A/N: Happy Independence Day to all the Americans out there (myself included)! -tosses confetti-

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Two months... two months of Heaven, two months of Hell, two months of anger, frustration, sadness, self - hatred, love... two months without Christine. Two bloody months!

And the truth is that these past two months without Christine have felt so empty. I haven't felt this empty and upset since the last time she was gone, for six months. Nothing can make me feel better about this - no, not even Emilie.

Of course, just as I should have expected, Emilie didn't share in my self - loathing and grief. The second I told her that Christine was most likely gone permanently, she gave a shout of joy, grabbed my arms, and forced me to spin around with her. I think that, if she had only been stong enough, she would have picked me up in her arms and spun me around.

"I don't see why you're not as happy as I am, Cameron," she said when she'd gotten over her rather distressing mirth. "She's gone for good! We can finally get married! Isn't that what you want?"

I sighed and placed my hands on her arms. "Emilie, darling, I don't think that you quite understand the enormity of my crime. I told her I hated her. I called her a 'stupid monster'!"

"Well, she is a stupid monster!" she retorted. "You were quite right to call her that."

I tightened my grip on her shoulders and shook her so savagely that I could hear her teeth chattering. "Don't you dare call her that!" I snapped furiously. "You have no right... I have no right!"

Then, without another word, I turned and walked away from her.

"Christine!" called out Francois as he stepped into her lair a month after Christine burned Cameron's items. "Christine, I know you're in here!"

He heard a soft moan come from underneath the piano. "Mmm..."

"Christine?" he said, raising his eyebrows. Then he walked over to the main part of the lair and looked underneath the piano.

He saw Christine curled up underneath the piano, covered up with a blanket. She had, apparently, been sleeping. She smiled sleepily at him and rubbed her eyes. "Hi, Francois."

"What on earth are you doing down here, darling?" he said, grabbing her arm and helping her out from underneath the piano. "Have you been down there all night?"

"Yes. I slept there... I took some morphine, you see, and then was too tired to go over to my bed. So I walked over to my bed, grabbed my blanket, and walked back over to the piano and slept under there."

"How brutally honest of you," he sighed. "You're taking morphine again, you just said... well, I suppose being a morphine addict is better than associating yourself with Monsieur Luc. By the way, it might interest you in the slightest to know that Monsieur Luc had been wandering around the chapel and the dressing room with the mirror after rehearsals - they want to continue Genius's Mistake, by the way -, calling your name like some sort of lost child calling for his mother."

She shrugged. "Why would I care?" she replied with indifference. "I don't care about him."

Judging by how hastily she looked away from him, he knew that she wasn't telling the whole truth. He turned her around to face him. "Christine," he said slowly, "I certainly hope that you don't plan on letting him come back to you."

She glanced up at him. "Of course not!" she scoffed, straightening herself up to full height. "I'm not a complete idiot, you know. You just saw how I reacted to you telling me that he went around, calling for me - complete indifference!" Then she paused, her eyes widening. "Indifference," she said slowly, smiling at him. "I showed indifference to Cameron, Francois!"

"Very good, dear," he sighed. "Now, if you can keep this up for more than six months, then I'll give you a box of sweets."

"Ha," she said mockingly. "Very funny." She stretched, yawning. "Now I think I'm going back to sleep... I'm tired." She started to crawl underneath the piano again.

He grabbed her arm. "You're not going to sleep under the piano," he said, sounding very much like a father all of a sudden. "It's bad for your back." He led her over to the swan bedroom - which was her bedroom - and placed her down on the bed. Then he covered her up with a blanket. "Good night - well, good whatever time of day it is."

She yawned. "Good night." Then she curled up and fell asleep.