A few weeks passed, and Kerri fell prey to the raging hormones in her body. She was chipper and flamboyant. She even cut her hair, so her once waist length locks now fell short of her shoulders. Her belly was a small lump, and sometimes she though she felt it move, but it was probably her imagination.

One day, she received a rather thick envelope from Raoul. She could only imagine what it contained. She had written him a week ago, in it telling he was pregnant. At the time, she had hoped, at the very most, write angry letters.

To her surprise however, there was a letter to Erik enclosed with her own. Erik's was the thicker, and although she knew a piece of paper wasn't life threatening, the thing still caused her imagination to run wild.

"Erik, letter for you." She dropped it in front of him as he was writing. Today, they were stationed in the library. Kerri had been trying to burn every title of every book into her brain. Erik had made a guess that there were at least one thousand texts, some in different languages. It made little difference to Kerri, although she was now more concerned with their mail. Her husbands, of course, more than her own, because she desperately wanted to know what her brother had to say that made it so thick.

When Erik paled considerably, she began to worry.

"Kerri, would your brother spend ridiculous amounts of money in an attempt to kill me?" He swallowed hard, raising his eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" She straightened in her chair.

He unfolded the rest of the letter, flipping through the pages. His jaw slowly dropped. He finally held out the whole thing for Kerri to take, at a loss for words.

"Erik!" She gasped. "These are..."

"The papers for the opera house, I know." He sighed. He wasn't sure who was insane; himself for dreaming this, or the Vicomte for giving it to him. The accompanying letter had explained it all.

"He made me co-manager!" She exclaimed, grabbing her own letter and tearing it open.

Kerri,

Although we cannot change our past, as humans, we can affect our future.

As you have probably guessed, our family is still the patron of the opera house. After careful consideration, we (Christine and I) decided to fix it up, and bring back some of the original grandeur. Tell Erik not to worry, most of the damage was superficial. None the less, we brought in the best architects and renovation teams we could find.

This brings me to my next point. The opera house is yours. It deserves the best, and as much as I hate admitting it, Erik is the best. Do with it what you wish. I hope you can forgive me for being less than hospitable, even though, given the unique circumstances, I feel that I had every right to try and protect you. I do hope to see you soon.

All my love,

Raoul

"He didn't even comment on me being pregnant." She scoffed. Sometimes no acknowledgement was worse than long paragraphs and exclamation points.

"He had no problem doing so in my letter." Erik held up three pages of neat hand writing.

"Well what do they say?"

"Other than dozens of oaths and threats on my life if I hurt you, I believe he wished us well, and congratulated me. It might be sarcasm."

"No, Raoul isn't cheeky." Kerri relaxed in her armchair, crossing her ankles and draping them over an ottoman.

"What are we going to do?" She sighed, rubbing her eyelids. For all they knew, Raoul could have informed her parents, and this could all have been some grandeur plot to get her to come home.

"Return to Paris, I suppose. Although I'm sure that's the last place you want to go."

"I would love to go home, don't tell yourself otherwise. I'm just afraid of what will happen once we get there."

"Worst case scenario: I'm arrested for kidnapping, rape, murder, and arson, your mother forces you to marry the Duke, and the baby is stillborn."

She stared at him. "You know just what to say, don't you?"

"You can't tell me you weren't thinking the same thing."

He was right. He was always right. She hated being predictable to the point of telepathy.

"Are you sure those papers are authentic?" She finally asked.

"Positive. Both Armand's and Firmin's signatures are here, and Raoul's." He suddenly chuckled.

"What?"

"The fool sent me the manual. My manual."

"Raoul did say we could sell it…"

"No!" Erik glared at her as if she were insane.

"Well we can't very well run it from here! We're almost clear across the country."

"So then we move."

"Where? To Paris? My parents will hunt us down like game."

"We'll go to Versailles then. It's close enough that we can see the shows without inconveniencing ourselves, but it's not Paris."

"Versailles is still well-known."

"Kerri, you're perpetuating this feud between you and your parents. Eventually, you'll have to face them."

"I know that. But I don't want it to have to be because my mother wants to have you arrested for some ridiculous thing."

Erik shrugged.

"It's going to take more than a few idiotic policemen and an angry housewife to bring me down."

"Then I guess we're going to Paris."