A/N: Thank you for the encouragement & reviews - it is much appreciated. :) And now…

Chapter XXX

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The Phantom clutched the rim of the organ as he stood and glared at the engraved pipes that ran in a gleaming row of stair-step descent beyond it. The top of each one impressed with his symbol of a skull and the letters O. G., they proved his ownership, as did the scrolled golden motif of the pipe organ and myriad items throughout his lair.

To claim possession of matter that could not talk back or rebel was no challenge.

Christine, on the other hand, was proving to be a significant difficulty.

Every shred of patience he exerted since he almost stormed unaware like a bumbling fool into her bathing ritual had disintegrated at her obstinate refusal that had been accompanied by a soft, sad look in her eyes. His desire to sear that boy from her heart had propelled him to insist she sing the damned song. He had hoped the lyrics of the first verses would remind her that her past four years in England lay forever buried, that her destiny now belonged to him and with him and no one else - and the time had come to bid a permanent farewell to her life with the insufferable Vicomte.

All of the Phantom's motives were worthy of his aim to make her into a star. At the same time he'd been unable to deny the molten flash of lingering resentment that had wanted to make her suffer for her betrayal. Conversely, upon seeing the wretched tears that had welled in her haunted eyes, rather than experience the aloof satisfaction he'd striven for, instead he felt the extent of her pain.

"Damn you!" he seethed quietly.

With one sweep of his arm, he knocked papers and candelabrum free of the organ, slapping his clenched fist to its glossy surface. Uncertain of who he cursed - her, the boy, himself - he gritted his teeth, his eyes moist, and desperately reached for that necessary plane of calm indifference. Not for the first time since he'd brought her to his hidden lair, he questioned the success of his vengeful plot and if he could really carry it out to the finish.

Christine suddenly cried out and his heart froze.

Without thought, he pushed away from the organ and raced for his bedchamber. At the entrance, he stopped in shocked confusion at the unexpected sight of Christine, smiling and giggling and crying, while clutching his cat to her bosom.

It was the most animated he had seen her since she'd come to these caverns, and he could only stare in wonder at the baffling change. With no traces of her former despair, her eyes sparkled with a joyful excitement he'd last witnessed four long years ago.

She moved her cheek from pressing against silken fur and smiled up at him.

He felt shaken by the magnificence of that one sweet expression, by the eager tilt of her lips and the bright shine of her teeth and eyes; not once since she'd been in his underground dwelling had she looked at him in such an open, receptive manner.

"Where did you find him?" she asked, a lilt to her voice that minutes ago had been laden with distress.

"Faust?" He looked with confusion at the black cat.

"Faust? That is what you call him?" she scoffed, her manner glib. "The namesake of a man who sold his soul to the devil. No, no, no. That doesn't fit him at all. This is Mozart. Named after a reclusive and creative musical genius…" Her eyes grew somewhat distant, then she shook herself out of whatever poignant thought had captured her. "This is my cat."

"Your cat?"

"Yes, of course. I would know Mozart anywhere. His golden eyes and that thick, silky black fur. The little scar he got here from a fight with another barn cat. Do you see?" She giggled and held the sleek cat up, running her finger above its nose as if the Phantom could actually see the hairline mark from across the chamber. "I brought him with me, from home. In England. Mozart escaped from the hotel one night, over two years ago, while I attended the opera. A hotel close to the opera house, I don't remember the name -"

"I know the hotel," he cut her off curtly.

The Phantom stared hard at her. Despite the flame of bitter resentment again flickering to life inside his soul, he felt bewildered by her revelation.

He had never forgotten that night, no matter his countless attempts to burn the memory from his brain. It was the night he brutally confronted the truth that he foolishly hoped had all been some malicious lie, some cruel mistake…

The night every remaining fragment of faith in her supposed eternal devotion had been shattered and ground to dust.

The same night he had first come across the children's path. Because of that cat…

That cat…

…that had been Christine's.

The irony rocked him to the depths of his black soul.

"Monsieur?" She looked at him in some concern. "Are you alright?"

He did not doubt her claim to the small beast. Faust had shown no patient affinity to be coddled by anyone but him, barely tolerating Jacques's overly eager to the point of violent affections. Yet the cat had allowed Christine to cradle and baby him upon sight, his rumbling purr proof of his contentment…

Christine stared at the silent man in the doorway. The mask hid most of his features, his stare blank within its sockets. All she could see of his face was the partial curve of his upper lip down to his neck below, but she sensed his absolute shock - a match to her own - in every nuance of his form. He stood motionless, his hands clenched; yet the angry glint that had been in his eyes had disappeared, and for that she was grateful.

"You have had a difficult first lesson," he said quietly, his tone giving nothing away. "I will see to your morning tea before we proceed further."

The Phantom left Christine to play with the cat. Each step he took away from her felt no more grounded in reality.

His mind shooting a dozen different directions at once, though he dared not grasp one issue to dwell on for fear of losing his fragile grasp on apathy, the Phantom struggled to clear his mind and set about with the monotony of everyday ritual in food preparation. Once finished, he felt better able to manage the situation and summoned her to join him in the main room.

He watched as she carried the cat with her to the dining table where he had laid out tea along with a plate of pain perdu, the French term for "lost bread" soaked and fried in milk and egg. Even the food fit the occasion for what he now felt, lost and bemused, and he hoped the feeling would quickly pass. Bland disinterest was harder to maintain while walking around in an emotional fog of shock.

She glanced at him then at the plate, cup, and saucer. "Are you not going to eat, monsieur?"

"Non," he said giving no explanation and watching as she fingered the edge of a slice of toast. "I assure you, mademoiselle, neither the food nor the tea has been drugged or tampered with in a nefarious manner."

At his dry assurance, she gave a slight nod without looking at him and picked up the toast, giving it another uncertain look before taking a bite. She gave a soft sound of approval, briefly glancing up at him with a softer nod. "It's very good. You made this?"

"I have needed to learn to do a great many things in my life of solitude."

The Phantom stood across the table from where she sat holding the cat in her lap as if it were her child and feeding it tidbits of her meal as she also ate. He vaguely wondered if after this day the cat would care any longer for his main diet of cavern rodents.

"How did you find him?" she asked suddenly.

He tensed, cautious of his answer. "He found me."

She lifted her eyes to his, slightly nodding in confusion as if trying to take in his words but unable to comprehend the simplicity of them.

"This is just … incredible. I cannot believe that Mozart found his way underground to your home and has been here all this time." She looked askance as if she wished to add more but was suddenly nervous. She glanced back up. "May I…may I keep him with me, in my chamber?"

He inclined his head in a brusque nod. "Faust comes and goes when and where he pleases. He's kept on no leash, nor is he restrained in a cage. If he chooses to stay with you in your chamber, I'll not prevent it."

She wrinkled her nose a little at his name for the cat, but her easy smile did not ebb that she now turned toward the small beast she lifted to eye level. "Do you hear that, Mozart, my little friend? You're going to be my chamber mate again. Oh, how happy I am to have found you!"

She kissed the feline's nose then hugged him close.

He never thought he would be jealous of a cat.

"When you are finished with your meal, we will resume the day's lesson." He inclined his head in a stiff nod and returned to his seat of musical refuge to bury unwanted feelings and lose them in the paper sarcophagus of his work.

x

Christine watched the Phantom as he sat in silhouette near his pipe organ and scratched notes onto thin pieces of parchment. Idly she stroked the complacent cat that had settled in cozy warmth in the cradle of her lap. She took her time sipping the spiced black tea but could not continue to delay the inevitable. Even across the considerable distance of the chamber she sensed his impatience build in the tense set of his shoulders and abrupt movement of his hands. She lifted a softly growling Mozart so that she could stand, setting the highly disturbed cat in the chair with a conciliatory stroke along its spine.

No longer in fear of the inscrutable man who presided over the lair, but still feeling a need for caution, Christine warily approached and stood on the outer fringes of where he sat. His pen never wavered, continuing its rapid scratching over parchment before he finally set it down and turned toward her. Tense seconds elapsed before he spoke.

"Come here."

Two simple words quietly delivered. Why they should so abruptly rivet her senses and flush her with warmth she failed to understand.

She closed the distance and he looked up. "You can read."

She nodded at his question that came across as more of a statement, and he handed her a few pieces of parchment.

"This is the first half of Act One. Commit it to memory."

She looked at the words he had scrawled onto the first page, immediately taking note of their bold, creative strokes. A twinge of confusion made her pause. The letters were familiar … but not. Their composition, the wide loops and bold flair should slant to the right, not the left. She glanced at the pen he held in his left hand. Erik had written with his right hand…

She shook herself out of such foolish speculation, determined to stop her crazed obsession with constantly comparing the two men - perhaps all composers wrote with a similar artistic style - and she scanned the first two paragraphs of choral dialogue and stage direction.

"You may read that on your own time." He set down his pen. "For now, I wish to acquaint you with the full story of the opera." He left his chair and motioned to it. "Sit."

At his abrupt command Christine curbed an equally terse reply that she was not a dog to be ordered to heel and took the chair he vacated. She listened, fascination replacing affront as he unfurled his sad tale. At first she found it difficult to focus on the meaning of his words and not solely on the rich timbre of his voice. He slowly paced before her as he elegantly stressed certain elements of the story with his long, slender hands. His unique, dark version of the famous Don Giovanni that Wolfgang Mozart had memorialized soon captured her complete attention. However, one matter disturbed her, and she aired it once he relayed the final act.

"The gypsy girl - Aminta …"

"Yes?" he snapped.

"Well," she said carefully, noting his swift rise to impatience. "She seems rather … cruel."

"She is." His smile was bitter.

She frowned. "But there doesn't appear to be one morsel of human kindness in her. She is cold and calculating and vindictive for a lead, and it really makes me wonder why this Don Juan person would even want to seduce her and keep her with him."

"He has been deceived into believing a lie."

"Deceived? Even a blind man can see how horrid she is! He's not very intelligent."

He crossed his arms over his middle. "You question my skill in the craft?"

Likewise she folded her arms across her chest. "Am I not allowed to have an opinion?"

He snorted. "An opinion from an amateur. As if that should matter to me. The theatre is full of them and I don't care for what they have to say either." He brusquely turned away, paced back and forth twice, then faced her again. "Tell me, have you ever written an opera?"

"No, of course not. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize and understand the emotion of the human heart! This -" she flicked her fingers against the parchment, "while it is a remarkable story…"

"Yes?" He arched his brow and narrowed his eyes, waiting for the anvil to drop.

"…has no soul," she continued after a short hesitation. "No warmth or genuine feeling -"

He barked out a curt laugh. "You speak to me of genuine feeling?" he raged. "You? What do YOU know of genuine feeling?"

She regarded him in baffled disbelief. "I know what it is to love! To care about someone so deeply and completely that they compose every breath you take."

"All women are nothing more than cold-blooded serpents that strike to the heart of man with the sweetest of venom and poison his soul with their destructive lies!"

Christine flinched as if he'd struck her, feeling his stinging insult as if it were directed solely to her. She barely managed to bridle her own rising irritation.

"Monsieur…" Her voice came low and controlled and brittle as ice. "Perhaps some women are unworthy of respect and praise, but certainly that does not make all of us budding Medusas."

He narrowed his eyes but before he could hurl a cutting rejoinder, she grabbed courage and resolve to her like a breastplate of armor and returned to the initial subject at hand.

"I'm not a professional in the skill of composing an opera, that is true - and perhaps you consider my view to be insignificant and hold no merit. But I have attended various operas, and I speak from the standpoint of a member of the audience and of what would be entertaining to me. And I say again, that this -" she motioned to his opera, "this Aminta has no true depth of feeling. She's shallow and cold. And why must the end for them be so horribly tragic? That she would treat him with such a heartless lack of sympathy, feigning interest, and that he would then disguise himself and abduct her - and she willingly enter his trap with her own contemptible goals in mind - only to have it all end in betrayal as they both tragically fall to their deaths with nothing resolved between them - no remorse or forgiveness or redemption? I ask you, monsieur, what sort of ending is that?"

He scoffed out a short laugh. "One with an important moral to consider."

"What 'moral'?"

"That professed love bound up in the promise of fidelity is shallow and inconstant and deceitful, its trappings injurious. To toy with such a ridiculously romanticized idea is comparable to driving a dagger through one's heart and expecting to come out unscathed."

His low, fierce words brought the unwanted image of him standing distraught before her while trying to force her hand to spear him with his blade. She blinked and forced a reply through a suddenly tight throat.

"You write from experience…"

"What?" He turned on her suddenly, moving closer, but she did not recoil or falter in her revelation.

"This opera, that awful statue by your bed, your low opinion of womankind … someone hurt you. And you have found satisfaction, even a sort of vengeance, in writing this work of total despair."

She stated the words in a steady, quiet voice, certain she'd found her answer while wondering what manner of woman could have delved into the closed stone fortress of his heart and found entrance, even welcome there, to claim the love of such a dark, complicated man. To secure such a rare place would be eternal; she was sure of it. He was not one given to trust and would not grant access again. The thought that someone had found a way in only to wound him from ever having feelings for another unsettled her. For the briefest of moments Christine wondered what it would feel like to have been that woman loved by this man.

His golden eyes blazed into hers. "You have no idea what you speak of, Miss Daaé." His words came strained and forceful, underscoring her conviction. "I am an artiste, a composer and musician. This opera is a work of fiction, a tale of make believe, and nothing more."

"A tale that seems entirely too dark and morose for an evening's entertainment," she insisted, deciding it wise to dismiss his motive for writing such an opus.

"Don Juan Triumphant is not a light, comedic operetta. It is an op-e-ra. A dramatic work that ends in fatal tragedy for the lovers, as all operas tend to do."

Christine thought about the few theatrical performances she attended with Raoul and Arabella, including the opera she had seen at the Paris opera house. Tristan and Isolde, Mireille, and Mefistofele - all of them had one trait in common, the Phantom was correct. The stories all ended tragically for the lovelorn couples, leaving her with tears of empathy in her eyes.

She shook her head in mild exasperation. "Oh, very well. I yield. But I still believe there is one essential element missing in this opera that was present in all other operas I have seen."

He inhaled audibly and blew out his breath through his teeth. "And exactly what do you perceive that to be, Miss Daaé?"

"Love."

He looked at her a somber moment then laughed in scorn. "Love," he repeated. "Have I not just shared with you the moral of this story? Its entire focus is on love - and the reason not to encourage or engage in such a futile and potentially dangerous emotion."

She shook her head in frustration. "I speak of a true and abiding, unconditional love. Not the shallow nonsense you have Aminta portray. Or the lustful aspirations of your Don Juan. If you want your audience to care and be moved by your story, you must have the characters show true devotion to one another at some point. Not just show that poor, misguided fool as being completely obsessed with a flighty gypsy girl."

"He is not obsessed, nor is he misguided. And he certainly feels a great deal more than mere lustful aspirations for Aminta."

"It doesn't appear that way from how you described him."

"So you profess to be a critic as well as a singer?" he sneered.

"I never professed to be a singer - that was your idea."

"You are a singer, mademoiselle, but leave the contents of the opus to a true artist in the domain of theatrical composition."

She gave a stiff nod. "As you wish, monsieur."

Christine stemmed a swift tide of prideful hurt, uncertain why she should feel so offended and upset that he would discredit her helpful suggestions. And yet, surely she could expect no less from the obstinate man who posed as a fearsome ghost, insisting on his own way, to the point of hostility toward all those in the opera house.

Her lesson resumed, awkward and tense. Much to her surprise and relief he did not again force her to sing the aria reserved in her heart for Erik. Instead, he instructed her to sing a well known hymn she remembered from church services, then an aria she knew from another opera, a song in a higher octave.

While she sang, he played, nodding once in awhile to himself when she did brave a look in his direction, and noted him staring at the pages of his musical composition. Throughout the remainder of the lesson, the Phantom rarely glanced her way except when instructing her to stand taller and not slouch. At long last, he took his hands from the keys.

"That is all for now," he announced. "You may return to your chamber."

She hesitated with her initial reaction of swiftly fleeing from his chill presence.

"My chamber?"

"Yes, Miss Daaé. Your chamber. I consider you fully recovered. As long as you cease with any further reckless stunts of escape and starvation, I see no reason for you to revisit my bed."

Embarrassed warmth flushed her face at his blunt choice of words, though with their clipped emphasis it was clear she'd become a hindrance and he coveted his return to privacy.

"I vowed that I wouldn't run again," she said stiffly. "And I won't refuse any more meals."

After being so weak and helpless while fighting the infection, and living through what had felt like eternity in a hellish world ten times more frightening than her present set of circumstances, Christine had painfully learned her lesson.

He curtly nodded. "I am relieved you have come to your senses. You may go."

He still did not look at her, obviously still upset with her for speaking her mind about his wretched opera.

Pressing her lips into a thin line, she walked to the dining table to scoop up her cat. Awakened a second time, Mozart gave a soft protesting growl but didn't struggle to jump from her arms. Christine glanced one last time at the Phantom's rigid back then gladly left his chamber.

During the familiar walk down the torch-lit corridor she quietly fumed to herself. He could have at least told her if she'd done well but had given her not even one word of praise or encouragement. His face had been a dual mask, the leather one he wore above a stone expression that was yet another covering which barred all discernment of feeling.

"A simple word of kindness wouldn't have killed him," she muttered, then stopped immobile with shock at the open door of her chamber.

Mozart wiggled in her suddenly loose hold and jumped down, a blur of black fur whisking past the bed. The bed was the only item in the room unchanged. The rest of the room had undergone a startling transformation.

Across from the princess bed, in one corner twin stakes of steady torchlight glowed above each end of a carved dressing table, complete with a trio of round mirrors. On its glossy surface was laid out every convenience of luxury conceivable, from a silver-handled brush to a cut crystal bottle of perfume. A small cushioned chair sat on an ivory pile rug before it. To the side of the dresser was the trunk she once refused and against an adjoining wall another torch hung next to an engraved armoire of matching wood, which she assumed contained additional gowns. A dressing screen emblazoned with the image of an exotic peacock stood in one corner. The added firelight illumined the room, bringing out silver veins of sparkle from the ore within the cave walls. No longer grim, the chamber had taken on a soft enchantment she would never have believed possible.

Taking a seat at the edge of the mattress, Christine picked up a wooden figurine of a faceless angel that had been left on the small table, the statuette a match to the boy's. She ran her index finger along flowing lines of long curls the craftsman had meticulously crafted. Dazedly she looked around the greatly changed room and shook her head.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

She wondered if she would ever know the full truth about her new teacher and realized to her shock that, more than anything - she wished for exactly that.

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xXx