Christine woke eagerly, forgetting the distressing words of Erik before she fell asleep, ready to prove her phantom's reality to her husband. She dressed, with the voices at a minimum today. Flitting down the stairs, a bright smile on her face, she met Raoul at the breakfast table, where he stood politely and in waiting.

His face brightened at Christine's dazzling grin, and she felt hope for the first time in months. A servant pulled out the chair for her, and she sat, eating without hesitation. Raoul did not eat, only sat and watched her, a small smile dancing around his flawless face. Christine looked up at him, frowning. "You're not eating," She said, after a huge mouthful of toast.

Raoul laughed quietly. "I think your appetite is enough for both of us. Besides, I'm happy just to sit here and look at you being so happy." Christine smiled and looked at her plate, relishing the peace she felt in Raoul's tender words. She let herself push her mission from her mind, and just live in her husband's smile. Christine pushed her hand forward across the table towards him, and he took it without hesitation, raising it to his lips and kissing it softly.

Christine shivered in pleasure, and a hint of something else. What was it? Oh God. It was anger. It was hatred and loathing.

Christine flinched away from Raoul's hand, guilty at Erik's entwined feelings inside of her. Had she really become so involved in her spectre that she held his feelings inside her own heart? Raoul sighed a little and pulled back from her, fiddling with his hands.

"I didn't think it would last," He murmured, his eyes watering in disappointment, "You're with him now, aren't you? I saw it in your eyes. Why do I let you go through this? Why do I let you put me through this?! You need to stop now, or-"

Christine's eyes watered, and her face crumpled and released a desperate sound, like that of a wounded animal. The servants hasted out of the room, as Raoul stood up viciously. Christine winced, and fell to the floor, crawling to Raoul's feet. She grovelled underneath him, kissing the hem of his trousers. "Please Raoul, don't send me to the asylum, I beg of you!" Raoul looked at her, disgusted, and stepped backwards.

Christine fell to the floor and curled into a ball rocking backwards and forwards. Raoul ran his hands through his hair in exasperation and despair. "Please, Christine, you think I want to send you there? But I can't see you like this anymore, I just can't. It breaks my heart every time I see you like this, when I see you with him. God damn it, that you love a figment of your own imagination more than me! Whether you love me still or not, Christine, you are going to this asylum because you need help! We can work it out when you're well, but right now, I can't do this, I just can't!"

He leant his face onto the wall while Christine punched the floor until Raoul yelled in frustration and launched him at the door, hauling it open. "Take her out of my sight, for God's sake! Get her to the asylum! I've had enough!"

Christine screamed in protest as some burly servants picked her up under her arms and dragged her to a waiting carriage. Christine's heart broke as she realised it was already planned; the emergency arrest just in case it went wrong.

She dragged her heels, trying to plant them into the ground so she could never leave. The two men roughly pulled her along, and her screams faltered for a moment in surprise at the way she was being treated. She pushed her feet on either side of the carriage, and tensed up, shouting "No! No!" over and over.

The two men lifted her then, one with her feet, the other with her arms, and lay her on the back seat of the carriage. The door slammed shut by her head and Christine scrambled up to bang on the window. Raoul was not there, in fact, there was only one person to see her descent into madness. As the carriage jolted to life in the mist of the cool morning, the only man to regard her through half triumphant, half grief-stricken eyes was the very man who had caused her to do this.

Erik stood there in his darkness until the mist enveloped him.