Warning, very dark one-shot. I was writing too much happy stuff and I needed diversity.

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It was easy to pretend, far easier than to forget. There, sitting on the carpet, was his wife with their child. He was in an armchair, simply observing. That was what fathers were supposed to do, observe.

"Where did I go?" Christine asked in a sing song voice, holding a blanket over her daughter's head.

The girl giggled, pulling it off her blonde hair, which made it stick upright with static. She indulged this again and again, never tiring.

Then Christine would sing to her child. How sweetly she sang! Like a little bird as her daughter reached for her lips, the source of the exquisite sound, as if to catch it with her chubby hands. Her mother's voice, however, slipped through her grasp.

Erik had, at first, wanted all of Christine's attentions himself. That, however, had proven impossible, as she kept blaming him for the death of the vicomte. Who had put the noose around his neck? The boy himself. Why was Erik to be blamed?

She had not relented, though. She had woken up screaming at night and hit his chest when he attempted to comfort her. During the day, she had curled up on the sofa or a chair, and simply stared at a space right in front of her. She could entertain herself for hours doing that.

"Where's mama, my love?" Christine said cheerfully, once again covering the child's blue eyes.

He had been careful to select one with blonde hair and blue eyes at the orphanage. It was the only way he could devise that would help Christine be happy again. It had worked splendidly, as she immediately latched into the child, and devoted herself entirely to her.

He was her husband, though, so he owned her happiness and could delight in it. The loss of her attention had not been so great a loss at all, as it had never existed.

"Do you want a cookie, my little angel?" Christine asked.

The child clapped her hands in delight, and Christine set her upon her hip. Erik observed them remove a few from the jar in the center of the dining room table, just beside a case of roses, before resuming their place on the carpet.

He supposed this was happiness. He had Christine now, and she didn't cry anymore, even if she acted as if he didn't exist. She was his, so he ought to be happy.

As the days passed, however, and as the child reached her third birthday, Erik realized that this wasn't enough. He wanted Christine's affection, too.

That was easy enough to procure. Simply touching the child sent her into hysterics, and when he picked the little girl up Christine immediately acquiesced. A kiss was all he wanted. Was that so much?

He placed his lips upon her forehead. The sensation was so immensely satisfying that he began to demand it daily. His need for it only increased as time went by, until twice a day he was permitted her forehead.

She would do anything to keep him away from her child. Anything.

He then wondered what one of her kisses would feel like. That was added to the daily ritual, until there were two kisses in the morning, two at night before bed. After the final two, she would slip into her bedroom with her child.

Every kiss made him crave more. When he finally demanded one upon his own lips, Christine visibly shuddered. He was so distraught by this that he grabbed the child by its dress and held it out above the lake. The little thing wailed, and Christine responded accordingly.

This kiss was the most divine of all. He finally felt like her husband with this gift. He didn't require any more.

Oh, but the sight of the child in her bed at night! Why did it occupy that place? Wasn't the husband supposed to be beside his wife then? That was the natural way of things, after all.

So one night, he came into her room as she was pulling a nightgown over the child's blonde head. She gave a start at seeing him.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, as she had already given him his kiss.

"I want to sleep beside you now," he said.

The child whined. Erik resisted the urge to hit it, as Christine would comply quickly.

"Anna always sleeps with me," she said. "Always."

"But that's not right. Mothers don't sleep with their children once they're grown-"

"Please, Erik, not this. Anything but this."

"The child can learn to sleep in its own bed."

"She doesn't have her own bed, though."

"Then I'll buy her one tomorrow. Promise."

Christine glanced down at her daughter, then sighed, "I promise."

This promise was fulfilled the following night with much ado. The child would not stop screaming for its mother, until Erik considered drowning it. Christine finally calmed it down, and slid into bed next to him. They did not touch.

Erik was quite content with this arrangement as well. They were a perfectly normal couple now, save walks in the park, but Christine wouldn't be able to handle that. It would excite her. She was easily excitable now, and only her child could calm her.

As before, however, he wanted more. They were not fully married. Before, he had thought her too pure to taint, but now that his lips had touched hers, and their bodies lay in the same bed, what was the difference? He deceived himself into believing there was none.

"Goodnight, my little flower," Christine crooned as she tucked her child into bed.

She turned around and gasped to find Erik there. He trembled with the weight of his request.

"What do you want now?" she demanded weakly, her eyes pleading.

Something kept him from saying. He patted her head instead.

"Nothing, my dear," he told her.

The next day, this situation repeated. He simply couldn't ask her. His tongue refused to form the words, as he knew, in the part of his mind he had shut off, that she would die if he did it.

Yet his sanity, what little he had possessed, had shattered like Christine's after the boy's death. There was no way for him to reason with himself. He wanted what was right in a marriage, so what was to stop him from having it?

When he finally managed out his last request, Christine fainted. She collapsed upon the carpet in the drawing room, and her child cried from the sofa beside her.

"Mama! Mama!"

"Shh!" Erik scolded the thing.

Fortunately, Christine had taught the child to be afraid of him, so it quieted immediately. Its weeping turned into coos.

He dabbed at Christine's forehead with a wet cloth to awaken her. When she did wake, she had no memory of what his request had been. Upset by her reaction, Erik said she had simply not eaten enough that day, and collapsed out of exhaustion. She hastily accepted this answer.

It was three nights later, as they settled into bed, that he asked for the final time. Christine slid out of bed, shaking her head violently.

"I will not," she pleaded. "Take anything but that, Erik, please."

He took a step towards the bed where the child slept, and Christine dissolved into tears. The acid in them melted his heart enough to give her another week. She agreed.

It was the day of the night that he realized his letter opener had gone missing. He asked Christine if she had taken it, and she laughed.

"Why would I need a letter opener?" She replied.

He accepted her answer. Perhaps he had misplaced it.

After dinner, she requested a walk on the shore of the lake. As it was reasonable, Erik obliged, though the shoreline was quite small. She was delighted by it, however, so he didn't mind. The child walked alongside her.

He glanced inside the house for a moment, then walked to the edge of the lake, opposite the boat, where Christine was. She came over to him, devoid of her child.

"Where is it?" Erik inquired, gesturing to where it should be standing at her side, its hands pulling on her skirts.

"She went inside to use the bathroom."

"Oh."

Erik was becoming anxious for the night. Surely it was late enough now?

They went inside, and Christine hid in her room for a few minutes to get her child ready for bed.

"Christine?" He called through the door.

"Just a moment," she replied, her voice clear and calm, which surprised him.

He would have simply strode in, but with the anticipation in his blood, he was content to allow her time alone at the moment. What was the harm in it?

Then he heard something fall to the floor. Bewildered, he pushed open the door.

What met his eyes made him fall to his knees. There was the letter opener, buried in Christine's chest. The sight of blood had never made him sick before, but now all of him trembled.

He clutched her body and wept for an entire day. Then he wondered why the child was not crying for its mother, and found that it was, in fact, merely pillows beneath a blanket. Where was the child? Why had she pretended that it lay in bed?

The boat. She had put it in the boat... or drowned it... Either way, it was gone, and he turned his thoughts back to Christine.

He found himself unable to pull the blade from her chest and end himself with it, so he took a blue bottle of poison from the kitchen. He had hidden it there for himself.

He placed Christine inside his coffin, then rested a veil over her cold features, before lying down beside her. There was the pop of uncorking a bottle, then silence.