Nina did not sleep the night before Erik's fate was to be decided. She had been having nightmares again, the kind of nightmares only quelled by her husband's arms around her and his voice in her ear and his soul in her soul. She had lost weight, too, and shadows had crept beneath the violet eyes that were sore from crying.

In the morning, Emily had to help her dress because she hadn't the energy herself, and she didn't want the maid to touch her. She pulled a simple green dress out of the wardrobe where her things had been put, and was both confused and exasperated when tears suddenly started to spring from the young woman's eyes in complete silence. She hadn't realized she had selected the very dress Nina had worn when she married Erik. Nina told her this and Emily made to put it back and retrieve another one, but the teary woman stopped her.

"No," She whispered. "I want to wear it."

Emily didn't say anything as Nina slipped into the dress, but left when she heard the baby crying down the hall. Nina was left alone to the mirror and her thoughts.

Within herself, it felt as if she had already given up. The evidence was great, Phillip had told her, and the pressure from the French justice to convict was heavy. If Erik was not convicted, it would most definitely mean relations problems between England and France, who were already in quite a tense spot as it was. Even if they had found the wrong man, which they hadn't, there would still be pressure for a conviction, pressure from France and from the people.

As Nina examined her face in the mirror, things seemed very bleak.

There was a knock at the door. "Nina?" It was Victor. "I think we should leave soon."

Erik sat before the justices of assize. He felt as if his heart should be pounding wildly, like a rabbit's caught in a cage, but it was not. Instead, he was eerily calm. He had set his affairs with Lefevre. He had meditated within himself. Now there was only the end to discuss, and he was willing to discuss it calmly.

While he waited for the whole affair to start, he peered disinterestedly at the contents of the Old Bailey. Though quite grand on the outside and in the entrance hall, the room where his trial was to take place was quite boring. There had been an effort to ornament the room with various symbols significant to English history, but as Erik examined the room he was instilled with the contemptuous retort that he could do far better.

He stood in the defendant's booth, and, though he felt the eyes of the jurors in the booth to his right observing him, he refused to turn to grace them with the full view of his face. He was not to speak to them, but he had a very strong urge to mock them for their unabashed staring.

Instead of doing this, he instead examined the judges before him in their long curly white wigs and their sweeping black robes. They were, likewise, examining him. Some of them looked at him with expressions of contempt, others disgust, others pity. These expressions all annoyed him, but it was the pity that irked him the most. He had experienced more in his life than all of these collective men, knew more, thought more, and yet they pitied him because of his face. Perhaps, some months ago, he would have taken this pity without another thought, but Nina had instilled within him the pride he had always lacked in his life, and now he saw this pity as wrong and ungracious.

He scoffed silently, and the judge in the very center caught his eye. Erik knew this man from the English newspapers. He was Lord Smith, nicknamed Lord Noose by the grittier tabloids, and, as the latter name implied, he had a reputation of favoring the greatest sentence possible, that of death. He had never expected the well known Lord to appear as he did, pudgy, thoughtful, distant. Unlike his fellow lords, he looked into Erik's eyes rather than at his face, much like Lefevre did, but Erik could not tell what the man was thinking about. He was, however, quite sure that this would be the man who would ultimately declare his death. Erik turned his head slightly to the side to peer closer at the justice, who immediately looked away as his right hand fellow said something to him.

Erik scoffed silently again. He was tired of waiting. The jurors were here, the justices were, the prosecutor was here, his defendant was here. Why were they waiting to begin? Somewhat frustrated but refusing to show anything but the utmost patience, he glanced about in the balconies. This was where the spectators sat and watched the process and, as this was quite a notable process regarding Erik, not a single seat was empty and many were left standing in order to pursue the hour's course.

Nina was in the spectators balcony to his far left, but he could not bring himself to look at her. She was the only person in the room who would look at him like an actual man, but for some reason he could not bear to look at her. He knew, instinctively, that it would hurt him far too much. He didn't want his last look of her to be one of pain and separation. He didn't want to see her sorrow and to know how much he had inflicted on her. All the same, however, he could feel those violet eyes on his back.

A small boy walked into the room and trotted up to the justices' stand where he handed the nearest one a small, pink colored envelope. The man opened it, squinted to read its contents, and passed it to the next man. This process was repeated until each Lord had read the note. The last man to receive it put it down when he was finished, and the lot of them swelled very importantly and looked up at the gathering. Suddenly, one of the judges Erik did not recognize cleared his throat, shuffled some papers, and looked up at the collective to say, "Shall we begin with our celebrity case?" The aged man gave a small smile.

He had made a joke, and there was a slight murmur of amusement throughout the spectators, but it only served to irk Erik even more. His end was to be decided for him and there was laughter. "Imbeciles." He muttered through clenched teeth, but it did not go unnoticed by the men before him.

"What was that, defendant?" The same man said, looking at Erik darkly.

"Only whispering a word to my Lord, my lord." He said, smoothly.

"Ah, well," The justice said, uncertainly. "Very well then. There are no reprimands for piety here. Not in this country, at least." Another murmur of laughter tickled through the spectators, but Erik kept silent this time. "Alright, then, let us begin."

The prosecuting lawyer stepped forward. He was a thin man with dark, limp hair that was gathered behind him in a queue and looked quite insignificant. He had a piece of parchment in his hands, and handed it to the center justice.

"This session concerns one Erik Perrault, known more commonly by the title Phantom of the Opera." The justice paused to let the spectators absorb this information, and from behind him Erik heard Lefevre hiss, "Allegedly! Allegedly known as the Phantom of the Opera!" He didn't bother speaking any louder, however, and Erik kept his irked eyes on the center justice.

"The charges are as follows," The man continued. "Homicide, kidnapping, rape, torture, obscene conduct, extortion, theft, the falsification of documents," The man paused and looked up at Erik, looking almost pleased with himself. "Terrorism, arson, and the destruction of historical property."

"What! We weren't informed of those last three charges!" Lefevre hissed again, but it wasn't to be argued. The justice was already continuing.

"These charges are in relation to the well publicized events of some months ago, which occurred on the night of November the seventeenth, and in which a so called Opera Ghost haunting Paris' l'Opera Populaire interrupted a performance, caused mass destruction to a very expensive chandelier, and kidnapped a young performer by the name of Christine Daae." Erik had to keep himself from smirking as the man struggled to pronounce the surname Daae. "This so called Opera Ghost in question then removed Daae to the catacombs beneath the opera house where he held her for a short amount of time before Miss Daae was rescued by her fiancé, the Viscount Raoul de Chagny." Several of the justices raised their eyebrows at this; Erik wondered if they had ever before presided over a case riddled with such drama. "By the time other individuals arrived to apprehend the perpetrator, the chambers were empty. A city and then country wide alert was put out by the state of France in order to apprehend the criminal, but for many months there was no further information on his whereabouts."

The man paused to turn a page. "On the night of June the eleventh of this year, Scotland Yard was called to the residence of one Victor Finch, where a gathering was being held for the sake of the defendant and," The justice paused and his brow bent into a quizzical expression. "Where a gathering was being held for the sake of the defendant and his new wife, who had been previously acquainted with Finch and his family. That evening a man who has been identified as one Lord Armand de Rousseau attended the gathering uninvited and attempted to attack the defendant's wife while she was alone on the balcony. Discovering this, the defendant struggled with the Lord Rousseau, eventually drowning him in a nearby fountain. The mask that the defendant previously wore in order to conceal his deformity was exposed to the water of the fountain and subsequently fell away. After being examined by the present investigators, the defendant was arrested as he matched the physical description of France's Opera Ghost."

The justice paused and exhaled loudly, as if thankful his long speech was over with. "Now, we shall listen to the evidence against and for the defendant's case."

The prosecutor stepped forward. It would be his turn first.

"After the defendant's initial arrest," The prosecuting lawyer began in a high and self important voice. "A deeper investigation was performed by the investigators of Scotland Yard to ensure that they had, indeed, found the right, uh, man." The ratlike man said this as if to imply that he was no man at all, and Erik had to suppress a twitch in his right hand. Be calm, he ordered to himself. Be calm. "The evidence that the investigators collected was indeed significant and agreed with their initial assumption. First and foremost, it was found that the defendant was a Frenchman, as the suspect was known to be, and that he had left France for England just a short time after the events of November the seventeenth occurred." The man paused, raised his eyebrows, and swiveled his gaze so that it was trained directly on an Erik who, despite his inner anger, still looked utterly calm and collected on the outside. "It was found that the travel documents the defendant had used to enter England, as well as those of his young female companion, who would later become his wife, were falsified."

Erik sensed Lefevre tense behind him. He had not been informed that he and Nina had not been married on their initial meeting with him.

"The defendant and his female companion quietly slipped into England and set up residence in London. They lived for some time together while unwed, marriage registration papers confirming that they did not marry until some months after their arrival in England." The man paused to let the jury ponder this, and this time it was Erik who tensed. He knew that it would not be in his legal favor for the jurors to know that he had lived and shared a bed with a woman who was not legally his to do so with. "It was after and because of their marriage that the gathering was held at Victor Finch's residence, where Lord Rousseau, a notable French-English citizen was intentionally drowned by the defendant, as he so admitted himself to Scotland Yard when they arrived, and so several witnesses who were at the gathering confirmed.

The prosecutor turned to directly address the jury now. "So, to summarize, the dates of his travel, the suspicious falsification of documents, the indecent conduct performed with his wife, the murder of Lord Rousseau, and, most notably, his physical appearance, all give evidence that the defendant, Erik Perrault, is the individual known as the Phantom of the Opera, and who, most certainly, is guilty of the charges previously presented."

As the prosecutor finished his presentation and reasoning, there was a moment of silence given to the jury to allow them to think, and then, unexpectedly, Lord Smith spoke, and his voice was significant enough to make every single individual in the room turn to look at him.

"As the prosecution has now explained the evidence, I think it is good time for the defense to present theirs." The man said. He had been attentive and interested since the start. "I, for one, am very interested in one peculiar point. When the defendant was apprehended, contact was made with the French government. According to their records, no man by the name Erik Perrault ever existed. So I must ask," He looked directly at Erik now, and as before he looked into his eyes rather than at his face in a very puzzled way. "Who, precisely, are you?"

"That," Erik began in his melodious voice. "Is a very long story. But I shall be glad to tell it."

Two chapters in one week? I think I'm on a roll or something. I had to do a lot of research for this chapter, so I would greatly appreciate any reviews you might have for me. I give a special thanks to those of you who have inquired into my health and wished me well. Your understanding has, more than once, brought me to tears. There's not much more to this story left, but I do hope you all enjoy the rest. I am having surgery the day after Easter, so I will be on plenty of bed rest, which means that I will have plenty of time to write. To be completely honest I don't know how I'm going to finish this thing, but please expect the next chapter in a reasonable amount of time. ;) TTFN.