Chapter XIX

                                    

                                          
One Year Later...
                          
"Erik, could you take Gustave for a moment." I handed my son over to his father, clasping the necklace on at last, smiling brightly as Erik set Gustave down on our bed and straightened the boy's suit. 
                          
"It shan't last, Erik, he's barely half of a year old." 
                          
Erik looked defeated in a sure way, like he'd lost a war or something drastic. 
                          
"It's just a suit..." I murmured surely. 
                          
He shook his head and snapped back into it, but I guess it was something that was bothering him, so I didn't pester my husband for any more details. 
                          
"We should be on our way, Erik. Raoul told us to be there early, and we shan't be late again."
                          
"You were pregnant the last time, you were allowed to be slightly tardy to an unimportant event." 
                          
"It was Meg's brithday, I beg your pardon." 
                          
"If it is all the same," Erik said with a slight chuckle to his voice, "we should be on our way as you so eloquently stated moments ago." 
                          
I took Gustave and straightened his suit again. 
                          
"I thought the action futile," Erik mocked. 
                          
"Oh," I was flustered and could not continue as Erik smirked at me. 
                          
With a flustered sigh, I went pass him and we began our journey to de Chagny manor. It didn't take long, but I did find myself wandering in thought as Erik played with Gustave beside me. 
                          
There had to have been something about this day in his past that worried him so very much, a Year and three months after he left me... what possibly could have occurred in such a time? I know he worked hard to get his show running to the grandeur I performed in, but what exactly did he do? I even knew of Meg's plights, her ways to get Erik into the success he prospered from. Maybe he just missed the days where he composed for hours on end and handled only business. Did I bore my husband? I didn't necessarily think it was that, but I was wondering if I quite possibly upset him in some way? Was he mad I hadn't sought him out? I tried not to ask him questions like this, but sometimes I found my mouth doing never what my mind has planned. 
                          
"Erik, are you upset I didn't seek you out a second time?" 
                          
The man next to me brought his eyebrows together and shook his head in the negative, "No, Christine, I wanted to be found not. Had you looked, it would have been a fruitless journey." 
                          
"What was your relapse today while fiddling with Gustave's suit?" I asked, curiosity getting the pure best of me. 
                          
Erik looked waery and sick before he replied, and with a breath of fresh air he said, "On this day... I was supposed to be making a deal with... For our benfit to begin my dream, Christine... I offered my services of music to a show..." He looked away and down to his son, but never to my eyes as he spoke without the confidence it took months for me to give him, "I was once again at the mercy of a master, a horrid one. Christine, I did what was neccessary to retrieve you one day as a proud and honorable man. I needed a way to look as well as the Vicomte did. You were the only one in mind, and you drove me to insanity and back. I regret none of it, if it eases a troubled mind." 
                          
I looked into his eyes finally and saw the scars there in the yellow of his piercing gaze. I loved him so very much that I guess all he said I simply had to believe.
                          
"Why would you ever do such a thing when you had experinced the likes of it before?"
                          
"I did what I had to do, Christine. We love, we live, we give what we can give, and take what little we deserve," he sang softly, staring at Gustave in a whole. "Tell me you find none of this worth every ounce of pain."
                          
"I cannot." 
                          
Erik blinked and smiled all the same, looking as if I had spared him life. I guess I simply worried too much over things Erik already knew the answer to. 
                          
"Beside such, why are we attending this supper tonight?"
                          
"Raoul is proposing you incorrigible man. Do you ever listen?"
                          
"When it pleases me," Erik replied as his eyes wandered over my figure in the dress I had chosen to wear. He was rather brazen with his glances since I had Gustave. I guess my figure filled in more since then, but I didn't notice a difference. 
                          
And then there was this proposal tonight! I was surprised when Madame Giry came to me and told me Raoul had asked permission and our attendance to do this tonight. He was nervous and scared, but also excited and so seemingly in love. As far as I knew, they both were as healed as they could get. And Raoul was sober with what Meg tells me. They stay together in the manor, so I understand she would as well.
                          
It is hard to change from such a long time of being who we all were, and I would say that all of our happenings henceforth are pretty well off. 
                          
"Here we are, Christine, come now." 
                          
I followed Erik from the carriage and was handed Gustave. We walked up to the manor and stepped in, greeting Meg and Raoul who had a look of melancholy in his eyes. I knew he was happy to move on, but I could tell that just seeing Gustave made him ache. 
                          
"Antoinette," Erik greeted Meg's mother as we all sat down in the main parlor. Raoul's arm rested lightly over Meg's shoulders and Erik was sitting on the carpeted floor with a bubbly child between his legs, attempting to crawl. 
                          
"I honeslty have no patience, even now," Raoul muttered as he reached for something sitting behind him on the couch. It was a velvet box, I realized, but luckily Meg was unable to see it as she was facing me. 
                          
"Why are you smiling to me?" Meg asked as she sat up for Raoul to stand, clueless. Beautifully and ignorantly clueless. 
                          
On one knee, Raoul drew his love's attention and smiled when she stuck a hand over her mouth smiling through happy tears. 
                          
"I love you, Meg, say you'll marry me?"
                          
Meg could only nod as she slipped both of her hands around his neck and kissed him. I think that was a strange experience for all of us just then, but joyous nonetheless. My two best-friends were marrying! And I couldn't be happier for them.