A/N: Happy holidays, readers. Thank you for finding my story.


Snow flurried through the mid-December air and Meg hugged herself tightly as she traversed the way to the underground entrance on the Rue Scribe; her stomach flip flopping so hard she thought it might burst.

"What am I doing out here?" she muttered, ducking into the short alleyway that would take her to Erik; she hoped.

Meg hurried down the path in the darkness, skittering on a patch of ice and sliding into the wall. Stepping back, she groaned; she took a moment to glance down, careful of any more ice but she didn't notice any. The gate to the Opera House's sub-basements stood before her, cold and imposing.

"Just like Erik." Meg took a deep breath. "All right, Giry, you can do this." She reached out and turned the handle. The mechanism moved smoothly but when she tried to pull it open, she met resistance. Meg pulled harder but it would not open; she squinted at the darkness on the other side of the bars and noticed it was locked from the inside, with a thick chain and heavy padlock.

"How am I supposed to make things right if you lock me out?" Meg kicked at the gate with a grunt of frustration. She leaned against the cold iron and tried to collect her thoughts. "All right, new plan."

Meg returned to the Rue Scribe, careful not to slip again and actually do lasting damage. She scanned the sparsely populated boulevard and made her way around the building, eventually arriving at the stage door.

"The one door I do have a key to." Meg tried the door first and found it unlocked. It wasn't too surprising; it was still evening and the crews would still be working to prepare for the holiday gala performance.

She stepped into the familiar hallway that spidered off into a maze of dressing rooms, costume rooms and tool storage; nooks and crannies that were as familiar to her as her reflection, she could find her way around blindfolded, more or less. Meg wandered slowly, running her fingers over the worn walls and woodwork. The sound of distant hammering assailed her ears, stage hands finishing up something or the other; even so, it was unnaturally still in the hallways. Most of Meg's life had been spent in them, surrounded by the chaos of performers and stagehands rushing around. It was unnerving; but, easier to wander and inspect innocuous walls in her quest for hidden mechanisms that would reveal a way down. Failing that, she would have to find a lantern and scour the lower levels. She couldn't recall the precise route she'd taken that first time, ten years ago; too much had happened, there had been too much panic. Those memories were filled with darkness and the slow drip of close by water; and Erik tending to her sprained ankle.

"You should give up, little Giry and go home to maman. This is a fool's errand." She murmured. Erik would've certainly agreed with that statement and perhaps she should go home. If he'd wanted to see her, to speak with her, he would've already; it'd been at least two months and he had not, there hadn't even been evidence of his pranks in the opera house. Erik had very likely gone back to New York.

"You'd better not be gone. I need to see you, to apologize for how I reacted and," Meg stopped to inspect a particularly suspicious looking light fixture. "For running when I should have stayed. I didn't and I desperately wish I had." The light fixture checked out as completely ordinary and she moved on, passing her dressing room and the manager's office on the way to the auditorium. She earnestly hoped that Desjardins had gone home for the night. He was a complication Meg did not need.

The loud voices joined the loud hammering as Meg slipped into the wings. She stepped into a darkened corner and watched for a few minutes while the painters and carpenters were putting the final touches on the Christmas flats. Her toes curled inside thick boots, itching to dance.

"Not now!" her inner voice rebuked. But Meg couldn't help herself; it was the most magical performance of the season and though the material had been essentially the same since she was a young girl, the creative team had always done their best to freshen it up every year. After the Opera Populaire gave way to the present ballet company, they brought in singers from another company just for Christmas. Meg smiled dreamily; it was her favourite performance of the year.

"Snap out of it, Giry. No time for daydreaming." She chided aloud and resumed her search, running her fingers over the concrete for anything that might be deemed suspicious. No one had taken notice of her; the men were too busy and absorbed in their ribald conversation to register much else. Finding nothing in the stage left wings, Meg drifted slowly through the crossover, the legs weren't hung yet and her gaze moved upward, eyeing the outline of the catwalks in the darkness above.

"Are you up there, Erik? Are you watching my fruitless searching and laughing?"

Meg poked through a corner of dark, empty shelves where the props often lived between performances. She was losing hope of finding a quick passage from the auditorium level, though she was certain there were several. There were the trap doors in the stage, that was how Erik had taken Christine in the middle of the debut of his opera; but, everyone knew about those. Meg tapped her foot lightly on the floorboards, making her way from the prop corner and past the counterweights, listening for a hollow sound instead of the dull thud of her boot.

"This is a waste of time." Meg sighed and sagged against the wall. She would just have to start in the cellars next time; it was getting late and she needed to get home to check on her mother. "If I can find the way down to the bottom, Erik, we can start again. If you'll let me."

"Mademoiselle?"

Meg nearly jumped out of her skin. Shiny and clammy Desjardins stood right next to her, leering openly.

"Where the hell did he come from?"

"Monsieur! What are you doing here?" Meg hopped to the side in an attempt to put some distance between them; but, Desjardins had little sense of personal space and he advanced again. "Little sense in general." Her inner monologue contributed.

"I might ask you the same thing."

"You might ask that, but are you?" she quipped and took a casual step toward the proscenium line where the painters were still briskly working.

Monsieur Desjardins scowled and crossed his arms. "Well?" His wiry eyebrow arched, punctuating the annoyance in his voice.

"My hat pins fell out of my rehearsal bag this morning, I came back to look for them." Meg tried not to wince; the excuse sounded lame even to her own ears. "However, I have not found them so if you will excuse me, I must be getting back to my maman." She took advantage of his momentary pause, spun on her heel and left; striding across the apron to stage left and into the hallway she had come from. Desjardins began to follow her, to Meg's incredible dismay and she turned an abrupt corner into the hall that ran past the scene shop, deciding to take a more circuitous route to the backstage exit. He was not far behind and he didn't make any secret of it; he was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. His footfalls sounded like thunder in her ears.

"Mademoiselle!" Desjardins called, rounding the corner as she disappeared into the scene shop's office.

"I'll cut through here. There's another door near that broom closet."

"Marguerite!" Desjardins panted, bursting into the office as Meg found another door and yet another nondescript hallway, full of yet more doors. "Playing hard to get are we? I do love a good game of chase."

"No no no no no!"

Meg bolted away from the scene shop, tugging desperately at the clasp of her mother's winter cloak, once so warm and cozy but now a hot and sweaty hindrance.

"Please monsieur, leave me alone." Meg dashed around another corner and then another; she realized she was doubling back towards the stage. That hadn't been her goal but if there were still people working there, it could give her enough space to make her exit. Thinking Desjardins was still lagging a bit behind, her fatal error was in pausing to catch her breath.

"Please, mademoiselle." His damp hand clamped down on her shoulder, startling her; she hadn't heard him approach and she cursed herself mightily.

"I am not interested!" Meg shrieked.

"I think perhaps the lady doth protest too much." He stepped closer, pushing Meg against the wall. "Wouldn't you like to give your poor, dear maman the peace of mind of her daughter being settled before she dies?"

"Do not speak of my maman." Meg spat, trying to wriggle out of his clammy grip. "My status in life is none of your concern."

"My dancers are my concern." He threw his weight into her, crushing her further into the wall and giving her nowhere to go.

"I do not belong to you, monsieur, none of us do. It is not your ballet company." She shoved at his chest with all of her might but to no effect other than fanning his ardor further with her struggle. Desjardins thrust his fat hands into the fabric of her dress and ripped; he grabbed at her breasts and squeezed them hard. Meg shrieked again, hoping the painters or anyone would hear her.

"No one can hear you, little slut." He hissed, a mere inch from her face, his breath was hot and stale and heavy with onions. Meg fought back the bile rising in her throat and twisted wildly to get away. Finally she was able to shift her leg and she drove her knee upward, hard into his crotch. With a strangled cry, Desjardins released her immediately and dropped to his knees.

"You bitch." He gasped as Meg took off running, back the way she had come in or so she thought; but she was already tired from running and fighting. Meg stumbled more than ran back through the maze, finding no sign of the exit or the stage.

"No." she whispered, the panic drove into her lungs and she staggered around another corner desperate for a deep breath. Desjardins had recovered himself and was in pursuit again; far more furious than amorous.

Meg grabbed the nearest doorknob and prepared to launch herself into whatever laid beyond the door; but, it was locked.

"No!" Meg kicked the unyielding door. She hurried from door to door, frantically trying every knob she passed; they were all locked. The final door was her last hope; she bit into her bottom lip, the pain focusing her thoughts for just a moment; she reached for the cool brass of the knob with her slick fingers. Locked. There were no more hallways to run down and no hiding places she could find. It was a dead end and she was trapped.

"No no no no no no.."

Meg slumped against the wall, gasping for breath, damp with sweat and the tang of blood on her tongue; she futilely tried to close the ripped bodice to cover herself.

"Damn you, Erik." She croaked, blinking back tears. "Damn you; and damn me for coming to look for you."

The floorboards rumbled with Desjardin's heavy and hurried steps. He was very close, a mere minute away from his quarry. With shaking hands, Meg tried the last door one more time, praying for a miracle that some otherworldly power would see her desperation and the door would open. But Meg had never been very religious and the door was still locked. There would be no miracles for her tonight; perhaps not ever.

She whimpered and fell back against the wall.

"Calm down, little Meg." She told herself soothingly; if this was how it would be then she would go to her happy place; the little corner of her mind where the lights were bright and the auditorium was dark and she could spin and leap without tiring. Meg squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that were coming fast, focusing on her fantasy and adding something new: the tall, black clad wraith playing his ebony violin, swaying with the notes and urging the dance on.

She could hear the clinking of the coins in Desjardins pocket; he was almost there. Her shoulders sagged and a hot tear splashed her hand.

"I am so sorry, maman." Meg wanted nothing more in that moment than her mother, stern and unbending as she had been; as she still was even in her disease ravaged state.

Click!

Meg snapped to attention and then the wall dropped out from behind her and she was weightless, falling backward into darkness.