Pregnant. P-R-E-G-N-A-N-T. The state of a woman in gestation, the development of a fetus, a child, a baby. Pregnant.

He could define it twelve different ways scientifically; he could explain the process point-by-point. Pregnant. The word danced behind his eyelids as he tried to sleep, it taunted him quietly and unnervingly. Pregnant.

He sighed in the dark, looking down at his little wife that slept so peacefully with her head pillowed on his chest. She was sweetness and goodness and gentleness and - and pregnant.

You see? It simply did not fit. There was no way to mash the word into her definition without mangling the entire thing. Pregnant. Even the word was gross and uncivilized. There was no beauty in its vowels - not when he spoke it. Not when he spelled it in his mind and mulled over its definition.

When she said it she somehow made it sound beautiful. Everything sounded beautiful when it was formed by her perfect lips, when it rolled off of her perfect tongue. There was no way not to see the beauty in it when she said it, when her eyes sparkled so happily with her announcement.

Such was not the case when she slept. When she slept the word sounded gross; it sounded terrifying, positively parasitic. He hardly believed it at first; not that he ever would have confessed that particular fact to his bride. Nor would he confess how positively apprehensive he was toward its definition.

Erik was not meant to be a father. At least, that was his belief. He wasn't even sure how it had happened, truth be told.

Well. Fine. It was entirely his fault when it came down to it. He was very well aware of the mechanics, of the science behind the terrible anatomy of humans and that, well, that particular activity was one that he was just a bit too fond of to swear off of.

He was no dolt. He was simply surprised that he was capable of creating a life.

Positively fertile, when it came down to it, the both of them. Three months of marriage and their first already on the way. He couldn't say that he was particularly fond of the sort of future that spelled for them.

Erik had heard tales of barren couples; of women that were wholly incapable of conceiving, of men that lacked the ability to impregnate, of couples forced into adopting orphans and lying about their origins. How terribly he envied them. That, too, was something that he would never confess to his beautiful, perfect, decidedly pregnant wife.

He would have gladly adopted an orphan. Some down-on-it's-luck little thing without a hope in the world. Some little creature that was not so irrefutably his. It wasn't that he hated children, oh no, quite the contrary in fact. He adored children. Their sweetness, their innocence, their positively mischievous tendencies. It was only the idea of his child that he hated.

It hadn't a chance in the world with him as its father. He loathed it already, months before it was born.

The first time it moved Christine had come to him all aglow, excitedly pressing his hand against her newly rounded belly. He was absolutely appalled. It was alien and unnatural, it was far too real, the little parasite that had made its home in his wife, that had wormed its way into his life against his will - that was already stealing her away from him day by day.

He despised it for what it did to her - the way that it changed her body, the discomfort it forced on her.

"I am fine, Erik. I just need to sit down a while," she would say, smiling softly as she reclined in his chair.

Only Erik was no fool and he knew very well that she was not fine. She was pregnant. Her ankles swelled and her feet ached, her breasts were tender and her mood swung so erratically that even he had trouble keeping up with it.

One moment she would be aglow, happily chattering on and the next she would weep, breathing her insecurities into life, seeking his reassurance desperately.

He gave it to her and it was hardly a lie when he did. "You will be a marvelous mother, Christine. What a silly thing to cry about," he would wipe away her tears and press his lips tenderly to her forehead. "You are perfectly suited to motherhood, my silly girl."

He was only glad that she never asked him what type of father he would be. He never had enjoyed lying to her.

If he thought it couldn't get any worse he had been terribly mistaken. The night that he had to whisk her through the darkened streets of Paris and to the midwife they had painstakingly chosen together was the longest of his life.

The damnable woman refused to let him into the room, citing some archaic tradition that he hadn't had the patience to care about. It was remarkably unfair, he thought, that he would have to bear the little creature for the rest of his life and he was not even allowed to comfort his wife through its delivery.

He was reduced to pacing. Up and down he paced along the thin wall that separated him from his wife. And so he had to bear the sound of her cries, of her pain, of her sobs and he was not allowed to hold her hand through it. He was not allowed to brush her hair back, he was not allowed to offer her quiet reassurance. Remarkably unfair, the whole ordeal, and were he not so worried for his wife's health he would have had no qualms about breaking down the flimsy door between them. Locks had hardly ever been enough to keep him contained when it truly came down to it.

When one cry turned to two he found himself frozen in place. The shrill scream of the infant was terrible. He wanted nothing more than to press his hands over his ears and close his eyes. If he could have willed it out of existence he would have that very moment.

Then the door was swinging open and the ruddy midwife that he had decided he hated was allowing him into the room. His eyes found her quickly, pressed beneath thick blankets with her pink cheeks and excited smile and tears streaming from her tired eyes.

There was no interest to be found in the wriggling changeling that was in the midwife's care. Instead he sank to his knees at his wife's side, his thumbs wiping away her tears as he stared at her.

"She is absolutely perfect, Erik. She is so beautiful, and so perfect. Oh, our daughter, Erik. Isn't it wonderful?"

He agreed with her. Of course he agreed with her. How could he ever confess to her that he hated the little thing? Surely she would leave him then and that - well, that was a worse fate than being stuck with the screaming thing that had been born from them.

He was relieved, at least, to find that the only thing the unfortunate creature seemed to inherit from him was his lungs. It had a nose and brown eyes, a sprout of curls on its head that resembled its mother's already. Christine tried to hand the child to him and he had steadfastly refused to take it.

It had yet to stop screaming, you see, and he despised it so deeply already that he could hardly take it in his arms. He had never had remarkably strong impulse control - a fact that he would readily admit - and he was sure that he could not be held liable for whatever tragedy would befall it in his hands.

It was a perfect little specimen, a pretty little girl with chocolate hair and its mother's eyes. He despised it only all the more for that. He hated it for being beautiful. He hated it when it would scream in the night and pull his wife away from him. He hated the attention it required, the way Christine would dote on it so devotedly, the way that she would look at it as though it was her own heart and soul.

He missed the time when she would look at him that way. She hardly had the time to for a long while after it's birth.

It cried incessantly in the first months. It screamed and wailed unendingly. It was completely his fault, he supposed. As pretty as the baby was he couldn't help but to think that he must have been the reason, that he had caused some terrible defect somewhere deep within it - and surely it was his fault, as nothing of Christine was flawed. No, he was entirely convinced that he had passed on some terrible trait. He destroyed everything he touched and it only came to reason that something he created would just as easily be broken.

He managed to avoid touching it for the first six months of its life. Christine was well enough absorbed in her constant care to take much notice and he considered himself lucky for that.

It wasn't until it began to crawl that his nightmare truly began.

Grubby fingers touched everything, they pulled at the tablecloth and yanked books off of the lower shelves. It particularly enjoyed ripping the pages out when Christine's exhaustion made her look away for even a moment.

He did his best to mitigate the potential for destruction. He piled books haphazardly on the higher shelves, on end tables, on the dining room table that they never used anymore. The disarray was truly distressing and the damn thing still somehow managed to get its hands on one novel or another, creating kindling for the fire from books he would have much rather read. He began to think that it would make much better kindling.

Not that he would ever actually harm a hair on its head. No. Christine would never forgive him for such a transgression. Still, the thought brought him some relief.

It was one evening when Christine sat down for a moment, only a moment, that he was forced to touch it.

Its grubby hands pulled incessantly at his pant leg, something that he would normally ignore until it found something else to occupy its attention. Only this time the creature was rather insistant and Christine - oh, the poor girl, she had fallen asleep almost as soon as her eyes had closed. He couldn't bear to wake her, not when she was so clearly exhausted.

Instead his hands wrapped around the baby's chest, holding her just under her armpits, as he held her at arms length and stared at her.

Christine's eyes stared back at him from the infant, full of curiosity and interest.

"What do you want?" he asked her seriously.

She simply swung her feet and smiled stupidly at him.

"Perhaps you'd like another book to tear apart," he accused, glaring at her.

She only giggled, her arms stretching out toward his throat. He wondered, for a moment, if it meant to strangle him.

He looked helplessly toward Christine, sighing when he found that she still slept just as soundly as she had the moment before. Surely she had some sort of motherly instinct within her, surely she had to realize that her child was hardly safe left with him unsupervised. And yet, she did not even so much as stir. "You must, for once in your short life, behave," he said to the baby, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. "You have thoroughly exhausted your mother."

Her little face began to scrunch up - something that happened remarkably often when he dared to look at her - and he knew that terrible wailing cry was soon to follow. Oh, make no mistake, though he had avoided touching her he was not beyond watching. He was particularly skilled at that. Chubby arms stretched toward him and he sighed.

He remembered his mother. He would pull at her skirts, too, when he was young in much the same way as his unfortunate daughter pulled at his pant leg. She would tear herself from his grasp and send him straight to his room. There was hardly ever any contact between them aside from the necessary - of course, when he managed to injure himself gravely she was forced to touch him. Her good Christian guilt had compelled at least that much. She never offered him comfort. She never offered him a gentle touch. She hardly spoke to him unless it was to grunt some command or another.

All at once it hit him like a gunshot or a particularly heavy blow to his chest. He was his mother.

It was a remarkably distasteful thought, one that he would like to discuss with his wife; his good, gentle wife who was so very skilled at soothing his worries, who was remarkably gifted at fixing the problems that he created.

Only his wife was fast asleep and he was alone with a baby; a baby that was very much his, a baby that was dangerously close to beginning its screaming that rivaled even the great Carlotta's wailing.

He hadn't the slightest idea what to do with it. He could write a symphony and create a circuit of electric light, he could tend a gunshot or a fever with remarkable efficiency, but the intricacies of comforting an infant were beyond him. The intricacies of comforting anyone were beyond him if he was quite honest. That particular fact had caused a rather nasty fight on his wedding night that he tried his very best to forget.

"Just hold me, Erik," his wife had said to him through tear-filled eyes when she finally managed to drag the fact that he was terrified he had done something wrong out of him.

It was as good advice as any, he thought. He pulled the infant closer to him, cradling her carefully in his arms in just the same way as he had watched Christine do so many times before. He tilted his arms so that she was cradled against his thin chest, suddenly terrified that he would drop her.

To his surprise it seemed to work. Her face smoothed itself and she reached out, wrapping her tiny fingers around his thumb. He was not the most comfortable - he was not supple or nearly as warm as Christine was, but the infant seemed satisfied enough and that was a relief in itself.

When Erik had dared to approach Nadir for advice upon learning of Christine's pregnancy the man had smiled, clapping his hand on Erik's thin shoulder and congratulating him. It would all make sense, he had said, when he met the baby, when he held it in his arms. Everything would fall into place.

Only now Erik held his child and still nothing made sense. He felt no overwhelming sense of love. There was no sudden realization, no chorus of angels sang. He did not feel his heart swell within his chest. The only realization that did come was the fact that he did not hate her.

No, no, he did not hate her. He could not hate her for daring to exist. She had not asked to be born and even if she had she certainly hadn't asked to have him as a father. No one would be quite stupid enough to wish that fate on themselves. He did not hate her - he only hated himself. That was what really sat at the bottom of it all, wasn't it? If only she had been ugly maybe he could feel something for her - some sense of pity or remorse. Only she was beautiful and perfect and if he was honest perhaps that was what worried him most. The only one that did not fit in this family portrait was him and it was inevitable, he thought, that Christine would one day realize that. He couldn't help but fear that one day she would wake up and realize how unfit he was as a father, let alone as a husband, and she would take herself and her handsome baby and find someone far better suited to play the part. She wouldn't have to look far.

The only thing that came from his strange self realization was the fact that he was no longer afraid to scoop their child up in his arms and pull the books that she was so hell-bent on destroying from between her chubby fingers. After all, he had touched her and she did not die. Any lasting damage was surely already done. If he was perfectly honest it was not so terrible to hold her. She was soft and warm and sometimes, when she would yawn and pull gently on his fingers, he felt something almost protective.

It made his wife happy anyway. He had seen the relief pass through her eyes when he had taken the screaming, inconsolable thing from her arms in the rocking chair. He did not understand why being in his arms was what soothed her but it did all the same. And it certainly wasn't fair that she be forced out of bed every time the girl decided she was hungry at three in the morning. She was more than grateful when he would bring the screaming infant to her.

Christine was rested. A rested Christine meant she had far more time for him and if all it took was a few minutes of holding a baby then so be it.

It was really when her babbling began to form into words that Erik felt guilt.

The infant sat in Christine's lap one evening, babbling happily as had become her favorite hobby, while Erik tried his hardest to ignore her and read his book.

It was quiet, far too quiet to mean anything particularly good, and he looked up to find the dreadful thing staring at him. It's little arms stretched out and it began to bounce in his wife's lap and then, oh, and then it's little lips parted and-

"Erik!" she said.

He wasn't sure whether it was him or Christine that were more stunned. They both stared blankly at the little thing.

"ERIK!" she said again, her impatient hands opening and closing as she reached for him.

It was a truly dreadful thing to know that her first word was his name. He was truly undeserving of it. He had tried, when her babbling began, to coax her. He took every opportunity he could to point at Christine. 'Mama,' he would say to her. 'That is your mama.' And yet it was all useless. Pointless.

"No, no, Isabel, it is papa, not Erik. Papa," his poor wife was so terribly conflicted, torn between praising her for forming a word at all and scolding her use of his name. And how could he tell her that he much prefered her to use his name?

So papa he became, a dreadful title that he felt he had no real claim to. Papa's were warm and loving. They coddled their children and filled their homes with love. They were not cold and distant, they were not funeral creatures that played at being men. No. If anything suited him it was father, but surely not papa.

Christine, for her part, could not decide whether he was a genius or had never seen a child in his life. He had very little patience for the sing-song way that people talked to children and so instead he would look at her and speak as though he were talking to his wife. It sometimes got him into trouble, too, but he refused to bend. He would not have the last shred of dignity that he clung to torn from him.

It was truly the Great Vegetable Disaster that got him into the most trouble. The evening that his daughter decided that anything green was no longer tolerable to her palate. She must have been two at that point; a little, far too mobile thing.

"You must eat your vegetables, Isabel," Christine had said, dropping another stalk of broccoli on the infant's plate.

"It's yucky!" their daughter would say, flinging the offensive thing across the room.

Erik wasn't sure whether he should be mortified or impressed. It seemed she had inherited more from him than just his lungs. Her stubbornness was impressive - the distance she could throw the stock of broccoli even more so. It had gone on far too long, though, and that particular throw had nearly knocked a glass off of the countertop - why it was on the countertop and not in the cupboard he couldn't answer. Ever since the troublesome little thing had realized that her legs were perfectly capable of carrying her the entire house had been in disarray - it may have disturbed him if he and his wife were not so occupied in keeping the girl from maiming herself, something that she seemed remarkably determined to accomplish. Positively suicidal at times, he thought. He wondered, sometimes, if he had been as troublesome when he was her age. He had to imagine not or he surely would not have made it to the age of five with his mother.

He looked up from the food he pushed about on the plate with his fork. "You know, Isabel, I knew a little girl who refused to eat vegetables once."

Once he spoke he had her attention - her eyes would settle on him fully, curiously. He wasn't sure whether that was testament to the power of his voice or how little he spoke. It was anyone's guess, really, but he much prefered to think it was the former.

"She died," he said dramatically. "You must eat your vegetables or you will die too."

"Erik! That is terrible," Christine said, attempting to comfort the little thing that begun to cry.

He shrugged his shoulders, sulking into his potatoes. "It was scurvy, really, but..." at his wife's scathing look he sighed. "It doesn't matter."

As angry as his wife had been with him she certainly didn't complain when the little thing ate it's broccoli.

That was the day that Erik learned that death was not an acceptable threat to use. Christine was sure to tell him that much.

"If you wonder whether you should say it you should simply pause and ask yourself, 'would Christine say this?' if the answer is no then you should not say it to our daughter!"

He had resisted the urge to point out the fact that he may as well take a vow of silence if that was the guideline he was meant to follow. He also resisted pointing out the fact that even though it was admittedly unorthodox it had worked exactly as intended. Instead he apologized, promising that he would be more sensitive.

Anyway, it had seemed to effect Christine the most. The little thing was still absolutely enthralled by him. He would never understand her fascination, the way she seemed to be inexplicably drawn to him. It was infuriating, really. The girl could find him effortlessly regardless of the lengths he went to to keep her away.

It was at the age of four that Isabel learned that her mother's hairpin was perfectly capable of picking a lock if only she was patient enough. The girl was nothing if not patient - patient and determined. That, too, got him into trouble. Christine refused to believe that the girl had learned the trick on her own.

She was smart, though, and he found he could not be too cross with her when she would pick the lock and find her way into the music room, climbing wordlessly onto the piano bench beside him. She did not take up so much room, you see, and she always stayed quiet. So long as she was quiet it was not such a terrible disturbance.

One night she picked the lock to their bedroom, creeping silently across the room until she found his side of the bed.

"Papa?" she whispered, pulling at his sleeve.

Half asleep and dazed he started, squinting into the candlelight.

It took him a long while to understand why she stared at him in such a strange way but once it hit him he was absolutely mortified. He pulled the sheet over his face quickly. So much for that, he thought. This would surely spark at least a week of nightmares.

"Is that why I'm not allowed in here?" she asked with all the innocence that could only belong to a child.

"What do you want, Isabel?" and he hadn't meant to hiss it but it sounded harsh even to his own ears.

Her little fingers were insistent and eventually he gave up, letting her pull the sheet away and look at him curiously. He hated every moment of it; the way she absorbed every ugly detail in the flickering candlelight. He still put out the lights when he climbed into bed beside his wife before he would take his mask off - he had been so incredibly careful and it had all been for naught. "I had a bad dream," she said as though she had not just learned that her father was some terrible monster.

"Now you will have two," he said.

She shook her little head, her hands finding the edge of the bed as she hoisted herself up. "There is a monster in my room, papa. I need to sleep here tonight."

He sighed, falling back into his pillow. "There is no monster in your room, Isabel. I know because I kicked them all out. I am the only monster allowed in this house."

"Nu-uh," she argued. "You missed one, I saw him."

Erik had to accept that he was utterly defeated. There was no arguing with a stubborn, frightened child. Besides, if Christine woke she would surely invite the girl in anyway. She would be livid if he turned their frightened daughter away. So instead he held the blankets open. "Do not wake your mother or we will both be in for an earful."

Isabel climbed gratefully between him and his wife. It was not so terrible, he thought. She was small and quiet and thoughtful. So long as she did not climb between them too very often it was tolerable enough. "Papa?"

"Hmm?" he asked, licking his fingers and pinching out the flame of her candle.

"Will you get rid of the monster tomorrow?"

"First thing in the morning," he promised, closing his eyes as he laid back on his pillow.

"Papa?"

"What, Isabel?"

"Thank you," she whispered and, to his surprise, he felt a pair of little lips press to his cheek. "I love you, papa. Goodnight."

He couldn't help the smile that came and he was dreadfully happy that he had extinguished the candle. "Goodnight little Isabel."

As it turned out, there was a monster in her room. A rather large spider that had made its home beneath the corner of her bed. Spiders did not particularly bother Erik but even he had to admit in low enough lighting the thing scurrying across the floor would have been enough to startle him. So he carried it across the lake, releasing it into the caverns.

And that night, as his wife curled up against his chest and he ran his fingers through her soft hair he sighed. "Christine?"

"Hmm?" she asked, warm and comfortable against him.

"You wouldn't leave me, would you?"

"What?" she asked, curling closer against him. "Erik, you are ridiculous. Sometimes I wonder where you even get these ideas from."

He hummed, his fingers brushing against her arm. "Have you ever thought about, I don't know, having another?"

She shifted, staring up at him in surprise. "You really are mad."

"It was only a thought," he murmured, one long finger bumping against the tip of her nose.

Though she never would have said it he saw something soft pass through her eyes, replaced by a gentle, teasing smile. "I do not know what you have done with my husband," she murmured, leaning forward and pressing her lips against his. "But you can keep him - I much prefer this one."

"I am entirely serious," he murmured against her lips. "And I am no more mad today than I was last week."

"Well, I suppose if it happens, there is nothing to be done about it," she teased.

He gathered her into his arms, rolling her under him. "We need new locks," he whispered.

"Higher locks," she agreed, smiling up at him.

And perhaps the blemished family portraits were not such a terrible thing after all.