"...my Eden was full of cruel nettles and vicious thorns..."

Raoul de Chagny climbed the stairs, wearily dragging his feet. As soon as he had stepped through the front door, he'd heard his father upstairs, screaming into the telephone. The house was so empty now. Any moment he felt that Phillip would come around a corner, a grin on his face, bragging about how many girls he'd been with or how many touchdowns he had scored at the last game.

He knew his father was angry with himself for allowing Phillip to attend public schools. Phillip had always gotten his way though, and when he'd set his eyes on Bay City High, their father had ultimately relented. While Raoul had gone to Cadet Corps, Phillip had lived the dream of being a regular teenage boy.

Until...

Raoul stopped at the landing, sighed and shifted his bag over his back. Until he'd been murdered, Phillip's life had been next to perfect.

"You tell Ms. Crow I want that freakish boy back behind bars! Do you hear me? He is not to set foot outside of that hospital until it's time for him to go back to prison!"

Then...

"I don't care if someone slits his throat! He killed my...my..."

Rage suddenly left his father's voice, and Raoul heard the distinct sound of the telephone being thrown across the room.

Raoul debated on whether he wanted to slip past the door to his father's home office or not. He had gone back to school right after the funeral and completed the rest of his semester, even though it meant missing a good deal of the trial. Not that he would have missed anything with the media devouring every glory detail of both the death of his brother, and the odd being who had taken his life.

With their mother gone, and their father gone on business for most of their childhood, Phillip and Raoul had been quite close. Phillip, as the elder brother, had introduced Raoul to girls and anything else he'd thought might send their father into crisis mode.

"Phillip...," his father sobbed.

The bag slid from his shoulder to his feet as everything in him turned cold. His father had not cried at Phillip's funeral...he had not even cried at their mother's...

As a man, he wanted to go up and put his arms around him, to provide comfort. As a boy, Raoul did not quite have the courage to face those tears. He bolted down the stairs and out the front door, not stopping until he reached the garage.

Phillip's motorcycle was still in the same spot, with the keys still in it. Tears blinded his eyes as he climbed on and the bike roared to life.

- -

Erik was forced to stay in the hospital overnight, but her father arranged for them both to sleep in the waiting room with guards standing outside the door. Christine was nearly asleep when she rolled to her side on the sofa and felt something poking her in the side.

Frowning, she reached into her jacket pocket...and pulled out the note from Kate Sorelli.

"Papa!" Christine sat upright, her loud, excited tone startling her father from slumber.

"What? Who's there?" Gus blinked, disoriented for a moment. "Is something wrong?"

"I forgot about this!" She rushed across the room and handed him the note, kneeling at his feet. Breathless, she watched her father's tired face harden, and immediately wished she had remembered it much earlier in the day – or given it to him the next morning.

"Kate Sorelli gave you this?"

"At school today," Christine confirmed. "Do you think it's true?"

"God, I hope it is," Gus sighed. "Still, we'll have a devil of a time getting it out of their hands. They will deny it's existence."

"But Papa...if it's real...won't they have to turn it over? If Mr. Chaney watched it, he would know Erik was innocent. Because if it showed anything other than his innocence...if Erik had really killed him..."

"Then he would have turned it over for the prosecution's evidence," Gus finished, feeling defeated already. He patted his daughter's head. "We'll worry about this in the morning, Christine. Get some rest. Tomorrow...we take Erik home with us."

Christine lay down again, but it seemed she had no more drifted off than light was beaming through the blinds in the waiting room, and her father was gone.

She stretched uncomfortably on the sofa, then smoothed her hair the best she could. Her father had taken her aside the previous day and informed her that they would all be under house arrest in one way or another while Erik stayed with them. She was to stay home from school until the trial was over, and could very well have to change to another high school to begin the next year. The only time they would be allowed to leave was when Erik had to go to court...and the trial itself was being postponed until security had been tightened down and Erik had recovered from the toxin that he had ingested.

A nurse arrived at Erik's room with a wheelchair just as Christine was walking down the hall, and without a word of protest Erik lowered his body into the seat and allowed himself to be pushed outside to a police cruiser.

"I'll be following you," Detective Kohn said, then slid behind the wheel of his car.

Christine felt Erik's eyes on her as she walked around to her father's Range Rover. He always seemed to be watching...it was something she had noticed from the first day she had seen him at her school three months ago. He watched, and when her gaze met his, he never looked away. He was like that with everyone, and she had wondered if those other girls felt a strange sort of tug when looking into his yellow eyes...

Almost as if he were silently pleading for something he dared not form into words.

- - -

"You'll have to wear this at all times," Detective Kohn said apologetically as he affixed the monitoring bracelet to Erik's leg. "It will send a signal to our headquarters if you cross the perimeter of the yard, so watch your step. My officers will be just down the street, keeping an eye out..."

"I've got it," Erik replied, shrugging the detective away. He was more interested right now in the house of his reluctant captors. The charming house, with normal things and clean floors. With windows that rose to the ceiling and curtains that swept across the floor. It was by no means a masterpiece...but it was better than the roach infested quarters where he had lived for most of his life.

"All phone calls will be monitored as well, so be careful what you do, Erik," Detective Kohn reminded him again.

"Who would I call?" he asked sarcastically. "Surely not my best friend Timmy! Why, he's gone on vacation right now anyway! And John and Joey...well..."

"I was actually referring to your mother," Detective Kohn replied patiently. "You can call her...just be careful what you say to her. You shouldn't mention where you are or who you are with. She could cause problems and force the judge to send you back to jail."

"And what a pity that would be," Erik muttered. "I should have you take me back now anyway. This is not going to end well."

"Would you stop sounding so fatalistic, and at least try?" Gus said, coming through the door. "I promise, we aren't completely dull, are we Christine?"

Erik's gaze snapped to hers, to find her face red.

"Of course not," she murmured.

They all stood awkwardly in the hall for several moments, until Gus cleared his throat. "Well, I'll take you upstairs to your room. I'm sure you are ready for a few moments alone."

Erik stared after him as he started up the steps, disbelieving they were going to let him actually use one of their bedrooms.

"Well? Are you going?" Detective Kohn asked, nudging him forward.

Erik shot him a warning look over his shoulder, but finally trudged up the stairs after Gus.

It was not hard to determine which door led to Christine's room. Unless Gus had a penchant for pink and white, and displayed the name, "Diva in the Making," across the front...Christine's room was right across the hall from his own.

It also did not escape Erik's notice that the room had been fitted with a brand new deadbolt. Fresh wood shavings were easily discernible against the dark blue carpet, and Erik knew that while Gus was perhaps giving him a safe haven...he did not trust him so much as he liked everyone else to think.

At least not where his daughter was concerned.

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