Author's Note: A bit more artistic license, this time with Madame Giry. Hope no one minds. And the beginnings of the plot twist here...tell me what you think I'm going to do!

And a Susan Kay tribute this time! Hint: It's a line towards the end. Double brownies to whoever finds it!

Review, as always, and enjoy.

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Chapter 18: Reminders of the Past

Madame Giry stared down at the bank draft in her hand, eyes wide at the amount written there.

She had known that Erik was rich, and to a rich man, the figure on the draft was only moderate. But to her, having subsisted on the meager pay of a ballet mistress for many years, it was a small fortune.

She unlocked her desk drawer and laid it with the key to her box at the bank and a deed to a piece of land. Both were part of Meg's inheritance, a small amount of gold and land left to her by her father. With this added to it, Meg's dowry would increase greatly.

Madame Giry breathed a prayer of thanks. She had spent many sleepless nights wondering what she would do when it came time for Meg to marry, especially now that the girl's sixteenth birthday was drawing so near. She wanted better for her daughter than the life she herself had spent. Monsieur Jules had been a kind and loving man, and she had loved him dearly. But she, like all mothers, wanted more for her only daughter than a poor marriage to a country blacksmith.

She wanted only the best for her only child.

Her only child…

But Meg wasn't her only child. Christine had been like a daughter to her…

You have been like a mother to me, Antoinette…

…and Erik had been like a son.

I would have liked a son…

She had not heard that voice in years. It was a voice not forgotten, but consigned to her heart's drawer of memories to be taken out only occasionally, lest they cause too much pain. The voice of her dead husband…

Monsieur Jules Giry had been among the best of men. A simple blacksmith, he had visited the opera with a rich friend one evening, and found that he could not take his eyes from a beautiful dancer in the corps de ballet. With no title or position to impede his interest, he had waited outside her dressing room door with a bouquet of roses hurriedly purchased outside the doors of the opera house.

Antoinette Couturier's heart had been instantly lost to the handsome man, though he was several years older than she. With her father's consent, she left the ballet and was married to him soon after. But dark days had entered their marriage almost immediately. She had conceived twice in the first three years, only to lose the child both times. Finally, six years into their wedded life, she gave birth to a little blonde girl.

Those six years with Jules Giry, with the exception of the deaths of her unborn children, had been the best that she could remember. The boy that she had rescued from the gypsy fair had been almost forgotten. He no longer filled her thoughts as he had at the opera house—in fact, he had hardly entered them at all. She did not wonder what had become of him or whether he still remained in those dank cellars or no. In later years, the knowledge that she had forgotten him so easily would haunt her. Forgotten him—except for one moment that she knew that she would remember even if she forgot everything else that had ever happened in her forty-one years of living.

She had returned home after a visit to the local physician. It had been a year after Meg's birth, and she still had not conceived. To her dismay, the doctor informed her that Meg's difficult delivery, which had not seemed a reason for concern, had rendered her barren. There would be no more children for Jules and Antoinette Giry.

She had been terrified to tell her husband the news. But he had asked immediately upon her entrance.

"What did the doctor have to say, Antoinette?" he had asked.

Antoinette had faltered, but the kind concern in her husband's eyes gave her courage. "He said…he said that I am barren. That we cannot have any more children. Jules…"

The pain in her husband's eyes had nearly shattered her. He tried to hide it, but she would have seen it anyway. She would have known.

"Jules, please don't be angry with me!" she had begged, falling on her knees in front of where he was seated, tears streaming down her face. "We have Meg…it doesn't matter so much, does it? Perhaps he was wrong… please, don't be angry with me!"

"I'm not angry, dear Antoinette." He had picked her up, taking her comfortingly into his arms. "I could never be angry with you. It's just…"

She had waited for him to finish, afraid of what he would say and dreadfully curious all at once.

"It's just that I would have liked a son…"

For reasons she could not have explained then, she had thought of Erik. The boy had not crossed her mind in all the time since her marriage, but at that moment, her mind had filled with the image of the lost little boy, only three years younger than she.

"I would have liked a son…"

She had thought of him then, wondered if he still lived, if he had stayed in those cellars or escaped to a more peaceful existence. Guilt had filled her for abandoning him so easily, for rescuing him and then never making provisions for his existence in a world that surely had never been kind to him before.

She had fallen into illness then, consumed by guilt, wracked by fear and haunted by her husband's innocent words.

"I would have liked a son…"

She had been plagued by nightmares in which he left her. She had awoken from them to find him by her bedside, comforting her, and been completely at a loss as to how he could still love her so much when she had failed him so greatly.

At last, the illness had abated and her sanity had returned. They had spent another year in a semblance of bliss. Erik faded from her thoughts again, and they watched their daughter turn from two to three years of age.

And then, it was Jules who had fallen to illness, and unlike his wife, he did not recover.

A widow at twenty-seven, Madame Giry had fought back despair, put her small funds together, set aside what she knew that her husband would have wished to bequeath to Meg, and set about rebuilding her life.

And that was when she had heard of the new opera house that had been built. She had taken Meg, traveled to Paris, and applied for a position as ballet mistress.

It had been six months before she knew that Erik was alive and that it was he who had designed the new Opera Populaire.

Madame Giry wiped away the tears that had fallen. How was it that some things, no matter how long ago they occurred, could still haunt a person and cause them pain? She had long since ceased to remember the little that had been bad about Jules Giry and recalled only the good—but that one moment stood out among all others, even surpassing the deaths of her first two children.

You have been like a mother to me, Antoinette…

She had forgotten all about the little boy when she had been married, taken him from one wretched life and abandoned him to one only marginally better. She had done nothing to deserve his love or his forgiveness, and yet she had received both. He had taken her name as his own…

He had called her his mother.

"I would have liked a son…"

"Oh, Jules." She touched the locket that hung around her neck, beneath the high neckline of her gown. "You have a son. He is a genius, though some have thought him mad. His face is marred, but his soul is so full of wonder and of beauty that it matters little. He has hidden in darkness and agony for nearly forty years, and I feared for so long that the greatness within him would never see the light of day. I longed so to take him from his darkness. I could not. But at long last he has found his light, and if the world will only accept him, I tremble to think what will happen. The world has been deprived so long of the greatness within him, the ability that he has been gifted with. You would be so proud of him if you knew him, Jules. You would love him so."

Madame Giry felt the tears begin again. "You would love him as I do…"

-

"What is your name?"

The young brunette paused for a moment, her fingers stumbling over a button as she dressed. She regained her composure quickly and tossed her hair back as she finished buttoning the bodice of the low-cut green gown that she wore. "Why does it matter, monsieur?"

"Because I want to know." Raoul replied sharply, and then was instantly sorry for his tone. He had been constantly on edge the past week, and he knew it was a result of the large amounts of hard liquor he had been consuming. Guilt assailed him at the expression that he saw flicker across her face. He had been visiting her every night for the past week, paying generously each time, sometimes leaving a few francs on the table next to the bed for her to find. He knew how greedy the madams of these higher quality brothels could be, and that she would be lucky if she kept half of her earnings each night. He watched her in the mirror, his conscience attacking him strongly. The least he could have done was asked her name before this. From the expression on her face, it seemed that she would have appreciated that small gesture more than the tips he left—yet another reminder of her profession.

"It doesn't matter." she asserted. "You come, you pay Madame Lavage, you visit my room, and then you leave. Knowing my name doesn't affect the process at all, monsieur."

Raoul winced at the bitterness lacing her voice. "I want to know your name, mademoiselle." He made an effort to soften his words. "I have come here several nights and asked for you each time. I have a right to know the name of the woman whose services I am employing."

He saw her face harden, and he knew he had said the wrong thing. "What you have rights to you have already taken, monsieur." She reached for a pot of rouge and began applying it to her lips. "Our relationship is strictly business. I tell no one who comes through these doors my name." She turned to face Raoul. "I have precious little left that is mine alone. Allow me to keep that much, monsieur."

"What do people call you, then?"

Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. "Many things, monsieur, none of which should pass a lady's lips. But then, I'm not much of a lady, am I?"

"You could be." It was true, Raoul thought as he glanced over her appreciatively. Unlike so many women like her, she retained the youthfulness of her features, a hint that she had not been a prostitute for very long. She did not look more than nineteen, even with the heavy cosmetics that made her look older. Raoul guessed that she was closer to seventeen—perhaps even sixteen.

Christine's age.

"With what?" She spread her hands, gesturing around the sparse room. "This is all I know, monsieur. There is nothing else for me."

Raoul looked at her for a moment, surprised at the sudden innocence that showed through in her momentary despair. He took in her long, curly brown hair, wide brown eyes and pale skin. She could easily have passed for…someone else.

"Call me Raoul, mademoiselle…" he said suddenly.

"I..."

"…and I will call you Christine."