Like a child, Erik had hoped that Christine would recover in the morning and that perhaps her ailment was brought on by the weather—the disappearance of one would coincide with the other. But when the rains stopped and the winds had died to an occasional breeze, Christine's melancholy still remained. He had stayed with her the entire night, watching like a diligent protector for any sign of her stirring amidst the loud ruckus outside and the creaking of old structures under the strength of the storm. Thankfully, she did not wake once, but Erik was struck on more than one occasion by a frequent murmur coming from her in the depths of her sleep. Incoherent words in sharp whispers had made her restless as she tossed and turned.

In the morning, when Erik had questioned her about her behaviour, she had said that she had no memory of such a thing and chided him on his lack of sleep. "You were likely imagining me talking," she told him, but he was not convinced.

Haplessly, he followed her about the house, taking care not to run into Mme Dumas, who graciously busied herself with her chores downstairs. For Christine's sake, he would not want to deal with the aftermath of such an encounter. When Christine did finally decide to drag herself out of her room and trudge to the kitchen, however, Erik lingered at the top of the landing. The voices of the two women were lost to him and so the soft padding of feminine feet upon the stairs was like music to his ears as he saw his beloved slowly appear once more.

With her nightgown askew, her hair in disarray and only a teacup in her hand, Erik smiled, trailing into her bedchamber after her. He leaned against the closed door as he watched her take a small sip.

"I shall leave you to get dressed for today," he said, pushing himself to his feet and towards the shutters, but the sound of her voice stopped him.

"There is no need," she mumbled and he turned just in time to see her climbing back into bed, the cup nestled in her hands.

"What do you mean?" he immediately asked, taking a small step forward.

She sighed wearily and lowered her cup. "I simply do not feel like dressing today. I have nowhere to go, after all."

"No," he sputtered slowly but in agreement. He stared at her for a long while, debating whether this was peculiar behaviour or not. He was never quite able to tell in some cases.

She emitted a languid sigh as she rolled her shoulders before she took another sip of tea and placed it on the bedside table. Her hand ran through her hair, not to comb out the curls that had become knotted in the night, but as a silent gesture that indicated her unhappiness. Erik had long since been able to spot this little quirk of hers and it only made him more uneasy.

He took another step forward and then another and another until he could wrap his fingers around one of the bottom bedposts. Flickering his gaze to the wood, he was briefly reminded of their shared moment not two days ago when her fingers had been the ones wrapped around it. He looked at her then, seeing her eyelids droop, but not in tiredness, and asked, "Erik has not done anything wrong?"

"No, no, of course not. You have been a wonderful comfort to me," she reassured him, rolling onto her side and glancing at him through strands of thick hair. "Do not blame yourself every time I am upset. I do not like it."

Taking her words to heart, he nodded before sliding down onto the edge of the bed. His fingers twitched, aching to entwine with hers, but he refrained and resolved himself to clutching the cover to still his want. "Should you... Should you not get dressed?" he asked timidly.

"I have nowhere to be," she repeated quietly, glancing down at her white sheets. "I think perhaps I shall sleep some more. Rest seems to make everything appear brighter."

"Yes..." he agreed solemnly, noting the way her voice had dwindled off into a whisper and the frown that had appeared on her face. Shrinking from her side, he pulled the covers up around her and kissed her temple. "I hope things do look brighter upon your waking," he told her earnestly. "I will let you sleep, then, and shall return in a few hours."

o0o

How hopeful he had been when returning later that evening, how expectant he was to see a smile on her lips and a liveliness in her eyes... But how wrong he had been to hope.

He found Christine in the same fetal position as before; the sadness in her eyes was now undeniable to him. He flew to her side, kneeling beside her in a fit of worry, his hands frantic in their examination of her body. Heat began to radiate off her forehead and a thin layer of sickly sweat was beginning to gather on her skin.

Tears sprang to his eyes as she clung to him, her arms fierce and tight around his neck as though she had just awoken from a nightmare and was not certain whether or not he was real. His arms had encircled her and pulled her to him, holding her close as she had done to him on many occasions. And for her, he knew he had to be strong. He could no longer rely on the resounding strength of the woman in his arms to pull them through.

Swallowing his fears, Erik stayed vigilant, alternating between staring at her and fetching anything that she might need, but ultimately rejected. The glass by her head remained full and the plate of food he had snatched from the kitchen away from the beady eyes of Mme Dumas also remained untouched. And she would not sleep. As the hours ticked by and the afternoon turned to a purple dusk, Mme Dumas left for the night, mumbling a 'goodnight' to Christine through her door. She had not replied and Erik was now certain that she had not even heard her.

Her words were incoherent, her body kept telling her she was hot one minute and then cold the next, and Erik was almost beside himself with worry. All he could do was watch and wait and hope and that was not nearly enough for him. Whatever was happening to his beloved had happened swiftly, but what terrified him the most was the fact that it was beyond both his knowledge and his control.

With a kiss to her slick forehead and a moment to secure the lock on her bedchamber door, Erik fled into the night, carrying his anxieties like one who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Though he was opposed to leaving her alone in her condition, he saw no other alternative than to send for help. A doctor would have been apt, a wise and sensible choice, but without a realistic guise to mask his face at the moment—an unconscious doctor would have been most inconvenient—and his severe distrust in anyone he did not know, he was left with one other alternative. The Persian.

With his glaring mask covered by only the rim of his hat, Erik was forced to travel in shadow and down routes that deterred his otherwise frantic speed. In his haste, and his unfocused state, he almost ran into a man as he rounded a sharp corner, only managing to narrowly avoid an unpleasant collision by quickly slipping back against the wall. A curse left his mouth as he berated himself for being so careless. There was no excuse for it.

Pulling his cloak tighter to his body did nothing to fight off the cold air against his skin as he finally neared his destination. With a gritting of his teeth, he surveyed the darkened street from a secluded alcove, his eyes darting to any source of movement, checking for signs of danger, before glancing up.

Not a single flicker of light poured out of the windows of the Persian's apartment and Erik, who was not about to linger on the pavement like a vagrant, swore that he would complete his task with or without a formal invitation into the man's home.

Gaining entry to the dreary apartment took more time than Erik had anticipated, the tremor that still claimed his hands a deterrence in his work. But as the reassuring sound of the door unlocking reached his ears, a moment of calm washed over him, relaxing his taut muscles and agitated mind.

In darkness, he worked, collectedly and with a precision he had not exercised in months as he rummaged through drawers, his well-adjusted eyes aiding him in his search for hiding places. Shelves were ransacked, papers strewn, cabinets searched, and still he found nothing. Growing frustrated at his incompetence, he ran his fingers along wooden surfaces, checking the likelihood of a secret compartment he may have missed in his plundering. Although, in truth, he thought that fit of engineering far beyond the Persian's capabilities.

A meek, little creak on the other side of the apartment door alerted him that he was not alone.

His task forgotten, he repositioned his cloak around his body, his eyes glinting in the shadows he hid in as he waited for the stranger to pass by. But they did not. They seemed to linger by the threshold, shifting their weight heavily from foot to foot and causing the floorboards to creak even more. When the doorknob turned and a familiar silhouette cautiously stood at the entrance, Erik felt a wave of relief and anger ebb through him.

"Another second and you would have been a dead man."

A startled cry escaped Nadir's mouth as he sought to recover from hearing that voice greet him. Closing the door behind him, he refrained from lighting the gas lamp that sat just a short reach away as a shiver ran down his spine. Many a night he had dreamt that he was alone in his apartment, alone save for that voice, taunting him, having come to end his life once and for all. They were foolish nightmares, the lot of them.

Straightening his jacket, Nadir turned and reached for the matches, his breathing shakily uneven, even through his attempts at keeping a calm disposition. "What are you doing here, Erik?" he muttered, relaxing slightly as he turned the gas up. "You have never barged into my home like this before."

A scowl formed beneath the mask just as Erik stepped into the edge of the light. "You have something that I need," he said. "But it would appear that you have improved your ability to hide things from me."

At this, Nadir faced his intruder, running a hand over his beard. "What do I have that you could possibly see fit to try to steal at this time of night?"

An irritated sigh filled Nadir's ears as Erik glanced off into the shadows, his eyes sharp and ever searching. "Your medicinal supplies," he answered curtly, turning his head back towards him. "Where are they?"

Leaning one fist on his hip and the tips of his fingers on the table in front of him, Nadir tried to make sense of what he was being asked. "My medicinal supplies? Why could you possibly want them? You... Erik, you do not want these for your own... personal use, do you?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than his back collided with the wall in a violent thud. The lapels of his coat were fisted in Erik's hands, whose eyes burned into his own. "Do not test me, old man," he growled. "Now, will you tell me where you have hidden them or will I have to find other means of extracting the information?"

His tone was strained and a nervous energy radiated off of him; Nadir seemed to lean into the comforting hardness of the wall behind him just to add a little more distance between them. "I do not take lightly to being threatened in my own home, Erik," he warned, suddenly wary of the crazed look in those black eyes.

With a final shove, Erik released him and stepped back, a string of expletives on his tongue. "I need them," he exclaimed bitterly.

Though still doubtful over Erik's intentions, Nadir merely sighed. "We have established that. Do you mind telling me why you need them? Perhaps then shall I be able to help you."

A moment of silence passed between them before a hunch claimed Erik's shoulders and Nadir could not remember a time when he had looked so defeated. "She is ill, daroga."

"Mademoiselle Daaé?" he murmured, coming away from the wall. "What has brought this on?"

"I do not know!" he cried, suddenly incapable of remaining in one spot. "She is... hysterical, prone to fits of crying, speaking nonsense and she will not—cannot—sleep. The fever... it troubles me." He would not help but linger on the possibility that he had been the cause of her illness. After all, he had been careless the night before, allowing her to rest against his wet clothing for such a long period of time. "I have already left her alone for longer than I had anticipated and since I am on the verge of stringing your neck up on that rafter above your head, I think it would be wise if you were to tell me where your supplies are. And quickly, if you value your own skin."

The threat, though malicious, ran bare and Nadir was able to see a flicker of fear beneath it. Never, in all his days, had he witnessed a shred of trepidation in his masked acquaintance and, frankly, this alone frightened him more than any past threat on his life ever had. With a brisk nod, he scurried away down the hallway, casting an anxious glance back over his shoulder before Erik disappeared from view. In that state, Nadir did not want to agitate him further.

When he returned, his approach was slow but steady and a reasonably large bottle was in his hand, its dark contents swilling within, immediately catching the eye of the one who sought it. "Laudanum," Nadir said, setting it down on the table only for it to be snatched right back up again. "It is all I have, but it should allow her to sleep." A silence ensued, and then, "If you are so concerned, then why do you not send for a doctor?" But Erik did not reply, he simply brushed past him and headed towards the door. "At least allow me to go with you."

A curt nod was Nadir's reply before a bony hand was once again wrapping itself around his coat and he was being dragged out of his apartment. Unprepared for the sudden excursion, Nadir found himself lagging behind his companion, who did not hold back voicing his displeasure at being slowed down. Nadir endured this as he attempted to pry more information about Christine's condition out of him. He received little, but he was glad of the surge in sane communication.

The cold air felt unpleasant against his face and Nadir resorted to hurrying across the pavements and alleyways as he held the collar of his coat close to his throat. At times, he almost lost sight of Erik, his black ensemble blending into their surrounding scenery and it unnerved him how his friend had never seemed to lose his ghostly countenance.

After Erik had slowed to a stop in front of a door, as unfamiliar to Nadir as the street, it was only a matter of moments before he was being ushered inside. No part of the house seemed to be lit or heated—it did not feel as though they were out of the night air—and Nadir scratched his thick beard slowly, his eyes flitting about the veiled room, not in curiosity, but in unease at stepping foot into a house uninvited. He opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by the slight creak of the stairs on the other side of the room, indicating Erik's swift exit. Not wanting to dawdle, he followed haste and stood at the threshold of the only open door, a grimace on his mouth at what he saw.

Dressed in only her nightgown and a shawl that hung loosely around her back, Christine stood on the small balcony, her long hair unpinned and wafting in the bitter breeze. She faced away from them and Nadir cast Erik a wary glance before watching him hurry over to her.

"Christine?" he murmured with a tenderness that Nadir had never heard before. "What are you doing out here? Please, my love, come back inside." One of his hands gingerly reached out to brush away a strand of hair on her face. The tips of his fingers barely touched her skin, but it was enough to make her head turn sharply towards him.

"Erik?" she said brokenly, encasing his hand roughly. "You... were gone. Where did you go? You left me. You said you would never leave me and yet you did. Why?"

"I'm sorry, Christine, I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair as she curled her body against his own, wrapping her little arms around him tightly. "Erik did not mean to leave you."

Averting his eyes from the small, intimate scene in front of him, Nadir noticed the bottle of laudanum at his feet, apparently put there by Erik before entering. Quietly, he picked it up and went to prepare an appropriate dosage. When he returned, the doors to the balcony were closed and Christine was in bed as Erik attempted to cease her restlessness. Within seconds, the glass was snatched from his hand and Erik was back at her side, resting one knee on the sheets as he supported the back of her head, tilting it back as he lifted the liquid to her lips.

As he watched, Nadir felt a warping of reality behind the lids of his eyes, a sudden shifting of perception, as though he were in a dream. And truly, he did not feel certain that he was awake for never in his years had he seen such diligent caring at Erik's hands.

"Allow me to keep an eye on her tonight," Nadir offered when his masked friend did not move from his uncomfortable position; his neck was no doubt suffering the stiffness of his tension filled body.

"You?" he snapped, though his tone was lacklustre, drained. "I would not trust you to watch a kettle."

"Erik—"

"You saw her, daroga," he continued, not raising his voice above a murmur lest he disturb the woman below him. Again, his hand rose to brush strands of her hair from her face and Nadir was almost touched at the sight. "She would not like it if she were to wake up and I was not there."

"And you will not be any use to her in this state," Nadir responded. "When was the last time you slept?"

"I do not need sleep. All I need is for her to be well again. Stop pestering me or I shall throw you out."

Nadir crossed his arms and leaned his back against the door, his eyes closing as he finally began to warm up. "I dare say you haven't the strength." A quip such as that would have dealt him a heavy hand in the past, but Nadir knew just how weary his friend was and how hard he strove to hide it. "There is a fire and I will be here to stoke it," he continued when Erik did not make so much as a glare in his direction, "and I will see to any of her needs if she does not sleep through the entire night."

A long while passed before Erik sighed and began to rise from the bed, his head still turned down towards Christine. As much as he hated to admit it, Nadir was right: he hadn't the strength to see her through another restless night. In order to protect her, he had to be at the peak of his abilities and though he would have liked to forego sleep, it was unavoidable.

"I will return in the morning," he said, almost to Christine herself, before facing Nadir with his jaw clenched. "If I find out that anything has gone askew, if she is distressed or upset in any way, you will be the one to answer for it."

Nadir nodded like a schoolboy who had heard this speech a hundred times before, yet obediently took each one as though it were the first. After which, he followed Erik to the door and remained there even after the click of his shoes on the pavement outside disappeared. It paid to be cautious.

Sluggishly, he then made his way back up the stairs and he could only hope that Erik would honour his word and would indeed rest. Entering Christine's bedchamber, he took note of her peaceful form and silently carried the armchair over to her bedside. There, he collapsed into its comforting embrace and removed his jacket in slow, lethargic movements. He knew then that he would not sleep that night.

Yet, he remained watchful of Christine's sleeping figure and wary of his own drooping eyelids. Curiously, he let his mind wander to her behaviour when they had first arrived. Her gestures had been frantic, not at all her usual quietly restrained self, her sentences were clipped and her tone... Why, her manner of speech had reminded him of Erik, and that was a troubling thought indeed. He wondered if Erik was having a negative effect on the poor girl's health.

On through the night Nadir went, with only his thoughts for company, and as more time came to pass, the more troubled he became. When dawn began to break and he rose to open the curtains, letting the first of the sun's rays into the room, he heard a soft moan behind him. Immediately he spun around and returned to his seat, waiting for Christine to awaken properly.

Not expecting to be met by sunlight, her eyes initially struggled to open and Nadir was reminded of a newborn about to see the world for the first time. "Mo... Monsieur Khan?" she grumbled, her voice laden with sleep as she raised her head and pulled the covers closer to her body. "What... What are you doing here? Where is Erik? Is he all right?"

"I think the better question here is are you all right?" he asked, leaning forward with an outstretched hand to quieten her down. "Are you in need of anything?"

"No, thank you. I am well," she answered, frowning.

"Is that the truth?" he asked incredulously. Although her pallor was a more encouraging sight than the previous night, her cheeks were still lacking their usual bloom. Dark circles rested beneath her heavy eyes and yet she looked as refreshed as she could be.

Christine sighed and gazed down at her lap, suddenly wishing to go back to sleep. "Partially," she told him honestly. "But I am feeling better than I have been. I do not know what is wrong with me."

"Hmm," Nadir murmured, threading his fingers together and wishing he could excuse himself to splash some cold water on his skin. "It is a shared opinion."

Not dwelling on his words for that would surely have cause for her to be upset, she raised her head to look at her companion. Her eyes skimmed over his appearance and how downtrodden he looked. She wondered if he had slept in that chair all night. "What are you doing here?"

"I supplied the laudanum that helped you rest," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand towards the empty glass on her bedside table.

"Oh," Christine whispered, turning to peer at the glass she could not recall in her memory. "Thank you, but forgive me... I do not remember you arriving last night. I hope I was not too much of a nuisance."

"A nuisance is not something I would call you," he told her with a hint of a smile on his lips.

Christine's own mouth began to curl up until a thought occurred to her. "You did stay here through the night, didn't you? Where was Erik? And where is he now?"

"In truth, I did not trust Erik in his state of mind," he answered, not sparing her from the facts. "Your condition nearly sent him over the edge and I feared what he might do if you became any worse. Once you began to quieten, I convinced him to return to the Opéra. I can only hope that he is, indeed, there and resting." His eyes appraised her sickly appearance once more. "Have you any idea what may have caused your illness? Forgive me, I only ask for I worry that your confinement with Erik has done more harm than good."

"You think my time with Erik has taken a toll on my health?" she said slowly, the words sounding foreign and unpleasant on her tongue. Not wanting to appear meek, she sat up further, even as she struggled to keep her weight from collapsing back onto the sheets beneath her. "How could you say such a thing? I do not understand exactly what it is that you are insinuating."

"I have known Erik for a long time," was his gentle reply. "I know his mind—what little of it he has allowed me to see, that is. Has he divulged to you any of his time in Persia?"

"He—" Christine bit her lip and debated quietly whether or not she should reveal to Nadir that she knew about his little boy. Deciding against it, she simply shook her head.

Raising an eyebrow, Nadir nodded and slumped into the armchair. "He has said nothing of what his employment entailed?"

"No."

"Then he has retained some ounce of sense," he muttered, almost to himself. "I will not go into detail, but I will say that Erik's actions in the past were abominable. Some may have been beyond his control, but he knew well what he was getting into and for a long time he did not care. Some of his actions had, shall we say, a long lasting effect on the minds of men. I don't know whether you truly realise just what he is capable of."

A grimace crossed her face as a sharp pain ran through her chest. Her lips parted in confined vexation and she clenched her jaw to stop from shouting. "I am certain of it, but he is much changed now. You have seen this change for yourself. It does not excuse what he has done in the past, I know, but we cannot presently put him at fault for those actions. He shall never escape them, otherwise! I have seen how his past still haunts him, how his memories taunt him. What do you think it means for a grown man to sometimes shrink from a simple touch?" Pressing her hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes in remembrance, a lop-sided grin spreading across her lips. "Once I realised I cared for him, he was so gentle. You should have seen him then, Nadir. Like a spring lamb, he was, and so happy, so, so happy. And, for a while, there were no incidents and we lived like normal people." She laughed. "But... But then there was the time when..."

"Go on," Nadir pressed.

"He returned one night covered in blood." Even now, she could still remember the smell of it. "I am not certain what happened to him that night, what he may have done and to whom, but neither is he certain. I was so afraid and confused and suddenly everything that we had accomplished, all the good I thought I was bringing to him... vanished."

"You lost hope. And now it is your faith that you have lost," he concluded with a slight nod of his head and when Christine faced him, the look in her eyes almost broke him. "Erik told me on the way here," he explained.

"My faith is not lost, it is simply shaken," she murmured as her fingers fiddled with the sleeve of her nightgown. "Everything appears convoluted and without purpose at the moment, but Erik was certainly not responsible for that," she insisted. "I have just experienced a very personal loss."

"Ah," Nadir sighed, feeling the fool to have questioned her so thoughtlessly. "My deepest condolences. I should have just let you rest." With a smile, Christine reassured him otherwise. "Are you certain, then, that Erik has done nothing wrong?"

"Most definitely."

"And if he had?"

Her fingers caught the frayed edges of her hair. "I love him," she said with as much conviction as she could muster, as if it was the only thing that mattered, the only words that could make a difference. But she knew there was more to it. "I cannot continue to ponder on the path my life could have taken. Who can say what I would have done?—stayed with him and fought until neither of us could stand the sight of one another, continued on as before but never forgetting, or I would have simply left him. He would never hurt me, Nadir, despite your doubts. He would die before that would happen. However, I am not blind to what he has done. He has done terrible things, I know, and I cannot forgive him for killing innocent men, even those less than innocent... But I can love him."

"I feared as much," he said, his voice unnaturally quiet with timidity.

"Feared? Why should love be something to fear?"

"It is not love itself; it is what it can do. I am merely troubled by your words. I do not mean to distress you at such early hours in the morning, and Heaven knows I will be served a penance for it, but I must be allowed to speak."

Though her sudden shifting would have indicated an unease in the conversation, Christine eventually nodded, allowing Nadir to say what he wanted.

"Thank you," he said, his words merging with a languid sigh. "Forgive me for what I am about to suggest, but could it be your affection for him that has held a veil over your eyes, that has somehow made you tolerant of his crimes?"

Christine stared at him as one corner of her mouth rose into a sad smile, a reflection of her twisted heart. "I do not pretend to be ignorant of what he has done," she repeated quietly, her voice steady and without hesitation or tremor. "Nor do I want to become tolerant. He nearly had me convinced that my love would be enough to save him, but I think I knew all along that it could never be enough. I could not change who he was, who he is; no matter what I did to help."

"And yet... you stay."

"Yes," she murmured, turning her head away to glance out the window. Somewhere in the distance, a bird was singing. "I stay."

o0o

Although he complied with the daroga's request to leave, resting was the last thing on Erik's mind. How could he sleep when she could not? But he had to believe, he told himself, that the laudanum would help to ease away her pain. Her pain. It was not a concept he could quite comprehend without fearing the worst. And he could not fear the worst. For both their sakes, he could not lose his mind over mere possibilities.

Grief was something he knew all too well, and he hated seeing it hover over Christine like an irrepressible storm. He wished he had the power to take away her grief, to have it somehow transfer onto him so that he could allow it to fester and swell. Alas, he had no such power and all that he was left with was an irrefutable feeling of weakness. This situation, how Christine was feeling, it was everything he sought to control, but could not, and he did not like that. Without that knowing security, he was lost.

Anxiously, he paced around his empty home, despising the deafening echo of his shoes hitting the ground. Had his footsteps always been this loud? Desperate for something to fill that silence, he sat at the piano and played until his music began to reflect his frustration. With a growl, he tore his hands away from the instrument and threaded his fingers through his hair.

For hours, he did nothing but drift from one room to another, sitting, reading, playing, yet never fully resting. It was understandable then, that Erik, exhausted and half drugged on fatigue, did not register the sound of the siren to be real at first. Briefly, he thought his mind was playing a trick on him. It would not have been the first time that had happened. But no, the siren was very much real, and she was calling to him.

As he swayed on his feet and strode into one of his black tunnels, he numbly wondered if it was Nadir coming to tell him that Christine had died in the night. As he drew closer, however, he began to see a lantern burning in the distance and, even in his weary state, he could see how the light flickered, how the flame trembled in fear.

This was not Nadir.

His heart began to thud even as his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. The scuffling of shoes against the cobbled ground indicated that the intruder was alone. Good, he thought, this would be over with swiftly.

With darkness as his cover, Erik was able to sneak up on his unsuspecting victim and slip the agile piece of catgut around his neck. The lantern fell to the ground and, a second later, so did the now limp body.

Erik released the breath he did not know that he had been holding and gracelessly slid down onto the ground, kicking the heavy legs of the man out of his way as he cradled his own head in his hands. He could not remember the last time he had felt so... tired.

Perhaps it was entirely morbid, sitting there with the corpse, but he could not find the strength to move either it or himself. The minutes passed and as he finally began to regain his senses, he stole a glance at the blank face that stared up at him. Edging closer, Erik swung the lantern's dying glow nearer to the body and almost dropped it as his eyes drank in the sight of a uniform. A gendarme.

"Merde."