A/N: bine - I know! I can't wait for that movie! Squeee! Jeremy Irons! Even though it is coming out in France and it will take a long time to get to the US...
For everyone else, here is the next chapter. Once again, it would be helpful that if you see any mistakes to point them out. Thanks! ;)
Erik watched her. She was laying on the bed that had once belonged to his mother, her golden hair spread across her shoulders, her eyes closed and mouth open in a passive, if troubled, rest. Her beauty and innocence still took his breath away, leaving him cold and fevered at the same time. Her slumber was not uninterrupted, and she muttered words in her dreams, sometimes frowning and even crying out. But Erik did not reach out to comfort her. He could not. He trembled as he watched her. The last time he had seen her was when she had left, her crystalline, cold eyes looking on him one last time . . .
Erik sighed slowly, a tortuous release of everything he had been feeling. As he closed his eyes, losing himself to the dark of his mind, he remembered. The pain of remembering and longing was the worst part. He felt everything that he had before, and he was doomed to repeat the hopeless cycle of love, regret and loss over and over again in his mind . . .
Christine stood before him. It had been raining outside, and she was soaked. Erik sat in the massive throne chair, not moving. He could not move, would not. He would embrace death at last as it came. He was already dead in his heart, his soul. It was only his flesh now that lingered, a ghost of the man he once was. He had slowly wasted away, dying from the lack of her love.
"Bury me, Christine," he whispered, turning his dead sockets towards her. If she could have seen his eyes, she would have seen the expression there, an expression full of pain and longing that betrayed his claim of being dead.
"Erik," her mouth parted slightly. She reached out a hand to touch him, barley. He did not shrink away from her, but his flesh trembled a little bit at her gentle caress, moving up his face, past the mask.
"You are not dead," she breathed. He looked on her, and the wistful expression there, of childlike amazement and hope almost made Erik cry out. But he did not.
"Ah, but Christine, I am. My flesh may remain, but I am thoroughly dead," Erik responded cryptically. Christine frowned, but said nothing. "So bury me," Erik continued, closing his eyes. "I shall even go over to the coffin, if you wish, Christine to spare you the effort, and lay myself in there, with Don Juan Triumphant." Even in death, the irony of the title was not lost on him, but he did not chuckle, for the dead did not laugh.
Christine looked Erik in the eyes, or as close as she could come to them. She grasped his hand, not caring of the cold and the smell of death.
"You are not dead, Erik," she said, looking into his soul. Her eyes dared to transcend the gaping chasm that remained between him and all other people. She was a ray of light, piercing the darkness. He turned his dead face away from her, finding it too much for him.
"Bury me," he said, but his voice had lost its edge, and Christine remained unconvinced. Tears had begun to flow down his face now, his cheeks becoming wet beneath his mask. "Bury me," he continued, his angel's voice beginning to tremble and break, "For live is too much for me to bear."
Christine cried out then, a soft, gentle sound that took Erik's pain and made it her own.
"I cannot bury you," she whispered, "not after what you have done."
Erik turned and looked at her then. Her eyes were softly and tenderly overflowing with tears. He brushed them away carefully with the back of his hand. Christine continued on, the tears making gentle tracks across her cheeks.
"You have been in my mind, in my soul since I left you, Erik," Christine whispered. She swallowed convulsively and looked into his eyes once more. "I love Raoul, and yet . . . "
She let the sentence hang in the air like a thick blanket, obscuring everything around them. Erik found himself once again transfixed by her beauty, unable to move. He let out a harsh breath, swallowing and choking on his suppressed sobs.
"I gave you to the boy," he said at last. Christine moved her hand gently up to his face, where it rested on his masked, high-arched cheek. "I cannot revoke that, dear Christine. And yet . . . " Erik turned himself to her, sobbing, unable to hold in emotion anymore. "You tempt me, even dare me, Christine . . . to live! And yet, I am dead, Christine. My mind already resides in Hades, where not even an angel can save me." He groaned, clutching his head with his spindly fingers.
"You, Christine, dared to mingle your tears with . . . with mine!" He sobbed brokenly, like a little child. "You dared to reach out to me, to allow your soul union with mine . . . you alone have heard my Don Juan . . . " He sat up eagerly, and she could see the tears glistening in his eyes and flooding elusively beneath his mask. "But you have not come here to talk about that . . . No, my dear Christine, you have come here to allow me sleep, peace at last . . . so bury me!" The last was said with such a force and finality, such a challenge, that Christine recoiled in fear. But Erik did not move again, and Christine felt along his face with her fingers, gently caressing.
She suddenly ripped off his mask, and he still did not move, except for his mouth opening slightly. His yellow eyes were closed, and his face was still as ugly and deformed as she remembered it, but she did not shrink back in fear and revulsion as she had done before. She looked on him, on the half-dry tears that had left damp streaks across death's head, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming pity that exceeded all bounds and rationalities.
Christine slowly, gently, almost as if she was afraid, moved her mouth closer, closer to Erik. He did not move except for trembling slightly, overcome by emotion. Christine gently kissed his forehead, her tears mingling once again with his, flowing on his cheeks and into his mouth. He struggled not to move and not to cry out as she moved on further to both of his cheeks, tenderly kissing both of them. It was a moment of extreme pain and agony; it burned and soothed all at once.
All his thoughts were swept away as Christine moved onto his mouth; closer and closer steadily, until all Erik saw was a steady white blaze. And then she kissed him.
Erik shifted in his chair as he thought of that kiss, and of the woman who now lay before him, completely defenseless. The kiss had left him speechless . . . breathless. It had sent a powerful wave of shock through his body, and he had been amazed. Christine . . . Christine had dared to brave the storm, had dared to kiss a monster. She had dared to try to bridge the gap that stood between him and everyone else since he was born.
Erik breathed out a long, deep sigh. The kiss had rendered him speechless . . . defenseless. In all his years and experiences, he had been afraid of things, as anyone had been. But what Christine had done had shaken him to the core; it trembled the very foundations of his soul. He had once again been a child, yearning desperately for human contact; for love.
He gently, almost timidly moved out a long-fingered hand to stroke Christine's cheek, but pulled back when he was almost touching him. Erik could not touch her. Even after what she had dared to do, she was still an angel and he a monster in the very end, and to touch her was to shatter her.
What followed the kiss, in the Louis-Philippe room, was still emblazoned clearly in Erik's mind. He could never forget it, and it seared his soul. In those moments, when he and Christine had been locked in love's embrace, when she had tenderly caressed his face . . . It was all he had lived on in the months that Christine had left him. The Persian had been the one to get him to survive, and even that man's strong will had faded after a while. For Erik would sit, hours on end, not moving, sitting and staring, remembering Christine.
The angry accusations she had thrown at him the next morning after still rang in his head. He closed his eyes as his mind replayed them, putting him through torment once again. Foul beast, she shrieked once again. You tricked me! You beguiled me into doing something that I never would have done!
Erik groaned as he remembered the hours that had followed. Christine had entered her room, slamming the door and weeping. He had pounded out his frustration, anger and loss on the great organ in the way of his Don Juan; for she had inspired him to play once again. For in the moment when she had looked into his eyes and called him a beast, he knew. He knew that her heart fully and completely belonged to that little boy of a Viscomte, and that he could never have her. Whatever hope she had given him before, whatever sense of humanity was wiped away.
So he had taken her back, up to the streets of Paris. She had been silent, and he felt that for her, everything was resolved between them. It was not so for Erik, and so he had stayed in his large, empty house, mourning the gain and loss of a woman who still lived.
Erik opened his eyes, looking over the figure of Christine rapidly. Yet here she was, once again! It was a miracle. Erik knew that he would have eventually wasted away to nothing without her, yet she came back to the Opera still.
Erik, our child is dead. A child, his mind wondered at her words. A child. He would not have wished his deformity on anyone . . . he would have to ask Christine if their child had borne his curse. But the child was dead. . . Erik fell into a melancholy mood. It did not matter any more. She was simply here to bring him news, and nothing else. The child had perished.
Erik wondered briefly what the life for the baby would have been if it had lived. Christine would have loved it no matter what, he knew. It would not have wanted to die, as Erik had . . . perhaps it would have had the normal life that Erik was robbed of . . .
But Christine began to stir, and her beauty began to come back to life. Erik sat up, but did not reach for her.
"Erik . . ." she whispered. The sound of her voice made Erik's heart swell, even though he tried to suppress it. He stared at her, his eyes carefully expressionless. He did not intend to let her break him again . . .