A/N: This has no relevance to the actual story, but normally I write on the computer and have a wordy, meandering writing style. This story was first drafted on binder paper. Behold, I have an entirely different writing style on binder paper. Apparently there is some scientific reason for this, according to a class I TA'ed for. Anyway, this chapter was the only one I drafted on my computer, so apologies if it sounds different. And, since I'm giving background, I also am usually a meticulous planner. With this story, I had no plan and really didn't know what was going to happen until a few paragraphs before (so when you were like, "what, where did that come from," that's where.

Okay, end of useless author's note. Thank you for reading!

Chapter 21

Now that he understood Christine was gone, Erik returned to sleeping as little as he had when he was a young man. There was no point in crawling into a cold bed in an empty room and Émilie no longer tired him out now that she did not demand all his time. In fact, he hardly saw her at all if he did not search for her, and he often did not. He felt as if he was dying. Émilie seemed only to be growing stronger, brighter, more beautiful. And now she sang, further escaping to where he could not follow. He could not risk being around her to burden and taint her. Already she had survived five years with a father claimed by madness, and she was still perfect. It seemed too much to hope that she would survive his death as well.

Not true death. Erik knew his persistent corpse of a body would not actually expire on him physically any time soon. As to its mental capability, he was less certain. It had all seemed so very real. At least with the insane rage that had driven him to murder, he was calm and calculating. The madness that had brought peace made him blind. Yet he would welcome that blindness again, for now he knew with cold, unflinching clarity that Christine was gone, and he was dying inside, the grief he had neglected more than six years ago returning to kill him.

So he did not go to Émilie in the day, but began filling his nights with watching her sleep, just as he had done when she was a baby. He hadn't meant to this time, but she had started screaming while she slept.

The first night he'd been working on the finer points of an archway when her shriek pierced his concentration. As if responding to a siren's call, he was at her side in an instant, watching her toss beneath her blankets. He'd roused her and held her when she woke disoriented. It had taken almost an hour of petting her hair and murmuring nonsense before she'd been able to fall back asleep in his arms. That too had not happened in years. The next morning, she didn't remember any of it.

"What is wrong with my child?" he'd demanded of Nadir after he'd been pulled from his work two more nights. "Should you bring the doctor? She is never sick, but something is wrong."

"It sounds like nightmares."

"She's never had nightmares before. She's too sensible to be frightened by them."

"No, these are different," explained Nadir patiently. "When Reza was…when he first got sick, he had the same thing. The court physician said it was merely something that happened to children when they were too tired or stressed, or exposed to something new. They won't remember if you don't wake them up, and it will stop on its own. Has she been anxious lately?"

Erik didn't know. She was certainly different. Everything was different. He had caused the change, but without Christine, or even the memory of her, he didn't know how to fix it. Only the loss, fresh and untempered even though years had passed, occupied his mind and he could not hope his daughter would ever understand. In fact, she made it worse. She reminded him, with her pretty eyes and lovely face. And the singing. He had avoided it so perfectly through all the years. But he had let her go, had failed to keep her safe by his side, and she came back with music.

At first her spirit had faded in the face of his distance. She was never loud unless she was arguing with him, but now she did not even fight back. It made him ache to watch and his nights were filled with senseless tears for both his wife and his daughter.

But then she became happy again and wonderfully carefree. With him she seemed impatient, always ready to leave, and she spent as much time away as he would allow. When he watched her, she seemed to be in a dream. There was a perpetual smile and a glint in her eyes. He envied this escape she had, and could not stand to be around her and her light. He wanted only his shadows. No longer did he follow her into the upstairs world.

And yet, his soul longed to hold her again and hear her childish thoughts and fight uselessly over whether Émilie would or would not put on her coat before going out. He needed to keep her with him, away from the light and music. He found watching her sleep, perfectly still with one small hand curled beside her cheek, softened the ache in his soul. Even after the nightmares stopped, he returned to the chair beside her bed night after night. He would sit and let himself reverently brush the ends of her soft curls.

It was not the joy he had known. But it calmed his racing mind to see her. And when she was asleep, she could not gaze back at him with Christine's eyes. She could not sing. She could not leave him. He did not feel ugly, or ashamed that he had lived in a fantasy for five years, or guilty that he could not be all that Christine had wanted him to be for her daughter.

He couldn't have that when she was awake, so he was careful to leave before she stirred in the morning.