A/N: I'm so glad that there are still people who want this story completed, thank you all for your encouragement! Please continue to tell me what you like and dislike about the story, especially this chapter which is a little different from the others!

Laochra—I'm so glad you like Erik and Lucette's relationship. I really want to make it different from your average run-of-the-mill relationship. After all, Erik is not your run-of-the-mill guy!

Elvinscarf—Thank you for your review! It always makes my day when I get a review from someone I have not heard from before. I will try to update quickly!

Chudesnaja—Thanks for sticking with this story. I'm so glad you really like it! And thanks for being happy with me about the way things have turned out

The Whisper—Thanks for wanting the story continued! I was worried that no one would have any interest in it any more, so your support means a lot! I'm not sure I could continue if my most faithful reviewer did not care about it any more! Thanks again!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera

The Tragedy of Don Juan

I lay staring up at the ceiling of my room. It was ridiculously early in the morning, and Don Juan would be opening that night. It would be a long day, and I simply could not get back to sleep.

It had been three days since my last encounter with Erik, and I had been plagued by dreams about him every night since. Not the kind of dreams I was accustomed to having every so often. I was shocked with myself, but I rather enjoyed those dreams, even though I generally felt even emptier after having one of them.

No; my recent dreams were of quite a different caliber.

In the first dream, I was standing in the shallows of an underground lake. I was watching Christine kiss Erik. Even in my sleep I could feel my heart breaking. When the two of them separated Christine left one way, and Erik waded out of the lake and began to walk off in another direction. I felt rooted to the spot, and to my horror the lake suddenly began to swell. I have never been a strong swimmer, and the pain I felt in watching Erik with Christine was now compounded with panic as the water rose. I thrashed about trying to keep my head above the water and make it to land, but I could do neither. I was finally able to scream for Erik to help me. He turned, and looked at me with the saddest eyes.

"No, Lucette," he said in my dream, "I cannot give you what you deserve. It is better this way, better for both of us."

He then turned, and disappeared from sight. I screamed for him again and again. I screamed for anyone to help me, but soon I could not get air into my lungs, only the sickening chill of stale water.

I woke terrified in a cold sweat.

I finally fell back to sleep only to dream another nightmare. This time I was looking at Erik. He was dressed in the Red Death costume. At least I thought he was, for I soon realized that it was I wearing the costume, and I was looking at myself in the mirror on the door of my wardrobe. For some reason I knew I had to break the mirror, but I did not want to. Suddenly, I raised my fists and crashed them through the glass.

Heedless of the blood pouring from my hands, I stepped through the shattered mirror. I found myself, not on the other side of my wardrobe door, but on the shore of the lake where I had drowned in my earlier dream. Terror overtook me at the sight, and I quickly retreated through the broken mirror. I was not back in my room, however, but in a long, dark passage. I ran along until I tripped over something.

I gasped in horror when I saw that it was Erik, huddled on the floor, who had tripped me. He was without his mask, and, as I knelt to attend to him, he cursed me for not bringing it with me. He accused me of wanting him to die. I sobbed that I wanted nothing more than for him to live and be happy. Yet, no matter what I said, he would not heed me. He finally died with his head still cradled in my lap.

I awoke myself with crying. I was afraid to go back to sleep after that.

I went through the next day exhausted, and that night I drank three glasses of wine at dinner hoping to sleep deeply. It was not to be, however, for as soon as I fell asleep a third dream came to me. This one was different from the others.

In this dream, I felt a gentle hand on my arm waking me. I opened my eyes to see my mother's eyes smiling into mine. I sat up. "Mama!" I cried in my dream, an almost unbearable happiness overtaking me at seeing her again; and seeing her looking healthy and beautiful, not wane and sickly as she had in her final months.

She embraced me as she used to do when I was little, and I realized I was dreaming. The tears started then. She told me not to cry, but to come with her. She took my hand and I followed her.

She led me deep into the bowels of the opera house, and we were once again on the shores of that wretched lake. I shrunk closer to her as I had done when I was a small child meeting a stranger. I felt all the same comfort, and I knew that the lake could not get me so long as she was there.

She led me to an alcove in the cavern, and there, on the floor, was Erik. He was crying out for Christine, his voice choked with grief. In between his piteous cries for his lost love he would call to his mother. Sometimes he would curse her, other times he would moan "Why? Why?"

It was more than I could bear. I ran to him, but in this dream, unlike the others, he seemed unaware of my presence.

Suddenly my mother spoke, "His mother will not come to him, nor will Christine. He does not know who else to call for, but he needs you. Be patient with him, Lucette. You can help each other, but you must be patient."

"I will," I assured her, and she gave me her prettiest smile. "Mama, I miss you so much!" I was starting to cry again.

"I love you, Lucette. I love you my darling girl!"

As she said this, she left the alcove. I shot up off the floor after her, calling for her; but she was gone. I called for her again, tears thick in my voice, but to no avail. I turned to go back to Erik. He was still calling for Christine, and I had never felt so utterly alone in my life. I sat against the wall and sobbed.

I awoke sobbing. I did not want to live. I had no one, nothing. I was so lonely I felt suffocated.

My life was not made any easier by the fact that these three dreams repeated themselves over and over again in my sleep: never with any variation, and always just as terrible as they were the first time.

That was why I laid wide awake at 4:53 in the morning on the day of the first performance on Don Juan.

I never fell back to sleep, and yet I did not rise from my bed until almost 8. I had just laid there staring. I wished my mother was alive. During her lifetime, after I had grown up, most of my crises were of a professional nature. To be perfectly honest, my mother was not much help with these. Now, however, I felt nothing would be so beneficial as to tell her all of my troubles, hopes, and fears with Erik, and hear what she had to say.

Well, you can't, and that's that, I said to myself as I finally dragged myself out of bed. She had just seemed so real in my dream. I was missing her now with the same intensity I had when she was first gone.

I tried to pull my mind away from things I could do nothing about, by considering what I should do about my meeting with La Scala.

It had been a tradition since I moved to the opera, that one Sunday a month my brother and I would meet for early mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady and then go to breakfast. I decided to send a note to him today asking to move our breakfast to this upcoming Sunday, rather than the one following. I was going to ask him to go to the meeting as Luc Sauvon. It was dishonest, and I doubted he would agree to it, but I was growing desperate.

There was the further problem that, however much I loved him, my poor brother was tone deaf, and knew nothing about music. If one asked him his favorite composer, he would hum and haw. He would probably mention that his sister was quite something, because he was a good brother, but he would finally settle on whoever wrote the parlor tune his wife had played after dinner the evening before. It was mortifying to me with my musical sensibilities, but I had to just accept the fact that we were different.

Now I wished that I had been more forceful in making my brother understand at least something about music. Even if he agreed to go in my place as a male me, it would not take more than a few comments or questions on music for my brother to look completely out of his depth, and that would make the representative from La Scala suspicious.

I could not, however, think of any other way to have my opera preformed; and I could not think of any other man who would even consider going in my place other than Paul. In any case, it was worth at least asking him.

I dispatched the note to my brother, and went down to lunch, having dawdled about my room too long to get breakfast.

I had been receiving inquiries as to my health over the past few days, and no wonder. I did look very ill, both from the worry and the lack of sleep. Today was no exception. I had not been in the café more than two minutes when Mme. Giry approached me.

"Lucette, I am glad to see you. If you did not come to lunch I was going to check on you. You really have not looked well these past days. Are you sure you are not sickening for something?"

I was touched because I knew that Mme. Giry was sincere in her concern. In my present lonely state it was a comfort to know that someone would notice if I were to die. I chided myself for such self-pity, and put a smile on my face

"Thank you for your concern Mme. Giry, but I honestly am alright. I just have not been sleeping very well these past few nights."

"Take care, my dear. Sometimes insomnia can be the first symptom of an illness."

"I just have a lot on my mind."

Mme. Giry gave a stately nod of her head, as though giving her official acceptance of my excuse, but she pressed my hand as she passed on, so I knew that she was still not completely convinced of my salubriousness.

I ate lunch with some of the dressers to avoid the performers. One could never tell where Christine might sit among the cast, and I had been avoiding Christine with almost the same resolve with which I had been avoiding Erik. This was not difficult lately, as she seemed to want to avoid everyone. Indeed, she was looking every bit as ill as I was, but I supposed everyone could guess the reason she looked under the weather, and so did not inquire as they did with me.

I spent the few, completely unproductive hours between lunch and warm-ups pursuing a fashion magazine one of the dancers had lent me, looking over a newspaper from the previous day, and wandering around the backstage area trying to look as though I had a purpose.

I was appalled at how unlike myself I was behaving, but the truth of the matter was that I could not shake the feeling that something awful was on the verge of happening. I knew it was just because of the nightmares, my lack of sleep, and depression of spirits, but I could not change how I felt; and the fact that the two key players in tonight's drama, Erik and Christine, had been acting strange lately did nothing to calm my spirits.

I looked at the watch pinned to my day coat. I could head up to the ballet rehearsal room without being ridiculously early, so I mounted the iron stairs and made my way to the sunny room.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

That night I took my usual place in the wings and settled in to watch the opera. I always experienced a peculiar feeling of excitement before performances. I know my own role in the opera company was so small that I did not deserve to feel this way, but I could not help it. Tonight, my excitement was worse than usual.

I knew Erik was up to something, and my fears were heightened by an interaction I witnessed backstage. I was heading to my usual place for the performance, when the managers, the Vicomte, and a captain of the Paris police made their way through the stage left wing and out to the auditorium. They were deep in discussion, and the noise backstage made it impossible to guess what they were discussing.

My heart dropped as I saw them. I knew one of the government boxes was rightfully the Police Prefect's and could be used by certain higher police officials, but I had never seen any of them backstage in that official manner.

I followed the conspirators, and peeked out into the auditorium through the door they had just used. At first I saw nothing to raise any alarm, but then, right before I ducked back into the wing, I caught a glimpse of an armed police officer in the mezzanine, and then another. Once you knew to look for them, there were police everywhere.

My heart was pounding in my chest, and I grabbed the doorframe for support. This had to be because of Erik. They assumed that with his opera playing and the woman he loved starring he would be sure to be present. I was terrified because I knew they were right. I remembered Erik's comment about Piangi not singing with Christine. Who better to replace him than Erik—the true Don Juan?

I ran swiftly backstage. There was, perhaps, a more sober air than usual, but that did not preclude the chaos surrounding the opening of an opera. Everyone seemed to be going everywhere at once. The bustle made it hard to locate anyone. There was certainly no sign of Erik, but then I had not expected there to be.

The show started, and I finally found the person I was looking for: Christine. I had not spoken to her in over a week, but I had to speak with her now, before she went on. She loved Erik. She was too scared and too naive to be with him, but I just knew she loved him. Moreover, she was the one person in the world whom Erik might possibly listen to. It hurt me to admit this, but it was true.

I finally reached her. I knew she did not have long before she went on, but I would speak with her.

"Christine! I must speak with you…"

The girl's face fell when she heard my voice.

"Lucette, I'm about to go on. It must wait."

"No, it cannot wait!" I hissed in a low voice, not wanting to be heard onstage, but wanting to make sure Christine heard every syllable. "Erik is in danger."

Her brow furrowed.

"Erik?"

She does not even know his name!

"Your angel," I said aloud, "you know he is a man, and now he is in danger. You must try to help him, Christine. There are armed guards everywhere."

"Please, Lucette! Do not make this more difficult than it already is. This is the only way to ever be free of him!"

"Free of him?" I asked in utter disbelief tinged with disgust.

"I will explain it all later, I cannot speak now!"

And with that she moved to her position to sing her off stage lines.

I could not believe what I had just heard. Christine, the woman to whom Erik had given everything, knew of the plot against him and did nothing. No. It was worse than that. She was part of the plot against him.

There was no one to help Erik now except for Erik. I prayed with the fervor of a martyr that Erik would have the sense to stay away.

Then I heard him. I knew it was him instantly. He was singing lines that should have been Piangi's. My stomach knotted as I wondered how Piangi had been quieted, but the thought was pushed from my head as I realized that soon Erik would be perpetually silenced as well. I felt tears on my cheeks. Christine was going to be the death of him: literally. My nightmare was to come true, I would witness Erik's last breath.

No! My tears stopped as quickly as they had started. I would not let that happen. I could not stop the proceedings discreetly like Christine could have if she had a human heart, but I could still stop the performance.

I thought about simply running out on stage screaming at Erik to run because it was a trap. I dismissed the idea, however, because I did not think that many people knew Don Juan was now being played by the infamous Phantom. If I unceremoniously blew his cover, the likelihood was that he would be shot on the spot.

I began looking around backstage. I had to find some way to stop the show without having Erik taken into custody with me. I would lose my job and perhaps go to prison, but I would deal with that when the time came. For now, I simply had to save Erik.

I looked up to the catwalks. Perhaps I could take a lesson from Erik and drop a flat?

Suddenly Erik's voice cut through my reflections:

Past the point

of no return—

no backward glances:

the games we've played

till now are at

an end…

I caught my breath. I had never heard him sing before. I had always thought he had the most wonderful speaking voice, and had often fantasized about what he would sound like singing; but this was more than I could ever have imagined.

I looked out at the stage and saw him touching Christine. I felt like I was going to be sick. The woman who betrayed him was receiving his touch his voice. The woman who betrayed him! I was so caught up in his voice that I had momentarily forgotten his plight.

I glanced back up at the cat walk. It seemed to be my best hope. Before I could move towards the far ladder (the only one not being watched), Christine started singing.

She finally got it! She was singing the music as it was meant to be sung. Her angel pulled the passion out of her. As I listened, everything I had thought of Christine's feelings was confirmed: no one could suddenly sing like she was (so different from the way she had sung with Piangi) without feeling something! I had always known in her childish heart she loved her angel, but now I could hear that she, as a woman, wanted the man behind the angel. This knowledge filled me immediately with both hope and despair: hope that she would save Erik yet, and despair of his ever loving me.

They began to clime the platform together, and I do not think I had ever heard such passion as I heard from them.

The audience had been restless at the beginning, not sure what to make of the cacophony; now they were utterly entranced. There was not a movement anywhere.

Erik was now holding Christine singing to her with such love I could hardly bear it. She turned, and for a moment there was a similar love reflected in her face. But only for a moment, for in the next she tore off his mask, exposing him for all to see.

Erik looked hurt and lost. I wished I could have killed Christine. The only good reason for her continued existence was that she was standing too close to Erik for any of the Police to dare take a shot, not when they would have the Vicomte to answer to if she were wounded.

Erik, in one quick movement, cut through some ropes that had been rigged to a trapdoor below the platform and kicked the leaver to the trapdoor on the platform. He and Christine dropped out of sight before anyone could do anything. Further examination was prevented by a stunt no one expected, not even of the Opera Ghost.

The ropes Erik had cut were apparently rigged to more than the trapdoor, for the giant chandelier, the opulent theater's crowning glory, came crashing down.

I was fortunately placed largely out of harm's way. I wish I could say the same for our poor orchestra and the patrons sitting in the front orchestra seats. Looking back, it was a miracle of God's mercy that so few lives were lost in the disaster.

When the Chandelier came down, it crashed on the front of the stage with such force that it broke the gas line to the foot lights. The flame from the Chandelier immediately ignited the gas. This caused a chain reaction through the gas lines of the entire theater, and the whole building seemed to go up in flames at once. At the time, though, no one was thinking clearly, and it just seemed that the Phantom had managed to blow up the theater. Panic reigned.

I do not know how I remained so calm throughout the whole thing. I suppose my relief that Erik was not dead was so great as to give me courage throughout that hellish night.

As the theater burned, I calmly looked around trying to decide how to get to Erik. I felt that he would need me. What he had done was too great to be ignored. He had got off easy in the matter of Buquet's death because the management insisted it was an accident or suicide. This was accepted because the reputation of the theater had to be saved. Now, as more and more of the theater caught fire, its reputation no longer mattered. Justice and revenge were the only thoughts in the minds of those who belonged to the theater.

A mob is a fascinating and terrible thing. I stood dumbfounded for a moment as I heard the angry shouts around me take on a common theme: "track down this murderer!" I saw that individuals were rapidly loosing themselves into the one violent organism that is a mob. I felt it was imperative to get to Erik before they did.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Vicomte and Mme. Giry slipping away. Of course, Mme. Giry! I silently berated myself for not thinking of her earlier. She had always seemed to know more of Erik than the rest, and she had always given Christine the license she needed to pursue her singing while she also pursued dancing. She knew what was going on better than the rest, and now she was aiding the Vicomte.

I began to discreetly follow them through the pandemonium, and as I did so I wondered at the wisdom of leading Raoul to Erik. It seemed to me that Christine would be able to do more for the cause of her freedom if Erik were not immediately confronted by "the other man." But then I supposed that, while Mme. Giry might know more of Erik's secrets around the opera, his hidden doors, the way to his home, etc, I knew Erik's personality better than she.

Finally we came to the top of what seemed to be endless stairs descending into the pitch black. There was a slight niche in the wall at the top, and I hide myself there when I heard Mme Giry tell Raoul that she would go no further. She also warned him to keep his hand at the level of his eye. I shivered as I thought what that warning implied.

Mme Giry passed by the niche without seeing me.

When she had passed, I glanced down at the stairs. Raoul was already a fair distance down, and I knew I would not be able to keep up with him. That thought did not bother me as much as the sudden realization that I did not need to follow him. I knew where I was, and I knew another, safer way: the way my mother had lead me to Erik's home in my dream.

I felt crazy for allowing myself to be guided by a dream, but I would take any chance to save Erik. Also, there was a simple way to test the dream. I would try to find the door my mother had led me through in my sleep for the last few nights.

I withdrew again into the niche, and this time I pressed on the top left corner of the back wall. A small doorway opened in the facing side wall.

I felt a chill go down my spine, and I was tempted to run back to the upper stories. It was uncanny that a dream could have a prophetic facet, and I began to be terrified that my other dreams would also be proven to have aspects of truth in them. I could not let myself be dissuaded from my path now, however, and so I plunged into the small walkway behind the rock door.

It was dim in the ramp-like hall I followed further and further down, but it was not the pitch black that I felt it should have been.

I came to a hall that was a kind of raised platform beside an underground stream. There were grotesque faces carved in the walls, and I knew where I was from the dream. I paused for a moment, knowing full well what I would see when I turned the corner.

Yes, there it was: the lake. In the dream with my mother we had just passed over it. Not flying or sailing over it: it was simply not an obstacle. Now all I could think of was the nightmare wherein I drowned.

Don't be silly, I told myself, you saw the pathetic trickling stream that feeds this lake. It could not swell as it did in the dream. That was just a nightmare.

These reassuring thoughts, however, did not change the fact that I could not swim, and I could see no other way across. So I came down here for nothing!

Just then I heard steps coming from behind me. I hide myself in the shadows just as Raoul came into view. So my way is a short cut, I thought.

The Vicomte, with all of his navel training, plunged into the water without a moment's hesitation. As much as I thought Christine was a fool for wanting to be with Raoul when she could have Erik, I had to admit that the Vicomte did seem devoted to her.

I kicked myself for my stupidity when I saw that the water never went above Raoul's waist. I could wade through it too then.

I saw Raoul disappear around an outcropping of rock. It could get deeper there, I thought, but I would at least go as far as I could.

I hitched up my skirts, screwed up my courage, and waded out into the freezing lake. It was extremely slow going, especially when I could no longer hold my petticoats and skirt above the water level. I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds as I clumsily splashed my way towards the outcropping.

As I drew nearer, I began to hear angry voices. I tried to move quicker, but I was exhausted. The water had risen to midway between my waist and my bust line. I had to watch my step to make sure I did not end up in really deep water, but I also had to get to Erik.

I began to make out words, and it did not sound good. I had to get to them before another tragedy occurred this night.

"Please, God," I prayed out loud, "do not let Erik do anything else stupid. He has done quite enough already for one day."

A/N: Sorry for the abrupt ending, but there is not good place to end this chapter. I hope to update again soon, and we will pick it up with Erik's POV. Please tell me what you think!