A/N: This idea kept nagging me until I finally decided to write it. I noticed at the end of the movie of Sweeney Todd, Johanna and Anthony and the police don't break in like they do in the musical. I suppose it was for dramatic affect or closure or something, but I wrote this fic in order to describe this absence. Hope you enjoy!
(P.S.-I haven't seen this movie in a while so I don't know if I got the dialogue correct. I tried, at least)
I'm a monster, is all she can think over and over again.
Monster.
Monster.
Monster.
She's witnessed 2 people be murdered. Two. Slashed in the neck with a razor. When she closed her eyes she still saw it-the flash of blood cascading the room. The murderous rage that glinted in Mr. Todd's eyes
Yet she can't speak. She can't tell. She just lays there, sobbing in Anthony's shoulder as he strokes her yellow hair. He's given up asking what was wrong. Instead, he tries to remain unworried as she calms down.
Why can't she tell? She's asked herself that before but her answer isn't good enough to satisfy; only to delay and restrict.
She brings herself back to that moment, not even an hour ago. It's likes she's transformed from then, and the world has too. Those minutes ago, she had been filled with glee and worry; but never imagined what actually happened.
When the beggar lady entered, she was terrified. I knew it, she had thought, I knew it. She hid in the trunk, scrunching her legs together to fit.
"Beadle, beadle, where are you? Beadle." She called. Her calls echoes through the trunk and Johanna stiffened in fear.
"How did you get in here?" Said a voice. Johanna cringed at the hardness in the voice. But something clicked in that voice. Johanna couldn't recognize it, but it seemed so familiar.
She ever-so-slightly pulled up the cap of the trunk and peered out. It was Mr. Todd; or at least she assumed it was since she had never seen him before.
"Evil is here sir!" The lady pleaded her voice raged. "Hey-don't I know you mister?"
Her voice rung bells too. Like wave, voices washed over her.
"Johanna, mummy and daddy love you."
A till of laughter. A golden light like sunshine blinded her view.
"So very much."
With a jolt, she was jerked back into reality; beneath the safety of the trunk and hidden behind view.
Mr. Todd looked out the window, and with a small gasp whispered something unaudible.
"I don't have time!" He roared. Johanna tried to forget what she saw next; but it lingered in her brain like a ghost. With one swift, clean move of his hand the beggar lady was dead before she could even blink. A splatter of blood sprung out and as if in slow motion batted against the window.
Johanna gasped and was too in shock to barely notice the lady sliding through the chair. Moments later Judge Turpin entered.
"No." She whispered barely audible.
She never wanted to marry the judge. She never wanted to be trapped in the mansion like a prison. But she would never wish him death. Never. As sad as it was, the Judge was the closest thing to a father figure she had. And she never wanted him to die.
She considered getting out of the trunk and stopping it. She felt a twinge of selfishness as she declined. If she got out, she'd never see the world again. She'll be bound to the Judge and be trapped behind walls forever.
As guilty as this made her feel, what they discussed caught her ear, kept her intrigued and kept her hidden.
"She speaks only of forgiveness. Your honor."
What was Mr. Todd saying? Had he betrayed Anthony and her?
..or the judge?
She thought that now. It made so much more sense; Johanna knew, no matter what, she would never beg for forgiveness of him; no, not for this matter.
But the judge hadn't given it a second thought. And in seconds he was on the barber chair getting a shave.
And in seconds he was dead.
Splash. The blood coated everything.
Johanna shattered then. She would have sobbed, would have laughed; she didn't know how to respond, instead of simply a horrified gasp.
The murderous shout that had filled up the room, echoed In her ears. "BENJAMIN BARKER!"
She knew then who Mr. Todd really was. Yes, she had never forgotten the name. It rolled off her tongue as she said her night-time prayers; the ones she did in private without the Judge watching.
"…and please look after my father, Benjamin Barker, too. And my mother, Lucy, who is safe with you.."
So she stayed there wide-eyed and horrified. She remembered asking about her father before to the judge, at the age of 8.
"You're father was a good-for-nothing slob who backstabbed your mother and you. Do not speak another word of him."
Later that day, the landlady who had over-heard had comforted her, and soothed her shattered dreams.
"Hush, love. Don't tell Turpin this, but you're father was a very kind man. Benjamin Barker was his name. He got along with every-one he met, except Turpin, of course."
So from them on, she built up hopes of her father. A sailor. No, she would decide, then through another a career. A fisher. No, that wasn't right either.
A barber.
She still sobbed and sobbed into his shoulder. She should tell, she really should. But she can't. She had looked into the dull, black eyes of Mr. Todd, and saw, for a moment, a bright shade of brown. He was her father, at one point. Some point in time, the monster who she had seen brutally kill two people (including her parent figure) had been her real father. At some point, he had loved her.
And those points over-powered her. It was sick. It was wrong. But Johanna could not bring herself too tell, in honor of the memory of her father in order to preserve that hope she had built.
"We love you, Johanna. So much"
If only you could love a monster.