I still don't own anything – it is so unfair (sniff sniff)

Erik

Entry 10

I am the happiest man on earth.

My little angel has accepted me for all I am though she knows it all.

It has been some months since my first appearance to her and we have settled into a routine that has not been broken, I continue with her lessons as we have done for years but now she comes to my home instead of the chapel. It fills me with joy to see her at ease in the place that I have called home for so long.

After a few weeks of our new arrangement she began to wonder how I had came to live beneath the Opera House.

I had been expecting the question for some time and was surprised that it had taken her this long to ask but it did not stop me from being concerned about her reaction.

I pondered for some time over just how to tell her but the words still got caught deep in my chest. I had just got her and I did not want to risk losing her.

I was standing with my back to her as I put away some of the sheet music that I had been using and I now that I my whole body tensed when she asked me.

My mind spun out of control as I tried to make my voice work.

I was about begin my story and was taking in a deep breath when in felt her small arms wrap around my waist and her forehead came to rest between my shoulder blades. My heart stopped beating for a moment at the contact.

"I am sorry Erik." she told me softly

"You do not have to tell we if you would rather not." she continued, accepting my silence and demanding nothing of me.

This decided me and I turned slowly bringing each of her hands to my lips and kissing them.

Settling her on my bench I began my story

"I was born in Provence..."

I told her of my home and how I had grown up viewed as a freak by me own mother and ignored by my father. I told her how once I was old enough to, I ran away from home only to be picked up by a travelling fair and forced into a cage and labelled 'the Devil's Child' by my 'owner'. And then, how one day the show stopped in Paris, where I was seen by a ballet dancer – Madame Giry. I told Christine how she had slipped into the tent holding my cage and broke me free from my prison with the stolen key that she had taken from my drunk 'keeper', to then take me to the Opera and hide me below the cellars.

I skimmed quickly through the rest of my tale telling her of my time in the Opera House and posing as the Opera Ghost.

As I spoke of my life I watched her face for any signs of disgust or pity but found neither. I watched as anger passed across her face bringing fire to her lovely eyes as she listened to my mothers treatment of me and how this fire turned to a furnace when I spoke of the fair and being caged.

She rose swiftly from the bench and wrapped her arms around me.

"You were only a child Erik." she mumbled into my chest as she shook her head sadly.

"How could they have treated you in such a way, you were only a child." she whispered again, pulling away from me and placing her hand on my uncovered cheek and tracing my features with her soft fingers.

"I will thank Madame Giry until my dyeing day for being there when you needed someone." her voice caught and I watched amazed as a a single tear fell down her cheek – she was crying for me.

I pulled her into my arms and held her close.

Leaning in close to her ear I nuzzled the side of her face, loving the clean, spring smell of her.

"So will I my love." I whispered softly "For it led me to you."

I took her back up to the highest of the basements and watched her as she walked away turning around and smiling before she turned a corner.

I do not know what I have done in my life to deserve her but I will do nothing to loose her.

Now there is only one question that I dread and that will be the day she asks me to remove my mask...

Two week after this I finally plucked up the courage to ask her to marry me.

I spent hours trying to think of what to say to her from plain and simple to complex speeches of devotion, I feared her rejection but no matter what her answer I knew that I would always be there for her.

I decided to ask her at the beginning of one of her lessons and I got restless waiting for her so I made my way through the tunnels and passages to the Opera and went to the dormitories staying in the passages behind the walls as sound clearly travels through the vents. If Christine was there I would know it.

"Christine you should be my wife." came a very arrogant voice form behind the wall.

What!

That boy was wanting to steal her from me.

I listened, my anger growing as he began to spin of a mental list.

"You will be well cared for, you will have the best. You are beautiful so you will fit in..."

I continued to listen as his list grew longer.

Not once did he say that he loved her.

Finally his list ended and I heard Christine's soft voice for the first time.

"Raoul, I am an opera singer, a dancer. You are a member of society an aristocrat and I do not think that your parents will approve of me." I new that what she was telling him was true but the anger still rose in me at the thought of Christine thinking that she is inferior to anyone else.

There was some more mumbling before all sound died down and I suddenly realized that Christine would be on her way to the lake for her lesson.

I raced through the passage and made it to our meeting point seconds before she arrived.

We fell into the pattern that we had established easily though my mind was racing.

I would propose to her after the lesson.

But how.

Once the lesson had ended I fussed with the music that we had been using, tidying it again and again as I tried to order my thoughts. Then her voice interrupted me as her hands came to rest on mine stopping my movements.

I led her to my bench as I had done only a few weeks before and crouched in front of her.

I started several times losing the words till I finally managed to tell her how I felt about her (after hearing that boy, I needed to let her know how much I loved her, no matter what) and ask her my question. All of my rehearsals went to waste as my proposal slipped from my lips.

I just saw a beautiful smile spread across her face before she threw herself into my arms knocking me to the ground as she kissed me. Her lips landing all over my face and my mask.

"Yes, yes, yes." she whispered to me in between planting kisses on my face.

I laughed as happiness coursed through my veins and I cupped her face gently in my hand and touched her lips to mine.

This happened three months ago and they have been the happiest months of my life. I see Christine ever day for her lesson and I then take her back as far as I can were we say goodbye.

Next month it is the New Years Eve masquerade ball and I have thought that though she did not enjoy last years ball she may like to go with me.

After all it is a masked ball...

So what do you think?

Took the idea of Provence from a 40s film version and the 'devil's child' from the musical.

The Masquerade will be next.

Hopefully I will be able to fit in some more of the songs along the way I am just trying to find a bit were they won't stick out. I really want to have them sing 'All I Ask of You' – so if you are missing the musical numbers don't panic I'm working on it. :-)

Hope you like.

(thank you SO much for the reviews I am loving getting them)

Hi, for anyone who read the last chapter before I fixed the spelling and grammar (hopefully all of it but I doubt it somehow) I would like to apologise for the mistakes in this and any future chapters it is really annoying me so it may be driving some of you nuts to see some blatant mistakes. Anyway I think that the problems are happening when I am saving my files. Whole words are being missed out as well as letters being replaced (technology is just wonderful isn't it). I'll be sure to check just before I post chapters but if I miss anything sorry, sorry, sorry. Cheers.