Recast as Child

The snow is melting. A graceful exit it always finds around the first stages of March, clinging to the still bare branches of the trees in the cold mornings. The sky keeps the winter grey, and moves as a thin veil of cloud across the forgotten warmth of the sun. It still hazes tepid about the walls of the Opera Populaire, though all else has passed beyond its sight.

Beneath the age old foundations of the Opera House, beneath all the rest of the world, Christine still finds herself dancing at the bank of the catacomb river. It is absent, and mindless, and is more a series of broken, scattered, dithered twirls, with childish notes humming up from her soundless stir. All around her is white, and a veil lies discarded and rumpled at her feet. She is a bride who seems to have missed her wedding, trailing dusty-coal brown curls, and whirling in a rustling satin gown. Her face is white as snow. She thinks, perhaps, if she dances long enough he will forgive.

He pretends not to watch, but Erik always does.

"You never kiss me anymore," Christine murmurs, and stops dancing. Her arms hand as a disappointed child's at her sides. Erik does not look up. He remains at the swan bed, wrapped in clean red sheets, and plucks at the bloody pieces of shirt draping his chest and torso.

"I never see you," he responds, dryly, despondent. So long, and he has not yet returned to a porcelain mask, dark wig and dress coat. So long. He is beautiful still, with long fingered hands that stretch across keys and bodies like nothing she could ever remember, with sharp, fierce eyes that may hate her as Jezebel, and arch with the sweetest of endearing smiles on a mouth that has achieved perfection. Christine remembers he tasted like candy. It has been so long since he kissed her. Erik raises his brows, practically, and his eyes are the same as they ever were. "It does not mean I don't miss you."

Christine throws her white arms over her head, blurs of pale color in the darkness of his home. "Such Hell, this is," she sighs, and cranes her neck to look about the caverns and crystals of a catacomb lair. "Do you think he misses me as well?" Erik sits up, and with a scowl, his answer is somewhat noncommittal.

"He always will."

This catches her interest, and with a little continuation of the tune in her throat she approaches him, swaying ivory satin, and he cannot wish her away. He self-consciously drapes a red sheet over his breaking wound. She sits beside him, and folds her delicate legs beneath so many layers of white, and cocks her head like the curious little girl. "Do you think we will ever see them again?" she asks. "Any of them? I miss Raoul, and Meg. Dear Meg."

Erik shakes his head. "I don't know," he replies. "I thought I knew what might happen, at first, but I don't know what will happen now."

Time passes, and Erik sits with his bride in the comfort of an eternal silence. She crawls into the bed beside him, and into his arms, but his blood will not soak into her white, white dress. She breathes him in, and closes her eyes against his neck, dark lashes kissing his skin and sending shivers up his back and shoulders. It seems so strange, having all he ever wanted beside him, having her to kiss, and make love to.

"Angel," Christine murmurs, gently, pressing her lips to the twisted flesh of his discolored cheek. "It's been so long since you held me like this."

"I can't follow you, when you go," Erik says, and feels no pain as Christine moves over him, resting her head on his chest and reaching up to touch his free pieces of dark hair. She is so like an infant in that way, always adoring something new. He used to love that about her. She was taken before her time, Erik has always regretted that, as he bled to death, with two bullets in his torso, and watched helplessly as the mob drowned her.

He has never quite forgiven her, or himself. He hates her for not running when he told her to, and hates himself for only lying there prostrate on the ground, blood running in a deep pool beneath him, watching with unmoving eyes as she died. Not long after she was gone did he know there was no loving thing left to live for in the darkening world, and he stopped fighting.

Erik is distantly aware of Christine's movement at his side, and he closes his eyes as she kisses him softly. To be kissed, to have arms around him, to feel these things were to him all things he had ever wanted, and now it seems so surreal to have her lips on his, on his chin, his cheek. And Erik knows that it is because neither of them are truly real. She pulls away.

"You used to make love to me," Christine says, palming his smooth cheek in her right hand. Eyes nutmeg, face still white as snow, her smile is fading from its indian-fire that touches at her lips. Erik stares into that young, sweet face, and no expression touches his. "In the beginning, when we first discovered our new freedom, you used to make love to me." She touches the left side of his brow with cold fingers. "Your touch is like ashes. Why do you never touch me anymore?" She leans in, and kisses him again, swelled with such longing, and such love. "My beautiful Erik."

Erik remembers the time he knew such happiness. Once he came to realize why he bled, why Christine hated going to the water, why they could not leave, he realized that he was free, and his bride with him. God only knows how much time passed, but his meetings with Christine are scattered and few. Sometimes she is gone for unbearable stretches of immeasurable time, and he goes mad. Other times she does not seem to leave, but he cannot always remember such things. He knows he misses her. He remembers the feel of her warmth, soft body beneath his. He remembers holding her. He remembers telling her, always, how he loved her, at first, and having it dwindle as the endless procession of days take a silent toll. He remembers the feel of her.

"It's this place," Christine says, and sits up in the bed. She crawls out of it, and smoothes the satin material around her, body erect and poised as an excited child with a new, frightening discovery. "This place, Erik. So long we have been here," she walks slowly, down the steps, around the dusty organ, and stands barefoot at the rocky bank. Stale, old water laps at her feet, and Erik waits for her to scream. He waits for her to run to him, and weep, and shake with fear, but Christine is still. She turns to him, brows raised, and brushes her dark curls away from her face. "It's why you cannot follow me when I go. It's why we are never together. It's this place, this horrible place, and it always has been."

"It's my home," Erik considers this, considers her. He exhales softly, and unfolds to his feet, paying no mind to his side, and wrapping the length of his dark cape protectively about his entire figure. "It is all I know."

Christine shakes her head, and turns to the water again. She leans toward it, and stops just before her toes touch the surface. It ripples in anticipation, and she withdraws. She shakes her head, and holds her hand out, blindly, behind her. "It has been long enough," she murmurs, finally. "You wait for me, and wait for me, and without you I cannot even find myself. Come, take my hand," she flexes her fingers in midair. "Erik," she says softly. "I want to see the sun again."

Erik steps down, and his fingers curl into hers. He steps beside her, and across the water is an open gate he does not recognize, and a world he once despised. He cannot hate it now, with her beside him, this girl. He shakes his head. "We will disappear. I don't think we will be able to return if we leave."

Christine leans into him, her back into his front, her head on his shoulder, and gives the den a brief glance. She turns back to the light of a day they may never approach. "I would not want to return here," she says, and a smile appears on her cold, colorless face as his arms snake around her. "You always wanted to walk beneath the sun," she murmurs. "With no mask. The wind on your face, the sun on your skin."

Erik kisses her hair, and does not wait another moment. He guides her arm back to her side, and together they step hesitantly into the water. The initial cold fades very quickly, and they wade straight through the tunnels, with the thoughtless slipstream across the vast ocean. Somewhere beyond they find the sun, and what they leave behind remains unchanging. The Opera House is silent and dark throughout, webs cling to the corners and dusty rotten wood, and below the ashen cold grey of what was once beautiful the secrets of half a century remain undiscovered and closed in the solace of locked hallways.