Disclaimer: Awwww... Can't I just have Erik? You can have everyone and everything else, I just want my phantom buddy:gets bludgeoned by Gaston Leroux: Oh fine! Be that way! Phantom's yours...you greedy meanie! But Carmen, Ava, and Jessica are mine! Well... sort of. Jessica and Ava are based off of two of my buddies, so actually I don't own them, either, but Carmen's still mine:rants and raves:

Okay, so I sort of combined everything you suggested for the rat thing with a few of my own ideas to get an idea conglomerate... in idealomerate, for those who enjoy bad pseudonyms... hope you like!

I'm sorry about the stupidly long time it took me to post this chapter. I've been really busy for the last few week, so I'm utilizing the weekend to get this chapter done and up!

The next chapter has been long-anticipated by myself, though, so it should be up very soon! Either very soon or in a week or two, depending on how evil writer's block is, and how freakishly busy I am.

Ah yes, and all french will be in Italics with a translation after it in parentheses for those who don't speak the language (or for when I make a mistake, so you know what I was trying to say!)

RebbeccaTurner01: Aww... poor Rosie... I won't abandon this story! The other ones were crappie, which is why I ditched them. This one actually has a potential for a plot, though, so it stays! Actually, the Pirates of the Caribbean one had a plot, too. It was just stupid and cliche, which is why it died.

Marianne Brandon: When I wrote the bit about Erik eating the rat, I got this really great mental image of him suddenly going all snake-like and just swallowing the poor thing, Jessica's hand and all! But like I said, he can't really eat the rats. Jessica and Ava would NEVER forgive him if he did...

Avatine: What? Me? Eavesdrop? No sir, ah haint been droppin no eaves! I was jus' trimmin the grass under the windowsill, 'ere:Imitates Sam from Lord of the Rings: As for the trapping Carmen's roommate thing, well... I thank you :bows to applauding masses:. And yes, Sirius was on of the other rats that came out earlier, but I didn't feel like naming him quite yet. Maybe he'll be officially named later, I dunno...

Sapphiragirl: Your reviews always make me so happy:hugs: I give you a 10/10 for awesome reviewing!

Baby-Vixen: Yay! Chicken:steals chicken and ties to mast of nearby sailboat:is crushed by evil, nasty, masty (Yay! It rhymes!): Oweee! I luff my fluffy... well not really very fluffy... hedgie! He's my buddy buddy!

Atressa O'Riordan: Yeah, I know. The fact that he lives with the rats in the cellars is precisely why he doesn't like them. It's not that he's afraid of them or anything, he just thinks they're filthy and disgusting (which he very well should, being from Victorian era Paris and all).

Nota Lone: Hmm... A rat named Raoul, eh? Not a bad idea... Ah! Bad self! Bad self! Must not kill the rat! Not the rats fault! Rat did not steal Christine and make Erik sad:forces self to take miniature noose off of rat: I should use that in later chappies... that is, if you don't mind?

Firebird Flight: Yeppers! That's exactly why Erik doesn't like the rats... poor rats. He never gave them a change to prove their unstinkiness :pouts: But guess what? I just realized that I do have a word processor with a spell check:does happy dance: my troubles are OVER!

Madame Opera Ghost: I'm confused... alas, you'd be amazed how often I say that.

Moose de l'opera: Oh I'm a psycho, am I...well actually, yes. Yes I am!

Chapter Six: A Day in the Life...

"This is Remus! Pet him!"

"Ugh! I'd rather not..." Erik looked as though it'd been a heaping pile of dung under his nose instead of an adorable, fuzzy little rat. " Rats are filthy vermin, in case no one else has had the sense to tell you." he said snootily (yes, I made up the word...I'm being patriotic).

"Too bad! You must get over your fears!"

"I'm not afraid of it, I just–" Erik was cut off by a facefull of rat. Apparently, it's either pet the rat... or eat it. Erik thought (as he was incapable of saying so aloud).

Erik flung himself away from the furry beast whilst screaming in disgust (rather girlishly, as the tenor's voice was surprisingly high when provoked). "Are you trying to bloody kill me!" he snapped at Jessica, who was checking the rat for injuries and failed to hear him. "Here, let us dispose of it in a... proper way." Erik picked up a shoe and held it above his head, but Jessica smacked him hard enough to send him flying backward onto the bed.

"No hurting the fluffy rats!"

Carmen set her rat back in it's cage a went to help Erik up. "Jessica!" she scolded, "No hurting the fluffy Erik!"

"I'm... fluffy?" wondered Erik aloud. " Fluffy, of all things..."

"Yes." Georgia agreed, shifting her attention to their conversation. "Very fluffy."

"How excellent." he said flatly.

Soon, Carmen and Erik returned their dorm (as Erik had decided that the room was no longer Carmen's alone). Erik was rather surprised to see the mess that the girl had made. Really, had she been expecting to find him hiding in the wastebasket? Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it looked, and only took them a few minutes to clean.

As Carmen was bending down to pick up the final piece of trash, she noticed a bit of paper sticking out of Erik's pocket. Expecting to find a doodle or something, she plucked it, finding that Erik's quick reflexes could be beat with extreme sneakiness, but only by a little. He nearly snatched it back, but before he could do so, she'd already opened it. As it turned out, this was no doodle. It was plans for one of the security systems that had been oh-so-characteristic of the Phantom throughout the book.

"So that's what you were doing while I was gone."she said speculatively. "Is it finished?"

"Not quite." said Erik, "Not that you were supposed to see that, of course." he added under his breath.

"Oh, I see. It can't reach the room's extremities. Well, if I think of anything, I'll let you know, but I've got to figure out my piece, so I'll just leave you to that, then." Carmen rummaged around in her bag a bit, before pulling out a piece from Des Iries and setting it on her keyboard.

It was becoming rather difficult for Erik to focus on reading when every wrong note Carmen hit caused him to flinch and shudder. Her piano-playing was comparable to Carlotta's singing... good enough to recognize the song, but bad enough that you were longing for the end. Finally, he could stand it no more. "Move!" he said firmly. "I'm going to show you exactly how to play that song."

"I don't need to be able to play it. I need to sing it, but it works better for me to hear it first before I sing."

"And if you are playing it that badly, you are certain not to sing it much better."

"I'd have it under control in a day or two, once I figured the rhythm... I'm rhythmically challenged-"

"-Which is simply a bad excuse for not being able to sightread.".

"I resent that! I can sightread... just not well."

"Well in that case, you don't need my help..." Erik trailed off, knowing exactly how she would respond.

"Okay, okay." yielded Carmen, "I'll stop arguing if you'll help me."

Erik grinned. If he didn't know better, he'd say he'd developed psychic powers. Nonetheless, he played the song for her, complete with the accompaniment (Carmen had only been playing the first soprano line).

He finished the song with a little flourish of his own improvision to the final chord. "Better?" he asked.

"Much."Carmen replied.

Erik debated helping her with the actual singing. It wouldn't seem right, perhaps, to be coaching someone other than Christine, but on the other hand, he'd let Christine go with the Vicompte; she was no longer his pupil. Clearly, he wasn't going to be dying anytime soon, so he'd have to get over her eventually... But that was ridiculous. He'd never be truly over the loss of Christine, but he couldn't dwell on her, not if he wanted to keep his sanity, and besides, helping Carmen would give him something to do...

The next morning, Carmen left for classes as she had the day before, only this time, Erik really was asleep... She could tell because he kept turning over and muttering things about staccatos in act four.

Her first class that day was the standard composition class required for graduation. The professor, she noticed, had to be at least eighty. He wrote the reading assignment for the following week on the board... This was a big mistake, as Carmen spent the class reading the assignment while he blathered on about semicolons for an hour and a half.

This was the typical class for Carmen. She rarely paid full attention to lectures, instead using them to finish homework while paying just enough attention to answer and surprise questions, and art she'd had perfected since her sophomore year in high school.

Next was acting. She'd been dreading this all summer... the one class she couldn't slack off in and still get good grades. The professor was not different from the rest. Actually, he was probably a bit more entertaining and laid-back than her other instructors. No, the problem lay with Carmen herself. She simply couldn't act her way out of a paper bag... not even a little lunch-sized one!

They began with a few simple exercises, peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and such, and she didn't embarrass herself, but she was glad Erik couldn't see her reading a passage from Macbeth. She was worse than Carlotta!

How had she ever gotten the leads in those school musicals, nevermind the traveling theater performances! Of course, it had been her voice that had gotten her the roles, but that wasn't going to be enough anymore. There were plenty of people with good voices...

One of her classmates caught her attention when she began her reading, again from Macbeth, but it sounded like an entirely different play from when she'd read it. Her rendition of the witches chant was believable and put the audience right into the middle of the whole ordeal. Then, Carmen realized who her talented classmate was! It was Erik's stalker!

Geese's leg and owlet's wing

Double double, toil and trouble

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

"That's enough... Elizabeth." said the professor, scanning the list for her name.

"It's Stella." she said in the same gravelly voice she'd used for the reading.

For lunch, Carmen decided to join Erik for some sort of ramen noodles. When she came in, he was playing the keyboard... softly, as not to repeat yesterday's charades. He seemed surprised to see her.

"Bonjour." she said casually, tossing her jacket and bag onto the futon. "Manges-tu le dejeuner?"(have you eaten lunch?).

"Non." he answered, not looking up from the keyboard. He finished the piece with a difficult-looking something-or-other that Carmen decided to dub "the finger punjab". "Whatever happened to classes?" he asked.

"I'm on my lunch hour." she answered, "So I figured I'd come up and have some ramen noodles or something with you."

"Something."

"What?"

"Something. You said ramen noodles or something, so I choose something." Erik said, sounding very much like one of Carmen's younger sisters, only older... and maler.

"If you're going to pick at my grammar, try picking at something that people other than yourself actually notice."

Erik sighed one of his what-is-the-world-coming-to sighs, and tossed her a packet of noodles. She'd only been living off of these damn noodles for a week and a half, but they were already working their addictive magic on her... not on Erik, though. For some odd reason, he seemed to be immune to the allure of the noodles... he probably still held a grudge from when she'd forgotten to tell him that you couldn't put metal in the microwave and he'd nearly blown the thing up... Instead, he'd just charred the inside of it and burnt his hand as he tried to extinguish the flaming noodles. Meanwhile, Carmen had been laughing insanely.

Now that Erik had mastered the microwave, though, he was becoming a rather skilled ramen noodle chef.

"You know," Carmen began in between noodles, "I should really take you shopping tomorrow. You can't just stay in a cloak and dress clothes all the time."

"Shopping?" gulped Erik. "Must I?"

Fwahaha! I shall make him shop till he drops! Not dead, or course... hmm, death by shopping... interesting.