Chapter Summary: Erik and Christine make peace with the past to find their futures.
A/N - Lilies of the Valley were thought to be created from the tears that Mary shed at the foot of The Cross
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
The click of the study door closing behind Raoul reverberated off the walls of the silent room like the click of a coffin lid shutting. The sound of it bounced off the polished wood of the walls, the clear glass windows that looked out upon a world that was open and alive. It bounced off the two peoplewho stood, back to front. One staring at the closed door and one staring at a silk-clad back held ramrod straight. It bounced off their hearts, minds and souls. The sound of it carried throughout the elegantly appointed room taking the two occupants back twenty-six years to the sound of another entrance that had closed, another coffin lid that had shut.
Christine stared at the knob of the door her husband had closed. She stared at it, a frown on her face, waiting for it to turn, to open. She stared it for she found she did not have the courage to turn around. She did not have the courage to look at him. She did not have the courage to see the anger, hurt and betrayal she was sure resided in those vibrant green eyes. Christine found she did not have the courage to face herself.
Erik stared at Christine's back, held so straight, so unyielding, his arms falling to his side. He stared at her, hope dying on his face as he waited for her to look at him. He stared at her, willing her to turn around. He did not know how much longer his resolve would hold before he crossed the room to take her in his arms. He wanted her to see the forgiveness and the compassion and the love in his eyes. Erik wanted to let the past go so he could find his future.
Oh God, Christine thought to herself, her own despair coloring her perceptions of his mind. What kind of monster must he think me?
Oh God, Erik thought to himself, his own anguish translating into her feelings for him. What kind of monster must she think me?
How will I ever face him? Christine wondered, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
Please look at me! Erik pleaded silently, fear turning his limbs to ice.
Christine could feel the grip of remembered betrayal as she tried to find the strength to turn.
Erik found himself held tightly by the memories of a madness he had fought to forget.
It is now or never. Christine slowly turned, a movement catching her eye.
Christine, please. Erik's arms came up again as he caught her movement.
"Angel," Christine breathed as she took a hesitant step forward.
"Angel," Erik breathed, opening his arms wide.
It took but a heartbeat to cross the distance of the years that had separated them. Angel wings shed the weight of human emotion - fear, regret, despair - as teacher and student, angel and muse, man and woman freely flew across the room. Wings spread wide as arms opened, forgiving sins and wings enfolded as arms closed, welcoming home. The imprint of long ago embraces caused bodies to meld into each other, familiar curves and angles becoming one. Hands searched, found and touched, tracing landscapes altered by time but never forgotten. Eyes locked, fearful anticipation yielding to grateful reward as mutual forgiveness was exchanged in a single glance. Lips met, tentatively brushed then firmly held as joy unknown was released to fly through the ether; its music echoed by a choir of unseen heavenly beings.
"Oh God," Christine breathed as she drew back from the kiss, her eyes still locked with Erik's. Overwhelmed by a moment she had never thought to have, she buried her head in his shoulder, still holding him close, refusing to let him go.
Erik leaned his head against hers, his heart racing, pulse pounding. "I am not God," he whispered to her. "I am not an angel or a monster. I am just a man who has always loved you." He breathed her in - she smelled like lilies of the valley. How appropriate, Erik thought, something sweet and precious born from tears of sorrow.
It was Christine who finally broke the embrace. She cupped Erik's face in her hands, giving him a gentle smile, before leaning in to kiss him again before drawing back. "We must talk," she said as she reached up to brush away a tear at the corner of his eye. She turned her head to kiss the hand that wiped away her own tears. "But not here."
"No," Erik agreed. "Not here."
Christine took his hand and led him from Raoul's study, neither wishing to further betray the man who had - perhaps foolishly - given them this gift. She led Erik out the door and down the hallway back to the foyer and turned left down another hall. She stopped in front of another door, opening it and leading them into a small parlor furnished in shades of yellow and rose. It was a bright, sunny room and it echoed the lightness of being that was felt by the two people who took seats upon a sofa covered in yellow silk damask. Their hands remained clasped and their eyes continued to read the emotions that bubbled forth from deep within.
It was Erik who broke the silence between them. He took back one of his hands to trace it gently down Christine's cheek. "The years have been good to you," he said softly. "You are still as beautiful as ever."
"I am old," Christine said with a shake of her head.
"Never to me."
"And you," Christine said as she took her fingers to brush them lightly down his white hair, the unmarred skin of his face, watching as his eyes closed. "You look well."
"I am old."
They laughed together before lowering their heads, eyes unlocking, thoughts gathering. Suddenly the gulf of years was again growing into an insurmountable object. Christine felt his fingertips under her chin, lifting her head.
"Please, Christine," he pleaded. "Look at me."
Christine kept her eyes closed. "Why would you want to see me," she swallowed back tears, "after what I did to you?"
"Because I love you."
Christine opened her eyes. "Why would you chance coming here knowing you are still a wanted man?"
"Because I love you."
"Why would you trust like that?"
Erik shook his head. "Because I love you. Because I have always loved you." He smiled at her sadly. "Even if I did not know it until the moment you were willing to give up your future to save," he almost said "that boy", "his life."
"I do not know how you could love me," Christine said and laid a finger upon Erik's lips as his mouth opened. "Please, let me finish." She sighed. "You were there when I was a confused, grieving child. You gave me something that I was looking and longing for - you gave me my father's promise. You gave me my angel." Her head tilted. "You became my angel. You gave me your wisdom, your talent, your music. You gave me your friendship." Her chin trembled. "You gave me your love and I was too young and too foolish to appreciate what you were offering to me. You were so powerful and so intense and it frightened me for Ihad no compass to guide, no knowledge to understand the feelings you stirred within me." Christine smiled at him, her finger tracing his lips. "The passions you stirred within me." She shook her head. "I retreated behind Raoul and the love I felt for him. I let him make my decision for me for it was safer to do so than to face the storms that raged inside me. I was afraid of myself and I betrayed you because of that fear, because of my own uncertainty." She grew silent for a moment as her eyes searched Erik's. "I took everything you had ever been, ever given and with one unthinkable childish action I nearly destroyed you. I did destroy you."
Erik kissed the finger that still rested upon his lips.
"I want you to know that I would have stayed that night," Christine continued. "And not just because you would have spared Raoul's life." Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. "I would have stayed for us."
Erik took hold of Christine's finger and turned her hand so that he could kiss her palm. He then placed her hand in her lap and laid one of his fingers upon her lips. "Now," he began, "you shall listen to what I must say. When I first watched you in that chapel, I was little more than a child myself. Oh, not physically a child but emotionally a child. I had spent years locked away from a world that had shown me only cruelty and did not know that beyond those locked gates was more than I could have imagined. I did not know how to react other than to be a child who wanted his favorite plaything." His fingertip traced the outline of Christine's lips. "But it was not as a spoiled child that I watched you grow into a lovely young woman. I could see the potential within you for greatness and I wanted - I needed - to nurture that within you. I wanted the world to look at you and to see me. I wanted the world to stand in awe of me. I wanted them to look at what they had so thoughtlessly cast away." The smoldering passion in Erik's eyes sparked slightly. "I wanted the world to look at us and marvel at what we could accomplish together. At that point I was no longer a spoiled child but a selfish man who thought I could hold my angel's wings in a tight grasp. I thought I could make you stay by my side. I selfishly desired your talent, your voice, your company. I desired you." His hand cupped her cheek. "You speak of the passions I stirred within you but you stirred those same passions - and more - within me. Do you think you were the only one who was frightened of what was felt?"
"Yes," Christine whispered.
"No," Erik insisted with a shake of his head. "The depths of desire that I felt for you frightened me. Flames of passion were consuming me and I found I did not wish to escape them. I would willingly have died in those flames and taken you with me." He closed his eyes in pain. "God forgive me for innocent lives did perish in the conflagration of my passion." Erik opened his eyes again. "I thought that my burning desire for you was love." He gave Christine a small smile. "Like you I had no compass to know what it was to love. It is somewhat ironic, do you not think, that out of all of us it was only your husband who had some idea what it meant to love."
"But he would have had you dragged off to jail or worse!"
Erik sighed. "Christine, I have had many years to think upon the events of that night. If places had been switched and I was the man who was to marry you and saw another man who was doing the things I did, I think I would have done much the same as Raoul. I would have done whatever it was within my power and ability to do to ensure your safety and happiness." He paused for a moment. "I find it incredible that your husband would allow me into his home and give me this moment with you. I find it even more astonishing that you could still love me after all I did to you."
Christine lowered her eyes and gave a sad little laugh. "We are both quite pitiable and deserve each other."
"No," Erik exclaimed the force of his emotion causing Christine to raise her head. "You deserved what your husband has given you. You deserve to be surrounded by happiness and light. You deserve the love of your children and the laughter of your grandchildren." He touched her cheek lightly at the expression on her face at the mention of her grandchildren. "Annalise told me all about the family she loves." He waved a hand about him. "This is what I would have for you."
Christine grasped his hands tightly. "And what of you? Do you think I wanted you to spend a life in darkness?"
"Sweet angel," Erik replied softly. "My life has not been lived in darkness. That night, when you placed your ring into my hand and left with Raoul, I did despair. I was willing to spend my life in the depths of the hell that is under Paris. Yet, one day as I sat amongst the bones of those long dead and looked at the gift of light held in my hand, I realized that the best way I could honor what you did for me was to live. I needed to live openly and honestly. I needed to see the world for what is was and everything it could offer me. The world needed to see me for what I was and learn that there was a beating, feeling heart beneath the horror of my face."
"Brave words," Christine interrupted him.
"Brave words to which I did not always live up to but I did try." He gave her a smile. "I have seen the world, Christine, and it is frightening and disappointing. It is also wonderful with great riches in even the most humble of circumstances. That was your gift to me - a chance to find a life beyond myself. It was your courage to sacrifice yourself for him, your courage to embrace me in a way I had only ever dreamed about, your courage to face a life beyond yourself and your dreams that gave me the courage to live my life." He took her hand and placed it upon his heart. "Do you feel that?"
Christine nodded.
"That is what you did for me." Erik caught her gaze and held it softly, without coercion. "You gave me something I never thought to have. You have me a heart. You began to put back together the broken little boy that I was and your precious daughter finished putting together the man."
"What?" Christine was confused.
"That is something I wish to share with your daughter, if I may."
"Annalise would be disappointed with me if I did not bring you to her," Christine said.
They studied each other for another long moment.
"Just tell me you have been happy with him," Erik finally said.
"I have," Christine replied with a nod and a sigh. "It was not easy at first. Society did not approve of us and there was trouble in Paris."
"As well I know." Erik thought back to all the bodies - living and dead - that he had found in the tunnels under Pairs.
"Raoul took me to the country and it was there that I finally began to be comfortable in my marriage." Christine smiled softly, her look growing gentle. "Then the children started coming and I learned about a love that is completely and utterly open and unconditional. My children mean the world to me." Christine's gaze grew distant as she reached back into the years. "Once Richard, our second son, was born Society began to realize that Raoul's choice of a wife was not simply a passing fancy. We began to spend more and more time in Paris and worked our way back into society." She gave Erik a smile meant only for him. "I never forgot my angel, though; I would sing in church and I would occasionally sing at parties. My greatest joy, though, was singing for my children and teaching them all about music." Christine patted the beating heart under the hand she had never moved. "The music my angel had given me."
"And he has been a good husband and father?" Erik needed to be sure.
"He has been a wonderful father," Christine assured him. "Raoul has been the counterpoint to my fears that would have bound my children in darkness. He is the one who has given them their freedom. Our children would not be the people they are today if Raoul had not been there to teach and to guide, to correct and to love."
"And a husband?" Erik did not wish to hear but desperately needed to know.
"He defied the very world into which he was born to marry me and I am afraid that I did not fully appreciate what he did." Christine shook her head. "You were not the only one who behaved as a spoiled child. I gave him so many reasons to turn from me, to cast me away and Raoul was always patient, never judgmenta; and yet I do not mean for you to think that we do not have our disagreements for we do." She smiled at him. "It is all those passions that live within me, you understand; but Raoul is the calm to my storm. I could not have asked for a better husband." Her chin trembled and she dropped her eyes.
"What is it?" Erik wondered. "What is wrong?"
"These last two weeks have strained our marriage beyond the breaking point." Christine would not raise her eyes. "I do not know if we can put it back together."
It came down to this. Erik looked at the woman seated next to him, her eyes downcast. She was still as beautiful and desirable as she had ever been; more so, perhaps, with the wisdom of age that had come upon her. It was a wisdom that had mellowed her like fine wine, making her all that more alluring. She still stirred passion within him. She still made his heart race and his pulse pound. Erik, too, closed his eyes and reached within himself, deep into his heart and mind, trying to understand what it was he should do. Everything he had ever wanted was within his grasp and all he had to do was to take what was offered. He wrestled with the emotions he had carried within him for decades, across the seas and back again. He reached back to that night and gave himself permission to let that man go. Erik gave himself permission to grieve the past, to assimilate it and to bury it. The future lay within his reach and he longed to embrace it, to live it, to revel in the joy it offered.
His decision was made in a heartbeat.
"Christine," he said as he opened his eyes, placing a finger under her chin and gently lifting her head. "I need you to look at me."
Christine opened her eyes, they were wide and full of fear and longing.
"Do you love me?" Erik asked.
"Yes," Christine replied.
"Do you love your husband?" Erik paused for a moment. "I need you to answer me truthfully." He could see the answer in her eyes but needed her to say it.
"No," Christine replied.
Her answer earned a raised eyebrow from the man seated next to her.
The fear was gone from Christine's eyes and only the longing remained as she locked her gaze with the incredibly soft green eyes of her angel. "No, I do not love my husband for love does not even begin to cover what I feel for him," Christine said, the joy on her face growing soft. "I love you. I will always love you. Raoul was correct; there is a part of my heart and soul that he can never have for they belong to you." She touched a finger to her lips and placed it on Erik's lips. "To us." Christine sighed. "I love you but I am in love with Raoul. I have been in love with him from the moment I discovered he was willing to turn his back on everything he had even known to make me happy."
"What is it you want, Christine?"
She did not even need to think. "I want my children happy once again. I want my son and daughter well." She gave Erik a broad smile. "I want you well and happy." Her mood grew more wishful. "I want my marriage to work and I want my husband back."
Erik sighed for that was the answer he had been expecting and for which he had been hoping. "Christine, I love you and I will love you till the day I die but what we shared would have consumed us in its flames. It would have destroyed us both. I could not have borne the hatred you would have felt for me if I had killed Raoul any more than I could have watched you die little by little as you spent a life in darkness, longing for something you could never have." He made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh. "Now we are no longer those foolish children and, perhaps, it is time for us to both grow up." Erik raised both of her hands to his lips, kissing each one in turn. "Know that you will always hold my heart in these small hands. Know that it is a heart you placed within me." He reached in for a kiss and whispered into her ear. "Now I need you to grant me my freedom; Christine, let me go so that I may find my way in this world as a free man. And you must return to the man who loves you enough to set you free."
Christine snaked her arms around Erik's neck and drew him close. "I give you your freedom," she whispered back, "but know that wherever life takes you, my heart will always go with you."
"I count on that knowledge for your heart is, was and will always be my guiding star," Erik told her and gently removed himself from her embrace. He looked long at her face, cherishing the moment, burning it into his memory. "Be happy, my angel."
Christine sniffled and cupped his face in her hands, memorizing the feel of him. "And you, my angel."
Their kiss was soft and heartfelt, each knowing that it would be the last such kiss they would ever share.