Sorry it took me so long to update, but my semester is about to start and I had to do a lot of work, so...

Anywho: Thanks to my reviewers! I love you, guys (though I wonder where my two faithful R'n'R's Galasriniel and TheSiriusSparrow have gone...O.O)

-Chapter Sixteen - Turn around-

When she wakes again, the sun has just begun to rise over Paris.

Groaning softly, she stretches her back and walks over to the window to look out into the awakening world. After a while she turns and lets her eyes wander around the room until they come to rest on Leah who is still sleeping tightly. She thinks about the life that she envisioned for herself: The future of an ambitioned archaeologist, the future of a singer and guitarist in a small but good punk project named 'Chablis', the future of the best friend of an odd, lovely woman that for many years meant more to her than anything else...

It all seems so beautiful, so promising and right in the pale light of morning and she loves it, loves it so much that it hurts.

Yet all her wishes and dreams, all the fears that still haunt her to the point of nausea... they're just meaningless when Erik is sad because she isn't with him.

Her prophecy came true... She died in his voice and was reborn, belonging to Earth no longer.

Silently she fetches a pencil and a piece of paper and writes a letter for Leah.

She walks fast, her boots banging the pavement with some accentuation. She can't wait to see him again, to tell him, that she loves him, that she will never leave him again, even if it means to spend the rest of her life in the catacombs under his Opera. But then she stops and her eyes grow wide.

What if losing her cost him his last bit of sanity? What if he left Paris? What if he finally found a way to end his life?

With a curse she starts to run.

No one waits for her in the darkness behind the gate, but her flashlight shows her a boat with a line attached, that seems to hover above the water.

Hastily Carla enters the boat, that starts to move as soon as she sits safely in the bow.

"Faster... Go faster..." she mumbles impatiently. "Erik needs me. You have to go faster, turn into a speed boat, darn!" At least all the walls and portcullis are open for the sake of the line so that she doesn't have to figure out all the mechanisms.

When she finally reaches Erik's front door, she takes a deep breath. This will be her home, too. And perhaps she will share it with more of a madman than she could ever imagine...

Hastily she touches the mechanism and enters the main corridor.

"Erik?" she clears her throat "Erik, are you there?" She looks into the kitchen, the dining room, the library, her room, his room... And there he is, sitting motionlessly at the piano.

"Erik... I'm back..." Carla whispers amid her tears.

"Carla..." his voice sounds hoarse as if he had been crying. With a start he gets up to his feet and turns his back on her to walk over to his chaiselongue. "So you actually returned to end my incertainity? Well, that tells me that you're either very brave or very stupid. However, I hope you will not start to attack the walls again, it will be useless this time, for..."

"I love you, Erik."

At she sound of her whispered words he stops. Unbelievingly he turns around and stares at her.

"I love you." Carla softly repeats. "I..." she sniffles "I will never leave you again, I promise."

An instance passes in which he frowns as if he had a hard time figuring out the meaning of some cryptic noises. But then it's only one floating movement that brings him to her, one endlessly gentle gesture that encloses her warm body in his arms.

With a deep sigh she leans her face to his neck and opens up to the warm feeling that begins to spread out from the center of her being. This is where she belongs now. This is where she wants to rest forever. Buried in Erik's arms, melting, merging, becoming one with him.

When she lifts up her head again and gropes for the ribbons that hold his mask, he takes her up and turns around so that he stands protectingly between her and the door.

"No one will shoot me, Erik." she whispers, cradling his teardrenched cheek in her hand "I'm here to stay." Then her lips find his and the world ceases to exist, dissolves in the endless ocean of fulfillment.

Suddenly there is some kind of bang and Erik stumbles backwards, his face twisted to a grimace of pain, his hand clawing into his shoulder.

Bewildered, Carla looks to to the door, but there is no one.

"What happened, Erik! What..." She stops when a strange sensation grips her, as if a cold cloud would permeate her body. Her mind fills up with alien thoughts, feelings, smells, sights, as if she would breathe in Christine's memories and dreams, her entire being. For it is Christine's spirit that passes through her and for the one second that it's passage lasts, shares with her all it knows: When she was shot, Christine's shocked spirit bound itself to the first available object. This object was Erik's body, who was still open with the love for her. Unfortunately the moment she bound herself to him, was the moment, Raoul's bullet had passed half way through his shoulder, and as binding objects are resistent to major changes - exept those produced by the bound spirit - the bullet stopped; as another consequence, Erik ceased to age and gained the powers that are more or less typical for obesessed humans.

Christine stayed with Erik, partly because she wanted to, partly because he was closed again and she couldn't detach. She didn't fully understand then what had happened, but when Erik tried to kill himself it scared her so that she found a way to wander free. And as it's generally not the best of all possible feelings to share a body with a depressed and mourning person, even if you love him, she stayed out, taking refuge to him only while he slept.

When Raoul's skeleton was found during the construction works under the Opera, the fear of losing her remains showed her a way to communicate with Erik and call him to her rescue. Finally she was able to kind of care for him and no longer condemned to helplessly watch his sadness.

The decades passed and little by little, Erik began to heal. There still were bad days when depression raged in him, but all in all he made some progress. And eventually the day came, when he was ready to feel for someone else than her again.

For some weeks Christine searched the Opera for the one woman that was worthy of Erik's love. She found Carla and sent Erik to get her.

The loving kiss that they shared opened up Erik's body again and Christine could detach and can now, finally, return to everything and nothingness...

Slowly, Carla breathes out. The feelings that Christine's spirit showed her subside, the memories fade, leaving nothing but faint traces and the certainity that there was a moment of knowledge and understanding.

"She's gone..." Erik whispers, playing with the bloody bullet in his hand. "Now she's really gone..."

Gently, Carla strikes his arm.

"I am still here with you, Erik. And I will not go away."

"I know. " he answers, giving her a half sad, half happy smile "I love you."

"Gosh, it's so good to hear that from you!" Carla sighs and places a kiss on his cheek "And now I must dress your injury, Erik. Do you have any bandages here?"

"That is not necessary. Christine healed it before she went to tell you what happened." he explains, putting the bullet into the pocket of his trousers and wiping the blood off his hand with a handcerchief.

" Then..." Carla lays her hand to his cheek, and when he looks up, she catches his lips with hers and drags him down once more into a kiss, so full of longing, that his heart begins to race and his body starts to ache with the predominant need of being as close to her as possible. Gently he lifts her up to carry her over to the bed where they will shut out the world with black curtains and be only the two of them, naked, helpless, loving.