DISCLAIMER: Sweeney Todd belongs to Stephen Sondheim.
-- One Night --
It was late morning when Mrs. Lovett awoke. She knew immediately that something was wrong. She was in her bedroom, which was NOT the last place she remembered being. She was wearing only a ratty old blanket which was wrapped around her naked body like a cocoon.
And she was curled up against Sweeney Todd, who was sleeping peacefully beside her.
Sweeney awoke to the shrill sound of Mrs. Lovett's voice in his ear.
"Go back to sleep," he mumbled drowsily, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her against his chest. She struggled.
"Mr. Todd," she shrieked, sounding panicked. "What happened last night?!"
"You don't remember?" he asked, suddenly wide awake.
"No," she answered tersely.
Sweeney was silent.
"Where's my dress?"
"Down in the bake house."
"And how did we end up in my bedroom?"
"I carried you up, after..." He trailed off. She knew what he meant, even though he didn't seem to want to say it.
"What were you doing down there anyway, when I clearly told you to stay out?"
Sweeney sighed and began to explain.
- last night -
In the middle of the dinner rush, Toby dropped a plate and Mrs. Lovett scolded the boy so harshly that he ran off in tears. Sweeney was there to witness this, since he had already closed up shop for the day. He'd had so many customers already that he was down to his last clean shirt and Mrs. Lovett had already informed him that she wouldn't be doing any laundry tonight.
After the pie shop closed for the night, Mrs. Lovett found Toby and apologized.
"Don't know what's gotten into me lately, must be because it's getting close to that time of the month," she said. Then she told them both that she was going down to the bake house and neither of them were to enter under any circumstances.
Which left Sweeney to explain to Toby what a woman's "that time of the month" was. Needless to say, the barber was none too happy about that.
After sending the boy off to bed with a bottle of gin, Sweeney went down to the bake house to have a talk with Mrs. Lovett, completely forgetting her earlier warning.
He was not prepared for what awaited him there.
When Sweeney entered the bake house he was immediately confronted by a snarling gray wolf. The wolf stood protectively over the mangled remains of a human corpse, which it had apparently been eating before Sweeney burst in on it. And there on the ground, not far away, was Mrs. Lovett's dress...
He wondered numbly how a wild wolf had gotten in here in the first place. Then he noticed that it was shackled by the neck to a chain. The chain was attached to the floor by a metal bolt and was quite short, only allowing the wolf to move about three feet in any direction.
But, still, what the hell had she been thinking, keeping a thing like this here? Poor Mrs. Lovett...
Sweeney took out one of his razors and, flipping it open, he began to stalk cautiously toward the wolf. He'd just slit the beast's throat and that would take care of that. But he'd have to be careful about it, since the wolf would surely put up more of a fight than his customers did...
The wolf took one look at the razor in his hand and backed away, whining.
Either it was a very smart wolf or... the razor was silver, after all...
"Mrs. Lovett?" he called out tentatively.
The wolf's ears perked up at the sound of the name and she lay down submissively and allowed Sweeney to approach.
He knelt next to her and tentatively placed a hand on her head, between her ears. She looked up at him with soft brown eyes and whined.
"My God, it really is you, isn't it?"
So when she'd said "that time of the month" earlier, she'd actually meant the full moon...
She laid her head on his knee and fell alseep. He stayed with her on the cold floor of the bake house until dawn, when she shivered back into her human form. Of course, when she tranformed, she was naked... He found a ratty old blanket that smelled strongly of blood and wet fur - he supposed she kept it down here to lay on whenever she was in werewolf form - and he wrapped it around her. He found the key that unlocked the chain and released her, then gathered her into his arms and carried her up to her bedroom.
- this morning -
"You really can't remember anything?"
"I never have any memories of things that happened while I was a wolf."
"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..."
-end-
A/N: Sweeney was a vampire in "Hungry" so Mrs. Lovett gets to be a werewolf this time. +sings+ There was a barber and his wolf...
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