A/N: All right, we are going to take a trip on the fluffier side, because as much as I love angst; it's almost Valentine's day and our favorite duo should get a bit of uncomplicated happy. This will be a three-shot, and (on my honor) will be complete by Valentine's Day! Review, review, review. Please, otherwise I feel like I'm writing into a void...

Christine regarded the brush in her hand, silver and weighty, embellished with the figured of the Greek muses. A gift from a dear friend. Erik.

The problem was that she was a child who had been raised on fairytales, ideals, everything clear-cut and black or white. There was no gray. There was a princess, and there was a prince, and there was a villain. She had not been prepared for him. She had been prepared for a happily-ever-after tied with a bow, but not for the depth of missing someone. And now, one night had taken him. It had been two months. How terrible that their parting had come mid-December, before the streets rang with Christmas carols.

Four years of friendship, of ghostly laughter in his silver-spun voice ringing from alcoves and echoing through halls. All the nights she had fallen asleep talking with him, more intimate that the pillow-talk of lovers and all that time—heat sprang to her cheeks. All that time, all those summer nights where she had lain in bed, barely clothed as the Parisian sun refused to give up supremacy to the coolness of the moon. He had seen her, she realized now. Bare, glistening with sweat; perhaps even thrashing in dreamt desire of him.

That revelation, those weeks spent in music, his company. His apologetic air when he revealed himself a mortal man. She had adored learning the minutia of his body language, the colors his eyes seemed to turn with his moods. She had been too afraid to tell him that his mortal body was the subject of her more wanton fantasies. That she woke burning at the thought of his hands. That she replayed his every touch in her mind like a melody rehearsed til it ingrains in the blood. But she had been impulsive. Greedy. Curiosity was her downfall. She had wanted to see all he concealed, and it had cost her everything. His mask was her very own Pandora's Box.

Erik, that tangible angel, that—a sharp rapping shook her from her thoughts.

"Lotte, are you ready to go to dinner?" Raoul called. Christine's hands searched her dressing table for hairpins, which she hurriedly installed.

"Yes, I suppose so." She murmured. Onward to Raoul, her perfect-on-paper prince. As she walked towards the door, she caught a glance of her reflection in the mirror. Erik's mirror. The door to a world that was opposite of all her ideals. She looked pale, flushed. Eyes glistening with a mixture of nostalgia and passion. "Actually…"

"I know that voice, you're cancelling. Again."

It was with immeasurable relief that she leant her forehead against the closed door. "I find myself rather tired today."

A long pause. "Lotte, Christine. I don't think that is all."

"No," A tear slipped down her cheek. "You're right, my friend. It's…"

"Your teacher."

She could almost feel Raoul's hands against hers on the other side of the door, their breath was oddly synchronized, for the first and perhaps final time. "I tried, Raoul. If I could love you, I would. Because you are perfect."

"Oh Christine, we cannot recapture the past, can we?" The hitching rasp in his voice gave away his tears, and she knew that if she opened the door, she would see those pale blue eyes dripping tears as endless as the sea.

"No, I don't suppose we can." She whispered.

"I sail tomorrow morning." She saw his future then. He would come back bearded and ruddy, handsome and strong from sailing. Meet a vivacious creature as available as she herself was now distant. He'd have glorious little blonde children, and all that would be left of her would be the dark stories of the North.

"Goodbye, Raoul."

"Goodbye, Little Lotte." It was nearly a minute before she heard his footsteps walking away.

It was really better this way, a clean break before anything could start. That one night, the confiding kiss on the roof. Easily forgotten innocence. She had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Erik that she hadn't even felt Raoul's lips. How odd to think that she had once loved him with every childish passion of her beating heart.

Now Raoul was a paper doll to be set aside with other childhood things. She slid to the ground, back against the door. She started pulling the pins from her hair, brown strands falling over her eyes. She looked over at the mirror again.

He wasn't there. She knew that. She'd become accustomed to the aura of his eyes on her. The insistent fluidity of sharing breathing space with her mysterious teacher. She missed him. The softness in the silence.

Missed him in a way she hadn't even missed her father, but she supposed that it was because she knew that she could still see Erik in the earthly plane.

In all honesty, she had never been one for the idea of binding yourself so closely to another that death was preferable to going on without them. For all the fairytales, she had lived through enough to ensure she retained a modicum of cynicism. Because the problem of fairytales is assuming the "happily ever after" is a permanent state, when in fact there are many facets to the "after," and not all of them are happy.

Nonetheless, the pain of missing Erik had lately become a living ache. She stopped at least a dozen times a day wanting to tell him something. At the end of most days, she laid in bed, missing their conversations. The worst part was, it was her fault that he was gone.

Because the morning after that night, she had woken to breakfast and Russian tea. A rose by her plate, a clear apology. She had not met his eyes, said anything beyond. "Please take me home."

Four words, and he had played her favorites all night in penitence. Arranged a beautiful breakfast, and gifted her a rose in the middle of December.

She had felt the way that sentence hit him, like a shot to the spine. But the part of her that regretted had seemed so far away. She had not said a word, had not taken his hand when she boarded the gondola, and did not look back when he whispered. "Goodbye, Christine. Forgive me."

Christine closed her eyes again. If she had known the consequence of that. If she had known that those four words would be the last she would hear of him. He had even been silent as the infamous Opera Ghost, no letters, no tricks. In hindsight, she could not remember why she had not spoken.

A sudden noise jarred her. She imagined him behind the mirror, cursing his clumsiness.

"Erik?" She called softly, scrambling to her feet. Hands to the mirror, penitent. More hopeful than a housecat on the prowl. But he did not answer, was not there. Of course not, he would never be heard if he wished to pass unseen. It was the silence that undid her. The stale air of her dressing room, static and oppressive.

She ran out of the room, desperate for air—but more importantly, there was another door. The crisp air of February hit her wet cheeks as she rounded the corner, stumbling on the cobblestones, falling to her knees with a rough crack.

She could almost feel the bruises forming, the knees which would turn purple then green; the wrist that was likely sprained.

"Mademoiselle, are you all right?" A cabbie called. Christine struggled to her feet, aching and cold.

"No, yes, excuse me—"

She ran, boots pounding with heeled clicks to the door at Rue Scribe. She collapsed outside it, lungs ragged with the frosty air. Pounding, pounding on the wood. Knowing he probably couldn't hear. "Please, Erik! Erik, forgive me."

"Ma petite?" That voice, spearing through her. She scrambled to her feet and turned around. There, in the twilight, holding a paper bag overflowing with groceries was Erik. He set down his shopping, and tentatively offered his beautiful hand.

The relief in her was a tirade of fire and she threw her bruised body past his offered hand and into his arms, burying her face in his chest. "I missed you, I missed you, I missed you."

"You're bleeding." His voice was sharp, but the stroke of his thumb was delicate against her palm. "Did anyone hurt you?" She shook her head, taking every inch of him in. The curve of his lips, half hidden by the mask. The gauntness of his tall frame, the scent of him. Like a library. Like warm nights in front of a fire. Those sonnet-inspiring eyes.

She took his hand in hers, kissed the expanse of his gorgeous fingers. "Forgive me."

"My dear," A hitched breath. "You don't know what you are doing—"

"Actually, Erik, for the first time I know exactly what I'm doing. Come with me." She pulled him to the front of the building, to a cab. Pushed him inside, told the startled driver to go: it didn't matter where.

Once the carriage started moving, she finally looked at him. He regarded her with an odd glint in his honey-colored eyes. She still held his hand. Despite his air of confidence, she could almost feel his blood reaching for hers.

"I need you to listen to me or I'll lose my courage." She felt rather than saw his agreement.

She let go of his hand, bit her lip nervously. Everything seemed to spill out of her at once. "I was going to have dinner—and it—Raoul. He doesn't understand—I mean really he has more patience than anyone—but you're you so naturally I kept cancelling."

She paused, and observed the new stiffness that had overtaken his frame.

"What I'm attempting to say, Erik, is that I apologize for taking your mask."

"I apologize that you were subject not only to my monstrous features, but also the victim of my temper."

"You're not monstrous." She whispered. "There's a lot about you that is beautiful—"

A sharp bark of laughter assaulted her ears. "My dear, clearly you have gone mad. Perhaps you've hit your head." He examined her with a physician's focus.

"I didn't hit my head, Erik." Christine growled, fisting her hands in her gown.

"Then pray tell, mademoiselle," Erik sardonically responded, "What qualities of this tortured frame so enchant you?"