A/N:

FleshofMidnight: I'm pleased you enjoyed the last chapter!

ghostwritten2: Thank you; these characters are talking away in my brain all the time, so it's great to know they sound right to other people. :)

When Christine woke she was alone.

She reached out a hand to Erik's side of the mattress, but the sheets were cold and she rolled over with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. Though it was far from the first time in their relationship that he hadn't come to bed, since the children were born she could count how often it had happened on the fingers of one hand. The dawn chorus was in full voice outside; she squinted at the clock to discover that it was just after five o'clock. It was tempting to turn over and go back to sleep but realistically she knew that she would never be able to relax until she knew whether Erik was all right, so, finding her wrap and slippers, she stifled a yawn and made her way downstairs, trying to step quietly on the boards that creaked to avoid waking her daughters.

It was a surprise to find the study empty, as emotional turmoil usually drove him straight into his music; some of his most majestic and affecting pieces were the result of many a night spent searching the depths of his soul, trying desperately to understand the complexities of life. The desk was tidy, the stacks of music on the piano undisturbed; she had a sudden irrational urge to snatch up the papers and scatter them around the room just to humanise the almost eerie picture of order. With a sigh, instead she closed the door and headed for the kitchen, almost expecting to see him sprawled asleep over the table, but the only sign he had been there was an open bottle of scotch, a glass with some dregs at the bottom beside it. She picked up the snifter, the early morning sunlight glinting from the pattern around the base; it was part of the cut crystal set they'd been given as a wedding present. The whisky was the one Raoul had brought, and her heart sank when she realised how far its contents were depleted. Unbidden, tears welled in her eyes; she wiped at them with the back of her hand, turning to set the glass in the sink.

"I only had one," a voice said behind her. "Just the one drink, that's all."

She didn't have to move to know that he was standing in the doorway. "I know," she told him, and he sighed heavily.

"No, you don't. And I can't say I blame you." She heard his footsteps cross the room and a moment later his arms slid around her as he buried his face in her hair. "I'm sorry, Christine."

"I know," she said again, leaning back against him, so relieved to be enfolded in his embrace; she hated fighting, hated spending the night apart.

"I needed to think, to work some things through. I didn't mean to leave you for so long."

Christine hesitated for a moment before she asked, "And did you? Work them out?"

"I..." Erik released a slow breath, warm on the back of her neck. "I think so."

"Good." She rested her hands on his where they were clasped around her waist. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." He pulled away slightly and she twisted so that she could look up at him. His eyes were shadowed by dark circles; his contemplations must have taken most of the night. "Can you forgive me?"

A fond smile touched her lips. "I always forgive you, you know that."

"Yes," he agreed, but his gaze slid to the side, avoiding hers. "I can't help feeling that one day I will do something you can't forgive."

"I don't think that will ever happen," Christine assured him. She squeezed his hand, unravelling his grip on her so that she could lead him to the table. "Sit down; I'll make some tea."

He did as he was told and she bustled about the kitchen, finding mugs, sugar and milk, filling the kettle from the tap and setting it to boil. As she worked she glanced over her shoulder: he cut a rather forlorn figure in his black dressing gown, hunched over like a child awaiting punishment, hands loose in his lap. His head was bowed, hair falling forward to partially shadow the deformed side of his face. She couldn't be angry with him; to be honest she hadn't really been last night, more frustrated than anything that after all these years he still couldn't see what was quite clear to everyone else. It wasn't his fault, not really; intentionally or not, he'd had it drilled into him from an early age that he was so ugly no one could ever love him and even now she knew he sometimes almost had to stop and pinch himself, to check that the life he lived was real.

"One of these days," she said, setting a mug down in front of him, "Your mother and I are going to have a very long talk about why she decided to completely screw you up."

He rested his chin on one hand and took the tea, grimacing when he discovered the two sugars she'd stirred into it. "It wasn't just her, not entirely."

"Well, she certainly started it."

"She was fairly screwed up herself at the time."

"That's no excuse." She sipped from her own mug, regarding him over the rim; it was highly unusual of him to defend Angela. He still wasn't looking at her. "Did you come to any conclusions last night?"

"One or two." Again that slow exhale. "You're right, of course."

"I know. I'm always right," she told him lightly, and was pleased when there was the smallest lift at the corner of his mouth. "What was I right about this time?"

"I'm too distant from the girls' lives," Erik admitted, the brief smile fading. "When they walk through that front door, when they interact with other people, I'm not there. I've never been there. I know that, I've always known it, and it hurts, but... I don't know how to be anything else."

"Oh, darling." He looked so sad and alone that she scooted her chair closer, reaching out to lay her hand over his where it rested on the edge of the table.

"I tried to protect them," he continued, "I wanted to spare them the whispers, the snide comments. Children can have an inexhaustible ability to wound, and I thought... I thought that if I just stayed away it would make things better for them. They'd never have to hear people talk about their father. Really, though, I've just made it worse, haven't I?"

"You did what you thought was best. Unfortunately, you didn't reckon on the fact that your children might actually want you to be there with them. You can't change their feelings, mould them into something you believe they should be just because you think it will keep them safe."

"That's all I wanted to do," he breathed, finally lifting his head. "I never wanted them to suffer any of the pain that comes with this face."

Christine squeezed his fingers tightly. "They won't. They'd do anything to protect you, you know, even as young as they are. I'm sure Allegra would take on someone twice her size if they were saying anything she didn't like about her Dad; she's inherited your hair-trigger temper."

Erik laughed, just a little, but when he met her gaze there was an almost painful vulnerability in his mismatched gaze that he didn't often let her see. A proud man, he tried to hide behind a shell of rigid control but occasionally the shell cracked to reveal the bewildered child he still was somewhere inside, the little boy who couldn't understand why his father had disappeared and his mother was lost in her own misery, either unable or unwilling to take care of him. His lip trembled, so slightly that she almost didn't notice it. "I don't know what to do," he told her, his magnificent voice suddenly so very small and scared. "It frightens me."

Wordlessly, she leaned forwards and folded her arms around him, just holding him close; he gave a strange, strangled sort of hiccup, and then she felt his tears on her neck. Her throat tightened, her own eyes prickling in sympathy; it had been years since she'd seen him cry, really cry, in pain and sorrow, probably not since the night he'd convinced himself she was going to leave him for Raoul. There was nothing she could say to soothe him, not really, and so she just hummed, stroking his hair and rocking him gently until he sobbed himself out, finally releasing all the stress he'd been bottling up for so long.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled thickly, trying to pull away. She wouldn't let him, instead groping for the box of tissues on the counter and handing him some. "That was ridiculous, pathetic - "

"Rubbish," Christine told him as he attempted to dry his face; the tears hadn't improved it, his eyes puffy and his mangled nose red, but she didn't care. She kissed him, tasting salt. "Everyone needs a good cry. Men just never want to admit it."

"I don't want the girls to see me like this." He wiped at his cheeks, the ridges and craters of the deformity awkward to clean. "They would think me the most pitiful creature alive."

"I doubt it. Kids cry all the time; they find it weird that adults don't. Gigi would prescribe an immediate cuddle with Mr Panda; that's her default solution when someone's sad, and it usually works."

He sighed shakily. "If only all problems could be solved so easily."

"Can I show you something?" she asked, cupping the unmarred side of his face with one hand and brushing away a tear he'd missed with her thumb. After a beat he nodded, and watched her as she went into the living room, returning with a mobile phone and one of the scrapbooks they'd bought when they began to sort the photographs, his gaze a muddle of confusion and curiosity when she set them down on the table. It only took a moment to unlock the phone and find what she was looking for, and she passed it to him. "I don't suppose you've ever looked at Allegra's photos, have you?"

"Well, no; that would be an invasion of her privacy."

"I do; not often, but just to check she's not been receiving anything inappropriate. I know she'd tell us, but I just like to make sure. Scroll through," Christine prompted. "She won't mind."

There was silence as he did so; she knew what he would find: pictures of Allegra's friends, at school and on outings, family trips and holidays, snaps of the neighbours' cat, the usual sort of things that would interest a girl of not-quite-ten. There were videos, too, of Christine in the garden, and pretending to look scared at the top of a huge slide in an adventure playground; of Gigi and Meg dancing to Taylor Swift while Madame looked on and laughed. Though Allegra had recorded dozens of warm, memorable moments, there was one big omission. At length Erik put the phone down. "I'm not there," he said. "Not at all."

"That's how she knew you would want it. She might be young, but she respects your privacy. Other kids might just ignore their parents' wishes, but she knows keeping pictures of you on her phone would upset you so she doesn't do it."

"And yet she surely shows these photos to her friends. What must they think?"

"She's been asked where her Dad is a few times," Christine admitted. "By the teachers as well as the kids."

She couldn't decipher the expression on his face; he kept it turned away as he curled into himself, arms crossed in an almost defensive posture. "And what does she say?"

"I believe she says you don't like being photographed. And then she tells them it's none of their business."

There was just the faintest flicker of a smile. "She says that to the teachers?"

"Knowing our daughter, quite possibly. She takes after her father." He made a sound that was either a snort or a chuckle and she pushed the scrapbook towards him. There was a pause, but then he reached out to take it, noticing the shiny black cover across which Allegra had ruled staves, drawing in quavers and treble clefs with a silver pen.

"This isn't the one we made together," he remarked in surprise.

"No. She's been working on it for a few weeks on her own." Christine smiled, remembering how carefully her daughter had chosen the pictures for this particular project. "Take a look."

Erik's fingers closed around the book but he hesitated before opening it. "I don't know if I should. It might be like reading her diary."

"I think she'd want you to see it. After all, it's yours just as much as it is hers."

He shot her a bemused look. "I'm not sure I follow."

She raised her eyebrows. "Will you just open the damn thing before I hit you over the head with it?" she asked sweetly. "Please?"

With such a threat hanging over him he had little choice but to obey. Christine watched him carefully as he slowly turned the pages, knowing what he would be seeing. When they started going through the photographs Allegra asked her if she could have some to make a different album, a special one, and as the pile of pictures she'd chosen began to grow it was obvious what was to be the theme. All the photos she picked showed her and Erik together, from a few minutes after she was born right up to the Christmas just gone, all those fleeting moments that Christine had known were important and wanted to capture before they were gone forever. The front page proudly bore the image of baby Allegra asleep on her father's shoulder surrounded by a border of hearts and flowers that had been laboured over with considerable love and attention, and the book ended for now with a shot Christine particularly liked, one she'd taken when they'd gone down to Cornwall on holiday a few years before, of her husband and eldest daughter from behind, standing together on a cliff top and watching the waves pounding the rocks below, Allegra safe in the circle of Erik's arm.

When she glanced at him she saw that his hand had crept over his mouth and he was blinking furiously, his eyes wet once more. "I..." He swallowed against an evident lump in his throat. "I had no idea."

She wrapped her fingers around his, and he held on tightly. "She might not be able to show everyone else, but you're the most important person in her life."

He looked at her in disbelief. "Surely not. You're her mother; how could you not take first place?"

"Me? I'm nobody," she joked with a shrug. "Chief cook and bottle washer, the one who picks up dirty socks and tells her to tidy her room."

"That's not true, and I'm hardly soft with her. Just the other day she told me I was the meanest dad in the world for not letting her watch some terrible trash TV that all her friends were talking about."

Christine shrugged. "Even so, you're the one she's done all this for, not me."

Erik took a deep breath and closed the scrapbook. "I don't deserve it."

"I think Allegra would beg to differ."

His shoulders slumped and she wondered if he was going to cry again. "I've made a complete mess of things, haven't I?"

"Not entirely. You have a good job, good friends, you've managed to raise two healthy and well-adjusted children. And you've made me very, very happy," she told him seriously. "I don't call that making a mess of things." When he didn't respond she squeezed his hand. "I know it hasn't been easy for you, and that some things still aren't, but look how far you've come! When you first moved into that flat under the theatre and agreed to help out old McIntyre with his productions, would you ever have thought that you would be here, now?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I never even dared to dream that things could change so much. After so long alone it seemed that a life in the shadows was all I could expect."

"But it wasn't. We met, and that altered everything."

"Completely." He huffed a laugh. "You turned my world upside down."

"And that scared you, didn't it?"

"I was terrified." Erik glanced at her, his thumb brushing the diamond engagement ring that sat alongside her wedding band. "When I bought that it was weeks before I could summon the courage to ask you to marry me; I was convinced you would finally see what a mistake it all was and run back to your boy."

"Well, I didn't. And you got through it, despite being scared, just as you got through all the other terrifying situations," Christine reminded him. "Like our wedding day, or when the kids were born. And the first time you stood in front of the company at the Vanburgh and told them what you had planned. You may have been frightened out of your mind, but you still coped with all of that, and more." She smiled, and was relieved to receive a tiny little echo; once again it was barely more than a twitch of the lips, but it was there and the sight of it lifted her heart. "You're stronger than you think, you know. And no one, not one of us who loves you, will ever allow you to be hurt."

"Oh, Christine, Christine," he sighed. "You really are too good for me."

"Hey." Her tone was sharp, and he looked surprised. She lifted the photo album, angling it meaningfully towards him. "If you say anything like that again I really will hit you with this book."

For a very long moment he just stared at her and then, without warning, he laughed, a real, genuine laugh that made her jump with its sudden boom. He curled an arm around her waist, pulling her close and kissing her hair. "I love you," he murmured as she snuggled happily against him, the velvet nap of his dressing gown soft as it caressed her cheek. "I love you so much."

"That's good," she said, tilting her head so she could see his face. It was tired and strained, the good side pale and a few tears he'd missed dried in tight tracks down his cheeks; his eyes were rimmed with red and the ravages of his distortion looked rather fearsome in the harsh shadows cast by the early morning sunlight, but just at that moment he was the most handsome man in the world to her. "Because I love you, too." She reached up and smoothed back his hair. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"I must have done. I have absolutely no recollection of lying down but I woke up on the sofa when you came downstairs."

"You poor thing. Your back won't thank you for it."

He gave it a rub and grimaced. "Believe me, it's already making its feelings on the subject very clear. Christine," he said, catching hold of her hand when she began to untangle herself from his embrace; she glanced back at him to see that his expression was calm now, but there was determination in his gaze. "I'll do it. The sing-off, I mean," he added when she frowned in confusion. "I'll do it for Allegra. And for you.

"I think it's about time I stopped hiding."

A/N supplemental:

It occurred to me as I was writing this chapter that Gigi isn't the only one to have a Mr Panda. I suddenly remembered that in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em Frank Spencer's daughter Jessica has a toy of the same name, and we all know who played Frank... yep, Michael Crawford. I haven't seen the series in years and I gave Gigi a panda mainly because I have one, but there you have a very random, completely subconscious Phantom connection.