Title: Help Me Say Goodbye

Rating: M

Word count: ~86k, 42 chapters.

Characters: Erik, Christine, Meg, Madame Giry, Raoul, André, Firmin, Reyer, Piangi, and sundry members of the opera company, some of which belong to me and some don't.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from 'Phantom of the Opera' does not belong to me.

Summary: Christine goes to her father's grave to find resolution, and finds instead a Ghost. Without Raoul to protect her, she cannot escape him, and the course of their lives is irrevocably altered.

Christine knelt at her father's grave and fought back tears.

Everything was crashing down around her head, and she felt helpless – more than that, she felt weary. The past few months had been a whirlwind of emotion, and she was exhausted by it. Her debut as a singer, Raoul's reappearance in her life…and her Angel. The Opera Ghost. His murder of Buquet, the destruction of the chandelier – she could still recall, even now, six months later, how utterly terrified she had been as the great chandelier came crashing down towards her.

The masquerade, Raoul's insistence that she finally allow him to reveal their engagement. Six months was a long time to keep quiet about such a thing, she knew, but she could not wear his ring on her finger – and would not examine why, except to know it was only partly because of fear.

The Phantom's appearance – and the way he had drawn her to him, as he had done before, half-mesmerising her somehow. She was drawn to him, could not deny that even to herself, but he terrified her nonetheless.

His face; his temper; his sin.

His opera, which was so strange and new and difficult, but she knew she could sing the role, knew he had written it for her. And yet what had he said in his note? 'Should she wish to excel…'

Yes, she could not excel in this role without him, she knew that. But to return to him was unthinkable. He had killed Buquet. His face – dear God, that face that haunted her dreams. She had told Raoul it was so distorted, so deformed that it could hardly be called a face. His eyes, though…in her dreams his eyes were the worst thing, in her dreams he looked at her with such despair, such hopelessness.

It was something that Raoul would never understand – how she still felt drawn to her Angel despite the horror of his face, despite the cruel murder of Buquet and the sabotage of the chandelier. In Raoul's eyes he was a monster, but she could not forget how he looked at her.

As if she was his entire world.

Tears fell down her cheeks, stinging cold in the bitterness of January ice, and her fingers were white as she lifted a hand to wipe the tears away. If she were sensible, she knew, she would go home now, leave the frozen graveyard and go back to her warm bedroom in the opera house. Meg would be wondering where she was – would be waiting for her.

Dear, sweet Meg, who had stuck by her through everything, through the tension of the last six months. She had defended Christine against gossip, had never once remonstrated with her for not realising that a voice who spoke to her from nowhere could not really be an angel. She had never once said that Christine ought to have known better – something Christine knew Raoul had thought occasionally.

She had come here to try to find some resolution, to try to work out what she was feeling and what she should do about it. Here, where her father was buried, she had hoped for some peace. But she had not found that resolution, had found no peace. The past could not offer it to her, and the past was over – she could no longer cling to it.

No, she could not continue to think of the past. She must live in the present and the future, and cling no more to the memory of her father, or the dream of an Angel.

Christine wondered, then, what that meant for her relationship with Raoul, for there was no doubt that she associated him with her past, with the happy memories of childhood. But he was Raoul, so sweet and loving, so gentle with her.

She took a deep breath, released it slowly. She had found resolution, then, of a sort – and she must try to hold firm to it, to let go of the things that held her back. She could no longer be the child comforted with stories of an Angel of Music; she must be the woman who could withstand the Phantom of the Opera.

She rose, brushed her skirt free from dirt – paused, frowned faintly. She thought she could hear…

It was the wind, she told herself, but could not help glancing around furtively, because there was no wind – it was a remarkably still night.

"Christine."

She lifted a hand to her mouth to hold back her fear, turned to see – yes. There he was. Dressed in his opera finery, with that black cape across his shoulders, a hat on his head the only concession to the cold.

The Opera Ghost. Her Angel. He stood barely a few yards away from her, by an imposing grave marker, and for a moment all she could think was that she had never seen him outside the opera house before.

And then fear caught up, the terror that had dominated the past six months since he had killed Buquet and sent a chandelier crashing on her head, and Christine glanced around frantically to find a way to escape him.

"I mean you no harm," he said, but he took a step towards her and Christine pictured Joseph Buquet, dangling at the end of a rope, stumbled back a pace and found she had nowhere to go. "Christine, don't run," he said, his voice soft and seductive, that voice that she had never been able to resist, not from her earliest days as his student. "Don't run from me," he said, his voice a murmur as he stepped closer still. "Do not shun me, Christine."

She could not speak, felt herself softening as he looked at her with those eyes, those pleading eyes that haunted her dreams on so many nights. Pleading with her to stay with him, to accept him.

"I have only ever been a protector for you," he murmured, and Christine shook her head, tried to find words to protest, because the chandelier – the chandelier, which could have killed her. "Your Angel of Music. Have you forgotten?"

No, she had not forgotten – she had not forgotten anything, and she was frozen in place, terror and desire mingling to keep her limbs heavy and leaden.

"Christine," he said, and he was so close to her now, had moved without sound. A Ghost in practice as well as in name, and she felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her at the thought, bit her lip to keep it down. Tasted blood, harsh and metallic in her mouth, and he lifted a hand, reached out and touched her. He brushed the blood from her lip and she trembled at the touch.

"Christine," he murmured, and she was shaking, tried to pull away from him but the iron gates at her back prevented any escape even if she had been able to master her body.

"Do not fear me," he said, begging her, and Christine felt tears in her eyes again. "I would never harm you."

He meant it, she could see. There was nothing but sincerity in his expression – what she could see of it, for the mask concealed so much. That mask that seemed so bright in the moonlight, the white so pure, and that purity so incongruous with what she knew of him.

His eyes were wide, his hand outstretched towards her still, but he did not touch her now. It was as if he was waiting for her, waiting for some response – and she did not know what he wanted from her.

Everyone wanted something from her, she thought wildly. Her Angel, and Raoul, and the managers. Everyone wanted something from her and she would go mad trying to give them what they wanted.

Mad. Carlotta had called her that, the other week in the managers' office. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she had gone mad, and this was all an illusion, some fantasy dreamed up by her own mind to torture her.

"Christine," he said again, and she flinched, glanced down at his hand once more, patiently held out for her still. Patient, as he had always been patient with her. Strict, yes, but still…patient.

She felt dizzy, felt trapped, and she shivered, wrapped her cloak about herself, looked at him in agony. She could not answer him, could not speak. She had no words.

She was his mask, and he was her words. It was not a fair trade, she felt – and yet was that not why she had come here? To try to find her own voice, to say goodbye to all that had confined her before?

But she could not do so now, not with him standing there looking at her with tenderness. Such hope. As if she could make him either the happiest man on this earth, or the saddest.

Fear was ebbing away now, had disappeared almost without her realising it. Fear belonged in the opera house, fear belonged to some other Christine who was not standing here by her father's grave looking at…

Looking at her Angel. Because this was not the terrifying Opera Ghost, this was the voice she had grown to love, this was a man asking for acceptance.

He seemed to sense the change in her, lowered his hand slowly to his side. "Christine," he said, "will you come with me?"

His words recalled her to herself, and Christine shook her head, pressed against the cold gate behind her.

"No," she whispered. "No, I can't – please, I can't!"

She tried to run then, to flee from him as she knew she must, but he was faster and blocked the way. The hope was replaced by bitterness then, by anger, and she was scared once more, covered her mouth to keep back a scream.

"Don't run from me," he said, a snarl now, and he crowded close to her. Terrified, she turned, twisted – stumbled on the uneven ground and fell with a cry.

Something hit her head, and for a few short moments Christine was aware of pain. Then she was aware of nothing

Fic is completed and beta-read. A new chapter will be posted every day :)