(Christine's POV)
My lungs were already burning as Erik and I reached the third cellar. Dancer though I was, I was hardly in shape for this kind of running. Especially in the clammy surroundings of cellars. The cold air was giving me a sore throat from breathing it and, honestly, I couldn't run another step.
"Erik!" I gasped as I tugged on his hand and tried to slow him down. He was the one leading me at this headlong speed.
My masked guide stopped at my call and turned to look at me, as if just then registering that I couldn't move as fast as he.
I took a quick breath and stole a glance behind me.
"I'm sorry, Erik, but I can't run that fast." Erik nodded slightly and looked around, as if trying to find a way to solve our little dilemma.
"Erik shall carry you!" He declared and a moment later, I was incased in his cold arms and we were again on the move. He couldn't run with me cocooned safely in his arms, and he wouldn't ever dream of jeopardizing my safety, but he could move a good deal faster than if I was going along behind him.
I took a few gasping breaths and laid my head against his boney chest, smiling as I heard his heart trying to keep up with my lover's mad dash from the surface. I laid a hand over it, hoping to calm its accelerated tempo.
As we continued on through the tunnels down to his little house by the lake, I began to think. I, truly, had no idea what was going to happen to us. We had it all planned out until the point where we ran from the Opera House and started afresh. Though, we had no idea where that would be, or if we could even do it.
Erik had been very apprehensive about leaving his beloved house. It was a safe point for my deformed, slightly insane Opera Ghost. But, he well knew that I loved sunlight and it would be impossible for me to maintain any quality of life without it. So, he accepted that for us to be an item, he would have to move. And, the nice thing about Erik is that he would do anything for me. I knew that if I were to ask him to let me go at the very moment we had instigated our scheme, he would have done it. Granted, it would have killed him but he would have done it.
Not that I wanted him to. I was very happy in his arms. There was no other place I wanted to be. That was the predominant reason that I had wanted to implement our plan at once. Though, I had a secondary reason that I had mentioned to Erik previously.
I was tired of lying. Sick and tired of it. I had spent the last six months of my life, lying to my former best friend. Raoul had been so attentive and sweet to me, trying his best to console me and assure me that the menacing Phantom wouldn't hurt me and I was safe with him.
How many times I had desperately wanted to tell him that if Erik had wanted to Raoul would have been five minutes dead before he even knew what was happening. Only knowing that would blow my cover had kept me from saying it. Also, I didn't really want to crush my friend's ego.
His was a very sensitive one after all.
I nearly giggled at the thought and Erik, who was by now settling me down in the gondola for the trip across, gave me an odd look. I giggled again and whispered,
"I was thinking of Raoul's ego." Even with his mask on, I could sense him arching an eyebrow but brushed off the comment. He had often told me that he thought his insanity had been communicated to me. I would just laugh and wave off his statement. I wasn't insane! I was just a girl. Or…maybe that was the same thing. Oh well, I didn't have time at that moment to contemplate the deep matters of the differences in genders.
Erik stepped off the dock and into the gondola, picking up the pole and beginning to move us across the black water, the lantern on the front of boat being the only thing lighting our way.
I wrapped my arms around my legs, tucking them up against my chest. I was a little cold but there wasn't much to be done about that. all my things, including all my winter things, were in a hotel room I had rented a few days ago. Erik had insisted that I do it instead of keeping them at his house simply because it would be too much to move all of the sudden. I hadn't liked spending all of the money to keep my things but Erik would hear none of my leaving my things behind.
I looked up at the dark form, poling the gondola along and smiled slightly to myself. For all his darkness and pent of wrath, he was an undeniable romantic with a heart of gold. Of course, he wouldn't ever admit it, his ego was also in the way as it was with Raoul, but it was true all the same.
Soon, I felt the boat glide to a stop at the dock and Erik hopped out, the picture of lithe grace, and tied it before assisting me out like the gentleman he was.
Having noticing my shivers from earlier, he wrapped his cloak around my shoulders, it being big enough for both him and I to be under it at the same time, before leading me to the front door of his house and beginning work on the door. His locking mechanisms were quite thorough and it even took him a few moments to unlock it properly. I could only imagine how long it would take a normal person to unlock it. Without a doubt, a good many hours!
Soon, the piece of stone which served for his front door opened and he ushered me into the dimly lit room that was his living room. I instantly hurried over to the roaring fire and warmed my frozen appendages. Erik watched me for a moment before removing his cloak, hat, and mask, revealing his, I admit, ghastly features. I, though I adore his face for what it is, won't lie and say it is beautiful. Raoul's face was beautiful and that was his one redeeming feature among the ladies. My departure would come as a welcome change to those who were vying for my former friend's every attention.
My Erik was a little rough around the edges but I would take great pleasure in mellowing him with lots of love and spoiling.
Erik gave me a soft smile, an odd appearance on his face before disappearing through a doorway. I knew where he was going. I had been instructed that I was to wait for him as he packed the few things he couldn't pack before. I wasn't to lift a single finger.
Five minutes later, he returned with his large satchel packed. It carried his Don Juan Triumphant, which at my insistence he hadn't burned. I liked the piece though he claimed it was very dark and sensual. I wouldn't deny that it was all of that and more but it was still very appealing. I often like to describe it as a Gypsy dancer, even though the simile made him grimace. To my way of thinking, a Gypsy dancer's act was quite provocative, most particularly to the male psyche, but even in that, one could find great artist beauty. So it was with Don Juan.
He looked at me and was silent. I moved away from the fire and over to him, taking one skeletal hand in both of mine.
"Are you ready?" I asked as I looked up at the corpse-like face of the man I loved with all my heart. He nodded slowly.
"As ready as Erik will ever be." He looked around at the house that had been his home for twenty years, four years longer than I had been alive, and then back at me.
"We don't have to move." I whispered to him. "I can survive with walks." His other hand lightly caressed the back of my hand and he shook his head slowly.
"No. Erik will not have his living wife surviving. Erik wants her to thrive." I nodded and pointed towards the door.
"We best get going before someone comes down and finds us." I didn't know if anyone could but I didn't want to risk anything happening to destroy our current happiness. Erik silently agreed but the moment his hand was on the door knob, he stopped.
"Erik must write a note." He said, tossing aside the satchel for a moment and hurrying out of the room. I followed him. A moment later, we arrived in his room, devoid of most everything portable except for his coffin which I had ordered him to leave behind.
He sat down at his desk, a large object which he had decided was unimportant and could remain. I had an odd feeling that he was leaving a few things in his house on the chance that he might have to return for sanctuary. He picked up a ink bottle and quill and a sheet of stationary and began to write.
I looked over his shoulder and was confused immediately by what he had written. It looked more like drawing than anything else but, considering how many languages he knew, I wouldn't put it past him to be some foreign language though why he would be writing it in was beyond my ken.
He finished it up and fold it, labeling it with 'the Daroga', what I assumed to be a name.
"There." He said to himself. "Now, that pesky Persian will at least know what Erik has done and won't foolishly attempt to pursue him." He drew himself to his full height of well over 6'5" and held out his hand to me.
"Shall we leave? Erik and his living wife?" I nodded and after retrieving his satchel at the front door, led me outside and towards the Rue Scribe entrance
In other words, our pathway to a new life.
A little while later, a man entered Erik's bedroom. He was a dark-skinned, older man with the greenest eyes one will ever see. Behind him was a far younger man, blond with blue eyes and a startling fair complexion. Both had the same mission in mind.
Find Erik and Christine.
But, they seemed to be nowhere to be found. Both men had searched the place high and low and there was nary a sign of either. It had only been the dark-skinned man's last idea to search Erik's bedroom one last time, thinking that perhaps the deranged genius had a hidden passage or trap door as he so commonly did.
But all he found was a note, written in Farsi, saying:
To the Daroga and all it may concern:
I, the Opera Ghost, am gone. I and Christine have departed to parts where no one shall discover or molest us. You, Daroga, prying devil that you are, shall only learn our whereabouts should it prove necessary. For the time being, alert the young fop, who I am sure will be near at hand when you find this letter, that Christine is no longer his. She is mine. We are to be married at the first legal place that will marry us.
I have taken a living bride, at last.
Your humble servant,
Erik, O.G.
The Daroga, for that is who the dark-skinned man was, reread the letter before turning to the Visconte and relaying the information. Naturally, the man was heartbroken. He hadn't ever imagined that his childhood sweetheart could lie to him but, he admitted after his first cries to disbelief, he had thought something might have been amiss with how she acted.
The Daroga tucked the letter away in his pocket and he and the Visconte returned to the surface. There was nothing left for them in the lair of the Phantom of the Opera.