Blame it on a bad internet connection! Here it is, and it took me long enough to get it here, I know...hope you enjoy it! Things are about to start getting serious around here!

Vivienne

The rain outside was a dim echo in my ears, like thousands of fingers tapping against the windowpanes. The gentle crackle of the fire added a counterpoint, the heat from the flames wrapping me in a cocoon, and I felt myself begin to relax at last…

Muffled shouts and a series of loud thumps sounded on the ceiling, intruding on the peace of the sitting room. I remained in my chair, waiting to see if the squabble would resolve on its own without my interference, but the noise escalated into a clamor that shook the whole house. I heaved a sigh and went upstairs to investigate.

Ren and Annelise were locked in battle in the upper hallway, shoving and yelling and tumbling all over the floor in the kind of dispute one could expect to encounter when keeping several children in proximity of each other. Expect, but not necessarily tolerate. I called them to a halt with a sharp command, and they separated with ill grace and worse humor. I didn't bother trying to work out who had done what to start the quarrel; with the parties involved both determined to further their own interests, who knew what really happened? I sent them both off to separate rooms to calm down, then went back downstairs.

It was unnaturally dark and gloomy in the house, for all that it was in the middle of the day. The spring rains had arrived, and the weather had kept us inside for the greater part of a week. It was no wonder the twins had grown restless, and they weren't the only ones.

Music filled the far end of the house, drawing me on and on until I came upon Erik, seated at the piano and lost in a fit of inspiration. He had been driven into the music room out of sheer boredom at first, but as the rain persisted he had hit upon something worth further attention and had barely left the piano since then.

He didn't look up as I entered the room, and I doubted he even noticed I was there. His eyes had that dreamy, faraway cast they took on when he was deep in thought, and he seemed almost hypnotized as he played several variations of a sequence to decide which suited him best. I approached as quietly as I could so as not to disturb him and sat on the edge of the piano bench to listen. The atmosphere of the melody was pensive and thoughtful, layered with harmonies that seemed to ponder endless questions. They called to mind the questions and ideas that prompted me to seek him out in the first place, all intertwined in a tangle I couldn't unravel on my own. I was content to wait to speak until he had finished, but he asked me quite placidly, "What is it, little phoenix?"

I looked up, taken by surprise. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You're never interrupting," he assured me, still experimenting with chords and keys. "You're my favorite audience, you know."

I smiled. "Is it coming along?"

"It is, indeed," he replied. "This weather has been unexpectedly stimulating."

"It certainly has," I agreed dryly. "A little more stimulation and the twins will have the house down."

"You're probably right about that…" He suddenly paused, then turned to me. "I've left you to manage things by yourself while I've been holed up in here this entire time, haven't I?" he asked contritely.

"Well, you have," I told him, matching his tone. "It's no worry, I can handle it all, but Ren and Annelise have been cooped up for too long."

"I'm sorry, Vivienne, I've been selfish—"

"No, it's fine," I insisted. "I can hear you over most of the house, and you know I love to listen to you play."

He sighed in self-reprimand and asked, "What about Celine?"

"She's behaved beautifully," I answered. "You know, I'm starting to worry she'll be a holy terror when she's older, because our children are never this well-mannered."

He chuckled softly.

I scooted closer and reached towards the keyboard, tapping out a few notes. "When the weather clears, it would do us some good to get out of the house," I remarked. "Annelise has been begging to go to that park in the city."

"Of course," he agreed. "You should take them soon."

I was silent for a long time, trying to muster the courage to say what I knew I had to. The rain had given me ample time to think about it, and I had finally reached my conclusion. "Erik," I began cautiously, "I was thinking we should all go…"

The quality of the stillness in the room changed immediately. Where it had been serene and tranquil an instant before, now it was alert and wary. He considered my words for a long time, finally asking, "What do you mean, Vivienne?"

The arguments I had spent long hours formulating sprang to my lips all in a rush, but I held my voice calm and steady, leaning away from the instrument. "We should all go as a family. You should come with us, and so should Celine."

I felt him stiffen beside me, my suggestion inconceivable and horrid. "You want to take Celine," he said slowly, every word buckling under the weight of his disbelief. "You want to take her out among people, and expose our child to their degradation."

"Erik," I urged gently, "we can't keep her shut away at home forever. We can't hide her away her entire life. We agreed we would do what we could to keep her safe, and at least this way we can be there to protect her."

"I don't care, Vivienne," he retorted sharply. "I won't display her like that for them to mock her."

"She's just an infant, she won't remember she ever went—"

"And that makes it better? I'll remember, you'll remember, Ren and Annelise will remember—"

"And they'll learn the way of the world as well," I cut in. "We've sheltered them and kept them ignorant, and they can't stay that way forever, thinking it's all a good place."

"So you want to make their sister the collateral damage, all for the greater good," he snapped. "They will see, and they will learn. It's an ugly place out there, filled with cruelty and violence, and they'll learn the terrible things people can do to each other—"

"And they'll learn about you too," I finished, hitting upon the realization. "They'll see what we've tried to keep from them, what you've always feared their discovering."

He slammed the lid down over the keyboard and shot to his feet, crossing to the window in a few agitated strides. "This isn't about me, Vivienne," he said. "This is about Celine, and what's best for her."

"I know, Erik," I replied, standing and moving over to him. "Is it really best for her if she stays here her entire life, hidden away because it's all she knows and never seeing the beauty in the world out of fear of the darkness?" I laid my hand on his arm, almost expecting him to jerk away in his uneasiness. "Do you want her to spend her life alone, like you did?" I asked.

"But I'm not alone now," he argued, not looking at me. "You found me."

"I stumbled my way to you without realizing it," I conceded, "but she won't be so lucky to have love walk in on her."

"Lucky?" he repeated. "You think I was lucky? I spent half a lifetime—" He stopped himself, surely only a moment away from another futile explanation. He could use all the words in the world, and it wouldn't convey half of what he had gone through. I could read it in his eyes, and I played my last card.

"I'll learn," I said quietly, "and I'll finally understand."

He didn't answer, and I didn't force him to. Further urgings rose in my throat, but I kept them back. I knew this was going to be less of a skirmish than a long battle as we struggled for Celine and her future. Whatever progress he had made towards peace these past years had halted with her birth, and there was nothing I feared more than his regression back to the tortured, bitter shade of a man I first knew at the Opera House. I could only do so much to hold back the tide…

I sighed. "I'm only thinking of her, Erik."

He still didn't answer, and with a heavy heart I left him standing at the window with his troubled thoughts.

Erik

There was a part of me that believed her, agreed with her, but the greater part just couldn't stomach what she was telling me. Celine, innocent, pure Celine, taken out into the world to face the hatred and malice it would surely show her…no, I couldn't let it happen. I wouldn't! I couldn't come to terms with it no matter how it was rationalized for me, and I wondered if I ever would.

I crept upstairs, sneaking past the twins as they sat bored to exhaustion in their rooms and pausing in the hallway outside the nursery. Vivienne was inside with the baby, our encounter prompting her to make sure she was safe, as if simply discussing what would happen if she left the house would bring her harm. I understood her logic; it was the very same that had lured me from the music room.

Remaining outside, I looked in on them in silence, mother cradling her child against her as if there was nothing in the world more important than the young life she held in her arms, nor any world beyond. Her eyes were closed and she whispered soothingly to the little girl, and though I couldn't hear the words I sensed they were as much for her own comfort as well as Celine's. She laid a tender kiss to the crown of her head, and I heard a tiny sniff; she was crying.

A knife went through my heart at what I was seeing and hearing. I had all but accused her of leading our daughter to the sacrifice, thinking only of what I had suffered and how much I wanted to protect Celine from the same. I hadn't stopped to consider what it must have cost Vivienne to say what she had.

I hesitated, ashamed and insecure, then went to them and took them both in my arms—Vivienne held Celine, and I held Vivienne. I felt I should say something to comfort her, but the words escaped me and I kept quiet.

"I'm scared, Erik," she whispered. "I want to do what's right for her, but I don't know what the right thing is. I want to change the world for her, fight off everyone who would hurt her, be her champion in every way, and it's killing me to know I can't do that for her."

"I know, little phoenix," I told her, kissing the top of her head.

"You know what could happen to her because you've lived it," she went on, "but I don't, and I keep imagining terrible things…the worst things…" Her words grew strangled as the tears rose again. "Erik, she's only a baby…"

She came to a halt, weeping and trembling, and I held her tighter to me. "I'm sorry, Vivienne. I'm so sorry for the way I acted. I know how hard it was for you to suggest such a thing. It's just that we've been safe here, and so happy, I never gave a thought beyond it. No one can hurt us here, and I wasn't prepared for the possibility of going out so soon."

"I don't want to go out," she told me. "I want to keep her here with me, where nothing can touch her." She sobbed so loudly she startled Celine, who began to cry.

"Ssh," I soothed to the both of them. "It's all right. We're here now, Vivienne, and we're out of harm. That's what you have to keep telling yourself, understand? You'll lose your mind if you don't, and the fear and worry will break your heart. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"Now dry your eyes and rest easy," I told her. "I'll take Celine." I released her and lifted the baby out of her arms, nodding for her to go calm herself. I held Celine close, humming softly to her until she stopped crying, and I began to think about the future. She was almost a year old…soon she would start walking and talking, growing from a baby into a young girl. If she was anything like the rest of her family, she would be a wild, energetic thing burning with an insatiable curiosity. How long, then, before she wanted to see the world beyond her own home? We would then be forced to let her out into a world that would never accept her, or to keep her here—like a phoenix in a cage, I thought mournfully. I couldn't bear to keep Vivienne shut up like that beneath the Opera, and I knew it would be no different for Celine, our little la cygne.

What then? When she learned the reality of prejudice and hatred, how would that harm her, after years spent in the bubble of safety we had formed around her? There was nothing we could do here to prepare her for what awaited her out there, and to have that harshness thrust upon her without warning because we weren't strong enough to do what was best for her was both selfish and cruel. Better, then, that if she had to bear this burden, that she know as soon as possible, so she could learn to be strong in a way I never was. We could soften the blow for her for as long as possible, but we couldn't hide her forever.

Vivienne was subdued and morose when I returned to her, but much calmer, and she looked at me with a thousand unspoken questions in her eyes. I gave a single nod in answer to every one of them, and she ran into my arms like a child, still shaking and scared. She had always been the braver one between us and now that she was so afraid, I knew of nothing else to do but try to be brave in my turn, so I held her and assured her that things were going to be all right.

Later that night I took my time making love to her, being as tender as I knew how and giving her what comfort I could, and she clung to me with all the strength she had. "Say it, Erik," she pleaded. "I need to hear you say it."

I kissed her on the forehead. "We're safe here—" I kissed the tip of her nose, "and nothing can hurt us." I laid one last kiss to her lips and watched a tear slip down her cheek.

"You promise?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied, wiping the tear away. "I promise."