A/N: Wow, I have found a new fan. Lets see if she stays with me lol

QueenSarah: I'd love to reply to everyone of your reviews but I don't have the time or the space! That would be a chapter in itself.

Firstly, I'm going to apologise for the lack of updates. I was on holiday and then when I got back I was not feeling up to writing. I am now. So I am updating and hopefully I will have another update for you before next week starts.

Thank you for all of the comments, I have read them all. I'd like to address some of your 'concerns'

E/C or not, and I don't usually decide until the end… I think the chapter where they are finally together was necessary for Erik. I also (in answer to a few other people as well) believe that it had to happen that suddenly. That if either of them thought about it too much they would back out for several reason (which I won't go into right now).

There will be more about why this happened in one of the following chapters, written from Erik's perspective.

As for Raoul… we love Raoul and I think it's important that everyone understands that he is a good decent (if misguided) man. And he would not see Christine harmed. Not a hair on her head. But he wants to find her desperately.

Ahomelesspirate: I'm starting to tie things together. Soon all will make sense! Thank you, as always for your reviews.

Kaledena: Thank you for your review!

Elektra: Thank you! Hero… I don't know. I try to please people but there will always be some you leave unhappy with your decisions in a story.

Anyway, without further ado.

Chapter 44- Christine

She sighed softly as her head rested comfortably on his bare chest. Her hair was damp with sweat, some clung to her face and some to Erik's chest. It tickled but neither of them cared. His arm was around her protectively, his hand held hers. He was lying in his back, the light from the moon highlighting the bare left side of his face. The bliss of the evening was settling in the room, the silence had not yet ended.

It was a contented silence.

With her head on his chest she could hear his heart beat, which had slowly steadied to what could be considered a healthy pace. Maybe. She sighed and kissed his chest, looked up at him and kissed his chin. He gave her a small smile.

'Are you okay?' he mumbled, closing his eyes and rested his head back against the pillow.

'Yes,' she said, her voice was soft and tired. He kissed her hair and she smiled against his skin.

'I'm sorry if I...'

'You didn't, Erik,' she said and he let out a small laugh. She glanced up at him. 'What?'

'You don't know what I was going to say,' he said, opening one eye and looking at her.

'You were going to apologise in case you'd hurt me, or taken advantage or, or and or,' she said with a grin. 'You haven't hurt me, or taken advantage or or or...'

He laughed and eased her off his chest, leaning over he kissed her lips gently and she kissed him back. As he stood up he stretched his long, powerful arms over his head and she watched the muscles of his stomach ripple in the moonlight. She felt herself blush, she felt her age again, he had made her remember that she was young.

'I'm going to get dressed,' he said, looking down at her as he walked to the door. She watched him carefully.

'Okay,' she said and flashed him a smile.

'Shall we go for a walk?' he asked as he stepped out of the door. Her smile raised to a grin and her heart leapt in her chest. She was going to go out. Yes, it may only be for a walk, only for thirty minutes but she hadn't left this house in months due to her illness. She hid her excitement.

'I'll dress too then,' she said and he lifted his hand to tell her that he had heard her as he walked out of sight.

She pulled the sheet up to her face and giggled in to it, she felt so young and so childish. It felt wonderful.

She lay back for a moment, stretched her arms out and let out a long groan as she broke into another grin. She allowed her mind to fix onto Erik, onto the feeling of his arms draped over her, the feeling of their bodies pressed together. Had she always been waiting for this moment?

She still wasn't sure.

Their past had been so confused and manipulated by both of them, Erik's temper was hard to deal with much of the time, his eyes gained that glow when he was furious and it frightened her to her core. It terrified her. His moods were equally bad, the darkness could take him over rapidly and leave him nearly as quickly as it arrived.

Not that the darkness ever really left Erik. Erik had a cool temperement, so cool it was ice sometimes and she could feel it freeze the atmosphere. He never even needed to open his mouth, all he had to do was look. She remembered the first night she had met him, the first time she had actually seen him. He had been singing to her for a while, teaching her voice to hit notes she never knew existed. He could sing like no one she knew and no one she had met since. When the mirror had opened, it was so cold behind it that steam had actually come out as the dampness hit the hot air of her dressing room.

He had stood in front of her, looking at her, watching her, his hand out in front of him covered in a black glove. On his head he wore a hat, he was dressed in fine clothes and on his face there was that mask. The mask was brilliant white, so white it was frightening, it made her heart leap to her throat. Still, she remembered that she couldn't look away. All of his clothes were dark, no they weren't dark, they were black. His skin was pale and he was thin.

Immediately she had wondered what was under the mask and it was that curiosity could have gotten her killed. It had certainly endangered and ended the lives of so many others. In her head she knew that Erik was a killer but she also knew, in her heart, that he was not a cold blooded murdered. The people who died in some way deserved their fate for bringing so much misery to others.

Christine closed her eyes tightly. It was thoughts like this that made her realise that she had changed so much over the last few years. Surely murder was always wrong.

Or maybe not.

Her mind drifted back to the night he appeared before her, looking wonderful, looking handsome and mysterious.

He had thrown a shawl over her shoulders and then he carefully took her hand, before leading her down through corridor up on corridor, past mirrors and over walls she could
barely even see. She could not even remember how to get back and although she was scared as she was led down there, there wasn't a cell in her body telling her to turn back. She wanted to go with him. She had been so desperate to meet him.

Then, they arrived at an opening and suddenly there was a lake in front of them, it was as if it had come from nowhere. He had lifted her carefully into his arms and lay her down at the back of the boat. As he had jumped in and lifted the oar she had watched him with anxiousness and complete amazement. The room was black, no light was allowed through, there were no windows and no doors that she could see. She could only have guessed that they were far, far underground, under the opera house in a cellar she never knew existed.

Christine knew now that no one else had known of it's existence either.

It then narrowed into another corridor of water and they joined a cross section. She remembered that Erik had taken a left, pushing the boat along which glided like silk over the black water. As they travelled down the chill in the air had gained ferocity and she had tugged the shawl tightly around her, listening to the water ripple under the boat and
listening to Erik hum to himself. When the room finally opened out again a gate closed behind them and she realised that they were at their destination.

Across the way was an organ, black and imposing, she could see the glistening white of the keys from where she was. They got closer and she noticed chairs, tables, separate rooms but most prominent of all were the books.

There had been books everywhere. Bookshelves, cases, cabinets with books in, books piled onto the ends of the tables, some on the floor and some on the organ. They were in short stacks and tall stacks, some were covered in dust, some were old and some were new. She was astounded he could even see them properly when he tried to read.

But then, Erik always managed to surpass her expectations.

When the boat came to a halt by some steps he hooked a rope around a post in the corner and then stepped towards her, hand out, and helped her out of the boat. It was then that he began to sing for her. And only for her. She had felt then that he was in love with her, she knew that she should try to leave but for some reason as he sang she was no longer frightened. She wasn't scared of the harshness of the cold or the darkness of the room and she wasn't afraid of the man in the mask.

'Music of the night' was the song that blessed his lips and touched her ears. Like a whisp of candle smoke it had drifted around her, barely touching her yet filing her soul. It was a song so beautiful that in the darkness of the opera cellar she had fought tears from her eyes. As he sang he had touched her stomach and her face and she hadn't resisted the warm feel on his body behind her as he sang into her heart.

She remembered nothing after that until she woke the next morning.

What she thought of now when she thought of Erik wasn't any of this, not really. Not the darkness and the bleakness. Not his mood swings or his cold heart. She knew he had a heart, she had just listened to it beat for her.

What she thought of was his eyes.

Those blue eyes, the eyes that encapsulated all of his sorrow and his hurt, his pain and his anger. That sparkled with joy when she sang and washed with emotion when she left...

'Are you ready?' He was standing at the door looking at her. She glanced up and smiled.

'Nearly,' she said and walked to him. Placing her hands on his chest she kissed his lips softly, and let her mouth linger on his.

Form some reason she didn't want to move away from him, something compelled her to hold him for longer. Something inside her told her to grab him, pull him close... telling her not to move away, to stay there, holding him and kissing him. Something inside her told her that he would soon be gone.

As she tried to shake the thought from her mind she realised that it had taken a firm grip and so she threw her arms around him and held him tight, laying another kiss on his soft lips. When she finally moved away she looked into his eyes so that he knew.

And now, she would fight the feeling and finish getting dressed and they would go for a walk.

They would do that because they needed to.