Author's Note: Happy Belated Halloween everyone! Here is part two of my Sweeney Todd fic. Sorry it is being posted so late. I got into the Halloween spirit a little too much and then I wasn't really feeling all that well the past two days. I swear I didn't eat that much candy! :D And this is going to have to have another chapter. Sorry, that's just how it happened!
A huge thank you goes out to those who have taken the time to read it and leave a review. You guys are awesome. Candy Corn and hot chocolate for you guys!
Without further ado, here is part two of All Hallow's Eve! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd or any of the characters depicted herein. Just my OCs. And the pumpkin I carved with Sweeney's face on it :D
All Hallow's Eve, Part Two
Elizabeth was walking down the streets of Victorian London, arm in arm with a man who looked similar to Sweeney, except that his hair was shorter and brown, and he wasn't pale. He was pushing a little carriage, which was holding a baby girl inside. The man was looking at her smiling.
And she had no problem smiling back.
They walked until they reached the flower vendor just outside of St. Dunstan's Market, and stopped in front a bin full of daisies. The man stopped the carriage and Elizabeth pulled the child out to hold her so that she could get a good look at the flowers. The man pulled a doll out of the carriage to hand to his daughter. He then took the liberty of taking a daisy out of the bin and showing it to the little girl.
"Here, look," he said. "Flower? Do you want this flower?"
Elizabeth could help but stare at the man with admiration and affection. She seemed to love the way he was when they were with their daughter. The man looked at his wife, his expression mixed with desire and happiness. She giggled a little, and leaned in to peck his cheek. As she got closer, he quickly turned so that she kissed his lips instead. She gasped when they broke the kiss. "Ben!" she said.
He smiled. "I love you, Lucy," Benjamin Barker said.
Elizabeth smiled back. "I love you, too."
They were a happy family. He was a successful barber with a beautiful wife and baby girl. He really couldn't ask for more. And neither could she.
Within seconds, all of that happiness was taken away.
Out of the blue, two policemen bolted towards the unsuspecting barber. One of them whacked him with their riot stick and they dragged Benjamin away. The commotion caused the child to cry.
"Benjamin!" Elizabeth cried.
"Lucy!" the barber shouted.
Their baby girl continued to cry. Elizabeth tried to come her child down, but it was to no avail. She felt a firm hand grasp her shoulder, and when she looked up, she met the gaze of Judge Turpin.
She wuickly looked away and towards the quickly retreating forms of the bobby and her husband. Elizabeth could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks as she quickly put the child in the carriage and walked away. She pushed the carriage back towards Fleet Street, where she could be away from the man that took her husband away, where she could cry in the privacy of her home.
Quickly, the scenery changed. Elizabeth was at a ball, drinking away, scared. She didn't know anyone there, and everyone was wearing a mask. She was told that the Judge had repented for what happened to her husband, but she couldn't find him. She felt light headed and stumble onto a round couch in the middle of the room. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach.
A man in a devil mask walked up to her. He pulled the mask away to reveal the Judge. He gave her a mischievous smirk and then came on to her. She screamed. He pulled his cape around them, so she couldn't really see anything. But she could feel his dry, harsh lips on the skin of her neck. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. And she could hear the laughs of the people around them, watching her torment as if she were mad to refuse.
Elizabeth, with all of the breath she had left from crying, screamed again.
xxx
Elizabeth sat up straight from the couch in the parlor. She could still hear the scream she had emitted, but also that of another woman. It sounded distant, like it came from down stairs. She looked around, breathing heavily, trying to calm herself down. She got up from the couch and grabbed one of the pokers from near the fireplace. She walked into the studio and grabbed the ring of keys from the drawer, and then slowly started to make her way downstairs. When she got to the bake house door, she was surprised to see that it was only bolted. There was no lock.
That's weird, she thought.
Elizabeth put the keys in her pocket and then slowly unbolted the door. She opened it and was met by darkness.
"Hello?" she quietly called out. There was no answer.
She took a good look around her to see if she could make out anything. She could make out what looked like a meat grinder off to the left and tunnels that led to the sewers. She could hear the dripping of water, which added to her anxiety. She held up the poker higher.
In the middle of the room, she could make out a decent sized oven, which looked like it dated back to the late 1700's to early 1800's. Elizabeth walked closer to get a better look. She looked inside through a small window. There was nothing inside, but the reflection she saw near scared her to death. It was the reflection of a woman wild curly hair pulled into two pigtails, dressed up in an odd Victorian style dress. Her eyes were dark, and it looked like she hadn't slept in days.
Elizabeth quickly turned around to get a better look, but the woman was gone.
The girl walked away from the oven and towards the entrance, trying to figure out where the woman could have run off to so quickly. Seeing no answer, she turned around towards the oven again, only to come face to face with the woman.
"Ah!" Elizabeth screamed.
"I'm sorry, dearie," the woman said with a smile. "Didn't mean to frighten you."
"Who are you?" Elizabeth asked, raising the poker up above her head like a baseball bat. "H-how did you get in here?"
The woman gestured towards the tunnels. "Through the sewers. And I'm sure you know who I am."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't." It wasn't a complete lie. The woman did seem oddly familiar to the girl.
"Oh, don't you?" the woman asked, looking confused. She shook her head and then gestured up to the shop. "Why don't we head for the kitchen, eh?"
Elizabeth nodded, but did not relinquish her hold on the poker. She followed the woman up the stairs and into the studio. The woman walked behind the counter and grabbed a glass.
How does she know where we keep the glasses? Elizabeth wondered.
"Who are you?" she asked the woman again.
"Lovett," the woman said, pouring the girl a glass of water. She handed it to her with a smile, and Elizabeth, very hesitantly, took it.
Noticing her hesitation, Mrs. Lovett said, "Drink it. You look parched, dearie."
Elizabeth looked at the glass suspiciously, and then took a small sip. The water tasted strange, but she didn't want to be rude to the woman's kindness. Even if she was intruding. For some reason, this felt all too familiar.
Like déjà vu, she thought.
"I'm sorry for intruding, Mrs. Barker," Mrs. Lovett said. "I used to live here, ya know."
"Did you?" Elizabeth asked. Wait…Mrs. Barker?
"I did."
"You were a baker?" The girl began to feel funny. She felt light headed and dizzy.
"That I was."
Elizabeth looked at the baker with suspicious curiosity. She noticed her smiling, and wasn't feeling all too good about it. She then looked at the glass cabinet behind her and saw a peculiar reflection. It was that of Sweeney Todd, and he looked worried.
Sweeney? She wondered.
"What's the matter, Miss Lucy," Mrs. Lovett asked. "You don't look so well."
Elizabeth backed away from the counter, away from the baker. "Why are you calling me that?" she asked. "That's not my name!"
"Elizabeth?" she heard Stacy ask.
She quickly looked towards the parlor, which she instantly regretted, because it gave her a head ache. She had dropped the poker as she continued to back away.
"But it is," Mrs. Lovett said. "And you were gone. Had you stayed that way, he would have been mine. If the Judge hadn't caused me to scream that night, you wouldn't be here and he would have been mine."
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Lovett?" Elizabeth asked as she stumbled to the floor, feeling weak.
The baker picked up the poker and slowly made her way towards the girl. "With you gone, he would be free to be with me, to love me." She raised the poker up, ready to strike.
"No! No, please!"
Stacy walked in at that moment, and, upon looking at the scene in front of her, screamed.
Mrs. Lovett was about to strike when Sweeney burst in through the front door of the shop. The baker, upon seeing the barber, threw the poker away as if it burned her and disappeared. This startled both girls.
"What the hell?" Stacy wondered, rushing over to kick the poker away from Elizabeth. "Who was that lady?"
Sweeney rushed over to Elizabeth and picked her up. "Lucy," he whispered.
"What?" Elizabeth asked weakly.
Sweeney carried her to the parlor and laid her on the couch. She checked to make sure she wasn't shaking, making sure her body temperature was still the same. His touch caused Elizabeth to shudder because of his cold hand. Ootherwise, her breathing was normal.
"You're going to be alright," he reassured her, his fingers brushing against her cheek.
Elizabeth looked at Sweeney through heavy eyelids. "Sweeney?"
The barber sighed. "Shh, it's me. You'll be fine." He got up and walked into the studio, heading towards the counter.
"Sweeney, what's wrong with Elizabeth?" Stacy asked.
Sweeney picked up the glass of water and took a whiff of it. He grimaced. "Her water was drugged."
"What?!" the red-head exclaimed. She ran over to the pitcher of water the baker had poured the water from and took a whiff of it as well. She grimaced as well. "The water smells funny. You think that lady drugged all of the water?"
The barber nodded. "Yes."
Sweeney walked back into the parlor and kneeled next to Elizabeth. He took hold of her hand in his, and with the other, he pushed her hair away from her face and behind her ear. He watched her as she slept.
Stacy watched him as he did, seeing the different emotions flashing across his handsome features. She thought it was sweet of him to help her best friend, but odd at the same time. "You never answered my question."
"What question?" the barber asked, not taking his eyes off of Elizabeth.
"Who was that woman who drugged Elizabeth?"
Sweeney looked away from Elizabeth's sleeping form and to her friend. "You haven't figured it out?"
"Um…no. That's why I'm asking you genius!" Stacy exclaimed.
His jaw set at her response. "Her name is Mrs. Lovett. She owned the shop you're living in now."
The red-head's emerald eyes widened. "What?"
"I know you heard me."
"I did, but that's…that's impossible."
Sweeney stood up from Elizabeth's side and walked closer to Stacy. "Why do you say that?"
"Because, it was said that she did hundreds of years ago," she explained. "Like, in the 1800's or something like that."
"Really? Then how would you explain her appearance here not too long ago? Or her disappearance?"
"I don't know."
"How would explain my appearance then? Is my name not one of an urban legend?"
"Sweeney, I don't kn—" Stacy became interrupted by her own thoughts. She looked up at the barber, who was smirking as recognition shone on her expression.
Sweeney Todd? she wondered. Mrs. Lovett? Urban legend? She started to put the pieces together as she looked around her and at the barber, who was watching her expectantly. There was really only one explanation for what was going on, and it was the last thought that went through Stacy's mind before she passed out.
They're ghosts!
A/N: There you have it. That's part two. Trust me, I would have put more on this chapter, but I felt it needed to end where it did, and I wanted to get this out you guys so you could read it.
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~Xanthe