A/N: Ummmm, I'm sorry again? I apologize far too often, lol, I shall try to make it less necessary in the future. I didn't expect it to be this long, but I was stuck for the longest time about how to continue the story, I know how it ends, it's getting there that is the problem. Well, most of the next chapter had already been written, so it shouldn't take as long for chapter 21.

Happy Phantom movie, everyone! No matter what you thought of it, it is still quite an accomplishment. And therefore no innuendos in this chapter should be taken as referring to the movie in any shape or form.

Chapter 20

Truce Over Tea

In the future, Erik would never know how long he lay in that bed as voices floated through his mind jabbering like bluejays faster and faster before another voice drawled by too slowly to bear. Sometimes he could see a black dot that shrank until it was too small to see before it grew and grew to an impossible size and made his mind tremble.

Sometimes his mind would clear enough to feel a smooth hand beneath his chin and a bowl filled with liquid that smelled of herbs lifted to his lips. But these times were few and far between and he always slept deeply afterwards.

Then came the day when he did not sleep and the smooth hand remained at his chin as his chest warmed from the broth. The fog of sleep and dull pain slowly lifted to reveal a face surrounded in a halo of bright white light, shining from the lamp behind her head. His eyes opened wide with joyous disbelief.

"Christine…"

The bowl slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a great clatter. She seemed not to notice as she reached a trembling hand towards him – he flinched as she touched his malformed cheek.

She bit her lip, tears beginning to form in her angelic eyes. "She told me that you were here, I did not believe it…"

He turned his face towards her beautiful hand and pressed his lips into her palm. He had not seen her for so long, not even in his mind. He thought that he had remembered her perfectly. He was wrong.

"Christine…" he choked out. His lips felt incapable of forming any other coherent words. He was rendered further speechless as she pressed her own lips into the back of his hand.

"Oh Erik, what a fool I have been…"

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a warning bell rang. "Christine, what did—" She ducked her head swiftly and stopped his lips with her own. Madness surged through him like a raging fire. Both of his hands wrapped around her head, his fingers burying themselves into her hair, caressing it as if it were the finest silk. He tasted her tears and his own upon her mouth as he kissed her with impossible desperation. The heat rose inside him as he breathed the air from her lungs and he was burning up, burning with a sweet, hellish fire that he never wished to end…

Erik awoke with a sweaty gasp, his chest heaving, his sucking lungs suddenly cold and empty. He awoke into darkness but for a single candle burning upon the dresser next to the bed. His left arm remained immobile beside him. He was alone.

Erik could not remember the last time he had shed tears of self-pity without self-loathing, but he felt them pushing against the backs of his eyes now.

Awake, truly awake, he felt memories and emotions surging through his mind with the merciless force of a tidal wave. His brain reeled, unused to such an unimpeded freeway through its twisted circuits. He waited until the pounding madness lifted and then he remembered…

He remembered his madness. He remembered the blood. He remembered the hands upon his face. He remembered the touch of her mouth.

Red hot spears lanced through his mind again and he moaned nearly inaudibly.

He heard a soft sigh echo in the dark room.

There was only one person that could be. He felt the imprint of her hand upon his face and he began trembling from a long overdue reaction of…guilt? How could he feel guilt for something that had never happened? Yet he still felt something, something that crawled its way up his throat like a loathsome insect.

Say something. "Good morning…Clarice."

A chuckle. "Good afternoon, Erik."

Clarice's voice sounded oddly deep.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Erik saw an upside-down pair of maroon eyes, a nose, and then a mouth slide into view, like the head of a bat dropping from the dark ceiling. The head moved further down his field of vision until another head came into view, a furry head with slanted blue eyes.

Erik sat up at once and immediately regretted it as his back and every single other muscle attached to it screamed in pain. When the red haze disappeared he saw that Dr. Lecter had moved around to the side of the bed and was feeling for something within his breast pocket. He shrank involuntarily back against the headboard.

The hand emerged holding a steel stethoscope. "I promise you, Erik. I have no needles, knives, or mysterious potions on my person. They all reside in the locked cabinet downstairs." His mouth smiled. "Although, I suppose that wouldn't stop you."

Erik narrowed his eyes and cursed his ridiculously pounding heart. "Go to hell," he growled.

The doctor raised one brow. "I hardly need your blessing. But not before I check your vitals. And not before I pull this willing accomplice off of my arm before she joins me."

Ayesha was purring like a steam engine, her tail curled around the doctor's arm as she stared up at him as if he were a new god. Hannibal deposited her unceremoniously on the pillow next to Erik's head.

"Kindly keep this ridiculous furball out of my way," he said as he arranged the stethoscope around his neck.

Unoffended, the Siamese cat yawned in his face before curling up in the warm hollow of Erik's throat.

Dr. Lecter set the metal tongue of the instrument over his patient's heart and listened intently. If he noticed the way the other man's yellowing eyes were glaring at him with murderous intensity, he did not show it. He moved the instrument over a chest that, but for its gentle rise and fall, could have been sculpted of ice. He drummed his fingers against the ribs, listened, and then stepped back, seemingly satisfied.

The doctor looked into Erik's poker face and then looked on past him to the cat, who was now grooming herself languidly. "It looks as if your master will recover quite nicely." Ayesha turned her blue eyes onto him. "Make sure he receives his proper fluids daily and protect him from any unnecessary stress."

Erik coughed, unable to restrain himself. "You're talking to the cat," he said incredulously.

Dr. Lecter's maroon eyes settled on him once again. "I find her to be the more agreeable conversationalist. Of the two of you, she happens to be the one who doesn't want to scratch my eyes out." Erik blinked. "Am I correct?"

"You murdered Firmin." The statement was abrupt and not a question. Dr. Lecter's face was impassive. "Am I correct?"

Dr. Lecter retrieved a glittering razor from the bedside dresser. He lifted Erik's limp left arm from the bed in a viselike grip. He paused for a moment, the razor hovering in the air, before slicing through the bandages with a swift cut.

They fell away to reveal a jagged mess of red and yellow scarring held together with black thread. Erik, who had seen much worse, closed his eyes against a wave of nausea.

When it had passed, he opened his eyes and pressed onward. "Why did you do it?"

Dr. Lecter took his time unwrapping the soiled bandages. "Does the Angel of Death require a reason for doing his job?" he said at last.

Erik's eyes flashed. "How do you know about that? I was very careful never to tell you."

The doctor chuckled. "You underestimate yourself, Erik. It would amuse you, some of the stories the Eastern traders carried over the Urals. They spoke of the masked wraith that could slaughter a dozen men without a scratch to his person and awake the next day for a dozen more, having devised ever more elaborate methods of death. You were the devil's apprentice one day, the spawn of a dragon, the next. You built quite a reputation, Erik. If I had known you then, I would have been jealous. People didn't know of me until my 40s. And you were never captured, either."

Dr. Lecter wrapped a roll of new bandages around and around the wound. Erik's eyes were closed, every visible muscle twitching from effort. Damned if I will lose control in front of him again.

Hannibal looked up and saw him. He scoffed. "Erik, you are nothing like me. I killed Firmin because I found him to be a distasteful human being. I treasured the look of helpless fear in his eyes as I cut him open. I shed no tears of remorse afterwards or desired any form of penance." He clipped the new dressing snug and tight against Erik's arm and stepped back. "The Angel of Death neither seeks nor expects salvation. You are no fallen morning star. You are instead the crippled shepherd still wrestling with his God."

Erik used his right arm to pull his left close to his chest. He looked up at the doctor, a firestorm brewing in his yellow eyes. "I do not know whether to curse you or to thank you," he said at last.

Hannibal placed the stethoscope back in his pocket. "Ask Clarice when she returns from the museum. I daresay she would know better than I. She knows many things better than I, including you, I believe."

A week ago, Erik would have sensed the warning signals coming from miles away. He would have known the right words to say to masterfully change the subject to something suitably mundane or melodramatic. Erik nodded, barely hearing him. "She is an extraordinary woman." He stopped, realizing the implications of what he had just said. He shivered, unaccustomed to and loathing his new sluggish and unguarded mind. He looked down, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Get me another vial from your cabinet," he growled. "And my mask…give it back. You have no right to keep it from me." His face, which he had nearly become comfortable exposing within this household, had suddenly begun to crawl.

Hannibal palmed the razor and made it disappear. "I think not, Erik. Trust me when I say that the cabinet has been secured from you in every way possible. And your mask is no longer my decision to make. Ask Clarice when she returns…she is something this Angel of Death neither sought nor expected," he finished in a muted tone.

Erik blinked, uncomprehending. Something was missing from this discourse. Hannibal's jealousy, his suspicion. His own anger, anger at how they had manipulated him so…his eyes settled once on his immobile arm. "How can you—"

"You owe us your life, Erik. Nothing more, nothing less…and I owe you an apology for treating it so." Hannibal turned at the sound of the door opening and his eyebrows raised at the person revealed. "Ah darling, how kind of you to join us. How was your trip to the Opera?" He leaned forward to kiss Clarice's cheek as she walked over to them.

In a muddle over the doctor's sudden mood swings (and he had thought he was moody), Erik focused one a single line of confusion. "I thought you said that she went to a museum."

He thought Clarice paled ever so slightly; perhaps it had been a trick of light. Hannibal suddenly looked distracted. "Did I? Must have been a slip of the tongue. I shall take my leave now. Good day to the both of you." He walked out the door, humming the overture from Carmen as he went.

Erik stared. Clarice half-smiled. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she crossed over to him and, without warning, tilting her forehead to rest against his. Ayesha blinked twice from her position on the other side of her master's head, considering this intruder. Then she swished her tail and leaped off the bed to disappear into a dark corner.

His breathing grew short and pained at the sensation of her breath on his cheeks and her cool hand behind his ear. Stop this at once! He was suddenly very very aware of his bare chest as she reached down to pull the blanket higher upon his body, tucking the ends gently behind his back.

"Your fever has diminished."

Why was she so damnably calm?!

He folded one arm ineffectively over his chest. He had never deluded himself into thinking that he was a fine figure of a man. His muscles were taut and sculpted from his grueling existence tramping up and down endless flights of stairs but his frame was shrunken, his bones bowed in upon themselves as if eternally crushed by some terrible weight. He hid it well…but nothing would change the fact that his body was so thin it looked as if it would break upon sitting down.

While he was shrinking away, she seemed completely at ease. Ever since the night he had stolen the note from her dress until the day he had passed out in her arms, she had always stayed as far from him as she could manage. She no longer feared him, he realized with a sudden bolt of clarity.

Not his face, she had never feared his face. But after that night, she had feared what he could have become. Escape. He nearly laughed. Since when had he become an escape from darkness?

She smiled brightly, her features lighting up with unweighted delight. "You look well, Erik."

He scoffed, a sound that fell silent as she ran a wet towel over his unmasked cheek, wiping away beads of perspiration. "Your eyes are different. They're…lighter."

He stared flabbergasted. "Thank you." It was the only thing he could say. He laid one hand upon the bandages. "Thank you for-for everything."

Something in her eyes receded at this and she suddenly looked distinctly uncomfortable. Clearing her throat, she toyed with the sleeves of her dress. "Erik, there's something I must tell you. At the Opera today…"

"Hannibal said that you were at a museum."

"Ye-es. About that…well, I suppose it's best that I show you. Follow me." She stepped away from his side and made to walk out into the adjoining music room.

He sat up in the bed. "Wait, what am I supposed to—"

She turned, arching an eyebrow in an expression that he knew had graced his own features many times before. "Follow me, Erik. You are not a cripple."

He hesitated, and then swung his legs onto the floor, his bare feet sinking comfortably into the carpet. The area was of a slightly lighter color than the rest of the carpet, as if it had been thoroughly mopped and scrubbed clean. He felt slightly dizzy, but his legs took his weight easily.

He looked to find Clarice holding a shirt up to him. At least, that's what it looked like it was supposed to be. Pieces of cloth had been sewed onto the sides and the left sleeve had been torn right above the elbow, ragged threads dangling from the end like fungus. The whole thing looked like an old patchwork quilt.

"I'm afraid it's not terribly elegant. But your own shirt was a lost cause and Hannibal is quite a bit smaller than you. I took out the sides myself," she said proudly. She caught the look in his eyes and laughed. "Not to worry, I have hired a seamstress to make the others. Now come here." She stepped toward him with the shirt. He took a step back.

"How kind of you, madam. To recognize that I am no cripple but to treat me as one nonetheless."

She gave him a startled glance and he inwardly cursed himself. He hadn't spoken to her like that in a long time and she was the least deserving of his temper now. She set her lips into a line. "Be my guest, sir." And she threw the shirt at him.

He caught it and put his right arm through one sleeve with ease. He knew before he even tried that he would not be able to do this, but his pride would not let him admit it. The shirt dangled from one arm like a flag as he fruitlessly tried to wrap it around his body, his frustration mounting at her expressionless eyes.

It was so easy! Just reach back with your left arm one inch and you have it. How could something so simple be beyond his grasp?! But he did not scream, even as sweat poured into his eyes. And he made no sound of frustration even as she stepped forward to reach around him and pull the shirt around him. She lifted his dead arm and placed it gently inside the sleeve. The arm flopped against his side as she released it.

Erik did not take his eyes off of her. "Impossibility is not a concept that I acknowledge," he hissed through clenched teeth, his breath coming in light gasps.

She hesitated, clearly about to say something, but then just shrugged. "Then don't," she said. She buttoned up the shirt without comment, not missing the way his chest shivered. She stepped back when she was done, allowing him to feel her handiwork.

The patchwork quilt fit quite well, and Erik noted with admiration how the torn sleeve ended right above the bandaged portion of his arm.

Clarice smiled wryly. "I shall not put you in the uncomfortably position of thanking me with your wounded pride, so please don't mention it. Follow me." And she continued on her way out into the music room. Erik followed without a word.

He walked through the door and blinked, his eyes adjusting slowly to the sudden light. The music room was bright and airy, the damask curtains replaced with light linen and a single window on the back wall curtainless, the pane of glass open.

"That window looks out upon the forest. It is our property and only we use it, so do not fear being seen."

He simply nodded, his sense dull and heady from the sharp clean air flowing through the window, the afternoon sun piercing his eyes and the white curtains billowing softly upon the breeze. It was like walking into a dream.

Clarice moved to stand beside the table; two small objects lay upon its surface. One of them was a teacup full of steaming liquid. She lifted it towards him. "It seems that Hannibal told one of the servants to prepare this for you. Here, it will do you good."

Erik took the china vessel in his right hand and downed the hot liquid in one gulp. The warmth that spread through his body felt beautiful. He put the cup down on the table and looked down at the same time to the second object.

He felt his dream crash down abruptly around him as the white mask stared back at him with a life of its own. He reached out with a trembling hand towards the object that had always been his protection but now looked like nothing more than a cool prison. When was the last time he had felt the warmth of the sun upon both cheeks?

He touched the mask with one finger and drew back almost immediately. What had once been porcelain was now lighter, hollow and artificial. He knew the feel of celluloid, the new synthetic material invented merely fifteen years ago, they called it plastic. "What is the meaning of this??"

"The mask is not yours, Erik."

"I guessed that much! So what the hell is this?!"

Clarice sat down slowly in one of the chairs and motioned for Erik to do the same. "Sit down, Erik, and I will explain."

"I'd rather stand."

"Fair enough. Last week, I went to the Opera House to retrieve Ayesha from your home." Erik nodded, some distant portion of his mind trying to register the fact that he had slept for a week when he normally slept hardly at all. "I fully expected to see your home destroyed. After all, the mob would have found their way around the lake eventually…"

"I heard them find the piano as well. I was hunting you, remember? What you heard, I heard."

"They fixed it."

"They…they what?"

"The piano. And the organ, as well. Found a damn good craftsman, too, I could hardly tell that either had ever been broken."

"And why would they do something like that?" he asked, knowing he would not like the answer even as his heart leaped with joy. Those instruments had become the only family he had ever had.

Clarice sighed, not relishing what she would say next. "It seems as if Andre is more foresighted than I gave him credit for. He stopped the destruction of your home before it had gone too far. He posted guards outside your door day and night throughout the renovations. And…he now allows paying customers to enter the cellars from opening to closing times."

A carriage could have driven quite easily through Erik's mouth. "A…public exhibit?"

"Andre prefers to call it a 'historical museum'. That way, he receives sanctioned funds from the government."

"And you…let this happen?" Erik managed.

"I had no say in the matter. By the time I found out what Andre had done, it was too late. He had made the decision that very night and had the necessary papers the next morning. With all the hysteria surrounding Piangi's murder, he had no trouble convincing the proper people that this would be the best way to show once and for all that the infamous Opera Ghost was nothing to fear. Fortunately, this does mean that most of your possessions were left intact."

Clarice watched him closely throughout her entire speech, waiting for his reaction. His initial shock had been expected, but when he threw back his head and laughed uproariously, she was slightly taken aback.

"Come and see the dwelling of the infamous Opera Ghost! See his horrible music, sleep in his bed! God, what an idea! Andre may yet get back all those francs he's paid me. He has had some customers, I hope?"

"Tickets are sold out for the next month."

"Better and better. They'll be auctioning off my possessions next."

"Er…"

The mirth died from his face to be replaced with horror. "They haven't?"

"No. They are currently locked in the vaults for which even I cannot get the key. I have talked Andre out of it for the time being. But I wouldn't hold out hope."

Erik reached forward very very slowly and picked up the imitation mask from the table. "And so this…a souvenir?"

"One or two designers got a good enough look at you on stage that night."

He stiffened. "Don't tell me that they are also…"

"They have wigs and cloaks for sale as well. One thousand francs for the entire eveningwear ensemble."

Still slightly dazed, Erik turned the mask over and over in his hands. "The designer of this atrocity should be shot. This flimsy piece is barely big enough to cover my eye, what were they thinking?"

"They were thinking to make a profit." She smiled sadly. "I suppose that is all they think of now."

He dropped the mask; it made no sound as it hit the carpeted floor. He shook his head as he collapsed into a chaise. "Not in the madness of a thousand nightmares could I have ever imagined this."

"Erik—"

"Please, leave me," he said in a small voice.

She didn't argue, merely nodded and moved to take the empty teacup. He stayed her with his hand. "Leave it."

Clarice drew back. "Erik…you always have a home with us."

He blinked and looked up at her briefly. "I know."

After she was gone, he brought his foot down upon the discarded mask swiftly. The plastic was cheap and unrefined; it shattered into pieces under the blow, powdery bits of white clinging to his foot. He stared at the pieces upon the floor, suddenly remembering that he completely forgotten to demand his own mask back. He made a furious sound in his throat and collapsed back into his chair.

Erik continued to sit in the music room as the sun went down and the throbbing brightness melted to warm reds and oranges that whispered like soft flames over his features. He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.

His left arm twinged. His eyes snapped open. It had been small, like a pinprick in his upper shoulder. He couldn't have imagined it…could he?

An emotion rolled through him then that he hadn't felt in months.

A challenge, is it? So be it.

It was sweet and it filled him whole as his head became wonderfully clear.

He looked down at the teacup before him, lying quite innocently on the table. He drummed the fingers of his right hand against the wood. It would take time, he knew.

I have nothing else.