This Darkness that You Know You Cannot Fight
XxX

Over the next few days, Erik rarely left his bed and Lindsay rarely left Erik. Even though he was technically supposed to have two weeks left, Lindsay wasn't sure he'd make it that long.

There were times when he'd rally a bit, show more signs of life or sleep more peacefully. Those were usually when Lindsay played music for him, when he asked about a piece of modern technology, or when Ayesha curled up by him.

The rest of the time though, he wasn't doing so well. Usually he was sleeping. Or at least he acted like he was sleeping. Lindsay wondered if there were times when he pretended to be asleep just to avoid talking to her or Nadir, just to sink further into his own depression.

It was like he was afraid to wake up.

She knew he needed rest, but this wasn't rest, it was shutting down. When he did wake up, Lindsay would try to coax him to eat. She barely got enough down him to keep a bird alive, much less an ill man.

Most "meals" were just a glass of milk for him.

Lindsay noticed that when he sat up to drink he would often flex him left arm.

Of all the different details about Erik that varied from story to story, his heart problems Kay hinted at would have to be true.

Couldn't that have been one of the facts they had wrong?

No, Lindsay thought angrily. As if poor Erik didn't have enough problems.

Lindsay at least knew a little about how to help a weak heart, since her grandfather had suffered from heart problems for years.

It had been recommended he take aspirin daily, so Lindsay decided to try coaxing Erik to take it. At least it couldn't hurt as long as she was careful with the dosage, but she doubted aspirin would be enough to help him.

She wished he'd let her take him to a doctor, but he wouldn't even consider it. He said "doctor" the way other people would say "snake."

Of course, the doctor who had tried courting his mother and suggested having him locked away hadn't helped that.

Not even Nadir could convince him, and everyday it seemed Erik slipped closer to the end.

"You told me when you saved me from the lung inflamation you could do nothing if I didn't try. The same applies to you now," Nadir told him in a rare moment of impatience one day. Erik only rolled over in bed and ignored him.

That in itself was a bad sign. If Erik were feeling well he probably would have threatened Nadir with the Punjab lasso for that.

Yet during the last week before the two week deadline was up though, Erik stayed awake for longer periods of time, asking questions or focusing more intently when he looked at something.

Lindsay and Nadir were cautiously optimistic that he might be slowly starting to recover, especially when he actually initiated a conversation with Lindsay for the first time the last day before the two weeks were up.

"I still have yet to understand why you're doing this for me," he said.

Lindsay wasn't sure how to answer.

"I'd help anyone who came to me for help if I could," she finally said, but knew that Erik would want more of an explanation. She just wasn't sure how to give it.

"That doesn't explain why you came to help me, specifically."

He didn't sound upset. He sounded confused, like the very idea anybody would try to help him was impossible.

"I suppose because I felt I had a responsibility to you. I knew what would happen to you if I didn't help, and if there was a way to change that, I had to. There just- was no other choice. What was I supposed to do?"

She sat on the edge of the bed by him, noticing he was using his right hand to pet Ayesha instead of his left, and she knew he was left handed.

That wasn't good.

But then Erik flexed his left arm again and it seemed to be usable. Lindsay slowly reached out to Ayesha, but knowing the cat didn't warm up to people easily she decided against petting her yet.

"You like cats," Erik noticed. "Yet you don't have any around."

"I had one once."

This wasn't something she wanted to talk about.

Erik must have understood.

They were both quiet a moment, then Erik said "I know after all the kindness you've shown I probably have no right to ask anything more of you. But if I don't survive, would you be willing to look after another cat? To take care of Ayesha?"

Lindsay wasn't sure if she was more touched or frightened.

It was a sign of real trust that he would chose her to take care of someone he loved so much.

Although, of course, there was no one else except Nadir, and kind though he was, cats hated him. And it frightened Lindsay that Erik was still unsure of whether or not he'd survive. But telling him to stop talking that way wouldn't do any good, not with Erik.

"I'll do all I can for her, Erik. But she loves you. She wouldn't be happy without you."

As if to prove the point, the siamese rubbed against Erik and pushed her nose into his chin. She always seemed able to relax him.

Shortly after that, Erik fell asleep again. Nadir was also catching some badly needed sleep. He truly was a faithful friend to Erik, and had sat up with him just as much as Lindsay had.

Lindsay felt like she'd go crazy if she spent another minuet just waiting to see if Erik would live or not, so she went into the livingroom, trying to find something to distract herself for a moment.

There was no way to make herself stop thinking about Erik though. She wished she knew what to do besides what she'd already done.

And tonight would be the turning point for him. For the first time, she began to wonder what would happen to Erik if he did recover. She hadn't actually thought that far ahead, she'd been so focused on just getting him well. It wasn't as if she could just find him a place somewhere or send him back where she found him.

Abandoning him once he recovered, if he recovered, was not an option. If she did, it would be worse than if she'd never tried to help him.

Feeling like her head was about to explode, Lindsay put on some music and sat down on the couch, leaning over to the coffee table where she had a pen and paper.

Sometimes she just felt like she had to write.

Several hours later, including breaks every few minuets to check on Erik, she'd finished a fairly lengthy poem she was relatively content with, not that she'd ever show anyone.

It was a poem about Erik, or rather to him, telling him how a new day had begun for him and how even though the damage of the past had been done, he had someone who saw the good in him now.

She leaned back against the couch, suddenly feeling the need to rest her eyes for just a minuet.

She'd never intended to fall asleep, of course. Not with Erik still so sick. But the next thing she knew it was dark out, and there were two glowing eyes looking at her.

At first, half asleep yet, she'd thought it must be Ayesha.

Then as her eyes focused and her brain started functioning, she knew it was Erik. He'd gotten out of bed! He had to be feeling better if he'd made it to the livingroom by himself.

The next thing she realized was that she'd left the CD player on. It was an instrumental version of one of her many favorite songs. The sung version of it had been on a CD she'd listened to the other day.

Erik must have heard it, because he knew the words, and sang them now.
That voice!

"Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless, aching need
I say love, it is a flower
And you, it's only seed

It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance

It's the one who wont be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong

Just remember, in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love
In the spring, becomes the rose."

It broke with emotion during the last part, but was still the most unbelievably beautiful thing Lindsay had ever heard.

Whenever he'd simply spoken before Lindsay had thought with a voice as perfect as that Erik could probably have read the phonebook aloud and made it sound beautiful.

But when he sang! She knew now why Christine had been fooled into thinking he was the angel of music. No earthly voice could ever sound like that.

All the actors who'd played him- Michael Crawford, Gerard Butler, and all the others- none of them could compare to his real voice. Not by a long shot.

The first time she'd heard Michael Crawford singing "Music of the Night" when she did a Broadway radio show in school she'd found herself completely lost in the song.

Hearing the real Erik took that to a whole new level. Music really could poses.

Lindsay thought of the title of an old movie she'd seen, The Agony and the Ecstacy. That just about summed up hearing Erik sing. It was agony because of the pain in every note Erik sang, the way he poured his soul into it, and ecstacy because of the pure magic his voice held.

And she couldn't think of any song that applied to Erik better. It summed up everything his life had been, all the loneliness and longing.

She must have been crying loud enough for Erik to hear, because he turned to her and apologized quickly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. You didn't wake before so I thought you were sleeping too soundly to hear."

Didn't wake before? Then she noticed that instead of leaning back against the couch she was laying down with her head on a pillow, warmly covered.

Was Erik so gentle he could have moved her without waking her? Usually she was a light sleeper. Again she felt ashamed of how she'd been afraid of him at first. He was capable of being so kind.

"That's all right. I love hearing you sing. I mean I've never heard anything like that before."

Erik looked at her a few moments before speaking.

"Actually I was rather hoping you'd wake up. I wanted to thank you for everything." He paused. "Including this."

To Lindsay's horror, he held up a piece of paper that could only be one thing.

"My poem!" She hoped Erik's amazing night vision wasn't good enough to see her blush. "I- I never actually meant for it to be read. It isn't any good. I – "

"There is music in it," Erik said softly, and she knew that was the highest compliment he could give. "This is really how you see me?"

"I see that there's more to you than meets the eye."

There was a different shimmer in Erik's eyes now, and he choked slightly.

"You should be getting back to sleep," he said after he'd collected himself.

"No, I'm fine. You might need me tonight."

No way she was falling asleep again. She wasn't leaving him alone any more than was necessary, especially not tonight even if he did seem a little better.

"I will not have anyone make themselves ill on my account."

Lindsay had to admit even after sleeping a few hours she felt lightheaded.

"Well, at least let me wake Nadir up to take his turn watching over you."

"The daroga will sleep through til morning."

Something was wrong with the way he said that, like he'd made sure of it. And suddenly he seemed even weaker than the first time she'd seen him, even though he'd been fine a moment before.

It was as if he'd gathered the last of his strength to sing before, and now everything was spent.

"You need help. You just don't want to accept it."

"I'm fine. I assure you I'm feeling much better."

Someone who didn't know the strength of Erik's willpower might have believed that, might have been fooled by the sudden amount of strength that came back to his voice.

But Lindsay knew Erik had once made a journey, poisoned with a dose of something that would have killed annoyance else, and still been able to give what he thought would be his final instructions when he reached his destination.

"We all just need a good rest," he continued.

"I'm not tired," Lindsay lied.

"As you wish," Erik answered, shrugging. But then he turned off the CD player and started singing again.

This time it wasn't a song Lindsay recognized. It was clearly a lullaby. Was it a French tune? A song Erik himself had written, or one he'd heard somewhere on his travels?

It wasn't in English, but Lindsay wasn't sure if the words were in French or not.

Whatever the words were, it was haunting, hypnotizing. Lindsay felt her mind grow foggy.

Suddenly the song was all there was, and she was lost in it. She wanted to be lost in it. By the time she realized the spell Erik's voice was casting, she was too close to sleep to resist, even though everything in her was telling her not to sleep, that Erik needed her now.

XxX
AN: Forgot to say before, the Erik in this version will be something of a cross between Leroux and Kay, although the musical will have an influence. And of course, I don't own the rights to the original sources. If I did Erik would have had a happy ending. And for those of you who didn't know, the song sung in this chapter is The Rose, made popular by Bette Middler. I thought it really fit Erik. Sorry about the cliffie, but I'm going to update soon.

Thanks to my reviewers, wandering child and SuchRidiculousThoughts, and to Anawey.