A/N: Hello, my wonderful readers! As usual, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. Enjoy the chapter!

Christine's POV

The afternoon was taken up with searching for spare furniture and cleaning one of the rooms that was not being used for anything. By dinner we had put together a nice-looking guest room, and we were tired and hungry when we finally sat down to eat. For a few minutes we were content to eat in silence, not even attempting to make conversation.

"The food is very good," Nadir commented. "I didn't realize that either of you were such talented cooks."

"Erik's the one with the talent," I said. "He's been teaching me. A few months ago I couldn't even make toast without setting off the smoke alarms, and now I'm cooking full meals."

"Christine's a fast learner," Erik added. "She's improved vastly – her meals are almost edible now." Nadir chuckled, and I poked my tongue out at Erik, who only smiled teasingly back.

"How he ever learned to cook, I'll never know," Nadir continued. "He was always moving from place to place, and when he did stay somewhere he was so deeply involved in some project or another that he would go for days without eating or sleeping."

"That sounds like him when he's composing now," I laughed, smiling at Erik. "How long have the two of you known each other?"

"I met the Daroga in Iran a year or so before I came back to New York City," Erik said. "We worked together in architecture for a while."

"As you can probably tell by this house," Nadir said, gesturing around us, "Erik is capable of designing some truly beautiful buildings."

"And the Daroga designs adequate ones," Erik commented, ignore Nadir as he dramatically rolled his eyes.

"We didn't make the best business partners," he said, and I laughed, easily seeing how they must have bickered constantly.

"But we were fairly successful," Erik added with a chuckle.

"So what happened?" I asked. "What made you come back to New York?"

"A variety of reasons," Nadir said, a bit hesitantly. "But in the end it wasn't really safe anymore – the country was beginning to grow more violent, and it didn't help that Erik had managed to make some fairly powerful enemies."

"So the Daroga smuggled me out of the country," Erik finished.

"And you stayed behind?" I asked Nadir. "You didn't go with him?"

Nadir shook his head. "No, I couldn't just up and leave. I had a family – a wife and a little boy, Reza."

"Where are they now?" I asked. "You came here alone."

Nadir bowed his head. "My wife left shortly after Reza died," he said after a moment

"I'm sorry," I said softly. I couldn't imagine what it would be like for a parent to lose their child.

"It was years ago," Nadir said simply, though he dark eyes revealed that the pain of it was anything but gone. "But enough about me. How have the two of you been getting on here?"

"Very well," I said, smiling at Erik who smiled back at me.

"We are very happy," he added, his eyes still solely on me as he spoke.

"I have to admit that this wasn't quite what I was expecting," Nadir commented. "Erik, you're not even wearing your mask."

Erik's hand flew to his face, his eyes widening slightly with surprise to find that, indeed, he didn't have the mask on. He began to stand to get it, but Nadir motioned for him to sit back down.

"Please, Erik, you haven't had it one this whole time; if it bothered me, don't you think I would have said something by now? I only meant that you must be very comfortable here to leave it off."

"Christine is very understanding that way," Erik said, looking at me gratefully. "She makes me comfortable, obviously enough to even make me forget that I'm not wearing my mask." I smiled back, the obvious affection in his voice making me feel warm inside.

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. I began to see that Erik and Nadir's relationship, though it must have been complicated, was truly one of friendship. Now that we were reasonable sure that Nadir was not here to take me away, Erik seemed much more at ease with him and they talked and bantered like old friends. For a while I just sat back and watched them talk, and Erik would smile at me when I caught his eye. Eventually, my eyes grew heavy and I had to stifle a yawn.

"I think I'll go to bed now, if that's alright," I said.

"Let me walk you to your room," Erik said gently, standing with me and keeping a hand on the small of my back as we walked. I was grateful that he had suggested it – it would give us a few moments alone.

We came to my door, but I made no move to go in, instead allowing Erik to pull me close and hole me tightly in his arms. "We probably won't have much time alone while the Daroga's here," he murmured, his lips pressed to my temple.

I sighed, thinking of how the day had started, how I wanted nothing but time to be alone with Erik. "I know. But once he's gone we'll have all the time in the world."

Erik nodded, though he didn't seem quite as resolved. "I love you," he said after a moment.

"And I love you," I told him, standing up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. The embrace was far shorter than either of us wanted it to be, but we knew that Nadir was waiting downstairs. "Goodnight, Erik," I said as we reluctantly parted.

"Goodnight," Erik said. I watched him disappear back downstairs before finally entering my room and closing the door behind me.

Erik's POV

"You seem very happy, Erik," Nadir commented as we sat together, alone again. "Happier than I ever thought I'd see you."

"I am happy, Daroga," I said. "I never thought that it would be possible, but I'm happy."

"I have to say, I think that having Christine around – even though it was wrong to kidnap her – has done you a lot of good."

"I love her," was all I said in response. We sat quietly for another moment.

"Will you tell me what has happened, what has changed?" Nadir asked. "I assume that she really was brought here against her will, that the news and the papers didn't get that entirely wrong, but here she is now, seemingly perfectly happy and normal."

"I did bring her here against her will," I admitted after a second. "She tried to escape at first. She didn't make it far before a snowstorm made her turn around so she didn't freeze to death. And I think that for a while she was waiting for an opportunity to escape again. But she grew to like it here, and I suppose she grew to like me. I told her about the night her father died, then, and she said she hated me, so I told her to leave. I was going to kill myself, then." As I said this, Nadir's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he said nothing and I continued.

"She didn't leave, though, and she stopped me. She helped me get off morphine, too. I don't think I'll ever understand what made her stay, what makes her care for me. She… she's extraordinary, Daroga."

Nadir nodded, and another few minutes passed silently. "You seem much better, Erik," he said. "I could tell that the moment I got here." He paused, and then added with a smirk, "If I didn't know you, I might think that you're normal."

I chuckled a bit at his wryness. "I'm no closer to normal than you, Daroga, but at least I have a traumatic past to excuse it."

Nadir chuckled at this too. "At least I don't even make excuses," he countered.

"The only reason you don't try to excuse your behavior is because you know that you don't have an excuse that would hold up."

Nadir smiled slightly. "It is good to see you like this, Erik. I am truly happy to see that you are doing well."

"Me too, Daroga," I said softly. "Me too."

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