Erik's long body was curled up, wrapped around his wife, his head resting on her breast. He turned his face slightly to plant a small kiss on her. He had never stopped marveling at the way her skin felt on his lips, and if not for the irritated little huff that escaped her lips, he would have kept kissing her with no goal other than to feel her softness. If he were younger, she would have truly hated him, because he would have never let her leave the bed. Erik held no illusions about his physical presence; how she stood his touch at all, he did not know, but he was grateful that she did. She had become his outlet, even more so than music.

"I'm sorry," he murmured against her skin.

"You always do things like that just as I'm falling asleep," she complained. "Why can't you ever be still?"

He had no answer for her, so he lay his head back down. He did not necessarily want her to see that she had wounded him with her admonishment, but if she sensed it, she would feel guilty and then...

Her arm encircled his shoulders, and her other hand stroked his head. Affection motivated by guilt and obligation was better than none at all; Erik would take whatever he could get.

He knew Christine was not happy. He behaved respectably so that she would not be ashamed of him. He tried his hardest to control his temper so that she would not be afraid of him. He allowed her plenty of freedom, and gave her nearly everything she could want so that she might harbor some affection for him. It was not enough. The only time he had ever seen her face alight with joy was when she had seen the Vicomte de Chagny at the Opera, and he had never seen her look sadder than when she had returned from her private visit with the young man. She checked the papers daily for any news of the expedition, and did her best to play it off as though she had always had an interest in Arctic exploration, and he had somehow failed to notice.

Erik tried to tell himself that it did not matter; she had married him. It had been out of hopelessness, and he had lured her into it on what turned out to be false pretenses, but she had still done it. He had intended to respect the boundaries laid out at the beginning of their marriage, but he could not do it. When he had asked for a kiss, it was only because he wanted a little bit of her kindness. She had such a kind heart, even if she had ceased to see it. So he had asked a little more from her, and a little more, until it had completely gotten away from him. There was certainly no going back now, no way to bottle up the years isolation, of self-loathing, of pent-up desire, sorrow, and rage now that they had found their release. He poured all of it into Christine, and for a few moments, felt almost normal.

Poor girl. Surely he was the most unlovable man to have ever walked the planet, and she was quite the martyr to tolerate him the way she did. How he worshiped her for it! Still, he wished that she could love him, that he could light up her eyes the way even the barest mention of her old friend did, but he knew it was impossible. Even if he had been good looking, and had led a normal life, he doubted that he would have put such a glow on her face. Raoul de Chagny belonged to her golden childhood with her father. Erik could not compete with that. Even when he sang to her, she did not look at him the way she had looked at her friend.

He knew she thought about Raoul when they were in bed together. On one level, he did not care. Her thinking of another man did not change the course of what actually occurred. His more vindictive side screamed at him to demand more from her, to degrade her, to ruin her fantasy and remind her that she belonged to Erik alone. He only indulged this cruel impulse on rare occasions, and even then he never took it anywhere near the extremes that played out in his mind, backing down before he had even started. He could not bring himself to destroy the trust that existed between them. She did not reciprocate his love, but she had surrendered herself to letting him love her. It was better than nothing. He never should have received even this from her, and it was foolish that he still hoped for more.

He sat up suddenly, and hugged his knees to his chest, fighting the urge to sob.

"What is it?" Christine asked sleepily.

"It's nothing," he replied. "I'm sorry I woke you again."

She sighed and turned on her side facing away from him and pulling the covers over her shoulders.

He rose slowly from the bed and left the room, determined to be quiet. He couldn't play anything, couldn't pace anxiously, couldn't bang his head on the wall, or scream out the question that was always on his mind: "What must I do to make you love me?"

Note: I had to give Erik a voice.

Points to anyone who knows what song (think 90s) inspired a little bit of this chapter. I don't think it's terribly hard to guess.