Christine has news she can barely wait to share.

But wait she must, because she still has a full day of work ahead of her. It's in the afternoon when she's sitting with another young woman polishing the opera glasses for that evening's performance. They sit together in silence - Christine likes the girl well enough, but she's entirely consumed within her own thoughts at that moment.

Her reverie does not break until she hears a familiar scrabbling noise coming from inside the walls, and her heart races.

The young woman looks up, concerned.

"What's that noise?"

Christine laughs.

"Rats, Mademoiselle! Silly old rats in the walls. They're quite troublesome, you know, and impossible to get rid of."

The noise stops.

"Are you sure?" she does not look convinced.

Christine widens her eyes and pauses her work.

"What else could it possibly be?" her mouth quirks at the edges. "A ghost, perhaps?"

The girl laughs.

"Oh, of course not. That would be absolutely ridiculous!"

Christine motions to a box of already cleaned glasses.

"Would you mind taking these to the concierge box?"

She nods and carries the box off.

Christine watches her until she's out of sight, glancing around to make sure no one else is near.

"She's gone now." she calls out in a low tone.

A voice wafts down from the air vent above her.

"You know, it could have been the ghost of a rat."

She rolls her eyes.

"That would still count as a ghost, my love."

A pause.

"I suppose."

"I have excellent news, Erik."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I have found a priest willing to marry us in the chapel!"

"How soon?"

"Next week, if we wish it."

"Oh, Christine."

She hears an odd noise and glances up. He's attempting to stick his hand through the slats on the vent, but only manages to fit several fingers through.

She suppresses a fit of laughter at the sight and reaches her hand up to touch his.

"I will send word to Meg right away, and when I know she's able to come, I'll contact a baker."

They end up having to wait two weeks instead, for that is the soonest that Meg can get away and visit. Her dress, having already been made in advance, was ready to go. She had not told the priest a lie to get him to agree, not exactly - lying to a priest was not how she wanted to start their marriage - but she had indicated her husband-to-be was terribly shy and would thus be wearing a mask, and that for sentimental reasons they wanted to have the ceremony in the chapel inside of the Opera House. The cake she orders is small but lovely in its own way.

It is certainly not the kind of wedding she had imagined as a child, and most certainly not the kind of wedding she had been planning with Raoul. Had anyone told her as a young girl that her wedding would be underground and consist of less than five people total, she likely would have burst into tears immediately. But as she makes the arrangements for her wedding now, she truly cannot find it in herself to be disappointed in her circumstances.

It is sad, of course, that Erik cannot live as a normal man, that the reason their wedding will be so small is due to the cruelty of the world towards him, but she does not hold any regret towards loving him. She would marry him even if they couldn't invite any guests at all - even if they couldn't even have a ceremony to begin with. She honestly had not expected to have one in the first place, between knowing that he could not safely leave the Opera House and knowing that a priest had forced him to endure an exorcism as a child which had left scars that still lingered on his body and in his mind.

She had thought, in those times in which she had fantasized about this scenario since returning, that any wedding of theirs would have consisted only of vows to each other in their solitude, heard only by themselves and by God. It would not have been so terrible to have only that. So by comparison, she was quite surprised at how much their wedding actually would have - it was nearly a normal wedding. She would have Meg, her dearest friend by her side, and Madame Giry was almost like a mother to her - even Erik would be inviting a guest, he had mentioned that an old friend would be attending. And the priest, of course, at Erik's own insistence, too! Enough people to buy a cake for - not a very big one with so many tiers, but a cake all the same, gleaming white and covered in flowers and swirls made of frosting, with a delicate taste that would melt in your mouth.

No, it is not the wedding she's always dreamed of, but it is more than she hoped for given the circumstances.

The man she is marrying, however - he exceeds her dreams in many regards. He loves her so intensely, so passionately, and without his former possessiveness to taint it. He treats her as though she's the most precious thing on earth, and it almost embarrasses her at times - she is certainly no angel, she is very flawed as all people are, but Erik views her as nearly divine. It worries her occasionally, because surely it's not good to romanticize and idealize someone so much, but so far it hasn't led to anything terrible and she knows for a fact that no amount of insistence on her part will make him believe otherwise about her.

She can hardly blame him, when she thinks about it. He's had a terrible life, with only a handful of people who have ever shown him kindness of any sort while the vast majority had defaulted to cruelty. He'd gone his whole life thinking that no one would ever look at him with love. Who knows how many years he'd gone without anyone even calling him by his name? Only titles for so long - even here in the Opera House with her, The Angel of Music. His sad childhood as The Living Corpse in the traveling circus, his time as The Angel of Death in Persia... She shudders to think of those years spent so far away in such terrible activities, and finds a strange irony in how she can feel so safe in the arms of a man who once was an assassin. She has not heard more than a few sentences about those dark years, the briefest of explanations with very little detail, but she finds she does not want to know any more. Those years clearly pain him still, and she holds no worries that he might one day return to such things. He is no longer the Angel of Death or the Living Corpse, he is simply Erik. So she calls him by his name as often as she can, as though to make up for all the years that he was made to be something - someone - other than what he was.

She tries to make up for the years he spent without any touch, as well. They have agreed to live separately until they are officially married, but really it seems the only difference between now and then is that she currently sleeps alone in her room upstairs, for they spend quite a lot of time together otherwise. She takes most of her meals with him, spends her lesson times with him, and often stays with him until it's time to go to bed. She'll sit close to him when reading on the couch, and more often than not they will end up with her leaning against him and his arms around her or with his head resting in her lap as she pets his hair. She'll squeeze his hand as she thanks him for cooking, or touch his shoulder while they're discussing something. She greets him each day with a kiss, and finds reasons to repeat the action throughout the day. Each night he escorts back upstairs, walking side by side as she holds to his arm. Before they part for the evening they'll share one last embrace and kiss, and there have been more than several times that this nightly ritual has lingered to the point that she very nearly reconsidered her former stance on sharing beds before marriage and almost asked him to join her in her room.

She knows that Erik had feared that the more time she spent with him the more she would grow bored of him, or annoyed with him. There are moments of annoyance, yes, but that's only to be expected in any sort of relationship, it is not specific to Erik in any way. She finds instead that the more time she spends around him, the more she wants to be around him. She imagines that this won't always be the case, that at some point the burning flame of infatuation will die down, but she knows that the core of their love will remain. There will be days where she needs her space and times away from him, but those things won't mean she loves him any less, and she hopes that by the time those days come around Erik will realize that too.

She ponders these thing often, as she does tonight as she lays on the couch and watches him work at his composing by the organ. He's entirely lost in thought and muttering to himself, and she finds this utterly adorable. The candlelight glints off of his mask and illuminates his features, and not for the first time she's struck by how attractive she finds him. A small blush creeps across her cheeks and she smiles. She does wish that he wouldn't feel the need to wear his mask so often, especially when he's just around her - she truly doesn't mind his face anymore and doesn't want him to feel like he has to hide. She wants him to feel accepted, wants him to know she loves him no matter what, but if he's truly more comfortable with it on then she doesn't want to push him.

One day, she tells herself, maybe one day he'll feel more confident and start to wear it less. Already she has noticed some improvement in this area - there are occasions where he will leave it off for a while, such as in the mornings when he's too caught up in cooking to remember to put it on before she comes downstairs, or the times he'll let her slide it off as she runs her hands through his wig, but invariably he always puts it back on sooner or later. She wonders if by now it feels like an extension of him rather than a concealment, as if he isn't quite complete without it. She mentally makes a note to ask him one day how he truly feels about it.

Erik glances up at her, as if noticing her presence across the room for the first time. He tries to focus on his work once more, but now he fidgets nervously, his concentration broken.

The smile on her face grows wider.

"What's the matter, Erik?"

He fiddles with the quill, uncaring of the red ink he's getting on his fingers. He dares not look up as he answers.

"My Nightingale is far too beautiful over there in candlelight, I have lost my train of thought over it."

"Oh? That's quite funny - I was just thinking the same thing about my Angel."