I hadn't realized there was such a market for this. I'm THRILLED that you think it's a good idea and that there are people I am reaching. Yay for my cerebral phic. Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to review, and for those of you who are reading this for the first time, if you leave a review I will love you forever (for those of you who already did review, that I love you forever goes without saying :D). THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Once again, I don't own POTO or Groundhog Day. Onward we go.
Chapter Two: Angel of Music
He woke up that morning with the echoing notes of her voice still ringing in his ears.
I remember this, he thought. The day after I first saw her.
"Yes," came Gabriel's voice. "This is where—or rather, when—it started, wouldn't you agree?"
"So now you can hear my thoughts," Erik replied irritably. "That's hardly a comfort."
"Keeping track of you, that's all," Gabriel said pleasantly. "So what are you going to do?"
"What I did the first time," Erik said softly.
He had the feeling that, wherever he was, Gabriel was smiling knowingly.
Christine stared into the mirror at the end of her dressing room tiredly. She was always more out of breath than the other girls because when she danced she mouthed the words of the opera. It was a useless occupation but she loved it—it was the closest she had ever come to singing onstage.
She sang in her room but nowhere else. It was too embarrassing. Of course she couldn't sing—why else would she be a dancer? But it was her only longing, the only thing she had ever wanted to do, and her dreams were all she had. At least she had dreams. Some of the others were content to be dancers on that dangerously slanted stage for the rest of their lives.
She had just removed her outer dress and begun to change back into her clothes when the voice came.
"Come shining forth, my dearest,
With looks of warm delight;
Shed joy as you appear,
Like morning beams of light.
Mild shines your azure eye;
Your absence chilling night, love,
In which I droop and die.
O! Let me hear that tongue, love,
Whose music thrills my heart.
Like notes by angels sung, love,
When souls in bliss depart;
And to your casement sing,
Illume my ravished sight,
Like day the world surprising
With morning's beam of light."
(angelinhell: Courtesy of Don Giovanni (in other words I didn't write this either). Carry on!)
She stood up and looked around. "Who's there?" she said, a note of fear in her voice.
"Do not fear, Christine," the voice said. It was sweet but obviously masculine, a strong, melodic, intoxicating voice. "Do you not know me?"
"Angel," she breathed.
"Yes, Christine," the voice replied serenely. "That is who I am."
Christine sat down slowly. "I had lost hope," she whispered.
Behind the mirror Erik slid down the wall, tears encroaching on his eyes, desperately trying not to let it show in his voice. He had missed her so much...though she had been gone less than four hours in the true time, he had missed her so much in those four hours that it might as well have been an eternity. And to hear that sweet, beloved voice again...it was a kind of despairing ecstasy he was barely capable of dealing with.
"Sing with me," he said.
Christine rose. 'What would you like to sing?"
Erik smiled to himself. "Everything," he whispered, and began.
And here the second chapter is. Tada! Hope you like it! More soon! Also, the "dangerously slanted stage" is a reference to the Garnier. The stage is slanted to a five degree angle as opposed to the normal two or three degrees, which makes it somewhat harder to dance on. Siobhan out.
