Disclaimer: I do not own POTO or The Corrs. (Sigh) It's not fair, is it?
Thank you again, everyone who reviewed. You inspire me more than you know.

Remember What You Had

Christine

She looked up at the clock. Both of the hands were pointed skyward. Noon.

And also, ominously, midnight. She headed for the park nearby in which they had agreed to meet, she and Erik.

So- will this be the brightest hour or the darkest?

He was already there waiting for her, the living side of his face revealing as much as the white mask. Which was to say, nothing. Both halves of his face stared at her with perfect, serene symmetry, the only hint of emotion stirring beyond her reach in the depths of the turbulent eyes, deep and flowing as rivers. Ancient rivers, lit to rival the sky in the dawn of the world. His head was raised with perfect poise.

"Christine." There was only the barest tremor in his voice, so elusive that she was not even sure it had existed. He moved to give her room and she lowered herself cautiously to the bench. They were isolated here, in this secluded nook by the pond, shaded by willow trees. Her insecurities pulsed through her veins with every heartbeat. A thousand what ifs? flooded her mind. She did not want to be the first to break the thick silence between them.

He sighed, visibly attempted to relax. "I believe I owe you explanations, Christine." She nodded, not trusting her voice, not knowing that she didn't need to, that her thoughts blazed like flames from her eyes. She inhaled, trying to quell the rising trepidation as his voice continued. "I told you that I didn't want to take advantage of you. I don't. I told you that I didn't want you to become dependent on me. I don't. We have healing to do- both of us, Christine. Until then..."

She clenched her hands in her lap. "I hadn't felt peace for two years until that night, Erik. If anyone was using another, it was me." Christine looked into the brilliant blue eyes. "I know that we're imperfect, Erik. Or, at least I know that I've been broken and you... you've been alone. Don't you think we could help each other? At the very least as someone to share the memories, purge the pain with?"

His eyes flickered down and away from hers. She saw his hands tighten. When he spoke, however, his voice was perfectly calm. Controlled. "I suppose it is only fair to tell you something of my past, Christine, since I know something of yours. In a way, it is my mark, the thing that scars me as the loss of your fiancé does you."

Christine gave the barest hint of a nod. Continue.

Erik

His eyes were on the waterfowl in front of them, but his story was meant for her. And, in some way, himself.

"I was born in the slums. We lived in poverty." The miasma of the streets flooded his senses, the cold grayness, slick mud and hard stone. The scent of despair that had clung to the streets like oil. Hopelessness. The scent of hundreds of people that had given up any hope long ago... "My mother was the one who cared for me. My father blamed her for my-" he gestured to his face "-defect. He beat her. He tried to beat me, and she would try to shield me." She had not always succeed. My father called me the Devil's Child, swore I was no son of his. For a time, I had believed him. I think I would have believed in his words forever had it not been for my mother. She was my first angel. A weary, broken angel with sky-colored eyes that were all too worldly.

"She was the one who found me a tutor, when my teacher claimed that I displayed an aptitude for music. She kept my father from finding out about the music lessons. I sang to her, when he wasn't there. She called me her little angel, sent to her from God's choir." He closed his eyes, remembering. He had loved to sing to her, to see the years fall away from her face, the worry lines smooth, the harried, hunted look soothed. He had sung to her as often as he could, even during her sudden naps, holding her hand and feeling her fingers curl around his palm in sleep. He continued. "She was the one who gave me my first mask. I recall asking her why." A child's confusion, an innocent question. The loving embrace she had pulled him into, eyes shimmering and brimming with warm tears that fell on his hair. The tremulous smile she had offered him.

"Because some people wouldn't see how beautiful you are, Erik. You'll have to make them hear it"

His voice was now slightly deeper as he fought for control. "She told me that it was because not everyone would see how beautiful I was, her child. She told me I would have to make them hear it."

Christine's eyes were intent upon his, swirling with the darker emotions. He does not look at her, instead staring at the ruffled waters of the pond. "My father found out about the music lessons. One night he came home, drunk out of his mind. He found a knife.'

'He killed my mother." The struggle was still vivid in his mind, still haunted his nights. His mother, smiling at him as he studied the music sheets, looking intent and serious with all the dignity of a ten year old boy. The door had slammed open- he had seen the whites ring her eyes as she turned. His father- coarse, unshaven- had stormed in, flooding the room with the stench of cheap alcohol and fear. His father had grabbed a knife from the drawer. His mother had flung herself in front of him, shoving him out of harm's way. The knife had descended on her, he had heard the discordant scream that broke from her like out-of-tune music. The walls had been sprayed with blood, vividly, sickeningly red against the faded, peeling wallpaper. His mother had crumpled to the floor, limp and lifeless, the kind eyes, Erik's own heaven-tinted blue eyes- clouded and unseeing. His father had kicked her unresisting body out of the way, came after Erik...

"He went after me. I put the kitchen table between us. He tripped over a chair, impaled himself on his own knife.' The shock of seeing his father still and unmoving, the creature of terror dead by his own hand. He had sat there, by his mother, unmoving, trying to absorb the strange, sudden turn of events that held him in limbo. Hearing a pounding, dissonant requiem in his heart as he sat in the darkness.

'The police arrived soon after that. One of the neighbors had called." Strange, official looking men at the door, forcing it open, dragging him from his mother's side where he was trying to sing her awake. They had given him over to a matronly woman who explained that he was going into something called 'foster care'. Erik tried to explain that he only wanted his mother, where was she?

The woman's eyes had filled, and she made no answer. She hadn't needed to. She had put her arms around him and held tight the frozen boy who questioned her with brightly blue eyes.

"I was put into foster care. Some of them were kind. Some of them were... less so." He shivered and forced back the dark memories that stirred in the murky shadows. He still would not meet her eyes, instead staring at his clasped hands. "I devoted myself to music, for my mother's sake. I received a scholarship. majored and made my career in music. And... here I am."

He started as he felt slim arms go around his neck. Christine's eyes were endless pools of sorrow as they stared into his.

"I don't want your pity, Christine." he stated calmly, trying to ignore the fire that had ignited where she had touched him. A fire of anger, fear, or something else entirely?

She managed a tremulous smile. "It's not pity, Erik." One slender white hand stroked his hair, held his head against hers. He would not look at her, not now, not with the strange emotions of the past risen from their graves. Not when the memories held him fast.

"What is it then, Christine?" His voice was soft, so soft he thought she might not have heard it. She brought his head up, his eyes meeting hers reluctantly, afraid to see the pity he had abhorred in others. It was not there. There was caring, even... love in the eyes lit amber by the sun. They were a reflection of what his had been, the night that he had held her through the darkness, through the nightmares. He let it cascade over him like sunlight, like rain in the desert. Her voice came, quiet and sure.

"Empathy."

Christine

It tore at her heart to see the astonishment that one simple word had brought. The startlingly blue eyes stared at her in shock. He seemed unable to move, to reply, to do anything but look at her with wondering eyes.

What has the world done to you, Erik? Have they never seen past the mask, heard the music in the night?

She felt tears make their way down her cheeks. Tears for the child Erik had been, the child that had lost the only person who loved him, who heard past the song and seen the singer behind, a lonely child of the streets, the phantom voice amid the poverty.

The boy who had been called both angel and devil.

He reached, brushed away the tears. "Christine?" Strange as it seemed, he could not seem to understand why she was crying.

"It's just that-"

An odd smile curved his lips. "You cry for me when you won't cry for yourself?"

"Why would I deserve tears?" Her laugh was bleak, she looked down, away from the eyes that seemed to look . Why would anyone cry for me? Why would I cry for myself? Raoul deserves tears, not me.

He placed his fingers along her jawline, lifted her eyes back to his. "Why don't you tell me, Christine?" His eyes were intent, compelling her to speak, hypnotizing.

Will he judge me?

She steeled herself against the memories.

"Raoul and I were high school sweethearts." Her voice sounded distant, as though it were someone else telling their story. "We grew up together, went to the same schools, went to the same college to get a degree in music.'

'It was freshman year when he proposed to me. I said yes- as long as we finished college before we married. He agreed." Her eyes glazed over, reliving that magical night, the riverside dinner, the classical concert where they spread a blanket on the grass and let the music wash over them like ocean waves. When- as she threw her arms around him and agreed to marry him- the fireworks had begun to burst. She continued in a monotone. "It was our last year in college when he died. I had an audition, I begged him to be there. He promised he would."

"Raoul- I need you there- I can't do this on my own- say you'll be there!"
He smiled affectionately. "Don't worry about it, Christine. I'll get out of the meeting early, I'll be in the audience before you've even started singing." His voice softened. "Don't worry, Christine. I'll always be there."

She turned away as she felt her eyes burn. "He wasn't there. I couldn't see him in the audience when I sang, he wasn't there to congratulate me when I finished. I was... angry with him."

Her shock- why hadn't he come? Didn't he know that she had needed him there, more than anything? Didn't he know that she had sung for him, hoping he was out beyond her sight in the darkness?

"I got a call from the hospital." The beeping of her cell phone, a cheerful ring tone. A death knell.

"They told me that someone had found him on the highway. His car had skidded on the ice, he had gone off the road. He was conscious. He told them to call me.'

'They told me he was dying." She had rushed to the hospital- ironically, painfully, so close to the theatre- within walking distance. She had run so quickly, she thought she might leave her soul behind in the snow. "I ran into the hospital. They took me to see him."

His face- so white, so drained. Where was the laughing, carefree boy she had known only that morning. He looked older, the wreck had ravaged the left side of his body, shattered glass had opened the left side of his face, and the stitches could do nothing against the angry red they had turned. His eyes were glassy, fogged with the pain that the morphine could not entirely rid him of. The doctors feared to give him too much, to end his life sooner than it would, as the blood loss did its work.

"I watched him die. I was there, holding his hand until he slipped from life. He made me promise not to give up my music, to find someone else... But I didn't think I'd want anyone else. It would be someone else to be hurt because of me." She trailed off for a moment. "I started living with Joseph. I couldn't love him, so I couldn't hurt him." Christine sighed. "You know the rest."

Erik's arms came around her, warm and wonderfully solid. "Do you honestly think that some god is punishing other people for your alleged sins, Christine? I can understand your pain, Christine- but I can't understand why you cling to it."

His voice lowered, his eyes were like sunlight on the ocean. "Let go of the past Christine. Do you think that's what your fiancé would want for you? Wasted years, never letting the past rest?"

She tried to smile. "You're an awful hypocrite, you know."

He smiled back. "So I've heard. How are you feeling?"

"Relieved. Confused." She glanced at the shadows that had lengthened. "Should we go back now, and talk about this more later?"

Erik rose with her, keeping an arm around her shoulder. Christine allowed herself to take in the sensation, the sense of warmth and belonging that she had not felt since...

Is it... is it possible to love again after your heart has broken?

So... the mysterious Erik does have a past. Review, tell me what you think.