When Erik returned, Arielette was smiling in the darkness. How she had simply stood there with no light and no presence to accompany her baffled Erik. There would be no amount of times in which her lack of fear did not surprise him.

"Hold this," he beckoned to her with the lantern, the short gondola upon his shoulders. "It seems water-worthy, but their was no paddle, only a stick, so I imagine the lake does not go too deep."

Arielette only smiled in return, excitement beaming upon his strength and endurance.

He slid the boat into the water after unloading it from his back and held the end with his gloved hand, motioning for his partner to get in. The brunette lifted her skirts, stepped in, and kissed Erik before he pushed them off and hopped in himself, steadying his inordinate balance.

He guided them smoothly over the lake, the pillars acting as a map through the darkness.

"It is exquisite down here."

There was no wind and there was no life, Erik presumed, because of just how deep below the surface they were. The echo of their speech and the water lapping was unsettling, however.

"I cannot believe someone built the likes of this," Arielette broke the ride's silence.

"It is exquisite, but I feel I could have done better."

"An architect are you?" She teased.

Holding his chin up high, Erik nodded.

"I fancy myself anything I can think of, I know several languages from travelling with the gypsies, I know odd cures to almost any maladies, and I mastered ventriloquism from a man who stayed in the camps for a few years when I was a teenager. In terms of architecture and math, I came by those naturally."

Arielette looked mildly impressed, though what their lantern started to reveal caught her attention, and therefor, Erik's.

There was a house, on the other edge of the lake. It wasn't just a carving into the brute stone of the underground, no, it was an actual home with a door and windows, the walls going up into the ceiling of the cellar.

"Erik," Arielette said in amazement, her voice laden with every emotion of fascination. "When we reach the shore may we go in?"

"If there isn't a light to be seen, then I don't see why not."

Fear was racing through his veins, but that didn't mean much of anything when they hit the sandy shore of this complete oddity of an abode.

"I can't believe this," Erik breathed, his words short as the brunette at his side exited the boat and pulled him along with her.

"Neither can I, it is amazing."

Her warm hand gave a tug towards the door, and luckily for Erik, astonishment was winning out as his prominent emotion.

Upon the door was an extremely worn piece of parchment, one that hadn't seen the light of day in what must have been years. As Erik took it from the wood, it nearly fell apart in his hands.

"To whomever comes upon this home in the underground...

Privacy and safety for he who found...

Take the key behind the door,

The public eye will see you no more."

"Whoever made it is giving it away," Arielette spoke happily, grabbing the handle and rushing inside, dim light from their lantern that Erik held illuminating the sparse furniture and large room.

He followed her inside, careful to step so that there were no traps, though Arielette certainly would have set something off already if there had been triggers.

"It's quite large," Erik said as he traveled down the hall, Arielette looking into each room with a curious glance.

There was another large room, one that depressed about two feet into the ground with two steps at the door, and then two normal looking bedrooms. Each one seemed to have a bath chamber connected to it, and then there was a kitchen between the depressed room and the main entrance room. Overall, it was gorgeous considering the confines of the fifth cellar, which Erik expected to be sewer water, not the clear, but dark, water of the lake.

"It's stunning," Arielette chorused his thoughts, putting an arm around his waist, looking up at his shadowed face with glee. "We should live here."

She showed him a key he never realized she picked up and grinned like an imp.

"You and your foolish fantasies, Arielette. We aren't even engaged to be married."

"Why not?"

Raising an eyebrow, Erik clarified, "What do you mean by such?"

"Why can we not be engaged to marry?"

Shaking his head, the masked-man fled from his partner and faked a smile, "We cannot be, Arielette, we have known one-another for only just over a week! There are things you don't know about me."

"Like what?" She wondered flatly, her stature showing off her fearless nature, "That you are a master at any craft you practice? That you have the ability to be horrifying? Your deformity? I have secrets too, Erik."

"Not like mine," he brushed off the reach.

"Really?" Arielette recanted in anger, "And do you know what I did only a year ago? No, your transgressions do not exist when you know of mine."

She hated the out-pour of information that came with her fearlessness because she would tell him not caring what his reaction would be.

"You don't love me, Arielette, and an engagement is based on love."

She liked that idea, that all engagements were based upon love and wanting of the person you were plighted to. Unfortunately enough for her, she knew the realities of the world. It was curious to her that Erik did not know such a way of the world in the vastness of his knowledge, but he knew that an engagement should entail love.

"I never said I didn't love you, Erik."

"You can't," he determined for her, yellow eyes an ember color in the dark.

"What do you mean?"

"I cannot be loved, I was told that years ago more than I was told my name."

Arielette felt anger when told such a horrible thing.

"They were wrong. Very wrong."

"And how would you know?" He wondered, sounding half angry himself, but also battered by the emotions from his past.

She knew some of it, how his mother had been the one to give him up to the gypsies, and how they'd treated him more than poorly.

"I know because I love you, Erik."

The masked-man's movements ceased completely, for those words were words he had never heard in his direction before. Praise came as no surprise to him now, but love? Love was completely out of his grasp, and there was so much that he didn't think he deserved when it came to such a thing.

"You can't," he denied, though he certainly did believe her.

"That's not true and you know it, Erik. I love you."

She approached him cautiously, placing a hand upon his shoulder and looking into sunken eyes that were threatening tears.

Before Arielette could blink his hands were on her waist, and the tears that were so close to being tangible were leaking down to his chin in full force.

"I'm so afraid to lose you," he cried, "you've given me things that I never thought I could deserve, and now to have your love is an astounding thing I don't know how to handle. Arielette, I love you so much, in all my irrationality because I know one day you will be gone from my life. Fear wracks me so heavily, and to have you here is baffling, darling."

Arielette cried with him, heat radiating from their bodies as tempers rose and fell in fits of excruciating tears.

"My life was full of sin before you, Arielette."

She shook her head, "Nothing worse than what I committed."

"Not again, Arielette," Erik attempted to sway her from confessing whatever it was that was behind her sudden tears.

"No, Erik, I killed someone, you do not get to claim sin when you have not taken someone's life."

Wide eyed and tearless, Erik shook as he held onto his partner that much harder.

"Why?"

Arielette avoided Erik's gaze with everything in her power, not even him shedding his mask was enough for her to glance into embers that she adored so fully. The silence was like a duel between them as his question went unanswered, and he floundered for anything else to even say. Arielette's chest was tight as she tried to keep the thoughts in her head from swirling into the pits her fearlessness had never brought her before.

She could harm Erik. She could do something of no consequence one day and hurt him. Arielette knew this, but she wasn't scared that it would happen, and to her it felt like she didn't care. Erik didn't deserve that. Her past itself was mostly bright, but troublesome in some people's eyes. She was a liability to a man like him, and he needed someone who had care and tact. Why it was all coming to her in such a wave of horrid hatred of herself, she didn't know, but in her heart, there was determination that Erik needed someone better. It was common sense.

She wasn't worried to lose him, therefore she didn't care for him.

Arielette felt her chest heave. She did not wish to hurt Erik, but her worry that he would blow up was nonexistent. She loved him, but losing him didn't register in her addled brain, no, she was helping him.

He had been right... she couldn't love him. Not forever, anyways.

Erik was scared to lose her, and she would have cried were he to leave, but the thought caused her no disarray.

"Let me go," she muttered, yanking her waist from his grip, tighter than her corset.

Erik obliged, but only because she sounded so hurt.

"I'm sorry I asked of it, Arielette," he said to her turned back, stuck in his spot on the floor of the underground home whose walls still put him in a stupor.

"No, I brought it up," she denied, shaking from the assault of emotions.

Another battle of silence, and Erik wondered what had happened that they became like this. Usually their silences were short, and barely considered such because of how easy it was for the pair to slip into conversation. This, however, didn't feel like it could be mended with some random anecdote he pulled out of his mind.

"I want to go home."

Erik nodded, even though he was more than aware she couldn't see him do it. He passed her, feeling like he shouldn't attempt to touch her, and led them back home. The boat ride was silent besides the lapping of water, the catacombs an even more scary adventure because there was no more intrigue, only sheer confusion running through both members of the party.

Fear struck Erik like lightening on a dry tree. The whole way up, and then the whole way home was positively horrifying, chilling him to a coldness he hadn't ever felt before. The hair on his arms stood tall and erect, and every sense and feeling was heightened beyond even the times he'd done those strange drugs.

The flat was empty of people as it seemed that Anton had finally decided to go and actually visit with his partner. Diane was most likely out in the markets getting things for dinner, and Arielette was standing awkwardly before him in the living area.

"Erik?"

He had never been the expert in reading body language, or even understanding the intonation of a human being unless it was malice in their voice so Erik didn't expect what he received when he answered her beckoning.

Her green eyes, rimmed in red from their frustration, looked sadly at his own, the mask in place wet and uncomfortable. Even looking right at the woman he loved, there was nothing in his arsenal of skills and talents that would prepare him for what she was to say, and after such a protest to gain him, he was blindsided by her request.

"I never want to see you again."

The sharp delivery, her usual bluntness, stabbed Erik through the heart, but it steeled in that moment, and they parted for what would be seven long years.