I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

She thought she'd gotten rid of everything, down to the very cutlery he'd eaten with and the chairs he'd sat in. She thought she'd removed every last wisp of his essence from the house, from her life, from the universe itself- but somehow, impossibly, she'd forgotten this.

The old piano stood in the middle of the room, begging for a spotlight. The cracking plastic keys were bared to the air, and she could still hear their music in her head. She could still remember the way he sat and played and coaxed tears from the heart of creation- or forgiveness from the heart of an angel.

He only ever played here, in this little basement room, when they argued. She would wake up in the middle of the night to find herself alone in bed, and she would follow the strains of music, of that song, until she found him. He would play it for her, and sing 'Hallelujah, Hallelujah' for her ears alone, though he pretended, then, to be singing for himself.

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 a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

It was like he'd never gone, now. She could still hear his voice, rough with too much emotion, accompanied by a piano badly out of tune. The very walls rang with the memory of music, and she could hear them all too well. He would look up in the middle of the song, and keep playing, keep singing, and she would walk across the room to touch his hair and whisper apologies in countermelody. And he would smile around the words and all would be forgiven. The music swelled and rolled around her, echoing all the things she'd meant to forget.

Maybe I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Halleluja

She found herself at the piano bench again, and could see him, shining and golden and beautiful in her memory, in the music. But instead of tousled gold, her fingers found only emptiness above the piano keys. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to hold back the scream that had been lying in her heart since the day it happened. Music was beyond her, now. Without him, she had only silence within herself. Silence, and the memory of him. She would not scream, though her throat was raw with the need for it. She had no right- all she had was silence, now.

There was a time you'd let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

He was gone, but she could still hear his voice in the walls, in the floors, in the very foundation of existence. No matter where she went, he would be there, reminding her of what would never be, ever again. The bed they'd shared had been the first thing to go, followed by the pictures, the instruments, the books, the trinkets and gifts they'd given each other over the years. She slept alone, now, in a cold and barren room, but even that was too much like him to bear. Cold- he had been music and delicious ice to her senses and now even the emptiness reminded her of him. But the piano still played ghostly tunes, and it was all that remained. Her wedding ring had gone to his brother for safekeeping. In a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand, maybe, she would wear it again, in memory. But now- now, all that remained was this piano, and this room, full of his voice.

Her fingers found the keys, but did not play, and silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

The flames licked slowly across the keys, wavering and unsteady beneath her watery gaze. A sob finally escaped- not a scream, but close enough to make the fire leap hungrily across the laminated wood. The piano let out a single, all-encompassing chord as its wires snapped simultaneously, and the music in her head finally stopped. The fire rose up around her, impossibly hot and impossibly hungry, but she ignored it, crying in the silence.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
---------------------
"Hallelujah", Rufus Wainwright
Birds of a Feather: The Sequel

Look, drivel!
Man, that song depresses me to no end. It was on my latest mix CD and nearly made me cry- then it occurred to me how very Opal/Tyler it was, and then, of course, I got a random battle scene image in my head, and people started screaming, and crying- and then I listened to the damn song again and it occurred to me that yes, it really is a very Opal/Tyler song and he would serenade her in the middle of the night to apologize for being an ass at some point, and she would try to wipe any trace of his existence off the face of creation after he died.

So, yeah. Fucking depressing. Not saying that I'll ever take this anywhere, or that I will ever do a songfilk again (they're really annoying, and quite difficult) but the song itself begged for it, and I figured that if I didn't write something soon, I'd never write anything, so, there you go.

Of course, if it were Opal who died, and Tyler who survived, he'd turn the whole of the universe into some sort of shrine to her memory. Or commit suicide, dramatic little bugger.

*sigh* I'd been planning on writing a Boffo drabble, just not this one. Meh. I hate writing angst. And I'm never listening to this song again.