A/N: Now, listen up. I am now aware that PTO stands for Please Turn Over, not Phantom of The Opera. I KNOW! But I have been operating under this mistaken theory for almost a year, now, and changing it would mean completely rewiring my brain. I also like my way better. So, nothing is changing. This story is almost done, bear with me. I think two more chapters, then we're outta here. Thanks again to Sannikex, cool frood if there ever was one. By the way, Terry Pratchett wrote this book, Maskerade. Very amusing--his version of The Phantom. Read it.Happy back to school.

The Second Masquerade

When I got down, I pulled out my violin for the first time in twelve years. And I surprised even myself with what I played. I played The Resurrection of Lazarus. I stopped when tears started dripping onto the strings. I put the violin back in its case, wound up the music box, and watched it for a long time before going swimming.

Through the Christmas season, my works progressed sporadically. I would drop my pen for days at a time to visit Meg and Adele, then suddenly an inspiration would hit me like a slap in the face and I would sprint down the stairs to scribble it down before it faded. I would come back up in fifteen minutes or so, whoever I was visiting would look at me with an exasperated smile, and I would say, "I'm sorry, where were we?" They would laugh in a way that said, "Oh that's quite all right," and tell me where we had been very patiently in a way that made my ears go red.

That Christmas, I got the best present, perhaps only present, I had ever gotten: Adele was allowed to resume normal life.

On New Year's Eve, Adele told me to come to her room. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, as Bella (I had finally begun using her nickname) and Meg had the chairs. I sat on the floor.

"Papa, you need to put out the fires," Adele said after pleasantries had been exchanged. "The whole house, including the ballet school, is buzzing about you, me, Meg, Bella, and Christine, and…Meg and I don't like it, is all." She looked at the other two. "And we had an idea, see, for tonight…."

"It was Meg's idea," Bella corrected.

"And the idea was?" I had a feeling I knew.

"The ball, Erik," Meg said. "If you came, as Adele's guest—or mine—" she and I blushed, the other two giggled, and I glared at them— "and just behaved yourself and spread the story a little, it would get to everyone. It would change as it went along, but they would know."

I remembered the last time I had shown up at a ball. It had not gone well, but I had been angry that time. Angry at Christine, and Raoul, and Carlotta, and André, and Firmin….This time though. Maybe it would work. Behave yourself. Honestly.

"Well…" I said.

"Please?" Adele whimpered.

"For Lita," added Bella.

I looked at Meg, who was being conspicuously silent. She had a mischievous grin. "Have you anything to add to our discussion, Meglet?"

"I dare you."

"You dare me?"

"I dare you."

I rolled my eyes as though I really didn't want to do this, though I rather thought I would have come anyway. "I'll come, girls." They gave themselves congratulatory looks. "But not as anyone's guest, you hear? I am the Phantom of the Opera. I have an automatic invitation."

"You do?" Bella asked.

"I always have assumed I do."

"Oh." Bella rolled her eyes.

"It is a masquerade, Papa..." Adele said after glaring at her sister briefly. "I hope you have a costume…?"

"You cannot be The Phantom of the Opera properly without a lot of them, Adelita. I have one."

"Oh. That's all right then." There was an embarrassed silence. I bowed and left through the usual hole in the ceiling, feeling quite annoyed with everything. I had not wanted to do it, then I had decided it was all for the best, now the carousel had come around and I didn't want to do it again. But I navigated the dusty, abandoned section of the Heavens where I kept my costumes, then decided against it. I might as well just go as I was. There I was, thinking I would go again. It was a good thing that the girls hadn't given me any time to think about this, or I would have made myself dizzy.

So. Two hours later, I went to the masquerade with Meg, Adele, Bella, and a very nervous Giuseppe. He had not been informed of the plan, but it seemed he understood why I was there. That did not mean that he was comfortable with the idea, but he dealt with it rather well.

When the four of us entered (fashionably late for maximum effect) a hush fell over the packed hall. People stared. Meg put a hand to her mouth.

"This wasn't part of the plan," she hissed.

"Thank you for telling me," I grumbled in the ventriloquist's fashion. I saw that one of the younger actors had come as me. He was shaking with fear. I choked back a laugh.

The staring contest continued for a nearly a minute, then the crowd seemed to come to the conclusion that I was in a good mood tonight, and that the thing to do was act as if I wasn't there, because this is what was done. The talk resumed, the music picked back up. Everyone seemed nervous, as if Meg and Adele had brought in a large, fierce dog on a thin leash. They all watched us out of the corners of their eyes, and gave me a wide berth as I passed. I talked to people politely, as if I was just another visiting parent. The dancing was starting when I managed to corner the young man dressed as me before he left to hide in a bathroom where I couldn't get him.

"Christophe Lecuyer!" I called. He stopped dead as if he had run into a wall. "I won't hurt you, Christophe. In all honesty, you fit the part."

He blushed crimson. "Th-thank you, monsieur."

"I shall see to a pay raise for you when I have the time."

"Thank you, monsieur." Now he was grinning. I nodded and ran into Meg.

"Why did you do that?" she asked as we slid towards the stairs.

I took her hand. "I'm in a good mood tonight."

"Oh." She took off her mask. Her face was pink and shining. "Let's go up to the balcony. I hate masquerade balls."

"Why?" I asked as I followed her up the grand staircase.

"I think of dancing as a way to show who you really are. Wearing a mask sort of…negates it."

I said nothing.

It was nearing the turn of the year. Meg and I stood on the balcony together, leaning on the rail as we watched the dancers below us. It looked, I thought, rather like something one would see if hit on the head very hard. There were so many blotches of color, and they were all spinning dizzyingly fast. A few blotches had strayed up the stairs, some onto the balcony. The ones on the balcony were rather far from Meg and me.

I looked at Meg. She was staring at the dance floor, her eyes slightly unfocused as if she was trying to see all of it at once. I started memorizing her, in case I wanted to see her now again later. Her face was still pink from the mask, and the soft little curls around the edges of her face were slightly damp. Her fingers were curled gracefully around the abandoned mask which hung over the railing, and the hem of her dress twitched as she tapped one foot to the rhythm of the music playing below.

Meg looked around at me, and I committed her eyes to memory—they were grey-green ringed with black.

"What do you want?" she asked. I opened my mouth to say something to the effect of nothing at all, everything was going just fine, but she cut me off. "No, don't tell me. I'll guess. You want…a pay raise."

"Twenty thousand is quite enough, thank you. Guess again." Now, I knew what I wanted, but I had missed my cue. I would have to improvise.

"You want…you want everyone to stop gossiping about you."

"Are you crazy? I love that, Meglet."

"I suppose it was a silly idea. You want…." She hung her mask on the rail and looked back at the dancers before whispering, "You want Christine back."

I stared at her. We had never mentioned Christine between us. "Well…yes, but…." I paused, watching the hallucination below. "If she came…."

"Things wouldn't work out like they did thirteen years ago, you're saying, Erik."

"Right." There was a pause. "It's like winning the lottery," I said after a moment. "Everyone wants to, but what does one do when one wins it?"

Meg gave a sad little laugh. "One makes a pretty little speech about how one is going to give it to charity, then wishes one had it back afterwards." I nodded. She looked back at me. "I've had my three guesses. What do you want?"

My cue had rolled around again. I looked about me frantically, as if hoping something would drop out of the ceiling, or explode, or turn green and ruin the moment to keep me from doing this. Nothing obliged. I took Meg's hands, resigned to my doom. I looked at them, to avoid looking at her face. Feeling like I was jumping off a very high bridge, I said a little too loudly as if reassuring myself that I was really doing this, "Will you marry me, Meg?"

For a minute, nothing happened. Perhaps I was imagining it, but it seemed that the people around us had grown far too quiet.

"Are you…" I felt her looking at me. She did not say "serious".

She said, "Yes, Erik."

Don't get your hopes up.