Jazzetry's Author Note: A brief suggestion…This next chapter would be ideal if translated into Spanish and performed as a modern-day novella. Imagine Christine as a beautiful Hispanic woman, pleading, "No, Raúl, no puedo casarte!" Just as he leans back to slap her across the face for insulting his honor. Perfecto.

Christine and the Phantom

Chapter Nine: Goodbyes

The fabric dipped and bowed, the black under layers disappearing into vague shadows. The darkness swirled and twisted around the puffs of fabric covering the silver mirrors, a black river of velvet drapery. The silhouettes of the shadows in the west wing had crept up on the girl, until she found herself immersed in their inky darkness, despite the bright sunshine in the rest of the house. Christine's black-cloaked figure faded into the gloomy coverings, leaving only her head visible, a floating specter haunting the halls of Castle Nuit.

She was hesitant to disturb Erik, but she couldn't let her father just die alone…

Approaching the looming door, she raised her hand and knocked rapidly. "What do you want?" Erik swung the door open so forcefully that Christine stepped back.

Erik was unlike she had ever seen him before. His customary black gloves, coat, and vest had been discarded, leaving him in a pair of black trousers and a loose white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. In his left hand he held a half-empty glass of whiskey. He looked more human than the frightful phantom she had learned to accept.

His eyes softened as he looked at Christine, and, as an afterthought, he pulled the door closed just enough to cover the masked side of his face. Immediately, his blue orbs traveled down to the small suitcase tightly clutched in Christine's hand.

Worried about his reaction to her departure, Christine hurriedly said, "Erik, my father is dying – I must see him! I promise to return as soon as possible, but I need to be with him – "

He raised his hand, cutting off her speech. Erik spoke slowly, weighing each of his words carefully. "You have always been free to wander as you like."

"Then," Christine stumbled, "Why have you led me to believe I am your prisoner?" She had complained of being his captive, but now she realized that no locks kept her contained, no gate was closed to her. Those days before she knew Erik, before he began to play for her, there was plenty of time to escape the castle. She had chosen to remain.

Seeing an opportunity, Christine forged ahead, "So I may leave to see my father?"

He nodded, "Yes, even leave forever if you wish. I only want," Erik paused, and Christine worried he would not continue his thoughts. "I only want you to be happy." He paused a moment before reaching into his pocket, "This is yours." He took her free hand and placed the broken chain on her palm, complete with its ornaments.

Christine stood awkwardly outside Erik's bedroom with Raoul's engagement ring glittering in her hand. Not knowing how to make her exit, she leaned to politely peck Erik's cheek and muttered, "Goodbye, then."

As Christine rode away on Belle, she looked back at the window to Erik's study. He stood there watching her until she disappeared from view.

The Maison des Lunes was an ugly building. An institution for the insane, the designers had not thought superfluous ornamentation necessary, opting to leave the edifice a blank palate of gray stone. The small windows that dotted the structure were covered with thick iron bars, and rain had caused the bars to bleed delicate trails of rust over the past years. The insane and otherwise unwanted members of the area usually found their way into the clasp of the Maison and it's unscrupulous director.

Christine approached the building at a quick pace, fearing the worse for her father's health. He had been so ill the last time she had seen him, and if accounts of the Maison were true, the madhouse surely was not helping his condition.

Persistently, she knocked on the Maison's doors until Monsieur D'Arque himself answered.

"Yes? Can I help you?" The man was thin and gnarled, not nearly as terrifying as Christine had imagined. The only negative aspect she could perceive was an unsettling tendency to speak in a monotone, gravelly voice.

"I am here to see a patient," Christine mustered all the courage she could find to say, "A patient you have wrongly imprisoned."

D'Arque chuckled, "Really?"

She lifted her chin, insulted by his mockery. "Yes. Stephan Daae."

He grudgingly stepped aside and allowed her to enter, "Of course. This way, please." Christine entered the empty foyer as D'Arque locked the door behind her. She jumped at the finality of it bolting into place. Silently, the director led the way through the asylum, ever closer to her father.

The first room, a large hall rather, was filled with beds and patients. A common room, the victims were either chained to their beds or wandering aimlessly about. There were giggling children playing in the straw strewn across the floor, sad women knitting baby clothing, and old men spitting blood onto the ground next to their beds for want of some other place to deposit it. Angrily, Christine clutched her suitcase until her knuckles whitened under the pressure. No wonder her father was dying in a place like this! Filth filled the corners, and the windows, perpetually shut tight, admitted neither fresh air nor sunlight.

D'Arque spoke almost joyfully, "This is the pauper's quarters. We house nearly one hundred and forty patients here at a time, all charity cases."

"Paupers? Is he here? You mean none of my father's friends thought to give him at least a private room?"

D'Arque grumbled, "He was moved earlier today into a private room by a friend. The young man has been here all day."

Christine eyes widened at that admission. She knew who that young man was and what he wanted from her in return.

D'Arque left her at the door to her father's room, and she swallowed her apprehension before knocking softly and entering the room.

The room was spacious and moderately clean despite its sparse decoration. Her father lay barely conscious on the thin bed and Christine immediately kneeled by his side. Raoul, impeccably calm, stood when Christine entered the room.

"Christine..."He murmured, saying her name more as a prayer than a plea for attention.

"How is he?" She knew the answer, but couldn't resist the torture of hearing Raoul repeat the words echoing through her thoughts. Her eyes remained locked on her father's pale and drawn face.

"He's dying. I've tried to reach a doctor, but the only person I can find is some incompetent nurse."

"How did he get this way?" If Stephan died from being chained up in that dank dungeon, Christine would not know if she could ever look at Erik again.

"He was fine when he was committed, but a flu epidemic has stricken the asylum, including him. The damned place!" Frustrated, Raoul combed a hand through his hair impatiently.

She tried to get a response from her father, squeezing his hand and speaking soothingly in his ear. "Papa, I'm here. I'm alright."

She sat for nearly an hour without a word from Raoul or her father. When he died, Christine leaned over, clutching his clothing, and wept over his body. He passed quietly, without any recognition of his daughter, any touching last words, without even a last convulsion or tremor. His eyes simply stopped shining and his head lolled to face Christine, the hand she held going slack.

Raoul silently left the room to return only with the loathsome man that had led Christine through this hellhole of disease and death.

Monsieur D'Arque entered the room with two large guards, quickly ordering them about. "Remove the body."

"Wait!" Christine stood up quickly, laying a protective hand over her father's corpse. She may not have been able to protect him, but at least she could see he was properly put to rest. "He can't be buried here…"

D'Arque laughed, "Bury him where you wish, just as long as you can get him there and dig a six-foot deep hole to dump him in."

Raoul spoke up for the first time in hours. "I have a carriage. I will buy the coffin and take him to a proper resting place." Raoul looked over at Christine and she nodded in silent approval.

D'Arque bowed sarcastically and said to his men, "You heard Monsieur le Vicomte."

Raoul nodded, "Thank you gentlemen. My coach will be waiting downstairs." With that, he took Christine's elbow and led her out of the room, out of the Maison, and into the fading afternoon sun.

She spoke humbly as he walked to call his driver who rested within the carriage behind the offensive building. "Thank you Raoul. That was kind."

Grimly, Raoul said, "I don't need your thanks. Stephan was a good man."

Christine nodded at that. Together they drove the casket to the cottage. Raoul and his driver dug the grave under a large sycamore while Christine cleaned the house, left in shambles from D'Arque's no-doubt violent abduction of her father.

The sun slipped from the sky as the last shovel of dirt was removed from the grave. As she was organizing Stephan's sheets of music, Raoul entered, his coat and vest discarded, sleeves rolled, reminding her vaguely of the last time she had seen Erik.

"I've sent Jacques to fetch a priest."

"Thank you Raoul." She didn't dare look at him, feeling abominable for the eventual pain she would cause him.

Suddenly, he blurted out, "I need to know where you've been this past week."

Torn between a strange loyalty to Erik and the honest answer Raoul deserved, Christine compromised, "I've been staying with a friend."

"A friend?" he repeated incredulously.

Christine didn't understand quite what Raoul was suggesting, but she continued, "Yes. I'm also afraid that I can't marry you Raoul. I am very grateful for all you've done, and I will try to repay you somehow, but I can't marry you." She returned the ring, pressing it into the lax palm of his hand. "Please, don't ask why."

"Carlotta was right, then." Raoul spoke softly. Completely lost, Christine tried to ask what he meant, but Raoul interrupted her: "You've found someone better than a vicomte? He must be incredibly wealthy."

Startled, Christine gasped, "What?"

"My honor, undying love, and fortune wasn't enough? You'd rather become a…a whore?" He broke then, falling to his knees and laying his head in his hands, begging, "Say it's not true, say you don't have a lover."

Gently, she stroked his hair and said, "I don't have lover…"

"Thank God!"

"But I cannot marry you, Raoul."

He looked into her pity-filled eyes and quickly moved away from her, disgusted with her and with his overly emotional reaction. His eyes grew small and dark just as the carriage pulled up the driveway with the priest. "I'll have you Christine."

She shivered, but relaxed when she heard him get in the carriage and call the driver to move on. Slowly Christine went out to meet the priest who stood on her doorstep, looking slightly bewildered in the early night.

After the funeral, she locked the cottage and began the journey to Castle Nuit through a light rain. The people there were the closest thing she had to family now. She could not be alone this night – she had to be back with Erik as soon as possible.

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Padme's Author Note: So what'd you think about our soap opera? Well, not quite a novella, but close to it. As you can see we went with a compromise between the Eriks, he's drinking but not drunk, and he still cares for Christine here.