A/N: Bit of a lengthy chapter, Yay! Sorry it's been so long but i had the worst case of writer's block. I also wanted to spend a lot of time on my Into the Woods fic, "Stay with Me" and get ahead of the game by writing the chapters ahead of time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sweeney Todd.
Alarm and dread filled me. Mrs. Lovett was staring right at me, as if she could see me. I didn't say anything. I thought she couldn't hear me anyway. And if she suddenly could, I wouldn't know what to say. She was still Eleanor Lovett, but she wasn't Mum. If I mentioned anything from the past, um, future, it wouldn't make sense to her.
Paralyzed like a statue, I stood my ground, unable to move anyway. I tensed up when Mrs. Lovett started walking over to me. She seemed confused, as if she wasn't sure if she was seeing what she was really seeing. I wouldn't have been surprised if she could hear my heart racing, pounding in my chest. With her brow furrowed, she shut the door, hand passing right through me. I couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.
"Can't hear me still can you?" I asked, beginning to laugh. I didn't find the situation funny (actually I did a little bit) but the laughing couldn't be helped. It was a laugh of liberation, a way of making me calm down. Shaking my head and still giggling quietly, I sat in one of the booths, resting my feet on the table.
"You know, this is very interesting," I continued, watching Mrs. Lovett start to tidy up, though I hardly saw a chance of the place becoming completely clean. Suddenly, Mrs. Lovett's eyes widened, as if she heard something odd. Again, panic filled me.
"Who said tha'?" she asked the seemingly empty air. I was so taken off guard and shocked that I almost fell out of the booth. She looked around and merely shrugged it off as she saw no customers, didn't see me, which I was highly thankful for. But how long would my luck last?
Mrs. Lovett's heart was thudding just a bit. She had heard the strangest noise, like someone was talking, but there was no one in the shop other than her. It certainly hadn't been Toby. The lad wasn't around and the voice had sounded feminine. She did her best to forget the whole thing happened, yet the feeling of not being alone lingered. It bothered her greatly.
Still, the woman just went on about her business, ignoring the fact that she could've sworn she was seeing someone out of the corner of her eye. Just a silhouette would appear, and when she turned to look at it straight on, it would vanish. But it always appeared in the same place and looked just the same. A girl, a teenager, sitting in one of the booths, dressed in strange clothing. "You've finally lost it, Nellie," Eleanor chided herself, shaking her head slightly. Just then, the strangest thing happened. Mister Sweeney Todd from upstairs came down.
I slightly gulped at the sight of Dad. His presence, though I was used to it, was still a bit scary. Perhaps it was the fact that I was in gloomy Victorian London and he was actually killing people, not just ghosts going through a continuous cycle.
He shot me a somewhat harsh glare and I couldn't figure out why. Probably from my stupidity in the past, but it seemed like a fresh anger. Sweeney Todd sat beside me and leaned close, though not making it obvious. As quietly as he could, he whispered, "She's beginning to see you."
The statement left me feeling confused and a little frightened. Mrs. Lovett was beginning to see me? The state of affairs started to remind me of Back to the Future, only in reverse. Instead of starting to disappear because I was never born, I was beginning to appear because I was spending too much time in that era. Only one sentence was running and repeating through my mind: I'm screwed.
With careful movements, I slid out of the booth and as quietly as I could possibly manage, I snuck over to the stairs that led up to the room that Benjamin Barker and Lucy Barker once shared. I pointed to the staircase and mouthed: "Meet me when you can." Sweeney gave a curt nod and I was very surprised to find that he actually understood what I had mouthed. Without any other exchange, I bolted up the stairs, not really caring at this point if my footsteps could be heard or not. I was panicking too much to be bothered with such a petty factor at this point in time.
When I entered the bedroom, there stood Lucy in the corner, not as the beggar woman, but fully refreshed and looking elegant. "Lucy?" I asked in disbelief and she nodded, not looking so happy. "But I thought you could only appear as a beggar?"
"She's dead," Lucy stated laconically. "Died in an alley; the beggar Lucy is gone." I was becoming thoroughly befuddled. So Lucy was now dead, the beggar woman no longer living in her torment of insanity. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to." And she vanished.
Her tone of voice, it scared me. It was full of disdain and the look in her eyes was one I knew well. She had a thirst for revenge.
"The bake house Ben," I suddenly heard Lucy's voice say. She was downstairs in the pie shop, obviously talking to Sweeney. Why was she doing that? I thought she didn't want to be seen! Things were definitely taking a turn for the weirdest. I raced back down the stairs to see what was going on.
Lucy was standing right next to Sweeney, who had stood up from his seat. "She did this to me Ben, you know that. She," Lucy pointed to Mrs. Lovett, "killed me!"
This I knew to be a lie. Mrs. Lovett didn't kill anyone, just lied about it. "She poisoned me Ben. Avenge the wrongdoing. Go to the bake house!"
Sweeney didn't look like himself. His eyes were glazed over, as if he was being possessed by Lucy's words. He turned to Mrs. Lovett then, who hadn't notice a thing that was happening. "Mrs. Lovett, there's something I need to talk to you about in the bake house." His voice was firm, showing that Mrs. Lovett couldn't get out of it.
"Oh, alrigh' then Mistah T," Mrs. Lovett consented, setting aside the knife she had been using. She walked around the counter, casually wiping her hands on her dress to brush off the excess flour. Sweeney led the way into the bake house; Lucy didn't follow immediately. She was too busy relishing the moment, though I couldn't see why.
"Lucy, what are you doing?" I demanded, and the blonde calmly turned to me.
"I'm doing what should have been done the first time." And with that, she vanished, to the bake house I presumed. Fully-fledged with apprehension, I went full speed towards the bake house, almost tripping when I raced down the stairs. I went through the door, not wanting to waste time with opening it.
The bake house was dimly lit, Sweeney standing in front of Mrs. Lovett, Mrs. Lovett's back to the oven. My stomach started to twist with nervousness. Lucy was standing next to the oven and managed to open it, revealing the hungry flames.
"Do it Ben! She ruined our lives, was the one to kill me! If it weren't for her, I'd be alive now," Lucy said to Sweeney as she crossed over to him, taking the spot right next to him, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "You know what to do Benjamin. Kill her!"
Sweeney, still in his seemingly possessed state of mind, placed his arms on Mrs. Lovett's shoulders, backed her up towards the oven, and with one swift movement, pushed her in.
Screams of bloody terror filled my ears as I watched Mrs. Lovett burn, completely horrified. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucy grin triumphantly. Then it all clicked. Right then, it all clicked.
"It was you!" I declared, Sweeney not hearing me in his current state. "You were the one that killed the Damons!" Why couldn't I have seen it before? I felt so stupid and blind now that I actually figured it out. I wasn't exactly clear on why though. "What did they do to you?"
Lucy sighed and rolled her eyes. "It wasn't so much as what they did to me; it was more of what she did to me. She lied to my husband, making him think I was dead, got to stay here on earth with him after they were both deceased, and then married him when reincarnated. He was my husband first, he loved me first! Why did she get to the happy ending then?"
I had no answer to that. I couldn't lie, Lucy had a point. Why Mrs. Lovett? But the rebuttal in my mind was "why not Mrs. Lovett?" She may have "lied" but she took care of Sweeney when he came back from Botany Bay, helped him achieve his revenge, was there when Lucy wasn't.
"You just don't understand," Lucy declared, as if reading my mind. "And I'm afraid you never will be given the chance to fully comprehend." She whipped her head around to look at Sweeney. "Ben!" As if he already knew what to do, Sweeney turned on me and strode right up to me.
His cold hand grasped my throat as I was backed against the wall. I stared into his eyes, silently begging him to snap out of it. I had no luck and the sharp sting of the chill given off by the razor upon my neck made me flinch. I didn't know what I was so worried about; I couldn't die. There was a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach though, one that I desperately wanted to go away.
"Dad," I quietly pleaded, my voice breaking. I was hoping that it would be just like the movies, where at the last minute the possessed person came to his or her senses and turned against the one who had been controlling them. This was not the movies though; Sweeney wouldn't come to his senses and I would not be waking up. In the blink of an eye, Sweeney slit my throat and I fell to the floor, life leaking from my neck. The last thing I saw was Lucy walking over to Sweeney, who was still in his hazy state of mind, grinning sadistically.