Disclaimer- I do not own POTO or any of the associated music or characters. I merely play with them. The song "No Good For Me" belongs to The Corrs, which is rather obvious as I have no musical talent whatsoever. :P

Note by the author- Thanks for the reviews, keep them coming!

Lee

But It's No Good For Me

Christine

She slid into the taxi with a quiet "Hey, Andy."

The man was getting on in his years, but had not yet lost the wistful, keen look of a young dreamer. "Evenin' Chris. How'd your day go?"

She smiled. "I got a job offer." She wanted to see how he'd take the news before she figured out how to tell Joseph.

He threw back his head and laughed. "Is that so? Well, done, Miss! Where at?"

"The Opera Populaire, if you'll believe it." She looked out the window shyly. "I'm not sure I believe it myself."

"Big, fancy Opera House on the other side of town? How did this happen, may I ask?" He looked about as pleased as if he had got the job himself.

"A man came into the cafe and heard me playing. He said he worked there and offered me a job. I was going to turn it down at first, but..."

"But, what"

"He made an offer I couldn't refuse."

Andy grinned. "And here was me thinking you were a sweet young gal. Glad to know you can be as materialistic as the rest of us. It'll make me feel a bit less guilty the next time I overcharge a suit."

She shared a laugh with him. "I'm only human, Andy." Let him think that she had done it for the money. She wasn't going to enlighten him.

He braked. "Your stop, Chris."

Christine paid the taxi driver with a smile "Thanks, Andy. Keep the change, share the luck."

He nodded, "Sure thing, hon," and was off to find the next customer that would pay his rent.

Christine squared her shoulders as he drove off and steeled herself for the inevitable.

Erik

He sat at his piano, trying to recall the voice that had held him enraptured. His hands brushed over the keys absently. The faint strains of music drifted around him, unheeded, as he stared into space.

My God, she was brilliant. There had been something missing from her voice though. He couldn't put his finger on it. She lacked some training, that he had noticed.

Passion.

It was true, her voice had carried the sorrow and regret of the song. But it had lacked the hope of it. Her eyes, her voice had had nothing of hope, no aspiration in them. What could have happened to make someone so young, so lost? Then again, grief wasn't particular about the age of the person it hit. Age is no indication of joy or pain, Erik. You should know that.

He fingered the white mask, unable to get the wistful voice out of his head. He tapped his pen against the paper titled 'Angel of Music' and sighed.

Hours later, he still couldn't get her voice out of his head. Her strange reluctance to take a job at the Opera House featured prominently in his thoughts.

It wasn't the money, though no doubt she needs it. I know it wasn't the money. Did she want to make me beg?

No. That didn't ring true either. Carlotta might attempt to make him beg once in a while, but not this girl.

She only took it once I asked her to. Personally. And I doubt it was my overwhelming warmth and charm that made her accept.

Did she not care if she got the job or not?

No. Someone who loved music as clearly as she did would have cared.

Family disapproval? That could be it. Erik was well acquainted with the snobbery of certain types of people for those of artistic callings. Fawning on them to their faces, mocking them behind their backs. Hailing them as geniuses in the public eye, branding them as tramps and charlatans with their associates. Smiling at them one moment and sneering down their noses at them the next...

If that was the case, Erik wasn't going to let the girl's family discourage her. She'd made it this far, damn if he was going to let her give up.

Of course, the aura of naive innocence around her had nothing to do with it. The startling lack of independence in her eyes. Those pleading eyes...

"Erik?" Nadir called. Erik heard him enter the apartment. "Are you here? We have an slight emergency"

Erik materialized in the main room. "Nadir, I must be behind the times. Has knocking gone out of fashion?" Then the last words of Nadir's sentence registered. "What kind of slight emergency is it that the people at the theatre can't handle? I should think that they'd be perfectly capable of handling a slight emergency." he said scathingly

Nadir looked remarkably unruffled after that sally. "Alice has come down with strep throat. I had heard it was going around, but..."

Erik's voice was ominously calm. "I see. And the fact that she is the supporting actress classifies this as a minor setback?"

"She does have an understudy, Erik."

"Who still has fits of stage fright." Erik said witheringly. "No, Janet won't be ready in time."

Janet won't, whispered a little voice inside his head. But what about Christine Daae?

A long shot. He thought.

And, it seems, the only available option.

Nadir had his hands clasped behind him in an air of relaxed professionalism. "I take it then, since you are not in the midst of breaking something, that you have someone in mind?"

If she'll do it.

Erik told that particular voice to take a long walk.

"Yes." he said tightly. "Now, I have to make a phone call."

"Who do you have in mind?"

"An undiscovered talent. And, the only girl I know with the proper range."

"Where did you find this 'undiscovered'?" Nadir asked curiously. Erik resisted the urge to throw something at him for taking this so calmly.

"Nadir, you are prying."

"I believe that's why you employ me." the man pointed out.

Erik lifted his eyes to the ceiling and counted slowly to ten. "At a cafe downtown. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.

" Erik could have sworn he saw the man grin as he turned. "A cafe, Erik?"

That paperweight had never looked so suited to aerodynamics.

Christine

She fiddled with her key as the elevator doors slid open. Joseph had lost his a week ago and had yet to get a copy made. The only reason she had the only key was that he didn't like to come home to an empty table.

She still had an hour or two before he came back from working or bar-hopping. She set the water on to boil and strummed her guitar absently. How should she tell him...?

It would have been easy to tell Raoul. Raoul had always supported her music.

So much that he died for it. She felt a hot, sick wave of guilt swamp her again. She would have thought she'd be used to the feeling by now, the poisonous emotions eating away at her insides. The memories that made her burn with shame, memories that could still bow her head, memories that could still make her cry.

Christine sang softly,

"But it's a fantasy, not a reality

And it's good for me you have no idea

That I'm walking through the clouds

When you're looking at me"

She felt ready to retch. Raoul and she had had so much opportunity, so many years ahead of them. She still remembered the way his eyes would light up when he saw her, kindling something warm in her. They way his gaze always coaxed a smile from her.

"I'm feeling like a child

Vulnerability

I am shaking like a leaf

if you move beside me"

They had shared the same classes in high school, college. She remembered her first date with him, junior year. How awkward and teenage she had felt, frizzy hair, shortest girl in the school, deathly pale.

How he had taken all that awkwardness away the moment he appeared on her doorstep with a bouquet of daffodils. She couldn't see a daffodil anymore without thinking of that night. They had gone to see a cheesy romance flick, had walked out halfway through to sit in the parking lot sharing ice cream and talking about music.

That magical first night in college. The night of their engagement. Christine closed her eyes. That was too painful to think about right now.

"And you're all that I see

but it's no good for me"

He always was too good for her, she had known it as well as every other girl had. But he didn't seem to care. He didn't care that she couldn't handle do the laundry without utterly ruining the fabric, or that she could change a tire faster than most guys her age could.

He didn't care that she wasn't perfect. That she wasn't a homemaker or a sports jock or one of those delicate girls destined to become a model or a movie star.

He hadn't cared. He'd told her so many times that she was perfect. So many times that he wouldn't have her any other way, bleached clothes and all.

He really was too perfect to be mine.

Her thoughts were interrupted as there was a loud knock on the door. "Christine? Open up."

She sighed, setting down the guitar with a sinking feeling. Here it comes. She opened the door. Joseph strode through, all swagger and testosterone. He smelled faintly of pub beer and cigarettes. "Dinner's on the table. Pasta."

"Again?"

"You like pasta, Joseph"

"That doesn't mean I live off of it."

"It was what we had"
"Than why didn't you go pick something up at the grocery store? Or bring something home. You do work at a cafe." He sounded annoyed with her, as though he was trying to tell a four year old that one plus one did indeed equal two.

"I had to swing by the laundromat. And about the cafe..." She paused, unsure how to go on.

He looked up sharply. "Don't tell me you got yourself fired, Christine. You're not that useless. Although you have your moments." He muttered.

She ignored the barb, having gotten used to such comments a long time ago. "No. I got another job. At the Opera House across town. Someone who works there was in the cafe, he offered me a job."

"He?"

"Some quavery composer." Inside she felt a ripple of anger and disgust at herself for saying the words. Bright eyes, fiercely intelligent, burned in her mind. He wasn't weak, Christine.

"So that tra-la-laaing of yours finally got you somewhere." His lip curled in cynical contempt. "Or was he looking for a-"

"Not unless he thought I was a boy."

Joseph snorted. "Can't say I'd blame him. Why don't you wear anything nice?"

Christine quickly changed the subject. "The pay is good, Joseph, and they cover all of the insurance costs."

"I'll bet they do." Joseph said sarcastically. "How much are they paying you, anyway?"

She named the sum. His eyebrows raised. "Didn't think you were worth that much, Christine. Or are you sure he knew-"

The phone rang at that moment. It sounded like a godsend to Christine. She leapt to get it, nearly knocking over her chair to do so and earning a derisive look from Joseph.

"Hello?"

"Is this Christine Daae?" Christine shivered as she heard that voice. The man from the cafe. Erik Destler. His deep voice sent chills down her spine. "Yes, this is she. Is something wrong, Mr. Destler?"

"Miss Daae, our supporting actress has contracted strep throat. You are the only singer I know that has the range for the part. I know this is sudden. Don't worry. We still have a good three weeks to get you up to scratch if you'll take the part. Will you take the part?"

Christine glanced over at Joseph, watching her with unconcealed scorn. "I'll take it. What time is the rehearsal"

"Tomorrow, 7 o'clock in the morning. Can you make it?"

"Yes. Yes. Thank you."

His voice warmed marginally. "Thank you, Miss Daae. Until tomorrow then."

"See you then. Goodbye." She set the phone back in its cradle and leaned against the wall.

"Good news, I hope, Christine?" He looked as though such news would be a great surprise.

"I got a part in the opera they're producing. The supporting actress came down with something."

"Well, I suppose they'll have to settle for second best." Joseph said dismissively. He pushed back his chair and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"
"Out. Not that it's any of your concern." He paused by her.

"Oh, and Christine?" His arm pressed her uncomfortably close to him, his hand tight on her hair, causing her eyes to blur. "Dinner was a bit below par. Don't worry, you can make it up to me later."

Christine stood there a long time after he left, eyes glistening.

Don't cry, Christine. You deserve this.

Don't cry.

Joseph, everyone.