"Christine, you would consider my proposal?" The words escaped my lips due to my astonishment at her own statement.

She shyly pressed her palm to my bare cheek, her thumb once again undertaking a feather-light caress on my seldom-touched skin. "Erik, have you no faith in anyone, not God. . .have I given you reason to doubt my affection for you." A faint wave of remorse coursed through me at the thought that I had once again caused her sadness. It was, unfortunately, a unwanted skill to rival my voice.

"Forgive me, I am unaccustomed to any affection. My own mother, as I have told you, could not even bare to embrace me or take my hand and guide me through those first few years of life."

"My poor Erik, so much pain. . ."

Then, the unthinkable happened- Christine rose up onto her knees in the pew and pressed her forehead to mine. "My tears are for you. I gave you my soul the night of Hannibal, Erik. I have no desire to relinquish it, now."

"I am a murderer, Christine, a devil, and a monster. . .but I must know. May I have any reason to hope that you will think upon my offer? My heart is yours. I will wait as long as you wish for an answer."

"Not a monster," Her tears, which had begun to generously pour from those magnificent blue orbs, traveled in bittersweet rivulets onto my brow. "A man, a kind man haunted by the past."

"You know not what you say, Christine."

"I do, but I will make it my life's work to make you realize just how beautiful you really are." Of her own volition, she gently brought her face away from mine and reached for the simple gold band nestled in the velvet box. It must have been an ordeal of no small nature for her to pry it from its home, as my hand began to shake violently at her actions.

"Why, Christine? How can you bear it?" Against my own will, my self-control evaporated, and I became nothing more than sobbing catastrophe of man, both in body and in heart. "I have nothing to offer you. . .not affluence or wealth, not beauty surely. Only the complete devotion of a lost soul. How could you allow yourself to be touched by hands that have known so much blood, Christine?"

Bewilderment and compassion stared back at me, but still none of the repulsion, the soul-shattering digust. Perhaps in that moment, I was as she had described to me with simple but poignant honesty- only a man."

Only a man. . .

It may very well have been the greatest of compliments ever to be spoken for me alone. It was not lost on me that if the circumstances were reversed, and Christine had uttered the same trio of words to the empty-headed Vicomte, he might very well take offense. But the moments Christine shared with me were so far beyond any reality he could touch. He would always remain a stranger to her soul, I knew, even if, God forbid, she forsook me for that fop in the end. Raoul De Chagny would never know the Christine Daae of the underground grotto, of the girl devoted to music and tantalized by a darkness that would only caress her- not leave her floundering about in a labyrinth of pain.

Securing the ring upon the third finger of her left hand, as a proper bride would, Christine sniffled up some renegade tears before focusing on the band that now inhabited her finger. "Erik, I am confused. I take the ring from you, knowing fully well its implications, but now you seem as if you want to deny us both the happiness you so deserve?"

Inwardly, I cursed myself for the paradox created by my reason and my emotions. My head bent low nearly touching my chest that was heaving with exasperation and nervousness. It was becoming far too clear that I was entirely daft in the imposing realm of romance. Usually, at least as I had come to understand the courses of nature and custom, when the man proposed to his lady-love, it is only she that has the right to accept or reject the offer of matrimony. I'd apparently muddled things up so considerably in a matter of seconds, that Christine thought I was declining my own proposal of marital bliss!

"I am utterly unworthy of you, mademoiselle, as you well know. Do not mistake me, Christine, I want nothing more in this world than to make you my bride, to spoil and care for you, to take care of you and be a father to your children, but. . .I now realize just how selfish I have been to ask you to give up a normal life of beauty, society, perhaps even wealth, the chance to make a marriage of your own desire. . ."

"Erik-"

Unaware of her protestations, I continued on in what was quickly becoming a verbal train on the inevitable course to derailment. "I should never have asked you to consider binding yourself to a monster, a creature you barely know!"

"Erik-"

"Your compassionate nature would, perhaps, persuade you to accept. But I can not bear for you to waste your life out of pity. Christine, I am sorry." Tears were a hazard of love, I discovered, as they began to slip down my cheeks and nearly choke me.

I had only one more thing to say. "Christine you must be able to marry for love. To expect any less but that for your future would be shameful." Exhausted, spent by the labors wreaked by emotion, I slumped down in the pew and stared at the floor.

"You have it all very wrong, Erik." It was then that I felt two warm fingertips lift my chin. "Have you not heard a word I have said to you, or do you despise yourself so much that you are unable to face the reality that you are very dear to me?"