While doing research for some fan fiction I'm currently working on, I found an article and was particularly moved by a quote from one of the soldiers who had a mask made by Anna Coleman Ladd after WWI.

"Thanks to you, I will have a home," one soldier had written her. "…The woman I love no longer finds me repulsive, as she had a right to do."

An idea wormed into my brain, and there is stayed until I wrote it. This was first written as original fic, but I had to make into a Phantom of the Opera fan fic, because it has been pecking at me for a while to do so. I know it's probably more expected to make an E/C story out of this considering the subject, but the whole thing screamed R/C to me (big surprise, I know), and I love the idea of doing things a little differently. There's no Erik in this AU at all. Unbetaed, so apologies for any mistakes.

For Christina, who has been incredibly supportive from day one. You are the definition of a true friend. Seeing LND with you was a blast, and I can't wait to gorge on Phantom with you!

i.

Raoul de Chagny sat in the darkness of the convalescent hospital, the night air cool on his bare face. He'd used to love feeling the warmth of the sun on his cheeks, the wind ruffling his hair. Now...now, things were different, and the only time his face was uncovered was when the doctors came to see him, or when the night was dark as pitch.

He glanced down at the photograph perched on the edge of the desk. It was supposed to inspire him to write a letter - the Red Cross had come through earlier, bearing writing supplies for anyone wanting to send word home - but all it did was render him speechless. Christine, his childhood sweetheart and wife of three years - three years, and yet they'd spent less than a week together as man and wife - was as pretty as a doll, her curly blonde hair gathered at the nape of her neck as she tenderly gazed down at the towheaded baby in her arms. A son, conceived during his last furlough, a child Raoul had never met except through this picture.

He was going home soon. It was all that Raoul had wanted, all that his heart had desired, ever since he'd left his wife behind in France. His longing for home, for Christine, had only intensified once she'd written to tell him that she was expecting. And now he could return to her.

But this wasn't what he had wanted - no, not like this. In all of his homecoming fantasies, he'd returned to his family because the war was over. He had been healthy, and happy, and whole in all of those dreams.

He hadn't been like this, with half of his face torn away by a German bullet. His nose, his upper lip, most of his left cheek, his left eye - it was all gone, laying somewhere on a godforsaken battlefield, leaving only a gaping hole in its wake.

The doctors told him that he was not yet a surgical candidate; the damage to his face and the underlying bone structure was too severe. But they asked him not to give up hope, that their reconstruction skills were growing by leaps and bounds each passing month. Someday, he might be able to feel the sun on his face again.

Until then, he had been given an ill-fitting mask that made him look more like a specter than a man.

He had to warn Christine. He couldn't let her meet him in the train station completely unaware, searching for her husband as she clutched their son to her chest, scanning the crowds for the familiar face that no longer existed.

Raoul picked up his pen and began to write.

My dearest Christine, I have been gravely injured…

ii.

His brother met Raoul at the train station. Philippe clapped him awkwardly on the back, and then they rode in silence to the cottage that he and Christine rented.

Christine met them at the door; she had been waiting for him, the baby in her arms, and Raoul's heart lifted briefly until he saw the confusion on her lovely features. His letter hadn't arrived. Of course it hadn't. The post here had never been particularly reliable, and the war had made it even less so.

Philippe offered to take the baby for the day, to give them time to talk. Raoul's son was whisked out of his mother's arms and out of his life without Raoul ever get a chance to lay eyes - eye - on him properly.

"What happened?" Christine asked once Philippe left, her voice shaking so badly that Raoul barely recognized it. It was only fair. She wouldn't recognize him, either - not with this mask on, and most definitely not with it off.

There were many things that he could say. He could tell her about the battle, the way he had climbed out of the trenches when ordered. He could tell her about the German who had shot him point-blank in the face. He could tell her about losing consciousness, of waking up in a muddy ditch with corpses piled atop of him, of feebly reaching through those broken bodies and begging for help.

But he did not tell her any of these things. Instead, he simply removed his mask.

Christine had been a brilliant actress before their marriage and her retirement from the stage, but even she couldn't hide her horror. She screamed - a short, pained noise that sounded more animal than human.

Raoul couldn't blame her for that. He'd screamed too, when they had first showed him his face in the mirror.

iii.

He didn't make her share a bed with him that night. Raoul hadn't mastered the art of sleeping in his mask yet, and he could only imagine the fright he would give Christine if she rolled over and saw his ravaged face once more. One scream he could forgive her; two screams, and he would die inside, more than he already had.

And so he slept on the couch, which was far more comfortable than any beds he had called his own for the past few years. Trench warfare was not a well-furnished affair.

The baby returned the next morning, but the warmth in Christine's eyes that had once been his did not.

Raoul held the child. His son looked like him - or, at least, how he had once looked. His nearly white hair had darkened into Raoul's sandy shade, and his son's deep blue eyes were an exact mirror of his own. The only mark that Christine had made on their child was the baby's unruly curls. The child - Sébastien, named after Raoul's father, who had died when Raoul was still a boy - was unafraid of the mask, his eyes looking at Raoul with no fear or suspicion.

Christine's eyes though...well, there was plenty of fear there, even with the mask on. She was a beautiful young woman who was just now realizing that for her, the fairy tale was reversed. Instead of marrying a beast who transformed into a handsome prince, she had married a nobleman who had become a beast, with no magic in the world powerful enough to reverse the change.

He supposed that the vows they had shared on their wedding day, especially the part about being one flesh until death, were no longer as appealing as they once were.

He couldn't blame her for that, either.

iv.

Philippe took Raoul to Paris to be properly fit with a better mask. There was a sculptor there, one who had lost a son to the Great War and was eager to give back to the war effort in some way. It was expensive to make an appointment with her, but the de Chagny family still had money.

They told him to bring old pictures with him, photographs that would show the features of his former face, so the artist could be inspired for his new face.

Raoul brought the pictures, but he did not look at them. If he did, he was certain that he would go mad.

v.

Things at home had become...worse, if possible. Christine had not screamed since that first time. She no longer looked at him with such naked fear in her eyes. She barely looked at him at all, at least not his face. She would look at his hands, or his feet, or his chest, but never his face.

It was still there, of course, the fear - how could she not fear him when he looked like a monster? But she was kind to him, unbearably so, to the point that her pity hurt him worse than his wounds ever had.

And still, although he ached for her, they did not share a bed.

Raoul could ask. She probably wouldn't deny him...if it was dark enough. If he kept his mask on. If he was quick. If he returned to the sofa after he was done.

The very idea made him feel like less than a man, and so he did not ask.

vi.

It took a few weeks for the sculptor to create the mask. Philippe dutifully took Raoul back to Paris for the final fitting.

It was...beautiful, really, the mask. Crafted from galvanized copper, the sculptor had proudly explained how she had spent hours mixing the paints to blend with Raoul's skin tone. There was a glass eye, too, that matched the exact shade of his remaining one. But the mask...oh the mask.

He sobbed like a small child when the sculptor brought him a mirror. The mask was held in place with a pair of spectacles with clear lenses, and a mustache made of real human hair covered the portion where the mask met his lower lip. And he looked...like a man, but not just any man.

He looked like himself again.

vii.

For the first time since Raoul had returned home, Christine looked at him - truly looked at him. It was almost as if she couldn't stop looking at him.

She'd wept, too, when he had returned with the mask firmly in place. She'd touched his shoulders first, his hair, and then her fingers has tentatively grazed against the metal of his new face. "Oh," she'd whispered, sounding surprised, although what had caused that reaction, Raoul didn't know. Nor did he really care. His wife was looking at him.

It was more than he'd ever dreamed of happening, more than he'd ever expected.

viii.

He wore the mask at all times, except when he was asleep on the couch.

Christine settled, changed. Her bearing wasn't so ramrod straight anymore. She didn't clutch the baby so tightly to her chest when Raoul startled her with a sudden movement. She was relaxing around him, finally.

And they talked. Oh, how they talked, for hours at a time once Sébastien was in bed for the night, filling one another in on their separate lives that had once again merged together. She was so kind, his precious Christine, so graceful with her attention, hanging onto every word. She never remarked about how his voice had changed, how it had become less refined, less precise. It was difficult to speak now without part of his palate, without his nose, and yet Christine never drew attention to it.

And those pale blue eyes of hers - he wanted to drown in them, to lose himself entirely in their depths. He was falling in love with her anew.

He just wished that she felt the same for him. But still they slept separately.

It would take time, Philippe had confided in him a few days ago, when he'd come by to visit and play with the baby. Give her time, Raoul. It's quite a shock for such a young woman. Be patient with her.

He could give her time. He could give her patience. He'd give her anything she asked for if it kept her with him, even if he could never touch her again the way a man touches his wife. Just to have her here, to have Sébastien here - it meant everything, more than life itself. Without them, he would have no life. He would have nothing at all.

ix.

Their anniversary arrived. Four years together now, and still only less than a week spent as a true husband and wife.

Raoul tried not to lose himself to melancholy as he thought about this. Instead, he bought her a bouquet of calla lilies, Christine's favorite, in a riot of colors - white, purple, pink, yellow. He wasn't working, but Philippe had been generous to them, giving them enough money to meet their needs and some to save, just until Raoul could reintegrate fully into society and start his studies at university.

He had dreamed of being a sailor once. The war had soured that for him, though, and now he wasn't sure what he wanted to be.

Christine's husband. Sébastien's father. That was what he wanted to be.

She blushed prettily when he presented the flowers to her, just as she had when he'd gotten down on one knee and asked her to make him the happiest man on earth. "Oh Raoul," she breathed, beaming up at him as if he had given her the most precious thing in all of the world, "you remembered."

"Of course I did." And he did his level best to smile at her, although most of his lower lip curling upwards was obscured by the mustache of his mask.

Tears filled her eyes, and she set the flowers down on the table before standing. "I…" Her voice was quivering, just as her knees appeared to be, and Raoul wondered if his garish grin had frightened her anew, if she had seen enough of his face to disgust her.

His Christine stepped towards him, giving him a shaky smile before slowly wrapping her arms around his neck, holding him so gently, as if she was afraid that he might shatter in her arms. And the way his breath caught in his chest, perhaps she was right to worry.

She kissed him - on the cheek, at first, his masked cheek. He couldn't feel her lips, but he could feel the pressure of her mouth against the metal, and all of the air in his lungs escaped from him in a harsh hiss. And then she had angled away from him, just slightly, studying him with those serious eyes of hers, before leaning forward once more. Except this time her mouth brushed against his lower lip, and his hands spasmed uncontrollably as his fingertips bit into her shoulders.

Her breath was soft and hot against the bared portion of his chin as her lips dragged over his once more. He wanted to reach out, to tangle his fingers in her hair, to suck her lower lip between his and nibble on it. But he couldn't do that, because much of his mouth had been destroyed, and even if he could, Christine would be disgusted by him…

Raoul pulled away, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to apologize, to beg her forgiveness, even though she had been the one to kiss him. But she was smiling at him - more sure, less shaky - and it reached her eyes as she met his gaze. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Thank you," he murmured back to her.

x.

It became easier between them. There were good morning embraces, tender stolen moments during Sébastien's naps, and before bed kisses that started sweet but became much more heated at times. And then they parted for the evening, with Christine taking their bedroom and Raoul claiming the couch as his own once more.

They touched now, much more than they had since he'd returned from the war. She would hand him his breakfast plate and brush his shoulder with her fingers before walking away, delicately giving him the privacy he needed to eat. She would hold his hand or take his arm at times, without warning or apparent loathing.

And she smiled. Christine looked amazing when she was happy; she could light up a whole room with just one smile. Their cottage was becoming more cheery by the day.

One afternoon, nearly a month after he had received his new mask, they were enjoying the sunshine with Sébastien. Surprisingly, it was strong enough to warm his mask, and Raoul closed his eye and basked in the rays. He had nearly nodded off when he felt the pressure of Christine's hand at his elbow.

"Raoul?" She wasn't holding the baby any longer - when had she stepped inside to put him down for his nap? Maybe he had nodded off.

Christine laced her arm through the crook of his and rested her chin on top of his shoulder. "I'm sorry. About how I reacted when you came home. It was just...it was so unexpected."

"I know." And he did know. "You don't have to apologize."

"I do." She worried at her lower lip with her teeth. "I used to dream about what I would do, you know? The men who were coming home were missing...parts. Legs, arms. Their faces. I told myself that I would be perfect, that I would be stoic and not…" She was crying, her skin flushing a blotchy scarlet. Christine hated it and said she looked ugly when she got upset, but Raoul always thought she was beautiful. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I've never held your reactions against you, Christine. They weren't any worse than the ones I had when I found out."

"Can I have another chance?" Christine reached into the pocket of her dress and withdrew a tissue, dabbing at her eyes. "Will you let me try again?"

He didn't understand until she laid her palm against his masked cheek. He started to tremble. He thought he would be ill. To be out here, in the bright sunshine, and to expose his hideousness to the woman he loved...no, he couldn't.

But he could deny her nothing, not even this.

He removed his mask without preamble, without thought, keeping his gaze downwards so he wouldn't have to see her eyes glaze with horror. But her hand returned, gentle and soft against his marred flesh. "My poor Raoul," she whispered, her voice thick and throaty with tears.

He wanted to ask her to not pity him, but Raoul knew that he was only fooling himself. He would take any scraps that she would give him, desperate man that he was.

"Does it hurt?" She sounded genuinely curious, and he shook his head.

"Not anymore."

Her thumbs traced the edges of the atrocity, and he almost jerked away from her touch. Almost. She rose to her knees, the sweet floral scent of her perfume filling his brain - his sense of smell, at least, remained mostly intact - and pressed her lips against his forehead. His still rounded cheek. His ruined one. The slight bump where his nose had once started. And then his lip…

He could taste tears, although he wasn't sure if they were hers or his. Her palms framed his face, as if he was a work of art, or perhaps a miracle.

xi.

"Come to bed, Raoul."

He nearly dropped the book he'd been reading. His bride stood in the doorway to the living room in her dressing robe, a filmy white garment that he remembered well. He'd first seen it during his last furlough - a little something, she'd said teasingly, that she'd bought to celebrate his brief homecoming.

But in spite of her courageous choice in attire, Christine still looked uncertain. Perhaps she was afraid that she would lose her courage if she accepted him back in their bed. She had stared unflinchingly at his deformity this afternoon, but that had been with no expectations between them. Now...now, there was definitely a different energy in the air.

"Please?" Was the sweet girl honestly afraid that he would turn her down? His lovely and kind wife, who had given him a beautiful son?

"If that's what you want." Raoul made sure to infuse his voice with as much skepticism as possible. But she just flashed him a smile before retreating toward the back of the house.

He followed her after a few minutes, still disbelieving, certain that he was caught in a particularly pleasurable dream and that he'd wake up, alone and on the damned sofa, at any time. But there she was, stretched out across their bed, the lamp turned on low highlighting her creamy pale skin. She was wearing the nearly sheer nightgown that he'd also first seen on his furlough, a shimmering pale blue concoction that perfectly complemented her coloring.

He reached for the lamp as he sank to the bed beside her, but Christine caught his arm and gave it a squeeze. "Leave it on?"

Raoul could scarcely breathe as he nodded. She was determined to prove something here, that she accepted him fully, and as much as he craved it, Raoul wasn't even sure that it was possible. But he allowed her to tug at his sleeve, urging him down beside her.

She was the one to slip off his mask, carefully setting it aside on the nightstand before rolling back to face him. Offering him a small smile, she reached for him, her lips finding his, her tongue coaxing his to play. He moaned breathily into her mouth, allowing her hands to roam as they willed, until they at last reached between them and unfastened his trousers.

He had dreamt of this moment for years, and yet he knew that it would be nothing like those fantasies. In them, he'd brought his wife to release again and again before satisfying his own needs. As much as he'd like to do that, it had been well over a year since they had come together, and he knew that he'd be lucky to last for a minute.

"I'll make it up to you," he swore as she rolled onto her back, settling between her parted legs. His fingers sank into the soft flesh of her hip as he pulled her closer, his other hand impatiently pushing aside the filmy fabric of her nightgown. He caressed the blonde curls between her thighs, wanting to bury his ugly face between them and making her squirm and cry out until she forgot that her husband was such a wreck.

"It's all right," she replied as she appeared to sense his hesitation. "I'm ready for you, Raoul. I want you."

They were words that he'd thought he'd never hear again, and he was nearly unmanned before he had managed to properly start. He kissed the hollow of her shoulder, her sensitive throat, as he guided himself into her body. She was warm and welcoming, and Raoul moaned against her neck as he thrust deeper into her, his breath coming in short puffs as he rocked his body against hers.

He could feel the pressure building inside of him already, too soon, far too soon, and yet he couldn't stop it. Raoul thrust into her again, his bottom teeth nipping at the underside of her jaw, and once more, Christine letting out a stuttered gasp beneath him. It was that soft noise of pleasure that sent him over the edge, and he came hard, flexing his hips as he tried to sink even further inside of her body.

The tears overwhelmed him quickly, and he sobbed against his wife's beautiful hair, weeping inconsolably as she began to rub his back with her palms, whispering something unintelligible into his ear. It was only several minutes later, when his emotions were drained from his body, that he understood what she was repeating, over and over again.

"I love you, Raoul de Chagny."

xii.

one year later

Raoul scanned the letter he'd penned this morning. It was short and to the point, but he knew no other way of expressing his thanks to the sculptor who had helped him so much.

Thanks to you, I will have a home, he'd written in part, full of love. The woman I love no longer finds me repulsive, as she had a right to do.

He folded the letter with a decisive nod, reaching for one of the copies of the family photograph that he'd had commissioned and printed only a few weeks ago. He sat on a chair, his masked face barely looking odd even under the harsh lighting, his hand resting on Sébastien's back as the boy stood grinning beside his father. Christine was behind him, both hands gripping his shoulders almost possessively.

And Raoul's free arm cradled the newest addition to their family, a little girl just born, with her mama's unruly blonde curls and her papa's dark blue eyes.