Chapter 25

Frozen

Christine didn't know how long she'd been standing on the bridge, her hands dangling over the railing as she pressed up against the bars, huddling against them in the chilled air. She didn't know and she didn't particularly care. She could have stood forever savoring the feel of steel pressing against her flesh: it was a cold genuine feeling. After the unreal events of the past few days, it was a welcome discomfort.

As she gazed out at the steel gray surface of the Seine, she focused on a few hairline cracks in a sheet of ice floating in the center. The ice trembled as the currents underneath struck it, widening the cracks. Clear water seeped from the wounds to continue its arrested journey northward.

"The water will freeze again long before it reaches the English Channel."

Christine acknowledged Raoul's hand as he placed it on her shoulder gently. From the way she turned to look at him in pleasant surprise, it seemed as if he'd just happened upon her at the bridge rather than waiting for her for the past 15 minutes so that they may continue on their way.

She shook herself gently, clearing her head. "I know, Raoul. But it's nice to see a sign that spring is finally coming." She looked up to see Raoul looking at her quizzically, silently asking her if it was his duty to continue the conversation. She smiled and shrugged. "Spring was always my favorite time of the year in Paris. At Perros there was always snow on the ground until May. Papa made the mistake of taking me out boating in April. A piece of ice that neither of us saw struck our boat and we both went into the water. We were both excellent swimmers so it wasn't terribly worrying, but I don't think either of us left the fireside for the next three days. So I can safely say that I preferred the summer."

"I see. It must've been beautiful."

Christine hit him on the shoulder. "Don't act so interested, we both know that I'm speaking complete drivel."

Raoul laughed as he brushed some snowflakes from her hair. "Never, Little Lotte. Just hearing your beautiful voice is enough to charm the sensible part of me straight into submission."

"Your shameless flattery shall get you nowhere." Christine's brow creased. "And there's no need to call me that."

"What?"

"Lotte. It sounds so…so long ago."

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I still do it." He looked at his fingernails, picking away at some invisible dirt. He looked up suddenly. "No, actually I do. I remember Little Lotte as well as if she had been my second self. We shared so many years together, and so many demons and goblins that we had to conquer. But I feel as if I haven't come to know Christine nearly as well as I should."

Christine looked at him, unsure of how to respond to what she couldn't decide if it was an apology or a condemnation.

Raoul smiled disarmingly as he took her hand. "There hasn't been enough time, that is all."

Christine had discovered by now that Raoul always needed to hold onto something whenever he was preparing to say something he found painful. He was coming to the heart of the matter at last. They were much alike in that manner. They both found someone else to cling to for dear life in the face of hardships.

Others bore the pain alone with almost inhuman strength, others like—

Christine shut her mind almost desperately against that thought. She turned her thoughts instead to Raoul's fingers which were absently stroking hers.

"There hasn't been enough time," he repeated. "There haven't been enough summers or winters or…or demons." His fingers moved absently over the ring on her hand. "We can go home, Christine. We don't have to…if you don't feel ready."

No one should have to bear his pain alone.

"Of course I am ready, Raoul. What makes you think otherwise?"

"Your eyes, Christine. You and Little Lotte have the same eyes, that is one thing that has not changed, and I know them as I know myself." He released her hand and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her fur wrap more snugly around her body.

No one.

Christine snuggled deeper into the warmth. "You think too much, dear."

He smiled. "Perhaps. But I'd like you to think on one more thing for me." They had almost reached the end of the bridge, and now he turned around to face her, leaning them both against the cool railing. "I have received a promotion within the Navy. They wish me to be captain. I have not told Philippe; he will be furious when he comes home and realizes that I did not tell him first, but I wanted you to be the first to know."

The cold seemed to have seeped into Christine's mind. "Captain? Of…of a boat?"

He realized what she was thinking. "No, Christine, they would not ask me to spend the rest of my life at sea. That would not befit a man of aristocratic breeding. I am to oversee the port of Dover in England."

The chill seized her skull and shook it like a rag doll. "In…in England."

"I have not given them my answer yet," he reassured hastily. Too hastily. "I do not need to inform them of my decision until well into June." He took her hand again and led her from the bridge back onto the road again, noting how her hand trembled within his.

"And…and what will you decide?"

Raoul gazed intently into the distance before turning to her with a boyish grin that she had grown to cherish so well. "I have decided that I want nothing more than to spend this spring in Paris and every season thereafter with the light of my life. I want to be with her, and it is ultimately her decision in the end." He squeezed her hand. "You're cold. Would you like to go home now?"

Home…

"No…no, let's finish what we came into town for."

"Anywhere you go…" he reminded, and he smiled once again as he led her into the town.

Hours later, carriage laden with a wedding gown and suit, they drove back across the Seine, heedless of the sound of the iced covering cracking and breaking underneath the torrential pounding of the spring waters.

The singing was quite good.

Christine rested her arms against the edge of the box as she leaned forward to hear. That was something that she had never expected to think. Before, she had been pupil to the most exacting master she could have imagined and she had learned quickly to discern the slightest faults in a voice.

Now, time in all her corroding glory had dulled her senses enough that she determined that the music was nothing short of pleasant to the average aristocrat's ear.

The first bassoon over-blew his notes but there were several others that played softer as a result, leaving the result unchanged. The conductor kept a tempo that was slightly fast, but the minds of the players were slightly slow.

Even Carlotta looked nothing short of radiant onstage in a shimmering gown of silver, with stars soaring from the flies and a moon and clouds at her feet. Perhaps she screeched a little and belted too harshly, but the Queen of the Night was a melodramatic and evil sorceress currently at the height of her fury, so it fit quite well.

In truth, she was a good fit for most female operatic roles.

Christine caught a flicker of movement and a flash of gold from a curtain at the side of the stage. It was Gino Polenzani, the actor playing Sarastro, the Sun God. It had taken Carlotta all of one week before declaring him as her property after he had been hired. He was a booming bass and an avid drinker and gambler, but he came from considerable money.

Her eyes strayed from the stage and into the audience. She saw powdered wigs (horrifically out of fashion), Princess gowns, and most of the frills in all of Paris. Women held opera glasses to their discerning eyes and whispered to their husbands and lovers at their side. Men scanned the programs with feigned interest and muttered to themselves while checking their pocket watches.

She wondered idly when she would see Meg before remembering that the slaves' dance was already over. It had been so long since they had both danced as slave girls in Hannibal.

Hannibal…how utterly ironic.

She glanced once more across the sumptuous auditorium, lit in its glorious feigned twilight and wondered why she didn't feel anything. Surely a building as magnificent as the Paris Opera House would have an identity, some sort of soul that she should feel tearing painfully free from her bosom. Surely the building that she had considered home for so many years would sob at her farewell.

Surely a single man could not have taken the heartbeat of the building with him upon his departure.

Carlotta finished her aria to thunderous applause and the lime-lights sputtered audibly as they flickered out. Like any good performer, Christine waited until complete darkness before moving from her place. She closed the door of the box softly behind her as she left. The opera would continue at least another hour before its completion and they did not need her to stay.

Nothing had changed.

From behind the curtains, a tight-lipped Madame Giry watched incredulously until the lights came back on and saw that the Phantom's box was once again empty.

"Mama?"

She turned to see Meg looking up at her worriedly. "What's wrong, Mama? You look so sad."

The old woman's hand flew up to her eyes to wipe away tears that she realized were not there. "It's nothing, dear. Nothing."

There was a chilly blue glow about the lake and Christine decided that there must be little creatures living in the water that produced the light. She sat at the water's edge and hugged her knees tightly. How lonely it must have been to have these creatures invisible to his eyes as his only source of light for so long. No wonder he had left.

"He's not here, Christine."

The young woman started for a moment before Madame Giry walked into her field of vision, her eternal black staff stamping the ground for support as she climbed down the steps to the water's edge.

Christine turned to her, blinking, as if seeing a stranger. "I know," she said simply. "He didn't leave the boat behind for me."

Madame Giry looked down at the water's edge to see the selfsame boat bumping against a roughly built dock. The pole had been painted with red and white stripes and there were several comfortable pillows resting inside. She knew that if she looked slightly further along the edge, she would see a dozen other boats hewn and painted in the similar style. Grainy and powdery deposits from the chemicals put in the water to make it glow blue collected on the boat hulls at the waterline.

"I have come down here every day for the past week…hoping that this will suddenly reveal itself as an obscene nightmare. I have lived in one for so long; it did not seem a foolish assumption." She laughed then, it was a horrible croaking sound. "Business has truly been profitable, I see."

Giry shifted uncomfortably. "You have never…?"

"Taken one of these monstrosities across the lake to see what they have done to his house? No, never. I know my weaknesses enough to know that I would simply faint predictably or be scarred inside for years. No, some illusions are better ignored."

The older women sat down next to Christine at the water's edge. She put her arm around the girl's waist and hugged her close. Madame never embraced her girls as a rule lest she lose her stern taskmaster's reputation, yet Christine leaned into the older woman as if it was the most natural action in the world. A minute later, Madame removed her handkerchief to catch the tears falling silently from the young girl's eyes.

"Oh my child, you have been forced to grow so fast."

"But I haven't, I haven't," she sniffed. "I have wept in these past months enough for a dozen lifetimes, and yet I still weep. I weep rather than admit the truth that…that…"

"He is not dead, Christine. He would have let you know before the fact."

"If he is alive then it is the worse for me. Because then it means that I am too cowardly to seek him out."

"You have no idea where to begin to look, Christine. He is not one to be found until he wishes to be."

"If it were not for me, Erik would not be hiding right now! And he would not be hiding from me."

"Erik? Christine, how did you—"

"He's a man, just a man that a little girl managed to destroy. You saw my father before he passed away, Madame— you remember how he looked in his final days. Remember how empty his eyes were, how full of death?"

"Christine!" Madame dropped her staff and took both of her shoulders in her hands, shaking her. "You must never think that was your fault. Not ever, do you understand?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "He came back to be with me one last time. He gave me the strength to move on, but he did not tell me how. He did not…he did not tell me that I would be barred from the path by one man's desire to make a mockery of Erik's life. Where is he now, Mama? France? America? In another world? I'm lost without him, I'm so lost!" She clung desperately to Madame's shoulders. "How can someone feel so empty without another? I did not understand how my father could, but I do now, and it hurts more than I imagined anything could."

Madame Giry held her tightly, unsure of what to do or say. Was there anything she could have said that would have soothed her pain?

Christine sniffed one more time as she wiped her eyes. "You must tell me truly, Madame: Erik would never go to England, would he? To a land of eternal rain where there is no fine art to speak of and abominable cooking? Please tell me that he would stay far, far away from there?"

"Christine…Christine, you're not making any sense."

"I shall make one man happy, Madame. I shall not push someone away who needs me a second time."

"Raoul wishes to go to England? Oh Christine, this is not a decision to be made with the heart. Are you—"

"Don't ask me if I'm sure, Madame. You know the answer to that." She rose to her feet then and turned to leave.

"Christine…my dear. You can't keep running for the rest of your life."

"I'm not running, Madame, I'm simply going to get married, and I would like to ask if you would do me the honor of giving me away?"

Madame sighed, knowing that she would not win unless Christine wished it so. She and Erik were more similar than either of them had ever noticed. "You were never mine to give away, my dear. But I would be honored to do so now."

Christine smiled and they climbed out of the basement arm-in-arm, as the lake they left behind continued to bask in its cold unnatural blue light.

A/N: Happy holidays everyone! So I didn't make it by Christmas as I promised but hopefully this is close enough and it's before the new year. Major kudos and thanks to Chat, the lovely beta who stepped in at a moment's notice, and Chris, who lent his vast quantity of opera knowledge for assistance on The Magic Flute.