Surely one couldn't go through such pain and not be dead. Surely a heart really could shatter into a million pieces. Christine knew it. Her own heart had broken. There was a dull ache over her entire body. She drifted in and out of consciousness, though she didn't know it. It was though she had emerged in a dream world, where she was floating in secluded darkness. Voices murmured through the obscurity, but they were indistinct and unnamable. She could barely even begin to think. Whenever she dared to do so, she slipped even further away. How long this went on, she didn't know.

Christine.

The echo of a whisper. She turned her head towards the sound.

Christine.

"Christine?"

The chocolate eyes fluttered open and blinked uncertainly in the light. The shapes became clearer, and she saw that she was lying in the bedchamber that had become her own since she had moved into the de Chagny manor. She was in her nightgown, the silken covers were drawn up to her shoulders. The curtains had been drawn on the windows. She looked beside the bed and saw Raoul's face, which was etched with relief.

"Oh, thank God she is awake!" he breathed, pushing his face closer to hers. He inhaled the scent of lilacs that radiated from his fiancé and nuzzled his chin into her hair. Christine winced in pain. Her head felt tender. She turned her head so that Raoul was forced to back away. She opened her mouth to speak and found that the words that came out of her mouth slurred slightly. "Raoul. Raoul, how long have I been asleep?"

"A little over a day, my dear. Mademoiselle Giry is here, and so is her mother."

It was then that Christine saw the face of the ballet mistress, ever regal and elegant. She was standing behind Raoul, an unreadable expression across her features. She eyed Christine as a hawk does to its prey. The younger woman knew, immediately, that her matron had come for a reason.

"We concluded that you were just so stressed, what with the wedding coming up, that you just became besieged and passed out!" Raoul exclaimed cheerfully. "I mean, really, cherie, I'm excited too, but you mustn't overload yourself!"

What! Christine's mind screamed. What lie is this! She looked at Madame Giry.

Don't say a word, the ballet mistress mouthed. We will talk later.

Christine pretended to smile happily. "Why, yes, Raoul, I certainly shall not. My dear, I am tired. To you think I could rest for a while, with Madame Giry in here to accompany me?"

Raoul took on the expression of a puppy who had just been kicked, but he seemed to recover this emotional blow quickly. "Of course, Christine, I'm sure you are fatigued. Rest now, my love." He kissed her wrist gently, then stood up from his chair which he had pulled to the bedside and strode to the door, shutting it behind him. Christine waited a few moments before she turned to the woman beside her.

"Madame Giry."

"…Christine…"

"Oh, Madame Giry…!"

The matron caught the girl in her arms as she collapsed, feeling the young bride-to-be's warm tears against her shoulders. Christine shook uncontrollably as fresh sobs spilled from her. "Madame Giry! Erik! He's dead! He's dead!" The ballet mistress' reverent silence urged her to cry even harder, letting her emotions bare, raw and exposed. "Why? Why did this have to happen!"

Madame Giry clutched the girl close to her. "Christine. I'm sorry. Truly I am."

"It's---It's my fault."

There was a stunned silence on the matron's part. Uncertainly, her eyes widened. "What?"

"Don't play the fool, Madame. Meg told me."

The older woman's eyes narrowed in indignation and she muttered beneath her breath, something Christine couldn't hear through her own weeping. But her strained expression relaxed into one of subdued guilt. "He wanted you to know…what he said."

"I know. I'm the reason. Don't you see? This may sound arrogant, but he loved me. He honestly did. He needed me to…to save him."

Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime.

Lead me, save me from my solitude.

Say you want me with you here, beside you.

Anywhere you go, let me go to,

Christine, that's all I ask of you!

Oh God. He had. More than she knew. His tender confession after they sang his aria together had been so much more than just a song. It had been longing. It had been despair. It had been hope. It had been devotion. More than anything, it had been love. Anguish such as Christine had never felt was threatening to destroy her.

"He loved me."

"I know," Madame Giry whispered. "I always knew."

"I'm the reason he's dead. He couldn't...Oh, God!"

She buried her face into the matron's shoulders and let her stroke the chestnut curls cascading down her back. She cried for what seemed like hours, until her comforter broke the silence. "Christine," she murmured. "Tell me: Did you love him?"

That was the question Christine had been dreading, but she knew she couldn't hide from the truth anymore. She stared at Madame Giry with teary eyes. "…Yes. Yes, I did. I still do."

"Oh, pauvre, pauvre Christine. Mon tragique fille."

Christine cried harder than ever before, and the Madame held her, silent tears streaming down her own cheeks. She rocked the quivering girl back and forth. "Oh Christine. Pauvre fille. Pauvre Erik."

Madame Giry held her until Christine fell asleep, overcome by exhaustion and pain.

When Christine awoke a few hours later, the salty residue of her tears still clinging to her cheeks, it was midday. Predictably, the rain had persisted since the early morning hours. Lightning lit up the cream-and-mahogany paneling of the bedroom and cast shadows on the wall. Uncertainly, Christine slid her legs from underneath the covers and attempted to stand up. She wobbled a bit, but after a few steps she found her balance. She retrieved her robe from the armoire, raked a brush through her frenzied curls, and left the bedroom. The library was the room next door. Raoul was sitting inside, reclining in a royal-blue armchair. He motioned for her to come in. Hesitantly, Christine took a seat in the chair opposite him, noticing that Raoul's book sat untouched on the end table. "Yes, Raoul?"

"So."

Oh, good Lord. She knew where this was going.

"Yes?" Might as well pretend to be innocent.

"I heard the news."

"About…?"

"The Opera Ghost. Good riddance, I say."

Christine froze, blood rushed to her cheeks, and a cascade of feelings---loathing, sorrow, and compassion most prominent. "Madame Giry told you, then?"

"Actually, no. Do you want to know where I heard it, hmm? I heard you sobbing from the bedroom and I listened outside the door. Seems there's a lot of things I didn't know about until now." His eyes glinted with spite. "Like, for instance, one tiny little detail that involves you loving him." He said it with such hate, such malevolence, that Christine was frightened. "Raoul, please---"

"Goddamn it, Christine!" He leapt to his feet and stood before his bride-to-be. To her shock, there were tears in his eyes. He sank to his knees and grasped her hands firmly in his. "Why?"

She thought of that night on the roof of the Populaire when Raoul had confessed his love to her. She wondered if she really meant what she had said to him then; perhaps she had only been besotted and desperate. Staring her fiancée in the eyes, she knew that was true. She didn't feel the surge of passion has she once did when she looked into the pools of blue, now rimmed with tears. She stared at him, and sang softly the same thing she had told him that night.

"His voice filled my spirit with a strange, sweet sound;

In the night, there was music in my mind.

And through the music my soul began to soar.

And I heard as I've never heard before.

Yet in his eyes, all the sadness of the world,

Those pleading eyes, that both threaten and adore…"

Now tears ran down both of their cheeks. Christine's were tears of sorrow; of loss. Raoul's were also tears of loss; now he understood that Christine's heart had never belonged to him. He laid his cheek across Christine's knees and squeezed his eyes shut. "Christine," he whispered. "Don't leave me. I love you. I love you too much. Please."

"What else am I to do?" Her voice was cold and forced. She suddenly stood up and brushed past the kneeling man. She turned to face him as she reached the door. "Raoul," she said carefully, sincerely, "You'll always be my friend. Always. But I'll never love you as I did Erik. And I'm sorry for that. I know how it must hurt you. I want you to understand that. May all the blessings of the world be with you: marry a woman you love, have children, be happy. I don't wish to be a burden."

She fled the library to her room. Thoughtlessly, she sat at her vanity and brushed her chocolate curls until they took on a brilliant, glossy luster. She painted her lips with a soft pink-champagne rouge and lightly blended gray powder along her lashes. For whatever reason, she wanted to be beautiful.

Christine silently stood and walked to the glass-paned doors that led to the balcony. Her feet stepped onto the rain-soaked flagstones, legs trembling with anticipation. Twenty or so feet below, there was a garden. The blood red roses, showered with opalescent raindrops, quivered slightly in the damp breeze, beckoning her. Her breath caught.

He would always be there for her, through death and beyond.

She pulled herself onto the iron balustrade, balancing herself gracefully, back arched elegantly. Her eyes were not on the ground beneath her; they looked to the sky above.

A million thoughts rushed through her mind, yet not a single worry among them. She leapt in a single fluid motion. She delighted in the empty air, savoring the wind as her hair flew behind her. For a moment she was suspended in space, seeing and feeling only everything within that instant. Her undying devotion. The thrill of a promise. And the beauty of true love. As her body began the arcing descent to the awaiting ground, she felt no fear. She smiled at the heavens and embraced death---and whatever else there was beyond it.

Christine's eyes slowly opened. A jolt of astonishment gripped her stomach and she gasped. She was back in the opera house, in its former glory. She stood at the head of the stairs, adorned in a glorious white gown. Everything around her glowed with a heavenly aura, and the very air she breathed relaxed her and energized her all at once. With a searching gaze she drank in the scene in the foyer below. A large crowd was gathered, dressed in their formalwear, around the entrance hall, clapping and smiling up at Christine. And, at the foot of the stairs…there he was. He stood waiting for her, a truly happy smile across his face. Without the mask. Yet the crowd showed no fear of the man in the midst of them. Every pair of eyes were turned to Christine, who slowly stepped down the grand staircase. All the while she watched him, feeling joy like she had never felt before. His azure eyes gazed lovingly into her chocolate ones. Finally she reached the floor. They embraced finally, and the crowd let out a tumultuous roar of applause. Christine buried her face into Erik's chest and gripped him tightly, tears of happiness running down her cheeks. She looked up at him and saw that he too was crying. Silently, with a warm smile, she reached a hand to the left side of his face---the flawed side---and caressed it gently. She brushed the tears from his skin and their lips met with passion. Then she took his hand, and to the cheering of the spectators, led him across the hall and through the doors, into the golden light beyond.

Fin.

Yay, it's complete! And, may I ask, who noticed that I totally ripped off Titanic for the ending? Minus the whole ship thing…But I thought it just fit. Cause Christine's leading him from the opera house into the light. Which I hope you understand is symbolic for heaven.

Anyway, I hope you had fun reading it. I appreciate your support and your comments; if you would, please leave a review. See ya soon with a new fic...probably gonna do some humor/parody works for a while. Luv always, Isabelle.