Disclaimer: Don't own. What're you going to do about it? Come on, what?

This chapter is based upon my favourite song in Corpse Bride, 'Tears to shed'.

Which says just about everything about the chapter.

It might come as a bit of a surprise to when you see how Erik acts, but his isn't exactly the most stable of personalities, after all. Or the most definite.

So – the crush of loss. Not nice. Anyone who's ever lost someone they loved, obsessively, passionately, or otherwise, take heart – You are not alone!

Cyrano, after having fought a duel against a hundred men, has just been told by his cousin Roxane, whom he loves, that she loves someone else. Just before she leaves for a gathering:

Roxane: A hundred men? Farewell. We're friends, aren't we? He must write. A hundred men! You must tell me all about it! A hundred! What courage! (Leaves.)

Cyrano(quietly): I have been braver since.

(Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand)

The parting of the ways

The shattered fragments of the mirror sparkled upon the floor, and crackled under Erik's shoe and his skeleton foot as he glared at Nadir, standing so shamelessly, so brazenly upon his shore, with perhaps the faintest trace of triumph in his odiously calm face. It was perhaps not so surprising that he should now be here, at all times. How else would the de Chagny brat know what to do? How else would he know where to seek her, and how to draw her back, where no other but he should be able to manage the task?

"You knew," he said, pointing the bony, accusing finger of his left hand. "You knew what was happening, didn't you? You told that, that boy where she was, you told her what to do to get her back?"

"I do not deny it, Erik," his erstwhile friend said calmly, folding his arms and lifting his chin defiantly. "Look me full in the face, and see if you can deny that I could have done any less for him."

"You certainly could have done far better than betraying me."

Erik had to work extremely hard in order not to shout, to avoid the rage that he had forced down inside him after shattering the main mirror with both his fists moments after she had slipped through the desperate grasp of his fingers, both flesh and suddenly, abruptly, skeletal. He could feel the wetness of a little blood as he squeezed his fist tight shut, driving the splinters of mirror that had lacerated his dead skin deeper into his flesh, but as always he felt no pain. Even if he had been scorched with flame and heat until his flesh seared and bubbled and melted, or if he had been cut and sliced with a knife until the flesh was cut from his bones, he would have felt no pain, no pain at all.

The pain he was currently feeling within his breast was far, far worse than any cut or impaling fragment of glass and mercury.

"You are letting your anger get the better of you, Erik."

"I am not angry, Nadir," he ground out, squeezing his fingers tighter still.

Nadir cast a sceptical glance at the broken glass scattered over the dais and steps, even down to his feet. "The state of your décor would seem to imply otherwise."

He looked down as well. There was a lot of glass, since it had been a large mirror when it was all in one piece and in the frame. It had shattered in all directions, not just from the blow of his hands, when he realised that he had lost her, forever.

"The state of the décor has nothing to do with it, Nadir. I know better than anyone what mood I am in at the present moment."

"And what mood are you in at the present moment, Erik?"

"I am sad. Why, Nadir?" he asked doggedly, taking a step forward, crunching more glass shards under his right foot, feeling nothing through the bone. "Why did you do it? How could you do this to me?"

Nadir stretched out his hands in supplication, his fingers spreading wide in the sudden gloom of the cavern. "It was all I could do, Erik. What would you have had me do? The Vicomte came to me for help, in his time of direst need, and he has paid his price in his own way. Who did I owe my allegiance to more? The one who snatched Christine away to the Land of the Dead? Or the one who sought to bring her back to the Land of the Living?"

You dare ask me this? It was amazing to Erik that Nadir could still be so defiant. How could he behave like this? How could he have done this to him? To him, of all people?

What has happened to you, Nadir? How could you come to hate me so, that you could do this?

"I do not know, Nadir. It is a difficult question. Very like to the choice of whether to keep Christine and let her wither or die, or give her up and lose her forever. But you, you did not even give me the chance to choose."

Nadir was hatefully implacable, as he shook his head and sighed infuriatingly. "I did my best to make it easier for you, Erik. I know that in time, you will come to see this."

"Easier? Nadir, how can possibly you think that this is in any way easy? She is gone. She left me. She left me alone. You have helped her to rip my heart out of my chest, you helped her to…"

Oh.

Oh.

And suddenly, like a dark, poisonous flower, like a black iris, an idea sprouted in his mind. He remembered so little a time ago, yet as if it were from long years back, the meeting in Nadir's study. He remembered what Nadir had told him. How could he forget it, when he had wracked his mind so much over those words?

Christine had gone off to play with Ayesha. But where had they played, that they should be so worn out with running? Where indeed, but somewhere where they could overhear, and judge for themselves…

He was embroiled in this, in this whole squalid plot, from the very beginning; he was there at the beginning and the end.

Oh, how you will all pay for this.

"You made sure that she knew as well, did you not?" he asked softly, deceptively calmly. "You made sure that she was listening while we had our discussion in your study. You turned her against me."

"No, Erik. I merely made sure that she knew the truth of her situation. It was only fair."

But Erik could hardly hear him, so wrapped up was he in his own horror. She thought…she thought that I would have…

"You made sure she would hear us speak, you made sure she would hear what you said, about…about…Nadir, you made sure that she would think that I would kill her."

Nadir said nothing. To his credit, if nothing else, shame was rampant in his face.

He lifted his left hand, and pressed his bony fingers to his face, digging what was left of his nails in, hard, scratching his mask and flesh, trying to keep from screaming, screaming until he dropped to the floor and tore at himself. This was no nightmare. This was real. This was true.

Christine was gone. The de Chagny had taken her away from him.

And, to the very last, she had believed that he would have been willing to murder her.

"Erik, I-"

"Go, Nadir. Go, before I do something I would not regret in the slightest. Leave this place. Now."

But Nadir took a step forward, reaching his pathetic hand out towards him. "Erik…"

"I said go, Nadir. Leave, and never come back. If you do, I will not be as generous as I am now."

Nadir halted in his advance, and his face twisted as his hand fell. "Is this truly what you wish, Erik? Do you truly wish me to leave?"

Should I wish for anything else, after what you have done to me?

"Yes, Nadir, that is what I wish. I – I would say that you are dead to me," he admitted, letting a smile curl the corners of his mouth for an instant, "but that is a little redundant, is it not? Instead, shall I say that you are nothing to me now, nothing except a liar, a deceiver and a traitor?"

"I can see that it is your anger speaking through you, Erik. So I will go, for now. But I hope…" Nadir looked over his shoulder, his slit throat twisting horribly, as he faced the exit to the cavern, preparing to depart, "I hope that, one day, you will be able to overcome your anger, and that you will find yourself able to forgive me."

You dare? Of course you dare, you bastard.

"I will never forgive you, Daroga," he said, lowering his hand and staring fixedly at his own personal Judas. "If we stay beneath the earth for all existence, if we last as long as the world itself and forget all else, then remember this; I will never forgive you for what you have done to me. I will never think of you again without thinking also that you betrayed me, that you betrayed my trust in you, and that you betrayed my love, our love."

He could feel wetness somewhere other than his fingers now, beading at the corners of his eyes. But he did not blink, and he did not allow his voice to be choked by the tears that would inevitably come. For now, he was too angry.

"Erik; Erik, please-" Nadir had turned around fully now. Despite his former words he now seemed to be pleading, desperately, passionately. He stretched out his arms once more, and stepped forward as if to embrace Erik as he had done so often before, and drain him of his anger like a doctor draining the poison from a wound.

But this is no poison. This is a cure. And so he stepped backwards, eluding Nadir's fingers, his eyes never leaving his face, his voice as cold as the ice that had shattered his mirrors.

"I will never think of you without remembering that you engineered my second down fall. I will never think of you without hating you, Daroga. Remember that. I will never forgive what you have done, and I will never forget it. I will never stop hating you. Now get out of my sight. You are unclean, and you are cursed."

He drew up the reserves of saliva always present in his mouldering mouth, and he hissed and spat at Nadir's feet, before sweeping out his arm to banish him from his sight, forever.

Despite his rage, he knew that the last he saw of his erstwhile friend's face, appalled and horror-struck, would stay with him, unable to be banished. But he knew, too, that he would never again see it in the flesh; that he would never hear Nadir laugh or be insufferably dull, or see him frown or smile at him. He knew that he had turned away from that little white-washed house in the Necropolis, the only thing which had ever drawn him to that place. He knew he would never again see the love and joy in Ayesha's eyes, he would never stretch out his arms to catch her up from her run towards him, he would never stroke her hair and feel her soft little body in his embrace.

But then, he would never see Christine again, either.

She is gone.

Distractedly he waved his hand at the mirror, repairing it in an instant; but the surface was frosted over, and he could see nothing within it now. Not that there was anything he would want to see, in any case.

She is gone.

His rage was melting now, melting from the ice Nadir deserved to be encased in forever and a day, forever clutching and forever freezing, worthy of such a traitor as he. His heart was full of pain, deep, ripping pain. He hadn't thought that anything could possibly hurt this much; it was impossible, illogical. It could not be.

But it is.

He made his slow, solemn way up the steps, past the organ where he had sat and played her his music, past the roses which had so depressed her, past the mannequin which once again held the ill-fated wedding gown, complete with its most recent embellishments, and to the bedroom whence she had dragged him when he had been lost before.

Now he was lost again. But there would be no Christine to make it all better again.

She is gone

The dressing gown he had given her still lay upon the bed, the coverlet still rumpled from when they had risen from their waking embrace. If he concentrated he could still smell her. Not any perfume, nor scent; just simply her, musky and cloudy, not sharp and sweet. Now he no longer needed to concentrate; her presence soaked everything in the room.

He would have to lie down. He no longer could support himself. His bones creaked and squealed in protest as he settled himself down upon the velvet covers, and swung his legs up to rest upon the mattress of the bed.

He lay back carefully upon the pillows, weighed down by all the years he only now felt upon him, all the years he had been alive and dead, pressing down, smothering him – only he could not die again.

She is gone.

She was gone. Where he had held her so close, so tight that her heart beat had fluttered through his frame as well as hers, there was now nothing to hold close, nothing to embrace, nothing to comfort him, ever again.

Why did you leave me, Christine? How could you?

But he knew very well why. Of course he knew. She had wanted to live. She would never have married a dead man. She had said so, from the first.

"You are dead! Dead! I will not marry Death!"

He knew so well how her heat beat. Sometimes it was like a butterfly's wings fluttering, at other times like the banging of a drum. The beat of blood, the true music of life, far beyond anything he could compose or create. He knew her heart beat.

And he knew that de Chagny's heart beat as well.

If I had lived…if I had lived, would she have stayed?

If I had been handsome, would she have stayed? Would she have still loved him?

If she had been able to see me, truly…if I had allowed her to see, would she have stayed? Would she have grown to love me?

Now I will never know.

He knew that de Chagny was handsome; he had seen how attractive he was, in the moment of glory at the ball. De Chagny's sweet, boyish face would always outdo his own half-face.

And while he was a genius, while he played the piano and sang as no man, alive or dead, had before, and sculpted, and designed, and poured out art in a never ending flow, de Chagny was alive, and that surpassed all else. It came first.

I breathe music. I breathe song. I breathe art.

But he still breathes air.

And yet…and yet, she had been crying. He remembered. In that instant when his fingers had brushed her own, and she had turned to look back at him, before she had denied him, he had seen her tears. Why had she cried? Had she not wished to leave him, after all, even after all that he had done to her, all that Nadir had led her to believe?

Had she still wished to stay, even though she thought he might kill her?

And yet she didn't even say goodbye. That hit him harder than anything else. Out of all the pain, the betrayal, the loss, the hardest and most tearing thing was that her last words to him had not been a farewell, but…an apology. As if she was the one in the wrong. As if she was to blame.

His heart ached as if it might burst and pour out its grief, to stain like blood upon the sheets.

He leaned further back against the pillows, and took his heart in both hands to try to heal it, to try to remedy the hurt. But nothing would ever aid him, no one would ever help him or hold him again…

…because I've lost her.

Warmth and cold no longer made any difference; in the ice or the sun that he had not seen in so many years, it was all the same. But the pain in his heart was too much to bear. If he had lived it might well have killed him, but he had no life left to take away.

Even though his heart no longer beat, it was still breaking, just as he had broken the mirror time and time again. Anyone who calimed a heart could not break had only to feel the splintered remains in his chest for themselves to know that it was very real.

He folded his hands over his heart, as a corpse prepared for burial might do, as he had never done in his own grave.

I know that I am dead…

…but it seems that I still have some tears to shed.

He closed his eyes as the tears finally came.

Awww. Weren't that sad, folks? Yes, come one, you know it was sad. You know it was.

'Tears to shed', as I said before, has always been one of my favourite songs. I've always been fond of songs that can make me go all snivelly – then again, the ending of Gladiator sets me off bawling like a baby every single time I watch it, as does Titanic and The Fellowship of the Ring. This only had me sniffing when I saw it in the cinema, but I assure you my eyes were definitely damp. That little couplet at the end is just so saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!

I wanted this chapter to be longer, but I honestly couldn't think of much else to put down concerning Erik's feelings on the matter at this point. Let's put it down to shock, shall we? Shock is such a nice explanation for not having to write too much, plus it's realistic. Yay for shock! In stories of course; not actually suffering it, since it's not so nice if you do.

Anyone who might be thinking some things about what Erik thinks Nadir deserves are right; I did look up Dante's Inferno for this. Traitors are given a place in the Ninth Circle of Hell, furthest from the presence of God, trapped in a frozen lake; those who are traitors to their kindred are trapped in it up to their waists, and since Nadir and Erik have grown to be something like brothers, I assume that Erik would think this fitting for Nadir – assuming, of course, that he was religious, and had actually read Dante's Inferno. I seriously recommend all of you do, even if you aren't religious; it is extremely good, even though there may be some bits that offend, particularly the bits about homosexuality – but then again, it was written in a time where the young sodomites got their noses cut off and their backs flayed, and the older ones burned at the stake. Anyway, it is a very good read. However, Dante's Paradiso…

…let's just say, with great goodness comes great, great boringness.

I'm sorry, but there it is.

Reviews for the half-Irish seamstress, please?