Who Am I? Ch 21
Such heavenly music! I can't help but cry at its beauty, its distress, its longing. The music makes me want to embrace it to put an end to its terrible sadness. I reach out… and what's this? I feel raindrops on my face. But how can it be raining inside? Am I inside? No, it's the music; the music is crying. But how can that be? Now it's raining inside my mouth and I choke on it. And there's a knife that keeps moving around in my side. But the music continues, and the rain begins again… Christine… Christine… Christine?
Hannah explains Erik's injuries to Christine before taking her into Erik's bedroom, where he is sleeping. Christine wipes his brow where beads of perspiration are beginning to form. She begins to softly sing a lullaby to him, but he seemes so helpless, so vulnerable. She can't prevent the tears from falling. She takes his hand when he reaches for her and tries to embrace her. Is he crying? She gently wipes away his tears.
Hannah comes in with some of his tea.
Christine looks from the tea to Erik with concern. "He's asleep. Surely you're not going to feed that to him while he's sleeping?"
"The tea has one herb to help him sleep and another ingredient to stop the bleeding, so I don't want to wake him if I don't have to. It's not as bad as you might think," explains Hannah patiently. "The place in our throat where we swallow food is behind where we breathe. So it's possible to carefully drip fluids into the throat of an unconscious person without injuring them. But you have to be very careful about it."
Christine doesn't seem entirely convinced, but moves out of her way. Hannah trickles a few spoonfuls of the medicine into Erik's mouth. Some runs down the side of his face, but most goes down his throat. He swallows, coughs lightly, then visibly winces and groans. He opens his eyes, disoriented.
"Dreaming?" He reaches vaguely toward Christine and she takes his hand with one of hers and cups his cheek with the other.
"No, you're not dreaming, mon ange, I'm here," and she kisses him gently.
He opens his eyes wider, "Christine…" and moves as if to get up, but she presses him back to the bed, and kisses him again.
He leans up slightly and captures her lips in a kiss before relaxing back onto the bed. "You're here. But how…?"
"When you wake up. Right now you need to sleep, mon ange, sleep…" and she gently closes his eyes with her hand. I will be here. I won't leave you."
"I love you, mon ange," he says with a sleepy smile.
"I love you too."
oo00O00oo
A/N: Many huge thanks to DonJuana19 for all the help proofreading this and helping me to get ot posted! This is my first FF on this site. And thanks for all the encouragement!