A/N: Wow, thanks everyone for reviewing! My dear muse was very pleased with having so many reviews to read when he woke me up. And a happy ErikMuse is a good thing (since he is far less likely to punjab things when he's happy).

Anacari: Thanks much—updating here again for you!

All Apologies: I agree—tension is so wonderful -grin- This is really the only story I have going that has tension between Erik and Christine, so I'm running with it.

Prying Pandora: I absolutely don't mind—I would love if you continued to review every single chapter! Thanks! Yes, I was quite happy with him replacing the stones—it's just so Erik. I'm glad you like my Christine; I do, too. While I like all of them, she's quite different from the other Christines I'm writing. A little rougher in her mental voice, but still very much the innocent, indecisive child we all know (and, for Erik's sake, love).

phantomlovin4ever: I know, I know, it was short—particularly after my monstrous first chapter—but I wanted to give ya'll something to tide you over. Glad you liked it!

On with the show!

Erik

Doesn't she know how dangerous it is, kissing me like that? Doesn't she realize the demons such a precious kiss will awaken in my heart? Half of me wanted to take her in my arms and never let go. The other part of my soul grew angry; and it was that part which caused me to resist her, to leave her.

I paced my study restlessly, drawing unfavorable comparisons even in my own mind to a caged animal. I wanted so much to believe that her affection was sincere; but she had lied to me with a kiss once before. Hadn't she? Perhaps the second had been real, but that first kiss in the cellars, with her precious Vicomte hanging by his aristocratic neck, had been solely about freeing dear old Raoul from the grasp of the psychotic murderer.

Me, if anyone was wondering.

Curse her. Curse her innocent eyes and her tumbling curls, her gentle smiles and her sweet, tender kisses. And curse most of all the way she had looked at me that night, unmasked and wretched before her, and had flinched not from my face, but from my soul. I knew why I wanted her to have agreed to come with me; as thoroughly and as viciously as I blasphemed her in my mind, all I longed for was the tiniest sliver of her heart. But I feared that she had had other motives; what, I couldn't think of. Christine could not love me; she was just leading me on, playing with my heart one last time. Even though such callousness would be completely out of character for her and I knew it, I refused to accept the most obvious reason for her presence.

We all wear blinders that shield us from our own truths.

I dropped into my worn desk and stared glumly across the study. This was a small antechamber off the coffin-room, a place where I kept the works I did not want anyone—meaning Christine—to see. She stared at me from a variety of surfaces, done in charcoal or pencil for the most part, but a few pieces were warm with living color. I had captured her here in every mood, save a few; I refused to see her in anger or in adoration. I picked up one of my favorite drawings: Christine, distracted, an errant curl in her mouth, gazing into a dream no one else could see. Her fingers were playing idly with a rose, an engagement ring sparkling on her finger.

The engagement ring. I had replaced the stones with black diamonds in a fit of boredom and melancholy; it reflected my own dark heart. Never had I intended to give it back to her, but Christine always has had a unique ability to inspire impulsive actions on my part. I frowned suddenly as I remembered her hands this morning, winding around my neck; had there been a touch of cool metal there?

Impossible. I must have been imagining it.

Nevertheless, the notion that she might actually have worn the blasted thing for me severely weakened what was left of my anger. It was so unlikely as to be laughable—but what if she was sincere?

She would be rightfully hurt, and rightfully furious with me.

Rising slowly to my feet, I glanced about as if looking over a layout of my home. She would not be in here, obviously, nor was she in the coffin-room, so where was she? Making a decision, I headed for the largest room in the house, the music area. If she wasn't with the music, she would be in her room, and I wasn't about to go there again without an express invitation.

Christine

Is this how love is killed? With cold rejection? It was a bitter taste of my own medicine, as the saying goes; and all Erik did was stop returning my kiss. I could not imagine how much more I would hurt if he had turned from me to shower affection on another. I began to understand a shadow of his pain, the pain that was obviously making it difficult for him to trust me.

I knew, at least, that he still loved me. I had seen it in his eyes, just before our lips touched. Erik's love was a deep and stirring emotion he rarely let show, but I had been privileged enough to have known that look before; I had seen it on the stage during Don Juan, down in his cellar lair after our first two soul-wrenching kisses, and in a final glance that night as I closed his fingers over a diamond ring that had been a gift from another man. It was the same look he had worn the first time he brought me to his home and sang to me of another, darker world . . .

Quietly I touched the keys of the piano in front of me. I knew how to play a few things, mostly light and easy songs that were soothing after a day of rehearsal, but I did not begin any of them. I moved from the piano to the same deep armchair he had settled me in last night; firmly, I pushed away the memory of how he had held me, but I did allow myself to daydream for just a moment of what our lives might have been if . . .

There were so many ifs.

If Raoul had not recognized me, if he hadn't fallen in love with me; if Erik had not frightened me with his anger and his murders, if I had not been so incapable of seeing his love for what it was, if . . .

He was leaning in the doorway watching me.

My hand flew to my throat in a startled reflex; Erik smiled slowly. There was danger in that smile, and I quivered a little under his direct gaze. "You . . . surprised me," I managed softly.

"Distant thoughts, my dear?" He had come nearer, and nearer still, edging on that boundary between too close and not close enough, his long form looming over me in a way that was not quite threatening. Yet.

"Daydreams," I murmured dismissively; I wasn't about to tell him the Erik-centered content of those daydreams!

He raised an eyebrow at me. Before I realized what he was doing, he had taken possession of my hand . . . my left hand, with the ring he had thrown at me still adorning my engagement finger. As he ran his ungloved fingers lightly over mine, I startled myself by arching my eyebrows up at him. "I have had less abrupt proposals, but none quite so memorable," I quipped. I was entirely unprepared for his response. Erik dropped to his knees before me and gently kissed each of my fingers. Instead of stopping there, he turned my hand over and pressed his lips to the warm center of my palm, then trailed his mouth down to lovingly linger against my wrist, as though he was taking the very pulse of my life-blood with his kiss. I shivered at the intimacy of that simple touch; Erik wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me closer. "Does this mean you aren't angry with me anymore?" I whispered.

He smiled against my wrist, tickling me. "Perhaps." Erik stood and pulled me up with him. "Come. It is time you explained your new situation to the management of my theater."

Erik

She was spectacular; I deposited Christine outside of the managers' office and slipped into my customary hiding spot behind the grate. After knocking and being admitted to polite necessities, Christine went straight to the point. "Monsieurs, I want very much to continue here at the Garnier. However, I find myself in need of some rest and peace in order to recover fully from the events of the last year. I am prepared to take on any role you would care for me to fulfill, and will be present at all rehearsals and performances, but at all other times I would wish to remain in my dressing-room, entirely undisturbed."

Andre and Firmin swallowed the entire tale whole, particularly after Christine reassured them that she would inform their patron of her decision herself. Apparently Raoul had already been in the managers' office that morning, spouting obviously untrue nonsense about Christine disappearing again . . .

I grinned. Proof that even a genius can learn from his mistakes.

When she came out, I shadowed her for a few hallways—just in case anyone was watching—then tugged her through one of my trapdoors. Rehearsal had been canceled for that day; heavy rains had made Paris into a watery nightmare for travelers. Soon enough we were once again in my home, and I realized that I had no idea of what to do with her now.

I still was wary of her touch.

But she had worn my ring, as crudely as I had presented it to her.

Christine was so young; too young to make the promises that ring might entail.

Then again, an opera-house does not afford one much of a childhood.

An opera-house with a sheltering angel, on the other hand, did.

I only knew that I wasn't angry with her. And that we were quite suddenly in the music room, the air around us tingling with heat that was not solely generated by our fire. I had been staring at her, I realized; my eyes had taken advantage of my mind's distraction to boldly roam where they would, and my dearly beloved Christine had a pronounced red cast to her cheeks. But she was not looking away, and I was no man if that wasn't hunger I recognized in her gaze, blushing though she may be. Letting a calculated, lazy smile pull at my mouth, I circled her, coming nearer and nearer with each slow turn until I was standing close, mere inches separating us. "I find it difficult to remain angry when the object of my anger is looking at me with such helpless fire in her eyes," I murmured, secretly delighting as she yanked her gaze away from mine. Smirking, I leaned down and almost—almost—kissed her. "Perhaps you would oblige me . . ." I let the sentence hang, then finished it, "with a song?"

I knew memories of the last time she had sang to me in this room, her lips still burning from my foolishly passionate kiss, were foremost in her mind; though Christine's mouth moved, she seemed utterly incapable of formulating a reply. I allowed myself to lean forward the slightest bit and fully press my lips to hers.