One cold day, as we were in the last stages of packing and arranging our move to London, I found myself staring at the ruined Opera Populaire out the window. I couldn't keep my thoughts away from what might have become of him...and Raoul knew it.
"He is gone, Christine." He said, pausing in his step and seeing my gazing. "Forget him."
"How can I?" I said, woeful. "He shaped me Raoul!"
Raould gritted his teeth and took powerful strides to me, and took me by the shoulders. He seemed not angry at me, but him. "Let it go! He cannot hold you forever! I hold you now!" He put his head on my shoulder, slumping against me. I felt him breathing heavily into my shoulder, his own heaving. "You are my love. MY love! Forget him!"
I took a step back. "Raoul, you do not understand! Please, let me has some cosolence that he is dead or alive! Please!"
He loked up at me, his eyes cold like I had never seen. His lovely eyes were ice. "Go." He said, turning from me, stiff as a corpse. "Go find out what you need. I care not. Go now." He said, motioning for the housekeeper, who had just entered the room bearing clothes in baskets to be folded. "Fetch the coachman. Miss Daae has a trip to make." He ordered and she scooped her head in a bow, leaving as he spoke to me. "Tell him where to go. Please be back before dark." He ordered, his words falling dead. He then turned and left, slamming the door.
I reached towards the closed door. "Raoul..."
Later, I bundled up in my thickest cloak and departed, telling the coachman to go to the square where the Opera house was, and telling him to return to the cafe where I was dropped in two hours. He bobbed his head and went off silently. The square was far from bustling in the cold, especially given that it's main attraction was ashes and ruins now. I walked toward the site slowly and each step was a fight against my better sense to run. Yet I forced myself to the steps, which were covered in a layer of ash and soot, a few footprints of vandels and those who had escaped still leaving their mark. I climbed them heavily, and pushed open the heavy gilt door that was smudged and smeared until it's gold paint ceased to amaze the eye.
My footsteps echoed as i crossed the threshhold into the huge foyer. In places the roof was missing, and snow littered with the ash on the once exquisite tile floors. I knew where I was going...down. I at last found steais leading that way, and found myself in the chapel. Candles no longer gave the alter a glow...they were all cold and dead and melted away. I searched and found the small potrait of my father still clinging, if a bit battered. I took it and pressed it to my heart and could no longer conatin my sobbbing.
"Father, look what has become of me! Look what has happened to this place! Your home too at one time!" I cried, sinking on the cold damp floor, clutching the small token. I heard a distant sound...I almost didn't believe it, I nearly ran away. There! Again!
A low sound, but near...a groan, a sob. Broken, like an animal. Someone cried with me.
"Did you too lose someone in this horror!" I called to the small dark room. "Do you lay heartbroken and weep with me and so many others?"
"I weep...I weep..." The voice cried. "I weep FOR you, Mrs. Viscount!"
I sat so still I thought for a moment I was frozen to stone at the voice...the familiar tone of sadness and despair and longing...
"Phantom."
A small shuffling and then suddenly a shadow loomed in front of me, out of the wall. I held back a scream, then took a moment to realize there was a hole in the wall, and he had ducked through it to find me.
"Christine!" He said, heartbrokenly. I stood akawardly, trying to seem brave as my knees quaked and begged me to flee.
"Yes. It is me. I have come to see..." I bit my lip. Is this what I was searching for? This poor man, cloaked and still haunting the underbelly of the opera house?
"Oh my God." He said, coming towards me. He threw back his hood, and I could see he had used his black stage mask to cover his face, but his smile was brilliant even in such darkness. "You came back! You came back for me!"
I felt a pang of remorse and desire. "Phantom, I...am still betrothed to Raoul." I blurted out, hoping he wouldn't rail against me. Instead he slumped down a bit and nodded.
"I see. Not yet married though?"
"No...we...well I anyway...thought to wait."
"What are you waiting for, if you chose him?" He pressed, anxious.
"I...I came here to find that answer. I think...I still love you."
He stopped short at that. "Love me?"
"You are still my Angel Of Music...I cannot get your voice out of my head. Nor the memories of what transpired since you became more than a voice in darkness." I stepped toward him. "Tell me I did what was right! For I cannot forget you, no matter how much I love Raoul and wish to be with him. I cannot simply leave you and forget you! You are still alive, and even if you had died, I would still think of you!" I pressed my fists of frustration by my side. "Tell me!"
He stood there, silent until I had finished my raging. Then he swept forward and took my fists and opened them. "Do not be angry with me, my angel. I meant you no harm. But this confusion and desires that you face is your own. I cannot tell you any more than that." He sighed heavily. "I let you go...and I regret it everyday, yet I know deep down there was no other choice. My conscious could not have you stay with me miserable for the rest of your days."
"Phantom...what you did...was kind. A side you need to expose to others. A side that you need to let through." I murmered to him, looking at our hands, him grasping mine. A feeling that I longed to feel for Raoul came over me...a deep understanding. A mutual thinking. It was as if nothing had ever come between us. We talked like we had in whispers those nights when we were the Angel and the child.
"Phantom...come away from here. Come with me." I said, suddenly saying what I thought. I bit my lip. He looked up, his eyes surprised beneath the shadowy mask.
"I cannot, Christine. I am a monster, now one wanted for murder. I can never leave. I am entombed in this place now." He grasped my hands. "Unless you come with me. In the darkness, I have found a passage, a way out of the city, unseen."
"I...I am sorry." I dropped my hands. "It was foolish of me to come here. I must go back to Raoul. He's waiting for me at our rooms. We're packing to leave for London. I'm sorry...Goodbye!" I ran from him, up the stairs. I hadn't thought of anything but leaving, hoping he'd let me go again, let me run as I always had. Yet a great woosh and he had caught up with me in the tight stairwell, his hands firmly grasping my shoulder and his mask gleaming like death in my face. I felt my head reeling and heard the air being knocked from my lungs with a sudden terror.
"You cannot leave me like this Christine!" He plead. "This cannot be the last time! A simple 'goodbye I must go'?Are you to simply forget me!?" He asked, his golden voice weeping with desire.
"Phantom please!" I wept and fell into his arms. "I must decide! I must! This time, no life is at stake, yet my heart hangs in the balance!"
