Meg rushed down
the hallways with Christine's wrist in her hand, leading the way
down. Opening the door to the room, Christine saw nearly every ballet
dancer that worked for this Opera, with Madame Giry in front of them,
getting ready to slice the several cakes she had on the table in
front of her.
"Surprise!" Everyone yelled to her, though a
bit too late. Christine ran to Madame Giry and hugged her. "Thank
you." She said, and looked around at everyone.
Though
the night before had been a rare treat for Christine, the morning
brought her back into her gloom; for, slipped under her door, was the
letter that she had written to Erik. It had been sent back, unopened.
Sadly, she slipped the letter into her pocket and returned to the
homeless shelter. She watched Erik from across the room as he slept,
the nurses walking as far away as they could from his bed when they
passed. She tried to focus on her work, but found it quite
impossible. How could she pretend that everything was normal when the
man she had been tracking for years was so close to her? Finally,
when it was lunch break for many of the nurses and volunteer helpers,
she agreed to stay behind and watch over the patients, along with a
few newer nurses.
Christine ran over to Erik, not being able to
wait any longer.
"Erik, Erik, wake up." She said gently,
lightly shaking his arm. His green eyes glowed as they slowly opened.
"Why did you not read my letter? Why did you return it?"
Christine asked before he could refuse her.
"I sent it back
because I did not care for anything you had to say to me, as I do not
now. I had believed I stated this quite clearly before." He said
sharply.
Christine tried to hide the hurt in her eyes, but it was
not a very good disguise. Instead, she tried to look annoyed. "You
once loved me. You and I...we were one person. Now just because I
made some decisions on my own you don't want to even look at me?
That hardly seems like the Erik I knew."
"Maybe I'm not the
same person that you knew. Did it ever occur to you, my dear, that I
change my ways too? It's not just you who changes their minds every
time something happens. I can change. Obviously, as I lay on a
homeless shelter's bed, that I have let many things in me go. Now
please, leave me before I tell the other nurses."
"Tell them
what, Erik? That the only friend you have in this world is trying to
find a way to have some type of relationship with you and you refuse
them? I beg of you, please just read my letter if you refuse so
hardily to hear my words." Christine pleaded, holding out the
letter. He grabbed it in his hands, ripped it in half, then threw it
to her feet. The defenses that she held up were now destroyed when he
did so, and now the inevitable pain flashed before her eyes as she
stared at him. He stared at her back, as if in a challenge to see
what she would do next. She turned, and started to flee the shelter,
bound never to come back. Then he called her name, making her stop
immediantly and turn around.
"Christine...don't tell Madame
Giry about seeing me here." Erik said in a mixed tone. Christine's
hopes that soared when he called her name came crashing down, tugging
all too hard on her heart. Muffling a sob, she turned on her heel and
ran. Christine
paced back and forth in her room, wringing her hands as helpless
tears fell onto her blouse. Erik had shattered everything in her.
Every emotion that she had welled up inside as she continued her
desperate search to find him through the years was now screaming in
pain. Her heart had never hurt so much.
Meg had come to see if
Christine was alright before rehearsals. Christine said everything
was just fine, and that she'd be retiring to her bed early tonight,
then set her friend on her way. What could Meg do? Christine was in
great need to tell of the resent events, but who could she tell? Meg,
though she was a great friend and very much like a sister, was not
very discreet, and her tongue was quite loose when it came to secrets
- that Christine had learned long ago. And she couldn't tell Madame
Giry. She wasn't sure why, but Christine felt the need to obey
Erik's wish, though he had deserted and refused her. Perhaps she so
longed to have her Master back that she still thought of him that
way. The way he used to be, when times were so much easier.
Then
Christine stopped in her tracks. What had she heard? By this time of
night, everyone was fast asleep. Straining her ears to hear, she
realized it was probably just her imagination getting the better of
her, and started pacing again. But within moments, there was another
sound.
"Whose there?" She called out in a shaky voice,
feeling silly to even do such. It was probably just a rat loose again
from under the cellars. No one answered. She looked out the door -
darkness was the only thing to greet her. But she was so sure she had
heard a sound!
Starting to spook herself, she tried to calm down,
though she continued her pacing once again. Just when she was
reaching her mirror though, did she stop and let out a terrified
scream. It was not of the terror for what she saw, but for the great
unexpectedness of him.
"Erik?" She whispered hoarsely, rooted
to the floor in disbelief. He said nothing, did nothing, though she
now saw him clearly. His hand was on the side of his unmasked
deformed face, his cape draped about him. His clothes were not dirty
nor wrinkled now as they had been at the shelter. He looked quite
elegant once again, though his eyes still carried a great pain.
Christine finally found the ability to move her feet and walk to him,
opening the mirror.
"My mask..." He whispered tenderly. She
immediately fetched him the little white mask on her dresser that Meg
have given her, and placed it in his hand. Her turned from her to put
it on, although she couldn't understand why anymore then she could
understand everything else he had done since she had met him again.
After all, she had seen his face unmasked. She had kissed his face
unmasked! But she said nothing, and waited until he turned to her
again. When he did, his face was again masked, though his agony was
not.
"Would you mind telling me what you are doing here in my
mirror?" She asked lightly, not sure whether to smile or cry.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached into an inner pocket of his
cape and withdrew two thin pieces of paper and an envelope. After
glancing at them, Christine saw her handwritting on them. It was her
letter. She looked back into his eyes, but he refused her gaze.
"You
are correct, Christine...I do jump to assumptions to early. I ask of
you to forgive me, knowing that I have never once asked another
living soul for forgiveness in my entire life."
Had she seen a
sly smile tug at his lips when he said this? She took the letter from
him and put it on the near by side table, then took his gloved hands
into hers as she started to lead him away from the mirror and into
her room. But just then, there was loud knocking.
"Christine?
Christine, are you alright?" Came Meg's frantic shrill voice from
the other side of the room. Erik quickly withdrew his hands and
backed into the path beyond the mirror, shutting it to conceal
himself as Christine ran to her friend. When she opened the door, she
saw not only Meg there, but Madame Giry and a few other ballet girls
that had helped put on her party.
"Christine, we heard you
scream!" Meg panted, her blue eyes full of fret.
Christine gave
a weak smile to her. "I'm very sorry to disturb all of you. I was
simply taken by surprise of a rat in my room - the second one this
week." She said in her calmest voice, although inside her heart was
all aflutter.
"I'll be sure to get a rat catcher, Christine.
Ever since...since the fire...rats have been everywhere." Meg said,
stuttering when she came to the tender subject, trying to avoid her
friend's eyes. It was true - the rats that usually dwelled in the
tunnels behind the walls of the theater all soon were forced into
where Erik had once lived. They multiplied by the thousands down
there, then when the Opera House was completed, they began to escape
the deep underground.
Christine nodded a thank you then shut the
door. As soon as she listened to the last footsteps walk sleepily
away, she rushed back to the mirror and threw it open, leading Erik
out once more. He looked at her in that guilty, shamed way once more
that she truly did hate. Why could he not look at her like he used
to?
"Erik...please, why must you always seem that you are
torturing yourself?" She asked, sitting on the side of the bed with
him beside her. He looked at her timidly, trying to muster his
strength to tell her.
" I torture myself for I have wronged
you." Again he spoke softly, hardly at all.
"And I have
forgiven you. You did not know."
"Still..." His voice faded,
along with his courage. It took some time for him to speak again, as
they sat in darkness, with only two dim candles to cast shadows and
allow eachother to see one another's face. Finally, his soft voice
came again. "In this life I clung to only two things for so long. I
clung to the obsession, the love that I wished to have, and I clung
to my pride. I lost my love so quickly, it seems. My pride followed
soon after. But when I first saw you...my pride was restored. I could
not let you see me as such. I cast you away because I could not bare
the thought of you seeing me and what I had been reduced to. I
refused to let Madame Giry see me for the same reason...and more. She
would have made such a big fuss and would have complicated matters
that are now better left alone." With this he stared her straight
into her eyes. "I was wrong to lash out at you. My anger was
wrongly placed. But..." He trailed off, and when he did speak
again, it was more to himself then to Christine.
"You can only
go on so many years hating only yourself. The fury wells in you only
for so long; lashing out at yourself does nothing but make it
multiply. It has to be someone else. Then the fury slightly drains,
and the resentment of what you have done fills."
Once again,
Christine took his hands into hers, but he refused. Instead, he stood
up, now seeming to have an emotional barrier put up. He was now
nothing but determined in his words.
"You have indeed restored
my pride. No longer can I stay in that shelter-"
Christine cut
him off in her hopefulness. "Will you stay in the lair then? Will
you be here?" She asked eagerly. He turned his gaze away from her
as he shook his head.
"Only for a little while. I plan to find
some means of obtaining money...honorably. Once I get enough, I'll
buy a small apartment to live like every other decent being. I shall
not live the remainder of my life in a sewer!" It was the
determination talking for him, not the fury, but his sentence ended
harshly. His lit up eyes flashed at her for a moment before he turned
away. But something struck him dumb as he looked back. No, it wasn't
his imagination, he realized. When he looked back at her, he saw.
Christine had tears streaming down her cheeks, a look of hopelessness
upon her beautiful face. What had he said that made her so upset and
made his heart lurch into his throat?
"Christine?"
She
stood up, looking helpless as she stared at the floor, her silent
tears coming harder. Then she walked to him, right in front of him,
as well as close, and stared into her eyes, capturing his gaze and
holding it intensely. "Do I not come in any of your plans? Do you
intend on leaving me here to wallow in grief as you do? Is this your
valiant plan for us? I searched so long to find you, thinking that
once I laid eyes on you, an eternal happiness would fill me. You
leave me void time after time of this. Why? Do you not love me after
all? Have I fallen victim to your cruel joke as I try to return the
feelings you once had for me? Abandoned as you have always been? Do
you not care at all anymore, Erik? Have you turned completely
emotionless, even for me?" Her breaths came in short gasps now, as
Erik stared at her, completely stunned, not even trying to hide it.
Surely she was not implying...? Surely she was not truly
saying...?
"Do you mean all that you say, Christine? Think
before you answer! Do not let me even dare to believe such if you do
not whole heartily mean it. Do you, Christine?"
She could only
nod, her sobs of sorrow racking her chest so hard she found it
difficult to breath. Lightly, ever so lightly, she pressed her
forehead into his chest, trying to calm down, and failing miserably.
Then she felt her hand in his gloved one, and a hand under her chin
gently lifting her gaze into his eyes once more. And alas, they were
not in pain! They did not harbor that vicious pain or hurt. Tears of
his own swarmed in his soft, warm, love filled eyes.
"Christine...would you really...would you truly want a life
with me? Have you thought this through thoroughly?" He asked, still
in disbelief.
"For years I have wandered in my own darkness,
and found that the only light to cure my darkness was you. I don't
care what you plan to do, nor where you live. Just take me with you
and let me be where ever you chose to be." She said, speaking
clearly though she was so upset. "Do you still love me, Erik? Love
me like you used to?"
He pulled her tightly to him, his face
lowered near to hers. She couldn't see them, but knew that he was
hiding his own tears as he held her in his strong embrace. "Of
course I do. Even more." He whispered musically in her ear that
made her whole body tremble and weak in relief. How long they stood
there, neither could later on recall, nor did they care. To be held
in eachother's embrace, uninterrupted and at long last peace, was
something they couldn't possibly express with worldly words.
Needless to say, every plan that Erik had was immediately changed
around to revolve around Christine and only her.
