Been thinking a lot of this story over time, and especially so recently. Life has changed quite a bit…graduated college, started a full time job, got married, bought a house. Interests have changed as well, which is why I have written in years, but given my dissatisfaction with how this story unfolded, I feel I owe it to the readers to edit and re-write this so that it's, well, more realistic for one thing. I hope you enjoy the new elements of this story and grant me patience with likely infrequent updates.

Disclaimer: Despite the fact that most Phans know who wrote the original Phantom of the Opera, I still have to say that I don't own any of the characters.

PG…in this scene, the kiss that sets Christine and Raoul free doesn't take place. This had originally been written based on the movie but…my tastes have seen gravitated more towards Leroux's Phantom. In all likelihood, this will follow the movie premise *reluctant sigh* but will have Leroux Erik's deformity.

Christine

"You try my patience, make your choice!"

I stared in stupefied horror as my fiancé was bound to the gate that served as the entrance to Erik's gothic cavernous home. Erik himself was taunting me with the lasso tied around Raoul's neck, and savoring the words that he was about to hear. I wracked my brain for a way in which Raoul and I could escape together without harm, but after all that had taken place, my mind couldn't possibly think clearly. I tried as best as I could to calm my quivering nerves and hold my composure, but I found it impossible.

My emotions betrayed me as I sobbed my response. "Alright, Erik, I can't fight you anymore. Let Raoul go and I will surrender myself to you." I hung back against the wall, ashamed of myself. Erik released his hold on the ropes, and dragging himself from the dark churning water, pulled the lever that raised the portcullis.

"Christine, please! You can't spend the rest of your days down here with him!" Raoul pleaded futilely.

"Just go, Raoul, there is nothing more you can do," I replied solemnly as I sunk to the floor. The lace and silk from the wedding dress spread itself around me, and I buried my head in the immense fabric. I prayed that when I lifted my head I would be safe in my dormitory bed, having just awoken from a twisted nightmare, but Raoul's voice snapped me back to my cruelly fated reality.

"I promise I will come back for you, my love. I will stop at nothing until you are safely removed from here," he asserted. Then turning to Erik he spat, "This is not the last time you will be seeing me, mark my words, Phantom ." Raoul clambered into the gondola and slowly paddled his way from my prison. Before turning the corner and out of view, he turned back to me and blew me a kiss. I could do nothing but stare helplessly as my love, my savior, rowed away from me, possibly forever.

Erik

I was growing weary of the games these two were playing. I despised the boy, and more so, his love of Christine, my Christine. Having taken advantage of every luxury given him, I was not about to let him have her, only to squander what beauty and innocence she had. Absolutely not.

I knew Christine would give in. What choice did she really have, she wasn't that selfish where she would buy her freedom with bloodshed. When she announced her decision, I couldn't help but smile, though I had also been looking forward to the torture and murder of the younger de Chagny. I untied the boy; I refuse to address him by his Christian name, and raised the barrier extending freedom once more. He climbed into my personal handcrafted gondola with great difficulty, and promised uselessly that he would come back.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," I thought spitefully.

I found Christine crumpled underneath her dirty wedding gown, and helped her to her feet. Her eyes and cheeks were tear-streaked, and I felt a pang of guilt at seeing her in such a disheveled, ineloquent condition. By all means I wanted her to be happy, but I knew it would be difficult to show her that I could make her the happiest woman in the whole of France. I had denied her her childhood friend, her fiancée, her lover, and it would take a great deal of effort and coercion for me to be her Angel of Music once more. But before that, above all, she needed to know now that she was mine.

"Well, my dear, I can't say that I am disappointed by your decision. We have had a trying night, why don't you retire to bed." I offered, trying as best to be supportive despite what she would construe to be cruelty.

She turned to me with a look that I had never her seen cast upon anyone, least of all me. It wasn't a look of anger, but of heartbreak and anguished pain. "Why would you have me make a decision like that?" she asked softly. Without waiting for a reply, she headed the bedroom I had decorated solely with her in mind and slammed the door. I could hear a muffled cry before it was abruptly silenced, possibly by burying her face in a pillow.

By no means was I delighted to see her in this condition, but I also felt that I deserved her more than the boy. She already felt great emotion for me, not quite love, but a strong fondness, and I knew that she would come to love me in return when she would see that I would deny her nothing. At least nothing within reason. I would whisk her away to every corner of the globe, build a magnificent monument to her, teach her to sing so that God Himself would weep at hearing the beauty emanating from her perfect mouth. But I would refuse her the opportunity to see my biggest nemesis and competition.

I retired to my own bedroom, though one could hardly call it that. There was no bed, only an organ, candles, a dressing chamber and a coffin in which I slept. The stone walls radiated the cold, despite the large black silk cloth that was draped in swag across the walls. I lay down, pulled the lid on enough so that I was covered but had enough room to breathe, and nestled into an unpleasant sleep filled with regret and terrifying nightmares.