Chapter Twenty Nine: Counterpoint

Maggie Blessing— the name of a woman that was and might still be, somewhere underneath the confusion— wandered the foreign streets, arms clutched tight around herself, trying to fit in and hoping she didn't look anywhere near as lost as she felt, anywhere near as lost as she knew she was. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, waking up to an empty room when you had gone to sleep with company, and she hadn't wanted to wait around there in the inn. The innkeeper's wife had given her strange looks when she came down, looks that hinted they could easily lead to trouble, and so she had made her way to the door, taking a deep breath before she stepped over the threshold.

She watched the people passing her by, reactions split between curious glances and utter indifference. She wondered what they would say if she demanded their attention and told them the story of her life. What horrified expressions would she discover? What offers of help for a maiden in distress?

None, she reckoned; for the gallant urge is somewhat quelled to realize that the maiden has entered her particular distress with her eyes wide open and a will to experience the worst.

She leaned against the wall and did not cry; but her eyes caught the faces of the people through the window. More strangers, doing strange things. How odd that the world should be so diverse; she supposed they must have troubles just as she did, and yet still there was that line between them that could not be crossed. Foreigners. The strange and unusual.

No, and she couldn't tell her whole story to a passerby at any rate; not without being ridiculed. She shook her head. To run from your past and end up embroiled in a present which may well be worse than that which went before; such a woman, making such decisions, deserved to be laughed at. And she did not feel like laughing at herself, not in the least.

So she shook her head once more, opened the door, and went in.


The first few touches of skin on skin hurt her, but it was not unbearable, so she tried to force her mind past it, focus on other things. Erik was shaking so badly she thought he might collapse, but when she tried twice to pull away both times he pulled her back again. There was still an amazing amount of strength in that deceptively thin frame.

Everything about him was deceptive; and of course he would not remove the mask, and she'd had so many dreams in which it was not there that she was grateful for this refusal. She put a hand to it and held it, though the mere shape of it felt like a burn on her palm.

And that hurt more; so much so that she couldn't ignore it this time, and cried out.

He stilled at once and sought her gaze out anxiously, worry in his eyes.

"My dear child, what is it?"

She choked at the sound of the word, and turned her face away; but it wasn't till she felt his fingers on her hair, smoothing and petting and soothing, that she started to sob. She spoke through the sobs but none of the words made any sense; Erik held her and shook and shuddered and wept to feel her tears falling on him.

She tried to find the words for the burning she felt, the knife that seemed to be cutting her in two; he had moved back a bit, shifted away, but it still hurt. She disentangled her hands from his, put her palms on her belly and pushed. It didn't help; the pain remained. She couldn't get her hands around it, and she pulled her legs up and bent over them, curling into as small a ball as she could manage. She couldn't bear to look up at Erik, but she felt his hands move from her hair down her back, and felt the shaking slow to a stop.

"You do not want me here."

Her nails dug deep into her knees.

"No—"

Her breath came short and fast and shallow and she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"You do not want me here," said Erik again, and sat up; the sudden absence of his strange warmth hurt nearly as much as the pain that spread through her whole lower body, and she shook her head. Her words were fought free from behind clenched teeth.

"For God's sake, Erik, not everything is about you."

She felt his eyes on her; the pain began to ebb and her skin to cool. She took her breaths deeper and began to straighten her body out once more. He put his hand to her cheek and smoothed away tears with his thumb.

"No, my dear," he said softly, "it has always been about you."

She still could not look him in the eye, but under his touch her muscles began to unclench, to relax. He had come closer once more to her, and she leaned into him, pulling the blanket up over herself as she grew cold, finding a haven between it and his chest. She searched his heartbeat out with her fingers, and then her lips, which twitched and settled into a strange smile at the feel of his constant shuddering.

"You will always be here, Erik," she stated calmly.

His voice a broken whisper against her hair.

"Yes."

And there they lay for quite some time, his fingers smoothing pain away, his eyes simply not seeing the changes in this woman who had been his Christine. The noise that began took a few moments to force its way into their consciousness; she sat up quickly, wrapping the blanket tighter around her, and shifted her eyes everywhere but at him. Erik found his breath at last.

"My dear..."

"It is Raoul," she said, rapidly, "and now you must go. You know him; he has not changed. Someone would die if he found you here; you, in revenge, or he, in heartbreak." She still couldn't stand to look at him, but shook her head and closed her eyes, dropping her head forward as her hair hid her face from him, a curtain he longed to lift aside. "I am sure he knows, or will know, or has known. You left marks on me, Erik. He sees them there, though he cannot read the language they are in."

Erik stood, and moved towards the window; he thought perhaps that would be the way it was left, but she caught his hand just at the last, before he went over the sill, and her eyes were on him again, and beseeching.

"You must go now, but you will return," she said. His fingers caught the sunlit tendrils of hair and brushed them back behind her ear; she avoided the sight of his face and smiled merely at the sight of his body, clothes rumpled and shirt half-buttoned, something more and something less than he had ever been before, when he had only taught her music of the voice.

"I will return," he said, swiftly pressed his lips aganst her brow, and was gone.


It had been only a few hours, yet it seemed much longer. She was again seated in the room at the inn, patiently and rhythmically pricking her finger as she tried to create needlework that she need not be ashamed of. She'd never had the talent. There was blood all over the white cloth, yet she kept on.

It didn't surprise her in the least when the door was opened; he made a quiet entrance, as always, sidling over the threshold, giving her a short bow in greeting. She managed a half-smile and gestured to the chair with the cloth.

"You are bleeding."

"Accurate as always," she said, forcing her tone into something lighter than she felt. "I am not good at this."

"Then why do it?"

She looked fully at him for the first time, and took some time to consider her answer. "Perseverance, I suppose. A vital part of my personality. How did you find the streets of our fair city, monsieur?"

"Passable," he said shortly, and leaned back in his chair.

"I hope you took the opportunity to enjoy a carriage ride through some of the more historic areas. It was quite enjoyable, I may tell you, for I siezed said opportunity with both hands, myself."

"I did not," he said. "I walked."

"And did you see much of interest?" she inquired, stabbing the needle through the cloth for emphasis.

"I confess I saw little of the town."

At this she sat forward, depositing the needlework on the ground and clasping her aching hands together in her lap. "Did you find her, Erik?"

He would not mimic her posture or her pretension towards intimate conversation; rather, if anything, he grew more detached in manner. But inside he was considering which answer to give; the truthful one, or the answer which would render things far less... complicated for the time being. He found that he was beginning to value simplicity.

"I did not," he said at last. She sat back again, and folded her arms.

"I am sorry you left so early. I had hoped to accompany you in your search, to help you." This was such a blatant lie that Erik nearly laughed; the corners of his mouth quirked up, certainly, but this only made her angrier. "I hope you have considered what you will do when you find her. I hope that you have your life figured out; and mine as well, Erik, lest you forget."

He shook his head slightly. "I wonder, Margaret, I truly do, if my Christine would have turned out like you, had she been subjected to the same trials and tribulations."

"I do not doubt that Madame de Chagny has had troubles in her past," said Maggie irritably, "as indeed you yourself played a negligible part in her former life."

He sat forward at this. "I played no minor role, madame! I was as important to her as she herself was to me!"

"And yet," countered Maggie, "it is not she who sits here now, monsieur."

Their eyes met and a ferocious battle was joined there, in absolute silence, both of them leaning forward in their chairs, trying to stare the other down. Maggie relinquished first, her eyes flicking briefly to her fingers.

"I'm bleeding," she said shortly, and stood decisively, moving to the washbasin beside the bed. Erik watched her warily, and tried to rearrange his thoughts into the comfortable fog he'd been in upon entering the room. Curse this woman for clearing it away, and revealing that complexity which he was trying so hard to ignore!

"Pray do wake me up on the morrow, before you leave," said Maggie at length, watching as blood turned the basin red. Erik's eyes traveled from her boots up to her hair, and he simultaneously sighed and glared. "I should like to say goodbye."

Time moved alternately in leaps and bounds; and, as is usually the case, no one was entirely happy.