Don't Put Me Through This
He couldn't believe that she had abandoned him to go with that murdering bastard. Raoul burst into the Opera Populaire, not caring whether he woke people or not. He stormed into his office, slammed the door, and threw his sword to the ground. How could Christine do that to him? She had abandoned him for that damned circus freak.
He let his rage out, flinging books and papers across the room. He had been fighting so hard to get her away from him, and she just ran away with him.
No! She was forced to go with him. Christine didn't want to go with the Phantom. He had grabbed her arm and dragged her with him. Why would Christine want to go with him? She still had feelings from him. She had stopped the Phantom from killing him, hadn't she? Didn't that count for anything?
"Raoul!" came the gasp from behind him. He whirled around and saw the beautiful Meg, standing in his doorway dressed in her nightgown, her eyes wide with shock in the growing daylight. She rushed toward him and gently touched his arm. He winced, remembering the gash.
"Come with me," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him gently. He felt the tension slip away as he followed Meg to get bandages. Raoul followed her through the growing light of the opera house. He was led to the backstage and sat on a small wooden bench as Meg fetched cloth and water to clean the wound.
Raoul removed his shirt carefully as to let Meg get a better look at the wound. Raoul tossed the blood-stained shirt to the ground and looked at the cut. It was deep and ran the width of his arm. Crimson stains ran the length of his arm.
He winced at the pain when Meg placed the wet cloth on his arm and wiped the blood away.
"What happened?" asked Meg, wrapping his arm tightly with the cloth bandages. He didn't know if he should tell Meg the encounter with the Phantom. He couldn't.
"I was walking through the woods and got hit by branch," he said feebly. It was a horrible lie, but Meg didn't question. He knew she didn't believe him. The cut was too perfect. Too precise to be from the ragged branch of a tree. But he hadn't wanted to worry her.
After a few more minutes, Meg tied off the cloth and smiled. "There," she said. "All done."
Raoul smiled back and flexed his arm. He could feel his heartbeat through the cloth. He slipped back into his torn and bloody shirt and rose. He grabbed Meg's hand and kissed it gently, his lips grazing her warm hand.
"I thank you, Mademoiselle," he said, looking deeply into her blue eyes. Planning could wait.
The Vicomte had put those thought in her head, thought Erik pacing in front of his organ. He had escorted Christine back to her room in thought. After she had yelled at him, they hadn't said much to each other.
He could envision the Vicomte back on the roof telling Christine that he loved her and always would. The Vicomte was the man who was ripping Christine away. He had to be eliminated. Christine had been somewhat right. He was the man she had fallen in love with, but the monster was part of who he was. She couldn't change that. Christine would learn to love the monster that he was. She could see the man behind the monster, but the Vicomte was trying to change that. Trying to make her see only the monster.
Damn him!
The war was in full motion, the pawns moving swiftly now, preparing for the final battle. They were all going to have to pay. They were performing his work – the rehearsals had already begun, and if Christine wouldn't leave willingly, he would have to take her by force. She had once been so willing to find him, come with him down into his world. Now, she was nowhere to be seen.
Yet he could still hear her. At rehearsals, or in the depth of night, he could still hear her go to the chapel to play and sing. He was to sing only for him, no other. He had a plan to win her back. Take her back without her knowing. The power of his music would over take her, possess her. Then, and only then, when she was most vulnerable, would he take her.
It was to be the last sighting of the Phantom of the Opera. The last time he would ever be noted in history. After this, he was only to be a legend, a figment of imagination. The Phantom of the Opera would leave forever, leaving with the love of his life.
Dear Christine Daae.
Of all the men in the world, she had scorned the one she loved most. The second Erik had left her, Christine had buried herself under her covers and cried. What had she been thinking?
Christine could not sleep now, but not because of the painful memories of her father, but the excruciating memory of seeing Erik so taken aback by what she had said. And seeing the pain in his eyes.
She rose from her bed and lit one of the candles on her small desk, flooding over with notebooks. She quickly searched out the notebook with "All Falls Silent" in it and extinguished the candle. She had to find some way of apologizing to him.
Christine clutched the book and walked slowly and quietly once more out of her room, heading toward the dressing room.
The light in the Opera House was growing ever so slowly, the dawn about to break. She could still make out her way without a candle, passing the many rooms silently, not making a noise on the floors in her bare feet. As she walked through the ballroom, she felt the solid gold gaze of the statues upon her, watching her as she continued in the betrayal of her betrothed.
The door to the dressing room was unlocked, and she stepped inside. It was much more spacious when there were no flowers crowding the inside from a great new opening. Once more she faced the mirror that had started this journey. The mirror that held so much joy and fear. She approached it and looked at herself in the mirror for the first time in a while. What she saw she didn't recognize.
She saw not the happy, energetic, artistic girl that she had once been. She saw a woman, tall, slender, beautiful in a dark way. Her skin was pale, her cheeks hollow, her blue eyes wide, outlined softly by her waving dark brown hair. Her small slender hands clutched at the notebook greedily, white showing on her knuckles.
The woman in the mirror was not the Christine Daae that she had become. The Christine Daae who lied to her childhood friend, the Christine Daae that had learned to love a murderer, the Christine Daae who had not a passion for playing in the sun, but sitting in the darkness, writing an epic tale of the girl who is betrayed by her love, but at last finds love in the most unexpected place, was the Christine Daae of the here and now.
Christine didn't know if she liked the new her. It was odd. She enjoyed the old her, living in the sun, going for walks among the bustling people. But the new her was appealing also. She was more mature, and more passionate than most took someone her size for. There was also so much allure in the darkness that took to her soul. The mystery, the unknown element to it. Just as she knew nothing below the surface of her passion, seeing only the tip of the iceberg, the same was true was true for the darkness. And for Erik. Erik – the name of the man she loved she still didn't know. She was to find out soon enough.
Christine broke her gaze and knelt down, feeling for the spring that she had once found in the lower left hand corner of the mirror. She triggered it and the mirror gently swung open, revealing the damp tunnel that she had once thought as a beautiful, candle filled wonder. She called out once to him, her voice echoing in the darkness.
The black ribbon in her hair slid out easily, and she tied it quickly around the perfect opera. She left it there on the ground, waiting for him to find it and read it. It was finished. Christine walked back out of the mirror and closed it. She looked back once more at the mirror.
Sometimes it was better to let the illusion take over.
