Her anger and frustration were quickly forgotten as a wave of terror crashed over her. She had truly thought that he was wearing the mask as a disguise, to keep himself from being recognized - she hadn't even considered that it might be something like this. Never this.

She stumbled backwards, turning away and gripping tightly to the back of a chair, wondering if she was about to faint. There was a pounding pressure in her head and her hands felt numb, a cold sensation running down her arms and legs. The world swayed a little, blurring out of focus for just a second before it became all-too-real once more.

He had thrown a hand up over the side of his face, but he had been too slow. She had seen. She had seen everything.

"Christine!"

He wanted to scream and rage, wanted to call her a prying Pandora and curse her, but all that came out of his mouth was a choked sob.

"Why?!"

She desperately wanted to explain herself, wanted to tell him that she had only meant pull away what she thought was hiding his true identity, needed to tell him that she never meant to unmask his disfigurement so she could gawk and embarrass him - but while her mind raced with a hundred thoughts, her lips stayed frozen and her tongue refused to obey.

Had he realized her intentions he could have stopped her before she ripped the mask off - but it was so unexpected from her that even now he could scarcely believe that she'd done it. A numb haze settled over him and reality ceased to feel real, as though he had found himself the punchline of some sick joke.

Christine was a sweet girl, far too sweet to have done something like this, or so he had thought. Had anyone else put their hand that close to his face, he would have broken their wrist. But he had trusted dear little Christine. Christine would never pull the mask off, he had been sure of it - or, perhaps, he had only wanted to believe that that was the case. He had clearly been wrong, and it stunned him into near speechlessness, leaving him only able to repeat one word.

"Why? Why?"

She was silent, her shoulders more tense than ever and shaking slightly. She couldn't bear to turn and look at him again, but she could hear him crying quite loudly.

Her legs were quivering and she didn't trust them to hold her up. She badly wanted to dart from the room, but she was terrified that if she turned around even the slightest she would see again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whimpered.

Oh, how she was sorry. His heart-rending pleas of why were making her feel sick. She never would have touched his mask if she had known, but he had never told her. She felt incredibly stupid for not realizing sooner.

Erik sank to the floor, all dignity gone. He wept openly, trying to keep the ruined side of his face hidden with a badly shaking hand. The only thing he wanted more than to grab his mask and flee was to go back in time and prevent any of this from ever happening.

His mask - where was it?

He blinked through tear-blurred vision, trying to see where it had fallen.

But that was the problem - it hadn't fallen. Christine was still gripping it tightly in her far-too-pale and trembling hand.

"Christine," he choked. "Please, my mask..."

He crawled forward, feeling like a lowly worm, then felt even worse when she tensed up even more as she realized that he was approaching her.

She looked down at the contents of her hand with half dazed eyes. She had forgotten she was even holding it, especially with how her hands felt so strange. She stared at the white material for a moment, but all her mind's eye saw was what had been behind this mask.

It had been awful, and it had been made all the worse for its sheer unexpectedness. Another wave of cold fear hit her. She couldn't stay in that room any longer - she needed to get out - now. Her heart felt as though it were going to beat right out of her chest.

Just when he thought his entire heart had already been broken, Erik found yet another piece of it that shattered as Christine unceremoniously dropped the mask on the ground behind her as she escaped the room.

He flinched at the slam of the door in Christine's wake, crawling on elbows and knees to where the mask lay, picking it up and putting it back in place, although there was now no one else in the room. He didn't have the strength to get up off the floor, instead opting to stay there a while - at least until he could stop sobbing.

Christine ran and ran. She finally ended up in one of the costuming rooms, falling into a pile of fabric and bursting into tears, putting a hand over her mouth to try to quiet herself.

She was so ashamed of how she had acted - both in tearing off his mask and how she had treated him afterwards. She had left him crying on the ground, not even asking if he was okay, barely even apologizing to him.

The words of the Persian drifted back to her, and they all made sense now.

He's not like you or me... a very abnormal life... he's not used to having friends... his lack of social skill is an unfortunate side effect of...

Of his face. Erik hadn't been able to live like everyone else because of his face.

Everything else fell into place, too - why he hadn't simply approached her as a man wishing to tutor her in the first place, why he didn't have any other students, why he had to pretend to be a ghost to make his money, how he had tried so hard to hide in the chapel, his own words about how he didn't leave the opera house.

She thought back to him as he had stood before her, too shy to even look in her direction as he said, I only wish to be your respectful friend.

She cringed in on herself. She hadn't been a very respectful friend to him.

What made it all the worse was that even now she didn't think she could go to him and check on him - her legs still felt like rubber and her face was tingling from breathing too quickly. She knew that it must be terrible for him too, that he must be going through something horrible at that very moment just like she was, if not far worse - but still she couldn't gather the strength to go see him.

She lamented her lack of courage, both in how she had panicked and fled and also in how she couldn't bring herself to return to him. She hated how even as he was suffering she still found a way to make it herself and her feelings.

She had reduced him to tears and hadn't even bothered to tell him why.

Why.

That cry was going to haunt her just like the image of his ravaged face would.

His face. She shivered.

They had both been so mad, just before. Over what, she could scarcely even remember. It didn't seem to matter anymore, not after what had just happened. She pulled her knees up to her chest and sniffled. She wished she could apologize to him, wished there was some way to make it up to him.

Had she been the first to treat him so crudely? Or had others torn his mask away before? No, likely she was just another in a long line of brutes who had treated him shamefully. The stark betrayal she had seen in his eyes came back to her. And then she had run away like a child, dropping his mask on the ground. What if it was fragile? Had she broken it in her carelesness?

It seemed an eternity before shame and concern at last won out over fear. She stood and made her way back to the room with the piano, but once she pushed the door open she found the room was empty.

She stood there and bit her lip, not sure what would happen now. She slowly made her way back to her dressing room, at a loss of what to do.

She realized, now, that perhaps things were nowhere near what she had first thought they were - maybe he hadn't been trying to trick her by saying he was the angel - maybe he had been trying to reach out in the only way he knew how. Wasn't that almost what the Persian had said? She could still be irked over the mess with the false angel, but she thought she understood it a little better now.

Guilt washed over her once more. She could consider them even now, she thought sadly. He had crushed her girlhood hopes of being guided by the Angel of Music, and she had likely shattered what little trust he had left in other people.

She only wished she could speak with him, but she had the terrible feeling that he might not want to speak to her ever again.