Christine disappeared so thoroughly into her mind that she had no memory of purchasing the train ticket, boarding the compartment, and arriving at Perros that same evening. As she walked among the villagers through the winter fog, she felt as if she were floating above her physical self, watching impassively as she bumped and swayed into perplexed villagers heading home for the night.
She kept hearing a violin. She followed its tune.
She wasn't Christine Daae right now. She was Little Lotte, outwardly meek and quiet while inside yearning for glory. For an Angel.
She made her way down the streets, down the beach, toward the lonely cemetery at the top of the hill, where the Korrigans might be dancing even now.
Her hands were shaking.
She'd prayed...oh, she had prayed so hard for the Angel to come to her. That far off day over a year ago, when she stood in her dressing room and first heard his voice, happiness cascaded into her soul like a wave too large. And she'd laughed, and she'd cried.
The moment she heard that heavenly voice, it was as if her father was winking mischievously at her again. "What, you silly girl, did you think your papa would not keep his word?" She could almost hear him say. "It's all right now, so don't you worry. I'd never leave you, my girl."
Yes, her father promised her an angel. An Angel of Music.
At last Christine's methodical steps halted at the black gate. With a mask of indifference that covered a soul howling with regret and confusion, she stared into the graveyard. Very slowly she opened the gates.
Her father promised her...
As she approached her father's crypt, Christine tried saying goodbye. She tried.
Her gloved fingers trembled as she traced the name engraved on the sculpture of an angel in mourning: GUSTAV DAAE. So cold, so monumental...how dismally opposite of everything he'd been in life. She could have at least brought flowers, anything alive and colorful. He deserved nothing less.
Tears started in her eyes.
Then the violin that was in her mind was suddenly playing truly.
And just as in her dream, he was there.
Her father was standing on top of the cold stone angel, playing the violin.
Wearing a mask, staring at her devotedly with one brown eye and one ice-blue.
Her dream...
Her father...
Her Angel...?
"Have you forgotten your Angel?" He asked in the sweetest, most ethereal voice. Those mismatched eyes never left hers. He was grace incarnate. He was unearthly.
Tears coursed down her face. Never had guilt pummeled her heart so. Had she betrayed her Angel...her father...?
"I...I just want to feel the way I did!" She keened desperately, her own dark eyes pleading with his. "I want to feel like it's not all...all..."
"Shhhhhh..." The Angel assured her. He was now playing Lazarus, the tune her father had played for weeks on end after her mother's death.
"Come to me."
She stepped toward him.
Her heart skipped to the chords his bow plucked on the violin. She was his violin, his instrument. "Come to me..."
She was very near him now.
Vaguely she was aware a bright, strong figure was suddenly present at the corner of her vision. She wanted to see that figure more clearly, but the Angel was singing in that divine voice – not warm like her father's, but spiritual, all-knowing...
She heard that other voice speak: "Whatever you may think, whatever you may believe, this...thing is not your father! Let her go, for God's sake!"
The man's hands gripped her arms and they were warm, vital. Christine's head was still too clouded with the Angel's soft song, but the pressure of the hands on her made the image of the Angel shake and blur.
"Let her go! Christine! Christine!"
The life, the desperation, and the love in that cry made her bolt to earth. She blinked once and then turned.
Raoul was staring at her with strength, fury, and an all-encompassing love. The icy spell of the Phantom vanished. She felt warm again, alive.
"Oh, Raoul!"
She threw her arms around his neck.
And suddenly that angelic voice atop her father's resting place turned into a snake's venomous hiss. "Bravo, monsieur! Such spirited words!"
Christine hesitantly turned around and almost screamed. That heavenly image of her father was transformed into a scene from hell. The violin was gone – had it ever truly been there...? – and the Phantom now held a staff with a ghoulishly theatrical death's head atop it.
His eyes that had been so mystical, so ethereal moments before were ablaze now like a demon's. The thick smear of his disfigured upper lip snarled leeringly.
From the staff's skull mouth flew out an orange flame, just missing the pair from where they stood on the lightly snow-caked ground.
Christine did scream then, but her true terror came when the Phantom succeeded in goading Raoul, who advanced. "More tricks? More deception?" The vicomte's face was that of a lion about to pounce, fists clenched at his sides.
The Phantom only cackled, releasing another flame. "Come on, come on, Monsieur! That's it! Don't be shy!"
Frenzied frustration seized Christine. Why couldn't Raoul see this was just what the Phantom wanted? "You can't win her love by making her your prisoner!" Raoul cried.
He was but a few feet away from where the Phantom hovered. The two of them were at last face to face, nothing between them but a stone angel and a pike full of fire. Christine saw the specter's pale half-face curl into a self-satisfied grin as he raised the staff once more...
She snapped. "Raoul, come back!" Just as Raoul's words had brought her back to sanity just moments before, he too started as her hand eagerly grabbed his arm. He staggered backward. His eyes met hers with a rueful understanding.
He nodded. He put his arm around her shoulders, tightly, tightly. Yet she was the one who led them toward the exit.
"Don't go!" They couldn't see the Phantom's wretched expression as they hurried away, but they heard the fury broiling in his voice. "So be it! Now let it be war upon you both!"
The sky was very dark now. The brougham glided away from the coastal town, carrying Raoul and Christine far from the Phantom's threats and back to Paris.
They held hands silently for a long time. Life and sense were coming back to Christine by degrees.
Raoul watched in relief as the expressionless pallor left her face and was replaced with color, with a look of pensive awareness.
With a sigh she laid her head on his shoulder. "Raoul," she whispered. She squeezed his hand. "Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for being my hero once again."
He pulled her in tighter. "Nonsense. You are my hero. You're the one who got through my fat head and pulled me away. Otherwise..."
"Let's not think about it," Christine interrupted quickly.
They sat quietly for a few minutes more, listening to the rhythmic turning of the carriage's wheels down the road and watching the dark purple glow of the night sky as the horizon rolled past the window.
"I was so weak," Christine said at last in a small voice. "I...I'm sorry, Raoul. I almost went back."
He closed his eyes. "It wasn't you, Christine. It was him. His power over you."
"I'm so sick of this!" She suddenly barked out, fists clenched in Raoul's lap. "So sick of never being in control! I almost wish it had been of my own volition, simply because at least it would mean I was making my own decisions for a change!" Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd said. "Raoul...I didn't mean that."
"Do you feel like I make your decisions for you, Christine?" His voice was soft.
She lowered her head to her chest. He tilted her chin up to stare into her eyes. "Christine?"
She fidgeted for a moment. Then she smiled sadly. "No. Not...not really."
"But?"
She drew in a breath. "I...I know intellectually that you're right, that your plan to catch him is our best chance at freedom. But..."
"But you're frightened?"
"It's more than that." The words poured out of her. "Despite everything he's done, to me, to Buquet, to that old woman in the audience, to everyone else, I...he gave me my life back, Raoul!" Her brown eyes stared pleadingly at him, begging him to understand. "At least he returned my voice to me, which always was my life, before father's death...well, you and father were my life, too, of course." She buried her head deeper into the crook of his neck. He smelled like spice and snow.
Very quietly she continued. "I guess there is a small part of me that wants more control, that wants to be the one to decide how to...rid myself of him. I'm sorry."
"Darling, stop apologizing!" Raoul said, rocking her in his arms. "You've done no wrong. Hell, I should have been more sensitive to all this. I've been taking it for granted that my anger at the man is yours, too. I just want you to know that everything he's done for you he's done for himself. To try to win you."
She nodded dumbly. It twisted something in Raoul. "Ah, there I go again. Don't think me unfeeling to his plight, Christine. The man's been through hell, no doubt. But under no circumstance will I let him destroy your life just to earn himself some hollow semblance of happiness."
His eyes were sharp and determined, staring ahead at his absent enemy.
Christine studied his face and felt crushed first by love and then by a new anxiety. "Oh, Raoul! I fear that I will destroy your life for that same happiness!"
He blinked, coming back to earth. He was confused. "What's that?"
She was so pale. "Raoul, I'm worried about what will happen to you if all goes as planned and we marry, and..."
"And?"
"And your family shuns you." Before he could say anything, she added, "Oh, I know you say you don't care about that, but you might feel differently once it happens!"
He chuckled. "Ah, that! No fear, mademoiselle. Laverne and I hashed it all out this morning."
She sat up surprised. "You did?"
He stroked her hair fondly. "And yes, it happened as you predicted. A big blow-up and a threat to disinherit me."
Her crestfallen look contrasted with his cheerful nonchalance. "Can she really do that?"
Raoul shrugged, seemingly more preoccupied with running his fingers through her curling tendrils than the matter of his familial future. "Philippe did set her up as head of the estate. However, I could have taken over once I came of age, seeing as I'm the 'man of the house', and all," he said contemptuously. "But frankly, I never bothered. I've never much cared for the idea of looking after the estate, and Laverne's always been so good at it I never saw the need to." He contemplated the matter for a moment. "I suppose I could claim the estate if I wanted and just risk losing Laverne's glowing affection," he said sarcastically. "At the end of the day, I'll probably just get a proper, old-fashioned shunning from the de Chagny clan. Although Laverne is a determined one. I've no doubt that if she put her mind to it, she could succeed in wrestling my inheritance away."
A fond, speculative look came into his eyes as he tilted his head. "And I might just let her, too."
Christine started at him seriously. "Now, Raoul. I know you have notions about living the rustic, working man's life. But I'm an orphan forced to depend on others, so please believe me: it's not exactly a romantic way to live."
"Oh, I know, I know. But dammit, maybe this is a sign I should make my own way, join the rest of the human race instead of lounging about somewhere in between."
Christine smoothed his jacket sleeve. "How did you become so...so...oh, I don't know..."
"Foolhardy?"
"Well, that," she agreed jestingly. "But what I mean is...how did the young Vicomte de Chagny, born to a life of privilege, become so obsessed with the working classes?"
Raoul smiled somewhat wistfully. "I loved Philippe. Truly, I did. And I am fond of Roberte, and even Laverne in my own way. But," he sighed. "But they were so typical of their class that I never truly felt we were a family in the sense of...well, in the sense of you and your father, for instance. There was a layer of hypocrisy over everything...I was expected to recite all the correct formalities, behave within certain lines and look down at the people who didn't belong in those lines. Meanwhile, Philippe consorted with these very people and the next day he'd coldly read the paper and pass judgment on the revolutionaries as if they were the immoral ones." He shook his head, still mystified after all these years. "I was left to my own devices a lot of the time, and took to reading. Les Miserables, Olympe de Gouges, Georges Danton ...When I compared what I read to what I saw in real life, to my own family, it was easy to choose how I wanted to live."
Christine's eyes were swimming. "And are you sure...over everything your family offers you...you choose me?"
His smile was the sun. "Yes."
Raoul's heart surged when he saw her face alight with happiness, emerging from the gloom that had hampered it before. "Then, my love, I choose you as well! With all my heart! I'm decided now. Truly this time. I will play in Don Juan."
They kissed.
The trauma and horror from the graveyard transformed now into a deep understanding that would ground them throughout their lives together.
This feeling of union lasted them even when they arrived in Paris, and the police Raoul had wired to see if they could catch the Phantom coming back turned up with no sign of him.
It was only alone, at night, that Christine stared awake in terror. She felt sure that the dark angel's claws would reach up and devour her happiness from wherever he hid.
She heard his voice again in her dreams that night.
A/N: Poor Christine.
Many thanks to Wild Concerto. She pointed out that Laverne probably wouldn't have that much control over Raoul's inheritance, and also encouraged me to explore more deeply how Christine feels tied to Erik. My plan was to add that in here anyway, but I don't know if I would have given it as much attention if Concerto hadn't pointed out the importance.
Again, future updates may be sporadic thanks to work and other intrusive real life things. But more chapters are coming, I swear!