Disclaimer: Don't own POTO or The Corrs. But have new, shiny 2 disc POTO movie, so am happy anyway.

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Through The Night

Christine

Christine stirred against unfamiliar fabric, stretching her body along its length. Faintly, she heard music. A sense of deja vu swept over her. Just so had she heard him singing that fateful night.

But this was different. This was- mourning. The other had been a plea, a courting almost. This was a plea of a different kind. It spoke of years of emptiness, with nothing but music. No living soul to fill the silence.

She rose, silent and sylph-like, went toward the sound, drawn inevitably to it. There was a desperate urge to listen- to help the sorrow in the melody find peace. To help the man behind it- to teach him to heal. It was a drive deeper than her own needs, any loss she had felt was poured into the music. All the sadness of the world.

Shame. Guilt. Remorse. Christine's soul was drowning in it, the music in her mind, in her soul, a shadowed requiem.

God, Erik. Is this what there's been for you? Since she died? Has no one ever been there to hold you, to tell you they love you since her?

She was, for the first time, seeing clearly into the darkness. Into the shadow-world of his grief where he had never allowed her before. It was as though she were walking through the dream again, the shadowed streets, whispering things just out of sight beyond the flickering circles of light. And he, in the midst of the labyrinth. Surrounded by cold stone, trapped in a maze of frozen screams.

Oh, Erik. Her heart ached, a swollen throb that caught in her throat, a burning in her eyes, the taste of salt sliding over skin. In the music she heard a prisoner. Walking ceaselessly in his cage, resigned and weary. A longing that was almost tangible; torment and regret. The hopelessness of one who has walked alone all of their lives. The hopelessness of one who knows nothing else.

She could not listen to this happen. Despite that she had told him she loved him, there was a part of him that she had not yet reached, a part of him that he had confined deep within the shadows of the night. A part that he had hidden as he had hidden his face from the world.

It was a part of him that she refused to leave there any longer. This strange, beautiful man had lifted her from her hopelessness. He had shown her light where there had only been darkness. He had shown her the music in the night where before there had been only fear and torment.

Erik, let me lead you, save you from this solitude.

"No one would listen.
No one but her heard as the outcast hears."

She saw his outline against the piano, a break in the gleam of moonlight on the black, shining surface. There was a melancholy feel to his words. She could almost hear the thoughts behind the music. I dream of things so beautiful it hurts to hear them. I hear a beauty in the night that has been unheard for centuries. Why won't you listen to it with me? Christine fought the sob that sought to escape her.

"Shamed into solitude;
shunned by the multitude,
I learned to listen.
In my dark my heart heard music."

Words wove themselves through her head, unbidden. Whispers of ghosts from long ago, intangible things she had never touched before. In his words, she heard a shame as deep as her own, a guilt that consumed him as it had consumed her. Self-loathing, a hatred that had fostered like a dark strangling vine nurtured by the words and deeds of a world that refused to understand him. A world that had scorned and derided him. That had beaten and tortured him. An acid, eating away at resolve, at the hope of acceptance, at the dreams of redemption. She heard isolation, the pleas of a secret and strange angel. An angel that had been ostracized from society by people that had never seen past the mask, the untouchable facade. Had never had the courage to discover the beauty behind the bestiality. You made him this way! She cried out in her heart. You made him think himself a monster- a pariah! How is it that your shallow minds could not grasp the beauty and the love that he would have offered you? He had so much to offer you- so much he would have been willing to give if you had not driven him away!

Why were you so cruel!

A tear slipped down her cheek. Why?

"I longed to teach the world,
rise up and reach the world.
No one would listen.
I alone could hear the music."

She choked mutely. She heard the aspirations of the wistful young boy he had been, the boy whose mother told him that he would have to make the world hear his beauty. His longing to fulfill her dreams for him- his dreams for himself. The longing to bring goodness and light to the world again. The longing to open their minds- their hearts-

Their souls.

But no one would listen to the angel- the dreamer of dreams. He stood isolated, in a vast empty space. They had forced him back into the shadows in an attempt to put out the light he offered them. He hid in the shadows they had driven him to while he tried to give them music. He could only give them the narrow music of the time- they would not hear the beauty of anything else. Only he could hear the strange melodies of humanity, the sound of souls crying out in the darkness, the joys and the terrors of life. The love and the hate. The laughter and the tears. He, who they had denied these things, heard them still, and translated them into melodies that bared the soul and denuded the secret wishes of the heart. She breathed in deeply. She had heard this music while she slept.

It was time to let him know that someone heard.

"Than at last, a voice in the gloom seemed to cry-"

She slipped into the song, voice swelling with the power that only seemed able to raise. A power that was beyond either of them. Her voice soared with it, she felt her spirit rise out after it. She heard, as she never heard before, the song of humanity.

"I hear you!
I hear your fears -
your torment and your tears!"

His head whipped around as she stepped into the long stretch of moonlight let in by the windows that arched from floor to ceiling. His eyes were aflame with song, wordless emotions. Bright and blazing, widened in shock. And... something like fear. How long has it been since someone heard you, Erik? She could feel tears gleaming on her cheeks, turned silvery in the moonlight. She felt ephemeral, as though the music had taken away the physicality of her body and there was only the soul left.

Only Christine.

He continued, voice husky, almost a murmur, a reverent prayer. Than it rose, strained and pained, as though he dared not quite believe.

"She saw my loneliness, shared in my emptiness.
No one would listen. No one but her... heard as the outcast hears."

She crossed to him, knelt before him, taking his hands in hers. The moonlight glistened strangely on his eyes, on a twisting trail down the left side of his face. She touched it, her fingers slicked with tears. Reaching up, she cupped the back of his head, drew it down to hers and kissed away the tears. His eyes closed, veiling the agony, the desire and the terror that had burned brightly moments ago. His breath shuddered against her skin, his hands, limp at his side, found their way to her hair. He slid down to the floor beside her, arms enfolded and clung to her with a hesitant desperation.

"No one would listen.
No one but her- heard as the outcast hears."

His lips sought hers, she molded her body to his, swamped by an overwhelming need for his touch, for the press of his body against hers. She needed the reassurance now as much as he did, that he was not merely a dream to fade away in the daylight. They met softly, moving in slow, careful exploration. There was a delicacy in the way he held her, tilted her head up to his. It was warm and sweet, engulfing and cradling her like the warm waves of the sea, gently rocking.

She drew back as he did. She did not know if it was her tears on her face or his. They clung to her lashes, she tried to blink them away.

She closed her eyes as Erik kissed each eyelid tenderly, stroking her cheek.

"I don't want you to be alone anymore, Erik." she whispered. Anything louder would break the pattern, shatter the magic that curled around them. She buried her head against his neck, letting the tears slide freely. "I'm here to listen now, Erik'

'I'll always be here to listen."

"Christine." The low, breathless murmur of her voice was almost reverent. She tilted her head back to see his eyes shining with their own light a trembling, starry fire. She felt a tremor run through their bodies, and held him closer.

His arms tightened against her back. His eyes, endlessly weary, began to glimmer with hope. It was the first time, she realized, that she had seen it. She drew him up, led him to the couch against His hand was tensed in hers. She turned back to him as they stretched out. He held her in his arms, she leaned against his chest and let her head drop back on his shoulder. "I love you, Erik." Her eyes sought his. "Stay with me?"

His lips brushed her hair chastely. "Forever."

Tonight, she knew, was the moment when she knew she loved him. Knew beyond all doubt. Tonight, it was enough merely to be with him, to breathe as he breathed, to hear her heart beat as his beat. Tonight, it was enough to have his company in sleep, a warm and human presence.

Tomorrow they could begin- together.

Erik

She was a whisper of song in his arms, an emotional wellspring of forgiveness, empathy, acceptance. He felt the tears come and let them spill unashamedly. Tonight, he had been heard. His prayers had been answered. By a woman so angelic, and yet so flawlessly human. Who had called out for him, reached for him and held him in her arms. Who kissed the tears away. A woman who could have cared less about the mask, or what it hid. Who had not even asked, only... accepted. A woman who slept now in his arms without fear. With... love.

"I love you, Christine." he whispered against the silky curls. "And I will never leave you."

She breathed out a contented sigh.

Far from done here, wonderful readers. But- lovely, no? I love tender EC moments.

Review, tell me what you think!

cookies n' hugs

Lee