Him.

Chapter IV

When Erik had finally proposed, in the words of Philippa, the couple were married no longer than a month later. Philippa hadn't rushed the wedding, but Erik had. He wanted to forget about Haya completely, and with a sudden annoyncmeent of joy and happiness, he couldn't begin to explain how happy he was without her. Sure, there were lingering feelings in that stubborn heart of his, but he couldn't care less. As mentioned, there was a great thing that had occurred, and he wasn't going to lose the chance of making his life happier than ever.

"Erik?"

"Yes, my love?" He asked her quietly.

They were laying on the sofa one night, witnessing the fire burning in their small fireplace as they talked over this and that.

"Have you ever courted another woman?"

Erik nearly chuckled. Technically, no he hadn't done such a thing... Had he been in love with another woman? Twice, but was he to tell her that... No. It was bad enough his wife knew of Christine already. And the way she had reacted to Haya! Oh, he would never tell her that he loved a woman of color. As much as he wanted to admit it to her to get rid of her, he didn't want her to leave him. Erik had foolishly gotten attached to his wife and the exciting future that was to come.

"No, I have done no such thing. You recall I was in love once, but that was dreadfully unreturned and unhealthy." Erik recalled that foolish time in his life, he was far younger then. Then again, he wasn't always so sure the love was completely unrequited.

"I do recall. Anyways, stupid question. I don't even know why I asked it. What I really want to talk about is names."

Erik smiled and placed a hand on his wife's growing stomach. The small swell in her abdomen was making him more and more joyous by the day. Philippa had joked that if getting pregnant was all it took to make him that much more joyous, she would have slept with him when they first met!

"Names... You are only three months pregnant, we still have a very long amount of time before we go talking about names."

"No," Philippa said with a grin. "I want to talk about it now; that way we aren't struggling for one when the baby is born."

"Alright, but before we start, I wanted to let you know how excited I am to be having this child. He or she is going to be so very loved."

Philippa giggled and kissed her husband.

"Names!" She scorned him and settled into his hold.

"Fine, we will discuss names. Boy or girl first?" Erik asked.

"Well, girls. I think girls names are much harder to come up with than boys names."

"What about Christine?"

"Erik, if you're not going to take this seriously-"

"Only joking, my love," Erik assured Philippa with a kiss, his smile her very proof.

"Oh! I know, I like Eponine!" Philippa told Erik with a smile on her visage.

"No, that's far too commonplace. We have money, darling," Erik told her with his nose scrunched in distaste at the name.

"What about we name a girl Marjory?"

Erik was, in no way, going to tell her that that happened to be Christine's middle name, but that didn't matter. He really liked that name, and it's not as if he would ever see the brunette soprano again.

"I like it. Now a boy."

"Easy, Philippe after me!" She said jestingly, but Erik was harshly offended.