Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera, or Corpse Bride. I do own the DVD of the former, though, and the latter is set to come out in September or October.

I decided to slip this chapter in, while I was in the mood, while still waiting for reviews for the last chapter – thanks for reviewing, Moonjava! I am obsessed with the hits, even though I don't like them very much – they show how many people are reading my stories and not reviewing them! Sort of a cramp in my style, you know what I mean? Do you really not like it that much? Well, hard luck, I'm going on with it anyway!

So, more Erik for all you people who love him. And more regrets and general angst, yadda yadda. Enjoy!

'The world is changed. I feel it in the water; I feel it in the earth; I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.'

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Desires from the tomb

Things were changing up above.

He had been aware of it for a while now; as he played at his organ, as he sat at his easel, as sketches poured from his fingers onto paper. Things were changing.

Of course, things were always changing up above, and he was always almost unconsciously aware of it, as he existed down below. He was aware of when it was spring, and when it was fall; when snow lay thick upon his grave, and when the only thing that covered his body was a layer of earth. A simple layer of earth lay between him and discovery; justice; vengeance…

But, of course, nothing would ever gain that justice for him. It was not as if he could clear the earth off his body, so that his grave would be open; and even if he could, no one went into the forest anymore any more. Nobody except that corpulent head groundskeeper. And it was not as if he could tap him on the shoulder, point to his grave, and whisper clue in his ear.

Justice. Life. Love. The three things I want most. The three things I can never have.

But that did not mean he was not willing to listen to what occurred up above.

Four companions walked across the lawns…

Four visited the groundskeeper…

Four ate together, talked together, laughed together…

Two talked together…

One played…

One sang…

He found himself being drawn further and further away from his work, even from his thoughts of her, and further and further towards life again – or as close as he could – when he heard that voice. That heavenly, angelic voice…

Sometimes, he thought it truly to be the voice of an angel. Other times he realized it was simply a mortal voice – but a beautiful one at that; of a girl – but there was not just one girl; she had friends. That made it all the more difficult to identify her among the throng; three girls where before there had just been two women, one quiet, one sick and sad.

Sometimes, if he concentrated hard enough, he was just able to see them – at times. Sometimes while he sat at the organ he was aware of a blond haired little angel, with sky blue eyes and a pout that any mortal man would surely find adorable, sitting talking with others that he could not see; at other times a honey skinned, dark red haired young woman playing the piano in one of the music rooms, clearly of Spanish origin, often with a pout that was considerably less adorable, but with a type of slightly haughty, regal beauty that overcame her slightly protruding lower lip.

And she…

He saw her least of all, the brown haired, brown eyed girl, against whose beauty the other girls' paled in comparison; the girl who walked quietly and thoughtful, a seraphic smile sometimes curling her lips.

But who sings?

As time had gone on, he cared less for the girls, no matter how beautiful they were at times; and instead focused on the voice, whenever it sang.

Singing…

He often found himself abandoning his work, to simply lie on his back and stare up at the ceiling of his lair, and know that far, far above him, someone – he knew not who, but someone - was singing, as he listened…

"Erik?" a voice came in, much closer and much less welcome in his opinion; breaking off his current train of thought.

He looked away from the ceiling, and away from her who sang; and over at Nadir, who had suddenly appeared, and was standing on the edge of the shore of the lake, and looking disapproving. As he usually seems to do, he thought idly, as he looked back up at the bare earth and rock, only a little away from him.

"Erik, what are you doing?"

"Listening, Daroga," he replied, this time without looking away, and without breaking off his contact with the song.

"Listening to what?"

"Why don't you come on up and listen, Daroga?" he shot back.

With a sigh, the older being began to make his way along the shore, towards the frame which he had constructed long ago to display the tapestries he had fashioned, when he had run out of wall space - before he had worked out that he could expand the scope of his genius beyond the walls of the cavern – and had stayed ever since, if for nothing else then for him to lie upon when he wished to listen more to the earth.

Even though he was dead, Nadir was still quite slow, as he had naturally been in life; and he watched with secret enjoyment as the Persian clumsily clambered up the wooden frame, shaking the structure quite thoroughly. But he had no fears of it collapsing – he had built it well. Even if it did rock sometimes.

"You should have shifted your bulk around even more, Nadir," he remarked wryly, as the elder being finally shifted into place alongside him. "Then maybe we would have fallen off into the water of the lake, and drowned."

The Persian rolled his jade green eyes, as he settled back on his elbows. "Do you seriously think I could drown, Erik?"

"No," he admitted. "But I do think you would be stuck at the bottom of the lake for the rest of eternity, since you'd be far too heavy to get out."

Nadir sighed, but in exasperated humour. "And why this sudden burst of warped joviality, Erik?"

"Listen." He made no other reply, but lay back. Nadir, bemused, copied him.

And after a moment the song came again.

They both lay in relative silence, while the song washed around them, filled them, reverberated through the lair; filled the still air with such sweetness that it might cause some to weep, and others to applaud for an age, and others to simply listen in adoring silence. Such as they.

Such as he.

I love you, he thought, as silently as he dared, with Nadir around at this time. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I love you…

At length, the song ceased. He sighed as he felt the connection break away, felt the silence and emptiness of his world break upon him once again, as he lost contact with hers.

Hers…

"Very nice," Nadir commented, as he looked over at him again. "You have been busy, haven't you?"

"I don't know what you mean, Nadir," he replied lightly, his eyes still closed, as if to imagine himself closer to the owner of that beautiful voice.

"Oh, I think you do, Erik," the older being replied, more quietly, as he sat up, to look down into his face. "Spending all your time, focusing on this one particular voice out of so many? So intricately?"

"It is nothing."

"I do not think so."

"Nadir, is it a crime to listen to those whom I left back on Earth?" he shot back, opening his eyes, to stare up into Nadir's green, solemn ones.

"Erik, the world has changed since you left it. The people have changed. The land has changed. Those whom you might have loved are gone. You have no connection with the Earth now."

"You forget. I shall always have that connection."

"That does not change things," Nadir shot back, sitting up fully now. "The one thing that does not change on Earth is that everything changes. That is the rule, and you know it." His voice softened, as he leant forward. "The one thing that does not change down here is that everything remains as it always has been. And that includes contact with that which we have left."

"What would you know about it? You seem to have abandoned Earth utterly! Don't you ever wonder about those you left behind, Nadir? Any loved ones you may have had? Friends? Comrades? Look at me in the eyes, and tell me you do not yearn to live again!" he spat, suddenly savage as a demon.

Tell me that, Nadir. Tell me that.

There was silence, as the two glared at each other, each without flinching.

"How can you know what I feel?" The answer took him by surprise. He had never heard Nadir speak with such an accent of sorrow before; such…regret. Passionate regret. "How can you know what I think of, each time I think of the surface? How can you know?" He turned away.

"Perhaps because you have never told me." He felt cruel in saying that, but he could not let himself loose face.

There was a pause, then Nadir turned back. "True. I have not told you. And if that is so, it is because of a reason. I spent so long in mourning for what I had lost, Erik. I don't want the same thing to happen to you; for I know that if you did you would never be released. So forget the world above, Erik, as well as you can; and forget the voice you hear." Nadir's face came very close. "It does not do well to dwell on dreams, and forget to live."

He snorted, in an attempt to break the serious air of the moment – he wasn't in the mood for this. "Somehow I don't feel I am living. Or have you forgotten this?" He put his hand to his side, tracing the edges of the terrible wound. "Have you forgotten your own?" He drew his finger across his neck.

"I am serious, Erik. I do not want you to be hurt."

"But I do hurt, Nadir. Every night and day." His voice came out almost in a whisper. "Every night and day. An eternity's worth of pain and loss."

The Persian said nothing for a moment. Then, softly, he whispered, "Do you want me to go?"

Blinking back sudden tears, he silently nodded, his eyes on the ceiling again.

The creaking of wood, and soon after the padding of feet, told him that his companion was gone. Only then did he allow himself to reach out, and touch a hand to the rock and earth of the ceiling; as if by doing so he would slip up through the layers of rock and earth and space, and up to her world, so that he might find the owner of that beautiful, beautiful voice.

I love you, my Angel.

Her voice called to him, dragging him out from the deepest recesses of his mind, back to awareness, back to reality – back to yearning for something more.

I love you, my Angel of Music.

Sing once again for me.

And, as if in answer to his wish, once again he felt the song break forth over him; much faster, louder, stronger than before. Unconsciously, as he revelled in the beautiful sound, his own mouth opened, and he sang with that voice – her voice – together.

I'm there…whoever you are, wherever you are, I'm there…inside your mind…

Anyone spot the quote from Harry Potter? Any takers? I know having that particular quote at the start was pretty corny – but I just felt I had to have it in. I wrote this chapter because I wanted to show the relationship as how it was in the original book – which was that Erik fell in love with Christine's voice long before he met her. Of course, the fact that she's really beautiful and young and has a wonderful, if slightly weak (in the book at least, certainly not in my story!) personality doesn't hurt, I think. But anyway, it's not material stuff. I hope. When does the fun stuff and haunting come in? Ah, wait and see!

Review, please! I like reviews, if only small ones to tell me how bad it was!