So this is a new story I just thought of. I'm good for updating every other day, but until my latest story is completed, this shall only be updated as often as I can. My latest story should be completed within a week's time. So enjoy.

What if Christine never went back to Erik on that night just before she was wed? What if Gustave was never born?

"The Breaking Point"

"Monsters; they are not always ugly

They are not always mean

But they do horrible things

From time to time

This, I have seen…."

- Excerption straight from the diary of Christine Daae…

Christine's POV

Have you ever dreamed what you wanted your life to turn out as, only to have it become the complete opposite? This is exactly how my supposed to be wonderful life became. Ever since my father "Gustave Daae" died when I was eight, I have been on my own. Well, not completely on my own, I had my angel of music, my muse, my everything, my Erik. Oh, that name, that wonderful name has stayed in my mind all these years even after the tragedy he caused was long forgotten about.

It's hard to explain everything that has happened between the both of us, even now; ten whole years since I last seen or heard from him. I still to this day have not a single clue on his whereabouts, the condition of his health, or if he is even still breathing a single breath. Though, that does not mean I haven't thought about him at least five minutes out of everyday since that night. That night, that horrible night. How could I forget the sight of burning candles, or the stench of death mixed in with the expensive cologne that he always piled on his skeletal body? The wedding gown I had been forced in to was soaked in my hot tears, and Raoul could been seen from a distance struggling to remove the noose that was tightly wrapped around his neck.

Erik was begging me to marry him or else Raoul was going to die. I never thought in a million years that my angel of music, my everything, felt the way he did for me. Why me? Why did he love me? I was a nobody. It was he who had made me the famous diva I was. I didn't deserve or want his love. I had torn off his mask just months ago to find out what my angel truly looked like, only to scream at the twisted and discolored flesh that laid beneath it. He was hideous! He was a monster! His eyes were two different shades of blue, sunken into two deep dark sockets.

"The love of an angel is all poor Erik asks for!" he dropped to his lanky knees, and kissed the hem of my white dress, his tears soaking the lacy fabric.

"I cannot love you, Erik." I pulled my skirts away from him. "For I love another."

"But Erik could show you what love really is." he pulled my skirts back, only to place his twisted and cold bloated lips upon the tops of my feet. I wasn't wearing any shoes! The ground beneath my toes was cold, but Erik's lips were like ice. His moist kiss caused me to shiver, and I pulled away.

How could I possibly find it in my heart to love this man? I loved him as a teacher, a friend, and a father figure. How could I ever get past that, let alone his hideous face.

"Erik is sorry! Erik does not know how to kiss anything. Even his own mother didn't want to kiss him." he cried into his boney hands, as I stood there feeling terrible for this man, this human being who never had an ounce of love given to him.

"I can't love you." Erik's tears only poured faster upon hearing this. "I love Raoul. I love him, Erik. Are you listening to me? I love him, and always loved him."

"But Erik loves you more! Erik can show Christine the love she never knew existed. I could compose, and you sing. Our marriage would be beautiful and filled with music. Our life…." he grabbed my hand with his tear soaked one, but didn't dare kiss it. "Our life would be beautiful…"

I wouldn't dare look him in those mismatched eyes. My glance stayed down at our hands that were interlocked with one another's his over powering mine.

"Our life together would be as beautiful as your face."

The life was knocked out of him after I said what I did. His hand fell from mine, and he backed away, only stopping when he hit the wall. His lanky body slunk down to his knees; no more tears fell, for there wasn't any left to fall.

He clenched his chest with one hand, and looked up at me, his face filled with such pain.

"G…go."

His voice was broken and filled with such hurt. I had hurt him, and I didn't even care. He let me go. I had gotten the freedom I so wanted, and took Raoul away. I left my angel there without even caring what happened to him. I didn't care because I had Raoul; the man I had loved since I was a child. He was my friend, lover, fiancée and soon to be husband. I was in love, my life almost complete. For weeks, I didn't think about Erik at all. Never once during my stay at the DeChagney estate did my angel ever come into mind. Perhaps it was because I was so busy with getting my wedding together.

This was my dream. This dream that I had always visited when I went to sleep. The same dream I thought about during my once long rehearsals at the opera house. Just Raoul and I on a beautiful day, getting married to one another, making love for the first time on our wedding night, a dog, then some children….Everything was going to come together so sweetly. My wedding had been a dream come true. How could I ever forget such a day? The red roses that lined the garden we were married in, the white arbor that matched my dress, Raoul's handsome face. The day was perfect, and I loved him with my whole heart. And with my hand in his, I vowed to love him till death do us part.

The after party was marvelous and surrounded by Raoul's family. We danced, ate, danced some more, drank and indulged ourselves in laughter I never knew I had within me. For the first time in my life, I had a family, a husband and most of all, freedom. But my once wonderful dream was about to turn into a complete nightmare. I always dreamed that my first time making love would be filled with undying passion for the man I've loved since childhood. I wish I could say that's what if was full of, but I can't. I thought I loved Raoul more than anything, but when our bodies came together as one, I knew right then and there that our supposed undying love wasn't living at all. Though our love making was horrible, I stuck with him thinking that our love could still live.

By the end of our first year of marriage, I was no happier with my marriage than the night of our wedding. I had thought perhaps getting pregnant would make me happy, and so I suffered through endless nights of Raoul making love to my body. But no matter how many nights came and went, I found myself still without child.

Raoul's work had begun to steal him away from me. First a few hours at a time, and then a few days. When I was forced to stay home hour after hour all alone with just the servants and maids, I began to think about my life and how I had thought it would have turned out. On our sixth year of marriage, something began to change in the way my husband usually acted. His nights became later and later, and when he returned home, he would sleep the entire day. It was as if we were no longer married, as if I didn't exist. It was then for the first time since my marriage that I thought about Erik. I wondered where he was, and felt guilty for what I had said. Those horrible things I had said to him. All he ever did was love me, and I couldn't even find it in my own heart to provide him with a single word of kindness after everything he had done.

For a few more years, our marriage continued just like this, only getting deeper and deeper into darkness. He blamed me for never becoming pregnant, he blamed me every single day. This had driven him to drink, and soon turned him into a raging alcoholic. He even began to beat me when he would come home drunk. And out of my bruises came thoughts of Erik, and if only I could change everything. If only I could apologize to him for every little thing I had ever done. I didn't even say goodbye, I walked out of his life, the last words being the cruelest choice.

But as all dreams come to an end, so do nightmares. I remember that day, the day my nightmare finally came to an end. It was the night after Raoul had given me the most horrible beating of our marriage yet. I sat there near the window holding a wet cloth against my bruised head. One of our servants came into the room I was sitting in, and handed me Raoul's mail. Usually the mail consisted of invites to parties and job offers, but today, only one letter arrived. It was a beat up envelope with many stamps plastered all over it and looked tarnished. I suspected it to be a dead letter, but what caught my eyes was when I noticed my name written across it in faded ink.

I never received mail, especially mail that was addressed to me and only me. Curious, I opened the letter as carefully as possible, and unfolded the fragile parchment. The ink was faded, but not enough to where I couldn't read it.

"My dearest Christine,

So many nights I have waken to feel nothing but my pillow laying beside me. My heart is torn open and bleeding out from such pain you have left it in. After ten years of living on my own, I can finally say you were right. Our life would have been as hideous as my face. That phrase burns and burns within me each and every day. Since birth I had been alone, and unloved, and still, ten years later I am unloved. Never feeling a single kiss, the warm embrace of a hug, or the wonderful bliss of making love. Ten years ago, I left Paris, too heartbroken to stay. I moved on to the world's new playground, and built myself an empire. But even an empire couldn't keep my thoughts about you away. I promised myself I would never write you a single letter, and let you live your life, but this, this Christine is my breaking point. At least you can know that I am in pain, and I still love you and only you. Are you happy? Have you given birth to any of the DeChagney's children? I wish you nothing but the best my dear. Perhaps you were right after all, our life would have been as hideous as my face…

Forever yours

Erik."

The phrase broke my heart. "Our life would only be as hideous as your face." It still burned within him, and it still hurt. I couldn't take this life any longer. I had to find Erik, and I needed to apologize for all I had done. Just because I didn't love him didn't mean that I couldn't give him a chance. Who knew, perhaps one day I would be able to say that I did. For now, I needed a friend who could shelter me from the horrible life I was living at the current moment. Raoul was gone again, out for the night, drinking and god knows what else. To sit here would be the death of me. Without a second thought, I packed a few things into a leather pack, and threw on my cloak before heading out into the foggy night. If there was one person who knew where Erik was, it was Madame Giry. I hadn't seen the woman in years, but knew she would be happy to see me again.

The night was quiet, and the only light was coming from the few street lamps that were on the cobble sidewalks. I passed the old condemned opera house, the same opera house where I had met my angel, performed on stage, and became the rising star that I was. It was Erik who had made me the star that I once was. When I arrived at the small flat Madame Giry lived in, I knocked, praying that she still lived here. A few moments later, the door opened, revealing a much older Madame Giry. Her green eyes met with mine, but she didn't recognize me due to the hood of my cloak that was covering my hair.

"May I help you?" she asked, raising her small candle that she held in her wrinkled hand.

I pulled back my hood, and her eyes instantly lit up.

"Christine!" she threw her arms around me, pulling me close for a long awaited hug. "It's been so long. Please, come inside where it's warm."

Madame Giry pulled me into her flat, and ran over to her wood burning stove to put a kettle of water on.

"I'll make us some tea. Then you can tell me all about what you've been up to."

"Really, Madame, I cannot stay long."

When she turned to me again, she gasped at the sight of my bruises that were scattered all over my face.

"Christine?" her hands softly ran over each one, wondering in silence where I obtained them.

"It was Raoul." I murmured, embarrassed that my husband had given me such marks.

"You can stay as long as you like. You're like family to me."

She turned around and tended to the whistling tea kettle that was boiling on the stove. She thought I was here to stay. She thought I had come to her in hopes to get away from Raoul.

"I'm not here for shelter." I said. "I'm here because I need to know the whereabouts of a certain someone."

Madame Giry poured me a cup of tea, and softy laughed. "I know hardly anyone besides you and Meg."

"It's Erik I seek."

She paused in the middle of pouring her tea, dumbfounded on how I knew about her friendship with him.

"You know as well as I that he passed away." she was trying to lie to me, and I didn't believe it.

"I know he's not dead. He sent me a letter." I tore the envelope out of my bag, and showed it to Madame Giry. She read over it as if not believing it were really from him.

"He told me he would never do it." she looked away from Erik's letter, tears falling from her eyes. "He told me that he would never try to contact you."

"Well, he did. Look, Madame, Raoul has been beating me senseless for four years. I've thought about Erik and the pain I've put him in."

"I will not tell you where he is. What you said to him all those years ago almost killed him, and I will not let it happen again. I love Erik just as much as I love you, and mothers protect their children, not put them in harm's way."

"Madame, I can promise you that I wish to seek Erik out to apologize to him. I won't put him in harms way ever again, this I promise you."

"But when you decided to leave him, if ever, it will hurt him, perhaps even kill him. He's better off without you, Christine."

"What if I promise to stay?" I blurted out.

Madame Giry turned to me, her eyes seeping through my soul to find if I was lying or not.

"You would stand here before me and promise such a thing? I don't believe a word, Christine, not for one minute do I believe you."

"Then let me prove it to you. Let me get to know Erik as a man, let me spend sometime with him. Just tell me where he is?"

"You really are serious aren't you?"

I nodded, hoping that she would help me.

"I don't have an address for you. He doesn't put his address on the envelopes just encase they come into the wrong hands. I do know that he's in Coney Island."

"Coney what?"

"Coney Island.."

Madame Giry left me for a few moments, returning with a small wooden box. She placed it in my arms, and I opened it. Inside were a few letters and news paper articles about Coney Island. It was a marvelous playground on the other side of the world. In a city named "New York."

"Erik has sent me numerous things over the years. Candy, and different trinkets from Coney Island. He even sent me this."

She took out an envelope that held a one way ticket to Ellis Island.

"Erik sent this to me years ago as a gift incase I wanted to come see him." she placed it in my hand. "I want you to have it. Coney Island is no place for an old woman."

"I can't accept it."

"Of course you can. You wanted to prove to Erik that you could give him a chance, now go on and prove it."

I hugged Madame Giry, and thanked her for the ticket.

"Thank you Madame, thank you."

"Thank me by not breaking Erik's heart. Now get a move on before you miss the midnight ship."

I finished my tea, and hurried to Calais to catch the ship that would bring me one step closer to Erik. I'm coming, Erik, this I promise you….

Ok so that's the first chapter. Please let me know if I should continue it. The next chapter will be in Erik's POV