Disclaimer Erik and Christine do not belong to me. They are the domain of Gaston Leroux and his descendents and all knowledge and spoilers are assumed known.

Author's Note It has been almost 2 years since I have written anything for PTO and to my fans, my apologies. The spirit seemed to die in me for a while but the excellent movie version has reawakened my love of all things Phantom. Bravo to Emmy Rossum and Gerard Butler for bringing these wonderful characters to life.

Learn To Be Lonely

Christine

It has been three months since I have heard his voice.

At first, I did not mind. I had triumphed in Il Muto. That evening, Raoul had taken me to 'Des Georges', and the rich and famous had applauded me. There was an endless round of dances and parties and salons. Monsieur L'Doux had written a poem about me that was quite popular-How lovely the eyes of spring- and for four glorious weeks I reveled in being petted and popular.

But I had soon grown tired of the accolades of strangers, for there was one person whose opinion I cared for more than any others, and he had gone inexplicably silent. I found excuses to stay home one or two nights a week. I would go to the dressing room, where he had first taken me to his home down below, and wait. The dressing room had never really been mine, although traditionally it was given to the diva of the Opera Populaire. When La Carlotta had seen it, she had found it too small for her liking and a larger suite had been made over for her use. The room had fallen into disuse until the Angel had suggested that we use it for our weekly lessons. I should have seen what he intended right then, but I had been so enraptured by his music, that I did not look too deeply into his motives. I had believed him an Angel then.

I know better now.

By the second month I had grown worried. There had been times when he had not come to me before-but I had never gone this long without hearing his voice.

In my heart, I knew the real reason that he had not come. I had been unfaithful to him. I had betrayed him. For four weeks I had forgotten him completely.

I clutch the ring that Raoul had given me- and that I wore even now on a golden chain around my neck-for safekeeping, I told myself. But I know that I hide the ring because as long as I do not put it on my finger I can pretend that I am being faithful to both of them.

But the ring feels heavy now, like a loadstone around my neck.

I had waited in the dark and cold of the dressing room for weeks and he never came.

And now, it is the night before the Bel Masque, and I am frantic.

It was near midnight when I managed to slip out. Maman Giry's door is closed, and I could hear Meg's even breathing in the bed across the room. I shrug on a dressing gown and tread down the worn, wooden stairs. I have had an idea, a thought driven by my desperation and guilt.

If he will not come to me then I will go to him.

There is a catch on the side of the mirror, just above the left side of the frame, which causes it to roll back. I had discovered it two weeks ago, and have spent the last fortnight screwing up my courage. Now, I took a candle from the bureau and light it, holding it aloft as I open the panel and stepped through it into another world.

It has been almost three months since he had taken my hand and led me down into his world, and yet I remember the way clearly. Here is the stone staircase, and here the place where he lifted me onto the white horse. And the boat is moored near the small lake, just as I remembered it.

I clamber aboard and push away with the long gondolier's pole. The portcullis rises as I approach, and, as if by magic, candles spring to life. I slide to a stop, and step from the boat, looking around eagerly.

He is not here. In the years that he has been singing to me, I have come to almost sense his presence, and he is not here now. I sigh in frustration, and ascend the steps to his organ, thinking to sit and wait for him. On the organ lay a few sheets of music, just sanded and still drying. I pick up the first one sheet, reading the title, Don Juan Triumphant.

I scan the first passage and then pick up the rest of the score, leafing through it, reading snatches by sight.

The music is breathtaking; amazing and horrible. It is not an opera, not in any traditional sense of the word. It has no recitative and no exposition. Instead, it explodes onto the senses from the first phrase and carried the listener through every conceivable emotion; anger, passion, jealousy, rage- and love. Love so sweet that the expression of it takes my breath away.

I eagerly read through the second act, until I finally come to the finale. Here, th Angel has annotated the script. Above the female lead, Amita, he had written Christine. And above the name of Don Juan is the word, Erik.

I stare at the word, tracing the spiky black letters with my forefinger. I never knew his name. It seems ridiculous, unthinkable that I have known him for so long, and never thought to ask his name. I speak the name aloud, tasting it, fitting it to the man I know. I trace the words of the finale and, as I read them, I can hear his voice in my head, singing-

Past the point of no return, not backward glances, our games of make believe are at an end…

The words are seductive, the music sinuous. and I can feel it enveloping me, wrapping itself into my soul. My body hums with unnamed longing. I close my eyes, feeling realization wash over me.

Past all thought of if, or when. No use resisting! Abandon thought and let the dream decend...

It is all so clear to me, and I feel like a fool-such a fool. Did he not reveal himself to me as a man? Did he not bring me here, to his home, to show me that he was a flesh and blood person, and not the Angel that I so wanted to believe he was?

And yet, I still had not seen.

What raging fire shall flood the soul? What rich desire unlocks its door? What sweet seduction lies before us?

I stand, holding the manuscript in my nerveless fingers, the realization humming through me.

And, at a small tug on my hair, I whirl to find the Ang- no, Erik- standing close behind me.

Erik

I narrow my eyes, looking at the place where my boat should have been moored. Someone has taken it across the lake, another meddler like Bruquet, no doubt. Well, I can deal with whoever it was in the same fashion I had with that prying stagehand.

I pat the coiled lasso in my pocket, contemplating death.

There are many ways into my home, hidden ways that only I know. It is easy to climb up the sheer face of the rock and slip into the shadowed recess behind the cavern that forms my home. I drop with acrobatic ease from a shelf of rock onto the floor below and crouch in the darkness, slowly looking round, desiring to catch a glimpse of the person who dares enter my home without my permission.

I take the lasso out of my pocket and ready it.

But then I see the down-turned head of curling brown hair, and the swanlike grace of her neck. She was here. Here!

Christine's sweet head is bent over my organ, holding Don Juan Triumphant in her pale hands. Her lips move as she read the words. I wonder how those words affect her, innocent as she is? Do they stir her as they do me? Does she realize whom they are meant for?

I cannot help myself. I slip for the shadows and approach her from behind. I move silently, until I am standing so close that I can feel her warmth, can smell the floral scent of her dark hair. I reach out a finger and wind a curl around my long digit, pulling gently.

"Erik," she breathes, and the sound of my name on her lips undoes me.

I grasp her shoulders, spinning her around and clasping her body to the length of mine. She does not pull away; indeed I think that she presses her face into my neck. Her breath stirs against my skin and I feel my whole body surge in response to that soft exhalation.

Pathetic. I tell myself. You see her and, just like that, you forget how she betrayed you!

With an effort, I wrench myself away from her. She is staring at me, her breath coming in little gasps and her eyes seem filled with secret knowledge. I feel the rage and pain that I have fortified myself with for the past three months begin to melt in her radiance.

"You have been busy," she says, gesturing at the score lying on the organ's top.

I cannot keep myself from asking. "What did you think of it?"

She studies me silently for a few moments, and I realize how very important her approval is to me. Fool!

"It is unlike anything I've ever heard," she says finally.

That secret knowledge is still in her eyes, and I feel a bolt of fear. I have hidden myself so long in darkness that I feel suddenly, horribly exposed by my music.

"It is brilliant, Erik," she says, using my name again, and I feel the same flush of pleasure. I try to stifle it, to draw my rage to me-she betrayed you, you fool!- but I cannot. She disarms me, as she has always done, and I am nothing but need in her presence.

I step back, trying to clear my head, to speak sense.

"Why are you here?" I ask. "Why aren't you with your charming Boy?"

She cannot miss the venom in my voice, but she overlooks it, astonishing me instead.

"You were gone for so long, and I-" She bites her lip. "I missed you."

I stare at her. "You missed me?" The anger that I had been counting on finally erupts. "You missed me? Tell me, my dear, did oyu miss me when you were describing me to your precious Vicount? Distorted, deformed, didn't you say, Christine?" I step closer to her, hissing in her face. "You claimed to be terrified of me, terrified that I would kill you, do you not remember that, Christine?"

Christine is stepping back and I am advancing on her, pinning her against the organ. "I am shocked that you would return to the place that you hate so! Or did you think that perhaps I haddn't heard you? Oh yes-" for her face told me plainly that she is surprised that I heard them on the roof, "you did, didn't you? You thought that you could come back here and decieve me into molding your voice again?"

"N-no," she studders, but I am beyond hearing her.

"Vicious minx. Oh, heartless Christine! To ignore your Angel for all these months, and then to think to come back here!"

"I'm sorry, Erik," she whispers, close to tears.

"NO!" I roar. "Do not tell me you are sorry! Or, take off my mask, and look me in the face, and tell me you're sorry. Go on!" I sieze her hands, "Take off my mask, my dear. Let me see that you mean it."

She straightens, her chin tilting. "Do you think its because of your face that I said those things? Do you truly think that I am so vain, so childish, that I care what you look like?" Her eyes are suddenly blazing.

"It was your rage that frightened me, not your face! And I was right to fear you, was I not? You killed."

She takes my wrists in her hands, and holds them tightly. "These are the hands that killed Joseph Bruquet," she says evenly. Her eyes are haunted. "These! How could I not fear you? How could I do anything but run away?"

I crumple from the weight of her words, and my own sorrow.

"Oh, Christine..."

Christine

"Why are you here?" he asks.

"You were gone for so long and I-I missed you," I confess.

"You missed me?" he repeats, incredulously. And suddenly, his rage breaks free. He advances on me, shouting accusations, throwing his knowledge of what occured between Raoul and I on the rooftop into my face. I feel myself begin to tremble, overcome by his anger, and my own guilt.

I knew what it was to be ignored, to be abandoned. All those long dark years after my father died, and those cold nights in the ballet dormitories...until I heard his voice. He had been my friend in childhood, the only light in my lonely nights. His voice had always been there for me, taking me from my solitary existence and sending me soaring to the heights.

"I'm sorry, Erik," I whisper, feeling tears standing in my eyes.

"No!" He roars, "Do not tell me you are sorry! Or, take off my mask, and look me in the face, and tell me you're sorry. Go on!" He siezes my hands, "Take off my mask, my dear. Let me see that you mean it."

Is this what he thinks of me? That I fear his face?

"Do you think its because of your face that I said those things?" I shake my head, furious with him, and with myself. "Do you truly think that I am so vain, so childish, that I care what you look like? It was your rage that frightened me, not your face!"

I am shouting at him now, pouring out my own hurt and anger, my betrayal. "And I was right to fear you, was I not? You killed!" I seize his hands, holding them up so that he can see them. "These are the hands that killed Joseph Bruquet. These! How could I not fear you? How could I do anything but run away?"

I stopped, breast heaving, trying desperately to get hold of my temper. Erik is staring at me in shock. I do not think he expected that of me. I did not expect it of myself. I sucked in a breath, and opened my mouth to speak, but Erik's eyes were stricken. He sank to his knees, moaning, "Oh, Christine..."

Erik clung to my knees, confessing how he had planned to stage his opera and take Piangi's place, how he had planned to kidnap me and force me to choose between him and 'my boy'.

"Oh, Erik," I said, stroking his hair back from his face. I lifted the mask from his face, wiping the tears from his face. "Oh, my poor Angel."

He quieted, but remained on his knees. "Go, Christine," he said. "Go and marry your boy. I am not worthy of you."

The words swirled around me, not quite making sense. I think of his music, of those beautiful words, and what they meant.

"I-" I start, and then blurt out the first thing that occurs to me, "I must go. Meet me at the masque tomorrow." He stares at me in shock. Finally, he nods and I feel the weight of choice hanging over my head.

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I could not settle myself all the next day. The knowledge of what I had seen in Erik's music burned through me. He wanted me. He truly wanted me-not as his student, but as a man wants a woman. I had never considered it, even when he had taken my hand and led me to his world below. I had thought that is was my own childish longing that has darkened his eyes, my own thrilled fancy that had made his hand in mine magic. The adoration in his eyes was for my voice alone, I had thought. For the Angel he had created, not for Christine.

But now my awareness is changed, and I contemplate a new world-one of darkness and music.

The image of Joseph Bruquet's kicking feet and bulging eyes comes suddenly to mind. Can I ever forget that face? Can I take Erik's hand and forget all that has gone before?

I do not know. All I know is that I am changed.

Raoul came around in the evening to escort me and there was such a crush of people about that I've had no time to talk to him privately.

"What a shame the Phantom can't be here!" I hear Monsieur Andre say.

"A shame indee,." Raoul murmurs to me. "That madman must be caught, before he can do any more harm!"

I know he was right. Erik had planned on killed Piangi, and who knew how many more would have died when the chandelier fell. But he did not go through with it, another voice reasoned. He may have planned it, but he did not carry out his plans. Surely that means something.

I don't think I know anymore. I only know that I must tell Raoul the truth.

I pluck at his sleeve and motion him into a quiet corner.

"I must tell you something," I say.

Erik

I stand straight and survey myself in a mirror.

I had chosen my costume weeks ago; Don Juan, of course. The mask on my face is a twisted amalgam, somewhere between the Spanish lover and a Death's Head. It is macabre, I know, but perfectly suits my mood this evening. I had but myself completely into Christine's hands, and now I felt the uncomfortable sensation of depending on the mercy of another. And, unfortunately, I have quite enough experience if the world's mercy.

I buckle a sword around my waist. This is no prop. I know that this could well be a trap, and I will not be taken alive.

I cannot allow myself to hope that Christine means to come with me. I know that she loved her boy. I only want to see her, to be near her. But I will not trust her. Still, a vain hope has twisted its way into my heart, the hope that she will take my hand and turn my night into day.

Fool! I warn the man in the mirror. Just because she feels pity for you does not mean that she will consent to be yours.

Her consent had meant little to me after I had heard her on the rooftop with her boy. I had wanted to lower her then, to break her purity and her power over me. I hated her pity. I hated her! But now,I can not feel anything but the gentleness of love towards her. Even if she should deliver me to my death tonight, I will face it with only love in my heart. She has looked into my face, and shown me tenderness. I can not think of showing her less.

I arrive at the masquerade in dramatic fashion. I heard the music skitter to a halt as people began to notice me and dancers stopped in mid-step to turn and stare. I pay them no heed, my eyes scanning the crowd for one particular face, one certain form.

Yes, there, just below the staircase, clothed in a pink confection that hugged every curve. The boy clutches her arm when he sees me, as though he thinks to protect her. I ignore him, focusing my attention onto her. I am here, I say with my eyes. Do as you will.

The managers rush forward, and I give them my instructions, presenting Don Juan with a flourish. But my attention is only on her; the curl of her hair on a creamy shoulder, the quick panting breath, the flush that stains her cheeks. She is like a narcotic, and I, a man long denied. I breath in her presence,dismissing Andre and Firman with a wave of my hand.

Her eyes bid me forward, and I move towards her. She breaks away from the boy's restraining hand, accending the stairs towards me. I hold out my hand, my heart in my throat, hoping, longing, that she would come to me. Her hand moves towards mine, my heart implodes with happiness, at last, at last!

"NO!" The boy's voice breaks our reverie. He rushes forward, clawing his sword from its scabbard. "Don't touch her, monster!" he hisses.

I attempt to step forward, but it is Christine who blocks my path. She whirls to face the Vicounte, her hands fisted.

"Do not call him that!" she hissed.

"Christine," he turns to her, surprised as I am by her outburst. "You cannot mean to go with this man. For God's sake, Christine, have you forgotten what he's done?"

"No," she said softly. "I haven't forgotten. I shall not ever forget." She turns to me then and holds my eyes. "Nor shall he, I think."

I stare at her, marvelling at her strength. With those words she had pledged herself to be my conscience. "Christine-" I start forward, but the boy's sword blocks me. I narrow my eyes, reaching my hand out to Christine. She does not hesitate this time. I pull her towards me, batting the boy's sword away and detonating the smoke bomb that I have hidden in my pocket. I trigger the trapdoor that I am standing over and we both tumble into darkness.

Christine

A scream startles from my throat as Erik and I fall into the dark. We hit the ground and roll, and Erik springs to his feet, pulling me with him. "Come," he says quickly. "We must go."

"Go?" I echo stupidly. "Go where?"

"We cannot remain here," Erik explains, taking my hand and pulling me along. "The denizens of my opera may tolerate a ghost, but they will not stomach a kidnapper."

"Kidnapper?" I stop moving, wrentching my hand from his grasp. "Erik, I went willingly with you. Everyone saw us. No one will think-"

"You are an innocent, my dear. You Vicounte was not prepared to let you go. And he will not allow you to stay with me without a fight."

"Why not?"

"Because I would not," he says simply.

My mind goes to my conversation with Raoul. I had returned his ring to him, and explained that, while I would always be fond of him, my heart would not allow me to marry him.

"Is there someone else?" he'd asked me.

"I..." I could not answer the question, so instead I had turned away. But not before I saw the look on his face.

"You think he will come after us?" I ask.

"Most certainly," my Angel answers, taking my hand again.

"But where will we go?" I ask as we reach the boat on the lake.

"Anywhere," Erik says expansively. I smile at him, suddenly taken with his tone. I stretch up and impulsively plant a kiss on his good cheek. The look he gives me is mingled wonder and delight. I smile at him again.

"Anywhere," I echo.

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A/N: This was going into my "Moments of Transition" series, but as I am using the movie as canon, instead of Kay's book, I decided to make this a stand alone.

My intention was to make this story much more angsty, but it insisted upon becoming nothing but E/C fluff. Still, it was fun! Please read and review if you think so too.