Tiochfaidh ár Lá

Disclaimer: Don’t own POTO… This story is rated M for subject matter not because it’s really explicit.

A/N: Welcome back, me, again. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and to those who sent me a message and prodded just a little for an update. I had meant to update this ages ago and I’m sorry about that. In fact, it was so long ago that I can barely remember what went on in this chapter or the last one or so on… Happy reading… well, that is, mildly nostalgic, somewhat depressing reading for the most part…

And please leave a review…

Chapter 14: Peace Comes from the Oddest of Places…

With the coming of morning the next day, Erik found Christine awake and refreshed, waiting for him in the kitchen so that they could have breakfast together. And he smiled at her as she went about making him tea and something to eat. He found it mesmerising to watch – never had anybody before tried to take care of him and he thought it was precious coming from her, when she was the one of the two of them that most people would think needed to be fussed over. He would so happily have done the fussing too, but he was not about to interrupt the domestic display in front of him.

Then, after breakfast, he did as he had promised her and they both headed off to the shopping centre down town that she’d asked to go to. Eventually, stopping the car by the side of the street, Erik turned to Christine and fished in his pocket. “How much do you need?”

“What?” She was mortified and had to look away from him, shaking her head. It hadn’t occurred to her that she would need money with which to buy the things that she wanted – it didn’t occur to her at all that she didn’t have any and that he would be her only source if she dared ask him. It did however occur to her that she should be very ashamed that she needed him to do this. “I would never ask you for money.” How could the morning that had been so perfect now be so difficult?

Erik frowned softly at her as he constantly wished that she would just accept him and his devotion with open arms. “I know you don’t have any on you,” he said, pulling her hand gently towards him as he deposited some cash on her palm and wrapped her fingers tightly around it. He didn’t intend to let go of her hand until he was sure she would accept it.

“How can you know that?”

“I know you don’t have a job and, unless I’m terribly mistaken, I doubt you are given any by your guardians… that leaves only what you have saved up yourself. And considering the last time you were able to save any money up was probably about three years ago before you came to live where you are now, I’d say that you probably don’t have any of your savings left. How do intend to pay for what you need if you won’t let me help you?”

She felt ashamed to be so useless and lowered her head. “I will pay you back, I promise,” she said softly, and Erik felt sorry for her. He hadn’t meant to make her uncomfortable with his offer. All he had ever meant was to provide for her.

He shook his head and pushed her hand gently back towards her, watching as she put the money in her pocket. “There is no need for that.”

“I don’t want you to always have to be stuck watching out for me,” she admitted, removing her seatbelt and turning in her seat until she sat facing him fully. “I want to make you proud of me one day. I’m going to finish my exams, get a place at university, find a job and move away from my aunt’s. I’ll have my own little flat and my own life… with room for a cat.” She laughed briefly, shaking her head and looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’ll be self-reliant… that’s all I want. And you’ll never have to set eyes on me again.”

“That’s not what I want, Christine.” He couldn’t understand why she was telling him this. Had he not, over and over again, proven to her that he would do whatever it took – go that extra distance – just to keep her presence in his life?

“Well… I would like it if you did perhaps… come to visit me once in a while,” she said, laughing softly in her embarrassment. She couldn’t really come right out and tell him that she didn’t know what she’d do if she could not talk to him – could not confide in him… she couldn’t just say to him that life would be so useless without him there.

“Just you try to keep me away,” he smiled, lifting his hand to tentatively touch a couple of fingers to her cheek. “I told you once that you’d be stuck with me to eternity…” Pausing for a moment, he held his breath and then decided he would likely never get such a clear opportunity again, knowing that if he didn’t ask now, he probably wouldn’t ask ever. “What are you doing this weekend, Christine?”

She looked at him curiously and shook her head, not wholly understanding his reasons for asking her something like that. Yes, he had been there for her over and over again… but at the weekend? She wasn’t sure what that meant. “Oh, I’m not sure… probably nothing. Why?”

“Would you mind… if I took you out sometime, Christine?” he asked, resigning himself to await her reaction, whatever it might be. If she was disgusted, he would never mention it again and let it eat away at him for the rest of his life… but if there was even the slightest of chances that she was willing, then he could not live with himself if he did not find out.

“Took me out?” Was he asking her this because he felt a certain sort of pity towards her for having to live with the kind of people that she did? If she wanted to go with him, would he think her pathetic? That she really was useless?

“Yes… wherever you want. I worry about you when you’re not with me,” he admitted, taking her hand into both of his, holding it in between them. “I’d like to see you at the weekends.”

Nodding solemnly, she gave him a fragile smile and lowered her head. Was he asking her just to spend time with him as a friend? From what she knew, he didn’t have many friends and she wondered if he was trying to forge a relationship between them because of their mutual pain so that he might not be so lonely. But Christine was only seventeen and had never been an overly confident teenager at that – Raoul had been her first boyfriend and it had been a terribly superficial sort of relationship… she could not claim to have feelings for him that were rooted as deeply inside of her as she felt the butterflies every time this man touched her. Yet, thinking of Raoul, she knew he didn’t deserve this sort of betrayal – yes, she didn’t know of Mr. Wilkes’ intentions, but surely, to be fair to Raoul, she should turn him down and think nothing more of it.

But she knew she couldn’t do that either… something told her that if she told Mr. Wilkes that she didn’t think that was appropriate, he would become every bit the professional teacher again just to please her – and she did not want that at all. What was she without his friendship? “I want to see the stars.”

Erik studied her a moment and then wrinkled his nose in thought. He couldn’t say that that answer had made much sense to him. “What?” He wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly, so focused had he been on her probable rejection of him.

She blinked away a few untimely tears in her eyes and smiled. Maybe he had just wanted to be a friend to her after all – she was happy about that. It meant for less heartache this way and she could try to start thinking of his as her best friend first and foremost so that she might not be as uncomfortable around him. “All of this artificial light… I haven’t seen the stars in longer than I can remember.”

He nodded, happy that they were getting somewhere now. “I want nothing more than to give the stars to you, Christine,” he said eagerly.

“Well… I should probably show my face to Aunt Ros before the morning’s through… see if she’s noticed I slept somewhere else last night, that sort of thing. And there is something I want to do before it gets too late – I suppose it will have to be dark for us to see the stars anyway, so if you’re not busy tonight…” Trailing off, she watched his expression of excitement and tried to work out why exactly he was so eager not to be rid of her at the first opportunity. Surely, having spent all week with her and all last night and this morning, he would not want to spend any more time in her company without at least the weekend’s break. But, seemingly, he did… and she would be a fool not to cling to the feeling of being wanted.

“I’ll pick you up when it starts getting dark… it will take us a while to get into the countryside and by then it should be fine. Would you have dinner with me, Christine?”

“Dinner? At night? In the countryside?”

He nodded and turned to look back out the front window for a moment as he spoke. “Yes… I know it won’t be fancy. And it would have to be in my car as I won’t have you sitting outside in the cold at night, trying to eat. We could watch the stars for a while and then we could have something to eat and relax a bit before I take you back.”

“I’d love to,” she’d said before her conscious mind had a chance to process what he had suggested. And truly, if Raoul had suggested such a thing, or anybody else for that matter, she knew she would have assumed they wanted more than just her company. But yet, as she was sitting here in his car, looking into the sincere and hopeful eyes of the man she found herself missing when he was not around, she couldn’t help but want to go and she knew, beyond any doubt, that he would not try anything… certainly not. It was a wonderful feeling, she found… to feel safe with someone – to feel cherished, completely the opposite of being taken for granted.

Erik, at the same time, hoped that he wasn’t coming on too strongly – he had absolutely no experience in this field and he was relying heavily on what he thought she would like as opposed to anything he should and didn’t know about asking her to spend time with him. He was concerned that he had just made their little moonlight picnic, as he liked to imagine it, sound like some sort of cheap excursion into the countryside in the hopes that she might like him enough to do something. How he hoped she had not had that impression when he’d suggested it. And, he supposed, she must not have, otherwise she wouldn’t have agreed.

Still, true to his character, he was worried something would go wrong, and true to Christine’s character, she worried that something would happen that would cloud her view of the man she knew as her hero. But, as it happened, they were both glad they’d had this little talk… even if it did raise more questions than it had answered.

“I’d better get going…” she said after a while of both of them lost in their own thoughts. It would not do to be late home and get found out before any of this had time to come into fruition.

“Of course.”

Hesitating, she eventually leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, disappearing out of the door before he could blink. “I love you, Christine,” he whispered sentimentally to no one, placing his hand wonderingly against his cheek, and he slumped down in his seat to await his beloved’s return from the shop.

---

Humming softly to herself, though she was unsure of how she could be so light-hearted at the current moment, given what she was about to do, Christine approached her aunt’s house. Mr. Wilkes had just dropped her off outside – he was still there in fact, sitting in his car, watching to make sure that she got in alright. Now, as she put her key in the door, she turned back to look at him once more and, without ever meaning to consciously, she ended up blowing him a kiss and waving to him before entering the house and closing the door behind her as quietly as she could.

Outside, Erik tried to collect himself as his heart fluttered from her gesture. He’d never envisioned receiving that sort of gesture from her – she was so beautiful and she’d actually blown him a kiss! She’d given him more in the last day than he had ever received in his whole life, in fact.

Meanwhile, Christine leaned back against the inside of the door heavily. She couldn’t believe she’d just done that… that wasn’t the sort of gesture one gave to their teacher without it meaning something else. Mentally kicking herself for giving him false hope, she moved forward up the stairs slowly so that her presence downstairs in the clothes she had worn yesterday might not be noticed. None of them should be up anyway – not on a Saturday – and the quiet of the house only strengthened that notion.

Sighing heavily, relieved to be in safe territory again inside her bedroom, she threw her coat over a chair and sat on her bed. This was where it got difficult… she had a whole day to get through without him near her, and though she couldn’t see it, she was finding that harder and harder. At least, in his house, she felt like she belonged – he often said it would just be space without her there… but here – here, she felt surplus to requirements… she felt like a spare part which kept getting in the way.

---

“Where have you been, Christine?”

Nearly jumping out of her skin, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she almost dropped the bag she was holding in front of herself as her aunt came up behind her unexpectedly in her own room. “What? I’ve been up here all day…” she tried, knowing that the wording of that had been true even if it was not precisely what Ros had meant.

“I know that. I’m talking about last night…”

Averting her eyes guiltily, Christine put the bag slowly on the bed and wrung her hands, waiting for her punishment. She didn’t know how the woman had found out but she still felt like she should just be allowed to die in the pain of it all. If people knew about last night, they would ask questions – questions she couldn’t answer without getting someone into trouble – someone who did not deserve that kind of thing. She couldn’t say anything or it would be worse than anything anybody could do otherwise.

“You’re grounded until you tell me where you were,” Ros said finally, when it was clear that Christine was not about to say anything. Of course, this would not be the end… Ros would find out – she had that way about her. Secrets did not stay secrets for long in this house. “And I’m taking your mobile phone off of you…” Which she promptly did, turning it off and putting it in her pocket…

And all Christine could think of was that she had to see the stars with Mr. Wilkes tonight, irrespective of whether she had permission or not… How would she even let him know that she couldn’t come now that she had no way of contacting him? She suddenly felt wholly and frighteningly alone again. She was so obviously nothing without him… she was worth so little that, standing by herself, she quite possibly was not even worthy of existing.

But she also didn’t think telling her aunt that she’d spent the night in the arms of a man who was not only a lot older than her but was also her teacher for one, her fellow victim for another, and the man who professed unabashedly to love her just to top it all off, would provoke much in the way of leniency. So she kept her mouth shut and her head bowed as her aunt left the room.

---

“Hello?” Erik said. He’d been just about out the door to go and get Christine when the phone had rung and he’d decided after looking at his watch that he had a minute to see who it was, in case it was her. He was actually a bit late already as it had gotten darker much earlier than he’d expected… but it would be stupid to just walk out the door if he could speak to her for a moment first and assure her that he was coming.

“Hi, Erik – it’s William… do you have a moment?”

Placing his hand over the mouthpiece so that the headmaster of the school he worked in wouldn’t hear him sigh, he suddenly felt stupid for answering the phone and sat down in the chair next to it heavily. “I suppose.” Technically, he did not have a moment to spare – technically, he was into borrowed moments as it was… but technically didn’t seem to come into it right now where the source of his income was concerned.

“Look, I know it’s a Saturday and you’re probably busy, but this is the first time I’ve been able to get a hold of you,” William started. He was sure already that he would not enjoy this conversation… it was not a particularly pleasant subject to discuss with anyone in his employ – it was extra difficult with this man.

Erik nodded tiredly, just wishing that he would get to the point. “It’s alright… what do you want?” People he didn’t like very much had this awful habit of stumbling over their words slowly and never getting to the actual reason they were speaking to him.

“It’s about your leave of absence…” William began ominously.

Erik sighed. He hoped they were not going to start all of this again. “I was… on my way out, you know, William. Can’t this–”

“It’s important,” William said quickly, cutting him off. “The Board of Governors are meeting tonight to discuss your future at the school… I think you should be there if you want to keep your job.”

Tired of all the discussions – tired of being persecuted for being the only one brave enough to ensure that the woman he loved was not violently assaulted by someone she would spend the rest of her life hating and fearing, he suddenly couldn’t care if they wanted rid of him. Perhaps he’d take voluntary early retirement and go wherever Christine, and her university course, took him. “What good will being there do when they obviously already have it in for me?”

“They might listen if you explained your actions… why you thought it necessary to do what you did.”

“Why I thought it necessary to do what I did?” Erik asked. “She was going to be raped, you insensitive idiot! She was about to be raped by some disgusting, cruel bastard who would have hurt her and not cared in the least! I know Christine, and thought it would be far better for her not to have to remember that beast having been anywhere near her. I thought it far better for her to remember it having been with someone who cared for her and would support her afterwards as she grieved. But do forgive me for thinking she deserved more than being forced into that situation in front of everyone without another to go through it with her and comfort her!”

William shook his head needlessly as Erik couldn’t see it, having not wished in any way to have offended him as he seemed to have. “Erik… it wasn’t my intention to upset you… I only wished to warn you about tonight.”

“Well, I can’t go anyway – I am otherwise engaged tonight, it being the weekend and all. Thank you for calling.” And he hung up, kicking himself as he realised he’d been talking for far longer than he’d meant to. It had long since gone dark and Christine would already be waiting for him, he knew, deciding that he should call her first to tell her he had been delayed so she would not worry or think he had forgotten.

Picking up the phone again, he dialled her number and waited for it to ring, but instead found himself listening to a recorded message telling him that the person he was trying to reach was not available and to try again later. So he frowned and decided he would try again from the phone in the car as he made his way over to see her. It was peculiar for her to have her phone off when she knew that he liked to be able to reach her. He hoped it was just something wrong with the network service…

And when he couldn’t reach her on the car phone on his way over there, though he kept redialling until he had gotten to the place she lived, parking across the street, he promptly and worriedly got out of his car and made his way inconspicuously to the back of her house, ready to beg for forgiveness. He had asked her if he could take her out for the evening and then he’d not turned up… that had to be the worst start to their first evening going out together that he could ever have imagined.

Looking around the back garden where she had said she’d wait for him, he found her absent and kicked himself again, thinking that she’d given up on him after it had become dark and had gone back inside. So he looked up at the house and, a bit annoyed that there were obviously people downstairs because the lights were on, he tried to think of the best way to get up to her room without anyone seeing him.

Making light work of unlocking the back door, he slowly slipped inside, grateful that there was no one in the entrance hall where the stairs were. He took one moment to stare at the backs of the heads of the three people sitting on the sofa in the lounge, and then silently crept up the stairs and towards her room at the back.

Relieved to have made it there unnoticed, he pushed the door open happily, not knocking in case he alerted the rest of them to his presence in the house. And he entered the room quietly, finding her sitting at her desk with her back to him. “Darling,” he whispered, and she gasped, whirling around to face him.

It was clear that she had been crying – heavily, by the looks of it – and he felt ever the fool for having caused such grief in her. If only he’d been on time and not made her think that he wasn’t coming – how he regretted having made her feel that way – and he knelt on the ground in front of her chair, taking her hands into his. “Oh… don’t cry. Please, Christine, I cannot bear it,” he said honestly, tears starting to come to his own eyes as he looked at her.

Christine, meanwhile, was very much in a daze of some sort… even as he wrapped his arms around her waist, she was unable to fully register that he was there. She felt so desolate. She felt so weird… truly bizarre, in fact. She felt like she was even more of an outcast than she, herself, had ever realised. She felt ridiculous and awkward… perpetually disgusted with herself. Sitting there alone since that morning, she had done a lot of thinking… and worrying… and crying… and dreading… and she’d found something out about herself that she really wished she hadn’t. She knew that what had happened between them was not her fault… and, while she blamed herself for certain aspects of it, she did not understand why she regarded this new development as her own fault… like she could have prevented it. The truth was, though, she could have… if only she’d done things differently – if only she’d been less of a coward. She couldn’t face trying to explain herself to Mr. Wilkes either – she couldn’t face it at all… better she just fade out of his life like a shadow. He deserved better… better than her.

Silent and afraid, she had sat there for hours, staring at little more than nothing on her wall and playing endlessly with the spilt bottle of pills on the table in front of her, crying as she was, in her own room with the light off and nothing but her destructive mind to keep her company. Sleeping pills – no less than twenty… she had counted them over and over again religiously for the last hour – and how she longed for the sleep that they would ultimately bring. But something had stayed her hand, and she had hesitated… could she ever have done this? Could she ever really have ended her own life? Had someone asked her that all just a few weeks ago, she would have refused even the mere suggestion as an abomination – it was unthinkable – things could never get that bad, she would have argued. But they had, and she did now allow the contemplation of ridding everyone else of the nuisance that was Christine Daaé.

So what had and was stopping her? She could quite easily tell Mr. Wilkes that she no longer wished to go out and that she would rather he left… he would, she knew – he would do most anything to make her happy. And she could convince him to leave, and that would be it… but she didn’t.

Certainly, it was not care for her own sake… she could never be that concerned for herself. And it was not fear of what she would be giving up as she had already convinced herself that there was so little to give up.

It was not for Mr. Wilkes either, darling that he was – if anything, she had convinced herself that she would be doing him a favour by ending her own life and giving him the option of not continuing to have to coddle her anymore.

So, what was it for?

It was for his baby, she knew, probably having known all along deep in her heart. It wasn’t for him… it was for the child of his that she had conceived. The one she loved with all her heart and could not believe she had ever lived without. The one she would give birth to in a little over eight months and would cherish for the rest of her life. The baby she would move mountains for and fight tooth-and-nail to protect. The one that would be half Christine Daaé and half Erik Wilkes. The one she would hold such an unconditional love for, not just because it would be her own child, but because of who its father was and what he’d done for her.

Before he’d arrived, she’d been fiddling with the positive plastic test in her hands until she could no longer remember how long it had been since she’d taken it. She knew she had done so just after her aunt had left the room, having bought the test at the shops that morning with the money Erik had given her. She had no idea how she’d been able to keep so calm and indifferent up until that moment. It was like she had disassociated it from herself somehow.

And she laughed, startling her teacher, though she didn’t mean to. She could just imagine his baby – it would be quite the little handful… mischievous and sharp, with the playful smile of its father, and its eyes would dance as his did when he was particularly pleased with himself. She could imagine him passing on his long, proud nose, and his high forehead and fine, dark hair. She could remember exactly what it had felt like to the touch when she’d held onto him at the school – it had been a way of distracting herself, stroking his hair, from what had been going on beneath her eye-level.

She would live – for their child.

She knew somewhere inside her that, if the test had been negative, there would no longer be twenty pills sitting relatively harmlessly on the table in front of her, and there would no longer be a Christine Daaé sitting at that table in relative safety. She knew somewhere inside that his baby was the only reason she decided she had the strength to face another day – it was the only thing that made her problems seem surmountable. Which was an odd way to look at things… for most teenage girls, this would be the final straw that would push them over the edge – but, for her, it was a saving grace… something that made the world seem not quite as cruel as it had previously appeared. There was some good. She could now see with a certain light.

Hours and hours after she had taken the test, she had finally stood up, wrapping the little test that had saved her life in some tissues and had placed it in her locked jewellery box, where she kept all of her little reminders of good times. It would be safe there.

She finally felt peaceful, though she’d cried herself silly, and she knew she must look a state. But she wasn’t unhappy… she knew what she would do and where she was going and what would happen – she could be in control again. She would apply for compensation as a victim of crime and she would use the money to leave her aunt’s house and set up a home somewhere else where she would raise her baby – somewhere people would not recognise her or judge her. She could be free at last.

So much into her daydream of a happily-ever-after fairytale was she, that it was with much shock that she registered the almost angry voice coming from the man holding her, his face now turned towards the table, his cheek pressed against her stomach as his eyes rested on the bottle of pills.

“How many have you taken?”

© Copyright of CrawfordsBiscuits, November 2006

Well done to those who knew, though I hardly kept it a secret, haha. Anyway, I hope to get the next chapter up soon. I know this one has to be edited a bit but I thought it better to get something up as fast as possible…

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