Mia woke up to a strange man in her doorway talking to someone in the hall. "Oh good, you're awake Madame," he said with a pleasant smile.

"Who…Who are you?" she asked.

Hazel walked in behind him. "Madame, after your ordeal, you fainted. Monsieur Barineau thought it would be wise for you to see a doctor."

The doctor pulled a chair beside her bed, sat next to her, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "You're a very lucky woman, all things considering."

Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not entirely sure how, but it seems that even in your fragile condition, the only injury you've sustained is a broken rib."

"My condition?"

"You don't know?" he asked. Mia shook her head. "Well then Madame, let me offer you my congratulations. You're with child."

Mia's hand flew to her stomach. "I've been sick for weeks…"

"Due to your pregnancy, yes." He smiled gently at her. "And like I said, you're extremely lucky. Breaking your rib could have quite possibly caused a miscarriage, but it didn't. How did you manage to break it?"

"I...I don't know," Mia lied. "I don't even remember him taking me. I just woke up and I was there. He…he must have drug…drugged me or something. It…it must have happened while I was blacked out."

"Don't worry yourself too much, it's not important," the doctor said. "What is important is that both you and your child are both going to make a full recovery. Stress is not good for mother or for child and I daresay you've had enough today for a lifetime."

Erik staggered back into his lair. It had been a few hours since he had fled, but as soon as Raoul took Mia, he had ordered a search of the building, including his home, and the only reason Erik had come back so soon was that the gens de'armes didn't seem to be very invested in their search, and the bullet in his shoulder needed attention.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" He barely registered the fact Antoinette Giry had entered his lair and was screaming at him, let alone react.

"I don't have time for this right now," Erik murmured as he kept his attention on his wound.

"Are you trying to destroy the Populaire for good? Because that's what it looks like!" Erik ignored her in favor of pulling off his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt to get a better look at the bullet in his shoulder. "The opera house was finally beginning to get back on its feet, and you just had to go and kidnap that poor woman!"

He began to rummage around for something he could use to pull out the bullet. "I didn't kidnap her."

"The Vicomte de Chagny showed up with a letter that very clearly said otherwise."

"Alright, fine. I didn't kidnap her this time."

"This time?!"

Erik finally turned to face her. "Antoinette, as much as I'd love to tell you the whole story, I have far more pressing matters to deal with. So unless you're willing to help me remove the bullet the Vicomte so kindly put in my shoulder, you are going to have to wait until I do it myself." Antoinette motioned for him to sit. She disappeared deeper into the lair and emerged a while later with a knife, a bottle of liquor, and a leather belt. "What on earth is all that for?"

"You're going to want this," she replied, handing him the bottle. "It'll take the edge off. This is going to hurt." Erik took a large drink and shuddered slightly as the alcohol burned his throat. She handed him the belt. "Bite down on this." While Erik did so, she held the knife in the flame of a candle, making sure to sterilize both sides. "Ready?"

The moment the knife touched his shoulder, Erik's teeth sank into the belt, and in order to keep from strangling Antoinette, his hands gripped the armrest of the chair so hard they turned white. He screamed in pain as the knife dug around in his wound. When she was finally able to get it out, Erik collapsed against the chair, white-faced and shaking, with tears of pain staining his cheeks. He spat the belt out as his chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. Antoinette handed him the bottle again, and Erik took a grateful swig. "Thank you." He screamed as she suddenly took the bottle back and poured the liquor over the wound to disinfect it. "You should have warned me you were going to do that," Erik gasped.

"Sorry," Antoinette said, her tone barely apologetic. She sterilized a needle and began to stitch the wound shut. "Now I want to hear the full story, and I want to hear it from the beginning."

Erik ran his hand through his hair. "Alright, I did take her, months ago. The night of the grand opening, I tricked her and I took her. I was still so bitter about Christine, I wrote that letter so that I could lure the Vicomte here. But she somehow switched the letter with one of her own, so he never came. I held her here for weeks, her husband was having an affair with Violet and had told her he would be in London so he never noticed she was gone. And during those weeks, we fell in love. But I let her go months ago! I let her to save Meg!"

Antoinette's eyes grew wide. "What does Meg have to do with this?"

"You asked me to keep an eye on her. Mia had fallen ill so I was taking her up to the rooftop for some sunlight when we saw Barineau with Meg. He had her cornered in her dressing room. Mia promised me that she'd keep him away from Meg as long as I let her go, and she kept that promise. But she asked to come back, she visited off and on for weeks. She came back here last night, begging me to take her away. In addition to his probably multiple affairs, Barineau had been hurting her, and she was desperate to escape him. Somehow that old letter I had written months ago had made its way to Raoul. He put the gun to her head before he shot me. He was supposedly threatening me, but he was trying to appear as though he was going to shoot her. I don't know what the hell he was thinking."

She let out a long, slow sigh. "Erik, what have you gotten yourself into?"

"Don't 'Erik' me," he snarled. "I know she's married, but I still love her and she loves me. As soon as things die down, I'm going after her and we're going to run."

Antoinette pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed again. "Erik, you must understand I want nothing more than for you to be happy, but this isn't the way to go about it."

"But it's the only way I can be."