She should have known... Maybe she did, she definitely knew all of it, the bizarres that led her, Raoul and her beloved son to this place, the way they were dressed and spoke, even the the quite elegant apartment's furniture had some of his spirit and sense of fashion. Raoul would have noticed it too, he surely would have, if his head wouldn't have been way too clouded by the gross smelling liquids he used to drink nowadays.

He never did drink when they got married but Christine had to admit that she didn't know when her husband had started drinking, only that he did so way too long. She hated all about his drinking, the way he smelled after he came home from a nice round with his so called friends, men who used him, made fun of him, led him into darkness, a false reality he couldn't tell apart from the real one...In his eyes they were still wildly in love with each other like the children they used to be, the children with their dark stories and dancing to some sweet violin tune.

But their love began to fade, far too soon and too quick for a man of Raoul's spirit to notice. Christine was out of love when he stepped over the grand opera's threshold, sure, she did feel some sort of excitement when she saw him again after all these years but there was nothing to be called a skin-deep connection. Not like with him .

After her father died, the little girl was sent to Paris to learn at the grand Opera Populaire, where she met someone who would change her life completely.

The Phantom was the strangest person she knew. The first time they met they barely spoke with each other. The dark room only illuminated by one or two candles was filled by the sounds of his nervous breathing while she continued to look at him, curiously, before she asked him what might have frightened him so much. After a couple of breaths, slowly getting calmer and calmer, he told her that it was her. The young man had a voice like the most seductive angel in a demon's disguise, but how could the girl know.

They spoke, then talked and he treated her the kindest way, when she asked him about his mask he snarled that she didn't have to know and disappeared. When Christine got older, she knew more than understood that the man was hiding something he was too afraid to show anybody, not even her, his student he started to teach how to sing. Except her she didn't know about any other friend he had, but he also didn't seem to care. He liked her for her talent, her kind heart and the warmth she let him feel, and that she looked at him like a normal human, not like the monster he was. And she admired him, his beautiful voice, the way he could make art out of empty air with only his hands and some things of his surroundings. He was as passionate about music as she was and in a blink of an eye, she felt how he and she started to feel more than 'like'. But it was an impossible thing, she knew him way too long and way too good to even think of herself being intimate, not even physically but emotionally, with him.

The girl grew to be a woman with the voice of a siren, admired by many and detested by as many, and reason told her to push away anything she might feel for her tutor. So she did, Christine ignored the way The Phantom fascinated her and drew her towards him, even started to react on the advances of the young Viscounte de Chagny, a charming little boy with loyal, friendly eyes. Even if the woman played her part to perfection, she never really did love Raoul, even after he almost sacrificed his life for her, the reason why she left with him was a complete different matter.

"Oh Christine..." Shivers started a soft dance on Christine's neck and down her spine as she heard his melodious, honey like voice, and she was the bee being allured by the sweetness it left on her lips. "My Christine!" His Christine? Was she ever his? How could he dare to speak of her as his, something he never owned and never would if she would stay strong. So she remembered what he did to her, he left her after their first night and she felt guilty and filthy and used and oh so terribly confused. But her efforts to feel hateful about him vanished as she turned around and looked him into the eye, those eyes she used to adore, those eyes she knew and still was able to look into after she had seen what was beneath The Phantom's mask. And she felt something crack inside her, as he took a step towards her, the anxious, yet hopeful expression on his features, his lips slightly parted to speak to the woman in front of him, the woman he simply was unable to hate.

"In that time when the world thought me dead..."

*~*~ Tbc

Well then dear, what do you think? To be honest this is just a little experiment if my writing abilities are still the same...*blushes hard and sobs silently into pillow* Still I'm very passionate about the Phantom and Christine so I did as good as I could right now! I hope you liked it, if not then still please leave a comment^^