AN: GUESS WHAT EVERYONE! GOOD NEWS! FORGOTTEN MELODIES IS LIVE IN THE KINDLE STORE! You can purchase a copy at the url in my profile. It's $3. There's also a paperback for $13. Thank you for continuing to read this story and look forward to its sequel next year, same time!

Five years had passed since Raoul had last seen or spoken to Christine, but her face was still etched in his memory. She had never come calling for him in Paris and he had never seen her out in the city, although it was arguably impossible to find a person in a city so large. That hadn't stopped him from trying, however.

How desperately he wished that Christine would return to him, even as he stood in the shadow of the ship that would be his home for the next year.

It was at his brother's behest that he had joined the navy. If he'd had his way, he'd be living in a small flat in Paris and pissing away the family money at the bar.

"It'll be good for you," Philippe insisted. Raoul had long since decided that when Philippe said that he really meant, "it'll get you out of my hair for a while."

And so there he stood in a stiff, scratchy uniform that was too tight at the waist and shoulders. Philippe and Anaïs stood with him, waiting for Geneviève to arrive so they could see him off as a family.

"Always figured you'd clean up well, kid," Philippe said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you for doing this."

"It's not like you gave me a choice," Raoul snapped, shrugging away from his brother's touch.

"Sure I did. Join the navy or get a job."

"Now, now," Anaïs said. "Let's not fight. We aren't going to see Raoul for quite some time now and I don't want his last memories of us to be tainted with fighting."

"It's just some good natured ribbing, Ann. All in good fun," Philippe assured her, but she didn't look convinced.

"Raoul!" Geneviève's voice rang out over the din of the crowded pier. "Oh, just look at you!"

The younger de Chagny sister came barreling through the crowd in a flurry of crimson satin and tulle, stopping just short of knocking her little brother over as she threw her arms around him and drew him into a tight, tearful hug.

"I was so afraid I would miss seeing you off!" she exclaimed. "I hadn't anticipated such a crowd!"

"Well, if you'd have left home earlier," Anaïs chided. Geneviève shot her a glare not unlike the face Raoul continued to make at their eldest brother.

"Let's not fight now," Philippe scolded teasingly. Anaïs rolled her eyes and threw her arms around her little brother.

"You best write to us," she said. "I want to hear about all your travels."

"Yes, please do write to us, Raoul," Geneviève insisted. "It will be so strange to have you so far away."

"I will try," Raoul said. "I can't promise anything. I don't even know what I will be doing."

"It'll be hard work, but that'll help build character," Philippe said. "Backbreaking work. Soul-crushing work."

"Don't frighten him now," Anaïs said, slapping his arm. "Don't listen to him. Remember all his letters from his time in the navy were about the sun and the sea."

"I wasn't even alive when he was in the navy, Ann," Raoul reminded her. She flushed a light pink.

"I forget what a baby you are," she admitted.

Behind him, Raoul could hear someone calling orders from the ship. He couldn't quite make out the words being said, but he knew it must be nearing time for him to board.

"I suppose I should say goodbye now," he said with a heavy sigh. His sisters hugged him again and Philippe shook his hand before he turned to look up at the ship that waited for him.

"We'll miss you," his sisters said in tearful unison. It wasn't often that he saw or heard them cry, even when they were children together.

With a heavy sigh, he heaved his bag onto his shoulder and began to walk toward the line of young men waiting to walk up the gangplank and board the ship.

He found himself wishing that he would hear Christine's voice calling out to him, begging him to wait, but he doubted that the pretty girl he'd met in Perros even remembered him anymore.