It's the dreams of Persia again. He wakes with a terrible start, heart pounding and gasping for breath. He's not sure where he is at first, a strangled sound escaping from his throat. He tries to kick off the blanket in an attempt to flee but merely becomes more tangled in it.
"Erik? Love, what's wrong?" a woman's voice cuts through the suffocating silence.
Then he remembers where - and when - he is and he's hit with another wave of emotion.
He had never wanted her to see him like this, had hoped that her presence with him in bed had finally soothed the terrible dreams once and for all, but it appears to not be the case. He's still shaking and can't bring himself to speak yet.
"It's okay, Erik, you're safe now."
He can hear the concern in her voice. She has the vague idea of what his years in Persia were like, how he spent his time there, but has never heard any details and she never will if he can help it.
"It was just a dream, darling."
She tentatively reaches out to him, a soft touch on his shoulder, not wanting to frighten him any further. He leans into it, desperate for anything to help dispel the remnants of his nightmare.
"Come here, love."
He lets her pull him to herself, his head coming to rest on her bosom where he could listen to the high flutter of her heart. She was frightened too, then - it certainly must be startling to be woken in such a manner. But one would not think it from her soothing voice. She smooths out the blanket.
"There's nothing to be afraid of."
His hands gripped her upper arms, trying to remind himself that this right now was real and there was no danger here. She strokes his hair and runs her hand over his back.
"You'll be alright."
She's doing remarkably well, considering, he thinks to himself. He had never told her that he has these problems, but she seems to know just what to do. His heart rate is slowly returning to normal, the adrenaline beginning to fade from his system.
In all of her words of reassurance and comfort, she does not once ask what it was in his dream that caused such a reaction, and for this he could not be more thankful.
She pushes a stray piece of hair behind his ear and does her best to hum a song as well as she can. She's never seen him have a nightmare before, but something about it makes her believe that it is far from the first and will certainly not be the last. She wonders what he's done in previous times like this and there was no one around to soothe him, to hold him. It makes her sad to think of all the nights he must have awoken alone to sit by himself like this.
He finds his voice again - hoarse and whispered, but it is there.
"I love you, Christine."
"I love you too, dear. Are you alright?"
He doesn't know how to answer that, so he doesn't. Instead he moves his hands from her arms and wraps them around her waist so the he can sit closer to her. He's still trembling, so she continues to stroke and pet him as though he were a cat in her lap.
"Would you like a glass of water?" she offers.
"No." he whispers.
In truth, his mouth is quite dry. But he doesn't want her to leave, not even for the brief moments it would take to go to the kitchen and return, and he doesn't trust his legs to not give out should he try to stand and follow her.
Her fingers are leaving a pleasant tingle in their wake on his scalp, and he tries to focus solely on this sensation. She's dragged her fingers through his hair before, but almost always when he had been wearing his wig, which muted much of the feel. But this feels so heavenly that he almost forgets how embarrassed he feels about his own patchy and prematurely grey hair. So he presses a chaste kiss to her collarbone, convinced that she must truly be an angel because surely only an angel would sit here like this caressing and soothing so tenderly him when he has no mask or wig.
In times past he could never fall back asleep after such a dream. He would lie awake desperately trying to forget until finally, hours later, he would realize that it was morning already.
He's unsure of how long she's been holding him and humming, but he does know it must be nearing an hour by now. He knows that he will not falling back asleep tonight, knows that he should tell her so and let her lay back down so that her night is not entirely spoiled by sitting up with him. But he also knows that he is a very selfish man, so he says nothing and allows her to continue.
She runs through every lullaby she knows, every soft song that she can still hum with her damaged vocal cords, and then she begins to hum something else. It's after two songs that he smiles against her skin, for suddenly he recognizes it - it's her Nightingale opera.
The score she has written proves to be the final piece of the puzzle of calming him down. His mind now focuses on what the stage choreography should look like, the design of the costumes. She had never fully intended The Nightingale to be anything other than a means of conveying her feelings, but he knows a smash success when he hears one, and he is insistent that it be played on stage when it is finished.
By the time she has reached the end of the coda, he feels almost normal again. He notices that her ministrations have gotten slower, and a glance up tells him that she's nearly nodding off.
"Christine," he whispers.
"Hmmm." her eyes fly open and she tries to pretend she isn't sleepy.
"You should lie down, you're tired."
"It's alright, Erik, I don't mind." she says brightly, but does not resist when he gently pushes her backwards towards the pillows.
One of them, at least, should get some sleep tonight.
Once laying down, she pulls him back into her arms.
"Are you feeling any better, love?" she asks. She has no intention of falling back asleep and leaving him to suffer, no matter how heavy her eyelids are feeling.
"Erik is much improved, thanks to your kindness."
"Good." she yawns.
She falls asleep soon enough, and Erik resigns himself to a night full of wakefulness.
That is why the next morning as he finds himself still in his wife's embrace and blinking awake, he is surprised. To be able to fall back asleep after such a dream - and to have untroubled sleep at that - he is much surprised that it was even possible. It is clearly only more proof that this woman who has married him is an angel, but that does not surprise him in the least.
