I apologize for the very long wait. The end of the school year takes too much of my teacher-energy. BUT it's now summer break, and I'm hoping for a much quicker update schedule! I hope some of you are still interested in this fic - let me know what you think. :P

Chapter 3: Ask

True to his word, Dr. Martin arrived the next evening armed with more remedies for Charles Daaé's terrible cough. The belladonna tincture had helped Papa relax enough for a few bouts of sleep, but in exchange, he had been plagued with nausea. He had not eaten anything all day; not even the fresh food Christine had bought with her mysterious bag of coin had encouraged his appetite. This alarmed Christine even more than the constant cough. She had watched her father's broad-shouldered form slowly thin over the last several months.

Christine told Dr. Martin as much. She ignored his brisk, dismissive nature toward her – he was a professional, after all. And she was nothing more than the young daughter of a poor violinist. No doubt Dr. Martin felt put-out by this sudden new charge, no matter what he was being paid. Well, she would put up with anything as long as he helped her father get well.

She watched the doctor grind mustard and mix it into a paste with warmed water. "Can I help?" she asked, wanting to be useful.

Dr. Martin spared her a glance. "He needs to be bare from the waist upward for the next hour. This would be a good time for you to send off this pile of linens to the cleaners, hmm?"

She nodded her head. "I will be back soon, Papa," she called into the other room.

The hallways were bustling with tenants – some returning from work, others hustling children into crowded rooms for late meals. The sun was just setting outside, streams of sunlight laying golden stripes across the shadows of the stairwell. Christine hurried to the tiny laundry on the bottom floor where the woman in charge there told her it would be a wait for the linens to be washed. Christine herself would have to hang them to dry on the wire stretched across the fireplace; there was too much rain this time of year to hang them outside.

While waiting, Christine stepped onto the stoop for some fresh air. After the rains yesterday, Parisians were eager to stretch their legs outside even now with night approaching. She knew everyone came with their own burdens and worries, but she liked to make up happy stories for the people she observed. That man walking alone carried roses for the woman he loved. The two women arm-in-arm were sisters going to visit their mother.

Though she did not want to admit this to herself, she searched the crowd for someone familiar as well… a certain man in black. She did not see him, and a wave of unexpected disappointment ran through her.

Once she had her armful of laundry, she went back upstairs and laid the pieces next to the fireplace so she could pin them up. Dr. Martin came out of her father's room, closing the door behind him.

"Are you religious folk, Mademoiselle Daaé?" Dr. Martin asked as he took off his glasses to wipe the lens.

"Y-Yes," she replied, a bit taken aback by the abrupt question. Her father more so than her, but she did not say this. "Why do you ask, monsieur?"

"My tonics might ease his cough and help him rest, but your father's condition will likely not improve with my medicine alone." He replaced his glasses and looked at her shrewdly. "I suggest prayer might be the most effective course of action."

Her father prayed every night for a multitude of things, but this also she did not say. She swallowed thickly. "Are you saying my father may not get better?"

"I am saying you need to be realistic with your expectations. And if you have a priest, it would be wise to have him visit soon."

Tears blurred her vision, but she managed to thank him for his time and see him to the door. Then she went back to her mundane tasks of hanging the laundry to dry and preparing a supper that Papa would not eat. She did not mention Dr. Martin's words to Papa, and if he had already heard them first-hand, he did not say.

Dr. Martin continued to arrive every evening, just as promised. With his treatments, Papa's cough eased, but Christine suspected that they were only treating the symptoms and not the root cause of his malaise. Even though Papa no longer had long-lasting coughing attacks, his energy had not returned, and he spent much of his time in bed. He had not been able to hold his violin since the last time they played in the park, and Christine caught him more than once looking at it longingly.

After about a week, Dr. Martin arrived again in the evening, but this time, he did not come alone.

Christine greeted him at the door, as usual, to help him carry in his supplies. She did not notice the young man standing behind him until she went to shut the door. His caramel-colored skin caught the light of their small fire and single lamp, his face clean-shaved. His dark eyes swept over Christine head to foot, and when they met hers, she was startled by the odd mixture of warmth and warning she saw there.

"Dr. Martin?" she inquired over her shoulder.

The doctor paused in laying out his supplies. "Have you not met? Monsieur Ardavan is the reason I am here after knocking on my door so abruptly a week ago."

The man at the door gave a small smile, flashing the edges of white teeth. "It was my master, actually, who asked me to find a doctor for Monsieur Daaé. He wished me to see how things were going with the good doctor and the violinist whose talent he admires."

"You can tell him Monsieur Daaé is doing as well as can be expected. Now, excuse me while I tend to my patient." Doctor Martin selected various vials and his bag and headed to Papa's room. Christine heard the usual greetings exchanged between the two men before the doctor closed the door behind him.

Christine swung her attention back to the young man – Monsieur Ardavan – at the door, her eyebrows drawing together. "Monsieur, you said your master sent you to find a doctor for my father?"

"Yes, he did. I have heard much about you and your father." He paused here, looking down at his feet. The toes of his boots barely brushed the edge of the door threshold. The smile never slipped from his face as he asked, "May I come in?"

"O-of course," Christine said, flushing in embarrassment. How rude she had been to have a conversation with him through the doorway! Her hesitation was unfounded; he had done nothing but be polite toward her.

His shoulders seemed to relax as he stepped inside. "Thank you, mademoiselle."

"Your master, Monsieur Ardavan?" she repeated, trying to steer the conversation back to her question.

"Call me Darius, please. I much prefer it. And yes, he is the one who heard that your father needed help. I am only doing his bidding by being here."

Now that he was in the room, Christine could see that he was rather short for a man, especially once he politely took off his hat. He wore a trim gray suit, the style old-fashioned for someone so young. He spoke perfect French, but his accent was thick; he was not a native Frenchman. His dark eyes never strayed long from her, but they danced around the room, taking in everything. When he stepped further inside, she caught a wrinkle of his nose. A look of disgust flitted across his smooth face, and he covered it with a cough.

Christine would not be put off by the lack of information. "I should like to know to whom I can direct my thanks."

"I can see why he is so taken with you," Darius said quietly, giving her his full attention for a moment. "I suppose he knew what he was doing, sending me here in person. Did you look at him with that kind of determination?"

"Who, monsieur? You have yet to give me a name."

"You will learn it soon enough." He pulled a small bag from his jacket pocket and set it upon the kitchen table. Coins clinked together from within. "In case your other funds are running short."

Christine opened the bag, eyes widening. She had scarcely spent a quarter of what she had been given last time. "He gives me two month's wages, and yet you will not give me his name!"

He gave an easy shrug. "Is it that much? I am pleased that you spend so frugally, mademoiselle."

"Does your master dress all in black?" she asked determinedly, raising her chin. "Is your master fond of lurking around at night? Does he wear a mask upon his face?"

Darius's eyebrows shot upward with clear surprise. "You have seen him – truly seen him."

"I have met him."

Darius took a step closer to her. "Then you understand very well why you should stop asking questions. You speak well enough with your head, but not at all with your heart. That will serve you well in the beginning, mademoiselle, but you must not ignore when your head and your heart try to reason with each other."

She flushed again, but this time her embarrassment was tinged with anger. "Pardon me, but you do not know me, monsieur."

"I think I know enough now." His eyes snapped to Papa's bedroom door a moment before Dr. Martin opened it. "Excuse me while I speak to your father."

He left her open-mouthed, her retort one that she swallowed down as Dr. Martin came back into the room. Darius closed the door behind him as she heard him greet her father, a move she saw as deliberately shutting her out. Dr. Martin spoke to her about her father's condition, which had no new changes, and then she was left alone.

She did not have to wait long. Darius swept out of her father's room. He headed toward the door to leave, placing his hat back atop his black hair. He again flashed her that careful white smile, but she saw the handkerchief in his hand, held as though he had just been covering his nose.

He paused at the door. "Will we see each other again soon, mademoiselle?"

She stared at him. "Will we?"

One more small smile, and he was gone.

Christine locked the door – a move she would have done for anyone, but one that she felt especially important now. Then she hurried to Papa's room. He lay propped up by pillows, breathing relatively easily, the remnants of a mustard poultice lying in crumbled bits in the trash.

He was reading through several documents which were laid out across his lap.

His blue eyes seemed watery, as though he was on the verge of tears. "Come here, my darling," he said, extending a hand.

She took it, his large palm warm against hers, perhaps a bit too warm. "What is it, Papa?"

Charles read some more, then removed his spectacles and squeezed her hand tightly. "An offer for your hand."

"My hand?" She snatched hers from his, a reflex she could not stop. "What do you mean?"

He looked at her steadily. "Your hand in marriage, Christine."

In marriage. In marriage. Her hand in marriage. The words echoed within her head over and over, her mind trying to make sense of them. That man – Darius Ardavan – had given these papers to her father, papers asking for her hand in marriage. He had known his purpose when he had come to her home. He had not only been here to see the doctor in action.

"Monsieur Ardavan's master," she whispered.

"My darling girl," Papa said, reaching out to take her hand again as though he feared she would run off. "I never thought this day would come."

"What day?" She felt stunned, her mind spinning, her thoughts floating somewhere above where her body sat on the edge of his bed. My hand in marriage.

"The day I would see a future in which you are married, and I can rest in peace. The man responsible for paying for Dr. Martin's services has expressed his interest in marrying you."

Her voice answered him, a flat murmur that sounded disconnected from the turmoil inside her. "Monsieur Ardavan's master wants to marry me?"

"As it is stated here." Papa pushed the marriage proposal into her other hand, but she could not grasp it. "From all the assets he has listed here, he is certainly a man of means."

"He must be wealthy," she said, "to be able to pay for not only your doctor but our daily lives. He must be wealthy enough to feel as though he can buy me as well."

"Daughter mine-"

"No, Papa." She jerked her hand from his, standing. "My answer is no."

She hated the look in her father's eyes. "Christine, it is not your choice to make."

"If it is not my choice, then whose is it?" She hated the way her voice rose, the shrillness of panic she heard there.

Charles pushed himself more upright in bed. "He is a renowned composer, a wealthy man with a box at the opera and a manor in Paris. You could do so much worse-"

"I don't even know him!"

"But you will. Christine, you can't ignore the good fortune behind this. You can't ignore the reality that we are both facing!"

Tears broke through her, streaming down her cheeks. "What reality is that, Papa?"

"That I am dying, my darling girl."

She felt as though she could not breathe. Her chest rose up and down; her limbs felt light, their edges fuzzy. "But Dr. Martin… his medicines have eased your cough." It was the lie she had told herself, but she had already known the truth.

Papa's large, warm hand cupped her face, his thumb brushing the rivulet of tears there. "How can I leave this earth without knowing you will be cared for? I want so badly to see your mother again, but I need to know that you are safe."

"Marrying me to a man I have never met – how could that possibly bring you happiness?" She could not, would not, tell her father about the fact that she had met this man before. Papa would press too much for details, and while her heart ached at the very consideration of marriage, she could not willingly sabotage. A not so small part of her wanted to see this man again, to both thank him and tell him off.

"You will meet him first, of course. I could never do that to you, Christine. But you need to prepare yourself for this marriage to go forward."

She pulled free of him and scrubbed her sleeve across her face. "I need to go hang the wet laundry."

"Christine…"

"Not another word, Papa. I can't bear it."

He pressed his lips together and only nodded. Christine ducked out of the room. She had not bothered reading the marriage proposal, having no interest in learning about this man's assets – how much money he possessed, what property he owned, what business ventures he had started. Only after she had pinned up most of the clothes did she realize that the man's name had probably been on the documents, but she could not go back into father's room now, not while he wanted to have further discussion.

Marriage. It was a thought that had barely ever entered her mind. After Mama had passed away when Christine was a little girl, her family had shrunk to just her and Papa, and she had naively thought that was the way it would always be between them.

Charles refused dinner again that night and went to bed early. The sounds of his soft snores carried her through the evening, a constant reassurance of life. Christine sat near the single window and sipped her tea.

"I am dying, darling girl."

How could she even consider a life without Papa? Since her mother had passed away, the two of them had been a pair, partners, traveling the countryside as Charles searched for work. She could hardly shift her thoughts to anything different from the reality that had been her life for years.

Christine washed out her cup and tiptoed into Papa's room, taking the envelope from his bedside table and returning to her perch by the window. She thumbed open the documents and searched until she found the name of her intended.

Erik Voclain.

It had been easy enough to choose his surname this time. It was always something vaguely French to avoid those sorts of questions, and he kept a stockpile of identities should the need arose to quickly disappear. He had changed some twenty years ago after those nasty incidents at the opera house. No one bothered Voclain the eccentric composer that no one had ever seen. He was as forgettable as a whimsy.

The Erik, on the other hand, had haunted him throughout his lifetime. He never knew the name with which he had been born, had never cared enough to deduce such an item, and Erik had been plucked from the very air, a name heard on someone's lips during a moment in his childhood. It had stuck within his memory after that, and the first time someone had asked for his name, Erik was the one he gave.

Erik Voclain. The men and women who knew him for him called him merely Erik, and the name would have to do for eternity now. He had grown too used to it. But it was Erik Voclain that Darius had drafted onto the papers to place into Charles Daaé's hands, and Erik Voclain was the name that she would know before they met.

Of course, he had been there when Darius had delivered his proposal, standing across the street, unnoticed as usual by any passersby. He spent more time than he would like to admit beneath her window, watching over her.

Which meant he saw when she sat by the window and read Erik Voclain's request for her hand in marriage. The glass panel had been pushed open to let in the cooler night air, which was thought to ease coughing. Any human would not have heard his name uttered from her perfect white throat, but he did – he was not human, after all.

She read his name upon the paper, said it aloud, her full lips forming the sounds, her voice a whisper. He did not need to breathe, but he sucked in a deep breath anyway and shuddered it out just as quickly. This hold she had on him… He felt the edge of a lengthened fang with the tip of his tongue.

The woman in the window read through the papers and then set them aside. When she began to weep, he clamped his thin lips tightly across his fangs and fled.

In the days that passed after Darius delivered the proposal, Erik did little more than pace the floors of his estate. Madame Giry had brought him notes on his latest piece of opera drivel, but he was too distracted to bother to focus upon his work – not his usual ethic.

He and Darius had avoided each other in mutual agreement that their opinions on this matter varied. Although Erik wanted to pepper Darius with questions after visiting the Daaé residence, he refrained. He would learn all he wanted about this young woman soon enough. He also could not banish the image of her freely-flowing tears from his mind, and he needed no comments from Darius to add to his misery.

"You will wear out the carpet in that corner."

Erik cut his eyes over to his butler, halting his stride. "If you are here, I assume you have news?"

"I do." Darius did not shy away from Erik's steely gaze; he rarely did, a skill Daroga had taught him well. "A letter arrived from the Daaes."

"Give it."

Darius obliged, placing the small card-sized envelope into Erik's bony, outstretched hand. "The stench was nearly unbearable."

Erik ignored him, sliding a finger into the corner of the envelope and slicing the seal. He read, eyes quickly finding the words he wanted.

"You knew, didn't you?" Darius continued. "You must have, if you saw them perform at the park."

"Her father has agreed to the match."

"Maestro."

Erik landed blazing yellow eyes upon him. "What do you want to hear, Darius? Yes, I knew immediately that her father would not live past the year's end. Yes, I knew this increased my chances of making this match successful. I do not, however, need your opinion about such things."

"Perhaps if you waited until Master Khan returned…"

"If he is returning!" Erik swung an angry arm. "Daroga has never been gone for this length of time without sending word that he is alive. Perhaps you should start reconciling with the idea that he may never return."

Darius's head dipped down into shadow. When he raised it again, his eyes were bright and fierce. "Do you wish for me to arrange for your bride to make a formal visit?"

"Do so," Erik said thickly.

Darius strode from the room. As soon as he thought he could walk without trembling, Erik headed through the long halls to the tower. A small door here opened only with a key he carried, and he locked it behind him as he stepped onto the landing before a spiral of stairs dropping into darkness.

He did not need light to make his way downward, and he had no want to see the details of his rooms. He could see well enough in the dark, but here beneath layers of stone and soil was true darkness, the total absence of light. Down he traveled until he reached the floor that stretched from the last step. He sat heavily upon the piano bench, his elbow striking a discordant note upon the keys until he closed the lid.

Here, truly alone, he removed his mask and set it beside him on the bench. His unsteady hands cupped his ruin of a face, blunt fingernails digging into the edges of his forehead where his hairline might be if he possessed more than these sparse strands.

His goal had been achieved. The woman he desired would be his if he could dance this final tempo. And yet her tears flashed behind his clenched eyelids over and over again. What did he have to offer her to banish them?

"Daroga," he moaned aloud to the empty room, "I will never forgive you if you are truly dead."

Gah, I'm so excited about the next chapter...