Disclaimer: I do not own POTO or any of the associated music/characters. (sigh) Darn. Nor do I own the song 'White Flag' by Dido.

Lee

Adolesence

Christine

"Yes?"

She blinked. A lean, dark-haired man scowled down at her. Literally, down; he was head and shoulders taller than her. The sculpted lips were set in a thin line of annoyance, brows arched. Intensely blue eyes seemed to stare right through her. His arms were crossed impatiently.

She arched a brow back at him. "I am Christine Daae. Nadir did tell you-"

"You're his goddaughter then?" The man cut her off. It didn't seem as though he were dismissing her. It was just the way he was.

"Yes, and you are?"

"Erik Destler. His roomate." She wondered absently if he ever spoke in longer sentences. She grasped his hand and shook it, he looked mildly surprised by the gesture before he smoothed over the expression.

"Nice to meet you." she smiled. He opened the door wider, stepped aside to let her in and caught up one of her suitcases.

"I'll show you where you're staying." Christine wondered what Erik Destler was to Nadir. She had never met him before, had only the vaguest sensation that she knew him. Nadir and he weren't together. Nadir was, for all his sensitivity, far from that end of the sexual spectrum. And Erik... he didn't put out those vibes at all. She didn't know what he exuded. It was dark, magnetic, spoke of rivers underneath the ice, wildfire beneath the smoke.

The apartment was impressive. Easily as big as her house. Skylights everywhere, floor to ceiling windows pouring in light. High ceilings, a modern, spartan approach to the decor. She looked through the doorway of the room Erik led her through. And breathed a sigh of relief.

It was warm, welcoming. Pale furniture, done in warm golds and soft yellows. It breathed relaxation, she absorbed the golden glow of the room like sunlight. There was another door, presumably to a connecting bathroom. Sheer, white curtains were drawn back to reveal a hazy view over a lush park. She turned. He was standing in the doorway, almost as though waiting for a reaction. She let a smile spread across her face, trying to draw one from him. "It's beautiful. Thanks, Erik."

Again that brief flash of surprise, quickly concealed. "You're welcome." He led her out of the room, gesturing to various parts of the apartment. "The kitchen and the bathroom are to your left, the living room is beyond that. Down that hallway-" he nodded to their right. "- are Nadir's rooms and mine. I realize that you are going to be living here for some time Ms. Daae, and I ask you to respect my privacy." His eyes pierced her. There was a warning behind the words. She sensed that he guarded his privacy fiercely.

"Christine." she said, breaking the tension before it could build. "Call me Christine. Ms. Daae makes me feel old."

He nodded, seemingly distracted as he headed down the right-hand hallway. Christine looked after him. He looked over his shoulder. "Did you want something, Christine?"

"Nope. I'm just going to go unpack now." He turned back, continued down the shadowy hallway.

It was then Christine realized that he had been wearing a mask. An odd, white half-mask that covered most of the right side of his face, from hairline to lip.

She hadn't even noticed it.

Erik

He hadn't expected this. He'd been fully prepared to hide in his part of the apartments in order to avoid, as he'd put it so charmingly mentally- 'a prying, superficial teenager.'

The girl on the doorstep was the last thing he'd been expecting. For one thing, she looked quite natural. No half-inch layer of make-up, hair swept up, not tortured in some new idiocy that passed for fashion these days. None of the clothes he would have expected a teenager or a hooker to wear. Far from the obnoxious teenager he'd been dreading. She was confident, but not overbearing. Intelligent, but not elitist. Wistful, but not passive. Warm and welcoming, like sunshine, a warm breeze in summer.

For another, she hadn't even appeared to notice the mask. True, she had stared for a second, but for once, someone wasn't staring at the mask.

They were staring at him.

And then there was the casual, open way she'd taken and shaken his hand with her own, slender, firm. Erik knew he didn't exactly promote that kind of familiarity with his dark, brooding looks and abrasive mannerisms. Hell, he intimidated grown men.

And yet she was completely fearless, disturbingly trusting as he had shown her to her room. A level of trust he would have thought foolish to the point of stupidity in anyone else. But not her. He had a distinctly uncomfortable feeling that she already had some measure of him, and accepted him.

He wasn't at all sure how he felt about her calling him 'Erik'. Maybe it was a teenage thing, trying to show an adult that they were equals, not superiors and inferiors.

Somehow that didn't ring true. She acted like anything but a spoiled teenager. Headstrong, yes, he could tell. Rebellious, if he ever decided to push her. Which he wouldn't. He glanced down briefly at his hands, stroking the piano keys almost of their own accord, coaxing a melody from the ivory and black keys.

She reminded him of Charles. He had met the man only briefly, exchanging music with him. He had seen Christine too, a child of ten. Dancing down the hallway, singing at the top of her youthful, unrestrained voice. A slip of a child, sparkling with life.

He wondered if she still sang.

Erik turned as he heard his name called, rose and went to the door.

She stood at the end of the hall, framed in a wash of light. "Erik? I took the liberty of making dinner. Chicken. It'll be ready in ten minutes or so. Hope you don't mind."

She was carefully staying out of 'his' part of the apartment, he noticed. She was backlit by a golden radiance, the dying sunset the floor-to-ceiling windows let in. An aura of light emanated where the rays struck her skin. Her hair was tinged with fire, pale skin lit golden. The dark eyes looked at him inquiringly.

He realized he was staring, recovered. "No, it's perfectly all right. Thank you."

She half-turned, paused and glanced back at him. "You play beautifully." She smiled at him over her shoulder than dissapeared.

He stood in the doorway, looking at the pool of light where she had been.

Christine

She moved about unhurriedly in the kitchen. The scent of rosemary, cinnamon and wild rice wreathed the air, a relaxing blend. The clatter of utensils was reassuring, restoring normalacy to the foreign situation. She sang along to the CD player.

"I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
I'll tell you that.
But if I didn t say it, well I'd still have felt it.
Where's the sense in that?"

The scents, so familiar, so home-like, recalled her father with piercing, painful clarity. She closed her eyes, leaned against the door. Her father's face smiled at her behind her closed eyes. The dark-eyed, laughing-eyed man as he had been in her childhood. Dark hair blowing free in the wind as he fixed a tail to a kite for her.

She could hear his laughter ringing faintly in her ears, the scents of summer all around her as she ran downhill, racing the wind, watching the kite soar above her, dipping and flapping in the wind. She felt moisture seep between her closed lids. The bittersweet taste of salt slid down her throat.

"I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder

or return to where we were."

Years later, sitting in the audience during her first audition. A shadow in the dark auditorium, a shadow who smiled at her and pressed a silent hand to her shoulder. Her father- who had brought roses, white and smelling of summer, for his daughter, his beloved daughter. Who twirled her about in the antechamber when the casting was announced, laughter ringing as freely as hers.

"But I will go down with the ship
and I won't put my hands up and surrender.
There will be no white flag above my door.
I'm in love and always will be."

She remembered the time he had taken her on a fishing trip. Camping out in the wilderness, contemplating the silence of the trees around them. Singing to the brilliant stars that studded the deep blue velvet of the sky as he accompanied her on his violin. She could swear that the wilderness went silent to listen.

His face in the firelight, serene and euphoric. Eyes glowing with reflected starlight as he gazed with pride at his only daughter.

Dad... oh, I miss you. Is it selfish of me to want you back?

"I know I left too
much mess and destruction to come back again.
And I cause nothing but trouble, I understand if you can't talk to me again.
And if you live by the rules of 'it' s over'
than I'm sure that that makes sense."

People told her to move on. People told her to mourn him. What should she do? Was it right to need him, to want him to be there to catch her when she fell? Was it right to be happy that he was free of the pain?

Dad... what would you want me to do?

"And I will go down with the ship,
and I won't put my hands up
and surrender.
There will be no white flag above my door.
I'm in love, and always will be."

They had been close, he had been both father and mother to her. A friend whose shoulder she could cry on. Someone she could tell all her secrets to. Someone who accepted her unconditionally, loving her without reservation or expectation. She loved him, still loved him. He had meant so much to her- had she ever told him how much?

There was so much she still wanted to say to him. So much she had looked forward to sharing with him. Graduation. Her first big role. Her wedding. Her first child.

"And when we meet-
which I'm sure we will,
all that was there will be distilled.
I'll let it pass, and hold my tongue.
And you will think that I've moved on."

How could she be sure what he had wanted for her? Her father had always told her to follow her dreams wherever they led.

The trouble was- he had been a part of those dreams. She had dreamt of him healing, of seeing her father smile again. To dance with him at her wedding. To hear him play the violin again as she sang.

Where was there to go from here?

Dad... send me a sign. Something. Are you there? Are you watching over me from Heaven? Will you send me the Angel of Music, like you promised me? If I only knew.

"I will go down with the ship,
and I won't put my hands up and surrender.
There will be no white flag above my door.
I'm in love, and always will be."

Yes. She had to live her dreams. For his sake. For every moment of pain and joy he had endured for her. Her father had given her so much, asked so little in return. She had a promise to fufill. A promise to find happiness. A promise to live her life.

She owed him that much.

For your sake, Dad. For you.

"I will go down with the ship,
and I won't put my hands up and surrender.
There will be no white flag above my door.
I'm in love, and always will be."

She opened her eyes and stared straight into the sky-colored eyes of Erik Destler.

Christine froze for a moment. There was such an intensity in his eyes, something she could not put into words, that recalled birds in flight, a strange stirring in her. He leaned against the doorway, incredibly still, looking at her in something like wonder.

The silence stretched, emotions too strange and fleeting to pin down racing through her. Then he spoke, softly.

"You still sing."

She blinked up at him. "Yes." Then the words registered. "What do you mean... still?"

He smiled faintly. "I met your father once to discuss some music I'd lent him. You were a child. I remember seeing you dancing down the hall, singing."

She looked down, smiled slightly. "I don't remember meeting you."

"You didn't."

"Oh."

The buzzer on the oven announced its existance, making her jump and jangling the strange currents that wove around her. She and Erik both leapt for it.

"Sorry." she panted. "I should have been watching it."

He shook his head. "It's perfectly all right. I'll set the table, shall I?"

"Please."

She studied him, lean, graceful as he opened the cupboard. He didn't even have to stretch to reach anything. He was catlike in his movements, an unconcious grace, a fluidity to them.

He turned, raised an eyebrow, and she realized she was staring. "Would you help me with this?" she asked, attempting to cover up her embarressment.

He took the dish from her hands, brushing her fingers. She fought a rise of sensation that began somewhere near her stomach and traveled up her spine. He seemed perfectly at ease, she wondered how he felt at sharing his home with a teenager.

She didn't feel like a teenager.

Dinner was quiet, Christine was lost within thoughts of her own curiousity about the man across from her. There was something that nagged at the corner of her mind at him. Something both intruiging and almost frightening.

"Your cooking is much better than Nadir's."

She looked up, startled. He gave her a faint smile. She smiled back. "I'm glad you like it. My father does- did - too." Her smile faltered, slipped.

"It's not wrong to mourn him." His eyes were intent on her face.

She offered a shaky smile. "He's better off now. He's not in pain anymore."

"That doesn't mean that you shouldn't miss him."

Something in her flowered, choking her. "Excuse me. I have to-" she broke off as she hurried out.

He watched her go.

Erik

Nadir,

Your goddaughter arrived today. It is strange to have someone else in the apartment without you here- but at least her cooking is better than yours. How is business going?

Erik

He pressed the send button.

Christine

Uncle Nadir,

I'm at your apartment now. Don't worry, I had a safe trip here. Your roommate is a musician- why didn't you tell me? He also says that I cook better than you do. I believe him.

Love, Christine

She pressed the send button.

Looong chapter. Hoped you liked.

cookies n' hugs

Lee