Christine was gone again; I was not surprised. I had grown used to a cold, empty bed, and a bottle of whiskey each night. It was my single companion—a glass of bitterness to replace my unfaithful wife.

It seemed like life had always been like this—me with a drink and she with my ring, name, and rival. She was gone more and more often, ever since she found out that her beloved Angel was alive. Oh, she had not told me outright but I was no simpleton. Her whole face brightened at the prospect of leaving me, the husband she still professed to adore, alone to a bottle of loneliness. Any excuse to be rid of me, the tiresome man who had given up everything for her. She didn't even bother with alibis these days—I knew and she knew that I knew.

Christine was going to leave me for Erik. I was in no way ignorant to this; I was not naïve enough to believe that she loved me. Our empty marriage bed was a blunt answer to an unasked question; I could not stand to sleep in it without her anymore. But I still… Whenever I saw her I could not bring myself to talk to her about it—her feelings, her infidelity, and her imminent departure. A part of me still clung to the idea of her with me, loving me as I still, still loved her. I thought of my brother often in these moments. Philippe was furious when I had told him of my plan to carry off Christine… He had died, drowned in the lake underneath the Opera, led there by Erik himself. "I told you, brother, that your Opera wench was unacceptable! I knew she'd make you unhappy…" Those would be his words to me, had he been here with me in my misery. For Christine was in love with a monster that had an angel's voice… and I, in love with a monster that had an angel's face.

And so it was on that night, like so many other nights, when I was alone in our room, staring into a roaring fireplace, feeling as if I were in the seventh circle of hell, drowning my loneliness in whiskey straight from the bottle, that she came at last.

"Raoul."

I turned automatically at the sound of her voice, setting my drink on the coffee table in our suite. There she was, my wife, dressed in travelling clothes, her golden hair tied back and her blue eyes hard with cold determination. Beautiful… she was so beautiful and so very terrible.

I pulled my voice up from deep within myself, as well as a half-hearted smile. I was very, very drunk but I still had the sense to know what was happening.

"Darling."

Something flickered in her eyes, a strange light—I could not place it at that moment. Perhaps it was the tattered remnants of the feelings she had carried for me… or perhaps it was just pity.

"I am leaving." She could barely keep her voice above a whisper—was she faltering? Was God taunting me, giving me a taste of hope when all he planned on doing was murdering it? The latter, most likely.

"I know." I said simply, my mind suddenly blank. What else could I say? I could not even hope to convince her to stay with me… A taste of bitterness appeared in my mouth, jarring me. "Why are you doing this, Christine? You cannot change him."

"He loves me."

"So do I."

She laughed at me as she had on the day of her first triumph on the stage—beautiful and cruel, laughing at the expense of the man who had rescued her red scarf all of those long years ago. The sound had been a blow, a slap in the face then, just as it was now.

I started anew, trying a different tactic and masking the pain she was causing me. It had become a second nature, putting on a façade for her. "How…" I swallowed down the ghost of tears but failed to shove my humiliation and frustration away. I was going to lose Christine due to a drunken tongue and foggy mind, not to mention desperate words. "How can you want to be with him—that sociopath? That murderer? That morphine addict?" Fury rankled beneath my words, swelling with each phrase, ready to burst out of the cage I had locked it in for the entire year that she went to him. The whiskey was giving it the keys in spite of me.

Her dark eyes glittered in the firelight. "You are no different, Raoul. Your drinking—"

The dam broke and the anger surfaced—How dare she compare my addiction (for I knew that it was one) to his? "Don't you dare start on my drinking!" I roared, my face flushing. "Goddammit! I am not stabbing myself with a bloody needle and you know—God, you know as well as I that the drink kept me warm all those nights when you were off fucking Erik—that monster with a demon's face and an angel's voice!" I spat out each word, ire and bitterness coloring each in deep violent shades.

Fury flashed in her cerulean eyes as she shrieked "How dare you! He is no monster—he's more of a man then you'll ever be!"

Amazing. I could see her telling herself that Erik could change, that she could erase over thirty years of evil—burn the lasso, destroy the torture chamber, break the needles, make him forget the lust to kill—with something as simple as her love. I laughed, my voice spiraling crazily as she grew more infuriated, her own beautiful, angelic voice blurring with her rage. Lies, lies, lies, and more lies. Every word from her mouth was and had ever been falsehood. She had deceived me, Erik, herself. Erik would never change for her, and she would never change for me. And I realized that I would never, ever change for her.

I could no longer understand her as I choked on my mirthless laughter, managing to say, "You know what, darling? I take it back—Erik is no monster. I'm not one either! What have I ever done to deserve this, all of your lies? I only loved you as much as Erik does—perhaps more, I daresay! No, we are not the monsters—you are, my dear Christine, you are!"

The accusation brought her up short—I had never insulted her outright before—and I continued my rant alone, my words slurring together from the effects of the alcohol and my rush to get all my wild, pent-up thoughts into the air.

"Christine, I loved you—I loved you even when I knew that you were with him! I loved you—but I knew that I could never even hope to compare to your Erik, the man who pretended to be a ghost, an angel—your father, for Christ's sake! I gave up my entire life for you, I laid my entire world at your feet, but I'll never measure up to the man who sang for you, even killed for you, will I, dearest!" I sneered, shaking my head as I snatched my glass up from the table, letting the only thing that remained faithful to me burn its way down to my stomach. "My God, woman, you never loved me."

"No. I never really did." She hissed, her hatred-layered voice breaking the suffocating silence that had fallen between us. "I love him and I despise you. And you are going to let me go to him and let us live in happiness away from you."

I laughed again, my voice hollow to my own ears, mocking me as I mocked her. "Oh, you're the victim here, aren't you? I never even tried to make you happy. I never risked my life for you, unlike your beloved Erik. Well, he can have you, you ungrateful lying little bitch! You can both go to hell—there are plenty of angels in hell, aren't there!"

The shadows in the room seemed to combine into the shape of a man before I could even blink and then I had a noose around my neck and a tenor voice snarling in my ear, "You will never speak to her like that again, bastard!" The rope tightened around my neck, preventing speech and cutting off my air supply with one swift jerk. Lights danced before my eyes and a myriad of emotions churned in my stomach. I vaguely realized that I did not care if I died—I almost welcomed my death because how could my life get any worse? I was losing everything.

"Erik!"

Mary, Mother of God… Was she actually pleading for my life? Again?

"Don't."

The rope was gone and I gasped for air, crumpling to the floor, my head spinning and vision blurring. I was only just aware of them speaking, Christine's beautiful voice that could still command me no matter how many times I tried to deny it.

"I don't want him to die, Angel. It's better like this; he can't touch us anymore. He knows that and he'll live out the rest of his life like that. Never having me, never having anyone."

No. Panic was ice in my veins. Why wouldn't she let me die? I had never loved anyone else except for her—she knew that! I had told her! Oh, God, how could she let me live? Christine knew that I would not marry again—she had been all that I had wanted! Mercy! I had wanted to spend the rest of my days with her beside me! I could see my dreams before me, shattered glass pieces that glittered mockingly in my blurred sight. I had known that she would leave but I had always foolishly carried the hope that she would change her mind… She was always so good at changing her mind, after all…

Erik's masked face hovered before me, his golden eyes glittering with dangerous mirth. "Be grateful, boy. I have decided to spare your life… You will have the fate that I know you wished upon me." He was grinning behind that mask, I was damned sure of it. "Do not follow us; do not attempt to take Christine from me again. You have lost, Vicomte; I have won." His tenor voice dropped to a low, deceptively pleasant tone as he leaned in close to me; I pressed my back into the wall, but he still had his face inches from me. "Even though I would sincerely enjoy your screams… We shall leave you knowing that she is mine and she will always be mine."

"Erik," Christine broke in, but he didn't release me from his gaze. "I want to leave. I want to be free."

"Yes, darling," Erik fairly purred before he bared his teeth behind the mask and snarled at me. "Remember, boy." He straightened, his cloak swirling as he turned, a spidery hand outstretched for my wife's. She took his hand and smiled, her entire face brightening as it used to when I told her I loved her…

"Christine…" I croaked, my voice choked with impending tears. I swallowed through a burning throat.

She stopped where she was and turned to me from the doorway, her Scandinavian eyes burning with loathing.

I wanted to die. I wanted her to stay; the memory of us before Erik had come into her life was raw and still present in my memory even if it was gone from hers. I stared into those glittering eyes and managed to whisper "… I love you…"

Her jaw tightened and she spun away from me, storming out of my door and out of my life, her hatred lingering behind her like the smoke from the dying fire in the fireplace on the other side of what had been our room. Now it was only mine. I would keep our room and the painful memories, my penance for loving her.

Silence filled the suite, suffocating silence broken only by ragged breathing that I recognized as my own. It was over. She was gone… and she wouldn't be able to change her mind again. Erik would never let her go. And I? I would die without her, without anyone. I was the Comte de Changy and I had nothing now that my wife had left me. I drew in a shuddering breath, feeling the sobs I had held back for years claw their way up my throat.

"I… concede defeat."

Then I wept—because everything I had ever done had been for her.

All for her… and all for nothing.