A/N: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, ooh, but I do own Katerina. So there.

"What do you mean they never found him?"

Thomas shot Katerina a look, "I meant what I said. After the fire in the opera house a mob of police and stagehands went hunting for him but found nothing but his empty lair."

"I assume they ransacked it," Katerina said offhandedly as she pulled apart the croissant she was eating.

Her brother shook his head, paying more attention to the figures he was scribbling than his sister.

"No? Thomas, you're going to have to explain."

"Since when did you become so interested in this opera ghost? He was just a madman that got his way for a little bit."

Katerina pouted, her bottom lip quivered, "Thooomaaas."

"Ah, fine, apparently the old owners had the entire thing sealed off. They were afraid that the catacombs would be filled with treasure hunters and tourists so they bricked it all up. They didn't want to be responsible for any more accidents. That is why no one is to go there and that is why the theater is still empty. It's simply a case of superstition and legal coverage."

Katerina lick the crumbs off her fingers enjoying the buttery taste, "I see now, thank you."

She hopped off the counter and headed for the door.

"Kat! Where are you going?"

She turned, "One of Jennie's little ones is ill, I am going to deliver the herbs for fever like I told you. I'm probably going to end up staying the night."

Thomas narrowed his eyes, "I don't want you around sick children all day."

"I'll be fine Thomas, honestly you worry entirely too much."

The bell to the apothecary shop sounded as the door shut behind her and drowned out her brothers grumblings.

The room was warm when she returned. Her charge was still sleeping, although it was much more soundly than the last two evenings. His fever had lessened and much to her relief the wound in his hand was healing nicely. She had gone to ask her brother about the opera ghost when he had murmured the name, Christine, in his sleep. Apparently she was the soprano that he had fallen in love with. Now married and living in Orleans with her Vicomtè husband. Katerina sighed, she felt sorry for him. It was a terrible thing to be spurned for another by the one you love. Of course that was simply how she had imagined it. She had been an all together too bookish and private girl to ever entertain any notions of love. Perhaps her brothers wished her to marry, to find someone that made her happy.

Katerina sighed and made her way over to the small annex off the dressing room. It was filled with canvases and the smell of oil paint over powered the stench of stale memories. She had stopped working on the painting that had so consumed her not a week before. It lay half finished in the corner of the room. Instead she turned her attention to a charcoal sketch of Icarus that she had started working on while her ghost slept. She had to say that it bore a striking resemblance to the man in the adjoining room. A figure sprawled out, floating on the ocean, with bits of broken wings floating alongside him.

Expertly, Katerina picked up a pallet knife and went to work, "So she was Christine de Changy, did she break your wings Monsieur?"

The voice was singing now, a deep bawdy song about passion and lust. The voice was sultry and almost smoky. Not a voice for an opera singer, perhaps for a cabaret performer or something of the like, but not for opera. He opened his eyes just a little; enough for the world to swim into view. It was familiar to him, the rose patterned ceiling and the canopy of the gilded bed; the opera house? There was the distinct scent of tea leaves and... Paint? He closed his eyes and listened to the voice. The singer was off to his right more. He could hear movement and the rustling of fabric, along with a faint sort of scratching.

The voice dipped a little and the scratching ceased.

"Hmm, now that doesn't look too right… Perhaps a blue sort of shadow instead of gray…"

A woman's voice; and she was talking to herself. About shadows? He eased back into the soft comfort of the bed. He ached from lack of movement. It occurred to him that he may have been lying there for quite some time. Perhaps that was why the voice was so familiar.

He focused and willed his eyes to open once more. He saw nothing at first and then the world faded into view again. He was in the opera house. In the prima donnas dressing room. He turned his head slightly to see the corner of the large gilded mirror. It had been shattered and the passage bricked up, but now the pieces of mirror were gone. The room looked clean, lived in. There was a cheery fire in the grate and to the side of his bed sat an empty chair. The side table held a basin of water with a cloth along with a teacup and an unlit candle.

Someone had been living here.

He blinked and wanted to sit up; he wanted to find more evidence of this little mouse that had made a hole for herself in his opera house. His eyes trailed to the small annex off of the room. The curtained door was pushed aside and he could only see the shadow of a figure in the room. It was bent over anotherflatter shadow and was now humming softly to itself.

He struggled to sit, to see; finally he was defeated and flopped back down in the bed linens. He debated calling out. It would be relatively simple, but the thought made him uneasy. He was unaccustomed to calling out to people and this fact made him twinge with displeasure. It was a simple thing, for normal people to do and the hesitationwith his voice only served to remind him that he was not normal.

Angrily he swallowed and then the coughing began. It was an annoying fit that seemed to have no end and brought tears to his eyes. Suddenly he was being made to drink and he swallowed the cool taste of water until he could catch his breath. He became aware, as he recovered, of slender fingers pressing into the center of his back. He almost froze with the realization that she had her hands on him.

"Are you better now, Monsieur?"

The soft voice came to him again only this time he looked up into the face of is wielder. She was a small woman with delicate features and long straight black hair. Her grey eyes glittered in the candle light like black pearls and her rose colored lips were moist and half open. She smiled at him like a Botticelli angel. A dark green dress clung to her slender frame.

"I am," was all that he said.

She gently let him back down on the bed as she returned the teacup to its place on the side table. Gracefully she sat down in the chair and sat smiling at him after a moment she took on a rather sheepish look and said,

"Neither of us are speaking, Monsieur."

"Perhaps we are searching for the choice words, Mademoiselle." He whispered back.

Her gentle laughter followed his comment and he found himself staring into her eyes again. She seemed so at ease in his company, as if she were simply tending to an old friend.

After a moment she smiled, "My name is Katerina."

He looked up at her, she was blushing now and he couldn't imagine why. After a few moments he nodded,

"You may call me Erik."

Yay! Another chapter up and in it's place. I'm still having formatting issues but nothing too terribly disaterous. Yay for that. More will come in the next week or so. Or maybe tomorrow because I don't want to clean my kitchen and would rather daydream about G. Butler instead. Sigh, So dreamy...