Move On

Okay so my first step back into fanfiction in a very long time. But if you have read my profile, and admittedly there's an incredibly high chance you haven't, you would know that as I'm travelling so much at the moment in between one show and another that I find my mind wandering and my pen scribbling. And so hello fanfiction, my old friend.

Anyway this is a one-shot set directly after the final scene of Love Never Dies (which had me in so many tears it was unbelievable) and is partly inspired by Sondheim's 'Move On' from Sunday in the Park with George which was playing on my ipod when this story came into my head. Enjoy...and potentially review? I love to hear back from you guys.

He was bowed over in a chair or was he on his bed or was he on the floor in the corner of the room? He didn't know; he wasn't aware of anything beyond the fact Christine was gone. Gone forever. If not for Gustave, he didn't feel he would have anything to live for. He felt as though something was gone from within him. Gone for good. As gone as Christine. The agony he had felt from their ten year absence from one another had been nothing, a mere shadow to the pain he felt now, knowing he would never see, her, feel her again. His eyes briefly drifted over to the piano where nothing but blank pages were waiting for him. He would never compose again. He couldn't do so with the knowledge that none would ever be performed by her. Even in the past ten years there had always been a possibility, no matter how slim, that she could, might sing. And she had done. One last beautiful performance for him. Truly for him.

"I had a taste of joy..." His voice broke, "Christine..."

"These pages are blank"

His body tensed at the sound of that voice. It couldn't be. He wouldn't look up, because to look up would mean to find no one there. And yet he did look, he couldn't help himself, and instead of finding an empty room he saw Christine. Christine stood next to his piano in the peacock blue dress she had worn when...when...no this wasn't real. His mind was playing a cruel trick on him.

"You never have blank pages" She continued, "Your work is never-ending..."

"I will never compose again," He found himself answering despite the fact he knew the vision in front of him was a lie, it had to be. And yet it felt so real.

"That isn't you." She argued. Still there. Still not vanishing into the ether.

"I have nothing to write, nothing to compose, if it can never be brought to life by you. Nothing" He tensed again as he felt her presence next to him, sat beside him.

"You never wrote for me. You never wrote for you. You wrote because it had to be written"

He finally brought himself to look at her directly, to look at her image eye-to-eye.

"Why are you here? Why torture me?"

"I'm here because you need to move on"

"Move on" He repeated with a hollow laugh, "I will never move on. How can you ask that of me?"

"What about Gustave?" She reminded me, "He needs his Father"

He couldn't deny she was right. But he didn't even know where to begin.

"He needs his Mother. He should have his Mother...rather than a...freak he never even knew before a few days ago"

She didn't even dignify that with an answer but merely looked at him knowingly.

"I don't even know how to be a Father. How to be what he'll need"

"No one knows how to be a parent. It's just day by day...you'll know what to do"

"I no longer even know what to do with myself, never mind a young boy"

"I can't deny I wish I could be with you both" She admitted, "That I could help and guide you, but I will always be there. Sometimes...sometimes things just happen. But I will always remember that time, no matter how brief, when we were together. And one day we will be again" She placed a hand on his shoulder and it felt as though the contact almost burned him. How could it feel so real. "You will be okay" She insisted.

At this moment Gustave ran into the room. He appeared to be sleepwalking as his eyes were not quite open and this was further confirmed when he began calling for his Mother. Erik immediately rose and went over to hold him and to wake him. Christine looked on, so close to her son, mere centimetres away but unable to touch him or hold him. He was oblivious to her presence.

"Gustave," Erik put his hands on the young boy's shoulders, gently waking him. The boy blinked in confusion looking up at the masked face in front of him, "Where's Mother?" The moment he asked the question, Gustave immediately remembered the events of barely twenty four hours previously and broke down and cried, holding tightly onto his new found Father's jacket.

"Gustave!" A moment later, Raoul, temporarily staying in Phantasma, ran in looking for his adoptive son. In the light of the horrific events he had been unable to take his passage back to Paris and nor had Gustave wished him to leave and so Erik had relented, let old quarrels be set aside and given his old rival a place to stay. Temporarily.

Raoul, at seeing Gustave in Erik's arms, halted, frozen by the image in front of him.

"I heard Gustave calling out and he wasn't in bed..." Raoul explained.

"I had a dream..." Gustave tried to explain, "I was...I thought..."

"I know," Erik nodded, placing a hand on Gustave's head, tentatively stroking his hair and could not help but feel his heart tug as it always did whenever the boy did not pull away from his touch. Gustave yawned widely, sleep starting to envelope him almost immediately.

"You need to get back to bed Gustave," Raoul said softly, gesturing towards him.

As his son wandered towards his adoptive Father and looked back at his biological parent in a small gesture of 'Goodnight', Erik held back the tears that were pricking at his eyes. They had all lost Christine- she had brought something marvellous and irreplacable to all of their lives. Something that would forever leave a hole never to be filled. Erik looked over to where he had been sat; Christine was gone.