A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! :) And now…

Chapter VIII

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The moment Christine left the Phantom's lair and wound her way above and out one of the exit doors that had not been barred, she approached a cab that stood nearby to take her to the train station. The rain had thankfully ceased and with a destination now in mind and not knowing the time of departure, she wished to arrive there quickly.

Her conscience warred with what she had done, whether it was right, whether it was wrong – whether he would return or not, to even know she had borrowed the money. She soothed her mind that she'd left him a missive of her less than exemplary actions with the intent to return every franc note. But then, there was the book…not needed, but entirely wanted.

She frowned to see a gendarme standing across the wide boulevard with his full attention trained on her. There was little to be done now, even if she wished to retrace her steps and return what she'd absconded with. She could not go back, having been spotted leaving the condemned opera house. She would be questioned, detained. Madame Giry might be informed if there was an investigation; worse still, they might associate her with Raoul and send a message to the Vicomte, and that would be that. Before the officer could approach to ask the reason for her presence there, Christine leaned forward to the driver.

"Please go – and hurry. I have a train to catch."

"As you wish, mademoiselle."

The driver complied, and Christine focused ahead, setting her sights forward, surreptitiously glancing only once over her shoulder to see the gendarme run awkwardly with lifted hand to hail her down. His shouts faded and she looked forward.

Determined not to let her mind wander in reverse to a magical time she had taken so horribly for granted, with a genius teacher she once dubbed her glorious Angel of Music, she brushed the telltale beginning of tears from her lashes and forced her mind to still. Focusing her attention only to what could be seen as the horse-drawn carriage moved along the busy tree-lined streets, she forced away all of what was remembered.

The train depot was more populated than she expected for this hour of day, but she had little experience with such places to know its natural state. Though she feared being spotted at every turn, it was easier to get lost inside a crowd. Nervously she purchased her ticket from an apathetic teller and found a bench in a shadowed area to sit and wait the hour remaining for her train to arrive.

From the folds of the black scarf pulled low over her head, she observed other passengers, some with their friends and family move to and fro. With every minute that passed her nerves felt stretched taut to snapping, certain at any moment she would be discovered, certain that Madame or Meg or Raoul would move into her line of vision or shout her name from afar. Half hoping they would save her from this decision, all the while knowing it was best they did not.

When it seemed that time would drag for all eternity and had tangled her in a mass of nerves, at last the call was given to board. The seats and windows were covered in cinders, the train rather crowded, but she found a seat toward the middle of the third car. A matronly woman with a basket over the crook of one arm sat on the bench beside her and greeted her in a foreign language. Christine shook her head and smiled apologetically to convey that she didn't understand. When at last the train departed, she began to relax with the solemn knowledge that she had done it; she had effectively made her escape. Wouldn't the Master of Evasion be proud?

She winced as once more her thoughts turned to him; would a day ever come when the reminders would not come so frequent? Would not come at all?

Feeling overly warm, Christine unknotted the scarf that clung damply to her head and brought it down to drape around her neck. With no one to talk to, she stared out the window and watched forest and sky speed past in a blur of emerald and pale turquoise. The scenic image soon lulled her into a nodding state and she slept. Now and then, as if in a fog, she heard the train screech and felt it jar to a halt to deboard present passengers and pick up new ones, always soon to pick up speed again and continue along its route.

When next she woke, the sky outside the window was dark. Gas lamps, their flames low, had been lit within, and she noticed her seat mate had been replaced with a solemn, younger woman who dabbed at her eyes now and then, seeming disinclined to talk.

As she again looked ahead, Christine had the oddest feeling of being watched. She darted anxious glances about her and over her shoulder. The train was full to capacity with men and women, some asleep as she'd been, others showing little interest in their surroundings, save for a few who glanced at her as she glanced at them.

She was letting her imagination run wild. No one followed her. She was alone, would likely always be alone...

Her gaze wandered and locked onto the window, the dark landscape barely covered with a thin coat of silver moonlight. All was in darkness… just as he had lived in darkness. At the forlorn memory of her unfaithful mind, Christine sadly closed her eyes.

xXx

From ten rows behind, the Phantom sat and watched her, never once took his eyes from her. Situated in the shadowed midst of a stretch between gas lamps, his row toward the back of the car lay mostly in darkness and unoccupied save for his presence. A carpetbag with those belongings he felt crucial sat on the bench beside him, deterring any potential passengers from taking a seat. He did not wish any of the bothersome curious to look too closely at his masked face and detect the seams there. With no time to yet improvise a disguise, he carried only a handful of necessities with him…

Whether it be the divine providence Christine was so ready to embrace or sheer dumb luck he was more inclined to believe that brought him so swiftly into her presence, he did not hazard a guess. Though his goal had been to learn her location and help her as he could from the shadows, he certainly never expected to find her so quickly; he had thought he would need to scour the streets of Marseille. Had they just missed one another in the caverns?

It failed to matter.

The desire to make his presence known nearly overwhelmed him, but he would not make that mistake again. Had he never come forward into her dressing room on the night of her debut, had he never made himself flesh and dispelled with the fantasy – at this hour of this night they might be sequestered in the chapel. Each of them on opposite sides of the wall but conversing and sharing in their music, as destiny always meant it to be.

He noticed Christine look nervously all about her, and he slunk deeper into the shadows, pulling his chin further into the collar of his cloak he had pulled up around his ears. With the fedora and the wig she would never know him; the white and black masks he had exchanged for a flesh-colored one that did an adequate job to both blend in and conceal.

Once the train pulled into Marseille, he waited until she deboarded and watched her progress through the series of windows before he stepped onto the platform. More than a year of working as chief assassin for the rulers of Persia followed by his hauntings as the Paris Opera Ghost gave him the edge needed to shadow her to within several feet of her presence without his being noticed. He watched her speak to a porter, who nodded and pointed to his left. She smiled her thanks and continued in that direction.

Marseille, like Paris, was thriving and certainly as well populated. White masts of ships dotted the docks of the seaport town, the ocean glimmering like a coverlet of deep cerulean jewels in the morning sun. The sky was just as intense a blue, blinding really, to a man who'd spent years beneath the earth with only firelight as a guiding beacon. And though the daylight was foreign to him, even painful, he never once let Christine out of his sight as she made her slow, uncertain way down a crowded street. The tang of the sea mingled with the brine of fish from the many stalls of the fishmongers, and interwoven, almost undetectable, was the sweet smell of flora and the earthiness of olives from the trees that grew along the coast.

She visited a boarding house near the wharf, but was turned away. The second one approached received the same results. He watched her firm her shoulders beneath his best cloak that seemed to swallow her slight form. He winced to see the damage it took as it trailed several inches on the dusty ground behind her, now and then accidentally trodden on by those fools who walked too close. Yet her comfort was more important than a few yards of fine wool and damask satin, and he did not regret leaving her with the striking piece of outerwear…as she had left him her diamond ring. With idle fingers he touched the cloak he wore on the side to which he had sewn an inner pocket, one of a few, where the token was kept.

Khan's words had finally slipped through the mire of his madness, and Erik reasoned that perhaps the old Persian had been accurate in his presumption – that Christine had left the ring, to give a little piece of herself by which to remember her. In his dark haze of residual bitterness and sorrow he had presumed her action to be one of denial and betrayal. Perhaps he'd been wrong…

Perhaps.

It hardly mattered. Years of rejection and isolation taught him there was no place for his kind among the people of this world. In that alone, he'd been slow to understand. The events of two weeks ago had been a cruel reminder.

She stopped, seemed to hesitate, then took yet another street, further inland, and approached the stairs of yet another building. A heavyset woman swept the walk and stopped her before Christine could reach the steps to knock. Erik slipped further back into the shadows of a recessed alcove, within hearing distance.

"…but I need something tonight," Christine insisted softly, desperation lacing her words.

"Haven't a thing, not 'til next week. One of my tenants be leaving then, 'less you want to take up in the attic. It leaks when it rains, but it's big. I'll let you have it for ₣50 a week, ₣200 owed at the end of the month, with two week's advance up front …"

Christine actually seemed to consider the outlandish idea. "I..I will have to let you know. Merci." She turned as if to leave, then hesitated. "Do you happen to know if there is an eatery nearby? Somewhere simple, with modest prices?"

"There's a café 'round the corner."

Christine nodded her thanks and moved on. The woman shrugged in apathy and resumed sweeping her stoop.

But the Phantom was not satisfied.

xXx

Morning having shifted into afternoon, hunger gnawed an irksome ache deep inside her belly, and Christine realized she had not eaten since before leaving the Phantom's lair. She fluctuated between thinking of him as the Phantom and remembering him as her Angel, depending on her mood at the time, since he'd given her no other name to go by.

Relieved to arrive to the sidewalk café, she found an empty table for two and gratefully sank to one of a pair of scrolled iron chairs. She brought her ankle to rest against her knee, rubbing it through the laced boot and feeling as if she had walked a century. She had not danced in months, not since her Maestro demanded of the managers that she be given the vocal lead in his Don Juan Triumphant, the choreographed steps for a diva simple, and she felt a bit rusted over in the joints.

A waiter came to her table. She ordered a sweet biscuit and coffee, digging through the carpet bag for the pouch of coins to pay him. Securing the two needed and slipping them on the table, she then pulled out the Phantom's soft leather book of sketches. She felt a second niggling of guilt to have absconded with not only his funds but also a token of his art. It had been foolish, perhaps, but with the belief he would never return for anything in that world he told her he no longer wanted, she didn't see any true transgression in taking it.

Or so she told herself.

Ignoring the little angel on her shoulder that whispered this was wrong, she pushed back her unease and opened the flap to study the first sketch. A view of his lair, with his pipe organ taking predominance. The year was written at the bottom – 1859 – eleven years ago. The next sketch showed an angle of the Opera House rooftop, with the same year. A few more other locations in the opera house, with the same year, a few of Marseilles, which had led her here - and then with the next page, the style of sketches changed. She inhaled a soft breath to see a little girl kneeling beside a memorial tier of candles, face upturned in soft entreaty, and she recognized herself in the chapel. The year displayed verified that it was the same time she'd met her Angel.

She shuffled through the pages, finding her child likeness had become his main interest: images of her dancing, playing, praying, and then she stopped, her eyes widening in shock of what she found next. No images were displayed here. Instead, bold handwriting filled the page with its decisive flair. Thumbing ahead, she noted that the last two-thirds of the book were also filled with nothing but text. She didn't need a little devil on her opposite shoulder to coax her to continue, much too intrigued to close the cover. She went back to the initial page and read the first lines:

I draw the darkness around myself like a shroud protects a corpse, to conceal the shame of my existence; a monster shunned by a sanctimonious humanity. Yet what I mock I find myself emulating in an endless circle of the absurd. I am not considered worthy to be regarded as a denizen in this world that reviles me, and yet, I live on...

Awed, she stared at the strong, artistic script that revealed within its sardonic lines such bleak despair. Within her hands, she held reflections of the Phantom's heart…the Angel she had always wished to know and understand…he had deceived her and denied her a name, and now, within her thieving hands, she held the most intimate secrets of his existence.

As if the soft, cool leather scorched her, she swiftly closed the book and returned it to her carpetbag, inhaling a deep breath as if starved for oxygen. The waiter appeared at her elbow with her order, and thanking him she hurriedly handed over the coins.

She set her concentration on the flaky iced biscuit and coffee, forcing guilt to flee. She never intended to take something so personal to him, only his drawings that were mostly of her…but upon consideration she felt no true remorse. He would never know, never again would she see him, so what true harm could keeping his book cause? She certainly could never take it back.

The thought provoked the emptiness again, a dull ache that scraped inside her heart, and solemnly she finished her meal. With nowhere to go, but fearing dusk would descend and she'd have no shelter overhead, she considered sitting at this table throughout the remainder of the day or at least until the café closed. But what then?

The inn near the wharf had no vacancy, and both boarding houses she tried were full. Well, there was the attic of the last one – perhaps it wouldn't be too uncomfortable, at least until the rains came. It certainly was the better alternative to finding a bench in a park, assuming Marseille contained one of those.

Her feet were sore, the day was nearly done, and she could not wander the unfamiliar streets of the city all night.

With no true need for haste now that her decision was made, she sat back and ordered another coffee. Whittling away the minutes, she watched the passersby, those on foot and the occasional horses and carriage that trundled past, all with a home, a place to go to. She was accustomed to solitude, though in a multitude of those moments she had in actuality been engaging in secret lessons with her Angel, but she dreaded true loneliness. And since leaving Paris and all those she cared about, she never felt the emotion more intensely. Surrounding herself with people, even strangers whose names and faces she didn't know failed to alleviate the hollow ache, but it offered some comfort, however slight.

As she watched, a girl of perhaps seven walked from the direction Christine had come. Her face was smudged with dirt, as was her simple brown dress, her hair long and having not met with a comb in some time, but her attention was attentive and bright. She looked over the area, seeming to search for someone. Once her eyes found Christine, she smiled and hurried over to her table.

"Mam'selle," she said, "You must come."

"What?" Christine gave her a curious smile. "Who are you?"

She put her hand over Christine's where it rested in her lap, intending to pull her along with her. "Maman says you must come, for a place to stay."

Curious but not alarmed, assuming she belonged to the woman at the last boarding house, Christine grabbed her carpetbag and followed the child back to the establishment she had just left. The woman there propped her broom against the wall and regarded Christine.

"I have a room for you," she said, walking up the few stairs to the stoop, "Quite a stroke of luck. A former tenant left not an hour after you came, and good riddance - loud-mouthed bastard..." When Christine remained in place, the woman looked over her shoulder. "Well? You interested or not?"

"Oh – yes, of course." Christine hurried to follow, and the woman led her up four flights of stairs.

"₣15 a week, ₣60 a month," the woman rattled off. "Coal's extra at ₣2 a pail, coal stove is in your room. Privy's at the end of the hall. If you want a washtub brought to your room, that's an extra ₣2. Meals are at 6 o'clock, spot on, and table is cleared at seven. Breakfast the same – six and seven. If you're late, find your own meal. No exceptions."

Christine drew her brows together in confusion, having thought the woman earlier said ₣200 a month, but that was when she thought she might take the attic. Perhaps each room was charged differently, though it seemed an attic would require less of a fee, not more.

They arrived at a narrow hallway, and the woman opened a door that stood by itself against one wall, across and amid two others. Inside stood a cot with a bare mattress, a small coal stove in one corner, with a table and chair next to a smaller curtained window and a wardrobe in the opposite corner.

"I require two weeks up front." The woman held out a plump, grubby hand. "You still want the room?" she asked a bit impatiently when Christine stared, a bit dazed by the swiftness of the proceedings.

"Yes, of course." She fumbled with the carpetbag and the pouch inside, withdrawing from it a hundred franc note – the smallest denomination she had of what she'd taken.

The woman's brows lifted toward her hairline, but she snatched the bill from Christine's fingers. "Haven't change to give you. We'll call it a month's pay and credit the rest for next month and other things you'll be needin.' Guess you'll be wantin' some coal and water. I'll send Jess up with it, and bring you some linens so as you can make up your bed…"

Christine was given no choice as the woman bustled out, and for the first time she felt true relief that she had borrowed the Phantom's money. Without it, she never would have gotten this far. If she managed well enough, she shouldn't have to worry about acquiring work for a few months yet, though she planned to begin her hunt for a position soon.

In what skill, she was still uncertain, though she hardly had the luxury of choice and would need to take what domestic position she could find available for a young, single woman with no training or experience. At the café, she noticed only men waiting tables. She wondered if the manager might make an exception…or did women act as waiters? Come to think of it, she had never seen one...

She sank to the bare bed and looked at the cheerless room, what would be her new home for the foreseeable future.

Once the harried woman returned, huffing breaths at the exertion of climbing four stories, she handed Christine her bedding and trundled out with nary a word. Christine blinked at the realization that she didn't even know the name of her new landlady.

That made two people who had left her in the dark concerning a name. Of course, she would learn the woman's in time, but the thought led her to think of her Angel and what he was doing, where he had gone and, God forbid, if he'd been caught.

With a disgruntled sigh that her mind had again taken her on its merry-go-round into that horrible night she resolved to forget, she quickly made up her bed. There was no pillow, but if she bunched up his cloak and laid her head on the satin lining, it would make a worthy substitute.

With no timepiece to keep track of the hours, an oversight she must soon remedy, she peeked out the window. By the manner in which the deep violet shadows of dusk had begun to spread across the city, it must be nearing suppertime.

Above her head, came the sounds of footsteps walking back and forth, interspersed with the scrape of something heavy, perhaps furniture being moved. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in resigned impatience, hoping the tenant who lived above wasn't always so noisy.

She wandered downstairs and found the dining room, but supper proved a disappointment: a bland meat pastry pie, with doughy crust, and even blander company. Her landlady bustled in and out with a scowl and without a word. Two other tenants were seated at the table – a meek, plain young woman and her stern aunt who, after Christine's tentative introduction, ignored her. The girl, Mademoiselle Ledoux, kept her timid gaze fastened to her plate, while her aunt, Madame Gagnon, gave silent stares of disapproval to Christine, whose unkempt ringlets were not molded into a proper bun and pinned neatly and whose neckline wasn't as modest as the women's who wore them to their throat, though by no means was hers risqué either.

After a few forkfuls, and a few sips of common wine to dispel the lump of pastry that lodged in her throat, Christine excused herself from the tense absence of dinner conversation and returned to her room.

The day's laborious details left her exhausted, and she dressed for bed. In her absence, a pail of coal had appeared near the small stove, and a pitcher of water sat atop the table. She ignored both and huddled beneath the blanket, nuzzling her cheek into the satin of his cloak. Her heart skipped a beat at his scent that lingered, and a silent tear found its way into the soft folds.

The sweet aromas of ink and candle smoke coupled with an exotic fragrance took her into dreams of being back at the opera, back under her teacher's guidance. In the next instant, they stood on a high bridge, Christine held in the arms of her Angel of Music, when suddenly he let go, and she turned to question. Wings suddenly appeared at the back of his cloaked form, and with confusion she stared into the masked face of the Phantom of the Opera, the ivory half-mask changing to full black, and the feathery white wings going slate-dark…

She woke with a start, breathing fast, shock making her heart flutter wildly within her breast...

Darkness lay heavy all around, and in the stillness of the night, she heard music.

xXx

A/N: And so, the fun begins… ;-)