Chapter 26- Destiny

Even as he told his daughter, omitting certain unnecessary gory details of course, one of the most terrible hours her face remained blank. The information seemed to disappear within her exterior and denied her emotion. Erik felt as though he spoke to a mature young woman. When he finished his story, he waited for some form of response but received none. Rosalie did not look at him for awhile and then began to speak with the vaguest sense of wisdom in her voice.

"Papa, show me what you looked like before, show me on your face."

Erik could not look at his daughter. Her honestly of what she found curious he found admirable but he daren't give her nightmares. She persisted.

"Please Papa, I want to know the real you."

"This is the real me!" Erik spoke with more fire in his voice than he meant to but he did not scare his daughter, "Don't you see? The whole time, no one could see me the way I was and that is why I did this, Rosalie? The whole world saw me as a monster, and so I behaved like one, but that was not who I was! This face, is!"

Rosalie stood up and looked and him in the eye, maintaining the boundary between father and daughter, "Papa, your face does not dictate who you should be on the inside. The outside has nothing to do with the inside. You are who you make yourself out to be, unless you have lied to me in your teachings of right and wrong."

Erik smiled at his daughter's familiar stubbornness, "Ma cherie, sometimes it is a little more complicated than that. But I think right now you may be too young to understand everything. Someday when you are a young woman wiser than me, we shall speak of this again."

"Yes, Papa," Rosalie sunk into the chair again, "Papa, when shall we go to see Mama again?"

"Today Angel, we shall go today."

Rosalie smiled and hugged Erik. He knew that today would be another day of a custody battle and he also knew that some resolution needed to be thought up. He would have to face Christine and Raoul again. They would always be in his life, he had to face that.

As he suspected he heard a knock at the door. It was Christine. When he opened the door, he was shocked to see that she was crying. Without even a "hello" Christine wrapped her arms around Erik and cried into his shoulder. Rosalie entered the room quietly and observed what was going on.

Erik patted Christine's hair and waited until she stopped crying. And calmed her with his cool words asking her what was wrong. She looked into his eyes.

"Erik, I'm pregnant again."

Erik did not look surprised but his jealousy of the Vicomte did not exist anymore. He waited to hear more.

"Oh Erik, I'm so afraid. I know I told Raoul we would have more children but… the doctor always said more births would get complicated after Josette. I never thought that it could happen, I'm so old Erik, I'm too old. And Raoul is making it so hard! He doesn't…"

At this she stopped and pulled away from Erik's embrace. She noticed Rosalie staring at them, and pushed her into Erik's bedroom and closed the door. Erik had not seen Christine this agitated in awhile. He fought his urges to kill the Vicomte and concentrated on being a good friend.

He caught her shoulders and she leaned into him and he smelled the rose oil she used. So familiar. Erik felt Christine tremble in his arms and he tried to ignore what he felt and he knew she was trying as well. Christine turned around, still in his arms and looked in his eyes.

"Oh Erik, don't look at me like that."

"I cannot look at you any other way."

"Erik I love Raoul, I chose him."

"You and I both lied."

"It doesn't matter, I'm living with him, I'm raising my children with him. You and I had our chance, it wasn't meant to be. We were meant to be miserable."

Erik smiled, "Perhaps you're right."

Christine bit her lip, "Erik, Raoul thinks… he thinks the child isn't his."
Erik blinked multiple times, "It's not… it can't be, it can't…"

"Oh Erik, I wish I knew. I can't say for sure!"