(A/N By way of explanation - the interludes are about eight months after the actual story. This kind of jumps ahead a bit just to keep things moving. This is the day after the first interlude. Now the Opera Populaire is putting on Les Miserables, so that's why 'On My Own' is in there. Sorry for the confusion, Gretchen. Ahem.)

I sang softly to myself as I trudged up the stairs. Not a song that would be familiar to Erik, however, but a song from the play that was premiering in two days. I, unusually, was starring in it as Eponine, one of the main female characters.

"And now I'm all alone again," I sang, perhaps a little too cheerfully for Eponine's mood in that scene. She was mourning the loss of the man she loved to another woman, and I simply sounded bored. "Nowhere to turn, no one to go to. Without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to…"

Then, as I looked in my chapel (I called in mine now, as I was the only one, besides Erik, who ever visited it), I knew Erik was listening. I pretended not to notice and carried on. "And now the night is near, now I can make believe he's here…"

I wondered, as I sat on the old blanket I'd left for myself near the window, why Brianne loved to direct plays that, while originally French stories, were American. Ah well, I thought, they're lovely stories, and in some ways, the first introduced me to my phantom.

"Sometimes I walk alone at night when everybody else is sleeping: I think of him then I'm happy with the company I'm keeping…" Although I now thought of him as 'my phantom', I remembered, not long ago, that I had feared and wondered about him. Now, he was a friend and a companion. "The city goes to bed… and I can live inside my head."

I lived inside my head a lot those days. Since things had been getting more and more intense, with graduation less than a month past and my few friends drifting away from me, I took refuge in song and drama and the few who loved those same things I did.

"On my own, pretending he's beside me… all alone, I walk with him 'till morning. Without him, I feel his arms around me, and when I lose my way I close my eyes and he has found me."

Rio, my closest friend, had matured in the past few months due to the 'intense' happenings, but was still wild and a little odd. She was content as the play's Cosette, the other leading lady, and her life was a lot more together than mine. "In the rain, the pavement shines like silver. All the lights are misty in the river… in the darkness, the trees are full of starlight… and all I see is him and me forever and forever."

The closest thing I had to a 'him and me' was Erik and I, which wasn't much of a 'him and me'. I'd only ever seen him once, and then I had run, frightened by the shape in the dark.

"And I know it's only in my mind," I smiled, since I often thought that perhaps he was only in my mind. "That I'm talking to myself and not to him… and although I know that he is blind, still I say, there's a way for us."

There was little way for us: I sometimes doubted Erik was still capable of such human emotions as love: a fondness or obsession.

"I love him, but when the night is over, he's gone and the river's just a river. Without him, the world around me changes: the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers."

I drew my legs up to my chin, suddenly uncomfortable with Erik's presence. I continued singing, however, knowing he would only urge me on if I stopped.

"I love him, but every day I'm learning: all my life I've only been pretending. Without me, his world will go on turning, a world that's full of happiness that I have never known!"

I was singing with the emotion called for now: today the song tugged at something in me that had been lurking for months. "I love him…" I whispered, "I love him…"

I picked up another of blankets and pulled it about my shoulders, suddenly shivering. "I love him… but only on my own."

"Bravo, mademoiselle." Came the voice, after a moment. "That was… beautiful."

I burst into tears, because there was such pain in that voice.