But of course she was only trying to get a better look at him — and maybe that was why he held tight to her a moment more. Maybe what he feared most was a closer examination, and the repulsion she might find at their embrace's end.

But he wouldn't overpower her forever. Eric released her, to move in or out of his arms as she wished. It was to his satisfaction and fear that she did not stray far. "Lotte. Is it really you?" he asked hoarsely. Of course this was Charlotte. Everything about her both familiar and strange. He tried again, only to come off sounding more inane with his second attempt. "Is this… us?"

How else could he frame the question that needed asking? He spent half his days reciting words written by other, more articulate people, so perhaps his poor attempts now could be forgiven.

Charlotte raised a hand to his cheek, and Eric froze. It was a touch he had chased after for years, only ever felt when they inhabited roles outside themselves — and here they were doing so again. Weren't they? That's what this was, wasn't it? But that didn't make her caress any less real.

And that's what frightened him. Though it brushed the cheek opposite, the hand was too near his mask. He caught it before it could even think to wander; then, ashamed of himself, he drew away. He had not imagined until that moment that withdrawing from Charlotte was anything he would ever be capable of.

He played it off; he was an actor, of course he could. He toured her room, taking in every shadowed detail, and he the darkest shadow of all. He ran his gloved hands along surfaces, picking up objects and replacing them again. His examinations revealed no spikes, nothing held together in its upstage-facing position with gaffer tape or wood glue and screws, or (God forbid) a hapless member of the run crew. "Incredible," he said with reverence. His eyes traveled to her vanity and fell to the black-ribboned rose. An indulgent smile tugged at his lips. So she had found it, and he... had put it there? Yes, he had. Or rather, the Phantom had. He had discovered her cherishing it when he arrived, and even in the midst of everything the sight had pleased him more than he could say.

But he was distracting himself on purpose. Their new world was an easy one to get lost in — every detail both familiar and lent new, incredible dimension — but Charlotte's concerns pulled him back to their impossible present.

"A doctor." Eric echoed the word hollowly. "In this time period? I wonder. Would he be more likely to call me a wagon to the nearest asylum, or freakshow? Would he say it was some reflection of a soul too corrupt to do anything but manifest itself outwardly upon the flesh? Or would he diagnose me as inhuman entirely? Although I was burned. We both saw it. God Charlotte, I..." I smelled it. But he couldn't bring himself to dredge the memory up for them now. "... felt it. The fire. But I don't know if it is a burn that lies beneath the mask. I haven't looked. I'm..."

Afraid. Another admission better left unsaid. And wasn't he full of those? A veritable collector at this point, everything he always meant to say to her bottled up tight and placed high on a shelf where it could never be uncorked. Not until the right amount of pressure was applied.

Maybe he was only monologuing now to spare them both from anything else that needed saying. God, so much had happened, and there was so much to think about. He unfastened his cape and threw it over the back of her chair, leaning against the vanity in his shirt and vest. It was not precisely a pose the Phantom would strike, but Eric was not Erik. He didn't know why it should bear repeating to himself when that much was obvious, but there was something about inhabiting the other man's clothes, his world, that seemed to risk integration. The acting had become a little too method now even for his taste.

"If all of this is a dream, is it too far-fetched to think we're sharing it?" Of course that was the only thing that made sense: it being a dream. At the very least they had experienced an accident. He might be unconscious or dying, his brain fabricating all. If he hadn't gotten there in time, hadn't been able spare her the same fate —

"But it feels too real, doesn't it?"

Despite their circumstances, a lopsided smile appeared on his face, its symmetry distorted by the mask — but Eric's smile had always been crooked, even out of costume. "We're owed a hell of a workers' comp."

…A few minutes later, all she had to show for her efforts were a still locked door and a handful of ruined hairpins.

She was stuck, locked in her….no, in Christine's dressing room. The anxiety started to swirl inside her mind once again. Charlotte had no idea where Eric had disappeared to, no idea if he was alright, if he was alive even, and no idea what was going on. It felt like the walls were closing in on her, the panic bubbling up in her chest like a caged animal, crying.

Normally, whenever her mind started to spiral she would call Eric, and he would always know just the thing to calm her down. Except she didn’t have her phone, and she didn’t know where he was. She was all alone, locked in a room that she didn’t know, but also somehow she did? She knew which drawer to pull open to find a spare nightgown, knew there was a robe waiting for her behind the changing panel, knew the brush for her hair was hidden on the left side of the vanity hidden behind some of the vases of flowers. Her breath caught when she saw the one rose with a black ribbon, lying casually on her vanity. Sitting down on the stool, she picked up the rose, playing with the bow’s tassels, twirling them around her fingers as a sense of pride that wasn’t entirely hers bubbled up inside.

He’s pleased with us.

Of course he was. Eric was always proud of her, - he never let her down. Even earlier, when she thought she was about to die, he didn’t think twice. She called out for him, and he was there. He had proven yet again that he would do anything to make her smile, make her laugh, make her dreams come true, or, make sure she was safe.

"If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that had never come true, the box would be empty except for the memory of how they were answered by you." The words and melody came unbidden, as she reflected back on their time together.

Standing, she pulled the nightgown from the drawer and went to change behind the modesty panel, taking off the costume she had been wearing. Tugging the gown over her head, Charlotte wrapped herself in the robe for warmth, and then proceeded to wrap her arms around herself for comfort. What if Eric was badly hurt from taking the brunt of the chandelier on his back? What if he was somewhere all alone, dying? What if she never saw him again?

“So if only I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do is to save every day ‘til eternity passes away – just to spend them with you. And I’d save every day like a treasure, and then, again and again I'd spend them with you.”

Sitting back down at the vanity, she held the rose in her hands, cradling it softly as if it were the most precious thing on the planet. It might be the last gift from her Angel, and as much as it was hard not to drown in despair at the situation, she also had to hold steadfast onto the hope that she would see him again – that this wouldn’t be the end for them, the end of their story before it ever really, truly began.

“I’ve looked around enough to know, you’re the one I want to go through time with…” her voice shook as she sang the last notes, the emotion thick as tears slipped out from her eyes. What would she do if she lost him? What would she do if she could never look into his beautiful blue eyes, or see the silly crooked smile that was almost exclusively only ever for her? What would she do if she could never hold his hand again, or be wrapped up tight in the safety of his embrace? How could she survive losing the great love of her life?

It was just as that awful thought crossed her mind that she glanced up from the rose, and saw the outline of the Phantom’s mask in the mirror across the room. It was a familiar sight, but this time the breath caught in her throat wasn’t choreography – it was genuine shock, relief and joy all tumbled together. The mirror slid open as she stood and ran across the small distance to throw her arms around him, to rest her head against his chest. The sound of his heartbeat soothed an ache deep in her soul, and brought a fresh set of tears to her eyes.

“I didn’t know if you had…” she couldn’t bring herself to say the word died out loud. “Are you all right? I was so scared.” One of her hands rose to cup his uncovered cheek, as she lifted her head to look up at him in awe of the fact that he selflessly threw himself in harms way to protect her, in awe of the fact that he was still alive. “You saved me,” she whispered. She wanted to tell him how grateful she was, how much she loved him, but held her tongue upon keenly remembering that he hadn’t yet said it back. Instead, she said, “we have to get you to a doctor, but they locked the door so I can’t get out.”

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. She should’ve been on her way to Eric’s dressing room right now, running through the halls with her skirts in her hands before throwing her arms around him as they came together. His arms around her felt like home, like there was nowhere else on earth that she was supposed to be. His lips were supposed to be on hers, in between long-awaited declarations of love. They had known deep down for so long, and it turned out that they had wasted so much time. Because supposed to’s and should’s didn’t matter in the cruel light of reality, nor the lights of the chandelier that was racing towards her.

Her heart was breaking further with every inch that the chandelier fell, knowing the future she had longed for with Eric was becoming more and more unlikely, that any time with him at all was coming to an end. There would be no more prank kidnappings from the stage door, no more walks in Central Park, no more trips to tiny off the beaten path cafes where they wouldn’t be recognized, no more sitting on the same side of a booth at a diner after a show and discussing how well it had gone, no more sneaking around backstage, no more clandestine dressing room meetings, no more silly rehearsal shenanigans, no more anything.

There was no future for them. They wouldn’t get to be together, she’d never get to kiss him again, never get to tell him she loved him, no planning what to do about their future - would he have taken her home after this performance? Would they have made love that night, physically cementing the fact that they were meant for each other and each other, alone after having done so emotionally earlier backstage? Would he have worshipped her body, mind, and soul as she wished to do to him?

Why did it take the threat of losing him to make her realize that he was all she had ever wanted? And now she was about to lose him forever, the chandelier would see to that. The despair was soul-crushing. Charlotte wasn’t ready for their story to be over before it ever truly began, she wasn’t ready to let him go. She wasn’t ready to die, not when there was supposed to be so much life ahead for them. She wanted to be with him, to marry him, to go on adventures together, to travel the world as they performed, maybe eventually settle down back in New York City and have a family one day.

Maybe this was her punishment for falling so head over heels completely and utterly in love with another man when she was with someone else, even if that relationship was unfulfilling and left her wanting in every kind of way. Ryan was complacent. Assumed she would always be there because ever since they had met she had been. He had worn her down into dating him, into staying with him, into agreeing to marry him. Had she ever really loved him? Charlotte couldn’t say for sure, at least definitely not the way that she loved Eric.

People always said that when you’re about to die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but she could see the whole life she would’ve shared with Eric ahead of them, not the few years she had shared with Ryan or the life before with her parents. Eric was all she wanted, Eric and anything and everything he was willing to share with her. But it wasn’t meant to be. They wouldn’t get to have that life, wouldn’t get to grow old together. It wasn’t fair.

Charlotte’s overwhelming despair turned to fear as she saw Eric turn to face her, face set grim. She knew he was going to be running to her before he even took the first step, and she was relieved when the stagehands momentarily managed to grab him. There was no reason for him to die with her - the performance was supposed to be The Phantom of The Opera not Romeo and Juliet. Yet he broke free of them, thinking not of himself and the danger he was putting himself into, Eric merely rushed to her side as he always did whenever she had a problem.

He threw himself over her, preparing to take the brute force of the chandelier on his back. She didn’t waste time when they had precious few seconds left together, saying, “I love you,” over and over in between kisses before the chandelier hit.

It was then that something unexpected happened.

They didn’t immediately die. Somehow, impossibly, Eric was able to withstand the weight of the chandelier, neither of them were crushed, nor impaled by the massive and complicated structure. For half a second, Charlotte thought that maybe they would make it out of this okay, before the candles set fire to his cloak, rushing up the right side of his body and sealing the mask to his face.

His agonized screams of pain were like knives to her heart, and there was nothing she could do about it, no way to ease his pain.

This was her fault. He was in this pain because of her.

If they somehow survived, she would do everything she could to help him heal. She would put her whole life on hold to care for him, just as he risked his to protect her now. Once they were freed from underneath the chandelier, she would stay by his side indefinitely. She would demand to ride in the ambulance, get a cot to stay in the hospital room he would be assigned after surgery to debride the wounds and apply skin grafts. What he looked like didn’t matter to her, if anything, the scars would be further proof of his love for her, and she would love him even more for it.

She was so focused on planning how to help him that she barely noticed the world around them turn into fractal spirals for a moment. Charlotte thought it was merely a trick of the light, the steel, electricity and fire making the world around them seem strange and unknowable as their lives came to a standstill in the aftermath of the crash. She could hear voices, speaking but not in English, for a moment before it clicked into place and she understood - clearly she wasn’t completely uninjured, a concussion would make perfect sense for both strange occurrences. But that was nothing compared to the devastation Eric’s body was suffering through on her behalf.

“I’m okay,” Charlotte replied when he asked if she was alright, “thanks to you.” She was about to say more, to ask him why on earth he would be so recklessly selfless, why he had thrown himself into harm’s way when the chances were that they should’ve died (but apparently, once again, reality didn’t care for should’s, and this time she was overwhelmingly grateful that they were both still breathing), when people began lifting the chandelier to free them. When arms grabbed her to pull her away from Eric, with no one moving to help him and staring at him in fear, she struggled against them.

“Let me go - call an ambulance! He’s hurt!” The panic in her mind that his burns needed tended to overriding everything else, including a small voice telling her that she needed to let Eric go, that these people would only hurt him further.

The people on the stage crowded around her, fussing over her, checking to see if she had any injuries, and she wasn’t able to see as Eric disappeared through the trap door on the stage floor.

“Mademoiselle Daaé are you alright?”

Daaé?

Her name was Dawson. Miss Charlotte Dawson, not Mademoiselle Daaé. She must’ve hit her head harder than she thought to be hearing things this off.

“I’m fine, but -”

“No! Even if you are uninjured, you must rest after such an ordeal! I will not hear otherwise. Off to your dressing room with you.” A familiar older, stern woman who looked like she wouldn’t take no for an answer interrupted. “Buquet! Escort her, make sure she lies down to rest while I send for the doctor.”

“Yes, Madame Giry,” came Buquet’s response, tucking her arm into his and practically dragging her away.

No one would listen to her pleas of help for Eric after Madame Giry had spoken. Where did he go? He needed help! She was terrified in this place where familiar faces had different names, different personalities. Was it the concussion? Was she even conscious? Was this some deluded form of a coma, or was she dead and in hell? Only time would tell.

Charlotte was deposited by Buquet on the chaise longue in her dressing room, and the door was closed and locked behind her, so she couldn’t leave. She tried the door anyways, her lower lip trembling in equal fear and indignation.

What had happened when the chandelier fell?

The ring would only be discovered later, after the fact, when an investigation was mounted into what went wrong. But the moment Charlotte cast it from her, it no longer occupied space in Eric's thoughts. It became the hollow gesture of another man's love: meaningless, more artificial than any prop. Ryan might, in that moment, still claim Charlotte as his fiancée, but Lotte belonged to no one but him.

The thought of finally possessing his friend possessed him in turn. No, Eric had to remind himself forcefully. He could not think of it as ownership – but he was sliding into character already, the Phantom's thoughts overlaying his own, and he was lost before he could regain sense or bearing. It was too heady a rush to resist: the intoxicating feeling that Charlotte Dawson was finally his. They had come so far from their first shows together – from being castmates to costars and leads – from familiar silhouettes backstage, to friends, to the shivering, uneasy twilight of more than friends, forbidden from one another, living out a love story in the moments of someone else's.

When he assumed his place behind the mirror, the crew and ensemble members milling about backstage gave him a wide berth. They knew better than to approach him once the curtains rose. The actor called "Eric" was generally beyond recall unless there was an emergency, and tonight, the energy igniting the air around him was especially kinetic. In Charlotte's performance, too, everyone saw a different Christine: more headstrong from the start, a striking member of the corps de ballet rather than a hidden gem to be uplifted unaware of its facets. A young woman who knew her own mind, who could not be twisted without her consent in the tangling.

When she met him at the mirror, it was the Phantom gazing out at her from a spectral countenance. Eric's performance attuned to her own like they were two tines of the same fork resonating a tone: she came to him already wholly his, and the Phantom's choreography of hesitation and retreat evaporated the instant he took her by the hand. The heat between them made any alternative interpretation impossible. They made the music of the night, and as Eric's eyes drifted out over the crowd, they homed in on a familiar face caught in the blazing splashback from the lights. Ryan gazed up at the pair of them, as rapt as anyone else in the audience – only his face betrayed all he felt watching his fiancée melt in the arms of another. In a flash of insight Eric saw confusion, comprehension, grief... and a bewildered indignation, hardening into something more, the longer the two opponents locked eyes. Ryan must have thought Eric too stunned by the lights to notice at first, but the other man could not now misunderstand the challenge as anything but deliberate.

So it wasn't so easily ended. The ring was gone, but its blushing imprint on Charlotte's finger remained. Though those fingers were clasped in his, though he steered them up the length of her body and over the rippling bodice of her negligee, Ryan thought this a temporary snag in his own story. The two men had only ever gotten along because of Charlotte, forcing civility and tolerance the few times they had been in a room together (Ryan's "tolerance" had always driven Eric insane). Even Charlotte had noticed the tension after a while and taken to spending time with them apart.

But Eric had seen the look in Charlotte's eyes when she cast the ring from her. He believed her when she said she had made her final choice. They had been aware of each other's feelings for a while now – it had just taken one of them acknowledging it, saying it.

On her way to the Il Muto quick change, Eric caught Charlotte's elbow and drew her briefly into the shadows. Enfolded by luxuriant curtains and drops, he only had time to smooth a damp curl back from her eyes and breathe: "Dressing room," an invitation for where he would be come intermission. He had dropped out of character now. His eyes shone, and his smile was giddy, almost boyish, as another stroke of his fingers made way for his lips to steal a kiss from hers – but then the wardrobe assistant was pulling her away, and Eric had departed for the next wing. Leather creaked with the triumphant clench of a fist, and there was no hiding his exhilaration from the stagehands, who attributed it to the offer he had received earlier in the day. But all thoughts of departing the show were far from his mind.

The scene moved forward, driving them toward the crescendo, the crash, the intermission – driving him toward the embrace of Charlotte's arms – but then things seemed to stall abruptly. Eric was backstage after the death of Buquet, preparing to take over the God Mic. He watched as Charlotte curtsied a second time. Something was wrong. He forgot his cue as he whirled to the person closest to him. "Stop the chandelier!"

"They can't!" The stage manager was panicking, seeing what Eric saw. There were multiple crew members heaving on the cables to no avail. Charlotte was trapped onstage with the show's colossal set piece hurtling toward her.

"Eric!"

His name was a ringing endorsement to forget everything else. Eric turned, jaw tight, and saw Charlotte's hopeless expression. Before she reached for him he was already running. He heard terrified voices calling him, screams and ensemble turning away; a pair of hands tried to drag him back into the wing, but he was free of them and flying for Charlotte, his dark cape billowing behind him like wings.

He thought nothing of the danger, except that she was in its path. He thought nothing. He fell upon her and swept his cape over them both as the world shattered around them.

More than the chandelier – their very reality – seemed to twist and fragment. Jewels hung in the air around them. Ten thousand real candle flames joined with electrical currents arcing through wires to create a fire unlike anything ever seen or felt by those in the audience. And Eric felt it. He felt the fire catch the corner of his cape and ignite the entire right half of his body, racing like wildfire up his back. The excruciating trajectory of it seemed too perfect, too impossible, to be believed.

And so was the pain. Now the angel with black wings was shedding feathers of flame. His mask caught fire, and when he freed a hand to reach for it, to wrench it off him, he screamed; it was sealed to his face, to his flesh, and he felt his skin boil beneath it. The pain was beyond endurance. He cast what remained of his sanity out for anything else to focus it, and felt Charlotte's fragile body beneath his own. Protected. Safe.

Peace washed over him as the fire laid its claim. He was half-ifrit, a hellish pairing of human and monster; his suffering pushed past the threshold of his endurance, and he grew numb as the fire consuming him ate away what was left to burn. They were entangled in the ruin of the chandelier, Charlotte splayed beneath him, he braced above her as if he expected the roof to fall next, or the sky. As if his ruined back alone would keep it at bay. Voices swam into focus around them. Strange voices. Voices that didn't seem to be speaking English, until all at once they snapped into comprehensive focus and resolved into words he understood.

"The chandelier! It fell!"

"On a chorus girl!"

"Who is it?"

"Mademoiselle Daaé! Is she dead? I cannot bear to look!"

"Who is responsible?"

"You know who is responsible."

Disoriented, mishearing, and still partially smoking, Eric shifted, displacing broken glass. His body was a torturous prison and it was nearly all he knew, but Charlotte was alive. She gazed up at him, and Eric felt something unidentifiable, yet vast, had changed in her. Something in her expression? And her costume...

"Are you all right?" His voice was cobweb-thin. His lips cracked and it hurt to speak the merest words. What was happening? Why hadn't the S.M. called a hold? Why was the audience onstage with them?

The lights flickered and died. Terrified voices screamed in chorus. There were hands vying for Charlotte, pushing them apart and recoiling from his smoking back.

"What is it?"

"There is someone else here!"

Eric staggered to his feet. Charlotte was being pulled away from him. He didn't want to be torn from her for a moment. Was she getting medical attention? Something instinctive in him, the wounded animal that didn't know friend nor sense, overpowered his need to go after her. Get out, it said. Escape. They will hunt you.

Who would hunt him? Why was he still thinking with another man's brain – a man who didn't exist?

But he could not reason beyond the sirens blaring in his head. A blueprint filled his awareness, a map, and he staggered back a half-step, then another, clutching his mask and face. He found the trap door, and by a mechanism he barely understood, tripped it. The stage caved beneath him and spat his ruined body into subterranean darkness.

I'm dead. I'm going mad, he thought. But at what point in the evening had he started to go mad? Was it before or after Charlotte had confessed her love for him?

And if he was dead, then why was he still in such mind-bending agony?

His hand on the slick wall to guide him, Eric limped, following the tug of another man's memory. "Charlotte," he whispered. "I'll find you. Whatever's left of me."

“What is there to say, Little Lotte?”

She could hear it in his voice, the finality of it all. This was it if he had his way; it would be their final night together, on stage and in life. He might try and push her away, but she wouldn’t let him. All her life she had done what was expected of her, what she was supposed to do, she did what everyone else wanted, gave in to everyone else’s persistence and wishes, just like her character counterpart. It may have taken her a long time to realize what it was that she wanted, but unlike Christine, she wasn’t going to give up her Eric without a fight.

When Christine went to her Erik at the end of the show, she pressed the engagement ring into his hand, to give him something to remember her by after she left with Raoul. The ring Ryan had given her was still held tight in her other fist, and in a split second decision, Charlotte threw the ring aside, not caring where it ended up, the metal clattering as it skated against the hardwood before finally coming to a stop. Whether or not Eric wanted her the way she wanted him, she wouldn’t stay with Ryan.

“It’s you,” she started, her voice barely louder than a whisper. Taking a deep breath to gather her courage, and say what she should've months ago, she continued. “I choose you, I want you, I... I love you, Eric.”

If he wouldn’t agree to speak with her after the show, then she’d say it now. She couldn’t let the chance slip her by. It wasn’t the way she wanted to tell him, rushed and quiet, backstage before they had to go and perform, when they couldn’t talk for hours about what this meant for them, about what they would do moving forward, if that was even something that Eric wanted. But she couldn’t risk him slipping away after the show and not speaking with her. So instead she threw it all out on the line, holding out her heart in her hand for him to take, and hoping he wouldn’t push her away.

When he started to turn to face her, she let go of his wrist. Instead of saying anything, he bent towards her, one hand resting on her shoulder, the other cupping her cheek. She met him halfway, grabbing hold of the lapels of his shirt, taking a small step closer to Eric as she stood on the tips of her toes to meet him in the kiss.

She only hoped it wasn’t a kiss goodbye.

Then it was over, and as she slowly opened her eyes she was left with the image of him walking away, before the stage manager barked at her in stage-whisper to get to places, they were going to start later than the usual if she didn’t hurry up.

She would prove it to him during the performance, Charlotte decided.

At the beginning, when whispering with Meg about who Raoul was, she merely spoke the lines as if she were remembering a childhood friend instead of someone she was interested in. Instead of gently telling Raoul no, that she couldn’t go to dinner with him with slight regret tinged with a hint of fear, she forcefully put the barrier down and told him no, getting exasperated when he wouldn’t listen to her and saying he would be back in two minutes instead of fearful of her Angel’s wrath.

She was already rising to go meet him at the mirror when he beckoned her, she held his hand as they walked like she had held onto his wrist earlier, as if she couldn’t bear to let him go. During Music of the Night, when his hands were travelling her body, Charlotte leaned back into his chest, she entwined their fingers. When Christine stole the Phantom’s mask to prove to herself he was real and not just a figment of her imagination or insanity, instead of being truly terrified of him, she only put a small amount of distance between the two of them as he lashed out at her, whispering, “I’m sorry,” as she gave the mask back to him.

Raoul had to act more desperately afraid for her, longing to protect her, to want to keep her safe from the Phantom of the Opera, convincing her to run away with him after Joseph Buquet’s body fell from the rafters, the man dead by hanging. He had to manipulate her into believing that the broken man she knew her Angel of Music was, the man she wanted to comfort and help heal from decades of trauma with love, was a cruel heartless monster. That Erik was not her Angel at all, but a vengeful ghost of a man who would haunt them forever if he didn’t whisk her away. But maybe she didn’t want to be whisked away, maybe she didn’t want to do what was asked and expected of her, so she went back to finish the production of Il Muto in the lead role as Erik had originally demanded.

It was nearly intermission. Charlotte was mobbed by a crew of stagehands helping her change as fast as possible into the new dress and wig for the Il Muto bows and the chandelier crash. Intermission wasn’t long, but it would be long enough for her to go to Erik’s dressing room and kiss him again, hold him again, to tell him she loved him again and again and again until he believed her.

She rushed onto the stage with a smile splitting her face wide open as she made her way to the front of the stage and curtseyed deeply. Charlotte made to move backwards with the rest of the cast, to get out of the way of the chandelier that was about to fall, when she realized her dress was caught. To stall a few seconds more, she pretended as if she was curtsying again a second time due to the thunderous applause the audience was still giving her, when in reality she was trying to rip her dress away from where it had been caught on the trap door.

She wasn’t strong enough, and as she rose, she saw the chandelier begin to fall. Their production had been hailed and raved about due to how the director decided he wanted the light fixture to crash to the stage; faster, more dangerous, to bring a very real sense of fear back to the audience as it rushed down from above them to the stage. Normally she had to run to get out of the way as it was, and that was when her dress wasn’t stuck on a trap door.

She was going to be crushed. She would end up with severe, probably life-altering injuries, and that was if she was lucky enough not to die on impact.

Instead of looking to the audience, where Ryan was in the front row, she glanced over to the side of the stage, terrified, crying, yanking on her dress trying to free it, as her eyes locked with the man she really loved for what precious seconds she had left.

“Eric!”

But he hadn’t. And they had both lived as a consequence, this shimmering facsimile of a life, a story. A love. It was twisted every way; now, at least, they had found their exit.

Opportunity. Eric wanted to laugh out loud, and if the sound was laced with scorn, it wouldn’t be at Charlotte’s expense. But he kept the impulse in check. He could teach a master class in suppression at this point.

The temptation to reach for her, to banish her tears against a crooked finger, against the cool caress of his glove, was there. The temptation to drag her into his arms, resisting or otherwise, was even stronger. Maybe it was their costumes, or the shape of the Palais Garnier looming all around them in darkness, that perpetuated the illusion—or maybe it was the old difficulty he always had divorcing himself from the role. But an unholy possessiveness reared in Eric, demanding he take something, anything, of her with him. He didn’t doubt his own ability to spirit her away.

So he turned instead. And when her small hand caught his wrist, he told himself he would stay only a moment.

“What is there to say, Little Lotte?”

He didn’t turn back to her, and his voice was distant, as if he didn’t believe there really was a line in the script even though he had called for one. He had already jeopardized everything, changed things irrevocably, and lost what little he had of her, of them, by giving in. She knew what lay dormant now, and how could she defend against it? Because he would keep pushing, Eric knew. He might be able to hold off the beast for a little while, but his longing for her would consume them both. And she was such a young actress, and so relatively inexperienced. He had seen ingénues swept up by their costars soon grow to regret their decisions, their infidelities, and often before the contract had even ended. He couldn’t do that to Charlotte. He wouldn’t do that to Charlotte. He wouldn’t make her choose, so he would take away any choice she had in the matter. He would take himself off the board.

Our games of make believe are at an end.

Eric turned suddenly—not away, but toward. The light that shone in his eyes was preternatural, as if he could see in the dark. He saw Charlotte. He saw his own left hand cup her shoulder while his right ascended to cradle her cheek. Her tears smeared to a thin sheen of silver beneath his palm, and her lips parted as Eric bent and subdued her trembling mouth with the hot press of his. He kissed her through the mask. If he was going to destruct, he might as well do it totally. If there were no more lines to be fed, he might as well feed the fire and say his farewell. He didn’t wrap his arm around her, nor crush her against him. There was still space left between them. Instead, he bowed above her, like a tree willfully falling to half its height in an effort to reach the flower that bloomed hopefully below.

Then their lips disengaged, and Eric receded into stage darkness, the ghostly impression of his mask outlasting him long after the man himself was gone.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to yell in frustration, or cry. She needed to clear her head, and staying in this building was not going to help.

Pushing off from the wall, she sneaked out the stage door, and thankfully there were no fans lingering around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cast after leaving rehearsal - she was able to make a clean getaway, letting her feet take her wherever they wanted, not paying attention as she took the time to process and go through everything she was feeling.

There was one thing that she knew irrevocably - she was in love with Eric, wholeheartedly and irrefutably. He was the last thing on her mind when she went to sleep, and the first thing she thought about when she woke up. He was her best friend, her co-star, and the love of her life, her true soulmate. They did everything together, on stage and off. If he wasn’t by her side, it felt like a piece of her was missing.

She would tell him tonight, after the show. She would tell Eric she loved him, and she would tell Ryan it was over - something she should’ve done a long, long time ago.

Charlotte was pulled from her thoughts by her phone vibrating in her purse.

She had several missed calls from her agent, all from when she had been in rehearsal or with Eric.

“Meg - sorry about not picking up earlier. We were doing rehearsals, and then-”

“It’s fine!” Meg cut her off, the excitement clear in her voice. “Listen, I have the best news. Are you sitting down? You should sit down.”

Charlotte took a second to realize where she was - her feet had taken her to Central Park. She was in her favourite place - high up on the hill, able to look over the man-made lake, see the skyline, and hear the bells toll as the people of the city went about their business, chatting and cars driving by, honking. Stepping off the cement walkway, she walked a few feet over to the grass and sat down.

“Okay, I’m sitting. What’s this about?”

“I got a call this morning. From the casting director at The Majestic.”

“Oh my god, no - no, I...you’re joking, you've gotta be kidding me!”

“Girl, we’re going to Broadway!”

Charlotte let out a very undignified squeal of delight, her phone leaving her ear momentarily as she flailed. How many times had she gone to The Majestic as a kid with her parents? How many times had she stood at the front of the orchestra, and then turned around to see the auditorium as if she were seeing the audience from the stage? How many times had she dragged Eric with her, dreaming about how maybe they would end up on that iconic stage together, to take their place in history as the Erik and Christine of Broadway, to stand on the stage where The Phantom of the Opera had been playing for over twenty years?

This was her longest childhood dream come true. Tears of joy stung her eyes as she put the phone back up to her ear.

“I can’t wait to tell Eric we’re going to The Majestic! He is going to FLIP OUT,” Charlotte laughed, a few tears slipping from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, honey... the offer is just for you.”

And just like that, the smile was wiped from her face.

“I know how much you love working with Eric, but this is Broadway we’re talking about - not taking this chance would be career suicide! Besides, rumours are he should be getting a call about going to London. I’ve heard Andrew Llyod Webber himself wants Eric for the Phantom sequel everyone’s been talking about for ages. It’s finally happening, and I can’t imagine he’ll say no. It’s set over a decade after Phantom, and you’re just too young - Christine’s already been cast.”

Charlotte was silent, the tears falling down her cheeks were no longer from joy.

“But that means you won’t have any reason to stay off-Broadway now! You can make the leap up to the big leagues - this is everything you’ve wanted. I’ll make the call to confirm the part, okay?”

“Yeah,” Charlotte replied. “Yeah, sure... You’re right, I won’t have any reason to stay.”

“Okay, great! I’ll go do that right now - I’ll text you later to confirm, and give you dates of when they wanna meet with you and set everything up.”

Putting her phone back into her bag, a sob slipped out before she could stop herself, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as she crumpled forward.

This was everything she had ever wanted, but it felt like everything in her life was falling apart. She’d be going to Broadway, and Eric would be going across the pond to help originate a new musical. With that one phone call, it felt like her whole world had been turned upside down, and her heart had been ripped from her chest. He’d be leaving her - there was no doubt about that.

The last time she had been here, she had brought Eric with her. They had gotten coffee after doing a matinee show, and sat down together to relax and unwind, to let the post-show adrenaline fade away. She had leaned against his shoulder, and Eric had wrapped his arm around her, and they had just sat and talked, resting after the afternoon performance and enjoying the night off. When her stomach had rumbled of its own volition, they had laughed, got up, and walked arm in arm to go get a pretzel from one of the street vendors.

That wouldn’t be happening anymore. She would have to come here alone, and that thought made the tears fall harder.

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

The theatre practically vibrated, humming with the news and gossip as the understudies and ensemble murmured to one another, the vultures practically circling already, just waiting for the right moment to swoop down. This was the last performance for Eric, and for Charlotte. The director had already posted a sheet backstage to sign up for audition times before trying auditions from actors not already a part of the cast.

She stood alone, in costume, her arms crossed against her chest defensively (she could feel their eyes on her), and to help ward off the cold. Once she was under the stage lights she would be fine, but the dark depths of backstage were freezing, and Eric wasn’t here to help her stave off the chill. She bit down on her lip and closed her eyes to keep from crying again - despite visine and ice packs, her eyes were red and puffy enough as it was. She couldn’t afford anymore tears, not when she still had to cry during and at the end of the performance itself, and needed to mingle with the audience members at the stage door after the show. If she wanted to look good for the pictures, she had to keep it together.

But that was easier said than done when Eric startled her with his congratulations, and holding out her engagement ring. She had forgotten about it completely, and as she took it back from him the tears returned to her eyes, her lower lip trembling before she managed to pull herself together.

“As will you, I’m sure. Originating a part - that opportunity doesn’t just come along every day.”

They stood in silence for a moment - not touching, not talking, the tension between them immense, and the chasm between them felt miles wide. At least until places were called, and Eric turned to leave. Grabbing onto his wrist, she held on tight, not letting him leave.

“Eric, can we... can we talk? After the show? Please?” She begged, her eyes pleading with him to agree.

She had to tell him - she had to tell him that he was the only one she wanted, that he was the only one she loved and would be, now and forever. She couldn’t let him leave for London without knowing, without trying to work something out, somehow.

The distance, the time change - none of that would matter if he loved her too.

For a moment, he didn't move from where he stood over her. It really seemed like he was prepared to continue down whatever course he intended, and leave Andrew to go and seek his leading man somewhere else. Charlotte's curse sent a heady thrill racing through him. The innocence their close relationship had always maintained seemed subverted now at every turn. His body, already pressed against hers, pressed further. His hand delved into the alcove the arch of her back formed.

He unlocked the door.

They were actors. They could reach into the ether and change the energy to fit the scene. So why did this one suddenly feel like a crime scene?

Charlotte smiled. She said what the script called for. And if her smile was tight, and she excused herself in an uncharacteristic haste, their director did not appear to notice. Andrew turned to Eric once their leading lady had gone, but the latter had already retreated back to his makeup station and slumped down in his chair. "I just got off the phone with your agent. I think congratulations are in order," Andrew said.

"What are you talking about?" Eric's eyes drifted to his cell, where the screen showed a banner denoting several missed calls from Darius.

"Not that I appreciate my best Phantom being poached out from under me, but it was bound to happen sooner or later," Andrew continued on wistfully. "And when the composer invites you to originate a role in a sequel—a sequel!—you answer." Andrew paced the length of the dressing room, hands clasped behind his back. He pivoted suddenly on his heel and grinned. "The understudies will be happy, anyway. I'm thinking about having them audition all over again. We'll work it out. Just give me a hell of a show tonight, yeah?" Andrew clapped him on the shoulder before withdrawing, but paused once more in the doorway. "Oh, and Eric? Don't worry about Charlotte. I have every reason to suspect she'll be getting her own call later today."

After Andrew left, Eric stared at his reflection in the divided mirror. He had heard the whispers. Love Never Dies, former cast mates and theatre insiders across the pond were saying. A sequel. A continuation. It's either completely mad or totally brilliant. Why not both? But those weren't the only rumors. Other murmurings claimed the show's Christine had already been cast—which meant that Charlotte's expected call today could have nothing to do with the secretive production.

They had their Christine. And now they had their Phantom. Eric made up his mind in the same instant he put a jagged hole through his dressing room mirror. A dozen distorted reflections stared in hideous disbelief at his bleeding fist, but the pain didn't register. He knew he would need the stage manager to break open the first aid kit for it. He would hunt her down after he returned his agent's call.

Three hours to curtain.

Three hours later, and Eric appeared without warning beside Charlotte in the shadows of the stage left wing, a white strip of mask bobbing in the darkness. It was not one of their designated places, not a part of the ritual… but neither was his dressing room. The other Hannibal dancers were off stretching and gossiping amongst themselves while Charlotte stood alone. Eric didn't have to wonder about the topic of their conversation. The entire theatre hummed with the news. Charlotte to Broadway, and Eric to the West End—it was enough to knock any thought of last night's calamitous show entirely from their heads.

Occasionally, in the past, he had allowed himself to wonder what Erik would think of Christine's slave girl costume. The Phantom would have detested what it symbolized for his ingénue: how it relegated her to part of the flock, as undifferentiated as one of the sheep in the Il Muto ballet… the glaring metaphor of the chains. And he would he have despised his own weakness for looking, for how could any man look away? Beneath that waterfall of honey-brown hair, her creamy skin. A minute spent dancing out under those hot lights and it would start to bead with perspiration. Too many times they had sat backstage together, sweating and laughing, and taking turns tipping bottles of water over each other to stay cool.

"I heard about the call. Congrats, Lotte." He drew her engagement ring from a pocket hidden in his costume and held it between them. It caught the light and ignited, its sparkle audacious and out of place in the ghostlit realms backstage. "But you'll be hearing that a lot in the coming days."

Eric wasn't sure what he meant by offering the ring back to her. Perhaps he was being cruel, because where could she put it? They were mere minutes away from her first entrance. But he knew he couldn't have it in his possession anymore. He might lose it, and he wasn't sure he could convincingly make an excuse he had not done so on purpose.

This wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. They should’ve been actually talking, instead of playing the same games they’d been playing ever since the beginning. Double entendres, saying one thing but meaning another, hiding behind the emotions their characters expressed - it had been going on all along. Did he really want her too? Because that was what it seemed like. How long had he felt that way? Had all the jokes, all the ‘kidnappings’ from signing after the shows, how close they were, had it all meant more to him this whole time? Her pulse was flying as fast as the thoughts in her head when he trapped her against the door.

All the times they had walked arm in arm down the street, all the times they had sat beside each other in a booth at a restaurant or cafe, all the times he had given her his coat and pulled her close to steal his body heat because she was cold, all the times he showed up and surprised her with a cup of coffee or tea just how she liked it, all of the times he had reassured her before a show with a pep talk and sealing it with a hug and a kiss to her forehead, all of the jokes to make her laugh when she wasn’t feeling her usual upbeat self, all the times he had held her while she cried - all of it was suddenly cast in a new light from her realization.

“Maybe he knows he can’t have her.”

She wasn’t in love with Ryan anymore, not really - and, with every day that passed, she was falling more and more for Eric.

“Maybe he could,” she barely whispered as he took off her engagement ring, a ring she had never really wanted in the first place, wrapping her arms around him.

She didn’t know what he did with the ring and she found she didn’t care as she heard the lock click into place. His hand caressed her neck as Erik pulled the collar of her shirt out of the way, and Charlotte tilted her head to the side to offer more of her skin to his lips. Except his mouth never connected with her skin - they were interrupted with a knock at the door.

...Whoever was on the other side of the door was going to die. It was more Erik’s style to hang someone with the punjab lasso, but she was feeling the bloodlust rise (or was it too much lust in her blood). She had been about to refocus him, since the knock had distracted them both. Charlotte had started to move her arms to grab his face, to kiss him and prevent him from answering the door, when a voice spoke through the solid wood.

“Eric? You in there?” It was their director - the only person they couldn’t ignore.

“Fuck,” Charlotte groaned under her breath. She didn’t swear often, which undoubtedly expressed her frustration just as much, if not more than her tone, and when Eric stepped back from her, her body mourned the loss of him pressed so solidly against her.

If Andrew had wanted to speak to them both he would’ve asked if they were both in the dressing room. No, their director wanted to talk to Eric, which meant that she needed to leave. As Eric unlocked the door, Charlotte swallowed thickly, turning to grab her sweater and purse from the door.

Grabbing the handle, she opened the door.

“Oh, hi Charlotte - I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Andrew stated, knowing that his two leads spent more time together than apart.

“No, it’s fine,” she lied, with a tight lipped smile. “I was just leaving.”

And so she left, with every step wishing Andrew had just called instead - they would’ve ignored the phone.