Disclaimer: I do not own POTO, only the storyline and the unaffiliated characters.

Thank you for all of the fantastic and encouraging reviews. You guys are wonderful.

Lee

Adulthood

Christine

She woke to find that music still in her mind three days later. She shook her head wryly. I don't know whether to thank him or not for getting it stuck in my head!

Christine smiled and watched the sun rise over the park, bathing it in glowing green and gold. It spread tentative fingers, like roots seeking through the soil, brightening everything that it touched. Wisps of mist still clung here and there, an amorphous veil lit golden in the faint light. She closed her eyes at the warmth of it upon her face, an amber incandescence against her eyelids, savoring the tranquil heat and the quiet. The sunlight seemed to transfer some kind of mystic serenity to her, the touch of it like a springwater flowing into a rain-starved valley. What a gorgeous day.

My birthday.

The thought was almost wistful. Christine sat up slowly and let herself absorb that knowledge.

Not that it made much difference, really. She would still be living in Nadir's house until college started. But still, one didn't turn eighteen every day.

She looked up impulsively into the sunrise, banding the sky with rose and amber as it had that morning she had sung to them. Her parents. Christine reached out as though she could wrap herself in that sunrise, feel the warmth and the light of it running through her veins to flood her with its sweet illumination, a latent potency through which she could almost touch the heavens. My eighteenth birthday. She propped her head up on her elbows, looking out over the brightening sky. Angel, I wish they were here to share it with me. She stretched out a hand absently, tracing the line of a rose-ribbed cloud with a gentle finger. I wish they were here...

I miss them. Dad always used to say that birthdays led to something lifechanging. He never explained what he meant by that.

She slid out of bed, a meditative mood overtaking her, a contemplation of what this day, any day meant to her. I'm one day closer to something. Is it sad or joyous? Is it beautiful? Will it raise me or break me?

Will it give me what I think I'm looking for, or show me what I really need? The hardwood floor was cool against her bare feet, sun motes danced in the bright shapes the windows cast. The scent of brewing coffee, sweet and rich, led her to the kitchen. Will I find more disillusion? A painful wondering condensed in her throat to extend tendrils of shadowy doubt. Christine turned her eyes from that thought.

Or could I find hope?

Erik sat at the table, humming 'The Angel of Music' softly. A trail of musical notes following his pen across the paper. Sunlight drew bold fingers over them both, softening and brightening.

He looked up as she came in, smiled, eyes lightening. The light brought a glowing warmth to the left side of his face in startling contrast to the smooth, cool planes of the mask. "Happy eighteenth, Christine." His voice was touched by a warm calm. The lilt of it recalled a gentle flow of the waves in the morning light, the stretch of sunlight over the park.

She didn't return it. "How do you know that song?" she asked, curiosity piqued. She poured herself a cup of coffee as she waited for her answer. The caffeine made her feel slightly more awake; she watched him inquisitively.

A smile that was almost secretive gleamed in his eyes, a coruscating brightness like a flash of sunlight across the sky. The coffee sent a sudden rush of adrenaline through her.

Erik stood, the faint smile hovering. "Follow me."

Christine stared at him, nonplussed. "You can't just tell me?"

His lips parted in a smile. "Indulge me."

She set down her coffee. "And here I thought it was my birthday." she said wryly. He laughed quietly in reply and led her to the music room, merely glancing back with amusement at her further inquiries.

He laid a folder out on the piano, hand pausing lovingly for a moment on it. "Here." He took her hand, placed it on the folder. "Open it."

Intrigued, she obeyed. Arias, madrigals, passed under her questing hands. The papers whispered softly under her fingers. Christine's eyes trailed over the music as she searched, the notes leaving an imprint, a sweet echoing in her mind. She had the sudden impression of a bud unfurling into sunlight, golden and gleaming.

He reached out and stopped her hand.

There had been no need to. Christine eyed the title with bewilderment.

The Angel of Music.

"The original score." he said quietly, eyes on hers.

She looked up at him. "You wrote this?" A soft, incredulous laugh escaped her. Warmth rushed to her cheeks, she looked down in abashed wonder. "And I thought I couldn't have been more embarrassed when I told you!"

He raised an eyebrow. "You have excellent taste." She saw the hints of what was almost a smirk curve his mouth.

She ran a hand through her hair, chagrined. My God. Christine felt her face burn. "I don't know quite what to say."

He lifted the paper, laid it in her hands. "Will this make it up to you?" he asked quietly, blue eyes intent.

She stared at him, uncomprehending. The shadow of a smile curved his lips. "Happy birthday, Christine."

Christine fingered the paper, feeling astonishment sweep her features. "Erik, I..." she looked up to see the sky colored eyes warmed. "Thank you." She smiled, then, on impulse, flung her arms around him, laughing. "Thank you!"

His usual stillness seemed to give way under her enthusiasm and he returned the gesture after a moment's surprise. Christine smiled up at him. "Thank you so much!" She felt dizzyingly exhilarated, still trying to absorb the paper in her hand. Adrenaline flooded her in a heady rush, like the sudden blaze of summer. A dazzling, blooming energy.

His eyes flickered with a fleeting brightness. "You're welcome, Christine." he replied softly; the smile faded. There was a strange solemnity to his voice.

The clear blue of his eyes stilled her.

She was suddenly, acutely aware of their proximity. The beat of his heart against her skin, in sync with the currents stirring in the eyes like the sea. The warmth at her back. She laughed awkwardly and drew back. "Sorry. I- got a little over-enthusiastic, I guess."

He smiled slightly, it didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's all right, Christine."

A moment of silence stretched, in which the room seemed to breathe a secrecy into the air around them. Again, Christine felt the strange sanctity of it brush her, caressing her with pristine clarity that was yet clouded by the veil of some intangible mystery. She felt drawn to a dreaming world beyond the physical, a depth beyond the flat mundane. It was as though her Angel watched her, bright seraph's eyes guarding. A warmth enveloped her and drew her spirit to the surface. Christine paused, reaching out through the quiet. What was it that hovered in the air like a stirring from dormancy, the emergence of life from the earth? What touched her with a tentative warmth like summer flowering? What was it in this room that so magnetized her, drawing her like flames to wind, sparking an inexpressible, endless longing?

Angel...

The phone rang. Christine flinched, brought back to the tangible.

"I'll get it." offered Erik.

She trailed behind him into the kitchen, picking up her coffee again. The tune of 'Angel of Music' drifted through her as she traced the notes on the creamy paper. A sense of wonder overtook her as she looked at its creator. Who would have thought...

The Angel of Music. Christine felt a slow stirring in the back of her mind. Dimly, she heard the low melody of Erik's voice, her thoughts were drawn slowly inward as though she sank into a deep pool, an endless, unexplored sea cradling her within blue, gentle currents. Christine searched that protective ocean, a vast place of mysteries. The Angel of Music. Something extended a tentative tendril to her consciousness. She closed her eyes, trying to remember why she felt as though it should be somehow significant.

She could almost touch that thought, felt it hovering on the edges of her perception. It hesitated on the border of her waking mind. Christine felt her breath still. Almost...

"It's Nadir."

She looked up. The thought fled her. Erik held the phone out to her. "I believe he asked for 'the birthday girl'." Amusement reflected in his voice. Blue eyes gleamed with repressed laughter.

Christine laughed and accepted the proffered phone.

Erik

Moved by the same strange impulse that had led them here, he placed the paper in her unresisting hands. "Will this make it up to you?" He heard his voice soften, eyes searching her face. His logical side hissed a warning at him. She looked at him questioningly.

"Happy birthday, Christine." he said quietly.

Her fingers traced the notes. She paused, eyes flickering over the paper. "Erik, I..."

She looked up at him, eyes startling with the dark currents, the medley of emotion in them. Shock, gratitude, awe. "Thank you." A radiant smile transformed her features, the mahogany eyes glowing, a sudden, blazing vibrancy suffusing her.

He started as her arms went around him. "Thank you!" A cascade of laughter rippled around the room, light and clear as a spring under sunlight.

To his surprise, he found himself returning the gesture. His mind again issued a stern reprimand.

He ignored it in the face of Christine's unbound joy. She turned brilliant eyes to him, flushed with delight. "Thank you so much!" She seemed almost to glow, radiating rather than reflecting the effulgent sunlight.

Her exhilaration emanated like the blazing sun, almost tangible, infusing him with a flaming brilliance, a warmth that almost seemed content. A warmth that was almost... protective. Erik's blood stilled. "You're welcome, Christine."

Her eyes paused on his; he felt himself spiral down into the swirling depth of them as he realized how close she was, the flow of blood like a rushing tide under her skin. Just how close he held her, the dark eyes suddenly wide on his. Her smile faded, like sunlight veiled; she drew away. An awkward laugh forced itself from her throat. "Sorry. I- got a little over-enthusiastic, I guess."

He replied with a smile that he didn't quite feel. It was as though something had withdrawn back into itself, shrinking back to the shadows in absence of light. "It's all right, Christine." His voice was quiet.

Silence reigned in the physical world. Inside him, it was a different story. His mind, irritated at the display of sentimentality, almost affection, warred with the spirit still warmed by the radiant glow that her smile, like her song, had infused within him. What is...

It was a moment before the acrid sting of reality struck him. The stark meaning of the aura of the spirit, the nervous tension of the body. Erik felt it creep over him, a coldness chilling and dulling the warmth and the brilliance of moments ago.

I thought nothing like this would ever happen.

I thought I would be able to...

With a sinking feeling, he realized that whatever he felt for her wasn't going to go away; the emotions catalyzed by the dream three nights previous could not be discarded. And he couldn't delude himself any more by trying to call them compassion or empathy. He couldn't make whatever he was feeling go away. His mind denounced the realization with a vehemence uncommon to cold logic, but could not refute it. His time of denial had passed; he no longer had that luxury.

He wanted to curse the young woman in front of him for somehow transcending his walls of distance and pride, for touching him with her ethereal song. For calling out to him in the night. For having woken a vulnerability that had lain fallow for years, breaking the control that had been the one of the few things left that were his own.

How- when did this happen- why did I never notice it?

He probably would have continued in oblivion had it not been for the dream. He wondered just how long it had been going on before his unwelcome epiphany. Erik felt a rush of the darker emotions at the revelation, cold contrast to her brightness. He suppressed a smile that was not at all amused. From the moment she first called for an Angel. You idiot. Why did you answer her?

Why do you hope she could answer you? It's a fool's hope, Erik, and you've absolutely no right to think it.

Erik wondered just what kind of unfortunate karma he had to have this happen to him. Do you honestly believe that, even if she wasn't repulsed by the idea, she could feel any kind of affection for you? This is you we're talking about, Erik.

He realized that she was still watching him, could not quite meet her eyes. With the admittance of this, how could he?

What would she think of you?

The phone split the air. Christine flinched, but to him, the dissonant jangle sounded like a godsend, an anchor to something tangible, something that he still had some measure of control over. "I'll get it." He managed to keep the note of relief from his voice at the interruption.

He heard her behind him as he made his way to the phone. He forced away the discord that was the echo of her steps. Control, Erik.

"Hello?"

Nadir's voice issued from the phone, stirring up the sickened rushes of guilt and anger before Erik suppressed them once more.

"Morning, Nadir."

"Morning, Erik. Might I speak with the birthday girl?"

Erik forced a semblance of levity into his voice. "You never called on my birthday."

"You hate being reminded of your birthday, Erik." Nadir said amusedly.

"Once I passed twenty-one, it ceased to have any benefits." Erik replied. "Here's Christine." He offered the phone to her. 'It's Nadir. I believe he asked for 'the birthday girl."

She took the phone, laughing, her radiance restored.

He looked away. Be her Angel, Erik.

But don't hope to be anything else.

Nadir

"Happy birthday, Christine! How are you?"

He could hear her smile through the lightness of her voice. "Thanks, Uncle Nadir. I'm well."

Nadir smiled and shook his head. "It's your birthday, Christine. You should be more than well, I hope."

She laughed. "All right. Just for you, I'll be ecstatic." she replied amusedly.

"That's my girl." Nadir said fondly. "Happy birthday, Christine. I love you."

"I love you too." His goddaughter's voice was warm. "Take care."

"You too."

Nadir heard the click of the phone and hung up, smiling. Happy birthday, Christine.

Christine

Christine set the phone down gently, feeling a burn behind her eyes. It had been so good to hear from him, so good, but... but... Christine blinked as her vision swam.

Nadir's voice only brought back the realization that he was the only living relative she had left. Her parents weren't here to share her birthday with her. He should have been here, her father standing insistently over her with a camera and telling her to make a wish later tonight.

It was the loss of him that hurt most. She had had several birthdays without her mother; that loss was a dull ache. It was the loss of her father that seared her so sharply, a physical agony throbbing through her. Christine swallowed and rubbed a hand over her eyes.

"Christine?"

She looked up to find Erik's eyes on her. At the care in them, the color the sea had been in her memories of them, she almost lost control.

"I wish they were here." Her voice was soft with the effort of holding back the shadows.

His voice was equally soft, she felt his eyes on hers, saw them as though through a rain-washed window. "I'm sure they know."

She felt her lips curve bitterly. "How, Erik? They're gone." She paused as the impact of the words hit her, a slow, heavy wave that flooded her with deadened darkness. They're gone. She felt a splintering inside of her as the sensation poured through her, as though she were a tree to be uprooted and broken by a ponderous flood. Her mouth suffused with a salty bitterness, her throat scalded. It was as though rain struck her, not the gentle rains that nurtured and supported, but the tempests that flooded and destroyed. They're gone. She gripped the edges of the counter, unflinching as the edges bit into her hands. The pain was nothing to the choking ache inside of her. "They're gone."

She started with surprise as she felt warmth enfold her. Her heart jumped, body trembling in the sudden rush of emotion. It cascaded over her, slipping, sliding, falling ever downward. And yet there was no end. She heard his voice, a quiet whisper in her ear. "You know you've felt them."

She turned toward him, arms going around his waist in desperation. It was as though she were adrift in a wild sea and he the tower rising above it, a pillar to cling to. A sanctuary, a harbor from her own internal storms. As he had been that morning she had sung to them. The morning she had felt them and he had been there to hold her.

She looked up to see a world of vivid blue, an unclouded, boundless sky. Eyes without end, eyes like summer. Warm and compassionate, touched with myriad things she could not yet define, but that drew her to them as a sunflower followed the blazing sun across the sky. "Tell me, Christine, do you think they'd ever truly leave you?" His voice was like the faint touch of a breeze in midsummer, carrying a thousand secret things as it brushed her.

A painful hope budded, twisting up recklessly inside of her. "Do you mean that?" she asked. Her voice was strangled, wrenched with the tears that burned against her skin. She felt them slide, a ferocity and a desperation in them as she looked up at him.

His eyes remained steady on hers, but there was a sudden infliction on them, as though her melancholy had spread to him; his voice lowered. "I would never say anything to you that I didn't mean, Christine." He took her hand, leading her to the door. "Come."

She followed him to the living room. If he noticed how tight her hand was on his, he said nothing of it.

He sat her down, rifled through a collection of videos. He pulled one away, knelt.

Christine blinked as the screen flared to life. An arch of white flowers spread over a green aisle of grass, framed by white benches. "That's-"

He sat by her. As an auburn-haired woman appeared under the arch, radiant in white, her eyes like spring gleaming with laughter and tears, he finished softly. "Your parents wedding."

Christine fixed her eyes on the radiant couple, a hunger stirring in her. A vast, aching emptiness seemed to stretch inside of her, an unvoiced, unfulfilled longing threatening to engulf her. She leaned against him, needing the warmth, the reality of another. Something tangible against her.

Laughter cascaded from the screen, the camera panned to a woman holding a knife over the cake, delicately sliding out a slice. A flash of smiles, shining eyes.

The wedding, the hospital after her birth, her first recital, a summer vacation by the sea, a white Christmas, all passed before her eyes. She drank it in like a rain-starved garden, feeling a restorative calm ebb through her, warmth unfurling tender leaves under the touch like sunlight. Her head dropped to his shoulder, tears slowing

They're gone. her mind whispered.

Do you think they'd ever truly leave you? Christine felt a sad, tender smile on her lips, a heat like the touch of the morning's sun spread through her.

No. A warm, protective presence enveloped her, offering selfless reassurance without regard or care for itself. It filtered through her like sunlight seeking through darkness, comforting, embracing. No, they wouldn't.

She looked up to see a young girl's smile.

They wouldn't.

At last the screen flickered to darkness, showing only the reflection of an young woman leaning against a man who looked down at her with both care and question in his eyes. Christine turned her eyes from the reflection to the reality, smiled up at the man who looked at her so intently. "Thank you."

He smiled slightly and she felt a questioning rise from the serenity. Despite the warmth of that smile there was something... something in them. A bleak shadow masked with compassion. Christine suddenly wanted to know the reason for the darkness behind the bright eyes.

And yet she could not ask. In the face of all he had given her, how could she pry into that darkness fully the equal of her own?

And yet... how could she not? After the care, the compassion he had shown her, the unasked-for comfort, given without obligation or demand. How could she allow him to keep the pain he had alleviated in her? Her blood raced at the shadows behind the light intensity. What can't I see?

What lies at the heart of his darkness?

"Erik," she started.

The shadows flickered. "Yes?"

What can't I see? She hesitated. "It's just... thank you."

What casts that shadow over him?

The darkness behind his eyes wavered and then was veiled. "Any time, Christine."

Erik

At some point her head fell against his shoulder, coppery hair brushing his neck. She contemplated what the videos presented to her with more or less tranquility. The need in her eyes was being slowly fulfilled by the memories.

When the screen went black, he was confronted with the image of her leaning against him. He looked down at her, a content radiating from her now, an inner peace found once more.

Christine's head lifted, her eyes warm on his. Alive.

"Thank you." Her voice was soft, her tone conveying more than the simple words could say. Her features glowed with a strange serenity.

It faded suddenly, as her eyes searched his, a sudden questioning in them. As though she sought to pierce the facade he had raised. Erik felt a chill. What could she see, as her dark eyes looked so intently into his?

"Erik," she began, voice hesitant.

He suppressed the rise of tension in him. Was he really that transparent to her? Could she see that far beyond the walls he had built, the mask he held before him? Could she see behind his masquerade?

What would she think of you?

"Yes?" he asked warily.

She seemed to falter and he began to breathe again. She did not realize. "It's just... thank you."

Strangely now, he saw concern in her eyes. A care and a warmth in the autumnal depths that sent a sudden ripple of emotions through him, a nostalgia for the day she had sung to him as the sun set. A longing for the yesterday that had never been. Christine...

."Any time, Christine." he answered quietly.

Angels give hope, Erik. They don't keep any for themselves.

Only humanity clings to hope.