Lachesis' Weavings
by AngelCeleste85
Disclaimer: I do not own "PTO." I never have, and never will, own Erik, Raoul, Christine, or any of the other characters that appear in other authors' versions of the story of the Phantom of the Opera (no matter how much I wish I did). The only things I can make any claim to are the workings of my own imagination with the material that other artists have given to me in their music and their stories, and the occasional incidental characters that truly *are* mine. Therefore I am not making any money off of this in any way, shape or form!
Blame: I think this one goes entirely on my shoulders. ;-)
Setting: Right after ALW version.
Spoilers: None yet, or at least none you haven't heard, but it's going to get angsty later. Trust me, you've seen I'm the Queen of Angst (Lady Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy, is the Empress)!
Other notes: This might become multiple chapters. I think it'll be E/C, but I don't know yet. I suspect it *will* become an E/M real soon. Lachesis is one of the Moerae, or the Fates, of Greek myth: she is the one who measures out the thread of life that her sister Clotho spins, and weaves it into a great pattern before her other sister Atropos cuts the thread, thus the title. The phic is more heavily based in the ALW version, but I may drop hints from the Leroux novel throughout. If you're wondering why I'm going through the final scene, mainly it's so that you get an idea of the mental states I'm projecting onto the two of them and on Erik, what I'm working with later.
// denotes Christine's thoughts. //
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lachesis' Weavings by AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ch. 1 - Time of Decision
"You try my patience! Make your choice!"
The look on Erik's face was terrifying, to be sure. Christine forced her knees to remain steady. // There's no other way. this has to be. He's mad, but he's right, I have no choice... I can't condemn us all. //
Her feet felt like lead as she stepped forward, conscious of both mens' eyes on her: her body barely felt like her own. One step after another, she approached the man whom she had unmasked before Paris. // It was cruel of me to do that, but no less cruel than what he is doing now... //
Christine stopped when she was so close to Erik she could feel the heat radiating from his body. His eyes, so very odd... One glowed amber in the shadows of the bare deformity, the other a dark black that glittered with emotions she could not identify though she had seen them before. Never this raw, this intense, though, and yet his eyes were strangely hard and distant. Had they ever really softened even for her? The man behind the mask had let down his guard for her once before, and she had burned him to the bone. Now she had to pay the price for that harm.
// This may yet be harder on him than it is on me... he doesn't know if I'll kiss him or slap him or faint or mock that awful face. Raoul, please understand, this is for both of you: him because he needs it, for you to save your life. So ironic that I should have to save you, when you came down here to save me. But here goes. //
The young opera singer felt her throat tighten as Erik gazed at her. He was a murderer many times over, she knew: the fact that he displayed no remorse for either Buquet or Piangi told her that killing was long habit to him, long enough to deaden any sense of horror at the thought. Even now, behind her, Raoul's life hung in the balance and regardless of her choice, Erik might still decide to kill him. // He won't, I know that, because he is trying to get my love... a strange combination of coercion and pleading. But this is all I can give him. //
She had no idea where the words came from, but she sang, softly at first. "Pitiful creature of darkness... What kind of life have you known?" Erik's eyes lost some of that distant look, boring into her own blue eyes as if he was trying to see her thoughts. Her voice firmed as her decision shored her resolve. "God give me courage to show you... You are not... Alone!"
Even as Erik's eyes registered disbelief she had flung herself to him, flung herself on his mercy. // Forgive me, Raoul, this is the only way that you will leave here alive. Oh, Erik, forgive this last deception: I could never love you when you have extorted my promise of marriage to you by threatening the life of the man I love! // Her lips, unused to contact, fumbled across his chin before finding his own twisted ones: with her arms locked around his shoulders she clearly felt the shock that made him straighten, almost tearing the contact apart. Then Erik tilted her face to his - she could not see him for the tears in her eyes! - and returned the kiss.
She lost herself in the intensity: she had never dreamed such feelings were even possible. What her eyes had been unable to decipher, what his eyes had hidden, every inch of his body telegraphed to her plainly. His original shock gave way to incredulity, then to hope and finally desire so hot it seared her. And just as suddenly, the torrent stopped: she could feel, through the haze of feeling this one kiss had awakened in her, Erik distancing himself. She broke the kiss, blinking away the tears in her eyes to look at Erik.
The cold aloofness had returned. almost. It wasn't firmly in place, she could see something stirring in his eyes. But his arms slipped from where they had clutched possessively around her waist, he stepped back and pushed her away, and the distance in his eyes... she had the sense of finality from them and it frightened her. When she saw the man pick up a candle and move towards Raoul with swift, purposeful steps she nearly screamed in fear.
The scream was arrested before it began, though, when she saw a tiny flame race upwards to the roof of the cavern. The Punjab lasso fell limply to the ground and Raoul put a wondering hand to his throat.
"Come," Erik growled. When Raoul only stood there, the Phantom snatched his hand and nearly dragged him to where Christine stood. But it was gently that he took the hand of the woman he loved and placed it into the hand of the man he hated,
Christine could hear a murmur in the distance, had for several minutes. Now she heard words of hate in the distant roar. It was good that she had not screamed, then.
"Take her - forget me - forget all of this."
// What is he doing? What does he mean? // She knew she was staring at her hand, clasped in Raoul's, both held together in the icy and incredibly strong grip of the Phantom.
Raoul was staring as well. But Erik continued. His face was impassive as the stone walls around them. "Leave me alone, forget all you've seen." His voice was an entirely different story: to an opera singer, the voice of a man who expressed himself almost entirely through music should have held volumes. But Christine was too stunned to hear it clearly, her mind was still fogged by the revelations of that kiss.
A deceptively slender arm pointed imperiously outside. "Take the boat - go now, don't wait!" Erik pushed Raoul's shoulder, snapping the other out of his thoughts. "Just take her and go - before it's too late!"
"What are you talking about?" Christine wanted to ask, but Erik swept her up, carried her outside the little house and deposited her unceremoniously, if as gently as always, in the carved wooden boat. Raoul got in after and Erik handed him the tall pole.
"Go now!" Now Erik's voice was starting to carry open distress. "Go now and leave me!" he screamed before fleeing from her sight.
The Vicomte started to push the boat away from the dock. Suddenly the fog cleared from the young diva's mind. Christine stopped him and got out of the boat.
"Christine, what are you doing?" the young noble asked in a whisper. The mob was definitely coming closer. She ignored him: there was something she knew she had to do.
"Masquerade..."
Erik had turned away and was already crossing the threshold of his house. She ran after him, heedless of the loose, dry rocks that sought to trip her steps or of the Viscount's boots thumping after her. "Paper faces on parade..."
Re-entering the house that she had spent so much time in, she saw him.
Erik stood, his mask in hand, by the fireplace with his back to her. His head rested on the mantelpiece, his shoulders were bowed and shaking. A little tin music box, with a monkey playing the cymbals perched atop it, was playing a bright, tinkling tune... she recognized the box, and the music seemed familiar, but Christine could not quite place it. Oddly, he was singing, though his voice sounded only a hairsbreadth away from shattering entirely. "Masquerade... hide your face so the world will never find you."
"Erik!" she whispered.
At the sound of her voice he spun, his eyes wide and a terrible expression on his face. He made a valiant attempt to straighten his back, but it was belied by the gleaming tracks of tears down each side of his ravaged face.
"What are you doing, you stupid child?! If they find you here they'll kill you as well!" his eyes said without words. Every line of his posture spoke of rigid self-control to Christine, he wanted nothing more than to run to her and crush her to his chest and yet restrained himself. In other circumstances it might have been funny, except...
She walked across to the maskless man and held out her open hand. Erik sighed when he saw the slim golden band set with three small diamonds resting in her palm, but he held out his own hand and she tipped the ring into it. Christine didn't dare to look at him, only turned and walked away.
"Christine... I love you..."
// I know, Erik. I understand... I hope that you understand as well. // She didn't turn around, afraid of what she would see if she did.
Stepping outside, she nearly walked right into Raoul, who snatched her hand and ran back to the boat. It was either run with him or be dragged and Christine knew the mob could not be far away. In this situation, there was no place for dignity: she pulled up the full, heavy skirts of the white silk wedding dress and ran, not stopping to pick up the veil when it fell.
Again they got into the boat. Raoul was no waterman, but he had re-tied the boat at the little dock with a running bowline: one quick jerk sufficed to free the boat and Raoul snatched the pole. It was a sleek craft, narrow in the beam and not deep, much like the gondolas of the Venetian canals, and it did not take much effort for the little canoe to pick up speed.
Christine heard a woman singing somewhere. "Say you'll share with me one love... one lifetime..." It seemed close. "Say the word, and I will follow you..."
Raoul's voice, somewhat labored from the poling, answered. "Share each day with me..."
It was her own voice that answered! "Each night..." and then Raoul joined - she'd never dreamed he could sing as well! - "...each morning..."
And then one very familiar voice joined them from afar. Christine turned to see the Phantom of the Opera standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the lights inside. A strong rejoinder, and yet Christine had never heard his voice come so close to breaking before.
"You alone can make my song take flight! It's over now... the music of the night!"
Christine could see the red light of torches approaching the little house on the lake now, heard their roar of recognition... and then Raoul poled the boat around a rocky projection in the lake.
"I hope he'll get away safely," she whispered.
The nobleman scoffed. "What difference does it make if he gets out of here? I told you, he will haunt us until we're dead, so long as he lives!"
"Raoul..."
"Enough of this, where's the exit?"
Christine pointed to the next promontory. "There's a ring on that rock, if you tie the boat there we can both jump to the rock and there's a little path - he showed it to me, but said he doesn't use it much, no need, it was a workers' path in constructing this place. It leads to the Rue Scribe entrance. If we hurry we can get there before the gendarmes post guards all over it."
"With luck my carriage will still be out front." The boat bumped against the rock. Raoul jumped out and slipped on the wet rocks: an oath passed his lips before he could call it back, but he turned and extended his hand to help Christine from the boat.
To his astonishment, she was already out and kneeling on the bank, the pole at a steep angle in her hands. "Now what are you doing?" Raoul asked, exasperated.
Christine replied calmly, without looking at him. "Can't you see the glow over there? That's the mob. Can't you hear them yelling? They haven't found him. But they'll search the lake soon and if they find this boat, they'll think that he came this way. I can't send it out to the middle of the lake, he might need it later. But if you'll help me, there's a little hollow here, it's small, but it'll shield the boat from prying eyes and he'll know where to find it."
"Good God, Christine..." Raoul muttered under his breath, but he got back into the boat with the pole and helped her turn the craft into the covered hole that must have somehow been excavated from the rock just for this boat. One push with the pole from the bank against the rear seat was enough to send the craft, now empty, deep into its niche. Raoul knelt over the hole and laid the pole into the little canoe. "Come on, let's go."
They did not run, now that the immediate dangers were past, nor did they speak. They only held hands, alert to any sound of pursuit from behind or of a watch set up ahead. Even in the tunnel leading to the Rue Scribe, it was silent.
"Christine, why did you go back to him?"
"Wouldn't you have wanted me to, in his place?"
"I suppose..."
"And I had to return his ring."
"What?"
"I had to return his ring. He gave me a ring, Raoul, a wedding ring. He really wanted to marry me. I can't imagine why he pushed me away but I won't argue, I don't love him. But I had to return the ring, I couldn't keep it and not marry him. And I couldn't keep it, anyway."
Raoul smiled and stopped, brought Christine to himself, buried his face in her long black curls. "I swear to you, Christine, I'm not losing you again." Christine laughed a little. But laughter turned quiet and with a start, Raoul noticed she was crying into his shoulder. "Darling? Darling, what is it? What's wrong?"
"I nearly lost you," she whispered back.
At somewhat of a loss as to what to do, Raoul held her close and rocked her. That had not been pleasant, the irony or the fact that his life had literally been on the line not an hour before. But he couldn't blame her for breaking down now, it was amazing she'd held out this long. He would cry later, out of her sight. "You won't lose me, dear."
"Promise?" The tears had stopped and her voice was steadier.
"On my honor and my family's honor, I swear it. No Chagny has ever broken his word, not once in six hundred years, and I'll be damned if I'm the first." He knelt before her in the tunnel. "I know we were only playing at engagement before. Now, I'm serious," he added as her eyes widened. "Christine, will you marry me?"
Christine's eyes flooded anew, but through it her smile lit up her face. "I would be honored, Raoul... Yes, I will."
Later, the soft creaking of the carriage, the driver's encouraging and gentle chirrups to the horses, the soft clop-clop-clop of steel-shod hooves on cobblestones were the only sounds to disturb her reverie. She lay with her head pillowed on Raoul's strong shoulder, his arms encircling her tightly. By his breathing he was asleep, lulled by the rocking carriage, and she nearly so. The moon shone through the window from the left side onto her face and she smiled. A dark shadow of a night-bird crossed the white disk and as it did, it seemed to her that she could hear the ghost of the Phantom's voice, stealing through the depths of her mind, singing "This is the point of no return..."
// I am so sorry... Take care of yourself. //
A few moments later, she too gave herself up to sleep as the carriage bore them both north.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Please, tell me your opinions, I value them highly!
AngelCeleste85
Disclaimer: I do not own "PTO." I never have, and never will, own Erik, Raoul, Christine, or any of the other characters that appear in other authors' versions of the story of the Phantom of the Opera (no matter how much I wish I did). The only things I can make any claim to are the workings of my own imagination with the material that other artists have given to me in their music and their stories, and the occasional incidental characters that truly *are* mine. Therefore I am not making any money off of this in any way, shape or form!
Blame: I think this one goes entirely on my shoulders. ;-)
Setting: Right after ALW version.
Spoilers: None yet, or at least none you haven't heard, but it's going to get angsty later. Trust me, you've seen I'm the Queen of Angst (Lady Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy, is the Empress)!
Other notes: This might become multiple chapters. I think it'll be E/C, but I don't know yet. I suspect it *will* become an E/M real soon. Lachesis is one of the Moerae, or the Fates, of Greek myth: she is the one who measures out the thread of life that her sister Clotho spins, and weaves it into a great pattern before her other sister Atropos cuts the thread, thus the title. The phic is more heavily based in the ALW version, but I may drop hints from the Leroux novel throughout. If you're wondering why I'm going through the final scene, mainly it's so that you get an idea of the mental states I'm projecting onto the two of them and on Erik, what I'm working with later.
// denotes Christine's thoughts. //
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Lachesis' Weavings by AngelCeleste85
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ch. 1 - Time of Decision
"You try my patience! Make your choice!"
The look on Erik's face was terrifying, to be sure. Christine forced her knees to remain steady. // There's no other way. this has to be. He's mad, but he's right, I have no choice... I can't condemn us all. //
Her feet felt like lead as she stepped forward, conscious of both mens' eyes on her: her body barely felt like her own. One step after another, she approached the man whom she had unmasked before Paris. // It was cruel of me to do that, but no less cruel than what he is doing now... //
Christine stopped when she was so close to Erik she could feel the heat radiating from his body. His eyes, so very odd... One glowed amber in the shadows of the bare deformity, the other a dark black that glittered with emotions she could not identify though she had seen them before. Never this raw, this intense, though, and yet his eyes were strangely hard and distant. Had they ever really softened even for her? The man behind the mask had let down his guard for her once before, and she had burned him to the bone. Now she had to pay the price for that harm.
// This may yet be harder on him than it is on me... he doesn't know if I'll kiss him or slap him or faint or mock that awful face. Raoul, please understand, this is for both of you: him because he needs it, for you to save your life. So ironic that I should have to save you, when you came down here to save me. But here goes. //
The young opera singer felt her throat tighten as Erik gazed at her. He was a murderer many times over, she knew: the fact that he displayed no remorse for either Buquet or Piangi told her that killing was long habit to him, long enough to deaden any sense of horror at the thought. Even now, behind her, Raoul's life hung in the balance and regardless of her choice, Erik might still decide to kill him. // He won't, I know that, because he is trying to get my love... a strange combination of coercion and pleading. But this is all I can give him. //
She had no idea where the words came from, but she sang, softly at first. "Pitiful creature of darkness... What kind of life have you known?" Erik's eyes lost some of that distant look, boring into her own blue eyes as if he was trying to see her thoughts. Her voice firmed as her decision shored her resolve. "God give me courage to show you... You are not... Alone!"
Even as Erik's eyes registered disbelief she had flung herself to him, flung herself on his mercy. // Forgive me, Raoul, this is the only way that you will leave here alive. Oh, Erik, forgive this last deception: I could never love you when you have extorted my promise of marriage to you by threatening the life of the man I love! // Her lips, unused to contact, fumbled across his chin before finding his own twisted ones: with her arms locked around his shoulders she clearly felt the shock that made him straighten, almost tearing the contact apart. Then Erik tilted her face to his - she could not see him for the tears in her eyes! - and returned the kiss.
She lost herself in the intensity: she had never dreamed such feelings were even possible. What her eyes had been unable to decipher, what his eyes had hidden, every inch of his body telegraphed to her plainly. His original shock gave way to incredulity, then to hope and finally desire so hot it seared her. And just as suddenly, the torrent stopped: she could feel, through the haze of feeling this one kiss had awakened in her, Erik distancing himself. She broke the kiss, blinking away the tears in her eyes to look at Erik.
The cold aloofness had returned. almost. It wasn't firmly in place, she could see something stirring in his eyes. But his arms slipped from where they had clutched possessively around her waist, he stepped back and pushed her away, and the distance in his eyes... she had the sense of finality from them and it frightened her. When she saw the man pick up a candle and move towards Raoul with swift, purposeful steps she nearly screamed in fear.
The scream was arrested before it began, though, when she saw a tiny flame race upwards to the roof of the cavern. The Punjab lasso fell limply to the ground and Raoul put a wondering hand to his throat.
"Come," Erik growled. When Raoul only stood there, the Phantom snatched his hand and nearly dragged him to where Christine stood. But it was gently that he took the hand of the woman he loved and placed it into the hand of the man he hated,
Christine could hear a murmur in the distance, had for several minutes. Now she heard words of hate in the distant roar. It was good that she had not screamed, then.
"Take her - forget me - forget all of this."
// What is he doing? What does he mean? // She knew she was staring at her hand, clasped in Raoul's, both held together in the icy and incredibly strong grip of the Phantom.
Raoul was staring as well. But Erik continued. His face was impassive as the stone walls around them. "Leave me alone, forget all you've seen." His voice was an entirely different story: to an opera singer, the voice of a man who expressed himself almost entirely through music should have held volumes. But Christine was too stunned to hear it clearly, her mind was still fogged by the revelations of that kiss.
A deceptively slender arm pointed imperiously outside. "Take the boat - go now, don't wait!" Erik pushed Raoul's shoulder, snapping the other out of his thoughts. "Just take her and go - before it's too late!"
"What are you talking about?" Christine wanted to ask, but Erik swept her up, carried her outside the little house and deposited her unceremoniously, if as gently as always, in the carved wooden boat. Raoul got in after and Erik handed him the tall pole.
"Go now!" Now Erik's voice was starting to carry open distress. "Go now and leave me!" he screamed before fleeing from her sight.
The Vicomte started to push the boat away from the dock. Suddenly the fog cleared from the young diva's mind. Christine stopped him and got out of the boat.
"Christine, what are you doing?" the young noble asked in a whisper. The mob was definitely coming closer. She ignored him: there was something she knew she had to do.
"Masquerade..."
Erik had turned away and was already crossing the threshold of his house. She ran after him, heedless of the loose, dry rocks that sought to trip her steps or of the Viscount's boots thumping after her. "Paper faces on parade..."
Re-entering the house that she had spent so much time in, she saw him.
Erik stood, his mask in hand, by the fireplace with his back to her. His head rested on the mantelpiece, his shoulders were bowed and shaking. A little tin music box, with a monkey playing the cymbals perched atop it, was playing a bright, tinkling tune... she recognized the box, and the music seemed familiar, but Christine could not quite place it. Oddly, he was singing, though his voice sounded only a hairsbreadth away from shattering entirely. "Masquerade... hide your face so the world will never find you."
"Erik!" she whispered.
At the sound of her voice he spun, his eyes wide and a terrible expression on his face. He made a valiant attempt to straighten his back, but it was belied by the gleaming tracks of tears down each side of his ravaged face.
"What are you doing, you stupid child?! If they find you here they'll kill you as well!" his eyes said without words. Every line of his posture spoke of rigid self-control to Christine, he wanted nothing more than to run to her and crush her to his chest and yet restrained himself. In other circumstances it might have been funny, except...
She walked across to the maskless man and held out her open hand. Erik sighed when he saw the slim golden band set with three small diamonds resting in her palm, but he held out his own hand and she tipped the ring into it. Christine didn't dare to look at him, only turned and walked away.
"Christine... I love you..."
// I know, Erik. I understand... I hope that you understand as well. // She didn't turn around, afraid of what she would see if she did.
Stepping outside, she nearly walked right into Raoul, who snatched her hand and ran back to the boat. It was either run with him or be dragged and Christine knew the mob could not be far away. In this situation, there was no place for dignity: she pulled up the full, heavy skirts of the white silk wedding dress and ran, not stopping to pick up the veil when it fell.
Again they got into the boat. Raoul was no waterman, but he had re-tied the boat at the little dock with a running bowline: one quick jerk sufficed to free the boat and Raoul snatched the pole. It was a sleek craft, narrow in the beam and not deep, much like the gondolas of the Venetian canals, and it did not take much effort for the little canoe to pick up speed.
Christine heard a woman singing somewhere. "Say you'll share with me one love... one lifetime..." It seemed close. "Say the word, and I will follow you..."
Raoul's voice, somewhat labored from the poling, answered. "Share each day with me..."
It was her own voice that answered! "Each night..." and then Raoul joined - she'd never dreamed he could sing as well! - "...each morning..."
And then one very familiar voice joined them from afar. Christine turned to see the Phantom of the Opera standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the lights inside. A strong rejoinder, and yet Christine had never heard his voice come so close to breaking before.
"You alone can make my song take flight! It's over now... the music of the night!"
Christine could see the red light of torches approaching the little house on the lake now, heard their roar of recognition... and then Raoul poled the boat around a rocky projection in the lake.
"I hope he'll get away safely," she whispered.
The nobleman scoffed. "What difference does it make if he gets out of here? I told you, he will haunt us until we're dead, so long as he lives!"
"Raoul..."
"Enough of this, where's the exit?"
Christine pointed to the next promontory. "There's a ring on that rock, if you tie the boat there we can both jump to the rock and there's a little path - he showed it to me, but said he doesn't use it much, no need, it was a workers' path in constructing this place. It leads to the Rue Scribe entrance. If we hurry we can get there before the gendarmes post guards all over it."
"With luck my carriage will still be out front." The boat bumped against the rock. Raoul jumped out and slipped on the wet rocks: an oath passed his lips before he could call it back, but he turned and extended his hand to help Christine from the boat.
To his astonishment, she was already out and kneeling on the bank, the pole at a steep angle in her hands. "Now what are you doing?" Raoul asked, exasperated.
Christine replied calmly, without looking at him. "Can't you see the glow over there? That's the mob. Can't you hear them yelling? They haven't found him. But they'll search the lake soon and if they find this boat, they'll think that he came this way. I can't send it out to the middle of the lake, he might need it later. But if you'll help me, there's a little hollow here, it's small, but it'll shield the boat from prying eyes and he'll know where to find it."
"Good God, Christine..." Raoul muttered under his breath, but he got back into the boat with the pole and helped her turn the craft into the covered hole that must have somehow been excavated from the rock just for this boat. One push with the pole from the bank against the rear seat was enough to send the craft, now empty, deep into its niche. Raoul knelt over the hole and laid the pole into the little canoe. "Come on, let's go."
They did not run, now that the immediate dangers were past, nor did they speak. They only held hands, alert to any sound of pursuit from behind or of a watch set up ahead. Even in the tunnel leading to the Rue Scribe, it was silent.
"Christine, why did you go back to him?"
"Wouldn't you have wanted me to, in his place?"
"I suppose..."
"And I had to return his ring."
"What?"
"I had to return his ring. He gave me a ring, Raoul, a wedding ring. He really wanted to marry me. I can't imagine why he pushed me away but I won't argue, I don't love him. But I had to return the ring, I couldn't keep it and not marry him. And I couldn't keep it, anyway."
Raoul smiled and stopped, brought Christine to himself, buried his face in her long black curls. "I swear to you, Christine, I'm not losing you again." Christine laughed a little. But laughter turned quiet and with a start, Raoul noticed she was crying into his shoulder. "Darling? Darling, what is it? What's wrong?"
"I nearly lost you," she whispered back.
At somewhat of a loss as to what to do, Raoul held her close and rocked her. That had not been pleasant, the irony or the fact that his life had literally been on the line not an hour before. But he couldn't blame her for breaking down now, it was amazing she'd held out this long. He would cry later, out of her sight. "You won't lose me, dear."
"Promise?" The tears had stopped and her voice was steadier.
"On my honor and my family's honor, I swear it. No Chagny has ever broken his word, not once in six hundred years, and I'll be damned if I'm the first." He knelt before her in the tunnel. "I know we were only playing at engagement before. Now, I'm serious," he added as her eyes widened. "Christine, will you marry me?"
Christine's eyes flooded anew, but through it her smile lit up her face. "I would be honored, Raoul... Yes, I will."
Later, the soft creaking of the carriage, the driver's encouraging and gentle chirrups to the horses, the soft clop-clop-clop of steel-shod hooves on cobblestones were the only sounds to disturb her reverie. She lay with her head pillowed on Raoul's strong shoulder, his arms encircling her tightly. By his breathing he was asleep, lulled by the rocking carriage, and she nearly so. The moon shone through the window from the left side onto her face and she smiled. A dark shadow of a night-bird crossed the white disk and as it did, it seemed to her that she could hear the ghost of the Phantom's voice, stealing through the depths of her mind, singing "This is the point of no return..."
// I am so sorry... Take care of yourself. //
A few moments later, she too gave herself up to sleep as the carriage bore them both north.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Please, tell me your opinions, I value them highly!
AngelCeleste85