Disclaimer: If I owned The Phantom of the Opera Micheal Crawford would be in the movie, Christine would be a nice, sensible girl who cared more for hearts than looks, and Raoul wouldn't be a fop. Since I don't see any of those things happening soon, I guess I don't own it. WOW! That's a suprise! And, I'm not making any money, so nobody has the grounds to sue me. (Sticks tounge out.) Nyeah! However, I do own Lyra's character if not her name and if I see her running around anywhere else I will hunt you down and Punjab you out of exisistence. (That is, unless you ask me first.) So now that that is settled, on with the show!

Christine:

I stabled Aida, and went into the house. There, sitting just by the door, was Raoul. He stood as I came in.

"Christine," he said softly, holding out his arms.

I fell into them. We held each other, closer than we had in years. -He's such a boy.- I thought. -The poor dear, he's had just as bad a day as I have.-

I tilted my head back to see him, and his lips pressed down on mine. I barely noticed. -I do love him. I do! I love him so much! But, sometimes...-

He broke away from me, gazing down at me searchingly. "Are you all right, my love?"

"Yes, Raoul. I'm fine." I paused, not sure how to phrase this. "The baby?"

He knew what I meant. He always did. "I gave him to the servants. They'll prepare him, and we can bury him tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" He couldn't find out about the girl. In a way, I was cheating on him by having her here, if not physically then mentally. I was desperate for news about my Angel.

"You're right, my dear. It's too soon. We'll bury him the day after." He turned away, but I had seen the tears in his eyes.

"It's alright to cry, Raoul. It's natural."

"I'm not crying," he insisted throatilly. "I... Christine, I have to leave."

"What?"

"I have buisness in town, and I probably won't be back until the day after. We can bury the baby then."

"What buisness?" I had been married to him for almost eight years, and I saw what buisness in his face. "No. Raoul, please. She ran away, couldn't you see that? He would never have allowed anyone he loved to run around in such rags."

"Perhaps he doesn't love her. Maybe he raised her for this sole purpose. Maybe he just hired her to spy on us, with a clever counterstory. Maybe he knew that you would think that. He's a genius, Christine, who knows what he thought! The point is, she was here. He obviously sent her."

"How do you know? She could have been, I believe she WAS telling the truth."

"That's what you WANT to believe! I just want to protect you!"

"How, by getting Erik mad and yourself killed? He is innocent until you can prove otherwise, Raoul!"

"Then I'll get the evidence to prove it to you! I have to do something Christine, if I don't I'll go MAD!!!"

"Oh, Raoul." I took him back into my arms, comforting him as I did Phillippe. "Alright, go and try to get the evidence. However, you must not try to hurt him, no matter what you find. When you think that you have proof, come back here. Then we'll see what we can do. And for goodness sakes Raoul, don't get caught! Promise me!"

"I promise," he whispered.

I pulled back, and took his hand. My headache was back, but I managed to smile at him."Now, let's get you packed."

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Lyra:

The next morning, when I woke up in my little cottage, the roof was leaking terribly. I got up out of my soggy bed and walked over to the door. It was pouring, as if some celestial spigot had been turned all of the way on and left that way. The thought of walking all the way through that was, to say the least, unappetizing. But, that was what I was going to do.

By the time I knocked on the front door, I was completely soaked. My hair clung to my head like a skull cap, and little rivulets flowed beneath my mask, making it almost impossible to see. All of my clothing, even my once-thick cloak, had stuck to my body like second and third skins. This, of course, made me feel quite confident when Madame Christine opened the door in a beautiful red and white dress. I noticed that she was leaning slightly to one side, but didn't think anything of it at the time. She looked out at me and gave a start.

"Surely you haven't walked!"

"I'm afraid so, Madame. It was all that I could do."

"Oh. Come in then! For goodness sakes! Come and we'll see if I have something you could wear until that gets dry, and then we'll talk."

I ended up, after about an hour, in her room, wearing the borrowed work clothes of the chief cook's eleven year old son. They were a bit tight in some places, and a bit loose in others, but they were much warmer than the ventilated outfit I had been wearing.

"I tell you what," said Madame. "You can keep those. I'll buy the boy more clothes, and I'll throw these things out." She gestured to the pile of wetness in the corner.

I wasn't about to fight with that. "Thank you Madame."

"Please, Christine. What's your name?"

"Lyra Angen, or, well, just Lyra really."

She beamed at me. "Then you know our Phillippe! He came home for Christmas break gushing of a Lyra Angen who had befriended him at a dance."

"Phillippe de Changy? He's yours? You are truly blessed Mada... Christine. He is one of the brightest children I have ever met."

"Oh, thank you! Yes, he was precocious even when..." she trailed off, looking at the closed doors at the end of the hall. "Even when he was a baby." she finished in a whisper, tears trickling down her face. She pressed her hand to her head, and grimaced as if she was in pain.

"I'm sorry Christine."

"Oh well, there's nothing anyone can do about it now, is there?" she murmured softly. Then she brightened up and said, "Well, let's go down to the parlor. We can talk there."

The parlor was, like the rest of the house, over done. There was nothing but velvet and wood, with no variations or striking differences. Seeing it brought Home into my head, pointing out all of the differences and triggering a wave of homesickness. I found a chair that had a little less padding than the rest and sank into it.

Christine sat in a plush monstrosity that threatened to swallow her. When she sat, you could see the trussing she had holding into her dress. She was no small young girl, although you could tell that she used to be. She smiled at me and opened her mouth to say something.

"Please, Christine," I cut her off, "tell me your story first. That way, I can know what I'm telling you."

"Alright," she said, frowning. " although I don't really know where to begin."

"The beginning would be preferable."

She looked up at me, surprised, and let go a small bark of a laugh. "You're just like him. He would do the same thing if I was being stupid. He was never angry, he would just point it out..."

"I know."

"Of course you do. Well, I guess that it all starts with my father..."

And so I learned the story. I was transported back in time, as was she. When she got to the first "kidnapping" she began to sing the song he had written for her. In a few lines, I heard his voice instead of hers. By the end, we were both crying,for vastly different reasons, I'm sure, but still. I couldn't tell if the story or her telling was what caught me up, but I think that it was both. Finally, the end came.

"And I kissed him. In that moment, I pitied him more than any other creature on earth. I might have stayed. But, he sent me away with Raoul and the Persian. We ran to the boat, and all around us came the mob. They were swimming, like rats toward shore. There were door-openers, lamp lighters, cast members, people from the audience, everyone. I didn't care. I was with Raoul, and I was losing my Angel. I sang, but I don't know who I sang to. And then, his voice. It was the last time I ever heard it. I had killed him, I was sure of it. I cried all the way to this house. Raoul and I were married a week later, and Phillippe came nine months after that. The rest is probably obvious. Now it is your turn. Tell me, is he alright?"

"First, where did you hear that lullabye? The one you sang yesterday."

"Oh, that. My father sang it for me when I was young and I brought it to the opera house. Erik must have heard me singing it sometime, because he sang it to me as proof that my father had sent the Angel of Music at last. But, is he alright?"

"Yes, Christine, father is fine. He found me on the street about a year after you left him. I'm amazed he was still alive. And, I'm sorry, but that is all I can tell you."

"What! Why?"

"Because you left. He loved you, and you loved him, but not enough to risk anything for him. If I told you where he was or what he was doing, you'd try and find him. Please, for both of your sakes, don't try. It would kill him when you left again, and it wouldn't do you any good either. Now, thank you for the tea. I must go."

"But, it's still raining outside!"

"I got here, I can get back."

"But, I have to know!"

"No you don't. You're married. You have a child. So does he for that matter, me. It would do no one any good."

"Yes, I'm married. Married to a jealous boy who is suspicious even of children..." She seemed to forget that I was even there. Again, she pressed her hand to her head.

"What?"

She snapped back into the here-and-now. There was an unnatural light in her eyes. Her hand went from her forehead to herlap. "Yes, a husband who has deserted me to find out if an old rival of his is still fighting him. A husband who packed a gun when he didn't think I was looking. A husband who intends to break his vow. A husband with a death wish."

"Oh cripes. Father!" I grabbed my soaking cloak and ran out the door to the sound of a mad woman screaming, "A husband who has practised with his gun every weekend for eight years!"

I had to get home.

A/N: Remember, Christine lovers, not all is as it seems, and REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!!

Angelofnight: I took your advice to heart, really I did! Why shouldn't I? It's good advice. But, I write confrontation scenes that way. I guess that it's kind of like the fight scenes in X-Men, the Movie, you get several shots that tell the story from different points of view. And, like I've said before, I have written ahead quite a ways, so most of the future confrontations will be like that, next chapter for example. Hopefully this one wasn't as jointed, it had a lot fewer shifts in perspective. That's mostly because it really focuses on Christine and Lyra alone. Don't give up on me though, I'll try to make everything clearer from now on! (Hence the identification of who was talking in this chapter.)