Disclaimer: I do not own anything of POTO. All I own is this idea, copywrite to me.

Darkness

"Start a new life with me! Buy his freedom with your love. Refuse me and you send your lover to his death! This is the choice! This is the point of no return!"

For just one moment, it seemed that time stood completely still. No one moved. There was no sound, no contact.

Christine saw the scene play out before her. Erik putting Raoul in one of his infamous nooses. Oh, how many times did she hear of the dreaded punjab lasso? But never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined one around her fiance's neck! He looked guilt ridden and helpless, his body hanging from the binding ropes around his body, another wrapped around his tender neck.

And then there was Erik, holding the other end of the rope, the water splashing upon his black panted legs. An evil, twisted snarl of his lips and glowing eyes full of passion of every sort stared back at her in all his pent up fury, waiting for her to make her choice. As if she had a choice...

Suddenly, as she looked back at Erik, she imagined his twisted face, his horrid grin, his hurt and anguish...she imagined it all going away. And suddenly, he was back to being her Angel of Music. Her angel...back to when he was the one who never caused her problems, but fixed them. "Sing." He'd say. "Sing for me, let your soul soar to a better place. Sing and I'll make your troubles disappear." But he wasn't making them disappear now. He was the cause of it.

And as her gaze traced down his arm, to the hand that tightly gripped Raoul's life within, she realized what her naive mind had never allowed her to before. She saw that there was good and bad, light and darkness in everyone. That was no longer the question. Now, the question was this: she knew what Erik's darkness was. What would she do with the knowledge?

She remembered back to her father, when he'd used to ramble on at nighttimes when neither of them could sleep as they laid in the hay after a long day's work.

"My child," He would always say. "There is good and bad in everyone. It fills you and me, simply everyone. That is not what you need to focus on though, my girl. What you must is this - the balance between the two. What outweighs the other? What shines through best? But most importantly, can you, knowing what their darkness is, live with them and it? When you accept a man as a husband one day, my dearest daughter, you will be pledging to love both sides that makes that man up - the good and the bad. Always remember if I'm not there - ask yourself this so you know you're not making a mistake: can you live with the darkness?"

Christine blinked, and suddenly everything came back in to focus. She wasn't hearing her father, wasn't looking at her angel. She was seeing a man, readying for his neck to be snapped. She was seeing another man, one that willingly and openly called himself a monster, consumed within his darkness.

"Can you live with the darkness?"

Christine slipped on the ring as she moved in to the lake water where both men stood, awaiting her next move.

Darkness... could she live with it?

"Pitiful creature of darkness...what kind of life have you know? God give me courage to show you, you are not...alone!"

She sang out, staring in to Erik's eyes unwavering. And then she kissed him. She kissed him while he was drowning in his darkness. Yes, she could live with it. And she could also bring him back to light.

Fin