Disclaimer: Don't own. My bad.

Thank goodness; my reading for various college interviews is finally done! Don't get me wrong, I love reading; but reading stuff you don't necessarily like but still have to digest is like having to eat a meal you can cope with but don't particularly like, every single night until it makes you want to scream. (And be sick.)

Well, here we have Christine's viewpoint of the aftermath. And yes, this is dedicated to AIAOY, since that's probably my favourite song in the musical. I know it really shouldn't be, considering it's as soppy as a really wet flannel, and I'm a girl who enjoys writing about half decayed phantoms and walking corpses and slit throats (if you don't believe me, read some of my other works – you would not believe what I was planning to get a twelve year old girl to do, though ultimately I abandoned that story)…but…darn it…it's just so BEAUUUUUUUUUUUUTIFUL!

I think I need a good old weep.

"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred that one good remembrance – and shall thank and bless you for it – that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faultsm and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!"

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

(Interesting fact; my sister was named after Lucie Mannette!)

All I ask of you

It was the whispers from beyond the darkness of her closed eyes that finally called Christine back from the darkness in her head. She was more reluctant than ever to leave it; it was warm enough and dark enough to stay there forever now, lacking nothing, without worry or care, without dream or nightmare.

But the voices of the living – or at least those of the aware - drew her back.

"He wants to see her. Should we wake her?"

"No. She's tired. I'm tired, for that matter. He can just wait until she's ready to see him, rather than the other way around. It would be cruel-"

"It would be even crueler if we woke her by talking too loud, yes?"

"Too late for that," she heard her own voice croak from within her, instinctively with the cynicism that had flowered and grown within her soul, as she lifted her head from the softness that cushioned her head, her whole body. She managed to open her eyes, crusty with sleep, half expecting to see the black lace canopy hung above the swan bed – but all that met her sight, apart from bright light which made her cringe, completely unlike the candle light that she had become use to, were the lace hangings above her own bed-

Her own bed.

I'm back. At once all the memories of what had happened, to her as well as to others, flooded back in one great gush, so strong that she felt as if her head and heart might burst with it all. She could remember her despair, and Raoul calling her through the mirror, how she had travelled through that cold, dark place, and then collapsed into his arms…her face burned when she thought of that, but her heart fluttered not unpleasantly as well.

"Christine?"

At once there was a flurry of activity around her, as she struggled up from beneath the blankets she could feel that had been heaped upon her prone form; as her eyes grew used to the light she could see that Meg was there, dear darling Meg, her eyes shadowed with tiredness but bright with suppressed joy, and Carlotta as well, all her haughtiness for the moment gone as she tried to push her back into the nest of pillows, and Cecile was behind them, another blanket in her arms, smiling despite herself and despite the proper conduct of a maid. She lay back in shock as they fussed around her, practically glowing, shining with nourishing light and warmth.

"Christine, don't get up, lie back down at once!"

"You are tired; you must have rest, as Meg says you must not get up."

"I've brought you another blanket, Mademoiselle Daaé, and I'll bring you some hot broth soon. Just lie down."

Such simple words, and yet she was almost bowled over by the love and affection and concern that flowed from the three as they gently forced her back onto her bed, bolstered up the pillows behind her, tucked the blankets more firmly over her so that she had no chance of escaping and anchored her down with the final one; all the while smoothing her hair and stroking her forehead and rubbing warmth back into her hands and arms, until she felt smothered by the weight of their feelings as she was by the many layers on top of her.

"It's all right now, Christine," Meg murmured beside her, pushing a strand of hair back from her forehead as the other two drew away for the moment. "You're safe. You're back home, and we won't let anything happen to you again."

She blinked at this softness in Meg's character. Normally her friend would be saying exactly what she thought at this point, and she had a feeling that her absence had caused more anger and concern than these three were at the moment showing, considering how Raoul had reacted after his initial joy at seeing her again at the ball. "Meg? You're not…angry with me?"

This brought a wider, mischievous smile to Meg's face, replacing the softly comforting one that had been there before. "Stupid girl," she replied, but with no malice in her voice. "Of course I'm angry, but not so much with you. All the same, I probably won't speak to you for days after you're better, for what we had to go through because of you."

"I will be angry for you for now, then." Carlotta had made her way to the other side of the bed, and now fixing her with a benevolent glare, arms akimbo. "You gave us such a scare, you know that? Meg thought you might have been kidnapped or killed or some such horrid thing! We had the grounds-men searching all over the country-side for you! And we had to get Cecile to pretend to be you at the masquerade, which was not easy for any of use, let me tell you that!"

I did miss a good deal while I was away.

While I was away…

"Cecile pretended to be me?" She looked over curiously at her maid, who smiled shyly and bobbed a hurried curtsey, murmuring "It was no trouble."

"Persuading you to do it certainly was," Meg shot good-naturedly over her shoulder, before turning back to smile at her once more. "We don't blame you, really, Christine. We've just been so worried about you, and we're so glad that you're back. I can still hardly believe it myself."

She saw Carlotta nod at the corner of her sight, and also managed to see that the Spanish girl's eyes were suddenly overly bright, and she was blinking more than was usual for her, and also biting her lip. She still felt overwhelmed by their joy and thankfulness that she was back with them, and the happiness written plain upon their…their faces?

Carefully, so as not to excite their alarm, she sat up in her bed, her own bed once more, pulling her arms, clad in her own nightgown, from under the mountain of blankets so that they rested on top of the fabric, and stared as disguisedly as she could at them. She had thought when she first woke that her friends were tired, but now that she was more fully aware she could see that there was more in them than mere fatigue – there was a strength in all three that had most certainly not been there before, not even in Carlotta; a strength which came from a deep, delving exhaustion, and the courage with which it was being faced.

What is this? she wondered, even as she saw that timid little Cecile Jammes stood taller and with more confidence than she ever had before, as if she were challenging the whole world that railed against her, and Carlotta walked as if she were heavy with the weight of both knowledge and the dignity with which she prevented that self-same knowledge from crushing her, and Meg…it was as if Meg's beautiful blue eyes were frozen dams, concealing something deep and mysterious and unknown.

Would anyone else notice this? She doubted it. Had it not been for her own spell down…down there, she didn't think that she herself would have noticed. But, unmistakably, just as she knew that she had been changed and warped, so had they, in their own way.

What has happened while I was gone?

"Meg…" she began, but before she could continue Meg hastily leant forward and placed a finger on her lips, stilling them. "Don't speak more than you have to. You're still very weak. If I looked half as bad as you do, I'd want to sleep the rest of the week away!"

"I don't feel tired. Not very, any way," she protested. They act as if spending a sojourn in the Land of the Dead is like catching a fever! But they mean well. "I don't want to get up, at least not yet. I wouldn't be able to anyway. But I would like to see Raoul. Please, do not keep him away, if he wishes to see me."

The three girls – Women, she hastily amended, they're women now, all three of them – looked at each other, before Meg sighed and nodded. "You're right, of course. We shouldn't keep him from you, after everything that's happened. Call him in, Cecile." As the maid hurried over to the door adjoining to her own room, she added for her benefit, "Raoul's been…hiding in my room, I'm afraid. He can't risk anyone seeing him at the moment."

"What? Why?" Despite what she had said, she did feel rather tired after all, but she wasn't going to let them see that. Even as she spoke, her old fears were already coming back, flooding into even this bright, sunny room. If something had already happened to change her friends, then…had something happened to Raoul, too? And what had happened?

"You will see, in time." To her complete and utter amazement, Carlotta suddenly bent down over her and threw her arms around her, hugging her tight to her sweet smelling form, more tightly than she was really comfortable with, though she wasn't nearly spiteful enough to say so, and so instead tried not to whimper.

"I am more glad than I can say that you are back, and safe," the Spanish girl – woman – muttered in her ear, before gently releasing her. "We will give you five minutes with him. Five minutes, that is all. Then you must sleep."

"What Carlotta says is true, Christine," Meg said as she hugged her as well, more gently this time. "You need your strength. You're still as pale as…as pale as snow," she corrected herself hastily, causing her to wonder at the sudden change in vocabulary.

And then there came a voice from the doorway to her right. "Christine?" All dark thoughts that were growing were banished from her mind at the sound of that voice and as she swivelled around in her bed to eagerly find the source, her heart filled with glowing sunshine as she heard his voice, her beloved, that beloved…

"Raoul?"

Her voice hardly seemed her own. She certainly hadn't thought she could speak, as she stared at the figure standing in the door way, holding on to the frame for support, the sun light shining full upon his face, and almost shining through his pale skin, his hair. How can this be?

"Raoul?" she repeated weakly, pushing herself upwards again, still staring, thinking that it had to be some trick of the light, some joke on their part, though a joke in very bad taste! But then she remembered her fleeting glimpse of all four of them, and their faces, arrayed to greet her, before she had passed out, and she knew that this was no joke, just as the difference in her friends was no mistake or trick of the eye. "Raoul, is that you?"

"Yes, it is me, Christine." Even his voice sounded drained of all colour and life, as he pushed himself forward into the room, and made his way slowly towards the bed.

She hardly heard Carlotta say, "Five minutes, remember, Raoul," as the other three made their own way out of the room. She hardly noticed their glances of compassion after him, before they shut the door. She could only gaze as Raoul finally stopped at her bed side, and went down on one knee beside it, bringing his face closer to hers, and letting the sunlight shine fully through his hair.

His hair…

The only thing she could think to do was to raise her hand to stroke the silken strands, and the only thing she could think to say was, "Your poor, beautiful hair…"

At once Raoul smiled, and a little life seemed to come back to his face, as he stroked her own curls in return, his cool finger tips bringing relief to her creased brow. "Is that really all that is worrying you? After all that has happened? My hair?" His hand captured hers, and pressed it tenderly, as his lips curled further into a warm smile she remembered, however watered down it might now be. "Be assured that I will not remain looking as if I have had a rather nasty fright for much longer. Carlotta is going to drag me off to her room after this; she is confident that she will have a hair dye that will match my old hair colour, and therefore deflect suspicion. Personally I am not all that optimistic, but after all, hope springs eternal." He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it gently.

Hearing his voice with some humour was all that she ever could have wished for, but she simply could not let the matter rest. By the look of him it seemed that decades had been taken off his life, and considering the method with which he had managed to retrieve her she suspected that this was not so far from the truth. "Do you think that it will turn back, eventually?" she ventured tentatively.

At once she cursed herself for speaking, since all the joy drained from her fiancée's face, to be replaced with the deadly exhaustion he had worn upon him like a shroud when he had first entered the room, try as he might to disguise it. "Probably not," he said softly, lowering her hand, though not releasing it. "It's not just my hair; I feel so dreadfully tired, and not just from staying up all night and most of the day before it. Hopefully my strength will come back, eventually, but I'm fairly resigned to the prospect that my hair will stay white, come what may."

This is all because of me, she thought miserably. She could hardly bear it.

"Oh, Raoul." She brought her other hand up to his face, feeling the stubble of the hairs beginning to grow through, and was more than a little frightened to feel how cold his skin was. "Raoul, I am so, so sorry. This is my fault, it's all my fault."

"No." Abruptly his hand tightened on hers, to make her wince, as his eyes gazed imploringly at her. "Christine, do not blame yourself. None of this was your fault. You could not have known what would happen when you chose to go riding the day before yesterday, so do not condemn yourself for something you had no control over."

"But, Raoul-" But she baulked at the thought of telling him just how she had caused her own abduction, and her own cowardice allowed Raoul to continue without interruption.

"I chose to do what I did willingly, and I do not regret the results. To have you back is worth my own lifeblood, and I would have given it freely, to bring you back to the world of the living. We all knew the risks, all of us, and we may all have paid a price, but all of us know that it is worth it, more than worth it, to have saved you."

Oh, Raoul, my dear, my own, I am not worth it.

But she said nothing to combat his words. To do so would be to undermine all that he had given up for her, and all that her friends had done for her. And they had done so much for her already. So she smiled up at him, and with all her heart wished that what he said was true.

"I am blessed indeed, to have you, Raoul, though you need not give up your blood for me just yet. When I was in the Land of the Dead, I thought of little else of you, and how to get back to you." Well, it is the truth. "To never see you again…that thought was unbearable to me. Sometimes, I think that it was my love for you, and yours for me, which kept me sane."

"What?" At once Raoul let go of her hand and instead held her face in both his hands, cradling her head tenderly, like a father gently questioning his child. "What happened?" His forehead creased as he frowned. "Did that…" He seemed to think better of the word he was about to use, and settled on another. "Did that monster hurt you?"

Monster? Erik? She stared at him, her mind rebelling against this description. He isn't a monster…he is many things, but he is not a monster…

"No," she managed to blurt out. "He didn't." In fact, the last time he touched me properly, he was embracing me, in his bed…She gulped at that thought, but Raoul obviously did not discern its true meaning, as his fingers clutched her face in distress. "Do you truly mean that, Christine? If that creature harmed you in any way, I swear I'll-"

"Raoul, please! I mean it when I say that Erik has never harmed me!" At least not intentionally. "I truly mean it!" she protested, when she saw his face was still full of suspicion. "All the time I was with him, even when he was angry or even furious, he treated me with nothing but respect and courtesy!" Which is also true. Even if he had rather odd ways of showing it…

Raoul nodded slowly, but he looked less than convinced. "I feared the worst, when I saw you disappear at the ball. You looked so miserable, I was sure he was mistreating you-"

"Oh, Raoul, I wish you wouldn't talk about him like that, as if he was something less than human." It was too late to take those words back, and already she regretted them, as she saw the look on his face.

"Christine, he kidnapped you! He held you captive under the earth! From what Nadir said-"

"I know!" she snapped, and only recovered herself slowly. More gently, reaching up to stroke Raoul's face, ridiculously imagining he might be about to cry. "Raoul, I know that he did all of those things. But you must understand. Erik is just as much a man as you are, and just as much deserving of pity. You don't know what his life was like; or his death either."

You don't know what your family did to him…or at least, I pray that you don't know.

"But I know, Raoul," she went on stolidly, "because he told me. He told me so much, in his home under the ground, under the earth, in the Land of the Dead. He showed me things no living person should see, that no living person should be able to see." By now Raoul was leaning forward, clearly half-fascinated despite himself. "He gave me back my voice, Raoul – my true voice, not the weak instrument I kept in my throat ever since Fader died. He showed me his soul, Raoul, and everything in it. He knelt before me, and worshipped me, and shed tears and kissed my feet, and I stroked his tears away. How can I call him a monster after that?"

"And how," Raoul said softly, surprising her by the sad tenderness in his voice, as he rested his chin upon his palm and his elbow on her blankets, "how can I compare to that? I will take your word for it, Christine, as well as your protestations of how you feel for him." He turned his eyes away from her.

"Raoul!" She reached for his face, drawing him back to her. "Raoul, even if he showed me more than this whole mortal world could hold, do you think that he could eclipse you? God, Raoul, I pitied him, but I know that he filled me with terror and horror as well as amazement and wonder. At first I feared him for himself, and later I was terribly, dreadfully afraid not because of him, but because of his love for me. It terrified me!" she whispered, drawing him closer. "Hear this, because I will tell you and no other, Raoul. He placed his soul and his love before me in his adoration, and it terrified me beyond all measure. I knew that I was wilted under the fire and the force of his passion. It would have consumed and destroyed me, but for you." She wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down upon her breast, placing his ear above her heart. "Erik gave me my voice back, it is true, Raoul. But it is you who made me want to live again."

There was a sigh, of contentment, of relief, and of joy. "Christine…I love you so. I care not who thinks it, I love you so." Raoul pushed himself gently off her, his eyes once more meeting his own. The sunlight shone upon his hair, and it was as if he was glowing, shining with his own, beautiful light. "Now you are back with me, I will never let you leave me again. I will protect you with my own life, I swear it. Apart from that, I have relatively little to offer. But please, just remember, whatever happens to us, I love you. All I ask of you, all I ask, is that you say you love me. I don't want you to prove your love, your devotion, because I know your heart." Now his white hair pooled around her, matching the pillow, as he leaned over her as she lay back against the sheets. "That's all I ask of you."

She sighed in peace, closing her eyes, dazzled by her angelic lover. "I love you, Raoul. I love you so."

She felt his lips brush her cheek – a chaste, modest kiss, but one filled with the simplest tenderness – before he drew back, with reluctance. "I must go now, or otherwise Meg and Carlotta will probably drag me out of here by my hair." He smiled ruefully. "I do think they have the right idea, though, you must rest now. We all must. As soon as I've taken a look at Carlotta's hair dyes…"

Sleep? How can I sleep? Once again she remembered her nightmares. She doubted that, if she closed her eyes in slumber, she would go back to that warm, comforting place she had visited when she had first passed out. As if her memory was completing her experiences, like the finishing attraction of a portrait gallery, the eyes were coming back to her – those yellow eyes…

"How can you think of sleep?"

Raoul looked at her, his eyes rich with love. "You do not need to fear, Christine. The darkness is gone, forever. Erik cannot touch you any longer, neither in your waking nor in your sleeping." He reached forward, and stroked her cheek. "He is dead, Christine, and now he is gone. He's gone."

When Raoul had gone, and Cecile had closed the curtains in his wake – "To help you sleep better, Mademoiselle," – Christine lay in her own bed, in her own nightgown, and stared up at her own canopy.

Am I dreaming? This seems too good to be true. Was my time down there all a dream as well?

No – she could never have dreamed those eyes, never.

She was home. Her friends were around her. They had worked so hard to rescue her. Raoul, poor dear Raoul, had given up so much for her. She was safe. She was free. And yet…

He will never let me go. He will come after me. I know he will. And what will happen then? When he finds me again? When I have abandoned him?

I…I was so happy at first, but now, I...what can I do? What can I do?

She looked over at the mirror on the dresser, but someone had turned it to the wall, showing only the rejection of its wooden back. Perhaps that was a blessing, perhaps not. She wondered idly who had done it.

She wrapped her arms around herself, and shivered. Even with so many blankets upon her, she was still cold. Just like Raoul, she did not think if she could ever get rid of the coldness of the mirror, and the images that flooded through her mind whenever she thought of it, and the one who lay beyond the silvery tunnel.

Raoul was so brave, and so sure, and so it was all the more sad that he was so very, very wrong.

Erik was dead, it was true; but she knew more surely than any other living creature that he was not gone.

Once again, attribute the fact that this chapter is relatively short to shock. Shock; is there any problem it can't solve? (Not my shock, of course. Christine's. Well, what did you think I meant?)

Yep, gooiness for the R/C lovers, as well as ammunition to pepper at the E/C shippers. Moo ha ha. I'm just so evil, aren't I? Also, weren't expecting the hair dye to crop up again, were you? Didn't think you were. Gosh darn, I love keeping the public on their toes!

Anything else? No, that's probably it. All I can say is, the chapters might be coming more frequently than before, now that I don't have any more pressing reading to do. I love my dad very much, but the last few weeks were not fun. Guess that's what they call tough love. Extremely tough love, in my case.

Reviews for the half Irish seamstress!