A/N- I rewrote much of this to try to make it flow smoother and something that I was struck with was how redundant the dialogue was between Erik and Christine. I realized before I rewrote it that much of the redundancy was because of the things going on around them, though I am hoping this is obvious. I fear that the integrity of the feelings I am trying to convey will perhaps be lost if I, the creator, felt that way and I wrote it. So, please feel free to read this with a critical mind and let me know honestly what you think? Thank you, and as a general disclaimer, I don't own Phantom of the Opera or any of the original characters which I so adore writing. That honor belongs to Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Susan Kay's inspiration as well. Thank you for your patience and thank you in advance for your reviews on my imagination. Without further adieu, I present to you...

Even a mask bears a human on the other side!

Chapter 1

"Masquerade, paper faces on parade. Masquerade, hide your face so the world will never find you…

Christine, I love you…"

"Erik, (Christine falls to her knees grasping the engagement ring in her hand, she is physically and mentally spent through the long battle she has wagered with her heart.) I love you too!"

Hardly daring to believe what he has just heard, Erik slowly, lithely, gets up and walks over to her, tear streaked eyes locked on her the whole time as he moves towards her fearing it is all a dream borne of his great passion and pain. She reaches her hands up towards him, and he pulls her to her feet and kisses her. He cannot help it, she is air to him and he must have one last kiss before he speaks anymore. "Christine I let you free. Go, your vicomte' will be missing you. You must know that he would find you and we would never have the chance at life I dreamt of. With the vicomte' you have a future, with me you have none."

"Erik, I cannot live without my soul, funny, I find that you have it, and no matter how I feel about Raoul how good he is and how sweet he has been to me, you are my breath. I have to be with you to breathe. I panicked as we began to leave the lair; I could not stay there and watch the person who taught me to feel life again after Fathers death, disappear before my eyes forever. You taught me how to live again, I must do the same for you now. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, but my feelings for Raoul are so shallow, where as my feelings for you have become as life and breath itself to me. I don't know if we will be able to live, honestly, but I would rather die with you than to live a long empty life with Raoul. Please tell me it is not too late, that you have not decided I had deliberately deceived you? I shall surely die the rest of the way if you don't."

Erik kissed her yet again, intertwining his fingers in her beautiful chestnut curls, something he had wanted to do for a very long time, a long, deep, passionate kiss given and received freely this time. when they part lips, he begins…

"Christine, they are coming to bring me to justice for my crimes, I have no future, no hope. There can be no life, I must leave. If I go and you are with me my love, they will find us, for you'll need to sing as I shall need to hear your beautiful voice. They'll know it is you as soon as you open your mouth and begin to enchant the ears who hear you. If anything happens to you my beloved because of me anymore, I shall know no mercy towards all who are responsible. I am afraid that would include the vicomte'. You must have a safe life, that is why I let him go and told you to leave me. I knew you loved me when you kissed me, I felt all the love I have hungered for all of my life in that kiss. Imagine my surprise when it made me more deeply sad then rejection would have, for I then knew that you wanted me and had I acted differently, I would have won. Me, with no beauty, nothing to offer you, no title, no wealth, no position, not worthy of your affections, would have won over the vicomte' and all his remarkable wealth, fine normal face and breeding. The dream that would fulfill is what shall sustain me for the remainder of my cursed life. That, and knowing that I did this to myself, I fear that will be cause for my death or at least continuing hell on earth. Had I followed my religious teaching of youth instead of succumbing to passionate hate, maybe we could have stayed together safely and quietly forever instead of me being a hunted murderer now."

The whole time that Erik is speaking, he holds her tight to his chest, she is warm in his embrace, though she shivers when the reality that her world will not be as she had begun to hope it might, the finality of his words made her feel her life was over. She would not last this day if he sent her away.

As he finished talking, she pulled out of his grasp and looked at him, tears streaming down her face, sobbing and gulping great breaths of air to try to control her emotions. "Erik, all I know is that I cannot be sent away from you again, the grief I am feeling will not bear separation from you. When I lost my father you were the one who brought me back to life, made me want to live and gave me my voice, I cannot lose you. I thought perhaps I could, but I was wrong. I struggled with this, and thought much of the same things you are saying now, however my heart and soul will not allow me to turn back. I am not going to survive the night if you send me from you now. I shall live all eternity in hell for the death I shall demand will be my own. I cannot survive this torment, I shall leave this hell on earth. God forgive me, you are my life Erik, and I am dead already without you. I shall see you in hell, for I shall be bound there as well."

"Oh, my Christine, I want you to be with me, not in hell, God forgive me, I cannot send you away, I will not be able to go on or fight anymore in a world without you in have taken so much and I cannot be reason for your eternity in hell, as well. I need you, and I will keep you safe whatever the cost. You will have to sing only for me now, my love and we shall have to let that make our souls happy. We will go away and try to make a peaceful life with the hope that maybe one day we can return to the opera somewhere else. I don't know what shall happen to us but I will try to give you back the life you know someday. If that is acceptable to you Christine than we shall leave Paris forever."

"I love you my Phantom, Erik, and shall spend all the time God grants me showing you that your face is beautiful even in it's imperfections, and cherished as is your soul. Now, where do we go to escape this burning inferno of our past?"

"This way Christine, we must hurry through this mirror over here!"

The mirror shatters, crashing into a million shards of glass. They carefully walk out through it, hand in hand, and we hear the angry mob in the distance shouting "Hunt down this murderer, he must be found….."

Raoul comes up to the bedroom of the lair having heard a crash of glass breaking, fearing for Christine. Just before the mob reaches the lair, he sees that Christine is gone, she was not coming back to him in the boat. He turns to the group, who have now caught up to where he is, and says, "Christine is with him and he is gone. We must go quickly and find them!"

Raoul's heart sinks as he realizes he is not sure that Erik has taken her against her wishes. He heard no screams of protest and fears that she has given herself to him to save Raoul as it is unthinkable that she would really have wanted to go for love of that monster. After all, he had so much to offer her, and risked everything his position holds to allow this engagement to be accepted by his family, now she was gone with this, this, Gypsy, this disfigured, distorted, soulless man. Surely he could not live knowing she was trapped with him, no matter the cost, he would find her, or die trying.

As Raoul turned to walk back where he had come from, he caught the music box, and saw his ring sitting on the base of it, a sign of his commitment to a woman whom he must now find. Whom, if he was painfully correct as to what the reality of this situation was, he was not so sure he wanted to find. Her fickleness too much for him to bear, he picked up the ring and threw it, it shattered the mirror he was standing near and he saw that it opened to a tunnel. Maybe… He walked through this mirror, immediately smelling smoke, the smoke of the opera house. As he proceeded, he saw Christine's room, so this was how the great Phantom got to Christine's room, he thought to himself. Some phantom, veilled in mystery she thought, if only she knew the reality of her mysterious teacher. He ran to the backside of the mirror that showed the dressing room Christine used to occupy. He laid his hands on the outside ridge of the mirror and his weight opened the mirror. The room was filling with smoke, and he had to escape quickly if he wanted to live. He prayed that Christine had escaped the burning opera house. As he left the Opera Populaire, he kicked something while descending the outside steps, looking down, he saw the white mask from which all his anguish has arisen. He snatched it up and stared at it as if it would hold the answers to all his questions. Not knowing exactly what to do with it, he decided he would keep it for the time being, and decide it's fate when he had a clearer picture of the fates of the three people it affected most. With a last glance backward at the burning opera house, Raoul gathered his white horse, and was gone… on his search for his fair lady, caught in the spell of the Phantom for what he prayed would be the last time!