Disclaimer: Please see the prologue

A New Beginning

Compromise

Madison

Madison rubbed her weary eyes as she woke slowly, rolling over in the bed in an attempt to seek a new and more comfortable position that would alleviate the ache in her body.

As the covers twisted around her frame she moaned in frustration and kicked them off. It was no use, her entire body hurt and she was exhausted, but sleep eluded her. Her conscience forbade her from returning to sleep, so she opened her eyes in the still dark room and studied the ceiling.

Thoughts on their fight trickled into her awareness. Covering her eyes she turned onto her side and berated herself. "Why did I make such a big deal out of something that could have been solved with simple reasoning? Why must I always let my temper get the best of me? Erik is a sensible man… and his proposal was so sweet. And now I've gone and ruined it." She wanted to cry but her tears had been spent and would not come; she was left to lie in her melancholy with no respite. The shadows of her room lightened as the pre-dawn announced the sun's impending rise.

And as she lay there, replaying the horrible conversation over and over again in her head, Madison ruminated over the causes for her actions. The stress of the day, the sudden frustration that he had planned the most important part of the wedding without her, and her embarrassment at having put them in such a horrible situation had certainly been factors in her tantrum.

Guilt and regret built into a lump of dread in her stomach until she was certain that the only thing that could alleviate it would be a heartfelt apology. So she rose from the bed to search her belongings for her thick wool wrapper, tied it around her shoulders, and slipped silently from her room.

The hallway was empty this early in the morning, but still she looked both ways down the hall before fully exiting her room and crossing the few short feet to stand in front of Erik's door.

Once she was in front of it she faltered, hand raised in a fist to rap on the door she paused, debating if this was in all actuality a good idea, but before she could back out of her commitment to apologize, she knocked two knuckles against the oak door so softly that she wondered if he would even hear it.

A moment passed and Madison leaned her face against the door to listen for signs of movement, and upon hearing none she rapped softly again.

Another moment passed, and just as she was turning to go back to her own room she heard rustling and the faint creak of a floorboard. She stepped back from the door just as it cracked open.

He stood in the doorway clad only in wrinkled black trousers and the white leather mask. From the faint light trickling into the hallway through the windows she glimpsed the curve of smooth muscle and a fine smattering of dark brown hair in a trail that ended at his waistband.

He said nothing, letting her fidget on his doorstep, until she whispered, "Erik, please let me in, we need to talk," and with saddened eyes he opened the door to let her slip inside.

With a resolute click they were alone. Erik motioned her to sit with him on the small couch that rested against one wall.

She fingered the engagement ring as she decided how best to express her feelings, and just as she was about to speak he laid a hand on hers.

"Keep it," he told her resolutely, telling her with those two words that he understood her plight and he was going to make this easier for her.

Her brow crinkled in confusion, thoroughly breaking her concentration and the speech that she had prepared. "Oh, Erik," she began, her voice strained with emotion.

He tightened his hold on her hands and shook his head, "you do not have to explain, I understand. Please keep the ring, to remember me by."

Her eyes widened in shock, brow crinkling even more as she looked at him incredulously. "Oh Erik, you do not understand at all."

His jaw clinched in restrained anger, "how could I when you never explain anything to me?" he asked bitterly. But his scowl turned to wariness as she laughed softly and threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into her.

"You have the right to be angry with me, I acted like a child and I am truly sorry. Oh, I can't believe that you thought that I was ending our engagement, you silly man."

He pushed her back gently so that he could look at her, lines of confusion etched into his face. "You are not? But I thought… then why…?"

She dropped her gaze, ashamed, "I came to apologize for the way I acted. You were right; I was making a big fuss over something that could have been solved quite easily. Frankly, I'm not even sure why it made me so upset."

He watched her toy with her wool wrapper as she spoke, "I have been thinking, and I believe that part of it was due to the frustrations of this trip. I was not allowed to be angry with those horrible gossips, so I misplaced my anger on the first available target, you. And I think, also, that I am afraid of losing you one day, and in some twisted logic believed that it would be better to push you away now. I have always felt alone… I suppose a little piece of me is frightened by the alternative."

She looked up at him beseechingly, eyes moist and nose slightly red from her earlier bout of crying. Madison searched his face to judge it for a sign of her fate.

"Forgive me, please," she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

He gripped her hands again in his and brought them to his lips for a gentle kiss and murmured, "of course," against her soft skin. He stroked her hair and left his hand upon her cheek. "I understand, Madison. I've felt that same way my entire life. You know my history… it was not a very kind one."

She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "I know. I'm sorry that I hurt you. I also wanted to explain why we must wait a little longer to be married. If we rush and have the service in three weeks the gossip will never stop and it could affect business. I have already caused my father enough grief without fanning the flames."

He studied her coolly, "alright, I believe I understand why this is important to you. Although I still say to hell with them, let them talk…" he trailed off.

She cast him a pleading look.

"Alright, ma cherie, no need to make those eyes at me. I will go to the clerk before we leave and push back the date."

She kissed his cheek and smiled, "four months will be perfect."

His shock showed on his face as he reeled back in surprise, "four months? Certainly not. Two is plenty to stay their tongues and please your father."

"Two months? Erik, that is hardly any better than three weeks. We need a longer engagement, to show that we are not merely marrying for decency's sake."

He let out a long breath and kept his voice steady because he did not want to fight about this anymore, "two months is more than generous for the townspeople. It will give you enough time to plan the perfect wedding, have your dress finished, and for everyone to see that you are not in the family way." The last two words he spit out with obvious scorn.

Madison opened her mouth to protest, and remembering that she had come here to make peace, not argue, she shut her mouth resolutely and nodded. 'Two months is not unreasonable, let the old biddies mark their calendars, and then feel foolish,' she thought.

Erik

He breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes, preparing himself for what was to come.

"But while forgiveness is the topic, I fear that I must also ask you to pardon my transgression."

She pulled back from him to study him, elation settling once more into the beginnings of dread, "for what?" she asked.

He bowed his head slightly, "there are certain aspects of my past that I have not been completely honest about, some of the things that I have done…"

She brushed a lock of her hair behind an ear and gestured for him to continue.

"I have done things, terrible things… I have hurt others."

She blinked slowly, trying to understand and absorb what he was trying to tell her, "what sort of things?"

He hung his head, no longer able to meet her gaze, "I have killed."

When she was silent, making no sudden outburst or backing away, he raised his head to look into her eyes and saw only sadness and surprise instead of hatred or fear. "Why?" she asked him almost inaudibly, her voice a brief whisper.

He squared his shoulders to hide his insecurity and began to explain. "The first man I killed was the gypsy who held me captive. He was a belligerent, and cruel drunk and I have never felt sorrow for taking his life. He tormented me daily for nothing other than the way I was born. They kept me against my will and paraded me around like a beast."

Madison closed her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Erik watched as she shuddered in revulsion and then opened her eyes to meet his gaze. He continued his explanation, "I told you that I was commissioned by the sultan of Persia to construct things for him. They were not buildings, as I led you to believe. His mother, the Khanum, was an evil, insane woman who had me use my architectural skills to build torture devices."

"Torture devices…" Madison said almost unbelievingly.

He told her about the more horrific parts of Persia, of the mirrored room with the metal tree and noose and Josef Buquet stumbling into it, most likely while trying to rob him, and his subsequent death; told her about Piangi, the only halfway-innocent man whose death he had been responsible for and the resulting guilt. Throughout the whole ordeal she remained silent, letting him purge his guilt without interruption.

He told her of Christine, not that he had abducted her and held her lover's life at ransom in return for love, but that she had been his first love and that she had forsaken him. It was his biggest regret in life. 'Of all my transgressions my treatment of Christine and Raoul, of the blind jealousy and rage that tainted my love of her, was my worst. I regret how much I hurt her in my pursuit of affection.'

Erik met Madison's eyes and hoped that he would not see scorn or terror. 'If she fears me, I will leave her to live her life in peace, no matter that it would cut me to the quick,' he vowed.

Madison

She was shocked. Even knowing that his past was dark and unloving she never could have imagined the horrors of being forced to create such horrible weapons. It was so completely foreign to her that it left her speechless. She had never fully understood the atrocities that he must have faced.

Shock, slight horror, but above all she felt sadness that his life had come to this, at the acts that he had been driven to commit just because of his face. 'How could they not have seen his soul? Can no one else look past the surface?'

Slowly, so that he might pull away, she reached a hand up to his face, her fingers deftly finding the small hook that held the mask in place. With a flick of a fingernail the wire sprang free from the metal loop and the mask dropped gently into her hand. She placed it on her lap and gently trailed her fingers down the reddened, uneven side of him.

A tear trailed unbidden down the perfect side of his face as she explored the ridge under his right eye and the uneven skin. It was rougher than the rest of him, most likely from where the mask pressed against the skin and rubbed.

"I don't understand…" she said even as her fingers brushed up and down his face.

He shuddered a little before closing his eyes, marveling at the silky soft fingertips caressing him.

She finished her thought, "… why people fear this so much."

He covered her hand with his own even as tears began to stream down his face in silent rivulets. "How can you possibly be so understanding?"

She smiled at that, lips quirking in amusement before fading into seriousness. "I cannot say that I am comfortable with the fact that you have killed people, Erik. But I will not condemn you for doing what you had to do to survive. You've said that you took no pleasure in it, and I believe that." Madison raised her other hand so that she grabbed both sides of his face. "I will forgive you for keeping these horrible secrets, if you will promise me that you will never kill again."

And when he nodded she pulled his face down to hers for a long, sweet kiss that made them forget the rest of the world.

She wrapped her arms around his neck to run her fingers through his hair, and he wrapped his around her slim waist as he held her close.

Erik

Faint, shuffling footsteps sounded outside in the hallway and brought them back to reality. Madison pulled back in alarm, glancing wildly around the room for a clock, and when her probing eyes finally landed on it and read the time she jumped up off of the couch, startling Erik who asked, "what is wrong?" even as he tried to pull her back down to him.

"Oh no… no, no, no. That cannot be the time," she replied.

Erik looked to the small mantel clock. It was twenty-three minutes past eight. He wondered how almost two hours had gone by unnoticed and watched as Madison wrung her hands furiously.

"Erik, we must do something!" she whispered as loud as she dared. This only served to widen the smile on his face. Picking up the mask and slipping it on, he hooked the thin wire in place and rose from the couch to calm her.

The mask being replaced was a balm to his frayed, emotional state; it was a familiar action that seemed to assure him that he was whole again and that all would be well. Erik was, at his core, a survivor.

"What has you in such a state?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at the tone of his voice, "what's wrong? Only that I am in your room, un-chaperoned, in my nightclothes no less, and the whole hotel is waking up. That is what is wrong."

He brushed a stray curl from her face, "dearest, have you ever stopped to wonder that underneath it all you put yourself into these positions on purpose?"

She paused with a shocked and weary expression on her face. "What do you mean? Why would I do this on purpose?"

"Perhaps you do not realize that you are even doing it when you are, but I believe that on some level you want to get caught in a compromising position."

Narrowing her eyes in trepidation she looked up at him questioningly.

He continued, "the slow seduction in your father's house, hiding behind bookshelves and in barns with maids and servants and your father turning the corner. Or running off to a gypsy camp when you knew that Ummi would not keep your secret, and that I would follow." He leaned into her to whisper the last line into her ear, so softly that she had to strain to hear him, "or when you let me into your bed chamber, at night, with no chaperone, and I undressed you," he ran a hand down her side eliciting a shudder as he continued, "and touched you," his hand grazed a breast as his mouth came dangerously close to the shell of her ear, "and kissed you," then bit the ear lobe gently and cupped one breast, "and licked you. Face the facts, ma cherie, you love to flirt with danger."

And as his hand kneaded the soft flesh of her breast, rolling the nipple between two fingers and grazing it with the nail of his thumb through the fabric of her nightgown, she sighed deeply and shut her eyes to his ministrations.

"We can talk about this another day," he stated nonchalantly, "but now we need to get you back into your own room."

She groaned in frustration but conceded when she heard more footsteps and the creak of a floorboard from the hallway. "How? The hallway will be crawling with maids. I will be seen, for sure."

He smiled and raised her hand to his lips to kiss the knuckles, "you forgot one thing."

She arched one brow, "and what is that?"

"I am the opera ghost," he said as he led her outside the small door to his balcony and walked her to the railing beside hers.

She looked at him expectantly, and when she understood what he was telling her, she balked, "Erik! There is a good three feet of open air between the balconies. You cannot seriously expect me to climb over that."

He simply smiled, and half stepping over the short balcony railing to straddle it he pulled her to him and helped her over the metal bars to the small ledge and guided her to the other side. And when she was safely at her own balcony door, slightly white faced but smiling hopefully, he grinned and watched her turn the latch and enter her bedchamber.

Erik retreated into his own bedroom and began to dress. It was to be a very busy day with another trip to the church and marriage license broker, and then the long ride home.

His lips curved up into a rueful grin as he pondered last night's botched proposal and this morning's confessions and thought to himself, 'you are losing your touch, old man.'