(trumpets sound) I´M BACK!!!! At least temporarily. But you can't kill me, my dear readers, because if you do, you'll never find out how this story ends! Anyway, this chapter is looong overdue, I know that well, but there are dozens of good reasons why I wasn't able to finish this sooner. To spare you the lesser ones – I had uni admissions tests and still have two more ahead of me for art schools. My fingers are intact now, fortunately, but I have no idea when the next chapter will be posted. In any case, no Erik in this chapter, unfortunately, but something that will please all of you who don't want the story to remain static. A big realization. Anyway, on with the show!

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Chapter 25

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The next day, Christine woke up with a feeling of dread. It took her a while to realize why she was feeling so frightened and when she did, it didn't ease her thoughts one bit. When she got to work, she half-expected everyone to be staring at her, but most of the people were either too busy with their own work or spared her a passing glance when they appeared to be at least slightly aware that something had happened. However, just as Meg wanted to corner her, her face shining with glee, Jammes told her that Lefévre would very much like to see her ASAP.

With a sinking feeling of resignation, Christine obeyed, knocking politely on the office door and entering when asked to do so. Lefévre was as always, calm and slightly disapproving-looking, but showed no real emotion.

"Miss Daaé, please have a seat." He motioned to the chair in front of his table. Christine sat down timidly, a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Christine, understand that in the past few weeks, you've evaded me and my aid almost entirely. Your work on the article you have pursued in these last weeks has been fully consuming your time, I understand that. However, it has recently come to my knowledge that you seem to be pursuing a wholly different career than the one you have chosen. You, of course, are aware if what I speak. While I hear you've done well, I would still like to hear an explanation from you."

Christine didn't waste a moment before producing a printed copy of her article on Erik and a cd with the file. This was the only way of doing it, she knew. The only way to prove to Lefévre that she didn't deserve a sacking and the only way to prove to herself that that night had been real, that it wasn't just one long illusion – not that Erik wasn't capable of such things, of course. She handed it to her boss a bit more confidently than she would have usually done, but nevertheless wasn't at all at ease.

Lefévre accepted the material and his bespectacled eyes ran past the words and lines and paragraphs. Of course, his expression remained ever the same, but there was something that signified to the worried journalist that he wasn't at all displeased. After a few minutes, Lefévre carefully put the papers together again and glanced at her with something that could have been very close to admiration, if Lefévre ever displayed anything like that to others.

"I am reluctant to believe this is possible, Miss Daaé." He said after a moment of silence, straightening on his chair… but it was clear that he did believe. "It's a fascinating article. I don't think anyone else has gotten this deep yet. It has everything we need to have it make the first page." The tension Christine felt in her stomach lessened somewhat. "And you yourself surprised me. Miss Daaé, don't tell me you believed this would go unnoticed." He said when he saw her change of expression. "Every classy culture magazine on the continent that doesn't deal with pop culture trash mentions your name along with the premiere of the new opera. It's almost as if you had starred in it. After all, they introduced you as a special guest star and made clear who your teacher was on the cast list – I thought you knew that. I must confess, I was slightly angered by that. Losing my top journalist to a singsong career that could last a week."

Christine made a brave attempt at a smile, but she didn't quite succeed. "I take it you wish me to end this… relationship?" she asked, for a lack of better term. After all, the article was finished.

"Of course not." Lefévre said sharply, "All this changes the situation completely. The man is in the center of attention of the musical world today. Few people compose operas these days and even less are remembered longer than a few weeks. They view this guy as a chance for classical music to be reborn – he's in the eye of the hurricane right now, but evades it too skillfully. I want you to continue meeting with him, if at all possible. You don't have to get a truckload of information about him, what you've gathered thus far is more than enough. But what people really want are stories about people. His work is great, no one denies that, but not even you describe him as a person – rather, only him as the artist."

"You want me to pry into his personal background?" Christine was almost astonished. Or, more likely, she simply realized that asking questions like that would be fruitless. The image of Erik's masked face appeared in front of her eyes for a moment. Of course every question would lead back to that. It was also why she hadn't provided any picture of him, which he wouldn't have allowed, ever – and Lefévre mentioned that it was regrettable, but predictable.

"Nevertheless, try to understand my point, Miss Daaé." He explained to her afterwards. "I don't run a tabloid looking for scandals. I run an honest magazine for the people – and people are always more moved by something that they can relate to. Not all can relate to art, try as they might."

As she left the office, she realized that a few of her friends and colleagues were rushing towards her, bombarding her with questions- apparently, some had even managed to dig out a video of her performance in Figaro on youtube. Funny what you could find on the internet at times. They replayed it once and Christine watched herself, pale, distant from the camera, but her voice rang crystal-clear even as she lamented the loss of the pin the Count gave her. Wearily, she answered all of their inquiries to the best she could, but didn't share their enthusiasm that much anymore. But a thought occurred to her. She begged the person who found her video to search for famous opera arias – that she had one stuck in her head and couldn't remember which one it was.

It was fortunate that they had the time to search, or at least, she did, alone, sitting behind her computer with a neat little program they taught her to use in a half a minute long crash-course. She passed the most famous ones – the "pizza" aria, as she called La donna e mobile from Rigoletto, as it always played during an ad for a pizza company, Largo al factotum, the Figaro song (better remembered when thinking of Meg and a certain episode of Tom and Jerry she had been forced to watch). That music box aria wasn't that cliché when it came to opera, but it was certainly famous. What other operas were downright famous? And, after listening to a bit of the Toreador song, she found it.

It was downright obvious when she listened to it. Of course it was a tenor aria. She had heard it many times before, but compared to other famous pieces, it wasn't so well-known. But it was the right one, she knew, the tune that the figure had danced to, though now, it wasn't played by a violin, with the ping of a glockenspiel every now and then. When sung by a professional and backed by a full orchestra, it sounded wholly different and yet still the same.

The voice that sang it didn't pronounce the words completely well and the speech was already deformed by the way he had to say it to be able to sing the notes correctly. But that was unimportant. Immediately, she typed the desired name of song and the word "lyrics" behind it. Thousands of results. She clicked the one that included the translation of the words, not trusting her French enough to understand the full meaning of the phrases. But one thing was clear – the song had been chosen on purpose. It didn't have a melody that would make it good to dance to, even if the dance was a classical one. Not even a ballet dancer would have an easy time dancing to the slow, recitative-like melody. Why, then, had it been picked? After a while, she realized that whatever Erik did had some sort of meaning behind it. Even the mask had to have a meaning deeper than a seemingly childish desire to conceal his appearance from her. It seemed a petty reason to her now. Instead, she read.

La fleur que tu m'avais jetée
dans ma prison m'était restée,
flétrie et sèche, cette fleur
gardait toujours sa douce odeur;

It was the Flower Song from Carmen. A continuation of the Habanera, in a way, or rather, an answer to it. Lesser known in general, but beautiful nonetheless. But completely wrong for a music box, she thought. Why not some waltz aria, she could think of a few, or those with a tempo di menuetto, those would be far more fitting. This one had almost no repeated phrase, changed quickly, thus tore away the effect that the music box was timeless.

The flower that you threw me
remained with me in my prison.
Dried and withered, this flower
still kept its sweet scent;

Perhaps she was simply being paranoid, Christine thought. After all, not everything had to have a conspiracy behind it. Certainly not a silly little music box. Well... it was certainly not a silly one; but even a beautiful music box was still a music box.

et pendant des heures entières,
sur mes yeux fermant mes paupières,
de cette odeur je m' enivrais
et dans la nuit je te voyais!

"Hey, Christine." Meg greeted her, sitting on the edge of the nearest table. "How´s things? A little birdie told me you had a hell of a success in Italy."

She didn't even glance at Meg, but smiled slightly. "Yeah, you could call it a hell, I guess."

"Oh, cheer up." The brunette yawned slightly, apparently still a bit sleepy. "What are you reading?"

and for hours on end,
closing my eyelids,
I drank in its fragrance
and at night I saw you.

"A song I recently heard… I finally found out where I'd heard it before." Christine said, taking a sip of the coffee Meg handed her. "It´s from Carmen."

"You mean the gypsy song? Ta ram tam tam, ta ram tam tam, ta ram ta ratatata tam tam tam…" Meg hummed the most famous part of the Habanera a bit tonelessly, but then glanced at the screen Christine was watching so intensely. "Where did you hear it?"

Je me prenais à te maudire,
a te détester, à me dire:
Pourquoi faut-il que le destin
l' ait mise là sur mon chemin!

"A music box, actually." She said, almost absent-mindedly.

"Hark! Methinks a story is about to be told!" Meg laughed slightly at her own words. "So that means you met Monsieur le Composer at long last? You have to tell me everything about it. Who else would be keeping music boxes with arias?" she asked when Christine glanced at her quizzically. "Auntie Meganette knows everything, Chris. And, of course, Lef told me everything when I gave him today's share of photos. I might actually start working full-time here, who knows?"

I began to curse you,
to hate you, to ask myself
why destiny had
to put you in my path.

"Hmm…" Meg muttered to herself, her eyes sweeping the lines faster than Christine's – the blonde actually seemed to be pondering every word. "And he played this song to you, Chris?"

"I overheard it, actually. He had a music box in the room and it started playing… I was actually surprised, the ballerina figure on it, you know – I… well, I thought it kind of looked like… me, really."

The photographer gave a squeal. "Ah, let me hear those church bells ringing…."

Puis, je m' accusais de blasphème,
et je ne sentais en moi même
qu'un seul désir, un seul espoir:
Te revoir, Carmen, oui, te revoir!

Christine frowned. "Don't be silly, Meg, I don't think I'm in the mood for that. Besides, I'm quite happy with my relationship with Raoul, thank you very much." Raoul... she would have to call him. After all, she had promised him answers... and Lefévre wanted her to continue meeting with Erik… and she herself wasn't so certain she wanted to part ways with him just yet. He was simply too… interesting. And, in a way, he reminded her of her father. He was also a unique musician, talented, and cared about her musical education.

Then I accused myself of blasphemy,
and felt within myself
but one single desire, one single hope,
to see you again, Carmen, yes, to see you again!

She didn't see the expression on Meg´s face, which served to deem her completely clueless. While the brunette was limited when it came to knowledge of operas, she had come to the last line of the translated song quicker than Christine. If the girl wouldn't get the hint from this, Meg thought inwardly, she was really blind and heading for serious trouble. In her eyes, it was almost as if a brick wall was standing in the middle of the highway – that obvious. She had seen one too many soap operas, perhaps, but at least she was able to recognize the first warning signs. Assuming, of course, that she had been correct and the figure had indeed resembled her.

Car tu n'avais eu qu'à paraître,
qu'à jeter un regard sur moi,
pour t'emparer de tout mon être,
o ma Carmen!
Et j'étais une chose à toi!

A mobile phone rang and Christine picked it up absent-mindedly. "Christine Daaé speaking." She said calmly.

"Hi, Christine." Raoul´s voice said. it was as calm as hers, soft, relieved to be hearing from her, yet still somewhat sad. "I was hoping we could meet for lunch or dinner today and talk about what you said before leaving…"

"Yes, yes, of course." How fortunate that her work for the day was done! Refusing him now would have surely been a nail into the coffin of their relationship. And it hit her with a pang. She had been the one killing their relationship… she was the one who had distanced herself into music and work and whatever else she wanted…. She had been selfish. "Whenever you want."

"I could pick you up at three, if you'd like. I'll be waiting in front of the office building, how is that?"

"Perfect." She said immediately. "I'd love to. I want to tell you everything, as I promised, Raoul. I want to make things right between us. No more secrets and distancing myself. I want to make things up to you."

For you had only to appear,
to cast me but one glance,
to take possession of all my being,
o my Carmen,
and I was utterly yours.

A deep sigh of relief was audible and the change in Raoul´s youthful voice that could have been a tenor very pleasing to the ear, had he ever received any vocal education, seemed to have lost a weight that had been holding it underwater for too long. "Christine, thank you. It means the world to me. You are my everything."

She answered something sweet, caring. "Everything will be all right. I'm looking forward to seeing you. Pick whatever restaurant you will, but I warn you, I'm not dressed for a fancy place." He laughed – she hadn't heard that wonderful sound for so long – and hung up with words of love she shyly attempted to return. Looking up, she expected Meg to grin down at her, but the brunette's face was surprisingly grave. Wondering why, she almost asked, but decided to finish reading the last line before she would do so. and it was good that she did.

The phone dropped out of her hand. Meg caught it and secured it, but Christine continued staring at the screen. There was still that chance that it wasn't true, couldn't be true, that it was just a figment of her imagination, that she was simply too selfish and believed something like that to be true. It was a coincidence – a chain of coincidences, really. There was no other explanation. Every opera song spoke of what this spoke of. But if this was the message it was meant to give and she had acted Nancy Drew correctly… but of course it was no more than her watching too many romantic movies. If not… she didn't know what it meant besides what she read.

Carmen, je t'aime!