Thoughts in the Dark

by Ellenore Carter

It's dark, your alone, he's asleep...but even if he wasn't, would it matter? He doesn't love you and he never will. You'll just have to make due. How Mrs. lovett may or may not spend her nights. *Rated T for vivid and scary insanity and language*

1. I love you too

Mrs. Lovett finishes closing up the shop. She's moved the drunken boy she loves so much to his bed, where he sleeps peacefully, dreaming of her. The sour yellow of the candle light still shines on the woman's soft face. She figures that she must be sad, because there is no other word for her tormenting emotions. She thinks a partial thought, it floats through her head briskly, like an enigma. For a moment she thinks about how pleasant it would be if emotion was only a myth. But, she quickly shakes the notion away. If there was no feeling in the world, it would be filled with millions of duplicates of her beloved Sweeney. And too much of a good thing, when the good thing in question was a very good looking murderer, wouldn't be all that great.

Eleanor sits on her dusty old couch and tries to take a drink of a bottle of gin that she knows is empty. Then, just as she did every night, Mrs. Lovett gets off her dirty couch and rubs her tired back while she climbs her old stairs. The woman brushed her hand along the singed wallpaper she knows so well. She can smell it's rustically charred scent, the drone of every night drags her onward. What was between her and death at this point? It was dark, cold, she was alone. Nellie feels as if she could just reach out and touch the gates to the afterlife. The idea frightens her and before she realizes, Eleanor has reached the door to his bedroom. Sweeney Todd, the demon barber she loves so much. She places her hand softly on the hardwood and presses her ear to the door.

Mrs. Lovett hears him talking in his sleep. His beautiful voice mumbles softly about pretty women and angels being tortured until they were lifeless shells. She smiles and opens the door, stepping carefully into the place she's dreamt about night after night. Sweeney rolls over.

"I'll kill him. Rest assure my friends, he will die at our hands," he whispers. Mrs. Lovett closes her eyes and carefully sits in a chair near his bed.

"I love you," he mumbles. Nellie hugs her knees to her chest. She knows he's talking about Lucy, but there, in the dark, with her eyes shut, Mrs. Lovett can almost pretend he's dreaming of her. She smiles at the pretty thought, a single tear slides down her face because she knows she will never have it.

"I love you too," she whispers back to him.