A/N Yes, I disappeared for a while. Sorry 'bout that. This chapter was just a total bitch to me.. more at the end- though I will share I am now in Sumer vacay' time, passing my classes and should be returning to a regular update schedule.

37

"My shop was new in the area, and I was opening up just down the street from her emporium." James ran a hand through his graying hair, an oddly wistful look on his face; Sweeney frowned at him in annoyance. "She came into my shop the day it opened. Though she never admitted to it I'm fairly confident she was trying to steal from me. Not that I cared. I was… I was just stunned to see a woman like her. Even though she only came to me to try and get medicine for her husband, I wanted to get to know her. Later on she just teased me about the dress she wore catching my male eye… Even though I told her countless times I was looking at her face."

Sweeney found himself incapable of watching the happy memories pass across the apothecary's face, and uneasily turned his head away. At the same time this man was meeting Nellie, he was suffering a most hellish fate. To look back on those events and have to think about how everyone else's lives would have just kept going was not something Sweeney had willing done before. Never before had he cared to hear about the happy memories people possessed during his absence. It was truly selfish for him to think no one could have been happy once he left, but a part of him had always believed that when Benjamin Barker died, so had the happiness in the world.

"I was more than happy to give her what she wanted…I told her as long as she came back I wouldn't charge her for her fist visit." James's lip twisted slightly, though it was indiscernible as either a frown or a smile. "I didn't see her for several weeks, so I went to her shop." A definite smile appeared on his face. "Things just sort of… picked up from there."

Nellie's stomach twisted and a shiver crawled down her spine. The dimmed light of dusk and settled over the city, and the sky was further blackened by a plume of smoke in the distance. With a jolt she realized it marked the remnants of her shop.

A figure next to her made a sound akin to a growl, making her entire body tense. Her eyes flickered nervously across the small horde of once-men that were congregated at the judge's front door. Nellie's eyes stopped at one whose mouth was hanging open. A blob of surprisingly viscous saliva made its way out of his mouth and landed on the stone stairs with a sickening splat.

The baker felt her stomach turn in disgust.

Even if this bloody cure works, they ain't gunna be normal, she thought, nose wrinkling with distaste.

"Might as well try a lamb before I go for a ram, eh?" Nellie doubted her words were understood by those around her, though they were more for her comfort than their understanding. Silences had always bothered her. Taking a phial in hand, the baker debated on how she was to get some of the substance into the motionless people.

"She always said she was going to pay me back. I don't think I would have ever thought about taking her money.. Especially after I learned what her situation was. Her husband was dieing and she was spending a considerable amount of time and money on him. Not that a wife shouldn't, but…" James fidgeted slightly, deciding to skip over his description of Albert Lovett. "I offered anything I could do to help her, and to make sure she didn't see it as charity I ate at her shop everyday and she gave me my meals for free. Her place was busy, though it was not nearly as popular as it is now. I really didn't get to see her much during my visits, though."

Sweeney forced himself to continue staring at the ceiling instead of looking at the apothecary. Mrs. Lovett's business had been incredibly run down when he had returned, and though he doubted it had been that way during his entire absence, he did have to wonder how she lost her costumers. Perhaps the prices had simply gotten to high for a limited amount of custom she was receiving? The barber pushed the annoying thoughts away and told himself to focus on James's story.

"Of course because of not seeing her is how I learned about Lucy."

The barber tensed and he could feel himself stop breathing, though he oddly felt detached from his body.

"I asked about the room and a number of people were happy to tell me it was occupied by a widow."

Sweeney's teeth gnashed together. A widow? How quickly was their marriage abandoned after he had been sent away?

"She was the talk of the town, trying to gain favor with judge Turpin." The barber's sharp intake of breath prompted James to inch away from the table. "I asked Eleanor about it on one of her visits to my shop. She sort of…cracked, when I asked."

The slight confusion in the apothecary's voice drew Sweeney out of his red clouded vision. Mrs. Lovett, cracking? Apparently James even thought it unreal, though he had experienced it.

"She was always more open with me away from her shop, but I had never seen her like that before. Devastated….I suppose enough pressure puts a breaking point on anybody."

Nellie held her hand away from her body, flicking her wrist violently as she attempted to dislodge saliva from her finger tips. She was most certainly not doing that again. Feeling bile rise in her throat she hurriedly turned away from the creature she had been standing in front of. The effects of the cure did not appear to be immediate, if there were any at all, and since she did not want to lose what was left of the light Nellie decided to strike out.

She could die trying to spread the cure, but without it her likelihood of perishing increased. "Men an' their bloody schemes," she muttered to herself.

The baker clutched her rolling pin to her chest as she headed down the street. The creatures that still moved on their own accord had congregated into small groups of three or four and several she caught sight of were holding various limbs. If she didn't, hadn't (there was no pie shop now, was there?) spent most of her time chopping up human corpses the scene would have definitely been more gruesome.

"The moment a man stops underestimatin' ya is the moment 'e gives ya the worst job." She told the street.

The low rumble of growling Londoner's seemed to agree with her.

"Everything just sort of spilled out of her, like she was confessing to something. First it was 'he was taken away' and then it was, 'a long time ago there was a tenant'. I didn't want her to stop talking so I just didn't say anything. Eventually she calmed down enough to explain the scraps of information she gave me."

The barber did not particularly like the clarity (it all sounded fairly clear to him) in which James told his memories. Sweeney wondered if his annoyance came from the fact he had locked away most of his memories; but a little voice in the back of his head provided a completely different answer.

"Benjamin Barker," James began carefully, watching Sweeney. "Had moved into the room above her shop with his wife. Charming couple, she told me. But their heads were in the clouds. Eleanor stressed the empty headedness of Lucy more than…her husband's." The apothecary was extremely confused on how to refer to Benjamin, as he was, quite apparently, his current audience. Still not even having the man's eyes though, James decided to keep referring to them as two different people. "Eleanor told me how she became friends with them. She also confessed she had fallen head over heels for Benjamin."

Sweeney managed to calm himself enough to blink before turning to the apothecary. "What?"

A/N I put this as an ending point 'cause the chapter was so mean to me that I just really wanted to get you guys an update. James and Eleanor definitely had a greater relationship; but I felt like bringing up the fact she was in love with Benjamin. Why? 'Cause I think it would be rather funny for Sweeney to have to hear about it- I think of Benjamin as a rather oblivious character who wouldn't notice his landlady's affection, and while Sweeney certainly does, I don't think he really ever listened enough to realize that (like in the song lyrics xD) she always had a fondness for him. More to come soon- promise.