A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Please enjoy the next chapter.
Chapter 3
For the longest time, Erik stood over her crib. She had stopped crying when he fed her and now gazed back at him in silent curiosity while chewing on a wooden rattle.
She was so beautiful. The most beautiful child he had ever seen. Perfect fingers, perfect little toes, perfect face. She was so very alive in the heat of her skin and glow in her eyes. Christine's eyes. Everything about her was Christine. She could not be his child. She was too beautiful.
But then everything he created was beautiful. His buildings, his music, his chaos. His daughter. Yes, she must be his.
So then why couldn't he touch her?
Madeline had not been able to touch him because he was hideous. How amusing now, that he could not touch his child because she was beautiful.
The Daroga had been right. He would ruin her.
With a sigh, he left the nursery.
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He touched her only out of necessity, to feed her, to change her, to move her from her crib to the floor. Still she squirmed at it and while he hated her for it, he yearned ever more to be able to comfort her.
For when she started crying in the night, not out of hunger or discomfort, but simply a need to be held, he could not help. He could only stand there and sob. When he did lift her into his arms, on the few occasions when desperation made him brave, it did not good.
It seemed Émilie had sensed something had happened to her mother. She cried far more often now. Endlessly sometimes. So often that she began to make herself sick. Upon noticing this, seeing those green eyes dulled in the same way he had failed to notice in Christine's, Erik collapsed against the bars of Émilie's crib.
Oh, but it would be easier, wouldn't it? Émilie could follow her mother, Christine could be with her beloved child in death, and he would be alone again. As it was meant to be. He was sure he could not join them in heaven.
If he lost her, he would have nothing left.
The pure panic overtook him, ruthlessly stole all other thought. Émilie was silent now, wearied from her past days, but he pulled her into his arms anyway and fled the nursery and the dark thoughts there. He retreated into Christine's room. Even after its week without an occupant, it was still bright, still held her memories, her light. He relished the dark safety of his cellar home, but this child was Christine's, and Christine loved the light. Was the light. Émilie must be safe here.
"Please, my angel," he wailed, his voice lost amid the child's cries. She had started as soon as he cradled her against him. "Tell Erik what he must do. He cannot lose her."
He looked down at the baby, held against his chest the way Christine had shown him, her face scrunched in misery.
Raising his head, he jumped to find his masked face gazing blankly back at him from the vanity mirror.
Of course! Émilie was afraid. With her baby's intuition, she knew she was being held by a monster. She knew what lay behind the mask, though she had never seen it. She knew what the skeleton hands had done, though she had not yet been alive, not yet been thought of when those deeds had taken place. She knew and she feared it, was repulsed by it.
Erik could not even hold his own child!
His wife had lied. When he had laid a hand against her abdomen and felt baby Émilie kicking, he had said with a false lightness, "Here will be another little child for me to frighten in the dark."
"Oh, Erik," Christine said with a sparkling laugh. "You mustn't try to frighten him!" She had promised him a son then, who would play the organ and build palaces like his father.
"I won't have to try, my dear," he said, even the pretend mirth gone.
At that she rose and tried to embrace him though she was really too big to do so with any grace. "Never say that! Never again, my love! He will love you very much, just as I do. Children always love their parents."
Except, it seemed, when Erik was their father. Then they were disgusted.
And Erick, he realized, could never be a real father. He would kill his child as he had killed his wife.