A/N: That you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it. A little more Richard/Simonne. No idea how long this one will be. But I hope you enjoy.

December, 1921 Paris, France

Richard stood, staring at the Opera House, still as stunned by its beauty as he had been when he had first seen it over three years before. And while he had seen many things since then, nothing could rival the structure before him.

He was mindful of the crowd moving around him. The performance was due to start soon, and it was cold and lightly snowing, so people were moving quickly inside. Richard lingered a few moments more, until a snowflake fell into his ear, sending a cold shiver down his spine. He wiped the moisture from his ear and went in, pulling his hat from his head as he crossed the threshold.

And found himself gawking at the ornate opulence.

The crowd moved around him as he stood still, trying so hard to absorb every little detail...the staircase, the statues holding lights, the columns, the ceiling...so many things to take in, he would need a week to study just the lobby.

"Excuse-moi, Monsieur Harrow?"

Richard pulled his eye from the ceiling, looking at the man who had addressed him.

"Mm, yes?"

"Good evening, monsieur. Mademoiselle Delacroix has arranged a box for you zis evening. If you will follow, s'il vous plait?"

Richard nodded and followed the man. He tried to look everywhere while he walked, but it proved too difficult. They walked up the grand staircase, down a beautiful hallway, up another flight of stairs, down another hallway. The man stopped and held aside a heavy curtain, showing Richard in with his hand.

"Enjoy ze ballet, monsieur," he said to Richard as Richard stepped into the box.

"Thank you," Richard said. The man gave a small bow, let the curtain fall closed, and walked away.

Richard removed his coat and draped it over the back of a chair, then stepped to the railing and looked out onto the room to take in the details.

He had read "The Phantom of the Opera', first on the train to Belgium, the copy Simonne had given him, and again on the steamer over, a copy he had bought before leaving New York, to refresh his memory. He had to admit, the details in the story, vivid as they were, didn't quite do justice. There was a majesty to the place that words just couldn't capture.

The lights dimmed briefly, the performance would soon begin. Richard sat down and waited patiently, something he was quite good at. He had never been to a ballet, had never had a desire to see a ballet, but he was quite looking forward to seeing Simonne dance.

He heard voices in the hallway behind him, glanced over his shoulder and saw the curtain twitch.

"Enjoy ze ballet, mademoiselle."

Richard quickly stood and smoothed his jacket. He wondered who he would be sharing the box with this evening? One of Simonne's friends?

"Emma?" he said, shocked, as he saw her face.

"Richard?"

The Harrow twins gaped at each other, stunned to no end.

"What are you doing here?" they both asked..

"Simonne...," was the simultaneous reply.

They both blinked and stood in an awkward silence. Around them, the sound was of the audience settling down, and the orchestra going through it's final warm-ups. Emma moved nervously to the other chair and sat down on the very edge. Richard did the same.

There was so much that needed to be said. They both knew it. But neither of them knew where to start. They were both nervously rubbing one thumb along the back of the other. Habits and mannerisms formed in their childhood still held, a reminder of how close they had once been.

They were interrupted in their silence by the same man who had escorted Richard to the box.

"Mademoiselle. Monsieur," he said, handing each one an envelope. He gave a low bow and backed out of the box, drawing the thick curtain behind him.

Emma and Richard looked at each other curiously then down at their envelopes.

The one in Richard's hand said Emma

"I think. This is, mm. Yours," he said, holding out the envelope to her.

"Trade," Emma said. They switched envelopes, then Emma tore hers open. Richard followed suit.

They read, and met each other's eyes.

"What does yours say?" Emma asked.

"She, mm. Still love. You, mon chér. Deal... With it."

"Ah. I got 'He has changed, soeur de mon coeur, deal with it.'" Emma looked down at her hands briefly, then back at her brother. "Which I guess is her way of saying I messed things up pretty bad when you were home."

"No," Richard said, with a shake of his head. "You, mm. Didn't. I wasn't in. a good place, mm. Mentally, then. And I. Don't think anything, mm. You would have. Done would have, mm. Helped. I needed. Mm, time to sort. Through...everything. I...Emma, I'm. Sorry I, mm. Left, like I did. You did. Mm, your best. To help me. But at, mm, that time. I wasn't able. To see, mm. Myself as. Anything other than. This," he said, tapping his mask lightly. "You treated me. Like nothing, mm. Had changed..."

"Nothing had changed," Emma protested. Richard shook his head again, cutting her off.

"It had. Changed. I had, mm. Changed. And it...frustrated me. That you, mm. Acted like I hadn't."

"Why didn't you say anything, then?" Emma asked.

"I couldn't. I, mm. Didn't understand. What was going. On, mm. Inside of me. Well enough to. Explain it."

"Do you now?"

"Sometimes," Richard replied. "Simonne, mm. Ran into me, about. Six months ago..."

Emma nodded. "She wrote me, when she got back to Paris. She said she didn't know if you were ready for me to know where you were, so she wouldn't tell me that. But she said she wanted me to know that you were still alive, if not all right."

"When she found me, mm. I was...at a low point. A few weeks, mm. Before, I had...tried to. Kill myself." He noticed his sister's gasp but barreled over it. He did not need a lecture right now. "Things were just...overwhelming, mm. And nothing seemed to. Be going like, mm. It should have been. Then, there was Simonne. She, mm. Scolded me. For never reading...that letter she wrote, mm. Then more or less. Told me, mm. To stop feeling. So sorry, mm. For myself. And to. Stop hiding from. The world." A small smile turned up the corner of Richard's mouth, the first one Emma had seen on her brother's face since before he left for training in New York so long ago.

Richard went on to explain, as best he could, how Simonne had really made him think about things. Because he felt the world would not accept him because of his injuries, he built a wall around himself, protection from rejection. But that wall kept him from feeling anything for anyone as well. It took him a long time to truly understand this, he explained to her. "Sometimes, mm. I have to fight. To keep the wall. From, mm. Coming back up. Sometimes, I fail. But I, mm. Keep trying. And that's. All I can, mm. do."

Emma tilted her head slightly and regarded her brother for a long moment. This was certainly not the shattered man she had last seen. No, he wasn't back to being the beloved twin she had seen off at the station after he enlisted. She supposed that man was long gone. But there was a peace about Richard now that hadn't been there when she last saw him, as if healing had finally begun.

"Simonne, mm. Also made me. See that, I shouldn't, mm. Have to fit myself. To the world. That if, mm. People can't accept me. The way I am, mm. The it's their problem. Mm, not mine."

Emma chewed on her bottom lip while she absorbed all of it. Here she was, half-way around the world with the brother she thought she might never see again. He was actually talking to her, actually looking at her like he recognized her, which is more than he had done during those few months between the time he came home and the time he left. She was happy that he seemed to be on the way to finding himself again.

"It's, mm. Good to see. You," Richard said, intruding on her thoughts. Emma gave a small shake of her head and smiled at him.

"It's good to see you, too," she said. "When Simonne wrote to me, telling me I was coming to Paris for Christmas because she had a surprise for me,...well, I honestly wasn't expecting it to be you."

"Me, either, mm. She told me, mm. That you two correspond. Regularly, but I, mm. Didn't think. You'd gotten so, mm. Close."

"When she was in Chicago, with the ballet, I took a train down, and met her. She's such a...delightful woman! Within five minutes of meeting, she was calling me her 'sister of the heart', and had me talking about myself like we'd known each other forever."

Richard couldn't help but laugh, since Simonne had done the same thing to him. The Harrow twins talked for a good long while, first about Simonne, then Richard got Emma to tell him what she how she had been doing, how life on the farm was going, and he told her a very little bit about what his life was like. He gave her none of the gritty details, just that he was working for an 'up-and comer' that he had met in the veteran's hospital. Emma could sense there was a great deal he wasn't telling her, but she did not push the issue.

They continued to talk, conversation turning to things from their youth, and they completely lost track of time.

"I see zat ze two of you have gotten on quite well."

Emma and Richard both looked back. Standing there by the curtain was Simonne, a happy smile on her face. The Harrows stood, and Simonne stepped into the box, first stepping up to Emma and embracing her, giving her the traditional greeting of a kiss on each cheek.

"Bienvenue à Paris, soeur de mon coeur," she said to Emma with a fond smile.

"Et tu, mon chér," she said, hugging Richard, kissing each of his cheeks as well. "It is good zat you are here again."

She stepped back and looked at the two of them standing side by side. They did indeed have the same eyes. Emma's chin was a bit rounder, her cheeks a bit more defined. But it was obvious they were brother and sister, and as Simonne regarded them, she noticed they both glanced down at their feet, tucked a lock of hair behind their right ear and glance back at her in perfect synchronization. She felt her smile widen. She truly hoped the distance between Emma and Richard could be bridged. It had been a big risk to arrange things so that they would have to spend so much time alone, but she had enough faith in whatever bond they had coming to the fore.

"Come!" Simonne said merrily, clapping her hands together. "We will be late if we do not hurry, and Etienne will be cross with me for ruining his dinner." Emma and Richard put on their coats and followed Simonne out of the box.

"Who is Etienne?" Emma asked curiously.

"Etienne is my brother," Simonne said, looping one arm through Richard's and the other through Emma's and leading them out of the Opera. "I zink you will like him. He is very much like me, except zat he does not talk as much. He says it is because I never give him ze chance." She looked at Richard and they shared a smile at the running joke. "Now, did you enjoy ze ballet?"

"Um, well..." Emma glanced over at her brother. What do we say? Her look said.

"We, mm. Didn't see it," Richard answered.

"We got involved in talking," Emma added. "And it just didn't dawn on us that we were missing it. I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize for zings zat do not need apologizing for," Simonne said with a laugh. "To be honest, I was hoping zat would happen. Alzough I will bet zat you sat in silence for a while, oui?"

"Yes," Emma and Richard replied at the same time.

"And of course, because I am ze most fascinating zing you have in common, you talked about me."

Richard knew Simonne was joking, but Emma did not, and she gave the ballerina a wide eyed stare.

"She's. Joking, mm," Richard said told her. Emma watched as he smiled at Simonne, his eye crinkling just slightly there at the corner. Emma felt an unpleasant twist somewhere inside of her when she realized there was more between her brother and the French woman than just mere friendship.

"Oui," Simonne said. "But it did occur to me zat ze two of you would have a better chance of... re-acquainting...if you were someplace zat is not...where you are most comfortable being. Also, I admit, I wanted to see both of you again. So my motives are un peu selfish." She gave a squeeze on each of their arms, began chattering about nothing in particular, and led them to her brother's flat.