A New Beginning

Chapter 34

(Third person's POV)

It took no more than a few hours before Erik reacted to Raoul's words, and only days later, his relationship with Christine went back to normal. He would now buy her flowers often, take her out, and talk about the babies. They mostly discussed names, and knowing they'd be having twins they needed two boy names and two girl names. Of course, Gustave was the first of their options, and Christine insisted she wanted to name one of their kids after her husband. Erik wasn't the happiest with that idea, but he ended up giving in. Erik responded the same way, insisting that he wanted to name a girl after her but Christine wasn't too happy with the idea; however, after a few days of discussing it, they decided that  their best bet was on the name Lotte, and their second option would be Christine.

Erik was working hard to give his wife all she possibly could need and want. His relationship with Raoul went back to its good not-so-old ways. Everything seemed to be going just fine with the three of them. 

During the last month of Christine's pregnancy Erik stopped going to work. It was true that Christine needed assistance mostly for everything, but Raoul could help her. Still, Erik insisted he had to be there every minute of the day just in case. And sure enough, one week before the nine months, Christine's water broke. 

"Let me in!" Erik yelled as he banged on the door time after time. Those times turned into moments, the moments in minutes, and the minutes in hours of agony as Christine's yelling made its way through Erik's ears and into his head, but he would not be let in.

Finally, silence. The door was opened and Erik rushed to Christine's side, wiping the sweat off her forehead. "How are you?" he asked in a whisper as he knelt beside her.

She smiled tiredly and showed him the two bundles of blankets that she had been pressing to her chest. "We have one of each," she smiled. Erik reached for the boy who was closer to him, and he held him carefully in his arms. "Please don't be mad," Christine told him and bit her lip as Erik looked at his son. "He is as perfect as you are," Christine told him. 

A tear slipped from Erik's eye as he kissed his son's forehead. "Our Gustave," he choked. 

Erik would have been lying if he had said he didn't feel guilty, Gustave had inherited his deformity from him after all, but that night he made a promise that he would protect him so that he would have a joyful childhood. However, Erik never knew how to show others he cared about them, and it certainly took him a while  to learn to do that with Christine. Erik didn't seem to worry about Gustave's situation, while Christine knew it was going to be hard. 

Erik loved his son for the first few years of his life, but as Gustave grew, his deformity did too, and Erik found himself forcing a mask on his son since the age of two. No matter how hard Erik tried, he saw himself every time he saw Gustave, and it brought back so many horrible memories that Erik found himself unable to keep loving him the same. He stopped looking at him and would spend most of the time with his girls. He had agreed with Christine to name the girl Lotte, and they were perfectly happy with it. Erik grew so fond of Lotte that Christine would at times feel a tiny bit of jealousy which she usually calmed down with Gustave's company. 

Lotte and Gustave grew to be very close for the next six years; however, Lotte never saw his face, only Christine would and occasionally Erik, who had convinced Gustave that his face should never be shown to anyone but Christine, so Gustave kept his mask on at all times, not even Raoul would see his face. Christine was determined to change Erik's way of thinking regarding Gustave's face, but it seemed to become harder and harder every time as Erik kept growing more distant of Gustave by the day. 

On one particular night, Christine decided to take down whatever barriers kept Erik and Gustave apart after Gustave asked her a simple question, "Mommy, may I go to dinner without the mask tonight?"