I'm one review away from 100…that really amuses me. I adore you all, even those of you who do not review (although I wish you would!). This is the last slow chapter, and after that I think I'll be done in three in which quite a lot happens (I hope it isn't too anti-climactic for you excited readers, you) and then an epilogue. I think I'm going to try to post one every night until it's done – I'm technically on vacation, so, we'll see. I still have not heard thoughts as far as a sequel! ; D

Love to jbwriter and MJ MOD, as always.

Erik's POV

"Purpose?"

I turned my head up sharply from my desk and saw the Vicomtess standing before me. Her dressing gown was haphazardly thrown around her, and for the first time I saw her hair in something other then a tight bun. It had obviously fallen from one hours ago, and only three or four pins held together a small clump of hair, the rest of her wild hair fanned across her shoulders and spilled down her back. Her hand, with white knuckles, clenched at her side.

"How kind of you to join me," I said, my voice as smooth as velvet. Nearly smiling, I drew a chair to my desk and held my hand out gesturing for her to sit. She glared, but took a seat despite. Her eyes wandered to the thick journal-like book that had flopped close after I had abandoned it, upon her in coming.

"This has caught your eye, I see. You are quite close if you are trying to seek an answer to your question."

Her forehead wrinkled, absolutely confused by my intentionally ambiguous statement. I sat across from her, leaving the book only inches from where her right hand rested on the edge of the desk. Absolutely tempting. I watched her for a few minutes, under the guise of sorting papers on another side of the desk. I immediately saw her white hand fly to the book, and wrap her fingers around as if to snatch it quickly.

Immediately, I stood, grabbed at her hand, and roughly threw it off. She looked up at me, shocked that I had touched her. We stood for but a moment, locked in battle, and the next thing I realized, my mask was in her slight hand and her face depicted an inexplicable mixture of horror and morbid fascination.

Rage seized me, my first natural reaction was to cover my face and hide. In a short moment, I thought of a hundred things. She had removed it, let her see. She was not Christine. I pulled her by both her wrists out of the chair, sending it backwards, and brought her face close to mine, her nose nearly brushed my chin.

"See! Do you see it, child? Look closely, note the detail."

She turned her face, and desperately fought against my grip. My mind was not my own at the moment, but that of a demon to match my outward appearance, and not the normal that could be hailed as ingenious…instead, animal-like and violent.

I would not allow her to escape. Clutching the small of her back aggressively, I pressed her close, and then brought my hand up to her neck and turned it to my face again.

"Look! Look! Look, you stupid child."

I led her in a twisted dance, pushing her, forcing her to stagger backwards until I finally pressed her into the sofa. She nearly laid across it sideways and buried her face in her hands.

I paced the floor only feet from her, and seethed with all of hell's fury.

"You see now, as you wanted. Satisfied now? You have seen the ugliness of ERIK! You have seen it now…you will dream now, you will have nightmares of his ugliness….oh yes. Perhaps this has frightened you into a respect, viper, you are here under my disposition, and my control ALONE!"

Exhaustion by the excursion that I once would have felt no different afterward, I too sank into the opposing sofa, attempting to catch my ragged, uneven breath.

We remained as such for a long moment. I could hear her sniffling and sputtering within her own hands. Remembering, I quickly went to the desk and retrieved my mask from where it had been forced out of her hands.

I nearly jumped from surprise when I turned to see her standing, facing me once more. Her face was paler then ever, her eyes red with angry tears and frustration.

"No," she said loudly. "It is not your face that frightens me, Erik." I stood shocked at her boldness as she continued. "It is your entire existence." The Vicomtess hid her fear well, she hardly shook although I knew she was terrified. She walked the length of the room, gesturing outwards to further her point. "It is as if you are under the impression you are the only one on Earth who has ever experienced a loss, or pain. Everyone in this world has, good sir! Everyone. You wallow in self pity and delight in your depression."

After hearing her say these things that no one had dared to say to me before, I retorted with the most ridiculous thing I could come up with. "You seemed to have lead the most picturesque life, I can hardly see you suffering."

"Don't assume to know me," she snapped. "You do not know me!" Her face, once puckered, softened, for some bizarre reason. After a few moments, uncomfortable moments for her, she sighed and spoke.

"And I do not know you."

It was her apology for stripping me of dignity. Suddenly feeling embarrassed, and ridiculous, she continued again with the only solution she knew, to fill the silence with chatter. "You can not hate every aspect of existence." This the Vicomtess said with a true imploring tone, sounding as a preacher begging a newcomer to repent.

She sat down in the sofa once more and looked at the opposite one I had only a moment ago rested in, as if prompting me to begin some great tale. I hated this woman with a passion. She spoke as if I was an ignorant child in need of instruction and insight in life. Did she honestly believe I would just begin telling her about my life? A life I could not even explain to those I had loved or trusted…Giovanni…Nadir… My life was a pitiful existence without a need to be repeated.

"You know something," Adelaide's reminiscent tone of voice startled me. She was starring at her hands which were placed placidly in her lap, I sensed that she was not speaking to me, but more to herself. "I never did tell Raoul much of my own family life before I lived in London. I'd like to think that one's childhood and young adulthood does not dictate the person you will always be, forever. That's ridiculous, in fact. You control your own…self. And that's what I did, I changed myself until I became who I am now." The Vicomtess put a hand to her face for a moment, to me it seemed as if she was forming a mask for only a split second. She laughed sardonically, looking around her. "Well, perhaps not who I am now."

"What are you now?" The words escaped my lips before I could think. Damn her!

She did not look over at me as I thought she might after allowing that question to slip. She sat perfectly still, it was almost as if I could see the thoughts fly through her mind. She rehashed her new existence.

"I no longer know."

We sat in silence for an hour, I waited to see if she would turn back to the composition book, but she never did. She kept her eyes on her hands, always. And, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she stood abruptly and went to the Louis-Philippe room to retire for the evening.

I was surprised not to hear the echoing thud of the deadbolt being secured for the first time since her arrival.