Chapter 8

"I think you are mistaken sir, this woman is my fiance." Isaac declared, though there was nothing to be mistaken about. "Come now, Meg. We must get you inside." Meg just stood there staring at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. "Meg!" He hollered. She jumped and turned to Erik.

"Rescue me." She breathed and walked toward Isaac. He grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her inside. Erik couldn't control himself enough to not march in there and take her away then and there.

"Who was that man, Meg?" Isaac demanded outside her bedroom door. Usually, she did not let him accompany her past the front door but he insisted. "Who was that man, Marguerite? Answer me!" He yelled, and raised his hand. She flinched but then held his gaze daring him to hit her. He slowly lowered his hand.

"That's the man I fell in love with." She answered quietly, looking down. The sharp sting of his hand across her face was enough to make her look back at him, and see the rage in his eyes. He grabbed her wrists in an iron grip in one hand, while shoving her door open with the other.

Erik did not know what to do. So, he paced. A rather annoying habit he had come to inherit over the most recent weeks. He paced outside of the boarding house for what felt like an eternity before a blood-curdling scream sent him running up and into the house like a man possessed by the devil himself.

"Where did that ungodly scream emanate from?" He asked stiffly to the nearest woman in the strictly all women's boarding house. "Dammit woman, where did it come from!" He roared when he did not get an answer from the startled woman.

"Sounds like from Meg Giry's room. She's the only lady in the house, other than myself, who is still awake." She answered shakily

"Well come on clueless woman get a key and let me in!" He told her impatiently. She quickly ran to the offices and grabbed the skeleton key.

Meg had been prepared for a world of trouble when she had lived at the opera house, used to the many leering men who feasted on the ballerina's exposed skin in their normally all-too risqué costumes, but she had not been prepared to be assaulted by someone so dignified as Isaac claimed himself to be. She screamed as her grabbed ahold of the bodice of her dress and ripped the fine silk, he himself had paid for.

When he shoved her into her bedroom he carelessly tossed her onto her bed, like a garment he was finished wearing, and locked the door. The onslaught of her tears did not even deter him as he was set to get his way. As he was locking the door, Meg had scrambled off of the bed and over to the window but he grabbed her again before she could escape out of the window, leaving it wide open.

"Let us see if your precious Erik wants you when I am finished. He probably desires you for your purity, and your purity alone. Whatever possessed you to love a man like him and not me is truly baffling."

"Erik is a better man than you would ever hope to be. I love him because he'll protect me and not take advantage of me as you have." She declared defiantly.

"Shut up!" He roared, smacking her across her face again and shoving her, again, down on her bed. He dominantly shoved the skirts of her dress above her head before the crash of her door made them both stop movement. Meg looked through her blurred vision at the menacing figure in her doorway she only recognized as Erik.

Erik and Claire, as he came to learn her name as, rushed up the stairs as fast as Claire's feet would take her. Erik impatiently slowed himself to a jogging pace as Claire lifted her skirts to take the stairs two at a time.

"To hell with propriety, my friend is in trouble." She had told him when she first lifted her skirts and met Erik's bemused gaze.

They finally were on the fourth floor, where Meg stayed, and he was now following Claire to where Meg's room was.

"Fetch someone who can get the police." Erik told Claire, taking the key from her fumbling hands. As he turned the key he could hear the sobs of Meg, the shouting of Isaac, the smack of his hand on her flesh, and the squeak of the bedpost. This just fueled Erik's rage. When he finally opened the door, he found Isaac on top of a sobbing Meg with her skirts pushed up to her neck and her bodice ripped. Her face looked distorted with the red blotches of her tears and Erik couldn't bear to see her face like that.

As soon as he registered the situation, he saw red. He charged forward and brought Isaac down to the floor; his fists colliding with anything that came into view. Erik hadn't felt rage like this since he was a young boy, and it felt foreign. As he held the young man down as the very man had held Meg down, he instinctively reached for his Punjab lasso, not realizing he hadn't had one since that last night in the opera house. Laying one last punch upon his face, he calmed himself and lifted himself from the ground to look where Meg had gone. She was still sobbing but now off the bed and desperately trying to cover herself from exposure.

His face softened when he took her into his arms, running his hands up and down her arms comfortingly. He was new to this, he never had anyone dependant on him since, well, ever. In a way, he supposed Christine was dependant on him but not in the way he had wanted her to be, not in the way Meg was now. She wrapped her arms around his waist underneath his cloak and sobbed freely into his chest, effectively soaking his vest. She separated herself from him and looked up at him with a teary, shy, smile. Erik surveyed her and was angered again. Her wrists were already turning purple and blue from Isaac's roughness and her face had welts where his hand made contact.

Finally Claire and a police man, hauled away from his surveillance of the neighborhood, returned to the boarding house and up the stairs where he asked what happened. Erik calmly explained the situation, ignoring the man's curious gaze, and Meg rushed over into the arms of Claire. Claire grabbed another dress, a pink leisure dress, and took Meg to change.

Later, Meg packed all of her belongings and asked Erik to take her back to Pantin. She fell into a fitful round of dreams on the way while Erik was always awake to comfort her the entire carriage ride. He rubbed his face wondering what he could do to help Meg before realizing he did not have his mask. Everything made sense, the stares he had received, Claire's startled stare when he first entered the boarding house, and the policeman's curious gaze as Erik explained what happened. And yet Meg still smiled at him. Still found a place in her heart to look on him with every ounce of normalcy he had longed to be looked at with his entire life. He looked at her, finally, relaxed face and felt his heart swell. At last, the thing he wanted most he had gotten. Someone loved him, and they loved him for him. Sure, he could be an unpredictable bitter old brute but she found the humanity and the nice man inside and brought him out. He doubted he would've trusted Daniel and Rachel like he had of Meg hadn't forced him to act like a human being with her, instead of his normal unsocial recluse tendencies he held.

When Meg awoke she was in a carriage and finally the events of the past night replayed in her head and she felt the tears well up again. Had Erik not been there to hear her, she would have been raped by Isaac undoubtedly. She thanked God that Erik and Claire had found them. She looked over at Erik's sleeping form and smiled. Finally she had gotten what she always wanted, a man who loved her for her. Erik had doted on her even in his absence with giving her access to his accounts. She knew she could not let him go as quickly as he had gotten away last time. Nothing would separate them now.

She turned her head and sneezed rather loudly and much to her dismay she caught Erik stirring next to her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." she apologized quickly. Erik looked disoriented for a moment before meeting her gaze. Erik. Such an elegant name, and she liked the way it rolled off her tongue. He looked like an Erik. "Erik," He looked like he didn't recognize the name, like no one had called him that for a long time.

Erik looked over at Meg, startled when she breathed his name. No one had called him Erik since he was just a boy, and even then the disgusted tone in their voice when they said it was enough to make him hate his own name. So, in turn, he adopted the pet names everyone in the opera house had given him. The only other calling him Erik was Madame Giry an even then it had been a while. It sounded so pure, so lovely when Meg said it, completely opposite of himself. He was not pure or lovely. He simply was. He was blessed to be upon the earth but he did not have a purpose here, or so he thought. Now Meg was there, now he had someone to take care of.

When he looked at her she was staring at him as if waiting for him to register that he was listening. "I'm sorry, go on."

"I just wanted to thank you for saving me." She said shyly. He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. Never had he been thanked for anything in his life. And now it seemed they were back to being shy little things; in denial of their feelings. Erik couldn't take it anymore, no longer would he be alone waiting for the last thing he cared about leave him. He would take the initiative, as he assumed he should.

"I would do anything for you Marguerite Giry." He told her, locking eyes with her in a fiery stare. You could cut the passion the gazes held with a knife and Meg thought, quite dramatically, she might die.

Meg had fully expected them to go back to being like awkward children who had silly crushes on one another, though she knew she loved him, and she hoped he loved her too, she could never be sure. Now though, she was almost sure and it made her heart swell.

Everything happening at this moment was so foreign to Meg she couldn't help the race of her heart and the blush that crept upon her cheeks.

"Erik I fear I have fallen in love with you." She said quietly looking at her hands clasped in her lap. Erik's finger slipped beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to his own. He had tears in his own eyes -much to his chagrin- and a half smile upon his face.

"If that's what you fear, I'm afraid we share the same fears, Mademoiselle." He said still holding her gaze. Her heart almost burst, she swore. "Spare a kiss for the leper?" He asked her shyly. She leaned forward to brush her lips against his in a small, inexperienced, first kiss.

"You are not a leper to me, my dear man." she said to him. "I'm sorry if I am not as experienced as you'd hoped for I have never kissed a man before." she added awkwardly; she felt the need to explain herself for the shy light peck she had given him, little did he know he would have been sated if she had only placed a chaste kiss on his cheek.

"Do not fret, my dear, for I have never shared a kiss that suggested the two persons held mutual feelings for one another. We will have more than enough time to practice." he joked as they arrived at Pantin. They had traveled well into the night and now the sun was just above the horizon littering the sky with soft hues of pinks and orange with touches of light blue and remnants of red.

A/n: Alright, so I know it's been a while but my life has just been crazy busy lately. This is the first week pretty much since I started the job that I've had less than 5 days scheduled.

I don't know how I feel about this chapter quite frankly, particularly the last part. I'm not over pleased with it but I'm too lazy to rewrite. Oh well. C'est La Vie.

Also please excuse any spelling errors, sometimes I forget computers don't have autocorrect.

Anon reviews: newbornphanatic: If you're talkin about Erik being rich, he made so much bank charging rent omg. and Isaac will get ya. hahahaha *mine is an evil laugh* Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Hope you enjoyed!

ALSO CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT FROZEN FOR A SECOND I'M DYING. SOOOOO GOOD.

Good? Bad? Lemme know!