They arrived to London fairly unrecognized. There had only been a few close calls, simple fleeting remarks of familiarity with the Opera incident from the Parisians aboard the ship, but nothing serious enough to concern further action. It had been an eventful week, however – along with the awkward moments that sharing one room entailed, they had had their arguments as Erik acted true on his promise of teaching Christine English before they arrived to England. She was a most attentive student, but she outright refused to engage in even the simplest conversations in order to practice.

On their penultimate day, Erik only spoke English to her from the moment she awoke. He had intended to keep it up all day to try and get her to leave the comfort of her other two languages behind, but that was only until she finally gave up after a few hours of broken phrases and hand gestures, with a crimson tint to her face from the mortifying ordeal. He only realized how soft of a teacher she had truly made him when he immediately dropped the act upon seeing her sadness, instead sighing and switching back to French as he asked her to please let herself practice pronunciation; she laughed quite a few times about the whole situation, in the end, and he was glad to see she took it humorously.

She was mostly silent as Erik got them through customs after stepping onto land – however, she had to hide her surprise at hearing he was a British citizen. It was a piece of data she had no knowledge of beforehand, but that fact got them into the country with no problems.

Christine was mesmerized by the beauty of the house upon their arrival, hours later, and even more by the time she stepped inside. It was evidently unkempt, what with the sheets covering the furniture and the coat of dust above it all, but still, the air of sophistication was not taken away from it. The downstairs had a kitchen, a dining room, a living room and, most wonderfully, an office space with a piano and what seemed like hundreds of books, lined over the walls in bookshelves. The floorboards creaked every now and then as she went up the stairs to the second floor, where she found three separate bedrooms, with an adjacent washroom for two of them; the first room seemed to be a guest bedroom, with simple décor, while the other two, one slightly bigger than the other, had more elaborate and elegant styles. Much to her surprise, the last door down the hall was yet another bathroom, most likely for guests.

This was certainly not a home built for a single person.

Walking back to what she assumed to be the master bedroom, she frowned at the considerable lack of light as soon as she entered once more; while every other curtain on this floor was slightly parted to let some of the sun's lighting in, this one's was completely shut, even tied together. Christine stepped forward, reaching towards the knot keeping the window coverings unmoving and untied it with some difficulty. She huffed in annoyance as the years had made the cloth harder to pull back. Come on.

The curtain then gave way to her insistent struggling, and she, with much more ease, finally let the sunlight in, changing the room's vibe instantly. As she turned her head around, inspecting, a glint caught her eye. It was coming from the few inches between the sheet covering the bed and the floor. She knelt down and carefully reached her hand towards it, grabbing a silver, square object from beneath the bed. She stood, swiping away any remnants of dust on her skirts, and turned it around.

It was a framed photograph, though the glass protecting it was shattered beyond repair and covered in the same dirt as the rest of this old house was. Wiping it quickly, careful not to cut herself, Christine realized it was a portrait of a couple. Albert & Sylvie, read a tiny note on the lower part. The woman was young, most likely just a few years older than Christine was, with a slightly sour look on her pretty, sharp face as she stood next to her husband, who sat on a chair and looked to be in his thirties at the time the portrait was taken. In direct contrast to his wife, he had a kind and less grim expression, with dark hair and eyes, oddly reminding her of Erik. Her finger traced the remaining glass. The woman's defined features… the man's jaw and eyes…

"Christine, what are you doing?"

She felt her blood run cold as a gasp was torn from her. It was a miracle she didn't drop what she held in her hands in her terror. "Goodness, Erik! I am still not used to how quietly you seem to move around."

He chose not to comment. "What is that you're holding?"

"I found this under the bed after I pulled back the curtain, it was sparkling in the light so I had to see what it was -"

"Give it to me," he choked out suddenly, having taken a step closer to her. His words only made her pull the item closer to herself, however.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"I thought I had destroyed it last time I was here, but it seems I was terribly wrong. For the love of God, Christine, give it to me."

"Not until you explain what's got you so furious," she stated. He strode forward, but instead of yanking it out of her hand, he simply turned it towards himself so he could see it clearly. In visible disgust, Erik continued as calmly as he could, reminding himself he was not angry at Christine.

"That is the horrible woman I am cursed to call Mother, with her late husband on their wedding day. You surely understand why I want this thing destroyed."
Of course. She had been right to think that there was some resemblance between the man in the picture and the one beside her; they were father and son, after all. She was quiet in her understanding, before glancing at him calmly, then back at the picture. "You look like him."

"I am certainly not in the mood for joking, Christine."

"Neither am I, Erik. You do resemble your father. Did he ever tell you that?"

"No." While not visibly angry anymore, he still tugged for the frame, which she finally let go of. He looked down at it as he spoke. "He died after a year of marriage, two months after they found out about my existence within Mother. After widowing, she went back to France, her home country."

"Your father seems gentle, while she looks…"

"Like she's smelling something rotten. She was a spoiled brat who never had to work for anything in her life and instead took from others – like she tried to do with this house, the only inheritance for me from my late father as was stated in his will. Now that I think of it, perhaps it's part of the reason she hated me so."

"What is?"

"This resemblance to him you mentioned. I once heard that she had wanted to name me after him, but after she gave birth…" He snickered. "Not only did she lose her beloved husband, but she was left with a child with only half his face."

"I cannot even fathom to think how a person can be so cruel."

"Such cruelty, Christine, is not something you truly think of unless you've experienced it firsthand. Though I know little of her life after I left, I'm sure she rejoiced when she realized I had run away from home."

"Well, if she did," It was she who spoke coldly now, gazing at the woman in the picture. "I hope she is being punished by God for the sins she committed against you. Never had I thought of hating a person I have never met."

"Your soul is too good for hating, after all, so do not poison your heart with my experiences with her. What I've told you is not even remotely close to the worse things she ever did or said, anyway, but that is not a topic I will discuss now."

"As you wish." Ending the conversation, Christine rolled up the sleeves of her dress and, in one swift motion, tore off the white sheet covering the bed. A cloud of dust was immediately released into the air, making them both cough and sputter until the dust settled once again. Erik looked at her in bewilderment, his words slightly muffled by the hand covering his mouth and nose over the mask.

"Christine, what on earth? A warning beforehand wouldn't have been too much trouble."

"If we want to clean the house before nighttime," she said confidently. "We'll have to begin now."

"But - "

"It will do us no good to stand around, and I definitely cannot tidy all of this by myself – I assume there is no issue with that. If we divide the rooms between us and clean the more critical ones first, we will be able to actually live here. If you'll excuse me, I think I saw an apron in a drawer downstairs."

He watched as she left the room. A low, amused smirk silently formed on his lips at his Christine's antics – but he had a job to finish before being able to help her. Erik remembered the day he'd tossed the frame onto the floor, blind with rage at seeing the image of the one he most hated. Now, as he looked at it, he felt nothing in comparison to that time all those years ago; piece by piece, he pried off the remnants of the frame until the picture was free.

He ripped it down the middle into two pieces, holding them separately in each of his hands. The left half he tossed into the fireplace, where it would eventually be consumed by its flames whenever it was lit in the near future. The right piece, however, the one of the father he never got to meet, was placed atop the bed.

He'd find a new frame for it someday.

A/N: This chapter took a long while to edit, but I think its a vast improvement from what I had beforehand.

Now that E/C are in London, I wanted to establish something about the city: while I try to be as historically accurate as possible with tech, clothing, and other customs, I didn't want to spend hours upon hours researching places, streets, alleyways, to make everything exact - the London I describe in this fic will be fictionalized in its descriptions of buildings and roads and the like. Basically, there is no exact pinpointing to where the story takes place in a map of the city, but nothing too fantasy-like. I hope it's understandable.

Thank you for reading to the end!