Chapter Four: The Presence Of A Guest

Erik slept a dreamless sleep for many more hours after he had shown Olivia into Christine's room. Erik's eyes opened and he stared at the dark ceiling for a very long time, pondering the decision he had made, the risks he had taken of letting another person, another woman into the underbelly of his domain, wondering if his inebriation had somehow had influence over it. He rolled to his side and pressed his face into the pillow of his new bed. Before he had gone to retrieve Olivia he moved Christine's bed out of her room, reassembled it and brought one of the stage beds down from the prop rooms two floors above. It didn't take too long, but it took long enough for Erik after the fact to question is long debatable sanity. Olivia would have had to have slept in Christine's bed, her scent eclipsing the fading presence of his beloved. He wanted to cherish every last bit of it before she slipped away from him forever. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of her skin laced with perfume still trapped deep in the down of the pillow. He screwed his eyes shut to forcibly keep his tears from washing it away.

Erik heard the soft tapping of feet in the room beyond and raised his head from the mattress, a question painted across his countenance. He heaved himself out of the bed and walked over to the door pressing the panel to open it. Olivia was moving across the main room, her clothes no longer mud splattered, her hair not longer disarray but neatly pulled back from her face. Quietly she had set about cleaning and clearing out the things that were damaged by the onslaught of the investigation. His eyes silently swept the room to see glass cleared from the floor furniture righted and their trimmings placed on them. He softly cleared his throat and Olivia turned on her heel to face him. "Good morning," she said simply.

"How did you get out of that room," he asked, not bothering to return the greeting.

Her eyes flickered to the invisible frame and then back to her host. "I have a talent of getting in and out of things which are supposedly inescapable." Erik was not comforted by this statement but hid it well by altering his gaze to look about his newly reconstructed domain. It was very well done. Everything was where he would have put it. The bookshelf was against the back wall with his collection neatly placed in its wooden folds, the red wing backed chair placed to the right of it with the oil lamp behind it. His whiskey cabinet was placed off the in the corner, stealthily hidden in the darkest corner of the room. In the center of the room was the divan and the low table in front of it, the rug that lay underneath it was unwrinkled and glass ridden.

"Does it suit you?" Erik turned and saw that his guest was a few meters behind him, watching as he inspected what she had done while he had slept.

"Yes," he said turning to her. "It suits me fine, thank you."

She nodded her head, a pleased look crossing her face. "It was the least I could do for you taking me in so suddenly."

With the cordials now said they had nothing more to say so they stared at each other in awkward silence each calculating the stance of the other. In that way Erik stared at Olivia who stared at her, her inquisitive brown eyes looking into his hazel ones. Her eyes centered in her full face, which was connected by her elegant neck to her body that was wrapped in Christine's clothes. His heart twisted as he looked at how well she filled the dress that he had only dreamed of Christine wearing. It was the pale peach one, the one she would wear on Sunday strolls in the afternoon when in was sunny. He had conjured countless country escapades with her in that dress. There was a hat to it too, somewhere, and shoes, dainty little shoes for little feet to wear. He looked down; she was barefoot.

"I would like to tend my horse now," said Olivia suddenly and Erik was snapped out of his delusions. He cocked his head to the side a small smirk playing on his lips. "I thought you could find my doors," he said slyly.

Olivia raised her eyebrows, playing along with his cheeky comment, "I could, but I chose not to since you have now awoken, and it would save me so much time and effort it you would just…let me out," she ended delicately.

Erik chuckled underneath his austere façade. Sarcasm, how very unlike Christine, he noted in the back of his mind. "As you wish," he said smoothly turning towards one of the hidden doors and opening it without any effort at all. He turned back to her and saw that she was trying to memorize where it was on the wall. He raised his hand and beckoned towards her. As she passed him and he closed the door to the room with a clang he whispered to her from the darkness. "I may not let you back in," he said.

Olivia did not say anything for a moment and Erik passed in front of her as they walked, soundlessly examining her again. "You will let me back in," she said when he was in front of her after completing his circuit.

He turned back and looked at her, revealing himself to her from the cloak of shadows. "Why is that," he asked.

"Because," she said coolly, raising her head to look at him in the face. "I interest you too much."

Curse his curiosity, and her perception even more.

They walked side by side in silence down the straight and narrow path the Erik's underground stable. They heard a horse cry out at their coming. Olivia's face lifted at the sound. "Hello, my love," she said brightly passing past her escort and quickly approaching the stall where her horse resided in. The animal stretched its neck as far over the door as it could and pressed its face into her chest, Olivia's arms wrapping around its head as she cooed in a soft voice to it.

Erik walked over and leaned against his own horse's stall and silently observed the pair's reunion. He watched how her eyes roamed over the animals healthy coat, how he hands ran over his muscled body and inspected him for injury, how her soft voice seemed to calm hi restless disposition. He felt a thump in the back of his head and his own head bent forward. He looked over his shoulder and saw his stallion staring at him, his own head reaching out to him over the wood that divided them. He heard bell like laughter in front of him.

"Your horse seems jealous," she commented with a smile.

"Jealousy," said Erik running a hand over the horse's nose, "when you are speaking of Caesar can sometimes be translated into impertinence."

"Which is always translated into spirit," Olivia replied. "He is a Morgan is he not?"

Erik nodded, "and yours?"

Olivia turned and looked deep into her animal's idly stroking its mane. "Shakespeare was an English race horse. He got too slow with age so they retired him, and I bought him for a fraction of what he is worth. He's fast enough for me." She looked up at Erik. "But my views and the rest of the world's are two completely different things, don't you agree?"

"I do," said Erik softly, she unknowing how much he agreed.

A few days passed and the pair existed relatively independently of each other, a fact which made Erik very distraught. Olivia had not once asked him for his story, for the reasons which lead him to live in the vaults of a burned down opera house, of why he kept to himself here at the bottom of the world, of why he wore a mask. No, Olivia had not once asked him about his mask, never once tried to remove it. That was more than Christine had ever done for him, and that perhaps was making him more distraught then ever.

He sat thinking of this on the divan while Olivia was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking at something, her small fingers flitting through the loose leafed pages. Every few minutes he heard the ruffled off the dry paper and sound of her breathing. Erik heard Olivia sigh and he turned his head to look at her. "This is very good," she said straightening the pages. He moaned when he was the title triumphantly glare up at him in red ink. "Did you write this?" she asked.

He did not respond; his voice strangled in his throat before speech could be formed. He nodded stiffly instead.

"I thought so," she mused looking interchangeably at the composer and the opera, "it seems so like you," she looked up at him, her dark eyes probing imperceptibly "or what was once you." There was silence.

Then…

"Did you love her?"

The dormant wound became inflamed with pain and fury. Yes, his mind screamed as he stood up and walked to the wall. How could he not, how could any man given the gift of sight not love her with all his being until he was but a husk at the first sight of her. He did, he did. His hand on the wall curled up into a tight fist. Olivia watched all of this.

"She broke your heart." It was not a question but a statement.

Erik mind boiled easily with this tender subject. He whipped his head and glared at her as she looked back with understanding. Understanding? How dare she attempt to understand him? How dare she try to do what no one in the world would do, what Christine would do? How dare she try to best his Christine?

He pressed the panel and opened a door. An addict could only stay away from his drug for so long.

"Where are you going?"

"Out," he snarled back at her.

"To get away from me, or to get closer to her?" she shouted back.

"Both," he said and violently closed the door.

He walked blindly but without need of any guidance to the Chateau de Changy. Nimbly he climbed the wall until he reached the balcony of the master bedroom. He leapt to it lightly and then pressed the black mass that was his body to the window. He sighed in content at what he saw. Christine was sleeping peacefully in the way that he always watched her, on her back her head turned to the side, her hand lightly curled next to it. With her hand there she always looked like the child that he had seen on her first night on the opera, crying, afraid of the dark that had become his ally. He had come and lit it with may nightlights to distract her from it, but it did not matter, she was still afraid of the dark, and when the nightlights failed as always ran back to the light.

That was when she saw the large hand that rested on her stomach, the hand of her husband, the husband that was not him. His eyes looked down at the ring that was on his smallest fingers and he kissed the gold band and his fantasized marriage to the Angel of Light. He pressed his forehead to the glass looking at the new ring that adorned her finger. "Christine," he whispered through his teeth.

She awoke with a jolt, like always when he called to her from sleep, but instead of turning from shock to delight, her sleepy face turned from shock to more shock. Slowly she turned her head to face his. "Erik," her lips mouthed.

Another face appeared from behind hers, a face that held nothing but protective fury. A face that had a hand that held a small, silver pistol. He exhaled sharply and turned to his left to seek his escape, his eyes still trained on Christine and the gun.

He heard crack of gunpowder, the shattering of glass. He leapt into the air. He felt searing metal hit his temple the bark of the tree he partially climbed down partially fell from. He felt the impact of the ground, and small hands touch his shoulders.

Then he felt nothing.

Hello audience meet cliffhanger anyways i am back from new york so expect a lot of new chapters and we are also getting into the meat of the story so stay tuned and REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW please people just a word. please its sorta starting to bum me out have pity on me!