Disclaimer: If I owned Erik/the Phantom, or The Phantom of the Opera, I would be Gaston Leroux or whoever…and I'm not. So I don't.

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None for this update, sorry  But a big thank you to everyone who has stuck with me, and for some crazy reason still has Ulterior Emotions on Story Alert after two years of no updates!

Chapter the Fifth

IN WHICH The Music of the Night and Christine Both Return AND A Crisis Occurs

When she woke, it was to a melody so rich and haunting that she believed herself still asleep and dreaming. She listened to the steady rise and fall of song for several moments more before creeping into a dressing gown and out of her enclosure, not bothering to dress properly in her insatiable curiosity.

Peering around the corner, she saw the Opera Ghost—no, Erik—seated at the piano, his hands flying across the keys as if they were too smooth to grasp. He rocked back and forth as he played, as if the music and the act of its creation caused him pain that he struggled to control. The melody slowed and so did his fingers, caressing the keys as lovers with soft touches that seemed to evoke emotion without the need for words.

This is his world…she thought. This is how he was, and can no longer be. The gossip and rumors, the reports in the paper…they all fell away when she realized that all one could ever want to know about the man before her was contained in his music.

She could not approach him, only listen to the notes that made her feel as if she was an intruder in his private revelation, as if she had found his journal lying open, containing the writing of his soul, and had hungrily begun to read.

Softly, as if whispering a caress into her attentive ears, the song faded into the magic of the early morning. Even after the notes finished, he sat with his hands on the keys, a man and all that he had left. Amelie moved towards Erik quickly, chasing the last of the wonder before she could think better of it. The tilt of his head toward her showed that he was aware of her presence but the rest of his body remained immobile and facing away.

Amelie turned and bent so that she could see his face in its ever-present mask. Upon the unscarred cheek tracked a single tear, glistening in the dim candlelight. His breathing was unsteady, his eyes focused on faraway thoughts. At her light touch upon his shoulder, he looked up but their eyes did not meet.

He spoke in husky, thick tones. "It has been so long that I had thought myself unable to play. I-I did not realize how much I had missed my music…"

Amelie wrapped her robe tighter against a sudden chill, unsure of what to say in response to the brilliance she had just witnessed. "Monsieur, when I heard you play…it was as if everything beautiful in the world was in the music. In all my life, I have never heard…it was as if the music sang for you." She was so full of emotion that she could not continue. To be part of such a connection, such a mystical entwining of music and soul…

He smiled sadly when she praised him, and when their eyes did meet, it was she who averted her gaze. The look within his eyes spoke of the world, of its cruelties and pain—and the harshest reality of all.

"The music is a present to you, to say adieu."

She could not help the tears that gathered in her eyes. But instead of allowing herself to weep, she blinked the moisture away and sat beside him on the bench, past caring if it was improper for her to be so close to a man whose shirt hung open to display a broad chest beneath its frilled collar.

"Then I accept and thank you with all my heart. Do you have a duet which you could play, so that I could sing with you?"

Erik was surprised but attempted to hide it; the girl was amazing at keeping herself hidden behind the training of her station. He could not read her face, and turned to find a song among the pages lying atop the piano. He found one beneath a quarter-inch-thick cover of dust, unmoved for years. The song had so many memories stored within its notes: Madame Giry had played it for him on her gramophone, so very long ago when he had been younger even than Amelie.

And it was Amelie who now set the pages in the stand above the piano's keys. How fitting, he thought, to play a song of farewell… his fingers trembled as he lowered them to the keys, and pressed. Let this be the beginning of the end…

"Hold on steady and strong, here's the dawn coming on won't be long," he sang quietly and painfully. He could not stop the tears that came to his eyes and realized that he no longer cared if he wept—or begged, or pleaded. Erik played the segue of his last farewell, and waited…

…and then she sang. Amelie's voice was not loud or perfectly pitched but held a quiet, intense power. It held the power to slave for years, working to achieve her desire. Her voice was the one of one who had know some sorrow for her years, who understood his pain though she did not know it. The voice of healing calm: "Oh it's easy to stand in the light with pain, in the light I will ever remain."

Erik's voice joined with hers, and the music soared to the arched ceilings and back. When he had sung to Christine, he had been desperate and obsessed. He still was, he realized, yet some of that desperation had been replaced. Erik felt whole, completed by the flowed between him and Amelie and the piano.

"Fare thee well, fare thee well and adieu, fare thee well. With this song I'll be gone, fare thee well." And then the music ended softly, and it was then that Erik knew that he no longer wanted to live, that he would never again be able to glue his broken self back together after this fresh loss, as he had tried to do before. But though he knew, he did not care: the music had been beautiful, and that was all that mattered.

With a boldness he had not known he still possessed, Erik took Amelie's hand in his and turned to meet her blue-eyed gaze. The noose coiled, waiting. It could wait a little longer. "Amelie, go. Forget everything you have seen. Forget this place—and forget me." The same words he had said before, to Christine, yet no less painful in their repetition.

Amelie pulled her hand from his to place both of her hands on his face, holding it as if she never wanted to let go. "I will always remember you. You saved my life. Adieu, Erik, my savior and…friend."

She wrapped a cloak about her still nightgown-clad form, not looking at the man to whom she owed her life. As she made her way slowly and carefully towards the surface and her future, Amelie could not hold back her grief.

- - -

Christine hurried into the opera house. Everything flooded back, her memories of the ballet and the dressing room and the excitement, as she thrust the boards on the doors aside and half-ran backstage. How different everything appeared, years older and covered in the dust of tragedy, flame, and neglect. Would he still be there, deep within the bowels of the theater—waiting for her to return?

She followed the same path to the cellars that she had taken so long ago, following the man who had called himself the Angel of Music. Why am I doing this to myself? she thought. Why was she returning to a place of so much fear and dread, to see a man who had sought to capture and control her? She realized that she truly had no answer. It had been five years and she was no longer the same impressionable maid who would allow a man to so easily lead and seduce her. And yet perhaps she doubted her maturity and that was why her hands shook, sending torchlight to flicker in the dark tunnel corners.

Christine followed the maze, the memory of irrevocable emotion leading her feet where her mind was too lost in memories to take charge. Just when she believed herself lost, a light stronger than that of her torch flared around a corner and she spotted the lake, darkly glistening, and the boat. Shaking, she clambered aboard, praying it was still sound, and paddled as quietly as she could, towards where instinct told her nothing good could wait.

Now that she knew the location of the grated gate's switch, it posed no barrier but sent echoing creaks and the burble of frothing water throughout the spacious cavern. And suddenly the entirety of the room was open to her view…the place where she had fallen in love with one man, then fought for the life of another she loved, barely escaping with their lives. Never once had she allowed herself to regret her choice…the choice she had sealed with a kiss containing all she had ever felt for the one whose name she could still barely think, let alone speak aloud.

Something prompted her to look up—perhaps overwhelming emotion—and when she saw the noose that swung not three feet from her, she let out a shrill scream, instantly returning to the terror of her girlhood. It was a scream that broke off abruptly when the one she might have chosen stepped from the shadows, face unmasked and eyes burning in the dim light.

When he had been assured that Amelie, as he now felt free to call her in his thoughts, was well on her way back to the normalcy of the world above, he set to work on the process of ending his life. An extra-strong noose and high ledge from which to jump would be all that was needed, easily procured. His hands braided from murderous memory, and soon he was done.

Yet there was one last question to be answered, though the answer no longer really mattered now that he was alone again, for good. He took Amelie's sketchbook from the piano bench and sat underneath the noose, which swung ominously from where he had secured it. The inside cover held, in a childish script, the owner's name and address alongside the promise of a reward for the book's return. She had used the same sketchbook, according to the dates, for almost three years, and it was evident in the display of progressive skill. Watercolored scribbles of flowers and buildings faced portraits of severe-looking matrons, children at play, and even a few rough attempts at self-portraits.

It was later in the thick pages that true talent had revealed itself. These works were vividly detailed and intense in a way that revealed much patience and perceptive understanding. And when, suddenly, his own face appeared, he could not breathe and his hands gripped the book's edges with enough force to choke a man.

There was a full page spread dedicated to him. Amelie had drawn him deep in thought, adorned with a sardonic smile, looking to the ceiling…each time wearing his mask. Her drawings did not attempt to idealize him but simply portrayed Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, as he was. Several full-body portraits were featured as well—the details for his pose and dress probably snatched in momentary glances while his attention was otherwise occupied. In her art, he saw a tender blossom of love that might have one day bloomed, if…no, there were too many ifs, just as there had always been and always would be. He threw the book aside.

He had then ripped the hated mask off his face and cast it from him satisfied with the dull thud as it hit some far unseen object. And then, another series of thuds echoed from a passageway—but not from the direction in which Amelie had left.

Erik had crept into the shadows to wait for the intruder and, to his bitter shock, it had been Christine who rowed the boat to where he now stood, hellfire in his eyes and in his soul. "Even my wretched mind is not cruel enough to conjure your ghost again, so tell me Christine, why are you here?"

She could not speak, shock at his continue existence stopping her words. She finally managed to splutter, "I don't know," before she was again rendered silent.

"Come to taunt me on my deathbed? Did you travel all the way here from where your precious vicomte waits unknowing, simply to witness the final collapse of the man you wrapped around your will and then, when you tired of him, cast him aside like so much garbage, Christine?"

Erik found he could say her name effortlessly now that she stood before him, but a tremor ran through her body at its sound on his lips. "You're dying?"

He gestured upward with a wry smile. "I finally decided to do what God should have pitied me and done years ago."

She could not believe what she hearing. "I can't let you…Erik, I cannot let you kill yourself now because of what happened in the past! It's been five years—"

"Five years of endless loneliness of cold silence and darkness! You may have your foppish husband but I am left alone with only the memory of that kiss echoing inside my empty heart! I can't live this way, not again…no longer."

She was somewhat confused by the last part of what he said, but her heart was breaking with guilt. "I did this to you. And that's why I'm begging you to live. Let me help you, let me find you a place to stay…"

His reply was cold. "Why is it now, years after I could have already left this earth that you come to me with your pity and your charity?"

Christine could not meet his eyes as her own filled with tears. "Erik, Raoul and I have a son."

- - -

Amelie trudged up the dank corridor that led to the sewers and the world above with heavy steps. Never had her emotions been so torn: her family needed to know that their daughter lived…and yet in order to restore their happiness, she was leaving behind a man who had no one else. The hand he had so fervently grasped burned with the remembered sensation.

Amelie paused in her journey forward, for the first time truly allowing herself to examine her feelings for the Pha—for Erik. She cherished every look he had given her, every word he had said to her…and those few touches he had bestowed. She longed for the taste of his lips on hers—propriety thrown carelessly and wholeheartedly to the wind—and longed to know that when he looked at her, it was she that filled his heart. It was not rational, not proper, but what about love could ever be? Amelie wanted Erik and all that he was, flawed and fragile and faulted.

Her heart sang as she turned and rapidly walked, then ran, back towards the man she loved, her savior and friend. But when she heard a woman's scream, her joy and hope turned to fear and she quickened her pace and burst out from behind the tapestry to see a woman standing near Erik…both weeping as a noose held silent witness alone.

- - -

Amelie's entrance caused both Erik and Christine to stare up at her. None of them could speak at first, and Amelie was shocked to discover that, although she had never met the woman, she knew exactly who the dark-haired beauty was—the only person who could make the Phantom of the Opera weep as he did now, a forlorn man brought to his knees. With a start, she saw that Erik had removed his mask to reveal the shocking face he had so carefully hidden. It was grotesque in the utmost but instead of fear, she felt only pity for the man who had suffered so much for his fate of deformity. She turned back to the woman. "You're Christine Daae."

Christine was shocked—who was this fragile-looking girl with the intense eyes, and what was she doing here in one of the most dangerous places for a young, naïve girl to be? "Christine de Chagny now. Who are you, and what in the world are you doing here?"

"Madame, I am Amelie Dubay. I am here because the man before you saved my life when I fell within the opera house. My best friend abandoned me to God's mercy but this man helped me regain my health."

"Erik saved you? For what purpose, monsieur, to trap her here as you attempted to keep me?"

"No, he let me go! I came of my own free will. I came back because…because…"

"What she says is true." Erik had finally stood and recovered himself enough from Christine's news to witness the meeting of the two women. "I let her go. And now I would like to be left in peace to end this sham of a life!"

"No!" Amelie and Christine cried out in unison but he was past listening. Christine's news of a son, the child that could have been his, was too much for the man's much-abused, often unsteady sanity, and it collapsed into one focus: to end his misery as soon as possible.

Before either woman could blink, he had thrown them with a roar to land against the far wall. Each cried out in pain, before Christine receded into unconsciousness and Amelie felt the dull ache of reopened wounds. Erik grabbed the noose, and without further word or cry, hung himself.

Amelie fought against her pain and the threat of unconsciousness as she watched Erik's face turn deeper and deeper shades of purple. Finally she was able to stand and grab a sword that lay amid a charred pile of stage props. Righting the ladder he had kicked away, she cut down the now-unconscious Erik, who fell upon the floor with a cracking noise that signified broken bone.

Christine awoke seconds later with a gasp to see Amelie cradling Erik upon the floor, frantically sobbing and begging what could very well be his corpse to awaken. When she realized that Christine was awake and mobile, Amelie screamed at her, "Help me! Please, we must save him! Surely you know a doctor, anyone, who could help us, I'm begging you!"

Without further thought, Christine helped the girl to pick the Phantom of the Opera up and carry him quickly to the boat. While Christine rowed rapidly, Amelie continued to speak to the man cradled in her arms.

"Why did you come back after he let you go? When you know that he has killed, that he almost killed me and my husband, and that he could have killed you?"

Amelie looked up and said simply, "He saved me. I love him with all my heart, and that's why I could not stay away without knowing if he felt as I did. I could not leave him, madame, any more than I think that you could have stayed."

Suddenly, Erik gasped a wheezing breath and began to breathe again. Amelie smiled with a tremble. "Please, row as fast as you can. He still needs the doctor, but I think he's going to live."

- - -

Author's Notes

That's right – a NEW CHAPTER of Ulterior Emotions! I was seized by the desire to continue this story today, after two years of college prep and tons of homework once I actually got to college. I hope this new chapter has been good news to some, and that you readers will review and let me know what you think of the continuation of this story! Who knows when the next piece will arrive…but the summer is a-comin' 

BTW, the song lyrics are "Fare Thee Well" by Kate Rusby. Completely not a period piece but a very beautiful song.

Cheers,

Katrina