Christine would never stop running, ever. That was what she focused on. Every last part of her breath and muscle in her body was directed towards getting her as far away as possible in as little time. That required constant running, her feet pounding upon the ground over and over and over again.

As she ran out into the brumous day, she felt the startling cold of raindrops falling against her skin. They exploded like tiny bombs, popping in a split second and splashing out. She had Paul's black sweatshirt around her, but it was hardly enough.

Now that she was alone, she was left to her own devices. This meant she had her own thoughts. While back at Garnier she ended up having to listen to what everyone said and thought about whatever was going on, but now all she had was herself.

The Phantom immediately popped into her mind. He was the one who had started all this and ruined her life. But even after the terrible things that happened, Christine still didn't know quite how to feel about her Angel of Music. She tried to recall that awe and intrigue she had felt when the Phantom had been her teacher with a voice fit for heaven.

She couldn't help but speak out loud as she continued to run.

"In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came."

Christine wanted her life to feel like a dream like it once had. The Angel of Music had been a dream come true, but then everything had shattered to pieces. But when she had heard the voice she had never fathomed that anything other than goodness could come from it.

"It was that voice, the voice which still calls to me and speaks my name..."

Christine wasn't consciously thinking about where she was running, all she knew was that she was running. She wasn't sure if she was running away from something or running towards something else. It could have been both, but it made no difference to Christine.

She was getting drenched in the rain, and the cool temperatures did not help. Christine was freezing and dripping almost as many droplets of water as the sky was. But she refused to stop running until she found the right place, if that was a place that even existed. Paul's jacket had been helpful at first, but it had been soaked through along with everything else.

It was just pressing heavy, water saturated fabric into her bare skin. She had broken out into goosebumps all over. What Christine would have done for her red scarf right then and there! It wouldn't just offer warmth to her skin, but her heart.

The red scarf had been a gift from her father years ago. It had brought her and Paul together back on that first day of camp. If anything would make her feel better, it would be the red scarf.

Christine's new blue dress had been battered by the rain as well. It would be okay as soon as she got it washed and dried, but at the moment it was another problem on top of everything. Paul's jacket had not offered much protection to the striped floral fabric. She had fallen head over heels for the dress from its Peter Pan collar to its pockets, and now like everything else in her life it felt ruined.

She tried not to think about how uncomfortable she was, how she felt like she was coming down with a cold. Christine felt goosebumps rising up throughout her entire body, reminding her of just how freezing she was. Only the running was keeping her warm inside.

Christine slowed herself down to a walk. She had made it to a familiar place. Without even thinking about it she had ran all the way there from the school. Adrenaline still coursed through her, but the tiredness from running so far was finally getting to her. Slowly but surely, Christine made her way into the graveyard where her father was buried.

Christine had always hated this place. It had seemed wrong to her that this was where her father would lay for such a long time. His final resting place looked especially dismal with the grey clouds pouring down on the graves.

She stood there for a moment, her curls sopping wet. Christine blinked rain drops out of her eyes. On the tips of her eyelashes he saw that a few droplets had gotten stuck there. Along with the tears blurring up her vision, she was having difficulty seeing. The graveyard dissolved into a sort of grey dismal blob in her sight.

But as she stood there, wondering what to do, she felt a buzzing in a hidden pocket of her dress. Christine reached into the folds of the crisp blue fabric and pulled out her phone. It was Paul, sending her a text message. When she unlocked her phone she found tons of the texts, along with many missed calls and a few voicemails. She went to look at the texts first, even though she knew what it was going to say and she wasn't going to like it.

"Christine, I'm sorry. Christine, I love you. Christine, I didn't mean to hurt you," Christine said somewhat bitterly, reading out the text messages that Paul had been sending hordes of. As she scrolled through it she shook her head.

Paul was calling her again. She immediately closed the call, denying to talk to him for even moment. One second he had been right behind her, helping her through it, the next he had been forcing her to do what she could not possibly do.

With a deep breath, she turned her phone off. The only way she could pull this off was to sever all of her ties to Paul at once - aside from his sweatshirt. She didn't want to be upset with him. At the moment, she just needed some time to herself. Well, some time to herself and her father's gravestone.

She pulled the soaking wet sweatshirt closer to her body, wishing that it could actually provide any amount of heat. She needed something to keep her warm when she felt so empty and blue inside. It wasn't just what had happened back at Garnier. Now she was thinking about the loss of her father, and it was opening up wounds she thought had healed long ago.

She approached her father's grave, the last name Daae printed in enormous letters on the stone. After taking a deep breath, she reached out to touch the stone. Her hand slid off, the smooth surface slippery from all of the rain. It felt too cold to her palms, making her goosebumps raise up even further. But as she stepped back to look at the gravestone, she pulled herself into chekc.

"Little Lotte, even after all these years I remember it. I loved it so much as a child, how could I ever forget?" Christine said, her voice decrescendoing as she spoke slowly. With a deep breath Christine dove into her thoughts of the past.

She began to recite part of her favorite childhood story. "Little Lotte thought of everything and of nothing. Her father promised her he'd send her the Angel of Music." Christine's voice was a single tone, but there was layer upon layer of emotion underneath it all.

"Her father promised her," she said again. Christine's voice was weakening, and she could do nothing to stop it. She nearly reached out and put her hands on the gravestone in order to steady herself, but thought better of it.

"Her father promised her ," she said one final time. She felt tears pushing at her eyes and simply tried to ignore them. She wanted to stay calm for as long as she could. This was Christine's closest moment to peace. She was at her father's grave to ask for guidance.

For a moment, she just crouched down and looked at the ground in front of the grave. Her eyes fluttered shut as tears still managed to leak their way out and get stuck on her eyelashes along with the raindrops.

"I wish you were somehow here again, Dad. I miss you." Christine stared at the gravestone almost as if she was expecting some sort of answer. The rain had slowed down to a steady drizzle, but Christine still shivered at even the slightest breeze. She was soaked beyond belief, and her heart felt as if it had been numbed. She was freezing, inside and out.

"You were once my one companion, my friend on top of being a father. Since Mom was already gone you were all I had, and you mattered so much. You guided me for so long, and then you died and it was like my world had shattered." Her voice shook as she spoke, but she still managed to get it out without bursting into tears.

For a second, she stood there wordlessly, the rain continuing to pour down upon her head in a deluge. She didn't feel like complaining about the cold or the wetness. No, all she cared about was her father's spirit. He was all that mattered.

"It's only fitting that I sing at your grave," Christine said quietly, finally breaking her silence. "I used to sing with your violin. Now I'll sing alone for you. I remember what you taught..." She added on almost under her breath, "And what he taught, too."

Christine was allowing herself to improvise and sing something that had never been heard before. The words still managed to come out like poetry even if they were coming straight from her mind. She straightened herself up so that she could sing well, beautifully for her father.

"Passing bells and sculpted angels

Cold and monumental

Seem for you the wrong companions

You were warm and gentle." For a moment Christine could do nothing but cry, her emotions getting the best of her. But as she took a deep breath and pulled herself together, more notes and lyrics came rushing into her head.

"Too many years fighting back tears," Christine sang, her voice starting to gain power and even more emotion. It was intense, more intensely sung than almost anything Christine had sung in her entire life. This was how the Phantom had helped to teach her. He had inspired her voice to blossom.

"Why can't the past just die?" Her voice crescendoed and filled the silence with a ringing sound of extreme beauty. Even with tears weakening her and a lump in her throat, Christine was able to sing like an angel.

"Wishing you were somehow here again

Knowing we must say goodbye

Try to forgive, teach me to live

Give me the strength to try!" she said, her high note piercing the sky. She was singing as if her voice were to escape her at any moment and she would never sing again. She knew that no matter ho well she sang, her father would love it. But she needed to give him a perfect performance, simply because he deserved.

"No more memories, no more silent tears

No more gazing across the wasted years

Help me say goodbye," she sang.

"Help me say...goodbye!" Christine lifted up her voice and sang a high note during the "bye" of "goodbye." Her breaths, which had been long and full in order to sing, became short again. She was crying again, and with good reason.

Through her tears, she spoke once again, saying, "I hope I lived up to your standards, Dad. I hope, I pray that was proof that I still love music every bit as much as I did as a child."

Now she allowed herself to stand there in silence, waiting there in the rain as if something were to happen. Christine certainly wasn't expecting anything. To her, it was just a moment for her to pay her respects even further. If even a snippet of her got to Lars Daae from beyond the grave, she would be content.

But as Christine turned around to leave the grave, she immediately felt compelled to turn back around and stay at her father's grave just a few moments longer. This one simple conflict immediately grew in her mind until suddenly the memories of everything that had been happening recently filled her mind again.

She was going to be forced to be bait for the Phantom. She wasn't sure which part of that was worse, the possiblity of something happening to her or to someone she knew, or that the Phantom was going to be hurt. But when she had refused to do such a thing, Paul had tried to force her into it again. He had been so supportive for so long, but suddenly his jealousy had gotten the better of him.

Maybe that's what she had to do. She had to run from it all. It had worked this day, after all.

She clenched her fists and prepared herself to start sprinting. But she found herself interrupted, causing her to relax and listen.

"Wandering child, so lost, so helpless

Yearning for my guidance." Christine heard a voice coming from a nearby tree, along with the sound of a violin. It gave her shivering reminisences of her father, which right after singing to his grave made her feel both afraid and in wonder. There were still tears in her eyes as she spoke again, afraid of any of the answers.

"Angel or father, friend or Phantom. Who is it hiding there?" She recognized the voice, it was without a doubt the one belonging to her Angel of Music, the Phantom. He played the violin almost as well as her father did, one long ago day.

He stepped out from behind the tree, cradling the violin in his arms. Christine's eyes widened. It didn't matter how much she had been expecting this, the sight of the Phantom would always make her feel so afraid.

"Have you forgotten your Angel?" he said. There were wet, sloshing footsteps at the speed of running coming to a stop from behind Christine. She didn't notice, though. The Phantom was becoming her Angel again, right before her very eyes. It was the violin, playing the music of the night. She was beginning to remember why she had flocked to the Angel of Music in the first place. Perhaps he wasn't all bad. Perhaps he wasn't actually going to hurt anyone, not anymore.

Paul had found Christine, but he was far too late to make any difference. The Phantom had gotten her heart yet again. She was gone, lost in his music. Paul didn't understand the music of the night, he couldn't feel it. It was the bond between Christine and the Phantom and them alone. But it was one of the most powerful bonds Paul had ever witnessed.

That frightened him more than anything else did. Not Christine speaking of what the Phantom was capable of doing, how he would kill without a thought, but the fact that the girl he was in love with was sharing such a bond with this man who he could see as nothing more than a monster. He was jealous of the Phantom.

He was jealous of that bond, and it made him furious.

She moved towards him, starting to stretch out her arms. "Angel, oh, speak! I've been longing for you..."

"Too long you've wandered in winter away from my fathering gaze, Christine!" he called out to her.

"Once again, she is his," Paul muttered to himself.

With a deep inhale, Christine pushed out, "Wildly my mind beats against you."

The Angel of Music joined with her as together they said, "Yet my soul obeys!"

Christine started taking step by step closer to her, put under his spell all over again.

"Angel of Music, I denied you! You're my true protector. You're my strange Angel.."

"I am your Angel of Music," he chanted. "Come to your Angel of Music."

"Christine, no!" Paul called out, finally making a move to yank her away from the man's spell. "Wait, wait! Whatever you may think, this man...this, this thing is not an angel or your father! Christine!"

Christine whipped around to see him, breathing heavily. She was drenched from the rain - she looked almost like she was a runny painting rather than a real girl. "Paul," she called out, running to him.

"Bravo!" cried the Phantom. "Such spirited words!" He let out a laugh as he sent out a fireball in their direction. It was impossible - it came out of nowhere in the rain, and yet a flaming orb rushed towards them. Christine let out a shriek, pulling Paul over to the side.

"More tricks?" Paul asked.

"I'm just trying to see how far you'll go!" he laughed in response.

"More deception? More lies?" he asked, pushing himself in front of Christine to protect her. He started trying to move her away so that she could be safe. "You can't win her by making her a prisoner!"

The Phantom only became further infuriated by this, sending out another fireball. Christine was tempted to begin running, but she was too drained. All she could do was cling to Paul's shoulders.

"I'm here, I'm here! The Angel of Death! Come on, come on! Don't stop!" he said, chortling all the way. Just for fun, he threw another fireball at them, causing them to scatter. Paul hung his arm around Christine's shoulders and began forcing her to move, the two escaping.

"So be it! Now let it be war upon you both," the Phantom yelled.

Christine knew it was always the wrong thing to look back - but she did. Her last view of the Phantom was seeing him disappear into thin air. The next thing she knew, her tears were melding with the raindrops on her face. Things could not have gone any more wrong than they had in that moment.

A/N I very much love this scene - and I think the rain suits it very well. Yes? Well, perhaps it's just because I go by the name of Rain. Isn't that just lovely? Anyways, I have included a version of "the graveyard scene" over on the side - it's one that encompasses all of this chapter. While it's not the highest quality recording, it's still very good.