They took their time going back downstairs afterwards, and once there Erik set about making tea for them. Christine insisted on setting up the tea tray herself, her nerves still buzzing from being onstage. Erik let her take over and went to the sitting room. He removed his coat and hung it on the rack in the corner, pulling out the little piece of paper the Daroga had given him. He stared at the name written there for a few moments in the firelight.

Should he go see him? Nadir was probably expecting him to. He leaned against the mantle. What use did he have in being told he was dying? He already knew it. He let the little paper fall into the fire and burn up.

"What was that?" Christine asked as she brought the tea tray in and set it on the little table in front of the couch.

"Nothing," he shook his head. "Nothing important."

"Hm. Well, come sit down and have some tea."

They passed the time until the next rehearsal, falling into what Christine found a surprisingly comfortable routine. Considering there was no sunlight to guide their day, Erik kept a very regular schedule, though he had alluded to this kind of schedule being for her own sake - she knew that if left to his own devices he would likely let days blur together while focused intently on a single task.

Living with Erik for so long was... enlightening. He had a surprising amount of patience (at least with her) for one such as himself, but he also had a limited amount of what Christine had dubbed self control, though it wasn't in the regular sense of the word. He very often tried his best to appear normal around her, but the ability to do so only last so long.

Erik was a man of many quirks, and she became acquainted with very many of them very fast because he had not the energy nor the attention span to hide them for very long.

Lemons had to squeezed over his tea just so (she had, in fact, seen him discard more than one cup of tea because it wasn't right). He hummed nearly constantly when he thought he was alone, and she could typically tell wherever he was in the house based off of how loud his humming was. She found out by accident that he was very particular about the order of the silverware in the drawers - he had looked nearly pained when he had pleaded with her to not change the direction the forks faced.

Once, when they had been about to take a trip to the market, Erik had hesitated and told her he needed to change before going out. She waited in the entryway for him, and he returned not fifteen minutes later. She had raised a playful eyebrow and commented on how he looked exactly the same.

He had frowned and passed a hand over his hair, smoothing it down.

"I- I changed my wig," he admitted. "This is my going-out wig."

She stared for a long time at the wig with a blank face, wondering if he was making fun of her. But no, he looked slightly uncomfortable at having admitted it, and also surprised that she hadn't been able to tell the difference.

The wig sat there on his head, looking exactly the same as it always had.

She knew, of course, that he had more than one wig, but to her eye they had all looked alike. Had he not mentioned it, she never would have guessed.

She blinked a few times.

"I see," she said dryly, and they had left for the market and neither ever uttered another word on the subject of wigs.

He was odd. There was no denying it. And she loved him. There was no denying that, either.

She grew more and more certain of it with each day that passed. Unfortunately, she also grew more and more uncertain of how to tell him. And she needed to do it soon - there were moments when she felt that she could cut the tension between them with a knife. She was a clever young woman, she was certain of it, but this, somehow, always managed to escape her.

She completed her next rehearsal and the show went well enough, though she still wondered if she'd do as well on opening night.

They returned back to his house and settled in routine once more - life was consumed with her lessons, evenings spent cooking meals together, and long hours spent reading (her absolute favorite, of course, was when he offered to read to her, something he had realized she liked so he had taken to offering more often). They went out together on trips a few times, and she went out by herself for a handful more, but by the end of those solo outings she found herself longing for his company again.

Each night Erik made the effort to actually go to sleep. He wasn't certain if he had ever had so many nights in a row of sleep, and he grudgingly admitted to himself that he did feel rather better after it.

That night, as it did each night, the imitation Christine shifted in his sleeping arms. And that night, as he had the previous three nights, he floated back to wakefulness from his slumber, and gave his beloved a little squeeze, a tender gesture of acknowledgment even though she never acknowledged anything. No panic, no fear or jumping, no grabbing at her harshly - just his darling moving and waking him, as simple as that.

He rolled over onto his back and pulled the mannequin up to rest on his chest. He stroked her hair, not bothering to reset the machine again. He had his answer.

Or did he?

The question that had floated across his mind as he fell asleep again returned to him again that next day.

He watched Christine, curious, as she set about dusting the bookshelves. It was after dinner, and he had found she'd often get odd little bursts of energy to do something whenever there seemed to be a stretch of time with nothing particular to do, and she almost always picked cleaning. It had nearly hurt him, at first, when he had found her busying herself cleaning his house - he hadn't asked her to do so. He knew that it was considered to be work for a woman to do, but just because she was a woman that didn't mean she had to clean his house for him - that made him feel awkward. Then he had been struck by the thought that perhaps she found his house altogether too messy and unkempt, and cleaning it was the only way to preserve her sanity. But he had asked her about it, and she had assured him that she was only doing so because she wanted something to occupy her mind - it was a habit, she had told him, from childhood. Little did he realize just what she was trying to distract herself from - the strange way he made her feel and her frustration at her own inability to confess to him.

"Christine," he said presently. "Christine, put down that rag, please."

She left the rag on the shelf and turned to face him, brow knit.

"What is it, Erik?"

But he didn't reply. He slowly bridged the distance between them until he was he was close enough to touch her. He put his hands around her shoulders and pulled her close, keeping her there like that for a moment before both hands went up to cup her cheeks.

"Christine, you know how important you are to me," he said, his voice soft and serious.

She swallowed hard, her heart fluttering. Where they finally going to discuss his confession from the night so long ago?

She reached her hands up to his, and for a moment he was afraid he had been too bold with her, that she was going to pull his hands away, but instead she rested them over top of his, keeping his hands where they were on her face, and she brushed her thumbs over his knuckles.

"I know," she assured him, her voice barely more than a whisper as she stared up into his golden eyes that were so, so close.

He studied her for a moment, his gaze intense, and she could see the love he felt for her hidden behind the concern that currently colored his expression. She took a deep breath. Could he see her love for him as easily? Was it there in her eyes too? Would he even know to look for it?

He licked his dry lips.

"Christine-" he started, then paused.

Her stomach did a flip. Was he going to kiss her? She wanted that so badly, but with his hands on her face so, she was unable to close the distance between them herself. Should she remove them and kiss him herself?

"You know I'd never put you in danger, don't you?"

She nodded.

"There's- there's something I want to ask of you, Christine," his brow knit. "I'm sorry that I can't explain it very well, why I want to do this, but- I need to know."

Her own brow furrowed as she tried to understand him.

"I need to know," he took a moment to collect his thoughts, then he lowered his voice. "I need to know that I would never hurt you like that. That's all."

She nodded, and waited for him to continue.

"I'm going to fall asleep on the couch in the sitting room tonight, Christine. I-" he lowered his eyes a moment, a frown passing over his face. "I will be wearing my mask. But- but I want you to come wake me, Christine. Not like last time - not like that. Just stand in the doorway, where it's safe, and call my name. Can you do that for me, sweet? Does that sound okay to you?"

She took a shuddering breath before replying, her tone on the verge of breaking, and she hoped he'd catch the implication of her words.

"I think I'd do anything for you, Erik."

He missed any deeper meaning and simply nodded.

"Come to the sitting room any time tonight, but preferably a few hours after I've fallen asleep. All you have to do is stand in the doorway - that's all I want you to do. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I'll do it. I'll stay in the doorway."

He smiled.

"My good, sweet girl," he whispered, and leaned his face down a little closer to hers.

She tried to scoot closer, to stand on her tiptoes to prepare to kiss him on the mouth, but his hold on her was rather unforgiving and he merely let his forehead rest on hers for a second before pulling back.

"Thank you, Christine," he squeezed her arm before pulling away entirely. "You've no idea what this means to me."

She swallowed back her disappointment and managed a smile and a nod.

She knew what it meant to him. She knew because it meant the same thing to her. Didn't they both want the same thing? She chewed her lip as she watched him walk away, debating herself on if she should tell him right then. She could run up to him and grab his collar, tugging him down low enough to kiss. Would he call her his good, sweet girl again? Would he whisper that in her ear as they made love?

"Erik!" she called after him, following him.

She caught up to him quickly, and impetuously reached a hand out, placing it on his back. Erik tensed at the touch, turning slightly to face her.

"What is it, my dear?" he looked at her in confusion, baffled by her touch.

She hadn't moved her hand away, instead letting it slide slowly from its place between his shoulder blades all the way down his spine, past where his rib cage ended and letting it rest dangerously close to the small of his back. It was always difficult to tell from his fine clothing, so well tailored to hide the fact, and layered to add volume - but each time she had ever touched him he had felt oddly thin. She could feel muscle, too, but it did little to take away the strange sensation under her hands. As she had run her hand down his back, she had felt every bump of each bone in his spine. She liked touching him.

Erik was conflicted over what to do - half of him wanted to pull away from her small hand on his person, the other half wanted to lean back into the touch. He stood stock still, and time seemed to do likewise until suddenly she seemed to remember herself and pulled her hand back, wrapping her other around it as though to hide to offending appendage.

Christine bit her lip.

She would not describe herself as a woman who was timid, as one who was afraid to ask for what she wanted - in her career she was quite bold, and she was good at standing up for herself when need be. She set boundaries with others exceedingly well - but this, this was uncharted territory for her. How could she ask for this? She had no experience here, not really. The only other comparable relationship she'd had was with Raoul, and he had always been the one to initiate things, to which she'd either gladly oblige or politely decline. She found herself almost wishing that she had made use of a patron to practice such skills on, that she could have had a chance to find ways to word her desires and wants with someone who didn't really matter, so that it would be second nature to her now with Erik.

Her cheeks turned pink at the thought of it all. He was a man, was he not? And he loved her. And she was a woman - one who was staying in his own home with him. Why couldn't he simply save them both the time and trouble and make the first move? How could she ask for- for that? She likely wouldn't have to - surely it would come naturally eventually - but he wasn't going to act out of the blue. At the very least, she would have to tell him she loved him first, and only then would he move to take it further. But oh, how she wished he would simply understand and save her from her tongue-tied shyness - if only he would bridge that distance and kiss her or even knock on her door at night... She would not turn him away!

She looked up at him now, an odd light in her eyes as she observed the warm affection in how he looked at her. All of the words she wanted to say formed inside of her mind, but none of them would arrange themselves in the proper order to come out of her mouth. Three simple words would be all it took, but they burned in her throat and made her feel flustered and embarrassed.

She looked down.

"Would you play for me tonight? Just for a little while?" she asked shyly.

He smiled.

"Of course."

His imagination ran away so often, he had almost hoped she would be asking something else - but of course not.

She surprised him, though - when he sat on the piano bench to play as she had asked him to, she sat down on it right next to him. He hesitated for only a moment, then asked her (in a voice that bordered on stiff) what she would like to hear.

"Anything," she said.

He started with a Swedish folk tune.

He managed a glance at her every so often. He felt lucky that he was such a skilled pianist - it was very distracting to have his little Christine there right next to him, and if he were a lesser player he might have quite bungled whatever song he was attempting. She was so close he could feel the warmth radiating from her body (surely it was not just his imagination?). She had never sat so close before, with her legs almost touching his, and her little ankles crossed and feet tucked under the bench, her hands folded on her lap. Sometimes she would watch his hands as they danced across the keys, and sometimes when he glanced over she would be looking at his face with that same unreadable expression.

Christine was deep in thought as she sat next to him. It seemed a cruel and funny trick of life that she should feel so comfortable around him yet still feel too awkward to tell him how she felt about him. She wished they could simply skip the awkward part and go straight to being married. How easily they could fall into that role! Were they not very nearly already there, anyway? All that was left was for him to kiss her and to consummate the relationship, really. Scratch that - all that was left was for her to let him know that she felt about him the same way he felt about her, and then they would kiss.

She was surprised at herself. Where was her usual assuredness of her choices? Where was her determination to get what she wanted? She really was still a blushing virgin, she supposed. There was an odd shift in her mind when she would, on increasingly frequent occasions, somehow cease to see their dynamic as simply as Erik and Christine, who are friends, and instead as Erik and Christine, a man and woman. Erik was her friend, of course he was - but he was also a man. As her friend, she could tell him anything without worry about judgment, and she felt incredibly close to him. As a man, he intimidated her. Every time she was on the verge of telling her friend her most secret feelings, she was suddenly reminded that her friend was also a man.

But he wasn't just any man - he was Erik. From the things he'd said or made reference to here and there, it was certainly no stretch of the imagination to say that no one had ever told him they loved him... Probably because no one had ever loved him. She would be the very first to ever say those words to him, and the enormous weight of that was crushing. This was not some flippant crush on a boy who had had handfuls of girls flirt and kiss him and would have still handfuls more after her - there was no room for mistakes or carelessness in how she presented her emotion. How could she go about revealing those things to him in a way that did justice to the momentous occasion? She didn't want a giant spectacle, but surely it had to be delivered with more tact than simply saying to him at the dinner table Could you pass the salt, Erik? These potatoes are quite excellent with all this cheese one them. Oh, by the way, I'd like it if we were to marry, I'm quite in love with you, you know. Is there any more of this wine?

She wondered how he would have told her of his own feelings for her if he hadn't done so accidentally. He surely hadn't been intending to tell her at all, but perhaps if his face had been normal, he would have boldly offered up his heart to her in some romantic gesture. She wished she could have known, wished that he hadn't considered himself unworthy of having affection for her simply because of his face.

She looked up at him again, her brow knitted.

If she wished that he simply would have told her regardless, would that mean that he felt the same way? Should she simply tell him and get it over with, get it out in the open so they could move on from there? Surely hearing it said, no matter how flippantly, was preferable to not hearing it at all? But wouldn't he want something memorable to mark the moment? It was special, after all.

He played a handful of songs for her, pausing only a moment and glancing at her between each one, and in each pause she considered telling him, but then he was playing again, and she never worked up the courage. Finally she smiled and nodded during one of his pauses, letting him know she was ready to retire at last.

"Thank you, Erik," she said softly. "I love-"

you, I love you

"I love it when you play for me."

"And I love playing for you, Christine," he replied tenderly, and she knew, knew what he meant underneath of those words, and if she knew so readily what he meant, did he also understand what she had meant when she had said that? But no - he couldn't have, or else he wouldn't have risen from the bench, wouldn't be leaving the room with only the softest of touches on her shoulder as he smiled one last time.

He was in no way ready to sleep yet, but still he went in his bedroom and closed the door, resting his forehead against it. Two weeks. Why had he agreed to this? It was torture, truly, but of the sweetest kind. Her staying in his house for so long was certainly a test of his endurance - how many times had he wanted to pull her to him and kiss her? It was nearly unbearable. And they still had days left to go! He would look back on this one day and miss this sweet torture, he told himself. One day when she was off and married to another man and she would never stay with him in his home again, never let him touch her as though he had any right to, never give him that darling little smile again. He had visions of simply never letting her return up above, of keeping her here with him forever - she could not marry the boy if she never saw the boy again! - but he dismissed those almost immediately. It would never work. All other factors aside, she was far too clever to trap like that - he would constantly be worried she'd find a way out somehow, no matter how many locks he used. He sighed.

It was a strange thing, waiting to fall asleep on the couch. He was still nearly fully dressed, for one thing. He fretted over whether he should take his boots off - he didn't particularly want them on the couch, but Christine had never seen his feet before. He blushed as he unlaced them. There was nothing particularly wrong with his feet, not really, nothing he felt the need to hide from her, but-

It felt rather intimate, to him. In mere hours, Christine was going to see his stockinged feet. He very nearly put his boots back on.

He lay back against the little pile of pillows near the arm of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. What if he shifted while he was asleep and knocked his mask off and Christine had to walk in and see that? What if he really wasn't cured after all, and when she called to him he flipped out and threw something at her? What if he couldn't fall asleep at all and he caused her to miss an entire night's worth of sleep and it affected her voice somehow?

Miraculously, he eventually managed to sleep, no thanks to his thoughts.

Christine peeked in after a few hours. It was late, so surely he had been sleeping for a little while now. She paused there a long moment, simply watching him. The even rise and fall of his chest, his arms, one cast over his chest and the other behind his head. Her eyes fell to his feet, and his pants, which were hemmed to just above the ankle, showed her her first glimpse not only of his thin feet but his bony ankles as well.

A brief, fleeting thought which left shame and a red face in its wake - she wondered what his legs looked like the rest of the way up. She looked away from him.

She paused only a moment longer, quickly glancing around the room for possible weapons he might turn against her in a confused state. She gripped the edge of the doorway, leaning against it.

"Erik? Erik, wake up."

His eyes opened without any fuss. His mind took a small second to process where he was, and then he sat up stiffly before turning to face her.

"There," she said, smiling. "There, that's much better, isn't it?"

"Indeed," he stifled a yawn.

"I knew you wouldn't hurt me, Erik, and now you know it too."

"It's rather hard to hurt you, my dear, when you are all the way over there," he pointed out.

She giggled.

"Well, we'll just have to work our way up, then. How about next time I stand a little closer?"

"You might be safe to speak to me, but not to shake me again," he rubbed at his eyes. "And we won't know because there's no safe way to test that, I'm afraid."

"We can fix that, too. How about next time I find a long stick and poke you with it, Angel?" her eyes sparkled mirthfully.

He looked at her, bemused.

"Christine, no."

Her bubbly laughter was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

She lingered there in the doorway, even though there was really nothing else to say. What did he want her to do now? Would he want some company for a little while, perhaps? She could join him on the couch, and they could talk. Her face still tingled pleasantly where his hands had been earlier, and a similar feeling still coursed through her body. Perhaps closeness to him would cure (increase?) the sensation. She itched to find out, but lacked the bravery to go and sit by him without invitation.

He closed his eyes and passed his hand over his face. Did she even have any idea how beautiful she was, how irresistible he found her? How he longed for her to creep closer to him so he could pull her down to the couch and hold her! He wanted so badly just to hold her. Well, he wanted very many things (and there were so very many things they could do that would not affect her upcoming marriage to the boy, so many things they could still enjoy, he had envisioned them all in great detail), but he would count himself the luckiest creature on the earth if he could simply hold her close to him. They had hugged, yes, and there were frequent touches between them - he supposed the logistics of hugging her and holding her were nearly the same, but to hold her seemed to him to imply an entirely different level of trust on her part (he knew, in the most technical sense, that he had already held her, but she had been weeping so hard, and he wanted to hold her when she wasn't weeping, and he knew that he should settle for whatever he managed to get, but he was terribly greedy, really). They would be sitting together somewhere, likely on the couch. To have her sit so close to him while he held her - how easily it could turn to something else! How simply he could shift them into lying down and steal away her innocence! - but he would not do that to her, no, regardless of how much he wanted to - he would be as gentle as a lamb with her, she would see, just hold her in his arms, nothing more - if only she would cross the damned room already and come within an arm's reach of him...

He opened his eyes and looked at her as she stood there in the doorway. He knew, in that moment, if he invited her in she would not refuse - she had no reason to, not really. She'd come sit on the couch if he motioned for her to come closer and patted the cushion next to him. She really did trust him, even though she shouldn't. Knowing the images that floated through his mind as he thought of them on the couch together, he could barely trust himself.

He closed his weary eyes and, placing his hand over them, turned his face away from her. He couldn't stand the amount of trustingness that was there in her gaze. He didn't deserve it.

"You can go to sleep now, sweet," he told her, his voice still rough from having been woken.

She nodded, though she knew he wouldn't see it, and smiled.

"Goodnight, Erik," she said sweetly. "Sleep well."

"Goodnight, Christine."

He felt relief and joy that his experiment had worked, but it was still bittersweet. She was safe from him while he slept, he knew this now - but he still had to protect her from himself while he was awake.

The poor girl, as she left his wicked presence, had no idea how close to her own ruin she had come.