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Meg had left the ballroom. She tip-toed down the hall to her mother's room. She peeked in the door to see the Phantom. She almost screamed. That face....But it was crying......So was her mother. Meg let go of the dorr and it opened revealing Meg standing there. Meg trembled as she stepped in.

" H-hello s-sir...I'm h-here to s-see my m-mother........."

Meg almost screamed.

(( Unromantic Phantom said I could post now.))

His eyes darted towards the door as he saw it swing open out of the corner of his eye. Almost reflexively his hand began to reach for the sword he still had hanging from his waist. He expected it to be the Vicomte, but he refrained from pulling the sword out of its sheath as he saw Meg standing in the doorway.

Quickly he rose from his seat and turned so that only the normal--albeit smudged from his tears making the makeup run--side of his face was visible. It didn't really matter now, but he could not bear to be gawked at. He was no longer some sideshow attraction. Wiping the tears from his face and attempting to order his appearance slightly, he said, "Don't bother trying to be rid of her now that she's seen, Antoinette." He surprised himself with how calm he managed to sound even as his mind was racing to figure a way out of this.

Later he might be able to congratulate himself on the fact that the thought of killing the girl never once crossed his mind, but even his brilliant mind was at loss for what to do. He could not simply run. The only door besides the one that the girl was currently blocking was the hidden door. It wouldn't be much of a secret if he were to use it while she was staring at him. Mentally he cursed himself for not thinking to make certain that the door was locked, but he never thought about locks. When one could easily pick any lock they never had any need to worry about them, but allowing his mind to wander did nothing to improve his current situation. What was he going to do now that Meg Giry had seen him?

The ballet rats were notorious for gossip. Meg in particular had earned quite the reputation for being unable to keep a secret. He might as well head down to his home, pack up everything he could carry, and get out of Paris before the girl had the chance to tell her friends what she had just witnessed.

Erik had a point. Her daughter had bore witness to this and trying to cover her eyes and say "you saw nothing!" would be of no use. How Antoinette cursed herself for not locking the door. She had been sure no one would come through looking for either her or the Viscount. Much less Meg.

At her daughter's question, Antoinette looked back at Erik, who had turned so his left side was only visible. He didn't want to have the girl stare. It was understandable, since Meg was a very emotional young girl and was prone to her outbursts much like her Father had been.

"He is but a friend, Marguerite." She told her daughter at last, finding her voice to be level. "He has helped us more than you could know." Her words were true, but held a tinge of pain.

What could she do now but continue to beg her child to go? It was crude, she knew, but she did not want Meg knowing more than was healthy for any of them and ending up stammering it all out to the other girls in the Corps de Ballet. It was a rude thought, but it was true. Antoinette had been a bit of a gossiper at one point in her dancing career as well. Though most of the gossip had gone to Erik when they met between rehearsals and meals.

Looking back at Erik again, she mouthed 'I'm sorry' to him before leading her daughter away to shut the door, saying a little loudly, "Let's leave him be. It's late, my dear daughter." It was a hint for him to leave through the hidden door while he could, which she was sure he'd pick up at some point before anyone else wandered in just to aggrivate the living hell out of her.

Meg turned around to this man. She could almost remember a name....Erin? Edmund? Earl? She could almost remember him like a child knows a father. He reminded her of Papa Jules though. Meg opened her mouth to speak .

" Yes Monsuir?"

Little Meg? No one had called her that for a while. This man...He was the father figure in her childhood after her father died........It must be him! It has to be. Meg stepped closer to him and took his hand. She spoke softly.

" Erik?"

That was all she could remember about the name. She wasn't even sure that was his name. She was never close to Papa Jules. She always thought she had. She would sit there for days and think of the date of Jules' death and that father figure who had been there for her after his death. When she was little she always thought they were one person. But it couldn't be. She had come to the conclusion that they were two people and forgot about it.

Antoinette watched this scene unfold with silence and almost a saddening lump in her throat. Meg had grown up without a father most of her life, but Erik had acted as a care taker to the girl when he could. She could say he was like a father to her.

But she feared what Meg would do if she knew him. Christine was smart enough to keep silent but, as cruel a thought it was, Meg was one of the girls who enjoyed showing up the others with information they had that no one else did. More than once she had gotten Antoinette mad from persisting that her mother knew the Phantom and would have the snotty ballerinas hung. But now she would know.

If Erik felt fear for this situation, she could not see it. He acted as if he were seeing a long lost child of his all grown up with some distant memory of the days they had shared. It was truly sad.

When Erik looked to her past Meg, she felt a bit stunned. He was admitting to the foolishness of the situation?

All Antoinette could do was give a short nod. This was certainly not wise.

"We'll let it be for now." She told him, grasping her daughter's shoulders lightly as if to tug her away. "Marguerite, perhaps bed would be wise now. Rehearsals will begin tomorrow, I suppose, and we will need to rise early." At the last statement, she looked at Erik. Not accusingly, but rather questioningly. With a title like Don Juan Triumphant, she was sure the opera was nothing short of scandalous. While the child inside her giggled at the thought of making the blue bloods squirm and fan themselves, the more moral half of her gave a sigh and mentioned something about men never changing.

He felt his face reddening slightly at the look Antoinette shot him as she mentioned their beginning rehearsals for his opera in the morning. She knew what was implied by the title. Of course she would have, and he might have tried to explain that it really wasn't all about sex until one came near the end if Meg had not been present. She was not such a young girl anymore, but she was not mature enough to talk about such subjects without dissolving into fits of giggling. He could not start on such a topic in front of her, and he seriously doubted that her mother would appreciate it if he tried. No doubt he would receive at least a few solid blows from her cane. He winced as he remembered the last time she'd felt compelled to whack him with that cane. In her hands it was a weapon of the most lethal kind.

Continued thoughts were interrupted as Meg suddenly kissed his left cheek. It was too much for even his mind to process all at once, so he made no immediate reaction. He had been kissed twice in one evening. Even though they had been two kisses of the most platonic nature, they had been two kisses upon his face just the same.

As his mind finally began to wrap around the fact that he had been kissed twice in the same night after never having been kissed once before, he had to turn away so that his back was to the two women. He could stand to let Antoinette see him cry. She had been the first to look upon his face without horror or revulsion, but he could not bear to let the younger Giry see as tears threatened to overflow from his eyes again. "Yes," he said, vainly trying to make his voice sound even. It was easy to hear that it was thick with emotion. "You should go to bed, Little Meg. It would not do for you to be asleep on your feet during rehearsals tomorrow."

((Are we done with this scene, or is there still a bit more posting to be done before we move onto the rehearsals and the graveyard scene?))