After returning from Newport was the first time Christine noticed that Erik's home really felt like home. She had started to feel it even before they had returned, that eagerness to be back where she belonged filling her as they began their journey back to the city. Perhaps it was simply the juxtaposition of having been somewhere where she felt quite out of place and now going back to the place that was familiar. Perhaps it was the relief of this visit and everything that it entailed being over—no longer feeling prying eyes on her and Erik, no longer being constantly concerned about what other people where thinking and having to try her hardest to impress them. Erik had been successful with the board and she had been fairly successful in becoming friendly with some of her new peers, and now the pressure was off and they could both return to the rather comfortable life that they'd been living in New York. But it had felt like more than that as she had sat with Erik on the train, leaning into him and letting the relief wash over her. It had felt like she was, truly, going home. It had been a long time since she had last been able to say that.

Once they were back, she had expected that they would return to the routine they had formed. And while that was more or less the case, she did begin to notice some subtle shifts. When she had come downstairs the first morning, making her way to the library as usual, she noticed that the door to Erik's study was open. Glancing inside curiously, she found him sitting at his desk, working as she imagined he always did. He saw her in the doorway and gave her a small smile and, quickly fetching the book she had been reading from the library, she returned and stepped inside.

"I thought I might read here this morning," she said. "If it would not be too much of a distraction, of course."

Erik seemed pleased. "I would enjoy the company."

Smiling, she settled into one of the chairs across from him and opened her book to the place where she'd left off before they had gone to Newport. After a moment, his voice drew her attention again.

"Gothic architecture."

She looked up to see him eyeing the book she had chosen, and she could feel her cheeks growing warm. "I thought that I ought to take advantage of your varied library and learn something new."

"And are you finding it interesting?"

"Very much so. I remember my father telling me about the cathedral in Uppsala where he and my mother were married. I always had trouble imagining something so grand and old, even though I suppose St. Patrick's gives a good impression of it, but now I can."

Erik smiled and turned back to his work, but Christine could see the smile still lingering on his lips when she looked up again a few minutes later.

And so that became an amendment to the routine. Every morning his door would be open, inviting her in, and she would sit with him while he worked. Occasionally he would ask her questions about what she was reading, and sometimes he even asked for her opinion on some plan that he was finalizing, always seeming to genuinely want to know her answer and never appearing annoyed at her presence. And even when they just sat in silence, it was a comfortable, content silence. She liked the feeling of working with him, liked just being near him as the morning passed—a reminder that she was no longer alone.

Then their lessons started beginning earlier and earlier in the day. It had been natural, Christine supposed, since she was already there in the room with him, but it was more like they were both too eager to wait any longer. She insisted that the lessons not last much longer than usual so she did not take up too much of his time, although he seemed happy enough to abandon his work in favor of teaching her. He would argue that, now that she was officially cast, it was important to devote more time than ever to preparing, and she found that she couldn't dispute that. The thought of the rapidly approaching rehearsals that would see her working with world-class artists, and of eventually making her debut on the grand night meant to celebrate the reopening of the opera house, paralyzed her with nerves as much as it thrilled her. And so she could never give much more than a half-hearted protest when Erik asked if she would like to begin their lesson early and then worked with her well into the afternoon.

She could, at least, see the improvement she was making. Of course, that improvement was now serving to make her more aware of her flaws, but she told herself to take some comfort in the fact that, as invested in her voice as he was, Erik did not seem too concerned. As exacting as he was during their lessons, as much as he pushed her, he was unwavering in his belief that she would be ready to perform in time and that she would be a great success. So she did her best not to think about how quickly those days were approaching and instead threw herself into their lessons with more fervor than ever.

They had started working primarily on Faust, going over the parts of the score that she didn't know as well and getting into the minutiae of the portions she knew well. They talked in depth about each scene, about exactly the emotions that they wanted to portray, about the depths of Marguerite's love and pain and madness. They studied each note, practiced every line until Christine knew it backwards and forwards. Christine had feared that such intense study might grow tedious, but Erik had a way of making the score feel new to her every time she approached it. He saw intricacies in it that she would never have noticed herself, making the familiar story bloom into new, fantastical worlds in her mind.

So it was frustrating for her now to feel stuck in how she sang her portion of the passionate duet at the end of the third act. Erik, of course, noticed.

"You're doing well, Christine," he assured her, but she couldn't help the aggravated huff that escaped her lips.

"I just feel like I'm singing this as if I'm singing to a wall," she said. "This moment is supposed to be my undoing, and I feel like I just cannot reach that level of emotion."

She had no desire to admit it, but the truth was that she feared that that kind of passion was simply outside of her understanding. Infatuation, longing, grief, she could all understand. Music had always drawn these feelings from her naturally. But this scene, Marguerite's sudden fall from chaste, cautious maiden to giving into Faust's cursed love… perhaps she was simply too passionless to connect to the feeling. But if that was the case, then how many heroines would she only be able to portray as tepid, weak-willed girls? What if she had come all this way, convinced Erik to put his career on the line for her, only to find now that she did not have the capacity for any of this? Taking a deep breath, she forced the thoughts to the back of her mind, telling herself that it was only her nerves running away with her.

Still, Erik appeared unfazed. "Give it time and it will come together. And do not forget that you are singing to a wall. You are singing half of a love duet without your lover. It will all make more sense when you are in rehearsals singing with your Faust."

"Perhaps if you sang it with me. Surely you sing some, don't you?" To her surprise, Erik stiffened at the question.

"I suppose if it would be helpful to you…" he said after a second.

"I think it would be." Christine continued to watch him carefully, unable to understand his reluctance. It wasn't quite self-consciousness that she sensed from him—while he certainly had plenty of discomfitures when it came to himself, his musical abilities were one of the few things that were a true point of pride. And he had such a pleasant speaking voice that she had long wished to hear him sing. Perhaps his reluctance had nothing to do with himself and was something to do with her instead? Before she could question him, though, he seemed to reach some resolve and looked back up at her.

"Shall we begin at Il se fait tard?"

Christine nodded and took a second to position herself, making sure her posture was precisely as Erik had instructed and quickly running through the first few lines in her mind. Then when she was ready she glanced back at Erik, and he gave a slight nod and turned back to the piano, playing the opening notes.

She only sang a few words before Faust's part began, and as soon as Erik began to sing, her breath caught in her throat. His voice was like nothing she had ever heard before, silky smooth and resonate and possessing a quality she could not quite identify that gave it an unearthly sound. How was it possible that she had never heard him sing until now? She supposed he had sang a few notes here and there before to demonstrate a short passage for her, but now he was properly singing, and it was entirely different. Warmth coursed through her veins and her head felt light, and she wasn't sure if she had remembered to take a breath since he had started singing. She did so deliberately now and found it did nothing to steady her; it was like she was floating, only aware of that divine voice and the pounding of her own pulse.

The silence that followed was jarring, and it took Christine a few seconds to realize that she had missed her entrance. Her cheeks grew hot as Erik turned to look at her.

"Forgive me," she murmured. "I need to look at the score." The words and notes that had been familiar to her a minute ago had now completely deserted her.

Erik passed the score to her, and she flipped through it for a moment, struggling to even find their place. She'd never felt so dazed before, and her struggle to recover her senses only added to her embarrassment.

"O silence," Erik reminded her, and she nodded, willing her mind to clear enough to find the words she knew she must have glanced over several times already.

Finally she found her place and Erik played a few introductory notes for her. Her voice was shaky at first and she was grateful that she could at least play it off as Marguerite's timidity. As she sang she felt herself gradually coming back to her senses, and when he sang again, it was all she could do to remain focused on the score in her hands and not be completely swept away by his voice again. When his voice swelled, she allowed herself to be lost in it just a little bit, her own voice taking on a dreamy breathlessness as she joined with Erik for a single word: éternelle!

And then she was caught in Marguerite's push and pull, frightened of the power this man held over her but wanting nothing more than to give into it, to lose herself in him. She allowed herself to be enraptured by Erik's voice, lulled by it, only to fight against it the next moment. It took strength to make her voice powerful, to make it rise above his until Marguerite finally fled from Faust.

Erik paused, then, instructing her to jump ahead to Marguerite's next entrance, and for a hazy second she was not quite sure of where she was, her mind still wrapped up in the world of the music. She managed to find the place Erik had pointed her to and began softly, her voice gradually climbing as her passion rose. Erik met her with a final fervent, pleading "Marguerite!" and she hit her climactic high note with a rhapsodic force that must have come from a depth that she had not known existed in her. It left her breathless and trembling, her knees weak, reeling with emotions that were not her own. Releasing a shaky breath, she returned her gaze to Erik and found him watching her intently. She remembered the first time she had sung for him, how after being so lost in the music it had frightened her to return to reality, to remember that he was observing her; she felt a similar stab of anxiety now as she realized that she had been paying no attention at all to her technique, to anything that they had practiced. But, just as before, he spoke before she could apologize for her sloppiness.

"How did it feel that time?"

"Not like singing to a wall," she laughed weakly. "It felt… real. All-consuming."

"And now that you have felt it, do you believe you can replicate some measure of that feeling when you sing?"

"Yes." The recollection that this had all been an exercise felt odd after such intensity. But she would certainly remember the feeling when she sang the section again.

Searching for words, she slowly moved to sit beside Erik on the piano bench. He looked away when she joined him, and she spoke softly and carefully.

"You have a beautiful voice." The word "beautiful" felt almost comically inadequate, but she was still catching her breath and could not think of anything more appropriate.

"Thank you."

"Why do you not sing, then? You seem so hesitant."

"It feels…" Erik paused. "…intimate. I cannot help but express the music that comes from somewhere within me, whether through playing or composing. But those forms allow me to… to refine what is filling me, to select the parts of myself that I expose. And when I sing, I find that the music comes unfiltered from the depths of my being."

Christine nodded, surprised to find that she did actually understand what he meant. The music that had come from her just now had been raw and vulnerable and something she had not even known she had possessed. To have a voice as powerful as Erik's… she could only imagine what she might expose of herself—things that she did not want others to know, things she did not want to know herself.

"Thank you for singing with me anyway," she said gently.

His lips quirked, but his gaze remained on the piano keys. "Perhaps we ought to stop for the day."

As soon as he said the words, Christine felt her limbs grow heavy, becoming aware for the first time how utterly drained the session had left her. She nodded in agreement, letting her shoulders sag and her eyes droop shut for a moment. As much as the lesson had taken out of her, though, there was also a strange kind of exhilaration to it. Singing with Erik, both of them fully consumed by the emotion of the music, had been ecstatic.

"But…" The sound of his voice made her look up at him again, and this time he met her gaze, his eyes soft but intent. "Perhaps we can continue to practice duets together. If you feel it would help you, of course."

Christine smiled. "I would like that very much."

It was a few days after this that Christine made her next trip to visit Meg, eager to relate to her everything she had seen during her trip to Newport and, of course, the news that she was to open the opera house as Marguerite. The summer heat had fully settled in now, and it was stuffy inside the carriage as she rode downtown to the boarding house, but she knew that walking would not have been any better, and part of her couldn't help but long for the cooling sea breeze that blew through Newport. Perhaps next year she had Erik could go back and stay with Armand and his family, or perhaps they could even find a place where they could be alone. That would require, of course, that the coming year was not a complete disaster for both of them, and she couldn't let herself think about that possibility too much.

Fortunately, the carriage lurched to a halt just then, and Christine thanked the driver and climbed out, finding herself on the street in front of the place she felt she'd been away from for decades. Part of her was surprised to find everything the same when she went inside, and she laughed at herself for thinking it would be otherwise—it had only been a couple of weeks since she had last been there to visit Meg, and barely a couple of months since she had lived there herself. That time was beginning to feel more distant with each passing day, though, so far from her days with Erik now.

Meg was waiting for her in the parlor and greeted her with a warm smile, and Christine rushed over to embrace her. As kind as some of the Newport ladies had been, she doubted Meg would ever not be her dearest friend—except, perhaps, for Erik, although Christine wasn't sure she would describe their relationship as a friendship. At least not in quite the same sense that she and Meg were friends.

"I have something to tell you," Christine grinned as they settled on the sofa, and Meg's brows shot up. "What?"

"Nothing. Just say what you were going to say."

"I'm playing Marguerite in Faust. On opening night."

Meg gasped and clasped Christine's hands. "Christine, that's wonderful! Congratulations. I always knew you were destined for greatness."

Christine laughed. "I would still question the truth of that, but thank you. It's so exciting and so terrifying that I hardly know what to do with myself."

"I can imagine. But you mustn't worry—I am certain you'll be brilliant. Everyone who hears you will love you."

"I hope that's true. It was Erik's choice to cast me, and he had to fight for it. He hasn't said much about it, but I know he will face consequences if I do not do well."

"You can't worry about that," Meg told her gently. "You'll drive yourself crazy if you do. Just focus on doing the best that you can and I'm sure everything will be fine."

"You know that not worrying is easier said than done for me. But I will try. I am trying." She paused. "What did you think I was going to say before?"

Meg shook her head, laughing a little. "It was nothing. It's just that the last time you had something to tell me, the news was that you were betrothed."

Christine could feel heat creeping up her neck and into her face. "Did you think I was going to tell you that I was with child?" she asked quietly, unable to help the mildly scandalized sound of her voice.

"Can you blame me for thinking that?"

Christine wasn't sure whether she wanted to smile and laugh with Meg or crawl under the sofa and hide in embarrassment. "It's not like that."

"So you've told me," Meg replied easily. "But things change."

"Not that. He doesn't think of me that way."

Meg quirked a brow, smirking. "But you've thought of him that way?"

"No," Christine said quickly, sure that she was now pink to the tips of her ears.

Meg just laughed. "I'm only teasing, Christine. But it wouldn't be so crazy. He is your husband."

"Legally, yes."

Her expression softened. "But you do get along well, don't you? I would think it'd be horribly lonely, otherwise."

"We do get along," Christine replied, glad for the change of subject. "In fact, I like him quite a lot. He's… good company. When we were in Newport, people were generally friendly to me, but he was the only person I was ever really happy to see."

"That's good to hear. Honestly, Christine, I was really worried about you when you said you'd decided to marry him. You hardly knew him, and I didn't want to see you trapped in a miserable marriage. Even if he wasn't a bad man, that didn't make him someone who could make you happy. I would have tried to talk you out of it if I had thought there was any chance I could change your mind."

"I know. And you would have been right to talk me out of it—it was a rash decision. I was tired and frustrated and just felt the need to act on something, anything. I'm fortunate that it's worked out so far."

Meg hummed thoughtfully in reply, and Christine knew what she was thinking; while the marriage may not currently be the unhappy, lonely situation that she had feared, she still wished that Christine had waited for romance. Christine didn't know how to explain to her how the years of losing everyone she loved had driven the desire for romance from her, how it had come to seem like merely a distant dream, no more than a nice thought. It was safer to commit herself to her art, to devote all of her passion to something that could never be entirely taken away from her. She had known that the arrangement with Erik would allow her to do just that, and the added allure of security and comfort had made giving up her last thread of hope for romance seem worth it. And, a thought that felt so sad and desperate that she did not like to admit it even to herself, it would be a kind of comfort just to know that there was another person attached to her with as much permanence as could exist in this life. Whether or not she and Erik loved or even liked each other, she'd known that he would be there.

The fact that they had come to like each other, that they had even come to rely on each other, was more than Christine had hoped for. The feeling of knowing he would be there when she returned home, that he would be glad to see her and talk with her, that he would help her and support her and she would do the same for him… it was better than any fairytale romance that she might have dreamed of as a child. This was warm and safe and reliable. This was companionship, partnership, even. She trusted him and was gratified to see that he trusted her as well.

Surely all of those things were the reason for the way her stomach fluttered when she thought of him, the way she looked forward to being near him, the way something in her settled when she held his arm or felt the gentle touch of his hand on her back. Or the fact that she missed feeling the weight of him beside her in bed as she fell asleep, knowing that he would be there through the night. Or how, even now, she thought about what he was doing and whether he was worried about his work and how he would lean close and speak lowly to her as they took their walk that evening.

She could not explain to Meg how this was so much better than romance.