Mrs. Lovett marched up the familiar steps to Mr. Todd's parlor, carrying a tray with buttered toast and some spare pieces of fruit. She herself refused to eat her now-famous Meat Pies and she wouldn't give them to Mr. Todd either. A twinge of guilt crushed the breath from her lungs as she remembered Toby just the night before, flopping down after closing and digging into a pie. But there was no way to stop him from eating them- that would just make him wonder why and she couldn't exactly tell him, now could she? She shuddered and shoved away the nagging feeling that this couldn't go on forever. She would hold on to her happiness with all her might and for as long as possible. She had her barber and her 'son' and her successful pie shoppe. What more could she possibly ask for?
For Mr. T to stop killing people. For him to actually look at me for once, instead of staring at his beloved ghosts. For no more corpses to be dismembered. For me not to have to hide things from Toby. For love. Real love, the kind that I know I've never had but that does exist. I saw it on Benjamin Barker's face every day when he looked at his wife. That's what I want.
Mrs. Lovett sighed heavily as she mounted the top step and made her way towards the door. She was certain - certain - that she would never know such love. Surely, after all the things she had done, no one could ever look at her like that. It was an impossible dream, but oh so hard to let go of- after all, it had sustained her for fifteen miserable years, the first few with her lummox of a husband and then all alone. After all that time dreaming, there was no way to just stop. Even when the object of her dreams was right here and doing his best to completely ignore her.
"Morning, Mr. T," She bustled into the dusty old room - she had cleaned it soon after he came back, but the dirt and memories clung - and set the tray down on the bench against the right wall. She turned around to watch the barber, dusting her palms off absently against her dress, though no baking powder clothed them yet. Another habit- like her dreaming habit, and probably just as hard to break. It's awful difficult to stop doing something when it's become so much a part of you that you don't even realise you're doing it.
The barber watched his baker out of the corner of his eye, refusing to turn and give her the satisfaction of knowing she had his attention. Truthfully, she usually did have all of his attention whenever she was here, but letting her know that would be a grave error. It would make her preen and smirk and cling and he was much more at ease when she wasn't hanging all over him. An added advantage to this strategy was that it irritated her so and Lovett-baiting was the barber's only real form of entertainment. At least, the only one he enjoyed anywhere near as much as slitting throats. Not that the two could ever be compared. One was gloriously, soul-splittingly hunger-sating. The other was merely amusing.
Sure enough, within moments the petite baker was huffing and shifting about impatiently, irritation practically making her messy hair stand on end. Finally, at just the perfect moment, Sweeney turned and nodded sharply at her. A moment later and she would have come marching over to harass him about not paying her any attention and that would not have been pleasant- simply because he liked to keep a good ten feet between them at all times if remotely possible. With an elaborate roll of her eyes, Mrs. Lovett huffily bustled from the room, jangling the bell extra loud on her way out as a sign of her displeasure.
Once he knew she was gone, Sweeney allowed the minutest smirk to twitch at the corners of his mouth. Ah, his baker was so very easily annoyed.
