Erik, dripping from head to toe, clampered out of the water, holding the frail, limp body in his arms.

"Nadir! Nadir - get in here!" He shouted over and over again until the Persian emerged from his room. His sleepy eyes went large as he watched Erik stiffly bend over the chaise, and place Christine's still form on it. Erik's icy fingers pulled the chaise over, as close to the fire as possible. His teeth chattered, his body shook, his joints stiffened from the freezing water and just being in it for a matter of seconds.

Nadir ran over as Erik started to rip the layers of clothes on Christine, not even bothering with buttons.

"Help me!" Erik shouted hoarsely, his eyes wild from fear. It was a look Nadir had never seen before.

"I'll...I'll grab blankets." Nadir stuttered, running to fetch them. As he did, the words that Christine spoke to him came back. Had she done this on purpose? But it was so unlike her to do something like this. Had the darkness gotten to her so badly? Or had something else tortured her soul too much?

Either way, he could easily tell that the young woman's life was in serious danger now, and Erik wouldn't be going anywhere to leave her side any time soon.

When Nadir reached Erik's side again, he had a roaring fire going, and a light sheet over Christine, and many wet clothes abandoned in a heap. Had she really worn all those?

"Boil water, get more wood. More blankets than that, Nadir - she's as cold as ice! And hurry!" Erik yelled out orders. Nadir knew that this is how it would be from now on, yet he didn't care at the moment. All his concern went to Christine, just as much as Erik's did. Yet it was his conscience that bothered him about one thing more - if anything dreadful was to happen...what would he tell the Vicomte?

Erik never left her side. Whenever anything needed to be fetched, it was Nadir to do it. He never slept, just dozed as he knelt beside Christine's makeshift bed. No changes from her, no sign of getting well. Still unconscious, unaware of it all. Unaware of Erik's constant worried gaze that focused on only her. Unaware of the love that he put in everything he did involving her, while he sacrificed his food, sleep, and well being in turn. Nadir could see that Erik also worried about their food supply - how much longer could it hold? Not much, yet Erik would never budge from Christine's side, nor allow Nadir to go get more. He'd sacrifice every meal he could to make sure Christine had enough. This side of Erik was one Nadir had never seen. It surprised him, to say the least.

Yet, as the days started to go by, Nadir fully understood the cause of Erik's frantic worry - she wasn't showing signs of awakening. Sure, she'd talk in her sleep, or her eyes would flash open for a moment every once in a while, but that was the extent of it. His hours of sleep started to quickly abandon him from worry. But even his ground-pacing fright couldn't come close to matching Erik's.
He wondered what would come of all this and what the results would be.

Erik sat beside Christine, hunched over as he stared into her face. He looked wracked with unbearable guilt. The toll of an unreturned love after all these years was finally catching up with him. He looked haggard and weary. Nadir noticed all this from the dark corner that he carefully concealed himself in so not to be noticed by sensitive eyes.

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Nadir's ears perked when he heard Erik's gruff voice sound for the first time since the accident of the lake happened, with the exception of barking out orders. It was hard to hear at first, but his voice grew louder as he went along. "From this haunted, twisted face...there's never been a hint at kindness, nor caring or...love. Only cold anger and repressed hurt. I look around in this coffin, for indeed, it is one, and I see no comfort...no escape. My eyes are trained to see in this darkness I call home and hell; yet deep within myself, I am blind. Here I remain seated lamely as I watch all my dreams die. Every dream I've ever had for so many years, the only ones that have ever mattered, are all contained in this small form, this still, shallow breathing body that lay before me. Time is slipping out of my grasp. I've had nothing but it for so long, and now it abandons me. Love...what an ill dream!" Erik shook his head as tears fell. "I'm driven to the sad conclusion that I have made many fatal errors in my time. So much so, that no goodness could ever improve me. But no pain could be ever deeper than this. Fate's revenge could never be worse than this. God could never had made a life cheaper than mine. There is no longer any hope that I could have loved her, and she could have...she could have set me free from all the evils that possess me. Oh, how I could have loved her, if she only allowed me to. But I shouldn't have tried to make her. The end only led to this. Long ago I should have seen this, should have been better prepared to lose it all. I am hollow and wasted without her love inside of me. If she does not remain in this world...then let the world be done with me."

Nadir seemed blown away with such a confession as this. Though a genius, a music composer, though a poet was Erik, never did Nadir hear Erik proclaim such a thing, nor uttered a word of undying romance that seemed to live ever in his heart until this moment. He bowed his head in mourning, feeling as if something almost pure and ever so beautiful, like a thorned rose, had withered and perished before his eyes. Indeed, how right he was!

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"Raoul...Raoul!" Christine's soft, yet frantic voice uttered. She kept saying it, all the time. 'Raoul, I need you', Raoul, where are you?' It seemed to never end. And for Erik, who listened to each word that managed to escape her fevered lips, it was torture, like little knives piercing his heart every time she'd speak unconsciously. He felt like he'd surely die if this went on. Already he felt half insane.

"Erik...please eat. Please! You can not go on like this!" Nadir insisted, holding a cup of tea and bread on a little platter as he stood behind Erik.

Erik turned around and took the cup and tea spoon, then started to pour it in to Christine's mouth with little spoonfuls.

"No Erik, she's fine. You've just done this. You must eat!" Nadir scolded. Erik kept spooning the warm liquid past Christine's lips.

"I can not eat. I am in ruins, I am going through endless torture. No, I can not eat." Erik answered with a soft voice.

"You will not live if you do not nuture your own needs!" Nadir yelled, losing his patience.

Erik put the tea down and stood up. He gazed down upon Christine's face as she softly spoke her lover's name. He walked a few paces towards the lake, farther than he'd been away from her bedside since she was placed there.

"I can't do this, Nadir! You say I will not live if I do not eat...but what's the point anymore of...of life if the woman over there - the woman whom I've truly loved for too long to go back to my empty life alone, if she can not love me? There's no hope that she would do so, and there never was. There are no longer any dreams to pursue; they have all died and perished. I look to myself for the fault of this unrequited love. Why should I expect her to love me? Look at me! Yes, I look at myself and despise all the things I see. I know she isn't the one that can set me free from my own made darkness, that is impossible, especially now, to escape from. Therefore I say, if she can not love the monster that is me...then she should be free to please her chosen lover."

With that, in deep sorrow and immense hurt, he sat back down again. He did not cease from amazing Nadir once more. Oh, if only Christine could hear what he spoke to and of her! Yet she still laid limply on the chaise, depending on it to hold all her weight from falling to the cold ground.

"Eat." Nadir whispered softly, offering out the bread as he faced Erik's back.

"There is not enough food for all of us to continue for more than a few days. I can not send you out; I need your help and I do not trust you enough. I can not go, for they scour the streets up there. I can not leave her side anyway. So I will give up my food for her to continue getting well."

"You can not continue to suffer like this!"

"I got her in to this. I promised she'd be happy - obviously if she purposely did this, I have failed. I failed her Nadir! I deserve to suffer and starve for her. I promised her for years I would if she needed me to. Now she needs me to, and I will not keep disappointing her, whether she's conscious of it or not."

"No, I wont let you do this. You welcome the pain your body is going through. You've skipped at least three meals, and your body is going to start consuming muscle if you keep it up. It hurts everything immensely, I have studied this! But you don't care, because in your twisted mind, you think you are the cause of every problem she has ever had!"

"My mind? It has always been you there to convince me that this is true. Finally I agree with you, and you go back and say I am still wrong!"

"Perhaps I have come to the conclusion that it I whom has been wrong."

"Then I come to the conclusion that you are nothing but fool. Leave the bread and leave my presence immediately." Erik commanded. Nadir did so, putting the platter on the ground, then left for his room .

Erik took the bread and ripped little pieces off of it, soaking them in the tea until they were mush. Then he fed them to Christine as he ignored the growls and fierce stabbing pains of his stomach.

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"Erik?" Nadir said in confusion as Erik frantically wiped Christine's forehead and pulled the sheets up tighter as her slight body moved and fought.

"She has a fever...she's burning up." He said in his gruff voice. Nadir ran to his aide.

"What may I do?"

"Go get water. We must get liquids into her."

"They say to starve a fever..." Nadir said, pausing.

"But not to dehydrate it! Go!"

Nadir quickly fled into the kitchen as if Erik's flaring temper has set him aflame. He soon came back with a pitcher of water and a small cup. Erik was already sitting upon the chaise, Christine's head and shoulders in his arms.

"Give me the cup." Erik said in urgency. He did so, and Erik held up her head as he poured the water slowly down her throat. She coughed and fought it, even succeeding in hitting the cup and splashing the water all over Erik, but he seemed not to notice his shirt soaked. He simply poured more water and tried again as she fought more.

"Go rip up a sheet in thin strips. Soak them in cool water and bring them back to me as quickly as you can." Were Erik's next words. Nadir ran to do this as well.

"Shh...drink Christine. Drink my angel. I promised to get you better, and by God I will, even if it kills me in the process." Nadir heard as he fled.

"We must get her to a doctor. She can not go on without medical care - real medical care, not just gypsy remedies." Erik said, looking at Nadir straight in the eye and matter of fact.

"We cant! Not unless you truly do want to die."

"Is it not worth it? For her to live, even at the price over me? She could die, Nadir, do you not see that? She needs a doctor!"

"Please Erik...one more day. Just give it until sundown tomorrow. Then, if there still has been no improvement, I'll take her to the doctor's. But please, consider one more day."

Erik thought it over, staring into Christine's face. "I don't want to risk her life again for mine."

"Don't. Just give yourself enough confidence to believe that you can cure her yourself. If you can't by tomorrow evening, then we'll take her into professional arms to get her well again. Will you do so?"

He hesitated, but eventually Erik nodded. Nadir sighed in relief. After three days of no change, there was little hope that one more would make much of a difference, if at all. But Nadir wanted to give Erik one more shot before he surrendered to the police. He returned to his room to pray without cease that Christine Daae would cure herself, or allow her Angel to treat her.