Chapter 38 — A Delicate Condition

Erik went into the week of Christine's faked "indisposition" feeling more confident than ever before, so it came as quite a surprise to him when he woke up on the second day in a crippling panic.

The vicomte's customary letter informing him of yet another failed month had been exceptionally curt. At first Erik had shrugged it off, but during the few brief hours he'd slept, the clipped, resentful words must have snaked their way into his brain. By morning—he assumed it was morning, anyway—dread coiled in his stomach and slithered through his veins.

Just how resentful was the vicomte? Resentful enough to decide that, with only two months left to go in the initial agreement, it was time to cut his losses and give up now?

No, no. Such good sense was not in character.

But…what if Christine could no longer hide her illness? And what if that led the boy to discover that she had lied about having gotten her monthly? And then, what if Christine, so unaccustomed to the practice of artful prevarication, immediately confessed everything?

Erik already knew the answer: She'd be taken away without so much as a goodbye. And Erik wouldn't have a clue, not until he'd wasted however many days waiting around for her like a fool, the devastation coming upon him gradually, like some sad sack sitting alone at a restaurant until past closing, holding out hope for a date who would never show. And by then there would be only so many options available to him to set things right, and that meant he would—

Well. Erik didn't want to think about what he might do in that case.

He did try his best to let it go, attempting to distract himself with every one of his usual methods—and some a little…less usual. Or at least they had been, in recent years. Nothing worked. Even that which had always brought him comfort in the past felt more hollow and lifeless than ever, now that he had experienced the incomparable joy that was Christine. It soon became clear; if he didn't do something, it would be all too easy to slip into madness.

So obviously he had no choice but to keep an eye on things himself.

Staking out the de Chagny townhouse was almost too easy, thanks to an unoccupied attic room in the place across the street. He set himself up with some bread and cheese and wine, an old threadbare bedroll which ended up going unused, and a stack of blank paper, to help pass the time.

Erik was very well behaved, all things considered. He didn't intercept their mail. He hadn't even considered bringing his lockpicking gear. He didn't scale their building in the deepest dark of night to peek into the windows, not even when his Christine was sure to have been sleeping inside, allowing him a glimpse of her sweet, unguarded face. And he didn't rifle through their trash to find a worn-out stocking or empty perfume bottle.

The stocking and bottle were right on top; no rifling necessary.

Mostly he just watched, and waited, sitting on the bare wood floor of the unheated attic until his legs grew stiff and aching and his fingers had gone numb inside his leather gloves. In the end, judging from the thirty-seven times Erik managed to lay eyes on Christine—twice when the couple left to go to dinner, once when stepping out for a stroll, and the remaining thirty-four times as a quick glimpse through a gap in the curtains—nothing seemed to be amiss.

On the fourth day of the vigil, the vicomte left the house alone, tucking a letter into his overcoat pocket before taking off in a carriage in the direction of the opera house. Erik could at last breathe a sigh of relief.

All was well.

…

The only problem with spending most of the week squatting in an attic was that Erik was left with less time than ever to prepare for Christine's return. Faced with the choice between using what time he had to make his home presentable, or himself, the choice was clear.

Still, Erik did his best to see to the parlor and the music room, kicking stray papers under the furniture and hiding the majority of the empty bottles, so Christine couldn't count exactly how many there had been. It wasn't perfect, but at least no one could say the same about him; his shirt was starched and spotless white, each crease of his suit pressed to a knife's edge, mask and wig both sleek and lustrous, and securely in place. Erik may have felt a hair's breadth from complete mental and physical collapse, but at least he wouldn't look the part.

Or so he'd thought.

A frown appeared on Christine's face the moment they stepped into the light of his parlor.

"Are you well, Erik?" she asked. "You look…tired."

"I'm fine, Christine," he replied, perhaps a touch more snappishly than he'd intended. "I've had a very busy week, that's all." And then to prove just how fine he was, Erik went about putting away their things, bustling around the room with twice his usual speed and vigor.

Once finished, he joined her where she stood by the fire. "Straight off to the music room, yes?" he asked, though he'd no intention of waiting for an answer. He extended a hand to lead her away.

But Christine only continued to frown at him.

Erik cleared his throat and twitched his fingers impatiently.

"No, Erik. I think…maybe…" She spoke in a careful tone not unlike what one might use to reason with a person who had one leg over the railing of the Pont Neuf, dangling high above the Seine—which seemed a bit excessive, really. "Maybe we ought to take the night off from music. It's been a long week apart, wouldn't it be nice to just…be together for a bit? Without the pressure of the audition and all of that?"

"Yes, that would be nice. But the issue, Christine," Erik smiled patiently, "is that you must get that part. You must. And since you insist that we not go about it my way, then I can't allow you to miss one of the very few lessons you have left. Surely you can see the sense in that?"

Christine pressed her lips into a thin line. She gathered the front of her skirt into her fists, raising the hem clear of her feet, and took a step forward. "I'm not singing tonight, Erik," she said. And then she swished out of the room and down the hall before he could do a thing about it.

When she reached the bedroom, she flung open the door—and stopped short.

"Oh," she said.

And Erik knew exactly why.

It seemed obvious now that remembering to clean up the bedroom should have been foremost in his mind, but he'd been so distracted by everything else that it hadn't even registered. And now, standing behind Christine, looking over her shoulder, seeing it from her perspective…

Well, it didn't do much to support his claim that he was, in fact, fine.

Loose papers covered the unmade bed and spilled onto the floor, where they lay in drifts around stumps of broken charcoal and empty wine glasses, stained translucent red. The room was thick with the scent of ink and sweat and dust. Which was no surprise, given the number of uncapped bottles of ink, the small pile of carelessly shed clothing, and the graying sheet, heavy with dust, draped over a bedpost. Yet there was one mercy, and not a small one: the gas lamps were not lit. The light washing in from the hallway could not be enough for Christine to make out the entirety of the room, yet Erik's eyes darted to the corner, just to be sure, and he allowed himself a moment of relief when he found it deeply shadowed.

A very brief moment.

"I, ah, I apologize, Christine, I do plan to clean up, but I was really quite busy this week," Erik said, grabbing for the door handle, "and I didn't expect that we would—"

But Christine had already slipped under his arm and into the room. She gathered up a handful of paper from the floor and moved into the wedge of light cast from the hall, squinting down at the sheet on top.

"Is that…" Her brow furrowed, and Erik's stomach clenched. "Is that my nose?"

"Is it?" Erik replied quickly, in a pitch startlingly higher than his usual. He snatched the drawing from Christine's hand. Sweat formed at the base of his neck as he pretended to consider it. "You know, I really couldn't say! I've been doing, ah, some simple anatomy sketches to warm up, just, just from memory. I suppose it makes sense I would naturally recreate yours here on the page. So perhaps it is! But I assure you I've drawn lots of noses—all different!"

And that was true, but only if one were counting back many years, and not constraining the sample size to this current batch, though there was no reason she need know that.

"See? It's nothing. Just trash, really," Erik said, making a show of crumpling it in his hands.

He was so preoccupied with trying to ball up the paper in such a way that he could smooth it out later, with no damage done to the drawing…to preserve the delicate slope of her nose, the fine nostrils, the little wrinkle at the bridge which appeared when she smiled…that he hadn't noticed Christine had stopped listening. Instead, her eyes were raking over the newly uncovered paper she gripped in her hands.

Erik's stomach twisted as he contemplated what else she might have found, and so, when he leaned over to take a peek and saw that it was only a heavily notated draft of the music he'd been working on—his magnum opus, the distillation of his love and passion into a single piece of music, the most beautiful thing he'd ever written or would ever write—it was a relief.

Or, it should have been a relief.

"What is this?" Christine looked up at Erik with an opaque expression on her face. "You wrote this?"

"Well…yes," Erik said proudly, though for some reason his palms felt damp. "It was inspired by you, actually. It's, ah, for you."

"Oh." Christine's eyes drifted back down to the paper. She was silent for a moment, then swallowed hard. "Erik, this is… It's..."

"You like it?" His heart was thudding so hard inside his chest he could scarcely draw breath. This was it. He hadn't expected this moment to come like this—he'd planned to wait until after her premiere as Lucia, once he'd done several more rounds of revisions, once it was perfect, and then perform it for her in a room overflowing with candles and flowers with a conveniently placed bed, so they might follow it up with some celebratory coupling—but the moment was here all the same.

In her hand she held a fragment of his heart. Of his soul. Of his immense and unending love for her. A plea for her to stay and love him, written there in red ink which might as well have been his heart's blood. An appeal for her to see and understand and feel, in a way that words could never convey.

So why did she look…like that?

"This is…chaos, Erik," Christine said quietly. "I can't understand this at all, it's—it's a mess. It's…" She swallowed.

Erik blinked down at her. No, no, that couldn't be right. Perhaps it wasn't the piece he'd thought it was. Perhaps he'd made a mistake—which made sense, he'd only glanced at an upside-down paper, after all!—and it would turn out it was actually some random nonsense he'd scribbled down while he was two bottles deep, killing time up in that attic. He almost laughed as he swiped the remaining sheets from her hands.

It took a second for the notes on the staves to come into focus enough for Erik to read them, but there they were, just as they were meant to be. So then…

What on earth was Christine talking about?

It was a bit of a rough draft, certainly, but it was hardly a—a mess! No, she was the one who was mistaken! The real issue was that she simply couldn't appreciate the piece in written form. It was quite an advanced piece, and Erik was always chiding her for her lackluster sight-reading skills, was he not? And besides, it wasn't exactly fair for her to be making a judgment on one single uncompleted page.

"Well it's not finished!" he said, clutching the sheet to his chest. "Obviously, this is an early draft, and only part of it. The entire thing, when ready, will be…astounding! A—a revelation, I guarantee!"

"Yes, I'm sure it will," Christine said softly. With the toe of her shoe, she pushed aside more papers, and started to pick her way through the room, frowning and twisting her fingers around each other. "Can I help you clean up a little? And after, we can rest? And talk..."

Erik waved her away to do whatever it was she wanted to do as he stared down at the notes on the page, willing his eyes to see what she'd seen, unable to understand how she hadn't seen what he could see so very clearly. He blinked and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, but nothing changed.

At the edge of his vision, Erik noted vaguely that Christine had finished scooping up another stack of papers and was making her way to the dresser to deposit them on top. He was so dazed that it wasn't until she reached for the matches to light the oil lamp that he came back to himself with a jolt of panic.

"Wait, Christine!" he tried to warn her. "Leave it—"

But it was too late. Christine had lit the lamp and then stooped to gather more papers, and the golden light illuminated the shadowy corners of the room—all of them, even that one, which Christine now stood and turned inexorably towards while Erik calculated the relative danger of smashing an oil lamp in a room filled with paper and cloth.

Christine dropped the papers with a gasp.

"You still have the mannequin?"

Well. What could Erik say?

Clearly he did.

Christine's double sat slumped on a chair, its scuffed porcelain and rusting metal polished up till it looked almost as it had all those years ago, its hair neatened and styled (and almost as soft as the real thing.) Its arms hung askew, and its legs, thank god, were extended and crossed at the ankle, ladylike. Not that there was anything to— It was an empty cage, for God's sake!

Erik cleared his throat. "Well, I couldn't very well throw it out, could I?"

They both stared at the thing in silence for several long moments as the unblinking blue eyes stared back.

"But why is it…" Christine said, still looking at the doll, clearly unable to look at him, "in here?"

"It's, ah…"

What answer could Erik give that wouldn't be far too easy for Christine to take the wrong way?

How could she understand that there wasn't anything—anything untoward about it? It was only that, well, it had been so difficult with her gone, and he'd been so worried she might never come back, and so it had seemed the lesser of two evils…except he had eventually gone with the greater evil of seeking Christine out, too, but that was something she absolutely could not know about, so that explanation was off the table.

If he told her all he'd needed was for her—it—an image of her, really, a keepsake, little more than a photograph!—to be with him in her absence, to keep him grounded, would she believe him? If he tried to explain how untethered he felt without her in his arms, how he found he was able to sleep best when he had her—no, it—nearby, would she assume that meant he'd taken it into the bed with him? Would she understand that if he might have done such a thing, once, in a particular moment of weakness, that taking it into the bed didn't mean that—that… It was for comfort!

No, she wouldn't. Because she would never—could never—understand how lonely it was, spending every night by himself, or how much comfort there was to be found in having a hand—even one hard and cold and unmoving—to hold in his own.

So instead he said, "It's just that I was clearing some things out, and I stumbled upon it and I thought that, well, it might be nice to use as a drawing model, since I've been trying to get back into that, ah, obviously…" He took a few tentative steps, sketches of Christine's hands and ears and feet and the whole of her face, from every angle, crunching beneath his feet. "There's nothing untoward about it, Christine, there's nothing obscene here at all." And that was the truth, too! All of the obscene drawings had been tucked safely away in another room.

Christine dropped onto the edge of the bed, as limp and crumpled as the doll just opposite her. She let the papers slide to the floor and put her face in her hands.

"I'm worried, Erik. This is not…" She paused to take in a deep breath. "What we've been doing…this…whatever it is—it's not sustainable. Not for you, or for me. It's becoming…a madness."

Erik froze. "You're saying you're through with me?"

"No!" She whipped around to look at him, and her expression was clearly sincere—but her eyes were red and watery, and so very tired. "That's not what I'm saying at all. I don't want to—I can't be without you again, not like before. But look at all this…"

"I said I'd clean it up, Christine," Erik replied, wincing inwardly at the petulance in his voice. He whipped the cloth from the bedpost and tossed it over the mannequin, leaving a thick cloud of dust hanging in the air, and kicked more papers under the bed. "See? It's not a problem, I'm fine, everything's fine."

"No, you're not. And neither am I." She was shaking her head sadly—sadly! "We are not…living in reality down here. I get so lost in the music and the, the… When we…" Her face flushed as she tried to give him a meaningful look. "I find I—I don't always think straight, and you… Well." She glanced around the room, and gave a pained sigh. "Something needs to change."

Erik clenched his teeth to keep from replying with the words which burned on the tip of his tongue.

Yes, something did need to change, and Erik knew just what: that worthless prick of a 'husband' needed to be out of the picture, for good. One week with him, and look!

Christine couldn't think straight down here? It was up there that was the problem! Up with her little vicomte, she forgot her passions and her priorities, and let herself be swayed by pretty, vapid words coming from a pretty, vapid face. Just one week away from her Angel, and she'd already forgotten all their plans and dreams, had let their future disappear under a few papers and a piece of forgotten, irrelevant history that he hadn't behaved inappropriately with!

"And it will change!" Erik said, swallowing all those thoughts down. "Once you get the part—"

"The part!" Christine threw up her hands. "We need to face reality! That part is not happening for me, not anymore."

"What?" he scoffed. "Of course it is, what kind of nonsense is—"

"There's a child to think of now, Erik," Christine said firmly, and she brought her hands to her lap, to cradle her belly.

Erik was silent for a moment, his unblinking eyes fixed on those hands, that belly—and the tender, wistful way she gazed at both. A sharp, sour taste filled his mouth. He looked away.

"Perhaps," he said, with a dismissive shrug. "Perhaps not."

Christine's head snapped up. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Perhaps there will be a child, perhaps there won't. Who can say."

"How could you say that, Erik!"

"It's simply the truth, Christine," he said, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. He hadn't meant it unkindly, but the hurt in her eyes only continued to grow deeper. "Anything could happen. Not every pregnancy ends with a child. Or…perhaps there will be a child in the end—just not one worth sparing a thought for."

"I— I don't understand…" Christine stammered, but Erik thought she understood quite well. She just didn't want to.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a matter of what she did or didn't want.

"It's obvious, really." Erik paused, taking a moment to brush the lingering dust from his sleeves and straighten his lapels. "Why change all of your plans and reroute your entire life for a potential child, when it might very well look like…" He gestured at his mask, and the horror they both knew lay beneath it, but still, Christine looked confused. He sighed. "What will happen if the child is born wrong, like I was?"

Christine's mouth dropped open.

"See? You haven't really thought about it, have you?"

In fairness, Erik hadn't really thought about it himself. But then again, he didn't need to. Just because he refused to let his mind consider it consciously, that didn't mean the answer wasn't there within him—it had always been within him, baked into his bones, woven into the fabric of his soul, present in every thought and guiding every action.

"Well, Christine," he folded his arms over his chest, "I can tell you exactly what will happen: you'll tie a mask onto its face and send it up to the attic, pay some poor nanny triple her salary to keep her mouth shut, and then you'll try your best to get on with your life and pretend the whole thing never happened. So, you see, at least if you have a career waiting for you, you'll still have something worthwhile in your life to occupy yourself with."

And also, it went without saying, she'd have some reason not to hate him, as she would surely hate him if he cursed her with a duplicate of himself, a burden to carry for the rest of her life, without also providing her with what good he could offer, to balance the scale. Surely she could understand that.

Yet Christine was staring up at him with unfettered horror. "You can't think I would do that—you can't think I would feel that way! I could never— I will love this child no matter what. Do you not believe that?"

Erik laughed—he hadn't meant for it to come out so bitter, but what else could it be?

Poor, sweet, innocent Christine. She simply couldn't understand, could she? Even now, as her little hands caressed her belly with protective strokes, could she truly imagine that anything other than a perfect, rosy-cheeked babe might be growing within her? Of course not!

No one ever does, do they?

"Oh, Christine," Erik said, as his face—both the acceptable side and the side which remained hidden beneath the mask, the part that no one, not even Erik himself, wanted to see—creased in an expression of patient forbearance. "Do you think Erik's own mother didn't stroke her belly while whispering sweet words, promising her baby the world? It's easy to believe in unconditional love—until you're faced with the reality of this!" With a sharp, hollow sound, he tapped his fingers on the cold porcelain. "Don't say what you would never do, Christine! You simply can't imagine."

"But—"

Erik held up a hand. "I'm only trying to help you! To prepare you for the worst. Focus on the music. Forget the child. Don't fool yourself that you will love it, 'no matter what.' If it's born like this, no one will want a thing to do with it—especially not its poor, devastated mother! At least—"

Erik stopped abruptly as he felt his lips—his disgusting, repulsive lips—begin to tremble; he pressed them tight and turned away, only to find himself facing the dresser, its cloth-covered mirror like a stab to his already aching chest. He averted his eyes and began gathering up the piled papers, tapping them into neat stacks, and swallowed, hard, to loosen his tightening throat.

"Ah—at least give it the kindness of that honesty from the start. It would be cruel, actually, to hang all your hopes and dreams on motherhood. Do you understand? Don't start dreaming of walks with the pram, don't start planning the rounds of social visits, don't start thinking up names you'll never find it worthy of receiving. Don't—" his voice cracked, but he pushed on, though the words came out as rough and frayed as the mangled paper clutched in his fists "—don't lay your expectations of a perfect family on it, and then force it to bear the burden of your disappointment. And resentment. And—and disgust. Take my advice, Christine: write the whole thing off as a terrible mistake right now, and accept it as a loss. Don't you know that you can't be disappointed if you expect nothing but the worst!"

He shoved the papers away and pressed his palms flat on the cool marble top, bracing himself against it, hardening his shoulders, drawing in a ragged breath. The sting of tears pricked at his eyes, but Erik would not let them come.

This—this was exactly what he should have told her—told himself, actually—all those months ago, when she'd sat next to him on his sofa and told him that she did in fact want his 'help' with this insane plan of her husband's, instead of allowing the both of them to quickly brush off the one and only question that deserved consideration. But no, he was selfish, and stupid, and unable to see past his own frustrated lust and desperate need for her. Not then, and not in the months that followed, when he tempted fate again and again and…well, it hadn't been tempting fate so much as sending it an engraved invitation. And now, though he had done everything in his power to avoid facing it, the truth was that Erik had possibly done the most unforgivable thing he had ever done: bring into the world an innocent child who would suffer as he had suffered. A child cursed to live out the same miserable existence that Erik himself had only just begun to claw his way out with the help of Christine. And it was all his own fault! There would be no way to live with the guilt and the shame, and—

Erik went rigid as Christine's gentle, yet firm touch fell upon his back; he

sucked in a sharp breath as her arms slipped around his torso.

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry, Erik…" she said through tears, and at once he recoiled from her touch, his spine hardening and lengthening, drawing him up, tall and unyielding. And yet, she didn't let go. "I—I should have thought more about how this might affect you. The pain that you must carry, I never—" She swallowed a sob, and her arms tightened around his chest, her cheek pressed to the strained muscle of his back. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. "

Erik only drew further into himself with each repetition of that unnecessary apology.

No, no—he didn't want her apologies; he didn't want her tears! She'd shed far too many over him, and because of him. How had he managed to make her cry once again? He hadn't wanted to hurt her with any of this—if anything, he wanted to hurt himself, an overdue punishment for his stupidity and selfishness—he'd only needed her to understand. To get some perspective and ensure her priorities were firmly in place.

But now, with her tears hot against his back and her arms holding him tight, as though she meant to comfort him, to make things better for him somehow—as though he was the one who needed be comforted when confronted with these truths, as if there was any possibility that what was broken and unfixable and far in the past could be in any way made better—an oppressive, prickly feeling began to work its way through him, gritting his teeth and curling his hands into fists.

"It's fine, Christine, it's fine," Erik said, freeing himself from her arms and taking her by the hand. "Let's just…forget it for now, yes? Here, come sit, I've missed you more than you—"

Well, no, perhaps not more than she could imagine, given the sculpted foot still peeking from beneath a sheet.

"That is, I've missed you, so let's just—let's just… Ah, here. You wanted to rest, let's rest." As if in a daze, Christine let Erik lead her back to the bed, and help her up onto the edge. Erik waited as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took a few deep, shaky breaths, and then he slid to the floor on his knees before her. He let his head fall heavily into her lap, the silk soft and soothing against his bare cheek, inhaling her warmth and her scent, and exhaling everything within him he wanted to forget, everything he didn't want to feel, until at last he began to feel blissfully empty and calm.

"Erik…?" Christine ventured, after a minute or two of peaceful silence. From her cautious tone, Erik could tell that the direction she planned to take whatever conversation was about to follow was not anywhere he wanted to go. Not right now, likely not ever.

"Please, Christine." Erik lifted his head and sat back on his heels. Pushing aside her skirts and petticoats, he took up one of her little feet in his hands. "There's nothing more to say." He slipped her shoe from her foot and put it aside, bringing his lips to her stockinged toes in a light kiss before moving on immediately to the next foot.

No, Erik didn't want to say another thing. Or, not anything of any coherence, anyway; long, rolling repetitions of Christine's name and the occasional "oh god, yes, right there" would be just fine. Because Erik wanted to be many things to Christine, but the very last thing he wanted to be was pitiful. He'd been clear, time and again: he didn't want her pity, he wanted her—her love, her life, her soul.

But if he couldn't manage those, not just yet, at least he could have her desire.

Christine sighed as Erik ran his hands up under her skirts, his fingers searching for the ribbon ties at the top of her stockings, but the sound of that sigh spoke far more of pained resignation than desire. Yet it only made him more focused on his goal. He'd let himself slip too far into shameful vulnerability, and exposed the broken parts of himself he'd worked so hard for so long to keep concealed. The only thing to do now was to bury his face between her legs so she wouldn't be able to see that awful face, wouldn't be reminded of the awful possibility it forewarned. On his knees, he could obliterate the last half hour from her memory with the pleasure only he could give her, and remind her that he still had some good to offer.

But as he worked his way through her hosiery, discarding garters and moving on to stockings, Christine kept repeating his name, in an increasingly insistent tone.

"Yes, Christine?" he sighed as he finished rolling the second stocking down her leg, letting his fingers drift along the newly bared skin of her ankle. When at last he raised his eyes to her face, he found her watching him very closely, yet tenderly, her mouth set in an expression he couldn't name.

Then, slowly, she leaned down, and with a gentle hand—an almost unbearably gentle hand—she touched him, stroking his neck, his cheek, his jaw, every bit of uncovered skin she could reach.

Despite himself, Erik felt himself melt into her touch. He let his eyes drift shut.

And then he heard her pull in a breath.

"Let me see you," Christine whispered, bringing her fingers carefully, questioningly to the edge of his mask.

Erik's blood turned to ice.

"No!" he gasped, grasping her by the wrist. "No." Immediately, he was on his feet, pressing the mask into place, making certain it hadn't become the least bit dislodged, smoothing and straightening his fine clothing and false hair. His pulse thudded in his ears. "Do not pity me, Christine," he hissed.

"It's not that!" she insisted, reaching for him with arms open—but trembling. "I want to see you."

Erik laughed, acid-sharp. How could she possibly think he would fall for such a blatant lie! The only reason they were in this situation at all was because she hadn't seen him.

Yes, she had seen him before, and at his very worst, no less. But accepting him wasn't the same as wanting him. A compassionate kiss given out of duress was one thing, but the rest…begging for his touch, inviting him inside her, gazing at him longingly while sighing his name? No. No. She would never.

If the mask came off and he let himself be reduced to the old, ugly, weeping mess of a man she had left him as all those years ago, she couldn't possibly desire him.

She could not want him.

"You know what I look like," he bit out, turning his back to her. "We both know you don't want to see that again."

"No, Erik, I—"

"I'm sorry I said anything," he said over her, hardening his voice just enough to make it clear that it was time to put an end to this whole ridiculous matter. "You needn't worry. I'm certain your vicomte will get his perfect child, just like he's gotten everything else he's ever wanted. Forget it. Forget all of it." He marched off toward the door. "Now, come, enough of this. The audition is only days away, and we've wasted enough time."

He reached for the doorknob, but Christine was by his side and tugging him by the arm, pulling him back toward the bed. "I don't care about the audition right now, Erik, I don't care about any of it. It doesn't matter. And I won't ask you about the mask again, I promise. I just want to spend this time together, please. Please."

"You're wrong, Christine—nothing matters more than that role." He wrenched his arm away and pulled it tight against his chest. "What was the point of any of this if you don't get back onto the stage? Why spend all that time on your voice only to waste it!"

Christine was silent for a moment. "Was that time a waste to you?"

Erik couldn't help but scowl. What kind of question was that? Of course it wasn't. It had been everything to him.

But…the fact remained that if Christine gave up on music to focus on a child, as she'd said she ought to…then what use would Erik be to her? She would have her child, and her husband—her little family. And Erik, what would he have? The same as he'd had for almost his entire life…

Nothing.

Nothing and no one.

The tears began to fill his eyes before he could stop them; he blinked them away, hoping she hadn't seen.

"You know it wasn't a waste, Christine," he said quietly.

Again Christine watched him silently for a moment, and then her shoulders sagged. She pressed her fingertips to her eyes and sighed. "I'll do the audition, Erik. But—we rest today. Please."

It wasn't ideal, missing a day of practice, but…if it meant she would agree to sing and forget about the child, it could be worth it. And wasn't the point of it all that the gratitude of her inevitable triumph would lead them into each other's arms? Well, her arms were open to him, right here, right now...

And he really was tired. So tired. The frenzied activity of the last week—the watching, the drawings, the music, the mannequin—coupled with the…difficult evening they'd just experienced, had slowly drained him, bit by bit. All at once it felt as if lead weights were tied to each of his limbs, and it was a struggle to stay upright.

Perhaps…

Perhaps a little rest might not be a bad thing, actually.

So Erik hesitated only briefly before saying, "Very well, then. I accept your terms."

He let her lead him to the bed, and to her credit, she only rolled her eyes a little at his stiff formality.

Once he'd helped her climb up and get herself arranged in a comfortable position, reclining against the pillows, he took off his jacket and shoes and unknotted his cravat, and then allowed himself to be guided to lie beside her extended legs, with his hand curled around her hip, and his head resting on her lap—mask side down, this time. Christine hummed a soft, unfamiliar song as her hand stroked his back gently—and chastely, without the suggestion of anything more, to what ought to have been Erik's disappointment, yet…wasn't. For while he hadn't wanted to be coddled and comforted by her, Erik had to admit that to simply be held like this was, well, quite comforting. His heart began to slow, until it kept time with her deep, even breaths. And eventually, though he did try to fight it—though perhaps not with as much effort as he could have—he allowed himself to lower his guard enough to close his eyes. Just for a minute.

Perhaps two.

"It will have to be a double lesson next time, you realize," he mumbled, as he felt himself start to drift off.

"Just hush," Christine said, and for the first time that night, she laughed.

…

The next thing Erik knew, Christine was gently waking him, telling him it was almost time to go.

He blinked and stretched and blinked again, this time in bemused wonder. Never had he put himself in such an unguarded, intimate situation as sleeping—just sleeping—with another person. Not that he'd had the opportunity, of course. Erik would have assumed that he'd have woken feeling panicked, or suspicious, or at the very least, embarrassed. And yet, already he felt better and more clear-headed than he had in… More than any other time in memory, actually.

Almost time to go meant that there was no hurry to get up, not just yet, which was a very fortunate thing, because when Erik sat up and pulled Christine to him in a grateful embrace, she was so warm and soft, and she fit so well into his arms that Erik simply couldn't let her go. Which, even more fortunately, didn't seem to be a problem for Christine. She sighed with contentment and snuggled in close—and then closer—and then closer again—until she'd managed to wriggle herself right onto Erik's lap.

At once his hands were on her waist and her lips were on his throat, dragging over his quickening pulse, moaning her hunger as he grew hard beneath her. There was no time for preamble, just the frenzied adjusting of her skirts and undoing of his trousers—and then the near undoing of Erik himself as she took him in her hand.

For Erik to show vulnerability, to be so blatant about his pathetic need for intimacy and acceptance would mean the death of Christine's desire for him—or so he'd always believed, with a certainty almost as old as he was. Yet wasn't the hand that had stroked his face and tried to lift his mask the very same which now stroked him to full hardness with eager abandon?

When Christine clutched Erik's shoulders and sunk down onto him—taking him inside herself until she'd taken every bit of him there was to take—there was certainly nothing of pity in the way she gasped his name. And while the mask still covered the worst of his face, Erik had to admit that the way her burning gaze lingered on his slack, panting lips while she rocked herself in his lap, deeper and deeper, silently spoke of much more than mere acceptance.

Erik pressed Christine to him, burying what he could of his face against her breast, wishing he was brave enough that it could be more than only half, yearning for nothing left between them—yet feeling for the first time that that day could come. "I'm sorry, Angel," he murmured against her skin. "You're right, I do need to change. I want to be better, for you." And when he chanced a glance up at her and saw her smiling down at him with— No, it was nothing he would dare put a name to, but it made his heart swell all the same.

…

It still hurt to bring Christine back above, the pain in his chest sharp in new places now that he'd experienced yet another wonder he'd spent his life without. And yet he was filled with hope.

Once again, with a show of simple compassion and acceptance, and with no, not pity, but tenderness, Christine had shown him another way. Another man he could be. A man who wouldn't have to choose between acceptance and desire, but who could have both at once.

He would make himself worthy of that gift—if he could work out exactly how.

Much was still uncertain. How would Erik get Christine away from her husband if she was wavering on her commitment to the stage? And what was to be done about the fact that she was so stubbornly optimistic about her condition?

But at least he could start by cleaning up, eating an actual meal, taking a clear-eyed look at that piece of music he'd been working on, and perhaps throwing away that torn stocking and empty perfume bottle would be the right thing to do, a worthy man would not be spending his days with his nose stuck in a bottle he'd pulled from the trash, recapturing the scent of the woman he loved, imagining her there with him, getting drunk on the memory of the way the perfume would rise off her heated skin as he dragged his mouth between her heaving bre—

Then again, perhaps he shouldn't be too hasty about certain things.

At the gate, they kissed each other on the cheek and whispered their goodbyes, hands clasped for as long as possible, pulling apart slowly until only their fingertips remained, barely brushing, and there was nothing left but to let go. As Erik made the journey home alone, he did not cry, like usual. He smiled. It was always steps forward and steps back for the two of them, but this time…this time they'd gone so far forward that he could hardly remember what it was like behind them.

Their future, for the first time, seemed bright and limitless.

…

So naturally, it took only two days before it all went to shit.

It's all fun and games until your girlfriend finds your porn stash (drawings of her ankles) and that custom RealDoll she always hated, and next thing you know, you've unloaded all your childhood trauma on her smh

Up next: Everything going to shit couldn't possibly have anything to do with this next chapter featuring Raoul, could it? (It could.)

Thank you everyone for reading and for your encouragement and support! I'm really so grateful. And thanks again to Deb for your thoughts and tweaks, I appreciate it a lot.