A/N: I'm back! With another nod to Leonard Cohen, here we go…

Chapter 73 — The Gifts That You Were Meant to Keep

The music escaped. Who was he to contain it? He had fought it with all his being, grasping at the ring on his finger, at the architect's sketchbook in his arms, at everything that could give him another moment of life, but the call of the tzymbal was too strong. It smashed open the gates and let music surge past all his defences, and its sortie had become unstoppable.

Erik wept, and raged at being unable to write fast enough, afraid the music would leave before he could record its bidding. He transcribed page after page, grappling with the pen and half-frozen ink, feverish with cold and with the need for creation. There was nothing in the abandoned apartment save him and the music — no light, no heat, no food — but he needed none of these. He knew how to make music in the dark. He listened to it and he wrote without seeing, and he sang. He sang.

With the first hazy light of morning came a cacophony of men's voices out in the street, searching for something. They did not disturb him. Erik let a little of the music float down to them, throwing his voice just enough to baffle, an ethereal melody bidding them to hear ghosts. They ran. He had never doubted they would: the music protected him now; he belonged to it, and it to him.

He listened at the living-room window until he was certain the men were gone.

Then slowly, gracefully, Erik Andersson slid down the wall, striking his chin on the windowsill as he collapsed. His teeth clacked together.

Dazed, he slumped under the window. Circles of colour pulsated in his vision. The music had faded, but it had not left him; it was he who lacked the stamina to stay with it. The discomforts of human flesh dragged him back.

Erik...

With an effort, he reached up and managed to grab hold of the windowsill. Another pull brought him upright, tangled in the brocaded silk of the curtain. The morning's snow had stopped; daylight was getting stronger. He stayed by the window, out of sight of anyone below.

Erik…

Was he imagining it? The two syllables of his name seemed to hover in the frigid air, pronounced as only one voice ever could, like the wingbeats of a bird.

Erik...

He was dangerously cold. His teeth chattered, and yet with every laboured breath he could still hear Christine speaking his name.

Erik...

Christine.

His wife. His wife!

The memories returned at once: the Variétés, Christine expecting him to meet her last night, his duty to her, his plans for making this place their home, the looters in the cellars, and then — the tzymbal.

He staggered from the living room back into the library, to where one of the notebooks filled with his night's scribbles lay open on the ornate lid of the cursed instrument. Here! This was what he had done instead of his duty as husband or even as man. He had spent the night neither at the ramparts nor at Christine's side, but here, with his music.

Erik grabbed a fistful of pages, ready to tear the book apart — and found he could not.

His fingers opened, and the book fell back, unharmed. He wanted to destroy it. But shamefully, what he wanted more was to carry the night's creation in his arms, protected like the rarest of jewels, to set it before Christine. Only she could sing it as it ought to be sung.

He closed the notebook and clasped it to his chest protectively, as if it were a child. He could not let it go.

Ah, but Swinburne had been right about him. Behold, mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen: Monsieur Erik Andersson, the singing freak!

With the clarity of despair, Erik saw the surgeon in his silver-rimmed spectacles, inviting him to perform for the troops. Entertainment, Swinburne had called it.

"Erik..."

Erik raised his eyes. The music book turned slick in his grasp, a living sin. It fell to the floor.

Christine stood in the doorway, swathed in a dark shawl over her coat, her breath misting in the cold. If this was a trick of his mind, his brain was more addled than he would have believed possible.

She said nothing, only stood still as an effigy in wax, with nothing but the mist at her lips giving her away. For a long time, Erik could not speak. His wife. He had betrayed her with his music, betraying himself for what he truly was… Something made him notice a scrap of paper she held in her hand. It was a list of addresses, with this apartment circled. On her finger, the wedding band shone reddish-gold.

Erik closed his eyes, waiting for the end. He could almost sense her removing the ring, reaching out to hand it back. He waited for the cool metal to touch his palm.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes.

Christine was looking down past his hand, to where the notebook lay open on the floor. By some devilish coincidence, it had opened to the start of the vocal line, and he knew — he heard it in the change in her breathing — that Christine was reading it to herself.

She looked directly at him. "You composed this."

It was not a question, and he did not reply.

"Sing it for me."

"No. Please."

Christine's lips moved very slightly, shaping the melody without sound, and Erik found himself drawn irresistibly to the movement. Her lips were dry, the lower one chapped red, and a power stronger than he was made him reach out to touch her there.

She moved back. He dropped his hand, and at once a grotesque realisation made him grasp at his own face. No mask!

He clutched at his face, desperately trying to recall what he had done with the bandage. The kitchen? His gaze roved over the doorway behind Christine, this way and that, searching for any sign of it or a way to retrieve it.

Christine's hand closed on his wrist. Erik tried to focus on her, seeking a way to explain his need, but she only held him fast until he had no choice but to look at her.

There were tears in her eyes, but she would not let him go.

"Sing it for me," she said again. "Let me… let me watch you sing, Erik."

"My mask—"

"Let me see."

"No, Christine…"

"Sing!"

With the opening note he moved in past their joined hands, to where she could not see his face even if she tried, and caught her mouth before she could move back. Her lips were paper-dry on his, but they opened like the pages of a book, and everything beyond was warmth and heat and music.

Christine coaxed the song from him, bidding him relax into it whenever he paused, unwinding his every fear, coil after coil. He moved back to pull the shawl from her hair and buried his hands in the wildness of her curls, drunk on the freedom of it, no longer able to think of what he was or had ever been or ought to be.

Holding Christine's gaze, he sang. He let her see his bare face, contorted by the notes, hideous but she did not seem to care. The song burst forth from him: complete, unhindered, with no barriers between him and the music and nothing holding him back.

It was terrifying: a little like dying, like becoming one with the air.

Christine kissed him between pages, stroked his face, smothering his scars in small kisses that were almost more than he could bear, and changed something in the timing until they were both too breathless to sing.

They had ended up on the bench before the tzymbal, but Erik had no thought left to spare for its treachery now. Christine's slight weight held him in place on the seat and he no longer felt the cold. The instrument's strings at his back hummed in time with their rhythm, and he felt Christine shudder with every sound — and Erik understood, as instinctively as he understood the touch of her skin to his, what he needed to do.

He sang again, sang for her and for himself, and caught every exquisite note of Christine's triumph.

o o o

They sat quietly at the gypsy instrument. Tzymbal, Erik had called it. Christine stretched out one hand over its strings, idly skimming the surface, the sound like faraway droplets of water melting. Erik's breathing, soft and regular, warmed her cheek. He was not asleep, but there was a great tiredness in him, as if he had fought to the edge of his strength.

She turned into him and felt him adjust his weight, fitting his shoulder to the curve of her neck. "I was afraid for you," she said at last. "Of what you might be doing when you didn't come to the theatre last night."

"You should have been angry."

"That too."

"Oh?" He raised his head to give her a sideways look. "If this is your way of showing it, I may never learn my lesson."

Christine felt her mouth quirk, and the strings under her fingers laughed. "It was good to hear your music again. I… enjoyed it." She saw she had managed to embarrass him, and for some reason that only spurred her on; she moved her hand to his knee, and saw his breath puff out in a small cloud. "Perhaps we could continue somewhere warmer? What is this place?"

Erik shivered under her touch. "One of my old projects from Duchamp's atelier. I had hoped you — we… Christine!"

She withdrew her hand guiltily, but the music still pulsed in her blood, and she knew she was not alone in this lingering need. It was more than desire; it was a kind of euphoria, like trying to control a wellspring within herself that might at any moment overflow into song. Stray ideas about melody and variations flitted through her mind.

"I wanted us to have a home."

"I know." Christine sighed, and let her head fall back against his shoulder. "You know this can't work. Even if you had a — a right of sorts, to be here — there are lists of all these apartments. It isn't safe. Men are going through cellars everywhere to collect fuel and food…"

He looked at her suspiciously. "How can you know that?"

"I saw them. At Raoul's." She glanced around and spotted the crumpled paper on the floor. "Guyon was holding a meeting there, with Jean Gandon and others. That is how I found you."

"I saw them too," he admitted. "They came through here last night. The cellar is cleaned out; there is nothing left for us."

"It was never ours. You know none of this is ours."

"And what is?" He rounded on her so suddenly that Christine shrank back, almost falling off the seat. "We have nothing! I have given you — nothing!"

She raised her hands to calm him but he thrust them aside.

"We should have a life!" His cry made the tzymbal's strings resonate. "A proper, real life, with a home, a decent income, my architect's position! We could have all that. Duchamp left enough projects here that I could take my pick of them, so by the time the siege is over… You wouldn't want for anything."

"I want music, Erik."

"Then you will sing. Write. Publish your work if you like, give recitals. You deserve all the glory the Variétés can give you and more, much more!"

"What about you?"

"I'll be with you. That's enough; it is all I could ever need."

"Was that what you needed last night?" Christine's gaze flicked to the notebook laid across one corner of the tzymbal, bulging with odd pages at every angle, calling her to open it again. "Were you Monsieur Duchamp's architect when you heard these chords?"

"It won't happen again. I'll burn this m—"

She clapped her palm to his mouth, saw him look startled and offended, and could not help but remove her hand to kiss him again. He resisted only a moment, before his mouth welcomed the intrusion and his hands, helpless, went to the back of her neck to draw her closer. Christine closed her eyes, revelling in the rasp of the night's stubble on his good cheek, the hot silk of his kiss, the sounds he made when he allowed her to explore deeper, to seek out every last note of the night's music.

"You can burn paper," she said when they broke the surface together, breathing hard. "But you cannot destroy the music that you hear. We have no right to destroy our gifts, and this is yours, and mine. Ours! How can you say nothing belongs to us, when we have this?" She felt her own face blazing, but the words tumbled out, "I love your music, Erik. I love all of you."

"It will turn me back," he whispered wretchedly. "If I listen to it, it will take me away from you. From everything I've tried to be. I'll become… A singing freak."

Christine felt his fear as a palpable thing, a crust of ice, terrible and brittle. "No," she said very softly. "It can't do that."

"Can't it? You wanted to know what Doctor Swinburne asked of me, in exchange for averting that conscription."

Christine swallowed. "...What?"

Erik gave her a grim little smile. "This. This is what he named as his price: that I might perform for his wounded. A little sideshow, just for them."

"He asked you to… To be exhibited to the wounded?!"

Erik hesitated. "Not exactly. He had heard of what happened at the hearing in Montmartre and wanted — a private rendition if you will, for the ambulance. A freakshow."

"You mean, he asked you to sing for the wounded."

Erik grimaced. "It will 'lift their spirits', evidently."

"He asked you to sing for the wounded," Christine repeated. "Like I do at the Variétés."

The surprise on Erik's face was so genuine that Christine realised the thought had never even crossed his mind. She shook her head in disbelief. "Is that what you think I've been doing too? Performing a freakshow?"

"That is hardly a fair comparison! Your face—"

"I've left the Variétés, you know." And while Erik still stared at her, dumbstruck, she stood, collected her fallen shawl from the floor and carefully tied it around her hair, her fingers clumsy with cold.

Erik watched her adjusting the knot. "I should have been there last night."

"Yes, you should have. But it wouldn't have made a difference. I've made up my mind; I've had enough of these rousing songs."

"Every man in that audience looks at you like you're an angel from heaven."

"I don't want to be looked at. I want to be heard."

She watched him frown at this, as though the idea sat uneasily in his mind. "You are beautiful, Christine. Why should they not see it?"

"When I sang my own songs in Montmartre, they listened to me. I didn't know the difference then, but I do now, and I know what I want." She reached down to take his elbows, urging him to stand. "Let's go back to Madame Giry's for now." And before he could object, she added, "You are right; we do need a home, but it can wait. This music you started can't. Come. I want to see what we can make of it together."

Erik stood, clutching her arms crushingly tight, as if that might keep his demons at bay. "And if I refuse?"

"To come with me?"

"To touch that music again."

She measured him with a long stare. "Then I would say it's a resolution you can't keep."

He curled his lip disdainfully and dropped his hold. "Are you so certain I cannot? It has been a long time since the Opéra, Christine Daaé. I have learned. This thing," he almost spat at the tzymbal, "took me by surprise last night, but I won't let it ambush me again."

"You will. You want it to; even now as you deny it, I can see how you look at the strings. E natural next do you think, or stay with the dominant?"

"You do not catch me so easily!" He glared at her, "And the dominant is better, as well you know."

Christine gave him a wry grin. "I know. And so do you. Once you've followed the Angel of Music, my love, it is hard to forget the way."

Erik's lips moved without volition at being thus claimed: "My love…"

He blinked at her, his eyes so oddly innocent that Christine realised her small endearment had disarmed him more completely than her arguments had.

She was suddenly conscious of the weight of what she had unwittingly done. How certain was she that Erik could handle the pull of the music without losing his way in the world? What if he was right to be afraid? She gathered her courage and steadied herself. He spoke the truth; he had come a long way from the cellars of the Opéra. They both had.

"If it is music Doctor Swinburne needs for his patients," she suggested, "perhaps we can help him."