"O mystic metamorphosis! My senses into one sense flow—her voice makes perfume when she speaks, her breath is music faint and low!"

As Baudelaire's words rolled off of Erik's tongue and the soft thud of a book closing reached her ears, Christine opened her eyes and leaned against the armrest of her chair, lost within a whirlwind of delicious phrasings. The warmth from the fire had managed to relax Erik enough for him to sit beside her in his own chair, but his face was still barred from the light. How uncomfortable he must have been.

"Thank you," she told him after a short silence ensued, her voice barely rising above the crackle of the flames. "That was lovely."

Over the weeks following her birthday, Erik had taken to reading to her and she had silently enjoyed both his attentiveness and his company. His vast collection of battered spines and faded prints had proved themselves a kindly indulgence, and he had even read to her foreign texts in their original language. Upon seeing her quizzical expression, he had soothed her qualms and entreated her to a lesson, teaching her the rhythm of the exotic words. The dear girl could not quite grasp some of the harder pronunciations, but Erik so dearly loved to hear her try.

"Shall I read another?" he asked, eager to please her, if but for a little while longer. "I shall read on into the night, if you ask it of me. Or would you rather retire? I suppose it is late."

"I think I will stay here," she replied, not wanting to admit that she was enjoying his company too much to leave. "It is not yet eleven o'clock," she added with a smile, glancing up at the old-fashioned clock which now stood in the room. "But do not let me keep you from your work if that is what you wish to do."

Christine had lived underground for almost nine months now and winter was approaching fast. The day that had followed her birthday was spent by herself, amidst the slight pounding in her head, creating a calendar in the hopes of restoring her sanity after countless weeks of not knowing the date or month. Yet this was merely a distraction, a task set out to keep her frantic mind subdued. Her behaviour on the night of her birthday had been wanton, though innocent, brought on by curiosity, confusion and wine. But she could no longer deny that urge, more intoxicating than spirits and deeper than wonderment, which had spurred on her actions. She could no longer deny that she wanted his touch.

An embrace, a kind caress, his hand in hers—but even the simplest of touches he did not grant her.

And so, as the days after that passed, Christine became aloof. Remaining pensively quiet, she preferred to keep to herself, distancing herself from Erik, but not all together avoiding him. Whenever he would turn his attentions elsewhere, her large eyes would follow him, watching his hands with—dare she say it?—longing.

This shameless yearning had merely grown over the weeks, despite her efforts to suppress it. And suppress it she must, she told her herself diligently. It was not right for a young woman to have such thoughts—

"Shall I play something for you instead?" Erik asked, unwittingly pulling his bashful companion out of her own head. "I have nothing I would rather do than spend the remainder of the evening in here. If you would allow it, of course."

"This is your home," she retorted, sitting up. "You do not need my permission to do anything. You may do whatever you want."

"Very well," he said before rising to stand before the fire, his hands resting on either end of the mantle piece. Tilting her head to the side, Christine briefly studied his stance, brooding, reflective, a moment of his time taken to collect his thoughts.

"May I ask something of you?" she said without hesitation, startling both herself and Erik, who, despite his now visible discomfort, did not turn around to face her.

"Very well," he said, his muscles tensing and distorting beneath his clothing, a dreaded anticipation coursing throughout him as he waited for his taciturn companion to speak.

Christine seemed to simultaneously summon courage from within and draw back into herself. Would he have thought her terribly impertinent if she asked him about his past, used this precious time to delve into the unknown? Before, she had been content to not pry, to respect his privacy enough to let the matter drop and to remain passive. But now, there was no more waiting for another piece of his armour to accidentally slip. There was only now.

"I would like to know about your past."

Like the fire before his feet, her words spat and hissed at him, so absolved and contained and yet she did not know what she had just unleashed. If she were thus determined to find out information then he was certain that he would eventually give in to her. It was such an innocent question, was it not? And how easy it would have been to give in to her, to bare his soul before her, not caring if judgement lay in wake for him.

But her mind was not made to tolerate such horrors. Out of the revulsion of the world that he had known came a single guiding light. And she had been that light. She had been the antithesis of everything he had ever known. Standing here, he fought a silent battle. How could he corrupt such a precious thing?

"There is so much I do not know."

Her voice, like a balm to his wounds, both soothing and burning, spread and rubbed against his skin, coaxing him to open up, to turn to her.

"And I intend to keep it that way," he muttered, not allowing her to take possession of him.

Christine, who was already on her feet, stood bemused, ready to stand her ground. "Why? What have you to hide?"

"I hide what I must," he growled under his breath, his fingers curling into the wooden mantelpiece, tempted to scrape at the wood with his nails.

"But—"

"I will not tolerate questioning on it, do you understand me?" he snapped, spinning around to face her, every part of his body holding unwanted tension, radiating off a warning that Christine was too stubborn to notice.

"No," she said, standing opposite his dangerous silhouette.

Startled and intrigued by her defiance, he took a step closer to her. "What did you say?"

"I said no, Erik," she repeated with as much authority as she could muster. "I do not understand you."

"You would be very wise as to not venture down this path," he said, shaking his head. "The past is called the past for a reason, Christine. It is so we can forget about it."

"But that's just it," she objected softly, daring to walk forward and reach for his arm, her fingers ready to coil around his shirt. The want to argue had faded from her and in its place stood compassion, overriding and growing. "You haven't forgotten. I can see it in your eyes. It's still there. They are still there, the voices of your past." With her free hand, she raised her fingers towards his cold mask, his trembling face. "They still haunt you, don't they?"

Before either of her hands could come to rest on him, however, he pulled himself out of her reach, his own hands balling up so tightly that they turned a ghastly translucent colour. "I thought I said I would not tolerate questioning on such matters," he snarled, his patience and his resilience wearing thin.

Resolving herself, she approached him again. "But I want to know you," she whispered, "It is about time I knew. I do not know anything about your life before you were my teacher. Are you not curious about my life before becoming your student? If you could only tell me one little thing—"

"Why should I?" he retorted rather haughtily.

The flames cast their fiery gaze over Christine as clarity shone in her eyes. "You do not trust me."

Erik slammed his eyes shut and folded his arms, placing two fingers on the bridge of the mask's nose. "It is not a matter of trust."

"What then?"

"It is not something an innocent like you should hear."

"An innocent?" An undignified snort very nearly left her mouth at his comment. "You cannot protect me forever, Erik. I faced the realities of life when my father died and sooner or later I will witness more—"

"No," he interrupted. "Not if I can help it, you will not. You know nothing of the true cruelties of this world." He breathed out a weary laugh. "If you did, I doubt you would be the person you are today."

As he lowered himself slowly onto his chair again, Christine witnessed a grand change in him, almost as if he had aged considerably in that moment. So as not to disturb him, she carefully followed his sombre path, pausing briefly before she knelt on the floor, her head tilting to look up at him.

His eyes barely drank her in before they drifted afar, stopping only after they reached the flames, his need for something blinding to overpower his senses complete. "The world shows no mercy to the weak and the different," he told her. "No matter how wonderful it may appear in your little mind, you must understand that it is all a lie. All of it. Lies! And the world lies—it wears a mask. It shields its true horridness from people like you. But... Erik would not wish to tell you all of what the world revealed to him during his youth." His hand eerily curled around his knee as his head bent forward in evocative melancholy. "Only that it changed him, shaped him, turned him into something he never wanted to become. A..."

A monster.

His unspoken words mingled in the air with his sigh and Christine tentatively rested her hand on top of his, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles, trying to will away his tension with the tiniest of touches. It was the first time she had touched him in weeks. "Your past may have changed you, but you are changing still."

"No," he protested, his entire focus directed on the small pressure she was applying on his hand. "I can never and will never change. Why are you the only one who cannot see this?"

"Because I know it to be false," she said, looking at the floor in defeat because, on some level, she knew that he would never believe her. He yearned for reassurance and though she was willing to provide it, he was still reluctant to accept it. What exactly did he want from her? What else was there for her to persuade him otherwise?

Her attention moved to their hands, overlapping and still; so very still. He would not accept her words, but he would accept her touch. Gently squeezing his fingers, she watched as his head tilted downwards, his eyes flickering to his knee and then to her face, a frown evident in the narrowing of his eyes despite the dark mask. The corner of her mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile, but it soon faded as she studied his slumped posture. A few seconds passed before he looked away, uncomfortable under the weight of her tender eyes.

Though Erik had never liked being looked at, he would have gladly endured the stares of a thousand sneering faces if it meant that Christine would look upon him with kindness. The expression in her eyes now was not kind, however, but nor was it spiteful—it was an odd mixture of emotions that he had found hard to determine and he could not bear to sit there under her unreadable scrutiny.

He should have fled. He should have simply stood up and left, brushing her aside to silence her inquisitive mind. He should have shut her out, but here he stayed, like a loyal mongrel who grew docile under a single stroke, and he hated her for it, as he hated himself for letting her.

A gradual pressure, heavier than her hand but all the more soft, suddenly descended onto his knee and Erik stiffened, startled by the slight tickle which was now itching its way across the back of his captured hand. Turning his gaze back to the right, his heart twisted at the sight of Christine's head resting lightly on his leg as strands of her hair fell against his wrist.

For a long while, he merely sat there, savouring the feel of her until he slowly began to raise his free hand. His fingers moved through the air like wind through branches as he traced the area around her head, wondering if she would allow him the small pleasure—no, the privilege.

Unstable, but prepared to draw back at any moment, he gently lowered his hand and ran his fingertips through her hair. Christine closed her eyes, smiling inwardly at his submission and at how strangely comforting the gesture felt.

When his fingers stilled in her hair, however, she pulled back and raised herself up on her knees so that she was at eye level with him. She looked at him as she slowly leaned into his hand, still entwined in her waves, before he moved to cradle the back of her head. A silence passed between them, her body swaying gently to the pressure of his fingers, before he bowed his head into his free hand. Christine gazed at him in concern as she, too, lowered her head to try to reach his eyes.

"I will never be a good man," he whispered, threading his fingers deeper through her curls.

"I refuse to believe that."

"But you do not deny it." Instead of arguing further, Erik sat back in his seat and untangled his hand from her, drawing both of them close to his sides. Sensing his withdrawal, Christine slumped, lowering her hand to the ground.

"Do you remember our first few lessons together?" she suddenly asked, turning to glance at the fire.

Frowning, he gave a slight nod of his head. "Why do you ask?"

Christine smiled sadly in her bitter reminiscing. "I had recently lost my father—I was desperate to hold onto anything that would remind me of him. To have all these memories rushing back every time I sang was almost unbearable. The happy memories are harder to endure than the bad ones, at least in my experience anyway, and at the beginning, I almost stopped showing up to our lessons. Did you know that? I would not be surprised if you did, but then again you never revealed anything to me." And still don't, she finished silently in her mind, turning to look at Erik.

"Yet you continued."

"Yes," she answered, sensing his unspoken question. "You brought me something that I had thought lost."

His head slowly spun round until he was completely facing her and asked in the most timid voice, "What was it?"

"Hope," she said, raising her chin. "You brought me hope. Through your teachings, I was able to reach out to my father. But it was through a falsehood, and perhaps I was a little delusional to believe in it, but I so very much wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that my father's words were true, that I really would be visited by... an..." Torn between wanting to drop her eyes to the floor and maintaining his gaze, she released a shaky breath, pain filling her every facial twitch. "How do you think I felt when I found out it was all a lie? Why did you deceive me like that?"

As Erik slowly leaned forward towards her, his head tilted and his mask salient, Christine had to suppress a shudder as his eyes grew darker.

"Why me?" she continued. "You could have made yourself known to anyone at the Opéra, anyone at all." She swallowed a lump at the back of her throat and flicked her eyes away from him. "You chose me."

"Yes," he murmured.

"Why?"

She heard him laugh dryly, the noise mixing with the light crackle of burning wood and ascending flames. "I do not know—even now I do not know. When I saw how mournful you were, I wanted you to wallow in your own misery. I wanted you to be miserable. I wanted you to suffer, to know the same pain that I did. But then you sang and I... I felt an inclination towards you, something I had not known for twenty years or so. In you, I saw a part of myself—a small part, but it was still there—I saw it, how I used to be. You looked so fragile and when you raised your voice something inside of me snapped."

Her untrained voice had reached within him and, for the briefest of moments, had made him feel alive again, as though his life did have a purpose. He knew that she would never understand just how important her voice was to him.

At first, he had foolishly thought that if he could train that voice, control it, keep it safe underground with him, then the darkness would not consume him, that he would be free of it, and her love would be his shining light. But the darkness was still consuming him and his hopes of redemption were now slowly diminishing... though, did Christine not see differently? Did she not just say that he was capable of change; that he was changing still? Oh, his sweet girl. He would never deserve her, or her beautiful words.

"Believe me when I say that I had no idea of the consequences that were to follow," he continued. "I had no idea that I..." His breath caught. "I had no plan to fall in..." Christine heard his body drop back against the cushions and she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back tears. "If I had known of the things you would be made to face then—"

"Then what?" she demanded fickly. "Things would have been different? Please do not talk of what could have been. We are here now, so why dwell on the unchangeable past?"

"But is that not the life that you crave?" he asked. "A life full of light? A life where you are free from the eyes of the devil? You still yearn for freedom, Christine, I know it, I know it! And yet what can I do? Tangible freedom is all I can offer, but that would not be enough. I cannot give you what you truly desire, but I want to, Christine, I do. I want to see you happy—"

"Why is it that you wish to torment me still?" she asked wearily, shaking her head. "Has it not become clear to you that I have made my choice and have stuck by it for many a month now? If you continue with your plights of disloyalty you will push me away, Erik. Do you want that? Do you? I am loyal to you, no matter what you may believe. Not once since I wrote that letter have I attempted to seek Raoul out, neither have I tried to escape. I... I find it so... so difficult sometimes to try to comprehend what is going on in that head of yours—and not knowing scares me."

She placed her quivering hands over her ribcage as she watched Erik stand, his fingers flexing at his side. "You would not want to know what is in my head. You know so little of my past, Christine, and it will remain that way. No, do not try to argue," he said as she endeavoured to contradict him. "My word on this is final." With one last look of warning in her direction he strode away leaving her alone.

Taken aback at his sudden departure, Christine shakily stood up from her resting place, her palms flat out against the armrest for support—her legs did not seem to want to carry her weight. There was no other light in the room, save that coming from the smoky fireplace and that was burning away quickly. Soon it would die out, the last few embers collapsing onto the pile of ash below, and she would be left in utter darkness. As Erik was now. But if she could, she would do something about it.

She struggled to get her reluctant feet to move across the floor at first, but they eventually obeyed and took her out of the room and down the long corridor in search of light and in search of him.

"Erik, where are you?" she called out, hoping that he would answer her swiftly, but when she reached the end of the corridor there was still no sign of him. "Erik?" Suddenly, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye and she spun around to face it, but was met with nothing other than her own shadow and a languid sob echoing through the air. A slight scrape soon followed and she knew then where he was.

Miserably slumped up against the steps leading up to the lake side door, Erik clung to the sharp stones despairingly. He supported himself on one arm while the other stretched above his head. He seemed to be muttering something under his breath but Christine could not hear him properly. Small jolts ran up and down his back as she edged nearer. He was crying.

"Erik," she begged softly. "Do not do this to yourself." His head began to shake from side to side. "No, listen to me. Stop this. Please stop this. You are not helping yourself."

He said nothing but instead pressed himself closer to the steps and tightened his fingers around the stone, his hands trembling as he did so. She winced, fearing the uneven base may cut into his flesh, and her lip began to tremble as she knelt down, her hands aflutter around his body.

A few more words flowed from his mouth and Christine carefully raised a hand up to trace his shuddering shoulders. "What was that, Erik?" she asked steadily. "What did you say?"

After one last heavy sob, she saw his body contract then greatly relax into itself. But even then he still did not turn towards her. "The world is a cruel place," he whispered. "I would not have you destroyed by it, not like I was. It is brutal. Vicious. It is still there waiting for me. I know it."

As she tentatively reached around his back to place her palms on his chest, she felt his heart pounding chaotically. She shuffled closer, sitting on the steps beside him and laying her head onto his back as she closed her eyes. At first, she felt his body tense at her touch, but it was thereafter soothed by her secure arms around his frame.

"Oh, Christine." He breathed her name in a sombre sigh as he shifted to cradle her hands to his heart. "How I love you."