The first time it happened was an accident, nothing to be taken seriously. It had been almost like a lark, a joke, a dare, but there was no laughing involved. They were ten years old. Under the watching gaze of Apollo's Lyre they were magnificent and grand, yet children, for all their protests.
Blond tresses had mingled with dark curls and they laughed into the night. Clear laughs, laughs untouched by ghosts of bloodshed or jealousy or womanhood. They had been dancing all day and Madame Giry produced two sets of torture methods, only she had called them "pointe shoes" and proceeded to dance them until their legs were weak and their toes bled.
They laid together, all white tutus and white skirts and white chemises, and white corsets. The sky was the magnificent blue and purple and gold and pink that happened only at dusk. The moon shone absently as it had for ages and ages before their time together.
They were ten years old and they snuck out to watch the rising of the moon.
"What is it like?" The question was unspecified and direct, but the girl knew how to answer.
"She is not what they all say you know. She is not cut from stone and her heart is not ice. She is like a fire almost, she burns brightly and she is warm. But very hard to approach, you know… She shows that side of herself to next to none. I am her coals, I fuel her, and she and I burn together. But only she is seen, not me…" The answer was practiced and the speaker knew the unasked question that had followed the first. They were not the words of a child. Yet a child of ten winters spoke them.
"I never knew her."
A nod. A sigh. A pat on the hand.
"Does she kiss you goodnight?"
A nod. A sigh. A pat on the hand.
"On the forehead, like all mothers do?"
The girl with the blonde tresses, bright as the sun shook her head, and the girl with the wild curls looked puzzled.
"But that is what they are supposed to do, are they not?" She was so painfully innocent, an eventual downfall in the making.
No, Christine Daae, things are not always as they are supposed to be.
A smile that crept up on one side, a shake of the head. And then –
Her blonde hair blowing in the wind, she leant over and pressed her almost blue lips to her friend's corner of her mouth, barely touching. Hesitant, yet confident.
"Goodnight."
And the door opened and the door closed, as the girl with chestnut locks put her hand to her mouth and rose in wonder.
---
The second time it happened, it was reversed. Backwards, the opposite of before.
It was the day before they performed Otello.
She looked like Desmonda, much more so then Carlotta, the picture of an innocent mourner. But why?
The blonde girl, all smiles and laughs, was crying. This was not how it was supposed to be. Christine was supposed to cry and drift in dreams, not her, anyone but her.
They were thirteen and fabulous and they ruled the world, so why was she crying?
The pointe shoes that she so lovingly attended to were slashed. Murdered, really. No more would they be covered in powder, carefully, so that their owner would not slip. No more would they carry her across the stage, no more would they grace the steps of the ballet, a fierce beauty and art.
Their peach-pink ribbons, which had once laced up the sides of her ankles faithfully, were torn and frayed and covered in tears.
Shards of glass fell out of them, as if offended by the state of their previous home.
She had understood then, why tragedy was beautiful, but she didn't understand why she had mirrored the kiss of three winters ago.
And Meg didn't understand why her soul had responded so.
---
The third time, though there had been more than three kisses between them. There had been myriad, but this had been when it had ceased.
An Angel had come between them. An Angel for Christine, an Angel only for Christine.
She had never understood why the goodnight ritual of so many years past. Pale rosebud lips to the corner of the matching rosebuds were suddenly no more. A custom forgotten, made obsolete, the past rejected by its present.
She didn't understand why she waited until she left the dressing room to notice the hot tears of rejection falling down her face.
---
Her mother had shushed her, wiped her tears and told her that she was being ridiculous, and that it was just a spat and that nothing would come of it.
That Christine was meant for brighter things.
That she would never leave her childhood friends behind, but she had much more important things to worry about then a simple falling out with Meg, a ballerina.
---
And Madame Giry had never understood why her daughter refused a goodnight kiss that night and all nights, and furthermore refused to give one in return.
---
The last time it happened, it was goodbye. As it always is with goodbyes and last times, so it seems.
The Opera House was in flames and outside it smelt of smoke, ash, and good things coming to an end. She had stolen away from her suitor and childhood sweetheart, her dress no longer a costume, but a ripped white gown, streaked with soot, water, and tears. And her own shirt, white, was stained with the same. The similar whites pressed together and when they would part, they would be different, as these things always were.
The kiss had been the ending. It tasted of farewells unspoken, innocence lost, and eternal goodnights to come, or perhaps, just this one. It was nothing extraordinary. No stars exploded in front of their eyes, no sweet smell of flowers invaded their noses, no ring was set upon a finger, because it was goodbye.
But pale lips fully pressed onto pale lips and for a moment time seemed to disappear, and there wasn't a fire behind them, and he wasn't lurking in her mind, singing to her, and he, but not that he, wasn't calling her name in search of her.
Pale lips and pale lips pulled apart. There was a pause. No words were spoken, none needed to be. Anything could have been said.
And then she was gone.
They never saw each other again.
---
Madame Giry received a goodnight kiss from her daughter until the day she passed.
She passed in her slumber, an old woman, left with the shadow of a goodnight embrace that was never fully hers.
---
Fin.