Christine remained on the settee, lost in thought. The fire had died down to a few embers which smouldered passively in the fireplace, but she did not bother to put on another log or to stir them up with a poker. She had spent a long time thinking about her present situation, about Erik and her feelings and would it be enough to simply try and love him when he needed love so badly? Could she fix him, when he seemed broken beyond repair? Did she even need to fix him? Perhaps she simply needed to love him as he was, broken and despairing and oh so very cold.

"Am I going mad?" she thought, "Erik is insane! Insane, but so very kind, and so very sorrowful. I pity him, yes, and I want to love him, and something about tending to him just feels so right. But can I truly handle it? What if I fail? The thought that I might break his poor heart is too much to bear! I'm only a girl, Erik, but you want me to grow up, and I'm afraid. I like him, yes, but I hardly know him! And I've tried to be kind and I've tried to be good and I really do care for him a great deal, but what have I gotten myself into? What if I cannot love him, and he never lets me leave?"

The coals had all but died out, and out of the corner of her eye Christine thought she saw a shadow move. She let out a shriek and toppled out of the settee. The shadow approached her and she tried to scramble backward on the floor, but it overcame her and grabbed her wrist and called her name and then she realized that it was Erik, and his eyes were staring at her like candles out of the dark.

"Christine?" he repeated, "It is only Erik. Erik will never hurt you, child, you have no need to fear. Now why has silly Christine allowed the fire to go out, mmm?" Releasing her wrist, Erik placed a few more logs in the fireplace and began to stir up the dying coals with the poker. Once he had gotten the fire burning brightly once again, Erik turned about to face Christine. His heart plummeted at the sight.

She sat still on the rug, just where he had left her a moment ago. She was small and pale and she looked almost as sad and frightened as the night he had first brought her here, five stories below the world she had lived in all her life.

"Christine," he said softly, kneeling down before her on the plush red of the carpeting, "Christine, what is the matter? Has Erik displeased you in some way?" He reached up to make certain that his mask was still in place. When he found it to be intact, Erik thought perhaps it was his now visible chin that was causing her such distress, and placed one gloved hand in front of the offending skin, shrinking back from her a bit.

"Are you ill, Christine?" he said, gently as he could, "Tell Erik, and he shall make it better." The girl shook her head, putting a hand over her eyes and drawing it into a fist, finally coming to rest with the bridge of her nose pinched between her thumb and lower forefinger, her brow furrowed and her eyes closed. At last she drew the hand away, but still did not look at him.

"I—I do not know, Erik. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I need time, and air, and space to think. I need to go back and... look at things from a distance. I'm frightened and I don't know, I just don't know!"

A cold hand of despair gripped Erik's heart.

"She wants to leave!" he thought, "She wants to leave you here and never come back! She will run away, Erik. She will run away with that odious boy and she will never return to you. Fool! How could you not have foreseen this? She saw him today, and now she realizes how horrid a creature Erik truly is. If Erik lets Christine go, she will not come back and save him. And Erik will be left alone, alone, all, all alone, upon the deep blue sea, and God will not take pity on my soul in agony!"

The look of numb shock that Erik had worn thus far changed to one of simmering rage, and Christine knew at once that she had said the wrong thing.

"You will not leave here, Christine," he said icily, his voice alarmingly quiet, "You will not leave your Erik here to rot while you go away with your handsome little vicomte. You would never do that to Erik, would you, Christine? Especially when Erik has been so very good for you. Oh, he was still wretched; Erik was still a brute to you that one night, but that was because you had taken off his mask, and he had told you not to do it. But other than that one, abominable crime, Erik has not done a single bit of harm while you were here. Did you know that, Christine? Did you know how very good Erik has been for you?"

"Erik, I—"

"Hush, Christine; Erik knows your deceit all too well! You meant to leave me here, to run away and go behind my back and deprive me of the one thing I've ever really wanted! But you are mine now, Christine; you have been mine from the moment you saw my face. Oh, and oh, it pains me my dear; Erik would not keep you here in this cellar had he any choice, had you not seen; had you not feared! And you've been to very kind up till now, giving Erik more, much more than he dared request... But it was all an act, wasn't it, Christine? A cruel and manipulative act to make Erik give up the only thing that has ever mattered!" He was shouting now, his yellow eyes rolling wildly. He had come so close to Christine that she thought she could feel the waves of anger radiating from his person.

"No, that's not how it is at all!" she cried, her eyes wide in terror, leaning back, as far back as she could from the mad and raging corpse.

"YOU LIE!" he shrieked, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her to her feet, "YOU LIE TO ERIK SO THAT HE WILL TRUST YOU, SO THAT HE WILL LET YOU GO! You ought not lie to me, Christine." His voice was quiet again, but it was saturated with all the rage and misery of his shouting. Christine wept. She was frightened, and he was hurting her, and she just wanted it to end, to stop, to go back to the world above; perhaps Raoul could help her, could take her somewhere far away and safe...

He was dragging her down the hall to her room, swearing and weeping and not daring to meet her gaze. He had trusted her. He had thought her incapable of such malice, such unkindness. But she had deceived him, had lied to him with honeyed words and gentle touches to his poor, miserable face... She had soothed him after a nightmare, looked on him without fear, kissed his forehead...

He released his hold on her and fell against the wall, sobbing in rage, longing, and remorse. He didn't deserve her; it was his fault. Who would entomb themselves, throwing their world away to relieve the miseries of a lonely and amorous corpse?

Christine was sobbing behind him. She had sunk to the floor when he had released her, too weak and hysterical to do anything else. Erik nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt two little hands grasping at his ankles. He turned and looked down and through his tears he saw her, his sweet Christine, her face red with crying, staring up at him.

"Please," she sobbed, her voice trembling, "Erik, please! You're right; it was a lie, but only in the beginning! I was afraid! I didn't know you, and I feared for my life! In the beginning I lied so that you would let me go..." She looked down for a moment, wilting under his wrathful stare, but soon looked up at him again and, taking in a shuddering breath, she continued:

"I found your diary, and I began to pity you, and I know that isn't what you need, Erik! I know you need love, and I want to give it, I do so want to give it, but how can I love you when you frighten me so?" Here she broke into sobs, and it was a full minute or two before she could look up at him again.

"Erik, you claim to love me, but how can you love a person whom you do not trust? How are either of us to love the other if we cannot first establish trust?"

A/N: I am a horrible, horrible person for first not updating in so long and then throwing this at you. But it's all in the name of character development.

The long reign of fluff has been dethroned in the name of plot and exploration and personal growth. For now, at any rate.

Also it's like stupid o'clock in the morning and so I should go to sleep.