Author's Note: Well, I know I promised you guys a E/C chapter, but a reviewer pointed out to me that Raoul is still sitting up in the ruined theater. So this chapter is to deal with Raoul, and the nextwhich is uploaded also, is the E/C chapter. Enjoy.

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Chapter 11: Raoul, I've Been There

Madame Giry and Meg did not take long to ascend from the catacombs into the ruins of the Opera Populaire. Madame Giry stepped into Christine's room, and she could hear through the walls a keening wail. She turned quickly to Meg.

"Go to the foyer and see who is still here, Meg. I'll come for you in a few minutes."

This time, Meg did as her mother asked.

Madame Giry made sure Meg followed her directions, and then she rushed into the theater. She heard loud sobs, and lifting her skirts so as not to trip, hurried up the steps of the stage.

Raoul knelt there, a scrap of stiff pastel fabric held close against his face, tears dripping from his fingers, pressed painfully to his eyes. He called Christine's name again and again, voice weak and broken, and Madame Giry was instantly torn between happiness for Erik and pity for the Viscomte, who had surely never before faced the loss of anything that he wanted.

She knelt beside him, not saying a word, until finally her presence broke through the wall of his grief. Pale and shamefaced, Raoul looked up at her, embarrassment at being seen in such a state plain on his face. His eyes were red rimmed, dark shadows appearing beneath, and Madame Giry thought that she had never seen such a pitiful creature.

What was it about young Christine that drove these men to such grief? Madame Giry shook her head, resting a comforting hand on Raoul's shoulder as she waited for him to collect himself.

"Where is Christine?" He looked up at Madame Giry, hope springing into his eyes. "She is alright, isn't she…where is she?"

Madame Giry closed her eyes for a moment, praying silently for the right words with which to tell Raoul the truth. "She is with Erik." There was no kinder way to say it.

"No." Raoul murmured, then shouted. "No!" He clenched his fist around the mask, slamming his fist against the wood of the stage floor. "She chose me! Christine! Christine!" He fell back into silence, pain etching its way across his face.

"Monsieur de Chagny…" Madame Giry tried, then lapsed into inappropriate, but perhaps under these circumstances, forgivable, informality. "…Raoul. Don't weep for her, Raoul. She has found happiness. I know as well as any what grief you feel, but would you deny Christine happiness after she has known sorrow for so long?"

"What know you of grief?" Raoul cried, forgetting himself in his anguish. "You have everything you could wish for, Madame."

"Not everything." Madame Giry stood, looking distantly across the ruins of the theater, as though looking back across years past. "I once felt loss as keenly as you do now, monsieur. Many years ago, when Meg was but a small child, my husband fell ill and died. It happened so quickly…I was not prepared for it. He was my life, my world, and suddenly, I was left a widow with a small daughter. I was only a few years past twenty…and I thought my life had ended. I didn't sleep for days, food was abhorrent to me. I wanted to die. If not for little Meg, I would have died. I felt just as you do now, monsieur." She turned back to him, her eyes filling with tears. "He was everything to me, just as Christine is to you. But you will learn to live again."

"I don't see how." Raoul said hopelessly, standing to his feet. "Has she no gratitude, Madame Giry? I risked my life to save her from the monster…and she stays with him!"

"Is that what you want from her, monsieur? Gratitude?"

"No." Raoul acknowledged. "I want her love."

"That you have." Madame Giry said. "You must understand, Raoul. She loves you. But she belongs with Erik. She belongs to Erik. If she had gone with you, she might have found joy, and you would both have shared love. But her soul would have died, for nothing can long survive without its mate. She would have become a mere shell of the Christine you love. Erik is her soul's mate, monsieur, and they cannot live one without the other."

Raoul straightened, a measure of composure returning to him. "I suppose I must be resigned to it, then."

"Be patient, monsieur. You loved life before Christine returned to it. You will find that love again."

Raoul nodded, and, still clutching the mask, strode down the stairs. Madame Giry watched him go, and followed not long after. The last few minutes had done little to set her heart at ease. There was a look in Raoul's eyes that frightened her. She wished to God that Christine had remained faithful in her engagement to the Viscomte, but there was no changing what had been done.

She only prayed that this was to be the end of the horrors that had plagued them for so long.