A/N: Okay, seeing as it's taken me the best part of four years (in sporadic bursts) to bring this story to completion, I am now in the mindset of just wanting to post it, whether people are reading it, enjoying it, hating it or otherwise. Simply as a matter of principle, you understand. Updates will therefore be fairly regular, and hopefully I'll get the entire story up before Christmas. Many thanks to CaptainHooksGirl for the vote of confidence, and if anyone else wants to come out of hiding, please do…

At this point, I have only managed to include four lines of the song I'm basing this on… and they were both in the first chapter. In this instalment, I'm effectively hitting R/C on the head because the lyrics made me do it. No Raoul-bashing, though, I promise...

Chapter III

Christine's envisaged future with Raoul had not been quite so eternal as she'd imagined. In retrospect, she realised she had been naïve to imagine her childhood romance would last forever.

After the news in L'Epoque, Christine's world became a strange, uneasy place. She did not know what to do with herself and no longer felt the same enthusiasm for her career as she had before. She returned to the Opéra after a week, as instructed, but her performance in rehearsals was lack-lustre, almost disinterested. It seemed that without Erik's teaching – indeed, without his critical audience – Christine had no desire to succeed. Of course, M. Reyer could not understand her sudden change in attitude, and nor was she able to explain it. On more than one occasion he had snapped her out of a stupor, her mind elsewhere, with a sharp rap of his baton to the music stand and a terse "Miss Daaé!", only for her to drift off again mere moments later.

M. Reyer spoke with the managers. M. Firmin took Christine into the office he shared with M. Andre, and they politely suggested that she take some more time away from the Opéra until she was feeling better. After all, he said, she had a wedding to prepare for, and would soon be a kept woman with duties besides her blossoming career. Christine had conceded wearily, all passion for argument drained from her exhausted mind.

The weeks that followed were dull, tiresome and endless. Raoul tried to keep Christine entertained with formal parties, dinners, social occasions, even occasional jaunts to the countryside, but she remained lethargic and unenthusiastic. The wedding drew ever closer, and Christine began to wonder if such a privileged life was really all she had thought it would be.

Raoul was becoming worried about her. She refused to discuss her feelings or even talk to him about what had happened that stormy morning, although he had his suspicions. After all, the news was common knowledge amongst the Opera's patrons. In trying to protect her from harm, however, he merely ended up stifling her. Christine felt coddled and suffocated, entirely unable to breathe, and her frustration finally came to a head one perfectly ordinary afternoon as she was being fitted – for the third time – for her wedding gown. She had not been eating as well as she should, and the dress had to be adjusted to fit her ever-decreasing frame.

The dress-maker was fussing, muttering, milling around her like a troublesome insect. Christine was prodded, poked and manoeuvred, all the while huffing impatiently and finding the entire ordeal thoroughly irritating. She shifted on the footstool she had been perched upon; the dress-maker accidentally jabbed her with a pin; Christine tore the veil from her head with a shriek and flung it across the room.

"Enough!" she cried. Her maid had gone to retrieve the veil, but was stopped in her tracks by Christine's irate cry: "Leave that infernal thing where it is!"

The dress-maker stood with her hands on her hips. "Mlle. Daaé, if you don't mind, there are a lot of adjustments to do… Perhaps if someone had been eating properly, I wouldn't have to keep taking it in!"

"I don't care about the dress!" she said, angrily. She struggled to undo the tiny buttons at her back, but could not reach them. "Giselle, come and help!"

The maid looked uneasily between her mistress and the furious dress-maker, decided that Christine was the more terrifying of the two, and moved to help her with the fastenings.

"Be careful!" implored the dress-maker. "The Vicomte has paid a lot of money for that dress, and for my skill. He will not want to see his bride in an ill-fitting garment on the day of the wedding-"

"There isn't going to be any wedding!"

Christine was only aware of the words leaving her mouth after she'd said them. She had not given any thought at all to the impending ceremony, but now that the declaration was hanging in the air, she realised it was the truth. She could no more marry Raoul than she could climb a mountain; and both of those tasks seemed equally as impossible as the other.

The dress-maker broke the uncomfortable silence in the room. "But… no wedding?"

"No," she said, more calmly. "No wedding. I… I can't. I just can't."

At that moment, Raoul appeared cautiously at the door, having heard the to-do and come to see what the matter was. "What can't you, Christine?" he asked, worriedly, suddenly aware that he had committed the terrible crime of seeing his bride in her wedding gown before the event. "If the dress doesn't fit, we can alter it. There's no need to worry-"

"It's not that Raoul…" Christine stepped down from the footstool and stood before her childhood sweetheart, looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry… I can't marry you."

Silence fell in the large, airy room, as Raoul struggled to make sense of her words. Giselle was staring unabashedly at her mistress with her mouth wide open, twisting the previously discarded veil anxiously in her hands. The dress-maker collected her sewing things and hastily bustled the young maid out of the room, leaving the pair in privacy.

Raoul waited until the door was closed, and shook his head lightly, breaking out of his stunned stupor. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"What I say," she said, simply, then repeated: "I can't marry you." She sat on the footstool, resting her hands elegantly in her lap. The white silk of her half-finished wedding dress rustled with her every move. She fixed her gaze on her fiancé, her face emotionless.

Raoul approached her slowly, keeping his voice level and soft. "I understand, dearest. You're just nervous about the wedding."

"No, that's not the reason," she told him. "I just…" She tried to make sense of what she was feeling; aside from the frustration and irritation about the dress, there was something much deeper that had provoked her reaction. "I think I need to be on my own, for a while."

Perhaps Raoul understood; perhaps he did not, and was merely trying his best to humour her. Christine never did ascertain which was the case. Nevertheless, he gave a solemn nod. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know."

"I'm sure we can make some arrangements. There are some lovely flats in Paris, close to the Opéra."

She shook her head solemnly. "I've considered one before," she said, "but I can't afford it."

Raoul smiled a little. "You don't have to worry about that."

"I can't accept that, Raoul; you've already done so much for me."

He approached her quietly and bent to place a kiss to her brow. "Whatever it takes to bring you back to me, Christine…"

With that, he left the room, closing the door silently behind him.

-w-

Christine's decision to call off the wedding had seemed rash to Raoul, but that was only because she barely understood her own reasons for doing so. Mostly, she found the preparations tedious, and was beginning to realise that the life Raoul expected her to lead was in direct contrast to what she had anticipated. She had already met several of his high-class friends, and was acutely aware that their world was miles apart from her own. She didn't know about fashion or any of the expected topics of conversation she was supposed to discuss with the other wives, and would instead resolve to sit quietly at the dinner table or in the drawing room. Subsequently, they thought her sullen and ignorant, and spoke to her as to a child.

Christine found it endlessly frustrating. Raoul had tried to coach her in how things were done, and had even arranged for her to go out with another young woman, who had recently married one of his acquaintances, in the hope that having a friend would draw Christine out of her ongoing grief. Christine was sure to make it quite clear that she had a perfectly adequate companion in Meg, but Raoul was rather more determined that her friends should be separate from her life at the Opéra. Nevertheless, he allowed the friendship with Meg to continue, if only because it made Christine happy.

The biggest problem was that Raoul was finding it increasingly difficult to understand her sadness over Erik's demise. He had presumed – perhaps somewhat preposterously, in retrospect – that Erik's death was the start of a new life for Christine, and that she would eventually come to terms with it. He did not know about her haunted dreams, and knew less still about the good times she had shared with her mentor. Christine herself had not dared to mention them, for fear of Raoul thinking her silly or naïve.

There was, within Christine, an urge to flee. She had spent her childhood travelling, and to stay in one place was making her increasingly desperate to move elsewhere. She adored Paris, as much as she had done on first arriving all those years ago, and her dreams had come true at the Opéra… but the life of a Vicomtess seemed restrictive and tiresome, and every day the desire to run grew stronger.

Even the Opéra no longer felt a place of safety. Without Erik, she found no purpose to performing. It was impossible to impress an audience who already adored her, and with nothing to work towards, Christine felt her performance begin to lose a little of its sparkle. There was nobody to train her as Erik had, and M. Reyer succeeded only in complaining about her pitch, without offering any advice on how to improve.

And so, to Christine, her decision to call off the wedding had really been rather inevitable.

-w-

Her life continued from then in something of a daze. The flat which Raoul had so kindly procured for her became merely a place to sleep and eat, as she had little to no inclination to decorate or personalise it. The furnishings were comfortable enough, and it provided her some refuge from the world, and for Christine, that was enough.

Raoul had visited a number of times to check on her. He did not outwardly indicate any desire to rekindle their engagement, but Christine knew that was his eventual intention. He seemed to be waiting for her to approach him about it. Eventually, his visits grew more occasional, further apart, until they dried up altogether. Christine had promised herself – and Raoul – that she would write to him, but whenever the opportunity afforded itself, she found herself too exhausted to put pen to paper, or to articulate her thoughts. The same, half-finished letter had been sitting atop her small writing desk for two months; after three, she finally threw it away.

Meg had also visited, for which she was grateful. Meg's chatter about the ballet regime and latest gossip anchored Christine – no matter how inanely – to reality. She would clamour eagerly for stories and rumours which were denied to her as the newest opera star, and Meg would provide them with unfettered glee. It was a meeting of two worlds: Meg, with her blonde curls and girlish laughter, seemed awfully out of place as Christine served tea in her small lounge, feeling older than her years.

Christine was vaguely aware that she had attracted the attention of a few potential suitors, when news of her status began to spread. It seemed the well-to-do bachelors of the capital had no qualms about stepping on each other's toes, let alone those of the Vicomte. Beautiful bouquets of flowers appeared in her dressing room with monotonous regularity after each performance, some anonymous, others not. She was flattered, but unwilling to pursue any of the gentlemen who wanted to get to know her.

"Oh, Christine!" Meg had exclaimed one evening, burying her nose deeply into an exotic-looking flower from the vase on her friend's dresser. "They're simply gorgeous. Who are they from this time?"

Christine picked up the small card which had come with the bouquet; it was simple and white, with no personal details. "It doesn't say," she muttered. "I've seen the handwriting before, though. Whoever it was that sent them, he doesn't want to be identified."

"May I keep this one? I've never seen one like it before."

Christine nodded, and Meg extracted one of the blooms. She toyed with it absently. "May I be so bold as to make a suggestion?"

"You needn't ask permission, Meg." The young dancers often forgot that Christine had been one of their own before, and Meg was no exception.

"It's just… with all of these eligible bachelors interested in you, don't you think it's time you met a few of them? You're no longer engaged to Raoul, after all."

"That's true," she said. "I'm not tied to him any more." Christine sighed, placing the card on her dresser face-down, so as not to look at it. "I still feel bound to him in some ways, despite that."

Meg gave an understanding nod. "Do you think he would disapprove?"

"I imagine he would not be best pleased. It's not that he would interfere; he's too much of a gentleman, and after last time…"

She let the thought trail off, but Meg knew she was referring to the incident in Erik's underground house, after Don Juan. A notion occurred to the ballerina then, though she was reticent to speak it aloud. Christine knew her too well for the idea to go unmentioned, however.

"What are you thinking?"

"Oh… it's nothing, really. Just…" She hesitated, then decided against the idea. "No, it's nothing."

"Meg, you don't have to hold your tongue with me."

She withered under Christine's gaze. "I was just wondering… the anonymous sender. You don't think it could be…?"

Christine stared at her for a moment, her mind running through the suggestion at breakneck speed. She had explained to Meg, albeit distractedly, about her time in the house beneath the lake, once the shock of the news which had so shaken her world had ebbed a little. In turn, Meg had felt obliged to mention that Mme. Giry was more than a little suspicious about the circumstances of Erik's demise – or rather, as she surmised, his disappearance. Christine had tried not to let the idea become too ingrained into her mind, for fear it would drive her mad; besides, Mme. Giry had no proof upon which to base her assumption, and to imply that the troublesome Opera Ghost might return was a dangerous tactic within the walls of the Palais Garnier.

Simultaneously, however, at Meg's innocent supposition, Christine felt her heart leap with excitement, then sink with realisation of the impossibility of it. She had not answered her friend, and did not have to. Remembering now, Christine knew the anonymous flowers could not have come from him. He would send her a rose – a single, red rose, nothing more – and she would recognise his hand straight away if it had been amongst the many personal messages.

There had been many more bouquets, and many more calling cards, and Christine had felt unable to answer to any of them. From the moment Meg had planted the seed in her brain, she found herself always hoping for that single, red rose, and that familiar spidery handwriting.

The bouquets continued to arrive in their droves; the overpoweringly floral scent of her dressing room eventually started to make her feel nauseous, and she left a message with the doormen not to allow any more to be delivered. This was for the entirely practical reason that she had nowhere to keep them, and was running out of dancers and friends to gift them to. In the back of her mind, however, was a further reason she tried not to acknowledge: that perhaps if others were not so enthusiastic, that elusive rose might miraculously appear…

A/N: As ever, feedback is appreciated. Things start to get a bit more interesting in the next chapter, hopefully…