Christine sat in the living room of her massive home and stared vacantly into space, thinking of the situation she was in now. She had found breakfast more than awkward with Raoul and feigning to make it seem as if she were enjoying herself had given her a nasty headache. As she rubbed her forehead gently she thought about Raoul and his secrets and for a moment flirted with the idea that he was going to leave her, possibly for someone else. She dismissed the thought as he had hardly looked like his former self over the last few months. He had lost a considerable amount of weight but had been so busy doing Lord knows what that he had not found time to find clothes that fit him properly.
He was still clean but rarely looked it as it was rare he shaved his jaw and often he went for more than a week without having his servant do it meaning that he grew a rather ghastly looking beard. She considered that beards suited some men, it made them look manly but Raoul had always had a somewhat boyish face which certainly was not complimented by the hair. She missed her husband but the more he was gone the more she found ways to occupy her mind and she had managed to see more of Meg, whom in the first few months of living in England she had missed greatly.
Meg had moved over with her mother a couple or months after Christine did as both mother and daughter wanted a change and Meg had found work dancing with a London based opera. She was one of the stars of the ballet and Christine was so proud of her friend. They had taken lunch together on many occasions and she had noticed how beautiful Meg had become over the years. It seemed that her hair had lightened, grown and now had a beautiful bounce in it with slight waves down the length so that when the light touched it, it seemed golden. Meg's figure was slim and strong and she danced like an angel, she thought, and allowed herself a brief smile at the image of her friend wowing the audience with her elegant posture.
Christine had only seen Madame Giry four times since her move to London and was now fully aware that her old ballet teacher was terminally ill. It broke Christine's heart to think of her gone and more so to think that Meg would have to go through the same devastation as she did when she lost her father so many years ago. She knew, however, that Meg would cope nobly and that as her friend, Christine would be there for her whenever she needed a shoulder, as Meg had been for her so many times in the past.
She realised that night had come fast again and envied her dreams of Paris and the opera, as her memories could be there and she could not. There was a gentle tap at the door and she called the maid in, who informed her that her bed was ready for her, if she wished to go to it. Christine thought for a moment before sighing with the decision that perhaps it was lack of sleep that had her so down over the last couple of days. Or perhaps it was the all to familiar sight of what she thought was a mask in the town clock just over twenty four hours ago. Was she so saddened that it was merely a pigeon?
The darkness had drawn in quickly around London and the streets had lulled to the welcome silence of a city sleeping in its dark satin blanket. Rain had been held at bay for the day, the night was equally dry but incredibly cold and there was frost settling itself like silver on the cobblestones. Erik gazed across midnight and it seeped into his eyes illuminating the things that daylight hid. He couldn't concentrate, though, on the wonderment of darkness, not tonight, because all darkness brought him tonight was loneliness and perhaps even unusual moments of fear.
That ridiculous child had given him more information than he wanted or needed and he was at a loss for what to do about his newly acquired knowledge. He was staggered by the news that that were no children in the De Chagny home. Could it be that she was not able to give him heirs? Or was it the other way around, that the Vitcome was having certain problems of his own? He briefly allowed himself the fantasy that the couple's marriage was a total farce and that they did not even share a marital bed. But then… if they did in fact share a bed why was the Vitcome looking elsewhere for women. He had Christine Daae and any man who had that woman in his bed would be a fool to search elsewhere for he had perfection under his own sheets.
Erik shuddered and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes and imagining her face, at it was, when she would look into the mirror. Her high rose coloured cheeks and soft jaw, complimented by that dark, silk hair and all of that surrounded deep, chocolate eyes which beckoned to every inch of his tortured soul.
He was only really alive when he could see her beauty for all it was, for all its innocence, for all its excellence.
She had been so young and so ingenuous when he had first seen her alone on the stage practicing her dance for Madame Giry, the ballet mistress was certainly a strict teacher and Christine always aimed to please. He had found her room by chance one night when he was exploring his domain. He found that through a mirror which led to his catacombs he could see her every night. One night in early spring he heard her singing. She was an angel of face and spirit sent from God himself to torment Erik's very being.
It was months before he could bring himself to let her know, to tell her that he was there and her response was not of fear but of pure delight. She thought that he was an angel her father had sent to her. She believed with all her heart that it was Erik her father had sent to protect her, to guide her and to give her the glory of music.
And so he did.
Most nights he would sing softly to her from behind the glass and she would listen with such awe in her eyes as she knelt by the mirror… often she even hummed the tunes he had sung even when he was not there and it was at these moments he realised that he was constantly in her mind. And so, as the time progressed and he developed more confidence with her, and in her, he began to teach her, slowly, to make her as pitch perfect as he. Christine learned quickly as her ears and her soul latched onto the eloquent highs and lows of his voice that comforted her at night and kept her alive in the day.
She often waited for him and in his crueller moments he would not sing nor speak but simply watch her anguish that he was not there. It was not cruelness for cruelness sake, though, it was for his own peace of mind. He needed to know that she wanted him there and that she missed him when he was not. She did. It soon became that she would balance on his every word, hanging there as if for her life, although he never said anything of any substance. Their 'relationship' was based on their mutual love of music and, of course, Erik's total, though unknown, adoration of her face. He could look at her for hours, she was more perfect than a painting with finer lines and softer tones.
And as he drifted to sleep in the cold winter of London he fitfully dreamed of the trouble she was in but under this veil he remembered how much he loved her.