Misty Breyer: thank you so much…as you know, it is always an honor to get compliments from you!

Mrs Turner-Padalecki: what an excellent username…Will Turner…ahh…I can't wait for Pirates 2. Thank you so much for your kind words – although, I can't say I agree…there are far too many good POTO stories out there! However, I am so glad to see that you are getting into it, I'm not going to lie, I've become quite absorbed myself!

MJ MOD: Your summary-esque reviews are always such a pleasure to receive…I hope you stick around!

Catoftheopera: So glad you're enjoying this – it was also a pleasure to receive your email!

To all of you, please do review…it is really encouraging to read and makes me want to continue!

I hope things are going to start picking up after this…however, I sincerely hope it doesn't look like I'm trying to lead cattle through Manhattan, and that it countinues smoothly. Please tell me if you are ever lost, or confused…I would love to clear things up for you (and if I were ever to repost this somewhere else, I would be sure to take those confusions into account and try to make all more clear!) Hmm, I haven't put one of these in a while, so, I hope no one has called their lawyer yet: I don't own anything, at all, in fact! Leroux, Kay, and Webber…hurray for you guys!

Onward! – from Eriks' POV.

Feeling that creeping pressure on my chest, I slowly lowered the ink well. I turned towards the Louis-Philippe door to make my way back to the sitting room and nearly jumped to see the wife there. I began to say something, but the thought came too late. I felt as if God's wrath itself was taking place inside my body cavity. The paralyzing spasms brought me down upon my knees, crumpled on the ground like a shot animal.

Horrified, she recoiled and pressed herself against the closed door, one hand flying her gaping mouth and the other to the slight curve of her belly. I knew the thought of escape crossed her mind, but she knew that she was unable to as the design hid all egresses.

After what seemed an interminable amount of time of this frozen scene, I gathered my strength and made my way to an armchair. Mlle. Burnett no longer leaned on the wall, and had brought her hand from her face atop her second on her belly.

The entire thing cruelly reminded me of my attack during Christine's first stay here when she had removed my mask. I became lost in the memory of her clamoring to assist me, and her utter confusion and then quick digression. She had asked to go home to her Father. Her Father who I knew well to be dead. To distract her, I had asked her if she would make tea.

"I beg your pardon…tea?"

I turned to look at her. I had spoken a near decade past question aloud. I turned back and silently berated myself for my stupid act. However, maintaining dignity, I only said, as commanding and authoritative as I possibly could: "Yes, Russian tea. With lemon…it's really very--…light the samovar." She was not Christine. For, her reaction was to immediately look for something she could not identify. She was also not Christine in the sense that I did not bother to explain the cat basket. "By the coffin."

I walked her through, verbally. It pained me so to continue speech, after each attack it took longer to regain the ability to do normal things…they were worsening. She followed everything exactly. However, her face was as a stoic and her actions mechanical.

After placing the cup on the table next to the arm chair, she quickly turned her heel to return to her room, but I stopped her.

"Sit."

She walked back to face me, slowly, and drew herself up to her complete height as if she was attempting to intimidate me. From this stance, she seemed to have gained a bit of confidence.

"I am not a dog, sir, I am not to be commanded as such. I am a lady."

"Actually," I said cruelly, "you are nobility. In which case, I will say 'please, sit.'"

Insulted, yet she was unable to deny that I had asked correctly as she had said, she found the back of the chair with her lower leg, as a lady would, and sank into the sofa.

"Christine Daae is dead," I said after a moment of calming silence had passed. "However, you did not, Mademoiselle Burnett, tell me your relation to the family. Well-treated whore, perhaps? …with a bastard?" It was low; however, her words and actions had not exactly endeared her to me.

"I began to tell you my relations to the family," she began, unflinching to my vulgar insinuation, "however, I do believe before I was able you had overturned furniture, raged and swore, destroyed things…etcetera." She paused, waiting for me to become enraged; however, my torn chest did not allow me to as I might have wished. "I am the second wife of the Viscount. We were married six months after the death of the Mistress; it was her dying wish for Raoul to remarry if it benefited the livelihood of their daughter."

So the twit of a man had remarried! Due to some lusty desire for a woman! I did not see beauty in it, under the pretense of a dying wish; he had married some woman who most likely brought him added title and wealth. My twisted pleasure quickly turned in to rage when I realized what else that entailed. He had not waited more then a year to remarry, detracting all respect from Christine as his wife for years. This reminded me of other ways he most likely detracted from her happiness. Happiness only I could have provided for her. Love, music, and undying adoration and spoiling… Madame le Vicomtess spoke again, bringing me out of my hatred.

"I was a governess to his daughter. That is how I met him."

She paused, waiting for me, again, to interrupt in some fashion. I did not. Perhaps I would have, had I possessed the energy, but I was curious to see what an uncomfortable moment would do to this little Vicomtess.

"As you probably know, he is on duty with the Navy at the moment…I was staying with his sister," she paused, looking down at her left hand. "In fact, I wonder if she has written to Raoul…am I to be pronounced dead, or missing? Have they searched for me at all?"

I smiled cruelly and began to toy with her.

"It simply depends on what newspaper journalist you ask. The gossip magazines have reported that you ran off with a lover and are now in Spain. British newspapers have said that you were the young woman found drowned in the Seine. Suicide. The French newspapers have said you simply disappeared. Quite imaginative on all their parts, don't you think?"

She sat now, both feet flat on the ground, her back completely straight. Looking right at me, she said passionately, "I hate you. And I would like to know when you intend on killing me. Now…or later?"

Toying with her still, as if she was a cat given to be for my amusement, I concluded: "What if I am to keep you with me, until we die?"

"That seems the likely possibility," she said, rising, her face stoic once more "as it is impossible to get out of hell."