The first time Erik goes shopping with her, he lurks in the shadows of the alleys and refuses to let the sunlight touch him any more than it has to. She rolls her eyes when she realizes that this is why he had wanted to go to the open air market with her, so he could lurk instead of walk beside her like a normal person.

She must admit, however, that he's quite good at lurking. She only notices him several times, and only because she knows what she's looking for - although once she stood at near the booth selling fresh fruit and strained her eyes down the alley behind it trying for nearly fifteen minutes to discern if the shape by the wall was her husband or a garbage bin. She eventually gave up and ended up walking away with far more fruit than she had originally intended on buying.

Once she paused near the alley entrance and was startled half to death by the cold hand suddenly in her shoulder - only to turn with the intent of striking the assailant in the face to find one green eye and one blue eye peering back at her.

"Erik," she breathes, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn't punched him. "What's wrong?"

He gestures across at a man on the other side of the street.

"I don't like the look of that man, Christine."

She looks towards the man, who's wearing a straw boating hat and has a newspaper folded under his arm.

"Why? What's wrong with him?" Christine is confused.

Erik narrows his eyes.

"I just don't like him," he hisses.

Christine is now baffled as to whether it's due to some innate sense that Erik has - is this man secretly up to no good? - or if it's simply a matter of personal taste that's been offended. Nevertheless, she humors him.

"Alright, I'll make sure to avoid him."

He sinks back into the darkness and she continues on with her shopping, feeling very silly. It's not exactly what she had been dreaming of when he had mentioned going shopping with her.

She tells him as much when they arrive home, and through much coaxing and flattery and a well planned pout, she manages to convince him that it would not be too awful if he were to actually walk through the markets like normal person, though he still insists that he should not be seen near her.

"Christine, what if people see?"

And he places such a pleading emphasis on the word 'see' that it wrenches her heart to think that he's still worried about what people will think of her if she's seen with someone like him, even when she's told him over and over that it does not matter to her.

But he can never say no when she frowns like that, biting her lip and fluttering her eyelashes and placing a hand on his chest, and so they both settle on their compromise.

The next time they go shopping, he stays a dozen paces behind her, pretending he isn't with her. Every so often she glances back at him out of sheer habit, and when she does so he pointedly avoids looking at her. She feels he's being absolutely ridiculous over the whole thing, and, upon passing a certain vendor's cart that makes her eyes glean with mischief, she counts to fifteen and suddenly stops to turn back towards Erik.

Erik turns and pretends to be suddenly interested in the items being sold there, as she knew he would do to keep the distance between them. He looks at them with feigned interest, and then, suddenly realizing what they are, confusion and vague fear. His eyes slide over to finally - finally - look at Christine, who smiles sweetly at him and nods, glancing back at the items herself. He breaks out in a cold sweat as he looks back at the vendor's items.

Baby clothes and toys for infants.

He dares to look back at Christine one more time. She can't help but snicker at how wide his eyes are, and how they go from looking at her face to her midsection with barely restrained horror.

"Are you looking for something in particular, Monsieur?" the kindly woman behind the vendor table asks.

Erik jumps, startled out of his dark and spiraling thoughts.

"No!" his voice sounds strange to own ears, far too high. "No, thank you, mademoiselle, I was just l-looking, that's- that's all."

He certainly hopes that's all.

Christine raises an eyebrow at him and continues on down he street.

When she glances back in a few moments, he's definitely watching her now, his act of nonchalance entirely forgotten. He's fidgeting with his hands and rubbing his neck and he looks rather pale, even for him.

Minutes tick by until he cannot stand it any longer. He quickens his pace and she suddenly finds him mere inches behind her.

"Christine!" he hisses in a strangled whisper. "Are you- are you-?"

She looks up at him, the picture of innocence.

"Am I what, Erik?"

He swallows and licks his lips, glancing around anxiously.

"Is there something you would like to tell me, Christine? Something that I should know?" he gestures his hand in a vaguely accusatory point at her abdomen.

"Well, yes, there is," her smile brightens.

She glances around the marketplace before leaning in close to him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. His shoulders tense up.

"I wanted to tell you, Erik, how good it is to have you here by my side. And no one is even taking a second glance at us, look," she whispers warmly in his ear.

His brows knit in confusion, and she stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

"Now, since you're already here, we might as well finish our trip together, don't you agree?"

She begins to walk once more, firmly leading him by the hand. He follows docilely, his mind trying to work out what exactly had just happened. It takes him a moment to realize that his dear wife, had, in fact tricked him, but the relief he feels far exceeds any annoyance - and besides, she was quite correct that no one had bothered to give a second glance to them so far.

All of their trips from that point on are taken side by side. Erik does not always go with her - sometimes he is otherwise busy or Christine wants a little time to herself, and anyway there has been a rather curious drop in local crime lately. Christine mentions this little fact that she overheard to her husband, who merely replied with an "Oh?" and a small shrug. She doesn't press him for details of what he said - or did - to the thief that he had accosted, but she feels distinctly certain that that incident was directly related to the latest statistics.

But there are many times that they do go shopping together.

Despite Christine's original insistence that no one would stare, Erik does in fact notice the occasional lingering glance in their direction and no matter how quickly that glance turns away it never ceases to make him uncomfortable. Christine eventually becomes used to the meaning of his hand placed pleadingly on her shoulder or a small tug on her sleeve or skirt - someone is staring and Erik wishes to move on. It pulls her from her thoughts of what she's purchasing, and she'll glance with concern at Erik, who will invariably be looking at the ground and frowning, a ghost of shame written across his face. She'll then quickly look around for the perpetrator of this, the person who dared to make her husband feel self conscious, and upon finding them will direct a withering stare of her own in their direction before grabbing Erik's hand and stalking off away from prying eyes and curious glances.

She feels one of the tugs at her sleeve as she's absorbed in looking at kitchen towels. She had been done apprehension about the state of their kitchen towels for some time now, and had finally brought up it to him the previous night.

He had merely looked at her, baffled.

"They are towels, Christine, it is normal for them to have rips and stains even when clean, especially if they're for the kitchen," he had told her.

"Erik, they're disgusting. I can't stand to look at them anymore."

"And you are aware, my dear, that the new towels will simply acquire their own stains and tears? What will you do then?"

"Buy new ones again," was her retort, and she had made a noise that, had it been anyone else making it, Erik would have classified as a snort.

He had sat there, utterly bemused, both at her reckless attitude towards how often they would have to buy towels and at the awful noise that he wished he never knew she was capable of making.

At that, he had said nothing more and didn't complain when she announced the next day that they would be towel shopping. If nothing else, he thought, perhaps the new towels would keep her from ever making that noise or anything close to it again.

He had also agreed to let her pick them out, which is why she was so lost in thought trying to decide between robin's egg blue and butter yellow. She glanced up at the feel of her sleeve being pulled. A cursory look around the aisle proved there was no one there but her and Erik. Perhaps the gawker had already left. She turned back to the towels. Mint green was also a worthy option, she frowned. She almost wished Erik hadn't abdicated the entire task to her.

Another tug. She looks up again. Still no one. She narrows her eyes and goes back to the towels. She had always had a fondness for lilac, too, and of course tea rose was lovely. Would Erik mind pink towels in the kitchen? Well, he shouldn't have let her pick them if he did.

He graduates to wrapping his hand around her elbow.

"Christine," he whines softly.

"Wha- Erik, there's no one there-"

She looks down for the first time and notices a very small child, a little boy barely old enough to walk, standing at the end of the aisle and staring with wide eyes at both of them. One tiny hand was gripping a shabby stuffed animal and the other was half stuck in his mouth which was dripping with drool. The child's guardian was just around the corner of the aisle, just barely out of view.

Christine watches the child for a moment before turning to Erik, incredulous.

"Are you serious?" she asks him in a hushed tone. "Erik, I don't think that child can even form a truly coherent thought, I'm certain he's not... Thinking bad things about you."

"Then why is he staring?" Erik grumbles.

"He's just a baby," she gestures at the child. "Babies stare, that's just what they do."

She frowns at Erik, who was still fidgeting under the gaze of the small child. She realizes for the first time that perhaps Erik had never been around children of that age, at least not for very long.

"We're almost done, anyway. Which of these colors do you think looks better?"

It was Erik's turn to frown.

"Why not white?"

Christine sighs at his response and continues to compare the colors next to each other. Peach, she couldn't leave peach out of the equation either. White. How silly of him.

Erik continues to fret and eventually moves to stand of the other side of Christine, hoping perhaps that she would block him from view, despite his being taller than her. Christine would admit that the child's unblinking stare is somewhat unnerving, but they truly do need towels so she lingers a little longer before throwing her hands up in defeat.

Erik does not mind that they end up buying one of each color (except, of course, for white) - anything to escape the vicinity of that awful child.

For the most part, however, the stares received are minimal, and to the great relief of both of them, no one makes mention of Erik or his mask.

Erik finds he enjoys the trips more than he thought that he would. After a while he finds that instead of constantly keeping an eye out for would-be muggers he can relax and finds himself rather interested in the shopping itself.

He will admit that he does have a particular fondness for helping pick out clothing for Christine, even if she did tend to take longer than was strictly necessary when shopping for such items - after all, how could he be upset when he got to see her try on dress after dress when she made such a pretty picture in each one?

And she was equally as patient with him when he would find something that absorbed his interest as well - even when he stopped in front of a large display of admirable knives of all types and sorts with a rather unwholesome gleam in his eye.

He had stood there studying each one for an almost worrisome amount of time, and it had prompted her to ask - against her better judgment - what precisely he was going to do with such items.

"You have many knives at home already, darling. What do you need more for?" she had not entirely succeeded in erasing the nervousness from her voice.

Erik had looked up from the display case, his face a study in seriousness.

"Just in case, Christine," he told her in a grave voice.

At that point she had entirely lost her nerve to ask what that even meant, instead replying with a weak "Oh, I see."

It wasn't until they had been on a fair number of such trips out that Erik came across something of great interest to him.

Christine had paused to look at the flower cart, full of colorful blooms when suddenly she felt Erik lean close to her and whisper in her ear.

"Christine, look at that man, that one over there."

She looks in the direction that he gestures, the direction he's staring intently.

There's a man who seems to be going about his own business, nothing too out of the ordinary- except for the mask he's wearing. It covers part of his jaw and the side of his face.

Christine takes this in for a moment before looking at Erik, who's fiercely studying the man.

"Erik," she says crisply. "It is rude to stare, I know that you know this."

He rolls his eyes.

"But just look at him, Christine."

"Yes, I know, love," she discretely glances at the man again. "He was probably injured in the war."

"The war..." Erik trails off, still staring.

He reaches up and places a hand on the masked side of his own face.

"Do you think," he hesitates. "Do you think people will think that about me, too?"

Erik's face is hopeful as she considers it.

"I suppose they would," she finally says.

Erik hums at this and says nothing more on the subject, but he's in a thoughtful mood for the rest of the trip.

After that incident, he's a little more eager to go out on trips, a little less hesitant when given the opportunity to go outside.

She enjoys watching him get distracted by the many different wares for sale. She wonders how long it has been that he shopped like this - if he ever shopped like this - before she came. He seems so terribly... Normal, as he helps pick produce or inquires the price of a certain cut of meat. She takes pride in knowing that on such occasions he's forgotten himself, forgotten his near constant worries over so many things. There are more times, however, that he leaves the talking entirely up to her, preferring to stand behind her and duck his head so as to hide as much of his face as he can, but even the small handful of times that he speaks is far better than none, she thinks.

He loves being able to spend time around her up here, getting to see yet another side of his dear Christine. She stops to look at items he never would have thought she'd enjoy, learns new things about what she likes and doesn't like. It's a wonder to watch her do even the simplest of tasks, like pick through the barrel of apples for ones without any bruises, or fish for a coin out of her purse to give to the little beggar child who resides on the street corner.

There's many things to enjoy about their shopping trips, yes, but it's difficult for either of them to rank those reasons higher than the simple pleasure of being able to walk hand in hand out in the fresh air and sunshine, together on a shared mission.