Ok, so one thing that bothered me is that nobody guessed that Francoeur shrunk again. And yeah, the little "he's here!" that she gave Raoul kinda made it seem like they had suspected he could be alive, but they needed to go a little more into that. So I did.
Oh, and one more thing. The cover picture is not my own, but it is lovely and the artist was kind enough to give me permission to use it. Her profile is GiddyFidge, and you guys should go check her out. Thanks!
Emile dropped by the restaurant the day after the fiasco. He still didn't think he'd entirely registered everything that happened in the last couple of days. He wouldn't believe that it had been real, accept for the newspapers featuring an artist's rendition of the former Police Commissioner Maynott attacking the monster and destroying the city. And Maud sending him off this morning with a kiss, telling him to return soon. And the fact that he was going to see Raoul instead of Raoul coming to see him. And, of course…Francoeur. So much had changed.
He came to the restaurant and knocked on the door. Muffled scuffling sounds were heard before the door opened and Raoul looked out. He was a mess. Emile looked up with sympathy.
"Bonjour," he said, knowing how out of place it sounded.
"Come on in, Emile," Raoul responded, opening the door a little wider.
Raoul and Emile sat across from one another for about ten minutes in silence, looking for something to say. Finally, Emile piped up.
"So I was thinking," he started, "About Francoeur."
"We all are," Raoul replied.
"Well, I was thinking," Emile continued, "We never found a body."
There were a few moments of silence.
"Thank you," Raoul said, his voice increasingly sarcastic, "I love to start my day with a good dose of morbidity."
"No, you don't understand," Emile said, trying to fix the damage, "I mean, the potion that created him said unstable, right?"
Raoul nodded, and Emile continued.
"What if we didn't find a body because there wasn't one to find?" Emile said, glad to finally talk through this theory, "We were looking for a way to shrink Francoeur back down, but what if it was already happening?"
Raoul put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. Emile was glad he'd at least snapped him out of his funk.
"It is a possibility," he said after a while, "But not a terribly pleasant one. Think about it, Emile. If he shrunk back down, that means everything he was would be gone anyway. He would become a simple flea again, and probably drown in the Seine since that's where he was changed back."
"Possibly," Emile said, trying to focus on the brighter side, "Or he could have just become a smaller version of the Francoeur we knew. And if he was on any of the clothes that Lucille brought back, he could be in this very building!"
Raoul looked thoughtful again, this time with a little more light in his eyes.
"It is true," he said after a while, "There were more potions in that mixture than just the fertilizer."
"Exactly my thoughts," Emile said triumphantly.
"But, if he's alive," Raoul said, looking around suddenly, "Then where is he? Merde, I hope nobody's stepped on him!"
Raoul started to take carefully scoped out steps toward the dressing room, with Emile following suite. When they arrived, he peered in the door and saw the clothing Francoeur had been wearing, still sitting on the chair. Lucille had gone out, saying that she needed some space for a while. Raoul had been cleaning up a bit, falling rather quickly into his new job, but had left this room untouched out of respect for Lucille's privacy. Now the two men carefully sorted their way through it, calling out to Francoeur and gently shaking out any piece of loose cloth.
After checking under the seat cushions, Raoul sat down, a new kind of hopelessness on his face. Emile sat beside him.
"He could be alive," Raoul said, "But we'll never find him. For all we know, he could still be trapped out there on the tower, or worse. It was a great thought, Emile, it really was."
Emile nodded sadly. The two sat together for a while, eventually talking about Raoul's new job and Emile's new romance. After a while, Emile bid Raoul adieu and the two parted ways. But both were watching where they put their feet for the rest of the day.
Lucille walked the streets of Paris, feeling distant. He best friend, a bright light that had come into her life only two short days ago and changed everything, was gone. Everything had changed again and not for the better this time. She didn't know how she would ever be able to sing her song that night.
She had insisted to Carlotta that she would sing, knowing that if she took too much time off the public would lose interest and find a new singer to favor. And it may have been a coping mechanism. Whenever Lucille had gone through difficult times, she always sang. She threw herself into her song and let her mind think of nothing else. She so desperately wanted to think of nothing else.
She passed a shop and couldn't help but overhear two gentlemen discussing the front page of the newspaper. She stalled slightly, holding back her emotions.
"I don't understand the police in this city," one said, gesturing to the paper irately, "It was a monster! That creature nearly killed people! Why should the man responsible for removing it be punished?"
"Because he caused more damage removing it than the thing did in the first place," the other man said, taking the side of the article, "And it will be our tax money that goes to repairing it."
"Look, all I'm saying is that they should give the guy a break," the first man said, sounding tired of the argument, "Not everyone would have risked their life like that."
Lucille tried, she really did. She tried to ignore it, knowing that these men were just ignorant of the real crime here. But she felt herself getting redder and redder, and before she knew it happened, she blew a fuse.
"Risk his life?!" she screamed, taking both men by surprise, "Risk his life?! He took a life, that's what he did! He hunted an innocent down in cold blood, found him at his weakest after the poor soul tried to run, and shot him down without a second thought! This is not about the damage! This is not about the damn commissioner risking his life! He was never at any risk, because the one he killed would never have harmed another living soul! This is about a coldhearted murder!"
The men blinked in surprise. The one reading the paper had cowered behind it instinctively and now peered over the top at her, shaking slightly. But she didn't stop there, no, this was far from over.
"And that was no monster that he killed!" she screamed, her eyes already pouring tears as she thought of it, "I knew him. He was the kindest creature I'd ever met! He loved music, and dancing, and he was writing a song! A song that will never be finished now because a psychopath with a gun decided he had the right to end his life! He never hurt anybody, and everyone turned against him! And yes, he was a giant flea, but that is beyond the point; he was a better person than most any human being I've ever met! He was a genius and a poet, and he was kind and gentle and…and…and…"
At that she broke down and started sobbing, falling to her knees on the wet cobblestone street. The two men looked at each other, then at her. The second one, who had been hiding behind his paper, reached out a hand and spoke gently.
"Mademoiselle?" he asked quietly, laying a gentle hand on her shaking shoulder, "Are you alright?"
"No!" she yelled, making him flinch again, "Francoeur is dead! Dear Francoeur is gone and everyone in the city still thinks he was a monster!"
The man looked hesitant, as if he didn't know what to say, and Lucille looked back down at her hands on her lap.
"Is there someone we can call?" he asked.
"No," she said, pushing her hands off the ground and refusing the hand offered to help her up, "Just leave me alone."
She walked away in a hurry and heard the two men murmur worriedly behind her. She'd had enough space now.
While Raoul was searching the dressing room with Emile and Lucille was on her walk, someone else was present that they had all lost hope of seeing again. Francoeur had been there all along. He didn't see Raoul looking for him, else he would have tried to get his attention. While Raoul had been scouring the clothing that he'd been wearing, Francour had been riding in the lace on the collar of Lucille's dress, where he'd been since she grabbed the chapeau that he'd been clinging to for dear life.
The voices around him were even harder for Francoeur to understand now, since they were so large and loud, but he knew what was going on. He watched Lucille grieve for him and tried to get her attention. She had been crying all night, or at least until she fell asleep. This morning it seemed like she didn't see anything at all, much less a tiny flea trying to wave his arms at her. He stayed with her, thinking of any way he could grab her attention. He chirped and hummed, even hissed in frustration once or twice, but who could hear a flea?
He watched and heard and felt her breakdown in the street. He trilled sadly and pressed into the lace at her neck, wanting nothing more than to give her a real, human-sized hug. She walked back home and gave no evidence to Raoul that her walk had been at all unpleasant. Francoeur smiled sadly. She was so strong.
She started to prepare her voice for a performance that night and Francoeur sighed, listening happily to her song and singing along in his tiny, flea sized voice. She had stopped to cry a couple times, earning a saddened hum from her invisible duet partner, but she kept trying. If only he could find a way to make her hear him!
When she went onto the stage, Francoeur went with her. And when she stalled, he couldn't stand to do nothing. He was struck with inspiration and jumped precisely from her shoulder to her ear. He carefully crawled into her ear, trying not to make it itch with the touch of his tiny legs. Then he began to sing his new song directly into her eardrum, the one he'd been writing the music for before he shrunk. It was finished now, in his mind, and he sang it as loudly as he could. And, to his surprise and glee, she began to sing it along with him, her pretty voice echoing through her ears. It was loud, but he didn't care. He sang with her, sang for joy that she could hear him. He sang because he was alive again!
Dear little Francoeur! Cutest flea in the history of fleas! Thanks for reading!