Disclaimer: I own nothing from The Phantom of the Opera. All credit, at least for this story, is afforded to Gaston Leroux for writing such a work of genius. Merci, M. Leroux, merci.

Summary: It isn't every day that a man—a nobleman, of all things—forsakes every earthly comfort, choosing instead to live his life among the peasantry. She could never understand it, but he must've loved the little Swedish girl whose scarf he'd once saved very dearly.

Stories from the North

Vadstena, Sweden

March 1891

"What we remember from childhood we remember forever—permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen." – Cynthia Ozick

"As they were taking their leave of each other, at the edge of the road, he politely kissed her trembling hand and said, "I'll never forget you!" Then he left, regretting those impulsive words, because he knew that Christine Daaé could not be the wife of Vicomte Raoul de Chagny." – Excerpt from the Lowell Bair translation of The Phantom of the Opera.

…

Many years had passed since that night at the Opera.

Perhaps too many to count now.

But the years had come and gone nonetheless, all in a flurry of soundless instances, now composed by the memories of those who recalled that night. A night, which those aforementioned, still secretly longed to forget. For each carried the burden of remembering it, but perhaps none so more than the man and woman who had found a sense of happiness beyond the shadows of a past that had haunted them in another life. The years from that night had indeed passed, almost fleetingly, but the scars were still there, skin-deep and riddled with phantom pains.

His remained around his wrists, faint yet discernible, where the iron shackles had cruelly bitten into his flesh, rending his joints raw and bloody and utterly useless at times when a bout of arthritis set in.

He never complained of it, the horrid sight now but a faded relic hidden by the cuffs of one of his mended cotton shirts. There were even some days, his wife noted, that he never even acknowledged them, forgetting the pain when he masked it with a smile. He did it for her, they both knew, as well as for himself. It was his way of trying to forget. Sometimes his method was effective, and there were indeed moments in which he genuinely forgot; but, more often than not, he still remembered those long hours in being the prisoner of a madman, hell-bent on the destruction of the innocent love he'd carried since childhood. He never told her of what had transpired in the torture chamber, never fully, although his wife sensed that he'd lost a part of himself in that imaginary jungle of his mind. Forgetting—or at least attempting to—was the only way he could cope.

She almost envied him for it.

Almost.

For she, too, was never quite the same after that night, when she'd seemingly held the fate of the whole of Paris within the palm of her hand. Her scars, much like those of her husband's, lay deep within the contours of her mind. And yet, unlike those he possessed from a chamber comprised of illusionary mirrors, a pair of golden eyes—as those borne of the brightest hellfire—replaced such an imposing vision, forever etched as they were in her memory.

She could never forget them.

Not even if she lived to when she was old and gray, could she dare forget the eyes of the man who had once proclaimed that he was Don Juan Triumphant. It was a bitter understanding; for Erik would never truly let her go, even when he was dead and had granted her freedom from his dark world underground so long ago. She could never escape from the memories of a man who loved her with such a passionate intensity that rivaled that of her husband's. For Erik had loved her, obsessively, and so completely in a way that she could never begin to understand—so unlike the gentle, unassuming love that her husband often expressed in the everyday things he did for her.

It wasn't an all-consuming kind of love; for such a love could easily fade before burning out over time, whereas the love he felt for her, which had accumulated over the years, would last. They'd weathered many storms in their life together, and her husband, who ever remained that little boy who rescued her scarf—a boy who had been the Comte de Chagny in another life—had seen her through each.

For Raoul de Chagny, a former comte and officer of the French Navy, hadn't once failed in his promise to protect her, not even from the many nightmares which had descended upon their home like a dark storm cloud that possessed no end to its horror. He was there to comfort her, in spite of the darkness that consumed them both, smoothing away her tears with his calloused fingertips and cradling her trembling form against his, all the while whispering words of comfort as he recalled a handful of the stories her father had told them in their youth. He was always there: her battered, beautiful, broken golden-haired knight who felled the internal dragons that tormented her. In that respect, they had almost remained the children they had once been, when they'd met on that windswept beach so long ago.

They lived by a lake now; a deep, vast, endless lake that resembled the seaside from when they'd met as children. Raoul had chosen it, specifically with the memory of that chance meeting in mind; and it touched his wife, to know that he regarded their time together by the sea so dear. Even Mamma Valérius was moved by the kindness he'd afforded her and her young charge, as he found them a small cottage that overlooked the lake. It wasn't a castle or grand manor house by any means, but it accommodated the old lady with a room of her own, while Raoul and his young bride shared the other.

There was a kitchen and parlor, but no servants attached to either. Raoul didn't seem to mind depending on himself for the menial things that had long been attended to by others, not when his wife attended to them—namely, when she attending to him—personally. He actually preferred her gentle hands over the stiff-necked valet's that Philippe had enlisted during his six-month furlough from the navy; for although the man never voiced his opinion, regarding to the behavior of his betters, Raoul knew that the valet had thought him a little touched in the head, never once believing him when he went on about his beloved's plight and the phantom that had haunted them both. Only his wife understood him, although they never spoke of it when she helped him dress.

Of course, it wasn't that he couldn't dress himself; what he presently wore failed to require another helping him, but the fact that she did so regardless had become something of a ritual between them. They dressed each other, and sometimes…undressed whenever the notion took them.

She almost blushed at the thought.

Even now, after so many years of being a married woman, she still, at times, felt herself the young, unwitting girl who had entered the Paris Conservatory upon her father's death. She had seen much in her time at the Opera, among the dancers and their noble patrons, yet she herself had remained untouched, ignorant of the advances of men until she was nearly torn in two by the dangerous little love affair in which she'd found herself. It was difficult for her to admit, but Erik would always possess something of her—a darker half of herself that she had no wish to ever acknowledge—whereas Raoul claimed the rest of her. Both had given their innocence to each other, an exchange that far outshone the passion she would otherwise feel, and it was enough for her to quell the inner shadows that burned more than frightened. Raoul never seared her with his husbandly advances; but he was no less passionate in seducing her, when both played at being a captive and seducer.

The former opera singer stilled in her silent musings, a myriad of scandalous instances between husband and wife manifesting in the forefront of her thoughts. It was almost an embarrassment on his part, perhaps, but her beloved husband hadn't been as well-versed as his brother, in the life of a seasoned Parisian; whereto the late comte's disappointment, Raoul's life at sea failed to school him in the more Corinthian pleasures of which those residing at the docks happily offered to many a weary naval officer.

And yet, his wife smiled in spite of his former ignorance. Many men had fallen prey to such sirens. Not her husband, though, for he had once admitted, in the heavy throes of that which followed one of their more ardent trysts, that she had been the only one for him. There had been no other before or since meeting her. For what they shared was a love match in every sense of the word.

The idyll of Raoul and Christine.

That was what many of the grandees and grande dames who resided in the Faubourg Saint-Germain had deemed their relationship. Of course, only a precious few, if any, had approved of the match. Not even Raoul's family had been very forthcoming in the knowledge that, not only was the sole heir to the de Chagny family title and fortune engaged to a young woman of a class beneath his own, but also to one, in Christ's holy name, who wasn't even Catholic. Raoul had endured persecution from his own family, as well as from his own faith, when it came to marrying a woman outside of the hallowed sanctity of the high-and-mighty, holy Roman Catholic Church.

To add insult to injury, they had done so in a small chapel that was undeniably Protestant in its beliefs. Being a devout Catholic, who understood the repercussions thereof, their marriage wasn't acknowledged in the registers back home, and Raoul, to Christine's dismay, had been so disillusioned by the church's intolerance of their love that he'd willingly converted—a long succession of Chagnys and their devotion to the church and Rome cast aside, in light of the prejudice their condemnation inspired—to that which branded him a traitor in his family's eyes. His sisters had severed all ties with him when they learned of his conversion, and had even made a motion to have him stripped of the family title, so that a distant cousin, one more suitable in maintaining that distinguished ancient mantle, could inherit the comté.

Raoul hadn't resented them for it, not when he felt, if in part, personally responsible for the loss of Philippe. He never wanted his brother's title, let alone the obligations it entailed. If he had kept it, he'd once calmly explained to a very contrite Christine, then he would've been hard-pressed into returning to France indefinitely. There were those who depended on his family: tenants and farmers, who worked the lands surrounding the family estate in Rouen. His sisters were already married and were, therefore, well-taken-care-of and provided for, but there were others—people whom he remembered from his boyhood—who needed a strong hand to lead them.

He felt himself incapable of his newfound duty. He wasn't Philippe, who had possessed a level head in balancing between his obligations and private interests; he was the simple-minded younger brother, who wished for nothing more than to remain in his older brother's shadow. But Philippe was gone, drowned beneath the Opera under mysterious circumstances, and Raoul had been exposed to the full scrutiny of those who believed him an accomplice to it.

Against the better judgment of his sisters, he never answered the number of inquests regarding their brother's death, deliberately ignoring M. Faure's thinly-veiled accusations when he instead chose to disappear into a life of obscurity with Christine and Mamma Valérius. The police would never pursue him—not a man who claimed his lineage to such an esteemed family as the de Chagnys—no matter the fact that he'd eventually been stripped of his title, his funds cut off the moment his cousin assumed the family name. Even his part of the great inheritance his father had left him and his siblings had been revoked, leaving him almost penniless. He had been reduced to that of a pauper, his position in the navy lost in the scandal still attached to the de Chagny name. He was despised among his surviving family, ridiculed by those who were affronted by his defying the conventional standards of their class. There was even talk among the dowager hens that he must've been a changeling child that had replaced the true Raoul de Chagny. They had no other explanation for his behavior. And as a consequence of his actions, his sisters never showed their faces in Paris, his correspondence to them or those whom he'd known in another life no longer welcome. Their rejection pained him dearly. And, in turn, Christine was compelled to carry the burden of both their sorrows.

She had done so for the last ten years. But again, she had to remind herself that Raoul never hated those who had disapproved of his decision, not when he found a certain sense of freedom that he could never have had when bound to his brother's title. He actually felt relief, now understanding the liberty that came in being a commoner. He was as equal as Christine now. His aunt, if she still but lived, would've certainly had a stroke if she knew. Philippe, similarly, would've disapproved of Raoul's actions entirely, for he had tried to tear Raoul and Christine apart himself, before meeting his untimely end in the cellars.

In that respect, the late comte and Erik were almost alike, although Philippe's concern rested solely with the fate of his younger brother, whereas Erik's had lain exclusively with her. It felt as though the world itself had been against them: his family title, her impoverished background, and yet they'd prevailed, in spite of everything.

Raoul was now free, as was she, and they finally shared a life beyond the restraints of those who had for so long kept them apart. They now lived as any other couple: in the small lakeside village of Vadstena, not far from where Christine had accompanied the traveling fairs with her father. She suddenly paused at the thought of her father.

She dare not confess how many years had passed since she last visited his grave. Raoul had offered to take her to Perros to visit it on occasion, but she almost always denied him. There were too many memories tied to his final resting place, and she had no wish to stir any ghosts that dwelled there from their slumber. Besides, she would often reason, her father was no longer there to hear her. He was now with the angels as surely was his talents, since his earthly possessions remained in the coffin with him.

That alone was enough to comfort Christine, and perhaps, to a certain degree, Raoul as well. Mamma Valérius, however, they visited every Sunday, since she'd returned to God a few years after returning to her homeland. She was buried in a well-tended grave, under a large weeping willow in the church cemetery. Christine would often lay a bundle of white lilies over the small mound of earth that enclosed her beloved Mamma. Raoul had commissioned a headstone made of the finest marble for the old woman who'd regarded him as a son. It also pained him to lose her, for he and Christine were now each other's only family.

And so they had been to each other for the past several years. Having no financial means to carry them over in a life of privilege and luxury, Raoul had found work in the village with a local merchant. He worked in an office, keeping the books and taking small trips to Gothenburg and Söderhamn to inspect his employer's shipments. His fine French was almost useless in both respects, given how only a select few understood him, and so Christine schooled him in speaking her native tongue. He managed under her tutelage well enough, his rudimentary understanding, even now, seeing him through each day. He was getting better at it, but he would probably never be as fluent as those who'd spoken it all their lives.

To most, he was a strange mixture of a gentleman and foreigner, who had left his country solely to please his beautiful Swedish wife by living on the means his humble job provided them. He never told anyone that he had once been a vicomte and a comte; born with every earthly privilege his and his brother's titles had accorded them. He was simply a man who had fallen in love with his childhood sweetheart and nothing more.

Everything about his life seemed relatively plain.

From his customary manner in addressing those who he met in passing, to the way he devotedly remained by his wife's side whenever they wandered in the village's streets below, he failed to stand out among the general populace. For gone were his fine evening suits, replaced as they had been by the heavily mended trousers and cotton shirts he now wore. His best suit, of course, was kept for Sundays and Evening Prayer. Christine thought him very handsome in it, and yet she knew that his need in retaining a semblance of high fashion from his former days was well and truly over. He had never been as conscientious as Philippe when it came to outward appearances, his naval uniform the only piece of attire he was concerned in keeping immaculate.

Conversely, however, he bought her lovely silk dresses, even when she protested that the money he made could be better spent elsewhere. He would, as noble as he was, hear nothing to the contrary, since he contended that he wanted her to be the proud wife of a respectable young shipping clerk. Even the spectacles he sometimes wore when going over his employer's accounts, if not generously used when pouring over the meager collection of books he and Christine had accumulated over the years, had seen better days, their golden-wired rims carefully worn by much use. He would undoubtedly keep them until they fell apart.

Naturally Christine would only shake her head regrettably over his always putting her vanity before his own needs. As with the case of his spectacles, Raoul would disregard her pleas to purchase a new pair, having the decency to refrain from pointing out that his sight was still much better than hers, since she'd long suffered from being shortsighted. His own impairment scarcely compared to hers, and so he wore them with a smile. It heartened him when she confessed one afternoon that he appeared rather scholarly when he wore them around the cottage—a quality that she greatly admired—whilst her admission, strangely, was accompanied with a deep blush that was as red as the scarf that she'd somehow misplaced after her father's death.

Christine doubted Raoul would ever know of the depth of her regard for him when he wore his spectacles, but she believed he looked devastatingly handsome in them, most especially when he recited a poem in the broken Swedish she'd taught him. She would sometimes even sing for him—something of which he never pressed her into doing—in the late evenings when he returned home from a laborious day at the office. It didn't matter how broken they both were by the one who had inspired her gift; she sang for him all the same. Of course, she never repeated her former glory from her time at the Opera, choosing instead to sing the old folk ballads that kept her voice at a lower register; and Christine sighed, wistfully, as she reminded herself that the ballads she sang to Raoul belonged solely to them and their childhood, for no other could hope to possess such lasting innocence. No other…could take that from two children who sorely regretted the hardships in growing up.

Still, though, her singing was enough to encourage Raoul to take up his violin and play that which he had learned from her father. There was music in their home once again, although it was a simple kind that lacked the grandeur of what she had shared with the one whom she perceived to be the very Angel of Music. It was enough to satisfy them, however; they really were simple people after all. And, if she could be honest with herself, she had to confess that she sang only for her husband now. She sometimes felt, even at her best, a pull from the shadows when the nightmare from those days nearly overwhelmed her. There were moments when she felt herself drowning, another victim of the siren, but the light and everything she knew as good and safe always pulled her back from the brink. Raoul was stronger than her memories. He was her anchor in this transient realm of existence. He was the reason she awoke to the morning sunlight that streamed in through their windows.

It was one of his more peculiar tendencies, perhaps, but Raoul made sure that their home would always be full of sunlight; for never again would they be subjected to the darkness of that pit from which they'd barely escaped—from that very same abyss from which his brother hadn't. It grieved Christine to admit it, but Raoul still suffered heavily from the loss of Philippe. The brothers had been undeniably close, considering how the comte had taken over their father's place in raising Raoul. The latter had never known their mother, and so Philippe, in that regard, had become a combination of both.

His late aunt and sisters had provided for a more stable, feminine presence in his life, certainly, but Philippe was responsible for seeing that his younger sibling grew up in a manner of which he was accustomed. And Raoul never resented Philippe for it, since there were days in which he'd cherish his obscured little life in the pastoral Swedish countryside, enjoying what he had with Christine in all of its modest simplicity. But then, there were also days where the past haunted him like a waking nightmare. He was notorious for jolting awake in the night with his frail body drenched in a cold sweat, his heart pounding with the same, agonizing terror he'd experienced in the torture chamber. He would breathe out in quick short breaths, unconsciously clutching at his drenched nightshirt, under which his heart quivered in fear.

Christine tried to comfort him in those moments when she felt herself losing him to the darkness, but she could only relieve a fraction of what he felt. Those hours he'd spent with the Persian, where both men had genuinely believed that night would be their last, had come out of that chamber, forever altered by the imaginary horrors they'd seen. He was no longer a boy, but a man riddled with his own fears and self-conscious doubts. He'd lost a considerable amount of weight after that night, which he'd never fully recovered, not even with his wife's generous helpings when they broke their fast together, as well as dinner. She hadn't faired very well herself, but the haunted look in Raoul's eyes spoke of something far worse than what she'd suffered when tied helplessly to that miserable chair.

He seemed a little better now. With each passing year, he admitted, in a soft voice, to his finally being able to forget some of the worst parts of his captivity. The shadows under his eyes were fainter now, barely perceptible, although they yet remained—a cruel memento from a rival long since dead. Raoul rarely spoke of Erik; but when he did, his tone was always filled with a dispassionate air that seemed to harbor a semblance of the hatred he'd borne the man after his brother's murder.

Christine couldn't deny it; for where she sometimes pitied the man who had once claimed to be her angel, Raoul had difficulty in looking beyond the reality that his brother had died at the hands of Erik's siren. Those were his darker moments, when he thought of the wretched creature that was claimed to reside underneath the Opera's stygian black waters. Raoul knew better, of course, as did Christine. There was no denying who or what the siren had been, no matter the fact that it hadn't claimed another life since the passing of its master. It pained them both that Philippe had been its final victim, since Raoul still, after so long, couldn't save his brother. Even the Persian—who Christine was sure, also shared in the same waking nightmares that she and Raoul so often suffered—had been powerless to prevent the siren's wrath.

Raoul, nevertheless, accepted full responsibility for his brother's death, and it disheartened Christine to see that the emotional scars that rested within were deeper than those that were upon his wrists. To her regret, he sometimes forgot that he was only human. He wasn't a kind of Byronic hero found in novels and in poems; he was so very ordinary, compared to those dashing men in fiction. And yet, he'd come for her, no matter the torture that he'd undergone. He'd lost much along the way: pieces of his sanity, Philippe, his title, as well as the estate that he'd for so long known as home. And yet, even in his darkest hours, when they clung to each other as the children they'd once been, he would kiss her forehead and tell her that none of it mattered, not even the scandal that was now attached to his name. He'd lost his family and all respectability among his peers when they'd married, but he'd gained her in the end; and Christine wished, when she'd held him in those bleak, twilight hours that always came just before dawn, that she was worth it, because she believed she could never be worthy of him.

And yet, almost ironically, he believed the opposite. The shame he felt for his incapability in saving Philippe was something he tried to suppress, in favor of having a happy marriage; but Christine recognized it all the same, since she felt a similar pain, in bearing the burden of breaking the heart of another. There were times when she wanted to hate Erik, to despise him for coming into her life. But then, as she so often had to remind herself, she wouldn't appreciate what she presently had with Raoul if Erik hadn't been there to make her see it through his own jealousy. She couldn't explain it, but in a strange sort of way, Erik's involvement—meddling, was perhaps the better term for what he'd done—in her life had compelled her innocent heart to see past all of its illusions, to know what love truly was, without accepting it blindly. She'd felt it with Raoul, and, perhaps, to a lesser extent, with Erik. The unhappy man who had never truly known love himself had revealed the very face of it in all of its wondrous splendor; this timeless visage that Christine presently looked upon and reflected the smile which it unknowingly offered her. Raoul would never know of it, but he personified the very love she had for him.

In all of her years since their marriage, she was still overcome by the sincerity of his smile. She was no longer a girl who believed in her father's stories; she'd grown up since then. As she stared lovingly upon her husband, whose shirt and trousers were now covered in straw from a nearby cart, she couldn't help but beam at the sight of him, his fair skin now a tawny brown from his time in working in the sun, his golden hair lighter than what it had been in his childhood. His eyes had remained the same, those dark-blue irises as fathomless as the ocean on which he'd once crossed. There were creases now, surrounding his eyes and forehead; but he was just as handsome as the day she'd seen him again, back when she'd fainted after giving her soul to another. He'd been on his knees then, just as he was now, albeit he was now in a more playful position.

She gave pause in silent assessment of him, watching the man she loved in silence. There was no fear in his eyes when he looked up into the faces of those who pelted him with straw and laughed, their golden hair and careless smiles matching his as he pulled them down with him into the straw. She shook her head, secretly marveling at the fact that the great, former Comte de Chagny allowed them to bring him down to their level, those plebian children, with their grubby, beseeching hands tugging at his arms and legs, all the while invoking the man's own laughter. Christine sighed, almost wistfully; for though they had none to call their own, Raoul still loved to play with the children who belonged to those in the village below. She doubted that any other of his noble-born set would take on such a lowly position as pleasing a group of peasant children; but Raoul, as odd as he was, even for his own class, teased them in a mixture of French and Swedish, and they laughed, blissfully unaware of the joy their happiness brought him, as well as to the woman who watched everything from a distance. The children reminded her of her own childhood, of those days she sometimes wished to relive again. She knew Raoul felt the same; they would never regain their lost innocence, never fully, as broken as they were. Together, they functioned as a somewhat manageable whole. But apart…She dared not think of it. Without Raoul, she knew not what she would do. She doubted she would be able to survive.

He deserves better, she thought, if not a little forlornly. For it isn't every day that a man—a nobleman, of all things—forsakes every earthly comfort, choosing instead to live his life among the peasantry. She could never understand it, but he must've loved the little Swedish girl whose scarf he'd once saved very dearly. He should've forgotten her, dismissed her as the common little house sparrow she was.

But Raoul, unlike those who'd both rebuffed her and denied her of their association, was different, and she again reminded herself that they had only each other now; and for Raoul, at least, it seemed more than enough. Earlier in their marriage, there were times when thoughts of death overshadowed their happiness, creeping up on them as it did when it gnawed away at them in their more subdued evenings together. Though more often than not, they ignored such moments; for who hadn't thought of escaping the imprisoning hell that lay within one's mind? They'd nearly committed suicide that night. Raoul knew of her attempt, although it had taken him years, well after Mamma Valérius' own passing, for him to confess that he'd nearly succumbed to the same temptation in ending his life when he and the Persian had countenanced the hopelessness that the iron tree represented. He'd almost developed a fear from that solitary implement; their dendritic shapes an ominous shadow of the one that had seen many hang in the passing years.

Joseph Buquet, they both remembered, hadn't been the only exception.

But the trees surrounding the lake and village offered him no such offense, and Raoul could, when Christmastime came, at least bear the sight of one in their home. He would even chop it down himself, always choosing the one that would bring a smile to Christine's face. He was always thoughtful in that way; that self-ingrained sense of noblesse oblige compelling him to never complain when the weight of it strained at his muscles and shoulders, since he adamantly refused Christine in helping him carry it on the long journey back to the cottage. She would argue with him, sometimes even stamping her foot in a childish manner until he at last conceded and allowed her to help him carry but a portion of it.

By their fifth year of marriage, Raoul had the good sense to purchase a small sled, so that he and Christine could both share the weight in bringing it into their home. Christine smiled at the small consolation he'd offered her; for no matter what Raoul thought, in believing himself the one to provide everything for them, they were still a team. Equals. It was a position in which Christine secretly enjoyed, especially now, when she watched him roll about in the straw with an onslaught of children at his back. She almost joined in their little game of dumping straw over their enemy's head, the thin strands as golden as his hair, before she heard the voice of one of their mothers calling them away for supper.

Wrapping the long red shawl that she wore more securely around her, she smiled when they told Raoul that they would come and play another day. Christine frowned slightly when he nodded, sadly watching as they walked down the small hill that led to the village below. It was a familiar look that she saw rest upon his face, when the children left; but he accepted it, since he firmly believed that their Heavenly Father had decided it best that they not have children. Christine had reluctantly agreed with him, although now she wasn't so sure. For if she was right, and she prayed that she was, then perhaps their home wouldn't be as devoid of song and laughter of children in the coming months. She had yet to be sure, but when she was…She would find a way in telling him. He will make a wonderful father, she thought as she walked over to his side and offered him a hand.

She watched him as he regarded her, curiously, a cloud of suspicion darkening in those pale eyes. Would he not accept her help? she wondered. He hesitated in his decision, if only for a moment, but then accepted her offer. He noted her smile, his hand gently grasping hers, tenderly, sweetly—before tugging that loving gesture of help forward for all that he was worth.

"Oh, Raoul, no!" Christine suddenly cried out, losing her balance, as she fell perfectly and quite conveniently on top of him. Catching her breath, she frowned disapprovingly at the man who now looked up at her and smiled like the mischievous little boy he'd once been. "That was very wicked of you," she chided him, but then her voice lost some of its annoyance when she heard him laugh. So, he'd planned for her falling on top of him all along. She would make him suffer for it. Terribly so. He would find himself too sore to get out of bed in the morning, if she had her way with him. They'd already caused much talk about the strange, foreign man she'd married. Seeing them out in a field, and in such a provocative position, would only set the gossip hens' tongues in the village ablaze. She had to end his little game before they both regretted it.

"And where do you suppose you are going, my Little Lotte?" he asked when he felt her shift some of her weight off of him. "You promised me that we would play together this evening and we haven't yet."

She flushed madly at the underlying meaning in his seemingly innocent suggestion. "We're making a scene," she whispered quietly, as though someone else might hear. "We can't do this here, not in public, Raoul. What has gotten into you tonight?"

But Raoul, to her surprise, only shook his head. "I somehow doubt that one of the old gossips from the village will happen upon us, hidden as we are behind this sturdy cart of straw. You worry too much, my love," he said, with a hint of mischief glinting in his eyes. "And besides, I rather like having you here, ruling over me like the fairy queen I envisioned on our wedding day."

Christine stared at him in disbelief. "A fairy queen who sadly possesses no formal education and lacks the same genteel breeding as that of the man beneath her? Why, she is no more than a pauper's daughter, dressed in the fine silks her husband provides for her," she queried doubtfully, no longer the innocent maiden she once was. Her husband had seen to that, losing small amounts of his own boyish innocence along the way. Shaking her head, she considered the man she had married and finally relented. "M. de Chagny, you are by far the most impossible man I've ever met."

She received a shameless grin in return, cavalier in a way that solely his signature. "I should hope so, Mme. de Chagny. After all, it is you, madame, who inspires such impossibility. I fear I am rather hopeless, in resisting your lovely charms." He sighed when he saw her shake her head as she took in the daring wink he gave her. She, in response, pulled a piece of straw from his hair.

"You are incorrigible," she reiterated with a wide arching of one of her dusky eyebrows, but then smiled when she felt him brush his fingers through that wild, dark mane as he deftly released it from its confines. The little bronze pins which held it fell to the ground before he found himself veiled by her midnight hair. He noted the sable strands surrounding him, which had once been that of spun gold in their youth, as he leaned forward, no longer able to restrain himself, when he kissed her with a lingering passion that he'd secretly harbored for her since he'd seen her that second time when they were both fourteen.

Perhaps he would tell her one day; there were so many things he wanted to confess, of the countless thoughts and feelings his younger self had once expressed, if only unto himself. She knew very little of the man who now held her, as he'd managed to cover them both in the straw he'd intended to use for the few, meager rows of potatoes he'd planted.

He almost smiled at the irony. He was nothing more than a man who planted potatoes and kept another man's books—a far cry from the illustrious naval career Philippe had expected him to have. And so far removed from being a comte as well, he thought when he looked into his wife's startling blue eyes and smiled. The light he sometimes hoped he inspired in them had been worth his giving up that which he'd once possessed. Perhaps he would tell her. She was so fond of stories, especially those which ended happily. He didn't possess a talent for creating musical compositions that rendered all who heard it to tears, he understood that well enough, but he had a talent for telling stories—or, at least, he wished to believe he did.

He'd only recently crafted a tale that was so very familiar to them that he could've, if he wished, interwoven their names without Christine realizing it. It was the story of a young prince and a peasant's daughter, as common as any tale, but their love was vastly different from the stories in which Perrault and Anderson had fashioned for their audiences. The prince, in Raoul's tale, for example, had relinquished everything: his family, his kingdom, and a life beyond the comforts his title presented him—for the one he loved.

Raoul presented no conventional happily-ever-after in which everything was miraculously resolved and the dispossessed prince became a prince again. That wasn't the ending he'd designated for his story, as he purposely went against tradition and had the prince become nothing more than a simple office clerk who owned only a scrap of land with a cottage in which he and his beautiful bride resided in until the end of their days. Christine thought it one of the most beautiful stories she'd ever heard, and it encouraged him, to know that he could give something of a happy ending to the many tragedies she endured in her short life.

After all, living a dull but content life in her homeland was something the he often questioned, since he wondered if he'd done her a terrible disservice in taking her away from the stage. She'd loved the accolades she received, he recalled, but she never blamed him for it. Her time onstage, she had told him once, when she'd clasped one of his scarred hands in reassurance, was at an end. She would never sing as she had that night when the world seemed to kneel at her very feet. She wanted peace in her life; she wanted the sunlight, and him. All of the praise in the world could never compare to the simple little life that they'd carved out for themselves here, in the cold, forbidding lands of the north.

It is enough for her, he thought, and then realized that he felt the same. Losing everything, simply to live a life without the obligations his birthright afforded him, had been for the best; he could've never managed the family estate as Philippe had done. His brother would always overshadow him in that regard. It was something from which he never believed he could ever escape, not with the woman whom he presently held and loved above all else. He faintly smiled. Living among what those of another class he'd so often heard deem as commoners and enduring a life of servitude was, surprisingly, worth it. He didn't mind being poor; he was wealthy in the love Christine so freely offered him.

He even confessed it to her, powerless as he was by the weight of that secret truth. It was a small compromise, perhaps, before he felt Christine's smile life the burden of so many years and past regrets from his shoulders, if only for a moment. With Christine by his side, he knew he could somehow manage to endure the blunted life which had left him as nothing more than a hollow shell of a man. He was no longer the little boy who'd bravely ventured into the sea to retrieve a little girl's scarf. Both he and Christine were very different from the children they had once been. And yet, looking at her now, he found himself no longer desiring the childlike nymph, but the siren.

"You are utterly bewitching when you torment me so. You always have tormented me, mina små skogskrå, for I hadn't any hope in escaping you, when I saw you by the sea that day," he said, in genuine awe; and Christine smiled, well aware that he meant every word. His simple declaration dimmed poorly in comparison to a multitude of bittersweet memories, where Erik's honeyed lies still held sway in her heart.

But she preferred Raoul's honesty over the beautiful deception that had encompassed her relationship with Erik. She still cared for Erik in a way that was different from her affections for Raoul, but even that didn't overshadow her feelings for the man who presently looked up at her, those sea-swept eyes imploring the same, childlike innocence that both knew still resided in her heart.

She kissed him then, her lips teasing the thin little mustache that she was still so fond of. He'd shaved it once, but then grew it back when he found that Christine missed it. Absently he shifted his weight, rolling about on the straw, until their positions switched, where he, ever the comte, regained his place. He teased about their reversal in fortune.

"And now you intend to lord such over me?" an insightful Christine questioned, with a mocking tilt of her chin. "How noble of you, monsieur. I suppose I should expect no less from a man who hails from one of the most esteemed families in France."

Raoul merely shrugged, an uncustomary trait for one of his noble standing. "I can only but concede to my lady's wishes," said he, and again he relished in her smile. "And such a request demands that I tell her a story."

She looked at him, questionably. "You wish to tell it here, covered as we are in straw?"

He countered her incredulous gaze with an almost boyish grin. "We've searched for goblins and fairies at dusk," he reminded her. "I cannot imagine telling a story—undeniably covered as we are in straw, as my lady has so kindly informed me—can be any worse than that." He heard her laugh then, and he secretly reveled in the fact that she'd conceded to him. She enjoyed these little games as much as he.

And so he straightened himself, returning to the fine, rigid posture that his late aunt and brother had long instilled in him as he gathered his beloved wife in his arms and spun a tale with goblins and fairies and all manner of creatures they still claimed to see since those days of their youthful innocence.

A gentle spring breeze teased at the fringes of Christine's red shawl; but Raoul held it firmly in place, wholly unaware of his keeping it there or of the sense of security his embrace offered her as he continued on with his tale, straw still heavily enlaced in their clothing and hair, until the stars appeared and the heavens blessed them with such a wondrous sight of a world beyond the shadows in which an angel, so far from their reach, forever lay in silent repose: soundless, eternal, and without envy.

…

Author's Note: This is unashamedly nothing but Raoul/Christine fluff!angst, I know, and I hope no one sees this as a betrayal to my other Phantom works. I like Raoul. A lot. And I feel that I've done him a terrible injustice, because I simply haven't written a happier ending for him and Christine. I'm also not going to make it a secret that I happen to favor this pairing; I've favored it, ever since I first saw the animated film when was five years old, and then again when I finally bit the bullet and sat down and watched the 2004 film.

As such, I rather fancied the idea of them together for years until I listened to the Original London Cast of ALW's musical and fell for Erik. And so I ended up liking both pairings. That is, until something in 2010 happened. I have no wish to go into my feelings regarding the musical's sequel, but I cannot, in good conscience, condone the level in which Raoul's character is reduced to, let alone that of the other characters'. My God, I still feel nauseated by the horror of it all. D:

It really doesn't matter anyhow, I guess, since I've long preferred the novel over any other adaptation, and I'm comforted in the knowledge that Gaston Leroux's work has the absolute final say on what happens, compared to what subsequent derivative works have suggested otherwise. Even as someone who heavily supports Erik/Christine, I can at least wear a pair of big-girl pants and admit that Raoul/Christine are the endgame canon couple, and I'm perfectly fine with that outcome. I ship both, so I'm happy either way. But personally, I really want my own Raoul now! :D

Danielle Everett, who portrayed Christine in the 1996 Australian production of the musical, has always been the Christine in my mind. As for Raoul, I have a tendency to go between Steve Barton and Cary Elwes for him. He's a mixture of both, really, but that's how I see Raoul and Christine, especially here. If anyone hasn't seen a photo of Danielle Everett's Christine, you really should. She's probably one of the most beautiful stage Christines out there.

Music that inspired this happy bit of insanity was: Seether's cover of "Careless Whisper," Will Young's "Jealousy," Doro Pesch's "Scarred," and "If the World Should End," from the Spiderman musical. And I'll admit that some of these songs were featured in Raoul/Christine videos on YouTube. They were truly inspirational! :D

"Mina små skogskrå" is a rough translation of: "My small skogskrå." A skogskrå is based on the huldra, otherwise collectively known as the hulder people. They are somewhat reminiscent of the English fae: very alluring and deceptively beautiful yet almost human in appearance. In fact, their interaction with humans in general is sometimes met with disastrous results, when they're treated badly or disrespectfully by the latter. I would've had Raoul to describe Christine as John Keats did in his poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci," but I felt it more fitting for him to attempt in doing so in Swedish. It also affords me the chance to blame my bad translation on his rudimentary skills. Raoul is such a gentleman in that regard! :D

Anyway, I hope this story turned out all right; I know it tends to jump from thought to thought, and may seem a little repetitive in some places; but I wanted to cover a few things, in the ten years since Raoul and Christine left the Opera, as well as Paris itself. I do, most genuinely, believe they would be happy together, but I don't think that their relationship was all sunshine and roses—not after everything they suffered.

Raoul also, I'm sure, had issues with his brother's death; because, let's face it: Raoul and Philippe were very close, and Philippe was very much a father to Raoul after theirs passed away. So, yeah, I can well imagine the problems he would have, in dealing with Philippe's death, just as I'm sure Raoul would undoubtedly figure out who was responsible for it. I also believe that Christine wasn't left unscathed after that night, because she was torn apart by both Erik and Raoul; and while I believe that she loved Raoul unconditionally, I also feel that there was also a special place reserved in her heart for Erik. There really are many degrees to the human heart, and a person can love more than one person. Still, though, I just don't think Christine's love went that far with Erik. And now, I'll probably be branded a traitor for admitting that, but that's how I feel about the love triangle. :/

I may write more; it really just depends on how motivated I am, and whether anyone wants me to. I have a few ideas, but any input as to whether I should or shouldn't, would be greatly appreciated! I would love to make this into a little collection of oneshots devoted to this couple! :D

Until next time,

— Kittie