"Of course I came," he replied, some of her own desperation seeping through his normal controlled tone, "You wanted me here."
Christine straightened, trying to regain some of her scattered composure. How long had he been standing there in the streetlight's fluorescent halo, watching her try to scrape herself back together in the cool night air?
"I did," she admitted, managing a half smile. "I just…I didn't see you inside. Before the show started."
"I slipped in just after. I thought it would not do for your colleagues to see your patient in the audience. Nor would Dr. Giudicelli have appreciated my presence, I imagine."
Her adrenaline-soaked heart tried to beat faster at the thought of such a confrontation—Erik's appearance would have thrown Carlotta off, no doubt, and Rebecca would have had some serious questions about it too—but it was too tired to do more than stutter weakly in her chest.
Christine herself did no more than pause and thank God that Erik had more sense than she did. "You know," she said, slowly, "when I invited you I didn't think about that at all. I just…I just wanted you to be here."
"There are few who could understand what you have just been through, Christine," he said, slowly closing the distance between them. The streetlight overhead slid off the white face of his mask and plunged him into darkness. Christine watched his shadow slink nearer and nearer, but she made no move to draw back. "If I may be so bold," and she caught his mocking smile, "I am one of them. Tonight, you bared your soul to anyone who cared to see it."
Christine turned away, swallowing thickly. She would never have put it in such terms herself—it sounded far too grand, too melodramatic—but her heart felt it as the absolute truth. She still felt open, raw…vulnerable to anyone who might find her in the aftermath of her performance.
"It was beautiful."
"Thank you," she said, wincing at the harsh edge on her words. She cleared her throat. "But I guess I should go back inside and…well, get something to drink, for starters. Otherwise I'll be useless come Monday morning."
"And what a loss that would be," he replied, and she couldn't tell if he was making fun of her or not. "But should you wish to avoid the crowds, I can easily fetch you some water. Or there is a café around the corner, if you'd prefer something else."
Christine smiled eagerly and said, "That would be—" then stopped short. "I can't," she said, "Everyone came out to support me…to support me and Carlotta," she corrected herself. "I can't just run off."
Using others as an excuse, she thought, surprised by her own bitterness. How typically Christine of you, Christine. No, I can't go out, I need to help my mother. No, I can't sing…it makes me irritable by reminding me of my dead father and that upsets my family.
She wanted to go off with Erik and sit together in some anonymous, shadowy corner, talking about music and slowly coming down off the incredible high of the show. She did not want to plunge back into the bar, drink until she laughed at her own gravity, and link arms with Raoul and Meg.
Why? Why couldn't anything ever be simple for once?
"Indeed you cannot," Erik said, watching the emotions play across her face like actors in a play, "that would be a selfish act. And you are too good—or you believe yourself to be too good—to indulge in selfish acts. Correct, Doctor?"
"That's not—" she didn't have the heart to defend herself. "Erik," she began again, "yes. My first impulse is to be selfish. I would love to just…" no. That topic was still dangerous ground. "But my friends…" it was so difficult to articulate the right course of action when her heart was crying to choose the easy one, "they care about me. And I owe it to them not to throw that kindness back in their faces."
"No matter the burden on yourself?"
She forced a laugh and it sounded hollow in her ears. "Is that curiosity I hear? If it is a burden, it won't feel that way for long. They're my friends," and now she spoke firmly, to convince herself. "I love them."
He nodded, but Christine had more than a sneaking suspicion that he was in no way swayed. "Very well. Then I suppose I shall leave you to the comfort of your friends, and hold out hope that we might discuss your performance during our Monday session?"
"We could do it sooner than that," the temptation to really talk about the music with someone who understood it was too great. "Why not give me a call tomorrow? In the afternoon, though…" she threw a glance back towards the bar's door, through which bursts of laughter were clearly audible, "because I think this might be a long evening."
When Erik's smile broadened below the straight line of his mask, Christine fought hard to keep her answering grin from stretching from ear to ear. Erik's joy was so rare that it was intoxicating when it came, like a long-awaited burst of golden sunlight from behind a rolling bank of thunderheads.
"Why, Doctor Dale," he teased, and then she bit her lip to keep from laughing, really laughing, "would that not be a breach of your vaunted professionalism? Are we not to stay at arms'-length lest feelings arise between us that are not detached and clinical?"
"Don't be so smug," she grumbled, "I admit, our relationship isn't 100% professional, and yes, this is probably not the greatest idea…but I want to show you that even I can be selfish, sometimes. Besides," she finished primly, doing her best to look down her nose at him despite his towering height, "if we don't talk tomorrow, you'll spend all afternoon Monday trying to lead me off topic. Our appointments, if nothing else, should stay focused on you, not me."
"The soul of logic, as always," he caught her hand before she even had the opportunity to flinch back, and bowed low over it. "I await your call with baited breath."
"Great," she drew back her fingers, trying to ignore the flushed tingle of pleasure the momentary contact brought, "Thank you for coming. And…" she hated to add it, but she had to, "for being discreet. If anyone had seen you, there would have been some awkward questions that I'm not sure I could have answered."
He hummed his agreement, eyes focused more on the hand that she now held clenched against her side than at her face. "I am the soul of discretion," he replied, "And more used to being kept secret than you know."
She tried to insist that hadn't been what she'd meant—despite the sinking in her gut that told her it was exactly what she'd meant—but he waved her off. One green eye, glowing like an emerald in the shadow of his mask, winked at her before Erik wished her a cordial "good night" and turned away.
Once his footsteps had faded around the corner, Christine slumped back against the brick wall and let all the tension out of her frame.
"That man is going to kill me," she muttered.
He was used to being a secret? What did that mean? And what implications did that have for a possible diagnosis of his condition?
Christine's disciplined medical mind immediately started whirring busily, compiling what little she knew about Erik's past and treatment with any notes made by previous doctors. Maybe there was some clue that would help her—
"Stop, Christine," she clamped down on the flow of these thoughts as firmly as she could. "It's the weekend; you're off shift. For God's sake," and she turned and hauled the bar's heavy delivery door open, "get yourself a drink."
()()()
Christine woke the next morning—though she wasn't sure she could call 11:49 'morning' anymore—with a pinching headache, a chalk-dry mouth, and not much recollection of anything beyond her first hour back in the bar. Groaning, she hauled herself upright and drank from the water bottle she always kept on the nightstand.
"Ooh," she sighed, laying back and drawing the covers back around her, "not smart. Not smart at all."
She really needed to get the hang of socializing with strangers without the need for alcohol. Not that Rebecca, Jonathan, and the others from the hospital were strangers—hadn't she told Erik they were her friends?—but spending time with them was not the same as spending time with Meg, or even Raoul. Too often, they misinterpreted her frequent silences as boredom or disinterest, and Christine was terrible at small talk.
So she'd drunk more than she was used to, and people kept buying her drinks, toasting her and praising Carlotta's show. Then another act came on—a country cover band that had most of their group out on the dance floor—and Christine had needed even more liquid courage to join Raoul where he was trying to invent a new type of line dance.
A quiet cup of tea with Erik would have been so much easier on her head and stomach. But Christine was already smiling at the memories…despite her hangover, she knew she had made the right choice.
Speaking of Erik…she dug in the purse abandoned in the wreckage of her clothes at the foot of the bed for her phone and saw four texts.
Swallowing nervously, she clicked through. They were all from Raoul.
Hey songbird. Just checking to see if Meg got you home okay.
She'd replied to that one but could not, for the life of her, remember doing so.
Good morning mockingbird! Or is it mockingjay? Or am I reading too much YA dystopian literature? Good morning anyway!
Mockingbird? Here's hoping you're not too hungover from last night. I'll be spending the day in bed with an industrial-size bottle of aspirin. Does that make you jealous?
Do you need aspirin? Because as I may have mentioned, I come fully stocked. I'll even write you a prescription if you want ;)
She laughed and sent out a quick reply. He really was ridiculously sweet. Emphasis on the ridiculous, though Raoul's sweetness was not in question. How was it possible for two human beings to be so radically different? She couldn't imagine Erik boasting about the size of his…aspirin bottle.
Oof. Thinking of Erik reminded her of her promise. Her promise to call him later.
Last night, talking with Erik had seemed like the only thing she'd wanted—or needed—to do. This morning, with cheerful yellow sunlight in the window and Raoul's chatty texts in her hand, the dark fever-dream of the show seemed as far distant from her as a fading nightmare.
Was it worth jeopardizing a shaky relationship, a relationship that constantly wavered between the personal and professional, to call him and dig up so many raw emotions? Christine wasn't even certain how to start such a conversation.
She stared at the phone in her hand and swallowed. The little rectangle of plastic and metal suddenly felt dangerous, volatile.
She had to call him; she'd promised. Breaking a promise to someone like Erik would shatter their hard-won truce.
She couldn't call him; it would be too embarrassing. He'd seen her at her most vulnerable last night. How could she have let her patient get so much leverage over her?
"Stop, Christine," she wondered how many times she'd told herself that in the past twenty-four hours. More often than was probably healthy. "Get yourself a shower, some breakfast, and some aspirin. Then figure out what to do about…all this."
It was excellent advice. Anything that got her away from the ticking time bomb of her phone was excellent advice in her book.
But by the time Christine peered back around her bedroom door, freshly washed and full of buttered toast, she still had not come to a resolution on the to-call-or-not-to-call debate.
She stood staring down at her phone and wrestled silently with two questions:
Did she want to call him?
And if she did…would that be right?