My life has kind of gone from Perfection to Damnation relatively quickly, so I can empathize with Erik right now.

Sorry if the secret entrance to Erik's "lair" is incorrect. I am out-of-town for the month, and my beloved copy of the novel is at home. Ergo, I am relying heavily on an online copy of Leroux's work. Which sucks.

I own neither The Phantom of the Opera nor Mozart's Requiem Mass. How unfortunate, because I really like WAM's work. (I highly recommend the Requiem Mass. And Marriage of Figaro Can you say Il Muto? Yah.)

One month after "the end".

Christine de Chagny née Daaé crashed through the brackish shallows just before Erik's house on the lake. She had crept through the labyrinthine paths off the Rue Scribe entrance. It had been fairly easy, as her home had been made in these depths just before the famous disaster. No one had seen her come in, as her feet retained balletic grace.

And it seemed none waited for her; the house was empty, the sense of being left abruptly stained the air. Sheet music still littered every surface and a goblet of half-drunk wine stood on the prized organ.

After lighting the candelabra, she wearily sat on the accompanying bench. Perhaps her frantic flight from the country to Paris and then here had been in vain. Not so long ago Christine had realized her mistake in leaving Erik to rot, and now there was nothing she could do to save him.

As was her wont, she sang to express herself. The haunting Lachrymosa from Mozart's Requiem Mass issued from her open mouth. If only he had been beside her, playing the organ in this black dirge! But, as he could not, she stood beside it, tears streaking her face and clear high voice echoing off the subterranean walls.

Her voice broke, and she fell into shaking sobs. Sobs for the Love that had lost. Sobs for the feeling that she had come too late.

That was when she heard it. Soft at first but beginning to ripple, the sound of a prow lapping the water was a clarion call to her ears. Christine turned expectantly to the source, heart hammering with resurrected joy.

There he was, guiding the gondola through the murky waters. Her brow creased, for he seemed to use the pole more for support than as a mode of transportation. If he had been thin before, he was emaciated now, a Phantom in truth. Her ring glittered upon his knuckle. The only signs of life were his alert eyes, labored breath, and forward motion.

"Is that a voice in Latin I hear?" He mused. "Bah! The dead language is reserved only for funerals, and I am hardly dead."

Two boots, unpolished for quite some time, staggered onto shore as the vessel ran up the sand.

"Christine…" He breathed wearily.

"Erik!" She beamed, spreading her arms wide to embrace him.

It was then he noticed the subtle changes in Christine. Her small chest had grown a bit voluptuous, and juxtaposed against her rail-thin arms was a slight rounding of the abdomen. In the weak candlelight, a wedding band wrapped about her ring finger.

All strength flooded back to his feverish frame. "No!" Erik snarled, striding past her and into the house.

Christine, knowing what he had observed, followed at a run. "Please! Mon ange! Wait!"

He whirled about in a delirium, supported by the mantle of the salon. His laughter was eerie when compared to his sickly features. Christine shrank back against the opposite wall, ruing what she had caused.

"You come here calling me your angel while you swell with a de Chagny brat! I cannot believe your audacity!" He chuckled darkly in his musical voice. "Yet even now you strive to hide from me."

"No!" She dashed headlong and threw herself at his feet. He wavered once as she latched about his leg but otherwise stood stock-still.

"Oh God, oh God…" He kept muttering, an incantation to change the nightmare. Christine would give anything for him to see differently, to understand the truth.

"Erik." She looked up at him. "This is your child! I love you alone. That is why I have returned!"

He mouthed the words "this is yours". She heard his tongue click in the parched mouth as he fought to understand how.

Standing, she took his hands and softly sang to his eyes, "Past the Point of No Return, the final threshold…"

Illumination caught in his eyes, and Erik wept for joy. "How I'd missed your voice, Christine." He gasped in the name. "Christine! I love you…" Then his hand again felt the cold metal of Raoul's mark upon her finger. "Oh, Christine… why then did you leave me?" His eyes rolled into his skull and he collapsed against the mantle. The mask shifted an inch to one side.

"Erik!" Christine shrieked. Carried by the passion of their exchange, she half-lifted, half-dragged him to her old chamber. He lay unconscious on the cold bed, even when she piled on more sheets.

Drained physically by journey and mentally by the sight of the Angel ill before her, Christine sprawled on the mattress beside him, but not before removing the Vicomte's rings and placing them in a bedside drawer.

That was one pain she could not stand to see in the Angel's eyes.