Maybe this is why so many serial killers work in pairs. It's nice not to feel alone in a world full of victims or enemies. – Chuck Palahniuk

xxx

The passage of time on Is was technically a moot issue, considering that there was no sun to rise and set, indicating an elapse of days. Besides, all the inhabitants had nothing but time, so marking it wasn't terribly significant. Still, it provided a structure, and made it easier to fall under the delusion that time did still exist, that what you did still mattered. Everyone was encouraged to have some sort of job, be it within the government, such as a helper, a transitioner, or a messenger; a trade, like a carpenter, masoner, or weaver; or running a shop, as perhaps a hat maker, book seller, or jewelry crafter. Money – or as it was called here, talent – was made from some material called resper, which could be crafted from a mixture of water, iron rust, and scraps of copper. Nothing on Is was precisely 'real,' seeing as everything perceived by their senses was a hallucination – but what was real, anyway? They could still see, could still hear, smell, taste, touch. Could still feel.

Nellie Lovett had finally gotten used to Is, and now she was about to leave.

Her feet balanced on the edge of a grass field. The gray water that met with the grass boundary she stood upon licked her toes. This was the place Grey Gardner had told her to go. These were the waters that would take her to Earth.

She had no idea how she was going to find Sweeney. She had no idea if he was even on Earth. But she was still going to go, however apprehensive she was about the whole thing, however much the thought continued to nag at her that – whether she cared about him or not – she shouldn't allow him to dictate her life (death) anymore.

Love makes fools of us all, she thought to herself with a grimace, before diving into the waters.

xxx

London looked just as it always had. She didn't know why she had expected anything different, really. The world wouldn't stop spinning just because of one more death. And she hadn't thought that her death would change much on a large scale – she wasn't stupid, she wasn't conceited . . .

Still, it came as something of a surprise. As though she had hoped, for its sake, that London would be different now. A bit better. But it wasn't. The streets were filthy, the air bitter with smog and deceit, the roads lined with all manner of shady characters. Despite the many men Sweeney had slaughtered in his search for justice, it hadn't made a difference.

She suddenly had the urge to see Fleet Street again, but repressed it. He wouldn't be there. Besides, did she really want to see what had become of her establishment? Her home? Either it would have been renovated and sold, or abandoned, and neither would be pleasing to see. No. She couldn't get side-tracked with the past, especially now.

Did Toby manage to survive?

The thought, one that she had become accustomed to tucking away, pressed prominently against her mind. This, too, was something she couldn't focus on now. Toby was beyond her help. Sweeney might not be.

Sweeney . . .

Where was he, anyway? How the hell was she going to be able to find him? She figured the most likely place was somewhere in Britain – she didn't see why Johanna and Anthony would have left – but then again, the boy was a sailor. They could be anywhere. And so could Sweeney Todd. Perhaps she should just pace the streets and hope to stumble upon them? Surely there were other options? There had to be.

Where are you, love?

She felt a strange pull on her stomach. Glancing down, she frowned at it. It felt as though someone had tied a rope around her middle and was now tugging her away, as though she were no more than cattle. But she couldn't see any rope, or anything out of the ordinary. What was going on? Were these the aftereffects of diving through the waters and reemerging in the land of the living?

The tugging became more persistent. She took a step in the direction it pulled her, and then another. Was this a sign of some sort? Or a tool available to spirits? Maybe it was just one of the many mystical things about being dead that couldn't be properly explained with logic? Maybe it was going to lead her to Sweeney?

Maybe you're off your rocker?

Maybe she was. Probably she was. But Nellie had witnessed enough of the paranormal recently to know that sometimes . . . well, sometimes, she thought with another frown, it just bloody is what it is.

So she listened to the pull against her waist, and she followed it.

xxx

The invisible string led her down the familiar streets of London, winding this way, turning that way, strolling over here, meandering over there. Judging from the sun's position in the sky, it seemed she'd arrived on Earth mid-morning. As she walked, the day slowly wore on, the sun rising higher into the sky until finally it peaked and began to set again.

The twine led her further away from London. The sky grew darker. Stars began to twinkle. Nellie began to doubt her sanity even more. What if she was just imagining this pulling rope? What if it wasn't some perk of the afterlife, what if it was her madness babbling? Or what if she wasn't imagining the rope, but it wasn't leading her to Sweeney? What if it was going to take her somewhere else, try to hurt her, try to –

Try to what, Nellie? Kill you?

For God's sake, stop fretting.

xxx

Eventually, she realized that her string was now tugging her towards one particular house. A manor, more like it – the place was huge. She would know soon enough, then, if she was making up this invisible rope, or if actually meant something, was actually taking her to him . . .

She found her hands were trembling, and clutched them into fists to get them under control.

She traversed up to the mansion, across the grass, along the walkway, through the front door. The manor was just as beautiful and huge on the inside as it looked from the outside – but she wasn't here to go house shopping. She drifted further into the house, past the entryway, the staircase, the kitchen, the dining room –

– into the parlor –

Her every muscle, every limb, became paralyzed.

His back was to her. He stood, watching a young couple cuddled together on the settee, reading. She recognized the boy as Anthony, and the girl could only be Johanna, with looks like those.

"Mr. Todd?" Her voice was less than a whisper. She didn't know if he heard her, or if he chose to ignore her, for he gave no reaction.

Regaining possession of her body, Nellie wafted closer until she stood right behind him. "Mr. Todd?" she tried again, but there was still no response from the man. She inched along until she stood at his side – and couldn't stop an involuntary gasp from fleeing her throat..

"Oh, God, Sweeney," she breathed, forgetting in that moment that he had killed her, that he hated her – that he was not the man he had once been. Her hands surged towards him, grasping his shoulders and forcing him to face her. Fingers glided up his neck and cupped his face. "What've you done to yourself?"

xxx

Lovett's hands were so solid against his face, so real – which was ironic considering both he and she were the least solid, the least real things in the entire room – so surprising that he flinched and tried to wiggle away from them, but she held firm, eyes wide and skin blanched, gaze sweeping his features with horror.

He supposed he should be shocked to see her here – but he wasn't, for some reason. As though he'd known that she would come eventually, as though he'd known that she could never go long without meddling in his existence.

xxx

"Leave me," he growled, his voice even rustier than normal from apparent disuse, and tried to wrench away from her. Normally, he outmatched her in all measures of physical strength.

Normally.

Now, there was barely any strength at all in her grip, yet she held him in place with ease.

"What've you done to yourself?" was again all she could whisper.

He had taken on the appearance of a rotting corpse: he was decaying, festering, eroding away, almost right before her eyes. His skin was gray, molding, sagging in some areas and stretched tight in others, and it felt like sandpaper and ice and dough and leather all at once in her hands. His frame was thinner than thin, no more than bones. Patches of hair had begun to fall out; his face was pinched and drawn; his neck seemed flimsy, scarcely able to hold the weight of his head; his eyes hollowed and dead, the skin around them wrinkled and folded so much that the once beautiful obsidian chips of ice were hardly visible.

She'd often thought to herself, back when they'd been living, that Sweeney was no more alive than a corpse, her own little joke to keep her going through the more difficult times.

She realized now that she'd had no idea what a corpse actually looked like. She realized now how wrong she had been.

"Leave me," Sweeney repeated, and he jerked away from her again but there was nearly no force in the movement.

"Sweeney – Mr. Todd – love – you look like a corpse – "

His eyes, darting between she and Johanna, rested upon her again. "What does it matter? I can't feel it."

She couldn't tell if he was lying to her or if, after being here so long, this was the new normal for him, and he didn't remember what it felt like to be strong. To be healthy. "Because you – you can't go on like this – it's – look at you, Mr. Todd."

She took one of her hands from his face and reached down to entwine their fingers together, then held their laced fingers in front of his eyes. He stared at his hand – or what had become of it, at least: a gray, fermenting lump. He seemed surprised, as though he had not realized what he looked like until now.

Fighting the sting in her eyes, Nellie croaked, "See? See what you've become? You may have found Johanna, love, but you've lost yourself."

xxx

Sweeney shook his head and shifted his gaze back to his daughter. She didn't understand. What did it matter what he looked like? What did it matter at all, so long as Johanna was his again? So long as he could watch her, day after day, as he had been doing for however long now. . . .

They'd settled into a routine, the three of them: waking up at six, breakfasting at seven (or eight, if it was Sunday), and then on the weekdays he would follow Johanna to her job, basking in her light as she sewed dresses or helped customers. Then they would return home together, Anthony usually arriving shortly after, and the rest of the day was passed in quiet comfort, cooking dinner, reading, playing cards, and suchlike, before bed. On Sundays, they would all go to the park together, or sometimes out shopping or to a play.

It wasn't glamorous – but it was home. And he'd be damned if he was going to give it all up just because of his gray skin and fatigued muscles.

xxx

"Please, love, listen to me," said Nellie, dropping her hands from his face to his shoulders. He was not looking at her, was looking at Johanna, as though he could not bear to be parted with her for even an instant. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. You're sick. You're wasting away. And if you keep wasting away, you might just waste away into nothing – don't scoff – " (he hadn't, she was just rambling) " – 'cause it's very possible, according to Grey . . . Grey, he's Eloise's father, apparently you met her when you were looking for – when you were wandering 'round the Is halls . . . anyway, he says that souls who do as you do – who stay on Earth day in and day out watching the living – they eventually just disappear. The dead aren't meant to be among the living."

How she wished more than ever to get through to him, to make him listen to something that she said, for both of their sakes.

"This is no life, Mr. Todd. I know that we're not alive anymore, but we can still – do things . . . experience. . . ."

Experience what, Lovett? There is no goal here. No ultimate purpose. It will always just be more of this.

"This isn't how to you want to be, my love," she said, lying to him, lying to herself. Needing them both to believe this.

Because she didn't know much as this moment, but she did know that she didn't want to bumble through this aimless existence without him.

"You may say you don't care what you do anymore – but I know some part of you does. I know some part of you does not want to just watch – I know something in you still wants to be."

She might as well have been talking to herself. Sweeney looked as though he could hear her no more than Johanna and Anthony could.

"It's not as though you're making any difference in Johanna's life," Nellie continued to wheedle, so desperate to reach him – to pull him away from this half-existence, to save him before he became lost forever – that a physical ache was blooming in her chest. "She can't even see you, nevermind give you a hug or touch your hand. She doesn't even know you're here."

And she was beginning to wonder if he knew that she was here.

Removing her hands from his shoulders, she swiped angrily at her moist eyes, turning her gaze to the settee. Sleep had claimed Johanna, and she rested prettily against Anthony's side, her head on his shoulder, book still lying open in her lap. Anthony's eyes stayed on his wife for a moment, before easing away from her and scooping her into his arms to carry her upstairs.

The sight of this little gesture of affection – the way the two of them made love look so damn simple – stung as much as it warmed her. After a deep inhale, she turned back to Sweeney, whose eyes followed them up the staircase. When she made contact with him this time, taking his hands, his eyes locked with hers.

"She's happy now," said Nellie.

A long moment. A pregnant stilling of the air. An extended, hallucinated heartbeat.

"Yes." His lips moved slowly, with difficulty, as though it was hard to remember the pattern one's mouth moved in when speaking, as though it was hard to articulate this aloud and finally admit it to himself. "She is." The continuation of this sentence – the words without me –lingered in his eyes, but neither of them said this thought aloud.

When Nellie tugged him away, pulling him towards the ground and back to Is, he did not resist.

xxx

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" questioned Sweeney as Nellie, while glancing around the corridor to make sure no one saw them, opened the door to his room.

She couldn't remember the last time he'd tried to initiate a conversation with her, but masked her surprise. "Yes, love, she is." She steered him towards his bed and settled him upon it. "Absolutely stunning." Pushing on his shoulders, she made him lie down. "Now, you get some sleep, alright? We'll worry about what to do with you and your horrid appearance after you've gotten a bit of rest."

Giving him what little of a smile she could manage to force onto her face, Nellie made to leave – but he reached out and grabbed her hand, holding her there, keeping her with him.

"She has the razors," Sweeney told her, sitting up halfway.

Nellie arched an eyebrow. "Your razors?"

He nodded, his eyes on her yet beyond her. "She took the box from my shop before the authorities cleaned it out. Grabbed the one in the bakehouse too. She has the full set – polishes them nearly daily. Anthony doesn't like that she has them – he doesn't want to dwell on that 'horrible moment of the past' any longer."

Nellie stared at him. She could rarely get two words out of the man on a good day, and now he was rambling on without pause. Clearly, a soul being on Earth rotted more than their body: it fogged their minds, made them somewhat delusional. Intoxicated them on what was no longer theirs.

"She doesn't use them, of course," Sweeney murmured. "But she keeps them."

Dazed, feeling her own mind beginning to fall into a drunken stupor, Nellie shook her head. "Good grief, Mr. Todd. Did you watch them all the bleeding time? Give them any privacy at all?"

"Of course," he mumbled, still looking at her without really looking, and she wondered if he saw her there, saw anyone at all. "I never followed her into the lavatory . . . or the bedroom . . ."

Well. At least the man knew some boundaries, however few. She eased his fingers away from her extremity, shaking her head at him, relief and amusement and love fighting for space in her chest. "Get some sleep, Mr. Todd."

The love, as always, won. That was what had gotten them both into this mess in the first place, after all.

A/N: Woohoo, a fast update! Expect the chapters to come a little quicker during the summer months than they have most of the year. =)

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