A/N: Thank you so very much for all of your reviews. :D Going into this fic, I knew that this would not receive many reviews at all for four main reasons: (1) It's not E/C. (2) It's not quick, easy, or mindless to read. (3) The main character technically does not exist. (4) It'll be hard to read because the narration is sort of stream-of-consciousness. So, I am not writing for reviews, only to get my ideas out. But I am definitely grateful for any reviews I get. :) They're so encouraging, and it's so nice to know that people are reading!

And, no, this is DEFINITELY not the end of my fic! There are probably about 10 more chapters to go. I have SO much planned out for Little Lotte!

Also, sorry if this chapter is boring. Each chapter that is titled "Part" is meant to serve mainly as background info for the next part of Lotte's life.

Part 2: Charlotte

I should not have worried, for my parents did not arrive till evening. By then Daaé and his daughter had long gone, and with them, a piece of my childhood. I bought another doll to replace my old one, but no other doll would speak as mine had. I still met the Angel of Music in my dreams, still sorted my belongings with care, and though I remembered my doll and her instructions, the memories faded, and my doll's urgent warnings to remain my own person faded with them.

Years passed, eight years in fact, and yet I did not marry. I took a job as the teacher of a French language class at the local elementary school. (As was typical of middle class children, I had taken many enriching lessons throughout my life, including French.) I postponed marriage. It had become quite the fashion to marry later in life…

Then, one day, I noticed him in town. He was a Frenchman, I could tell. Judging by the clothes he wore, he was fairly wealthy. He was not ugly, nor was he handsome. He was older than I, perhaps ten years older, old enough to be a suitor Papa would approve of.

He saw me first. (He often says that it was the sun glinting off of my blonde curls, and my brilliant blue eyes that caused him to fall in love.) He approached me and we talked. He told me he was taking the summer off from his job as a manager to travel Sweden, and that he was quite glad to have happened upon this little town. He arrived in the certainty that there was nothing lovely in Upsala, certainly nothing that would impress him after his life of beauty and opulence in Paris. But, he happily informed me, he had proven himself wrong; for it was here that he met me!

Blushing furiously, I took his hand in mine and told him my name. No, I was not Little Lotte! Certainly not! Little Lotte was the name of a young child, a girl captivated by angels and dolls! I told him my name was Charlotte.

We spent time together, grew closer. Though he was terribly foolish and superstitious (he refused to kiss me during my cycles or during a full moon, for he was certain that both would bring bad luck to him!), he was an amusing man for his vices, a man of pleasure. I brought him home, and Papa and Mama, though slightly unhappy that of all the men in Sweden, it was a Frenchman I had taken to, were nonetheless glad that he was rich and well known in Paris. He was a worthy suitor, and in any case, perhaps the only one willing to court me – all the men in Upsala were at least vaguely aware of my past peculiarities, and avoided me like the plague!

He was not to know that, of course! And anyway, if he ever found out, he would love me, regardless, true?

He left at the end of the summer, and promised to return the next year. We wrote to each other frequently, expressing our endearments and eternal vows of love in flowery, grandiloquent prose. He told me of his worries, his anxieties of working as a manager, his inability to make rational decisions, and I reassured him, telling him he was doing well, he was wonderful, he was great:

"My darling Charlotte, I mourn each day that I am away from you. This garish opera house is so lonely without you here by my side to comfort me, to walk with me down these dark corridors. Work is busy as usual, and it is so difficult to bend to the whims of such an unreasonable management! I am sure that if you were here, all would be well!"

And I would write back,

"I miss you far more than you will ever know. I think I shall go mad if you do not return soon! You need only to say the word, and I shall return with you to Paris! You are such a wonderful manager; I cannot believe that you could decide wrong. I assure you that you are doing well, the best a manager could do! Till then, I send my love."

In likewise manner we continued to send each other notes, all filled with half-truths that hinted at our secrets and our pasts. Perhaps if we had read between the lines we would have realized we were getting into far more than we bargained for!

However, I was certain that he would never return. He was a man of pleasure – surely he could not bear to be committed to one Swedish girl a thousand miles away! Yet he returned, to both Papa and Mama's surprise and mine.

The summer that he returned, we grew even closer, grew to know one another. Mama was ever so careful about guarding my virginity, for it was my highest virtue, the greatest gift I could give to my future husband. She closely monitored our interactions with each other when we were at my house. I sat on one couch and he sat on the other. We never sat too close in Mama or Papa's presence.

Still, prostitutes teach young boys in the brothels, and lovers teach chaste girls in the grass!

And besides, one never goes into marriage without knowing if the other party is capable of producing an heir. What bad luck it would be to marry and discover that the other side is sterile! Then what is a girl to do?

So I kissed him, and he kissed me, all over, and we loved each other in the grass. And though we knew each other, we knew and cared little for each other's mind or character. It was a very physical love, and in the end, the initial rush of infatuation faded away to coldness and emptiness. The only things left were lust and wealth, and I should have realized the mistake we were making – neither of us would be happy when we grew old and ugly and the flow of money ended!

Still, I continued spending time with him, and the more I did, the less I saw of my Angel of Music, the less I arranged my belongings, the less I thought and sang and played. I ignored the small voice in my head that reminded me that my doll would never have wanted me to so willingly give myself up for a silly, superstitious man. I felt sad to abandon my old friends, but I fancied that I loved him, and that he loved me! In any case, his body and the way he treated my body were good enough reasons to avoid my old friends.

Finally, one day, at the end of the summer, he asked my father for my hand in marriage. Ordinarily, Papa would have refused. To marry his daughter off to a Frenchman! Absurd!

...Of course, money does speak louder than ethnicity. After all, the Frenchman was rich. He held status back in Paris. He was old enough to know how to take care of a lady.

It is the vice of the middle class, to engage in this endless conquest to emulate the unhappy aristocracy. We abhor the idea of marrying for love as the poor, working classes do. We want to be rich and powerful, and so our fathers marry us off for money and status. It shall be our undoing, as it was for me.

In any case, the wedding took place in Paris. It was a lovely wedding, filled with white roses and beautiful, well known guests, and even staff members from the Opera House my now-husband managed. My family and I traveled all the way to France, and afterwards, amidst much tears and weeping, my family returned home, taking with them their memories of their bird of sunshine.

They left behind a young, lost woman named Charlotte, whose feathers had been clipped in matrimony.

A/N: Reviews! Reviews! Any barrels of reviews to submit? ;)