Authors Note: Thanks once again to Soignante, Mildetryth and Busanda. All my other readers might want to thank them as well. We cleared 20 reviews, so here's Chapter 10 as promised. You guys are brilliant! I might have to up the review targets at this rate, or I'll run out of chapters. Thanks, and enjoy! Nedjmet

Disclaimer: The characters and plotline of the Phantom of the Opera on which this story is based are – to the best of my knowledge – the property of Gaston Leroux and Andrew Lloyd Webber. No infringement of copyright is intended nor is this story written for profit as I have the greatest respect for their work.

Chapter 10

"You told her."

Antoinette didn't have to ask. Even if Meg wasn't an open book when it came to secrets that involved disobeying her mother, Antoinette still knew her daughter too well to have even thought otherwise.

"She needed to know." She replied, walking past her mother and up to her room.

"She needs to be in a place where she can start to heal."

"It's not a hospital and she's had enough of those anyway." Meg flung her coat onto her bed to emphasise the point.

"That is not what I am speaking of and if you weren't so determined to flout my judgement, you would see that."

"How can you let her stay in that house, Maman? How can you let her stay in his house?"

Antoinette moved quietly and – in spite of her cane – with the grace of a true ballerina over to Meg's coat and hung it up, knowing full well it would end up on the floor otherwise. It also gave time for her fuming daughter to simmer down enough to listen for more than five seconds.

"First of all, that house is exactly what she was looking for. She required solitude and privacy beyond that which the school dormitories allowed," Meg smirked inwardly at her mother's old fashioned view of the halls of residence – it was so typical of her, "and beyond what we could provide."

This last point was made with a knowing look. Meg flinched a little, knowing all too well how much of her company she had pressed upon Christine in an attempt to raise her spirits. It wasn't until she'd moved out that the realisation had dawned that perhaps that wasn't the right approach for someone so quiet around all save those she had lost.

"Secondly, I am not letting her stay there. You know it would not be my place. I merely gave my approval."

"So it is his house!" exclaimed Meg, triumphantly.

"Child, before you crow too loudly, you would do well to remember that silence is the more prudent course when dealing with those who tend to hear all."

This served to subdue Meg enough that she didn't dance around her room. Instead she perched herself on the end of her bed. Antoinette joined her and began brushing her daughter's hair from her face before continuing to stroke it a little.

"You think I don't know of your curiosity, Marguerite? I know you wonder as I read the notes. I know you have tried to follow me with them. I know you saw me with his salary five months ago. And you know as well as I who claims that house as their own."

Meg looked at her mother startled. Moments as intimate as this between them were rare and highly valued. It was when all the barriers came down, and Madame Giry was a mother instead of a teacher, and it was when Meg was Marguerite, her daughter.

"Why did you arrange it? Why there? If anything happens to her-"

"Do you think I would allow Christine to live anywhere that would put her in harm's way? It was no easy thing to arrange, but she is in no danger there, of that I am certain."

"How can you be sure? I've seen-"

"You have seen carelessness and heard the gossip of the other ballerinas. Christine is safe, no matter what you believe. I would not allow her to remain there alone if I thought otherwise."

"Yes, Maman."

"How did she react?"

"She seemed afraid when I told her whose house it was. But then she thought about it and she seemed . . . happy?"

"Happy? She has barely smiled these last months."

"I think she was worried about her place, along with everything else. She smiled quite a few times tonight."

Meg's voice broke on the latter sentence, as tears welled up in the ballet mistress' usually stoic demeanour.

"What did she say?"

"That it made sense. It was a man's house, filled with music that nobody ever came near. And that he was letting her stay."

"What?"

"I know, I didn't get it either. But she hadn't heard anything about him until tonight, so he can't object to her being there, and she thinks that because no one goes there, he's keeping them away – he's giving her solitude."

"She may be reading a little too much into that, but certainly his lack of presence is promising."

"Maman?"

"Enough. She is safe and will continue to be so. I trust I do not have to tell you not to speak of this."

"No, Maman."

For all of her curiosity, Meg was not one to go about inviting the wrath of the Opera Ghost on her own head. Besides, if she kept things to herself, perhaps this conversation would be the first of many when she would be taken into her mother's confidence on the matter.

"You say she was happy?" Meg nodded. "You did well tonight, child. There are few now who have the talent to make her smile as you do."

It was Meg's turn for tears to brim. It was rare for her mother to so openly praise anyone, and there were few compliments she had ever treasured more than the one she gave now.

"Oh, and Meg?"

"Yes, Maman?"

"I expect you to put an extra thirty minutes on your jog tomorrow. I noticed a tub of ice cream was gone from the freezer."

"Maman!"

"Unless you would like me to make it an hour? I happen to know that one of my cupboards is a little too empty as well."

"No, Maman. Thirty minutes."

Antoinette nodded and left her daughter to rest. She'd need to be up early. Her run before class was already an hour and a half as it was. Ordinarily, it would have been a full hour extra for something like that, but today had been no ordinary day. She was not so soft as to forgo the extra exercise altogether, a dancer's body needed to be much more disciplined than that! Oh for the days when such things as ice cream were a luxury, and disciplining one's body for dance was as natural as breathing. . .