AN: Well, here it is, just before Thanksgiving. I am thankful to all of the wonderful readers who leave me reviews about the story's progress. I know this chapter may be a little difficult for some of you, but bear with me. You won't be disappointed by the story's end (look at me, getting all cocky...)

Disclaimer: I own nothing...if I did, do you think I'd let Raoul get the girl?


Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden.
--T.S. Eliot


Mrs. Giry watched as the girl slept, blissfully unaware that she was no longer in Erik's apartment. Since they had no spare room, Nadir had decided to set up the cot in Madeleine's room, and Antoinette had spent the rest of the morning watching over her. Whatever Erik had given her, it had knocked her without causing her body any real damage. Mrs. Giry sighed, pulling the comforter closer to the girl's chin.

"So, he must have really loved you..." She murmured to herself. More than a year living with Christine, and Erik hadn't harmed her. Frightened her, she suspected, but she'd survived in that darkness and somehow helped him live. Otherwise, how could Erik have let her go? The old Erik, the Erik she could not think of without a sense of dread in the back of her mind, would not have allowed anyone to come between him and something he valued. So why was he willing to free her, in the end?

"It's not fair to her, Antoinette." Nadir said as he entered. She turned to greet him, but she was not smiling. He'd known, as soon as he'd brought her home, how displeased she was by his plan. "She's been trapped by him for so long...it was bound to affect her judgement."

"And what will you say to her, Nadir, when she wakes?" Mrs. Giry asked, looking back at the sleeping beauty. "She'll be upset, I think."

Nadir peeked in on Madeleine, who was playing with her stuffed bear quietly, completely unaware of the new form in her room. "She needs to understand everything now," he sighed. "She's in too deep for us to keep this from her."

Mrs. Giry stood and moved to the door. "If he loved her," she stopped, correcting herself, "If he loves her, as I think he does, then he won't ever be the same after what you've done."

"I've given him enough, perhaps even been too lenient as his protector. I have to think about her safety now." He sat in the vacant chair. "I know you don't agree with me, but Christine doesn't know him. How can she possibly love him?"

The sound of the door closing softly was her only response.


'Say you'll share with me one love,

One lifetime...

Lead me, save me, from my solitude...

Say you'll want me with you, here, beside you...'

Christine sighed in her sleep. Was Erik singing to wake her? The sound was so faint, she could barely hear it.

'Christine, I love you..' She heard the musical words anew, and felt as if her heart would forever break. That tone...why was it so despairing?

'Let's meet again, in Paris...' Immedietely her eyes opened and Christine sat up in bed. "Erik!" She was surprised to find herself in a completely different room, his hand no longer at her waist. And...Erik was not here beside her...instead an older man sat by her bed, watching her carefully. It took only a moment of observation to make her remember him as the man who'd entered the apartment.

"Don't be alarmed, Miss Daae. You're in no danger." He spoke slowly, trying not to frighten her. She gripped her blanket and looked around. This soft-colored room was not in Erik's apartment.

"Who are you?" She asked. "And where am I?"

"I'm a policeman, Miss Daae," he assured her, "and you're safe now."


He sat at the piano, but did not compose. Nothing inspired his hands, so they remained on his lap. With Christine gone, silence had consumed his world once more. If he'd ever considered being rid of her might be a blessing, he knew the truth now. His mind wandered, over and over again, to her face, to her smiles, to the sweetness of her kiss-

When he could not stand it anymore, he backed away from the piano. Instead Erik turned on his stereo and listened to music, trying to block his thoughts and meditate on the sound alone. Claire du Lune whispered throughout the den, and Erik sank back in a chair. He buried his head in his hands, trying to relax into the music, but it was no good. Chistine...Christine...Christine... Her name became a painful chorus, playing over the song.

She must be awake by now..., he thought to himself, and she must be so afriad. How could she not be? He'd drugged her suddenly, and she'd been carried off by a stranger. But soon she won't be afraid...she'll hate me.

You let her go, his darker half growled. You made her leave.

"Well...," he nearly laughed in bitterness, "now you want her to stay?"

She'd agreed. She was going to stay...Christine loved us.

"She loved a lie."

She belonged with us! We wanted her-

"So," he sighed, "you loved her, too." There was no cruel retort, no cackling response. Erik now understood why these conversations with his other self had suddenly stopped. It was all her fault he could no longer endure the kind of life he'd led before. If every day was to be like this, haunted and never whole again, it was because he'd met her in the rain that night. Her wonderful, blind goodness' fault...


"Where is Erik?" She moved slightly away from Nadir. Looking around, she noticed the crib. "Where is he?"

Nadir did not move towards her or take her hand to comfort her. He knew by her frightened eyes what a bad idea that would be. He sighed as he tried to speak calmly. Erik had certainly not made this easy on him. "Miss Daae, my name is Nadir Kahn. You're in my home with my family."

"But why?"

He sat a little straighter and cleared his throat. Nadir had little experience dealing with victims, and had to choose his words carefully. "Christine, you needed to leave Erik, for your own safety."

"For my safety?" She asked incredulously.

"For your very life, I believe."

"He'd never harm me," she looked at him with a horrified expression.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Yes," she said defensively, jutting her chin slightly out. "He promised he never would."

Nadir shook his head slowly. "Erik...you don't know him as well as you assume you do." He ran a hand through his hair. "No, you don't know him as I do. Not at all."

"I know all I need to know about him," she protested. She looked him clearly in the eyes, and her voice became softer. "Please, take me back to him."

"Why?"

"I...promised I would always be by his side." She felt embarrassed, sure that Erik meant their life together to be as private as possible, but this man had to be reasoned with somehow.

"And why would you make that promise, to Erik of all people?" He would willingly go along with her logic a moment, but he was planning all the while.

"Because I," she swallowed her shyness, "I love him."

"You don't know him, as I've already told you." Nadir stood, pacing a moment. "You've been trapped with him, Miss Daae, and over time you've become attached to your captor."

She watched him, eyes darting from his concerned gaze to his nervous hands. Why? Why was Mr. Kahn so very afraid for her? "Sir, Erik saved me." She smiled a little oddly at the memory. "I was being attacked, and he stopped to help me. He took me into his home-"

"And made you give up yours. Don't forget that part." He noticed her lips tremble a little, and knew he had to continue. "Did you ask to stay in his home? To give up your freedom?"

"No..." the small word crept out of her mouth while she tried to find a reason in her mind.

"Did he frighten you? Threaten, maybe?" He didn't need her to answer, when he saw her eyes close tightly. "Erik is not the good genius you think he is, Christine."

"He was kind to me," she whispered, "he gave me a purpose."

"Do you understand his intent, Miss Daae?" He knelt by her, making sure she was looking into his eyes. "To keep you locked away for the rest of your life, to keep him company in his darkness."

"And I agreed," she answered bravely. "I want to stay by his side, because I can love him no matter what he's done."

"He's murdered, Miss Daae," Nadir answered, cutting through her childish words. "He's done horrible things."

She paled, remembering the night he'd almost done so again. "B-but he won't do it again. He promised me."

"It isn't so simple. You know this, don't you?" His eyes gleamed with emotion. "If someone grows in violence, learns to imitate the act, the impulse cannot be so easily stopped. Nor can the person be so easily forgiven."

"How would you know?" She said her childish words, but they were a failing defense. Nadir shook his head.

"Because I've known him far longer than you have, and waited for him to repent all this time. And in all of this time, I've never been rewarded for that hope. I've been there, Miss Daae,to see the aftermath ofthat trick wire of his." Nadir shivered at the memory. "Those skilled fingers left no one he hated alive."

Christine opened her mouth, but quickly closed it. What could she say? In the back of her mind, Nadir's words rang true. She was afraid he'd hurt someone...just as she feared he could not be saved. "How many?" She asked quietly, feeling a familiar stinging in her eyes. How many lives had Erik taken?

"Three lives by his hand. Four by his birth." He watched her as she brought her hands up to cover her face with empathy. She'd expected more from Erik. They both had.

"Who were they?" She brought her hands down after a pause, and gave Nadir a pleading look. "I need to know."

"Two of his parent's housekeepers. And his father." She nodded her head, but he knew how numb she was feeling.

"And the fourth?"

"His mother." The shock seemed too much for her, and Nadir feared she might even faint for a moment. Then, he pale lips parted and she spoke once more.

"Was...did he ever...grieve?" Even now, she looked for sympathy, for some salvageable part of him to hold fast to. Nadir knew what he had to say.

"Never."


Erik could not bear to enter her room, but there was something he had to retrieve. In time he was sure Nadir would come back for some of her things, and he had decided to set Christine's violin on the bed for him to find. It woul be easier for both of them if Erik did not have to hold it again.

With a twist of the doorknob, he opened the door and could smell her soft perfume again. It was so painful, and yet he walked so willingly into the room to sense her again. He touched the chair he'd sat in all night when she was sick, nearly remembering her fevered complexion. In the middle of the bed was the violin, and he could feel her wet tears gliding on his fingertips as he'd brushed them away. And then, there was that night she'd taken his hand.

"I can't..I can't say I understand you." Her hand raised itself slowly. "And I don't know who you really are." Her hand was at the level of his cheek, and she could see the fear in his eyes. "I'm not sure what lies behind the mask." Her tears slowed and she managed a small, sad smile to reassure him. "But I'm going to trust you." She was about to touch his face, when suddenly he winced slightly. First hurt, then understanding set in. Slowly, she dropped her hand to grasp his, and brought it up to her face. "And I want you to trust me in return, someday."

And then he'd kissed her. He'd never kissed another person before, but instinct had taken over as he'd pressed his lips to her brow. At that moment, just that contact had been enough to make him happy. He'd never even considered touching her lips with his own, as if she might have actually died if he pressed his luck further.

"But she kissed me," he said to no one, fingers at his lips. "She kissed me, and she didn't die." Up until the last moment he'd seen her, she'd been as beautiful as always. His love had not killed her. Yet.


Nadir had watched her crying, and had been unable to comfort her. She seemed to shrink as she held herself tightly and sobbed, trying to disappear somehow. All he could do was stand uncomfortably and watch, to be there in case she wanted to say something. Madeleine only watched the strange girl curiously fom behind the bars of her crib.

"Please," she whispered, "please just leave me." She was in pain, and didn't want this man to see her like this. Erik...had he really deceived her? Was he merely a lie of a man? How could he kill, when he'd been so tender? Her heart broke as her mind turned her questions over and over again. As she thought of Erik, she could not imagine the murderer and the man she loved as the same creature. Had those long fingers that had played so beautifully and touched her cheek so softly been coated in blood all along?

"Will you think on what I've said?" His question earned him a shaky nod of her head, but no more words. He scooped his daughter into his arms and headed to the living room.


With a groan he sank to his knees, grasping his head with his hands. He knew she had had to leave him. Even if he hadn't harmed her yet, in time she would die because of him. And yet he wanted to run to her, drag her from the detective's home, and lock her away all over again. He wanted to hold her to him once more, only for a moment longer, before parting. That moment would be worth dying for, he knew. And yet, he could not bring himself to do it. For her sake, he could not.

I won't be meeting her in Paris someday.

He stood, trying to compose himself as he walked to the vanity. He opened the drawer slowly, and pulled the rectangular box out. Stuffing it into his coat pocket without even glancing at it, he walked out of th room quickly, sure he'd never open that door again.

I won't see her ever again.


AN: Thanks Cymbidium, for the editing! And, readers, please let me know what you think...I'm going to need a lot of happy to get over this sadness...