No Longer Lonely

Attention!

This is probably the ONLY Christine/Phantom phic that I will ever write in my entire life. Most of you know thatI don't likeChristine with Erik very much.Any more in this veinwill be a miracle; this one itself is the product of an overactive imagination and a deplorable lack of happy endings in my life. It is very short, and it was inspired by the movie.

The scene is set during the Masquerade Ball, starting when Erik begins reciting the part of his speech regarding Christine.

The entire entrance hall was silent as the Phantom of the Opera stalked back and forth on the landing among Carlotta, Piangi, and Messieurs le Managers Firmin and Andre with drawn sword.

But then the blade went into its sheath.

"As for our star, Miss Christine Daae..."

As soon as he said those words, Christine's heart lurched. She looked up in dread. God help me... What am I to do? What part will he have me play in this sinister product of his mind?

But he had no ill words for her, just third-person references. "No doubt she'll do her best; it's true her voice is good. She knows, though, should she wish to excel she has much still to learn--if pride will let her return to me, her teacher...her teacher..."

Erik's eyes met hers on the repetition. In the short time things had been perfect, "teacher" had meant so much more than pupil and instructor. It meant someone who shared a part of her life that no one else saw. It meant making mistakes, and having those mistakes corrected in the gentlest, but most honest way possible. It was having someone to catch you when you fell, the way no one else would. It was trusting someone with the gift of your talent, and that person trusting you to do your utmost with what they discovered in it.

In a peculiar way, it was a form of love, and at the time when that particular love was being put to the test, the fate of the entire ballroom rested in the lovers' hands.

Christine could not look away. This man had done more for her in the months--years?--that she had known him, if only as a mysterious presence instead of a man, than Raoul had done for her in all the time since her father died. True, she had once believed the spirit of her father had been teaching her, but that night she had gone with him to his lair, and the time she had spent in his arms in front of the organ, had served to change that. He was a man, with a spirit of his own--and a great one, at that. She could not lose what she had, even if it meant giving up what shecould have.

And suddenly, she knew that he would forgive her, if only she could find it within herself to apologize.

She took a step closer to the stairs, possibilities in her eyes. The world fell away around them, completely irrelevant now that they were together.

Erik moved down one stair, hope warring with hatred behind the mask. His heart began to race, his breathing quicken. He came forward again, willing to meet her half-way.

She mirrored him. There were a thousand unspeakables in the warm brown eyes meeting his dark ones. Without removing her gaze from his, she lifted her hands to her neck and unbound the necklace carrying Raoul's ring. His gaze flicked down toward it. The anger flared in his expression, but then her hand dropped.

The ring and the chain fell to the floor; his eyes followed it. He met her eyes again, the hope surging but never daring to claim victory in order to protect his heart from hurt again.

Christine smiled slightly, just enough to tell him that everything was true. Her look held supplication, pleading with him not to leave her in agony as she had left him. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

And in that singular way he had, his voice of unutterable tenderness spoke three slow syllables. "Oh, Christine..." He took both of his hands in hers, bringing them to his mouth, and kissed the backs of them.

She started to ask, "Can you ever--" forgive me, she meant to say.

"Of course, of course!" Erik interrupted. His strained whisper, an enormous effort to keep the flood of emotion inside, sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. "Anything for you...my angel."

A soft smile graced Christine's face, and Erik thought his heart would burst free of his chest with wings of its own, it felt like it was flying so high. "Yes, Erik," she murmured. "I will be your angel. I am your Angel of Music."

He sang to her again, as he had that night so near and so long ago. But this time there was no power in his voice; he did not need it."Come to me, Angel of Music." He withdrew a step from her, and her hands reached out for him.

She could not bear to be without him. Christine followed him, mesmerized this time by love and loving his voice for what it was: part of him. "I am your Angel of Music," she sang, giving herself to him.

"Come to me, Angel of Music." His response was an invitation, not an order as it had been behind the mirror. He offered his hand.

She took it.

They moved up the stairs in a world of their own. She accepted his offered arm wordlessly; their eyes never left each other as they went back up to disappear as they should: together.

Unnoticed to everyone else, Raoul had slipped away with an attendant and came back strapping a sword to his side. He ran to chase them through the hall and up the stairs to the first landing, where Madame Giry intervened. "No, monsieur," she said in her firm ballet-mistress tone. No one would have refused that ordering voice. Then she continued softly, "She has made her choice. Let her go."

The Vicomte de Chagny stared after them with tears in his eyes; they finally fell as he looked around, partly confused, partly embarrassed, partly realizing that it was over, as many things were.

He nodded to the ballet teacher, turning away down the steps. He stopped at their foot, bending to take his ring back. It lay in his palm for a moment, and then he sighed and walked out of the Paris Opera House, never to return.

Raoul de Chagny never went to see another opera so long as he lived, although he kept sending regular donations and remained the most distinguished of patrons. Christine's left ring finger soon glittered with a simple gold band. Box five always waited for the Opera Ghost to attend, to watch the performances of his lady, but strangely, it was empty, as always before...or so it seemed.

One could never tell if the Opera Ghost were there or not. The only signs of his presence were the francs on the shelf for Madame Giry and her daughter, and the ballet mistress's regular box of English chocolates, which she so adored. Even as Christine grew older and could no longer perform, and then succumbed to time, he continued to attend. Only when the programmes finally stopped disappearing did the Opera staff finally know that the end had come, that the Phantom of the Opera had been laid to rest.

Now both Angels of Music could be together...forever.