AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I should be working on Raging Fires but these little ideas that won't behave in my head whenever I listen to the music in the car make my imagination run away with a certain masked man...

At the end of the musical right after Erik says I love you, Christine traipses off with Raoul and starts singing Say you'll share with me one love one lifetime...kinda kills the feeling in her leaving behind someone so dear to her for so long...anyway...Hope you enjoy THIS explanation of the ending to the musical! All singing in italics. Christine's POV. Maybe this was how it was supposed to go and they got the staging wrong...

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THE END

"Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair! Down we plunge to the prison of my mind! Down that path into darkness deep as hell!"

The phantom was dragging me along with him into his dungeon, his hell. My wrist was screaming in protest but my tongue remained mute. I was trying to collect my scattered thoughts. Why did they shoot at us? Why did I strip his mask? Why did I hurt him in front of all those people, the entire ignorant audience? Why was he being so cruel to me? Why Angel. Why?

"Why, you ask, was I bound and chained to this cold and dismal place? Not for any mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!"

Track down this murderer he must be found!

Angel stumbled and paused for a moment with his hand against the side of the cavernous tunnel. He slid his hand from my wrist to thread our fingers together. I can't say why I let him, but he seemed to need some comfort and I had just had a hand in destroying him in front of hundreds. We gripped our palms close, trying to convey an unknown message. I randomly wished he wasn't wearing those gloves. We had actually never held hands so intimately before…

"Hounded out by everyone. Met with hatred everywhere. No kind word from anyone. No compassion anywhere. Christine. Christine. Why? Why…?"

He was mentally wounded and I genuinely wanted to make it all better for him. He had done so much for me in my life. I didn't understand why his kindness seemed to flee when I could see and touch him. As an angel he was unfailingly rational and decorous, but now that I laid eyes on him he never acted rationally or with decorum. But to live the life he must have lived, down in the sewers. I bit my lip as I slowly reached to touch his malformed face.

He jerked us forward suddenly and I couldn't help the frightened gasp that left my mouth but with our fingers linked instead of his clamped around my wrist I seemed to be joining him willingly on this journey. Our quick steps and linked fingers conveyed to me the sense of running off with my angel. I wasn't hampering his steps in the slightest, in fact, I hastened to keep up with him and leave the chanting of the mob far behind us. We were running toward our future, a future far away from here where no one would know of the vapid dancer who became a star, or the lonely phantom who became a fallen angel…

We came to his apartment by the underground lake and I couldn't understand why we were wasting time here when we should be running away from Raoul…and everyone else above who meant us harm.

He released me briefly and my hand felt naked and cold without his iron grip assuring me of his constance. I watched him as he strode to his giant doll and began removing the dress. It seemed wrong to stare as he disrobed the figure that bore a disturbing resemblance to myself so I looked away and tried to block out the thoughts of why he would have such a doll. Is he so lonely that he holds her at night? Does he pretend she is me?

The white dress was suddenly tossed over my head and I batted away the layers of crinoline to meet his angry eyes.

"Put it on."

He turned away and disappeared so quickly that I began undressing right there in his living room. He had scared me so much recently that I did exactly as he asked immediately when he asked. That probably wasn't healthy or proper and here I was down to my underclothes, struggling into a wedding dress for my angel turned phantom turned murderer…

Why a wedding dress? Did he truly want me as his bride? Or did he only want…

The dress had one length of ribbon laced in a manner that allowed me to tie the knot behind my back with my shaking hands. I slowly smoothed the lengths of fabric in the skirt and wondered why Angel would waste the time to put me in this dress as we run away…

Or was it that he never intended to run away with me and only wants…my body.

I turned at the noise of his return and saw he was carrying a veil and a bible. His face, although strange to look at, was fascinating to watch as emotion and pain stretched the odd features. He was still determined and focused as those warming eyes raked down my figure. The gaze seemed very determined to have me. Anger raced through me and burned my tongue.

"Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood! Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?"

It felt good to suddenly let loose and he looked surprised but undeterred as his brow arched. "That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood, has also denied me the joys of the flesh. This face, the infection which poisons our love…"

Shock colored my face as he spoke the word love. Did Angel love me? I looked more closely at his abnormal face.

"This face which earned a mother's fear and loathing. A mask, my first, unfeeling scrap of clothing." I couldn't help whatever Angel saw on my face to make him turn me abruptly to look in the mirror as he jammed the veil on my head. "Pity comes too late. Turn around and face your fate. An eternity of this before your eyes."

He was trying to scare me but I had fallen into a fantastic and impossible dream. I was brilliantly bedecked in wedding finery with a tall dark man in tails behind me. This man loved me and was offering me eternity and to make the impossible dream complete, the man was my angel of music. "This haunted face holds no horror for me now." I wanted to turn and touch him but his strange face seemed angry still. Why was he always so angry? Where was the patient indulgent angel? I was offering acceptance and yet his anger remained. "It's in your soul, that the true distortion lies."

His reflection softened and I saw the emotions flood his bizarre features. Love, regret, sorrow, and despair. He opened his mouth as he picked up one of my hands bringing me around to face him. My heart hammered to see the face of my angel, soft and caring. He reached to caress my cheek but froze before doing or saying anything. That blasted anger came back to his eyes.

"Wait! I think my dear we have a guest!"

My heart plummeted as Raoul pressed himself to the bars knee deep in water and soaked to the skin. I yelled his name is frustration. Why did he think he always needed to be my hero?

Angel's omnipotent voice echoed around us. "Sir, this is indeed an unparalleled delight. I had rather hoped that you would come. And now, my wish comes true, you have truly made my night."

"Free her!" - this could not be happening… - "Do what you like only free her. Have you no pity."

"Your lover makes a passionate plea"

As much as I wanted to dispute the use of the term 'lover' I tried instead to get Raoul to shut up. "Please Raoul it's useless."

"I love her." My mouth dropped open. "Does that mean nothing! I love her! Show some compassion."

"The world showed no compassion to me!" It was an impatient snarl and I could feel every pain my angel was remembering as his shoulders hunched as if to protect from a blow.

"Christine, Christine. Let me see her!"

"Be my guest, Sir." Angel melted into some darkness and Raoul was suddenly holding me and I clutched at him to keep from falling over.

"Why are you here?" I whispered.

"I've come to rescue you." He pulled back to check my face for injury.

"I don't need to be rescued. Angel would never hurt me."

"He killed Piangi, Christine! We need to go."

"Monsieur, I bid you welcome. Did you think that I would harm her? Why should I make her pay for the sins which are yours?"

It all happened so fast. The phantom wrapped the magic rope around Raoul's neck and he was suddenly struggling at the end of a noose, his eyes bulging as I backed away quickly. Angel circled a now helpless hero, taunting him cruelly.

"Order your fine horses now! Raise up your hand to the level of your eyes. Nothing can save you now, except perhaps Christine." He turned his rabid attention to me and I continued to back away from both the men, their eyes singeing me with concern.

Angel's voice came slightly softer. "Start a new life with me." I wanted him to stop there but of course his dramatic side was insatiable. "Buy his freedom with your love. Refuse me and you send your lover to his death." The breath went out of me. I never thought Angel would kill Raoul, my childhood friend, my friendly fiancé. Of course I also never thought my childhood friend would use me as bait to capture and kill my angel of music... - "This is the choice! This is the point of no return!"

Those words…those poignant sensual words. Not very long ago I sang them with all my heart and soul to the man who was my angel. I knew it was him as soon as the first notes left his lips. I would know that voice anywhere and I was glad it was Angel instead of Piangi. We sang and performed what felt like no performance I have ever done. The song slipped from my throat with a velvet purr as we seduced one another behind the guise of acting. I remember very clearly how it felt to have Angel's hands wandering my form in front of a rapt audience, and it was a feeling I wanted to experience again in private. But we seemed to be tumbling further and further from any safe and peaceful resolution and he was still waiting for my response. He was being cruel but then I had dished out my own serving of cruelty to him. I needed to make things right. I needed to shake him up, I needed him to know what he was doing was all kinds of wrong. I genuinely wanted to choose my Angel but he was doing himself a disservice by gambling Raoul's life for my love. I couldn't choose Raoul and instigate his demise…although it would get rid of him and allow Angel and I to start over…

My face flamed with my horrid thoughts and I hated that Angel had brought such darkness into my head. "The tears I might have shed for your dark fate," Angel was watching me with angry untrusting eyes and I hated that look. It made him seem more the phantom than my angel. "Grow cold and turn to tears of hate."

"Christine forgive me please forgive me…"

Raoul's choked words brought shame over me two fold as I felt the weight of Raoul's life and my heated shriek of hatred. I could never hate Angel. I hated the things he did but not him, not my angel of music.

Raoul and Angel were both singing to me and part of me wished the rope would choke Raoul's voice into silence so I could hear only what Angel was saying as I wistfully sang my confusion.

"Farewell, my fallen idol and false friend…we had such hopes and now those hopes lie murdered."

Both men were reaching toward me, mouths moving in sync not listening to a word I said…"Either way you choose…he has to win| you cannot win!"

Win? I wanted to laugh. How was any of this winning?

"Angel of music who deserves this?" Any of this! How my angel has been treated, how he is treating me, poor Raoul at the end of a rope, Piangi, Buquet. Yet even as all this sped through my mind I forgave Angel for it all. He used to be all that was light and right in my life, why was he doing this? "Why do you curse mercy?"

From the edge of my ear I just heard Raoul say he 'tried so hard to free me'. My thoughts were too consumed with the history I shared with this bizarre unraveling man that I barely knew. I cared so deeply for Angel that I was willing to forgive murder and that made me a little angry with my angel.

"Angel of music…you deceived me. I gave my mind blindly." Angel stared at me and I could see no glimmer of sense in those cold eyes. This could not be how he looked all those nights he taught me from behind a wall?

"You try my patience. Make your choice!" In my mind I flung questions at my angel the way I used to do to only that voice. Could he not remember all the moments and music we shared? When we used to sing together, raising our soul filled song to the empty rooms and dark nights, talking into the night, sharing secrets and dreams. Instead we now throw anguished abuse at each other? Could I win my Angel back to the way he was? How did he go from my angel to this angry, calculating man? I knew my choice but I resented how I was being forced.

"Pitiful creature of darkness." I could have made my words kinder but I was desperate. "What kind of life have you known?" Suddenly I could hear my father in my mind, praying piously over mother's grave…"God, give me courage to show you." I approached slowly and cautiously lifted my fingers to capture his deformed face. "You are not alone."

I didn't precisely plan to kiss him, but when I touched him, the shocked and disbelieving look on his face made me want to prolong that vulnerability in him. If he was vulnerable then he was accessible and I wanted access to my angel, had always wanted that. I pulled back to hug him as our hearts hammered in unison. He didn't put his arms around me, and the rigid feel of him against me brought tears to my eyes. He didn't know what I was doing. He didn't trust what I was doing. Tears coursed down my face as I pulled back swiftly to look into my angel's flushing confused face. I suddenly realized how much I loved my angel. It swept my body like a heat wave and I crushed my mouth to his again in a rush of passionate need. His arms shot away from me out to the sides, I didn't need to have my eyes open to know this, I could feel everything between us. He was being cleansed of sin as I washed him with my love and acceptance. I poured love through our mouths, touching his bloated lip with my tongue and moving my urgent kiss against his stunned innocent mouth.

"I love you," I breathed against him, lost in the moment, and then we jumped apart as if struck by lightning. His eyes were wide, his sallow cheeks flushed with colour as they darted behind me and then around the room.

Drumming echoed strangely and the chanting of a mob called, "Track down this murderer he must be found!"

Angel moved away from me with a stumble and I wanted to follow him except that I was frozen in place by the thought of kissing those lips again but this time he would kiss me back. Heat and hunger thrummed through me and I gaped at his every movement. Not only did I love my angel but I was in love with my angel. The intensity of my boiling blood told me what I needed to know. I wanted to disappear with angel and never look back. Nothing mattered but that surety. Not Piangi. Certainly not Buquet. Not even Raoul.

Firm hands grabbed my shoulders and I was honestly shocked to see Raoul's reddened face before me. "Take the boat swear to me never to tell." Raoul shook me to get my attention but I leaned to look around him and keep my singing Angel in my sights. "The secret you know of the angel in hell." My heart clenched at his personal description.

Raoul tried to drag me but we weren't moving away from Angel fast enough with the way I was struggling to stay and I saw the anger flash weakly in his eyes. He yelled to try to get me to move but only Raoul backed away when he screamed, "Go now and leave me!"

Angel deflated and turned from my steady gaze and shuffled sadly to the monkey on the table as the drums beat weakly in the distance. We needed action but all three of us stood in quarreling impotence as Angel wound the music box, Raoul tugged weakly on my arm and I stubbornly stood my ground. We listened to the sad refrain once before Angel's haunting and halting voice joined in.

"Masquerade, paper faces on parade. Masquerade. Hide your face so the world will never find you. " It felt like Angel were suddenly just a little boy trapped in this life with this horrid face and he was so lost. Perhaps he had been lost his whole life with no one to love him.

He needed me. I pushed away from Raoul with determination and his protest ended weakly in a gag as Angel turned at the rustle of my approaching dress. His startled demeanor softened while he gazed at me sadly. "Christine, I love you." Tears tracked down his sunken cheeks.

My heart beat erratically as I took the ring from my finger and held it out to him just as he had done on stage only an hour ago. "Say you'll share with me one love one lifetime…"

Raoul answered from behind me, "Say the word and I will follow you," as if to give me one more chance to live out my days with him in his fantasy life. But this was about me and my fantasy life. It was an unreal fantasy. I never thought my angel could be a real live man and yet he was! He was a lost man but I was here to help find him. I reached out to join hands with my angel and slide the ring over his littlest finger before smiling up at his glowing face.

"Share each day with me, each night, each morning." He couldn't believe I was singing to him gazing up at him and touching him. He tried to send me away but I would not be sent. I saw a flicker of what might be joy in his eyes.

"You alone can make my song take flight." He shared a sad smile with me.

The drums rolled closer and Raoul ran off with a curse.

"We need to go. We cannot stay and fight." I urged him on and his brow came down as those sharp eyes flicked around the room.

"Of course my Christine. I know that you are right." He sprang to action and gathered a few items before breaking a mirror and then beckoning to me. His face was effused with hope and I couldn't help smiling as I joined him. He helped me pass into an unknown strange tunnel, following him into darkness to help him find the light.

"It's over now…" He crooned to me as we joined hands in the darkness, his voice echoing around us like magic. "The music of the night."