Erik cursed rather loudly when he discovered who "company" had turned out to be.

Meg Giry and Raoul de Chagny were sitting on his couch, sipping tea. When he appeared in the doorway, Meg screamed at the top of her lungs, "HE'S HERE, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Raoul, who had been sitting closest to her, got the brunt of the blast. He winced, rubbing his nearly-ruptured eardrums. "Yes, maybe because it's his house!"

"Sorry. " Meg blushed sheepishly. "Force of habit."

Christine took her husband's arm and ushered him into the room. "Look who stopped by to pay us a visit."

"Christine," Erik ground out through clenched teeth, "would you join me in the other room?" Without waiting for an answer, he threw her over his shoulder and carried her into the next room.

"Erik, honey, I'm not in the mood right now," Christine began to protest.

"No, no, I just wanted to ask you in private how your ex and that shrill best friend of yours got into the lair."

"Oh, I left a key under the doormat for them to use if they ever wanted to stop by."

"Doormat? Since when do I have a doormat?"

"I made us one the other day. You've been tracking that sludge from the lake all over the carpet, and I got sick of cleaning it up."

"Darling, did you ever stop to think that putting a welcome mat and a key to our house out front might undo all the work I've put into trying to keep visitors out? Building a torture chamber under my back door does no good if people can just waltz in the front door!"

But Christine put her foot down. "That's enough, Erik. I don't care how important your little 'evil genius' rep is to you. If you're going to be my husband, you're going to have to learn how to get along with my friends. Or at least to stop terrifying them!"

Cut her some slack, man, Erik told himself. She's stuck alone here with you in the batcave all day, it's only natural for her to want to see her little friends now and then. Forcing a smile, he nodded and let her lead him back into the living room.

Erik told himself. Forcing a smile, he nodded and let her lead him back into the living room.

Raoul put out his hand cheerfully. "Hey, Erik, nice to see you again. No hard feelings, right?" His eyes roamed over the phantom's new white-knight style ensemble. "Hey, look at that, we're twins!"

It was only then that he realized the vicomte was wearing an identical outfit. Horrified, he wrapped his black cape, the last line of defense, around himself tightly. "Grrr…" He instinctively reached for his lasso, but when Christine dug her fingernails into his arm, he grudgingly shook Raoul's hand. "No hard feelings."

He sat down in his favorite chair, and Raoul continued to chat. "Love how you've brightened the place up. It's amazing how a set of lace curtains can brighten up even a moldy underground lair."

"Thanks." She jabbed Erik in the ribs with her elbow. "Told you so."

As the two of them continued to chat, Erik began to grow increasingly uneasy. Not because he was jealous, but because Meg was staring at him like he'd grown a second head that looked even stranger than the first. He did his best to politely ignore her, but when she walked up, unblinking, and poked him in the chest to make sure he was solid, he lost it.

"That does it!" he roared, leaping to his feet. "If you two blond blockheads aren't out of my house in five seconds, so help me God, I'll feed you to the Siren!"

"Actually, Erik, the Siren is gone. I hired a pool boy to fish her out of the lake day before yesterday," said Christine. "She scratched him up pretty bad and gnawed through all his pool netting, so I had to pay double."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHH!"

"Oh, I get what this is about!" Raoul said knowingly. "The two newlyweds want some alone time. Say no more." He opened the door for Meg. "Come on, Meg. I'll walk you home."

Meg snapped a quick photo of the Opera Ghost to show to all her friends, and backed through the door with her mouth hanging open. Raoul grinned, gave Erik a friendly swat on the back, and followed her out.

Christine shot her husband a dirty look, but he had been momentarily blinded by the camera's flash and didn't see it. She stormed upstairs and slammed the door, eliciting a startled cry of "Adorable Psycho! Adorable Psycho!" from Pierre, who apparently had a very limited vocabulary.

Erik was about to try calming himself down with some music, when the doorbell rang. Ready to throw courtesy to the wind, he grabbed his lasso and threw the door open.

Much to his surprise, it turned out to be Nadir. The Persian was covered with scratches and bite marks, and his eyes were extremely bloodshot. "Hello, Erik," he said hoarsely.

"Whew, Nadir, thank God." He tossed the lasso aside and let the daroga in. "I've been meaning to come over and see how my little Ayesha's doing, but the wife's had me really busy putting up new wallpaper. So, how are the two of you getting on?"

Nadir sank onto the couch, looking utterly exhausted. "Let me put it this way. I've had twelve stitches, three rabies shots, and two bottles of brandy this morning alone."

"Ah, you tried to feed her cat food, didn't you?"

"What else would I feed a bloody cat?" snapped Nadir.

"She doesn't like eating cat food. She finds it degrading. Just make her whatever you're eating. Unless it's some kind of junk food like pizza or potato chips. She doesn't care for that sort of thing."

Nadir sighed wearily. "Duly noted. I just dropped by to bring you your morphine." He handed Erik a packet of morphine and rose on unsteady legs. "Anyway, I'd better get home before that demon cat from hell chews her way through my front door again."

"Why not just get her a cat flap so she can come and go as she pleases?"

"And unleash that creature on the general populace? I think not. And I was lenient enough to unleash even you on the general populace, so you know how bad she must be."

Erik's eyes lit up hopefully. "Say, Nadir, you wouldn't happen to have room for a cute, well-behaved little parrot at your house too, would you?"

"Nice try, Erik, but Christine already introduced me to Pierre. Getting my eyes clawed out and being too afraid to sleep at night is one thing, but asking me to listen to that thing squawk 'adorable psycho' every two seconds for the rest of my life is going too far." Nadir slammed the door in his friend's face and headed off to the mall to see if there was such a thing as a solid steel cat muzzle.

Erik turned around to see his wife standing in the doorway with a disapproving scowl on her face. "What?" he demanded.

She folded her arms stubbornly. "I don't want you associating with that Nadir anymore."

"What?" Erik quirked his good eyebrow. "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Nadir's been my friend for years. He saved my life. He stuck by me when I was all alone in the world. What could you possibly have against him?"

"Erik," she said condescendingly, as if it should be obvious, "that man's a bad influence on you."

"Huh?" Erik blinked stupidly. "That doesn't make good sense. Nadir's the one who's always hounding me not to do evil. He's worse than Jiminy Cricket."

"Yeah," Christine snorted, "and he also sneaks you drugs and helps you run from the law. You don't need friends like that. And while we're on the subject, I want you to get some counseling for that addiction of yours. I don't want the new baby exposed to drug abuse."

"I will do nothing of the--WHAT?" It took a second or two for the whole baby comment to kick in, but when it did, Christine was treated to the rather disturbing sight of the Phantom of the Opera hyperventilating.

"Erik, really, that's not very romantic," she scolded.

Erik passed the next several months studying some books Raoul de Chagny had brought over after hearing the happy news, Child Rearing for the Reclusive Madman and The Fool's Guide to Underground Parenting. He also spent a lot of time working on the new nursery. He had managed to keep Christine from painting the whole thing pink by putting up some wallpaper printed with music notes while she was sleeping. Well, more chloroformed than sleeping, actually, but it did the trick.

There was a lot of music-themed stuff in the baby's room, from the miniature pipe organ to the "Acapella to Zauberflote" See 'n' Say. The place turned out really cute, except for the crib. A few weeks before the baby was due, it was still a pile of bars and screws in the middle of the floor. Erik might have been the greatest genius the world had ever seen, but understanding the instructions for furniture assembly was something not even he could pull off.

He turned the instructions over and over in his hands, rolling them upside down and holding them up to the light, but it was no use. "Damn it all, I speak twenty languages! Why can't I find a single one of them on this stupid piece of paper?"

"Hello?" Raoul poked his head in the door. "Still wrestling with the crib, Erik?" He glanced at his watch. "What is that, seventy-three hours now? You know, I'd be happy to give you a hand with that. My brother and I had to put up one of those for my nephew last year."

"I can do it myself." Erik growled. "The day I need you to teach me anything is the day I eat my cape."

"So stubborn." Raoul shook his head ruefully. "Well, I just stopped by to bring you this." He held out another book. "I saw it in the store the other day and thought you guys might be able to use it. Bye, Erik. And bye, Christine!" he called as he left.

"Bye, Raoul," Christine answered as she walked into the nursery. "What's that he brought us?"

Erik thumbed through the book. "Looks like a book of baby names."

"Oh, well, we won't be needing that. I've already thought of some names."

"Me too."

"Okay, you go first."

He grinned proudly. "Carmen Marguerite for a girl, and if it's a boy, Mephistopheles Mozart."

Christine burst out laughing. "That's a good one, honey! No, seriously."

He just scowled. Even his mask looked angry.

She cleared her throat nervously. "Oh…uh, those are very…unique, I guess."

"Well, then what names do you like?"

"If it's a girl, Angelique, and if it's a boy, Erik Jr."

Erik groaned. "Dear, you've got to get over this angel fixation of yours. It's not healthy. You're going to land the kid in therapy just like your dad did to you if you keep this up. And as for naming the baby Erik, that could get confusing."

"You think? Okay, then, how about Eric instead?"

"That doesn't help!"

"Okay, then, we'll compromise. Eric Mephistopheles for a boy, how's that?"

"Please kill me."

TBC…