A/N: In a few short days, I will have been writing this fic for 6 years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long. It always makes me chuckle when I the real seasons catch up to the current season in the story.

There's not much I can say about this chapter. Comments at the end. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Chapter 37

As the days grew shorter and the weather turned even colder, time seemed to speed up and before I knew it, December was half over. At work, the phone rang off the hook with people wanting to schedule appointments, which was strangely uncharacteristic this close to Christmas. But I wasn't complaining. The busier I was, the more excuses I had to avoid Jake.

He'd promised there wouldn't be any awkwardness between us, and maybe he was trying his best, but I sure as hell couldn't just pretend nothing had happened. The stupid muscle in my chest still skipped a beat each morning when he walked in and greeted us with that usual easy-going smile and those damnable good looks of his, and by the end of each day I wanted to yank it out and beat the ever-loving shit out of it until it was nothing but a squishy, bloody lump on the floor.

Every night, I kept my mind off Jake and my feelings hidden from Erik by plunging myself into work in my kitchen. It felt good to get back to some semblance of normal, and it had felt like forever since Erik and I had worked together side by side.

Maddie and Rochelle had also helped fill the empty spaces when I had nothing else to do. We'd met for coffee a few times after work and had gotten together the previous weekend to exchange presents before things got too hectic, what with Christmas right around the corner and Maddie's upcoming trip to the Rockies. It was all she talked about every time we got together. I couldn't fault her for being excited, but it was so fucking hard not to be envious of her and I could tell I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Although Rochelle quietly digested Maddie's excitement, I could see that it was wearing on her, too. It was hell being single during the holidays.

"If I have to hear about how her and Eddie are going to make love in front of a roaring fire during a blizzard one more time," she seethed on the phone late one night, "I think I'm going to strangle her with that new scarf you bought her for Christmas."

"Yeah," I chuckled, "and no one would blame you. It's so clichéd, anyway."

"Right?"

We both grew quiet, no doubt thinking how badly we wanted to experience something similar, clichéd or not. My eyes slid to my own fireplace, my imagination running rampant as my thoughts inevitably turned to Erik. Making love to Erik sounded phenomenal. He was so passionate about everything else he did that it was not hard to imagine how earth-shattering sex with him would be, but at this point I'd settle for some kissing and heavy petting. Or hell, even cuddling. I wasn't picky.

"Chris? You still there?"

"Yeah." I blinked, the mental images of our entwined bodies evaporating like so much smoke. "I was just thinking."

"Yeah. Me too."

Most of the time, Erik was entirely engrossed in his music. It made me laugh; I'd created a monster, for lack of a better term. By giving him the instrument I had single-handedly diverted his attention from everything else, including me. It made me wonder if he'd ignored Christine Daaé as thoroughly as he was now ignoring me.

It wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be, though. I'd noticed over the past couple of weeks was that he wasn't just playing. He was composing. And when I said "composing," I meant that he was actively jotting down notes in the book of blank music staves I'd given him rather than just making up songs on the fly like he usually did, only to let them disappear forever as soon as he was done. I really wished I could read music so I could understand what he was writing. It looked complicated, even to my uneducated eye, but I never heard him play it in its entirety. I'm sure I was just being dramatic, but it almost felt like he was guarding it, like he wished to keep it a secret, or save it only for himself. I couldn't fault him if it was personal, but I also couldn't help feeling that I was missing out on something wonderful.

"Are you two ready for Christmas?" Jake inquired conversationally, hiking his leg up to half-sit, half-lean on the counter in front of us. It was late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and work had pretty much ground to a halt. Jake's last appointment for the day had just canceled, and Alejandra and I were in the final stages of tidying up and getting ready to shut everything down the long break. Jake had graciously given us the stretch between Christmas and New Year's off, and I was more than ready for some downtime.

"Almost," Alejandra replied. "I need to swing by the store on my way home tonight to grab some last-minute stuff for breakfast tomorrow, but other than that I'm done. Every year my brothers and I spend the night at my parents' house and have Christmas morning with them."

"I love that. How many brothers do you have?"

"Three. Older brothers. I'm the youngest."

Jake nodded appreciatively and then angled his body toward me. "Christine? Do you have everything ready for the holidays?"

"Uh, I guess so," I shrugged. It was easy to be prepared when you didn't have anything going on. "What about you? Any plans?" I asked. I wondered if he'd be getting together with his family. I could just imagine how beautiful his parents' home would look all decorated for Christmas and how excited Tanner was for Santa to come. Unfortunately, I couldn't ask without outing myself to Alejandra and cluing her in that I knew our boss on a deeper, more intimate level.

"Yes, actually. I have a long-standing tradition of volunteering at the homeless shelter. You're both welcome to join us, if you have time. We could always use the extra hands to help serve Christmas dinner."

Something pinched inside my gut. Was he seriously that altruistic, or was this merely his passive-aggressive way to show me what I was missing out on? I half expected him to follow that up with a story of how he'd worked with Doctors Without Borders or some other equally philanthropical and self-sacrificing organization. It was so difficult to stick to my guns when he was—quite literally—the perfect guy. Of course, I immediately felt guilty after thinking that. Jake didn't have a mean or passive-aggressive bone in his body.

I made a noncommittal gesture of approval and dropped my eyes to my keyboard so he couldn't see my doubt and regret lingering behind my wall of feigned indifference.

Christmas morning arrived like a scene straight out of a storybook. I rose before dawn, unexpectedly filled with the same sort of excitement I used to feel when I was a little girl. With a knot of unexplainable anticipation building in the pit of my stomach, I went downstairs to turn on the lights on the tree and start the fire. Then, while a pot of coffee brewed in the kitchen, I returned to the front room and opened the blinds on the bay window behind the tree so that I could gaze out at the heavy snowflakes that were gently falling from the cloudy, ebony-colored sky.

Across the street, random windowpanes in all my neighbors' houses began to light up one at a time as the children who lived there were no doubt raising sleep-deprived parents and forcing them to go see what Santa had brought them overnight. I smiled. This had become one of my favorite parts of the holiday. It had been quite a while since I'd enjoyed a Christmas morning of my own, one full of family and presents and barely contained excitement and joy. Watching other families enjoy their own Christmas mornings—even if they were just fuzzy silhouettes through curtained windows—filled that void and brought a small measure of happiness to what could otherwise be a very depressing time of the year.

But this year was different. This time I wasn't alone. Erik was here with me. We might not be having the most traditional Christmas morning where we exchanged presents (thanks to me and my inability to wait to give him that piano) but his presence in the house was comforting nonetheless and filled me with a sense of peace and contentment that I hadn't felt in a really long time.

As if he could read my thoughts, Erik quietly sidled up next to me and handed me a mug filled to the brim with hot, steaming coffee. I stared at it as I took it from him, wrapping my hands around the warm porcelain. Maddie could brag about her week of passionate lovemaking all she wanted; I'd argue that this moment right here was just as, if not more intimate. I took a cautious sip, letting the heavenly-smelling liquid roll over my tongue, and my eyes involuntarily slid closed in delight.

"How did you…?"

"Come now," he replied softly, clicking his tongue. "I've watched you make it how many times? Surely, I am capable of measuring the correct amounts of cream and sugar."

"Mm-hmm," I hummed. "This is perfect."

"I aim to please."

I hid the warm blush that crept up the column of my neck and settled into my cheeks by taking another sip of coffee, forever grateful that it was still too dark for him to notice how red I was turning.

We stood like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder as we stared out the window, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

"It's been a long time since I've allowed myself to simply stop and take in all the beauty this world has to offer," he finally said after a few minutes. "I often forget that God is perhaps the greatest architect and magician of them all."

Outside, the snow continued to tumble down lazily, slowly adding to drifts and banks that were already nearing three feet deep. A few of my neighbors had chosen to leave their exterior Christmas lights on overnight, and the muted red, green, and blue lights cast a myriad of colors that glowed brightly against the crisp, freshly fallen snow.

"Merry Christmas, Erik," I whispered, not looking at him.

I sensed, rather than saw the smile that pulled at his bottom lip. "Merry Christmas, Christine." Erik turned to me and extended his hand. "Come. There is something I would like to show you."

Shuffling the coffee cup, I slipped my free hand into his, reveling in the thrill of physical contact as his long fingers gently wove around mine. He led me away from the window and over to his chair by the fireplace, where he swept his other hand out and indicated that I should sit. After I'd done so, he quietly made his way to the piano and sat down upon the bench.

"Obviously, given my current form, I cannot give you a more traditional, tangible Christmas gift. But…" He paused as he ran up and down a scale to warm up his fingers. "I composed this for you."

My hands shook as I set my fingers upon the keys, though I doubt she noticed. I'd become adept at feigning composure when she was around, and this time was no different.

Except, that it was different. Entirely different.

I had written about lust and longing in the past, and with Christine Daaé, that had been enough to sustain me and subdue those overwhelming urges. Or, at least, I'd thought it had been enough. It wasn't until this very moment that I realized how hollow—how empty—that music had sounded. All this time it had been missing a crucial component, a key piece that had been just beyond my reach and no matter how hard I'd tried, I'd never been able to grasp the concept.

Until now.

I glanced to where Christine seated and noted how she was leaning forward in silent anticipation. She had no way of knowing, but the arrangement I was about to play for her now was my magnum opus. My masterwork. The music captured between these staves was unlike anything I had written before, and far superior in every way to any movement in Don Juan Triumphant, for at last, I finally understood what it meant to love someone wholly and selflessly. I couldn't bring myself to voice those feelings to her aloud. The fear of rejection was still too great. But I could let my music do the talking for me.

Erik's finger tapped lightly over the buttons on the top of the keyboard until he found the setting his was looking for. With a slight flourish, he pressed the button, and the sound of a lone, plaintive violin rose up from the piano and echoed through the air. A few seconds later it was joined by another, and then even more string instruments that I couldn't name until a literal symphony played in the small space of my living room. I bit back a grin. I wasn't at all surprised that he'd figured out the setting to simulate other instruments, or how to lay multiple backing tracks down to create one, complete song. The phrase repeated, building each time as more instruments joined in, and then, he set his fingers to the keys and began to play along in real time.

The addition of the piano hit me in a way I didn't know possible. A shudder tore through every inch of my body, and suddenly, it was difficult to breathe. I didn't want to breathe. I didn't want to make any sort of sound that would interfere with what I was hearing. I'd never heard anything so exquisite in my entire life, anything so poignant, or so perfect.

Erik was watching at me from across the room. Normally when he played, if his attention wasn't on his hands, his eyes were closed. He had a habit of tilting his head to one side to listen to the notes as he worked. But now, those smoldering yellow-gold eyes were fixated on me, and I found that I could not—did not—want to look way. When our eyes met, I felt the bolt of electricity that arched from him into me, and the intensity was so unexpected that I gasped and reared back, clenching my free hand against the side of the armchair to in an attempt to steady myself.

And then, just when I thought I couldn't endure much more without literally bursting into sizzling flames, he started to sing. Slow at first and infinitely soft, his voice was barely audible above the piano. The words were foreign, but it hardly mattered that I couldn't understand them. It didn't make them any less beautiful. As the song began to build toward a crescendo, his voice rose in volume and met the music at its fullest peak, expertly weaving between the notes in a warm, resonant swell that made my heart race and my fingers tingle.

God, I wanted him.

I wanted to go to him and run my fingers through his hair and tilt his head back so I could kiss his forehead, his masked cheeks, and finally, his bare lips. I wanted him to stand up and grab hold of me and bring those lips to my neck while I clutched the back of his head and held him tightly against my chest.

Shockingly, the eyes behind the mask seemed to mirror my innermost thoughts, like he was pleading with me through the words of his song to close the distance and make the first move. His penetrating stare called to me. Any arguments or excuses I may have had fled from my head as he silently beckoned me to him, until all I could think about was going to him. I set my cup down on the coffee table and ever-so-slowly pushed myself out of the chair and took a hesitant step toward him. Erik gazed at me; his expression ablaze with an emotion I didn't recognize as I crossed the room. He stopped playing and stood up as I approached, but the orchestra track continued to play on in the background, and though he'd lowered his voice, he hadn't stopped singing. Instead, he unfurled his hand and extended it toward me, as if to draw me closer to him, and I followed eagerly until we were only inches apart.

This close, I could see the individual tiny beads that made up the intricate pattern on the shoulders and back of his black cloak, could see the way the brown-black specks made his golden eyes glitter in the dark, and I imagined I could almost feel his breath on my face as he continued to sing softly. His hands, which he'd been using to emphasize parts of his song, curved an outline in the air around my face and then settled lightly against my shoulders. Automatically, my own hands came up between us, latching onto either side of his open collar.

My touch startled him, and he trailed off into broken silence. Instantly, his hands sprang from my shoulders and seized my wrists, but he made no move to yank them away.

"Don't stop," I whispered.

Erik's eyes bore into me, darting back and forth as he tried to decipher my meaning. I felt his fingers tremble and then his grip loosened, nearly causing me to cry out. No! I didn't want this moment to end! Please don't go! But rather than let go entirely, he merely slid his palms along the outside of my hands and up the sides of his face until his fingers could grasp the tie that held his mask in place. His eyes fluttered closed, as if he were steeling himself, and then, slowly, he unfastened the ribbon and gradually inched his mask lower and lower, revealing the disfigurement he hid beneath it.

The world around me suddenly narrowed to a pinpoint. The glow from the fireplace and the tree dimmed into fuzzy smudges of light until there was nothing left in my field of vision but Erik. I let my eyes roam freely over his damaged face, taking in the shapes and the contours and textures. With the mask gone, his eyes appeared deeply sunken within their sockets. His cheekbones were sharp and prominent, making his cheeks seem gaunt and hollow, creating a jarring contrast to black cavernous hole where his nose should have been. He was dreadfully pale, and his skin was stretched so thinly over the bony processes that I could see how the mask might rub some places raw. Upon closer examination, some of the skin around his forehead, right eye, and cheekbones was puckered, as if he'd been burned at some point in his life and hadn't received proper treatment. All those features combined to give his face a truly gruesome skull-like appearance. Although it certainly didn't even begin to excuse how he'd been treated throughout his lifetime, I at least had an understanding now of why so many people had reacted the way they had.

Erik hesitantly opened his eyes, and in their depths, I saw fear. Fear and anxiety and burgeoning hope that I wouldn't turn away. That I wouldn't run or make a scene. That he'd finally found acceptance rather than revulsion and disgust. My focus centered on his lips, which had surprisingly remained largely unscathed. They looked soft and pliant, and all I wanted to do was feel them, taste them, and prove to him how much I loved him.

My grip on his lapels tightened. His shoulders tensed as I stepped even closer, and he watched me with a mixture of apprehension and rapt curiosity when I rose up on my tiptoes and angled my face up towards his. The mask fluttered to the ground between us, forgotten, as his hands eagerly sought the sides of my waist. Letting go of his collar, I raised my hands to cup his cheeks and guide his head down so that I could claim his lips….

Erik let out a disconcerted cry the moment my fingertips made contact with the sensitive skin. He staggered backward, flinging his arms and hands out in front of him as a shield. In one fell swoop he scooped up his mask, securing it over his face with practiced ease. His chest was heaving, his eyes now dark and full of misery. Running a long-fingered hand the length of his dress shirt, he pulled at the bottom of his waistcoat to straighten it and vanished, leaving me standing all alone in the middle of the living room.

"Erik!" I called. "Erik!"

The silence was devastating.

Oh, God. What have I done?

I couldn't stay here. Not after this. Not with the piano sitting there and the fireplace and the tree and his chair….

I smothered a sob.

Spinning around, I lunged for my purse and car keys, grabbed my coat from the back of the couch, and practically sprinted out of the house.

The clock on the dash read 8:19. I had no idea how long I'd been sitting there, with only the sound of the rubbery scrape of the windshield wipers to keep me company. An hour? Maybe two? Outside, the halogen lights in homeless shelter parking lot grew more and more distorted between every noisy swipe. Or were those my own tears that clouded my vision?

How could I have been so wrong?

Was I that hung up on him, that desperate for him to love me that I completely misinterpreted the desire in his eyes?

God! I can't believe I tried to kiss him!

I'd committed the ultimate friendship faux pas. I took a chance, and I was wrong, and now where did that leave us? How the hell was I going to be able to look him in the eye and pretend nothing had changed? His rejection had been far worse than just being friend zoned. He'd straight up recoiled at my touch.

That reaction was what hurt the most. I could still see it every time I closed my eyes.

But now I knew. He didn't love me. He craved companionship and nothing else.

Letting out a watery sigh I shut off the car and forced myself to open the door. The brisk air rushed in, quickly stealing what little heat had managed to accumulate inside the Jeep. Across the parking lot, the silhouette of Jake's BMW was rapidly disappearing beneath the snowflakes the gathered on the windshield now that the wipers were off. I took a deep breath, gathered my things, and hurried inside before I changed my mind.

The atmosphere inside was warm and inviting. Tinsel had been strung along the walls of the outer hallway, and the smell of warm food and the excited chatter led me to a large multi-purpose room where foldable tables with white construction paper table clothes had been set up in rows in the center of the room, with smaller serving tables along the perimeter. Handmade green and red paper chains decorated the front of each table, and a fake tree had been set up in the corner, where a few children were busy hanging ornaments with the under watchful eye of a staff member. Cheery Christmas music blared from a radio perched on a stainless-steel serving counter near the kitchen.

Jake appeared a few minutes later, carrying a large disposable tin of cornbread stuffing. His eyes lit up when he saw me.

"Christine!" he shouted as he set the tin down on one of the serving tables. "You made it!"

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my arm awkwardly. "How can I help?"

I stared into the empty hearth, the fire long since extinguished. Christine had been gone for hours, but for once I welcomed her absence. Ashamed, I grimaced and buried my face in my hands. I'd been so caught up in my music that I'd very nearly lost control. It was only when the silence stretched before us that I realized my mistake, and I was overcome with wretchedness to think how close I had come to committing such an inexcusable act.

I'd wanted her so much!

It would have been so very easy to take her into my arms and give in to my desire to kiss her, to finally know what her lips tasted like after so long. To nestle my bare face against her neck and feel her melt into my embrace in response. The ache was still unbearable, even now…hours later.

I'd known the effect my voice had on others, and yet, I'd foolishly chosen to proceed anyway. I should have recognized the slavish glaze in her eyes or questioned the way she seemed inexplicably drawn to my side. She had been powerless under my spell, unable to resist the hypnotic lilt in my vocal cords. There was simply no other explanation of why she could look upon my naked face without an ounce of fear or hint of revulsion. In that moment, I could have taken what I'd so desperately wanted, but in the end, what she was feeling wasn't real. I'd manipulated her feelings, created thoughts and desires that weren't really there. And in doing so, I'd violated every bit of trust that had grown between us. Her tiny hand against my tender flesh had snapped me back to reality as effectively as if she'd doused me with icy water, and when I realized what I'd almost done, I was filled with shameful disgust and self-loathing.

I couldn't take the chance of a similar mishap happening again. I would not let it happen again. And since I wasn't certain I could trust myself to behave in her presence, there was only one way to ensure I never lost control again. As much as it pained me to do so, I had to stay away from her.

A/N: I've put off writing this chapter for a while. But it had to be done! Thoughts, comments, tantrums...they're all welcome. Tell me what you're feeling!