A/N: So I have developed this recent obsession with 'Love Never Dies' since first watching the DVD a few weeks ago. I only wish I could afford to go to Sydney where it is still playing, or had been priveleged enough to see either one of my two new favorite Phantoms (Ben Lewis and Ramin Karimloo) in London or Melbourne. Moping aside, this is a little something I had kicking around in my head since I first listened to 'Beneath a Moonless Sky.' (Which, let's face it, is hot!) And just as a disclaimer, no amount of kicking and screaming and stomping my feet is going to make any of these characters mine. They belong to Gaston Leroux and the Lord himself, Andrew Lloyd Webber. I hope you like it!
She tucked her little man in to bed, gently kissing his forehead and brushing his hair out of his eyes.
"Good night, Mother," he smiled sleepily up at her.
"Sweet dreams, Gustave," she whispered. He yawned and graced her with one more tired smile before laying his head down and closing his eyes. She sighed heavily, gazing down at him as he drifted off. How much he resembled his father…
Christine extinguished the lamp and exited her son's room, closing the door with a soft click. A familiar melody filled her ears and she frowned, wondering where it was coming from. She made her way into the parlor to see the music box playing on the ottoman. Gustave had received it as a gift from the three odd people that had picked them up at the pier. Surely Mr. Hammerstein wouldn't have sent them. But they assured her he had, so much to Raoul's chagrin, they had boarded the carriage. The…oddities, for lack of better words… dropped them off at the hotel and presented her son with the gift. Raoul had rolled his eyes at the time, and she was suddenly grateful he wasn't here. He probably would have pitched toy off the balcony. His temper was so short as of late, and this only would have made him angrier.
She picked up the music box and turned in from side to side, inspecting every inch. What could have possibly set this off? She peered at it curiously and strolled across the room, setting it down on the piano. She felt a sudden prickle at the back of her neck and glanced up. Something was wrong, she could feel it. She began to frantically search the room. She made it as far as the lounge chair before a gust of wind sent the balcony doors clattering into the walls, causing Christine to jump and shriek. She slowly turned to face the source of the commotion, and nearly collapsed.
There he stood, in all his terrifying glory. The man she had previously thought lost to her forever was here, in Coney Island, standing on her balcony. Christine's heart skipped a beat and she wasn't sure if she should be frightened by the presence of a ghost, overjoyed at the sight of her lost love, or angry at the man who abandoned her all those years ago. Her chest got tight and she began to gasp for air as panic took over. Her vision began to tunnel and she grabbed the back of the chair with both hands, her knees going weak.
Sensing her panic and the fact that she was about to faint, Erik rushed to her side, only to have her roughly push him away.
"Don't touch me!" she spat. She slid her hands along the side and down the arm of the chair until she could safely sit herself down. She took a couple of deep, gulping breaths and shook her head, blinking a few times in an apparent attempt to clear her vision.
"My Christine," he began, but immediately stopped when her eyes met his in a steely glare. Where he had hoped to see love and joy, he only saw pain, anger and resentment.
"I should have known," she growled. "I should have know you were behind this. The mysterious carriage at the pier. The haunting music on the piano. The music box. It all screams your name."
"How did you…how did you hear the music?" he asked.
"My s-" she stopped herself. He couldn't know about Gustave. Not yet. "Never mind. It's not important. You lied to everyone. You just disappeared and expected everyone to forget about you…expected me to forget about you."
"Christine, I-"
"No! You don't get to speak! I'm not finished!" she cried. She catapulted herself from the chair and stalked across the room. "You wanted to be forgotten so you left! You disregarded my feelings and you left! And now you think you can just show up and act like nothing ever happened?"
"I never once," he seethed. "Not even one time, disregarded your feelings, my Christine. You know why I left. It has tortured me every day for the past ten years."
"So much that you could not at least send me word? That you were alive and well? I thought you were dead, Erik!" Christine hung her head, afraid to face him.
"You knew I wasn't," he said. "Don't lie to yourself."
"Stop," she demanded, shaking her head. She could feel him approaching her and felt the familiar flood of heat in her abdomen. The anticipation of his touch sent shivers down her spine and she tried to reign in her feelings. "Don't. You. Dare. I've moved on!"
"Have you?" he whispered, the sweet seduction of his voice causing her eyes to flutter shut. She began to sway on her feet and instantly he was there, wrapping his arms around her waist. She savored the embrace for a brief moment before wrenching herself free and walking away from him again.
"Y-yes," she stammered. "I'm married now. To Raoul." She placed her hands on the piano and hung her head. Now who was lying?
"That didn't seem to stop you before," Erik smirked, turning to face her. "My Christine."
"Stop calling me that!" she demanded weakly. "You don't get to call me that. Not anymore."
"There was a time when you would do anything to hear those words," Erik rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. He wasn't anticipating her ire.
"That time is gone," she spat. "That man, who whispered those sweet words in my ear…"
"On that night," he said softly, taking slow, deliberate steps in her direction.
"That night…" she murmured, her heart racing.
"You found me. I don't know how, but you found me," he reached out and let his fingers dance across the smooth skin of her neck and slide down her arm, threading his fingers through hers and pulling her back against him. He reveled in the warmth of her body pressed against his, and more in the fact that she wasn't pulling away.
"That night," she whispered again. "I was to wed Raoul the next day…"
"And yet you came to me," his warm breath caressed her skin and Christine had to stifle a moan. Erik felt a sense of smug satisfaction that he still had this effect on her.
"Don't, Erik," she sighed. "Please. Don't bring this up."
"You rushed to Calais, and found where I was hiding," he said softly into her hear. "But there's something you never told me."
"Please," she begged. "Don't do this."
"You never told me why," his question resonated in her ears . "Why, my Christine? Why did you come find me?"
"I don't -" she grimaced, squirming half-heartedly in his grasp. "Please Erik. I don't want to relive the pain."
"You owe me," he nearly growled. That snapped her immediately out her reverie. She shoved his hands off her waist.
"I owe you nothing! You left me, Erik!" she whirled around and found herself nose to nose with him. "You. Left. Me."
"Not before you left me!" he spat. "In the lair. You walked out with him and left me to the mob."
"I didn't want to!" she cried. "I never wanted to leave you! God, Erik, why can't you see that? I left you that night because you turned me away, practically shoving me into the arms of another man. And I came to find you because…because I …." she took a ragged breath. "I couldn't live with myself. With my choice. I needed you, Erik. I sought you because I needed you. To hear you. To see you. To feel you."
Christine gripped the lapels of his jacket, pulling him close as memories of their shared passion invaded her senses. She splayed her fingers as she slid her trembling hands up his chest and across his broad shoulders. His hands found their way to her hips, ever so slowly drawing her near to him again.
"And did you?" he whispered, resting his forehead on hers. She nodded slightly, biting her lower lip.
"It was exquisite," she sighed. "I had never known such pleasure. The feel of a man's soft, warm flesh pressed up against my own. The way his hands could worship every inch of me with such tenderness. And the way…the way he could carry me over the thresh holds of joy again, and again and again!" She shuddered, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. She looked up into his eyes and they smoldered with remembered desire. "I had never known any of that until you showed me that night."
"My Christine," he breathed. "My sweet, angelic, Christine."
"And I knew," she declared. "Laying in your arms that night, I knew. I knew I could not return to marry Raoul, because it is a fool's errand to marry a man you do not love. So I fell asleep that night with the determination to tell you when I woke. To tell you that I loved you and wanted to spend my life with you. But I woke to find myself alone; naked and vulnerable in a strange hotel bed in Calais."
"I could not face you," Erik answered before she could ask. "I was ashamed of…of this." He gestured to his masked deformity. "I was afraid you'd shun me as you did once before. So I kissed you while you were sleeping and slipped out. I boarded the ship to the Americas and left with the sunrise."
"Damnit, Erik!" Christine swore, squeezing her eyes shut against the threatening tears. "I loved you!"
"I know," he mumbled.
"I would have come with you! I was willing to sacrifice everything for you!"
"I know," he repeated, his voice rising.
"You left me!" she cried, her hands latching onto his arms as she tried to shake him. "You walked out and left me to marry him!"
"I know, I know I know!" he shouted. His fingers dug into her hips and he pulled her roughly against him to get her to stop. "And I've regretted it every day since."
"I loved you," she stated again, glaring into his eyes. "And you left."
"And I swear on my life I will never leave again," he vowed, releasing one hip to tenderly stroke her cheek. "I'm here now, and-"
"Now?" she pulled away and cocked her head. "How can you talk of now?"
She turned her back as the first tears escaped and spilled on to her cheek.
"For us," she shook her head and swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.
"There is no now."