A/N Hi everyone! Another story for your reading pleasure (or not, as the case may be;) Let me just say up front, that this is not E/C. Sorry to those expecting it, but I hope you give it a shot all the same. This fic begins in the dark days of the Paris Commune, a fascinating bit of French history if you're interested. Leroux's book touched upon it and so did Kay's.

This story will ramble a bit, and gradually lead up to the events in the book and hopefully beyond, but if the interest isn't there, I won't waste my time and yours and I'll wrap it up around ten chapters or so. But it will have an ending...I won't leave unfinished stories behind cluttering up the site. Way too many of those as it is.

Please review. It's the meat and potatoes of any ff writer. You don't want me to starve, do you? One word or a hundred, dear reader, and anything in between...it's your call.

We start off with a T-rating, but that may change further into the story. Okay, I'll shut up now :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Phantom of the Opera in any way shape or form, except my ongoing interest in its haunting story and characters.

Paris- 1871

It wasn't the cold and damp that demoralized her. Nor was it the absence of sunlight for the fifth straight day. The lack of privacy in the cell that she had shared with two other frightened souls was endurable simply for the scant comfort they provided. And now they too were gone- taken away during the endless night of the underground. But none of those things brought her as low as the disappearance of the eyes that she had come to expect. She first saw them not long after she and the others were rounded up on the street- poked and prodded into the unfinished opera house. The eyes had become a beacon to her; something for her troubled mind to latch on to and steady her increasing spiral into utter hopelessness. The last time they had stared fixedly at her, the middle aged factory worker in the cell next to hers was being led away. The man never returned. And neither had the glowing yellow eyes which observed her with an animal-like intensity, hovering in the gloom as though unattached to anything corporeal.

She asked the others if they saw them in the dark passage outside the dungeon. The look they gave her, closed her mouth in a hurry. Cosette eyed her worriedly, but Madame Bellard only laughed. Louise thought the old woman was losing her mind.

"Ay, girl. We are all of us seeing things in this Godforsaken hole. Poor Georges won't any longer." The sharp tongued seamstress turned her head and coughed. "At least he doesn't have to worry anymore about an empty belly." Her look was sly. "Too bad you aren't a more comely wench. It may have spared you for a while longer, I'm thinking. But you're a skinny little thing and plain as brown paper."

Cosette cast a surly glance Claudine's way. "No need to frighten her anymore than she already is! Or me. You don't know that Georges won't come back." She clutched her thin shawl closer and turned to the other girl, whose face was nearly leached of color, appearing as if her blood was a used up commodity. "You're tired, Louise. And hungry. That's all. It's causing you to see what isn't there." She stared into the blackness beyond the fitful guttering of torchlight at each end of the chamber. "I don't blame you for seeing things though- maybe it was the devil himself you saw, and this is Hell." She crossed herself and looked up at the ceiling in tired wonderment. "Who would believe there's an entire theatre above our heads?"

"It's not so much of a theatre now, if it ever was; it wasn't finished before this insanity, and if peace ever returns to us, they will be weeks cleaning up the blood and offal left behind." Madame Ballard watched the younger girl's face blanch even more and warmed to her subject. "They turned it into a hospital of all things. I heard it said that one wall was stacked high with severed arms and legs. There's so many dead lyin' about, there's barely any room for the living! Why, I was told they-"

"You are trying to frighten her again, madame," Cossette said wearily. "There is no hospital up there. Long before we were brought here, the place was already being used to store military goods." She turned to the other girl with a forced smile. "Louie, remember that enormous balloon we saw not long ago? It landed on the opera house roof that day. Wasn't it exciting? Spying on the Prussians someone told us."

Louise nodded tiredly, but her imagination was still stuck on bloody piles of limbs lying about on the marble floors of the grand entrance. She would have been horrified a month ago at such a terrible thing, but she never blinked at this bit of barbarity now. She still believed it was true. She leaned her head against the stone wall, trying to ignore the sharp pinching in her belly. Twice a day they were given a slice of bread each, and a jug of stale water to be shared with their cell mates. Against her will, she thought of the fresh bread and jam she had once eaten and taken for granted, her mouth watering in remembrance at the same time her eyes did. She knuckled the tears away, and huddled into herself, drawing her knobby knees up to her chin. Maybe she was hallucinating those eyes. An owl maybe, or perhaps a cat. No. As incredible as it seemed, they were human. Of course they were, and she had seen eyes very similar to those, three months past. To her fourteen year old self, it was a lifetime ago.

It had been near the end of January during an icy rain, the roads empty of people. Only the very brave or the very desperate ventured out when the cannon fire began. Most stayed indoors and huddled in their cellars during the heavy Prussian shelling of the city. After hours of pure terror and misery, the bombardment finally ended, and members of the National Guard dodged the smoking rubble left behind. They avoided the carcasses, animal or human foolish enough to be caught in the maelstrom of hellish noise and flesh-rending shrapnel. They evaded the debris of those unlucky enough to have a shell make a direct hit on the home they had once considered safe. The men came down Louise's street with provisions to hand out to the starving citizenry, and her mother had sent her out to get one of the hard to attain packages of food.

"Don't talk to them Louise. Just take the food. They must never know your father was a conscript in the army. If the Communards knew this, they would make life even more miserable for us, if possible." Her face was worn and sad, hardly the pretty young woman her father used to pick up as though she weighed nothing and kiss repeatedly, while her mother clutched his broad shoulders and feigned indignity with laughing eyes. Louise had watched their playful antics, happy because they were happy. The face looking at her in the harsh light of a winter's day, had aged immeasurably from grief and the madness of the Prussian siege.

She had heeded her mother, and was able to procure a coveted food package for them. That night, she crept out their back door with a few small pieces of bread. If her mother knew she was doing this, there would be hell to pay, for every scrap of food was precious and not to be wasted on a stray. "Here, little cat. Come, come," she crooned. She had discovered the small feline one morning in a corner of their alley. It was like the rest of Paris- dispirited and hungry. She sneaked a meal to it every chance she got, and now the striped cat needed the food more than ever, for she had recently given birth. She told no one about them- pets had become scarce in the city; dogs, cats, and even horses were considered viable sources of food for the starving populace.

She called to the scrawny cat in a soft voice, and looked to the back corner of the alley where she kept her little family in a nest of refuse. A slight noise made her look up, and she sucked in a sharp breath when she gazed into the yellow eyes of a predator beaming down at her. She backed up hurriedly, tripping in her haste to get away and sat down hard in a puddle of icy water. The alley was a dead end, the brick of the next apartment building making up the back wall.

Frightened, she scrambled to her feet, and turned to race into the house, when a chilling voice stopped her. "Wait."

Something in that one soft word gave her pause; that, and the fact that she was struck dumb by what she had seen. She had one hand on the doorknob, but turned without conscious thought, to face those disturbing eyes once more, when voices could be heard from the street out front.

"He came this way, I tell you. We should split up and cover both sides of the road. If we don't catch him soon, there won't be any provisions left." Someone muttered a quiet protest, and the first man snarled at him, "Damn your eyes for an imbecile! He's hit the store room every night this week." He nudged the man standing beside him. "You'll be the next one face down in a ditch if he does it again."

The man spat in the mud, glancing around at the street where people were now drifting out of their homes in their usual hesitant manner. It was the animal instinct for self preservation, inbred in the human race- as though every ten years God decreed a war to test the French mettle to survive. "Renee was strangled. Whatever that thing was, it broke his neck. He spat again, and hefted his weapon. "It broke his fucking neck! Give me five minutes alone with the bastard. He'll get both ends of this rifle! That was half the food we had stashed away- he took it practically from under our very noses!"

They stood there indecisively, and Louise could just make them out in the meager light from the kitchen. National Guard soldiers- members of the Commune. She turned and looked into the nocturnal eyes again before moving closer to their back door. Whatever creature was in the alley with her, it was black as pitch and resembled nothing more than a large bird of prey. But it seemed to be waiting for her to call out to the soldiers. Expecting it.

"Louise? Child, what are you doing out here? It's not safe. Come inside."

The soldiers in the street heard her mother and called out to them, "Madame, have you seen anyone around here in the last half hour? Someone suspicious?"

Her mother had stepped out the door, and pulled her daughter toward her. "Suspicious? That could well be half the population of this Godforsaken city! But, no. No, I haven't. Come, Louise," her mother said firmly, and tugged on her arm with more force.

"Mama? Mama-" She couldn't get the words to leave her mouth. She had been intending to call attention to the strange creature in the alley with them, but instead said nothing.

"What about your girl there? Seen anyone, mam'selle? A tall, very thin... man. Moves like one of those alley cats always skulking around. It wasn't more than a half hour ago."

Again she felt the seconds slow down and hang there, everything seeming to hinge on her answer. She could almost feel his eyes scorching the back of her neck, for he was more than likely the man for whom they were searching. Her skin prickled. "No, monsieur. N-No one."

Time righted itself and moved on. Her mother had dragged her into their shabby apartment, and shut the door on the inhospitable night, and the shade hovering silently in the corner.

She hadn't seen him since that winter evening, but she was sure he was here in the cellar with them now. And in the oddest way, staring into those strange eyes gave her comfort. Especially when they came for Claudine Bellard. She turned to Louise and Cosette, a film of greasy sweat on her brow, and her eyes shining with terror.

"Pray for me," she cried in a faint voice. "Oh, but I feel sick-"

"It is merely a few questions, then you'll be released. Answer them honestly and you will be on your way in no time at all," the friendlier of the guards told the frightened woman. Not that anyone believed it.

The two Guardsmen led her away to catcalls and insults from the other inhabitants of the cells- mostly men. Louise cried a few tears for Madame Bellard, even though the woman for the most part had been mean to her. Cold and hungry, she fell into an exhausted doze, only to be awakened by Cosette.

The older girl sat down beside her on the iron cot bolted to the wall. There were only two filthy beds in the narrow cell, and the two girls had shared one. Now they each had their own, but continued to sleep together for the warmth each could bring, but more important than even that tiny comfort, was the solace of shared misery. "You were crying out, Louie. The dream again?"

Louise nodded wearily and scrubbed at her hollow eyes. "It's this blackness. There's no natural light at all down here," she paused, staring sightless into the dark, "and the catacombs are close to where we are, aren't they?"

"Yes. I-I think so. The dream. What was it about?"

"It's always the s-same. I'm approaching a room at the end of the hallway and push open the door. I am angry for some reason- I don't know why, but I want to lash out at...at someone. Anyone. Underneath the anger and s-sorrow though, there is a warm feeling like coming home after a long, harrowing day, and knowing I will be...safe and...and cherished. Knowing..." A shiver rippled violently through her, and the other girl rubbed Louise's arms briskly.

"Go on," Cosette prompted softly.

"...knowing I will be loved," she said finally. "There is very little light, but enough to see a man in a...a bed, I-I think. I can't see his face because it's in shadow, b-but he's so still, and...and-" She dropped her face into her hands, her voice muffled. "I can't look, I am so frightened of what I will see! But I know it's horrible- I don't want to look." Louise stared up at her friend. "S-Sometimes I'm almost afraid to close my eyes."

Cosette was her best friend, and for the most part they managed to hold each other together, propping one another up when despair chipped away at their tiny bit of optimism. But dreams no longer bothered Cosette; the nightmare was being awake. She comforted the girl as well as she could. "They seem real, don't they? They can't hurt you though. Myself, I take every opportunity to sleep. It gets me away from here when I do."

Louise's eyes were shadowed with fear. "If a time comes when I look at its face, that is when I will die." she whispered with unshakable conviction. "I know it." She leaned against the wall and regarded her friend with lost hope. "Why are they keeping us? What have we done that is so wrong, except try to stay alive?"

The older girl looked tiredly at her friend. "We're pawns, Louise. That's all this is. Someone, I don't know, maybe a neighbor or...or a shop keeper whispered in somebody's ear, that we were against the Commune. The Republic takes hostages and the Communards answer in kind." Her sigh was harsh. "They think they can get information from us as though we actually know something of value. Just keep us locked up in the cold and dark, then after a few days of watching our cell mates leave, we will cave in." She stared out the bars, feeling numb with cold and fatigue. "Pah! We are in the middle of warring factions that are both dangerous to the innocent. At the rate things are going, there won't be anyone left in Paris before this madness is over."

She took hold of the girl's icy hand, and stared hard at her. "There's always hope, Louie. You must remember that! They take us away one by one and interrogate us, then-" She shrugged her slender shoulders. "Who knows? Maybe Georges and Madame Bellard...and the others, were exchanged for Republic prisoners. Why, they did exactly that the week before." She held her arms out to the girl. "Come. We can share our body heat to keep warm."

Louise sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She stared at the dreary cell, clutching her friend tightly, and remembered better days when their worries were simple ones, and dying was an eternity away. Her eyes fluttered shut, exhaustion taking over.

Two days later, Cosette was taken from their cell.

Louise stood and watched as her friend was dragged away. They had been led out to the latrines as they were every morning, then fed a meager breakfast on their return. When the guards approached their cell once more, Louise started to tremble, her fear growing with every step closer to the cell that they came. When the husky guard named Luc opened the door and stepped in, both girls as one, backed to the wall, holding tightly to one another.

"You there," he said gesturing to Cosette, "we're takin' another walk. Just a short one. Come." He reached for her, and the girls pressed back into the wall as though flesh and bone could be absorbed into the dank stone.

The second guard joined the first, and the older girl started to unwind her arms from her friend's. Tears in her eyes, she kissed Louise on one dirty cheek and pulled away. "God be with you, L-Louise. I will see you soon." Looking back one last time, she was led away, nearly swallowed between the much larger men. "...s-soon!"

Devastated, Louise slid to her knees, and put her face against the iron bars. "Please, please! Don't hurt her. Her name is Cosette and she has done nothing wrong." Her knuckles ached from grasping the cell door, horrified at how powerless they all were. Sorrow and anger raged within her slight frame.

"Holy Father. I want to sleep now. I want to sleep and dream only good things." She said it over and over, desperately willing herself back in her bed at home. She grasped the bars tighter. Cosette!" she called to the terrified girl, "Cosette, I will pray for your safe return home!"

The other inmates of the cells began their strident cacophony of sound, the fetid air filled with jeers and curses. Louise moaned and slumped against the bars, squeezing her eyes shut. Minutes crawled by, but finally she crept to the back of the cell and huddled there, shivering uncontrollably. She had no more tears.

In the morning, the women were led to the pit latrines as they were twice a day- once in the morning and again in the early evening. The only reliable way to tell the time of day was the changing of their guard, and the dubious care given to the hostages. Louise knew it was early in the morning by the arrival of the surly day guards, who lined the women up to lead them to the latrines. There were six women, and roughly the guards shoved them into a line, even though their was no need for their brutishness. Louise shuffled along with the others and quickly finished up, always self-conscious and embarrassed with the guards close by.

Nearing the dungeon area, she happened to glance up. And just like that, the glowing eyes were there once again, seeming to wink in and out of sight. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. They were still there, and to the young girl, it was like seeing a good friend after a long absence. Tears made tracks through the dirt on her face after an entire night of being alone and scared, grieving for Cosette.

Not wishing to call attention to him, she reluctantly looked away. As they crossed another passage, the rear Guardsman went sprawling to the ground. Louise was suddenly grabbed by the back of her dress and plucked from the rear of the line as neatly as though she weighed nothing at all. She heard her dress rip as she was yanked unceremoniously backward, and automatically began to struggle. Cold hands tightened inexorably on her, and the voice from the alley was hissing into her ear.

"Be still, dreary girl, or they can have you back." She instantly ceased fighting him, not relishing the idea at all.

The two guards rounded up the group of women into a tight circle, and looked in disbelief at their comrade lying on the ground. It was then that they noticed the girl was missing. "She took him by surprise and knocked him out," said one.

"You're a damn fool, Pascal! That wisp of a girl couldn't have overpowered him even with a cocked gun! He tripped over something and hit his head when he fell. Luc is so fuckin' clumsy I'm amazed he can walk upright half the time. That girl just wandered off somewhere."

"What should we do? Go after her?"

"She could be anywhere, and I'm not looking for her. You go if you want. The only thing we have to do is get these women back to their cells. Forget the damned girl. She won't last very long down here," he snorted. "She'll be wishin' she was back in her cell; there's thieves and cutthroats in this hellhole, and they would love tender new flesh like hers- even bony as she is. A little young for my taste," he said, eying the buxom hostage standing near him, "but female all the same." He turned, and in the feeble light from the lantern, stared hard at the remaining women. "Say nothing, you hear?" His voice dripped with menace. "Your food rations could be cut in half- think you're hungry now? Speak of this, and you will find out what hunger truly is."

Luc, by this time was sitting up groggily, holding his bleeding head. "Someone hit me," he mumbled, looking up at the other two men.

Pascal nervously stepped closer to the other guard. "I hate this place. You and I both know it would be easy to disappear down here. It's already happened a time or two. This is Satan's unholy ground."

"More like the Devil's fat ass." Luc touched his forehead gingerly. "Did anyone else see a cat?"

"There's no cat down in this stinkin' armpit! You've been in the dark for too long."

They helped him to his feet, and with a last look over their shoulders, they took the women back to the dungeon.

He tugged the girl along behind him, only slowing down when she went to her knees, having trouble keeping up with his much longer strides. With bruising fingers, he grasped her wrist and yanked her to her feet.

"Please, monsieur-" as she winced from a scraped knee.

"I should just leave her here. She's nothing to me, but a spindly little nuisance," he muttered, used to conversing with no one but himself.

"Monsieur?"

He turned and looked at her. He could see her quite clearly, as he surveyed the girl up and down. He had acted out of a rare moment of charitableness. It hadn't been planned on his part- he just happened to be in the side passage when the Guardsmen came through with the women, and didn't think twice about what he was doing. Kindness was not something to which he was familiar- giving or receiving it. It was an uncommon occurrence- her silence that evening in the alley assured his escape, and the unbidden impulse was to pay her back in kind- which he already regretted. He had never spared a thought for anyone but himself.

Louise though, saw nothing but a faint silhouette in the gloom. "Where are you taking me?" she asked him timidly.

He stopped and appeared to be thinking, and she waited patiently, until he turned his lantern-like eyes on her. Standing next to the man, she felt very small and inconsequential, for the feral eyes were far above her. She felt a stirring of fright- she didn't know the man's name or why he had rescued her. For the first time she wondered if this creature whom she had never actually seen, was indeed someone to fear. Was no one safe anymore? she thought wearily.

He never meant to help her; he merely acted on an impulse to free her from the dungeons, for she would have been next to die- questioned for answers she didn't have, and then led to another part of the vast cellars to join a group of equally frightened hostages and shot. War has very little active conscience. His thin lips peeled back from his teeth. They invaded his home, stopped work on the most beautiful house of music in the entire world, and forced him to slink in and out of the mammoth unfinished building to escape detection.

Yes. Where to take her? He only wanted to wash his hands of the girl. He was not a disciple of altruism. Had no wish to be a hero. No. Not at all. "I'll get you out of the theatre, mam'selle, then you may go wherever you like."

She felt relief and trepidation at the same time. Prior to her arrest, she was living on the streets, and lucky to have remained unmolested. "Do you live near the opera house, monsieur?"

He swallowed a laugh. "Close enough." Louise glanced uneasily at him, hearing that deep-throated chuckle which raised the fine hairs on her neck.

As they walked, she wondered about her strange companion. What was he doing in the opera house? Was he there just to free her? Timidly, she attempted to show her gratefulness, "Thank you for what you did. I-"

"Soldiers," he hissed, and grabbed her arm again. Turning neatly around, he quickly reversed direction, tugging her behind him. They had been walking steadily upward, her companion slightly in front and Louise following close behind, when he had thrown an arm out to stop her.

Sure enough, she heard the voices of several men coming their way. The man impatiently pulled her along, lengthening his stride, and once more she was forced into keeping up with his longer legs. They reached a corridor with passages to the left and right; in the right passage, the sounds of shuffling feet could be heard, and her yellow eyed companion veered to the left. "Change of plans, girl. We seem to be surrounded at the moment. You shall be my house guest for a time. As much as I'm certain you do not wish it, I can assure you, neither do I."

Louise couldn't summon a reply for him. She was very busy just trying to stay on her feet. Unfortunately, she had come to expect a life filled with sorrow and woe. This development was merely a wrinkle. At least she wasn't sitting alone in a cell, waiting for her own death. She had no idea what would happen to her- she didn't have any choice in the matter. She said nothing, but let him lead her onward into the darkness.

Who's with me? Show of hands, please.