Disclaimer: I don't own the beginning of Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge! ("Love is...", etc.) and the beginning of All You Need is Love by the awesomeness that is The Beatles (which was also in Elephant Love Medley, but I did more than what was in it). I just made it that Christine was the original composer of it.
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Christine sat in her lair a month later, writing more of Genius's Mistake, when François arrived.
"Monsieur Luc seems depressed," he informed her, sounding as if he believed his words to be very important. "It appears to me that he misses his Angel of Music. He isn't as motivated to sing as he was before."
She shrugged carelessly, looking cross. "Well, it's his fault. He's the one who betrayed me. He shouldn't have fallen in love with Emilie Chastain. But now he has, and partially due to that, I'm staying away from him. He brought this upon himself."
"Maybe you shouldn't have fallen in love with him," he said wisely. "You don't need someone to love. Look at me - I've never married, and I'm fine."
"Yes, look at you - you come to visit someone who's less than half your own age and is not even related to you, and that person is a deformed monstrosity who's obsessed with someone that doesn't care for them at all. You're lonely."
He shrugged, not bothering to try and argue the truth that he knew was in that statement. "Well, maybe you're supposed to live without love. It seems that I am."
"Live without love?" she asked, looking shocked. "But... no one can live without love! Or, at least, most people shouldn't! You shouldn't live without love."
She was silent for a moment, and then an actual smile came to her face. She turned to him. "Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love, François!"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "What? What are you saying?"
She turned to the piano, playing a few chords before starting to play a song that he didn't recognize.. Then she sang:
All you need is love...
All you need is love...
All you need is love, love...
Love is all you need...
Once she'd finished singing that bit, she played a little ending on the piano, then turned back to face him.
"Well, what did you think?" she inquired expectantly. "Do you think that song is rather nice? Kind of persuasive, too, don't you find? It makes me want to believe that all you need is love."
He shrugged. "I suppose it's all right. Why, are you going to use it in Genius's Mistake?"
"No," she replied, shaking her head and turning her attention back to the music for Genius's Mistake that she'd been working on upon his arrival. "It's just a song I wrote when I was feeling bored with doing Genius's Mistake."
"I see. Well, like I said, it's all right. I might not like it if you hadn't done it, though."
She sighed. "Oh, François - what a truly boring little fart you are at times! You don't like being in love, you don't like music about love... really, I don't understand how you and I are friends at all. I'm a romantic, while you're... well, I suppose you're just plain boring."
He laughed as he sat down next to her on the piano bench, at which she steadily ignored him and continued working on her music. "I'm an old man, mon ami. I think I can be forgiven for being boring, don't you?"
"Hmph," she murmured. "My father was infinitely older than you are, and he wasn't ever boring. Of course, he and I were a lot of the same person - musically inclined romantics who have the worst-looking faces in the world."
For a moment, he didn't look too happy about her comparing him to Erik, as he knew he could never replace anyone's father, but then he chose to ignore it and peered at a piece of the sheet music in front of him.
"Another love song, it appears," he said after studying the sheet for a moment, picking it up. "What's the name of it? This -"
"Shh!" she hissed. "Don't say it aloud. I don't like people saying the names of my songs - even I don't say them. It's taboo."
"How is that taboo, exactly?"
"It doesn't matter how it's taboo. What matters is that it is taboo. So don't say the name." She paused for a moment. "Now what about the song?"
He gave her an odd look, but then he shrugged and scanned the music once again. "All right, then. Anyway, the song looks like a good song, even if it is a bit about love. Will the opera be good?"
"Of course it's going to be good!" she exclaimed, giving him a that's-so-obvious look and using the tone of voice to match it. "This is going to be the best opera of all time; the best that Paris has ever seen. It will have spectacular visual effects, wonderful songs, great dances, and -"
"You're already trying to advertise," he said with a laugh. "That's unusual. You're not even finished with it yet."
"That happens quite often," she replied, shrugging. "Don't act so surprised. A lot of the operas that are performed here are advertised when the composer hasn't completed them or the cast and crew haven't finished preparing everything for the show... or something like that. You just don't notice or don't care."
"I see."
"This opera will make Mozart look practically ridiculous," she continued.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Honestly, I don't think one can really make Mozart look ridiculous to any degree. And it's a little self-centered to think that, don't you think?"
"Well, most musicians are self-centered when it comes to their work - most artists, in fact. Now leave me alone, please, so I can work."
Then, without another word, she continued to write.
