TITLE: The Angel's Second Chance

AUTHOR: Maki / EriksSylvia

DISTRIBUTION: If you want to put this somewhere else email me first.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any characters.

RATING: R

SUMMARY: Erik is sent back in time for one last chance. Can he make Christine fall in love with him?

COUPLES: Erik and Christine

Prologue

He sat alone in the catacombs of the Opera House. He didn't talk much anymore for no one dared come to speak with him. Most of the cast had returned to the Opera Populaire after it's destruction and reconstruction in the previous year. Those brace enough to return still remembered the infamous Opera Ghost and warned the new members. Not even Mme Giry dare enter anymore. So, there he was left alone to drown in his memories of his beautiful Angel. He'd not had a decent night's sleep since she'd left him with her Viscount. When he did manage to drift off he'd hear her sing in his head.

'Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known?'

His back against one of the many stone walls he brought his knees to his chest. So childlike he'd become in his solitude.

"Pathetic."

He whispered to himself. With a sudden jerk he slammed the back of his head into the wall. It stung slightly but he hardly felt pain anymore. He closed his eyes and willed the pain to come but it was useless. He brought his hands to his face and felt the scaring on his cheek. He did not wear his mask anymore as there was no one to be frightened by the deformity. His thoughts drifted to Christine once more.

'This haunted face holds no horror for me now. It's in your soul that the true distortion lies.'

"Erik, you pathetic fool. Why wont you forget her."

His throat was sore and it pained him to speak, with his right hand he reached out and searched for something he knew would be there. His fingers enclosed on one of the many broken pieces of glass that littered the ground. He held it in front of him and looked at himself. His eyes changed so much over the last year. They'd become so cold and empty. New scars donned his already disfigured face, it was the only way to release his pain anymore. He pressed the shard into his cheek and slid it down an inch. He felt the blood rise to the surface of his new wound. What did he care if it scarred? Who was there to stare in horror? He let the glass fall the ground and the voices filled his head once again. The voices of his Angel and her lover.

'Share each day with me, each night, each morning'

He stood slowly and trembling.

"Christine, why do you do this to me? Why?!"

He stumbled to his dusty organ and retrieved the ring, Christine's ring.

"Dear, love. You're voice will not fill my soul any longer."

He clenched the ring tightly in his fist. For the first time in months tears came to his eyes. He sang out but it was barely more then a whisper.

'You alone can make my song take flight.'

He walked away still holding the ring. He strode out into the icy water that surrounded his home and retrieved his noose from the rusted gate. As soon as his fingers touched the cold, stiff rope memories flooded back.

'Angel of Music you deceived me.'

"I gave you my mind blindly!"

Christine said through her tears. The Phantom was sick of her childish mind games. He would not let her make him feel guilty any longer.

"You try my patience! Make your choice!"

He jerked the rope and it tightened it's grip around her precious Viscount's neck.

"Erik, this is why you're alone. How could you ask something like that of her. She was nothing more then a child! She was 16 years old."

He walked through the ice-like water back to his dark hell. Erik lifted an old tapestry and walked into a dark hallway that was once concealed behind a mirror. He hear the glass break under his boots as he walked along to his salvation.

------

Meg Giry laced up the straps to her ballet slippers and listened to the other girls in the ballet corps giggle and gossip. A year had passed since her best friend had left with her fiancé, Raoul, and little Meg was very lonely. She dearly missed her friend but something else had risen in her that night she left. When she had gone into the catacombs she'd come across a white mask. The mask that had once concealed the face of her mother's dearest friend. She was relieved, in a way, to find that he'd escaped. Since his disappearance Meg had become rather obsessed in his possible whereabouts. Erik had left a hole in her, she had always been somehow comforted by his presence but all had been quiet since that night.

She went to the stage and began to stretch, she often wished to be alone while she worked out her muscles or danced. Once in a while she'd look up, into the rafters, hoping to see him there. She sighed and stood up. With a sad glance upwards she began to dance.

------

Erik quietly climbed up into the rafters above the stage and tightly tied one end of his Punjab lasso to a sturdy beam. He laughed at his choice of ending. He slipped the noose over his head and closed his eyes, He took a few trembling steps forward and re-opened his eyes. He was standing on the edge, ready for hell to take him.

------

Meg heard something above her and her heart skipped a beat. Could it be him? She jerked her head upward and saw a man standing at the edge of one of the platforms. She walked backwards a few steps so to get a better look. What she saw made her scream. Erik was going to hang himself.

------

Erik twitched when he heard the girl scream. He looked down and saw Mme Giry's little blonde girl. He wasn't going to let this stop him.

"Christine. Goodbye, my Angel."

With a final breath he slipped off the edge.

------

Meg watched in horror as he fell. She closed her eyes and screamed. When she silenced, she heard nothing. Not the straining of the rope under his weight, nothing. When she gathered the courage to open her eyes she saw nothing before her but the noose. Erik was gone.