A/N: waboom!

Christine was looking down, fiddling with the piece of white cloth in her hands.

"Christine..." Meg asked nervously. "What exactly happened last night? If you don't mind telling me..." Meg hoped she would answer. And though remaining silent for a moment, Christine finally spoke.

"Up on stage, he came for me, everyone saw. But as soon as he began to sing, the walls closed in forming a secluded space where he was speaking to me, and there was no one else there. I was wholly his and I wanted nothing else but to be his. I somehow remembered the simple choreography for the scene, and we ascended the stairs. It was as though I was back in his isolated lair the first time he brought me, and I had a sudden urge to see the man who sang to me in the nonexistent hours of the night and in my mind. Harshly as you saw, I recklessly tore off his mask, only a moment later did I regain knowledge of my whereabouts on stage in front of the an audience. The disappointment and wrath mixed in his expression was a face that will haunt me forever. Why did I…?" Christine inhaled a sob and regained control of herself. Meg placed an affectionate hand on hers.

"I don't know what he did next but I did know that the world around me was blurring and I was plummeting downward, my skirts in my face and Erik holding onto me for dear life. We crashed not too gracefully, and we must have been in the cellars, it all happened so fast…he was forcefully tugging and jerking me along a pathway back to his lair. I recognized the scenery from my initial expedition down there, though last night everything was stark and hostile, so unlike the majesty of the place when we arrived by boat. Once I was thoroughly kidnapped, he harshly requested I put on the wedding dress he fashioned for me. Worried about what he would do next, I donned the dress, and inquired what he planned to do. He had lost all of his charm, grace and debonair qualities that had wooed me in the first place."

Christine continued to recite to Meg the trials of the former night. Meg listened, an intrigued audience, her eyes fixed upon Christine's whose were glazed over and wandered here and there as she spoke.

When she had finished, they sat in a bizarre hush, Meg drinking in the facts about Erik's attempt at deceiving her friend into staying with her, and threatening to murder Raoul. And she was helping him!

But Meg resolved to the fact that she had seen a side of Erik that Christine hadn't, the side of him that was devastation at its worst. She felt no fury or fear of this creature of the shadows, only pity.

It was then that a frazzled Raoul broke came crashing through the front door breaking the silence. His leather coat was flung on haphazardly and slumped off of one shoulder his long hair quite bedraggled. Christine turned from her seat and smiled.

"Meg! Your alright!" He gasped. "I ran all the way here. Well, the body of a lady was under the chandelier, completely crushed her the poor woman. Anyways, the missing was down to only you! We all were searching frantically. But you're here!" He hung his jacket on an elaborate coat rack revealing a very bloodied shirt, not unlike Meg's.

"So, where were you last night?" Raoul finally asked the inevitable question that Meg had been dreading.

"Well you see, I um, went to look for you, and um, fell asleep in the cellars, then I, I, went back up to the dormitories this morning and I, well was really scared so I went and got some of my belongings and then, err…fell out the window kind of." Meg said ineptly leaving out entirely her escapade with the suicidal Phantom of the Opera.

"You fell out of the window?" Raoul asked quite taken aback,

"But Meg, the dormitories are on the second floor, that is such a long fall!" Christine worriedly stated.

"Yeah, but I was okay, landed on some soft…uhh grass…?" She needed to work on her lying obviously.

"So no one else knows you are here?"

"Well, two men saw me trying to escape the Opera house, and I saw my mother."

"Oh that's good, at least she won't be worrying. Oh dear, how about some food then? Olivia!" Raoul shouted to another maid who appeared suddenly at the door to the living room.

"Lunch Monsieur?" She inquired, already knowing the answer. Raoul nodded and sat down next to his fiancé, but not for much longer if Meg could figure out a plan to get Erik back into the picture. How she would hate to be so cruel to Raoul, but looking at them sitting together right there, Meg didn't see any spark, no chemistry.

But with Erik…that was a different story. Their chemistry was there and equipped with an entire lab! Now where did that Erik go? Probably lurking outside, watching Christine's every move. He would know by now that Meg hadn't revealed her secret yet.

The rest of the day was quite a dull blur, until around seven p.m, after supper. The maid Olivia had prepared a lovely roasted chicken dinner for the three and they were gathered around a friendly table with green marble candelabra as a centerpiece, when someone knocked upon the door, using the great golden lion knocker.

Fear clutched at Meg's stomach. He must have been sick of waiting. But why? He had been waiting for over ten years to claim Christine; one day surely wouldn't be a privation. Meg simply couldn't believe Erik would have the gall to waltz up to the front door of the Vicomte to get what he wanted.

Raoul opened his mouth to order one of the maids to get it, but Meg stood hastily, her chair screeching behind her.

"I'll get it!" And before Christine or Raoul could protest, she had scampered to the front door, two enormous rooms away from the dining area.

She heaved the vast mansion door open and inhaled deeply when she saw no one standing on the stone steps.

The moon suddenly appeared from behind a dark night cloud, and the soft glimmering rays of light seeped in a forty-degree angle, to where Meg's feet were positioned. Looking down where the light shone, she saw a single lily with a piece of torn paper attached. Reaching down, she picked up the flower that was spectacularly outlined in the black of the night. Opening the paper, Erik had scrawled:

The back near the pine tree

Meg knew that he wanted her to meet him there. So she glanced behind her quickly to make sure a maid was not dusting inconspicuously, and bolted to the pine tree near the back of the Vicomte's house.

A/N: So sorry for the length, I just needed to get back to the story, another two chapters almost ready to upload, perhaps next week if i get 40 reviews...c'mon I can do it! And how about 60 by chapter 10? PLEASE!