As we crossed the lake in his boat, I wondered where he was taking me. I considered asking, but after insulting his home the way I had, I didn't want him to think that I didn't trust him. I briefly thought that maybe I shouldn't trust him, but discarded the idea quickly. If he wanted me dead or gone, he could easily have arranged it.

He was silent all the way across the lake, and didn't speak until we reached the other side.

"Do you feel up to walking?"

I nodded, and he took the lantern from the front of the boat, and shone it in front of us. I looked up and saw a circular staircase stretching up into the gloom. We began the ascent, Erik keeping his pace slow to accommodate my shorter legs. I was afraid that I would get tired, but my body surprised me with its resilience. The constant motion actually felt good, and when I glanced down to see how far we had come, I could barely make out the shimmer of water far below us.

My ankle didn't hurt at all, and I was amazed at how short a time it had taken me to recover, when I realized that I didn't actually know how long it had taken.

"Erik?" He paused and looked down at me. "How long have I been here?"

"One week."

That seemed like a very long time. I had been under the impression it was shorter than that. I must have slept most of the time, which would account for my quick recovery. Erik didn't bother elaborating, and started walking upwards again.

After a while, the staircase ended abruptly, and he opened a door that I could have sworn was just another part of the wall until it swung outwards. The hall that we stepped into was very much like the one we had been attacked in, and he warned me to step only where he did, in case the floor was damaged. At the end of the hall, there was another staircase, this one wooden and a little unstable-looking. Erik didn't appear worried, though, so I didn't bother commenting on the fact that it looked like it would collapse under us.

Now, the distance was beginning to take its toll, and my legs began to ache. He had to stop a few times to allow me to catch up with him. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he opened another door, and led me through it.

He had taken me to the top of the opera house, and now I was walking on the roof of the grand building. After the darkness of the interior, the light of the stars was almost blinding, and I closed my eyes for a moment while my lungs gulped in the cool night air.

I opened my eyes and walked towards the edge of the roof, stopping here and there to admire the majestic statues that lined the edges of the building, and bask in the glow of the starlight on my face and the fresh breeze that brushed my hair from my face and lifted it off my shoulders like a friendly hand. The chill of winter that had made my journey so uncomfortable at night was all but gone, leaving only the agreeable warmth of early April. Taking deep breaths, I could smell the faintest hint of lilacs, and closing my eyes once more, I almost fooled my senses into believing that I was home again.

But now I had reached the edge of the roof, and suddenly, all of Paris was stretched out before me, the city lights flickering gently in the darkness, illuminating the glory of the grand buildings around me.

"Thank you." I whispered, sensing Erik's presence behind me. He stepped forward so that he was standing next to me, and I could feel his eyes on me.

He found himself one more admiring the pride and grace with which she carried herself, her light footsteps not making a sound as she appeared to float rather than walk across the roof, the way she held her back perfectly straight, the grace with which she moved. Watching her now, it was obvious that she was a trained dancer; no one else could make such simple motions so beautiful to watch. And now she was thanking him, her voice gentle as the breeze, her eyes shining with real joy, not actually smiling, but without the sadness that always seemed to hang over like a cloud.

As soon as he realized where his traitorous thoughts were leading, he knocked them aside, to replace them with darker ones. This was were he realized he had lost Christine. This was where she and her lover had shared their duet, while he looked on from the shadows. After that, all his love and devotion had been futile. She had given her heart to Raoul without a thought for her Angel of Music, leaving him to rot in his lonely hell. After that, he had been powerless to separate them, powerless to make her love him.

He realized that Remy was looking intently into his eyes, and smoothed his face back into its neutral expression, so that she could not read the turmoil of his mind.

"Do you like it?"

She waited a minute before answering, her expression thoughtful.

"I'm not sure." He was mildly surprised by her answer. How very like this woman to not be able to answer either yes or no. She continued, her head cocked slightly to one side in a rather endearing manner. "I mean, from here, it's lovely. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. But it isn't real." She was silent for a moment.

"I can assure you, Mademoiselle Remy, it's quite real."

"I know, the city is real. The beauty isn't. From up here, all we can see are the lights and the buildings and the trees. But what is it like in the harsh light of day? What about the beggars who sit on the streets and starve while the wealthy pass by and turn up their noses? What about the hate and prejudice that lives in all those hearts, the cruelty that you can't see, but that is more real than any facade they can put up to cover it? The beauty disappears as soon as you get close, the solitude is just a mirage that fades away." There was a thinly disguised passion and sadness in her voice, that grew steadily stronger until she stopped, her eyes troubled, staring into the distance. When she started again, her voice was quiet. "If there is one thing I have learned, it's that beauty means nothing. Leon was the most handsome man I had ever met, but look what he did to me." Here, she gestured to the scar on her cheek. "Everyone believes that they can trust beauty, that it somehow means virtue. And they are all wrong."

Silently, they stood there side by side, alone in their separate thoughts. She noticed the hard expression on his face, and followed his gaze with hers. Finally, Erik broke the silence.

"You are very young to be so realistic. It must be a terrible thing to have lost all the illusions that the rest of mankind seems to cling to."

She uttered laugh that sounded more disbelieving than actually amused..

"I never had many illusions to begin with. I learned very young that love is more often than not simply lust in disguise, that most people do things with purely selfish intentions, that the one thing everyone fears is the truth. Besides, I am hardly young. I'm twenty-eight, you know. That's practically dead and buried as far as society is concerned."

"Twenty-eight is not old; it's just barely an adult."

"Oh really? And how old are you, that you possess such wisdom?"

"Thirty-seven."

"That's all?"

"What were you expecting?"

"I just thought you must be older than that. Most of the thirty-five year-old men I knew acted like spoiled children. Probably because they were spoiled children."

"You certainly take a dim view of your former friends."

"I never said they were my friends. They were passing acquaintances, people I exchanged pleasantries with as part of the game that everyone in society played."

"I'm sure it must have been very hard," His voice grew hard and bitter, "being rich and beautiful. Truly, I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for you."

"I never said that it was, so you needn't sound so sarcastic." He had to admit, he enjoyed seeing her riled up. It was amusing to watch her aristocratic training duel with her gypsy temper, as she tried to maintain her exterior calm and failed. "But if you must know, it wasn't a pleasant life. Wealth does not make for good companionship, nor beauty for actual happiness. If my life was as wonderful as you make it sound, then why would I possibly have become engaged to Leon?"

"You mean you did not love your fiancé?"

"Define love. Was I attracted to him? Sort of. Did I enjoy his company? Sometimes. Did I love him? No, I didn't."

"Then why did you agree to marry him?"

"Because I was the rapidly aging daughter of a well-known scoundrel and his mistress, whose identity no one knew; I had no other prospects. My grandfather's health was failing, and I was afraid of being alone when he died. Leon seemed like a good, steady man, who would take care of me. It seemed like the practical thing to do."

"So you were going to marry for practicality?" He heard his voice take on a jeering quality, and knew that it was unfair to judge her when he knew relatively little about her life, but he couldn't help himself.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. Is there something so terribly wrong with that?"

"I thought one generally married for love, or I suppose in your circle, money. But you had all the money you needed, and did not love him at all. No wonder the whole affair turned out the way it did." He hadn't meant to say that, and knew that it was cruel of him, but it was already done, and he couldn't very well apologize.

"Really? And what do you know of love? You, who lives so completely alone, are lecturing me on marriage? I can scarcely stand the irony. I was lonely, for God's sake! You of all people should know what that feels like! It was pointless for me to search for real love; I had already lost my chance at that. And I certainly wasn't about to throw myself into a relationship based purely on passion, not after what I had seen my mother suffer. So, yes, I got engaged for practicality! I wanted a husband, children, a family, all the things I had never had in life. Now you tell me that you honestly believe that I acted wrongly! Tell me!"

How dare she? What did she know of him, or of love? She must never have felt the emotions he had, the burning passion that threatened to consume everything in its path, that had forced him to act as he had, that had taken complete control of his mind whenever Christine was near. He may be alone in his own private hell now, but he had loved more deeply than Remy's purely practical mind could ever imagine.

A/N: I decided I didn't want him to be too much older than Remy, so I am figuring that he was about nine years old when he escaped from the gypsy camp, and that happened 28 years before my story takes place.