Hi! This is my second story. I really should be updating my other one, The Phantomness of the Opera, which I will be soon, but I became really inspired by the idea of this one, so started writing it! I hope you enjoy it!

Resist Me

Chapter One

Paris, 12th October 1872

Christine pulls the pins out of her hair one by one. She does it herself, even though there is a maid on hand to do it for her. She is independent this way; she lives her life out by the mantra If you want something done well, do it yourself. She has done so all her life. It is something her father has taught her. May he rest in peace.

Christine stares around at her opulent surroundings. She is located in her new dressing chamber, one which has been specially fitted in to accommodate her new wardrobe, which consisted of dresses all made by Madame de la Lune, the finest seamstress in Paris, the great city in which Christine resides. She has lived in many different places, countries even, though the one that still captures her heart is Uppsala, Sweden, where she was born, hence her Scandinavian-sounding maiden name, Daaé. She would do anything, even give her life, just to go home one last time. They say home is where the heart is, and for Christine, that saying couldn't be truer.

However, such a lusted after event isn't possible. Her home is to be Paris now and for the rest of her days, and even though Christine has acknowledged this, she still hasn't fully accepted it. She still hasn't fully accepted that this, the life of a wife, is her new reality.

Christine had never intended to be married. She had never even intended to be anywhere close to the day where she would wear a white gown and pledge to give all of her love to the man standing opposite her, who would no doubt be unfaithful and disrespectful toward her. It was for this reason that Christine was going to never fall in love, and live alone. A life lived best is one lived alone.

She had grown up amongst poverty; her mother died during childbirth, therefore her father had to physically juggle looking after his child constantly and earning a salary, which was meagre because of the aforementioned reason. However, she was surrounded with love and devotion, and in all her life Christine has never asked for anything more.

Jewels and fine clothing hold no value for her. Madame de la Lune's lavish dresses and the second-hand cast-offs bought from the markets in Sweden have the same meaning to Christine – it is a dress, nothing more. There are too many starving families in this forbidding world to waste money on apparel that would be worn once then thrown away.

She sighs, thinking back to the time when she had visited the dressmaker's dwellings. Somehow, her then-to-be husband had managed to acquire a private meeting with Madame, to discuss his new wife's wardrobe. For Christine would soon be the wife of a Vicomte, and having her seen in the plain, dark cotton clothes she was currently wearing just simply wouldn't do. No, she needed new day dresses, new ball gowns, new gloves, new shoes, even new underclothes. In spite of the fact that Christine hadn't aristocratic blood, the Vicomte had decided to marry her anyway – therefore he needed to make her look like she had been preparing for the role of Vicomtesse all of her sixteen summers alive.

Christine involuntarily winces in pain at the thought of visiting de la Lune's again. For it was a painful experience; her fiancé had wanted all her clothes to be the tightest as possible, with the least coverage socially acceptable so he could have her showing of her full assets, which is something Christine despises. Even though she has never been anything but a commoner before now, she still values self-respect and dignity above all else in a person. Wearing low-cut dresses and tight bodices is her idea of hell, yet she must show that she has some sense of her place in life, therefore must obey her husband, her superior, her master.

Her father, for the twelve years of her life that he lived, taught her to be independent and open-minded. He taught her to allow all kinds of people to not just converse with, but to care for. Blacks, hunchbacks, and deformed souls might make an appearance sometime on her life, and she must treat them, who are all types of people cast out from general society, like any other. For they, just because they are different, doesn't mean they should be treated so. And Christine lives by this rule. She has yet to meet one of these special people, but if she ever gets the chance to do so, she shall make the most of it, and endeavour to know them like she knows herself. It may give her the chance to learn something.

And Christine has always been enthusiastic about learning. She knows that the more knowledge you have, the better you are off in life. It shouldn't matter about your wealth; no, you should be valued as you appear as a person, with only your charm and wit to give. Yet this is not the world we live in, Christine thinks, it is not you that determines your life; it is the money you have. And now I am rich, my value as a person will be second to that.

Christine rushes over to the dresses, and buries her head in them, tears falling freely into the expensive crushed velvet. Money is all I am now. What have I done?

She lifts her head up, but can only see the bright colours of the materials. Focusing on them, she tries to remember the events of her life leading up to this moment, three hours after her wedding the Vicomte, and the exact reason which ultimately lead her down the aisle.

She was living at the Opera Populaire at the time, earning a meagre living as a ballet girl, one of the skills her father had insisted she master, as it would teach her posture and grace. She was poor, but she had a roof over her head, clothes to wear and food in her belly, so what more could she ask for? Plus, it was allowing her to live and dance in her father's memory; it had been three-and-a-half years since he had passed.

The cause of his death was a simple fever caught somewhere amongst the dirty streets of Paris. Her father had uprooted them both when Christine was nine from Uppsala to Paris. She had been heartbroken from the moment he first told her, but she grieved silently about the matter, and place all her trust in him. She tried to believe him when he pleaded with her that there would be better opportunities for them to live in Paris rather than Sweden, as it was a well-known fact that Parisians loved street musicians, especially violinists.

Unfortunately for the father and daughter, he could not have been more wrong: food and stones were thrown at her father, Gustave Daaé, whenever he performed. One such time even claimed his beloved violin, second only to his daughter Christine. It had been a rainy Tuesday afternoon when he began to play one of his own compositions near the Opera Populaire, a place well known for its extravagant operas. Gustave's reasoning to play near there was simply that music connoisseurs would take more kindly to his music and offer him money in exchange for his services, and there would be more of this sort around the opera house. However, it was there that the damage took place: he was simply playing, moving his bow across the violin's strings in a fast and jovial fashion, when one man, about five-and-thirty years of age, started shouting obscenities to the man, his young daughter to witness. Of course, Christine was still a child, and therefore had no understanding of what the man's words meant, but could tell just by his tone that he did not mean well of them. She thought that her father may say them back – never hit first but always hit back was another of his philosophical sayings – yet he didn't and carried on playing. The man didn't relent when Gustave ignored him; he started advancing toward the pair, shouting louder and more aggressively with every step he took. Christine, at this point, was frightened, but decided against saying anything to her father, for her throat had closed up, forcing Christine to be able to do nothing except breathe. And she did; by the time the still-anonymous man was within five steps of them, she was hyperventilating and in fear of fainting. All she could do was clutch her father's legs (she was sitting down on the ground) and hope to God that this torment would soon be over.

But it wasn't.

Nowhere near.

By this time, Gustave had slowed down to a more romantic, sentimental tune, because it was easier to play; he had been focused on this man. He had never seen him before, so took him as someone who didn't enjoy his music. However, that did not give him any right to threaten him and his daughter; yet he had carried on playing – the protective side of him had kicked in when the man had started walking toward him, and, using his legs, he ushered Christine behind him and watched him. Though he still had some reserved of generic male pride installed within him, which compelled him to not give in to this man, one who he thought beneath him, and because of this reason, he kept on playing.

About five minutes after this man's blatant irritation and display of indecent behaviour, Gustave observed him pick up a colossal grey rock from the ground. He watched in dread as he watched him lift it a good few inches higher than his head, before hurling him at the family in front of him. There was nothing Gustave could've done to stop him. His mouth and body were frozen with terror as the rock smashed into the violin resting on his shoulder. The violin, which meant everything to him, smashed into a hundred pieces, scattering all over the street. Gustave's eyes had grown wide; his mouth has dropped open. The one time in his life, he was ashamed to admit, his attention was not on his daughter, but on the instrument that had been his loyal companion for fifteen years, now completely obliterated.

Gustave had crumbled to the ground, hysterically crying, as his daughter and the man who'd caused his heart-breaking pain watched on.

The man walked away, his work done. Just as he was turning the street corner, he turned around and stared back at the scene, the exact same as before, and shouted, "That will teach you a lesson. Now you can never annoy me with that bloody violin again."

§

Gustave was never the same after that day. Fortuitously, the ballet master at the Opera Populaire, a Madame Giry, was kind enough to allow Gustave and Christine to live with her and her daughter Meg in their small apartment. It was always meant to be temporary; Gustave was supposed to find a job. But his will to live was gone; he never wanted to play music again – his inspiration and passion had been cruelly robbed from him the same day as his violin. He had no will to do anything except watch over Christine and make sure that she grew up to never commit such a despicable act as that, so showered her with affection and anecdotes which would prove to her that she always had to be the best person she could make of herself, and to not be blinded by money or power.

He died four years later.

It had been a quick yet painful death; within days of catching the fever he was gone, but in those days he was wild with hallucinations and acts of violence, so terrible that Madame Giry had banned either Christine or Meg to go anywhere near the sick man. Those three days were the worst of Christine's life; the dire state of constantly not-knowing whether he was going to survive the illness caused her to be unwell also. She was perpetually crying and praying to God to release them all from this torment; they had been through enough grief, hadn't they?

A few minutes before his death, Gustave had asked Madame Giry to bring Christine to his bedside. Fully aware that he was going to die soon, and that this would be the last chance he got to see his daughter, she obliged. She journeyed across to where Christine and Meg were, and ordered Christine in the gentlest way possible to come with her. Christine could sense that it was something to do with her father, and by seeing the mournful look present in Mme. Giry's eyes, she knew exactly what.

She rushed over to his bedside, and knelt down, clasping her hands together in a prayer which begged God to allow her father a peaceful existence in the afterlife. Gustave had softly touched her, and she had looked up at him, tears glistening in her usually vibrant blue eyes, and started to speak, and used up his last moments with a sentence that would stay with his daughter for the rest of her life:

"Stay true to yourself, child; it is all anyone could ask for."

§

The next three years of Christine Daaé's life were a woozy blur full of nothing but hard concentration in ballet. She had started lessons back in Sweden when she was a child, but had resumed now as Mme. Giry said that becoming a member of the company was the only way Christine could carry on residing with them. The older woman had felt bad for giving Christine such a harsh ultimatum just weeks after her father's passing, but she couldn't care for the adolescent any longer without receiving anything in return. It had actually surprised her that Christine was so eager to have the ballet lessons, yet she still felt uneasy about the whole matter, which is why she watched Christine closely for the subsequent three years, and saw her grow into a beautiful ballerina; the best at the opera house.

Which is the reason why Christine, just fifteen years old, caught the attention of twenty-one-year-old Raoul, le Vicomte de Chagny.

His family, a prestigious one in France, had just taken on the role of patrons for the Opera Populaire, which forced Raoul into attending performances once a week. He had always hated the arts, and preferred to stick to academia, but couldn't refuse as it was his duty, alongside his brother Philippe, to go with their parents to the opera.

The very first night the Chagnys attended the production – it was Hannibal – Christine had just been given the role of head ballerina. She was thrilled to be given it, as it meant it was a challenge for her to learn a more complicated routine, for which she was always up for. In the performance, Christine not only mastered her role, but gave a certain amount of graceful charisma and finesse that Raoul was captivated with, and instinctively knew that there was something about this girl that was special, therefore he intended to pursue her.

For months Christine refused his advances, choosing instead to focus on her ballet, which infuriated Raoul, but also spurred him on. He went to every performance, and visited backstage to find Christine, and congratulate her, and to convince her to start courting him. His parents weren't pleased with their younger son's actions, but there wasn't anything they could do about it: he was enchanted.

After some time Christine finally relented and gave him the answer he so long wanted to hear: she agreed to go to dinner with him. Initially, it wasn't an action she had planned, but he had worn her down, and she could tell he was going to persist.

When she did attend a dinner with him, she was surprised to find him quite vivacious and full of spirit: he had an atmosphere of vibrancy which Christine found to be refreshing, having lived in mourning for so long. She didn't love him, but accepted him as a companion, which Raoul had mistakenly thought was affection; she was returning feelings which he had felt for her so strongly for so long.

He had proposed six month after they began courting, in front of his family and friends at a large engagement ball he was hosting in the very likely event Christine said yes. He had even bought her a new gown.

Christine never wanted to marry him, so was filled with absolute horror when he spoke the dreaded words which requested her hand in marriage. If they were alone, she would've declined – but they weren't, so felt it her duty to say yes.

The wedding planning began immediately. Christine wanted desperately to get her unwanted fiancé alone and to break off the engagement, but Raoul would never allow her the time, he was so busy in planning the nuptials, a task which he bestowed upon himself rather than Christine, which was the tradition. As the day grew nearer, and arrangements were made, she grew sicker and sicker with guilt, which everybody involved mistook as nerves. On the dreaded day, Christine attempted to run away, but was brought back by her bridesmaids – women from Raoul's family; she didn't know a single one of them – and almost forced down the aisle. Once at the altar, the words which she needed to say vanished from her tongue, and she pleaded love and allegiance, to Raoul, a man she didn't want to marry anywhere during the course of their relationship, but had somehow ended up doing exactly that.

§

"What is the matter, my dear?"

Christine turns around and unexpectedly finds her new husbands standing in the doorway.

"I don't know what you mean," she tries to reply, wiping the evident tears from her eyes.

"Oh, Christine, whatever is the matter?" Raoul journeys over to his new wife and pulls her into a forceful embrace.

Christine sees no point in lying – the deed had already been done – so simply answers: "I was thinking about my father and how he never lived to see this joyous day."

"I'm sure your father would have loved to have been here, on our wedding day," Raoul comforts her, oblivious to the fact that her words were a lie. "He would have been very proud of you."

Would he have been? Christine wonders. Would he have been proud at my deceit? Would he have been proud of me for doing everything he said not to do? I suppose not.

Please review! Also, if anyone is interested in beta-ing this one, as I already have two amazing betas on my other story, please PM me!