A Man of Heaven and Earth

A/N- Alright, I've had this idea in my head for a while. After I had read the Susan Kay version of Phantom, this idea had been pestering me. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone, but Christine promises to go back and give Erik the invitation to her wedding with Raoul after he had let them go. I'm going to twist the ending just a bit. Don't kill me, anyone. I've got to go to college first. Oh, and I'm making Erik a little younger than he was in the book. Anyway, on to the story!

…Okay, so I lied. First, here's a little excerpt from the book. It's in Raoul's perspective.

Ch 1: Decisions

"It's time for us to go back," she said. I looked at the invitation, neatly written in her beautiful copperplate hand, and something inside me snapped.

"If you think for one moment that I will take you back there, you must be out of your mind!"

"But you promised." She gasped. "You promised him!"

"…The man is insane, Christine, utterly deranged…you must be quite mad yourself to think I ever intended to keep that promise!"

She swayed back from me and sank into the chair beside the fire. "If you won't take me," she said unsteadily, "I shall go by myself."

How dare him! How dare he try to dictate what she was and was not allowed to do? He had promised Erik that they would come back…She was going to go back, no matter what Raoul said! She would not deliver the final blow to a dying man's heart, a heart she had broken more than once in her naïve foolishness.

Christine would have left her angel without even giving him the answer he longed for, going so far as denying him a common courtesy! He had let them go, an act that had truly shaken her after his consuming rage and grief, after she had feared for her own life and his questionable sanity. Once again, her emotions ran wild, overtaking normal thought and actions.

She paced around the room in her small flat, the dark circles under her eyes prominent as she swayed slightly, putting a hand on the mantel to steady herself. What should she pack?

…Should she tell Raoul when she was going? Christine shivered as she remembered the terrifying mood changes, and the power Erik had once held. How he had scared her, at times! Those times, when she yearned for the safe, warm love of Raoul, who didn't confuse her and make her doubt her own ability to reason.

The legendary Phantom of the Opera was nothing, now…Nothing but a broken, dying man, who had never truly been loved by anyone, alone with the horrifying past he had confided in her.

He had killed many times in his lifetime, yet the same man had been as timid as a small child as he reverently kissed her forehead, rejection in his mismatched eyes.

Suddenly she was crying, tears coursing down her pale cheeks, as she collapsed into a chair. What had she done?

For all of her twenty years, in many ways Christine was still a child...unaware of the consequences of her actions. Her conscience would be forever burdened if she didn't go back to say a last good-bye to the Opera Ghost.

The girl stood up, fixed her dress, stared resolutely ahead. It was settled. She was going back to the house on the lake alone, that home of illusions where nothing was what it seemed.

Christine nodded her head firmly. She would leave tomorrow, when her one maid assumed she was in her room, and keep her promise to Erik.

"Oh, God, help me…"

It wouldn't be for very long. She was sure that he assumed they wouldn't be coming, and it sent pangs through her heart.

"I promise I shan't keep you long…but I believe, on such a day, it would be quite permissible to kiss the bride…would it not?"

Erik's soft words echoed inside her head and strengthened her resolve. If Raoul couldn't take her back after this, then...well, she would find a way to keep going, somehow.

Somehow.

Good? Not good? Never write anything ever again otherwise various people will beat me with large objects? Sorry it's short, it's really just the prologue. Review, please!