Author's Note: Finally! It is complete! I thank everyone for taking time to read this and review. May the legends of the Phantom of the Opera never end!

and credit to Agony Born From Bliss for figuring out about Pierre's stand-in.

Chapter 19 – A Phantom's Love

Not much had changed in the Opera Populaire since she had last walked its halls. Everything had been restored since the fire and she found herself harboring much gratitude towards the patron, this Leroux character, for having returned the theatre to its proper glory. The woman smiled sadly to herself in remembrance of that dark, dangerous night. Her heart skipped a beat when the image of the Phantom's blazing eyes searing her soul appeared in her mind. Her heart swelled with emotion.

She had heard about Leroux taking over and doing the remodeling on the theatre through the newspapers and soon caught the story of the second manager who was a complete mystery to the public. They only knew his first name: Erik, but nothing else could be gathered. His origins were a mystery.

But she knew who he was. She was the only woman who could possibly understand him. With all her heart, she knew she was the only one who could accept him for who he really was.

The woman decided to go straight to the source. She knew the passageways of the theatre's basements like the back of her hand. The Phantom's lair was a place she would never forget.

As she approached the lair she heard two voices. One was definitely the Phantom's. The other's sounded male, but she couldn't be sure. When she slid into sight in the boat, passing under the gate, she saw two men bending over several sheets of paper and quickly rifling through them, sorting and commenting on them. It was only when she had docked and climbed out of the boat that they realized she was there.

The Phantom's eyes visibly widened and his mouth parted in shock when he recognized her.

"Hello, Erik." She shyly whispered.

It took him a moment to find his voice, "Christine."

XXX

Nicole looked from one to the other in bemusement. She had a bad feeling about the way they were staring at each other. Christine was already blushing but holding Erik's perpetually intense gaze. In turn, he appeared as if he were watching a beautiful ghost. Both were waiting for the other to speak, as if afraid one word would shatter the moment and send them bolting. But Nicole was not bound by the same spell…

"Erik, care to introduce me to your friend?"

As if waking from a dream, Erik turned dazed eyes to Nicole. Seeing her face got his brain working again and he said, "Nicolas, if you could excuse us for a moment."

Nicole felt her world take a dive as Erik dismissed her so mechanically. She felt herself fall back onto general courtesies. "Of course, Erik. Have a nice day." She tipped her hat as she passed Christine, who still appeared a little bewildered, and took the boat that Christine had just used to make her departure.

Twenty minutes later and Nicole was still roaming the halls aimlessly on legs of lead. She half-heartedly bid hello to the few employees she met, but continued to dwell on the beautiful, porcelain angel who had captured Erik's mind so completely.

His mind and his heart?

"Nicolas? – Nicolas?" Nicole glanced up ad found Mme. Giry walking by her side. "Oh, hello, Mme. Giry."

Giry placed a hand on Nicole's shoulder and started to steer her towards her own personal rooms that was one of the privileges given to being the ballet instructor of the Populaire. The woman led the manager to the only table in the small room and then put on a kettle for tea. While the water was warming, Giry positioned herself on the opposite side of Nicole's seat.

"Now, Nicole, what has gotten into you?"

Nicole looked at her with dull eyes. "Do you know of a woman called Christine?"

Giry leaned back in her chair in surprise. "Did Erik mention this name?"

Nicole half-rolled a shoulder and began telling Giry of the recent events in Erik's lair. By the end of the telling Giry's lips were pursed and her response was, "So, she dared come back, did she?"

At this, the manager's ears pricked up – she was starting to feel better getting allof this out into the open and sharing with Giry. She found herself interested now in what Giry obviously knew about this mysterious woman.

"The woman you saw was Christine Diae. In short, she was the woman Erik had burned the theatre down in his attempt to woo."

Pieces of this story began to fill in; Nicole remembered reading something about a missing opera star, but no one had discovered her body in the ruins. "I remember. So where has she been all this time?"

Giry grew a bit quiet at this point, but replied. "With Raoul, one assumes."

"Raoul?"

"The Vicomte de Changy who was the patron of this theatre supporting those two buffoons. Thank goodness you came along to take over." Nicole couldn't help but smile at this. "Well, there was this thing between Christine, Erik, and Raoul. The two men loved Christine and Christine had trouble choosing…Until, she saw Erik's dark side."

Nicole frowned, "His face?"

Giry's lips pursed again. "That was one of the reasons that she chose Raoul over Erik. His face did horrify her, but his murderous and violent nature was something she could never come to terms with."

Nicole thought on this for a while. She didn't understand what people found so disturbing about Erik's face. It was certainly disconcerting – not normal – bit it wasn't horrific. As to his murderous tendencies, Nicole knew he had gotten a better handle on those and while he sometimes slipped into a black mood when he got stuck on a problem in the theatre directing on the sets, and sometimes his muse left him on his own personal operas, she found that rather endearing. The man was intense; he acted passionately and felt passionately. It was who he was and Nicole was able to work around it (and enjoy it in the bedroom when the mood struck). She knew he had to brood about things for a time before he could start planning on how to address the problem. Nicole wouldn't change anything about him.

Christine, on the other hand, sounded like she was flattered from the Phantom's attentions but couldn't handle the rest of him…What if he still chose Christine over her?

As if sensing where her thoughts were, Giry reached across the table and wrapped her hands around Nicole's. "If you want my opinion, I think Erik loves you in the true sense of it. I have never seen him in such a good humor before. He is far less severe than when he was pinning after that girl."

Nicole sincerely hoped that was the case, but she already found herself comparing looked with Christine…and Nicole found herself lacking.

XXX

Erik casually swirled the dark wine around in his glass, his nostrils flaring as he caught the sweet scent the action released.

"Why have you come back, Christine?"

Christine was busy fidgeting with her own glass across the table. "Raoul and I…we came to the realization that we weren't who we thought we were."

Erik sat back and pondered. It sounded like the same thing he had discovered about himself and Christine. "You both were in the love with the idea of being in love."

All the woman could do before him was smile sadly and lift her head in a single nod. Then she said, "Erik, I hope you can forgive me. I was so foolish as to reject –" She stopped when the Phantom raised his hand for silence.

It was his turn to speak. "I have already forgiven you, but only because that forgiveness has been fed by the love I feel for another."

At Christine's furrowed brow, Erik could just imagine what she must be thinking. Her next words confirmed it: "Does this woman know?"

Erik gripped his glass so tightly it shattered, spraying wine everywhere and making Christine flinch. He cursed and shook his hand to rid his glove of the excess liquid. As he pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket to clean the rest, he replied, "Yes, she does. In fact, she has even seen my other half and has yet to shy away." His eyes pinned Christine to her chair. "Unlike someone else I know." At her continued stare, he rose from his chair and began to busy himself with papers and books and instruments – anything to keep his hands occupied while he tried to quell the urge to wrap those hands around Christine's pretty, little neck and squeeze!

How dare she ask such a question! How dare she! Erik thought furiously as he piled music books atop one another. He stiffened when arms came around his waist and a face pressed against his back.

"You allowed her to see your face?" Christine whispered in a sickeningly pitying voice.

A few years ago, Erik would have reveled in the feeling of Christine touching his body willingly. But now…Now, Nicole's face swam up from the depths of memory and the thought that any other woman but her was touching him in a too-familiar manner was disturbing, made his skin crawl and his muscles lock with tension.

He spun around and gripped Christine's arms so painfully that she whimpered and tried to pull away, but he held her there. "Do not touch me again." He shoved her away, not caring that she sprawled in a heap at his feet. "I have made peace with your rejection, Christine. Now, kindly make peace with mine." He stepped over her crumpled form and want to procure a boat for her leave-taking. The Phantom had had enough.

As he descended the stairs to the lake's edge, however, he found another boat gliding into view. Within it sat a woman with beautiful, long, wavy brown hair and a dark green dress that flowed around her form when she stood to greet him.

"Hello, Erik. I hope I'm not late."

Nicole stepped out and flung her arms around his surprised, yet grateful form. She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, "Just introduce me as Julia."

Erik smiled and hooked her arm with his as he led her up the stairs to where Christine was busy straightening her dress for the new company.

"Christine, this is Julia, the woman whom I was telling you about. Julia, this is Christine, an old acquaintance of mine who was just leaving."

Christine had never looked so hurt or so pathetic in all the time he had known her when she heard herself being referred to as merely an "acquaintance" of Erik's. But he found he couldn't care less. In fact, he felt his old Phantom habits of revenge-seeking coming to the fore and he welcomed them gladly.

His lips curled into a smirk as the Phantom came out to play, and once he got going, he was unstoppable. "You see, Julia. Christine had just had a bad parting of the ways with her lover and she came to me to see if I would take her back, which of course is impossible."

Nicole felt awful for Christine's circumstances, especially when the woman's eyes welled up with tears at Erik's harsh words. But then she remembered who the woman was and the heartbreak she had caused Erik.

"Well, that was rather presumptuous of her to think you would still be pinning after all this time."

Erik pulled Nicole to his side and brought her head under his chin. "Exactly."

The couple fixed her with such pointed stare that Christine could do nothing more than stutter out, "You're monsters! Both of you, and you deserve each other!"

Nicole not unkindly replied, "And you, Christine, deserve someone who is nice and gentle…and blind to all faults."

Christine hiccupped, tears finally falling, and stumbled down the stairs, jumped into a boat (which rocked violently with the face of it) and used the staff to make as quick a departure as she possibly could and not tip herself into the lake.

"Perhaps we were too harsh?" Nicole whispered.

"No. What you said she needed to hear."

Nicole looked up at his face and found the smirk hadn't left it. "You're feeling gleeful."

"What?"

"I know that look. You're reveling in her pain."

The smirk softened into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'm more reveling in the fact that the Phantom got his revenge."

Nicole couldn't help the roll of her eyes. "Also, I was putting it on a bit thick for you so that you couldn't be in question of my loyalties."

Nicole buried her head in his chest. "I love you."

"And I love you more than I have ever loved another."

Erik never wasted words so Nicole knew he meant them. Her grip around his waist tightened and loosened and she lifted her face to his and met the lips waiting there.

"Come." Erik whispered, "I have been working on a masterpiece since I met you," He led her over to the organ and they sat down at the bench together, "I have finally finished it and would like for you to hear it."

Nicole found herself enraptured as Erik's fingers traveled across the keys like spider legs, eliciting notes that combined to create a ribbon of beautiful sound that filled the ears and the heart. She rested her head on Erik's shoulder and just let the music wash over her. Even though the song would come to an end; both Nicole and Erik knew that their love for each other would not.

And even though the world did not accept them for who they were, at least they accepted each other.

END