Okay, I'm sure you're all getting tired of my starting each chapter the same way, but I can't go without thanking everyone yet again for being so patient with this site's problems and taking the time to write a review. Thank you so, so much!

A marthon chapter this time. It's so long in fact that there will be no trivia (cue sighs of relief). Don't get spoiled, now, the next one will be shorter. ;)

Chapter 10 – Ablutions

"Maman?"

Meg peered around the dark, empty parlour in consternation. She had expected to find her mother home long before her, late as she had been getting back from the theatre because of all the unexpected traffic on the Boulevard Montmartre and around it. Yet there was no sign of Madame Giry anywhere.

Meg frowned, eventually deciding her mother must have gone out to visit her cousin again, and had been detained by the same confusion of people and carriages that she herself had encountered on the way home.

She lit the gas and made her way through the dining-room to the tiny kitchen, where the girl who came in to do the cooking in the afternoons had left a pot of lamb stew on the stove and some fresh crusty bread. Meg helped herself to the stew: it smelled delicious, reminding her that she had not eaten since long before the performance. Taking advantage of her mother's absence, she broke off a chunk of bread instead of slicing it neatly the way Madame Giry insisted was proper. There was no butter, so she just put the kettle on for tea, and took her food back to the dining-room, setting it on the table before the little balcony.

She reached over to pull the door open, letting in the night sounds and the warm, motionless air of the courtyard. The latch had been broken for some time; Meg made a mental note to ask her mother to buy a new one when she next went shopping. She took another spoonful of the stew. It was warm and thick and perhaps a trifle overcooked, but after a night on stage it was wonderful luxury: the meat was so tender it came apart in her mouth, the potatoes and onions were rich, and Meg felt a languid warmth seeping pleasantly through her body, all the way down to her sore feet.

There were some papers stacked in the centre of the table. She idly pulled the top sheet towards her as she ate, unfolding it and scanning the hurried-looking calligraphy. It was a note addressed to Madame Giry, and too late Meg thought that perhaps she ought not to be reading it – but as it was lying opened and in full view, she decided it could not be anything private.

Dear Mme Giry, it began;

Please be advised that, following the completion of restoration work on the East wing, your maintenance duties will now include an additional two Corridors, two Practice Rooms and a small Foyer. I refer you to the attached documents regarding staff supervision...

Meg stared at the note.

With a sinking feeling she thought of her mother's hands: the once-smooth skin reddened and dry. How could she have missed it?

So this was where the extra money had been coming from.

She had wondered about that, but foolishly had not made the obvious connection. Her mother's position at the box office of the Théâtre Français was not well-paid, and the first paycheque from the Variétés was not due until the end of the month. The money for the ruinously expensive pointe shoes and other gear to re-equip her and Christine for the ballet had to have come from another job. A job supervising the cleaning at the Théâtre Français.

She imagined her mother, with her stiff back and her graceful dancer's arms, joining the other women at scrubbing the marble stairs of the Théâtre Français – while she and Christine gossipped in the Variétés dressing room after a night on the stage.

Meg shoved the letter quickly back in its place, her cheeks burning with mortification at her own selfishness. She was a spoiled child. How could she not have seen it? She was dancing nights and sleeping in late, so content in her new life at the Variétés that she had not even thought to ask whether it was enough. It should not be her mother doing this. It should be her and maybe Christine; they were younger and fitter and if somebody had to spend hours mopping floors or removing cobwebs then it should certainly be them and not her mother. Meg berated herself for not having realised that all these supposed social visits in the evenings were nothing but an attempt to spare her and Christine what Madame Giry undoubtedly considered unnecessary worries.

There was the sound of a key in the front door.

Meg hastened to get it, thinking along the way of how best to inform her mother that she did not consider those worries to be at all unnecessary and that...

The door opened a moment before she got to it, revealing not Madame Giry but Christine. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and she held one hand to her ribs as though she had run all the way up the stairs.

"Christine!" Meg exclaimed, startled. "What happened? I thought you would be at supper – you're back so early..."

Christine fumbled with the door, trying to lock it. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing has happened."

Meg continued to look at her sceptically, until Christine could not help a weak smile:

"Honestly, it is nothing. There was a crowd at the café, we could not stay – people everywhere from Boulevard Montmartre all the way home. I should have been back sooner but for all the carriages. Everyone is excited about something in the paper; there were men who kept shouting that they want to see Prussian blood, they want war... It frightened me. Raoul – Raoul brought me home. That is all."

"All right," Meg said uncertainly. She watched as Christine changed her shoes and put away her fan and gloves into the chest of drawers by the door.

"Is your mother not back yet?"

"Christine..." Meg took a quick breath. "I need to show you something."

She went through the double doors into the dining-room, gesturing at Christine to follow, and handed her the note from the table.

"What's this?"

Christine took it and scanned the writing quickly, then bit her lip. "Maintenance duties... Your mother took on another job? Meg! Why did she not tell us?"

"Perhaps she would have," Meg said with some bitterness. "If we had thought to ask."

They stared at the note in silence. After a moment, Meg put it back on the table. She nodded in the direction of the kitchen:

"There is stew for dinner, Josette left it. And – oh curse it! The tea!"

They sprinted to the kitchen, just in time to see the last few wisps of steam rise from the kettle. Meg shut off the gas and lifted the kettle off the stove, staring at it in dismay. The bottom was black.

"Merde!"

Christine flinched at the word.

Meg slammed the blackened kettle back onto the stove, where it promptly tipped over, rolled, and crashed to the tiled floor with a tremendous noise.

The sharp clang of a fork against the kitchen water pipes told them of their neighbours' displeasure.

Christine picked up the kettle and set it gently on the benchtop. There was now a dent in one side.

"Come, Meg, let's eat. We'll get it fixed, later."

"I just wish I could do something to help. Instead of ..." Meg winced at the dented kettle.

"I know."

Christine ladled some stew into a bowl and they went back to the dining-room. The apartment smelled of overheated metal.

They ate the cooling stew without speaking, studying with undue attention every bit of potato or meat.

"It's revolting," Meg said after a while.

Christine shrugged absently. "It's not that bad..."

"Not the stew. This." She gestured at the letter on the table. "I am a woman grown, Christine, and my mother is breaking her back to buy my ballet shoes... What am I going to do when she gets older? In a few months you'll be married, and—"

"I am not getting married."

Meg's eyes flicked to Christine. She was staring at her bread, crumbling it with a fingernail.

There was no ring on her finger.

Meg felt her stomach clench. "Your ring... What have you done?"

"I gave it back."

Christine's fingertips pressed the bread methodically, squashing it. She spoke, as if recalling a dream:

"I put the ring in his hand, and I closed his fingers over it... And then I left."

"Why?" Meg breathed, dismayed.

Christine raised her head with a wretched, lopsided smirk. "So that I can never give it away to someone else."

The heartache was so plain in her face that Meg felt tears well in her own eyes, the sharp pain of helplessness.

"Christine," she tried, "the other ring – that was not your fault... It was a kindness to leave it for the Phantom, it was good of you, it wasn't a betrayal, it wasn't wrong! You are innocent."

"Innocent!" Christine made a painful, humourless sound entirely unlike laughter.

"You are. And you ought to tell Raoul about that ring, you have nothing to hide. He will understand, you'll see. Then this weight will be lifted from your soul and you two will make up, and you will no longer fear that you might betray him somehow. The Phantom hurt you so badly—"

Christine rose from her seat so fast that the chair flew back, squeaking on the floorboards.

"I need a bath."

"What? Now?" Meg stared at her, nonplussed. "Are you upset with me?"

"No, I just need a bath. I feel dirty."

Meg caught her wrist gently before she could flee. "I'm sorry, that was stupid. It isn't any of my business, really. I didn't mean to lecture."

Christine nodded rigidly. "I know. It's not you, Meg. I'm just – in a foul mood this evening. Everything I say ends up hurting somebody."

She leaned down to give Meg a brief hug.

"If there's anything I can do..." Meg began uselessly.

Christine formed a strained smile. "Thank you."

She started towards her room, then turned back around: "There is something. Do you remember – when we were little, at the Opéra..."

"Of course I do." Meg grinned. "You had this hat, when I first met you. Do you remember it, with the turned-up sides? I thought it was the strangest thing I had ever seen. You let me borrow it."

"Meg..."

Christine stood framed against the dark doorway, small and somehow abandoned.

"Yes?"

"Was I happy?"

Meg felt at a loss.

"Well, that was right after your father died..."

Christine flinched. "Afterwards."

"Of course you were. That is – not all the time, but often... Like when you'd come back from the chapel, and you would be singing to yourself, and smiling..."

Meg trailed off at the expression on Christine's face. "Oh. The 'Angel of Music'. The Phantom, I mean. But those were not the only times!—"

"Yes," Christine said slowly. "They are the ones I remember, too. Every one of them a lie. There are no angels. The Phantom is a man, Meg, a man called Erik. And I am not innocent."

There was an awkward silence. Then Christine made an apologetic gesture. "I'll be in the bath."

o o o

Erik thought he had been completely silent as he made his way up the wooden stairs to his room above the store.

"Ah, our recluse!" Louise Gandon stepped out onto the landing in her dressing gown, holding a candle.

Apparently not silent enough.

"Bon soir, madame," Erik said, gritting his teeth. There ought to be a law, he thought, against having the way to one's own quarters barred at two o'clock in the morning, after one had run like a maniac through half of traffic-flooded Paris to get there. He felt alternately hot and cold, his blood throbbing with the image of Christine on the arm of her rightful lover. It was not right that it still hurt this badly. It was not right.

"There is some hot water left for a bath," Louise Gandon informed him, gesturing with her chin in the direction he had just come from. The bathing facilities, such as they were, consisted of a shed that housed an iron tub and – the landlord's pride and joy – running water that had to be collected into a barrel and heated in a basin over the stove.

"I am glad to hear it," Erik replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should like to retire for the night. May I?.."

His attempt to get past her was unceremoniously barred by a formidable arm ending in a dark, callused palm.

"There is water," she repeated firmly. "For a bath."

"Madame, I'm obliged to inform you that if you do not step out of my way I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I have had the devil's own time of getting here and I should like to have some peace."

Louise Gandon made an exasperated gesture:

"For pity's sake! I don't see how you can have the manners of a count, and not know a hint when it stops you on the stairs. I'll be plain then: You stink."

She pointed to his feet. Erik looked down and saw that his shoes and trousers were, indeed, spattered with enough horse manure to remind him that running among the carriages had not been the most sane, or sanitary, method of avoiding the chaos of the footpaths.

He felt himself turning beet-red.

"I warn you," Louise concluded in the same exasperated tone, "I will not tolerate filth in this house. Scrubbing horse-shit off these stairs is no picnic, believe you me. I don't know what you and your Opéra 'demoiselle get up to these days but I tell you this: she wouldn't want you in her bed smelling the way you do! Just you go on downstairs and get clean."

"I can guarantee," Erik said with the ice of murder in his voice, "that the temporary presence of manure on my person has no bearing on the permanent absence of Mademoiselle Daaé from my bed. It would be... prudent, Madame Gandon, not to bring up the subject again. Ever. Good night."

He tipped his hat witheringly, turned on his pungent heel, and proceeded up the stairs.

"Very well," Louise Gandon said behind him. "In that case you will kindly pack your things and move out."

"It so happens," Erik said, turning his head briefly, "that I am due to leave Paris tomorrow in any case. I had been intending to maintain my apartment here until my return, but I should be just as glad to be spared the expense."

He had called her bluff.

The look she gave him was not pleasant. Erik had no trouble imagining the struggle going on within her now, suspended as she was between the threat of losing his money and the humiliation of allowing him to pollute her precious staircase.

He gave her a cold smile, relishing this small triumph. A few seconds' stand-off ended, as he had known it would, in a filthy curse from her and the thump of a closing door.

Erik unlocked the door to his own room and proceeded inside.

Not fifteen minutes later, and against his own better judgement, he was walking down those same stairs carrying a towel and a cake of soap.

It was not surrender, Erik counselled himself. There were simply few things more abominable than the stench of manure in a confined space, and having taught the insufferable woman her lesson, there was no reason to suffer asphyxiation out of sheer spite. This was entirely logical, and Erik could not understand why there seemed to be a nasty sucking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Louise Gandon shutting her door. He paid rent; she scrubbed the stairs – as far as he could tell, this was exactly how the world operated. If she attempted to issue orders, it was entirely within his rights to use a little financial blackmail to put her back in her place. She ought to count herself fortunate, he raged silently, that he did not slip a noose over her thick neck and have done with it...

But that was a dangerous train of thought. Since the disastrous night on Madame Giry's balcony, the prospect of slipping a noose around anyone's neck made him feel distinctly queasy. Erik had a sick terror that any corpse he should bring into existence would spontaneously metamorphose into Madame Giry – and that he would look up from her swelling body, puffed and smeared with blood, to see Christine's wide, horrified eyes fixed on him. He felt his gorge rise and swallowed rapidly, chasing the thoughts from his overtired brain.

In the bathroom, Erik sloshed the contents of the wooden barrel into the deep, verdigris-covered tub. He ignored the steaming basin set on a wooden stool nearby; he had bathed in the lake under the Opéra Populaire all his life and found it perfectly adequate to his needs. He shed his dirty clothes and climbed in, kneeling in the water. If anything it was too warm, he was used to the graveyard chill of the lake and this was lukewarm, almost alive. The darkness inside the bathroom was near-absolute, broken only by the faint moonlight streaming in through an air vent near the ceiling. There was a lamp somewhere, but Erik had no more use for it than for the hot water. He knelt in silence, immersed to his chest in a shadowy green mirror.

The caress of the water against his skin made him aware of the sharp smell of sweat on his body, yet another consequence of his flight through the city. He scrubbed vigorously, soaping his hands and rubbing the skin angrily until it was tender to the touch. It would no doubt have been glowing red had there been light in the room to see it.

He dunked his head down a few times, feeling the water creep through his hair on one side and the mess of scar tissue on the other, streaming into his eyes. It made him think of the rain outside the Opéra, which in turn made him think of Christine – which caused him untold discomfort as he tried without much success to fight the response of his own body. Erik gripped the edges of the tub, fearful lest his hands stray. He tried to hold on to the image of Christine as he had known her: his angel, his muse whose white dress he had not dared to sully with his bloodied hands... Instead the darkness taunted him with Christine the woman, Christine the living, angry, hurt woman, near-naked and so warm. The thought of her fingers stroking his face made him groan. His lips parted without volition, for a kiss he could not have. He gripped the tub harder. Christine had seen him tonight, he was certain of it – but he would not think about it.

He spent the next half hour in the cold tub thinking about it, and a restless night dreaming of Christine's voice calling his name.

In his dreams, his face was whole and he had a right to kiss her. He saved her, in his dreams, from the monster who had imprisoned her in a lightless dungeon and who sought, with his cadaverous paws and burning eyes, to make her his bride. He slew that monster without pity. "Erik!" Christine cried out when he found her, and she flew into his waiting arms. He lifted her into the saddle of his white horse, and they rode off somewhere, anywhere, to some place where they could sing together and their voices rose with the stars.

He woke up briefly while it was still dark, to the unbelievable clamour of people yelling and singing loudly in the street.

He groaned and lifted one heavy hand to his face, half-expecting for a crazy moment to find it whole – but of course it was not. A dream. Splendid, Erik thought with revulsion: in his dreams he played a better Vicomte than Christine's beloved original. He even managed to kill the monster. The Phantom of the Fairy Tale, the handsome demon come to rescue his maiden, oh yes, certainly, why the devil not! It was amusing, no, it was downright hilarious...

So he did not know why he wept.

He forced his deformed head against the iron bars of the headboard, and cried from the pain instead.

Sleep found him again and this time it battered him mercilessly, in retribution for the stolen fairy tale: He was hurting Christine, throwing her down, wringing her arms, dragging her with him to his lair while she struggled and screamed and pleaded and he knew, even while this was happening, that he was still the handsome prince; his face was whole, it was his soul that was mangled.

"Erik!" Christine begged, swallowing great gasps of tears. "Erik!" Then abruptly it was he who was being thrown down on the stone floor, and Christine's slender hands were ripping into him and hitting his now-disfigured face, forcing him down, getting in past his shattered defences to hurt him, to kiss his mouth – to forgive him.

When he woke up a second time it was broad daylight, and he had missed the train.