The Angel Returns

Disclaimer: We do not own any part of the Phantom of the Opera.

Lost. Lost. A word that described me perfectly. In my life, I have been nothing other than lost. I lost my childhood, I lost a decent standard of living, I lost all manner of acceptable physical appearance, I lost my only love, and now I had lost the only thing I had ever truly had before. My music.

" You got a story?" the man with the grizzled smile and fake eye asked me as he joined my circle around the trash can fire. I shook my head. After all, everyone has a story, so lying about it is just answering the stupid with a stupid answer.

"The silent type, huh?" He spit into the flames with a disgusting slurping noise. I shuddered, missing my music now more than ever. "Feh. Just as well. Not like anyone here cares, anyway."

No, no one ever cared. My heart clenched even as I lied to myself. No one ever will care, either.

"That's not true."

A new voice rang out through the darkness, and my heart sang! The one voice that I will never be able to forget.

Christine. . .

I turned, looking for the voice in the darkness. A small dark figure weaved her way between the other homeless bums, the other victims of a cruel and unjust fate. I blinked, not sure I was actually seeing this, or if it was another trick my mind had decided to play on me. No, she was still there.

" Christine?" I asked dumbly.

" Just look at you." She said sadly, brushing my disheveled hair from my face. " Living on the streets like this."

I turned away from her soft, warm hand and pressed my face into my worn coat. Foolish girl! Are you still nothing but a naive child?

She gave a small, nearly inaudible sigh. "What has become of my dear Angel of Music?"

I shook my head even as she spoke. I, an angel? She of all people should understand what I demon I was born, what I never wanted to be and yet was forced to become! I forced my feet to move despite how I longed how stay with my own angel, glowing in the firelight as beautifully as she ever did.

" Please." She pleaded after me. " Please don't go." I hesitated. How could I ever deny such a creature anything? Yet it was for her better.

" I must." I said, beginning to leave again.

" Please don't." she said, following after me with her tiny footsteps. " I. .. I. . .I need you."

" How can someone as beautiful as you need someone as ghastly as me? Leave me alone to suffer in peace."

As quickly as I could I turned a corner and vanished through an undetectable hole in the wall of a condemned building. It led to a basement full of dusty cobwebs, dank puddles, and dark shadows.

From the street above I heard the soft sobs of a creature that should never be allowed to cry. Oh, how my heart clenched in agony! Why does she torment me so?

After a few moments there was a silence. I have always hated the silence, always. It was all I ever heard when left alone, bereft of human companionship. And so I began to create music instead. But there was no music now.

"Still as tricky as a ghost, I see."

I spun so fast I almost became dizzy. How? Why? And you say I am a phantom? Christine, why do you haunt me so?

" Why do you elude me, my angel?" she asked, the hurt marring her voice/

" I told you once already, I am no angel."

"You are my angel." she said simply. " And the very angel I seek."

" I left so you could make a life. A life of your own. So you wouldn't concern yourself with me."

" A life on the streets." She said sadly. "That is no life at all."

" It is the life I chose to live. The music in my soul is gone. I am no more than a homeless man now."

She did not speak. Yet she did not leave. Ah, that terrible silence once more!

"Will you leave me be? Or will you continue to haunt and torment me until I am no more?"

She gazed into my eyes, her own lovely brown ones full of tears. "Please," she whispered. "Please, do not make me go. Please do not leave me alone, my angel."

" You are not alone. You will never be alone again, you silly girl. You have one to love you, as I don't." With that, her face fell, and silent tears began running down her porcelain cheeks, meeting at her chin and dropping to the ground. I stood awkwardly in the shadows, wanting to console her, yet not knowing quite how. Finally, she lifted her head.

" I am alone." She said, her brown eyes drilling into mine. " Raoul is dead."

I shifted awkwardly, not knowing quite how to react. " I am sorry." I said quietly. What did she want of me? What did she really expect? I loved her. I will always love her. I would have cherished her like a precious jewel, done everything I could to make her happy.

But she left me. She chose him.

My beauty shivered, even though the coat she wore looked soft and warm. "I didn't come her for your feigned sympathy, Angel."

"I wish you wouldn't call me that," I whispered, turning away. I am a creature of darkness. I always have been. And now I no longer had even my music to connect me to the world of light.

"I know you by no other name."

"Then address me as the others did. As a ghost, one to be heard and never seen, and now no longer even that. A mere shadow in the corner of your eye that vanishes once you turn to see it fully. A Phantom."

Silence once more. It seems I am constantly surrounded by silence now.

" My phantom, then." she sniffed. " Forever in my heart."

" Forever in your heart?" I said darkly. " And you expect me to believe that? When you left me for him?" My sweet shuddered, tears once more falling from her eyes. " I'm sorry." I said a bit gentler.

" I. . .I. . had to. I loved him." She whispered.

"And I loved you. But that made no difference."

" My angel, I-"

" Phantom." I interrupted.

" My Phantom, I did love you. And still do. Your spell is everlasting."

Hah! Love? No, she did not love me. She could never love a creature such as me. "Leave me," I told her.

She sobbed once more. "But I love you!"

"No!" I roared, spinning toward her once more, my grotesque features contorting in a rage beyond my control. She gasped in fright. "No more lies! You pity the poor phantom, alone in the darkness, with not even his music to console him! Always in the darkness, always alone because of the horrific face that was given to him at birth! A face that drove even his own mother to fear and hate him!

"There is nothing here to love! Nothing! All that you can do is pity." My voice quieted as my rage turned into an inconsolable sadness. A pall that has forever covered my head, lifted only minutely by the music that I once made, dragging me into an endless despair. Despair that I detest so much I once turned it into hatred.

" Love conquers all, love sees through all. You have built walls around yourself, my angel. Tear them down. Tear them down and love me in return."

" I do love you. It is you who does not know the true meaning of love. And I told you, do not call me an angel. Leave me at a faceless phantom."

" I don't like that name. Surely you must have another name I can call you by. And its you who is mistaken about the true meaning of love. If you love me as you say, you would allow me to love you, if it made me happy."

"You fool!" I cried. "I have given everything for you! I let you go to love another man because it made you happy. I love you more than anything in this world, more than even my music! I would do anything for you, my sweet, anything but listen to these lies with which you torment me! I do not wish for your pity, and I do not need you to love me back, so please let me be!"

"No."

Will this never end? Will the soft, pure angel never leave the devil to live to torment that is designated to him? Why must she torture him even further?

"You say there is nothing in you to love."

Yes, yes, my angel! Why must you repeat these awful truths?

"But you are mistaken." And she looked at me with such eyes, such burning, passionate, beautiful eyes that I could not turn away. "You cannot see it by yourself. So I will help you to see.

"In you I see a brilliant mind, one that understands both the ways of humans and the world that surrounds them in ways that none other can. I see a passionate musician who loves and lives for his music. I see a soul that has lived through adversity and torment, once trapped and tainted by darkness, but now with intent as pure as newly fallen snow."

She lifted her soft, lily white hand and gently laid it upon my disfigured face. "But most of all, dear angel, I see a heart that loves and deserved love in return more than any other that has ever existed.

"I do not pity you, poor soul though you are. I never have, though at one time I mistakenly thought that was what I felt. Because pity and loved can never coexist."

" What is it you want of me?" I asked, distraught by her beautiful words. " What more can I do to prove to you?" My angel shrugged.

" Be with me. Allow me to love you as I do. But mostly be with me."

I sighed. " I cannot." I said. " Your love has just died. And yet you seek me out. What is wrong with you?"

" He would want me to be happy." she answered, her wind chime like voice whispery.

" He wouldn't want me to be alone."

" Be that as it may, he wouldn't want you with me. He would rather you be with someone more deserving of your affections." I said stoutly.

She slowly shook her head, her beautiful brown curls bouncing gently in the darkness. "He knows how I feel. He has always known that I care for you greatly, and he accepted it long ago. And despite his personal feelings for you, he knows that you would never hurt me. That you can for me more than you do yourself and because of that would do whatever it took to make me happy.

"I have always loved you, my angel, but I did not always know it. By the time I had realized my true feelings I was already with Raoul, and you were gone. But I loved Raoul, as well, and I always will. Still, this does not change my feelings toward you. I love you, my Angel of Music."

" These words you speak to me. They make me weak." I said, turning away from her. " You know I would do anything for you, My Christine. And if allowing you to love me is what you want, then your wish is my command."

And before I could speak another word, she lifted her lips to mine and kissed me.

It was the first kiss I had ever experienced. It was the single sweetest sensation I have ever known, full of love, happiness, and something else I cannot describe. At that moment, I knew that she did, in fact, love me. And at that moment, I felt my heart soar as the music returned to my soul.

After what felt like a lifetime and yet only a moment all in one, she pulled away and smiled at me softly. "I love you, my angel."

"Please," I said, "that name brings only sadness to me. I have shadows in me that no angel should ever have."

"Then what should I call you?" she asked me.

I paused. I had gone with no name for what felt like an eternity, and it was difficult for me to remember if I had ever had one to begin with. I spoke uncertainly.

"I believe," I told her, "that I was once called Erik."

"Then I love you, Erik, my Spirit of Music."

A fitting moniker. I could not complain, especially when she spoke it so lovingly.

"And I love you, Christine, my sweet angel."