Page 24 of Angel's Flight

He dared at last to look at Christine.Her auburn hair was half-loose, strands wafting in the evening breeze.Even now, her beauty was devastating.Such sadness and worry filled her forest eyes, and it was there because of him.

“Then what?Where will we go?”

“I don’t know,” Erik answered sadly.

“When we began this, it felt like the whole world was ours to explore,” Christine went on listlessly.“I thought I would be able to wander with you anywhere; that as long as we had each other, it would be fine.I thought it might be like life with Father before he got sick, but, Erik...”

“It’s not enough, I know,” he finished for her, and the regret in her face at the truth of those words rent his heart.“You deserve a home and a life.You always have.”

“We deserve that.Both of us,” Christine argued.It was useless to tell her how little he agreed.“We swore vows to one another to walk this road together.Do not forget that, Erik.”

Erik forced himself to nod, trying to claw back his reason and faith in her from the dark place in his mind to which it had fallen.“We could go to England, put a channel between us and the continent.”

“You hate England.”

“I hate the English, but I could cope,” Erik muttered, but he knew that it wasn’t convincing.

“America then.There’s enough room there.Though the crossing would drive you mad.”

“It’s only a week, we would be fine if we kept to our rooms,” Erik argued.Why was he arguing for a place he didn’t want to go?“But then we’d be in New York.”

“Another huge city where we know no one and I can’t understand a word that’s being said,” Christine sighed.“Though I guess that would be the case anywhere.We can’t go back to France.It’s too close to whoever it is.”

“America is a great land with great opportunities,” Erik mused.“Though I have heard that the powerful are not fond of those who aren’t like them.Half the country fought and died in a war so they could keep human beings enslaved.Not to mention how they’ve treated the Irish and Italians that have flocked there.”

“It might be better than running for our lives forever,” Christine countered, but her energy had flagged.“I guess there’s Ireland.Your home by blood.”

“Absolutely not,” Erik spat, surprised at his vehemence.“We are to leave the past behind, and I have tried Ireland.There’s nothing for us there, and it’s the absolute opposite of a great city.”

“It could be different with me,” Christine tried again, and Erik found himself wincing as she went on.“Or is Ireland like Vienna?Or Venice and Prague?Another place you’ve seen and suffered, so I am not allowed to decide if we could try again there.”

This was a familiar argument.He had left a trail of pain and enemies and destruction over Europe for decades before settling in Paris.There were few places left he hadn’t been run out of or eventually run from.

“America then, I guess,” Erik sighed.He hated arguing with her.It made him so afraid.Afraid he would say the wrong thing or that her rightful anger would finally make Christine realize what a mistake she had made, yoking herself to him.

“Let’s get back.We’ll talk more after we hear from Jack,” Christine muttered, clearly seeing his acquiescence for the surrender that it was.“Maybe he knows someone who has made the journey.”

“Maybe.”

The idea of such a journey nagged Erik the whole way back to Jack’s home.Until now, it had been a quiet little house, located near the cathedral where his family had served as music directors for generations.There were others there, of course, including Jack’s widowed mother and grandmother next door, but they had left Erik and Christine entirely alone to recover and rest after their flight from Florence.

However, Erik realized as they approached: the house was no longer quiet.The windows were full of light on the bottom floor, and people teemed inside.He could hear the raucous chatter down the street, and on instinct, he froze.

“Jack must be home,” Christine said reassuringly, taking Erik by the arm.“Everyone has come to greet him, it seems.”

“I didn’t realize he was related to the whole city,” Erik muttered.

He wasn’t in the mood for this.He wanted nothing more than to retreat to their room (or even better, a nice dark cellar where no one would find him) and lose himself somehow, be it in a book or a composition, or even making love to his wife for the first time in days.There was a need for her that had begun to skitter under his skin, and not merely for her body.Erik’s mind had returned at the most inopportune times to what she had done the day he met Jack.How she had dominated him and how much he wanted her to do it again...

Erik shook himself from the thought as they caught sight of Jack in the sea of relatives and neighbors that had flooded his house.

“There you are!Come in, we have enough food to feed an army!”Jack called.

Erik dearly wished he were back in the Opéra with a wall to disappear behind.There was nothing he wanted to do less than mingle with strangers.He didn’t have the energy right now to even find the darkest corner where he could hide so that no one would look too long at his face and discover it was a mask.He didn’t want to make up lies or avoid questions.He just wanted silence.

“You can say you’re ill, if you want to,” Christine murmured beside him.

Of course she knew.Of course, she understood how anathema this situation was to his very nature.Even so, guilt fell on Erik’s heart like an avalanche at the words.Guilt that she had known immediately what he was thinking, shame that he even had to think it, and more guilt in knowing that he had no will or power to stay.He hated to disappoint her, but she would be fine.

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