A/N: Hello again! Chapter Four coming up… but just a few responses to my reviewers first; -

galebalesh: Thanks!

Softiful: Thanks… I don't write Erik in the way I do with any conscious decision to do it in that way, but the 'book Erik' is an incredibly complex and intriuging character (Leroux's book, that is). I do, however, adore the ALW music… I listen to it all the time whilst writing.

Padfootz-luvr: He does apologise… in his own way, I suppose.

And now… on with the story!

Disclaimer: I think it should be pretty clear by now that I own nothing apart from Ellisa, and the rather dubious 'plot'. It's so dubious even I don't know what it is yet!

Chapter Four

The man stayed like that, still as a statue carved from black marble, in front of the keys of the organ. Then, jerkily, as though only just remembering how to move, he lifted his hand up to his mask, and slowly pulled it off. This done, he carefully set the mask down on a tabletop, before wiping from his eyes two lone tears. He thenreplaced the mask, before stiffly standing up. The tears – for once, not of self-pity, but of guilt – began to flow for true. He let out a choking sob, before stumbling over to a corridor leading away from the room of music – agreat cavern of a roomfilled with every conceivable instrument – and entering it.

The corridor led to a single chamber, with not a bed, but a coffin, within it. The walls were covered, not with paint, but with the score from a piece of music. The music was Dies Irae, and the coffin was his only resting place – one day to be his for alleternity.

The man grasped in his hands a book of bound manuscript, which he took with him whenever he chose to rest. One day,Fate had long since ordained, he would finish his work – the Don Juan Triumphante – and take it with him to rest eternal.

But until that day came, he would protect the precious music of his life's work with a passion – even with his life.

He could not forgive himself for hitting the child. Closing his eyes, allowing yet another salty tear trickle from his eye, he saw her face, her look of betrayal as she fell back. Reluctantly, sleep took him into her soothing balm, but only for him to be haunted that night – in a cavern where all wasdarkness - by images of Ellisa's pain, as he had pushed her away, as he did all who had ever tried to care for him.

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Back in the room of music, nothing stirred. It was a beautiful room, really – filled with instruments from every corner of the world, a piano, grand and impressive beside the organ keys, the brass of a saxophone shining in the candlelight, it's mother o' pearl keys glistening. Every single instrument in the room – and there were many, woodwind, brass, tuned percussion – was clearly well cared for, and respected with a reverence only one who truly understands music can give.

Slowly, hesitantly, Ellisa tiptoed into the room. Her hair, once neat and shining clean, was dishevelled, hanging down in dirty clumps around her face, and her ballet tutu was dirty and torn. All in all, she made a pathetic sight, and tears of shock and pain still slid down her face.

But, as soon as she caught sight of the piano in the corner, her face lit up, and her tears ran completely dry. With a slight effort, and a self-satisfied smile, she hitched herself up onto the piano stool. Still smiling happily, she started to clump away at the keys.

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The man shot up from his sleep, a disturbance of notes awaking him from his slumber. At first, he was on edge, fearing that both he andhis home had been discovered. But, soon enough, once his conscious mind had taken him over properly, he realised that the only person it could be was the child, Ellisa.

Ellisa. Like a dam being burst, the memories of his actions towards the girl came flooding back, and he groaned. He had hit her.

And yet, when the tears did, at last, come, they were not for Ellisa, but for himself, selfish tears, as he realised that he had, once again, become close to a person who could not – would not – love him back. It had been the same with his mother, his poor mother, who could not bear the sight of her only son, and with his sisters, who he had adored, but who had only looked upon him with a cruel mixture of disgust and pity.

He was a thoroughly selfish man, indeed, this he knew. But what he didn't realise was that he was still but a child at heart, a child – yearning for guidance and love, two things no-one had ever found themselves able to give him.

Shaking his head from his self-pitying reverie, he stepped elegantly from the coffin which served as his resting place, and silently approached the corridor, all the time listening to the chaotic jangle of notes – one could hardly call it music – bounding through from the chamber beyond.

After listening for a while, his face – what could be seen of it, that is –disorted in surprise. For, below the jangling highs and lows produced by the piano, there was a simple melody, one that only he, a true expert of the craft, could pick out. But it was there nonetheless – an altogether surprising thing for one so young as Ellisa to produce.

Quietly, he began to make his way down the corridor, careful not to make any sudden noises, lest he frighten the girl. He could see her now, sitting at the piano stool, her little legs swinging in delight, and a strange merging of both studied concentration and ecstasy upon her face.

The sight caused him to recall, through a veil of years passed in pain and loneliness, the first time he had alighted upon a chance to turn his hands to the tenderness of musis… his mother's precious piano, the only solid memory she had left of her deceased husband… she had never let the son she despised so much for his ugliness go near it…

But go near it he had, and it had been with a cruel look of horror and amazement upon her face that his mother had run into the room upon hearing the music he charmed from the instrument, so long left to gather dust in the corner of a long-forgotten room.

She had torn his very hands from the keys, but the damage had already been done. He, a boy of barely ten years old but who had already come to realise that his live would be lived alone, had comprehended in that moment of pure ecstasy that he had found one love that would not betray, had found within himself a magic that could not be denied.

That magic was music, and it was in turn both dark, uplifting, mysterious, and revealing – it was a vent for all his darkest fears, a balm to soothe his deepest cuts, a mystery that was to enthrall him all his life, and the mirror by which he judged himself – not the with the vain eyes of humanity, but with the careful judgement of rolling chords.

He thought, in the way of all children who nevergrew up, that he was the only person to truly love and knowmusic – opera was a sham, a mockery of its gentle craft. And yet here was this girl, who had chosen music, not through default, or lack of otheroptions,as he had done, but through her own will… because she wanted it…

Slowly, hesitantly, he made his way towards her, and when he reached the piano, he crouched down so that his masked face was level with her childish one, and took her hands gently in his. She flinched back slightly, but when he made no further moves she relaxed, and gave over the control of her hands to his.

Like a gentle tide over a rocky shore, his hands guided hers towards the caressing hold of music's magic…

...and within an hour, the girl was asleep once again, though this time, she was not alone.

She was sleeping upon the lap of a man who had once spurned all humanity, and yet who now found himself in the position of surrogate father to a girl as abandoned and alone as he had once been.

And yet, curiously, he could live with that.

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A/N: Please review – all suggestions as to how to improve this story are welcome!