Between Mirrors and Roses (A Phantom of the Opera Fanfiction) ✓

30: A New Life

Erik

Christine's back was tucked against my chest, and I felt her soft breaths as she slept.

I had woken long before her and chose to watch her sleep instead of needlessly waking her. I trailed a hand down her arm. No other man would touch her and know her the way I did now. After so long waiting, Christine was mine.

She woke slowly, her breathing pattern changing and her petite figure curling in on itself for warmth.

I pulled her back to me, and she sighed and nestled closer. I had longed for this moment—to wake beside Christine as my wife—and it was finally upon me, more glorious than in any of my wildest fantasies.

Christine stretched like a cat. She slowly shifted to look at me, taking in my face without recoiling in terror. She brushed it with one soft hand and smiled at me.

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning." She looked up at the ceiling, noticing the music of myriad raindrops pattering on the roof.

Nature played instruments that we lowly humans could never aspire to replicate, as intently as we sought to. Nature's majesty, like Christine's, was beyond capture. I tried to score this moment in my mind but gave up soon after beginning the attempt; I could only fall horribly short.

"It's raining," she observed.

"Brilliant," I teased. I laced my fingers with hers.

A sly smile spread across her lovely features. "We shall have to entertain ourselves inside all day," she said.

"Brilliant," I repeated with vigor and rolled on top of her as she burst into giggles.

We spent the next days captivated in each other's presence. There were plenty more kisses and hours for talking. And at night she lay in my arms like it was her favorite place in the world; it was certainly mine.

...

Christine

In a week, we departed the little cottage in the rolling fields for the stone and bustle of the city. Our house was far enough away from the town center, however, that we had a secluded garden and a quiet retreat from the omnipresent city noise.

Jeanette had been working tirelessly, and more furniture had arrived while we were away. Every piece was prettier than the last. Soon, our house was drop-cloth free.

I explored our new house the day we returned. It was larger than my old home in the modern age but smaller than many of the mansions just a few streets away. It was sparsely occupied, with only the two of us plus Jeanette during the day, but it was so often filled with music that I barely noticed the emptiness.

Erik and I had our own separate, fully-furnished bedrooms, and more on the second floor stood empty and unused. Erik's room was decorated in black and red, and mine in soft lilac and white. Part of me wanted to redo the thing as dark and gothic as Erik's, but I had to admit that I loved the soft feminine feeling of the room. So it stayed. I encouraged Erik to sleep with me at night; it seemed this was not as common of a practice as it was in my day, but he didn't need much persuading.

The first few days back were less a romantic extension of our honeymoon and more a flurry of arranging belongings and settling into the house. Jeanette, Erik, and I filled the kitchen with utensils and china, the wardrobes with clothes, and the shelves with books brought from the house under the opera.

One evening, after Jeanette returned to her little flat, Erik and I finished up in the study in companionable silence.

The room would be his office. The furniture was dark and masculine, including a sizeable writing desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along one wall. Books were everywhere in our house. Nearly every room but the kitchen had at least a small shelf for books. It was my ideal home.