A/N: Another update, so if you're stumbling on this for the first time in a week, click back a bit. This may be short, I'm not sure, but I absolutely had to write it!

does the 'I don't own them' dance and gets down to writing

Erik again sat toying with the keys on the piano, this time, an hour after breakfast, and he hoped today would be a productive one. He so loved Christine, but whenever she was home his time was taken entirely with her, and as a result, the musical stories that ran through his mind on a constant loop had yet to materialize with the speed he would have liked.

Still, he smiled at the memory of his wife on her opening night, allowing himself a few more moments of distraction. Her role as Susana had been wonderfully executed, and in the weeks following, had received enough flowers in her dressing room to rival that of the greatest diva. Though the managers knew she was married, the fact was not advertised, and a great many men had tried to invite her out to dinner. Of course, she had always said no…always returned to their great house set back in Italy's hills, surrounded by a stone wall, a beautiful home that afforded Christine the comforts of society and Erik the privacy he so greatly desired.

Sometimes, Erik would consent to venture out with Christine, always wearing his new facial pieces but never wholly comfortable, sure that someone would recognize him and create trouble. People still made him nervous, even with his new disguise he felt that people could sense something amiss. He couldn't stand crowds. Once, when they had gone to buy food in order to cook dinner, they had had to stand in a particularly long queue to purchase their supplies. Erik had had to leave and wait outside, burying his face in a paper and moving every couple of minutes until Christine exited the shop, bags in hand, and rescued him.

Of course, that privacy did not extend to the opera, but Erik was careful and had so far not missed an evening of his wife's always stellar performance. It would only be a matter of time, he reminded himself, before she would take on the world.

Christine knew what a sacrifice he was making in order to make her happy and was careful not to push Erik until he was ready. She was so lovely…

Shaking his head at his fortune, Erik turned once again to the keys. He should have hours before his wife's return. Hastily, he flipped through his sheet music until he came to the part that had been troubling him.

"Ah yes, here it is," he said, pinpointing the spot that had sounded unpleasantly discordant the last time he had picked it up. Raising his pencil, he went to alter the offending script, when the sound of the front door slamming immediately brought him to his feet, his hand reaching for the pistol that was never too far from him.

"Erik!" Christine screamed. "Erik!" He was accosted by the small figure who had not even taken off her cloak before pressing herself to his chest, sobbing into the shirt that, he reflected, was now ruined by the stage makeup she had not bothered to take off from the dress rehearsal.

"My God, angel, what is it?" he demanded, pulling her away from him so that he could see her face, and recoiled at the fear he saw there. "Did someone hurt you?"

Shaking, Christine shook her head and allowed herself to be led to the divan. Slowly, with Erik taking great pains to calm her enough to allow the words to come, she explained why she was home only two hours after leaving.

"Ladies!"

The voice of M. Romano cut through the casual gossip that always marked the short morning breaks the actors were allowed. Christine turned slightly, M. Romano always had words for someone, but they were rarely directed toward her. She exchanged a grin with Amelia, the mezzo-soprano who played Cherubino flawlessly every night, and made a motion with her eyes that said she would continue her story later.

"Girls, it is my regret to inform you that Charlotte will no longer be with us as Countess." Christine dropped her eyes. It was well known among the actors that Charlotte, a young beauty with a clear voice, had become pregnant, but Christine, along with the rest of her cast, had been sure that she would be allowed to finish the run, as she was not showing.

Not so, apparently, as M. Romano was proving to be rather conservative in his views of the opera.

"Needless to say, that brings us to a bit of an impasse, as we must go up again tomorrow night." The cast began stirring, especially those with smaller parts. Who would be chosen to fill such a large role?

"However, by a stroke of luck, there is someone who knows the role well and is ready to take it on. Signorina?"

Erik's grip on his wife tightened as he heard her tell of the look that crossed Carlotta's face when she laid eyes on Christine. It had been one of extreme anger and vengeance, to be sure, but also a calculating madness. And then she'd looked Christine in the eye and approached her, under the careful eyes of M. Romano.

hr

"Mme. Daae!" she said, for all the world sounding like she were greeting an old friend, but with cold, calculating eyes. "How chance it be you are so far from Paris?"

"I-"

"Ah, I was hoping this were the case!" M. Romano cried, approaching the two ladies, not noticing the look in either woman's eye. "How unfortunate for Paris to lose two of its shining stars, but how fortunate for me!"

"Signore," Carlotta fairly purred, "how kind of you to give a chorus girl a chance!" At this, M. Romano seemed fairly confused, but smiled as if Carlotta were joking.

"La Carlotta, I can hardly imagine you presume to call our Christine a chorus girl! Why, she has had the audience on their feet every night!"

"Yes, she does that," Carlotta said with a smile, casting a dark look to Christine as if to remind her of the last night she had done so, when the audience ran from the opera house in terror. Then she'd allowed her assistant to show her to the dressing room, and Christine had reminded M. Romano of the physician's appointment she had decided she was late for, and ran.

"I can't go back there, Erik, I can't! How did she find me? What does she know?"

"Shh," Erik said to Christine, trying to calm his own thoughts as he realized Carlotta was only one of two women he'd ever seriously wanted to harm in his lifetime. That desire, he realized, had not ebbed in his time away from Paris.

"Things were going so well," she sobbed. "But I don't know if I can go back there."

"You must," he said firmly. "And you must go back today. Remember, this is not Paris, and you have the larger role. It is not befitting of you to act the diva."

"But she's terrible!" Christine protested. "She's so terrible, and M. Romano knows nothing of my past! He was utterly surprised to hear Carlotta and I sang at the same opera house, he knows only our reputations and not the history behind them."

"Precisely why you need go back," Erik said grimly. "Do not give her much chance to spread rumors about you. Besides, I hear she is not well."

"Erik, I can't. I just can't."

"You can, and you shall," he said, gathering his cloak and making himself presentable for outside. "And I shall go with you."

As she shakily gathered her things, Erik fitted the pieces of his new disguise into place and laughed. He had not been as quiet as Christine had thought and had heard all too many rumors of Carlotta's antics in Paris, all of which stemmed from her fear of the 'opera ghost.' And yet she had unknowingly stumbled right into his path and was once again tormenting the woman he loved.

Perhaps there is no cause to give up the ghost just yet, he laughed to himself, and, slipping an arm around a still-shaken Christine, led her to the carriage that would take them into town.