Title: The Departure

Rating: M (For implied sexual relationship involving a girl of fifteen/man of forty-eight and references to drug use)

Beta: Gladrial

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The owners own. This is for fun, not profit. I've made no money.

Summary: Christine attempts to draw out a visit with her Phantom, but Erik is being firm. Until the tears start. (E/C, mostly Kay AU with dashes of ALW/Leroux)

Author's Notes: Just something else I had in my files. There's very little point to this story besides being creepy and cute. I wanted Christine to throw a hissy fit, but she ended up crying instead. And Erik just can't stand that! Also, Erik basically waves off a Major Discussion by using his Authoritative Voice, but it works because Christine still doesn't exactly grasp the reality of this whole thing yet. Semi-domestic slice of life scene, from the same universe as my other one-shot, but it can stand alone. (Don't read if you find the stuff I wrote up above, to explain the rating, offensive. Seriously.)

It just simply wasn't up for discussion. She could beg and plead all she wanted, but there was going to be a boat ride and that was that. No matter how good of a job the girl was doing to convince him otherwise, attaching herself to him from the moment she awoke and pulling him into uncharacteristically impromptu sessions of amorous activities at every turn. As loathe as he was to admit it, Erik was just not physically capable of keeping up with this youthful vigor she'd been struck with. They'd made love thrice that day and she'd completely derailed any attempt at her singing lessons with bedroom eyes and strategic placement of hands in places that had been in disuse far too long to resist such treatment. Normally he was the one encouraging this behavior, his little chorus girl simply along for the curious ride with an engaging phantom, but this…this was just troubling.

"Christine," Erik began in a firm tone, watching with narrowed eyes as she fussed over clearing the table of the night's dishes. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but you're leaving within the hour and that's final. No more of this."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied innocently, brushing a few minuscule breadcrumbs off of the linen tablecloth and onto one of the plates. "I'm not doing anything but your dishes."

Hell and damnation, she was going to be the death of him! "You're drawing it out," he answered. "But it doesn't matter because you have to go back upstairs whether you agree to or not."

"But why tonight?" his young lover sighed, almost whined even, and set the plates into the sink with a pout. What on earth had gotten into the child; she'd never behaved like this before! Had he spoiled her somehow with all of his attentions this past week? Even for her age this attitude was out of place.

"Your return time was not up to me, Christine," Erik reminded her in the same serious voice. "You know that. We're lucky to have had this time to your lessons and ourselves. Any longer and there will be a stir." The girl was quiet then, staring at the dishes in the sink as if transfixed by the gilded edges. "I suggest you go change into your nightshift and one of the cloaks in your wardrobe," he explained authoritatively. "You've got to be back in the dormitories before the bed-check and it takes at least thirty minutes to get…"

Erik trailed off as he saw the telltale slump of her shoulders and heard her sniff back what he knew from previous experience was the first of perhaps many racking sobs. Aching at the sight, he crossed the small kitchen in two steps of his long legs and enveloped Christine into his arms. Burying her face into Erik's white shirtfront, his darling attempted to mumble something unintelligible through her tears and was encouraged by him, now in a much more gentle manner, to calm down and repeat herself.

Taking a choking breath, she said with a small hiccup, "I can't leave you by yourself down here, Erik. I just can't!" She took another breath and added with a low, sobbing moan, "You're going to die down here with no one to take care of you!"

"Christine, my precious, hush now," he soothed, running bony fingers through her mahogany curls and holding her tiny form to him tightly. "Your Erik has been on his own since the first breath he took. You've got nothing to worry about, really."

Her head shook against his chest, tiny hands clinging to the back of his shirt like a lifeline. "No, no, no," she cried. "I know now, I know where it comes from!"

Erik's pale brow furrowed underneath the mask. "Where what comes from?"

"Oh, Erik," she whispered hoarsely. This was ruining her throat, surely. "I'm not simple, I know it changes you. When you disappear into the study…"

Uncertain exactly what to say, he remained silent. He'd taken her innocent nature for granted, obviously. Assumed that after so many months of becoming used to the bizarre circumstances surrounding his lifestyle she would overlook the more unsavory aspects, waving them off as just more crazed behavior from an aging specter. The mad quirks of genius. Affectations of an old monster.

"You shake and you bruise and you gain such an eerie calm about you," she continued, sniffling and holding on as if he were about to vanish in a puff of smoke. "I didn't notice before, I didn't, and I don't want you to rot down here all alone. I just don't know what I'd do if something happened to you, doing that…that…" She struggled for an appropriate term and instead ended with another sob that made his withered devil's heart want to split open.

But these tears and pleading gasps were not going to transcend twenty years worth of nasty habit. There were three constant loves in his life and, sadly, only one of them was Christine. It was useless explaining what the drug did for him that she couldn't, how it calmed the violence and crushing pains of age like she delighted him within the insane loneliness of his seclusion. His right arm felt hot with a bothersome imagined shame he hadn't felt in quite some time and the next words out of his mouth were chosen carefully.

"You listen to me, my sweet…and well, because I'm only going to say it once and I'll expect you to have taken it to heart: I know exactly what I'm doing. Do not worry about me with regards to my habits. Don't," he repeated firmly, trying to inject it with as much emphasis as he could. "Your Erik is beyond set in his ways now, there's no use crying over damage done. I always have reasons for what I do; this is no different, right?" She nodded against his chest and he continued in a softer voice. "You have nothing to fear of me leaving you without warning and that's as good of a promise as an old ghost can give. Understand?"

Again she gave a nod and eagerly leaned into Erik's touch as he brushed her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. "Oh Erik," she sighed with another hiccup, "But I just don't want to go back yet and leave you to this silence. Back up there to the endless rehearsals and that nasty witch…"

"I enjoy silence. And you don't worry about La Carlotta, precious," he replied, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I'm taking care of that. But what will Madame Giry think if one of her favorite girls isn't in place tomorrow?"

"One missing little ballerina that would much rather be down here with her angel?" She flashed a hopeful smile up to him, rosy cheeks still damp with tears. Oh God in heaven, how tempted he was to take her up on that! The Corps de Ballet would surely survive the loss of a single adorable charge for another day…but unavoidable logic took hold yet again. The deal had been made and the terms set. The last thing he needed was to lose Antoinette Giry as an accomplice or give Nadir another reason to go poking his nose about the Phantom's business.

"Here is a compromise for you," Erik offered, heart leaping at her now hopeful expression. "Go return to being a diligent, obedient member of the chorus, excel in our next few lessons, and you may spend the night again after Saturday's performance concludes." His little darling's delighted exclamation and enthusiastic embrace was taken as an acceptance of the aforementioned arrangement, though he rather wished it hadn't been so dramatic reaching the conclusion as they had. The emotional ups and downs of an adolescent girl were fit to rival his own insufferable mood swings. At least he could take solace in violence being an unlikely happening where Christine was concerned.

Once again the sweet angel, clad in her bland cotton nightgown like the other girls above and one of the thick black cloaks lined in satin from his collection of extravagant purchases, Christine was all too willing to leave the comforts of the underground lake house to rejoin the world. Erik doubted he'd sufficiently allayed her fears about his vice, but assumed that she trusted him enough to practice moderation...which was not the case in any sense of reality. He'd allow her think what she would if it kept the heart-wrenching tears at bay.

In the gondola she chattered away about something little Meg had heard from the Jammes girl the other week, on the bank he carried her over a dark patch she was afraid hid a legion of rats, in one of the corridors he frightened her nearly to death by actually claiming to have seen a legion of rats thereabouts, and by the time they reached the next level she realized he was teasing her and demanded to be put down. In the walls of the opera house proper they made a quick stop by the fool managers' office where Erik shushed Christine's thrilled giggles and let her place the latest letter from the resident opera ghost on one of the desks. At the hidden door outside of the dormitories, the Phantom stole a kiss, and cloak, from his eager girl, then shooed her out quickly and lingered only long enough to watch from behind a sconce that she entered her destination, filled with girlish squeals and high-pitched whispers.

And back down in the bowels of the earth yet again, comfortably seated at the desk in his study, with his furry Siamese princess dozing loudly on the arm of the chair, Erik rolled up a shirtsleeve and attempted to locate his tourniquet underneath the gathering of scrawled compositions that littered the immediate area.

All would be quiet until Saturday.