A/N: I've been a phan of The Phantom of the Opera ever since I saw its first Broadway tour when I was very young, and unlike many of the phans I converse with…I love Love Never Dies just as much. Even the gut-wrenching ending…which, you might say was the perfect thing to help me develop this story. Love it, or hate it- the story is a timeless exploration of what it means to love another so deeply that even social conventions are cast aside. And Love Never Dies is the culmination of the power behind that love as it comes face-to-face with the one thing society will never control- death. And speaking of mortal fate and the power of love… I offer you a modernized retelling of Phantom, but the roles are reversed, and it deals with reincarnation a bit too, which is always interesting to write. Additionally, please take note that the material for the backstory and details used here is based solely on the ALW musicals The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary Special and Love Never Dies the original West End production. I also will incorporate the changes to the West End production: no setting fire to Coney Island, Christine dies in Phantom's arms not Meg's, Gustave embraces Phantom as a sign of acceptance, and Raoul does not reappear after his initial exit. Now then, onto the story! READ, REVIEW, AND ENJOY!- Jas

The Sustaining Memory of an Unfinished Aria

Prologue

Part 1

1905, Coney Island

Erik knelt on the sand and lovingly gathered Christine's body into his shaking arms as their son, Gustave, stood by numbly patting his mother's murderer on the shoulder. His Christine was heavy in his arms for the first time ever, as if the lingering essence of his beloved was telling him how mournful she was to be taken from him by such abrupt means, so soon. He could still taste their last kiss on his lips, feel the tragic slide of her hands down his shoulder as she succumbed to eternal sleep. Could still hear his scream of despair ringing in his ears and echoing on the almost barren beach.

He carefully got to his feet, his Christine cradled in his embrace as if she had simply fainted, and began walking back up the beach toward the maddening spectacle of bright lights and choruses of laughter that were a slap in his face now. He felt a presence at his side and glanced to the left. Gustave had silently fallen into step beside him, one hand tightly clutching his mother's skirt. There was no presence on his right, no distraught whimpering either. Meg was not accompanying them.

Father and son's devastation hung in the air heavy as the fog as they walked together in the silence, bringing Christine's body back to the suite he had prepared for her at Phantasma. As he laid her gently on the bed her fingers brushed against his hand and he bent his head to cradle and then kiss her palm as tears trailed down his cheeks, dropping onto her skin and pooling in her cupped palm as if she were telling him she was more than willing to hold onto his pain for him.

Gustave hovered just behind him, his soft weeping a plea for the sort of comfort Erik was unaccustomed to providing. The sort of comfort Christine would have easily offered. He lifted his head. "Gustave…"

Gustave stepped forward, wiping his eyes with the back of his free hand. Mr. Y's mask and wig were clutched in his other hand. He'd picked them up earlier thinking that at some point the man would be frantic to hide his face again. ….When they came for his mother's body… Without a word, he moved closer to the bed and brought the mask and wig up to the eye level of the broken man on his knees.

Erik's gaze traveled from the mask up to his young son's face, then back down to the mask. There was Christine…his Christine…giving him one last gift- his son's compassion. He took the mask and wig and set them off to the side, then stiffly wrapped one arm around his son. "I will wake you when they come for her. Go to sleep now."

Gustave started to protest, to demand he stay awake too, but the words never left his mouth. Mr. Y was gazing at his mother with more passionate hopelessness than the most passionate of loving looks his father and mother had ever exchanged. And he understood; Mr. Y…his real father…had loved his mother so deeply, he wanted to stay with her until the last possible moment. He nodded and walked into the other room, growing into the kind of man his mother would have been proud of on the way. Shutting the bedroom door, he fervently hoped he would be lucky enough to love someone as truthfully as his father loved his mother. And asked for the strength to take care of his father's thoroughly fragmented soul in the years to come.

On the other side of the door, Erik still kneeled by the bed physically unable to leave his Christine's side. He'd smoothed her dress a little and tucked a loose strand of hair back into place, running his fingertips over her cooled cheek in a heartbroken caress. There was so much he should have told her…before. But there was just one thing he needed to tell her now. "..oh, Christine," he said, his voice leaden with grief.

The bedroom door slowly sung open, Meg Giry's tear-filled eyes settling on the body on the bed first, then over to Erik as he knelt there lamenting her existence probably. When he looked up, she froze.

"I will give you sufficient compensation to live well, Miss Giry," Erik stated, restraining his desire to rip the shaking shell of a girl limb from limb. He watched her slump against the door. She was relieved, happy. For that alone he could make himself kill her. Last time, he had nearly strangled her…could still remember standing up, his hand flexing as he tested the strength, as he hesitated and debated. Instead, he had handed her his suit jacket and walked away. This time he was not as certain he could let her walk out of the room alive.

Meg had started inching her way to the bed. "…I didn't mean to…" But the truth was she wasn't even sure if that was true. There was no denying how angry at Christine she had been those seconds before the gun had gone off. She saw his eyes change, saw the barely veiled rage there, and knew that he knew.

Erik absently reached for Christine's hand, holding it tightly and waiting for the relief her touch had always given him. But none came, and he remembered that she was gone. Even in the midst of grief his instincts were still trained on Christine, to reach for her, to hold her, to take comfort in her. When he found his voice moments later, it was more growl than speech. "Never be in my presence again, woman. Go!"

"….please..." Meg begged, reaching into the air as if trying to clutch onto reality.

"GO!" Erik roared, his body tensing. He did not have time to listen to useless pleas. She had already done more than enough killing Christine. His generosity was limited to allowing her to keep breathing with money enough to survive. He owed her nothing else. He would give her nothing else.

He turned his attention back to Christine, resting his hand over hers, and stared at the bullet wound on her left side. Her blouse and her coat were stiff with dried blood. Her pallor a tell-tale sign of the mortality of the injury. His Christine was gone. His muse was with the angels forever…and he knew he would never compose anything ever again.

And he did not care.

"My love for you will never die, my Christine," he vowed softly, kissing her lifeless hand and slowly rising to his feet. His legs were numb and it was a fight to move them, to make them walk away from the bed. He nearly tripped over the ottoman on the way to the door, but he made it.

He had neglected Gustave for too long; Christine would have been unsettled, perhaps upset that her son…their son…was not being looked after. He steeled his nerves and walked out of the room, trying to leave all his anger in his wake. His son needed him; that was all that mattered now.

Part 2

1940, New York

"Dear," Sarah Daaé brushed her husband's arm. "The children…we mustn't leave them for too long to themselves." She smiled at him, patting his cheek with a gloved hand.

Gustave Daaé absently nodded, though he had not actually heard her words. His attention was on the double graves in front of him. One long grown over with grass, the other freshly piled with rain-moistened dirt. After thirty-five years alone in the ground, his mother at last had company. His father had passed on days ago, reverently thankful that his body was finally giving out after decades of wishing for it to do so. Those around for his final hours thought he had gone mad, but he knew that was a significant misperception.

Erik Daaé, so named by himself in honor of his mother's memory, had spent the last three and a half decades living in a nice residence, raising him and trying to live without his mother. His father, genius with a tragic past he never spoke of, had seemed to fold in on himself as the years passed. The imposing, passionate man of his youth becoming a memory, a ghost of the quiet man who shadowed his son, keeping away so the sensibilities of Gustave's delicate wife and impressionable children would stay unmolested by his father's grotesque disfigurement.

Sarah's parents had never understood and spent their time with his children undermining their masked grandfather's love for them. He hated them for that. Always would. But they had passed on some years before—a fire—and he had tried to rebuild his children's acceptance of his father. Was still trying the day he died.

"He is beyond suffering, Dear," Sarah said, moving toward the massive headstone craved with two names instead of one like the rest of the cemetery fare. "He is with your mother, and they are embracing each other without any shadows between them. Let them by themselves."

"My precious Sarah," Gustave responded, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing the back of her glove. "You are right." He smiled at her. "One day I shall tell you the full story. For now, thank you for always treating my father with the respect he deserved."

Sarah smiled back. "Without him, you would never have been introduced to the world. I owe your father the most respect for that. And your mother as well. I do wish I had been able to meet her…"

Gustave pulled Sarah to him. "Too much sorrow on such a joyful occasion, my love. This is the happiest my father has been in many years. He is by my mother's side once again. Nothing would have ever brought him stronger joy."

"They loved each other so deeply," Sarah said as they made their way out of the cemetery. "It's so sorrowful that their time together was so short. A decade…no more."

Gustave sighed, his secrets were nipping at his heels like herding dogs. At his father's request, he had never told Sarah how his mother died, nor that his parents were never married, or that Daaé was actually his mother's maiden name. Had Sarah's parents known such facts, they would never have consented to his request for her hand. His father had known that, had groomed him to keep certain truths in the dark for the sake of his future. But Sarah's parents were gone, as was his father. His future was with his beloved wife, and that meant sharing everything with her.

Someday.

Someday he would show Sarah his mother's trunk, packed with all the love his father had ever felt, and one day his children would show their children, and they would show their children. And the love a tormented, disfigured man had felt for a pretty, young woman with the voice of an angel would be eternal, even if the souls were long departed.