147A/N – This piece is about 98% ALW POTO25 (I have not seen the stage performances, except to watch Ramin's Final Lair scene from the London show) and 2 very important % Kay. This is my first fanfic after about 20 years of writer's block. This is an obsession I have come to late in life and I hope you enjoy my interpretation of Erik's thoughts and the turn I take.
I have no ownership of the characters – they belong to Gaston Leroux, Susan Kay and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I am grateful to them for providing such wonderful people to inspire my writing again.
The Birthday Gift
"Christine, I love you."
Erik doesn't know what else to say to her.
Moments ago he had felt as though his heart had been torn from his chest leaving a gaping hole that he couldn't imagine would ever heal. His brain had been fraught with the internal thunder that had driven his life, revived in these past seconds, minutes, hours – how long had it been? The old pain revisited. The humiliation, frustration and desperate longing had overtaken him again. What had he done? What had he done?
Yet, here she is standing in front of him and he is determined to recover at least some of what he believes to be his lost sanity.
He stands up, not entirely aware of how he came to be crouched on the floor next to the music box. He straightens his vest and might have smoothed his wig, but it was gone – gone with the mask, left behind on the stage. He smiles and shakes his head, embarrassed to be found so completely vulnerable. The face that he so despised was uncovered to the world, such as it was at the Opera Populaire, but that was irrelevant now. She had said herself that his face was of no matter to her. His soul was the issue.
His soul. Had something changed? She is here. He feels changed, but he can't be certain. Perhaps the feeling of nothing more to lose is what gave him the courage to say those words: I love you.
For the moment, though, he simply wants to make himself presentable to her, hoping she hadn't seen his breakdown after she had left with the boy. All the suffering in his life, all the rage he had felt and expressed over the years held nothing to the complete sense of ruin he had felt at letting her, encouraging her, forcing her to leave him and go with the boy. That stupid, insolent child.
He had demanded that she choose between him and the young vicomte. She had chosen him. He wasn't truly surprised. Never could he have imagined how she would indicate her choice. A word would have sufficed. Simply saying you enough.
But she had kissed him. No one had ever kissed him before. The kiss took him by surprise and he couldn't even find the presence of mind to touch her arms, much less return the kiss. Her full lips, so soft against his tasted of honey. He detected the faint scent of vanilla and lavender in her chestnut curls. She pressed herself to him in an embrace that caught him even more unawares. This was not one of those cordial hugs you observe people exchange in greetings. She pulled him to her roughly and with a strength he never imagine her having. Her heart was beating in time with his. Her breasts pressed against his chest. The breasts he dared brush against during their fateful duet. His knees held, but he had thought he was going to melt. The Angel in Hell had found himself in heaven and he was still alive. She was still alive.
He didn't know what to do with his hands – the hands that could create a sonata without a second thought. Hands that had killed more than once – so many times more. Hands that could turn raw stone into buildings. Magical hands. Now, they were hands that just flailed at the air, too terrified to touch her, to return her embrace. Afraid that if he did, he might never let go.
His thoughts drifted back to his fifth birthday.
He had asked his mother if he could have a present. She told him that he could have whatever he wanted within reason. She waited expectantly – "Well?"
"I would like – I would like two…"
She became impatient and her anger only grew when he wouldn't tell her. Was terrified to tell her.
When he finally drummed up his courage and said, "Kisses." She began crying and told him he must never ask for that – ever.
Here it was. The gift he had so desperately wanted as a child, but felt he could never have. He was too ugly and that ugliness would infect anyone he kissed. The way his mother had said to never ask suggested to him that the person might actually die from the touch of his distorted lips.
Christine had pressed her small, soft hands in a gentle blessing against his ravaged face, her left hand caressing his mottled and scarred cheek, resting against the destroyed flesh and distorted skull. Her right hand brushed back the sparse graying hair that grew sporadically over his head.
He felt her breath and when her tongue pressed against his lips again with an urgency he could hardly comprehend, he opened himself to her and returned her kiss. They had become one. Was that not what he had written? Becoming one? They were kissing each other fully and completely as if this was what all the sorrow and horror had been leading up to. This kiss connected with something deep in his soul that he knew could only come from someone who loved and wanted him.
"One for now and one to save for later."
Two kisses. A bond had been forged between them and with that revelation, he knew that he had to let her go. This was the exorcism that the priest wanted for him so many years ago. He had been forever altered.
He had to release her to Raoul, that young fool who wanted him dead at any cost. That silly boy who risked his life for her, not knowing that he could have snuffed out the young life at any time in the past, but at no time more opportune than this. He could call him by name now that he was no longer intent on killing him. It is easier to kill when the object of your attack doesn't bear a name.
He did not want to give her over to this aristocrat, who for all his good intentions, was not a man and who could never love Christine as he did. But he could not keep her here now. He had never believed he had an immortal soul until today. Now he feared for his eternal life should he betray this beautiful woman who had gifted him with her love and compassion. Christine had shown him what his mother instructed was a lie; his gratitude far outweighed his deep need to keep her with him. He had to prove he was a good man. His smile was sour as he processed that thought.
She loved him. She would never kiss Raoul in that way. Her soul was bound with his now. Whatever happened from here on in with the boy would be colored by the kiss she had shared with his body and his soul. He had to be satisfied with that.
He gently grasped her shoulders and broke away. He felt her clear, green eyes – eyes that would change from dark to light like a mountain stream based on her mood – study him; he could easily drown in those eyes, but he dared not hold her gaze, he would become as hypnotized as she already appeared to be. He needed to gather himself, maintain the resolve he had found to do what was right for her.
He pressed his hands against hers and walked away from her. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to crush her in his arms and caress every part of her and ravish her with kisses, but that, he knew, was wrong. Not when he was finally understanding what redemption might be. To have felt joy for the first time in his life. He wanted more, but he dared not hope, dared not risk losing what he had already come to know.
"One for now and one to save for later."
Here is your compassion, his thoughts became a scream as he burned the end of the noose releasing Raoul. He hadn't needed the Punjab lasso for this adversary – the noose sufficed. The boy was practically killing himself with his efforts to get away. How ironic that would be. He didn't want any deaths tonight. He truly didn't. He merely wanted the boy to understand what he had done. Raoul had to fear for his life as he had just done there on the stage with the guns pointed at him - poised to kill as Raoul had directed them to do. Fear for his own life, as he might likely do again if the mob discovered the entry to his home.
He could, however, take some pleasure in watching the fool's discomfort. When he pulled away from Christine, the look on the boy's face was priceless. He suspected that Raoul was wondering how she could have kissed his face, embraced his body and caressed his skull. The disgust on Raoul's face was plain, but there was fear as well. Did he realize what had been exchanged between him and Christine? In any event, what the boy thought or felt mattered not.
He had ordered they leave and forget everything.
It was too dangerous now for all of them. Whatever commitment his and Christine's hearts had made to one another, all of their physical selves were in jeopardy. In his long life of torment and abuse at the hands of others, even that of his mother – there had been no suffering as great as this, in this moment watching her leave his home with the boy.
He had been broken and his screams of anguish tore through him until he was weak with exhaustion. He wanted to die, but instead he had survived, yet again. The music box drew his attention, his only constant companion. The little monkey never judged, never hurt or abused him – he just played his cymbals and his little tune. He sang gently to the music and found some solace in the toy. Music would heal him again. Had he completed his penance? Was he finally free of the hatred and anger that had festered inside him for his entire life?
A rustling of silk rouses him from his reverie.
He rises and turns to see if it's true. His breathe catches in his throat. The elegant wedding gown that he'd designed for her is torn and dirty. There would be no wedding now. But they had pledged their troth with the kiss. And he had let her go. But she is here. She is real.
Why? What, he wondered what she would say now? Do now?
She takes his hands and kisses them – her tears flow freely onto his callused and scarred fingers, fingers that she once said she loved.
"Christine, I love you."
She nods and draws a deep breath. "Yes," she whispers and looks back, over her shoulder, then returns her gaze to look deeply into his amber eyes.
He follows her glance. Raoul is gone. He turns back to her. "What…"
"Erik, I love you."
"Oh." He lifts her delicate hands to his ruined lips and kisses them. His ring is there on her finger. His emotions are raw and the wonder of what is happening is almost more than he can bear.
One of his alarms sounds. It reminds both of them that they are in danger here.
"We must hide."
Her eyes darken in a moment of fear, then the calm returns. "I will follow wherever you lead me."
He has no words. He is in awe of her grace and trust in him. He must be found worthy.
"Come." He leads her to his carved mahogany chair next to the music box. He turns the head of the monkey; the chair slides back to reveal a large square opening in the floor. A faint musty smell rises from the hole. He grabs a torch, lights it and hands it to Christine. "Climb down and wait for me."
The discarded veil on the floor catches his attention. He picks it up and jams it into his vest.
Lighting another torch for himself, he takes one last look at the room that was his sanctuary. It will likely be destroyed by the mob if they get past the traps he'd set. He hopes they will spare the organ, but he can't think about that now. There are places he had created in the event that this might happen. An odd sense of peace floods over him as he leaves this place he had created and had been his home.
He follows Christine down to another level of darkness into the passage, hopefully to return to the light.
A moment later, the monkey's head turns, seemingly on its own and the ornate chair shifts smoothly back into place.