If Only Angels Could Prevail

By: After Words

"NOOOO!!!" The dark stranger roared, surging to his feet. His sudden shout startled Nellie Lovett into silence. She stared up at him, the vague recognition she'd felt for him becoming clear.

"So it is you," she breathed, awed by his very presence now that she knew his identity. "Benjamin Barker."

The man's brows contracted. He seemed confused now, lost, and Nellie briefly wondered if she'd perhaps been mistaken. But his next words confirmed her suspicions. "Where is Lucy?" he mewled. "Where is my wife?"

Nellie looked away, a battle waging within her on whether she should reveal the truth to him. He'd obviously suffered greatly in the time he'd been gone. Did she really want to add to that? More so than she already had? He now knew of his wife's rape... Did he really need to know of her fate?

"...She poisoned herself," she blurted, her eyes lowering. "Arsenic. From the apothecary 'round the corner." She paused, twiddling her fingers, struggling to stem the flow of words. "I tried to stop her but she wouldn't listen to me." Her voice failed as she glanced up at him. He had a look of such wretched sadness upon his face, she had to force herself to continue. "She went mad because of it, wound up in bedlam, poor thing. I remember that day... " Nellie sighed and shook her head. "And he's got your daughter..."

"He? Judge Turpin?"

She nodded sadly. "Adopted her as his own."

Something flickered behind his dark eyes. "Johanna?" He whispered the name like a prayer.

Nellie tried to comfort him. "Lucy... watches over her. In a way," she amended. The man looked at her in confusion. "I-I pretended to be her sister, to get her outta Fogg's Asylum." She cleared her throat nervously under his dark gaze, compulsively smoothed her skirts and continued. "But she wouldn't stay put and it was hard to keep track of her and run the shop, and..." (inwardly, she balked at her callous, clumsy words) "and she kept wandering off... I tried to follow her, to find out where she was going..."

"Where is Lucy?" he demanded again. His dark eyes glittered strangely, his face hardening.

"She wanders back and forth between here and Judge Turpin's house," Nellie told him, watching him closely. "Half-mad, she is, though. She knows Johanna, and she seems to know that she had a connection to this place at one time... but that's about all. She... don't remember you." The man looked up at her sharply and Nellie swallowed her nervousness, licked her lips and continued. "At least, not that you were taken away... or what Turpin and Beadle Bamford did to her—"

"Beadle Bamford?!" the man exploded. "That rat! He was in on the whole thing!"

Nellie nodded solemnly. "He's the one that took her off to bedlam, too. But she don't know it. She don't remember poisoning herself... and she don't remember me."

"What do you mean? She doesn't remember you?"

Nellie shrugged. "She thinks I've hidden you off somewhere, that I made you disappear. She calls me 'witch.'"

The man grimaced. "Fifteen years spent sweating in a living hell on a false charge!" he spat, removing his coat and throwing it down. "Fifteen years dreaming I might come home to a wife and child!" He turned away.

"Well, I can't say the years have been particularly kind to you, Mr. Barker," Nellie said to his back, sympathetic.

"No!" the man snapped, spinning on his heel, glaring at her. "Not 'Barker.' That man is dead. It's Todd now. Sweeney Todd." His face lit up in maniacal glee, a twisted smile touching his lips. "...and he will have his revenge."

Nellie Lovett believed him.


A/N: It's really short, I know. Sorry! But there's more to come, if anybody's interested!

And yes, the title is taken from 'Johanna Reprise.' I love that song!