A/N: Thank you so much to Queen-Chick and QueenSarah. You guys are the best! Since you both like the story so much, I will continue to update, even if you remain my only reviewers. If you see anything that freaks you out, or if any of the characters seem OOC, please let me know, I and will try to fix it.

The following week after the operatic disaster, as both Giry and Erik termed it, Erik himself laboriously penned out a letter in the early hours of the morning. He sat on his silk sheets, his face unmasked and his brow furrowed in silent thought and fury.

To the honorable and distinguished Monsieurs Debienne and Poligny,

It has come to my attention that my recent opera, Juliette Lost, was rejected by you esteemed managers. I am deeply sorrowful on this account. Therefore, I shall make one amiable and gentlemanly request. If you do not show my opera, be prepared for an untimely accident regarding a number of your ballerinas, and also the commencement of my ownership of the Opera Populaire.

With fondest regards,

O.G.

Satisfied, Erik let out a slight, haunting laugh of triumph.

"Fools." He said. "If they refuse my request…well, we shall see."

Giry, meanwhile, was practicing her dancing on the stage of the opera house. She twirled gaily to an invisible sound she alone heard. It was last week's strains of Erik's opera. It had possessed her, silently but surely, and it never let her go. It was constantly on her mind, as she could feel Juliette's lamentations speak from every note. It had been etched into her mind like a horrific death, and it consumed her. "Play me the opera." She would say to Erik every night, after dinner, when she came to converse with her friend. It took hold of her, and she reeled in delight every time she heard it.

With startling pirouettes she made her way across the stage, so rapidly and so gracefully that the other ballet girls strayed from the wings and admired her poised arms and her graceful, entreating steps. She paid them no heed, and kept on swirling past them, but she heard their whispers.

"Maybe we should tell Monsieur Debienne." Whispered one cautiously.

"Pah!" interjected another. "She is simply enamored of something. I can see it. It's in her eyes."

"But to dance like that…" trailed off the youngest one.

"Shut up, will you!" said the second girl who had spoken. "Who wants Giry as prima ballerina?"

"True." Muttered the little one submissively. "She isn't that good. And besides, I want to be prima ballerina. I deserve it." She had lied. She was the worst dancer of the whole Opera Populaire.

"Oh, you, Kathrine, you dance like a whore!" laughed another ballerina. "How can you expect to become prima ballerina?"

All the while Giry was dancing, and the words of her compatriots became nothing but noise in her mind. All she could hear was the sound of Erik's opera, which was almost tangible. The ballerinas retreated when she had stopped pirouetting and moved away, laughing their thoughts into oblivion. But the youngest, Kathrine, stood still, and watched Giry with staring eyes.

"Well, what is it?" Giry asked sharply, staring back at the girl with a ferocious glare.

"Giry, you dance well." She said. "At least, that's what I think, but the others disagree with me."

Giry looked at her wryly, as if daring her to say anything more.

"Thank you." She said through pursed lips.

Kathrine paused for a minute, then hurried off laughing to find her cronies. Giry herself stiffened. She had never received a compliment from any ballet girl. It seemed strange. The others called her 'the dark child', and sometimes mocked her because of the fact she was so solitary. With a repressing sigh, she wandered off the stage and moved into the audience, among the red velvet chairs. Tiptoeing softly, she made her way down into Erik's lair.

The gondola, she noticed, had been repaired so it was in splendid condition, the black paint gleaming and the small lamps glowing with candlelight. Stepping into the gondola, she grabbed onto the pole with her hand, and pushed herself along the muddy bottom of the lake.

"Erik," she whispered, for it was still early in the morning, and sometimes he had a tendency to sleep late.

She stepped from the gondola and looked around his underground home. The walls glistened with the moisture of centuries, and all of the candles were lit.

"Erik?" she whispered again, and went into his bedroom.

He was lying, fast asleep from being up all night, on the red silk sheets of his bed. His mask was off, but Giry did not retreat in horror. It was nothing, just a face. Giry examined his form carefully, the white shirt, the black trousers, and even his boots, which he had forgotten to remove. He looked so peaceful, and yet his soul was filled with an inner turmoil so sad tears misted in her eyes.

"Giry," she whispered to herself. "Stop crying, you fool. What would he say?"

Even with her quiet word of reprimand Erik did not stir. With a soft hand, she traced the deformed part of his face with her fingertips.

"Poor soul." She whispered, and sniffed a little. "Do not cry Giry. How many times must I tell you?"

While doing so, she noticed the letter, which lay upon the silk sheets. With trepidation she read it, and suddenly her face went pale.

"Oh, Erik." She said softly. "You must not, you must not do this."

With one smooth motion she woke Erik up, gracing his hand with hers.

"Begone!" he shouted, waking up with a start. "Oh, Antoinette. It is you."

"Yes." She said slowly. "Erik, what is this?" she brandished the letter in his face.

Erik did not answer her question, but hastily put on his mask.

"I do not mean to frighten you." He apologized hurriedly.

"You need not put your mask on." She said. "It holds no horror for me."

Erik tensed for a moment, and then slowly removed his mask, as though he was reopening an old wound.

"It does not pain you to stare into the face of a beast?" he said.

"You are not a beast." She said. "But what is this?" she forced the letter under his nose again.

"It is a letter of request, as you can plainly see." Said Erik irritably.

"I was ashamed when they refused your opera. But do not blame them. They do not understand you."

"I wish you to take it to them. May the horror of the Opera Ghost plague them."

Giry did not move, but merely looked at her compatriot.

"Go, damn it Antoinette!" he cried. "Show it to them!"

"No." she said defiantly.

"Why not?"

"Do you not understand that they shall know that I have connections with you?" she asked, exasperated. "My career will be ruined!"

"You are not ashamed they did not hear my opera. You are ashamed because you know the Opera Ghost!"

"No I am not." Replied Giry forcefully. "I am not. You know this."

"Then go." He repeated fiercely.

"But, I cannot." She whispered. "I cannot. I would never see you in jail."

"Me? What about you? You just want to save your own skin, liar!"

Giry said nothing, but moved away from him, slowly retreating, carefully shuffling her feet backwards.

"I will go. I will deliver your letter." She said. "I will prove it to you."

With heart beating, she raced up the catacomb's staircase, and into Debienne's office.

"Monsieur Debienne." She said timidly. "I have a letter, from an anonymous man."

"What is it?' Debienne sighed, and took the letter. He did not see much, just scanned the letter briefly. "Juliette Lost?" he asked. "Not again. I will not see the confounded opera! Mlle. Giry, tell your friend I shall not see his opera!"

Giry nodded, and left the room.

A/N: So, what did you think? Maybe there will be romance in the next chapter…