Disclaimer: I do not owe nor pretend to owe anything to do with Phantom of the Opera or the characters.
Note: This is based off the 2004 Movie and is a bit of a spoiler if you haven't watched it and if you haven't, well, what's keeping you?

Any Easier

1917
Paris

Isabelle hadn't known where he would go when her father ordered his buggy, nurse and footmen for the afternoon. Every inch of her being begged to ask where he was going and in such a fashion, but Isabelle's spirits were not up to where they usually would have been and she said not a word. If it had been a different time, a different world, she would have insisted she know where he was going and to take her with him. She wanted to see the world beyond these stone walls. The young brunette simply waved to her father as he left.

"Are you feeling well, Miss Isabelle?"

Isabelle turned slightly to look over her shoulder at her governess, Miss Camille. It would be her last year with the older woman, her dearest friend. Isabelle had outgrown the need for the extra chaperone She cast an affectionate smile in her direction. "Quite. Did father seem in poorer spirits than usual, Camille?"

"Oh, Miss Isabelle, it isn't my place to say." Camille answered politely, but Isabelle knew the other woman well enough to know that it was a confirmation.

"I thought so." Isabelle stared out at the empty place that her father's buggy had once occupied. She had always done what she was told; obeyed every order given to her. Always, she listened to her mother's guidance and her father's overbearing protectiveness. Isabelle, in a fit of overdo rebelliousness, decided to follow her father.

"Father has another buggy, correct?" Isabelle turned around, her dark maroon skirts swinging with her. Camille nodded dutifully. "Good, order it ready and tell the footmen to follow where-ever father went."

1917
Outside Paris

Isabelle's buggy was a distance behind her father's, but she didn't need to follow it to know where it was going. She'd followed him to the auction at the Opera Populaire, then to this long, painful road. Why the Opera Populaire, she was unsure. It had become nothing but modern day ruins since that fateful night. She knew this road her father led her to. The destination was obvious. She ordered the footmen to wait until her father's buggy had come and then gone before following the road to the destination.

She didn't wait for the footman to hand her out and she asked Camille to wait in the buggy. Isabelle didn't want anyone with her when she went to her mother's grave. Once out of sight of her governess and her servants, she pulled her hat from her head and let it fall to the snowy ground. No wonder he had been silent the whole of the day and left without much explanation.

If Raoul de Chagny had taken his wife's death hard, his youngest child, Isabelle had taken it even harder. She didn't even speak for months after, nor did she leave her room but to take her meals and attend church. She stopped singing, stopped dancing, stopped smiling. She had even stopped singing, a gift she'd inherited from her mother and didn't want anymore now that she wasn't there to guide her. It had only been in recent days that her spirits were beginning to lift. But all that had been reversed the moment the hat touched the ground. It had reversed the moment her father had turned down the road to the cemetery. The world didn't seem to matter.

Isabelle didn't know how she arrived at her mother's tombstone, but she did; her feet had led her there. Her jaw tensed and she fiercely shut her eyes to keep the tears back; she'd just stopped crying. She didn't need to start again, because if she did, Isabelle didn't know if she could ever stop. Once she was under control, Isabelle stepped forward so that her fingertips could touch the stone.

"Maman." She whispered. "I miss you." Isabelle was silent for a long while, not knowing what else to do. Rationally, there wasn't anything else she could do. "You know, the Opera Populaire hasn't put up anything since… It just isn't the same without your voice."

"It never was."

Another voice not her own, startled her out of her sorrow and sped up her heartbeat. Isabelle suddenly wished she had brought Camille along. Camille always had that commanding presence when men had cornered Isabelle at the theatre.

"Who… Who are you? Show yourself." Isabelle forced command into her tone. She was a Viscount's daughter and she would not cower until she knew what she was up against.

"An old… friend. I think it's best you not see me."

Isabelle backed away from her mother's grave, suddenly very afraid and very alone. She should never have come. She should have just been curious and waited until her father returned and she could brave up to ask him. Now she was in the open, unsheltered and trembling in fright.

"Why? So when you kidnap me I can't identify you? Please, I'll…" She stopped mid plea when she heard the chuckle and frowned. She didn't like being laughed at by anyone. "This isn't a laughing matter."

The laughter stopped and for a few tense moments, it was silent. The fog rolled about in the wind, but other than that, they were standing in a place where time seemed to stand still. Isabelle hardly dared to breathe.

"No, it isn't."

Isabelle shifted her weight nervously. If he was going to kidnap her, he'd best get it over and done with. "Why are you doing this? Why are you here?"

"I'm paying my respects." The voice, so hard and withdrawn seemed to soften. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you… little angel… So like her."

"Angel?" Isabelle repeated, baffled until her mind, already so focused on her mother, recalled the stories her mother would tell her once in a while when her father wasn't listening. The Angel of Music; the horrible tragedy that had come from the fantasy and more. Such stories were part of her cherished childhood. Isabelle's eyes widened. She knew who he was. "You're…"

"Shhh…."

"You don't have to hide. I'm not afraid." Isabelle was feeling a bit better now. His story was almost as familiar as her own. As terrorizing as he could be, she also knew (from her mother) that he could be a kind man too. "Besides, you're old now and…" She let her jaw hang open at her indecency and clapped a hand to it. What had possessed her to say such a thing? "Oh, I'm sorry. I was raised better than that."

"I bet you were." The figure stepped out from behind the tombstone, for a moment making Isabelle realize just how close she'd gotten to a complete stranger. A shiver ran down her spine.

He was dressed in black with a long, dramatic cape about his hunched shoulders. His head was tipped downward and a hat covered his head so she couldn't see his face.

"Sir…" Isabelle began slowly. "What happened? I mean, what happened so long ago, with my mother?"

He crossed in front of the tombstone and picked up a fresh, red rose with a black, satin ribbon and a diamond ring. It had been left there, she realized, probably by himself. "I loved her."

"Yes, but-"

"That is all the story you need, Miss..?"

Isabelle drew back, disappointed. She wanted to hear the tale from the Angel of Music himself. Sometimes, she had dreamt that she'd been in her mother's place and what wonder it must have been. She would never have told anyone, never her mother or father, but she told herself often, that she would have loved to have been Christine Daae. As much as her father had told her how dangerous and horrible a man he was, Isabelle dreamt of what he must have been like and now, she was standing before him.

"Isabelle de Chagny. Everyone loved her." Just like the snap of the fingers, Isabelle's sorrow came back like a winter wind. Never mind her awe of the old man in front of her, or the dreams that instantly rushed into her mind; one thought about her mother in the past tense and the grief came back.

He took two, wobbly steps toward her; old, like her father, perhaps more so. "You have the voice of an angel…like her. Don't keep it locked away." He held out the rose to her.

She looked down at it, then at his dipped head before gingerly taking it. "How did you know? How did you know about… about me hiding?"

He backed away, pulling his cape around him, a sharp contrast to the white snow falling. "I'm the Opera Ghost." There was a hint of dry wit there.

"Oh." Isabelle offered rather lamely. She couldn't think of what else to say. Blinking back tears once again, she stared at his dipped head. It must tear him about to have lost her mother twice; once in the caves and once to death. "Does loosing someone ever get easier?"

For some time, he didn't answer and Isabelle was afraid he wasn't going to, but in the end, he slowly, very slowly, lifted up his head. His scarred face made her stand up straighter, but she resolved not to flinch or look away. She knew what it was like to be mocked; she had been in her grief.

"No."

Author's Remarks: I've edited it a bit and added quite a bit to it since I posted it up. I was watching PotO for the millionth time and at the end, I was just inspired to write something...