Author's Note:
Apologies for the length of time this has taken to post. I know I keep re-estimating the number of chapters left, but I can tell you now, with 99.9 percent surety, that there are only three chapters and an epilogue left.
And now, please read, enjoy, and as always, review!
To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
--Don Quixote, The Man of La Mancha
Chapter 36: Either Way You Choose, You Cannot Win
Christine had never tried to navigate the canals beneath the opera house before.
It seemed so long since she had come here, so long since she had traveled in the gondola to the once-forbidden lair of the Phantom of the Opera.
What had once seemed so glorious and mystifying in her naiveté now seemed dank and terrifying. When Erik had brought her here first, she had not smelled the mildew or seen the slime and mold growing on the slick walls. She had not heard the squeaks of rats on the stairs or noticed how the light from the lantern cast frightening shapes on the dark water as the boat moved with an agonizing slowness. And through all of what seemed to Christine a never-ending journey, she could hear the Phantom's voice inside her mind, echoing off of the walls, the chords of his music throbbing ceaselessly through the air, possessing her, chaining her, imprisoning her.
Not Erik's voice. Not Erik's music. Not the deep, rich tones that had spoken loving words to her as he leant over her in the candlelight. Not the honeyed notes and soft chords that had wrapped themselves seductively around her and drawn her into a world beyond anything she had ever dreamed.
This was the Phantom's lair, no longer the grand kingdom that the innocent, child Christine had seen, not the illusion that Erik had spun, playing upon her fantasies to create for her the longings of her mind.
What she feared was that the man who had returned would no longer be the possessor of her soul, but once again the deceiver of her mind.
-
Erik heard the movement of the boat through the water before it reached the shore. He had sat at the organ for a good hour, perhaps two after Madame Giry had left, playing angrily at first—harsh, dissonant sounds that matched the ache in his soul, then lapsing into silence, his fingers brushing the keys languidly as he replayed over and over again the many errors of his life.
Giselle had floated aimlessly about the lair, not speaking to him, not offering comfort as she had in the past few days. He understood her silence, for how many words of wisdom could one seventeen-year-old girl possess? Perhaps she had heard his conversation with Madame Giry—doubtless she had, being only a few feet away in the bedroom he had built for Christine—and simply did not know what to say. At any rate, he was grateful for her silence, and perhaps she knew that he would be.
This seemed to be the end of it all. Madame Giry had Christine under her wing once more, and doubtless would go to all lengths to see that they were kept separate. She would push for Christine to accept any offer that Raoul might make, and soon Christine would be lost to him forever. Contesting their marriage, which was still, in fact, legally binding, would have no effect. His ring was gone, thrown at Christine with words that would leave her perfectly blameless should she seek an annulment. After all, what court would contest the wish of a future Viscomtess to annul her marriage to a ghost?
He no longer wished to have Christine against her will any longer.
What God has joined together, I now put asunder!
How carelessly he had thrown away his dreams! How foolishly he had shattered all his hopes! They were as distorted now as his face, as broken as his soul, as lost as his mind.
Let the dream begin.
This he knew—all dreams must one day come to an end.
-
Christine did not know what she would find when she reached the shore. Fear snaked its way around her heart and held tight, that familiar, childish fear that had caused so many of her life's errors.
She wanted to run, but she had come too far. To run now would mean a lifetime estrangement between her and Erik—if she turned her back and left now, when surely he knew that she was here, he would never come after her. She would have nothing left to do but go with Raoul.
The worst betrayal of all.
Another night came to mind, memories of the last time she had traveled the long path to the lair crowding in and causing the fear to rise up in her throat again.
They were at the shore now and Raoul leapt easily from the gondola, hauling it onto the shore and, ever the gentleman, offered Christine a hand out of the small craft.
She stood on the shore, weak-kneed and afraid, cursing the child that she was even now. Would she never grow up? Would no amount of calamity make her a woman at last?
Perhaps this was the first step. To swallow her pride and force down the fear and go to Erik. To beg his forgiveness for her thoughtlessness and childish whims, to pray that he would, in turn, be remorseful for his actions against her.
She took the first step towards the dais, and the next, and then she was running suddenly, up the steps towards the man who sat, silent, at the organ that had once spun such beautiful melody.
-
Erik heard the sound of soft footsteps on the shore, and he turned to see Christine, running towards him, up the stairs of the dais. Relief welled up inside of him and showed plainly in his eyes—until he saw Raoul behind her, only a few steps, one hand on his sword.
Erik's eyes hardened, his body stiffened, and his heart sank. Christine saw the sudden coldness in his gaze, and her steps slowed, her eyes filled with sorrow, and she looked away.
He heard Giselle emerge from the room behind him, saw Raoul's eyes go wide and heard Christine's soft gasp of shock. He spoke without thinking, without pausing to remember his anger or Christine's injustices, without giving himself even a moment to reconsider.
"Christine, forgive me."
Her face changed in an instant, from night to day in one beautiful moment, and then her arms were around his neck, her lips on his cheek, and for a glorious second in the expanse of time, she was his again.
Then he heard the soft whisper of steel sliding past leather, and he pulled back from Christine to see the fury in Raoul's eyes.
"I am sorry, Christine." Raoul's voice was deceptively soft, incongruously smooth. Christine turned, and her eyes went wide with horror.
"No, Raoul!"
"I cannot let you go back to him, Christine. You ask too much of me now, to walk away and leave you in the arms of a monster, a man who has nearly killed you, who no doubt will finish the job when next you do not fulfill his whims. You ask too much, loving you as I do. If you die, your blood would be on my hands as well as his, and I cannot live knowing that. Come with me, Christine. Come with me, or I will make the choice easy."
-
Giselle's heart leapt when she saw Raoul behind Christine, saw the man that she had never had the faintest hope of ever seeing again. She had thought that he and Christine would have fled Paris long ere this, had thought that he was lost to her forever.
Perhaps he still was. His eyes were fixed on Christine with a devotion that Giselle could never hope to inspire in him, and she felt acutely the knowledge of what she was and would always be.
His harsh words startled her, and she thought that perhaps he was truly mad after all, as mad as the Phantom had once been. He was desperate to have Christine, she knew this, and she feared Christine's answer.
The girl had braved many things to find Erik again, she did not doubt. Christine would not be so easily swayed.
He is a fool.
Erik would kill Raoul if they came to blows.
Giselle clutched the side of the doorway, her nails digging into the crevasses in the stone until her knuckles turned white and her fingers bled.
Don't fight him, Raoul. For God's sake, get out of this place. Don't fight him!
-
Erik laughed, a chilling, mocking sound that echoed eerily in the labyrinth. "You think you could best me in a match of swords, boy?"
"I nearly did, once. It was Christine's grace alone that saved your wretched hide, though if I had possessed any sense at all, I would have done away with you then."
Erik bristled, and Christine grabbed his arm. "No, Erik!"
Raoul sneered. "Then come with me, Christine, and no harm will be done. But continue in this foolishness, this childish obsession with darkness, and I will have no choice but to liberate you myself."
"Have you forgotten that night so easily, Raoul?" Christine whispered, her eyes pleading. "Have you forgotten how you felt when Erik proposed something not so far from what you threaten now? Do you forget all the past so quickly?"
"I have forgotten nothing. It is because I have not forgotten his madness that I say these things now."
"You are the one who is mad, Raoul!"
Ah, what hellish curse is upon me, that for love's sake I drive men to madness!
Raoul took another step, and drew his sword fully, pointing it at Erik's chest. "What will it be, Christine? Will you go away with me? Or will the knight fight the dragon once again for the lovely lady's hand?"
-
Christine closed her eyes. There was no choice in her mind, no choice in her soul. Her heart wavered for one unsteady moment, remembered with shocking clarity how she had loved Raoul, remembered the picnics in the attic, the walks on the seashore, the stories that they had read. Her heart wavered, but her soul clamored far more loudly, and she knew what her answer would be, what her answer had always been.
"I loved you once, Raoul. Perhaps I still do. But my love for you can never be more than what it is—the love for a childhood memory that is forever precious to me. If I went with you tonight, I would find happiness in your joy. But your joy would be short-lived, for while I might be yours in the daytime, when we took walks in the gardens and had picnics by the lake, but every night I would return to Erik in my mind, in my dreams. Every night he would be the one beside me, holding me, kissing me, making love to me. It would never be you, Raoul, no matter how I might try. And you deserve far better than a woman who will always belong, mind, body and soul, to another man. You are a good man, a handsome man, and you may have anything you like in life. That is the lot you have been cast, and it is a good one. But my lot is far different from yours, and here is where we must part. If you love me, Raoul, as you say you do, then leave me be. Leave Erik be, and find joy in knowing that I am happy, loving him, whatever the consequences may be. I have chosen, and nothing can alter my decision. It was made since first I saw him through the mirror, and nothing on Earth can change it."
-
With a hiss of anger, Raoul leveled both his stare and his steel at Erik. "We shall see."
He lunged.
Erik sidestepped the blow easily, snatching up his sword from where it lay, propped up against the wall.
Christine screamed and darted away, Raoul's next blow barely missing her as she darted back to stand with Giselle in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth. "Oh God, please, no, please…" she whispered over and over again, her wide-eyed stare of horror matching Giselle's.
The two men battled fiercely, knocking over unlit candlesticks and chairs in their furor, destroying the velvet drapes that covered the mirrors and baring the glass to receive a sudden spray of blood as Erik sliced deeply into Raoul's shoulder.
Raoul growled, lunging again, his sword missing and diving into a stack of papers on a shelf, ruining several pages of composition and earning a howl of rage from Erik, who increased his attack threefold.
Erik had never been known to play by the rules, and he had no intention of doing so now. With a snarl, he tripped Raoul, shoving the man backwards into one of the mirrors. Splinters shot through the glass, cracking the mirror, a delicate spider's web of shattered glass.
Raoul gasped for breath, pulling himself upright with some difficulty. He lunged at Erik again, but the nimble Phantom dodged the blow as easily as he had all the others, his years of expertise with the sword paying off well.
Raoul swung low again, and cut into Erik's calf. Erik gritted his teeth, his jaw hardening as he lunged forward, parrying another of Raoul's blows and stabbing Raoul just below the shoulder, narrowly missing his heart.
Giselle screamed, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.
Erik stepped backwards, tapping the thin blade of his sword against Raoul's tauntingly. "Surely you can do better than this, boy! You are a Viscomte," he sneered, raising an eyebrow mockingly. "You've held a sword since you could walk. Surely you can beat an old man, a ghost?"
Raoul took the bait, regaining a moment of strength and surging forwards to attack again.
In the moment between his mocking and Raoul's lurch forwards, Erik knocked a flaming candlestick neatly from the shelf on which it rested. The fire gutted out instantly upon hitting the dirt, spilling hot wax across the ground and leaving a heavy pewter candlestick in Raoul's path.
Raoul's boot hit the patch of wax, hardening and slippery on the ground. He fell, his knee striking the candlestick sharply and causing him to cry out in pain.
"No!" Giselle screamed. In an instant she had pushed away from the door, and was running towards Raoul, her eyes streaming tears. "Don't kill him, Erik, please! Don't kill him!"
Erik paused a moment, his eyes flickering between the sobbing Giselle, only a few paces from the dueling men, and Raoul, kneeling in the dirt, gasping in pain, trying desperately to regain enough strength to strike at Erik one final time.
And then his gaze shifted to Christine, her eyes wide with horror as well. His heart constricted sharply, knowing that in only a moment, he would be responsible for the death of a man who had been her childhood sweetheart. He would once again cause her great pain.
And in that moment, when he stared at Christine and tried to find an answer, Raoul drew back, and when Christine's eyes turned to the kneeling man, she saw in an instant what his intent was.
She screamed.