Christine's eyes blinked open.

She had been dreaming... Something warm and soft and lovely. But the substance of it was lost, banished from her mind by the morning light.

Light!

She pulled in a deep breath to stir herself into wakefulness. It was morning! Scents filled her nose – damp stone, dust, oil – confusing her for a moment before she remembered suddenly where she was. Butterfly wings tickled her stomach. A sick rush of excitement made her head feel dizzy for a moment. She reached out her hand – but met only the rough touch of burlap.

The smile she didn't even realize she was wearing vanished from her face. She sat up, looked around – but she was alone beneath the cloak. Where had he gone? The light – the thought made her brow pinch and her lips thin to an angry line. How many times would she have to prove to him that she could look on his face without fear? She sighed. As soon as the irritation had come, it faded away. Of course it would take time. The experience of a life could not be wiped away in only a few hours. She must be patient-

A soft rap upon the sacristy door made her jump and clutch the cloak to her chest, but her smile bloomed again.

"Angel, how ungallant," she chided, her voice musical with her delight, "to let a lady wake in a cold bed, alone!"

The beat of silence made her fingers clutch tighter on the makeshift coverlet.

There was the soft, nervous clearing of a throat, and then a stranger's voice came from behind the door, turning her blood to ice.

"Please excuse the intrusion, Mademoiselle. I'm sent to collect you, and bring you back to town."

Christine's heart skipped. It felt as if all the air in her lungs had turned cold and thick, making her chest ache, stealing her voice. The stranger behind the door cleared his throat again in an effort to relieve the awkwardness of his situation, and tried again.

"I'm sent to fetch you, Mademoiselle. By a fellow that called himself, Faust. Said you'd know him, though I found it peculiar."

Her eyes came back into focus, and she forced herself to look around with a slow swivel of her head. Her clothes where she had set them, there... but not his. His were gone. The haphazard stack of sheet music, fervently scribbled, that she had longed to go through – gone. The twisted length of rope that he had surrendered to her in the dark – Christine clutched at her chest as the pain of realization settled heavy upon it.

"Um. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, if I'm disturbing you, it's just, the fellow was quite... insistent. You see. I'm to take you, safely, back into Paris, or … or else … misfortune, or some such. The truth is, I'd rather not find out, if you get my meaning. He was a peculiar fellow, your Faust. So … Mademoiselle … ?"

Christine curled forward, hunching in pain. The frozen sludge in her lungs that had been her breath turned slowly to fire until her chest burned and burned.

" … Mademoiselle? …"

On the other side of the door, the driver stood with his flap cap in his hands. His fingers fidgeted over the threadbare wool, shuffling the cap over and over again between them to distract himself from the feeling of eyes at his back. The whole business felt dodgy. Women bedding down in churches. Men who spoke in whispers in your ear and then vanished before you could lay eyes on them. Threats and promises and uncanny amounts of money … Impulsively, he jabbed one hand into his pocket. The wad of notes was still there. Money was real and wholesome enough, even if the man who'd given it to him wasn't. If it had even been a man at all. If this was even a real woman he spoke to. He cast yet another fearful glance around the run down little chapel and crossed himself before clearing his throat again.

"I'm, uh … I'm sorry, Mademoiselle. Really, I am. It's a lovely little spot, and all. And I understand how rude it is, barging in on a lady, you know. It's just … Well … I was told … The truth of it is, I'm not to leave. Without you, you see. For fear of … Well. Never-mind. But I'll be needing to come in, if you won't come out. Which isn't a thing I want to do, it isn't gentlemanly. But all the same …"

It had gone so silent inside. The driver licked his lips, that fearful tingling on the back of his neck growing stronger, making the cap in his hands tremble. He was readying himself to try the door latch when, at last, a soft reply came from inside. The voice that had been so radiant before sounded altogether different – cold and empty.

"A moment, please."

It was an act of pure will for Christine to emerge from the sacristy. She felt as if she wore her shame as plainly as she wore her dress. Certainly she carried it in her hands, in the form of a folded cloak, with her stained petticoat hidden beneath. She had no idea what she was going to do with them; she only knew that she couldn't leave them there. The garments, proof of her night with the Phantom, might be found, their significance discovered for all the world to gape at. Or, their significance might escape notice altogether, and they might be discarded as so many soiled rags, forgotten by the world forever. One of these surely would happen, and Christine couldn't decide which frightened her more.

The cab driver retreated a few steps before her as she came out, increasing Christine's feeling that she was shrouded in something visibly unwholesome, that she had been changed into something very different than the girl who had entered the chapel the previous night. But after a nervous shuffling of his cap between his fingers, he dipped his head in a polite little bow.

"G'morning, Mademoiselle. I do beg your pardon. The cab is this way, if you please …" And with that, the man flicked the cap back onto his head and practically scurried ahead of her out of the church.

Christine moved to follow him, but then caught sight of the organ on the far side of the pews, and froze.

"I love you, more than music."

No. Christine's fingers clutched tightly at the treasured cloak. He wouldn't leave her. She was acting like a silly, sulky child. No, he was just doing things in his own strange, mysterious way, as he had always done. No, he must have stayed awake while she slept so he could hatch some new plan. In the absence of trap doors and hidden cisterns, he had to make do with this drama. Morning disappearances and clandestine carriage rides. It would be alright, she assured herself. He had arranged for this cab ride – at least partly by threatening the poor driver, she could tell – to whisk her away to whatever new place he had deemed safe for them. He would probably hide until night fell again. And then he would return to her.

And then she would give him a lesson about how to properly treat a new bride on the morning after their consummation.

"Fiend," she said softly, accusing the empty seat at the organ, with a smile planted firmly again upon her face.

With a resolute sniff and a pass of her hand across her damp cheeks, she strode proudly after the driver to the cab waiting beyond the graveyard gates.