Despite his valiant attempts at shielding Christine from the truth, Erik knew the time had come for him to confront his past. They were to be joined in matrimony and he could not allow her to bind herself to him without knowing him. It was a decision he had swiftly come upon, but it was also one that he had been putting off. For days, they had co-existed quite harmoniously, neither raising their voices, even in mock annoyance, and Erik was loathe to break this tranquil equilibrium. But to him, it was merely the calm before the storm and he would be damned if he dragged Christine down with him. He had lied to her for long enough about the hidden parts of his life. The truth was a necessity that she sorely needed to know about. Her passive words, her constant reassuring that she would not pry, were merely a pretence.

It was time she knew the man she claimed to love.

"I do not believe I have been in a parlour as nice as this before," he told her as they sat opposite one another on the eve of their wedding. It was a terrible excuse at polite conversation and he was certain his words sounded more like a forced attempt to dispel the silence around them than anything else. Had he felt particularly gloomy, he would have also mentioned that this was in fact the only parlour he had been in.

Christine smiled at him and casually glanced about her, admiring the furnishings on the walls and floor. Although it was a well-mannered response to such an awkward utterance, she still reacted as one who did not know what else to do. Erik did not blame her one bit, however, as he brooded in his seat, his body tense and his fingers drumming against the arm rest.

The crackle of the fire invaded their otherwise quiet moment and, with the door shut and the heavy curtains drawn behind him, he could almost imagine that they were underground again. It was a sullen move, for him to resort to pining for his damp and morbid abode, but everything felt so secure there, so contained, so manageable. Not like here. His eyes drank in the surrounding decadence with a grateful appraisal, yet he could also not help but feel like he did not belong. Of course, he had no such business being in a house like this, and he was only allowed to venture into this one at the discretion of Christine. Somehow, sitting in a room as fine as this one, merely sitting, as though part of the room itself, felt awfully bizarre. How could one just sit there? He looked over at Christine, who seemed to take pleasure in it.

"Christine," he said, breaking the silence and as she turned her head towards him, he suddenly felt his courage leave him. He gaped, his mouth opening and closing unintelligently as she just continued to stare at him. Finally, he huffed in frustration and looked away. The absence of her eyes on him seemed to make his words flow more naturally now. "Are you... happy? Truly happy?"

"Yes. I would not be marrying you tomorrow, otherwise," she told him and he could hear the smile in her light voice, the truth in the way she spoke. "And on that note, I think you should leave. It is getting rather late and I think we both need as much sleep as we can manage."

"I will leave, and soon," he promised immediately, "but..."

Her head tilted to the side as she realised that perhaps wishing for a long slumber was too much to hope for. She watched his fingers flex and his overall nervous disposition with increasing unease. "What is it?" she asked when he did not speak up again.

His gaze seemed fixed on the fire, his eyes wide, before it quickly flickered to his mask that was propped up on the mantel piece. Christine followed his gaze with a brewing hatred stirring in her heart and she wondered if they would ever be rid of the horrid thing. She did not even know how many masks he owned, but nor did she wish to know. To see it sitting there above them like an overshadowing presence or a sacred relic to worship under, however, made her seethe.

"Do you not wish for better?" he asked, drawing her attention away from the mask, though his own gaze was still on it. "Do you not want... more?"

"What more is there? I want you," she proclaimed without a shred of girlish hesitation, wanting nothing more than to stride over to him and make him watch as she burned his mask. "Shall we travel back several months and have you tell me that I cannot have you; that I could never possibly want to share my life with you?" She did not even realise she had raised her voice until Erik finally looked at her, his features drawn down like a scolded schoolboy's. "What is this about?" she asked him softly.

He leaned towards her in his chair and stared at her with such coldness that she almost shrank away. She would later blame the light of the fire, but his black eyes seemed both wild and dead as they looked at her now, like the beady glare of a predator about to pounce on its prey. His fingers dug into his knees like claws into the ground and the horrible reminder of how dangerous he could be felt like a series of sharp blows against her cheek.

"I think you have a right to know who you are marrying," he told her, much to her confusion, as he rose to his feet. A part of her was glad when he did not approach her for she did not think she could have stopped herself from involuntarily shying away from him.

"I am marrying Erik," she said once she was certain that her voice would not fail her. Hearing it fill the entire room with its strength gave her the courage to face him. "That is all I need know."

"No, it's not," he droned unhappily. "I can see it in your eyes. You do not pester me with questions anymore, but your curiosity is burning you from the inside." Before she could protest, the sight of him picking up his mask stole her words away. He held it in both hands, with the very tips of his fingers. "Before I could be swaddled in blankets or even cleaned after my birth, my face was smothered in cloth. I was told it was a horrid piece, torn from the bloody sheets onto which I was born. They could not bring themselves to cover me with anything hygienic, I dare say. They thought me dead at first and perhaps they were so careless because they thought I would not live out the night... Maybe they were so because they did not want me to live."

"Do not say that," Christine said, horrified at what she had just been told. She had quickly realised what he was doing—that his trust in her had reached the point where he was finally able to open up to her—but from the little he had revealed just now, Christine felt like she was being told an awful tale to frighten her, rather than a recount of a real man's life. And this was only the beginning.

"My mother could not bear to look at me," he retorted, glancing over his shoulder at her to project his biting words. "Christine, I did not know your mother. Tell me, was she as cruel and beautiful as mine? Did she refuse to touch you, too? Did she refuse to look at you unless you were completely covered from head to foot?"

Speechless, Christine bowed her head and released a quivering breath. "H-How despicable."

"Oh, I have barely scratched the surface, my love, and so I would appreciate it gladly if you do not interrupt or even comment until I am finished. We shall be here all night then, I fear... and I do not wish to dwell on the past for longer than I need to."

She looked up and felt her heart lighten as she saw the softness in his eyes. "But if this is bringing you pain—"

"No. This is something I must do and it is something that you need to hear. I know this. I should not have kept you from the truth." He sighed, placing the mask back down on the mantel piece. "You say that you are marrying Erik, but I cannot even legally prove that. Not through evidence not forged by my own hand, anyway... My mother did not give me my name."

Shaken by his revelation, Christine was left searching for the words to describe such a being as this woman, but she could find none to suitably label her.

"She did not look at me often, but I could not help but look at her, and despite her behaviour, I could also not help but crave her affection. I soon learnt, however, that this want was unjustified in her eyes. One day, I asked her for a kiss. It was done out of an inability to keep quiet for one more second and I would not have minded if she had declined and left it at that, but she was not a pleasant woman and she saw it as her duty to correct my wrong doings. She dragged me to her mirror, yanked the mask from my face and screamed at me. She pointed to my face and body, holding my wrist tightly in one hand, and told me that this was why she would never kiss me. This was why no woman would ever kiss me." When he caught Christine's eye, it unnerved her to see him smiling. "You cannot begin to imagine how ecstatic and scared I am whenever you kiss me. I still expect to wake and find out that it was all a dream...

"The only time she deemed me worth her time," he continued, "was after she caught me playing her piano. When I played, it was like we were a normal family. I could pretend that I was not disfigured and she was not cruel. I like to think she, too, even forgot about how I looked when I played for her, and so I practised and practised until I could entertain her for hours."

Christine seldom thought on the reasons behind his abilities anymore, but now her mind would not stop drawing its own conjectures. Was his meticulous playing merely a result of a desperate need to please his mother? Was this why he was so diligent and strict in his teachings? A lump formed in her throat as she recalled the first time he had taken her down to his underground home. To keep her pacified and in a state of calm, he also had played for hours on end. With a shudder, she wondered if at first he had seen the image of his mother when he had looked at her then.

"Over the next few years, I gained a lot of knowledge from my books and I soon began to strengthen my voice. I spent a great deal of time by myself and I taught myself how to speak with different voices, different accents, different tones. There was a window in the attic and I would listen to the people passing by, listening to the way they spoke and then learning to mimic them. It was a lonely existence, was it not?" His hand moved to grip the edge of the mantel, to secure him to the present. "My mother thought my voice was the Devil's work. In a way, it might have been. As I grew older, I moved away from imaginary friends and I liked to have my fun with her. I would throw my voice and make her believe that spirits were speaking to her. I very nearly drove her mad," he admitted, furrowing his brow, but not in regret. "Perhaps I did. But it was what she deserved.

"I ran away soon afterwards," he continued, tightening his grip. "I couldn't take living like that, but I only wish I had the foresight to see what lay ahead of me. Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been better if I had stayed with her. It would not have been a happy life, yes, and I suppose she would have inevitably left me, but I would have been sheltered from the world." A noise left his closed mouth, something that Christine thought was a short, but humourless laugh, before he turned to smile at her. "Ah, but then I would not have met you, dear heart."

She returned his smile weakly, but Erik still appreciated the gesture. It was a firm sign that she was not entirely disgusted by his tale, though he was far from finished.

"I travelled extensively," he added, feeling the lick of flames against his skin. "Most men can boast their visiting of one or two continents, perhaps half a dozen or so countries, but I have seen far more. My tastes of life came at a distance. I observed, but I never participated. I observed through the veil of death—Le Mort Vivant, that was what they called me. A corpse with an angel's voice...

"In shadow, I have seen both the creation and the destruction of life, the rise and the fall of empires. If there is one constant thing in this withering world, Christine, it is man's hatred. That will never change. The human race is destined to destroy itself, one way or another. Living is merely the obstacle we face, the first and only hurdle we must conquer before we each reach our final destination. But in this, I envy you, my love."

He turned to see the bewildered, yet caring look on her face and it brought such a warmth to his heart that he felt as though he could have power to defeat anything. "Your faith," he explained, "it both repulses and intrigues me. I have sometimes caught myself picturing a life after this one and what relief, what redemption will come to you as you stand at Heaven's gates. But I digress...

"The farthest I have travelled was to India—a muddy climate, but a beautiful one. It was there that I harnessed my skill for the Punjab lasso." At this, Christine visibly flinched, no doubt in memory of the poor stage-hand Joseph Bouquet, his lifeless body swinging back and forth. "Its wielding was a game to some and a deadly weapon for others. I found a combination of the two in my practice. I also came to learn other abilities in my travels. To me, they were simply parlour tricks, but to the masses, they were sorcery and full of magic and wonderment. Some people will find the most morbid things amusing..." Here his voice took on a darker timbre, a low rumble which lined the tone of his words with unspoken hardships.

"Rumour of my talents spread and I soon acquired work in Persia. It could have been a high point in my life had I not hated every moment of it. You see, I was under contract of the Shah, to design and construct buildings and other... devices. Oh, some were harmless enough—passageways, secret entrances, palace extensions, hidden rooms, but the Shah was soon able to see the potential in my designs. I was ordered to construct instruments of torture. One chamber you will no doubt find familiar. It was a variant of the one the Vicomte and the Daroga found themselves in on that night so very long ago. Ah, yes, the Daroga... This is where I met him, Christine.

"My success in devising these instruments brought my talent to a more hands on approach. I became a pawn in political games, an assassin without mercy, something as disposable as it was indispensable. Death did not frighten me. I have been threatened with it too many times that it has become meaningless. But I could not escape the position I had been placed in. Through my visits, the Daroga soon learned of my more recent doings and tried to stop me from coming to him and his son. You know now the true reason he objected to my tonic. He did not wish for his son to become my next victim."

Erik sighed, the strain rolling from his shoulders as he leaned against the mantel piece once more. He had never explicitly spoken about his past and the rush of memories was beginning to flood his body with unwanted tension. It sat at the pit of his stomach, stirring but never wavering.

"He did not hate me for it, however," he murmured. "I am sure, in some way, he appreciated the sentiment... Why else would he help me to escape Mazanderan? I had become something of a liability, you understand. My control was waning and it had become noticeable. My hatred towards my employer was not unknown and he began to fear that I would betray his secrets. Perhaps he even feared for his life. Whatever the case, I became a wanted man. My demise was ordered and the Daroga was placed in the role of my executioner. But he could not bring himself to do it. He helped me to leave that wretched land on the promise that I would never kill again." Another mirthless laugh escaped him. "Now you know why the old man never ceases to invade my life. He is bound by the promise I have broken."

Running a hand over his hair, Erik looked everywhere but at his beloved. "I was only able to escape being hunted because of a corpse that had washed up on the shore. The water had claimed the identity of the man by ravaging his face and the open wounds on his body had helped to mutilate any distinguishable features. A lucky coincidence, you could say, but the body was mistaken for me and the Daroga was exiled in his aiding of a criminal's escape. I ruined his life, his career... and yet he will not be rid of me...

"My time in Persia was a series of experiences, and I still bare the marks of some of them."

He frowned at his own words as he began to shrug out of his evening jacket. Christine opened her mouth to question what he was doing, but as he began to unbutton his cuffs on one arm and roll up his sleeve, her heart filled with dread. The white of his skin was just slightly darker than his shirt and Christine braced herself as he walked towards her, arm outstretched.

She could barely withhold her gasp, her hand flying up to cover her mouth, as she moved into the light and forced herself to not look away. Amongst bright veins and sharp bones were the 'marks', the scars, to which he had referred. Faded slashes here and there, long and short, covered his forearm, along with that looked like small sections of marred flesh, burnt and blistered.

"Who did this to you?"

"Their names are lost to me," he answered, detached, looking at the scars as she did. "I only remember the pain. Knife wounds. A whip. Fire. A bullet." With his other hand he then reached down and scooped up hers. Their eyes met as he slowly guided her hand over his arm, letting her fingers touch or not touch at their own will. As Christine felt the uneven ridges, a vivid image burned in her mind, a memory of Erik screaming at her after she had first removed his mask. He had taken her hands then too, dragging her fingernails across his bare face until she drew blood. Now, she was almost moved by the antithesis of the situation until he moved her fingers to trace a scar on the underside of his wrist. "This one was done by my own hand," he stated plainly, not caring when she quickly recoiled from it, but he found himself kneeling by her side. "Do you think any less of me?"

"No," she told him, impassioned, reaching for his shoulders. She held them fiercely as she glanced back down at the self-inflicted scar.

Shunning him was the very worst thing she could do, especially when she had threatened to do such a thing herself. She had been terrified, nearly out of her mind with fear when she had first experienced Erik's lack of stability, and she had stolen a pair of scissors to keep with her at all times. Looking back, she could not remember if the blade was meant for her skin or his, but she only knew of it now as a last resort.

One hand fell from his shoulder to again trace his wrist before something caught her eye and she frowned. Moving her fingers upwards, she came to a stop at the withered skin on the crease of his elbow and what looked like tiny... puncture wounds.

As quickly as she had previously withdrawn, Erik yanked his arm away from her, leaving her fingers to hover in the air dejectedly. Christine did not need him to tell her what the cause of those marks were and though a flurry of questions hung on the tip of her tongue, she showed him that she respected his privacy by not asking.

"You are the only one to have shown me compassion," he whispered as he rolled his sleeve back down.

Drawing her near, he nuzzled the skin of her cheek, closing his eyes when she did not reject him. He swallowed thickly before pulling back, his breath uneven and haggard as he peered into her eyes. She had not shed a single tear, and what was left shimmering in those clear irises made him hope that all this had not been in vain.

"I am a sinner who does not deserve your forgiveness," he murmured, lowering his head until it rested on her knees, "let alone the forgiveness of God. But there is... one more thing I have not told you, and swore that I would never tell you."

After all that he had already professed, Christine felt as though she could weather the harshest storm. Laying one hand on his upper arm, she asked, "What is it?"

He did not raise his head as he answered. "Did you ever wonder why I would not allow you to return to my home after you moved?"

His question was... strange. It was not at all what she had expected, though she was not certain what she had been expecting. She looked down at him with fearful curiosity. "What has this to do with anything?"

One of his hands slowly crept up to grip the arm of the settee, while the other lightly pressed down onto the seat beside her, ultimately trapping her. She felt him shake his head against her skirts. "It is no longer a safe haven."

"What do you mean? People have... found their way through?"

"Some have tried," he muttered, raising his head to rest his bony chin on her knees. "Most became lost in the tunnels and not even I could save them from what lies within. But there was an incident, a little over a month ago, an incident I have sought to keep from you. I was not in a sane state, and exhaustion had warped my sense of reality, but as I was walking through a passageway, I realised that I was not alone. Before I knew what had happened, I had a dead body at my feet."

The cold detachment in his delivery, the vacant expression in his eyes, unnerved Christine greatly. And to know that he had killed again made her want to tear herself from his side. It was as if she carried the souls of his victims within her, for she knew she was able to feel each death laden her heart with misery.

"Wh-Who was it?" she asked when she had kept silent for too long.

"I do not know," he confessed with a sigh. "A gendarme."

"A gendarme?" she gasped, the blood draining from her face. "Why did you not tell me this?" she cried, causing his sullen mood to melt away to shame. Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed his face, holding him firmly, her gaze deep and inescapable. When her judgement proved too great a power to endure, however, Erik tried to look away, but her fervent words stopped him. "So this is why you have hardly returned to below the Opéra yourself... You should have told me sooner."

His mouth twisted into a grimace. "You are angry."

"Of course I am angry, Erik!" she nearly yelled at him. Her tongue had been held, her comments silenced, but now she felt her rage for all that he had been subject to boil over. "I do not know whether I can forgive you for your wrong doings in Persia. You were manipulated and it was beyond your power and though you did what you had to do to survive, I do not approve of your actions. I also cannot forgive you for this killing." He said nothing, his hands coming up to limply cover hers, but never trying to remove her grip. To him, her hands were like shackles he could not escape from, only this time, he would stop at nothing to repent. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" she asked gently, her tone making his eyes close in guilt. "Will you not even argue that it was in self-defence?"

She didn't quite know why she asked that last question, but she immediately began to hope that she had cause for it. That hope, however, was ill-fated when he shook his head. A foreboding silence followed his answer before she gave a small thwarted cry and looked directly into his eyes. "Erik, you must promise me never to kill again. Never. Do you hear me, Erik? You must swear to it!"

Her desperation came through and he returned her gaze stoically. "Even if I am defending myself?"

"If it is avoidable, then yes!" She brought their faces closer, her breath light on his cheek. "Please. No more killing, Erik, no more killing. You broke your promise to Nadir, but if you ever break mine then you shall also break my heart!"

"No more killing," he echoed in agreement before he felt the gentle tug on his hands. With a nod, she guided him to sit beside her and he sighed. "Christine... What separates me from the others?"

She frowned. "I do not understand."

"What difference is there between myself and an agent of the law, or a gendarme or a soldier?" His fingers flexed in the air as if they could find a tangible answer. "They kill and some are even hailed as heroes. Erik has never been deemed a hero. Nor would he like to be. How can men be awarded for killing? It is horrible... horrible... I was made to do it, and now I cannot help it. I was trained and I cannot be untrained." He looked to her for answers; Christine could see this in every twitching feature of his face. "Tell me, please, what is the difference?"

"You showed no remorse," she whispered, knowing full well that she would not give him a route through which to escape from his crimes. "Murder is murder, no matter how honourable or defensible."

Instead of condemning the unchangeable past, she knew she had to focus on the broken pieces left behind. With all her might, she would try to mend them again, but she could not be looked upon as a saviour. Not again. More than anything, she needed Erik to see her as someone who was not afraid to help him, to know him. She needed him to see her than more than just an innocent, a friend and even a woman.

She needed him to see her as an equal.

"In Stockholm, when I was a child, the winters could be terribly bitter." Her olive branch began here. She only hoped that he would accept it. "I did not like how everything began to suddenly shrivel and die; and my father would catch me, on more than one occasion, bringing in rocks and flowers I had pulled from the earth and stuffed into my pockets, just so that they may be warm and begin to grow again by the fire. He would try to convince me, sitting me down on his knee, to stop doing that. But I only wanted to preserve something beautiful, to let it grow old and live its full life.

"One day, I was playing in my room when I heard a tapping at my window. I looked up and I saw a small bird, no bigger than my palm, chirping at me. It couldn't have been very old, barely out of the nest, but it was there, tapping at my window. I took pity on it and wanted to bring it into the house, but when I went towards it, it flew away. I thought no more on it until the next day, when it returned and continued to tap at my window." She smiled in sweet reminiscence. "I ran to my father and told him of the little bird that would not leave me alone and so he laid out some grain on the window sill and, sure enough, it came to us.

"It wasn't very beautiful, not like my flowers. Its feathers were thin in places, but I still wanted it. I kept it in a cage, feeding it on my own, teaching it to eat out of my hand, to do as I wanted because it was something I had saved and I wanted it to remain that way. It even sang when I sang. I did not understand then, why it would stretch its wings and cry whenever I did not allow it to fly, not even when I awoke one day to find it dead on the bottom of its cage."

Her fingers moved to intertwine with his, even as she stared at the floor. "My story does not even compare to yours. However, I hope you understand why I have chosen to tell you it." She turned to look at him, her head tilted as she studied his distorted face lovingly. "I loved that bird, but I killed it because of my own selfishness and lack of understanding. Do not ever allow me to do the same to you."

He blinked in surprise, as if this was the very last thing he had expected to hear. A breathy laugh hung on his tongue as he peered down at their joined hands, his thumb roaming over her ring, before looking back up at her. With a wave of disbelief, he asked, "You fear my death?"

"I fear I will be the cause of it," she replied, only to then have herself pulled across his lap, his arms wrapping around her tightly as he rested his forehead against hers. Startled but not deterred by his action, Christine closed her eyes and settled herself in his embrace, winding her arms around his neck.

"I am not a bird," came his whisper, tickling her ear with its deep resonance.

"But it was still a life," she exclaimed tiredly. "You have been dealt so much cruelty and I am a part of it. I have been cruel to you. Yes, I have," she protested when she heard him draw in a breath. "Do not deny it." Raising her head, she cupped his cheek and smiled sadly. "I do not want to hold you back from living."

"Oh, my love," he cooed, pressing her palm to his skin and leaning into her touch. Returning the smile, he sighed. "You have done well not to cry for me."

"I do not want to cry for you," she declared. "I have shed enough tears for an entire lifetime. I want to show you that I can be strong now. I want to be strong for you and for me." Her mouth pulled down into a sudden grimace. "I want to let you spread your wings before I end up clipping them and forcing you into another type of cage."

To her amazement, he tapped her nose playfully. "Silly girl," he scolded affectionately, his voice taking on a dream-like quality. "You have created a life for me. But this is most definitely not a cage we sit in. It is a house, and soon we shall have our own house so that we can live the lives we have made for each other. Is that not a wonderful thing?"

A choked laugh left her mouth as her smile grew. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"You have consented to be my wife, Christine. You have kissed me and you have loved me." His fingers threaded through her hair as he spoke. "Caging me is not what you have done. You have set me free."

A second later she echoed his gesture by winding her fingers in his thin hairs before surging upwards to find his lips. Erik's muffled moan was swallowed by her sudden kiss and he gave into her, wanting to weep at her feet in the wake of her acceptance.

When he pulled away, he sighed happily, kissing her forehead, his lips moving against her as he said, "I suppose, in a way, we are the same."

"How ever are we the same?" she asked curiously.

He pressed another kiss to her skin before whispering, "We are both survivors."