Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom, or Corpse Bride; or Kate Winslet's dresses in Titanic – not even the 'flying' dress, sob sob.

So, I think Corpse Bride is out by now in America! What do y'all think of it? I can't wait over here. Just like I can't wait to see Howl's Moving Castle – again. Wheee!

So, once again with E and C, down in the underground and all that. Also, I think I should tell you; that thing with Victor's skeleton dog, Scraps. Well, some of you might have been hoping that I'd do that with Ayesha – you know, have her as a skeleton cat and all that. I'm sorry to tell you that it won't be happening. It would be really nice to have her like that, of course; but if I did so I think it would start becoming a bit ridiculous. So, no bony moggy. Meh. Thank you all for your lovely reviews. We shall have to see about Cecile 'faking it' – and about more 'flust'. And…Danny Elfman?...Maybe we should just get on with the chapter.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray

you love, remember: and there is pansies, that's

For thoughts…

There's fennel for you, and columbines: - there's

rue for you; and here's some for me: - we may

call it herb-grace o' Sundays: - O, you must wear

your rue with a difference. – There's a daisy: - I

would give you some violets, but they wither'd

all when my father died…

Ophelia's madness, Act IV Sc V

Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Page black, page white

How long have I been here?

Christine concentrated on breathing; in and out…in, and out; again and again, the mantra of her life. She tried to let herself fall away from herself; tried to forget the feel of the coverlet against her skin, her hair that fell over her face; the twitch of her eyelids; the press of her breasts, squashed as they were both together and against the mattress of the bed; the palpitating of her eyelids, the throbbing of her pulse in her temple and her throat and even in her stomach. She tried to imagine that she was buried deep within the earth; deeper even than Erik had brought her; so deep that nothing could ever reach her, that nothing could ever rouse her or wake her again.

It didn't help.

It was as if, in the sleep that Erik had induced in her who knew how long ago now, he had robbed her of any further need to sleep, or ability to do so; just as the pomegranate seemed to have taken away all her hunger. As if Erik didn't want her to escape by sleep…

Oh, it's not fair!

With a growl, she opened her eyes and sat up; swung her legs off the bed and was onto her feet in a moment. As she stalked out of the bedroom she half expected Erik to be sitting on the seat at the organ, turning around to smile his sardonic smile at her, which made her so furious…

But he was nowhere in sight.

Suspiciously, she made her way down the steps, towards the organ. The boat was still here, so that meant that he must still be here as well…but where was he? She gathered the folds of her skirt – strange, how this material never seemed to crease – and softly made her way across the sandy floor, her bare feet tickled by the grains of sand beneath. As she climbed up the steps to the organ seat, she kept her eyes out for any sign – any at all – of Erik. It wouldn't surprise her if he suddenly sprang at her, out of nowhere.

But she arrived at the seat, and nothing had happened. No voices of outrage; no suddenly skeletal holds around her, no whispers that sent tingles down her spine-

She hastily amended her treacherous thought; and looked down at the table beside the piano stool, where the manuscript of Don Juan Triumphant was…

…where it had been. The huge mound of parchment was gone, to be replaced with a singe piece of paper. What had happened? Had he taken it away, to hide it somewhere more effective? Did he not trust her?

She had no illusions about that answer to that last question. If she were Erik, she certainly wouldn't trust her to leave what seemed to be his most prized possession alone.

But still…

To quell her confused feelings, she reached forward, and picked up the lone piece of paper, lifting it to her gaze.

She gasped in wonder.

It was a portrait, drawn by hand, of a woman; a woman who made Christine draw her breath in awe and delight; a portrait which included her hands, holding a posy of flowers; elegant and long fingered and graceful; and the flowers beautiful, wild blooms, gorgeous splashes of colour.

But it was the woman's face which at once drew the eye; the artist had evidently not had to flatter the sitter, the sketch and subsequent drawing having been made with a definite air of certainty, as if there could be no question about the evident beauty of the model. Each feature was drawn and shaded with loving precision, no detail missed…

No, no detail missed, none at all. For all her ethereal beauty, this woman was real, so very real; alongside the beauty were the traces of the model's mortality, the crow's feet at the corners of the eyes, the lines upon her forehead. This woman was not a fantasy, an illusion, something dreamed up by a master in the art of drawing; she was real – or at least, she had been real, once upon a time, long ago.

Who had she been, this lady of loveliness? By what chance had Erik come to sketch her; and with such devotion, such evident care?

Christine was surprised to find a faint feeling of jealousy burning within her.

She sank down to sit upon the sit, barely aware of who had sat there before; not even paying attention to the footsteps, coming swiftly closer…

"What are you looking at, Christine?" Too late she looked up, into Erik's half face, caught in the trap of his yellow eyes; those eyes filled with such love. Love? Automatically she thought to hide the drawing; but a little voice inside her mind whispered Show it to him, see what he does…

Silently, she held out the drawing; and did not even flinch when his fingers brushed hers as he took it, she was so intent upon his face, on seeing his expression.

He looked down at the paper; she saw his eyes widen with sudden surprise; swiftly he looked up, and she almost shrank away from his stare.

"Where did you get this?"

"I found it on the seat," she shot back, getting her bearings.

He stared at her for a moment, then looked down at the picture again.

"I thought I'd lost this…I drew it, ages and ages ago…"

And the way he looked at the picture; the way he raised a suddenly shaking hand to trace a finger across the features sketched so long ago, in a way that no lover used, suddenly helped her to realise. The same dark hair, the same chin…

"What was your mother's name?"

He showed no surprise at her guess which was not a guess, but the truth, he only murmured "Magdalene…" as if breathing a prayer.

"What…what was she like?"

He looked up at her at last, his face…almost calm; tranquil, with a peace she had never seen in him before. But also…there was a tremble, in those yellow eyes. He sighed – such a sigh, as huge as the world! – and sat down beside her. She felt his solid arm brush against hers, but she somehow did not mind – after all, it at least was not skeletal part of the time.

"Well, where to begin? She was very beautiful, as you have already seen…"

"Oh, yes." No one could deny the beauty of the portrait Erik still held in her hands; to do so would be to simply lie.

"And she loved me. Oh yes, you might find it difficult to believe, she being so beautiful," came Erik's voice, with forced casualness, "but it is true nevertheless."

"Why should I find it so difficult to believe someone could love you?" Christine asked without thinking. Too late she realised what she had said; but she couldn't take it back now.

But Erik didn't seem to have heard. He was looking at the picture he held, like some priceless jewel, in his hands. "It is ironic, you know. The only woman who could ever bring herself to embrace me, kiss me, even…and she was at the same time so beautiful, and yet…"

"And yet what?"

He sighed. "Christine, you must understand this. My mother, although she was an uncommonly kind woman, was not exactly…normal, shall we say."

"Not normal?" She looked again at the picture of the woman, those lovely dark eyes seeming to shine out of the paper. Not normal? "What was wrong with her?" she asked slowly, dreading the answer with all her mind and heart.

The sigh came again; this time torn from areas long sealed up and locked away. "Not wrong, as such. It was just…she imagined things. She became scared, easily. Whenever there was a thunder storm, she would hide away in her bed, crying with fear. And she…did things…" His voice was now a mumble.

"What sort of things?" She was not aware of how hard, how unforgiving, how prying, her young voice seemed.

"She…said that sometimes, she heard voices. They would tell her to do things, things she didn't want to do. She usually paid no attention to them, but there were sometimes when she didn't have any choice. She'd do things, say things that other people would rather she would not do or say." Erik's voice, usually so musical, was now a dull monotone, as he recited a chilling catechism of eccentricities. "When I got older, it started getting worse. She'd go outside when it was raining and dance in only her shift; pick flowers and wear them in her hair until they wilted and rotted. She wouldn't pay attention when people were talking to her. Sometimes she'd just sit in the tree in our garden, sucking on her fingers and staring up at the sky." Erik had closed his eyes by now. "I didn't mind so much; but the village people hated it. They had always despised her anyway, after she had me and refused to get rid of me. She had never done anything wrong…apart from giving birth to me, you might say; but they didn't care. She was just different, and they hated her for it."

"What happened?"

His voice was now like ice; a whisper from beyond the grave. "When I was ten, some men came to our house at night. They told my mother to come with them, and when she wouldn't, they dragged her out of the house, violently. I tried to stop them, but one of them knocked me down, and they took her away from me; to a sanatorium." He grimaced, his eyes snapping open. "I never saw her again, until once, many years later. Have you ever seen inside an…institute, Christine? I am glad you will never see that one. After I saw what went on there, what she had been reduced to, I prayed to God, with all the belief I had left, that he would end her suffering. And perhaps he did, in the end."

There was silence between them. Christine had to clutch her knees, her hands trembling.

"Did…did you ever find out what was wrong with her?"

"I believe it was something the doctors call schizophrenia – a mental condition. The curious thing is," he went on, standing up abruptly, "that if I had lived, I would probably have ended up in an institute as well. Oh, you look so surprised? That type of insanity is one that regularly runs in a family. I think I would prefer being dead to going mad, or ending my days in a sanatorium."

"Erik?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Have you ever seen your mother, down here?"

All the forced joviality in him seemed to ebb away. Slowly, he sank down beside her again.

"No," came his voice, soft again. "Though I have searched through all this underworld more times than you could guess or number, I have never found her. After all, angels have no place in Hell." He shifted in his seat. "Except the fallen ones."

"Erik?"

"Yes?"

"Will you show me the underworld?" She sought out his eyes, narrowed now as they were in regarding her face, for sincerity. She knew he would find it.

"Are you certain that you wish to see it, Christine?"

"I am certain, Erik. I want to know what you have…existed through, for all this time. If you are with me, I will have no need to be afraid." She paused, and then added recklessly, "And I am tired with this cave."

He nodded decisively, and stood up again. "That is as good an excuse as any. Come."

He handed her into the boat; she took her seat, her heart pounding within her as she sat where she had sprawled before. It was the first time she had been in the craft since her abduction, in circumstances vastly different – or perhaps not so different…

A silken touch fell upon her shoulders; she jerked around to see Erik already in the boat bending over her, laying something on her shoulders, his fingers not quite touching them – a silken red cape, which she could feel pour down her back to pool behind her, and at his feet.

"To keep you warm," he said, by way of explanation.

"But it's not cold!"

"It will be colder where we are going." Pulling his own cape around him more effectively, he picked up the pole, and pushed out. She pulled the cloak around her; it was no longer cool but surprisingly warm, for silk. As the boat swayed beneath her, and she heard the rush and gurgle of the water around, and she watched the bank fall away from them, as Erik turned the craft around with barely an effort, to face the gateway, felt as if she had never been both in complete control of and at the complete mercy of the situation. She felt terrifed.

But at the same time, she felt a strangeness that was not so strange, just an emotion long unused or called for.

She was excited.

"You might want to close your eyes," Erik said.

"Why?"

"Well, when we pass through the gateway, it will be – quite different, to what you expect."

"Any more different than this?"

He chuckled. "Keep them open then, Mademoiselle. But not expect this to be a quiet boat ride."

"After the way we arrived, Monsieur, I would not expect anything else."

Erik chuckled again; then she felt him raise his arm – he made a sweeping gesture…

And then there was…

Light.

I was getting a bit fed up of Christine mooching about in the lair while Erik got to visit Nadir. Also, I wanted to bring a bit of the Corpse Bride universe in – this has been getting distinctly Phantomy again. Also, we have more flust, people! Well, I mean, it's not exactly fluffy when you're talking about someone's mother who got put in a mental hospital, is it?

Also, my vision of Christine has changed – though I enjoyed Emmy Rossum's performance, I imagine Christine now to look like Princess November in Andrael's No Rest for the Wicked – which you can find at www dot icarusfalls dot com / wicked; it is a very good online comic indeed – only with brown hair, not red. And without the bags under her eyes. That, incidentally, was where I got Christine's trouble with sleeping; the seasonal princess has a problem in that area as well. And also, I have my vision of her perfected at the moment concerning what she's wearing; Rose's dress from Titanic when she's swimming about when the ship sinks, and the cloak from the roof scene – only in silk. My, my, Christine; we are well dressed today!

Oh, yes; I also got the whole bit of Christine closing her eyes from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the galaxy, when Arthur Dent and Slartibartfast are about to go through the portal – though feel free to assume I got it from Music of the Night.

Review for the half-Irish seamstress, please!