A/N: So here's the skinny. In my LND fic I had Raoul musing on if Erik had been discovered as a child instead of escaping to the Opera House (it doesn't matter if you've read that one or not) so I decided to write it. RnR please.

The Comte Damien de la Roche traversed the traveling Gypsy circus, it was rather later than he expected to be out but the performance had been lovely at the Opera de Populaire and he was hoping to find a little something interesting for his son, Robért and was determined to hunt about the various stalls until he found it.

How he ended up in the freak tents was out of simple curiosity, he was not one to jeer or throw things at the occupants of the cages or booths, he kept his distance and only gazed ever so slightly before turning and leaving. So why he would even go into the black and red tent with the dripping words 'Devil's Child' scrawled across the front banner was beyond him but there he was, looking down at a boy in a sack hood crouching in straw at the bottom of a cage and Damien could not suppress a shudder at the conditions.

He was about to leave when the barker pushed into the tent and into the cage, beat the child mercilessly then removed his hood, forcing the child to look up by grabbing a fistful of messy locks of hair and yanking him upright and then the crowd went mad.

Damien's eyes widened as he looked upon the child's visage but not in shock or horror but pity as the boy scrambled to cover his face again and that was when the Comte could no longer stand it,

"Villains!' He roared, and being a large man with a deep voice he was instantly the center of focus, "How dare you! You would heap insult and abuse upon a child? What horrendous monsters are you? My own son in a cage would be no less shocking yet how many would cry out in outrage over him than this poor boy's predicament!"

All was quiet as Damien raged at them, his heart cracking at every turn, this was the ultimate low of human kind, this was the world he lived in and the one his son would inherit? Not on his watch.

The tall Frenchman walked up to the barker, "I will give you 500 Francs for the boy."

The members of the crowd that hadn't tried to scuttle off in the wake of Damien's fury looked at each other in mixture of apprehension and confusion. The barker's mouth hung open and he couldn't take the money fast enough before turning and leaving with a muttered 'take the freak' over his shoulder.

Damien glared after the greasy Gypsy then turned and looked at the boy who cowered in a corner, the Comte quickly softened his features and held a hand out,

"It is alright, child, I only bite when angered." He smiled a little and saw the scrawny shoulders immediately relax and the boy scooted forward, undoing the tether from his ankle and hesitantly left the cage, glancing up at Damien before feinting back several paces and standing ready to bolt.

"You have a choice to make now," Damien put both hands on the silver stallion-head pommel on his cane, "You may either come with me where I can promise you warm clothes, food and a bed. Or you may flee this place and find your own way. I did what I did because someone had to act otherwise I would be no more human than the dancing bear they have here."

The boy glanced over his shoulder then seemed to consider something before nodding to himself and slowly, carefully moving closer to Damien, clutching the toy monkey he had to his chest and shivering,

" . . . I . . . I am cold." He whispered in a voice weak and strained from disuse. Or quite possibly this wasn't quite a child but a young man on the cusp of manhood, it was difficult to tell with a sack on his head and how thin and emaciated his body was.

Damien nodded and pulled his cloak from his shoulders, he reached forward to remove the sack but the child leaped back and crouched lower to the ground as if he expected an assault,

"I'm not going to harm you, boy, I would just as well not have my cloak soiled by whatever is on that thing. We can cover your head with the cloak."

The boy didn't object further but put his hands in front of his face to hide again until the heavy cloak with the big silver clasp was settled on his head and tucked around him.

"Come along." The Comte led the child away from the crowds and to his private carriage, "We will leave this dismal affair behind."

The boy didn't say anything for a long time before glancing up and pulling the warm cloak closer, "I . . . My name is Erik."

"And mine is Comte Damien de la Roche." Damien said softly, resting his elbows on his knees, "How old are you, Erik?"

" . . . I'm not sure." Erik said, his voice had a haunted quality to it but Damien could not begrudge him of it, the boy had been through too much to not be irrevocably scarred.

"Well then, I suppose we shall have to assign you a birthdate and age, hmm? I would imagine based on your height that you are perhaps 10? 11? That would make you a year or two older than my own child, Robert, who is 9." Damien nodded to himself at this plan, "It isn't important right now, what we will concern ourselves with at the present is getting you clean, fed and in some decent clothing. Perhaps not in that order."

"May I ask . . . why? You said someone had to but, why did you do anything?" Erik peeked up from under his scraggly locks and the edge of his makeshift hood.

"Why I did what I did? Because, Erik, you are a child, whether your face is scarred or not, and I cannot abide by someone mistreating children, or women for that matter, the very idea of a little boy not much older than my own being locked in a cage, beaten, and humiliated in front of crowds of unfeeling laymen with nothing better to do with their lives than make a mockery of others less fortunate makes my skin itch and crawl." Damien sat back and Erik looked up enough to get a good look at him.

Erik had caught glimpses of human beings in every facet of life and every shape and form. He'd seen rich and poor, fat and thin, ugly and beautiful all gathered around his cage, but he was not sure if he'd ever seen anyone quite like the Comte. The man was very tall, he had to remove his hat in order to sit in the carriage and not bump his head, but he wasn't old, his face and hair were young and unmarred by time as if he were not human at all but something more. The man's black hair was short and well kept, beard styled to be short and cling to his chin and around his ever-smirking lips and above that was a rather slim nose and bright glittering brown eyes. A handsome man and a rich man and . . . a generous one. Erik had never met another person that gave money away without thinking, he had enough of a grasp of economics and numbers to know that the sum of money Damien threw at the barker was more than most people at the circus had ever seen at one time.

This of course did not mean that Erik was relaxing at all, there was no evidence to support that this man wasn't just like everyone else. This man could be a charlatan and therefore not trustworthy but the offer was tantalizing; food and warm clothes and a bed were . . . luxuries and Erik was loathe to give that chance up. Even so, he had a plan if things went wrong, he would run as far as he could and indeed 'make his own way'.

Erik stepped into the bathroom after Damien, watching the man as he started to get the bath going, he looked around and gaped at the opulence of the room. The claw-foot bath, the mirror and sink and things. Erik was mesmerized by the world he found himself in and couldn't help but want to touch everything but too afraid of doing so and thereby destroying it somehow.

"I'm going to get you something to wear, will you be alright alone?" Damien stood and moved to the door.

Erik nodded and waited until Damien left before investigating the one thing that had his attention more than any other. The mirror. Erik had never seen his reflection but he knew what mirrors did, he had heard talk of the 'Magic Mirrors' the Gypsies set up that warp people images. Erik knew also why he was put in a cage, he knew what scars looked like as he had more disfigurement on his right shoulder and that side of his chest but only a little and he could feel the scarring across his face and when he spoke the corner of his mouth on the right side would pull at the rest of his face like it was connected by a short string, but . . . he'd never actually seen it. So Erik dropped the cloak and moved to the edge of the sink, leaning up on his toes and then lifting his head and looking at himself for the very first time and-

Erik didn't remember crying out or throwing himself away from the mirror but somehow he was sitting on the floor in the corner sobbing, frightened by his own image and suddenly coming to the realization that he was indeed a monster, hideous and twisted, he knew at that moment of why he was put in a cage, why he wore the sack over his head and why Mother had looked at him like that, how she would back away when he wanted her to pick him up, to hold him, why she would lock his bedroom door at night even though his dreams would sometimes scare him and he would want her comfort.

Erik sobbed and huddled further into the corner, weeping pitifully until the door opened and Damien came in again, setting some things down and moving to crouch in front of Erik's shuddering form. The Comte reached over and turned the water off before addressing the boy,

"Whatever is the matter, Erik?"

"M-My face!" Erik gasped, his eyes flitting to the mirror then back down and away from Damien's eyes, "It- I never . . . "

"You've never seen your face before." Damien surmised after glancing over his shoulder at the mirror and sighing, "I see . . . Erik, it is a face, everyone has a face and there's nothing more about it."

"But mine! It's hideous! And-And twisted in the wrong way, like . . . like a melted candle." Erik sobbed and covered said face in his hands, shaking his head miserably, "How can you say there's nothing more?"

"Erik," Damien made the boy look up at him, "You have a mouth, two eyes and a nose. You have a face. There is nothing out of place about it, you are scarred and that is all. Do you see me flinching away?"

Erik swallowed and shook his head, " . . . no."

"There then, it doesn't bother me now that I see it fully, but if it would make you feel better I can have a mask made for you to cover it." Damien stood and gestured to the bath, "Before the water is cold then."

Erik rolled over in the soft bed and groaned, sitting up and swinging his long leg over the side, he'd been scrubbed within an inch of his life but he felt good, clean hair and fingernails and everything felt good. And he was wearing one of Damien's nightshirts which was understandably too big but that was alright for now. But this bed . . . it was too soft.

Erik dragged a pillow and several blankets off the bed and onto the floor. He proceeded to make himself a nest and then curl up snuggly, letting his body warm up the patch of wood flooring and it felt much better to fall asleep now.

A/N: and there you go. I hope you like it thus far, I'm not sure my plans for it quite yet as I normally don't when I write but I truly hope you will enjoy it, dear reader. RnR if you please.