The bedroom was dark when Christine poked her head round the door.
"Kids are in bed; Gigi's asleep at last but I've told Allegra her light had better be off by nine thirty or there will be trouble," she said, reaching for the switch and wondering if she was actually talking to herself. The girls had missed their father at bedtime but it wasn't an entirely unusual occurrence; they both knew that Daddy occasionally got so caught up when he was composing that he forgot everything else that was going on around him. Though he was much improved from the early days of their acquaintance, Christine could still recall the nights when he was so inspired he didn't even go to bed, and she found him the next morning fast asleep draped over the piano. Many was the time she had been required to massage neck and back kinks caused by such careless behaviour; it had taken a while to convince Erik that his body was something he actually needed to treat with kindness, not merely an inconveniently fallible vessel for his genius.
It was strange; she'd been sure she heard him come up the stairs earlier, but there was no sign of him now. He'd been looking a bit peaky at dinner but she deliberately hadn't brought it up in front of the children; he hated being what he regarded as mollycoddled in their presence in case it made him appear weak. In the glow from the streetlamps that bled through the curtains she could see that the bedclothes were untouched so he evidently had decided against the nap she quietly suggested while they were clearing up. With a shrug she reasoned that he must not be feeling too bad and had probably shut himself up in the study to continue working instead; she turned to leave, drawing the door shut behind her and it was then that she heard it, a groan coming somewhere in the room beyond. Christine froze and listened; when it came again she hurried back inside and realised there was a faint luminescence under the door of the en suite that she had missed before. "Erik?" she called. "Are you all right?"
Another sound; indistinct but pained. Alarm bells started ringing at the back of her mind and her feet were carrying her forwards almost before she had noticed, avoiding the furniture more by instinct than skill. She cracked open the bathroom door a couple of inches and her heart gave a jolt when she saw the shadowy form of her husband slumped on the tiles between the shower and the sink, his long legs drawn up to his chest. The light was coming from the phone which lay on the floor beside him and had probably fallen from his pocket, its screen lit by a text message that had just come through; had it not arrived she might never have found him, wrongly assuming that he had retreated to be alone with his music and being so used to it that she had failed to check.
Quickly she switched on the main light and Erik moaned, lifting one hand in a weak attempt to shield his eyes from the glare. The lid of the toilet seat was up and Christine could smell that he had been sick; crouching down at his side she slid an arm beneath his shoulders, sitting him up slightly so that he could lean on her instead of the hard tiled wall. "What's wrong?" she asked, running a hand over his clammy face, her voice quivering with anxiety. Frantically she pushed back the dark hair that had come loose from its carefully applied moorings and fanned over his forehead to feel for a fever; he was cold and as white as sheet, even the livid scars and ridges of the deformed side of his face paler than usual. A horribly familiar panic began to rise as it had done so many times over the last few months, the irrational fear that almost any illness could be the virus. Though she instinctively wanted to help a little voice at the back of her mind asked should she even be touching him like this? What would she do if he was so unwell she needed to call an ambulance? The ICU wards were overflowing across the city; if she let them take him away she might never see him again. Thankfully before she could become so worried she couldn't think straight her common sense kicked in, reminding her that she knew these symptoms; it wasn't the first time she had seen Erik in this state. "Is it one of your heads?"
Ever so slightly he nodded, hissing as even that movement apparently sent fire crashing through his skull and she felt horribly guilty at the relief that surged through her. It was all right; they could deal with this. He turned his face into her neck, away from the brilliance of the sixty watt bulb overhead, and she just held him, wondering why bathroom lights always had to be so bright.
"So this is why you were so quiet at dinner," she murmured, rocking him gently as she did with the children when they were ill or upset. "You should have told me. Did you take any of your pills?"
He made a vague noise that sounded like an affirmative followed by a mumbled, "...came straight back up again."
"We need to get you to bed," Christine told him. "You'll be much more comfortable there. Do you think you can stand?"
"Probably... if you help me." He opened one eye a fraction but closed it again immediately with a whimper. "Christ! Light... hurts."
She stroked his hair. "I know, darling, I know. But I need to be able to see what I'm doing; I don't want you to slip and fall." Slowly she stood, bracing herself on the wall and easing him up with her; it was never a simple manoeuvre as there was best part of a foot's difference in height between them but eventually they managed it, her arm wrapped tightly around his waist and Erik clinging onto her for dear life until she was able to help him lean on the sink. She shut the toilet and flushed it to remove what remained of the little he'd managed to eat earlier, filling a glass of water from the tap and encouraging him to drink it. "Wash your mouth out first," she cautioned, and left him for a moment to switch on one of the bedside lamps, leaving its soft glow to illuminate the room when she flicked off the bathroom light.
He gave an audible sigh of relief, lifting the glass shakily to his lips. "...thank you."
"Come on." She held out a hand to him and he took it, allowing her to lead his shuffling steps towards the bed. Once there he collapsed heavily on his side and Christine went about finding something soft for him to wear. It seemed he had intended to lie down after all, even if he hadn't made it that far, as his feet were bare and his shirt was half unbuttoned. The migraine must have worsened after he came upstairs.
Though thankfully now few and far between, she knew that Erik had suffered such debilitating headaches since his teens. He'd told her about them fairly early in their relationship, when she had been a terrified witness to one particularly bad attack that had kept him prostrate for two days, hardly daring to move because of the pain. He had seen more than one doctor over the years, both private and NHS, and though each one agreed that as the trouble always seemed to begin behind that eye there probably was a connection to the problems with the right side of his face, none had suggested a concrete reason for it. MRIs and CAT scans all returned clear and so, fobbed off with pills, he was given no choice but to endure them. Stress was often a trigger; Christine knew he'd been tired, under pressure over the future of the Vanbrugh, but he was so good at hiding his feelings that when he insisted everything was all right it was easy to believe him. When she later retrieved his phone from the bathroom floor she discovered just the latest in a long exchange of texts between Erik and James about the theatre; stowing it away for the moment she decided that she would be having a few words with Mr Patterson-Smythe in the morning.
"Here," she said, setting down the pyjamas she bought him back in April on the duvet. "You'll feel much better if you get out of those scratchy clothes."
"...nothing scratchy about my clothes," Erik replied into the mattress. "I... like tailoring."
"Yes, I know, but it's not conducive to relaxation, is it? C'mon." It was like dealing with one of the children. With an effort she got him sitting up and undressed, though he was about as much assistance as a ragdoll would have been. His eyes were barely half open but he still pulled a face at the plaid pyjama trousers when she helped him into them. "There's a reason why loungewear is popular," she told him; he just grunted, unconvinced, but allowed her to pull the plain green t-shirt over his head.
For a few moments he fumbled with the long sleeves, trying without success to find the armholes; a veteran of toddler dressing sessions, Christine took hold of his wrist and threaded his arm through, doing the same the other side. That done, she allowed him to lie down again, tugging the covers over his shoulders and tucking him in just as she had Gigi a couple of hours earlier. He gave a moan, though to her relief it sounded less distressed than before, and pressed his distorted face into the cool pillow.
"More comfortable?" she asked. There was the merest hint of a nod. "Good. Do you think you should try taking some more medication?"
"No point now. I'll try and... sleep it off. Should have taken the meds when... the aura started."
"So why didn't you?" she asked, lightly brushing the back of her hand against his temple. He felt warmer, the horrible cold clamminess from the nausea almost gone.
Erik sighed. "Allegra was telling me... about the book she has been told to read... for school. I... I didn't want to look as though I... wasn't interested."
"Oh, you silly man." Christine dropped a kiss on his forehead. "I think she would be more upset to see you like this."
"What... is it you've said before? Intelligent doesn't... always equal sensible."
She laughed softly. "That still holds true." After watching him for a few more moments she started to get to her feet. "I'll leave you in peace for a while. Is there anything else you need before I do?"
"Yes." His eyes were still closed but the hand that wasn't beneath the pillow supporting his head reached out and caught her sleeve. "Don't go."
Surprised, she sat back down beside him. Usually he wanted to be alone when he felt like this; she had learned it was best to leave him to lie down in a darkened room while the rest of them tiptoed around the house making as little noise as possible until the attack was over. "Are you sure?"
Again that slight movement of his head on the pillow, all the assent that he could currently manage. "You... you help to chase the pain away."
Christine felt a sudden swell of love as she looked at him, her strong, outwardly confident husband lying there crumpled in their bed as helpless as a child. His fingers had tightened around her arm, holding on; she knew that he trusted her as implicitly as did their daughters and she had never taken such responsibility lightly. Wordlessly she kicked off her slippers, sliding to the top of the mattress and tucking her chilled feet under the duvet. Leaning back against the headboard she plumped one of the pillows from her side of the bed and laid it across her lap. "Here," she said, patting it gently; after a beat Erik shifted closer, curling into her side and laying his head down. She ran a hand over his hair, brushing it back.
"You were always... my angel," he breathed. "My... ministering angel."
"And I always will be," she told him softly. "Now go to sleep; I won't leave you."
"...promise?" He sounded just like a little boy, and she smiled, trailing her fingers across his cheek, tracing his jaw line, lightly massaging away the tension. Under her touch he gradually relaxed, the deep lines that pain had etched around his eyes and mouth beginning to smooth away. Age was creeping up on him, the hair at his temples liberally sprinkled with grey, but just at that moment he looked much younger than his fifty five years. His left arm was draped across her knees and she reached for his hand, giving it a squeeze.
"I promise."
