A/N: I do not own Phantom of the Opera. Period.

Ahh, next chapter, thank you all so much for the reviews, it's really nice to know that some people are reading this, since I had my doubts when I was starting. So is she Mary Sue? I don't really know since this is my first fic and I had some questions as to the exact definition of that term. Wanna help me out and tell me how you understand it?

It was the second meal of hers that she had burned today. Erik rolled over in the bed and tried to hide from the smell of burning bread.

"Katerina!"

Any hesitations he had to calling out to her had faded very quickly over the last two days. The woman just could not pay attention. She shot out of the annex with paint on her hands, rushing over to the hearth while grumbling to herself.

It was quiet for a moment and then her soft voice, "Merde."

Erik refrained from saying anything. He was simply glad that she seemed to have an excellent supply of fruit and other foods that did not need to be cooked. He supposed if she didn't she would have starved long ago.

He closed his eyes for a few moments and when he opened them; she was peeling an orange and pondering something in the annex that he could not see. She had told him that she was a painter, and she spent most of her time in the annex working on some thing or another.

In two days they had barely said ten words to each other.

Of course that did not mean she didn't speak. Just not to him. She would ask questions of the curtains and of her paintings. She would talk to the teapot and scold whatever hideous thing she had managed to make her dinner into. The few words she said to him were polite and cheerful but she would never look at him like she had the first time he had awoken. He had thought that she was afraid of him but as time wore on he realized that she was about as accustomed to making conversation as he was.

She sighed and picked up the cooled iron plate she had taken from the fire. Slowly she tipped its contents in a waste bin and placed it back near the hearth where she kept it.

Then she peeled a section off her orange and came to sit in the chair by his bed. He was debating going back to sleep again. He was regaining his strength but was at the point where movement was as much as a burden as sleep was. He stared down at his hands, at the soft bandage that was wound around his right hand and wrist. It ached a little and stung as the nerves healed themselves but it wasn't anything he hadn't felt before.

He was careful to not look at her. He supposed he was avoiding conversation but she was very near him; sitting cross legged in an overstuffed chair quietly eating her orange. He wondered where she had gotten it so late in fall. She didn't seem particularly wealthy. She wore plain frocks and ate simple food. Of course she lived in the theater as well, but that didn't mean she was poor, just odd. He closed his eyes, at least as odd as he was.

"Monsieur Erik, do you have a home?"

He blinked when he realized that she was addressing him. She wasn't looking at him; she was looking at her orange while she peeled two sections apart.

"I live in the theater, if that is what you are asking."

She frowned and her brow furrowed, "I mean, some place that is waiting for you, not a place you live in exactly, but… a home."

"Are you asking if I own a house?"

She giggled at her orange, "A house isn't a home. Anyone can buy a house, it isn't the same. I believe I am thinking of a feeling, not a place."

Erick leaned back in the pillows, "Your questions are very convoluted, Mademoiselle. You must learn to think before you open your mouth."

She was silent for what seemed a very long time. He wondered if he had offended her but when he looked up she was staring at the last bit of her orange and her eyes were far off, thinking. Finally she looked him in the eyes,

"I think what I was asking was if you had someone waiting for you, at home, someone that might be worried with you gone for four days."

Her question stung him but he slowly shook his head, "No, Katerina, there is no one to wait for me."

An emotion crossed her face, but too quickly for him to read it, and then she nodded.

She leaned forward and offered him the last of the orange which he ate obediently from her hand. Then she was off again in a swirl of skirts and the scent of oil paint, off tutting to herself over her paintings and talking in singsong to her tints and shades.

He wanted very badly to see what she was working on. To see what she was creating. He wanted very badly to see inside her mind.

Katerina leaned the finished painting of Icarus against the wall and grinned. It had come out wonderfully; of course most of the shadows weren't right. It had been ages since she had seen the ocean but she reminded herself that she was her own worst critic. The next canvas she had prepared was rather large, not as large as the Diva Carlotta's painting which Katerina had painted over with white gesso so that she could reuse the canvas.

"Such a terrible waste of paint," she had told the canvas as she covered up the image.

Now she stared at the canvas and turned it so that it was a landscape but then she shook her head and turned it back to its portrait size. She took a few steps forward and looked at Erik. He had gotten up this morning, long enough to walk about the room for a bit. Katerina had watched him and prayed that he didn't go into her painting room. He must have felt her staring at him because he had gone back to bed a few moments later. Now he was asleep, or at least pretending to be, with his arms crossed while managing to look annoyed.

The bed spread was covered in books. Katerina had gone on a hunt of the theater trying to find anything to keep him occupied. She had returned with almost half a dozen books, all of which he had read that very afternoon.

She supposed voracious would be the word to describe it.

He was now in the middle of a very thick book that she supposed he had saved for last since it was a collection of Gothic romances.

She slipped back to staring at her canvas. Perhaps if she… no, maybe she could paint… After a moment she sighed and snatched up a bit of paper and charcoal pencil and went to sit by Erik.

She was next to him again.

He shifted, knocking books around with his knees and a few off the bed. He opened his eyes. She didn't seem to pay him any mind. Focusing on the piece of paper she had in her lap. She was sketching with a dark green pencil and he could see a smudge of it on her cheek where she must have had her hand.

"Katerina, what are you drawing?" he whispered.

"You," she whispered back without moving.

"Why?"

"Because you fascinate me."

Erik blinked as she sat; completely absorbed in her work, there was that familiar look of madness in her eyes. She would not be dissuaded from her task. Erik knew that look, he had seen it in his eyes often enough.

"May I see it?"

Her hand faltered for a second and she looked up at him. She was blushing again,

"I dare not show you something that isn't complete yet, Monsieur Erik."

He nodded. Half of him respected her as an artist and the other half was angry that she was leaving him in the dark. After a moment it appeared that she could no longer return to her sketches. She smiled slightly,

"I could show you a finished piece, if you wish it."

"I wish it very much," he said.

Her blush deepened and she stood. She was in the annex for a bit as if she were looking for just the right piece and then she returned with a small canvas and placed it across his lap.

"Icarus," he breathed.

He knew the Greek legend of the lad with wax wings who had flown too close to the sun and plummeted back towards Earth. It was a mournful piece; the man lay in the midst of the ocean which had been painted all the way to the edge of the canvas. It gave the appearance of solitude and loneliness. The wings, instead of the beautifully angelic ones he had seen on other renditions, were shredded and tattered. As if the sun herself had torn them from his back. Bits of feathers and string were scattered in the water around him and as Erik studied the painting he saw that the wreckage seemed to make an abstract heart around the suffering figure.

"It's beautiful."

"I got the shadows all wrong, and I'm not sure what to do about his…"

"Hush."

She quickly closed her mouth then blinked at him and sat back in her chair.

"Your use of shadows is fine," he began, "it doesn't need to be reflect nature, it just needs to stay with the feeling of the piece, which it does, rather remarkably. Your anatomy could use some work, but that is just a matter of practice."

Katerina had never shown another soul her paintings. Her brothers had seen sketches and bits of half finished drawings but never had she shown them a painting. They were too dear to her; she wouldn't be able to bear it if another soul saw them. Which was why she still didn't know why she had shown it to him of all people; maybe it was because she sensed in him a kindred spirit.

"Do you paint, Monsieur Erik?"

He looked up at her and then nodded, "On occasion, I mostly sketch to pass the time."

Katerina smiled and hugged her knees, "What else do you do, to pass time?"

He gave her a quizzical look as if he was hesitant about answering.

"Nearly everything," he finally said.

Katerina blinked, "Everything?"

He nodded as he handed the painting back to her, "If it is an intellectual pursuit there is a great chance that I have tried it."

"So, do you write?"

"Novels, stories, music, poetry, plays, essays, did I miss anything?"

Katerina grinned, "No, I don't think you did, although I supposed the opera ghost is well known for his writings."

She quickly clapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn't wanted him to know that she knew of the ghost.

His expression was unreadable, but finally he nodded, "I wondered if you had heard those rumors."

Katerina let her hand drop, "They were quite popular, for a time Monsieur."

He wasn't looking at her. Slowly he brought his hand to his face and touched his mask.

"I suspect he will live longer than I will."