Author's notes: Okay, this is my first PoTO phic, so be gentle, please! I just had to get this out of my head, at least partially. Based mostly on ALW´s story. All the things you recognize belong to ALW and Gaston Leroux, so no, I don't own anything.

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It is said that in moments of crisis, in life-or-death situations, one can see their whole life replayed in front of their eyes. I never truly believed it – I, who had believed in so many childish fantasies and fairy-tales. I, who became so consumed by my daydreaming that my fantasies became reality… the dream began… only to end in a nightmare.

There I stood, facing the point of no return – the final threshold, just as he wrote in his song. No going back now, as I have sung mere minutes ago. After this, the life I knew before would be over… and the woman…no, the girl I was until now would cease to exist, leaving room for a woman to be born. Tonight, I would burn all bridges and embrace the future. I knew it before I even began singing my first lines in the passionate opera that stunned and mesmerized all of Paris.

But even in my wildest dreams had it not occurred to me that this would happen. That the choice I had tried running from would be forced upon me… and that I would have only a few minutes, at best, to decide which path to take.

It seems so easy to you when you are a child – life or death, good or evil, dark or light… it seems that there is no way you can make the wrong decision. How could you? There is no decision to make, if all you believe in is that good must triumph.

Triumph… no matter what I could try to persuade myself to believe, the line that reached my ears was the only truth that I have heard tonight.

For every choice you make, he has to win.

Yes, he had already won – it didn't matter what I would choose. When I looked at him, I could see the feeling of triumph in his eyes. The eagerness with which he was awaiting my decision. Even if he would have to be the Angel of Death tonight, he would still be triumphant.

The statement that I hated him now… it came from my mouth so naturally, so easily. I wanted to make him see that I was suffering and make him suffer, knowing that my words would cause him much more pain than anything physical. But in my mind, I knew he wouldn't care that I was suffering. And he wouldn´t care about his own pain anymore, either. Not now. Not when he had me cornered. When he had me right where he wanted me to be.

It would be so easy to hate him for all he had done to me.

A thousand lies he told me. A thousand promises of guidance, aid. The man whose name I did not know… who I knew simply as my Angel, my own Angel of Music… but whom the rest of the world (or, at least, the rest of his domain) knew as the Phantom of the Opera.

The genius who managed to create music so sad and yet stunning that even those who feared him had to stop and listen to the sound of his violin. The one who would blackmail the managers and make them do anything by sending them simple notes written in red ink, with his well-known signature – O.G. The Angel my father had sent me. The demon sent to punish me for betraying that Angel twice… twice had I betrayed him and still he came back, using everything at his disposal to win my affection!

And the man who was obsessed with me… who perhaps, just perhaps, loved me.

Now I had no idea how to feel about him, let alone what to call him. The Angel of Music! What a simple lie that so easily ensnared the mind of an ingénue! How easily he manipulated me, used me to his own ends. He wanted to create the perfect opera with the perfect Prima Donna. But in the end, he fell into the trap I had so unconsciously set up. The trap of emotions. I was so trusting, so naïve. He must have been amused, at first, that I would share my secrets with someone I had never seen, someone who simply claimed to be the Angel sent by my poor father.

But since my father's death, I was like a ghost myself, lost in dreams, not caring about the world. It was my praying that had called me, when he had first heard my voice singing soft prayers for my father. From then, he had been my guide and guardian. Only recently had I discovered that his caring had grown beyond what I had expected, that he no longer saw me as a pupil or a child, even when he called me one.

He called me his angel, the only light in his life. He brought me to his home, treating me like a queen. And I, captivated and ensnared, failed to notice that the innocent love of a father and daughter was not enough for him. I failed to notice the longing in his eyes, for all I saw was the splendor of night and its music. His music.

Words can never describe that music. At times, it is soft and enchanting, like the night sky with a zillion stars, tender and captivating. And then there was Don Juan, with the passion of a blazing inferno, burning… but not touched by fire of heaven, as he had once told me.

Was it simply the music that drew me to this man, who was hiding behind more than just the white mask? Who had build walls of stone around him to protect him from the cruelty of the world, but breached them for me? Was it the heavenly voice that made me believe in miracles… or was it the man who sung so divinely? I was dreading the answer all these months I spent away from the Opera.

I was the one who betrayed him, who broke my promises! And he seemed to forgive each and every betrayal, each time I must have broken his heart. But not anymore. I watched helplessly as the noose around my fiancé's neck tightened once again. My fiancé…

How perfect life could have been, had I met Raoul again before all this. A life without night, without fear, without Angels who came from the night, without… without music. There would be no music in my life, should I choose Raoul. There would be no singing for me, should I become a de Chagny.

Raoul meant daylight, safety. I would have nothing to fear – he would hold me and guide me as a loving husband and as a friend, for he knew that there still was a bit of Little Lotte within me. We could once again tell each other the stories of the North! But he would never allow me to sing, even if it wouldn't be a social scandal. He would ask me to forget all this and move on, to never journey into the night again. I would be safe.

Safe and forever away from music – the only thing that mattered after my father's death. The only thing that kept me sane and alive. My art. The heat that rushed through my veins as I felt I was getting lost in my role, becoming the person. The pride I felt when the audience threw flowers at my feet, applauded and compared me, of all people, to an angel.

Raoul had told me I would have anything I wished, anything that I would like he would give me. But he would never fulfill that promise. He would never give me music.

But how egoistic I was, thinking about this! His life was at stake! I was to be the judge… and the executioner was eager to carry out his duty, his hands almost shaking with anticipation!

Begging was useless now, I knew it. I knew it even as Raoul shouted at me to rather let him be killed than condemn myself to an unending night. I knew it when he declared, almost calmly, that there was no return from this. And, most of all, I knew it when I felt hot tears on my cheeks as I cried to him that he had deceived me, that I had given my mind blindly… as he snarled that I was to make my choice and not try his patience.

Part of me wanted to mouth to Raoul that I loved him, no matter what I was going to do now. Part of me wanted to beg again, to cry out that this torment was too much for anyone to endure. But nothing could now make a heart of stone show compassion or pity. I knew there was nothing that could prevent me from making a dreadful choice. A choice I was not prepared to make.

I took a deep breath, mustering all of my strength and courage. God knows I had so little of both right now. Especially if I would now find out something that I dreaded from the beginning of this tragedy. That even as I snarled words of hate at the man who had worshipped me even when I was nothing but a chorus girl, the hate was nothing more than a form of passion… as was love. As was fear. Damn him for being right when he said that fear can turn to love! Damn him for… for giving me so much hope, then shattering it… for stealing my soul, dominating my mind and ripping out my heart as he tried to steal it. Damn him for being right. I was just a helpless child... and my voice was weak as I spoke.

"Pitiful creature of darkness…" For the first time ever, it seemed that our roles had been switched – it was he who seemed to want to avoid my gaze, yet was unable to do so. "What kind of life have you known?" It was something I would wish to know. Who was the shape in the shadows of the Opera? Who was the masked angel who burned in Hell for the sins of others – for their hate, for their inability to see what lied beneath the surface? My voice gained some unnamed emotion as I finally approached him. "God give me courage to show you… you are not alone!"

I was no longer forcing myself into calmness, I was no longer pushing back hatred… for there was none. I could feel it. Where the others saw a monster, a living corpse, I saw the most beautiful of angels, misguided by his lack of knowledge of right and wrong, his only sin his yearning for love. And I had to show him that there was someone in the world who cared about his fate, who was willing to give him at least a glimpse of love, even though she had promised her heart to another man.

In those short moments, short even though they seem to last an eternity, since my eyes never left his and I never stopped trying to read his emotions, in the moments when I approached him and touched his face, I almost saw my life in the Opera and the people who had affected it. But as I captured his lips with mine, I couldn't help but return to the moments long gone, the moments I now wished were different. The days of joy, of laughter, of light…

But, above all else, the days when I was blessed by being the only human that could get a small glimpse of Heaven. The days when my soul was dominated by the music of the night.

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A/N: Review and tell me if you want this to continue… and how you want it to continue. I was thinking of either rewriting the entire musical/film from Christine´s POV or continuing this scene from her POV.