Despite everything, Erik did occasionally leave the catacombs and venture outside, though always under the cover of darkness. There were shadowy associates to do business with, items to 'liberate' from various stores - and sometimes a break away from the dismal underground was sorely needed. Such excursions were less now that Christine was here, as he would never dream of taking her with on such an unsavoury outing and he was also hesitant to spend much time away from her. But such trips had to be made every now and then, and it was on one such trip that, while waiting in an alleyway for the lone figure on the streets to walk out of sight before crossing to the other side that something happens to give him quite a fright.
Out of nowhere there's a sharp, firm grip on his shoulder, a heavy weight. To be ambushed in such a sudden and violent manner - he nearly has a heart attack. Just as suddenly he's pushed back, and as he leans against the brick wall he gets a view of just who caused this to him.
The little intruder alights on the ground in front of Erik and turns in a small circle to look at him. It's been ages since he's seen a cat like this, all light fur gleaming in the moonlight and dark paws and face. He sucks in a deep breath - the last time he saw a cat like this was in Persia. It's blue eyes look at him expectantly and it lets out a high pitched meow. It must have jumped off the roof, he realizes distantly. What was a cat like this doing out here? No matter. He has work to do.
He reaches down to pet the animal's head, which it seems to appreciate, before he turns back to his task. He crosses the now empty street and pauses in front of the store, whipping out a small tool from inside his sleeve and inserting it into the lock on the door. It pops open without effort, and he enters.
He feels a smidgen of guilt as he peruses the isle with the women's hats - Christine would surely disapprove of his methods of procuring it, but she would also truly enjoy this small dark blue hat with feathers on the brim. Christine does not have to know, he tells himself, but the guilt surges back to him up as he's walking to the door with the hat in hand so he pauses at the cash register, reaches into his pocket and fumbles for something. He pulls out a few bills - just a little more than the hat would have cost - and shoves them under the register where the clerk would surely see them in the morning. He smiles wryly. Christine has changed him, indeed.
He's almost out the door when a loud sound pierces the silence - that high pitch of a meow.
He turns.
The cat is there, having followed him inside somehow and now sitting on a high up shelf.
"Get down from there." he hisses at the creature.
The cat stares back insolently.
"I've half a mind to lock you in here, you wretched beast." he whispers harshly.
But he turns once more when he reaches the door, looking back in the hope that the cat would follow him outside as well.
Sure enough, after he pauses in the doorway for a long moment, the cat follows.
He waits for it to walk outside before closing the door again. His prize finally in his clutches, he begins to make his way back to the Opera House. He glances back. The cat still follows. He stops. The cat sits down.
He narrows his eyes at it. He points a solitary finger menacingly in its direction.
"Do not." he tells it firmly.
With a swish of his cape he begins to walk away again.
A sneaking suspicion tells him to look back. He does so and sighs.
"I'm sure you have someone that misses you."
Such an expensive cat surely had an owner somewhere, doesn't it...?
The cat looks up at him mournfully and meows again. It picks up its pace, rushing forward to rub against his ankles.
"Go back home, little one." he frowns at it.
But it continues to follow him until finally he stops entirely. He looks at it closer.
It was hard to tell in the dark at first, but her long fur is gnarled and matted at the edges. He picks her up and as he does so, he realizes he can feel every single rib - the poor thing is so thin but he almost didn't notice due the length of the fur. One of her ears looks as though a larger animal tried to take a bite out of it. He clicks his tongue at the animal's condition.
"You've had quite a rough time, haven't you, dear?" he whispers to her in Arabic as he cradles her to his chest.
She begins to purr as she rubs her face against him once more and he sighs wearily, realizing that he now no longer has the heart to leave the little creature on the streets to starve.
A cat like this should be kept in fine conditions, a warm bed and safe from the elements, the finest foods twice a day, her silky coat brushed each evening. Instead she's been left to fend for herself, alone with no one to care, lost and wandering in solitude and falling into illness because of it. She reminds him of Christine as a child, weeping on the chapel floor. She reminds him of himself before Christine. He cannot leave her here, no.
So he walks back to his home with the cat in his arms, trying to think of how he's going to explain this to his wife.
By the time he gets home Christine is already asleep. He takes the cat - Ayesha, he calls her now - and sits on the couch with her, taking a brush to her fur and then providing her with a saucer of water and a plate of meat from the pantry. Ayesha eats her fill and then stalks off. Curious, Erik follows her. The beast certainly feels at home here, he muses to himself. She pushes her nose against the door to his bedroom, moving it slightly more ajar so that she can enter. Once inside, she jumps right into the open coffin, turning in a circle a few times before curling up to sleep. Well. Erik huffs. What a strange animal. He shakes his head and goes to change his clothing before silently slipping into bed beside Christine. He will tell her in the morning, he swears it.
It's not that he intends to keep this from her - it's nothing like that. He certainly intended to tell her first thing after they woke up. The words are on the tip of his tongue, in fact, when Christine rolls over to smile at him - he's just about to tell her when suddenly he's being kissed.
"I missed you last night." she murmurs to him before deepening her kisses, and suddenly there's a more pressing matter to attend to with his wife and he certainly can't bring up the cat right now because his mind is otherwise occupied.
And afterwards there's breakfast to prepare and then to eat, and now she's rushing off to work, nearly late for her shift - again - because they lingered just a little too long in bed - again.
She sighs as she practically runs up the steps. She hates being late for work, but to cut short such moments with Erik? Impossible. Besides, she thought to herself, Giry is surely used to it by now. She has never mentioned to Christine about the numerous times she'd be late for work, not after the first time when she had scolded her and asked what she had been doing that kept her from showing up on time - Christine's face had turned red as she had tried to brush her hands through her mussed curls and tugged at the neckline of her dress in an attempt to hide the mark Erik had left there on her chest. Giry's face had suddenly fell flat and she had turned away from Christine, quickly telling her not to worry over how late she was and promptly changing the subject, for which they had both been very grateful.
Erik sighs as he's left in silence after Christine has gone upstairs. He will tell her when she returns, surely.
But then when she returns she leads them to the couch and she sprawls across his lap and asks if he'll let her hair down, so he spends the evening listening to her stories of what happened during the day as he pulls the pins out from her hair until there are none left and her long curls which had been tightly wound in a bun now cascade down her back.
It would be wrong to interrupt her now, he tells himself as he gently runs his fingers through her soft hair. So he doesn't bring it up that night. He does, however, he gift her with the hat he acquired on the same trip.
"Oh Erik, it's so lovely!"
She does not ask how he managed to come by it - she has an idea, and knows that he would likely tell the truth if she asked, but she also feels her own conscious can remain clean if she simply never knows for certain, and really the hat is too lovely to spoil with the reality of how it came to be in her possession. It was a gift from her beloved, and that was good enough for her.
Ayesha has been strangely absent, Erik marks as he falls asleep that night. Surely, he will tell Christine tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and goes, and by the next day he feels far too sheepish to bring it up - how awkward, so many days after the fact. He's been leaving food and water in his bedroom for her, and they've both been disappearing, but he still hasn't seen Ayesha since she was in his coffin. For all he knows the cat wandered out of the catacombs after taking a nap and found her way above already, never to return. There's the missing food that implies she's been here, but there's also the distinction possibility that a rat may be eating it instead - imagine telling Christine that! 'My dear, I found a cat outside so I brought it here but now it's missing - no worries, my love, we may be missing a cat currently but I'm almost certain that a rat has replaced her.' The sheer preposterousness!
So he simply says nothing. It's easier that way. There's no point in telling Christine that they have a cat if they no longer do. He continues to leave the food and water, though, just in case.
It's about a week later that Christine has the day off. She's been feeling rather fatigued, so she doesn't mind when Erik slips off to watch the rehearsals for the show without her. A bit of quiet by herself will do her well, she thinks.
She's dozing on the couch by the fireplace when out of nowhere a longhair cat waltzes up to fire and flops over on the rug, licking one paw calmly. Christine thinks she's imagining it at first - she shoves herself up to get a better look. But the cat is truly there.
"Kitty!" she whispers urgently.
The cat ceases it's licking but otherwise ignores her, blinking slowly at the flames.
Christine makes kissey noises and pats the side of the couch intently. She loves cats, but her dear father had been allergic, and after he was gone it simply wasn't practical to have one.
Ayesha turns her icy blue gaze to the woman making a fool of herself, the look of haughtiness on her feline face, that, if she had been had been human, would have caused Christine to shrink away.
But on this furry little face, all the disdain in the world only served to make her even more adorable to Christine. What a precious little thing! She slides off the couch and sits next to the cat on the rug, daring to reach out and pet her. Her fur was beautiful, but she felt a little bony underneath and that made her sad. She immediately gets up and grabs some foods from the kitchen - small enough that Erik wouldn't notice they were missing - and brings them back to the cat, holding them out to her on her palm.
The cat sniffs the foods for ages before deigning to finally eat from her hand. Christine stifles a squeal, falling in love with the little animal as it licks her fingers.
Animals sometimes found their way in through the catacombs, she knew. Once a bat had flown in, causing her a great deal of grief and fright before Erik finally managed to catch it in a towel to release it farther away from their home, and once she had managed to get a closer look at the thing she had realized it had a quite precious face and wasn't frightening at all, suddenly feeling silly for ever thinking otherwise. It was a good animal that helped the environment, Erik had told her, and she liked to think that maybe that same bat was still out there under the Opera House with them. Another time a skunk had found its way in, and that animal had caused a bit more pandemonium than the bat, but Erik had once again managed to wrap it safely in a towel and deposit it outside - although not without quite a bit of fuss.
It must be the same for this sweet little visitor, Christine thinks as she strokes her glorious fur. She begins to purr and Christine's heart melts. This is her cat now, she decides with a firm nod. She only hopes that Erik will approve. She makes up her mind to tell him as soon he comes back.
Except when he gets back he's in quite a mood over how poorly rehearsals went, and she doesn't want to bring the cat up now when he's angry. So she tuts and shakes her head at the parts of rants that seem to call for that, and nods in agreement when agreement is called for, and places a hand on his knee and says "It would have run so much better if you had been in charge, darling", and his temper abates just as she knew it would with this course of action. He still looks vaguely annoyed through the rest of the evening, however, so she decides to continue to avoid the topic of the cat that now lives with them.
But for the next week or so, she still managed to steal away bits and pieces of foods from the kitchen and leave them in a dish that she hides behind the couch. She still can't seem to find the right time to bring it up to Erik, as each passing day she feels more and more silly for not bringing it up at once, and now she truly feels like she's done something wrong, as though she were hiding her on purpose, and she does shed a tear or two over this - she really ought not keep things from him, it weighs so heavily on her - but now it's been going on so long she can barely think of it without getting flustered so she supposes that this is her her new normal.
The whole charade is nearly discovered one night when they're both on the couch. It was a quiet night, each of them with a book to read, his head resting in her lap and her feet up on an ottoman, neither one with a single care in the world - until there comes a noise from the other room. It's almost certainly the sound of a small sized animal jumping down to the ground from a shelf or countertop.
She freezes, glancing down at him. He's definitely heard the noise because he's looking at her with an odd look on his face. Her mind races and she panics - he's about to say something, she knows it, he's going to ask what that noise is and then he's going to investigate and then all will be found out - so she says the first thing that pops into her mind, the one thing she'll know will distract him from whatever it is he's about to say -
"I love you Erik."
A heavy wave of guilt settles on her as the words fall out - she's used their love as a tool in deception- shame, shame, shame!
He smiles tightly, awkwardly. He was certain she was about to ask him what that noise was, and then what was he supposed to do? He tries not to get distracted by her sentiments, he must stay focused so he won't be caught by surprise.
"I love you too, Christine."
He raises his book over his face once again, hoping to look as though he was deeply interested in the words on the page so that maybe she wouldn't ask anything about the noise of Ayesha in the other room.
She raises her own book likewise, biting her lip behind the pages and hoping he won't be too angry about her keeping this from him, even though it has reached the point of absurdity now.
It's really too much now, and they each firmly decide that they'll tell the other the very next day.
After breakfast, he decides. News is always taken better after a good meal.
After breakfast, she resolves. That way she has time to think of what she's going to say.
But it's not halfway through the meal that their choice is wrenched from their hands - the cat jumps up onto the table between them, strides over to the platter that's in the middle, and begins to eat the slices of toast that are resting there.
There is utter silence for several minutes as they both stare at each other and the cat in turn, a silence punctuated only by the munching noise she making as she devours the toast.
"I meant to tell you, Erik, I really did-!"
"I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner-!"
They both blurt out at the same time only to stop.
"Wait, what?"
"Excuse me?"
They pause before Erik gestures for Christine to start.
She folds her hands on the table, looking at her pet that's now moved on to licking the sliced fruit.
"She wandered in here, Erik, and I simply couldn't turn her away - she was so thin! And so soft! And- and I love her, and I really did mean to tell you sooner and I'm so sorry!"
Erik is silent for a long moment, staring at the cat. She no longer looks thin, in fact she's almost rather fat now - and he realizes dimly that Christine must have been feeding her as well. That little scoundrel of a feline.
"You think she wandered in." he states.
Christine nods.
"Like that skunk that got in, remember?"
Erik raises his eyebrows. There was no forgetting that skunk, and the both of them knew it.
"She didn't wander in, Christine." he hesitates. It's tempting to let her think what she will, but he can't bear to lie to her. "I- I found her the last time I was out at night and I brought her back here."
Christine is rather surprised - it's been over a month since he was out last.
"Oh! Oh, well- I thought- oh goodness, so you've known the whole time?"
He nods sheepishly.
"I meant to tell you straight away, but I wanted to tell you when I could actually present her to you, and Ayesha kept hiding after I brought her here, you see-"
Christine tilts her head.
"Ayesha? You named her Ayesha?"
"Yes..." he narrows his eyes. "Why, what did you name her?"
Christine shoves her food around on her plate with the fork, pointedly not meeting his eye.
"Christine." he chides her. "Just tell me."
She purses her lips into a thin line and stubbornly holds her silence a few moments longer before answering in a mutter.
"I've been calling her Kitty."
Erik just barely manages to suppress a snort. He had expected something more... creative.
"But Ayesha fits her better." Christine adds.
Erik looks down at his own plate, frowning.
"Are you certain, my dear?" he asks gravely. "She certainly is a kitty, after all."
"Erik!"
Christine is sorely tempted to scoop up the rest of her scrambled eggs in her spoon and fling them at the man across from her.
