Disclaimer: This is just a little fluff scene (Meg/Phantom pairing) set between the night Christine came back, after they got all the threatening letters, and the Opera later on; during which, Joseph Bouquet dies. All rights and characters belong to Andrew Lloyd Webber, with elements from Gaston Leroux's original story. Read and Review, please!

Just a little song, just once! Just once!

Meg had been practicing for years; almost her whole life, in fact. She took up the hobby as a young girl, around the time Christine came to live at the Opera House with herself and her mother. She hoped that the sound of comforting music would help the younger girl (Christine) to sleep at night, so Meg spent hours and hours in her mother's office; pouring over old music books. She even went so far as to teach herself how to read music. Through this process of tireless work and endless nights without sleep, Meghan Giry taught herself how to do the impossible for a child of only nine:

She taught herself how to play the violin.

But when she presented her gift to Christine…

Meg stood outside the chapel in the Opera Populaire, listening to the soft prayers of Christine from a distance. In her arms, she held the adult sized violin from the orchestra. It was much too big for her to carry, she knew it but there was no other available violin for her to use, so she managed. She had been practicing ever since Christine came to the Opera House when she was seven, and now she was nine: Two whole years of non-stop practicing violin, and doing ballet lessons with her mother and the other ballerinas.

Needless to say, Meg was looking very woefully thin from lack of sleep and lack of food but she felt herself good enough now to present her art to Christine, the daughter of a famous violinist. With a deep breath, the little blonde girl pushed open the door to the chapel and stepped inside.

"Christine?" She called gently. "Are you all right? Are you in here?"

"Meg!" Christine startled as she jumped to her feet. She was just a year younger then Meg, but she acted even younger at times. "What're you doing down here?" She hissed as she hurried to the other girl, speaking in such low tones to make Meg have to lean in closer to hear her. "You'll scare the Angel away."

"What angel?" Meg asked, awed at the idea of an angel coming to the Opera House. She took a quick look around the small, dingy chapel that smelled of rat urine and feces. "I don't see an angel."

"Just listen" whispered Christine as she eagerly took Meg's hand and brought her to the altar that she had been praying at just moments before. Meg followed along, the violin limp in her left hand, and came to stand next to the kneeling Christine. For the longest time, Meg didn't hear anything and soon, gave it up as Christine's grief for the death of her father; probably still fresh in her mind.

"No," Said Meg firmly as she backed from the altar. "You listen for a moment, and close your eyes: I'm going to make a real angel appear." Christine brightened instantly and closed her eyes. Meg smiled as she watched her friend, and clumsily brought the violin to her chin as she sat down. She had to, or she would have dropped the expensive piece of equipment. At first, she took a moment to tune the violin and then flowed haltingly into a small, hesitant violin version of Fur Elise. Christine seemed pleased at first, but then (in her arrogance and hurry to finish, so they wouldn't get caught down here) Meg began to miss notes and hit sours. This upset Christine: Very much so, in fact.

"No! No! No!" She shrieked as she put her hands to her ears. "You're so off tune!" This action and the shrieking cries of Christine made Meg stop. The silence that followed was deafening as Meg looked imploringly at her little friend.

"I just wanted to make you happy, like when your Papa was alive." The blonde said sadly.

"You know how you can make me happy?" Replied the spoiled girl, as she hurried to where Meg was seated. "Don't ever touch a violin again!" She then took the violin from Meg and smashed it against the ground. "The only thing more beautiful than my father's violin playing is the voice of my Angel of Music!" With tears in her eyes, Christine ran full tilt from the chapel and left poor Meghan Giry alone in the chapel; with only her sobs to accompany her in the darkness of the night.

"But that was years ago," Meg said out loud to herself as she snuck down from her room. "Plus, Christine is so busy with her mysterious tutor," She continued to mutter to herself bitterly as she slunk through the shadows of the Opera House. "She won't hear me, even in her sleep: No matter how bad I am."

It took the blonde coquette a little while to reach the orchestra pit, because of how slow she was going, but she managed to get there without being detected, so she thought her trip was a major success. Now, to get into the lockers where they kept all the stringed instruments, she thought as she began to kneel down next to the locker under the seats of the stringed section. She began the slow task of picking the lock, unknowingly watched by a mysterious figure in the dome walkway of the Opera House.

The Phantom had spent most of his time training Christine to take Carlotta's place in the past few weeks, but ever since that foolish fop of a man Raoul had shown up: Christine did not have the time for him anymore, apparently. He was being his normal, brooding self when he noticed the golden hair of an unknown ballerina sneaking into the orchestra pit below. He blinked his mismatched eyes once, then twice as he watched her before slowly creeping down to get a closer look. She's breaking into the instrument locker! He mouthed to himself in amazement as he took a position directly in the seat behind her. The more he watched, the more amused he seemed to become: He had to put a hand to his mouth so he could stifle his laughter as he listened to her curse as she failed again and again to get the locker open. Highly amused, the Phantom decided to speak to this unknown ballerina.

"You know, you're never going to get that open that way."

The sound of that melodic, purring voice (that seemed to come from all directions) was enough to make Meg jump nearly out of her skin as she spun around to see from whom it was coming from but the Phantom had expected her to do such a thing, so he was quick to move his position; his laugh echoing in his wake as he watched her from behind a nearby pillar. "Who's there?" Meghan breathed into the shadow as she looked around desperately.

"No one, if not myself and you" came the cheeky reply from a corner to her left, but when she hurried around the corner to peer behind the chair in question; she found nothing but air and more darkness, the silence broken only by the squeaking of rats as they scurried away. "Why would a little rat like you want into that?" His white gloved hand appeared from behind a nearby chair as he waved at the locker in question.

"Oh, no reason" Came the blithe reply from Meg's pale, chapped lips as she swallowed nervously. "Just…wanted to look at the violins, that is all." She shrugged a little, as if this explained everything but it did not: Not in the Phantom's mind, anyway. No, if anything; it increased his insatiable curiosity.

"Really now?" the Phantom almost chirped in good humor as his form could be heard moving as silky through the shadows as a snake in water. "Can you play?"

"A little" She replied simply as she looked at her feet. Now that her visage was in good light, the Phantom took a moment to look her over. He knew her now that he could see her face: She looked much like her mother did when she was young, did little Meghan Giry. He had watched as she grew up from the shadows, and he had been there that day when she tried to cheer Christine up with her song. It was true that the blonde child at the time was not very good, but he had found Christine's reaction to be quite uncalled for and spent the last two years after that putting the fear of God into Christine for her anger at a friend, who was only trying her best to make her (Christine) happy. But since the flowering of Christine's beauty, the Phantom had forgotten little Meg and focused his attention on the brunette instead. Now that he was looking at the little blonde Ballet rat for the first time in almost ten years, he could see that she too had flowered beautifully: Whereas Christine was a rose in his mind, this one was a rare Lily of the Valley; alone in a murky swamp of unimpressive plants, save for the equally lonely and lovely rose that he so doted on.

"Why don't you play for me then? It can be just you and me," He soothed in a charming manner as he allowed himself to be seen briefly as he took a seat. "And I won't tell a soul, I promise." Meg could see the faint gleam of his strange, mismatched eyes in the shadows just in front of her. She took in a deep breath, before giving a half smile.

"I would, if I could get it open." She waved vaguely to the locker in question as she said this.

"It's easy" He replied quite glibly as he stood up and moved to the locker. His movements were so quick and hard to see that it appeared to her eyes that he opened it with a mere wave of his hand, which she knew had to be just a trick of the light. As the locker sprang open, the Phantom stepped away from her and smiled. He was using the shadows to his advantage, keeping the masked side in the darkness: Let her think that it is just some mysterious handsome man, trespassing, he thought humorously. Meg looked up for the first time, and saw the handsome part of his face, her mind filling in the blanks and making her think she saw the other (just as handsome) side as well, albeit shadowed over. She flushed heavily as she kneeled down and looked through the locker for a violin. Once she found one (one of the older ones, she mused to herself), the blonde stood up gracefully and began dusting it off.

The Phantom watched her as he took his seat again, his arms crossing over his chest as a smirk quirked up on his face. He stayed quiet as he watched her begin tuning it up. Her hand placement was a little off kilter but otherwise, she seemed to know what she was doing…to an extent, at least. "Now, please," She said before she started to play, an imploringly pitiful look on her face as she looked to him. "I haven't played in almost ten years, so please; be kind."

"Of course, ma petite" He said gently with a warm smile. The Phantom could be very genial when he wanted to be, and after the trauma of Christine's rejection; he believed she needed a kind ear…for once, anyway. These gentle words seemed to calm Meg down and she offered a small smile as she began playing what came to her head. It was a song she had heard Christine humming to herself one night, and she decided merely to follow musical theory so she could elaborate on it, even if she didn't know how the actual song went. At first, she was hesitant and unsure of herself but every time she looked up to see a grimace…the only thing she got in reply was a kind, loving smile that she could barely see in the shade around them. This kindness gave her confidence and she began flowing more easily into the song.

The Phantom knew the song, knew it well (well, you should; you wrote it, said the teasing, darkly humored side of himself in his head) but he had intended it to be just for himself and Christine, so how had the Ballet rat heard it? Nevertheless, she was doing quite well: Maybe not in actual playing (she did hit a few sour notes here and there) but what she did do well was preforming it. She swayed and danced about, her hips gyrating as she leapt and twirled in time with the passionate song that he and Christine sang in the catacombs together, not two days previous. Though she did miss a few notes, Meg seemed to have picked up on the spirit of the song with expert timing. He stayed quiet during the entire song, marveling at her ability to mix song and dance in a smooth coil of flawless motion. Here was a girl that could do anything she wanted: She could be a one woman show if she so put her mind to it. She seemed to be completely lost in the song, her eyes closed and her fingers moving without missing but a few beats now and then.

When she was finished, the last few notes of the song bleeding in the silent Opera House, the Phantom was deathly silent for a long while. Slowly, she lowered her violin and looked up at him with wide, brown eyes. "Well?" She asked the fear of rejection obvious in her tones as her eyes began watering. "Horrible, wasn't it?"

The Phantom sighed as he stood up and moved fully into the light, so she could see his masked face. Meg choked on a scream: She had been entertaining the Opera Ghost and not even known it! She stared at him; her eyes wide and nearly bugging out as her mouth hung open delicately, the pale pink of her lips the only color on her save for the blue of the ribbon about her night robe, which would have normally been all white otherwise. He looked down at her petite form from his imposing height of nearly six feet, and gave that soft and warm smile once more. "Far from it, ma petite Cheri" He replied as he reached out and took her hands in his. Her fingers were bleeding from the sharp strings, and he brought them gently to his lips so he could kiss the wounds, and then kiss the tops of both hands. "While you did miss a few notes," He said, starting with kind criticism. "It was not horrible, by any means: You could be a fine violinist, if you pick up your lessons again."

Meg could feel her cheeks burning with pleasure and slight shame at his praise. "Merci, Monsieur Le Fantome." She murmured softly as she lowered her head in a demure gesture of thanks, almost a curtsey. The Phantom smiled again: He had always been fond of the little Giry when she was a child, and now that he had met her as an adult; he found himself quite fond of her. Gently, he took up the violin from her hands and wiped the blood off it, so he could tuck it back into the locker. Once this was done, he turned back to face her.

"I must take my leave, ma petite," He said with a smile and a bow to her. "But I will be watching and listening to you," He winked at her playfully as a laugh threatened to bubble from his lips. Finding her had put him in a much better mood: It also gave him an idea for a violin piece for her to practice, but he'd have to work quickly, so he could deliver it to her by her birthday next month in December. "So practice makes perfect, oui?"

Meg smiled brightly at him. "Yes, of course!" She all but chirped in reply. And with one last, playful tap to her nose, the Phantom seemed to all but disappear; her giggling still ringing in his ears and mind as he made his way down to the lonely catacombs once more.