A/N: Thank you for the wonderful reviews! :) I'm glad you guys are enjoying this ... And now ...

Chapter IV

On the morning after hellfire swallowed over half the Opera Populaire, the dragon at last vanquished by torrential rains that lasted through the night, Christine pondered her sad dilemma.

Once her nameless Angel left her, forsaken, in his abandoned home, she had cried herself hoarse then trudged to the boat, only to stare into its prow for long moments, too exhausted to lift the pole for the long journey out of the caverns. Emotionally and physically, she was worn to shreds. She picked her way over ground glass and other remnants of his home to drop, nearly insensible, to the black swan bed. She failed to notice until her eyes again opened and she lit a candle, many from the main room having guttered out, that the luxurious bedding had been sliced through with a blade. Fresh tears leaked from her eyes to find herself alone in his lair and to note the wretched state of the abandoned dwelling.

A small part of her had hoped for his return, but she should have known better. It was rare that he relented from harsh decisions made out of his displeasure, even if by doing so he punished himself in the process. The three months he had remained wretchedly absent before the Bal Masque, despite her frequent pleas at the mirror for him to show himself, was recent proof of that.

With no idea of the time, she did not linger below, and was grateful that dawn had not yet illuminated the wet streets when she surfaced above. She dreaded her return might yet be noticed, and once again, Fate proved itself unkind.

"Christine?"

She winced to realize she'd been discovered slipping into her dormitory room.

"Where are you going?"

Meg groggily sat up in her cot, eyeing the overlong cloak and Christine's damp hair. In the light of the washed-out moon coming from the circular window behind Meg, she could not see her friend's face, whereas Christine felt cast into a spotlight and couldn't hide her guilty expression.

"Or perhaps I should ask instead - where have you been?"

"Meg, please don't tell your mother."

She gasped. "You went to see him!"

Christine wasn't certain to which man she referred and had no wish to know. "I went for a walk."

"In the rain?" Meg shook her head. "You're wearing his cloak – it's too big to be yours, and the Vicomte wears only long overcoats from what I've seen. Oh, Christine," Meg said on a little distressed whine. "Why would you go and seek out the Phantom, after all he's done?"

Christine was too tired to argue and surrendered to her friend's persistence. "I had some things I needed to say."

"Christine!" By Meg's little squeal, she had hoped she was wrong about Christine's nocturnal activities and dismayed to realize she'd been correct.

"You needn't fret." Christine unfastened the closure at her throat and let his cloak slide from her shoulders, setting it on her cot near Meg's. "He wants nothing more to do with me. He hates me now and has left his home, never to return."

She could not disguise the tremor in her voice but didn't realize she was crying until Meg left her cot to slip an arm around her shoulders. A single tear slid to her jaw. Meg brought her down to sit on the edge of the mattress and Christine tilted her head to Meg's neck.

"I don't want to cry anymore," she whispered. "I'm so weary of crying."

"You have every right to weep buckets after all you've been through - cry all you like."

Meg's soft and angry words oddly curtailed the need, and Christine only sighed.

"You'll forget in time," Meg soothed, bringing her other arm up around Christine in a full hug.

He had told her the same thing. Had ordered her to forget. But how could she remove the most precious part of her life that had filled her soul with music these last ten years? That had spoken to her in the otherwise empty nights, and filled her dreams with his song?

With daybreak soon on the horizon, the girls parted to their respective beds. Christine quietly undressed down to her chemise and slipped into her cot. The bottom few inches of his cloak were soaked from trailing the wet ground; nonetheless she wrung out the excess rainwater and used it as her cover, the satin lining soft against her skin. She pulled her blanket up around her shoulders to disguise the black wool should anyone see.

The morning came, as it must, and along with Meg, Christine was put to work helping to care for the young ballet rats while Madame wrote letters to their families with news of the tragedy and the closing of the ballet conservatoire, expressing the immediate need for students to be collected and returned to their homes.

The entire theatre was ghostly and dark, a blackened hull that mocked the vibrant opulence it once proudly flaunted. Those cast and crew who had elsewhere to go had left, and at week's end, those remaining would be forced to leave as well.

The older girls carefully combed the fringes of the theatre untouched by fire, salvaging what they could use. Every scrap of cloth and stick of wood retained the acrid smell of smoke, and blankets and clothing needed laundered twice to remove the foul odor, which still tended faintly to linger.

While a handful of girls assigned by Madame did the bedding and clothing, Meg and Christine lit lanterns and visited the larder of the empty kitchen to find and prepare what food they could feasibly manage. Neither of them were familiar with culinary skills, though Meg had a little experience in cookery. The gruel they managed was filling but lumpy, and they used too much salt. Still, though the little girls' noses wrinkled in distaste, and Christine winced at the sour, brine flavor, not one bowl went untouched.

She considered it a blessing to be so busy and given no time to think. Thinking brought pain, and pain bled into regret and apprehension of the great, yawning mouth of the future, its teeth sharp and secretly hidden. As long as she concentrated on the many tasks required of her, she could remain empty of feeling as well.

Near noontime, as Christine rested, a young ballet rat approached with a message that the Vicomte waited in the foyer to see her. Not willing to face him yet, she asked Meg to relay the message that she was indisposed and to give her apologies. When she did speak with him, Christine wished to give him her undivided attention, an impossibility at present since she could think of only one man…

And her pitiless mind seemed dead set to remind her of recent events, both the horrid and the remarkable.

She wondered if he had truly left, or if he was beneath the earth, returned to his lair. After so many years hidden below the city, would he simply just walk away from his home? She battled the urge to go and see. If he was there, her presence would likely upset him. And if he wasn't, she would be the one undone.

The second day went much like the first, including her excuses that she asked Madame, this time, to give Raoul.

On the third day, Meg shook her head. "The last time you gave the message that you would see no one, he was extremely displeased. This time he is beyond mere displeasure."

Oh, wretched memory – would it never cease to torment her heart?

The last time she had given the excuse was the morning after she unmasked her Angel and found a tale of horror. Her remorse at her thoughtless act had been swift, though the apology withered and died before leaving her lips. He had raged at her, his fury terrible when witnessed with her eyes and not merely heard from beyond stone. He had hurled curse after curse upon her bowed head, ending his tirade with a shocking plea for acceptance. One she tearfully acknowledged by reaching across the breach erected and handing him back the mask she never should have taken from him in the first place. He had turned away, grimly stating that she must go, and once returned to the oppressive daylight above, the morning dreary with thundershowers, she had sought seclusion inside her darkened dormitory chamber, refusing to see anyone.

Did her Angel count her leaving as one of those transgressions held against her, when he had been the one who decided she must go? Twice more in the weeks that followed he had ordered her to leave, twice more she had succumbed. What would have happened had she refused either time? Would it have changed things?

Christine let out a despondent sigh. It hardly mattered. He made clear that he no longer had any use for her, and she felt the blows of his words as if he had just delivered them. Without meaning to, she had destroyed the fragile threads of his trust, but he was not blameless. She had betrayed him for three months, but he had deceived her for ten years. If she could so readily forgive him for his pretense of being an angel, could he not do the same with her for her foolish, indecisive heart?

Yet on one matter, she had reached a decision.

Shortly after Meg left to deliver her message, Christine heard a step at the door of a storage chamber they had turned into a room to dine. It was far enough from the ravages of the fire to be deemed safe, and situated between the kitchen and the conservatoire, for ease of use. She turned to see who had entered.

"Raoul," she said, unable to hide the mild hitch of despair in her voice.

"Christine." He moved into the room uninvited, as forceful as always, casting a speculative eye over her form and clearly finding her in good health. "What is the meaning of this? Why have you refused to see me? You don't look ill."

She laid the empty bowl on its place setting over the sheet covering three long crates that had been pushed together for a table, and smoothed her hands over the soot-streaked apron she wore.

"There has been much to do here," she hedged.

"And you could not grant your fiancé a few minutes time?" he asked, the hurt evident in his tone.

"I'm sorry, Raoul." She meant it, more deeply than he could ever know. "I tried to explain to you that night, but you wouldn't listen." She again rubbed her palms down her apron, now more from nerves than the intent to clean them. "I have come to realize I don't fit into your world."

He stared at her in surprise then shook his head, lightly grasping her shoulders. "Of course you do, darling. What brought this on? Was it something Mother said when you visited two weeks ago? Is that what has had you acting so strangely?" He smiled in tender reassurance. "She can be a trifle haughty at times, but she means well. Don't let her upset you. She'll soon come to love you as much as I do."

More than a trifle. Christine thought back to the awful encounter in the Comtesse's private salon and the burning words hissed at her, like fiery darts, each one finding their mark. She shivered at the memory. "A brazen chorus girl. Unfit to be a de Chagny. A trollop and a gold digger. The Phantom's whore…"

She drew away and moved to the other side of makeshift table, straightening a spoon beside a bowl that had no need to be straightened. Again, he came up beside her.

"Christine, please look at me. We can get through this. After surviving that monster's attacks, we can manage anything."

She winced at his derogatory reminder, keeping her eyes on the cutlery. "No, Raoul, I don't think we can. I no longer have the ring to return to you, and I'm sorry for that, but I'm releasing you from your vow to marry me."

"Christine – stop." He took hold of her shoulders, bringing her around to face him, then clasped her ice cold hands. "You're distraught from all that's happened. It's understandable. You need time to recover. Things will soon look brighter, and we can put this unfortunate incident behind us."

The sound of children's voices drawing near had him blow out an irritated breath at the intrusion.

"I'll leave you now, as I suppose I must. We'll talk later." He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed them, his blue eyes encouraging her to see things his way.

The little girls flocked into the room, to eat their supper, many of them eyeing the well-dressed gentleman in their midst with open curiosity. Thankfully, Raoul did not linger, and Christine set her mind on her task, ladling the thick onion soup from a tureen and into small bowls.

That evening, she barely spoke to anyone, her mind waging battle over what she might do and what must be done.

xXx

The Girys secured a flat barely large enough to hold three people, but Madame insisted Christine stay with them. Several pieces of undamaged furniture from the soon to be condemned opera house they brought with the aid of a wagon to their new home – including three cots, a short sofa, Madame's small secretary, and a table and chairs.

Every morning, she and Meg left the cramped flat and took the two flights of stairs down to the street to look for work. On the third day, both girls acquired a position – until the manager of the theatre learned the identity of his potential new dancer.

"Daaé, you say? No, I've no place for you here," he told Christine coldly. "Don't want anything to do with anyone involved with that accursed Opera Ghost. Don't want my theatre to end up in a pile of ashes."

Christine could have borne the brunt of his curt rejection, but when he informed Meg that he had no use for her either, since she was friends with "the Phantom's whore" – guilt ate at Christine that she'd cost her dear friend a chance at a decent job.

It was the second time that cutting title had been applied to her, and it was the first Christine realized that she had acquired a sordid reputation in Paris. For a thespian, perhaps it wasn't so bad, even expected. But it caused grave problems if no one would hire her.

Outside the small theatre, once they were both hustled out to the street with the door slammed in their faces, Meg encouraged her that there were more worthy establishments in the city to try. But Christine sensed her disappointment.

As the week progressed, each night the girls returned to the flat discouraged by the day's failures. Madame found temporary work as an aide to a seamstress, so they wouldn't starve, and Christine had money put aside, enough to fall back on until she found work.

Raoul visited twice more, each time pressing his suit. Weary and disillusioned, Christine was sorely tempted to reconsider. The idea greatly appealed of never having to worry about what to wear or what to eat or how to live – of having all the luxuries of life at the beckoning of her hand…

Until she remembered the Phantom's accusation of her contrary nature and capricious heart. That was enough to make her refrain from giving Raoul the answer he wanted, because upon deep consideration, she realized with a jolt of shock that the Phantom had not been wrong in his appraisal of he character, or lack thereof.

When the excitement of being with Raoul faded, tedium set in and made her wish for escape. They had so little in common, save for their childhood memories. Music was everything to her, but only a passing diversion to him. She found nothing wrong with the manner of life at the theatre, but he always hinted that it was less than acceptable, as she was soon to be his Vicomtesse. Even the ring he'd given her, though stunning, was not what Christine would have chosen. Her tastes ran toward simple and dainty and that ring had been flashy and ostentatious, crafted to garner envy, though its purpose had been to capture her heart…

And she had folded that ring into the Phantom's hand without regret.

Going back to that devastating moment, she wasn't entirely certain why she did it, except that she felt the strong need to give something to him that was hers, a promise to hold onto that he was never alone, as she had sung to him…much as he had so recently folded that same ring he once absconded with back into her hand, with a promise of eternity together.

Both promises now broken.

At the time she had given no thought to Raoul's reaction at the loss of the ring, forgetting momentarily that he was even connected to it.

God, she truly was heartless. Would she never understand her own mind?

Exhausted from another fruitless day of seeking work, she curled up in the armchair in front of the hearth and studied Madame Giry, who sat on the sofa with her needlework of basting men's shirts.

"Madame, did you know my teacher well?"

Her former ballet instructor stopped and stared at Christine, as if debating whether or not to answer. She dropped her gaze back to her work, the needle flashing in and out of the material several times before she answered, "I knew him many years, but not well."

"Then you must know his name."

Clearly ill at ease, Madame did not immediately respond. "What I know is that you must forget him, Christine. To dwell on the past will solve nothing and can do you little good."

Christine sighed, unhappy with her response. "I cannot forget him so easily, Madame. I thought he was my Angel…" Warmth suffused her face at Madame's sharp gaze. "I never told you; it was my secret, one which he told me to keep. But for many years I thought my teacher a true Angel."

"He is only a man, Christine. A scarred individual, inside and out. And dangerous. As you have learned."

The words came brusque and hard, stones thrown against the rose-tinted window of her childhood daydream, forcing it to splinter even more.

He had thrown the first stone to shatter illusion on the night he had come for her through the mirror door. Though then she had felt no sorrow by his deceit, only a hypnotic fascination with his allure.

"I know that now. The night he drew me into his world, I found the Phantom of the Opera. A legend of theatre lore and as mysterious as my musical Angel…"

Madame was concerned by the dreamy quality to Christine's voice. He had painted himself as a creature of impossibility from the beginning, producing awe and wonder within his pupil. Christine never realized that Madame knew about his ploy of pretending to be the child's Angel, though she never condoned it. If she could break through the old pretense and show Christine he was both mortal and flawed, she hoped to make the girl see reason. In truth, she feared for the young woman's soul, sensing there a dark stirring that had begun the night of the fire, when she witnessed Christine sing to the Phantom onstage.

To give only his first name and admit she had no knowledge of his surname would surely only add to the mystery he engendered. And it was time to add flesh and bone to the awe-inspiring spiritual entities of Angel and Phantom he had spun inside a child's mind. The masquerade had ended, and Christine must let it end.

"I first saw him on the night I attended a gypsy fair with a group of my peers who shared my dormitory," Madame began hesitantly. "I was twelve. He looked to be a few years younger…"

Christine held her breath, eyes wide, as she waited for the gaps to be colored in.

"He was one of the attractions there, a sideshow called The Devil's Child, but he was only a small boy in an animal's cage, with mildewed hay for a bed." Madame shook her head sadly in remembrance. "He was filthy, in rags, an undernourished child at the mercy of his cruel jailer who had none. He beat him with a whip as I watched. He tore the burlap sack from his head and forced him on display to the crowd…"

Horrified to hear of the Phantom's tragic past, appalled that someone would do something so heartless to a child, Christine blinked away the hot moisture that gathered in her eyes. She could not think of what to say so said nothing, waiting to hear more.

"I was stunned by the reactions of my peers. With some I expected their mockery and laughter, but not the others. I appeared to be the only one disgusted by the display – not of the poor, miserable creature tortured in a cage, but of the insensitive crowd. They jeered and threw small rocks and scraps of food at him. One man prodded him sharply with his cane through the bars, wanting a closer look." She shook her head. "It was humanity at its worst. I didn't know it at the time, but I later learned that had been his plight for three years." Madame shuddered.

Christine stared unseeing at a stain on the papered wall, barely able to conceive how her Angel could have survived such abuse. She could not match the two in her mind. How could he come from such degradation, treated as no more than a despised animal - to become a talented musician of such tender passion and inborn refinement? All traits he had showcased in the special times they had been together, in his home. He had called himself both Phantom and Angel, the two entities a world removed, though both were made of spirit and not flesh. As he had been made of flesh. A man. She had seen him, she had felt him…

But who was he really?

"When the rest of the fair-goers all left as a group," Madame continued, "I held back at the entrance and turned to look - just as he wrapped a rope through the bars and around his jailer's throat. I stood there, stunned, not knowing what to do, and did nothing as I watched a man die. But when I looked into the small boy's eyes, once he noticed me standing there, I saw such hopelessness in one so young, such fear. I couldn't leave him there to suffer what torment they would surely do to one who had killed their own. They already treated him as filth. I was sure that to leave him there would be to allow his death.

"So I took the keys and opened the cage. I ran with him through the streets, all the way to the opera house, and brought him there to live, what life he made of it. I hid him away in the cellar below - where props were stored. He soon ventured all the way down to the caverns and made a home there." She expelled a weary breath, as if the recounting of that night took all the strength out of her. "The gypsy fair left the city, any crime becoming only a faded memory, but he chose to remain deep within the bowels of the opera by the lake. Cutting himself off from all human contact. I did what little I could, bringing him food I saved from my plate, but I couldn't journey below often, for fear of being missed. If any of the management had discovered what I'd done - I would have lost my place in the conservatoire and they could have well thrown us both in jail, to hang."

Christine could barely conceive all that Madame told her. The Phantom had killed before, as a boy. He had killed the gypsy who beat him. Madame had saved her Angel's life and brought him to the Opera, where he remained…

It was a moment before she could frame a reply.

"Did he live there, beneath the earth, all this time?"

Madame did not seem happy with her intrigued response.

"He was barely a man when he grew restless and dissatisfied with life, and became eager to strike out on his own and see more of the world. I tried to dissuade him, he knew nothing beyond the opera house walls, but he was insistent. He was gone for over two years and returned shortly, back to the cellars beneath, a few months before you came to live there. I know only that he went to Persia. I know nothing of his time spent there."

Persia…

Christine pensively stared into the low flames of the small hearth, recalling the exotic tales her Angel would sometimes tell her as a child, of faraway lands, with domed white buildings against a jewel-toned sky. A land of nightingales and exotic creatures that made her breathless to hear of their existence. Wishing she, too, could see the reality of the vivid pictures he painted with his quiet, gentle words…

However, it was Madame Giry's tale of woe with regard to one small boy that remained with her as she tried to sleep that night and on into the next day when she stayed behind, while Madame and Meg visited the bakery to purchase baguettes for supper.

Christine opted to stay at the flat alone, weary of the public attention she sometimes drew, that of curious pity, other times suspicious disgust, her face easily recognizable as the diva from the posters of Don Juan Triumphant plastered all around Paris. Some of those flyers she walked among had become the target of vandals, and she had experienced a mingling of fright and distress when she came upon one poster with her entire body spattered in red paint, meant to look like blood.

Many blamed her for the night of the fire, and once recognized, she often noticed the whispers and cold stares directed her way. Everyone who had made a living there lost it, because of her impulsive act rooted in fear. Everyone who had attended the Opera that night had suffered in one way or another, and she was as much to blame as the Phantom.

Her reputation in tatters, finding decent work in the city had become impossible, for Meg as well, thanks to Christine. She had helped with the first payment of rent, having saved up her modest wages for the two years that she received earnings. Rarely one to buy small luxuries, dipping into her income only for the occasional purchase, she had accrued a tidy little sum she kept hidden away in a small locked box kept under her cot, the key once hidden beneath a loose stone in the chapel beside where she sat to take her lessons from her Angel. Raoul thought her hard-earned income – "sweet," a nest egg she should use to take her friends out to luncheon or buy them little fripperies, insisting he would supply her with anything she desired or needed. It slightly offended her that he thought so little of her work, as to make the profit from it inconsequential, but she had only smiled in submissive agreement.

Now her resolve had grown, made stronger after hearing the tale of the boy who grew into the Phantom. She, too, felt restless and had become a burden to both Madame and Meg, though they never said so.

Raoul's ardor had not cooled, and he simply would not take Christine's words at face value. Too much had happened to go back to a state of blind ignorance and foolish pretense. That night would always come between them, and she would not run to his arms for comfort, not when her heart was so inconstant and her actions so predictable. The Phantom had been correct in that regard as well, and it stung each time she thought about it. She did not want to be that woman any longer.

It had been almost two weeks since the fire that destroyed her home, when Christine came across the letter lying open at the small secretary Madame used for writing. Christine had no wish to pry, but in her brief glance toward the missive, as she dusted, she read her name.

Sitting on the stool, she pulled the letter closer, addressed to Madame Giry and dated eight days ago. Stunned, she read several paragraphs and realized it was about her Angel from a man named Nadir Kahn.

…I find it most regrettable, the tragedy that has befallen you, and I appeal to your sense of compassion in this matter. The man you know as the Phantom is undone, nearly destroyed. If he knew I was writing to you of his sad lot, I daresay he would be much more than simply displeased, so I implore you to keep this between the two of us. You may think he deserves this hell after all he has done, the lives he has destroyed, and perhaps you are not far from the truth. It is not my place to say or judge. However, I feel the only way in which he will make any sort of recovery and again find purpose in this world is to remain distant from Miss Daaé. For his benefit and perhaps hers as well, the two should never again meet.

If you think me too harsh to seek your help in this matter, think carefully on the tragedy of that night and the harm to the many inflicted. Our mutual friend was indeed to blame, his feelings for the young Miss Daaé too fierce to control, to the point of a dangerous obsession, and clearly she does not share any deep feelings for him, to abandon him as she did ...

The letter burned, falling heedless from Christine's numb fingers.

xXx