If Only Tears Could Bring You Back

A one shot by TheDragonEye

Titles and Lyrics belong to The Midnight Sons

I do not own the characters of The Phantom of the Opera

This one-shot is told from both point of views of Erik and Christine, mostly Christine though.

This is a long, sad one shot. . Just so you know.

"How will I start tomorrow without you here?
Whose heart will guide me while all the answers disappear?
Is it too late, are you too far gone to stay?
Best friends forever, should never have to go away!"

Erik

I watched them ride away. I watched her flee from my world of night with the boy who was born in a world of light. The one who would provide her with a world of freedom and sunlight, which was so much more than what I could ever give her. I was and still am a creature of darkness. Her kiss that she gave me to try and release me from such dark bonds did nothing but filled me with more hopeless despair. As I watch her now, I know it is a reality. I was meant to be alone, but no longer am I the Phantom of the Opera. I am merely Erik. Poor, poor Erik!

I cannot stand that. The pity from her, the pity kiss she gave me- but one that held so much more. I am practically tearing the hair from my skull over the memory of the look she gave me when she returned the ring to me. Such a ring that held such a promise and it was given back as easily as someone receiving a handkerchief, using it once and then discarding it.

I am expendable and have reached my limit. I am expended and my life is just as worthless. Already I am dead in the eyes of France though I live. I shall soon change that though. I just . . . want to see her again, one last time. But if I do then I know I will not let her go. Two weeks have passed since I saw her face, last heard her voice, and since I felt her lips for the first and last time.

I love her.

And for that love I have no other choice as to what I must do, for I have made her promise. She will return. But I cannot fall to temptation. Through love, I must do what I have to do.

"What will I do? You know I'm only half without you.
How will I make it through?

If only tears could bring you back to me
If only love could find a way
What I would do, what I would give if you
Returned to me, someday, somehow, someway
If my tears could bring you back to me"

Christine

I had looked back even though I knew I shouldn't. I needed to just look at him, but I only clung to my dear Raoul all the more tighter. It only spurred my dear lover to row all the more faster away from that place. That place which frightened yet excited me. A place of darkness and yet lit by the moon and candlelight. A place with him. Erik. The masked man would always remain my teacher and my angel. But his love and music frightened me as much as it brought me closer to him. He let me go, he let me and Raoul go.

Raoul has tried to tell me more than once that they were released just as Erik gained back a fraction of sanity on the eve of loosing his mind which is why we ever escaped. But I know the truth; we were released because Erik saw the light of love. I only wish I know how he was fairing at this moment.

Two weeks had passed by and Raoul was running about like a frantic man, trying to secure a ferry to England and to arrange our wedding. We shall have a private one, his family disagrees with his choice for a spouse. He loves me and I love him, I only wish to know and to be able to figure out my feelings for my angel. My Erik.

It is lunacy; after all, Erik is a murderer. I do not even know his last name! But I feel something for him, something that will be burned in my mind. The look he gave me. His paled eyes staring after me. Who would have ever thought them to be such a beautiful golden-green? I had seen him be more human that night then in the expanse of time I knew him. He was even crying. His crushing tears that ran over his deformed cheek and crushed his lungs with emotions.

He was so feeble, so frail and I had never noticed it before. I always feared him for he looked to hold so much power, but now that I think of it, and saw it, the man was built no more than some skin on a skeleton!

How could he be surviving now? How could he be living with himself in the gloom beneath the opera house? I have made up my mind, for I have naught enough time left in Paris. I shall see him. The newspapers have not signaled him dead as he would have wished so he must be still alive, wrapped in a cocoon of his morphine drug which had given him the strength to be so daunting.

Maybe he would even be playing the organ when I arrive. But I cannot fall victim to it. Or perhaps he will be composing with his hellish cat perched on his desk, wary and on the look out. She never did like me.

The seconds pass by and they turn into minutes, the minutes into hours and still I am considering. But Raoul is not home for it is still early in the evening. Far in the distance of the Paris countryside I hear the tolling of church bells and it greatly perturbs me. That does it. I shall go and see him. It might be my only chance to see him before I depart with Raoul to England anyways.

"I'd cry you an ocean if you'd sail on home again
Waves of emotion will carry you, I know they can.
Just let love guide you and your heart will chart the course.
Soon you'll be drifting into the arms of your true north!"

I tell the servants to tell Raoul I have gone out to clear my mind and to visit Madame Giry. Surely he would understand that, after all, they are the only friends I have left. I could always talk to them about my problems, but I chose not to. Minutes later I am riding in a carriage and heading back into the heart of Paris. I concentrate on the cold of the approaching storm that I can see in the dusky clouds.

The wind picks up and I must keep my mind on it in order not to think about what I am doing. My fingers nervously twist the engagement ring on my finger and it is no use for my mind strays to Erik. My actions are beginning to frighten me as well. I could very much never come back, or else Raoul might come looking and put himself at risk once more. Actions always have consequences; I merely hope that mine are not going to set off a catalyst chain reaction. Oh Erik . . . in all your genius and loneliness you had forgotten that I am merely human. A meek and innocent child when you whisked me off the stage into your world. But no more, I will not wander off this path.

But I want to. I want to fall astray to him. I love him with a part of my heart and mind that he long since would his boney fingers around and that his wonderful voice had captured. My body is numb by the time the carriage pulls up three blocks from the place that was once my home.

I dare not let the driver know my intentional destination but if Raoul discovers me missing for too long then I know he will know where to look. A few minutes later any my feet have carried me into the darkened, stone corridors, heading down to the Rue Scribe and the house on the lake. My heart is racing and I know why.

Love.

A strange love though, but love none the less. Yes, I love Erik. Yes, I love Raoul. But for the moment the darkness is calling to me, beckoning me to Erik. Before long I see the edge of the black lake, the gondola not far away. I shall need to cross this last barrier and I shall see him again. I shall get to see my Erik again!

"Look in my eyes, you'll see a million tears have gone by;
And still they're not dry!

If only tears could bring you back to me
If only love could find a way
What I would do, what I would give if you
Returned to me, someday, somehow, someway
If my tears could bring you back to me"

"Erik!" I cry as soon as I reach the edge of the shore and I wildly had begun to look around. His home was not at all what I expected it to be. Long gone was the magical feeling that had once held me captivated in a whirlwind of music and heated passion. Now it was so empty, destroyed. Even the grand pipe organ which I had imagined him playing at in his glory was destroyed. There was no sign of either Erik or his feline friend and there was no heat that once had existed. It was cold, as cold as a tomb down bellow the ruined opera house. Shivers ran up my spine and I slowly made my way past the wreckage of his desk, of his organ, and of the several mirrors that had once existed fully near the mannequin he had crafted to so carefully look like me. I passed by the room he had laid me to rest in the first time I had met him, right after my first performance as the leading soprano-that was empty too.

Slowly I turned my destination to his room, the room I had seen his coffin and I hoped he was not lying in it. I could hardly bare neither to look about it nor to think about him sleeping in it. But, I had never before seen it and I hoped I would not. My tentative steps soon brought me to the end of the stone hallway until I was standing outside his room. By then my eyes were wet with unshed tears from both fear and the bone chilling coldness. My pale hands were clutching at the fabric of my dress and I took in one deep breath, letting it out slowly before I took another step forward and whispered a small,

"Erik?"

"I'd hold you close and shout the words I only whispered before;
For one more chance, for one last glance.
There's not a thing that I would not endure."

There he was . . . my angel, asleep in a chair that looked too big for him. It was wide and did look awfully comfortable, better than the coffin at least. A small smile tugged on the edge of my face and the tears that had been held at bay spilled over and trailed down my cheeks. He was here. He was here, naught ten paces away.

My angel's face was expressionless, blank devoid of emotion and limp as one was when relieved of all the tension in the world which could only be found in sleep. I do not even think I had ever seen him asleep before. My joy continued to spill, my tears continued to fall, and I felt lost as I crossed over to him.

I did not hesitate to press a kiss to his lips- His sleeping, pale drawn lips. He was cold, but he was always cold even with what he wore. I could not hold back. He should have been awake to feel the kiss and I gently shook his shoulder.

"Erik! Erik! It is I, open your eyes. Please, my dearest angel, I have come back to you just as I promised." My tears continued to fall and his body shook with my persistence but his eyes did not open. I must have been lost to delusion for I ran my fingers through his hair, stroking the top of his head.

"I am being selfish; this is probably the only time when you have found a peace of mind to sleep."

Oh how correct I had been. My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a smash at my feet and I looked down to see broken shards of glass. Erik's hand was limp and I knew that the glass had come from there; a small shattered vial was all that was left. That small smash had brought the reality of the world back before my eyes. Like a veil lifted or a mist thinning out I now saw Erik before my eyes. Not sleeping, but dead.

The vial, I knew, had brought about his death, a poison of some sort. The tears that had once fallen from my eyes of joy had turned into tears of sorrow. My poor Erik, lost in a world which despised him had turned to one finally mean of escape- To escape a pain that I had brought down upon him. Oh my darling angel, looking so peaceful in the chair because he had found rest.

My hands clutched at his death cold one, and I remained there, staring down at him, hoping it was not true. I could not have driven this man . . . this lonely, genius man to the brink of insanity in which suicide was a lone way to escape. I am no better than him. I am a murderer. How could I even think to be in his presence now? I slowly pressed his hand to my cheek and I cried for him. I mourned him. I mourned my lost love. Why had I been so blind before?

Fate was cruel; it had always been cruel to a man like Erik who never had a chance to live. I felt spoilt, hollow, and dirty. "Oh Erik," I whispered over and over to myself as if my chanting would bring him back. As if my tears dripping on to his pale flesh would bring him back. If only that were so.

I do not know how long I remained there, but soon I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up to see my fiancé, the man who had helped me away from Erik. I could not help but to turn and cry against him, he was the only source of comfort I had now. I do not know if I will ever be able to feel the same for Raoul anymore, or even to be able to kiss him after this. I kissed my dear Erik's corpse after all. I felt as if my mind was far away from my body which was in the arms of Raoul and not in Erik's. Everything passed before my eyes.

"If only tears could bring you back to me
If only love could find a way!
What I would do, what I would give if you
Returned to me, someday, somehow, someway"

Erik was dead.

My angel was dead and in his other pale, limp hand was a single rose, the ring wrapped around its stem. I cried and I wept. But it was for naught.

If only, Erik . . .

"If my tears could bring you back to me..."

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