Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera. I do not own Phantom. I do not own Phantom of Manhattan, which my friend bought for me for my birthday and has nothing to do with this story. But I still don't own it.

A/N: I am a horrible person. It has been far to long. Really, I deserve to be punjabbed to death. No, I deserve to be locked into a mirror torture chamber, driven mad and THEN punjabbed to death. I'm sorry. Uh, the only thing I can say is… I hope you enjoy the chapter. After this there is only one more and then the Epilogue.

All the Tomorrows

Chapter Four:

Decision

Time, as it is wont to do, moved both slowly and swiftly over the five and a half months Christine was with me. Those months were… wonderful. We had settled into somewhat of a routine, a series of common expectations we each had for the day. And yet, though our existence contained nothing extraordinary, I could not help but feel a sort of wonderment when I thought of it. The sheer normality of it amazed and excited me. To have Christine, my wife, sitting across from me at breakfast each morning, or exclaiming over a piece of music, or humming under her breath as she sewed or cleaned or did a number of such ordinary things was more than I could hope for, ask for. And yet still, I received even more.

One night, several days after our marriage I was about to retire to my room when Christine called my name. "Erik," she said, her voice abrupt and distressed. "I cannot bare the thought of you in that room. In that," and here she shuddered, "coffin." Whether it was for my welfare that she was so distressed or because the image of me in a coffin highlighted too well her marriage to a corpse I did not know. Nor did it matter, for she had opened her door and was waiting for me to step inside.

Most nights I could not touch her, or even sleep. I would lie on my side of the bed, stiff and curled within myself, staring at her sleeping form. I feared to touch her. It was as if her entire being was made up of the delicate substance of butterfly wings, and that if I had dared to, dared to want the powder of her skin on mine, she would wither away. So I usually stayed awake, frozen in both fear and wonder, and if she was relieved that I did not normally seek her out in desire, I could not tell.

My happiness, daroga, was complete. Christine and I lived as husband and wife in the house under the opera. We sometimes went out for a carriage ride at night, or walked through the parks that Christine was so fond of. Once, after putting on the mask I had told Christine of, the one that would make me look like a normal man, we even went out to dinner. But five months is too long a time for me to write down every experience, every conversation that I had with Christine. Instead I will merely tell you two things that happened, that I consider being significant.

It was just after supper, and we had retreated to our normal after-dinner activities. She sat down on the loveseat to recline with a book, and I worked at my desk on one of my architectural sketches. But soon, I abandoned my sketch and went to brood by the fireplace. I had been thinking about something, though I do not remember what now, when I was interrupted by Christine. She had asked my opinion on something she had read, and it started a conversation on the subject. For quite sometime we talked, trading back and forth opinions and ideas, until, seemingly frustrated that her conversational partner was lurking in the shadows, Christine said in exasperation, "Dear, come and sit by me. It would be so much easier to talk to you if I could actually see you."

Dear.

Ah! To hear such a word from a woman's lips! And that those lips were Christine's: sweeter still!

Only one woman had ever called me that, a woman who feared me even as a boy, but had pitied me far more. "Erik dear," she had called me. And I had loathed that word, for I thought I would never hear it again, except in pity. And now, my loathing for it was stripped away, for it was Christine! Christine who called me "dear." It came easily to her lips, as it should, not forced out by fear and pity. It came for me as easily as it did for that boy, the Viscount, when they had played their game of engagement. Silently and ungracefully I went to her, and when I was sitting beside her, in decent light so she could see me, she started again our conversation. I cannot say I was a good, or even decent, conversationalist, for I was so shocked and surprised I could barely form an intelligent thought.

It was not the only time she had rendered me so. If you recall, daroga, when I am involved in a task it completely absorbs me. Nothing else exists. And it is the same when I am composing, even more so, in fact. I can spend hours, days even at my organ, oblivious to food, sleep, even Christine. And it was when I was in this trance-like state that Christine did something that completely shocked, and shamed, me.

I had been composing for a long time, how long, precisely, I do not know, but for a long time. At on point I became somewhat aware of a disturbance, a sound that clashed with the music I was creating, but other than that slight acknowledgement I paid no mind to it. It wasn't until I felt hands on my shoulders and an unfamiliar touch on my forehead that I stopped playing.

I had my hands around her throat before the last notes died.

Christine's eyes were wide and her features terror stricken as she clawed at my hands. It took me a moment to realize that she had not, in fact, removed my mask, and then it took me another moment to realize just what I felt on my forehead: a kiss. I threw myself way from her with a cry. "Forgive me!" I collapsed on the floor, shuddering with the horror of what I had done. I had harmed Christine; she was even now rubbing at the marks on her neck. Monster! "Forgive me! Oh! Forgive me!" Like an animal I was, so overcome with the horror of it. I rocked back in forth, clawing at my scalp and the floor, bashing my fists against the bench as I moaned and cried. "Erik, you vile, you disgusting...Oh, to do such a thing! Oh! Oh! Forgive me!"

I continued on in this manner until Christine approached me. "Erik." I shuddered and shied away. "Erik, please." She knelt and placed a hand on my shoulder and I trembled. "Erik," she said calmly, "you are not a monster. You are my husband." Instead of calming me, these words distressed me even more. Husband! What right have I to call myself that when I have treated her so? I moaned again and shook my head wildly, eyes clenched shut so as not to look at her. "Erik. Erik, stop. You are frightening me." The last was said very quietly, but it was what finally brought me to my senses. I did not want to frighten Christine so. I stilled my shaking, slowed my breathing, and opened my eyes.

Christine was just above me, peering into my mask in concern. I gently lifted her hand from my shoulder. "I am calm now, my dear. Go into the other room and leave me for a while." She complied and I stood as she did. Glancing at the organ I noticed something—a tray on the stand beside it, a tray that had tea and a bowl of stew. I felt even more ashamed—this must have been why she interrupted me in the first place. I tried to smile. "Thank you, my dear." She nodded, but did not smile. She was biting her lip and her hand was gingerly touching her neck. With a strange, far away expression on her face, she left the room. And the moment the door was shut I collapsed on the bench, shaking once again. "Oh Erik, you monster…"

Neither Christine or I ever mentioned that incident, but she took to wearing high collared dresses to hide the bruises on her neck, and every once in a while I would catch her massaging her neck, that now familiar far way expression back again. She never interrupted my playing again.

Perhaps, it was this incident that opened my eyes. It was obvious from my actions that I did not deserve her. Not even for the short period before my death. But I could have ignored this if Christine was happy, but she was not. She often roamed the house, wringing her hands and pacing as if she were anxious to get out. Many a night she sat in a corner and stared at the walls, her eyes unseeing. She stopped asking for stories, and her voice, while as beautiful as ever, lacked emotion. But it wasn't until she asked to hear my Don Juan Triumphant that I made my decision.

She had shifted nervously a little when she asked me, twisting the fabric of her skirt in her hands. I hesitated. I did not want her to hear that music ever again, and now that Christine was in my life, I had no with to play it. Who would want to listen to the echoing screams and cries of anguish when you could listen to Christine's voice? But she insisted. She did not cry out as she listened, her features did not crumple in pain, and she did not sob or fall down to beg me to stop, but was still. Sometimes, she would twitch or flinch, or maybe look away, but she never asked me stop. She listened until the score was finished, and then silently left the room.

I had ruined her. By binding her to me and forcing her to live with me in this…hole underground, I had shown her all the pain I had originally wanted to save her from. I made a decision: I would let Christine go.