A/N: Wow, I'm really surprised to be getting so many reviews. Thanks to all who've been reading! Someone said it was a shame that the chapters were so short – I'll work on that. :) There were some grammar errors in the last chapter – sorry about it, my spell check was screwing up.

Chapter 3

Christine almost automatically drew backwards as she was plunged into darkness. She couldn't see; the black air seemed to press on her eyes. Erik was moving quickly, leading her swiftly along by the hand – she stretched out her other hand to the side and touched craggy rock. All her muscles tensed in instinctive fear of her lack of vision, and stopped, the rocky ground digging painfully into her bare feet, her arm groping wildly in front of her.

"Do not be afraid." She heard Erik's voice, disembodied in the pitch black. "I know this passage well. You will not be hurt."

She took another tentative step forward, biting her lip at the pain of the rocks stabbing into her feet. "I… I can't."

"You will not run into anything."

"Its not that, it's just… my feet…"

Erik cursed softly. "I had forgotten about your lack of shoes." She felt his cloak brush against her and in one quick movement he swept her up into his arms and continued down the passage swiftly.

She felt safer this way, she realized, safe from the unknown dangers of the black and ominous passage. His cloak settled around her, and his arms were strong and steady. She found herself curling her fingers around the front of his shirt – she jerked her hand back, startled at contact of her hand against his bare chest.

Erik noticed her touch. It was fleeting, but he savored it, and almost laughed at the thought. So it had come to this – all the months of tutoring, of longing from afar; then her first visit to his lair, and the unmasking! He could still remember his humiliation and shame… but his thoughts continued running along the past events. Christine's engagement to that boy, the masquerade, and of course the disastrous Don Juan Triumphant... It had all lead up to this. A flight from the Opera House, bearing Christine away in his arms. What an unlikely turn of events!

He paused for a moment, his keen eyes scanning the near-black passage. His eyes were used to the darkness, and where others were able to see nothing, he was able to see his surroundings, though just barely.

The passage forked here. The right tunnel led up to a small hidden door beneath the main outer entrance to the Opera House, that he had only used once or twice. But the passage to the left, this was the way he must go. They, he corrected himself, not he. His days of solitude were over, the solitude that he had always thought he would be confined to for eternity.

He continued down the passage, Christine a light weight. The lower half of her dress was sodden and her hair damp, but it was such a beautiful thing to have her in his arms but he couldn't possibly be the slightest bit concerned about it.

Beautiful! What a mild word for the indescribable emotions that were burning in his chest. The months of teaching were not spent in vain, nor the long nights and the silent tears and the pain of unrequited love.

The raw agony of that unreciprocated devotion had been at last alleviated. She was here with him, wasn't she? At the last moment she had turned away from her Vicomte, turned to him with trusting eyes and placed her hand, heart and life in his.

But a niggling doubt jabbed the back of his mind like a burning hot needle. Why did she really leave that boy? Did she do it because she loved Erik? Or did she do it just to save her beloved Vicomte? The thought brought emotion choking to his throat and tears prickling to the back of his eyes, but he blinked them away. Not now – the time for tears was later. There were more important things to be done.