A/N: This is sort of the second half of the "end of Act II" as Peekaboo quite rightly noted in a review. Mostly written in the middle of the night and other strange moments when I had a few minutes, so I apologise for any quirks or lapses in formatting, and for the extended wait. I will probably take several weeks again for the next instalment; I wish it could be faster but I need to do some research and that will take time.

There were lots of questions and some very interesting thoughts on what exactly E/C are going through right now and what Erik wants. I don't want to hijack this note for an essay, but suffice it to say that there are always layers to any "wanting": Erik longs for freedom from fear, and the peace that he imagines comes with having an ordinary marriage/home. Christine understands something of that tension. But somewhere at the heart of all this is their shared need to create music. A lot of this is based on Leroux, or at least my understanding of Leroux - particularly Erik's desperate desire for the ordinary life he cannot have, and Christine's own struggle with losing (and regaining) the musical gift with which she was born.

Chapter 61 — Living

"Astonishing," Henri Guyon remarked to Raoul, "they're all drunk beyond reproach and capering just as though they had not a care in the world… But oh, just look at her!" His eyes as he spoke never left the figure of Meg who was dancing faster and faster, laughing, white stockings flashing as she spun from one partner to another in the dance that all here seemed to know, but which Raoul could not name. It was certainly no quadrille, and he could not imagine it performed in a ballroom: the way some of the women kicked their legs could be fairly called obscene and the men were little better. And yet here was life in every step, the simple unfeigned joy of being alive and free to move, and Raoul found he understood it perfectly. And envied it.

He pivoted on one crutch towards Guyon, and tried not to sound too much the peevish invalid. "If you're staying, you might as well join the capering."

"Hmm. I'm thinking about it." Guyon watched Meg being swung into the air in a swirl of petticoats. Privately, Raoul agreed she was the clear stand-out here, with her pale hair whipping around her face, and the supple balletic grace in her movements that recalled so clearly the ashes of the Opéra. Some things had survived that fire after all: dance, music… All that which could not burn.

The song is all that remains of us, Christine had sung, in a voice like the candle she lit in the darkness, and the words had stung Raoul's eyes as much as the light. What would remain of him, when all was said and done? He never could carry a tune. Yet he had seen how next to him, Andersson caught those same words greedily, guiltily, grasping them like a man dying of thirst who feels the touch of cool water at his mouth and knows it is too much — that it must surely kill him — and drinks and drinks and drinks. Raoul had not wanted to stay there, in the shadow of such awful, passionate need.

Why could it not be simpler, he thought hopelessly? He watched Guyon watching Meg dance, and envied them both their ease.

Guyon finally managed to drag his gaze away from all that Meg's dancing inadvertently exposed, and gave a sigh of pure longing. "Those legs. Can you imagine what she might do with them if she put her mind to it?"

Raoul did his best not to imagine it. "Need I remind you," he warned, "that Mademoiselle Giry is all but sister to Christine, and not friendless in the world. Have a care."

Guyon only grinned. "Lighten up. A man can dream, can't he? And you cannot play protector to every charming woman left in our fortress of a city. Besides," he glanced towards the stage curtain and gave a discreet nod to draw Raoul's attention there, "It appears your Mademoiselle Daaé is also not friendless in the world."

Raoul followed the direction Guyon indicated with a sense of déjà vu, and knew what he would see there, even before he caught a glimpse of a man's black coat and Christine's slender figure retreating into the wings.

Guyon was right: he could not play protector.

"There is no one there," he lied, badly.

"No. Not anymore." Guyon gave him a look so rich with amusement that Raoul thought it best to direct his attention elsewhere. Just then a new dance began, wilder than the last, and he shook his head:

"I'm willing to bet someone will serve Ballard a notice tomorrow for all this lively entertainment."

Guyon responded with a disparaging noise, but there was good reason to be anxious: a group of the local Garde Nationale had gathered in the open doors to the lobby, smoking and looking dour, and in the centre was Jean Gandon. Of middling height, bespectacled, without even a kepi on his mop of red hair, he cut a curiously unwarlike figure for one who had been imprisoned as a ringleader after the failed uprising — yet the others plainly deferred to him, and fell silent when he talked. Several of their faces Raoul recognised from Andersson's circus of a trial, and from the prison visits that Guyon had dragged him on in his crusade to force the government to honour their truce. Jean had been among those finally released; less upon the government's honour than the weighty argument of Guyon's purse.

"What did Gandon have to say to you earlier? I saw you talking."

"Nothing much," Guyon said as he looked for Meg in the mêlée of dancers, "a simple hello. I told him I was surprised to see him tonight; they have all been laying low after their release. He invited me to join their meetings."

Raoul frowned. "You are not considering it."

"Why not? I may."

Indeed, Guyon's sentiments had been growing ever redder since that debacle, and Raoul now found himself wondering at what point disgust at the government could cross from disaffection to outright treason.

"You ought to be careful," he said, "Gandon commands a fair number of men, and they are not afraid to take matters into their own hands. I've seen it, in this very theatre. They hold their own trials and pass judgements without the least thought for the law. And they are well armed. If you give them the impression they could carry the day… I do not like to think how it would end. It is the Prussians we ought to be fighting."

But Guyon had already returned to watching Meg dance, and was not truly interested in anything else. Raoul was just about to suggest that he would go in search of the coachman, to see if the man could be roused enough to bring the carriage, when a touch at his elbow drew him back from the crowd and Guyon.

"Monsieur, forgive me," Madame Giry said, releasing his sleeve. She cast a worried look in Guyon's direction. "I must ask you a favour."

"Of course." With sinking heart, Raoul readied himself for the inevitable questions regarding the character of the young man trying to court her daughter. Frantically, he tried to formulate an assessment of Guyon's history with women that would not be too damning in Madame Giry's eyes, but she surprised him:

"Do you see the gentleman by the stage, in the white gloves? The one pacing up and down."

Raoul looked, struggled for a moment to put a name to the face, then raised his eyebrows: "Is that not Michaud, from the Variétés? He is a great deal thinner than I remember. What is he doing here?"

"He has come with their director of music, his wife, and I know not how many others. You are acquainted with some of them, I believe."

"In passing. They had some thought to make me a patron when Christine was engaged to dance there. I confess I'm surprised to see them in this crowd; this is hardly the Boulevard Montmartre."

"They saw the posters. How could they not come?" There was a note of pride in Madame Giry's tone at her daughter's work, but a moment later her worry returned. "The Variétés reopened this week, in a manner of speaking: they are holding a charity gala in aid of the wounded from the ambulance in their lobby. The name Christine Daaé still carries some fascination in this city. And now they have heard her sing."

Raoul understood. "They want her."

"Michaud has asked to be shown backstage. I told him he must wait, that Christine will see him after the dancing but," — Madame Giry watched him continue to pace — "I do not trust his patience to hold much longer. If he insists on seeing her, he will rouse half the theatre to his cause."

Raoul pictured it: a wild, drunken search party combing the dressing-rooms, calling Christine's name, accompanied by the National Guard. In the tinderbox that was Montmartre, the confusion alone would be more than enough cause to start a riot.

"I must try to find her," Madame Giry said, bracing herself. "I do not know who else may be looking; other theatres have reopened also. Monsieur, I would be in your debt if you could engage Michaud in conversation until I return."

"And if Christine does not wish to be found?" Raoul felt a traitor speaking it, but the possibility had to be admitted.

The carefully blank look in Madame Giry's face said that she, too, must have seen that stage curtain fall behind Christine and her returned suitor.

"Then they will not be found," she said at last, and Raoul realised that in this, she was as powerless as he.

"I will speak to Michaud," he promised. He reached deep within his memory for the easygoing smile of the Opéra patron he had once been, and did his best to put it on.

o o o

Erik's coat, scarf and hat might have marked him a stranger backstage, a man off the street, but the assurance in his step and the way he avoided obstacles a moment before they could be seen dispelled any illusion: he had learned these corridors as well as Christine did herself. Perhaps better. The frenetic cancan music grew distant as they wended their way past coils of discarded ropes and around peeling wallpaper and boxes of leaflets, heading deeper into the heart of the theatre. Christine thought she guessed their destination, and the quick, questioning glances Erik darted toward her told her he was remembering it too: that first day after his return to Paris, and their dance in the empty practice hall of the Variétés… They had moved together, their voices merging in a single perfect chord.

It cannot be like that, he told her then, his eyes full of fear. Never again.

Yet here they were.

"This one," Erik said, pushing open the creaky door. Beyond it, the rehearsal room was black.

"There is a wall-lamp just inside." Christine's breath fogged in the unheated air. "On the right."

"Yes. A moment."

Erik struck a match and held it up to the gas globe — and Christine felt a swooping thrill at how strangely beautiful he made this simple gesture: the dark arc of his raised arm, and his fingers reaching for the light…

It was only a moment, and yet it gave the lie to the gentleman's costume he wore, exposing in that single breath all that he tried so hard to keep hidden. Then the gaslight spilled over him, painting a half-portrait of the unmarred side of his face, and sketching the room in the ordinary evening shades of red and gold.

Erik blew out the match and looked at her uncertainly. "It isn't much. Not like the Variétés."

"It is enough for me," Christine said. "Let's go in."

This was the sole rehearsal room the theatre possessed: a simple square space without even a barre, let alone a mirror, but clean and breathing with life after weeks of the theatre's reawakening. The wall panels were of unpainted wood, darkened with years of soot from the lamps, and the floor an uneven medley of repaired boards. There was a pair of music stands in one corner and a small old-fashioned piano with the tinny sound of a harpsichord; and over by the door, a rosin box left by the dancers who must have practiced here before the war. Opposite, two small windows were draped shut with heavy velvet curtains that had probably once been red, but were now a dusky grey.

Erik was right, it was a world away from the Variétés, and a lifetime away from the gilded splendour of the Foyer de la Danse, but it was a theatre nonetheless, and it had its own soul.

Christine let the door fall shut behind them. Even with it closed, the music coming from the hall remained audible — but only just, like a song lapping at her memory, ebbing and flowing, and starting again. It reminded her a little of her own music.

Erik watched her absorb it. "Their dancing sounds better from here," he agreed, echoing her thoughts.

"It does. Stronger, like there is a purpose to it. A heartbeat."

Erik's brow furrowed against the edge of his mask. He moved a little closer, a barely perceptible change, and Christine almost thought he meant to kiss her — but instead he stretched out his empty hand. It was an offer and a request.

The heart of the music beat around them, pulling them in.

Christine put her own palm against Erik's broader one and raised their joined hands, reflection to reflection. A mirror. Then their fingers curled into each other's, and they were flesh again. Erik's grip on her hand tightened until it was almost painful, his knuckles turning purplish-white, as though he could never again let go.

"Shall we dance?" he said.

Christine took his other hand and found she was clutching him just as hard. Erik drew her closer, awkwardly, until they were only a step apart, and she allowed his arm to encircle her waist. The rhythm drifting from the hall flowed between them, rolling back and forth in what might have been a waltz.

"One two-three..." Christine whispered, but did not move. Erik, too, remained motionless. His coat was unbuttoned and she could see each anxious breath rising from his chest to his throat, moving his collar and scarf and the linen strips of the bandage above his mouth. The theatre shivered with music but they stood still, holding the distance between them.

When the song ended, Erik held her gaze, and Christine understood what he could not bring himself to confess.

"You stayed here." Her words rippled into his silence, like pebbles in water. "You hid in the theatre, and you listened to the rehearsals. I know, Erik. I knew it when I found that cupboard in the dressing-room. Let it go."

Erik's hand in hers grew warmer, in shame, and he dropped his arm from her waist. He moved back a step, his fingers working on the lapel of his coat, crushing the fabric. "I tried to give you peace. When a man's suit is rejected, he ought to step aside, that is the right thing to do. But I could not leave."

"You had nowhere else to go." Christine tried to smile, crookedly. "It was the first time I was grateful for the siege."

He looked at her squarely, rejecting the platitude. "I knew the danger. I knew I had no right to be here, and that I could not remain and count myself a man. But days became weeks, and still you sang… And I listened."

Christine sighed a long breath, accepting it. Some things could not be changed. "Show me where you hid."

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps not. But I would see it all the same."

With a small, resigned bow, Erik turned to the nearer of the two windows. He fingered the edge of a curtain, then lifted it aside to permit Christine to look beyond it.

The window was set in a shallow alcove, and the panelling boards on the side of it were loose. Christine nudged a board. The wall behind it was hollow, creating a crawl space that continued into the darkness towards the other window, just wide enough for a man to squeeze into. The cold draught blowing in from the opening smelled of damp brick, like a cellar or tomb, and when she touched the wall, a bit of cement crumbled away on her fingers. Christine shook it off, suppressing a shudder.

"You stood here? Between the walls?"

"Yes. Once or twice." Erik dropped the curtain, avoiding her eyes.

"It looks uncomfortable. And cold."

"It was. There were other places. The edge of the wings, dressing-rooms, corridors. Odd corners. Anywhere I could hear you."

"Anywhere, except beside me." Christine was appalled by the accusing knife-edge in her own voice. Where had it come from? She saw Erik freeze at it and wanted to stop, but the words only went on spilling out faster:

"I was right here, in the theatre, and you heard me. You heard me! But you hid yourself away, and you would not answer." She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. "You were waiting for me to play Madame Andersson, but… I can't give you heaven. Or even peace. Only this."

"Christine." Erik's bandaged face was almost a silhouette, backlit by the gaslight behind him, but even so she saw the way his brows jutted together, and the hard line of his mouth.

"I was a fool," he snapped the word like a whip. "Worse; a proud fool. I thought if I could not be yours as a man, a husband, then there was nothing left for me."

"Nothing," Christine echoed incredulously. She raised her left hand to show him: the band around her finger gleamed bright as the edge of a candle-flame. "I love you." The words burned in her throat with the injustice of it. "Is it not enough? Must change my name for you to believe it? I love you. I love you. I love you!"

Erik raised his hands to cover his face, and still she could not silence herself.

"I love you."

"Please…" He dug his fingers into the back of his bandage, hunching his shoulders.

"I love you."

His hat slid to the floor, and he sank down after it, his arms about his head. Christine knelt beside him, and caught his wrists. Her strength was not enough to prise them away, so she only held him hard, until at last he looked up at her with dry, bloodshot eyes.

"You love the music, Christine. The feel of it in your head, in your mouth… and here." He moved his hand down over her chest and to her neckline, and cupped her breast over the corset, leaving no illusion of innocence to his words. "Here."

Christine did not flinch, though she knew he felt her heart hammering madly. "I love you."

Erik tugged at her corset; loosened as it was for her singing, it came away easily to leave a gap wide enough for his hand. He reached her nipple with one fingertip and brushed it, so gently it might have been a dream.

"I love you," she repeated.

He pressed harder, unfairly, using all he had learned of her body. "I am not what I was. Do you understand, Christine? I will not return to it again. I want a normal life. No Phantom. No music."

"That is not…" she struggled to speak, "That is not what I—"

"You want the music. You hear it, and you open your heart to it, and let it possess your body until you become it." He pushed her corset aside impatiently and bent to kiss her exposed skin there, lips and teeth and lips again, trembling with need. "I want it too," he admitted, and each kiss dropped like molten candle-wax, painfully hot on her breast, over her heart. "I want to sing with you to the end of my days, until we have no more breath to draw. But I cannot. I cannot."

"Erik." She spoke his name, and caught his face to tip it up to her. "It needn't be that way. The Phantom is gone, but the music was never his. It was mine, and yours, and ours. Do you see? We can have it still."

"I want to live." He was weeping, as though her words had been lashes with wicked steel claws and had left him raw. "I want to live with you, in the light. Not in a theatre surrounded by dust and props, out in the real light, breathing real air, seeing the sun."

"Erik…"

"I am not like you. You can live with the music and it will serve you, but I… It is like living with a wild beast that cannot be tamed. Sooner or later it will devour me. I can't live with it."

"And I can't live without it." Christine brought her forehead against his, and her lips found every inch of open skin to kiss, his cheek, the side of his nose, his mouth. His skin was rough and hot and salty-wet, and she clung to him with all the strength she could muster.

"What are we going to do?" she muttered.

Erik pulled her hard into him, burying his hands in the hair braided and coiled at the nape of her neck, and matched her breath for breath, tracing each kiss with his fingertips, re-learning the landscape they had so nearly lost.

"Live," he said, and no matter how he fought it, his voice was music still. "We are going to live."

They kissed until, in the distance, the guns in the fort boomed their nightly exchange with the more distant rumble of the Prussian cannons.

Erik drew back, lips wet, breathing hard, his collar crumpled. His bandage too was askew, and with a sharp move, he ripped it away. The skin beneath was red-raw, but the weeping blisters had closed, leaving only the old scars.

Christine touched him, whole. "You've been leaving it uncovered," she said, pleased. Her fingertips explored the ridges of scarring where the worst of the blisters had been. "Look; it's healed."

Erik followed her touch in wonder. "Only you would call it 'healed', Christine."

Christine laughed very softly, and crushed him to her in an embrace. "I love you," she said, and it felt like her voice was returning all over again.

There was a sharp rap on the door.

Christine grabbed at her loosened dress and Erik stifled a curse and groped around for his bandage, but the door did not open. They looked at each other — rumpled, dusty, thoroughly disreputable in their panic — and Christine began to laugh. Erik looked offended, but she could do nothing except lean forward to kiss him again, deeply, tilting her head to get closer still.

"Let them come in," she said, surfacing for a moment, dizzy with the sweetness of it. "I'm not letting you go."

Erik groaned and pulled her up to stand, never breaking the kiss, and before Christine quite knew what had happened, she felt the heavy curtain swish over her, concealing the two of them from view. It was darker in the alcove, and the wall was icy cold against her back.

"Shh." Erik pre-empted her objections with his fingers at her mouth. "Listen. Who is that?"

A man's voice sounded in the corridor outside, muffled so that Christine could not pick out distinct words, but his tone was insistent. In response came Madame Giry's voice, calm and so clear that Christine was certain her words were pitched to be heard by them:

"There is no doubt it is an excellent offer, Monsieur Michaud, and Christine will certainly hear it. Let us check the offices; I believe she was just going to speak with a gentleman who writes for the Figaro. This way, if you please."

There was another exchange and then, mercifully, the sound of retreating footsteps.

"Camille Michaud," Christine mouthed in chagrin, and moved to readjust her dress. Seeing Erik's puzzled frown, she explained, "From the Variétés. Madame Giry was right, they have all come."

"And now they can all leave," Erik grumbled, but he was starting to fix his collar as he said it.

He ducked back behind the curtain, returning a moment later with his bandage and hat, which he put back on. "We had better hurry, if he is to discover you busy with the demands of stardom and giving interviews to the Figaro."

Christine shook her head. "Never mind about that. I can't make it into an office unseen, not before him."

"I would not be so certain."

Erik's gave her a taut almost-smile, and then his expression changed. He looked intensely focused, almost as if he was preparing to sing. Reaching around Christine's shoulder to the end wall of the alcove, he moved aside the loose panelling board that she had found earlier, then another, to expose a trapdoor.

"I did not construct it," he promised, seeing her dismay. "I only discovered it when I first found the hollow wall. But I did explore where it goes."

"Where?" Christine battled the memories that the damp-brick smell awoke. "Not another cellar. Please."

"Outside. To be specific, outside the door by the manager's office. It is only a short climb."

Christine looked at him uncertainly. "We don't need to do this. I don't care about the Variétés — this place is enough for me."

"No," Erik said very softly. "No. It is not."