A/N:

For those of you who have not seen the additional scene on the DVD, "No One Would Listen" is a song not in the movie or on the soundtrack, only on the additional scene found in the special features of the DVD. The scene I've described here is perhaps a bit different than the additional scene, but I tried to keep it as close as I could.

The scene in this chapter where the Phantom sings "No One Would Listen" is intended to be the additional scene from the DVD. I do not own it, I've merely given it a place in my story.

For those of you who have not seen the additional scene or heard the song, the lyrics are to the tune of "Learn To Be Lonely". When the scene was removed from the movie, Lloyd Webber changed the lyrics and turned it into the song that Minnie Driver sings during the credits.

As much as I love that song, I would have preferred the scene.

Enjoy, and please review! As the story moves into the final chapters, I need encouragement more than ever! There are roughly five chapters left to go, if everything occurs according to plan and the muses don't move too much, but they are not written yet! I need reviews, suggestions, encouragement!

Enjoy.

-

Chapter 31: No One Would Listen

The Phantom took a step towards her, and Giselle flinched.

But he walked past her, and she shrank back into the shadows, her eyes fixed on him curiously.

He removed his coat and flung it aside, then ran his hand along the edge of his mask absently.

"Masquerade…paper faces on parade…"

At the sound of his voice, Giselle jumped. It was so very different from his speaking voice, which was rough, clipped and harsh. His singing voice was smooth and flowed over the notes like honey, like the softest touch of a lover. How Christine must have loved to hear him sing to her!

But he was singing to himself now.

"…hide your face so the world will never find you."

He turned and walked towards the lake, as though he had forgotten Giselle's presence entirely.

"They would never have found me here. No one knew, except Antoinette…and her. I would have lived all of my days here…"

He was speaking to himself now, lost in a world of his own making.

Giselle dared not speak or hardly even breathe, afraid to break his trance and be the object of his rage once more.

-

"I would have lived all of my days here…"

Alone.

Erik knelt down next to the water, and looked across the lake, the mist rising off of it like smoke.

"And here I am again."

Alone.

He laughed softly, mirthlessly.

"No one would listen. No one but her heard as the outcast hears."

He stood and walked towards the dais, darts of pain stinging his soul as he looked at the drawings of Christine, the small figures, the sheets of music that still lay just as he had left them.

He had taken nothing with him from this place.

He had tried to leave it all behind.

"Shamed into solitude…shunned by the multitude—I learned to listen, in the dark, my heart heard music…"

His fingers trailed over the sheets of music, marred by angry lines where he had grown frustrated with a particular measure or phrase…

"I longed to teach the world, rise up and reach the world—no one would listen, I alone could hear the music…"

He picked up one of the drawings of Christine, just her face, her long brunette curls spilling around her face and over her shoulders, a large red rose in full bloom in her hair…

"Then at last, a voice in the gloom seemed to cry: "I hear you, I hear your fears…your torment and your tears…"

Tears rose in his eyes and he laid the drawing down, his fingers lingering on the contour of Christine's cheek…the color of her lips…

"She saw my loneliness…shared in my emptiness. No one would listen—no one but her heard as the outcast hears."

A single tear fell on the drawing, and a small trail of black ink leaked from the corner of Christine's eye and slid down her cheek.

"No one would listen. No one but her heard as the outcast hears…"

-

Christine tried to ignore the stares of the workers as Raoul helped her dismount from his horse in front of the Opera Populaire. She knew she must look a fright, her dress and hair bedraggled from the fall and the rain, her face tear-streaked and her eyes red, her hand still clenched tightly around Erik's wedding band, and bruises darkening on her wrists and arms.

"Thank you, Raoul." She let go of his hand and smiled weakly up at him.

He dismounted the horse as well and took her arm. "I will escort you in. Then I will leave you with Madame Giry."

"Raoul…"

He shook his head and glanced up at the workers, dropping his voice to a sharp whisper. "Do you see the way those men are looking at you, Christine? They don't know who you are or why you are here. I will go with you until you are safely with Madame Giry, and then I will leave."

Christine only nodded.

-

Andre was standing in the foyer when Raoul and Christine walked in. His eyes widened considerably at the state of Christine's appearance.

"Madame Couturier!" he exclaimed, taking a step towards her. "Are you alright, my dear?"

Raoul nodded. "She will be fine. Is Madame Giry here?"

Andre opened his mouth to speak, but the sharp, lilting voice of the ballet mistress cut him off.

"Indeed I am."

-

The last notes of the Phantom's song had died away, but Giselle still stood, her hands tangled in her dress, her eyes closed. What beauty was hidden in this man! No wonder the young Christine, having never seen his face, had thought him an angel. His voice seemed to have been given him from Heaven. Giselle thought she had never heard a more beautiful sound.

But when she opened her eyes, he had turned to look at her again, and the spell was broken.

He had composed himself once more, and his face was expressionless, his eyes so cold that Giselle could not suppress a shudder.

This Phantom might have the voice of an angel, but he had the soul of a demon. Giselle dropped her eyes, unable to look at him any longer. He was more repulsive in her eyes with the mask than without, for at least with his deformity bared, he was human, vulnerable, equal with her and the others that he had terrorized and murdered.

With the mask he was cold, aloof, a fallen angel, a ghost who seemed just that—an invincible phantom who knew and obeyed no rules, nor was he subject to any.

He took another step towards her, and Giselle felt her fear begin to claw at the walls of her throat.

Oh God, I can't die now. Not without seeing Raoul again, not without telling him…

What was the use? Raoul, haughty aristocrat that he was, whatever his idiosyncrasies and charms, would no doubt spurn her love, calling it the bought devotion of a desperate whore. He would never love Giselle. His heart had been given over wholly to Christine.

As had this man's.

You were born in darkness, you have lived in darkness, and you will die in darkness, at the hand of darkness.

The irony threatened to overwhelm her.

And yet, she had seen the humanity in his eyes when he had grasped her arm in the cemetery and demanded to know the whereabouts of Christine Daae. She had heard the tears in his voice and saw the ink of the drawing run only moments ago. That was his weakness. His murderous soul, his cold, bitter heart and his seemingly nonexistent conscience could be brought to bear only where Christine was concerned.

Perhaps her life had not come to an end yet.

She drew up every ounce of courage left in her, straightened her spine and dropped her hands to her sides, leveling an equally cold and determined gaze at the masked man advancing towards her.

"If you kill me, monsieur, you will never find your Christine."

It was a worthless trump card, a bluff that could easily be called, and as likely to enrage him as to calm him.

But at least for the moment, it stopped him.

-

There was not an ounce of compassion in Madame Giry's eyes when she looked at Raoul and Christine. Nor was there sympathy in her voice.

"Thank you for your assistance in bringing Madame Couturier safely to me, Viscomte." Her manner was polite, but the finality of her tone was clear. I will see to Christine now, were the unspoken words. You are not needed any longer.

How true that was, Raoul thought. He bristled at the dismissal in the ballet mistress's voice, as though she had more stake in Christine's future, more concern for her well-being than he, her former fiancé!

Former. That is the word that you must remember, Viscomte de Chagny, his mind remonstrated. You are of the past.

"I will be seeing Christine to dinner tonight." Raoul informed Madame Giry, purposely leaving off her married title. The cursed Phantom had divorced her with his actions, if such a union of angel and demon could have ever been called a marriage at all. He would not address her with that creature's falsified identity.

Madame Giry lifted an eyebrow and looked at Christine. "Are you to accompany the Viscomte tonight, my dear?" The endearment held no warmth at all.

Christine lowered her eyes and nodded. "He says…" her voice broke. "He says there are things that he must explain to me, and I do wish the answers, Madame."

Madame Giry frowned, but replied only to Raoul. "Then she will see you tonight, monsieur."

And then she led Christine down a hallway and out of Raoul's sight.

-

"He came to me last night."

Christine looked up sharply from where she was sitting, on a small bed in one of the refurbished dormitories.

Madame Giry faced away from her, her emotions conflicting sharply between the boy that she felt she must protect, and the girl whom she had raised as a daughter, and had always considered as such. No mother would shun her daughter in the wake of a violence that had nearly cost her life, but surely Erik, who loved Christine so and had no other joy in his life, would not nearly destroy her without reason.

"He said that you had betrayed him."

Christine bit her lip. "It is a misunderstanding, Madame, a terrible slip of the imagination and the tongue that has cost us everything. His temper spun out of control, as it so often has before, and I fear that what has been torn apart by careless words cannot be rebuilt. I do not…" her voice cracked. "He does not even know where I am."

Madame Giry sat down beside Christine then, her controlled anger at the state that Erik had come to her in somewhat subdued. Perhaps there were two sides to this story, as well.

"Tell me what happened, Christine."

-

"Then you are not Christine?"

There was an edge of mockery in his voice that cut straight to Giselle's heart. She wanted to claim that identity, to have him call her by that name and affirm, as another lover of that woman, that she was Christine Daae. If this man said that she was Christine, there could be no doubt of it.

But it was not worth her life to be someone that she was not.

And so, her heart breaking, she relinquished that which had become so dear to her, the only part of her that Raoul would ever love, the false identity that had become her lifeline to the only love she had ever known, and she became Giselle again.

She laid it down, and feared that even if she walked from this labyrinth alive, that she could never take it up again.

"I am not Christine."

At the mocking smile that spread across the exposed half of his face, and curled gruesomely up into the edge of the mask, Giselle knew that she would live, at least for now. She amused him. It was a poor beginning, but it was a start.

"Then, pray tell, what is your name?"

"Giselle Auteur."

He bowed at the waist, his very manner exuding sarcasm. "A pleasure, Giselle. Now tell me, where may I find Christine?"

Her bluff had been called.

She had no choice but to tell him all of the tale, and pray that he might add an ending suitable to them both.

-

Raoul sat in his armchair by the fire, a scrap of stiff pink silk in his hands.

It was a mask, delicate, edged in white feathers and attached to a stiff white stem.

Masquerade…every face a different shade…masquerade…

"Tonight the masks come off, Christine, once and for all. I will shed mine, and you must shed yours."

Look around, there's another mask behind you.

"And Giselle's will come off, too. I will relinquish the games, and make you mine, Christine. You cannot hide forever."

Masquerade, seething shadows, breathing lies…masquerade…

"Let him seethe. He has lied to you with his promises of love. His masquerade will never end."

You can fool any friend who ever knew you…

"You cannot fool me any longer, Christine. I know you are unhappy. But tonight, I will tell you everything, and then you will be happy."

He picked up the other mask that lay on the dresser, the mask he had worn on that fateful New Year.

"You will be happy with me."

And then, staring into the fire, he fed them both into the flames.