A/N: A neat little one-shot taking place right as Sweeney realizes it is Lucy he's killed. I was struck by the expression on Mrs. Lovett's face as she watched him kneel beside Lucy and I wondered what she might be thinking. This is what I came up with. Please enjoy.
PENANCE
He looked down at the broken body of his wife. She could have taken that chance, that long moment he took to kneel beside the bloodied corpse, the truth attacking him, relentless, negating any pleasure he'd found in ultimate revenge. She could have taken that moment of vulnerability and grief to flee the bake-house, flee the pie shop, flee London with her life—for she knew, now, that death was imminent.
Yet Nellie Lovett found herself pinned to the sport, fixated by the sight of the man she loved mourn—properly, this time—his wife.
And she clutched her skirt, longing to run, but his grief was freezing, the way he tenderly touched Lucy's arm, brushed the dirty hair from her face to reveal the cheeks, forehead, lips he'd once, Nellie knew, kissed tenderly, in earnest.
And Mrs. Lovett felt her heart break, not from jealousy—though she'd have given anything for Mr. T to touch her that way—but from pure compassion for this man who had murdered dozens of innocent customers, customers who had, perhaps, once felt the grief he was feeling now, the pathos she was feeling now.
The bewilderment, the betrayal in his eyes, the disbelief in his voice as he looked up to her and breathed, "You lied to me," destroyed her. And she knew in that moment how wrong she'd been.
And as the flames licked her body, hungrily devouring her frizzy ringlets; destroying the best dress she owned; searing her lily-white skin, turning it rosy to scarlet to charcoal, she couldn't help but scream, for it burned like hellfire—no, it was her hellfire, her punishment. And though she screamed in agony, vocalizing this purest sense of pain, Nellie Lovett's last thoughts were actually ones peaceful, ones nearly grateful for this opportunity to right things:
"Penance," she thought. "This is my penance."
Fin.