AN: Thanks again for the reviews. Mbin, especially thanks. Phangirl says you are a very good friend, and I highly respect your opinion.

But not to leave anyone out, all of you are great!

Erik's Opera

Erik rolled his meager wardrobe into his ragged black cape and put on an old hat he had found while cleaning out the cottage, pulling it low over his brow. It would help hide his face from close inspection. His mask was in a sad condition due to his last bout of tears, but it would do for a while longer.

With a last melancholy look around the small cottage that had become his haven, he picked up his bundle and headed for the door. It was now almost fully dark and the friendly cover of night would again help him escape.

He had decided to head into the wild frontiers of the West. The stories of the Indians and cowboys he had read about in the boys' dime novels had intrigued him, and he decided it would be easy to get lost in a land of misfits and adventurers.

The house was completely dark when he opened the door. He started and swore when he nearly bowled Kathleen over on the door step. "Damn it, Kathleen! You nearly scared the life out of me!"

"I'm sorry," she laughed softly. "When you didn't come in for supper I was concerned. You seemed a bit out of sorts when you left Clareesa and me."

Suddenly she noticed his odd appearance and the bundle under his arm. "Erik? What are you doing? Are you leaving?"

"It's better this way," he said roughly, moving to go around her.

She planted herself in his path, her face set with stony determination. "What Clareesa said about you—about the opera house fire, that's what this is about! I know you well enough now to be able to read your face. You couldn't get out of that room fast enough."

"So now you know most of my secrets!" he hissed and stepped to the side of her. "I will save you the horror of the rest of them!"

She again moved into his path. "So you are going to run again!" she spat out. "I know you started that fire in Paris. You told quite a tale when you were ill and having nightmares, but all the pieces didn't come together until Clareesa's visit this afternoon."

Erik bore her tirade with shame. He wanted to run from her, but stood and took the reproach he deserved. Even if he did get around her, she would hound him until she had had her say.

"The woman Christine you spoke of—she was in the fire, wasn't she?"

"Yes," he whispered hoarsely.

"The story goes that you started the fire in a jealous rage over her."

"The stupid fools can't even tell the truth of it!" Erik laughed darkly. "The fire started when I dropped the chandelier in the opera house after that little witch exposed my hideous face to the world!" Rage shook his tall frame. "I used it as a distraction so we could escape, but she didn't want to go with me! She was just bait to trap me!"

"Trap you? Why?" Kathleen asked.

"My, you are determined to know it all, aren't you?" he said bitterly. Taking her arm, he opened the door to the dark interior of the cottage and pulled her inside. He struck a match and light flared as he lit a candle, illuminating the sitting room and casting eerie shadows on his face under the broad brim of the hat. He tossed the hat away and pinned her with his intense gaze.

"Take a seat, mon cheri! My opera is about to begin!"

She sat down on a delicate-looking chair with a floral pattern on the upholstery, but he remained standing, looking at her grimly, as if trying to frighten her. She did not frighten easily however, and stared back at him, her mouth set in a firm line.

"I went to the opera house years before Christine did," he began. "As a fugitive." He turned and looked at the darkened window as if watching his past play out before him in the glass.

"You remember I told you my parents had sold me to gypsies?" His voice held a sneer as he spoke of them. "Well, one night we were set up in Paris. I was perhaps twelve or so—I'm not sure. The gypsies ran a traveling fair, and I was one of their main attractions, kept in a tiny cage and not allowed to bathe. I was nothing but an animal to them."

Hate colored his voice as he remembered. "That night I could take the cruel laughter and jeers no longer. After my usual beating and unmasking before the crowd, the bastard that kept me was greedily counting the money I had made for him. I saw my chance and threw a rope around his filthy neck and twisted it until he stopped moving."

Kathleen gasped, but he didn't turn around or acknowledge it in any way. He could not stop talking now that he had started. It was as if a dam had burst inside him and he must ride out the tide.

"A group of young girls had stopped by my cage just before that, laughing like all the rest." His voice trembled with emotion. "All but one girl who was older than the rest. She didn't laugh. She just looked at me with pity and kindness. Perhaps that is what gave me the strength to move on him right then. I don't know."

He paused for a moment and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes clouded with the bitterness of the memories.

Kathleen waited for the story to continue, feeling all of the anger, pity, and horror of it. She wanted to stop him from telling any more, but felt compelled to listen, since this was the only way she could learn more about this dark, complex man.

"Immediately the gendarmes found the dead gypsy and the girl and I began to run. She took me to the opera house and hid me in its labyrinth of cellars. I grew to manhood there. It became my artistic domain…and my prison."

He began talking of the girl Christine then and his voice became softer, more tender. "Christine came to the opera when she was seven, right after her father's death made her an orphan. At first I paid little heed to her, but on my night rambles around the opera house, I began to hear her crying for her father. After several nights of this, I began to play the violin for her, to soothe her as her father had done. As she grew up, I discovered she had a talent for singing, so I began to teach her from the shadows. I suppose we filled a void in each other. To her I was the Angel of Music her father had promised would come to her."

Erik suddenly laughed coldly. "I took advantage of her childish notion and played upon it, but when I heard her sing on stage that first time in her glorious angelic voice, I knew I had to have her as my own. I had not intended to let love into my heart. All I knew was hate and cruelty, but love came in the form of Christine, and seemed to fit into my world perfectly."

Kathleen heard the tears in his voice and her own tears bathed her cheeks as she felt the longing in him for those things all humans want, love and acceptance.

Bitterness crept into his tone again as he continued his story, "But a childhood friend turned Christine's head and distracted her. I wanted her to have the chance to sing for the world, but de Chagny wanted her to be a pretty bauble on his arm."

Erik began to pace, his hands clenched into fists. "If the young Vicomte had not interfered, she would be mine now!"

"But if she exposed you, how could she have loved you?" Kathleen asked quietly.

Erik turned around quickly, his face twisted in anger. "I could have made her love me! Music brought us together and it and my love for her would have sustained us!"

Kathleen wanted to argue against his horribly flawed logic, but she held her tongue, realizing that in his state of mind he wouldn't listen if she tried.

He turned back to the window and looked out morosely, his voice quiet again. "He made her betray me. I had made the way clear for her to become the opera's reigning diva. I taught her everything she knew, and she repaid me with betrayal!"

He turned pain-filled eyes to Kathleen. "I thought she was the one who saw past my monstrous face to the beauty in my heart. But no one sees past…this." He pointed a trembling finger at his face.

"I had set my own trap for her. I wrote an opera and forced the company to perform it. So the Vicomte and the opera managers planned to use the opening night to capture me at last. During the performance, I killed Piangi, the man who was playing her lover, and took his place."

He paced a bit as he spoke and then sat down on the settee, weariness etched on his face. "The song we sang together came from the depths of my heart, and she sang as if it came from hers too. But at the very last it was as if she remembered her duty and she unmasked me." Tears were flowing unchecked down his bare cheek now, and the mask caught the rest. "I cut the rope I had rigged to hold the chandelier's counterweight in place and sprang a trap door beneath Christine and me just as the chandelier began to fall. It took us to my chambers below. Just as I had planned, de Chagny found us while the opera burned above our heads. I took him prisoner and forced her to choose either marriage to me or death for him."

As he spoke, Kathleen thought, There is madness in this bitter, hurting man. How much further into madness did he go than this?

Erik continued in a dead tone, "I had killed for her before, to bring her gift to the world, and I was willing to do so again just to have her for myself. But then she accepted my challenge. She offered herself to me to save his life." He made a little choking sound in his throat and looked at Kathleen with aged, red eyes. "She was willing to give her life to me to save him. I suppose that must be true love."

He dropped his head into his hands as he told the rest in a miserable whisper. "We could hear the mob bearing down on us, so I told them to run and leave me behind, making them swear never to tell what they knew of the angel in hell. Then I fled for my miserable life, though I should have let them catch me and put me out of this wretched existence."

"So that's why you crave death?" Kathleen asked. "To pay for your hideous crimes?"

He nodded his head slightly, but did not look up at her. She came to the settee and sat down beside him. "I feel your shame for what you've done, Erik. If you were a purely evil man, you would not care at all that you let revenge and hate rule you. I don't mean to excuse murder—violence is never right, but had you been trained up the right way as a child and loved as children should be, perhaps you would have had better control."

"Any man should know better than that, Kathleen!" Erik retorted. "Any man with a single logical thought. When I let myself become angry, it was as if a beast took over my thoughts and actions, and—and this blind rage just crowded everything else out! Perhaps Buquet deserved to die. He was a wicked, lecherous womanizer, but I killed him because I was angry that my commands had not been obeyed, my plans to further Christine's career. And Buquet was also poking around my domain telling things he should have known better than to even hint he knew about me. That other man, Piangi, I just needed out of the way, and by then it had just become second nature to act on my rage."

He looked up at Kathleen then as a man on trial awaits a verdict. "What will you do, Kathleen, now that you know all about my crimes?"

His face was almost as pale as his mask, and Kathleen saw the conflicted emotions there. What should she do? He was not wanted in America, nor really in France any longer, she realized. She decided that she had to tell him the rest of Clareesa's tale from Paris, for she had seen the changes being made in him since he had begun interacting with the children. What better way to overcome the sins of one's past than to give to others? Erik obviously had so much to share with the children, and this was a much better solution that having him put in prison or executed. And hadn't he been in prison for most of his life already?

Before Kathleen could voice her thoughts though, a hesitant knock on the door brought them both back from their separate worlds of thought. She was closest to the door, and so she opened it.

Toby, a boy of mixed race who was a recent arrival at the orphanage, stood outside looking ready to jump out of his skin from fear. His light brown eyes were large and troubled.

"Toby, what is it? What are you doing out here when you are supposed to be in bed?" She said kindly, but firmly.

The eleven year old lowered his eyes and stared down at his scuffed boots. "I—I wanted to ask Mr. Erik a question," He mumbled.

Erik came to the door and bent over to be more on the boy's level. His voice was a bit gruff when he said, "What is it you want to know?"

The boy looked even more spooked and he rubbed a brown hand quickly across his face as if he were wiping away sweat. "Could—could you, uh, teach me to play the piano?" He blurted out.

He raised his creamy brown face to Erik's then, and his eyes begged for a positive answer.

Erik looked up from Toby for a moment at Kathleen, and the questions hung between them. Was he still welcome to stay, he wondered. And would he stay if he were welcome?

"Please?" Toby whispered.

"Yes, you can learn to play the piano, Toby," Erik said, patting the tight springy curls on the lad's head, as wondering who the teacher would be.

Kathleen came and took Toby's hand. "We will talk about it more tomorrow," she said. "Now off to bed." And she sent him away with a kiss on the forehead.

Toby gave yelp of joy as he jumped off the porch and laughed as he turned around. "Thank you, Mr. Erik!"

Erik watched as he scampered back toward the house and shook his head, already feeling badly about making the boy think he would be his teacher. But that could not be, he knew. His time here in this place was over. He turned sad eyes to Kathleen.

"Toby there is one reason you must stay, Erik," she said. "You can teach these children so many things, and learn so many things from them as well. I think you can pay for your sins better alive than dead."

Erik closed his eyes and sighed with relief as tears began to fall again. He dropped to the floor and sat with his knees up and his arms folded across them. He bowed his head as cleansing sobs reverberated though his tired body.

Kathleen touched his shoulder, giving a light caress before leaving him. She felt an intense desire to wrap her arms around him, but at the same time, a need to distance herself from him to sort through all he had told her. The rest of Clareesa's story would have to wait until another time for she was exhausted, though she knew sleep would be long in coming tonight.

Thank goodness there was Baby Josie to help fill the long hours ahead.