Unmasked

Not three days before they were set to leave for Christine's performance, she came home to a house that felt...wrong...the moment she walked in the door. That it should be quiet was not unusual, but this quiet had an uncomfortable edge to it. Though it was summer and the air-conditioning was off, the apartment felt cold.

"Erik? Sweetheart? Are you here?" She closed the door quietly behind her.

She'd barely taken two steps when Erik appeared in the hallway leading to their bedroom. His violin case was clutched in one hand, a stuffed duffel bag hung from his shoulder. He wore his black hoodie, pulled tightly over his head and mask, but she didn't need to see his face to know that he was in a righteous fury. His eyes were over-bright, his breath came in heavy puffs. His movements were so tense as to be jerky. The total effect was frightening.

When he saw her, he strode over to her dropped everything he held, and grabbed her upper arms. From the way his eyes flashed, Christine flinched, thinking he would hit her. When he spoke, his voice hissed between his tightly clenched teeth.

"You...you traitor. Betrayer." He was pushing her towards the sofa as he spoke. "To think I trusted you. Loved you. Let you into my home – you WERE my home!" His voice had risen to a shout.

Christine was too stunned to resist. She couldn't have if she'd tried. His fingers locked around her arms, bruising the delicate flesh there.

"You're hurting me." It was all she could say past her shock. "Please, Erik. I love you..."

"Oh no. Not you. Don't flash those innocent eyes at me. Don't you dare speak those words. I'm no longer fooled." He flung her backwards; she landed heavily on the sofa – unhurt, but terrified. "You've destroyed me. Everything." He gestured wildly.

"Erik, I don't know what..."

"Shut your lying, traitorous, mouth. Did they pay you to do it? Or was it spite? I don't care. I don't care! Keep the apartment. Keep all this crap. It's dirt to me now. Never come near me again." He turned, snatched up his parcels, and left.

The apartment door slammed hard enough to knock splinters from the frame. Christine sat where she'd landed, her face white, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She felt as though she might throw up. Tears and screams haunted her throat, but could not come into reality past the enormous lump there.

Had she believed she'd seen his temper on the bus? That was a spring breeze compared to the cyclone she'd just witnessed. What had she just witnessed? When her legs would obey her again, she walked around the apartment, searching for anything that might serve as a clue.

The bathroom mirror was shattered. Shards of glass littered the floor. Here and there she saw smears and droplets of blood, indicating that he had done this with his bare hands. The bedroom was trashed. Both dressers were overturned, clothes thrown everywhere. In one corner, his TENS unit lay in pieces. Pills were scattered around the floor. He's gone without his medicine, she realized with a creeping sense of doom.

When she looked into the music room, she did vomit. Ripped and torn sheet music carpeted the floor. Instruments lay everywhere, like the broken bodies of war victims. Only the cellos and flute remained untouched. She leaned in the doorway, unthinking, too shocked to feel.

"What have you done, Erik?" she murmured. "Why?"

She dragged herself back to the kitchen and sat down at the table with a glass of water, trying to rid her mouth of the horrid taste and grasping desperately at the scattered threads of her thoughts. In the middle of this futile exercise, her eyes fell on something she'd ignored completely in its mundanity. The morning's newspaper lay open on the tabletop.

The glass shattered into a million tiny glass splinters on the kitchen floor. Christine didn't notice. Her hand, shaking nervelessly, came to rest on the top page. There, in full color, were reprints of Erik's mugshots – unmasked. They were the ones that had been missing when she'd Googled him so long ago. The accompanying story headline screamed: The Monster Behind the Music of Strange Noise. The article below labeled itself an exposé. It revealed Erik's name and his criminal history, along with a brief interview with the man he'd assaulted ten years before. The reporter (the esteemed Ms. Bertrand) had painted Erik as a dangerous man, masquerading as a musician. And then she saw why he'd directed his anger at her. "A source very close to the masked man provided..." Teardrops obscured the rest of the sentence.

"Oh, Erik." She whispered it over and over like a mantra. His fury was no longer a mystery. She marveled that he had not hit her and that, of all the instruments in his collection, he'd spared hers. "Oh, Erik, my love. Where have you gone?"

Christine paced back and forth, crunching glass beneath her shoes. How could she find Erik? Seattle was a huge place with thousands of potential hiding places. She had to find him soon.

Nadir. Nadir might know. What was his number? What was Nadir's phone number? She bit her thumb viciously, trying to remember.

"Phone bill..." she muttered, and ran to the file cabinet where Erik kept copies of all bills paid. Nadir's was the only long-distance number Erik would call. Ah. There. Too easy.

She snatched up the phone and dialed, misdialing three times before she got her spasming hands under control.

"Calm down, girl, calm down." Talking to yourself, she thought. Don't do that.

The phone rang four times. Panic magnified the length of each ring – it was hours, years, before Nadir answered.

"Erik! Good to hea..."

"Mr. Khan," she rasped. Her voice was destroyed. She could barely speak. "Nadir...please...he's gone...the newspaper...reporter...she found it...I...please…"

"Christine?" An icy shudder coursed down his spine. "Calm down, dear. Take a breath. I can't understand you."

He listened to her try to take a breath, only to fail miserably and break down sobbing. There was a hysterical tone to her cries that pushed that ice deep into his stomach. He couldn't bear the strain.

"Dear little angel, please try to calm yourself. Who is gone? Erik?"

"Yes! Yes! He's gone, he left. Erik left." She choked on her tears. "That reporter...Ms Bertrand. She...someone told her Erik's name. His whole name. She put his mugshots in the paper and he thinks I'm the one who betrayed him!"

Nadir held the phone far from his ear and was able to hear every word she screamed.

"Ok. Ok. Just keep breathing. He's a grown man. He'll be ok. We just have to figure out where he's gone."

"He's not ok. He broke the mirror...there was blood. He destroyed the instruments. He doesn't have his medicine with him. Nadir, he's not ok!" Panic would not release its grip on Christine. Strong though she was, this was a blow too severe.

Destroyed instruments? Like a wildfire in a strong wind, Christine's panic leapt to Nadir. "He...broke his instruments?"

"Yes. Do you see? He's not ok. He called me a traitor...betrayer. I thought he would hit me...he didn't...he's a good man, Nadir. He's good."

"I know he's good, dear girl. No matter what he said, he needs you now. You are his only chance. You have to calm down or you won't be able to help him and he could end up in jail...or worse. We don't want that. So, sip some water, count to twenty, and talk to me." Keeping his voice gentle and even, Nadir talked to Christine until he heard her breathing slow. She was still hitching in the occasional breath, still coughing, but she followed Nadir's directives.

"Where would he go, Nadir? It's late... I was at Meg's..." Christine froze. "A source close to the masked man," the article said. Meg! This was Meg's doing! No. Don't think about that now. Gotta find Erik. "I was at Meg's until eight or so. It must be almost ten o'clock now. Where would he go?"

Nadir racked his mind. In his younger days, after the hospital, Erik had often run from the world when it was too cruel. He'd gone to lonely, wild places to find solitude. When he moved to Seattle, he'd told Nadir that he was going "to find the sea."

"Is there a place near the ocean where the two of you would often go? A wild place where other people rarely went? Something a little separated from everything else?"

There was. Below Discovery Park, there was a bluff. She and Erik had found a little cave set into a ledge above the spray from the breakers. It was difficult to get to during the day...at night it would be dangerous. But it was just the sort of place Nadir was describing.

"Yes."

"Can you get there?"

"Yes." Christine hesitated, hearing Erik's furious command to never come near him.

"Then go! Stop talking to me and get out there!" Nadir started to hang up, but he had to add, "And Christine, be careful. When you bring him home, call me. I won't be able to eat or sleep until you do." After he hung up, Nadir went into his kitchen a brewed a cup of coffee. The old man stood watch.

Christine slammed the phone down and spun to run out the door. No. Stop. Call a cab. The cab company promised a driver would pick her up near the bus stop in fifteen minutes. She changed into her tennis shoes, grabbed a flashlight, a handful of his Neurontin and morphine pills, and a fistful of money from the grocery fund, and went out to wait.

She tossed three twenties at the cab driver and jumped out of the cab. When her feet hit the wet soil, she realized that she was afraid. Not for Erik, but of him. "Never come near me again." he'd said, and his tone had been deadly cold. And then Nadir had said, "Be careful." But her Erik would never hurt her. He'd promised.

But that was before. That was when he loved you. The thought was hard, merciless. The flashlight hung heavily at her side. She did not want to use it and alert him to her presence, but the night was incredibly dark.

"Not the time for cowardice, Christine Daae." She scolded herself. "Not the time."

She knew the path well, and only needed the flashlight twice. Soon, though, she did not need the light or the path. Over the bestial roar of the Pacific Ocean smashing itself against the mainland, she heard a violin, but its voice was perverted. This was the music of Hell, played by its most tormented tenant. It screamed and ripped from the heart of the violin and threw itself into the night air.

"Erik," she whispered.

Carefully, stealthily, she climbed down the bluff face. Her fingers soon cramped from gripping the stone at such a slow pace; no matter how hard she tried, she could not keep her grip. Fortunately, her fall terminated on the stone ledge – not on the brutal rocks in the surf below. The blooming, hot pain in her right leg and buttock held her attention for a split second before sudden silence turned her to face Erik. She tried to rise but found that her injured leg would not support her.

Erik looked down at Christine as though she were a particularly unsavory stranger.

"Get away from me." The ocean itself must have quailed before the hate in his voice.

"No."

He set his violin down with a delicacy that only emphasized his rage. Christine saw that he had played with such fury that his horsehair bow was nearly bereft of hair and several strings on the violin were snapped.

"Get away from me," he stalked toward her, flexing his hands. "or I will do to you what you've done to me. Didn't you read? Don't you know I'm a monster?"

"Go ahead, Erik." She pushed herself to her knees. "I am not the one who gave that bitch of a reporter your name, but..." his hands had twisted themselves painfully into her hair, pulling several strands and bringing tears to her eyes; at her declaration they loosened almost imperceptibly. That tiny loosening, though, gave her hope. She forced herself to go on speaking, just as Nadir had. "but if it will help you, do whatever you need to. Scream at me, say horrible things...I don't mind. I love you, Erik. No matter what you do tonight, I still will."

Christine met Erik's eyes, her fear gone now that the moment was upon them. There was only the faintest glimmer of light from the nearby metropolis reflecting from the clouds, but it was enough. He could see truth and love shining in her eyes; her expression held no artifice. Her eyes were beacons, calling him home. There still was a home for him. He let go of her hair and dropped to his knees.

"You didn't..." he whispered.

"No." Christine felt relief wash over her in dizzying waves. "I would never hurt you. I told you that. I promised." She wanted to go to him and hold him, but a strange lassitude had fallen over her.

"You wouldn't...you couldn't...I should have known." He dropped from his kneeling position to a cross-legged one and pressed his face into his hands, hurting himself purposefully. "I should have trusted you."

"You couldn't have known..."

"I came here to die," he whispered, barely audible above the sound of the waves. "I came to play and go to the ocean, where no one would ever have to deal with the corpse. That bag... I was going to take it with me..."

Christine turned her flashlight on the opened bag. At the very top was a copy of the music she'd written for him. The leaden feeling lifted from her limbs. Turning the flashlight back on him, she saw what he was doing to himself. Ignoring the pain from what she was now certain was a broken something, she pushed herself across until she could reach and roughly yanked his hands from his face. She tugged at the ties of his mask until they gave way – he'd apparently tied the thing on in anger.

"Don't, Christine. Don't look at me, please." but he offered no physical resistance.

She tilted his head up until she could see his face. In the flashlight's unforgiving beam, she saw that he'd torn at his face, ripping the already thin skin with his nails.

"Oh, Erik..." it was a grieving sound, a low moan. "Oh, my love..." Knowing she could not cause him any more pain, she traced the damage with one cool finger.

"You must hate me now. I should disgust you." He was still whispering.

"Never." She pulled him into her embrace; he came willingly enough. He'd been completely prepared for death; there was no strength left now that he'd returned from the abyss. "You are my Angel of Music. I could say it with every breath...I love you."

"I've destroyed our apartment."

"I don't care."

"I've destroyed my beautiful instruments."

"They can be fixed," thinking back on the carnage, she amended that to "...or replaced."

"I've hurt you." This thought nearly sent him over the precipice again.

"I will heal. We will heal." Sensing his rising distress, she held him tighter.

"It's unforgivable."

"I've already forgiven you."

He shook his head and shifted position, meaning to take her in his arms. When he did, he saw her flinch and heard the little hissing intake of breath.

"You're hurt?"

"Oh, no..." she waved a nonchalant hand in the air. "It's just a little broken leg."

"Christine!"

"You're alive, and you don't seem to hate me...too much." She laughed a high, hysterical laugh. "Cut the damned thing off! I don't care..."

Erik just stared at her. How could he have thought – even for the most crazed instant – that she'd betrayed him? "I love you, Christine. Thank you for..." there was no way to express what he wanted to thank her for. "I'm going to look at this now...it's going to hurt..."

"No it won't," she said flippantly, and promptly passed out.

"Broken..." He recalled how suddenly she appeared on the ledge, like a magic trick. Even though she was unconscious, Erik took the utmost care in examining her leg.

There was discoloration and swelling around the area just above the ankle. There was no blood, and the leg was not bent at a startling angle; he began to hope that the break was not too bad. He unlaced her shoe and gently removed it. The foot was warm and rosy – no need to worry about impeded circulation. Not yet, at least.

No matter how mild the break was, however, she would not be able to make the climb back up the bluff. There was nothing here with which he could stabilize the bone. Erik stared doubtfully at the cliff face – could he climb it with her riding piggyback?

"Maybe..." he muttered. But he wasn't sure. If she could not hold on, she would die. If he faltered, even for a moment, they would both die. Even fresh and well-rested, it would be challenging to scale the rocks while carrying Christine. Now, she had a broken leg and wouldn't be able to use all her strength to hold on. He was in overwhelming pain himself, from the damage he had done to his face and the realization that he'd wronged Christine. The pain was a well-deserved punishment That broken leg was his fault. If only he had trusted her...

Christine shifted and then moaned, her eyes opening wide.

"Erik!" she gasped. "I think...my leg really is broken."

"It is. I'm sorry. It's my fault." Erik knelt beside her and helped her to sit up. "You passed out from the pain."

"Wait...here..." Christine dug around in her pockets. He'd reminded her of the pills she'd brought – just in case. "I brought your meds...some of them at least. Your...your TENS unit is broken... I thought you might need them." She pressed them into his hand.

Erik stared down at the pills. After what he'd said, after everything he'd done, her concern was for his pain. "Thank you...I don't need them right now though."

Liar, thought Christine. Even if she had not been able to see the rending of his nails on his face, his pain showed sharply in his eyes. It was as bad – if not worse – than that night more than a month before. Why wouldn't he take the medicine?

"I have to get us out of here. If I help you up, do you think you can stand on one leg?"

"Yes..." Christine stared up the bluff face. On bright days, when she was well rested, it seemed only a skip and a jump. Now, at night and exhausted from worry, fear and pain, it seemed an impossible obstacle. "But even if I can stand, I can 't climb."

"You aren't going to climb. I am." He held out his hand, and she pulled herself to her one good foot. "All you have to do is hold on to me. Do you think you can do that?"

Incredibly, Christine smiled. "What do you think, Erik? Can I hold on to you? I'm trying my best here."

Shaking his head at her wry humor in a dreadful situation, Erik helped her climb on his back, lock her arms around his chest, and wrap her good leg around his waist. She still trusted him - and her life was in his hands. That thought sent a surge of adrenaline crackling through him. The same chemical that let tiny mothers lift cars off their infants allowed Erik to grip the rock and begin climbing.

He had made this climb hundreds of times, with and without Christine. It was his favorite place to come at night, alone, and play his violin to the wild ocean. He knew the easiest path up by heart. Concentrating only on his hands and feet, Erik forced his way up the rocks.

Christine clung to his back, barely daring to breathe. She understood as well as he did that one slip meant a long, fatal plunge into the rough surf many feet below. As soon as Erik approached the top, she grabbed the turf and helped him drag them both over. They rolled onto their backs in the dewy grass and lay still, breathing the moist night air in huge, grateful gulps.

"Christine, can you dry-swallow pills?"

"Umm... I don't know. Never tried. Why?" She lay there, staring up at the cloudy sky.

"The morphine will ease the pain of that leg until we can get you to the hospital." Erik fished the pill out of his pocket and held it out to her.

"Hospital," Christine repeated dully.

"Yes," Erik pushed the pill into her mouth. "Swallow, or that is going to taste very bad, very fast. You know, the hospital: that place where they set broken bones."

She gulped the bitter pill and shuddered at the taste. "But Erik...your mask is still on the ledge."

His strength was rapidly failing. His arms and legs were still trembling from the climb up. But he couldn't go in public without his mask; especially not after that newspaper article.

Normally, Erik espoused the opinion that foul language was used only by unimaginative ignoramuses incapable of expressing themselves more creatively. The string of expletives he uttered now would have made George Carlin proud. Wearily, he started down the bluff again; Christine hung over the edge and watched his slow progress anxiously. A while later, he resurfaced with his mask on his face and his violin dangling awkwardly from his belt.

"Now. To the hospital."