The Light of His Life

Disclaimer: Don't own POTO… but I do own Piers.

A/N: Just a fleeting update… I am not at home. theangelcried, this is your doing. And yet, still, that nagging feeling that I've forgotten something…

Please read and review…

Chapter 7: Parting Pains and Coping Alone…

You bloody idiot, he scolded himself, not for the first time that night. How could you have let her go just like that? What if something happens to her? Or what if she meets someone over there that she likes more than she likes you? What if he tries to kiss her? You are not there to protect her, you fool, and that is all your own fault. You are not there to make sure that she doesn't waste her first kiss on someone who is entirely undeserving of such an honour.

Christine had left for Florence in the early hours of that morning with Meghan and Ada Giry. They would be gone for two whole weeks and he was absolutely miserable. Not only had he not slept the night before for worrying about her impending departure, but he could also not expect to be able to sleep at all for the next fortnight. Then there was the rest of the day to contend with…

Breakfast had been deplorable. The only reason he was up and about at that time anyway was that he had wanted to be there to see Christine off and then, after they had shared their tearful goodbye and she had left, he was forced to wander about aimlessly in the deafening quiet of his house. He could no longer call it his home for his beloved was not there and he was only at home with her, but he had tried to keep things normal and that meant eating. Unfortunately, however, he had immediately reverted to his old habits of eating little and unhealthily, and he had found with despair that it was the most lonely thing in the world to sit at the breakfast table on his own in the dark of early morning without the brightness of Christine's smile to warm him. He didn't understand how he could ever have been able to do it before.

The drive to work had been just as hard and just as boring without her, and he had driven mindlessly and out of habit before moving through his classes in much the same fashion. Piers, bubbly from a supposedly great dinner the previous evening with his lady friend, had only gotten on his nerves and he had left in the middle of a one-sided conversation as he tried to drown out the rest of the world's apparent happiness.

The evening was even worse as he had nothing to distract himself from her absence and he became even more aware of how big a part of his life she was. Sighing fretfully, he nursed a cold cup of tea as he sat there in the dark, barren study, his eyes concentrated on the phone as he waited impatiently for her to ring. She had said only loosely that she might phone if she got a chance and yet he sat there religiously, staring at it until it finally did ring and he practically pounced on it, lifting the receiver to his ear.

"Christine?"

"Mr. Phelps-Jones? I'm calling from–"

"Oh, naff off," he muttered wretchedly, annoyed beyond words that someone would dare call him when he was trying to keep the line open for his angel.

Christ, he missed her…

Elsewhere, Christine missed him just as much as he missed her. She missed his endearing crankiness early in the morning and she missed his grumpy complaining over breakfast. But mostly, she missed his love… She had learnt a few things since she'd left him and the first was that she may love both Meg and her mother but she did not love them the way she loved her Angel and they could never love her the way he did. She also learnt that she didn't like sharing with other women – they were all too similar and she missed her Angel's contrast. After all, she couldn't very well share the same relationship with them that she shared with Erik. She liked feeling protected by him, as though he were always there to care for her and she could not have that with Meg or her mother… nor would she want it with them. She also found that she missed caring for him too. While she loved Florence very much and indeed had always thought it was a very beautiful city, she found herself becoming bored more easily without Erik's immense knowledge to intrigue her or at least his company to soothe her. Truly, she loved the Girys… but she could not focus without her Angel.

"Hey, Chris, what's up with you?" Meg asked, plopping down on one of the beds in their hotel room as Christine continued to stare out the window at everything while seeing nothing. "You've been sulking all day."

"I'm having second thoughts," she confessed after a moment's silence.

"About what?"

"About leaving Erik at home on his own for two weeks…"

"He's a grown man – he can look after himself. He managed perfectly well for thirty odd years before you started doing it for him. Let him try to cope on his own for a while."

"I think I'll call him…"

"And say what? 'You were right, Angel, I shouldn't have come'," Meg mimicked her. "We are supposed to be on holiday here!"

"I just miss him, Meg. You don't understand."

"I know," she said softly. "But, Christine, he has been your everything for years… he has been your friend, your father, your protector… even your boyfriend at times. You can't let him continue to be everything to you… what if, you meet some man you want to go out with and then he sees the relationship between you and Erik and feels uncomfortable with it?"

"Angel always comes first," Christine stated resolutely. And so he did… she would never side with anyone before she would side with him.

"Yes, that's true," Meg agreed. "But it's about time you did. You need to experience things on your own."

"I'd rather experience them with Erik. And I don't see why I should have to settle."

"So what are you going to do? Call him and ask him to come get you…? And then move into a hotel across the street with him, going to the same places we're going now, looking at the same things we're looking at now but seeing them somehow differently? It's only two weeks, Chris, give it a chance."

Sighing, Christine continued looking out at just the littlest bit of Florence and she conceded. "Of course, you're right, Meg. I'm sure he can manage without me."

By the second day, he had called in sick… himself surprised both at the brevity of the time he had managed without her and that he had lasted even that long in the first place. So, he had decided to try and get away with as many days off as he could wrangle – and after twenty-five years working at that school without taking all of his allotted time off, they could not begrudge him a few days leave now that he had asked for it. And Erik was glad, for he had no idea how he would have been able to function had he gone into work and not seen her there again – her seat in his class depressingly empty.

It was beyond him how much he loved her. And how much it pained him when she was not there… so much, it made him ill.

He'd never before, since Christine had come into his care, spent a single day at the school when she was not there – even when she was sick, he would take the day off too, staying at home to look after her. And the school had allowed that, for he never missed any days himself otherwise and they understood that it was difficult for single parent families when the child was unable to attend school even if briefly.

Erik was miserable. He'd never experienced such discomfort in his life… he was bedridden with an awful, truly terrible illness he found people quite offhandedly knew as Chickenpox. His poor darling Christine had caught the illness off of one of the less cultured, less mature, sloppier young members of the human race she had to, unfortunately, share a class with, and he had, of course, gotten it from close contact with her. He hadn't caught it as a child having had so little contact with other children and, even as he had worked in the school for years before Christine came along, he had never had any contact with children young enough to contract the illness. He was paying for it now, though… but what was worse was that his little angel was sick too and he could not look after her as he well as he would have wished. He was aware that getting Chickenpox at his age was not only rare but also rather dangerous to his health – but that was not what worried him… she always came first.

Wretchedly, he looked up from his absolutely exhausted, slumped position in his bed towards the adjoining door he shared with the beautiful child he lived with. He couldn't help but find himself smiling as the very girl he had been thinking about trailed tiredly into his room, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she crawled into the bed beside him. He didn't waste his breath on reprimanding her for moving about while she was ill, nor did he bother to ask what she wanted… he just brought her into his arms and pulled the covers up around them both before settling down next to her in hope of sleep. She gave him such comfort.

"Angel?" she asked sweetly, her voice clearly showing her exhaustion.

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry I made you sick…"

Erik opened his eyes fully, now completely awake, and looked at Christine with nothing short of amazement. "What do you mean?"

"It's my fault that you're sick, Angel. I'm sorry."

"You didn't make me sick. Oh, sweetheart," he laughed softly, "is that what you think? How could think this was your fault? You can't help getting Chickenpox, Christine… I just wish I could take care of you better."

She looked up at him innocently, her eyelids droopy from fatigue and she decided not to argue with him, instead repositioning herself upon his chest. "I'm tired, Angel," she stated, though it was obvious.

Stroking a curl away from her forehead, he moved again so that he was lying flat on his back with her lying chastely on his chest and then he regarded the half-asleep seraph with immense love. "Shh… go to sleep."

"You won't leave, will you, Angel?"

"How could I ever leave you? You are my heart, sweet child… I would simply cease to be without you."

Little did he ever realise how true those words were…

"That's perfect, Angel," teenage Christine called down the stairs, watching as he arranged a particularly large piece of artwork on the wall. "But it'd look better about three feet to your left…"

"How," he started, struggling the heavy piece to the ground in his frustration, "how can it be perfect but still look better moved three feet to the left?"

"Because it was perfect where you had it, Angel, but it was so you… if you move it three feet to the left, it will still be where you wanted it but with my input too," she explained, happily waltzing down the stairs to meet the confused man at the bottom. "You see that?" she asked when he'd placed it where she'd asked, waiting until he acknowledged her with a nod as they both stood side to side, staring at it. "That's us."

Erik continued looking at the oil impression of the landscapes of Italy and shook his head briefly to clear it. Then he looked at the young woman next to him and back towards the painting again. "That's us?"

"Yes, Angel, that's me and you. Can't you see it?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of the landscape.

"Of course," he muttered. "We're beautiful, Christine." And he realised that she had been right – it would have looked awful, almost unnoticeably so, but awful, nonetheless, if it had stayed three feet to the right. If it had been just him, it would have looked truly awful, indeed. But, with Christine's influence… they could be beautiful together. Even though he could not, while he was alone.

Rationally, he could tell himself that he was being stupid… rationally, he couldn't understand why he was finding it so hard to cope on his own when he had been managing it for years before she had even come into his life. But it was not something he could easily rationalise and, by now, he had stopped trying… there was no point in trying to understand why he ceased to be, almost, without her when he already knew why that was. She was his life – he'd loved her forever and he'd been in love with her forever. She brightened up every day so easily and she had done everything for him. Christine Daaé was a diamond and he was the luckiest man in the world to have been given the opportunity to spend so much of his time with her and to hold so much of her trust – of her love. It was merely unfortunate then that he was such a bloody idiot that he had taken her for granted…

A quiet, frustrated figure unconsciously tapped out a rhythm with his free hand upon the mahogany of the desk he was huddled over, in the midst of a great deal of work. It was somewhat of a routine of his, when he came home at the end of the day to finish his lesson plans and other work before attempting to unwind. Actually, what he should have said was that it was somewhat a routine of theirs… His precious angel was very much a part of the routine in question. No, the routine would not be manageable were she not present.

Christine Daaé understood that her Angel would be in a bad mood because of the load and, therefore, she found the night went one of two ways – either he would stop working for a while to take comfort in her presence, or, he would keep working but insist that she stay nearby so that he could concentrate without having to worry about where she was. Regardless, the night would always start out the same way…

"Christine, I need my–"

"Here you are," she said happily, placing a large leather-bound date book in front of him at just the right page that he required and at just the right angle that he didn't have to rearrange things. He could be very much like a child in his need to have the things he wanted right there in front of him just as soon as the idea had popped into his mind – but she was happy to humour him if it made life easier. She also found it undeniably endearing, though sometimes it slipped her notice just how dependent of her he was becoming.

"Where's my…?" He gestured vaguely in the air with his left hand as he struggled to remember the name of what he was looking for.

"Yes, Angel, it's in your top right drawer."

Indeed what he was looking for was in his top right drawer but how she had even known what he was talking about was beyond him.

"And I need…"

"Here," she said, placing a mug of his favourite tea in front of him. "I brought your biscuits too and I got your coat back from the dry cleaners – it's in your wardrobe… and your slippers are under the desk."

Erik pursed his lips and blinked at her as she walked away, wondering just when he had become so dependent upon another person. The day she came into my life, he thought as he started to nibble contemplatively on one of the snacks she had left him.

His behaviour had become deplorable of late and he could see that now. He had not only allowed her to do everything for him and had taken that for granted, but he had also been neglecting her needs. If she had accepted Raoul de Chagny's request that she be his girlfriend, what right was it of his to have an opinion on that? What right did he have to object to it at all when he had treated her as he had? Surely the boy would treat her better… and she did deserve to be fussed over for her own sake now. That was not to say that he had given up, certainly not, but he had decided that he would do everything he could from now on to turn her to his affections. All he had to do was to wait for her to come home… but that wasn't nearly as easy as it had sounded.

So, it was by the third day, that, having heard nothing from her and worried beyond belief, he nearly leapt into the air when the phone rang.

"Christine?"

"Hello, Angel," she trilled, making him sigh at her beauty and out of relief that she seemed alright.

Then he became upset that she hadn't phoned when she very well could have and he obviously wasn't very high on her list of priorities. Then he thought he was being too harsh on her, after all, he had treated her deplorably before she left. So, he settled for being upset but aware that it was his own fault. "Why haven't you called me before now? I was worried about you. Anything in the world could have happened to you."

"I'm sorry, Angel, I just didn't want to bother you. Look, I have to go soon or we'll end up paying through the nose for using a hotel phone. I just thought I'd let you know I was alright."

"Forget the money," he complained, annoyed that something so trivial – at least to them – was getting in the way of their talking. "I'll settle the bill, don't even worry about it. And, if you need it, you know you have access to our funds, don't you?"

"Angel, I'm fine, really… you worry too much. I just don't think I should run up a large bill on Mrs. Giry's holiday, even if we are going to pay for it ourselves."

"Don't worry about her," he said shortly, annoyed that they were arguing over the price of a telephone call when he had missed not being able to talk to her and see her everyday. "I'll take care of it."

"Look, I'd better go… I'll call you again next week."

Next week? That was just as much as he could take. There was absolutely no way he was going to wait a week to hear her again. "Definitely not! Give me the number to your room and I'll call back in a minute."

"I can't, Angel, we're going out now. I'll have to speak to you later."

"Christine, do as you are told, sweetheart. Give me the number and I will call you back."

"Oh, alright, but I can't stay long."

"Mmm," he mumbled, not truly agreeing and then he wrote the number down that she gave him, groaning with impatience as he dialled it and waited to be reconnected to her.

"Angel?"

"Yes, darling. Finally," he sighed dramatically. "We can talk. I miss you."

"I know; I miss you too… how was your day, Angel?"

He wouldn't tell her that he'd spent all day at home, having not been able to face going in. He also wouldn't tell her that he hadn't been eating or sleeping and that he hadn't left the house in two days. "Fine. Listen, darling, I am going to call you everyday, so you needn't worry about the bill, alright?"

"You can't keep calling Italy everyday, Angel."

"I am not a poor man in monetary terms, my child, but I am so very poor in happiness when you are not by my side. I should have treated you better… I have had you for thirteen years and I had begun taking you for granted. I can see that now and it will not happen again, I can promise you that. I love you."

"What are you saying exactly, Angel?"

"I am saying that I am sorry for my behaviour and I am asking you to come home, Christine. I will take you to Florence again, if you would like, later. The two of us… together… as it should be."

"I have to go, Angel. Look, I'll think about it." Quickly, she hung up the phone and stared at it. She couldn't continue to talk to him, otherwise she would give in. And she couldn't give in yet… They would be so much closer if she just lasted the two weeks and then went home. Besides, it was not as though she was not having a good time. She was much happier than she had been on the first day and it could only get better, she was sure. It'd be fine…

By the fourth day, Erik had taken to sleeping – or rather, resting,as he could not sleep – in her room instead of his, just so that he had all of her things near him.

"Christ, you reek!" a surprised voice called, startling him enough to pull himself up in the bed.

"What are you doing here?" Erik asked finally with enough presence of mind to get up completely.

"No… what are you doing in here?"

"I have every right to be in here," he defended. "This is my house!" So why did he feel guilty about getting caught in Christine's room?

"But it's not your room…"

"How did you get in?" he asked instead of continuing a subject he did not wish to get into overly deeply.

"You left the door unlocked."

"Oh?" That surprised him… had he really been so careless? He definitely would not have been had she been home with him at the time.

"Yes, and I expected to find you anywhere but here…"

"Why are you here, Piers?"

"Hey, don't get tetchy with me! I'm not the one who abandoned you… I just came to see if you were alright as you've been off for days. And look what I find! You could really do with a clean-up… have you even seen yourself?"

Finally, turning his head towards the full-length mirror in his Christine's room, he caught a glance of his reflection in her mirror and stared at it in horror. But it was not so much the mask that was bothering him this time as much as everything else was – he looked positively emaciated, his pyjamas hanging off of him, making him look scruffy. The dark rings around his eyes, his ashen complexion and greasy hair were certainly not helping matters any. He definitely needed to clean himself up, he decided. "So I'm not at my best… so what? You would not be either if your – what was her name? Nicole? Natasha?"

"Raquel, actually," Piers corrected, un-amused.

"Close enough. You would not be either if your Raquel had left you!"

"That's hardly the same… Christine is not your girlfriend and your depression is bordering on the obsessive, Erik. What would she say if she could see you now?"

"She won't see me now and that is the bloody point, Piers. What the hell kind of name is 'Raquel' anyway?"

"Well, that was an unsuccessful subject change if ever I heard one. Why has Christine going on holiday gotten you so agitated?"

"You don't understand the way I feel about her."

"No," he agreed, "and I probably won't until I have a daughter myself."

"She is not my daughter."

"Well, no… not per se. But I've seen you with her – I know you love her just as much if not more than even if she were your own."

"You'll never understand what I feel for her. But never once – never once – have I ever thought of her as my daughter." And with that cryptic statement, he tore his gaze away from Piers wretchedly, walking out of her room to find that the rest of the house seemed to be in just as much of a mess as he was. He had obviously ceased to function without her and he did not like it, and so, he made a sudden decision that he would not continue to suffer as he had been – no, he would actively get her back, himself. But first, he would make sure that she had a clean home and a groomed Angel to come back to. He may be old-fashioned but he had always believed that men should dote upon their spouses dutifully and happily – now, he realised that Christine was not yet his spouse, if she ever would be, but she very much was so in his mind and in his heart – but he wanted to do everything for her. He had always detested men who left their wives or their partners to do all the things around the house while they did nothing but laze around – of course, he could not exactly be called lazy – he had just let other things get in the way of him taking care of her properly… insignificant things really, when they were compared to her happiness – things like his teaching plans and exam marking. Somewhere along the way, it had escaped his notice and he had become like one of those men he truly detested. But not for a moment longer…

Piers joined him downstairs a few minutes later, recovering slowly from his confusion enough to shake it off and try a different tact. "She'll be back soon…" he started, standing behind him. "We can do something to take your mind off of it and the time will go in much faster than all that, you'll see."

"I don't want to take my mind off of her," he replied automatically, staring rather thoughtfully at a pile of rubbish stacked on top of the bin. Had it really only been four days? Suddenly more upbeat, he whirled around to face Piers, and, with an unreadable but intense expression on his face, he quite seriously asked his colleague to leave.

"What?"

"Get out, please. Come on, quickly… I don't have all day. Well, actually I have several days," he finished more to himself. "But that is hardly the point, is it? Out you go, I have to things to get done."

Finding himself being pushed unceremoniously out the door, Piers shook his head and managed one final sentiment before the door was firmly shut – and locked – in his face. "You were lucky to get to know that one, Erik. Nobody else could ever put up with you twenty four hours a day!"

But it fell upon deaf ears, or rather, the ears of a man who had already set his mind on something and the ears of a man who did not have the ability to let things go when he had gotten an idea.

So it was that, when he'd tidied the house to his satisfaction, making sure that all the washing was done and that there was no evidence left that he had not been looking after himself properly, he took a shower, finally getting dressed in a clean dress suit and generally sorting himself out. Then he went out and got some supplies in so that he could make Christine's favourite meal for her when she got home – and she would be coming home… of that he was sure. He would bring her back and then he would take care of her as she had taken care of him for the greatest part of their years together. He was going to do everything for her. He intended to pamper her – to make it so that she was so content she would never even think of leaving him again. He was a man on a mission. And he would never be dissuaded from it… even if the object of this particular mission did not want it.

Then he phoned the airline and booked himself passage on the next flight bound for Florence that night, also reserving himself and his Christine seats to return home the next morning, anticipating her reunion with him. He had wanted them to get a flight home that same night but there was nothing available with them sitting together and he was not about to get her back just to spend a couple of hours apart again.

But he resolved that one night there was not worth worrying about if he were with her… and he would be with her. There was never any other choice.

© Copyright of CrawfordsBiscuits, April 2006

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