Love Revived

Chapter I

Light... beaming light poured over my face and every other part of me, warming my body, and making me question my surroundings. Last I had recalled was the blackness and the pain, though both of those were missing now. My side didn't even feel as though I had been shot, it felt as though it once did when I was a ballerina! The toned muscle at every turn of my once young body. Of course, that couldn't be true. 

"Christine, we're late!"

My eyes popped open, was heaven supposed to be this way? Did youth and the disappearance of pain come with eternity? I was so sure that just moments ago death was on the brink of my being. that I would never be able to escape the thin hands curling around my soul, snatching it away from the man I loved, and the child I adored.

"Christine, mother will be livid if our feet are not there for rehearsal in five minutes!"

Those were the exact words of... Meg? My first thought was that she had done the unthinkable and ow we were in heaven together, but everything started to feel too real as my eyes opened wide. She stood right over me, huffing at my inability to rise from sleep. I'd never been a morning person, for it was also the reason Erik was able to leave me ten years ago....

I was still confused, though. She was young, too, her maturity had seeped away and I could see the opera house ceiling. That wasn't right... Heaven wasn't the opera house. 

"Where am I?"

"Christine, I haven't the patience for your folly today, there are to be new managers," she whispered violently. Only her and I had known this before it happened...

By heavens. 

"What day is it?"

"June 6th 1895, Christine, if you do not get in your costume in the few sparing moments we have left, I will murder you myself."

I had to stand upon hearing that information. It wasn't all a dream, it couldn't have been, I had felt the pain in my side, I had clutched to Erik and allowed his grip to vice me to him. He had lost me, and yet, here I was, sixteen again. The floors were the same creaky material I'd walked on for years, and the musty smell of the opera and sweaty young girls was not to be mistaken! But where was my son, and what on Earth had happened? 

"Alright," I soothed Meg, knowing that if I sat there I would get a true lashing from the Madame, and though it seemed quite foolish, I played along. "I'm coming."

I rushed into my costume and tried to process everything in my head. You couldn't feel pain in a dream, and ten years of exhaustion, depression, and raising a child hadn't just been a whim of my imagination. There was something I wasn't being told, and my thoughts rushed to that of a second chance. There was no other way to describe how I felt as I rushed down a small spiral staircase and shoved my point shoes into powder. Remorse, guilt, anticipation, excitement, and grief all flooded over me like the strongest of waterfalls.

I followed Meg, remembering this day so vividly that I wouldn't... couldn't screw anything up.

Well, as much as changing the whole of history wouldn't change anything. This was opportune for me to do everything that I had ever dreamed of. I had already lived the life of a Vicomtess, and it was torturous. My father would have cringed at the way I was treated, and poor Gustave, his namesake.

Would I ever have Gustave? The thought scared me, but if I could time it right, easily change things, manipulate them, I would have Gustave and Erik in my life for as long as possible. No death, no harming Meg and her apparently fragile self-confidence. Also, Madame Giry would have no reason to hate everyone... well, moreover Erik and myself. I felt awful for everything that happened, but I also held anger of the ordeal I went through. It was evanescent as I walked towards the stage, yet I still harbored the despair of what we had all gone through. But I couldn't help wonder why I had been brought all the way back to this specific time. Changing everything would have been just as easy if I were allowed the night I fled to him, to my angel of music.

As I danced a dance on stage that had been long forgotten, I could feel his presence much more pungently than before. This, I hadn't been able to do when I was this age all those years ago. Yet, when you shared the bond that he and I did, it was extremely hard to ignore the man's presence. I had the preface he was a tangible being this case about. Had aI known before, however, I doubt I would have loved him. Erik could have repulsed me or made me sick, but what-if's didn't matter now.

I hadn't listened to the managers fawn over Carlotta, I had just followed Meg. I felt guilty for staring at her so intensely, but I honestly could not remember the moves I was performing for the life of me. I wanted to hate her too, which simply piled the guilt into a larger weight resting heavily upon my fragile shoulders. I couldn't, though, she had yet to be guilty, and besides, hate hadn't ever been my strong suit. She would never have that burden now if I had any sense to the power I now held.

Suddenly, Carlotta threw a fit, and the groveling men, almost pinned to their knees, tried to get her to stay and foolishly begged of it. I was smirking and praying deeply Erik couldn't see the look on my face. He would be suspicious in a moment, and the thought was actually horrifying. 

"Ubaldo, andiamo," she demanded to her husband. I always assumed they were married, to my dying day, however, I actually never knew. Maybe I could find out.... Later! I had to sing Think of Me, and honestly the words were failing me. Okay, not necessarily, but what if Erik noticed I had talent beyond what he had taught me? Fear was arising when giddiness had just left! I had sung a piece of his music he had yet to even jot down on parchment or think of! There were things I knew that no one would ever hear of... and that scared me.... 

Nothing scared me more than the sudden thought which someone else could know of the jump in time. That could be the end of everything if they tried to manipulate it in a different way than I. Of course, there was still the possibility I had dreamed it all, in which everything could change and who knows where I would be! 

"A full house, André, we will have to refund a full house!"

"Christine Daaé could sing it sir," Madame Giry spoke suddenly.

I tried to look surprised, I really did, I was an actress after all. I assumed I had succeeded when just like before, Firmin muttered, "Daaé, any relation to the violinist?"

"My father, sir."

It sounded intimidated. Like I said before, I was an actress. I am trying my best. It was all overwhelming, honestly, attempting to grip reality when but moments ago death was my reality. Knowing you could change the course of the future was frightening. I could change Erik's life though, and that's what mattered the most. Assuming I wasn't making decisions based off a wile dream. 

"She has a great teacher."

"Whom?"

Of course they would ask, and I felt like I was performing a play as I reeled off in my head exactly what I was to say for me to reach the point of seeing my angel. I could change everything! My heart yearned to be with him forever as I repeated that sentence in my mind over and over.

"I don't know, sir."

"Oh, not you too."

"Let her sing for you, Monsieur. She has been well taught," Madame Giry assured. 

André and Firmin seemed to roll their eyes almost evoking the same exact gesture to float through my nerves.

"Very well."

"From the beginning, Mademoiselle," the director chanted.

And from that point on I knew everything would be different.