A/N: Just so all my readers know, my stories might not get updated too often in the near future, as I'm going off to college in less than a week and a half, and will have almost no time for such things, lamentably…(fights the urge to burst into tears)

But on a happier note, Jordie-dear guessed the song in Chapter 7 of TMQ, and so the latter half of this chapter is dedicated to her cameo…

"Why are you grinning?" Erik asked, fighting the urge to shudder.

"Never mind," said Heather. "I was just thinking of how cozy it would be…you, me, the organ bench…"

"Why can't you simply begone?" moaned Erik.

Heather scuffed the floor with the toe of her wax-covered sneaker. "Maybe because I…have no idea of exactly how to go about being 'begone'?"

Erik swished his cape irritably.

Heather licked her lips.

"So anyway…" she said casually, her body quivering with the painful repression of a first-class glomp, "is that your organ?"

"Yes," he said. "What else would it be?"

"A piano with pipes?" queried Heather tremulously.

Erik was about to comment on how idiotic was her comment, but just then the thought occurred to him that an organ actually was a sort of piano with pipes.

"May I…may I play it?" she asked shyly, barely able to control her glee. "I'm not very experienced, but I'm a total piano-demon and whenever there's a piano-like instrument around…"

"No one," he said, "touches my organ."

There was silence.

"Except me," he added.

There was more silence.

"Please tell me you're talking about the instrument," said Heather abruptly. "And by that I mean the musical kind."

Erik, confused for a moment, suddenly blanched. "You gutter-minded little snipe!" he snapped. "How dare you—"

"Organ jokes," Heather sighed to herself, managing to at least be slightly ashamed at herself for indulging in such things. "Aminta," she added in a normal voice, "would be proud as punch."

Erik was immediately through with his blustering. "Aminta?" he asked incredulously.

"I know what you're thinking," said Heather. "Isn't it a coincidence that I know someone with the same name as one of the principal characters in your opera Don Juan Triumphant?"

She paused for effect.

"Actually," she admitted, "it's no coincidence at all. She took the name from self-same opera."

Erik's mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"And, might I add," said Heather, "she is extraordinarily obsessed with a rather unrealistically more physically attractive incarnation of yourself. Which is why she picked the name Aminta to be her pseudonym, of course."

Erik was so confused at this point that he literally felt his brain to be on the verge of exploding.

"As I was saying, before the organ jokes," sighed Heather, "whenever there's a piano-like instrument around, I get this urge. Sometimes my fingers literally start twitching. I simply have to try it out. It's just this…quirk of nature…that I have…"

"The answer is still a most emphatic 'no'," snapped Erik, recovering slightly from his near-fatal brain-explosion. "You might break the keys."

"So?" Heather retorted. "Even if I did, which is so highly unlikely in the first place that it's ridiculous, you could just swindle more money from the managers in order to get it fixed."

"A waste," he replied. "And how is it that you know so much about me and my modus operandi, at any rate?"

Heather looked at him.

"That," she said softly, "is a matter for which I have no proof. You wouldn't believe me if I told you, and I wouldn't blame you in the slightest."

"Nevertheless," he replied, "I would like to know."

"Why? Your curious nature?" she projected.

"Slightly," he said. "Much as I abhor admitting it, the puzzle of your origins…intrigues me."

Heather brightened considerably at this and was about to reply, when a great boom sounded, followed by yet another clang and glop-thud of wax.

Erik clapped his hands to his head, suddenly captive to a rather wild notion that the boom had been that of his exploding brain.

Heather stared oddly at the place where the sounds had erupted. "Is that…"

"Relief," sighed Erik, letting out his breath with a hiss and removing his hands from his head. "My intellect remains intact."

"But…" Heather began. Erik twitched his Punjab lasso in her direction, and she fell silent.

"Fine," she said. "I'll just go check for myself…"

"I shall come with you," he said abruptly. "It is my house, after all…"

"You call a hidey-hole cave with lots of candles and instruments and sheet music by an underground lake a house?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He stopped, miffed. "Of sorts," he said in a slightly defensive tone.

Heather shrugged. "Your call, love." She peered into the darkness…

And was immediately hug-tackled to the ground. "ECHO!" crowed a conspicuously sugar-high female voice.

"How the…" yelped Heather with both unmitigated shock (she had a propensity to startle extraordinarily easily) and unbridled glee. "JORDIE!"

Erik flinched backwards, his mismatched eyes widening. The sight of two decidedly oddly dressed females capering madly around his lair chanting, for no apparent reason, "Aha, aha, aha!" was certainly a sight to behold.

"You nearly gave me a heart-attack!" Heather yelled, dissolving into helpless laughter. "How did you…"

"The fates," said Jordie, "apparently decided to let me drop in. Or maybe the gods of phan-phiction. I dunno."

She tossed a large bag in the air with a flourish. "I bring," she said solemnly, "indisputable proof."

With a loud thud, the bag landed on the wax-covered floor.

Erik sighed. The waxy mess was twice as daunting with both candelabras overturned.

Jordie glanced in Erik's direction. "Is that..."

"Oh, yes," said Heather.

"SQUEEEEE!"

Erik, in spite of himself, gave a most undignified scream at being tackled to the ground by a whirling dervish of a girl wearing the jewelry of a gypsy woman.

"Woah," said Heather, staring, and trying not to giggle. "Erik actually…screamed."

"Makes you wonder…," said Jordie contentedly, from her comfortably snuggled position atop Erik's chest.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said Erik, "but…GET…OFF!"

Jordie complied rather reluctantly.

"Wish I had your courage," said Heather. "I've been holding back my glomps, meself."

"Why?" asked Jordie. "Are you telling me you don't remember attacking Gerik with wild abandon when he was tied up and helpless in le closet?"

"Yah," said Heather, blushing fondly at the memory. "But that was…Gerik. Merik is just so much more…dignified. Somehow I think he'd take to it less kindly."

"Meh," said Jordie. "I loff him anyway."

Erik looked from Jordie to Heather, wild-eyed. "Would either of you…care to explain to me—" he began, wincing and massaging his chest where Jordie had sat upon it.

"This, my dear," said Jordie, pulling a paperback novel from her bag, "is what started it all."

She thrust the novel into Erik's stunned hands.

His swollen lips mouthed the words of the title silently.

"You're joking," he said finally. "Either that, or I'm going mad. Again."

"Neither," said Heather. "Read it and weep. Literally. I did."

"And this," said Jordie, sweeping a hardcover novel from her bag with another flourish. "Loffly."

Erik took it wordlessly, his eyebrow arching.

"And don't forget this," she said grandly, grabbing with reverence the Original London Cast Recording and placing it on top of the two novels.

"What about…" said Heather.

"Oh," said Jordie, grinning. "This too, if ye'd like…" She placed atop it another cast recording, this time of the 2004 movie.

"Got the DVD?" queried Heather.

Jordie's face fell. "SPAMMIT!" she groused. "I forgot."

Erik whimpered slightly, staring at the various forms of Phantom media cradled in his arms.

Jordie patted his be-wigged head affectionately. "Don't be overwhelmed, love," she said kindly. "You'll be all right." She kissed his unmasked cheek and grinned when he stared at her as if she had corn growing out of her ears.

"That all the proof you need for now, Echo-dahlin'?" she said to Heather.

"Dam' good of you to bring all of it," said Heather. "Can you stay? Be tons more fun with two to torment him instead of only one…"

"Hmm…oh, spammit," said Jordie again. "A Phangirl's Guide To Pestering An Erik would never get written if I stayed."

"Truly," said Heather. "Which would deprive the world of a great and noble work."

"Ha!" retorted Jordie. "My ego's going to be as big as California if this keeps up…"

She checked her watch suddenly. "Oh, berry smoothies! I'm late!" she breathed. "Gotta go."

Erik sighed with relief, though he was still royally confused and his brain still felt as though it might explode at any moment.

"Er…Jordie?" Heather said suddenly. "No CD player."

Jordie sighed with relief. "Thank heavens I've at least got that in my bag," she said.

She pulled it out, along with a pair of earphones, and handed it to Heather, looking around. "Batteries included," she said. "Use them wisely."

"Shall," said Heather, saluting.

Jordie saluted back just as briskly. "Take care o' yourself," she said, giving Heather a bear-hug.

"Ribs…" gasped Heather. "My ribs…!"

Jordie let go. "Anything broken?"

"Nope."

"Good," she said matter-of-factly. "Well…I bid you and your loffly LeMerik a fond adieu! Or should I say au revoir?"

"The latter," said Heather. "There's bound to be another cameo chapter sooner or later."

Jordie grinned again, nodded at Erik, blinked her eyes and folded her arms a la I Dream of Jeanie, and disappeared in a very loud puff of smoke.

Erik fought the urge to let out a sigh to surpass all sighs. "Well," he said. "That was…intriguing."