A/N: OK, maybe this isn't ASAP, but late is better than never, right? R&R

The Opera

I was sitting at my desk, composing, much the same as I always did. There was a sad sort of creak, like the noise a neglected door makes. I ignored it. There was the light patter of Adelita's feet after a second creak and a click, then a different click as something was put down. A sound as of gears was heard, and then light, mechanical music.

Masquerade,

Paper faces on parade,

Masquerade.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

It was my music box. The papier-mâché music box, shaped like a barrel-organ, with a Persian monkey on top that played the cymbals—the music box that I had put in l'oubliette, the closet of things forgotten, when I had been recalled to life. Why had Adele looked in?

"Adele…" I said, not looking at her or noticing that my pen was leaking.

"Yes?"

"Turn it off. Please."

She did so, then looked up at me. "What's the matter?"

I went over to her and picked up the music box. Why did this little thing hurt me so much? Why had I hidden it? It was just a music box, even if Christine had liked to look at it and wind it up. I put it on my desk and turned it back on. "Nothing, Adele. Nothing. Just memories." I sat back down at my work and set about fixing the ruined measures. She took out a book. She loved reading. I had never been so attached to books myself, but whenever she wasn't being schooled by me, she was curled up in the boat or my bed, reading. We both needed a holiday, and, besides, there was something I had to do. "Adele, how would you like to go to an opera?"

Her face lit up. I never took her out, except to go on walks through Paris—I always left her sleeping to go to see that my orders were obeyed. "Oh, I should like to very much."

"We'll have to leave in an hour."

She wrinkled her nose at the thought of having to wait an hour. That, to me, was strange. How did she understand the concept of an hour? Time really had no meaning when there were no stars, sun, or moon to mark its passing. The only timepiece down here was an ancient grandfather clock that I kept in a closet and rarely looked at. Right now, it was six-thirty in the evening, July twenty-seventh, 1883—whatever that meant.

At the end of the nonexistent hour, we were ready. I was in my typical opera-attending garb, Adele had insisted upon wearing her hat. I had my ten francs to give Mme. Giry (I was feeling generous) and the key to the door into box five. We got in the boat and went to the bridge. I brought Adelita to the box, listened briefly, then went in. we took our seats just as the opera was beginning. It was a full house tonight, and I felt a twinge of composer's pride that my work was so popular. Adele seemed to not have enough eyes to see all she wanted to see, for her eyes were as far open as they could be, and her pretty, hatted head swiveled back and forth.

"Why doesn't it all fall down, like London bridge?" she whispered, as if afraid that too much noise would bring it crashing down on our heads.

I laughed. "Because I designed it."

She frowned. "You did?"

"Hush."

Adele loved the opera. She laughed at all the funny parts, and cried at all the sad parts, like a good watcher of opera should. There wasn't much of the former, however, this opera being one of mine. Adele didn't understand the concept of a standing ovation, but she gave one anyway. Unfortunately, Meg Giry always looked at box five to see if it was occupied. She saw Adele standing on the seat, then me sitting in the shadows. Her face briefly registered shock, then she looked away.

"Adelita," I called over the tumultuous applause, "we have to go, now."

"Why?" she whined.

"We've been seen." I opened the door to the bridge.

"Why does that mean we have to go back?"

"They don't like it when I go to the opera, but we'll be safe here." I took her quickly across the lake. I had to go see what Meg thought of my daughter, and I couldn't take Adele with me. I told her she should go to sleep. She claimed she wasn't tired. I sang her to sleep, lacing my music with magic. None could resist the magic the gypsies had taught me except the gypsies themselves. I lowered the portcullis and went back across the lake. I climbed the stairs up to the series of passages and rooms over the opera house that I called the Heavens. Two rights, a left, and a long straight passage took me to the room directly over the girls' dressing room. Meg was talking with her mother and a chorus girl named Yvette.

"Yes, Yvette, I know it's odd, but we don't seem to have any satisfactory explanation for it. All we can do is hope he's not brewing something special, and practice our steps." That was the sharp tones of Mme. Giry.

"But, Mama, I think I do have a satisfactory explanation for it," said Meg quietly. I hadn't come a second too late.

"You do?"

"Yes. Tonight he was in his box—"

"Yes, I know, and he left me a very good tip. What of it?"

"Well, there was someone else in the box with him."

A stunned silence.

"Who?"

"A little girl, not more than five years old. I saw them during the curtain call, and he left in a hurry."

Mme. Giry spoke in the way she did when she was thinking. "The Phantom of the Opera has a daughter. I wonder how he came by her."

"Maybe he kidnapped her," Yvette whispered dramatically.

"I doubt it," Mme. Giry contradicted. "It seems unlike him to kidnap."

"Didn't he kidnap Christine?" Yvette persisted.

"That wasn't Christine's story," Meg snapped. "Just tell us what you're thinking, Yvette, would you?"

"Well, if we could somehow get the girl and the Phantom separated—"

"Absolutely not," Mme. Giry interrupted. "You remember what happened to les Messieurs when they tried that." Firmin and Andre were always referred to when they appeared in gossip as "les Messieurs," or, "the old fools."

Yvette seemed mollified, but I knew her. She was not the type to drop an idea without trying it. I stayed to see what she would do—a mistake, I learned quickly.

Yvette left the Giries, and went to the doorway of the men's dressing room. I knew time was running short, but I wanted to see if she could convince the three she had trapped—her beau, a dancer, and a tenor lackey. She convinced them, and in my eagerness to hear, I had forgotten that there was a rather unsecret passageway to the lake nearby, and Yvette knew about it. She also knew the way to the lake, because she had gone with Mme. Giry to find Christine. It took me a moment to understand the creak I heard, and when I did understand it, what little color there was in my face left it. They would get to the lake first. I sprinted back down.

The boat was gone by the time I got to the bridge. I put the candles out and dropped the portcullis around the island. There were screams, and I heard Adele shouting something I couldn't identify.

"Now, come back to the dock." I lit a path of candles that led to the dock. The boat, riding low with four people in it, came back. I was surprised they all fit. I drew my sword as they came onto the dock. "Hold your hand at the level of your eyes," I cautioned them. "Go back. Now." One of the men had the impudence to kick the boat away before he ran—I stabbed him in the arm, and he screamed. "It won't kill you, boy. Go!" They ran as if the devil were at their heels, and the devil was seriously considering it. I pulled the boat back.

I finally understood what Adelita was shouting. "Papa! Papa!"

I jumped in the boat and poled back, relighting the candles. She called me Papa! There was a swelling happy feeling in my breast. I lifted the portcullis and got out of the boat. She ran to me and grabbed me around the legs, nearly knocking me into the water.

"Papa," she sobbed, "don't ever leave me here again."

I picked her up. "I promise I won't." It didn't occur to me at the time that I would never keep that promise. I sat in my chair with her in my lap. My chin was resting on the top of her head. She slowly fell asleep, and so did I. For the first time in my life, I fell asleep happy.

I had a dream like so many I had. I was somewhere undefined and romantic with Christine, Raoul and the opera completely forgotten. We kissed, and in doing so, Christine slipped her perfect little fingers under my mask and pulled it off. She touched the scars, kissed them. One thing about this dream was unusual, however—the fingers were real.

Dun, dun, dun! Next chapter involves a story.