Disclaimer: As I have said, I do not own Phantom of the Opera, or Phantom. That's all I'm gonna say, cause I'm sick of disclaimers.

A/N: I'm not happy with this chapter. It took me longer than I thought it would, and I suppose I could claim lack of inspiration, or rather, lack of writing inspiration. I did, however, conquer my fear of liquid medians (go me!) and painted lots of Phantom of the Opera stuff. Now, if I could just gather my courage and take on ink... Anyway, I'm rather worried about how well this chapter is. Tell me what you think?

the phantoms cry: (Bows) thank you!

Soofija: I completely agree. Though I do love the movie, and it was what first got me interested in PotO, the book is SO much better. The movie completely fails to capture the sorrow, grief, and yes, HORROR that is in Erik's story. He was a monster. He was a murderer. He was, in all likelihood, more than slightly mad. And yet he did love Christine, and he did let her go in the end. I just don't think it was portrayed well in the movie. Anyway, thanks for the review!

Mousey Nezu: Thanks. I've been trying to keep him in character, and have been trying to not lean so heavily on Kay's Phantom, for though I think it is a wonderful book, its not the original, and I should not consider it an authority. However, it does give some nice background info to make thing more interesting.

Leli1013And here it is! I hope you enjoy it, short though it is.

Froek: Wow. Your review absolutely blew me away. You have no idea how excited I was when I read it. I had this big, humongous grin on my face and I was practically jumping up and down. I think was actually... You find out what happens to Raoul in this chapter, and as to Christine loving Erik for himself? You'll just have to decide yourself. And thank you for that amazing review.

Twinkle22: I'm trying to keep it dark. I keep getting tempted to put in a lot of fluff. I keep having to tell myself: "No! Bad Sarah! No fluff! Angst, not fluff, angst." (grins) Thanks for the review!

Mianne: Yeah, I have been wondering what would happen if he hadn't let her go, which led to me writing this. In fact, the minute I finished reading the book I had this fic floating around in my head—you know random phrases and scenes—but I didn't actually start to write till about a week or so after.

phicaddictdpiratephantomprsnyaWow! What a name! And I know how you feel. Its very tempting to just write myself in there and show him that he is definitely loved. (grins)

PhantomObsessor: Oh no! Don't die! (runs around looking for electric shock paddles) I can't find any! (panics) Wait! I know CPR! (proudly shows card that says she is certified in CPR) Or how about this! Will a bag of marshmallows and chapter three revive you? Hmmm?

Chapter Three

To Understand

In the early hours of the morning, before the first light of dawn, I left her. I slithered silently from the sheets of the bed and looked down upon her sleeping form. Her blonde curls were tangled and spread across the pillows, the sheet rose in time with her chest as she breathed deep, even, peaceful breaths. She looked more at peace now, than I had seen her in a long time, and it was hard leave her. It was painful. At that moment, torn between walking out of the room and out of the house and lying back down to pull her in my arms, anguish ripped through me. Anguish I had not felt since the night I over heard her and the boy on the roof. But I had something to do, and so I left. Once more the Viscount de Chagny came between me and my bride.

The cellar was cold and dark and damp, as cellars are, and he was asleep, curled in a pitiful dirty ball in a corner of the room. I sneered. How I hated him. This man, this boy who had tried to steal from me. Who had tried to take and possess what was rightfully mine. I had watched as he tried to woo her, with gifts and flowers, pleas of an old friendship and with a pretty face a title to back them. And what was worse, was that I understood him. I understood how much power Christine unknowingly had, how she could render a man desperate, pleading and angry. How she could create such feelings of joy and wonder and absolute adoration in man. Yes, I understood this. And had circumstances been different, I would have done exactly as he did, with his innocent flowers and gifts. But they weren't different, and I had to resort to darker, more deceitful ways of winning her. But win her I did, and it was this reason, that I now went down to him.

Roughly, I woke him. He peered at me, silent in his hatred. Curses had stopped falling from his lips, but the glare did not fade from his eyes. It had only been a week, after all. But I knew that if he were to be locked up here longer, if the days were to slip from him in slow, dark despair, that there would be nothing, not even hatred for me left in those eyes. But there was no point in that. I swiftly cut his bonds and motioned for him to follow me. He did not move until I was nearly out the door. Then, while my back was turned he lunged at me. He had been bound and locked up for a week; he had no weapon, and no strength. I know not what he thought he could do to me, but I knew even before I untied him that he would try this. Before he could even reach me the lasso was around his neck.

He had obviously forgotten the advice you, no doubt, gave him about keeping his hand up. Perhaps he never understood it anyway. But as he clawed at his throat in terror, I could see the realization suddenly appear in his eyes. I tightened the rope and leered down at him. "You're hand at the level of your eyes, Viscount." His eyes bulged and during his gasps and struggled breaths he choked out single word: "Christine…" I immediately released my hold on him and he fell to the ground, gasping. "Christine is no longer any concern of yours," I told him, and stared coldly as panic welled up in his eyes. "We were married yesterday evening."

Understanding is a terrible thing indeed. Just as compassion, and pity are. They are not pretty emotions. They are not kind. They do not care who you are what you have done. Simply because you are a subject to pity does not mean you cannot feel it as well. And unlike the passionate emotions of hate, love and joy, they do not fill you up; they do not well inside of you until you must release the emotion in some way for fear of being consumed by it. They sit heavily upon you, weighing you down until you are weary and hopeless. With understanding comes pity. And as I said before, I understood Raoul de Chagny. When my words were received by an all too human cry of rage and grief, when his features twisted in pain and tears streamed down his face, when his hands clawed at his hair, as if the pain of ripping it out would somehow lesson the pain of the realization that his love, his Christine, was lost to him, I understood him, and I pitied him. I pitied him and I hated him, for I knew, that though Christine was now my wife, it was he who had her love.

He followed me slowly and silently after that, and blinked with dull, dead eyes at the early morning sunlight when we left through the door to the lake. For a moment he just stood there, motionless in the doorway, staring at everything as if it was a world from a memory, as if he had never thought to see it again, and now that he had, he did not care. And I suppose, daroga, that all this might have been true. Finally though, he stumbled away from the door, away from the opera house and the horror within it. And the early risers on the streets of Paris stared as this dirty, desperate man ran blindly away, tears streaming down his face. I closed the door and returned to the boat. And when I entered my house again, Christine was there, still asleep.

I do not wish to be redundant, but I must stress, daroga, that during these few months spent with Christine, I was happy. I have been content before; when I am absorbed in my compositions and architecture, or those few precious years when I first built my house here, when I realized that in doing so, I would not have to deal with the cruel and generally horrible world above me. But happiness, happiness was foreign to me. Perhaps the closest time to ever being happy was when I was apprenticed to a master mason in Rome. But even that was just brief splashes of joy in a strange line of contentment that was soon tainted by happenings too horrible to describe. But when Christine was with me, I truly believed I had taken all the happiness the world could provide for someone such as I.

In truth, my life did not change much after I had married—what a joy it is to be able to say that!—Christine. I did not move from my house by the lake, I did not stop my commands to the managers of twenty thousand francs, I did not stop composing. But what things did change with her presence, no matter how big or small, were significant. Our days were dedicated to music, and we were often sitting at the piano, or sifting through scores of music. She loved to hear the violin, and I played it for her often. And afterwards, she, not I, would become the story teller, as she reminisced about the time she lived with her father, and she retold the stories her father had shared with her. And I would become the enraptured audience, staring, entranced, at her as her eyes would glow with delight and excitement, her hands gesturing wildly in the air as she described the stories and folk tales she collected from the people in the village she lived in. I had thought that Christine had seemed most alive when she was singing, but that was until I saw her like this, filled with passion and love at the memories of her childhood. The time, I realized that she held very close to her. Those memories were her sanctuary, I could see that, for when she had finished her stories, and the evening dissolved into silence once more, her eyes would dim, and her hands would fall neatly into her lap, lifeless and still once more.

It was all I could do to keep the silence away.