x
When Raoul got inside, he closed the front door, leaning his forehead against it for a moment and grinning—his cheeks were beginning to hurt, but he couldn't stop smiling even if his life depended on it. Turning, and pressing his back to the door, he looked around the entrance hall. It had never looked so bright and welcoming. Philippe had put on some record or another, and he could have danced through the house to its contagious beat. He sighed—it had gone well, and he'd forgotten how beautiful she was when she laughed. True, she was the same serious, quiet girl she'd always been, but he'd made her laugh and blush and talk rather freely. He was hopelessly attracted to her and blushed like a schoolgirl when he realised how close he'd come to humiliation in flirting with her. Indeed, when she'd been so inclined, she could have made him hide his face as she did a few hours earlier, when they were younger. But it did not seem that she was that girl any longer.
Raoul had never thought of marriage, of being in love, yet he felt a sense of everything falling correctly into place when he was with her—a childhood sweetheart would make a good wife, he thought, provided that she wasn't ever arrested for her involvement in a speakeasy.
This was no problem, Raoul told himself: he would simply ensure that she was never penalised in any way.
Very simple.
Philippe was alone now, drinking tea in the drawing room in the front of the house on the second level. Raoul found him and flopped happily into the armchair beside him, still unable to stop grinning.
Philippe glanced up and rolled his eyes. "Lunch was good, I take it," he said, turning back to the book he was reading.
"It was grand!" Raoul announced. "How can you be reading Nietzsche at a time like this?"
"After my brother has a successful date? Rather easily."
He turned the page.
Raoul sat impatiently, back straight as a ramrod, and looked intensely at his older brother until at last he sighed and put down the book, taking a moment to dog-ear the page first.
"Alright, fine. Tell me about it."
Raoul laughed giddily.
x
Christine had watched the car take Raoul away, and then practically danced into her small, suddenly austere-looking house. When the door was safely closed, and she was leaning against it to be sure, she held her face in her hands and made an inarticulate noise that she was very glad nobody heard. Once he had written that positively devilish note in his pocketbook, she had melted. She kept her reserved façade well—she hoped—but had wanted to dissolve completely into the giggles he'd so easily brought upon her when they were young.
She was stunned that she hadn't been able to recognise him the first time he approached her; there was so much that had not changed. He was still playful and mischievous, with that glint in his unchanged blue eyes when he knew he was going to get into trouble but didn't care. He still had a thoughtful look about him when he wasn't speaking, and his nose was almost exactly the same shape, only it was larger.
And she now had a distinct desire to kiss it.
But now that she thought of it, there was so much that had changed. His hair still flopped into his face when he grew animated in the telling of an anecdote, but he attempted to have it neat constantly. His once crooked teeth and smile were now straight and even and white. His skin was not the sun-kissed olive it had been, but much paler; he spent much more time indoors, she guessed. His face was more angular and his shoulders and chest broader and muscular, not to mention that he must have been around six feet tall. She was sure any woman would find him attractive.
And yet he was pursuing her.
Her face filled with heat.
She grinned as she moved into the kitchen, putting her purse down on the counter, and her smile fell. Her Bible was not there.
She had been going through her daily passages—she was currently reading the book of Psalms, and had come upon 'The Lord sitteth King for ever'—when she had heard the knock at the door. In her enthusiasm, she was certain that she had left it behind, open to that same page, by the stove.
She had never heard of someone breaking into a house only to steal a Bible.
Choosing to think nothing of it, she picked up her purse and went to her bedroom to change—she had nowhere else to be that night, and her feet had been pinched by her shoes all afternoon. It was when she had tugged off her dress and was working at her slip that she saw it: her Bible, sitting on the end table beside her bed. She froze, her dress falling to the floor from her hand. She knew that she had not put it there; she had been fretting in the car to the restaurant over leaving it out.
She did not believe in ghosts. Spirits, perhaps, angels, yes, and all manner of faeries and goblins from the homelands of her parents. But the only monsters she had ever been raised to be wary of in America were men. She swallowed nervously. "Come out if you are here!" she said, and her voice trembled. "M-My neighbour has a gun!"
Nothing.
She sighed and pulled on her nightdress. Raoul had torn the page from his pocketbook, and added 'xoxo' and his name to the note he had written, then placed it in her hand. She smiled and pressed her lips to his name. It was very nice to have him back—it felt right in a way she couldn't explain. She fell onto her bed and looked at his handwriting. It was shockingly bad. His hand must have been shaking.
She blushed.
A few hours later, after thinking far too much, she fell asleep with the note still clutched to her chest.
x
Sorelli grinned.
"I think they're adorable!" she said to Meg, who was angrily polishing a pair of her shoes on the nearby sofa while Sorelli stretched on the floor. "Have you seen 'em talking yet?"
"Too busy doing my darn job," Meg grunted.
"Aww, have you got a crush on Raoul too?"
"Ha!" Meg barked. She rolled her eyes. "I just wish I had a pretty rich guy to take me out to lunch like you two. It'd help my purse out."
"But not Raoul?" Sorelli asked casually. Meg was too spirited and snappy for Raoul, though, she thought to herself. He was quiet a lot of the time, and would probably have no idea how to handle her brazen sense of humour and brashness.
"Nah," Meg said, and at that moment Christine walked into the room. She put her hand over her mouth as she put down the carpet bag carrying her dress by the vanity.
"What is that?"
"Shoe polish!" chirped Meg. "Really clears the sinuses." She took a deep whiff and grinned.
Christine coughed as she made for the single window on the far end of the room, pushing it open as far as she could. A rush of cold air and the sound of rain suddenly poured into the room. She sighed. "Is it too much trouble to open a window if you have to do that in my room?"
"I was too busy being stunned by how grand it is!" Meg said, melodramatically pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. "Oh, Sorelli, isn't this room's beauty just blinding?"
"Oh, shut up," Christine replied.
"As I was saying," said Sorelli, winking at Meg, "Philippe was telling me all about what Raoul said about Christine on their little lunch date yesterday—"
"—What did he say?" Christine demanded suddenly, turning to face them. The dancers laughed.
"Oh, you know, that you're perfectly enchanting and he was very happy to have been able to ogle you for a few whole hours…"
Christine blushed. "He did not!"
"And that he's going to marry you one day, you know, the usual—Meg, I believe we should leave the lovebird alone to brood."
Grinning devilishly, the two dancers slipped out of the room.
Christine sighed as she moved to the vanity and sat down to put on her makeup. She was lifting the powder puff to her face when there was a knock on the door. She sighed with mild frustration.
"Yes?"
"'S me, miss," said Gabriel's welcome voice. Normally he was at the front door already, letting respectable patrons in and turning the rabble away. She told him to come in, and she smiled at him as he did, closing the door behind him, which gave her pause. "How're things, miss?" he said companionably, though he didn't give her the usual smile.
"Things are swell," she said quietly, beginning to apply her makeup despite his presence. "I met a man."
Gabriel cleared his throat uncomfortably—he'd never liked to hear any gruesome details of the girls' escapades. She grinned inwardly; if he had only known that she hadn't even kissed Raoul yet. "Ya did? Imagine that."
"He's wonderful. I think you'd really like him."
"That's your problem, miss, you think everybody'd like everybody."
"It wouldn't kill you to be a little bit optimistic now and then," Christine said haughtily, looking her powdered face over. She dabbed at a spot on her right temple. Gabriel did give a little smile then, and she almost sighed with relief.
"Anyways, miss, I'm here for a reason."
"Yes." She inclined her head while she met the eyes of his reflection in the mirror. "And that is?"
Gabriel looked down awkwardly. "The boss is askin' for ya."
"I go on in twenty minutes," she said, now feeling a sense of discomfort growing in the pit of her stomach. Normally she would see him a few hours before a performance; he didn't want her straining her voice and told her he should be very put out if he ever heard she'd been chatting within half an hour of when she had to go on. Surely he would not break his own rules.
"Yeah," said Gabriel woodenly. "Better hurry, then."
She put down her powder puff and smiled as she passed him. He put a hand on her shoulder to detain her as she put her hand on the doorknob. She did not turn.
"Sorry, miss," was all he said before she left the room.
x
When she knocked at her employer's door, he answered it in person. He had never done that before; previously he had told her to enter and been sitting at his desk. He must have been pacing. He looked her up and down appraisingly—judgmentally—and took her by her wrist into the room, slamming the door. He had never touched her before.
His hand was cold and clammy and shaking.
She pushed it away.
"What on earth is wrong with you?" she demanded. His eyes were blazing.
"What is wrong with me? You, young lady, are what is wrong with me. Tell me, do you choose to intentionally disobey me, or are you simply stupid enough to believe that you can get away with it?"
She felt anger bubbling up in her stomach. "I am not stupid!"
"You could have fooled me," he said, moving to his desk and pouring what looked to Christine like an obscenely large glass of some sort of alcohol—she wasn't talented at distinguishing between them—and downing it before he continued to speak. Her face burned like he had slapped her. "If I can't trust you to obey me, why should I trust you to work for me at all?"
He paused; it seemed he genuinely expected a response. Christine grasped desperately for something to say, feeling the sting that one did after being struck. The air went out of her.
"Please," she managed to say feebly. "Please don't…"
"Perhaps you should have considered the consequences of your actions before you went after that boy of yours."
"He's just my friend," she insisted.
She thought of Raoul touching her hand, of the way he had held onto her fingers a moment longer than he had to when he had given her that silly note. She looked down at the carpet. "I swear. Please don't do this to me."
He laughed sardonically. "And what if I made the same request of you, Christine? Don't do this to me?"
Through the anger and the fear and the betrayal, she felt confusion. She bit her lip in silence, the heat of tears rising behind her eyes. There was shock rising in her throat like bile. She couldn't speak.
"I have nothing more to say to you," he fairly growled.
She looked up at him slowly. She'd never seen this side of her employer before—he'd always been gentle and sensible and good, and she was truly frightened. She had no other job to go to. There was nothing else she could do proficiently enough to be paid. Singing had kept her sane, as well as keeping a roof over her head. He did not meet her eyes.
"I want you out of here now."
"No," she said. She felt numb all of a sudden.
"Defying me again, are you?"
"I won't leave. I refuse."
He threw his glass without warning at the wall beside her. It shattered. So did she.
"You will leave now, and you will never come back."
Christine looked into his eyes—he did not look earnest or caring or kind any longer. He looked mad.
She slammed the door as she ran out of the room.
x
When she was rushing down the stairs from her dressing room after feverishly shoving into her carpet bag whatever she could find, she expected that she would have to face a throng of people wanting to know what had happened. She was prepared to ignore them and race out the door, never to return. But there was nobody there. The music had started up in the bar, a jaunty number that Sorelli and Meg and the other dancers were surely doing some saucy routine to, and she took the opportunity to go quickly towards the front door. Raoul and his brother were being admitted by a suddenly very quiet and subdued Gabriel, so that Christine nearly ran straight into Philippe's chest.
She bit her lip to hold back the tears her employer had almost made her shed as she looked into his kind eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mr de Chagny, please excuse me."
Philippe raised his eyebrows. "Are you not singing tonight, Miss Daaé? My brother will be very disappointed—"
"—Are you alright?" Raoul's brow wrinkled with concern as he pushed past his brother to speak to her. She looked into his eyes and the tears brimmed. It did not matter if they fell. It did not matter if her employer—ex-employer—saw.
He could not control her any longer.
"I—I need to speak with you." she said. "Would you walk me home?"
His eyes clouded, and he looked up at Philippe, who rolled his eyes with a mix of befuddlement and hilarity.
"You were only here to see her anyway," he said, and his mouth curled in amusement. Raoul offered Christine his arm, and heard his brother muttering something about 'boys and their fancies' as they left the club for the oppressive drizzle outside.
x
"He did what?" Raoul demanded, unintentionally angry. Christine had let herself cry when they had rounded the corner away from No. 5, and had only been able to collect herself when they were a few blocks away. They could have gotten a cab, but she insisted that she needed the air. The drizzle made her hair stick to her head.
"He warned me," she said tonelessly.
"And then fired you because you wanted to see a—a friend?" He cleared his throat.
She nodded, running a hand through her now-sodden hair. The ribbon securing it fell away. Raoul stopped to pick it up for her. She gave him a cursory smile that did not reach her eyes. "Fired me because I saw a friend," she corrected. He made a sound of irritation.
"And what does he suppose you're going to do now, live on the streets?"
"I s'pose he doesn't care," she said. Just like most other people. She sniffed.
"You can—I—do you have enough money for rent?" She had only seen him in this state a few times before; he had turned red and been unable to speak without stuttering furiously when a woman in the town where they met called Christine and her father useless vagabonds, and another time when his sister Josephine had not so much as given a penny to a widow and her baby.
She barely noticed the impropriety of the question. "Even if I didn't, I wouldn't ask for your help. You know that."
"That doesn't mean I wouldn't help you," he replied, softening and offering her his arm again. She accepted it. It felt broad and warm and strong under her hands. "I don't suppose you could audition for—opera? Or something else with music?"
"I haven't sung classical music since I was 15," she said quietly. "There's no way I'd be good enough."
He looked like he was going to argue against her, but seemed to think better of it. "Then… you don't sew?" he asked.
"Remember when I tried to fix that rip in my father's shirt?"
Raoul grinned mischievously. "And tore it in half."
They smiled together.
"We'll find you something," he told her. "A city this big, there's bound to be someone who will pay you for something. I can always take you on as my personal companion."
She looked down, laughing quietly. "That is extremely inappropriate."
"I know," he said, and winked. She blushed.
"In all seriousness, Christine, I promise you won't be left alone. We'll find you something else to do—or—or…" He swallowed and looked away from her. His ears turned red.
They arrived after a few minutes of not altogether comfortable silence at her front door. She walked up the first two steps. He took her wrist and she turned in mild surprise to face him.
His hand was warm and soft and shaking.
She found herself blushing yet again.
"Sorry I made you miss your night out," she said. He smiled.
"Philippe was right, I was only there to see you."
They looked away from one another.
"Well…" she began awkwardly. "You did." A pause. "See me, I mean."
He exhaled, and his dopey smile grew. His hand now held hers. She felt very warm and wasn't one hundred per cent positive as to why. "I did," he said. They were eye-to-eye with him standing on the ground and her on the second step—she had never been tall enough to be at eye level with him, even when they were children. His eyes were shining. "I'm glad. At least this way I got to walk you home."
The loss of her job suddenly didn't sting so much when he was looking at her that way.
She was speechless. He brushed her hair back behind her ear.
"Don't think about that clown that fired you, alright? If he doesn't think you should live your own life, he isn't worthy of your time."
She thought he would be slow, and trembling, and gentle, but before she knew it she had thrown her arms around his neck and was kissing him.
One of his hands was on her waist, and inept though they both were, she would never have exchanged it for having her job back. Her stomach exploded with butterflies and her cheeks were burning, and when they drew away from one another, he leaned his forehead against hers. She let out a small breathless laugh.
"Finally," he said, and kissed her hand.
That night, she fell asleep easily, and dreamed of the town by the sea.
x
(Reviews make for happy fic writers, wink wink.)