Thanks for the reviews! I want to get caught up with all I've written (which is up to Chapter 15) and so I'll post 'em all tonight. Then things will slow down again...

Chapter 13

Christine couldn't move. Erik's eyes were locked on hers, and his expression was pleading. His eyes were overflowing with love and longing, and begging hopelessly that Christine would feel the same way.

Instead, Erik's "I love you" was echoing again and again in her mind, and combined with it was the raucous evil thunder of his voice. The two did not mix together well, and Christine though she was going deaf. She never wanted to hear, feel, or see anything again, and her stomach churned as her eyes flickered about the room, trying to be blind.

Erik felt his lips stiffening. They had been tingling from that kiss only seconds before, and now Erik knew that that kiss had not helped but made things worse. Ironically, that had been the exact opposite reason why he had kissed her in the first place.

Why had he said he loved her? Christine thought, bewildered. If he loved me, he would not have… have… But what was it, exactly, Erik had done? It was his voice, Christine thought with a shiver. His voice…

Christine's senses seemed to be slow to catch up with recent events, mostly because she was afraid to use them. Or maybe she had simply not recognized that Erik had kissed her because she didn't want to.

But now she had no choice, and brought her hand to her lips and finally focused her eyes on Erik in surprise. Erik stared pleadingly back at her, and the hopelessness in his eyes combined with the stiffness in his mouth gave him a truly resigned expression. He held no hope of Christine loving him in return. She would hate him. Time would repeat itself, just as he knew it would.

Christine felt the fear coiling in her stomach turn to pity. She hadn't wanted to consider what Erik's kiss meant, and now she didn't have to. Erik simply didn't know what he was talking about. How could he know what love was? He, whose own mother had never loved him? Christine blinked uncomfortably. Why did that thought ring with an untrue taste to it?

The simple fact was, Erik scared her. Christine liked to think of herself as passionate and mysterious, but the truth was that the only passion she had ever known was in music, and the unknown scared her. Erik was full of both of these things, and that scared Christine even more.

And perhaps the fact that scared her most was that nagging question, what if Erik really did love her? What if somehow he knew what love was, and she didn't?

In a deep corner of her mind, Christine had noticed these things and respected them as facts. She did not know how to acknowledge them, though. She knew she had problems becoming… close to people. She had never had a best friend, and never had a boyfriend that lasted over a month. At any hint that someone might be beginning to know her too well, had become too familiar, Christine would push them away, avoid them.

And so how could Erik have the nerve to say he loved her, when she had done such a good job of staying distant from him?

Christine felt a brief sadness cross her as she thought. How could Erik, who had experienced so much that was without love, know what love was, and Christine, who had only known a life of love, still have no knowledge of it at all? But she bit her lip and blinked her eyes and silently cast out that idea. Erik didn't know what he was talking about. He couldn't.

Erik watched a flutter of emotions cross Christine's face, and for the 100th time wondered what she was thinking about. He could see resignation etched in her eyes, too, and wondered where it came from. Finally she refocused on his face, and smiled tremulously.

Hope, that awful emotion that disguises everything around you, filled Erik at that smile.

"Christine…" he didn't dare touch her. "Christine, I love you. I love you."

Staring into his hopeful eyes, Christine's courage left. What could she possibly say? Christine felt all her confusion and fear crash into her again and was so overwhelmed by her emotions, she could only think one thing: Run. Get as far away from this awful place, this awful time, as you can.

But she kept her self control and gazed back into Erik's eyes, and finding herself unable to speak, brushed her fingers over Erik's hand, hoping the emotions in her eyes spoke for her. Then she turned and leapt into the gondola and pushed off from the shore. With every stroke away, she felt her mind clear. It was when she reached the middle of the lake that she slowed her pace and glanced behind her.

Erik stood at the water's edge, his eyes blazing and face set. For he had read the emotions in Christine's eyes just as she wanted him to, but he had also read the emotions she didn't want him to see. There was sadness in her eyes, and disappointment, and Erik could only guess what had caused it. But this guessing only entranced him more.

Erik decided that if it was the last thing he did, he would make Christine love him back. And he would know what caused that sadness in her eyes.

Christine shivered at his intense gaze and turned around, moving away once more across the lake. The gondola seemed to somehow move quicker across the lake, as if powered by some unseen wind. This odd wind swept into Christine, into her very soul, and filled it. Two halves of a soul, two times, two deaths, two loves, became one, melded together eternally by time.

Time swept around Christine and hissed to her, "I told you to fix those actions you just committed… I told you to fix them."