Unreachable

She started to run her own business a month after her husband passed away.

When she realized she had to work now for a living, her involvement in society decreased day by day until it became almost inexistent. She was no longer seen at church on Sundays or walking around the market place as she usually did. Those who knew her from before would have said that she once was a very ambitious woman with high aspirations. Aspirations that were perhaps too high. They would have also admitted that she was somewhat hopeless and very dependable on men.

Not that anyone knew her that well, though.

It wasn't a lie that she had always needed a man by her side to make her feel secure. She was indeed a weak, naïve woman with very limited skills. Before the gout tore her husband away from her she spent entire days daydreaming and fantasizing of how wonderful her life would be if she lived surrounded by luxuries. Times were hard, she knew it. However, her husband always provided her with everything she needed: a home, warm food and a proper bed to sleep in.

But it was never enough for her.

It was a year before tragedy stroke her that she encouraged Albert to buy a small two-storey house on Fleet Street. Although they could only afford to live on the ground floor she considered this investment as her first step towards the realization of her dreams. A few months later a barber and his wife moved into the upper floor but their paths barely crossed during the day. There is where Albert Lovett lived the last months of his life with his faithful wife by his side.

Finally, luck frowned upon Nellie and she found herself being a widow. She spent days in grief and desperation. People saw her visiting the pawnshop constantly as the hemlines of her skirts frayed slowly. Her evenings were now spent in silence, sitting by the door watching the barber's customers come and go. During the night she sometimes could hear the barber's conversations with his wife. Oh dear, how he loved her and his little daughter. Her Albert had never wanted to have any children and would never speak to her with such tenderness. She could have felt envy but instead, a strange, subconscious fondness for the barber started growing inside her.

The days passed and the idea of starting a small business sprouted in her mind. She slowly began to recover a certain enthusiasm which led to the opening of "Mrs Lovett's Famous Meat Pies." Although her shop received several criticisms she did not give up her job as a baker. It is true that some referred to her pies "the worst in London" but they were what she did best, perhaps the only thing she knew how to do by herself.

Somehow, little by little, that enthusiasm started to fade. She no longer shed tears for her husband but she did not recover completely. Her bones became weaker and her eyelids heavier. She had buried all of her dreams and hopes along with her husband in a grave. Every morning she would do her job mechanically without thinking in order to distract herself, but sometimes she felt like she wasn't living at all.

xxxxx

She had forgotten that morning, the last morning she saw the barber before he was taken away. She simply had no memory of it. What she could not forget were the daily laments of the barber's wife. Nellie would knock on her door to ask her if she was alright but she would never answer. But somehow, they still felt each other's company inside the house; a distant company shared between two shattered, heart-broken women.

Fifteen years had passed and now he was back.

For her, he was always going to be Benjamin Barker. No matter what changes the years and the pain set on him, she would always think of him as the foolish, naïve, beautiful barber. She held on to the hope that Benjamin still lived somewhere inside Todd's wrecked soul and that one day he would break out and whisper to her all those sweet nothings she could never hear. But somehow, her non-childish side knew that Benjamin Barker would never return again.

Perhaps that is what she found so captivating in him. The fact that he was unreachable. Once as an already married man, now as a blood-lusting shadow with no room for affection in his heart.

"What is it, Mrs. Lovett?" his dry voice echoed through the room.

"Oh, it is nothing Mr. T." She answered with a similar dryness. "Sorry I'm late; I'll do your laundry in a minute. It's just that I'm havin' some problems with my corset, I can't reach the laces."

He stared coldly at the woman in her ridiculous attempt to tie a knot on the upper side of her back.

"Y'see, I've never had this kind of problem before, I guess I'm just growing old..." She muttered with a hint of embarrassment. "My bones, y'see, they're not what they used to be..."

There was a pause.

"Turn around" he commanded with a sigh of impatience.

"What?"

"Turn around and hold on to the door frame."

"Wha...why?" she choked.

"Just do!" he growled.

Without thinking it twice, she obeyed. She clutched her arms around the doorframe as she heard Todd's quick footsteps heading towards her. She couldn't help but jolt on the moment she felt him grab the laces of her corset and start pulling them with a hostile gentleness. She was curious to know how he had learned to tie corsets but she dared not ask him, she thought she knew the answer already.

"Tell me when it is tight enough." She could even shiver at the coldness of his voice.

"Th...there, that's fine." She managed to stutter.

He swiftly tied the laces into a bow and tapped her on the shoulder when he was done. As she slowly turned around to face him she felt a wave of blood rushing up to her head. Then, she experienced it again, that wave of childishness, that hope of turning around to meet Benjamin's bright eyes looking tenderly at her.

But no. Inert, bitter features were the only thing she saw when her eyes met his face.

"Thank ye, love." was all she could say.

Another pause extended itself through the silence.

"Mrs. Lovett" he whispered.

"Yes?" she raised her head to meet his sight.

"The laundry. Hurry up. He might appear any minute."

She thought she heard the sound of a glass breaking.

"Yes...yes." she answered as she started to pile up blocks of lead inside her mind. The ones which helped her carry on every day.

Indeed, that is why she loved him. Because she knew she wasn't what he was looking for and because... He wasn't the one she was looking for either.

Thanks for reading. This has been my first Sweeney Todd Fic.

I hope you have enjoyed it!