hear a word from me with the state of mind the letter had put me in.

"Mme Giry wishes to see you later on this evening. Meg came by during lunch and brought something from her mother. Cookies, for the children," Julia said as she cracked the door open.

Light filtered in from behind her as she opened the door, making it impossible to see her face. She had put her hair back into a bun and had changed into a different dress, one with a larger bustle than usual.

"Fine," I yawned, though I wanted to know why Madeline never made anything for me.

Julia's arm extended as she walked into the room and I saw the stark white of my mask in her hand. As she neared I noticed a round mirror cradled between her arm and her body as well.

"I wasn't sure if you wantthis or not when Mme Giry comes to visit," Julia said as she moved my empty lunch plate off the table and placed the mirror and mask down beside me. "The room is dark…"

"Thank you," I replied before she finished. My gaze switched between the mask and the mirror and the hair that was partially hidden beneath both. "She knows my appearance. If the dimmed light suits her, she may enter. Warn her first."

After that I thought she would leave but she lingered a moment still. I couldn't see her face well enough to know where her eyes had fixed.

"Alex has been asking me for the last four hours if he may see you."

I sighed though I was happy he wanted to see me, as undeserving as I was of his attention. "Once Madeline returns home he may stay for a while, for the night if he wants."

Julia nodded. She turned the lamp up and straightened the linens over the bed. "I forgot all about your bath. The children, the house—"

"Sit down," I said. I scratched my head near the stitches and winced. Julia hadn't said anything but the bruising from my fall must have added a knot the size of a crabapple.

"But Mme Giry—"

I blew air past my lips. "Sit here long enough and she'll likely let herself in and clean the house for you."

"Erik, it's rude—"

"Please, just sit."

She knew I wouldn't stop until she either left the room or did as I asked. Fortunately she sat and folded her hands in her lap.

With a heavy sigh I looked at Julia and pushed the letter into her hands. She squinted at it and then glanced at me. "Are you certain you want me to read this?"

The more I listened to people speak the more I realized that words are often useless. I wanted to shake my head at her. Quite frankly, that was the most ridiculous question she could have asked. If I didn't want her to read it I wouldn't have handed it to her in the first place.

"Yes, of course," I answered.

From the many times I had watched her sit by the window and read I knew she was well learned. By how long she took to read the letter, I knew she had read it several times.

When she looked up at me at last, she appeared haunted. She handed the note back to me and once again I crumbled it up and tossed it onto the desk.

"Erik—"

"Just listen to me. Please, no questions. Just listen." I looked away from her.

I had to tell her the truth. How I despised the truth.

For years I had often thought about the last day I had seen her in my lair. Her face was branded into my mind. Every day that had passed, I still saw the tears glistening in her eyes, the remorse on her face as she saw the angel, wings clipped, staring longingly at her. She would never know the complete devastation I felt when I lost her for good.

I looked away from Julia when I spoke though it didn't much matter. She stared at her hands, afraid of what I would tell her, what I would reveal in her guest room.

"I realize what a fool I've been. The kiss, the ring, all of it was for naught. She had acted out a beautiful moment, one of which had been the pinnacle of my life for so long." I paused. I had kept the ring inside the cellar, along with the wax figurine and several of her letters.

"She had a pretty little stage of smoke and mirrors and a master who turned into a puppet once something better appeared before her eyes."

Julia touched my hand and I turned towards her. "Erik, I don't understand."

I took a deep breath and realized I had started to speak more to myself than to her. No one had ever listened to anything I had said. Having her beside me willingly was almost surreal. "She was only a chorus girl when I first saw her but I changed her. I kept her disciplined and I made her work on her voice. I made an orphan into a princess."

Julia sat farther forward and took a pillow from the bed. She rested her elbows on the pillow and placed her chin against her palms. She smiled softly, prompting me to continue, allowing me safety in gentle light eyes. I would have confessed anything to her in that moment, to that angelic face.

"Everything was my doing. My fixation with Christine allowed her the upper hand, which I hadn't even realized. There was nothing I wouldn't do to see her happy, to make her smile and she knew it. Physically, I could do nothing for her. She tempted me, there was no doubt, and I persisted to win her but nothing ever came of it."

Julia nodded. "You were a gentleman."

"Not for lack of trying to be a louse. After a while, I tired of coaxing her into the bed chamber and having nothing come of it. I settled on satisfying her emotionally. By her own free will she came to me again and again, even when she had engaged herself to the boy. I taught her how to make her way down into the opera house. I gave her everything. I shared everything with her gladly.

"For days Christine would stay in my dark castle, even after the boy had come back to court her. There would be gifts for her each time, rewards for her company. Jewelry, chocolate, hats, shoes, flowers - anything she ever mentioned that she fancied I would have for her. Madeline was instructed to keep two thousand francs each month from my salary so that gifts could be purchased for Christine."

"Two thousand francs?" Julia asked, placing her hand against her heart. "How much did you receive?"

"Twenty thousand."

"For what?"

I shrugged. "For leaving them be."

Julia stared at me a moment. "This, we will discuss later. With all of that money you could have bought her France."

Her words made me smirk. "Don't think it didn't cross my mind. I spared nothing for her. I thought she was happy to visit me. She would sit and listen to me play; she would have her music lessons, play with her gifts, tell me how much she adored the trinkets and then be gone for weeks."

"You spoiled her," Julia replied.

"I thought I had earned her company. As I returned her to her room, I would beg her to tell me why she wouldn't stay a little longer. Perhaps it was selfish of me to want companionship but the only moments I found joy were when she sat by the organ and sang, or when she fell asleep in the bed I respectfully left to her—and I did leave her alone. She gave me enough attention, just enough hope that she would love me and that she would stay with me for a lifetime."

Julia turned away from me. She didn't tell me to stop, but she didn't look at me.

"Then, before I left her at her mirror, she would tell me that I tricked her and deceived her and that she hated me. On my knees I would grovel for her to forgive me. Yes, I had come to her as an Angel of Music but there was no other way. She knew of the Phantom, of the terror in the darkness. There was no way I could communicate with her without first becoming her Angel. Somehow, she always found it in her heart to forgive me, after I promised her that I would find her something better, something brighter than before."

"She didn't forgive you, she returned because you would give her pretty things," Julia said. She crossed her legs at the ankles. I knew by the look on her face that she bit her tongue. "You made a nice benefactor."

I nodded. "But then, after a while, she no longer protested the manner in which I gained her trust. I thought it was a good sign, that perhaps she had accepted me. Then, three months passed and I didn't see her. She ignored me at night when I called to her and I knew why. She left me once the lessons did not improve her voice." My voiced trailed away. "And once she knew for sure about Alex."

A shudder ripped through my body. I had forgotten how angry I was when she stopped coming down to see me. "For days on end I stayed in bed and didn't bother to write. I destroyed things, candles, candle holders, sketches of her. I loved and hated her all in the same breath, all in the same heartbeat. I panicked, knowing I would lose her forever."

Julia still said nothing. I wished she had said something, anything at all. She gave me no choice but to continue.

"Don Juan Triumphant was to be my final plea to her…"

Julia's eyes widened as I told her of the last stand to acquire Christine's love and her hand, and the baby she had conceived.

"She was the only thing I thought about. I forgot to eat, I failed to sleep. I didn't even change my clothes. All I did was think of her…"

I closed my eyes and felt my jaw tighten. "For days on end I would stare at the sketches I had made of her. I would stay awake at night and hold her wax figurine, stroking her hair, staring into her lifeless eyes. I had to make another hole in my belt because I had lost so much weight. I didn't even notice, not until well after when Madeline forced me to eat something and practically forced me into a bath.

"None of that mattered to me. I wanted her to look at me as she looked at her fiancé. Even as I took the stage for my opera I knew it was all in vain. But when someone wants something, when someone believes that they deserve something as much as I believed I deserved her, no amount of reasoning can stop such a plan."

Julia nodded as though she understood.

"Besides," I told Julia wryly, "I expected that once the gendarmes knew it was the dreaded Phantom who had replaced that fat Italian, I would have been riddled with bullet holes."

Julia shook her head at me. "That isn't amusing, Erik. It's…it's terrible. It's tragic…it's…"

"It's the only thing I could think of for months. If I couldn't be in her heart for love, I hoped Christine would at least pity me or allow me to die in her arms. I couldn't even get a death wish to go as I wanted. Not even hell would have me at that point."

"Yet you still love her," Julia said under her breath.

I pressed my knuckles into my eyes. "I want to prove that I am more than a monster to her. I want to be more than just a beast who heard a voice. That's what I want."

Julia looked at the closed drawer where the note had been tossed. "Will you tell Alex?"

"No."

Julia pursed her lips together. "He may have heard her come to the door earlier…"

My eyes flickered up to her face. By the lamplight she appeared even more exhausted than before. "I have no doubt he heard her." I sat back against the pillows and sighed. "But I don't care. This he does not need to know."

"But if his father—"

"I am his father," I said.My voice started to rise but I caught myself. Both of my hands squeezed together. Living alone had one benefit the company of others did not: the leisure of breaking whatever I wanted without consequence. I reached for the note again and showed her the back. "I know I am his father."

She looked at me as though I had gone mad, which I suppose was feasible. Two primary colors obviously had nothing to do with conception.

"The bruise on her wrist," I started to explain. She stared at me. With a sigh, I began to show her my own hand but that would have made no difference as the backs of my hands were both scraped and bruised. Instead, I shook the letter at her. "Stage make-up, blue and red stage make-up blended to create the illusion of injury. She made her own bruise."

Julia looked away and thought it over, brows knit and lips moving as she worked through my words. "But why would she do this? She has—"

"Only daughters. Three girls, they had three girls together and nothing more. The youngest is four from what I recall."

Julia stared at me. "I think you've jumped to conclusions, Erik. The bruise, for one, is a bit outrageous."

"No, not for Christine."

"But why would she bother?"

"She knows how I despise men beating women. She once broke a vase of mine and I saw the terror in her eyes as it turned to dust. I swore to her that I would never lay a hand on her, that if any man should harm her, he would pay," I said. Sitting in bed all day had made me sore. I twisted and turned attempting to find comfort. "She had a bruise on her wrist, one that she went to great efforts to show me. It was only an illusion, I'm sure. Only a small trick and not even a very good one. I taught her far more fascinating magic games with mirrors, fire, ropes—many things. I taught her many little things beside music. Most were nothing more than sideshow attractions but they amused her, just as they would have a Persian princess or a Sultan."

Julia didn't dare ask what in the world I was talking about and for that I was glad. There were things that I never wanted to tell her. Even then I said more than I should have.

"Erik," she said quietly. She handed me the note again. "Do you think Alex looks like him?"

I shook my head. "He is Christine, her dark curls, her dark eyes, her complexion."

"Then how do you know, Erik? Please understand…I want nothing more than for Alex to belong to you, but how will she know, how will you know if he is your son by blood?"

"He's more than my blood. He's my life. There is nothing that concerns me past that."

I started to open the drawer but I heard the familiar howl of a dog.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I hobbled over to the window and glanced out. The pain seemed sharper than earlier, though it diminished faster. At last, something good.

"I'll see her in," Julia said.

I glanced back and nodded.

She started to close the door but stopped and smiled. "And Erik, if you're planning on staying here much longer at least attempt to limp."