A/N: Part four of six

One of the my reviewers pointed out a couple misspellings on my part. I corrected them for this chapter.

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The Fiddler's Daughter

By Catsitta

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The night before her sixteenth birthday, the nightmares began. Buquet's bloated face and bulging eyes chased her through the dark. He choked, gasped and laughed—the horrible story of the Opera Ghost following her no matter where she turned.

"There is a reason he hides behind a mask. Those who see his face perish, either from fright or at the end of the phantom's Punjab lasso." Christine covered her ears, wishing she could silence his words. "His face can barely be called a face, it is a skull with eyes more like it. Skin like yellowed parchment covers bone and he instead of a nose, there is a hole where one should be. And his eyes, two yellow stars plucked from the night sky, glow like demon eyes in the dark. The phantom dresses like a gentleman, and the white mask covers the atrocity that is his face, but he is a corpse beneath the finery. All skin and bones and the smell of death. You know you're in his presence when you can smell the reek of rotting flesh. Look out for those eyes, that mask and that smell—those are the only warning you will get before the phantom wraps a noose around your neck and snaps it!"

Shrill screams filled her head and Buquet laughed madly.

Unable to run away from or quiet the insanity, Christine thrashed and screamed in agony. Her angel was not a disfigured monster; he was a genius. An eccentric, dangerous genius who created beautiful music.

"He revels in blood! Glories in murder!"

"Leave me alone!"

Christine felt a noose loop around her neck, cutting off all her air supply. It tightened, and tightened, choking out her every effort to scream. Her hands instinctively clawed at the rope, nails fruitlessly biting into the woven cord. Suddenly, her head was snapped back and a gloved hand came to rest between her shoulder blades. Above her, two yellow stars glittered behind a floating mask. The rope cinched tighter. She was dying. Her angel was strangling her.

Amidst the shrieks and Buquet's haunting laughter, the wail of a violin joined in, its whine spiraling higher and higher until it was indistinguishable from the macabre cacophony consuming her. Christine could not withstand it. She just wanted it all to end, to find silence. The mask drifted behind her ear and Erik's beautiful voice crept through the chaos.

"You are mine, my angel. You belong to a monster. No one can save you. I will kill any who try."

The rope drew impossibly tighter around her throat until…

SNAP!

Christine woke gasping, both hands cradling her unbroken neck.

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He came for her before dawn. The sun did not even pink the sky with new light when Erik arrived in the barracks, swathed in his usual black attire and mask. Sleep had evaded Christine since she escaped the nightmare, a mixed blessing given the circumstances. Aware that a single spoken word could wake the other girls sleeping in the uniform cots laid out in rows, separated by only the occasional sheet or paper screen, Christine rose from her bed silently and took her angel's hand without protest. Those yellow stars swept over her nightgown shrouded form, eliciting an involuntary shiver. It was cold underground. Erik never liked her getting chilled.

But instead of demanding she dress in more suitable attire, or even allowing her to slip on shoes, Erik guided Christine to the wall. With a flick of his wrist, it opened, and soon, they were swallowed by the dark. Weak and still shaken by her dreams, Christine stumbled more often than usual, forcing her angel to catch her and eventually, pluck her into his arms. He carried her through the musty spaces between walls, down rickety ladders made of moldering rope and after an endless span of silence, he brought her into the winding labyrinth of tunnels which protected his domain. Without light to guide him, Erik traversed the supposedly trap-laced maze with ease, pausing on occasion to pull a lever or touch a wall.

He was not a big man, tall but frail. Christine could not fathom how he could carry her for so long when he looked like a stiff wind could blow him apart. Yet carry her he did, a surprising degree of strength in those bones. When he placed her in a boat to pole them both across the lake, Christine at last found a crumb of a voice to speak with.

"I had a nightmare," she confessed, as she had many of times as a child. Erik rarely sympathized, often dismissing her fears with a huff, but he listened. He always listened. "I saw Buquet dying again. I heard him telling the tale of the horrible Opera Ghost. It was awful, and the screams…then a rope wrapped around my neck…and I died. You killed me. You said I was yours and then snapped my neck like you did to Buquet."

Tears glimmering in her eyes, Christine stared up at her guardian. The Angel of Music did not speak, nor look her way, but his posture was unnaturally stiff and in the sparse light glittering on the lake from a pair of nearby sconces, she could see his grip on the pole was deathly tight.

"Why did you kill him, Erik?"

Upon hearing his name, Erik placed those yellow stars on her, his gaze piercing.

"I prefer it when you call me Angel," he said, ignoring her question. "Erik is a monster. His name should never cross your lips and it pains me when it does."

"Perhaps the girl who called you Angel has grown up and seen through the façade. You are no angel, monsieur, and I'm not foolish enough to continue a childish fantasy from my youth."

Her response did not please him and to speak it surprised Christine. Never was she bold enough to challenge Erik on his insistence on being called an angel. True, when she was younger, she yelled at him, bickering as a young woman does with her father when she starts to grow up and realizes that he is not without fault. However, it was two years since they lived in harmony beneath the Opera House, surviving off music as she struggled to flourish beneath his crushing demands.

Growing up in the scant company of a genius playing angel and a foreign man who seemed to fear for her health, made Christine a touch out of sorts with the world. She did not understand why people did as they did and how society worked, thus she stayed in the security of the theater, safe in the company of Meg and Madame Giry, quietly listening to the gossip and drifting through the glamor. Then Raoul swept in, dashing, daring and willing to flout the rules, and it rattled her world. He preached about how ladies should act and how every woman needed to make a good marriage, and in the same breath, he made her feel both accepted and alienated in the weird world she grew up apart from.

Raoul offered a chance to become normal.

Erik took it away with a few angry words, a backhanded strike, and a murder. Now he was dragging her back into the dark, Christine his willing victim. He gave her voice, her gave her song, he gave her music…without him, her soul died. But he was poison. Because of him, she was a nervous wreck who stood center stage amongst the gossip mongers who knew she knew Buquet's murderer. Because of him, she could not find a moment's peace or rest, her mind was at war with itself!

Yet here she was, sitting in a narrow wooden gondola, placed there after being carried by him through his domain. A part of her wondered why she did not scream when he arrived to take her away. He was a monster. But her heart knew why. Because for all he was a monster, he was still her angel and master. He commanded her soul with her voice. Without him and his music, she could not survive. For years he saturated her in song until she was addicted and began to wither without it, and was willing to compromise her morals to have it engulf her again.

Just a few more days, Christine swore to herself. After Erik trusted her again and released her, she would be done with him. No more crawling back. It was not healthy. She would heal. A family would fill the gaping wound in her soul when she abandoned music for the sake of living free.

The boat knocked against the shore, candles illuminating the sprawling caverns of Erik's dark world. Instead of assisting Christine from the craft, he thrust himself onto solid ground and stared at her expectantly. Those yellow stars burned with discontent. Feeling uncomfortable beneath his gaze, Christine quickly scrambled ashore, but her feet and the nightgown's hem were soaked in the process, chilling her small body. Erik motioned for her to follow, and like an obedient child, Christine complied, head bowed.

When they reached Christine's bedroom, with its white-and-gilded motif, Erik did not stop at the doorway as she expected. Only on the rarest of occasions did he ever enter her room. Instead, he swept within, awaking candles with a flourish of his cape like a gypsy magician, and came to a pause at the side of the expansive bed. Upon it was an unfamiliar bundle of frothy cloth, which Erik gathered up as if it were a newborn babe, before turning and commanding her closer with a silent jerk of his chin.

Christine was curious and somewhat fearful of what the bundle meant. It appeared to be a dress of some kind, but why would Erik present her with such a grandiose white gown? Weren't white dresses strictly meant for…weddings?

Her eyes widened and she gasped when the realization struck. Frozen, Christine did not react as Erik allowed the voluminous skirts to unfold, each tier falling into place with a slight pull or shake until a beautiful wedding gown appeared. Long lace sleeves dangled from the beaded bodice, complimenting the high-necked lace collar and ruffled underskirts. Pearl buttons gleamed in the candlelight, opalescent and delicate against their nest of white cloth. Even while held aloft and unfastened, it was apparent that the gown was meant to be worn with a very tight corset; the waist tapered tightly before flaring broadly into the hips, giving it a wasp-like shape.

"Erik, why do you have a wedding dress?" Christine asked once she regained her breath.

"I made it," Erik said with a brief, adoring smile at the gown. He held so much affection for his creations, likely due to the fact that art and architecture could not scorn you and did not protest to having a single purpose, to convey the message of the artist. "It was supposed to be my gift to you in a few years, when you were older, more mature. I wanted to see you married in something I made specifically for you. Isn't it beautiful?"

Christine nodded, "Lovely. Like it was taken straight from a fairy tale." She frowned and fidgeted with the sleeve of her nightgown, toes curling into the plush warmth of the sheepskin rug. "Erik, why are you showing me the dress now if you meant it to be a present for when I married? You told me that Raoul wasn't interested in marriage." A statement she was not inclined to believe. Once she left this place again, she would accept Raoul's proposal. The theater would only hamper her healing and drown her with memories. "Is this your way of approving the match?"

All affection fled from those yellow stars. Erik's grip visibly tightened, crinkling the delicate fabric briefly before he relaxed. Those strange, oddly-shaped lips of his twitched, as if he were fighting against speaking his mind, something he never did. Restraint was new. The Angel of Music was infamous for his passions.

"This is Erik's—is my—way of making sure you are taken care of properly. I promised you that dedication to me and music would provide for your every need. These past couple years revealed some areas where I was painfully neglectful and I seek to correct those errors," he said slowly. "You are a young woman who needs companionship and not simply that of other young women. Suitors and offspring linger in your head, put there by both society and biology. I should have known, even monsters feel the need for more than solitude, driven by nature to find like-minded souls to fill that vast space within with light. You are beautiful and talented and there are many men out there who would prey upon your innocence, like that fop."

Erik growled as if the world left a bad taste in his mouth before continuing, "Men who would turn you against me, your angel, your teacher. Men who would suffocate your soul by stripping it of music for the sake a few heirs and pretty trophy in their parlor. I promised to take care of you Christine and I meant in all aspects. You seek a good marriage and children, and I see no reason to refuse these things from you if they are what you desire. Put the dress on, Christine. I have arranged for you a wedding."

"What? You have arranged a marriage? I am sixteen. I do not want to marry a stranger!"

Erik thrust the dress into her arms, "Put the dress on before I lose my patience. You promised to do what I asked in exchange for my trust."

"I did not think you would sell me off as if I were chattel! You're my teacher, not my father, you have no right to do this."

His lips twitched again, "I have every right. You are mine, Christine, to do with as I will. Now. Put. On. The. Dress! I have no qualms against dressing you as if you were a child."

"You wouldn't dare," Christine narrowed her eyes and stepped backwards. Erik reached out with one foot, hooked his ankle around her vanity's stool and pulled it close; after arranging the dress upon it so that it would not wrinkle, he returned his attention to her. Realizing a moment to late he wasn't bluffing, Christine began to scramble for the door, only to have the door slammed shut inches from her nose, Erik's palm an immovable anchor. She lunged to the side and her angel lazily pursed, not exactly giving chase as much as waiting for her to stumble and catching her when her foot tangled with one of the rugs.

He gripped her arm with bruising strength and did not react when Christine began to writhe against his hold. Erik quietly allowed her to pull and struggle, even strike him in her desperate attempt at escape until she buckled from exhaustion, her faced streaked with tears. Why would he do this? He said he loved her; why would he sell her to some stranger man when there was a perfect one waiting above, titled and handsome?

"Are you done making a fool of yourself?" Erik asked. He received a shuddering sob as an answer. "Very well, you forced my hand." Said hand tugged at the ties of her nightgown, revealing the pale flesh of Christine's throat and right shoulder. Christine caught his hand and held it in her pale, quivering one.

"I-I can do this myself."

Erik watched her impassively, his head tilted slight to one side, "You will put on the dress."

"Y-yes. I will p-put on the dress."

"Good girl."

In a flick of his cape and a flash of yellow stars, Erik left Christine alone in the room, clutching a wedding dress and sobbing.

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"You look beautiful, mon petite."

Christine stared at the sad girl in the mirror. The dress was beautiful and her curls were artfully pulled up with a mother-of-pearl comb, but her skin was pallid instead of pale, her lips nearly white and her blue eyes shot with red. The flush of her cheeks was not from rouge but raw, reddened skin, sticky with dried tears. Damp lashes were strikingly dark against her sickly countenance in a doll-like fashion. She was beautiful, as a virgin sacrifice was beautiful when resigned to the altar or the dragon's fire. Sad, frightened and vulnerable—beautiful in her defeat.

"Come along Christine," he bid. His obedient student, slave to his music and voice, Christine followed, aware that her beloved Angel was leading her towards pain once again. Why did she keep letting him hurt her?

It is because I love him, she thought. And he loves me. He loves me enough to kill for me…and I love him enough to let him. He was all I had when Papa died and I was all he had in his eternal solitude. We needed each other. Then I grew up, he let me go…but his love is selfish. I should have known he would not let me leave him for good. Until recently, I desired to return…now…now I understand why he would be afraid, why he would capture me. I wanted to leave. He never meant for me to be free of the Opera, free of his fathering gaze…his haunting, horrible music.

Without touching her, Erik guided Christine through a passageway to the land above, using a different set of passages leading opposite of the lake. After traveling what felt like hours, her now stocking-and- shoe clad feet aching, Erik pulled open a wall, revealing the morning sky. They were somewhere on the outskirts of the city, a horse-and-carriage standing idle nearby.

Jules, the man who drove Christine to the graveyard throughout the years, held the reigns of the carriage horses as well as a rope loosely tied to Cesar, Erik's fickle black stallion. The horse nickered when he spotted Erik, and tossed his elegant head, clearly pleased to his master. Her Angel promptly untied the rope from the stallion, leaving him free of any bondage. Cesar followed Erik by choice and both man and beast hated to be restrained, thus he rode the horse without a saddle or bridle.

As Erik stroked the stallions nose, Jules released the reigns of the horses long enough to open the door of the carriage. Neither the beasts of burden nor the man moved as Christine warily approached. Jules offered a polite nod and a hand when she reached the door, easily guiding her into the carriage despite the bulk of her many skirts. Sitting proved a trial, but there was an extra pair of hands to help: Nadir's.

When the Persian's calloused fingers began plucking and smoothing layers of fabric, Christine jumped a little in surprise, before covering her mouth to silence the resurgence of tears. Jade eyes flickered in the curtained confines of the carriage, paternal and full of pain, like a father watching his daughter weep in distress at the altar. He shushed her and wiped a tear away from Christine's raw cheeks, but she could not hold it in.

She was being married off against her will to a stranger!

"Calm yourself, petite. There is no point in wasting tears."

"I thought he l-loved m-me," Christine sobbed. "H-he would yell and break things, b-but he n-never hurt me until…until H-henry kissed me. Then he hit me, and a-abandoned me f-for a year. R-raoul would n-never do that t-to me."

"The Vicomte? No, he doesn't seem the type of fellow who would do that to a woman," Nadir said in a soothing croon.

"Now E-erik is selling me t-to a stranger. H-he says Raoul is b-bad for me, and d-doesn't love me…but all Erik k-knows is music. All he cares about is m-my voice. If I m-married Raoul, I wouldn't b-be able to sing in the O-opera, and…and…Oh Nadir, what am I t-to do?"

Nadir clenched one hand around a knee, as if doing so would stop his leg from bobbing with the natural tremor of a moving carriage. His tanned face was pale, his lips pressed unnaturally thin. "Erik is unpredictable, in both his moods and actions. What goes on in that mind of his is fathomless and indubitably disturbing," Nadir said. "Defying him is dangerous, especially when he is in this particular mode—no mortal man can change Erik's course without losing his life. Christine, I wish I had acted sooner, taken you away, consequences be damned…perhaps this never would have happened. But I wanted desperately to believe that Erik could be good. I watched him raise you, do his best to mend your wounds, same as he did for his pets in Persia. He never hurt an animal before and he protects his art with jealous devotion, and he seemed to perceive you as something between a pet and a piece of art…but I should have known better, should have remembered what happened to the Palace. He is willing to destroy everything and everyone if only not to have what he loves taken away, including the object of his affections."

"What do you mean?"

"Had I acted sooner, I might have been able to take you someplace safe, freeing you from your fate at the cost of my life alone." Nadir murmured comforting nonsense when Christine let out a despairing wail. "We all die and I have expected to perish at the hands of the Angel of Doom for years. He tolerates me because I spared his life. I protected him because I saw good in him. Now, I find it difficult to see the light which once made me take pity on Erik. He promised never to kill again. He swore it after I tended you that first night, eight years ago. I could see that he wanted to be good; you called him Angel and depended on him for everything, and it made him want to stop hurting people. Then he broke his promise and snuffed the light inside of himself. He is walking on a razor thin edge of sanity right now. The only thing we can do is comply with his wishes or try to kill him, which if we fail at doing, all of Paris will burn."

"NO! No. No. No more death. No more. I want to wake up from this nightmare," Christine said as she clutched Nadir's arm. Perhaps if she closed her eyes and prayed hard enough, her eight-year-old self would wake up in her Papa's arms, the steady thrum of his heart rhythmic against her ear. Helpless, confused, and with her life spiraling out of control—Christine wept.

The tears kept falling until she drifted into a reluctant slumber.

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The carriage stopped. Jules opened the door. Nadir offered his arm.

Quaking from exhaustion, still half-asleep, Christine fumbled for the Persian's arm and weakly allowed him to pick her up like a bedraggled kitten when her knees failed to support her weight. She glanced up at their destination once she regained feeling in her limbs, and struggled not to start crying again. They were on the steps of the church where her Papa was buried. If she were to skirt around the modest chapel, she would find a sprawling lawn of carved wood and chiseled stones confined by a rusting iron fence. A single weeping angel guarded the entrance, its face nearly featureless from the careless caress of time.

She sniffed.

'Papa, I need you. Why did you leave me?'

Nadir guided her towards the church doors.

'I promised my soul to a monster, thinking he was the Angel of Music.'

Christine's head swam as the double doors were opened.

'You promised, Papa. You promised me an Angel.'

Three men stood at the front of the church. One wizened and wearing robes, clearly the priest. One was Jules, who looked somber as he held his hat in gloved hands. The third was the groom, who stood tall and imperious, his back towards her.

No music announced her entrance as Christine dreamed of as a child. No friends or family filled the pews. Early morning light set dancing dust motes aglow and cast a rainbow of shadows through the stained-glass images of biblical scenes. The centermost window portrayed the traditional scene of Madonna and Son sitting upon a wooden throne, both haloed and surrounded by trumpeting angels. Jesus clutched at his mother's breast and gazed down upon those whom visited the church, his face a man's face painted upon an infant's body, his eyes piercing as if alive yet paradoxically vacant of all consciousness.

She stared at the window, praying to God for strength and wishing for a veil to hide her face as tears continued to streak down inflamed cheeks. In silence, Christine begged for her father to do something, to save his little girl. Nadir came to a stop and released her, breaking Christine from her frantic, internal pleading. Fearfully, she glanced up at the groom, wondering whom Erik chose.

Her heart launched into her throat.

Two yellow stars gleamed in the sunlight.

What was going on? Where was his mask? What was wrong with his face? Christine squeaked as she quickly drank in the strange visage of her Angel. It took only a few seconds to realize that the hawkish, yet striking face was another mask—with its high cheekbones, stately nose and arched brows. To a stranger, the flesh-toned creation would look odd but within reasonable standards of normal. Only the strange puffiness of Erik's lower lip and those unmistakable yellow eyes betrayed the identity of the Opera Ghost.

She was used to seeing the emotionless white mask and had come to think of it as his face. It did not occur to her that it was potentially one of many Erik possessed and that his true face lied beneath the stark façade. Why is he wearing a mask at all? she wondered. Outside of the Opera House, no one knows of a man in a white mask. The legend of the ghost lives solely within its walls. Was he a known criminal hiding his identity? Or was wearing a mask simply one of his infinite quirks, one she dismissed so early on that it never tickled her curiosity?

As she stared, the priest began to speak the ceremonial vows in Latin. Christine recalled her lessons in languages and did her best to shake the dust free, but those yellow eyes proved too much of a distraction. Erik, her guardian and teacher, Angel of Music and Angel of Death, denied her a marriage to Raoul in favor of himself. Why? He was like a father to her, a friend and tutor. Their relationship was strained at the best, given his fits of violence, and he never indicated any romantic interest at any point. He rarely touched her! A few embraces, a smattering of hand holding and a pair of bruising encounters did not make for a courtship. Nor did scolding her like a parent or tormenting her with cruel music.

Christine found her tears drying as her thoughts began to swirl and strange things started to make sense. This wedding…it proved the selfishness of Erik's love. No, not quite. It was not love at all. It was obsession. Erik was madly obsessed with her. Love did not hurt. Love did not leave bruises. Love was freedom not chains of control. He claimed his obsession as love…and despite all the hurt, Christine ached for him as a child does for sickly father. Erik wasn't well and if she demanded answers here, in the church, as God laid witness to this farce of a wedding, he would sink deeper into the darkness.

As Nadir warned, he might even kill again.

Unable to stop trembling, Christine shivered as the ceremony droned on, her eyes locked onto those yellow stars. She saw only coldness. Would this angry, icy man demand his husbandly rights? Meg claimed bed play was quite thrilling with the right partner, though how she knew this Christine was not quite certain. If he did claim those rights, would he be cruel or gentle? Perhaps he would ignore her again, leave her to singing songs on stage without touching her. The Opera Ghost and Angel of Music were both infamous for disappearing, never lingering long if he chose to appear. Despite her knowing he was a tangible man, Erik was prone to pretending he was capable of becoming invisible whilst he hid in the walls. Then again, he was upset and when he was disgruntled, Erik tended to act more physical and less divine.

She shook her head to clear it.

The priest droned on.

Erik continued to stare.

After an eternity, he bid the bride and groom to swear themselves to each other. Neither Erik nor Christine hesitated overly long to speak the required words, or make the required actions. When he announced that no man would be able to break asunder what God bound together, Erik reached forwards with one gloved hand to cup Christine's chin. This was when the man and woman kissed. She winced at the thought and Erik yanked his hand back as if scalded with boiling water.

"The papers," Erik said in clipped tones to the priest. The wizened man nodded and motioned for them to follow. Christine stepped hesitantly behind her new husband, who strode across the room like a wild cat on the prowl. The priest fumbled for a bit with some papers on a podium, nearly touching his nose to them as he examined each one, before laying one flat and offering Erik a feather pen. He scribbled onto it with his usual flourish, leaving behind a distorted, childish scrawl where his name belonged. Then he turned and thrust the pen into her hand, "Sign your name."

"What is my name?" Christine asked as she examined his signature. She could see the trace impression of the name Erik, but the surname was lost in an unintelligible muddle.

"Christine Daaé."

"But…"

"Sign the paper, Christine."

Feeling the tears return, Christine signed her soul over to the devil.

tbc

A/N: Thanks for reading! Review please!