Christine looked at the clock in her dressing room and fretted. Erik was always so punctual, it wasn't like him to be late. He was supposed to have fetched her to escort her downstairs for her lesson nearly twenty minutes ago, and she was beginning to worry. She knew she had been gone a few days, but he had never forgotten a lesson of their before.

She was already on edge with the strain of rehearsals and the looming opening night not more than a fortnight away. Her hard work and dedication had paid off enormously - she knew her role inside and out, but she still was worried about forgetting while on stage. It was a huge step towards her goals, and it was as terrifying as it was magical. She needed Erik there with her now more than ever - not only to help her prepare but also to calm her with his soothing presence.

By the time he was forty minutes late, she could stand it no longer, and slid the mirror back herself before entering the tunnel, making certain to close it behind her. It was dark in places, and she wrapped her arms around herself and quickened her pace. She was scared of the dark, even still - the reason that Erik always brought a lantern with him when he came to fetch her. She didn't have time to get one to bring with her - a funny thought, to not have time when time was in excess that afternoon, but her nerves were positively on the verge of bursting and she didn't have the presence of mind to remember that a lantern would be useful.

She rowed herself across the lake, noticing now the strange, eerie glow it seemed to give off. It wasn't until the other bank was in sight that she realized she didn't have her key with her. She had taken it off before she went to Perros and had neglected to bring it with her to her dressing room, thinking that she wouldn't need it.

She finally reached the little house on the lake, searched the entire bank for any sign of him, and then approached the front door. She reached for the doorknob and found it locked. A lump formed in her throat. She had nightmares that started like this. She banged on the door and called out his name, her voice a little more panicky than she would have liked.

There was no answer.

She looked around desperately, but there were no answers down here - the glowing lake and hazy mist and mossy stone walls gave away nothing. Her mind began to fill scenarios, none of them good.

"Erik!" she practically sobbed, beating on the door again.

Still no answer.

It had finally happened, just as she'd always feared.

At a loss of what else to do, she took off one of her shoes and used the heel to break the glass of one of the windows. She hated to do it, to harm his charming little house he had worked so hard on - but she hated even more the thought of simply turning around and leaving. He might need help, maybe he could still be saved - and if not, if she was too late, well... she couldn't just leave him like that. He deserved better than that.

Careful to not cut her herself on the edges of the broken glass, she struggled to climb through the window. Once inside she glanced wildly around, trying to steel herself for what she would find. She walked through room after room, her steps shaky, tears rolling down her cheeks. She hoped she'd be strong enough - not just physically, but mentally - to be able to move him when she found him.

Her tension grew as she swiftly ran out of rooms to look for him in, knowing he had to be in one of them. She turned down a hallway that led to his music room and the living room, but she didn't get a chance to inspect either one.

Erik casually strolled out from his bedroom.

She stopped short and gasped.

Erik noticed her and his eyes widened. Her face was blotchy from crying and her shoulders were shaking as she gaped at him. She looked as though she'd seen a ghost.

And no wonder, he realized - at some point in his haze of composing he had taken his mask off and neglected to put it back on. Panic rose up in him and he belatedly threw a hand up over the right side of his face.

But to his utter surprise and confusion, instead of running away, Christine ran to him and threw her arms around him, bursting into a fresh set of sobs as she pressed her face into his chest.

He hesitantly placed his arms around her.

"Christine, dearest - what's wrong, what's happened?" he tried to calm her, but she merely shook her head and continued to cry.

Still baffled, he led her to the sitting room where he sat down on the couch with her.

"What are you even doing down here, sweet?" he asked gently.

She glanced up at him, her eyes red and watery.

"You didn't show up for my lesson."

"Lesson?" he swallowed. "Christine... What day is it?"

"Friday," she whimpered against him.

"Oh- oh, Christine, I'm so sorry," he hugged her a little tighter. "I was composing, my dear, and I lost track of time. I didn't mean to worry you in any way."

She sniffled.

"What were you composing?"

"Hmm. Just an opera I've been working on for a while now. I haven't worked on it in ages, but I was suddenly had the urge to do so, and I guess I just got... carried away," he shrugged a little.

"What's it called?" she asked softly.

"Ah," he chuckled sheepishly and paused. "It's ah, it's called 'Don Juan Triumphant'."

"Will you play some of it for me?"

She was longing for anything to take her mind off of what she had thought happened. What better way to prove he was still alive, still here with her than to hear him play the music he had written?

"No, no - not that. You- you wouldn't like that, I'm afraid... But why don't I get you some tea to drink before your lesson?"

He made to pull away from her but she fisted her hands in the fabric of his shirt and pulled gently and he sat back down.

"I don't want to do a lesson today, Erik," she whispered. "I just want to sit here with you for a little while."

"Are you certain?" he frowned.

She nodded, and let her hands move from their grip in his shirt to rest on his shoulders.

"When you didn't show up, and then you didn't answer your door- I thought... I thought you had..." she sniffed, her brow furrowed. She couldn't even bring herself to say the words.

"Christine..." he traced small circles on her back with his fingertips.

He didn't know how to reply to that. He had assumed, when the time came, that she would be sad, of course. She would miss him as one misses a great teacher in one's life, as a mentor who had helped her immensely. But he hadn't expected it to be like this for her. He hadn't expected her to mourn, that she would be near inconsolable over it, that she would be unable to stem her tears even after finding out that he was not yet departed. The smallest sprout of hope bloomed in his heart that maybe - just maybe - her feelings towards him carried even the tiniest scrap of love. She respected him, yes - respected him and enjoyed his company, she trusted him and cared for his wellbeing, but to be loved... That was something else entirely.

Ever since that fateful party that they had attended all those months ago, he had tried so hard to keep everything between them just the same as it had always been. The one difference that had seeped through, however, was evident in how they were sitting on his couch - Christine was not afraid of his touch, and now he knew it. It was a novel concept, that he didn't have to feel regret or shame if their fingers should brush or if he tapped her shoulder to remind her of her posture - and even more novel had been her asking him for a hug on her birthday recently in the late spring, a request he quickly complied with even if he didn't fully understand why she wanted such a thing from him. But touching Christine, he realized, could be a slippery slope indeed, so even still he tried to hold back lest one day he cross a line that they both regretted.

Any joy he felt at holding her now was offset by both the discomfort of her tears and the awkwardness of how he was dressed. True to his word he had been composing with very little rest or breaks, unable to hear anything but the music in his head, unable to do anything but scrawl down notation and lyrics and pound out strange new chords on the keys. Assuming that he was safe in his locked house he had forgone wearing his mask (he was thankful, now, that in his vanity he had kept the wig on regardless) and most of the rest of his clothing - trousers and suspenders and a shirt which he had rolled the sleeves up to elbows and neglected to button all the way up.

Still, he wouldn't have minded his shameful state of dress as much if he at least had his mask on - Christine had seen his face before, yes, and except for the very first time she had seen it she had always been exceedingly kind about it, but he still couldn't help but want to keep it hidden from her all the same. Lost as she was in her grief over her imagined loss of him, she hadn't even seemed to register that he was unmasked. Was this what it was like to be a normal man? To have your wife run to you and embrace you without a second thought, without glancing at your face and cringing? There would be less crying, of course, in that situation.

Christine is not your wife, he reminded himself as her hands slipped around his waist to hug him closer.

"I couldn't bear to lose you so suddenly, Erik," she cried. "Promise me, promise me you'll tell me if you know you're going to- if you know that you're ill. Please, I'd want to know."

His heart twisted. His dear little Christine. She was so sweet to worry over him when he so clearly didn't deserve it. He placed his hands around her shoulders.

Christine will never be your wife, he reprimanded himself even as he let one hand trace down her delicate shoulder bone, skated a finger across her upper arm until it reached the edge of her sleeve at her elbow.

You have no right to touch her, he let his thumb caress the soft skin at the inside of her elbow. You will never have that right, he ran his fingertips down her forearm, following the fragile tendons there until he reached her wrist, wrapping his hand around it and squeezing gently before removing her hand from its place on his waist.

He lifted her little hand up and fought the sudden urge to press a kiss to her small palm, instead pressing her hand against his chest, over his heart so she could feel its steady, if somewhat fast, beat. He relished the feeling of her warm hand against his own palm and through the thin fabric of his shirt, though somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized that in order for him to feel that warmth, she in turn was being enveloped by ice.

"It's alright, Christine, I'm not going anywhere, I promise you," he murmured, pressing down the guilt he felt at those words.

He couldn't promise her that. He had no real way of knowing, had never been to a doctor in all his decades of life. And now, with the the things he had been noticing of late, odd little feelings here and there that he'd never had before, symptoms that might mean noting at all or might signal the beginning of the end of everything.

He had promised her once before that he'd never lie to her again. He'd committed many sins in his long life - he was most assuredly already damned to hell three times over - yet none felt as condemning as that honey-sweet false promise he'd just whispered in her ear. He closed his eyes. What choice did he have, though? With her weeping on his shoulder? To tell her he didn't even know if he was sick because he'd never seen a doctor, that most of the time he'd didn't even care to know because he didn't mind the prospect of the inevitable too much?

But now, holding her in his arms as she wept over him, he found that he did mind - he minded very much. He knew his only regret over leaving this life would be leaving Christine behind, for he knew he'd never see her again after that. If there was something after all this, he knew with certainty that he and she would not end up in the same place. But that had always seemed to be a regret for him alone - surely Christine would accept that one as wicked as him must surely go somewhere else than her, after all. That was only right and she was a righteous woman who wouldn't seek to argue with justice. She cared for him, yes, but he had always figured that her pain, if any, at losing him would be minuscule compared to his at losing her. Now, though, he wasn't so sure. She had only thought she'd lost him for less than half an hour, and look what a state she was in. Would she grieve him as deeply as he grieved the thought of eternity without her?

Perhaps, he thought as her sobs began to quiet, perhaps he should go see a doctor after all. For her sake. If he could do something - anything - to extend his time with her, then maybe that would lessen his lie to her. And if he truly was running out of sand in his hourglass, down to the last few crumbs, well - he certainly hadn't known that (even if he strongly suspected it) when he promised her, had he?

He let one hand slowly raise itself to her hair, twining into her curls and cradling the back of her head. For a moment he held the hope of a quite possibly unattainable goal - if he could atone for his sins, if he could right all his many wrongs, if he could be good - truly good - from this day forward, then maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance that he too could go to Heaven afterwards. He didn't even know how to go about such a thing - if such a thing was even possible. But he would try, for Christine's sake. He hadn't realized just how much he meant to her. And if such an impossibility as Christine weeping over the loss of him could exist, then perhaps other hitherto impossible things could exist, too. Perhaps sins really could be forgiven - perhaps there was balm in Gilead after all.

His eyes flew open and he swiftly removed his hand from its place in her hair. He might not know how to go about receiving heavenly forgiveness, but he knew damn well that taking advantage of her grief so that he could touch her would do him no favors in that department. He gently extracted himself from her grip and stood up, settling her back against the couch.

"Oh, Christine," he chided softly. "You're shivering. Stay right here, dearest, I'm going to get you a blanket."