Though utterly at the mercy of these nurses, Christine was determined not to let her inner conflict show. Vulnerability was not something she wished to portray to them, given their scruples and strong will and the lies which they thought surrounded her. Secretly, Christine longed to have their cold resolve, longed to not let the ever nearing hand of death trouble her. But only when she was alone in the confinements of her room was she able to release her pent up frustration and sorrow. Some nights, she would weep endlessly and silently until sleep claimed her. Other nights, she would lay rigidly on the bed, unable to cry, unable to sleep, unable to think. Erik's visits managed to bring her solace, if only for a little while, but she was craving his presence more and more these days and she was steadily becoming reluctant to release him from her arms and into that of the night's.

Through heavy persistence, however, she was able to gain the trust of her guardian's carers and over the course of the next week, she was making herself more useful. Despite their feeble complaints, Christine lumbered through the household with unmatched resolute, cleaning and attending to Mamma Valérius' needs. She was slowly proving herself worthy of Mamma's care and though proud of it, Christine was grateful that no one had noticed her delicate nerves. She was getting better at hiding them.

Whilst helping Mamma Valérius with her breakfast one day, Christine had been informed of a visitor waiting downstairs. Though unwilling to part with her guardian, Mme Rousseau had explained that the visitor had in fact come to see her and not her guardian, and so Christine had felt obliged to play the righteous hostess. Not wishing to keep whomever it was waiting, Christine passed the bowl to Mme Rousseau and kissed Mamma Valérius' warm forehead before making her way down the stairs.

As dark dress skirts came into view, Christine felt a smile spread across her face, her heart warming in instant recognition. "Madame Giry!" she exclaimed happily, rushing over to meet the older woman who also bared a friendly smile. "Oh, how good it is to see you again."

"My dear, it has been too long," she said, regarding Christine's appearance with speculative curiosity. As the seasons changed, so had her beauty.

"It certainly has," Christine agreed, indicating for her to sit down. Once both women had taken their places, she asked, "Shall I ring for tea, Madame?"

Shaking her head, Mme Giry carefully re-positioned her body onto the settee, sighing at the comforting softness beneath her. The grandeur of the Valérius household far exceeded that of her own quaint little flat and though she had never sat upon something quite as welcoming as the cushion beneath her, she knew, from the very second that she walked through the door, that something was amiss here. The air was colder, and something sinister lurked around the next corner.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Christine asked, folding her hands in her lap.

"I simply wanted to see how you were settling in," she replied before leaning forward, the wrinkles on her brow more evident in the light. "How are you faring, my dear?"

The smile on Christine's face disappeared. "You have no doubt heard of Mamma's condition."

"I have," Mme Giry replied softly. "Meg showed me your letter. I am dreadfully sorry for you."

"I should not be the one for whom people feel sorry," she grumbled before remembering herself. "But what of your health, Madame? Meg has not spoken much about you, though I do not blame her. She seems preoccupied with the Baron as of late. Is all well at the Opéra?"

"There is nothing to tell," she said simply, waving a slender hand in the air with the grace befitting the great soloist that she was. "Life has returned to normal, almost. Everything is a matter of routine now and work is underway for the new season. Come spring, there will be new talent arriving on our doorstep, young talent, and I fear that I am growing older with every new face." She chuckled but the humour in her voice soon vanished as a denied truth lingered with her. Tilting her head to the side, she asked the question that had been burning in her mind ever since she had left the comfort of her own home. "How is he?"

Christine did not need to ask to whom Mme Giry was referring and so she merely smiled at her fondly with a quirk of her eyebrow. "He is as well as he can be, though we do not see one another quite so often."

"He... does not come to check on you, then?" she asked, a little too curious for her own good.

A quick flash of sunlight strolling in through the windows, however, refocused the woman's attention to the little object perching quite innocently on Christine's finger. Mme Giry studied the ring quietly, her ageing features remaining neutral as her mind filtered through endless streams of questions.

"You are happy with him," she said finally, her gaze flickering up to the youth's timid smile.

"Yes."

"And you are in love with him?" she asked, not quite believing the ardent answer which followed almost immediately.

"You are surprised," Christine observed, her face crest-fallen.

Sighing, Mme Giry shifted in her seat once more before slowly rising to her feet. Walking to the window, she gripped the shawl which covered her slim body. "I am surprised," she confirmed as she watched the hustle of Parisian life pass by. "Not in my wildest dreams had I ever expected this outcome. It did not seem possible. I only hope you know what you are doing."

A mixture of annoyance and defiance radiated from Christine and soon she rose to stand behind the ballet mistress. "I know what I am doing," she insisted firmly, her tone as stern as though she were the true teacher here. "I know my own mind, and I do not appreciate your views on the matter. I know very well your opinion of our match and, while it is not the most conventional, there is no doubt over my affections. Please do not mistake them for ignorance."

"I did not mean to imply anything," she said wearily, wondering how she would ever be able to explain her reasoning. "I have good cause to worry about you, just as I have cause to worry for you. The man is a—"

"You needn't worry," Christine quickly interrupted, not wishing to hear what insults she would come to justify in her presence. "I appreciate your concern," she continued, now calmer, "but I am in no danger." The sounds of the busy streets filled the silence between the two ladies and in the window's reflection, Christine could see agitation begin to flicker in those cold blue eyes. "Is anything the matter, Madame? I apologise if I offended you. My time with Erik has certainly had a toll on my ability to hold my tongue," she said, smiling at her jest before studying the Madame's expression in concern. "I have not offended, have I?" she asked again, timidly.

Saying nothing, the older woman instead whirled around on the spot and lightly grasped Christine's arms. "Oh, my dear, you have not. I am sorry, but I must confess, your settling in was not the true reason for my visitation." Gently guiding them back towards the settee, Mme Giry cast a suspicious glance towards the parlour door. "There is something pressing I must speak to you about. We will not be disturbed in here, I trust?"

Christine frowned, wary of the way her arm was still being held by desperate fingers. "No, we shan't be disturbed. Madame, please say what you have come here to say for, I confess, I am at a loss."

"Yes, I must tell you now." Finally releasing the young woman's arm, Mme Giry used her now free hand to smooth out her skirts, her next words nearly causing Christine to take a turn. "I am here because of the Vicomte. He wishes to see you."

The betraying way Christine's pulse started to thud violently told her that her heart had never forgotten him. As her mind conjured up his face from fragments of memories, her mood gave way to sullen thoughts and all colour left her cheeks.

"I think it would be best if you were to admit him, and soon," Mme Giry advised. "All these months of not knowing whether you suffered as he did; he is miserable, Christine, but he has heard of your current living arrangements and wants desperately to see you. I had to know," she added, "I had to know whether you were still being closely watched by him. But here you are alone—a perfect rendezvous point for a reconciliation."

As the Madame spoke in cheerful yet cautious tones, Christine's mind was reeling, the air around her suddenly feeling stagnant, as if it could close around her at any moment, suffocating her—and how she wished it would! "You spoke to him?" she asked slowly, quietly seething. "Why would you do that, Madame? I had explained to him my position... I-I thought he understood."

Mme Giry's brow furrowed, furthering her stress spawned wrinkles. "I thought you would be happy, dear, to have the chance to see him again and—"

"Happy?" she snapped despairingly, keeping her voice low, lest an inquisitive ear be pressed up against the door. "What reason have I to be happy?"

"I cannot leave him like this, Raoul," the memory of her once hapless-self flickered in her mind. "You are free now. Erik has set you free! Do you not see what he has done for you? For us! Please, please go now and be free before I change my mind and flee with you."

"Christine." His voice, his youthful spirit, was now but a fading sound, like the distant tolling of a church bell. "I implore you, come with me! We shall marry and we can forget all of this. He has let you go too! Why do you insist on returning to him?"

"Raoul, please do not make this any harder for me. This is something I must do. I love you, but I cannot leave him like this, not after I have promised him—"

"But you have promised me!"

"After all this time," Christine whispered, her eyes shimmering with tears which would not fall, "he still wishes to see me? And after the way I have treated him... Why?"

"I think that is a question better suited for the Vicomte himself," Mme Giry pressed, offering her a comforting pat on her hand.

"He should not want to see me," she mumbled soberly. "I should not let him see me."

"You must make your peace with him," Mme Giry pleaded, sensing the girl's growing anxieties, "so that you can both move on with your lives, if that be the case."

Though the mere thought of being in the same room with him again made her fingers twitch in unrest, she knew that the decision had already been made in her mind. If she truly wanted to spend the remainder of her life in another's arms, then she had to do the very same thing which she had been telling Erik to do. She needed to confront the ghosts of her past.

"You must tell him nothing of Erik," Christine insisted.

"Are you then agreeing to a visitation?"

Sighing, she nodded slowly, her hand fiddling with the ring on her finger as the arrangements were made.

o0o

Later that night, Christine paced the floor of her bedchamber, consumed by the reality of her earlier decision. The glass doors remained open, beckoning the cool night air and its promises into the room, but Christine did not pay them much attention. The prospect of facing Raoul again had almost set her into a frenzy. She knew, however, in her heart that Mme Giry had been right and that she must make her peace with him. Her time with Raoul was... blurry now, and she now tried desperately to recall his smiles, his sweetness, his boyish charms. It had been too long since she had thought of him, let alone seen him. She wondered if he had changed, though secretly she wished he hadn't. The image of a friend and protector in her mind was enough to want to preserve.

The day after tomorrow. That was the date they had settled on.

Soon, he would enter her life again and she would make her peace and then that would be that.

So caught up in her thoughts was Christine that she did not even sense another's presence in the room, not until his arms had enveloped her from behind, his warm cloak covering both of their bodies.

Relaxing into his hold, she smiled and closed her eyes as he gently nuzzled the side of her face. "Good evening," Erik murmured into her hair.

Turning in his hold, she threw herself into his embrace, clutching at his back with splayed fingers and burrowing her face into his neck. Breathing his scent in, she felt at ease. Yes, she thought, this was where she belonged, in his arms, close to his heart.

Erik never need know about the meeting.

"How is she this night?" he asked finally, momentarily overcome by the power in her little arms.

Tensing, Christine pulled back and looked up at him, her eyes full of worry. "It is merely a matter of making her as comfortable as possible. She is injected with sedatives most days and though I do not like seeing her in such a state, it is more bearable than watching her dazed expression as she has one of her fits. Time is not on her side, but what else can I do?"

Peering down at the woman in his arms, Erik felt his strength return to him, a powerful urge to protect her, to help her, building within his pitiful heart. If only she would let him. "There may be something," he whispered to himself.

"What?" Christine asked eagerly, startled at this revelation. "Erik, if there is something you know, if there is anything you know that will help her, please tell me. If it can ease her suffering, please."

Debating on whether or not he should reveal to her his secret was only a matter of looking into her eyes, which were so full of hope that he felt it was his duty to tell her. "I have a... tonic," he explained carefully. "It would be painless and quick. She would not feel anything, only as though she were slipping into a restful sleep."

"A tonic," Christine muttered, recalling his words from so long ago. He had once called that little vial 'a tonic', but what he had actually meant was, "Poison. You are speaking of giving her poison?" she spat. "How could even suggest such an inhumane thing?"

"It is quite the opposite!" he insisted, even as she pried herself from his arms to stride angrily over to the balcony, leaning against the frame with heavy limbs. "It would be in her aid! Have you not listened to what I have said?"

"I have," she replied, breathing in the breeze which soothed her raging cheeks, "but I refuse to listen to you anymore. You suggest the unthinkable."

"It is not unthinkable," he protested with an air of superiority which left Christine wondering how he could have known about such things. "In fact, it is very much practised—"

"No—"

"Yes!"

Knowing that she would unleash the true extent of her anger if she were to look at him, she did not turn around. Shaking her head as she wrapped her arms around her frame, where his had been but a moment ago, she whispered in a strained voice, "You speak of murder."

"Is helping another in need murder?" he asked, his words landing gently into her hair as she felt the edge of his mask against her head. "Is freeing them of their pain murder?"

"Of course it is!" she exclaimed. "How could it be anything else? Why would you try to justify it?" Clenching her jaw, her eyes pierced the night sky as she fought desperately to keep control over her quivering nerves. And, looking back, she could not have stopped herself at that second even if she had tried, though a sharp pang of regret immediately followed her words which were spoken in bitterness and nothing more. "A silly question, really, is it not? I almost forgot to whom I was speaking... Why on earth should I ask a murderer his justifications?"

Silence. It was all she heard—a deadly, undeniable silence, which twisted around her heart so viscously that she could barely trust herself to breathe. And then, "I do not ask that you forget what I am, Christine," he said in a low, penetrable voice, "but that was indeed cruel."

Digging her fingernails into her skin, she turned her head to the side and spoke over her shoulder. "I know," she said in a voice so small she could hardly recognise it as her own. "Forgive me, Erik, I did not mean to be cruel."

"I will be the willing victim to your wrath, Christine," he said softly, the gentle intonations in his speech bringing tears to her eyes. "Only, please listen to what I have to say now. I do this for you. Her suffering is your suffering, and I will not have you suffer. The tonic would merely take all of that away."

The cool air kissed her wet cheeks as she leaned back against him. "I have listened, but that is not to say I will agree with you. I really do not understand. You say it is painless, yet how can you be so certain?"

As she awaited his explanation, she felt the hard exterior of the mask dig into her head as he rested his forehead against her plaited hair. And then his reply came, "Because I have used it before."

A shiver ran down her spine so violently she felt as though she had been struck by lightning. "You have?"

"I was but a young man, living in Persia," he began, raising his hand to fiddle with one of her unkempt curls, and Christine realised the importance of what he was about to tell her. "I will not subject you to the details of my years there, I pray that you will never have to see, let alone hear such things, but I will tell you this: It is where I met the Daroga. After his wife's passing, all he had left was his son. Yes, he had a son. I never knew his wife, but I knew the child and, by some strange occurrence, the child came to know me. He was curious, intelligent, but he was ill.

"You remind me of how the Daroga acted through the disease," he continued, sounding almost detached as a vacant look clouded over his eyes. "He could not bear to see his son in pain, just as you cannot bear to see your surrogate mother in pain. Through my travels, I knew of a tonic which would help end that pain, but the old fool did not have the stomach for it. I administered it myself and saw the child rest at ease for the very first time."

As a quivering breath left her body, Christine's hand rose up to cradle the back of Erik's head, pressing him to her as his arms wrapped around her torso. A warmth spread through her heart at the knowledge that he had finally been able to place his trust in her enough to tell her a little of his past. And though it was only a little, Christine loved him for it.

"A child should not have known such suffering," he murmured almost incoherently into her curls, memories of his own childhood flashing before his closed eyes. Erik's features twitched as he remembered the boy's face, his arms tightening around Christine to secure his place at her side. He did not wish to be ripped from the present. Not again. Not now.

"You were fond of him?" she asked after his grip had loosened, and he nodded against her, eternally thankful for her kind and reassuring touches.

"I know you must think me a monster—"

"I do not," she immediately argued, turning her head to rest her cheek against him.

A sigh was all she received as a reply to her defiance. "But what if your surrogate mother were to agree to this?" he dared to ask. "What if she truly wanted to end—"

"Don't say it," she whispered, impassioned, closing her eyes to the pain around her. "Please."

"Do not ignore the possibility, Christine," he continued, his strength returning. "You do not know her mind. You know not what she thinks."

"It is wrong, it is wrong," she repeated over and over again like a piece of scripture.

"Why?"

"Do you truly not see?" she asked, bringing her free hand up to her forehead. "Do you not believe in the sanctity of life? If it is not her time then there is little that can be done. Only God has the right to take life away! Do you see now, Erik? I can do nothing!"

"Even if that means watching her suffer? Christine, I only mean to offer aid."

"I know," she said, nodding her heavy head, "I know. But you must not interfere with His planning."

"But what if she—"

"She would not—"

"Ask her," was his final say in the matter, his hold tightening around her body as he pulled her into his embrace.

Resting her head against his shoulder, she found herself agreeing to the impossible for the second time that day.

o0o

"One day, we will escape from here, leave and never look back," he had exclaimed, moving closer to slide his hand into hers. "It will be just you and me, and then nothing shall stop us."

"It is a lovely fantasy, Raoul," she had replied, "but that is all it can ever be. Don't you see that?"

"Perhaps, but what is the harm in prolonging that fantasy? We could pretend that there is no opera house and that we are just two people, sitting side by side, in a home of our own. As man and wife."

"Man and wife?" A virginal blush had covered the entire length of her body. "Do you mean what you say?"

"I do..."

A light knock on her bedchamber door broke through the faded veil of her memories and pulled her back into the present. It was early morning still, but Christine had arisen long ago in order to prepare herself for the visit.

"Yes?" Christine answered as she sat at her vanity table, scrutinising her appearance. Her hair had been swept up on top of her head in an elegant display befitting a noblewoman, but her face still lacked the nourishment it needed. Pinching her cheeks until they bloomed a healthy red, she watched in the mirror as the door opened.

Amelie Rousseau entered with an incredulous look about her round face which soon had her biting the inside of her mouth to keep from showing. "You have a caller, Mademoiselle Daaé," she informed in a teasing voice which completely eradicated the need for pinching on Christine's cheeks.

Flustered and irritated at the woman's assumptions, Christine thanked her and waited until she had closed the door before standing up. No doubt this visit would be the cause of more gossip.

Dispelling those thoughts from her mind, she instead focused on the task ahead and readied herself before descending the stairs to meet her old friend.