"At what price is such greatness to be achieved?" is all she could manage to spit out.
There was a weak forcefulness to her words. "At what price?" Erik questioned.
"At what price am I to achieve greatness?" She was sobbing now, and her words broke as she sighed them out. He could not decide whether she was angry or upset with him. Both, he imagined. Erik took those final steps closer and was at her side now, unsure how to proceed. Christine slouched on the table and broke out into a more fervent sob.
Her cry was as heartbreaking to Erik as it was the first time he heard her those nine years ago. He had never had to physically comfort anyone before, he himself was never comforted. But he had to do something. He resorted to the only thing that had ever helped, he began to sing a sweet, melancholy lullaby; one of the first he ever sang to Christine.
Not even halfway through the first phrase, Christine dramatically cut him off, "Stop! I don't want to hear you sing!" She shouted through her tears and wept further into her hands.
"Well, what am I to do?" Erik questioned her, dumbfounded by her ardent response.
Lifting her eyes to the heavens, she suggested, "Some kind of comfort, Erik."
"Well, I thought singing..."
"No! Real comfort, Erik" She cut him off mid sentence.
He stood there, still dumbfounded. Real comfort? How am I to know what that is?
Not lifting a finger after a few more almost unbearable moments for both of them- one wanting to be comforted and the other not knowing how to- Christine flung her arms around Erik's form.
Burying her face into his trousers, she pulled on him like a child begging for her mother's attention. "I don't know what happiness is, Erik. I don't know what happiness is, I don't know what I want!" She rocked back and forth, partly in her chair and partly in his arms, and Erik was at a loss of what to do- still! He knelt down so that they could embrace more fully, as she had embraced him earlier that day.
She settled further into his arms, moving from the chair so that she was now fully in his embrace. He popped out his knee so that he could steady himself, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know Erik. I don't know how to answer your questions. I don't know how I feel about what you have told me. I just don't know…" Her voice was muffled, Erik's coat insulated the sound from reaching his ears loud and clear, but he heard her every word.
Involuntarily, he began stroking the back of her head, his fingers finding themselves entwined in her thick and shiny curls. A beautiful sensation, he thought. She is beauty.
He lost himself in the action, falling into a calm, brushing movement, from tip to end, which effectively unknotted the few stray curls that got caught up in her sobbing on the table.
"Hush," he whispered. The closeness of his face to hers, and the deep, rich texture of his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand; her own involuntary reaction she had never experienced before. What a sensation, she thought.
The comfort she felt in his arms was unparalleled since the death of her father. To feel that masculine strength, smell that manly, musky scent, and the warmth of his embrace- was all enough to lull her to sleep; feeling safe and calm. Christine was at ease after all the tumult of the past few days hurrying with final rehearsals, the performance, seeing Raoul again, getting lavished with praise for her performance, seeing Erik for the first time … so much had happened. So many things she wanted were coming into sight and were reachable.
It was one thing to have a dream, another to achieve it. She was, after all growing up; becoming a woman. With age came responsibility- and the ability to essentially get what she wanted; what she had tirelessly worked towards since a child.
But at what price?
It was too much effort for Christine to think so seriously, and so much easier to give in to the darkness and the warmth that surrounded her as she shut her eyes and relaxed, relaxed into the arms of Erik, her angel.
My angel, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.