It has been a long time coming, I know. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for your patience, friends!
Phanty belongs to Leroux and Lloyd Weber
"Where has Nadir gone?" Christine asked, attempting to break the tension that had built during their climb up the stairs.
"I have allocated him the bed room up the hall; my mothers. I could not have him in my room. I could not have anyone in my room before me…"
Christine nodded. That was understandable. It was likely that no one had entered Erik's room since he had left as a child.
"Is he alright?" She asked. She hadn't heard a sound from him since he had left them and could not help but worry.
"Of course." Erik replied, slightly irritably. Leaving him to lean against the wall Christine approached Nadir's room and looked inside. He was lying face down on the bed, but his back was slowly rising and falling. Christine exhaled.
"Sleeping?" Erik asked with a smirk.
"Yes…"
"He has always been a heavy sleeper and… he has always been able to find sleep inside of ten minutes. I have always envied that about him… among other things."
Christine walked back up to him with a smile.
"Are you ready?" She asked, taking his arm for support once more.
"Yes, Christine. And… I will be alright from here..." He said, gently pulling his arm from her grip. Christine looked up at him. He had never done that before, never pushed her away. Not even during an argument. Certainly not when she knew he needed her help to walk. Perhaps this was taking more of a toll on him than any of his injuries ever could. It hurt her but she said nothing. Erik stared straight ahead. She followed his gaze to the door in front of her.
"Erik…" She began. "Why is there a lock on the outside of your door?"
Erik chuckled mirthlessly.
"My mother used to lock me in here for extended periods of time. Perhaps that is why I grew accustomed to eating very little." Christine cringed. Seemingly not intent on lingering on the subject, he knelt down. It was just as well. After all the time spent with him she was still lost for words when he spoke so casually of his troubled past.
"What are you doing?" She asked, moving toward him. He barely had strength to walk!
"Opening the door." He responded, his voice emotionless. Again, Christine cringed inwardly. Erik retrieved two metal pins from somewhere within the floorboards and stood, leaning on the doorframe for support even though the woman beside him had offered her hand. Christine took a deep breath. She had to be patient. She knew that. Erik had never acted this way before and therefore there was a good chance that he never would again. This room was just another hurdle that they would overcome…
He staggered inside and allowing the pins to fall to the floor beside him, he turned to his right. "There used to be a large mirror here… or perhaps it was only large to a small boy." He approached the wall and a strange smile came to his face as he allowed his hand to glide down the worn brick. Christine walked in behind him and gazed around the room. It was almost as empty as the rest of the house, but something told her that nothing in this room had been changed or stolen. Something told her that this room had always been this way. Across from her there was a small bed, a worn mattress lay atop a dark, wooden frame. There was a small wardrobe on the other side of the room near Erik but something told her that that was all but empty. She turned to her right to see him, staring intently at the wall before him. He continued. "When I first saw my reflection… that was the beginning of the end to my life here."
"Erik…" She began, walking up to him and placing a tentative hand upon his arm. "While I am interested and I feel that it may be good for you to talk of such things, I don't want…"
"Do you not wish to hear them?"
"No, of course I do. I was going to say that I do not wish to push you into… re-opening those wounds if you aren't ready…"
"We can hardly avoid it, can we Christine? Not now that we are here." As soon as he had uttered the words he realised how needlessly sarcastic they had sounded. He took her hand reassuringly but that was all he could do. That was all he could do at that moment.
We have faced other demons together, what is one more?
Christine smiled weakly.
"It was almost twenty years ago." He said, his voice gruff. "I am as ready as I will ever be."
"Alright." She said, squeezing his hand. "Well then continue… please."
Erik took a deep breath and stepped back from the wall. He stared at it, as if there were still a mirror before him instead of a dusty, white surface.
"The first time I saw my face in a reflection… I didn't think that it was me." He chuckled cynically, his gaze never wavering. "I thought that it was a monster. I thought that there must have been a monster trapped inside my mirror. I remember being terrified of the mirror… and not much has changed except now I know the truth."
"Erik…" Christine began. Unable to embrace him properly and unsure of how he would react, she ran her hand over his back affectionately. "I don't know what to say…"
"I know." He said, finally turning to her, the hint of a tear in his left eye. "I know that it is difficult to hear and to know how to react. Please don't feel as though you have to." He knew that she cared for him and he knew that hearing these things would be painful for her as well. He needed her to know that there was no obligation upon hearing what he was to tell her. It would make things easier on them both if she knew that. He still found himself unable to suffer pity.
But he needed to address them, especially if he was to spend time here. Christine nodded solemnly, her hand never leaving his back.
"How did you… discover it?" She asked apprehensively. "That it was you?"
"Well… that is the best part." He said looking down at her. She looked back at him sternly.
"I am sorry. I know that you don't appreciate me being that way but it is how I have learned to cope with things."
"I know. But you have me now, Erik. You have me to help you cope. I don't like it when you speak like that because I can feel the wall you put up and I find myself on the outside of it. I don't want that and I know that you don't either."
"No… I don't want that." He said quietly.
"Please, go on Môn Ange."
"Well I did not discover it on my own." He continued, his gaze shifting back to the wall in front of him. "My mother told me. She told me in anger and I feel as though she regretted it… perhaps it was one of the few things she did regret in life... but it was too late. It destroyed me. After that, I knew what I was and I began to realise that my mother did not love me and that she never would."
"Did you leave after that?"
"No, I believe that it was another year or so before I left. I left shortly after…" He looked down. "Shortly after Sasha… died."
"Oh."
"Yes, you see I was wounded that night. You have probably seen the scar. Although there are a lot of them." He chuckled dryly. "A doctor came to see to my wound… a man my mother had been spending some time with. And I heard them speaking in the other room." He wiped a tear in his usual, haphazard way so as to hide it from Christine but she saw it… she always did. "I realised that it would be better for everyone if I left. I was preventing my mother from achieving happiness… I was getting in the way and… as much as she hated me. She hated me, Christine… I loved her. All the while I loved her." He turned away and strode toward the window. The bars on it were still intact… or as intact as they ever were. But he was always able to find his way out of them…
"How could you love someone who treated you so poorly, Erik?"
"I don't know."
Christine looked down. She hadn't meant to sound insensitive but the thought angered her.
"And then you went to the gypsies?" She asked.
"And then I went to the gypsies." He repeated. "I wandered the countryside for several weeks of course before I found them… I grew lonely, you see. And I suppose that I saw them as outcasts like me; kindred spirits… I was wrong."
"Yes." She approached him once more, gently wrapping her arms around him from behind. He didn't react. "Erik… what happened to the mirror?" She ventured.
"Oh, I destroyed it." He seemed almost surprised by his own words.
"You began at an early age then?" She offered. She heard him scoff. At least he had accepted her joke, which was something…
"It's a little bit funny…" She teased.
"Only very slightly." He said, a smile present in his voice. He held out his hands before him. "You can still see those scars, only if you look very carefully though." Christine looked around his shoulder and smoothed one of her hands over his. There was a feint scar on his palm.
"I'd never noticed that before…" She said distantly. She looked up at him but he did not meet her gaze. "You know that it is bad luck to break mirrors, don't you?"
Erik scoffed and made eye contact with her briefly before turning back to the window.
"Well then I must have broken ten thousand in my previous life." He glanced down at her again from the corner of his eye. Was that a slight smirk playing on his lips? It was often hard to tell when Erik was attempting humour.
Satisfied that she had lifted his spirits, even slightly, she released him and wandered to the wardrobe she had spied upon entering the room.
"May I… May I open it?" She asked hesitantly. Erik inclined his head toward her in a gesture for her to do so.
"I think that you'll find it to be empty but be my guest."
With a creak, the cupboard door opened toward her and she was both surprised and slightly delighted to find a single white shirt hanging inside. She reached in and pulled it out from inside the wardrobe.
"There… there is a shirt in here?" She looked at him with the shirt in hand. She inspected it, opening it out to find that it was no doubt his, the shirt of a child. Erik approached her, a quizzical expression on his face. He took it from her grasp and inspected it himself.
"Ah. I would have thought my mother would have… disposed of all of it…"
"This is yours?" Christine asked excitedly.
"Of course, my dear."
"It's so small! I can't imagine you would ever have been so small."
"Yes well… even I was a child once, though it may surprise you to hear."
"Oh, relax. I didn't mean anything by it." Honestly, she was delighted to have found it. It was the only tie to his childhood she had ever seen.
"Wait…" She snatched it back from his grasp and eyed it closely. There was a small, red mark on the back of the shirt… a red mark. "Is this..?"
Blood…
"Yes, it is." Erik replied, pulling the shirt from her hands and throwing it back into the wardrobe. "Now you know more of my childhood."
"Erik your…your mother used to… you told me about the gypsies but I never knew that your mother used to…"
"Beat me?" He answered, his tone cynical once more. "It's alright, Christine. You can say it."
"No, I cannot… You told me that your mother hated you but I never knew any more than that."
Because I did not wish for you to know…
"Well, now you know."
"But… why did she…"
"I think we should leave it now, don't you? Perhaps get some rest?"
Christine wanted nothing more than to pursue it, continue to question him but she knew that it would only serve to damage the relationship they had built and neither of them had the energy for an argument. Something that would surely ensue…
"Alright." She said. Rest would do them all good. Erik sat down on the bed and sighed.
"I know that you don't want to be here." Christine added, sitting down beside him. "And I just want you to know that I appreciate you doing this. I know you deny it but I feel like everything that has happened has been my fault. If I hadn't delayed you all that time ago in your home…"
"Christine…" He began, his tone; slightly defeated. He turned to her. "How could you think such a thing?"
Christine met his gaze before looking down once more, unsure of what to say.
"If you hadn't come back, I would be lost. You saved me that night. Seeing your face at the portcullis gate redeemed me in a way that I cannot possibly describe. You have changed me, Christine. If you had not come back, I may have escaped… but I would not be alive as I am now. I would not be living. These past few weeks have been difficult to endure but they have been the sweetest I have tasted in all my years. Knowing what you do of my past… you must realise this." He brought his hand to her face and gently traced her bottom lip as he often did before he kissed her. "You are not at fault, my love. Not at all. I would endure it all again, every last second if it meant spending the time I have with you."
Christine's breath caught in her chest. For someone with little to no experience in conversation, Erik had quite a way with words and the sincerity with which he spoke them left her speechless. How could someone capable of such deep love, such pure, selfless adoration have lived a life such as his? How could someone with such feeling and passion have been denied it from the moment he took his first breath of this world? What sort of world was this to allow such a travesty? Suddenly Erik seemed right; this room, this space, this moment… and everything else seemed wrong. How could she have lived without him? How had they made it through these past weeks, unscathed? How was it that fate had granted her such a gift? She had almost lost him so many times… and what would she be? Erik spoke of his feelings for her but what would she be, how could she be in a world without him? She could not.
He was watching her, his blue eyes were searching her face as they had done that night long ago before she had kissed him in a whirlwind of passion and confusion, that night under the Opera; his gaze was shifting between her eyes and her mouth, waiting for her to speak. But she could not, and her eyes were welling up with tears. She brought her hand up to his face, gently tracing one of the cuts on his lip before moving her hand to his neck and pulling him toward her.
He obliged and within seconds her lips were upon his. He had waited an eternity for another kiss like this from her. They were alone, he was in pain but it wasn't severe and most importantly there was no danger. It was not a kiss out of desperation, a kiss fuelled by hurry, obligation or pity… it was just a kiss; something he feared he would never receive again… particularly in this house.
How he had missed it…
Their kisses deepened as she gently pushed him down onto the bed, and they would have continued were it not for his audible protestations. She had leant on his injured rib.
"I am so sorry!" She cried. Erik waved his hand dismissively.
"It is alright…" He grimaced. "Help me remove this jacket?" He offered. "Then we can at least lie beside one another…"
And continue…
Christine did as she was bid and lay down on the bed. Erik did the same, facing her. It was a small bed of course but neither of them seemed to mind.
"Don't you find this… strange?" She asked. "Doing… things like this on this bed?"
"Not especially." He moved his shoulders in a gesture that would have been a shrug were it not for Nadir's thoughtful gift that had been removed from his chest. "I never slept much… and… it was my bed… so… technically I can do what I wish on it!" He smiled before moving toward her and capturing her mouth in another kiss. Christine pulled away and returned his smile.
"Anyway, I'm sure that seven year old Erik would have obliged."
"You think so? I daresay that seven year old Erik would have been even more ill tempered than…" She looked up at him. "Wait… how old are you? I can't believe I hadn't asked you that."
"I can't remember…" He began, looking up at the ceiling for an answer. "Thirty something… perhaps thirty six?"
"You don't know?"
"My birthdays were never celebrated so I cannot say exactly." He replied plainly.
"Oh…" She cursed herself for her lack of tact. "I apologise…"
"Don't be silly, Christine." He smiled. "How old do you think I look?"
She ran her hand down his front affectionately.
"I don't know!" She laughed.
"That isn't an answer." He said sternly, watching her hand, the corner of his mouth upturned in a smirk as it usually was.
"Oh… I don't know." She repeated. "Perhaps…" She deepened her voice in a ridiculous way in an attempt at mocking the man next to her. "…perhaps thirty something… perhaps thirty six?"
"Oh. It's going to be that way, is it?" He teased.
"Maybe." She smiled, excited at the prospect of seeing playful Erik again as opposed to stoic Erik, ill-tempered Erik or self-loathing Erik; all very much a part of him but parts she hadn't the strength for.
"You think that you can tease me, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes." She giggled.
"Do you think I would let you get away with such a thing? Given who I am?"
"And who are you?" She laughed, grabbing at his stomach in the hopes of tickling him. After a single, breathy laugh he caught her hand and held it.
"None of that!" He warned playfully. "Perhaps you have forgotten who I am?" He challenged, trying to make his speech sound as formal as possible.
"Am I supposed to be afraid?"
"Very."
"Me?" She smiled. "You are the one who should be afraid, Monsieur!"
"And why is that?"
She gleefully reached for his stomach once more but he deflected her hand, allowing it to make contact with his injured side. She stopped immediately upon hearing his yell.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" She cried, pulling her hands away from him. "I cannot be trusted. I keep hurting you!"
"It is alright, Christine." He said calmly. "It was arguably better than what you were going to do to me."
She looked up at him with a smirk, which he returned.
"Come." He said in a voice which took her back to her first night with him back in Paris. "Let us rest for a few hours."
Christine happily obliged. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close as she turned around.
"Actual rest…" He mumbled into her neck.
"Yes." She smiled. "Finally… and together…"
Raoul woke up to darkness, and woke up as he usually did; in a thick, cold sweat. How long had it been? Days? Weeks? Sitting up in bed he lit the lamp beside his bed and stared at it. Flames never change… no matter where or when you see one… they always appear the same. But the way they make you feel is always different. The flames that engulfed the stage during Don Juan Triumphant had been quite different to this one… and the flame that lit his way in the catacombs beneath the Opera later that night had been different still. This flame reminded him of Christine… Everything reminded him of Christine.
When would that change? When would it stop? Perhaps never. Perhaps once he knew where she was… that she was safe and that she was happy.
The doctors had their opinions, as did the few people that he actually spoke to… but Raoul knew very well why he could not find sleep in his despair. He had left Christine as she was at the very mouth of danger, the precipice of disaster. After everything, he had simply left. Did he know whether she had succeeded in her task of freeing Erik? If she had gotten out safely? No. He did not.
But what was he to do? How could he possibly have stayed when at the very best she would have thanked him for assisting her and left anyway? Left with him? He had thought of nothing else but that night since he had left… that night when he stole away in the middle of the night like a Phantom...
He had reached his home the next morning and although he had been traveling on foot, he felt nothing. He walked through the door, nodded to his awestruck brother, climbed the stairs and closed the door. He had scarcely opened it since. There had been nothing but regret plaguing him since then. He would have gone to her the very next morning, he would go to her still if only he knew where she was…
She did not love him. He knew that and with every passing day that sad truth was becoming easier to accept. But he had to know that she was safe… because whatever else, he still loved her. He once told her that he would do anything for her…
That truth remained.
Thank you for your patience! I was working on both this chapter, and the latest in my other story simultaneously so each update took a little longer... but now there are two :) Please let me know what you think as always!
