Erik was trying so hard to be good, to not listen to the little voices in his head. He had been getting so much better at it, too - tuning out that panicking voice that said everyone was lying to him and things were constantly on the verge of utter ruin.
So when he starts to see the little signs, he tries to tell himself otherwise. But one by one they pile up until there is simply no other way around it.
Christine is leaving him.
He is certain of it.
It had started simply enough - she suddenly had to start working more hours. Perhaps they were short staffed, he told himself as he tried to avoid the obvious. Perhaps someone had gotten sick or taken a vacation and Christine had been picked to fill their absence. But then he came to find out that Christine had specifically asked to work more hours. It surely couldn't be a money issue - Erik had plenty of money, and any amount of that was hers for the asking. Perhaps she was bored spending her time down here? Perhaps she was bored of him.
With the extra hours at work she had less time for her music. That was to be expected, of course - but Erik still felt it stung him more than it reasonably should. When she did have time off, it seemed the last thing she wanted to do was work on her opera.
He had even brought the subject up on her night off. She had been reclining on the couch and staring at the fire when he had approached her.
"Are you still tired from work, Christine?"
"No, not very."
"It's been so long since we had a chance to work on your opera together, would you like to join me in composing tonight?"
She had glanced over at him as though she had only half heard what he had said.
"Not tonight, Erik."
He had nodded and left the room. He sat in front of the organ, blinking down at the keys and frowning. Either she was lying to him about tired she was, or she would literally rather sit and do nothing than to work on her music - their music. She knew better than anyone that the opera she - they - were writing was not mere notes on a page or a collection of words strung together. Of course she was not obligated to work on it constantly, but it was such a personal piece, was so tightly entwined to their own lives and emotions that her denial of it seemed a denial of him as well.
Even still, he tried to stomp down any thoughts of deeper implications. Once he had gone years without working on Don Juan Triumphant, so surely he should not read too much in this, right?
She also finds she no longer has time to come downstairs on her lunch breaks, and will occasionally miss dinner or breakfast as well. Erik tries to not take this personally, either - she likes his cooking, she's told him often enough, but he does enjoy cooking for her and he enjoys sharing meals with her even more, so it's another interrupted activity that he sorely misses.
But he tries to continue on as if everything were normal. He's not used to spending so much time away from Christine. It's terribly lonely, so he decides to wander through the tunnels upstairs just to hear some human voices. It's not that he intended to spy on her per say, but he did happen to run across the room she was working in. He hadn't known that she'd be in there as it was a room she typically didn't work in, but with the extra hours he supposed she was doing all sorts of new tasks as well as her regular ones. He pauses in front of the hairline crack in the wall. He misses hearing her talk - she's been terribly quiet lately when she finally comes home in the evenings.
"I still have to arrange the carriage to the docks."
"But you already have your tickets for the ship, yes?" Madame Giry asks.
"I do. I got those way in advance. Oh, I'm so nervous! But I want this so much."
"I think it's entirely for the best, dear, and I completely approve. It will be difficult of course, but I know that you won't stop until you're on the deck of that boat, watching as this shore gets smaller and smaller until all of your worries that are tied to this place are gone from view." Giry sighs. "I'm so happy for you."
"Erik doesn't suspect a thing so far, as much as I can tell. If I can only keep it that way right up until it's time to leave... If he finds out then everything will be spoiled. I can't have that. This waiting is so awful, Madame! Would that I could simply get it over with immediately and be away from here!"
Erik jerks back as though he's been slapped. He wracks his brain trying to come up with a better explanation but comes up empty.
Christine is taking a carriage to the docks. Christine is getting on a boat that will take her away from her worries that are tied to this building. Nothing is going to stop her, she can't wait to leave, she does want Erik to know, and Madame Giry agrees that it's the best course of action.
Their conversation turns to other matters, and he wanders down the thin hallway behind the walls as if in a trance. It's a good thing he knows these pathways so well, because his vision is getting blurry from the tears that insist on gathering in his eyes.
Did she really hate him that much? That she couldn't wait to get away from him. And Giry had agreed! He had considered a friend all this time, and to hear her betray him like that-! But perhaps it was because she was his friend that she knew him so well, knew him to be such a farce of a man, that she was uniquely qualified to encourage his wife to leave him.
His wife.
Hardly even that. Legally they were not even married. He had no birth certificate, no last name - from a legal standpoint he did not even exist. How could such a man take a wife in the eyes of the law? She wouldn't even have to get to divorced, why - she could marry anyone she wanted at right this very moment and there was nothing and no one to say otherwise. What right did he have to call her his wife? At the very most one could say they were married in the eyes of God - the priest had said so, after all. But Erik has long had the suspicion that the eyes of God so rarely fall on one such as him, and surely not even God would fault Christine for breaking the vows she had taken that bound her to a creature of darkness.
He pauses, taking off his mask to scrub his sleeve across his eyes. They hadn't even been living together for half a year before she was already plotting her escape - one that apparently required putting an entire ocean between him and her. Was he truly that awful, still? All his work towards bettering himself, all his attempts to put her first in everything - was he still so horrible to be around?
He sits down in the tunnel, not caring of the dust and cobwebs sullying his suit, and cries into his hands. Had he done something? Was there something he should have done that he had neglected to do? He vows to be more attentive, not to get her to change her mind, no - her mind appears quite made up - but simply to ease her suffering for the rest of what little time she's forced to be around him. He doesn't even know how much longer she'll stay - it would not take very long to arrange a carriage, after all. She might not even come back tonight. He's struck by the thought that perhaps he's already seen her for the very last time.
He numbly makes his way back to his house. He replays the overheard conversation in his mind over and over. She didn't want him to know until she was out the door - was it because she was afraid of his reaction? Did she think he had been lying when he had told that he'd let her go if she ever wished it? Was she expecting him to trap her here, kidnap her once again and hold her against her wishes? That thought hurt him nearly as much as the thought of her leaving. He considered simply bringing the matter to her - laying everything bare and confessing what he'd heard, apologizing for the awful mess of a person he was, and telling her that she need not wait at all if she wanted so badly to leave. But to do so would require him to admit that he had been listening to her personal conversations, and perhaps that would cause her to hate him even more. He curses his own selfishness that prompts him to let her stay as long as she can, that causes him to hide his own shameful actions so as to appear better to the woman who hates him regardless. But either way he chooses they cannot win - either she leaves him immediately and finds reason to despise him all the more, or he lets her stay and they both suffer silently.
He manages to compose himself as best he can and sets about preparing dinner, trying to think of all the possibilities that she could find off-putting about him and their life together. The list is quite numerous.
He had thought things had been going so well, though - what had happened?
He is actually surprised when she walks through the door.
"Are you hungry, Christine? I have made dinner for us."
He had spent the evening preparing a stew from a Swedish recipe - perhaps all the foreign recipes he cooked were too strange, surely she would enjoy a meal from her homeland.
"Oh- I already ate when I was upstairs. I was so busy, you know, I just grabbed something while I was working. I think I'm just going to get ready for bed." she manages an apologetic look at him before heading to her room.
"Ah. I see. Of course."
He sits in the kitchen by himself, but suddenly he doesn't feel very hungry either.
He puts off going to bed as long as he can - surely she'll appreciate the extra time away from him, he thinks.
When he finally joins her in bed he makes certain to stay respectfully to his own side and keep his hands to himself. He wonders if there's been nights she didn't want his arms around her, didn't want his hands on her hips or shoulders, didn't want to feel him next to her, but was too polite - or afraid - to say anything.
Christine glances behind her, surprised that he's keeping his distance.
"Why are you wearing your mask?" she asks sleepily.
He stares at the ceiling, not answering.
"You can't sleep in your mask, Erik. Your face will get too irritated. It's not good for you."
"I don't mind." he replies easily enough.
She groans at this. She wants to press the issue because he's never kept his mask on while sleeping before, but she is so terribly tired that she lets it go.
He knows that she's said over and over that she doesn't mind his face, but what if she didn't entirely mean that? Perhaps she had changed her mind after having to see it every night. Erik is no fool - he knows that even if she truly does not mind his face that he still looks better with the mask on. And besides... If these are to be their last few days together - perhaps even their last night together - he would much prefer that she remember him as at least slightly less monstrous than he actually was.
He awakes early from a fitful sleep - the porcelain of his mask kept finding the most unpleasant ways to press into him no matter what position he was in. He takes it off and tries to rub at his face, finding that it truly had irritated the skin underneath. He would have to mix up some herbs into a balm to keep it from getting infected. But first - breakfast. One glance at Christine was enough to tell that she was still asleep, but he lingered a moment longer, hoping to memorize the image of her here in this bed with him before she was gone forever.
He wonders again where it had all turned wrong - things had been going so well, had they not? Was he so blind that he couldn't even see what had happened? Was- was there someone else? He swallows hard. He couldn't fault her for that - for wanting a normal life with a normal man. Christine was a creature of pure light - she didn't belong here in a dungeon, in a tomb.
He sets about cooking her favourite breakfast for her.
When she comes into the kitchen for breakfast and sees what he's made, she gives him the most dazzling smile that, for just a moment, makes him second guess the words he'd heard with his own ears. Would a woman so desperate to flee from him smile in such a way? Ah, but he himself had taught her acting in addition to singing, hadn't he? She always was such a good actress.
The briefest flicker of hope glows in his heart as they sit down together - and is immediately extinguished when he notices she is no longer wearing his ring. So it really is over, he thinks. He doesn't eat any of the food he took so long to cook, and Christine doesn't even seem to notice. She thanks him for the meal and presses a kiss to the side of his face before going upstairs. How pathetic, he thinks, that he'll take even this scrap of affection knowing that it means nothing anymore.
Sure enough her ring is still on her nightstand when he goes to look for it. A part of him begs to think that she merely forgot it, but he knows that she always wears her ring, always - she doesn't take it off to sleep so for her to leave it here was a deliberate choice.
He's at a loss of what to do, of what it all means, so he dresses for an excursion outside. He makes his way through alleys and shadows and finally arrives at Nadir's apartment. He's quickly granted entrance by his servant, and Nadir's smile of surprise quickly falls from his face when he sees Erik's solemn look.
"I take it the reason for this visit is not a good one, old friend."
Erik manages to hold it together until the servant is out of the room.
"She's leaving me, Daroga." he sits heavily on the couch, pressing his palms into his eyes.
Nadir regards him for a moment.
"Are you certain about this? You're sure you aren't overreacting to something you've taken wrong?"
Nadir cares for Erik, he does enjoy his company and he knows that the man has a dizzying intellect - but he also knows his penchant for overdramatic reactions to the simplest of things.
"I overheard her telling of the boat ticket she bought, of how she can't wait to leave, and- and she's-" he breaks off, unable to fully face it for a few moments.
"She's taken off her wedding ring, Daroga." he finally whispers.
Well. Nadir sits down next to him. He must admit, if Erik is telling full truth, it doesn't sound good.
"What will you do?" Nadir finally asks him.
"What can I do?" Erik shrugs.
"You'll let her go?"
"I have to. She isn't happy with me anymore."
Nadir nods. They had seemed so happy together when he had seen them last, not more than a couple months ago when he had stopped in to watch a show.
He stays with Nadir for the rest of the day, at first trying to figure out what had happened to make Christine wish to leave but they only come up with dead ends.
"I fear this is something you can only fully understand by discussing it with her." Nadir tells him.
When he finally returns home it's only moments before Christine herself returns. It's another night that she had dinner upstairs, and Erik still has had no appetite all day despite the cookies Nadir had convinced him to eat earlier.
He changes and prepares for bed, but pauses in the doorway to her bedroom. Her ring is still on the nightstand, untouched. Perhaps...
"Christine," he asks softly. "Do you- do you want me to sleep in here? With you?"
"Of course!" her reply is automatic, but then she hesitates. "I mean, only if you want to, that is."
He nods and looks down.
"Goodnight, Christine." he whispers as he leaves the doorway.
"Goodnight, Erik."
He thinks he hears a hint of sadness to her voice as he makes his way to his bedroom.
He's about to close his door when he hears her behind him.
"Erik, wait!"
She stops short in his doorway. She hasn't looked in the room since their ill-fated wedding night, and a wave of sorrow washes over her face when she sees that the coffin is still there.
"Please, Erik, you can sleep in bed with me if you'd like. You don't have to sleep in- in that, if you don't want to."
His heart sinks. He does want to spend the night next to her. He wants nothing more than to fall asleep with her in his arms once more, to be able to kiss her long and slow all night long as they have in the past. But his angel is too kind, he knows she'll sacrifice her own feelings to make him feel better. He is very selfish man, yes, but he could never live with himself if he forced such intimacy from her. To even to do nothing but sleep in the same bed seems to be asking far too much knowing what he knows about how she's longing to depart from here - and from him.
He raises one hand to cradle the side of her face but stops just before making contact. His hand hovers there as he realizes that perhaps she wouldn't want even that touch anymore, and he lets his hand drop to his side.
"It's alright, Christine." he tells her. "I do want to sleep here."
She makes no effort to tell him otherwise or to enter into his room any farther, so he musters a small smile that's more sad than anything and gently closes the door.
