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The Enchanted Cottage

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Summary: Poor and plain nurse Christine Daae is hired to tend injured war hero Erik D'Anton in recently liberated WWII France. A variation from traditional canon, this story is one of endurance, hope, and the ever-redeeming powers of love.

ExC, Romance/Hurt/Comfort, AU: 1944, Paris, France. Limony 'M' warning just to be safe.

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Ch. 1— The Garden of Hope

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Paris, France

October, 1944

The little nurse was back again.

Erik listened intently from his position by the curtained window as she made her way carefully down the cobbled drive, her sensible heels click-clicking with every step.

He had been keeping up with her comings and goings for quite a while now. And from the information he had gathered, she had begun work at the sanatorium when her father was admitted as a means of paying for his care.

And she had chosen to stay on when he had died.

That had been over three months ago.

And Erik listened intently for her steps every night, waiting for her to arrive and begin her shift.

"Mr. D'Anton, Dr. Khan is here to see you."

With an absent gesture, Erik let the nurse on duty know he was ready. The door opened with a muted click as Nadir came in.

"Erik, it's good to see you."

"Khan, I wish I could say the same."

He heard the older man sigh. "It's still early days yet, Erik. Lie back, I want to check your pupils' response."

The older physician's gnarled hands pressed against his bandaged forehead, and then Khan was slowly unwrapping the gauze. He heard the click of a penlight being depressed and grew hopeful, Erik's eyes searching fruitlessly, sightlessly for the slightest trace of light.

His jaw clenched, he snarled, "Nothing has changed."

The pen light clicked once more as the physician's hands replaced the gauze. "It's only been two months since your surgery, Erik. Your eyes still need time to heal."

"And if this condition stays permanent?"

Once more sighing, the older man grasped his shoulder. "Then you shall adapt."

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She was coming.

Erik could hear her light footfalls as she stepped down the hall, delivering meals from room to room, giving a kind word here, a helping hand there. His was the last corridor, the very last room. And he had hoped she'd stay true to form and talk with him a moment while she tidied things up.

A tentative knock on the door, and it gave with a muted click. "Mr. D'Anton?" her sweet voice asked from the doorway. "Would you care for your dinner now?"

Turning from his seated position by the open window towards the sound of her voice, he said, "Good evening, Ms. Daae. You can place it in that corner there." He gestured to the small table and listened intently as the young woman did as bid, her steps economic and sure as she sat down the tray she held and began to tidy up his room.

Inhaling deeply as she moved about, Erik delighted in her scent: sunshine, springtime, lavender soap, and an alluring note all her own. She came nearer him, and he asked her, "And how are you doing today, Ms. Daae?"

There was a tone of self-reproach in her voice when she said, "I should be asking you that, sir."

Erik smiled roguishly. "Ah, but when you're here in my room, I can quite forget the realities of my situation entirely." He continued in a very conspiratorial whisper, "And every time you're here with me, Ms. Daae, I am always doing well. Very well, indeed. So you never need ask again."

He heard her draw a surprised breath, and he smiled to himself.

But it was too much fun to tease and bait her so! Erik would stake his life she was blushing! Oh, he could just imagine her tell-tale blush. He said off-hand, "One of these days, Ms. Daae, you are going to have to describe for me what you look like."

She snapped the sheet she was folding vigorously and the noise resounded like a shot in the small space. He smirked to himself, knowing he had so discomfited the shy little nurse.

Their interaction was the highlight of his day, although she never once quipped back. It seemed curious to him that she did not know how to respond to his flirting banter, and this gave him all the more encouragement to try and provoke a response.

It was her voice that called to him, made him want to engage her in conversation—keep her talking, made him want to make her smile—laugh that husky, amber-tinged laugh of hers that stirred such wicked, teasing thoughts in him when he could make her do so.

She was over by his bed now, almost finished with folding the linens into crisp, precise hospital-prescribed corners, and he heard a slight tremor in her lovely voice when she bravely stated, "They w-warned me about you, you know?"

Erik was intrigued. "Ah. Did they now? And do you always listen to what they have to say?"

In retreat, she bustled over to the other side of his small room, and Erik heard her empty the rubbish bin. Would she answer him, he wondered? He heard her draw a quick intake of breath, and then she stated in a rush, "'Mean-tempered and brutish' were the words they used to describe you."

When he didn't respond, she tentatively walked back over to him, and reaching past his chair, closed the window and drew the blinds. Erik inhaled, glutting himself on her scent, her very nearness.

He said softly for her ears alone, "And do you, Ms. Daae, find me 'mean-tempered and brutish'?"

He heard her gulp.

She stated quietly, mystified, "N-no. You are not as they say."

"CHRISTINE!"

Hearing her gasp, the air around him stirred as she quickly turned around. "Come, child. You are needed in Four C. Mr. Phillips must be bathed again and his bed linens changed. Dinner did not agree with the poor man, not at all. Lord bless him."

"Yes, Nurse Tomlin," she replied meekly, and Erik heard her quick retreating footsteps meanwhile his jaw clenched.

"Well, and how are you doing this evening, Lieutenant?" the Head Nurse asked.

"Leave, you wretched cow, and take the damned tray with you!"

The head nurse cackled, her laughter shrill to his sensitive ears. And with a muted click, the door to his room was closed, and Erik was left alone with his thoughts once more.

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Christine's hands shook as she left Mr. D'Anton's room.

How did he do it? Every single time she went to tidy his room, she vowed she would be professional, courteous, and keep a respectful, impersonal distance. But each time, the dratted man caused her to stutter and blush, his comments inducing her heart to pound.

Not for the likes of her, he wasn't. There were reminders enough in his room although he could not see them. His fiancée Carlotta Landress had plastered nearly every available surface with photographs of herself, and of the both of them as a couple posing together. Christine had gazed at their pictures often enough.

Mr. Erik D'Anton was a very handsome man.

At least, he had been before the German mortar shell had exploded near him and his contingent of men, killing many of them and peppering his face and body with shrapnel. He had been a Lieutenant in the French Army, and had been integral, so Christine had heard from the gossip of the other nurses, in the battle to liberate Paris: the very same battle in which he'd lost his sight and almost lost his life. A decorated war hero with a beautiful and very talented fiancé, the man was definitely not for the likes of her.

But a girl could dream, right?

And Mr. D'Anton's teasing quips and liquid voice featured nightly in her dreams.

But she did not delude herself. The only reason he said half the things he did to her was because he did not know what she looked like.

The man was blind after all.

Throughout Christine's life, adjectives such as 'plain', 'gawky', and 'homely' had always been applied to her by well-meaning friends of her father. And Christine had always tried to take such comments in stride. After all, she had been quite the disappointment to him for she looked nothing like her mother.

The only trait of her mother's that Christine had inherited was her voice, and even in this, she was embarrassed, for she had once overheard her father say to one of his friends, "It's such a shame, Christophe, such a shame! That an angel's voice should be paired with such dowdy plumage."

She had stopped singing that very night and had yet to sing a note since.

Oh, not for her father's lack of trying.

Even on his deathbed, he had urged her to sing for him, but Christine found she couldn't. She didn't have the will or the strength or whatever it's called when one's very heart has been beaten and broken in two by the supposed love of one that is supposed to love unconditionally.

Still, she had cared for him to the best of her ability, devoting herself, her life to making his last few years as comfortable as possible considering the diagnosis he had been given. When she found she was no longer able to give him the quality of care he needed, she had gone to the Jardin D'espoir Sanitarium to make his last few months as comfortable and pain-free as could be.

And she had been working as a nurse's aide ever since.

"Hello Mr. Phillips, Nurse Tomlin said you needed another bath."

In answer, the dotty old man gave her a toothless grin and wriggled around where he sat. Christine pursed her lips, trying not to cringe. The tang of human waste was noticeably pungent. Holding her breath, she went behind the chair and began pushing him towards the bathing ward, and she tried to count her blessings, really she did.

After all, she had a prospect of steady employment and this was a good, if not a good paying, job. And that was more than she could say for many in her situation.

And too, bath time with Mr. Phillips could have been so much worse! she thought as she began to wash the poor, dottering older gentleman clean. He could have 'painted' with his feces as a few of her other patients had done.

Yes, she needed to count her blessings.

Yes, indeed.

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