Erik grinned smugly as he approached the cage dangling over his pearberry-scented pipe organ. (He had actually started to kind of like of the smell, though he'd never admit it) "Well, Pierre, you've managed to sidestep me for nearly a year and a half now, but soon it will all be over."

For the past month, he had put up a great show of adoring Pierre, petting him, cooing at him, and feeding him treats whenever Christine was in the room to see. It had done the trick. His wife had finally trusted him enough to leave the two of them alone unsupervised today. With a maniacal laugh that took him right back to the good old days, he pulled a miniature catgut lasso no bigger around than a golf ball out of his pocket and pushed open the tiny door to the parrot's cage. "Bye bye, birdie!"

Pierre was confused. "Adorable psycho? Adorable psycho?"

"Erik! What do you think you're doing?" The door swung open and Christine stormed in, pushing the twins in a double stroller. Little Eric and Angelique were locked in a rather violent battle over the armrest, shoving and scratching at each other. Luckily, their mother was used to that sort of thing by now, and had had the foresight to tape oven mitts over their hands before taking them to the playground that morning.

"I…uh…I…" Erik stuttered lamely. "Is it morning already? Whew, will you look at that? I was sleepwalking again." He stuffed the tiny noose in his coat pocket and affectionately stroked Pierre's wing. "Good thing you came in when you did, or I might have accidentally harmed my feathered friend here."

She rolled her eyes. "How stupid do you think I am, Erik?" She locked Pierre's cage and placed the key in her pocket. "I'll need to watch him like a hawk from now on, won't I, Pierre?" She smiled and patted the parrot on the head.

"Adorable psycho! Adorable psycho!" Pierre concurred.

"'Dorable psycho! 'Dorable psycho!" echoed little Eric.

Christine scooped her son into her arms. "Erik, did you hear that? Eric said his first words!"

"Why did she make me throw away all my morphine? God knows I need it now more than everthought Erik.

Not to be outdone, Angelique joined in. "'Dorable psycho!"

"'Dorable psycho!" chirped Eric, more loudly this time.

Erik sighed. "God, I miss my days of torturous isolation from the rest of humanity."

"Angie, you talked!" Christine smothered her daughter's face with kisses. "Quick, Erik, get their baby books and write this down! Erik? Erik!"

"Oh, sorry, were you talking to me? I thought you were saying something to Eric."

"Erik, I didn't say Eric, I said Erik."

"Huh? Look, just tell me straight out, were you saying Erik or Eric?"

"Erik!"

"Now, are you shouting Erik because you were trying to say Erik before, or are you shouting Erik because you're annoyed with me? Or are you actually shouting Eric because you're annoyed with Eric?"

"You're driving me up the wall today, Erik!"

Erik and Eric both looked hurt.

Eventually, Eric learned how to spell, and it got at least a tiny bit easier to clear up these misunderstandings. They were lucky. He picked it up pretty early. Both of the kids were geniuses just like their old man. Then again, the twins had also inherited some of his other traits, too, most of which were far less beneficial.

"All right, Angelique, can you tell me what's wrong with this scale?" Erik pointed to the musical notes on the blackboard he had set up in the music room. He had started passing his musical knowledge down to the kids shortly after their fifth birthday party.

Ugh, what a horrible affair that had been. A lair full of screaming five-year-olds and balloon artists, with streamers and silly-string all over everything he owned. Not to mention all the confetti that had gotten into his organ pipes.

And actually, more accurately, he had been trying to pass his knowledge down. The children didn't seem very interested in learning. Angelique was drawing little stick-figure angels all over her desk, not seeming to have noticed her father's question.

Erik turned to his son. "Eric, do you know the answer?" But little Eric had fallen asleep at his desk, face down, drooling all over the ridiculously expensive antique violin his father had bought him for Christmas.

Erik sighed. "Take five, kids."

The twins eagerly jumped out of their desks and pulled on their coats to go out and play. Erik winced at the sight of those coats. Like every other article of clothing the twins owned, Eric's was sky blue, Angelique's was pale pink, and both were covered with angels. Christine had picked them out, even though the twins had tried to protest that their favorite color was black and they'd never really been interested in angels. In an act of mercy, Erik had bought them a pair of black capes to wear over their clothes whenever their mother wasn't looking.

The Phantom marched into the living room and collapsed onto the couch beside his wife, who was contentedly embroidering a likeness of the house on the lake, with the words "Lair, Sweet Lair," along the top edge.

She put her arm around him. "Having trouble with the twins again?"

"I just don't understand! They were walking at six months, making prank phone calls at eleven months, and writing for the New York Times at two years! Yet they have the attention spans of brain-damaged rodents!"

"Gee," said Christine sarcastically, "I don't know where they could have gotten that from."

"What are you insinuating, Christine?"

"Erik, I thought you had already noticed. You have Attention Deficit Disorder."

"I most certainly do not have ADD! Where did you get a crazy idea like that?"

"Honey, come on, you're a textbook case. I mean, you're still working on the same opera you started over two decades ago. And why? Because you only work on it for a week or two at a time before you lose interest and go off to pull practical jokes or play with your cat."

The door swung open, mercifully ending that conversation. "Hi guys," greeted Raoul.

"Uncle Raoul!" Angelique ran into the room, hugging her godfather's leg. "What'dja bring me? What'dja bring me?"

"Aw, aren't you just precious?" Raoul handed her a red plastic pail full of gummy bears with a bright yellow shovel stuck in the top.

"Raoul, no!" Christine cried in open-mouthed horror.

But it was too late. The little girl had already devoured a handful of the gummy bears, and ran out of the room in a blur.

Raoul laughed. "Aw, look how happy she is. So, where's Eric?"

"Eric?" Christine asked. "Or Erik?"

"Eric."

"Now, are you talking about Erik or Eric?"

Raoul wasn't about to get caught up in another round of this. Sometimes it could last for days. "I was talking about the Eric who's five years old and looks like Gerik."

"Hi, Uncle Raoul!" Eric looked at his sugar-charged sister, his eyes lighting up. "You brought us candy again, didn't you?"

"You betcha." He handed his godson a blue pail full of gummy worms, and soon, there were two blurs zooming through the lair.

Raoul chuckled at the children's antics, but stopped when he saw the death glares Erik and Christine were giving him.

"Erik?" growled Christine, not taking her eyes off Raoul.

"Yes, dear?"

"Get your lasso!"

Raoul was gone before Erik could even get off the couch.

Erik and Christine had long since given up trying to chase after the children while they were on a sugar high. They just let them work off the excess energy, knowing they'd come home when they got hungry. But this time was different. Eric and Angelique still hadn't returned by dinnertime. And when they missed dessert, Christine clutched at her heart in horror. "Dear God, they're dead!"

"Don't be hysterical, dear. They're probably just lost. Last time they had that much sugar they wound up in Belgium." Erik wrapped himself in his cloak and left. The moment he stepped out the back door, he was surprised to hear his children's uncharacteristically off-key voices singing the theme song to Cats.

Erik frowned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Now, where could those voices be coming from? And what the hell is a Jellicle?" He skulked around, slowly realizing that the song was coming from his torture chamber. "Uh-oh…"

He jumped into the unbearably hot giant oven, where Angelique was sitting in the middle of the floor, giggling as she rocked back and forth on her heels and mumbling something about "giant bunnies" in a slurred voice. Eric was staring intently at an iron tree. "I said, get out of my way! Don't you talk to me like that! Are you looking for a fight? Oh, that's it!" Eric slammed his fist into the metal tree trunk, then shrieked in pain.

"Kids?"

Angelique looked up at him and giggled. "Daddy, look at all the giant bunnies!"

"This tree's not being nice to me!" Eric whined. "Kill it, Daddy!"

Erik picked up his children and carried them out of the chamber. Once outside, he sat them down, fanned their faces, smoothed their hair down, and tried to get them halfway presentable. "Now, kids, there's no need to tell Mommy about this, is there? What do you say we keep it our little secret? Okay? Say yes and I can get you caffeine."

Angelique stared right through him. "Hehehehe! Bunnies…"

Eric just threw up on his father's shoes.

Erik swore lavishly.

"Erik, what on earth is going on out here?" Christine embraced the twins protectively. "Thank God you found them. Eric, Angie, where were you?"

"Bunnies!" Angelique muttered incoherently.

"Daddy, can I help you kill that mean metal tree?" Eric asked hopefully.

"Metal tree?" Christine gaped at her husband. "Don't tell me you had them down in the torture chamber! I mean, I know you were upset when they made your Don Juan Triumphant manuscript into origami this morning, but this is going too far!"

"I didn't lock my own children into my torture chamber, they just fell in!" He got a faraway look in his eyes. "Although now that you mention it, that might be just the kind of discipline they need."

"Erik!"

Once the children had stopped hallucinating and been put to bed, Christine confronted her husband with a humorless expression on her face. He soothingly placed his hands on her shoulders. "Darling, I know what you're thinking, but one day we're all going to look back on this and laugh." He began to chuckle, trying to lighten the mood, but when he saw the look she was giving him, he tried to turn it into a cough.

"Erik, I hate to say this, but we're going to have to move. This booby-trapped lakeside batcave is fine for hiding from the cops and terrorizing innocent ballerinas, but for raising a family, it's entirely unsuitable. Plus, we'll need more room if we ever have any more kids."

Erik cringed. "Please, Christine, don't even joke about something like that."

TBC…