"Mrs. Lovett!"

All was quiet, other then the echoes from his bellowing voice.

"MRS. LOVETT!!"

Sighing in exasperation, Sweeney Todd made his way down the stairs from his barber shop to the chatty woman's macabre pie shop. It was nearly time to open, and the woman hadn't brought him his breakfast yet. That alone didn't really matter to him; he never actually felt hungry anymore, but the blasted woman had been bursting into his shop at a ridiculously early hour every day since he arrived here. The fact that she hadn't forced her presence on him yet today is what bothered him- what if the woman had finally had some logic knocked into her, and she and that boy had run off someplace? Sweeney couldn't risk her fleeing to the authorities and telling what he's been doing upstairs in his respectable "business". Plus, as much as he hated to admit it, he needed her to make his crimes continue to go smoothly.

Sweeney made his way through the shop, looking first in the dining area, and then in the kitchen, with no success in either. He continued into the parlour, and opened the dark, tattered curtains for light. He saw her when he turned around.

Mrs. Lovett was lying on her back on the short sofa, her feet propped up on one end. Sweeney stepped closer, and noticed her eyes were closed. The barber felt anger boiling up inside him- the damned woman was sleeping! He stepped closer, about to grab the baker and shake her awake, when something caught his attention.

Under her closed eyes, beneath her long, dark eyelashes, the skin was dark- it almost looked bruised. Sweeney absently wondered if that had been like that for a while, or if this was new. As he continued to study the baker, he noticed a few more unsettling things: her skin looked paler then he'd remembered it being the last time he looked at her, whenever that was, and her lips were slightly chapped. Overall, the small woman looked just plain exhausted- as if she hadn't slept properly for days! 'How irresponsible!' he thought irritably. He knew the woman didn't sleep much- he could always hear her puttering around down here, making relentless noise as she cleaned and cooked and did heaven knows what- but he'd only ever thought of how it annoyed him. It had never crossed his mind that the ridiculous woman had been depriving herself of anything. Then again, when it came to Mrs. Lovett, very little ever did cross his mind. She was more like a useful object to him then anything, and he was barely actually aware of her presence. Not that it mattered- she very seldom had anything useful to say, her attempts at conversation usually consisting of some trivial thing, like whether or not she ought to put some sort of houseplant up in his room. 'I swear, if I'd heard the word "gillyflowers" come out of her mouth one more time I would have strangled the little thing to death.', he thought grimly. In fact, the only good idea he remembered the woman having was to pop the corpses he produced into her meat pies. If he wasn't so preoccupied thinking about vengeance, that thought might have made him question her mental state, but it didn't alarm him now. As if he was in a position to really judge somebody lately...

Pulling himself from his broodings, Sweeney Todd turned around and headed back into the dining area. He stood in front of the large glass windows and stared out into the street. The town was already up and alive for the day, people bustling towards their jobs, schools, or various shops and restaurants. Sweeney knew it was about time to open Mrs. Lovett's shop; customers would soon start lining up at the door, eager to get in and eat one of her pies. Sweeney sighed- he pitied the sods who unknowingly devoured pies made out of what was probably a family friend, or even a brother. Well, he nearly pitied them, at least. Part of him wanted to smile, for he knew most of the men out there deserved that and worse.

Sweeney was about to yell out the baker's name again and startle her into consciousness, but the sight of the woman's face floated back into his mind. Even in sleep, she hadn't looked peaceful. Her brows were drawn together slightly, forming a worried wrinkle above her nose, and the corners of her mouth pulled down into a little frown. It was while thinking about his landlady that the barber did the first caring thing he'd done since he was taken to prison more than 15 years ago, before Benjamin Barker died and was replaced by this new persona. Sweeney reached out and grabbed the sign next to the door that Mrs. Lovett hung on Sundays: "Closed for the day!", it said in the baker's elegant, yet slightly haphazard scrawl. Before he could think about it too much, Sweeney hung the sign on the door and turned to walk back up the stairs to his barber's shop.

Just as he started to exit the shop, he heard the pattering of feet in the other room, and the sound of the curtains in the parlour being pulled open. "Oh bloody 'ell!", came the baker's voice from the other room. The parlour door opened, and she tore into the shop, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight of the barber standing there. Sweeney thought he saw fear flit across her face before she composed herself. "Mr. T., I'm so sorry! I was up this mornin'- I washed your shirts- and then I jus' sat on the couch for a minute an' 'fore I knew it- Well, I s'pose I oughtta open the shop- customers get angry when they ain't 'ad their breakfast in the mornin'. Oh! You ain't 'ad you're breakfast yet- I forgot all 'bout that!"

Sweeney watched as the small woman dashed about, heading for the kitchen while she rambled about why she was asleep so late. She was giving him a headache; she spoke so fast, and the way she spoke was something of an abomination to the English language. It irked him that after all those years of serving the people of London the woman had never picked up a more proper accent. He followed her into the kitchen, and she was already at her stove, trying to fry something in a pan for him to eat, never ceasing her constant flow of half-formed excuses.

Sweeney walked up behind her and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her around to face him. At the sudden contact, she gasped and fell silent immediately. In a calm, quiet voice he said, "The shop will remained closed for the day. I've decided you need some rest, and today's the day to do it." He had steered her all the way into the parlour before she broke out of her confusion and found her voice again. "But Mr. T.," she protested, "Wot of all them customers, they won' understand-", she lowered her voice a bit, "an' all them bodies in the bakehouse... I can't jus' leave 'em there, wot if Toby-". He cut her off then, placing a finger over her lips, a look in his eyes telling her he was not about to listen to arguments. He wheeled her around and pushed her the rest of the way through the parlour and into her bedroom, and then he sat her on the bed, glaring at her. "Go to bed, Mrs. Lovett," he breathed. "There will be no bodies for you to worry about today. Now get some sleep." He turned to leave her there, but added his next comment in a poor attempt to show his concern: "You look ghastly."

Mrs. Lovett stared after him, too shocked to move. She had just heard Sweeney Todd not only speak to her more then he'd spoken to her in her lifetime, but he said the words with a gentle tone she hadn't heard him use since- well, not since before he began calling himself 'Sweeney Todd'. She eased herself back onto her pillow, trying to make sense of the change in him she just witnessed. She hadn't made any progress in her contemplations, however, when her exhausted body gave in to unconsciousness.

An hour later, Sweeney walked back into the baker's room, wanting to verify that the busy-body of a woman was doing what he told her to do. He entered quietly, going to have a look at her. She was lying on her back on top of the blankets, her head turned sideways on the pillow. He sighed, and lifted her up slightly, pulling the blankets out from under her and then covering her with them. He backed a step away to make sure it looked right. All the signs of exhaustion he'd noticed earlier were still there- from the dark circles under her eyes to her chapped lips- but something was different. Her brow was smooth, and her mouth formed a content little smile. She was clearly in a rare, peaceful sleep. Satisfied, the barber left her room and quietly closed the door.

Sweeney was not the only one who had experienced something that day that he'd previously thought he wouldn't experience again. While Sweeney had been shocking himself and the baker with the first caring feeling he'd felt in 15 years, he had given Mrs. Lovett something that she had thought she lost just as long ago; Mrs. Lovett had fallen asleep feeling her first little glimmer of hope. Hope that, perhaps, there was enough left of Benjamin Barker in Sweeney Todd that maybe- just maybe- he could recover from his broken state, and become the good man she knew he was.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Okay, so that's it. This idea came to me at three in the morning when I couldn't sleep, ha ha. I'm fairly certain this should remain a one-shot, but who knows, maybe one day I'll have inspiration to continue it. Please, please, please, leave a review! This is the first story I've posted, and I really want to see what you guys really think of it. I can take praise and criticism, I want to know how it really is.

Thanks for even reading it!

Oh, and I want to make it clear that I love the character of Mrs. Lovett- I just figured that since this was mostly from Sweeney's POV that it was necessary to be a little bit mean to her. ;)

Please review!