A/n: though this isn't my first Phantom of the Opera fic, it is my first serious one so please be kind in reviews.

Sleeping

Prologue: He Returns

"Christine..."

The familiar mournful voice filled the sleeping figures ears and she slowly opened her eyes, entranced immediately by it.

Her voice was only a whisper as to not wake her sleeping husband, Raoul De Chagny next to her.

"Erik?"

She focused on the small light in the window and stood slowly.

She froze as Raoul stirred and looked up at her.

"Christine, where are you going? It's the middle of the night."

She looked back at him with wide eyes and tried to calm herself.

"Just to the window for some air...i had a nightmare. Go back to sleep, I won't be but a moment away."

He sighed and nodded, closing his eyes and falling back asleep, but not fully and Christine knew she would have to leave the room if she wished to speak to the man at the window.

She beckoned him to follow her as she unlocked the door.

He put out the candle he was holding and silently flowed across the room, following her into the hall and down the front stair.

This was not the first night he had come to her and she had to find away to make him leave once and for all before Raoul found out.

They left the house and walked down to the lake.

It was chilly and she shivered in only her nightgown and bare feet.

This had gone on six days now and she had been silently fighting a fever.

She tensed as he wrapped his arms around her, approaching her from behind.

She turned in his arms and stared into the frightening black mask he usually wore.

In all truth the mask scared her more than the face and he allowed her to take it off.

"Erik...you mustn't come again. I cannot break my vow to Raoul."

Erik lifted her hand to his lips and gently kissed it.

"I know that you don't love him Christine. I know that you love me."

She sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck as she rested her head on his warm chest, listening to his heartbeat.

"I have reason to stay with him and every time I see you I long for you more. It isn't fair to torture me so."

He looked up at the sprawling mansion for a moment but couldn't keep his gaze from her.

"What if I told you a secret his whole family has been keeping from you. I've seen how uncomfortable they make you. I haven't returned to Paris in months."

She pulled away from him and turned to the lake with a sob.

"Why won't you leave me Erik?! In some small way I'm happy! He loves me and I love him, why can't you understand that?"

She fell to her knees in the cold wet grass and hid her tears from him, though she knew he saw them before she turned.

He spoke softly as he approached her.

"Because I will always be your angel of music Christine. Because I love you too much to let you go. What if I could give you everything he has and more? Just tell me you love me and I'll give you the world."

She looked up into his eyes as he pulled her hands from her face.

"I don't want to live on stolen money Erik. If I were to come with you, where would we live? Beneath the opera? I'd die down there!"

He shook his head.

"I told you I wanted to live like a normal man. I told you I would take you out on Sundays. I meant that we would buy a house together. I don't need the opera houses money...I gave it all back to them when you left."

She closed her eyes as he ran gentle fingers over her cheek and up into her hair, brushing out the tangles of sleep.

His fingers lingered there, feeling the unusual warmth of her neck and realized he was the cause of this.

She wrapped her arms around him in such a way that he felt compelled to kiss away her tears.

How he loathed to see her cry.

"But how are you living?! Surely you haven't been begging, oh please tell me you aren't starving!"

He chuckled slightly and shook his head as he pulled her to her feet.

"That's something your dear husband can answer for you...isn't it M. De Chagny?"

Christine spun around in horror to face Raoul who stood just ten feet away with a pistol aimed directly between Erik's eyes.

For a reason unknown to even herself she stepped in front of him, crying out as she did so.

"Raoul don't!"

Erik however was a full head taller than Christine and she screamed and fell into his arms as Raoul fired.

Catching his beloved prevented him from being shot and he stared down into her face, feeling her tremble even now.

Raoul stood in horror as he watched 'the monster' caressing her cheek softly and soothingly whispering.

"Christine! For God's sake Erik let her go!"

Erik looked up with eyes to kill and the words he wished to speak only came out as an inaudible moan.

Coherent thought evaded him and the sight of the fainted woman in his arms filled him with rage for the man before him.

All thought of anger was frozen as she suddenly called out a name in her fear and illness induced slumber.

"Erik..."

He smiled slightly, but her fever concerned him and he looked up at the stunned Raoul in a new light.

'She's safer in your hands at the moment.'

In taunting voice he called to him.

"Come and get her and steal her from my arms. For tonight I will allow this of you, but only tonight."

Raoul charged at him and was thrown off as Erik practically threw Christine into his arms and was gone into the night.

'I swear on your grave that you will not trouble us again...monster!'

So is it a good start? please r&r!