Chapter 2: Angel Or Phantom

Christine stumbled out of the boat, the heavy, waterlogged silk folds of the gown making her exit difficult, and considerably less than graceful. She tossed the oar down into the gondola, and, picking up her skirts, hurried as quickly as she could up the shore.

She saw him then, standing just outside the tunnel, facing away from her, and she darted quickly into the shadows, not wanting him to see her yet. Not yet…

What should she say? What should she do? Surely he was angry with her, and she feared him when he was angry. Perhaps he would send her away again, and then where would she go? Not back to Raoul. To return to Raoul, though he would welcome her, marry her, and pretend all was right, to return to him would mean a lifetime of misery for both of them.

She could never be the wife he needed. She could never love him as he deserved, though love him she did. She could never belong to him.

She belonged to the scarred man standing only a few yards away, clutching his mask in his hands as though he would break it to pieces.

-

Tears streamed jaggedly down Erik's face as he looked disconsolately down at the mask in his hands.

His fingers tightened around it until the knuckles whitened, and then he threw it angrily across the room. No need for such a trifle now—the only one that he had ever truly desired to never see his face was gone. And death would come soon. There was no need for masks in Hell…

He could hear the chanting voices behind him in the distance, maneuvering their way through the tunnels beneath the Opera House. Eventually they would find him, and they would kill him in the name of justice. Justice it would be, indeed.

Death would be sweet now, sweeter than an eternity of Christine's face and voice haunting him. Sleep—dreamless, silent sleep. The ultimate darkness, where he would be hidden from the cruelties of the world forever. He wondered that he had not taken such a road before.

Although, he mused, perhaps the cruelties of Hell were far worse than those of this world.

He would find out very soon.

Despite the burgeoning presence of the unknown, all fear of death had fled from him. His only purpose in life had been to make music, and that was now abhorrent to him, as abhorrent as the leather mask that lay on the floor where it had landed, as repulsive as the sight of his destroyed face. He would never be able to live as a man—Christine and her lover had seen to that—but he would die as a man, unmasked and welcoming, and damn anyone who suggested otherwise.

He walked to the organ, sat at the bench, placed his fingers on the keys. The cool ivory molded to the warmth of his fingers, the grooves worn by over two decades of furious playing as familiar to him as the image of his ravaged flesh.

But he did not play.

-

Christine stood in the shadows, trails of tears making slow progress down her face, sending new rivulets of already-smeared stage makeup down her face. She watched the Phantom take his place at the organ, and she waited for the music, steeled herself for the furious barrage of chords that she expected to fill the labyrinth.

But no sound came from the aged instrument. He merely sat, fingers caressing the yellowed keys, his lips moving in a silent requiem.

She saw the mask lying on the floor, and she was glad that his face was hidden. It was not the sight of the twisted and scarred flesh that she dreaded, but rather his eyes, eyes that had held her captive so many times, and would now, in the wake of her betrayal, no doubt be filled with that same sadness that she had once described to Raoul.

All the sadness of the world.

It was a great deal of sorrow for one man.

She remembered the last time she had stood in this spot, watching her angel, and how he had played that morning, drawing her from the warmth of the bed out into the chill of the labyrinth. He had been sitting at the organ, in his robe and trousers, the mask affixed to one side of his face, and he had looked so innocent, so terrible vulnerable.

She had touched his face, let her fingers slide across the perfect flesh on the one side, her palm had molded itself to his cheek, and he had leaned into her caress, his eyes had slid closed. He had looked as though no one had ever touched him so gently.

But she had destroyed that moment, had let her curiosity get the best of her, and had pulled his mask off of his face.

Perhaps if she had not done so, if he had not been so furious, if he had not scared her so badly, if she had been braver—perhaps everything would have been so very different.

She still did not know how to approach him. Words had always been so very difficult between them. Music had been the language that they had both shared, their way of communicating when no one else could speak to each other so. It had been beautiful.

It had been the basis of her love for him.

She braced herself, tried to banish fear from her mind, and she stepped from the shadows.

"I remember there was mist…swirling mist upon a vast, glassy lake…"

His head lifted suddenly, and she could see the sudden tensing of his muscles, a startled flexing of his fingers.

"Whose was that shape in the shadows? Whose is the face in the mask?"

He turned his head slowly to the direction of the voice, and Christine saw what she had feared—emotions too strong for words displayed boldly across his marred features. He said nothing, only stared at her, stared at her as though she were a ghost…a vision…an angel.

Christine took another unsteady step forwards, her heart pounding in her chest. Her throat tightened, and her shaky whisper sounded choked when it flew past her lips.

"Angel."

-

She must be a dream. His mind had come unhinged—a lifetime of longing had left him mad, hallucinating—it was the only explanation he could come up with.

Christine was gone. He had seen her pass beneath the grate with Raoul. They would be out of the Populaire by now, headed to his estate, warm beside a roaring fire.

She could not be here. It defied all logic.

She was gone.

And yet, this vision, this product of a tortured mind, moved a step closer to him, and then another, until Christine stood right in front of him, and he could feel her hand slip around his, her fingers prying open his clenched fist.

This could not be.

-

Christine opened his palm. The ring was still there, right where she had left it, and she slipped it out of his hand. She held it for just a moment, stared at it, and then she slid it onto her hand.

His eyes slipped from her face to her hand, and he shook his head slowly, as though trying to comprehend something far beyond his grasp.

She leaned towards him, placed her hand on the right side of his face, the warmth of her palm pressed against the scars on his cheek. And then, her lips were pressed against his, her other hand coming up to hold his face, and he was temporarily stunned. His lips moved against hers, and he felt the warmth of her tongue against his lips for just a moment as she kissed him.

She pulled back then, only an inch or so, her breath still warm against his lips.

"Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known?" Her voice was soft and tremulous, and he thought that he must be reliving the last moments he had shared with her, the last words she had sang to him before she had slipped away forever.

He could almost feel the icy water at his knees, could hear the light swish of water against lace and silk as Christine walked into the lake, Raoul's groans of pain as he struggled against the bonds that held him to the gate.

"God give me courage to show you, you are not alone!"

She brushed her lips against his once more, then, reaching for his hand, pulled him to his feet.

He stared down at her.

"Just a dream," he whispered. "Always a dream." He touched her face, daring in his belief that he was only dreaming to run his fingers along the tracks the tears had made in her stage makeup, to brush the tangled curls away from her eyes. "Always a dream."

Christine was silent, her face flushing at his touch, her skin afire. She closed her eyes when his hands traced her jaw line, brushed against the soft flesh of her neck, traced the lace edge of her tight bodice. Her body swayed towards him, and then suddenly, his touch ceased.

Erik backed away from her, fists clenched at his sides. "Is this really a dream, Christine?" he demanded suddenly. "Am I mad, or do you really stand here before me?" His eyes swept over her face, begging for her to be real and only a fantasy simultaneously.

Christine's eyes opened, and she said nothing for a moment. Then, finally, she spoke, and her voice was barely a whisper. "This is not a dream."

Erik shook his head. "Raoul is gone." He gestured wildly at the lake. The Viscomte has left! You cannot be here!"

Christine stepped towards him again, her eyes full of compassion as she reached out and brushed his marred cheek with her fingertips. "I am here, Angel. Raoul has left, but I remained."

Disbelief filled Erik's eyes. "Why, Christine? Why?"

She smiled thinly. "Must you ask?"

"Look at me, Christine! I am a monster, disfigured, marred—even my own mother could not bear the sight of me! And yet you stay? Why, Christine?"

Christine moved slowly away from him, her gaze still matching his. "Your face holds no horror for me."

Erik's eyes turned bitter. "Finish the verse, Christine. It's in my soul that the true distortion lies, no? Tell me again that I am a murderer, my hands soiled with the blood of innocent stagehands and singers! It is not my distorted face that poisons our love, it is the blackness of my soul! You did not hesitate to tell me when you still desired your precious Viscomte! Go on, Christine, tell me again!"

Christine caught her lower lip between her teeth, and looked up at Erik with such compassion and…some nameless emotion that Erik wanted desperately to call love, but didn't dare…in her eyes that for a moment he could almost believe that she had stayed for him.

"I don't presume to know what darkness drove you to commit those murders. I don't presume to understand your mind, Angel, or even your heart. But I do understand your soul, and I know that beneath that distortion is a beauty far beyond any I've ever experienced."

"That darkness was my love for you, Christine." Erik could not bear to look at her any longer. He turned away to face the lake, still speaking. "I've lived so long in shadows and trickery that I knew no other way. I saw Buquet as an obstacle to you…he knew too much. I was afraid that he would frighten you—that you would realize that his opera ghost and your angel were one and the same, and that you would flee from me. Signor Piangi…I thought by killing him and assuming his role…the role of Don Juan, that I could make you see that you belonged with me. And if I had stopped there, I might have had you still. But then, I had to threaten your precious Viscomte. And that was where I went wrong…that was where the game ended. And now, you can never love me. Those tears you might have shed for me have turned to tears of hate, remember, precious Christine? You cannot love me."

"Then what is this that fills my heart now?" Christine laid her hand on his shoulder, urging him to turn and face her. "What is it that drove me to leave Raoul and return to you? Surely you know by now that I am no dream, Angel. Surely you know that I am real."

"Don't call me that!" Erik suddenly cried, whirling away and pressing his face into his hands. "For as surely as I know that you are real, surely you must see that I am no angel!"

But Christine would not be stopped. "If I cannot call you Angel, then what am I to call you? What is your name? Or do the angels, be they of heaven or of hell, have names?"

He did not turn to face her, but he answered, quietly. "I was never given a name. My mother could not bear the thought or sight of me, much less see to my naming. But somewhere in my wretched existence, I was called Erik."

"Erik." Christine murmured softly, and Erik trembled at the sound of his name on her lips. He turned to her again, fearing what he would see on her face, and bewilderment filled his features when he saw that her expression had not changed.

"Sing to me again, Erik." She placed her small, delicate hand in his. "Sing to me of the music of the night."