It had been one week - one glorious week since they had gotten engaged. A week of seeing his ring gleaming upon her finger, a week of butterflies in her stomach when he'd kiss her before leaving for the night.

It was one full week before he decided to bring up the subject of inviting her to dinner. He had decided before their lesson that he would ask her, and the thought of it was making him nervous the entire time. His hands felt sweaty and clammy to the point that he feared his fingers would slip on the keys. He didn't know why he should feel that way - would she really refuse to eat with him when she had already agreed to marry him? But still, no one else had ever been in the little house on the lake underground, and he was anxious to know what she'd think of it. What if she hated it? What if she hated it so much that she realized she also hated him?

But it had to be gotten over with. She was to be his wife, after all, and she needed to know what their home looked like... Before she was forever shackled to the ghost that lived there. Even if he did have plans to eventually move to an actual house in the sun with a garden and grass and every other normal thing - that wouldn't happen right away, and they'd surely have to spend some time underground.

"Christine," he asked as soon as he stopped playing, knowing he'd lose his nerve if he waited too long. "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"

Christine's face lit up.

"Of course! Where?"

"In my home... Downstairs."

"Yes, I'd love to. Where should I meet you?"

"In here, just after seven."

Erik left shortly afterwards to begin preparing the food, and Christine made her way down the hallway to her dormitory to wait, wondering what his home would look like.

Although she felt they knew each other very well in most aspects, there was actually very little she knew about how and where he lived - it had always seemed a terribly rude thing to ask. He had mentioned once that he lived in the cellars of the Opera House, but that was as much as she knew. Was it decorated? Did he have furniture? For a moment she had a horrible vision of a damp, empty cellar where they'd sit on the floor and eat their dinner with their hands off of old chipped plates. She shuddered. She consoled herself with the thought that Erik was seemingly too refined to live in such a manner - after all, he surely had to have some place that he stored all of his fine clothes and accessories. He never looked very dusty, either, so surely he didn't sit on the ground very much... Hopefully. She would find out that evening either way.

Christine had the next two days off from performing, and she barely knew what to do with herself in that time. She finally settled for reading a book mixed with absentminded daydreaming in between pages. By the time it was time for her to meet Erik, she hadn't managed to read very far, but she managed to think up several elaborate scenarios of their future together, all of them far too unlikely to occur but still interesting to think about.

She was full of excited nerves as Erik ushered her through the mirror and into the tunnel behind it. She jumped a little at the sound of the mirror clicking shut, a flash of a feeling of being trapped, but she reminded herself of who she was here with and the feeling passed.

She was terribly glad of the large lantern he held, and she stayed as close to him as she could. It was silly for someone of her age, she knew, but she couldn't help her ever persistent fear of the dark. Everyone who knew of it had told her she would grow out of it sooner or later, and she had fervently believed that as a child, and then still held on to that hope a little less unwaveringly as a teenager, and then finally given up on the idea once she was well into her twenties and still feared darkness as much as she had when she was small.

He led her down winding passageways and several sets of stairs, apologizing for the long walk it required. Finally he brought her to the bank of the lake she had heard existed underneath the Opera House. Although it was still very dark, the lake was quite a sight to see. It held an uneasiness to it, a sense of utter wrongness, as though such a thing should not exist, and yet here it was.

He held the lantern out and she noticed for the first time that there was a gondola in the water. He helped her step across and get settled in the gondola before stepping into it himself, grabbed the pole that was on the bank, and began to move them across the water.

She looked back at the bank as it disappeared from view, watching it get smaller and smaller until she couldn't see it at all. She looked ahead and saw nothing but the mist that hovered above the surface of the dark waters. At last a light could be seen in the distance, and as they grew closer she saw it was another lantern hung next to a door. The door was attached to, curiously enough, a house.

If seeing a lake this far under the ground had been unsettling, it was even more unnerving to see a house on the bank of a lake underneath the surface of the earth. The house looked normal enough, and that only added to the odd feeling it had.

He poled the gondola as close to shore as he could, tying it to a peg in the bricks so it would remain there. He helped her up once again, and then pulled a key out of his pocket. Christine wondered what the point even was to have a key to a place that was so remote, so inaccessible, but she made no mention of it. Erik surely had his reasons, and even if the reason was that he was a little on the paranoid side, well - that was still a reason, she supposed.

He opened the front door and her eyes were dazzled by the light contained within the house. She had to blink several times before realizing that he had installed electric lighting inside, something that they had in a few places in the Opera House. It was quite a change from the darkness outside, but a very welcome one once she got used to it.

Whereas her nerves had melted away once they were inside his house, he seemed to only grow more nervous. Christine found it rather endearing, how he fidgeted anxiously with his hands as he showed her the different rooms in the house.

"This is the kitchen, and the dining room. We'll be in there in just a little while. This is the sitting room," he gestured to a room with several plush chairs, a fireplace, and shelves full of books.

He paused next to a closed door.

"This is my bedroom," he turned and kept walking without opening that door.

"And this- this room is for Christine," his fidgeting increased as he opened the door and gestured for her to enter.

She stepped inside. The furniture was a little outdated, probably something that would have been popular several decades ago, and she briefly wondered if perhaps it had belonged to his parents. The walls were painted a lovely shade of pink, and on each flat surface he had placed vases and vases full of flowers - roses and peonies and peach blossoms and carnations, so that the entire room smelled like them.

"Oh! It's lovely! Is this really all for me?" she turned in a little circle, taking it all in.

"Of course it is," he replied, and looked down at his shoes. "Christine- Christine can stay here any time she wishes. It is her room, after all."

She tore her eyes away from the giant bed covered in soft looking blankets and more pillows than she had ever had in her life.

"Can I stay here tonight?"

He looked up, surprised, before nodding solemnly.

"If you wish it."

She practically skipped over to him and hugged him.

"Thank you, Erik."

She also noticed that he remained firmly outside of the doorway, as though he didn't dare to step across the threshold into the room.

"I'm afraid I must return to the kitchen now, dinner is almost finished but I must prepare a few more things first. But you, my dear, are free to go anywhere you wish while I do so - this is your house too, now," he brushed a hand over her curls before releasing her and heading towards the kitchen.

He secretly hoped that, despite his telling her she could go anywhere, she wouldn't follow him to the kitchen. He had never had another person in his home before, and it was a little overwhelming - especially considering that person was Christine. He needed just a few moments by himself in silence to breathe. Luckily for him, Christine had returned to her room after he let her go.

With Erik gone, Christine set about examining her new room. She opened the drawers of the dresser, thinking of her clothing from upstairs that she'd need to move down here, but was baffled instead when she found the drawers already held clothing - all of it new and expensive looking, and all of it curiously sized exactly to fit her. He opened the wardrobe door and found it full of dresses, all in styles she would enjoy. She placed a hand over her heart, overcome with emotion. Her dear Erik had thought of everything.

Curious as to what was behind the long, peach curtains that were overlaid with delicate white lace, she pulled them back, expecting perhaps a window that only looked out to the darkness of the lake. Instead there was only more of the pink wall. She pulled back each of the three curtains and found there was nothing behind any of them - they only gave the illusion of hiding a window. How strange, she thought. She pulled them all back over the wall once again and decided she would simply pretend that there were windows there.

After that she left her room and began to explore the rest of the house.

In the kitchen, Erik busied himself checking on the chicken and potatoes roasting in the oven, and the soup boiling away in its pot. It would be the first meal they would eat together, and he wanted it to be perfect. He had even prepared a special chocolate pudding, knowing that Christine loved chocolate. He normally disapproved of her eating such sweet things, worried for her voice as always, but she did have several days off and it was a special occasion, after all.

Nearly a half hour had passed before Christine quietly entered the kitchen. She went right to Erik, her eyes lined with red as though she had been crying or was on the verge of crying. She said nothing as she put her arms around his torso and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Christine! What ever is the matter, dearest?" he hesitatingly returned her embrace, unsure of what had happened to cause her to look so forlorn.

She quiet a long moment, unsure if he would be mad at her. Finally she whispered it to him.

"I went in your bedroom."