A/N: Sorry its taken so bleedin' long! Life went crazy and put the smackdown on me. And to tell you the truth, this chapter exists because of PJ. So, y'know, blame her. (And can someone find my notes for me?)

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Unique Dead

When she thought back over it, the evening had gone rather well; she perched on the dusty armchair in Bram's room and listened to Erik play, hands clutched on the side of the cushion on either side of her knees, leaning forward and examining the pattern in the worn and threadbare carpet beside Bram's bed. Bram himself had laid back against his pillow, arms folded over his chest, and if weren't for the careful pattern of his breathing, she might have thought he was sleeping through it; except of course she knew there was no way anyone could sleep through Erik's playing.

The music sang along her nerves, jangled the ends of them into bright awareness, gave her a hollow, excited, sick feel in the pit of her stomach, a weakness in her knees and elbows, and she clutched tighter at the cushion to keep from pitching over forwards. Her wrists buckled once or twice, and she caught herself with a sharp intake of breath. Once she'd regained her equilibrium, the music stabbed at her again and this time she looked up at Bram to see his eyes open, fixed tight on her, his breathing more controlled than ever.

The song drifted into silence, and he gave her a long, slow nod of understanding (for which she breathed a sigh of relief: someone understood) and then without pause asked, a bit snidely, if her accomplished husband could render any of the more popular music-hall tunes. She took this to mean that he was extremely tired and wished to go to bed; rising, she smacked him lightly on the shoulder before leaning over impulsively to kiss him on the forehead.

Bram smiled up at her with soft eyes.

"Its a unique sort of dead," he observed, "that rises from a faulty grave, gets married, travels abroad, and returns home when he feels as though he's accomplished something."

"At least we may blame it on the grave, for being faulty."

She smiled back at him for a brief second.

"You may be alright, after all," her brother said then, "if he can bring himself to play like that."

"He does many other things that aren't nearly so beautiful," she said, somewhat bitterly.

"If there's that beauty in him," Bram answered seriously, "then he at least has a choice."

She nodded once and went out of the room.

Erik sat slumped over the keyboard, folded in on himself, the mask catching the only light in the room. She was able to pause in the doorway long enough to get her breath back, long enough to compose her face into acceptable lines and take the roughness from her eyes.

"Thank you," she breathed into the utter stillness of the air; Erik inhaled, slowly, carefully, as though he didn't trust the oxygen not to betray him. Then he arose, brushing his fingertips over the ivory and the black in turn, considerately.

He turned to face her.

Secretly she expected another of those long, searching glances that left her squirming inwardly, wondering what he wanted to find in her face and whether he was disappointed by the reality. But he cast her barely a glance before he moved forward, and before she could realize what he was doing he was there in front of her, those long fingers were tipped on the edge of her chin, moving it to one side, and he had placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

She turned her head towards his again as he lingered there, and took in a quiet breath. He smelled of travel, and movement, and the ocean, and reminded her quite unexpectedly of home; so much so that she stifled a sob in her throat.

He backed away hurriedly at the sound, took a kerchief from his pocket, and very thoroughly cleaned where his lips had been on her cheek as though she expected him to do so. She took his hand in hers and removed the kerchief hastily, stuffing it back in his pocket and giving him a warning glare, to which he responded by blinking, as if in polite puzzlement.

"Your music will kill me someday," she told him. "In the meantime, I believe I need it to live. I am very grateful."

And though he didn't look as though he believed her, he didn't object when she placed her own lips on his forehead; nor when she took his hand and led him from the room.

Christine shivered and clutched her arms about herself in the predawn light. The air in the room was cold, the bedcovers disarranged, and her nightgown discarded on a nearby chair.

"I can't," she hissed onto her knees. "I feel ancient. I feel as though you'd break me if you tried."

Raoul yawned gently into her hair.

"What is that supposed to mean, 'if I tried'?"

"Ancient," said Christine darkly, and folded her legs up tighter till her heels pressed into her thighs. "I'm drying up, Raoul, like a fountain. Raoul, we can't have any more children."

"Well, not if you continue behaving like this," said Raoul reasonably, nuzzling into her shoulder. She dropped it away from him suddenly and curled deeper into herself. "I don't see what the problem is, dearest. You've lost one before."

Christine bit her knee savagely, with small sharp teeth, in order to keep from crying. Her eyes had dried up as well; she couldn't manage to weep anymore. Through her head marched gravestones, an entire nation of the unborn dead, all of them her sainted, sorrowful progeny. She couldn't possibly mourn all of them; there weren't enough tears from the world's beginning till its end.

Raoul could not see any of this; he judged her a bit touched from the blood and the shock and— he supposed— the pain, but the comforts his embrace could bring had always taken her back to an even state of being, and he couldn't understand what the difference was now. There was a strange smell, a peculiar taste, to his distraught young bride, but he hadn't the patience to analyze it, nor even the means. Erik's encounter with a larger life, as Maggie had noted far away that very evening, had given him a different presence than Raoul was accustomed to; though the smell that clung to Christine's skin had familiar elements, altogether he could not place it.

It was too late to worry about such things, at any rate.

Raoul levered himself off the bed, disentangling himself from Christine's hair, expecting all the while for her to cry in protest; but she only curled herself tighter, if that was possible, and turned onto her side.

"What is it you want?" he asked quietly, brushing her hair tenderly from her face, and curling a finger around the shell of her ear.

Christine bit her finger till she drew blood.

"Raoul, I must go back home. I must go back home."

He let out a soft, wondering chuckle.

"My dearest, you are home!"

She shuddered for a moment at his voice, then turned to face him with violent eyes.

"France!" she cried, as though she was betraying herself, and wouldn't speak, or move, any more.

Raoul stood very still by the bedside, repeating the word to himself as though his mind could contain the country, neutralize the sting. He shook his head, slowly back and forth.

"We've only just returned— there will be the next season, my dear—"

"Now, Raoul," she gritted out from between her teeth. "Please. Please."

He looked down at her for a long moment, choosing his words with care. "Christine— I will need you to tell me why."

"I can't."

"I can surmise, I suppose," he went on slowly, as though he hadn't heard her, "but I would like to think that we had left that all behind us."

"Raoul, you cannot imagine—"

"I have left you alone too often, I've been too much away from home— I understand all that. But after these last few months, to further doubt that I have been faithful to you—"

"Raoul!" She sat up in bed, disregarding the coverlet which fell from her shoulders to tangle at her waist, and was searching for the words to tell him that not everything was about him, if he would just listen, when she caught sight of herself in the vanity mirror across the room. She looked like a wild thing, all white and black, with no sign of relenting on her fair, frozen face. Moonlight shone in myriad sparks of the teartracks; she looked made of diamond.

"Raoul," she said slowly, "I must go back to France. I must leave tomorrow; and you can stay here, if you like. I will trust you for it, and not ask for any account of your time. I won't tell you why, and I wouldn't ask you to guess the reason. Its nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you at all. But I must."

He turned to look at her again; he too had been staring at her reflection. The cool, assertive woman in the glass ruled over them both. Raoul's mouth moved as he silently tried out words and rejected them. There was only one thing he could think of in France that Christine would need to return so suddenly for; and he had thought, and hoped, and prayed, that the one thing was long dead.

But she wasn't asking him to question her; and he thought perhaps it was better on the whole if he didn't.

"I will make arrangements for you," he said at length. "In the morning. Will that satisfy you?"

"Yes," said the Christine in the glass, serenely.

"Now please," said Raoul. "Lie still."