A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:

...An erring lace, which here and there

Enthralls the crimson stomacher-

...A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat-

A careless shoestring, in whose tie

I see a wild civility-

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

-Robert Herrick

I should have kissed him. That was the boldest thought in my mind the whole ride home. I should have shown him what he means to me, shown him how much I cared. I didn't even see his mask anymore, or the face underneath it. Even as I placed my hand on the doorknob to leave that place, I knew I should have turned around and stayed with him. God knew there was no longer a future for me with Raoul.

Now that Erik was safe, it left me to think about my own situation. How could I face Raoul? Knowing that he'd been lying to me since the fire, knowing that he cared more about revenge than his promise to me… I was disgusted. I felt for the second time as if I didn't know the man I'd given my life to at all. Did he even care about my safety? Or did he just care about beating Erik? The fact that I even had to question it gave me my answer. And what of me? There was no denying that part of my heart was no longer where I promised I'd keep it.

I snuck into the house as quietly as I could in the brightening day, waiting by the backdoor for any servant to exit, and one finally did. In my room, I dressed for another day. When I peeled the ruined dress off of my body, I shivered with the ghostly feeling of cold hands on my skin, the sudden jerk of ripping fabric. I blinked a few times, forcing the room around me back into focus, and looked at the once beautiful dress in front of me. It was filthy, lying on the ground like an accusation, the laces frayed and broken. My heart pounding, I shoved it under the massive bed and prayed the servants wouldn't change the sheets and risk glimpsing it.

So began one of the worst days of my life. I couldn't look Raoul in the eyes, even when he asked me at breakfast how I was feeling, if I'd gotten much sleep. Meg was not speaking to me, upset that I'd missed her opening night. Madame Giry was studying me, that knowing look in her eyes tinged with worry. She knew it wasn't illness that had been making me absent. I could barely find it in myself to lie about where I'd been last night. I was so tired of lying to the people in this room. I didn't even feel as if I belonged there. I knew I didn't. For whose benefit was I lying anymore? Whenever I looked at Raoul's perfect face, I felt sick. He sat there as if nothing had changed, when everything had. For him, of course, it was only another day of eating meals with his fiancee and her friends while he tried to kill the man I… well, the man who owned something in me. What that something was, I couldn't think of. Not in front of Raoul. There was only one thing to do.

The second the last meal of the day ended and Raoul escaped into his study, I went up to my room to wait. Meg still wasn't talking to me, which suited my purposes fine. Madame Giry knocked on my door, but I didn't answer, and she went away. When the house was quiet, I left. I didn't try to be quiet, I barely checked for servants, just left. I was done.

The cab dropped me on the street corner, just up from the opera house. I could see the charred wood from here, along with the blue uniforms of the gendarmes. They had their torches and their guns and they were searching the area. I ducked behind a building, thinking. I could get to the Fleur if I kept to the shadows, my cloak covering my blue gown. It was close, closer than the opera house. Luckily, I could see that the men were thinning out, leaving for the day. I waited for a gap in patrols before I slipped across the street and into an alley. Two buildings and I would be there. The streetlamps were bright, but I couldn't let the men spot me. Not when I'd finally made my decision. I moved in the shadows, stopping in the last alleyway before the Fleur. Male voices were getting louder and I moved deeper into the darkness, walking backward, my eyes trained on the lit street. My feet caught on something and the thought in my mind was that my clumsiness was going to take me from Erik. I landed hard on the bricks, my hands flinging out behind me, and I felt a sharp sting in my right palm. I gasped and slammed my other hand against my traitorous mouth. The men, their brass buttons glinting in the light from the lamp, stopped and peered into the dark. I didn't breathe, and eventually, they must have convinced themselves that any noise must have been made by rats. Had it not been the end of their day, had they not been eager to eat or drink after a day of searching, this story might have ended right in that alley. As it was, I waited for them to leave the circle of light from the lamp, closed my fist on my cut palm, and ran for the front door to the Fleur.

Holding my injured hand to my chest, I pulled the strong for the bell. Luckily, the same girl from yesterday opened the door.

"Madame!" She said, a smile stretching her pretty face. "I didn't know you stepped out!"

I doubted that anything happened in this place without her knowledge, but her lie was comforting all the same. She stepped back and I rushed up the stairs, me head bowed and feet flying toward his room. When his door opened and he filled the doorway, his hood pulled low over his face, I pushed past him into the room. I had enough sense to wait until the door closed to say. "I couldn't stay another moment, Erik. You should have seen how absurd it all was." I was pacing, hardly aware of what I was saying. "I tried so hard to focus on doing what you told me, but Raoul sat there at dinner and smiled at me, and it all felt like such a lie that I was sick to my stomach. I had to leave. If I'd stayed, I would have been sick all over the table and they'd have locked me away for the doctors, Erik. And you, all alone here without a piano or any music, I just couldn't bear it." He'd raised his face a bit to look at me, but I couldn't read his expression. "Please don't be angry with me. Truly, I tried to stay."

He only stared. After an eternity, his eyes narrowed, a sigh escaped, and he said, "How did you injure yourself?"

With a blink, I said, "I- Oh! My hand! Yes, I was avoiding the gendarmes and I tripped. The alley was so dark and there must have been a bottle." Now that I was talking (and couldn't seem to stop), my hand was starting to hurt quite a bit. I held it tighter to my chest and felt the tears prick my eyes. Erik, seemingly all business, gestured for me to sit in the armchairs around the room's fireplace. Though the room wasn't very big, it was luxurious. Then, he pulled the golden rope hanging next to the door. Seconds later, a pretty, blond girl was at the threshold, asking what we required. Erik's voice was like silk when he said, "We need clean, warm water, and clean towels, please." The girl curtsied and then scurried away.

I sat, tensed, waiting for Erik to say something, to yell, to whisper. He was silent as he pulled a towel off the bureau and kneeled in front of me. His hood was still up, but I could see the bottom edges of that cursed mask as he reached out a gloved hand and pulled my clenched fist toward him, light as a breath. My hand opened, showing a petal of blood resting in the palm. Erik pressed the towel into my hand and I watched it soak through. The cut must have been deeper than I thought. My vision tilted and I had to squeeze my eyes shut. Freed from the awful sight of blood, I could notice that Erik's fingers were shaking with a fine tremor.

There was a knock on the door and Erik's hands left mine. There was a soft clinking as he tipped the girl and when his feet came back into view, he had a few white towels draped over his arm and a green basin of steaming water which he placed on the table beside me. I closed my eyes again as he reached for my hand and pulled the towel off, wincing as it pulled at the wound. "This may sting," he said, and I felt the warm water close around my hand, soaking into the cut. I gasped and clenched my jaw to keep from whimpering. I used to watch some of the chorus girls twist their ankles so badly that they swelled to the size of an apple, then tape them up and get back on stage, unwilling to risk losing any time on stage. I was never like that, never handled pain well. I opened my eyes and focused on Erik. He'd taken his hood down, his rough leather mask in place, but as he looked at my hand, the uncovered side of his face was exposed to me and I could see that his brows were knitted together, his jaw clenched. The shaking was back in his fingers.

"Erik," I whispered. He didn't answer, but stuck the tip of his finger between his teeth, pulling the black glove off quickly, then the other, throwing the gloves by his feet, and bent over the bowl. He rubbed the back of his pale hand across his brow and then raised my hand out of the water. When I saw how the water had turned dark with blood, I turned my face away.

He brushed a towel across my hand and then, with his hand around mine, placed them both back into the water and, so gently that it barely hurt at all, he rubbed his fingers across my palm, cleaning the cut. I didn't know how, but it was so comforting to sit there in the candlelit room above the parlour where expensive women were giving rich men a very different type of comfort, surrounded by the quiet sound of water sloshing around our wrists. The world outside seemed forever away. The only thing that unsettled me was that he had yet to look in my eyes.

"Erik?" I said again. And again, he said nothing. "Erik, I-"

"Do you have any idea what could have happened, Christine?" His voice was sharp, a harsh contrast to the gentle movement of his fingers under the water.

"I couldn't sit there, Erik, I couldn't stand it."

"Of course you could have!" Finally, his eyes met mine and I was frightened by the intensity of them. "Do you know what I've been doing all day? I've been sitting hunched at that window watching gendarmes tear the bones of that opera house apart, comb the streets, and question people people on the street, hunting me. The only thought that kept me from madness was that you were safe. I would see you in my mind's eye being dragged off to the prison for helping me, then remember that you were safe and warm in a rich house, eating fine food and drinking fine wine. Now, here you are, cold and bleeding, and I'm so glad." He dropped his eyes, ashamed. "I'm so glad to see you." Before I could say anything, he lifted our hands out of the water, examined the wound, and wrapped a clean towel around my hand. "Hold it there," he said, and went to the door again and pulled the cord. When the girl arrived, he said, "Wine, please. White, chilled. " He said a few more instructions, but I didn't catch them. She left with a curtsy and closed the door.

My mind was in a fog. I stared at his back as he stood facing the door and I said, "I don't like wine."

"It'll help with the pain."

"I don't like it." Something in my voice made him turn, his eyes narrowed in thought. He didn't say anything, but moved to sit in the chair across from mine. "What will we do now?" I said. His eyes on mine, he shook his head.

"I had a plan, once. But everything was different then. It was all a dream."

We fell silent until another knock sounded at the door. This time, Erik returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses on a silver tray. He poured a glass and held it towards me, but I shook my head. "Just try it, Christine. Even if you don't enjoy the taste, it will help."

"I do not like it." I met his eyes. "Please, Erik. I don't like it."

"Tell me why." His eyes were knowing. I don't know how, but he knew that it was more than distaste that made my voice stern.

I shook my head, but said, "It changes people."

He took a breath and said, "No, it doesn't. It just shows what's underneath."

My eyes filled with tears and I dropped my head into my uninjured hand. Suddenly, he was kneeling in front of me, his hands resting on the arms of my chair. "I won't ask you what happened, because if you confirm my suspicions, I don't know what I'd do to him. Christine, look at me." I raised my face. He was angry, but fighting hard against it. His voice softened, "I know your hand hurts and all I can do about it is dull it with the wine. Please, let me help you."

I studied him, saw the pleading look in his eyes, and nodded. He reached behind him, and handed me the wine. I took a sip and raised my eyebrows in surprise. It was sweet, so much sweeter than the wine I'd had with Raoul. "I didn't know it could be so sweet."

"I thought you'd prefer it. You always liked sweet foods."

"Will you have any?" I asked. He rose and poured some wine in the other glass. Taking a seat, he raised his glass in a toast of sorts, then sipped from it. For a moment, it made me nervous to remember how Raoul reacted to wine, but I quickly stomped those feelings down. Looking down into my own wine, I flexed my hand, felt the stab of pain, and threw the glass back, draining it into my mouth. It was delicious, just cold enough to be refreshing. Erik leaned forward with the bottle and filled my glass again. I was already feeling warmer, though the wine was cold in my hand. I raised the glass to my lips and, noticing that his was still full, looked at him with a question in my eyes. He pulled in his lip, released it, and drank from his glass. I took a large sip from my own, thinking that it tasted even sweeter now. It wasn't long before my limbs started feeling pleasantly numb and the candles glowed even more softly. I sighed and smiled at Erik.

"You were right," I said.

"I generally am," he said gravely, but then his mouth lifted in a smile and I laughed in surprise. "I'm glad you're feeling better. Because we have to figure out how to get you back to the vicomte."

I sat up. "What? No, I'm not going back!"

He rubbed a hand across his brow again. "Yes, you are."

Frustrated, I stood. "No! You don't understand, do you? Or do you still not believe that I am sane enough to know my own heart? Erik, I can't go back there. Don't you want me to stay?"

"Of course I do!" Erik drained his wine glass and tossed the glass on the chair as he stood. "I want it so badly that I've been fighting myself ever since you stood in that doorway, blood dripping from your hand. But do I believe that you know what you want? No, Christine, I don't." Erik was towering over me, but the wine made me bold and I stared up at him. "Do you know that when I first took you down into my home, I was convinced that you would want to stay there? Then, when you left me for that pig vicomte, I only let you go because you told me it was what you wanted. Now, you tell me you want to stay again. I can't survive another of your mood swings."

I moved closer to him. "The only way to make you believe that I want to stay… is to stay. So, I'm with you. Wherever you choose to go, I'm with you."

"You can't." Ice crept along my heart, and he went on, "Why are they hunting me, Christine?" I blinked in surprise and he waited, knowing the answer.

"Because… you killed Buquet and Piangi…"

"You think they care so much about a perverted crewman and a bloated tenor? Why are they hunting me, still?"

I paused. "Because you kidnapped me."

He nodded. "If you were to disappear again, I would not be surprised if your vicomte calls upon the militia. If you stayed tonight, we wouldn't get a mile tomorrow."

Somewhere in my mind, I knew he was right, but even with that knowledge, all I felt was the sharp sting of rejection. Maybe it was the wine, or the fact that I could see the heat in his eyes, feel his gaze on my skin, but I knew he was fighting something inside himself, and I wanted to see what it was. I took a deep breath and growled, "It was never me that you loved."

He blinked as if I'd slapped him. "Excuse me?"

"It was never me that you loved, nor you that I loved. It was the music all along, it had to be."

"Never loved you?" His voice was almost a shout. "Every night for a year, you cried for your father and it touched my heart when I never thought that I had one! Before you, my life was blackness, but Christine, you glowed. I thought I would give my very soul so that voice would never hold an ounce of sadness again. Never loved you? When you kissed me in that lake, it ripped my whole world down, and when you left me in the dark again, it destroyed me. I loved you so much that with a whisper, you can make me forget all the cruelty I know is in the world. Then, when you leave, I think there's nothing but the cruelty. Don't tell me I don't love you."

"Then don't tell me to leave."

His mouth dropped open and I saw admiration flash across his face as he realized what I'd made him admit. I didn't know what other expressions were on his face because suddenly, his lips were on mine and my eyes were closed. The first time I'd been kissed, it had been a manager's son behind the backdrop for a comedy, which was fitting considering how terribly slimy it felt. When Raoul had first kissed me, his mouth was soft and skillful, coaxing passion from me with every little press of lips. When I'd first kissed Erik, trying to save Raoul's life, I thought the only thing I felt was desperation and fear. Maybe that was true, but this kiss was so much different. His mouth was firm over mine, his lips almost frozen, pressed so tightly to mine that I had to tilt my head so my teeth wouldn't scrape against my lips. There was no skill, almost as if he'd done it on instinct. Like he couldn't think of what else to do in that moment.

Neither could I.

If there are any mistakes in this chapter (in short, if it's garbage), then that's probably because I finished it seconds ago. It was taking too long to get it right, so I figured I'd just get it out here.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing!