Erik returned almost an hour later after depositing Raoul to the surface. While he was gone, Christine discussed with Nadir and her father what was to be done.

"It looks like I've been kidnapped at the moment." Christine told them. "It's not like I can go back and pretend nothing happened."

They talked for a time, but decided to wait until Erik returned before they made any final decisions.

Christine talked with her father, as he enthusiastically asked her about her life, about how she had come here. She answered them with growing weariness.

"Pappen, why didn't you come with Mamen and I?" She asked. "She missed you so much, I know that now. It hurt her when you didn't return with her."

Her father hung his head, and some of the age in his eyes that she was used to came. "I was selfish." He admitted. "I'm a good violinist Chris, I know that. In the future, I'm average, at least on the elite scale." He added. "I was struggling and struggling to be the professional I wanted to be. My goal," he remembered. "was to be the concert master for the New York symphony."

"Papa!"

"I know." He set his mouth. "When I came here, I was the best of the best. I loved it, going home meant leaving my success behind. I..... I didn't want that." He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down his face. "I chose my career over the both of you. I'm sorry."

"Pappen....."

"I wanted to go back, right after I dropped you and your mother off. But I didn't know how. It was too late."

Christine felt a tear stream down her cheeks and she wiped her eyes. "Pappen. It's not too late."

"Chris, I can't face your mother. Besides, if you don't remember me being there, I don't think I should try to change that."

"You don't have to face mother if you don't want to Pappen. She died when I was sixteen."

His head jerked up.

"You came to me three months after that, took me from foster care."

His eyes softened. "You were in foster care?"

"I was underage."

Suddenly courage filled his eyes. "I'm going back." He finally said. "Where I belong. With you and.... and the rest of the future."

Christine stared at him, her hand tapping the arm of the chair. "Papa, if you go back, you will die. And not nicely either." She let a warning fill her voice. "I saw it."

"So?" He smiled weakly. "I can't abandon you again, once is enough."

"Papa, I will become a famous singer. Before a concert, here......" she paused. "Here in this very Opera House, they were doing some kind of revival. I was in the Opera they were doing, before the final concert....you gave me your necklace." Christine spilled out. "There was a terrorist attack-"

Dust filling her lungs as the rumble of the falling building filling her ears.

"You won't make it." She choked. "You died, saving me."

His eyes met hers. "If there's anything worth dying for, you're a fair bet Chris. I'm going."

"At least come to my wedding." Christine told him. "Erik and I can settle a date and you can come back for a little while."

"Of course." He looked insulted. "What kind of a man do you take me for?"

Nadir returned to the surface after Erik returned, and her father stayed behind. They talked for a time, and settled on a wedding date. Her father was taken to the surface blindfolded, he would pack his things and leave.

Christine slept comfortably on the couch for the rest of the night, the two pillows and three blankets Erik keeping out the chill of the cellar.

She woke to the sound of eggs frying. She tried to stand, but her vision spotted so badly she sat heavily back down. She called for Erik.

He appeared next to her, fully dressed and with a cool black mask on his face. He carried her to the kitchen and sat her in a wooden chair.

She looked around her, staring at a small but beautiful dinner table, with a white laced table cloth covered the heavy oak. Flowers in a glass vase sat on top.

His kitchen looked very much like any others, Christine even forgot she was underground as he deposited a finished egg on her plate.

"Eat." He ordered.

She ate quickly, downing the egg in gulps. She hadn't eaten in over a day, being too nervous before the performance. When she finished another was placed before her, along with two slices of buttered toast and a cup of steaming tea. When she finished these, she informed Erik she was quite full and really didn't need any more.

He relented, and at her request, sat opposite to her.

"Erik, do you want to build our house, or buy one?" She asked, sipping tea.

He shrugged, his thin shoulders pushing up on the fine fabric while he stared at the table cloth.

"Erik, look at me please."

He looked away, reaching up to adjust his mask.

"I love you very much." Christine told him gently. "And when we are married, I would prefer if you would not wear a mask when we are alone."

His fists clenched.

"Do you wear your mask when your alone?" She questioned.

He shook his head stiffly.

"Then I would prefer you take it off when we are alone, after marriage." Christine reached over the table and grasped his white masked cheek, he flinched but followed her hand as she guided his head to look towards her. She stared in his dark eyes intently. "It is ultimately up to you, but know that is what I prefer."

"The mask.... the mask is... it makes people stay." He whispered hoarsely, his trembling hands caught hers and he kissed it, his eyes closing in relief as he did so. Wet tears fell on her hand. "If you left...."

An awkward silence filled the air.

"I would never leave you." Christine said softly, hating the growing barrier.

He didn't answer, and looked away again. "I want to build a house for us." He said. "In Sweden, perhaps?"

"Sweden would be lovely, by the shoreline?"

He nodded. "Close to a town, should anything happen."

Neither of them spoke of his mask again.

That evening, Erik took her to the surface, a process she mostly remembered as having far too many boat rides and dark passage ways.

Still, she saw his eyes again, and their soft golden sheen.

She wasn't quite sure how, but by some means he magic'd her on the stage again. The opera house had been crawling with detective's and police after the performance received quite the shock at her reappearance.

They questioned her until her voice cracked from the hours of speaking, and they lamented over poor Christine, taken captive in the dark.

She described being pulled down by cold hands, waking in darkness and waiting for hours and hours until she heard a voice calling. It had told her that the Phantom's Opera had been produced and he could finally rest at last.

They believed her, or at least, they believed her to have had a dream. They took her to the doctor, who declared her wound sound and her mind just a well.

She was reinstated as a ballet instructor after a week, and didn't argue with this change.

Carlotta was reinstated to her former glory, the expected torrent of disasters never came. And when a few chorus members skipped rehearsal, they weren't locked into closets or had their music disappear right from their hands.

The formerly strong rumor of the ghost that surrounded the Opera House began to wane. Perhaps in a few decades The Opera Ghost would be a running joke, something to laugh about rather than to whisper with terror every time a stage piece fell apart, or a ballet dancer's shoes vanished.

Perhaps someday, Christine suspected, someone would write a piece of literature about it. But that was no concern of hers nor Erik's.

They met on the Opera House's roof regularly. Planning and talking for hours, and enjoying the stars that shined through the city's hazy light.

They talked of music, and of the world and how it would change, she told him much of what was to come.

Erik left to supervise their house's construction and she missed him. Sometimes she would sit on the roof and watch the horizon as if soon she would see him riding back to her.

He sent her letters every week, long, flowery letters that made her smile and even blush as he described the country side and compared it's beauty to her. In a way they were practical letters too, they always contained enough money necessary to cover the postage, and he told her of the construction of their house, and how far along it was.

She could always tell when he was agitated with the work, his penmanship would rapidly deteriorate until little more than an untidy scrawl, like a madman's script. She almost expected the ink to turn red with his rage. Then the writing would break off, and a few drops of ink would blot the page. Christine could imagine him, his hair mused, his cravat undone, his fountain pen hovered over the paper, dripping occasionally on the page as he struggled to control his ragged breathing.

After an average of a page and a half of his ranting, he usually turned to discussing poetry, it seemed to calm him somewhat. Somehow he made Tennyson's verses and Charles Dickens metaphors seem interesting, though the art of poetry had always been a dull subject for her.

She took to carrying his latest letter around in her pocket, rereading it whenever she had a spare moment until she could recite it under her breath.

Even as she said the well remembered words, they made her smile.

She sent him letters almost as often, she wrote of the Opera House, of how the productions struggled on, and how a few of his favorite singers and musicians were doing. She wrote of books, of Meg's engagement to Adam, and of the wedding that was to be set in the fall. More often than not, she sent him encouragement, all the wisdom she had gathered about patience in her fifty two years, and love.

It was a delicious feeling, know he would read them in a month's time or so, knowing that he would likely read her letters even more often than she read his, and somehow she suspected that he carried them in his breast pocket.

Emily noticed her giddy mood during her visits to the Opera House, and when Christine showed her the simple but thick gold ring that she wore around her neck, Emily joined, and exceeded the almost intoxicating happiness that Christine felt.

It took seven hours and two visits to her's and Adam's small apartment to convince her that Emily would not meeting Christine's fiance, and that there would be no wedding, only a small ceremony before going to the house he had prepared.

Christine promised to write, and so did Emily, who wept for Christine's happily ever after and for finally getting that tall dark haired man she wanted.

Three days later she gave birth to a baby boy.

Christine came, watching Emily kiss the tiny baby's face and coo over the tiny fingers and toes.

Something in her stomach twisted, and Christine left the room, dotting her eyes.

Don't wait too long..... she had told Meg, and she had meant it. It was far too late for her to have the family she wanted But she would have Erik and, she firmly told herself, it was enough to have Erik. She clutched his letter in her pocket and sat down to read it. Losing herself again in the comfort of it's words.

When Erik returned, he seemed changed, and it took a few days before she could place what had changed in him.

He seemed more confident now, not in himself, but in her love and their engagement. He no longer looked on her as if she would tear away from him at any moment, and when she took his hand and looked into his eyes, she saw peace, not disbelief.

The night before their wedding, he ushered her to their old place on the roof and procured a gift, a box. Wooden, beautifully carved with roses and vines, a heavy lock in the front. Gently he pressed a key into her hand and moved an inch closer, all puffed up with boyish pride, watching her face as she opened the box.

Inside there was nothing but velvet lining, Christine looked up at him in mild confusion and felt herself smile in bemusement as he burst into laughter at her expression.

When he sobered, he pressed the box closer to her and said very seriously, "It's a mask box."

"I- what?"

He smiled, sitting up straighter in his pride. "It's where the mask goes, whenever you wish." He pointed to the key in her hand. "Only you shall open and close it."

Christine looked down at the key in hand, surprised.

"Erik has thought, no, I" He stumbled. "I thought much of you, and your request while building... our home. And I thought, what a silly thing for me to hide my face when we shall be alone. You love me." Here his voice shook. "You love me, and you will not need the mask to stay." Here he pointed to the box again. "And so it will go in the mask box."

Christine felt her eyes blur as he spoke, just as he began to exclaim if she was unwell, she pulled him close to kiss him. Loving him, and adoring that he had done this for her, because he had loved her.

Because she had loved him.

She wore her green gown for her wedding dress. Erik's kiss at the end of the short ceremony was soft, and tender, and a little cold, but Christine found herself far from caring, it was the first kiss he had ever started.

When they parted he seemed relieved, grasping her waist to hold her to him, she felt his heart beating fast as she pressed her face to his collar and kissed his chin, whispering her love to him.

Her father hugged her and cried. She whispered a few words of encouragement to him, knowing that he was dealing with, her teenage self.

Soon after she and Erik stepped into a carriage, Christine waving goodbye to her father. Once the door shut, she laid her head on Erik's shoulder her curled up against him. His arm hovered over her shoulders until she pulled it down herself. Once there, he held her tightly to him, tears streaming out from under his mask.

There was a long train ride ahead of them, and a boat ride too. Erik had described their house in such great detail, and sent so many sketches, she could imagine their life together stretched ahead as they left the church behind them.

There was a garden, the plants she wanted in the earth, waiting to grow. Soon she would be weeding them, humming tunes under her breath, knowing that Erik was inside, planning houses for those who wished for them.

There would be evenings around the fire, drinking hot tea and listening to the waves outside as they curled under a blanket together.

The woods held many berry bushes, Erik said, perhaps she would run among them dragging Erik behind her. Together they would fill the buckets with berries and she would turn them into preserves to last through the winter.

And the winter! They could curl in their bed together, save in the knowledge of a warm house and each other.

And perhaps that was what was most wonderful of all. Christine had spent ten years of her life at the Opera House, and she was glad of it, but she had spent it alone. Fighting through her challenges, depending on others, or fighting herself.

Now, she thought as she kissed away Erik's tears, whatever challenge that would come, she would face with him.