A/N: This is the final chapter! I'm posting the last two chapters on a Friday because I can't bear to finish this story on a Tuesday (no idea why, just don't like Tuesdays). I want to thank everyone for reading. I love you all! Writing this and reading your feedback was a really wonderful experience and I hope the ending is worth the process.

Chapter 25

Nadir had stood when Erik had fallen, but did not move away from his chair. He only watched as Erik pulled himself up with the table and leaned heavily against it as he listened.

Émilie composed her own music now and, while it was every bit as complicated and surreal as her father's, it was distinctly her own. So many of Erik's melodies were harsh and thrumming, even the lighter runs proceeding with a sort of out of control rhythm, jumping from note to note, building, and inevitably falling back into the crushing disharmony. The only consistency was that it could not be trusted to be consistent. Not when it spoke with loneliness and fear and lust and anger. Erik wrote music to calm himself, to express the feelings and emotions he could not act upon, and free his head of them.

Émilie's music calmed him too, but differently. It entered his heart and caressed the emotions he had despised and reveled in. It didn't remove them, only accepted and quieted them as if taking him by the hand and into a light he could not bear to look at. And just as he thought he surely must die without the ever-present rage and madness to give him life, she began to sing.

His breath caught.

"Nadir," he gasped, and stumbled out into the hall. "Nadir, she plays like me! She sings like me!" Like a drunken man, he disappeared into a room, only to tumble out again when he realized he was going the wrong way. His voice drifted back, "Just like me! My music. But…but Christine's…Christine's spirit, her light. She is ours. She must be. Nadir, where is my child?"

Finally, Nadir left the kitchen to follow him, likely worried about what the man would do. But Erik did not need him. He was already standing in the doorway, almost filling it as he stood straight with his arms at his sides, and watching.

Émilie had her back to him as she played and was still unaware her father was in the house, let alone standing behind her. Erik didn't understand how that could be. He had felt Émilie's presence from the moment he had started climbing the hill that morning. From the instant he had left Christine's grave. She was with him in the same way Christine was always beside him, singing in his ear.

Though she did not say anything, the governess had caught sight of him and regarded him carefully. Not that Erik noticed. He was too caught up in studying Émilie, how her long hair, currently drying into curls, made her look like Christine from the back. She had grown even taller and thinner in the past years, though her skin had become rosy in the sunlight and country air.

There was no fear in meeting her. The music had calmed him completely. Let her turn, let her see him. He would follow her happily back into the light she had extinguished when she left. He knew, without knowing why, that she would gladly, lovingly lead him.

From where he stood just behind Erik, Nadir said softly, "It's a new song she wrote. She calls it Erik. That isn't what I would have called it-"

He wanted to sing to her, with her, to call out in her language, but his voice failed him. He could not sing.

Instead he stepped into the room and simply said, "Émilie."

The word was much too quiet to be heard over the music, over her voice, over the pouring rain, yet Émilie dropped her hands and whirled around so quickly she fell off the bench. When she had picked herself up, Erik heard only a shout of "Papa!" and saw only a pale face before she was in his arms. She had grown heavier, but it was no problem to hold her and lay his masked face against her hair.

"Papa, you came! I knew you would. I was waiting. But why are you crying?" She tried to pull away in his arms so she could look at his face and study the tears that dripped from beneath his mask. Swallowing, all nervousness returned, Erik lowered his eyes to meet her questioning gaze.

Her own face was a crosshatching of scars, whiter marks on flawless white skin. A single long scar cut from her eyelid, across her brow, and through her forehead. There had been tiny cuts on her nose, her cheeks, her chin. Now it was all thick scar tissue in a tragic disarray. Erik raised a trembling hand and traced one that ran through her cheek and over the bridge of her nose.

He started crying harder.

The governess had the delicacy to leave them, silently slipping past Erik and out into the hall.

"Papa," Émilie said as she took his hand away from her skin and held it tightly, "don't cry. It is like your face now. Doesn't that make it beautiful for you?"

He pulled her close to him again.

"Oh, mon cœur, I'm sorry."

"I forgive you."

"Yes, of course. You forgive your poor Erik. You see only good. You are so beautiful, Émilie, so beautiful. May I-" He took a shuddering breath. "Mon cœur, a kiss, please."

Émilie laughed and reached for his mask. It was easily untied and held protectively against her chest as she leaned forward to press her lips against his twisted cheek. Then she laughed again and squirmed until he let her free. She didn't leave his side though. Instead, she took his hand and bounced up and down and looked up into his face, so easy to read when it was uncovered. He was happy now, she saw. The thin lips had turned up and the gold eyes glowed. He was happy.

She had known all he needed was a kiss.

"Come on, papa! Come sing with me. I wrote this song for you but I need your help with the cadence."

Erik let himself be drawn further into the room by the little hand in his, following the light and beauty before him. It bade him come away from the door and sit down before the piano and sing, papa, please.