"No, no," he pleaded, "are you hurting? You know I hate it when you do this, you keep crying all the time and refuse to tell me why-"

I placed my head on his lap. He was silent, likely confused with me. I just wanted someone to hold me again; no one had in almost three weeks now. He had carried me around, but that wasn't the same. I wanted to be caressed and kissed and embraced until my troubles dissolved in the warmth of love.

I felt Erik's hand on my head, patting so softly I could barely feel it. I missed Raoul's affections...

"Why do you cry this time?" He asked.

"B-because..." I sniffled. "I feel so alone."

"Alone? Am I nothing to you?"

"Not alone in the normal sense..."

His fingers found their way into my hair, but I didn't stir. The feeling was comforting. Raoul had done it often when I cried...

"That's why I want to marry you," he said. "So I won't be alone."

"Have you always... been alone?"

"No. But the happiest times of my life have been."

"I'm sorry..."

"I don't want your pity."

"It'll have to do..."

"You don't love me at all, do you?"

"Pity is a form of love... I love you, in a way."

"What way?"

"Of a dear friend who betrayed me, whom I can't hate."

"That's rather specific."

I nodded in his lap now damp with my tears, then said, "Life is so strange and cruel..."

"It is..."

When I ran out of tears, he continued running his hand through my hair, as I hadn't told him to stop and I imagined he was enjoying himself immensely.

Had anyone ever given him affection before, or accepted his?

"Won't you tell me something about yourself?" I asked.

He ceased petting my head, "If you promise me something."

"What do you want?"

He was silent. I sat upright and found his eyes unfocused.

"Erik, what do you want?"

He stared ahead, his hands clasped in his lap, "I want to kiss you."

"Kiss me?"

"On your head. One kiss, on your head, for one part of my life."

"I shouldn't trade kisses for knowledge... but I promise. Tell me about yourself."

One of his hands trembled, "Which part?"

"Your childhood."

He hesitated only a moment before saying quickly, as if wanting to be rid of the knowledge, "I had two sisters and three brothers, but two died within the first three years of my life. My mother hated me and kept me away from the other children and never gave me anything unless they didn't want it. I had to fend for myself, and my only defender was my older sister, who was five years older than I was. But she died as well when I was seven, so then I had no one but two cruel older brothers. There was nothing to stop them from doing anything they desired with me, and my mother even encouraged them, she hated me so...

"My father was a professor at a college, I've chosen to forget which one, and he taught me in his spare time, as I was intelligent, and he wasn't an idiot who wouldn't make use of it. He wasn't cruel like my mother, but he was cold. He was a teacher, not my father. But I learned all I wanted to... Save music. No one would teach me, so I taught myself with the out of tune piano in our drawing room... Then I ran away once I realized I could, when I was thirteen. And that, my dear, was my pitiful excuse for a childhood... I expect you will deny me my kiss now, though."

He stood up from the bed, turning away from me.

"No, no," I told him. "You can kiss me. I promised."

He turned back to me, distrust waging war in his eyes. I shut my eyes and put out my forehead.

"Have I aroused your pity enough that I might have your cheek instead?" He said softly.

"Oh, this is ridiculous," I told him. "Come here, come sit and let me love you properly, this is sick! Trading secrets for a kiss, I'm sorry. I didn't... I'm sorry, please come here."

He sat back on the edge of the bed. I turned him towards me, and kissed the masked part of his face.

"And the rest," I argued gently. "Remove that ugly thing, I'm furious enough to shatter it if you don't. I am."

He set it aside, bewildered, his eyes wide. Maybe he had died, the posture he had assumed, his blank features. I cupped his face in my hands and kissed every inch of it save his lips.

"Now you have what you deserved as a child," I told him, shocked at my own actions.

He began to cry, and I clutched him to my chest.

"I shouldn't be the first one to give this to you," I whispered. "Am I the first?"

"The first," he breathed, then he continued sobbing and clutching me as if I would vanish.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, kissing the top of his head. "I'm so sorry, so sorry... No wonder you did all those things... no wonder... Why didn't you say before?"

"My angel... My perfect angel..."

"How angry I am!" I cried. "Oh, the first day of my time and you tell me about your cruel mother! How could she? To a child, how?!"

"How innocent you are..." he whispered. "Innocent as a flower..."

"I lost my mother. W-when I was six, gone, just gone, and I... I cried for her, because I would never feel her kisses or embraces anymore and... And you never had any!"

"I don't need so much pity-"

"Oh, hush, I'm angry enough to burst!"

"Please don't..."

"I'm going to kiss you every day now, try to make up for your wretched mother. Did she even have a reason for what she did?"

"I was ugly when I was supposed to be beautiful... Surely you don't mean every day?"

"And no masks in front of me, none!"

"You're furious over this," he said, almost smirking.

"Perhaps I'm so passionate because I'm flowering, but I don't care."

"You'll take this all back tomorrow, you'll see."

He ran a finger across my jaw affectionately.

No, I wouldn't. And moreover, I didn't. As the days dragged by of music, tears, and made-up kisses, I ceased pitying myself and, miracle of miracles, began to forgive him! Imagine! But he was making attempts to love me in all the ways he could think of- nice meals, drawings of me, multitudes of flowers, music, trading secrets... How could I not be filling with pained love?

He failed often, though. He knew, however, to leave the room before he could berate me, which he was getting quicker at every time. I, however, had let go all his wrongs in my speech, trying to give him kind words instead.

We were getting along with increasing splendidness, but, of course, this was not to last.

"It's been over a month now," he said one evening as I handed him back my music. "Nearly two."

I glanced down at the ring glinting in the candlelight, "It has."

"And I've proven I love you now."

"But... I'm helpless right now. How will it be when I'm not?"

"Your leg doesn't matter so much-"

"But it does. You caring for me is a type of love, but what of when I care for myself?"

"I don't know," he replied, then loudly, "I don't know a thing about marriage! How do you keep forgetting this? I want you never to leave me, as that's what everyone does, leave! Through death or hatred, they always leave! I would make you immortal if I could, but the second best option is to marry you, and of course I will choose that."

"But what type of marriage is this to be?" I asked softly, as I was always careful to speak quietly and cautiously when he was particularly upset, and even when not.

"I want a normal marriage- no, a happy one, if you could manage."

"I'm not the issue-"

"More than you think... You need to forget the vicomte. You still think of him, and you're not his, you're mine, so don't think of him anymore."

"I'm not anyone's."

He grabbed my hand and put the ring in my gaze, "I'm afraid not, my dear, we have an agreement."

"You treat me like a slave."

"I do not."

"You act like you own me."

"Because I do."

"No you don't! I'm a person, not a thing. You want to keep me as a pet, not a wife, don't deny it-"

"Why can't I have you?!" He demanded. "You can't seem to wrap your head around the fact that all I want is you, all of you. I don't want a wife or a pet, I only want you!"

"But you don't understand love at all! You think wanting me as yours is love? Love is wanting all another person wants, and often that person will also want you."

"And then you see the problem... You hate me still, don't you? This is an act, all of this kindness and affection, a lie."

"I don't hate you."

"Then why do you accuse me of not loving you?"

"Because I want you to love me properly, I... I love you, Erik. I love you enough to want you to succeed, and if that means marrying you in the end, as you haven't given me another option, I... I'll take it. You're right, I'll have music, I'll have..."

I began to cry. Erik knelt down by my wheelchair, raising a hand to cup the side of my face.

"You don't love me," he whispered. "But we have another month, surely you can learn to somewhat, surely..."

"I want to go home... I don't want to be here, I want to go home," I pleaded with a tone I couldn't help but render childish.

"I wish I had a home," he retorted. "Now let's get you to bed so you can cry there."

His cruelty always returned with my tears. I didn't understand how he could change from profound devotion to me to being simply cruel. It didn't surprise me, but... It was awful for both of us, that much I knew. I wasn't the only one who felt pain when words slipped from his tongue before he could restrain them.

He had to push the wheelchair up the short stairs to his bedroom that had become mine entirely at that point. He had even moved the monkey to the nightstand as well. The flowers were replenished and replaced often to be sure I was in a place similar to above ground.

He picked me up and placed me on the bed. I rolled over, refusing to face him.

He then left me alone for a time. I cried, was pensive, then cried again. I kept whispering 'I want Raoul, I want Raoul,' and trembling into tears anew.

I wondered what he was doing now. Worried to death over me? Dead? No, no, he couldn't be, Erik would have told me if he had died and made up an excuse for it. Raoul was, in his mind, what kept me from him. Didn't he know even in death I would never forget the little boy who fetched my scarf from the sea?

No. He didn't understand. He loved me and no one else.

When he came into the room later, I allowed him to sit on the bed with my head in his lap. It had become a common occurrence, but he was always elated to be permitted such a thing.

But I sat up suddenly, picking at my fingernails in confusion.

"What's wrong?" He asked, reasonably disappointed that I had removed myself from his hands.

"Lie down with me," I whispered, my eyes averted.

"What?"

"Lie down with me."

I heard his weight shift, and mine followed. I curled up on his chest as I had with Raoul forever ago, on a night I had tried to forget and never confessed to anyone, when I had been beyond foolish. I hadn't admitted it even to myself what I had done, so ashamed was I, and terrified of Erik should he find out, but... Now I had been contemplating it secretly.

That was why I feared marrying Erik above all else, when he found out I had already 'given myself away.' But at least I didn't have Raoul's child. I didn't know what he would do then.

I both wished I could take back that night and wouldn't give it for anything.

"Why did you ask for this?" Erik asked me.

"I don't know..."

"I didn't... mean what I said before."

"I know. You rarely do..."

"I would like to trade the some more of my life's history for something," he said hastily, staring up at the ceiling.

"What?" I asked.

He swallowed, "You won't say yes."

"What is it? A full kiss?"

"Yes... A real kiss."

I thought for a moment, "Alright, I promise. Tell me."

"Once I had run away, I found a group of men who had traveled around Asia to trade, but mostly for the experience of it. They found me intriguing, and I said I would work for them, so they let me come along. I saw much of the world at that time, but a month or so later, I found myself lost in India, unable to find them. In a way too difficult to explain, I found myself part of a tribe of assassins. But they nearly made me a target, so once I was about seventeen, I ran away again. A man found me, saw I had a skill for architecture and was very bright, so he brought me to Persia to learn from him. I became so adept that by twenty-two, I was designing a palace for the Shah, as well as a torture chamber. Once the palace was completed, a whole five years later, he attempted to have me killed, and I ran away, traveling all around the world... Is that satisfactory?"

"It's fine. I won't force more."

He shifted toward me, and I shut my eyes. I felt his hands upon my chin, supporting me, and his breath upon my lips, his soft, terrified little breaths.

And then his lips. His misshapen, lopsided lips, that found mine so clumsily I nearly laughed. But I pitied him, so I showed him how to wrap his arms around me, though he trembled all over and I feared he might faint. I kept kissing him and kissing him, resigned and unaware, until he shoved me away.

His eyes were wide. He slid off the side of the bed, breathing heavily, his eyes anywhere but upon mine.

And he stood there, brushing his lips with his hand, staring just ahead as if the wall were me.

"I'm not yours," I whispered.

He shook his head minutely, "No... no, you're not..."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

With this Christine, I feel like its logical she could have been so terrified and distraught over the phantom that she might have made love to Raoul before seriously contemplating the consequences. She also (I think I mentioned this before) had been living with him for six months, and in her state of mind at that time, and Raoul's attempts to comfort her, they might have just spiraled out of control one night before either of them stopped to think that maybe this was a TERRIBLE idea because of Erik's possessiveness.