A/N: I realized yesterday that hyphens don't work as page breaks, so there were random time jumps between paragraphs. Sorry about that. Hopefully it's less confusing now. As always, thank you for the reviews. They give me life.

Chapter 5

Because Nadir had left his daughter sleeping on the sofa, Erik now faced the arduous task of returning her to her crib. He put it off as long as he could, unwilling to see her tears after witnessing the laughter she'd bestowed upon the Persian.

Finally he pulled on his gloves and draped his cloak across his arms. Perhaps if she could not feel his death skin, she would not wake up and cry at the sight of him.

But she did wake. As soon as she was cradled at his chest, her eyes fluttered open and she fixed him with a deep gaze. Only because he could remember his own childhood and the sentience he had felt even then did he believe her warm eyes to hold understanding.

As if he was about to engage a venomous snake, he raised his free hand and nudged her stomach with a gloved finger.

Émilie stared back but did not cry.

"Damn that man," Erik swore softly. Then he saw his daughter's eyes go wide at his voice. Hesitantly he continued, "Always meddling in our affairs and sticking his nose where it isn't wanted."

Émilie smiled in ignorant agreement.

Erik felt his knees give way. Only at the last moment did he manage to keep the two of them from collapsing to the floor.

His daughter was in his arms and she was smiling. At him.

It made him brave, deliriously so, and he bowed his head to kiss her forehead. The mask was in his way, but the kiss pressed it more firmly against his mouth. The answering pressure beneath his ribs was nearly unbearable.

When he raised his head, she squirmed in his arms for a moment. A sick bile rose to his mouth at this rejection, this betrayal, this deception, but she settled again and closed her eyes. The hurt was replaced by something worse. Sadness.

It was such a Christine thing to do. She too had always spent a moment shifting about in his arms before slipping into sleep.

Suddenly it was too much to hold the child and Erik quickly laid her down. Then he retreated to Christine's room, slipping into their bed and casting his mask aside so he could lay his face against the cool sheets.

"My angel," he murmured, voice muffled by the pillow. "My angel, she is beautiful. She is you. Even now you are cruel to your poor Erik. You made him promise to live without you but you will not let him forget you. You allow him no peace. You and your daughter with those wide, innocent eyes that see no ill in the world. That can't see the cruelty of men or the faces of monsters. And your hair and your smile and your voice-"

He broke off suddenly, a thought too terrible having occurred to him.

"Oh, Christine," he howled. "She will have your voice. Why, Christine, why? I want peace! Have I not earned it?"

xxx

His child smiled upon him when he first peered down at her the next morning and the anguish of the night before was easily forgotten. This was peace, to see hands flailing in an impatient request to be held. Erik felt his own face fold into a smile beneath the mask.

But when he picked her up, she began to cry.

"You fickle brat," he cursed, preparing to stalk out and leave her there. Then he caught sight of his cloak hanging over the side of the crib. "Is that it, mon cœur? You do not like Erik's skin?"

He had asked Christine that same question when she had flinched at his arms encircling her waist. He had immediately withdrawn then too.

"You dislike Erik's touch?" he had spat accusingly. "He repulses you?"

"No, no, of course not," she stammered. She had always been so nervous about offending him in the early days, not laughing indulgently as she did later. "It's just cold. I'm unused to you being without you coat. I'm sure I'll get used to it!"

Did Émilie simply find his skin too cold? Christine, true to her word, had ceased to notice it. Neither of them had thought that a child, used to Christine's warm embrace, might be uncomfortable in Erik's cold one. The warmth of Christine's arms was something he missed with a ferocity that made it difficult to breathe. It made sense that Émilie would miss it too.

Erik fetched his coat and returned to the nursery. This time, Émilie happily accepted his arms about her, striking a tiny fist against his chest to show her appreciation. Erik felt the touch reverberate throughout his body, around his heart, down his limbs.

"I'm sorry, mon cœur. Erik wishes he could be a normal father for his daughter. But he loves Émilie very much."

xxx

Once Émilie had experienced the comfort of being held by her father, she came to demand it constantly. She stretched her arms out whenever Erik came near, cried when Erik put her down, and ceased only when he picked her up again. He was lucky that he had his ability to focus single-mindedly on a task and go without sleep, but even he grew tired after weeks of it. Sometimes he was too weary to remember his coat, or too frustrated to draw it on if he did remember. And so sometimes, when he picked her up with nothing but his thin linen shirtsleeves between their skin, she cried.

But sometimes she didn't.