A/N: In all of my Phantom of the Opera stories, Erik should be pictured as Leroux's version, with the more severe deformity and the mask covering his entire face, while his voice is that of Michael Crawford's magnificent stage portrayal. All other characters can be pictured as those from Webber's 2004 movie.Please note that though I briefly reference my story "Between Hate and Love," that story is not intended to be read as being specifically in this alternate universe. It is part of my general PotO headcanon, while this story is not.
Written for the Caesar's Palace Challenge: 12 Days of Christmas, Level 1: One True Pear, Prompt: Meg Giry/Raoul de Chagny. Also fulfills Caesar's Palace Emotions Challenge, Prompt 12: Unloved.
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the property of Gaston Leroux and Andrew Lloyd Webber. No copyright infringement is intended.
I begged him. I pleaded with him by all that was holy, but evoking God's name does not gain you mercy from the Devil, and as I stared into those golden eyes blazing out of their sockets in that darkness, I knew I saw reflected there the fires of Hell.
"Christine!" I cried out. "Christine!"
"Do not dare to say her name, sir!" said the lipless mouth of the monster. "She has rejected you; she shall be my wife!"
"Does her sacrifice mean nothing to you?" I asked, weeping.
The Devil laughed, and the sound reverberated through the dark chamber. "Sacrifice? What sacrifice? Now we shall live on music, she and I, and we shall be free of this prison, the Palais Garnier. Her soul shall sing only for me. You cannot believe that her soul could ever sing for a milksop like you!"
In rage, I ran at him, but it was as though my feet were made of lead. He laughed again and dragged Christine up to his throne. Sitting, he drew her to him, and with a flash of his cloak, they vanished—
"Christine! Christine!" My eyes flew open and my body jerked upright.
A light flickered behind me, and I turned, breathing heavily, to meet the eyes of my wife. Resentment, rage, even hatred would have been better than the profound sadness in her sweet brown eyes. Guilt came crashing down again, dulling the old horror of the recurring dream. What could I say? What excuse could I make? She had heard it all for herself, as she had on a thousand other nights like this one.
I reached out to smooth her blonde hair, knotted and tangled with sleep, but she pulled away. She rose and went to stare out the open window.
"Five years," she whispered to the eternal lights of the Parisian night. "Five years, and still my husband wakes up calling the name of another woman." The gentle pain in her voice tore my soul with guilt.
"Meg," I whispered. Even as she stood at the window, the breeze gently ruffling her nightdress, I seemed to see not her but Christine, in the white gown she had worn in Hannibal the night I first saw her again. That night, white had suggested the innocence and exquisite purity of Christine Daae. Tonight, on Meg de Chagny, it meant nothing at all.
I got up and went to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and burying my face in her hair. "I'm sorry, Little Meg," I whispered. "I love you."
"I know," she said, leaning into me. "But you loved her first, and you still love her most."
I nodded. What folly had driven me to marry the bosom friend of the woman I truly loved? Perhaps it was because Meg, like myself, had felt the need to cling to the others who had experienced the horrors we had gone through. Whatever the reason, it had been a mistake. Day by day my thoughts were still for Christine: where she was, whether she had found some happiness in the music of her fallen angel, whether she was still alive or whether the monster's fiery rage had ultimately consumed even the woman he loved—If only I knew! Perhaps then I would be able to find some peace…
"Raoul?"
"I'm sorry, Little Meg." It was far too little to heal far too much hurt. "I am trying."
"I know." She reached up and laid her hand against my cheek. "I'm sorry, too. I married you because I knew we would never be able to forget, and I thought it would be best if we shared it together. I know now that I was wrong. But it is also wrong for me to expect you to forget when I married you knowing you couldn't."
I kissed her hair, trying to feel some part of the passion I had felt when I held Christine this way. "You deserve better than this. You deserve to be loved and cherished by a man who sees only you and not the ghost of a woman who came before."
"And my mother deserved better than the empty, passionless man who was my father, and if she had chosen to follow her heart, perhaps none of this would have happened. We cannot go back, Raoul. We can only make the best of the choices we have already made."
"And of those things we had no choice in," I added. I thought of Christine disappearing down the path behind the mirror, which my dreams had so distorted that sometimes I almost believed they had really vanished into the air. The passage beyond it had been a maze of mirrors into which the Phantom and Christine had quickly disappeared beyond hope of discovery, while a score of policemen had died in the maze's deadly traps during the following days. In time even I had had to give up the search and admit that they were long gone.
"Yes, and of those things we had no choice in." Meg turned around in my arms and laid her head on my chest. We seemed to stand there for many hours, and I do not know what she thought of as she leaned against me. For myself, my thoughts were still, as I believe they always will be, only for Christine.