A/N: I'm sorry for the late update. Life, y'know?

Now, who's ready for some aaaaaaangst?

He hated to admit it, even if it was only to himself, but after the dead-end investigation into Jack Starkov and the wholly unrelated incident with Christine, Erik had come up short on leads.

His nightly patrols, while to the benefit of his own paltry mental health, hadn't borne much by way of information. He'd eavesdrop on students and professors alike whenever he got the chance, but with most of the school so focused on midterms, it was difficult to glean information about any sordid dealings.

Which brought him back to square one: return to ground.

Despite his penchant for it, burrowing himself away from the world with his technology didn't hold the allure that it once did. Staring at the four walls of his little lair and the collection of screens surrounding him, he felt resentment building. He had been given a taste of life, of being among other people who didn't revile him. A possibility of a future where he might one day belong.

And he'd likely decimated it in the span of a single conversation.

He didn't want to think about that, so he buried himself in work. He would dive back into his research, studying every angle, tugging on any lead, however miniscule. It would keep Nadir off his back, and as he was currently avoiding that man like the plague, the hours of tedium could only work out in his favor.

He had followed up on the information Giry had given him weeks ago and it had proven interesting. Transactions passed through Cartier in such a muddled heap, it was difficult to pinpoint anything that could be suspicious, but Erik had enough experience in these matters to know what to look for.

Some days ago, a donation had been made to the Theater Force, a non-profit organization affiliated with the College of Drama. It had been founded by two former professors of the conservatory, who had since left the school. The organization had continued to work closely with Cartier thereafter, as was apparent by the presence of current professors on the nonprofits board of directors. The financial history had shown that the recent donation was one of the highest the college had received in the last five years, and as the school year had only just started and no large fundraising push was currently underway, it appeared out of place. Ordinarily, Erik would trace the source of the donation, but in this case, he was more interested in finding out just who would be on the receiving end.

He had expected some level of subtlety, but after some digging, it had ended up being laughingly obvious. It was all too apparent that whomever had been charged with this illegal transfer of money, they had bungled the job. More likely, they had done so thinking they would not be noticed.

The donated amount had been transferred over almost immediately after arrival, and in the exact amount. This signalled to Erik that the receiver knew precisely when the amount was coming. What was troubling was that it meant that the person receiving these funds had secured the confidence of an individual working in the Finance office to do their dirty work at a moment's notice, whether by agreement or by threat. He knew that Giry had a friend in that office. This person wouldn't have been able to come by this information without selling out their colleague. It could put Giry's friend in danger of discovery, and without solid proof, Erik wasn't sure he wanted to tug on that string just yet.

But he could do what he did best, which was to stick to the shadows and watch.

And he was certainly good at that.

This thought coincided with movement from out of the corner of his eye. He looked up at the screen furthest to his right and paused.

It was the feed of one of the cameras Erik had installed outside of the Drama department. The fleet of cameras at the school was woefully underwhelming, especially when coupled with the fact that they had been all too easy to commandeer for his own purposes. It was inevitable, then, that he'd have to install a good deal of cameras of his own, well-concealed yet highly sophisticated, in order to keep comprehensive tabs on the school.

The person on camera all but confirmed that this corner of campus was ordinarily unmonitored.

He flicked a few buttons casually on his keyboard to zoom in closer, watching with undisguised disgust. He was unable to look away, as dearly as he wished to.

He wouldn't be able to cross campus in the time he would need to stop the horror that was taking place, but he would make sure that it wouldn't happen again. Just as soon as they turned around…

There. Got you.

Erik smiled grimly, that familiar tingling sensation of anticipation crawling up his spine.

He would pause what he had been doing before this - it would keep. But this new development would not.

Perhaps The Ghost was some kind of vigilante, as some were saying.

He certainly relished the idea of meting out a bit of justice.

"You don't think he would cheat on her, do you?"

"Oh, no way! Andrea is probably just pandering to Cara, like always. Cara's got him wrapped around her pinkie finger!"

"Wonder what that must be like!"

A flurry of giggles rang out for the umpteenth time that evening. Christine glared at the door to her bedroom as if it were the thing disrupting her study time, and not the shrieking gaggle of girls on the other side of it.

Christine loved Meg dearly, but she couldn't understand how she could have the audacity to have friends over on a school night the week before midterms.

Despite the fact that the Dance College didn't seem to have actual tests during midterms (which was completely unfair, in Christine's opinion), they did have some type of practical examination. Meg had made an allusion to early mornings and countless hours of practice leading up to it.

Which, in theory, meant they shouldn't have the leisure to gossip at 9:00 at night.

She slammed her textbook shut and decided to call it. She wasn't likely to retain any more information that evening with her mood being as sour as it was.

The thought occurred to her that she could spend a little productive time looking over the song choices Erik had emailed her the other day, but seeing as she was still angry with him, she didn't believe it would do her mood much good.

She idly picked up her phone and started scrolling through her text messages. Her text chain with Raoul was woefully quiet, she noted with some disappointment. Perhaps it wouldn't be too late to give him a call and coax him into some gentle conversation as a reward for all their combined hard work at school.

She slipped quietly out of her room, hoping not to draw any attention to herself. Thankfully, the three girls sitting at their small living room table were engrossed by something on Jamie's phone, and were all huddled around her. She hastily tip-toed out the door without anyone being the wiser.

Taking off in a random direction that led towards the heart of campus, she touched on Raoul's contact number and put the phone to her ear. Three, four, five rings went by without him picking up. She frowned just as his voicemail box message came up, and quickly ended the call. She hated leaving messages. It felt too depressing. In any case, he would see she had called, and if he had the time to tonight, he would either call her back, or text her to say he was busy.

She decided to meander around campus until she knew one way or the other. It was better than going back to her dorm and potentially throttling three dance majors, anyways.

She fiddled with her phone as she walked, resisting the urge to look down at the screen every thirty seconds or so in case she missed an incoming message. As she watched some students walk by in clumps, she felt loneliness poke at her. Some dark, unkind piece of her twisted with every passing minute that Raoul didn't return her call, but her higher self knew that she couldn't expect him to be at her beck and call.

The solitude she had come to know in the time since her father had passed should have made her better at being alone, but time with Raoul and with the friends she had made at school had made the time she spent alone a little less bearable. She knew deep down that it wasn't healthy to hate being alone, but in these moments of quiet, without someone to speak to when the need felt so pressing, she was difficult to tolerate.

There was one person she could reach out to, someone she felt, on an intrinsic level, would answer her call, no matter the time of day.

You are angry with him, she reminded herself.

She didn't want to be, especially now, but she knew it was important to stand her ground in this.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. A piece of wisdom her father had once imparted on her.

It was good advice, of course. She just wished it didn't mean putting her at odds with someone she cared about.

She turned a corner and halted abruptly. Some short distance away she could see two people struggling, the telltale sounds of a brawl breaking out into the night. A quick glimpse around told her that no one was near to witness this aside from her.

Dread pooled in her belly. She didn't want to get involved, but it was becoming more and more clear that one person was doling out the beating, and the other was taking it. If she continued to hesitate, one person could be on the ground in a matter of seconds.

Her father's words rang through her head once more.

If you don't stand for something...

She punched three numbers into her phone and placed the call. She didn't bother to bring the phone to her ear. Instead, she held it high in the air, brandishing it to the two people bloodying each other before her.

"Hey! You better stop! I'm calling the po-lice…"

At her words, two men turned towards her. They were easier to see now that she had gotten closer. One of them was Professor Mulaney. She had taken his class last fall. He looked at her from out of two swelling eyes, swallowing against a dark halo peeking out from beneath his crumpled collar. The other was…

"Erik?" she choked.

He abruptly dropped Professor Mulaney, who fell to the ground in a heap. Blood was dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.

"Hello? Hello, miss? What's going on there? Hello?"

The tinny voice of the emergency operator brought Christine back to herself. Without quite knowing why she did it, she ended the call on her cell phone. She quickly looked back up at Erik, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

"Christine, get out of here," Erik intoned darkly, his gaze focused on the man on the ground.

"Why? Are you going to kill him?" she blurted out.

He did not answer.

"Erik!" she practically screamed.

The muted light from the overhead lamps bounced off his masked face. "Keep quiet!" he hissed at her. He looked back and forth between her and Professor Mulaney, seeming to come to some quick decision. He crouched down towards the man on the ground, grabbing him by the shirt collar and whispering darkly into his face. "Try any of that again, or mention this encounter to anyone, and I will make certain to continue the work I've done this night." He rattled him once for good measure. "Do you understand?"

The professor quickly nodded, hearty sobs pouring out of his mouth. He scrambled away and into the night, barely able to keep his feet under him.

Erik regained his stance and quickly moved towards her. Fear drowned her at his approach, violence still heavy in the set of Erik's shoulders.

She drew back from him, but not quickly enough. He grabbed her arm hastily, pulling her into the shadows and away from the damning campus lights.

She struggled to pull away, but he held her tightly. Panic began to well up, thick and hot, and she felt tears of her own pool in her eyes.

"Let me go! Let me - let me go…" She started to cry in earnest.

"I am not going to hurt you," he said impatiently, continuing to hold onto her. "Calm yourself."

She didn't calm. "You - you were attacking a professor! Why would you do that?! Why-"

Erik scoffed. "He is vile trash and I would be doing the world a favor to rid it of him."

His cold voice shook her to the core. "This is - I can't -" She felt that breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Her chest was moving in rapid succession with each attempt to take in a breath, but it was not enough. Her vision started to swim.

Erik loosened his grip, but did not let go. "Christine. Christine, listen to me." Erik's melodious voice, cool as satin and twice as light, spoke to her from above. She dimly recognized the feeling of a hand pressing upon the small of her back. "Breathe. Remember what you've been taught. Use your diagram. Slowly in, count of four. Hold for four. Out for seven."

She tried to do as he asked. She really did. But all she could think about was Professor Mulaney's bloody and prone body on the ground.

Erik's dark figure filled her vision, and before she could count again, everything went dark.

She came back to consciousness with groggy awareness, feeling as though only seconds had passed between conscious thought, nothing, and the return to conscious thought. She opened her eyes blearily to a view of a dark ceiling hanging low above her. She rose to a sitting position slowly, blinking heavily as she took stock of her environment.

She was laying on a hard twin bed covered in dark sheets. There was a single, flat pillow on the bed, also black. She was in a dark room, surrounded by three bare walls with no windows, and some kind of partition behind the bed that seemed to lead to another part of the room. To her immediate right sat a slumped-over, dark figure that immediately twitched as soon as her eyes landed on them. She, too, jumped in response.

"Christine," said the voice of her teacher.

She swallowed, rubbing her eyes like a windshield wiper, back and forth.

He was sitting with his back to a desk of cold monitors. His chair was not very far away, and if he wanted to, could probably reach out and restrain her upon the bed. She eyed the door to Erik's left apprehensively.

She looked back at him, trying to keep her expression neutral. "What happened?"

"You fainted." His voice was curt.

She nodded slowly. "Professor Mulaney?" she asked, carefully, dread lining her stomach.

Erik straightened his shoulders the tiniest bit. "I do not know of his whereabouts. And I cannot say that I care."

He stood abruptly and Christine nearly leapt back. He noticed this, and seemed to freeze on the spot. They eyed each other wearily, neither knowing what the other's intentions were.

After a few seconds of indecision, Erik began to move again, slower this time. He retrieved a cup and saucer from the desk behind him and approached, holding it out to her. She eyed it hesitantly.

"Tea," he said, a bit imperiously. She could hear that her hesitation was offending him. She hastily took the cup.

"Thank you," she said slowly, looking down to see that it was, as he said, tea. She looked up to see him watching her impatiently.

"Drink it," he demanded.

She sighed, but decided to comply. If he had meant to extend her any harm, he would have done so while she was unconscious.

She took a quick sip and lowered the cup back into the saucer with a clatter. "Why were you attacking Professor Mulaney, Erik? And where am I?" she tacked on, glancing around.

Erik lowered himself to sit back down in his computer chair. He sighed a little, and even in her discomfort, the sound was beautiful to her ears. "The easiest question first, I think. We are in Johnson Hall."

"But Johnson Hall is closed for renovations," she replied, confused.

He nodded. "You are correct. That is precisely why it works for my purposes. I am staying here, out of sight and out of the way of anyone's notice."

She took another sip. Her mouth felt dry. "Why?"

"The answer to that relates to what you saw tonight."

"You mean when I saw you assault a professor," she said, her voice accusatory.

He made an impatient noise in the back of his throat. "I did not assault him."

"It looked that way to me," she muttered.

Erik's gloved hands clenched in his lap. "Fine. I did assault him. But I would have you know, lest it taint what I'm sure is a spotless opinion of my person, that he very much deserved the thrashing. And while your mind may have conjured up all sorts of delightfully macabre versions of this night, I did not, in fact, mortally wound the man." He paused. "Though, I dearly wished to," he added quietly.

"But why?" Christine cried. "Erik, I don't understand! You're squatting in a building illegally, you attacked an innocent man in the middle of the night...are you moonlighting as Batman, or something?"

He scoffed. "Really, Christine. Batman? How pedestrian."

She clenched her jaw. "Fine." She shoved the cup back into his hands. "I'm leaving." She made to get up, but was quickly stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She froze.

At the feeling of her tense shoulder, he swiftly removed his hand. "Wait, please." His voice was strained. She looked at him wildly, never having heard him use the word 'please' before. "Do not be frightened of me," he said softly, almost as though he was a child who was afraid of reprimand.

She stared at him in apprehension, hardly knowing what she should do.

He cursed softly under his breath, dragging a hand across the exposed portion of his mouth. "Give me a chance to explain. After that, you are more than free to leave me."

She wanted to refuse, but his vulnerability in this moment prevented her. She nodded.

He slowly sat back down, and she did the same.

"I have not told you anything about myself on purpose, Christine, for two specific reasons," he started. "The first is simple enough. I am not a man disposed to explaining myself, or sharing intimate details. But I can tell you this." He gestured to himself. "I work alone. I always have done. I do not submit to anyone's authority save my own, and I am not easy to get along with. If I had any friends, I'm sure they would tell you the same."

"You have Nadir," she interrupted.

He pursed his malformed, pale lips. "Nadir. Yes. I suppose."

"And me, I guess," she said quietly, looking down at her lap.

He was silent for a moment. She felt too confused to look at him then, so she suffered the silence until he spoke again.

"The second reason," he continued, as though she hadn't spoken at all, "Has to do with the reason I am here at Cartier. The real reason," he added quietly.

He folded his long fingers in front of him. "I have been tasked - coerced, more accurately - into investigating Cartier in the hopes of discovering any existing or future ties to terrorist activities."

Christine put a hand over her mouth. It was the last thing she had expected Erik to say. She shook her head, lowering her hand after a moment. "Terrorist activities? Here?"

He nodded. "I am afraid so. Your government has reason to believe that someone might hope to take advantage of the, ah, special relationships between students and the Washington elite that seem to form here."

Christine ignored his mention of her government. "You mean someone might try to weasel their way into Cartier by having some unsuspecting student act as a spy?" She could hear the disbelief in her own voice.

"It is not so outside the realm of possibility, Christine," Erik replied impatiently. "The reputation of this school exists for a reason. You cannot be so naive as to not see what goes on between students and politicians. How each profits off of the other, in one way or another." His tone darkened. "Not all that glitters is gold, as they say."

She could not argue with him on that point, but neither could she help resenting his mentioning her naivete. "I'll thank you not to assume anything concerning how naive I may or may not be, Erik. I may not be a secret government agent, but I have eyes and a brain."

He bowed his head. "I apologize."

She crossed her arms over her chest, testiness replacing her earlier fear and shock. "But you do work for the government?"

"Nadir does. I...freelance."

She frowned. "The man who was following me…"

"Ah yes. Him." Erik sighed. "A field agent."

She leaned forward. "Why was he following me?"

Erik put his hands on his thighs, his fingers bunching ever so slightly. "He was put on assignment to watch you. An assignment that was requested by Nadir."

Christine furrowed her brow. She opened her mouth, but Erik hastened to continue.

"Not long after we first began working together," he said with a graceful wave between them, "Nadir discovered our arrangement. Lo and behold, that meddling fool was less than pleased that I seemed to take an interest in something outside of the banal and frankly underwhelming job the FBI had given us. I may have mentioned my inability to deal with authority?"

Christine shook her head. "But why would he be upset about our arrangement? Why would he care?"

Erik's head lowered infinitesimally to his chest. "It is a truth of our...friendship, I believe you said, that I give the man endless amounts of grief and he always assumes the worst of me." He spread his hands out. "I did not lie when I said I had a chequered past, Christine. It would be unfair and untrue to say that I have not given Nadir reasons to mistrust my intentions in the past." He worked his jaw, his voice chaotic. "I suppose I had foolishly hoped his opinion of me was higher."

She felt a pang at his words. He wouldn't meet her eyes, and she did not like that. On a whim, she reached out and gently touched the back of his naked hand. His skin was cool to the touch. She ducked her head to try and draw his eyes. "Your anger at him is justified, I think," she murmured.

He reluctantly looked up, gazing at her wordlessly. She saw a mix of profound emotion in his eyes, but couldn't begin to decipher what it all meant. She removed her hand from his flesh before she could let her sympathy wash the night away entirely.

She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. She was determined they would completely have it out. "Are you going to tell me about Profesor Mulaney?"

"I can."

"You will," she said firmly. "Because, I'm sorry Erik, your word can only go so far here. You've misled me."

He nodded. "I know this." He turned around in his chair and gave her his back, pressing a key on the keyboard. Immediately the five monitors around him lit up. Christine squinted at the sudden light.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," Erik mused, using the mouse to pull up a screen that had been minimized. "And I have a video."

He pressed the play button, and a scene began to unfold before her eyes. A figure with the gait and slightly grainy appearance of Professor Mulaney was approaching a figure who stood huddled against the wall of the Drama Department. The figure was much smaller, and hunched into themselves. They made a hasty move to walk away, but the professor stopped them with a swift, hard pull of their arm that jolted them back against the wall. Christine gasped audibly, and Erik immediately looked at her over his shoulder. She ignored him, and continued to watch.

The other figure lowered their face into their chest and tried to press themselves into the wall, but he did not allow this. The professor grabbed the end of the long, brown ponytail the other person had and gave it a hard yank, forcing their chin up. His hands made purchase on the other person, bunching in their clothes before fumbling underneath them -

"This was recorded the night before," Erik interrupted quietly, pausing the video. "I had chanced upon it while I was here and knew I couldn't do anything about it. But tonight, I did."

"Did you stop it?" Christine asked, her voice oddly hollow to her own ears.

"Not soon enough, I'm afraid," he whispered.

She felt she might be sick. It was impossible to tell who the student was, but perhaps Erik knew. Perhaps he could find a way to make this better…

"So you punished him for it."

Erik turned back around in his seat. He looked up at her, his golden eyes trapping the computer's light in the holes of the mask. "Do you condemn me for it, Christine? Think me evil?"

She shook her head slowly. "I don't think any of this is black and white."

He gazed back at her solemnly. "I don't think so, either."

She looked back at the screen for a moment and shuddered. "He knows you know."

"Yes."

"He'll get lawyers."

"That is his right."

Christine released a harsh breath. "He deserved that beating you gave him. Maybe you should have let him die." She sat back down on the bed stonily.

He looked at her evenly. He let the moment breathe before he quietly replied. "You don't mean that."

She closed her eyes, her throat welling up with emotion. "I wish you hadn't shown me that."

"I'm sorry."

She opened her eyes. "You'll do something about it? Send it to Nadir, or whoever needs to see it."

He nodded.

"Good." She hugged herself. "I'd like to go home now."

She stood up, and Erik mirrored her. His hands quickly moved to turn off the screens, bathing them in darkness once again. "Christine, I…"

She looked up at him.

He sighed. "I've ruined everything, haven't I?"

A heaviness rose within her. She despaired at those words, couldn't breathe around them, and yet…

"I think I need some time," she said at last.

"Time," he repeated.

"Yes."

"Very well." He rose to his full height. "I'll walk you back to your dorm."

"You don't have to-"

"I will not move on this," he said, sternly.

She nodded, and he led her out of the room.

A/N: She knows! She knows! Man, what a relief. Now we can get to the good stuff. And I mean, the GOOD stuff. At least, I think it's good. Heh.

I might take another small hiatus to work on some original stuff. This is NanoWrimo Camp Month, and I've got a ways to go to getting my first draft of my novel completed. I actually paused writing my novel to get back into this fanfic. Apparently I can only work on one project at a time.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Thanks!