A/N: I'd say we get to cool down now with the emotions, but that would be a bit of a lie. I apologise for my crueller nature. *Laughs manically*

Erik lay awake in his coffin, gazing at the ceiling as his mind raced through the events of the day. His eyes still felt raw and tired from the tears he had shed, but he could not calm himself enough to sleep. Images of her smile infiltrated his mind as he tried to sort out a few bits of his thoughts.

Why do I find her so beautiful all of a sudden? He asked of himself. Certainly, she had always been lovely, but at present that seems to be all I can think about. Her eyes have been stunning since the moment I met her, but now I only want them to look upon me –cruse that that is. And her skin and hair have always appeared divine, but now I long to stroke them endlessly. To feel the curls of chestnut winding through my fingers and her hands around my neck in an embrace.

Realising that this was not helping with the intrusive images of her, he moved on to a different question.

Why do I feel hollow when she is not with me? I have lived all of my life without her, yet now it seems I can hardly breathe when she is gone. Even now I feel the pull at my limbs to carry me to her. Her smile, her laugh, God! Her voice calls to me even when she does not speak. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my life. She calms me with her silvery tones and draws something out of me whenever she sings.

Finding this no more revealing than anything else, he moved on to his final question, the one that had seared itself in his mind and forced him from sleep.

What if this is love?

Finding the mere mental utterance of this disturbing, he rose stiffly from his coffin bed and staggered out into the drawing room, eyeing the door to the other bedroom weightily. He walked over to it, hovering his hand on the doorknob a few lengthy moments before soundlessly opening it. He realised, upon seeing into the lightless room, that this was the second time thoughts of her had kept him from sleeping, and that he had been drawn to her in the night.

Walking as silently as the still air, he stood beside the bed, noting she was comfortably asleep and bundled up in the covers. She looked…human, laying there asleep. Her hair was strewn about her like a chocolate halo on the white pillow and the black silk of his lent pyjamas peaked out in its soft collar at her neck. He felt his heart skitter as he realised she was wearing his clothes. He had known she had little other option, but seeing it made all the difference.

Taking a seat in the chair beside the bed, he watched her a few more moments. Somehow, being here with her had taken away all of his questions. Just having her near had calmed his mind enough to feel as though his tired eyes and body could finally rest. Still, he remained a few minutes more, sighing gently when she turned to unknowingly face him. Her face at peace was certainly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Heaven had truly sent its most gorgeous angel to watch of earth's most hideous man. He felt a twinge of pity for her over such irony. Unfortunately, another question entered his mind undesirably and brought that pit in his stomach sinking deeper and deeper.

What had she been like when she was alive as a human?

He cringed away from it as well as the sight of her innocent face. Quiet as always, he slipped from her room and back into the darkness of his own to wallow in self-loathing. He hated not telling her all he knew about her previous life, but he simply could not risk losing her to it. If she knew what had happened, she would surely turn away from him. She would shun him as the rest of humanity had done countless times before, only this time he knew he would sooner perish. He would waste away in silent torment and suffering as he knew he deserved if she turned away. He felt no obligation for her to like him or choose his presence, but certainly he could not bear the sight of her leaving him out of the disgust she would assuredly feel.

It was with these thoughts that he slipped off to sleep. He tried his hardest to make the thoughts go away, but they persisted, twisting and warping in his dream filled mind. These memories, coupled with much of his own dark past shouted and torment him. He could not escape it all and felt like he was drowning. The claws of betrayal, hurt, and utter torture dug deeply into his scarred and hideous skin. Voices of ones he had known screeched in his oversensitive ears, grating at his mind. Old injuries poured forth like new. All hurt swirled and consumed him in one giant mass that he could not see his way out of.

Old comfort taunted him like a light at the end of a deep and inescapable well. He fought and cried and cut himself to be free of it, but he could not. The walls only grew higher each time he struggled, yet remaining in the pit was unbearable. He heard the promise of the angel's voice he so longed to hear calling to him, but he could not quite reach the pale hand she stretched down to him. It was all so dark he grew frightened that it would stain her. He would not allow harm to come to her simply from trying to save a wretch like him. He deserved it. He needed each biting word to drag him down into the pits of Hell where he belonged. It was his destiny. He had denied himself too long the pull of the darkness. He knew there was no escape; that life had been a lie all this time. There was only pain. There was only suffering. There was only eternal death in Hell for him.

Christine awoke from her dreamless slumber to hear shouting. No, not shouting, screaming! Hurrying from the bed and nearly tripping over the long silken pants she was wearing, she fumbled her way towards the sound of the cries which threaten to break her heart. Grabbing a candle stick on the way by, she fluttered into the drawing room to find it empty and hears another anguish cry of pure torture coming from the door she has never dared open or walk through. Erik's bedroom.

She pauses just an instant outside, hand ready to knock. She has heard him cry out in the night before, but generally she could sing through the door to get him to calm down slightly. This, however…this was different. If she did not know any better she would say someone was horribly abusing him.

Cursing her hesitation, she rushed in.

It was unimaginably dark with draperies lining the walls in shadowy patterns of blacks, greys, and all manner of gloomy atmosphere. The furniture, what there was of it, was of a similarly themed darkened wood. Everything in the room appeared to aid the purpose of making the space as dark as possible.

Shining her lone candle and casting light enough for her to see adequately, she spied motion coming from a black wooden box in the left corner of the room. Coming over to it, calling out to the man she hoped to be inside, she froze. It was a coffin, and in it lay Erik.

Erik fought hard against the oozing blackness that threatened to consume his light and his hope of escape. He heard his angel's cries calling him up and up into the light of he hoped only to be Heaven and reached for her gently extended hand. He longed to feel her fingers against his palm and to wrap his long, slender fingers around her hand. How he would bask in the warmth of her smile and the cooling grace of her eyes. Finally he grasped the lifeline he hoped her touch to be and was instantly pulled from his darkness. Only, it was a new form of darkness he found himself emerging into.

Christine watched, speechless, as Erik shot up in his "bed". He gasped raggedly at the air for a moment before squinting confusedly at the light of her candle. It seemed almost too bright for him, yet his face showed confused disappointment.

'Christine?' He asked, turning to her. This was when he froze, his features paralysed at the sight of her. His breath ceased in him as he beheld her.

Her eyes were wide with shock as she looked him dead in the eye. He did not need to know all of the emotions that were playing out through her clearly racing yet stagnant mind as she stared at him, her lips parted just ever so slightly. Her eyes did not waver or flicker to anywhere but his face, and he knew, God, how he knew that he was not wearing his mask.

As they sat there a few slow and lengthy heartbeats, he felt a rage and embarrassment and fear and pain retch up inside of him. With a growl, roar, and cry all mixed together, he flew from his coffin and loomed above her. His eyes held every emotion he could not begin to name as he stared down at her frozen form kneeling beside what he called a bed.

'Now you have seen.' He somehow half-yelled, half-whispered at her disdainfully. 'Now you know the monster who you have taken care of all these years! Now you know the secret I unknowingly hid from you!' He told her darkly, waiting for her to react. 'Go ahead and scream!' He bellowed at her, making her lean back only minimally. With a growl, he bent forward and pulled her up forcefully by the arms, shaking her before his flaming eyes. 'Scream, damn you! Scream and run from me!' He yelled before tossing her roughly to the floor as if she were a newspaper he had tired of reading.

She hit the floor with a startled yelp, but remain where she lay, not moving.

'All these years you thought you could save your Erik! Well, now you know that God does not wish for me to be saved! He never wished for me at all! No one did!' He thundered, pacing beside her prone form, clenching and unclenching his fists. He paused to regard her a moment. 'Why do you not scream?!'

'Because you are my Erik.' Came the whimpering reply.

He stopped mid-step at this. His head swivelled to look down at her as something within him snapped. 'Your Erik?' He asked poisonously. 'You think that is what I am? You think that there was ever any of your Erik here?' He laughed with a crazed gleam in his eye.

Lifting her up once more before him, he pulled at her wrists until her hands were upon his face. 'No, do not look away, my dear,' he spat the name as she cringed away from him. 'Do not deny yourself the sight so many payed to see. Feel me, for I am Erik! This is who I am!' He continued, driving her hands into his hollow cheeks, letting her finger tips feel the paper thin roughness of his skin. His nose was non-existent with only a black hole where one should have been. His eyes glared out from their sunken sockets with swirling amber fire. His lips, so very thin, sneered at her as she gazed upon him with tears in her eyes.

'This is who I have always been, my dear.' He continued, dropping her hands and watching her crumple to heap at his feet. 'But oh! Your Erik had you fooled, did he not? With his grand words and his gentle touch and his softer muttering and promises! I can see why you fell so easily into the illusion of your Erik being good. He played the game exceedingly well, my dear.' He once more remained to tower over her as she shook upon the floor.

She slowly looked up to him, listening to his ragged breathing as he stood above her. Eventually her deep blue eyes met his, though hers were filled with tears.

'It was never a game.' She told him with little quaver in her voice.

'Get out.' He seethed, pointing sharply to his door. When she continued to remain upon the floor, he snatched up her hand and shoved her towards it. 'I said get out!' He roared. 'Go now and leave me!' He yelled, watching her scramble to her feet in a sudden awakening of senses and hurry from the room. He could not think until he heard the front door slam shut. It was only upon this resonating sound that he allowed the fear to strike and the sorrow to seep in.

Crumpling to his knees, he let the weight of the world rest upon him. He found himself desperately gasping for breath as he found he could not manage his lungs properly. His hands curled in slightly as they lay forlornly on the floor by his knees and his head bowed forward until his sharp chin hit the bones of his chest. He took in a broken gasp with his coming sob when a sharp cry pierced the air and his ears.

Without a second thought, he rushed to his feet and practically flew to the front door, following the scream. He wrenched the door open so hard it nearly broke the hidden hinges. He stared out into the gloomy darkness of the tunnel surrounding the lake until his sight caught the slight tremor of movement at the water's edge. His fear shifted painfully in him as he heard further cries of obvious pain echo and ring through the air about him. Hurrying to the small being, shuddering and shaking, he found once more his knees giving out from beneath him. He let himself fall, not caring how hard his impact upon the solid and unforgiving rock would be. His hand shook terribly as he hovered them over the curled ball he knew to be his angel.

'It hurts, it hurts!' She cried between sobs of clearly indescribable pain.

'Where?!' Erik begged of her, not knowing how she could have managed to hurt herself.

'Everywhere! Everything hurts!' She wailed, shutting her eyes tightly to the agony.

Erik did not know what to do and he could not go and fetch any help as not only could no one see her, but she could not be too far from him. This final thought struck him hard. He looked between herself and the house, noting she was a good 15 meters at the least from his room. A broken cry sounded in his mind as he realised this was his fault. His body shook with the weight of the yelp that never came out. Looking back to her, still suffering the agonies of his ignorance, he let a quivering hand gently brush her partially exposed arm.

This motion brought about a sudden change in her as her eyes flew open and she gasped as if she had just been released from drowning. He instantly snapped his hand back from her at this, worried he had harmed her more. She let out another whimper of pain as she reached up and retrieved his hand.

He looked at her confusedly as she rubbed it possessively before he was nearly knocked over by her climbing into his unsuspecting arms. She scrabbled up to him, tightly wrapping her arms about his neck and burying her face into the dip of his neck and shoulder. Her legs she tucked up as closely she as could whilst sitting like a child on his lap as he kneeled on the ground.

'Please, please hold me!' She begged desperately.

Erik could not think; he was so confused and shocked by this sudden change.

'Please, Erik! Make the pain stop!' She pleaded into him, her tears dampening his skin and staining his nightshirt.

Following her urgent instructions, he lightly draped his arms across her lower back and shoulder blades. She seemed to instantly calm at this, almost sighing in bliss.

Erik continued to sit in a daze as she nuzzled farther into his embrace. His senses seemed to return as he looked down at the literal angel resting in his arms. He instinctively grew fearful, though he knew not what of, and tried to push her away, only resulting in her heart wrenching sobs for him to not let her go.

'Please, just hold me. I need you.' She begged again.

He felt his breath cease somehow further when he heard these words. Never in his whole life had he truly thought a woman of any kind would say such a thing to him. Of course, he had never dared to hope that he would one day hold someone or be held willingly, and yet here she was. She was actually begging him to hold her.

Obliging, he pulled her in tighter to him, pacifying some of her tears as he gently soothed her back just a bit. A part of him was terrified that this was all a dream and that he would wake up to find her gone or laying in the bed. Perhaps he had fallen asleep when he had gone in to see her and he was now uncomfortably sitting in the chair beside the bed. Or maybe it was that he had drifted off and dreamt up visiting her.

His head swam with all of these mind-numbing thoughts until a particularly rasping sob wracked through her in his arms. Scooping her up, he stood from the cold ground that was starting to seep dangerously into his joins and carried her into the house.

Setting her down on the sofa, he went over to the fireplace to add a bit of warmth and comfort to the darkened room. He was going to go into her room to fetch a blanket when he heard sniffled whimpering coming from behind. He was back at her side in an instant, looking up into her childlike eyes before she immediately flung her arms back round his neck and almost slid off the sofa to curl up against him once more. Catching her back in his arms, he took a seat on the welcomingly soft cushions with her nuzzling into his chest, legs coiled as tightly as they would come, and arms wrapped round him.

Finding a blanket on one of the arms of the sofa, he draped it over her and himself, tucking it in as she smiled faintly from her burrow at his curving shoulder and collarbone. Bravely, he let his hand come to rest at her head, stroking her curls delicately as he dared lean his face into them. She smelled of roses and what he could only describe as starlight.

'You are so beautiful.'

He did not realise he had said it out loud until he met her wondering gaze.

'Y-you think I am beautiful?' She asked in disbelief.

'Christine, you are gorgeous.' He told her, deciding it best to dive right in. Her eyes seemed to melt into wells of purest sapphire as her lips spread into the sweetest smile. He felt her looking upon him and remembered that his mask still lay in his bedroom. Turning his head sharply to the side, he tried to spare her the sight of his hideousness.

'Forgive me, my angel, for making you endure such a sight as this. You deserve far better than this corpse of a man.' He uttered with obvious pain in his voice. He expected to feel her leaving his arms, to hear her gasp in shock as she realised what she had clung to. All this he had anticipated. What he had not predicted feeling was her gently insistent hand pulling his face back to hers. He knew his eyes must have been as wide as saucers when he came back to look at her.

'Erik, why do you call yourself such horrible things? You are the handsomest man in the whole world.' She told him as if it were the most obvious of things.

He heard some choking noise fill the silence her words had wrought, but could not think to know that it was he who had made them before burying his face in her hair with loud cries of blissful disbelief. He had never thought…never dreamed that…none of this could be real.

He clung to her as she had him, simply weeping into her. He vaguely felt her hand come up to pull his head somehow closer to her, rubbing between his shoulder blades with the other. He faintly heard her calming shushes and words of reassurance.

When at last he had managed to relax some, he tearfully asked her the question that had unknowingly been tugging at his mind since she had climbed into his arms.

'How can you say something like that? Why are you not afraid of me?'

In reply, she nestled her cheek against his, placing her lips tantalisingly close to his ear. 'Because you are my Erik.' She whispered to him, forcing him to close his eyes tightly to keep from crying all over again.

He watched her pull back, looking at him with concern brewing in her eyes. 'It was not a game, was it?' She asked, clearly bracing for it to have all been for nothing.

'No, Christine,' he laughed through watery eyes. 'It was not. But even if it were, I would never cease playing it if it meant you would stay here like this.' He tugged her back into his embrace, enveloping her in his long arms and tucking his face into the top of her head. His face, which she gazed upon without aversion. His face which had never scared her. His face which she found the grace within her to smile upon.

'I am sorry I hurt you so, Christine. I swear it shall never happen again. I will forever keep you by my side.' He promised solemnly.

'And I shall forever remain with you, Erik.' She cooed back, letting her happiness leek out through her closed eyes to run between his neck and her cheek.

He could not help himself as he retreat to stare down at her. 'Does that mean you will stay? You will not try to force me to forget you?' He asked in wondering, suspecting disbelief.

She reached up to put a soft hand on his cheek, watching him sigh as he leaned into it while involuntarily tremoring at the unusualness of the contact. When their eyes met again, all sadness or pity had washed from hers. 'I am here.' She said simply, but he knew that was more than enough. He had his angel by his side for as long as he wished. He could have her for the rest of his life.

He let out a gasping laugh as her shook her head at his speechless joy and embraced him. It was during the exploration of his warm happiness that he realised he had an answer to one of his earlier question. In fact, this one answered all of them in one fell swoop.

Yes.

'Christine,' he said, begrudgingly breaking their hold upon each other for a moment. 'Would you…' He trailed off as he tried to find the perfect words. Coming up short, he reached round her to slip something off his little finger. He looked at it over her a moment before finally discovering his words. 'Say you will stay, continue to guide and remain by me. Just promise to help me and I will be happy forever.' He offered her the small golden band simply affixed with an onyx oval.

She looked between the ring and him in surprise. 'Erik, you are sure?' she asked.

He smiled sweetly at her doubt of his resolve. 'I am surer of this than of anything else in my whole life, my dear.' He told her with a gentility to his tone that softened her instantly.

She felt a feeling of greyness pass over her as she allowed him to slip the ring over her finger. It was almost as though something like this had happened to her before, but she could not remember such an occasion, and certainly it had never been with Erik. Shaking her head clear of it, she focused instead upon her brightly beaming friend. Without his mask, he seemed freer in his expressions, though the smile affected his features differently than most people. Still, it made her unspeakably happy. Perhaps she had acted rashly or foolishly to give in, but at this moment, she could think of nothing better for him than giving him his wish. He had been truthful when he said before that he would die without her. Staying decidedly would keep him happy. And maybe one day he would come across a wonderful being who would make him feel whole. She found she could live with this, knowing she had been graced with his affectionate care for at least a little while. It would satisfy her easily.