Hi guys! This one's a shorty but it's all one scene and it's a bit intense.
I'm sorry for the absence, but your kind reviews kept me motivated! I will update Nothing But a Man and Time is Short soon too. It's just so hard to find time. Anyway, enjoy! Let me know what you think!
Phanty belongs to Leroux and Lloyd Webber.
Erik
I almost smiled, so taken was I with the idea that she was inviting my touch after everything. Timidly, my hand shaking, I tucked the stray lock of hair behind her ear. My fingers brushed her ear briefly and I almost jerked away at the electric sensation.
"Do you truly wish for me to leave?" She asked, staring at me as I touched her. Not flinching, nor pulling away- her gaze did not shift from mine.
"No." I rasped.
How could I ever wish that?
"Thank you… for everything tonight."
She smiled in return before looking down bashfully.
"When was the last time you ate?" She asked me.
Ate?
I hadn't even thought about food since she'd left, but the mere mention of food made me painfully aware of how hungry I actually was.
"I haven't any food." I replied. "Perhaps some fruit… Nothing more."
"You haven't answered my question."
Had Christine always been this impertinent?
"I don't recall. A few days perhaps." I hadn't eaten since before Don Juan, but I didn't want to speak the words, lest they conjure up images of that night. I didn't want her to leave…
"Right." She began, standing up and smoothing her skirts. "Where is your kitchen?"
"Christine, you don't have to…"
"Where is your kitchen?" She repeated. I eyed her for a moment before deciding to accede. I hadn't the strength to argue with her, and in truth, the idea of my Christine serving food for me filled me with warmth. I didn't know how long she was staying, and I was yet to understand why she had come at all- but I was powerless to resist her requests or offers of kindness. Just being around her drained me of all my hate and cunning and I found myself thinking that I would be whatever she wanted me to be, if she would only stay…
"On your right as you exit the bed chamber." I instructed. "It is the room behind the pipe organ… but you don't have to make…"
"Hush." Was her reply. "Rest, and I will find something for us to eat."
Us..
I wished that I could prepare something for her. I had always dreamt about something as simple as that; escorting her down to my home and preparing a meal for her. She was finally here, with me in the most wonderfully domestic setting, and yet I was incapacitated.
"Christine, allow me…" I began to swing my legs off the bed.
"Erik! Please, just stay where you are." She scolded. "Please, just accept my help."
I nodded and positioned myself upon the bed once more. My ankle was throbbing, but it was not the injury she made it out to be. I knew that, but I didn't have the strength to deny her assistance. A part of me hated accepting help. I had always been capable of caring for myself and I couldn't stand pity. I had seen it on many faces over the years and I did not wish to see it on hers… not again. Though, another part of me yearned for the attention, the nurturing that I'd never, ever received.
Christine returned with some sliced fruit and a few slices of bread. I knew that it was stale as I had bought it several days ago, but as I could see no fungus I gladly accepted it.
"Raspberry jam was all I could find." She said softly, handing me my plate. "It's my favourite."
I smiled briefly, looking down before she had a chance to see it. It was my favourite also. How was it possible that I could have something in common with the perfect woman before me?
"Also, the bread is stale…"
"It is perfect, Christine. Thank you for this. No one has ever…" I stopped myself. Why was I divulging such things after only a few hours in her company? Oh, but I wanted to tell her everything. My memories, my likes and dislikes, my strengths and weaknesses; I wanted her to know it all. I wanted her to know everything I did, everything I had always hidden from the outside world and everything I had always yearned to share with another but had not been able to.
"No one has ever what?" She asked hesitantly, perhaps predicting what I was about to say and in disbelief.
"No matter." I said.
"Erik, please. Tell me what you were about to say." She placed her had upon my arm.
Treated me with such kindness as you have.
I shook my head.
"Nothing, Christine."
She looked down, unsure of what to say.
"Well, please eat. You haven't touched your food. You… forgive me, but… you look as though you could use the nourishment."
There was nothing to forgive. I was convinced that I looked terrible. Eating with my mask on caused me pain, but the innocent girl could not have known this. I could not remove it now. I hardly wanted to frighten her away when so much progress had been made…
Though, I needed to bathe and shave. I needed to look presentable for her. Deciding to undertake this on my own, spared from any more of her pity, I changed the subject.
"I'm quite tired, Christine." I began. "Perhaps I will eat more once I've regained my strength. I might rest for a few hours."
I was exhausted, yes, but even so I knew that she would fall asleep before I. Then I could go about making myself more appealing before she woke.
"Yes." She nodded. "That will do you good."
I began to stand up.
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"To the divan." I replied. "This bed should be yours should you wish to rest. That is, if you still wish to stay…"
"Of course…" she spoke. "For a little while longer. If I am welcome, that is?"
I nodded.
"Please…" I gestured to the bed, this time getting up to stand beside her.
"You should take the bed, Erik."
"Christine…"
"This is your home." She interrupted. … "and you are injured."
She glanced at the bed before looking back at me.
I followed her gaze…
Could she be?
Was she thinking…?
"You could…" I stammered. "I… that is to say…"
We could…
"Yes?" She asked.
"Nothing." I said. Better to nip that thought in the bud before it had a chance to grow any further. Nothing I had done allowed me to think that I deserved to lie beside her after everything I had put her through, and yet I could not stop picturing it. Christine and I, lying beside one another. Nothing else… just lying. Only a foot of mattress between us…
She turns to look at me and smiles.
I smile back, and muster the courage to take her hand in mine.
To my complete jubilation, she moves closer to me, wrapping herself snugly around my chest… just as I had always imagined…
"Erik?"
I looked at her, unaware that she had been staring at me for some time.
"Nothing, Christine." I responded, immediately looking down. Ashamed and embarrassed at what she might have known had she possessed the power to read my mind. "I will take the divan. Please make yourself at home here. It is not much, but…" I stared out onto the lake from where I stood, the memories of Don Juan all too fresh in my mind; Raoul, the portcullis, the rope…
"…But I want you to be comfortable here. At the moment things are quite a mess, but I do have a rather large collection of books should your need for sleep not match mine. I do recall you to be an avid reader."
"Erik." She spoke. Her tone was sharp. I turned to look at her. "Take the bed. You shouldn't be walking on that ankle."
"I wouldn't call this walking."
"You shouldn't be using it at all. You should be resting."
"Christine…" I sighed. "I appreciate your concern and all that you have done… but please... It is bad enough that I am confined to these quarters below ground, do not confine me further."
I continued out to where the divan sat on the landing and sat down. Truthfully, my ankle was beginning to throb, but I would never admit that to Christine. She followed me out and continued.
"You don't have to confine yourself as you say."
"No?" I threw over my shoulder.
"No. You could leave here… We could…"
My head snapped around at her words.
"We could what?" I asked, my gaze fixed on hers.
"We could leave…" She offered, sitting down beside me.
"You would… do that? You would do that for me?"
She nodded.
What of her husband?
I dared not ask it for I didn't want the answer. I wanted to continue living on in this dream world she had brought back with her.
"Christine…" I began. "Why would you want that?"
She looked down.
"I don't know."
"You cannot say things like that to me without having thought them through." Had she any idea what that sort of hope could do to a man in my state?
"Erik, I don't know, alright? I don't know where we could go but you cannot stay here!"
"I cannot stay here?"
"No!" She cried.
"I thought we could leave! Now all of a sudden I am on my own again?"
"You're twisting my words!"
"I'm twisting nothing, Christine! You never had any intention of staying. You just came to see that I was alive, so that you could go on living your perfect, guilt free life with your boy!"
"Erik, why are you trying to hurt me?"
"Admit it!" I yelled, now standing and looming over her.
"Admit what!?" She replied, standing as well.
"That you had no intention of staying! That you don't care about me!"
"God, Erik. Is that what you want to hear? You won't even give me the chance to get close to you!"
"You don't want to get close to me!" I yelled.
"How do you know that's what I want?!"
"Because that's what everyone wants!"
She stared at me then, and I could see her expression changing from anger to pity. I had said too much. I hated myself for letting her in, for expressing how I actually felt. Why did she have this effect on me?
I turned away from her then, once more sitting down with my head in my hands.
Please don't say anything kind.
Please don't say anything to disarm me further.
I had gone from being all powerful in her eyes, all-seeing, all-knowing, imposing, to nothing. I hated what she had done to me – she'd made me into a man; fallible, weak. I'd spent so long becoming something else. But I could not hate her for it. No, I just loved her all the more and it was agonizing being in her presence and not being able to express it.
To my horror she slowly sat down beside me once more. I knew that one kind word from her now would be my undoing, and so I silently begged her not to speak.
We sat beside one another in silence for a few moments. I was exhausted. I didn't know how to act around her after everything, what to say… who to be. She wanted me to be Erik, but what if I couldn't be that anymore? Would she leave? I took a deep breath and sat back slightly, my hands resting on my knees. I closed my eyes and, knowing that I had to say something, began…
"Christine, I…"
Before I could finish my sentence I felt a small hand slip into mine and hold it.
My eyes shot open.
I wasn't imagining it.
She was touching me.
I looked at her for an explanation, but her expression told me nothing. The last time we'd touched, it had been under very different circumstances. She had placed the ring back in my palm, closed her fingers over my own and left.
This was something else. It was wonderful. She was willingly touching me after all I had done and all that I was. I did not deserve her affection or even her friendship. I did not deserve to live after how I had treated her and the things I had done over the years and yet she had the strength, the charity, the love in her heart to hold me. To comfort me as no one ever had.
Despite my own protestations I inhaled sharply, letting out a shudder of a breath. I closed my eyes again so that she could not see… but she knew. She would have had to have been both blind and deaf not to know that I had begun to weep beside her. Still, she said nothing, only held my hand tighter and remained by my side, affording me the strength and companionship I never knew I needed.
I regret nothing.