Chapter Summary: Raoul and Christine, Andrew and Annalise - a reconciliation and a future secured

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

He had ridden most of the day, memories from Hell hard on his heels. When he had realized he could no longer outrun them, he had stopped to let the memories catch him. They had churned in his stomach and gutted his soul. They had brought forth the pain and despair he had spent years burying deep within. The memories from Hell had caught him and left him the weak, silly boy everyone had thought him. Then he became angry with himself for letting his emotions overwhelm his reason and common sense. The anger was worse than the memories for it had been something he had lived with all his life, never allowing any to see it. He had spent a lifetime proving to the world that he was better than they thought him. He had spent years proving it to the one person he had loved more than his very life. He had spent years proving it to himself. His anger had led him to walk his horse back to its stable, the walk taking hours and clearing his head of grim thoughts. His heart and soul had still despaired, though, as he had walked through the front doors of his home and found it dark and still.

Raoul shook his head as he climbed the grand staircase. He had been the fool the world thought him. He had let his wife slip through his fingers. He had done the one thing that had haunted him all his life; he had given Christine the freedom to walk away from him. She had taken it and walked right into that man's arms. He had known the connection between his wife and The Phantom would be too powerful for them to overcome. Now the worst had happened and Raoul suddenly felt a sad peace descend upon him. He had done it and it was over and the memories from Hell, the fears, the uncertainty, were gone leaving in their wake a calm loneliness. He had had nearly twenty-five years with Christine. They were good years with good memories and that was something that no one could take from him.

Raoul gave a great sigh and composed himself as he stopped at the door to his daughter's room. He placed his hand on the knob, turning it quietly so the sound would not disturb Annalise. He would not stay, he promised himself, he just wanted to look in to ensure that Annalise was resting peacefully before retiring for the night. Raoul knew he would not sleep but needed the time to himself before speaking to his children in the morning. Save one child; he would do nothing to upset his daughter and hinder her recovery. There would be time enough to tell Annalise about her mother when she was stronger. Raoul gently pushed the bedroom door open and looked into the room.

"Papa," a hoarse voice whispered as Raoul looked in.

Raoul managed a smile as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. The gas lamp on the wall by Annalise's bed was lit but turned down so that it cast a soft glow only near the bed. The rest of the room was in shadow and Raoul noticed a dark shape sitting in the chair by the wardrobe. He thought he should do something nice for Rachel as she was being very considerate of Annalise and going far beyond what any lady's maid would be expected to do. Raoul went to one of the seats still near his daughter's bed, sat down and took Annalise's outstretched hand, raising it to his lips. "What are you still doing awake?" Raoul wondered. "You need your rest."

"I was waiting for you," Annalise whispered back.

"Why?"

"You sent for him," she stated.

Raoul nodded. "I did. I told you that I would for I knew you would want to see him." Raoul watched as his daughter's brow furrowed in confusion. "What is wrong?"

"That was real?" Annalise asked softly.

"Yes," Raoul said and watched as the tears began to fall down his daughter's cheeks.

Annalise cried silently for a long moment before saying anything. "Sometimes I do not know what is real and what is not," she began softly. "I do not know if I have said things that will hurt." Annalise looked at her father. "Oh, God. I have, have I not?" She closed her eyes, continuing to talk through her tears. "He said so many things to me and his words hurt so much. I believed him when he said Gustave was dead and Andrew was dead. I believed him when he said you did not want me anymore because I was damaged in the eyes of society." She inhaled a sob before opening her eyes. "I am no better than he."

"Yes, you are!" Raoul insisted, his tone of voice stern and unyielding. He relented when he noticed how startled his daughter was. "I am sorry, Annalise, for I do not mean to upset you further but you are nothing like him."

"But I am ..."

Raoul shook his head and drew his chair closer to the bed, never letting go of his daughter's hand. "No, you are not." He reached in and took her other hand. "You must listen to what I am going to tell you." Raoul shook his head and exhaled. "What he said to you, what you believe of his words are things that are not real. What is real is that you were so greatly missed. Jean-Paul and Richard joined the gendarmes in their search for you for they wanted to bring you home to us." Raoul smiled softly at the girl who was studying his face with such intensity. "Gustave would become greatly irritated if we did not mention your name at least ten times a day. And I would hear your mother at night when she thought I was sleeping praying softly for your safe return." Raoul took back one of his hands and reached into his pocket pulling out the blue ribbon he had taken from the book all those days ago. He placed it in his daughter's hand. "I found this the day after you were taken from us. I have kept it close this entire time in the, perhaps foolish, belief that you would be able to feel me holding you." Very carefully, Raoul reached in to touch his daughter's cheek. "These are the things that are real: this family and our love for you. These are things you must believe and hold to and remember."

Annalise tightened her grip on her father's hand. "I remember his hands on my throat. I remember not being able to breathe ..."

Raoul took his hand from his daughter's cheek to stroke her arm, cutting off her words before Annalise could panic. "I, too, remember," he said gently. "I cannot tell you that you will ever forget that feeling. I can tell you that the memory of it and the fear it carries will fade with time."

"Promise me," Annalise pleaded with her father. "Please promise me!"

"It is a promise I can keep," Raoul assured her. "It will fade with time. Now you must promise me that you will remember how much this family loves you and wants you." He leaned over to kiss her forehead. "And how we are once again complete now that you are home."

Annalise nodded. "I shall try." She bit her bottom lip. "When he took me, he made me smell something that put me to sleep. When I awoke, I could feel arms about me and I thought it was you coming to comfort my bad dream as you would do when I was a child." Annalise lowered her eyes. "Will you stay with me tonight and keep away the bad dreams?"

Raoul touched his daughter's chin and smiled at her as Annalise raised her head. He reached to wipe away her tears. "I shall be in this chair the entire night until you wake again. You need not fear the bad dreams tonight." Raoul kissed his daughter again. "Now, you must sleep."

Annalise smiled happily. "I can now," she said as she closed her eyes and turned her head on the pillow.

Raoul watched his daughter as her breathing evened out and grew deeper. He sighed and gently brushed the hair from her face. "My sweet little girl," he whispered as he settled into his chair for the evening, "I love you."

"And do you love me, as well?" a voice asked from the darkness.

Startled, Raoul looked up from his daughter's bed to see Christine emerge from the shadows.

"No, I am not Rachel," Christine said as she continued to walk towards her husband. "I knew you would come to see Annalise when you returned." She stopped by the end of her daughter's bed. "I nearly despaired of your returning." Her voice was soft so as not to disturb her sleeping daughter. Christine moved to the seat next to her husband and looked down at his perplexed expression. "You have not answered my question," she reminded him as she sat. "Do you love me?"

"I ..." Raoul began and stopped.

"I am waiting," Christine said. She spoke to him as if he were one of their children.

"Why are you still here?" Raoul wondered, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

Christine sighed in disgust. "Why is it the men in my life have always underestimated me?"

Raoul shook his head and turned it for he could not look his wife in the eye. "It is not you; it is me," he replied. "I have always loved you. I just do not understand how you could love me."

"Excuse me?"

"Annalise said you gave up passion when you married me," Raoul began, still not looking at Christine. "I know she was not aware of what she said but it is a thought I have always carried with me. The passion that drove him, that drives you, it is something I can admire and appreciate but it is something I cannot share." He rubbed his forehead. "I present to the world the face they wish to see - rich, titled - but I am not shallow and I am not stupid even if there are times when I do not feel very strong. I also seem unable to keep my promises to you." Raoul's attention turned to Annalise as she moaned softly and rolled over. He continued to talk to Christine, as their daughter once again grew quiet. "I could not protect you that night and I could not protect Annalise. I promised you I would keep the shadows away from her and I failed and it almost cost our daughter her life. How could you possibly love someone like that?"

"Is that what you think of yourself?" Christine's tone held a tinge of anger and Raoul turned to look at her. "Is it?" There was no answer. "How could you think so little of yourself? How could you think so little of me to think I would love the person you describe?" There was no answer and Christine placed her hand under Raoul's chin. "You told Annalise that she needed to listen to you and now you need to listen to me." She sighed. "If you had not come back into my life, there is a good chance I would still be with Erik. We would have pushed each other and our talents further and further until we both would have fallen from the heights we might have reached. That fall would have destroyed us both, leaving us bitter and broken in the aftermath." Christine's voice and expression softened. "But you did come back to me and you showed me a different world. You showed me a world full of light and laughter where the only thing expected of me was that I would be myself. You asked nothing more of me and because of that I was able to give you everything that I was." She gently pinched her husband's chin. "And if there had been no passion between us, there would have been no children for us to love. I could never have been so vulnerable and intimate with someone who did not make my knees shake or my breath catch in my throat. I trusted you and loved you then and I trust you and love you now."

There was no answer.

"Raoul," Christine continued with a shake of her head. "Sometimes it takes more strength to admit to a weakness and to let the ones you love make mistakes then to never admit to being weak or to making mistakes. You are strong in a quiet, assured way that has brought me more security and comfort over these past years than you will ever know. I have always looked to you for that - to be my strength when I could not find my own. I would never have been able to move past what happened at the opera if you had not. I would never have been able to survive these last two weeks if you had not been strong and calm and here for me - for this whole family."

"I do not feel very strong," Raoul admitted as he glanced as his daughter. He turned back to look at his wife. "I feel like I have failed you both."

"You did not fail either of us," Christine said, taking her hand from his chin and gathering his hands into her own. "You saved me the night you proposed. You saved me from a life of fear and darkness. You freed my heart and my soul and gave me a great gift." She smiled at his quizzical look, loving the little furrow between his brows. "The freedom you gave me allowed me to save you that night under the opera house. I would never have had the courage to do such a thing before you came back to me."

"But I could not save Annalise." Raoul closed his eyes and shook his head. "The moment when my daughter needed me the most, is the moment when I failed her."

"You were not meant to save her."

"What?" Raoul was a bit shocked.

"Everything in this life has a purpose," Christine told him. "You were meant to save me and I was meant to save you. You and I had our hearts and souls and we were complete." She shook her head. "Who did that leave for Erik to save? He said that I gave him back his heart that night but that meant he was still incomplete. He still needed to be redeemed and that was not something you or I could do." Christine gave her husband a gentle smile. "It was something that our daughter was meant to do. Annalise reached out to him when she did not know our story and accepted him without fear. She showed him the possibility of a life free from guilt and shame and pain. When Annalise needed a savior, it was Erik's responsibility to be that for her so that he could redeem his soul and be complete."

"I had not thought of it in such a way," Raoul had to admit.

Christine nodded. "I know." There was a long silence between them. "Raoul, you are Annalise's father and there is nothing in the world that could ever sever the bond you both share. She has always turned to you for advice and comfort. It was you that she just asked to stay and keep her nightmares away. It was you whom she thought of when that man had her. You daughter loves and adores you as much as you do her. Never forget that."

Raoul managed a hint of a smile for the first time since Christine had emerged from the shadows. "I shall try," he replied using Annalise's words, knowing Christine would understand.

Christine laughed softly. "You are both impossible and I would have it no other way." She grew more serious. "You gave me the gift to choose where my heart lived and Erik also gave me a gift." Christine thought for a moment. "No, he gave us a gift."

"A gift?" Raoul asked.

"He reconciled us," Christine replied. "He saved our child and redeemed his life and in the process of doing so found his freedom," Christine sighed happily. "And with his freedom, he granted me mine. I love him. I will always love him." She reached up to touch her husband's face as his dropped his eyes. "I will love him as a friend and a memory that no one can take from me but I am in love with you. My heart has lived within yours for all these years and there it shall remain till the day I die." Christine's tone was soft and insistent. "I have a heart that is big enough to love our children and our grandchildren. It will also hold a place for Erik but the biggest place in my heart belongs to you and will always belong to you." Her forefinger traced the outline of her husband's mouth. "I made my choice all those years ago that your life meant more than my own. I have not changed my mind and I am staying where my heart lives."

"Christine," Raoul breathed as he reached in for a kiss.

Neither he nor Christine noticed the half-opened eyes of the girl on the bed or the happy smile that crossed her face as she gripped the ribbon held in her hand and finally allowed sleep to claim her.

The following two weeks saw a sense of peace and happiness descend upon Raoul, Christine and their family. It wrapped them in a warmth they had never known before and slowly life began to return to normal. Jean-Paul and Richard took their wives and children back to Paris for the first time in over month, resuming lives that had been put on hold. Gustave, his wound healed and strength returned, began to venture out into Society once again, more often than not returning home with kind words for his sister. Indeed, the whole house began to resemble an elegant gift shop as flowers, gifts and letters arrived to cheer Annalise as she recovered from her ordeal. Annalise's mind and body continued the gradual healing process. She began to eat more, softening the angles that weight loss had created. She still slept most of the day and night, the nightmares never far. Nor was the comfort far as Raoul and Christine kept a close eye on their daughter, beginning to restore Annalise's sense of security and faith in her family and their feelings for her. Katherine and Andrew had returned to their cousins' home on the far north side of Paris and came back nearly every day to spend hours with Annalise and Gustave, their bonds of friendship growing ever stronger. Yet, there was a distance that Annalise seemed to be placing between herself and Andrew; it was something her mother determined to stop before the distance grew any larger.

So it was that as Raoul came down the hall after a long day in Paris with business associates, he saw his wife standing outside Annalise's bedroom door. The door was partially opened and Christine stood with her hands clasped at her waist. A moment of fear passed through Raoul as he thought that, perhaps, Annalise had taken a turn for the worse but that passed quickly as Christine turned towards him and placed a finger to her lips. Raoul walked down the hall and stopped by his wife's side.

"What is going on?" he whispered. "Who is in there with Annalise?"

"Andrew," Christine whispered back.

"Alone?" Raoul was a bit amazed.

"Yes," Christine nodded, "but I am right here so that nothing will happen."

"Why?"

'I am securing my daughter's future happiness," Christine said simply.

"Well done," Raoul replied with a smile.

"Shh," Christine warned him. "I want to listen."

Both parents quietly moved closer to the opening in the door, listening to the voices that drifted out

"I love you," Andrew said. There was no reply from the girl who sat on the bed, her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, head resting on them. Andrew crossed the room and sat on the bed next to Annalise, his heart breaking as she turned from him. "I know you have been through something I cannot even comprehend and I know you have been hurt. I know you still hurt but I will not let you slip away from me again."

"Go away," came the reply, Annalise's voice stronger but still raspy.

"Not until you hear me out," Andrew said. "I have loved you from the first day I saw you and I will love you until the day I die." No answer. "I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy but if you do not want that, I will understand." No answer. "I shall leave this place and go home but I shall never marry. I will devote my life to your happiness and you shall always find in me the truest friend you have on this earth. I shall spend my whole life watching you and protecting you and waiting for your voice." There was still no answer from Annalise. "Will you say something!" Andrew let his frustration get the better of him.

Annalise turned her head to look at Andrew and she was crying. "You would leave me?"

Andrew's shoulders sagged and his head dropped. "No," he replied. "I could never leave you." He snorted. "Although how I will make a living in France is beyond me at the moment." He raised his head. "All I know is that I love you and I cannot bear the thought of being without you. I never want to experience that again. Ever!"

"Don't go," Annalise reached out a tentative hand. "Please do not go." She sniffled as Andrew's hand clasped the one she had extended. "I do not know what I want or how long it will take me to overcome my fears." She sighed. "I am afraid to leave this room. I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of loud noises. I am afraid to be alone." Annalise closed her eyes. "I am afraid of myself."

Andrew shook the hand he held. "Then let me help you! Let me help chase away those fears."

"You will stay?" She asked and Andrew nodded. "You will come and sit and talk with me and be quiet when I need?" Andrew nodded again. "I cannot promise you anything," Annalise said as her chin trembled. "I do not know what it is I want any longer. All I know is that I want to be well again." She tightened her clasp on Andrew's hand. "And I do not want you to leave."

"Then I shall stay as long as you need me." Andrew raised her hand to his lips. "And I shall believe in you and love you enough for both of us."

"Andrew," Annalise said, a cry in her voice, as she extended her arms. She felt the strength and warmth of his arms wrap her in a safe cocoon as Andrew drew her into his embrace. Annalise finally felt safe enough to let loose the dam of tears that had been building for days and she sobbed heavily into his shoulder.

Neither the man who held the girl nor the girl who sobbed in his arms noticed the two heads that quickly disappeared behind the open door.

Christine smiled at her husband. "Secured," she said.

"I love you," Raoul said as he kissed his wife.