Author's Note: Hello everyone! :)

This fic is based off the song Beneath A Moonless Sky, but I took a bit of liberty with it. I did my best to keep true to the original characterization, while still following the song's lyrics. If you haven't heard the song, I'd advise you do that first. Please read and review!

I'll be frank: it's rated M for E/C sex. Don't like it? Don't read it.

"And now?"
"How can you talk of now? For us, there is no now..."

The thoughts surface as they do every night; mirrors always make her think of him. Memories float to her out of the glass, and she watches through eyes she always manages to imagine aren't her own. This night, as she fumbles with the clasp of her necklace, she doesn't push them away.

The year has passed quickly; an onslaught of long nights and candlelight and music that seemed empty, somehow. All that remains of that day are fragments—Raoul's wrists, raw against the ropes, or the way he cried to her; the caustic echo of familiar chords; the fear in Erik's eyes, transcending even the bloodlust and the hurt. His breath on her lips, his eyes closed—though deep down they both knew that it wasn't love, it wasn't even pity, it was simply selfish. The fleeting spark and crushing emptiness of their kiss—the most jagged shard of memory by far—was a nightmare in dreams, the shadow of scar tissue and something unexplained.

She sighs and pulls the necklace off. It's no use thinking through it all again—the past is the past, and nothing will change now that she has chosen. She turns away from the mirror. Her nightgown swirls around her ankles as she crosses the room, bare feet on cold floorboards. A quick breath of air suffocates the flame of her candle.

The sky past the windowpanes is eerie; the four flawless squares of midnight make her shiver.