The opera house was vastly damaged, any one could see that. The fire watch could only do so much and most of the stage was gone. The structure was still sound, and already there was talk of rebuilding. The weeks after the fire had been terrible for the small city that ran the opera house. Most of their fortunes were bound up in the opera house and now that it was inoperable; they were unfit for any other work. The stage was gone, as were the hanging ropes and many stories of scenery. The backstage was ravaged and the house full of seats smashed by the falling chandelier. Only the lobby and stone outside were preserved without much blemish. From the street, it looked not much different from before. But for the absence of noise, the everyday citizen would think the opera house was in operation.

To Meg, it was very evident that an exorbitant amount of money would be required to restore the opera house to even the simplest of stages. It would take the work of generations to return it to the splendor of before. For now, the more charming and personable stage hands were making money by leading tours of the disaster to the curious and wealthy. Among the elite circles, it was considered quite the thrill to see firsthand the destruction of the opera house they had formally visited to view the delights of the stage. Where tours were not led, the rest of the stage hands worked to remove the damaged material and were slowly making progress. The back stage was now emptied of fire ravaged material, and lists were being drawn up as to what absolutely needed to be replaced and what could wait for later.

Madame Giry herself kept records of everything that was destroyed. None quite understood why. The opera house was not insured and no one would ever be able to afford to buy everything on the lists. She noted everything from the grand chandelier to the smallest ballerina's tutu ribbons.

And money came from somewhere. Each worker who found themselves in financial trouble (of an honest nature, drinking debts were not included) also found that the next day their creditors had been paid. Madame Giry refused to take credit when the workers thanked her. She simply replied that, "The Opera Ghost was trying to make amends for his actions." Not all were happy about being bought in this manner, but with their means of work gone, no one could refuse the gift.

Meg did not have the time or the energy to try and find the tunnels again. There was too much work to be done. It seemed there was never enough time in the day. True, the ballerinas were not allowed to carry heavy loads of wood or handle carting away destroyed seats. They were given the task of clearing the burnt backrooms of debris and sorting what could be kept or had to be thrown away. That in itself was a monumental task. Decades of operas had accumulated costumes and props that had collected dust until someone had thought they could be remade and used again. Now they were blackened and twisted heaps buried in ash to be dug out and thrown away. At the end of each day the labors of the men showed in the sweat soaking their shirts while the girls displayed their soot streaked clothing and skin. Some had gone to wearing the same dress for a week to save their clean clothes.

Washing of clothes was done once a week (hence the girls idea to only wear one dress a week) and washing of bodies was by necessity a rag bath every day and a thorough bath every Sunday. They never had to fetch the water. The baths were always filled by the time the work day ended. There were also buckets of water left in convenient spots along the edges of the work sites. Madame Giry told everyone that this was other form of the Opera Ghost's apology. Privately, Meg thought that the Opera Ghost must be working himself harder than anyone else to provide the water and to do all the other little things people found. Whenever someone was particularly distressed and frustrated, they often found a rose left specifically for them. Meg herself had found a rose left for her on bad days.

Beneath the opera house the tunnels and lake had gone unscathed. Erik's home had not been touched by the destruction he had unleashed. Instead of comforting him, it only stirred the guilt welling inside him. As this was the first time he had felt the emotion so strongly as to not be able to dismiss it, the feeling ate him up inside. For the first time he felt that his actions had been wrong, that he had taken out his anger for Raul too far. He had destroyed his home and the home of the hundreds he had watched for these past years. For the first time he had taken responsibility for his actions, sending money to creditors and making sure that the workers restoring the opera house were as comfortable as possible. His music lay neglected on his organ as he worked instead on helping others.

But as it always had, the music stayed in his head whether he wrote it down or not. The melody was wistful and a touch sad, but so was the atmosphere of the opera house. The voices had quieted too. Don Juan was nearly extinguished, rising only when Erik visited the Giry's sleeping loft and left them roses. The knowledge that Meg disrobed here was enough to awaken Don Juan and leave him lusting over can't haves the rest of the day. Those were the days Erik worked on his ballet through the wee hours of the night.

After five long and gritty weeks, Meg finally saw a ghost of a smile on her mother's face. There was no reason that Meg could see, just her mother, streaked in soot, standing where their rooms had once been. All of the walls were gone, leaving light streaks of un-burnt floor where they had been. Then her mother did something even stranger. With her cane, she began the tapping and swirling that from childhood Meg recognized as her mother's method of visualizing choreography. As Meg drew closer to her mother, stepping silently as she was trained to do all her life for dancing, she thought she heard music. It was muffled and soft, but distinctly there. Madame Giry opened her eyes to see her daughter's quizzical expression as Meg tried to determine where it was coming from.

Giving up her search for the source of the music, Meg looked at her mother. There was an expression of soft joy lighting Madame's eyes that Meg had only seen a few times. Once, when she had done a whole ballet number in point shoes for the first time, another, the opening night of an Italian opera Meg could not understand at the time, but realized it was about a father coming home to his family. The third and only other time was on a day in December every year when Madame always received a small gift, some years a rose, some years some trinkets of startling beauty. Meg had never been able to discover the connection between the gifts and the date.

"He's playing again…" Madame Giry softly whispered. "There is hope for this place yet."

"What do you mean, Mama?" asked Meg, realizing with a start that the music came not from around them, but underneath the floor.

"I mean that when the opera house is ready, so will its music. Without the music… We could not hope to go on without our music." Madame's cane still tapped and swished to the faint strains of melody. "The reason for our popularity was not our brilliant sets or singers or dancers, though they were some of the finest in the country, but our music. The Opera Ghost's music. We would just be another opera house out of many if not for his music."

"He is still here then? I thought he had fled when Chris-" Meg stopped herself at a sharp look from her mother, "…that night the opera burned."

"No. He's never left us. Where do you think the water comes from? And the roses? He knows us all better than we know ourselves I think."

"Mama? Why didn't he have a journal on us?"

At Meg's softly spoken question her mother's cane abruptly stopped moving. "What did you say?"

"He had journals of everyone, he studied them. But he didn't have journals on us. Why?" Meg's question had gathered force behind it. It demanded a true answer despite its still quiet and respectful tone.

"Why would I know about that?" she replied, dodging the question.

"Because you came looking for him. You called his name, Erik. You know him well enough to ask him for help." Meg's eyes challenged her to deny it.

Madame Giry's respect for her daughter's intelligence went up a notch. "We are friends, he and I, and friends do not study friends like lab rats. But don't think he doesn't watch over us all the same. The roses he gives you are especially beautiful."

Meg blushed faintly. "Yes, they are." She murmured before asking, "Can I be his friend too?"

Giry went pale then pulled her daughter close and whispered in her ear, "You want to… Do you not remember what happened to Christine?"

"I remember Mama. But they were not friends, she never knew him, not truly. And he loved her. He would not love me." Meg whispered back, hearing her voice break on the last words.

Giry pulled back and gazed at her daughter with the saddest expression Meg had ever seen grace her mother's face. "He would love fiercely anyone who showed him kindness."

Meg's mind went straight to Christine. "She threw away a great gift then. Raoul will never love her so."

Giry wrapped her daughter in a hug, hiding Meg's scowl in her shoulder, wishing she hadn't seen it. It was too late to try and forbid what she now knew was happening. When Meg wanted to be friends with someone, nothing would stop her. And Erik… Poor Erik needed to be loved. Giry just wished it wasn't her daughter.

But then again, hadn't she herself told Meg stories about the kindnesses of the Opera Ghost along with the meanness? Wasn't she the one who had taught Meg to be kind to the lonely? To look past exteriors? Meg's mind was strong; she would not be blinded by Erik's voice in order not to see the rest of the boy. Though Erik was a man grown, Giry knew that his mind was still that of a boy's, still trying to make sense of what females did to his head. He did not understand romantic relationships were hard work, to be based on mutual trust. There were precious few examples of that in the opera house. Most children, like Meg, grew up without ever knowing their runaway fathers.

Giry now saw that she had been telling Meg stories about Erik not to frighten her, but to make her understand Erik as Giry herself did. Meg could not help but want to help him now.

Still holding her innocent little girl in her arms, Giry could not help but feel apprehensive. Being friends with Erik would expose her to the horrors that the world could punish a person with. Giry knew that when Meg asked, Giry would tell her how she came to find Erik and that with that telling, Meg's innocent view of the world would shatter. But she also knew that she had no right to keep Erik from someone who would show him kindness. If she did so then she was no better than those she had rescued him from.

"My little girl," Giry crooned. "My little girl all grown up." She hugged Meg tightly, than released her to wipe the moisture from her eyes. "I will send a note. It's time you were introduced properly."