"Erik, I know you knew that she's been raped, and badly… but you haven't the slightest idea what the experience has done to her body. The scars… those scars were… hideous. You would hardly recognize… it…if you saw the scars that lay homeland harshness upon her young skin."
Erik shivered as Christine told him what Margareite had shown her. Shaking his head and taking a very large, uncomfortable gulp of red wine from a class goblet, he grimaced as his mind conjured, however to his disapproval, the picture of what Christine described.
"I would rather not have any material to imagine that with, Christine," he answered. "I know she has had a horrendous past, I assure you. I could tell you almost everything that happened the night that the music she played recalled. I needn't any other facts to cause me to hate the rapists anymore then I do. I do not think it possible for me to feel more wrath towards them."
"Or him," Christine quipped. Erik looked at her sharply.
"What are you suggesting?" Christine shrugged.
"We know she had been raped multiple times, but we have always assumed it was more then one man," she said. "What if it wasn't? What if it was one bastard?" Erik shook his head in response.
"She once said that sexual please was 'all males wanted'," he answered. "That indicates more then one man. It would lead to the distrust of that one man. But she distrusts any of the males half of the human species." Erik took another sip of his wine. "No. She has been wronged many times, by different men." Christine nodded.
The two sat in silence for a while, Margareite, now rarely rising during the night, dead to the world in slumber, unaware of their conversation concerning her. Erik finished his wine, and Christine stared, with glazed eyes, at the lake that bordered Erik's make shift home. Wishing they wouldn't but unable to stop them, Erik's eyes soaked in Christine's beauty, her side profile exquisite in the candle light, her pale skin illuminated by the soft golden glow of the candles. Her lashes were long and graceful, fluttering down to meet her flawless cheek every now and again. She had steadily been gaining back healthy weight that had been lost during her illness, though now Erik wondered if he should subtly cut back on her rations of food, worried she might gain more then was wanted. He had noticed that she had taken to eating a as a way to pass time when she was not reading. What else was there to do?
All his life since Madame Giry (who had disappeared from his life abruptly, leaving him with the guilt of the possibility that she had died in the fire that he had caused in the opera house, however he had never had but a moment to flit a thought about the woman) had brought him down here, he had entertained himself with his music, his composing. Margareite, however much the genius, was still a child, and fairly easily amused; her gift with music, in which Erik reveled, but had decided to allow her to approach in her own way, also kept the girl steadily extracting the poisonous memories from her mind through the music, which she played unhindered in the presence of Christine and Erik now. But while Erik and Margareote could well enough keep themselves from the flat land of boredom, Christine had nothing but books to write.
Oh, she still had a voice, he was sure. And perhaps they could spend the evenings together singing once again, but Erik shivered at the thought of the memories that such an action might dredge up.
Erik had carefully avoided mention of their past, as had she, and, much to Margareite's agitation, they had padded around the love that lingered in Erik's heart. Both stood knowing what lay beneath the surface when Erik gazed at Christine for extended amounts of time, but neither acknowledged it. Christine's thoughts flitted nervously to Raoul's expression, so similar to when Erik's eyes met with hers, they're cool blue color searing her own, just as Raoul's did whenever he looked at her in all the love and compassion that was thrown about in the throws of passion during the night. And yet in Erik, that expression burned in his eyes in every day life, burning the path of a fiery arrow of love through her heart. But she could not love him. As much as he had changed, as much as she showed his loving care for Margareite, he had still murdered in her name and terrified her for three years. And yet… his eyes had cooled away from the madness that had always heated them, and she found herself wondering, if perhaps, Margareite were the reason he remained sane… or perhaps Christine had been the reason he had gone mad.
"He treats you well?" Erik's expression was one of dead seriousness as he watched Christine jump at the sound of his voice, both having been thinking to themselves for so long that she had almost forgotten that Erik sat five feet away, even while he was in her thoughts.
"Raoul?" she asked hesitantly, fighting not to bite her lip.
"Yes, Raoul," Erik answered, his tone bitter.
'Yes, he treats me well," she answered. When Erik had first stolen her away, she would have retorted angrily, but now she found herself faltering in his hot gaze, shivering in its wake. "He loves me. Otherwise would he not have thought to risk his life to save me?" It was a daring chance, mentioning that night, when despite these months, the wound still lay open for both.
"Do not mock me, Christine Daae," Erik's voice was dangerously quiet and cold. Hurt. "I love you as well as that young fop does and you would be well to recognize his young years for what they are. He is a boy yet and is likely to leave you with nothing if he finds another young girl to take on." He growled so lightly that even he could hardly hear the rumbling, but he could feel it vibrating him his chest. Christine's expression became stricken.
"Do not try to win me back, Erik, with words of trickery and deceit as you did once to ensnare me in your wake," she bit at the Phantom. His eyes narrowed at her.
"You think I do not know that I will loose you once again to Monsieur DeChaney?" he asked acidly. "I know my loss before it endures itself to be, Christine. I do not seek to retrieve you once again from him lusty grasp. I seek only to warn you of his young ways." He stood abruptly, stalking towards the banks of the lake, fighting to control his rage that stood in place of his agonizing wound that was being picked at with each word.
Christine was shaken horribly by his words, refusing to accept them. She stalked after him, grasping his arm as he reached for the long staff that lay against eh rock wall. He turned to her roughly, anger and pain fighting for place upon his expression.
"Erik you know not of love," she said, her expression searching, pleading. "Would that you did you would see the love that floats in his eyes when he gazes at me in the night."
"In the night," Erik snaked out, snatching her shoulders up roughly and digging his fingers into her shoulders, although however angry he was, he was careful for her tender skin. "In the sheets, you mean. Foolish girl! Lust is what sparks in his eyes. Victory. Even he may not realize what he mistakes as love." Christine's eyes were sparkling with unshed tears now, but she refused to let them fall. Was it possible that both young lovers were mistaking Raoul's feelings? Erik' breath was ragged with emotion, and he hung his head. "I know my fate, and it lays forward, one way or another, without you, Christine." He looked up now, locking eyes firmly with her. "But know that forever will my love for you burn in this monster's heart." With a jerk of movement, he brought her hard against his body, kissing her roughly, expressing more then love in the hard kiss. At first she had stiffened, wanting to fight his grasp, but it was too firm. But slowly, as he continued to kiss her for the next moment, frozen in time, despite the lack of reply from her own lips, his kisses became softer, and now that only said good bye, knowing that one day, she would return to Raoul. And while she knew it too, unthinking, and without reason or rhyme, she kissed him back.
Her lips trembled but they were caring, and loving, in a way. Erik's emotions swirled heavily within his heart as he kissed her desperately, knowing that he should not be doing this. It would cause more good then bad. Love and hurt pounding his heart forced him to end the kiss abruptly, but not yet letting go of her frail shoulders.
"I should not have done that Christine," he said roughly. "But it has been done. Take that as my parting gift and vow of eternal love." He let go of her shoulders now, his arms dropping heavily to his sides. Turning dejectedly to the wall again, he took up the staff and stepped into the gondola, the water rippling from the movement. "There is a small boat that I do not use hidden in the crevice behind the left flank of the wall." His voice was shaking now, but he held strong. "Take the main water way until you reach the end of the water ways." No longer able to hold back his tears, a single drop trailed down his cheek. "When I return, I will expect to find you gone. Say your good bye to Margareite, and then be on your way. It is time for you to leave. I took you in to care for you until you were well. And so you are. Farewell, Christine Daae."
With that, he pushed the gondola off and disappeared into the darkness of the yet unlit water ways. The last she saw was the flash of the silver encrusted staff turning the small boat onto one of the side way water ways.