A/N: This was originally written for the 'Morbidity Contest' at PFN. I wrote it in fifteen minutes, and perhaps that shows. I adored the idea of the contest though, and it furthered plot bunnies galore. This might turn into a bit of a theme for me. We'll see! There is implied sex. Leroux inspired. Please read & review.

Until Death Do Us Part

'Erik is dead.'

At last it was over and I could make my childhood sweetheart my wife. She went back to the lake underground, just as she had promised she would, to bury him. I have no doubts that it was hard on her both physically and mentally, but she was too proud to ask for my help. Perhaps I was too proud to give it. Fate intervened, as I do not know if I had the strength to watch her weep over that man's body, and she returned alone. When she finally arrived at my doorstep — dress tattered and covered in mud — she fell into my arms exhausted.

'It's over now,' she whispered as I carried her up the stairs to her room, 'and we're free.'

But we were never free. Not really.

We escaped from the farthest rail-way station that France could afford us. Back to her homeland we sped. The climate turned to bitter winter in the time it took to cover those long miles by train. Christine looked exquisite in dark fur wraps, but something was missing in her clear-blue eyes. I searched them day after day, hoping to find once again that spark of life she had had before her success as an opera singer … before Erik. I searched in vein; for even though she gave me warm smiles and reached out to touch my hand, her essence was missing.

Lodgings were found for us in her childhood village of Upsala. Having no ear for Swedish, I allowed her to make all the arrangements. She spoke with the milk carrier in the mornings, and went to the market in the afternoons. We received a paper, which she poured over with an attentive eye, and she tried patiently to teach me the strange words. Giggles and easy conversation always proceeded a delightful nightly dance through our new sheets. I believed we were happy at last.

Then the strange behaviour started.

The familiarity of her surroundings must have struck a chord with her because she would disappear for hours and reappear near dusk covered in dirt. Streaks of filth fell across her forehead and cheeks and sullied her once golden curls. I had not the heart to ask her what troubled her mind, and even if I could ask her — she was as alien to me in those moments as the first night of her gala triumph. In the mornings she would be herself again. Dutiful wife and attentive lover. I began to think nothing of it. She seemed content, and I did not wish to break that delicate illusion.

Curiosity got the better of me one lonely afternoon, and I decided to follow her. She had dressed in black from head to foot with a fine dark-laced veil pulled down to cover her face. Her hands were wrapped in matching lace gloves. To me it looked like mourning wear, and I at once feared I had missed the death of someone important to her. Could I have been so vain as to believe I was all she had in the world?

The sun was still high in the sky as she hurried along a pebbled path I knew led to one of the town's larger graveyards. Giant black crows hopped lithely across the grass and from headstone to headstone. Their warning caws assured me she would be able to hear my echoing footsteps, but she never turned around. I glanced at my grim surroundings and saw no fellow mourners, no funeral marches, and no horse-borne coffins. Returning my gaze to my wife I discovered she had vanished.

Wishing to avoid a confrontation, I hurried back the way I came. She did not return for hours. In the receiving room I sat — brandy in hand — waiting for her to step into the threshold. I caught her mud covered boots and the dirt line of her hem first. Her face was flushed with exertion and she quickly made her way to the powder room at the end of the hallway.

The maid had left supper, but neither Christine nor I touched it that night. She retired early to bed and I remained sitting near the hearth nursing my brandy and my wild thoughts. The next time she left I would not take my eyes off her for all the money in Paris.

Unfortunately, I did not have to wait long. Two sleeps later, I watched nervously as she dressed in black again. The quiet swish of her dress and the click of her shoes on the steps from the patio to the garden path enticed me to follow her once again.

Down that same path she walked in that same quickened pace. The same nervous flutter filled my stomach. Was she meeting a new lover here? It could not be to see her father. He lay buried in Perros-Guirec. Perhaps she was here to visit her mother then? I knew Christine had lost her at an early age. Optimism filled my heart. Cursing my distrust of her, I turned on my heels and went home.

She arrived much later, but in the same dishevelled state. Without a word she retired to our room and did not appear for supper. I waited until midnight before I lay down at her side. My mind was still racing as she ran her newly calloused hand across my naked chest.

'Where have you been, Raoul,' she asked sleepily while her fingers traced a pattern on my stomach. 'I missed you.'

I dared to ask, 'And you, Christine, were missing all afternoon. Where did you go?'

At once her fingers stopped. 'I went for a walk. I needed the fresh air.'

'And where did you walk?'

'Down to the creek. Near the outskirts of town. It's really lovely there,' she began to kiss my ear. I melted into her embrace. All my foolish questions forgotten with the softness of her body pressed against mine.

And when we made love she became almost violent. Riding every thrust of my hips and gasping below me she clawed at my back. She bit my shoulder. This was not the sweet girl I had loved so many times before. Something new — dangerous and exciting — had taken her place. Falling back into the pillows I vowed to follow her to her very last step in the future. I owed whatever had put this passion into our bed that much.

o . O . o

Just as in previous interludes, I followed her down to the graveyard. She paused only once to fasten the buckle of her shoe, while I concealed myself behind a great oak. This time I did not remove my gaze as she slipped between two large mausoleums and down an ivy covered path.

Deeper into the section we tread. I noticed there were several piles of newly dug earth ahead of us, and a few of the larger stone buildings lay open. A rash of disease must have recently passed over the tiny community to have claimed so many so quickly. Christine stepped over an iron-wrought fence and I crept behind the stone statue of Archangel Michael. From my vantage point I saw her fall to her knees before a grave marked 'Peter Svensson' and she began to scratch wildly at the earth.

Her voice filled my ears. It was a haunting melody I recognised from childhood. Her father had played it for us, but more recently Erik had played it for her! Memories, like tiny pinpricks, flooded my eyes. Slinking closer to her prone form, I watched in horror as her tiny hands scooped out handful after handful of moist earth.

Nothing could move me to stop her. I watched her dig deeper and deeper without hardly breathing. Finally she hit the lid of the coffin. My stomach twisted as I heard the lid being ripped open.

'Erik!' she swooned. 'Erik! I'm here. I've come back to you, your dear Christine is here!'

Christ! She had lain down beside whomever was rotting in that wooden box. Stepping closer to the grave she had desecrated I watched her kiss the body's distorted face and pat its hand, which was already set in rigor mortis.

I jumped down beside her, 'Christine! Christine! What are you doing?'

She didn't even incline her head towards the sound of my voice. Her face was enraptured, and I was enraged. I had to drag her from the body. She began to scream and kick out at me. Then something snapped and she recognised me again.

'He's gone, Raoul,' she cried. 'He's gone and I've no one to give me my lessons.'

I held her shivering form against me. There was no where we could go without his haunting face invading her nightmares. There was no place I could keep her without his voice filling her daydreams. She was as much his now as she had been so many months ago. She would remain his until she died, and then they would share that same horrid countenance at last.

The End