Thank you again to everyone who is reading this and who enjoys my story. Reviewers will be invited to visit Raoul (rhymes with growl, you know what I'm talking about, Verity) and Christine at the large and impressive de Chagney mansion.
It was clear to everyone that something was missing.
Her voice was lovely, to be sure. It was a commonly known and accepted fact among the actors and actresses in the opera that Alexandra Olympia sang very well. This day was no exception, except that something seemed to be missing from her voice.
Thelxinoë knew it too. Since the night before, when she had discovered what Erik really thought of her, she hadn't been able to sing fully. All of the other cast members had simply written off her lack of enthusiasm as being tired. After all, the masquerade had lasted late into the night, and it would be perfectly reasonable for her to be tired the next morning. Thelxinoë would laugh and say that, yes, that must be it, all the while keeping the real reason to herself.
The truth was that she was hurt. To learn that Erik thought of her as a monster, that he viewed her the same way that Matteo had, it was too much for her to handle. For this to happen not once, but twice…Thelxinoë sighed, and forced herself to think of something else.
Christine Daae. Thelxinoë looked over at where she stood. She was talking to Meg, preparing for tonight's show. Christine had the lead roll, something that Carlotta was unhappy about, to say the least.
She was beautiful, in her way. Christine had this gorgeous smoky brown hair that spun in lazy curls, perfectly framing her heart shaped face. Her eyes were a lovely ocean blue. Her teeth were perfectly white and strait. She was kind to everyone and she could sing very well. Her only flaw, as far as Thelxinoë could tell, was that she always had her eyes open wide enough to show a ring of white around her irises, causing her to perpetually resemble a stunned rabbit.
What had happened between Erik and Christine? That was the question truly on Thelxinoë's mind. What could possibly have happened between the two of them that it would still leave its mark on the opera? Why did Erik have a statue of Christine in his home?
Why had he tried to avoid her during the masquerade?
Meg had just been called by her mother. She left, and Christine was now alone. Thelxinoë took a deep breath, and walked over to Christine. "Miss Daae?"
Christine turned to Thelxinoë with a smile. "Oh, hello, I don't think we've met yet." She spoke gently, and she smiled. She did have a very pretty smile. Somehow, it just made Thelxinoë feel worse. "You're Alexandra, right? Do you mind if I call you Alexandra?"
"I don't mind." Why did talking to Christine make her feel so awful? "Miss Daae—"
"Oh, please, call me Christine." She smiled again. "I do hope that we'll get to be friends."
"Christine?" Thelxinoë had butterflies in her stomach. She needed to ask this carefully. "I was wondering if you could tell me about the Opera Ghost."
Christine froze. Her eyes widened, making her look, if possible, even more like a stunned rabbit. Thelxinoë could practically see the fuzzy ears twitching. "Alexandra, what are you—"
Thelxinoë grabbed Christine's arm. She knew that Erik could be listening. She knew that he didn't want Christine to know he was still there. But she needed answers, and this was the only way to get them. "Christine," she whispered, throwing her voice to Christine so that hopefully only she would hear it, "I know that you had a relationship with the Opera Ghost. I know that it ended badly. What I don't know are the details. I don't know what happened, or why it happened." Thelxinoë saw Christine's eyes widen. She needed one final push. "Christine, I've been living here since I arrived in Paris. I've been hearing him. He's been singing to me from the shadows. He sang me to sleep one night. I'm starting to get scared. I don't know what he wants." The lies left a bitter taste in her mouth. It twisted her stomach to lie about Erik like this.
Christine clasped Thelxinoë's hand. Her face was an open book, concern written on every page. "Alexandra, you poor thing! He's been preying on you all this time!" She whispered, so as to avoid detection. "You poor, poor dear, trapped here with him all this time…" All this talk of being trapped was starting to make Thelxinoë uncomfortable. She wasn't trapped. She had chosen to live in the opera. But she had to play along with it, at least for now. Christine continued. "If he's still here, we can't talk about him now. Come over to my house tonight. We'll talk more about it then with Raoul." She gave Thelxinoë's hand one more squeeze. "Don't worry, Alexandra, you'll be out of his trap soon." Christine smiled at Thelxinoë, and walked away. Thelxinoë took a deep breath to keep from crying, and walked over to talk to Meg.
Erik overheard the conversation.
He'd meant to apologize to Thelxinoë, to try to explain why he had reacted the way he had. He'd considered his words carefully, had planned out everything that he was going to say, had decided exactly how much of the truth about his relationship with Christine he was going to tell her, and then he'd overheard her talking to Christine.
He should have confronted her. He should have pulled her aside then and there and asked her just what the hell she thought she was doing. He should have yelled at her for ruining his plans, for wasting all of his effort, for destroying any chance he had of reuniting with his beloved Christine.
But that wasn't what was really bothering him.
So instead, he simply returned to his home, his mind blank. His movements were mechanical, without thought or consideration. It was as if he was a puppet, and he didn't care who was on the other end of the strings.
She was leaving. It was as simple as that. Whether he had meant to or not, he had hurt her, and now she was leaving and wasn't coming back.
A show and a carriage ride later, Thelxinoë stood with her mouth open in front of the largest building she had ever seen. Christine had stepped out of the carriage, and was smiling towards the front door. "Well, we're here." She turned to Thelxinoë. "Alexandra, is something wrong?"
"Th-this is where you live?" All courtesy had been thrown out the window at the arrival of shock. "Christine, it's huge!"
Christine just shrugged. "Well, I guess it is somewhat large."
Calling the de Chagney mansion "somewhat large" would be like calling the expensive crystal chandelier in the opera house "somewhat sparkly". The building was grand beyond imagining, so much so that Thelxinoë couldn't take it in all at once. She had just enough time to take in a vague image of multiple stories, balconies, and decorative elements before she was ushered in by Christine and the door closed behind her.
Christine turned to her and smiled. "Alexandra, I'd like you to meet my husband, Raoul."
Thelxinoë curtsied. "Thank you for allowing me to come here."
Raoul laughed. "Please, there's no need to be so formal." Raoul was relatively handsome in an oddly familiar sort of way. He had somewhat wavy brown hair, a bit long for a man, and eyes as clear and vacant as glass. If eyes were windows to the soul, his were a set of magnifying glasses that displayed his every emotion for all to view. He smiled again. "The pleasure, truly, is all mine, Alexandra".
Matteo Rossini growled as he walked the halls of the opera. Where could the little bitch have run off to now? She had pulled a fast one before, disappearing into thin air like she had. Could she have pulled the same stunt twice?
He smiled. Well, no matter. No matter what the demon had done to evade him, she would be his soon enough. He'd wrap his hands around that evil throat of hers and silence that voice once and for all.
"…and that's what happened."
Thelxinoë, Christine, and Raoul had moved to the living room, where Christine and Raoul had explained their encounters with the Opera Ghost. Thelxinoë had listened to every word they said, the lump in her throat growing with every sentence. She didn't like going behind Erik's back like this. She felt that she should be hearing all this from him. Christine smiled sadly and continued. "Raoul and I travelled around for a while, stopping at whatever port we felt like. We never really had the intention to go back to Paris, but Andre and Firmin kept contacting us, saying how much I was needed and that the Phantom had left the opera once and for all. Eventually, they were so convincing that we decided to return."
"But we're leaving again first thing in the morning!" Raoul stood up and put his hands on the back of the loveseat. Thelxinoë could see his hands shake as he tightened his grip. "To think that that thing, that monster is back—"
The words tumbled out of her mouth before Thelxinoë even knew she was saying them. "Erik is not a monster!"
Thelxinoë's hands flew to cover her mouth, but the damage had already been done. A charged silence filled the air, so heavy and thick that she could taste it.
At last, Christine turned to her husband. "Um, Raoul, darling," she said, "why don't you go see if the servants have prepared a room for Alexandra yet."
"Oh, oh, yes, of course." Raoul blustered and left the room. Christine stopped smiling and turned to Thelxinoë. When she spoke this time, the giggle was gone from her voice. "So you've met him, then?"
Slowly, Thelxinoë lowered her hands from her face and nodded.
"And, you've seen…?"
Thelxinoë bit her bottom lip to keep from crying, and nodded again.
Christine sighed. "Why don't you tell me what's really happening, Alexandra?"
Thelxinoë fidgeted her hands in her lap. She couldn't look Christine in the eye. "…I met him after I first arrived in Paris. He and I became friends, or, at least, I thought we did, and then…" she was choking up. The memory was still too fresh, too raw.
Christine's eyes softened. "And that's when you saw it?"
"It's not that!" Thelxinoë started. "That's not what's wrong, it's just…" she felt the tears running down her cheeks. She knew that she couldn't stop them. "Christine, how could you have chosen Raoul over Erik?" The words were like her tears, uncontrollable and honest. "How could you? Erik…he loves you so much. I could hear it when he talked about you, I just didn't…" Just didn't what? Just didn't want to believe it? "From what you've said, he's done so much for you. I mean, Christine, Raoul got your scarf from the ocean when you were ten. Erik gave you voice lessons, he helped you recover from your father's death, he even wrote an opera so that you could star in it! How could you have chosen Raoul over Erik? How could you?"
Christine listened to her in silence. She took in everything that Thelxinoë said with a strange calmness and serenity, and, with equal serenity, responded. "Alexandra, I'm in love with Raoul."
The answer was so simple and so brutally honest that it caught Thelxinoë off guard. Christine continued. "Everything that you said is true. Yes, Erik did help me recover after my father's death. Yes, he did teach me how to really sing. Yes, he did write an opera with the intention for me to star in it. But, at the end of the day, I was in love with Raoul, and nothing was going to change that."
"Besides," Christine added, almost sadly, "Erik…well, he was like siren song for me: beautiful to listen to, but leading only to harm."
Siren song. The words sent a pang of sadness through Thelxinoë's heart. At the end of the day, she too was no more than a monster, a creature that could only lead a person to sadness and woe.
Christine smiled at Thelxinoë and, blushing slightly, added, "Raoul and I are having a baby, actually."
"You are?" Thelxinoë did the math in her head. "But, how do you know so soon?" Christine blushed, and Thelxinoë suddenly realized what she was asking. "Oh, sorry," she quickly added, "I'm sorry; it's not my place to question."
Christine shook her head slightly. "It's fine," she said, "I'm sure that others will be wondering as well." She paused, then added, "It was another reason, really, why it never would have worked between Erik and I."
"I…I suppose that's true," Thelxinoë meekly responded.
It was then that Raoul came back into the room. "Alexandra, your room is ready for any time that you wish to retire." Then, seeing the looks on the faces of the two women in the room, added with a puzzled expression, "What? What did I miss?"
Later, when Thelxinoë stood alone in the bedroom that Raoul and Christine had had the servants make up for her, once she had taken off her shoes and sat down at the vanity, she suddenly noticed her reflection in the mirror.
It had only just occurred to her that she had never seen a single mirror in Erik's house. While she was sure that she had to have noticed it before, it was only now that she realized the significance of that seemingly minor fact. She looked at her reflection. She looked tired and worn, and sad. And, in truth, she was sad, and she did not fully know the reason for it. She sighed gently. Erik too had always seemed somewhat sad, or at the very least he had that night at the masquerade. He had done his best to hide it, but she could tell by the slight clues in his voice what he was really feeling. Now that she had talked to Christine, she understood why.
She knew that she would never be able to fully understand why or how Christine had chosen Raoul de Chagney over Erik. How could she have? How could she have chosen Raoul, when Erik loved her so much, when he loved her more than anyone could ever even dream of having someone love them? How could she have chosen Raoul, when Erik had helped her heal after her father's death, when he had trained her voice and given her his song?
Christine loved Raoul. That was the only explanation that Thelxinoë could think of, the one that Christine had told her, and it was the only one that made any sense. Erik had loved Christine, but Christine had loved Raoul, and no matter how much Erik loved her, that fact was not going to change.
And how did she, Thelxinoë, feel about Erik? He was her closest and most trusted friend, but was that really all that he was to her? Could that really be all he was, the one person who knew her secret and still fully accepted her for everything that he was? Could he be more than just a friend?
She realized that she knew far more about Erik than she knew about anyone else. Not things like where he grew up or what his favorite flower was (although she certainly had a good guess), but, rather, she knew things about him that went beyond these simple question and went more towards the nature of his very being.
She knew the casual elegance and grace with which he wore a dark tailored suit. She knew the flecks of gold and black that danced in his dark brown eyes when he laughed or they were hit in just the right way by the light. She knew the violin-like resonance of his voice, and the way his long, slender fingers danced across the keys of a piano or organ or held the bow for a violin.
His face. She bit her lower lip in shame as she thought about what lay beneath his mask.
It was ugly. There was no purpose or use in denying it. In truth, the face that he concealed under his mask could not truly be called a face at all. It was so distorted and deformed that she easily understood why he had chosen to hide it behind a mask rather than take his chances in the world. And after talking with Christine, she understood why he would have reacted the way he did when she took his mask off.
And yet, Thelxinoë knew in every fiber of her being that his ugliness, what lay beneath his mask, meant nothing. No matter what he looked like, she liked him, and she liked being with him. How could she convince him that she liked him not in spite of his face, nor regardless of his face, nor even in any way because of his face, but that she simply liked him, without any sort of condition or qualification?
How could she explain that in that moment, when she had seen him asleep in his chair, when he had just shown her more kindness and help than anyone ever had before, that in that moment she had wanted, no, she had needed to know who he was and what he looked like? How could he ever understand that in that moment that need to know more of him, to know why he hid himself away from the world had constituted her entire being, had flowed like fire through her veins with every throb of her heart, beating so strongly that she felt it in her chest and heard it in her head? How could she explain that she had found herself in that moment slowly reaching for his mask, and knew in the deepest sections of her heart that she would not be able to stop herself from taking it off?
How could she explain that she had come to think of him as her closest friend, her confidant, and her family? How could she say that she had never met anyone other than him who knew her secret, and liked her not in spite of what she was, nor regardless of what she was, nor even in any way because of what she was, but simply liked her for who she was, who viewed her heritage simply as an unchangeable part of what she was, the same as her oddly colored hair or soprano voice, without impacting his impression of who she was?
She felt the tears coming even as she feebly tried to will them away. He probably hated her now. What she had done, taking off his mask like that, not even considering what he might think, had hurt him. And, with her reaction to what he had said, it would only be natural for him to think that she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Thelxinoë gasped. And by leaving the opera house with Christine, she had probably only confirmed his suspicion more!
Thelxinoë cursed and leapt up from the chair. She had to go back to the opera house. She had to apologize to Erik, to tell him what she really thought. But how could she possibly express what she wanted to say?
And then she knew.
Without even pausing to put on her shoes, Thelxinoë opened the bedroom window and leapt out into the night, wings unfolding even as her feet left the ground. She had a long way to fly, and the night was growing short…
Standing in her bedroom window, Christine watched the silver-haired angel as she flew into the night. She closed the curtain as Raoul entered, turning around just as he asked where Alexandra had gone.
"Oh, it's nothing," Christine responded with a smile, "She just realized that she had to go back to the opera after all, and she had to leave in a hurry. She was so sorry to leave without thanking you, darling, I had to convince her that it was really quite alright."
"Huh," Raoul responded. "It's really funny, though, she left her shoes behind." Christine giggled. "Well, I did say that she was in a hurry." She smiled at her husband. "We'll simply bring them to her tomorrow when I go to rehearsal."
Raoul frowned. "Do you really think that's wise, Christine?" He reached out and stroked her hair, something he always did when he was concerned about her. "I mean, if he's back in the opera…"
Christine smiled and took his hand. "Raoul," she said gently, moving closer to him, "I know this may sound silly, but, somehow, I have this feeling that everything is going to turn out fine." And she kissed him.
Thelxinoë landed on the roof of the opera house just as the first rays of the sun were beginning to emerge over the horizon. Her wings felt like jelly, and her body was one massive ache. She could not remember ever having flown so far, so fast.
It was worth it, though. She looked down at the flower in her hand, mercifully unharmed by the long flight. A single, thornless, burgundy rose. She smiled and walked down the stairs that Erik had shown her the first time they had walked up to the roof together, and found herself backstage. She walked out from behind the curtain and stepped onto the stage, intending to make her way to Box Five. As soon as she got to center stage, however, she heard someone start to clap. She looked towards the source of the sound, and froze.
Matteo Rossini stood up from his seat in the center of the first row as he slowly applauded her, each clap sure and definite. Clap. Clap. Clap. He smiled at her like a wolf, his sky-blue eyes cold as winter steel.
"Found you."
Thelxinoë bolted. Wings still out but too tired to fly, she ran as fast as she could without knowing where she was going. Matteo followed close behind, gaining on her seemingly with every step. At last she reached her dressing room. She ran in, slammed the door behind her, and fumbled with the lock. She heard him pounding on the door even as she looked around and realized there was nowhere left to run. Her heart was pounding so quickly that she couldn't distinguish the individual beats anymore, and the door was starting to give…
The rose in her hand dropped to the floor as the door shattered. She screamed to anyone, anyone who would listen to her. "Help me!"
A rough hand grabbed her left wing, something hard hit her on the back of the head, and the world went black.
