Hello my dear readers!
Yes, finally, I'm back! After facing wedding preps, writers block and troubles at work, I finally managed to see ahead in my story and produce the next few chapters!

For those of you who have been asking for a return of DARK Erik, don't worry. I'll be giving him plenty of reason very shortly! But to let you guys ease back in slowly and comfortably, I will start with just one chapter for now. We will make a little quantum leap into the future, and catch up with our heroes some eightteen years after...

Enjoy, and please review! it helps cure writers block immensly! -x- Lotte.

Erik sat in the doorway of the library leading to the garden. The spring air was still cool, but warm enough to enjoy. On the far end of the lawn he could see Christine wandering around the roses, trimming their hems to perfection as to ensure the fullest of buds this summer. The song she was singing to herself was one he wrote for her many years past and he was surprised she still recalled its words. He closed his eyes for a second. His life was perfect indeed...Her quiet humming was rudely overpowered by a much louder voice coming from the hallway however.

"Well then, I will go tell papa and he will teach you for pestering me so!"

The next moment the door flew open and in ran Aurora, her face flushed: "Papa! Tell Matteo to leave me alone and find something more useful to do with his time then following me around, please tell him!"

She pouted. Where his daughters got that pout from he didn't know. Oh yes he did, from their mother, only she had long left the gesture to her youth.

"What's the matter now then?" He gave both Aurora and Matteo a strict look.

"I just wanted to go with Aurora to the Opera House father. Signore Ravalli might let me practice with the orchestra as he did last time!"

Aurora fumed: "I have a career to think of Matteo. I can't tow my little brother around like a babysitter all day!"

"Enough!" They both fell quiet, knowing better then to counterset their father in a mood like this.

"This day has only just started and already you two have managed to give me a headache. Now. Aurora you will cease your superior behavior right now or I shall forbid you to attend rehearsals altogether, writing an ever so gentle note to Signore Torelli how I am unconvinced my daughter is ready for the responsabilities as leading soprano."

Aurora gasped. He wouldn't! But as always, she knew he would. It was both a blessing and a curse having a father on the board of the Opera!

"Matteo, you may join your sister at the Opera house so long as you tend to your musical studies alone and do not bother her during her rehearsals. Understood?"

"Yes father, thank you father!" He gave his sister a teasing look before scattering off to retrieve his violin from his room.

Aurora was still standing in the middle of the room, pouting. Erik strolled up to her, rubbing her cheek. "Put that smile back on your face my angel. It suits you much better."

"You aren't really going to pull me out of the play, are you papa?"

"So long as you work hard and do not trot about as the next divinity, I shall not. You are only just beginning your career Aurora. A little modesty might do you some good hm?"

The gentlest of smiles and his daughter was back to her usual happy self. "You are right, I'm sorry papa. But Matteo..."

"Matteo has as much of a talent for music as you have, my dear. It will be very good for his training if he has the chance to work with the Opera orchestra every now and then. And you know if I tell him no he will persuit you in any case angel. He's inherited my stubbornnes in that, I'm afraid!"

She sighed: "But if he so much tries to talk with me or my friends I shall whip him!"

"I have no doubt of it angel, and neither does your brother. Now go before you are late. Leading ladies are never late to claim their spotlight right?" A brief kiss and she was off, sending the room back into it's blissful silence again.

"Is this what you meant father?"

He looked over at the desk where Luca was still working on his sketch, seemingly unmoved by his sibling's outburst in front of him. His oldest son's stoic countenance made him laugh at times!

"Yes, that looks very well, Luca. Now if you proceed with the left wing, I think you shall find you'll have no further troubles there."

He returned to his chair, Christine now almost at the terrace and walking over to him: "Was that another outburst of our Diva, dear?"

He just rolled his eyes at her. "Perhaps I should work the gardens for you and let you handle our adolescent children for a while. I seem to be getting to old for this." From the corner of his eye he saw Luca raise an eyebrow, saying nothing. Christine laughed, planting a kiss on his head.

"Need I remind you that you have five children, one of whom has left the country for quite some time now, one is a master of silence like yourself, and one is too young yet to cause you any troubles besides which colour of flowers to pick you? That makes a modest two out of five who, I fear, both have inherited your temper!"

Erik smiled. All in all, he indeed had not much to complain about. If someone had told him twenty years back how his life would have looked this day, he would have claimed them insane. Or killed them for that matter. Now he was a man of nearly sixty, renowned architect and valued composer and member of the board of directors at the Venice Opera Classicale. But first and formost loving husband, and father to five highly accomplished children.

Céline had trained hard enough at ballet to join the corps in Venice, but after growing restless accepted an invitation from her aunt Meg to reside in Paris for a while. From her letters, Erik could deduct Céline to be very impressed by the city, and even seemed to be very much in love with a young tenor at no less than the renowned Opera Populaire. She was, perhaps, more of a Parisienne at heart than he had at first believed her to be. A Chagny after all...But still, she was now almost twenty three and had devoted more than enough of her years to the arts. Perhaps despite the pain it caused his heart, he needed to allow her to find her own path in life.

Aurora had inherited her mother's pure voice, though perhaps not her modesty. A factor Erik constantly sought to remedy. After some smaller parts in the Opera Chorus, she was now to sing her first lead at eightteen, and it filled him with pride. She had many suitors begging for her attention, but half of them were shunned by the girl herself and the other half easily disposed of by her father without her knowledge. He knew he was being selfish, but she was after all his firstborn, and therefor very special to him. He could not allow himself to part with her yet, nor could he find any inclination in her sweet character she wished to be away from him.

Luca had at sixteen become a close friend, next to being his oldest son. The boy had no real talent or interest in music, but had started devouring every book in the library from a very young age, and had turned out to be quite the mathematician. An autodiduct for the most part, he was now aiding his younger siblings to their education, while he himself had commenced to train with his father as an architect. Solemn and quiet, ever thoughtful, he was jokingly called a bore by his older sisters, but Erik recognised that quiet streek more than anything and thoroughly enjoyed their time together. It was in those quiet moments that Luca showed his true nature, having inherited all of his father's dry humor and showing a broad interest on a variety of subjects...except girls. Stunning, Erik thought. Here was a young man with all his good looks, his broad shoulders and tall build, his golden hair and emerald eyes...all he could have been save his deformity...and yet while he himself had done naught but yearn for a woman's touch throughout his days, Luca seemed much more at ease in a library than at the occasional balls and assemblies his mother dragged him along to.

Now Matteo was his mother's boy. A wild head of dark curls that refused to be tamed, always impatient for the joys and adventures life would bring him, his dark eyes shining in delight with every new experience. He had started piano lessons at a young age, as had all his siblings, but soon found himself drawn to the violin. A talent he could have inherited on both sides, though Erik clearly saw a Daaé in him. Finding no common interests with his older brother, and his younger sister lacking behind by four years, he stuck to Aurora like glue to be allowed entrance to the marvels of the Opera House. The conductor, a Signore Ravalli, had recognised his talent and allowed him every so often to practise with some of the Opera's violinists, a marvelous chance indeed for a fourteen year old boy. Aurora was less pleased of course, but being a woman of the arts herself could not in her heart deny her younger brother his love of music and therefor, with the occasional tantrum, allowed him to come.

And then there was Giulia. His youngest, at ten, and not really expected after already fathering four children. But there she was that sunny autumn day, a little baby with dark curls and matching eyes, looking up at him in complete adoration. Christine's labour had been difficult to say the least, keeping her to her bed another five weeks after, but the result had been as rewarding as the others. When his older children's adolescent troubles seemed to torment him out of his wits he would take his little girl into town, or to the park to pick her flowers and sing her songs. She was now the same age as Christine had been when he had first encountered her, and she resembled her mother even more as Céline had done. For even when younger, Raoul's inheritence could be felt in Céline. Open and talkative, curious to discover the world and for the world to discover her. Giulia however was as quiet and shy as her mother had been, feeling perfectly at ease to sit with Luca and himself in the library all day drawing pictures and writing stories, instead of going out to play.

"Papa?" There she was again, sticking her curly head around the door.

"Yes, my sweet?"

"There is a letter from Céline...can I come read it to you and Luca? Maman has already, and Aurora and Matteo..." Clearly she missed someone to talk to.

"Of course you can, close the door behind you then." Signaling Luca to drop his pen for a while and show interest, he pulled the little girl onto his lap as she started to unfold the letter:

"Dear papa and maman and my dear siblings,

I am happy to tell you this shall be my last letter to you before commencing my journey back to Venice.I have been away from you all for far too long, and can of course not find it in my heart to miss Aurora's debut at the Opera House! Paris is very cold and dreary and I long to feel the warmth of Venice again. So I shall travel from my roots once more and bore you for days on end with tales of my adventures."

"This next part she writes I should better not tell you, but mama said I could and Céline is just being silly." A serious frown on her little face as she continued to decypher her older sister's elegant handwriting:

"Perhaps you would be wise as to not yet inform papa of my travelling companion. He is my dear Roger, coming to meet you all. Rest assured maman, that my uncle shall be travelling with us on his way to the Orient, therefor our journey shall be perfectly acceptable. But you know how papa can be in such matters and I fear him leaving you all this instant to travel ahead for fear of what might become of my virtue."

Looking up he could see the smirk on Luca's face broadening, but the boy was wise enough to say nothing of his sister's jest, which held quite a lot of truth in it.

"Roger's mother has, on many occasions, expressed a desire to meet with you all, but I explained to her how our different careers and schedules, as well as Giulia's tender age, might prevent you all from coming."

"Does she mean I am too young to travel to Paris, papa?" She sounded quite dissapointed.

"There are many matters keeping us from travelling to Paris, ma chère. I think Céline is just using you as an excuse to Monsieur Roger's mother. Don't worry your pretty head about it." He could hardly tell them of his dark past now, could he? Although after almost twenty five years, who would remember the Opera Ghost?

"If heaven, and the weather for that matter, look kindly upon our travels, I shall arrive around the second week of April thus allowing me to be in time for Aurora's birthday. Please know that till then, you are all in my heart and my prayers and I long to hold you near again!

Your most affectionate daughter and sister,

Céline Alighieri."

"That's a pretty letter, is it not papa?"Giulia sighed and twisted her little hands in admiration. "I wish I would have such a pretty hand one day!"

"Oh, but you shall little midget. And if not, father and I shall teach you!"

Giulia frowned at Luca: "I am not a midget!"

Erik rolled his eyes, afraid another outburst would start until Luca quickly assigned Giulia to some writing assignment to help her on her way, and the library once again fell into utter bliss.