This is just a one shot for all of you phantom fans who despise Raoul with a passion! This is how the movie should have ended! Please review!

Down Once More

Well, this is just great. Christine thought to herself. I told my dad Raoul was a fop, but no! He decided I should marry the guy! And when I was seven! Sometimes I wish I had fewer morals… stupid morals…

"I did it all for you and all for nothing!" Raoul yelled out at her, urging Christine to free herself and let him die.

Christine was not having the best day, first she had been forced to star in an opera in order to capture the man she loved. Not Raoul, Erik… the Phantom. She had known she loved him since the first time he had taken her to lair beneath the opera house. And if that wasn't bad enough, she had then fallen about thirty feet, through two trapdoors, clutching onto Erik for dear life, in front of hundreds of people, in a skirt! Then she had thought she could be happy being "forced" to marry Erik, but of course, Raoul, the fop of her life, had come thrashing in, ugly girly hair and all, to "save her". Then Erik gave her the choice, she could stay with him and let Raoul live and go free, or she could leave and let Raoul die.

"You try my patience, make your choice." Erik told her, his voice dripping with disdain and an obvious feeling of betrayal. At the moment Erik did believe that Christine had left him, that she had played with his love and never honestly returned it. How wrong he was.

"I've worked so hard to free you…" Raoul said, his voice rattling from the pain of having a noose being pulled tighter and tighter around his neck.

Raoul acted sweetly, but Christine knew from experience, and through the chorus girls, that when she was not around he flirted with the other girls, and drank until he couldn't tell up from down. He was a lying bastard, and Christine was forced to marry him. Just great, well it's great if you like being cheated on by a guy who was telling you to save yourself when really he's just trying to guilt you into saving his sorry ass.

Wait! She thought, if Raoul were dead, I wouldn't have to marry him. I could stay here with Erik and say that he died in some sort of freak accident later!

"Alright, I've made my choice. I'll go… Raoul, I'm so sorry you've been dragged into this mess, and I'll miss you, but it's not my time yet… it's not my time to be taken from this world."

Raoul stared at Christine in shock for a moment before Erik pulled the rope around his neck as hard as he could. Raoul's eyes widened and he screamed higher than Christine had ever sung in her life, and with a final breath and a choke, he died.

Erik let go of the rope and Raoul's limp body fell into the dark water. He stayed there, floating on his stomach, dead.

Erik turned away from her, "You may leave." He muttered and turned to lift the gate.

"Wait! I've um, changed my mind, I'll stay here with you." Christine said.

Erik turned around, "what? Um… well, I don't know if you noticed, but the fop is already dead… I can't exactly let him go free alive. I mean I'm good, but I'm not that good."

Christine smiled, there was a sort of mischievous twinkle in her eye, "Well then, I guess you got the better part of both deals." She said as she started to walk towards him.

Erik laughed, understanding what she had done. He picked up a candlestick holder and smashed it into a mirror. A hallway was uncovered, Erik and Christine walked through the corridor, hand in hand, away from the mob that way chasing them, away from Raoul's floating corpse, away from the opera house, and into their new lives.

FIN