Chapter Text
Ten Years Later
Erik stands at the top of the stone steps, his fingers drumming on the wall next to the wooden box that lays there. The leather only makes subtle noises as he moves, nothing too dramatic, and the fur lining keeps his hands warm against the chill in the air. He held off on wearing his gloves for as long as he could, but with the start of winter, he was forced to concede and pull them on.
It’s not that they are unstylish. They are leather, black, perfectly acceptable, but any glove would be his enemy. He almost laughs at that, to think of all of the enemies he’s had in his life, now it’s a pair of black gloves that hides one of the things he likes to stare at the most.
His wedding ring.
Continuing to drum his fingers on the wall, Erik looks down at this left hand and though he can not see the ring, he feels it and that makes all the difference.
Six years he’s been married, six years since the ring was slid onto his finger, and he can count on one hand how many times he’s taken it off. Never did he think a gold piece of jewelry would mean so much to him, and yet, he finds himself playing with it every day just to remind himself it’s real.
That it’s all real.
He thinks back on the day that changed his life forever.
The cottage had been quiet in the late afternoon, the sort of quiet that should have felt peaceful, but it didn’t.
Erik sat at the small table near the window, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped as he stared at nothing. His thoughts had become a familiar, unwelcome maze.
Three years.
Three years of happiness so steady it had almost frightened him at first—waking beside Christine Daae every morning, hearing her laugh in the garden, her voice drifting through the cottage as she hummed while cooking or reading or brushing her hair.
Three years of her choosing him.
And yet—the last few weeks she had been different. Quieter, distant… every time he asked what the matter was, she’d smile gently, or brush his arm, and tell him she was only tired. Or that she had a headache, once she told him the ride back from the market worn her out.
He wanted to believe her… but old ghosts were excellent liars.
Erik exhaled slowly, pressing his thumb against the inside of his vest pocket.
The ring there felt like a brand.
He had bought it weeks ago in the village two towns over—carefully, discreetly, like a man committing a crime, and now the weight of it burned against his ribs.
Maybe someone saw him at the shop, maybe that someone told her and she realized what he would intended to ask.
He shut his eyes tightly and sucked in a deep breath.
Perhaps she doesn’t want to marry him…
The sound of the hooves interrupted the spiral and Erik’s head lifted.
Outside the window, a familiar horse slowed in the yard. Christine swung down lightly from the saddle of César, brushing hair from her face as she ushered him back into his stable.
For a moment he simply watched her. She looked perfectly normal… beautiful, like she always did and his heart still raced at that.
And it made the ache inside of him somehow even worse.
The front door opened a moment later and she stepped inside, cheeks pink from the ride.
“Erik?” she called softly.
He stood and walked to the doorway.
“I’m here.”
Her brows knit. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” he forced out, his voice hoarse from the lie.
She studied him for a long moment, then stepped closer, removing her riding gloves.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
The word came out too quickly, and made Christine tilt her head.
“Erik…”
He exhaled sharply and rubbed a hand over his face.
“No, not nothing.” His voice dropped. “I would very much like to know what has changed.”
She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve been distant.” His words came faster now, the dam finally breaking. “Avoiding me, brushing me off whenever I asked if something was wrong.”
“Erik—”
“We haven’t made love in weeks. If you have reconsidered—” His voice caught and he forced himself to continue. “If you have reconsidered how you feel about me, Christine, I would prefer you say it plainly.”
Silenced filled the room and his stomach twisted at the way she looked at him.
“Please,” he said quietly. “I can endure the truth.”
Her mouth opened, then closed and he braced himself.
“I’m with child.”
The words landed like a thunderclap and for a moment, the world simply… stopped.
Erik blinked.
“…what?”
Christine twisted her hands together nervously.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.” He was still staring at her, stunned. “I found out a few weeks ago, and I just—I didn’t know how to bring it up.” Her voice trembled slightly. “We’ve never talked about children and I thought maybe you didn’t want them and I didn’t want to frighten you away, so I kept trying to find the right moment and then the longer I waited the worse it felt—" She finally looked up at him. “And I thought you might leave.”
Silence stretched between them, then something unexpected happened.
Erik let out a small, disbelieving chuckle.
Christine blinked.
“Are you laughing?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, shaking his head.
“We have truly learned nothing in our time together, have we?”
The frown on her face deepened.
“What are you talking about? Did you hear what I said?”
He reached slowly into his vest pocket.
“Three years of happiness,” he said softly, “and we have fallen straight back into our old habits.”
His hand emerged and the ring glinted in the light.
Christine gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.
“You—”
“I have been carrying this around for weeks,” Erik admitted quietly. “Trying to find the right moment, wondering if asking would frighten you away.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You were going to ask me to marry you?”
He lifted his shoulder faintly.
“Yes.”
Christine let out a watery laugh and Erik looked between her eyes carefully.
“You love me.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of a fact and Christine nodded immediately, tears slipping down her cheeks while she cupped her hands together over her chest.
“With my whole heart.” The answer seemed to steady something deep inside him and she took a step closer. “You love me.”
He nodded and reached up to take his mask off.
“With everything I am.”
Erik stepped up and then dropped down to both his knees. Christine gasped again as he took her hand.
“Christine Daae,” he said softly, his voice trembling with something that might have been awe, “will you do me the extraordinary honor of becoming my wife?”
She laughed through her tears.
“Yes!”
He slid the ring onto her finger… it fit perfectly.
For a heartbeat, he simply held her hand, staring at it like he couldn’t quite believe it was real. It was nothing like before, there was no forced proposal with a ring that was too big, this was pure love. He lifted her hand and pressed a loving kiss to the ring, then moved and kissed her stomach where their child grew.
When he rose again, he gently cupped her face in both hands and kissed her with everything he had.
“Papa!”
The sound breaks Erik out of his memories, along with the pitter patter of little feet racing over the stone.
Erik turns instinctively, arms opening just in time to catch a small body hurtling into him. The impact knocks a breathless laugh from his chest as he scoops the boy up, lifting him high before setting him securely on the half wall next to the box.
“There you are,” Erik murmurs, pressing a kiss into soft curls. “Did you have a good chat with Madame de Valcourt?”
The boy giggles with a nod. “Yes, she told me to tell you she said hello.”
Erik presses his lips together and he looks back toward the house. Raoul’s sister looks much the same as she always has. Her eyes are soft as she speaks to Christine, and they grow even softer when they look past her toward Gustave.
“Madame de Valcourt has said Ayesha can stay with Oncle Raoul,” Gustave explains, his tone becoming sad once again. “She says she thinks he would like that.”
Erik’s gaze flickers back to Isabelle and he lifts his chin.
It was he who discovered Ayesha the morning before curled atop a pile of hay beside César, her small body already still. Gustave was inconsolable when Christine told him, he wailed for hours begging for it to me not true and blaming himself in that helpless way only children can.
It was close to lunch when Gustave looked up at them with his eyes shining and asked, “Can we put her with Oncle Raoul? He’s brave, he won’t let anything hurt her.”
Christine and Erik both went still.
“With Oncle Raoul?” Christine echoed gently.
“Yes, where he lives.”
“Rests, mon monde,” Erik corrected lowly.
But Gustave ignored him and declared, “He protected Mama, so he can protect Ayesha now.”
Christine wrote Isabelle not too long after, asking if it were alright if they came by the next day, and like always, Christine was granted full access without needing to explain. But they have raised Gustave to have manners, and he insisted on asking permission.
Erik doesn’t know what they would have done if she had said no.
He gives her a brief little nod then—she is giving his son peace and though he may still despise her for her past actions, this he can acknowledge, was kind.
Isabelle offers a small smile before turning back to Christine, squeezing her hands and turning back toward the house.
Christine rejoins them then, her hand settling on her round stomach while he helps Gustave down off the wall, handing him the wooden box to hold.
The gravel crunches softly beneath their shoes as they reach the bottom of the stone steps and Erik sucks in a deep breath. Gustave’s small hand clenches tight in Erik’s, the other wrapped around the little wooden box that’s tucked carefully against his chest. Christine walks on Gustave’s other side, her free hand resting lightly at his back, as if she might steady him should the weight of the moment tip him over.
“She liked the sun,” Gustave says solemnly, breaking the quiet. “She was very clever about finding the warmest spots.”
Erik hums in acknowledgment, though his mind fills with images of clawed furniture, hair on his coats, and a cat who favored Christine over him from the very start. It’s not like he disliked the creature outright, but the affection between the two of them was severely lacking.
They step up to the gate where Raoul’s mausoleum stands and both Erik and Christine look down when Gustave stops walking. Though he knows the story of his Uncle Raoul, and how he rests inside of a mausoleum, the only time he had been there was when he was a newborn. Erik and Christine brought him when he was but a babe, it was something they felt was important.
“This is our son,” Christine whispered to Raoul’s sarcophagus. “Gustave Raoul Deveraux.”
Since then, he always either stayed with Erik, with Meg, or with Isabelle. They both agreed he was far too young to understand and much too serious a burden for a six-year-old.
“Gustave, sweetie,” Christine whispers, kneeling down next to him. “You don’t have to do this. Papa and I can take Ayesha with us, and you can go back and have tea with Isabelle.”
Erik watches as his son chews on his bottom lip the same way his mother does when she’s nervous and feels the way Gustave’s fingers tap against his own hand the way his does when he’s nervous and for a moment, he thinks he might do that.
Erik looks to his wife, his mouth pressed together. He’s still unsure of this plan, Gustave is too young. She hasn’t even taken him to see her father’s grave yet—they argued about it the night before, but he conceded when she insisted it’s less terrifying than an actual graveyard.
“He’s in a mausoleum that’s surrounded by flowers, trees, and other mausoleums. They look like small houses. We’ll be with him every step of the way.”
But they did agree to stop if it appeared to be too much for him.
“No,” Gustave answers finally, his voice still low. “If Oncle Raoul can be brave, so can I.”
Christine’s eyes flicker up to Erik’s and she lifts a shoulder as if to tell him it’s up to him what they should do. With a small sigh, he bends forward toward his son.
“Are you sure? You’ve been very brave so far. There is nothing wrong with stopping here.”
Gustave eyes the gate for a heartbeat then asks. “Is it scary?”
“No,” Erik says with a shake of his head. “It’s just a building. It’s very peaceful.”
There’s another pause as Christine rubs her hand up and down his back and then Gustave asks, “Do you think she will like it there?”
“She will love it,” Christine whispers with a smile.
They step up to the mausoleum together, Raoul’s name etched cleanly into the stone and Erik once again looks down at his son when he feels his little fingers tighten around his hand.
“In there?” Gustave asks.
“Papa will go in,” Christine insists. “But you can say your final goodbyes.”
Gustave gives a small nod and walks up to the steps as if to offer the box as a token to the mausoleum.
“You were such a good cat,” Gustave whispers. “You never did anything bad.”
Erik rolls his eyes at that statement and is immediately rewarded with a light, playful swat to his arm from his wife. They stand there and listen to their son say goodbye to the animal that has been there since his birth and a quick flash of Ayesha pressing her nose to Christine’s pregnant belly, purring loud enough to fill the room goes before his eyes.
He looks over to Christine to see her wiping a tear from her cheek and he kisses her temple, putting an affectionate arm around her until he notices Gustave’s shoulders begin to tremble.
Erik moves without thinking, kneeling down and pulling his son into his chest. Gustave’s face presses into his coat as the tears come in earnest.
“It’s alright,” Erik murmurs, voice low and steady, one hand cradling the back of Gustave’s head. “I know, I know.”
“She was my friend,” Gustave sobs. “She slept by me.”
“I know she did,” Erik says, rocking him gently. “And she was very lucky to have you.”
Christine kneels beside them, one hand over Erik’s, the other brushing Gustave’s curls back from his damp cheeks.
After a moment, Erik adds softly, deliberately, “Your Oncle Raoul was very brave. Braver than most, and if there is anyone I would trust to look after her… it is him.”
Gustave sniffs, lifting his head just enough to look at the mausoleum again. “You promise?”
Erik meets his gaze, solemn and sincere. “I promise.”
Christine leans in then, pressing a kiss to Gustave’s temple, her voice a whisper, “She’ll be safe.”
Gustave hands the wooden box over to Erik with shaking hands, and he kisses his son’s forehead before standing up.
“I’ll just be a moment.”
Erik steps into the mausoleum and breathes deep. It’s cold inside, nothing but marble, one window, and a single coffin sitting atop a stone table. It’s always the same, the only thing that changes are the flowers placed under the golden name plate.
RAOUL, VICOMTE DE CHAGNY
Placing the wooden box on the table that holds a picture of Raoul, Erik turns to the coffin and takes a moment to look it over. It looks the same as it did the day he was laid to rest. The mausoleum keeping it protected. The only proof of time moving forward is the faded picture on the table and the burned candles.
He remembers a time when he did nothing but wish for this mans death, dreamed of it. Now? He only wishes to speak to him one more time, to tell him how grateful he is for his sacrifice, for trusting him even after everything he did.
But that can not happen.
Instead, Erik bows, not deeply, not dramatically, just enough…
I keep my vow, he thinks. She always comes first. Always.
When he walks out of the mausoleum, he sees Gustave’s fingers fidgeting at his sides and Christine brushing her hand through his hair.
“Is she rested?” He asks, his eyes still sparkling.
Christine breathes out a chuckle while Erik smiles.
“Very much.”
Gustave holds his arms out and Erik leans down to pick his son up, his heart bursting when the boy wraps his little arms around his neck.
“You’re the best Papa, ever.”
Erik sucks in a breath, tears pricking his eyes. Not for the first time, he wonders how it has come that he deserves such happiness, such love. Pressing a kiss to the side of his sons head, he holds him tightly with one arm, then places a small touch to Christine’s stomach, before pulling her in with his other arm.
“Let’s go home.”