A/N: I know this is early, or late depending on how you look at it, but it's already Saturday here and for a variety of reasons I don't want to wait any longer before posting. So. Here it is.

I've also finished (!) writing this whole fic, so rest assured that Saturday updates will continue. Even if they do end up late Friday night for some people. I tend to forget timezones exist.

He is aware of voices, aware of someone squeezing his arm, aware of people milling around him, pressing close. But all he can see is her, the girl who De Chagny Junior has helped out of the stage, who is rumpled after twelve hours of travel, her midnight-blue travelling dress highlighting just how pale she is, how petite, as slender and delicate as a twig.

Miss Christine Daaé, here, before him in the flesh.

His fiancée.

All at once it hits him like a kick to the chest. This is her, here, real. This is who it has all been for, the portrait, the letters, the bedroom he's designed and shelves he's filled with books and the discreet chat he had with the widow woman Valerius who does dressmaking and who Max's girl Beth introduced him to. This is the girl who has agreed to marry him, even knowing he is disfigured.

Tears prickle at the backs of his eyes, and he blinks them away. He will not cry before her, he will now. She does not need to know how desperate he is. None of them need to know.

Aman's voice breaks through the haze, and Erik remembers belatedly that he'd sent him to Cheyenne to guard the stage she would come in on, after making up a story about the threat of robbery, the same story he fed Max and Raoul so they would escort the stage the last part of the way. He felt safer, knowing they were there.

He still feels safer.

"What did you do to your arm?"

Aman's words make him feel the prickle afresh where the drunk's knife tore his arm open, but before he can answer Miss Daaé – Christine, he absolutely must remember to call her Christine – Christine's eyes meet his, blue bonnet blue and shining, and she smiles, ever so slightly and his heart kicks again. It's a fight to not gasp, to keep his jaw set and breathe steadily through his nose even if his breaths do stutter.

"…broke up a brawl. Armstrong said the stitches…" Trev's voice, saving him from speaking and making a fool of himself, and as Christine comes closer, Raoul still hovering behind her, he feels his lips twitch into a slight smile. She really is beautiful, prettier even than her picture suggested.

He is suddenly, keenly, aware of how he must look to her – gaunt and bloodstained, shirt torn, unsteady on his feet because his head has started spinning and he doesn't know why. Trev's fingers squeeze his arm tighter, a silent support, and if he leans into the pressure a little more than is regular who is to say? Who would even notice?

Damn but he should have changed his shirt, should have gone to the trouble of making himself more presentable to a lady, and he would have if Armstrong had not taken so long stitching him. The man seems to get more precise every day!

She's close enough to touch now, so close he can see the shifting of those blue eyes as she looks up into his face. His throat is painfully tight and he swallows hard to clear it, breath hitching as he stretches out his good hand to her, fingers trembling clear for all to see, if there is anyone watching through the chatter and bustle, and distantly, incongruously, he thinks, at least I washed the blood off.

At least he spared her the sight of that.

Her hand is gloved, and in a moment it is in his, soft and warm, so delicate her blue-wrapped fingers are almost swallowed up in his and his heart lurches again, legs weak as if they might buckle beneath him and wouldn't that be undignified? A wonderful way to make a first impression? A laugh bubbles up within him, sudden and strangling (why does he feel this way? he's not supposed to feel this way! is he ill? was the knife poisoned? she'll think him mad, she must do already!) and swallowing hard against it he bows his head and brushes his lips to the back of her hand. Her glove is satin beneath his lips and he can't help it, he kisses her fingertips as he straightens up, but doesn't let go of her hand.

"Miss Daaé," he whispers, voice hoarse, forgetting himself and his own vow to call her Christine but the name refuses to roll off his tongue.

"Marshal Lamonte." She smiles again, tilting her head, eyes shining. "It's a pleasure to meet you." The lilt to her words, unplaceable, is entirely unexpected and entirely welcome.

"The pleasure is all mine." And it is. It is.

He walks her to the Western Union office, because she wants to wire a friend back in New Orleans, and he wants to pay for it for her, to save her from using her own money, but it is not his place to do it, not yet. Not until tomorrow, when they will stand before Judge Brown and he will declare them man and wife.

The telegrapher stares at them as Christine writes out her message and Erik can't really blame him. He must look a sight, battered and torn, arm in a sling and a strange girl on the other one. Within the hour it will surely be all over town that the Marshal – the Marshal! Who has never so much as accepted a drink from a dance hall girl! – was seen with a woman, a very pretty, very young woman. Let them speculate! Let them whisper! They whisper about him enough already, about his mask, about his manners and his quietness, about his rumoured history. What is one more thing on top of that when, chaste as it may be, he is the man who is taking Christine Daaé home?

He is the man who is going to marry her.

Giddiness rises inside of him again, and he wants to laugh, wants to dance, wants to swing her around in the street for all to see. She agreed to marry him, and she came all this way, thousands of miles just to do that, to marry him, him of all men when she could surely have her pick of any man, with eyes like that and hair like spun gold and—and—

And oh Lord he is waxing poetic. The blade must have been poisoned. Or else he lost more blood than he thought he did. That would certainly explain the lightheadedness, and as they leave the Western Union office, her arm threaded through his, he fights not to lean on her. She should not have to support him when she must be exhausted, after travelling all that way.

Thank God Aman carried her bags on ahead. He must be cooking supper by now, and simple though it will likely be after his journey, it will be more than enough. He's not hungry and besides, if this lightheadedness is a sign of poisoning then it is probably best that he not eat much.

He should probably see about updating his will, after the ceremony tomorrow. Christine will have to be accounted for. So help him, but he will not leave her destitute after bringing her all this way. It wouldn't be right.

At the very least, she will get his share of the house. That should go some way towards easing things for her.

Ruminating on the thought of his possibly imminent death from poisoned blade and how to ensure Christine is looked after in the event of such keeps his mind occupied until they are almost home. Such a strange thing, that it is hers now too. It has always been just him and Aman, ever since the war ended and even during it. It doesn't feel half as terrifying as it should, bringing someone else into that. He expected that he wouldn't like it, not at all. Half-feared that she might get here and he'd have to send her away again because it would all be too much. But there is something about her, a softness to her, that makes him think it might, that he might be able to tolerate having another person around.

Or maybe it is simply that he has grown used to young people. De Chagny Junior started out a trial, after all, and now Erik can almost say that he likes the boy.

But he will not admit that for anything.

Or maybe he can tolerate Christine because she might still decide to leave. She still has time for that.

(He hopes, dear God he hopes, that she stays.)

"Your room is around the back." He's hoarser than he expected, and it strikes him that this is the first time he's spoken a word since he agreed to take her to the Western Union. "I hope you like it."

Her voice is soft. "I'm sure I will."

Aman greets them just as he opens the door. "It took the two of you long enough!" Hands on his hips, he's the picture of a stern housewife, and a rush of affection fills Erik for his oldest and dearest friend. "Supper is almost ready."

The Marshal – Erik – doesn't take his mask off to eat, he simply uses the good half of his mouth, and for the first minute it is the single most startling thing Christine has ever seen. But Mister Hariri – Aman, he insisted she call him when he shook her hand and smiled – doesn't even seem to notice, and she supposes it must be the usual way, so she turns her attention to her own meal before her, and tries not to think about it.

It is some sort of meat stew, and she is slightly afraid to ask what is in it, but she has to admit it's delicious. Aman thanks her when she says as much, and Erik's lips twitch as if he might be on the edge of smiling.

They eat in silence, and afterwards Erik shows her around the house. There is a piano and a sofa in the parlour, and it looks more comfortable than she might have expected. "You're free to do whatever you want," Erik says, making a sweeping gesture with his good arm. "Even play the piano." His lips twitch into another slight smile, and she's beginning to decide she likes it when he does that. "I can recommend some pieces, if you want. Though you probably have your own favourites. I'd enjoy hearing them sometime. Or that violin you carried."

She's a little rueful when she admits, "I'm afraid I'm not very good at either. The violin was my father's."

His smile tightens just slightly, as if she might have disappointed him, and she feels a stab of regret. "In that case, I could give you lessons. If you wish."

"Maybe."

They move on. He shows her Aman's room beside his, and the doors to both of them are closed. And then he shows her her own room, and it takes her breath away. The blue-painted walls are the shade she would have chosen, and the curtains are opened to show a garden, glowing bright in the dying sunlight. Her heart throbs painfully and she turns around, tears in her eyes, to Erik, to this shy man who has done so much, who has gone to such trouble all on her account. Even stocked a case with books! She restrains the impulse to throw her arms around him.

"It's beautiful, Erik. Thank you."

If her voice catches he doesn't seem to notice, and his voice is soft as he whispers, "It's the least I can do." He leans in, and for a moment she thinks he might kiss her, might bow his head and brush her lips with his, and her breath hitches in her throat, and she resolves that she will let him, if he wishes, and it strikes her that his eyes are glowing with the sunlight, and she wonders what a kiss from those half lips might feel like. Then the moment passes and he withdraws.

"Sleep well, Christine."

Before she can get her breath, before she can reply, he closes the door gently behind him, and she sighs, suddenly exhausted. Her heart aches with desperate loneliness as she turns back to the room that is all hers, and she kicks off her shoes, lies down on the big bed, bigger than the one she shared with Sorelli, and is asleep without another thought.

A/N: If you've enjoyed this chapter, please review. If you really want to make an aching and tired writer happy (one who got kicked twice in the hip by a cow yesterday and almost got a hand broke tonight) please do check out 'Falsification' and 'Reunion', part of my ongoing modern AU starring Erik and Christine as serious academics who love each other. It would honestly make my day, night, and week to get some love on them.

Until next time!