A/N: I needed an outlet and also had some dreamy vibes. This is me apologizing for being dumb and posting chapter one of this under a different title (thank you Guest reviewer!). Enjoy my apology!

It had started with a simple request, for him to play some of his music for her. A careless, easy way to spend the hours in the house beneath the lake. Christine often found that Erik was not in the humor to speak, but he would always willingly share his music. It was therapeutic for them both to abandon all thought and slip into melody. It was their chief commonality; music that eclipsed all else.

She watched him play. His fingers dexterously swum over the strings. There was such beauty in the way the bow danced in his grasp. When Erik was truly lost to the music, his reticence disappeared and she could see him. Bereft of the Opera Ghost, those eyes unguarded. His lips parted with blatant sensuality. There was something indecent in the way his long body swayed. Oh yes.

Her mind went blank as he coaxed a particularly high note from the instrument, lengthening its resonance with a shaking pulse of his fingertips. She often wondered if he knew how deeply she studied him, or noticed the blood in her cheeks, the soft rustle of her petticoats as she shifted to lessen the strange tingles that overtook her. The way her gaze fixated on the parts of him that suggested more than a student-teacher relationship.

Erik, her maestro. In the past weeks, months, she had been tortured by her thoughts. Was there something unholy in their connection after all, as he seemed to think? Had she lost her senses? She spent nights a wall away from the Opera Ghost. She had seen his face and did not die, as he had supposed. She kept coming back. She should be afraid, horrified. Yet the face that appeared every time she dreamt belonged to Erik, and though he was unmasked she did not care. He would never believe, even if she had the notion to confess. He would understand, perhaps—for they were so similar—but he might not believe that their connection could go beyond the music. He was austere, upright, stoic. He was Erik.

The music stopped. She blushed under his sudden focus. He always looked at her as if time itself ceased to exist.

"Christine," Her name was a prayer falling from his lips. She didn't suppose that Erik believed in a higher power, but when he spoke her name she felt like a goddess. Sacrilege. Wicked. Intoxicating.

"Are you well?" He questioned. That voice, golden as his eyes. Full, rich, round.

"Quite well, Erik." She smiled at him. He studied her uncertainly, but she kept smiling. Smiled even as the familiar urge to take his hand and pull him to sit beside her on the chaise overwhelmed her senses. He turned away to store the violin, and she was embarrassed anew by the way her gaze fixed upon the curve of his rear.

They had settled into an easy rhythm. Three nights out of the week, she stayed with him, and their days were spent in music. Raoul had faded to a memory as his journey to the North Pole brought more and more obstacles to their burgeoning association. Distracted as she was by Erik, she couldn't pretend to mourn Raoul's presence. She had received three letters since she had denied his proposal upon the rooftop. They lay unopened on the table by her door. She did not know what to say.

Now she watched Erik as he delicately polished the finish of his instrument until it gleamed. The wiry muscles of his back flexed beneath his vest. He had removed his ever-present coat to play. Erik in shirtsleeves. A rare sight. Tempting. But no matter what they did together, he would not remove his mask.

Christine shook the thoughts from her head, this had been happening with frequency. Somehow, amidst the change of seasons, winter to spring she had come to a startling revelation: Despite the abnormalities of his face; Erik was a man. Despite her relative innocence, she was a woman. The pull of his company had become a constant, physical ache that arose at the most inconvenient of times.

Though they barely touched, she was beginning to realize that the fact that she registered each instance of missed contact was significant in itself. She had all of these impulses now: to lay her cheek on his shoulder when she sat beside him at the piano; to run her fingers through the thickness of his dark hair. To wrap her arms around him and inhale the scent of parchment and bergamot, of Erik. When he taught her, every slight correction to her posture burned for minutes. His touch was a brand, too her shame she had begun to slouch on purpose, just to feel his corrective touch. Something must be done.

Perhaps it was the madness of spring, but she suddenly spoke, "Erik?"

He looked at her expectantly. His eyes glinted honey-gold; two shimmering points in the firelight shadows of the music room. She wanted to trace his cheekbones with her fingertips, masked or not. "May we go for a walk?"

"Anything you desire." He bowed in the odd formal way he had, and Christine could feel the stupid grin that spread across her face when he quickly replaced his jacket, turned, and offered his arm.

"Above?" She said, and he nodded. Christine gleefully took his arm, noticing how he tensed. She babbled of nonsense things as he helped her into the gondola, tracing the movement of his arms as he poled across the lake. Every once in a while he would regard her with suspicion, as though he suspected her of plotting something. She smiled every time, and waved at him once. His visible cheek reddened.

"Erik, do I frighten you?"

"Whatever do you mean, Christine?"

She plucked nervously at one of the many silken pillows that she reclined against. "It's just that sometimes you seem…uneasy." There was an awkward silence.

"I am unused to…positive attention." He replied at last.

"Oh, I thought that you might have been worried that I would take your mask again. I wouldn't, Erik."

"Seen enough, have you?" He asked bitterly.

Christine shook her head, cursing her lack of tact. "No—I don't mind, I mean. I know that it would upset you."

"I daresay it would upset the universe." Erik sardonically mused.

"Not me." She replied softly. "Never me."

He did not answer, as they had reached the opposite shore. But as he helped her from the boat, she thought he might have smiled. She did not let go of his gloved hand as they entered the blackness of the tunnels.

Christine felt safe by his side. Once she had been afraid of the dark, now she embraced it if only to feel his guiding touch upon her. Too feel his breath in the blackness. To be permitted to hold his hand.

They reached the Rue Scribe door, and entered into the street. The sun was setting, the cobbled streets clattered with the sounds of people going home. It was only recently that Erik had started agreeing to walk with her in public, and it was she who now had to softly tug him into the light.

He followed, and she smiled.

A perfect day.