A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I hope you enjoy where this story goes. (The line about the sausage is not supposed to have any sexual connotation, but you are welcome to think what you wish about it.)

6.

For many days after I meditated on his statement. What was obvious about Erik that would make him as much of a stranger to the vagaries of love as I was? Yet I knew next to nothing about him. Whatever was behind the mask held all the answers.

By this time, it was late December. It had been several months since my first run-in with the ghost. We had seen much of each other in the months of the siege. But he was still an enigma and I, of course, could not trust him entirely. Then it was suddenly January 1871 and the snows were fierce. Paris was on her knees, and rumors of surrender were everywhere. I had never been so afraid. Cold, hungry, and exhausted, my weariness mirrored that of everyone in the city. Amidst this sea of depression, I had not heard from my brother Jean since Christmas. I was beginning to fear the worst: that he'd been captured or killed by the Germans.

I was alone in the singers' foyer, Babette—whose spirits had since returned since her discovery with the morphine—in the foyer de la danse with the men, having taken over the ritual religious ceremonies. With only a gas lamp and Jean's last copy of Charivari, I mourned alone. I was sure the surrender would come soon, perhaps the next day. While I had no fierce pride for the city like a native Parisian, I was certainly anxious for conditions to improve. Little did I know I was living on the cusp of another revolution.

I was most surprised when it was Erik, and not Babette, who came out of the night. His sudden appearance was certainly startling, as he materialized effortlessly out of the shadows in the half-finished room. The way he haunted the labyrinthe building could certainly be seen as a ghostly presence.

"What are you doing here?"

He silently regarded me, the shadows on his figure deepening into furrows and contours by the proximity to the lamp. "I believe there is only reason for that, Mademoiselle," he said, tilting his head.

Heaving a great sigh, I pointed to the crate of morphine impassively. "You know what you want."

His eyes were questioning under his mask. He moved to retrieve the morphine, and I returned to leafing sadly through the well-worn pages of Charivari, my heart growing heavier with each passing minute.

I would have thought he'd have left me in peace, for Erik had always been polite. Yet I heard no footsteps, belying his lingering presence. I was about to ask him to leave, when he said in a soft voice, "You are reading Charivari."

"Yes."

He drew closer, looking down at the paper in my hands. When I looked up, there appeared to be something of a warm, compassionate smile on his parchment features. "What an intelligent choice of periodicals you make, Mademoiselle."

Taken slightly aback, I nevertheless smiled. "My brother is a cartoonist there."

He nodded. "I know. Toli."

"How do you know that?" I breathed.

"I make it my business to know the identities of all those worth the acquaintance," he said evasively. He turned to go, adding in a whisper, "And you need not concern yourself over his safety."

Shocked, I looked up at him. Normally I would have distrusted such information. He could very well be lying, I knew. Yet—"Wait, Erik," I cried.

Obediently he stopped and turned. There was an elegant sort of pride in the way he moved, his cloak moving from him like the wings of a bird. "Who—who are you?" I asked, standing to bashfully meet his gaze.

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"But you are a genius, are you not?"

The rusty sound of his laughter was jarring. "Perhaps."

"I've heard how you play." He nodded. "Are you not also a scholar?" Another nod. "And a great traveler?"

This reduced him to a melancholy I found very peculiar. He spoke something softly in a foreign language, but said nothing I was meant to hear.

I came slightly closer. "Then you know if the city will surrender."

He looked down at me. "Whatever makes you think I know that?" A bitter distaste had returned to his speech. "I am made a virtual prisoner in my own home, Mademoiselle. Even a home such as the one I am building can become nothing short of boring if one is not allowed freedom."

Suddenly I found myself visualizing his underground home. What majesty would Erik lend to subterranean tunnels I could only conjecture, but my imagination ran wild with projected visions of macabre and curious rooms. I found myself exclaiming, "What is your house like? Would you take me down to see it?"

His whole countenance reeked of distaste. "Never!" I opened my mouth to protest, but I remembered my place and decided not to argue. Still, he saw my dissent. "I do not give invitations to my home, Mademoiselle," he said stiffly. "It is at the moment in a state of disrepair." He turned abruptly. "Now here is your payment." He drew out of his cloak a slab of confectioners' chocolate that made my mouth water.

Even so, I refused it when offered. "I don't want it."

He looked crestfallen. "Mademoiselle—you're starving."

"No more than you are," I countered.

He was silent. Then he understood. "What is it you want?"

My eyes glowing, I replied, "Play your violin for me."

"This is hardly an orthodox request, Mademoiselle."

"It was not meant to be, Erik."

He shook his head, as if unable to understand my vehemence. I saw his high shoulders droop, though I could not tell if it was from weariness or secret delight. Not looking into my eyes, he said, "I will return shortly."

If he had been aware of the danger, he did not say. And he was very prompt. Not a few moments later he was back. I believe that he was secretly pleased to be in demand, secretly happy to be asked to perform. Yet when he arrived, a beautiful violin in his arms, he was calm as a sepulcher, his face relaxed and impassive. Then he put the bow to the strings and played, and everything changed.

It was the same perfection of sound I had heard earlier when he had played in the furtive night. An achingly beautiful melody was rendered inexorable by his expert fingers, long and delicate. He was indeed skilled, and the passion that came from his half-closed eys assured me he was an artist of the highest degree. Yet, for all the beauty, there was a sadness as elusive as it was exquisite. If he had played any longer I would have wept.

When he concluded, I could only whisper in awe, "Did you write that?" And he nodded, seemingly as shaken as I was. I would have gone on, but—

Babette's voice roused me. "Manon, what was that mu—?" and she saw Erik and screamed.

In the confusion that followed, Erik fled and I attempted to calm Babette, clapping my hand over her mouth, which only caused her screaming to increase volume. As I struggled to quiet here she began to mumble words of shocked horror. At last, she succeeded in pulling away. My headdress fell off, leaving me with long black hair falling over my face.

To my mortification, Collier and a contingent of men rushed into the room, demanding to know the trouble. Helplessly, I cried, "It's nothing. She was startled—"

"I saw a man, a man in black—"

"She's delusional, hysterical—"

"I saw him, he was taking our morphine—"

"She's hysterical," I repeated to Collier, who was staring at me with something diabolical in his gaze.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, but you are not." He nodded to his men. "Take the sister and calm her. She has no doubt received a great shock."

They left, and Collier and I were alone. His eyes were bloodshot. I knew the predicted surrender had shaken him badly, the reason I had statyed out of his way since Christmas. I found hwas advancing at me with a look of cruelty in his black eyes.

"Captain—" I began.

"Tell me what the girl saw," he said.

"Nothing. A trick of the light—"

Suddenly his hard hands were on my shoulders. My stomach did loops and remembered our last encounter with the razor. "Captain, you will take your hands off of me!" No response. "You would do well to remember that I am a lady!"

"Treacherous indeed," he growled, backing me against a wall. He made no signs of letting go, and I was suddenly more frightened than I had ever been. He was going to snap. "Now, tell me what she saw!"

I tried to reply, but I found I could not utter a word. "She said morphine. Have you perhaps been trading with the enemy?"

"No—just a—just a man who lives below the Opéra."

His grip tightened. I was not entirely sure that Erik had left the room. He could have heard me betray him. Now he would kill me—

"This is where you have been getting your food while the rest of us starve, Mademoiselle Lapaine?"

His face was closing in. I felt the coldness of the wall through my gown. The pressure on my arms was tightening.

"He said—he said he would kill me if I ever told," I said.

"Nonsense!" Collier shouted. "you've been down the cellars to see him! Tell me where he lives!"

"No, no, I swear I don't—"

Collier's hands were suddenly around my neck, squeezing the air out of me. I couldn't think. The heat of his hands was chocking out my breath. I knew he was speaking, but I couldn't understand. I could no longer see, my world a haze of black as my lungs protested.

I was on the ground. I had fainted. I still could not see, but this was because my hair was in my eyes. I struggled to stand but found I was coughing and couldn't breathe.

"Breathe, breathe!" came a commanding voice from above me. I recognized it as Erik's and saw the tall phantom kneel beside me. I was aware of his hands touching and massaging my throat until the air could pass through. His arms were strong as I clung to them.

I looked at him. His yellow eyes glowed as he said, "Are you all right? Speak to me, Manon!"

I realized he was calling me by my Christian name, which shocked me into replying. "Your hands, Erik—they're so cold . . ."

He let go of my throat and took my hands to help me up. "Your throat is bruised, but you will live."

Then he moved away, and I recognized Collier's body on the ground. Erik knelt beside him to remove a long, corded rope and methodically gathered it up. I stared at him. "You killed him!" Erik said nothing. "You killed him!"

"I saved your life," he replied coldly, shock and disappointment evident in his eyes.

"No, you didn't," I said. "When they find his body, Erik, they will blame me."

" A young woman could not have strangled a grown man," he protested. "Even they can see that."

"It won't matter, I tell you. Erik, they'll kill me."

He shook his head. "You are too valuable. They would not kill a nurse."

"Who knows of what they are capable?" I found myself suddenly hysterical, contemplating my own death. It was true, Erik had saved my life—but he had killed a man to do it! And now he looked at me with such hurt, as if I'd betrayed him. "Yes, you saved my life," I said, "but for how long?"

He turned away. "What would you have me do?" he whispered hoarsely.

I grabbed his arm and felt it tighten discernibly. "Erik, if you have a care whether I live or die you will take me down to your home."

"No!"

"It's the only way."

"I refuse."

"I will stay until such a time that I can flee the country safely. You must know how the Opéra is being watched."

He turned to look at me. "I cannot."

"Please." I fell to my knees, clutching at his cold hands. "I never betrayed you. Please, Erik."

After an interminable silence, he removed his hands from mine and swept off. "You will keep up," he said icily, "or you will be left behind."

Hurriedly I obeyed, knowing I had left behind my few belongings and that I might never see Babette—or anyone I knew—again. Meekly I followed Erik's giant stride as he led me down staircase after staircase—in fact five of them.

The fifth cellar.

His gait was brisk and betrayed his anger, but I stayed well out of his way. I found that the lake was indeed real, low, cold and very murky. Erik waited impatiently until I was in the boat, and then he propelled us along on the black water.

If I had not just been strangled I perhaps would have been more awed by the sight of all this. As it was, I was unimpressed by sights that would have baffled others. I watched the blackness of the underground swallow us up. Erik said nothing and looked back at me only once, the slightest glance.

I saw his house, carved out of limestone, appearing like a ghostly primeval dwelling as it morphed so suddenly out of the rock. Erik helped me down with disdain, then set about unlocking the front door to his dwelling.

Once inside, I was blind as I had been in my faint until Erik solemnly lit a gas lamp and revealed his secret labor. It was rather surprising in its well-planned layout, the work of an efficient architect and craftsman. Even so, I could tell it was not completed. There was furniture but arranged in a manner that suggested it was not permanent. It was all rather antiquated, and the bare limestone walls left much to be desired. Above all I was aware of how bone-chillingly cold it was.

I waited on the threshold as Erik ventured to an ancient wood cabinet and drew out something that looked like bedding. He placed it on the top of a dusty red settee, which he then indicated and said, "You will sleep here."

He moved again in the direction of a closed door. "You may attend to your personal needs in there." I looked down, blushing, amazed at his diffidence. His stride was great and mine was small as he led me to another room deep within his house. Glimpsing the open door I could see some black and red material, and the pipes of an enormous organ. "This is my chamber," he said stiffly. "You will not enter unless instructed to do so."

I nodded. He presently disappeared into his chamber and, having no invitation, I did not follow. When he returned, I realized my shivering had not gone unnoticed. "I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of . . . ladies' things," he said at last, with an effort, though his voice was considerably softer. He handed me an old shawl that nevertheless looked warm.

"Thank you," I said. "You're very kind."

He mumbled something. "I cannot pretend I am glad of the situation you now put me in, Mademoiselle," he confessed reproachfully. "However, as it does seem necessary, I bid you good night." He turned sharply and began to head in the direction of his chamber.

"Good night," I repeated. "And thank you—for saving my life."

He stopped momentarily in his flight, turned his head a fraction, and inclined it, and then walked away.