A/N: I'd like to make a quick announcement before I start the chapter. Please, when you readers see something that I'm doing that might be a bit strange, I assure you there is ALWAYS a very good reason! Like me updating 42 chapters in two days. Yes, that's a bit strange. Was there a great reason for it? Yes. When you see something like this happening, PLEASE check my profile! There will always be an eplaination about what is happening there!

I have been informed not so graciously that I lost a reader due to what I did. Had that reader looked in my profile, they would have found that I asked all my readers to shut off their author alerts on me. I even gave directions if you did not know how. But because this was not read in my profile, I have lost a reader. So PLEASE - I do not enjoy losing my reviewers so check on my profile when something like that happens. It'll be justified there and you will see that I have not lost my mind.

Angel or Demon: Nope, no suicides there. That's a writer's cheat code - it's too easy to just kill the problem. ;)

Saloma-Kiwi : Christine was apologizing to Erik. Sorry if I didn't make that clear, but it gets clearer in this chapter.

FlameEmber: I WILL get to writing you back! It's been a little crazy at the moment, so forgive me.

Now, before this A/N gets longer than the chapter itself...

"I know that I'm in no position to tell you what to do," Nadir said, walking up to Erik, "but shouldn't you be finishing your work? You know what will happen as soon as they find out she's no longer here. You're wasting time..."

Erik answered by knocking of the wooden mug on the table to let it clunk hard on the floor. "It don't matter anymore." He whispered.

"You need to tell her, Erik. You need to let her know. Everything. About what you're going through and what will happen when she leaves!"

"Why? To tie her back down in a place she really don't want to be?"

His rough voice, harsh from grinding emotions, sent Nadir in to silence.

In such cases, what words can be found?

"She wants to leave...let her leave." Erik whispered so softly, even Nadir could barely hear it.

But those were the words he'd stick by.

Nadir's brow knitted in confusion. "Erik...if the Vicomte just takes her away...you're going to let her go?"

Erik's eyes were stressed and streaked with red as he looked up at his old friend. "Her happiness is more important than mine. I dragged her through so much...made her so unhappy - if she finds her happiness with de Changy, then so be it. I wont stop it."

Nadir hated Erik's words, yet respected him immensely for them.

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Erik looked lazily out the door, seeing two ponies tethered to his porch. He listened to Christine's skittish pacing in her room as the Vicomte prepared it all.

"Christine!" Raoul called from the front porch.

Erik was in a good enough place to be able to see her in Nadir's doorway, biting her lip with tears in her eyes. A small, sarcastic laugh rumbled in his chest. She acted as if she was hesitant to leave!

She walked fine until she was standing aside of his sitting form.

Her breath was scattered, her eyes fluttering close as her teeth sank in to her bottom lip harder. Her fingers were wrung deep in her skirt, that of a proper French dress, not longer in Persian clothing.

"I'm sorry." She whispered through her sobs that were stuck in her throat.

Then she opened her eyes and walked to the door, pausing for a moment as Raoul urged her on with glee on his face, anxious to leave.

Nadir helped Christine on to her pony, a look of deep regret and sorrow etched in the fine lines of his brow. "I wish you a safe journey." He said to them both, then set the two off.

Christine allowed her eyes to close again, lifting her head to the sky as a few tears slipped down her cheeks, her heart ready to burst and shatter like the glass on Erik's floor.

Her pony's reigns were in Raoul's hands, leading her on further and further. Back to Paris, the place she had made her home for years. The place where so much had happened to shape and mold her life.

She looked back at the house and at Nadir as they rounded the bend.

Nadir gave a slight wave, then shook his head sadly, as if disappointed, turning back towards the house and walking towards the porch slowly.

She tossed her head for a moment, trying to erase the look on his face. Why, why did this have to hurt so much? As if as they got farther and farther away, her heart felt like it was being wrenched from her chest, her body begging her to stop. Why could her mind and her body not agree with her at such an important moment?

Oh, she was doing it again! She was leaving Erik behind in his misery. In his dark life all alone. She had regretted it before, but here she was, doing it again. Raoul was there beside her. Safe, predictable Raoul that would never hurt her. Yet he was hurting her now. Or what he represented - her heart being forced to decide...yet it was decided already and here she was, leaving. Gone for good.

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