Hi all!! Sorry it took so long for me to update this one...writer's block... you know how it is. But in the meantime, I finished Curses of the Siren! (Go read if you haven't yet! I'm so proud I actually finished another phic!) AND I started something completely new called Master Mason as well as another horror phic called Elainie. Both those stories are still in their formative stages, but I have big ideas for them.
But anyway, here's another Erik chapter for you! Sorry but this one isn't really funny at all... Time to get serious. A little angst? Perhaps some romance? Just what we need ;) This is the longest chapter I have ever written in my entire life! And even once I got over my writer's block, it still took me forever to work on this, so I really hope you enjoy! The "result" of this chapter is dedicated to MidasGirl.
Much fmeek to all!
Two Minutes after the Unmasking
Christine Daaé had a headache. She and Raoul had arrived at the courthouse very early at the advice of the DA: "Or it will be impossible to find a parking place." And they had been sitting there, waiting, ever since. She and Raoul had not said a word to each other in what must have been half an hour. There was just nothing to talk about. Well, truth be told, ever since her internal revelation two days earlier, Christine's thoughts had been tangled with questions, concerns, and countless mental constructions of attempted ploys that had all been pathetic failures. Her overwhelmed mind had even been unable to sleep peacefully these past two nights. But she had not said a word to Raoul and had been doing her best to mask her turmoil with silent withdrawal.
Her fiancé had allowed himself to believe that her distance these past couple days was due to the anxiety they had all been suffering, and in a way, he welcomed the quiet opportunity to be alone with a bit of inner turmoil of his own.
"I need a drink of water."
He jumped ever so slightly where he sat, startled by her abrupt words that split the soft silence they had shared, but then he only nodded his head in assent.
She stood and glanced around the lobby. "Do you know where the bathrooms are?"
"No...Sorry."
She shrugged and started in one direction. "I'll just ask someone."
"There should be a sign..." He watched her just nod as she continued to go. "Just look for a sign..."
She did not answer him and went around a corner away from the main hall. She wasn't really thirsty anyway. She just needed...She did not even know what she needed. She had only been walking for less than a minute and she was already feeling queasy. Perhaps some nice, cool water actually wasn't a bad idea. She kept her eyes open for a fountain as she went. This wasn't the first time in the past two days she had suddenly felt like this...It was like seasickness. Her mind wasn't the only thing that was twisted in knots.
But it felt good to move about...and be away from Raoul's side. And so she continued to make her way aimlessly through hallways and past unmarked doors.
What would he look like? Sitting there in the courtroom...She would probably only be able to see him from behind. Unless he might turn around. Perhaps he would turn around just to look for her? Would he be hostile, as she knew he must be around so many people? Or would he be defeated, as she imagined he must have been in order to attempt suicide...? But that was her fault, wasn't it? If she had not gone to see him that day, he would not have tried to kill himself. She had long since convinced herself of this fact. If he had not recovered...If they had not saved him, she did not know what she would have done in her sorrow and guilt. And she could not help feeling the same way about the outcome of the trial. There must be something she could do! There must be some way! She could not bear it otherwise!
And as she once again began to dream up pitiable impossible plans, she also began to realize that she had become a little bit lost. She glanced back at the door she had just passed through. The sign on it read "No Entry." But it had been open...But then, she had come out of it, not gone into it. How on earth had she been inside a "No Entry" area? She looked around the unfamiliar hall where she now stood, and after a moment, decided against retracting her steps. There had to be another way back to the lobby without going back through "No Entry." She would just ask someone how to get back. Or look for a sign... But as she continued down empty hallways she began to realize that nobody was around. Where was she? She started walking faster. Christine was on edge, and when Christine was on edge, hysteria was never far away.
As she went around a corner and was all but ready to break into a run, she saw someone at the end of the hall. Exhaling deeply, she attempted in vain to slow her pace as she approached.
It took a few moments before she recognized Clara Varlese behind a briefcase and a big, brown bag. But it was what the lawyer had in her other hand that made Christine stop suddenly in her tracks.
Erik's mask! She would know it anywhere! It was the still-life face that haunted her dreams of sadness, confusion, and unfulfilled longing. Rarely did she ever dream of Erik with his own face. He was always his mask because...wasn't that what he wanted to be? But here was Erik's lawyer with his mask in her hand. Did that mean Erik was somewhere now without it? Somewhere near?
Christine was seized by the impulsive urge to see him now and explain everything, ask him directly all her tormenting questions. Erik would know, Erik always knew!
She caught up to the lawyer, inadvertently blocking her path. "Ms. Varlese..."
Varlese stopped and adjusted her load to look up at Christine. "Miss Daaé...? You're not supposed to be back here. Are you lost?"
Christine's nerves suddenly got the better of her. "No...I mean, yes, but that's not..." She bit her lip and turned to look back over her shoulder, but nobody else was around. "I would really..." She hesitated a moment before looking back to Varlese. "Really like to speak with Erik...Please..."
"With... But..." Varlese stared at Christine for a moment, trying to figure out if the girl was serious...and why on earth she would ask such a thing. But then as she looked down at the mask in her own hand, she realized what Christine must have been thinking. "Honey, I'm afraid that's not possible."
Christine immediately seized the woman's arm. "No! Please, you don't understand! I must see him!"
Varlese drew back, alarmed. "What? What is it?"
Christine withdrew, realizing her behavior was less than polite. "I...I can't explain... It's a private matter... It is very important, please!"
"Wait just a moment... Calm down, okay?" Varlese took a minute to take in Christine's desperation. She felt sorry for this girl... She seemed so fragile. Perhaps she was feeling guilt for the way she intended to abuse her when she would take the stand. It was nothing personal, of course. Varlese actually thought Christine was a very sweet young thing. But the defense had permission to treat Christine Daaé as a hostile witness, and they intended to make the most of it. Perhaps letting her see Erik now might smooth over some of that later on... And then, perhaps seeing Christine would be just what Erik needed to put him in an amicable mood for presentation to the jury.
"It doesn't have anything to do with the trial, does it?" She only paused for a second and then cut in again before Christine could answer. "Because if it does, I couldn't possibly let you see him."
"But..." Christine was not sure whether or not it might work to her advantage. "But I...I want to help... I want to..."
"But...Not regarding anything to do with the trial... Right?"
It took Christine a moment, but then she understood. "Yes. Right." The two women stared at each other silently, Varlese contemplating and Christine waiting, before Christine's anxiety again got the better of her. "I don't have much time... Please, just if I could see him."
Varlese winked at her, then turned and started back the way she had come. "Follow me."
Christine did so and could only offer a small, shaky smile as an expression of the relief that had filled her for a glorious moment before uneasiness suddenly drowned it.
Varlese led the way through halls Christine had definitely not crossed in her process of becoming lost.
"Are you nervous?"
The question seemed random, and Christine at first thought Varlese was directly referring to her impending conversation with Erik. "Actually...yes, a little."
"Yeah. Big day today." Varlese stopped to adjust the things in her arms in order to turn a doorknob. "Maybe I should be too. But you've got it easy; you don't have to do anything today. Just sit there and listen to me rant and rave about forensics and evidence tampering. It's going to be a long time before you have to get up and do anything."
"Oh..." Christine almost sighed, realizing Varlese had meant the trial from the start. She watched the woman try to open the door for a couple moments before she snapped to her senses. "Oh, can I help? I could take something for you."
Varlese shuffled everything around to her other arm and looked down at the items for a moment before turning back to Christine. "Here, take this." She thrust the mask into Christine's open hand and then was free to turn the doorknob.
Christine froze and stared down at the mask in awed silence. Her fingers trembled as they traced its angles and then turned it over and slowly touched the inside. But gradually she began to realize that Varlese was getting further away and she forced herself to look up again to follow her.
She caught up, and asked, surprised by the breathlessness of her own voice, "Will I be able to see him alone?"
Varlese went through another door. "Hun, the guard won't pay any attention to you. He was half asleep when I was in there just now."
Christine had become distracted by the mask again, but then Varlese words made sense to her slowly. She looked back up at her, shaking her head. "Guard? But... Please, I couldn't concentrate with anyone there...Especially a ?" Varlese stopped at the only door at the end of this hallway. What exactly did Christine have in mind that needed private concentration...? She studied the girl for a moment and then gave her a little nod. "Well...Give me a minute. This officer might just be a little more understanding than we think." After all, a little bribery never hurt anybody. Anything to snap Erik out of that stubborn withdrawal. "Wait here."
Varlese went inside the door, leaving it open a crack, and Christine could hear her then knock at another door just inside. Peeking in, Christine saw the guard open up the second door from the inside to admit Varlese, then the door shut again with the heaviness of steel. Christine was alone. And Erik was in there... Just beyond that second door. Her attention went back to his mask and she once more began to tremble.
Seconds passed like minutes and minutes became millennia. What if she wouldn't be able to see him? Now, when she needed to more than ever... Fate could not be so cruel! But then fate had not been her friend lately, had it? Christine was suddenly filled with the sense that she was very alone in this world. And she longed for Erik now with a doubled thirst. Only Erik could resolve her anguish, Erik, who knew the answers to all the mysteries of the universe! Erik was the beginning and the end as well. Without him she was trapped in a limbo that squeezed her from every direction with the devastatingly horrible pressure of unbearable celestial gravity! It was better than a Greek tragedy.
If Varlese had known what sensational melodrama had been twisting through Christine's mind when she returned, followed by the guard from the inner chamber, to allow the girl into the space between the doors, her opinion on the stereotype of theatre people would have surely rolled its eyes.
She cleared her throat to pull Christine's attention away from that baleful black mask. "All right, I need to go get something from my car and then I'll come back and get you. You're going to be locked in there, but if anything—anything happens, just knock on the door and Officer Yusuf here will come back in."
She had done it! Christine wanted to embrace Varlese with all the gratitude in the world, but she restrained herself and only lightly took the woman's arm for a second. "Thank you so much." She hoped Varlese's car was very far away.
"Go in around the corner. You can't miss him." Varlese gave her a grin and another wink as the guard opened up the door for Christine.
Christine's smile broke through that nervous trembling of her lips once more before she went through the door. As she rounded the corner, the mask shook in her hands so incommodiously, that she could do nothing but clutch it to her chest.
The door locked behind her. Loudly.
She jumped and looked back at the sound, but when she turned around again, her eyes found Erik. A row of metal prison bars divided the room in half and there he was just on the other side. He was wearing slate grey and his back was to her, and she distantly wondered how it was she could recognize him so completely from behind. She had never seen him wear grey before... But how could she not recognize him simply by the way he stood. By the way his head was bowed just a bit from his shoulders in pensive concentration... By the way his crossed arms pulled the material of the suit taught across his back...
By...his height. As she broke from where she had frozen in place and began to approach the bars, her gaze seemed only to go up and up. The last time she had seen him, they had been sitting down...And before that seemed like years ago. How could she have forgotten just how tall he was...
If Erik heard Christine's soft footsteps, he made no indication of it. Perhaps he would have if he had known just whose footsteps they were. Christine reached the gate that kept her from going to him entirely and wrapped each hand around one of the cold metal bars while still managing to hold the mask.
The silence continued and his motionlessness began to upset her. He was so close... If only he would move to the bars, she could reach through and touch him... To touch him!
She could bear the stillness no longer. "Erik..."
His entire frame stiffened at the sound of her voice. But he did not move at all otherwise. The silence resumed for several very long moments before he spoke.
"...Yes?"
His glorious voice that she had missed so much was distressingly soft and she was not sure whether she heard generosity or defensiveness in that word... Perhaps it was a mixture of both.
She answered just as quietly, "Please... Will you look at me?"
He made no move at first, but how could Erik ever deny Christine? The silence stretched on, but then slowly, very slowly, he turned around and his eyes locked with hers across the space between them.
She would have been startled by the appearance of the white mask, but the strength of his gaze had already taken her breath away. She couldn't believe that he was so close...right there in front of her... The man who had made so much out of the empty shell she had been... Right there, standing not a few feet from her. She had the sudden urge to let her eyes fill with tears, but she bit her lip and tried to resist it.
"Erik, I...I had to see you..."
He did not want to think about the possibility that her strange expression might be guilt. He spoke very calmly, "You are not supposed to be in here."
She didn't understand. She would have liked to think he would have wanted her there... "I know...but...she said I could come..."
He glanced away at the mention of his lawyer, and said thoughtfully, "Did she..."
"Yes..." Christine took a deep breath and without his eyes to hold hers there, her gaze shifted to the mask in her hand that she held up against the bars. It took her some time before she could speak again. "I had to see you because I have to tell you something, Erik..."
His eyes snapped back to her and he moved close enough to the bars so that he had to look down in order to see her. He was quite certain he did not want to hear what it was she had to tell him. He was frustrated with dreams and resolved to keep this encounter in the realm of reality. He watched her for a moment more and then asked, "How is Raoul?"
Christine looked up to him, her brow furrowed in confusion... Raoul hardly existed to her right now in this room. Once the comment registered, although she could guess why he had asked, she truly did not want to answer. "...He's alright...He's fine... But I wanted to talk to you about something else, Erik."
Erik's tone was grave as he said, "Nothing else matters anymore, Christine." But then his voice softened again and he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her, "You shouldn't be in here..."
He moved to turn away from her again, but upon doing so, he noticed that Officer Yusuf was conspicuously missing. "Where is the guard?"
Christine answered helplessly, "He's...I don't know, he's not here. Erik please let me talk with you...please. Things are more important now than ever..."
In the flash of a moment, he was at the bars, looking straight down at her. "We are alone?"
Her words were gone, lost in the sudden nearness of him. She could only look up into his eyes hopefully and nod.
He seemed to soften as he looked down at her for a long time in the private silence, but then it passed and his eyes left hers as he seemed to notice the mask in her hand for the first time.
"What is so important, Christine?"
"I had to tell you that you..." Tell him what? She took a deep breath to try again. Perhaps it was best that he wasn't looking at her just now. They were alone. Now she could be entirely honest and throw herself utterly in his mercy. "I had to tell you that I understand now, Erik..."
Just exactly what she meant by that, he did not know, and he did not think he wanted to know, so he did not ask. He took a step back from the bars. "Ought I to appreciate the irony, Christine?"
"No please... Don't go away!" She reached desperately through the bars with her free hand and grasped his before he could move too far back. "Please don't be sarcastic! I can't bear it right now..."
Erik's first instinct was to pull his hand away, but the shock that immediately pulsed through her skin into his set him afire with an electricity he thought he had been numbed to forever since that night. He couldn't let go. He had missed her too much.
"What do you want from me, Christine?" he asked legitimately. Oh, how he would give her whatever she wanted...
She clung to his hand gently. "I want you to know that I understand now. I want you to know that I know that you made me. Without you, Erik...I'd be nothing. Anything that I am, you created. I never realized before... Erik, it means so much. My life...The world... After everything...I am so sorry I didn't realize it sooner. I am so sorry I ever took you for granted. I owe you everything that I will ever have."
Hearing her say that—and only that—twisted something inside Erik with frozen fingers. He took another step back so that his hand was too far for her to hold anymore. He spoke very softly, resuming his previous detached tone, "Ah... Is that all?"
As he moved away, Christine was flooded with the devastating sense that she had lost him completely. Her lips parted to speak, but no words came, and they only closed again as her previous urge to cry returned and conquered. Her hand remained reaching out for his where he had left it while the tears trailed down her flushed cheeks.
"Please don't cry." He did not look and he heard no sound, but he could always tell.
She spoke softly through those miserable tears, "You tried to kill yourself..."
"Once..." The word was all but a sorrowful sigh as if he meant that it was a very, very long time ago.
"I tried to come see you. They wouldn't let me near you." Distress was mounting. She needed to win him back to her! "Oh Erik, please don't act like this! Don't push me away when I need to be closer than ever to you!"
His gaze struck hers again, shocking her with the pained anger in his tone. "While you still can?"
She shook her head stubbornly and gripped the bars again with both hands. "No! I won't let them hurt you! I won't allow it!"
Her irrationality was heartbreaking, and he could not help but approach her again. "There is nothing you can do." It was a warning, as if he knew she might be planning to attempt something radical.
When he was close enough, she reached through for him again, managing to seize the cuff of his sleeve. "Yes there is! You must help me think! I have to do something! Anything!"
Erik's tone was serious in the way it would be if he were speaking to a small child. "Listen to me. There is nothing you can do."
As Christine only cried harder, her illogicality turned to its last resort. "You can get out of here...You can! I know you can! Use your voice, Erik... Please!"
His hand she did not detain furled through the bars to brush the tears from her face, but before it made contact, he thought better of the action and stopped himself. He spoke more gently now. He did not want to upset her anymore. "Even if I could, Christine... Then what?"
To be honest, Christine really had not thought that far ahead. She started to speak, then faltered and could only stare at him in perplexity. She found herself most bothered by the sudden realization that she would have absolutely no idea what to do if did escape or even if he legally ended as a free man. "Let's...let's focus on how first..."
"There is no how."
"Stop saying that!"
He removed his sleeve from her grasp and gave her one of his sternest looks.
For once, Christine was not going to back down at Erik's obvious command. She continued with a sudden calm clarity, "I'll tell them everything... I'll lie if I have to."
"Go ahead, my dear. Tell them everything. There is nothing more to tell."
"I can tell them what I just told you..."
"They would not care."
Christine was beginning to rapidly understand how Erik could ever try to kill himself. The despair of his situation was crushing the breath from her, and it took much effort for her to continue to speak. "Erik, listen to me, please... I won't let anything happen to you. I won't. If you ever cared for me, Erik...please don't try to hurt yourself again... You can't be your own enemy... I have to think of a way...I have to... I need you..."
Erik was taken aback. "Hurt myself...!" He shook his head in aggravation. "Do you take me for a depressive?"
Christine answered softly, "You have no hope... You tried to kill yourself... If you died Erik, my soul would die with you."
"But Christine, that's not... You don't understand."
"Explain it to me..." She wanted to understand! And to look to Erik for guidance one more felt like the most natural thing she had done since she had come into this room.
He seemed to consider telling her for a very long moment before he spoke. "I can't." The sorrow that filled his answer all but confessed how much he wished he could.
"Yes you can... I need you to. I'm so sorry I drove you to it... It's my own fault."
Erik went straight to the bars and reached through them to take her firmly by the shoulders. "Never think that!"
Her eyes widened in stunned shock at his sudden emotion. "...Then why...?"
For a moment he wanted to tell her the truth, and then he thought it might be best to invent some fabrication she would believe, but finally, he decided to minimize. He let his hands fall from her shoulders back to the bars. "I just wanted it to be finished. For everybody..."
"Then escape!" She did not seem to understand. "I'll help you in any way that I can, Erik! This place was not meant for you!"
"They would never stop searching for me. It would never be finished that way."
He was right. She knew it. And she found his hopelessness highly contagious. She lifted a hand to wipe her tears away, but they were immediately replaced. "Oh Erik..."
His voice was almost a whisper as he asked her again, "What is it you want Christine?"
She sighed in defeat and her two hands fell to her side. "I want...you and I to be as we were..." Her blunt honesty frightened her as she spoke the genuine answer she couldn't say before now, and thoughts of Raoul drifted forth from the back of her mind immediately as she spoke.
Erik took in her words for a long time before he was able to speak again. "Exactly as we were?"
Christine swallowed the lump her tears had formed in her throat, and she looked away from him for what was only the second time since she had come in the room. "Almost... I would know so much more, and I could finally give you something back."
Erik withdrew further, both physically and in expression. "Things could never be as they were, Christine."
She was looking back to him already. "Why." It wasn't a question, it was a refusal.
He matched her defiance. "Because you are assuming that that is also what I want."
Staggering dismay! She could not look at him anymore. She had so fully assumed that he would welcome her back that she had thrown away all her defenses to make herself completely vulnerable to him. Her heart sank into netherworlds as a sense of utter stupidity mixed with the greatest sorrowful misery she had ever felt drained all the last color from her face. The frozen tears that had reached her lips did nothing to moisten the parching stiffness that could barely form her word, "Oh..."
Erik was not quite certain what to make of her reaction... He did not know whether to think she was being rather selfish for wanting what she wanted without acknowledging what he wanted, or that he was selfish for not wanting to give it to her. He thought he would give her anything! But no. He could not go back to that. Longing for her every moment while she only wanted so much from him and nothing more...
But she was crying so pathetically now. Had he done this to her? He wanted to comfort her... But reality... The realm of reality....
"You and I never found happiness together, Christine... Not the way things once were."
Christine's breath was gone. She no longer even had the capacity to choke out the small sobs that had begun to accompany her tears. In the overwhelming grief of the realization that she had completely overestimated his feelings for her, she could not refrain from giving forth more of the pure truthful defenselessness in the softest of pleas, "My happiest memories were with you."
Erik's hands clenched at his sides, but his voice maintained its lilting tone of comfort. "I know it, Christine... I made sure that they were... I gave you everything you wanted from me. And nothing more."
Overpowered, Christine could no longer support her own weight, and she leaned against the bars for support. Blindness! Horrible, cruel, wretched blindness. "...I'm sorry..."
Her sudden weakness concerned Erik, but he did not allow himself to approach her. Things must be as clear to her as they were to him. Reality. Had she forgotten just why the events of that last night had occurred? Had she forgotten why he was here now in this jail cell?
"Christine, I couldn't do it anymore... Living that way with you. You knew this, and you begged me to let you go... And I did."
Had she forgotten why he would rather die than live without her?
Clarity washed over Christine. She had done this to herself. She had begged him for Raoul. She had begged him to be set free from the darkness, she had pleaded for the light... And now that light had scorched the life from her flesh and left her cracked and shaking, lost in the desert where the sun would never set, where the cool peace of the night would never free her mind.
And if devastation was so complete for her, what had it done to Erik! Her voice was a vague echo, "You did exactly as I asked...and now look where you are..." Lost! He was lost to her and she could not believe that it was she who had pushed him away. The mask fell from her fingers in a moment of weakness and the sharp sound it made as it hit the cement floor was echoed by her own cry. She immediately retrieved it; she could never let go of what she had left of him!
Erik spoke again, just as firm as when he had grabbed her shoulders. "It is not your fault."
His words seemed far away to her and she could not grasp their meaning. "I pushed you away, and now you're gone."
She felt him approach the bars and she could not help but look up into the eyes that burned into hers. His voice caught her then, pulling her back to attention.
"Christine, it is not your fault."
She could not escape that voice. She was locked to him and her head only nodded so slightly in acknowledgement. Not her fault...
She was so innocent... So fragile... And as each of her breaths hung on his in the trance of focus his voice had induced, he longed to touch her. To touch her! And feel that warmth, that fire again. Very slowly, he reached through the bars, and he did brush the tears from her face this time. "Don't cry anymore..."
Guilt and blame had been lifted from Christine's conscience but the miserable awareness of rejection remained. Her eyes longed to close in peacefulness as his fingers trailed across her cheek, but she could not break contact with him.
He treasured the quiet moment, taking in every detail as fully as he could before he knew it must end. His voice came from him a gust of the breeze of memory, "How I have missed you..."
The confession started her from her surreal state, and she clung to it desperately. "I've missed you too..."
He spoke as softly as she had, "Christine...I want you to forget me... I want you to live your life. Take everything I gave you, live your life, and never cry again..."
The irony of the gentleness of his tone and unintended cruelty of his words struck her with a stinging blow. Her voice was almost inaudible. "I don't have a life without you in it."
"Yes you do. I gave you a glorious life, Christine... Do not waste it in tears."
Christine suddenly seized his hand and her voice erupted in a desperate cry. "I don't want it without you!"
Erik pulled back at her outburst, breaking contact with her. But he said nothing. He knew she knew she could not have both worlds.
As far as Christine cared now, the real world no longer needed to exist. A whimper escaped her throat as he only pulled away again after she had exposed her emotions. It was there, all of it, she had told him everything... And he did not want her. She was quiet again as she finally managed through her anguish to ask, "Do you want me to leave, Erik?"
No! "Yes. Because I know that the moment you do, you will reconcile yourself with reality and realize that this...is the way it was meant to be..."
Even she could feel his hesitance as he forced himself to finish that thought.
"This is not how it is supposed to be... You know that, Erik...I can hear it in your voice..." And hope had sprung again in Christine's heart.
"That is not how we want it to be... But that is how it needs to be."
Wounded, she could not keep from being blunt. "It is how you want it to be."
"I want what is best for you, Christine... Now..."
"Do not hide behind that, Erik... If you do want it to be, I want you to say it... Say it and I'll never come back. I will never bother you again."
He wrapped his hands around the bars and looked down at her in silence. And as each moment passed, the hope that grew within her twined agonizingly with the anticipation of dismissal. Then, after a lifetime's worth of swelling anxiety, his gaze fell, and he looked away from her in defeat.
He simply could not say it.
The cold, beautiful wind of relief blew through Christine, fresh and soothing away the cracks in the wasteland of her dejection. He wanted her to stay! He wanted her as much as ever! Her eyes shone with gratified moisture as she reached up to his hands on the bars, folding hers over them.
But just as she opened her mouth the speak, the slamming of the door just outside the room immediately followed by the clatter of keys in the lock of the inner door turned both their heads to the corner.
"...No, not now! Not yet!" she cried as the door opened and a guard she'd never seen before came into the room.
"Abdul!" he called for the other guard, before he saw Christine. But once around the corner, he could not miss her, and his hand went to the holster at his belt. "Hey! You're not supposed to be in here!"
He was probably more concerned that the accused murderer was touching this young girl than by the fact that she was in there, but he switched his grip to the club at his side, lifting it and went directly to the barred area. "Where's Yusuf?"
Erik let go of Christine and took a step back inside the cell.
Christine on the other hand remained exactly where she was. "I only need another minute, sir...please..."
Erik's voice was a soft command. "Go on, Christine." The last thing he wanted was trouble for her.
The guard hit the bars sharply with his club. "You shut up in there." And then he gestured for Christine to follow him out of the room.
She did not move. "Don't speak to him like that..."
He took her by the arm with a solid grip, having no objections to dragging her from the room, and promptly began to do so. "Where did the officer on duty go?"
Christine ignored the question and focused all her efforts on trying to twist free from his large hand, desperately straining to look back at Erik who was only watching them go in distant silence from behind the bars.
No! She could not leave him like this! She wasn't finished! More time! She needed more time! Her resistance against the guard suddenly increased with hysterical intensity. "I can't leave yet! Please, let me go!" she sobbed.
He grabbed her painfully with his other hand as well in attempt to control her. "Do you want to be charged with assaulting an officer?"
Erik spoke firmly from behind the bars, "Christine, go with him."
"No!" Her little feet stamped on the man's shoes and her nails clawed at him in instinctual defense. "Let go!"
"Shit!" he shouted as she scratched into his arm. He clenched both of her wrists in one of his giant hands, and unfastened the club again from his belt. "If you don't calm down immediately, I will resort to force."
Erik's grip on the bars at the door of the cell tightened so severely that his fingers turned whiter than usual, and the sight only made Christine struggle all the more as she was pulled further away from him. "I will not go yet! Let go of me!"
Erik's voice burst around them. "Do not harm her."
"She's lost it!" The guard lifted the club and brought it down against Christine's temple.
Not a moment after the crack that was enough to stun her exploded through her skull, she felt the guard wrenched away from her and then heard a much louder crack as his head made contact with the opposite wall.
"You've lost it." Erik's words were passionately cold as the unconscious guard slid to the floor.
And then Erik's arms were around her, catching her before she could fall as she reeled between the blow and shock. It had all happened so quickly! And she could hardly register at first just how closely he held her.
She could feel his fingers tenderly inspecting her temple as the swimming of her eyes gradually came to focus. She stared across the room at the guard in a limp pile on the floor, the club still in his hand.
And then she turned into Erik's arms, embracing him in desperate fervor. He held her closely, as tightly as he dared. And neither said a word, as they each knew that this moment would not last and was meant only to be cherished.
His hand moved to the back of her head, his fingers sliding through her hair as he pressed her to him. Slowly, he shifted his lips to her ear as if he meant to tell her something...
There was a sound at the door. He looked up quickly, but Christine continued to cling to him. Oh, he did not want to let her go! Another sound. With all his strength of will, he pulled away and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the door.
By the time she could turn back to look, he was already behind the bars again.
But she only saw him there for a split second before she bumped right into the people coming around the corner. Clara Varlese stumbled back into another guard Christine had never seen before. She caught onto Christine's arm to steady herself and thereby prevented the girl from returning to the bars where she promptly intended to go.
Varlese glanced back at the guard behind her and then moved into the room, immediately seeing the other one on the floor.
"Mamma mia!" She decided it best to keep hold of Christine's arm then. "What's going on here?"
Christine glanced down at the man on the floor. To be honest, she could not say what had happened. She had not seen a thing. She looked back up at Varlese. "...He fainted..."
Varlese shot a look to Erik who was all the way at the opposite side of his cell, sitting calmly in one of the chairs and not seeming to pay attention to a thing. She knelt down next to the fallen man, the other officer already at his other side. "He hit his head. He's bleeding." She scowled as she watched the guard smack the man's face a couple times to attempt to revive him.
Christine watched for only a moment before she looked back to Erik. He was staring right back at her.
Varlese stood and dusted off her hands. "I'm going to get some help." She then turned to Christine, speaking curtly, "You, come with me."
Christine barely had a chance to agree before the lawyer ushered her out of the room and shut both doors behind them. She started briskly down the hall and her voice was hushed, but the tone was furious, "What the hell happened in there?"
It was difficult for Christine to keep up with Varlese's pace in her shocked state. "He came in...and he was asking me to leave when he...just...passed out. Is he a diabetic...?"
"Fainters don't make it through prison guard training school, honey."
Christine could only shrug. This was not what was on her mind right now. Erik! Oh, how she wished she could have said one last word to him! Why did it all have to happen so fast? Only a moment ago she had been in his arms and now he was locked away from her again behind countless doors. What if that was the last chance she would have with him? Oh, how she wished she could have had one more minute! If only to say goodbye!
But there was something else... In the very back of her mind that almost made her feel sick to her stomach. What was it?
Varlese seemed to take no notice of the girl's distance as she rushed her through the halls. "Not a word of any of this to anyone, got it?" And they were in the lobby again. As quickly as that. Where Raoul was right there, waiting for her. "Capisce?"
Raoul! That was it! Christine froze at the end of the lobby. Raoul... How could she have forgotten about Raoul? She stared at him in shock as he practically ran over to them. It took a jab from Varlese for Christine to snap out of it, and she did not even look at her as she gave the answer the woman had been waiting for. "Yes... Yes, of course..." And then she turned to her for one last moment of genuine gratitude before Raoul reached them. "Thank you..."
"Christine! Where have you been?"
Varlese sincerely hoped that Christine could be trusted. "She was with me."
Raoul was put off by the fact that the lawyer did not even so much as look at him. Scum. He had been developing quite a distaste for lawyers lately.
"Yes..." Christine slowly turned to face Raoul. "I'm sorry it took so long..." The fretted look on his handsome features immediately reminded her of his emotional outburst two days earlier... And all she had promised to him then. What had happened to justice? Where was her loyalty to him now? Guilt flooded her and that sense of sickness left her mind and went straight to her stomach.
Varlese gave each of them a formal nod before turning and leaving as briskly as she had come.
Raoul waited until she was gone before he turned back to Christine. "What were you doing with his lawyers?"
"They wanted to..." She had no idea what to say... "To ask me... to reconsider my decision..." Oh God... How could she?
Raoul was confused. "What?"
"They just wanted to make sure I had made up my mind..." She hated lying to him!
Raoul glowered determinedly. "As if it could make a difference this late in the game. You don't even have to speak to them if you don't want to, you know that, Christine, right?" His expression softened as he put an arm around her shoulders. "But I can tell by the way she stormed out of here, she didn't like what you told her."
"No, she didn't..." She was trying her hardest not to tremble.
Raoul gently guided her back to where they had been before, and he sat down with her, never taking his arm from her shoulders. "I'm sorry I snapped at you..."
She shook her head a little. She could not even make eye contact with him. "It's alright, don't worry Raoul... I understood..." She could still feel Erik's arms around her... His breath at her ear as his lips parted to speak to her... The words that had never been said....
Raoul brushed a lock of hair from her face as he studied her. "You were crying..."
She glanced away a little further. "It was just...difficult..."
He pulled back, angry again. "How dare they! What did she do? Accost you on your way to the water fountain?"
"Well I wouldn't say she accosted me..." She had done so much for Christine in allowing her to see him... To speak with him... To touch him... She knew he was going to say something to her in that last moment before the others came back in... What was he going to say?
"Your eyes are so red... Do you want to go home? We don't have to stay, you know."
How she hated the thought of Erik in that barred cell, all alone!
"No, I'm alright..." She still could not meet Raoul's eyes. "Are you ok?"
He was confused again. "I'm fine..."
"Alright, good..."
Something was not right. Raoul knew this well enough. What wasn't she telling him? He took her face in his hand and tried to turn it so he could get a better look at her.
Christine resisted the movement. She couldn't look at him! She couldn't look into the eyes of the man who she told she loved everyday, when all she could think about was the feeling of Erik's fingers sliding through her hair as he pressed her head to his shoulder.
She shut her eyes and her hands squeezed into fists. And it was then that she realized she was still holding something. The mask! Her eyes snapped open, wide with shock. Don't look down! She turned straight to look at Raoul and moved her hand around the side of the bench.
Although Raoul was prevented from noticing Erik's mask, Christine's sudden, visible tension was more than obvious. "What is it?"
"It's nothing!"
He took her by her shaking shoulders and turned her sideways where she sat to face him. "You suddenly looked scared to death."
Her arm twisted behind her as she forced the hand holding the mask to stay hidden as he turned her. "I'm sorry..." It sounded inappropriate even to her. What would she do? He could not see! She could not let him know!
"Just tell me what it is." His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms so that he could lift her hands to hold them.
She stood abruptly, thrusting the mask behind her back. "I just... I feel sick suddenly, that's all..."
Raoul remained sitting as he looked up to her, concerned. He started speak, but then his eyes fell to the level of her hands, and he realized that she was hiding something. He frowned again. "What's that?"
Christine did what Christine did best: run from her problem. She turned hastily, keeping the mask hidden by her body and out of his sight and began to walk quickly away. "I'll be right back."
Raoul went right after her and grabbed her by her free arm. "Christine!"
"It's alright, I promise Raoul! Just one moment!"
He tried to pull her around so that he could see what it was she had.
A moment of panic! And then she impulsively hugged him, wrapping both of her arms around his back.
Raoul was both hurt and angry by her obviously evasive actions. He reached around behind his back and felt something hard.
She looked up at him. So close... But she knew she had to give up. She began to apologize before he even knew what it was, "Please don't be angry Raoul... It's not what you think..."
He took both of her arms, holding onto them firmly and then pulled back away from her so that they ended up in front. He looked down. "...What the hell?"
Christine had no explanation. She was lost. But she could not let him know the truth! She could not let him know what she had told Erik!
Raoul let go of her and took the mask from her hand. "Where did you get this?"
She doubted she could ever meet his eyes again. "Clara... I mean... the lawyer..." Actually, that was the truth. "Yes... Her hands were full... I just wanted to help her...and I forgot I was holding it..."
The look of disgust on Raoul's face as he studied the mask almost broke her heart. "She forgot it too," he said as if making a decision. "Guess she doesn't need it." He then glanced around the lobby, and seeing a trashcan, he left Christine's side to go to it.
"Wait!" She ran after him, immediately snatching the mask. "Don't throw it away!"
"Why not?"
She clutched it to her chest. "It's...It's not ours to throw away... I should return it to her."
"She didn't want it enough to remember it. Not our fault. It's garbage."
"She was just carrying a lot of stuff... I really don't think we should throw it away."
Raoul studied her for a very long moment before speaking, flatly, "You want to keep it."
Christine gasped aloud. "I don't! I forgot I had it... This is why I didn't want you to see it!"
"It's practically glued to your hand."
"Raoul, please..." Did she want to keep it? "Trust me when I tell you things... You must trust me, Raoul..."
"Of course I trust you, Christine...but...I know how you feel about him."
She looked down at the mask, and then finally back up at Raoul. "...How do I feel about him?"
He gestured ambiguously, lost for the right words. "You can't let go."
She never wanted to let go! "I can...I have...I have, Raoul." It took every bit of power within her to will herself not to cry again.
Raoul found it easy not to believe her. But he remained silent, and then after another moment, he turned and went back to where he had been sitting, leaving her there alone.
She watched him go. All too recent promises assailed her memory. She had told him how much she loved and supported him... How she wanted what was right for him. How together, they were all they needed for each other. And it was true. Wasn't it true? She went after him. "Raoul...I'm sorry! It's just a mask... You can do what you wish with it."
He looked up at her. "Throw it away." It was a test.
But she couldn't let go! This might be all she had left of Erik... But the pain in Raoul's blue eyes was so shattering! She looked down at the mask. It's just material, she told herself. It doesn't mean anything. It's just a mask. But she couldn't! She wrapped her arms around it again as the tears welled up in her tired eyes. And then Raoul looked as if he had been shot! She moved towards him and he turned away. She stopped, and her eyes went to the trashcan. It's just material. It doesn't mean anything. Raoul was more important. She walked over to it slowly, forcing herself to peel the mask away from her breast. Raoul was watching her again. She lifted her hand, holding the mask over the can... And dropped it in.
When she looked back to Raoul, he gave her a hint of a smile and held out a hand for her to return to where he was sitting. But before she even took a step, they both turned suddenly as they were summoned by a clerk. It was time.
Raoul started in the direction of the courtroom, assuming Christine was right behind him. But as soon as his back was turned, she dipped down inside of the trashcan and retrieved the mask. She took the briefest of moments to brush it off, her fingers stroking its inside reverently...longingly... And then she tucked it under her sweater and hurried into the other room to catch up with Raoul.