53) Till we find our place

Christine hurried down one corridor, then another one. She knew she didn´t have much time. But as she spotted Raoul standing at the door to her dressing room, just like Erik had told her, she slowed down to take in the sight of him. He looked great in his black suit. Still she could also see the little boy in him who had fetched her red scarf from the sea. What a carefree time that had been!

"Raoul!", the girl called cheerfully. When he turned around, however, she froze. There were dark rings under his eyes, and his cheeks were hollow. She noticed that he was thinner than the last time she had seen him. "What have you done?", she asked suspiciously. Raoul, who had watched the smile vanish from her face, was a bit disappointed. "I was working.", he replied. "I´ve bought an old house, you know. It´s in Brittany, right at the coast. It used to be quite run-down, but now it´s… wonderful."

Christine was fascinated by the enthusiasm of his words and the sparkle in his eyes. Although it was clear that he had worked too much and slept and eaten too little in the last days, she couldn´t help approving of it if it made him that happy. "I´m sorry. I shouldn´t talk about me all the time.", he eventually apologised. "I´ve enjoyed the performance very much so far. You truly have the voice of an angel…" He bit his lip. Why had he come up with this comparison?

The girl used the awkward silence that followed his statement to open the door. They entered the dressing room, and at once their gaze was drawn to the table. Half a dozen bouquets of flowers were arranged on it, one larger and more expensive than the next one. The sunflowers in Raoul´s hand looked like the picture of a child in the Louvre. He actually made an attempt to hide them behind his back. Yet Christine had already seen them.

"Why don´t you give them to me? I love sunflowers.", she said. He merely shook his head and stubbornly refused to hand them to her. "These days you should only get flowers like those.", he muttered grumpily. "How many of them are from you precious Phantom?" "He´s not my Phantom.", she corrected him. "He belongs to Meg. I´ve understood that now." "And… who do you belong to?", Raoul asked cautiously.

His question hung in the air like an object made of glass. One wrong word from either of them would inevitably make it fall down and shatter. Avoiding an immediate answer Christine made her way to the table. Quickly she pushed the bouquets aside to create enough space for another one to stand right in the middle. Still looking at them instead of Raoul she explained: "These flowers don´t mean anything to me because the people who sent them don´t mean anything to me. Your sunflowers, however…".

Suddenly she turned around and took his hand. "I missed you a lot when you were gone.", she told him in a whisper. "The more I realised that I couldn´t have Erik, the more I missed you." "So I´m your second option? Thank you very much!", Raoul muttered bitterly. Yet he didn´t pull away his hand. The physical contact was too comforting, too… promising.

"I didn´t mean it like that.", Christine assured him hastily. With her free hand she reached up to cup his sunken cheek. "I often lay awake at night, wishing you were with me. Not only to make love to me, but to hold me in your arms and whisper sweet nothings into my ear… I wanted you to be there, so that I could feel your love enveloping me like a warm blanket."

Raoul swallowed hard. It would have been easy to revel in her words and forget everything else. But he had to know the whole truth. "What about him?", he asked urgently. "Erik means a lot to me.", the girl said softly. "Yet it is you I want to wake up next to each morning for the rest of my life. It is you I want to have children with. So the answer is: Yes."

"´Yes´?", he repeated blankly. For a moment he had no idea what she was referring to. Then comprehension dawned on him. "You… you want to… marry me?", he stammered. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. Could he trust his ears? "Yes!", she called. The next second the sunflowers landed on the floor as Raoul flung his arms around his beloved and spun her around till they both felt dizzy.

"You don´t know how happy you make me, Christine.", he whispered, fighting back tears that threatened to glide down his cheeks. She said nothing, but looked into his eyes. For the first time in weeks she was free from the constant tension that had dominated her whole life. It had been the right decision. She stroked his cheek lovingly, and the next second their lips met in a gentle kiss.

The tender moment ended abruptly when someone knocked at the door. "Mlle.Daaé! The performance is about to continue.", a voice said, then hurried footsteps could be heard. Reluctantly they let go of each other. "Let´s go…", Christine muttered, giving a little sigh. So they made their way back; he went up to Box Five and she to the stage. Erik was already waiting for her, smiling expectantly. "I said ´yes´!", she whispered. Ushering her on stage he mumbled: "I knew it.".