A/N: If you don't like that I don't know the premise, don't read it. Don't review just to say you don't like not knowing where the plot is going. I came up with it while swimming yesterday.

Disclaimer: I don't own PotO, and there (probably) won't be any BIG original character parts. OK, I lied. Her little sister is mine.

Christine Daae dived into the water, feeling the coolness of it on the burning day. As she surfaced, she looked around. She sighed. There were no guys around to impress, except for the lifeguards, and everyone knew they were Off Limits. Well, there was one guy. He didn't exist, though. She had to keep telling herself that he didn't exist. The one guy whose name had haunted her dreams since she'd read that book, whose face had haunted her since someone had unwittingly shown her the movie. There's no one here except… She allowed her thoughts to trail off. She knew his name, what did it matter that no one else did?

She submerged herself, simply thinking, I wish that he was watching. As she came up for air, a voice called, "Christine! Christine! Christine!" Christine gritted her teeth and swam over to where her little sister was clinging to the edge.

"What is it, Deanne?" she asked grumpily. She hated it when people—especially her four-year-old sister—interrupted her while she was fantasizing about a certain person…

"Christine, I'm going on the diving board!"

"That's great, Deanne," Christine replied, rolling her eyes.

She swam off, to go back to thinking. I love everything about him, she told herself. Now that I admitted it, let's make him exist. She began to sing softly to herself,

In sleep he sang to me,

In dreams he came,


That voice which calls to me,

And speaks my name.


And do I dream again?

For now I find.


The Phantom of the Opera is there-

Inside my mind.

Her mind began to fill in the next part from all the times she'd listened to this particular song.

Sing once again with me,

Our strange duet,

My power over you,

Grows stronger yet.

And though you turn from me,

To glance behind.

The Phantom of the Opera is there-

Inside your mind.

She began to sing softly again, aware that Deanne had finally reached the diving board.

Those who have seen your face,

Draw back in fear.


I am the mask you wear.

His remembered voice continued.

It's me they hear.

She began to sing a duet with her imagination

Your/my spirit and my/your voice in one combined.

The Phantom of the Opera is there inside my/your mind.

Christine hummed along with the background voices, knowing she had nothing to beware from the imaginary figment.


He's there, the Phantom of the Opera . . .


Beware the Phantom of the Opera . . .

He started up again.


In all your fantasies,

You always knew,

That man and mystery . . .

She sang.

...Were both in you.

She sang together with his voice again.


And in this labyrinth,

Where night is blind,


The Phantom of the Opera is there/here

Inside your/my mind . . .

His voice shouted passionately.


Sing, my Angel of-

"CHRISTINE!" Deanne shouted from the board. "Look at me!"

Secretly, she was glad that her sister, little pest that she was, had chosen that moment to demand attention. Christine, an alto, was always embarrassed that she couldn't hit the high notes that her 19th century counterpart could.

Christine snickered a little at the thought. She was floating here, in love with a man who had probably never existed, being jealous of herself. Wow, she'd sunk low. If time travel were ever invented in her lifetime, she'd be the first customer, though. She'd travel back to 1870, no matter what the cost, shout at herself for making the wrong choice, beat up the Vicomte de Changy, and see if Erik really had killed himself. And if he hadn't… Well, she was eighteen. It was legal.

"CHRISTINE!" Deanne shouted again, more insistently. Why didn't mom and dad stop after Danyelle and me? she wondered. And why did they wait until I was fourteen and Danyelle was eighteen? They should've known she was too old to have children. Now Deanne's the center of dad's attention, since mom died giving birth. It's hardly our fault that Danyelle and I look like dad, and Deanne looks like mom, but now she's 'the only memory he has of her,' as he puts it.

She wished she had some underground catacombs to run to when life got bad, where a man that loved her was waiting. God, the Christine Daae in 1870 was such an idiot, she thought. And now no one will ever let me live it down. Just 'cause of that movie. If I ever meet a guy named Raoul, or, heaven forbid, Erik, it'd get even worse. Especially with Deanne ripping at his face, if one, I meet someone named Erik, and two, he doesn't hate me on sight.