Hide No Longer

The shrill sound of the bell startled Christine from her silent misery, but she made no move to respond to it. No one that she wished to see would need to ring for such formal admittance to the house, and she had determined before Darius even entered the parlor that she would send away whomever was at the door.

She did not bother to look at the card that was offered, but simply shook her head in refusal. "I will see no one, Darius."

He bowed obediently and left her in solitude once again. That should have been the end of the matter, but less than a minute later, the surprisingly resonant voice of the Vicomte de Chagny echoed through the villa.

"Christine Daaé! You cannot ignore me forever. I will simply wait outside until I see Erik Villon walk through these doors."

The sound of her husband's name passing Raoul's lips had her leaping from her seat in fear. She rushed to the parlor door and pressed her palms against it as she listened to the scuffle outside. Darius, God bless him, was attempting to physically eject Raoul from the house. She could so easily continue to hide in here and let the trusted servant do his duty, but that would solve nothing, and if…when…Nadir returned with Erik, all hell would break loose should Raoul be laying in wait. Purposefully making her decision, she threw open the door just as Raoul had been forced across the threshold.

"Darius, wait," she commanded. Both men froze in the midst of their willful shoving match and turned to stare at Christine. The sight was almost comical. "I will see the Vicomte," she said.

"Very well, ma'am," Darius said in his thick accent as stepped back from the door and straightened his waistcoat with a disapproving glare aimed at Raoul.

Christine warily showed her unexpected guest into the parlor, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She did not bother to ask him how he had found her, nor how he had learned Erik's surname, knowing that he would have encountered a fair many people at La Fenice more than willing to gossip about La Daaé and her lover. The mindless oversight was just another proof of her unfortunate relapse into childish oblivion.

She had chosen to forget how obstinate Raoul de Chagny could be when he set his mind to a task, suffering no dissention, but wheedling and reasoning until he had achieved his way. He had been just so in Paris. Indeed, there were times when Christine wondered at the ease with which she had broken their engagement, for he had never before listened to a word that she had said.

Perhaps it is a family trait, she thought with little amusement.

Raoul stood before her now, in his perfect gray suit with flawlessly coifed hair and neatly trimmed mustache, nervously juggling a wrapped parcel in his hands and undoubtedly taking note of her red, swollen eyes and disheveled appearance. She was beyond caring overmuch, and she flatly prompted, "Say what you must, and then please leave me in peace."

He placed the package carefully upon the coffee table and his blue eyes began to dart around the room as if in search for some sign of the Phantom. "I said all that I must last evening, and was lied to for my trouble," he finally directed at her, "dismissed from your presence without apology."

Christine sighed tiredly and glanced away from his accusatory expression. "I am too exhausted to relive this conversation, Raoul. What do you want from me?"

"The truth," he said sharply. "You have seen him again."

A statement of fact, not a question, and Christine no longer had the strength or desire to deny it. "Yes."

"You know where he is."

She laughed without humor, truthfully saying, "At this moment, no, I do not."

"You will forgive me if I am inclined to doubt your word, Christine."

She shook her head in frustration. "What do expect to achieve by this foolish pursuit of him? You cannot possibly think that it will end well."

"I am duty bound to make some restitution for the sins of my father," Raoul insisted with his bothersome superior intonation. "His selfish action was the cause of every evil done to, and by, my brother. I cannot erase the past, all I can offer is the truth." With a resigned sigh, he added, "It will be for Erik to decide what he wishes to do with the knowledge."

Christine sank down weakly into a chair, and pressed a weary hand over her eyes. "This is all too unbelievable," she whispered shakily, more to herself than to Raoul. She was completely unaware that the unconscious action drew his attention to the sparkle of ruby and gold adorning her finger.

In two strides he was standing over her, seizing her wrist and pulling her hand up for his inspection. He ignored her surprised gasp as he stared at the offending rings in disbelief. "You have married him? My God, Christine, how could you?"

She reclaimed her hand from his grasp with a forceful tug and glared up at him. "You were happy enough to believe him my lover," she accused, and dropped all pretense. "You have no right to object to my taking him as a husband!"

Christine was mildly surprised that Raoul had failed to discover her marriage before appearing on her doorstep, for she knew that the gossip at the theater was beginning to swirl around the ruby that adorned her finger. While she had made no formal announcement of her wedding upon returning from Milan, she had only ever removed her rings during performances. The whispers that she had been hearing told of a secret engagement…an irony that did not fail to escape her notice.

"I object to the endless lies and betrayals in the name of your damned angel," Raoul snapped. Taking a deep breath, he continued in a somewhat milder tone, "I came to Venice only because I could think of no other person who would know Erik as you did, save Madame Giry perhaps, but she would tell me nothing. I thought that in finding you, I might find him as well, but I hadn't imagined," he trailed off in frustration. "I have always known that you would never purge him from your mind, Christine, but I had thought you wiser than to offer yourself so completely to a murderer."

Christine slowly arose from her seat to stand proudly before him. Very deliberately, she raised her hand and slapped Raoul across the cheek. His head jolted to the side from the force of her blow, and he brought his own hand up to distractedly rub at his stinging flesh. He stared at her with wide eyes, clearly shocked that she would attack him.

"I would thank you not to insult my husband in his own home," she said imperially. "He has gone through hell and come back a better man for the journey. Your presence here can cause nothing but misery to us all. Erik will never accept your truth, Raoul, and you would be wise to leave now. You can have nothing more to say to either one of us."

Raoul hissed out a breath, regarding her unyielding countenance with wary eyes. "How can you have so easily forgiven all that he has done?"

"I love him," she said simply, fully aware that Raoul could never hope to understand the soul deep connection that she shared with Erik.

He visibly flinched at her quiet declaration, then nodded imperceptibly and pulled back his shoulders in an attempt to regain his dignity. "Very well, Christine," he acceded, turning from her to bend down and open the parcel that he had arrived with. "I will go, but only upon your word that you will deliver these to your husband."

In the midst of the plain brown paper were six weathered journals which he placed in a neat little pile upon the table. The damning evidence of Erik's true bloodline was imprinted within those worn yellow pages. "These are the volumes from the last the last ten years of Philippe's life," Raoul said as he gestured to the journals. "It seems that he was a rather prolific writer. If nothing else, I am certain that Erik will find some amusement in them. Proof of how petty and cruel the human race can be. If he wishes to know more," Raoul leveled his gaze directly upon Christine, "about his father, or his mother, or the illustrious De Chagny line," he said with sarcasm, "then you may inform him that he will be welcome in the home of the Baroness d'Amboise, our aunt…whom I am certain that you must recall. She is most eager to meet with him."

Raoul crossed to the parlor door, and resting his hand upon the knob, he turned back to Christine one final time. "I shall be visiting Rome for the next several weeks, to discuss a settlement with Giuliana Sorelli and to meet my niece, Eva. More of Philippe's unfinished business, you see? Forgive me for my intrusion into the peaceful little life that you have made here with your beloved husband."

With his speech concluded, Raoul offered a stiff bow, muttering, "Good day, Madame Villon," before he retreated from the room. Christine stared after him mutely, watching Darius firmly close the door behind him as he left the villa. When she turned back into the parlor, she found the journals of Philippe, Comte de Chagny taunting her from the table.

Her world would turn with those pages.

xXx

The blanket of twilight had fallen over Piazza San Marco before Nadir Kahn finally managed to locate his quarry. He prided himself as a skilled detective, yet it had taken him hours to locate Erik in plain sight…sitting upon a bench in the square and staring blindly at the basilica.

The Persian quietly settled next to his friend, his own dark eyes following Erik's line of sight to gaze upon the spires of San Marco. "I confess that this is not where I expected to find you."

Erik said nothing for nearly a full minute before a shaky hiss of breath broke the silence. "Did you imagine that I was hidden away in some hole after happily murdering that damned boy?"

Nadir turned to look at the man beside him, but saw only the cold features of the mask. "You have not done anything irrevocable, have you?"

"Not as of yet, but the night is still young," he said. His eyes never wavered from their focus across the piazza.

His rage of the afternoon had long since faded into a dull ache within his chest. With every step that he had taken away from the Villa della Rosa, the revenge that he hungered for clawed at his soul, coiling and writhing like a living beast until he had finally stopped dead in the middle of an avenue and nearly fallen to his knees in pain. Then there had been only emptiness.

He was unaware of how he had even come to be at the piazza, or of how long he had been sitting on that bench. His world had gone dark well before the sunlight had begun to fade.

"Your wife has asked me to bring you home," Nadir said.

Erik's jaw tensed visibly, and another silent moment passed. "This is where I first spoke to her again, Daroga. Did you know that? We danced right over there," he said distantly. "She held me in her arms upon this very bench on the night that she first confessed her love to me." A bitter laugh escaped him, "All lies."

"Do you really believe that, my friend?"

Erik turned to Nadir with flashing eyes and growled, "What else am I expected to believe? She has seen her handsome Vicomte behind my back and could say nothing…nothing…to defend herself!"

Nadir threw out his hands in frustration, demanding, "How could she defend herself against your damnable temper?"

"Very easily," Erik snapped. "She need only have said that the ignorant fool means nothing to her."

Nadir shook his head and sighed, "Erik, she loves you. Had she wanted the young Vicomte, she would have married him years ago. Or have you conveniently forgotten that fact?"

"I have forgotten nothing," he hissed.

Nadir rolled his eyes at the petulant display. "Then you should remember that your intractable temper has only ever driven Christine away from you."

Erik slumped against the bench, looking for all the world like a lost little boy. He detested the way that Nadir would bluntly state the obvious in that smug way of his. Even worse was the knowledge that his friend was nearly always correct in his observations. Sullenly, he asked, "What would you have me do, Daroga?"

The Persian sighed, "Go home, Erik. Talk to your wife."

"And if I do not like what she has to say?"

Nadir shrugged, "At least you will know the truth."

Erik was not certain that he wished to know whatever truth Christine had been so determined to keep from him. Every moment of happiness that he had experienced in the past six months had been called into question by her thoughtless deception, and should he discover yet more betrayal, then he honestly could not trust himself to keep his demons at bay.

xXx

The sound of the front door opening and Nadir's calm, quiet voice alerted Christine to the blessed fact that Erik had safely returned home. Now it would fall to her to keep him from disappearing again.

She met them both in the foyer, with one of Philippe de Chagny's journals tucked safely into her arms. Her marriage was far too precious for her to risk over secrets that neither she nor Erik had kept, and so she stood before her husband prepared to beg his forgiveness and offer full disclosure of all that she now knew.

His face was coldly impassive as he glared at her from the doorway, and she prayed that he would grant her exoneration for her foolishness. Drawing a breath, she said, "Please forgive me, Erik. I am ready now to tell you everything."

A/N: Many of you were understandably upset with Christine's little decline back into childish oblivion in the last chapter. I hope she has begun to redeem herself in this one, at least in part. And Erik reined in that vicious temper of his a bit…after a good sulk.

If you were expecting the Erik/Raoul confrontation…well, delayed gratification builds character. Erik will have enough to deal with when Christine tells him just what she'd been trying (very poorly) to hide.

Feedback is always appreciated...and I thank you.