A/N: Answers to so many questions ahead... but of course, the story isn't over.
"She eats the hearts first, before they go bad- as all hearts will."
Jessica D. Thompson, Circe's Lament
Erik dismissed Nadir and told him to help receive the triumph when the actors took their final bows, then he slipped away to a secluded alcove where he could hopefully pull Rene from the sidelines without anyone noticing. They were to have a receptive gala after the performance, so at least there was time to distract her bodyguard and find his way around sneaking her into a conversation with him. If she even wanted to.
Part of him figured that since she was there in the first place, that she definitely did want to speak with him. Why even attend when she was the one who had brought him there in the first place and had given him the opportunity to bring this opera back to a former, possibly even better, glory?
And so he snuck away from the crowds and waited for her to pass by.
It was only by a will of fate that she was walking alone behind her three companions that Erik was able to snatch her into his alcove with him. She was quite the bit heavier this time, but he pretended not to notice, for he was stronger and heavier as well, though it wasn't as noticeable on him as her pregnancy was.
Erik would attempt to ignore that factor for as long as possible.
She squealed, clutching her large stomach with her breathing increasing almost instantaneously, a shiver running down her spine at the darkness in which she could not see. Oh, but Erik could see her, and he could smell her, too. The memory of laying in the room she had slept in, despite vowing to never go into it again, was stark in his mind as he held this woman captive while she calmed down from her little screaming fit.
"Rene," he beckoned loosely, and with the sound of his voice dropped into the air, she was still.
"Erik?"
Her voice could have brought him to his knees if he weren't completely livid with her.
"Yes."
"Where are we? What are you doing?"
He sighed, unwilling to answer her questions quite yet until they were away from the roar of the crowd. It was a good sign, but it was currently causing him quite a few problems.
Without another word, he transferred them through the halls in the shadows, coming upon his office with great speed despite her swollen stomach causing her a few problems. He wished to carry her, to inhale her scent again and be completely hers. Erik wanted to consume her, but there were marks of another man growing within her, and so he placed her in one of the chairs in his office and resorted to his own desk, sitting on it's smooth and clean surface.
In the light, he could see her eyes shifting from thing to thing, but never landing on him for longer than a passing glance. He wanted her to look at him, to see the things she'd given and taken from him.
"What are you doing here?" Erik no longer had patience for her rude behavior.
Nervous and timid, a woman Erik hardly knew, Rene put a hand on her stomach again. He was trying not to think of that little presence in between them, but he couldn't help but be reminded of it when she obviously cared for it so much. How much had he truly meant to her? Part of him didn't actually want to know.
"I came to the opera with my family."
"Your family?" Erik scoffed, looking off to one of the paintings on his wall, then back to her pristine up do and blood-red dress. "So you married after you were taken from me? Or did you leave on purpose?"
"No," Rene was quick to shut that theory down, but Erik was having trouble believing her. "No, Erik, I loved you so very much. I wanted to come back to you, I meant to, but my family found me out and wouldn't let me return to you no matter how hard I tried. And then they found out about the baby-"
"So you were pregnant the entire time you were in my home?"
Erik could have thrown up. His stomach was certainly unsettled enough for it, since he'd already learned way too much about her in this moment than he might have ever liked.
"Yes, and I knew, too, but I didn't want to worry you!"
Rene whined, and the sound was unbecoming on her. She sat forward in her chair, reaching for his hand, but the thought of touching her was more than Erik could handle currently.
"So you effectively lied to me, and what if you had come back? Were you going to tell me then, or try to take me and pretend the child was mine? Because it wouldn't have worked, for Erik cannot have children. I can't."
Rene frowned.
"I would have told you, Erik. I promise."
"So who is the man? What name have you taken now?"
Erik's question was blunt and scarcely far from yelling, but the woman before him did not flinch, merely huffed. She looked quite ashamed which made Erik think there were more secrets she was about to reveal than he had originally bargained for.
"My husband was never dead, Erik. I lied about him being such because I didn't want to think about him looking for me, and he really is better off that way anyways. François is a deplorable man-"
Unable to hear anymore, Erik put up a hand which she obeyed. Part of him might have known that her husband was still alive at this point considering how fresh her bruised skin was and how she was apparently pregnant the entire time she was there. That, and she still wore her ring when he found her. He should've known, the idea should have at least occurred to him that she was lying.
He was a fool.
"I love you."
It was unfair of her to say it, but at this point, she had been so unfair to Erik that it wasn't a surprise to hear the words come from her lips. It was a cruel knife to his heart, but he let her have the attack, for he had many of his own that would never fall from his lips for nothing other than penance.
"Would you have stayed with me if you had escaped from the Chagny manor uncaptured?"
"Yes. You might not know it, Erik, but I would have done anything to get back to you before my husband found out about the child."
He had to move, to distance himself from her for a moment before doing anything stupid like climbing atop her and kissing her senseless. Erik owed her so much, and yet it appears she owed him quite a few favors as well.
"How did your family find you?"
His back was turned from her now, but he could tell she was looking straight at him. He needed to know, is what it came down to.. She had hid so many secrets from him for months now, and it was high time he knew everything about this woman who claimed to love him.
"I don't want to tell you about my family."
He scoffed. Of course.
"And why not?" He turned on her, seeing the tear-stained face of his ward, someone he could easily just hide away in his basement again if it weren't for her abusive husband still live and well. Erik needed mice in his trap of mirrors like this opera needed another ghost.
"Because then, if you do not already, you shall loathe me."
"Well I already know some of it! You have a husband I thought dead, an unborn child, and you have a lover on the side who you let fall for you and then left without so much as even a letter to let him know you still lived."
"And what was I supposed to do?" It was Rene's turn to become vile, her anger visible on her pregnancy-laden face. "Should I have lettered you and told you that I was back in the clutches of my heavy-handed husband? That I was pregnant with a child I don't want, but I'm doing miraculous otherwise! That I attended a wedding and a shower, neither of which I cared for in the slightest because of how unhappy I was! Is that what you want to hear? How about the fact that my baby brother is Raoul? That the funeral I attended was for Philippe de Chagny, someone I loathe and am more than happy you killed with good reason. Did you want to hear that?"
Erik's chest caved in on itself.
Her face softened, then became guilty. It was obvious she had not expected to become so liberal with that information, but he supposed many things made sense now.
There was nothing else for him to do besides sit himself straight down on the floor, the carpet soft and plush as he'd requested, but that did not resolve the cold hard facts she'd provided him.
Rene de Chagny, the third child in one of the most known families in France. The old Comte de Changy's younger sister, a man who was his victim.
The only thing keeping him from retching the contents of his stomach was her, but she was the reason he wanted to in the first place.
"I killed your brother."
"Thank you."
"You are a horrible human being, Madame. Ridiculously and thoroughly rancid."
There was nothing else to say to her but his own version of slander.
"Erik," she said, coming down to the floor with him, "Erik, please. I love you. I have loved you ever since I met you, whether or not you killed my brother and threatened the other one's life."
He had nothing to say to her, so he continued to let her talk at his scrunched-up body that was in the fetal position on the floor by this point. Everything hurt, as did her words while she hesitantly reached out to him, only causing him to retract further.
"You are not those occurrences, and neither does my sister-in-law or brother blame you for it any longer. They took virtually no convincing, though Raoul did cry when I told him you lived. Philippe spoiled that boy, and I'm glad to see his pretty little face taking up some responsibility. Chr-"
"Don't say her name," Erik menaced.
"She had sympathy for you, and she was your main advocate for exoneration."
He scoffed.
He had fallen in love with a de Chagny brat, one of the Comte's older sisters, and if that wasn't irony and revenge for Erik by God, then he didn't know what else could be.
And he did still love her, for that family was toxic and completely out of line considering Philippe was the one who had set her up with François de Renaud. Another man Erik would kill if he could, but his reputation was far too pristine now for him to even think about ruining it.
Now what to do with the pregnant, crying woman in his office. The pregnant, crying, de Chagny woman.
Erik was lucky he didn't faint this time.
Unsure of quite what to do with her, he sat up and brushed her hands off of him.
There were several options of which he could explore, like going to her husband and just throwing him down his stairs in complete disagreement, then taking her as his own, but he doubted the Comte would care for him as a brother-in-law. They would never accept him into the family no matter how many times Erik let out box three to them, nor if he left them alone for the rest of their pathetic lives together.
And so Rene knew his old love? She was a sister by law to her? What a cruel, cruel joke God was playing on him now. Well there was that, and the fact he couldn't quite get past yet which was the very sure fact he had been the reason her older brother's life had come to an end.
And she was pregnant.
No, he was having trouble handling all of it.
Erik couldn't even look over at her, those beautiful brown curls that were pinned up in a way he hated and that damnable swell of her stomach.
While Erik knew he could not conceive a child, the idea of creating something with a woman he loved… it was an intoxicating thought. To love someone enough to create a child as proof of that love.
"Have you drank?"
It was a safe question, safer than anything else they'd been talking about.
"No… but I have to say it makes handling François just that much more a challenge. Then again, he has not been too horrible to me while I've been pregnant."
Erik sighed, finally able to look back, if only to show his great pity. And he wanted her back. It was obvious in his eyes, in the way he could not handle a single thing about her but discovered it might not really matter anyways if she loved him. Rene had said she did.
"We should return you to him. Should I make an excuse for you, or will you not receive too much trouble?"
"I'll be just fine, Erik."
Downtrodden, but nodding in understanding, Erik helped as Rene labored to stand, as though her touch wasn't fire for him, then he escorted her out and told her the way back to the foyer. He would just have to retreat into darkness for a while after this.