At the end of the lesson, when she has evidently called him by Monsieur Delacroix one too many times, he insists she address him as Erik. Erik. The name feels strange on her tongue, unwieldy, as if it is too personal, too intimate, to call him such. It is too unbalanced, the footing too uneven, if she is to call him Erik while he still knows her as Mademoiselle Daaé. No. No, no. It will not do, not at all.

And so, catching herself half by surprise, she says, "Please, call me Christine."

"Chris—tine." He breaks the name as if he is testing it, rolls the r and carries the first i, the s soft. "Christine." There is something melodic simply in the way he says her name, and it tugs at her heart to hear it, as if he is singing the syllables of it.

She smiles at him, and stretches out her hand. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Erik."

The mask ensures that his face is unreadable, but for a glimmer of a moment she thinks she sees a hint of a smile around his eyes, before he takes her hand with trembling gloved fingers. "The pleasure is all mine, Christine."

She wanders home in a daze, her feet carrying her without any input from her mind. Her thoughts are a whirl, picking over every moment of her lesson, from the way Monsieur Delacroix (she cannot possibly think of him as Erik, it would be too informal, too disrespectful) gently guided her through the scales, his hands seeming to almost glide through the air, to the way he insisted she call him Erik, to the hesitancy as he shook her hand. But though she picks through every moment – the memory of his soft voice seeming to have almost taken up residence beneath her heart, warming her, leaving her knees feeling faintly weak – her thoughts keep straying back, back to the moment she opened the door and then they ended up in a tangle of limbs on the floor.

Thank God he was not hurt.

Thank God he was not angry.

Her stomach churns still just thinking about it, and her fingers fumble as she pulls out the key for the apartment door (how did she get back here already?) It scrapes in the lock, and the door opens easily.

The apartment is quiet, silent, and it takes her a moment to remember that Mamma is out, visiting Madame LeDoux, whose daughter is expecting any day now. Well, at least she will not have to face her when she is in such mental disarray. Mamma would only ask her too many questions, and then the whole sorry tale would come spilling out, and if Mamma were to hear about it she would make such a fuss.

Christine drops heavily into a chair in the kitchen, and sighs. She will simply have to try to forget, forget about the way she fell on top of Delacroix, forget about what could have happened. It is the only way she will be able to carry on, the only way she will be able to face him, tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. To forget about the pounding of her heart, forget about the anxiety twisting in her stomach, forget about it all.

She smooths her hands over her dress, folds them, and nods. Forget about it. Just forget about it.

But forgetting is easier said than done. And when she closes her eyes, her heart flutters, and she can feel his fingers curled around her arms again.

It is the second evening in a row that he starts coming back to himself on the doorstop, the second evening in a row that he finds himself looking into Farhad's concerned face. How he got home he cannot recall, feels only as if he has floated, drifted here on the breeze, borne by something in her soft faint smile.

It is better even than vin mariani.

Oh, she is so much better than anything else. Christine. Christine Daaé. And to think, that he touched her! He touched her, steadied her, and felt his heart falter, a palpitation that fluttered ("That cannot be good," and Farhad's voice is matter-of-fact) and left him breathless, and for long moments that he dared not count, dared to not so much as exhale in case she would shatter and be revealed as an illusion, an hallucination, she lay on top of him with her head on his chest.

He thought he had died then and there.

Heaven could not be half as pleasant as lying beneath her, her heart pounding against his.

He does not think she noticed how flustered he was, too caught up in her own flightiness, and went even easier on her in the lesson than he had intended to, seeking out the extent of her range.

(It is good, excellent in fact, but he can improve it.)

But her name. Her name. Has any word in any language ever felt so beautiful on his tongue?

"Christine."

"Excuse me?" And Farhad is frowning at him again, his lips tight. Did Farhad say something before? Maybe, but it so difficult to think when every thought is full of her soft golden hair, of her wide blue eyes. So very blue. He doubts if he has ever seen eyes so blue before.

"She asked me to—to call her Christine." She will permit me to address her by her given name. Has anyone ever been so blessed before?

Farhad's grins, his eyes knowing, and he presses a glass into Erik's hand. "In that case, I take it the lesson went well. A toast is in order!" And he raises his glass. "To Christine!"

And Erik is grinning, grinning like, like some sort of a madman! "To Christine!" And they clink their glasses, and in the echo of it he hears the rolling of her name.

Christine.

Christine.

Christine.

A/N: First of all, an apology for how long it's taken me to post this chapter. I've been very caught up in finishing Wraiths of Wandering, and I have all of the remaining chapters of that drafted, so progress! The remaining chapters of this are still very much a work in progress, and I likely won't update it again until 26 December. But I'm hoping to go at it full force then!

On a historical note, vin mariani was a wine made from Bordeaux and coca leaves, coca leaves being the ones that cocaine is made from. Hopsjollyhigh recently informed me of the wine's existence and popularity in the late 19th Century, and it was quite popular amongst the upper classes.

Up next: Further lessons