A/N: there was a little mix up with chapter 20, however, the correct chapter has now been posted there!

Christine knocked on the door of Sorelli's dressing room.

"Who is it?"

"It's Christine," she fidgeted nervously. Was she making the right choice?

"Oh! Come in, dear."

Christine entered, taking a deep breath. The perfumed air of the dressing room smelled of lilac and amber, and it helped her to calm down. There always seemed to be a deep, abiding peace that settled around Sorelli wherever she went, and her dressing room was no exception.

It was then that Christine noticed Sorelli was putting on makeup, but she knew there was no rehearsal that day.

"Oh, did I catch you at a bad time? I can come back later if you're getting ready to go out somewhere."

Sorelli smiled at her in the mirror.

"No, it's alright. Did you need something?"

Christine clutched her hands in the fabric of her skirts.

"I was hoping we could talk for a bit, and that maybe you could give me some advice."

"Of course," she nodded, gesturing to the plush ottoman next to her. "What did you want to talk about?"

Christine sat on the ottoman, taking a moment to watch how Sorelli brushed the powder over her face. Her jet black hair cascaded over shoulders, contrasting with the pale yellow silk of her dressing gown. Christine had always thought her quite beautiful, and she counted herself lucky to know her - not just for how she looked, but for the kind heart she also possessed.

"Well," she started, her face already turning red. "I was out with- oh, Sorelli, can you keep a secret?"

Sorelli grinned.

"You know that I can, Christine. Go on."

She bit her lip and nodded.

"Well, I was out with- with a boy... and when he, ah, kissed me, I felt like- like butterflies, you see."

Sorelli's look softened as she glanced at her in the mirror.

"You like him."

"Yes," she agreed - she may not love him, but she did like him. "But then something else happened. Later on, when I was with my tutor... I felt the same way. But-"

She squeezed her hands together to keep them from trembling.

"But my tutor is not a boy," she finished quietly.

Sorelli considered this.

"Your tutor is a girl, then? That's okay too, Christine."

"No, I mean- he's a man - he's old."

Sorelli chuckled, and Christine felt her heart squeeze - was Sorelli laughing at her? Was there something strange with how she felt after all?

But then, just as if she'd read her mind-

"That's not so strange, dear."

"It's not?" she squeaked.

"No, of course not. You're not the first, trust me," she rolled her eyes playfully.

"Oh," the relief was in her voice was nearly tangible. "I was a little worried... It didn't seem to make very much sense."

"Love typically doesn't make very much sense, I'm afraid."

Sorelli sighed, a far-away look in her eyes, and she didn't notice how Christine seemed to freeze up.

"Love? Do you think- does that really mean I'm in love then? With- with both of them?"

Sorelli turned from the mirror and looked at her for the first time.

"It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to have to mean anything if you don't want it to. You can't help how you feel, but you can help what you choose to do about it," she turned back to her vanity mirror, pulling a delicate brush out from a drawer and applying a pale green eyeshadow.

"For example," she continued. "Say you realize you do have feelings for this tutor fellow. Then say maybe you realize he's been setting you up this entire time! Maybe you've only been having feelings because he's been manipulating you into doing so. Well, then you have a choice - not an easy choice, of course - but just because you have feelings for him doesn't mean you should stick around in a bad situation, or that you have to stay with him."

Christine frowned a little. Yes, Erik had technically manipulated her in the beginning when he said was an angel, but her current feelings weren't being manipulated - at least she didn't think so. Of course it would be difficult to tell if he actually was still manipulating her, but he really had always been respectful of her, and he had never said or done anything that would have seemed out of place if it had been Raoul or Meg or any other friend who did it.

"Or," Sorelli caught her eye in the mirror again, a little smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Say you realize that everything is quite organically occurring, and you're actually passionately in love with your tutor. You have a choice there too."

Christine dropped her gaze down to her shoes, unable to hold Sorelli's eye any longer. She wouldn't count herself as passionately in love - even just saying in love felt quite a bit of a stretch - but her words caused more dread than excitement in her. She swallowed a few times before she could get her voice to work.

"What if- what if my choice is one that doesn't make a lot of sense to other people? What if it's a choice no one approves of?"

Sorelli paused.

"I suppose," she said slowly. "That depends entirely on the reason they don't approve."

For the briefest of moments Christine felt entirely silly and as though she were wasting Sorelli's time. Was she seriously so concerned over a brief sensation that she was already fretting over an imagined and highly improbable future? But still, she forged on, taking a deep breath.

"Because he's... not handsome... or rich... or very young. And if I had a chance to be someone who was, but passed that up in favor of him, people would think I was crazy."

Sorelli was quiet, so Christine went on.

"He treats me so nicely, and he hasn't done anything wrong, but-" she lowered her voice to a whisper. "People are so terrible to him, even though he doesn't deserve it. And I'm- I'm afraid, I suppose, of how they'd treat me too - of how they'd treat us, if we were together. I certainly wouldn't be accepted into the same circles I would be otherwise."

"Then that is the choice that sits before you," she said gently. "Would you rather have the approval of the upper class, or be with your love?"

Sorelli stared at herself in the mirror and smiled sadly.

"Can I tell you a secret, too, Christine?"

Christine nodded eagerly. Anything for Sorelli.

"Do you know who I'm going out to see?"

"Who?"

"Philippe. Even after everything," she gave a little mirthless laugh and shook her head. "I guess I've certainly made my choice, haven't I?"

Christine didn't know what to say. She hadn't known they were still seeing each other. Raoul's older brother had been quite insistent that he would never marry a performer, would never marry below his station, and despite the fact that he held great affection for Sorelli, he had sworn to her that they could never be anything more than what they were - nothing more than clandestine meetings and weekend getaways to places where no one knew who he was. It hurt Christine to think about it, about how much Sorelli loved him - and about how much he loved her too, and how his title as Comte prevented him from being to pursue her in the fashion that she deserved. Perhaps that was not entirely true - perhaps it wasn't his title that prevented him from doing so. Perhaps it was his own fear of sullying the good name of de Chagny that kept him from marrying her.

"I'm sorry," Christine offered, and she was.

Sorelli swiped her red lipstick over her lips and put on a brave face.

"Don't be," she said. "It was my choice, and I made it. I stand by that. And if one day I should change my mind and make a different choice, well - then I'll stand by that one, too. Make your choices boldly, love. Good judgement mixed with your heart's voice can typically steer you in the right direction, but you can't give way to fear. Fear will only box you in, make you second guess yourself. I have no doubt you'll pick correctly when the time comes, Christine. You're a smart young woman."

Christine nodded as she listened. She hoped Sorelli was right.

"So tell me," the playful smile had returned as she began to twist her hair into a clip. "Where does Christine Daaé's heart lay? The handsome young boy or the elderly gentleman?"

Christine wrinkled her nose.

"I said he was older, not elderly," she laughed.

Her laughter quickly faded and she bit her lip as Sorelli waited patiently.

"Honestly? I think my heart lays with being on the stage," she said with a sigh.

"Like I said, a smart young woman," Sorelli winked at her. "It sounds like you've made your choice, too."

"Yes, I suppose. I really don't want to be involved with anyone until I have a settled career."

"Take your time, if you can. Remember that you don't owe anyone anything. You should be true to yourself in all of your choices - don't let the opinions of others get in your way," she paused, a wicked little grin suddenly forming on her face. "And while you're taking your time, enjoy yourself a little - let yourself feel those feelings without having to worry about what they mean for the future. Two men making you blush and feel butterflies - why, count yourself twice as lucky for the time being, and simply enjoy it while you can!"

Christine's face turned a little red, but she couldn't help but smile at her advice.

"If you say so," she managed, and Sorelli laughed.

They parted with a hug, and Christine was glad that she had talked to her.

It was a topic that Christine's mind turned to often whenever she had a spare moment during the next few days. Although she felt Sorelli's advice was good and she was thankful to have it, Christine felt as if perhaps she had been making a mountain out of a molehill. She had determined to not focus on any possible future with either one of them - the only future she wanted to focus on was her own. If there was anything that was between her and either one, well - surely it would occur in its own time, and her obsessing over whether or not something was there wouldn't help matters. Though, of course, it was hard not to obsess just a little bit.

Raoul liked her. She knew that much. She wasn't as clear on what Erik felt for her. Not that it particularly mattered, but still.

She realized that for all they had talked and discussed, she really didn't know terribly much about his personal life. He lived in the cellars and rarely ever left, mostly due to the terrible way people treated him because of his face - and his mask. He was a musical genius- he wrote and composed and sang. He seemed quite clever and very well read, too. But surely that wasn't all there was to him, was there?

She couldn't imagine him having lived his entire life under the opera house. If she had to guess, she'd say he was somewhere in his mid to late forties. Had he had a whole life before he came to the Opera Populaire? Did he have any family out there somewhere, some siblings or cousins? Or what if he had a family of his own - had he ever been married? If he was forty-eight or even fifty, it wouldn't be too far outside the realm of reason that if he had been married and had a child, that child would actually be older than Christine (only by a few years, perhaps, but still). She frowned. She didn't like that thought, so she tried to push it away in favor of other, less disconcerting thoughts.

Unfortunately, the thought, once realizing it's unwelcomeness, only expanded itself.

What if she had made a great ninny out of herself by assuming that Erik had meant his little names for her as anything other than a fatherly gesture?

She began to construct an elaborate story in her mind of an Erik that had lived normally - looked normally - for a long while, getting married, settling down, having a daughter, only for some dreadful accident to happen one day, one that cost him his wife and their daughter and forever marred his face... And what if Christine reminded him of his own daughter? What if when he called her my dear he was picturing his own little girl from so long ago?

She sighed. It was speculation, all of it, but she had nothing else to go on. It felt equally likely that he thought of her as a daughter as he did- anything else.

It was confusing even to her, since she adamantly didn't want anyone's attentions complicating her life for the time being - but she did rather hope that he didn't think of her like a daughter, like a child. She supposed that was silly of her, but like Sorelli had said - she couldn't help how she felt about it.

At her next lesson, she wanted to bring it up, wanted to talk to him about his life before, but she couldn't figure out how. It all seemed dreadfully rude to bring up - have you ever been married, Erik? Has your face always looked like that?

She paused a moment after greeting him, finally settling on asking what he thought of the restaged show instead.

He pressed his lips into a thin line, and took his time thinking about it.

"I think that you are performing your role to the best of your ability, my dear - which is to say that you are doing excellent. You have memorized all of your new choreography flawlessly."

"Erik!" she laughed. "That's not what I asked! What do you think of the show, not me."

He arched his visible eyebrow and straightened out the collar of his jacket before running his hands down the lapels.

"Well," he said aloofly. "They can't all be winners, Christine."

Christine put her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing.

"Erik, you are terrible!"

"No, Christine, the show is terrible - Erik merely calls it as he sees it."

She dissolved into a fit of giggles while Erik remained looking as unaffected as ever.

"Perhaps if a certain ghost had been taken seriously, they would have had a better production," he sighed.

She rolled her eyes.

"You can't just threaten them into running whatever you want."

"Obviously not," he said, his tone dark.

She tried to look stern, but her giggles hadn't entirely gone away yet.

"But the new choreography helped, didn't it?"

"The same songs now with two different versions of blocking? I am afraid that means there is now only more of it to hate."

"Let's talk about something else, Erik," she said, shaking her head.

"Let's begin your lesson, I think you mean."

Christine's many questions about how she felt towards him and what he felt for her began fade as the weeks went by. The new show's run was eventually cut short, and the performers were given a small break - three weeks of vacation time - until the managers and directors could come upon an agreement about what show to produce next and pinpoint exactly what went wrong with the previous one.

Christine found she didn't need to fret over what might be or could be and what was there or not - because she knew that she and Erik were friends, and that was enough for her. She kept up her regular correspondence with Raoul, because they were friends, too. Friendship was important, and she cherished both of them.

"Have you even heard of this new opera they're talking about putting on?" Christine asked from her perch up atop her vanity table, her legs dangling down, unable to reach the floor.

"Of course," Erik replied. "I was the one who suggested it."

He was sitting on the little chair that was situated in front of the vanity table - not terribly close, he had moved it back enough to give her room, to not crowd her in, but still close enough that they could talk easily. They were nearly equal in height in this situation, with her only a inch or so taller. It felt odd, she thought, to not have to look up at him when they were this close - but she wasn't complaining.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Suggested?"

He shrugged innocently.

"They were not harmed, Christine," he paused. "Not permanently."

She gaped at him.

"Not physically harmed," he protested. "I merely sent a strongly worded letter - I assure you they will get over their bruised egos and hurt feelings once the money starts coming in."

"Erik," she chided him.

"I merely want what's best for the opera house, and clearly they can't be trusted to know what's best."

He crossed his arms and met her stare head on.

"Besides," he added. "Did you know that this production will have a supporting role that would be excellent for you?"

Christine froze, the gentle swaying kick of legs abruptly stopping, her face expressionless.

"Did you mention me in your letter?" she asked evenly.

"No. I know how you feel about that."

She nodded. It was something that had kept her up at night at times, far more than any worries about boys or feelings - Erik was in a position to boost her career with very little effort on her part. If she asked him to, he could pull a few strings - or drop a few chandeliers - and the managers would be forced to make her the prima donna. Was that how she wanted to achieve her goals? She didn't think so - but sometimes she thought about it. She had, however, specifically asked Erik not to use his Ghost shenanigans to force the managers to promote her. When she earned a role, she wanted to know that she had earned it. But still, she knew that politics played a large part in the theater world - would it really be so bad to use a connection to get a job? It might be something she would consider later on, but for the time being she didn't want to think about doing it - she would work hard and become a great singer, and if by then she still wasn't allowed to have roles that her singing warranted, well, then the Opera Ghost could step in.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"I truly think you have a good chance of being cast in the role, though. It would be just challenging enough to stretch your abilities, but still one you could reasonably perform. We could even work on some of the songs today, if you'd like to try that."

Christine was about to reply when there came a knock on her door.

"Christine?" a voice called out to her. "Who is that in there with you?"