Dreams Come True
Author: heeroluva
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Words: 435
Note: Just a little look at the twisted inner workings of Mrs. Lovett. A bit dark.
The instant he set foot in her shop Mrs. Lovett know that it was her love, her Benjamin Barker. It was like seeing a ghost, because she thought him dead to her, never to be seen again. The day of his mock of a trial, she was there and watched as he was shipped off with the cutthroats and the other innocents, fresh meat that would soon be spoiled.
Her hatred of Lucy and her Johanna, the remains of Benjamin's love that she could never, would never have, festered. After the rape of Lucy, the doctor put the poor, broken women under her care with careful instructions for the use laudanum. Her loathing reached a peak and the idea took form. She still had arsenic left over from when she'd offed her lazy, lout of a husband. Mixing the arsenic and the laudanum would surely lead to a quick death, and if asked she could say that Lucy must have found the bottle of laudanum and drank it herself. There would be no way to place the blame on her, and she could raise Johanna as her own, as though a piece of Benjamin's was really hers.
But things didn't go as planned and Lucy just got sick, sicker, sleeping for weeks, months. She couldn't risk more arsenic because there would be no excuse for the symptoms then. When she was finally lucid again, she wasn't right in the head, was weak and crazy as a loon. No fit mother was she. Judge Turpin swooped in and stole Johanna for her, claiming he could provide her a better home. But she knew that he just wanted her for himself, taking a piece of Lucy that she would never give to him. As a last twist of the knife, she twisted Lucy's fragile perception, sending her out to fend for her self.
Over the years she had learned that just a bit of arsenic could open a person up to suggestions and make them easy to manipulate in ways that would not be without. The delusions were just a plus that she could use to her advantage.
She offered Mr. Barker some of her laced ale, and she had to fight back a manic grin as he drank it down. When he said that Benjamin Barker was dead and that he was now Sweeney Todd, she did not mind. For a rose by any other name was still a rose. He was still her love. And he would now be hers. Because she had taken Lucy out of the picture. Her dreams would soon come true.