Nothing.

What a surprise. He felt nothing. No fear, anger, remorse, not even curiosity. It even seemed his mind had not processed what the sergeant had just said.

Death.

No, still nothing. All that played on his mind was that of Christine. Christine moving gently through the trees of his garden, her soft tinkle of laughter, her adoring eyes which warmed him to the core. Death would be a mere hitch in his devotion to her. Death would never keep him away. After all, he had been a ghost before…

"…You will be taken back to Paris for your trial and execution."

Erik did and said nothing. He continued to stare icily at the man. The police officer looked away nervously from him. "I will return in a day or two, when your train will be waiting."

The messenger disappeared into the darkness, the shouts and pleas of men from neighbouring cells following him as he walked away.

Death.

Death was what waited for him in Paris.

Well, death was his old master. Now he would finally meet It face to face. What irony. To be reunited with his angel, only to be throw to hell for it. God certainly was no friend of the Devil. He had no mercy for the merciless.

Erik chuckled to himself.

"You know, you would think after this, I would hate you! Were you just showing me what heaven was like? So you could punish me even more by showing me that's what I can't have? Well, sir," His voice grew with his anger, from muttering to full on screaming. ," your sick plan failed! I would never trade my moments with her for anything! Not my life, not my music, not my features, not my death! I'm glad I would be spending eternity in Heaven with a bastard like you…"

The entire lower cell block had fallen into silence. Only the faint rustle of clothing or the scuffling of a mouse could be heard. The cell inmates stopped whatever they were doing in their state of frustration and desperation, and froze to listen to the last outcry of a madman. The outcry they had all been through. Sometimes they were shouts of regret, shouts of sorrow and mercy, screams of innocence, but never a scream of blasphemy such as this had been heard ringing through the dead mans chamber.

Amidst the silence, footsteps could be heard. Soft padding footsteps on hot baking tiles of the prison corridor.

Erik had slumped to the floor in anguish and despair, resting his head against the only cool source of the bars. He breathed raggedly, sometimes admitting high pitched moans of sorrow and loss.

He didn't notice the figure kneeling opposite him through the bars, until it reached out and touched his hung face. It was a beautifully soft hand, cool and comforting. It cupped his jaw line, and raised his head away from the obedient gaze to the floor.

"Erik…" A soft voice, the beautiful soothing voice of an Angel travelled from the heavenly sight he saw before him. He felt such sadness wheal up inside of his chest, that tears began to blur his vision. He rubbed them away fiercely, not wanting to loose sight of his Christine.

"Erik…my love…" Tears spilled down out of her own eyes, running down her neck. She reached feverishly into the cage to hold what she could of him. He pressed himself painfully into the bars o savour every moment he could with her. His arms wrapped around her small frame from his still sitting position. She knelt, her knees crushed against the bars, and her shoulders bruising slightly from the force of the embrace.

The felt nothing of the pain, but a mixture of regained loss and pitiful gain. Erik stroked her auburn curls fondly, and brought her face closer to the barrier, so he could just about reach a kiss to her lips. He tasted her salty tears that lingered there, and wiped away the remaining of her tears on her cheeks, yet could do nothing of their constant flow.

"Shhh…don't cry, Christine. I'm here now."

He could think of little else to say. He couldn't sooth her with words of the future, how everything was going to be ok, because inevitably, to wasn't.

Christine sniffed a few times before gazing up at him from her now slumped position on the floor, resting her body weight into the bars and straining her arms through to hold him.

"You…you can get out of this, cant you? Your…you must!"

Erik looked at her with nothing but sorrow swimming in his aquamarine eyes. He knew what she wanted. Another miraculous escape like the one from the Opera House. Where his magician skills where put to their ultimate test. But this was not the Opera. This was not where he had grown accustomed to and knew every loose chain in the link. It seemed like this was a one route trip.

"I've been caught, Christine…and, damn myself for admitting it, but I deserve everything I get!"

"No!" She implored parallel to a fresh wave of tears. "No you don't! You didn't mean to…it was an accident! Tell them it was an accident!"

"Christine, please…you, I, and the whole of France knows it wasn't. I did intend to kill. It was my last sick sense of comfort, to inflict loss on those who hadn't lived with it like I had. I played God only to meet him."

Christine hadn't heard the last part due to her sobs. Erik frowned, still stroking her head softly and gently.

"I don't know what I will do! I…I can't live, I can't breathe without you! I can't go on…"

He jerked her head upright none to gently, and bore her with an angry stare.

"Don't you dare speak of such things. All I have lived for is your safety and welfare, all your life! Don't throw it back in my face by making me the cause."

Christine whimpered under his harsh grip, and placed her hands on his that held her face. She closed her eyes as he relaxed his grip, and she brought his fingers to her swollen lips. She kissed them softly, torturing him, setting fire to his soul. He let his fingers wander over her cheeks and eyelids, brushing her so softly, a lesser fair person would have felt nothing. Christine could have sworn she saw tears fall behind that dark mask.

"Christine…" He whispered. She fluttered her eyes open to him, and his heart stopped to focus all his attention on those huge doe like eyes. "…I don't want you there…don't you come back to Paris. It's still too dangerous for you, and I…I don't want you to see…"

She hung her head in sorrow. "There is no danger…"

He looked at her confused. She looked past him, maybe at happier times in her memory that would take her away from this painful moment.

"…the danger…past today. It's…my birthday today. I'm 19"

Erik said nothing but held her once more. Of all fate could do to them was give them one more day, and maybe his mess wouldn't have happened. One more day, and Robard would have no legitimate claim. Even muttering a 'happy birthday' would have been an insult to the whole situation.

Fate, it seemed, was not too fond of the couple that lay helplessly on the floor of a baking cell under the glaring rays of a Persian sun, absorbed in their own loss of a kind future.

No more words were exchanged, not even as their time ran out together. Their looks said all that words would never.

Love will never separate us.