Since the day her mother died, Nellie had always despised her father. She was the only one. The only one that knew about her father. Knew about her mothers murder. Knew that it was her father that had killed her. And he had tried to kill her next.
It was late, Nellie was no older than thirteen. She was lying in her bed attempting to fall asleep. It was too dark, now that the candle had burnt out. The sun had set more than three hours previous. She thrashed violently on her uncomfortable bed. She'd always hated that bed. It had been her grandmother's bed. She didn't know that there were beds when her grandmother was alive. Suddenly there was an ear-peircing scream. She head yelling, arguing. Frightened, Nellie leapt out of bed.
The sounds were coming from downstairs, Nellie bolted from her room clad only in her white nightgown. She froze at the top of the stairs. She saw her mother being drug against her will by her father. He was pulling her hair. Her mother yelped painfully.
"Please!" she gasped. "Please - Frank, stop - please!" Frank ignored her pleas.
"You've gone too far, Emily! Now you must pay!" bellowed her angry father. Nellie's eyes quickly gathered tears. She had never seen her father so angry nor her mother so hurt. More than that, she had never once seen her parents hate each other - not even the slightest bit. "How could you do it?! How could you sleep with someone else knowing you had a husband and a daughter awaiting your return?!" Nellie's jaw dropped. She knew how dearly her mother loved the both of them. She knew her father's accusations were false. She wanted to say something, do something, but with the state her father was in, she was afraid he'd hurt her as he was currently hurting her mother if she so much as whimpered.
Frank threw Emily to the ground. Tears streamed down Nellie's face as she realized what her father intended to do with her mother. 'E's gonna kill 'er!! she thought in a panic. And she could do nothing, she could do absolutely nothing as she watched her father literally beat her mother to death. She bit her lip to keep herself from crying out so hard that it bled. When her mother whimpered her name oh so quietly before she let her life go, Nellie could no longer stand it. She turned to run back up the stairs.
That was when she made a fatal mistake. At the very moment she turned, her father turned away from Emily's, now dead, body. He saw Nellie. His malicious face made her freeze in fear. He Emily's blood on his face, hands, arms, clothes. Nellie let out a mighty scream.
"WHY?!" she wailed. "Why?" That time her voice was scarcely a whisper.
"Nellie," Frank said calmly as he approached his daughter. He made it look and sound like she hadn't just witnessed her mother's murder.
"No!" Nellie cut him off. "You!" she growled. "You - you MONSTER!!!! You killed Mum! 'Ow could you?!"
"Well, you see -" he tried to laugh it off, treat it as nothing.
"No!" Nellie snapped, feeling brave all of a sudden. "No. There is absolutely no good reason for murder! None! And - and - did you never think of me?! She's my MUM!!!" as soon as her anger was let out Nellie regretted it, which was right around the time that Frank's palm connected with her cheek. Nellie recoiled in fear. She was next. Frank grabbed ahold of her nightgown.
"No one will know about this - especially a puny teenager!" Frank said menacingly. He wasn't thinking clearly that night - hell, he wasn't even himself at that time. But no one in the 1800s knew of multiple personalities yet, so absolutely no one could tell. Nellie didn't know what it was, all she knew was fear.
She still had scars from her struggle. Frank had tried to drown her, she luckily grabbed a rock and bashed his head with it. She bashed it repeatedly. Pretty soon her father was dead. Nellie ran from the lake, her white nightgown soaked and stained with blood. She collapsed onto the ground and cried. She had just killed her father. She hadn't meant to, but she had still murdered him all the same. That made her a hypocrite. She had told her father there was no good reason for murder. And then she murdered him. What kind of messed up person was she, anyway?
Years down the road, she met Benjamin Barker. Fell in love with him, although he fell in love with and married Lucy Lazrette. A year later they had a beautiful daughter named Johanna - then Benjamin was torn away from the family he loved by an evil judge. Fifteen years later he returned under the alias of Sweeney Todd. Nellie understood his thirst for revenge, after realizing that was what she felt when her father had killed her mother. Nothing changed the fact that she loved Sweeney though. That was not what drove her to let him kill, though. It was simple understanding from experience. Lucy had killed herself by drowning after the arsenic didn't work.
After his revenge Sweeney started to soften, he no longer felt the need to kill. He realized that there was still a lot to Nellie Lovett that he didn't know. One day he asked her of her parents and Nellie told him of her past. Sweeney felt guilty knowing she'd suffered a worst past than he had and she still let him get his revenge. Within the span of a year the two had fell in love. Or Sweeney had fell in love with Nellie, Nellie had never stopped loving him. Within another year they married and had a beautiful daughter.
When Dawn reached fourteen years old she still had both her parents, when she married she never had her family split apart, and she was able to keep the pure innocence she had been born with. Sweeney and Nellie were happy - she had the clean life that they'd both wanted and she never had to pay the price that they had.