A/N: I'm really sorry I haven't updated in ages! We got a new computer and I lost some of my files... I'd written chapters twelve and thirteen but then I discovered chapter eleven was missing so I had to re-write it! It isn't as good as it was, though. Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

The night was almost over, and Erik was heartily glad. Not that he hadn't enjoyed the evening, quite to the contrary... but he yearned for the peace of his music and his solitude.

"Erik." It was Ellisa, smiling gently at him. She indicated the doors out to the steps with a nod of her head. "We should be going." Erik frowned slightly: he had no desire being seen by the drunks and popinjays of Paris who would be about at this hour.

"Actually, I was thinking I would go down..." He trailed off at the hopeful, expectant look on her face.

"The back way?" She asked, her eyes wide. "Please, Erik... I would so love to watch the sunrise with you!" Erik hesitated for a moment, before shrugging in agreement. He had not seen a sunrise for a very long time.

"Very well." He said shortly. "But not for long."

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It was indeed a beautiful sight. Gold, reds and blues filled the sky with their cacophony of colour, slowly melting away into one another... as the first rays of the sun touched Paris it gleamed like it was newly-built. Looking across, one could see everything... the Palace of Versailles, with its lush green gardens, the lights of the Moulin Rouge, still rowdy at four o' clock in the morning. Erik smiled bitterly. Perhaps if things had been different he might have been one of the bohemian musicians in the most talked-about section of Paris...

But no matter: he was seated on the steps of the Opera Populaire, his very own domain, with a lovely young girl wrapped round his arm, and they were watching a beautiful sunrise. It was certainly more than he could ever have dared to dream when he looked in a mirror.

It is something of a shame, then, that Ellisa's curiosity, no doubt aroused by the ready supply of alcohol that had been available that night, had to rear itself up at just this moment.

"Erik?" She asked, innocently. Oh, for youth!

"Mmm?" Erik, it can be said, was scarcely listening: he was staring out across Paris with a sad look in his eyes and was oblivious to all else. The skyline of the beautiful city was for him a symbol of all his shattered dreams.

"May I ask you something?" Perhaps it was something in her tone, but Erik turned at once when Ellisa uttered those words. Not being able to find words, he nodded, a cold feeling beginning to envelop him. "Erik..." Ellisa began, nervously, "why do you wear that mask?"

He froze, and felt as though his very heart had been turned to lead. Why did she have to ask him now, when he was so happy – or the closest to 'happy' he'd ever come – when everything was right? Why did she have to ask the question he had hoped she would never, ever ask?

He stood up abruptly, dislodging her arm. He felt nothing for her now, simply rage and the terrible hatred of an animal wounded by its own carer.

"Why should you want to know?" He spat, his eyes burning. "Why?"

Ellisa stepped back, her eyes round and fearful.

"I – I just thought..." But the look on her face did not arouse any pity from Erik.

"You can think again, then!" He told her, pushing her comforting arm away. She stumbled... she was starting to fall...

"Got you." Erik said gruffly, quite annoyed to discover that his heart wasn't lead after all. He looked down at her and said, quite gently: "You must never ask me that, child." She nodded sadly.

"You don't have to hide from me, you know." She whispered, but he turned away and pretended he hadn't heard. He stood with his back to her for what felt like hours, but just when he thought she had gone he felt a light hand on his shoulder. When he turned back to Ellisa he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.

"Erik..." She said quietly. "I've been offered a place in the National Touring Orchestra. The conductor, my father's friend, helped me get it. I'll be leaving in two weeks time." And with that, she turned away, and didn't see the terrible sadness that came over her friend's face at her words.

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Erik watched sadly as Ellisa began to load her bags into a carriage. Her parents were there, saying goodbye... he should say goodbye, too...

He stepped out from his hiding place at the top of the steps and called out to her.

"Ellisa!" She turned, and he watched coldly as she dropped everything to run up to the steps to meet him. When she reached him she was out of breath but grinned widely.

"Erik!" She exclaimed, and promptly threw her arms around him. "I didn't think you'd come." She said, her voice muffled from the fact that she had her face buried in his waistcoat. He gently unwound her hands from the material, any harsh thoughts towards the girl replaced by the finality of farewell.

"Of course I came." He said seriously, looking down into her eyes. "I cannot let my student go without saying goodbye, can I?" From afar he watched as Ellisa's mother Madeline smiled up at the pair of them, clearly overjoyed that her daughter's 'young suitor' had arrived in time to see her off. Both of Ellisa's parents were too far off to see his mask.

"I'll be staying with the orchestra for a year." Ellisa told him in a sudden rush of words. "We'll be going all over France, and then I'll get three weeks off whilst they decide whether or not to renew my position. I'll come here." To her it was a promise, and to Erik it was the last beacon of hope in a suddenly dark world. He smiled sadly and took her hands in his.

"You should be going, my child... I would not want you to be late." And he brushed his lips oh-so-lightly across her knuckles. But then, much to his surprise, Ellisa stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the cheek. Then she stepped away, looking embarrassed. Erik could only imagine her mother's 'oohs' of delight.

"Well... goodbye then." She said awkwardly, and was gone. Only when she entered the carriage and it drew away did Erik murmur to the wind:

"Farewell."

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So once more Erik's life was plunged into darkness. So what was he to do? It seems unfair, surely, to make him wait an entire year for his fickle 'child' to return. But perhaps it was not Ellisa's fault. She thought it was all Erik had ever wanted for her... a place in the orchestra. It was her dream.

But that could not sustain the man stagnating in the darkness below the Opera House. And so he went, searching the darkness, searching it for a light.

And perhaps Ellisa would have been wiser to stay, after all.

For in that darkness he found Christine...

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A/N: Please review and tell me what you think!