Chapter One: The Mask

He could still feel the touch of her lips, the stain of their last contact indelible and all consuming in its innocence. The feeling held to his mouth like the taste of citrus, pungent and inescapable, mocking him as he concealed himself from his pursuers in the bowels of the once grand Opera Populaire. The saline flow of his tears was not enough to wash away the taste of her mouth, regardless of their constancy or desperation.

It is in your soul that the true distortion lies.

As unavoidable as her brand on his lips, her words seared in his ears now, filling his chest with an ache that brought him to his knees in the dust of his cavernous lodgings. It had been two weeks now and the intensity of what marks Christine had left on his ill-conceived life had not lessened. The passion of his hatred for her was only surpassed by the violence of his love.

Pathetic. Wiping a black-gloved hand across his lips, Erik pulled himself from the floor, roughly brushing the dirt that clung to his knees. "Pathetic. One would think she was there, standing before you, for all the pain you allow her mere memory to inflict," he thought bitterly, disgusted with his own inherent weakness. But forgetting her was akin to forgetting his own name – no amount of time or energy could wipe his mind free of Christine.

Scoffing at his own overblown penchant for the melodramatic, Erik glanced over his dimly lit domain. He had spent days shrouding his hideous face in robes, avoiding the glances of curious strangers and all too familiar faces before he could sum up the resolve to disappear beneath the Opera once again. When he had finally returned, the destruction born of his rage presented itself before him: the Opera Populaire charred and empty and his home in its basement ransacked, stripped of anything of assumed value and left dark and echoing with the voices of those who came to kill him. He could scarcely contain his regret and outrage as he sifted through what was left of his belongings, searching for the white mask – his only true ally.

His thoughts were circular and haphazard, jumping through the past months at random but always returning to her face, the look in her brown eyes as she turned to glance behind as Raoul guided the boat away from his dark lair. As he slowly restored his home, Erik burned what material remained of her. The wedding veil, the dry rose petals torn underfoot, the endless array of charcoal sketches boasting her beautiful visage fell to flame before his eyes. And still no sign of his mask.

Two weeks after the Opera Populaire had ignited in roaring flames, Christine was still in Paris, the closely watched houseguest of Raoul. "Or captive", Christine mused, staring through the fine white curtains of the window at the bustling street below. Raoul was so anxious to protect her that she was beginning to suffer in the stuffy splendor of his vast Parisian estate. The de Chagny residence was large, but she found herself gasping for air even in its grand parlors and dining halls.

Everywhere she went his voice lingered like the distant ringing of a silver bell in her mind, a resonant and mournful sound. Trying desperately to drown out the insistent tones, she clung to the windowsill, allowing the frantic sounds of Paris to fill her ears. But it was still there – that haunting echo.

Christine, I love you…

Standing with a start, she smashed her hand down on the sill, savoring the pain of the impact that spread through her joints up her quivering forearm. Staring at her smarting palm, the miserable girl found she had no pity for herself. Instead, her conscious offered only shame, hot and unrelenting.

"Christine, darling, what happened?"

Whipping around, her heart jumped and then stilled as she saw Raoul, expression frantic and fastidious clothes unusually disheveled as he stood in the doorway of the sitting room. His blue eyes were wide with fear as he quickly rushed to her side, always the rescuing hero.

"Oh don't fuss. I just slipped as I was getting up and caught myself on the windowsill. Nothing to worry about," she explained, sliding her sore hand across his shoulder in an attempt to calm his overly anxious nerves.

"Oh God, I thought –," he started, biting his own lip in a boyish gesture of apprehension.

"We have to move on, Raoul. He's a figment of the past, an apparition. You can't keep glancing back like this, looking for demons in the shadows. He's gone. And I'm here," she stated, her voice catching almost inaudibly on the words.

"He's gone," her mind sang, the sound joining the constant ringing of his voice in her head. He's gone. A dull ache behind her eyes startled her and Christine turned from Raoul to again face the busy streets of Paris, blurred through the gossamer curtains. Pausing for a moment, she nervously slid her fingers over one another, fingering the lavish diamond engagement ring Raoul had given her, the digits visibly shaking and her palm still inflamed.

"Raoul, may I see Meg? I need the female company…" Turning to see the look of slight hesitation in his eyes, she offered playfully, "It gets so lonely around here with just you to entertain me." Smiling now, the displeasure fading with her jest, Raoul chuckled fondly, nodding slightly as if humoring the silly wishes of a child.

Smiling jovially, Meg Giry rushed into the room and the arms of her friend, clasping her tightly in both arms before pulling back to fret over Christine's fine clothing.

"Don't worry Meg - they all get wrinkled before the end of the day anyway. I just can't stand to sit still in this house," she said, grinning as her friend's worried look returned to an expression of easy warmth. Sitting down in the extravagant chaise set out for her, Meg glanced from Christine's familiar face to gaze around the finely adorned room, the carefully arranged curtains and heavy décor making the large room almost feel suffocating.

"Two weeks ago you were still in the dormitories, trying to sleep over the roar of those chorus girls snoring, and now this? I can't believe it! You're so lucky…" Meg gushed, gingerly fingering the brocaded satin pillow tucked against her.

"And the Phantom? What have you heard, Meg?" Christine whispered, leaning forward with such an intense look of urgency in her eyes that her childhood friend was caught off-guard. Nervously sitting back in her seat, the young ballerina looked away again, but no longer in playful curiosity or awe. Her eyes betrayed deep concern, and Christine's voice caught in her throat.

"No, not-," she gasped, her voice cracking before she could finish her sentence. Meg turned to look into Christine's strained face with something that resembled confusion. The ache behind Christine's eyes began to intensify and before she could account for them tears began to run down her cheeks, the salty water choking her as the droplets ran into her slightly gaping mouth. Meg leaned forward now, extending her hand to wipe the melancholy tears from her friend's blanched cheeks.

"They say he's dead, Christine. The Phantom – dead. You're safe! Can you believe it? I don't, but Maman won't tell me otherwise," she huffed, her blue eyes narrowing with irritation at her mother's strict boundaries. Christine's eyes were wide now as she stared at Meg, the words echoing through her mind like a cry, replacing the familiar sound of the Opera Ghost's resonant tone.

"You are free, Christine. Do not cry, unless your tears are born of happiness. You may marry Raoul and have all this," Meg said insistently, gesturing at the lavish room. "Or do you cry for him – the monster, Christine? My dear friend, I have brought you something – a little… souvenir," she said, anxiously grasping the large satchel in her lap as she stared at her beautiful friend.

Opening the bag, Meg reached into its depths to bring hesitantly forth something Christine had believed she would never see again. The sorrowful tears never ceasing, Christine took it from Meg's hand, running her pale fingers over the smooth white surface of the Phantom's mask. Closing her eyes tightly and grasping the mournful façade of her mentor, kidnapper, and ghost to her bosom like a small child, Christine found herself sobbing uncontrollably, her chest constricting with an inexplicable pain as her mind ran with his pleading last words to her.

Christine, I love you…

"He is gone," Christine gasped as the room began to swim around her, Meg's alarmed face contorting and then vanishing into darkness as she fainted, falling from her chair to the heavy burgundy rug.

"I am sorry, but your fiancé is not well, Monsieur. I think it best she be alone with her friend for the time being… until we can declare her condition less fragile," the doctor said, escorting the devastated Vicomte de Chagny from the heavy doors of Christine's room. Raoul closed his eyes as he clenched his hands into tight fists, silently damning that Giry girl.

"Thank you very much Doctor Theillier, but that will be all. Obviously, Mademoiselle Daaé has been under a great deal of duress in the past few weeks. I will contact you if her condition does not improve," Raoul said shortly, ushering the doctor towards the door of the residence, anxious to return to Christine's side and rid her of Mademoiselle Giry's distressing presence. Doctor Theillier looked at the visibly shaken Vicomte skeptically, doubtful of the legitimacy of his claims, but took his hat and coat and left le Mason de Chagny, only turning to look back at the immense household as the dark wooden doors slammed shut.

"She is sleeping, Monsieur," Meg said hesitantly, emerging from Christine's room to find Raoul fast approaching, his fists white knuckled at his sides and square jaw taut.

"Well, thank God for that. I am sure you didn't mean to upset her," Raoul said, his tone belaying his outright anger at the results of the ballerina's visit as he loomed over her. Trying to control his expression, Raoul thought to himself, disgusted, "I knew this was a horrid idea. This girl is a figment of the past we so desperately need to leave behind – all of it." Setting his jaw, he took Meg by the arm and began to walk her briskly towards the door, practically dragging her in his urgency.

"Pardon me Monsieur, you are hurting me! Vicomte de Chagny!" Meg cried in shock, struggling under the increasing intensity of his grip as he pulled her down the somber hall to the door. Suddenly releasing Meg's arm, Raoul loomed over her with a look on his usually demure visage she had never imagined him capable of producing.

"Mademoiselle Giry, you had no right to alarm my fiancé. Your presence obviously upset her, and who could blame her? You are a part of a past she is desperately trying to severe her ties to, for her own sanity. I must protect her from that past, and if that entails removing you from her life, so be it. I love her," Raoul spat at her, grabbing her shoulders with a ferocity that surprised even him. She stared up at his noble face, disturbed by the violent change she had seen in the gentleman she had believed to know so well through Christine, and by reputation.

"I do not doubt you, Monsieur. I love her as a dear friend – my best friend, but if you believe that my presence is only bringing her harm I shall go. Take care of her Vicomte, if you love her. Salut, Monsieur." With that said, Meg broke free from Raoul's grasp and turned on her heel, almost running out of the de Chagny house and onto the street in her haste. Leaning against the smooth stone masonry of the grand mason, Meg gasped for breath and reveled in the comforting noise of the Parisian night. The rough streets of the city after nightfall were nothing compared to the oppressive silence of the de Chagny home and the barely contained rage of her friend's usually genial fiancé.

Walking quickly down the avenue, Meg's mind raced with questions and concern, pausing only as she realized that she had left the mask tightly clasped in Christine's arms. Meg hurried home, not stopping anywhere, anxious to relate to her mother the alarming events of the afternoon.

"Maman, I don't understand. Christine doesn't seem to know what she wants… it's almost like she cares for him, the monster in the mask. And the Vicomte de Chagny - he frightened me with the passion of his hatred. I fear for her Maman," Meg gushed to her stern mother, who sat rigid in her chair, primly sipping slowly on a cup of tea. Christine's emotional turmoil did not surprise Madame Giry; the dance mistress was wiser in the matters of her girls' young hearts than she let on. Slowly guiding her distraught daughter to her bedroom, Madame Giry rubbed Meg's back consolingly and ushered her into the narrow bed.

"Do not concern yourself, little one. Christine must follow her own whim, even if it leads her astray. Give her time," she murmured, hoping only to ease her daughter's mind, despite the misgivings of her own. "Bonsoir, Meg." Quietly closing the door behind her, Antoinette heaved a deep sigh as her mind ran with memories of the Opera and the young girl she had brought up as her own daughter. But foremost, her mind filled with images of the elusive Phantom, the man she had fought so hard to protect from his own pain and in the end, could not.

Shaking her head, Madame Giry ruefully considered her former pupil's sweet naivety, wondering, "Christine, will you ever admit to yourself the desire of your own heart? If you do not, your own misguided conception of love is truly your burden."

Erik sat at his organ, fingers resting delicately on the keys but making no movement to press them down. Sighing heavily, he lifted his hands away, noting the fine layer of dust left on the fingertips of his black gloves by the once pristine instrument. He could not bring himself to rouse the organ from its silence. He did not fear he would be found – the ones who had demolished his cavernous residence would not be back. Awe had brought them into the depths of the theatre, but the eerie silence of the place they found drove them away once they were through stripping the home of its fineries – the finest gold candelabras, some of the clothing he had stored away, and the finer of the tapestries.

He did not resent the loss as heavily as he had expected to. They had left his lair in complete disarray and had made an attempt at building a wall to obstruct any passage back to the cavern and its secrets. This development he appreciated more than lamented for it provided him with a new guise of privacy while at the same time being completely ineffective in obstructing his movements to and from his underground home.

Staring back at the organ, Erik noted angrily that several keys had been broken during the ransacking. Not that he had anyone or any reason to play for anymore; he knew that the organ's sound would be empty without the inspiration he needed to fill the music with. "It's over now," he said to himself, his voice echoing strangely in the quiet depth of his home. Furrowing his brow, he raised his gloved hand to trace the grooves and welts of the right side of his face, watching as he did in one of the broken mirrors lining the walls of the cavern.

"I have no pity for you, lonesome gargoyle, monster," he said, throwing a charred velvet curtain over his reflection. "Isolation is your mask now."

Then he heard it, a thin echo in the dark chasms of the Opera House's bowels, like the mere memory of a voice. Snapping around, Erik scanned the lake as far as he could, squinting into the vast shadows of his domain. He strained to see the source of the sound, knowing that more than likely it was a apparition of his broken mind, his broken heart. Holding a black hand over his face, he drew back through the mirror shards, his leather boots snapping the fragments as he went.

"You fool, it is an echo of an echo, not even a real person. It is a ghost of a memory, and you are falling for it. Merde! You fool, you inestimable fool," he thought, disappearing into the darkness behind the mirrors and burnt curtains into the passageway he had inelegantly made his escape through only weeks ago. Still, he held his hand over his face, closing his eyes as he felt the fleshy imperfections through the thin cloth of his glove.

"Erik…" he heard, his name drawn out and contorted by the winding passageways of the basement chasms. Trying to steel himself from gasping aloud, he peered from the corridor of his escape, searching between curtains and broken mirrors for the woman he hoped to be there at the watery doorway to his home. A tear soaked through the fabric of his glove, the slick feeling of salt water adding to his self hatred as he felt himself dissolving into more tears, a veritable river of pain running down his ravaged face.

"Christine?" he whispered, his intonation so low with pleading that the sound did not even echo. His voice cracked, a perfect recreation the sound he made as he looked up into Christine's eyes, emotionally shattered both by her kindness and her innate cruelty as she gave him back the wedding ring, tucking the diamonds between his shaking fingers with her smaller hands, barely caressing his skin in her soft movement.

Christine, I love you…

"Erik!" The sound was sharper now. The sound was also deeper - not the sound of the delicate girl he had so desperately clung to – had imprisoned. The voice was worn, older, and he realized that he knew its owner too well for either of their comfort. Watching through the ragged velvet curtains he saw Madame Giry trudging through the shallow water at the passageway to his lair, grasping her black cane in one hand and stopping to stiffly lean against the grime-streaked bars of his gate.

"Erik? I know you are here, Monsieur. To you I say bonjour – it has been too long," she said, her voice resonating through the grates of the gate and almost deafening him. "Erik? Do not hide from your friend. Do you hear me?" she said imploringly, searching the remains of his house with her gaze.

Her gray eyes fell on the shredded and burnt velvet tapestries and she sighed in exasperation, as if she could see him crouching behind them, tears staining his cheeks and pain filling his eyes. "Bien. I expected you would not speak with me in your sorrow. Your stubbornness. Adieu, Erik." Dropping a white paper on the jagged rock surrounding the algae-covered gate, Madame Giry turned, the words still bouncing throughout the cavern, filling the room as sound permeated all corners of the Phantom's silent abode.

Erik watched from his concealed position, ashamed at his own cowardice in the face of an old friend, a constant friend. Just as she was disappearing from sight he impulsively rose from his alcove, stepping into the open with his hand still concealing his cheek and hesitantly calling, "Merci, Antoinette. Merci…"

Barely distinguishable in the darkness, Madame Giry raised an arm and dipped low in a ballerina's elegant curtsy, nodding her head curtly as she stood and disappeared from sight.

Pausing first to ensure his complete privacy, Erik walked into the lake, the cold water flooding his boots and soaking his black breeches while simultaneously flooding his mind with memories of the night of the fire – the desperate attempt he had made on the foolish Vicomte's life before Christine's eyes. He frowned painfully, reaching up to brush away of what remained of the tears wetting his cheekbones and chin. Reaching through a rusted opening between the foul iron bars, he snatched the white parchment from the rocks and brought it forth, opening it in such haste that he ripped it slightly. Blanched, he peered at the note in his hands, mouth set as he anxiously read three black ink words scratched hastily across the wrinkled parchment with a dry fountain pen.

Give her time.

Crumpling the note between his violently shaking fists, he fell to his knees in the dark water, the coldness of the lake hardly noticeable when paired with the intense heat of his pain, his anger, his hope. "Christine," he gasped, his voice incensed with desperation as he watched the green water soak through the note, blurring the words until he could no longer read them.

But Christine…

Fear can turn to love,

You learn to see, to find the man behind the monster,

This repulsive carcass who seems a beast,

But secretly dreams of beauty, secretly, secretly,

Oh, Christine…