This is my first Fanfic on this site. I write fan fiction to work out kinks in my other writing, to test new ideas in dialogue and for my own enjoyment. I will never be overly fussed by a left out comma or a dangling participle. It is my full belief if you are reading a story to search for those you are forgetting to suspend disbelief. But as there is no excuse for sloppiness and I take my craft and my work seriously, I test and I retest until I am happy. I am delighted with reviews, so please leave them if you like, I will read and respond, but in the end I do this for me. If you like it as well, that is a bonus for me and you.

This story was inspired in a few places. ALW certainly. Leroux without whom none of this would be possible. My Doctor who is not only a POTO fan but she assures me that not only would it have been nearly impossible for Erik to have sang the way he is described as singing without a nose, but that Leroux never actually said he did not have one. One guest said he did not, another said it was transparent and still another said he thought it was only a shine that made it appear transparent. (the conversations I trap my poor doctor into, I really should be ashamed) So, Erik has a nose. I am madly in love with Gerard Butler, so I picture him. You picture whom ever you desire to. Art is subjective. I was inspired by so many here who repeated the theme that Christine loves Raoul like a brother, I took that one step further. I wondered what had to have occurred to make Christine so willing to believe that an actual Angel had visited her. Was it merely grief at the loss of her father, could she have had other traumas that influenced her?

I own none of ALW's songs. The Phantom of the Opera is in the public domain. Please enjoy.

Chapter 1 - Betrayal

The Phantom watched the young lovers leave the roof. Her words scarred his soul. How could she betray him? As he listened the wind whipped and snatched words away but he had heard enough. Oh yes, he heard enough to know how deeply her betrayal of him ran and every word was a blow. The only difference was they were not to his flesh this time.

Had she not told him every night since she was a child that she loved her Angel? Had she not swore she wanted to see him not just hear him? After her triumphant debut in Hannibal had she not come with him willingly? Sang with him? Let him hold her in his arms? Led him to believe that she loved him as more than her Maestro, as more than an Angel? They even managed to survive his unmasking at her hands and resume her instruction, for a time. Until Il Mulato. Until this very night. And now this fickle girl was telling her boy how much she loved him instead. Her boy with the perfect, whole face.

Her foolish boy did not even believe the Phantom existed, that Christine had dreamed him into being. How he longed to prove him wrong as he snuffed out his life. "Why have you brought me here? We must return"! "Be still now Christine, don't say that don't even think it, forget this waking nightmare this Phantom is a fable believe me there is no Phantom of the Opera, my God, who is this man? This mask of death? Whose is this voice you hear? With every breath?

But his words were nothing new, Christine's was the true betrayal that broke his spirit "Don't take me back there! He'll kill me! His eyes will find me there! Those eyes that burn! And if he has to kill a thousand men – The Phantom of the Opera will kill and kill again! My god, who is this man? Who hunts to kill? I can't escape from him. I never will"!

How could she believe he would harm one hair on her head? She was his muse, his protégé, his love. Harm her? Never! The boy? He was a different story. How he longed to strangle the life from him. Watch as the light slowly dimmed from his eyes. He was the viper in their nest, the one who had turned his Christine from him.

The boy was becoming frantic to convince her she had fantasized him into existence. Good, it would make killing him easier if he believed he had nothing to fear. "There is no Phantom of the Opera, your safety lies here"!

Christine continued her betrayal, "Raoul, I've been there – to his world of unending night to a world where the daylight dissolves into darkness…darkness… Raoul, I've seen him! Can I ever forget that sight? Can I ever escape from that face? So distorted, deformed, it was hardly a face, in that darkness…darkness…But his voice filled my spirit with a strange, sweet sound in that night there was music in my mind and through music my soul began to soar! And I heard as I'd never heard before".

Raoul pleaded with Christine to see she what she believed could not be reality "What you heard was a dream and nothing more"

Christine seemed wistful "Yet in his eyes all the sadness of the world those pleading eyes that both threaten and adore".

And then their love duet. It was clear he had lost her to this young fop before he could teach her that beauty was only societies perception that fear could become love. And she accepted his ring. The Phantom knew the only thing he could do was leave her to her happiness. He who adored her must leave her alone. He collapsed to the ground and picked up her discarded rose crushing it to his lips in a soundless scream of loss and anguish.

He returned to his lair only leaving to get the barest of necessities for months. Working on his opera like a madman stopping to eat only when he near starvation. Sleeping more often than not wherever he fell. Speaking to no one, seeing no one. Until his Great Work was done. The Masquerade Ball was mere days away and he knew he must be ready. The fools who ran his opera must be brought to heel and Christine must be ready to perform.

Everything must be perfect.

Christine must be perfect.

He would accept nothing less.