Part 9. I'm glad to meet you again, Erik

It was dark outside, almost midnight and everything was silent. Not a single breath could be heard, only the sound of the wind blowing through the many trees outside. There was a young woman standing outside the house of señora Carlotta, she had been standing there for almost one hour and when she suddenly started to hear sighs and deep breaths from inside the house she left.

Raoul looked around the room but couldn't find anything except the furniture around him. He felt pain in his chest, but that wasn't strange. He'd just get a sword in it. Christine… she must wander where I am… he thought and tried to stand up, without success. Then he saw the blood beside him.

"That can't be mine…" he mumbled. Then he saw the knife lying in the blood, his knife. He rose, successfully, and started his long and painful walk home.

"You've been sleeping for a long time, Christine." Erik said when he saw that Christine's eyes opened.

"You killed him! You killed him!" She screamed and tried to hit the Phantom who grabbed her arm and laid it down on the bed again.

"You missed your heart."

"Well that's too bad!" she said while tears wallowed from her eyes. She tried to rise to sitting position but failed.

"You should rest. You must be strong at our wedding." He said.

"Wedding? Wedding? I won't marry you!"

"Hmm… Then why where you ready to give up your free life to save Raoul? You kissed me, and I guess that means you decided to stay with me."

"Yes, I was ready to share the rest of my life with you, to save Raoul! And now he's… Dead! And I have nothing more to live for!"

"However, sleep now. I'll meet you in the morning." He said and left.

It took almost three hours for Raoul to reach his home and when he came there a shocking happy and helping Miles who, as soon as he saw Raoul, helped him until he was okay again met him.

"Where's Christine?" Raoul asked lying on his bed.

"She left for a walk seven hours ago…" Miles answered and Raoul's face got white.

"Seven hours?"

The next day Christine woke up late, it was almost noon and light outside. She woke up till the sound of knocks.

"Have you slept tight?" Erik asked as he entered the bedroom.

"Yes, pretty…" Christine answered sleepy and hard.

The Phantom sat down on the edge of Christine's bed. "That's good."

It was silent for a while…

"You know our butler." Christine suddenly said.

"I do?" Erik answered surprised.

She nodded. "Yes, Miles."

"Miles? I don't know any Miles…" he answered.

"But… He… The acid… Your face, he didn't?"

"Didn't what? Acid? My face?"

She looked at her hands, they where shaking. "He said that it was he who… Threw the acid in your face."

Erik didn't understand. "I can't believe why anyone would say that..."

Now it was Christine's turn to not understand. "What do you mean?"

"Christine, I was born like this, I was born deformed." He said and looked at her. "It's impossible, you must have misunderstood him or something."

"What? You mean… But why would he say that then?"

"As I said, you must have misunderstood him, or maybe he misunderstood you? However, its time for breakfast, come."

Suddenly Christine reminded about why she was with Erik. "No."

"What's no?"

"I won't come with you for breakfast. I won't marry you, and I won't eat with you!"

"Okay, then I'll leave you here." He said and left.

"Seven hours…?"

"No monsieur, almost seventeen…" Miles said. "You've been sleeping for almost ten hours, it's noon."

"Seventeen? Oh god… It's like she's dead or something..." Then he remembered. "Dead… Blood. The blood next to me! It was hers! Oh god… She must have thought I was dead and killed herself… Oh my god…"

Miles didn't really understand but tried as hard as he could. "You mean that there was blood next to you that wasn't yours?" ha asked and had a weak nod as answer. "And that she must have killed herself because she thought you where dead? Wow… That's love… Tragic love…" Miles sighed and then left Raoul so he could be alone and think for a while.

Christine had been sitting and stared at a tiny window right beneath the ceiling; there must be some way for me to get out through it. She thought. In the room there was a bed, a carpet, some flowers and a chest of drawers. She could move the drawer so it stood beneath the window and then clime out of it but was it big enough? And was there any way to open it except breaking it? Well, there was nothing more for her to do then try, so she started to draw the heavy drawer to the wall beneath the window. She'd clime up on it and looked at the window. Nothing to open it with, she had to break it, but it was risky. She would be screwed if Erik heard her. The only thing that stopped her from getting out was the thick skirt she wore. But that wasn't hard to change; all she had to do was take it off. She'd clime down from the drawer to get the vase with flowers to break the window with, then ripped the skirt off, ready to escape. She grabbed the vase and hat the window who broke immediately, the length to the ground was a little more then her length twice but it was the only choice she had if she wanted to escape, so she'd clime out and jumped, then run as fast as she could in the direction she thought where towards her home.

Raoul where still sitting and just stared at nothing when the door suddenly got opened and Christine entered. Raoul thought it was strange that someone just entered without knocking so he went to look who it was.

"Christine?" he asked confused.

"Raoul? Is that you?" she asked and threw herself into his arms, crying. "But you where dead!"

"I thought you where dead, your blood where beside me and my knife… I was sure that it was yours." He where smiling.

"I missed my heart." She said and laughed a little. "I just passed out, isn't that great?"

"Yes Little Lottie, that's great. But… Where were you?"

She stopped smile. "Erik brought me to a apartment somewhere… I don't know where, but I escaped."

"Erik…" Raoul mumbled. "He must pay for this…"

"No Raoul, please. All this happened because of revenge, please don't do anything to him."

"Do you still love him?" Raoul asked and Christine shook her head and said:

"No, I at least don't think so. But believe me, you're the one I love, the one I want to live with." Then she kissed him. "I love you Raoul." She was smiling again.

"And I love you."

Then Miles entered the foyer.

"Oh, Miles." Christine said.

"Welcome back miss Daaé." He answered. "Do you want me to call the doctor? I think you'll need some help with that." He said and looked at the wound.

"Yes, that'll be good, but I need to ask you something first."

"Yes mame?"

"Why did you say that you threw acid in Erik's face when he was born deformed?"

Miles looked unsympathetic at Christine. "What do you mean? Did I say that?"

"When I passed out." She said. "I said that you gave him that life and you agreed."

"I… I must have misunderstood." He answered. "But I must admit that I worked at the fair here he was used as a… As something to look at."

"You…" Christine started but got interrupted by Raoul.

"Calm down honey, that's the past and we can't do anything about it."

She nodded. "Your right. I'm sorry Miles."

Miles nodded a little and smiled. "So you won't fire me?" he asked.

Raoul looked at Christine to get conformity. "No, you're not fired."

"I'm glad to hear that monsieur." He said and left to call the doctor.

"Come Christine, let's go and rest while we wits for the doctor." Raoul said, softly grabbed her hand and want upstairs. They lied down in Christine's bed and just lied there, looking into each other's eyes, kissing each other sometimes.

"Honey, I know there have been enough pain already but there's one thing I want to do." Raoul said, still looking at Christine.

"What?"

"This." He answered and grabbed the knife in his belt. "Come with your hand." He said. Christine gave him his hand and he made a small cut in it so blood showed up.

"What are you doing love?" Christine asked unsympathetic.

"Shh…" Raoul hushed and made the same in his hand and then he grabbed Christine's bloody hand in his bloody hand. "We have a blood band now, we belongs to each other now my Love." He said, smiled and lifted his lips to hers for a kiss.

They then laid there, holding each others bloody hands. Then Christine whispered the only words she had in her mind at that moment, "I Love you."

Earlier when Erik was sitting and ate breakfast he heard a window crunch, in Christine's room. So he ran to it, finding it with a broken window and an off-ripped skirt lying on the floor.

"Oh my god, she escaped." How could she escape? Ah... Stupid... The window! He thought and ran out without really knowing what he was doing. But then he rounded a corner and hat someone coming from the other side. The young woman he ran into fell down onto him, and his mask fell off. The young woman on the top off him quickly crawled off him and grabbed the mask next to her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Mr." She said and looked up at him. "You dropped your mask…"

The Phantom held his hand to cover the deformed part off his face.

"Don't do that." She said softly, grabbed his arm and slowly removed it from his face.

He got shocked. "Don't!" he screamed, but it was too late.

"I think you're beautiful," she said and smiled. "And I'm glad to meet you again, Erik – The Phantom of the Opera."