Author's note: This is just a short little phic inspired by the suggestion of one of my most favorite phriends on ff.net. Cat, this is for you! Thanks so much.
Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom, although I wish I did. The idea behind this phic is mine, however, and so is Tatiana.
Summary: Based on my other story, the Phantom of the Opera Retold, this is narrated by everyone's favorite masked man. It is his account of his very first Christmas…
– Joyeux Noël –
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in a land far, far away – way across the ocean…
My story began.
I was born ugly, with a horrible disfigurement on the right side of my face, and my beautiful, widowed mother hated me from the moment that she first laid eyes on me. I ran away from her when I was a child, my horrible face hidden by a mask, and traveled the world. Within it, I learned of many things – fear, hate, greed, and rage; power, influence, beauty, and treachery.
But I never knew love.
Then, an angel entered my life: an angel more beautiful, more radiant and pure and sweet than anything I had ever known. Her name was Christine, and she saw the soul within me, in spite of my ugliness.
I fell in love with her.
And she fell in love with me.
Then, in spite of many, many trials and untold troubles, we were able to find the will – the love – within each other to conquer the past and face the present, and look forward to the future…together.
* * *
Christmas day, 1881 – in a manor just outside of Paris…
"Wake up, sleepyhead! It's Christmas morning!" sang a bright, cheerful, girlish voice in my ear.
I squinted my eyes carefully open and then widened them as they adjusted to the brilliant light that surrounded me. I saw that Christine was bending over me, her arms supporting her on either side of my chest, and she was smiling dazzlingly and, truth be told, a bit impishly down at me, her blue eyes shining.
"Come along now, Erik! Time to get up!"
She blew to one side then, bouncing off of the bed – her dark, glorious curls springing with every movement she made – and across the room, her dainty, slender little bare feet whispering softly against the glossy cherrywood floorboards. I sat up on my elbows and glanced at the small, ornate golden clock that stood on the table beside our gigantic, gold-and-white upholstered bed, blinking drowsiness from my eyes.
"Christine, my love, Angel – it's only six thirty in the morning!" I called plaintively after her as she entered the dressing room that stood opposite our cavernous bedchamber. She returned a moment later, hanging her head around the doorframe and sending me another one of her bright, impish little smiles, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed a rosy pink with excitement.
"I know…now get up!"
Before I obeyed, I looked over to the long row of tall, many-paned windows that made up practically an entire wall of the room, seeing that she had already flung the heavy burgundy curtains open, which let the shining white brilliance of the magnificent, but undoubtedly cold, December morning illuminate the room. Snowflakes flurried about in the air, coating everything with a blanket of flawless white.
I threw the bedcovers back and got out of bed, going to join my jubilant young wife in the dressing room. She already had her hair pulled back, away from her face, and a pair of tall, slender leather boots were on her feet. I went around behind her to help her fasten the buttons on her graceful red wool skirt, which she had put on over her soft white flannel nightgown.
"Christine," I said, bending my head down and around her neck so that I could kiss her just below her jaw line and then at the end of her eyebrow, "What exactly is it that you are so intent upon doing this morning that it has made you drag us both out of bed at this unholy hour?"
She turned around then, catching my hands in hers and pulling them to her as she smiled up, playfully, into my eyes. "You'll see – now get dressed, silly!" She kissed the tip of my nose and left me speechless as she moved towards the door.
" 'Get dressed'? But you're not even—"
"You're right." She hurried back into the room and grabbed the coat that went with her long, full skirt, a charcoal-gray scarf, a floppy but endearing black hat, and mittens, flashing me yet another smile. "Now I am."
I sent her a long, baleful look as she sailed once more out of the room.
Well, she took me ice-skating that morning, on the frozen pond that was located on part of our expansive manor's property. I hadn't ever before had a chance to try such a sport, but after about two hours of tripping up, falling down, landing flat on my back, laughing, and cavorting about, I felt that I had gotten the hang of it, and we returned into the house to greet the elaborate breakfast that Tatiana, our taciturn but fiercely loyal Russian cook, had made for us.
As soon as we had gotten up from the table, Christine dragged me playfully into the library and had me read to her from the Christmas story in the Bible, and then she read yet another segment of Dante's Paradise to me. We spent the entire day laughing, playing around, and enjoying ourselves in this bliss that I had thought I would never know.
It scarcely seemed to me, I thought, as I watched Christine carefully and delicately adjust a bow on part of the gigantic table arrangement of scarlet and white roses that had been one of my Christmas presents to her, that it had been only a little less than a year ago that this had all begun.
Our beautiful, amazing marriage and all of the happiness that went with it.
I had never imagined, in my wildest dreams, that I would actually gain peace and the right to live – as a man, and not a monster – in a home that was not a crypt, or a tomb. I had never thought that I would be a part of the world, if only in a small way.
And I had never thought that Christine would be my loving bride.
"Erik?"
Her soft, gentle, musical voice brought me out of my reverie, and I turned to see her gazing at me, her head cocked to one side and her eyes tender and thoughtful – loving and knowing and blissful.
"Is something wrong?"
I smiled at her and swept her into my arms, the voluminous skirts of her red velvet Christmas gown twirling about us, and looked down into her beloved face.
"No, Christine, mon petite – everything is right."
After dinner, as we awaited for our three guests – Mme. Giry, her daughter Meg, and my old friend Nadir Khan, the former Daroga of Mazanderan – to arrive, to join us for yet more presents and fun, Christine and I retired to one of the many large drawing rooms in our medieval-style castle. As we sat on the floor, before the fire, I remembered that I had a gift that I wanted to give her before our guests arrived.
"Christine…here's something for you." I said, drawing the carefully wrapped package out from underneath the sofa that our backs were resting against. She took it from me, smiling into my eyes, and pulled the ribbon that bound it off, proceeding to unwrap it. Her eyes became wide and dreamy as she read the gold-embossed title on the front of the book that I had given her.
"La Belle et le Bete."
I drew her closer to me with the arm that I had around her shoulders, resting my head on top of hers, inhaling the scent of her expensive, exotic perfume – but also smelling underneath it the deeper, ever-present scent of roses, which would always be her special scent.
"I thought you might like to have that again." I said, and she turned her face up to look at me, her sweet lips curved in a beautiful smile.
"Perhaps one day you would like to write a song about it for me?"
"My love," I declared, grandly, "I would write an opera for each person in the world for you every day!"
We laughed together then at my dramatic aspirations, and then she surprised me by bringing forth a present of her own – a large, completely wrapped box.
"And here is my special present for you, M. Dessler." Dessler is my last name: a name that I had not used once in my entire life until the year before, when we had been married. Christine handed me the rather heavy parcel.
I stared at her for a moment, wondering what kind of present it was that she had kept from my knowledge so well.
Slowly, I unwrapped it and lifted the cover off of the box.
Then everything around me seemed to stand completely still for a moment…for within the box was a toy monkey with a pair of brass cymbals attached to its paws, wearing Oriental robes, attached to a wind-up organ music box.
"Christine…" I whispered, as tears of both bittersweet memories and happiness filled my eyes and I turned to her, "How did you get this?"
She smiled gently at me.
"It took me a long while to find my way back down to the lair by way of the passage from the Rue Scribe, my love…but I wanted to give this back to you, because it obviously meant much to you…I knew that from the first moment that I had seen it."
And it did. It was the embodiment of the memory of one of the greatest moments in my life – the moment that I had first realized that I was free, after my long captivity in Persia. I had bought it at a bazaar after I had escaped my pursuers, who had been sent after me by my former employer, the shah.
For me, it symbolized freedom, joy…and the beginning of a new life. After I had bought it, I had met Christine.
In a way, it meant the start of changes.
But I looked at it differently now. Back then, when I had first had it in the lair, I had seen it as a reminder that I was free, and that I would have to fight hard to keep that freedom, to force the world to let me remain as I was: myself. Now I looked at it as I did the world: with hope, compassion, and love.
And love is the greatest thing that ever was.
I took my wife in my arms, holding her close to me, and was silent for a moment. Then I said, softly, "Thank you, Christine."
She pulled back then, gazed into my eyes, and then we kissed: long and sweet. When we broke, she put up a hand to gently remove my white porcelain mask and then caress the side of my face, and her smile widened.
"But that isn't all, my darling…" she said, and then she leaned forward to whisper in my ear…
* * * * * *
Joy to the world, the Lord has come – let earth receive her King!
"For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever may believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life."
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season!