A/N:
Here is the first chapter.
Enjoy and review!
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Chapter 1: Never Say Goodbye
Paris, 1871
One year after Giselle's death, and Erik and Christine's reconciliation
How many times must I let her go?
The letter—crisp, pale pink stationary extracted from a milky-white linen envelope—lay on Raoul's writing desk.
It smelt of lavender.
It had been sitting there for over an hour, unread. The fine script beckoned to him, called him to see what Christine had written. He resisted it with curses and brandy, as he had resisted the picture of her that danced incessantly before his eyes, the sound of her voice that echoed always in his mind, the dreams of her that plagued his sleep at night.
The curses did little, and the brandy only worsened his mood. When a manservant entered to remind him of the time, and that luncheon would be served in the garden with the Comte de Chagny, Raoul threw the heavy crystal decanter at the man, cursed first at the fact that it missed him by a good seven or eight inches, second at the damage it had done to the section of leather-bound books that it had hit, and finally, at the loss of so much good liquor.
The servant left in a hurry, without bothering to inform Raoul as to which part of the extensive gardens the luncheon was to be served in.
As if he retained any appetite for food. Alcohol served him much better.
He gave up the battle at last and sat at his desk to read the letter that still lay there, as patiently as paper and ink is wont to do, much more patiently than those who write the letters would ever deign to wait.
Dear Raoul, it began, and he winced. After all that had passed between them, how could she call him such?
He imagined her at her table, perhaps in her dressing room—no, no, that was not at all a good idea. The image of her in her dressing room conjured up pictures of her hair loose and falling wildly about her shoulders, her ankles and a good deal of her legs bare, her waist defined by the imprisonment of whalebone and laces, her arms bared well past the shoulder, the corset pushing up her small breasts…
"Damn it!" He leapt up from the chair and grabbed his glass, reached for the decanter, stared at the dark stain on the wooden floor of his office, and threw the glass across the room as well.
By the time you read this, I will have already set sail for wherever it is that I am going.
"You're leaving?" He spoke to the paper as though it were Christine herself, his voice suddenly forlorn and lost, like a child's. "You can't leave! We were to leave! Us! Together! Not with him! With him you could stay in Paris! You would not leave with me but you will leave with him?"
Raoul half expected a servant to tap on the door, to wonder what was causing such a ruckus, but they had grown accustomed to his rages.
There were whispers that the Viscomte de Chagny was mad. That he had been mad for a year, since Christine Couturier and her husband were reunited, and said their vows again in the same grand cathedral.
He laughed when he read these reports, for the newspapers were so few times correct that it was amusing when they spoke the truth.
I do not know where it is, really, except that it is somewhere in Europe—Erik has made all the plans. I suppose that we may go to England, and he says that I must see Italy. I would like to see Sweden again, as well. I do not remember anything except France, for the most part, but I do remember the house by the sea, and I would like to visit it again.
"Why, Christine?" he whispered, fingers smudging the ink. "Why do you think that I want to know these things? Why do you tell me how happy you are? Why must you be happy when I am miserable, and dying of love for you?"
Where we will finally settle, I do not know. Perhaps someplace in Europe, or perhaps we will go to America. Opera is becoming popular there, and no doubt there will be a way for Erik to support us with his compositions.
"No doubt."
Wherever we go, I have made Erik promise me this, that when I die, he will bury me in the cemetery where my father is buried. Perhaps then you can visit my grave, and remember me as I was in happier times.
Wherever life takes you, Raoul, if we do not speak again, know that the memories of what we shared will always be precious to me. You are in my thoughts and prayers always, and I wish you only happiness.
Forgive me any pain I caused you.
When you think of me, as no doubt you will, think of your childhood sweetheart. Think of the picnics in the attic and the stories we read while Father played the violin. Think of the afternoon when my scarf flew into the sea and you rescued it. Think of only the happy times we shared, my dear friend, and I promise that I will think of them as well.
Forever your loving friend,
Christine"That is all!" He slammed his hand down atop the letter, fingers tightening and scrunching the fine paper into a tight wad. "You ask me to remember you, think of all those lovely memories we made, and forgive you? Forgive you? You lied to me, Christine! You made promises that you could not keep! And I keep mine nonetheless, but what good will it ever do me? I love you, Christine, and I cannot have you, and now I will never see you again! God in Heaven, what have I done? What have I done to deserve this?"
He threw the crumpled letter into the fire. "What will you think of, sweet Christine, my loving friend? Will you think of me when you are with your Erik? No, you will not! You call yourself my friend? I do not want your friendship, Christine, I want your love!"
He sank down in the chair, his hands covering his face as he wept into them. She was leaving. By her letter, she had already left.
She was escaping. She had taken the route he had planned to go with her, but she had taken it with Erik, and had left him behind.
He could not stand at the dock and tell her goodbye, he could not watch the ship sail away and commit one last picture of her face to memory, a picture that was not stained with sorrow or tears, for those pictures were all that he could remember now.
For a year, he had seen every opera played at the Populaire as many times as each was performed, pretending for those hours that Christine was his, that he was the one who would bring her flowers and kisses and meet her in her rooms after the performance instead of the masked devil who had won her after all.
Pretense was all that was left to him, pretense and memories, imagination and dreams, and it would never be enough. It would never be Christine, and she was all that he wanted.
She was all that he would never have.
He was suddenly glad that he had not been at the docks to bid her farewell. To bid her farewell would have been to acknowledge an ending to their promise, to accept that Christine was moving on, starting a life without him.
He would never accept that.
The letter was reduced to ashes now, consumed by the licking flames.
Raoul's soul was slowly turning to ashes, the fire of hatred, jealousy and stubborn devotion burning at him.
Perhaps he could get on a ship, track her, find her, and bring her back with him.
That was foolishness. He could not get her back. He had tried far too many times already.
She would have to come back to him, and Raoul knew with a certainty that she never would.
A servant tapped at the door, said something about the Comte, and luncheon waiting on them both, but Raoul ignored it.
Philippe was a grown man. He could eat alone.