Hello all! Thank you to all the lovely people who read and reviewed the last chapter; you made my day. (Week...) I do apologise this chapter took so long (again), but for some reason every time I tried to write this chapter, Artemis and Holly ended up hugging / holding hands / kissing / having sex, etc. *shakes head sadly* Blame my dirty mind. Thankfully, I found an odd sort of inspiration in the new Love Never Dies album (Phantom "sequel"), which disturbed me on several levels because despite the usual, glorious ALW music, the plot was a shambles and the characters so OOC it seemed like a fanfic on a bad acid trip. Ah, well. The official song for this chapter is "Beauty Underneath" which, despite being a song from the Phantom to his (cough spoilers cough) son, sounds more like an attempt at seduction. The link is http:/ www. youtube. com/ watch?vJCwUjurUM. Minus spaces.

Disclaimer: Not. Mine. I can't be clearer that that.

Chapter Ten: Exposure

He held her unresisting body in his arms, the steady rhythm of her heart and the frantic beat of his own the only noise in the darkness. He was not surprised she had fainted; indeed, rather relieved. The pleasant pressure of her slender body against him was the kind of glory his infrequent good dreams were made of, a liberty he was sure she would never allow him to take in her waking hours. And yet here, in the dark, in his realm, she could be his. She would be his.

He had not set out to take her tonight, oh no, not at all. He had been enjoying the glory of her performance when he had first seen them, those small people swarming throughout his theatre. They had been shielded from human sight, but he was no ordinary man, and after that first flutter of shock, he had been prepared for them.

With a roar he had dropped down onto the stage from the flies and snatched her, taken her from grabbing, twisting, clawing mortal hands with all the ease of a child plucking berries. And he had spirited her away deep into his underworld world, his darling, his little angel. Standing with her collapsed against him, on a slimy stairwell under countless tons of dirt and building combined, Artemis felt an undeniable sense of triumph.

He had not expected the punch though; that had surprised him, and he recalled it with a soft chuckle. His little angel had spirit; her soul was a thing of fire, and he could not help but reflect again how suited they were; how she would melt the frozen heart of him that had built up over so long. His mind drifted as he continued the long trek to his home, wandering over a hundred different subjects but savouring, always savouring, the light and warm presence of Holly folded up in his arms.

Lying her down in the Louis-Philippe room, his hands ached as they pulled away from her form. His skin burned with the old hunger, his eyes stroking a path down her petite body. How easy it would be, to touch her while she slept. To slip off his gloves and drag his dead hands over her living body. He stood over her still body, towering over the bed and gazing at her with an almost analytical expression beneath the mask. His calculating mind soared over the possibilities, racing to the cabinet to the bedroom of medication, to the sleeping drugs he needed like an addiction to rest his ever-active mind.

How easy it would be... a needle prick here, a drop of blood there, and she would be comatose and unresisting, for as long as he wanted her...

"No," he growled into the empty room. "No." And he fled before his body could betray his heart.

For hours, the music soothed away the ache, collapsed it down to black-hole density and hid it deep inside him, in the part of his mind where so many other black memories resided. He thought the thundering chords and violent melodies would wake her from her fear-induced slumber, but no patter of feet interrupted the music, no sounds other than those he himself created disturbed the still. But in the end he was drawn back to her, to watch over her from the doorway. His previous euphoria was fading, to be replaced with growing dread and fear. What if she was afraid? What if she did not want him? What if -

On the bed she stirred, one small hand rising to rub at her eyes. The large and cumbersome gown she had worn for the Opera floated around her; she was an island in the mist. The anxiety rose in his throat and hovered around his heart; it seemed a vice, crushing and closing.

He was clad in shadow and her eyes were heavy with sleep; she could not see him in the dark. For a moment he thought about running, so far and so fast he would wipe himself from existence.

But he wanted her. Oh, how he wanted.

Heart hammering in trepidation, he stepped into the room. Her eyes snapped to him in a second. He almost felt her eyes, suddenly calculating, skim over his face (well, mask), take in his elegant clothes and skeletal frame, and then the opulent, over-furnished bedroom she now found herself in. And then the veil dropped back over her eyes.

"Where... who are you?" she asked, evidently deciding to go with the most obvious question. He could feel her curious eyes wandering over the mask. He nearly smiled at her voice, so soft and trembling. His dear little Holly. His, to protect. Indeed, he would have smiled, had he not been so afraid, terrified of what she might say.

"I am Artemis," he finally said, uncertain, evasive. "Holly, I am the Ghost. All I have is yours."

She looked at him in disbelief, her lovely eyes wide and shocked. He cringed at the hysterics that would undoubtedly follow. He had been wrong to admit what he was, to state so bluntly the nature of his role to this delicate creature before him. And yet -

"You have got to be kidding me!" she snarled, lips drawing back over her teeth like an irate dog. Artemis blinked, momentarily stunned. This was not exactly the reaction he had expected. On the way below she had been afraid, but now that fear was either gone or deeply suppressed. He marvelled at how she had marshaled herself to attack an unknown creature, in the dark. But he surely could not have got it this wrong. Holly was delicate, angelic, a beautiful and insubstantial creature to be put in a gilded, lovely cage for her own protection. She was -

"You're insane!" she snapped, and he could not help but agree even as a small part of him was injured at the accusation. "I'm not going to stay with you, I'm not your damn property - Human," she intoned suddenly, eyes suddenly more magnificent and magnetizing than ever, "Your will is mine. Release me." Her voice, lovely as ever, was nevertheless layered with an undertone of something more, something... inhuman.

Artemis merely blinked again. If that was a method of persuasion, it was none he had ever encountered, but he was uncommonly resistant to such methods - his long, strange life had ensured that. "Holly," he said instead, ignoring her look of abject disappointment and frustration that her trick had not worked, "you must listen to me now."

In a moment, as the beautiful, fierce woman in front of him began a tirade laden with obscenities, he thought perhaps there had been a better way to phrase that. His angel had become a wildcat before his very eyes.

"I know I am not worthy," he began unsteadily, "of your beauty and kindness, my angel, but please, try to - "

"The hell I will!" Holly was in her element, evidently, and he wondered where the miscalculation was, how he could have ever thought this woman fragile and in need of protection when she was so clearly a warrior.

And yet - he had never considered her to be as lovely as she was now. Warrior queen, hopelessly out of her depth but fighting to the end.

He would, in the future, replay the next few moments over in his head a thousand times. Had there been a way, had there been some small movement, any words to counter what would come. He would conclude that there had not.

There had been no way to forestall his judgment.

Holly surged to her feet, all grace and strength in the elaborate dress he had dreamed of seeing her in. She stood on the bed and looked him in the eye, and he forgot himself in that moment, on eye level with her and falling helplessly into the hazel glory of her eyes. And it was all the distraction she needed.

In one clean movement, she reached forward and ripped the mask from his face. And Artemis screamed.

Partly out of shock and partly out of horror, the roar burst from him as he clapped his hands to his face. But it was not soon enough and he saw, through the gaps of his fingers, her face, transfigured to almost as hideous as his own by pure, unadulterated terror. Anger boiled up from his heart, balling in his throat like a sob, and burst out his lips.

"How could you?" he bellowed, wrenching his hands from his face. "Holly, HOW COULD YOU?"

She stumbled from the bed, backing away from him. He stalked after her, his vastly longer legs eating up the space between them until he had her backed against the wall. She trembled in fear at his approach, her previous fire subdued under layers of horror and disgust.

He hated her, in that moment. But not nearly as much as he hated himself.

"Is this what you wanted?" he shouted, barely aware of his words. "I gave you everything! Everything! Well, come along and see then, my dear - you wanted a monster? Here's the monster!" Part of him, the little chunk of him that all along had been shaking its head in dismay at his actions - it was horrified now, but he did not care. He grasped her shaking little hands in his own, too incensed to notice how they dwarfed hers or the hard weapons calluses on her palms, and pressed them against the ragged skin of his face.

In a quick, decisive move, she twisted his hands, forcing him to release his grip. He could only stand in mounting horror as she fled to the bathroom, brought back to himself by the sound of her retching violently into the basin. The acrid scent of stomach acid forced its way into his nostrils, followed by the copper tang of blood and the musk of fear-sweat that rolled from her - and, he realised, from him.

He had dug her nails into his face, he realised, when the tears stung open wounds and he tasted blood, red coating his hands. He swayed on his feet, strength sapped, as Holly gagged in the bathroom and the world crashed to an end.

He slumped to the floor, one hand automatically going to cover his as much of his wretched face as possible. His anger was gone now - it was usually a fleeting thing - but as he grappled on the floor one handed (and fruitlessly) for his mask, he was filled now only with a sense of dull grief. She had seen it, seen the hideous shame he kept hidden in the dark. She would never love him now. And to his immense shame, the tears welled up in his eyes, bony shoulders trembling with the force of his sobs he could not contain.

"Oh..." It was so soft he barely heard it, a whisper of a breath of a noise. He could not see, eyes clogged with tears and with the hands he used to cover his face from her pitying eyes. He could not bear pity. Not from her.

"Oh, Frond," she murmured, eliciting a moment of confusion from him that broke through the thousand other miserable emotions swirling around in his head. "Oh, by the gods. Your face."

And when he finally managed to open his eyes, she was holding his mask.

He heard her slump to the floor, felt the darkness descend as the candles went out. He stayed, crouched to the floor, hands hiding his monstrousness from her even as the darkness covered them both. The muffled sobbing sounds from the other side of the room were far, far worse than the memory of his own uncontrolled weeping. She was restrained and quiet, and it only broke his heart further, when the sound of them slipped away into the quiet.

He leaned against the side of the bed, with only the sounds of her breathing to let him know of her presence. And for long hours, that was how they stayed.

"Holly?" he asked at last into the darkness, hands clasped over his face even as the night shrouded him.

"Yes?" she replied from the other side of the room. It is the first thing she had said in hours, and he took note almost automatically of her voice: rough from crying, a little hoarse with the hours' disuse. Had it been anyone else, he would have been livid with rage, but it had been him that created that rasping note in her crystal voice, for making a mockery of that single syllable.

And yet all he wants to do is crawl inside her voice and never think again.

"You're not human," he murmured into the darkness, hardly able to breathe. He did not know what he wanted her to say back - to shout at him, to scream, to damn him for ever looking at her in the first place. But he had no control anymore, he lost it the moment he looked into her eyes, and they were no longer the angel and the pupil. They were merely Artemis and Holly, two disillusioned individuals sitting in a ruined bedroom beneath an Opera House, and even as he waited for her reply, he could not imagine the world as it now must be.

"No," she finally said, a trifle unsteadily. "No, Artemis, I'm not."

It was the first time she had ever said his name, and the frisson of pleasure it sent rippling over him he considered to be completely unnecessary, and wholly justified.

"Thank God," he replied.