Hello my fellow Sweeney Todd fans! I've come to you with my first ever Sweeney Todd fanfiction! Please feel free to leave comments and criticisms, I'm a serious young writer here! A few thing before we continue though, this story is quite AU. Mr. Todd kills two people only, but not by his own hands, it's by the towns decision. Mrs. Lovett never loved Benjamin Barker, but of course who's to say she can't love Sweeney Todd... And lastly, Mrs. Lovett tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Of course throughout the story there is other small things that I have changed and my own OC's I've added, but nothing too big to acknowledge right here. Wouldn't want to spoil this story now would we?

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sweeney Todd, if I did, this would be the story instead...

Chapter One: Boulevard of Broken Dreams

'Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium' would not have been Sweeney's first choice of places to visit upon returning to London, had it not been for the blatant fact he'd left his wife and child there 15 years ago. It was almost as horrible as he'd remembered it. The cobblestone streets were dingy and pungent, filled with the disgusting commoners anywhere from beggars to pickpockets, each scrounging for a scrap of money. He'd of course avoided them at all cost, shoved through those who'd presented worthless trinkets into his face asking for a couple pence. While he hadn't mocked their misfortune, he'd gladly ignored their presence, continuing on to his destination.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

He could hear the racket from outside of the door to the pie shop. Though he could see no customers sitting in the rickety booths through the window, he could hear a repetitious bang of something on a hard surface. Obviously, someone was home. Swallowing, Sweeney opened the door and made his way into the rundown shop. The door closed softly behind him as he glanced up at the woman behind the counter. He supposed that this was Mrs. Lovett.

When he opened the door to the chophouse it was even shoddier than the outside. It was dark and dank, the only light source coming from the pale sunlight through the curtained windows. The curtains themselves had been worn and moth-eaten. The tables seemed clean though and the floors seemed as if they'd been swept prior to his arrival, but when he looked harder at the planks that strained beneath his weight, he thought he saw a cockroach scuttle across the floor. 'Revolting…'

Sweeney looked to who he assumed was Mrs. Lovett behind the counter.

The woman looked about as old as her establishment. She was pale, her lacey dark grey dress contrasted with the clammy colour of her skin, flour stains not only on her dress but her exposed shoulders made her seem paler. Her hair, a wine red colour, sat in a tangled mess atop her head. Even from her bent position over the dough she seemed to be chopping viciously with a butcher's knife, he could see the deep, ghastly purplish circles that graced her eyelids. But this was Mrs. Lovett.

He decided that he probably could back up, open the door and flee like the madman he was. That way he wouldn't have to face her and the horrors that seemed to haunt this place. He remembered Mrs. Lovett as cheery, energetic, and lively if you will, but he supposed that just as the rest of London she'd been drained of the life she once possessed as well. And what was left of her stood before him, a shell of what once was.

The annoying chopping had stopped and as he looked up, he realized the woman had finally come to acknowledge his looming presence at her door. She gasped.

"Huh, a customa'!" She rushed over to where he now stood, backing up purposefully. "Wait! What's yer rush! What's yer 'urry!?"

He looked at her in an odd fashion, his brow creasing with the utterance of the strange creature before him. By the desperate tone in this woman's voice Sweeney could instantly tell she received few frequenters of her restaurant. He grimaced as she pushed him forcefully down onto the bench behind him. This woman, who seemed like she could probably blow away with a single gust of wind, had strength.

"Ya gave me such a fright! Though' ya were a ghost, I did!" She seemed to be chattering to him though he'd tuned her out after her odd greeting.

She made her way back to the counter and had turned, bent over, and opened up the oven behind her. When she had come back toward him she had a plate with what he guessed was a pie atop it. The sunken object looked quite revolting.

"Please 'scuse me, dearie, if me 'eads a little vague." She squinted strangely at the food before sliding it to him over the table. Unusually enough, Sweeney found himself eyeing the meal in consideration. The crust was blatantly moldy, tinged a sickly green color. And the smell emanating from it was just as equally horrid as its appearance. He picked it up and took a bite form it. Nearly vomiting on the table before him, Sweeney instead turned and spat it over his shoulder when the lady's back was turned.

"Pro'bly the worst pies in London these are, love. I should know. I make 'em. But good? No." She had gone to rolling the dough with a pin, studied it as if she was talking to the inanimate object rather than him. "Ah, well," she said all breathy-like, "times is 'ard, sir."

"If times are so hard, why don't you rent out that room above your shop?" He looked at her pointedly, and he thought he saw her tense quickly before she smiled sadly. Sweeney persisted to watch her.

"People seem to fink it's 'aunted." He smirked on the inside; by the way this place looked to the average passerby he wouldn't doubt that for a second. "Somethin' 'appened up there. Somethin' not so nice."

He rolled his tongue around in his mouth. The woman before him chuckled and motioned for him to follow her. For some reason utterly against his will he did. She had led him into her parlor, the peeling yellow striped wallpaper less inviting than her shop. He scowled at the even darker room, before a sizzling was heard, and a light bathed the small living courters. The room consisted of a couch, chair, and table, all of the pieces equally ratty in their own way. There was a shelf that housed nearly a hundred books to the forefront of the room and beside that a baby grand piano. Despite its dreary state the place still seemed homey, the small arrangement of gillyflowers and daisies on the coffee table, lace coverings on the back of the couch and chair, and the ambrosial candle burning atop the shelf added seemed to be her attempt to make the place welcoming.

He hadn't noticed that the elfin baker had left before she'd returned with a bottle of gin and two glasses. She handed him one before pouring him a hefty serving. Something told him by the look on the woman's face he was going to need it. She then continued to pour herself some before sitting in the chair, nodding toward the couch for him to have a seat.

"'Ave a seat why don' ya, love?" She sighed and he regarded her with a blank look, though his eyes pressed to hear her tale.

"There was a barber an' 'is wife. She 'as beautiful. 'E was a proper artist wit' a knife. But, they'd transported 'im for life." Mrs. Lovett had seemed genuinely saddened by her reciting of the legend; the lacing of dread in her somber, mellifluous voice was not missed by him.

"What was his crime," he found himself bellowing after a sip of the gin. It really did nothing to take the abhorrent taste of spoiled food out of his mouth.

"Foolishness." She stated clearly, annoyance edging her tone.

"But wit' Judge Turpin's reputation, whot do you 'spect?"

Sweeney looked at her emotionless; his eyes expressed the curiosity his visage did not. He nodded to her once and she seemed to take that as a signal to continue.

"The Judge, Turpin that is, 'ad seen th'beauty of the barber's wife. And o'course, like everything else he wanted, he got it. 'Bout a year after the barber was taken away, he'd come serenading her. Brought er' flowers by the dozen. Not once did she come down from her tower. She stayed an' cried. 'Er poor daughter didn' seem too important to 'er anymore." Mrs. Lovett had placed her hands casually on her stomach, her gaze sat somewhere past booted feet on the floor. "She'd let 'er cry fer 'ours. But tha's not the worst of it." She finally had looked at him then, her dark orbs sparkling with what Sweeney regarded as complete remorse, revulsion, and fear.

The man swallowed and set his gin on the table before him. He didn't like where this story was going. The woman's tension was coming off of her in seismic waves, no matter how she tried to hide her mild discomfort. He licked his chapped lips and clasped his hands together in his lap.

"The Beadle Bamford had come callin' on 'er. 'E said that the Judge was all contrite. He'd blamed 'imself fer 'er sufferin'." She seemed to clutch her abdomen in fear. "The Beadle had come and whisked 'er 'way one night, said Turpin wanted to see 'er. O'course when she got there, the Judge was nowhere 'round and a huge ball was 'appenin'. Poor thing didn't know anyone there. She had gotten 'erself drunk, poor thing. Mind ya she was persuaded not t'go, but o'course she didn' listen. She thought she would be gettin' her 'usband back. But the Judge…wasn't as contrite as the Beadle made it seem…

The Judge 'ad taken 'er into a room and locked 'er in. 'Ad is way wit' 'er while everyone else laughed. They though' she 'as daft ya see. Not to know why the Judge 'ad called on 'er."Mrs. Lovett had glazed eyes now, the tears were slowly pooling in the bottom lid of her eyes. Her gaze had settled somewhere above his shoulder from where he sat on the settee.

"NOOOO! Didn't anyone, have mercy on her?" His scream of pure agony had caused the petite baker to jolt in her seat, a hand flying to her heart, her trance-like state disturbed. Her response was not at all what he was expecting.

"So it is you…" Her voice was a mere whisper, as if uttering a forbidden name. "Benjamin Barker?"

"Where is Lucy?" He'd completely ignored her inquiry, running a hand angrily through his ink colored untamed hair.

"She poisoned herself. She bought arsenic from the apothecary down on the corner. I tried so 'ard to stop 'er, but she'd locked the door on me. It ate away at 'er mind, the poor dear, until one day she'd lost it completely and left. I never saw 'er again. And the judge...he took Johanna. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" The baker was now starring dolefully at her flour coated hands, wringing her fingers together in a weary fashion, tears dripping down onto her hands like raindrops. "Benjamin, I'm sorry…"

"No, it's not Benjamin anymore. That man is dead. It's Todd, now. Sweeney Todd. And he will have his revenge."

Mrs. Lovett ostensibly had nothing to say. Until a moment later she came out with;

"I'll 'elp ya Mister. Todd. In any way I can. That bloody Judge deserves nothing more than a 'anging before 'is people. The blighter's entitled to showing 'is people what a 'orrid man 'e is."

Sweeney nodded curtly once, his eyes downcast. He didn't know exactly yet how he'd plan to get the judge, but in time, he knew that Judge Turpin would pay. Oh, his precious rubies would spill...

"Aw'right. Let's get ya upstairs, then," Mrs. Lovett wiped her eyes and made her way into the shop from the parlor. "Ya comin', love?" She'd stopped and asked.

"Of course." Though Sweeney knew he wasn't in the least prepared for what lie ahead.