For months, he did not return to her window, but watched the grounds closely from his perches outside, never watching her, simply watching out for her.
One night, their doctor's carriage pulled up late in the evening. Intrigued, yet worried, the phantom attempted to hear the conversation, but only heard, "She's upstairs."
His curiosity outweighed his concerns in seeing her again. He flew to his post he had abandoned for months, and arrived when the doctor entered.
She looked dreadful. She was sweating profusely, very pale, and bloated. His mind ran through the galconda of possibilities until his eyes happened upon her abdomen. His anger flared. The foolish boy had finally produced an heir. He turned to leave.
"Angel!" she screamed, and he stopped.
The doctor stumbled back, and ran to the door calling, "Monsieur! It is worse than I had suspected! Not only is she weeks premature, she calls to the angels for aid even before the true labor begins. Perhaps the child may not survive, either! Monsieur!"
"Fear not, child of the dark.
On whatever voyage you embark,
Your angel is ever near."
"Angel," she sighed, slightly more relaxed.
Knowing his protégé needed him in her final hours; he abandoned his fear of capture and emerged from the shadows. As he knelt, swept a curl from her face, and kissed her moist, burning forehead, a tear rolled down his unmasked cheek. Suddenly, she bunched the sheets in her fists and cried out. He knew then that his pigeon was dying. He clutched her head to his chest as if he could hold her from the brink and sobbed into her matted hair.
"Angel," he wept, stroking her hair. "Angel."
It was at this moment the doctor, the nurse, and Raoul burst into the room. The doctor crossed himself as the phantom welcomed the intrusion with his cold stare of death. "I was wrong monsieur; she calls the angels to protect her from the devil, here to steal her beautiful soul."
"No, doctor" replied Raoul. "Even in death this angel of darkness will not have her." He advanced toward the imposing figure.
"No, Raoul," she panted between labored breaths. "You would not… have the father… of the child… removed… to make… make room for another man." She looked Raoul directly in the eye.
The phantom's jaw clenched, and another tear rolled down his face as Raoul stumbled back a step, and pointed, stuttering, "I…you..." his voice darkened, "he!"
She winced in pain from the child and from having to break the truth to him like so harshly. "Please… allow us… some privacy." The doctor, the nurse, and Raoul fled to the hall, each hoping to escape their demons. She turned to her tutor, who refused to look at her. "Will you ever… forgive me?"
"I shall never forgive myself." He finally turned to her, "Are you certain it is my spawn that will kill you?" She wept at his shattered tone, and nodded. "How are you so certain?"
"Only the union… of a whole soul… could create the… the joy… and love… I I I have felt… carrying this child." She responded solemnly. When he only continued to look as if he blamed himself for every sorrow in the world, she added, "In addition…, when I sang to him…, he'd kick me… if I missed a note." He sat so that his masked side faced her, and hung his head.
In a tone that reflected the caged boy who dreamt only of love, and of the man who would know no other, he said, "It seems my fiendish ways will truly be the death of you." She reached up to comfort him, then slammed back against the bed and cried out in pain. She gritted her teeth and dug her nails into the palm of the gloved hand she suddenly clasped. A tear dropped onto her face as he kissed her forehead. "Doctor," he called, "it seems the hour is upon us." He was not surprised when Raoul did not enter.
"Please…please don't wear… your mask," she uttered before her whole body tensed and all she knew was pain. It seemed as though she rested inside Phalaris' bull and her world was slowly turning to a world of hot metal. Suddenly, the pain reached a high point that was accompanied by a flash of white light. She found herself lying on a pristine beach of her homeland. She reveled in the feel of the sand against her head and the cool breeze flowing over her for a while. The place seemed more depressed than she had remembered, but the mood of the setting did not abate her happiness. After a few moments, she asked herself how she had gotten here. She sat up, disoriented, and heard her father playing his violin. She began to run toward the sound as a broad smile erupted over her face. All else was forgotten but reaching her father. She remembered the pain. The pain that no longer invaded her every sense and she skidded to a halt and began to panic. She had accepted she would not survive, but she had hoped to see her son once and lover one last time before she died. She turned to return to the world of the living, but found nothing but wooded beaches and oceans.
Then everything faded to red. Red had joined the pain and both were everywhere. And screams. Screams of a soul ripping in two. They filled the room. Who was screaming? Why was everything red? Then the red began talk. It said, "Take the child, I must try to stop the bleeding."
She finally found her teacher sitting, mouth agape and silent, as the nurse handed him the newly cleaned, screaming boy. He looked at the boy as if he were a miracle, and erupted in a gut-wrenching sob that harmonized with his son's. "He's perfect. I'm sorry." Then he cried, "Can the world not hold this much perfection? I'm so sorry." He cradled the wailing boy to his chest.
"You fiend. You… you sang to me." He looked up at her and guilt unknown to the world crossed his face. He moved to kneel beside her, and leaned his forehead against hers.
"Look at him, our perfect son. We have made an angel." The child's thick mat of hair curled like his mothers, and echoed his father's pitch black. His cherub face framed his piercing, yet innocent forest green eyes. And he cried with the voice of an angel that knew the torments of the demons. It reverberated down the walls, through their bones, and into their joined soul.
Although she felt unparalleled bliss at the sight of their creation, despair clutched her heart as she felt herself fading away.
"Angel," she whispered. He looked away from their son and into her eyes. "If I asked you… for something…, what… what would you be willing.. to give?"
"Pour toi, mon ange, le monde."
"Even if I… asked you to name… name him Christian?" she smiled up at him.
"Perhaps I have my limits…," he responded, smiling back at her.
Then she locked onto his eyes as if she were St. Peter himself judging the phantom's life in its entirety. "Swear it…, love. Swear… on… our love… and soul… that you will… give me… anything… and nothing… if I ask it."
He looked at her in utter honesty. "I swear it, my love."
"Give me your word…that you will raise our perfect…our perfect creation… as I would have wanted… him raised. That you will… not punish him… as you punish yourself… for things… over which you… have no control. Promise me."
He clenched his jaw, nodded, and responded, "If I do not, I will give up the one thing that will remind me of you during my thousand years in hell—our music."
She finally looked content. Her brow no longer furrowed, and the pain washed out of her body. "Thank you…, Angel…, for everything. You have made… my life complete. I… will beg… your… case… everyday… to our… mother…. in.. heaven… if you… do not… break… your promise. Perhaps… she… will… see… you… as… I do… and… you… will… be… lifted… of your… torments." He crawled into the drenched bed, seeing her life fading from her eyes.
"My love, nothing will ever allow me to escape having killed an angel," he wept into her drenched hair. He kissed her temple and eyes, and his tears mingled with her sweat.
"I… have… never…blamed…you…and…always…loved…you. I… will… eagerly… await… my… strange… angel… and ..lover… in… e…ternity." With that, she faded from life. The boy chose that moment to release his greatest wail, and his father matched his pitiful cry as he rocked back in forth, cradling the babe in the right of his chest as he clutched his lover and true wife, sobbing into her neck. He didn't hear the doctor take his leave to inform the vicomte. He didn't see the trail of blood the doctor left on the floor in his wake. He didn't watch the sobbing nurse sprint from the room, nor did he feel the blood soaking through everything, everything. How fitting their time together would be ended in a pool of blood. All he knew was the ache in his soul, the darkness he felt in the aftermath of his final act of destruction.
Almost final. He thought as he felt the doctor attempt to take the boy from his arms. He shot the man a look that pushed him against the wall. He attempted to find some way to end the doctor's life without having to abandon either of the two sacred objects in his arms.
"Monsieur Angel, your son must go to the wet nurse to be fed, or you will lose all that you love in one day," he said in the tone doctors use with all their disobedient patients. "Please, monsieur, it will give you time to say a proper goodbye to your…wife." The phantom looked to his child, then handed him to the doctor, and, with his eyes, hounded his every movement out the door. He then turned to his lifeless student, savior, and lover.
"Christine, you gave me everything, and, in our love, helped me create something the world will never understand, nor rebuke. I will never destroy another life unless some fool attempts to harm our angel. I will raise him as you would have." He leaned in and kissed her forehead. "I shall not apologize if he sings better than you." He smiled to her, then to the heavens. "Thank you for believing in and loving me."
"How was it, then? Having her, but knowing I had claimed her first?" disrupted his peaceful moment.
"You should remember to thank Christine from saving you from a gruesome fate," he replied as he glared over his shoulder to his foe that meandered into the room without a care in the world.
"Oh I shall. I shall remember to thank her over and over again while you burn in hell."
Perhaps, Christine, your promise of peace will be the death of me. "Monsieur, I have no will to fight ever again, let alone in this room." While clutching her hand, the phantom rose to his feet and faced the man, hoping to frighten him out of the room.
"Monsieur Phantom, do you really think I would leave you to give my wife the Christian burial she deserves?" He laughed a harsh laugh, and strolled to where the bristling man stood. Raoul poked his finger into the phantom's shirt, over the spot where Christine had scarred her teacher in so many ways. "Next, I suspect you'll wish to take my son from me."
"That is exactly what I expect, boy," he responded in grave seriousness. Raoul turned to him.
"And why would I allow you to take everything from me, demon?"
"So that you may have more," he replied. Raoul's lack of understanding shown through in his eyes. "You say that Christine left you, and tell no one of the son she has produced. Crowds of shallow girls will swamp you and your pitiful story will win the hearts of their rich parents. You will never have to fear I will steal your child in the night, and you will not have to pay for the lavish ceremony I will prepare for Christine's body. You leave my son and me in peace, and I will never destroy you. Is it a deal?" He extended his hand for the childish man to take. At that moment, Raoul sombered.
"Yes, but may I say goodbye?"
"Absolutely. Take your time. I must persuade the wet nurse to join me at my humble abode." He left the man in privacy and began his new journey.
During the days, his studies, his son never saw the gentle side of his father. During the nights, the opposite was true. "Sleep, child. Nothing will ever hurt you. Your mother loves you too much to let it."
"Are you certain, sir?" the child asked the same question each night, but his eyes spoke as if they expected a different answer each time he asked.
"Am I certain she loves you? Yes, absolutely."
"Why, sir?"
"Because we are one soul, even in death, and if I love you this much, so must she."
"But, father, how can she love you if she never knew your name?"