Author's Note:

Here is the second to last chapter. I will post the final chapter and the epilogue together, just so as not to break the flow. There will be a sequel! It will not be a traditional sequel, per se, but it will fill in the spaces between the final chapter and the epilogue. In other words, it will not be what follows the epilogue, but what follows the final chapter.

So, here is a nice long chapter for you, and I will have the final update as soon as possible.

Enjoy, and please review!

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For the break that would make it okay
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty and weightless
And maybe I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

--Angel, Sarah McLachlan

Chapter 38: The Requiem For The Dead

The night following the reconciliation was far different than Christine had imagined. She spent the night in the dormitories instead of with Erik, sharing Meg's bed, grateful for the comforting presence of the younger girl.

She tried not to think of the corpse that lay, silent and still, in her room. She lay awake for hours, the only sound in the room that of a dozen sleeping ballet rats, the only movement that of Meg rolling about in her sleep beside her. When she finally went to sleep, Giselle's horrific death played over and over again in her dreams, and she awoke with a start, bathed in sweat and sobbing. The sound of her tears woke Meg, and the young ballerina put her arms around her friend and let her cry.

She did not know where Erik was, but she knew he would come back to her the next day when they buried Giselle, and then perhaps all would be well again. But for tonight, she knew that he would need to be alone, to think and to grieve for a girl who, in the space of three days, had forged some bond, made some mark on Erik's soul that Christine did not understand.

But she did not doubt that Erik would tell her all when he was ready. He would need time, perhaps, but Christine could give him that.

They had a lifetime to mend all that had been broken.

-

Raoul stumbled into the de Chagny mansion that night, his face drawn and haggard, his eyes bloodshot.

He passed the drawing room, not even noticing the open door until his brother called out, with characteristic sarcasm, "I see the prodigal has returned once again. Did you bring your lovely Christine home with you once more?"

Raoul turned slowly, his sword slapping against his thigh as he stepped into the firelit room. His brother sat in the far armchair near the velvet-draped bay window that led out onto the balcony, one leg draped elegantly over the other, a crystalline glass of fine wine resting casually in his hand. The sight of him made Raoul feel sick, the pretentious and falsely genteel demeanor that composed the Comte de Chagny thickening the air like a rank stench.

This was a man held in high regard in Parisian society. This was a man whose company was sought after, a man with a dozen mothers hounding him at every party, every soiree as a potential match for their daughters. This was a man with nearly inextinguishable wealth, the finest surroundings, a handsome and distinguished man with the world at his feet.

And yet, he stifled the lives of those around him with his facades of propriety and his mouthings of righteousness while he kept a mistress within the corps de ballet, gave her expensive gifts and no doubt spouted sonnets of love and devotion while she was in his arms, giving all of herself willingly to him while he took, and took, and took. And now she was with child, and no doubt Philippe would cast her aside, deny all connection with the fallen prima ballerina and her bastard child, condemning her to a life of poverty, working as a cleaning woman or a whore, no doubt headed for an early death in one of the slums of Paris. With one careless action of a selfish noble, her dreams, her career, and her life had been broken. And while she suffered, an outcast, Philippe would sit in his armchair before the fire, surrounded by beauty and opulence, a fine suit on his body and a glass of expensive wine in his hand, and he would beckon, and the world would fall at his feet. Fate had given him this, and he squandered it all on himself.

Raoul had always prided himself that he was so much a better man than his brother. He had intended to make Christine his bride, not just his mistress, and to hell with the nobility and their ideas of the kind of woman a man of status should marry. He had intended to cherish her forever, to love their children, to give her back the joy that had been so cruelly snatched away from her with the death of her father. He loved Christine, and for that Philippe had looked down upon him, saying that no man should love a woman as Raoul loved Christine.

But he had not cared.

And then he had lost her, and suddenly he had become no better than his brother, taking a woman from the sort of life that Philippe had condemned Sorelli to, and he had not cared for her happiness, for her heart, had not cared for her at all as she gave herself to him while he took everything from her, drained her dry of all emotion, all thought and all feeling every night.

He remembered that last night with a start. Her body had become warm and supple beneath his suddenly, her eyes had changed, no longer blank and staring, no longer long-suffering, but instead alive, vibrant with passion, passion and…

Passion and love.

She had whispered to him. "Say my name…" she had whispered in his ear, and he, caught up in the madness he had indulged in and the fantasies that had taken hold, he had called out Christine's name into the night.

And the beautiful, vibrant, living, breathing woman in his bed had gone cold and still, and the life had drained out of her eyes with that one word.

She loved you, you know.

Erik's words echoed in his mind, throbbing within his head as that cursed music had for so long, as the Phantom's voice had haunted his dreams, and Raoul knew that he was no better than his hypocrite of a brother. He had taken a woman without thought for her feelings, had molded her into the desires of his heart, and had forgotten that she was a person with a heart, a mind, a soul…a name.

And then, as if the game that he had forced her to play, the illusion that he had forced her to live, was not horrible enough, he had then killed her.

"No." he whispered, averting his eyes from Philippe. "Christine is gone."

"Oh?" Philippe responded, setting the glass on a mahogany table next to the chair and reclining a little more deeply in the velvet upholstery. "A shame, really. She was a pretty little thing, although she couldn't sing a note." He smiled at Raoul's shocked expression. "Oh yes, brother. I heard her singing in the gardens one day. A lovely little ditty, but terribly off-key. And that woman, whomever she was, had never danced a step in her life. I may be a man, but I am not a fool. I keep a ballerina as a mistress, and I visit the opera often enough to see how a ballerina walks and moves even when she is not in her shoes."

"You knew."

"Oui. I knew. But I let you pretend. It was rather amusing, you see, to watch you pretend that she was Christine. I rather enjoyed watching my self-righteous little brother parade around with a whore. You've spouted your drivel about the frivolity and hypocrisy of the nobility for so long, and pretended to be so different, that it was rather enjoyable watching you fall, Raoul. Do you see now, brother? We are not so different as you would like to think. You are no different from any of us." Philippe smiled, and it was not a friendly smile. "Welcome home."

He took another sip of his wine. "So, now that we understand each other, where is Christine now? And where is this girl?"

"Christine is with Erik."

"Erik?"

"The Phantom."

"And the whore?"

Raoul drew his sword suddenly and flung it down on the floor. The blood-spattered blade shone in the firelight, the dark, crusted blood like flawed rubies on the glowing silver.

"She is dead."

Philippe's eyes widened in shock. He dropped his wine glass suddenly, the liquid making a dark stain on the carpet as the glass shattered against the leg of the side table. "You killed her." he whispered, horror in his face and voice.

"It was an accident." Raoul laughed suddenly, a bitter, painful laugh. "Never fear, my brother, not a word of it will ever be breathed outside of the opera house. The only witnesses were Erik and Christine, and no one will ever know what happened besides them. Our family name will not be tarnished."

He looked down at the weapon. "You are wrong, Philippe. I am not like you, nor am I like any other noble. I would never have done to Christine what you have done to Sorelli. I would never have sent Giselle back to the life of a prostitute. But I am like a man that I hate more than any other man that I have ever known, even you, brother, my flesh and blood, you who have scorned me, dashed my dreams and my hopes and mocked me until you at last have had a hand in my madness. No, I hate this man more than I hate even you, and it is he that I am most like when all is tallied. I hate him because he has won what I love most, and because in his deformed face, twisted, scarred and ravaged until it turns the stomach to look upon it, in his visage, I see the reflection of my soul."

Raoul's eyes met his brother's. There was no emotion in his gaze, only knowledge, knowledge of what he was, what he had at last become.

"For so long, so many in this tale have questioned whether their sins were too many to be forgiven. They have all found their forgiveness, have found their happiness. Erik with Christine, Giselle in her Heaven. Others, too, have found what they have sought. And I wonder, brother, I wonder, how long must I suffer until I find my forgiveness? How long must I endure what I have looked upon blindly in others? What price must I pay before I find peace? I am mad, brother, and it is not the sort of madness that places one in an institution, not a madness that doctors can cure. But I am mad nonetheless."

He left Philippe sitting there, staring down at the shards of glass and the blood encrusted blade, and there was only silence in the room, the silence of darkness and flickering firelight.

-

In the labyrinth, there was no silence. There was sound, a cacophony of sound, all melded into a beautiful, dark, tragic melody that was Giselle's requiem mass.

Tomorrow, Father Clare would say prayers. Tomorrow, a requiem would be played. Tomorrow, candles would be lit for her soul. Tomorrow, her body would be placed in the cold earth.

But tonight, Erik sat at the organ and played furiously, his fingers hard on the keys, rubbing old calluses raw and raising new blisters on fingers and palms blistered so many times before by the passion with which he played his music, having poured out his soul through the aged instrument so many times.

He played a requiem for the dead, a requiem for Giselle, for the woman who, in the space of only three days, had done so much for the healing of his soul.

"There is forgiveness, Erik!" she had cried when the glory of Heaven had been revealed to her dying eyes.

There is forgiveness!

She had seen Heaven, and had known that if there was forgiveness for her, there could be forgiveness for him as well.

She had given him back his hope, his faith, and finally, his life.

It is better to wear your scars on your face than on your soul, monsieur Fantôme.

She had given him courage, she had been strong when he was weak, she, who had nothing in life left to live for, had given him her strength and her courage that had brought her thus far, given him what he needed to win back Christine, the only part of his life that had ever been worth fighting for, and then given him back his life as she flew away to eternal peace. And in the last moments between life and death, she had seen Heaven, and let him know that there was forgiveness even for souls as surely damned as theirs.

-

In the morning, a borrowed carriage and borrowed horses drew the coffin containing Giselle's body to the cathedral where her funeral rites would be performed.

Christine recognized the coffin, but she said nothing. The crudely made, black wooden box containing Giselle's corpse was the same coffin that had held Erik's sleeping body for so many lonely, nightmare-filled nights. It had heard his screams and heard the longings of his tortured soul spoken and sung to the darkness, and now it would be laid to rest along with the woman who had finally found her peace.

Father Clare did not inquire as to the manner of her death. It was not uncommon for prostitutes to die young, even as young as seventeen, and if he saw the blood that had seeped out onto the white dress or recognized the wound on her arm as having been made by a sword, he said nothing.

The coffin was set down before the altar. There were no flowers, no trappings of a funeral. The only people present were Christine, Erik and Madame Giry. Meg had been told nothing save that a friend had died. The fewer people to whom the details were known, the better.

There was no vigil, so Father Clare prayed the Eternal Rest over Giselle at the beginning.

"Grant eternal rest unto her O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen."

The church bell tolled seventeen times, once for each year of Giselle's short life.

Christine placed her own wooden rosary in Giselle's hands, and then stepped back to stand next to Erik as Father Clare intoned the prayers. He sprinkled the body with holy water and incense, and then, as the two stagehands hired for this duty carried the body to the cemetery, they sang the Antiphon Dans le Paradis.

"May the angels lead you into paradise, may the martyrs receive you at your coming, and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have everlasting rest."

A gravesite had been prepared earlier that morning, adjacent with the graves of Giselle's parents. Erik had purchased a small tombstone, and it was erected already before the grave. It was simple, with only a few lines.

Giselle Auteur

1853-1871

There is forgiveness.

Repos dans la paix.

Father Clare sprinkled the gravesite and the body with holy water and incense once again as he spoke another prayer.

"O God, by your mercy rest is given to the souls of the faithful, be pleased to bless this grave. Appoint your holy angels to guard it and set it free from all the chains of sin and the soul of her whose body is buried here, so that with all Thy saints she may rejoice in Thee forever. Through Christ our Lord, Amen."

He sprinkled her once more with the holy water, and made the sign of the Cross over Giselle's body as it was lowered into the grave.

"Eternal rest grant unto her, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen. May her soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen."

The priest stood with Erik, Christine and Madame Giry as the grave was covered, and before he turned to leave, he drew Erik aside.

"I know that it was by no natural means that this girl died. I will say nothing, nor will I look further into the matter. Death was a mercy for her, I know this much, for I heard her confession three times at least. I do not know what she was to you, or how you knew her, but I see guilt in your eyes, and I will tell you this. Whether or not you had a hand in her death, feel no sorrow, for she is in Heaven. I heard her confessions, as I have said, and the girl is forgiven many times over. She is in a far better place than she ever was on this earth. The only tears that should be shed for her are tears of joy."

There is forgiveness.

Erik grabbed the priest's arm before he could leave. "Father, will you hear my confession?"

-

Christine sat in the cathedral, alone, while she waited for Erik to emerge from the confessional. She sat, her eyes fixed on the altar where she had knelt so many times for Communion, and she prayed. She prayed for Giselle, for Erik, for herself, but most of all she prayed for Raoul.

He deserved love. He deserved freedom such as Erik had found, freedom from guilt and madness.

She prayed that he would find that.

She did not even see Erik at first when he emerged, nor feel him sit down beside her.

"Giselle was right. There is forgiveness." He took her hand and she opened her eyes to see him smiling at her, smiling as he had not smiled in a long time—perhaps never before.

"I have received forgiveness from God, Christine. Now tell me, do you forgive me?"

"I do."

He put his arms around her and held her tightly, a few tears running down his face and onto her hair, but even those few tears could not staunch the joy in his heart.

"I love you, Christine."

"As do I love you, Erik."

She opened her hand, and he saw that in the palm was his ring, the golden band sparkling in the sunlight as it filtered down through the stained glass windows.

"Am I still your wife, Erik?"

He held out his left hand and as she slid the band onto his finger, he cupped her face with his right and looked into her eyes.

"For always, Christine."

They sat like that for several moments, not speaking, until finally Christine rose. "We should go, Erik. Madame will wonder what has become of us."

She started down the aisle, and Erik paused only a moment. He looked back at the altar, at the effigy of Christ hanging above it.

The sunlight slanted through the stained glass and illuminated the crucifix, causing it to glow so that it seemed almost alive for a moment, as though at any moment He would raise his eyes to look at Erik.

There is forgiveness.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Repos dans la paix, Giselle."

Rest in peace.