(A/N: This is the second half of the story. Hope you enjoy it! And thank you for the reviews- if you haven't reviewed, but like the story, or hate it, or have some sort of reaction to it please tell me, because if I'm going to write more such stories, I need feedback to improve my writing. Besides, I'm self-absorbed and need to know that I'm loved. :))
Erik remained knelt beside the motionless form of his angel, gazing in adoration upon her perfect facial features. The face was the most important part of a person's body to Erik; people had shunned him, been afraid of him all of his life because of his misshapen face. Christine had experienced the exact opposite repercussions because of her beauty, and the Phantom unconsciously yearned for such grace, such acceptance- and the closest he could get to anything like acceptance was with Christine, through Christine.
As the minutes slowly ticked by, Erik stayed there, momentarily at peace. But suddenly, suddenly, looking down upon such exquisite beauty, he remembered that he had no right to mar her perfection, no right to tarnish her innocence.
He drew back in horror, staggering a few steps away from where she slept, hands grabbing at his face as he remembered just who he was, and what he had done to his poor Christine.
He had taken away some of her angelic innocence! The hands of a fully grown man had touched her body, had received pleasure from her gasps and sighs, as she reacted to this contact willingly, forgetting her place, her position- maybe even who she was with!
Erik cursed silently, damning the way he had deliberately given way to temptation. The girl was only sixteen! She was but a child, and he had placed his filthy, undeserving hands on her pure body, tainting her goodness.
What a devil he was, to have sung a song of such obvious seduction! Christine would not understand, in her naive innocence, what she had let Erik start to do. It was purely his fault.
Erik tore his eyes away from the sight of the swan bed and forced himself to walk, stiltedly, towards his organ. He would compose more of his requiem, a piece he only touched when punishing himself for crimes that his conscience could not bear.
But as he sat on his hard, unforgiving piano stool and stared formidably at the sheet music on his stand, the red notes drifted together as he lost concentration, and he experienced a blistering headache that he made no attempt to subside. A worm like him did not deserve relief.
Christine drifted into consciousness slowly and luxuriously, having forgotten the recent events she had experienced while she slept. She rolled over slightly, murmuring softly to herself, and lifted one lazy hand up to her head to sweep a curtain of hair out of her eyes. But as she removed her hair, she suddenly noted the stiff smoothness of the sheets she was lying on, like sheets that had never before been used. Instead of the one meagre pillow she generally slept upon, her head was supported by two, and there were no coverings on top of her dress.
Her brain suddenly leapt into action, and she raised her head hurriedly, blinking quickly to remove the sleep from her eyes, and stared at the strange cavernous place around her.
She clambered out of the swan bed and stood next to it, smoothing her skirts nervously. Around a corner, up a few steps, she caught a glimpse of the glittering surface of the lake, reflecting the light from the candles distortedly with its ripples.
A lake, she thought, remembering something about it with difficulty. A boat... And there it was, a little boat pulled up to the shore, surrounded by tiny stones and rocked gently by the lapping water. She slowly walked towards the boat, her eyes narrowed in concentration, her hands still clutching at her skirts in nervous anticipation. In the boat... there was a man.
A man. Her eyes darted quickly up the shore, and found the man, her angel, the Phantom of the Opera. And he was only a man. He was no angel, but he had helped her to survive the most difficult part of her life with his music, and his ever-patient words. He had always been there for her. Yet he was not sent by her father...
She walked more steadily towards this man now, her need for answers to her endless questions overcoming her usual meek and timid composure and better judgement. She stopped just behind his piano stool and paused for a moment, unsure of what she was about to do. But once again, she could not stand not knowing, and she gently reached around the man's head and was about to lift the mask when...
Erik lifted his head from where he was cradling it in his hands, his sharp ears hearing the definite sound of movement from the room in which he had left Christine. What was he to do now?
He remained motionless as he began to hear the unbelievable sound of footsteps approaching him. He had been sure she was going to attempt to run away, or even try to drown herself in his lake. But what was happening now? Was she coming up to him in order to scream at him, or slap him, or punish him in some other way for destroying her purity?
His blood was pounding in his ears now, apprehension building quickly to a climax, and as he heard Christine's footsteps stop behind him, his shoulders quivered with expectation and fear. But as the whisper of a hand passed by his ear, something within him broke free of its fear-stricken chains. He tore his eyes from the notes in front of him and turned almost violently to stare at the girl standing behind him, her hands almost touching his face.
Christine jumped slightly, removing her hands immediately, not only because of fear, but also because of a tiny niggling sense of shame she was feeling, shame that turned into embarrassment when she knew he had caught her poised to take off his mask and quench her maddening curiosity. She shifted uncomfortably, unable to withdraw her gaze from that of the Phantom. She parted her lips slightly, not knowing what to say, and distinctly heard the man before her take a sudden inward breath. His gaze never lifted though; his eyes merely widened slightly, and he sat up a little straighter.
Christine stopped her shifting when she heard the sudden breath taken by her mysterious companion. A thrill raced up her body and a flush darkened her pale cheeks slightly, barely visible by the dim candlelight, but still obvious. She lowered her eyes with embarrassment, but could still feel the eyes of the Phantom boring into her very soul. She felt completely revealed, naked to his gaze- and at last she could bear it no longer. She lifted her head slowly and looked directly into the eyes of her erstwhile angel, and finally asked the one question that managed to clamber past her defences and out of her mouth.
"What is your name?"
It was Erik's turn to divert his eyes, at a loss of what to say. He almost had to search around for the answer; no one had ever asked him this rudimentary question before. But there was an answer, and he stared unfocussed at the floor as he answered the question.
"My name is Erik."
The poor man was completely perplexed by the behaviour of this girl before him. Why was his angel wasting her time asking him questions, when all that mattered was her? No one cared for Erik- no one asked him personal questions, no one dared to! But they had never even tried.
He turned his head away, confused as to what his behaviour should be like after the unexpected question. He had a vague feeling that he should be asking Christine something in return, out of common courtesy, but he already knew all the important facts about his angel. He'd made it his business to inquire indirectly about her every detail after becoming bewitched by her beauty. And so the legendary monster with the face of the devil turned away, empty of courage and full of self-doubt. He didn't even know what he was doing anymore.
Christine closed her eyes at the sound of voice, rough and uncertain as it was, involuntarily, because of the memory of the beauty it was capable of. Erik... she repeated silently in her mind, matching it to the man and voice. He was indeed a man, a man with a name like any other, not just a phantom with no identity. Or an angel with no identity. And it was the thought of her newly reformed angel that tormented her mind with more questions of desperate intensity.
She gazed around the room that the two occupied, searching for clues with which she might be able to decrypt the mystery of this strange creature before her, who somehow drew such waves of pity from her for his broken soul that she felt like collapsing on the floor with the heartbreak of it all. And yet it was not purely pity which was clouding her mind so intensely; the familiarity of this person, man or angel, remained strong and true, and she felt something very much akin to... affection for Erik.
Her eyes suddenly caught on a welcome distraction from her thoughts, an unexpected sight in a room such as this. The room was furnished very richly, with velvet curtains and handsome furniture, but contained a curious number of full-sized mirrors, even for a room in an opera house. The strange thing about these mirrors was that they were all covered by dark cloths, hiding the mirroring glass and thus rendering them utterly pointless.
Christine gazed at the covered mirrors uncertainly for a moment, and then returned her eyes to rest on Erik and his mask... and suddenly she remembered the stories that she had been told since she had arrived at the famous opera house, hideous tales of a man possessing a face so ugly that the mere sight of it was enough to kill the viewer. She was suddenly filled with compassion and understanding, and with contempt for those that had spread the rumours around for years, and dropped to her knees beside her companion, who was still refusing to look at her.
The girl gently, gently, reached out once more and placed her hand on the side of his face uncovered by the mask. She drew his resisting face to the level of her own, and insistently stared at him harshly, refusing to allow him to avoid her gaze for another moment. She carefully avoided his mask with her fingers, somehow understanding that Erik needed the privacy, that it would take more than a few hours to overcome the years of cruel taunting that had made him profoundly ashamed of his twisted features.
As he reluctantly met her gaze, Christine was shocked to see a tear in the corner of his eye. She could feel him trembling under her hand, but in anger or fear or some other instinctive emotion, she did not know. She warmed the blue ice in his eyes with her concerned look, and the honesty and caring in her actions warmed his heart.
She hardly knew what she was doing anymore, kneeling before her former master, her untouchable angel for years, who had suddenly become a tragic figure of pity and inexplicable intrigue in the space of hours. Willingly submitting to some uncontrollable inner force, she gradually, almost unaware of her actions, inched towards Erik's hypnotising stare, fluttering her eyes closed and parting her lips very slightly, undeniably preparing herself for her first kiss.
Erik's eyes widened in amazement, his breath quickening with every millimetre closed between him and his angelic Christine. What was she doing? He wasn't even singing to her, and she was giving herself to him, intentionally, of her own free accord!
What was he to do? For he'd certainly never been in this situation before. No girl had ever looked upon him without a mortal fear in her eyes, let alone tried to kiss him. His own mother never kissed him as mothers do, on the forehead, the horror of his face deleting all traces of familial love for her son. He tensed, deciding wildly to turn away in confusion, not wanting to harm his perfect Christine, to taint her purity any more than he already had, but Christine's hand, still resting on the normal side of his face, stubbornly prevented any refusal, and he stayed motionless, disbelieving, as her lips reached his.
His breath caught in his throat at the ecstasy of the moment, and he closed his eyes tightly for a moment, savouring the sweet impossibility of the situation. Forcing his eyelids apart for fear of losing himself completely in the moment, he saw only Christine, and shut his eyes again, calmly this time, knowing that it was not a dream, that this was no hellish torment dished out by the devil, that it was truly happening.
With this peace and utter happiness of mind, he finally surrendered himself to the beauty of the reality of that night.