We have a nice talk, my lovely little obsession and I. When I say we, I mostly mean she, because I did not do much talking. I am tired of talking, tired of explaining and justifying and all that other nonsense. She talks and talks and talks about her father and her childhood and Raoul and me and how she feels, and it is all so dreadfully boring and yet interesting at the same time. I let her speak until I really cannot take much more, and then I tell her she ought to go to bed. She stands up and insists she will not go to bed without me. So I follow her in, and we fall asleep next to each other. Neither of us seem to remember Raoul de Chagny in the other room.

I find that very, very funny.

.

I have dreams that involve drowning. I have never dreamed of such foolishness before. It is a relief to wake up and take a breath of cool air and know I am not in above my head.

.

Christine stirs when I wake up and her leg reaches out and entwines with mine as her arm also stretches out as if searching for me. I am moved for a minute, before a sudden dark thought enters.

I roll her over and her eyes jolt open in shock. "Did you sleep with Raoul?" I ask.

She blinks a few times, as if trying to register her surroundings, but I do not have time for that. "Did you sleep with Raoul?" I ask again, my voice louder.

"Oh-Erik, you've already asked me this!" she answers, and I shake her in frustration that she will not answer my question, my simple question- what a question! "No! No! Erik, no, I did not!"

"Yes, you did!"

"No!"

"I do not believe you!"

"Why did you have to wake me up like this," she moans, and leans forward, burying her face in my chest. Her hands creep under the hem of my shirt, and I flinch a little at her touch.

"There would have been no need for it, had there been no Raoul," I reply rather icily.

"There is no need of Raoul," she says imploringly, moving her hands around my skin. My brain is not equipped to handle this kind of sexual assault so early in the morning. Already my heart is racing and I think it must be so silly that a man of my age reacts like a pre-pubescent boy when confronted with a woman's touch.

"You are distracting me," I huff.

"I would just like to make this morning more pleasant," she says simply.

It is too early to be so angry with her. I want to be. I want to be furious with her. As she looks up at me, I reach and trace the cuts on her forehead with my finger. She closes her eyes, whether in pain or pleasure, I didn't know.

"I do not love you, Christine," I say softly. "Because I am not capable of loving."

She keeps her eyes closed. "My head hurts," she sniffs.

I sigh a little. It is very possible I gave her a mild concussion from throwing her too hard against the wall. Perhaps I should not have made her go to sleep. "You will have some very lovely marks on your face for a while."

"Will they scar?"

I try my best to bite my tongue at this delicious comment. "I wouldn't think so," I say flatly. "They're not deep. No worries, nothing to mar your pretty face. I would not want that."

She gives a weak smile. "So concerned about faces," she murmurs.

"So did you sleep with Raoul?"

"Oh Erik... no. I did not sleep with Raoul. How can I prove it to you?"

"You can't."

Her eyelids flutter a bit at that, as if she had expected that answer. "What makes you think I slept with Raoul?"

I hesitate. So she is asking me how I feel now, is she? I feel strange divulged such a personal piece of knowledge that has potential to hurt me. "They way you reached out your arm, this morning," I say slowly. "As if it was second nature. As if you have been doing it with someone for quite some time. Who were you reaching out for, Christine?"

I hate how bitter I sound. I hate the quality of my voice as I say those words.

She reaches her hand out to me, so much like the event I had just described. "I never even spent a night with Raoul," she says gently. "The only man I've ever reached out to is you."

"A man," I choke. "I am no man."

She looks away from me for a second, and I think perhaps she is ashamed of me, perhaps she is finally beginning to realize the truth of who I am and what I am. She shakes her head from side to side very slowly, like a dog wringing water out of it's ears when she turns back to me.

"Erik," she says very slowly, as if talking to a dull child. "You must not grow angry with me... but where is Raoul?"

It makes me angry... but I am so tired of anger.

"I don't know," I say childishly. "I locked him up somewhere. He is alive. He is away from you. Do you miss him already?"

Christine furrows her brow at me, and then winces when it irritates the scrapes on her head. "You did not let him go?"

The tenderness I had begun to feel for her is evaporating at this line of questioning. "I did not," I huff. "Do you think he would have left so easily?"

"Perhaps," she says. She winces again. I begin to think that maybe those marks aren't so lovely after all. I begin to hate looking at them.

I wish they weren't there.

"Are you asking me to let him go?" I question slowly. "Are you asking to see him? Tell me what it is you are asking of me, Christine. Tell me what it is that you want from me."

She swings her legs over the side of the bed abruptly, nearly startling me. "I want to talk to him," she says at once. "With you. I want you to come with me."

"Oh no," I say swiftly. "I do not wish to speak with him."

"You will not be," she says. "I will be speaking to him. But I want you with me."

.

The foolish girl accompanies me as I lead her to where I have previously locked up Raoul de Chagny. Halfway there, I begin to wonder if perhaps the boy did not make it through the night - I have fun imagining that for a moment, picturing Christine's face as she sees his body - but then I cannot stop seeing the scrapes on her pretty forehead, those ugly scrapes on her pretty forehead, and I chase the whole scene from my mind.

Raoul de Changy looks much worse this morning. His entire neck has bruised an ugly, purple color that does not match his eyes at all. He stares at us as we approach, squinting at us with a dull expression.

Christine instantly drops to her knees beside him, and I grit my teeth angrily, but I do not say anything. I am tired of anger. Shouting at her now will do nothing.

.

Sometime, something happens in my brain.

It is like I shift out of the recurring reality and instead adapt a third-view, as if I am watching this whole scene from the rafters. It has happened to me as a child, it has happened to me very often... and very often, I also have a difficult time coming back.

But Christine is here and Raoul is here, and it is very important for me to be in this moment.

So I come back.

.

"Christine," he rasps, staring at her with his expressionless, glazed eyes. I wonder if he has slept at all, and I take comfort in the fact that I slept quite well, with his Christine by my side, how I hate the sound of her name on his worthless tongue!

"Raoul," she says, and even a voice as gorgeous as hers rings with such ugliness when she says a name such as his. "Are you ill?"

He looks at her as though she could not be more stupid to ask such a mindless question. "I have been better," he says in that scratchy voice. "Please, ask him to untie me."

She pays no attention to his request, but takes her small hand and touches his face. "Raoul," she says softly, as though she is trying to pretend I am not over her shoulder, watching her every move. "You need to get to a doctor."

He chuckles, but it's a miserable sound. "You don't suppose there is one, down here?"

Her hand moves upwards, shifting the hair out of his eyes, and I cannot take my own eyes away from that gesture. There is something about it... something that unnerves me.

"We will get you upstairs very soon," she says gently. "We will take you back upstairs, but only if you promise me something, Raoul, please."

"I am making no promises," he says stubbornly, and Christine shakes her head with a unhappy smile on her face.

"This is something you must promise me, Raoul. When we take you back upstairs, you must stay there. You must not come back down here again."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, Raoul... please. It is what I am asking."

I turn away from the both of them.

My mouth tastes funny. I think I am going to be sick.

"You just need to stay upstairs," I can hear her saying. "We will take you back up there, Raoul. It is where you belong. And I... I belong down here. With Erik. You were wrong. He was never in my head."

"I was trying to save you," comes his defeated whisper.

"You have always been trying to save me," she says in a soft, hesitant voice. "Why can you not just accept me as I am? Perhaps I am fine with my flaws... perhaps I am fine with my imaginary world."

Raoul lets out an awful, awful sound. "Why choose the imaginary when you can choose something real?"

"Oh, Raoul," she says back, her voice breaking.

.

I can hardly handle it, my chest is constricting as though someone has grabbed me and is squeezing me incredibly tightly. Each time I go to inhale, I struggle against choking. There is a hole inside of me and it is violently sucking all the breath from inside of me. My brain argues with itself, to regain composure and to stop this dreadful feeling that is eating me alive.

Their soft voices are killing me!

I can hardly breathe.

Love, love, love, chants in my head like an tantalizing mantra. I cannot take the tenderness in her voice. I cannot stop seeing her hand pushing his hair out of his face, I cannot stop seeing his dead eyes watching her every move, his determination to bring her back to reality...back to reality...

.

I turn sharply around. "Move away, Christine," I command at once, and she only hesitates for a moment before she rises uncertainly to her feet and away from Raoul. I deftly untie him, avoiding eye contact. Mustering all of my courage, I help the pathetic, drowned rat onto his feet.

It makes me feel better to call him these things in my head, at least.

He hobbles alongside of me and Christine extends her arms out to him to help him. I do not even flinch as I see the creamy white of her skin sparkle in the dim light as her hands caress his. There is simply no room in me to be disturbed by this heart-breakng behavior - I am still struggling too hard to breathe.

If Christine is suspicious of my behavior, she makes no sign of it, but follows my every move until we reach the end of the tunnel. As we stand on the threshold, she comes beside me and whispers quietly, "Are we just to leave him out here and hope he is found? That concerns me a little. He does not look well enough to make it to a doctor by himself. Should I wait here while you deliver him?"

I give a grim smile at the innocence of her question. "Of course not, Christine," I say. "You are going with him."

The scrapes on her head stare at me, accusing me. "Going with him?"

"Yes. Make sure you take him to a doctor. And you, also. Take care of yourselves."

"Are you sure you want me going with him, alone?" she asks, squinting at me a little bit. "Can you not come with me?"

My eyes are burning, like before tears appear, but I fight the urge with an unbelievable sense of avoidance at all cost. "Of course not, Christine. I will stay down here. And you will go with Raoul. Please be sure to visit a doctor with him."

"Alright," she says, a little unsure. "Then I will come back down."

I smile again - at least, I think I do. But I do not say anything to her until she has stepped over the edge of the tunnel with Raoul. She turns back to me, keeping her little hand wrapped tight around him, and I try my best not to focus on that little bit of contact she shares so intimately with him in front of my eyes. But once I see it, it is impossible to un-see - like looking through a two-way mirror and hoping to see yourself, but only seeing another man, another man, another man.

"Erik," she says as she holds onto him. "Will you be here waiting for me when I come back?"

She is far enough away from me now. "Well, you see, Christine," I say very gently. "You will not be coming back."

Raoul makes a noise, but she is oblivious to it, her eyes creasing in worry at my words.

.

When I stare at her, I have a flashback.

It's from when I first brought her down here, many moons, for our lessons. She had only been down here a couple of times, and her eyes still filled with fear as we made the way to my home. I remember reaching my arm out to her to help her, and recoiling at the last minute, afraid she would reject it. But her eyes caught mine, and as she stared at me, she reached out and grabbed the back of my jacket. She fell shortly after, and her dress was a faded cream, staining it with bits of color, and we had pushed the lesson back a half hour as I sat beside her and so gently, scrubbed the stain out.

.

She has that same look in her eyes now, the same look I remember from a much younger, much different, Christine.

But when she speaks, she is not the same.

"Erik," she says, and I see her hand clutch on Raoul's clothes, holding him tighter. "Do not start this again. I will be coming back, whether you like it or not."

"Whether I like it or not," I repeat very sadly. "I hope you would never get the idea that I would not like it at all."

"Listen, you," she says, and her eyes narrow at me. "I will take Raoul to get help. And then I am returning. And you cannot stop me."

"This cannot continue," I say and out of the corner of my eye, I see Raoul de Chagny beginning to droop next to Christine, his head lolling to the side. "This is not... this is not... nothing! This is not up for discussion! Just leave, Christine!"

Christine looks at me, her doe eyes filled with a mixture of emotions I am not foolish enough to attempt to interpret. Very easily, she releases Raoul and he snaps back into consciousness, looking around with a haggard sense of bewilderness, watching as she approaches me very slowly, like I am some wild beast that she is hoping will be tame. I cannot look at her; I stare at the ground like some pathetic, worthless dog.

I wait for the lecture. I wait for her scuffed up face to hover in front of me, demanding to be seen. I wait for words that I know are coming. But she is silent.

And she kisses me.

.

I have kissed her countless times, tasted the breath from her lips, felt the suppleness of her young skin; I have seen every inch of her, I have explored every part, I have left not a bit untouched; she has returned the favor to me, she has warmed me, she has needed me; and yet there is something about this interaction now that feels as though I still have much to learn about her. There is something about it that tastes almost unfufilled- not a whole giving over of essence, but only a preview of something. She is close to me... I tangle my hand in her hair and I feel her lips part beneath mine and I can feel the movement of her body as she draws breath, and I still avoid her eyes. She kisses me, and I feel like I am a thirsty man on a hot day and once I start drinking, I cannot stop until I am sated. And yet... she pulls away. I do not look at her. She is foiling my plan yet again, she is trying to ruin the stronghold I must create around myself!

"You do not need me, Christine," I remind her softly. "Let me go."

And I mean the words more than anything I have ever said to her in my life.

She steps back, surprised. There is hurt in her eyes, and it hurts me to see it. The marks on her face are still there, like a forceful nudge that brings my memory back to reality when I begin to slip into the recesses of my mind, pleading why can she not stay? why can she not love you? and I see the marks and I remember, holy hell do I remember...

I do not ever want to see those marks again! I do not want to see what I have done to her! I do not want to shake her awake as she opens her eyes each morning, demanding words I do not want to hear! This girl is broken because of me, and I love her! I love every part of her, and I have never been taught how to love, never believed that I could love, and loving her now has brought her more misery than anything else I could possibly have offered her.

I do not want to hurt her anymore!

She steps back, and this is my chance, the only moment that I hope she will not oppose. As she steps back, I turn to my spot in the wall that I can easily close, and I leave her standing there. I leave her and it is the hardest thing I will ever do.

"Go with the boy, Christine," I say. "You deserve to be happy. I truly... want you to be happy."

And her pink lips move, and she is saying, she is speaking in that lovely voice that I fell hopelessly in love with, but I am not longer listening, for if I hear that voice, my resolve may crumble, and so I shut the space and it is surreal moment.

Sudden darkness where Raoul and Christine had been only moments before.

.

It was really quick and simple, really. I know that scenes in my past have led myself to believe that I cannot complete a scenario without causing some sort of dramatic mayhem or attention-seeking closure. But I am a tired. And this is very simple.

Because I really do not want to hurt her anymore. I do not want her to constantly be in battle with me, I do not want her to suffer. I do not want to ever see those marks on her forehead that I created, and I do not want to see if they scar her lovely skin forever. I cannot stomach that- I cannot handle thinking that my emotional scars I have inflicted upon her have somehow risen to the surface to display to the world what I have done to her, what have I done to her...

When I kissed her, I felt the most extraordinary of revelations, not one brought on by her incessant pleading, not one brought on by my continuous convincing, but something that spurned entirely from that brief, poignant interaction with her.

You see, maybe I do love Christine Daae.

And when a man loves a woman, he does not shove her into walls. He does not force her hand to make decisions she is not ready to make. He is not jealous, he is not unkind. He is not sharp of tongue and he is not manipulative, controlling, or otherwise temperamental. No matter what I have loosely debated on in the past, my actions have never shown love to Christine, and I hate that. I hate that I do not know how to keep my word when I say I will try to love her. Instead, I gave her false promises and consistently broke my word to her, denying my affections, overruling her desperation, and exploiting all of it for the sake of my lovely doll.

When she gave me that kiss, I felt a sort of remorse. Not because I couldn't love her - but because I chose that I couldn't love her. It was a decision that I brought upon myself, that I have been holding her responsible for ever since. I want her to know that I truly, love her.

And the only way I can prove it is by letting her go.

.