Mari rushed up to her friend and embraced her in a tight hug. "You did amazing! The chemistry you and Ben achieved in the final lair scene was phenomenal! I mean, I thought it was all real for a second there!"

"Thank you, Mariah," Catherine replied, blushing a little. "Have you seen the tech support guy? He's supposed to meet me in my dressing room. Oh! The man who's been sending me notes! I'm supposed to meet him-"

Mariah cut her friend off. "I thought you weren't going to meet him. You promised me."

"Yeah. About that..."

Mari's eyes suddenly brightened. "Hey, maybe it's Mr. Nerd Herd sending you those notes. He's friends with the guy who runs your apartment complex. He might have had him bring it into your room for you!"

"It's not him. Mari, the voice spoke to me. It wasn't that of I.T. Guy," Catherine said with a twinkle in her eye.

Mari gave her a glance of great concern, her tone becoming stronger, and eyes fearful. "There's all kinds of technology nowadays. Beside he's a tech guy. A voice change is as easy for him as putting lipstick on is for us."

"It wasn't I.T. Guy's voice," Cath insisted. "I could tell. I met the man whom the voice belonged to."

Mari wanted to slap Catherine across the face. "Cath, get your head on straight!" Mari yelled in a whisper. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Look, Mari, I know how strange it must sound, but I have to go. Just trust me when I say, you will understand in time," Catherine assured.

Mari took Cath tightly by the wrist and look deep into her eyes, her own welling with terrified tears. "I won't lose you, Cath. I can't afford to."

Catherine put her free hand to her friend's cheek. "You won't. I'm only going to meet a strange, masked man in my dressing room. What could go wrong?" Catherine laughed, pulling away from her friend.

"Catherine," Mari mumbled shaking her head. She pointed a stiff finger at her friend as she said, "Here's what we'll do. I'll have the security stay late and you will leave me on speaker phone the entire time. The. Entire. Time. If it's some hoax, fine. Good, but the moment something's wrong, I want you out of there! You hear me?"

"You aren't having security stay late. I'll have my phone on me. If anything happens, I'll text you. It'll be a brief meeting. Two minutes, Little Mari," Catherine said, briskly walking back to her dressing room.

Mari watched as the figure of her closest friend disappeared from sight. "Sorry, Cath," she sighed, pulling out her phone. She quickly dialed the number and brought the device to her ear. "Caleb? Listen, it's Mari. I need you."

"What's going on?" Came Caleb's voice.

"I'll tell you when you get here. Just get to Cath's dressing room soon as you've changed, alright?" Mari sighed.

"Alright," Caleb replied. He hung up the phone and changed quickly. Mariah never called him unless there was something important. He raced over to her. "What's up?"

"I think Cath's in trouble."

"What?" Caleb asked, his concern growing. "What happened? Is she hurt?"

"Not yet," Mari sighed, her eye on the closed dressing room door. "Not yet."

—————

Catherine stood eagerly in front of the mirror, still in the wedding dress Christine wore during The Final Lair scene. She had waited a good ninety seconds before the lights on her mirror flickered and extinguished.

Matthew has been aware of Caleb's presence down the hallway. "Insolent boy!" He exclaimed, loud enough for Catherine to hear.

"Who's there?" Catherine asked.

"Have you forgotten your Angel?" The man asked softly.

The mirror, this time, opened on its own. Revealing a finely dressed man, tall and well built.

She started looking him over immediately, trying to ascertain his identity, but the coarse black hair, that was nicely kept eluded her. He was not anyone she had known before.

His bright, blue eyes were sharply cut and refined, looking intently upon her. They were almost a rival to his his striking profile and jawline. And yet, Cath couldn't help but think every inch of him could be changed, every good quality removed, and those two blue spheres of eyes would remain, gazing right into her soul and judging her pure and whole. One bare and fleshly, the other from underneath the cold, porcelain mask.

"You are the man I met before, aren't you?" Catherine guessed. Who else could he possibly be? He had the same voice. Of that, Cath was certain.

He wrung his hands together nervously and prayed she didn't notice. "I am."

She did. Catherine couldn't help but chuckle at the man's disposition. "Why so nervous, good Monsieur?"

He gave a small beguiled smile and looked at her breathlessly. "You're beautiful."

Catherine blushed. "Thank you. You're...mysterious."

He turned white with shock. "My God, did I say that aloud?" He cleared his throat and pressed a brick in the wall, closing the mirror behind her.

Catherine didn't stop him. Instead she said, "I feel as though I should be singing."

He pointed awkwardly to her pocket. "You have your phone?"

Catherine rolled her eyes and explained, "My best friend is overprotective. It was either this, or her sending the entire security team in with me."

"No, I mean...You have Youtube, right?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You said you wanted to sing," he stated with a soft, upwards curl of his lips.

"I always want to sing," the girl replied.

He gestured for her to follow. "Then put on something."

Catherine put on The Phantom of the Opera. She began to sing as the masked man took her hand, "In sleep, he sang to me. In dreams, he came..."

He gave a unsteady smile and led her onward. "Perfect," he whispered to her, as she finished her first verse.

"Do you sing?" Catherine asked.

The masked man gave a little smirk. "Do I sing?" He repeated to himself with a little scoff.  He looked at her with shining eyes, and taking a deep breath, hit the first note of his verse with all intensity of emotion and skill that could ever be summoned.

A smile spread across Catherine's face. When they finished the song, she asked, "Where did you learn to sing like that?"

Matthew turned away with guilty eyes. "Like Erik in more ways than voice," he thought to himself, leading her into an elevator. "In curses as well."

"Your performance tonight was satisfactory," he said with a nod in her direction, pressing a number of buttons in a complicated order to take them down further. "I think however...I may, if you permit me...offer some assistance?"

Catherine thought about this for a moment. A vocal tutor? There was no doubt that Catherine had been well-taught. In her own opinion, she didn't need his help, but this was her chance to have her own Erik. She suddenly had a realization and said, "Tell me your name."

"Why do you need to know?" He asked, his tone changing to one of slight suspicion.

"You're some random dude who climbed into my mirror, knows my name, and seems to know a lot about me and music. I think I have the right to at least know your name," Catherine decided, not taking her eyes off the man. She had been gazing at him rather intently.

"Destler," he lied in a quick mutter under his breath. "Ethan Destler."

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay."

He laughed as the elevator doors opened. "That's my name!" He gave a small smile at the look of shock on her face, as they stepped into the large and well furnished home.

Catherine quickly turned away from the large room. "Why don't you tell me your real name? Otherwise, I'm gonna have to call you Creepy Mirror Guy, and I don't want to have to do that."

"I don't like my name," he said with some irritation. "You can me by middle name I suppose. Christopher."

"Christopher," Catherine repeated to herself. She turned away, hoping that the man wouldn't see the tears forming in her eyes.

He looked at her with worry, fearing that at last she had understood the situation and become afraid. He knew not what to say. It had been too long since he had interacted with anyone personally. So, he turned to what he knew. Gently he hurried to one of the large black walls, covered with sound equipment and instruments and retrieved a pale yellow acoustic guitar. He found his way to a stool and sat down, adjusting his microphone, so that she would be able to hear him plainly.

"How many times do I have to tell you, even when you're crying you're beautiful too...My heads under water but I'm breathing fine." He sang softly, his eyes yearning for her to turn and meet his own. But there was a fear within his heart. That where she'd look too intently for too long, she might read the extent of his affection plainly.

Catherine turned and glanced at "Christopher", tears rolling down her rosy cheeks.

"Cause all of me, loves all of you," he sang, closing his eyes, but frowning slightly in intense concentration as he tried to put the words as his own, to convey his heart the only way he could. Through the music that tied them together.

Upon sudden inspiration, Catherine harmonized with him, singing an octave higher, "You're my end and my beginning. Even when I lose, I'm winning..."

They're two voices melted together in a beautiful symphony.

Catherine watched as the man before her got lost in the music. Suddenly a thought entered her mind that she couldn't purge. Before she could stop herself, Catherine moved over to her friend -if she could call him that- and gently removed his mask.

There are moments that define us. Moments that take small things, like notes and friends and roses and turn them into memories and emotions beyond that limited spectrum of human thought.

He looked at her in a terror, his voice cut off but fingers still playing in hopes he only dreamed the horror that was the cold air on his burned and scarred cheek.

Catherine stared at him, eyes wide, but with pity and curiosity, not terror. "So I give you all of me," she sang shakily, her eyes fixed nervously to his own.

His shock deepened, embarrassment and fear still twisting knots in his stomach.

However, the words came easy now, rolling easily off his tongue as he gently swayed back and forth to the beat.

He looked at her in awe, never once turning his attention to the finger board, never once pausing to feel his calloused fingers pluck against the metallic strings.

The only thing he felt was her. Her meaning and thoughts showing themselves bare before him. A gift he would never dare to ask. Too beautiful, he thought, for a man as wretched as him.

Why did she not run away? Why did she not flee in a terror as she did on stage before Erik?

Catherine drew closer to the man. She put her hand on his cheek and he leaned into her touch.

The man put down the guitar and looked at Catherine.

Both just stayed in their place, not saying a word. Each gazed intensely into the other's eyes.

Catherine felt a strange feeling in her chest, one she hadn't felt in a long time. Not even when she met Caleb. Could this be...love?