A/N: Written for an anonymous Tumblr prompt requesting the definition in the summary, and applying it to Christine.

There was a time when her lips worked in that way, when it was easy for her. Everything was easy then with her Papa and the Valerius' and Raoul too, for a time. She could smile and laugh, and the world was wonderful. Nothing could touch her or trouble her and sometimes she felt like a little princess, and deep down she knew she was loved.

First Raoul went away, and the Professor died. And through the faint hollowness deep in her chest she could not find the energy to laugh. Nothing felt right, everything worn in greys and blacks, and Mamma's tears, and Papa's tight lips. He would smile for her, sadly, and hold her close, but he would not laugh, and neither could she.

And then Papa grew ill, and how could she laugh when Papa was ill? When there were days that he could hardly draw breath to speak to her, his voice faint and hoarse? Could only squeeze her hand weakly, his eyes already far away? She would fake her smiles for him, and squeeze his fingers back, and pretend, for a little while, that things could be normal again. And then he died, and she could not even fake smiles anymore, never mind laugh.

Oh, she tried to be happy, for his sake. She tried to find pleasure in music and books but they were no solace to her, could not hope to fill the aching chasm inside of her. How could she laugh, when every time she opened her mouth to even speak she felt as if she might crumble into the dust? No, she was half-tethered, the world half-intangible, slipping through her fingers, and for years now it has been like that, years of numbness and years of emptiness.

So when, tonight, the angel came to her, and she provoked a breathy little laugh out of him (it?) it shocked her to hear a laugh come from her own lips, the very cadence of it unfamiliar, and strange. But yet, in that moment, the angel's own laugh wrapping around her, it felt utterly normal. And surely it is blasphemous to make an angel laugh, but how could such a sweet sound as that be wrong? She considers it, now, and finds a small smile twitching at her lips. She made an angel laugh, and by comparison, her own laugh felt right, more right than it has felt in years.