[Type text]
A/N: I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in a while! My family just moved to Zambia, and things have been crazy! Anyhoo, here's the next chapter!
Disclaimer: …. Sadly, I don't own the magnificence that is Sweeney Todd…
…
"Thank you for comin' on such short notice, Doctor."
I thanked him for the hundredth time when we were finally in sight of my shop. I had practically flown down to his office on Abby Road to fetch him for Lucy. Such a strange thing, being worried about someone who never once worried about you, someone who had everything you wanted and didn't know how lucky they were…
"It's quite alright, Mrs. Lovett. You know it's no trouble." He smiled at me, with complete sincerity, and I decided that his smile was something I loved to see. I tried to hide the smile that I knew was coming, since this was such a dire situation that I was in.
"I still 'preciate it, Sir. Not just any doctor would come all this way from his office in all 'ours of the mornin'." I smiled back, unable to hold it in while he smiled at me.
"That may be true, but now let's get back to the situation at hand." He opened the bakery door for me and held out his hand. I took it without thinking, forgetting all about my burnt flesh.
"Thank ya, Doctor."
"My pleasure, Mrs. Lovett." He smiled his darling smile again, and looked down at my hand. "Mrs. Lovett, whatever happened to your hand?"
I smiled a slight apologetic smile, and answered sweetly, "Oh, just a little accident in the bake house." Strange, I'd forgotten all about my time in the oven. And stranger still, almost all my burns were gone, except for that hand.
"Oh," was his answer, and I supposed he thought it of no great importance at the moment. I smiled again and led the way through my sitting room, up the stairs and down the hall to my room.
"Lucy?" I called out as I knocked the door. "Can we come in?"
"Just a moment!" was her reply, and a great fuss could be heard coming from inside.
"What are ya doin' in there, Lucy?" I put my hand on the door knob, turning it slowly and opening the door ever so slightly. "Oh, Lucy!" I said, opening the door all the way. She had ransacked my collection of romance novels. Every last one of them was sitting in a pile on my bed, and I briefly wondered how she could have gotten them all from the top shelf of my dresser with her injuries.
"I'm sorry Eleanor, but I just couldn't help myself!" she stood up then, bracing herself up against the table and putting a hand to her throat.
"Lucy," I said sternly, "you should be layin' in bed, not wandering 'bout my room, and findin' my books!" I quickly scooped up the books and placed them in two neat stacks on the floor next to my bed.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, followed with a toss of her blonde hair (oh, if only she didn't have that hair…). "But I got restless. I couldn't help it" She looked up at me with her big, blue-green eyes, and it was hard to stay mad at her.
"Oh, that's quite all right, love. Just, ask next time, all righ'?" I turned to look back at Dr. Hanson and waved him forward. He walked up to the bed next to Lucy, kneeling down to better look at her throat. He examined the wound for a moment, then turned back to me.
"How did you say this happened again, Mrs. Lovett?" I couldn't hear anything in his voice that showed unbelief, but it was there in his eyes. He knew something was up, and he was determined to get the truth from me.
"She fell onto a vase."
He pursed his lips, and I could tell that he wasn't fooled. "It must have been a very sharp and round vase."
I couldn't tell where he was going with this. "Yes." However, I could see something…odd in his eyes. It wasn't just disbelief; there was now a spark of recognition.
"It also must have been a direct fall onto the already sharpened and round top of said vase." He stood up and looked me directly in the eyes. "Mrs. Lovett…" That odd thing was there in this voice as well. It sounded like anger, betrayal. Hurt.
"Yes, Doctor." I wondered if he could hear the fear in my already shaky voice.
He hesitated, trying to decide how to phrase his question. "I…Mrs. Lovett, I…"
"Yes?" I asked, my voice burning with uninterested curiosity. The tone of it caught him off guard.
"Mrs. Lovett, I hate to say that I don't believe you, but this cut is obviously from a knife of some sort." He looked down, avoiding my gaze.
"And 'ow would you come to that conclusion?"
He looked back up, and the pain and betrayal was there again. In his eyes, his face, and just in his overall manner. Without his eyes leaving mine, he reached up and undid his tie and the top buttons of his shirt.
"Because, Mrs. Lovett," he pulled his shirt aside to better expose his throat, "I received a similar wound when I walked in on a bloody scene above your pie shop."
Under his shirt was a faded pink scar, from one side of his throat to the other.
The mark of a razor.
I could only stare at him, my mouth soundlessly flapping as I couldn't get any words to come out. But…how? How could he have come for a 'shave' and survived?
"Wha…" I cleared my throat. "What exactly do you mean, Dr. Hanson?"
He didn't seem to be paying any attention to me. "Yes, it's almost identical to the wound I had… I wonder…" He stared at me intently again, this time with accusations in his eyes.
"Mrs. Lovett, I'm not holding you responsible for this, and I'm not going to go to the police, but I know how this woman-"
"Lucy," said the woman in question.
"Yes, Lucy. I know how she got this wound, and I'm telling you that it is from none other than Mr. Sweeney Todd, the man upstairs."
It was quiet then, in our little stare circle. Dr. Hanson staring at Lucy, Lucy staring at me, and myself staring at the good doctor. I was still thinking about his comment 'the man upstairs'. I had a brief moment of sadness, knowing that this was no longer the case. I scrambled in my mind to remember how to talk.
"Sir," I started, clearing my throat to try and sound less scared than I really was. "Sir, I don't know if I'm followin' ya. Are you tryin' to tell me that Mr. T tried to kill ya?" And failed, I thought to myself.
"Yes, Mrs. Lovett, that is exactly what I'm saying. On Monday I came over here, curious about all the talk about this magnificent barber. Imagine my surprise when the moment I walk in the door, I'm greeted with the sight of blood and the dead man it belonged to. I started to call out when the chair tipped backwards, and Mr. Todd turns around and grabs me, cuts my throat, and throws me down the chute."
My eyes widened in terror, whether at the thought of Dr. Hanson being thrown or Mr. T being discovered, I didn't know. I tried to frame a coherent question, but nothing came out.
"But, how did you survive?" Lucy voiced the question that was stuck in my throat. For once, I was glad to have her around.
"The same way you did, I'd wager. He wasn't paying enough attention to his work, and there was already someone down there to break our fall."
"But-" I cleared my throat again, this time forcing the words out. "But if you've known about this, why didn't you go to the police? And how did you get out of the bake house?" He looked away from Lucy's wound to my eyes, and I saw that he took that as a confirmation of his suspicions.
"Well, I waited until you came down and slipped out as the door was closing behind you when you entered the room. As for your first question," he stood up in front of me now, and his closeness scared me. "I'm not sure." He started for the door, but stopped halfway there to turn and look at me. "When you're ready to talk," he said, looking at the floor, "you know where I am." And with that, he left without a backward glance.
Well…what do you think so far? ^_^ I'll try and update again as soon as possible! Thanks for reading!