Epilogue

1919

Travel never got this congested when horse-drawn carriages filled the streets. Raoul sighed and leaned back in the seat.

It was difficult to be back in Paris after all these years. First, to step into the family townhouse the day before and see it still decorated as it had been, still smelling of home after all these decades. Servants wearing updated family livery--it was almost as if the house had not changed at all. He'd stood in the foyer, almost expecting his mother to swoop down the stairs to greet him as she so often had. His mother had died almost forty years ago and now lay in the family tomb in Rouen.

The servants assumed he was there for the auction of the contents of the Opera Populaire. It had been hard to cover his shock. The building had been sold and would be demolished, but the Arts Council would sell off the contents. To go through those doors again, to see what time and war had done to all the beauty inside--even worse than what had been done during the fire. Then seeing Mme. Giry there, and the music box...

It was nearly too much to bear.

Raoul wished he didn't know why this was happening, but he knew. Without realizing it, his gaze dropped to the box of letters resting on the seat beside him. Without Christine, his brother would have no reason to repair the damage done by the war and reopen it again.

He picked up the black-lined envelope with the too-familiar skull seal. The seal was embossed and glued now, not the old-style wax, but with the scrawled handwriting, it was unmistakable.

His hand started to shake and he didn't open it. He knew every word inside by heart after these last two years, there was no need to read it again. The shock of Christine's death was still as fresh as it had been when he'd first read it. Erik's simple request that Raoul return to France for the funeral had been more compelling than Raoul liked to remember. That Erik intended to lay her next to her father's tomb and not in the family mausoleum in Rouen was touching. Raoul would have been there, if not for the damned war's limitation on commercial voyages across the Atlantic. Of all the times to be trapped in the United States, with Christine being laid to rest...

Raoul set the music box aside and placed the box of letters on his lap. Dear Christine. She'd written him dutifully of everything that happened in their lives almost from the day he'd left. He opened the box and swore he could still smell the delicate scent of the perfume she'd come to favor in her later life. So many of the letters were more frail than he was now,. He was afraid to open and read them again.

Christine had sent him newspaper clippings of the reopening of the Opera Populaire and the brilliant first production of Don Juan, Triumphant!, which she starred in once again. The curse lifted, the theater enjoyed a long history of positive reviews, stunning productions and rising profits.

It was almost a year before she'd written that she was expecting, and then about the birth of their first child, a daughter they'd named Marguerite. A son, Gustave, came next, closely followed by the twins, Sébastien and Simone. Baby Joséphine had been something of a surprise four years later.

Raoul chuckled to himself. 'Baby Joséphine' was over thirty now, with babies of her own. If he remembered correctly, only Sébastien had not married and didn't have a family.

Time passed too swiftly while he'd been otherwise occupied.

When he'd left, Raoul had been certain it was for the best. His fortune lay elsewhere, and he'd intended to find it. And he'd searched the world: Africa, to Indonesia, up to the Arctic, into the Americas and the wilds of Canada. Any place besides France.

He'd searched and his adventures had extracted a physical toll. His legs were now weakened because of extreme frost-bite in the Arctic his last journey there ten years ago. It had almost killed him. Only his intense refusal to remain crippled for the rest of his life got him back on his feet, astounding the finest medical minds Christine had insisted on sending to him. His lungs would no longer take the strain of extensive exercise, so walking a flight of stairs could tire him for hours.

Raoul had loved his life and would only do one thing differently if he had to live it over. He would not have run like a coward when he left. He'd run from his family, from Erik, from the horror that was his mother.

He looked up as his car finally cleared the confines of the city and picked up speed on the more open road to the cemetery. Only two things to do in Paris, and then he might well leave again. He had to say a final farewell to the one woman he'd loved and who, in her own way, always loved him. And to make peace with his brother.

That had been his intent upon arrive, at least, not to mention his reason for the impetuous purpose of the music box. Raoul was certain it was the one Christine had described all those years ago at the dinner table, the one Erik had made as a young man. It was the perfect peace offering to his brother.

Now, Raoul was not so certain. The old cowardice gripped him, urging him to turn around, to run again before anyone truly knew he was here. Erik was bound to be in Rouen, still several hours away. He could send the box to Erik. They need never meet again.

And die knowing he was as much of a coward as he'd come to fear.

Raoul opened the box of letters. The ones with photographs were noticeable for their size. While all the children were talented, only Marguerite's talent was with photography instead of music. Christine made certain he reaped the rewards of the girl's efforts over the years. He selected the last, and thickest, envelop. The paper rattled slightly as he opened it.

These were taken at the gala celebrating Erik and Christine's forty-fifth wedding anniversary the year before she died. There was a picture of the children performing music written by Gustave for the occasion. Joséphine was at the piano, Sébastien played the violin, while Gustave and Simone sang. And there was a photograph of the seven grandchildren, Raoul couldn't remember their names, dancing with a tolerant Mme. Giry with Christine and Meg in the background.

He continued flipping through them until he found the one he'd been thinking of, the only photograph of Erik ever taken.

Erik and Christine sat on a divan, his arm tucked around her. Even nearing sixty years of age, Christine was still slender and as graceful as she'd ever been. Unlike most photographs, they did not stare, death-like, into the camera, but gazed at each other. Erik still had a full head of hair perfectly white, was still robust despite his advanced years. His face was in profile, looking very much like their father, suave, handsome beyond his years, but Raoul could not mistake the love in his expression. In both of their expressions.

They'd have a love stories were told of. There were days that Raoul resented them, others that he envied them. They'd had the lives they'd wanted and fulfilled their dreams completely, just as he had. He was certain they would not change a day they had together, except, probably, the last one.

"A stag," his nurse, Sister Beatrix said, breaking into his thoughts. "How beautiful."

Raoul looked up, blinking away tears, and stared blankly at the animal. Beautiful, strong, majestic, free. He looked away quickly. The beast reminded him too much of Erik.

Out of the windshield, he saw the cemetery filling the horizon. His breath shook with emotion. Christine was the youngest of all of them. It was wrong that she had been the first to die.

His hands shook as he tucked the photographs back into the envelope and returned them to the box.

Sister Beatrix glanced back at him, probably thinking he was having a breathing spasm, but he ignored her. He had a decision to make, one that he'd made and re-made many times over the last two years. This time, he had to follow through. This time, he'd get no second chances.

They entered the cemetery and Raoul had to concentrate on old memories to direct the driver to the Daaé tomb. It was more complicated than he remembered from the few trips he'd taken while courting Christine, and they only got turned around once. Raoul felt rather pleased with his memory when it came into view.

Getting out of the car was more a chore now than it had been at the theater, but this was the part he'd been saving his strength for. Sister Beatrix gave him a glare when he refused the wheelchair and carried the music box himself and carefully set it on the base of Christine's tomb.

It was a beautiful stone, even if it was a sober portrait, not like the sparkling light Christine had always been. He wondered who had the greatest hand in the decorations. As his eyes fell on the cascade of ribbons and roses, he knew, and then wondered why he had wondered.

Starting to turn, something glinted and caught his eye. Raoul paused to look. A single red rose, tied with a black ribbon lay on the far edge of the base. A closer look-- Raoul caught his breath at the sight of the engagement ring he'd given Christine so long ago. The one she'd given Erik, or had Erik taken it from her? He didn't remember and didn't think it was important anymore.

What was important is that Erik had left it here, now. For him.

The rose was still perfect, far too perfect to have been lying there for hours, or days.

Erik was here. Nearby.

Raoul looked around, but couldn't see him anywhere.

His breathing grew ragged.

Erik was here, making the peace offering Raoul had been afraid to make. Erik, once again, proving he was more a man than Raoul was. Was he too afraid to take the offering, to truly give this a chance?

Raoul stepped forward and carefully picked up the rose. As he straightened, he saw the figure standing next to the tree. He locked gazes with Erik for a breathless moment.

The photograph had not lied. His brother was as much a force at eighty as he was fifty years ago. His traditional white mask merely made him far more stately than before. While Erik had a Death's head cane, he held it more like a weapon than as a necessity. What a fool he'd been to think he could ever entrap, manipulate or cripple Erik. How much more could have been gained if they'd banded together rather instead?

Even more important, how much could yet be gained?

Erik inclined his head and gestured towards the stone bench. An open invitation.

Raoul nodded, but turned and reached for the music box. Sister Beatrix was there and handed it to him with an encouraging smile.

Raoul went to sit and talk with his brother for the first real time in their lives.

Perhaps it was never too late to do things right.

Author's Note: And so, we come to the end of a tale. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have and that it fills in the various holes in the movie to your satisfaction. And, perhaps, if I've told this story well enough, you'll see, as I always have, that the movie has always said that it was Raoul who had to learn to be lonely--and I think he deserves this second chance.