A/N: To all of my lurkers and readers: thank you, all of you. Every piece of feedback and/or thoughts on this story stay in my heart. Thank you for falling in love with this story as I have. And I do apologize for the wait; hopefully, this chapter will make up for it.

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Wildfire

It was only a moment; one, simplified fraction of time that carved itself into the threads of eternity – she, the one who never spoke up – she, the one who always went to the back of the line in ballet…she, the one that covered her bruises with white powder and blush.

But this moment was so very different than all of the rest.

Christine had leaned in his direction, not knowing her purpose in this generous twist of the torso; only that she desperately wanted to be nearer to him; to prove to herself that he was not one of her vivid and assiduous dreams – no, he was more than neurotic constructs formed in her mind – he was there, sitting a few feet away, breathing the same air as she…in his penthouse, where the wallpaper melted to the ground, falling away from years of glue and paint that had forcibly covered the gray and white stains underneath.

Again, she tried to memorize his features, but it was impossible to do so while he wore his mask. She had seen the scars and redness that lay underneath it – and the irony of him hiding his true face from her was boiling up inside, willing some sort of molten truth to spill out. Erik did not lean into her – perhaps he knew what she wished to ask him…or, he was behaving naturally, as a gentleman might. She recoiled back into the comfort of the velvet, the sharp black color accentuating her pale satin blouse. Christine parted her lips softly as she set her cigarette into the translucent glass of the shell, her eyes purposely ripping away from his. She reached for the small brown bottle of whiskey, pouring an ample amount into her empty teacup.

"It feels…so freeing, forgiving someone," she commented, sitting back into the cushions as she sipped the bitter liquid; it burned her lips and her throat, yet she loved the wildfire that spread upon its entrance into her body; she adored how it could numb even the deepest wells of pain. It freed her of the past, stealing away her wounds so that she might live flawlessly in the present moment.

"I don't believe I've said those words to anyone…I don't know that I've ever truly forgiven anyone, until now…not even myself," her voice fell into a dull whisper, and she drank deeply from the teacup again, relishing the burn that distracted her from the sadness and anger threatening to bloom. She slowly brought her eyes to his face again, suddenly afraid of how vulnerable she felt in front of him. Erik's eyes never seemed to leave her own – they were a golden compass in the darkness of her mind, leading her out of the twisted and winding passages that had no end and no beginning.

"Forgiveness is an extraordinary thing, isn't it? It frees us of our sins. Yet I feel the same as you, Christine…I haven't forgiven anyone. I envy you," Erik murmured, reaching for the bottle of whiskey. "I envy you because you still have kindness left inside of your heart…even though it's been broken many times. I wish I could have kindness, too…but I'm afraid that it's been pulled out of me. There's no hope for me, no redemption waiting for me on the other side of things…" he sighed, filling his teacup with amber liquid, just as she had done. Christine shook her head, biting her lip to hold back an onslaught of tears. "How can you say that? You were kind to me…you didn't have to do what you chose to do. You didn't look away, you didn't go on about your night…you…you caught me. You saved me."

Erik let out a bitter laugh. "Saved you? Little dove, I cannot save anyone. Not even myself."

"No. You're wrong."

Erik cocked his head at her, setting his teacup back onto the coffee table. "Oh? So you're saved, saved because I caught you? You're still married to…to that ignorant fuck…"

He shook his head at her, his bottom lip twitching as his eyes grew wider beneath the mask. "So I saved you once, and I would do it again. But I can't protect you when you go back home, when you slide back into your role with him, as if none of it even happened. Don't you think it pains me to think about? About what he must do to you?"

Christine felt frozen in place, backed into a corner with nowhere else to turn, no sutured up lies to let fall from her lips. "Erik, I…" she began weakly, her voice trailing off as he stood up abruptly. He began to pace back and forth with his hands held behind his back. "Tell me what you want me to do! Tell me how I can protect you. Tell me anything and I'll do it…but you won't, will you, Christine? You'll go back down there, you'll live as if I never caught you…you'll go back to your love-making, your sweet nothings with that insolent – "

"There is no love-making! There's no love at all…just cruelty and…and horror! Don't presume to understand my circumstances…or me, at all! You may have been branded by the world, but that doesn't give you the right to sit there and point…judgment…in my direction, as if I were a child, unable to understand! How can you scoff at me like that when you were the one who caught me? Tell me how the hell that makes any sense!" She was standing now, leaning at the waist, spitting venom in his direction. Erik ceased his pacing as her voice grew louder, his lips falling apart as he shrank back from her.

Christine glared at him, her breath coming in heaves, the whiskey and adrenaline mixing in her bloodstream; a wildfire. She slammed her teacup onto the coffee table, snatching her coat as tears began to stream down her face.

"You wear a mask to cover your face, to hide your true reality from society…well there are different kinds of masks, Erik…some that you cannot see with your eyes. Did you ever think of that? Have you not seen the way he looks at me, as if I am some dumb, blind animal that exists within his control, his bloodied hands? Did it ever occur to you that I am trapped, and there's no way out? That I too, do not have the promise of redemption…I will be caged by him, forever…" Christine shook her head violently, her sight blurring with the tears that would not stop falling. She whirled around, making her way to the double doors. She felt his hand catch her forearm, and she whipped her head back to look at him. "Leave me alone!" she cried, pulling her arm from his grasp. Yet she stood still, hoping that he wouldn't let her go…praying that he would understand in some sick and twisted way that she needed him…that perhaps she had always needed him.

She hadn't known how deeply until it struck her, standing in front of the double doors crying, her body turned toward him as his hand fell gently back to his side.

"Christine, please…I…I've spoken carelessly," his voice was filled with emotion, with a saddened pleading that was almost childlike. "Please, come sit back down…please don't leave…Forgive me again, won't you? Just as you did before…please. Please don't leave. Please…"

His voice tore the anger clean out of her heart, and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He held her up steadily, slowly wrapping his arms around her slender frame, stroking her hair as she cried. "I'll save you again," he whispered, cradling the back of her head in his palm. "I'll do it over and over, even when you do go back. I promise, Christine…I promise." He guided her back to the velvet chaise, setting her fragile body back into the charcoal colored cushions, releasing her from his mighty hold. He sat down next to her, still leaving a bit of space between them – but he was nearer to her, this time. Christine's sobbing began to subside, and she soon was back in the layered silence of the present moment, feeling Erik's concerned eyes searching her face. "I won't presume anything about you, little dove…I just…I just want you to be free. I don't want you to be trapped…do you understand?"

She let out a short laugh as she wiped her cheeks, swiping the whiskey bottle from the table. Christine took a long swig from the bottle, not even bothering to empty its contents into her teacup. She let the burn slither down her throat, filling her stomach pleasantly, masking the raw emotion that he had prodded at. "Free," she repeated, drinking from the bottle once more. "I've never been free." She finally looked back into his eyes – he looked so relieved that she almost felt ashamed at her attempt to leave.

"I forgive you again," she whispered, reaching out to stroke the inside of his open palm with her forefinger. He glanced down at her fleeting touch, his lips falling open slightly. "It must be foreign to touch so many scars," he commented as she retracted her hand. "Surely you've never seen a man with so many."

"Truly? I don't mind them," she countered softly, her eyes flickering back up to his face. "I only wish they hadn't caused you so much pain."

Erik grimaced, staring off at the far wall that was void of wallpaper. "I suppose you have many scars as well…yet as you said, some cannot be seen with the eyes, or felt with the hands…"

Christine wiped her nose, praying that her eyes were not too swollen and bloodshot from crying. "When I saw you…through the skylight, I…I saw the sadness in your eyes. I felt the song you were playing…as if it were the same currents of my life, carrying me to and fro…it was a lament of my soul, before you ever knew me. I know we aren't the same, Erik…I know pain is different for everyone. But I've done this to myself, it's…it's my fault…I wanted to be rescued from this orphanage; a terrible, demon-filled building…I wish it would crumble from all the ghosts that it holds. But still it stands…I walk by it, every now and again. To see what went wrong…to understand why I couldn't see the evil lurking behind his eyes…"

Erik sat in the echoing silence of her confession, his eyes digging into her, prodding her again with that golden light – they were like plumes of the sun, forcing her face in their direction, that she might grow larger and prouder – that she might become whole again.

He reached out his hand again, and she did not shy away from it; he stroked a forefinger down the expanse of her arm, just as he had done the previous night in the black car. She shivered underneath his tender touch, her eyes focused on how large and scarred up his hand was. She loved those scars upon him – she wanted to kiss each one of them, to heal him from the things he might have screamed out – to pull out the stitches beside his mouth and kiss that ugly, pink scar that was hiding underneath…

Christine brought her eyes up to his as he stroked her arm again. "You are so gentle," she murmured, all thoughts of the orphanage and her misery gone. He smiled at her, his eyes lighting up behind the dark of the mask. "You…you deserve to be touched gently," he responded, continuing the strokes, but adding in the rest of his fingers. Blush spread across her cheeks, yet she sat very still under the bliss of his touch – her breasts burning underneath her shirt with urges that she did not want to hold back…

Erik slowly withdrew his hand. "I want to show you something." He lingered within her space for a moment, his hands carefully reaching up to touch the mask upon his face.

"Erik, I've seen…I've seen your face, don't you remember?" Christine leaned forward, pushing into his space as he withdrew into himself. "I'm not afraid of what's underneath. I…I'd love to look at you, just you…without anger in your eyes, or terror spurting from your mouth…I'd like to see you, just you."

Erik gave a small smile, shaking his head. "I know you're not afraid. It's just…different, without it. Sometimes I use it to my advantage…to put terror into the hearts of men. But truly, Christine…what scares me the most is that people might not care at all…it's…it's me, who cares; me, who is anxious and fearful. I'm the one who chooses to wear it. I'm the one who hides. I'm the one with regret."

He reached beneath the wild curls of his hair, pulling at some invisible cord that kept the mask in place. He let it drop from his face as if shedding a protective layer, a piece of armor that shrouded him from the rest of the world. At first, his amber eyes were averted from hers – he allowed her to look upon his bare flesh as he stared down at the carpet. Gradually, his eyes lifted back up to hers, and he stared at her as if looking into a mirror.

She sat there, simple and beautiful – a bright star, and he was the dark, encrusted moon, shining beneath her. Christine scooted closer to him, stroking the right side of his ruined skin with the back of her hand. "You're magnificent," she whispered, her fingers exploring the scarring, setting a stray tendril of hair back behind his ear.

Erik reached for her hand, clasping it gently before removing it from his face. "Let me show you something…something much more magnificent, as you say, than this," he motioned to his face, a coy smile playing at his lips. Christine nodded, fully entranced by his raw, masculine face, although covered and butchered with pink and red scarring.

Erik bent his head low, planting a light kiss on the edges of her knuckles. He stood up, letting her hand fall from his own as he turned away, making his way across the room.

Christine watched him intently, her skin buzzing with the new feeling of his lips upon her hand. There was a wooden table in the far corner of the sitting room that held a broad mahogany box, sitting mysteriously in the shadows. Erik opened the top of the box, his hands moving inside of it until a scratchy sound began to play; quite soft and subtle at first, yet growing louder as the moments stretched on – a recording made of piano keys – a melody that swelled anxiously in the air until it met a summit, a climax…

And the melody was a part of him.

He turned back to her, his brows crinkled as he felt the music, almost as if it pained him to hear…yet he held out his hand to her – was he unable to close the distance between them? Christine stood up, swaying to the soft tinkling of the song – it was like dreaming, walking towards him as the melody played. It was circular and suddenly breathtaking – she now realized that it was familiar…that it was a cleaner, brighter version of the song he had been playing through the skylight. She took his hand and he pulled her into him, settling a powerful arm behind the curve of her lower back. They began to move together, and she slowly laid her head upon his chest, feeling the bits of chest hair and scarring upon the surface of her skin. Christine gave his chest a soft kiss as her fingers wrapped around his side – and the melody pulled her, pushing her to fall into him deeper – he was now the labyrinth – it was no longer made of rectangular, white cots…no longer made of Raoul's light blue eyes as he swept her away. She sighed into him, breathing the same rhythm that made his chest rise and fall – and the piano whirled and flew, up and up until it was a bird, soaring beneath a sun soaked sky. She closed her eyes, memorizing the feel of his form pressed up against hers – she wanted to stay in this moment forever. And the recording seemed to urge her on, passionately…and she held onto him, tighter…

"This is my mother playing," he purred in her ear, brushing his face against the side of her cheek. She opened her lips to him, wanting so badly to taste him as they were buried deeper and deeper, bathing in the exquisite nature of a mother's love; of sounds that both of them lacked, yet had seemingly found within each other. The piano swirled upwards, then downwards…and their movements matched each chime, each precise stroke upon each key...

And they danced a slow pattern upon the floorboards, letting the music swell and fall like the ocean's tide…and she breathed into him, holding him, caressing his side…and he held her powerfully – pressed upon his chest, as if neither of them would ever let go.

That was when she first felt it – a strange new feeling, graceful, falling…

The steady warmth of blooming love; a wildfire tracing sounds inside of her chest, piercing the blame and the guilt, abolishing hate from her spirit…

And she loved him in that infinite moment; the press of his scarred face against her cheek, the arduous way he held the small of her back – tender, as if he might break her…

She lifted her chin to him with her eyes closed, letting her lips fall open, waiting for him to taste her, to soothe her with the tip of his tongue, to explore her just as she'd touched the scars upon his naked face…

"Erik," she whispered, feeling his thumb tracing the edge of her chin – the spot he had touched right before he had left the opera, apologizing, fading into the darkness…

She felt his lips near hers – brushing her own, ever so softly…as if teasing her, loving her, saving her…

And he closed in the kiss, solidifying the labyrinth of his own scarring, of her horrific maze of a past, mirroring one another…slow dancing to the melodic blooming of a flower, to the secrets buried in the past…ripping open their opposing vulnerability…

For in that moment, shackles fell from lacerated wrists, turning to dust; incinerated…burning like the sun born anew.

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A/N: Well, my darlings? Thoughts? :) Love, L.