A/N: Alright, so here is starts, the beginning of a new school year. So you'll have to wait a bit longer for newly updated chapters from now on, but I promise to not leave you waiting for days like others have done to me in the past (Cries), joking, lol. Things should really start to get interesting from here on out, as we see some of the old characters come back to haunt the story.

Disclaimer: Do you think that If I owned the Phantom of the Opera, I would have let Christine leave with Raoul in the first place? OFCOURSE NOT! I don't own the Phantom, and I don't own its characters, all I can do is give him Kristen, and hope that it works out between them ..hehe..

"I don't think this is such a good idea, Christine." Raoul said to his new wife, as they rode through the Paris country side in one of their many expensive horse carriages. Since leaving the Populaire, the two had been married immediately, and had stayed far away from Paris itself. Raoul had suggested that they travel out of the country altogether, to England even! But Christine could not bare the thought of leaving her home, which was France, and Raoul could deny her nothing.

She sat with her head against his shoulder, and allowed him to hold her softly. She was still very shaken by the ordeal of the Phantom of the Opera, and Raoul could easily tell that she would need comfort now, more than ever. Only, he could not understand why she would want to go back so soon, and it worried him that perhaps she felt she had some sort of unfinished business.

"I still feel as though the whole thing was my fault. The fire, the destruction... it all happened because of me." She fiddled with her wedding ring, both her hands laid very lady like, in her lap.

Raoul withdrew his arm from around her to touch her soft face, "You know why it happened Christine, and it was not your fault." He kissed her softly on the cheek, and gave her a gentle smile, "But I cannot understand how you can be so confident about returning this early after... everything."

Christine sighed gently, she knew what his worries were, and as she gazed out the window, the most heart warming scene she had ever witnessed was played out before her very eyes. Whether it be mere coincidence, or fate, what she was seeing was the Verlaine house, completely burnt to the ground and destroyed, but there stood a team of people, rebuilding it, a man and a woman, embracing... what had happened here? Obviously the result of a fire, but however bad it was, it was being fixed, and she knew now more than ever, that she had to help the Opera Populaire. Never had something inspired her to do the right thing before.

"He's dead Raoul." Christine said, her voice betraying the slightest bit of mourning. "You saw it in the paper last week, Erik is Dead." As read the headline. But somehow Raoul had a hard time believing that a man who could cut down a chandelier over an entire audience would be overrun so easily. Then again, he was supposedly heartbroken over the loss of his prisoner... Erik didn't deserve Christine, Raoul thought, not in a million years.

"I received a letter from Meg yesterday" She told him, continuing to use his shoulder as a head rest. "In it, she said that everyone is so grateful, and so happy that we are going to help them. The previous letters she sent just wreaked of their sadness and despair. We must do this Raoul, for Meg and Madame Giry's sake. They were my family ever since I was a child Raoul, we must give them the help they gave me when I was orphaned."

Raoul sighed, she was right, but then when could Raoul ever disagree with the likes of Christine? The woman whom had captured his heart both in their childhood and at the Populaire.

Although Christine had remained confident that theOpera Ghost posed no more threat, she could not help but feel, somewhere, that he was not truly dead. She always loved the sport of seeking things out, and certainly that article in the newspaper had never proven he was dead... there was no body, right? If he really wasn't dead, Christine knew she was heading into the heart of impending doom, but she could not just leave them there in the aftermath of destruction, which was half her fault to begin with.

"Your heart is like the ocean" Raoul told her, "There's room in it for everyone, isn't there." Christine smiled at him, and they shared a light kiss, as they continued on their way through the country side, and would eventually return home to their magnificent France estate.

Kristen yawned, but oh how she smiled. Never before had he kissed her like that, she still wondered how on earth they hadn't managed to commit the ultimate show of love, but he was obviously worried about getting her pregnant. And he had been right, when she was at that point of pure want, she didn't care about what their act could result in, and children were something that had to be planned for, would she even make a good mother?

He was so close, his warmth blanketing her as they stood together in the darkness of the lair. Somewhere in the middle of their passion, she had managed to rip the mask off his face, but she didn't give him a chance to argue the matter, unless he preferred to speak against her lips. Both of them had allowed the candles to flicker out one by one, not really even caring about what would happen should the last candle pilfer it's only spark of light. But then again, she had been able to memorize the entire layout of her new home when she was blind, this should not be any different.

"Kristen, how is your ankle feeling?" He asked her against her ear, he was torturing her with the way he was able to take pure control of her sense of reason.

"It hardly hurts at all" she told him. "As is the same with the rest of my injuries. Why?" she asked.
"You should probably not remain in those bandages for much longer..."

Her heart began to race. Her mind began to wander at the very thought of being so... exposed to him.

"I don't know how to remove them." She said. She knew she was being a little devil right now, her voice betrayed that fact. Ever since she knew she loved him, all she wanted to do was show it, even if neither one of them had told each other those words yet, she knew that on some level, he must love her somehow.

He became instantly paralysed under the look she was giving him, that flame in her eyes was threatening to turn him to ashes. Just what in hell's name was she trying to do to him? He realized though, that she had him in a trap which he could not get out of, her bandages did need to be removed, or her skin would never be able to breathe, and now she was asking him to do it. It wasn't like before when she was so innocently asleep, and it was like taking care of a child, no, now she was Kristen Verlaine with her stubborn heart and fiery glance.

"You will have to do it" she told him. He turned from her to move towards the candle holders. He said nothing while he put new candles where the old ones had been, and lit them. Kristen's arms were folded across her chest, she was becoming quickly convinced that he was either incapable of giving her what she wanted, or that perhaps his heart was still beating in the palm of that ghastly Christine Daae.

Christine Daae, how beautiful was she anyway? She must have been like no other. She felt like sliding down the wall she leaned against, and crying. She was tired, and very exhausted at these thoughts and worries. Most of all, she was frustrated. Had a woman ever wanted a man this much? As a child she had been brought up to believe that these things must wait until after marriage, but right here and now, she was willing to give up her entire religion for him. And now it seemed he would notreally have her as he said he would that day.

"Why do you turn from me like this?" She asked, using whatever strength was left within her to calm her voice. "What is it about me that repels you so?"

Erik turned his whole face to her, what was it about her? His mind was so much more complex than his body. Unlike most human beings, including Kristen, his mind controlled everything. How many years had he longed to know what it was like to be with a woman? How many years had he known it would never happen? He realized it was affecting her though, he could see the sadness in her eyes, the agony of frustration. He knew what she was experiencing, for that was the very emotion he, through many years of pain and solitude, had learned to live with.

"You must be out of your mind, to think that it is you." He told her, fixing more of the candles.

"Why? you obviously don't want me" Kristen sighed, "If you did I would have been taken by now."

"God damn it Kristen, is that what you think? You think I don't want you?"

"Well what am I supposed to think? When you seem so determined to stay as distanced from me as possible?"

He walked to her, and upon standing right before her he looked down into her despairing eyes, "Kristen, you misunderstand the situation." he said.

"Do you love me?" she asked him, her voice too quiet for sound but too loud for a whisper. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with the tears that were filling them.

He did not reply. He couldn't reply. Did he love her? What was love? The only woman he had loved before, was Christine, who had not been his lover, merely his obsession. After a lifetime of not knowing love, did he even know it when he felt it? He was very fond of Kristen, he remembered looming over her bedside, contemplating giving his soul for her very recovery, he remembered crying so many times at her expense.

"You don't..." She surmised, his silence was all the evidence she needed, and she allowed those tears to roll down her cheeks. What was he doing? Killing himself, for one, for allowing her to cry again.

"When you were asleep..." He began, but with his words she turned her face from his, unable to look at him any more in the state of ultimate sadness she was feeling. "Kristen," He gently pulled her face back to meet his with one hand to her chin. "I swore on everything that was good, that I would give my very soul for your recovery. Do you know how much I cried for you when I thought you wouldn't wake up?" he asked. He was saying everything that was flooding through his mind... because he could not search for other explanations, he was becoming too distraught that she was even getting upset.

"No, I don't know," She whispered. He wiped away her tears.

"I don't know what love is, Kristen, but if it is any fraction of what I feel for you, than it is something quite spectacular."

Never had he seen such a look of despondency become such a look of beatitude on a woman's face. She could not believe the words which had just come from his mouth, their beauty quickly killed the pain in her heart. She wanted to laugh out in joy, but it would have been highly inappropriate.

"Erik..." She said, as tears continued to make their way down her beautiful features. What he said meant so much more to her than the simple, I love you, she was looking for. Her hand came up to place itself on the rugged side of his face, she was beginning to adore the very sight of him without his mask, as if this was not a deformity at all, it was just him, and the way he looked. "I have hardly words of such glory to speak to you," She told him, unable to take her hand from him.

"You don't have to speak," He told her, "Your eyes say everything for you."

That night, Erik removed her bandages. No longer that night did she beg for the thing she seemed to crave from him, his words however, never left her heart. Compared to him she felt so inferior, she could not come up with words of such poetry, and grace, but to just be with him was enough to keep her spirits high. When she asked him to spend the night with her, this he did not refuse. After dressing her in the loveliest white sleeping gown, the two of them slept in the swan bed. She had never fallen into dream faster than she did when he was holding her in his arms, she felt so safe, so comfortable, and so loved.

Madame Giry awoke from her slumber hours before daylight. Christine and Raoul de Chagny had sent another letter to her involving the extreme donations they were going to make, and the time of their upcoming arrival. What was going to happen? Things at the Populaire were already hectic, with Kristen now living with the Phantom, blind and as of yesterday, unconscious. She wondered if the girl had awaken yet... there was no time to worry about that now. If Erik cared for the girl he would not allow any ill fate to befall her.

She still couldn't believe that Christine had the courage the return to a place like this, after only weeks of it being the site of her most frightful nightmares come true. Though, she probably read that menacing article in the newspaper involving Erik's death. Some idiot wanting publicity had simply told the public what they wanted to hear, gained his little moment of fame and then fell back into shadow as did most of the journalists. Publicity, Madame Giry thought while shaking her head. It was a harmful, and on some occasions, deadly thing.

Meg had given up reading that stupid script, as had most of the dancers. It was pointless for a dancer to read the story line any way, when all they had to know what the choreographing, and with Madame Giry being so tied up with the affairs of the Populaire, they were all losing interest in the opera itself.

"You are not yourself this morning." Antoinette told her daughter as they sat together and ate the toast and jam which was their usual menu for breakfast. Meg knew her mother could see right through her, but she could not tell this secret... her mother could not see the real truth through her eyes anyway, only that she was hiding something.

"Am I not?" She asked, biting into her toast.

"No, my dear" she said. "Your best friend in the world is returning, and you look as if you have seen a ghost."

This could prove to be a most disastrous situation if she did not take control of it quickly, so for the first time in her life, she proceeded to become a bit of a sneak, using this as a means of keeping her secret, and getting from her mother what was needed to ensure Kristen's happiness.

"It's just that... Maman, I don't think you should take Kristen away from the Phantom." She said. She knew his name and still she could not call him by it.

"Is this the sort of thing that goes through my daughter's mind this early in the morning?" Madame Giry asked.

"What if she truly wants to stay?" Meg asked, "The poor girl has nothing and no one, and from what I've seen, the only one who wants her out of there is you. I saw him Maman, he takes such good care of her, I think he truly cares for her."

"Him? The man who has made it his life's pursuit to plant fear in the minds of everyone who comes to this theatre? You are out of your mind Meg, perhaps I should be takingyou to see Dr. Perdoux."

"How can you laugh at me so?" Meg asked with frustration, "You think I don't know these things? He sat at her bedside and I literally saw tears flowing from his eyes!"

"You don't know these things Meg!" her mother said to her, growing more and more incapable of holding within herself these feelings of outrage. "The whole situation is way more complicated than you think, and just because someone cries does not mean that it is for the person they are standing before."

Meg fell silent. She couldn't finish her breakfast. How could her mother turn from such a nice woman to such a cold monster within the space of two seconds? Her years as a ballet instructor had changed her into too much of an authoritative figure. Perhaps her years and lack of friendship had done this to her, though Meg still wondered how she could say such things to her own daughter, or perhaps she was taking what she said the wrong way. She quickly left the table and found some darkened corridor to weep in.

You don't know these things, she could hear it over and over again in her mind. All her life she had been surrounded by stories of romance, and surrounded by friends who found it. Never until now had she questioned why she was not the very subject of these tales, and these blossoming romances. Her mother had said it clearly to her this morning, as if she was frustrated that Meg had not found some young man to marry her. One by one her fellow dancers had been picked by some member of gentry, or high society, rarely did the poor man frequent the Opera, and many of the single and rich men favoured what they saw from the dancers. But never her...

Christine had been her best friend for many years, until Raoul had come and taken her away. At least with Kristen, her new found love was residing only a few stories below her very feet. But it was still only the people who surrounded her who seemed to be the lucky ones. Madame Giry had always figured her daughter would be seen and adored by some young man, but as it neared her nineteenth birthday, it seemed things would not be as they were predicted.

"Perhaps I am the one to end up alone in all of this" Young Meg sobbed to herself, her forehead to her knees, and her arms covering her head.