AN: Thanks again to everyone who favorited, or added me to alert I appreciate it!

Thankyou to all my lovely reviewers:

Obscure Bird (thanks for all the input! I'm glad you liked the details in the first chapter. As for the accent, I was just trying to show their lower-class station, after this chapter it probably won't show up again. And as for the universe, It's mostly musical based, though some movie, or Leroux or Kay may slip in.)

debkay (hope you like how this goes)

APhan (I think you'll like how the escape goes, you were definitely on to something…) TarjaRocksMyWinterStorm (maybe….)

Chapter 2

Christine could feel herself shaking from fear. Her mind was seizing up, she had to think of a plan, some way to get herself out of this mess, but all that came to her were the lurid details of the stories the ballet rats told each other late at night. She was panicking, and she knew she didn't have time to. Focus Christine, she thought, focus. She cleared her head and tried to take stock of her situation as rationally as she could.

She was backed into an alley in a shady part of town. She was cornered by a dozen or so of the worst sort of ruffian imaginable. She was scarcely clothed. She was alone, and in her night dress, and surrounded by a group of unsavory youths who outnumbered her, who wanted to, who were going to… No! I need to focus!

Obviously she couldn't out power them, she may be able to dance for hours on end, but she didn't know the first thing about fighting, and they outnumbered her. So what did she have that she could use? She had a rather expensive chocker around her neck that Raoul had given her, could she bargain with that? But, no she thought, they could just take that anyway, I can't make deals about things they can just take. She had her, or rather Raoul's horse, a lovely little mare named Blanche, who was very sweet natured with those she knew, but who had a penchant for kicking… suddenly Christine had an idea.

"Messieurs," Said Christine, as she unfastened the gold locket from around her neck, she'd never really liked it much anyway, "How do you like this for payment? C'est d'or."

"Look at that, Pierre, it is gold!"

"Let's grab it!"

"Shut up you lot!" snarled Pierre, "I'm in charge o' the goods." He turned his gaze back to Christine. "Now, see, Mam'selle, I can just take that perty little trinket off yer hands for you if I wan'. I don't think that'll do fer payment Chérie." Once again he raked up and down her body with his eyes, stepping closer as he did so that he was barely a foot away. Christine continued to dangle the necklace from her fingers, out of reach, but clearly in sight, and while Pierre clearly had other intentions, Christine could see the hungry way the eyes of the others followed the gold. Their leader may want her for himself, but his gang was more interested in something they could sell for some bread.

"Now, Chérie, we both know how this'll end, why don' yeh make it easier fer yerself an step down of the horse now? Come on, we'll have a bit o fun, eh?" He took another step closer; Christine could smell his rank breath. "Embrasse-moi Chérie."

In the next instant several things happened at once. Christine tossed the locket into the midst of the gang, Pierre took that last step that brought him too close, and Blanche reacted. As the rest of the ruffians wrestled each other for the necklace, Pierre received his kiss. Blanche savagely bit into the hand reaching toward Christine, then reared up and struck the youth squarely in the chest with her front hooves.

Holding on to fistfuls of white mane, Christine barely managed to stay on- and silently thanked Raoul for teaching her how to ride. Without a glance to see how Pierre fared, she urged Blanche forward, and the horse obliged, leaping into a jaunty trot, and then a canter as she raced out of that accursed alley. Christine glanced back, to see a wobbly looking Pierre cursing at his gang, who still seemed to be tussling over that necklace. Christine let out a shaky laugh, she was safe!

After several more hours riding around the winding Parisian streets (and NOT asking for directions) Christine found herself in a more familiar part of town. At last, after what seemed to be all night, she found herself on Rue Auber, staring at the charred remnants of what had been her home for most of her life.

Christine dismounted, and paused. What should she do with the horse? She owed her safety to the good little mare, but now that she was here she had no idea what to do with her. Underground did not seem like the best place for a horse, and besides, the mare was Raoul's, and he was her friend, even if she did not love him. Jilting him would be bad enough; Christine decided she'd rather not steal his horse too. With murmured thanks, she patted Blanche on the neck, and then slapped her rump. The horse took off at a trot, hopefully she'd make it home, and not fall into the wrong hands, but now she was no longer Christine's concern. She had to find her angel.

She carefully picked her way through the sooty ruins, until she came to what had once been a beautifully decorated dressing room, now the wallpaper hung in charred tatters, and a pervading smell of smoke hung in the air. But the gilded mirror was still where it had always been, though torn aside to reveal the passage behind it. Christine guessed the mob had done that the night of the fire. The night she'd left. I'm coming angel. And Christine took a deep breath and stepped into the tunnel and began to walk.

Christine stumbled blindly through the dark winding passageway. The walls and floor were damp, and the chilly air had a stale smell of mildew that she hadn't noticed before. Somehow her angel's dark presence had always seemed to brighten this dank tunnel. When her angel had taken her here, Christine remembered it as being eerily mysterious, dark but full of anticipation and wonder. Now the same tunnels were cold and slimy, and this place seemed deserted, empty dead.

She had put the thought out of mind, had tried to pretend it wasn't a possibility, because it couldn't possibly be possible, it simply couldn't! But now, as she tripped her way down through these tunnels into the belly of the opera Christine began to fear that maybe he wasn't here.

What if these tunnels were just as deserted as they appeared? What if, if, somehow her angel was…gone? Because if he was not in these tunnels, then that meant he was gone, somewhere else. But her angel was here, he was, he simply had to be, she had come all this way to see him, to tell him… But if he wasn't, if her angel was not here then Christine did not know what she would do. How would she ever find him, one reclusive man in the whole wide world? There were so very many places for her angel to hide. Because he would hide – If not below the opera house then somewhere else.

Christine knew she was deluding herself, there was one glaring possibility that she was omitting because it was not a possibility. Her angel was here. And if not he was simply somewhere else. There were no alternatives, Christine would not accept, could not accept the possibility that he might not be anywhere, the possibility that he might be d- NO! That was not a possibility. Her angel had to be somewhere, there was no other way, a man like her angel could not just cease to be, it was inconceivable. He was here, he had to be, she told herself over and over, and Christine kept on walking through the damp blackness.

Her shoes clacked loudly on the damp stone, and in the silence, the sound of her footsteps, and of her breathing seemed deafening. Her heartbeat pounded out a staccato that echoed off the walls. The fabric of her night dress rustled. It all seemed so loud in the empty silence. I'm making a racket she thought; the sound must carry all throughout these tunnels. Surely… surely he can hear me, he always knows when someone intrudes beneath the opera… he has to know I'm here so why hasn't he come?

Silly Christine, she thought. You expect the man to come the second you come down here. You haven't said a word to let him know who you are, to convince him to come out. That's it. He is here, and he'll come once I call out.

"Angel?" She whispered, her voice was tearful and feeble sounding and the word cracked on the second syllable. Inwardly Christine chided herself for her foolishness and cleared her throat. "Angel?" Her voice rang out loudly rebounding off the tunnel walls. "Angel where are you? It's me Christine. I came back Angel. I came back, it's me! Angel!" She waited for a response but none came. "Angel!" There was no answer. Desperately now, "ANGEL!" She sobbed, "PLEASE ANGEL WHERE ARE YOU!"

There was no answer. No sound or movement, no sign at all that anyone heard her, no indication that she had any company at all down here. Unable to support her weight any longer, her knees buckled and Christine sank to the ground. She knelt on the hard stone and felt the cold and the damp soaking her nightgown. Irrationally, it seemed as if the cold would sink into her very bones and it would she would always be cold and wet, and it would always be dark.

Dark and alone.

The dank catacombs were empty, dead. Suddenly the shadows seemed to swoop in on her and Christine felt as though the emptiness of the tunnel would suffocate her. She was so alone, she was the only thing that breathed, the only living creature down here in the bowels of the opera. Shouldn't there be rats she thought? Mice? Something? Why wasn't anything alive down here? Where was he!

So softly she could barely hear herself she whimpered, "Please, please Angel, where are you? Please come. You must come, or I'll never find you. Angel you have to be here, I do not know where else to search."

There was no response. The only sound was her own sobs as she buried her face in her hands and wept.

She had no idea how long she knelt there on the ground weeping. But at some point her tears dried up and she realized that her shoulders were no longer heaving with sobs, but instead she was shivering and shaking with cold. Christine brushed off her skirt and attempted to stand but she only managed to get halfway to a crouch before crumpling to the ground with a yelp. She clutched her calf in pain, it had cramped from being still for so long.

Slowly, carefully she stood up, wincing as she did so, and she turned around. Once she was facing what she believed was the way out she sighed and began to slowly walk back the way she came. If he hadn't come by now he was not going to. Her angel was gone, and she had nowhere to go, except away from here.

"Giving up already Madame De Chagney? Rather quick to change your mind aren't you? Not an hour ago I recall you were claiming to have returned. And now you wish to leave… aren't you indecisive." Never had a sneer sounded so musical.

Christine whirled around to face the owner of a very familiar voice.

AN: So…. What did you think? I'm a little unsure about the pacing, so please give me some feedback!