Disclaimer: Don't own POTO. But I can hope.

Thank you all so much for the reviews. I'm- well, in a state of shock. But shock seems to make me update faster, wouldn't you know it?

cookies n' hugs

Lee

Awry

Christine

She woke. Darkness met her eyes, as though they had been covered with a veil. The palest moonlight painted a pale wash over her bedroom. For a moment, Christine simply listened to the silence. It was comforting and frightening, a total quiet as though she were the only living creature on the earth. It was the sound of solitude.

Her face felt strangely cold. She realized that her cheeks were wet, raised a hand to her eyes tentatively. It came away glimmering in the moonlight. She wondered hazily what had woke her.

Than it all came flooding back.

"Dad?"

She stood in a perfectly circular summer field, surrounded by the scent of clover, grass and earth, a fresh smell, a growing smell. Light breezes brushed her playfully. The air hummed with the trills of songbirds and the low hums and chirps of insects. Around her, flowers made bright splashes of color against the green all around. Sunflowers and poppies brushed her bare legs, caressing them with silky petals. Dandelions clocks drifted past her, catching on her hair. The sun beat down warmly on her skin until she felt as though she glowed with some strange, magical energy. She tasted summer on her tongue, rich and sweet and ripe.

Her father smiled up at her from where he lay on a white blanket spread under the oak tree. He smiled and waved at her, inviting her closer. She went forward with hesitant steps. The man under the oak tree was vibrantly, unquestionably alive, his dark, deer-like eyes alight with a thousand secret things, his laughter floating freely by her on the warm breeze. He was young and strong, smile full and unrestrained. "Come on, Christine." He waved to her as he had when she was a child, as if he was about to impart what seemed to her young mind one of the great wonders and mysteries of the world.

She sat beside him cautiously. Above the wind rustled through the oak leaves with a cool whisper. If she listened, she could swear they were saying something just out of her comprehension. Just out of reach. "Dad?" Her voice is almost lost in the birdcalls.

His eyes softened. "Look, sweetheart." He lay back against the knotted trunk of the tree, gestured at the field. A look of utter content passed over his face. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Christine started as a figure appeared in the corner of her eye. Her mother came and knelt by her other side. The fragrance of honeyed clover clung to her. Her eyes, a pale hazel bordering on gold, half closed as she smiled at Christine. Her skin shone with the luster of the sun.

Christine fought the incredulity that rose in her, threatening to choke her. Her mother reached over and tucked a strand of auburn hair, so like her own, behind her daughter's ear. "Hello, Christine." her voice was a soft, throaty murmur, lilting as though she was about to sing. Her eyes were gentle.

She looked between them as they smiled at her. Suddenly a flutter of movement caught her eye. She rose, inexplicably drawn to it, not wanting to go and unable to stay.. She looked back at her parents, they waved to her before turning to each other and she continued on. She drifted in the smooth motion of dreams, across the field.

There was something wrong, she sensed as she plunged into the brush. The grass was rising here, dry and crackling under her bare feet. It was silent, but for the swish of yellowing grass. The sun became angry here. Her nose was assaulted with the scent of something dying in the heat.

Behind her she heard a faint cry. She whirled, running back. Thistles snagged her skin, catching and tearing thin, vicious lines of red. Unseen stones crunched under her feet, ripping at them, thorns leaving their prickling imprint on her feet. The air was suddenly much too hot, much too still. It's stifling, as she runs. It beats down on her head; when she closes her eyes, red light pounds against them.

She could see them faintly, figures under the oak tree. Her mother was slumped over, her head lolling at an odd angle on the long, swanlike column of her neck. Her fingertips are blue, blackening. She is not breathing.

Her father stared at her with wide, wild eyes. He seemed to be crumpling before her eyes, wasting away. He was paling, eyes dulling.

"Chri-" his voice croaks and breaks.

"I'm coming!" she called, but her voice was high and thin.

No matter how fast she runs, she couldn't reach him. She saw him clearly though, as his bones began to press against the thin skin, she heard the low rasp of his breath as it hissed and gurgled in his throat.

"I'm coming!" she cried again. Her breath began to come harshly, her body burned under the sunlight and the effort. Sweat trickled down and stung her eyes, her hair clung stickily to her neck.

He reached out a wavering, skeletal hand to her. His eyes were hollow, the vivacity gone from them. The pools of them were muddied, filled with mire and nameless things. A sob caught in her throat as she stumbled, fell. Blood as red as poppies began to bead on her knees, smeared against the ivory of her legs. She picked herself on, stumbling as though she moved through water. Her heart pounded in her head, loud and wild.

He fell back and she saw blood pool at one corner of the mouth, crusting as his eyes clouded over. "Christi-" His last breath came in a last, rattling gasp and then he was silent. Christine struggled still to reach him.

He's not dead, he can't be dead.

Oh, Dad, you can't be dead.

She collapsed beside his body, took his hand. It was cold and under the wasted wrist there was no heartbeat. It was waxy in her grip, sliding from her. She bit back a cry.

"Dad!"

Oh, God. Christine's throat closed as the nightmare began to retreat. There was a burning in her eyes, an electricity that filled her body. She fought the urge to retch. She could still feel the papery thinness of his skin, the clammy iciness of death.

Her vision blurred and disappeared into a bright haze of shining mist. She closed her eyes, tears clinging desperately to the eyelashes. She scrubbed at them while her cheeks became red and raw. She sniffed, a pounding behind her eyes. Despair and fear pulsed through her with every heartbeat, in her very veins.

She had thought he was alive. She had thought that they were both alive. That all of them were together again.

She thought she had lost them again.

Somehow it had been infinitely worse, reliving their deaths, seeing them fall away from her before her eyes. A helpless witness. Oh God, so helpless.

"Why are you torturing me?" she whispered to the darkness. "Isn't it enough that I lost them?"

She turned her face to the faint moonlight. It was cold and remote. It did not care what she had lost or suffered. The silence pressed all around her, potent and oppressive. "Why did you take them from me? Was it something I did?" her voice cracked. "Why did you take them and leave me here all alone?"

She heard a faint creaking outside her doorway, ignored it and gave herself over to the tears. It was almost a relief, to let out all that she had hidden since the funeral. It was purging to cry here, in the night, where no one would hear her.

Where she need not hide the shame.

"I should have taken better care of him." Her voice was muffled by the pillow she pressed against her face to stifle the sound. It didn't make the words any less true. "There was so much more I could have done for him, why didn't I? Why wasn't I with him every moment, as I should have been? I could have healed him- I could have! Why didn't I? Why should he have to pay for my selfishness? I should never have gone to those rehearsals, I should have stayed with him. I should have- I should have-"

She slammed an open fist on the bed in an angry, helpless gesture. "Why wasn't I there for him? He needed me." Salt slid down her throat, bittersweet. "I need him."

A hysterical, faint laugh forced its way out of her. It was small and weak in the enormity of the night. "I need you, Dad. Oh, God, I need you. You promised me you'd watch over me- you promised to send me the Angel of Music. Or was it all a lie?"

Don't be so selfish, Christine. You don't deserve any of that. Not after letting him sicken. Not after letting him die.

You deserve what happened to him, Christine. Look at what you cost Mom- look at what you cost him! It should have been you!

"It should have been me." She whispered fervently, rocking, arms around her knees. She buried her head against them. "It should have been me."

Do you bring anything but pain, Christine?

She felt sick, contaminated. It was something that burrowed under her skin until she was consumed by it, a feeling of uncleanness. A disease, a virus. As though she crawled with evils, with sins. She wanted to scrub it from her skin, to erase the words that ran through her mind. It made her feel like a leper, as though she would pass on her sins to anyone in her vicinity. A contagious, sickening thing. The thought pounded through her head, a singsong, horrifying litany. She shuddered uncontrollably.

Unclean, unclean, unclean.

Unclean- Oh God!

She stumbled to the shower, shedding the cotton as though it burned her. Her flesh felt fevered, she shook uncontrollably. The cold tile sent chills up her spine. Her hip jarred against the counter, sending a shot of pain through her body. She didn't care. The dial scraped against her palm as she jerked it up.

Christine shuddered as the hot water struck her. She scraped at the skin until it felt raw, her hair weighing heavily as it became soaked, straggling into her eyes. Her pale skin reddened under the heat and her rough efforts to clean something that went deeper than her pores. Unclean, unclean...

At last she gave up. Steam curled around her in the moonlight, she turned her face up to the water and let it sting her face, washing away the tears. Her eyes felt swollen, aching. She was suddenly exhausted. It took her two tries to grip the knob, turn it. Toweling herself off was an effort. Too tired to do anything else, she pulled a robe around her and fell into bed, the soft fabric abrading her abused skin. She prayed for oblivion to take her quickly.

And- a mercy beyond what she deserved- it did.

Erik

He paused by the door, hearing a muffled sound. It was a moment before he recognized the sound as what it was.

Crying. Not the sobs of a teenager who had broken up with her boyfriend, but the harsh, gut-wrenching sobs of a girl who had lost her world. His heart- what was left of the crippled thing- went out to her. His hand brushed the doorknob, feeling something like empathy for the first time in years.

For the first time in years, he felt the need to comfort someone.

He snatched his hand back from the door. No, if he did that, he would be vulnerable again. He couldn't let himself care. Not like this.

Not like this.

A voice murmured softly, indistinct things, beyond the door, things of blame, of guilt, of self-accusation. Erik stared. He could not heart the words, but he could hear the hopelessness of them.

What had brought such bitterness into that angelic voice?

Something is urging him to open the door, to hold the shattered young woman beyond. Something is telling him that she needs that, now of all times. Something is telling him that his voice can chase away the nightmares, drive the darkness out of those lamenting eyes.

He wanted to hold her, to cradle the fragile body to his, to dry the tears and stroke her hair as no one had done for him. To tell the girl huddled in her room that it would not always be night. That she would live to see the sun rise again in her young life.

No. he thought fiercely. No, give her her privacy. Let her cry where she thinks no one can hear. Will you take that from her? What else does she have, Erik?

What else does she have?

Christine

She half-woke once in the night. Something like soft footsteps echoed in her dreaming mind. There was a presence near her, she could sense it dimly in her half-conscious state.

She felt a hand against her hair. Above her was a figure. His face was in shadow, the eyes glowing like luminous embers. There was an aura, a whiteness about him. A divine effervescence that cast out soft, pale rays where it struck his skin.

"Angel?" she murmured incredulously. Was it all a dream? "Are you there, Angel?"

A low voice, warm and seraphic, brushed her hearing and her mind. It shrouded her in comfort, leaving a glowing trail in its wake. "Sleep, Christine."

She reached out. The being caught her hand, laid it gently at her side. "Sleep." She closed her eyes obediently. The beatific voice followed her into dreams. "Sleep and dream of peace."

Her eyes opened, fluttered closed.. "Angel?"

"I'm with you, Christine."

She felt a tear slide down her cheek. "Tell my father I love him." Her body relaxed as she slid back into dreams.

She dreamt of Heaven.

Erik

He was shaking, he realized, as he stood over her, watching her breathing slow, her muscles fall lax.

Why am I here?

He knew why. Illogical, foolish as it was, he had heard her cry out in her sleep. Against all good sense, all his enraged logic, he answered. He had answered her, because there was no one else.

She had called him Angel. She had reached out to him. His breath caught in his throat at the remembrance of that slender hand in his, the fearless, unquestioning trust in the wide, half-dreaming eyes.

Why did I do that? He didn't understand it, wasn't entirely comfortable with it. He had seen beyond the mask she wore in daylight. It felt as though he had invaded some secret part of her.

She had let him. She had held out her hand for his, a plea for forgiveness. Who was he to grant forgiveness to this innocent young girl? Who was he, marked creature of Hell, to answer to the name of 'Angel'?

She had no one else. His mind whispered. Don't you think that she deserves whatever small peace you can give her? Didn't you see her spirit bleeding behind her eyes? How can you not give comfort?

Don't' you remember what it was to feel the pain that she does?

Of course I do. his voice was harsh with conflict.

Do you think she deserves to suffer as you did?

He looked down at the sleeping girl. Her cheeks were raw and chapped by crying, the eyes red-rimmed. He touched her hair again, tentatively.

No. No, she doesn't.

She doesn't.

And the plot thickens...