Maragreite composed herself quickly, wrapping her cold blanket of velvet around her burning mind. To let Erik into her thoughts, to allow him the knowledge of her fear, would be to let him go. Surely when he realized just how much he needed him, he would find her a nuisance and release her. All those months back, she had wanted nothing more but to b free of this dark cave… now she wanted nothing more but to live out her life her, away from the garish light of day. So, she hid behind a black veil that she used as protection against Erik's prying. She had discovered long ago that the Phantom man would back off from nothing but this weapon… it was the only weapon she had against his heart. Little did she know that every time she used such a veil, she revealed a fraction more of her own, scarred heart?
"I think of nothing, Erik," her voice had slithered but into that tone of death soon from a black widow. Erik surpassed the impulse to shiver. There was something within her voice when she spoke with such a tone that revealed an agonizing past, just behind a black veil, obscuring his view from the object... person… no, men that it hid from his view. The question was who? Why? But to find these answers he must find a way to lift that shifting veil that blocked his view.
Christine frowned tightly, recognizing that tone of voice. Madame Giry had used it when, by vicious prying from Christine after she had fled to live with raoul, she was forced to reveal parts of Erik's terrible past. It was silky, but as dangerous as it was smooth, and as warning as a rattlesnake's clattering tail end. It hid dangerous secrets that could ruin one's mind. But what this child hid behind such a loud rattle, despite the quietness of her voice, Christine did not know.
"You think of something, Little Flower, what is it?" Erik pushed, attempting to disarm the girl with the nickname he had bestowed her on the night he had saved her, and had not used after the first few days. He could not continue to let her hide like this.
"I think of your stupidity," Margareite bit out with a sting of words, shaken by his use of "Little Flower" as a reminder. Erik blinked rapidly in place of his body's instinct to jerk in response to her tone. Such a harsh movement would do him no good. But his disarming was working, if her bite was any indication. He pushed farther then he had ever pushed before now, clenching his teeth to stop his body's trembling. He hated digging into the girl's mind... he knew what it as like to be poked at with words.
" And what stupidity would that be Margariete?" he asked, his voice firm though quiet, warning her not to try to un away from this, his hands gentle upon her wrists, not wanting to threaten her with physical strength. "To care for you, to genuinely want to sow you compassion? What is it you fear, Margariete? I see it in your eyes, but I cannot place that fear and subdue it until you tell me." His voice was almost pleading now.
"I fear YOU," she snaked out, no longer nipping a bite with her voice, but now striking out in a harsh tone that warned him that she was ready to crawl back into her shell of confinement within her mind if he drove any deeper. Knowing that he would not physically subdue her, and hating herself for using such knowledge against him, but desperate to be free of his begging eyes, she wrenched her wrists from of his grip and let to her feet and off the chair. Bolting as fast as her little legs would carry her, she ran to the bank of the flooded water ways and rustling with the long staff used to propel the gondola and dragging it to the little boat and climbing in, pushing it clumsily away from the banks.
She had to get away from here…. From Erik. His instance that she reveals her fear to him had hidden a deeper meaning that she could see all too well. He was digging for hints at her past as well as the fear that he had seen within her eyes. Her was forging forward harder then he ever had before, even after she had used the only weapon she knew how to use, and that terrified her.
Erik had leapt to his feat, wading into the water and shouting after her. She didn't know how to use the gondola! What if she over balanced, of fell out or…? HE was about to leap full body into the water to swim after her when he felt a weak hand fall upon his shoulder. HE whipped around, his face angry.
"Christine, let go!" she shook her hand off with ease, but she grasped his forearm and gripped with more force.
"Let her be, Erik," her voice was firm, but rouge with illness. "She needs to be alone. Surely she can call if she needs help. We will hear the echoes. But let her be. She needs time to herself."\
Sighing with resignation, Erik relaxed his strain against Christine's hand, walking up the bank, Christine following.
Christine fell into the chair that Margareite had previously been seated in, close to exhaustion from the slight exertion. Erik was suddenly gripped with worry for her. Where had his mind been while he was shouting at her for the fault of others? Striding with sure steps and movements he had been cautious to hide for so long for the sake of Margareite, but slid into so easily, he hurried over to his table, pouring some wine.
If he continued acting the way he had, surly Christine would only become furious with him, and that his heart could not afford. It had been broken apart at the sight of the emotional agony he had once caused her, forcing him to relinquish his hold over her. To see her angry with him, and physically exhausted for him, in perhaps, perverted as the thought was, the one way he did not wish her to be exhausted for him, could tear his heart to shreds.
"Wine?" he offered cautiously, holding the glass goblet before her. Christine looked at him with hard, accusing eyes.
"Water, perhaps," she rejected her face cold.
"Of course, of course," Erik muttered, cursing himself for not thinking of water first. HE poured fresh water from a pitcher into yet another goblet and rushed it to Christine, offering it, along with his soul.
Christine's eyes softened a bit, but Erik did not see that, his attention focused upon the ground. The phantom man was offering so much more then water. He stooped before her, begging her, pleading with her to accept his love, devotion, and apology for his actions earlier. As much as Erik was capable of doing, this man was surprisingly vulnerable, if put in certain circumstances. Before her was man that had tricked and seduced her, attempted to murder her lover, HAD murdered two innocent men ( although she held suspicions that Bouquet deserved his end), and in all other words completely slaughtered her life, and at one point, threatened her very future. But before her was also a man slightly board with life, severely confused at times, and knew nothing of the love of a woman. Except perhaps, Margareite, a young girl yet, and no where near woman hood. But it was a step near lessons in love that Erik was desperately in need of. This brought up the subject of the young girl. It was an escape from discussing things that desperately needed to be worded, but neither one knew how, nr had any wish to.
"Erik, let us talk as civil people, as normal people-"she thought she saw Erik flinch, but continued, "- without the complications of our past," she finished, taking the goblet of water gently from Erik's shaking hands. Erik looked up at her with an odd look in his eyes, an eccentric mixture of thankfulness and insecurity.
Erik fought to keep his eyes dry of the tears that threatened to well up and glass over his crystal blue gaze. Never before had Christine looked upon him, or even so much as spoke to him as she would a normal person… a REAL person. Emotion damned up within him, blocked but uncertainty. He had never carried an intelligent conversation with a normal human being; what an odd concept that he, a slightly mad genius at times, should now, facing the woman that had influenced his life at the peak of his inhuman ways, speak as if it were a normal luncheon outing. But how different the conversation would be then Erik had expected.
"This girl… ho did she come to your care?" Christine asked flatly, shooting straight and true for the heart of her thought. Erik was obviously taken aback, not having prepared himself for such a subtle attack. He could hear the hidden words behind Christine's spoken words. How did the care of a child come into the hands of a deformed mad creature? Erik backed away and sat in a wooden chair diagonally from Christine at the wooden desk, sighing.
"After…." E hesitated. How was he to word that he had wandered the streets of Paris blind with Agonizing pain for loosing her? "After… the... fire," he substituted bitterly,
"I escaped into the streets, and found myself in an alleyway, less crowded with people."
Now that the story transformed the subject away from Christine, Erik's voice strengthened and grew surer. He could handle this. "I heard the cry of a young girl, and followed the sound to find tow large men manhandling Margariete. I did not think…. I attacked, killed one, perhaps the other after taking his head to the nearest wall of the building." Erik looked away from Christine, sure that cold hatred fro his murders lay within her eyes.
"You did what you had to in order to save a young girl. That is not murder, Erik, that is defense of the weaker," Christine's voice assured him, causing him to look at her in surprise. She smiled gently and nodded for him to continue. Incredulous that she was not looking upon him with either anger or fear, he continued.
"I found her huddling in a corner, scared. She flinched away from my touch, but eventually, exhaustion took over and she fainted. Without thought to proper reason, I brought her back here. She was badly bruised and beaten, with numerous lacerations. I cared for her until she awoke one night and padded up behind me. She asked me to play my organ…"
Christine nodded. Erik was a magician with the organ that lay to their left, coaxing out music that wrapped around one's soul and bound the mind. She had once wondered if enchantments were real, and if they were, if the organ was not enchanted itself. But, no. It was the master of the instrument that was the enchanted one.
"…She took the jacket from me like e a small rodent snatching food from a plate and then scurrying away before any consequences for her movements could befall her. I was sure at the time that it was the immediate repercussion of the beatings that the two men had given her. But as time went on, no matter how much I tried to show her I meant no harm... she still would balk at even the whisper of a touch, jump at an unexpected movement. It came to the point where I had to slow my movements and make sure she could tell what I was going to do next. After a long while she finally didn't' feel the need to watch my every move, but that was the only inch of trust she would give… then one night… oh, Christine…," Erik's stomach gripped around ice that bit into his belly once more in memory. "Oh Christine… she was only looking at my face… touched it with the hand of a curious young girl that was wondering about the face of a grown male…but it was instinct, I swear it was instinct, I didn't mean to harm her, I swear it Christine! But I took her little wrist…" Erik looked down at his hands, lost in memory, guilt playing across the unmasked side of his face, " …and I threw her aside more easily then I had thrown you, Christine…she was so light I think if I had deliberately meant to throw her, I could have tossed her form here into the lake. But, oh christen she spoke to me in such a voice then that ravages my mind… it was filled with agonizing pain... so much pain.. And I recognized that despairing pain... but for that girl to know such pain in the degrees upon which it has been force to her…" Erik shuddered, causing after shakes that continued as he spoke, his voice shifting. "….do you know what she screamed at me when I tried to apologize, Christine? 'All you want is my body. That's all men ever want.' That is what she accused me of…" All of the weight of the knowledge of what had happened to this girl that had bogged down upon him was finally being released, and he couldn't have stopped himself if he had tried. "Then later… oh Christine that would have been enough fro e to understand... but later she asked me in that horrible tone if I was going to use her as my personal…pet," Erik almost choked on the word, but continued. "'Think about it Monsieur Erik,' she said. 'Your down here alone all this time. And now you have a girl don here with you for your pleasing. What more could you want?'…. Oh Christine… she has been hurt... hurt badly by men… males, as she refers to them more often. It's almost as if she sees them as a completely different species." Finally Erik took a shaking breath, finished.
Christine stared at him with wide eyes, unbelieving. Who would hurt such a young girl? And why?
"Rape?" she asked roughly. Erik nodded despairingly.
"More then once I think. Many times, perhaps… numerous beatings… there are many scars... one around her neck... I think she was bound by the neck at one point… possibly deliberately starved. She was well under weight when she came into my care."
"Oh god that poor girl..." Christine closed her eyes. And here she had thought that her ordeal had been terrible. If that had been terrible, the girl's life was atrocious. "And her parents? What of them? Has she no family, no one else to care for her?" Erik shook his head.
"She has not mentioned as such yet, and I am loath to release her to such people that would allow such things to happen to her." Christine nodded.
"She's finally started to trust me Christine, after all this time, she's finally stating to trust me, and as you noticed, small simple touches, such as my hands upon her wrists, perhaps her shoulder, and touches initiated by herself… but that is as far as it goes. I still have to monitor my movements, make sure they're not too quick or sharp, otherwise she becomes frightened," Erik informed her, once again looking at his hands and running his fingers along one palm. Did such strength lie within these hands that such in justice could not be stopped but they could cause injustice? "But there is little I can do to get through to her sensitive mind. I think it is the fact that I am male that turns her away from revealing anything; for fear, I think, of revealing too much and having to suffer whatever consequences may surround such a yielding action." Christine frowned in thought, the looked to Erik, wondering at a new mask that he wore- one of guilt, and sorrow, and pain for the girl. It amazed Christine that such a man that had committed the deeds of his past come to care so entirely for a simple young girl.
"Perhaps," christen began, "I should try to bond with her. Perhaps then, we could find the full extent of her past... and help her heal. I am also curious to know," her voice grew icily sharp, " how she has come to be the victim of so many violations of her body at only the age of… what? Nine?"
"Seven," Erik corrected his voice scratchy with emotion. "Do try Christine. I fancy a woman may get farther into the mind of a hurt girl than a man, even one such as myself, would." He sighed, thinking perhaps, that he should go find Margareite before she got lost in the catacombs. Surely he could find her, but he did not want her traveling so far into the labyrinth that she became lost and scared in the dark. He voiced his concerns to Christine, who agreed, and looked out tot h lake. No gondola. Well, swimming it would have to be. Excusing himself, he slid into the water and made his way gracefully through the back pool and under the rising gate, opened by Christine.
Christine looked after him with utter confusion. After all he had done, she had thought his surely to go completely insane and yet… now before her was man turned into a desperate father figure. She didn't quite know what to make of such a change. In the mean time, Raoul sprang to mind. Her fiancé would be worried sick for her by now. And as much as she desperately wanted to return to the arms of her beloved, something tied her to the young girl and the changing Erik. She could not abandon them when they both so desperately needed her. She would help them, then, if it was possibly, return to Raoul. No, not IF it was possible, she WOULD return to Raoul. The Phantom of the Opera that still lingered within Erik would never let her go this time, but neither would she hold herself to him.