Disclaimer: I own the characters I made up, and the plot. Is it necessary to rub it in that I don't own anything else? Hee.

I got reviews! Thanks to EmailyGirl, Phantoms-angel1, and Aubrey Daniels!

Usually, I reply back to reviewers, but I think I'll wait until the story actually gets interesting first, haha.

xoxo

Gabrielle woke up the next morning, feeling the lightest she had in a long time. After the previous night, she felt that she was ready to start facing reality, no matter how slowly she had to do it. She stretched and stepped out of bed, pulling a robe over her nightgown and stepping outside.

"Are you feeling any better?" Meg asked. Gabrielle smiled slightly and nodded.

"I might even be up for one of your mother's rehearsals," she laughed quietly. "But it might be better if I got a meal in before they tie me into a corset." She smiled again and walked off to where the other girls were already eating. She cut herself a warm slice of bread and helped herself to a cup of tea.

She followed the rest of the girls as they filed out onto the stage, ready for rehearsals. Madame Giry had them warm-up, singing rounds of the Ave Maria. Gabrielle looked around warily and opened her mouth, letting a tiny voice escape her lips. She restrained herself the entire time, being absolutely sure not to be louder than any of the other girls.

Mme. Giry sent a few furtive glances in the girl's direction, which Gabrielle did not fail to notice. She saw the potential in Gabrielle, no matter how hard Gabrielle threw herself into hiding it.

Even as she was singing, Gabrielle's mind wandered to the voice she heard last night. It sounded as though it came from right next to her, yet it echoed as thought it came from some distant place. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, and for those short moments, even while she feared its source, it made her forget everything, even her father.

She did not want the voice to return, for fear of the body with which it may have come, but she desperately wanted the sound to remain fresh in her mind. Once that faint echo faded from her memory, the pain she felt would return. She would once again feel like a stranger in this place. She would feel completely alone, and that was the last thing she needed.

As soon as Mme. Giry dismissed her choirgirls in the afternoon, Gabrielle walked in a trance-like state back to her chambers, closing the door behind her. She glanced about the room, and noticed an item on the table, which had been bare when she had left that morning. She walked over to it and picked up a long-stemmed rose with a thin black ribbon tied to it. She ran her finger over its length, finding that the thorns did not cut her, almost as if she just passed through them. She then picked up another item, a letter, closed by a macabre wax seal depicting a round skull. She broke the seal and began reading the letter aloud to herself.

Mademoiselle Gabrielle,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Opera Populaire. I only hope that you find your stay a leisurely one. If I frightened you last night, you have my sincerest apologies. It merely occurred to me that you needed a tutor if you wish to pursue the gift you possess. I believe you will find a way to make it known if you have any need of my presence.

-O.G.

Gabrielle placed the letter back on the table and stared at it as though it were some fragile relic. Someone had left her these things, but she hadn't the faintest idea whom. Perhaps, she thought, one of the boys in the choir had decided to play a trick on her.

"How bored they must be to bother me like this," she sighed, slipping onto to her bed. Still, she couldn't help but wonder how on earth they could about these things…a gift she possessed? She lay on her stomach with her chin in her hands and her legs bent up into the air. As she sat idly, Mme. Giry stepped into the room. "Good evening, Madame," she said quietly.

"Hello, Mademoiselle de Chagny—"

"Excusez moi?" she said, "My surname is Clairmont, Madame,"

"How is that?" she asked. "Was your father not the Vicomte's brother?"

"My father took his mother's surname, out of a certain distaste for his father," Gabrielle explained. "My father always said it was a rather complicated matter. But onto other things! What brings you here, Madame?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, dear, but I must speak to you once again," she said in a matronly tone. Gabrielle sat up properly and moved over so that the older woman had a place on the bed next to her. "Have you ever heard of the phantom who haunts this theatre?" she asked. Gabrielle cocked her head to the side questioningly. She had never heard any of those kinds of stories. "There once was a man," Giry said mysteriously, "He lived under this very theatre, though he went unseen by all of those who played here. Secretly, he tutored one girl, a choirgirl and a dancer who I took in. I…" Mme. Giry paused carefully and considered her words. She could not bring herself to say that the girl of which she spoke was a woman that Gabrielle had, in fact, already met. "I do not remember her name. But the Phantom fell in love with her, a love that would not be returned, for she fell in love with the theatre's principle patron, a rich nobleman." A young Vicomte, Giry thought.

Gabrielle listened, totally mesmerized, as Giry spoke of hangings and falling chandeliers, of mysterious voices and strange happenings. Then, she spoke of the performanse of an opera titled Don Juan Triumphante, and of the tragedy that befell the Opera Populaire from that night forward. She spoke in uncanny detail of a lair underground, where the young singer was willing to sacrifice her freedom to save her true love's life, and spend her life with the man who hid behind a mask.

"That's terrible," Gabrielle said breathlessly. "What a cruel, horrible thing to do." An uncomfortable silence, and it seems that the air trembled in fear, as someone far beyond had heard them speaking. A movement in the reflection of a mirror caught the corner of Gabrielle's eye, but she shook her head, banishing any idea of the possibility that someone was watching.

"Then you, like many others, condemn him for being a monster—"

"Madame, you misunderstand," Gabrielle said sincerely. "The only monster I see is that girl…"

"How so?" Giry asked. "And…speak up, would you? This old woman's ears aren't as trustworthy as they once were." Giry, of course, had no such troubles with her ears, but knew quite well that an unseen specter was somehow hearing this as well.

"No one deserves to be toyed with," Gabrielle said in a heartfelt voice. "She was willing to manipulate that poor man to let her lover run free. She pretended to love him, then ran away at the first opportunity. If I were to meet that horrid woman, I'd tell her this myself…" She trailed off and shook her head. "Forgive me, Madame. I'm being too rash. It's just that I get carried away at times."

"It's no crime," Giry said gently. She now was quite relieved to not have spoken the names of the players in this foul tragedy. If he had told Gabrielle that it had been her own uncle and his wife, she would never see them the same. "I suppose you'd like to know, your uncle's going to be arriving soon," she said. "He wants to make sure you're doing all right."

Gabrielle sighed heavily. Somehow she wished that the story Giry told her had ended differently...Of course, she wished that many stories in her life had ended differently. She changed out of her first dress and into another, one that was more simple and didn't require the assistance of a corset. By the time she had finished, she hurried down into the theatre lobby, where her uncle has waiting.

"Uncle Raoul, you're back," she said with a smile. "It seems only yesterday you brought me here,"

"I believe it was only yesterday," he laughed, kissing her on the cheek. "And yet it seems that one day has already done you a world of good."

"Oh yes, it has," Gabrielle said. "I believe a good night's sleep in a new bed did something for me."

"Gabrielle," he said, suddenly quite serious. "You know, I want to know you. I made the mistake of hardly speaking to Dimitri, and I don't wish tolose the opportunity to be the uncle to you that I should be."

"Well, I'm grown now, as I've said," she sighed, "But I suppose at any age, one needs guidance from someone older and wiser."

"There you have it," Raoul smiled. "So, what have you learned from these old brutes?" he laughed.

"Oh, Madam Giry just told me the most interesting story before you came," Gabrielle said. "It was about a phantom who lived in this very theatre. Isn't that incredible? She said he was real—"

"That old story?" Raoul said uncomfortably. "Oh, they tell that to everyone. Why, I used to come here often and they tried to scare me away with it. Surely, you noticed how unrealistic the entire story was?"

"I suppose so," she replied quietly. "But…I don't know, I supposed a part of me wishes it could have been real...a part of me that thought it could be real."

"Trust me," Raoul said. "There is no Phantom of the Opera." He shuddered involuntarily, remembering the last time he said those words on the roof of the very theatre in which he stood…and, oh, how wrong he had been.

"But it's a story I'm going to remember forever," she sighed sadly. "I've seen what it does to you, being thought of as unwhole, or as some sort of misshapen creature. My father died, feeling as though I was the only one who'd ever care for him, and that I only did because it was my obligation. He never saw what I saw." As Gabrielle spoke openly about her father for the first time, Raoul listened intently, and it seemed as though the walls did too, for the space suddenly seemed to be more closed and more intimate. "My father would awaken every morning and see himself as nothing but a crippled, withered man, yet to me, his crippled leg did not matter. When he sang to me, or played me his songs, the music didn't come from that crippled leg. It came from his heart. Oh lord, uncle, my father had the most beautiful heart of any man alive…" Gabrielle's eyes started tearing up again, and Raoul bravely stepped forward, embracing her.

"See what happens because of these stories?" he laughed weakly. "They do nothing but make you cry. I know you want to believe in these fantastic things, but you mustn't cling onto these notions this way."

"I suppose you're right," Gabrielle said in resignation. "But it's all right to dream." She stepped back and smiled. "Your wife will be missing you. You should get home." The two embraced again, and parted ways. Gabrielle headed back to her room and lay down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. As her neck grew tired, she turned her head to the side.

She then noticed that the rose had moved to her bedside table. She picked it up and looked at it, running her fingers over the length of the stem again. She sat up for a moment and looked her table in the corner, noticing that the rose was still there. Someone had left her another one. She lay back down, staring at the flower in her hand.

"Someone's trying to play a joke on me," she muttered as she yawned and fell asleep, not needing to force herself this time.