"Erik," Mia repeated softly, testing his name on her tongue. It suited him well. Strong and powerful, yet dark and mysterious at the same time. She slowly looked back up at the Phantom. "It's nice to meet you Erik."

"No it's not," he replied bitterly.

"Well, it might have been under different circumstances," Mia admitted. "But I was just trying to be polite."

"You're deciding to be polite now?"

"It keeps you in a better mood," she replied. "Which means you..." Mia suddenly realized that maybe finishing that thought out loud was not in her best interest.

However, the unfinished sentence was enough to grab the Phantom's attention. He turned, looking at her intently. "I what?"

"Nothing," she mumbled.

Obviously that answer wasn't good enough from him. He stood and marched over to the edge of the bed and glared at her ominously. "I what?!" he demanded.

Mia cringed as he raised a hand. "You...you..." she stammered.

"Spit it out!" he shouted, bringing his hand higher.

"You don't hurt me!" she shouted, raising her hands in case she needed to defend herself, but he paused.

"What do you mean?"

"When you're in a good mood, you let me be, but when the littlest thing doesn't go according to plan, you lash out and you hurt me!"

The Phantom opened his mouth as if to argue with her, but looked and saw his raised hand, before he blinked in surprise and slowly lowered it. "Have I really hurt you that badly?" he asked softly. Mia didn't answer, but her hand instinctively moved up to her throat. The Phantom lifted her chin to give him a better view of her neck. His fingers traced the fading bruises from choking her when he had first brought her down here.

She lowered her gaze, unable to look at him. "Spares me the trouble of having to do it myself," she murmured. The Phantom yanked his hand away as though he had been burned. He stared at her with wide eyes for a moment before backing away.

Mia felt her lips twitch upwards as he turned his back to her to return to his organ. She couldn't believe how much the Phantom, no, how much Erik was changing. He was beginning to open up to her in ways she couldn't even imagine, and he was acting much softer, much more gently towards her. All she had to do was keep feeding the man more and more sob stories, and eventually he would let her go. Mia knew he wasn't as tough as he pretended to be, so all it would take to be granted her freedom was a little more careful manipulation.

Erik smirked as he sat back down at his organ. Amelia was just eating this up. It was amazing what he could accomplish when he wasn't shouting all the time. All he had to do was keep his voice down and pretend to listen to her and she would pour her heart and soul out for the taking. As long as he played his cards right, he'd be able to turn her against the Vicomte in no time.

Although, he hadn't noticed how physical he had been with her. Erik was going to have to keep a tighter rein on his temper for this to be successful. He glanced down at his hands, remembering how she had cringed at his approach. Half the time Erik didn't even realize he was lashing out until he had already laid a hand on her. That could be problematic if he couldn't maintain control.

He glanced back at Amelia, who was nestled in the pillows of the swan bed. She seemed to be spending less and less time with her poetry, and more and more time just lying there. The book was just sitting there so Erik picked it up and began to thumb through it. Amelia hardly even seemed to notice. While there were a few new attempts since the last time he had gone through her poetry, most were unfinished, or still clearly in need of a lot of work. Erik began to wonder what had changed. Was it simply the fact she had been here nearly a month now and had completely given up or had she simply run out of inspiration?

Amelia, he noticed, was beginning to look unnaturally pale. She watched him through half-lidded eyes, for once not recoiling from his approach. He pulled off one of his gloves and placed his hand on her forehead, checking to see if she was sick. "What are you doing?" she asked softly, barely looking up.

"What's wrong with you?" Erik demanded.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

There didn't seem to be anything wrong physically with her, but Erik could tell this wasn't right. Amelia was just being too submissive. She had been fighting him too much for this to be normal. Suddenly a thought struck him. It had been about a month since he had taken her, and other than her one futile attempt at escape, Amelia hadn't left the lair. Erik knew exactly what was wrong with her. "Get up," he ordered.

After a moment, she blinked slowly, finally registering that he had spoken. "What?"

"I said 'Get up'," Erik repeated, grabbed her upper arm and pulling Amelia to her feet. He dragged her to the mirror, hit the spot that opened the door, and began to pull her through the tunnels.

"What? How did you open the mirror? Where are we going?" Amelia asked, completely bewildered, as she relied solely on Erik to make her way through the pitch black darkness. "What's happening?"

Erik remained silent as he dragged her up through the opera house. He wasn't concerned about being caught, as only he knew his way through the tunnels. As Amelia continued spew questions beside him, he finally reached the door he was looking for. "Where are we?"

He threw open the door and pushed Amelia through. She cried out in pain, her hands flying up to cover her eyes. Erik stepped around her as his own vision adjusted to the sunlight. Amelia didn't move for several minutes, just kneeling there, her hands shielding her eyes; after a month of nothing but dim candlelight in the lair, Amelia obviously couldn't handle the bright daylight.

Slowly, she was able to lower her hands, blinking rapidly as her eyes continued to adjust. "Where are we?" she repeated, looking around wildly.

"The roof," Erik answered curtly.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because unfortunately your cursed health apparently requires that light in the sky."

"The sun?"

"No," Erik snapped dryly. "I mean the moon. Of course I mean the sun!"

"Why does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't," he replied.

"Well then why are we up here?"