Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from The Phantom of the Opera. Any new characters are my creations, as is the plot.

A/N: raoulisafop, here you go! I know I've been updating pretty often, but I wrote the bulk of this in February and March, and only recently worked up enough nerve to post it. Marie has taken Erik pictures and some information about his parents that the solicitor has found, and he is not happy, to say the very least. Please read and review.

NO ONE BUT HER

Chapter Nine—The Way Things Might Have Been

"That certainly would have been the easiest thing to do, especially since that's what you wanted. But easiest isn't always best, as you know all too well." Standing, she came and knelt at his side, laying her hand on his arm. "Don't look at them, if you don't want to. All I ask is that you don't destroy the pictures or the documents."

Gracefully she got to her feet and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Briefly his arms came around her for a hug then she straightened and left him alone with his thoughts.

For several long minutes he sat without moving, staring at the photographs as though they were poisonous snakes. Pushing them out of reach, he propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. "Dammit, Marie," he muttered, "why couldn't you leave well enough alone?"

Shoving away from the table, he stormed outside and paced the terrace. He found no respite from the thoughts that buzzed around in his head like angry bees and finally he stalked off to the stables. Brandy, the bay mare, nickered in greeting and stuck her head over the stall door, expecting the treat that Erik usually brought her.

He smiled and rubbed her velvet nose. "I'm sorry, bèbè," he murmured. "I forgot to bring you anything. I won't forget next time, I promise." Laughing softly when she nudged his arm, he spread his hands wide. "Go ahead and search—you won't find it." He stood still as she sniffed at both pockets on his blue shirt and then at the front pockets of his trousers.

A minute later the horse snorted in what he was certain was disgust and turned away from him. "I told you I didn't have it," he said, a note of laughter in his voice. Three stalls down, he heard Thunder snorting and stamping his feet. Giving Brandy a pat on the rump, he went to check on the stallion.

Generally Thunder had a fairly even temperament, and he too stuck his head over his stall door expecting a treat. "Sorry, boy," Erik told him. "I had something on my mind besides the two of you when I left the house." The horse snorted again and Erik scratched his head between his eyes and behind his ears. "You feel like a run, I suppose," he said, and the stallion bobbed his head up and down as if in agreement.

Grabbing a bridle from the nearby post Erik slipped it over Thunder's head and slid the bit into his mouth. He led the big gray horse from his stall. "Oh, to hell with the saddle," muttered Erik and he swung up on the horse's back. The stallion took a couple of sideways steps and Erik patted him on the neck. "Ready to run, are you?"

He gave the horse its head and they took off down the road at a fast canter. Feeling the wind rushing past him and the bunching and releasing of Thunder's muscles underneath him helped Erik relax and he was able to thing a little more objectively about what Marie had done.

After a mile or so he slowed the horse down to a fast walk. "Well, Thunder," he said grudgingly, "I can't undo what's been done, as much as I might like to. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to at least look at the pictures and documents." And then put them away, never to look at them again!

It was dusk when he returned home, and full dark by the time he'd finished taking care of Thunder. Both Rascal and Maddie met him at the kitchen door and he fed them, smiling as Maddie turned her back on the puppy in apparent disdain. He knew he should eat something, but couldn't find the energy to do more than cut a few slices of bread and some squares of cheese.

Ignoring the packet that still lay on the table, he went into the parlor and sat tiredly on the sofa. Laying his head on the back, he sighed deeply and closed his eyes. You're not going to get any rest until you look at them, a voice in his head taunted him. You might as well do it and get it over with then you can put it behind you.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm not ready yet. I'll do it tomorrow." With that he rose and went into his bedroom, taking time only to remove his boots before falling across the big bed. He fell asleep almost immediately, but he was plagued with horrible dreams the entire night.

Toward morning he woke gasping for air, drenched in sweat, fists clenched in the bedclothes. "Dear God," he whispered. He'd been trapped in the burning opera house, unable to reach Christine. Stumbling from the bed, he went into the adjoining room and splashed water on his face. Then as he thought more about the dream, he realized that it had not been Christine, but someone else. That awareness sent him into the kitchen to the packet Marie had left him.

The documents lay on top and he pushed them aside. With shaking hands he picked up the portrait of his mother. Hers had been the face he'd seen in his dream. He dashed a hand across his eyes and went to the window to study the photograph. "Oh, Maman, you were beautiful!" he said softly.

He noticed a stiffness in her posture, and a touch of fear and apprehension in her eyes. She was making an effort to hide it, and the half-smile on her face was one that he knew well. He had seen it once or twice in his mirror since Christine had come back into his life.

Returning to the table he picked up the document that lay on top of the stack. It was a marriage license. His father had been thirty years old, and his mother only eighteen. "Only a few years younger than Christine," he mused.

He held the document up to the light and noticed that his mother's signature looked shaky, as if she'd been trembling when she signed her name. Laying the license aside, he picked up the baptismal certificate, surprised to see that Erik was actually the name he'd been given, and not something Lianna had chosen for him. I wonder how many days or weeks went by before they had me baptized, he thought.

Then he saw the "death" certificate, signed and dated approximately six months after the baptismal document. His anger growing, he picked up the portrait of his father and inhaled sharply. It was like looking in the mirror, except for the disfigurement of his own right cheek. Erik carried the tintype to the window to study it in the best possible light. There was a coldness in his father's eyes, and aloofness in his expression that turned Erik's stomach. "I hope you're burning in hell at this very moment, you bastard."

In the wedding portrait Lorraine was seated on an ornately carved wooden chair, with Eduoard standing behind her, one hand clamped possessively on her shoulder. Again Erik noted the rigidity of his mother's posture, the fear in her eyes that she had been unable to mask, and the domineering look on his father's face. "How frightened you must have been, Maman, to have to leave your family and go off with such a man as he appears to have been."

He went back to the table and began to sift through the rest of the documents the solicitor had prepared. The fact that his parents had been killed about five years after his birth, and had had no other children, made Erik stop and think. "Something about this story doesn't feel right," he murmured pensively. "They gave away their child, but then didn't have another one? I can't believe that the comte did not want an heir," he added sarcastically.

Maddie leaped onto the table, meowing loudly, swishing her tail just under his nose, and he laughed softly. "All right," he told her, "I'll find you something to eat." As he rummaged through the pantry, he continued to talk to her. "It seems, Maddie, that I am going to have to meet with the solicitor."

"Monsieur Gaspard?"

The big man with a full head of white hair seated behind the desk looked up from what he was writing. "Yes? How may I help you, monsieur?"

"I am Erik Montenegro. Marie Giry suggested that I come and speak with you."

Frowning, the older man looked puzzled momentarily. "Marie Giry? Montenegro? Oh! You must be the young man whose family she wanted investigated. Please sit down." He turned to the credenza behind him and pulled out a stack of papers. "Oh, yes—here it is." He picked up a pair of glasses from his desk and adjusted them carefully on his nose. "I presume you've read through all the documents that I sent to Madame Giry?"

Erik nodded and Gaspard grunted then said, "Upon the death of your parents, with no living children, your father's title and control of all business aspects of your parents' estate went to a distant cousin, Henri Broussard. He adamantly refused the title but agreed to oversee the business holdings, on the condition that 99 percent of the profits were to go into a trust fund, to which he would not ever have access."

Gaspard pulled a ledger sheet from the stack of papers and passed it to Erik. "I understand that you yourself have quite a head for business, monsieur."

Erik's eyes widened as he scanned the ledger and noted the figure at the bottom. "Merde alors!"

Gaspard's lips twitched but he said nothing.

After a moment Erik leaned forward and laid the paper back on the solicitor's desk. "I understand you have provided legal counsel to my cousin in regard to the business. I would like to meet with him, as soon as you can arrange it."

"I will send word to you as soon as I have set the day and time, monsieur."

Two weeks later Erik sat impatiently in Gaspard's office, his anger growing by the minute. "You did agree on half past ten, did you not, monsieur?"

The solicitor blew out a breath. "Yes, we did, and in all the other meetings we have had, your cousin has never been this late. A few minutes, perhaps, but . . ." He shrugged.

At that moment, the door burst open to admit a big, rawboned man with salt and pepper gray hair, his face flushed, from anger or embarrassment, Erik couldn't decide.

"My apologies, messieurs. My daughter insisted on accompanying me." He rolled his eyes, and both Erik and Gaspard smiled in understanding. "Messieurs, my daughter, Collette."

A/N: Lady G: no, it's not the same shirt every day. He's too fastidious for that, although he does have several that are identical. I just sort of figured that he would look good in blue (my Erik is much like Gerard Butler!)

To all the others who have posted such nice reviews, especially on my writing style, thank you! I hope I don't let you down as we continue.