Author's Note: This will be a re-telling of Phantom of the Opera based primarily on the ALW-verse, with some Kay and Leroux thrown in for good measure. In this story, Christine's first experience with Erik goes quite differently from how it does in canon, and things spiral into an alternate storyline from there.

"Things have changed, Raoul!"

Christine planted her hands squarely on her boudoir table and heaved herself to her feet, but it was no use. Raoul had gone to ready himself to take her to dinner. But Christine knew better; she knew her Angel of Music would want to debrief her turn as Elissa. After all, this was their shared triumph - the culmination of years of study made manifest upon the stage.

"How dare that boy come in here and try to seduce you!" spat a voice, echoing through the dressing room. Christine's eyes went round as saucers, and her lips trembled in fear. "Blathering idiot - feeding off our triumph!"

Christine looked around the room for the source of the voice. But he was her angel, and he always spoke to her from some unseen, heavenly place. And he was often angry, like this. Christine had not known that angels could have such tempers until she'd been late to lessons a few times.

"Angel," she whispered, "He's just a boy from my youth. Forgive me. I will send him away."

"Come to the mirror," murmured the ethereal voice. "Come look at yourself in the mirror. It is time, Christine."

"Time?" she echoed, but she obediently walked to the full length mirror and studied her own reflection. She had a woman's body these days, curved around her bust and waist and hips. She wore her Hannibal bodice and a petticoat beneath her dressing gown, and her dark curls spilled around her shoulders. Her stage makeup was beginning to melt off her face just a little, her right eye's kohl smeared a tiny bit. She sighed and wondered about dinner with Raoul. Two minutes, he'd said. She needed to hurry and change if she was to go with him. But she knew her Angel would permit no such thing. When Raoul returned, Christine would have to shoo him away. Raoul seemed sceptical about the very existence of an Angel of Music. "No doubt," he'd said dismissively when she'd told him that her father had sent her an Angel. But Christine knew the truth. Her Angel was as real as… well, as real as a person.

Suddenly there was a shift in her reflection, a glint. She furrowed her brows and saw something beyond her own countenance. It was a face - a gleaming white mask over half of the features, and the other side a handsome visage. Christine whirled around, expecting to see Raoul standing behind her with a costume piece on. But there was no one there. Terrified that she was hallucinating, Christine turned back to the mirror and saw the masked face again. She noticed now that the figure wore a black fedora and an elegant black cape. Who was this ghost, this phantom, this…

"Angel?" she choked out, and the figure's gloved hand reached outward. Suddenly there was a click, and the mirror swung open like a door. Christine gasped when she saw that there was empty space behind the mirror, rather than the wallpaper that covered the rest of the room. Then she gasped again, for the masked figure she had seen in the reflection stood before her in the dark space, as solid as a human being. Christine staggered backward and tripped on the hem of her dressing gown. She fell onto her backside, landing hard on the carpeted floor. The figure behind the mirror, she saw, held a lantern, and as it stepped out from the space, it loomed like a beast above her. She wanted to scream, to call out for Raoul, but instead she just whispered again,

"Angel?"

The figure held out a gloved hand, and Christine put her fingers into the palm, entirely on instinct. She let him heave her to her feet, and once she stood staring up at him, she realised something.

Her Angel of Music was a man. A very human man.

Suddenly she saw spots. She couldn't breathe. She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone tight. She mumbled to him,

"I have to go; I'm going to have dinner with the Vicomte de Chagny, and I -"

"It is time, Christine." He'd already said that, but he said it again, more warmly this time. He pulled on her hand, and Christine realised she was being guided to the space behind the mirror. She stepped into the stone tunnel that lay beyond the mirror, struggling to see in the dim light of her Angel's lantern. He reached behind them and pulled the mirror-door shut, and Christine could see now that it was one-way glass. She could see, translucently, into her dressing room. She shook a little at the thought of that, at the idea of a human man watching her through this mirror. Suddenly the door of the dressing room sounded with firm knocking, and Raoul's voice called out,

"Christine! Are you ready for supper?"

Christine opened her mouth to call back to him, but a gloved hand clapped over her lips and silenced her. She turned to the masked figure and glared up at him, but he just shook his head. Raoul knocked again, calling somewhat merrily,

"Christine? Christine?"

She stood in frozen silence, the gloved hand warm against her face. She was pulled back into the tunnel, about six feet from the mirror, and she let out a little noise of protest. She shut her eyes and tried to calibrate what she'd just discovered… her Angel of Music was a human being. Her father hadn't sent a real angel. She'd been tutored into her luscious new singing voice by a man. A man. The person holding his hand over her mouth right now was a human man.

The door to the dressing room burst open, and Raoul stood there in his coat, holding a walking stick and his hat. He looked around confusedly and said again,

"Christine?"

He paced the room for a long moment, and Christine just stared at the man in the mask. Half his face seemed extraordinarily good-looking in the lamplight; he had one dark eye framed by a thick but shapely brow. His nose was stately, Roman and masculine. Half of his mouth curled into a little smile, as though he were very amused by all of this. His skin was free of marks of blemishes, if just a little wrinkled. But the other side of his face, the half covered by a shining bone-white mask, seemed different. His lips were swollen and marred on that side. His eye seemed sunken behind the mask, and it was so pale grey that she wondered if it could see at all. Around the eye, she could see rivulets of veined, raised tissue. And, strangely, it appeared as though he had no ear at all on that side of his head. His hair, black in the darkness of the tunnel, was combed neatly backward but was very obviously a wig.

Who was this man?

"Christine…"

She snapped her eyes back to the mirror, looking out into the dressing room. She could see the confusion, the hurt painted on Raoul's face. He huffed a breath and dragged his fingers through his sandy hair, striding quickly out of the dressing room and pulling the door shut behind him. He'd go off to look for her, she thought. He'd try to find her among the ballet corps; he'd ask Madame Giry where Christine had gone. But no one, no one except the man whose glove was clasped over Christine's mouth right now, would know that she had vanished behind a mirror.

Christine squirmed against the glove, and her Angel of Music released her. He whispered to her, for the third time,

"It is time you knew the truth. Come with me."

"The truth," she repeated, feeling confused. He moved back a few steps and then descended onto a stair, and when he turned back, he held out his hand again. Christine very hesitantly placed her fingers onto his glove, and he squeezed just a little. She began to descend a winding staircase with him, little flecks of golden light from the lantern illuminating just a few feet in front of them at a time. Christine's heart hammered in her chest and her breath hitched as she wondered where the devil they were going. Down, down, down, they went, until Christine thought she'd descended into the underworld of Hades himself. It got cold as they went down, and she shivered in her dressing gown.

"How much farther?" Christine finally dared to ask.

"Almost there," confirmed her Angel. She glanced back behind her, but without the light of the lantern, what lay above was pitched in darkness. Her stomach quivered with fear as she realised how alone she was with this man, with the figure who had appeared in the mirror.

Finally, finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs. They began to walk through a tunnel, and her Angel held up his lantern to illuminate their way. The tunnel was arched, stone on the sides and ceiling and damp on the floor. Christine wondered again where the blazes they were going. As if he'd read her mind, the man in the fedora turned his masked face towards her and said,

"Believe it or not, Christine, I live down here."

"Wh-what?" Christine was being rude, she thought, but she couldn't care. They reached the end of the labyrinthine tunnel and, somewhat shockingly, came to the shores of a lake. An underground lake? Christine furrowed her brows and let her mouth fall open in wonder.

There were candelabras on surfaces of stone in the centre and along the banks of the lake, making the dark water glitter in candlelight. Christine marveled for a moment, her breath utterly swept away. Then she saw a Venetian-style gondola pulled up onto the shore, a stick for punting lying beside it. Her Angel of Music guided her hand until she approached the boat, and then he urged her to sit on the red velvet cushion.

Raoul was upstairs looking for her, Christine thought distantly. He wouldn't find her. He would never find her. No one would ever find her. That thought made her heart race again, made her feel a little queasy. When she looked over her shoulder, the masked man was pushing the gondola into the lake and then carefully balancing himself in the stern, pushing away from the shore. He punted them through the water, towards a closed portcullis that seemed to be shutting them off from the opposite side. But as they approached the portcullis, it began to rise mechanically out of the water. Christine wondered at how this all worked - the endless stairs, the underground tunnel, the lake, this gate… how had she not known that any of this lay in the bowels of the opera house? How could she possibly have gone so long without realising that her Angel was a man?

"You are not an angel," she mused aloud, and when she turned again, the masked man stared down at her and said,

"You needed me to be an angel, and so I was. I am a ghost, a phantom, an angel."

"A man," Christine corrected him, and he tartly responded,

"Not many have thought so, at least not in my experience."

What did that mean, she wondered? She stayed turned around and pushed him.

"Why do you wear a mask?"

"I am… damaged. My face is not fit for eyes like yours," he said gravely. Christine licked her lips and then turned back around, gasping a little. As they approached the far side of the lake, she could see that there was a home constructed on the shore. There appeared to be a set of rooms, with ornate doors, that had been built straight out of the rock. The brick exterior of the 'house' fit perfectly against the curves and juttings of the stone. Through the open windows, Christine could see flickering candlelight, and as the boat shored itself, she slowly stood and let her Angel assist her out onto the rocky beach. He led her up to the house, and when he opened the door and gestured inside, she asked him softly,

"Who are you? Why have you brought me here?"

"You've known me for ages, Christine, and I have brought you here to explain everything," he said softly. "Please, enter."

Christine hesitated before she stepped into the foyer of the house. There was dark green damask wallpaper with lit sconces, and she looked around as she realised he'd built himself a real home down here, levels below the opera house.

"Who are you?" she asked again, turning around.

"Perhaps we might talk over some tea," suggested her Angel of Music.

Raoul was looking for her upstairs, Christine thought distantly. She shut her eyes and repeated,

"Tea. Erm… all right."

She followed him to the left, into a kitchen with a table and chairs. She asked nervously,

"Are you going to hurt me?"

He whirled around, the good side of his face looking utterly shocked. "Hurt you? Never. Never you."

"I see," Christine nodded. She gulped and sat at the table, watching as the angel - the man - stirred about in the kitchen. He pumped water into a basin, heated it over a running stove, and filled a ceramic teapot. He let the pot warm and then dumped the water out, pouring boiling water over aromatic tea leaves. All the while that he moved, smooth as a cat, Christine wondered just who he was. He was her teacher, she thought. She'd known him for ages, as he'd said. But she'd never actually met him. And now she knew he was a man. A human man.

She'd often dreamed of her Angel of Music. She'd dreamed of an angel who would stand behind her and snare his arms around her slowly, embracing her in a heavenly wrap of affection. She didn't know why she'd begun having those sorts of dreams in the past year, but she had. And now that she knew he was human…

"How have you been teaching me?" she demanded, and when the Angel turned around, holding a tray with a tea set upon it, he murmured,

"Magic. Deception. Trickery. The phantom voice you heard was always that of a man. A musician, an architect, an illusionist. All of these things and more am I, your Angel of Music."

"You deceived me," Christine affirmed. "You tricked me into thinking you were the angel my father had sent."

"How well would you have received the idea of a man standing behind a mirror?" he questioned, his dark brow cocking up. He sat opposite Christine and poured the tea, saying quietly, "You like yours with two lumps of sugar."

He knew that because he'd seen her drink tea during lessons. She shuddered at the idea that it had been a human man all of this time, and then she began to cry. She felt very foolish, very stupid. How could she have believed in an angel when it had been a solid mortal teaching her? How could she have believed in her father's mythology when her tutor had been a masked gentleman in a tuxedo?

"You sang so beautifully tonight." The man held his cup of tea in his hands but did not sip. She knew why he hesitated to drink before her; his face was half bloated, half distorted. It was as he'd said; he was destroyed on part of his face. She wondered what lay beneath the mask, and she asked,

"Did I please you, Angel?"

"You needn't call me that, not now that you know I am but a man."

"Well, what should I call you?" Christine asked, her voice trembling. "Are you the Opera Ghost?"

He nodded, and she shut her eyes, thinking of how the set piece had come crashing down, nearly hitting La Carlotta. This man was dangerous, she thought. She whispered,

"It's been you for years, playing tricks on all of us."

"And teaching you," he said firmly. "I have been your teacher. Now. As to what you ought to call me, I suppose you might use my name. Not many have used my name, but I should like it from you."

"And what is your name?" Christine heard the tremor in her voice as she sipped her sweetened tea. He stared at her for a long moment, and she studied the mask. Then at last he said, in a voice as smooth as silk,

"Erik. My name is Erik."

"Erik," she repeated, and his face shifted. He tipped his head and murmured,

"Kheili zibaayi."

"I'm sorry?" Christine shook her head, not understanding. Erik dragged his fingers along the rim of his teacup and whispered,

"You were perfect tonight. I have nothing to correct about your performance."

"Erik." Christine looked around the kitchen and licked her lips. "Raoul will be worried. So worried. So will Madame Giry."

"Don't worry," said Erik. "I've let Madame Giry know that you are safe."

She frowned, confused by that. How had he done that? She shook her head, and he suggested,

"You could stay here for the night. It is late."

"S-Stay here?" Christine felt her eyes go wide. "I can't do that. I… it would be improper!"

"You have your own bedroom," he promised her, and Christine was confused. He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat, and said, "I confess that I have been planning this evening for some time. I've got dinner prepared. Are you hungry?"

Her stomach betrayed her as it growled a little in response to his proposition. She nodded, and when he rose, he walked back into the kitchen. She noticed now that despite his slight limp, he moved elegantly. He opened the stove and pulled something out with towels in his hands, then began arranging food upon plates. Christine just stared into her tea and wondered what she was doing. Shouldn't she have screamed when he had his glove against her mouth? Shouldn't she have cried out for Raoul? But something had compelled her to follow him down here, down into his dungeon lair, and she found herself curious. She wanted to know more about him. She wanted to find out what was behind his mask. And now that she knew her Angel of Music was a real man, her dreams of having his arms around her made her shiver. His voice had always caressed her. His voice had kissed her for years.

Suddenly a plate was put before her, and Christine looked down to see roast lamb and potatoes. She was handed a fork and a knife, and when she looked up, she wondered briefly if she should stab her captor with the knife. But then she examined his face and saw her teacher, and she gratefully, wordlessly, cut into her food.

They ate in silence for a time, until at last Christine asked,

"How long have you lived down here?"

"Years," he said evasively. "I built it myself. I've built things far grander than this."

"You are a genius," she breathed. She stared at his mismatched eyes and said, "You've composed things for me to sing. You've tutored and honed my voice. You played violin for me. You sang… you sing so wonderfully. And you're an architect, a magician. What is it that you can not do?"

"I can't…" he looked away. "I can not live among society. And in that way, I am damned, you see."

"What, just because of the mask?" Christine scowled. "How bad could it possibly be?"

"Worse than you can imagine," he said sharply. Christine decided to drop the subject of the mask. She ate the rest of her lamb and potato, and she sipped her tea. Finally, Erik took their dishes back to the kitchen and put them in the wash basin, and he came back, holding out his hand like he'd done a few times now.

"You have been my teacher." Christine put her hand in his and rose. "And you're real. You're a man."

"I am." He nodded. "I am a man. And you are a woman. Gone is the little flit that you once were. You've grown."

She shuddered at that, at the suggestiveness of his words. She stood facing him with her hand in his, and she was tempted to ask him to take her back. Take me back across your lake, she almost said. Back through the tunnel and up the stairs and into my dressing room. Take me back. But then she gazed up into his face and heard herself murmur,

"You may be a man, but you are still my Angel of Music. I forgive your deception."

He tipped his head again - a habit of his, it seemed - and smirked. "Well, thank you. Shall I show you to your room?"

Christine thought she'd gone mad as she let him lead her out of the kitchen and down the main corridor. To the left, she saw a room with a stout four-poster bed, dark wallpaper, and heavy wooden furnishings. But he didn't take her in there. He took her to the room across the hall, a much lighter space. The walls were butter yellow and there was a pine sleigh bed with a cream-coloured down blanket and soft-looking pillows. There was a headless mannequin at the far side of the room, and upon the mannequin was the most beautiful silk nightgown Christine had ever seen, with pink and blue embroidery and a sash around the waist. She gasped, nearly fainting as she realised he'd prepared all of this for her. She whirled around and blinked rapidly, feeling like she was going to lose consciousness.

"Christine," said Erik in a soothing voice, and he reached out to touch her shoulder. His wig shifted on his head a little as he squared his jaw and said softly, "I have longed to bring you here, to be with me."

"To be with you…" Christine felt like all she was doing was repeating what he said. Her eyes welled heavily as she thought he must be a madman, a monster who had plotted to kidnap her. She took a step back from him and said, "Perhaps you should take me back to my dressing room now."

"Christine," he said again, and for some reason, when he spoke her name, her flesh prickled all over. She'd heard him say her name a thousand times before, but right now it was like honey and milk from his scarred lips. He tightened his hold on her shoulder and whispered it. "Christine."

"I'll stay the night," she finally said in a shaking voice, "if you promise not to harm me."

"I would never," he vowed. "Not ever. I've told Madame Giry that you are safe."

"All right," Christine whispered. She glanced back to the nightgown on the mannequin and shivered. She gulped, turning back to Erik. "On one condition."

"Name it," he said stoutly. She took a shaking breath and said,

"Show me what's under the mask."

His face hardened, and he shook his head no. "It would ruin everything."

"Then take me back," she said defiantly, and he squared his shoulders, huffing a breath.

"Very well."

She scowled. Was he that determined not to show her his face that he would sooner return her than remove his mask? She scoffed and said,

"For years, you have been an angel to me. A phantom voice whose source I could not see. You have comforted me. Do you remember when the other ballet girls were teasing me, and you soothed me? I believed my father had sent you to protect me. And now you won't show me your face?"

"No, I will not, because it would ruin everything," he spat. Christine reached up, undeterred by his insistent anger, curling her fingers around the edge of the cold porcelain mask. Erik reached up and snatched at her wrist, squeezing too tightly. Christine yelped in pain, and he let up on her, still holding her wrist. He shook his head again, but Christine said firmly,

"If you want me to stay with you, then you must reveal yourself to me."

"You'll flee," he said in a knowing voice, nodding. "You'll run away."

"Nothing you could show me could frighten me so badly as all that," she said, tipping up her chin. "You have called me brave before; do you not think me brave now?"

"Too brave," he whispered, pulling at her wrist. But Christine peeled at the edge of the mask, and it came off in one sweep of her hand. Erik scrambled to catch it as the wire backing fell off his head, and suddenly he let out a cracked sob of horror. He covered his face with a hand and backed away, hissing, "Demonic woman. Why do you seek to shame me?"

"I seek to know you," Christine insisted. She strode up to him and pulled at his hand, but he resisted her. "Angel… please. Erik."

"Here!" he spat, flinging their hands off of his face. "Is this what you wanted to see? Freak! Monster! Living corpse! Now you see it; what do you think now? I shall prepare to take you back above ground."

He started to turn, but Christine grabbed at his elbow and turned him back towards her. He lowered his mismatched eyes and shook his head, letting out a quivering sigh. Christine examined the demolished part of his face. There were mountains and valleys of rough, hardened scar tissue. There was a black patch of dead flesh near his temple, and his eye was so sunken that it appeared to be an eyeball lying in a bare skull. His wig had come off with his mask, and he clutched it tightly. His real hair, Christine could see, was sparse and grey, just a few strands here and there on an otherwise bald skull lined with red threads of scarred flesh. His bloated lips dragged up too far on the marled side, as though someone had carved at his mouth. She could see now that his ear on that side was missing its exterior parts and was no more than a hole into his skull. He was white as a ghost on that side, except for the scarlet lines of his scars.

It was indeed hideous, Christine thought. She tried her best not to recoil. Instead she stared into his dark eye on his normal side and whispered,

"Angel of Music, why did you hide from me for so long?"

He shook his head. "You were never ready to know me."

He slid his mask and wig back on, smoothing the sleek black hair and clearing his throat. Christine blinked at him and asked,

"May I have some privacy to change into my nightgown?"

He blinked, seeming shocked. "You're staying?"

"I promised I would," Christine told him. "Didn't I? I'm a woman of my word."

"Woman," he whispered, and he bent down until his lips were beside her ear. "Beautiful creature, you sang perfectly tonight. Tomorrow morning, we practise. Goodnight."

She shut her eyes and felt a tingle go down her spine. She nodded. "Goodnight, Erik."

Ten minutes later, she'd washed off her stage makeup and changed into the beautiful nightgown he'd had set up for her. She lay in the sleigh bed beneath the plush blankets and curled onto her side. He was just across the hall from her - her Angel of Music. For so long, she'd thought he was one of God's messengers. She'd thought him not real at all. She'd been wrong. He was real. He was very real. He lived beneath the opera house in a mysterious lair. He was an architect, a builder, a composer, a singer, a violinist, and a teacher. He was so much. His face was destroyed. He was so strange, she thought.

And, yet, she wanted more of him. She wanted to practise music with him like she'd done for years. She wanted to do it in person, with the man she'd discovered. She shut her eyes and whispered,

"Papa, is this who you sent to me?"

She heard a door shut, and she thought he must have gone to bed. She trembled, thinking of him in the bedroom so near hers. This was absurd, she told herself. Being in this bizarre house in the opera's bowels, eating dinner with a mystifying disfigured man, sleeping in a nightgown he'd had waiting for her.

Raoul had been searching for her upstairs.

Christine shut her eyes and felt so tired she could hardly think. She only thought for a little while more, about how perplexing and peculiar this entire experience was, and then she drifted off to sleep in the Opera Ghost's lair.

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