Chapter 3: Why can't the Past Just die?

Christine's POV

It's close to Christmas and two days before my wedding to Raoul-or rather the time I was supposed to marry Raoul. Is it normal to feel like this on the eve before Christmas when one is to marry one's sweetheart? Lord knows I should be leaping for joy and dreaming of our perfect life together. I should be lying awake in his strong arms daydreaming about myself dressed in finery perfect family unable to sleep from excitement and yet I am not. Instead I am walking along the dark of the Paris Opera my fiancé's arms and home so far behind me now that when I look back all I can see are blackened remains of the once gothic building. I tried not to think too much as I walk on and on into the wreckage shaking like a leaf. My body is aching not in anticipation of the customary consummation of wedding- as it should be.

I am trembling with fear at the thought of what I was doing. I pictured Raoul in the morning, looking for me and the image made me miserable. Him running around the mansion calling for me, his driver telling him that I had left late last night and returned to the opera. He giving the man a small smile assuming that I have gone back to visit Madame Giry and Meg and later remembering that they had left after that terrible fire. He would then go after me and to find me with Erik would surely kill him for as he said that night, 'say you love him and my life is over.'

The thought that either way I was hurting one man or the other was a bitter pill to swallow but one I had to take. Kind of like that medicine that was given to ease the pain but only served to make it worse. But then it was the kind of drug that was addictive that one cannot quit for the high it gives you. A drug so strong that one hit will never satisfy you, that the pain didn't matter as long as you got your fix. My drug was the love of a man so evil that if he were to die the jaws of hell would open wide, but a man so in love with me that he would do anything for me.

I did not want to think anymore so I closed my mind and listened to the sounds of the night. It seemed that being an opera singer had heightened my sense of hearing. I could hear the sounds of a woman screaming loudly. Not in pain but in pleasure and I winced at the way her voice made an ear-splitting screech. It seemed that my time with Erik had made my hearing sensitive too and noises like screeching really hurt them. I gagged at the sound hating that someone was reviling the place with their wantonness and I only hoped they were not in my dressing room. I prayed they were not pressed up against the mirror that would lead me to Erik for surely he would hear it too. My angel was such a gentleman and did not need to hear such sinful things.

A yawn tore at me… my eyes as of right now were itchy and want to close up all on their own but I can't let them. No matter how tired I am my thoughts are frightened. My appearance reflects it too, eyes bloodshot from a lack of sleep from unpleasant dreams. I half-don't want to end, because then my time with my angel would have to end completely. I feel sick, my head pounds from tiredness but I must get to Erik or god knows what will happen. The man has always been cursed with horrible health. His depression surely did not help things at all and the longer I was gone the worse it would get.

The worse fear for me is that he shall catch a chill that could lead me to my death, pneumonia to freeze me to death or worse tuberculosis like my papa. I cringed as my eyes recalled the pail, withered form of Daddy Daaë as he lay on his bed at the hospice of St. Vincent de Paul. Lying on his back and coughing and choking back the sick-fluid as he tried not to vomit dying slowly as he did with blood coming from my mouth in ribbons mingled with great gobs of yellow-green mucus. I remember vividly the sight of him, that horrible day when my world came crashing do.

He was covered in nothing but a thread-bare blanket, little more than a rag, covered in holes and the trade-mark 'poor man's patch'. A patch made of nothing but outgrown trousers or faded dresses, but it was all we had. He had nothing else to bring with him save for an old picture of mother and his violin on which, I would play him lullabies. My skills at the instrument were as well as that of a cat learning to tap-dance but he smiled at me anyway and pretended to be asleep when I had finished.

Flashback:

The doctor was kind to my father but did not take to me much. He was just one of those men who did not like children. Always barking at me to get out of his way and often called me a pest. Daddy would try to chastise him for treating me that but he just didn't have the energy. Daddy would look at me with at me with his sad blue eyes just like my own, and wince in apology. Then more often than not the doctor would pull me away from him. He did not care that I cried for my papa, he would force me to go outside in the hallway and I would sit there listening to him cough. Tears leaking from my eyes as the doctor walked out of the room with a grim expression darkening his already sour face.

I tugged at his sleeve three times before he turned to me. "What do you want girl, can't you see that I'm busy?" he snapped.

His green eyes frightened me, they seemed to look right through me and chills ran down my spine. They seemed to see-through my body to my very soul. They seemed to find some unknown evil inside of me, looking at me with the piercing eyes of a green-eyed monster. I wanted to run from him as fast as I could, but then I also wanted to see my father. I knew that this would be the last time because even at the tender age of seven I could feel that dreaded urgency filling the air. I was trembling with fear of the doctor, goose bumps causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

Still I met his eyes squarely asking, "Can I go back to my papa now?"

Thankfully I was so innocent and adorable according to my father that even the doctor gave me a stiff nod of his scruffy head. "Yes, but only for a moment do you understand?"

I nodded and ran into the freezing room, my father was snoring through his nose and he looked so sick. His breathing was shallow and I knew it was close to the end when I came to his bed and gripped his already stiffening hand. He seemed to have felt my touch for he did his best to hold my hand in return. The very movement exhausted him and though I tried to smile at his sleeping face, my heart was slowly breaking. He wheezed when I kissed his sweaty brow, he opened his feverish eyes and raised a heavy hand to cup my cheek.

Seeing daddy like that made my eyes water and I laid my head on my knees trying to be quiet so I didn't wake him. His skin was white, so white he might have been a ghost and his dark hair was limp and stuck to his forehead from the sweat. Hardly the handsome and loving man who had told me such fantastic stories out of his head about everything and nothing in particular. His breath was a rattle in his throat and his brow ran with sweat. I wanted to kiss those horrible droplets away just as he had done whenever I had a fever.

More importantly I wanted him back… I wanted the man who had given Raoul lessons and set up private rendezvous for him and me and meetings in secret so we could hear all the gothic ghost stories his parents thought unsuitable. I wanted the man who on more than one occasion had snuck Raoul out of his home when he was on punishment for some reason or another. Mostly for fooling around with girls even at that tender age and other ungentlemanly conduct.

I looked at his ailing form and shook my head so angrily that my curls bounced like springs against my forehead and face. The thing in the bed was not my father, I refuse to accept it! But then as I looked at the man I knew it was… there in his tattered clothes and ragged blanket laid my only friend in the world. Tears poured down my face and I sobbed loudly waking him just enough for him to unfold his weak hand and hold it out to me. I ran to his bedside and let him pull me into an embrace as I kissed his heart over and over.

His skin was icy and his coldness bit into my skin, I offered to give him my little coat but he pressed it back into my arms with a feeble shake of his head. I tried to tuck it around him anyway, but he shrugged it off and attempted to redress me in it. I helped him as much as I could but my body was shaking with fear. He offered me a loving smile and beckoned me to lean forward so he could kiss me. Daddy's lips were so cold that I shivered under their tender caress which I remembered so fondly. I wanted to warm him desperately and so I began to remove my jacket only to have him grab my arm and shake his head.

"It…is…cold…Little Lotte…you will…need your coat…" he said gasping between the short phrases.

"But papa, you're shivering." I whimpered, wanting desperately for him to take it.

"I'm shivering because I will soon see your mother." He said, I started crying, "Shh, it's only a dream, I often dream of your mother…" and he touched my face.

This part was true father had often dreamed of my mother since she died the year before. He would wake with her name on his lips. It was something that I had gotten used to but I knew better. I knew that he was saying goodbye to me and in moments he would kiss me for the last time. Still I forced a smile because I knew that he had missed her very much and that every night Daddy closed his eyes and murmured a quiet 'ow' as the pain wracked him.

The Doctor returned to the room and started tugging me away, "Time's up." He said.

I started crying because I hated all of this, I hated this cold room, the smell of cheap whisky and tonic. I hated the sound of the fluids as they dripped drop by drop into my father's arm. The sound of the rattling breaths in my father's chest and the clouds of drug-induced relief in his blue eyes, so fake that I knew the pain underneath them was one too great for it to mask. But most of all I hated this man for dragging me away from my daddy in his last moments. I did not want to go and he did not want me to either it seemed. He grabbed my hand with a strength that no one would have expected of a man so close to death.

"She is not going anywhere," He said, the doctor looked surprised.

"But Monsieur Daaë surely you need your rest…" The doctor argued.

"She. Is. Not. Going. Anywhere." He said a forcefulness to his voice.

"This little brat being here cannot be helping."

Papa glared at him, "She is not a brat." He snapped, falling victim to a racking cough.

"Of course," the doctor said in a voice oozing false compassion, "All I meant was-"

Daddy cut him off, "Monsieur , do you have children?"

The Doctor's brow wrinkled in disgust, "No." he said, "Horrid things children."

Daddy shot him another glare, "They are not and neither is mine, and I want her to be with me so I can comfort her."

"As you wish Monsieur," the doctor said and left me alone with him in that horrible room.

"Daddy, when are we going home? He said nothing for several moments just looked at me, "We're not are we?"

He gave me no reply, "Come now little Lotte, sing for me?" he asked with weariness clouding his eyes.

My first thought was to refuse his request because I was already on the verge of tears. I knew that if I broke down it would upset him and the doctor would send me from the room. But try as I might to suppress them a few betraying tears ran down my cheeks. Daddy put his hand on my face and looked at me with the most loving look he could manage and pleaded with me weakened eyes. Being a 'papa's girl' I nodded not deny him this even though my voice was clogged in my throat. Still my voice cracked and I stopped shaking my head regretfully at him.

"Please angel," he gasped noting my hesitation, "sing me to sleep…"

Not even as a child was I fooled by that one, did my papa think me a fool? Sing him to sleep indeed, more like a last request to hear his daughter's voice one last time. He was in his own way saying I love you before leaving this world –and me- forever. Of course being the daddy's girl that I am I laid my head on his chest and cried. He tried to hush me and tell me that he would see me when he woke. Another lie! Oh why did he have to lie to me now of all times? He must indeed think me stupid or at least too young to understand but he was wrong.

Still I nodded and began.

"You were once my one companion
You were all that mattered
You were once a friend and father
Then my world was shattered

Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here

Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you helped me to do
All that you dreamed I could

Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental
Seem for you the wrong companion, you were warm and gentle

Too many years
Fighting back tears
Why can't the past just die!

Wishing you were here again
Knowing we must say goodbye

Try to forgive
Teach me to live
Give me the strength to try!
No more memories
No more silent tears
No more gazing across the wasted years
Help me say goodbye
Help me say goodbye!"

"Thank you," he rasped, leaning forward with the last of his strength kissed me goodbye.

End Flashback

I shivered and pulled my too-small cloak around myself. This is the only thing I took from the mansion because Erik had given it to me when he had first become my angel. Oh there I was again thinking about him! But I just cannot help myself, oh lord I have become addicted to Erik haven't I? All I do is think of the man and worry over him. It was then that I realized something about myself…I realized that I have become a woman and am no longer Raoul's little Lotte. That my dream of a wedding to him was nothing more than one long gossamer veil of black silk on a snowy day. For though Raoul could offer me many things he could not offer me the one thing I love the most: music.

In the past I had told myself that Raoul was everything I wanted in a man and at one point I guess that was true. After all at the tender age of twelve when I had first kissed him by the sea how was I supposed to know that I would one day love somebody else? Wait, love, did I just admit that I love Erik? But then of course I would, after all he was a man and what a man! He had once awakened in me a passion that was both torturous and wonderful all at once. Madame Valerious had at one time told me that a girl becomes a woman when her passion was woken for the first time.

My body was weakening and I saw my old dressing room and jostled the charred, rusted door-handle. It came free easily and I found myself standing in the same spot where Erik had lured me into his underground world. The mirror was open slightly as though someone had been down there but this was impossible… wasn't it? Ugh I'm so tired I can't think straight! The sofa was still intact albeit charred and not as soft as it once was but I lay down on it anyway my body immediately relaxing obviously grateful for the break however brief. Next thing I knew I was snoring lightly, the kind where you are aware but unable to stop yourself. As I gurgled into one of the cushions I thought of Erik… praying he would be all right till morning…