Chapter 18 - Sotto

Ah, love me a little,

oh, just a very little,

'Tis all that I ask for...

-Madame Butterfly

Soundtrack suggestions: 'Darcy's Letter' by Jean-Yves Thibaudet ('Pride and Prejudice' 2005 soundtrack)

Erik was changing. His starved heart was opening up like a rose. He had feared, at first, that he would not know how to love. But it was as though all the affection he had been unable to share had simply been stored up, and now it all came surging forth. He learned quickly. He was always thinking of new things to do for Christine, new ideas to surprise and delight her. It was the most thrilling game of his life.

Christine, too, was happier than she had ever been. After being lonely for so long, having someone who adored her so deeply, who never tired of her presence, amazed her. He was everything she had hoped he would be and more. With every day she was more glad she had chosen him.

And yet, running through every moment they shared was an undercurrent of fear.

They did not talk of the future. Both knew they must, but Erik could not bring himself to. He knew how untenable this was, and acknowledging that might spoil everything, destroy this one shard of fragile happiness they had managed to pull from the wreckage of his life. It was easier to pretend they existed in some world of their own, floating high above all else.

It could not go on like this, however. They were being careless. Christine did not take care enough to hide her smiles. People whispered about her, wondered why for the first time she laughed aloud, danced when she didn't have to, hummed to herself when she thought no-one was listening. He knew he ought to warn her. But he couldn't bring himself too. He could not bear to tell Christine that she was acting too happy.

Besides - he was behaving even worse. He would appear to her full in the middle of the opera house during the day when anyone could be watching. More then once he had almost been caught. People would spot the corner of his cloak, disappearing around a corner just in time, or catch a snatch of his voice and ask Christine who she had been talking to, leaving her to scramble for an explanation.

He hated himself for it. He couldn't bear not to see her - at every moment that he wasn't by her side, the urge to go to her was overwhelming. He couldn't think of anything but her. But he was being unfair, he knew it. He was used to danger, but Christine was not. This all might easily come crashing down on her head. It haunted him to think that she might have to pay the price for the crime of his loving her.

They were playing with fire. And if they didn't start to take more care, they were going to get themselves burnt. Their day of reckoning had to come.

One afternoon, when he was at home trying to work on his opera and enjoying being hopelessly distracted by thoughts of Christine, there came the sound of footsteps running through the tunnels.

Instantly he was on the alert.

A moment later Christine appeared.

He was at once delighted and alarmed. "Why, Christine! Tou should not-"

"-Erik!" she cried at the same time, skidding to a halt before him and doubling over to catch her breath. "Oh, thank God you are safe!"

"Christine..." he said in confusion, touching her anxiously on the arm. "It is always a delight to see you, but you cannot be here. I hope you will not come down here again. I am going to have to remove the thread, and I could not bear it if you were to be lost down here."

"I had to come," she protested, her voice quivering. To his surprise, she threw her arms around him, not affectionately, but desperately, as though he were in danger of drowning.

"Why… you are in distress!" he cried, pulling away and looking at her in alarm. "What has happened? Oh, do not cry! Come, sit. Here is the most comfortable chair. I shall bring you a glass of water, Christine. Or wine, perhaps?"

"No... no."

"Some tea? Coffee?"

Christine almost smiled, touched by his attentiveness. "No, thank you; there is no time- there is something I must tell you at once."

"What has happened?"

"The managers have reported the missing money to the police," she managed at last.

Erik's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Just this morning. I feared you might be down here and not have caught wind of it yet."

"They cannot have," he protested. "Those fools are are obsessed with society's opinion - they would not risk the scandal."

"They have now," she said. "Something has changed, perhaps."

He turned away. For a few long moments, she could not see his eyes, could not tell what he was thinking. He was horribly still, staring at the ground so intently she half-thought he might wear a hole in it.

"Erik?"

"This is all because of that damned Vicomte!" he cried suddenly, whirling around.

Christine winced. She had not thought Erik would still be so jealous and suspicious of Raoul after all this time.

"Raou- er, de Chagny?" she said.

"His fingerprints are all over this. These rich puppies - they tire of spending Papa's money, so for want of amusement they themselves into other people's lives and telling them how their own affairs ought to be run."

This, Christine thought, was uncomfortably close to the truth - if not for Raoul himself, then for many of his friends. "He may perhaps have had a hand in it, I suppose," she realized. The first threads of dislike for Raoul began to worm their way into her heart. It seemed she was not destined to be able to respect them both. Their ideals were too different. But she knew who her choice would be. There was no question about it. Remembering Erik, remembering how precious he was to her, she forced herself back to the present. "But there is something else."

"Hmh?"

"The managers have… Well, I am not supposed to talk of this; it is not something people speak of directly…" She trailed off.

"I am the Phantom, not a member of the board." Erik grinned. "You may speak freely."

Again Christine smiled faintly. "You were the Phantom. I hope you are becoming Erik again."

"I hope that as well. If I shall be saved, it is because your love redeems me, Christine."

"Mon cœur..." Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. She squeezed his hand so hard his fingertips went cold for a moment. "You are redeemed. You are saved."

"It is a pleasure to owe such a debt to you, Christin."

"There is no debt," she said gently.

For a moment, the two of them were silent. Her gaze held him.

The innocence and openness in her brown eyes began to make him uncomfortable.

"You were going to tell me something, Christine?" he said.

"Well," she went on at last, "It seems… er… that funds at the Opéra have been rather lacking lately."

Erik smirked bleakly. "In other words, funds that ought to have gone toward maintaining my opera house found their way into the managers' pockets."

"Just so," she said, her voice weary.

"Well, then," Erik said slowly. With a sigh, he rose. "I had always known they would eventually decide they'd had enough of the Phantom, I suppose. But I had rather hoped it would not happen so soon." He swallowed. "Especially not just now, mon rêve, when I was truly happy for the first time in the whole course of my life, Christine." He tried to smile at her, but failed miserably. "It really is dreadfully inconvenient," he added, in an even more miserable attempt at levity.

"What are we to do?" she said.

"I must leave France, Christine."

Christine's eyes widened. "What?"

"Yes." He exhaled heavily. "Within the month. Sooner, if possible."

"No!" she cried. "That is not necessary! You-"

"It is the safest course of action." To his embarrassment, he felt a sob rise in his throat. He crushed it brutally.

"But my contract does not expire for months yet. If I break my contract, we shall not have anything to live on-"

He stepped backward in shock. "-You mean to... to come with me, Christine?"

"But of course I do! I love you. I don't ever want to be parted from you." She froze. "Don't you want me to come? Erik?"

"I do not know… I had not thought all this would happen so soon, Christine... It was never my intent to make you leave Paris."

"What do you mean?" she cried.

"I have no right to ask it of you, Christine."

"I don't care about that. I hate Paris!"

"What? Pray do not be absurd," he said. "You are only saying that for my sake. No-one hates the City of Light." Except me.

"Don't I?" she said. "The city that killed my father?"

"But it did not."

"Yes, it did! He would not have caught the typhus if such things were under better control here." She scowled. "Paris is a horrible, brutal place. I have been longing to leave since I was seven years old. And now, after the war... I cannot leave soon enough. I don't care where I go. Anywhere but here."

"But everyone you know is here," he said. "I have no right to make you give up your life for my sake."

Christine shrugged. "I would not be giving up my life. Meg will soon be married, I think, and then she'll go live with the Baron in the country, and Mère will probably go wherever she goes. I don't really care for anyone else here."

"But you cannot leave your country, your friends, your home ... for me, Christine."

"But I can," she said. "We can build a new life together."

"Surely this cannot be," he said in a weak, shocked voice. He seemed almost to be speaking to himself.

"It can," Christine said.

To her horror, Erik's face crumpled in a silent sob. He sank to the ground, bent his head and kissed the hem of her dress. "Oh, Christine..."

"Don't," she pleaded, startled. "Oh, dear, don't. You must not kneel before me. It isn't right. I am not a queen or a princess. I am just Christine. Just your Christine."

He looked up and met her gaze, his expression full of gratitude and astonishment.

She leaned forward and kissed him - partly to show her affection, partly because she couldn't bear to see the look of desperation in his eyes.

He laid his head on her knee and closed his eyes, twining his arms around her waist and clinging to her. "Christine... Christine..."

She rested her head against his shoulder.

"Where were you thinking of going?" she asked at length, her lips buried in his hair. "Italy, I suppose? We could run away to Venice."

He sat back and took her hands, tangling their fingers up together, as though if he could get them stuck together enough that he couldn't leave, the world would agree to leave them alone and apologize politely for any inconvenience it had caused them.

"No. Stockholm, perhaps, if that would please you, Christine, or St. Petersburg." He wanted to laugh at how absurd it felt. Tearing himself away from the person who represented every shred of the goodness and kindness and warmth the world had to offer him to go barricade himself away in some frozen place.

And yet... she would be coming to him. All was not lost. There was something to hope for, a light on the horizon.

At the mention of St. Petersburg, the warmth drained out of Christine's gentle face, replaced by a look of horror. "But you would be thousands of miles away! And it would be for months."

"Yes, but what is there to do about it-?"

"-There is no need for this!" she said. "You can simply go to Italy, or - I would not ask you to go to Prussia, as a Frenchman - but Switzerland, perhaps, or Spain - I am told Spain is very beautiful; you would like it, I am sure-"

"-It is not far enough," he said.

"Yes, it is," she said.

"I must be far away."

"But... far away from France is far away from me."

"I know it," he said morosely.

"But this is madness!" she cried. "Do not talk any more of our being separated in this absurd fashion!"

The tone of command irritated him. "What?"

"It is... it is unnatural! You cannot torment me this way! I can't believe you would even consider it, after I have just explained all that you are to me!" Christine grabbed hold of his shoulders with a surprisingly fierce grip. "Please! How would I do without you?"

He leapt up, snatching away from her, leaving her staring helplessly at her empty hands. "What do you propose I do, Christine? However difficult you suppose it will be to be away from me for a few months, I assure you it will be worse for me! But I shall not remain here to locked away like an animal in a zoo again!"

Christine's expression softened. "You cannot imagine I would let you to be exposed to any such risk," she said sadly.

"Oh, and you think you can keep that from happening?" he sneered.

"Is that so inconceivable?"

"There is no solution."

"I think before we attempt any of these plans you have mentioned, you ought to give back the money you, ahem, borrowed from the managers," she said. "And stop writing those dreadful notes. That is what I wanted to tell you. It would solve everything."

His gaze swung woodenly towards her. A horrible stiff smile was plastered on his face. "You are being curiously elliptical. It sounds to me as though you suggested giving my money to those ignorant buffoons. Forgive me, but I cannot have heard you correctly." He folded his arms and waited for her to continue, one eyebrow raised superciliously.

She winced in annoyance. "You must give it some thought."

"Why would I do such a thing?"

"You know as well as I do how greedy the managers are."

"Hmph."

"There is nothing they want less than a police investigation at the Opéra," she explained, trying to be patient. "It would be very bad for their image. They are only allowing it at all because they are so desperate for the money. If you returned it, I assure you they would make up some story about how it was all a misunderstanding and ask the police not to continue their investigation - which, fortunately, has not begun yet."

"But what if we are not so fortunate?" he cried. "What if they decided to continue the investigation anyway? Leaving the Continent will be expensive. Without the money, I should be stranded here with no means of escape!"

"I will help you. I have some money. Money no-one is going to report me to the police for having."

"But not enough!" he cried. "It would not be enough, and you know it!" He paused. "You do not want me to be able to go, that is the trouble! You want me trapped here, where they can catch m!"

She stared at him, horribly wounded. "Erik!"

"Or perhaps - perhaps you do not really want to go with me, hein? You are too frightened! Is it the unknown you're frightened of, though, really... or me? You cannot bear the thought of being alone with me, having to put your faith in me; no, why would you-"

"-No! It is nothing of the kind!" Christine practically wailed. "How could you think such a thing? If you must know, I am afraid because they might find you anyway!" She burst into a fresh flood of tears. "No matter how far we went, if there was a warrant for your arrest, how should we ever truly know we were safe? We should never be free!"

Suddenly he saw, far later than he should have, of course, that he had wounded her. Immediately he cursed himself for his outburst. "Mon cœur... Not if we go far enough," he said weakly, trying to comfort her. He put a pitiful hand on her arm. When she gave him a look, he saw at once how false, how pathetic the gesture was, and dropped his hand. He was like a bad actor. He didn't know how to move, how to stand. He didn't know what gestures conveyed true affection. And even if he did, there weren't any that could convey how much he loved Christine, how sorry he was.

He tried again. "We shall be safe," he said.

"You cannot be sure of that," she said. "You must not take risks, mon cœur - not now! Perhaps your life is unimportant to you, but it is of importance to me!"

This sent another flood of anger surging through him. "Then am I never to have a moment's peace?" he said. "Would you have me always glancing over my shoulder every moment for the rest of my days?"

"No, certainly not! I truly believe you could be free, my love! I would never ask you to consider giving up the money if I did not think it could end this."

End this. Nothing could ever end this. This was his life. His whole existence was one long escape attempt with no safe harbor, no friendly border waiting for him. Even if he gave the money back, he would always be a repulsive, sniveling wretch. His sentence had been passed in another life, his punishment meted out while he was in his mother's womb. There would be no release for him except in death.

He was, assuredly and inescapably, the most hideous bridegroom in the world. At least if he could hold on to some part of the fortune he amassed, he could atone in some measure for his ugliness by making the rest of Christine's life beautiful. That would be a better gift to her than his safety. He couldn't come to her empty-handed. It would be a travesty. Why couldn't she understand that?

"Mon rêve, don not ask this of me," he said in a pleading voice. "You know I would give you anything I can, but I cannot give you this. That money is my only chance to give us a life together - to provide for you in the manner you deserve."

"But I never asked you to-"

"-Yes, I know you did not, but it is a matter of importance to me nonetheless. What is more, that money is my security. Without it, I have no protection."

"I am your protection now," she said. "Before, you did not have anyone looking after you. You have me now. And you always will. You may depend on me. Don't you believe that?" Her brown eyes, wide and soft, brimming with unfathomable affection, looked deep into his.

He was frightened by the power he saw there. Her love was too much. Too strong. He couldn't bear it. His mind refused to accept it.

His mouth twisted up as though in pain, and looked as though he were choosing his next words with care. "That is not the point," he said at last in a stiff voice, looking away. "As I have already had the pleasure to point out to you several times, we have no proof that returning the money would solve anything."

"Then you won't return it?" she said.

"No!" he shouted.

"Oh, what a dreadful dilemma. If you return the money you cannot leave... Leaving may do no good, but returning the money might not either. Then... we are at an impasse," she said in an unsteady voice.

"Yes, I suppose we are, aren't we?" he shouted, so loudly Christine jumped and his voice echoed around the grotto.

When the sound died away, it was followed by a long, heavy silence.

He glared at her helplessly, furious that he couldn't take her with him. Damn her. If only she had never told him of her love, this would just be another move, no more difficult than the rest.

Suddenly Christine's whole demeanor changed. "Oh, my darling, my darling… What has happened?" she said. She leapt up and suddenly, she was in his arms before he knew what had happened.

His arms sprang up in surprise.

"I love you more than anything else," she murmured, her eyes shut tight with love. "More than my own heart. More even than music."

"More than music, Christine?" he said in amazement.

"Yes, more even that that. We cannot let these trials come between us. We must not. I do not want us to fight or argue."

At this sudden and unexpected gentleness, the anger drained out of him. His arms dropped. He let them go tentatively round her. "Nor do I," he said, looking almost embarrassed.

"I am so very frightened..." Christine looked up at him and shook her head sadly. "Why were we saying such dreadful things to one another? Why were we fighting? We're not enemies. We ought to be allies, always." He had been the one who had said the dreadful things, but she did not point that out. She knew he regretted them.

"Because the world is conspiring to keep us apart," he said. "It doesn't want me to ever have anything as beautiful and good as you. It cannot stand it."

For a long while, they simply held each other. Both wished they could remain like that forever.

She was the one spot on his map of the world not labeled Here there be danger. Here there be monsters.

But he was a monster. And so he had to spend his days with them.

"You must go, mon rêve," he said at last, pulling away and looking down at her. "It is not safe for you to remain here."

"Do not go," she pleaded. "Where would you live? What if you find no safe refuge there? You shall be far better off here with me, where I can help you, and Madame Giry. Please, please consider it."

He nodded slowly. "I certainly will not be ready to leave for at least another week, anyway, and I at least have enough faith in my own powers to feel certain that the investigation will not be able to find me within the next few days." He almost managed a smile. "And so, for the moment, it is neither here nor there."

Christine hesitated. "Very well. But you must, you must take care," she said at last. "Perhaps... if I may say so... more care than you were taking before?"

How stupid he had been, he thought as he looked at her. Her love was worth any sacrifice. She was worth anything. He smiled sadly. "Now that I have you to think of, mon rêve, I certainly shall."

END OF CHAPTER 18.

Thank you so much for reading! Thank you TangoSalsa, MissGalindaa, asprankle, Cry of Fallen Dove, and guest reviewer for your kind reviews!

Note:

I got stuck for awhile with this chapter because I was going to end it with them having a huge fight and Christine storming off... But I just could not make it work. Christine refused to cooperate. She just would not storm off and leave Erik hanging. Instead, she most unexpectedly gave him a huge hug. It came as a complete surprise to me! (Kind of like the kiss at the end of the movie!) And then of course, he couldn't stay mad at her after that. They love each other too much to fight for long. Aww! This is one of many reasons why I firmly believe they're perfect for one another.