Christine

That night I slept with my hand on Erik's burnt arm. If that seems like the absolute worst thing to do ever… that's what I thought too… but Erik insisted it felt good. He claimed my touch eased the pain… that it actually felt pleasant. At first I thought the pain meds he'd taken had made him a bit loopy, but when I went to check his bandages in the night, I saw that the burn had already begun to heal itself. Don't get me wrong… it still looked horrible… but it was better than it ought to have been after a few short hours.

It made me wonder if the bond might have benefits to it. So far, we'd been working on how far we could go against it before it started harming us… maybe that was the problem. Maybe we were looking at it all wrong. I wondered if we stopped fighting it, what would happen.

It was that 'inevitability' notion again. Surprisingly, it didn't make me as repulsed as it once did. Although, I suppose that's rather the point.

We slept through the night and most of the next day. We dragged ourselves out of bed sometime in the late afternoon and I started to prepare us a meal while Erik plotted our next move and… brooded.

"Curse that man," he muttered. "He told them everything. I should have erased his memory when I had the chance."

I paused. "Wait… what did you say?"

"I said that faithless booby gave away all my secr—"

"No… no… I mean… what did you say about erasing his memory?"

Erik stopped and looked at me like I'd just asked if he remembered to turn the iron off before we left the burning theater. Like he couldn't believe I was bringing this up now. "Well, excuse me, Christine… but it was not a priority at the time. Besides, I rather expected to be dead by the time he woke up, so it hardly seemed necessary."

"No, I mean… you can do that?"

He blinked. "Of course I can. Modifying someone's memory is no stronger magic than rewiring an alarm system. They work under the same basic principles."

Thoughts started churning around in my brain. Is it too good to be true? My head spun; for a moment I thought I might hyperventilate.

"Angel, are you quite alright? You look pale. Why are you breathing so heavily? Do you need to sit down?"

I grasped desperately at Erik's sleeve. "Erik… could you do me one giant favor? It would mean so much to me. Please, if you would just consider… please… could you…"

"I would give you the world, angel, you must know that. But how can I grant your request if you do not tell me what it is?"

"I need you to take me to see Raoul."

He shrugged me off and turned away, refusing to look at me. I felt like an awful intruder. Here he was, trying to hide the depth of his hurt from me, but projecting it so strongly that I couldn't even grant him the privacy to do it.

"Why?" he asked brokenly. "Why is it always him? I thought you chose Erik. Is that not what you said? You chose me? Yet your heart still lies with him."

"It's not what you think, I swear! It's just that all of this… stuff… that's happened between us… none of it is his fault. Not really. I know him; this wasn't just some grand adventure—it'll haunt him for the rest of his life. But you… you could make it all go away. Don't you see? This… fate of ours… he didn't have to get swept up in it. It's not his fault. If anything, it was mine. But you could undo all that, couldn't you? Make him forget? Don't you think we owe him that much at least?"

He was quiet for a long time, thinking it over. Finally, he answered, "Erik will grant Christine's request. But then she must do something for Erik."

"Anything!" I swore, and then immediately thought better of it. No good ever came from that word. A little more cautiously, I followed, "What is it?"

"Marry me."

That sort of made me splutter for a moment. I hadn't expected that. "Marry you? Why? I mean… our souls are bonded. Doesn't that make us… more than married?"

"It is…" he floundered for words; I sensed his nervousness. "It is important to me. I have never cared for the traditions of the human race before. They come and go. I found them petty and beneath me. But, for some reason, this is different. In my heart, you have always belonged to me… I want the world to recognize you as my own. Let no man deny that you chose me."

Heaven help me, but those possessive words did something to me. Like he was caught between a longing for control and a childlike need for reassurance. And… I could totally get that. I was in a similar state, emotionally. There was this little-girl part of me that just wanted to be protected and hidden and another part of me that imagined taking Erik into my arms so that I could just… fix him.

We needed each other. Why hadn't I seen that before?

Because you were in love with Raoul, stupid. Because you're a heartless, selfish, little child who only sees what she wants to see.

Ouch. That wasn't very nice. My inner monologues were supposed to be on my side.

"Additionally," Erik continued, because time didn't stop for my brain-rambles, "Surely you have noticed how… close… we have become… ah, physically. Or at least in proximity, which you cannot deny. That is to say… ah… Hell, Christine! We have shared a bed! In my day, two people would never consider—"

"In your day?" I cut off, amused. "What are you, a time traveler, now? You said yourself traditions come and go. And you've seen them! You'd know better than anybody that people do way more than us without being married." I don't know why I was arguing. I seriously don't. Maybe I was just being contrary for its own sake. I'm an old fashioned girl, myself. My papa raised me that way. Erik's arguments were sound enough, and the idea of being married made me get this warm, bubbly feeling. But, like an idiot, I kept arguing… just because. Because I didn't want to feel the way I was beginning to feel about Erik, so I might as well make it difficult for both of us.

With a defeated sigh, Erik took my hand and placed it on his masked face. His eyes seemed brighter, warmer than usual. "Just do this for me," he murmured, shifting my own words back onto me.

I kissed his neck, that strip of exposed skin between his mask and his shirt collar. "I'll marry you. Of course, I'll marry you."

He wrapped his arms around me, then. Not like the tentative light embraces I was used to, a full-out bear hug. From the shudders racking his body, I gathered he must be crying. For a moment, I just patted him awkwardly on the back… before giving in and relaxing into his shoulder, burying my nose in his neck and breathing him in. Even with the scent of smoke lingering on his clothes... Erik smelled like home.

"Erik loves you so very much, Christine." He whispered.

I just squeezed back harder.

-0-0-0-

Raoul's hospital room was nicer than I expected. I'd been in a lot of hospitals, ever since Dad first got sick, and they weren't all that great. Some were better than others, of course, but it was all about terrible food and shared rooms and no privacy. But Raoul was in a private room with curtains that weren't outdated by thirty years and a bed that actually looked super-comfortable.

Erik looked around the place and sneered, no doubt keeping back some snarky comment for my sake. Whatever. I was glad for Raoul. After what he'd been through, he deserved the best. And, if his family had the money to give it to him, more power to them.

I slowly crept toward his bed. He had a lot of bandages, and I recognized one of the medications on his IV drip as something that controls infections. I said a prayer that it was a precautionary measure. That was the last thing he needed. He was cleaned up, but somehow that made him look even worse by emphasizing his injuries. The sight of his broken fingernails made my eyes tear up a bit.

While I was watching over him, Erik was abstractly looking over the medical chart on the end of his bed. "It looks worse than it is," he awkwardly reassured me.

"That's… good. That's really good. I'm glad."

I heard a moan and some restless movements. I turned to look for Erik, but he had disappeared.

"C-Christine?" Raoul murmured. "Is that you?" Suddenly, he tried to sit up. "Is that really you? Christine! Are you alright?"

I pressed a hand to his shoulder, as gently as I could. "Shh. Yeah, it's me, Raoul. Don't try to sit up. It's okay."

"How are you here? Is the monster dead? How did you escape?"

My pulse jumped a moment when he called Erik a monster. It shouldn't have. I mean, after what happened to him, Raoul should get to call him whatever he wanted. But the rest of me didn't feel that way. I felt protective, almost angry. That was my Erik he was insulting.

I told my stupid brain to shut up and took Raoul's hand, ignoring the needling pain that shot up my arm as a result. I told the stupid bond to shut up, too.

"Yeah… well… all that's sorted out now. Don't you worry."

"Christine, I'm so sorry! I should have—" He paused and looked behind me. One guess who'd decided to make an appearance.

"You!" he gasped. "Christine, run! Get out of here!" The 'I'll protect you' was sort of implied in there, but I had no idea how he intended to do that. I would have laughed if that wouldn't have been the Most Inappropriate Thing Ever.

Raoul is a sweet boy. I knew he meant well. And, at one point, I loved him for it. But now… now it didn't seem like enough.

"No, it's okay Raoul. It's just… look I just came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye? You can't possibly mean—GET AWAY FROM HER YOU FREAK!" He shrieked and started scrambling around to find the nurse's call-button. Erik took my shoulder and gently pushed me away from him. As he stepped closer, Raoul's cries changed from my behalf to his own. "B-back off! Don't touch me!"

Erik rolled his eyes and began to sing softly. "Sleep now… no more nightmares… sleep…"

Raoul instantly flopped back down on his pillow and relaxed.

Erik continued humming peacefully as he extended his gloved hand toward Raoul. He didn't actually touch him, just sort of let his hand hover over his head. After a few seconds, there seemed to be this glowing, blue mist over Raoul's forehead and temples, though it was so slight I thought it could just as easily have been moonlight or something. But before I had more than a second or two to ponder it, Erik was already drawing back.

"His memories of you have faded, Christine. He remembers his childhood friend. A short time ago, you two accidentally reconnected and shared a beverage, eliciting a brief feeling of nostalgia, but nothing more. You parted ways and have not seen each other since. Several days ago, he was kidnapped by an escaped mental patient and held captive. The details of the experience are dim, as if he had been drugged or unconscious the entire time. He will remember no pain or know the exact causes for his injuries.

"I could not erase the event entirely, you understand, for practical reasons… however he believes it to be a matter of unfortunate coincidence—being in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone mentally unbalanced was looking for a hostage."

"Thank you, Erik," I whispered. "You did a good thing. I can't thank you enough."

He shrugged, as if it were nothing, but I could feel the pleasure coursing through him at my praise. He really would do anything for me… I thought to myself.

"It is time, angel. We must leave."

I nodded and took a look out the door. It was mostly empty… except for a nurse, slumped against the wall, snoring loudly, not five feet from the room.

Erik snickered. I smacked him on the arm. "You're terrible," I said.

Something suddenly dawned on me. "Won't someone suspect something? I mean, what about whatever Nadir told the police?"

Erik shrugged. "What is easier to explain on a police report? That a criminally insane man behaved irrationally and died in the process… or that there is some sort of supernatural boogie-man creeping around, impossible to destroy? The evidence was burned. Now they simply have the word of an eccentric janitor who has spent twenty years of his life around lunatics."

I wanted to argue but… it made sense. I couldn't very well expect Erik to go around the town changing records and erasing memories. And, I didn't really want him to. I wanted this chapter in our lives to be done. Yes, there would be inconsistencies… but that could be someone else's problem. Let them straighten it out.

Was I becoming more like Erik, not caring about the rest of the world's problems?

I looked back to Raoul, sleeping peacefully in his bed. We had done the right thing with him. He would never have given me up. That sounds so ridiculously vain to say—as if I'm so terribly unforgettable—but there's truth in it. You could tell by the way he tried to pry himself out of his hospital bed to rescue me like some knight in a backless gown. He wouldn't have just shrugged this off like an ordinary break-up.

"We really must go now, Christine."

"Just one more minute," I begged. At Erik's solemn nod, I approached Raoul's bed one last time.

"Goodbye, Raoul," I whispered. "Have a nice life." I bent down to kiss him. A last kiss goodbye.

Just before I made contact—two inches from his forehead, lips already pursed—I paused. I didn't kiss him. And not because of the bond clawing at my throat or Erik's yellow eyes burning into my back. I didn't kiss him because… I didn't want to.

I didn't need to kiss Raoul. And I didn't want to. Not anymore.

It suddenly occurred to me how much my heart had changed. I had forgotten about Raoul for those few days. It had been easy. Not because I suddenly didn't love him anymore, but because my priorities had changed. Everything changed down in that cellar. If one of the two of them had to occupy my thoughts, it'd be Erik, no question. We literally belonged to each other now.

I had been wrong to forget about Raoul in Erik's dungeons… but I had done absolutely everything in my power to right that wrong. I wasn't going to go through the rest of my life moping about it or even wondering 'what if?'. I didn't even care about the 'what if?' It didn't matter anymore. Raoul was a truly wonderful man, and I wished him the best. But our time together was already finished.

Feelings, romance, circumstances aside… Erik was my priority now. For the rest of my life, it was Erik and I. He had to come first. And, in return, I had someone who valued me above all else.

And, I was okay with that. Like… really, really okay.

I turned around to face Erik and threw my arms around his midsection.

"Christine?" he asked, awkwardly.

I smiled into his shirt. "Come on, big guy. Let's go get hitched."