A/N: Because I love you guys too much to keep you in suspense with that mean of a cliffhanger, ANOTHER ridiculously quick update to set you at ease.
OH! OH! OH! And before I forget: some of you were inquiring as to where I got the last name "Guerrier" for Erik. My cousin and I both could have sworn on our graves that it was in Kay, but we were mistaken. For DAYS it bugged me, because I couldn't get the name Guerrier out of my head. Erik Guerrier. That was it! And then it hit me… I'm sure most of you are familiar with the amazingly talented authoress, Wandering Child (she wrote "Demons," perhaps one of the most popular phics on the site). As it turns out, she uses "Guerrier" as Erik's last name in her newest fic "The Last First Kiss" (which is AMAZING, btw). Some stories are just so realistic and ingrained in our heads that they become fact. So I must apologize, and give all due credit for Erik's last name to the fabulous Wandering Child.
Erik sprinted breathlessly through the crowded streets, diving through hoards of tourists and shoppers as he raced back toward the Hotel Gabriella as fast as his legs would carry him. Dusk had settled over the Eternal City, casting the markets in elongated shadows and reddish orange hues. Fortunately, he had managed to find an herbal vendor within minutes of dashing through the open stands. Without even pausing to ask the price, he had thrown an absurdly high sum of money on the table, scooping up jars of honey, garlic, tulasi, mulathi, ginger, kantkari, vasaka, and hanspadi. The poor vendor had hardly had time to pack the items in a burlap sack before Erik ripped it from his hands and tore off into the crowds again.
Not now… if there is a God, don't You dare take her from me now!
He raised his eyes fleetingly to the sky, painted in hues of royal purple, fuchsia, and splashes of orange. The sun was sinking in the west, just about to slip over the jagged horizon. For some strange reason he associated the setting sun with Christine's last flare of life, and pushed forward with inhuman speed, desperate to get back to her before her brilliant, beautiful light went out too. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew it was illogical and perfectly preposterous, but reason was drowned out by raging terror. He could not lose her again! This time, if he was correct in his diagnosis, she could not come back.
Since his earliest days of world travel, spent in a fetid cage, Erik had overheard whispered rumors of the diseases of foreign lands. The gypsies were nomads, constantly traveling, and bringing with them all sorts of plagues to the people they visited. From the age of seven, Erik had been exposed to all sorts of exotic, deadly diseases, passing through infected areas without so much as batting an eyelash. Still, he had not missed the hushed, terrified whispers speaking of foreign plagues wiping out entire villages. As they had never touched him, he had never had any reason to pay these rumors any heed…
And this was the price he would be forced to pay for childhood ignorance? Evidently Fate had never heard of cruel and unusual punishment.
But it mattered not. He would rescue Christine from this silent killer. A master of anatomy and herbal remedies, he would surely find a cure. Failure was not an option when Christine's life was at stake.
Pressing ruthlessly through the swell of homeward bound citizens and tourists alike, he finally came within sight of the Hotel Gabriella. Just the thought of being so close made him double his speed, despite the tearing pain just below his ribcage. He flew up the two flights of stairs to their room, his feet hardly touching the steps. Throwing the door open, he catapulted through the door, directly past the hotel mistress, stumbling to the floor at Christine's bedside.
She was horribly pale, her brow dotted with beads of sweat, and her eyes looked sunken and shadowed in her skull. Erik's eyes flew wide open as he clutched her hand, watching her chest for any sign of motion.
He counted three agonizingly slow seconds before her chest rose and fell gently in sleep.
Overwhelmed by emotion, he collapsed in sobs of relief, pressing his forehead to her hand. There was still time!
Pausing only to press a hasty kiss to Christine's knuckles, he exploded into action again. Having forgotten the hotel mistress' presence entirely, it came as quite a surprise when he turned around to look into Signora Giolla's stern brown eyes.
"Mary and Joseph, Signore Guerrier, where's the fire?" she clucked.
"Thank you for your time, Signora," Erik sighed exasperatedly, brushing past her to pick up his burlap sack from where he had dropped it at the door. "We will not be requiring your assistance any longer."
Much to his chagrin, the elderly woman didn't move. She sat watching him with her attentive, maternal brown eyes as he darted feverishly about the room, grabbing pots, filling them with water, setting firewood in the little black stove, and searching frantically for a match. When he pulled out a cabinet drawer with such force that he sent the drawer and all of its contents spilling across the tiled floor, she asked with maddening calm, "What are you looking for, signore?"
"Matches!" he bellowed, kicking the drawer across the room in frustration.
Leaping to her feet with a haste that defied her withered old body, the woman gave him a look so fierce that it tamed even his temper. Just as quickly as the expression had darkened her face, however, it melted into doting affection as she turned her gaze down to Christine. Giolla smoothed her soft, careworn palm over Christine's forehead as she began to stir, and almost immediately Christine fell back asleep. Once again the old hotel mistress returned her fiery gaze to Erik.
"Do your wife a favor, signore," she hissed, "and cease your appalling temper tantrum. The poor child needs rest." Pausing only briefly to take a deep breath and smooth her skirts, she stepped right past him, down the stairs, and into her flat just beside the main lobby. Erik heard her rummaging through a cabinet of sorts, humming quietly to herself. Humming! While his w… Christine suffered, on death's door, the old bat was taking her precious time smelling the roses! It was nearly enough to make him grab for the Punjab lasso, woman or not.
Fortunately, Giolla returned, box of matches in hand, before Erik had enough time to muster the energy and resolve to dispose of her. He snatched them from her hand with a sneer, rushing over to the fireplace to begin the brew. With all the ingredients assembled, it only took a few minutes to measure out the appropriate amounts and stir them together in a small black pot.
It had never occurred to him how very long and tedious it was to wait for water to boil.
Stopped from pacing only by the bothersome presence of the hovering old mistress, he resumed his spot at Christine's side, wiping her brow with a damp rag Giolla had been using.
He was caught entirely off-guard again when the elderly woman sat down on the couch and began to make small talk with him.
"So whereabouts in France are you from?"
"None of your business," he barked.
"Paris, is it?" she said with a triumphant gleam in her brown eyes. "Only Parisians are so secretive and hot-tempered."
Erik sighed, resting his throbbing forehead on the mattress beside Christine's arm. The woman's age alone kept him from throttling her; she was ancient and senile, he told himself repeatedly. Eventually he decided to ignore her completely, trying to focus his undivided attention on Christine. Giolla chattered on gaily about the heat wave blowing up from Africa, noting the importance of keeping oneself hydrated with a meaningful glance at Erik. When she continued to be ignored, she pressed on to a new subject, undeterred.
"Do you have children, Signore Guerrier?"
Sighing again, Erik lifted his head and turned to look at her with a positively vicious glare. "No, I do not." He tried to put as much finality in the words as humanly possible, but the old woman didn't seem to take the hint.
"I have thirteen," Giolla said, lifting her chin proudly. "Seven girls and six boys, every one of them grown now. I'm thirty-two times a grandmother as well. My youngest, Sienna, just had her fourth."
Erik tried to ignore her, truly he did. Unfortunately, his temper got the better of him. "And are all of them as bombastic as their grandmother?"
To his increased frustration, the old woman laughed. "Every last one!" she hooted.
"Fantastic," he grumbled, casting a longing glance over at the pot, which had only just begun to steam. He hardly heard her when she spoke again.
"So this will be your first then? How wonderful!"
"First what?" he snapped.
"Chicken!" Giolla exclaimed sarcastically, throwing her hands in the air with a roll of her ancient eyes. "Good Lord, man, what have we been discussing for the past five minutes?"
Erik wanted to retort that they technically hadn't been discussing anything; it had rather been a long-winded monologue. But Giolla continued before he had the chance.
"Your wife, dear. How long has she been expecting? I tried to ask her myself, but my French is rather rusty after all these yea—"
His heart froze in his chest, skipping what felt like four beats before he composed himself enough to fly to his feet, turning to her with wild eyes. "What did you say?" he roared.
Giolla frowned, puckering her lips in disapproval. "Touchy, touchy, signore! I was only curious…"
But he was beyond dismissing her as a poor, senile old lady. To… to say such a thing was… was vulgar! Profanity! Sacrilege to every human being! The very thought that he could create another half-human monster like himself was… was…
Propelled beyond reason, beyond sanity, he rushed in on the old woman like a baited bull. She had enough time to rise to her feet before he pressed her up against the wall, bringing his snarling face within a centimeter of hers.
"Say it again, old woman. I dare you," he sneered, his voice a deadly hiss.
For a moment fear shone in Giolla's eyes as she looked up at him, but suddenly it dissolved into the most unforgivable of emotions: pity.
"Oh my," she exhaled tremblingly, pressing one hand to her heart. "Poor dear… you didn't… didn't know yet, did you?"
"There is nothing to know," Erik insisted, horrified when his voice wavered slightly over the last word. "She is ill, that's all. I'm making her a tonic to ease the symptoms."
Giolla smiled faintly, giving a terse nod. "Ah, the wonders of modern medicine. Are you a doctor, then, Signore Guerrier?"
"Don't—change—the—subject!" he cried, shoving her shoulders roughly against the wall. The fear returned to her eyes almost immediately, and he basked childishly in the momentary rush of power. "Why are you telling such horrific lies, madame? Do Catholics not believe that liars go to HELL?"
"We do, signore," she said with as brave an expression as she could muster. "But I told no lie."
"You are telling me," Erik panted, bringing his face even closer to hers, "that the woman lying on that bed behind me… is…" He could not even bring himself to echo such blasphemy.
"With child," Giolla finished unflinchingly. "Sì, signore. As I am a Catholic, I swear it before the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost."
"And are you a doctor, Signora Giolla?" he spat. "How can you possibly profess to such a ridiculous claim?"
She smiled then, a knowing smile which caused shivers to crawl up his spine like a surge of tiny, invisible spiders. "I have never been wrong, signore, in my seventy-one years on God's earth." Tilting her head, she asked with unbearable gentleness, "And why is it that I must be wrong? Has your wife been infertile in the past?"
Unknowingly, she stung him hard. No… infertile Christine was most certainly not. He still remembered the brokenness in her eyes as she first confessed to him the pain of losing her first child. It had been an accident, he was positive; despite the vitriolic rumors of the masses, Christine would have taken her own life to spare that of her unborn child.
Did she want children, then?
Erik shut off the thought before it could go any farther. If she had once entertained the thought of motherhood, surely she had abandoned it the moment she declared her love for him. The Vicomte might have given her whole, beautiful children, but…
Suddenly it was as if someone had pulled the release valve on his strength. Deflated, heartbroken, and overwhelmed, he pulled away from the old woman and moved slowly toward Christine.
Sitting at her bedside once again, he bowed his head over her pale hand and whispered brokenly to Giolla, "Leave us."
For once, the old hotel mistress did as she was told. Slowly, but with all the dignity and reserve with which she entered, Giolla stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Only when they were alone did he allow his tears to fall.
A/N: I mean, come on, people! You really think I'd kill Christine off with all these unanswered questions and loose ends? I'm not THAT evil! –shifty eyes-
So how many plot twists do you think I can throw at you guys in a week? This is the… what, third? Heehee. I enjoy keeping you on your toes. Believe it or not, this is only half of the promised "big bang." The other half is still to come!
In case you guys hadn't figured this out by now, I LAHVE angst. Poor Erik. I should really leave him alone. –bites lip and grins- Giving him a baby and all. God, I'm so MEAN! -tries to be sympathetic, but is a wee bit giddy for that- SQUEE!