Blind Mask

(by Nicole Gruebel)

Disclaimer: ... see chapter 1

Summary of the past chapters: As soon as Erik's blind guest Noelle was able to stay alone for a while, he went out to secretly meet Christine once more. This time he tried to earn her forgiveness and love, so that she might stay with him for good. But Christine told him that Raoul had asked once more to marry him, too, and she had only one night left to decide.

After a lot of discussions, corrections and some rewritings this chapter got finished … with much help of Maria. Thank you!

Lotte Isilya claimed there were no further mistakes in this text and made me very happy, because she seemed to be very enthusiastic about it.

irrelevant ... don't be afraid, this story will not end as E/C, although Christine will be an essential part of it.

Erik'sTrueAngel ... I'm glad that you got the point of how I see Christine, or let's say how I want to portrait her in this story.

Spikes Bint ... it honors me that mine is one of the few stories that you still follow! By the way, I'm not exactly a R/C-shipper, too, because I just don't like Raoul very much most of the time ... and well, I'm reading the new HP-book, too ;)

Chapter 10 - Touch me, trust me

Noelle flinched when Erik stormed into the room. He was usually very composed, but now his steps were heavy and rushed. He did not answer her greeting. She heard him hurl his cape to the floor before he began pacing, muttering to himself. 'He is back earlier than I expected.' The young woman had not intended to wait for his return, but Ayesha had been in playful mood and so she still was wide-awake. 'What is wrong with him?' His unusual behaviour alarmed her.

Erik did not notice when Noelle stood up and slowly walked towards him - he was too busy freeing himself from the uncomfortable, old mask and the jacket. "Tomorrow!" he barked, unaware that he was not alone in the room. "How can I wait until tomorrow, knowing that she will choose that boy anyway! It would be easier to wait for my death-sentence. I am such a fool. Why did I go to her?" Erik was helpless. He knew Christine had already granted him more happiness than he ever dreamed of and still he wished she would accept him at her side. It drove him mad that he could do nothing but wait until she had made her choice – and he was not a patient man.

Whirling around, he literally crashed into Noelle, who let out a surprised cry. Erik backed away as if he had gotten burned and growled threateningly, while the young woman lost her balance and crumpled on the floor.

Noelle bit her lip to withhold an oath. She had become used to bumping into objects due to her blindness, but she had yet to find Erik so angry. 'I better get out of his way ...' she told herself and muttered an excuse for her carelessness.

The sudden encounter with the blind woman had brought Erik out of his fit of rage. His mind had been so busy with Christine that he had forgotten all about Noelle. Now he stared down at her, as she drew back from him. 'Did I hurt her!' He cursed inwardly as he remembered his utter loss of control only moments before.

At first he did not dare to touch her, but when she could not find her walking stick he finally reached out and took her hands. "I am sorry, Mademoiselle. Are you hurt? I should have paid more attention." Noelle was surprised at the concern in his voice and felt that his hands were shaking a bit. It appeared he was more shocked by his outburst than she. Noelle gladly accepted his help and mustered a weak smile while standing up.

"I am fine, but it seems something is bothering you, Monsieur Erik. Is there any way I could help you?" She noticed that the ring he always wore was apparently gone. Frowning, she unconsciously tightened her grip on his hands. 'Did he give it away? Perhaps to this woman he was speaking of?' Noelle couldn't begin to understand why Erik would be so upset, but she did not want to meddle in his private affairs.

He froze when she held on to his hands with a strange expression on her face. It appeared as if she wanted to ask something, but instead patiently waited for his answer. "There is no need to worry about me or my affairs, Mademoiselle." It nearly sounded like a threat and she chose to keep quiet.

Unbeknownst to Noelle, Erik lost himself into a rather generous dose of Morphine. For a while he attempted to distract both himself and Noelle from the earlier occurrences of that day through reading, but after a few pages the drug lulled him into sleep.

OOO

For some time now, the bandages over her eyes had grown increasingly uncomfortable as was Erik's medicine, which had started to cause her headaches. Of course Noelle had not told him about either.

Until now she had obeyed his command and had never taken off the dressing herself. However, Noelle was confident that Erik was fast asleep - she could hear quiet snoring from his direction. 'Surely it can do no harm if I remove the bandage for a short time.' Stealthily, she began to loosen the cloth with careful, slow motions and hardly dared to breathe. She enjoyed the feeling of cool air over her closed eyelids, and after a beat, she mustered the courage to tenderly touch them with her fingertips.

Noelle was relieved to find no scars, although Erik had already assured her she would bear none. She had seen people with ugly, disfiguring scars caused by burns, and those images never had left her mind while she had been recovering. This discovery, and that Erik still appeared to be in deep slumber, increased her courage and self-confidence. She ignored all his commands and tried to open her eyes.

It hurt and her tears increased that pain, but Noelle merely tried to blink them away instead of rubbing. She hardly had any hope she would be able to see this time, and as expected everything remained dark. For a few moments Noelle tried to focus on something she believed to see, but she could not make it out. She tried to move her hands in front of her face, but her eyes began to sting again.

The woman could not know that the candles which Erik had lit had already gone out and the coals in the stove hardly lit the room. With her eyes still weak as they were, she was shrouded in almost complete darkness.

As she sat in the silence, Noelle's thoughts returned to something that had been troubling her in the past few days. 'He'll send me away soon ... and I still hardly know him.' Erik had taught her how to use her hands instead of her eyes, and she had been very eager to explore a lot of his possessions. Having grown accustomed to seeing with her hands, she had only one solution in mind.

'I want to remember him. I want to know him, beyond his marvellous voice and his gentle hands. But I don't dare ask him for permission to touch his face. Erik would laugh at my silly request, or perhaps be angered.' Noelle hesitated. The thought had crossed her mind whenever he had mentioned their approaching parting. 'I feel I am betraying his trust. It's quite clear he does not want me to know anything about him, but I cannot understand why.'

Very slowly, Noelle left the bed and approached Erik, who was still asleep in his big armchair at the foot of the bed. Her hand trembled when she finally reached out to him. She found his shoulders and neck, and was surprised that he did not wake up at the sudden contact. With feather-light touches, her fingers moved higher and over both sides of his face.

She never had had the chance to explore another person's facial features but her own since she had gone blind. Nevertheless, it soon became obvious to her that something was wrong with the right half of Erik's head. There were odd bumps and the skin felt rough. His hairline appeared to be uneven and she was not certain he had any hair on the right side at all. It was definitely not what she had expected and she could not understand her strange discovery.

OOO

Ayesha was curled up on Erik's lap when Noelle approached the armchair, and the cat eyed her with wide, blue eyes. She felt instinctively that the woman was up to something, thus Ayesha gave her a warning look. But Noelle apparently ignored the cat.

Instead of waking Erik or scaring off the woman, Ayesha stayed silent and calm. Her curiosity was greater than the loyalty to the man who had saved her life when she had been a starving kitten.

OOO

Morphine usually granted Erik a dreamless, deep sleep. Sometimes, however, he felt as if he was waking into a nightmare when its effect subsided.

That night, his mind was so troubled that even the drug could not block out everything. Vaguely at first, he became more and more aware of someone touching his face; a sensation he was so unaccustomed to that it brought him almost instantly to full awakening.

His mind was still numb from morphine and his sight was blurry. At first he could not make out the face before him as it was barely visible in the poorly lit room. Instinctively he prepared himself to attack the intruder.

Suddenly he was fully aware of cool fingers tracing his face, their touch so tender that for a moment Erik allowed himself to ease into it. An instant later this wonderful sensation was pierced by panic. 'My mask!' His first instinct was to cover his deformity with his hand, but he found himself unable to move. 'Noelle!' Finally he recognized her face – and that her eyes were uncovered. 'She has seen me!'

OOO

With a raging growl Erik pushed Noelle away and got up. "What have you done? Don't touch me! Don't look at me!" He did not care if she got hurt when his strong arms freed himself of her. Like a caged tiger he paced the room and knocked over all furniture in his way. His right hand covered the marred cheek, while he searched for his mask.

"You are just like Christine! Why do you have to see what should remain hidden?" Every painful second of the time when the singer had ripped off his mask forced its way back into his mind. The anger and shame he had felt back then added to his current feelings. "Leave me alone!" That last outburst left him trembling and out of breath. Erik knew he would loose control if he stayed there any longer. Screaming curses in every language known to him he fled from the room.

Nothing could have scared Noelle more than Erik's thundering voice. Trembling with fear, she curled herself into a fetal position, burrowing her head under her arms. 'He will kill me!' She was sure of that, although she did not know what had provoked such anger. When he started to howl another name and accused her of having seen him, she was sure he had gone mad. Something hard hit her, but her cry of pain was lost in his screams. 'Flee!' Her body needed a moment to respond to her instinct's command, but she ultimately managed to crawl forward.

Noelle did not know where she was headed; all she wanted was to get out of his way, out of his sight. She found the rough surface of the wall and stayed close to it as she stumbled forward as fast as she could. When her hands groped upon a heavy door she pulled at it with panic-filled strength. Noelle ran through it as soon as it was opened wide enough. Dimly she was aware that his screams grew more distant and that her feet struggled through cold water, but she was too afraid to stop.

Unnoticed by both humans, the cat had jumped on the shelf next to the armchair when Erik's rage exploded. Ayesha watched them with ruffled fur and flattened her ears at his shouting. The Siamese did not leave her hiding place until everything was silent in the room again. Her eyes shining with curiosity, she finally decided whom she should follow.

OOO

By the time Erik began to calm down he found himself hiding in a hidden crypt with only the dusty remains of old graves for company. He would not be stared at in here, for this place was long forgotten by the world.

Only after his racing mind had stilled somewhat, was Erik able to think clearly again. 'When will I ever find peace? What made me believe I could let my guard down in her presence?'

He was so terribly tired of being stared at! If the choice had been his, he would never have shown his face, not even to Christine. When he had been forced to wear his mask as a child, he had hated it. Yet, it had grown to be such a part of him that he held onto it ever since, as his only means of protection.

After a while he began to wonder why he had fled from Noelle in the first place. She could do him no harm, and he would never hurt her. He could still remember her touch on his face. His own fingers traced the memory, but they stopped when he touched the mask. Reluctantly Erik started to head back to his home.

No sound came from the rooms, nor was there a sign of his cat. 'I hope I have not chased her away for good this time.' The glowing coals in the stove merely cast enough light to see some contours of the furniture. Nevertheless, Erik habitually kept to the shadows as his eyes skimmed over the main room. 'Where is that damn woman? I will require more light than this if I intend to search for her in every corner.' Only then did he realize how impossible it was for her to have seen much of him, even if she had recovered her sight.

A rare feeling swept over him: regret. Sighing, he leaned his back against the cold wall and ran a hand through his thin hair, avoiding the right side of his face. 'I hope she has run away. It would be better for her and for me.' However, Erik could not ignore his inner voice, which told him that the woman would most likely not find her way out of the dark tunnels on her own.

"Noelle? Are you here? Don't be afraid." He did not really expect an answer, for the rooms were silent as the grave and no other breathing than his own could be heard. Erik reached out to the nearest lamp and lit it. Its soft glow illuminated a deserted room, which had evidently suffered in his fit of rage.

All that was left of his guest was the discarded bandage on the bed, and he soon found the door to the northern tunnels open. 'I can't let her wander around down here. I have brought her into those tunnels - I have to make sure she leaves them again unharmed.'

Erik donned a warm cape and threw a second one over his shoulder. The passages he was about to enter were very damp and cold. He retrieved a torch from a rack by the door and lit it.

To be continued …