Welcome to chapter one! I have the first half or so completely written, so I'll be updated regularly. Please R+R!
Somehow, the stability—the consistency with his memories of this building—made entering the pie shop on Fleet Street all the more dreadful. He'd never been terribly fond of the place to begin with, in all honestly, but seeing it exactly as it was fifteen long years ago, as if the whole rest of the world had changed around it, gave him pause. Nevertheless, there was a chance that inside of the building had frozen the same as the outside. He rationalized the spooky similarity to be a good omen and stepped in.
It was a mistake. While the building's facade had stood the test of time, the interior sunk under dust, grime, and the sad decay of sheer emptiness. It appeared abandoned. Fine—he'd not dared to hope he'd find what he wanted inside those doors. He turned to leave, the bell above the shop door tinkling behind him. "Wait!" he heard, turning back around.
Red wild hair and wide wild eyes greeted him. There she stood, the Mrs. Nellie Lovett whose name the building bore. Well, she didn't stand for long—within seconds she'd rushed to his side, sat him in a booth, handed him a tragic-looking pie and flat ale. Always a flurry of motion and blabber, just as he remembered.
He picked up her story mid-stream: "...well lemme tell you, Mrs. Mooney 'cross the way there 'as her pie shop, does good business but I noticed somethin'—"
"Nell!" a familiar voice bellowed. He stopped himself, with a great deal of effort, from rolling his eyes; he'd never exactly been fond of Albert Lovett, either. Mrs. Lovett, he noticed, froze up and fell quiet—another detail he'd nearly forgotten. "Wot're you out there ramblin' 'bout now?"
"We—we 'ave a guest, love," she called back. She offered him a forced smile, and he thanked his lucky stars, few though they were, she hadn't recognized him, although she herself had hardly changed.
He heard lumbering footsteps, and then Albert Lovett stood in front of him. He'd changed, actually—gotten fatter and meaner-looking, a feat Sweeney Todd would hardly have thought possible. Albert put on a jovial-looking face and extended a hand, and Todd felt no choice but to shake it in return. "Al Lovett," he said curtly, "I own the building, the woman, the whole thing."
"Name's Todd," he clipped in return, "Sweeney Todd." He didn't react to Mrs. Lovett, whose face fell at his name. "You have a room above the shop?"
"Aye mate," Albert replied, "Give yer a good price on't."
"Up there?" Mrs. Lovett chimed in, "No one's been up there in years." Albert turned threateningly toward his wife, showing her the back of his hand. She quieted down.
"I'd like to take a look," Todd said, his monotonous voice nonetheless cutting short Albert's threats.
"'Course, mate," Albert said. "Nell, show 'im 'round, wontya? And don't say anything stupid." Mrs. Lovett nodded and, unnervingly silently, lead Mr. Todd out the door.
Two sets of stairs connected the two rooms—one from the Lovetts' parlor to the upstairs bedroom, another outside from storefront-to-storefront—and the pair ascended the external stairs in silence, Mrs. Lovett leading the way. He'd barely closed the door behind him when he heard her say, her back still to him, "S'good to see you, Ben."
His mouth gaped open. "How did you—"
"Recognized you the moment you walked in," she said quietly. "Didn't think Al would, but couldn't let on to be safe."
"Where are they?" he asked. No point hesitating.
Now she turned to look at him, and the stoicism of her normally-expressive face instantly worried him. "Lucy's gone. The little one got taken by that awful Judge after he...er...ruined Lucy. Ain't no one seen her since that I've heard of."
Whatever life was left in his face drained out as the news washed over him. Lucy...Johanna...gone? "Evil bastard," Mrs. Lovett continued on her own, "Ain't a life wot would be missed by many, I can tell you that."
"Hopefully not, because I'm going to kill him," Todd muttered.
Mrs. Lovett's eyes lit up and she let out a quick "oh!" Scurrying around the room, she tested a few floorboards before finding the loose one, prying it up, and digging out a package. "You'll need these, then," she said, handing over the package to Todd with a smirk.
A bit of silver gleaned up at him, poking from one corner of the thin brown paper. Joy, almost, bubbled up in him as he tore eagerly at the paper. He grinned wickedly, and his reflection grinned back in the clean shimmer of the razors he'd thought he'd lost fifteen years ago. "You—"
"Didn't want the coppers to get to them, or Albert," she responded before he even had time to ask the question. She was always good at that, he recalled. He took a moment to look at her face. So little had changed—her fiery red hair and large hazel eyes were just as he remembered, as were her fair, fair skin and pouting lips; she seemed hardly to have aged. It was difficult to believe, truly. And as always, she continued on, "I wanted to hide the baby, too, but Al gave 'er up." She sighed with fifteen years' worth of regret, "S'for the best, probably."
It was then he caught sight of a bit of purple around her pale white wrist, where her sleeve had pushed up a bit. "Still?" he asked.
Mrs. Lovett looked him directly in the eye. "Ain't much gotten better since you left, love." He scowled, and she stared out into the mist beyond the single window. "I hope you get 'im. God knows 'e deserves it."
He held up a razor, letting it catch a bit of light through the window, the reflection scintillating on the wooden walls around him. "Oh, I'll get him. Just a matter of when."