Hello, everyone! OK, for real, this time, it's REALLY the last chapter this time, plus the epilogue, of course. I love you all! I will miss writing this story :( and of course I will also miss my wonderful reviewers! As you can see, I changed my username. I am no longer mrs. jacobb, but Dream-Runaway. I left my old username in the end so you'll remember it's me but after a while I'll take it out completely. But anyway, read on!
Chapter 25
Breath... Just breath...
Earthquake in her knees, butterflies in her stomach, weakness in her arms.
No, it can't be...
It couldn't be...
Wake up... I must be dreaming.
Remember to breath, Christine.
Remember to...
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When Erik woke up that morning he had planned to get up early and gather his belongings. The boat had already docked early before sunrise and he wanted to be on his way as quick as possible. He had planned to eat some breakfast and depart for London.
He hadn't planned to find Mme. Giry and Meg still asleep. He hadn't planned to take stroll about the deck under his cape. He didn't want to scare anyone. He hadn't planned to find Christine on said deck and he hadn't wanted her to faint the moment he bumped into her and his hood came down.
She was holding a small bundle in her arms. A small baby girl. A little angel.
He caught her in his arms before she collapsed.
He felt such a rush of different emotions suddenly fight over him. He wanted to be happy beyond comparison but fear fought for control. There was that lifelong companion he knew so well also- insecurity. Incredulity battled all these and won.
How could he feel happy to see her when he couldn't believe it was really her in his arms? How could he fear what she would do if he didn't even know if she was really there? How could he feel insecure at her reaction when she wasn't even there to react?
Because, she, Christine, couldn't possibly be walking on the same deck of the same boat as he.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Christine felt her head was heavier than ever. She felt so dizzy. Her eyelids weighted so much. She wanted to open her eyes to see whose arms where holding her. She didn't know who it was but it felt incredibly safe. Somehow she wasn't troubled by who he was or where he was taking her. She had a very strong feeling that she could trust these arms. In fact, she had never felt safer. Perhaps she had. Together there was a sense of déjà vu. As if she knew these arms by memory. They gave her comfort and the feel of every flexed muscle as it carried her weight felt so familiar. It felt like tasting a sweet you hadn't had for years and as it melted in your mouth all these amazing memories flooded your mind.
Her father? No, her father was dead. How could she have forgotten such a thing?
No, these arms didn't feel like the arms of a father carrying her small daughter to bed at night.
These arms had a different feel altogether. They were the arms of a lover...
A lover... She snuggled closer to the chest of this strong man who held her in the sweetest of ways. She inhaled its masculine aroma and let herself be enchanted by it. It felt so right.
How had she been all this time apart from these arms, this smell?
She suddenly realized how bad she had missed that feeling. A knot formed at the top of her stomach as she felt a sob climb its way up.
She felt so safe...
How had she missed him...
I've missed you so, Erik...
ERIK!
She gasped and her head shot up erect. Her eyes were no longer heavy and she opened them as wide as they could.
A familiar set of scars that covered the whole side of his face along a manly jaw met her eyes and then that face turned and she looked into his eyes. Those eyes...
And she screamed.
"Erik!" she yelled mortified. She kicked with all her might until she was free again.
She felt the weight of Erika set in her arms again as her feet reached the ground and she stood on her own two feet. She had forgotten about her.
Her gaze quickly went down and inspected the asleep as a rock baby girl.
Then she looked up again.
"Erik..." she whispered this time.
Earthquake in her knees, butterflies in her stomach, weakness in her arms...
What this man could do to her even after all this time, after all that had happened...
She felt what she now knew as the sensation of fainting come about her again but she stepped back and reached the edge of the boat and held on to the rail for support.
"What is... What are you... What's this... Why..." she managed to get out in between breaths.
He was here.
He was here.
He was here.
He was here.
He was here. He was here. He was here. He was here.
How was he here?
"How was he here?" she asked out loud. "How are you here?" she asked trying to get in her head.
He was here.
"I.. Christine... I... I was coming... for you" he said stressing with extra feeling the last word. He caressed it with his tone and kissed it with his voice as he said it.
"But... Oh, Erik... Why?" she asked again almost bursting into crying.
Why did you have to come along now? Now when I was finally forgetting you. Now when I was finally moving on. Now when I was finally getting away for good. Now when things were finally looking up? Why did you have to come and confuse things now when they were making sense?
But she didn't ask any of these questions.
"How did you find me? How did you even know I was in England?" she asked more intrigued than ever.
She secretly congratulated herself for actually saying what she wanted to say in complete sentences.
"Please, let's go to my room. There is much to say" he said as he walked another step.
She considered it for a second.
She felt so angry all of the sudden. What right did he have? He had no right to come along and ruin everything!
But she had so many questions.
There were so many things unspoken between them.
The thing she wanted the most to do was to punch him as hard as she could until she didn't have breath left in her but instead she just nodded.
She felt so many things at once.
And never in her life had she been so confused.
Her head whirled and turned round and round. There were so many things she had avoided thinking about. They hurt too much to think about. And now she had no idea what to feel.
She didn't expect to ever need to know what she felt. She didn't think she would ever need to.
And that's how she found herself walking besides a man she didn't know whether slap with all her might or kiss till she was breathless or run and hide where he couldn't find her.
She felt his gaze on her and then drop to her arms.
She looked at him and his gaze seemed to reach out for Erika even if his arms could not.
He looked at her pleading with his eyes.
How could she deny him his own child?
She didn't want to let her go from her arms.
But she finally allowed her into his arms.
Their fingers touched as she passed him and she felt waves of cold and heat run down her spine and electricity jolt her fingers.
She saw his face mold into a look so bare and open, so vulnerable. A smile full of adoration spread across his face and he exhaled. His eyes became wide and there was a shine there... she knew he loved her already.
"She's so beautiful..." he said as he felt himself go weak. How could she be his? Nothing so beautiful could ever come from him.
He was bewildered.
Regardless of what she felt Christine smiled full of pride. She was hers and his and the unconditional love the both felt for her was something they would always share. Now she felt like she could never again separate them. The look on Erik's appearance assured her he could never love anything more than he loved this little creature in his arms. She was the sun and they circled around her, depended on her.
"She is..." she said looking at Erika. Then her eyes went up to his. "And she's yours" she said.
"She's mine... And her eyes?"
"Are yours" she admitted with a smile. "And they're beautiful" she said a little shy.
They reached his room and he opened the door for her to come inside.
She sat down on small chair by a corner and saw him take his place in the bed, his eyes never leaving his daughter.
"Erik..." she said.
His eyes came up and met hers and the happiness banished. There was guilt and fear in them. He interpreted the look on her eyes and with difficulty put the little girl down on the mattress, making sure she was as far away from all the edges so she wouldn't fall.
He looked down in shame and took a chair about 4 feet from hers.
Their eyes searched the room. Neither knew where to star t. There was so much to ask, so much to explain.
"I'm sorry" Erik finally broke the silence. There were so many things he was so sorry for. He was sorry for leaving her that morning. He was sorry for being careless and therefore being caught. He was sorry he wasn't the genius she thought he was by breaking out of jail sooner. He was sorry he couldn't swim across the ocean instead of having to wait for a stupid ship for almost three months. He was sorry for not being the man she needed. A man she walk in the streets with without scaring off everyone who saw him.
"Sorry?" Christine asked bitterly and the anger returned. "Have you any idea..." she started raising her voice with every word and tightening her grip on the chair. Her teeth clenched and her eyes took a wild look. Her eyebrows met down as she squeezed them with all the anger kept inside.
"Yes..." he interrupted her. "I do... only it was worse for me. You woke up to find me gone. I watched you walk away in the arms of a man who was the opposite of everything I have ever been" he said. There was so much pain in his expression that the words felt like a dagger stabbing her flesh. She could only imagine what she would feel if she was in Erik's place that night after Don Juan. What it would feel like to see him walk away from me with another woman.
She realized he had done only what she had done as well.
"I came back" she defended herself. She had made a mistake but she had corrected it in time.
"And so did I. And here I am" he said convinced.
They looked at each other for a few seconds.
Christine tried to control her emotions. She didn't want to leash out at him but how could she not? How could she not when she had all these repressed feelings inside her that had just been waiting to get out?
"You knew why I left, I didn't. You knew I was safe, you knew my reasons. I didn't. I had never felt so..." she said as an involuntary tear escaped her eyes and she cursed herself for letting her guard down, for letting her emotions get the best of her.
I had never felt so... rejected? Worthless? Used?
"I left because..." he paused for words as he looked around the room . How could he tell her? He knew she deserved something better but if he told her she might realize it herself. She might stalk out of there for good and never see him again. He'd never see his daughter again. But, no, he had to be honest with her. If she wanted to leave him she should. He wouldn't stop her. "So many things, Christine. I had made a mistake. I couldn't take it back but I could disappear from your life. It's what I thought was best at the moment. I had no idea..." he looked at Erika. "I was nonsensical"
"So why are you here then?" she said hatefully. A mistake? How could he say that to her? So the best night of her life had been only a mistake for him? Was Erika a mistake for him, too? If he had only come to offend her then why go through the trouble? She had felt offended enough the morning she woke up to find him gone.
"To..." he tried to say and felt ashamed. Why was he here? She wanted nothing to do with him. He was only ruining her life again. But he had to say it. "To make it up. To correct it. To win you back" he said barely. He felt so stupid. He felt so ridiculous. He looked at the sleeping babe. "To get her back"
Christine felt a small string in her heart being pulled and a pang in her stomach.
"Why a year and a half later?" she cried out with a sob. She felt her defenses slowly breaking down. She wanted to keep her walls up but she couldn't. It took Christine only three months to realize her mistake. Why had it taken him so long? Wasn't he the one who claimed to love her even when she rejected him?
Then she remembered that day she had Erika. She remembered feeling so alone. She lay there in bed in a house all alone, all by herself. How she had wished for his hand to hold through those moments. How lost and abandoned she had felt. Had it not been for Estelle... It didn't matter. He had not been there...
"I looked for you, Christine. I would have never stopped but I was found out. I've killed, Christine. The police were searching for me. That's why I was hiding where you found me. The police found me, Christine. And they took me. I was in jail and when I was escaped the first thing I did was to look for you!" he said. His face turned redder with each word and his eyes became watery as he tried to keep his emotions in check. Every second he had been apart from her had been such torture. To know Christine was somewhere else in the world thinking bad of him. And he had no way of explaining, of telling her. He could have lost her to someone else. He didn't know how he hadn't gone insane from imagining, thinking...
"What... so... so" she asked. Could it be? Could it be he had wanted to be with her all this time?
"I love you, and I never stopped. The only thing I hate myself for is leaving you that morning. I was so afraid, Christine. I was so afraid you would reject me again once you saw me and this... this... monstrous face!" and that was it. He broke down.
Christine ran to him and kissed his cheek. Her poor angel.
"Why?" she asked as she tried to bring his face to look at hers. Another tear and then another ran down her face.
"Because... look at me! Why would you ever..." he asked, his heart breaking.
"No, not that" she said and paused as her eyes covered all of his face in seconds and took in all of his features.
"Why is it so hard? Why does it hurt so much to love? Why can't we just be together? Why does the world and our own minds keep separating us?" she said holding his face inches from hers. Their breaths exchanged as they looked at each other.
He looked at her with disbelief. She looked at him with longing.
Her kiss took him by surprise as her lips took his with such a passion. For a moment he was still, taking in what was happening.
Then his fingers went to the sides of her head and ran through her hair and kissed her back.
She felt her heart beat accelerate and it wanted to burst from happiness.
He felt once again a completeness, a wholeness... A feeling he had only felt once before.
Once, beneath a moonless sky.
Christine felt her skin burst on fire and she wanted to laugh and cry and jump and fly...
He broke the kiss much to her disappointment and she looked at him questioningly.
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
Then he looked at her.
His hand caressed her cheek in a loving motion and she bit her lip to stop from crying. She felt so much in that instant.
"I love you, so much. Christine, please forgive me, please take me" he said with his eyes closed as if making a wish.
She answered by kissing him again briefly.
The she whispered:
"And I love you" as she met his forehead with hers and looked into his eyes.
The moment was broken by a small cry from Erika and they broke apart in seconds and ran to her, instantaneously.
She let him pick her up and Erika looked at him curiously.
"Good morning, darling" Christine said with a smile. "Meet your father" she said as she looked at him.
He kissed Christine quickly.
"Thank you, Christine. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me..." he said. "She's... amazingly, and strangely beautiful. How could she be mine and be so beautiful?" he asked still looking into his own eyes in another face.
This brought an even wider smile to her face, to see how quick his own blood had called out to him and taken his heart with one look. Erika did that.
"How can she not? Everything you make is beautiful, Erik." she said with a sigh. "Your voice must belong to angel, your mind is too clever, too genius to possibly belong to a man" she brushed a few strands out of his face. "Your music is nothing short of magnificent". Here she paused. "How could Erika be anything but an angel?"
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This was super weird! God, it was so weird! I have never felt so uncomfortable writing anything in my life! I hope I did their feelings justice. I'm not good at moments like this, I never know if I showed too much affection or too little or what. I'm horrible at endings. Please, forgive me if it sucked. I am still new at this writing thing. Whatever your opinion, leave me a review saying what you thought. There's still an epilogue to come and I have a lot planned for it. Thank you for sticking with this story. I love you, really, I mean it. :)