Author's notes: Several chapters left!

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Chapter 27 – Pineapple Pizza and Phantom Preparations

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After many phone calls, several enthusiastic squeals and agreements about the job to come, Regina was considerably happier and suggested that they go to a restaurant to celebrate this a bit. They ended up in a typically American Italian restaurant and, naturally, Amanda ordered the strangest pizza she could find on the menu.

"I have to compare it to the ones back home!" she protested when Regina gave her a disturbed look, then shook her head and plainly told a slightly confused Erik that he shouldn't even ask.

"Then might I ask a few other things?" he asked as they ordered their food.

"Of course." Regina said, "I have a few questions of my own, to be frank."

"Ah, filling in time!" Amanda said, distracted from her pizza for a moment. "Can I start with a question, Erik?" she asked, switching into French with no difficulty at all. It was one of the things she liked – she could speak French fluently and easily. However, it would have been better if she had been able to learn Spanish, Amanda thought. That brought back the mental image of Antonio Banderas as the Phantom, however.

"Very well, Amanda."

"Any brothers?" she asked with an eager but slightly insane puppy dog expression. It seemed to startle Erik slightly, since he wasn't used to it, but he figured that as long as he answered and Regina was nearby, nothing would happen.

"It seems that in this… incarnation? Or what should I call it? Nevertheless, yes, I do. Strange… having a family is a strange thought." He mused for a moment.

"Well, running away from your mom and ending up with the gypsies must have been a tad different from the normal life of a kid." Amanda said with the subtlety of a blunt axe. When he looked surprised that she knew, she grinned. "A charming woman by the name of Susan Kay has written your biography and Regina has been oh-so-kind and told me what it's about."

It took a few moments of silence for the information to sink in and by the time he turned to Regina, she had a comeback ready. "Don't worry about that. You will have to get used to the publicity. The book is a bestseller and a very good one. I liked it a lot, but she made Christine – well, me, literally speaking – look like a little kid who's so weak she can't even be happy. I mean, I'm indecisive, yes, but that was extreme."

"Well, this certainly saves me a lot of excuses when you would pry about how in the world I became what I was." Erik noted dryly.

"Cheer up." Amanda said, "98 of the people who read any of the books or saw the musical think Christy should have stayed."

"And the 2?"

"They're idiots." Amanda said simply. "Now that I have seen it from an insider's point of view, I can confirm that Raoul is a pansy."

"He's not." Regina noted.

"Whose side are you on?" Erik asked, looking at her slightly suspiciously.

Sticking her tongue out for a moment, Regina said: "I pity him a bit, actually. I guess his mind just couldn't accept the fact that I wasn't the 19th century ingénue I used to be anymore and picked you instead of him. Oh, well, he's a fop – and a rich one. He'll find a girl that will worship his girlish good looks."

Amanda laughed and choked on her pizza whilst Erik looked reasonably pleased with what he heard.

"The only thing I wonder is how come the musical and the book remained the same." Amanda mused. "I mean, we disappeared from there. Now, I have no idea how we got there in the first place or how we got back, but the point is, we were there and suddenly we were here, and you were here too." She shrugged. "Weird. Good weird, but weird still."

"Before you start with a full analysis of what we went through, let's hear the questions you had." Regina said, turning to Erik. "You ask, and then I'll do the same."

"Very well. One question has already been answered by your little friend. Question number two: you knew what was going to happen when you were on-stage before Hannibal."

It wasn't really a question, but Regina had been expecting it. She took a deep breath. "Yes, I knew Carlotta would get squashed and I didn't care. Yes, I knew you were behind the mirror and you'd force me to hit that high E. Yes, I knew a lot of things, but since one change creates more, I only had a general idea of what might happen."

Erik raised an eyebrow delicately and Regina added: "Yes, I knew the reason for the mask. Besides, I have a brain, you know. Even though I was partially rendered brain-dead by all you showed me that night."

"And you still came…" he whispered.

"Because, cheesy as it might sound, it was you. I knew it would be an amazing experience, and it was. And let me remind you that I didn't unmask you when I had the chance."

Erik smiled faintly. "One more thing. The… mannequin."

Finally, Regina flushed a bit, ashamed. "Um… I knew it would be there…wearing the wedding dress. I'm sorry for pretending to faint there, but what was I supposed to say? You weren't seducing me – you were begging me to love you and practically proposing to me."

"And your answer to that question would have been…?" he prodded.

She shook her head, but seeing his sudden disappointment, she quickly spoke. "Oh, no, I don't mean that! But you're far too inquisitive for your own good! I thought we agreed one question at a time, and you've surpassed the limit by far."

Erik shrugged as innocently as he could, but gave her a look that eagerly anticipated an answer.

"No fair!" Regina scowled, "You keep looking at me like that. Unfair choice of weaponry, Monsieur." Another silence. "Yes. I would have said yes. And before this turns into a scene worthy of a soap opera, if you wait a couple of years so that my parents won't freak out and remind me of my physical age, I you might get the same answer."

"Three years." Amanda piped up. "When you're 18, you're legal. But you might wanna wait a bit longer. Not that I don't want you guys to be together, but Gin here gets slightly worked up about school and college is nearing itself constantly."

"You just don't want to be the spinster alone." Regina said with a smirk and avoided the bit of pizza that flew at her. "And I'm guessing the book ended up as it is because Leroux was slightly freaked out about you vanishing along with a suspicious Phantom and a girl who claimed to be visited by angels. Anyway," she turned back to Erik, "My turn now. How in the world did you find me, let alone recognize me?"

"You wake up finding yourself in a strange city with memories you can't place, go see what the hell happened and find out where in the world you are and suddenly you hear a familiar angelical voice singing a classic opera. Do you not go to the source of the voice – the one thing you recognize? It could keep you from going mad. I recognized your voice and… Amanda… was sensible enough to recognize me when I called you Christine. You, however, seemed too prone to fainting at the moment." Erik finished, slightly amused.

"I told him a few things to calm him down." Amanda added, fishing a piece of pineapple out of her pizza. "And then you woke up."

"I remember that." Regina muttered, remembering the cold water.

Amanda grinned sheepishly. "Hey, you said we should hurry. Anyway, you know the rest. Now we're changing history, you guys have unofficially hooked up and the story has a happy ending."

"Hooked up?" Erik asked.

"Search your slang memory." Amanda noted, taking a sip of her coke. Regina continued to eat a bit of her lasagna, trying to picture a happy ending to all of the insanity. It simply seemed unrealistic.

"Well, now we'll have to stop school for a moment or study in America for a while, right?" she asked, "After all, we can't keep flying from continent to continent every other day. It might get a bit exhausting."

"Too true." Amanda noted, "We'll finally get the hell out of that hellhole!"

"Now, since you wasted your question, here's another of mine." Regina said triumphantly. "What are you planning on doing once the movie is finished? Obviously, we can't just return home and continue being the regular students, so I'm guessing you have something planned."

"Oh, nothing big." Erik noted dismissively, "Just a few small things. Once the world hears you sing, the opera houses will come calling themselves. And I can't believe just how many operas were created since we… left. Most of them are rubbish, naturally, but this Puccini person seems to be a reasonably talented composer. I found just the right aria for your voice in Turandot, Christine – marvelous opera, if a little too avant-garde for my taste…"

Amanda worked out the translation easily enough: You are going to be a world opera diva. Regina immediately rallied with the casually thrown remark that perhaps he should start composing new operas or rewrite Don Juan and have it performed. By the time they left, Amanda was grinning, since the pair was arguing the whole way. Artists, she thought, If these two really get together, all they'll ever argue about is whether his or her opera is better.