AN: Yay! You're all in suspense. I love that ability! And I'm a horrible person for making you wait. I'm sorry. Life gets in my way of writing….but you're all making me smile with your reviews, so thank you!
Paris…
"It's too soon…" Christine wept, grasping her stomach.
"Christine, I need you to calm down," the midwife said, bathing her forehead.
"Will she be alright?" Raoul's head popped back in the room.
"You! Out!" the midwife pushed the door closed once more.
"Will I?" Christine's wide eyes traced the midwife's face for any sign of an answer.
"You'll be fine, but the fall made you go into labor prematurely. It broke your water. You have no choice but to push and hope for the best."
"No! It's too soon!" Christine wailed. "I can't!"
"You have to." She smoothed the wet hair back from her brow, and cooed to her. "You have to for you and your baby."
New York…
"No! No! No! You're doing it all wrong!" Erik screamed at the building crew who had begun putting up the permanent stage.
"It needs to be larger, grander! Have you never seen the stage for an Opera?"
"Opera? Listen guy, we do what's on the plans, and the plans say do it likes this."
"It needs to be made ready in case—" he stopped himself short. "Just do as I say!"
"Damn, what's got his knickers in a twist?" the workers laughed amongst themselves.
"Never," Erik began, his chest puffing, his voice raising, "NEVER! Insult me! Or you will wish you were never born." His eyes held an intensity that could scare the toughest of hardened criminals. The workers were nearly trembling. "Do you understand?"
"Yes…" one whimpered.
He took a step forward. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"Yes!"
"Good. Remember this moment, and do my job right." He turned on his heels, still flaming in anger, and stormed into the trailer.
"What ingrates! Why did we hire such imbeciles to do the work on this place?"
"Erik, calm yourself," Giry chided.
"Don't call me by that name! I'm not that person anymore."
"Fine, I shan't call you anything," she spun from him, making him a drink. "Here," she thrust it at him, "Calm yourself."
"Thank you, Giry." He took a long slug.
"You're getting too wound up about little things. This place is going up so fast. We're doing well."
"Not well enough." He took another gulp, then put it back down, the ice clinking in the glass.
"Patience."
"Is not a virtue I posses. Where is Meg?" he looked about, not hearing the girl's chattering.
"Out. With one of her suitors."
"She spends too much time with them. She should be rehearsing. Her act is a travesty!" Meg stopped in her tracks just outside of the door, his words flowing through the window and into her heartbroken ears.
"She is doing her best."
"It's not good enough. It's bad enough all she can do is this vaudeville trash. It's worse she does it so poorly."
"She is doing all she can for you!"
"Then she should do better." He turned, flinging the door open, and passed her coolly, never even glancing her way.
Paris…
Christine let out an anguished scream.
"Good, Christine, I can see the baby's head." The midwife placed another cool cloth on her head. "Just push a few more times, and you'll have a little boy or girl."
She screamed again, pushing with all her mite, and slowly appeared from her a head covered with dark curls. She pushed again, the shoulders emerging, and the midwife was able to ease the baby out. She cut the cord, cleared his airways, and wiped the child off.
Christine held her breath. There was no cry.
"My baby…" she whimpered, barely able to lift her head, holding out her arms.
"It's a boy." The midwife smiled, patting his back to see if it would clear his airway and make him cry. The child let out an enormous gasp then began screaming at the top of his lungs. She wrapped him up tight in a towel and handed him to Christine.
"Congratulations, Mama." Christine looked him over, ten fingers, ten toes, a head full of hair, eyes, nose, mouth, all where they should be. On all accounts he looked perfect, early or not. She often forgot he was over a week farther along than she was charted. He was so beautiful. Instantly, she had fallen in love.
While admiring her little boy she'd not even noticed the midwife move away, exit the room, and Raoul enter. Her marveled a moment at the beauty of the pair. Christine, glistening with sweat, rosey cheeked, beautiful, and holding the little boy all wrapped up tightly pressed against her breast. "What a handsome family I have…."
"Raoul." She looked up, smiling. She couldn't even be the least upset at him. She could hardly feel anything but elation. "Meet Gustave."
"Ah, a name. I think it fitting. Hello, Gustave, you're a very brave boy." He touched his son's hand, and the little child wrapped all his finges around Raoul's one. Raoul too fell in love with the child. For a moment he even forgot it was not his own.
New York…
Something had been troubling Erik all day. He couldn't put his finger on it. It was true, everything was going swimmingly, but he just had this feeling in the pit of his chest that he could not shake. He couldn't get Christine out of his mind.
He slammed his hands against the piano causing a cacophony of noise. Why did she still haunt him so? It had been months since he'd seen her face, touched her perfect skin, pressed his lips to her own…yet she haunted him. Every night she filled his dreams. Every day she filled his mind. And today especially he could not get past a feeling something was happening to her. He hoped that it was just a feeling…that nothing was wrong. To get word that Christine were ill or worse….gone…might drive him to….
He hit the keys again, standing up, walking away. He was shaking it was hurting him so. Why had he walked away? Why had he left her there, so perfect, so pale and gorgeous in the moonlight? She might have stayed…they might have hidden away together…
It was wishful thinking he knew, and useless since he had made his choice. He was here. She was in Paris with Raoul, living a happily married life of decadence and opulence. Raoul could take care of anything she needed. He knew it. But he could never replace him in her heart. Erik knew that no matter how much time passed the feelings he stirred within Christine could never be squelched.
He went into town often, read the papers, to see if perhaps she were performing again. He never heard one word about her. It did not really surprise him that she had not returned to the stage. Raoul had always felt threatened by the music, and he was quite sure that he would keep her away as long as he could. However, no one could keep Christine Da'ae caged forever.
He thought if he could only make them build faster then perhaps he could entice her to America, to sing. If she read the music, its beauty, she could not refuse him. She had a deep connection to his pieces, and he knew it. He planned to use it to his advantage. He would have Christine back.
Paris…
Rauol sat across the room and watched as Christine nursed the beautiful child. He knew it would be some time before he could touch Christine again, but her exposed breast, the child suckling it, brought forth a deep need inside of him. He wished it were he who was suckling her breast.
Christine paid no attention to Raoul in the least, staring her down like meat. All her attention was focused on this little life, tugging at her. She was so enraptured with the child. She simply could not seem to break the spell, nor did she want to. She began humming lightly, rocking him just slightly as he suckled. He would have music, so much music, in his life. How could he not? He had it in his veins.
Her finger brushed his face, so perfect, so lovely. He had not a blemish on it. No mask would cover it as his father. Yet she knew his origins just the same. When the baby's eyes looked into her own…she saw Erik. His eyes seemed to scream her secret. She wondered if anyone else would see them as well.
His little tufts of soft brown hair stuck up on his head, and she wetted her fingers and smoothed them down. He was such a handsome child, with so many of her features. And despite the fact that he was a full month early (or month and a half by anyone's standards but her own) everything on him seemed to be perfectly formed. He had ten perfect little fingers and ten perfect little toes, and everything else a little boy should have. Somehow she had known it would be a boy when she felt the little life stir in her. She had felt him and known him even before he was here in her arms. But now that he was she would never let him go. He was her treasure, and no one, especially Raoul could take him from her.
New York…
"I'm going. There's no reason to stay!" Meg threw more of her things into a carpet bag.
"Something is troubling him. It's not you. He's snapping at everyone!" Giry took things out as quickly as Meg could put them in.
"I've done everything for him. It's all been for him! I don't love those horrid men! I don't want to be with them! I do it for him! I pushed the permit through! I am the one who raised most of the money! He has no idea what this place is costing! He only thinks…..!"
Giry grasped her daughter's hands. "And you are not to tell him. If you ever want him to appreciate you you cannot throw that into his face. We will get our dues. We will get what we deserve. He just needs a little time. The stress of it all is too much for him. It's making him snap. Don't let his cruel tone fool you. He needs you."
Meg took a deep breath, looking into her mother's eyes. "He needs me…" she repeated.
"Yes, he needs you. You are all that can make this place run. Those silly freak show acts cannot produce a crowd. Your beauty, your voice, your talent, is all that will make this place run. He needs you."
Meg sat down on the bed, head bobbling slightly, thinking her mother's words over. "And he'll see it…once we're open…"
"Yes, he'll see that he cannot go on without you. He'll see you bring in the crowds. He'll see how much they all adore you."
"But I'll be dancing only for him."
"Right. And when he sees he'll be so impressed, he'll know you're all that he needs, Meg."
She nodded, looking out across the floor. "Ok Mama. He'll see it. He needs me."
Paris…
"He needs me!" Christine grasped for her son being toted away by a nursemaid.
"Bridgette will take excellent care of him, Darling." Raoul petted her head, sitting down in bed beside her.
"He's my son! He needs me!"
"And you need to rest!" It wasn't a suggestion, and Christine knew it. Gustave was sleeping soundly, and granted, she had not slept since giving birth to her beautiful baby boy. She suddenly realized exhaustion sinking into her.
"Yes…I should sleep…but if he cries, if he's hungry, she'll bring him to me?"
"Yes of course," he kissed her forehead and watched her drift into slumber. He smiled sadly at the woman. He did love her. That was not a lie. He had loved her since they were children, but here she laid and he wanted to lay hands on her. Stone cold sober, and he wanted to choke the life out of her. She'd betrayed him, and brought a life not of his seed into this world. And she loved it far more than she loved him. The jealousy was almost more than he could take.
He stood, walking into the nursery and took the boy from the nursemaid, thanking her, and asking her to wait outside while he stayed with his son.
'Well, Gustave, what shall we do with you?" he asked the little boy who seemed to smile up at him, tugging at his heart-strings. He did not want to love the child, but he did. The boy was infectious.
He cooed up at his father, the only father Raoul assumed he would ever know. "I suppose we should go along with it, hmm? You are as much my son as anyone else's. I know. I'm quite sure your mother knows, but…who else could ever tell? I shall raise you to be the son I should have had. And try not to favor your brothers and sisters as they come along. Shall we call that a deal?" The little boy gurgled. "I shall take that as your word then. You shall be my son, and I your father. That is all there is to it. Your mother would never betray either of us. We are a family now. We shall remain one…"
