Title: Help Me Say Goodbye

Rating: M

Word count: ~86k

Characters: Erik, Christine, Meg, Madame Giry, Raoul, André, Firmin, Reyer, Piangi, and sundry members of the opera company, some of which belong to me and some don't.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from 'Phantom of the Opera' does not belong to me.


Christine was surprised, opened her mouth to speak but checked herself, thought carefully. Erik leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out, languid and feigning relaxation – feigning it only, for she saw how the fingers of one hand gripped the arm of the chair.

"Why do you want to hear about something that will only hurt you?" she asked at last. "My memories of then are tied up with my memories of Raoul." The flinch was there, if she looked carefully. He flinched at Raoul's name. She licked her lips, a little nervous to have said it so bluntly. "I – I don't want to hurt you," she whispered. "Please, I don't, truly."

"I wish to know," he said softly. "Will you tell me?"

Christine sighed, closed her eyes for a moment. She had warned him – it was no longer her fault if he grew angry. So she remembered, she thought about the summer they had spent in Perros-Guirec, and when she opened her eyes again he was still watching her, still waiting.

"I was nine. I thought it was a holiday – at least, Father wasn't working." She'd been so happy at being in a new place, being beside the sea, that she hadn't seen the growing weariness in her father, the growing illness. "We were there for three months, and I spend most of my time by the sea." She smiled then, recalled the salty smell and the way it had permeated everything. Even lying in bed at night, she'd been able to smell the sea.

"And the boy?"

"He was there with his family," she said, ignored the bitter way Erik spoke of him – the way he avoided saying Raoul's name. "He ran into the sea to save my scarf." The red scarf, the only thing she had left of her mother. Her father had still had her mother's wedding ring, but that was buried with him. The old, faded red scarf was all that was left of the mother Christine had never known.

She had never told Erik that; she had spoken with her Angel about her father, when she had believed her father had sent the Angel of Music from Heaven, but she had never spoken of her mother.

"He came to play with me after that," she said. "Father had rented a small cottage, and we played in the attic, or Father told us stories and played the violin." Looking back, with the benefit of distance and age, she could see how unusual that summer had been. Before then her father had been almost continually on the move, continually seeking employment. But that summer had marked a change, and she knew now how ill her father must have been.

"He died that autumn," she said. "Father. He brought me to Paris to meet Madame Giry, and then he died."

"And then you came here," murmured Erik. "I remember that autumn." He sighed, turned his gaze away from her so the mask was facing towards her. "I do not remember my father," he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him. "And my mother…" He shook his head, and she could see his eyes were closed. Whatever memory she had stirred, it pained him.

She was curious, of course, but she did not ask. She had learned that lesson well, had learned not to be curious about this man.

He shook his head again, as if shaking off the memory. "Eight years is a long time," he observed. "I'm surprised the Vicomte remembered the daughter of a poor violinist." He was sneering, his disapproval clear, and Christine measured her breathing, refused to rise to his bait – countered with the truth.

"So was I," she told him. "I was very surprised he remembered me." She shrugged slightly, remembered that night six months ago when Raoul had come to her dressing room and teased her about her red scarf. Then she sighed, lifted a hand to play with the chain around her neck. "I don't want to talk about Raoul," she said. "Please…I will tell you anything you want to hear, but not about Raoul."

"Why?" he snapped. "You're going to marry the boy, you ought to be able to talk about him." He rose abruptly, and Christine shrank back in his chair, afraid he would come closer, so afraid of him when he was like this. "You said you would converse with me as if I were any other man," he went on, and he did not come closer to her, stood before the fireplace with his arms folded. "Surely any other man would be allowed to know about your engagement?"

"No other man is jealous!" Christine cried, tired of circling around it. Erik whirled around, stared at her as if he hadn't expected her to say it. "Please, I don't wish to hurt you, and surely that's all it will do if I speak of Raoul!"

"You – you – " Erik fell silent, shook his head, stared at her. Christine clutched the ring tightly in her hand. "You are…trying to be kind," Erik said at last, wonderingly. "Is that it? You are trying to…spare my feelings." Christine nodded, mute. He tried several times to speak, his fingers moved restlessly. The sight moved her to compassion once again, compassion for this poor man who had no understanding of that feeling.

Who had ever shown him compassion? And how badly had she treated him, that he did not expect it even from her?

Compassion. Could she try to push aside her fear and focus on compassion? That was what he was asking her to do, after all. To look past his face and try to understand the man. Yet his anger was so terrible, and so quickly roused. She never knew from one moment to the next how he might react to her.

"You do not wear his ring," said Erik then, came towards her, knelt at her feet. It made him look oddly vulnerable, not something she had ever associated with him before. But he was vulnerable, she knew he was – that was why she didn't wish to speak of Raoul, after all. "Why is that, Christine?"

She shook her head, dropped her hand into her lap. The chain felt heavy around her neck still, a burden almost, and she hated herself for thinking of it like that.

"I don't know," she whispered. "At first…at first it was because I knew you would be angry with me." He seemed to flinch at that, but he must know that she feared his anger. "That's why you crashed the chandelier, isn't it?" she asked, didn't know where her daring came from. "Because…because you saw us on the roof."

"Yes." He bowed his head, as if ashamed. Perhaps he was; perhaps he regretted his actions. "You ran there to get away from me," he said, and it would have been an accusation except for the way he said it – bitter, resigned. "I have done nothing but drive you from me," he muttered eventually.

"Erik…" She trailed off, didn't know what to say. It wasn't entirely true, although she wished it were – wished it with all her heart. But it wasn't true. She was still drawn to him despite her fear, despite her own better sense. Despite Raoul.

Despite everything, she still cared for him. Yes, perhaps he had driven her away – certainly she had not sought him out in six long, lonely months – but still she cared for him, at least a little.

She wished she could make some sense out of her own muddled feelings. She was terribly afraid they were all three going to end up hurt if she did not work out how she felt and why. And she did not want either of these men to be hurt. Dear, sweet Raoul, and poor, abused Erik.

"Forgive me," he said then, rose and went back to his chair. "I should not have asked you that."

Christine murmured something, could not decide if he did or did not have the right to ask her such a question. Meg had asked it of her, after the masquerade ball when she had followed Christine from the grand foyer, followed as Christine fled from the Ghost. She had asked why Christine did not wear Raoul's ring openly.

She'd had no answer then, as she had none now. She simply knew that she could not wear it. Not yet.

"Perhaps you are right," Erik went on. "We should speak of other things." Christine nodded, cast about for some safe topic of conversation. But she could think of nothing; thoughts of Raoul crowded all else out of her mind. Thoughts of his growing impatience at her indecision, of the plot he had hatched to catch Erik.

The plot that she was being forced to take part in.

"What is it, Christine?" Erik asked her, gentle once again. "Is your head aching? You must tell me. You scared me so last night, I was afraid you had injured yourself badly."

"No," said Christine, tried to smile at him, to reassure him. Her head did not ache – or only a little, anyway, a residual ache behind her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, sorry for scaring him despite the way he continually scared her. "I…I don't remember very much of it," she had to admit. "Was I very ill?"

"You did not remember things," he said, vague. "But it passed. I do not think the concussion is severe, but you must tell me if you have a headache, or become dizzy or nauseous again." He paused, seemed to read something in her expression, and he shook his head slightly. "I only say this because I am concerned for you," he sighed.

"I know," she said, and her smile deepened as she looked at him. He exhaled, and his hands visibly trembled for a moment. Christine did not comment on it, glanced away from him and felt her cheeks flush. He reacted so strongly to something that anyone else would take for granted – just a simple smile.

Nothing like Raoul, who accepted her smiles as his due, held her hand quite casually, and assumed her kisses were plentiful and would always be freely given.

She wondered how Erik would react to a kiss.

Her cheeks burned, she could not look at him, hoped the candlelight was concealing her blush. She could not think of such things, should not even be thinking of it. She was engaged to Raoul, after all – and Erik's face, his actions, ought to be enough to repel her even if she were not engaged.

"Would you play for me?" she asked then, her words almost jumbling together in her haste to get them out, to distract him from whatever he might see in her expression. "I – I have missed your music."

"If you wish," he said. He rose, his movements so elegant and economical, and went to the organ. Christine hesitated for a moment and then rose to join him, stood close enough to watch but kept a careful distance between them. "Do you have any preferences?" he asked her, glanced over at her and settled his hands on the instrument.

"No," she said. "Unless you will let me sing."

The briefest of smiles crossed his face. "Perhaps later," he conceded, "if you have no more symptoms of the concussion." He turned back to the organ, an expression of intense focus on his face.

He played; and Christine stood beside the organ and listened, and let his music take her away from everything. From the confusion, from the terror – from everything.

He played, and she could no longer remember why she had ever objected to staying here with him.


Comments are love :p