She woke in his arms hours later after they returned to the Pink room, an odd occurrence because Erik starts to kick when he gets hot, so they've taken to separating as they sleep. Which neither of them had many qualms with, both weren't the biggest fans of cuddling as they sleep. They do when they just want to hold each other, or just to talk.

Meg decide a bath was in order and slipped her way from him. She felt off, the feeling was scary. It was familiar, but not in a good way. The last time she felt this way was before she met Erik and after Christine moved to live with Mama Valerius again. The feeling was left her drained of much emotion for hours, even days at time. Meg knew why she felt like this, she kicked the claw foot tub in frustration.

Christine and Meg had an emotional connection that left them both numb when separated, the feeling would go away after time, but at the beginning both felt it. Thankfully they both had someone to turn to now at this great split. The worst part is neither knew when they would see each other again, or at all. The sound of Megs foot hitting the tub woke Erik up, which is shocking, he was a very heavy sleeper. She crouched down to hold her bare foot and rested her head on the lip of the tub.

"Meg?" Erik spoke to her from the open door. She moved to turn the water on before she looked at him.

"Join me?" She's now entered the stage of acting like she was fine. In part she was, Meg went through her emotions quickly. Though, instead of being healed the original hurt would come back in waves, then she'd go through the cycle a few more times until she finally came to terms with the outcome and the fact she couldn't do much to change them.

Meg began to swirl soaps into the water. She made a figure eight in the water Erik couldn't move his eyes from. That was, until she began to undress, it was only the short chemise she wore under her costume, but as she did so Erik was struck again at his fortune. Not from the twenty thousand francs a month, not from owning an opera, but from the comfort the woman in front of him had to the just undress before his eyes. Never had he really thought of having a sexual companion, someone who would want that from him. He had only ever thought of the simple, pure, things he could do in public things with a wife.

Walks on Sundays, lunch at cafes, the spoiling of shopping. Everything he could do to make a wife feel like a queen. Of course he thought of sexual pursuits, but never of Christine, the one she wanted to treat like that living glass doll-bride. When Erik's mind turned away from Christine, and unintentionally, towards Meg. He fought hard to keep sexual thoughts of her at bay, he was rarely successful in those endeavors. Erik tried to keep those thoughts away for his own sake, he felt their friendship was too special to potentially ruin.

Even before a romantic relationship was established, they touched each other. In little ways. He would carry her sleeping body to her room, she would cling to him in her sleep. Hands would touch while making dinner, or while handing an object to the other. Never did they find the touch out of place, never did they freeze and wonder what it meant. The touches always, felt right, or they never thought of them at all.

Meg felt that they practically wed that night she begged him to take her in her own room. She dreamt and daydreamed about him touching her, every caress was so much more pleasing than her mind her imagined. Now they touched much more than before. Not just for sexual gratification, but for a level of intimacy they both yearned for. They were wed in every sense of the word except for legally, but that was soon to be remedied.

"Well?" He finally moved from his spot and did as she asked. After he settled with his long legs bent, Meg sat between them and laid against his chest. He took her long hair and put it over his shoulder. A few minutes after they settled Erik began to hum, low and soft. Meg's mind almost instantly calmed, she did feel bad that she woke him, but was glad he was with her. She unintentionally started crying, she didn't even notice until the stream of a tear was halfway to her chin.

The simplicity of resting in a bath with the one you love in the dead of night, something about how the pain she'd feel without him wasn't present overwhelmed her. Erik didn't see the tear because his eyes were close, in this state it also made it was quite a surprise when she turned her head and kissed whatever was closest. After she kissed his jaw he opened his eyes lazily and stopped humming.

"Thank you." She spoke so softly, Meg usually did when they were together. Something about him made her so at peace, she felt no need to be loud. He held her tighter and kissed her temple.

"No, thank you." They owed so many thanks to each other, they'd never be able to stop saying it if they really did try to say what was owed. The mood lightened as they helped each other wash their hair. As Meg finished he brought her an actual nightgown. After she actually went through her nighttime routine that helped went with her well kept complexion they found themselves in bed again.

"Tomorrow is your first full day, Are you nervous?" She wondered out loud after a few minutes of kisses and when Erik was almost asleep again.

"No I have always been good at business." Meg slapped her hands over her face and groaned.

"What are we going to do about Aminta. I'm her understudy… But I'm too attached to Lucia." She groaned again. "I'm being selfish."

"I'm sure another girl knows it." She uncovered her face and turned to look at him.

"You don't mind that Christine isn't here to sing the role you made for her specifically?"

"It was bound to happen. I did not expect her to sing it at all."

"Oh." Meg seemed to be the only one to think Christine wouldn't run away.

"Look, darling, she sung it once. That is all I wanted after all that time creating her voice. Long ago I wanted her to love me. Now That I love you, and hope that you love me at least a fraction of how much I love you, I just wanted her thanks in one form or another. Her singing Aminta was it. I do not care what she does now."

"Alright, my love." She kissed him, Erik couldn't help but smell her freshly applied lavender salve. That along with the old cream she used routinely was the smell Erik now associated with home. The scent was now embedded with his cologne everywhere in the house by the lake. The lavender reminded him just how much the name Marguerite fit her. The word for Daisy, a beautiful flower, just like her. Marguerite was a Persephone in a garden filled with all lovely things in nature. He was in fact Hades, a man in the underworld of the operas own little sphere. A man who tore her away from the art and her powerful mother above.

Erik always felt selfish when he thought of her life above, and how much time she spent with him. Meg would scream at him if she knew these thoughts. Without him, Meg genuinely didn't know where she would be. Probably in some horrid mood, moving day in day out up above. Not living, she knew that for sure.