A/N Thanks so much for the reviews...so much appreciated and criticism gratefully received! I'm trying to keep Erik as Erik as possible, but please let me know if he's getting OOC. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Meg did as she was told, inching forward in the thick blackness keeping her left hand to the wall. The silence that enveloped her was deafening; her senses heightened to every trickle of moisture along the walls and her neck and every movement of unseen imagined creatures on the ground. She stifled a frightened gasp as she tried to breathe through the feelings of claustrophobia threatening to overtake her. "Pull yourself together Meg" she chastised herself. She was a grown woman - well almost - and she was acting like a child. She almost cried out in relief when her outstretched right hand finally made contact with the plush heavy fabric of the drapes that concealed the smashed mirror and heralded her entrance back into the somewhat familiar. Pulling the curtain slowly to the right, she paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the sight. Not a sound save for the lapping of the water upon the shore. "Neither saint nor sinner either" Meg thought, throwing nervous glances around the huge cavern. A tranquil quiet pervaded; completely at odds with the turmoil she knew was unfolding above ground. She took a moment to gaze in wonder about the kingdom of the Phantom; the fallen angel. A few candelabras still stood burning slowly down their wicks, casting their dying light across Erik's former home, giving it a strangely spiritual feeling. The mob, mercifully, had touched little in their efforts to hunt him down. The only evidence anything untoward had occurred were the shattered mirrors, scattered sheet music and a few candelabras that had been knocked over. Most of this damage, Meg suspected, had been inflicted by Erik himself. She turned right out of the hidden tunnel and began to search for the violin which Erik had told her would be near the organ. She found the hard case under an extremely untidy pile of manuscripts and checked inside to make sure the instrument itself was inside, along with the bow. She placed it just inside the curtain for collection on the way back; she did not think Erik would appreciate her forgetting it. "Stop dallying Meg", she reprimanded herself, "a minute wasted is a minute longer than we need be in Paris." She would look through the lair for anything else that might be useful on her way back but now she needed to get up to ground level and find her mother. Starting down the stone steps to the dock she put her hands on her hips and groaned in frustration. The boat she had assumed Erik always used was gone. "Of course," she remembered, stamping her foot, "precious little Christine sailed into the sunset in it!"

"Stop it!" she thought, "it is not her fault. Maman would not want me to think of her in anger." Yet she could not help cursing the younger girl for the undeniable fact that she was going to have to wade her way back, getting soaked to the waist all over again. The portcullis was still raised and she prayed it remained so for her return. Clenching her fists at her sides and squeezing her eyes shut in anticipation of the cold, she inched her way into the freezing lake.

Erik woke with a gasp sitting bolt upright on the narrow bed. Groggy from sleep and disorientated from dreams, he vaguely registered he was holding something tightly in his right hand; some sort of fabric. Feeling around in the dark for the edge of the bed with his left hand; he swung his legs onto the ground and slowly rose to his full height. Trying to get his bearings he attempted to sift through the blur of memories and nightmares that were like a thick soup in his mind.

Piangi…Don Juan…Christine!…chandelier…falling…fire…falling…falling…Christine!Oh Christine!

His head had begun to throb violently, his thoughts like a runaway train at full steam with no end in sight. Feeling his way across the dark he bumped into one of the two chests he had dragged down here months before and felt around for the lid. He knew he had put matches in here somewhere…

"Where in Hell?" he grumbled moodily to the darkness; seconds later putting his hand to the long, thankfully dry, box. Pulling one match out with shaky fingers, he struck it against the side of the box and suddenly there was light.

He bent down and lit the tapers in the five branched candelabra on the ground beside the makeshift eiderdown bed. "Where did that come from?" he thought, reaching out in his mind to where he knew the memory of it must be stored.

"Meg!" he remembered; a flood of images washing over him, leaving him swaying on his feet. He stared in wonder at the piece of cloth in his right hand; his eyes welling with fresh tears; the memory of what she had done for him reaching out to his lonely soul.

With shame and utter disgust he also remembered almost strangling the little dancer who had come to find him. "No wonder she left," he pondered sadly, "she was bound to run when she saw the monster I had become." As the thoughts and memories started to organise themselves more clearly, he realised that she had not in fact left him. She was coming back. The little lunatic! Unbidden, a vision of Meg assaulted his senses; her warm nut coloured eyes blazing, long flaxen hair flying behind her as she stood her ground with him, fighting her way into his bolt hole. The little chit had even threatened to dream of his face just to spite him! He had almost forgotten that. No one had ever spoken to him the way she had done save for her mother and considering that fact, he supposed he should not be surprised. Antoinette Giry had been stubborn and outspoken and had refused to give in to his frequent tantrums so why did he think Meg would be any different? She could have not concept of what she was letting herself in for and to be honest neither did he but she had her reason to run from all this when he had nearly killed her, had she not? Satisfied she would see sense once up in the cold light of day and especially once she had spoken to her mother, he lowered his tired frame to the bed once more, the ghost of a sinister smile curving his lips. Curling into a ball, he tucked his right hand into his chest against his heart and wondered absently why the grim satisfaction at having scared Meg away was leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Why was he willing her away? "Oh God," he ground out in a voice cracking under the strain of conflicting emotions, "please let her come back to me."

Through eyes swollen and hot from yet more salty tears, Erik glanced down at the piece of fabric in his hand; the cloth she had used to soothe his face. He clasped it tighter to him as if by somehow holding on he would conjure her return. Wondrously he realised that someone had finally sought him willingly, of their own volition and had offered him comfort and not pity in his darkest hour. He never thought it would happen in his wildest imaginings and never the little blonde ballerina he had watched grow into a young woman from high up in the flies. He vaguely remembered her telling him to figure out their escape while she was gone. Since when did anyone tell him what to do? He was the Phantom, Opera Ghost and he answered to no one! Although, since he had brought his reign to a fiery conclusion, he realised that OG could be no more. With no opera house how could there be an Opera Ghost…a Phantom? Who did he become now? He did not know how to be anyone else, how to exist any other way than how he had; lurking in shadows, firing off demands sealed with a bloody skull, extorting vast sums from the managers, composing his operas and all with one goal in mind. Christine. Now she was gone, his greatest work destroyed and his opera house was burning to the ground. All by his own hand. All that remained to take with him were the memories of what he had done, the pieces of his fractured heart and his music. That and quite a sizable amount of danger money lest he forget the twenty thousand francs he had demanded from the managers every month for the past ten or so years. Little of it had been spent, he never needed much. Some had been moved into a trust, a small amount was stashed in the wall for emergencies but for the most part it remained in a vault underground, just like him.

He hoped Meg would remember his violin when she returned - if she returned. When words failed him, his soul spoke through his fingers and whatever instrument he played; when the emotions inside him became too much to bear his, music was the only way he could release them and begin to breathe again. He wondered what scheme his little ballerina had come up with for convincing her mother to let her help him. And just how did she plan on springing him out of Paris? Hah, she had told him not to even think about her binding her chest. That was like asking a parched man not to drink! Did she not realise what she was saying? No, of course not. She was an innocent, just like his Christine, innocent of the ways and thoughts of the baser sex.

He recalled with amusement her opposition to posing as a boy, although he had to concede that realistically it would not have worked and the less he continued to think about that the better. Posing as his wife would be equally abhorrent he supposed but she had to figure something out that allowed her to accompany him in public, unmarried, without a chaperon and not draw attention. He needed to get to his bank; he needed to do something about his appearance and he needed to think about where the hell they would go once they left Paris. He had told Meg he had somewhere to go but in reality he had never gotten that far in his plans. He was going to have to think fast. Staying in France was not an option while it was still in the middle of a war with Prussia.

Meg felt like a wet rag and not for the first time, cursed her friend for taking the only mode of transport across the lake. She longed for dry clothes, something warm in her stomach and a hot bath. With aching, freezing limbs she finally hauled herself onto the dock at the far side of the lake narrowing her eyes at the black and gold boat bobbing gently alongside her. She braced herself for the long, steep climb through the tunnels to reach the mirror door in Christine's bedroom. She hoped, as it was far behind the stage that it had been spared from the fire but she had no way of knowing until she got there. Running on pure adrenaline now Meg finally reached the end of the tunnel that culminated in the huge gilt two way mirror that she knew Erik had used in his elaborate scheme to woo Christine. She set her torch in the wall and with both hands, gripped the edge of the mirror and heaved it to the left. "Oh!" Meg gasped, her hands flying to cover her nose and mouth, gagging from the overwhelming stench of smoke. From what she could tell the fire had mercifully, not reached this far but the acrid smell hung like a fog around the flower filled room. Stepping fully through the door and sliding it back carefully behind her she noticed the vast blooms that had been delivered for Christine for her debut, their scent masked forever now with the invisible veil of the fire's breath. Meg wondered what lay on the far side of the door, what chaos had unfolded while she was below. Her life would never be the same again and here in this room she still had a choice. Walk out, head high, forget everything she had seen and stand beside her mother in trying to build some semblance of a life out of the ashes that remained here. Or, find her mother, beg for her help, pray for her blessing and stand beside the man her young friend had betrayed who needed her now more than anyone ever had. Either way was uncertainty. Either way would be hard and would force her to mature far beyond her almost eighteen years. Only one way would allow her to sleep at night. Meg had made a promise to return to Erik just as he had promised to wait for her; the fact that she had not voiced it aloud making it no less binding. She knew Maman would worry and fret for her, that she would fear for her but she would do that whether she stayed here or left. She also knew that her mother had helped Erik before and she was counting on her doing it again. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. Moving to the door she spared a thought for her younger friend Christine and the years they had grown together. Both of them had left their girlhood behind in the past few hours for different reasons and they two would be irrevocably changed from these events. Even if they never saw each other again they would be forever linked by the man who had affected that change. Meg hoped in her case for the better. She turned the knob and slid into the corridor hoping for some sign of day or night.

She hadn't seen daylight since the afternoon of the performance and she needed to get her body clock reset to try and combat the disorientation of being underground. Not unlike below, a strange quiet hung over the corridors of the Populaire. People she recognised seemed to go about their business just the same but in silence, slower and with less purpose…almost like ghosts. One of the younger ballerinas spotted her and ran to smother her in a hug.

"Oh Meg! Meg! We thought you had been lost…we could not find you…where have you been, how ever did you escape the fire? Madame was so worried about you. I was so frightened, did you see the chandelier fall! Oh you are soaking, we must get you dry"

Elodie wailed, nearly cracking Meg's ribs with the force of her embrace. Elodie was only fifteen and had been at the Populaire since she was five. She had glossy raven hair that refused to plait and huge navy blue eyes that tended to get even larger when she was relating a story. She was in possession of an imagination to rival Erik, Meg suspected. She was a sweet little thing but tended towards the dramatic. "Again not unlike our OG," Meg thought amusedly, "although perhaps we all have a touch of it growing up in this place." She hugged the young dancer back and assured her she was fine and that she did not remember much. The last thing she wanted was an epic tale of survival with herself in the starring role doing the rounds of the theatre thanks to Elodie and her talent for embellishment.

"Where is Maman, Elodie? Is she still here?" Meg begged of her friend.

"Yes, she is in her rooms I think, rehearsals have been cancelled of course because of what happened last night…who knows when they will begin again."

That solved that mystery then. She had been down underneath all night. It felt like a week or maybe it was just that Erik was such hard work. With no time to think on this now, Meg squeezed her friend's shoulders once more and turned to head through the maze of corridors to her mother's private rooms, her home. They were situated to the rear of the huge building, well back from the auditorium and stage where most of the damage seemed to have been confined although she really did not want to see it firsthand. She preferred to remember it as it was. She and her mother had a bedroom each and a small sitting room. They shared a toilet with the wardrobe mistress and her two daughters who also worked with her; a luxury that had only just been added. It was small but comfortable; it was all she had even known and it was home. Was. They all of them had made this their home - her, her mother, Erik, Christine. A strange family of sorts with this great place in common. And now it was destroyed. She fervently hoped it would be saved, if only so she had somewhere to come back to someday. Standing on the threshold of her home she felt as if she was on the edge of a cliff; the choice she had made swimming around in her mind. Before she had put her hand on the knob, the door swung inwards leaving her mother in its place, eyes wide and forehead creased with worry and too little sleep.

"Oh ma petite, ma pauvre fille. Marguerite I was so afraid for you. Pierre said you had gone down with the others but had not come back. I was so worried you had gotten lost or fallen into one of the traps. But you are freezing and wet so you must have just come up, non?" Madame Giry babbled nervously, searching her eyes for the answers. She drew Meg into the sitting room, pushing her gently onto the chaise longue; wrapped a woollen blanket about her shoulders and knelt in front of her.

"Maman, I am quite alright…just cold and hungry. I am not hurt and I did not get lost. You do not need to worry," she said, pausing to draw breath and then dropped the bombshell she knew her mother was waiting for.

"I found him."

Antoinette Giry shut her eyes tightly and pressed her fingers to her lips as if stifling a painful memory.

"Is he alright? Is he hurt? Oh goodness, what a state he must be in after what she did to him...after what he has done. I cannot imagine what this will do to him. Oh Meg, how ever did you find him; it is a maze down there? We all assumed he perished in the fire, although when you did not return I began to wonder if maybe…the gendarmes have even hinted that they believe it too."

"Maman, if the authorities and everyone here believes the Phantom perished last night then let it be so," Meg offered, "for it is the truth. The Opera Ghost is gone. What I stumbled upon was the living body of a man whose soul has been severed in two. Erik is broken but alive. I found him in a hidden tunnel where he had been stockpiling for an emergency although I do not think this was quite what he had in mind. He is angry, sullen, violent and moody. He is also exhausted, undernourished, depressed beyond belief and I suppose heartbroken. I have only come back up to get fresh clothes and food and then I am going back down. He must leave Paris and I will go with him."

She held her mother's widening stare while she allowed her announcement to register, letting her know she meant every word and that she would not back down. As Meg's words sank in, Antoinette fixed her gaze on her only child and watched her transform from the girl she knew to the young woman before her eyes. She had never heard her speak with such conviction before and rarely had she ever demonstrated any kind of rebellion or independence. She wondered now if that was her fault, being both her mother and her ballet mistress; demanding such high standards and sharing her with at least twenty other girls. "Perhaps," she thought guiltily "I have allowed her to fall into the shadows, never letting her take her place in the light." Christine had been the shining star thanks to the influence of the Opera Ghost and so her daughter had to watch as her childhood friend stepped centre stage for her big debut while she stayed quietly in the wings, unobtrusive, supportive, and steady. She never wanted to be accused of nepotism and so the opposite had occurred. Her beautiful girl had been overlooked. Now it seemed she had found her reason to come out of her shell and Antoinette had to acknowledge the irony of her daughter taking up Erik's cause as she herself had done all those years ago. She had done her job as a mother if she had raised Marguerite to recognise pain and suffering in another and to want to help, not to turn away. She could understand it but that did not mean she had to like it. Meg was still and would always be her little girl and she was being asked to let her leave the only home she had ever known with a much older man of questionable sanity and end up God knows where.

"Meg, my love, I can see how you would want to help him, I did the same when I was far younger than you, but this is different. You are barely a woman and know nothing of the world. Erik is almost twice your age, has murdered in the name of love and is borderline insane at the moment. Where would you go anyway? He is a wanted criminal, a fugitive and now you want to join him on the run? Have you even thought about this properly?" Antoinette pleaded with her daughter.

"Maman, I know all of this. Of course I have thought about all of these things but the fact remains, Erik needs to leave Paris. He cannot do this alone and there is no one else. You cannot do it, you must stay here. The Opera needs you, now more than ever. His Christine will not help him now. She exited stage left with her chosen prince no doubt without a thought for what she has left behind. So who? No one will even notice I have gone since they never noticed when I was here. He will keep me safe and I will look after him. I do not fear him and neither will I let him bully me. He needs sunlight and fresh air, to eat properly and to learn to forget what he cannot have. Christine occupies his every waking and dreaming moment and that is eating into him like the plague. As long as he remains here can never be free of any of it. Please, Maman, let me do this? Will you help us? Help Erik again?" Meg implored, hoping her mother could see past the shy little mouse she had once been to the determined young woman who would not back down from this fight. Maybe Erik could help her too, to be more assertive, to not shy away. Just arguing with him was making her step out of her shell more than she had dared before.

Antoinette wrung her hands in turmoil and weighed up her options in her head. If she let Meg go, she would forever worry about her safety, her happiness; imagining her on the run from the gendarmes with Erik, never stopping in one place long enough to unpack and she would miss her more than she was capable of imagining.

If she did not let her go, she would have her daughter under her watchful eye but she suspected she would resent her for it and she would have to watch her daughter's spirit fading a little more every day. That is if she did not try and run away against her wishes anyway. Oh why should any mother have to face such a decision! She cursed her dead husband for his absence and leaving her to make the choice alone.

"Meg if I give you my blessing to go with him," she began carefully "will you promise to come back? Will you promise to write and tell me where and how you are as soon as you can? Will you promise me you will never forget what he is capable of and to always remember what happened here? He has never really lived out in this world, all his living has been through books and within these walls. He only knows how to achieve through manipulation and threats. Are you sure you can handle all of that? And what am I going to tell people who ask where you have gone?"

"Oh Maman, of course I will write!" Meg threw her arms around her mother holding on for dear life. "I know a little of what he is and I am not afraid. I know it will not be easy and you forget I have never really lived outside of here either - we will both have to learn. As for what to tell people…say you have sent me away to stay with an old friend who is in need of a companion. It is not exactly a lie, just being creative with the truth. No one will question you especially as it will be a while before the opera house opens again. I will try and come back to visit as soon as it is safe but I cannot say when. I will need a disguise of some sort and so will Erik. I cannot smuggle him out of the city as he is - he will attract too much attention and I refuse to dress as a boy to accompany him...not that it would work anyway. I would have to bind my chest and God saw fit to endow me a tad more generously than needed. I thought perhaps I could masquerade as his nurse? I can bandage his face and head like he has been wounded at war. Paris is awash with returning soldiers and I cannot think of any other way I can go without me needing a chaperon, can you?"

Antoinette considered this and thought how resourceful her daughter was and that maybe she need not worry so much about her.

"Do you know, I think that might just work? There is surely something in the costume rooms that would suit for you and bandages will not be a problem. I pray Erik will realise someday what you are about to do for him. He is more fortunate than he will ever know that you and no one else found him last night. One thing is certain, you will not starve. Erik is a vey wealthy man thanks to years of outrageous salary demands and nothing and no one to spend it on. I used to bank it for him."

"You did? I had no idea. I knew you must know something as you always got the letters but you actually helped him all this time?" Meg enquired, astonished that she knew so little of her mother's movements.

"Yes I did. There was no one else who could have. I was the only one who knew he really existed, who knew him as Erik until last night. Now, I will go and look for something for you in the costume rooms if you want to have a bath now and then we can have something to eat and pack the rest of your things? We need to hurry as we have missed lunch already. It will not be safe to leave here in daylight so it must be tonight. You cannot leave it any longer."

Meg nodded, her stomach alternately growling at the thought of food and rolling at the thought of what she was about to undertake but knowing she needed to get warm and dry first. She could barely believe what she was about to do.