This is the first story in my 20 years on ff . net that I haven't given individual titles to the chapters. By the end of this chapter, you'll be able to guess what it would have been called.

Conclusion to this story is only a few chapters away. :)

CH 64

"If you need anything before Monday, please do not hesitate to contact me," Daniel insisted.

"You've done more than I could ever ask," I told him. "And I am certain I've troubled you more than enough for the entire school year."

Ink forced an uneasy smile, which seemed out of place. "Absolutely no trouble whatsoever. However, I do feel as though I owe you an apology."

"Daniel Linoln, what have you done this evening that could possibly warrant an apology?"

Ink shifted his weight. "It wasn't something that I did, per say, but what I thought."

I lifted a brow, exhausted and in no mood for guessing games. "Is it a custom in America to apologize for one's thoughts?"

His face turned a deep shade of red, and he ran his hand over his hair.

"You are apologizing for…?" I prompted.

Daniel looked away and shoved his hands in his pockets. "For almost saying that I loved you," he blurted out, "which was completely inappropriate on my part, but in my defense, I was a bit preoccupied with the task at hand, and thinking of my father, whom I do love, but whom you don't remind me of, as I believe I expressed earlier–"

"Daniel," I interrupted. "I am far from offended and there is no apology needed. There are several second year students who profess their adoration for me at the end of class every Thursday."

"Yes, but I am fairly certain that is said in good fun–"

"Daniel," I said more firmly. "It's fine. I appreciate all of your assistance this evening."

"It is not fine," he insisted. "It's just that…"

Ink appeared bewildered, as if a thousand different concerns vied for a place on the tip of his tongue.

I made every attempt during the school year to maintain a professional relationship with my students for the nine months they were mine, to guide and nurture them without overstepping the boundaries and delving into their personal lives, but that was not always possible or wise to gloss over moments in which they needed more than advise on their art.

Many of them were away from home for the first time, adults who were tasked with providing for themselves in ways that had never been expected of them in the past. It was not uncommon for a flustered student to walk into the studio on a Friday when they were free to stop in for extra one-on-one time and ask about shading or what they were doing wrong with their landscapes balancing the perspective and then slowly work into a conversation how to fix a leaking pipe in the dorm that had flooded over the weekend or if I had a rash that appeared after an insect bite which salve would work best to clear it up.

They were independent while still in need of guidance, technically adults that were still very much children to me.

"Daniel, you have my word that whatever you say will not go beyond these walls," I offered.

Ink ran his hand down his face. "Professor Kimmer, I have not written to Harriette in three months."

"I see. Has she written to you?"

"Once and I have not replied as of yet." He pressed his palm to his forehead. "I don't know what to say to her in a letter. What will I possibly say to her when I see her in person over the summer? For God's sake, I still cannot say with certainty if her eyes are brown or green or hazel and as an artist I should be able to paint her in my mind, shouldn't I?"

"You haven't seen her in a year and a half," I reasoned. "Sometimes our perception of people changes when we haven't seen them in a while."

"When was the last time you saw your brother?"

"I was seven, he was three and a half. Twenty-eight years."

"And what color are your brother's eyes?"

I frowned at him. "That isn't a fair comparison given that my brother and I spent every waking moment of the day glued together and you've only known Harriette for a relatively short time."

"Yes, but we intend to spend the rest of our lives as husband and wife. We will share the same home, sleep in the same bed, and raise children, if we are so blessed to have a family."

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes, of course that's what I want. At least, that's what I should want, isn't it? To have a wife and a family?"

"That is not advice I am qualified to give."

Ink exhaled. "I care for Harriette," Ink said. "I truly do care for her and I would not wish anything ill upon her." He looked away from me. "But now I am not certain that I love her."

"Because you don't know her eye color?"

"There are many reasons, but yes, that does seem to be a valid one, would you not agree?"

"As I stated, I am not qualified to give you advice when it comes to courtship or marriage."

Ink sighed. "I understand and appreciate your honesty, but I admit I would welcome a more thorough response from someone I admire and respect." He stared at his shoes. "There are few people I feel I could speak to regarding my personal life and even fewer I think I could talk with who would not judge me for my choices in…" Ink exhaled past his lips. "Partners."

"If I may ask, what do you think you think Harriette would say if you told her you'd had relationships with other people while studying abroad?"

Ink thought for a moment. "I think she would be hurt," he said.

"And if you told her that those relationships were not with women?"

His gaze immediately lowered and he bit his bottom lip. "I believe she would break off the engagement and never wish to speak to me again."

In the back of my mind I thought of my brother and the two thirds of his opera I had watched hours earlier, a blatantly oversexualized love letter to Christine Daae.

I thought of Erik carrying the young soprano over his shoulder through the trap door and wondered about what had transpired between my brother, Raoul and Christine. If Erik stood before me rather than Ink, I would most certainly have had one question for him: What in the hell were you thinking? That woman is engaged and you thought you could win her hand? You should never have put her into that position in the first place.

"Professor Kimmer, I have not spared more than a handful of thoughts for Harriette since I last saw her. Our correspondence is few and far between and we speak of trivial details." He scratched the back of his head, tongue rolling along the inside of his cheek.

"You have given me quite a lot to think about," Ink said, drawing me from my thoughts. "More than I have been willing to consider."

"It's late and this evening has been fraught with unexpected horrors. I sincerely hope the dawn brings us both more clarity. Get some rest and then collect your thoughts."

Ink nodded in agreement. "I will see you at nine on Monday unless you are in need of something before then."

"Monsieur Lincoln, we both know you will not scramble through the studio door until eighteen past the hour."

Daniel grinned back at me. "I will make every effort to be there no later than five after nine."

"I will hold you to five minutes of tardiness. Anything longer and you will owe me a cup of coffee every day until the end of the year."

"Black coffee?" he asked.

"The blacker the better."

I thanked him again before seeing him to the door, and despite insisting he could walk home, I gave Daniel twenty francs and told him to take a cab back as it was the middle of the night and I didn't feel he was safe on the streets alone.

When I shut the door and turned, Elvira had her right foot out, requesting that I allow her off the stand, which I did.

"You are up awfully late, my love," I said as she assumed her place on my shoulder.

She imitated yawning.

"Bed?" I asked, walking toward her enclosure, which was practically half the size of my apartment.

"Careful! She bites!"

"I appreciate the warning," I said, allowing her to remain on my shoulder as I continued to stare out the window.

It was after two in the morning and I was ravenous and restless. From my apartment window I could see the plumes of smoke thick against the night sky, which further stoked my already raging anxiety.

Either my eyes played tricks on me or the horizon in the direction of the theater district blazed orange. If the opera house was still on fire–and I prayed to God it was not still burning–the flames put the adjacent buildings in danger. If the entire theater district burned to the ground…

I couldn't imagine how Erik would feel if he were somewhere nearby gazing out at the aftermath. Being that he was clearly still quite enamored with music, I assumed he would feel guilty, particularly since he had built some sort of shelter beneath the opera house. His adoration for music was the only part of him that I felt I still truly knew from our shared childhood.

More alarms rang out somewhere in the night and I suppressed a shiver, knowing I would have been aghast if the Louvre had been destroyed–which it almost had been years earlier. I wasn't sure I could stomach seeing the museum destroyed.

Elvira softly nibbled on my left ear, something that she did frequently to sooth me when I was at my most troubled. When she preened my hair it felt like fingers gently raked against my scalp, a physical comfort I hadn't truly enjoyed in my adulthood.

My thoughts refused to be calmed, and the longer I looked out the window, the more anxious I started to feel. Closing the curtains–which I rarely did as I disliked how it felt with the world blocked from my view–I grabbed my notebook and pencils, turned up the lamps, and sat in my chair, staring at the blank pages.

Several times I began sketching Erik as I had seen him hours earlier, no longer a little boy with his reed-thin arms and dirt-covered bare feet, but an adult who was almost skeletal in appearance, whose hair was thin and barely covered his scalp, and whose eyes were filled with immense sorrow.

Over and over I drew Erik's eyes, unable to erase the melancholy harbored in one single glance. His emotion reverberated through me, the whisper of a voice I had once known.

Sometimes our perception of people changes when we haven't seen them for a while.

The wise words I'd spoken to Ink had come back to bite me in the rear end with a set of jagged teeth. Again I thought of what I would have said to my brother if given the chance: What in the hell is wrong with you?

Suffering. As Nadir Khan had mentioned, Erik had not known compassion for a long time. There were no specific details accompanying his statement but it was more than enough to know my little brother had been out in the world void of kindness. Seeing him there on the stage, I wasn't sure why I expected a different fate, one where he had a large family and an adoring wife.

Instead he was alone and apparently coveted another man's betrothed, which made him far less like me and more like Val.

"Could this night be any worse?" I said through my teeth, crumpling the paper in my fist. I threw it into the fireplace, followed by the drawing Elvira had torn in two, deciding that neither were necessary. My frustration had become a separate entity taking up residence within my apartment, one that I could not tolerate for a moment longer.

"Walk with me, my love? Twenty minutes and then home again," I said to Elvira.

She pressed her face to my cheek and I put trousers on over my pajama pants and shirt as I had promised her a quick outing. Around the block, I told her as we exited onto the vacant street.

The smell of burning debris had traveled all the way across town, accompanied by the distant sound of alarm bells from what sounded like every firehouse in all of Paris. Elvira tried her hand at imitating the bells as we aimlessly wandered into the night, trilling softly in my ear as we reached the end of the street and continued on our way.

I imagined the carnage from the disaster would be detailed in every newspaper in Paris and beyond, quite possibly the worst fire the city had ever endured.

Erik would be to blame. Or rather, The Phantom of the Opera, the most bone-chilling villain France had ever seen. Or rather, had gone unseen for a period of time. I wasn't certain when my brother had begun his reign as the Opera Ghost.

The very thought sounded like pure madness. Erik was the Phantom of the Opera. Erik was the mysterious entity who had sent notes to the theater managers and staff–one of which I had retrieved. Erik was responsible for the entire set crew and several other employees to walk out.

He was the one playing the violin on the opera house steps, across from Celeste. He was the person she had spoken to, the hooded and masked figure she called "E".

My brother had been a step ahead or behind me for weeks and I'd not known. Quite possibly it had been much longer and unbeknownst to me depending on how far he roamed the theater district or where he took up residence. For certain he had shelter beneath the Opera Populaire, one where he stored a substantial amount of explosives that he'd obtained for unknown reasons.

Again the words flitted through my thoughts: What in the hell is wrong with you?

Finding Erik again was supposed to be my utmost joy, the reason for surviving years alone. Thus far there had been absolutely no pleasure in seeing him again; only continued worry and endless questions about my brother as a person and his uncertain past.

It worried me that Nadir was correct and it was for the best that Erik remained lost to me for a while longer. It aggravated me that I didn't know him, that there were things about him I wasn't sure I wanted to know. An hour earlier I would have been quite adamant that I could fix him, repairing whatever parts of him hurt the worst.

I cannot fix myself. What good am I able to do for my brother?

The thought made me shudder. There was a possibility that in meeting my brother again that I made him worse. There was a chance that in his stoked anger, he took out his resentment of the world on me.

What if I must turn my back on Erik for his own good and my own safety?

It would be different now, different than it had been when he was three and the worst he could do was bite me before he burst into tears. He was far more capable of doing harm and less accustomed to affection and compassion.

Compassion. Something my brother had been without for a very long time.

I found myself standing in front of Hugo's home at three in the morning. All of the lights were off, and despite assuming he would allow me inside if I knocked enough times, I continued walking down the street, my heart hammering with such force I thought it would give out.

Hugo had been an anchor to me over the years, and I knew he would always be available to me, offering his sage advice whether I wanted it or not. He had been my mentor for years and a father to me in more ways than I had realized.

Who did Erik have in his greatest time of need? Nadir said he would not speak to him again, and I had no idea if my brother had other contacts that would offer assistance now that he was…

A fugitive.

What in the hell is wrong with you?

My pace quickened and I wrapped my scarf around Elvira so that she was nestled up against the left side of my head, her wing to my ear. She made no complaints about the way she was bound to me, most likely appreciating the warmth we provided one another.

Abigail's shop came into view, the windows both downstairs and up in her apartment dark as I expected given the hour. I clenched my right hand despite having no desire to put pressure on my left forearm. I walked past, seeing that the floral arrangement I'd given her the previous day was no longer on the counter and wondered if she'd tossed it into the refuse bin in the alley.

Briefly I gazed through the window at the cramped interior still cluttered with unorganized bolts of fabric and racks of dresses and suits, longing to walk in unannounced and see Abigail look up and smile when she recognized me.

I wasn't sure why I decided to torture myself by looking inside of the shop for someone who was not interested in my company. Hands in my pockets, I started to swing away from the window when I noticed the ceramic container shattered on the floor and the flowers inside spread over the rug, most of them appearing to be trampled.

My face was practically smashed to the glass, eyes wide as though somehow it would make it easier to see in the dark. I was absolutely certain the flowers had been on the counter when I had originally stood outside of the locked storefront, which had to have meant Abigail had returned sometime after I'd left.

Quite frankly the message seemed crystal clear and I turned away at last, embarrassed to have returned to the shop after Abigail had made her feelings known.

There were few bad endings to the trysts I'd entertained over the years simply because it was known and agreed upon that after we were physically satisfied, there was nothing more we needed from one another.

The thought brought me no comfort as I crossed the street. Twenty-two years of sleeping with an untold number of women and I was lonelier than should have been humanly possible.

I wanted to be with someone in a way that wasn't jumping into bed first, which felt like an odd desire for a man. It was something women wanted from their partner, commitment through courtship that led to marriage.

"A fruitless quest," I muttered.

Elvira popped her head out from beneath our shared scarf and vocalized quite loudly with a scream that made me jump.

"Not literally fruit," I said, realizing I'd inadvertently piqued her interest using one of her favorite words. "And please refrain from screaming at three in the morning. You're liable to make people think the entire city is under siege by a dragon or pterodactyl."

When she realized I had no treats for her in my pocket, she ducked under the scarf again and kept watch with me as we continued down the next street where the smell of smoke was thicker.

The smoke was much higher than ground level, but I was still hesitant to bring Elvira closer to the theater district. Birds were sensitive to inhaling any type of smoke or chemicals, ranging from cigarettes to coal and wood and a burning building a street ahead of us.

Given the number of years she had spent in a smoke-filled salon being poked by strangers, I was surprised her lungs weren't severely damaged, however, her enclosure had been beside a door that was constantly opened and closed, giving her at least more fresh air than if she'd been tucked into the corner.

"You tell me if you are cold," I said to her, "and if you are not comfortable, we will turn around."

Elvira made a purring sound. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and continued down the street, stifling a yawn as it drew nearer to a full twenty-four hours of being awake. No amount of physical exhaustion would quiet my mind, however, and I knew that if Elvira wished to return home, I would not be able to sleep as I was far too restless.

My eyes were gritty, but I searched every doorway and alley, looking for signs of movement or a figure in the shadows. With every step I prayed Erik stayed close to the theater despite assuming he had no reason to return to the scene of Paris' biggest crime.

Unless of course he called the Opera Populaire his home.

No. I dismissed the thought entirely. He was not living in the underground home where he had stored explosives. Or where the rose headboard had been delivered, which I was fairly certain was a wedding gift to Christine.

And the garish cape Abigail had sewn thousands of sequins onto the back for a mystery client, which had been delivered to the opera house? I assumed the cloak Abigail had asked me to try on for her was also for my brother.

I had worn my brother's clothing. My damnable frustration was palpable, and I laughed to myself to keep from screaming alongside Elvira into the night, a madman and his fractious bird.

My God, Erik. What in the hell is wrong with you?

I found myself horrified and amused by the ways in which Erik had danced around me, our paths nearly intertwined but never quite touching.

I imagined rounding a corner and the two of us literally bumping into one another and those exact words blurted out in a moment of sheer frustration with him. In ten years perhaps it would be humorous. For the time being, however, I was nothing short of annoyed with him.

In truth, I knew that even if Erik dropped out of the sky and landed directly in front of me, I would not have asked what was wrong with him. Val had asked me that same question relentlessly every miserable walk back to his apartment when he bailed me out of jail on Sunday morning.

I'd never had an answer for him–at least not one that was suitable. Most of the time I said nothing at all, aware that he didn't truly want me to reply. He asked out of frustration, often answering his own question with the most disparaging words.

What is wrong with you? I know precisely what is wrong with you. You are an immature, brainless idiot who likes to find himself in the midst of trouble. You have never thought of anyone but yourself. You are selfish and a fool. What do you have to say for yourself? Nothing? Nothing? Fine. Don't say a word to me, Phelan, you damnable bastard. I don't want to hear a word out of you ever again.

No, I could not possibly ask Erik what was wrong with him because I already knew the answer. He was suffering. He was alone. As Nadir said, Erik saw two choices. I still had no idea what a grasshopper or scorpion had to do with Raoul and Chrstine, but somehow, compassion had been shown and Erik had released the two.

Which of course meant that somehow he'd taken them both captive.

"Honestly," I said under my breath. "I am very tempted to ask what in the hell is wrong with you when we finally see each other. I feel as though you owe me an explanation for how this night has gone."

I walked Elvira toward a park I rarely frequented at the very end of the residential neighborhood. From the corner of the street, I still couldn't see the theater itself, but the smoke had thinned out, the night sky no longer blazing orange with the fire out of control. The number of alarms also seemed to have quieted, which I assumed meant the neighboring theaters were not in danger of being set aflame.

Elvira started becoming more agitated, and I wasn't sure if it was the cold or the smoke, which I could feel burning my own nostrils, and knew it was past time to return inside.

"Home, my love?" I asked.

She stepped back and forth on my shoulder, eager to return to her cage and much needed sleep. I scratched beneath her throat and turned from the theater, catching sight of the house on the opposite corner with every light turned on. There were muffled voices as well, a man and a woman by the sound of it in what sounded like a heated discussion. The man I couldn't see, but the woman walked past the sheer curtains in the parlor, shaking her cane at whomever she addressed.

Inhaling, I wrapped the scarf tighter around my head and Elvira's body and started the fifty minute walk back to my apartment, still searching every shadow and alley each step of the way.

My search for Erik was far from over.