Hello! I'm back. Hopefully I haven't neglected this story for TOO long. But I really missed working on it. In fact, I feel so deprived that I decided to put Erik and Christine's meeting in THIS chapter. Yes! THIS CHAPTER! So celebrate everyone!

Emmanuelle Lisselle Grey: Thank you for your compliment. Erm…why were you worried? I'd never ABANDON this fic. I love it too much!

Le Romantique Perdue: Hmm, yes, well, I WAS going to send Red Death Erik around to skewer everyone that didn't review but at the last moment decided to be selfish and keep him for myself!

Mel: Don't worry, you shall get the meeting between Erik and Christine! I was going to draw it out but now I'm too impatient to get them together! I'm sorry, Red Death Erik is mine and I shall not give him away…Hey! Wait a sec! He's getting away! How dare he run from me! (Taluliaka sprints off, waving her arms angrily)

Kitty Valentine: Erm, did you mean to send your review 4 times? You made me think I was loved by 3 other different authors as well! Not to worry. Ah, but I LIKE my evil Erik's. I like to add depth to his character. Hoorayness! You hate the fop too! Grr, Raoul. One of my friends said she liked the name Raoul the other day and wondered why I was advancing on her with a heavy textbook frothing at the mouth!

Lair Lover: Aw, I feel so loved! I'm glad I started this story if authors like you get pleasure from it! Thanks for reviewing!

forgotten child: Oh, you see, that's where you got confused. Meg only advanced a couple of paces down the corridor, she never got anywhere near the house on the lake. That's how she got back to the door so quickly! It's Erik that's the fast one. And the substituting 'n' for 'm' in those French words, I got the translation from Leroux's book and I think they're the right ones!

ErikTheDevil'sChild: Thanks! I'm glad of your enthusiasm! And Christine is going now, so hold on to your hats ( if you have more than one and are wearing it, that is)

Butler's Lassie: Yes, Christine shall meet her angel! In this chapter! Hooray! Thanks for the compliments! You and Erik? Umm…perhaps not

Kelly Tolkein: AGGHH! My Gerard! Keep back! Nah I'm gonna rush into it! I know it always seems so long when you're writing it!

Yami Wah: Hey Wah! Did you like Erik? Do you find him…sxc? You will when you actually watch the movie (cough cough state the obvious) I'll see you tomorrow (I think) as well! Bye!

I have a virus at the moment you know, a terrible headache that's lasted for three days, stomachaches, and now a sort of cold thing. It's 'orrible I tells you, 'orrible!

Masked Rose

Disclaimer: Don't own POTO. Though Gerald the Canadian moose may…for those who haven't read Alter Ego, he's my moose! GO GERALD!

Chapter 3: Hidden Music

Christine stepped out of the carriage daintily, taking, with a stab of reluctance, Raoul's hand offered to assist her. Wrapping her cloak a little closer around her for warmth against the cruel wind sweeping down the streets, Christine gazed with the same mixture of awe and pride she always had at the Opera Populaire looming above her. So many memories swirled around her and for a minute her heart quailed. What if the shadow of his voice still lingered in those winding corridors, those soaring arches of the theatre? What if the ghostly murmur of his beloved voice drifted through the mirror she had spent so much of her youth gazing through in rapture? Christine shivered slightly. Raoul glanced worriedly sideways at his delicate wife, a mere wisp of hair and a sweet voice standing against the wind. It looked as though one heavy blow could fell her like a spring flower, her fiery spirit shaded by her wide, haunted eyes and slim form. Was she still the woman he had loved? Lines appeared suddenly on his handsome face for a minute as a certain memory gripped him…

The night of the Phantom's opera. The night he and Christine could flee the fear of the Opera forever, far from that madman's intense eyes, his icy passion for Raoul's sweet child whom he had sworn to love, to protect.

He had known as soon as Christine's face changed that something was wrong. And then, from the filtering grains of knowledge he had learned about singing from his previous visits to rehearsals and so on, he heard it too. That was not Piangi's annoying, grating tones. This singer's voice was haunting, soft as velvet, wrapping his Christine in a web of notes she could not break. Bright blue eyes flashed from beneath the Don Juan mask in the direction of Box 5. Could it be? Was that dark, intense, passionate singer the Phantom?

And then he heard what the man was singing…'Our games of make-believe…' Here the man closed his eyes briefly, as though the mere mention of the games pained him, his presence commanding the attention of the silent audience, though he glided lightly across the stage. Then he turned to Christine. Those eyes flashed at her, sending a silent message that chilled Raoul to the bones…'are at an end.' Then Christine answered his song, singing the same tune, the same words, light as the dew on leaves, her tortured eyes seeking his in despair. 'I've decided…decided.'

They ascended the ladders to meet each other on the bridge, each growing closer, their duet haunting and mysterious, twining through the music. Raoul rose, gripped with a sudden dread that he was about to lose Christine. The soldiers could not get a clear shot now, they were close, they had met, they were holding each other…'The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn!'

Tears spilled down his cheeks, tears he was barely aware of. The Phantom had been one step ahead all along. 'We've passed the point…of no return.'

Raoul shook himself out of his trance, realizing that Meg had come, all floating lace and gleaming golden hair, running out of the opera and had flung her arms about Christine. The women were laughing, talking, smiling. Perhaps, perhaps it would all be all right. Since the madman was gone, surely there was nothing to stalk them in the darkness, to turn Christine towards the beauty of the night and away from the light of his love. He followed a few paces behind as the two women lightly stepped towards the door.

It was the music again. It played on and on, flowing through the walls, under her door, spiraling around her with an ethereal ring that terrified as well as entranced her. Christine sat up, hugging her knees under the thick blanket. She had insisted on staying far away from her old dressing room but had traveled there every night, to rest her head on the cool surface and listen. But the music did not drift from behind the mirror, from the Angel's realm of night. It came from elsewhere, an elusive call she could not answer. But tonight…tonight could she know the way? Rising, her nightgown flowing about her, she walked out of her room, her footsteps quietening as she stepped past Raoul's door. Her feet were cold on the floor, her hair tousled and wild about her, but it all felt right. She was meant to do this, to walk this corridor, to find the music…

The door loomed before her, cobwebs drifting from the doorknob, clinging to the hinges. This room had not been used for years yet the music drifted from behind it, haunting, sad, so close she could swear it was right beside her, all around her. Christine lifted her small white hand, so pale in the darkness and turned the doorknob slowly. The music played on. The door opened noiselessly, as if in a dream but no dream could force the chill up her toes from the floor, could make her sweep her unruly curls from her eyes, could create the impossible scene before her.

She stood engulfed in a wave of sound, her glittering eyes fixed on the room before her. It was covered in cobwebs and dust littered every available surface. The lone piano at the back of the room was dusty and old. It had been opened delicately, rested against the back wall so that the dust fell lightly to the ground with each stroke of the keys, making the entire room seem to sway and quiver in the orb of sound. The figure seated at the piano was oblivious to her presence, every movement of his fingers causing his black cloak to sweep the ground, stirring the dust motes to dance in the air about him, an aura of light.

A lone candle lit part of the piano, throwing jittery beams of light about the room, but leaving other areas untouched, the silhouette of the player, the white flash of the porcelain mask. She knew without looking his eyes would be closed, allowing himself to drift away, his self-control dissolving, leaving him truly free to create beauty without fear of ridicule or disgust. The score any other would have had before him was in his head, written in words of fire and ice to come ringing from his hands as the sounds of heaven, the music of the spheres in the endless sky. The one figure she had thought she would never see again. 'Angel.' The word drifted from her trembling lips like her dying breath.

Pain sparked suddenly in her abdomen. She had wounded him so when she had left. A memory rose before her with startling clarity and she stared into its depths hopelessly.

The icy water of the lake lapping at the sides of the boat. The anguished cry of her teacher rent the air, sending shivers down Christine's spine. The smash of his hated mirrors filled her whole being in a stunning crash of a thousand pieces of glass, like her heart.

She gasped at the pain of leaving him, one pale arm reaching for him in agony, even as the other clung to Roaul's broad, comforting shoulder. It steadied her slightly as the boat rocked in the dark waters. She gazed in vain back into the darkness she had so feared once, and it seemed to part for her. She caught a glimpse of a broken figure, crouched in terrible pain on the ground, cloak dark about him, the candle illuminating his form dying, dying so slowly, his hacking sobs lost and forlorn as the night crept in around him, eternal, smothering, veiling the figure from sight.

Christine felt her heart breaking as she heard the yells and jeers of the approaching mob…

O, would he not turn around? Christine swayed forward a step, a sob tearing its way up her throat. She slumped onto the ground, in a cloud of lace and dark curls, crumpling under the soft notes, once so compelling, so inviting, now accusing, hateful. One delicate hand stretched towards the black-clad shadow. 'Angel…please.' The soft cry sent a lifetime of regret and sorrow towards the aloof composer. Her sobs came thicker than before and Christine bent her head, tears cascading down her face. And it was only now that the music slowed, hesitated. Almost she cried for it to continue, dreading the silence more than the pain.

The music halted, the last sweet strains fading sadly into the night as the fingers rested gently on the ivory keys. Erik's back was ramrod straight. Two clear blue eyes stared blankly at the wall, brows lowered as he listened to the pitiful sobs. Someone was in the room behind him. Someone so familiar it was all he could do not to cross the room and bend gracefully beside her, smoothing back the dark curls and brushing the pure tears from her stricken face. To hear her laugh, smile as she once did. He closed his eyes briefly in pain before he turned, pushing himself away from the piano to face Christine, a dark-haired angel curled helplessly amongst her flared nightgown that spread, light and cool, across the dusty floorboards. It seemed like a painting, the fallen angel collapsed in a ray of moonlight while a dark creature watched on, eyes gleaming like twin flames from the darkness. For a moment he couldn't speak, couldn't believe it was actually her, the girl whose visage had appeared before him so many times in that cell, in between the beatings, who smiled so happily on him. Just a vision wrung from the tortured depths of his mind.

But never had she knelt so wretchedly on the floor, hands clutching each other, writhing in her grief, never had she sobbed so hopelessly before him, her kind teacher. She could not bring herself to meet his gaze. He sighed her name to the air and stood, stumbling a little. One hand went subtly to his ribs, which had taken months to heal since his discovery in Madame Giry's office. The burst of pain served to strengthen his resolve against the girl crouched on the floor, reminding him of the torture he had endured, sealing his vow never to get close to anyone ever again, lest they hurt him.

'Good evening, Christine.'

He said her name so dispassionately, as though she were simply a chorus girl he had once scared down a dark corridor. She dared not look at him, she merely murmured to the floor, 'Forgive me, please forgive me, Angel. Please…'

'Forgive you for what? For leaving me to the mob? For telling the soldiers where to find me? For standing before me all those long hours, as I bled onto the floor in that God forsaken cell, as fresh and pure as an angel? For having the nerve to come back, seek me out in my solitude and believe everything can go on as though nothing ever happened? Like we never happened?'

The words came like acid from him and they stabbed Christine like a thousand brutal knives. One sentence though, through her fog of grief, pierced her especially. She had told no one about where to find her Angel. Could it have been…surely not Raoul?

Then she became aware he was walking past her, not pausing, not hesitating, his sure strides taking him to the door and back to his twilight world, where she could not tell him…where she could not explain… She grabbed pitifully at the swirls of his cloak, gasping, 'Angel.'

He pulled the cloak out of her reach, remarking coldly, 'I am no angel. I never was. Let go of your childish fantasies, Christine, and leave me alone.' Then he was gone, leaving her to sob her heart out on the cold stone, gasping at the injustice of the prejudiced world against her Angel and despairing at the hatred in his tone when he had spoken to her.

It could have been hours, weeks later when she finally felt a warm hand close on her shoulder, the warm, soothing voice of Raoul speaking to her. 'Christine, what's wrong? What's happened?' She felt herself pulled into his strong embrace, her tears wiped away. But she could only sob harder, her delicate fists pummeling his chest in fury.

'How? How could you do this to me? To him? How could you do this?'

Well, that was emotional. Right, now I can't really see the computer screen past the lights and stuff flashing in front of my eyes from this headache, so I'm going to go take more dugs and go back to sleep. Feel grateful I woke up for long enough to post this chapter (wrings fists at sky) Now review people!

From Taluliaka