A/N: Thanks for your reviews. LeticiaMaree, I hope you got some sleep! ;) Thanks to AResidentGhost for hitting the follow button.
Chapter 16:
Erik awoke the next morning from a deep slumber of utter fatigue. It had been a while since he had last needed to tire himself out for his sleep not to be broken by unwanted nightmares. Despite the tiredness that still resided in his bones, he felt oddly warm and comfortable, cosy even. What strange mood, what strange sensation. Had he died at last? His mouth curled into an ironic smile and a chuckle almost slipped past his lips. Then his eyes flew open, remembrance setting in at last.
Madame Doucet had witnessed it all, had seen him at his weakest. She could have ignored him, surely she could have, or used his disorientated state to her advantage. Yet she had made him tea like a dutiful servant and read to him like a child that needed soothing. Truthfully, he did not know how to feel about that. At times predictability really was more favourable, even if it came with the bitter aftertaste of rejection.
Casting the blanket aside that she must have also draped over him, he rose to his feet and went about feeding the cat. His thoughts made the swift and painful connection to Christine in the meantime, reminding him that she, too, had looked after him when he had been unwell. Perhaps it was simply the nature of women to dote on anything they considered feeble enough, he mused, yet when he caught sight of the little portrait of his mother on the mantelpiece another sarcastic chuckle escaped him. Of course there were always exceptions.
"Have you prepared some tea yet?"
Madame Doucet's voice was clear, devoid of the trepidation it had previously housed and that, too, confused him. Surely it would be more satisfying to have her quivering in fear, grovelling at his feet. Surely she would pose less of a threat if she received a reminder of who truly held the power. But he found he could not even hold eye contact.
"No," he explained, "I was just feeding Ayesha."
His gaze slid down to the floor where the feline was ravenously consuming her meal.
"Perhaps I could try my hand at the samovar then? If I am granted a second chance?"
He smiled ruefully at this unintentional reminder of his own history and strode past her, lighting all the torches that were mounted on the walls. "Perhaps you'll be able to see better now."
She offered a nervous smile in return and busied herself lighting and filling the strange apparatus.
"You will continue your work once you are done?"
It was a question, yet somehow he managed to make it sound like more of a command. After all, he couldn't allow this power balance to be completely tipped on its head.
"Yes, of course." Madame Doucet also seemed eager to avoid eye contact. "There's still much to be done." She took a seat on the sofa while they waited for the water to boil. "I found a rather beautiful bowl yesterday, containing Asian depictions?"
"Yes, I collected a great many things on my travels," he laid out absent-mindedly, staring at the samovar.
"It's beautiful and not beyond repair. Perhaps if you could find me an adhesive I'd be able to put it back together?"
Apparently she had found something else that needed fixing.
"Perhaps," he shrugged indifferently.
Her soft gasp took him by surprise and made him focus on her fully.
"Forgive me, I had expected you to be attached, I suppose. It might only be a bowl at face value but if you acquired it, like you said, on your travels, surely it must hold a lot of worth."
"Do you take me for a man of leisure, casually travelling to foreign countries, collecting trinkets along the way?" he asked scornfully.
She looked towards the samovar quickly but he could have sworn to have seen her roll her eyes first.
"I did not call them trinkets, Monsieur, please don't put words in my mouth. I am also not as ignorant as you'd like to believe I am, nor as vindictive. I have come to learn that you are not an ordinary man and, as such, was not as careless as to suggest you might have taken several grand vacations in your time. As a matter of fact, I was expressing an interest in your travels without wanting to appear too curious, since I know you are not fond of that particular attribute. And I was also hoping to remind you that while you might not have voluntarily ventured into the far corners of the world, you clearly found some of these objects valuable and remarkable enough to hold on to them and take them home."
She stopped talking, inhaled deeply and then stood up, straightening her spine. He knew that he ought to reprimand her for her tone of voice but could not bring himself to do so since he truly just found her amusing. Sitting there like a prim schoolmistress, lecturing him on the facts he had misconstrued.
When she had examined the tea and deemed it good enough, she poured them two cups and handed one to him. "The urge to break things is completely normal, I suppose, and there is no harm in doing so provided they're your own possessions. Just after Édouard had succumbed to his illness, I burned a number of letters he had written to me at the beginning of our relationship. I was convinced I could never bear to look at them again, the pain would simply be too great. But now that more than a year has passed, I wish desperately I would not have destroyed them. I don't think I will ever stop feeling the pain of his absence, but it was wrong to believe that something that could hurt me, was not also capable of reminding me of his love."
Erik's mind wandered to the countless items he had destroyed because they had reminded him too much of Christine. The portraits, the sheet music, the books he had read to her. It seemed unfathomable that he would ever acknowledge the things she had given him, that he'd ever stop feeling the emptiness of what might have been. And it felt wrong to think about this now, to invite Christine into the room between him and Madame Doucet. It felt foolish to think of her with anything but anger and hatred.
Then, just as Madame Doucet had opened her mouth to, no doubt, dole out some other pellet of wisdom, her stomach rumbled noisily, making her blush with embarrassment.
"I was wondering, Monsieur," she continued timidly, "if I might have some of the ham I spotted yesterday? I am rather sick of preserves and, if I'm honest, also in need of something of more substance."
His eyebrow quirked up beneath the mask and for a moment he studied her pensively in silence. Her skin was less patchy and red than it had been on the first day, yet it looked paler and gaunter, a side-effect of the lack of sunshine he had thought but now began to wonder if it was also due to a lack of nourishment. Guilt stirred in his stomach along with shame. Never fond of food himself, he had learned how desperately cruel it felt to be denied it nonetheless. It was not nearly as repulsive as being force-fed, yet both experiences went hand in hand and he did not wish for her to feel like that, no matter how much he had hated her in the past.
"Yes, it is yours to take," he answered simply. "Help yourself while I am gone and I will see if I can find something more filling as well while I am out."
He could feel her curious eyes on him as he quickly made his escape, washing himself and putting on one of the last dress shirts that remained. It really was time for him to check for news from Madame Giry and to give Moreau another reminder of his presence, lest the little man crumble after all.
He did not exchange another word with Madame Doucet when he emerged again, but directly strode towards his boat and rowed across the lake.
When he returned a little while later he was in a strange mood. The meeting with Moreau had been perfectly agreeable, dull even, since the man flinched dutifully when he heard his voice and hurriedly succumbed to all of his demands. Whether consciously aware of this or not, Erik's mind needed a challenge, a task that would protect him from the tediousness of boredom. Yet it was a fine line to walk; too much objection would signify defiance and he would not happily tolerate that either.
Box 5, on the other hand, had been completely empty, dusty even as if nobody had been granted access to it, as if nobody had taken care of it. There was no trace of Madame Giry, no matter how long he searched for her, but no dismissive response to his note either. Of course he could have sought Moreau out again, pressured him for the information he surely had to possess, yet Erik did not want him to think that he was anything but omniscient so that puzzle would have to wait for another day.
He strode into the sitting room, depositing more stolen food in the cabinet and more books onto the sofa.
"I could salvage a few more items, Erik, I thought perhaps you'd like to take a look?"
Her question was so light and ordinary that nothing struck him as strange at first. As a matter of fact, it felt so warm and familiar that a part of him longed not to destroy it with the question that begged to be asked. How did she know his name? How could she possibly know?
"Erik?" he echoed softly, a dangerous tone swinging within his voice.
"Oh, forgive me." She rose to her feet, brushing her hands off against the dark skirts of the dress that already looked chalky. She appeared as pale as she had done before but held his eye contact steadily, nothing betraying any possible nervousness. "I heard the man use it the other day? He bellowed it, as a matter of fact, so I assumed he was addressing you?"
His amber eyes narrowed suspiciously until he nodded and his shoulders relaxed. He had plenty of reason to doubt her still thanks to the meddling tendencies she had displayed previously, but hearing his name spoken so casually – not with fear, not with a silent plea, not in desperation – felt too remarkable to cast aside. It gave the illusion of ordinary companionship, something he was desperate enough to desire to willingly accept any deception. Deception was, after all, something he excelled in.
"Yes, the daroga has the tendency to be less than subtle," he remarked, stepping closer to her.
"Still, it was inappropriate of me to call you by your first name. I'm not quite certain how it happened, I suppose it just slipped out."
"It's acceptable since we are sharing the same space," he decided with an air of haughtiness that successfully disguised his true feelings, then added with a mischievous grin, "and we have known each other for quite some time now. Of course, it is only proper if you shared your name also."
He suppressed a chuckle when her eyebrows rose in surprise. It was obvious that she did not know whether he was being serious or merely toying with her.
"Julianne…Julianne Doucet," she offered carefully after a while, "though I am certain you must know so already, seeing as you found out where I live."
He laughed then, unable to contain himself. "I shall repeat myself only this one time: I needed to know for professional reasons and as such my focus also remained purely professional."
"Your definition of the word "professional" is rather strange, Erik," she responded light-heartedly and then bent down to present an item to him. "Would you like me to try and fix this or would you rather it be discarded?"
"Now this actually is a trinket. Something I picked up in Russia. It isn't worth your time," he shrugged and handed it back to her.
"Very well," she nodded and the reluctance in her eyes came and went quickly.
Then she crouched down and presented him with a second item, one that made his breath freeze somewhere in his chest.
"Surely this is too beautiful to be discarded?" she asked and he could feel her eyes bore into his.
Erik's hand trembled when he accepted the silver compass. Its shell with all the beautiful engravings was scratched and cracked but when he flipped it open, it still seemed to work.
"How very careless of me…"
His voice was soft, reverent almost as his fingers brushed over it in a caress. When he looked up, his hopeful eyes scanned the room as if they expected to find Giovanni standing there.
"It's scarred but beautiful," Julianne said carefully, placing her hand on his and closing his fingers around the compass, "keep it."
"He was a good man," Erik told her, dedication evident in his tone, "one of the few I have known. He gave this to me as if I was his son. I was nothing more than his apprentice."
He paused, wondering how she would react to these words that had to be meaningless to her.
"He hoped it would always help me find the right way."
Her smile was warm and unwavering and no sign of confusion was evident on her face.
"Let us have some tea then and perhaps you could tell me more about this remarkable man?"
To his surprise he found himself nodding and very carefully, his eyes did not dare leave the compass, he led her back to the sofa.