Alright, I'm finally done! This took me forever to finish up because I knew that I didn't really need an epilogue, but at the same time, I wasn't quite ready to let it go... The biggest of all possible THANK YOUs to everyone who's been reading along. I've cherished every review and every message. Thanks for keeping me going!

Christine 1897

It's been seventeen years since I lay with Erik upon his death bed, and now I lie alone, upon mine.

While Raoul sits in silent vigil in the hard, high-backed chair at the foot of my bed, nurses come shuffling in on soft-soled shoes and ply me with bitter medicines to ease my pain and help me to sleep. It's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between sleeping and waking, just as it was in those final weeks of my lying-in, when I spent each day in a chloral-induced stupor. Then, I struggled against my failing body, driven by the heart that beat within my belly, in time with my own. Now I am so very tired...

"What a shame… So young, such a perfect life to be leaving behind," I hear the nurses whisper when they think I'm asleep. It's true. Many have compared my life to a fairytale – an orphaned chorus girl whisked off the stage by a handsome young nobleman and deposited in a beautiful manor home, where her kind, loving husband provides her with everything she could desire, including a flawless, angelic son. But the real fairytale of my life is of a very different kind. It's the fairytale I heard all those years ago, in the cellars of the opera. A story of a love that was not meant to be, and the rare flower that it engendered – my Charles.

I had insisted on delaying our wedding, giving Raoul time to be sure that he still wanted me, and time for me to be sure of the paternity of any child. My conscience berated me for wishing that I was with Erik's child – hadn't I hurt Raoul enough? – but in my heart I couldn't help but wish for that one piece of our imagined future to become a reality. When a month had passed and I'd become reasonably sure that it had, I was filled with such an overwhelming mix of terror and joy that all the promises I'd made to myself to sit down and tell Raoul the truth of everything suddenly seemed quite impossible. I convinced myself that it might be best to wait…

And so for seventeen years Raoul and I have never spoken a word about any of it. Not about the final night I spent by Erik's side, or about the unlikely timing of Charles' birth. Nor did he ever question why I burst into hysterical tears when one year he suggested taking a summer house by the sea. I tell myself that it is unspoken knowledge between us, and while that may be true, the real truth is that I have been too selfish and too cowardly, too afraid to topple our carefully constructed life.

I know that I should feel terrible guilt over the secret I've kept, the lie that I've allowed my family to live…but I don't. Because in Raoul's eyes, though I've seen flashes of pain, of disappointment, and bitter knowledge, what I've more often seen is pride and love. And in Charles there is nothing but unquestioning adoration of his father. I tell myself it would be nothing but cruel to shatter that, and so I'll go to my grave never revealing my secret to another living soul…save for one.

I'm not sure what came over me the day I sent the letter. It was just after Charles' first piano recital, where he'd played with such precocious beauty and feeling – not to mention perfection – that I wept the entire evening after I'd put him to bed. A small article appeared in the local newspaper making mention of the apparent prodigy who'd stood out among the much older performers, and I clipped it out with my sewing shears. Into an envelope I placed the cutting along with a miniature portrait and a carefully worded letter, and sent it off to M. Nadir Kahn (care of the Paris Opera, where I knew he'd been a frequent attendant), uncertain if it would ever reach its recipient. Several weeks later, I received a reply written in a strange hand. With my heart in my throat, I locked myself in my bathroom as I read the courteous but otherwise impersonal letter, which concluded with the following lines: "Madame, my heart is gladdened to hear that you've been blessed with such a son. Certainly he is a credit to his mother and to his father, who is no doubt very proud of him."

It was so tempting to save those lines as a written representation of the truth and conviction I carried in my heart, but I burned them as I burned Erik's letter so long ago. Only the line from Aida remains locked in my beside table, along with sixteen years worth of red and white roses, a magnificent diamond necklace made of jewels that once belonged to a cat, and a small, plain gold ring that rested upon my finger for hardly more than twenty four hours, but which rests upon my heart and mind every day of my life.

Raoul is dozing in his uncomfortable chair, his head nodding with each deep exhalation. He looks so peaceful, and my heart swells with love for him. I am not worthy of the love and goodness he has given me, and my one regret is that I could never love him back as well as he deserved. I can only hope he understands.

It's the middle of the night, and his head jerks up, startled by my sudden labored breathing. He slides his chair to the head of my bed and takes my freezing hand in his. I can't be sure, because his words sound so far away, but I think I hear him whisper words of love, of forgiveness, of release… And from somewhere in the distance, I can hear an unmistakable voice singing a song from my childhood, a song I haven't heard since the night that I spent wrapped in the embrace of my Angel of Music.