DISCLAIMER: Sweeney Todd belongs to Stephen Sondheim.
A/N: MOAR WEREWOLF. Because apparently a sequel is required.
-- Of Moons and Strings --
"How long have you been a-" He couldn't bring himself to actually say the word werewolf.
"Since I was born, I suppose, or at least since I was very small. I left the pack about twenty years ago, when I fell in love with a human man."
"Albert Lovett?"
"No, you..."
"With me?" Sweeney asked, nonplussed. "But you got married to Albert before I even met you!"
"I told you," she said irritably. "I can't remember anything that happens while I'm a wolf!"
"Wait, you mean... you fell in love with me while you were a wolf?!" It did make sense, though. Werewolves were normally quite vicious and would bite or kill humans on sight, as a general rule, when they were in wolf form. But she had been so sweet and submissive in his presence last night.
"Mm... and it took a while for my human heart to catch up."
She sighed and snuggled in close to him. This was going to be a long story so she might as well get comfortable...
- twenty years ago -
A wandering band of gypsies took up residence in the worst holes of London. Well, that's what they masqueraded as, anyway. In truth, they were something much more. Something wondeful, something glorious. They were children of the moon. They were a pack of migrant werewolves, settling in London for a few moons in the hope of getting a good feed.
She loved being a part of the pack, wild and free. She wasn't particularly fascinated with humans, nor was she fond of wearing clothes. Some others of her age were, although she couldn't understand why. She was of age physically, but still very much a child at heart.
In her human heart at least.
The full moon came and the pack prowled the city streets that night.
Normally she would hunt and hunt until she could eat no more, then she would return to the pack's den and sleep off her feast.
But this night was different. She found an intoxicating scent and followed its trail until she came upon... a man. A young, human man. Somehow she could not bring herself to prey upon him, but merely watched from the shadows. She followed him through the streets until he slipped inside a building. She waited for him emerge again, but he did not.
And when dawn came, the young woman woke up naked in an alley behind a pie shop. Luckily, one of her cousins had noticed her missing and found her before any human had a chance to come across her. She dressed quickly in the clothes her cousin had brought, and together the two women returned to the pack.
The full moon came and went twice more, and each time she found herself in that alley behind the pie shop. She had no memory of why she kept ending up there, but after the second time she'd taken to stashing extra clothes nearby as a precaution.
And then the news came. The pack would be moving on soon.
So she took it upon herself to investigate in human form whatever it was her wolf had been after.
She walked into the pie shop, the name of which she noted was Mrs. Lovett's. An older woman was bustling about, serving pies to the few customers in the place. A rather meaty young man leaned against the counter.
She approached him boldly and said, "Hi." Being raised in a pack of wolves, she had no sense of propriety, and several people - including Albert's mother - turned to look sharply at her. But she didn't notice their stares. Her attention was focused on Albert Lovett.
He introduced himself to her, and told her that old Mrs. Lovett over there was his mother, that this was his mother's shop.
Then he asked her name. And she didn't know what to say. She had no formal name. Such things weren't necessary when you were wild. She didn't keep track of the human names her packmates took, either, and so had no examples to go from.
The only names that flashed through her mind were those associated with Mother Moon: Diana, Selene, Isis, Hekate, Artemis.
And her personal favorite. Nehelennia.
"Nellie," she said aloud.
"Just Nellie?" Albert asked, clearly attempting to flirt with her. "You got a last name?"
She grinned. "Wolfe."
The pack left. She stayed. She learned to bake, not particularly well, but she did learn. She was sure she'd found what she'd been looking for. She married Albert. She didn't realize her wolf was still restless, because she ended up back in her own bed after every full moon.
Old Mrs. Lovett passed away, and the young Mrs. Lovett took over the shop.
- present day -
"Oh, I was reckless back then. Dragged my kills home, and in the morning... well..." She looked up at Sweeney. "Humans had always been food to me."
And suddenly he understood why she had never thought twice about what she was doing when she turned his victims into pies. Mrs. Lovett had always made people pies, ever since she took over the shop from Albert's mother...
He understood something else about her then, too. Her constant chatter and singing - the incessant need to hear her own voice - was caused by her loneliness, her longing to be part of a pack again. From what he could tell from the way she talked about it, the pack was always noisy, full of laughter and voices raised without restraint. And he himself was so quiet that she made up for his silence by talking that much more.
"What's your real name?" he asked suddenly.
"I told you, I don't rightly have one," she answered, settling against him again. "I wonder if Nehelennia minds that I borrowed hers... Anyway, as I was saying, I was reckless back then. Dragged my kills home, right into the house. Until one night, Albert caught me at it."
"What happened?"
"He shot me."
"He shot you?!"
"Well, he thought I was a wild animal! The bullet wasn't silver and it wasn't even a very good shot, cause when I woke up I only had a slight wound on my shoulder. I must have run off after he shot me, because I was out in the alley when I woke up. But when I came home the next morning and Albert saw the wound on my shoulder, he figured it out. He wasn't too nice to me after that, called me a monster and accused me of tricking him into marrying me. He started locking me up on the night of the full moon so I couldn't run wild anymore. And, well, the quality of the pies went downhill fast after that..."
- fifteen years ago -
Mrs. Lovett was tired of her relationship with Albert, tired of the pie shop, tired of never having her appetite for human flesh sated, tired of being locked away when she longed to run free. Besides that, she had realized years ago that she never had found whatever it was her wolf had longed for, and now she found her human heart longing for it as well.
She knew that someone rented the room above the shop. Even knew his name, Benjamin Barker, and that he ran a barbershop up there. Didn't think she'd ever caught a glimpse of him, though, even though she'd heard gossip from her customers two years ago when the barber suddenly got married. Apparently the wife was a great beauty. Strange, she couldn't recall ever seeing the woman, either. And just a year ago, the couple upstairs had had a baby. A little girl, if she remembered correctly. She wasn't sure what the wife and baby's names were.
And then one day, she did see them. They were at the park, the parents sitting on a picnic blanket with their child between them.
She wouldn't even have known these were her neighbors if they had not called out to her to come and join them, and apologized for the rent being a little late this month.
She did join them, and she sat close enough that she caught his scent... She felt a jolt in her stomach and she knew. This man, he was what her wolf had longed for. He had been right there - so close! - the whole time, and now when she finally knew that she'd wanted him all along, it was too late. He was married. He had a child.
More than him, more than anything, she wanted to have a child of her own. But Albert wouldn't touch her anymore, except in anger.
She'd though about killing her husband, she really had, but she couldn't see how she'd get away with it. Humans had laws. Laws that were different from the laws of the wild, the laws of the pack. She hated the laws and the courts and the judges and the beadles.
She loved a man who wasn't hers. She'd shackled herself to a man who hated her for what she was, for hiding the truth of what she was.
She wanted to be free of all of this.
She should have been careful what she wished for.
The very next day Benjamin Barker was arrested on a false charge. Albert Lovett soon after contracted gout and was confined to his chair for months before finally dying of a heart attack caused by his excessive overeating.
- present day -
But now the man she loved had come home. And he was just as much of a monster as she was, even if he didn't transform into anything.
"You never seemed to notice me back then," Sweeney told her once her story was finished. "But I did notice you, that first time you came into the shop. No one could figure out who you were, where you came from, or why you were so attracted to the place."
"Well, you know now," she murmured.
"I did notice you back then," he said. "You were exotic, different, so different than any woman I'd ever known. There was something about you... but you never even looked at me. And then you and Albert got married. I kept wondering when you'd come to your senses and leave him..." And then Benjamin had finally given up hoping, and married one of the ladies who were always hanging around him. And he'd loved Lucy, he really had. But he wasn't Benjamin Barker anymore.
And Sweeney Todd loved the beautiful werewolf who was laying in his arms right now.
-end-
A/N: Hope that clears up anything you might have been wondering about.
A/N: As some of you may have noticed, this is the first fic where I have actually referred to Mrs. Lovett by the name "Nellie".
Reviews are love, and so are werewolf bites.