I just wanted to say that Christine might seem a little out of character. I'm doing this on purpose. I don't want Christine to be the weak, indecisive thing that she tends to be. In this story, Christine is the woman I believe Erik deserves.

Anyway, thanks for the reviews! Enjoy!

Erik

Every inch of my body was aching. My shoulder was the worst though. It had been a long time since I'd felt pain like the throbbing shooting through my back, down my side, and through my arm. I wanted to stay still to keep away from the pain, but the constant shivering made it hard. My fever was getting worse with every moment. Christine refused to leave my side. She was so concerned. Then there was last night, the most amazing night of my entire existence. In the darkness, I felt no shame and was completely able to give into the desires of my body. She had been right. Everything I did felt right. Our bodies had moved as one so perfectly. I can't imagine that being with a woman gets any better. Christine was a beautiful goddess and she had given herself to me. I didn't feel worthy of her transcendent love.

"Do you want anything?" Christine asked me tenderly. Concern was deep within her big, brown eyes.

I smiled at her. "Sing for me," I requested. Hearing her beautiful voice would be the perfect medicine for me.

She smiled back down at me. That sight was the most incredible thing I'd ever laid eyes on. "What would you like me to sing?" she inquired playfully.

I closed my eyes and situated myself comfortably. "Anything, my love. As long as it comes from your mouth it will be beautiful."

"Very well then." She cleared her throat. "Think of me, think of me fondly. When we've said goodbye."

Her voice was surely sent from the heavens. It seemed to wash over me and take all the pain away. That beautiful voice, I had helped to create it! She stopped abruptly when the door burst open. I opened my eyes to see Madame Giry come rushing in. I noticed Meg was behind her, but she stayed at the doorway looking at us nervously.

"Meg!" Christine called happily. She jumped off the bed and went to hug her friend.

Madame Giry had a worried look on her face as she lit a few extra candles. Christine had been keeping the room dim for me. I couldn't help but groan as Madame Giry forced me to sit up. The pain in my body instantly returned. It was such an inconvenience to have a fever. A fever made every little pain hurt just that much more. Madame Giry examined my back carefully. Thankfully she didn't touch it.

"This is what I feared would happen," she said gloomily. Christine turned around from talking to Meg to look at us. Meg looked like she had seen a ghost. I guess, in a way, she had.

"What's wrong?" Christine asked, fear in her eyes.

"This is terribly infected. He's going to need a doctor to clean it out. As much as I wish I could, I don't have the tools or experience to treat this," she explained, anxiety heavy in her strained voice.

Oh no. This didn't bode well for me. From the look on Christine's angelic features, I could tell she was thinking the very same thing. "You can't possibly be serious?" Christine exclaimed.

Madame Giry looked at her gravely. "I'm afraid I'm very serious."

"How are we going to get a doctor to look at him and not tell every officer in Paris where he is?" she asked indignantly.

"I know the stakes Christine. You forget all that I'm risking in helping you two. But he will die if we don't get a doctor to treat him," Madame Giry reaffirmed.

Christine looked at me grimly for some sort of support. I smiled weakly at her. "Perhaps it's best to just let me die," I said sadly. That would certainly be the easier and safer thing to do.

From the look Christine gave me, I knew she would have slapped me if I were well. A look of pure anger came into her beautiful features. Her brown eyes were glowing in the candlelight. "We're going to get you a damn doctor," she stated firmly before grabbing Meg and disappearing into the hallway.

"Antoinette." I stopped Madame Giry from following. She turned to me. "If worst comes to worst, protect Christine at all costs. Her well-being comes before mine."

She said nothing but nodded in understanding before gliding out of the room leaving me alone. I of course was nervous for my own health. With the way things were going it didn't seem to look well for me. It seemed like God was up to usual tricks. This one was particularly cruel. He gave me all that I ever wanted…true love, and now it was likely to be torn away from me. I loved Christine, and I knew she loved me too, but as time went on I was slowly seeing our future fading away.

I don't know how much time passed. It had to have been hours, but the fever was getting progressively worse and I was feeling a little delirious. Soon exhaustion took over, and I was forced to fall asleep despite the pain.

I awoke with Christine beside me. No light came through the window telling me it was dark outside. Christine was sitting on the bed beside me stroking my distorted cheek affectionately. She had a weak smile on her face. Her eyes were puffy, and I could tell she'd been crying. She also looked dreadfully tired. Now she seemed to have a strange easiness about her. It made me feel slightly uneasy. There was no reason to feel calm about this situation. "Hi," she greeted lovingly. Her voice was distant, almost like she was in a trance.

"What is it Christine?"

She smiled weakly as the door opened. A strange man came walking in accompanied by Madame Giry to one side and Meg was behind him. He was dressed in a suit that looked like it had been swiftly put on. Not all the buttons were done, and his belt was loose. The most particular thing about his clothing was the black blindfold around his eyes. Madame Giry came and lit every candle in the room. Meg stayed behind the man, almost like he was her prisoner. Christine didn't seem to notice them. She just stared at me lovingly with dreamlike brown eyes.

"You two should leave now," Christine ordered Meg and Madame Giry. "I don't want either of you to be implicated." Madame Giry looked to her daughter and then to Christine. I could tell she wanted to stay, but she knew she had to go for her own sake and for her daughter's.

Christine got up and went to Meg who gave her…a gun. Then Meg and Madame Giry both left the room, closing it and I heard the lock click. Christine went to the man and appeared to be untying something behind him. It was his hands. She then removed his blindfold. He was an older gentleman with a graying beard and a thick mustache. He gasped when he saw me.

Christine handed him a black bag. "Alright, this is your patient…now treat him."

"You can't be serious?" he exclaimed. He had begun to tremble a little.

Christine did not answer, but she held the gun up to him. "Treat him or we'll find a doctor that will. I'll be sure to get rid of all other witnesses though."

He gulped and came over to me. His hands trembled as he helped me to sit up. Touching me, seemed to sicken him. "Oh and if you purposefully hurt him, you'll die," Christine ordered. The coldness in her voice was frightening even to me. She seemed like a mother furiously protecting her child.

The doctor dug inside his bag and brought out tons of little tools. I knew little about medical tools, but from the look of them I knew this was going to hurt dreadfully. He began removing the stitches on my wound. The removal of each stitch sent spikes of pain throughout my body. I was too exhausted to even wince though. I just sat there and took it. He cleaned out my wound in complete silence, but even in my feverish daze I could hear his heavy breathing. Christine remained as silent and still as a statue as he worked. She never seemed to relax her hand; it was always tight around the weapon she held.

"We shouldn't stitch it again until the infection has cleared up some," the doctor announced.

"How long is that going to take?" she asked.

"It depends. It could take days, it could take weeks. The wound has to be regularly cleaned, but his body must fight off the rest," he explained.

"Will he survive?"

"It's a touch and go thing, Miss Daae. Many survive such infections, many do not. I would say pray about it, but I'm not sure God has his ear to… him." He looked at me disdainfully. Had I the energy to move, I would have wanted to strangle him.

Christine scowled at him. Roughly, she placed the blindfold back on him. Then she left the room. The doctor seemed to stop breathing when he was alone with me. Even in my weakened state, I could see that he was trembling. "You're hoping I…I die, aren't you?" I coughed.

"It wouldn't be the worst thing to happen in this world," he replied. He had such courage for one that was so noticeably scared. I had to admire it a bit.

"I guess all of Paris wishes me to die. There is no love for monsters," I replied weakly.

"Monsters do not deserve love," he answered.

A twinge of pain shot through my body. "Uhh…that doesn't stop them from craving it though," I told him before allowing my eyes to close.

Moments later I heard Christine come in and then leave again. I could no longer sense the presence of the doctor in the room. All of Paris thought me a terrible monster. Part of me thought myself a terrible monster still, but would a beauty like Christine love a monster? She saw the goodness in me. She saw the beauty in my heart. I had given her every reason to hate me, but for some reason she loved me. Not only that, she loved me enough to risk it all to save me. To think, a gun was in her sweet, innocent hands. Those beautiful hands should never have to do terrible things, but she chose to do them for me.

I don't know how or when I fell asleep, but I awoke with Christine beside me. She was fast asleep with her hands wrapped around mine. The light of the early morning sun was coming through the window. I still felt feverish, but the good night's rest had helped to take the edge off. Christine looked like a beautiful statue as she slept. Her beautiful brunette hair was strewn about the pillow and over her face. I turned to face her. Pain shot through my body, but I wanted to be closer to her. I grabbed her small waist and brought it closer.

Her sleepy eyes opened a little. "Mmmm," she happily moaned. I held her so close that my face, distortion and all, was resting in her sweet curls. They smelled of roses. She must have taken a bath.

"I'm sorry to wake you," I whispered. "I just wanted to hold you closer."

She smiled. "You're forgiven," she replied. She snuggled even closer to me and soon fell back asleep. I must have as well. Even with the pain in my body, it was too blissful a moment to not relax and drift off to sweet oblivion.

I could hear the crowds cheering from beneath my black shroud. They were sneering at me, happy that I would soon be gone from this world. My hands were bound behind my back; my head was covered with a black bag. All I could see was dim light breaking through the thread of the sack. My body felt weak, defeated. My knees didn't seem to want to go on any more.

"Do you wish to see his face?" I strange voice called to the crowd, enraging them even more.

"Let's see it!"

"Show us!" they chanted.

The darkness and cover the black bag on my head provided was then ripped away. I was standing on a platform facing a crowd of hundreds of people. The whole crowd gasped when they saw my face. One could have heard a pin drop from across the square when all those terrified faces gazed upon my monstrous face. Their eyes were all wide, filled with hate and disgust. I saw the Viscount on the front row of the crowd looking upon me with proud eyes. A sinister smile was on his lips. He had finally won. Then in the middle of the crowd, was Christine. Tears were in her eyes. Madame Giry held her close and Meg was at her side as well. My poor Christine!

A child screamed in terror. "Hang him!" the crowd roared. "Hang the murderer!"

Then I felt a rope being placed around my neck. It was so similar to the way I had taken so many out of this world. I guess it was only fitting that I would meet the same fate. My eyes remained on Christine who was staring at me with sorrowful brown eyes. She looked so lost it broke my heart.

I wanted to cry, but there was a loud noise and then I couldn't breathe. I desperately struggled to find my breath, but something was slowly draining the life from me. All I could think about was Christine , and how I had lost her for good.

"Huhh!" I shot up from where I slept. Ignoring the pain from my shoulder, my hands went to my neck.

"Erik what's wrong?" Christine cried. I was in bed with her beside me. She sat up with me, looking just as panicked as I felt. "Are you ok?"

"A nightmare," I replied. "It was just a nightmare." The words were more for me than for her. It was now daylight outside, and it appeared to be later in the day. I must have been sleeping for quite awhile.

She looked at me with wide eyes. "Seems like one heck of a nightmare."

"I was being hanged," I told her. I heard her skip a breath. "You were crying."

"That was quite a nightmare," she said. She gulped nervously. I knew she was fearful of such a thing actually happening.

My jaw clenched. "Christine, this is all my fault. If I weren't such a fool with such a horrific temper we would not be in this mess."

"What do you mean?"

"You were holding a gun to that man last night. I know you were trying to protect me, but it's me that should be protecting you."

She frowned. "Erik, we protect each other."

"I don't deserve you," I murmured. "You could be with the Viscount right now. You wouldn't have to be holding a man at gunpoint if you were with him."

She kissed my distorted cheek. "But I am not in love with Raoul, I am in love with you." She smiled. "Women do crazy things when they're in love as well." She gently pushed me back down and laid her head on my shoulder. Her eyes gazed up at me lovingly. She was so precious. She always knew what to say to calm me worrying. "Do you feel better?" she inquired after a moment.

Physically I felt a lot better. I could still feel the slight ache in my body that told me I was running a fever, but it was far less severe than it had been previously. Mentally, I felt terrible. I felt like I was putting Christine in far more danger than she deserved. "Erik?" she asked when I did not answer.

"I feel a lot better," I answered finally.

"Good." She got out of bed and put on a robe. "Hopefully in the next day or so you'll be able to come up with plan as to how we're supposed to get out of here."

"You and Madame Giry have no ideas?"

She frowned. "No, Henri has been keeping an eye on the roads in and out of the city to see if the security has relaxed some, but it appears to only be getting worse."

"How has our host been?" I knew Henri was not the biggest fan of mine.

"I've hardly talked to him, but he appears to just want us out of here."

"Did he help with your kidnapping of a doctor?"

"Reluctantly. He took some convincing. I told him that I was doing it with or without his help, but that if I got caught I was telling the police everything including who had helped me. After that, he realized he had no choice."

"Christine, who would have thought you had all this in you?"

She smiled. "I guess I'm not that lost, wandering child anymore."

"No, certainly not."

The next few days passed slowly. I was confined to the bed by Christine's order, and it was an order I didn't dare refuse. She tended to me lovingly and always slept by my side. In only a day's time my fever broke, and in two days time, the gunshot actually began to heal. It still hurt unbelievably bad, but it no longer bled and it was starting to slowly close on its own.

It was now night time. Christine and I were alone in the house. Madame Giry had gone home to take care of some business, and Henri was out scoping the roads once more. He was desperate to have us out of his family's home.

The fire was burning brightly, brilliantly illuminated the room and casting wild shadows of Christine and me as we sat on the couch. I had taken to drawing a portrait of her. She was engrossed in a book and didn't seem to notice that I was using her as a model.

Drawing her was so frustrating now. It was so hard to draw her perfect lips now that I had actually tasted them. Angrily, I threw the paper down. "It's impossible," I announced, annoyed but kind of playful.

Christine looked up from her book curiously. She was eyeing me with those beautiful amber eyes of hers. "What is?" she asked.

I got closer to her and pushed a chocolate curl behind her ear. She smiled as I did so. "Your face is too beautiful to put on paper," I declared.

"You've drawn me before," she replied playfully. She had inched a little closer to me. Gently, she had placed her hand on my leg.

"Well it's different now…"

"How so?"

I touched her sensuous lips. She took a deep breath as I did so. We had not touched each other intimately since our first time. I had been much too sick, but I found myself desperately wanting her now. "Now that I've had perfection, I realize that it's impossible to put on paper." I then kissed her. I put all the need that had been gathering in me into that kiss. It took her breath away. Pinning her underneath me, I kissed her desperately. I was still wearing the mask. She looked ready to pull it off, but the front door suddenly burst open and Henri came storming in.

Swiftly, I leapt away from Christine. I didn't want him to see our intimate moment. He looked to be in a rage, but he also looked terribly scared. "What is it, Henri?" she asked. He was obviously in distress.

"It's Madame Giry. They've arrested her," he announced.

This chapter might seem a little rushed. Just trying to get to the action. Enjoy!