Éponine tucked Erik into his bed, pressing a kiss to his sleepy face, "Sleep well tonight. I'll see you in the morning."
"Can you sing me a lullaby?"
Éponine sank down on the bed beside him, "What would you like to hear me sing?"
"The pretty one you sing, about thinking."
"Think of Me?" She asked with a teasing smile, tapping Erik on the nose and winking at him. "Think of me, think of me fondly. When we've said good-bye. Remember me, once in awhile please promise me you'll try." Her voice was soft and calming, "Then you'll find that once again you long. To take your heart back and be free. I you'll ever find a moment spare a thought for me."
Éponine couldn't help but feel the heartbreak in the song. She had come up with song when Erik was just beginning to show in her stomach. "We never said our love was evergreen or as unchanging as the sea. But if you can still remember, stop and think of me." The dreamy smile on her son's face was enough to set her heart straight.
"Think of all the things we've shared and seen. Don't think about the way things might have been. Think of me, think of me waking. Silent and resigned. Imagine me trying too hard to put you from my mind." Every night she thought about the man who could fill the empty side of her bed. She would wake with a startled scream as she realised that the side of the bed that would be his was cold and bare. The bed was not their bed.
"Recall those days, look back on all those times. Think of those things we'll never do. There will never be a day when I won't think of you."
The young boy lay still, swept into peaceful child-like slumber by his mother's soothing song. He thought it was a beautiful melody while she thought it was a heartbreaking prayer. Éponine spent ten years making sure she never cried in front of her son. She had to be strong in the imprisonment. Erik had to lead the most normal life she could offer him from within her jail cell.
"Come back to me." Éponine stared up at the ceiling, begging silently that God would let the man she loved find his way to her again. Ten years had not made any hope fade.
~o~
The day starts, the day end. Time crawls by. Night steals in, pacing the floor. The moments creep,
yet I can't bear to sleep. Till I hear you sing. And weeks pass, and months pass. Seasons fly. Still you don't walk through the door. And in a haze, I count the silent days till I hear you sing once more." Erik sang softly to himself as he sat inside of the carriage that was destined for the boarder to bring him closer to wherever Éponine had been hidden away.
And sometimes at night time. I dream that you are there. But wake holding nothing but the empty air. And years come, and years go. Time runs dry. Still I ache down to the core. My broken soul can't be alive and whole. Till I hear you sing once more." So many nights he had spent longing to be in her arms again. He killed to feel that ecstasy that he felt when they died. But the ecstasy could never replace the fierce passion he felt all of those years ago with Éponine. She was the only thing that had ever been good in his life. The only thing that had ever set him straight.
"And music, your music. It teases at my ear. I turn and it fades away and you're not here. Let hopes pass, let dreams pass. Let them die! Without you, what are they for? I'll always feel, no more than halfway real. Till I hear you sing once more."
Erik fisted his hands in his hair, he had lost his mind. He had never felt so crazed before Éponine was taken from him. Not even the abuse from the fair and driven him this insane. What would happen to him if she had moved on?
~o~
Erik accomplished the journey in a week's time, arriving in the sleepy country setting of her prison. The house was a stately manor that was well kept and handsome. Erik slipped past the gate keeper's house, approaching the manor house cautiously. He couldn't exactly walk up to the front door and knock on it like any other human being. A mask or a disfigured head was what no one wanted at their doorstep.
There was a second story balcony window left open that called to him as an open invitation. With agile skill he managed to clamour up the side of the stone walls, reaching for the ledge of the balcony and hauling himself over.
The room was an empty bedroom, left as thought the occupant had just left for breakfast that morning. He looked around the room slowly, looking for any clue of Éponine's presence. It could be the room of any woman.
He turned towards the door, hearing the faint sound of music through the mahogany door. Erik snuck from the bedroom, cautiously looking both ways down the corridor as he shut the bedroom door behind him quietly. The music and laughter was coming from a room down the hallway.
With cautious steps he made his way towards the room, hesitant to discover what lay inside. He leaned against the wall, looking around the doorframe to spy on the occupants. He could only see a limited view into the room. There was a young boy sitting at a pianoforte, playing as well as a young untrained boy could perform.
Erik darted back around the door frame when the boy met his eyes. "Mother I just saw a man.."
"It was probably only a servant." Came the cool response to the child's nervous question. Erik wasn't sure if the voice was hers. It sounded so familiar and it warmed him with hope. But he almost couldn't bear to look and see, to reveal himself. The child only seemed to be a seven or eight and Christine had been gone for ten years. Unless she had found someone after she was taken, it was impossible.
"I know I saw a man, mother." The little boy insisted, trying to persuade his mother into believing him. "I saw a flash of white on his face."
"A flash of white?" The woman responded with a laugh. "What are you imagining dear?"
"A mask."
Erik could hear and audible gasp come from the room.
"Do not pretend to see men wearing mask's Erik! Or I will no longer tell you those stories."
His breath hitched in his throat when she heard the woman say his name, the boy's name. It was Éponine. But he was paralyzed by the fear of finding her. The fear of telling her what he had done in her absence, the man he became as soon as she was gone.
"I saw him! I did!"
"Erik," her tone was angry at him.
"You have an imagination." Erik looked around the door frame, seeing that Éponine was pointing her finger at the boy.
"There!" He shouted seeing the masked man around his mother. "I saw him I did!"
Éponine was frustrated with his determined imagination. She marched across the room towards the door, "I will show you that there is no one-" the last word was silently formed on her lips as she found herself standing face to face to a masked man.
"Éponine." Erik's voice warmed, his bottom lip quivering as they stared at each other.
"No." Éponine felt her heart skip a beat or two or more, her breath caught somewhere inside of her. "You can't be-" She reached out hesitantly to touch his porcelain mask. It was no longer the imaginary man that she dreamed about at night but woke to find gone in the light of day. He was real, he was beneath her fingers. "Erik."
He stepped towards her, engulfing her in his arms and burying his face into her wild brown mane of hair. Breathing in that scent that he had longed to breath for ten long years. "Éponine."
"I've prayed everyday for you to find me again." Éponine whispered, unable to form loud words. She stared into his emerald eyes, eyes that she had seen ever day in the face of her son – their son.
"Mother?" Erik asked running up to see where his mother had disappeared to behind the doorframe. "Get off of my mother!" The young boy snapped, kicking the masked phantom's leg. Misinterpreting her crying and clutching to him as her efforts to get away.
"No, no, no!" Éponine shouted, pulling away and kneeling down to her son's height. "Don't hurt him dear. You know that one question you always asked me that I could never answer?" The little boy nodded his head, glancing up towards the masked man.
"Éponine?" Erik asked as he stared down in the dark haired boy's eyes and seeing a reflection of himself in the beautiful child's face. "My God."
"Your son." Éponine smiled, feeling a tremble shake her body as she looked at the invisible bond between the boy and his father. "Your father."
"No! He's not my father. I don't want a father." The boy shouted, rushing past them and darting down the corridor.
The words broke Éponine's heart as her dream was crushed. She knew that the longer they did not meet, the harder it would be for him to be accepted. She glanced towards Erik, unable to control herself from throwing her arms around him and never letting go.
"Éponine." Her looked up towards her slowly, "A son?"
"When I was kidnapped I was pregnant. Pregnant with our son." She glanced down the hall towards where he had run off. "He'll warm to you. He's not used to the idea yet. He's like you he doesn't always think everything through. He's afraid of change."
"My son?" Erik tried to keep himself from weeping at those words. He finally had a child that was his. He had been denied ten years of the child's life. Denied those crucial years to bond with the child, to hold him in his arms. "You named him Erik?"
"The only thing I had left of you."
"You had my heart." Erik pulled her towards him, needing to feel her in his arms. Ten years evaporated as they held each other. "I was going to run. I thought you had moved on. He's so small."
"He's lived his life in this home. He's not experienced anything that children should be allowed to. He's a frail creature when he wants to be." Éponine nestled her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat beneath her ear. "You're here."
"I am." Erik replied, yearning to kiss her lips again. A sensation he had longed for every waking and sleeping moment of his life. But how could he kiss without letting her know what kind of man he was now?
"What's wrong?" Éponine asked, feeling him tense beneath her cheek. "I promise you he is your son."
"I don't doubt that. His eyes, his hair-"
"His musical inclination." Éponine stared up into Erik's face, rising up on her toes to press her lips against his. Erik jerked away, "Erik?"
"I can't Éponine."
Her face fell, "If you have found someone else then why are you here?"
"It's not that!" Erik gasped ashamed that she could even picture him moving on from her. "No. I couldn't. But.."
"What is it?"
Erik looked around the hallway, shaking his head in shame. "I am the man you didn't want me to become." He stared down at his gloved hands, remembering how many times he had tried to clean his hands from the red stains that only he saw. His hands were covered in new scars from the times he rubbed them raw in his attempts.
"Tell me."
"I do not deserve a handsome son." Erik felt a tear slide down his cheek. "Éponine, I have killed."
"Oh Erik." He expected her to be repulsed, the years to have changed her kind spirit towards his crimes. "My poor Erik." Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him into her arms and making him to bury his face into her hair.
"I have killed for fun. I killed to pass the time. To try to remove the pain." Erik wept into her hair clutching at her like a scared child.
Éponine pressed a kiss into the top of his head, knowing how to sooth a child who had woken from a nightmare. Erik seemed to be no different in that aspect. The thought of him murdering for fun terrified her. He had changed in ten years. Everyone changed in time. Erik was already an unstable individual, a creature of his upbringing.
"I love you." She whispered as he held to her and her hands tried to sooth his pain. "You're not a monster Erik."
"I am. I am a rabid dog that deserves to have a bullet put between his eyes." Éponine gasped at his response.
"I'm here now Erik."
Erik pulled away from her, staring down at her tear stained face. "How can you accept me? I have murdered and maimed for fun and I am not worthy of you. I'm not worth of your love." The agony he had kept unexpressed poured from him as he released it all. "I tried to kill myself so many times. One new scar after another added to the never ending numbers that litter my body."
"Erik!" Éponine covered her mouth as she looked at the delirious man. "If you were gone my life wasn't worth living." He crumpled to his knees, sobbing into his hands. He was a broken man, shattered into pieces by the cold life he had lived.
She was speechless as to what to say to right this wrong. There was no way to take away the pain he had been forced to deal with. Erik was such a fiercely passionate man that it came as no surprise how destroyed he had become.
"If you say that I revolt your more than before. I'll leave. I'll go." He clutched her hands in his, shaking them as he spoke hysterically. "Just say the words."
Éponine shook her head, prying a hand from his. She saw him flinch as she reached out to stroke his cheek. "Stay." She whispered as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his trembling misshapen lips. It had been ten painful years since they last shared a kiss.
Erik was hesitant to respond to the kiss, afraid that it could all be a delirious dream. But her slow movements and gentle coaxing soon enticed him respond. It was slow at first, remembering that intoxicating feel of her lips against his. His mask limited his range of movement, keeping his kisses softer and denying him a truly deep and passionate kiss. In some sick way he figured it was the world telling him he didn't deserve that after every wrong he'd done.
"I love you." He breathed as they broke apart.
"I love you too," Éponine pressed a kiss to his lips again as she pulled him up to his feet. "Come we shouldn't be out here in the open. I don't want a servant to find you. You can hide in my room, they hardly bother me in there anymore."
"Your room" Erik followed after her, trying to take everything in. The room he had climbed in through turned out to be her room after all and not just some random woman's room. Éponine motioned for him to sit down on the bed, moving to sit beside him.
"Is there anything I could get for you?" Erik shook his head, "Relax." Éponine could see the primal and animalistic side of Erik that she had glimpsed the first time she met him. "Kick off your shoes and just relax."
Erik leaned down to untie his shoes, letting them slide off of his feet with a plop as they hit the floor. He looked back up at Éponine, giving her a small smile that was obscured by his mask. He was sure that was the next thing she would want removed. But he wasn't letting it go until she was ready to see his hideous face again.
Éponine stared at him trying to figure out what to say and what to do next. She felt the hesitancy radiating from him, the fear and the distress of it all bleeding from his skin. She stood up in front of him, pushing his jacket from his shoulders and staring him in the eyes. She wanted the passionate and determined man to be there and not this injured man. He had reverted back in ways to that man she had first met.
Her hand went to his mask, pressing her hand against it as she reached for the double knotted lace behind his head. She tugged at the laces before they finally gave and the mask fell into her open palm. His eyes closed, expecting her to be horrified by the vivid image of it that her memory may have obscured. But instead he felt the shower of kisses she placed on the long untouched flesh.
"Éponine." He groaned as she pressed a kiss into his eyelid. "Please don't ever leave me again."
"I didn't want to leave you this time." She kissed the corner of his lip gently, before he pulled her towards him so she landed on his lap. "It's been so long Erik." She murmured, wrapping her arms around him and burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. He stroked her back slowly, pulling the gloves from his hands. He didn't want her to see the damage he had done to his already scarred hands, but he knew she would see eventually.
"Oh how I've missed you," Erik said softly, pressing kisses into her neck. "I would dream that you and I were making love to each other and I would awake finding nothing but my sheets and pillows. Making love to the ghost of you."
"I did too," Éponine replied with a shy laugh, feeling her cheeks heat up. "I dreamed of you so often that I didn't believe you were standing in front of me."
"Do you believe that I am here now?" Erik asked, his words husky as he nipped at her ear lobe.
"Yes." Éponine scooted farther up his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I feel that you are very real."
Erik was about to press a molten hot kiss into her lips when there was an echoing knock on her door. "Éponine, I have brought your new dress."
"Oh." Éponine gasped, quickly scrambling off of Erik's lap and trying to compose herself, "One moment please." She turned to him, silently motioning for him to move behind her changing screen as she kicked his shoes beneath her bed and hid his jacket and mask beneath her pillows. "Come in Charity."
The maid entered caring an elegantly wrapped box, "Here is your new dress." Charity moved towards the changing screen but Éponine intercepted her, taking the box from her hands.
"Tell him I am appreciative."
"May I see it on you?" Charity asked hopefully, "I have been wondering what it looks like."
"Yes." Éponine smiled moving to unwrap the box at the table, revealing a beautiful forest green dress, "It's beautiful."
"Try it on." The maid pressed, giving her a wide smile. Very little ever happened around the house.
"Of course." Éponine took the dress and walked behind her changing screen. She met Erik's gaze, giving him a nervous smile as she began to undress slowly. "It's perfect for the season," She said as her cream coloured dress fell from her shoulders in a puddle on the floor. Erik couldn't help but survey the skin he had longed to see for so many years.
"Does your chemise work? Dress styles are changing so frequently that it's hard to tell whether it will work without a new one made."
"No. But the dress will work fine with only pantaloons." Éponine replied, glancing at Erik hesitantly as she pushed the chemise from her shoulders, leaving her bare from her midriff up. She could feel Erik's hungry eyes taking in her newly revealed skin, making her feel alive. "It's quite beautiful, I hope it looks well on me."
Erik smiled at her, trying to keep quite as she raised her arms to pull the dress on over her head. He couldn't complain about the view he was getting. Éponine smoothed her hands over the material, before glancing over her shoulder and quickly planting a kiss to Erik's lips before she was revealing her new dress for Charity to admire.
"It's beautiful!"
Éponine smiled, "Thank you."
Charity gave a short curtsey, "I'll let you enjoy the rest of your morning."
"You as well," Éponine replied softly waiting until the servant had shut the door behind her to laugh. "Erik, come out."
Erik looked around the changing screen with a wry and seductive look on his face. "You look gorgeous." Éponine closed the space between them, leaning up to press a kiss against his starving lips. "Make me forget Éponine."
"I will try my best."
