He saw her into a cab.

Erik couldn't justify following her home, and that was the compromise they reached. He would see her safely into a cab because he couldn't see her safely to her front door.

The building somehow felt much different when it was empty. It was larger than he had first thought, but it was nothing that he would get lost in. The vast majority of it was nothing but the cement box he had first walked into, unfinished and laid out in a way that made him wonder if whoever owned it had bigger plans before they realized they simply couldn't afford to finish them.

He ran his fingers along the large archway he had found carved into the rough cement, absolutely certain that it had been meant to prop up some pretty false facade. There wasn't much interesting to be found in the room behind it; the hole was covered with nothing but a curtain and it was simply storage, clothing racks shoved to the far corner, a haphazard pile of shoes, another two large crates.

Aside from a large safe that would be impossible for one person to move and the low hum of the furnace, there wasn't much of interest to be found and he found himself wandering aimlessly.

That was, until he happened upon the small grouping of doors, four of them, two on each side of the little hallway. Each one bore a little plastic placard, the cheap plastic things etched with names.

Hers was in the back, on the left side, and he ran his fingers over the cheaply made placard. " ". It was simple white lettering that felt like it belonged on an office desk instead of in any kind of performing arts.

There was a moment of hesitation before he reached for the handle on the door. It felt like an invasion of some sort, a similar feeling coiling deep in his gut that felt almost exactly like it had when he followed her.

But she gave him the key, and he had no doubt that she knew he would go poking around.

With that thought, he pushed his way into the room with her name on the door.

There wasn't much, in his first cursory glance around the room, that stood out in particular. He recognized, of course, the dresses hung in the small open-faced closet. The vanity pushed to the corner was standard enough, blocky and painted white, makeup brushes organized carefully and jars of varying sizes laid out, lids tightly secured.

It was the small bookshelf in the corner that really caught his attention. The poor thing looked like it was going to give out any day and he ran one finger slowly along the thin spines of the booklets on the center shelf. There were a few loose-leaf pages of music piled at the top but it was the small spiral notebook on the second shelf, pressed under three of the thicket liberattos, that intrigued him.

He extracted it, taking great care not to catch the cover and rip it. It was just a standard twenty five cent notebook, the cover of it red and plain, boasting that it had seventy sheets.

The first page was blank, the scraps catching in the metal spiral leading him to believe more than one page had been torn from it. He flipped the first page and paused.

There was a date scribbled on the top line and below it, dried and pressed carefully, was that first ugly orchid he had brought her, secured to the page with a careful layer of tape, the petals just as discolored as they had been when he first found it. Aside from a simple date, there was nothing else on the page.

He turned the page and there, another. The lilac held its color much better than the orchid had.

The rose hadn't yet found its place but already, there was a date scribbled at the top of the blank page. Vaguely, he wondered if it was somewhere in that small dressing room, pressed somewhere carefully.

If he was honest, he wasn't sure what exactly to make of it except that it obviously had some sort of sentimental value to her, whatever that might be. She was difficult for him to understand and he wasn't sure whether to blame that on her or himself. He wasn't the most social of men; he wondered if everyone was just as much of a puzzle as she was and he simply hadn't ever cared enough to notice it before.

The only conclusion that he could really draw from it was that he would have to continue to bring her flowers. The rest of the notebook was nothing but blank pages and he closed it, sliding it carefully back into place.

Erik chose to stay near the building. The key was heavy in his pocket and he remembered her suggestion that she may be by sometime that week.

Well, he had her key. It was cold and she had no way to tell him that she was there and waiting if he wasn't. Every hour or so, he would pass by and glance down the dark, cramped alleyway.

It was Wednesday when he found her there, early in the afternoon, shivering by the back door and puffing on a cigarette.

"How long have you been waiting?" he asked as he approached her.

"Uh..." she glanced toward the center of the alleyway, looking contemplative. "Four."

"Four what?"

"Cigarettes."

As much as he begrudged the habit, he couldn't help his slight huff of a laugh. "Is that how you measure time?"

She shrugged one shoulder, snubbing her cigarette out on the brick wall beside the door. "Seems just as valid as any other way."

He couldn't really argue with that, and he unlocked the door with a practised ease, leading her into the warmth of the building.

It really was something to be grateful for. Even in only a handful of days he had grown to dread the day that it was discovered and he was kicked out. Having someplace warm was an incredible luxury that he would miss.

"Have you written my song?" she murmured, pulling the door closed behind her with a click.

"I have a confession about that."

"Here we go," she sighed. "What?"

He frowned, finding his way to the panel of lights and flipping them on. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing," she answered, forcing a smile as she squinted in the too-bright light. "What's your confession?"

She was sober. Her eyes were clear and as he drew closer to her, he couldn't smell even the faintest hint of alcohol. He hadn't realized until just then that he wasn't sure if he had ever actually seen her sober. "I can't read sheet music."

Her eyebrows drew together as she gazed up at him. "Well, I knew that. You don't need to read it to write a song."

"You knew?"

Christine bit the inside of her lip and lifted one shoulder in that same half-shrug. "I assumed, I guess," she answered slowly. "But you still play really well and you're really good with words and I guess. I dunno. I guess I thought it didn't really matter."

"It will if I can't give you a sheet for your pianist," he pointed out.

When she reached for him, he let her, lacing her fingers together behind his neck. "I dunno if you know this, but I can read sheet music," she murmured. "And I can write it, too, if you play it for me."

She smelled like mint and some sort of fancy, flowery perfume that was probably too expensive for him to ever name. Everything about her made him nervous. It always had but her, sober, so close to him, it didn't take a genius to put together the fact that he was living on borrowed time.

He couldn't buy her fancy dresses or diamonds or even that stupid perfume and no matter how many times he insisted there was, there was no castle and he wasn't sure how there ever could be.

But when she leaned up and kissed him, having to rock up on her toes to do it, he couldn't find it in him to care.

"I only have a few hours," she murmured. "But I wanted to see you."

"You did?"

She looked at him like his simple question was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. "Well, considering I could be literally anywhere else at all right now if I wanted to be, I guess so," she answered simply. "You really are ridiculous."

Erik was self-sabotaging. He knew that. No amount of awareness or will-power could stop it; she smelled like mint, her eyes were the clearest he had ever seen and she was there, with him. She chose to be there with him. "Christine," he breathed, knowing that he was the one causing the train-wreck and finding himself completely incapable of stopping it. "I love you."

To his surprise, there wasn't much of a reaction. She didn't push him away or tell him he was an idiot, she just continued to stare up at him with that same contemplative look, like she was just as confused by him as he was by her. She didn't return the words and he was glad for it. If she did, it would have been a placating lie.

The last thing he wanted was for her to lie to him.

"I know," she said softly instead. "Or at least, that you think you do." There was a beat of silence, two, as they simply looked at each other before finally, that slight frown slid back into place on her lips. "Will you ever show me what's under that thing?"

The only thing he could do was give the slightest shake of his head.

"Well, you said it for a reason," she prodded, her thumb brushing against the hard cheek of his mask. "If you love me, you must want me to feel the same... what would you do if I just took it?"

And with that, he was the one to pull away. "You don't want to see it," he answered seriously. "I know - I would be curious, too. Some things are better as curiosity."

She stared back at him seriously. "What would you do?" she asked again, the words steady.

"I don't know," he confessed, keeping a careful distance between them.

"Would you hurt me?"

The simple way she said it made him pause, his frown a reflection of her own. "No," he decided after a long moment. "Not on purpose."

She took a step forward and he swallowed. It took fighting every instinct in himself to keep his feet bolted just where they were, to keep his hand from grasping at her wrist that was coming just a bit too close to him.

But she didn't reach for his mask; instead, her warm hand pressed gently against his chest.

"You saw my scars," she said simply. "I don't like letting people see those, either... but I let you.

I'm not a child. It won't scare me away. You don't trust me, do you?"

All that he could do was stare at her hand on him, at her too-thin wrist.

"Well, maybe I'm just dumb," she sighed. "You might not trust me, but I trust you. Maybe too much."

He looked back up at her carefully. "I don't have a nose."

She huffed a laugh, and he couldn't be sure if it was the serious way that he said it that did it or if she actually found humor in the concept. "They're overrated anyway," she answered. "You've already called yourself hideous... it doesn't scare me. Knowing that you might be right. It's more real than that dumb thing."

He could only frown. "I can't do it," he said, his voice rougher than he anticipated.

Her hand moved slowly, creeping up his chest, and he instinctively raised his chin in a half-hearted attempt to pull away; it got him nowhere. The tips of her fingers were warm against the skin just at the edge of his mask and all he could do was close his eyes, hold his breath.

There was a rush of cold air against his long neglected skin, and then there was nothing. No gasp, no sigh, no clatter of his mask against the pavement, no echoing footsteps, only a simple silence.

He was the first to break it, an empty laugh escaping him. "I'm very handsome, aren't I?" he asked bitterly, not daring to open his eyes.

"Exceedingly," she answered, the word soft.

Erik forced himself to open his eyes, to look at her and her sad smile.

"Okay. It's a lie," she teased gently, reaching slowly up to brush her warm fingertips against his sunken, greyed cheek. "I understand. Why you wear it. But I don't think you need to."

He could only stare at her as she touched his cheek, as she smiled, even if it was in that sad way. He wondered if this was what tongue-twisted felt like; there were a million things he could have said, but he couldn't grasp onto a thought for long enough to actually force it past his lips. And perhaps it was for the best, he thought. Sometimes when he spoke, he found that it had the opposite effect than he intended.

She rocked up on her toes, and the kiss she pressed to his cheek was quick and gentle. "I'd prefer you not, but," and she held the mask between them, almost like it was some sort of peace offering.

He took it from her carefully, staring down at it in his hand.

"It's okay, if you're more comfortable," she said. "As long as you'll play for me either way."