The best part of any gala is when the orchestra plays some of Erik's soft, romantic pieces. Because it is his night off, the substitute conductor is hard at work, and Christine is content to live in her husband's arms. They do not dance, not the same way that the other couples dance. Instead they hold each other close, and sway to the music, her head against his chest and his face buried in her hair.
This is how she prefers it, just the two of them. And no one else matters in the whole crowded ballroom. They could be at home in the parlour with the phonograph, and Fabian curled up on the divan, for all that anyone else matters.
Eight years. Eight years since she married Erik, and she would not trade a moment of the time they've had.
The music shifts, flows into a new piece. This one he wrote specifically for her, she knows. He wrote it for their engagement, to mark the occasion, and the first time he played it for her he remarked on all of the different strands of her that is in it - her voice, her smile, her touch, her kiss. The soft things she makes him feel. And it should be strange to listen to herself in the music, but when she listens to it she only hears him, his hands on the piano keys and the way he holds her close, and his breathy half-believing laugh when she kisses him, and how he breathes her name in the stillness of the night. He says it is for her, but she knows the truth. It is wholly made up of the pieces of him, and that is how it ought to be.
She draws back, slightly, and cups her hand around the nape of his neck, draws him down to press a kiss to the corner of his lips, uncovered by the mask.
"I love you," she murmurs beneath the music, so that only he can hear, and tears glow in his hazel eyes as she presses another kiss to his lips. "I love you." And eight years of marriage have not changed that a single bit.