A/N Thank you for sticking with me through this - I hope you enjoy the last part.

Part Four

1881, Paris

Years had passed. Leaving Persia under the shadow of the executioner's sword, he had travelled to starlit, snow-shrouded Prague with the lifeless weight of the clockwork doll held before him on his horse, had found the tall, rambling terrace of the Enchanter of which Zítra had told him.

He had hammered on the door until his fists bled and no-one answered, though there was a fluttering at the curtains and small, painted faces pressed up against the windowpanes. He had returned, for days on end, wearing out his voice and his hands, until on the ninth day, the door cracked open to reveal a bespectacled, grey-haired man with an air of faint irritation hanging about him like a cloak.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he had snapped peevishly.

The magician had gently lifted the doll into the Enchanter's arms, had waited with his head tilted to one side and anger and hopefulness clouding his amber eyes. The Enchanter had just snorted, and dropped the doll back at the magician's feet with an echoing, empty thud. "No, I can't fix her. The stupid girl shouldn't have got herself killed in the first place."

"You have to do something," the magician had snarled, his hands itching to lock around the man's throat. The Enchanter just turned away with a grunt.

"This," a dismissive wave of a wrinkled hand, "Is not my problem."

In the end, it had been the magician's vengeful hands which had hastened the death of the Enchanter. A forgotten thrill had trembled through the magician as the old man had jerked on the end of his lasso, like a silvery fish pulled from the waters of a tinkling country stream. The magician had left him glassy-eyed and staring, tangled in the bed sheets, with the vague feeling that Zítra might have been ashamed of him.

And after that, after years of meaningless contract work in the ancient city of Paris and all the trials and tribulations of the building of the Opera House and the utter hassle of trying to be an effective ghost, he had finally found a purpose again, found a purpose singing softly to herself in the voice of an angel as she brushed her hair, tears trembling on her ivory cheeks.

"Papa," she'd been saying. "Papa, please. You promised me you'd send him. Why haven't you sent him Papa? Why haven't you sent me my Angel of Music?"

He hadn't known what possessed him, but, standing behind her mirror, utterly entranced, he had opened his mouth and began to sing a soft lullaby, and to this day, he had never forgotten the look of utter, incredulous joy spreading across her face.

Now, that purpose was here with him, in his little house by the underground lake, the structure of the theatre towering like a great mausoleum above them. He thought he loved her, this beautiful girl who could make angels weep for shame, and kept her here to keep her safe from the outside world, from a childhood friend with whom she fancied herself in love. But in truth, his capacity to love had died with his clockwork dancer at the end of the halcyon days.

One night, the fire was flickering merrily in the grate and morphine was trickling through his veins as a cocoon of music filled the still, cold air.

"Who is this?" Christine's voice pierced the haze of music that surrounded him, and his fingers paused on the ivory and ebony keys of his grand piano, his cat's comforting warmth curled upon his lap. He slowly turned to look at her standing in the doorway, at the blue eyes that looked so similar to those of the girl in the portrait.

"Who is that?" he echoed her question, feel a hitch of pain in his chest, pain that had been buried for twenty-nine years in a heart as hard and cold as a stone. "That is a long story, my dear."

"Can I hear it?" she ventured further into the room towards him, her knuckles white around the frame and fear in her eyes, as though he would shout and swear, like he so often did when she tried to brush the cobwebs from his past.

His gaze turned back to the manuscript on the piano, and he sighed. There was no reason to deny her this, to tell her the story of how his life was turned upside down in the space of a mere three years. "Sit down, then," he said, hearing, rather than seeing the divan creak under the weight of her slender body and the blue robe tossed carelessly around her slim shoulders.

The cat, Ayesha, protested with a vaguely annoyed chirrup as he lifted her off his lap, crossing the room to stoke up the fire. It was suddenly cold. "I met her before you were even born, Christine," he started softly. "She was a dancer, had a natural, innate talent, much like your friend, Meg. I was at a fair in Russia, and she hung around outside my tent like a little sparrow, flat-out refusing to leave me alone. She was always stubborn."

"What was her name?" Christine's voice was soft, and he sighed, settling into his armchair that sank comfortably under his weight.

"Zítra," he said, that dull ache at the mention of her increasing with every word that spilt over her lips. "It means 'tomorrow' in Czech."

"She was beautiful," Christine whispered, tracing the line of the battered white tutu with the tip of one finger. "What happened to her?"

"She died," he snapped, and she flinched a little.

"I'm sorry," she trembled under his furious glare, anger and pain welling like lava from the crater of a volcano, fiery and red and burning.

He stood, abruptly, turning towards the mantelpiece and lifting a small box from the shelf hewn from stone. "Here," he said shortly, depositing it into Christine's lap, looming over her like a great black crow.

She opened the lid cautiously, and music began to play, music that tugged at her soul and wanted to give her feet wings, if only she could fly.

Inside, there was a motley collection of objects, a piece of dirtied, torn lace; several wads of folded paper that turned out to be drawings of the same girl as in the portrait, of Zítra. The most haunting of these was a picture of a bed, rumpled sheets with a black-cloaked figure with a hidden face, holding a lifeless body in his arms. She felt tears spring to her eyes as she moved these aside, revealing a tattered crown of rosebuds, a dirty pair of pointe shoes, and beneath it all, a key of what once must have been gold filigree twisted and snapped beyond recognition and strung on a golden chain.

The magician was watching her, wariness concealed by the white mask across his face. "They were hers?" she asked softly, reaching out to touch his thin, gloved hand.

He nodded, and for the first time ever she saw tears swimming in his eyes, tears of a love lost long ago.

A question teetered on the tip of her tongue, falling like a stone into the space between them. "Did you love her?"

Another nod, and Christine let out a shaky breath. "She was a lucky girl, then, to be loved by you."

It was simple, in the end, to let Christine go, to release her from her gilded cage with the young Vicomte de Chagny with an envelope in her hands and a promise that, whilst she might forget him, to never forget the story inside that fold of paper. She wept, and kissed his forehead when he released the young man from the torture chamber in the corner of his home, and when all was said and done, he retired to the coffin in his bedroom, lay down with the portrait of Zítra held in his embrace.

He closed his eyes, emptiness where his heart should have been, and dreamed of the day Zítra danced at the feast, dreamed of the day when she told him she loved him, and when the time eventually came, she was there, behind his eyelids with one hand outstretched and that smile stretching the corners of her cheeks wide.

"What took you so long?" her laugh was like bells, just as he remembered.

He felt his heart beating strongly in his chest as she pulled him forward, leaning up on her tiptoes and pressing a butterfly kiss to his scarred cheek.

Their fingers laced together, and she looked up at him, her lashes throwing shadows on her face and her eyes sparkling.

"Are you scared?"

"No, never," he said.

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"You are. You are scared."

"You are impossible."

"You're scared! The great Phantom of the Opera is frightened!"

"Zítra Flor!"

"Erik Destler!"

She laughed again and squeezed his hand. "There's nothing to be scared of. Are you ready?"

He took a deep breath. The air was cold, clean, and stars shone above them.

"Yes."

The End