A/N: This story was previously published by me under a different title. Thank you Chipmunklover for reading over this story.
Chapter 1: The Return
"Why, you ask, was I bound and chained in this cold and dismal place. Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!" Erik cried threateningly.
"Track down this murderer. He must be found," echoed the actors and police from a distance.
The Phantom dragged Christine down to the cellars of the opera house after her act in the Don Juan Triumphant opera. Erik knew that the police were following their trail as he tried to force Christine to marry him.
"This haunted face holds no horror for me now. It's in your soul, that the true distortion lies," Christine angrily assures him.
Erik, upset by Christine's last remark, suddenly notices Raoul, who has just appeared at the gate.
"Wait, I think, my dear, we have a guest!" Erik dryly said.
He composes up a plan to compel Christine to marry him. He made her choose between her freedom and Raoul. If she chose to love Raoul, then Erik would kill him, but if she chose Erik then Raoul would be free and she would stay in the labyrinth.
"Monsieur I bid you welcome. Did you think that I would harm her?" Erik said ashe opened the gate. He picked up the Punjab lasso from the surrounding water. "Why would I make her pay, for the sins which are yours?" The lasso was thrown around Raoul's neck and tied to the closed gate. Christine gasped at the thought of him being the Phantom's next victim.
To Christine, he said, "Start a new life with me. Buy his freedom with your love. Refuse me and you send your lover to his death. This is the choice; this is the point of no return!
Angered at the request of Erik, she said, "The tears I might have shed for your dark fate, grow cold, and turn to tears of hate!"
"Don't throw your life away for my sake!" Raoul urged.
"Pitiful creature of darkness; what kind of life have you known? God give me courage to show you, you are not alone." She kissed Erik.
"Track down this murderer, he must be found! Hunt out this animal, who runs to ground!" echoed the actors and police, who were nearing the group.
"Take him. Forget me. Forget all of this. Leave me alone. Forget all you've seen. Go now, don't let them find you Take the boat; swear to me, never to tell, the secret you know, of the angel in Hell! Go now! Go now and leave me!"
Christine rushed to Raoul before Erik could change his mind. They embraced each other and ran out the gate. The Opera Ghost watched them leave and entered the hidden room in one of his mirrors.
Meg Giry was the first to reach the underground house and narrowly missed seeing the Phantom. She picks up the mask which was left on the organ.
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Six years later, Christine and her son Philippe, who was named after his uncle, find their way back to the opera house.
Comte de Chaney, Raoul's brother, had raised Raoul after their father died and had left them orphans. He helped Raoul through school and at the start of his sailing career. After his death, by being drowned by Erik, Raoul and Christine had wanted to honor him with naming their son after him.
Upon receiving her freedom from Erik's layer, Christine and Raoul quickly were wed. Unfortunately, the two lovers were too hasty in their love. Being childhood sweethearts does not mean that they were match made in Heaven.
Since their son's birth, Christine and Raoul had disagreements even on the slightest events. They accounted this on the encounter with the Phantom of the Opera, because too much had gone between them.
Christine has left her husband to return to Paris and to see how the opera has fared in the years of her absence.
Raoul and Christine had moved to Christine's hometown in Perros. They had moved into the house that Christine had lived in before her father died and she left to live with Madame Giry.
"Where's Père*?" asked Philippe while they were on the train.
"We're going away from him for a while," his mother replied.
"Is he going to meet us later? Where are we going?"
"We are going to Paris to meet with some old friends," she answered, intentionally ignoring his first question.
They were silent for the rest of the journey to the opera house.
She still remembered the paths around the building as if she had never been gone. Philippe was looking around with a curiosity that only young children can experience.
Passing the dressing rooms, she saw a familiar friend. "Meg!" Christine called.
"Christine?" inquired her friend.
The two had known each other since the day Meg Giry was born. They were raised as sisters when Mme. Giry, Meg's mother, adopted Christine after her father died.
"Come inside," invited Meg, gesturing toward her room. They entered the small room with Meg leading the way. "I assume you are here about the Phantom." Christine nodded. "Well then, he has not been seen or heard of for some time now."
Startled by Meg's bluntness, Christine asked, "When was the last time anyone heard of him?"
"He just vanished the night you left the Opera Populaire. No one has seen him since that night."
"Oh. How has the opera fared since then?"
"There is no more trouble with the Phantom of the Opera. Remember Carlotta?" Christine nodded again. "After the night Piangi was killed, she left. There were rumors that she was the last victim if the Phantom. But I know that she returned to Spain." Meg was enjoying telling Christine of this gossip.
"I think I'll go down to the Phantom's hideaway see what there still is down there. Can you watch Philippe for me?"
"Yes I'll watch him. Oh I should get the mask," Meg said. Christine watched her retrieve the mask with a perplexed expression.
To Philippe, Christine said, "Stay with Meg. I will be back in a while."
"Mère*," whined Philippe. He didn't want her to leave him with this unknown woman.
Christine walked the long trail of steps to the fifth cellar of the opera house, clutching the white mask as if it were a lifeline. In the corners of the dark corridor were several types of spider webs, a few with spiders. She remembered the way to the underground house from the few times she was dragged along this path by Erik. As she passed clumsily through the lake, she wondered, "What has become of the Phantom? Why has no one seen him since I left?"
After several flights of stairs and wading through an underground lake, Christine arrived at the Phantom's lair. There was music scores scattered on and around the organ. The Phantom's obsessive drawings of Christine were torn into shreds and left where they fell. Erik, himself, was nowhere to be seen.
Christine ventured further into the house and into what must have been his secret room, for she found him huddled underneath a small broken piano with hundreds of once red rose petals that were now dead piled under him. His hair was greasy from years of negligence. Christine was shocked at the site of him, although she was long used to his scars.
"Erik?" Christine asked, showing him the mask.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. Erik smiled hugely when he realized she had returned to him even if he thought he was imagining her. His eyes then fell upon the mask she still held. He stood up to retrieve it from her. Christine smiled to herself at the familiar look of Erik pulling on his mask.
*Père and Mère are French for Mother and Father.*