Chapter 37

"What?" Christine said.

Erik slid open the mirror. After stopping to drape his coat over her, he pulled her a little ways into the chilly passage, half-closing it behind them.

"Wait there," he said.

"What is it?" she asked again.

"You'll never guess," he said with a sneer, "What has blown in from the Arctic."
Christine stared at him. "R- de Chagny?"

"In the flesh." He grinned horribly. "What an honor! A Vicomte in our midst! Oh, my dear, you ought to have dusted! And me with my hair like this."

"But that is impossible," she said, still caught up in disbelief. "He is at the North Pole."

"Not anymore."

"But… but... how can he be here?" she said. "How did he get into the opera house? It is a Sunday night - it ought to be closed."

"He has a key," Erik said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, how marvelous!" Christine cried. I don't even have a key, she thought irritably. The only reason she was able to get in and out when she pleased was because of Erik's extensive set of keys, which she took full advantage of. (Only concern for him had stopped her from using them to fill the managers' office with mousetraps. It was a lost opportunity she would always regret.) "Does throwing thousands of francs at a place every month give one carte blanche to trespass whenever one pleases?"

"So," Erik said without emotion, "It would seem."

"What in Heaven's name can he be doing here?"

"I think perhaps you can answer that question."

"How can you say that?" Christine cried. But suddenly she was unable to meet his eyes. "Mon cœur, I was abundantly clear in my refusal."

"And yet," Erik said, "Here he is."

There seemed no possible reply to this.

There was an excruciating silence.

"Perhaps he is going away again," Christine ventured after a few horrible moments, "Or he is here for... something else. He would have knocked by now."

"Oh, no," Erik said in a horribly cheerful voice, "I think he is getting up the nerve. He was oscillating in front of the door, you know - a classic maneuver."

As if to confirm this, there came a knock at the door. "Christine?" came Raoul's voice, muffled, from outside.

"Well, I don't know what he means by coming, but I certainly do not wish to see him," Christine said. "I had much rather get back to what we were doing. Here, let us sit quietly for a few minutes. He will go away eventually."

"Yes, perhaps," Erik said.

But he strode back out into the room.

To Christine's horror, he stood at the piano and began to pound out a noisy rendition of one of Chopin's Nocturnes.

No. 1 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, to be precise, not that Raoul would know the difference - all he would hear was that there was someone there.

Christine leapt out after him. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "Stop this!"

"Perhaps, however," he finished, his hands still moving relentlessly across the keys, "It is better you hear him out while I am here."
Christine looked at him in surprise. "You cannot be seen."

At last he stopped playing. "Yes, mon rêve, yes, the thought had occurred to me," he said in a grating whisper. "I shall conceal myself, naturally."

"Erik - if you are suggesting what I - he is not here at my invitation."

He treated her to an aggressively blank smile. "Surely you do not think me jealous? I think jealousy the meanest idea in the world. It would be degrading to the both of us."

Christine sighed. If she refused to go along with this, he would be suspicious. He was so unsure of her affections. "Very well," she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "I have nothing to hide. But I wish you trusted me."

"Oh, but I do, mon rêve. It is him I do not trust." Erik shut the mirror and spirited himself behind the dressing-screen.

Crossing the large room in a few swift strides, Christine grabbed his jacket, snatched up his hat and cloak from the coatrack, and threw them back there with him. She seized a shawl and threw it over her low neckline; then, her temper close to boiling, she flung open the dressing-room door.

"Christine!" Raoul exclaimed blissfully. He looked drastically different than when he had left. His hair had grown longer and he needed to shave. The only thing missing to create the impression of a renegade explorer was snow in his hair. He spread his arms and beamed, as if to say 'Voilà! Here I am! Is this not remarkable?'

Indeed, this was not unreasonable. His safe return after such an expedition was indeed something to remark upon. Under any other circumstances, Christine would have been delighted to see that he was alive and well.

"Raoul," she said tiredly. "Good Heavens." She did not invite him to sit or offer to take his coat.

His smile faded slightly at her muted reaction. "Christine. I have just returned!"

Inwardly she winced. Already she had erred, she could tell. He knew something wasn't right, that something had changed that she hadn't told him about. She ought to have played both sides, pretended she was delighted to see him. "I am very glad you are well."

"Thank you," he said. There was an awkward silence. His momentum was gone.

"Why have you come?" she asked.

His expression went from merely confused to insulted. "Is that all you can say? I would have thought-"

"-I am tired. I was not expecting you. You come to my door at eleven o'clock on a Sunday night..."

He looked sheepish. "I was going to leave a note. I did not think you... but then I heard you playing...

Yes, wasn't I playing beautifully?" Christine said with a sarcasm that would be quite lost on him. "Well, I am here, now, aren't I? I answered. Voilà. Are you satisfied?" This aimed at Erik.

"What do you mean?" Raoul's look of bewilderment returned.

"I… I don't know. I am tired." Christine took the opportunity to ease a few steps backward. "I don't know what I am saying." Please, would you go?

"I went to your flat," he began again awkwardly. "Your flatmate said you are here most of the time."

She backed away further. "How did you get my address?"

"From when I took you home."

Christine felt her hair stand on end as she imagined what Erik must be thinking. Stupid, not to have recalled that, Christine! What a dreadful blunder. "That was a long time ago."

"Not so very long ago," Raoul said.

She looked away.

"You look excessively beautiful," he said.

She knew she looked well, and this only irritated her further. Erik had bought the dress, he ought to be the one to enjoy seeing her in it, and he was stuck behind the dressing-screen while Raoul goggled at her."Why have you come?" she asked again.

He almost laughed. "Is that all you can say to me?"

"Can you not answer me?"

"Very well." He drew a deep breath. "I have come for a reason - I shall not continue to delay you - I shall say this quickly."

"Does he ever say anything quickly?" Christine heard Erik mutter.

She had to stifle a laugh, and hurriedly stepped away from the screen so he wouldn't be tempted to fling out any more witticisms.

"You must know," Raoul said, "That I am still in love with you."

She choked. "Raoul… But..."

"Yes - I thought it was unreasonable at first, but..."

"Raoul… I wrote to you… didn't you receive my telegrams?"

"Yes," he said, "But that was some time ago... I knew you would change your mind... I came back to convince you to…"

She shook her head slowly, letting it sink in. "I am sorry," she said, "Truly sorry."

"What?" Raoul backed a step away.

"I hate to cause pain to anyone, especially you, my oldest friend, but I cannot accept."

"Why?" he cried, aghast.

"I do not love you," she said.

"Christine, how can you stand there and look me in the eye and say that? Don't you know how you are wounding me? It is cruel!"

"We are not right for one another," she said. "We are much too different."

"In what way do you find me unsuitable? It does not appear to me that my hand is in any way unworthy of you."

She felt her anger return. "Yes, I am very aware-" She thought of Madame Giry and Meg, and most of all of Firmin- "Very aware of what an honor it is to be made an offer by the Vicomte de Chagny! I suppose I should fall to my knees and be grateful that you took notice of me!"

"Christine, you know I didn't mean it in that way!" He looked genuinely wounded, and she felt sorry. "But you know I would make you a good husband. Devoted, attentive, and you know you have my affection. I could give you-"

"-I'm sure you would make anyone a good husband," Christine said tiredly. She thought she heard Erik snort, but couldn't be sure.

"But you would not be the proper sort of husband for me, Raoul!"

"What do you mean, 'the proper sort of husband'? What aspect of my suit offends you so? What reason have you for this?"

"There does not need to be a reason!" Christine cried.

"What?"
"You are trying to make out that I am insulting you in some way, when I have done nothing of the kind," she said impatiently. "Nothing offends me about you - except your absurd persistence."

"But this is madness!" he cried, practically undone.

"It is nothing of the kind!" she said, truly angry. "You could not make me happy, and I would soon cease to make you so. You don't understand me-"

"-Don't understand you? We have known each other for fifteen years-"

"-We have known each other for a total of less than two."

"What?" he said in bewilderment.

"In between there was a lapse when we never saw or wrote to one another and neither of us had any idea what had become of the other," she explained. "Then we met again. In the intervening fourteen years, I lost my father, gained a new family, moved to Paris, began a profession, discovered my calling, and met a-" She stopped. She had very nearly said something damning. "-Met… many friends," she hastened on, alarmed that she had left such an obvious pause. "And you suppose a childhood affection means you can presume to know me?"

"I have tried to know you better!"

"If so, you did not succeed," she said.

"You did not give me a chance! Why, Christine? What excuse can you offer for your treatment of me?"

"-Excuse?" she cried. "I offer no 'excuse'! I am not obligated to give you any justification or explanation of my actions."

"I should think you do owe me an explanation!" he cried. "I am your oldest friend! And what is more, you know I am in love with you! You have known it all this time! I think I have made it obvious, unless you are extraordinarily stupid. Therefore it is indecent to break my heart with no reason!"

"This grows more and more absurd!" she cried. Flustered, she felt her words run away with her. "The only man who would have the right to demand an account of my actions would be- would be a fiancé-" Oh, God...

"-Your fiancé?" Raoul cried, pouncing at once.

"…Yes, or husband, if I had one. I do not," she stammered, flustered, acutely conscious that Raoul was still staring at her.

"There is someone else!" he cried. "I knew it!"

She flinched. "No. There is no one else. I am a free human being with an independent will. I am the mistress of my own actions. Neither you nor anyone else! has any right to control them. Even if I were to make the wildest, most mad choice imaginable- even if everyone thought I was mad because of it-"

"-What are you talking of?" he cried.

"-it would still be my prerogative," she finished, flushed and exasperated.

He stared at her. "You are talking nonsense."

"If you think so - then I should be glad to make myself clearer: I am free to do as I please."

"What, free to toy with the hearts of honest men and throw them away? You women are so duplicitous!"

"In what way am I duplicitous?" she said furiously. "I am an honest girl, Monsieur de Chagny-"

"Is that so? You were very receptive to my attentions in the carriage not so long ago!"

Christine froze. She had thought Raoul would be too much of a gentleman to bring that up again. She was about to open her mouth to shout at him for doing just that, but caught herself as she realized just in time that that it would make it sound even worse to Erik.

"I was nothing of the kind!" she cried instead.

But Raoul was not to be silenced so easily. "You have no soul!" he went on, red-faced, breathing hard, with tears in his eyes now. "To think it was my dearest wish to give my name to an opera-wench!"

Christine gasped as though the word had caused her physical pain - not least because she felt to some degree he was right. "Raoul! Oh, Raoul, you don't mean it!"

Indeed, he regretted it at once. "Christine, I am sor-"

But he never had the chance to finish.

Music: 'Prepared to do Anything' ('Sherlock' soundtrack, by David Arnold and Michael Price)

"-I have heard enough of this!" Erik stepped out from behind the dressing screen. He had his cloak and gloves back on, accompanied by the supercilious sneer that was his customary attire. "You may go, Vicomte! You are not needed here!"
Christine stifled a scream.

"What the devil-?" Raoul cried. Before she could blink, he had bounded into the room and shoved her behind him. "Who do you think you are?" he cried.

"I am no-one to be trifled with," Erik said. "All you need know is that Christine Daae is under my protection. You, I am pleased to tell you again, you arrogant, sniveling little inbred brat, are not needed here."

"You forget yourself!" Raoul cried.

"No, you forget yourself!" Erik cried. "How dare you - how dare you insult her? I shall rip you apart if you speak to her again!"

"It is you who have insulted her!" Raoul cried. "You scoundrel! You... you force your way into Mademoiselle's dressing-room - wearing a mask, no less- and you presume to make declarations of- of-" He lunged for Erik, but Erik sprang out of the way with dazzling speed.

From his advantage of several inches of height, he looked down at the Vicomte in silence, a smirk on his lips. "-I did not force my way in."

"But of course you did! Mademoiselle Daae would never let some man - some masked vagrant- into her private dressing-room! How dare you come here, how dare you?" Raoul's face was transfigured with rage. If any traces of the amiable young man-about-town had remained before, now they had evaporated entirely. "You blackguard! You villain!"

Erik bowed.

"Have you been here all this while? Eavesdropping on a private conversation?" Raoul demanded, beginning to circle him, looking for an opening.

Christine's skin crawled. Ought she to say something? But even if she did, she doubted it would make a difference. They were snarling at each other like two angry wolves; anything she said might just provoke one of them to violence. She was quite sure Raoul couldn't do any damage to Erik; her greatest fear was that Erik would attack the Vicomte. They would never be free again if that happened.

"Oh, yes," Erik said. "I have been enjoying your little melodrama enormously. That is, until the part where you said she had no soul and called her an opera wench." His face darkened menacingly. "She will never accept you, you know. Especially not after that, I think. Her affections are engaged elsewhere, more suitably."

"What would you know of her heart?" Raoul scoffed. "How do you presume to dictate where she will bestow her affections?" Suddenly his face changed. "Has this why she has been avoiding me all this time? I knew something was not right… I suppose you threatened to hurt her if she accepted me?"

"No!" Erik cried. "She loves me! Christine loves me!"

"What?" Raoul laughed incredulously.

"Why should I conceal it?" Erik cried, seeing Christine's look of horror. "It grows tiresome to keep it a secret. Why should I hang my head as though it is some crime? I came by her affection honorably - and you, Vicomte, are not worthy to look her in the eye! You are beneath her!"

"If you had come by her affections, and done so honorably," Raoul said, "There would be no need to conceal your identity in this way. Well, I will not let you be a coward and hide behind anonymity!"

He lunged again; Erik put up his hands to counter a blow. But that had not been Raoul's intent, and Erik was unprepared for what came next.

In a moment, the mask was off.

The change Erik's demeanor was instantaneous, like flipping a switch. He was transformed from a proud man to a pitiful, cowed, helpless, quivering creature. He fell to the floor, writhing in terror, clutching his face as though it had been burnt and moaning piteously like a wounded animal.

"Christine, don't look," he whimpered, the only words he could manage to make out. "Don't… Please…"

Raoul had meant to seize him, but clearly that was unnecessary; Erik was quite incapacitated. Besides, all the Vicomte could do was stand open-mouthed, his hands hanging limply with the mask in them.

"The tales are true after all!" he managed at last. "The opera ghost! To think I doubted the word of my brother!"

This was monstrous, Christine thought. God only knew what agonies Erik must be suffering. A sob breaking from her, she tried to grab the mask from Raoul. "Have pity!" she pled.

But Raoul's fingers seemed locked around it. "I thought all the stories about a horrible face were just the ravings of intoxicated minds," he said numbly. "But they weren't… Why, it all makes sense now! All the threatening letters about her - Those bizarre notes - Your vile, loathsome obsession with her-"

What had happened to Erik? Christine thought frantically. Where were the scathing remarks? Was he so undone?

At last he spoke. "-You don't know anything of it," he said. His teeth were clenched and he still clutched his face, though from between his fingers one could see his eyes glinting. "You are incapable of understanding the passion I cherish for her."

"Indeed!" Raoul sneered. He was still frozen; Christine felt quite sure he would have attacked Erik physically by now if he were not so repulsed by him. "I lack the perverted imagination necessary to do so."

Erik gave a roar of rage, though he could not push himself to his feet with his hands clutched over his face. "You-!"

Christine bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. Any moment know she would break and give away the whole thing. Raoul was, quite without realizing it, a most effective torturer.

"Christine," Raoul said, "I am sorry to insult you with this question, but are you acquainted with this… this…?"

There was a long pause. Two sets of eyes watched her piercingly, the blue and the green.

Erik, Christine thought, Please understand. Please remember the danger! You warned me of it yourself! Come to your senses!

"I am not," she said at last. It cost her everything she had.

She had wanted to say 'I certainly do not know him', appear appalled and superior and insulted by the very idea, but she did not have it in her.

"Christine, what is the meaning of this? Tell him it is true!" Erik pleaded.

"Why should I do any such thing?" Christine said. "I don't know who you are." It nearly killed her. Tears began to pour down her face.

"You see Mademoiselle does not know you!" Raoul cried.

Erik never took his eyes from her. He looked as though he had been kicked in the stomach. "Christine..."

At last, Christine succeeded in wrenching the mask back from Raoul, and flung it to Erik. He fell on it like a starving dog onto a scrap of food.

With the mask in place once more, instantly he assumed his old armor of frosty dignity and strength. The transformation was so instant and complete as to be almost frightening. Worse, when he looked up at her there was a new coldness in his gaze. He had never looked at her like that before. She no longer saw any esteem in his eyes; he had relegated her back to the rest of the human race. She would have given anything to change that back.

As he rose to his feet and straightened his shoulders, he seemed to fill the room. He was like an immense, ominous shadow, the Phantom once more. He was a match for Raoul.

"Yes," he said, spitting out the words through clenched teeth, "the Opera Ghost. And many other things beside. And you, Vicomte, will pay for what you've done."

He stepped toward Raoul. Though he had not lifted a hand against him, his sheer physical presence, enveloped in the black cloak, was overwhelming; even Christine was awed, quite intimidated by him as she had been when they first started lessons together.

Before Erik could make any movement, however, Raoul did something Christine had not expected. He pulled a revolver from the inner pocket of his jacket. The next moment he had it cocked and aimed at Erik's heart.

Christine stifled a scream. "No, Raoul!" she cried, throwing herself between Erik and the gun. "Don't! He's-"

But it was too late.

End of Chapter 37. Thank you so much to my wonderful readers! Thank you to Afaiths, Erinunu, Pandere, Ana, ForeverReading, and Asprankle for your feedback, wraithsnakezenith for your support, and Olive for not only being a support but now also an amazing proofreader - you are the absolute best!