Author's Note:

Dear Readers,

Inspiration struck and struck hard. I hope this chapter will keep y'all when the inspiration fades. And, Child of Dreams, I have included something you mentioned back in a review on Chapter 5…*grins* In appreciation of your continued interesting this little experiment of mine.

And, I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank all of y'all for reviewing. I really appreciating hearing what you have to say! Each one means a lot to me. I love all y'all!

And, if I accidentally miss a review, I'm so sorry. Sometimes they don't come through on my email I think. I try to catch everyone but I'm sure I've missed some along the way. If I missed you, I'm so sorry!

sarahandmarquis

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Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera. I do not! I do own Dalir Gul and this story plot.

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Reviews:

Lunacat: Hahaha! Have to agree that roast beef is good and I'm sure Erik's is heavenly.

Whatanidea15: Now you shall find out what happens. I hope you like it!

squishmich: I can safely assure you there will be an unmasking scene but this is way early in their relationship. We'll keep building with fluff and angst.

Guest: Yep!

E.M.K.81: We'll see. It's really up to Erik now.

ArtemisBare: I suppose you'll have to wait and find out how dear Dalir reacts. It should be interesting whatever he decides.

Not A Ghost3: Thank you!

Silver Tallest: That was what I meant it to be. I love yanking everyone heart strings. (Including my own…) More of that to come I hope! As well as friendship building fluff!

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Word Count: 2148

"Was" Count: 1

"Were" Count: 1

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CHAPTER 12

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I am warm.

The thought struck him soundly as his lids blinked open, revealing the dim room. The soft mattress sank beneath his weight as he sat up and ran a hand through his hair, gasping his horror as his fingers failed to find the strings to his mask. Gray appendages groped his cold skin, running the length of his jawbone and touching corpsish flesh.

"My mask!" He breathed, frantically searching for it and finding it lying beside him in the bed. Attempting to catch his breath, he returned it to his face and tied it on tightly before laying back down against the pillows. The eye holes blocked out much of his peripherical vision but his mind had already wandered far from the room he found himself installed within.

She held me. He still remembered her warm arms encircling him, holding his tightly and letting him weep.

I showed her my underbelly and she didn't strike.

Lightly touching the swollen lump on his head, he winced and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, surprised at the comfort his guest bedroom provided. Despite the color scheme frustrating him, the light colors didn't oppress his brain. If anything, they reminded him of Christine, light and flowery.

I wonder how long I slept. Christine is probably long gone. I ruined our evening but she didn't seem to mind too much.

He only mostly believed her. After searching his minimal knowledge of women, he found nothing to prove she told him the truth.

The mild headache and lump on his head drove him from the room and down stairs seeking ice to relieve the swelling. As soon as his foot struck the hard wood flooring of the hallway, whispered voices drifted from the living room.

Freezing in place, he concentrated, ignoring his suddenly harsh breathing and thundering heart. His fingers crept into his pocket and curled around a thick cord, ready to leap from the linen prison and take the life of the intruders. Shoes found themselves abandoned on the floor as their occupants carried away their master silently across the floor to the doorway.

Christine sat on the blush couch and watched a movie on his TV.

On screen, a young, dark-haired woman, wearing an elegant gold party dress, stood in a darkened study with only a fire lighting the dark wood. A man, hidden behind a curtain and only visible to the audience, spoke her in loud whispers. Christine, curled up beneath the blankets, didn't pay any as he dropped the cord back into his pocket as if it had burned him.

Loath to distract her from the movie she had engrossed herself in, he nevertheless quietly cleared his throat and spoke her name,

"Christine."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, jumping to her feet and violently pressing the pause button on the movie. "I didn't know you were awake. How do you feel?" She wrapped the blankets around her shoulders and turned to face him, the light hints of makeup missing from her face and her hair down loose.

She made herself comfortable in my home.

The thought sent shivers of happiness through him.

"Well enough." He remarked, his headache flaring to remind him of its existence. "My head hurt but I am sure I can fix that. It's getting late, I'm sure. You're tired." Shaken still from the missing mask and the threat of intruders, he caught himself trembling faintly. Sleep came so hard these days and the hours he had no doubt passed inside the bed had disorientated him.

"Nonsense. I ate some of the roast, napped for a few hours then decided to watch a movie. I'm glad I thought to bring it along." She stepped forward and reached upward, her shorter height obvious as she rose on her tiptoes to touch his head. He flinched away but not before she felt the general size of the lump.

"Ice. Go sit down and I'll be right back." She pushed him in the direction of the settee and breezed away to the kitchen to fetch an icepack to reduce the inflammation.

Wordlessly agreeing to her request, he sank down on the settee and almost smiled to see her shoes and socks strewn about the living room. For the first time in its life, the room looked "lived in" with personal articles indicating the presence of a woman's touch.

She returned moments later, her bare feet dancing over the floor before she landed beside him pressing the ice against the bump and fussing quietly about the size of the injury and muttering quiet apologies for being the cause.

"It's not your fault, Christine. You couldn't have known." She gave him a dazzling smile.

"Well, with that knowledge, what do you plan to do with it?" He shrugged and shivered as some drops of cold water ran down his neck and into his shirt.

"I don't know."

"May I speak frankly, Erik?" She asked, moving so she could look him in the eye. "While I've been passing the time trying to find your internet password, I've been thinking." Wrinkling his forehead beneath the mask, he opened his mouth to question what all she had done in search of internet but she ignored him and plunged ahead.

"You need friends. Guy friends. I'm great and all but I'm a girl. There is only so much close friendship I can offer you." He attempted to stop her and argue that she was all he needed and other people were of no consequence but she refused to let him.

"You don't have any friends other than me. Me, a purchased friend. I want you to speak with him. At least try. I'm sure time has changed your relationship and maybe you won't be the good friends you once were but you'll have someone." He stared into her rich blue eyes and let her words bounce around his mind, only managing to say,

"I always forget I pay you for this." The sentence took the wind from her sails and she almost crumpled as she broke his gaze and went back to tending to the swelling.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy being in your company." She muttered. Guilt washed over him and tore at his gut but the apology stuck in his throat when he tried to give it.

"I am… I will consider your comment but please do not mention me to your friend until I let you know my decision." She merely nodded, hurt by his hard words, reminding of the reality of their situation. A few moments later, he quietly added with shame filling every word,

"I'm sorry, Christine. My words were cruel. I shouldn't have said them."

"You were right. I can't deny the truth. Now, I think that's the best we're going to be able to do for a while with this bump. You're just going to have to manage and not do any more damage to your head." She pulled away the ice pack and tossed it onto the empty plat occupying one of the side tables. Attempting to return the smile that he had so cruelly ripped from her face, he looked towards the TV, a blue screen, and asked,

"What movie was that?"

"The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1982. It's my favorite version. Have you ever seen it?"

"No, I'm afraid I haven't."

"Then, we shall have to watch it. But, before that, where are my other movies?" Christine asked, taking her seat on the plush couch opposite him and tucking her toes under the edges of her knee-length skirt.

"Ah." Erik said, remembering the DVDs she had entrusted into his careful care several meetings previously. "I put them in a safe place."

"Where?" She asked, tilting her head to one side.

"My office." He said and she arched an eyebrow in his direction. "Come with me. I'll show you." He rose to his feet and hesitated for a moment before holding out his naked hand to her. Earlier, she had shown a lack of dislike of his gloveless hands. But, it is more likely she did it only to comfort me as strange as that notion sounds. She won't like them as a rule.

Curious blue eyes glanced up at him and, moments later, a thin white hand slid into his grip, spreading warmth through his whole body, beginning with his finger tips and ending with his toes.

"F-follow me." He stammered, breaking eye contact and showing her up the stairs and down the hall. His memory of the state of his office remained foggy but to his last recollection, the morphine had remained tucked away safely so she wouldn't see it.

Swinging open the door, he gestured for her to follow him into the dark room before he walked to a wall, seamlessly papered with red wallpaper. He released her hand, letting her wander about the room while he pressed an series of places under the paper.

A spot on the opposite wall swung open, revealing a steel safe with another safe sitting within it. He strode over to it and flicked the dials into a pattern. Just before he opened it, he glanced back at her, catching a grin before it crossed his face at her reaction.

"See, nothing could get to them." He pulled the door of the second safe open and showed her the one movie and the set of DVDs that composed her children.

"You did this for me." She whispered, stepping forward to see her family. "You went to all this trouble?" He nodded, suddenly feeling embarrassed at his actions. Did I go too far? Does she not like that I did this? I did forget to give them back and it obviously worried her.

"Yes. Did I do wrong? I should have given them back to you but they slipped my mind."

"You took care of my children." She pulled them out of the small safe and turned them over in her hands, pleased to see them unharmed. "You did well." Glancing at him, golden eyes peering down intently at her, she set them back in the safe and stepped away.

"Don't you want to take them home?" He asked, shocked.

"They're safer here with you. Besides, there is no point to bring them back to my house since we'll be watching them together another time. But, thank you for your thoughtfulness." She leaned forward and hugged him, feeling his lungs lock up as her arms wound around him.

"They…meant something to you." He replied, breathless from the touch.

"And you recognized that and took it seriously. I appreciate that. Now, lock the safe back up and we'll go back down stairs." He nodded and returned his attention to the safe while she looked about his office. Just as he turned to face her, to tell her he had finished, she said,

"You didn't tell me you required injections." He spun, gold eyes widening as he saw a morphine syringe sitting in her perfect hands. The pale-yellow liquid gleamed up at him, mocking him from its glass jail, threatening him with the revelation of his addition. "If you are ill, you should have told me! I would have helped if I could."

"T-there is n-nothing to be helped." He replied, snatching the needle from her hand and stowing it away in a drawer. "I t-take it as-needed." Like I do right now. His heart raced in his chest and his hands shook violently, reminding him his last dose had been thirty-six hours ago at least.

"You're not…very sick, are you?" Her worry, under normal circumstances, would have touched his heart but, in this case, only made him horribly ashamed. I am dirt before her. She worries over an addict who is too weak to kick his master. She is so innocent, she doesn't realize what she touched.

"No, Christine, not very sick. Just, never healthy. Will you please wait for me downstairs?" He leaned heavily on the desk and refused to look her in the eye.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have prided into your medical needs. I'll be downstairs with the movie waiting. Don't be long." He barely heard the last whisper as the door closed behind the angel. Gasping for air, he yanked the drawer open again, nearly tore his sleeve rolling it up, and plunged the needle into the waiting vein, desperate for the sweet drug to calm the panic building in him.

She thinks I'm sick. I don't have to hide as much as I did before. This is good, right?

His stomach churned and he nearly threw up.

Lies…lies…all lies.

I can't do that to her. I have to tell her.

Syringe empty, he withdrew it from his vein and dropped it onto the desk, the glass clinking as it landed.

But not tonight. I'll tell her later. Later…later…later…