Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom or anything like that. You know the deal. It belongs to Gaston and ALW and…

A/N: It's a kind of… 'Different' start, but the plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone…

So yeah, R+R, and I may be a little slow at getting following chapters up but bear with me… End of year school and stuff… Enjoy!

Phantom World: 2004 movie.

Warnings: None at the present… but the rating may change.

Her angel

They embraced. She held him tight, resting her head on his shoulder.

She gripped him as if he was an illusion, a dream, as if he was going to slip through her fingers.

She held him close, and breathed in his scent, taking the smell deep within her soul, swearing to herself never to forget it.

He smelt warm and musky, with a small hint of rose, just as she had imagined, so many times before.

She sighed, the most sound she could manage to make.

"Yes my Angel, I am here." He whispered only centimetres from her ear.

She shivered, and began to quiver slightly. She let go of him, and held her Angel at arms length.

His dark hair was a stark contrast to his white mask.

He cut an imposing figure, her Angel.

"Why do you tremble before me?" he asked in his low, silky smooth baritone voice.

His wild green eyes were calm and inquiring behind the mask.

"My Angel… Erik… why do you come to me? Me? Of all people? Surely I am not the most musically talented in the world? What have I done to deserve your presence? Why…" Erik silenced her, putting a hand to her white cheek.

He began to hum 'Music of the Night'. Her dark eyes widened, and she let herself become immersed in the music.

God, she thought, if this is heaven, please let me die. Because, consciously, she knew she still lived and breathed.

Her Angel came to the end of the song, and her legs gave way.

The Phantom caught her as she fell, and lifted her effortlessly into his arms, and carried her to his swan bed, where she was surrounded by red silk.

He sat beside her, stroking her brown hair gently.

Then for the first time, she payed attention to her surroundings.

She was in his lair! She gasped; saw the shattered mirrors and headless mannequin.

"How? Why?" She whispered, her head swimming. Hadn't the Phantom left? Disappeared? So many questions.

She looked down at her dress. She was in a light blue dress that gathered at the waist, then hung loosely to her shins.

This wasn't her gown. She was a twenty-first century girl, and no matter how much she dreamed, nothing had ever been as real as this.

Her Angel was sitting not a foot from her; she could feel his warmth against her side. A tear rolled down her cheek. It was overwhelming.

"Leah…" he uttered the word as a caress, "Please do not cry, I wish no harm upon you… and if I did… It would have been carried out by now…"He said softly, the left side of his mouth twisted into a smile.

But in a way it seemed forced, unnatural… Leah knew he could have killed her in an instant, he was dangerous and unpredictable like that, and she respected him for it.

She knew he had been through many hardships in his life, and the expression was a result of those torments, but still, it bothered her.

And also stirring on the edge of her mind was her similarity to Christine, to Christine's arrival in his cellar…

"Erik, what concerns you? I can feel your unsettlement."

He gave a harsh laugh that echoed in the vast emptiness of the cave, bouncing off the ragged walls, making Leah jump.

"What does not bother a soul such as mine?" he asked her, getting up, walking to his music stand, running his gloved fingers over a yellowed and fading score.

The faint title read, 'Don Juan '.

But that made no sense. Had not the 'Don Juan' score burnt in the fire at the opera house? Hadn't she seen the parchment burn on the screen?

"I regret many actions in my long life, some much more than others…" He continued, his face hardening at his last words.

"People, words, actions, they all haunt my dark mind… But what does that matter? It has been done. The past is better forgotten."

Her heart went out to this mysterious man, his words ringing true to her.

She swung her legs delicately over the side of the golden bed, placing her feet on the cold floor.

She recoiled at how her actions matched Christine's, and she swept down the few steps to stand slightly behind The Phantom. "But Erik, our past makes up who we are…" And he turned to her,

"And who I am, what I am, is the result of my past. I would say the result of a bad past, would you not?" She hated to see her Angel like this, and went on…

"Your past… well, maybe is better off forgotten, but as much as you try to avoid it, you can not escape it, no matter how bitter it has made you."

She let go of his shoulder, feeling small and insignificant in front of him.

"Erik I lo…" But she checked herself before she could finish. She loved him? How could she love him? She had seen him in films, Stories, but she did not even know the man, therefore she could not love the real being.

"Yes? You what?" He said somewhat impatiently. "You pity me? You are frightened of me? My past? My past… Associations?" he said grudgingly.

He was doing precisely what she had told him not to, he was hiding from his past.

Christine was clearly still a tender subject.

Leah wondered how much time had passed since Don Juan. She wondered how much time had passed, full stop.

"Erik, what year is it?" she asked timidly, standing just out of his reach.

"It is 1899. Why do you ask, Leah?" he answered in a questioning tone.

She did a fast mental calculation. So Christine was well and truly old, yet the Phantom was almost unchanged.

He did look weary, the problems of ages looked as if they weighed on his shoulders, and he bore under his eyes worry and heartache.

But he could easily have been from the day after Christine left him for the last time.

He had lost none of his aristocratic and proud air, even though he was clearly depressed.

Should the opera house not be in ruin after the night of Don Juan Triumphant if it was 1899?

Did the mob not find him and his lair? Or had they taken pity on the wretched man in his dank watery hole?

As she thought this, she had to hold back a sob for her Angel. "I am just disoriented. I can not remember how I got here. Erik, Could you take me to the surface?"

He snorted, and looked to the ceiling of the lair. "The surface, my Dear? No, no, no. The surface turned its back on the Angel of music long ago, so the Angel of Music does the same." Another smile softened his icy expression slightly, "You will stay with me." He said simply.

Inside herself, she gasped. He was never going to let her go. He was not going to let another woman slip from his grip, when she clearly praised him like a god.

He had learnt from his mistakes. "But… But Erik, how did I get here? What will my family say when they find me gone? I must return."

Now she was pleading with him.

"But, Leah, did you not wish for an Angel of Music on your birthday, every Birthday, from your 14th onwards? Now here I am, and you can stay with me forever."

How did he know that? No one knew that.

"But Erik please! I did not even get to say goodbye to my family!"

Her eyes were pleading, as was every inch of her soul, with him to let her understand, to let him free her, her tears were welling up.

She suddenly understood Christine's plight completely, after all her years of calling her stupid to want to leave such a man and a place.

Although she did not fear the Phantom, as Christine had done, she felt frightened just the same.

Suddenly, from watching her passively, the phantom burst, wailing a cry to the whole cave.

He cried out in anguish, and leant on his organ.

"I cannot keep a woman for a day without disturbing her mind," He put his face into his hands. "See what I have become?"

Leah walked slowly and carefully over to him, avoiding various scores of music, and stood at his side.

Gently she took his hand and stood him up.

He looked absolutely shattered.

Then great wracking sobs took his body, and he shook, leaning into her arms, sinking his head into her neck, and letting the long pent-up tears escape.

He was a full head-and-a-half taller than Leah, yet she felt as if he was trying to hide himself in her small frame.

She raised her hand carefully and stroked his dark hair, whispering, "Shhhhh… It is alright, my poor Angel of Music… It is alright, I am here, and I am not afraid."

Then she sighed, she could not leave The Phantom, he needed to be loved.

Yet there were so many unfinished things in her life in the real world.

She didn't know if she was ready for such a radical change.

She did not even know what happened to her family.

"I will stay with you…" she said slightly more surely than she felt, "I love you, and I'm not afraid…" She said again, to reassure herself, but she was not sure who she was saying it to to comfort more now, her, or Erik.

His sobbing slowed, his shaking receded, but his bottom lip was still quivering as he pulled away from her, eyes red-rimmed.

"I have not been held by a woman in so long… and never so passionately…" He looked at her obviously thinking hard, fighting to come to a decision inside.

"I will take you to the surface."