A/N - Well, here it is! I know this chapter's been a long time in coming and I'm really sorry :s. Hopefully you'll like it :)

Now, some scary (well, for me, anyway!) news - the end is nearing for this story - yep - the next chapter will, I think, be the last. Now that's scary for me because it means I have to come up with a new story! AHHHH!!! :)

Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed - it really makes my day when I see I have a new review. :D

"Don't you see we've been watched over?

As we crossed the wildest seas

Even God wants us together

Can I end this journey please?"

Please, Miss Saigon

Christine

I stared ahead, a thousand images flashing before my eyes; Raoul in a box at the Opera, standing to applaud ... in a gondola at the park, his laughing face handsome in the sunlight ... him in black, stiff and nervous and yet so appealing on our wedding day ...

And I felt empty.

A heavy weight of shock hung over me, but I felt ... nothing. No pain, no remorse, no affection ...

No love.

Numbness.

My hand stirred over my side, unconsciously tracing the line of the scar caused by the knife with which Raoul had struck me last February, the discoloration of the flesh where he had beat an insane symphony of rage on my lower body and the bruises had been so deep, so painful, that the marks had never truly left my flesh ... the injuries I had never told Erik about and which, like any proper gentleman, he had never asked to see, but which had caused me silent agony throughout the nights for months after the bruises Raoul had left on my face faded away. Erik had never known about them ...

And suddenly, through the unwanted flashbacks of Raoul's face contorted with an inhuman fury, the little Italian maid cowering in a corner while he raged and shattered china around the kitchen, the blood spilling over my breasts and stomach when I tried to wash the wound in the privacy of my own room ... there came another picture.

A silhouette, warm and kind by the fire, reading aloud ... a soft, comforting voice in the night after one of my nightmares which I never truly managed to shift ... the music of angels and the love of a man who never expected anything in return ...

I owed Raoul nothing.

And I owed Erik everything.

I rose slowly, crumpling the paper in my hand and almost dropping it into the fire ... but at the last moment thinking better of it.

I made my way back to my room, pushing open the door and greeting Nadir's smile of welcome with a half-smile of my own.

His eyes swept me, concern evident at my rapid change from almost euphoric relief when I left the room to reflectively philosophical now I re-entered.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I offered him the newspaper by way of reply. He took it, looking mildly confused, caught sight of the headline and let his breath out in a deep sigh.

He rose and gestured towards his chair.

"Sit down," he said quietly. "You've had a shock."

I sat down on the edge of the bed, ignoring the proffered seat.

"Did you know about this?" I asked quietly.

He sat down heavily, looking very tired. He shook his head slowly, his eyes holding a distant sadness and an expression almost of resignation.

"No ..." he said slowly. "No, I didn't know."

"But you're not surprised."

He sighed deeply, and shook his head, glancing back at the newspaper.

"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this." His voice was quiet, reflective. "But ... no, I'm not really surprised."

I looked up at him, and was caught off balance by the level of understanding in his eyes.

"You've been following him?"

Again he sighed.

"Not following him exactly ... following his story, if you like. Listening out for the gossip of Paris ... you don't know how lucky you are, fast talkers are so easy to come by here."

He stopped for a moment, glancing at me as if to ask whether he should go on. I nodded, and he continued.

"They say that ... he went - what is the expression? "Off the rails"? He spent money recklessly, money he didn't have to spend ... of course you know he was disinherited. He ... he became involved with some rather unsavoury characters who, so I believe, offered him a chance to clear all his debts and have some left over ... it didn't pay off, of course. But he became more and more involved. I believe a lot of it was just rich young gentlemen getting inebriated and making fools of themselves, but ..."

He sighed heavily. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

I sat perfectly still, my eyes fixed unseeing on the carpet. The numbness was like a blanket around my heart, muffling and smothering the pain I knew I should have felt.

Understanding my silence, Nadir stood up and passed silently out of the room, leaving me alone with Erik and my thoughts.

I moved over to Erik's side and sat down almost automatically.

"So, Erik?" I murmured. "What happens now?"

He did not stir. I sighed and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, feeling the deja vu strike. This situation was beginning to feel distressingly familiar ...

I rose and began to walk around the room, feeling caged in, wishing suddenly that Erik was awake ... insensitive as it might be, he would have listened ... he would have understood.

I almost laughed at my own rationalisation.

Erik ... displaying any reaction to the death of Raoul other than that of suppressed joy?

Miracles will never cease ...

Nadir

I leaned back against the wall, my head aching and my mind spinning.

Her Vicomte dead ... she a free woman. Free to marry again ...

Unbidden, I found myself recalling the look on Erik's face after he sent her away ... the pure, undiluted anguish of a man who loved her enough to release her ... effectively signing his own death warrant. There was no life for him without her ...

The full extent of Erik's mental state in the long weeks after her departure is still almost too painful for me to remember. The unbelievable grief ... it was as if his will to live had gone the day the wedding announcement was published in the paper. He had been quite rational the evening that she left ... he seemed almost dazed, as if he were living in a dream that would shift as soon as morning broke over the dome of the Opera House and release him from the unbelievable torment to which his soul was, yet again, being subjected.

But the next day, he didn't answer the door. The bolts were drawn and the interior was in darkness, silent darkness utterly devoid of the celestial music that could bring light to the deepest pits of hell. I had no choice but to return home, but the feeling of foreboding weighed heavily on me and, as the day wore on, I found I could no longer shake off the ominous dark cloud that seemed to draw me irresistibly back to the Opera and the fallen angel therein.

The house on the lake remained in silent darkness for a week; every day I returned to bang on the door and plead with Erik to let me in - every day my entreaties went unanswered. I almost began to wonder if it would not be better to take an instrument of destruction with me the next time, and force my way in - the unanswered premonition of dread and impending disaster was such that I finally began to believe that it would be worth it.

On the eighth day, the door stood open. This, in itself, was almost as worrying as the silence which had enveloped the house like a shroud for the past week - Erik has always valued his privacy above his life, and that he should simply leave the door swinging open for any curious stagehand who should venture down into the deepest catacombs of the Opéra was absolutely incredible.

I entered cautiously, fearful that Erik might have set some ingenious trap against fools like myself, but my fears proved vain - the house still stood in darkness, and my search of the rooms yielded nothing but that damnable cat of his curled up on the piano stool, eyeing me with lazy contempt.

I finally found him in Christine's room, seated at her vanity table, staring hopelessly into a mirror without the mask and winding a necklace of hers restlessly through his fingers. He didn't seem to register my presence, even when I hesitantly reached out and took the mirror ... I broke it on the stones outside the house later that day and took the frame away to dispose of where he would not find it again.

It was better when he was in this state of dazed, paralysing shock ...

I went back the next day, half expecting him still to be sitting in the room he had furnished for her, staring vacantly at the walls as he retreated further and further inside his own head ... how wrong I was.

I could hear the cat wailing as I approached the house, an almost heartrending sound which might have stirred my pity had it not hissed with its customary bad-tempered hostility towards me as I entered, spitting and showing its claws as it had always done whenever either myself or Christine made our presence known.

I found him crumpled on Christine's bed where he had evidently collapsed the previous day, his breathing shallow and his form, if possible, even more emaciated than ever. It didn't really surprise me that he hadn't bothered with nonessentials like food since her desertion ...

For the next two days he slipped in and out of consciousness, his sleep fevered and interrupted with nightmares at distressingly regular intervals, his waking moments governed mainly by delirium ... I often wonder how I survived those days and the long nights. To see a soul in such torment, agony beyond expression and beyond all help and yet retain your sanity ...

The morning he woke up and, for the first time in two weeks, recognised me and remembered all that had occurred, he rose as if nothing had happened and proceeded to play the role of the perfect host, courteous and polite and beyond reproach in every way, thanking me for my help in taking care of Ayesha and making no other reference to the events of the past three weeks.

It wasn't until he believed I had gone that he finally broke down under the pressure of the repressed emotion and intense grief he would never forget, or truly recover from ... not even if his God's cruelty extended his life by another fifty years.

Enough regrets. I knew what I had to do.

Christine

Nadir re-entered the room about an hour later. He smiled briefly at me and offered me a hand to help me rise. I raised an eyebrow slightly in confusion ... I didn't want to leave now; if Erik should wake and find me gone again ...

"Please ..." he said politely. "Do come into the other room. I should like to speak with you, and ... although I'm sure some enjoy having an audience to their conversations, I fear I am not of their number."

Slightly surprised at his sudden formality and yet mildly amused by the idea that Erik could witness anything in his current state of oblivion, I accepted his hand and followed him into the drawing room, where he offered me a seat and walked over to stand by the dresser with his back to me.

He remained silent for a few moments, then turned to face me with what I can only describe as a sudden burst of determination. His first words caught me completely off balance.

"You're a free woman now," he said slowly. He hesitated slightly, then plunged forward. "Don't you think that perhaps ... perhaps it's time you told Erik something?"

I went cold and turned away to study a small ebony squirrel carved into the fireplace, touching my fingers lightly to the intricate relief of its tail.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said helplessly, silently praying that he would leave it at that and not press me further.

"Oh, please don't pretend to be dense, Christine, it doesn't suit you at all. Did it never occur to you that perhaps an impartial observer can see what Erik is too afraid ... too blind to see?" He sighed, and I could sense his frustration even across the gaping emptiness that separated us.

"Afraid?" I heard myself laugh with soft derision. "Erik has never been afraid of anything."

He let out a short laugh, a bitter, faintly sad sound utterly devoid of humour.

"No ..." he agreed. "Never anything on the face of this earth ..." He fell silent and I knew that he was thinking of Erik's continuous indifference to his fate and disregard for his own health ... those scars ...

"But he is afraid of you. Of what he feels for you ... he isn't strong enough to face having his heart broken again."

I shook my head, dismissing his words; I knew that Erik had long since ceased to care for me as anything in excess of the role of the daughter Fate had denied him. "You don't know that. It's not true."

He caught hold of my arm, turning me, forcing me to meet his eyes.

"No?"

I closed my eyes, forcing back the tears pricking against my eyelids. A pitiful whisper escaped my lips. "Don't ..."

He sighed deeply and let go of my arm, taking a step back and crossing the room to stand with his back to me by the opposite wall.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked quietly, without turning to look at me. "What makes you so blind?"

I looked up. "I don't understand."

He laughed slightly. "No ... that doesn't really surprise me. You and he are both extraordinarily bad at hiding your feelings, and yet you are both so incapable of recognising the same affections in each other ..."

"What?"

"Oh, Christine, don't be blind! He loves you as much as he ever did ... more than you can ever know." He turned back to look at me, his eyes filled with an emotion I could not comprehend, but the sincerity in his voice was irrefutable.

I stayed silent, staring down at my fingers ... was he mad, was he lying, was he right ...?

"How do you know?" I asked, my voice cracking under the pressure of a sudden tide of emotion I could not suppress ... for all Erik's tuition, my acting is still as bad as ever it was!

"How do I know?" he repeated slowly. "Because I have two eyes and because I am able to use them in a way that neither you nor he seem capable of."

His eyes bored into mine, his words irrefutable, his tone brooking no denial. "He has killed for you ... he took you off the streets when you left the man for whom you had deserted him ..."

I sat down rather more suddenly than I had intended, my legs giving way beneath me. Ignoring my contemptible weakness, Nadir continued, his voice still gentle but with an irresistible note of command which reminded me absurdly of Erik's.

"And I know that you love him too." Seeing the look in my eyes, he held up one hand and shook his head. "Deny it to me if you must, but not to him ... he deserves more than that from you now."

I gripped my wrists in a futile attempt to stop myself from shaking. In less than one minute's worth of calculated emotional attack he had stripped away every one of my defences and forced me to face the cold reality of my own failings, both to myself and to Erik.

"What do you want me to say?" I whispered brokenly, trying to conceal my tears and failing miserably.

He sighed. "Do you love him?"

"You know I do," I managed through the ache in my throat, feeling my lungs constrict as I realised that this was the first time I had truly admitted it, even to myself ...

Feeling my throat tighten, I continued, "That's hardly the point though, is it?"

A voice came from the doorway, startling both myself and Nadir and causing us to spin around like guilty children playing truant.

"Oh no, my dear, I'm afraid I will have to contradict you on that point ... I don't think you could be more wrong if you tried."

Nadir and I exchanged frantic startled glances as he took a step forward into the room, his movements as graceful as ever, barely hampered by the deep knife wound which still traced his side.

Far too shocked to speak, I could do nothing but stare at him in wonder and sudden fear as he crossed the room to stand by the fireplace, his back rigid and his silhouette as impressive as ever.

"So, my dear?" he said, turning at last to face me. "Is there a matter we should discuss ... or am I perhaps misreading the situation again?"