Grey Clouds On The Horizon

Hallelujah

A/N Very Dark Chapter Warning... My first song chapter ever. Please listen to the above link if you want the full intended experience.

Christian's POV

I heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the lord

But you don't really care for music, do you

Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall and the major lift

The baffled king composing hallelujah

I didn't want the way she looked at me to be the end of our winding road that left me sick and craving more every time I reached the crossing. Emilia sat by my feet in my office and hummed to herself a song that was completely our own. The sadness in her eyes left me wondering if I would ever hear that laugh again. Her trill cackle filled the whole in my chest where a soul was supposed to reside. Until I heard it, I'd be empty.

"Emilia, are you happy?" I tried to seem focused on my work and glanced over a random page of a contract on my desk.

She nodded passively. "Yes sir, I am very happy to be yours. Does that please you?"

What about her didn't please me? Perhaps it was her lies, like the one she'd just told, to pacify the chronic ache only she knew lived within me. "Yes, but pretend you could be happier. Tell me what I could do to make that happen."

The broken belle thought for a moment and leaned her head on my knee. "Mr Grey, will all due respect, I don't think that people like us will ever be perfectly happy. There is darkness within that prevents us from loving. True happiness is love. God is love. We are without true happiness and we are surely without God. They will both always be just out of reach."

Like most of her thoughts, this one left me speechless. I patted her head and hoped Em didn't know I was only pretending to work while I pondered the wisdom that poured from her fountain of youth. Before she'd said that, I would have thought I loved her. The way I yearned for her was as close to love as I'd ever been able to understand. But wasn't she right? We were both so deep in the darkness that light rarely reached through and we had to make our own by setting fires. Eventually, those fires would destroy us.

If we were damned to live in our own destructive flames, what was the harm in pretending to understand love? Maybe, with enough time and convincing, I would coax my little actress into playing the role for me and I would play it for her. Neither of us would know its reality but if we weren't capable of experiencing true love's embrace then we would never know we were missing out by feigning harsh lusts's grip.

"Dear girl," I mumbled and ran my thumb over her now sleeping cheek. "You make my mind a mess." Emilia snored softly at her place on my floor and I watched her rest instead of taking the time to find my own sleep.

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to her kitchen chair