"Erik! Erik, where are you?" the voice of Gerard Carriere rang through the cellars where Erik, and now Christine, resided.
Erik, who had been at that moment sitting on the lounge with Christine in his arms asleep, groaned, and attempted to shift her off of his lap without waking her up. Succeeding, he quietly made his way to the lake, where Gerard stood with his arms crossed and a stormy expression on his aging face.
"Where is she, Erik? Where is the girl?" he asked.
"She's asleep, on the chaise. And she has a name, you know." Erik shot back.
"Don't you care at all about her reputation, Erik? You and she are living in sin, for god's sake! This cannot continue! You must let her return to the surface!" Gerard yelled.
"Be quiet, you old fool! You'll wake her up! And what do you mean, don't I care about her reputation? The strumpets who sing and dance about onstage up there openly sleep with multiple men, and that stupid Comte uses this place for his personal brothel! Don't you know that he was the one who brought her here? Why do you think he did that? It obviously wasn't for his pure enjoyment of her voice. Trust me, Gerard, she's better off down here with me than she is up there." Erik hissed.
Gerard appeared unconvinced. "Be that as it may, the Comte may well be looking for her. She must return to the surface with me, Erik. You shouldn't have brought her down here in the first place."
Erik slumped, appearing broken. "Do you truly wish to take away my only chance at happiness, Gerard? Would you take what is mine by right, and separate the two of us? Are you so determined to play the hero?" he whispered.
"Damn it, Erik, stop that! She doesn't belong to you, and she doesn't belong down here! She is not your ticket to happiness, and you can't keep her down her against her will! This has nothing to do with some bloody hero complex that I don't have!" Gerard yelled.
A new voice broke in. "And what makes you think I'm here against my will, Monsieur Carriere? The fact that Erik is disfigured? Do you truly think me so shallow that I cannot see past it to the truly remarkable man that he is inside? I am surprised at you, Monsieur!" Christine scolded him, in all her messy-haired glory.
"Mademoiselle, please. There are people up above searching for you, and who are very worried for your safety. You must return with me!" he pleaded.
"Oh, there are, are there?" Erik drawled. "We were just up there yesterday morning, Gerard, and I saw no signs of any search for her. I am aware that the police were investigating her dressing room after I brought her down, and I am also aware that they gave up the search because of a lack of leads as to her location. You are blowing this entire situation out of proportion, and making it seem to be a bigger issue than it actually is."
Gerard glared at Erik, with all of the naked disdain that a man who has seen too much is capable of. "Whether or not there is any official investigation going on, you must still return to the surface with me, Mademoiselle. As I have said before, you and Erik are living in sin, and I know you hold your faith dear to your heart. You cannot remain here, Christine, it is wrong." He urged her.
Christine looked at Erik, and his pleading grey-green eyes stared back at her, begging her not to leave him. She looked at Gerard, and said, "Monsieur, I don't think we're really living in sin, as you say. There has been nothing improper between us, and just yesterday I gave Erik permission to court me. Is it wrong for a couple in this state to spend time in each other's company?" she asked.
Gerard started at her words. "You two…what? Courting? When did this happen?" he asked angrily.
"She just said when, Gerard. Yesterday morning, when we went above to watch the sunrise. I asked, and she said yes. There isn't anything difficult to comprehend in that sentence, is there?" he asked.
"Difficult to…Erik, you fool! You know that no matter how much you wish this to be, it simply cannot! And you know that! So why get both her hopes up, and yours? You cannot marry!" Gerard screamed.
Christine stepped back, gasping quietly. Wet tears filled her eyes, and her eyes flew back and forth between Erik and Gerard. Erik stepped forward, and reached for her, but she shook her head, taking another step back. She whirled around, and ran back into the house, her small shoulders wracked with sobs. Erik turned and looked at Gerard, his eyes murderous, and Gerard knew it had been a mistake to interfere in this particular affair of Erik's.
"For your own safety, Gerard." Erik said, slowly, his voice menacing, "I suggest you leave immediately, without speaking to Christine, and definitely without her. It seems that once again, I am going to have to clean up your mess, and I highly doubt that she will wish to see you while she feels that you have ruined her dreams. Go. Now."
Gerard nodded, then turned and left, shoulders slumped, and his manner subdued. 'What have I done?' he asked himself. 'Have I really just crushed that poor girl's dreams? Have I ruined my own son's happiness?' he then stopped, shock and horror flooding his entire psyche. 'Oh, god, can I even call myself his father anymore? Have I ever had that right? I'm not sure. I don't think I can. I've never truly been a father to him; and I don't think I've ever seen him so happy. Oh, god, what have I done?'
Meanwhile, back in the spacious cavern that Erik called home, Christine had locked herself in her room, sobbing into one of the pillows on her bed, heartbroken and betrayed. His own father doesn't approve of me. I thought he liked me? He was so kind to me the other night…but I suppose that's what he meant when he told me to leave. He thinks that I can't truly love him because of his face, and that I'm only here because he's keeping me here. She let out another sob. And Erik…he didn't even try to defend me! He just stood there and let Monsieur Carriere insult me like that! How could he do such a thing? I thought he loved me…
She didn't look up when Erik knocked at her door, or when he entered and stood silently before her. "Will you not speak to me?" he asked her after several moments of silence.
"I'm not sure there's anything to say. He clearly doesn't approve of me, and you clearly don't love me as much as you say you do." She said quietly.
Erik stood silently for several long moments, shocked down to the very core of his being. Not love her? Impossible! Preposterous! Downright insane! Where in the world could she have possibly gotten such a notion into her head? He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound, not a single word emerged. The only sound to be heard was the quiet dripping of moisture droplets from the ceiling to the floor in another part of the cavern, which echoed and grew louder as it approached the silent pair.
Drip…drip…drip…
"Christine…what in the world did you just say? Can you even…hear yourself? What madness has taken over your mind to make you speak such lies?" he finally managed to force out.
She turned her head away, and muttered, "You didn't defend me when Monsieur Carriere said all of those horrible things. You didn't argue with him when he told us we couldn't get married." A sudden thought occurred to her, and she looked straight into his eyes, and asked, "Unless…did you ever intend to marry me, Erik? I wouldn't have minded a small wedding with just the two of us, you know that. But was even the thought of that too much? Were you simply hoping that I would one day forget all of the values that I hold dear, and consent to be your mistress? You know I will not do that, Erik. I cannot." She declared.
Those words snapped Erik out of the trance he had seemingly gone into. He rushed forward, and dropped to one knee before her, grasping her hand in an attempt to reassure her. "Christine, I swear, I would never have asked that of you. And dismiss these foolish thoughts of questioning my devotion to you; you must know them in your heart to be false. Christine…I did plan to eventually ask you to marry me, I truly did. I wasn't planning on doing so anytime soon, for I did not want to rush you into anything you were not ready for, but I would have proposed to you. Gerard's insistence that I cannot marry you does not stem from any feelings of dislike towards you; far from it. He quite likes you. It stems from the fact that I was never baptized, my birth never registered with the church, or with any authorities. I am a bastard, Christine, as you know, and though many would couch it in more delicate terms, the truth of my situation stands. I don't exist, Christine. Not in the eyes of the government. If you had wished to get married, it would have had to be a civil ceremony, since we cannot simply declare ourselves married in the eyes of your god. That custom went out over a hundred years ago. But I swear to you, Christine, that if you had wished it, I would have found some way for us to be married." He promised.
Christine sniffled and wiped her nose. "What made you change your mind?" she whispered.
"What?"
"You kept saying would have, if you had wished, I did wish. What made you change your mind?" She asked.
Erik marveled at her remarkable ability to misunderstand him. "Christine…nothing has changed my mind, and nothing ever could. You know that I love you, and I vow to you that that fact will never change. I…assumed that because of this misunderstanding, that you would no longer wish to remain with me, and would make me return you to the surface. And I would have done so, Christine, if that had been your desire, though it would destroy me. But if it would make you happy, I would go to the ends of the earth to fetch you the exact blade of grass that you desired."
Christine looked up at him, tears in her crystalline blue eyes. "But that wouldn't have made me happy, Erik, and you know that. I love being here with you, and I love you. I don't want to leave. And you should stop assuming that the worst is always going to happen to you! I know that you haven't had an easy life, and my heart aches for all that you've suffered! I'm not going to abandon you, Erik, no matter what. But you need to put your faith in me, and the love I bear in my heart for you. Can you do that?" she asked, the tears overflowing her eyelids and streaming down her face like twin waterfalls of liquid diamond.
Matching tears appeared in Erik's eyes, as he laid a reverent kiss on her knuckle. "Christine…I want to have faith in you, truly I do! But I've been alone my whole life, except for Gerard, and I just don't know how to trust. I've only ever been able to trust myself and him, nobody else." He looked up at her, the tears now cascading town his face unheeded. "Please believe me when I say I want to, it's just…" he trailed off.
"Just what? Tell me." She commanded. He shook his head in resistance. "Erik, tell me."
He stood up and turned around, the pain evident in every line of his slim form. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and rasped, "How am I supposed to trust when everyone else I ever did betrayed me?"
A gasp came from behind him. "Erik – what are you talking about? Betrayed you? Betrayed you how?"
He shook his head again. "My mother – she was the first. I realized long ago, in hindsight, that she never purposefully betrayed me, but in the mind of a very young child, such things are irrelevant. She – she was very sick, and I suppose that I knew somehow that she wasn't long for this world. I made her promise me that she wouldn't leave, wouldn't…" die, the word echoed silently through the room, unsaid, but understood. "When she passed on, I was inconsolable, screaming, crying, begging her to come back, and going into a rampage when she didn't. Gerard didn't find out until the next morning, when he found me by the shore of the lake with blood on my hands from hitting them against the walls." He explained.
"Oh, Erik…" Christine murmured, tears filling her eyes again, this time in empathy for the young child he had once been, who had lost the dearest thing to him. "Who was the other?" she asked.
"Gerard." He spat, the disgust palpable in his tone.
"Gerard? How did he betray you?"
"Can't you guess? You, yourself, were witness to it. Four days ago, when he came down here, he tried to take you away with him for the first time, didn't he?" he asked. At her nod, he continued, "And when he was in there with you, he told you my story. All of it. Including something he has never told me, and yet told you. Do you know what that little piece of information is, my dear?" he drawled sarcastically.
A sob caught in the back of her throat. She pressed her palm to her mouth and nodded. "Yes. Yes, there was. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Erik, I'm so sorry, but I didn't think it was my place to interfere. I'm so-"
He pressed his lips to her forehead and cut her off. "Shh, Christine, it's all right. I'm not mad at you, and you're not the one at fault." He pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head on his shoulder, breathing in his scent. Erik buried his face into her hair, and murmured, "I've known for a long time that he was my father, Christine. Have you not noticed we share the same eyes?" he jested weakly. He immediately turned serious once again. "But still, you can see why I find it hard to trust others. I swear to you, though, my darling, that I will find a way. I want to trust you, Christine, I truly do. You've already seen my face, and didn't run, and that is a far greater miracle than I ever dared wish for. If that can happen, Christine, then I can learn to trust you, as well. All I ask is that you give me time; it isn't going to be an easy task."
Christine nodded, and pressed her palm to one side of his face. A question arose in her eyes, and Erik closed his, nodded, resigned to her will. She reached around the back of his head and undid the knot, gently removing the mask from his face, then frowning. "What is it?" Erik asked quietly.
Christine tilted her head. "Erik, how long have you worn the mask?" she asked quietly.
"My entire life. I have told you this, Christine."
"No, my love, I mean for how many years have you worn it."
Erik thought for a moment, counting the endless stretches of time, and the masks he had had. "That one in your hand I have worn for about eight years. Before that, I had an identical one that I threw into the lake in a fit of anger. That one I wore for six. Before that one, there was an ever-changing series of masks I wore for thirteen years, which needed constant replacing due to my growth." He answered her, emotionless.
Christine gasped in shock. "Haven't you ever gone without a mask?"
Erik's eyes darkened. "No. I have no wish to see my monstrous face any more than I need to. The mask at least allows the façade of normalcy, so long as I do not look too closely. Why do you always persist in its removal, Christine? There cannot possibly be anything you wish to see underneath." He asked bitterly.
"You're wrong." She said.
He looked down at her, a question of his own in his eyes. "I like to see you without the mask. I like to see you. With the mask on, you can hide from me, and hide your true feelings. Without it, you can't. You've been alone so long, you've never had to hide your facial expressions, to guard your true feelings. If the mask is off, I can always see them, and see how you're truly feeling, what you're really thinking." She explained.
Erik blinked at her in shock. "You can tell what I'm thinking because of my facial expressions?" he asked in disbelief.
She nodded. "Most of the time, if your mask is off, I can. I can tell what you're thinking right now."
Erik smirked. "You can, can you? Well then, what am I thinking, my love?" he teased her.
She tapped her finger against her bottom lip theatrically. "You're thinking about me!" she exclaimed.
"Oh? And how did you come by this fact?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Simple. You're always thinking about me." She stated, as if it were obvious.
Erik's laughter echoed through the stone caverns, traveling up and into the theatre. As it travelled through the empty hallways and theatre, it reached the ears of Gerard Carriere. He lifted his downturned face and looked around in shock, recognizing the rare sound of his son's laughter. His aged heart lifted just a little at hearing it, with the knowledge that perhaps, all was not lost. That perhaps, there was still hope, for him, for Erik, for Christine, for the cruel, fickle nature of humanity. Hope that there could still be love, even in the opera's hallways, famous for their grand debauchery. Hope, that one day…they could all find peace.
A/N: And that's a wrap! Well, for this chapter at least. I think there's going to be two more vignettes in this story, and then I'll call finis. I'm really enjoying writing this story, and it looks like you guys are really enjoying reading it. I'm going to be working on the second chapter of The Colors of The Queen next, which I will try to post Monday, since I will have a three-day weekend to write with. Please review, and I have a question for the next chapter: do you all want a reconciliation scene with Gerard and Erik? One last thing: I'm going to start posting when I think I'll be posting the next chapter of my stories on my profile, so look there if you want a schedule update.