After her first kiss with Raoul, Christine thought to herself in a haze that it hadn't mattered if there was one person watching or one hundred. Everything and everyone vanished. All she had or would ever need was this rooftop, and Raoul, always beside her.
Raoul felt that the years he'd lived without Christine were worthless, nothing. How could there be anything but her?
The timorous fear that made her almost incoherent just minutes before was gone, and he stared not at a horrified child, but at a woman. A happy woman.
She'd told him as much as she could – even now he wasn't sure what she spoke of was real, of if the trauma of whatever she'd endured shocked her into a morbid fantasy. He knew nothing more than he would suffer any pain, any hardship, so that he could give her his strength.
"Christine, I love you."
They stood in the cool night, an immense gargoyle with wings their guardian. Raoul looked at her. In the moonlight she was a multi-colored diamond. Her mint-green cloak covered the pale blue and pink pleated skirts of her modified costume.
She was unreal – some dark and misty fairytale from his youth he couldn't quite recall.
The heat from her frail arms as he gripped them comforted him that she was in fact solid, there.
All the while, she wondered how two blue eyes could gleam so bright in the dark. She forgot about who she suspected lurked behind the gargoyle.
A mischievous smile lit up her face, dark eyes dancing. "Order your fine horses, be with them at the door," she said grandly, giddily imitating Guinevere, with he as Arthur.
She whispered plans into his ears: we'll go to the country, stay at the Valerius estate in Perros where Mamma's spinster sister now lives and can serve as chaperone.
Perros again. Just the two of them.
Raoul smiled. Already she was sounding more sure, the husky note in her voice containing a wild, confident fire. "To think, in just a few hours' time you'll be mine, all mine," he replied.
"Side by side, my love." She kissed him again.
Her cloak billowed as the strong night breeze blew through it. This brought them back to earth. A protective arm wrapped around her shoulders, Raoul escorted her off the roof. The young lovers took turns giggling like schoolchildren sneaking away from their governess and leaning into each other's sides passionately, until they disappeared down the roof steps back into the theater.
Erik imagined he could hear their echoed words, their plans of love, floating back up to taunt him.
He felt like he was down a dark, endless tunnel, watching the only ray of light, the only hope for escape dwindling away in the distance. Away from him, away.
Leaving him with nothing but a gaping wound bleeding out.
He stood shaking and swaying from where he still perched behind the gargoyle's head. His cape shrouded his shoulders like a bat about to plunge down to the earth.
He gave her his music. Made her song take flight.
He did these things. He.
Not him.
Erik recalled with sickening detail how warm the viscount's voice was – in comparison to his own icy and imperious tones, which must have frightened and repulsed her when he lunged at her with his ghoulish face revealed.
He recalled the viscount's gentle hands on her forearms, probably just as warm as the young man's voice – and Erik's, cold as death.
Oh, mad Christine, to fall in love with a warm voice and a pair of hands, and a handsome face alone!
This is what he desperately told himself: it was the handsome face and the warm facade she loved, not the man.
But somewhere, some rare genuine nugget buried beneath the theatrical madness, told Erik the truth.
She loved the man. And she did not love Erik.
It was this truth that broke him as he sat atop the gargoyle that night.
For the first time in years, Erik wept.
"Christine...Christine..."
He did not once wonder if the same shallowness he assigned to Christine dwelt in him as well, and that it was he, and not she, who loved a figment.
Betrayal coupled with heartbreak and - though he would deny anything so petty - injured dignity suddenly turned his burning tears to uncontrolled rage.
You will curse the day you did not do all that the Phantom asked of you!
Meg panted as she stood in line for curtain call. So many costume changes, so many shifts in program, so many nightmares come to life under blazing hot lights! The audience that remained after the Buquet fiasco seemed stunned by the night's events, and clapped perfunctorily instead of with true joy, unlike after Christine's debut in Hannibal.
Christine herself had exceeded Meg's expectations – oh, Meg knew Christine could play the countess admirably, but she'd truly sparkled once she took her place in the leading role that night.
Some true joy flashed in Christine's face, her actions adorable and minx-like. Her voice was more carefree and joyous than a trilling songbird's. Her cheeks flushed beneath her powdered makeup.
Meg noticed that as Christine commanded the stage throughout the performance, the singer would dart a few conspiratorial glances in the direction of Box Five. There the handsome young man sat, gazing at her as though she was the only sign of water in a vast, scorching desert.
Despite tear tracks still evident in the makeup on Meg's own face from the terror she felt after Buquet's death, the ballerina couldn't help feeling a small thrill as she surmised the understanding Christine and the viscount had come to after the disaster.
Still, even Christine's prodigious performance was not enough to truly inflame the cautious audience. In truth, there was something mildly unsettling and incongruous to Christine's whimsical performance after the macabre interruption two acts before.
The rest of the players were just as tense as the audience, bowing mechanically, eying the theater uneasily.
This will all be over soon, Meg thought.
Then the chandelier began to sway.
Meg slowly lifted her head. She couldn't breathe.
She saw his bat-like outline far above. He was again in the rafters, just obscured by the rollicking fixture. She heard his laugh: loud, mad, despairing.
The chandelier teetered like a ship cast from wave to wave in a storm.
A clutter of panicked rising voices, shifting hurriedly from their seats. The company frozen solid onstage. Christine's face, a moment before so bright and rosy, dead white now, stricken.
A bellow from the specter above: "GO!"
There was a split second of eerie silence as the chandelier detached from its chain.
Then a chaos of screams as it fell to the earth, its crystals flying upward like a swan's wings.
Pandemonium reigned supreme.
A few hours before sunlight, Madame Giry entered Box Five.
The pandemonium was cleared.
She stared down into the seats. The ruin of the chandelier lay under the immense cover the officers from the Sûreté had managed to throw over it. Sawdust and detached crystals coated the entire house regardless. She could see the splintered wood of the broken seats peeking beneath the cover.
Three were injured, one dead.
She'd sent Meg home to spend the night with Christine. The singer had collapsed to her knees the moment the chandelier landed, her deep moan as pervasive and despairing as those crushed beneath the fixture.
Raoul had seen the two girls to his carriage. His face was tight and anxious. He seemed more like a general than a rich young nobleman, his movements strong and confident. He'd spoken in a low and sober voice to the policemen, asking pointed questions about what security measures they planned to take. Yet all the time, Giry could plainly see the concern and heartbreak for Christine staring out of his expressive eyes.
He exchanged one understanding glance with Meg as the two helped situate the passive and delirious girl into a comfortable position in the coach. Meg would watch over Christine tonight, taking over for Madame Valerius, who'd suffered a relapse from overextending herself when Christine returned.
Madame Giry secretly hated to part with Meg after such a night, but she made no complaint. She couldn't deny Christine Daae the right to a true friend with the weight of the world – in the form of that ornate and massive light fixture – at her feet.
The managers had looked as stunned as Christine, nodding dumbly to the sergeant asking them pressing questions. They automatically put on a good show for the remaining audience members, offering stilted condolences and assurances as the patrons flurried about, the ladies crying and fanning themselves.
But now – now – now that the space was cleared and the company finally at rest for what remained of the night – now it was only Madame Giry standing in Box Five.
Her lips were pursed, her eyes hard and unyielding.
She stepped to a panel situated behind a pillar. She felt for the latch, then pushed down and slid it open.
Inside was a long silk bell-pull. She yanked it harshly.
If Erik was in his lair, it would take him about twenty minutes to arrive.
Still as a statue of an angry god, Giry waited.
A full hour passed.
"Erik," she called out in a clear, resounding voice. Had there been chance witnesses around, they would have jumped at the commanding bark emitted suddenly from that still form and empty face.
If Erik was not in his lair, calling his name was usually the tactic to take. Erik seemed to always hear when his name was spoken. How, even Madame Giry did not know.
Forty-five minutes passed. She called again.
She waited only twenty-five minutes more. A miniscule amount of animation crept into her features. Her eyes scanned the area thoughtfully.
Several reasons could be in play as to why he did not appear. Maybe for the first time he was in an area of the theater where he could not hear her. Maybe after tonight, he was brooding especially hard – or perhaps consumed with guilt – and chose not to acknowledge her.
But...
But hope can stir even in the most world-weary individual.
Something about the stillness, the emptiness – not just the physical emptiness, but the lack of presence – made Giry wonder wildly –
Christine did not love him. Certainly he knew that by now. And now he had perhaps tarnished his opera house's reputation forever, killed two people.
What if that was his climax, his grand adieu?
What if...
What if Erik was gone?
Vanished, left?
She waited a few minutes more, breathing shallowly.
Emptiness. Still, quiet, peaceful emptiness.
For the first time in years, hope dawned in Anahid.