A/N: A properly-long chapter for your enjoyment. Hopefully you shall forgive the delay. This is one of those chapters that has existed in some form or another since the very beginning and been rewritten for nearly as long. As a properly obsessive author, I'm still not completely happy with the result, but I do think you will enjoy it. :)

Chapter 28

Passion

Erik swayed and took a step back. His smooth cheek red and stinging; utter, undisguised shock plain on his face, an emotion as rare as his fear. Instinctively, he turned slightly away so that his scarred side was no longer facing her.

"Christine, what—"

"Stop it!" she screamed, clapping her hands over her ears. She forgot that she had intended to apologize and speak gentle words. After so many months without hearing his voice except in the warped prison of her mind, she had forgotten the effect it had upon her. Her heart was racing and her body was thrumming with an emotion that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. "Stop talking, stop saying my name. I can't stand it anymore!"

Erik was silent. He walked gingerly toward her. "My dear…"

His words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. Christine continued to hold her hands over her ears and whimper. "I can't take it anymore. He's done something to me…I hear your voice…in my head every hour, waking and sleeping, I can't…I can't escape it! It hurts more than anything I've ever felt…but I don't want it to end." Her head came up, her eyes bright. "What sort of person did you choose to give your love, Erik?

"An angel." His reply was hushed and instinctive.

She felt herself shaking her head. "I never was an angel, Erik. And neither were you."

Her last sentence seemed to shake him physically, and he took a step back.

"We put each other through hell, Erik. Neither of us should be so quick to forget it. And you should not be so quick to forgive me."

He opened his mouth to speak but was unable to form words. He ran bright eyes over Christine's form and wondered what she had seen and what she had been through in so many weeks. Certainly, he remembered the many times that her voice had floated through the vents from the study where she and Dr. Fell had spent long hours speaking. For the first few days he had listened with possessive attention, but soon it became torment to hear her voice and know that he was not able to see her and he had resolutely stayed away.

Yet what had happened for her to appear now before him with her mud-splashed finery and her determined gaze? He could guess why she was wearing the dress that she was, but he was not yet willing to believe why it was his ring she was twisting nervously around her finger.

"Christine…I forgive you anything for which you feel you need forgiveness. I have always been the most wretched being to you…but I have always forgiven you."

She wanted to hold him, she wanted to fall at his feet and weep, but most of all, she wanted to find some way to tell him how she had come to be what she was now. She had not thought before that she had changed that much, but she knew now, for she realized that her second desire had been but a passing thought. Everything that ran through her mind to say seemed inadequate, but she knew that it fell to her to speak first.

"I left Raoul."

Every part of his body trembled as he heard her speak those words. Outwardly, the only sign he gave that he had heard her was to respond, "Why?"

Her mouth opened and then closed again. The ring made another journey around her fourth finger. "I…"

"Were you unhappy?" As he asked this, some of the unbearable tension he felt made its way into his voice.

"No. Raoul loved me, I think in time even Philippe would have loved me. And I loved Raoul back." She caught his gaze. "I won't bother denying it. I am here because you deserve to know the truth. I am here because…because I knew that I had to be. For these few months, I have had everything I could have asked for, I was loved to the ends of the earth, and I was ready to accept my life. It was you who had given it to me, and it would have been nothing short of…of utter contempt to squander it." Her tongue felt strange with Philippe's words, but she had not realized until now how true they were.

"And then I was told that you had died. I cannot even begin to describe how it felt to hear those words. I had tried not to think of you for so long, I had convinced myself that you had moved on, and that you were doing a better job of it than I was…you always could do anything better than I could dream. But to hear that you were dead and to know that I was responsible…no, do not deny it, we are both equally to blame for that night, Erik. I could not take it, I could not continue with that life, all the while knowing that you had paid the price as a result."

"Why me?" Erik said hollowly. "Why am I worthier than the boy who loved you to the ends of the earth?"

"You were the one, Erik…who taught me that loving someone meant letting everything else go, for their happiness. I came here because I knew that if there was even a chance that I could make things right, if there was a chance that I could beg your forgiveness…you see, part of me never believed that you were gone. Even if it meant losing everything…Raoul, Philippe, Meg, Madame Giry…well, it is only fair that I should lose so much more than you had to bear. I recognize how it feels now, to be solely responsible for another's happiness. And it frightens me. Yet…do you see then…why I can't help but to love you so? I love you, Erik…I think that I always have in one way or another. And I beg you to tell me if that is enough for you. And if not, simply tell me to go, like…like the last time. Heaven knows that I would have deserved it in both cases."

Erik stared at her as if in a dream and realized that during his many months of forced ignorance, Christine had laid her childhood to rest. He had cautiously turned his face back toward her…how could he hide himself when she was exposing herself so brutally? Several things ran through his mind to say. Do you really mean it? was the first and was quashed with one look into her bright eyes.

"What have I done to deserve this?" he asked softly. At her small smile, he dared to take a single step forward.

"You have changed," she said, partially in reply, partially in wonder.

"For the better, I should hope. I daresay there was no other way to go. But not as much as you, Christine. I can safely say that your goodness has always been a virtue to which I could never hope to aspire."

She seemed not to hear a single word he said. "You have. Your voice no longer carries such permanent desperation. Your eyes…they no longer hold all the sadness in the world. You look healthy, alive, your face…"

At this, he made a movement as if to cover himself but decided against it, keeping his arm behind his back. "My face has not changed," he said shortly.

"But the way you wear it has."

"I am still Erik," he said. His eyes flew to her side. Had her hand just moved towards him?

She shook her head. "You were never Erik to me, you were the Phantom, the Angel, the shadow…you were not Erik until the very end. And then you would not have me any longer."

He ducked his head, averting his eyes. "Erik is the one who makes mistakes. You will understand why I never wanted to be him."

"But he is the only one that I want." And then she did reach forward, her hand hovered in the air above his shoulder before getting bolder and moving towards his face.

Her fingertips felt like drops of cool snow against his dry skin. They darted across his good cheek and caressed the half-formed bridge of his nose before moving with equal tenderness over a ragged scar above his lip. He let out a shaking sigh and felt his warmth breath touch her hand before her closeness warmed his own skin. Without thinking, he lifted his left hand to touch the backs of her fingers, not realizing what he had done until he heard her cry of dismay.

She gingerly touched the mess of stitches on his forearm. "Another scar, Erik. Oh, why, why?"

He clenched his fist and lowered his arm. "A rude awakening if you will. Ruder and cruder than most humans could imagine, I sometimes wonder if it was Death itself that was responsible. But it cleansed the poison from my veins, and it taught me that I have been blaming this face for too many of my woes." He raised his arm to rest his hand lightly against her side and dared to smile when she did not pull away.

"I will never be an easy person, Christine. This face is not something I can change…neither can I guarantee that I will ever be free of my temper, or my jealousy, or my anger. But if this is the Erik that you want, you may have him until the day I die."

Christine let out a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. "He could not sound more perfect to me," she said as she stepped forward and closed the space between them.

They both knew what would happen next, and they moved closer accordingly. But the uncertainty burned as bright as the passion in their eyes, and the fear, for there would always be the fear, of losing what both had finally found. When their lips met, they bumped against each other, and hands made awkward journeys to more comfortable positions as if it was the first kiss they had ever shared. And in so many ways, it was.

They pulled back, smiling at the wonder in each other's eyes. Then Erik tangled his hands in her hair, his thumbs brushing gently against the dimples in her cheeks before he drew her in for a second kiss that took her breath away.

"Eavesdropping, my dear?"

Clarice did not turn away from her place next to the air vent in the upstairs music room. "Certainly I am, you shameless hypocrite. Why don't you come over here so you can hear better?"

The laughter was rich and warm in the darkness. "Somehow I do not believe that we will hear much more talking from that room for the rest of the night."

Clarice smiled as she felt an arm wrap around her waist and pull her close to an invisible body. "Does that mean that you would like to turn in for the night?"

She heard the rumble of a growl go through his body. "On your victory night, my dear? Quite to the contrary."

She laughed as she allowed herself to be pulled away. There were miles to go before any of them could sleep at peace, but she would savor every triumph along the way.

He was awakened by something warm touching his face and tickling his mouth. His eyes blinked open and focused upon a familiar blue-eyed gaze leveled at him. Erik groaned and rolled over.

"I am no longer nocturnal, Ayesha."

At his movement, the other slightly larger body in the bed shifted and let out a soft snore. Erik's whole body froze for a terrified moment before he remembered. Then he wondered if he snored at night.

Aware that any more sleep was now impossible, Erik moved to lean back against the headboard, moving as little as possible so as not to disturb her sleeping form. He wasn't entirely successful and Christine rolled towards him, her forearm coming to rest against his side.

Erik felt light-headed as he placed his arm gently around her shoulders, gathering her close to him. The sight of his wretched, scarred arm against her soft curls was jarring, but the peaceful smile on her sleeping face belied any discomfort on her part. She would likely sleep well into the day. She had been so weary last night that she could barely manage to remove her wedding dress. It was evidence of her exhaustion that she'd hardly reacted when he helped her finish undressing before clothing her in one of his spare shirts and drawing the covers over them both. He could not have said the same for himself.

He looked down at Christine sleeping beside him, knowing that beneath the sheets his shirt fell down past her knees. The thought caused a jolt within his body so intense that he feared it.

He flinched when Ayesha, obviously irritated at his lack of attention towards her, jumped onto his stomach and arched her back languidly. The cat followed her master's gaze and regarded the sleeping woman with something approaching curiosity before turning her eyes back to him.

"I love her," Erik said. Ayesha blinked slowly, her blue eyes winking in the dark room before she settled down on his stomach to preen and ignore the sleeping being completely.

"I love her…" Erik repeated softly, well aware of the ridiculousness of confessing to a cat. But saying the words out loud caused a delicious sensation to run from the base of his throat down to his center.

Light as a feather, his hand brushed against her cheek, marveling in the softness of her skin, and moved up the side of her face to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Christine smiled in her sleep but did not stir, and Erik was happy to sit there and wonder once again at her presence at his side.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Christine still had not stirred and Erik noticed a lightening of the sky through the gauze curtain covering the window. As gently as possible, he shifted Christine away from his side to rest comfortably against the pillow, but he could not help Ayesha's yowl of indignation as she awoke to find herself dumped unceremoniously from atop his body. Erik got up from the bed and ran a pacifying hand over the cat's fur before moving to the window and drawing back the curtain.

A dusky red glow could barely be seen on the horizon and the bright morning star was just beginning to fade into the sky. The window overlooked the mist-shrouded green and forest behind the estate, and his eyes were drawn to the edge of the trees as a flock of swallows took startled flight away from something in the woods.

Squinting, he saw as the figure of a boy, wiry and skinny, jogged out from the trees. He was wearing a loose tunic and trousers cut off at the knee. Erik watched as the figure stopped on the lawn and took off his cap. He blinked in surprise as a cascade of long auburn hair fell from underneath the cap and blue eyes flashed up in his direction. The "boy" winked cheekily at him, and Erik knew that he was staring back open-mouthed at the sight.

Turning, he looked to see that Christine remained deeply asleep. Ayesha was curled next to her in the space that he had vacated. He smiled at the slumbering duo, marveling again at how everything had come to pass. Then he softly moved out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Opening the door of the estate and stepping outside did not seem a momentous event. It was only after he heard the click of the shutting door echoing in the open air that he recognized that this was the first time he had set foot outside in nearly half a year.

Clarice was sitting upon the dew-frosted grass when he walked up to her, her body contorted into some ungodly arrangement as she stretched her muscles. A sheen of sweat covered the visible portions of her sun-darkened flesh, several bright droplets clinging to her eyelashes. Her chest rose and fell quickly with her heavy breathing. And as Erik approached, she turned towards him, her sparkling eyes so energetic that they seemed to radiate warmth.

"Hello, Erik," she said cheerily, as if it were perfectly normal for a woman of her status to be running before dawn through a forest in men's clothing. He had forgotten how tan she was; she always powdered thoroughly whenever she went out into society but for that first time he had laid eyes upon her. Dark skin, a traditional mark of the working class, draped her body like a medal of honor.

"How often do you…?"

"Every day."

"Ah."

Her white teeth looked incredibly bright as she smiled through the frame that her knee and thigh made around her head. "Honestly Erik, you know my history. Did you expect an American girl who spent half her life annoying their police to allow a few snobbish Parisian rules to get in the way of her exercise?"

He laughed. "Certainly not, Clarice. Yet I must say you never cease to surprise me."

"Nor you, I. You should do that more often."

"What?"

"Laugh like you haven't a worry in the world. Although I'd imagine you'd have more reason to after last night. Am I correct?" The way he suddenly averted his eyes told her all she needed to know and she chuckled.

"Insufferable woman."

She relaxed her final stretch and leapt to her feet as agilely as a cat. "The very best kind. I'm very happy for you, Erik," she continued soberly, "if anyone deserves such adoration, it is you, something that I'm sure that myself and the woman whom I suspect is currently sleeping your bed agree upon."

Erik flushed a deep crimson and it was beautiful to see the color creep into his pale skin, lending a healthy glow to his pallor. Clarice smiled. "You must become more accustomed to this."

"To what?" he murmured, his mind already straying back to his dark cool room where the woman who loved him lay sleeping.

"To happiness. Heaven knows I've worked hard enough for yours, so I'd better not have wasted my efforts."

Erik smiled and looked down, his hands twisting underneath his cloak like those of a nervous boy. When he looked up at her again, they were both aware of the change in his gaze. The increased intensity in his eyes swept over her fiercely but not uncomfortably. She felt it pulling at her chest as she sucked in great swallows of air.

Perhaps it was the bracing sensation of cold morning air upon his uncovered face. Or perhaps it was the heady scent of Christine's warmth still clinging to his collar. But he opened his mouth and heard himself saying, "If circumstances had been different…"

She looked up at him. "If they had been different…if I had grown up in Paris, if I had a modicum of musical talent, and if the fates had seen fit to allow me to know you, I would have personally ensured that you never felt the least bit of self-doubt again."

He stared, unsure whether he should feel amused or embarrassed. He saw the corners of her mouth twitch, trying to suppress a smile and decided that two could play this game. "A modicum of musical talent, you say?"

"The very few times that I was foolish enough to sing, my voice has been compared to unoiled machinery."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Sing for me."

"…what?"

"I don't believe you. So…sing for me."

"You can't be serious."

"I assure you that I am."

She looked at him in trepidation. Then she opened her mouth and sang one loud note. It was an admirable effort. It was in a manageable octave and did not quaver overmuch, although it ended rather abruptly—with a muffled squeak like a rodent caught in a mousetrap. Several startled small animals darted into the foliage.

Erik blinked. "Well…madam, your enthusiasm is certainly not lacking. But your breathing is completely wrong. Normally a person breathes shallowly like…"

"This isn't worth your time, please don't bother."

"Like this," Erik continued, ignoring her. "The chest goes out and the abdomen in. It's a bad habit of common etiquette. A singer breathes from the diaphragm, using her full lung capacity. The stomach goes out and the breath curls at the back of her throat. Try it."

She hesitated and then the protest died in her throat at the earnest expression in his eyes. She took a deep breath and attempted to adjust her body, feeling rather like a squirming worm. She paused for a moment before expelling her breath in the same note.

The note was the same, everything else was utterly transformed. The power of her lungs swelled underneath the sound and buoyed it out to fill the morning sky before it died away in a shimmering like silver bells.

Clarice took a step back, placing a trembling hand at her throat. She looked at Erik, eyes wide and noticed a shudder pass through him as he noticed her delight.

His twisted lips twitched in a tiny smile. "You see?"

Her hand did not move from her throat. She stared at him with unblinking eyes, and with the sudden certainty that there was so much about him that she did not know at all.

What she said aloud was, "This would have done wonders for my ability to entertain at parties. What a pity we didn't try it until it was too late."

"Clarice…"

Any trace of uncertainty was gone from her eyes. "No Erik, I won't hear of any protests. You've been locked away in this house for far too long, and with Christine here there is no possible way that I will let you two continue hiding away."

"You can't rightly expect a wanted masked man to take an afternoon stroll along the Champs-Elysées."

"And you forget that you are living with the only two people who are as adept at hiding as you."

"No, it is not only that." He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "You were not joking about what you said…earlier."

Clarice looked up, saw the uncertainty in his gaze. "I was not, I was speaking the complete truth." She sighed heavily. "'No one can choose where we will love,' Erik. I believe that's something you've said before. I won't lie, I will always wonder what might have been, and I will wonder how much bloodshed and pain may have been avoided if it could have been." She shook her head. "But it's not our place."

Erik was dumbstruck as he watched the strongest woman he had ever known confess what he had never dared to imagine. He looked down. "I'm sorry."

She stepped forward and tilted his face back up until his eyes were level with hers. "I'm not, Erik. I'm not." Her hand moved down until it rested in his. He used her other hand to lift their enjoined hands to eye level.

"These hands have killed, Erik. They have killed faceless dozens that we have buried in the lowest depths of our minds lest we go mad."

She felt his hand tremble in hers and she clasped it more firmly in both hands. "You were never meant for such a dark fate, Erik. I don't want you to remember Firmin's death every time you see my husband's face, or remember how we spin a constant web of lies so that we may live in peace, or remember how I bound up your lifeblood within your body when you were at death's door. Go to your angel of light now. There is nothing left here—" He pulled her into a fierce embrace and she could say no more. They held each other for an eternity as the cold sun threw harsh, jagged shadows from the trees as it climbed the sky. The wind whipped around their bodies, tearing at their embrace with the finality of the goodbye they had always known would come.

Clarice closed her eyes and breathed his scent in deeply: candlesmoke, dusted parchment, and the velvet bitterness of night –and when she opened them again her eyes were calm.

He kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you." She barely had time to gasp before he lifted her bodily off the ground, his face grinning happily. He twirled her around. "Thank you," he repeated. Startled birds took flight as their laughter rang brightly in the cold morning air.

TBC