Hi all! I just wanted to say thanks to Cree, who stepped into the Persian's shoes for this chapter! He's finally here! Yes!! And more Erik!! We all love Erik! And guess what! He's not so much a mordant arse in this chapter! ::gasp!:: Since Leroux doesn't give the Persian a name, I'm using Kay's. (As I will fill in names for characters who don't have them based off Kay and ALW as the story continues). I actually wrote this chapter before the last one, but it wouldn't work in the timeline, so I held onto it for a bit and then changed a couple things to make it work. So we move on! To Tuesday afternoon! This is the longest chapter yet!...Maybe a little too long ::lol:: But it's allllllllll Erik and now we finally find out why Erik ever would have tried to kill himself on Friday afternoon! About time!
Happy reading and much fmeek!! And! Oh, say... Ten times the fmeek to those who review!! ;)
Four Hours After the Analysis
It was dark in Erik's cell. He wanted it that way. In fact, he had broken the light bulbs in the ceiling to keep it that way. Oh, they had replaced them quickly the first few times he had done it, but after the fifth time, they had given up...Not that they really cared. If Erik wanted it in the dark, let Erik have it in the dark. And so Erik had it in the dark.
The only light in the little, enclosed room now came from the small window at the top of the cell's back wall, the smaller window in the door of the cell, and the two even smaller windows to Erik's soul. His two eyes shone like stars in the night...Like twin candle flames...Only, they didn't dance. In fact, nothing moved in this place. All was still and all was silent. Erik himself sat undyingly immobile upon two stacked mattresses with his back against the wall. He was able to sit on two mattresses, you see, because he continued to remain alone in the cell that was intended for two people. The actual metal frames of the beds had been dismantled and now lay in an ordered pile near the opposite wall. A few of the pieces had been twisted into odd shapes at one point, but all now lay under a film of grey dust.
Why were they like that? Who knows? Well...Erik knew.
But Erik wasn't thinking about that right now. Something had started moving in the room, and the rustling of tiny feet that scuttled across the floor pricked Erik's ears. Erik remained perfectly motionless, but his eyes followed the cockroach as it made a straight line for the browning slice of apple that lay near Erik's limp hand. He only watched the insect for a minute or so as it nibbled contentedly on the piece of fruit in the dark. Erik thought how pathetic it was that this tiny creature truly thought itself alone and safe as long as it was in the dark and nothing moved. Life could be so deceiving that way...
In a flash that the cockroach's little brain could not comprehend, Erik had snatched up its tiny body between his thumb and forefinger. He held it up gently and the poor insect's legs wriggled in that insectual equivalent of fear. He could tell this was a female.
"Despicable..." Erik whispered softly as he watched the roach's antennae writhe in panic. The pitiable thing was quite at a loss and quite completely at Erik's mercy. But, you see, it wasn't the animal itself that Erik considered despicable. No...It was the poor thing's condition.
Erik rose then, from the mattresses, and he made his way to the window in the back wall, captive in hand. He opened the high window the little amount that it allowed for opening, and let the cockroach out between the bars. He didn't watch her as she made her escape and only shook his head and muttered again:
"Dreadful..."
He shut the window and, when he looked back, he saw that another cockroach had already found the slice of apple. He was a little surprised. But before he had much time to think about the matter, the door to his cell was flung open and the dark interior was flooded with the harsh light from the corridor outside. The instant the gleam fell across the mattresses, the insect darted out of its reach in the direction of the protected, dark corner behind the door. However, before it quite made it through the patches of light and shadow on its way to safety, the prison guard, the one causing the shadow that stretched into the room amid the glowing cascade, crushed the cockroach under his shoe.
"Damn roaches."
The man grumbled as he made an attempt to scrape the bug's sticky guts from his shoe to the floor.
Erik frowned.
It wouldn't be accurate to say that the guard could see the contempt written on Erik's face, for whatever expression might happen the be on Erik's face, the guard certainly wouldn't be able to make out. Actually, he would have preferred not to have to look at Erik's face at all...However, the fact that Erik's gaze stayed so devoutly trained on the remains of the cockroach was enough for the guard to deduce that this prisoner did not approve of the insect's untimely execution.
The guard laughed. "Was that a friend of yours?"
Erik shrugged and looked back away to the dark side of the room. "One lives, one dies; what does it matter? There are so many of them, aren't there?" He placed his hands on either side of the white porcelain sink basin in the corner of the cell, and his words dropped down the drainpipe. "And they all look the same..."
Before the guard could say anything, Erik turned the handle of the faucet and rinsed off his hands under the cold stream of water.
"Hey, prick, I don't have all day," the guard barked as Erik took his time to turn off the water. "Come on." He then flung the black mask across the room, Frisbee style, straight for the back of Erik's head.
Without turning, Erik reached behind and caught it, stopping its shameful flight and put it on before he made a move. Once it was securely in place, he made his way to the door where the guard continued to lurk. Though both men saw just about perfectly eye-to-eye, the guard was easily twice Erik's size and half Erik's age. Erik could have killed him effortlessly...Not that the thought crossed Erik's mind.
The big, young guard took Erik's intended handcuffs and motioned for his prisoner to hold up his hands.
Erik sighed. "This isn't necessary..."
"Yes it is," the guard replied gruffly as he snapped the cuffs around Erik's wrists, "Ever since you took out those security officers two weeks ago, it is."
Erik tugged at the chain of the cuffs lightly. "And you think this would be what would stop me from doing it again?" The handcuffs were pointless and, Erik thought, rather ridiculous. What could they possibly offer any opposing party other than a false sense of security? Though as far as threat from Erik was concerned at the moment, all possible opposing parties were safe. He still felt considerably tired and weak right now...It would be a short while before he had completely recovered from the weekend's tumultuous events.
"I you have a problem with it," the guard snorted, "I can get you a straightjacket."
Erik shrugged, uninterested; but then his eye caught the clock on the far end of the corridor, and he saw that it was not a usual time for him to be going anywhere. "Where are you taking me?" he asked, more annoyed now.
The guard pushed Erik out of the room and started down the passage. He didn't bother to answer with any more than one word: "Visiting."
Erik stopped. He had a visitor!
"Christine...No..." he only barely breathed the words in shock. The last person he felt he could see now was Christine! Why would she come back? He couldn't see her again! He couldn't see those tears in her eyes again! He could hear her ask why he'd tried to die...Did she know? Had she heard about it? Would they have told her? It was possible...But it was also possible she knew nothing at all...
"Move it, prick, or I take you back and you don't get to see nobody."
Erik glanced at the guard. Back...Perhaps that would be best...He couldn't see her, hear her now...Not now. Not like this...
...But she had come to see him...And Erik realized with abysmal dismay that he couldn't not see her. There was nothing he could deny her...And if he did not see her, she might become worried or upset...What could he do?
The lesser of two evils...Erik walked.
The guard continued on ahead of him. "There you go. Make my day easier. And you never know, might be something good in it for you. Your bitch could get a little phone frisky for you." He ceased talking to focus his concentration on unlocking the passage door.
Erik stopped again. The cuffs around his wrists suddenly felt very effortless to remove. He didn't say a word as the guard pushed open the door. He didn't have to. The burning desire to inflict immense pain carried well enough on its own. Erik could have killed him so easily...And this time, the thought did cross his mind.
The only thing that kept him from action was the thought of Christine waiting there at that booth...And when he reached the place and saw that she was not the one there, the immense relief he felt was laced with a heavy disappointment.
Yes, Christine was not the one who had come to see Erik. It was Nadir.
Nadir Kahn had been waiting on the free side of the bulletproof glass window for a good few minutes before he saw Erik and the officer approach. The image was virtually unreal to him. Seeing Erik this way was so...out of context. Nadir couldn't think of any other way to put it. The aesthetical ambiance of Erik demanded the extravagance of silken hangings and exotic creatures or the dark and mysterious framing of the eerie light of the cellars of his subterranean empire. The vision that greeted him now was just...wrong! All wrong! And it was sickening.
The guard gleaned one last delight in pushing Erik into the seat before he left, and Erik decided then that the young man would just have to be dealt with in the near future.
Erik looked at the man on the other side of the window who he had, at one time, considered his only worldly friend, and at another time one of his greatest adversaries. He was annoyed with himself for having become so worried at the prospect of the visitor being Christine. Of course it wouldn't have been her. He should have known better than that. But what was the meaning of this? As he reached for the phone, he spoke to Nadir through the glass:
"What are you doing here?"
Nadir picked up the receiver on his side while doing his best not to portray his shock at Erik's attire. He took only a brief moment as he forced himself to get over it and cut right to the chase, speaking into the phone, "I read about your attempted suicide in the newspaper."
So that was why he was here. Erik should have known. What else could Nadir want but to put his nose in Erik's business as always? Even in such a personal situation, Erik could not find peace from this man who made it his life's work to be a pest. He had not seen nor heard from him in over a month, and now he had shown up with his interrogating watch and his damnable notebook. It was a fine thing, Erik thought, for a man who had called himself a friend! But then, the board had been swept clean that night. Who was to say where the pieces had fallen...
However...Hearing Nadir mention the suicide like that really bothered Erik somehow...And so he responded with that defensive nonchalance that had never quite proved an effective enough shield against Nadir's attacks. "I'm sure a lot of people did."
Nadir's voice remained level and calm, but he could not keep a look of disappointed regret from his eyes. "Why now, Erik?"
Erik didn't feel up to this. "Don't look at me like that."
Nadir didn't look away. "I'm only looking at you as a concerned friend would."
"You, my friend," Erik began as if it were a highly ironical thing to say, "have no reason to be concerned." He knew what would come next and he didn't particularly want to hear it, but before he could kill the impending, Nadir sighed and responded.
"Look at yourself, Erik. You've never seriously attempted committed suicide before in my knowledge, though you've always wanted to..." He had never known Erik to be terribly enthusiastic with his life, but he did know that Erik had never before been willing to risk eternity's automatic judgment and sentence that was allotted to those who took their own lives. But something must have changed...Something to make him abandon the resolve that had always made him keep the unredeemable sin of suicide at arm's length. "What happened that suddenly made you not fear hell?"
Erik narrowed his eyes. Nadir knew what he was talking about far too well, but Erik's reasoning was none of Nadir's business and Erik was not about to share it with this man nor anyone else.
"I would hardly call the feelings sudden," Erik snapped. He then dropped the handcuffs onto the narrow counter as if they were a piece of trash. "And even hell would be better than this."
Nadir's eye lingered on the handcuffs for a moment. Erik's same old ways... "Haven't you even thought about Miss Daaé? I can tell you from my short encounter with her, that this would upset her greatly."
Erik laughed at that. "Upset her greatly!" What an absolutely absurd question! As if Erik even thought about anything else.
"You disagree?"
Nadir really wasn't about to leave Erik very much of a choice, now was he...How was it that Erik had so quickly wound up on the defensive? "She may shed a few gentle tears over my grave," he conceded, "But I tell you, my life is what is keeping her from happiness."
"Ah, so that's it then," Nadir said quickly with bland rhetoric. "You can't talk to her, but you assume she's unhappy on your behalf?"
"Don't think me so vain as to simply assume such a thing." Nadir always used the same, old tricks... "I've spoken to her."
Nadir was actually surprised, and for a minute, was not certain whether Erik was telling the truth or not. "You have? She has come here? What did she say to you?"
"Yes. She was here. Friday. And why should I tell you what she said to me?"
"Maybe you shouldn't." Nadir shrugged as if to say that was not what he was concerned about although he was concerned about something. "All I know is you have always resisted suicide until this point. Was it something she said to you?"
Erik answered with frostbitten words. "Do not dare blame her for my decisions."
"I'm not," Nadir alleged quickly. "I am quite certain her original intentions were not to convince you of suicide." Though Christine Daaé did have a reputation for getting in over her head without meaning to, Nadir knew well enough that such a notion would never have even entered the girl's universe of thought.
He went on, trying to be a little more careful in what he said to Erik now, "I'm only suggesting that you re-think what you did. She knows about it, you know. You know her far better than I, but it seems to me your death would only bring her more unnecessary pain. Unless, of course, she has nothing to do with this at all and my thoughts are incorrect?"
"You...You think too much." She knew about it!...The words struck Erik harder than he expected, but he dared not betray the emotion. "I've always done so well at bringing her unnecessary pain, it seems, no matter what I do or where I exist. Even if my death should cause more, at least it would be the last of it."
Nadir looked directly at him. "Would it? I'm not so sure."
Erik met Nadir's eyes with a glare. "I don't plan to haunt her from beyond the grave."
Nadir shook his head, a bit frustrated. "That wasn't what I was suggesting."
Erik glanced down at his hand that lay on the top of the small, metal ledge. Erik answered to no one. So why was it that he now felt the need to defend his objectives...Was it because he cared?
"There was a time," he began, resentfully, "when all I wanted was her...To possess her completely; heart, soul, and voice...My motivation and intentions were purely self-interested. But, unlike the structure of man, love has more than one face, Nadir, and I want her to be happy. I want her to be able to live. And she cannot even do that now. I allowed myself to be caught. I let them put me in this place and process me with their system, and now my ordeal is filling her life with black marks."
"But that is why she can't live, Erik." What could Nadir do to make him see? "Whatever happened that night changed something in her. I saw it with my own two eyes. You are a part of her. You wanted to be part of her soul, and you accomplished that. You can't undo it by killing yourself."
"Perhaps not." Erik did not appreciate Nadir's scolding. "But she's put her life on hold because of this. There is no way she can move on and be happy until it's over. Whether they keep her from doing so or whether she does it on her own... I can't put her through this. Not for me...Not after I let her go."
Nadir sighed a little. "Do what you will then, Erik. I can only advise you so far. I truly believe your thinking is off when it comes to this. I believe that she is upset only because you are in this place, against your will, apparently to her."
"Do you think I do anything without a reason? There is only one way out of this."
"Yes. Win the trial." Nadir knew that wasn't what Erik meant, but he thought Erik was seeing things a bit too black-and-white. When was death ever the only answer?
Erik laughed, finding Nadir's naiveté highly amusing. "As appealing as that sounds, my friend, no pun intended, even I must admit it is highly impossible. I have done a lot of things and am being charged with even more. Do you mean to imply that you think I could be found innocent of every single charge? Come now, daroga, you ought to know better than that."
Perhaps Nadir did know better than that...Or perhaps he had truly fallen under the spell of wishful thinking. He answered almost fondly, "If there is one thing I know about you for certain, Erik, it is that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to...One way or another."
Erik smirked at the unwarranted flattery. "Just how much control do you think I have here? Not much, eh? No, I tell you... There is only one way out."
There he went again! Nadir could not understand why Erik was refusing to acknowledge his advantages! "How much control? I happen to know that your voice is exceptionally manipulative...I'm not suggesting anything, of course. I am just all too aware just how much control you could have."
Erik absently spun the handcuffs around on the counter and watched the patterns they made while in motion. "Better they not know that," he said in a low, resigned voice. "They might try to make things more difficult for me." He looked back up again. "Despite what could be, I am fully aware of what cannot be. And being legally allowed out of this cage will not happen as long as I am alive."
Erik was now speaking in a rather enigmatic tone that confused Nadir. He knew well enough not to take everything Erik said at surface value, and was now not so sure anymore exactly what Erik meant.
"Legally, perhaps not..." Nadir conceded thoughtfully. "I've never known you as one to follow the rules, though, Erik." He broke off and laughed at his own words, realizing what he had just implied, "And to think! A former cop all but telling you to break the law! It's probably better not to listen to a word I'm saying to you. But...I do come to you as a friend and not a cop."
Erik looked at Nadir for a moment, amused. "You, daroga...Yes, the former Chief of Police suggesting I escape from this place?" Erik laughed and switched the phone to his other hand. "I've gotten as far as the main wall, they don't know this of course, but it is impossible to get any further without drawing attention to myself. And I'm not invincible you know. I have no resources. All they would need would be a few well-armed men at close range. But they would not shoot to kill, daroga...No, I'm not that fortunate."
Nadir sighed; all good spirits were gone. So Erik had tried to escape. Nadir now wondered why he had even doubted it. Erik knew what he was capable of. But it was so unlike Erik to get himself into an inescapable situation! Nadir just didn't understand.
"Why did you allow yourself to be caught in the first place, Erik?"
He had barely finished the question before Erik figuratively exploded on the other side of the glass.
"That mob did not have legal justice on their minds! They were after vengeance and brutal retribution! I expected oblivion! What I would like to know is who bloody prevented it!" He pounded his fist against the counter in a way that would have caused just about anyone else immense pain.
Nadir was silent for a minute before he said, softly, in final realization, "So you wanted to die that night..."
"I would rather die in hell than live it." Erik had calmed somewhat with a tremble that could have been sorrow...But still spoke with a vehemently bitter tone, "There is no sense in living when life is over. And mine...My life left me that night." Any future words were cut off when Erik suddenly dropped the phone as his hand went to his throat. He was seized with a violent cough behind the mask...It was the same as had plagued him since he'd been treated in the medical facilities. The doctors had not cared to be kind.
Alarmed, Nadir jumped up. "Erik! Are you all right?"
Erik couldn't hear him of course. The phone itself swung a few inches above the floor by its wire off the hook. Erik didn't look up as he attempted to recover himself, but he spoke to Nadir through the glass. "Twice I've been prevented...But I am angry now. The first time, it was only Erik they forced to continue to live in suffering, but this time they've prolonged her torment as well. I will not let them use me to harm her. I simply cannot allow for that, you know." Straightening, he looked to see where the phone had gone.
Nadir had forgotten completely that Erik could not hear him as he spoke, "What are you saying? Erik, I'll tell them right now to keep extra watch on you if you are telling me you will do it again!"
Erik pulled up the phone by its cord, but lay down it on the counter as he felt he was going to cough again. His hand clutched at his throat as he did, and left with not much other option, he moved to lift off his mask while only glancing vaguely in Nadir's direction, "You don't mind, do you?"
He only moved it enough to put his hand over his mouth to suppress the choking cough. He took in Nadir's alarmed expression more fully and then spoke again when he was able, "Oh, of course you do. Forgive me."
Nadir answered coldly even though Erik could still not hear him, "You know me better than that. Of course I don't mind."
After another discomforting moment, Erik had recovered completely enough to take up the phone again. However, every aspect of his manner betrayed just how momentarily weakened he had become by the attack. He renewed the conversation somewhere near where it had been paused. "You see, daroga, I've had a lot of time to think. It's really all I can do...And you don't know what it's like inside of this skull of mine...But there is no music here, you know. I know what needs to be done, and I know what I need to do it."
Nadir had seated himself again and retorted quickly, his voice stern, "And suicide is the only answer." He did not agree.
Erik half glared at Nadir through the glass. "Must you berate me for a moment of nobility?"
"It's hardly nobility!"
Nadir was beyond exasperated at Erik's cursedly narrow point of view, while Erik was frustrated with Nadir's one-sided standpoint.
"If it was dishonor," said Erik, "to attempt to sacrifice my soul to give her what I most want her to have, well then I was most joyous to be ignoble."
"You're blind, Erik!" Nadir wished he could simply grab his friend by the shoulders and force sense into him. "She doesn't want you to die! Why else would she have come visit you? Why else did she hesitate leaving you that night? I swear if that boy hadn't taken her hand and led her away, she'd be with you now!"
Erik's glare intensified. "Watch your mouth, daroga, before you say something that I'd be very glad to make you regret. There is a difference between what she thinks she wants and what she does need."
"You're saying she needs the boy then?" For once in his life, couldn't Erik at least try to speak straightforwardly?
"I am saying she needs—She deserves—A contented, normal life. One without darkness and without pain. One filled with pure and simple love. She needs to be able to thrive in a world of smiles and light. And when I saw that her being involved in my trial, my ordeal, was preventing her from having what I most wish her, above all people, to possess, as I never can, do you think I could have sat by that day and know she was suffering through this? Know that she was being forced against her will to participate in this abominable process? And know that, because of my selfishly prolonged fate, she cried? Tears over my death would not last forever...But how could I walk away from her that day, knowing that the sooner it was over, the sooner she would be able to move on with her life, and not wish to give my life and my soul, if I have such a thing, to be able to grant her one last act of mercy she needed from me? She deserves from me..."
Nadir listened to Erik carefully, without interruption, and by the time Erik's words had died away, Nadir's anger had vanished. His responding words then were grim, but they were understanding, "You put her above all else, Erik. You put her above your music and your life. If she knew just how much you care for her..." Nadir let his words grow faint...Truth be told, he wasn't quite sure what Christine Daaé would do if she did fully understand Erik's love. He began again; finally, "I understand why you did what you did. I still don't agree with it, but I understand. But she would be satisfied if you won the trial. Don't give her tears over your death; instead, give her a smile due to your freedom. And if that's the last of it, at the very least, you leave with a smile from her."
Erik sighed. Some storm clouds just did not have silver linings. "I will not win my freedom in this case. At least not until after many years of detention in the very best of possible outcomes."
"Nothing is impossible, Erik..." Nadir only sounded now half certain.
Erik shrugged his shoulders passively. "Look at the facts, Nadir. Better yet, look at the facts from a prosecuting angle. And then meet with my lovely lawyers, Nadir, who don't give a damn about my defense. Not that I blame them. You know..." Erik laughed to himself, recalling the events earlier, "They presumed to think me mad."
Nadir almost laughed outright as well. "Did you mean to make them think that?"
Erik was slightly offended, but remained amused nonetheless. "Certainly not! Though I suppose they had their reasons. They spoke with me yesterday and suggested a change of approach: That I plead insanity."
"Insanity! Truly? You're the sanest man I know...The most stubborn, by far...but sane."
Erik glanced down, as if in thought, and spoke distantly, "It really is a fine line..."
There was a long pause then, and neither of them quite knew what to say...Then Erik looked up again and went on. "But I took care of that."
Took care of it? Nadir wasn't sure whether that might have been a good or a bad thing to hear Erik say...But it had been said...And so Nadir started to say something, himself, but before he could, his eye was caught by the guard who had reappeared on the other side. The man tapped his wrist, a warning that time was almost up, and then went on to speak with another officer. Nadir looked back to Erik. "It look as though you'll be kindly escorted back to your suite in hardly any time at all."
Erik laughed as if he were enjoying a private joke. "It does look that way, doesn't it?"
By this point, Nadir did not really think the warning was necessary, but offered it anyway, "Erik, I ask that you not attempt suicide again. When I released you in the East so many years ago, I never would have thought you of suicide...Not when you have this much to offer. Please grant my request."
Erik shook his head, dismissing the words as unneeded. Could Nadir's warnings have been any further from Erik's intentions? "No, there is only one way out of this." Erik glanced back at the preoccupied guard and then looked to his friend. "Nadir, what happened to my cat?"
Nadir was puzzled; he had not expected the question. "...I don't know, Erik."
Erik sighed, disappointed, but then caught sight of the guard approaching. He spoke into the phone quickly, in a very low and dark voice that filled Nadir with a strange sense of a completely different foreboding. "I am getting very tired of this. Goodbye, my friend."
Nadir sighed again. "I'll go look for that cat of yours. Goodbye, Erik."
He then slowly hung up the phone with reluctance, stood, and turned to go as Erik reached for the handcuffs and moved to put his phone back on its hook. Before he left, though, Nadir glanced back just in time to see Erik seized by another violent fit of coughing. Both phone and cuffs fell form Erik's hands. The guard saw the handcuffs drop to the ground at the same time Nadir had and, realizing they were not binding Erik's wrists as they should have been, the officer immediately drew his weapon and rushed toward the debilitated Erik.
Nadir desperately shouted a warning to his friend on the other side of the impenetrable glass, but it was useless and Erik could not hear him. However, as Nadir watched, Erik seemed to recover himself enough, just before the guard reached him, to hold out a hand in warning. Erik must have said something then, for the officer immediately stopped and stood still in front of him. After another moment, Erik had straightened and stared levelly at the guard. Nadir could not tell if Erik was speaking behind the mask to the man, but after another pause, the guard slowly lifted both of his hands. Erik nodded and Nadir did not understand what was happening until he saw Erik snap the handcuffs around the guard's wrists without touching the weapon. Nadir did not know whether to chuckle or be alarmed at such a rash action, but could do nothing other than continue to watch this most incredible pantomime. Erik stepped back from the booth while gesturing to the chair as if offering the man a seat. Without a sideways glance, the guard sat down exactly where Erik had been sitting. It was only once Nadir was able to see the vacant expression in the young man's eyes that he shook his head and began to laugh.
Erik had already begun to walk back towards his cell and was being pursued by another guard that had been at the end of the room, but Nadir did not see what happened after that. It didn't matter, though. Erik would do as he would do. Just as he always had.
In truth, Nadir had doubted his friend's sanity...It wasn't that he thought Erik mad—No, of course not—But what man wouldn't be at risk of losing his senses with all that had weighed on Erik's soul? Nadir understood now that, if it were to happen, it hadn't happened yet...But that was not enough to alleviate his fears for the future.
Analyzing their conversation in afterthought, Nadir couldn't help but feel that Erik had something hiding in his store of tricks. He was planning something...Working up to something...But what might it be? Not suicide again...No, Erik would never make the same mistake twice...Unless—But Nadir couldn't figure it out. He probably knew Erik better than Erik himself knew Erik, but try as he might as he thought, he could not deduce a single idea of what it might possibly be...What it was that Erik had in that mind of his...Or did he have anything in mind at all?
He knew he would lose sleep trying to think about this. But it was his nature, of course.
...But, perhaps Erik was right. Perhaps Nadir did think too much...