Erik hadn't slept, hadn't even attempted it. The knowledge of her in his walls was too much to endure. No matter where he went in his home he was aware of her presence as if she were a blinding beacon, seeking him out regardless of how well he tried to hide. Three times he'd attempted to undertake some simple task in the hopes of distracting his mind from returning to dwell on the way she looked as she slept, so peaceful and perfect. Three times he'd risen in determination to work on something menial, to clear his head. Three times he'd found himself inexplicably outside her closed bedroom door. Three times the delirious notion that the very walls were closing in around him had nearly sent him running back to his own room.

Only fear of her waking to find him gone kept him from fleeing the house completely.

So he'd waited here, caged and quarried by her existence. Pacing the carpets like an animal.

With the quiet and the empty, left alone with his decidedly unquiet mind, he had to ask himself the "what next" part of the equation. What if she was frightened? What if she felt victimized by what had befallen her the night before?

God forbid, what if she asked him what he wanted from her? How on earth could he answer that question? Truthfully?

"Everything," he whispered aloud, feeling the pathetic nature of the response blanket him.

He recalled the night prior with a mix of aching nostalgia and bittersweet shame. He had behaved most out of character, had taken advantage most assuredly, but it had resulted in a moment, a clarion sublime moment that had first taken root at the instant she took his hand and reached its climax when he felt her weight fully against him, her arms clasped around his back.

It had been the first time a woman had ever touched him willingly. And to go so quickly from joining her hand in his to wrapping him in her embrace was nearly more than his soul could bear. He'd stood like a trembling child, unsure of how to respond, while she had clung to him. Like he was her last refuge, the jutting rock in the middle of the vast and stormy sea. He longed to be that for her. He longed to be the beacon she had become to him. Pulling one another inland, away from the cold and the dark.

He longed for her to hold him again. Yet, he felt he would end him utterly if she did.

The clock on his desk delicately released eight notes. Eight. Sasha would be starving. She had become rather accustomed to being fed at a particular time.

As if she'd heard his thoughts, a plaintive mew sounded on the other side of his door. Erik reached for his jacket and wondered idly if Christine had awakened. He'd assumed automatically that her waking would be accompanied by some sort of cacophony, something to alert him. He realized he'd assumed that she would awaken in a state of panic, and he would be forced to react at a moment's notice. All of this careful planning and worrying was not exactly what he'd had in mind at all. The creeping knowledge that she could also be silently stalking about his halls, like a feral cat, left him feeling cold in the chest. What if she'd tried to run? What if he found her bloodied and torn in her bed, the same way...

No.

Erik's thoughts turned again to the night before. To the way she'd clung to him. To her shoulders in his hands, her head dropping back to rest in the hollow where his neck met his chest. The way her fingers had sought his out greedily, squeezing against them. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her, and the way she'd looked on the stage just hours ago, gold sconcework and scrolls, draperies and statuary unable to compete with her shining beauty. He'd felt the warmth of her skin through the thin stuff of her dressing gown, and she'd held his hands in her own. He closed his eyes, froze the vision in his mind.

Now call up your cold and your dark and be damned.

He opened the door quietly, Sasha rudely slipping through the narrow opening and beginning her shameless dance around his ankles. The fire in the living area outlined a mass of bed-ruffled curls, framing her pale face. Her gaze had obviously followed the cat's progress to his door, and she now slowly slid her eyes up the door's gap to meet his own.

Forgive me, oh God, my father, for I have sinned.

It was an eventuality he hadn't prepared for: to find her here, awake and lucid and seemingly calm. The way she stared at him now could only be read as boldly curious, not terrified. Erik felt the hot sting of shame. Had he broken her so very badly? That she no longer understood she needed to be afraid? That he embodied everything that should send her reeling in terror from the premises?

He straightened his jacket before walking through the door, eyes trained on the guttering fire behind her. "You'll catch your death, if you're not careful," he said quietly, coolly. "A voice like yours needs to be kept free of infection. Drafts speed infection." He tossed a cotton blanket onto the arm of the couch before stooping to stoke the embers back to life. Nothing to betray the turmoil inside.

"I assume you're hungry. And likely in need of a cup of tea."

Without waiting for a response, he made his way to the kitchen. Best to keep up the charade, as if this were normal. Best to keep it light, and formal. No lingering glances, no quiet conversations, no questions with heavy meaning.

Even though all he wanted to do was sit beside her, take her warm rounded fingers in his and tell her everything that surged and raged inside him. That was impossible.

Why did she make him forget that was impossible? Why did looking at her make him forget what he was?

Worse yet, why did remembering what he was now come drenched in the regret that he couldn't be someone else?

Oh, Christine.

Erik escaped to the kitchen as quickly as he could. The porcelain rattled slightly as he set the cup down, cursing under his breath at his inability to keep his hands from shaking. Somehow, in spite of the close proximity to her just moments earlier, he had managed to keep his composure fully. After the closeness of the prior evening, he'd discovered that being within her reach was an unspeakable torture.

He knew that it was out of sorts to behave as anything other than a distant but polite host, that it was unseemly to have her in his home, that she would think the absolute worst of him. He wasn't a fool. He was, however, a gentleman. Those traits had practically been beaten into him as a child. Even if the majority of social interaction was a complete mystery to him, Erik knew the formal dance that accompanied having a guest in the house.

It was in her best interest for him to remain as courteous and aloof as possible. He didn't want to frighten her, and he had learned that the best way to keep from frightening anyone was to keep his distance.

The kitchen's door sighed, causing Erik to splash scalding water onto the tile. Setting the pot down, he turned to see what had caused the sound and was startled to find Christine making her way into the room. In the warmer light of this significantly more intimate space, her skin glowed a soft pearlescent pink, her hair cascading in messy tangles in a way he found nearly obscene, as if she had just woken from a lover's bed. The blanket she now wore wrapped round her shoulders did nothing to dispel this illusion, giving rise to all sorts of uncomfortable imaginings. He longed to remove his gloves, drag his fingers through the rough tumbles, push them back from her face until she dropped the soft cloth from her arms and stepped closer, so he might fold his arms around her. As if his were the warmth she preferred.

It was a most uncomfortably indecent thought, here in the stark reality of early morning.

Good god, didn't she know? Couldn't she see the barely caged salacious need? Why did she come in here to torment him?

He stood stiffly, hands folded behind his back, eyes trained on hers, trying to read the reasoning behind this intrusion. He wondered if perhaps the cat had upset her, Parisians were not known for their extreme love of the creatures, after all. Perhaps Sasha had swiped at her, the way she was prone to do with strangers.

"I… cannot stay in there alone. May I… stay with you? I promise I won't be a nuisance." She sounded on the edge of tears.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest. She didn't know. She didn't understand that drawing near to him caused an agony he could not endure. Perhaps she didn't remember the prior night's... interlude. Perhaps she had blocked it from mind because it was something too painful to recall. Or perhaps it had frightened her so very badly she didn't feel the inclination to acknowledge it. Even though he couldn't seem to remove the memory from his mind, burned as it was into the recesses of his thoughts, haunting and plaguing him.

Despite everything within him clamoring to run, to shove past her and lock himself away lest he do something as hideous as reach for her, he found he was once again able to repress the screaming of his own body enough to manage a response. Turning from her, somehow managing to pour the hot water without his hand betraying even a tremble.

"You are free to linger wherever you choose. It doesn't disturb me one way or the other." He kept his tone indifferent, dismissive.

Oh he was a most vicious liar.

"If the cat bothers you," he continued, "I can shut her in another room. Although, that will not particularly endear you to her. She's rather used to having run of the house, I'm afraid."

Silence in response. Her eyes burned into his turned back. He couldn't stay in such close quarters.

With the tea tray in hand Erik indicated the door. "I don't customarily take my tea in here, although I suppose an exception could be made, if you preferred. Still it is rather small..."

He led her back into the main parlor, depositing the tray on a low oak table and seating himself in the wingbacked chair opposite the small couch. With a wary quizzical look he regarded her as she rearranged herself back into onto the sofa, carefully avoiding the curled form of Sasha, who rudely slept in the absolute center of one of the cushions. The cat awoke when the sofa dared to give out the slightest creak, stretching luxuriously and patting across the floor to jump lithely into his lap. Erik noted Christine watched Sasha's flight across the living room with unabashed malice, her pretty features twisting into a most unladylike scowl. The blanket slipped from her shoulder and he realized she was still half-dressed from last night's performance. How careless and thoughtless of him. She must be miserable. "I suppose," he said softly, looking away from her to stare intently at the fire, "you'll be wanting to return home soon. I imagine you have appointments, meetings..."

Erik trailed off, staring still into the flickering flame, not trusting himself to utter another word. He was surprised to hear her begin to stammer, her words choked by something that could only be anger.

"N-no. There's… I have nothing to return to." The words cut deep, and he again felt the burning sting of shame. Of course there wasn't. He'd seen to that, hadn't he? Isolated her from humanity, kept her like a prized possession in a gilded cage, made her swear off all human contact. There was nothing to return to because he'd quarried her with his jealousy and his obsession. Loathsome, utterly loathsome.

"Why… would you bring me to your home if only to grow tired of me so easily?"

For a long moment there was no sound at all, save the crackling of the flames. He continued to stare into their flicker, puzzling over the thinly-veiled hostility in her words. First the reaction to Sasha, which confused him completely. She was only an animal, after all. One that seemed largely indifferent to the new houseguest. The cat, for her part, had barely paid attention to Christine on the sofa and was now seated, purring happily, on his knee. He couldn't imagine what would have drawn her ire. Sasha was usually impeccably behaved, and aloof in that way only Siamese cats ever truly achieved.

Then there was the matter of her other... statement. He sighed and rubbed distractedly at his jawline. It needed a shave. In the hazy dreamstate he currently existed in - pulled from him by the emotional turmoil the past twenty-four hours had brought combined with a noticeable lack of sleep - everything seemed weirdly unreal, including the question.

He hazarded a glance at her, intending to answer, and noticed the blanket had fallen away completely. Christine sat upright, staring at him demandingly, her shoulder bare where the gown had slipped. In the raging glow of the fire, she looked like a warrior queen, hair wild and unruly, eyes blazing. It was an impressive effect not lost on him - nor was the way the firelight illuminated the sheer dressing gown she was still clad in, the lacy cotton clinging in places and billowing to allow suggestive silhouette in others. His fingers clenched on the arm of the chair and he took in a shuddery breath as she mournfully uttered, "I wish to stay with you. Please…"

Little minx, as if he could deny her anything right now, in this state. He folded his arms across his chest and looked back to the fire. "If you wish," he managed quietly, even as his blood boiled and skin burned. He wondered idly if she'd still be so bent on staying here, with him, if she knew the covetous craving that consumed him, body and soul. This decidedly one-sided mockery of a romance he was experiencing.

It would surely end in the rich torments of hell.

"You'll still have to practice," he continued, worrying the riveted seam of the chair's arm with one finger. "Here and with the company. We can't have you losing your place, even if you're not going to be continuing the role of Marguerite. We can't have you missed. You'll need to rehearse in the afternoons, perform when called for, and then you can return." To me.

He made the words sound conditional, as if he wasn't aching with ever fibre of his being to keep her here, to keep her close, to pull her down onto the thick carpeting and curse the opera and the management and her career and the entire outside world to eternal damnation. As if returning here were her reward, and not some sort of sick and twisted power play he was busily constructing.

"You can return when you are finished with your opera duties. And your private instruction will continue. I will make the arrangements. I will send for your belongings." Complete and utter control. Although he knew it was wrong, he knew it would be the only way. Freedom was insanity, for now that the world knew of her existence she would be hounded by those opportunistic boys. Boys with money and good breeding who never exercised the full extent of their manners or judgment. He'd seen it befall too many a girl who didn't possess her talent, or hold his affections. He wouldn't dream of allowing her the same disgraceful fate.

The utter lunacy of what he'd just proposed, the impossible and idiotic bargain he'd just struck, took another moment to sink in. Erik's slender fingers joined and tented, providing a point for him to rest his chin upon. His face remained passive as he struggled to get his heart's thundering back under control, his mouth set in the same straight thin line it had affected the moment he found her awake and demanding attention on his sofa. After a long, pregnant silence he stood quickly, causing the cat to startle and stretch lazily. "We should take you back," he said quietly, examining his gloved fingers intensely. "They'll wonder where you are. And I suspect you'd like to dress for the day."

He wondered for a moment if it would be easier to deal with her presence were she dressed like a lady instead of some walking embodiment of his darkest fantasy, messily tossed into his domain in her underthings. "If you would gather your things before rehearsal... I have a man..." he cringed at the word, at how pompous it sounded. "Leave your address here, I'll find that everything makes its way back safely. And then tonight, I will meet you at the Rue entrance, on the south side of the building. I assume you know where that is."

Not waiting for a response, he stepped from the room. In the depths of his bedroom wardrobe he had a single imperfect cloak, something he'd had commissioned by a new tailor who had failed miserably and constructed the garment a full five inches too short. The tailor, trembling in his boots, had explained his assistant had made a mistake in the measurement. However Erik could see the starkness of the truth outlined in every crease of the man's face. He had done it intentionally, for while he feared displeasing this new client he even moreso wanted him to leave and never return. Somehow Erik had been unable to throw out the garment, keeping it as some sort of reminder that it was best to stay with what he knew, what made him comfortable. The outside world was not to be trusted, after all. It regarded him only with disdain and fear.

He returned to the living room, tossing the cloak on the empty space next to her. "It's too cold to traipse about dressed... well, dressed as you are."