Summary: This is my sequal to the Phantom, starting directly after the movie and the musical ends. I think it may be a one shot, but i'm not sure yet. I decided to write this because i was sick of all of the "Christine should have gone with Erik" crap. If you think that that would have been a healthy relationship - or worse - that what Erik felt for Christine was actually love, you should be shot. Be realistic here, people. Also, this is a rough draft, so any criticism is very helpful.

The Phantom of the Opera and its characters do not belong to me. However, I do maintain all parental and legal rights to the woman called Joelle.


Erik tore through the tunnel in hysterics as he ran from his death. It was ironic, really. All the nights he had lied awake, begging to be slaughtered in the darkness, he half hated himself for acting a coward now, when there was nothing left to live for, but his animal instinct drove his feet to pound the damp stone harder, faster as he escaped from the prison that was his home. Behind him he heard a hundred voices taunting, searching, plundering his home, breaking his belongings, mashing the keys on his organ - raping her delicate surface with their rough hands. It was enough that he no longer had Christine, and now they had killed what he considered to be his daughter - what was left of her would be sold to a school where clumsy little children would spend hours playing chopsticks on her. She was built for writing operas, and symphonies, and true works of art. And now, like her father, she was nothing but a joke.

The tunnel spit him out in an alley way outside of the opera house. It had rained that afternoon and the cobblestone streets gave off a cruel reflection, making it so that Erik could not escape without looking his demon in the eye every step of the way. He told himself he didn't care. But the hate and the rage only built up in him more as he ran on, winding down dark alleys and forgotten streets. Only the homeless saw him pass, and most of them were too drunk to notice anything peculiar about him. Still, he breathed an internal sigh of relief when he turned a corner to an alleyway that was truly deserted. Not even a rat or dog wandered down it. Running just as fast as before, he headed down it, not remembering anymore where exactly he was going. Montmartre, maybe, where the gypsies had kept him when they weren't travelling. All those years of desperately needing to get out of the village, and he felt like he belonged there now. Maybe he could get a job as someone who mediates between satan and man. And then he really would belong in Montmartre - with the whores.

Suddenly there were fingers on his right arm, and they wrenched him to a stop. He was going so hard that his left side kept moving forward when his feet stopped in shock, and he swung in a complete circle, his shoes sliding on the damp pavement.

Infuriated, Erik tore his arm away and stared into the shadow that had yet to reveal his trapper with all the rage in his veins. He knew what he would say when the burly man stepped forward. He'd say, "kill me, please - put me out of my misery." It was on the tip of his tongue, and he took a breath to speak it as the figure stepped forward.

"You can not run forever." She said to him plainly, looking him directly in the eye as though he looked like every one else.

Erik did not know how to react. A woman? A woman had stopped a man of his height and strength in a full out run - just grabbed him and stood there like a wall. His first instinct was to hope it was Christine (as irrational as that was),but as he looked at the girl in front of him, he saw she was very different.

Her dark brown hair was merely wavy, and not half as long as Christine's. The moonlight set off the whites of her eyes, making them glow around her hazel irises. She was taller than Christine by a great deal, though still shorter than Erik. Her skin was dirty and rough - so unlike the immaculate radiating satin that covered his former pupil. The most striking difference, though, was her complete confidence and hardness as she stood there waiting for him to reply.

"Who the hell are you - some crack whore from the village? Is this how you start a proposition? I have things to do." And with that he turned from her and began to jog away.

"Erik." She said.

He stopped. Her voice was deep and soft, and it affected him like a tranquilizer. As he turned around and met her face again, he was trying hard to not stand there agape at her power. He swallowed. "How did you know my name?"

"I spent my childhood in a cage as well, mon ami." She gave him a deep searching look for an instant as Erik stared at her in shock. "It is good if you don't remember. I won't remind you, and we'll just start over as new acquaintances."

The Phantom staggered as he finally recognized the face in front of him. "No-" he gasped, "it - it can't be-" fresh tears fell down his cheeks. The girl walked up to him nurturingly, taking hold of his forearm to comfort him. "Joelle?"

"Oui, bebe." She reached up and wiped his tears, smiling at him as though he were being silly. "Come now, calm down. It will be light soon, and you should go home before the people start stirring in the streets, since I know you will not face them without your mask."

"I have no home but Hell!" Erik shouted, the night's occurrences flooding back to him. "She betrayed me, Joelle! She took my music and my love when she abandoned me. And now I have nothing to fill my thoughts but nightmares. Damn the people - let them see! Maybe they'll stone me to death in the street."

"Shh. Shh. Don't talk that way. You cant have expected her to love you back, Erik."

"What?"

"I've been watching you ever since I escaped ten years ago. Erik, you don't know how to give the love you're asking from others. It's a two-way street. And besides that, how can you ask her to love and accept something you so adamantly hate and abhor?"

"I can't believe this is coming from you."

"Listen to me, Erik. The kind of love you were asking of Christine was true, unselfish, and uninhibited. And yet your feelings for her were very limited, jealous, and full of stipulations. Did you really think that dismembering her fiancé in front of her would suddenly make her fall desperately in love with you?"

"You know nothing of what you speak! Go back into the shadow and just let me die!"

Joelle did not let up. "I know more than you do, Erik. I know you. I understand you. That is why I know if I don't say this to you, it will never enter a single thought in your head. During this whole ordeal, did you ever once consider Christine's feelings? Did it ever occur to you that it would hurt her? It surprises me that a man of your intelligence wouldn't have realized he was treating one of the only people who ever showed him kindness with the same regard that the gypsies treated him as a child. The only difference is that you beat her with your words and actions instead of a cane when she did not obey. And if you ask me, I don't know which is worse."

Joelle watched him as he came at her threateningly, and then stopped. His face twisted from enraged to shocked and finally to remorse. Erik felt his legs go numb and then his knees slammed into the street. "I am a monster." He whispered to himself. He spotted a hunk of broken glass in the gutter. The opportunity to slit his throat lifted his hopes, and he lunged for it. Joelle intercepted his returning blow, sliding onto her knees and barring his forearm with both hands. They struggled for a few minutes before Joelle knocked the side of her fist into a spot on the side of his forearm, making his nerve endings scream and his muscles relax in shock. The glass cracked in half as it fell to the street. Joelle very quickly picked up the peices and threw them behind her so that he couldn't get to them.

Infuriated, Erik delivered the girl a hard left hook, sending her head sharply to one side. She recovered almost instantly, showing no sign of pain or surprise of any kind in her eyes. Her lip bled down the side of her chin, but she didn't seem to notice. He tried to hit her again, but this time she caught his arm with a block, her eyes never moving from his. Erik let out a scream of anger and desolation, and Joelle suddenly had her arms around his neck, pulling his head into her chest and covering it protectively with her arms. He wept bitterly into the crook of her arm, soon throwing his own arms around her middle and hanging on for dear life.

Joelle petted and rocked him as he cried, murmuring soft consolations in french. Slowly, he stopped shaking. His cries became softer and softer, and finally his body seemed to go limp and his mind shut down with exhaustion. Tears fell slowly down his cheeks as he stared blankly into the street, now completely silent, now completely still. Joelle squeezed him gently, not knowing whether he had fallen asleep or not, and sang to him in her misty alto voice.

"The dawn is breaking..."

Erik lifted his head and peered out down the alley. Soft golden sunlight was creeping down the streets and around the buildings. He blinked. The world had not ended.