Erik's fingers absently tapped out the Gymnopedie on his piano as he threw his unwilling mind back into the shades of his past. The swirling specters that he had banished from his dreams better than a decade before rose again to haunt him. As much as he loved Christine, as willing as he was to be her creature, Erik did not want to remember those things that had left the flesh of his back almost as ruined as the flesh of his face. That time had passed; he was no longer the pathetic, huddling worm Herroux's brutality had created. How could he recount those years truthfully to her without lowering himself in her eyes?

"I don't even know how old you are - or your last name…"

Christine was the only person who had ever dared to love him. She had a right to know those simple things. His mother's title was the Duchess de Valliere, though Erik never connected himself with that name. Now, though, he understood that as her first-born son he had the right to…

"Nothing," he murmured. "And that is exactly what I must tell her." Realizing that he had spoken aloud, Erik reverted to unhappy thought. No matter what I aspire to, no matter how great my works, I can never rise higher than the Opera basement. That useless boy whose servants tie his shoes and wipe his nose will always be a greater man than I, in the eyes of society. At that thought, Erik's traditional disdain for the young aristocrat twisted into something darker and more malignant. It was an injustice beyond countenance.

He would be able to answer her question about his name. That was a relief. It would be necessary to make it absolutely clear that his name had no bearing on his prospects, but at least he knew the answer. What of his age? The night he killed Herroux he had been celebrating his tenth birthday, but the celebration was a kindness given to him by Hannah. He did not know his real birth date. Since then, he had let the years pass unnoticed.

The night he first heard the music of the Opera, Tristan und Isolde was playing. It was an annual production. How many times had he heard it performed since? Fourteen or fifteen times at least. That would place his age somewhere in the mid-twenties. He was certainly no older than twenty-eight…

Erik's hand slammed down on the keyboard, producing a terrible cacophony. Frustration boiled over into fury. The piano bench toppled, then flew across the room and shattered when he kicked it. Everything had been taken from him! Even drooling toddlers in their mothers' arms could hold up three fingers to show how old they were. And here he was, fancying himself a genius when he could not even tell his own age. He dropped his mask to the floor and pressed his hands to his face, forcing the rage to recede. In the archives there would be playbills. It would be simple to figure his age from the cast listings on the bills.

Christine thought she wanted to know his story. Erik wondered what she expected to hear. As a child, she had been reared on pretty stories, faerie-tales with happy endings. Even operatic tragedies had nobility and grace. His was a tale devoid of beauty or grace – and as to the ending…

He took a piece of the paper he normally reserved for his notes to the management and began to write a brief timeline beginning with his earliest memories of Hannah and ending with the moment he heard Christine sing for the first time. There was a memory he need not chase away. The child's pure voice sounded as heart-breakingly sweetly in his mind now as it had the first time he heard it.

Quickly reading over his work, Erik noticed that he had over-emphasized the pleasant aspects of life with Hannah while barely skating over the three years in the freak show, characterizing Herroux's brutality as "frequent chastisements" and his near starvation as "underfeeding". Leslie had "helped him leave" after a "confrontation" with Herroux. Erik shook his head. How close this was to lying! Was he really like Raoul, treating Christine as though she were a feeble child in order to protect her from simple truth?

The piano stool lay broken in its corner. The mask lay on the floor, its plaster chipped. Erik stood quietly, contemplating the result of his temper. It was that uncontrolled, animalistic part of him that he could not bear to let Christine know. To tell her the truth would be to lay bare the life that had driven him into the bowels of the Opera house, which had led him to murder twice, which fueled his rages and his despair. A life of which he was deeply ashamed.

If he told her the truth, she would no longer ask "How can I love you if I don't know you?" She would say, "Now that I know you, how can I love you?" At least, that's what she would say, if she did not simply stand up and flee from him. She would understand that he belonged in the dark underground; she would go to take her place in the sunlight.

But Christine had asked this of him, and he had agreed. This list of well-intentioned lies would never pass his lips. The crumpled paper joined the broken piano bench. Erik closed his eyes and plunged into his past again. The memories were painful, but they were the only story he had. He would tell it honestly and completely; she would judge him as she saw fit.