Well, I've managed earlier on Thursday! So that's... something. *sigh* So after I was feeling better, my mother announced that her tooth was in excruciating pain which meant trying to fit in her with a dentist and subsequent oral surgeon who happened to be very, very far away and in rush hour traffic... but she's all fixed up now and I'm plying her with oatmeal and mac n' cheese. Those are healing foods, right?

Anyway, enough of that. Onward!

xxi

Christine froze. "You what?"

"It was not long before he thought to put me to work. He found it… amusing that his enemies should see an Angel of Death during their last moments. A phantom. A specter from their nightmares sent at his master's bidding. I proved… most capable."

Her Erik… a murderer? There was no pride in his voice. No hint that he'd taken pleasure in his profession. If anything he sounded… guarded. Wary. And tired.

"Why? Why would you go along with that?"

Erik wasn't looking at her, his eyes somewhat unfocused as he peered over her shoulder. She doubted he was seeing anything at all except some figment from his memories. "The Shah was not always unkind. He gave me clothes, a room of my own. He gave me books and encouraged me to learn. It was only later that I came to realize he did so for his own sake—for what I would become. It was little tasks at first, and I was… grateful. He seemed to value me, and that was a very new experience. I liked it. Only then… then there was more, and I was taught how to use weaponry, hone my skills into something dangerous. When first he suggested it, it was under the pretence of learning protection for myself. So no one would dare enslave me once again."

Christine had grown cold by the bleak picture Erik described. A boy, not yet a man, desperate for someone to care. To feel as if he mattered. And some sick, twisted person had done just that, teaching, encouraging, persuading, until Erik had learned to do his bidding.

Her stomach roiled imagining how Erik must have felt.

"You didn't think to leave, did you." It was a statement, not a question.

"No," he confirmed as he blinked, finally seeming to see her properly. "Not for a long while. I was respected, both by the Shah and by his men. It was… intoxicating."

"What changed?"

Something must have. He never said that he enjoyed the killing. Even in her own experiences with him, she could readily recognize his desire to please. And that could so easily be manipulated, turned into something evil.

Erik had become a weapon for this Shah. He bore some measure of responsibility, of course he did, but he was so damaged, a boy longing for someone to care for him, to think that he was worth caring for…

Erik hesitated, but seemed to force himself to continue. "I showed an aptitude for design and engineering." She must have shown some surprise at that, for he quickly explained further. "I had little formal education in my earliest years, but I was left alone frequently and I liked to tinker. Take things apart and learn how they functioned. When at last I was given the means to learn properly, I proved… more than adept."

He was being modest, his eyes saying more than he managed to convey with his words. There was a spark of genuine enthusiasm when he mentioned his intelligence, and the magnitude of the situation was not lost upon her.

"What did he want you to do?"

Erik was silent for a moment, yet Christine could not bring herself to prompt him to speak, nor coax him with more of her touches. After he had broken their kiss, he had slid a little away from her, and she could not seem to bridge the gap. Not when her thoughts were all a jumble.

But at last, he spoke again. "It was one thing to kill. To use my creativity as a means to make it appear accidental, to protect myself from investigation. But as things progressed, the Shah became more... bloodthirsty. He wanted my ingenuity to be used to inflict more pain, more torment before my victims passed. He had commissioned a torture chamber. Something to impress his new mistress, I believe. I even began drawing up the plans. But discussing it with them, seeing the malevolent gleam in their eyes when I told them of what exposure would do to the human body..."

It was getting to be too much. When he had said there were things to speak of, she had never imagined this. But to run from the room, to hide away until she could gather her thoughts—it would hurt him. And even now, she did not want to do that.

"So you refused?"

"In a way. I delayed the project as much as I could, but the Shah grew frustrated by the delay. Evidently his mistress had a few schoolmates she was looking forward to taking revenge from, and I was postponing her gratification." His tone suggested his contempt for the woman and her lover, and for that at least she was grateful.

It meant her Erik was not totally depraved. Yet she knew that already, didn't she? Not when his treatment of her was so careful and gentle, as if he was afraid that he might hurt her simply by being near.

"How did you finally get away then?"

Erik's hand moved a little closer to her on the couch, as if silently seeking approval for being there. He was a gentleman in all things, even now.

She took his hand in hers, looking at it closely.

He didn't wear his gloves all the time now. At the moment, his skin was bare, and although it was particularly long-fingered—too thin as was all of him—it seemed perfectly ordinary. Nothing suggested that it was an instrument of murder, that it had been manipulated and abused into acquiescing to a sadist's demands.

For there was nothing else that he could have been. Not if the thought of torturing an innocent person filled him with such delights.

"The Daroga," Erik began. She had not expected that. Not at all. He quickly corrected himself, however, though she remembered how he liked to refer to the man in charge of her case.

"Detective Nadir had business with the Shah and... found me. The luxuries I had become accustomed to had been stripped away, though he promised to return them when the chamber was complete. I found that I rather liked the dark of the basement. It was dreary of course, and cold, and he typically kept the door locked unless I was overseeing the work, but few people bothered me there. The solitude was welcome since I had become disillusioned to the nature of the Shah and his men. They were no different from my captors in the fair. I did not matter as a person, as a man. It was only my performance that they sought to extract from me."

She gave his hand a little squeeze, her thoughts even more disordered. "So Detective Nadir... he had business there? Like... police business?"

Erik smiled wryly. "No, sweet Christine. At the time he was not so reputable as he claims to be now. He was paid to ensure that, should any of the Shah's men be arrested, there was a friend to them in the department."

Christine sank back against the couch cushions. "But he got you out? And you... you didn't kill people anymore?"

She prayed that he confirmed that. She needed to know that the man she had come to love had not continued when at last he was free.

For no matter what he said, she knew that this Shah had taken great care to groom Erik into what he had become. And her poor, unhappy Erik had been willing to do a great deal just so one person would approve of him.

And even through it all, her heart ached for him.

Though it sank at his brief hesitation. "There was... one man. He was under the Shah's employ and discovered where I lived. He threatened to reveal my new identity, my new dwelling if I did not pay him an exorbitant amount. I did not... respond well. He had other faults," he hastened to assure her. "The dancers were a little afraid of him. He was always too friendly, too quick to touch. One girl was even gathering her courage to report him to the managers after a particularly nasty incident."

He was looking at her strangely. Almost meaningfully. As if there was more to what he was saying than was within his words alone. She tried to steady her thoughts enough to catch the implication of his words, but everything flitted and whirled too quickly in her mind to think through anything properly.

Until with startling clarity, she suddenly knew.

And all she could do was stare at him, with not the slightest idea of what to say.

Erik knew the moment she finally understood what he was saying. That the man she had known, the Phantom she had feared and the man who loved her so completely were one and the same. Her eyes widened and her hand grew rigid around his, and this time he was the one to bring his other to coax and soothe, even as he told himself he should release her completely. If ever there was a reason, now would be the time for her to run from him.

He wished he could take it all back. Every bit of it. He would have allowed the Shah's minions to release him from his cage and he would have run. He would have created a life of his own somehow. He could barely read at that point, but he was clever and he would have found a way.

But the promises he'd been made, the life the Shah presented to him...

All of it meant nothing, had meant nothing, especially when he now faced the possibility of losing Christine entirely.

She took a shuddering breath and looked at him, her eyes searching his for what, he did not know. But he hoped she could see that he loved her. For that was what mattered most.

He had not loved, before her. Not truly. In the beginning, he had loved the woman who had birthed him. Erik had tried to beg for her to do the same, promising to be good and anything at all that she could want, if only she would bestow some measure of affection.

She had not.

The Shah had been much the same, though he had not realized it at the time. His years with the fair had made him wary and cautious, but still the man had managed to make his approval matter to Erik, only for that to prove the most disastrous for the state of Erik's soul.

Until, when Nadir had come and offered to help him, Erik had accepted most readily. But he did not make the mistake of trusting his would-be rescuer again. Not when that had been such a mistake—one that still filled him with regret. They were not friends.

But Christine was.

Or had been.

He did not know what she would allow them to be now.

"Were you ever going to hurt me?"

She said it so quietly, he almost thought she had not meant for him to hear.

But he did.

And that he could answer most sincerely.

"Never."

She lost some of the tension in her shoulders. "And you're sorry? Truly sorry for everything?"

For everything?

He had done well at justifying it over the years. It made it all more bearable when the guilt and knowledge of the severity of his monstrosity threatened to overwhelm him. But even he knew that an action only had to be justified to oneself if a conscience deemed it to be wrong.

"I am."

Christine nodded, still looking a little distant as she stood. He followed suit, leery and unsure of what she intended to do now. He would not even be surprised if she slipped into her room and began to pack, demanding that he return her home.

But instead she hugged him close, her head resting against his chest that he was becoming to view as her spot. It felt so right for her to settle there.

Only, he hoped this was not her way of saying goodbye.

He held her all the closer at the thought, the uncertainty of what was to come.

For her to surprise him yet again.

"I'm going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?"

His dearest Christine.

Sooo... to those that question her sanity at this point, she's not... just okay with everything. She wants to re-centre and what better way to do that than tea? Speaking of which... I think I could use another cup...