A/N: Thanks to my first and only reviewer Queen-Chick! Many blessings. Hope to update a chapter a day. Disclaimer: I do not own POTO (but Erik lives in my closet! HA!)

Giry raced up the staircase, listening to Erik's heartfelt chords that sounded out on his piano. She did not understand it, but she felt some longing deep within the darkest part of her heart. She tiptoed with the lightness of a faerie, her silk ballet shoes gracing the dust on the floor.

With anxiety and nervousness she stepped into Poligny's office. He was talking with his co-worker, Debienne, and had a furtive air on his face.

"Well, Mlle. Giry, back so soon?" he said in a curious voice. "That did not take you very long." His eyebrows raised in a suspicious but comical way.

"Yes, Monsieur." She curtsied politely to Debienne, who gave her a stiff nod.

"You may speak with M. Poligny." He said quietly. "I have much to do in my private offices."

With a fleeting glance, he made his way to his offices, laughing politely at a comment made in an undertone by Poligny.

"Now, Mlle. Giry." Said Poligny. "What is it you have brought me?"

Giry looked at Poligny with a questioning, almost pathetic glance. Could the man have forgotten the opera proposal so quickly?

"Monsieur." She said slowly. "The opera."

"Oh yes. That. Well, let me see it then." He gestured with an open palm.

Giry nodded, and placed the score of Erik's opera into the man's hands with trembling fingers.

"It is an original." She said, her voice faltering in her throat.

Poligny nodded, carefully opening the black leather cover with a deft hand. He looked slightly amused at first, and then quizzical.

"Juliette Lost?" he said with amusement. "Rather fanciful."

Giry nodded, slowly. Her eyes began to brighten. Poligny flipped through a few of the pages, and chuckled softly too himself.

"Debienne!" he cried. "I believe we have found ourselves an opera!"

He rushed from the room, with excitement glowing from his eyes. Giry followed with timid, wandering footsteps. Poligny had seized Debienne by his elbow, and was leading him down the steps into the huge theatre. A few stray ballerinas, none of Giry's friends, for she had none, were waltzing slowly around the stage; giggling.

"Mademoiselles." Said Debienne primly. "Please step aside."

They looked at him with skeptical eyes, and moved into the wings.

"Where is the conductor?" asked Debienne hurriedly. "He should be here, if they have a rehearsal."

The conductor popped his head out of the orchestra pit.

"So sorry gentlemen." He apologized. "What is it you ask of me?"

"Will you look this score over?" asked Poligny, shoving the music into the conductor's hands, crumpling the pages and making Giry wince, though she did not understand why.

The conductor tapped his baton rapidly, and instructed the orchestra to sight read the overture of Erik's opera.

Giry was astounded. His work was so passionate and haunting, even as a sight-read overture played by an out-of-tune orchestra. The notes imitated vivacious fireworks and the deadness of a graveyard in one smooth motion. In a second, she began to dance, feeling the music pulsing, living, in her very veins. She swirled to the music, feeling the breeze flying around her arms. Her hair whipped against her shoulders, and her heart almost burst with glee. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her only friend, Erik, standing at the back of the theatre, silent, with a questioning glance in his eyes. She stopped immediately, embarrassed.

Erik turned silently from her, moving away with a flick of his cape that fluttered gently against his legs. In an instant he was gone, and Giry breathed a sigh of relief. If the managers had caught him…she thought restlessly, it would be over. Everything. Over. She heard Poligny's imperious voice over her thoughts.

"I don't like it." He said simply.

Giry's eyes welled with tears. They streamed down her face, uncontrollable. With a hasty hand she brushed them away.

"Please, may I have the score back?" she asked, trying hard not to weep.

"Of course, Mademoiselle Giry." He said, thrusting the music back into Giry's hands.

"Please, Monsieur. My mama is still sick. May I have some money for the doctor?" she whispered.

"Of course, Mademoiselle." He said. "My heartfelt sympathies."

From his pocket he extracted fifty francs, the largest sum she had ever received. Her eyes widened, and she sniffed, pulling back the sob that was about to escape from her lips.

In desperation she hurried from the theatre and down the same passageway she had come up. Her heart descended with her feet, and her cries echoed in the walls of the catacombs. Erik, hearing her, looked up, perplexingly.

"What is it, Giry?" he asked.

"They have refused your opera." She said, her eyes misting.

"Fools!" he cried. "Curse them! May the hell fires descend upon them!"

"Erik," she pleaded. "Please."

She rushed up to him, and he took back Juliette Lost with a flourish.

"But I do have your salary." She sniffed, extracting the fifty francs from her dress.

"Nothing is sufficient. Giry why? Why do they hate me?"

She looked at him sadly.

"I don't know, Erik, I don't know." Her voice faltered in her throat.

"They shall die." He whispered. "This is no longer their Opera House. It is mine."

He rushed to an adjoining room, a brought out a noose.

"Erik, please, no." said Giry. "They do not understand."

He just looked at her with blank eyes. She threw herself on top of him, trying to wrestle the lasso out of his hands.

"ERIK!" she screamed. "NO!"

With a furious tug, she pulled the lasso out of his hands. He looked at her askance.

"Why, Antoinette?" he whispered. "Do none of them care for me?"

Despite the pain she felt, Giry's heart felt a little flutter. He had called her Antoinette.

A/N: Don't know where the title Juliette Lost came from. I was being creative. And I don't know if Erik ever wrote such an opera.