I guess I can just tell you now that, if you want to just get on with the story, just scroll down past the italics and read. The first set of italics is just a summary to all the phantom phans out there, letting you guys know a bit about the characters and how they're different (if you don't want to read the first part, don't worry – everything will be explained thoroughly in the story itself so you're not missing anything vital) and a little bit about what's going on in the world at the time. The second set of italics is my warning and an explanation about the rating. The final set is a full-out disclaimer, there to assure you that I am merely a poor little girl from the south who owns nothing except a DVD set of Band of Brothers and a whole lot of Phantom of the Opera memorabilia. Again, you don't have to read any of this unless you just want to.
SUMMARY: Because I promised you a full summary, didn't I? Well, first off, you need to forget everything you think you know about The Phantom of the Opera. Forget opera singers, forget ballerinas, forget vicomptes and forget phantoms. Forget Paris and the nineteenth century entirely. Raoul is no longer the Vicompte de Changy, but rather the son of the vice-president of Nixon Nitration Works in Nixon, New Jersey; his family is rich beyond belief and owns summer homes in both France and California, where they frequently enjoy vacations. Christine and her father are poor gypsies, living in Poland at the moment but free to travel to wherever they feel that they can make money. Christine's mother, once a dancer at the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris, has been dead for almost ten years. Erik von Autten is a high-ranking Nazi official who counts men like Joseph Goebbels as his friends. He is a veteran of the First World War and is not eager to force his country back into combat. Madame Giry is an old friend of Erik's who lives with her docile husband and strong-willed daughter in Alsace, just across the German border, where she worries about bad things arising from Berlin. Meanwhile, it's 1932, both America and Germany are in the throes of depression and Adolf Hitler is gaining power by the day. Madame Giry frets for her family, Erik grows ever more irritated at the political movements of the German government, Christine turns a blind eye to her father's failing health and Raoul lives happily in a lavish mansion next door to his best friend, Lewis Nixon. All the while, in England, Prime Minister Chamberlain's assistant, Nadir Khan, watches the events with a careful eye.
And now for everyone's favorite: the warnings! I've rated this "T" for language and a few sexual scenes. Part II will be rated "M" for sure, and Part III is still up in the air on its rating. There will be some slash, not much here but definitely in the next part, but most of it is there if you want to see it and not there if you don't want to see it. If I think it's getting too graphic (which probably won't be for a long time but you never know) I'll put warnings on the chapters and anyone who doesn't want to read it can message me and I'll send them a slash-free version.
I promise, after this, you can just read the story: I don't own Band of Brothers or the Phantom of the Opera. I think I've read just about every book that there is to read on Easy Company and I have a deep respect and appreciation for everything that these men did for us. I esteem the entire US military, and thus mean no disrespect to any veterans by writing this story. I also don't own The Phantom of the Opera. I love the show, love all the books, love the movie, love Gerry Butler, love everything about Phantom, but I don't own it. That honor belongs to Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, Cameron Macintosh and anyone else whom I may have forgotten.
Sorry about all that. Shall we get on with the story?
Prologue – The Gun
I love you – those three words have my life in them.
I crept silently up the rickety stairs and into what had been her room. Anyone else would have been heard on the creaking steps, but years in battle had hammered into me the innate ability to move without a sound. I opened the door and stepped into total darkness. With a lighter from my pocket, I lit a candle on the kitchen table.
It was empty. She was gone, as was the child. All that lingered were the few painful memories of everything that had gone so terribly wrong in the past five years. Her clothes still hung neatly in the closet and infant toys were piled precariously in one corner. Atop the cabinets were her pictures, precious images that she treasured dearly: she and her father standing before a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, her godmother lying beneath a pile of heavy blankets doing needlework, Meg Giry smiling out from behind sorrow-filled eyes, and American soldiers standing in the midst of celebrations in Holland. Save the first three photographs, all the others were of American soldiers – American paratroopers – presumably the same men whom she had thought would save her from this life. Most of the pictures had probably been sent to her either during or after the war. Some she had probably acquired before leaving Austria. One picture in particular caught my eye and I lifted its frame from the shelf to examine it more closely.
They stood before a backdrop of woods, meaning that the photograph could have been taken anywhere. I recognized the two lines of men in the picture from Normandy, from Holland, from Bastogne and from Austria. I knew none of their names, and yet I knew every man in the picture. I knew the tall, lean man who spoke softly and yet had the deepest respect of his men. I knew the dark-haired man who drank relentlessly and never seemed to be at a loss for words. I knew the stocky man who was always ready for a fight and the small, skinny man who had brought rare laughter to the woods of Bastogne. As I ran my fingers over the glass of the frame, thinking of the times I had faced these men in combat, I realized that they were not men; they were boys. They were too young for war, I thought, although I was certainly younger when I first joined the army. Twice I had fought American and twice I had made it home. Many of the men in the picture were not as lucky. One, however, was.
He stood proudly in the front row, clutching his M-1 like a close friend. He was a handsome boy with aristocratic features, a charming smile and, clearly, the respect and friendship of his comrades. I could see why she had loved him. The mere fact that he was a paratrooper proved his strength, and she must have thought that he would protect her from whatever the post-war world may bring. But he hadn't, now had he?
I felt my palms begin to dig painfully into the gilded sides of the picture frame as the memories washed over me. With a cry, I hurled the picture against the wall. The frame shattered and the picture landed face-down. Good, I thought. I never wanted to see those smug faces again. They had ruined everything.
"Bloody Americans," I muttered. Everything I had worked for, everything I had believed in, everything I had loved was gone. And where were those "liberators" now that the world they had liberated was crumbling? They were sitting at home, safe and snug in their beds, greeted as heroes and proud of what they had done, while I was left to salvage what I could of my life in England. England! I couldn't even go home – I would be hanged like all the others.
Something under the sofa caught my eye. I bent down and picked it up, angry tears threatening to spill over as I examined it.
It was a gun; a gun that had passed from my own hands into the hands of a young man, a young soldier, who now lay in a makeshift grave somewhere in France. It was a gun that Christine had shown me as I sat with her in her apartment years ago. It had been damaged then – initials cared into to butt by a cheap American pocket knife – but had never once been fired. As I examined it now, I realized that the same could no longer be said.
I took a deep breath. What had I left to lose? The war was over and the Third Reich had fallen. I would be found sooner or later, and I would eventually be tried, convicted and killed. Would it be better to die before a crowd who jeered and scorned, or to die alone, as I had been all my life?
Slowly, ever so slowly, I closed my eyes and raised the gun to my temple. With trembling fingers, I pulled the trigger.