A/N: Hello, everyone. Here I am with a new Sweeney Todd story. This one's going to be slightly different from my other Sweeney stories. It starts with Barker's imprisonment and goes on until the climax of the film. You'll see. It will be a Benjamin-Sweeney/OC story but slowly for we all know that Todd loves his wife (a.k.a Lucy)

So, if you read this please review and leave me some comments. I really want to hear from you.

Now on with the story. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd. If I did I wouldn't be writing this…


Behind Prison Walls

Chapter 1

"We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments." ~Oscar Wilde

Walls. The entire place seemed to be built behind walls. Walls in the cells and walls all around the prison. Walls were separating that godforsaken place from the rest of the world as if it was some kind of special place that needed to be hidden; as if it was heaven, paradise. The only thing those damned walls didn't seem to cover was the god wrenching Australian sun that burned the men's and women's skin as they were forced to work under its blazing brightness. It was always hot during the day there. Clothes weren't made for that place; not in daylight at least. Nights were a different thing. At nights no one seemed to get warm in that place. No matter how tightly you curled into a ball there was no way you could get warm enough to sleep.

Benjamin Barker slowly came to realize that the most difficult time of the day in prison was the night hours. The cells were not always filled with men exhausted enough to sleep. No, some of those men were restless. Whispered words, groans of desperation among other sorts of sounds, even brief screams of misery clouded the darkness and no man in his right state of mind could ever be able to sleep in that madness; not until you got used to it of course. Finally, exhaustion and fatigue took over and there was nothing left but to succumb into that pathetic sort of sleep where you wake up even more tired than when you fell asleep.

Most of the prisoners in Botany Bay were savage creatures; most of them rightly sentenced to rot in that place. There were also those who were wrongly accused, of course, but sometimes those were the worst. Barker had witnessed supposedly innocent men turn into beasts; men you'd never suspect of behaving in such a horrid way before entering that place.

Denial was the first thing you experienced there and that was what happened to Barker. Reality didn't cooperate with his dreams and every day he found himself alone on the hard mattress of his cell bunk; no wife and baby next to him, only the harsh reality of his destroyed life. He was one of the lucky ones as a guard one time had said. He had a bunk while others didn't. Benjamin didn't know if sleeping on the ground would have been better than on his supposedly comfortable mattress.

Every day was a routine there. Wake up call at six o' clock, a dry piece of bread for breakfast and then hard work out in the fields until your knees buckled from exhaustion and your hands got red from digging holes in the dirt. A barber's hands and back were not suitable for that kind work, but in the end what kind of hands and back were?

An hour of wandering around in the yard followed dinner time and then back to the dark cells again.

If men thought that hell was not on earth they were terribly wrong. The most horrid things happened behind those walls. Beatings, whippings, rapes and other sorts of inhuman activities that no living creatures should ever witness had happened in front of the barber's eyes. He was in luck because no one had ever hurt him badly-guards or other prisoners- mostly because he kept to himself and never bothered the others, no matter what terrible things he'd witnessed. He learned that in prison you have to look out for yourself because no one else would. That's not to say that he hadn't acquired some scars of his own. Of course he had. Prisoners fought for everything even if it was for possession of food or possession of another person. His cell was mostly vacated by men but sometimes women were sent in there as a sort of punishment. Instead of locking them alone, guards took them into men's cells; a far better punishment for stealing a second piece of bread or for trying to defend themselves. The guards seemed to know that throwing them in the same cell with the men would sufficiently perform the sort of punishment those women needed in order to behave.

Once they brought a woman in the cell, they would leave her there for weeks, months, sometimes even until she died from hunger or from the constant raping and beatings. Benjamin had witnessed that two times and he did nothing to stop it even if the sight caused him to want to suffocate himself from the disgusting scenes that had unfolded before his eyes. After all, what could a single man do against a dozen of other prisoners? The only thing he would succeed would be to get himself killed and that was not something he wished. He was not getting his nose into other people's business and they stayed out of his.

That's what he had learned and he meant to keep doing so until that one night. She entered his cell when one of the guards threw her unceremoniously in front of his feet.

He, of course, didn't do anything else but watch as the guard shut the door with a sick smile upon his lips and his fellow prisoners feasted their eyes upon the young woman's bruised flesh.

He was staring at the woman when Jack, one of the prisoners, nudged him with his foot.

"Hey, what's the matter, Barker? Never seen a woman before?" He laughed and Benjamin turned to look at him silently, knowing he didn't mean any harm, before he stepped towards his bunk, trying to ignore the terrified eyes -which were hidden behind locks of messy honey brown hair- that seemed to have focused on him as if sensing that he was probably the only one who wouldn't want to harm her in any way. He could feel the young woman's eyes following him as he made his way to his bunk and sat down without looking at her. A loud, sneaky laugh broke the whispering and only then did Benjamin look up.

"The lady seems to like you, Benny-boy. How about a go with her before I get me hands on her?" The man snickered as he caught the woman from her ankle and started yanking her towards him while Ben smiled at him humorlessly.

"Not interested, Brooks." Ben drawled as he looked away again and lied down on his bunk. The woman's sobs and cries reached his ears as she was dragged under Brooks and Benjamin didn't dare look towards their direction.

"Always the gentleman, eh Barker? You've been here for a bloody year and you haven't realized that we're all criminals in here, have you? You're noble…unlike the rest of us, aren't you?" Brooks snarled as he covered the woman's mouth with his hand while the rest of the prisoners watched. Benjamin refused to answer him and he settled for simply listening to the woman's whimpers as she was being attacked by Brooks while the rest of the men waited for their turn.

"Hush, darling. This is not going to hurt…much." Brooks laughed ominously and Barker was ready to get sick at the sound. Pursing his lips, he turned his back while Jack watched Brooks struggling with the girl.

"Can't you just leave one alone for once, Peter?" Jack called as he shut his eyes.

"You obviously didn't see her face, mate." Brooks called and Benjamin gritted his teeth until it was all over and silence fell over the cell.

When the only thing that could be heard was the woman's crying, only then did Benjamin turn to look at her slumped form. The sight that met his eyes was enough for him to vomit, but he resisted the urge. The woman's eyes rose to meet his through her whimpers and something stirred in him. He looked at the sleeping faces of the other men before he slowly stood up and silently approached the woman. Without looking at her, he grabbed hold of the hem of his wrinkled shirt and removed it from his person. The woman's eyes widened and she tried to crawl away in fear, but he placed a finger against his lips to silence her. She paused and stared up at him while clutching her ruined clothes close to her bare chest. Benjamin removed his finger from his mouth and slowly leaned down to cover her with his shirt. Once he had done so and his conscience seemed a little lighter, he stepped back from the woman and without looking at her again headed back to his bunk.

The frail woman stared at him in shock as he made himself comfortable upon his mattress and closed his eyes without looking once at her bare skin. Sensing that she was not going to receive any other sort of speech from him, she crawled back until her back was pressed against the wall and clutched the shirt tightly over her body before she closed her eyes, all the while trying to quiet her uneasy breathing and whimpering.

Benjamin woke up the next morning feeling less warm than other nights. He looked down at his unclothed chest and comprehension dawned on him. His eyes immediately flickered towards the woman who was sleeping curled up in a ball on the ground, clutching his shirt tightly in her fists. A whistle from somewhere to his right caught his attention and he turned, his eyes locking with Brooks'.

"Getting cold there, Benny-boy? Being a saint has its downs, eh?" He called and Barker simply glared at him as he sat up to put on his shoes since the guards had already started waking up the prisoners of the nearby cell.

"Go to hell." Benjamin hissed quietly but Brooks heard it.

"I'm already there, pretty boy. When are you going to realize that you're in hell too?" He replied bitingly with a laugh as he stood up and Barker almost regretted what he did last night. Brooks wasn't going to leave him in peace after that…Not that he ever did.

So, what's the difference? He thought to himself and he stood up as the guards started waking the rest of the inmates by poking them awake. He passed by the woman on his way out and it was only then that he noticed that she was wide awake already and was simply faking being asleep. A brief smirk tugged at his face as he was being pushed out of the cell, but it was gone as soon as it came. He didn't even remember the last time he had been amused by something or someone. That made him pause in his footsteps, but the guard behind him wouldn't have any of it.

"Keep walking, Barker." He snapped as he gave him a firm push forward.

He would get his shirt later… It wasn't like the woman was going anywhere any time soon.

He wasn't going to need his shirt anyway. Not in the blazing heat that burned his skin and messed with his mind.

End of chapter 1

Author's note: Thank you for reading. Please review before you leave. I really want to know what you think. I'll update as soon as I have some feedback. :)

Xxx Lina