Author's Note: I took the liberty of adding in a conflicted-scuffle. Those are always fun. I had a reviewer comment about the stabbing of Erik's leg, and how it might have crippled him. I actually had considered making them slice the Achilles tendon, to give him a bum leg, but I thought it wouldn't really matter with the way the fic is turning out. That's why I made a point of not specifying the depth of the wound, and the exact location. :D But here's some rough-and-tumble. Oh, the end is near.

Thank you, for all your lovely comments!

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XI : Fear and Revelations

He stumbled again, despite Raoul's best efforts to keep him steady. The Phantom was certainly, now more than ever, nothing but a man, and his mortality continued to drag him down to the Earth. His leg buckled, and Erik fell to his hands and knees, panting hard. The coat slipped off of his back, and pooled around his body. He sank, lower, into the snow, and Raoul made another reach for his shoulder.

"Get up," he ordered, and Erik knocked his hand away, recoiling with a ferocious snarl.

"Don't touch me," the shaking, bleeding Phantom snapped. The sight was wrong to the eye. His power had diminished, and he was reduced to a heap of blood, and bruises. Erik's strong jaw was trembling, and the 'good' side of his face was almost as terrible as the horrible one. Dark circles shadowed sunken eyes, and black bruises trailed about his temple and along the line of his jaw. Still-wet blood clung to the corner of his mouth, and ran down in claw-like rivets down his chin and neck. He wrapped his arms around his ribs, and through his thin, billowing shirt Raoul saw his chest and torso were purple and black with blood beneath the olive skin. His ribs expanded painfully with his every breath. Raoul watched him, taking his own heavy breaths with wisps of steam. He shook his head.

"You'll die," Raoul told him, quietly, amidst the ragged gasps. "You have to get up. If you can't, you will die." Raoul's terms were simple, but Erik grimaced, and swallowed hard, only covering his face with a chaffed, bloody hand.

"Then why have you come?" Erik did not care why, and he turned his face away as Raoul bent to try and give him leverage, sliding an arm across his chest to lift him off of the ground. Erik was dead weight against his shoulder, but finally resigned to try it again, his muscles tightening as he braced to stand. Why had the boy come, the question distantly repeated in the very back of his mind. The question doubted not so much why, as how he had known to come to the chapel. It was the dead of night, and nobody had been around.

Erik stumbled. His slashed leg buckled again, and again. Managed, not dead.

"You sent them," Erik husked, in growing realization. Raoul frowned, white-faced, and half in the panic of being found out. Erik stumbled again, and Raoul with him, still trying to hoist the injured man to his feet, but Erik stared into his face, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. "It was you. You sent them," he snarled, and Raoul visibly searched for words in his defense, and finally, with a heave of unexpected strength, pulled Erik up, almost entirely carrying his weight.

"Don't be absurd," Raoul breathed, flattening his right hand on Erik's chest to keep him from falling forward. The Phantom crossed an arm over Raoul, past his hip, and with a strangled cry tore the young man's rapier from his thin sheath. Raoul was too slow, and before he realized what had happened Erik pushed him hard into the snow, crashing atop him in a straddle. His arm was pulled back at a deadly angle, the tip of the sword ready to plow into the soft flesh of the Vicomte's collarbone.

Raoul stared at him, eyes wide with restrained terror, and as the seconds passed between Erik's hesitance he drew his brows tight together. "You are a fool," he bit out. "I have saved your life, twice in the same night when I should have let you die. Get off of me."

"Not a word in your defense, boy," Erik seethed, speaking every word with a pained hate, and the point of the sword pressed dangerously into Raoul's skin. "Are you satisfied?" he asked, and in the moonlight Erik's bruises hollowed his face out, and Raoul inwardly cringed. It touched on his conscience. "Are you satisfied now that you have seen their work! Or did you watch them, with rich pleasure as they broke me!" Erik shifted so the flat of the sword dug hard into his throat. "Or was it enough just to hear me scream, with not a soul in the world to cry out to!"

Raoul's glassy blue eyes did not waver. "I did send them," he whispered, hotly. "It was all I could do to keep you from the noose. I ordered you not to be killed, but I never ordered bloodshed."

Erik appeared to halfway believe him, but he did not yield. His entire body shook with cold and fatigue, but not the arm that held the weapon. His lips trembled, and he lowered himself to Raoul, sliding the weapon down to the hilt to cut the Vicomte's throat when the time came. Raoul followed the Phantom's every move with his eyes, wondering when the final blow would come, and he would be left to die.

It never came. The weapon remained poised, but Erik's dark head sank between his shoulders, and exhaustion took him again.

Raoul did not know how long they remained that way, but he dared not move. A heavy silence settled between them, and Raoul found it was harder to breathe with Erik slacking against him. He wondered if Erik was about to lose consciousness again.

"Without me," Raoul said, hoarsely. "You will die out here. Killing me won't benefit you."

Erik stirred, then, and drew in a slow breath. "I wondered at times," he admitted, quiet and weak. Hateful darkness lingered in his tone, and it was that irrational hate that kept the extent of Raoul's bravery in check. He did not attempt to fight back. "Why I did not just kill you, as well. Like the others who threatened me. If you were gone," Erik's eyes appeared through dangling pieces of dark hair. "She might have seen me for something else. She might have even loved me," the blade slowly moved to the curve of his throat, and Raoul closed his eyes, hard. He prepared himself for the worst. The Phantom gritted his teeth, and with his free hand pulled Raoul's head back by the hair, drawing his arm back to strike. "But you were always there, and you took her from me."

Raoul dared to open his eyes, and jerked his head back from the Phantom's hand. "And if you kill me now, what makes you think she will love you?"

"I have slit one throat tonight," Erik growled. "Rationalizing is a privilege I severely lack at the moment." He moved again, and Raoul realized he could hardly breathe at all now. Erik was crushing him, so he could barely form words. Erik picked the sword up and sat up a little, moving the point to the center of Raoul's chest, just above his pounding heart. Raoul gathered his breath, and cried out before Erik could strike.

"Say her name," he challenged, quickly, and Erik balked. He was visibly shaken, and Raoul felt hope flood back. He watched the Phantom's conflict as it crossed the dark features, and threw off his intent. The bruised face contorted in vacant confusion. Raoul eased his head off the ground, with his shoulders. He stopped when the point pricked him again. "Say her name, Phantom," Raoul whispered again, urgently, and Erik turned his head away, but pressed the blade deeper and Raoul recoiled with a short cry. A little pool of blood collected beneath his shirt. "Christine," Raoul breathed, voice tight with pain. "Her name is Christine. Say her name and then kill me. Say it!"

As if his darker intentions were repelled by the very sound of Christine's name, Erik averted his face the other way, unwilling to listen but unable to ignore. Christine loved him, now, even if her heart belonged to the Vicomte, and if he killed Raoul she would never find it in her to forgive him. The vigor bled out of his hatred, and Erik clenched his teeth, his mouth trembling around them with indecision. His hand finally began to shake around the handle of the rapier, but he did not yield. Raoul watched him, carefully, and the cold flicked across his pale lashes, forcing him to squint.

"Enough blood has been shed," he said, even and fair, and unwavering. "Enough."

The Phantom slowly began to retreat, and Raoul waited until he had dropped the rapier into the snow before moving again. He sat up, tentatively, and Erik only knelt in the snow, catching his breath, and staring vacantly forward. He turned to regard Raoul, exhaust plain on his battered face. His voice was rough, and hoarse with misuse.

"You might have lost her," he said. "One way, or another, by coming for me you might have lost her."

Raoul nodded, and wrapped his coat around his own frame. The cold seemed to have returned to his focus, and beat his long hair past his face. "I know," he replied.

"And still you came," Erik muttered, almost to himself. Both sides of his face were exposed, and as the moonlight was freed from the clouds in the dark sky Raoul could see the side of it better than he ever had. It had all the characteristics of a human being's face, and even with the twisted flesh, Erik's face was only that of a man's. Raoul nodded, again, and Erik stared at him. The Phantom gave only a slight inclination of his dark head, and begrudgingly exhaled. "Foolish of you," he said. Raoul snorted, and a wry smile played on his lips.

"Evidently," he said.