An Endless Love
One Step Closer
Kristina took some time off from the show to allow her wounds to heal. Even if she wanted to go back to work, Erik would not have let her. He was there by her side nearly every moment, reluctant to let her out of his sight. Erik called the producer for her and told him that she had been in a car accident and would need a few weeks off to recover.
Aware of Kristina's restlessness, Erik reluctantly left her in the care of Eleanor while he went to Bond Street in search of a couple of books, chocolate and a pair of shoes to sooth her agitation. The only thing that prevented him from running back to his Mayfair home was the knowledge that Eleanor was there with her. However, in the shops, he could not help but worry about her the entire time he was apart from her and found himself making the purchases without thinking, eager to get back to her as quickly as possible. He was so concerned about Kristina that his usual concerns about his mask had not even crossed his mind.
He pushed open the front door and headed straight up to the music room, expecting to find Kristina at the piano. When he did not see her there, he descended the stairs, searching for her in the sitting room.
"Eleanor!" He ran down another flight of stairs to the kitchen since she wasn't in the second room he checked.
"What is it, Erik?" She ducked her head out of the plant room to see Erik's tortured expression. Kristina was safe; the house had not been ransacked and Portia was dead. She could not understand what had upset him so greatly.
"Kristina. Where's Kristina?" He gestured about the house with uncontrollably shaking hands.
She frowned in confusion. Clearly after constantly being with Kristina these past few weeks, he could not bear to be separated from her for more than an hour. He had clearly lost all ability to think rationally. "I thought she was in the shower."
As he passed through the master bedroom on his way to the main bathroom, Erik breathed a sigh of relief and dumped his shopping on the bed he now – somewhat reluctantly – shared with Kristina. For days following the accident, he debated the wisdom of allowing her to share his bed. It was not the gentlemanly thing to do. But he did his best to silence those thoughts by telling himself that the only reason he kept her there in the first few days was so that he could be there if she had a setback. The Victorian gentleman in him loathed the idea of sleeping with Kristina when she was not his wife. However, any time he tried to leave her – or move her into one of the three other bedrooms – she would whimper and scream.
As Kristina healed, he could sense her frustration and desire to make love with him, but he refused to give in. At times, her frustration became quite clear when she demanded angrily why he refused to do anything more than kiss her and why he kept trying to move her into another bed. No matter how many times he tried to explain it to her, he could not make her understand that he would not touch her until she was his wife. And he would never marry her until he found a way to escape his curse…if such a thing even existed.
"Most men don't care about waiting until they marry before they sleep with a woman!" Kristina snapped at Erik, folding her arms angrily across her chest.
Erik's hands quivered with anxiety. He held them behind his back to disguise their shaking. Never before had he been on the receiving end of Kristina's anger. "I am not most men, Kristina; I grew up in the nineteenth century. It was expected that a couple not anticipate their wedding vows," he explained softly.
"That rarely happens nowadays. This is the twenty-first century!"
"You cannot expect me to forget everything I have ever known!" Erik shouted at her, losing control of his temper. "Just because I am living in the twenty-first century does not mean I need to act like a twenty-first century libertine."
Kristina was taken aback by his anger. She glared at him. "Don't be so stuffy, Erik!" She sank down onto the lounge and buried her face in her hands. "Are you making this up because you don't want to sleep with me or because you don't think you're worthy?"
Erik assessed her with his head tipped to one side and his hands shaking. His anger quickly fading, he sank down onto his knees in front of Kristina. He still had trouble believing she wanted to be with him, but he was slowly coming to terms with the truth. Kristina loved him and wanted to be with him.
"I do want to be with you, Kristina, but I will not anticipate our wedding vows. But until I can offer you the life you deserve, there will not be any wedding."
If he was honest with himself, he enjoyed sharing his bed with her. It was an unexpected delight to hold her in his arms as they slept. He did not really want her to sleep in another bed either.
He wanted to ask her to marry him, Erik decided, feeling buoyed. He wanted to keep her by his side forever. But how could he ask her to be his wife when in sixty or seventy years, Kristina would die and he would live on forever? He would be married to the woman he loved but he would be forced to lead a separate life as if he and Kristina were strangers.
As he climbed the final flight of stairs to the third floor, he was able to hear her music playing. Sensing her nearby and knowing that she was relaxed and safe, Erik allowed himself to calm down.
After knocking on the door and receiving no response, he pushed open the door to the darkened bathroom, unable to hear anything over her CD. He slowly pulled the shower curtain aside and touched her shoulder, causing Kristina to scream and spin around, splashing him with water.
"I didn't mean to scare you, Kristina," he said softly, regretfully as he looked down at his soaked clothes and sighed.
Resisting the urge to hide behind the curtain, she wiped her hair and water from her face. "What are you doing in here, Erik?"
Erik looked at Kristina's naked form in the darkness of the bathroom and swallowed. He was able to make out every detail of her body while he was certain that Kristina would only see his silhouette. He longed to reach out and touch her. He still needed to touch her, to reassure that she was safe. He quickly averted his eyes, determined to respect Kristina's privacy and be the gentleman he always claimed to be.
He blushed a dull shade of red as he studied his shoes. His hands clenched and unclenched at his side as he controlled the desire to join her in the shower. "I could not find you when I returned from shopping. I was afraid something had happened to you," he said to the floor.
Kristina wrapped the shower curtain around her body and offered her hand. "I'm fine, Erik; really. I'll be out in a moment." She reached up to caress his face, leaving a wet streak along his cheek.
Giving her a curt nod, Erik spun on his heel and left her alone in the bathroom. A few minutes later, Kristina was dressed in her pyjamas, perched on the edge of the bed, looking at the pile of books and chocolates Erik had bought her.
"Thank you for all my presents!" She smiled gratefully at him as she crossed to the far side of the room and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was determined to stay far away from her as if he could not trust himself around her. His arms hung limply at his sides for a moment as if he were silently debating the wisdom of touching her. Oddly hurt by his reluctance to touch her, Kristina returned to the bed and picked up one of the books and scanned the blurb.
"You're welcome," he said quickly and awkwardly, realising that he had hurt her feelings by refusing to touch her. But how could he have explained to her that he did not touch her because he wanted to so badly? If he had returned her embrace, he could have given up all claims of calling himself a gentleman. "I know you're feeling confined in here, Kristina, but I just want to see you happy."
"Actually, I was hoping that I might be able to go back to theatre next week – not that I don't adore being with you all the time and being spoilt rotten. No one will notice the scars under all the makeup. I almost can't see them. I miss Marina and Anthony and the stage."
"Are you certain that is what you want?" he questioned, grabbing her hands and holding them tightly, terrified of what could happen to her in the theatre. And as for the scars, although they were almost invisible to human eyes, they were all very obvious to Erik's sensitive eyes. Every time he looked at her, the scars served as a reminder of his inability to protect her. That 'X' continued to taunt him. He sighed with defeat, aware that he could not always keep her from doing what she wanted. At her nod, he continued, "If you are sure, I will ring the producer and tell him that you will return next weekend. We will begin your lessons again in earnest."
Kristina gave him a bright smile and a hard kiss. Her eyes were shining with delight when she pulled away.
"Why don't you invite Marina over?" Erik suggested suddenly as he set her away and went to sit on the bed. "I think it will do you good to see your friend again."
Kristina woke with a sob as she pulled herself from a bad dream. Reaching across the bed, searching for Erik, she found only empty bedspace. Sitting up and turning on the light, she squinted at the clock on the other side of the room. Quarter to four.
Through the open door, she was able to hear music drifting upstairs from the music room. After listening carefully for a few minutes, Kristina decided that she had never heard that piece before. Clearly, Erik was composing and it was unlikely that he would be coming to bed before the sun came up. Grabbing the folded rug at the foot of the bed, Kristina wandered downstairs to the music room.
She was used to waking in the middle of the night to find Erik missing. It had taken a while to get used to, but eventually she accepted that, although they both shared a love of music, Erik's muse would always demand his attention and he would answer no matter the time. The only thing that made the situation bearable was the knowledge that Erik could not love his muse in the same way he loved her.
She settled onto the settee, cross-legged and watched Erik as he sat at the piano feverishly composing. It wasn't the first time that she had watched him compose, but it was the first time that she was able to watch him uninterrupted.
He was completely unaware of her presence as he sat at the piano, talking to himself, while his hands gestured frantically in time to the music that he alone could hear. He reached across his body to grab a pen and scribbled madly on his blank score. His head nodded in time with the music as he recited what he had just written. His fingers danced quickly over the keys to the delight of Kristina's ears. Pausing for a moment, Erik closed his eyes and conducted an orchestra that only he could see, hearing all the parts of his composition together. Pleased with what he was hearing, he gave a silent cackle.
Unfolding the rug, Kristina tucked it around her shoulders and knees, keeping out the cool morning air. She rested her head on the back of the chair as she listened to Erik playing. Eventually, her eyes drifted shut and she fell asleep.
Hours later, when the sun was glowing behind the curtains, Kristina opened her sleepy eyes. Erik smiled at her and pressed a kiss on her ear as he gently scooped her into his arms. She pressed a tired kiss on his jaw and wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes.
"Did my music bore you, ma moitié?" he asked softly, a smile evident in his voice.
She shook her head and nestled deeper into his arms. "It was lovely; I'm just tired."
Erik just smiled and dropped another kiss on her lips as he deposited her on the bed. He covered her with the sheet, remaking the bed around her. Every night when he woke up, the bed was a mess with the blankets all but falling off the side of the bed.
He attributed most of the mess to the night terrors that Kristina had been suffering from ever since the confrontation with Portia. Several nights a week, he would be disrupted from his music or reading, by Kristina's screaming. He would rush to her side to comfort her only to find her semi-conscious and unresponsive.
Tonight was no different. Her night terror was clearly worse than he first suspected. He had left her struggling against some unseen evil, alone. He did not like the thought that he had left her alone to face whatever tormented her in her sleep. Never before had been so distracted by his music that he failed to notice Kristina's distress. Again he was stung by his inability to protect her.
Satisfied with the state of the bed, Erik climbed in beside her. "I wish you had stayed asleep, angel, I would have preferred that you had not heard the song until I was finished composing," he said gently as he wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her into his side.
His fingers caressed her upper arms and dropped kisses all over neck. "I'm thinking of calling it My Half."
Despite her tiredness, Kristina was now wide-awake. She looked at him with bright eyes, realising that he had composed a song just for her and gave him a long, hard kiss. Knowing that Erik had composed a song especially for her made Kristina feel safe and loved.
Those softly spoken words were as good as a profession of his love, a proposal of marriage. She tightened her grip around his body and closed her eyes, contented.
"How are you feeling?" Wainwright Morton asked his mother. His face was drawn with concern and his forehead was damp with sweat. He set the used IV line aside and reached out a hand to take his mother's temperature.
"Fine, Wain; I feel perfectly fine." She smiled at her son. "The best I've felt in years!"
Doctor Morton smiled, his mother's happiness catching. "You don't have a temperature. Your blood pressure," he noted as he pulled away the sphygmomanometer and stethoscope, "Is within the normal range."
"That's good, right?"
"Very good," Doctor Morton agreed as he went to the fridge to collect a bag of blood. "I just have one more test to conduct."
His mother eyed him thoughtfully as he poured the blood into a glass and set it in a bowl of hot water to warm it up slowly. Once he was convinced it was the body temperature, he handed it to his mother.
"Drink," he instructed.
Frowning disapprovingly, Doctor Morton's mother sipped from the glass and promptly spat out the blood. "That was disgusting! What did you give me? That wasn't A positive!"
Doctor Morton grinned smugly, already planning what he would write in the discussion section of his report.