Author's Note: I am so sorry I didn't update yesterday. I'm not sure if it was my computer or or both being obnoxious, but for some reason I wasn't allowed to upload any new chapters. Anyway, here's yesterday's chapter. Hope it answers a few questions that were being asked.

Thanks again to Spectralprincess, Busanda, steelelf, Squealing Lit. Fan, WindPhoenix, Shayril, Lady Winifred, Soignante, mildetryth, Rose of Night and osdfnsdaf for their latest reviews. 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 22

He had gone straight back to the house, wanting to see her again – wanting to hear her again.

It was quite some time before she returned, by which point his patience had gone. He almost threw all caution to the wind in his temptation to march up to her and demand that she explain her absence, and why she had surrounded him with silence once more. He was stopped, however, by the tear tracks that ran down her face – the side that he could see anyway. She stood with her back leaning against the door – a favoured stance of hers, it seemed – and let the droplets fall. Had breaking her silence cost her so much?

He watched as she wept, and was once more shocked at his reaction: that he wanted to wipe the tears away; that he wanted to comfort her.

This child, no matter how innocent, truly was dangerous. Not only had she disrupted part of his home, not only had she – a student! – entered into correspondence with the Opera Ghost, but she was turning said Ghost – the terror of the Ravelle, both students and staff alike – into a sentimental . . . man! After all his years of firmly establishing himself as a phantom; she, in a few short weeks, had managed to begin re-humanising him. What would her continuing presence in his home do? He paused this train of thought: whatever it would do, it surely could not be worse than her absence.

A conclusion which was fully supported when she began to sing again. First warm-ups, then exercises, but not any that he had heard taught at the Ravelle. The methods she used – whilst not quite perfect – were nevertheless excellent for preparing a voice. Her father had taught her to sing? No wonder she had managed to perform so beautifully in spite of her silence, if this was her technique.

She continued in this pattern for quite some time: never straining her voice, only strengthening it; always taking breaks at the correct intervals. Hour after hour this went on. Granted it was only exercises, but as her voice improved with her careful use, so his anticipation increased, as did his grasp of the potential that lay within his grasp. Would that she sing an actual piece! Anything, just so he could hear the skills she truly possessed. Much as he was enjoying the sound of her voice and could appreciate the care she was taking – the wait was torture!

Eventually she stopped. He sprang back to attention, wondering why, if she had gone to all that trouble only to deny him now. He heard her light footsteps on the stairs above his hiding place. Surely she couldn't mean to sleep now? All that work and nothing to test its effect? He was ready to punch the wall in frustration when he heard that same footfall coming down again.

The door opened and closed.

She'd gone out at this time of night? She made every effort to avoid the night's embrace, and yet she was stepping out into the darkness with no regard for the dangers it held? Of which, he knew plenty.

He stepped out from his hiding place and followed her, allowing the shadows to conceal him with their invisible mantle. She had covered herself completely in a dark coat, making trailing her more interesting than he had thought it would be.

She was going to a graveyard? Granted she had been living the life of a spectre, but surely . . .

Her father. What else could she be going there for, but to see him? At least, he hoped that was it. He could predict her routine, but recent events had shown that he could not predict her.

She moved with ease through the paths created by the stone monuments, as though she had walked the trail many times. The darkness did not hinder her at all, and if it bothered her, it did not show.

She finally stopped before a grave. He hid himself behind a tree. It would not do to startle her. Whilst he did not know all, he knew enough to know that she had braved much in venturing out here. The starlight, accompanied with his own keen vision, allowed him to see what she was doing clearly. She tended the little stone with as much care as he imagined she would her own child.

Then she stood. Had she come out so late just to clear a few weeds? That could be done in the daytime surely. Oh! Her behaviour was frustrating.

His silent ranting was stopped as she removed her coat. Her hair was down and her face no longer hidden behind those glasses. His breath caught in his throat at the sight.

His heart stopped along with it when she began to sing.

It was a requiem. One he'd never heard before, astonishingly enough. It was filled with the pain of loss, with a heart's cry of solitude, and yet she gave it a poignant beauty that made him want to weep. She sounded as though she was pouring into it all the emotion she had endured silently these months, along with a sense of relief at finally being able to give it the right voice.

Her tone was even better, now that she had exercised her vocal chords properly in preparation for this performance. Her range was good, though she was not making use of it fully – not that the music suffered as a result of that – it could be even better if given over to his care and instruction.

He strained to hear her as she whispered. She had promised her father that performance? A strange thing to ask of a daughter, if not cruel.

The moon illuminated her.

He drank in the sight of her: the white dress, her golden hair hanging in soft waves down to her waist, her beautiful blue eyes filled with the peace only he had inspired before now, her face that looked like . . .

That she had called him an angel touched him all the more deeply now, for surely she would not mistake one of her own kind. Perhaps her father had been taken because the heavens could not stand to have her place go unfilled. He had known cruelty enough to believe that.

He kept her under his watchful gaze until she was safely home again. It would not do to have such a creature tainted by the evils of the dark.

He hid himself away again, waiting until she was asleep, before he returned to his other home. The locked room on the first floor in the house was indeed a sanctuary for music, but this; these caverns where he truly lived free from the eyes of the world: this was the seat of sweet Music's throne. And he carried Christine's song right into the heart of it.

True, she was in need of training, and a lot of it. But if she could captivate an audience with her voice in its current state . . . his music, her voice . . . they could bring the world to its knees and have all paying homage to music. But how to go about it? He could not try intimidating her, for it would not do to scare her away. He could not do anything Giry would disapprove of, for she would surely remove the girl as soon as she even thought something was wrong.

The organ stayed silent that night, the Music resting and waiting for both its maestro and child. The former contemplating how to bring the latter back home; for as surely as he breathed, Christine Daaë belonged here with the music – and with its master.

He thought of her voice and savoured the memory of it once again.

It was indeed perfect.

Perfect for his music.

Perfect for him.