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Oh gosh, I hope you guys are going to like this. I spent 5 1/2 hours on it today, just revising and trying to bloody figure out the last scene. I'm tired and I really want to post it today so I'm posting it as is and definitely saying that if you have suggestions, let me know!

It taking a long time, I'm mostly happy with it. I wish I could write so everything sounded really pretty and just flowed but I can't, so I have to appreciate it for my own skill level.

And I have a new song on my soundtrack that I put at the top of the player here: http://www.freewebs.com/torturedfruit/HT8soundtrack.htm

Listen to it! It's just perfect for this chapter... and conveys the information much better than all of my writing did.

Part Two

9 / 30 words. 30% done!




HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 39 - Storm-catcher


To extract this one night from my life, you could say this was a roleplay; the one promised at the beginning, and the one expected. He sounded so very much like Erik, trying to convince me life above ground was hardly comparable to the sanctuary he had created below it, but I believed he was trying to do something much bigger than what he had first projected. I felt real seeds trying to break into me, real as his shivers.

There was no doubt that since I met him, his dimensions had sprung up from that writing on paper for me. He was the closest thing to Erik that I would ever have. I felt his spirit inside this man, and correspondingly, it made me feel Christine's. Deeply, more than I thought I could, which is not something I ever wanted to admit in full to Giry, or especially Mariam.

I often thought I did not perform well as Christine, even though I turned around when her name was called. But often... I felt her heart was holding me hostage. I was me but I was following her exact path, and he was following Erik's, although it was hard to decide how far in he had gotten, and if it was enough to worry the way I sometimes did. If this was the delusion he was referring to, it seemed as though I shared it, no matter what anyone thought.

But there was truth, of some important amount, in the things he tried to say to me while hidden behind the mask: about spoiling me, about being over my shoulder, about hoping he could remove me from my own life... I could acknowledge that that was scary, and that I would have to confront it eventually, maybe soon, but at the same time... He had come to prove, in "Mysterious Phantom Terms", a secret hope ever since it began: that my Note-Sender really did care about me, as me.

Did that have to be dangerous?

Was this side of him, as Erik, a show covering those feelings?

It was dying in my arms, at least for now. Stranger was resting under my watchful eye, as long as he wanted to, but it didn't last long. He said sleeping would make me all alone out here, and he didn't like that.

A few houses down, his car stopped under the trees and he appeared at my side when I stepped out. I hugged him for a very long time for making such a terrible mood dissolve. When it dwindled, I turned my face inward and touched my lips against the cold barrier between our skin. It was Christine again, I knew it. When breaking away, I couldn't sense his reaction; I had returned to long ago when making eye-contact was just too much. He took in the air, slowly, and said "...I'm sorry it has to be done like that."


"I'm going to figure this out," I assured. "This isn't about to end."

"Oh, I knew that very well..."

I half smiled but was a little unsure how to say goodbye, so I turned to my side and thought a moment, eyes on the street.

"I'll give you back that book tomorrow."

"...Wonderful." His pronouncing of the words took the last blow to the heart already sinking. That he belonged out there, that I couldn't kiss him; not how he want me to, and that the next step taken would be Lily's, alone.

I felt his hand touch the back of my arm as I turned away. "You're braver than you seem." This hand retracted but I caught it as I backed away, trying to keep contact as long as I could, but he followed me forward. I had to let go, abruptly, and turn my back on him to make him stop. It was that type of temptation that would, in excess, make me sleepless all night. Our walk wasn't long enough, and it never would be like this.

- - -

My alarm did not wake me up for school the next day because I was already on the floor, surrounded in papers, by the time it went off. It instead jolted me out of a very detailed examination of all the contents of my desk and reminded me that in the next ten minutes I needed to begin caring about all the other aspects of my life.

What was I looking for? Nothing. It was not a search. Or perhaps it was, but not for a certain poem or drawing, just for myself. I felt I had been losing her lately, in some unexplainable way. It almost felt like our move to Oregon - losing the house and losing my friends... unsure how to fill the gaps, but knowing I can't just stay in my room all day and avoid the changes.

I had found my diary from seventh grade to only the first half of freshman year. It was a little present sitting on my bed when we came to the house to stay, and not to drop things off. My mom said I could see our move as an adventure, very worthy of documentation.

I had my nose in this at school all day, even lunch, where I was all alone. I didn't know where Meg had gone off to but I assumed to eat lunch with Carrie, or Kira, hell, maybe even Giry, who I was starting to miss like crazy. I texted her to say I hoped everything was alright between us, and then Erik, in hopes he had crashed somewhere safe.

Pretty much the only light of the day; splattered in rain, and very quiet, was his reply that he had, but he was sorry it could not be next to me again. I got it in English, under my desk, and looked out the window. It was such a disgusting grey sky, but if he was out there somewhere, that was where I wanted to be.

If that didn't sound melodramatic, I didn't know what did.

Work was at 4:00. For no reason, my nose had been running like crazy, but I put on my shirt and my smile and we had the slowest day ever. My coworkers were teasing each other to pass the time, but I guess I came off like a real stick-in-the-mud because at some point they just stopped chatting in my direction.

God. I just wanted to go.

So many other things needed to be done. I needed to finish going through my desk, and start on all Erik and I's notes, and write something meaningful to him in our book. And of course, unavoidably, homework...

The book might not seem urgent to you, but I just had to hear more of what he was thinking but not saying to me in person. It was more important then than ever to understand his perceptions of this relationship, in detail... I knew there was something in the air that I had to figure out now.

- - -

When my shift finally ended I came straight to my locker to find that Giry had received my message and wasn't mad at me, and to call after 9:30.

Of course, I did. The time couldn't come sooner. She could practically tell that I had not had human interaction (of the normal kind) for days. "I thought for sure that you and Mariam were on the same side," I took our conversation to, quickly.

"Same side of-... Oh, no... Mariam was mad, I was just worried, and only after he wanted you to stay overnight-"

"She's still mad."

"What?"

"I thought she would've told you, or something..."

"No... She's been really quiet in math."

"Hh." I had this growing suspicion that she was actually mad at Giry too.

"...Seems like everyone's been quiet lately..." An awkward silence fell over us. "I got your message from that morning... I meant to reply I just had a SHIT-ton of stuff to do for AP Art History."

"Oh! ...That's okay." Nevermind what assumptions I was making.

"It sounds like you had a... wonderful time with him."

"...I did." Awkward still. "And I have never seen someone... use an umbrella like that before."

"What?! Hahahaha!"

"Let's just say... gates are no hindrance for him."

"Okay. I'll take your word for it."

It seemed to me she was doing something, and taking the time out for me after a long day. Considering how I had been feeling the past two days, or maybe four, I realized I couldn't forget how lucky I was to still have a normal friendship with her, without the fights. I collected my words nervously and took a breath.

"...I'm sorry how I acted when you were worried."

For some reason she was not quick to respond.

"Giry?"

"That's okay," she finally chimed in, hurriedly.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, uh... nh-... I'm just paranoid with guys. ...Any guy, not just guys with masks!..." I smiled. Another pause ensued. "Ugh... I've just had some experiences, and so have my friends, and when a guy's horny, he'll deal with it in the most ridiculous ways and it put me in the defense mode when he was acting like all you were going to do was go out to dinner, and then last minute it's to stay the night."

"I wasn't expecting him to ask me either. I can really see how it looked."

"Right. I could tell that it threw you off."

"He wasn't making any advances on me though."

"I just remember you used to be really unsure about being around him since you couldn't make out what type of roleplay it was, but... I mean, I know you're not stupid." She paused, with faint sounds on the other end of papers shuffling. "At the time I just wasn't sure what to say and I figured if anything weird was going on, I could get you to admit it. Because if he was pressuring you, I would've seriously gone in there and been like... 'chill. Christine needs to go home now.'" I laughed but secretly I wasn't sure if we were on the same page anymore.

"... He treats me very well," was all I thought fit to add.

"...I'm glad he does."

"...and I was nervous, even considering. In the end nothing happened. I didn't want it to and he... he was just fine. That's been proof to me that he's a lot more trustworthy than he's given credit. But... Meg..." I realized around her I was getting back into the habit of calling her that.

"She still doesn't trust him in the slightest," she finished for me.

"No! It's like she didn't even care that nothing happened - just the part where I put him in a spot where he could be both a good person and a bad. ...Does she talk to you about this?"

Her answer took a moment. "Well... Yes... sometimes. But I think she's aware that it could be... leaked?"

"... I guess 'what's the difference?'... She makes it clear to my face all the same."

"I-I think when she says things to your face she's too caught up in the moment to have thought out the right response. You know, Mariam can have kind of a short fuse sometimes... I've noticed."

"Well, I... I don't want to put up with it, though. It seriously makes me angry, like to the point where my brain stops functioning. And then other times I'm guilty, because my best friend is upset with me and that's not how it should be."

"I know that she might take it out on you, but I think she's just mad at the Phantom... a-and not you."

"I know. That's what's scary about it."

"That she's... mad at the Phan-"

"She doesn't see us as any kind of unit at all. She really thinks he's the entire problem and she can just attack him whenever she feels like it as if I'm not going to be defensive."

"I can't speak for her now and I don't want her to feel like she can't trust me, but in the past my impression has been that she thinks you're underestimating her intelligence and you're plenty aware that what she says about Erik is true, you just don't want to give up the roleplay." I inhaled to speak but she beat me to it. "...You're probably not going to like this suggestion..."

"...What is it?"

"Well..." She sighed first, which just made me more curious and even nervous about it. "You've been at this roleplay for... what? Since Halloween?"

"A little beforehand."

"So... it's been a while. And when it started off it wasn't a big deal. Mariam thought it was weird, but..."

"We both thought it was interesting back then."

"Yeah, and it's not like it was complicated. The Phantom... you know, he was just that creepy guy, and we were all going along with it. But... things are different now. You don't just get 'mysterious' notes from him anymore, or emails... You go out with him. You stay the night with him, and that's a lot bigger. That's a bigger jump to make when he's still a stranger."

I knew this - it was the exact logic I would argue, and yet when the words reached me, I felt no response inside.

"He knows you," she continued, "and I know you, and I know you're the one doing this. You're Christine, but he's just... he's not giving you anything. So from that angle I can see why Mariam would be feeling like it's too much. It doesn't matter if you reassure her because... He's just not being fair. Eventually you have to know who he is."

Why? Was my very first reactionary thought.

"It's not like you'll just keep roleplaying until you're both sick of it and then he'll just disappear forever. He's a real person too; he obviously lives around here. He wants to get to know you... I know it sort of ruins part of him being The Phantom... But it's for safety and it's just something to fall back on."

"...I don't think it would help," I said after a long pause.

"What?" Giry seemed a little confused. I didn't blame her.

"Well we always thought it would be... essentially... figuring out the truth if we could unmask him, or find out his name. But I don't have a lot of faith in that anymore... I just don't think meeting him in person isn't going to make him easier to understand..."

"You mean his... his personality..." She stopped. "Well I was going to say... If we did know who he was, he couldn't use being anonymous to do... things he shouldn't. That's all. I mean, if he's complicated enough to make the roleplay interesting either way, you might as well find out who he is."

I ran out of words, momentarily. I thought I had the confidence to piece something ambiguous together but my blank continued.

"Do you need to use that?" My dad suddenly appeared in the door frame.

"Huh?" I replied, dumbly.

"The computer?" He reiterated.

"Oh," ... "Uh, Giry! My dad wants me out of the study. I'll have to call you back."

We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone on the way out. Maybe it was just my conscience, but I felt a shared confusion with my dad about why I had hung up on her just to leave the room, cellphone in my hands all the way down the hall and stairs, and beside me as I put a mint tea bag into a cup of hot water.

Never did call her back.

- - -

It was spectacular deja vu to find him across the street again, waiting for me, as always, to do anything for me. And this time he was well rested. A little too well rested - he was trying to confuse me while we were walking through a batch of trees. When his back was turned it was nearly impossible to make him out in the dark and then suddenly I would see a strip of dark grey and almost run right into him. I think he was trying to make me run into him, because when it worked, I got grabbed.

Nevermind that I had no idea where we were. He had parked the car we had taken, a black one, which really threw me off, at a curb in downtown Portland and we were approaching the back of a building. His hand reached the handle of a door but had some sort of struggle with it before retrieving something from his pocket, and I became very suspicious when it finally opened and he held my hand, only to pull me in and whisper "hurry." He locked it right behind us as we entered this room, this room I knew we were not supposed to be in, and suddenly I was tugged through it and out another door, speed walking along a hallway, not very well lit.

"You weren't supposed to do that, were you?" I harshly whispered. It got very frustrating that he didn't always react when I asked him questions, unless you count making a sharp turn and heading up a flight of stairs.

We were at center of two red halls when I realized immediately we were in a goddamn hotel. I was confused but this inability to predict our experiences together was one reason why I loved to be with him. He still had my hand, so when he started down a hall, I went with him. "Are you even going to answer me?" His pace slowed so he could look at me, thoroughly, for his response.

"No, I wasn't supposed to do that. Should we go back?" My brow fell.

"No, but for future reference, there is probably a front door."

"Yes, and probably a lovely group of staff keeping us from going where I would like us to." He smiled and lead me into an elevator. He may have succeeded in winning me over at the moment, but I wouldn't soon forget he had picked a lock. Those are never one-time things.

"You said it would be a good story to tell to be stuck in an elevator with me," he spoke, just as the heavy doors had closed in front of us. The floor began to move and I darted my eyes around.

"I did..." I trailed. His fingers were hovering over the buttons.

"Would you really like for that to happen?" He asked head-on, almost past my eyes.

"A-are you serious?"

"Only if you are."

"I-I'm not."

He made it seem like he had discovered just the one to trap us here when the floor opened up to us and I blew a heavy sigh of relief. The hand over the panel retracted and he beckoned me to come in front of him. I did so, already feeling a hard pumping in my chest.

"You think it's funny to send my heart on a rollercoaster,"

"Only a little."

We matched the silence of the hall, being that it was past midnight (and I didn't want to disturb anyone who wasn't up their their phantom doing questionable things,) but he leaned just a little to my side. "I can send it anywhere... though..."

"W-what do you intend on us doing here?"

"Reading what you wrote me. This place has a wonderful top."

A door that very clearly said Staff Only was becoming more visible at the other end. I didn't disobey rules the way he did, so when we went right through it, I felt like my heart had just been through another loop. I adored him, really I did... but he was the last person I wanted to get in trouble with... I mean look at him... Okay, you can't, but trust me... He could not look someone in the eye and receive any type of sympathy saying "I didn't realize this area was restricted."

I knew Erik couldn't feel it himself, but the cold sank quickly into my face again once past those doors. My first instinct was to ogle the view, but he notioned towards a ladder to the side of the door, like he wanted me to go first. I had already been led a very long ways, and perhaps up there no one would find us, so I climbed, catching more and more of the cityscape below us, twice as high as the view from the restaurant. By the time I realized this, I was feeling a little dizzy being near the edge.

Rather than taking any look at the sky or the city, he approached the bottom of a flag stand at the right edge and leaned against it, comfortably, taking the book out from his coat.

"Y-You're just going to sit there and read it right in front of me," I interrupted.

"Why not?"

"It's embarrassing..." I replied, downcast. I looked up and a smile had appeared across his lips, toward the pages, and I felt myself shrink a little.

"I'm glad that it is... Then you know when you're honest." I knew in that pause that he was reading my response. "Don't you?" I didn't know what to say. "You're not so confused?"

I took a deep sigh. "I just thought you'd be the only one to read it. Alone."

"I can see her fingerprints on the cover..." He began. "She changes the room. She finds darkness intriguing..." A reaction to this sudden recital was out of my grasp, so I dug my empty hands in my pockets and listened, keeping my focus on whatever of his face I could see, trying to read him. "You can't drown in something like this. It's your truth. It'll hurt eventually." His pauses were hitting me harder than words. They made his reading seem like fresh thoughts - like he were writing it right in front of me."I'm going to bring you utmost happiness. Just like you will me."

By the end of that statement, I found his eyes rising, black and stable on me, but not as high as my face. "You don't believe this yet." He tore it out and folded it, then slowly turned around and stretched his arm over the edge. It dropped but was quickly after carried off by the wind. My shoulders tensed immediately.

"What'd you do that for?"

"This is how we met," he answered.

My eyes carried out to the air behind him, as if I would still find that scrap of paper.
"I... I guess."

"At first being honest seems very destructive, Christine, but the more you do it, the more it is your favorite thing..."

Honesty... Always urging honesty, in a context supposed to be dishonest...

"I had to practice with the world before I could get to you," he half-said to me, pulling another paper from his coat pocket and watching it flutter and then fly. "Of course... the world never responds. It only reads. But to know it reads my secrets keeps me sane... I think..." In a second, another appeared in his hand and dropped the next. I took his side to watch them fall, and he was perfectly content continuing, pulling notes left and right from different pockets. "I used to drown in them before I realized I could let them go... and when they're everywhere it doesn't feel like someone can kill your spirit so easily. You were almost killed, Christine..."

Instead of any real reaction, I had only a smile on him. I was afraid anything that came out of my mouth would be unnecessarily sappy and ruin the perfectly thoughtful things he had just said to justify tearing a page out of the book, that I had wanted to keep, and tossing it off the top of a building. I wondered if he noticed how far his hair had swayed out of place. It was always my instinct to fix it, maybe the way I took care of important gifts, and kept his music box exactly in the place it should be.

"Read it, then." He stared at me a moment, until my eyes darted to the book under his arm.

His other hand reached for it, gingerly, and held it over the edge. A gust rolled the pages over and I almost jumped, afraid our possession would meet its death at any time, and I drew it closer to me protectively.

"Hmphh..." He laughed in his breath, right over my ear. It sounded just as it would had I been in my room at this time, drifting by the sound of his voice. It was hard to imagine that this person behind me was there every time, considering it worth it to talk to me for that long, when everyone else was fallen asleep, unavailable, distant...

As the angle now made it difficult for him to read, he leaned over my shoulder and I was enclosed just as the book was.

"Apparently you don't have to try being poetic, Erik..." He started again. "But you have the gift no matter what you say." I sensed a thank-you in the following silence. "You have said the same thing since I met you, but only now have I understood it. I feel like a storm-catcher. I can't help but come towards you despite how greatly you promise to turn me upside down if I step too close..."

The more his breath fell upon my shoulder, the more it saturated me with a feeling of flight, of obedience to anything he said thereafter. No matter how true any of it was, I had to grab hold of it, like a dream, and let it lead me to that utmost honesty one would never talk about once they awoke.

"I've strapped myself in and I'm ready, if it means I can take record of this beautiful thing."

I knew he had reached the end, but the message seemed to go on and on in the following silence. I was talking to him in my mind and he was trying to listen. I had written this only a few hours ago, but I felt it now fell short.

The wind drew his hair around my arm and his hand on the right edge touched my other, holding the book.

"Do we have to send this off the roof now?" I joked.

"No," he answered quickly. "I'd really like to keep it. Actually."

"What about this?" I pointed to the jagged ends of the ripped page.

"I'll write you more."

"But I wanted that."

"I'm... sorry," he tried. "I'm used to throwing everything over the edge..."

"I'm not quite there yet," I answered. I seemed to sense double meaning here. When he paused, I knew he was thinking.

"You've been there many times," he corrected. "I was this. Intangible and anonymous." Book closed against my chest, I wrapped my other arm around his waist and smiled with my face rested into him.

"So basically you're trying to be metaphoric," I added. "Which is poetic, by the way."

"Hmph."





"I... sometimes consider it's the outlet... and not me..." He trailed. "But even if it were... I'm happy to do that for you..." His fingers continued circling over my shoulder all until I broke my face away from his chest and looked up on him, almost glowering.

"No, it's you. ...That couldn't be clearer." He stayed quiet. "Don't think you're less of a person because I can't see you." Something scared him from keeping eye-contact and he focused instead just beside me, but I wouldn't let this confession slip by him once again, like it had managed to several times now. "You're not just an idea for me."

I drilled into him as he had done to me. Following his reaction so carefully, I found his eyes to be the sharpest I had ever seen them. I had grown closer just to see them in full, because I felt like I saw him entirely, perhaps as he had seen me entirely when I received that deep stare. I must've been scaring him, but it unlocked something important for me.

I was against Giry's proposal. Not even just meagerly against it. 100%.

For several reasons.

Number one was that I no longer cared what his name was, and I didn't care what he looked like. I already admired this man more than anyone else in the world, just by his mind and his eyes, and that was what I wanted to focus on -- having an affinity that was not based on any distracting details, all of which he'd skillfully kept out of the way, and by then I saw why. I had never had that opportunity before and I wanted to keep it.

Number two was that if I were even capable of discovering his identity, it would mess up everything. It was unfair to him and unfair to me when I was already trying my hardest to piece him together and he was letting me. He was letting me. He secretly wanted me to know who he really was.

Lastly, and what must be admitted finally... there was no such thing as discovering his identity in the first place.

As much as he had made me believe in the past that this was a game, he was not a roleplayer.



"You look as though you love me," he pronounced, almost cautiously.




I saw that his eyes returned, and mine this time fled.



"...No..."

I hoped, with my answer soft, it would not dull the heights he had reached inside before he asked, but I felt the moment breaking anyway, like he was now going back inside, even though he had given me a feeling with as much magic as love.

His cold exhale reached me very faintly when I decided he had to understand that. Before he could retreat into that place, my own spirit would reach and pull him back, and we found our shadows combining. Slowly but with no hesitance, our faces turned and touched, his lips as careful as his fingers.



Favorite Quote(s)

And this time he was well rested. A little too well rested - he was trying to confuse me while we were walking through a batch of trees.

(I didn't want to disturb anyone who wasn't up their their phantom doing questionable things.)

He could not look someone in the eye and receive any type of sympathy saying "I didn't realize this area was restricted."

"I used to drown in them before I realized I could let them go... and when they're everywhere it doesn't feel like someone can kill your spirit so easily. You were almost killed, Christine..."

"I feel like a storm-catcher. I can't help but come towards you despite how greatly you promise to turn me upside down if I step too close..."

"Don't think you're less of a person because I can't see you."

Slowly but with no hesitance, our faces turned and touched, his lips as careful as his fingers.