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

Note I- 'Aestus,' can be translated from Latin as both 'passion' and 'heat'.

Thank you for all of the the great response to the previous chapter. I hope the next few chapters will answer your questions.

Lee

Aestus

Christine

It was the sound of music that drew her from dreams. The sound that had so often eased her mind into sleep now woke it with a slow burning. It was a siren call she could not evade or resist any more than she could resist the comfort he had offered. It wound around her in the darkness, in the shadows before her eyes, in the moonlight straying through her window, in the very air she breathed, a glowing, intangible trail of beauty.

He was calling to her. Wordlessly, a subtle pull on her mind and soul that only his music seemed capable of. A warmth and a need that only he had sparked. Christine felt herself being drawn and knew the futility of resisting. Even if she had wanted to, she could no more ignore the summons of his music than the pain in his eyes.

And.. if he were playing to her, perhaps this time she could answer.

Perhaps this time she might succeed in breaking his darkness.

The hallway was dark, even the faint starlight admitted by the skylights did little to dispel the shadows. They wound all around her, echoing the movements of the music. Whispering, rippling at her feet, over the mask in her hand. Christine's breath caught as they guided her to him. Erik. She heard his voice, now, as she came nearer.

"Stranger than you dreamt it,

can you even dare to look

or bear to think of me?"

His voice was lilting, singsong, as she paced silently down the hallway toward him. Dimly, she could see him through the half-open door, his back to her. His voice was deliberate as it reached for her, almost taunting, though whether it was for her or for himself, she did not know.

He knew she was there.

And beneath the anger, held by the most delicate of controls, there was a bitter hatred. Not for her, but for himself. For the ruin of his face and the unfairness of the God that had given it to him.

Can you even dare to look? Christine's heart tightened. My God. What does he think of himself? What kind of monster does he believe himself to be?

Does he truly think I could fear him?

"This loathsome gargoyle who burns in hell,

but secretly yearns for heaven.

Secretly, secretly...

Christine..."

Her heart burned at the spite with which he referred to himself, and the bitter longing with which he spoke her name. A broken dream of acceptance.

Do you dream of Heaven, Erik? Christine paused on the threshold, uncertain, even now. The figure at the piano did not so much as look at her, caught up within himself. A lone man illuminated by moonlight, surreal. Christine half-expected him to evanesce into the night, leaving behind only the echo of his voice. Only the memory of an all-consuming torment. Erik. Why won't you let me help you? I promised to be your Angel, and- I know I've hurt you.

But... won't you let me help you? There was a moment of silence in which the softness of her name seemed to hang in the air. She took a hesitant step forward, only to be stopped by his voice. Rising as though he meant to reassure her- or himself. Of what, she couldn't decide.

"Fear can turn to trust,

you'll learn to see-

to find the man

behind the monster-"

A note of hope, almost of pleading, had entered his voice. A wistful, pained longing, a weakness she was sure he had not intended her to hear, a dream he had once clung to. A fracture in his walls whose presence he had denied even to himself. He reached out to her with his voice and she found herself moving forward once more in response to that plea. It pulled at her, drawing her to him by sound and soul.

Even as his voice roughened in reference to himself, she continued to him. His voice had sparked a flame that was now rising.

"- this repulsive carcass who seems a beast,

but secretly dreams of beauty.

Secretly, secretly...

... Oh, Christine."

As his voice fell, soft, so soft, she found herself beside him. The cold longing, the dark and lonely denial of his song hung between them. A voicing of all that he had dreamed of and aspired to, but had never allowed himself. A wish that had been silent and hidden from the world. The bitter disillusion he had found in place of the hope he had sought as he realized just what an unforgiving place the world was. It was both the barrier that rose between them and the tie that bound them. With these next moments, she could bridge the chasm she had created between them... or she could tear it yet further apart.

The chasm she had created... Christine felt her throat tighten, and realized just how much he had trusted her. That he cared for her and she had hurt him, however unintentionally. She had wounded him, scarred whatever trust he had for her and now there was hopelessness in his voice.

And she had brought it to him. She had hurt the man who had held her and comforted her. This man, who had kept himself to the shadows in his own fear, leaving his self-loathing to consume him.

Shadows she had tried to draw him out of whether he called for her or not.

He had called for her now. He had called-

-and in her name, she heard pain.

He did not look at her. She saw only the left side of his face, surreal by moonlight, determinedly focused straight ahead, eyes intent in the shadows. His features were drawn tightly, eyes a beacon in the darkness. The strange mysticism of the room only emphasized the hum of dark tension surrounding him. Christine hesitated in that silence, unsure of what to say. The moment stretched, the air heavy and still, like the tense heaviness of the calm before the storm.

His voice split the silence and in it she heard the cry of a wounded thing, broken and bleeding. "Are you proud of yourself, Christine?" He asked, not looking at her. For all the softness of his voice, there was a bitter acidity in it as he lashed out at her. And, as she had learned, the voice that could comfort her could also cut her. "For discovering my great secret?" He held out a hand; he still had not looked at her.

"Erik, I didn't mean to-"

His voice overrode hers "If you've satisfied your damnable curiosity, I would like my mask back."

So you can hide from me again? The anger in his voice gave rise to a flutter of tension inside of her. It was suppressed by the murmur that had moved her that night when the rain and the lightning were all around them. Go. It pressed her. Go. Christine paused, steeled herself.

Moving that one step closer, she placed her hand in his. It was warm, hot with the anger that ran through his veins. "Erik-" She had no idea what she was going to say, but she could not leave him with that darkness. She had made a promise, to him and to herself.

He rose in one fluid motion, quick as thought.

The mask fell to the floor unheeded this time. She found herself pulled against him with the sudden force of the fire she had provoked, a flare of emotion that jumped through her as well, like an arc of lightning. The length of his arm along her spine was unyielding, hand tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. Christine looked up into eyes that were blazing with a ferocity that should have chilled her. Her hands splayed over his chest; she could feel the hot pulse of anger beneath, a rapid, violent beating. A shock raced up her spine at the closeness, a sudden explosion of adrenaline as she was drawn into the fiery, seething aura around him, roiling over and through her like a turbulent sea. She could feel the heat of his body, pressed against hers, she could feel his every breath against her skin.

He gestured with his free hand, the other tight against her, holding her to him. His voice was fierce, venomous. "Is this what you wanted to see, Christine? Than look!"

She could see the translucent skin, mottled and scarred as though by some horrific fire. The twisted flesh, reddened and ravaged over the right side of his face, a stark contrast to the dark magnetism of the left side. The features were oddly distorted, a fine network of veins visible through the thin skin and the dry ridges of white scars. And just underneath, the sharp planes of bone, starkly prominent, almost skeletal. She could see it.

But she did not look. She did not need to.

It was him.

She gazed back steadily into the smoldering eyes. "Look, damn you." he hissed, voice laced with an anger that threatened to sear her as it passed through her spirit.

She was suddenly struck by the dark majesty of him, an untamed, almost tangible potency that she felt even now. The raw grace and the power that came upon him, in this room above all.

And yet- and yet beneath it, all the sadness of the world. A painful solitude soothed only by the cold comfort of pride and the dreaming opiate of music. His eyes were striking, blazing on hers, a flaring corona. She was shaking- or he was, she didn't know. The heat of his anger pressed in around her, emanating from the heart that beat so wildly under her hand and the eyes so bright as they looked into hers.

"Erik," she began softly, "calm down." Inwardly, she wondered at how still she felt. How perfectly clear her mind, how perfectly unafraid.

No. It was not fear that shivered her, shook them both. It was something else. "Let's talk about this reasonably." She looked back at him steadily. Listen to me, Erik.

He threw her own phrasing back at her with acidic scorn. "I don't think reason has any part in this conversation, Christine." His voice was honed to biting perfection. Christine flinched at the sting in his voice, but would not let herself be deterred.

It was him.

Erik

"Erik, I never meant to-" she started again. He caught a tremor in her voice, in the body so fragile against his. Something bordering on desperation in her eyes. He hated himself at that moment, for, even now, with her mahogany eyes so wide on his, he was acutely aware of her slender hands over his heart, the press of her slim body against his, the heavy fall of hair over her back that brushed his arm. Even now, he had to resist the urge to stroke the stray chestnut tendrils back from where they tumbled over her face, to wipe away the unsurety in her eyes.

You are weak, Erik. To think that the feel of her heart racing, her breath shaking, could drive him to the edge of his control even after all she had done to him.

To think that, even now, all he wanted was to hold her closer.

He cast her from him. Control, Erik. "Enough, Christine." he cut her off. Erik heard his own voice rough with scorn, the bitterness he had so often lavished upon himself turned on her in an effort to drive her away. He felt a twinge of guilt at the harshness with which he spoke, suppressed it. This was as much for her protection as his. "You are afraid- then go." Before something happens that we'll both regret. "I am not holding you here. I have never made you do anything against your will, and I do not intend to start now." I will never force you. I will never hurt you.

No matter what you've done to me. He could not harm her.

Her eyes were brilliant in the soft light of the night. He wished she would look away.

But no. Those luminescent eyes looked straight into his, and touched his spirit. Those mahogany eyes that brushed soul to soul, a selfless offering of compassion. It was in that single look that he could almost touch the cradling ocean of emotion, feel her cleansing acceptance. Her breath stilled, autumnal eyes steady, asking and giving, forgiveness and trust.

All without a single word or caress.

"I know." she whispered.

Christine

It was cold, her sudden freedom, in the absence of his touch. Without the beat of his heart under her hands, the arms that held her to him in anger and desperation.

His eyes held a startling clarity, ablaze with an unvoiced longing, bright as the descendant sun over the sea as it crowned the waves in flame. In his words she heard the self-denial of a man who had relinquished all hope and shrouded himself in night. Had held himself to the shadows and shrunk from the touch of the sun with fierce resentment and bitter longing. It was anger and it was despair and yet it was neither.

It was pain.

She turned away from the agony before her, searching for words. Her eyes fell upon the score, flickering over the lines. The words seemed to waver in the faint moonlight, dancing over the page like weaving candlelight in the shadows.

Stranger than you dreamt it... can you even dare to look? Her breath caught at the hopeless loathing in the words. Could he himself even look upon what he most feared and despised? She glanced at the mirrors, the curves of fabric deep red but where the moonlight painted them with crimson. Did he perhaps try to blind himself to it?

Or was it all that he saw?

... Christine... Fear can turn to love.

She froze. Her heart pounded once, breath stopping. The air stilled and pressed in around her, the heavens halting their wheeling overhead. The candles guttered, flames tilting.

Fear can turn to love.

The moonlight seemed suddenly blazing as her eyes turned inward. It all rushed in on her now, the look in his eyes, the subtle language of tone and movement. The warmth of his voice, the care with which he had held her. All of the little nuances she had missed, every sign that should have alerted her that she had disregarded. Her body hummed with the force of emotions running through her now, the strength of memories. She was acutely aware of him behind her, a guardian presence, as he had ever been. She was aware of his eyes upon her, a wordless, helpless fear that she did not even have to see, but that washed over her in a crashing wave from behind.

The times he had wiped away her tears, the music in the night. The alternate caress and coolness of his voice, his sudden withdrawals from her. The way his eyes would flicker with shadows, a veil over the sky colored brightness.

And... Christine drew in a shuddering breath. The warmth he had kindled in her in return. The comfort of the brilliant eyes as they looked so reassuringly into hers. The safety she felt around him, the peace within the circle of his arms, the elusive magnetism that drew her to him. The depth with which he touched her, with song and gaze, word and embrace. The sheer longing she had had to touch him, to heal him. A longing that she still had. That, she now realized, threatened to shatter her if it went unanswered.

Angel...

How did I miss this?

She turned, her eyes flew up to his in wordless question. Why didn't you tell me?

He looked at her almost defiantly. When he spoke, his voice was soft, dying slowly into silence.

"Is it so terrible, Christine?" There was a bitter pain in the words, in the bleak light of his eyes. He stood before her, at last completely unmasked.

And behind his masquerade, she found a man with broken hopes and shattered dreams. Who had kept from her a hopeless, helpless love, so convinced of his own inhumanity and her subsequent rejection.

Christine was speechless.

Erik

She knew.

He felt all of his hopes rise to the surface, tried desperately to force them back to the shadows where they belonged. In a moment, he had handed her a greater weapon with which to harm him, had himself pulled away a mask that covered something infinitely more powerful than a face. And now he stood bared before her. Their illusions, their games of make-believe, were at an end and now reality was upon them both.

In a moment, she could break him. Her mahogany eyes were wide on his, pleading for an answer. What to tell her, what to say, he didn't know. What could he say in this moment that would salvage this? What could he tell her, what answers could he give?

There was nothing he could do. She held the answers. His heart was in her keeping; in this, he was powerless. He felt the distance between them, a slender abyss that nevertheless could swallow him if he stepped too near the edge. Close enough to reach out and touch, if only he could. But no.

He could not reach out and watch her flinch away. He could not risk the step toward the abyss and the long, dark fall that was sure to follow. It was up to her to span the distance or increase it. He was powerless.

Helpless.

"Is it so terrible, Christine?" he asked at last.

She did not answer.

The first real cliffhanger! Very cruel of me, yes, but a chance to get some very emotional, inspirational reviews.

(Inspirational reviews do not include threats of bodily harm or laptop abduction) :)

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it enough to review.

cookies, hugs, et cetera

Lee