Wandering Child

Chapter 17- Apologies

A/N: I got quite a few reviews asking about Rebecca's actions in the last chapter. This is why: I'm trying to incorporate into her personality a lot of the things I would do, and the things I would like to do. For example, if Erik had laughed at me like that, I would have liked to have called him ugly, but I wouldn't have. Instead, I would have just stood there with a hurt expression on my face. If I had said something like that, and Erik had retaliated with twisting my wrist, then I would have screamed in pain, like Rebecca did. I see now that it was a little silly of me to try to make her tough and weak at the same time. I will do what I can to correct that in this chapter.

-

I ran after Erik with tears streaming down my face. My wrist throbbed in pain, and I had a hard time keeping up with Erik's long strides.

I could hear footsteps behind us. Our feet flying across the stones, we ran for our lives. If either of us were caught, that person would die.

Erik turned a sudden corner, and climbed up some hidden ridges in the stone wall. As soon as he had reached the top, he pushed back a stone covering. I winced as the harsh grating sound echoed down the passageway. Erik climbed up the ladder and held his hand down to me. I reached up with the hand that was unhurt, and Erik pulled me up. Then he replaced the stone covering.

I looked around me. We were in a church. A sudden thought struck me. We were most likely in the famous Notre Dame Cathedral. The beautiful stain glass windows sparkled in the light coming through them, and they cast shadows of color all over the stone floor. It turned the ground under our feet into a rainbow.

"We will be safe here." Erik said. "It is forbidden to make an arrest in a church."

"Lucky us." I said sarcastically. "What happens when we get hungry? What do we do then?" I asked.

"I can go for days without eating." Erik said.

"You can, but I can't." I retorted. "I have difficulty going two hours without eating."

For a moment, I thought I saw Erik smile. But it must have been the reflection of the windows, because the next moment, he was frowning.

"Then you can go." He said. "It's not like they'll hurt you."

"Think again." I said. "Because I've met you, and haven't told anyone, they'll punish me too."

"But they won't kill you." He said with sadness in his voice.

"I suppose it's possible that they won't," I replied. "But that doesn't rule it out completely."

Erik walked off and sat down on one of the benches. I had never seen such a hopeless expression on anyone's face in my entire life. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry, but he just sat there with that despairing look on his face. I slowly came up to him and sat down. He didn't move.

"Erik," I said. Slowly, he turned and I saw the bleak expression on his face. I winced in guilt. "Erik, I'm sorry." I said. "I shouldn't have said the things that I did. It wasn't fair of me to say those things. I didn't mean them, and they weren't true. I-" Erik interrupted me.

"No," he said. "You were right. I am ugly." Now the tears came.

"No you're not, Erik." I said, putting my arm around his shoulders. His shoulders tensed when I touched him. "I've never met anyone more beautiful." I said.

"Then I guess you must have met some pretty ugly people in your life." He replied glumly.

"You're right." I said. "I have met some pretty ugly people. But they weren't ugly on the outside. They were ugly on the inside, and that's worse than being ugly on the outside." Erik hung his head in shame.

"Hey," I said, turning his head towards me. "You have nothing to me ashamed of. You never had someone in your life to show you a good example, or to love you the way you deserved-and still deserve-to be loved. It's not your fault." I squeezed his shoulder supportively.

"You heard about all the bad things in the world, and you saw how people treated you, and never learned any other way of living. We learn by example. Those people, they were all a bunch of superficial weirdos. You," I said, pointing at him for emphasis.

"You are the one who is normal. And do you know why?" Erik shook his head. "You are normal because you treated others in the only way you knew how. I would bet you any amount of money that if you had a mother and father who were loving and supportive, you would have turned out much differently. Those people who hurt you, they knew how to treat others the right way. You never learned that. Don't ever think that it's your fault that you turned out this way."

"You realize," Erik said. "That that's kind of a backhanded compliment."

"It's fact, Erik." I replied quietly. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you're not always a nice person. You can be, but you've never learned how to handle a situation when things don't go the way you wanted. The human race is selfish by nature. I'm selfish, too. Everyone wants more of this and more of that. It's only natural that you feel the way you do."

"So it's selfish of me to want to be loved?" Erik asked, hanging his head once more.

"No." I said firmly, turning his head towards me again. "No, that's not selfish of you at all. What is selfish is trying to force someone to love you when they don't want to. When you do that, you only push them farther away." I paused.

"You know," I said. "One of the reasons that I always had so much trouble getting people to like me was because, whenever someone would try to be friendly, I would want to be around them constantly. People need their space. I had to learn that the hard way."

Erik looked at me, the tears trickling down his cheeks. "You've never had to go through what I've gone through." He said softly. Then he turned his head away again.

"You're right." I said. "I had a family who loved and cared for me. But I was also adopted. I've gone through life wondering where I came from. You think that doesn't hurt? Or how about being made fun of by your classmates because you asked your teacher a question? That hurts, too."

I searched my pockets then for something that I knew belonged to him. I held out his mask to him. He stared at it.

"The decision is yours to make, Erik." I said. "You can either continue on the wide road of destruction you're on, or you can change directions, and go the narrow way. True, the narrow way it harder, but it leads to a better life, in the long run. The choice is yours alone. What's it going to be?" I looked at him steadily and unflinchingly.

Slowly, as though the movement pained him, Erik took the mask from my hand. "I don't want to walk this road anymore." He said, and put it on. I smiled. "But I don't know where else to go. Should I give myself up?"

"Well," I said slowly, thinking. "I don't think that you should give yourself up to the police or anything, but I do think you should make a formal apology and return most, if not all, of the money that was given to you."

"Even if I do that, they will never forgive me." Erik looked up at me sorrowfully. "I have killed."

"God forgives even those who have killed." I said solemnly.

"And if I don't believe in God?" He asked.

I smiled. "Well, we are in a church." I said matter-of-factly.

Erik smiled weakly. "That's true." He said. "But I don't think it likely that the people will forgive me."

"That may be." I said. "But we don't apologize just so people will like us. We apologize because it's the right thing to do."

-

While Rebecca was explaining to Erik what he should do, Erik was thinking about why she was so moody. One moment, she was all tough and fighting back, the next she was quiet and reserved and unable to retaliate.

He examined her without seeming to do so. She was really a sweet girl, all things considered. But Erik wasn't sure that that was her reasoning for encouraging him. Did she feel bad about calling him ugly?

"You confuse me." Erik interrupted. "One minute, you act as though you want to rip my head off, the next you are trying to comfort me. I don't understand it."

She sighed. "Well," She said nervously. "I insulted you before because I was angry, and your laughter had hurt. When a person is hurt, they don't want to be nice, they want to hurt the one who hurt them. That's why I'm apologizing."

Erik looked at her. "I'm still confused." He said.

"It was wrong to insult you like that." She said. "And I'm sorry."

-

I really was sorry. When I had insulted Erik like that, I had wanted to take it back right away because it wasn't fair to him. But before I could say anything, he twisted my wrist. I was going to insult him, but what with trying to make my wrist stop hurting, realizing that we weren't safe anymore, and running for our lives, I kind of got side tracked. Once we had reached safety, I had stopped being angry. Although, my wrist still hurt.

"But what about you acting afraid all of sudden." He asked.

"I don't know," I said nervously. "I guess I was afraid. I act all big and tough, but I'm not really. I guess I'm a bit of a Mary-Sue."

"A what?" Erik asked.

"A Mary-Sue." I replied. "A Mary-Sue is someone who most people consider to be pretty and practically perfect, but they have some sort of "dark past" or something." I shrugged sheepishly.

Then Erik saw me rubbing my wrist, and he asked, "Does your wrist still hurt?"

"Yeah," I said. "But it'll heal." I looked up at the pulpit in the church. I was thinking about home. I really missed Joey and my parents. I even missed AM4. I need a hug, I thought. A song started going through my head. I let it play through once before shutting it out. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of homesickness.

"I'm sorry for hurting your wrist." Erik apologized with difficulty.

"Everyone makes mistakes." I replied. "Besides," I said. "Maybe now I'll learn to be tough for real instead of pretending to be tough." I smiled ruefully.

There was a long pause before I piped up, "So where are you going to go now, since, you know, you can't go back to your lair? At least, not just yet."

"I'm not sure." Erik said. "There are whole areas of those underground tunnels that haven't been explored. At least, not by people other than myself." He paused. "I could just go there. What about you?"

"I think I'll go off and see if I can find a job that includes room and board." I said. "Otherwise, who knows where I'll end up?" I said ruefully.

We sat there for a long time before I said goodbye to Erik and left the church. I walked out into the bright morning sunshine. Tilting my head to catch the morning rays, I contemplated what to do next. I was sure that there had to be a rich, or semi-rich, family around who needed a servant. I couldn't really cook, but I could clean. I strode off and disappeared into the growing crowd.

-

Erik watched her go. He had a feeling that he would be seeing her again some time soon. She didn't seem to be the kind of person who would abandon people in poverty, if she could help it.

Erik waited until sundown before returning to the tunnels. There was silence all around him. He ventured to where the stone was supposed to be. It had been moved, and Erik cautiously returned to his home to survey the damage.

A/N: I believe that this is the last chapter in the story. Now before you go writing reviews saying that it better not be the last chapter, know that there will be a sequel. Now that I think about it, I will add a concluding chapter. Like a prologue that explains what goes on with Rebecca's mom, and with David and Joey. I promised an explanation for those things, and I will keep that promise.