Chapter Text
It was the only logical place for Christine to go. She hadn’t seen Meg in years, not after the Giry’s had moved from Sweden to France, but she was the closest thing Christine had left to family after Mamma Valerius and the Professor died. Sweden held too many bittersweet memories for her after that, so three weeks before her twentieth birthday she bought her ticket for Paris. She knew very little French, but she knew that she needed a change of scenery.
The trip was slightly difficult due to the language barrier - few people spoke Swedish, and while she knew some Italian and German as well, she was limited in vocabulary to what she had learned for the chorus of the operas she had been in. She could speak of soldiers and cigarette girls, but that helped very little when trying to ask when the train would arrive.
Despite the frustration of not being understood, the move had its benefits - Meg had assured her that there would be a place for her in the chorus of the Paris Opera, no audition required. She would also be allowed to stay at the opera house itself, apparently free of charge. She had questioned Meg on this, but Meg had only laughed it off.
Meg was there waiting for her at the platform when she arrived.
“Oh, Christine! I’ve missed you!” she hugged her tight, and a few tears rolled down Christine’s cheeks.
“I’ve missed you too! And I’ve missed hearing Swedish,” she laughed a little.
Meg laughed at this too. While her mother was French, her father had been Swedish, and as such she’d grown up speaking both languages.
“I’ll help you with your French!” she promised her, squeezing her hands. “Now come on - let’s get you to the opera house! You can meet your new teacher once you’re there!”
The opera house was beautiful. Christine took it in with awe, amazed that this might be her new home.
She had to stop frequently, but not just to gaze at the lovely marble and gold - her luggage was too heavy despite Meg helping her carry it. There was still a long ways to go.
Meg hesitated.
“Christine,” she said quietly, though there was no one else around to hear them or even understand what they were saying. “Can you promise to keep a secret?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Oh, of course!”
Meg showed her a secret door in the wall, then ushered her through.
“Only Maman and I know about this,” she told her in a whisper as they walked through the secret tunnel. “Maman and me and- well, pretty much only us.”
Although the tunnel kept going far past a corner and out of sight, their trip in it ended when Meg stopped at a doorway and pushed the door open. Once open, Christine could hear voices talking in French inside, though she couldn’t yet see who was there.
“Maman,” Meg announced as she walked through the door and into Madame Giry’s office. “Christine is here!”
She reached back and tugged her forwards to step into the office.
Christine smiled at Madame Giry, about to greet her. She had only the briefest of seconds to wonder why her friends mother was looking at her as though she were a portent of doom when suddenly she became aware that there was a man in the corner of the room - a man who immediately drew her attention when he threw the drinking glass that had been in his hand onto the floor where it shattered with a noise that made Christine flinch.
“Marguerite Giry, what the devil have you done?” he shouted at her.
Christine squeezed Meg’s arm, frowning hard at this horrible man. How dare he yell at her like that!
But Meg was unfazed.
“Christine can keep a secret,” she retorted, jutting her chin out. “Besides, she ought to know. And it’s not like she can tell anyone your secrets - she barely even speaks French!”
The man ran a hand through his dark hair, glowering at her. Christine suppressed a shiver, not wanting to show any weakness, but she was unnerved by the white mask that covered half his face and the brooding aura about him.
“This is the girl I was telling you about, Erik,” Madame Giry explained. “You already said you’d give her lessons, she obviously has to be in the same room with you to do that.”
Erik ground his teeth as he looked away. He had promised he would give singing lessons to a foreign friend of Meg’s, and to get her a position in the chorus - a favor to Giry since he had crashed the chandelier after she had repeatedly asked him not to. He just hadn’t expected the girl would be shown her way through his secret tunnels and ambush him without him being told about it beforehand.
“Erik is a little moody,” Meg whispered to Christine in Swedish. “But he’s not that bad...”
Christine wasn’t convinced. She tried to school her face into a neutral expression even as he narrowed his eyes at the two girls and their secret conversation.
“When do we get to meet my teacher?” Christine whispered in Swedish and fidgeted.
Meg pointed at Erik.
“No!” Christine gasped, and Erik’s eyebrows flew up. “Meg, don’t play now! Are you serious?”
“Yes! I know he seems a fright, but you’ll get used to him. Now, say hello to him,” she nudged her forwards towards Erik, and Christine shot a disapproving look at her friend before turning to Erik.
There was a blotch of embarrassed color across his cheek even though he was standing with his head held high and proud - he didn’t speak Swedish but he didn’t need to to know that his future student was finding the prospect of learning from him distasteful.
“Bienvenue, mademoiselle” he said tightly with a small bow.
“Bonjour, Erik,” she replied as best she could, curtsying out of politeness but somehow still managing to make the gesture appear insolent.
Erik
His breath caught in throat to hear how his name sounded in her voice, how she rolled the r, how delicate it sounded.
Then the rest of what she said caught up with him. He huffed.
“The sun is almost down, she doesn’t even know how to say what time it is,” he gestured at her while speaking to Giry. “She’s can’t say ‘good morning’ when it’s almost night!”
Giry rolled her eyes.
“You can teach her French as well as singing, then, if it’s so offensive to you,” she told him, then pointed to the shattered cup on her office floor. “And you’re cleaning up that glass.”
Meg ushered Christine out of the office and to the dormitory, explaining everything she needed to know on the way there.
The opera house was haunted, and Erik was the Ghost. No one knew about him except for Meg and her mother, and he often played tricks and pranks, especially when he didn’t get his way. He sent endless notes to the managers about what he wanted done, which were often obeyed out of fear of the consequences.
By the time they settled in the dormitory, her things mostly unpacked and the both of them sitting on Christine’s new bed as though they were both little girls again, Christine was not entirely certain how much of this Meg was making up to have a joke with her.
“Is he... safe?” she questioned.
He sounded almost like a madman.
Meg replied without hesitation.
“He’s safe- he’s mostly safe,” she amended. “Just treat him like you’d treat anyone else. Maman and I have never had a problem with him, and she’s known him for years... Besides, she would have kicked him out long ago if he was some kind of pervert!”
Christine wound her hair around a finger, a nervous habit of hers that she was finding herself doing more and more lately.
“I mean,” Meg shrugged apologetically. “You don’t have to work with him if you don’t want to... He already secured you a spot in the chorus, and he wouldn’t dare take that away from you now and have to face Maman’s wrath... If you’d rather not...”
Christine sighed. He seemed unpleasant and boorish, but he wouldn’t be the first such man she’d had to put up with in her career.
“You really think he can help me?”
Meg nodded vigorously.
“Oh, Christine - he sings like an angel! I’ve heard him! I bet you could even become a prima donna one day with his coaching!”
She thought this over a long minute.
“I suppose I can try a few lessons,” she eventually agreed. “And just see how they go... But if he’s a brute I shan’t work with him.”
The very next day Erik was having an almost similar conversation with Madame Giry.
“Just give her a few lessons, Erik,” Madame Giry sighed.
“I never should have agreed to this, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
“She’s eager to learn. I’m sure she’ll pick things up quickly.”
“She’s already disgusted by me, I can tell.”
Madame Giry quirked an eyebrow. Ah, so that’s this was about.
“She was merely frightened because you smashed a glass,” she sniffed.
“Why can’t one of the women in the chorus help her instead?” he waved a hand vaguely, looking for one last excuse to get out of the situation. “She seems far more suited to instruction by a female.”
Madame Giry shook her head.
“No, you promised. Besides, she’s always had men for tutors before this - she took music lessons from the Professor Valerius back in Sweden, and before that she was taught by her father, the famous violinist,” Madame Giry paused before continuing, softening her voice. “Both of them died not very long ago, Erik. I think this will work out between you two much better than you’re expecting. The poor child could use a father figure in her life again, I believe.”
“And you think I could be that for her?” he scoffed, but he couldn’t hide the hint of hope in his voice.
“If you don’t insist on treating her like a stagehand you’re trying to frighten into quitting!”
Erik looked away, pretending he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Just be good to her and teach her,” she insisted. “Just for a few times, at least. You owe me that much.”
It was in that manner that in a few day’s time, Christine found herself following Meg’s directions to a dressing room that was to belong to her. She opened the door and peered in, hoping it was the correct one.
It had to be - this room surely couldn’t belong to anyone else. It looked like she was the first person to set foot inside for years. It was set apart from the other dressing rooms, too, just like Meg had said - no one would be likely to overhear her in here.
She sat on the dusty stool in front of the time-speckled vanity mirror before her, wondering when Erik would appear for her lesson.
All across the vanity lay various little odds and ends, a thimble, some ribbon and thread, a hairbrush, some silver sewing scissors, a pincushion, a dried up bottle of perfume. She fidgeted with a few of them, wondering about their previous owner and what might have happened to her.
All at once there was noise behind the full length mirror to the left of her. Her heart leapt into her throat, her shoulders tensing as the glass swung open to reveal a dark figure standing behind it.
It was Erik. He stepped through and closed the glass again before opening his mouth to greet her, only for the greeting to die on his tongue as his eyes fell to her hand. Did she think he was going to-?
In her fright, she had unconsciously grasped the scissors in a defensive manner.
She followed his line of sight and her face flushed at her own behavior. She quickly dropped them to the vanity, too ashamed to meet his eye. He had looked as though she’d already wounded him just by holding the object, and she hated the guilt that flushed through her for that.
“Good morning, Christine,” he said politely, even still. “How are you today?”
She quickly stood and curtsied, daring to glance at him.
“Good morning, Erik.”
She was polite enough, but he could tell she was still eyeing him suspiciously. He cleared his throat and held out a collection of sheet music - the songs she would need to know for the opera that she would be in the coming season.
“You’ll be in the chorus, but that’s no reason to not polish your voice as best you can. I expect you to practice every day, even if we’re not doing a lesson. Half an hour, minimum. I want you to look through the score of the upcoming show and we’ll start with whichever you feel will give you the most trouble, that way we’ll have adequate time to prepare.”
Christine stared at him with wide eyes as she hesitatingly took the music from him. She held it in her hands, unsure of what he wanted her to do.
It took Erik a moment to remember that she probably only understood four words out of all he’d just said.
He smiled awkwardly, and opened the book in her hands, pointing to the first song and tapping it.
“Sing for me,” he said loudly and slowly.
“Oh!”
His breath caught in his throat at her singing voice. She was a little rusty, but even still he was impressed with what she could do, with the amount of untapped potential just underneath the surface.
It wasn’t just her voice that caught his attention during that very first lesson - she was a very adorable young woman.
He didn’t think it was an exaggeration to say that her hair was the color of sunbeams and her face held all the beauty of a rose - especially now that she wasn’t scowling at him like she had at their first meeting. She had a petite stature but she stood tall and proud. Erik thought that if some wizard somewhere had brought a doll to life, Christine would be the result. He was not one to go in for cutesy things, nor one to openly show affection for others, but he was possessed by the peculiar urge to hug her.
He managed to refrain.
She finished the song and looked at him expectantly. He nodded in an encouraging manner, then pointed to the next song in the book.
She hesitated, then began to sing. Was he not going to say anything? Surely he wasn’t going to make her sing like a trained canary and then simply send her on her way!
She finished the next song, then held the book behind her back, tilting her head, waiting for his critique.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying,” he chuckled. “But you’re much better than I thought you would be!”
A smile twitched across her lips as her brain worked overtime to decipher his words, trying to decide if she’d been complimented or insulted.
She sang three more songs, Erik stopping her every now and then to offer advice that she somewhat understood. As the lesson went on, she began to notice something odd. Erik was... Endearing.
She nearly shuddered to think it, but she regretfully had to admit it was the truth. He had seemed so ill-natured when they first met, so surly, but now he was... Different. Charming. Polite. A little unsure of himself, or perhaps of the situation. When he wasn’t yelling as he had been that first day, his voice was rich and deep and it rolled off his tongue like music and sent a shiver down her spine. She loved hearing his voice, even when she had no idea what he was saying.
She also secretly loved the look of awe that was in his gaze as he stared at her, that barely restrained sense of wonder as she sang, as though she were the greatest thing he’d ever heard or would hear again.
Erik, for his part, was both unnerved and intrigued by how easily she met his eye, how she didn’t try to shy away from him. It wasn’t that he wanted her to be afraid of him - far from it. But, well... he did tend to have that affect on people. But not on her. She looked at him as if he were just like everyone else.
He smiled and clapped his hands to signal the end of the lesson.
“Very good, Christine! Good job,” he pulled out a little piece of paper and a pen and scrawled a message for her. “Give this to Meg.”
She nodded and took the note from him.
“Thank you,” she told him, and held her hand out to shake his as a farewell.
Unable to stop himself, he took her hand and brought it up to his lips, brushing a soft kiss across her knuckles.
Her breath stuttered, her eyes going wide. She hadn’t expected him to do that. Was this a French gesture? Was it mere politeness or did it mean more?
He pulled back suddenly, his eyes caressing her as he let her hand slip out of his. He swallowed around a lump in his throat. He had forgotten himself, and he couldn’t allow that to happen again. Madame Giry’s words about a father figure floated back to him, and they settled on him with a crushing guilt. He cleared his throat, placing his hands behind his back, and rocking onto his toes. If Christine told Giry or Meg- if anyone realized how far he’d overstepped his boundaries- good heaves, what had he done?
“Have a good afternoon, Christine,” he said stiffly.
“Goodbye, Erik.”
She left the lesson feeling oddly pleased and flattered, a little spring in her step. She held her hand up to look at the place Erik had kissed, tilting her head. How vogue, how positively French!
She found Meg just outside the door of the ballet room, right as she was leaving practice.
“Christine! How was your lesson?”
“Good, I think!”
She handed her the note that Erik had written, but kept the mention of the kiss to herself - this was a new place with new customs, but she was almost certain that even here it wasn’t exactly normal for one’s teacher to kiss his student at the end of the lesson, even if it was just her hand.
Meg scanned the contents of the note.
“Oh!” she said. “It’s instructions for you... He wants you to practice the next three songs from the book, and he says he wants to do another lesson the day after tomorrow if that works for you... He also says you did very well!”
Christine felt her face grow warm.
“Do you want to do more lessons with him?” Meg inquired, thinking of their earlier conversation.
“Oh, I think so... He seems to know what he’s talking about,” she shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant. “He was very polite.”
“Good! If he’s ever not, just tell Maman,” Meg giggled. “She’ll smack him with her cane!”
Erik, meanwhile, was pacing in Madame Giry’s office. No one had told him Christine was a prodigy! What absolute luck he had in agreeing to teach her! Who could have imagined that little Giry would be friends with such a talented singer? It was Sweden’s loss, but his incredible gain, and soon, the gain of the whole world.
“Erik!” Madame Giry arched an eyebrow, surprised to find him there. “How did the lesson go?”
“She is a musical genius, Madame!” he said, his eyes blazing with a strange light.
“Oh? Where you a gentleman to her?”
“Of course I was!” he sounded wounded, but inside he began to panic.
He hadn’t truly been a gentleman- a gentleman wouldn’t grab her hand and assault it with his mouth as he had done- he vowed to himself that he would be as careful as he could be with her from now on.
“She did well, then, I take it?”
“Prima donna, Madame! I guarantee it! It’s only a matter of time!” he held a finger in the air as he declared it, continuing to pace. “And she’ll be perfect in my opera! I have finally have reason to finish it! As soon as it’s done she can perform the lead role- wait till you see it, Giry, wait till you see it!”
She smiled to see how giddy he was over the whole thing, and wondered if he really was going to finish writing that old opera he’d often mention. She hoped he was right about Christine - she was a sweet girl and she deserved to go far in her career.
“By the way-“ Erik stopped suddenly, considering. “I’m limited in my teaching of her because of the language barrier - what can be done about this?”
“Meg is working with her when they have free time together,” she replied.
Erik sat in the chair across from her and steepled his fingers. He didn’t want to appear too anxious to be around the girl, but he really did have a legitimate reason to ask...
“Would you mind asking Christine whether or not she’d find it agreeable to also work on her French with me?” he said, trying to remain aloof. “I think it would help her move along quicker.”
She nodded.
“I’ll ask her.”
Christine, likewise, tried to play it cool when asked.
“If you think it’ll help,” was all she said outwardly, but inside she nearly jumping for joy.
Surely this meant Erik wanted to spend more time around her!
She eagerly attended her next lesson, which was spent half on singing and half on learning French.
He offered more corrections this time, even going so far as to sing the verses himself to show her how it should be done. She nearly swooned away with delight right then and there - why he masqueraded as the Opera Ghost and not the Angel of Music instead, she’d never understand. Was it possible to fall in love with a voice?
He’d somehow acquired a French primer book, like the children in school would use. It made her smile to think of him perhaps bribing some young schoolboy with a bag of candy in exchange for the textbook. He helped her pronounce each word, and she was glad Meg had previously helped her so that she wouldn’t appear too foolish. Eventually she came across a few words that she didn’t know, and Erik stared blankly as he tried to think of to explain them. At last he grabbed a piece of paper and began to draw what the word described, and she was amazed to see that he was quite the artist as well.
At the end of the lesson she held her hand out again, her heart speeding up in anticipation. Would he kiss it again? But he merely placed both his hands over hers and squeezed it gently, smiling warmly.
“See you soon, Christine.”
“Okay,” she nodded.
She was surprised to find how disappointed she was at the lack of anything more, and she scolded herself. Now, she was more glad than ever that she’d not told Meg about the kiss - it must have meant nothing, and how silly she would have felt when Meg explained that to her!
Inside the secret tunnels, Erik walked back home and let out a long, slow exhale.
He was the most wretched excuse for a man on the entire planet. He couldn’t stop thinking of her and how precious she looked as she had focused on her studies, her little freckled nose wrinkling, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.
Truly he was a fiend.
In just under a week he had managed to fall head over heels for the Swedish orphan, a poor girl just trying to make her way in the world, one who was looking to him to take the place of her dear departed father, and here in his mind he was debasing her with filthy and disgusting thoughts. How could he even stand to live with himself? Despicable, that’s what he was. A predator. A monster.
A monster who would do anything for Christine Daaé.
He tried to stay focused, stay professional, but every so often during lessons she’d turn a glance towards him as though she knew what awful things were in his mind. But no, surely she couldn’t - surely she’d be running for the door if she knew what he was thinking of!
She’d be horrified of all that, but what she didn’t seem horrified by was being taught by him. He’d count his blessings where they were, he supposed, and ruthlessly shoved down all wishes of ever having anything more than what they currently had.
She was a quick learner, it seemed. In addition to her working through the primer, he used the last quarter of their lesson for conversation. He was loathe to admit it, that even though such conversation was vital to her learning and comprehending French, a very large part of his reason for doing so was simply so he could get to know her.
Topics were very limited, especially at first, but she was warm and cordial and tried her best to keep up. It might have been his imagination, but he liked to pretend that she enjoyed those talks too. She seemed to hang on his every word, even the ones he knew she didn’t quite follow yet.
Little did he realize that these conversations were her favorite part of the lessons - though she was hard pressed to pick a favorite anything about spending time with Erik. She thought he was wonderful! She wanted to laugh at her previous fears. Why, this man was as gentle as a lamb! At least, he was to her.
There was something captivating about him, and she often found her mind wandering, especially at night before going to sleep. It wasn’t that she wanted to imagine such things, but they found their way into her head all the same. She tried to push the thought of him from her mind. She knew she shouldn’t have feelings for him, definitely should not entertain such thoughts - he was a madman! A criminal! A rogue!
She bit her lip, her hands squeezing tight around her blanket as she lost her mental battle and started envisioning what it might be like to kiss him.
Much to the chagrin of her poor father, and then Mamma and Professor Valerius, she always had preferred the roguish type.
They began to see each other nearly every day, and on the days that they didn’t meet, she found she missed him terribly. She began to spend time getting to know the other girls in the chorus, and the ballet rats who were friends of Meg, and sometimes little groups of them would take her on trips around Paris to show her the city. She enjoyed it, and she liked to think she had made a few friends, but she couldn’t help the wistful longing in her heart that it could be Erik there with her as she explored the cafes and little shops and cathedrals and museums. She always made certain to tell him excitedly of her adventures out in the world, and he always listened with a warm smile.
It had only been a handful weeks since she had arrived that it happened. She had been on her way to her evening French lesson with Erik when she remembered that she wanted to wear the new bow she had bought recently. She made her way to the dormitory to retrieve it when she stopped short in the hallway, her face flushing with shame at the sight she saw before her.
One of the chorus girls had taken a curly - and rather ratty - blonde wig from the costume department and had placed it haphazardly on her head. She puffed out her cheeks and hunched over to look short like Christine, and she was imitating a Swedish accent and babbling gibberish.
But perhaps the worst part was how four other girls stood around her and shrieked with laughter, clapping their hands.
They stopped suddenly when they saw Christine watching them, and they all looked shamefaced at what they’d been doing, but none of them apologized. Perhaps none of them had the chance to - Christine turned and fled, her eyes stinging and her sight blurry with tears. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, but she ran all the way to her dressing room and fell face first onto the divan there, holding a pillow tight to her chest and sobbing.
Everyone was making fun of her! They thought she was stupid! They were never her friends, after all.
“Christine?” Erik appeared from behind the mirror, his voice concerned. “Christine what’s happened?”
She’d nearly forgotten about her upcoming lesson - she’d only thought to run to the only other room that was hers and wasn’t right next to a group of girls mocking her.
“Christine!” Erik started to panic, falling to his knees beside the divan so he could be level with her. “Chérie, what’s wrong? Tell me, please-“
The little name for her spilled out of his mouth without him even realizing. The only thing on his mind was making sure she was okay.
“They were making- fun of- me,” she sobbed into the pillow, hating her voice sounded.
She hated her accent that branded her as different, hated how she looked different, hated everything. She wished she’d never come here.
“Who?” Erik asked, his brow wrinkling under the mask.
She shook her head.
“They don’t like me!”
Her heart broke all over again with a fresh set of sobs.
“Tell me, Christine,” he said gently and waited.
“The girls from the chorus,” she sniffled. “They make fun of how I talk. And my hair. And me.”
Erik sighed. He was no stronger to the cruelty of the world. It anguished him to see her like this, and it angered him, too.
“I hate them!” she cried passionately. “I hate everyone! I hate France!”
“Now you’re starting to sound like me, Chérie,” he smiled wryly, and placed a soothing hand on her back.
She tried to blink her tears away. She didn’t want Erik to see her like this, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Who was it?” he asked innocently enough, his hand rubbing a comforting circle on her back. “Who from the chorus?”
She thought for a moment, then named the five girls. He nodded, making a little noise of recognition, and mentally made note of the names for future reference. Christine thought nothing of it, telling him. Proof of what a sweet, trusting girl she was, he thought.
“Do you still want to do your lesson tonight?” he asked, uncertain.
She nodded against the pillow, then sat up as best she could. He rose without difficulty, and handed her the primer.
“I thought we might go over some grammar tonight,” he said, looking at a note he’d written down from earlier. “That’s your weakest point right now, but I think if-“
He glanced up, then stopped entirely.
She was still crying, only silently now. It was highly disturbing to him, how she sat there, looking right at him, the perfect picture of a student trying to learn, only with tears still flowing down her cheeks. He was at a loss of what to do for a long moment.
An idea occurred to him - a selfish idea, admittedly, an inappropriate idea, but one that just might work.
“Christine,” he said kindly. “I think you might like something different today?”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and looked questioningly at him.
“Would you like to see my house, Chérie? I have a surprise there.”
She didn’t have to consider.
“Yes, please.”
It didn’t matter to her what the surprise was - she’d take anything Erik wanted to give her.
He swallowed hard at her acceptance, his heart beating fast.
“You wish to come with me? To my home?” he asked cautiously, trying to make certain she knew what she was agreeing to.
“I do.”
He smiled widely and reached both hands out her, helping pull her up off the couch.
“Come with me, Chérie,” he led her towards the mirror. “It’s going to be dark for a little while, but don’t be frightened.”
He took her through the tunnels that led to the cellars, then down the many sets of stairs. He kept up a near constant chatter, knowing that she might not entirely understand every word but also knowing it would help keep her mind off the dank surrounds.
She looked at him curiously as he gestured to the little boat, but she got in it without any fuss.
Erik himself nearly broke down in tears at how much she trusted him.
He poled them across the lake until they reached the other side. Christine seemed to have forgotten what had transpired above, too focused on the little house on the bank of the underground lake.
“Welcome to my home, Christine.”
She was dazzled by this strange way of living. It seemed so sad, so tragic, so romantic. To renounce the world above and live in never ending darkness and solitude? She shivered to think of it.
The house, though surrounded by darkness, was actually quite cheery inside. Or at least, as cheery as a house belonging to Erik be. It was decorated in darker colors, but it was warm inside, with lots of books and art on the walls.
“This way,” he was still holding her hand from when he’d helped her to shore, and he squeezed it a little, his heart fluttering at the intimacy of the gesture.
He led her into a sitting room that had two plush chairs by a crackling fire on the hearth.
“Oh!” she sucked in a breath at the sight. How cozy it looked!
“Sit, sit,” he brought her up to one of the chairs, and sat down, smiling up at him.
She desperately hoped that he’d sit too, but as soon as she was settled he disappeared. Surely he hadn’t brought her to his home to leave her all alone, had he?
But he returned a few minutes later, a plate in one hand and a bowl in the other.
“For you,” he placed the plate on the little table next to her, and she noticed it had a cookie on it.
Then he handed her the bowl, which contained scraps of chicken. Her brow furrowed as she looked at it, but he nodded towards the door with a crooked smile.
“For her,” was his only explanation - but he didn’t need to say any more, for at that moment a meow came from the other room.
She turned to look. A cat trotted eagerly into the room, sniffing the air and meowing. Christine’s face lit up. A cat!
Seeing the familiar food bowl in Christine’s hands, the cat jumped up into her lap. Christine had never seen a cat like this, with pale fur down its body and dark brown on its face and feet and bright blue eyes.
“Is this the surprise?” she asked, delighted.
“Yes,” Erik sat in the opposite chair. “Her name is Ayesha. I would have brought her up to you, but I don’t think she’d handle the boat ride as well as you would!”
Christine held the food bowl out of Ayesha’s reach, instead picking up a bit of chicken and making Ayesha eat it from her hand. She loved seeing the little beast’s sharp teeth as she chewed, and the feeling of her raspy tongue as she licked Christine’s hand.
“Oh, she’s so funny!” Christine smiled.
“She looks just like the cats I’d always see in Persia,” he told her.
She looked up, surprised.
“You’ve been to Persia?”
“I’ve been to many places,” he nodded. “It is... always difficult, I know, to be a stranger in a strange land.”
She looked down at Ayesha again, thinking about how Erik might have felt just as out of place in Persia as she did in France. Ayesha meowed, and Christine had to smile - she didn’t meow like the cats she was used to seeing. Even the cat had an accent, apparently.
After all the chicken was eaten, Ayesha curled up in her lap and went to sleep, purring loudly. Christine continued to pet her, listening to Erik tell stories about his time in Persia - stories that were first edited to avoid any upsetting details, and then edited again to fit her vocabulary level. But Christine listened to them eagerly, eating her cookie.
They lapsed into comfortable silence after a while, the atmosphere cozy and relaxing.
“Erik,” she said in a small voice. “Can you help me- not have an accent?”
“Of course I can, Chérie.”
“Oh good,” she sighed, then said as though she were admitting a terrible secret- “I hate it.”
“You hate your accent?”
She nodded.
Erik was quiet a moment.
“Is that because of the other girls?”
She nodded again, slowly.
“I like your accent, Christine. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“You do?” she breathed, surprised.
“I do. I think it’s lovely.”
She bit her lip, not meeting his eye. She wondered what else he thought was lovely.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked gently.
“Yes. Thank you, Erik,” she said gratefully.
“Are you ready to go back upstairs?”
She nodded, picking Ayesha up from her lap and placing a kiss on the animal’s fuzzy little forehead before setting her back down on the chair.
What she wanted more than anything in that moment was to throw her arms around Erik and hug him in gratitude. He hadn’t had to bring her here and try to cheer her up, and yet he had. While she was petting the cat and listening to his stories, she’d managed to forget, for a little while, the way the other girls had made her feel. It wasn’t appropriate to hug him, she knew, but then again, it wasn’t particularly appropriate for him to bring her to his house all by herself, either.
Still, she held herself back. The evening had lovely, even without a hug. She couldn’t express how happy she was that Erik’s cat seemed to like her, and was hesitant to admit the reason that it pleased her. She knew from Meg that Erik was an orphan too, both of his parents long since gone. Meeting - and being accepted by - his beloved pet was the next best thing to meeting her future mother-in-law, though she knew it wasn’t exactly the same. The entire evening had been a pleasure. She only wished that the reason it had occurred could have been more pleasant.
After that night, she tried her best to speak only French, even when it was just her and Meg. Meg tried over and over to get her to explain what the matter was, but Christine refused to tell her, too embarrassed of what had happened with the other girls.
It was a few days after the incident that a handful of chorus girls mysteriously lost their voices.
It was Meg who brought it up one day in Madame Giry’s office while Erik and Christine were there.
“Lost their voices?” Christine’s hand fluttered up to her own throat, imagining how terrible that would be.
“Oh yes! A few went to the doctor, but he couldn’t say for certain when they’d be able to talk again - or sing,” Meg said.
“Who was it, again?” Christine chewed nervously at a fingernail, worrying something contagious might be going around.
Meg mentioned the names again, and it dawned on Christine that these were the same girls who had been making fun of her recently. She glanced over at Erik, the only person she had told about the incident. He was watching her, his face impassive, but a flicker of care for her in his eyes.
“How strange,” she said quietly.
“How strange indeed,” he mused, and then the subject changed.
She felt that same shiver down her spine, the one she always seemed to get when she was around him, the one she got when she learned something new - something that should disturb her but didn’t - about her maestro, but she never brought the topic up with him. She knew it had been him, and he knew that she knew, and that was enough for both of them, this unspoken secret they held.
Although it gave her a headache at times, she spoke only in French unless she wanted to discuss a topic that she didn’t have the vocabulary for.
Something that puzzled and intrigued her in the days following her visit to his house were the new little names he’d call her. She dearly wanted to know why he was calling her these, but felt silly asking him what he meant. Would he tell her the correct answer? Would he stop, once she knew what they meant? Was he- he wasn’t secretly making fun of her, too, was he?
She decided to ask Meg one day when they alone in her dormitory room, sitting cross legged on her bed as they folded paper flowers that would become a birthday gift for Meg’s cousin.
“Meg,” Christine started, uncertain how to bring the subject up. “There’s a word I want to know the meaning of...”
“What is it?”
“Chérie,” she ducked her head, embarrassed.
“Oh! It’s a term of endearment.”
“Endearment?” she looked up hopefully. “So if someone calls you that, they like you?”
“Yeah, probably. It means ‘darling’, or ‘dear’,” she told her.
Christine scooted closer.
“Like- like you’d call someone you were in love with?” she asked breathlessly.
“Mm hmm,” Meg nodded.
“And what about ‘petite’? What does that mean?”
“It means little one...”
Christine’s brow furrowed.
“Would you still say that to someone you loved?”
“You could! My mom used to call me that when I was a kid,” she reminisced, then laughed a little. “But when we had a dog and we called it that too!”
Christine’s face fell. Erik might be in love with her - or he might consider her like a daughter, or worse- a dog...
“Christine,” Meg drawled, grinning. “Who’s been calling you all these sweet names?”
Christine blushed and looked away.
“Just... Someone. But, ah, how do I- how does one tell someone that they love them?”
“Je t’aime,” Meg told her. “But if you say ‘je t’aime bien’, it means you only like them as a friend.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
Well, she wouldn’t be needing that phrase. She loved Erik, but not just as a friend.
And Erik loved her too, or at least she thought he did. She was hard pressed to find a reasonable explanation otherwise for the way he often acted around her. He’d crossed the bounds of propriety fives times over with her, but she didn’t mind at all.
Once, she was fairly certain that she’d caught him sniffing her hair during a lesson.
They’d been singing a duet together, their voices blending into something heavenly, and he had been walking around the little dressing room anxiously. He’d come and stood right behind her, much like the stage directions would have his character move behind hers. She’d been surprised when he’d placed his hands on her shoulders, but she hadn’t faltered and was proud of that.
She’d been even more more surprised when she was almost certain that he’d leaned in towards her as he was inhaling for his next verse, the end of his masked nose ever so gently touching a few of her curls and moving them just slightly.
She’d waited for him to stop singing and take it further, but he didn’t. He suddenly let go of her, throwing himself into the next verse. She was more disappointed than she cared to admit.
Erik hadn’t meant to sniff her hair. It’s just that she was close, and he hadn’t thought she’d notice, and she smelled like rose petals and vanilla beans... He’d been mortified after it happened, and for a brief instant he had panicked that she’d turn around and slap him. But the poor girl kept singing, completely unaware of what a disgusting lecher he was. He thanked his lucky stars that this was the most he ever let his self-control slip.
She’d never felt about anyone the way she felt about him. She’d met those she’d gotten along with on a personal level, good friends who had stayed close to her for a while. She’d had a number of excellent teachers before, people she’d admired and worked well with. She’d seen men that she thought were quite charming and handsome, too, men she’d giggle over with Meg. But she’d never met anyone who seemed such a part of herself as he did. She couldn’t wait for the day when they could speak together on any number of subjects, when they could have long, deep conversations about the world and the stars and dreams and the soul. She felt so comfortable around him, as if they’d always known each other.
While she was daydreaming about a life with him, he was secretly doing likewise. He couldn’t believe he’d truly asked her to his house, and that she’d agreed! How perfect she had looked there in the midst of the rest of his belongings. He wanted her there again, and the thought gnawed at him until one day he just had to bring it up.
“Christine, would you like to join me at my house for tea?” he asked, trying not to betray the nervousness he felt at her potential rejection.
“Yes, please!” she beamed - she’d thought he’d never ask!
She noticed the look of relief and pure joy on his face as she accepted, and stowed away this little of information in her mind, more seeming proof that he returned her affections.
“Oh, wait!” she turned and quickly looked for something in one of the drawers on her vanity.
He looked at her quizzically as she grabbed something and stuffed it into her pocket before coming to walk with him through the mirror tunnel.
He took her to the same sitting room again, and she spotted Ayesha peering over at her from where she was stretched in front of the fire. She blinked lazily and turned her gaze away, content to play at being aloof, but Christine knew what would change her mind. As soon as Erik had left to prepare the tea, she pulled out the ribbon she had stowed in her pocket, unfurling it with a flourish. Ayesha instantly focused on it, and Christine grinned.
When returned with the tea tray and was greeted with the sight of Christine pulling the ribbon across the floor and into the air, Ayesha leaping and jumping after it. He smiled. His two favorite girls, both having fun together.
She smiled sheepishly as she sat down to tea. To be here in his home with him, to drink from his cups and eat off his plates, to entertain his cat... She could almost pretend they were courting. How she wished that they were.
She tried to steer the conversation to more personal subjects, and Erik indulged her wishes. She asked how long he’d lived in France, and where he’d lived before. They’d talked at length in the past over personal preferences - she knew he liked the taste of lemon, preferred the overcast days to the sunlight, his favorite color was red, and many more little things. Still, there were more things she wanted to know about him - she didn’t think she’d ever run out of things to learn about this strange and fascinating man - things she would want to know if they were courting and intending on marrying.
One question in particular begged to be asked, though she felt slightly shy about bringing it up.
Erik was... not a young man. He was around Madame Giry’s age, and at one point he had lived out in the world before becoming a Ghost. Had there been others before her? Women who had fallen for this eccentric man? Women he had fallen for? She wanted to know.
It wasn’t until their tea was over and he was gathering their dishes to take to the kitchen that she finally gathered the courage to ask.
“Did you ever have a wife?” Christine asked.
Erik nearly dropped the tea tray.
“No, no,” he rushed to say. “No wife for Erik.”
Her brow crinkled in the most adorable way, and he quickly hurried to leave the room so he could gather his wits about him.
She stood and followed him.
“Why?” she asked, the picture of perfect innocence.
He cleared his throat as he began washing the tea cups and plates, not wanting to face her.
“I’m not- I’m afraid I’m rather unpleasant underneath of this,” he gestured to his mask. “No woman would want to kiss the face of a monster. I can’t blame them, either.”
Christine stood near him, listening dutifully.
“Hard enough to look in a mirror,” he mused, half to himself, not really expecting her to listen or to understand but finding it almost comforting to have someone hear him speak. “If I can’t stomach it, how could a poor woman stand it? No, it’s better like this, for Erik to be alone. He couldn’t condemn anyone to that, to having to gaze day and night on his accursed ugliness, to become the bride of such a repulsive carcass - it would far too cruel. No one could ever love Erik.”
She didn’t quite understand every word he was saying, but it seemed that he was self conscious about his face. How silly! That didn’t matter to her! Other women might think him frightening, but she thought him rather adorable...
She racked her brain for the words to explain that to him, but came up empty. Instead, she did the next best thing. It was brazen and forward, but it felt right.
Erik was shocked to feel her arms go around his waist as she pressed herself against his back. Christine was- she was hugging him. He shifted to look down at her and found she was smiling up at him, her eyes sparkling.
“Je t’aime, Erik,” she said shyly.
A ghost of a smile drifted over his own face.
“Oh, Christine,” he breathed, then reached down to pull her away from him. “Je vous aime bien, aussi. It’s good for a student to like their teacher, it helps the lessons go easier! But you must remember to address me properly, you’ll be quite embarrassed one day when you forget your manners with someone important and refer to them so casually!”
He chuckled to himself a little and patted her shoulder now that he had placed her at a safe and respectable distance from himself.
“Anyway, come along now! It is time for your music lesson,” he turned to lead her from the kitchen.
She blinked hard against the stinging in her eyes. He was important, and she hadn’t made a mistake in how she’d spoken... She might not be very fluent, but she knew enough to know that she’d just offered up her heart to him and he’d firmly established that he didn’t think of her that way at all.
Erik felt terribly guilty afterwards. She’d understood enough to know he felt bad about himself, and she’d picked up on his loneliness and had wanted to help him feel better. She was such a kind girl, always wanting to look out for others, of course she’d try to cheer him up however she knew how. He couldn’t read too much into her gesture or her words, really. She was just trying to be nice.
He repeated Madame Giry’s words in his head, a mantra that served as a bucket of cold water poured over him - Christine wanted a father figure. That was all she saw him as, and that was all he should be treating her as, too.
He had to be more careful around her!
Her singing lesson went well, though she looked somewhat distressed during it. He couldn’t imagine why, and after finding no discernable cause, dismissed it in his own mind as female trouble of some sort.
Over the course of a day or so, Christine came to realize that perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t have feelings for her, but just that he didn’t want her to know because he feared her rejection - and he thought her lack of fluency in French meant that she didn’t know what she was saying. She had to find a way to show him that she wouldn’t reject him, and that she understood her own feelings and meant what she had said.
She thought perhaps she’d found the way to do so when something happened on her third visit to his home.
He stepped away for a moment after their music lesson, leaving her to her own devices when she suddenly remembered a question she’d wanted to ask about a song. She walked the house, looking for him, and happened to find him bent over the kitchen sink with a small towel in his hand and the water running.
“Erik?”
“Don’t! Don’t look!” he nearly shouted.
She realized he was unmasked and looked away, though his back was still to her.
“Christine I mean it - don’t look, you’ll be too frightened-“
He patted at his face quickly with the towel - the mask had rubbed a sore spot on his cheek and he’d needed a moment to put some cool water on it to soothe the insistent burn - before scrambling to grab the mask that was on the counter and reaffix it to his face.
“I won’t be frightened,” she promised, her heart beating fast.
“No, no, it’s too terrible, Petite,” he turned and frowned, now masked, the towel in his hand.
Her eyes fell to it and her brow knit together in concern - there was a spot of blood on the towel.
“Erik you’re hurt!”
“I’m fine, it’s okay,” he assured her.
But it distressed her, to think that he was doing something that hurt him just for her perceived comfort. She wouldn’t let the topic go for the entire time they were going upstairs.
“Please Erik,” she begged. “It’s hurting you. I won’t mind.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t deserve to have to see that.”
“You don’t deserve to hurt!” her voice echoed off the stone walls so far underground.
His heart ached with love for her, and that was why he knew he could never let her see.
“I won’t mind. I promise. I won’t be afraid!” she went on.
“I’m sorry, Christine, but I can’t.”
He was being so stubborn! It infuriated her. If he would just let her see it, then he would see that she really didn’t mind!
They stood there behind her mirror a long moment before parting.
“Please Erik ,” she whispered, placing her hand over her own face where his mask covered, then removing it as one would remove a mask. “Please let me see you...”
He smiled sadly.
“Goodnight, Christine.”
And he turned and left.
The fourth visit to his home was not a visit for a lesson, but simply a visit. She’d asked to spend the day the at his house, and she’d still wanted to go even after he warned her that he was intent on getting some composing done that day. She promised to be quiet and good, and he’d escorted her down to that underground world she’d loved so much. She’d clung close to him on the journey down, and he’d pulled her closer, thinking she was frightened of the dark. He didn’t see the secret smile on her face, didn’t know she was thinking that this trip always made her feel like Persephone and how much she enjoyed that.
Erik was secretly pleased as well. She, along with all the other girls, had the day off from rehearsals, and instead of going shopping or to the river with friends, she’d asked to spend the day with him. It was terribly flattering. But oh, how sickened she would be if she knew the feelings he harbored for her! It was wrong, he knew, but he fully intended to spend the day pretending that she was his little wife - the illusion would be broken, of course, when he took her back upstairs in the evening, but until then-
It was a difficult task, to chose between Christine and music. He wanted to write, but he also wanted to bask in her presence. Did she have any idea how precious she was?
He stayed and chatted with her a while, eventually and reluctantly leaving her for the organ in the other room.
Left to herself, she picked up Ayesha and cuddled her against her face, carrying her with her as she examined Erik’s belongings up close. She looked quietly into drawers and cabinets, feeling guilty but not too guilty considering the man made his living spying on others. She found nothing too out of the ordinary. Most of his book titles she couldn’t read, or if she could, she didn’t understand the context. It irked her, and she vowed to one day be so well versed in French that they could discuss every book on the shelf.
At long last she came to stand outside the door of the room he was composing in. A plan was forming in her mind.
She chewed on her lip as she watched him from the corner of the room, her arms crossed around herself. He looked to be lost in his music - he hadn’t even heard her come in the room.
Her current plan was... impulsive. Reckless. Not the best.
But she could think of no other way to go about it. She’d asked, as best she could, and he hadn’t understood.
Her plan was really very simple. She’d snatch off the mask and kiss his cheek before he even had time to feel embarrassed about how he looked. She had seen men who’d come back from war, and those who’d been in terrible accidents before. There was surely nothing under there that would truly disgust her, not for very long! It was silly of him to keep wearing that mask around her, it surely couldn’t be very comfortable - especially if it was making his face bleed.
He didn’t even hear her as she approached, or at least she didn’t think he did - he certainly gave no indication that he had noticed her, or if had noticed, he only gave no acknowledgment.
She reached a hand out, hesitating. He wouldn’t like it, not at first, but she thought it better to get this over with. The sooner he realized she didn’t care about his face, the sooner they could become close and then something more. If she had understood the situation correctly, he thought the mask - or what was under it - was holding him back in love. Once that obstacle was removed, maybe he could finally admit his true feelings for her!
She pulled the mask off, a little smile playing at her lips, but Erik’s reactions were faster - she didn’t even have time to lean in and kiss him.