A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! :) All of them are much appreciated. And now...

Chapter X

Christine twined a long piece of string around the brown paper parcel, tying it in a secure knot and adding a bow to make it pretty. She handed the customer her package of fragrant soaps, adding her thanks for her patronage.

"And what of my change?" the haughty woman demanded.

"You gave me a five franc note. There is no change."

"I gave you a bank note of twenty francs."

"No, Madame, you are mistaken." Christine worked to keep a civil smile adhered to her face.

"You dare call me a liar, mademoiselle?"

"Is there a problem?" Christine's new employer of three days hurried over to the counter.

"This impertinent miss has insulted me," the woman declared, her eyes full of contempt.

Madame Aidler quickly assessed the situation: the customer spewing deceit; Christine again, as politely as she could, correcting her misconception - though her hackles had begun to rise at being called impertinent when she'd been nothing but courteous.

Madame Aidler ignored Christine and apologized effusively to the woman, withdrawing fifteen francs from the money box and placing it in her outstretched hand. The elderly woman flung one end of the fox stole over her shoulder in disdain and disgust, muttering about never having been so offended and swearing never again to step foot inside the establishment.

Before the woman was even out the door, Madame Aidler harshly grabbed Christine's arm, hauling her around and wagging a finger beneath her nose. "You cause more trouble than you're worth – knocking things over, breaking the soaps, and now – you insult a respected customer. I have no more use for you, Christine Daaé – go, and never step foot inside my shoppe again!"

Christine winced to be so unjustly scolded but held her head high, refusing to be brow-beaten. She had withstood La Carlotta; she could withstand this.

"What of my day's wages?"

The woman harrumphed. "Consider it taken from the fifteen francs I just lost."

Christine regarded her with disbelieving shock. "Lost… then you knew the woman was lying? And you're discharging me, regardless?"

"She was one of my most distinguished customers. Her son owns ships that bring goods to Marseille - people listen when she speaks, and she has referred many a new customer to my shoppe."

"But she spoke in deceit –"

"The Baroness Lamont does not lie; she is senile and does not always remember things well – but you should not have insulted her. I figure any discrepancy that is owed in with her next purchase, or I contact her son with the bill at month's end."

"I had no idea," Christine feebly defended. "How could I have known? You never told me."

"So now it is my fault?" Madame Aidler said with a sneer that made Christine wince. "I should not need to instruct my helpers in such things - the customer's word stands. Without customers, there would be no shoppe."

"I understand. Please, won't you give me another chance?" Christine softly implored. "I won't make the same mistake again."

"Non," the woman briskly shook her head of loosely pinned, upswept curls, and Christine watched as one black coil dislodged and bounced in her eye. The woman raised a plump hand to impatiently dislodge it. "I have given you chance after chance. I cannot afford you; you are too clumsy and do not fit well here. You do not do well with customers…"

Christine dryly laughed as she recalled her sacking while she walked back to the boarding house. Clumsy? She had been a dancer, for pity's sake, taught to move with grace. But unfortunately she still jumped at any sudden sound, nervous at being caught – (foolish perhaps, when she dwelled hours from Paris) – thus the broken soaps, which Madame Aidler had also taken out of her wages.

An audience of strangers she knew how to cater to and handle, to satisfy their purchase for song and dance. Theatre-goers were a collective group with one goal – to be entertained - and that was what she'd given them – from a distance. She had never needed to initiate face-to-face contact with crabby individuals, and clearly did not have the skill to mediate such encounters. At the theatre, if asked her opinion she had not withheld and preferred not to deceive. With the devious Opera Ghost as her teacher, a bitter man given to speak his mind and spew insults as easy as breath, the art of refraining had never been part of her education…

Except when it came to speaking to him.

She frowned at the thought. She had not truly feared that he would do her personal harm, not after their years-long association, mostly through walls, yes, but he could have and never did physically hurt her. Even so, often she had floundered in the wake of his demanding questions, those that involved the private matters of her confused heart, especially that last night in his lair. Why had it been so difficult to express her feelings or even understand them when so often they threatened to drown her soul and seep out uninvited?

That she missed his presence came as no surprise; she had expected the loss. He'd been an integral part of her life for so long…

And while she may never understand the paths of her heart, at least she now held the key to understanding his. Not that it truly mattered, since he was gone - since she was gone. But at least, in reading his words, she hoped to learn from them.

Christine made a stopover at the café for her usual iced pastry, once more without work and thankful that the Phantom's stash would provide for her needs for a decent stretch of time. Taking her wrapped treat back with her to the boarding house, she decided it would be supper. After her less than accomplished day, she had no wish to visit the parlor or dining room and mingle, though the young Mademoiselle Ledoux was pleasant to talk with, unlike the other guests...

Her musings took her to the man holed up in the attic.

Upon delivering Papa's violin to the mysterious boarder that same morning they'd met, the man had opened the door to receive it, barely giving her a glance while assuring he would take care of everything and return it to her soon. Wood again met jamb swiftly, as once more he had shut the door in her face, and she had shaken her head a little in miffed frustration.

He was doing her a favor, a kindness… he never needed to offer his help, she never expected it, and she resolved not to let her feelings be injured by his anti-social behavior. Heavens! He was no more than a stranger, despite their shared love of the violin – no doubt, the memory of the Phantom and his music tricking her into sensing a familiarity that just wasn't there. She had never learned the attic dweller's name either - a horrid pattern she was determined to abolish - but handed over her most cherished possession into his hands! Certainly she'd not been thinking clearly, after having thought she'd known him before he opened his door… after the fleeting belief that he might actually be the one who perpetually owned her thoughts.

He once told her she was his, that he possessed her soul, and surely he seemed to have seized her mind...

Coming to her door, she opened it, the troubling thoughts that rippled through her head going frozen at the sight of the violin case sitting on her made-up bed. With an excited rush forward and a gasp of stunned delight that ended in a little squeal, she flicked both latches open and flipped up the lid.

The evening sun streamed through the curtains she had left cracked, and as she lifted the violin from its velvet interior, the white ray of light glistened against the reddish-brown varnished wood, giving it a bright gloss, the instrument more lovely in appearance than she remembered. He had not only arranged for the strings to be replaced, but the instrument itself, even the bow, looked brand new! The unique mark to confirm it was indeed the same violin could still be found at the bottom - a small, barely visible nick received to the wood when her Papa still played.

She stared a moment in disbelief and wonder, then grabbed her reticule back up and hurried out the door. The ascent along the top staircase was swift, her thoughts clear, her goal concise. At the door she knocked; this time, her wait was not prolonged.

"Yes?" his deep voice came through the thick wood.

"It's Christine Daaé," she explained, "the tenant on the floor below. I gave you my violin for repairs."

"Is there a problem?" he asked after a moment.

"No - not at all. I'm not sure what you had them do, but the violin looks better than it ever has since it came into my possession. I'm grateful."

"I am pleased that you are satisfied with my endeavors."

"Your endeavors…?" The fullness of his response stunned Christine. "You fixed it?" Surely she misunderstood.

"I did what I was able. If there is nothing else -"

"No - wait!" In frustration Christine looked up at the inches-thick barrier between them. "It is quite difficult to shout through the door. Would you please open it so that we might speak face to face?" Hardly shouting, but she had to raise her voice to be heard and didn't wish any guest who might be passing by to witness the strange exchange taking place at the top of the staircase.

"This is not a good time," he said after a short span elapsed.

"I wish to reimburse you."

"It is not necessary."

Not necessary? She had no idea what it cost him to refurbish Papa's violin so beautifully, but even if it was no more than a few francs, which she highly doubted, Christine had no wish to accept charity or owe another outstanding debt. Her due to the Phantom was enough of a burden and would take months, likely years to settle.

"I can pay," she insisted.

"Keep your money, mademoiselle. I have no need of it. The price for repairs is hardly worth the mention."

She shook her head in incredulous puzzlement. From the other side of the door, she heard his footsteps walk away.

She could hardly force payment on him, especially since he chose not to open his door. She supposed she could slip a few bills underneath, and seriously considered it, but only shook her head and took the stairs back down to her room. Replaying the conversation in her mind, she halted in the doorway before stepping inside, her eyes lighting on the small white paper sack from the café. A sudden bit of inspiration sparked, and she grinned.

Tossing her reticule on the bed and snatching up the chocolate éclair, she hurried back to the attic room and knocked once more. This time, there was no response, as if he had chosen to completely ignore her. She pressed her lips together in maddened exasperation.

"Monsieur? I have left something for you outside your door, a small token of my gratitude… Again, thank you for your help."

Setting the sack down next to the wall in clear view once his door opened, she giggled softly at her presentation and took the stairs back down to her room. A gift for a gift, though hers was much more modest in comparison. She only hoped this man, this Phantom of the Boarding House as she had begun to think of him, would accept her meager offering. To think that he might reject it, that she might look tomorrow to see the sack still there - ignored as she had been ignored - created a twinge of hurt, unexpected.

She had opened the door to her room when she heard the door above creak slowly open. Startled, she quickly ducked inside then peered in curiosity around the jamb, to see his tall, shadowed form stoop down, retrieve the sack, then slip back inside his attic room.

Christine's delighted smile remained long after she closed herself into her own bedchamber.

xXx

The caller waited and waited, narrowing his eyes at how absurdly long it took the housekeeper to arrive to answer his summons. Once she opened one of twin, carved doors, she studied him with thick, raised brows.

"May I help you, monsieur?"

"I wish to see the master of the house," he demanded, disguising his voice.

"The master isn't here."

"I see. When do you expect him to return?"

She shrugged. "With him, he comes and goes like a shadow chasing the sun. I'm never certain when he'll arrive. He does not always think to inform the staff. Bon Jour."

Before she could close the door in his face, he put a gloved hand to the door. "Madame Delancy," he said in his normal deep tenor, minus the accent, "the shadow has returned. Step aside, if you please."

The woman's mouth formed an O, her green eyes just as round. "Monsieur de Ranier! I-I didn't know it was you."

"Clearly."

The Phantom removed his silk tophat, handing it over, and strode past the woman into the foyer. He could not fault her inability to recognize him – that was the sole purpose of this plan, to test her discernment and see if his disguise was as foolproof as he hoped. But her reception of potential guests could stand correction, especially with regard to her sharing personal facets of his personality.

"We will speak later of your behavior and what I expect if you are to remain in my employ. Perhaps my sainted mother allowed such insolence," he said dryly, watching as she hurried to set his hat on the entrance table while he removed his gloves, "but you will find I do not condone servants sharing traits about me behind my back, whether they be lies or the truth - and most especially sharing with strangers that happen upon my doorstep." He threw his gloves into the tophat with angry emphasis.

"Oui, monsieur," she all but whispered, wringing her hands in her uniformed skirts. "My most sincere apologies; I did not think…A- A letter came for you two days ago. I left it on your desk. I-Is there anything you require before I return to my duties?"

A letter? No doubt from the wretched bit of Persian conscience that dogged his every move. The Daroga alone knew this place of residence when in a moment of foolish vulnerability, Erik had told him.

Feeling that he had rattled the housekeeper's sensibilities enough for one afternoon he nodded for her to go. "Leave me."

She inclined her grizzled head nervously and hurried away.

Erik released a heavy sigh. Christine's laudable but deplorable efforts at her new goal he could take no more, every misplaced dyad and wrongful screech of the bow to strings jarring to his nerves, and to visit the chateau for respite had been essential to waylay certain madness - as well as to acquire any additional items needed. With his manor such a short distance, he'd made the journey three times since securing the substandard attic room. Initially he had returned to the common stable where Cesar was kept and finding his stallion in acceptable condition paid the promised amount, riding him back to Marseille and acquiring lodging for his horse near the boarding house for ease of travel.

It was never Erik's intent that Christine should encounter him; he had never presumed her to be so bold as to approach a stranger's door, not the timid girl she'd been when in the presence of the Opera Ghost. But she saw him only as a monster, not as a man. To his misfortune, Destiny had a way of masquerading as Hope and urging him onward through corridors of promise then turning about and slapping him hard in the face while laughing at her duplicitous victory. He could be just as misleading, and in this matter, had no choice. A disguise he deemed imperative, he who had become a master of disguises…

Madame Delancy had been fooled, never having had a clue as to his identity in broad daylight, Erik having stood close … should Christine again encounter him, he would ensure candlelight and shadows would be the sole backdrop, making his disguise even more pronounced.

He felt reasonably satisfied with the housekeeper's lack of reaction and with the evidence found in his hand mirror he used as he must. Still, he found himself walking to one of three rooms he'd had renovated before the disaster, in the days when he planned to take Christine as his bride.

Opening the door, he stood on the threshold and somberly stared...

The room was a reminder of a garden after a light shower, hazy and mystical, the sun having barely peeked through. Colors of rose, mint, gold, lilac, and blue created a spectrum of a pale rainbow along the walls, in the gauzy curtains, and along the floor, aided by light fixtures of crystal, refreshing to perceive. One full wall had become his canvas which he had painted with a misty morning forest motif, created in such a way it gave the illusion that one could walk into it and find themselves there. Roses of red, white and pink lined the paper that patterned the walls and were festooned in silk above the doors and along the top of a four-poster wreathed in filmy white veils. In the corner near a wardrobe, stood a tall, gilt mirror, identical to the carved one in the opera house dressing room that revealed one's reflection head to toe.

It was a room designed for a princess, an angel, and often he'd stood on its threshold imagining Christine's delight to inhabit these bright walls. His fingertips ghosted against the delicate framework of one of the bedposts, where at the top of each rested a carved angel. Dual angels, cherubic in form, faced one another in the carving of the dressing table, along the top of the hearth, even crafted as golden handles for the wardrobe and along the golden frame of the looking glass.

The recessed window contained a thick, padded seat designed for ultimate comfort upon which embroidered pillows lay, and he imagined her there now, her shapely legs pulled up beneath her, a book in her hand as she leaned back and soaked up the sunshine, nestled among all the deserved little luxuries he had happily provided.

She, the sole woman he had ever wanted for his bride, living with him…near him…beside him…

A memory floated to him of three years past, when as the Ghost, he overheard Christine's exasperated conversation with her friend, Meg, after another harried day of sharing a dormitory room with five girls:

"One day, Meg, I shall have a room all to myself – where I can dress with all the space I need, bathe whenever I like, and never have to worry about any greedy ballet rat getting into my things and taking what's mine. It shall be a lovely room, Meg…" Her voice had gone dreamy. "Colorful and bright, like a pale rainbow inside a misty, fairyland forest, with carved angels all around and a bed so big I can roll over without the fear of falling off…"

"You sound as if you've planned this all out for some time."

"Oh, I have Meg. I have…"

Her spoken dreams of her fantasy room calmed her anger with the little perpetrator who had snatched Christine's pretty ribbons, though she'd been unable to prove them hers when she took the matter to Giry.

But the Ghost had seen; the Ghost knew…

The little miscreant, a new member to the ballet, awakened the next morning with a scream of horror, her fair locks cut short enough that the filched ribbons would never hold them. Her shorn braid tied with Christine's blue satin ribbon lay on the floor near her cot, as did a pair of open scissors. To divert blame from Christine, where it was sure to land, he had left a note:

Dear Mademoiselle,

Light fingers shear so many possibilities –it would be wise to concentrate on your dancing, not on your regrettable sleight of hand.

~ O.G.

The punishment had been a bit extreme, perhaps, as Giry later scolded him - but hair would again grow - and no one raised a hand against his Christine without the receipt of due reprisal. All in the theatre soon learned that truth. Nor had the young villain ever stolen again.

His Christine… if only...

The ghostly image of her faded until it was again only a lonely window alcove, forever to be absent of its intended owner. Twice in past visits he lifted a furious hand, intending to raze the absurdities of his farfetched dreams: an angel for a wife, a blasphemy to the wild, scarred demon he was and always would be considered. Twice he refrained, as if by destroying the room he would be destroying Christine.

With a scowl of misery at the heartbreaking loss of his most treasured aspiration, Erik moved across the room to stand before the mirror. At first, the absence of his bold mask startled him; it had become to him a fifth appendage.

The mask of normalcy he had fashioned to cover the twisted wreckage of his face blended into his skin well enough, though the wax-like material was flimsy and required careful application and removal to prevent tears, and he recognized the need to make more of the same. The paste he had used for the half mask worked well enough, and the facial hair applied to his own skin, at those parts unscarred, matched the long wig. He removed the pince-nez with their cobalt lenses, noting how there the demarcation of the mask was upraised and evident around the hollow of his eyes, the drooping skin of his lower right eyelid too fragile to use the paste near it and to disguise with any other method than the dark lenses.

He replaced the lenses lower on his nose so that he could peer over the top of them and not see the world as blue-tinged. That was the chief drawback of his need to wear the pince-nez – seeing Christine dimly and in such falsified color that drained rosy hues from porcelain skin, and the copper and red tints from her lush, dark curls… never allowing him to witness her true, natural beauty.

But his eyes were regrettably unique, changeable in color, and sure to be a dead giveaway.

Grimly he continued his studied perusal in the reflective glass. The waistcoat and frock coat were more colorful than what he would normally wear, Bohemian in style, as was his entire appearance. With the lower change of pitch to his voice, it was, overall, a worthy disguise.

Satisfied, he moved toward the adjoining door and opened it into another chamber, diverse in every aspect, as if walking from the light, mystical fantasy of day into the encroaching shroud of night.

This master bedchamber contained heavy black oak furnishings, the huge four-poster designed for his height wreathed in black velvet bed curtains, with hues of crimson, black, silver and grey all around. An array of masks sat on a table near his wardrobe, which was stuffed with ordinary wear and costumes alike. Skulls of silver were carved atop the bedposts, along the hearth, and carved as handles of the wardrobe. Much like his bedchamber in the lair, though this one contained no coffin, and he moved toward the huge leather-bound trunk sitting at the foot of the bed. There, he retrieved what he thought he might need, then studied the bed curtains with a practiced eye and retrieved the yards of ebony velvet from their rungs.

Recalling mention of the letter, he went to his library to collect the missive, noting no return address, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. After further consideration, he jotted off a quick note to Madame Giry, letting her know that Christine had been located and was well. Before he could change his mind, he wrote to send any correspondence to the chateau, sealed the letter, and left it in the silver tray to be posted. With nothing more to be done there, he collected his belongings and returned to Cesar.

Within the hour, he was ensconced back in his temporary hovel and had just finished hanging the last of the black velvet bed curtains, obscuring the daylight coming through the panes of the transom window, when a knock came softly at the door.

He tensed and stepped down off the chair, unsurprised and more than a little certain of his unsolicited visitor by the wary knock alone. With a swift glance into a hand mirror to assure all was in order, he adjusted his pince-nez, clamping them higher up the bridge of his false nose, and cracked open the door.

Christine stood there, her huge dark eyes shining with a nervous kind of hope, a tentative smile on her delicate features. The wild mass of her ringlets was pinned back in the customary manner, above her ears, the rounded tips of which stuck out adorably the slightest bit from her head, elfin like, the abundance of her locks hanging down her back and nearly to her waist. Even cast in blue, she was a coveted vision to behold.

"Good evening, monsieur…," she began in a halting manner, though her next words came out steady as if rehearsed. "I have another favor to ask of you, and require only a moment of your time."

He faltered a tense moment, his mind initiating a war with his immediate desire to be near her and arguing that, even disguised, any invitation to draw closer into his pretense could only develop into a colossal mistake. He had done so before, when in the angel she discovered a Phantom - and damn well nearly destroyed them both, had destroyed his Opera House.

"I am rather busy."

"Please, monsieur..."

From beneath dark lashes, her eyes looked shyly up at him, glistening with hope.

Ignoring the caution to evade and withdraw, he curtly nodded and held wide the door for her to enter.

xXx

A/N: So, now you know for sure that the attic dweller it is Erik - those who weren't certain. I was going to draw it out a little bit longer, but there are so many other areas where I could do that. ;-)