Author's notes: Short, sad little chapter.
I am sorry to those of you who want him to stay. (I want him to stay, too!) - but that's just not what this fic is. This fic really was born out of my desire to figure out why Erik would go. Because LND didn't explain that to my satisfaction. I'm trying to pick apart what his thought process might be.
Most of the ways to say "goodbye" in French imply that the two people will meet again. Adieu, though, literally means "until God," and communicates a somber finality.
The Phantom shivered in the dark like a terrified child. Christine smoothed her hand up and down his arm and caressed his knuckles, trying to bring him back to her.
"It was only a dream," she said again, "just a dream. I'm still here with you. We're still alone. Lay back down. I'll sing for you, and you will forget it. Come..."
She urged him with a gentle pull on his arm. His breathing hitched, and he moved, but not to lay down. Instead, he took both her hands in his own.
"My Christine," he breathed.
"Yes," she said with a gentle squeeze of his long-fingered hands.
"...I love you."
She frowned in the dark, for she had never heard such sweet words spoken with such horror.
"...And I love you. Come, lay down again. I will make your next dreams better ones."
"No –" he gasped, then again more gently, "no. ...I'm... alright. I will simply... stay awake a little while. I have never needed much sleep. But, my dear, I am sorry to have disturbed yours. You must rest for tomorrow."
Her frown slid away and a hopeful smile took it's place.
"Tomorrow?" she said wistfully.
"Yes... Dearest... tomorrow. Dawn will bring an end to all our past mistakes... Sleep, Christine."
He took her in his sure hands and guided her head back to the cushion. She obeyed, though something in his voice made her uneasy. A nervous impulse made her catch his hand again.
"You won't leave me? I don't know my way in the dark, like you do."
The puff of breath he let out sounded anguished. She felt his hand tremble again. For a moment, he didn't answer, and there was only the sound of the rain outside. The hesitation frightened her enough that she nearly sat back up. But before she could, he squeezed her hand, and lifted it to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles. There was no trace of anything wrong in his voice when he spoke. It was sure, and strong.
"I will protect you," he assured her. "Now..." he stroked her curls with his long fingers. "...Go back to sleep, my Dear. Sleep until the new day breaks. ...Here... I will help."
The Phantom began to sing, soft and slow and lulling. It was beautiful. Haunting, and beautiful. At first she listened to the words, and they were strange; nothing like a comforting lullaby at all. But the disquieting gallop of a horse through the night softened to promises of glittering water, and flowers, and days wrapped in gold... until the words blurred and it was just the melodic drone of his voice in her ear. His voice wrapped gently around Christine, stole into her mind, and quietly put to death all the nagging little fears that bothered her. One by one they were silenced, until it was only the music. Distantly, she felt the warmth of the cloak tucked around her. The pleasant brush of his fingers became indistinguishable from the caress of the music on her mind. The Phantom sang for her, and his voice was all there was, until she succumbed again to the peace of sleep.
.
.
His hand stilled in its caress. Her body rose and fell beneath his hand with the slow, steady breaths of sleep. He did not want the moment to end. This night was his, he understood that. Hell would grant him this night to give him the taste of everything he wanted most. For if you have not been to Heaven, you cannot truly understand the anguish of being driven out of it.
"...Christine...?"
Erik waited to see if she stirred at his voice.
"...Dearest Christine... will you remember your Angel?"
Her hand twitched in his own as if she was fighting sleep to answer him. His thumb brushed a soothing caress over her knuckles.
"...My Christine... oh, my beautiful girl... I love you... So much that I feel like I might break... like this shell of a body might crack and I could be reborn, something new, something worthy... Christine, I love you so much... and I am sorry for it. So sorry. So sorry..."
He turned his head so that his tears wouldn't fall on the skin of her hand and wake her.
"...You make me want to be something else. Something I never knew how to be. ...But... it's too late for that. Far, far too late. The past cannot be undone. The price of redemption is too high... I could never... Christine..."
Erik hunched in on himself and grit his teeth to silence the sob that wanted to wrench itself up out of his chest. He mustn't wake her. He concentrated on the steady rise and fall of her breath. So beautiful. So peaceful. So alive. He tried to match his own breath to that rhythm. Everything now depended on his own self control.
"...My sins are too great. I have always known that Hell will claim me. You made me think, for a moment, that I might escape... that your grace might save me. That love of you might make a better man out of me... It has... It would... but what I might become does not change what I was. It doesn't change the debt I owe to Hell. And Hell will take what is due. I must suffer for my crimes. I will surely be punished. And the greatest suffering I can conceive of is to lose you. ...I cannot lose you...! I cannot... If you were taken from me... no... But if I... if I give you up, willingly, then I will still suffer, and you will be safe from the sins of my past. I will pay for my crimes... and you will be safe. You'll be safe. Safe from me. Safe from Erik..."
He wanted to pull her up, out of sleep and into his arms. He wanted to murder the whole world to make an empty paradise for just the two of them. He wanted to storm the gates of Hell and burn with his hands around Lucifer's neck, if doing so would secure Christine's safety. But there was only one thing he knew he could actually do.
"...Christine... I must leave you. You have your knight... and your life in the sun, waiting for you. You'll be safe, and cared for. And I will be far away. ...Dreaming of you. ...Loving you. Far away. But, Christine... I will keep my promise to you. I will. I may have broken my word to everyone else, but my promise to you, I will keep. I swear to it. I'll do everything that you asked. And if somehow, it saves me... if I can ever be sure that I've suffered long enough, that I've paid for my sins, and the danger is over... ...but that may never be."
Very gently, he extracted his hand from under hers.
"I will love you forever. My love for you will never die."
Carefully, he bent to touch his lips to the perfect curve of her brow.
"Adieu, ma bien-aimée."
Pulling away from her hurt more than any pain Erik could remember. He had to snatch his hand back so he did not clutch at her the way he wanted to. He wished for the whip over the pain of standing up. To be beaten bloody over having to reach for his neatly folded clothes. Once again, he grit his teeth to stay silent. Without a sound, Erik dressed himself, and retrieved the francs he'd taken with him from the Opera house from their secret hiding place amongst the priests' vestments. He gathered the sheets of music he had scribbled down in his loneliness, and tucked them into his waistcoat. He reached for the rope that Christine had tamed. For a moment, his promise made him hesitate, and stilled his hand. But his brain conjured visions of the rope snaking to life, animated by some hellish power, twining itself around Christine's neck as she slept - Erik snatched the rope from the stone floor and took it with him.
He moved to go. But his own body betrayed him. He came to a jerky halt in the portal of the Sacristy.
It was too dark to look back and see her. Erik was grateful for that. He wasn't sure if he could actually go if he saw her.
Her breathing was slow, and steady, and full of peace.
He fled the chapel before the wicked sun could rise and show him everything that he was giving up.
Author's notes:
Erik's chosen lullaby is "Figlio Perduto." The music is Beethoven's 7th symphony, and the words are an adaptation of the poem Erlkönig. The poem describes the desperate flight of a father and his young boy on horseback. The child who is apparently ill, tells his father that he sees the Elf King riding beside them. The Elf King promises him endless delights if the child will only go with him. The father assures him that he is only seeing mist, or wind moving the trees, that none of it is real. The child hears the Elf King promise that if he will not come by choice, then he will take him by force. The boy cries out. By the time the Father reigns in his horse, the boy is dead in his arms.
...It's really gorgeous, and you guys should listen to the music and read the poem. See it sung by SARAH BRIGHTMAN NO LESS (honestly I had no idea) here: youtuDOTbe/24GCYlxMZWw (DOT=.) and look up Erlkönig on wikipedia.