A/N: Wow, someone wants me to continue, and brought up some very interesting questions as well. Since I was planning to discontinue the story, I was leaving a lot of things out to prevent further questions arising, which evidently keeps the story going. So I will try to hold on to the story as long as possible, but I will be working full time this summer, so I can probably only write one chapter a day, If I can pull that at all. Ok, here it goes, questions answered part 2:

Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, or any of it's characters.

Chapter 34

Christine walked the halls that passed through the dormitories, remembering her days as a ballerina. She remembered the feeling of being 'merely' a dancer, and the triumph she felt upon first singing a leading role. It was spectacular. She'd never dreamed of anything like that before, and to have it come into being so rapidly. It was Erik's doing.

She entered the old chapel. The Angel of Music was never coming back. It was Erik who would teach her now. Would she ever be what she once was?

Poor Meg, she thought. She knew she was right in doing what she did though, Nadir was a possibly dangerous man, she could not risk her young friend. She turned in the hallway to walk back towards Meg's room, when a shadow passed over her. Not one which you would expect to see, but darkness that one feels when something isn't right. The silence was unbearable within the opera house. Nothing was going as planned, apparently. Faster and faster she flew through the halls, and upon reaching Meg's room, (Yes Meg sometimes lived with her mother, but she also had her own room) she knocked furiously on the door. With no answer, she pushed it open, to find a room, empty.

"Meg?" Christine called quietly, and no answer. "Meg, are you hiding? Please don't do this, I know what I did seems unfair now, but…" She stopped all attempts to beckon out the young ballerina, when she found a little note beneath a small sculpted angel. Immediately she read,

Dear Kristen, and Mother

My departure from you is one which I will always lament, though it is also one which I shall cherish. My time here is over. I cannot live the rest of my days in the shadow of everyone else who shines. I will return someday, when my companionship with Nadir is accepted by all who thought it ill. Until then, I am always on your side,

Kristen, I wish you all the happiness in the world, and Mother, I will miss you.
Meg Giry.
Christine dropped the paper, and let it flutter to the ground. With the hand she just moments ago held the paper with, she now covered her mouth. Meg was gone! Now she could not help but think that this was all her fault.

"What have I done?" She whispered to herself. She put the note back beneath the ornament, and left. Where would Madam Giry be? She asked herself. With a heavy heart, she made her way to tell Meg's mother what was going on.


Darkness prevailed once more when Kristen opened her weary eyes. What time was it and how long had she slept? She stood from the bed and found her silken robe, then went in search of the candles. Maneuvering her way through the shadows, remembering the floor pattern she had once moved over in her time of blindness. She came across Erik's desk. She lit a candle with the matches which lay somewhere near by, and sighed, happy to see illumination. She lit another candle, and then another, allowing the light to reach every corner of the lair. She then looked to the curtained passage, and remembered the events of the previous day. Meg, Kristen, and Madam Giry had all piled through there like it was another room in the Opera house, and she saw the look on Erik's face, that annoyed expression. This was once the most secret domain in Paris. How many others would know of it's existence if it all wasn't stopped.

Kristen returned to the bedroom, which for the most part was still blanketed in shadow. She first dressed herself in a less formal, but still beautiful, gown of lavender, and crawled back onto the swan bed.

"Erik?" she whispered, lightly kissing his forehead. Slowly he came from sleep, and looked up at her, "I'm going up for a few moments, ok?" she said, "I have to take care of something."

"Just be careful," he told her, and pulled her down to kiss her lips. She returned his kiss, then left the bedroom.

"I won't be long" She said on her way out, then disappeared from his sight altogether. Kristen's mood changed from loving, to angry as she moved between the world of her heart, and the world of their business. She was almost now angry at HIM for disabling all of his little traps on the pathway down to the lair. She promised herself just then, as she passed through the curtain, that Christine would never return to her dwellings. That woman did not belong there at all. Despite the fact that the tortures were gone, there were still ways of protecting her underground home from intruders, familiar ones or not, and she was going to make sure that no one came back without an invitation.

She did not go the usual way to the surface. She made a strange turn somewhere behind the walls of the Populaire, and ended up where she had wanted to, near the manager's offices. She hadn't forgotten some of the places which Erik had once shown her.
"So She's finally found a promising cast?" Kristen heard Armande say to Firmin.

"Indeed, some from Italy, England, and France as well. She did the right thing, hiring from an agency, which was not our tradition, but we must all do what we have to do, right?"

"Right" Armande agreed, and so did Kristen, in her thoughts of course. She watched from a hole in the wall. How simple, she mused. Neither one of them suspected being spied on. Further more, she could not believe that Erik hadn't done something like this first. Perhaps she was ruining his focus. She figured he had once devoted his every though to this building, and it's events. What an empty life it must have been. Somewhere within her, she felt happiness at being able to lift the weight of this place from his shoulders. She then spotted the papers. All the papers containing the new blueprints. LEAVE! She mentally screamed to them both. She was going to take them all. No one would be able to find their way around this place now, and she meant no one!

Then, there was a scream. A horrid cry of anguish flooded the silence, and both managers stood from their seats with a start, and went running. Kristen could have sworn that was the voice of Madam Giry coming from somewhere outside that door, but if they were running to her rescue, she had barely a need to worry. With the slamming of the office door, Kristen moved from behind the closet, a passage long forgotten, and out into the office. It was a job anyone could complete, and one which would bring new suspicions into the minds of those two fools. Just then it occurred to Kristen that Armande and Firmin weren't even needed.

Once she had every roll of paper with her, she filed back into the closet, and left without a trace.

She moved in silence behind the walls, back down to the lair, all the while thinking to herself how much better things would be if Armande and Firmin left the theatre. Madam Giry was proving herself more than capable of putting together a cast, Erik was writing all the new productions, those two no longer had a purpose there.


Meanwhile, in another part of the grand building, an old lady cried in fierce sadness.

"Madam Giry… My God, Madam Giry, what has happened?" Armande questioned in concern, but he was to receive no answer from the suffering lady, only sobs. Christine however, was quickly becoming the Populaire's newest spokeswoman, who seemed to be doing all the talking for everyone.

"It's Meg, she's gone." the young diva replied.

"Gone? You mean, the little ballerina?"

"Yes" Said Christine, "She's left the Populaire with….. Here's the note." She handed Armande the piece of paper which Meg left behind.

"That will be enough!" Antoinette cried, and grabbed the paper from the manager's hands before he had time enough to read what it said, "Both of you will go back and do whatever it is you do around here, this is none of your business!" She snapped at them, with tears in her eyes. "Christine, you've done enough around here." She then said, with nearly as much anger in her tone as she had sent forward to Armande and Firmin, and Christine was startled. No one, however, would leave.

"Fine, you won't go?" Antoinette challenged, but didn't say any more. She pushed Armande and Firmin out of the way with two very strong hands, and vanished down the corridor.

"Poor Madam Giry," Christine whispered to herself. She could not help but feel that somehow this was all her doing. What have I done? She thought to herself, words she knew would plague her now for a time, and watched the curious expressions in the manager's eyes. Meg was gone? How? The diva turned from them and walked away. Her only friend? It was strange to her that all the while Meg was there, she felt as though she had all the friends in the world, but now that she was gone, she felt she had nobody. Kristen didn't really live at the Populaire, she lived with the phantom. There really was no one for her now. She had never felt this lonely before in her life, not even when her father died.


"My Kristen, what have you done now?" Erik inquired, turning his head from the organ, but Kristen could scarcely answer him. The music he had just been playing completely took over her mind. "Kristen?" he asked.

"Why did you stop?" she queried.

He then frowned curiously, "Tell me what those papers are."

She could not restrain a small smile of guilt. "They're… blueprints for the theatre." she replied. "I thought the fact that everyone knows how to get here was a bit absurd, and since the reconstruction is completed, no one really needs these anyway, so I stole them … And I think we should also change the passage way from here to the surface."

Erik stood slowly from the bench, and moved towards her in his usuall black attire. A gloved hand moved delicately to take the rolls of paper from her arms. "My darling, you are beginning to consume me," he told her. "Your plans are exceptional."

At least he isn't wearing the mask, she thought to herself, noticing the gloves. She looked up into his deep jade eyes, and felt her heart begin to race again. Was it their child within her which made everything seem more alive to her? Or was it just her growing love for him?

"I was pondering the same idea" he told her. Then, a different air came over him. He put the blueprints down on a nearby table, and returned his glance to her. "While you were above, did you notice anything strange?"

"I heard a scream," she told him, "But nothing more."

"It was Madam Giry." he said.

"It sounded like her, what happened? Do you know?"

He nodded.

"What happened?" She further inquired.

"Meg's gone." He informed her.

"Gone? Where?"

"Sometime within the last day, she eloped with Nadir, and-"

"You're kidding!" Kristen boomed excitedly, her enthusiasm taking him off guard. "They left together? That's wonderful!" Eventually, her contentment broke through his apprehension, and he began to smile. Perhaps it was for the better.

"I suppose it is something to be pleased with."

"Something to be pleased with? Erik, she's finally found her future!" Kristen laughed, and hugged him. He returned her embrace, although she knew he was not feeling the same kind of exhilaration that she was, which was understandable. He was Erik, and whatever he was creating before probably had all his emotions, and if she knew any of his music at all, it usually contained some form of agony. She couldn't hate that in the least bit.

"Madam Giry is in a state of shock." he said, releasing her slowly, but holding her still. "I worry for her."

Kristen slightly frowned, "I know, she will not handle this lightly." she said, taking on a more serious tone, but not by much.

"For a woman of her age, I hope she can bare such a depression."

"You really care for her, don't you Erik." Kristen whispered.

"She was the only one who bore enough compassion on my part to bring me here." He stated softly, "I cannot bare to see her saddened."

Kristen lightly sighed. He was right, although it was great that Meg finally found what she was looking for, the way she went after it was enough to break hearts. She hadn't seen it that way earlier, but she saw it that way now. "You're absolutely right." she told him. Kristen saw his mask laying atop the organ. She let go of him to retrieve it, then brought it back to him. "Would you like to see her?" she asked.