Author's Note: Thanks to the people who reviewed last time. Keep 'em coming!And, as always, enjoy.

Fast-forward, Flashback

Ten years later…

Christine and Meg embraced as they met at their favorite café for lunch.

"So Christine, what's the big news you have to tell me? You sounded excited over the phone."

"Meg, you are going to scream. Raoul and I are engaged."

Just a Christine predicted, Meg screamed. Quite loudly. The whole café turned their eyes to the scene in annoyance. Ignoring their stares, Meg continued to shriek. Christine laughed at her friend's reaction and brought her left hand to the table.

"Oh Christine! It's huge! Oh, look at it. How beautiful." Meg rattled on for a few minutes while Christine looked once again at the ring on her finger.

'Meg's right,' Christine thought, 'it is huge.' The two and a half carat princess cut diamond felt like a weight on her hand. The band was thin with pink sapphires set on either side of the diamond. Christine liked the ring, but did not love it. It was too extravagant, too big, too flashy, too…girly. This was more than she, a foster child who had never had much of anything, thought she was worthy of. She knew the price tag alone was upwards of $7,000. The money was nothing for Raoul, though. He came from a rich family, never having to worry about whether or not he would have food that night. He bought thousand dollar cars without a second thought and pampered Christine with only the best. She took it all with a smile and an overabundance of gratitude (which Raoul always waved off). She was sometimes embarrassed, though, of Raoul's fine gifts.

"Christine? Christine? How did he do it? How did he propose?" Meg said, shaking Christine out of her thoughts.

"Well, he invited me over to dinner at his house…"

"You mean his mansion?" Meg interrupted with a smile.

"Yes, his mansion. Anyways, we had finished dinner and we were watching a movie on the couch and he just proposed."

"That's, um, cute…"

"Ha, I know. Raoul never was the romantic type. It definitely was not the way I imagined being proposed to, but it's alright." Christine had a wistful expression on her face and Meg, sensing Christine's malcontent, tactfully changed the subject.

"Oh, forget that!" Meg said. "You're going to be married!"

The two girls chatted about wedding details, but Christine's heart was not in it. She was thinking about what was going to happen within a few months, and how she wanted more than anything to visit France alone one last time before she was married.

XOX

To Christine's surprise, the usually over-protective Raoul had acquiesced to her request to visit France.

"I think it's a great idea. It'll be sort of like a little bachelorette party for you. I assume Meg is going as well?"

Christine had never been good at lying, and knew that if she tried it now, Raoul might change his mind. She had no option but to tell him the truth, or at least bits of it.

"Um, she might come, but I'm not really sure what her plans are."

"So you're going to be in France by yourself? Christine, I don't know…"

"Raoul, I am a grown woman. I can take care of myself. I do not always need protection, despite what you may think," she said sternly but smiling, arguing her case but not actually inciting an argument. "It'll be good for me," she continued. "Please?" She hated to demean herself to begging and pouting, but this tactic seemed to work on Raoul.

"Fine," he ceded. "But I want you to call me every night and tell me how you are and what you've been doing. I'll not have my fiancée getting into trouble!"

She rolled her eyes and gave him a quick hug.

"Thank you, Raoul. I'm so excited to go."

"Great," he said.

'Great,' Christine thought.

XOX

Once more, Christine said goodbye at the Air France terminal and, once more, Christine got slightly airsick. She landed in Paris, much like last time. Instead of boarding a rail to Rennes, she took a small outboard prop plane, which landed shakily at the small Rennes airport. This trip, there would be no Paris adventure. This trip, Christine was to spend two full weeks at the Château de Hac.

XOX

Ever since her evening with the phantom, her first kiss with Erik, Christine had changed. Her first kiss had exposed her to physical intimacy, something that she had missed before and had craved ever since. Almost immediately upon her return to the States, she came out of her shell and entered the social scene. She was popular with boys, dating many. But no matter how many boys kissed her and no matter how nice those kisses were at the time, none ever matched up to the feeling of her first kiss. They were too long or too short, too loose or too tight, too wet or too dry. They were all awkward or inappropriate. None were ever quite right.

Christine thought that had changed when she met Raoul. She literally ran into him when on her way out of her vocals class. Her music portfolio fell to the floor, papers scattering everywhere in the breeze. He helped her pick up her papers and they sat down under a tree, both of them missing their next class. It was a picaresque first meeting.

Her first kiss with Raoul surprised her. They were having coffee at the campus Starbucks. Raoul put his hand upon hers, drawing her eyes away from the window and onto his. Slowly, he leaned across the table and gave her a kiss.

Raoul's kiss was different from the one she experienced at the château. Not a bad different, not a good different. Simply different. It was an innocent kiss, pure. No passion was hidden beneath it. Not even the slightest trace of lust. If Christine were to match a color to his kiss, it would have been white.

Christine was 21.

To the untrained eye, the next three years of their courtship were ideal. Christine had met Raoul's family multiple times and had become like a daughter to them. The happy couple attended parties and shows and worked the social scene. Everyone thought they were perfect together.

Away from the public eye, Christine and Raoul's relationship nursed an ember of trouble. Since they had become a couple, Raoul was increasingly insistent on the topic of sex. He used every method to persuade Christine into lying with him: tears, guilt, anger, and threats. Despite his arguments, Christine held strong.

Sex with Raoul did not feel right to her. His insistence on the subject only put her off more, as did his threats of unfaithfulness and abuse. At first, Christine thought nothing of Raoul's threats. But as they kept mounting year by year, Christine had become more wary of Raoul's behavior.

The threats lasted until Raoul proposed in the middle of their fourth year together. Despite their issues, Christine thought loved Raoul and was sure she would be happy in her new life with him.Secretly, she was afraid that she would not find anyone better, as Raoul sometimes told her. And she always reassured herself that the spark their relationship sometimes lacked would burst into flame once they started their honeymoon.

Now, Christine was venturing back to the site of her awakening.

'I need this for me,' she thought, reassuring herself while holding on to the seat of the taxi. 'I am doing the right thing by visiting. I am.'

The taxi pulled up the Château de Hac after the white-knuckled ride.

'Welling, the driving style certainly has not changed much.'

She pulled her suitcase from the trunk of the cab and paid the driver. Then, she took her first look at the château in 10 years.