And so, it ends. This is the promised epilogue, and then the story will be over. Thank you to all who read, especially Sleepy and Intoxicated, who were faithful reviewers to the end! I have an idea for a new phic, which I hope to have up relatively soon. I hope you'll keep checking back for new stories! Thank you!

Christine stared up at the façade of La Scala, hardly able to believe she was there. La Scala was the Mecca of all artists, the place you went when the sky was the limit and there was nowhere else to go, the place where the famous were lauded and the beauty of the theater appreciated…and they were here.

As she started up the stairs, she paused, allowing Erik to catch up, and holding out her arm to help him up the stairs.

"We don't have much time," Erik said, joining his wife.

"No, we don't," she said. "But I think we'll be fine."

Indeed, a check of his watch indicated that they still had half an hour until the performance began, plenty of time to go in and find their seats, to obtain a program and get comfortable.

"I do hope Grace isn't nervous," Christine said, pausing a moment on the stairs.

"She'll be fine," he said. "She's as talented as her mother, twice as stubborn, and if she's got half the will that you've got, she'll take the world by storm."

For though Grace was but 15 years old, her talent for dance had already taken her far, and tonight, the sixth of May, she would be performing for the first time at La Scala in a new opera, not as a singer, as Erik and Christine had originally thought, but instead as a ballerina.

Christine's pregnancy had been fairly uneventful, though by her fifth month she was obliged to give up singing and set her sights on preparing for the baby. The night she was born, Erik had gazed on her perfect face and cried, and from that moment on, the baby, christened Grace Amelia, was wholly in awe of her father. She followed him everywhere as soon as she was old enough to walk, insisted on being taught the violin as soon as Erik deemed her old enough and before long, was begging him to teach her to sing, though he held off until she was 11, to give her voice time to mature.

As talented as Grace was in music, which was to be expected by all who knew Christine, at a very young age she began exhibiting an extraordinary talent for dance, living up to her name in every movement. It became apparent all too soon that Christine's knowledge of ballet would only take her so far, and soon, they had engaged a ballet tutor for their daughter, who flourished under the strict guidance of her French teacher, Mme. Abney.

Meg Giry had been so happy to hear the news that she, now a teacher of dance herself, had appointed herself Grace's teacher on the side, providing instruction whenever she and her mother had the time to see the family, which was more often, as M. Giry had since retired and Meg was doing well enough to afford time off.

Christine had gone back to the opera for a time, but when Marius was born three years after Grace, Christine had made the choice to teach singing for the Italian conservatoire, where she found she was just as happy molding other young singers as she was singing herself. When Marius was two, Erik and Christine welcomed Angelina and Giovanni to the family. Though he was getting on in years, Erik found that he was more and more delighted with each child, and, though he never said anything, relieved that all of his children would live wholly normal childhoods, unfettered by the deformities that marred his own. They were staying with their friends tonight, as Erik was unwilling to take anyone so young to the opera, though they begged to go. They wanted to hear the music their mother had sung and see the costumes that had changed so little over time. They loved to hear their parents' stories, though the most fantastic tales of all were left out.

Carlotta eventually got over her fear of the opera ghost, though it was not without time under the careful supervision of medical professionals. She never did go back to singing, but had emerged from the affair a changed person, and returned to Spain, where it was rumored she married nobility and had no trouble leaving the stage behind. She never tried to seek out Christine, and for that, Erik was quite glad, and rarely spoke of the opera ghost, though she still swore it had all happened as she had said.

As the overture started, Christine gripped Erik's hand, remembering how nervous she had been at that gala night so many years ago. Erik looked over, took Christine's hand and pressed it to his lips.

Thank you, he thought.

Fin.