Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In recent months, if anyone at all asked the girls in the corps de ballet of the Palais Garnier—one of Paris' premier operas—if the opera house was haunted, they would nod so emphatically people worried their heads might come loose. Strangely enough, they would not begin to share terrifying stories of the Opera Ghost before becoming too scared of the whole business and scurrying away, as they had once done. Instead, they went on and on about shoes repaired and lost items returned, tripping over themselves trying to be the one the Ghost had shown the greatest kindness to. However, no one ever bothered to ask the little ballerinas what their thoughts on the Opera Ghost were.

The little ballerinas occupied a sphere in the opera house that not many paid attention to. The response to their attempts to right the Ghost's ruined reputation was usually a soft pat on the head and mumbles of something approaching "now isn't that nice". This was not because the opera house was not haunted. It most certainly was, and everyone knew it. There had been ghost stories in the opera house since anyone could remember, but since early autumn, it seemed a new specter had been angered. It was Joseph Buquet and his troop of sceneshifters, commanders of the flies of the opera house, that had the authority on the subject of this particular ghost. Whatever stories they told of the skull-faced specter were certain to be the correct ones. The whole opera house thought so.

Not long before the opera house was set to open again in late September, Buquet had been the first to see the Ghost floating through the flies, a skeletal, cloaked figure. Never one to pass up notoriety in the cutthroat, dramatic world of the opera, he spread the rumors like fire through the cast and crew. He would even lead 'expeditions' to search for the Ghost. As the winter season of 1883 drew closer, the Opera Ghost, as he was called, became the foremost haunting of the Palais Garnier, and the cascade of dominoes ending in so much love, heartbreak, and tragedy began. 

The winter season of 1883 would be a particularly odd one for those used to the usual routine and bumble of the Palais Garnier. Rumbles and rumors of a ghost terrorizing the staff alerted the old managers, MM. Debienne and Poligny, much as a sea captain is alerted by cannonballs rolling over his deck in the night. As such, they made quick and precise calculations to retire, citing old age and a desire for the 'peace of the countryside'. All in the space of two weeks. Right before the start of the winter season.

This might not have been as upsetting as it was if the new managers had simply left their refurbishment of the opera house until after the season had run its course. However, sense seemed to roll from these new leaders of culture in a way akin to that of water, sliding gently off a duck's back. They were businessmen, blast it all! They knew how to run an opera! No, the season was to be delayed while not only did the opera to be performed change, but also many of the ensemble and musicians. According to the letter given to those let go from the house, this was not due to any personal failing on their part, but rather because they did not 'fit the vision' and that the managers were 'moving first in acquiring refreshing new talent'. 

Upon receiving a letter of her own, La Carlotta, the Prima Donna of the Palais Garnier, stormed up to the manager's office in a flurry of ruffles, frills, and heated Italian anger before shouting them down in a tirade that even a certain Ghost could hear. This led to her and several other senior members being kept on, but the damage was done. The ensemble and orchestra were in disarray; the senior singers and musicians, mostly friends of La Carlotta, had formed a tight-knit circle, and a new opera had to be prepared and rehearsed. Thus, the 1883 winter season was delayed.

The Opera Ghost was not well pleased, and everyone knew it. Buquet drew more power than ever from the increased antics, even when the Opera Ghost was not to blame. A flat note or a tripped dancer was the Ghost expressing his displeasure. The Foyer de la Danse was no longer the showcase hall of the dancers, but the Ghost's hiding place, where he saw all. Rehearsals were conducted in various shades of fear and excitement. Even those in the washrooms and the kitchens checked behind corners to ensure there was no horrible thing waiting for them.

Worst of all were the notes. Oh, those notes! Every day, it seemed, Madame Giry, the ballet mistress and the unfortunate soul to whom the notes were delivered, would appear with a note directed at whoever had made the most egregious mistake the previous day. Each one was labeled with the recipient's name and closed with a black disk of wax. And each one was signed, just there at the bottom, O.G. 

For their part, the new managers, Messieurs Moncharmin and Richard, pretended as well as they could that there was no Ghost. This became much harder when they received their own note. What it said, no one could ever determine. From that day on, however, Box Five in the grand theater was never used, and the two men became rather anxious and irritated if finances were brought up. Debinne and Poligny, as the now-retiring managers, had stayed on for a few months to mentor the new ones, but quickly fell back into an observational role. They seemed to have realized—in the way that only poorly used and recently retired people can realize—that while the monkeys might be bouncing off the walls, they no longer wore the circus master's hat and now had the privilege to lean back and simply watch the show. 

What a show it would turn out to be.

It seemed the Ghost would not let Buquet direct the whole narrative concerning him. Those walking alone in the darkened corridors feared the fate that many had met, a disembodied voice whispering horrors in their ears. The terror ran like rats through the Palais Garnier. The little ballerinas had been the most affected, their innocent curiosity turned to naive cruelty as they spread the frightening and nightmarish stories that kept them up late into the night and made their mistress distempered. They were Buquet's favorite audience, as they squealed and ran at the mere mention of the Ghost. By November, though, they had turned their thoughts entirely away from the business, avoiding him and his scene shifters completely.

Those who heard the ballerina's new stories of the helpful Ghost, from the footmen and cloakroom attendants, to the players and older dancers, told anyone who would listen that ballerinas are silly creatures who do not know their shoes from their nose, and should not be trusted in the matter of ghosts. Fear and wild excitement gripped them all like a vice. The drama usually reserved for the great red-curtained stage was now an everyday part of their own tepid lives. The spectacle of it all! There was little the troop of young girls could do. 

So they continued to huddle each night after rehearsals around the woman who shared the confidence of the Ghost, and knew him far better than Buquet ever would. Her name would soon be printed in newspapers across Paris, inextricably connected to the infamous success of the 1883 and 1884 seasons. Her actions would have long-lasting consequences for everyone at the Palais Garnier. 

One Mademoiselle Christine Daae.

She came, a month or so later than the other new arrivals, to fill an empty spot that had been overlooked. Her audition was good enough, and she was given a spot in the chorus.

The only things known about Christine when she came to the opera house were that she was 24 years old, had come from Sweden, and was the daughter of the late Gustave Daae, famed violinist. This connection had earned her a spot at the Paris Conservatory. Her voice was good, but nothing at all to write home about. To call it a “rusty door hinge”, as La Carlotta said about many of the new members of the chorus, did not do it justice. She sang exactly well enough not to draw the chorus master's eye. Beyond this, the girl never volunteered any information, and no one at the opera bothered to ask. A new face was nothing new to them, and with the excitement of the Ghost, not much care was paid to anything. 

She even blended in despite her notable beauty. With her chestnut curls and deep blue eyes, no one could deny she was a handsome young lady, but so were other young women employed in the chorus and the ballet. Thus, with her shy, reserved, solitary nature, her novelty slowly lost its sheen as she became just another pretty chorus girl. She had a few friendly acquaintances, but even fewer enemies. As she had come late, she did not join any of the cliques that had appeared in the ensemble. To one and all, she simply became a facet of the great opera house along with the rest of the new players, never earning much more than a glance.

To the little ballerinas, however, she remained a singular attraction. They would gather around her to beg for stories of the fairies of the north just as often as they would gather to tell stories of the Opera Ghost.

It had all started when little Cecile Jammes, one of the younger girls with forget-me-not eyes and freckles on her pale face, had fallen during a rehearsal and after gone off on her own to cry. She had been found by Christine, who sat down with her and began to spin a tale of a little man in green shoes who liked to do tricks. Soon, little Cecile was laughing and had quite forgotten about her fall. The next day, she brought a few of her friends to hear the stories, and the next day, a few more joined them. Soon, almost all the petite rats sought Christine after rehearsals had finished.

Meeting in a little-used costume store, Christine enraptured them, her tales of elves, trolls, and nisse painting a mystical and amazing picture of her far-off homeland that perfectly fit the blowing blizzards outside. In the lantern light, with her warm, white dressing gown wrapped securely around her and her braid falling neatly over one shoulder, she might have been mistaken for a mystical creature herself.

It was in these moments, with the little ballerinas gathered close around her, that Christine finally became herself. She was a splendid storyteller, using voices and props to make the girls gasp in surprise or fall into fits of giggles. Invariably, she imparted the message that the fairies were not malevolent, simply mischievous, and their antics helped far more than they harmed. It was impressed on the girls that they should be kind and understanding of the circumstances of others. It was little wonder, then, that the story of the Opera Ghost changed drastically once under her control.

It was only a few weeks after Christine had come to the opera house that little Cecile Jammes came rocketing into the little nightly festivity, pale and panting, her little dressing gown undone and falling off her shoulder. Christine, who had been hunched over with a walking stick to play the part of an old crone, stood straight and walked over to her. The girls in front of her parted like a sea as she took a shawl off her head and helped Cecile to sit on the floor.

“Cecile, dear, come sit down, you look like you have had a fright.” Christine’s voice was soft as the rest of the girls, who had been seated around Christine, crowded around, questions flying from their lips.

“What happened?”

“She must have seen the Ghost!”

“What did he look like?”

“Was his skin yellow, like Bouquet said?”

“Did he do something to you?”

“Did you see the skull’s face?”

“Girls! Let her speak.” The tittering stopped at Christine’s words, “Cecile, what’s the matter?”

Cecile glanced about the room as if looking for any sign of the Ghost. The various dresses and elaborate cloaks combined looked so soft in the light of the lanterns that the room felt cozy and safe, especially with ten or so friends grouped around her. The slight musty odor she usually complained of now worked to relax her tattered nerves. Her breathing slowed as she gathered herself.

“I thin- no, it was the Ghost, I saw him, out there, in the corridor. I thought it was just a patron at first, but he saw me and disappeared right into the wall!” Cecile still sounded slightly panicked, the recounting of her story bringing back some of her previous distress. The girls all gasped as some put their hands to their mouths in fear. Christine had begun righting Cecile’s dressing gown when she paused.

“The Ghost? What ghost?” Christine frowned, looking from Cecile to the other girls, who had fallen silent in their fear. She had, of course, heard talk of ghosts around the opera, but had chalked them up to the average superstitions created when so many lived and worked in the same general place. That there was only one ghost, whose name everyone seemed to know, and half of them claimed to have seen, had eluded her until this moment. The lantern light gleamed off her neatly braided curls and twinkled in her blue eyes as she restated her question.

After a few glances at one another, the girls' chattering began afresh. Joseph Boquet had seen him the most often, and he had told them all about the Opera Ghost. He was the vengeful specter of an old patron, or he was an old manager, angry that the season was not on schedule, or he was something else altogether. He had a skull's head, with two glowing eyes, or was it a flame's head, no, surely he did not have a head at all! He wore an opera cloak and a hat low over his face to hide the horrible features. He was the one who always requested that Box Five be empty, that he might oversee the opera and punish those who did the wrong blocking or sang the wrong note. He leaves notes criticizing the score or the librettos. But the footmen said he likes to scare the audiencee as they leave. Oh, never mind the footmen! He scared the managers so badly they sent him a salary, via Madame Giry, to keep him away, Meg Giry said so. Well, you cannot believe everything Meg says. This sort of talk went on and on, each girl building on the story until they had quite frightened themselves silly.

Christine sat before the girls, the information they told her washing over her mind as she tried to make sense of the various, and mostly incongruous, stories they imparted. She did not believe any of these happenings to be the work of a true ghost. It was much more likely that the girls had simply had their active imaginations stoked by a certain scene-shifter, and now every man in tails and an opera cloak was the Ghost playing his tricks. The managers were simply conducting business, but it had been twisted into the story to provide it with solid proof. It was all just a bit too much for Christine to believe.

But saying that to a group of girls that had their wits scared out of them and were currently doing a very admirable job of working themselves up into a state would not do anything to fix the situation. Christine’s quick, storytelling mind latched onto an idea, and a smile gently grew on her face.

“Oh, that Opera Ghost. He isn’t as scary as all that, you know,” she said, “he’s like the nisse, protecting the opera house and those who work here.”

The girls, who had been shoving and nudging each other in their anxiety, stilled as Christine began her newest, and now most interesting story.

“Sit down and don’t frighten yourselves, I will tell you all about the real Opera Ghost. Here, bring those lamps over; there is nothing like a lantern to scare away frightening thoughts,” she continued, gesturing at the girls. Slowly, drawn by the lure of another of Christine’s stories, they did as she bade them. Once they had all settled (and Christine had been given some time to compose what exactly she was going to say), Christine drew a breath, the lights from the lanterns flickering warmly on her face, and began.

“The Opera Ghost, as I have said, protects this theater. He stalks the corridors at night to make sure none of his little ballerinas are out of bed and doing something that could get them hurt. He came to see you tonight, Cecile, because he did not know where you were going, but once he knew you were coming here, he knew he did not have to worry.” At this, little Cecile blushed while the others looked at her. But Christine continued.

“He loves the opera, you see, and he sits in Box Five so that he can see the stage as closely as possible without bothering anyone. He also wants to watch the audience, to make sure they give the right reaction to the hard work everyone puts into a performance. The managers keep Box Five empty for him because he is shy, like me and like you, little Cecile.”

”You’re not shy, Christine!” Emile said with wide eyes.

Christine chuckled, “Yes, I am dear, I just happen to like you all very much. Now, where was I?”

”The Ghost is shy,” a few girls said in unison.

”Oh, that’s right, yes, he is, but he is also a very polite ghost; he always dresses his best, even when no one sees him, because he is going to the opera, and everyone always dresses well when they are going to the opera.” To this, the girls nodded, of course, that is why he wore his cloak inside.

“He has a scary face, but that is so he can scare away those who would wish anyone at the opera harm, especially to little ballerinas who jump at their own shadows…”

“But Christine! How do you know all of this?” Giselle, one of the older girls, interrupted. The rest turned to Christine with wide, wide eyes glistening in the warm light. She looked around as if she was about to impart a secret before leaning in and whispering.

“Why, because he told me to tell you. He was worried his little ballerinas were becoming scared of him, so he came to me the other night and explained everything. But don’t go telling everyone that, then he can’t properly scare the bad people away.”

Whether due to the lateness of the evening or the magical atmosphere that had been created in the costume store, this explanation was never questioned. A noise came then, perhaps from the wall behind the props shelf, perhaps from somewhere deeper in the opera house. A few of the girls turned to look, but their curiosity was quickly recaptured by the tale Christine had begun to weave.

And Christine continued with none of the bravado that usually accompanied her stories. It was more subdued, with the air of a mother reading to her children before bedtime. Each one of the girls’ fears was addressed and explained away as the Opera Ghost keeping a close eye on his theater. Sometimes they would interrupt to ask a question, and Christine invariably had an answer to reassure their fears. Soon they were yawning, and a few had dozed off on another’s shoulder.

When even little Cecile Jammes, who had had such a fright not long before, was snoozing softly on the ground, Christine ended her story. She carefully woke each of the girls. They sleepily got to their feet and took the lanterns they had brought in hand. Like a mother duck with her ducklings, Christine led the little troop of ballerinas through the maze of the opera house to their dormitory. When they had all settled themselves in bed, she closed the door and began the return to her own bedroom.

Though the corridors were dark at this time of night, the gas lamps having been turned out many hours previously, she walked forward assuredly, the lantern in her hand held high to throw the light as far as possible. Her steps were quick, not due to fear, but a desire to reach her own soft bed. Soon her door appeared in front of her, and she went inside. Had she looked behind her before closing her door and peering into the darkness, she might have seen a cloaked figure hiding there in the shadows. It had been following her since the troop had left the costume store and ensured its footsteps had not been heard.

But Christine did not fear the Opera Ghost, so she did not look behind her into the shadows of the opera house, and she did not see the figure hidden within. She simply turned out her lantern and went to bed.

Chapter Text

Erik had known that a new chorus girl had joined the ensemble. Of course, he had known; he knew everything that went on inside his opera house. He had also dismissed it as something he did not need to care about. Not only had many new performers—orchestra members, chorus girls, ballerinas—entered the opera house en masse after the change in managers, but these lower-level members of the cast, especially chorus girls, came and went like the seasons. He need not care about this particular chorus girl, hired in a rush for an overlooked opening, when there were larger, more glaring monsters leering through the halls of the Palais Garnier.

 Chief among them was the complete and utter triumph of a disaster the new managers had made of the winter season. Changing the opera? So close to the beginning of the season? Unheard of! As well as the clash of new, green performers and the at least somewhat experienced old ones. It was little wonder that he had begun requesting payment for his services. The managers, La Carlotta, and the rushed staging required so much more of his time and energy than anything Debienne and Poligny had ever done. He missed the days when only a guiding note needed to be dropped once or twice into someone's coat pocket.

Unfortunately, Erik's heightened interference to ensure any success at all for the winter season created other consequences. What had been whispers of ghosts who meandered through the flies had coalesced into the stories of The Opera Ghost, a terrifying apparition haunting and attacking those who displeased him. Erik no longer could traipse through the flies or backstage as carelessly as he had once done, not with scared, peering eyes lurking in every corner.

So, no, Erik had no time left for a young woman who would likely be married and gone by spring. Thus, other than as one of the bothersome new players in the bungled and mismanaged opera house, he had paid Christine Daae no mind.

That was, of course, until he had stumbled upon one of her little gatherings.
He had been in quite the sour mood that particular day, a week or two after Christine had found a place in the chorus, as the rehearsals, seemingly like clockwork, frustrated him to no end. In an action Erik could only assume had been precisely calculated to ruin his day, La Carlotta improvised a trill that was much too high for her voice and certainly had not been in the libretto. In fact, it had given him a splitting headache.

After taking no little amount of time to write his frustrations on paper, so that he could give them to the managers and director later, he finally left his haunt in Box Five to descend to his lair. He could not leave his notes as they were; they had to be properly written on the right stationery and sealed with black wax before they were in a fit enough state to be seen.

Luckily, it took him time to write each and every transgression committed by this dancer, that cellist, those singers, and especially La Carlotta. By the time he finished, just as the lights in the theater were doused, the hallways of the opera had long been deserted. The people who usually scurried in them were gone away or gone to bed. The lamps were dark in those twisting corridors, each door and alcove a smudge of ink in the almost black.

With the notes stuffed into the pocket of his cloak, Erik stalked through the now-empty halls, his eyes adjusting nearly instantly. His mood only grew worse. His mask was beginning to rub into the sensitive skin of his face, and the consistent thudding in his head had not ceased. As he was entering one of his little doors that allowed access into the walls of the opera house, his attention was caught by voices coming from further down the hallway. A glance to his left belied the little sliver of light coming from a little-used costume store. This was no strange thing, especially in the disused rooms of the opera house; liaisons between workers and even patrons were a semi-nightly occurrence. Erik would not have stopped for that, but when the voices rattled in his mind again, they were not those of lovers in a tryst; they were the many, breathy, high-pitched voices of young girls.

Erik sneered despite his raw skin rubbing painfully against his mask, and a rattling breath shook out of his throat. No doubt the petite rats were gathering to tell their revolting stories. He entered the hidden door that led to the space between the opera’s walls with a swish of his beaded opera cloak and a glint in his eyes. His mood was just bad enough on this fateful evening that he would delay his journey down into the cellars for the sake of scaring the little ballerinas out of their wits. So he turned left in his little passage in the walls instead of continuing straight ahead.

Erik told himself he reveled in the fear that he had brought down on the opera house. He had long ago decided to live up to the stories of the mythical specter and punish those who dared to speak of him, as he had overheard Buquet, the head scene-shifter, telling some new members of the ensemble. Some dark part of himself, one he thought long buried, did silently preen under the fearful whispers and shuddering glances, but the feeling never lasted long, each time leaving that empty hollow Erik hated so much.

 As the voices grew louder, and the ache in his skull was agitated by the noise, he formulated what exactly he would do to rip screams out of the throats of the girls of the corps de ballet. He approached the interior side of the wall of the costume storage room, where the shelf of props concealed a little hole that allowed a better passage of sound between the two spaces. Erik was readying himself to throw his voice toward the plaster bust that sat on a column on the far side of the room when a single voice, clear as a bell, silenced the girls.

“Now now, settle down, I cannot start with all of this noise,” the voice said, a woman’s voice, the French it spoke slightly accented.

Erik froze at the sound of that single sentence, his own voice caught in his throat. What a lovely voice it was, and he could not place it. This voice was that of a singer, an accomplished one, each lilting touch of silver in it told him so. She must belong to the opera. A new hire, perhaps? Yet, as he flipped through the files of his memory, where each person at the opera he had ever heard sing flashed through his mind, accompanied by the personal timbre of their voice, he could not picture the singer to whom it belonged. While Erik continued to sit as still as a statue, the lantern light from the room flashed across the little hole, and the voice spoke again.

“Have any of you heard of the Princess and the Glass Mountain?” Mutterings followed this question. Erik disregarded them and stooped to peer through the hole, his immediate infatuation with the voice pushing him to catch a glimpse of the speaker.

The peephole would have been at eye level for anyone else, but Erik’s great height meant that he had to sink quite low in order to see through it. He was careful not to make a sound as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the lanterns in the room. There, standing directly opposite the wall through which he looked, he saw Christine Daae, lantern held high. Her white dressing gown was tied firmly at her waist, and she wore a deep blue shawl around her shoulders to fight back the cold of the chilled, musty air. Her hair had been bound into a neat braid that hung long over one shoulder, and her delicate face was soft in the light, its beauty more pronounced as her eyes twinkled like jewels. The ballerinas, whose backs were turned to Erik as they crowded around Christine, chattered excitedly.

She spoke once again, her clear, soft, sweet voice coming over Erik in a rush. He must have stayed an hour or more, his neck and back complaining against the posture he had taken. But he noticed none of this. He listened to the whole story of the princess on her glass hill, the three apples in her lap, and the young man who gallantly captured the apples and the princess’s heart, despite his brothers' low expectations. His notes to the managers and his previous anger were entirely forgotten. His headache calmed, and even the pain from the place where his mask had agitated the sensitive skin on the right of his face seemed to dull. Most importantly, he felt that yawning emptiness fill, ever so slightly, with…something he could not name.

Erik could never articulate why he stayed that night or why he kept coming, night after night, to peer through the little hole or sit with his back to the wall. Perhaps it was the calm he felt as he listened to the stories that Christine Daae wove during the cold winter nights, safe in the bowels of the Palais Garnier. Perhaps they reminded him of the few times in his life when he had been even a little at peace. But he kept returning, and Christine Daae had one more member in her audience that she did not know of.

Erik also began to take notice of Christine outside of the magical little room with its lanterns and stories from the far reaches of the north. As he sat in Box Five or surveyed from the rafters and flies, he finally understood why he had not recognized her voice when he had first heard it. Despite her vivacious and caring nature with the corps de ballet, she was reserved with everyone else. She seemed to blend in with the background; her voice, contrary to what he expected from hearing her speak, was fine, but it was dull, lacking in the life and purity required to make a truly great singer. Never did she do anything to draw attention to herself, and it slipped off of her like water off a duck’s back. Even Erik, with his keen eyes, so similar to the hawks of the deserts of Persia, had trouble finding her in the crowd when she bowed her head and faded away.

Erik would have grimaced and shouted at anyone who had implied that he was taking an interest in her, especially if that person had a uniquely infuriating pair of jade eyes, but the simple fact was that he had taken an interest in the beautiful, if solitary, chorus member who wove fantastic tales once the opera had fallen asleep.

And just like the little ballerinas, he subtly shifted his daily tasks to ensure that he was there, night after night, to hear what tale Christine would weave next in that cramped and dusty costume store.

So, as fate would have it, Erik was indeed the one that little Cecile had seen in the hallway as she hurried to the little room, late as she was. He had been late as well, having lost track of time scribbling yet another note. When he spotted her, he hoped she had not seen him as he ducked into his hidden door, silently cursing himself for his carelessness; he did not feel the vengeful specter just then. But as he reached the opening in the wall, he knew he would have no luck that evening. As Erik heard her relating the tale to Christine and the other petite rats, he knew her fear would invade the minds of the other girls, of Christine, ruining the story he had come to hear, ruining the only thing he had found himself truly looking forward to since he had returned to France and burrowed his way under the Palais Garnier some years ago. She would not return to this little room once it was known the Opera Ghost loitered nearby. It was all, all, ruined.

For the first time, Erik hated the Ghost. Irrational, self-refacing anger swelled in him, pushing at his temples for some release, some direction, so poor soul he could unleash it upon. He moved to leave, unable to withstand hearing the rest, when he heard Christine's question about the Ghost. 

The anger sputtered for a moment in the face of surprise and some strange pain. Christine had never heard of the Opera Ghost? She had been here for weeks, a month maybe, even without gossiping; surely the stories would have reached her! Could she be so friendless here that not even the most infamous stories were told in her presence?

But that twinge of dissatisfaction was nothing to the sinking feeling he felt as the combined might of the imaginations of the corps de ballet described him to Christine. The anger settled into deep self-loathing in his breast. In their minds, he was horrible, a walking, sickly skeleton bent on the destruction of all those who displeased him. They were not, by far, the worst words ever used to describe him, but the fact that Christine had not known made the words sting afresh, as if someone had slapped him across the face.

His golden eyes, which allowed him to see so clearly in the darkness he called his home, slipped shut while he tried to control his breathing. He sank to the floor, his hands covering his face as he instinctively tried to make himself as small as possible. He did not understand what was happening to him; perhaps he had taken ill. All he knew was that he could not bear to listen to her reaction, as she surely would react with fear, quickly hushing the girls, and then even she would peer with darting eyes into the shadows.

As he began to lock himself away in his mind, Erik’s ears caught Christine’s clear voice easily, even as the girls around her anxiously muttered in their growing alarm. Erik’s eyes snapped open at her words, their glow peeking between his fingers. Christine had never met Erik; she had not even known the stories about him before, and yet, when they were laid bare and terrible before her, she defended him.

Erik sat so still, there in the dark with his hands over his face, that he was not sure he was still breathing. He heard Christine’s voice say that the Ghost had visited her. Had instructed her to tell ‘his little ballerinas’ not to be scared of him. Why? Why was she doing this? It must be a dream; such things did not happen to monsters like Erik. His desire to see the scene that he had only been hearing got the better of him, and he regained his feet to peer through the hole again.

At least he tried to, anyway. In his rush to stand, one of Erik’s long legs had tangled in his cloak. His arm shot out to stop his fall, and the noise of his hand hitting the wood seemed to echo endlessly down the little passageway. That was it; if this was not a dream, it would be over soon. But Christine’s clear voice continued, and not a single little voice was raised in fear or alarm. He blinked as he looked through the little hole, where he saw Christine, sitting with her legs folded under her, the lanterns spread throughout the seated corps de ballet.

He waited for the apparition to disappear, but it did not. He watched as, slowly, one by one, the little ballerinas fell asleep to stories about him. The ghost stories that had made them scream and run terrified from Joseph Buquet lulled them to peaceful sleep when told by Christine. And Christine! How beautiful she looked in that soft lantern light, an angel come to Earth would have been envious.

Finally, Christine noticed all the girls had fallen asleep; her voice trailed off as she smiled gently at them all. She stood slowly, a soft grunt of pain escaping her lips when she found her legs sore and unwilling after so long under her. She rubbed her legs for a few moments, then began to softly and slowly move about, waking the girls and ushering them, yawning, out of the room. But her spell did not break.

Perhaps she was an angel, or a witch of the North, as whatever magic she had cast, between the dust-tinged wisps of lantern light, ensured that the strange emotion had come over Erik that evening continued. He felt a need to live up to the tales Christine had told, to ensure the safe passage of her and the little ballerinas within his opera house. The dark monster that usually preened under the fearful glances tamed to accept a single moment of praise. He entered the hallway, hidden by the shadows just out of reach of the group’s lanterns. Not a soul noticed him, sleepy and fearless as they were.

He followed them all to the ballet dormitory, and then Christine to her private rooms, all while it some state of entranced shock, focused on his only task, but with no idea what would come after. He made sure to be as silent as an owl’s wings, but Christine did not once look back to check for an unwanted follower. She yawned as she opened the door to her room and then shut it behind her, the lock softly clicking into place. And she was safe, not frightened, not wild-eyed and panting, but tired and safe in her own rooms.

For the first time, Erik had acted as a protector instead of a stalking specter. He stood a few moments more in that deserted, dark hallway, staring down at his hands. The events of the night were washing over him in a rush. He felt faint, but he felt good somehow. Erik had absolutely no idea what to make of that, but he definitely did not trust the little bud that had begun growing in his chest, so he abruptly fled through long, memorized passages down, down, down into the bowels of the opera house. As if anyone can escape the moment when that flower begins to grow.

He stopped only when he was safely in his lair, the little house he had built for himself across the lake under the opera house. There was a buzzing in his ears as he stood there, shaking. It was not from the cold that had gathered there despite the still smoldering fire, but something else. Something he could not place. He hated that he did not know; he hated not being in control. He hated it, hated it, hated it-

The memory of Christine’s clear, crystalline voice replayed unbidden in his mind…

“He’s not as scary as all that you know.”

“He is shy, like me.”

“He was worrying his little ballerinas were scared of him.”

Hot tears streaked down his half-masked face as her words fluttered through his mind, and that small flower bloomed in his chest. A sob choked him as he stared about his lonely, dark, haunting home. He imagined Christine in it, laughing, her light invading the space, invading him, as she breathed life back into his world.

Because what else was an Opera Ghost to do but fall in love?

Chapter Text

Christine opened her eyes the next morning to the sound of furious stage whispering in the hall outside her room. The curtains that hung on the window over her bed were thin, betraying nothing but the inky blackness of a Parisian winter. She was left with only the smallest sliver of light from the last dregs of the waning crescent moon that hung far above the stone buildings of the city. With a sigh that was only half annoyed, she sat up, the chilled air in the room pricking goosebumps on her skin as the warm embrace of her blankets fell away. Lamplight leaked under her door, shadows shifting over it as figures moved around in the hallway outside. 

Christine reached a hand towards the little table at her bedside. After a few moments of groping and feeling in the dark, she found the lamp and small box of matches she had left the previous evening in her stupor. She rested the lamp between her legs, balancing it in the hollow of the blanket. Using the small sliver of moonlight, she took a single match in her delicate fingers, and the white phosphorus head rested against the striking surface of the box. Outside, the whispering continued, loud enough now that Christine was able to make out snippets of sentences.

“…won’t be awake…”

“…already here…”

“…to Box Five…”

“…write him a letter…”

Christine shook her head with a smile as she struck the match, the phosphorus flaring to life. She could commend the ballerinas for trying to keep quiet, but when ten or more excited girls are all talking at once, even a their softest, the volume of the conversation tends to rise rather rapidly. Hopefully, no one else in the hallway had been woken by the quiet fervor. Lifting the glass of the lamp, she deftly lit it before shaking out the match. When it was placed back upon the little table, the brass hands of the little carriage clock shone with the time. Six in the morning, it would not be light until nearly nine. The little ballerinas were lucky she was Swedish and well knew what it was like to wake up many hours before sunrise. 

With a final shuddering sigh as she relished the warmth of her bed, Christine swung her legs out from under the blankets into the cold night air that had already assaulted her shoulders and arms. An involuntary shiver went up her spine as her bare feet made contact with the frigid floor. The opera house would be cold this frozen morning.

The lantern was bright enough to cast a dim golden light throughout the room. Christine quickly grabbed her dressing gown and shawl from where she had tossed them into a chair and put them on. The fabric was cool to the touch, but the thickness of it would soon warm with her body heat. In the little mirror above her washing bowl, she saw that her hair was still neat enough to be seen, so she grabbed the lantern and walked to the door of her room. There she slipped her feet into the shoes she had worn the previous evening and opened the door.

It was notoriously difficult to get the girls of the corps de ballet up before nine in the morning. Yet here they were, Cecile, Giselle, Emile, and the rest all standing in the hallway where Christine’s rooms were located, chilly, but dressed and bright-eyed in the glow of the lanterns they carried. Those same eyes had all gone to Christine when she opened the door.

“I heard some little mice talking in the hallway, did they need something from me?” she asked, a smile threatening to form on her lovely lips as she took in the startled faces of the girls. After a moment, they all turned to little Cecile as she stepped forward to speak.

“I was thinking, well I thought it first and then the others helped, but we were thinking that we had not been very nice to the Opera Ghost,” she wrung her hands as she stared at them, “and, well, he is helping us so much and we didn’t even know. We were silly and listened to Buquet when we shouldn’t have,” she looked pitifully up at Christine as the rest of the girls all nodded.

 “So we were thinking, that maybe…maybe we could write him a letter to apologize and put it in Box Five, but then none of us are very good at writing, and it's so scary in the Opera House this early, and the Ghost isn’t awake right now to keep us safe so we came to ask you to write it for us,” she finished all in a rush as Emile, with her red hair, held up a crumpled piece of paper. The girls looked at Christine with hopeful, shining eyes.

She took the paper from Emile and glanced across it. On it were jumbles of writing where someone…no, several people, had written something before crossing it out. It was hardly legible, but Christine was able to make out “Dear Monsieur Opera Ghost,” written across the top in a shaky hand. Christine’s eyes glistened at the page.

“I would be honored to help with such a project. Wait here while I get dressed, and then we shall see what we can do.” Christine was smiling now, happy to have found something that resonated so much with the girls. She ducked back into her room and began the systematic process of readying herself for the day. 

She had done it so many times that it had become a ritual, taking the clothes out of her little wardrobe. First was putting on her chemise, corset, and petticoats. Then out came a comfortable and warm dress in grey wool. After deftly securing the fasteners at the front of the dress, she began on her hair. Picking up the brush that sat on the same table as the washing bowl, Christine drug it carefully through her braided curls before piling them on her head with the many pins so much hair required. Her bed was made quickly, the white dressing gown lain atop it along with her nightdress. The blue shawl, comforting and smelling of the rose water she used in her hair, went over her shoulders as Christine again picked up the lantern and entered the hallway. 

Some of the girls had sat on the floor in the five or so minutes Christine had been gone, but they got to their feet, and she beckoned them all into her little room. The room seemed so dreary and bare when it was only Christine, with only the small photograph of her father to decorate the walls. Yet it became close and friendly when the corps de ballet all piled in, the glow from their lanterns rapidly brightening the space and the heat from all their excitement chasing away the winter chill. 

“Sit where you can find a spot, and I will get paper,” Christine said, shutting the door behind the girls and walking to the little desk across from the wardrobe, setting her lamp atop it. She drew out the chair and a drawer to withdraw sheets of paper. After taking her seat, she brought the pen stand near her, opened the little ink bottle, and readied her pen. 

As she shifted her pen in her grip, Christine turned to look at the girls. Some were seated on her bed, others were seated on the chair in the corner, and the rest huddled on the floor. As they softly rustled themselves into place, murmuring sorry’s and pardon’s, they all looked up at her with the same expectant, wide eyes. Cecile sat on the edge of the bed nearest Christine. 

“Now,” Christine said, before taking a glance at the paper Emile had handed her, “‘Dear Monsieur Opera Ghost’, is that how you still want to start?”

A chorus of agreement came from the girls, and Christine wrote the words down in her delicate, looping hand. She turned back to the room and the letter-writing began in earnest.

It only took them about thirty minutes to complete it, with quite some time devoted to encouraging Cecile to give a detailed explanation of the great swooping cloak she had seen the Opera Ghost in. With the body of the letter finished, a discussion began as to who would sign first. It was eventually decided that Cecile, again, should, as she had come up with the idea in the first place. 

The letter, dictated to Christine by the little ballerinas ran thus:

 
November 17, 1883

Dear Monsieur Opera Ghost,

This letter is sent by the girls of the corps de ballet, and Christine Daae is writing it all for us. Last night, Christine told us all about what you told her to tell us. You were worried we were scared of you and we were. That is because we listened to Joseph Boquet and all the others. They were wrong and we were foolish to believe them. Christine has told us the truth. We are all very sorry for believing them. We are very happy that you are here and keeping us safe. We all have agreed that your cloak is very dashing and that every gentleman who comes to the opera should have one just like it. We are not frightened of you anymore, and we hope that our being scared of you has not made you wish you had not helped us, and we look forward to seeing you again.

 
Under this text, all of the girls had signed their names to the best of their ability, and Christine finished the letter off with her own swirling name. She took the blotter from its place and carefully removed any still-wet ink before folding the paper into thirds and thirds again. On the front, Christine lettered “Monsieur Opera Ghost” with an extravagant flourish by means of address. When this too had been blotted and dried, she turned the letter over. Taking her stick of sealing wax, she heated it in her lantern before dripping a small glob down to seal the letter, flattening it by pressing gently with the base of her ink jar. The letter was ready. 

The little ballerinas had not stayed in their chosen spots for long, and by this time the girls crowded around the desk, the older, taller ones to the back so the younger ones could see. They stepped away as Christine stood, holding the letter out to them for their inspection. It was passed gently between them, as each inspected the writing on the front and the seal on the back. When all had deemed it acceptable, it was handed back to Christine.

Now, Christine had thought that, after writing the letter, she would walk the girls back to their dormitories and to the beds that they likely would fall back into, chilled and sleepy from their early morning escapade. The opera house would be waking up soon, and some of the girls were leaving for their homes for the weekend. The letter would remain at her desk. She would then “deliver” it to the Ghost and forge a reply from him to read to the girls. It was Saturday, and the next rehearsal, and therefore the next evening of stories, was not until Monday. It had all seemed a wonderful plan to crown an excellent story.

As a once willful young girl, Christine knew the girls would be champing at the bit for the reply, but she had not been a girl in a long time, and in her adult way, she sorely underestimated the will of young girls who had their hearts set on something.

“Now let’s deliver it!” Giselle laughed, her golden curls bouncing as she turned her head between the others around her. She was met with the agreement of the other girls who had already begun to filter out of the room, “Come on, Christine, you have to be the one to give it to him!”

“Do not worry, I will give it to him this evening,” Christine said, attempting to placate the wave of excitement.

“But we must do it now so that he can get it from Box Five before anyone else is awake, and he can reply quickly,” Cecile said, louder and more passionate than any words Christine had heard her utter.

Christine looked from Cecile to the pleading, lamp-lit eyes in the round young faces around her, and any argument she could have made dissolved on her tongue. She glanced down at the letter in her hand before picking up her lamp and her key, maneuvering the latter into her hand with the letter.

“Alright then, out with you,” she said, shooing the now laughing girls into the darkened hallway. Francis, small for her age with sad green eyes, held her lantern as she locked her door and slipped the key into her bodice pocket. The girls shushed each other before cascading into giggles as they trooped behind Christine, younger ones first and the older ones drawing up the rear. If their excitement woke anyone else in the opera, they did not hear of it as they twined their way through the hallways of the Palais Garnier to the main stage. To Box Five.

When they arrived at the entrance to the boxes, the youngest girls seemed to lose their nerve a little. The older ones, less prone to fear, still hesitated as their thumping hearts started to thrum with trepidation rather than excitement. One night of Christine’s version of the Ghost was not enough to completely remove all the fear that had been placed in their minds. Joseph Buquet had had months to dredge the worst stories from his mind, and as talented as Christine was, she could not convince the girls to make it to Box Five. Christine had suspected that this might happen, and told the whole group to wait at the end of the hallway that led to the boxes; she would go on to Box Five alone to deliver the letter.

As she started her walk down the little hall, the ballerinas watched in awe as Christine faced the fear that froze them without a flinch. The Opera Ghost must be as she said, then, or she would not face him with so little fear.

The hallway was long and dreary, the opulent decorations that shone so brightly when the Opera was open and alight, not oppressive and enclosing as Christine passed. The golden numbers of each box flashed on the little doors, the glass of the little windows reflecting Christine and her determined air as the light washed over them. Nine…Seven…Five. She paused at the door, glancing back at the group of girls waiting for her. She could just see the expression of worry, she thought, on their faces. She sent them a wink before she disappeared into the box. 

The door creaked shut behind her, and she sighed with gusto.

“Well, Christine, this is a fine mess you have put yourself in,” she said softly to herself. The words echoed in the empty theater, its finely tuned acoustics reverberating even her quiet complaint around the space until the heavy curtains of the stage absorbed the remark.

“You had not even heard of this Ghost before last night, and here you are, writing letters and hand delivering them…oh, the things I do for those girls…” She paused with her eyes closed. No, she could never blame the girls; she could not deny that she had had just as much fun crafting the story of the Ghost as they had in writing the letter. A smile formed unbidden on her face at the memory of the ballerinas crowded around her desk as they penned the letter. And to alleviate their fears? Yes, it was worth it. 

But now she had to somehow deliver a letter to a Ghost who did not exist. 

The lantern’s circle of light illuminated the plush red velvet and gold that decorated every inch of the opulent box. Two marble columns framed the view of the stage, as well as the audience that Christine had described only the night before. Two chairs, also coated in lush velvet and gold, sat near the front of the box. Beyond the short banister, the rest of the theater was a cavernous blackness, punctuated with star-like twinkles as the light of her lantern illuminated the gold that was all over the walls and ceiling.

Christine took a moment to revel in the silence of the rarely silent theater. When the season finally began, there would be so much hustle here, more than there would be during rehearsal. When patrons began to invade the opera’s backstage, the Foyer de la Danse, and the dressing rooms, there would be no more fine, soft, tempered silence in the Palais Garnier. Moving her lamp through the air, Christine watched the starlight twinkles in the crystal of the great chandelier shift and shimmer. She breathed a laugh at the subtle beauty.

Shaking her head, Christine returned to the task at hand. If she hid the letter in her bodice, there was a chance she would be found out, as the paper might make a noise as she took the girls back to their dormitory. She must leave it here, then, even if a curious young girl came up to ensure it had been delivered, there would be proof. Even as she pondered this, she felt the thrill of a conspiracy, of being up late after your bedtime as a child, a giddy mischievousness she had not felt in years and missed dearly. Complain as she might, Christine was enjoying this little game.

“I’ll tell them this is the Ghost’s chair…” Christine murmured as she walked to the plush red velvet seat on the right of the box that seemed to have the best view of the stage. She carefully placed the letter on the seat of the chair before stepping back and lifting her lantern to see properly. The letter was askew from the center, that would not do, and she stooped over again to correct it.

“Is that for me?” A silky golden voice said, very near her ear. It was a man’s voice, warm and soft. 

It scared Christine half out of her wits.

With a strangled yelp, she shot up, careening backward, the lantern clattering to the floor. Christine felt the back of her legs hit the banister, and her body began to tip over the edge. The yawning chasm of the theater, dimming to near black in the dredges of light, opened in her gut as she started to fall. As the lamp sputtered its last ounce of light and she failed to regain her balance, a hand, white-gloved, shot out to grab her flailing arm. As fast as she had begun to fall, and faster than she could process either, Christine found herself pressed against a warm, tall body in the darkness.

Chapter Text

It was entirely dark inside the theater of the opera house. Christine did not know if that was because of her lantern going out, or if it was because she was currently pressed against a very tall, very alive man. A man who had been the one to nearly send her falling twenty feet through the pitch black and also the one to ensure her safety. A man who appeared out of thin air.

All of these thoughts raced through Christine’s mind as she fell into the man’s shoulder, his arms coming around her, and felt the cloak he was wearing wrap around her frame. Her mind was still trying to make sense of all of it when her body, spurred by years of teachings on propriety from Mama Valerius and the Conservatory, began pushing herself out of the man’s grasp. 

As she backed away she felt the man stiffen and pull away himself. Though she had only experienced it for a moment, she missed the soft warmth that had enveloped her under the cloak. 
Or perhaps that was the red-hot indignation that had sparked in her.

“Excuse me, monsieur,” she said, putting venom in her voice to cover the pit that had formed in her stomach, “but what, exactly, did you think you were doing?”

Christine could see nothing in the darkness, but from the other side of the box, the same voice that she had heard in her ear spoke again, but this time it was undercut with curt ire.

“I could ask the same of you, mademoiselle.” 

“I will have you know I was delivering a letter. You, however, came from nowhere and scared me half out of my wits so that I almost fell to my death. This box was empty when I entered it, there is nowhere you could have hidden, how did you get here?”

“I saved your life,” said the man, the honey in his voice sharpening into a knife.

“Saved my life? The life that would not have needed saving if you had not scared me with some practical joke?”

Christine’s voice had steadily risen, a frantic note beginning to edge the timbre. The man did not respond, so she could only hear her own slightly frantic breathing in that tight space. It was so disorienting, the knowledge that only feet, or inches, from you was a perilous drop, but no way to see where the danger lay. It would have been panic-inducing even if one had not just almost fallen off of it only to be saved by a ghost-like man…

Oh. 

The cloak, the magical appearance in Box Five, “Is that for me?”

Oh.

“You’re…you’re the Opera Ghost...” Christine’s voice was barely a whisper.

She saw two pinpricks of light flash in front of her so fast she thought she hallucinated them. Realization hit Christine like a wave. The Opera Ghost was not a story made up by a scene-shifter with nothing better to do so he could scare a few little ballerinas. He was a real man. One who was currently sitting a few feet from her in a tiny and dark seating box.

“You are quick, what gave it away?” The man said with a humorless laugh, the sarcasm in his voice was palpable.

“So you are he? You are the Opera Ghost?”

“Yes, yes I suppose I am.”

What had been panic dropped away in Christine to all-out fear. She fell to her knees and began frantically searching for the lantern she had dropped. She had not heard it break. Her hand grazed the smooth glass top, miraculously uninjured by the fall and still attached to its metal bottom. She stood, patting the pocket of her dress for the matches she always kept there. 

She felt a gloved hand close over her hand that was holding the lantern. The two yellow lights again appeared above her in the darkness, she realized they were his eyes.

“Please do not light it…” his voice was softer, the edge having left it completely, and something about it made Christine stop withdrawing the box of matches from her dress. Perhaps it was the shock of the whole thing, she was certainly still scared, but she did not attempt to light the lantern. It did not stop her desire to leave the room, nor did it temper her fear.

“Alright then, Opera Ghost. I will be leaving now,” she said, trying to cover her fear with brusqueness. I suppose that the letter is for you, but you do not have to reply. I can manage on my own.”

She tried to twist her arm from his grasp but instead found herself being gently led forward into the darkness. The man spoke again, softly, but with little emotion, “Reach out your other hand, yes, that is the door.” 

Christine felt around momentarily before finding the doorknob as the man’s hand left hers. As she pulled open the door and the faint light from the ballerinas’ lanterns filtered into the little box, she looked back, but there was no one at all in Box Five.

She closed the door softly behind her and turned back to the girls she realized how little time she had truly been gone. It could not have been more than two minutes. She tried to put the strange encounter out of her mind as the girls noticed her return and began calling to her.

“Christine!”

“Where did you leave it?”

Little Cecile even came running up to her, her excitement far outweighing her fear. With those large, forget-me-not eyes she looked up at Christine.

“Was he there? Did you see the Ghost?”

Christine, who thought she would be unsuccessful in her attempts at pretending she had not seen the Ghost, decided she would weave a shred of truth into her tale. Hiding something from a pack of young girls was about as easy as waking them up in the morning anyway.

“Yes, I gave him the letter directly.”

Gasps and then giggles emerged from the girl’s mouths as they all began walking back to the dormitories.

“Did you see what he looked like up close?” Emile asked.

“No, he had me put out my lantern.”

“Was he nice?” Another voice piped up.

“Yes, he was.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked I the letter was for him, I said that it was and that he should read it quickly, as it was from his ballerinas.”

The questions continued in this way for some time, until they were almost at the corps de ballet’s dormitory.

“Christine,” Giselle said as they approached the door, “where is your shawl?”

Christine’s hand came up automatically to her shoulder where, sure enough, her shawl was missing. She suddenly became aware of the chill still left in the empty corridors.

“It must have fallen off while I was talking to the Ghost, I will go back later when the lamps are on to find it,” Christine said, forcing a smile through the numb feeling she had creeping in the pit of her stomach, “Now, back to your rooms, I have laundry to do.”

The girls giggled and said their goodbyes before leaving Christine alone in the hallway. The gas had come on, the lamps that filled the twisting halls again providing the light that she needed to see. As Christine walked back to her own room, the numb feeling gnawing away at her. She returned to her room, removing the key from her bodice to unlock the door. She was happy it was her shawl and not the key that had gone missing. She all but collapsed onto her bed, exhausted from her short ordeal with the Opera Ghost. She must have fallen asleep because when she next opened her eyes, the sun had just risen above the Paris skyline.

Christine quickly stood, feeling her dress and hair to ensure they were not mussed. Of all the times to fall asleep. She went to her wardrobe and collected the soiled laundry she needed to bring down to the laundress. Her body moved on its own to take her to the laundry room while her mind became absolutely occupied with replaying the mornings events. Not being alone in a pitch-dark room with a strange man who is gallivanting about as the ghost everyone around you is apparently terrified of tends to allow one a little more coherent thought and analysis than could previously be turned to the subject.

Thus, on her way to the laundry room, Christine solidified some facts about her encounter with the (according to the ballet girls) infamous Ghost.

The Opera Ghost was a living man. Despite this, he could appear and disappear seemingly at will and it seemed he could somehow see in the dark. He also did not appear to be as scary as the stories that the ballerinas had told her claimed. Christine cringed at herself when she thought of how badly the interaction might have gone if the Ghost had been as scary as the stories suggested, especially now that it was certain he was no specter. 

And, for some reason, the Ghost had chosen to allow her to find out this information. Information that she thought, if spread throughout the Palais Garnier, would lead to a manhunt to rid it of its Ghost.

It was all really rather strange when she thought about it. 

The laundry room was steaming as the laundresses started on the various linens that needed washing. Christine waited in the door until a plump pretty woman came up to her. The woman’s brown hair had been pulled back and put under a white cloth, and her simple dress was covered in a white apron of the same material.

“Just these today?” Her tone was cheery, even though her hands were red and chapped from the hot water as she reached them out to take Christine’s little bundle, “What’s your name?”

“Christine Daae. I also have a question for you.” 

“Fire away,” the woman said, absentmindedly. She was scribbling Christine’s name down on a scrap of paper to be pinned to the bundle.

“What do you know about the Opera Ghost?”

The woman’s head shot up as her pencil paused on the paper, her eyes widening, “The Opera Ghost? You don’t know about him?”

“I’ve only been here a few weeks, I hadn’t really heard anything until yesterday.”

“Well you’ll want to talk to Joseph Boquet, I hear he’s actually seen the wretched thing. But what I know is that the Ghost is the one who causes all those mishaps on stage, especially with La Carlotta. He stalks around the opera house at night and whispers things in your ear if you make a mistake, threatening you and the like. I hear the managers are in a fit trying to deal with him. But don't go poking around if you don't want the Ghost to hear about it. He'll do something horrible to you, I've heard, if you try to go too far...”

Christine made a mental note to pay more attention to the goings on in her workplace before thanking the woman. 

“Your laundry should be done this afternoon, just come right back here for it and I’ll give it to you. Be careful now, with the Ghost about...”

With that, Christine left the oppressive heat of the room. It was beginning to make her feel light-headed, and the steam was making her hair frizz. 

Now she had to go fetch her shawl. It must have fallen off as she was yanked back into the box by the Opera Ghost, so it would be on the ground floor of the theater. It certainly had not been in Box Five when she had glanced back this morning. So Christine walked back to the theater for the second time in one day.

The chill that seemed to grip the opera house during the night hours was beginning to fade away as people began to fill the corridors. There were a few people in the theater, mostly the scene-shifters as they prepared to paint the large panels that would act as hills in the background of the opera they were currently rehearsing. Christine looked up as she approached the seats located directly under Box Five. The fear she had felt when she had begun to fall came back for a moment. She shook her head with a shudder and looked down to where her shawl must have fallen.

Nothing on the seats. She peered through the semi-darkness that existed in these corners of the theater, but to no avail. She knelt to look at the ground between them, but there was nothing there either. 

Christine stood up, tears threatening to well in her eyes. She had loved that shawl, it was one of the last gifts her father had bought for her. She could not bear to have lost it. She cursed herself for not immediately going to look for it, for falling asleep. She thought about asking one of the scene shifters if they had taken it, but it seemed unlikely that they would have. They did not come off the stage and into the theater often, and they likely would not have been able to see it from the stage anyway with how dim the seats of the theater were. Her thoughts hit a fever pitch as she whipped her head around and scoured every inch of the floor near Box Five. She even sprinted up the staircase to the box itself, pushing the door open to reveal only the two chairs she had seen last night.

It was then that she began to cry. Not a lot, only a few tears rolling down her cheeks, the paths they left chilling her skin. It had all become a bit too much, and Christine found herself missing the sunlight. She was getting worked up and a walk in the sun would do her wonders. She sniffled quietly once more before wiping her eyes with a handkerchief and leaving the great theater. 

Ten minutes later she was on the steps of the opera house, the frigid, crisp air tingling her nose as she breathed it in. The streets were slowly starting to fill, even the cold November days did not stop the movement of Paris. People bustled by her, and she could hear a few vendors already calling out to advertise their wares. Ficares and other carts trundled by, rattling on the cobblestones, while the horses who pulled them jingled their harnesses. The weak winter sun shone down through a thin layer of clouds, setting the frost sparkling where it had collected on every surface.

Christine’s navy blue cloak swept down around her skirts as she rubbed her hands together and began to walk, her breath blowing out in clouds ahead of her.

When Christine returned to the opera house, a steaming bun in her hand, she felt much better about the whole situation. Where she previously had been thrown into a panic by the loss of the shawl, she now had formulated a plan to go looking for it, starting with the women who cleaned the theater.

She hurried up to her room, eating the steaming bun as she went. Turning a corner she almost collided with Madame Giry, the mistress of the ballet.

“Madame, excuse me,” Christine said, bobbing her head by way of greeting, thankful she had not just taken another bit of the bun.

The last time Christine had spoken to Madame Giry, it was to explain where the petite rats ran off to so quickly after they had changed from their rehearsal clothes for the night. The imperious ballet mistress had slightly alarmed Christine at first. However, when Christine had been so adamant about ensuring that the girls were getting their proper practice in before any stories were told, Madame Giry had almost smiled before giving her assent.

“It helps them to sleep,” was what she had said. 

Now her face was stern as she looked at Christine.

“Please wait Mademoiselle Daae, I have something for you.” Christine noticed she was holding a parcel, wrapped in brown paper, and two letters. 

Christine was confused, she had no one to send her letters or parcels. If Mama Valerius wanted her to visit, she simply sent a note.

“You will know in time, for now, I must tell you to be careful.” The warning set off in Christine the alarm that had been silent since that morning. Madame Giry handed her the items and left without a word. Christine watched her as she disappeared around the corner before opening her door and rushing inside.

Her cloak was thrown unceremoniously onto the bed as she sat down at her desk with the parcel and letters. She stuffed the last mouthful of the bun in her mouth as she began to read. The writing was shakey, the ink smudged in several places, but Christine could decipher it. The parcel was addressed simply with Christine Daae, as was the first letter. There was no return address or clue as to who had sent them. The second letter, however, read The Corps de Ballet of the Palais Garnier, care of Christine Daae. 

Christine stared at this letter, realization dawning on her before she turned to the parcel. Its weight and feel had felt familiar to her. 

She ripped open the brown paper and her shawl fell into her lap.

Chapter Text

Erik had made poor decisions before. In fact, a whole portion of his life could be summarized as “Erik made a poor decision, and now is dealing with the consequences.”

That being said, this decision certainly ranked among the poorest.

Every time he ran through the encounter in his memory, Erik’s mind shouted and screamed at him for his stupidity. His long, bony fingers ran up and down the keys of his organ as his self-hating frustration ricocheted off the walls and ceiling of the cavern under the opera house. He could not escape it, whenever he tried it all came back to him in a rush. The sounds and feelings were so crisp as if it had happened only a moment ago. The click of the door as Christine Daae left the small dark space that was Box Five. Erik rushing to the door to crack it, the glow of the lanterns he had seen as she had left him telling him who was waiting for her on the other side. His anger rising and then falling as her voice lilted to him.

Every time the memory played, a cycle repeated. Anger at her for not acting as she ought to would course through his veins. She had told the ballerinas he was a protector, but she did not believe it herself. She was nothing but another hypocritical person, and he would not change his ways for her. She would go to the ballerinas and tell them all that had happened and they would spread stories worse than before. It was her fault really, he had done nothing wrong.

Once he had successfully convinced himself that the interaction in Box Five had been Christine’s fault, he would remember her discussion with the little ballerinas. Shame overtook his anger. She still pretended, for whose sake he did not know, that he was some benevolent protector. He had not protected anyone. What he thought was righteous indignation showed its true nature as self-refacing hate. The shame flared down his spine and nestled in his gut. Over and over, until his mind, a mind that had run circles around the Shah’s court, had run itself ragged with the exertion of his worry.

The image of her face contorted in fear as she fell backward had etched itself onto the inside of his eyelids. Of course, she had been scared, she would have reacted the same if anyone had done what he did. He did not know what had come over him, revealing himself to Christine like that, but whatever it was, he swore it would not happen again. While she told the ballerinas that he had not done her harm but that was not true. It was not true, she must hate him now, he had ruined it all, just as he always did, of course he did, he was destined to. Her face as she began to fall flashed again as his thoughts raced, then her look of anger as she admonished him. Oh, gentle Christine! What a monster he must have been to have her react in such a way. She could not be the monster, not it was always he, it was always Erik. 

His hands slammed a great, discordant shriek out of the poor organ. The noise screamed back and forth between the stone ceiling and the still water of the lake under the great Palais Garnier. So loud in fact, that Erik did not notice the approach of a man, lantern light glimmering against his jade eyes as he rowed a small boat across the lake. 

No, Erik was shaking, his hands grasping at nothing, opening and closing in front of him as he took gasping, shallow breaths. His mask was suddenly wrong on his face and he reached up to take it off. Only then did he realize that tears were running down his cheeks, one healthy and firm, the other stretched and warped, with unnatural ridges leaping across it. A choked sob left his lips as he curled in on himself at the piano bench, his hands gripping the mask to his chest. 

It was thus that Nadir Kahn, former Daroga of Persia, found him, and an unusual sight it was. Erik was usually instantly aware of any and all who even ventured close to his home. To let the Daroga not only reach his door but also open it without noticing? Something must be terribly wrong. The firelight was low when Nadir entered the room that functioned as a living room, office, and music room. He saw Erik crumpled in on himself, his thin shoulders shaking under the opera cloak he had not yet taken off and he made a prudent decision. He turned around and left back through the front door. 

After a breath, he knocked heavily on the solid oak and waited. The effect was immediate. A string of curses and at least two crashes emanated from the small house that butted against the wall of the underground lake. The door opened and Erik stood, his mask in place and his amber eyes glaring. Nadir was not a short man, but even still Erik towered over him. 

“What do you want?” the disdain in Erik’s voice was undisguised as his eyes flicked up and down Nadir’s frame. 

“I think you forget there are some places in the opera house where your organ can be heard if it is played loudly enough,” Nadir said, unmoved by Erik’s cold greeting, “Has something happened?”

“Erik is fine. Nothing has happened and you may leave now.”

Nadir’s eyes narrowed. 

“That may be…but I have come all the way down here to see you, shouldn’t you at least offer me some tea?”

“No. Erik is tired. Leave.” Erik attempted to shut the door in Nadir’s face but found resistance as Nadir put out a hand to stop it. Erik continued to glare before scoffing and turning back into his home. As Nadir re-entered the little house, he saw that Erik had returned to his organ and was now scribbling at the paper on the stand in front of him. 

“How did you know it was me?”

“You are the only person stupid enough to walk up to Erik’s front door and knock.”

“Ah.”

Nadir settled himself on the settee in front of the fire before his eyes glanced down to the table in front of him. There, glinting in the firelight, was a woman’s shawl and a letter addressed in a flowing, feminine hand.

“Erik, what are these?” Nadir peered at the letter as Erik’s shoulders stiffened.

“They are nothing Daroga, stop putting your nose where it does not belong. You can leave Erik’s house if you cannot be respectful.” Erik’s voice was sharp with warning.

Nadir figured that he could stop asking about the items, and keep the tenuous peace that existed between the two of them right now. But Nadir had known Erik for a very long time, and the appearance of a woman’s shawl and a letter addressed to the Opera Ghost was very likely connected to the slamming, discordant screams of the organ he had faintly heard filtering up from the depths of the opera house on one of his semi-daily visits. So he made a less prudent decision and pushed the issue. 

“Who is this letter from, and whose shawl is this Erik? Where did you get them?” Nadir picked up the letter and made to open it.

The effect was immediate. 

Erik was at his side in an instant grabbing the letter away and whisking the shawl off the table. His breathing was ragged as he bundled the items close to his chest. 

“Leave. Now. You are not welcome in Erik’s house,” Erik rasped, clinging to the items like a child clings to its mother. His eyes reflected the firelight, and the glare he sent towards Nadir seemed to spark.

Nadir stood and advanced towards Erik, his tone stern as he said, “I will not leave until you tell me how you came to have those things. Did you steal them?” 

Erik had had enough. It was rude enough for Nadir to come into his home unannounced and it was certainly beyond the pale for Nadir to assume that he had stolen the letter that had his name on it. It did not occur to Erik that he had stolen the shawl, or that Nadir might have a perfectly good reason for wanting to know why Erik had a woman’s shawl and a letter written to him by a woman in his possession. He stormed at Nadir, eyes flashing as his wrist flicked in a movement that had long since become unconscious.

“How dare you accuse Erik of such things. That letter is addressed to Erik, can you not read it!?” Erik’s voice was loud in the small room, one hand still clutching the letter and Christine’s shawl, the other holding the noose of catgut that in another country, a continent away, stories were still told of, whispered in the corners and stairwells of a grand palace. 

But Nadir knew the man who wielded that noose far better than any Persian courtesan did, and he met Erik’s fury with calm rationality, stepping directly up to him as he spoke. 

“You and I both know that I have more than one reason to suspect you of such a thing. Now if you would sit down and put that away, you can tell me what has you in such a state.”

The two men stood, eyes locked. Erik saw the cool control in the older man’s eyes and tried to maintain the heat of his anger. 

“It is addressed to Erik,” he said through gritted teeth, the edge he tried to force into his voice falling flat. He turned away from Nadir, his cloak whipping behind him as he stalked away. His desk was placed in a corner near the organ, a much simpler thing absolutely covered in books, paper, and candles. There he sat, laying the letter and the shawl gently on it. The faint scent of roses was wafting off the soft blue wool. It was the same scent Erik had smelled from Christine’s hair as he had pulled her away from the edge of Box Five. He wanted to smell it again, but he knew he never would.

He heard Nadir’s footsteps behind him.

“What happened, Erik? Why do you have those things?” Nadir’s voice was soft over Erik’s shoulder. Erik’s mind was whirring itself to pieces, the emotions that had been supplanted by the anger he felt towards Nadir came back to the forefront, the self-loathing chief among them, and a heavy tiredness settled on his shoulders. 

“Christine gave me the letter, and she dropped her shawl when I scared her in Box Five.” Erik’s voice was deadpan, his eyes looking at the letter and Christine’s lovely handwriting.

“Christine? Who is Christine?”

And so Erik told Nadir everything, from the first night that he had overheard Christine’s stories, to the tale that she had woven the night before. He told Nadir of how he had left his home under the opera house much earlier than he had anticipated because he could not sleep, and not because of nightmares, but because he could not wait for day, to see Christine again. How he had been sitting in Box Five when he had heard footsteps coming down the hallway, the strange feeling that had overtaken him, hiding in the column, when he saw Christine’s lovely face illuminated in the lantern light. He paused before relaying his shameful actions that resulted in Christine learning he was no ghost at all, only a man who she now feared.

He did not know why he told the Daroga, he did not know why he made a lot of the decisions he had made in the last twelve hours. Perhaps it was the unconscious trust that the Daroga had slowly built by simply not leaving. But here he was, staring blankly at the relics of Christine in front of him, waiting for the admonishment he knew he deserved. He had not broken his promise, but he had come very close. 

Nadir, for his part, tried to handle his surprise that Erik had told him anything at all. Even when they had faced the desert nights, when strange beasts called in the distance, Erik rarely told him anything about what he was feeling. All that he knew about Erik in recent years had been gathered from short conversations when he was in a half-decent mood and a lot of careful observation. To the Daroga it seems fairly obvious what had happened, and what the lady thought of Erik, at least the last time she saw him, terrified maybe, but not hateful. Thus he decided to give Erik a little nudge.

“It seems that I need to visit more often,” Nadir sighed.

Erik spun in his chair, “No, I think you visit far too often” he snarled.

Nadir smiled. Erik scoffed and turned back. A candle that sat on the desk dripped wax near to the shawl, he picked it up carefully and held it. The light reflected off his mask and flickered over his black hair while he ran his fingers across the fabric.

“Have you read the letter?”

Erik paused, one of his fingers twisted in the corner of the blue shawl as his gaze shifted to the letter. He said nothing. He was not going to admit, and certainly not to Nadir, that he had gotten about as far as noticing that Christine had written “Monsieur Opera Ghost” on the letter and not properly considered that there might be more written inside. 

“I will read it when you leave, Daroga, now go.” Erik’s voice was low, but hard, and Nadir knew when he should leave.

“Yes, forgive an old man his curiosity, I will leave you. It is poor manners to not offer me any tea, my knees are not what they used to be and the climb down is very steep,” he said as he moved towards the door, “though, I think if you wrote an apology to the lady, and returned her shawl, she might be likely to forgive you.” 

Nadir could not keep the smile out of his voice, but he adjusted his astrakhan cap before leaving the small house on the lake and rowing his way back to the other shore, the lantern on the little boat swaying slowly.

Erik heard the door close behind the Daroga. His finger was still wrapped in Christine’s shawl. The old man was desperately infuriating, and Erik wished he would stop visiting, even if he did so rarely, and leave Erik to finish his opera under the Palais Garnier.

He reached for the letter and flipped it around, the simple round disk of wax shining in the dancing light of the candles. He gently cracked it, allowing the neatly folded paper the freedom to unfold. On it was more of the delicate looping script that Christine had left. He read it, and then he read it again. The messy signatures of the corps de ballet at the bottom, and Christine’s neat one stared up at him from the creamy paper. He had never received a letter like this before. The strange feeling from the night before bloomed in his chest as his hands began to shake. He read the letter once more to be sure he had not been hallucinating it, but he had not. The petite rats had really believed Christine, they had really sent him a letter of apology. And he had really, completely made a fool of himself.

“I suppose that the letter is for you, but you do not have to reply, I can manage on my own.” 

Christine’s words from a few hours before came back to him and mingled with those that the Daroga had left him with, and Erik made a potentially foolish decision.

Chapter Text

Christine picked her shawl up from her lap and examined it. It had been folded carefully before she had torn the paper open, and it did not seem to be damaged or dirty in any way. A course of relief shot through her, the pit that had formed in her stomach melting away. She nuzzled it to her face, where the soft scent of candle smoke and bergamot tickled her nose. She breathed the scent in deeply before she realized who it must belong to. She smiled softly and then frowned when she turned to the letters.

She had a pretty good idea what the letter addressed to the corps de ballet would be about, but she had no idea what would be in the letter with her name on it. She wrapped her shawl back around her chilled shoulders and reached for the letter opener she kept on her desk. It was rarely used, only when Mama Valerius sent a note did Christine take it up, but it was there anyway. She flipped the letter over where a simple wax seal awaited her, and she slipped the dull little knife under the flap of paper and gently cut the seal. The thick, creamy paper had creased well, and Christine slowly unfolded it, gently prying apart the edges where the wax still stuck. When the sheet was spread in front of her, more of the spidery and slightly smudged handwriting greeted her, but she was able to decipher it easily enough. The letter ran thus:

November 17, 1883

Dear Mademoiselle Daae,

Please find the shawl that you dropped safely returned to you in the package that should be delivered with this letter, I found it on the floor of the theater after you had left. You said that I did not need to bother replying to the letter that had been left for me, but I try to make a habit of responding to those who begin the conversation so civilly. If you would do me the honor of forwarding the letter to the corps de ballet, I would be much obliged to you. 
Our meeting this morning was less than ideal, and my actions were regrettable. Despite this, I would like you to know that the outcome was not my intent. My ‘dramatics’ as they have been termed are not always appreciated by others. As you now know my secret, I ask that it does not get further than yourself. Should the corps de ballet write a reply, please place it in the same place and I shall come to get it around 8 this evening.

O.G.

Christine re-read the letter over several times and concluded that, if she squinted, it was an apology. She had been preparing herself to be angry, to feel some indignation at the audacity of the man to ask her to keep his secret when he had been so rude, but she did not. She found herself almost protective of that information, even though she knew so little of the Ghost or the man. As she was new at the opera house, she had been excluded more than once from inside jokes or conversations. Having information that not even La Carlotta knew? That made a small part of Christine that she was slightly ashamed of shiver in delight.

She had spent a good portion of her long walk through the streets around the opera house mulling over the stories of the Ghost that she had been told both by the little ballerinas and the laundress as well as his on conduct towards her in Box Five. Her final decision was that she needed more information, both from those in the opera house and from the Ghost himself before she made a final decision on how to feel. What had kept her from finding the Ghost guilty of all the charges laid before him was the return of her shawl, his approximate apology, and the reply to the letter the girls had sent to him. These acts of small kindness alone were enough to convince her there must be more going on beneath the surface. 

She reached for the letter addressed to the corps de ballet. Given the circumstances, her usual disdain for opening missives intended for others was overridden by the fact that she should know before the girls were crowded around her and begging with their large, baleful eyes for a kind response if she needed to pen her own instead of reading this one. The letter was in every way identical to the first, and when Christine had unfolded it, she read:

November 17 , 1883

To the Corps de Ballet of the Palais Garnier,

Thank you for your letter, I am happy that Mlle. Daae related my thoughts to you so exactly. Do not worry that you believed Joseph Boquet, he makes it easy to do so. In my opinion, however, Mlle. Daae is a far better storyteller, the best I have heard. You would do well to thank her for the time she spends with you after rehearsals. She is to be respected and listened to, just as you listen to Mdme. Giry. You are kind to complement my cloak, and I hope that you all stay warm. 

O.G.

A smile had appeared on Christine’s face as she read the short letter. She could read between the lines the embarrassed uncertainty that people who did not interact with children often usually took when they wanted to make a good impression. Yes, this reply would do to give to the girls.

Something in the letter snagged her notice though, and she re-read the middle of the letter, concerning her storytelling. Yes, he had complimented her storytelling, but she did not tell stories outside of the little costume store, and he knew when these meetings occurred. Little Cecile’s words from the night before, about the Ghost disappearing through a wall flashed into her mind. 

“Oh.” Christine’s eyes looked up toward the wall but did not focus. She was learning a lot of information in a short span of time. Up until this point, she had been absorbing and analyzing the information as if it were happening to someone else.

Outside of the incident in Box Five that morning, she had no personal experience with the Ghost, she had not even known that there was a capital-g Ghost until the night before. She had known logically that the Ghost that she had used in her story to calm the ballerinas after hearing their frantic story was also a real man who apparently wreaked a fair amount of havoc in the opera house by using his ghostly alias. A real man who knew the exact time and content of the stories that she thought only the ballet girls had heard. That information and the connotations that went with it had not fully settled in until this moment.

And Christine had absolutely no idea what to think or do. Her fingers absentmindedly began to fiddle with the edge of her shawl, a nervous habit. Her little clock read just after one in the afternoon. She would have more than enough time to reach Mama Valerius’ apartment and return before nightfall.

Mama Valerius’s apartment was located on the Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, a quarter of an hour from the opera house if Christine walked briskly. She secured her shawl before grabbing her cloak from her bed, the heavy wool a welcome weight on her shoulders. It had not snowed, but during her walk earlier she had discovered the lack of clouds that made the sun so bright had helped the temperature to drop considerably. After slipping the letters into the inner pocket of her cloak, she dug through her wardrobe for the gloves she had forgotten earlier before leaving the little room, again slipping the key into her bodice.

Her nose was pink when she arrived at Mama Valerius’, but the hood of her cloak and her gloves had kept the worst of the brisk cold at bay. She knocked solidly on the door three times before quickly retreating her hands into the warm envelope of her cloak. A few moments later, Beatrice, Mama Valerius’ housekeeper, an older woman in her fifties with streaks of grey starting in her brown hair, answered the door.

“My, Christine, we were not expecting you today! Oh dear girl you are frozen, come in! Hurry, hurry!” Her voice was warm with a smile as she beckoned Christine inside. 

“Is Mama Valerius in? I wanted to speak to her about something…” Christine’s voice was pleasant, but slightly strained as she removed the hood of her cloak from her head. She had spent the last twenty or so minutes trying, and failing, to figure out a proper course of action in relation to the Opera Ghost and was beginning to feel the effects.

“Yes, I will go tell her you are here,” Beatrice said, shutting the door behind Christine. She had not seemed to notice anything amiss in Christine’s demeanor.

The house was toasty, the fire was blazing away behind the grate in the little parlor, a staunch defender against the cold. Christine gratefully held her hands to the fire while Beatrice went upstairs to inform her mistress, then returned to the kitchen down the hall. The room was small but comfortably furnished, with two armchairs and a couch pointed towards the fire. Two portraits hung above the mantle, one of Professor Valerius, who had died not long after Christine and her father had moved with the couple to Paris when she was fourteen. The other was her father’s portrait, his precious violin held in concert rest on his knee while he looked grimly at the viewer. Christine had laughed when the photograph had first been taken, as her father almost never wore a frown in her presence, and seeing it had been comical to the extreme. 

A different photograph hung above Christine’s desk in her rooms at the opera, where she, all of eight years old, was sitting on her father’s lap. Despite the stern looks the photographer had told them to take, she could always see a hint of a smile on his face. In life, his blue eyes were always sparkling with mirth even when he was not smiling. But now all that remained of him was a few photographs and the memories of two women. 

The sound of Mama Valerius’ cane against the stairs pulled Christine out of her reverie. She turned from the fire, a genuine smile on her lips as she walked over to the older woman. Mama Valerius met Christine’s smile with an equally large one and the two women embraced, each pecking a kiss to both of the other's cheeks as they did so.

“Oh, Christine, it is good to see you, but what brings you here?”

Christine’s smile faltered for just a moment, but while Beatrice may not have been able to catch onto her uncertain mood, Mama Valerius was a scholar on the nuanced expressions of one Christine Daae.

“I have come to ask your advice on something…er…concerning someone, I do not think I can make any sense of the situation without you,” Christine said, and if she had not given herself away before, her voice now certainly did.

“Oh dear, yes of course, sit down over here,” Mama Valerius said, gesturing to the small couch in the parlor, “You look chilled dear, let me have Beatrice make us some tea.”

She called to Beatrice, who could be heard in the kitchen.

“The kettle is just about to boil, madam,” was the cheerful woman’s reply.

Mama Valerius turned her attention back to the young woman who had once been her charge, and still was in many ways, even if she was old enough to act for herself now. She smoothed her comfortable black skirts out over her knees and let her cane lean against them. 

“Now, my dear, what is the matter?”

Christine wrung her still pink hands and worried her bottom lip as she searched for where to begin. She decided that the beginning would be the most effective place.

“So, I told you about the little ballerinas I was telling stories to after rehearsal, they are lovely, nothing wrong with them.” Christine hurried to add after she saw a flicker of worry cross Mama Valerius’ face. She continued, “But the trouble did start last night after rehearsals. Little Cecile, she's one of the girls, was late and when she came in she looked so frightened that I thought she might faint. When I asked her what could possibly be the matter, the other girls started to go on and on about this Opera Ghost whom I had yet to hear of.”

Christine’s words had started to jumble, they were coming out of her in such a rush of anxiety, but Mama Valerius just nodded along as she heard of the tale Christine had told the girls and their letter writing that morning. 

“Well, I was talking to myself in the box, because I really had no idea what I was doing, even if I was having some fun with it. I was placing the letter on the seat when a voice spoke to me. Mama, it scared me terribly and I jumped away, but you know how small those little boxes are, and I started to fall over the edge before a man grabbed me and pulled me to him.”

“A man, Christine? But you said the box was empty?” Mama Valerius was puzzled to say the least, because she did know how small those little boxes were, having come to see the opera many times, most recently with Christine when she had first gotten her position. 

“Mama, it was, that is how I figured out that man was the Ghost!” The interruption had allowed Christine a respite, and her nerves, which had been frayed somewhat, began to knit back together. It was good to tell someone else about this.

“Ah, so there is no Ghost at all, only a man who likes to play tricks.”

“Yes, mama, exactly. I was quite vexed with him, he had scared me so, and I told him as much. Oh, mama, it may have been foolish of me, but you know I sometimes cannot hold my tongue. And it did not turn out so bad…” This last had been in response to a look that Christine had seen on Mama Valerius’ face many times, and usually meant something along the lines of That was a very silly thing to do.

“Well then, Christine, what has happened?”

“Well, as I said, I was quite vexed, and I think he was too, so I left the letter but told him he need not respond, I had already been planning on making something up for the girls. But it was dark, oh yes, I dropped my lamp when he scared me, and after a moment he led me to the door and I left. Oh, and he had asked me not to light the lamp, probably so I would not see and recognize him.” 

Here, Beatrice emerged from the kitchen with a tray stacked with a teapot, two cups, and an assortment of biscuits. The tea was poured and after Christine had drunk half her cup, she returned to her story a small bit less frazzled than when she had begun. The bergamot aroma of the tea reminded her of the scent that had been left on her shawl.

She relayed the loss of that shawl, and the walk she took to calm her nerves, then the return to the opera house and the strange delivery from the ballet mistress.

“Well, I opened the package, and it was my shawl, and these were the two letters that were with it,” Christine finished, pulling the two letters out of her pocket and handing them to Mama Valerius to read. The older woman pulled the pince-nez that hung on a chain from her neck up to her eyes as she read through the letters. Christine was silent as she methodically stirred her tea, her gaze fixed somewhere near her shoes.

“Well, it is a little rough around the edges, but it does seem to be an apology, and he is at least attempting to undo some damage with the little ballerinas. Are you going to give him their reply?” 

“Oh no, not tonight, not all of them are at the opera house this evening on account of it being Saturday, so it would be uncouth of me to do so. But Mama, he knows about the stories I tell them, and he knows when they happen; he must have been listening in on them!” Christine said emphatically.

“I imagine he has, and I cannot blame him—you are a very enthralling storyteller—your talent in it is only surpassed by your voice. The walls of the opera are thin, my dear.” Mama Valerius was not one who stepped around the point, Christine thought that might have been where she got some of her abruptness from.

“Should I be worried?” The question hung in the air while Mama Valerius thought, reading through the letter addressed to Christine again. Something about it seemed so plainly honest, she thought it might have been the smears some of the letters had, where the ink had not yet dried when his hand had brushed across them. They reminded her of how Alexandre used to smear his letters to her when they had been courting. No, she did not think this man meant Christine any harm. If he had, there had been ample opportunities to act upon it, and he had not. Men did not treat women who worked in the opera with the same civilities they afforded those outside of it; it was not often that they hid their machinations for very long.

“No, no...I do not think he means you harm, but if you plan to keep a correspondence with him for the sake of the girls, you must learn more about him.” 

Christine smiled in relief, her breath coming out in a rush. Until that moment, she had not known that the answer Mama Valerius gave had been the one she wanted all along. She finished her tea and bade both older women a long goodbye, before she returned to her room at the opera house, cheeks flushed and still smiling.

Chapter Text

Mama Valerius perhaps should have known that when she told Christine to learn more about the mysterious man who played the part of the Opera Ghost, Christine would not leave another letter and be done with it, as Mama Valerius was thinking. Christine was shy, she did not like the gazes of others to linger on her for too long, and she often felt awkward in many conversations. But that all changed if she had a goal in mind, as she was capable of a single-minded determination that distracted her from much of her fear. And Mama Valerius had given her just such a goal. Left to her own devices, Christine would take a much more direct action.

It would not be until Monday that Christine would give the little ballerinas the letter that the Ghost had written them. During the weekends, those whose parents did not live at the opera would go home to visit. It would have been unfair to those who left the opera to deliver the letter when they were not there. But the Ghost had given Christine a time when he would stop by Box Five for a reply, so Christine would give him one.  

It had taken some deliberation on her part, even with Mama Valerius saying that she did not think the Ghost meant her any harm. She returned to her little room with a smile and a half-formed plan, but as the effects of her relief had worn off, Christine was confronted with the problem that still presented itself to her. Even if the Opera Ghost meant no harm, he was still a man, a man who was capable of extraordinary things. This thought ran like a rabbit through her mind, the good womanly sense she had been instilled with through several years under Mama Valerius and at the Conservatory telling her it would be imprudent at best to go along with her plan. But Mama Valerius’s words kept beating in her chest, saying that the Ghost did not mean her harm. Something she thought she had known since the moment that he pulled her back from her fall.  

Eight in the evening was just as the lamps that lit the opera house’s halls would be put out. It would be dark in those twisting corridors, but Christine was bent on her quest. Her lamp held high in her hand and her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she walked with a sure step toward the theater and Box Five. 

The two velvet and gold chairs were exactly how they had been when she had seen them that morning. In fact, it felt to Christine that the whole incident had been some kind of dream, even if she knew it had happened, and had physical evidence to prove it. She slipped past the chair she had deemed the Ghost’s chair and sat down in the other, her lamp resting on her knee. And she waited.
She did not know how long the wait was, at some point, she glanced around the box and found a little table, usually used for holding champagne, and brought it between the two chairs. Her lamp set upon it, she continued her vigil.

Fifteen minutes had to have passed and Christine was beginning to fidget. Her dainty fingers fiddled ceaselessly with each other as her hands twisted in her lap. It must be past eight now, surely, he must be here soon. But Christine had no idea how he entered the box, and did not know where she should look for a sign of the Ghost’s coming.

“Are you intending to wait for me?” The same warm honey-filled voice that Christine remembered suddenly filled the little box. It seemed to have come from the other chair, but no one was sitting in it.

Christine startled violently and flew to her feet, staring hard at where the voice had come from, then glancing into every corner of the box. 

“Where are you, monsieur? I know you are here somewhere,” she said, turning back to the banister and leaning over it, intending to peer into the other boxes for any sign of the Ghost.

Christine felt a hand rest on her shoulder and a tug that pulled her back from the ledge. It was long-fingered and gloved in white, stark against the deep blue of her shawl.

“Forgive me mademoiselle, but I no longer trust you around these banisters,” the Ghost, for that is who it had to be, said.

She felt her breath hitch, his voice really was lovely, with its dark, smooth timbre. She glanced behind her but only saw the Ghost’s forearm. On attempting to turn around, she felt pressure on her shoulder that prevented her.

“Monsieur, I can assure you that if I had wanted to tell anyone of your secret, I would have already done so. I know you are no ghost…” Christine held her voice steady as she stared ahead, calmed now since her surprise of moments before.

“That does not negate the fact that I do not wish to be seen. What have you come here for?” There was an edge of warning in the man’s voice. Christine heard it but did not heed it. This Ghost or man or whoever was beginning to get to Christine, who was he to choose the terms that their acquaintanceship continued on? 

“I will not have a conversation with a man who will not show himself to me.” Christine had tried valiantly to keep her voice level, but she could not help the hint of indignation that had crept into it. She found such cowardly actions distasteful and dishonest.

“Then we are not to have one.” The man’s voice had grown dark and cynical, almost a snarl, in response to her own curt utterance. His hand left her shoulder, and Christine let out a breath in a rush. She almost turned around but her self-control gripped her curiosity like a vice.

“Monsieur, I will turn around in ten seconds, if you would not like me to see you, leave now. If you would like to have a conversation like civilized people, then stay.” Christine kept her voice monotone as she delivered this ultimatum. 

She held her breath, trying vainly to hear any sound that would be made by someone standing so near behind her. But she heard nothing. Some small worm in her brain fretted terribly, was this really a good idea? Could this man truly be trusted? Christine took the little worm and shoved it into a box. We would not have any of that right now, there was a Ghost to speak to. Ten, slow, agonizing seconds passed, and Christine ever so slowly turned around.

The man who stood in front of her, just beyond the reach of her lamp’s circle of light, was dressed almost entirely in black, with only the white of his dress shirt and the white of the half mask on the right side of his face breaking up the shadows around him. She could not discern much about his clothes or build, shadowed as they were, but she could tell he was of an uncommon height. He looked remarkably normal, perhaps even handsome in an angular and elegant way once she could see him better, but for the mask and the amber eyes that seemed to glow in the lamplight. There in the dark, his presence felt almost predatory, as if he could be very dangerous should the thought strike him to be. She was certain she had never seen him before, as a patron or as an employee of the opera house.

She searched his face for a single moment more, attention caught between the mask and his arresting amber eyes before she dropped into the curtsy and greeting that had been hammered into her muscle memory, shoving any new nuggets of fear that had arisen into the box with the worm.

“Good evening Monsieur Opera Ghost. It is good to finally meet you, I am Christine Daae. I sing in the chorus here at the Palais Garnier.”

With her head bowed Christine did not see the flicker of surprise that crossed the man’s face at her gesture, but it was gone by the time she rose again to meet his eyes. They froze again, each staring at the other in consideration before he brought his white-gloved hand to his chest and returned the greeting with a bow of his own.

“The pleasure is mine, Mademoiselle Daae.” 

Christine planned to ignore how much she enjoyed how his voice rolled around the syllables of her name. When he moved, she could see much better the clothes that he wore, a black opera cloak, with beading that caught the light, and a black fedora, tipped rakishly to one side, seemingly to better cover the mask. What a strange choice to wear the mask, as he was perfectly recognizable on one side without it. If one wanted to hide, they wore a mask across both of their eyes. However, there were other, more pressing issues.

“Yes, yes, now, I must ask,” here Christine saw the man (or the Ghost? She was not certain how to refer to him anymore) stiffen but she carried on, “I must ask, do you have a name other than Opera Ghost I may call you, it is a bit cumbersome.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, every ounce of that fiery determination set on discovering as much about this man as possible as quickly as possible. Seeing the man in his entirety had gone leagues towards removing a good portion of her fear. The Ghost was not a set of glowing eyes in the darkness or a frantic story from a little ballerina any longer, he was simply a man, and Christine had dealt with men before.

It did not look as if the same could be said for the Ghost, who returned Christine’s expectant look with darting eyes and a half-frown, that predatory nature that he exuded gone completely. Christine’s shapely eyebrows were inching up her forehead towards concern when he finally spoke.

“It is…my name is Erik…” he said, almost a whisper, his eyes glancing away. At his sides, his hands griped and released the fabric of his cloak but he still did not look back to Christine.

“Erik…?” Christine said, continuing with her expectant gaze. The man went still as a stone at her voice but turned to look at her finally, his eyes, if it was possible, even more ablaze.

“It is only Erik.”

If the man, Erik, did have a last name, he was not sharing it with her tonight. Something about the strength it had seemed to take him to tell him only this name left Christine with the impression that there was no last name for him to give.

“Well, if I am to be calling you Erik, you are to call me Christine. Now, on to a civilized conversation.” There it was again, that odd stone-still posture. Yes, it was a little outside the normal bounds of propriety for a man and a woman to call to each other with their Christian names so soon after meeting, but the whole situation was a little outside the bounds of propriety, what was a little more scandal? It certainly did not bother Christine. She leveled a questioning look at Erik before she nodded to the two chairs. Reaching her hand out she maneuvered the chair she had been waiting in to face the other more directly before she sat in it again. 

For a moment, Erik continued to stand. After closing his eyes, his single visible eyebrow rose and quirked. Christine was not sure if that signified surprise or distaste, so she simply waited for him to either sit in the other chair or leave entirely.

Finally, after what seemed like minutes or more, but could only have been seconds, he moved. To describe his movements as cat-like would not fully express the fluidity with which he seemed to bring the dark of the shadows with him rather than move out of them. However, despite this elegance, his posture remained stiff and careful, his hands resting on his knees, even going so far as to tilt his head slightly away from the light of the lamp. To have called the man uneasy would have been an understatement. 

“Well…” Christine’s voice held a strange note as she tried to force past the awkward silence that had settled upon the little box. Her plan had gone as far as this, and she knew roughly what she wanted to impart to Erik, but her broad sweeps of ideas did not cover how exactly to speak to someone to whom every glance seemed a threat. 

Erik’s eyes had shot to her as she spoke, but he showed no signs of beginning to speak himself, so she cleared her throat and attempted something like the civil conversation she had initiated.

“The girls in the corps de ballet are quite taken with you, I think they will enjoy your reply. Will you consider writing more of them in the future?” A small, but genuine smile pulled at the corners of Christine’s mouth as she spoke. She watched the effect that her words had on Erik. His head shifted, ever so subtly, towards the light, revealing more of the mask but also allowing more direct eye contact. He looked at her a moment more before his eyes flitted over to inspect the pinpricks of light across the opera where the lamp’s glow was reflected in the ornate ornamentation. 

“That can be arranged, simply leave their letters here as I said in my note. Though they were only taken with me after you undid much of the work that had been done concerning the Opera Ghost,” he said, voice steady, the emotion in it nearly impossible to read.

“Yes, I have been meaning to ask you about that. Where do you listen from, to our gatherings I mean?” Christine was certain she saw a flicker of something like shame run across the unmasked part of Erik’s face, but she blinked and it was gone.

“There…is a hollow place, behind one of the walls,” he said, low, and then, louder and with a defensive ring, “I only come to listen, my intentions lie nowhere else.” He glanced again at Christine but was only met with her beaming smile.

“My father always said I could tell stories that could charm faeries, I am pleased to know they charm ghosts as well,” Christine said, the teasing warmth in her voice surprising even herself. Erik’s visible eye grew wide as he stared at her, then he turned completely away.

“They are…interesting…”

“Your letter to the girls says otherwise,” Christine blazed on, her goal before her, “Now I must ask, how many of the stories that they told me about you are true? I do not believe many of them, but the ones about you disappearing through walls seem to be true enough.” With this, she gestured to the box as a whole, as if to say You did it right in front of me.

He looked away quickly, staring blankly back out into the darkness of the opera. She watched his shoulders sag as she asked the question, and his reply only confirmed the emotion.

“Eri- I fear that, while embellished, many of them are true. I am capable of things that seem fantastical but are no more than parlor tricks. I have little tolerance for fools in my opera house. I have not killed, or even harmed anyone beyond scaring them, however, no matter what that scene-shifter says,” he said, his voice darkening at the final words.

Christine took a moment to analyze this information and what it meant to her. On one hand, from what little she knew of the stories, a fair portion included the Ghost leading someone to harm. On the other, the man himself was sitting here, honestly telling her that it was embellished. She had been silent so long that Erik turned back to her, fully this time, and she could see the white mask wholly in the lamplight. She felt her fingers begin to move and twist around themselves under his gaze, but she did not speak until she was certain of what she wanted to ask him.

“Why do you do it?”

An ironic smile leaped onto Erik’s features and a cruel note rang in his voice as he said, with a scoff, “I want my opera house to run smoothly, as it is my only sanctuary. The managers are fools who do not know a soprano from a piccolo.”

It did not occur to Christine that this meant that Erik might live in the opera house, but the effect was similar. Anxiety began to shoot through her at his change in demeanor and voice. She glanced around the little box before leveling her gaze at him again. He would not harm her now, she must believe in that.

“How much of my story about you is true?” Christine’s soft question held calm that she did not feel, her anxiety for his answer shooting directly into her fingers as they now played with the grey fabric of her dress, “Do you protect those in the opera house?”

It was Erik’s turn for a silent contemplation. His eyes burned into Christine’s, emotions broiling beneath them, before he looked at her hands, then back to the darkness around them.
“I would not be opposed to adding the well-being of the corps de ballet to my duties.” His voice held the same careful calm as Christine’s, but his hands tensed, gripping the black fabric that covered his long, thin legs. 

A soft sigh escaped Christine’s lips, the anxiety she had been feeling shifting dramatically to delight. Her smile returned.

“Then the stories about you cannot be as true as all that,” she said, her smile brightening her voice. She continued, “I will consider it payment for listening in uninvited and the fright you gave me this morning.”

Erik’s eyes shot back to her, incredulous, but not burning in their observation. But Christine was back in mapped waters, and she had more questions for the Ghost. 

“How do you disappear into the walls? You have appeared here in this box twice without coming through the door,” she gestured towards the place where she had first seen Erik. 

A beat, and then his hand lifted and made a vague gesture, seeming to encompass the whole theater, as he said, “There are hollow walls and passages throughout the opera house, I simply enter the doors into them. It is as I said, the Ghost is no more than a few parlor tricks.”

Christine huffed a short laugh before she stopped abruptly, a thought forming in her mind. A more ‘sensible’ lady would have made a speech to Erik on the morals of stalking through an opera house unseen, but Christine was not that sort.  

“If you are ever in one of them near me, please inform me of your presence, I do not wish to repeat the incident this morning.” 

“Will this do?” It was Erik’s voice, but it was whispered next to her right ear, and his lips had not moved. She jumped in her chair, head twisting between Erik and the spot where she had heard his voice. Surprise turned to wonder in her eyes.

“Amazing…” she breathed, before she finally looked at Erik, “How did you do that?” She had seen ventriloquists at the fairs she had sung at as a child in Sweden, where her father played the violin. None had ever been this talented.

An almost invisible, but genuine smile tugged at his lips, just for a moment. But that was enough, Christine was not afraid anymore. So she laughed. It was more of a giggle, her mouth hidden behind her hand, but it was clear as the first rays of sunlight through a winter storm. But it was the kind of laugh that shone in the eyes with a soft, pure joy.

“Well Erik, that will do nicely as a warning,” she said, the laugh still shining in her voice as she smiled at him, “I will bring the girl’s reply to you by Monday evening, I shall leave it here after rehearsals. I cannot imagine they will be willing to wait until the evening to write it!” 

Erik simply stared at her, eyes wide. But Christine did not notice this as she moved to stand. As she did so, she absentmindedly graced her hand across her arm to ensure her shawl was in place when she remembered why she still had it. 

“Oh, I almost forgot…thank you for the return of my shawl, I was quite put out when I could not find it.” She gave him another smile as she looked at him. He had stood in a rush of midnight and was now much closer to her than she expected him to be. She had to tilt her head some ways back to meet his amber eyes glancing down at her, one from the dark eye of the mask. His elegant features took on some angularity when lit from below by the lamp.

He really did tense up a lot. Christine put it up to potentially not being around others often.

“It was my pleasure, Christine.” The words were stilted, but only slightly.

It was Christine’s turn to tense. She was certainly not aware of how that honey voice sounded when he said her given name, and it would remain that way. She picked the lamp up from the table and made to walk to the door. Erik did not move, he simply followed her movements with his eyes. 

She turned as she reached the door, the knob in her hand. 

“Goodnight, Erik,” she said with another smile, and then she left.

“Goodnight, sweet Christine…” he whispered to the closed door, to the soft scent of roses she left in her wake, to the beautiful woman who was now making her way back to her rooms, to her silver laughter that still echoed in his mind, to the flower that bloomed brilliantly in his chest.

Chapter Text

The next day, Christine waited patiently at the stairs of the Palais Garnier for Mama Valerius’s clarence to come down the Rue 4 Septembre. Every Sunday, she went with Mama, Beatrice, and Andre, Beatrice’s husband and Mama’s footman, to La Madeline for the late morning service. No matter the weather, unless a blizzard was filling the streets with so much snow not even the high-stepping horses could make it through, Christine would see the little black coach with Andre huddled atop it, driving Mathilde, the bay mare, forward. It was frosty today, and the clouds were low, threatening such a blizzard, but Christine did not have to cancel her outing. She soon saw Mathilde appear out of the throng of horses and carriages that danced in front of the opera house.

The clarence stopped at the base of the steps, and Mathilde shook her head, jangling her harness as she looked expectantly at Christine. Christine took the sugar cube she had snatched from the kitchen in her hand and held it to the mare’s nose, who took the treat with an appreciative nicker before chewing it happily. 

“Good morning Andre! You’re not too cold I hope,” Christine said as she stroked Mathilde’s soft nose.

“Good morning mon chou, no colder than poor Mathilde. She’ll enjoy her oats at the church, hurry in before you freeze yourself,” the older man replied, a smile in his voice. His greying brown hair was hidden under a large cap, but his beard could be seen as his breath hung in clouds around his head. Christine gave Mathilde one more affectionate scratch before she opened the door to the carriage and clambered inside, not once looking at the cloaked figure watching from the roof above her, shadowed by the great gilded statue of La Poésie.

Mama Valerius and Beatrice were waiting for her, and once she was settled, she knocked twice on the roof to signal to Andre. As the carriage lurched forward, the wheels grumbled against the cobblestones. The box of coals under the ladies’ feet quickly dispelled the cold gust that had entered with Christine. Greetings and conversation promptly followed. 

***

Erik was cold, sitting there on the opera house’s roof. Christine had passed him in the halls, her blue cloak on and gloves in hand, much earlier than most people even awoke in the Palais Garnier on a Sunday. He had attempted to call out to her, he really had, he did not want to break his promise, but she had turned the corner quickly and was gone into the great foyer and out the door before he could. 

Once the mental dam preventing him from speaking to anyone in the opera house outside of Ghost business had been broken, Erik found himself wanting to speak to Christine. It was an odd feeling, to say the least, made even odder by the immense disappointment he felt when Christine whisked by him and out the door before he could. So instead of going back to his task of putting a letter in the managers’ office, he turned towards the staircase that allowed access to the roof. He had to ensure that nothing happened to her on such a chilly morning.

Minutes later, his gloved fingers grasped and fiddled with the edges of his cloak as he watched Christine wait for someone. Every so often, she would strain on the tips of her toes, searching the people and carriages that occupied the Place de l’Opera. She rubbed her hands together to keep them warm as her warm breath escaped in puffed clouds. 

Erik, rather than acknowledging the thought that Christine looked quite fetching when her nose was pink, began silently seething at whoever had kept her waiting in the cold so long. He would never leave someone so lovely out in such weather. But soon enough Christine gave a happy little hop to signal her awaited carriage had arrived.

Christine eventually stepped to the carriage that pulled up to the opera house and pet the forelock of the horse that drew it. A smile crept unbidden onto Erik’s face as he watched her do so, the annoyance he had felt at the unknown carriage driver forgotten. Christine climbed in and the carriage trundled away down the Boulevard de Capucines. He watched her go, the cold November sky grey around him, softening the gleam of the golden statue that he hid behind. It felt as if the world dimmed around him with her leaving. Such a phenomenon seemed to occur a lot recently. 

He had left Box Five the night before in some kind of daze. Long instilled muscle memory the only thing ensuring that he returned to his little home under the opera house. Every time he closed his eyes, instead of seeing Christine falling off the little balcony, he saw her amazed face and blinding smile as he threw his voice. Instead of the voices that accosted his mind at all hours of the day, he heard her crystalline laugh and the softness when she said his name. 

When he realized where he was again, his hands were resting on the keys of his organ, the scribbled libretto of Don Juan Triumphant in front of him. The notes he had hurriedly scribbled that morning seemed lonely and far away compared to the light feeling that now enveloped him. 

He had had absolutely no idea what to do with himself. Moving of their own accord, his fingers enticed a soft, lilting melody from the pipes of the organ. A melody, unlike anything he had written before. A melody that now floated through Erik’s head as he made his way down from the roof. 

Erik’s preferred route to the cellars from the front roof of the opera house took him through the flies above the stage. This offered him an excellent opportunity to check on anything happening in the theater before returning to the bowels of the Palais Garnier. A Sunday, however, offered little in terms of entertainment, either from a show or the antics of those in the opera house. His nimble journey across the rafters and ropes came to an abrupt halt when his sensitive ears picked up a sound in the immense silence of the empty theater.

There was a small sniffling coming from behind one of the black curtains. A quiet sound that was only made when a young girl wanted very much not to be caught crying. Erik had been planning to ignore it, as he usually did when someone was expressing emotions he was not comfortable dealing with, but something twinged in his gut as his thoughts connected. 
Erik’s shoulders stiffened as he glanced below him from his perch in the rafters. His golden eyes skittered across the stage, looking for the little ballerina he was certain was crying somewhere below. It was dim on stage, but Erik easily found the young girl. She was on her hands and knees on the left side, more than fifty feet below. 

Erik began his deft and silent descent through the various catwalks and ropes that formed the veins of the opera. As he grew nearer to the stage, he was able to see more clearly. He recognized the girl as one who frequently could be found with Christine. Her blonde curls moved with her head as she searched for something on the stage floor. The stifled sobs grew louder as he silently crept through the shadows near her. What was a ballerina doing here? Many of them were gone for the day, not to return until later, and the rest were trooping about the city or helping in various places in the opera house. Yes, it was odd indeed to find a petite rat here on a chilly Sunday morning.

And chilly it was, here in the great open theater, and this girl had little in terms of warm clothes as she searched the dark crevices of the floors. She had not even brought a light! Whatever it was she searched for, she was doing it in the near dark of the curtained stage. Erik could hear her mumbling now as he dropped silently behind a large building that made up a part of the set.

“Where- oh goodness, where did it go…please, please where is it…” the little ballerina’s voice was breaking even as she whispered under her breath. A week previously Erik would have thought this an excellent moment to play a simple prank on someone easily scared by a wind in a draft-less room. However, several things had changed in Erik’s life over the last thirty-six hours. This was one of his ballerinas, Christine asked him to take care of his ballerinas. They were his to protect and help. He promised Christine.

He almost forgot to throw his voice.

“What are you looking for, child?”

The girl’s sniffles ceased instantly and her golden curls shook as her head shot up, eyes darting. Erik saw every muscle in her body tense, prepared to bolt the moment a threat presented itself.

“Who’s there? Come out!” she said loudly, facing where Erik had thrown his voice. Despite her attempt, the little ballerina’s voice shook. 

Erik’s first reaction was to leave. Christine was not here, she was the only reason the ballerinas did not fear him. Without her, he was just the Opera Ghost, terror of the Palais Garnier. His fingers twisted with the edges of his cloak and he screwed his eyes shut against the voice that screamed inside his head. They hate you anyway, they will always fear you, might as well give them a reason.

No. No, that is not true. Christine was only scared of you because you scared her. Christine would not lie to Erik about such an important thing. Christine told Erik that the corps de ballet wanted to speak to him more, that they were not truly scared anymore. Christine had not lied to Erik!
Erik took a slow, shuddering breath before he glanced back to where the girl was standing. Her head was twisting to and fro as she clenched and unclenched her fists. He threw his voice once again, trying to make it come from right in front of the girl. He forced any shaking from it with an iron hand.

“There is no reason to fear, I only wonder why you are crying. I cannot show myself to you, as I do not wish to scare you further.”

The girl jumped at the voice before peering incredulously around her. Only the filtered light that came from the backstage areas and the Foyer de la Danse allowed her to see. Erik hoped she guessed who he was before he had to spell it out to her. Signing one’s letters O.G. was one thing, saying I am the Opera Ghost out loud was another. It was the sort of title one was given, not that one claimed. 

He watched as she searched the curtains in front of her before finally whirling towards the center of the stage. She whispered something too quiet for even Erik’s sensitive ears to hear before she called out to the dim stage again.

“Are…are you the Opera Ghost?” Her voice was timid as she squeaked out the final words.  

“Yes, I am. Now, what is the matter?” Erik was relieved she had caught on so fast, but he was quickly running out of experiences to draw on to continue the conversation. He was not someone who made a habit out of interacting with children, especially young girls. He did not know how to speak to them, how one interacted with the innocence of youth. He hoped desperately that her problem was not one requiring advice of any sort. But he certainly had not enjoyed it when people spoke down to him when he was a child, perhaps other children did not enjoy it either. As he focused again on her, her tears seemed to have dried. 

“Really? Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were one of the nasty scene shifters.” Her voice was still small, but there was obvious relief in it. She was relieved that she was talking to the Opera Ghost. Erik’s mind ground to a halt when presented with that information. It was incongruous. It simply did not make any sense.

But the girl pressed on.

“I lost something you see, Monsieur, and I need to find it again but I don’t know where it is and I need to give it back to Maman or she will be very cross,” she said, beginning to babble. 

Erik roused himself from his stupor, figuring he would analyze the new information later. He had a ballerina to help right now.

“What did you lose, child?”

“It was Maman’s gold ring, Monsieur, she lent it to me to show some of the girls but I could not find it in my rooms, it must have fallen off when I was wearing it during rehearsal on Friday. I have to have it back before she comes to pick me up today or she will be so angry…” Here the babbles stopped and the girl began to cry again, but no longer the frantic tears of anxiety. Instead, they were the pitiful tears of despair.

Erik felt pity well up in his chest, even as the girl’s sobs grated against his eardrums and his instincts told him to leave the situation. They were rather loud and he had not heard or seen another person cry in many years without immediately running off. But he persisted because another feeling was taking hold of his mind. A faint, but definite happiness. Was this not a perfect task for him? He, the Opera Ghost, who knew every inch of his opera house? He was the only one who could do it. A little gold ring she said? If no one else had noticed it, it likely slipped through one of the small cracks backstage. He knew exactly where to look for it. But that noise had to stop first.

“Stop crying!” The words were harsher than Erik intended, and the girl clapped her hand to her mouth and began hiccuping. He tried again, with a stilted but much softer voice.

“Child, what did the ring look like?”

The girl hiccuped a few times before answering. “It- it is a thin gold band with a ruby, Monsieur.”

“Very good, and what is your name?”

“Giselle, Monsieur.”

Erik’s mind, so recently in turmoil, turned to one of the things it was best at, making a scheme. In mere moments, he had formulated a plan.

“Giselle, I see your mother has raised a very polite child. Go with your mother today and when she asks for her ring, say you left it with Madame Giry for safekeeping and you will get it on your return to the opera.” 

Giselle began to fret, wringing her hands as the not-yet-dry tears on her cheeks glimmered in the faint light. “But Monsieur, I did not leave the ring with Madame Giry.”

“Do not worry, Giselle, when you return to the opera house, Madame Giry will have the ring. And I trust that you have learned a lesson in the care and keeping of items that do not belong to you.” Erik was surprised at himself for this last bit. Teaching? Him? The Daroga was starting to rub off on him. They would need to have a chat about that later.

Giselle hesitated a moment, thinking. Then she jumped, clapping her hands together in delight as she spoke to where the voice had come from, “Oh! Oh yes, Monsieur! Oh, thank you, thank you! Yes, I will not forget.”

Her joy and relief were tangible.

Erik felt a small smile cross his features. He might…enjoy this. His sadness over Christine’s departure was forgotten in his desire to find the little ring as quickly as possible. 

“Go now, child, and do not worry.”

“I will not Monsieur. Thank you, oh, thank you!” With that, Giselle flittered out of the darkened stage area towards the Foyer de la Danse.

As soon as she had gone, Erik leaped from behind the set and towards the entrance to the first cellar, right below the stage. He was excited, nearly as excited as he had been last night when Christine had laughed. He wanted to help Giselle because he was the only one who could help her. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he had no trouble at all seeing, even in the darkest corners.

His cloak flared out behind him, sometimes twisting around support pillars as he scoured all the places under cracks in the floor above. He knew every inch of the ballerina’s routine and scoured each section in turn. Up and down and back around. As he moved back up the slanted floor, a gleam caught his eye. There it was! Exactly as little Giselle had described it, a small golden band with a ruby inlaid in the center.

Erik did not care how much dust his cloak had collected, rather, he would care about it later. For now, he had found the ring. He must write a letter to Madame Giry quickly so that she would receive it before Giselle returned with her mother. He slipped the ring into his breast pocket and began the descent to his lair. How enjoyable this was! The hateful voice that usually hounded Erik could not even get a word in about how Giselle had to hate him or how Christine had to have lied. Rather, he thought about the look on Giselle's lively little face when she regained the ring.

***

Madame Giry stared down at the note she had just unfolded as she fiddled with the ring that came with it. The Ghost had been strange the last few days, between Mille. Daae, the other letters, and now this. Had someone hit the man upside the head? 

November 18, 1883

Madam Giry,
This ring belongs to one of your ballerinas, Giselle. She dropped it during practice and I retrieved it for her. It is her mother’s, and she was worried her mother would be angry, so do not mention that the ring was ever not in your possession. 
O.G.

Madame Giry sighed. It was the sort of sigh only a woman who cares for many young children can sigh.  She had been tolerant of the man who called himself the Opera Ghost and often acted as his messenger. He mostly kept to himself and gave very good advice to the managers. Privately, Madam Giry wished that the Ghost was the one to manage the productions at times, he at least seemed to have some eye for ballet.

 She knew he was dangerous, there was something about him that keyed alarm bells, probably the fact that he pretended to be a ghost in an opera house and had strange glowing eyes. At least they had seemed that way the few times Madame Giry had glimpsed him (She was far too sensible a person to not think he was a man). But she had seen plenty of dangerous men in her time at the Palais Garnier, and the Ghost did not seem to pose an immediate threat. So long as he kept himself to practical jokes, scaring scene shifters who frankly deserved it, and decent advice, she did not mind him. But now the corps de ballet was involved in some kind of antic, and she would not let them be harmed, Mille. Daae along with them. 

But there did not seem to be any harm here. Yesterday she had been alarmed to be told to deliver a parcel and a letter for her ballerinas to Mille. Daae. Yet the letter she had received, apparently by way of explanation, simply said that the ballerinas had sent a letter and he was replying as well as returning a lost item. And Madame Giry had seen little Giselle only an hour ago, fresh-faced and laughing as she met her mother at the door of the opera house. And here was a note that in all was very polite and even kind, for the Ghost anyway. What was that strange man up to?

She would have to ask Mille. Daae about it.

Chapter Text

Christine really had been having a truly pleasant day. The Church service had been conducted by the younger pastor. It therefore did not delve into long-winded tangents as often happened when the elder pastor was leading. That meant that Christine, Mama Valerius, Andre, and Beatrice were able to make a small luncheon at one of the nearby cafes with little trouble. And it had been lovely, chatting and eating with the three of them. Mama had asked if she had sent a letter to her ghost, and Christine responded with a laugh and a nod. However, to maintain some propriety, she avoided any other questions, letting Mama think she had simply written a letter.

 It was very nearly three in the afternoon when Mathilde drew the little carriage up to the steps of the great opera house. Christine kissed Mama Valerius and Beatrice before stepping out of the little door. She was sure to close it swiftly lest a draft chill the two women. She gave Mathilde a scratch on the nose and waved goodbye to Andre. Sundays were quite her favorite day of the week.

Now Christine was fruitlessly attempting to remember that delight as she sat in Madame Giry’s office, waiting for the ballet mistress to come. Whisked off to the office before she even had a chance to remove her cloak by a doorman, Christine was utterly taken aback. She had spoken to Madam Giry only twice, and neither had been for very long.

The little office was snug, with a fire burning happily away behind its grate. There was a desk and an armchair beside the sofa that Christine had been unceremoniously deposited on. What did the leader of the ballet want with a chorus girl? Her fingers sheathed in soft kid leather gloves fidgeted, twisting each other in her lap as she made a list of everything she had done in the day since she had seen Madame Giry and cross-referenced it against things the leader of the ballet might take issue with.

Unfortunately, the answer seemed glaringly obvious. Had Madame Giry not warned her to be careful when she handed Erik’s notes to her? The note that had been addressed to the little ballerinas from the Opera Ghost. And now she was certain a ballerina had said something that had pricked the ballet mistress’s protective nature for the young girls. Utterly forgotten was the small respect Madame Giry had shown her, Christine was terrified of the woman. She was anxious at best in most social situations, but when she was singled out? And by someone like Madame Giry? Anxiety hardly described Christine’s thumping heart and racing thoughts. Her fingers tugged at each other more incessantly. 

Her skin felt too tight on her body and she was suddenly aware of where her clothing touched it. She tried to breathe deeply to calm herself, the way Mama Valerius had taught her, but it was no help. When she was absolutely certain that she could not wait a moment longer without jumping up and beginning to pace, the door to the office opened. Christine startled terribly in her seat, very nearly falling over, but the figure who entered was not Madame Giry.

“Oh my, sorry, didn’t mean to give you such a fright,” laughed the light voice of little Meg Giry, Madame’s eighteen-year-old daughter. Her brown eyes glinted with mirth as she stepped into the room.

Christine settled herself before she said, “Oh, it was not your fault, I was quite worked up.” 

“You’re Christine Daae, right? Maman said she wanted to speak to you. She should be here soon, there was a small matter she had to take care of,” said the ballerina as she went to Madame Giry’s desk and rifled through the papers before withdrawing a tin of hard candies with a triumphant “Ah-hah!”

“Yes, I am Christine.” Christine was not any less nervous knowing that Madame Giry would be arriving shortly. If anything, her anxiety was ramping back up to its fever pitch. It was not made better by an interaction she had not prepared for with someone she did not know.

Meg popped a candy into her mouth before hiding the tin once more. She looked quizzically at Christine, who was once again twisting and wringing her fingers and hands. 

“Maman isn’t as scary as all that you know,” she said, talking around the candy with a muffled quality, “If it means anything, I don’t think she’s angry with you.” Meg finished with a smile that to Christine looked more like a grimace. 

Needless to say, Christine’s anxiety did not abate at the little Giry’s words. She dropped the eye contact she had been maintaining with Meg to examine the fine stitching on the fingers of her gloves. 

“Well, good luck!” She heard Meg say as she opened the door and left the small space.

As soon as the door closed the small dim office suddenly felt suffocating. Christine felt as if she could not get enough air, the world before her turning to shades of grey as her vision began to swim. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that felt as if it was grabbing her heart and dragging it down. Keep your composure. What was Madame going to say? Did Christine do something wrong? Was this even related to Erik? Was she going to reprimand her for writing for the ballerinas? Keep your composure, Christine. Or was it something else? What was she going to say? Did she read the letters? What if she found out about Erik? Composure. What if she already knew about Erik? Christine, keep your composure!  

What was she going to say?

The door opened again. This time it was not Meg.

Madame Giry stepped into her office, looking much the same as she always did, with her hair pulled back tightly and her practical, matronly dress sweeping the floor. She had aged gracefully, the only true wrinkles on her face the crow’s feet that crinkled from her eyes. Christine’s head shot up and she flew to her feet. Habit, formed by her time at the Conservatory, forced her hands behind her back so that her betters could not see her fidgeting. Opening her mouth she considered the various words that swarmed through her mind, trying to find the right one to begin a conversation she did not even know the premise of. She decided on her well-practiced curtsy when she could not find any.

“Goodness Mille. Daae, did you come straight from outside?” said the imposing mistress of the ballet of the Palais Garnier, her voice betraying her surprise.

This was, in fact, not what Christine had been expecting Madame to say, and thus she was at a total loss of words for a moment. She stared blankly at Madame Giry, her mouth slightly open, as she tried to dredge a response out of the quagmire that had formed in her mind. 

However, Madame seemed to consider the question rhetorical and she continued speaking as she rounded the little desk.

“Those boys they have at the door…,” she muttered with distaste. She collected a small container before turning back to Christine. “My apologies, Mille. Daae, I did not intend for you to be brought here in such a rush only to wait so long. Meg only came down and told me you were waiting just now.”

By this time, Christine had regained a semblance of control over her mind and was able to respond with some respectability.

“No, Madame, I was not waiting long. What is it that you wanted to speak to me about?” Her voice was soft and carefully level, a tone she fell back on often when she wished a conversation to end quickly. So far it had served well to keep the attention of most of the cast and crew off of her, but Madame Giry was not so easily dissuaded.

“Sit down, Mille. Daae,” Madame said, walking to the plush armchair opposite Christine and taking a seat. Christine did the same, unconsciously tucking her dress and cloak around her just so, the way she had been taught to present the most ladylike appearance. Her anxiety returned with a vengeance, but this time it felt like there was a ball of cotton where her tongue should be. Whatever plans she had made were forgotten. There was only a subtle gnawing in her stomach as she looked at the floor.

Madame opened the small tin and revealed it to contain the hard candies that Meg had been stealing only minutes before. She placed it in the center of the little table between them, not that the young woman noticed, before settling back into her own chair.

“Mademoiselle, I know you have not been here long. Are you familiar with the Opera Ghost?”

Christine glanced up only to see Madame Giry’s dark eyes leveled at her. More questions simmered behind them and Christine realized that she must be careful answering the Madame. So she did want to know about Erik. For the first time since she had heard the doorman’s voice that afternoon, she felt a clarity of thought. She had promised Erik to protect his secret, and protect it she would, even if questioned by someone as terrifying as Madame Giry. She took a deep breath and forced calm into her voice.

“Yes, I have heard of him.” It was not a lie, it was a convenient section of the truth. Until she knew what Madame wanted, she would not say anything more.

“Then I am sure you are aware that the parcel and letter I gave you yesterday were from him.” Madame’s face was unreadable as she gazed across at the young woman.

“They were signed, yes,” replied Christine, forcing herself to meet Madame’s dark eyes.

Madame Giry sighed. There was something about the way that she did so that reminded Christine more of a frazzled mother hen than the imperious and strict leader of a ballet. “I received a letter of my own, but that man did not provide much context for the whole situation. Would you mind filling in why exactly my corps de ballet is receiving letters from our Ghost?”

Christine very nearly gasped. She knew!

Later, when Christine was in a far less tumultuous state, she would figure that it made perfect sense that Madame Giry of all people would be the one to know Erik was not a ghost. She delivered his letters after all. But those rational thoughts were in the future and certainly beyond Christine’s current faculties. Right now, she was more concerned with figuring out how much Madame Giry knew, and how much of her activities in the past days Christine could reveal without breaking her promise.

“Mademoiselle?” said Madame with an expectant look. 

“Yes? Oh, yes, the letter,” Christine tried to gather her scattered thoughts, “Well, the girls had been scared of the Opera Ghost so I told them that he protected the opera house so that they could sleep that night.” 

Madame Giry nodded her approval and Christine remembered the first time they had ever spoken, when Madame had given Christine permission to have the ballerinas after rehearsal each night. She continued on.

“The next morning they wanted to write him a letter apologizing for how they had treated him. I simply wrote it for them and delivered it to Box Five, I was certainly not expecting a letter in return,” Christine finished. Short, to the point, and not a lie in the least. Yet Christine looked down and realized she was twisting her fingers together in her lap again. She forced them to stop before meeting Madame’s gaze. 

“And yet you received one.”

“Yes.”

There was a silence that stretched and wrapped around the room, threatening to choke Christine’s last dregs of courage. Madame said nothing, she just looked at Christine with thin, slightly pursed lips.

“What was in the package?”

“Ah. It- It was my shawl, I had dropped in Box Five.” That Christine had not been expecting the question showed plainly in her voice and she knew it. She desperately hoped the heat on her cheeks was not visible.

Madame Giry nodded slowly, gaze drifting behind Christine. She made a soft, staccato hum before focusing back on the young woman in front of her. 

“Mademoiselle Daae, I do not suppose you also lack the ability to reason that seems in such short supply at this opera house. You know the Opera Ghost is no specter, correct?”

Christine froze. She had been expecting this question or something like it, yet it still seemed to catch her off guard. She dipped her eyes to the fire and watched it dance orange and red. A moment later she lifted her gaze back. Erik had told her not to tell anyone that she knew about him, and she would not do so. But if Madame Giry already knew…

Oh no. No no no no no.

She had told someone. She had told Mama Valerius everything. Everything but Erik’s name.
Panic arose again in Christine’s mind. She had known Erik less than a day and she had already done the only thing he asked her not to do. She was ashamed of herself, that in her attention to the middle of Erik’s letter, she had forgotten its ending. And Mama had not said a word! Oh, she was angry and embarrassed and a million other things. And poor Erik! He did not deserve to be treated so flippantly, but would he react kindly to her confession? Because that was the only way forward, to confess, it was the right thing to do. But would he be angry? He had every right to be so, it was inexcusable what Christine had done. 

Her head fell into her hands as Madame Giry looked at her with no little surprise in her usually imperious expression. Madame had watched comprehension, then dawning horror, and finally, sadness cross Mille. Daae’s beautiful features in quick secession with seemingly no impetus.

 Christine warred with herself, as tears threatened to brim over her eyes, red flushing her face. Hidden in her hands she did not see Madame’s quick look of concern. Her emotions had been so high all day, first happiness, then anxiety, and now this. It was so much, it was too much. Every ounce of her was screaming to get away, to run back to Mama Valerius, to home with her father’s portrait and the room they had once shared. She could not think of anything but her shame flaring read hot in her chest. Anything but the disappointment she was sure to see on that handsome masked face when she saw him next. And what a terrible sight that would be. 

“Mille. Daae, stop crying and tell me what has you in such a state,” Madame Giry’s voice was hard, but not accusatory, “I cannot help you if you cannot tell me how to help.”

Christine forced herself, through effort built and maintained by years of constant and hard work, from the brink she felt herself on and raised her head to look at Madame Giry. Old habits forced her spine straight and her hands to her sides, teachers at the Conservatory did not accept students who could not look them in the eye without fidgeting. 

But this was not the Conservatory and Madame Giry had more concern in her eyes than distaste. 

“I- I have done a dreadful thing,” Christine said in a soft voice, unable to quite meet Madame Giry’s eyes, but at least able to look at the shelf behind her. She paused, the shame gripping like a vice around her throat and stealing her precious air, before continuing.

“He asked me not to tell anyone and I have betrayed his trust. I am a dreadful creature.” Christine’s voice was quick and her eyes dry as she bore a hole into the shelf with her eyes, willing the embarrassment and self-refacing anger away. 

“Mille. Daae, I have known for months that our friend was no phantom, you have not broken your promise.” 

Christine turned to Madame, finally able to meet her eyes. But she could not keep the tears at bay, and they slowly brimmed and leaked down her cheeks.

“No, Madame, it was not you, it was my…she is the closest thing I have to a mother. I was so scared yesterday, I did not know what to do, and I asked her for advice. I did not even think! Oh, he does not deserve such a horrid friend.” Christine’s soft voice broke at this last and she turned to look at the fire, its orange glow refracting off the tears tracing their way down her face. Composure Christine, always composure. You must get a hold on yourself.

“-ae? Christine Daae!” 

Christine shook herself and turned back to Madame Giry, whose face held concern as much as it held fear.

“Is she connected to the opera house at all, will she tell anyone of the Ghost?” said Madame, a small degree of anxiety in her voice.

This took Christine aback. “She comes to my performances, but she does not know the current managers, I am the only connection she has here.”

“Then she will not tell anyone of consequence, your secret is safe, the Ghost does not need to know.” Madame Giry had visibly relaxed.

But Christine had not, an indignation now burned in her. Her voice was hot and sharp with it. “No, no that will not do, he must know, and I will tell him. It is my obligation just as it is my fault. He deserves to know.” 

Madame looked taken aback, but only for a moment before she recovered herself. Christine felt the spur of anger that had allowed her presumptuous outburst fade into the constant whine of anxiety and shame that now buzzed about her mind. 

“Mille. Daae, the Ghost can be dangerous. He has not harmed anyone, but I have seen him, and I know he is capable of extraordinary things. I do not wish you to come to harm, just as I do not wish to have the girls in the ballet come to harm,” Madame’s voice was hard and allowed no argument, “Tell him in a letter if you must, give it to me and I will see it delivered.”

“Madame, he will not hurt me,” said Christine, a soft lilt of tears in her voice as she stared into the flames, “he has saved me once and we have spoken before, I will tell him directly. If you are worried for your ballerinas, see what he sent them.”

She plucked the letter Erik had written the ballerinas from where it had been left in the pocket of her cloak and handed it to Madame Giry. The woman glanced at it before taking it. In a practiced motion, she opened it and read the scant lines contained therein. Christine watched her in trepidation. She did not wait long.

Madame set the letter in her lap as she looked back at Christine. Christine could not read her impassive face. 

“Can you promise me that the girls will come to no harm?” Madam’s voice was level, betraying as little as her expression.

But of her answer, Christine was certain, a calm came over her. “Madame, I will never let him hurt them. Let me fall from the flies before such a thing occurs.” 

Madame Giry nodded and returned the letter to Christine. “Very well, I will look for you this evening to ensure that you are alright. I assume you plan to tell him today.” 

“Yes, yes I will go to find him now, even if I do not know how.” Christine’s tears had dried, but the anxiety had still twisted her insides into knots at the thought of confronting Erik. She stood to leave but Madame Giry gestured to the tin of candies.

“Take one, Mille. Daae, you have certainly earned it.” 

And despite everything, every slap of shame or anger or fear or something else that berated her and made her want to run and hide from it all, she bent down and took a small candy.

“Thank you Madame Giry,” she said with a small curtsy. 

“You are welcome, Mille. Daae, please close the door as you leave.” Madame had stood as well, turning towards her desk. 

As Christine closed the door with a soft click, she put the candy in her mouth. Strawberry, her favorite. The sweet on her tongue, she felt the knot of anxiety loosen, just a little, as she moved her feet quickly in the direction of Box Five. 

She did not know where Erik was, but she did know she had to find him.

Chapter Text

Christine stood before the door to Box Five and hesitated to reach for the handle. The candy had long since dissolved on her tongue and Madame Giry’s reassurances with it. Each step to Box Five had left Christine warring with herself over how to approach Erik, and what to say to him. Her embarrassed fear was a creature apart, but she heaved a breath before pushing open the door.

Box Five was seemingly empty, with the thin light of the theater casting the rich velvet in shades of warm grey. Christine tread slowly into the little room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. Approaching the banister, she glanced into the great yawning space of the theater for any signs of activity. In the dim light, Christine saw that she was truly alone in the cavernous theater. She leaned back and called Erik’s name softly, tentatively. She waited desperately for an answer. She tried again, this time her voice at speaking volume then, when she again received no answer, progressively louder. Nothing but her own voice, echoing across the finely tuned acoustics of the large room could be heard. No ghosts stepped out from shaded corners. She remembered how he had told her he made his way through the opera house and knocked on the walls, the floor, and even the other boxes. Still no answer, Erik was nowhere to be found.

Any calm she had felt was certainly gone now. Freezing in place, Christine wracked her fraught mind for any other place she might be able to find Erik. She had only really met him once and that had been here, she had no idea what other places he might decide to haunt, or even if he was here to haunt them right now. There must be somewhere else. It was not long before she settled on the little costume store she commandeered after rehearsals. Had he not said he listened to her stories from behind one of the walls? It was a long shot, she had no idea of even which wall to look through, but she had to try. In her flashing, sprinting mind, there was no other option.

She flew down to the little storage room, the walls seeming to tilt and swirl around her like her skirts. How long ago it felt, yet it had only been two days since she had last been in this room. How much had changed in those days? She had not even known of the Ghost or the stories surrounding him, and now here she was, frantically looking for that same Ghost. She wrenched the little door open as soon as she reached it, all but falling into the dark little room. She fumbled for her matches in her pocket as her other hand reached for one of the lamps they usually left neatly tucked in the corner, should any of the ballerinas forget theirs. A flash of phosphorus and the room was dimly lit by soft candlelight that grew stronger as the flame took to the lamp wick. The little light bounced off the props and costumes in the room, throwing strange shadows that tilted and leered around Christine. While the intelligent part of her knew that there were no ghosts coming to take her away, she was in no state to understand that fully, and the twisting shapes sent shivers up her spine.

She shook off the feeling and began her calls to Erik again. No answers came from the silent, flickering shadows.

A noose closed further and further around her neck. She could not wait; she could not possibly face tomorrow, when she knew he would be watching the rehearsals, and worse, when he would likely be listening to her story. Christine’s breathless voice kept catching in her throat. She did not feel she could face him with a letter from the ballerinas when she had committed such a transgression. Even if it meant that he never wanted to see her again. What would he say to her? Would he even say anything, or would he just look at her in contempt and disgust? Tears started prickling in her eyes as she softly leaned against the wall of the little room. Sliding down the wood, her breaths came in strained gasps as the panic overtook her body. There was not enough air, there was too much air. In the little room, illuminated only by a single gas lamp, Christine floundered through these thoughts as she fought valiantly to regain control of herself. But she was alone now, and emotions were coming in torrents too thick for her airway. She clutched at her small throat as she struggled for breath.

Through the rushing maelstrom, her father's voice suddenly arose like a lighthouse shining through the fog. Christine, remember what I taught you? She was eight years old again, about to sing with her father at a fair for the first time. The panic would not let her do anything but gasp. Christine, sing, just notes, no words, just try to sing. She did, no sound at first, but she focused everything into one, good, whole note. When that came, she tried another. And another, each more stable. Her father’s violin would join her, the sweet, soft, sad melody he had brought from his home would lilt around their little home, and she would sing, matching the violin even when it soared. By the time the song had come to a close and the last vibrating note had died away in the creaks of the old farmhouse, Christine had come back into herself. The panic was now manageable anxiety, and what had been so big and scary was now only a problem that needed to be faced.

Now, nearly twenty years later and a thousand miles away, with no father and violin to be found in the dark bowls of a Parisian opera house, Christine sang again. Her voice was rough and thin, the low notes almost breathless. She had to stop, the panic in her chest hungry for air, forcing her to take great gulps. Then her father's voice in her mind kept repeating itself. Christine, sing. Just try to sing. She forced herself to start again; it was harder without his sure-handed violin accompanying her, leading her through the dance of the long-remembered folk song. Her voice was still ragged, but it had grown in strength and volume as she shoved down the worst of the frantic, ceaseless worry. The shadows on the walls stopped their encroaching and settled into the comforting corners and crevices of the little room. The forgotten costumes and props resumed their silent watch of the space and the young woman within it.

She sang for herself and the memory of her father, not for the patrons of the Opera and not for the madames at the Conservatory. Her song was rough around the edges, breathy and unsustained, proper breathing technique by no means present. It was not a song borne of centuries of what was considered proper and good and beautiful. It was the song of a little girl in a poor farmhouse in Sweden. It was no trilling French aria or an Italian love duet. It was Sweden distilled and purified, all the rural, poor, and best parts of her home country that she had not seen in years. It was a song of summer and violins and the sweet smells of flowers that were always lovelier when she was young. Of long winter nights and fireplaces that crackled warmth on cold noses. It was not for any other ears but her own; she did not force her voice to its loudest to fill a silent opera house or to its highest to impress opulent watchers. She simply sang as she had done when her father had first taught her to, as she had done when accompanied by the hazy memory of a mother she once knew.

After a few minutes of that quiet, self-assuring song, Christine could almost hear an accompaniment, not her father’s violin, but his voice, the way he had first taught her when she had run off from the other children who had made fun of her and her stories. Her voice only grew stronger still with the memory; her father helping her so long after his death. Each breath Christine took steadied her nerves and helped her out of that dark place she had stumbled into.

It had been so long since the last time, almost a year, but it was bound to happen again with so many new things all around her. Her father’s voice was lilting lowly in her ear as her voice, with quiet strength, sang the higher notes. After a repeat or two of the melody, Christine drew the song to a close, lengthening the notes and slowing the tempo to further measure her breaths. The last music whispered from her lips as she closed her eyes and leaned against the door, sighing. Her heart no longer raced, and her breath no longer suffocated her like the gripping vice of a patron’s hand on her wrist. It was only the soft flickering of the lamp and the subtle touches of her breath in that little silent room.

That almost silent room.

Christine opened her eyes as the voice she had thought was some memory of her father did not die out with the sweet trance she had sung herself into. It still softly cascaded, all honey and soft burnished gold, around her ears. Hardly noticeable, but there. Definitely there.

“Who’s there? Who is that singing?” Christine was careful to keep any accusation out of her voice, only curiosity.

The singing stopped abruptly, its singer giving no reply. But even in that instant between, when she knew the singing to be separate from a memory, Christine’s musical mind put song to voice and voice to face. She had never heard him sing, and had hardly heard him speak before, but that smooth tone of ambered honey was ever present and immediately recognizable.

“Erik? Is that you?” She said, peering past the flickering, playing shadows to spot her phantom friend.

A pause, a beat of silence when Christine feared he might not answer. Then, soft as a summer wind, his voice, speaking this time, reached her ears.

“Hello, Christine.”

Christine’s lips quirked up in a smile as a soft breath escaped her. Joy bloomed in her chest as the worry of searching for him melted away. Only to be replaced by the sinking stone of dread as her mind reminded her of what she needed to tell him. Her smile froze and faltered.

“Christine?” His voice was right next to her ear.

Christine shook herself out of her stupor and looked around the room again, face an impassive and serious mask with sad eyes.

“Where are you, Erik? Please come out, I have to tell you something.”

“Can you not tell me now?” His voice seemed so far away and soft despite it coming from right behind her ears.

Yes, she could tell him now, when he was behind the walls and she could not see his reaction, she wanted to even. To just say what needed to be said to a room empty if anyone else, with only the flounced, multi-colored costumes and forgotten props—many faded by age—around her. But she could not; her conscience would not let her do so. And even if it would, the anxiety of not being able to know how he had reacted would be too much. Even if he completely left her alone, disappearing and never coming to her again, she wanted to know what had happened. She felt a tear prickle in her eye and shuddered a breath.

“No, I must say it while looking you in the eye. I could not forgive myself otherwise.”

Christine could hear the almost pleading note in her voice; surely Erik had heard the same. She only hoped that he would overcome his shyness for her selfishness once more.

She was only greeted by silence.

“Erik?”

She crept slowly towards the wall across from the door, where her lamp light flickered off a few old set pieces and a gaudy wedding dress used in a production of The Marriage of Figaro many years ago. It was frumpy and ostentatious all at the same time, with running frilly white bows and layers and poofs. Like a cake dressed up in too much fondant, it sagged over itself, musty from years of neglect, just like the room it inhabited. Christine and the girls had laughed heartily at it when they first found the little room. Now, in the shifting light, it seemed an eerily good hiding place for a certain Ghost.

Christine reached the dress and laid a hand on its white silk skirt to draw it back like the great curtains of the opera house. The material was soft beneath her fingers, unexpected as it had been sitting for so long. Her fingers gripped the fabric as a creak came from the door behind her.

“Herregu-,” a curse slipped through her lips as she whirled, her heartbeat spiking to a fever pitch.

She quickly recognized the tall figure standing next to the door, whose wide eyes betrayed a surprise similar to her own, no doubt startled by her in turn. Christine placed her hand on her breast to calm her pounding heartbeat. For a moment, it looked as if he was about to reach for her, but his arms fell down to his sides. His eyes surveyed her, though, darting around her hem to her blue cloak that she had not yet had time to remove, then to the wall behind her as his hands once again twisted the edge of his cloak.

“Oh Erik…it is you. You scared me again. Please, a moment…it has been a trying few hours and my heart will be reaching its limit soon.” Christine’s voice was breathy with the after-effects of fear.

“My apologies, Christine, I am not…used to making my presence known,” he said, glancing away from her eyes as he met them.

As she slowly breathed to calm herself, Christine felt Erik’s presence once again invade the space. The imposing, shadowy figure, now wholly visible outside the near dark of the box. The opera cloak that reached from his shoulders--almost taller than herself--to nearly his ankles; the mask that shone stark white still on the half of his face. She was sure of it now; something dark and dangerous lurked, perhaps not even well-hidden, under his current docile and somewhat endearing demeanor.

She breathed deeply a final time before straightening herself. She blinked her eyes a few times before she pulled steel from somewhere inside her. She should finish this with haste. Whatever the outcome may be, she would rather it be fast.

“Erik,” she began. His eyes snapped up to her, and the twisting of his gloved fingers ceased. He was always so nervous around her; it was sweet in its own way. Under any other circumstances, she would have smiled and maybe teased the tall shadow of a man for it, but other things were on her mind today. She felt a tear well in her eye as she stepped forward to speak, forcing her voice to stay level.

“I must apologize, I- You bestowed your trust on me and I have broken it. I cannot be sorry enough.” It was all Christine could do to keep her head up and her eyes on Erik. She could not read the expression on his face with the shadows from the lamp constantly shifting his features. His eyes held hers, though, shining gold in the light. Christine begged the tear not to fall as the silence stretched on. A stillness came over Erik, like a panther stalking its prey. She watched his eyes turn into little shards of amber, hard as they looked at her, and his mouth thinned, his lips all but disappearing.

“Who did you tell?” was his only response. It was short and level, the only emotion a tense apprehension for her answer. The tear fell from her eye, the first she had truly shed today. Her heart was a fast, breathless patter in her chest, not the slamming pounds she had just calmed. There was a wide, wide cavernous abyss where her stomach should have been, and she felt she would fall into it at any moment.

But Christine Daae was made of sterner stuff than that. She sought him out for a reason today, and she would tell him. Even if he never spoke to her again. She drew another deep breath and continued. She would meet his gaze; she must not look away now.

“It was Mam- Madame Valerius, my guardian here in Paris. I- I was so scared and unsure yesterday, before we met, that I asked her advice, and I told her that you were no ghost, just a man. I did not realize until today when I was speaking to Madame Giry. Erik, I am so sorry.” These last words were more whisper than speech, but they were said all the same. Christine kept her eyes on Erik, but she did not wait long for a response.

“You spoke to Giry?” His voice was still impassive, but something in his eyes had softened, though Christine thought it may have just been a trick of the light.

“Yes, she told me, well, she told me not to tell you, because my guardian has no more ties to the opera. But I had to, I could not live with myself if I had not,” Christine said, stepping forward to close the space between her and Erik. “I swear I have told no one else, and Mama won’t tell a soul, I swear it.”

With this, she was standing very near him, the lamplight fully illuminating his face as he looked down at her. Bergamot and smoke tickled her nose, reminding Christine of the same sent lingering on her shawl the day before. Erik’s white mask was impassive as the left side of his face slowly unfroze. His hands once again gripped the edges of his opera cloak, as if to draw it, like a bat's wings, across himself. He looked as if he wanted to back away, as if he was scared to be too close to Christine, but she did not notice in her hurry to explain herself.

“Oh Erik, I can never be sorry enough. I hope you will forgive me, but if you cannot, please do not force it,’ Christine whispered. With this, Christine’s ability to maintain the steely eye contact gave way, and she directed her gaze somewhere in the vicinity of his lapels, not that she was sure, as her vision was blurring with tears.

Silence thrummed in the empty room, the soft sound of the lamp flame sputtering the only occasional noise. Christine was sure that if she looked away, he would disappear forever, but there were no more words to say, and she would not beg him to stay if he did not wish it.

“I have never heard you sing before.”

Christine blinked. Her mind struggled to formulate an answer to what may have been the last sentence she had been expecting to hear from Erik in that moment. She looked up at him through her tear-clouded eyes, her eyebrows knit together, and her lips parted in surprise. Erik was turned away from her; the white sheen of his mask and the sharp line of his jaw were all she could see in the lamplight.

“I- Have you not? I sing in the chorus.” She stepped back.

He turned to face her again, eyes pointed somewhere over her left shoulder, while his single, elegant eyebrow creased towards the center of his face.

“I would not call that singing. The song you sang just now was much better. However, it was coarse and breathy, and you must learn to use your diaphragm more. You will never be a great singer if you do not learn properly.” These last words were said with a level of indignation that forced a laugh out of Christine’s nervous throat.

“Learn properly? Erik, I graduated from the Conservatory. I do not think there is anything more proper than that.” She wiped her eye with one gloved hand, uncaring what the salty tears might do to the leather.

“The Conservatory teaches slop. Carlotta supposedly graduated from there too, and look how she has turned out. All that damned screeching,” Erik said though gritted teeth, his hands flying up to articulate his thoughts. The vehemence in his voice was like a poisoned dagger aimed at the Prima Donna, who was likely out shopping at this time.

He shook his head, “I could teach you far better, you have a rare potential that should be cultivated.”

Christine watched all of this in a daze. She was expecting to be yelled at or to be left alone, and she had tried to prepare herself for those outcomes. She was frozen trying to decide on a response, staring blankly at Erik while he turned back to her, a somewhat expectant look on his own face, the gold of his eyes glowing.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Christine realized that this was his olive branch. Just like his apologies, his forgiveness was not directly stated. Her lips formed a little ‘o’ as this formed in her mind. She glanced down at his hands, and sure enough, they were entwined in the folds of his cloak, a sign of nervousness, it seemed, that they both shared. The lamplight flickered between them, and the crevasse in Christine’s stomach melted away almost entirely.

“If you would have me, I would enjoy being your student. Your singing was beautiful.” Christine smiled, and she knew she truly meant her words. She could not tell in the light, but maybe a blush grew on Erik’s pale, exposed cheek right before he turned away again.

“I will send you a note, and,” Erik’s voice grew somber, “please do not tell anyone else.”

Christine’s heart dropped. That he even had to ask! Her shame was magnificent.

“Oh Erik, my life could be at stake, and I would not tell another soul.” Christine’s voice was cold as iron. She meant it; his secret would go to the grave with her if that is what it took. He was her friend, and he had forgiven such a transgression on his trust. He would never have cause to doubt her again.

He only looked at her with a deep sadness in his eyes, his one visible eyebrow inching down, the one painted on the mask remaining impassive. A frown formed on his lips, though the right side did not reach as far as the left.

“Christine, it will not come to that.”

“I hope not, Erik, I would like to sing with you for a long time.” Christine broke the sudden gravity with her brilliant smile.

She watched happily as Erik’s eyes widened, and—perhaps unbeknownst to himself—his lips quirked up, just slightly, into a smile.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The little room was full of light and laughter when Christine entered it. Gone were the shifting, snaking shadows of the day before; instead, little dressing gown-clad girls played games with their hands or shared stories from their time away from the Opera House that weekend. Their high, soft little voices had carried down the hallway as Christine came up to the door, her shawl and white dressing gown drawn tight against the chill, her own lantern dim enough to see the thin stream of light under the lacquered wood. While her entrance had shushed most of the clamor, a few whispers lingered as eyes shone with potent excitement. 

Christine let the moment of anticipation sing in the air, for she knew what the girls were all waiting for, some of them leaning forward with baited breath. The door firmly closed, she took her spot in front of the girls, her lantern placed on a little side table. She darted a conspiratorial look to Cecile before pulling a letter from her own dressing gown with a flourish. 

“I present,” she said, lowering her voice and taking on an over-formal tone, a smile overtaking her lips, “a letter from the Opera Ghost to the girls of the corps de ballet of the Palais Garnier.” 
Gasps and giggles met her words as she showed off the letter, taking care not to let them see that the seal had already been cracked. As the girls clambered closer, Christine drew the letter back and cracked a bit of the broken seal to mimic opening the letter for the first time. With an elegant crinkle, the single sheet unfolded in her hands. In her usual, bell-like voice, she read the letter aloud, smiling a bit to herself at the mention of her storytelling.

When she had finished, the letter was passed around, and by popular vote, the Opera Ghost was made not only the most well-dressed member of the Opera House’s personnel, but the most well-spoken and polite as well. 

“I wonder why he dropped that sandbag then,” said Stephanie, an older girl and Giselle’s friend. A hush dropped into the room.

“He didn’t drop the sandbag; that was one of the scene shifters,” someone else said.

“You know Buquet hates him! He probably tried to blame it on him and make everyone scared all over again,” Giselle said, turning to Stephanie with no small amount of indignation in her voice, blonde curls shining in the lamplight. 

“I bet it was Buquet’s fault the bag dropped, and he wants to avoid M. Reyer.” Cecil’s voice was petulant as she spoke, little hands carefully gripping the letter.

With this, there was an outpouring of commentary from the twittering ballerinas. Christine’s thoughts tore between the childish indignity the ballerinas felt in defense of their Ghost and her very real understanding that it likely had been Erik who dropped the sandbag. Her excitement for their lessons tempered as she steeled her resolve to ask him about the matter. It really had been quite the dangerous stunt, no matter what his intentions had been. 

How little time she had known the man, and she had snapped at him, laughed with him, tearfully apologized to him, and now she was going to admonish him for his antics once again. Dramatics indeed! Not that Christine had objected to the cacophony being interrupted, it just must be done in a safer manner. 

In her reverie, Christine did not hear the conversation move from Buquet’s terrible tricks to pestering Giselle for her to impart every detail of her run-in with the Ghost. It was amazing how quickly the girls, who had once hung to his every word, now so firmly regarded Buquet’s tales as slanderous lies. One would never guess that they had been, only weeks before, the most ardent followers of the drunk scene shifter.

“…and then he talked to me!” Giselle said with wide eyes, snapping Christine back into the conversation. A chorus of gasps and ‘what did he say’s followed. Christine’s mind took a moment before she realized that ‘he’ meant the Ghost. Her eyes widened. Was Giselle telling the truth, or had someone played a trick?

“I was scared at first, I thought he was one of the scene shifters, and I was fretting so over Mother’s ring. He didn’t like it when I started crying, I don’t think.” Giselle’s face was red at this last, her past frustration and desperation fighting against the urge to share the story. 

She continued valiantly, “But I told him about the ring and he said that Madame Giry would have it when I got back, and she did! He really kept his promise!”

Madame Giry’s words from earlier came back to Christine as she realized what Erik had been up to before her tearful confession of guilt. Cecile, Stephanie, and the rest of the girls began to pester Giselle with more questions, and soft, sweet, happy chatter filled the space, muffled against the haphazardly stored costumes and props. Christine’s eyes traced around the small, lamp-lit room, wondering which wall held the hollow space that Erik said he listened from, a knowing and soft smile on her lips.

“Christine, did the Ghost tell you about Giselle?” 

The question caught Christine off guard, and she did not know who had spoken.

“He made…some mention of a little mouse who lost a ring when he delivered your letter,” Christine said, addressing all the girls with a humorous glint in her eye. Gasps and giggles filled the room as Christine continued, effortlessly shifting the conversation.

“Now, how many of you would brave touching a lindworm?”

The girls quieted, their attention focused on the tale Christine was about to weave. They glanced at each other as they tried to decipher her question. What was a lindworm? If it were anything like a normal worm, touching it might not be out of the question…if there was a good reason.

Christine smiled a the confusion. Standing, she set her lamp on a small table as she took her usual place. The small space between the girls and the haphazardly hung costumes became a grander stage than the great gilded theater as the lamplight glinted in her hair and her eyes.

“Let me tell you a story about a young woman and her bravery. A very old story, from when dragons and witches still traveled between towns and cities.”

Not a whisper broke the silence as Christine moved her hands to emphasize her words. She was no longer a timid chorus member, but a master raconteur.

“Long ago, there was a little village, poor but happy. There, a young woman lived and worked diligently to help her grandmother…”

***

The story finished some time later when the brave young woman and the lindworm-turned-prince settled into their blissful life as kind and considerate rulers. The spell broke with Christine’s final words, and eyes that had stayed wide open with wonder slowly began to droop. Older girls stifled yawns as they rose and helped the younger girls to their feet. Some of the lamps were running low on fuel, and a few sputtered or flickered out. 

Christine swept the girls into a sleepy flock before escorting them to their little dormitory, whispering a quiet goodnight as she slipped the door closed. 

She had started back to her own room when she remembered where she had promised to be that evening. Retracing her steps back to the costume store, Christine attempted to uncurl the knot in her stomach into something useful. The dark corridors were yawning, as if they wanted to swallow her in a way they never had before, as her soft steps echoed off the wood. Finally, she came back to the unassuming costume store. Not knowing what would meet her behind the door, she gripped the handle and pushed the door open.

Her lamp slowly lit the room as its light quietly passed the door and dissolved the darkness.

“Erik?” Christine said, her voice surprisingly level, as her eyes followed the lamplight.

“I am here, Christine.” His voice lilted to her even as the light touched on the small beads that covered the hem of his cloak.

Christine let out a breath as she stepped fully into the room, the knot mostly dissolving at the sound of Erik’s voice. This little space must be the most used meeting place in the opera between the ballerinas, Erik, and herself. She smiled at the thought as she closed the door with a soft click. 

“Good evening, Erik.” The same smile crinkled Christine’s eyes as she set the lamp on the small table it had recently occupied, her long, neat braid falling over her shoulder as she did so.

“Good evening, m- Christine.” Erik was standing back from the door, cloak falling over his shoulders so that she could see nothing under it. With his white mask and collar peeking above the cloak, the two seemed to be floating in mid-air under the rakish hat.

“Goodness,” Christine laughed, glancing at the myriad costumes, “do you always wear your hat and cloak? Perhaps I shall borrow one of these…”

She hesitated as her eyes landed on the wedding dress. 

“Ah…perhaps not, they are all a bit gauche,” she finished to herself as she stood to look at him fully. 

Erik shifted subtly, the beads embroidered on his cloak catching the light like so many dimmed stars.

“Do they make you uncomfortable?”

Christine chuckled, gesturing down to her plain appearance, “Not in the slightest, I only felt under-dressed.”

Christine watched Erik for a moment, unsure of how to continue. Her smile grew stale on her face as her previous excitement congealed in her throat. She wanted to talk to him about so many things; she wanted to sing, she wanted him to sing. She had not truly wanted to sing for so long. The silence stretched between them, and she was suddenly aware of how little they had spoken.

“Thank you, Erik, for offering to help me,” she said, finally falling back on manners when no other words came.

“Your voice deserves to be heard.” There was no simple flattery in Erik’s voice.

“I- That is very kind of you,” Christine said, a surprised blush softly tinting her cheeks.

He breathed deeply, eyes closing, the one behind his mask leaving a yawning black hole when the amber light dissipated. His eyes fascinated Christine, and she looked at them intently as she waited for them to reappear. Questions for Erik whirred in her mind as she did so. What did he think of the manager’s decree? Where on earth did he learn to sing like he did? Why did he waste his obvious talents playing ghostly manager? She settled on the one she most wanted to know the answer to.

“Erik?”

His eyes shot open. He might be nervous, she certainly was, but his hands did not twist his cloak as she had seen before, tucked away under it as they were.

“I must ask before we begin,” a pause as she formed the words, “Did you drop the sandbag at rehearsal?”

There was a physical shift in the air, and while the lamp did not so much as flicker, the room seemed to dim. Christine was reminded, yet again, that her newfound friend was also a tall, strong, fully capable man.

“And if I had?” Erik’s voice was dark with a warning.

Christine’s eyes widened at the sudden shift in mood. Her hands came to her chest and gripped her shawl as she swayed back involuntarily. The nervous, almost sweet Erik she was beginning to become accustomed to had become the Opera Ghost in a moment. Christine had no wish to anger him more than she already had. She was back in Box Five, falling into the oblivion of the theater as she looked into Erik’s eyes. The words from his letter to her drifted through her mind.

“I was only worried,” she said quietly, but firmly, meeting his hard eyes, “Someone could have been hurt—you could have been hurt.” 

His eyes shifted to the flame dancing within the lamp on the little table, the harshness leaving him. Christine relaxed her tensed shoulders, but her fingers stayed twined in her shawl.

“They were all far too loud…” Erik’s voice trailed off. His angular lips stilled even as his eyes trailed back up to hers, dimmer now, the elegant eyebrow drawn down. He continued, “I thought Reyer more capable.”

“It was not his fault, I do not know what those managers were thinking!” she scoffed lightly.

The light drew back into his eyes as nearly comic indignation, the same he had expressed yesterday at the Conservatory’s education standards, entered his words.

“Evidently, they were not at all,” he spat, “Those bumbling fools do not know the first thing about running an opera.”

“They were so puffed up and proud of it, I feel sorry for them.”

“Why on earth do you feel sorry for them? This sorry state of affairs is their own making.”

Christine laughed at the incredulous frown on Erik’s face, breaking the subtle wall that had grown between them. The air came back into the room, the Opera Ghost gone, and the Erik who was her friend returned. 

“Oh, I am not laughing at you,” she said, in response to his narrowed eyes, “it is only, between Carlotta and the veterans, the new players, and Buquet, they have a tempest on their hands, and they are so…,” she gestured vaguely with her hands, eyes full of mirth.

“Incompetent? Bungling? Pathetic?”

“Childishly unaware.”

“Children indeed.”

Christine huffed another laugh. Looking at the floor for a moment, she missed the small quirk of Erik’s lips. A moment later, she drew her eyes around the room.

“It has been some time since I attended singing lessons at the Conservatory, but I have always used a piano.” 

A glint appeared in Erik’s eyes.

“As I said yesterday, the Conservatory,” he spat out the name, his hands appearing from under his cloak to punctuate his words, “is not one whose teaching methods should be emulated.” He stepped further out of the shadows, one hand holding a sheaf of papers Christine could not identify. “See what they did to your voice; there is nothing behind it. Carlotta is the same. You have many poor habits to undo.”

Christine’s eyebrows flicked up. “Where do you propose I begin?”

“Breathing.” His mask might have covered both halves of his face for all the emotion it showed.

“I have been singing since I was a child, Erik. I can draw a sustaining breath,” Christine returned, her nerves touched by his apparent disregard for her talent as her excitement to sing shriveled in her chest. 

Erik met her unconvinced look with his own, eyes tepid. 

“You have not needed to utilize your lungs to their full strength for some time. You do not sing the way you are meant to. You must build them up again.”

His comment staggered Christine. He was right, the parts she was given for Faust were negligible at best, not nearly pushing her full ability, but he seemed to know even more keenly than she did that her voice had not been pushed in many years. That she had not used or trained it the way she had once done. To those she was close to, few as they were, her singing was synonymous with her, yet he realized so quickly that truth had been hollow for years now.

Erik continued, apparently unaware of his words’ effect.

“Hold a note as long as you can. Choose a comfortable one; you have not warmed your voice yet.”

Christine hesitated a moment before drawing a long, fluid breath deep into her chest and settled on an A in the low-middle of her range. The start grated slightly against her unwarmed throat, but her vocal cords soon relaxed around it. She closed her eyes and, letting the sweet note drip from her lips, she held it until she felt the air give way, dropping to silence before the sound began to waver. It was less time than she thought it would be.

Opening her eyes, she was met with Erik’s frowning face, the mask glinting in the lamplight with its own disappointment. 

“Do it again,” his tone was serious, “hold the note until you have no more air. Breathe here.” He stepped forward and grazed his fingers across the middle of her back. The pleasant, smoky scent of bergamot and sandalwood that had accompanied his notes surrounded her as he drew near. Christine stiffened at the sudden contact, light as it was through the layers of warm fabric. As she did so, Erik withdrew his hand with a jolt, as if she were made of hot coals.

“My apologies,” he whispered, almost pained, so softly Christine hardly heard it. He twisted his face away from her even as she turned to face him. His other hand was clenching around the papers he held, permanently creasing them.

The silence ran like needles on Christine’s skin. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him it was alright, but she stopped. Perhaps Erik would not want her to do that, to call attention to his misstep, no matter how inconsequential it had been. She did not think she would have wanted it had it been her misstep.

She drew another breath, attempting to breathe to the spot at her back that still tingled from the touch of his white-gloved hands. Her chest rose as she once again began the note. She pushed past the almost automatic stop of the note when it began to waver wildly from lack of air. Time slowed as the need to breathe rose in her chest. The note quieted and squeaked as she forced the last dredges of air out of her lungs, gasping out the end. 

“I do not think that was much better,” she huffed out through a rueful smile, looking to see Erik’s gaze on her, an expression she could not read through the mask on his face. 

“It was. The note’s tone lasted nearly five seconds longer,” he replied slowly, his previous brusqueness gone.

“Is this how you were taught?”

“It is how I taught myself.”

There was a tone to his voice that saddened Christine even as it cautioned her away from any further questioning. Her eyes searched his face for a moment for any other clue, but his face was as impassive as the shining white of his mask. How quickly this fickle man drifted between emotions. And how much she wished to see her friend smile.

“Shall I do it again?”

“Yes, a half-octave higher this time.”

She performed the exercise again, the higher note requiring more air and more effort to sustain. She sustained the note long enough to sing any aria she had yet learned before the air shuddered out of her entirely, crumbling the sound. She turned to Erik, a confident tilt to her eyebrows.

“You will hold it longer with practice,” was his reply, some of the abruptness Christine was now associating with intense focus returning to his tone. 

Christine sighed, her eyebrows dropping as she leveled a look at Erik, but there was no bite behind it. He was correct, even if the fact mildly exasperated her. 

The lesson continued in this fashion for some time. Erik coached her through various iterations of the breathing exercise. Christine was amused to note his vivacity and passion when it came to music. The apprehensive stillness he had possessed this evening and during their previous meetings seemed to have melted away to a less reserved nature. It was as if whatever troubled him so often drew back as he explained how to draw the deep breaths, adjust the tilt of her head just so, his golden eyes sparking each time her voice was strengthened by his advice. 

He did not touch her again, but every time he drew near, his cloak sweeping past her skirts, she felt her spine tingle. 

Christine noticed an improvement she had not thought possible in so short a time. Despite the awkward start to the lesson, Christine felt as light as the air she had been practicing with all evening, a pleasant flush coming to her cheeks as her eyes glinted sapphire in the lamp-light. The large clock in the ballerina’s dormitory had read nine thirty when she had ushered the girls back in. Another hour or more had to have passed since, yet she felt no fatigue, not as she used to feel after hours of practice at the Conservatory. 

She finished the latest exercise, her voice rising and falling through the chosen notes like a shower of diamonds. There was more brilliance to it now than there had been in years as her lungs started to remember how she had sung before. Her father’s face flashed before her, followed rapidly by the severe look of the madames as they coached her through vigorous trills. Christine felt her throat close around the unexpected emotion, the force of it fouling the sweet song.

“That is enough, you are tired.” Erik’s voice was soft, that honeyed tone that she had heard in his singing voice coming to the surface.

Christine recovered herself, turning to Erik.

“No!” Her voice was too quick. She took a breath, “No, I can still sing.”

He was much closer than she had thought he would be, the lamp light dancing across his elegant face. She once again had to tilt her head up to look into his eyes.

“I will not have you straining your voice.” His tone was too smooth, too sweet, coaxing her to agree with him. 

“I can still sing,” she said with quiet determination, even as she wanted to stop as he had told her to do. A small fire burned in his eyes.

They held each other's gaze for one long moment before Christine realized how petulant she was being. He was willing to help her, and this is how she repaid him? 

She drew away, her eyes off over his shoulder as her fingers found the fringe of her shawl, “No, you are right…I hope we may sing together again.” 

These last words were said more to herself than to Erik, but his ears had been finely tuned, and there were no other sounds in the opera house, late as it was.

“These are for you. They are breathing exercises.” 

Christine looked down at the proffered leaves of paper, utterly covered in Erik’s spidery, straight handwriting. She took them carefully from his hands. It was the same stationery he used for the letters, if slightly crinkled. 

‘Oh, thank you, Erik,” she said through the soft smile that formed on her lips. She looked back at him, but his face was turned away. She could only see the harsh white of his mask. 

She stepped to the little table where the lamp stood, clutching the little stack of papers to her chest. She froze mid-stoop when Erik’s honeyed voice began to sing the opening to the Swedish folk song she had calmed herself with yesterday. 

Christine lifted her head, surprise plain on her face. Erik’s eyes were closed as his warm, lyric voice wrapped around her. His face softened so much when he sang. Christine saw the boy who taught himself to sing. The excitement she had felt returned in force. Small tears came to her eyes as the rolling hills she remembered so fondly echoed in her mind as she stood, her hand to her chest. She hardly had time to smile before she joined him, subconsciously finding the melody he had left for her.

With her voice so warm and her excitement so bright, she joined with the lyrics as well as the lilting diamond notes that entwined with Erik’s own. The Swedish rolled off her tongue in a way that French never could. The familiar sounds felt round and whole in her throat. Her eyes slipped shut as pure joy at the beauty of the song soared with her voice.

Unlike the day before, the notes were not breathy or forced through a closed throat. It was slow and melancholy, the longing plaintive, but clear and open. When she had first heard it, she thought it too sad for her beautiful home, but she understood it now. Hundreds of kilometers and more than a decade melted away. As if she had learned them yesterday, each line, each feeling was so ingrained in her that she sang them without thought. Supported by Erik’s voice, her own felt limitless.

And Erik, who had only heard this song once before, matched her every moment. When Christine had first joined with her starlit voice—the foreign tongue so perfect in her throat—he had almost lost his breath. He had so rarely sung with another, not in this way. It had been almost an accident when her voice the day before had pulled him to song. He was glad of it. 

Erik was singing with an angel, that is all she could be.

 When the song came to its end, Christine opened her eyes with a satisfied sigh, a brilliant smile dancing in her eyes. Her hand, resting on her breast, clenched as she turned to Erik.

“Thank you, Erik, that was…beautiful,” she said as she met his burning eyes, words failing her in the wake of the song.

“You need not thank me, Christine.” His own color was high from the singing.

Christine found herself unable to meet the passion that flooded from him. Twisting, she bent for the lamp and her exercises.

“I will take you to your room,” Erik said as Christine faced him again, moving to the door.

“You do not have to; I do not want someone to see you.”

“No one will.” The finality in his words convinced Christine, and she softly thanked him as he opened the door.

 Christine saw Erik measure the stride of his long legs to stay just a half step behind her as she led the way. Out of the corner of her eye, she also noticed his hands twined into his cloak, even as he faced impassively ahead. They walked back to her room in comfortable silence, the lamp lighting their way. It was not a long walk, and they soon reached her door.

“Thank you, Erik, truly. I have not felt so light in years,” Christine said, turning to him from her door after she had slipped her key from her pocket.

“It was my pleasure. You make an excellent student.” He had stopped an arm's length away, polite and gentlemanly as ever. 

Christine huffed a laugh, “Will you send me another letter, maestro, to confirm our next lesson?”

His mouth opened slightly at her words, his hands clenching, before he nodded once.

Christine smiled and bid him goodnight as she opened the door and entered her cold little room. She leaned her back against the door as she locked it and closed her eyes. She wanted to commit every moment to her memory. 

A moment later, she took the two steps to her desk and reverently placed the exercises in the drawer. She caught her father’s laughing eyes in the photograph, and she fell into the chair with a sigh, the lamp in front of her.

“Oh, Father, I must tell you of Erik…”