Christine Daae was a little bit odd. She knew this, a lot of people thought this to themselves and this was true. She wasn't weird or a 'freak,' she was just kind of eccentric. "Out there" was actually the best way to describe it.
Christine lived with her mother in a small apartment. They didn't have that much money and didn't have a TV. Instead, they each had a laptop with Netflix installed in it, which actually ended up being the more affordable option. It didn't matter to Christine either way, because she preferred the internet anyway.
She didn't have a Facebook or a Twitter, but she did text. Christine wasn't a complete oddball and despite her quirks she was still considered herself popular. What made her most strange in the eyes of her classmates was probably her love of the arts. Yes, she appreciated a ballet and a da Vinci painting, but her true passion was opera.
A lot of people thought it was just bizarre. What seventeen-year-old girl would ever have any interest in opera? Even Christine accepted that it wasn't a normal interest, not when pop and rap dominated the radio. However, classical music felt like the only connection she had left with her late father, the famous, Swedish violinist, Gustav Daae. And she was good at it. If there was only one thing she was any good at all, it was music. Singing, actually.
Christine was an okay dancer, she had been playing piano for years and she always made honor roll, but singing was the only thing that she was passionate for. Singing made her happy. In fact, when she wasn't singing, Christine was most likely day dreaming about it. She sang all day, even around her friends when they were suppose to be doing something like homework. As her friend Meg often said; it was kind of like being best friends with Snow White.
Her mother probably recognized her dreams of one day playing Madame Butterfly or Princess Turnadot most of all. Her daughter would locker herself up in her room for hours at a time singing. But she wouldn't sing songs, she just sang scales, nothing but specific notes that never formed into lyrics. And, as far as Mrs. Daae knew, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday after church, Christine would take private singing lessons with one of the musicians within their church, who oddly enough, never requested money.
The one who picked on her most about her singing was probably Raoul. He was the perfect example of a gentleman, though, and his teasing was in good spirit. Raoul Chagny had been best friends with Christine since they were four years old after meeting in kindergarten.
He was also her acting chauffeur, because she didn't have a car.
In fact, she was waiting for Raoul that very night. It was a Tuesday, which was when she had choir practice at her church, the Congregational Church of Alfred. She was passionate about that particular choir, she was the only teenager that was involved and the whole of the group was mostly made up of retired people. However, any chance she took to be in a singing group worked for her. Besides, the choir director, Ginger Deerfield, was a much better musician than her school's music teacher, Mrs. Guidicelli.
After practice, she found herself waiting outside on the church's bench for Raoul in the dark. A few of the choir members passed by her and offered to give her a ride home. However, she refused, because Raoul was coming. She knew it. Time passed, and Christine considered texting him, but didn't want to sound ungrateful or impatient. Oh, whatever, she thought. It was just Raoul.
Christine opened her phone to see a text from her friend, which actually had been sent a long time ago.
Sorry cant pick u up tonight.
She sighed, Christine's mother wouldn't be getting off from her late shift for another hour. It wouldn't do for her to stay outside and freeze, so she decided to walk into the now empty church. Even Ginger had already left.
"Waiting for someone?" a voice muttered into her ear. She jumped back at the noise that broke what was once sheer silence. Christine turned around to see a long and skinny figure complete with a mask that covered half of it's face and a black cape. To anyone else, it would have been a terrifying sight, but Christine breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh, Erik, it's only you," she said, and even noticed a slight smile on the angel's face.
"I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's fine," Christine insisted. At first, the sight of Erik did terrify her, he was not the typical picture of an angel. But, he was an angel. That was one thing Christine was absolutely positive about. There was no way this creature that dwelled in the basement of her ancient church was not an angel, and not just an angel, the Angel of Music.
Anyone would laugh at her child-like stories if she told them about her angel and dismiss her as insane. So, that was why she refused to tell anyone. No one on earth knew about the Angel of Music, the title character of her father's old fairy tales that would sing a little girl named Lotte to sleep. No one but Christine had ever heard the story, so it wasn't just someone pretending.
He had taught her the music of heaven, for he knew all of it. Erik could play any instrument that was located in his small home in the church's underground. He could play Bach's first cello suite with ease and could counter it with Tchaikovsky's famous piano concerto that made Christine's hands feel tired just watching him. The Angel of Music had taught her how to sing and the improvement she had shown in just weeks was phenomenal. She had been hitting notes she could never have imagined singing before. After a life time of believing she was a mezzo-soprano with a higher range, it was Erik that had assured her that she was a light-coloratura soprano.
"Doesn't your boyfriend usually pick you up after practice?" Erik questioned. His voice was usually monotonous, but there was a notion of bitterness at the word 'boyfriend.' Christine didn't pick up on it.
"Raoul had something tonight, so I'm stuck here for an hour," she explained, "And he isn't my boyfriend," she added, careful not to sound annoyed. She didn't want to offend the Angel of Music, in fact, that was the last person she wanted to make angry.
"I would hate to have you sit alone out here, then, should we go downstairs?"
Downstairs, of course, meant his home. Christine nodded and allowed him to lead her down below the ground to his home.
Home wasn't really the right word for where the angel lived. It made Christine wonder how something so divine could live there. He helped her down the winding stairs that started under a secret door on the lowest floor of the church. They continue to walk down. While Erik had been Christine's teacher for a year, the rats that infested the stairs still scared her. She jumped at the sight of a particularly large one and he reached out to steady her.
Erik's house was made up of one large room that doubled as a living room and a place to eat. There were two rooms branching off of it; one that was his bedroom and the other which was a room filled with instruments.
It was one of Christine's favorite places in the world. The room, which she called Erik's Music Room, was a bit messy. Sheets of self-composed music and music from others were scattered, some were carelessly thrown on the floor while others were very carefully preserved. It was filled with different instruments, including a baby grand piano, a violin, a cello, a viola, a trumpet, an old fashioned guitar and a little keyboard which was colored in with pink permanent marker. It was the instrument Erik and Christine used when working on voice. The pink represented her range, an F sharp below Middle C and an E above high C. It was a bit of a overstatement. She could sing up to the high E, but it sounded very squeaky and not pretty at all. She could sing an F below C, but she sounded like a man whenever she strained to reach it.
However, there wasn't going to be a lesson that night. She was too tired, especially after a full day of school. Erik motioned for her to sit on the small couch that he had put into the music room once she began taking lessons. He left the room and quickly returned with two cups of tea. In truth, Erik didn't have much food to offer her, but she graciously took the tea regardless.
"Today was your first day, wasn't it?" he questioned her, but Erik knew the answer was yes.
"Yeah, it went well. My French doesn't seem that great this year, but whatever."
There was an awkward pause. Christine played with her skirt, smoothing it out and twisting it between her fingers. Erik stood, watching her, feeling extremely pressured to break the silence. There was always something to talk about when they were singing.
"And... your friends, are they well?" Erik muttered, not looking at her, "Meg Giry... and everyone..."
"Yes, I met a new girl today, she was nice," Christine said, trying to talk as long as she possibly could to avoid another period of silence, "I listened to some Renata Tebaldi today, she's very good."
"Tebaldi is one of the best, you should listen to her," Erik encouraged, his monotone never failing him. With some hesitation, he offered to play the organ upstairs in the church for Christine, who enthusiastically followed him.
He sat down, beginning to play Toccata and Fugue on the church's grand organ that echoed through the silent room. Christine watched in wonder for a while, but the song was so long and she eventually found herself drifting off to sleep, falling onto her angel's shoulder. He hadn't even noticed she was laying against him, fast asleep, until he had finished the page.
About forty-five minutes later, Christine awoke at the sound of her mother calling to tell her that she was outside. She quickly said goodbye to Erik and hurried down the stairs of the church to meet her mother in the parking lot. Christine remembered- with a pang of annoyance- that it was a school night.
Thanks for reading everybody! I absolutely love all of the reviews I'm getting, a big thank you to all of my amazing reviewers! Just as a note, someone mentioned that Eponine had more siblings then just Gavroche, but I've decided that I'm going to go strictly by the musical rules for both stories just to make it simple. I actually love both books (I'm a huge Victor Hugo fan), but it just makes things easier for me. So, it's just Eponine and Gavroche, because Azelma and the two younger brothers aren't mentioned in the musical. Also, people also complained about Phantom being included in this, but I love both musicals so I'm writing about all the characters. I mean, if you really hate Phantom, you could just skip those chapters...
Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope I didn't mess up Christine and Erik too much. They're both pretty hard to write and I had to change around their stories a bit (and I brought Christine's mother back to life to make things simpler, sorry). So don't be afraid to call me out if one of the characters are terribly OCC!