Splintered Dreams
(Chapter 16)
Five days. Five bloody, damned days.
The woman still had not aroused from her state. To say that Sweeney Todd and Tobias Ragg were worried was an understatement.
Every hour of every day they would check her pulse. It remained the same. Though at one point, Toby believed that the pulse had gotten stronger. He, however, dismissed this idea believing that due to his state of concern, he might have imagined the strong, steady beat.
In these days, Todd and Toby did not open the barber because they wanted to be able to keep an eye on Mrs. Lovett and because they knew that interacting with one another would only infuriate the other. They were, it seemed, on no speaking terms.
Toby, obviously still peeved at Todd, would bite his tongue the second the barber was near him. The boy would only speak to him if it was necessary. He would instead spend his time speaking to his fallen guardian, whom he hoped could listen to him.
Todd, however, did not huddle in with mother and son. He instead chose to stay in his barber shop and think, for thinking was all he could do.
Sweeney Todd was a man whom had been born out of hatred from Benjamin Barker. He believed that the whole human race belonged in the seventh circle of hell. His belief had been so strong, he brought it upon himself to put a stop to this pathetic race. He claimed himself to put these souls that were no cleaner than a whorehouse's window pane, out of their misery. It was his duty to obliterate the inhabitants of such a cruel world where so-called justice seemed to have ceased upon the innocent and fair towards the guilty.
Everyone deserved to die. They should be shown no mercy.
And yet...
And yet there was one soul. Mrs. Lovett's soul. A soul, who as much as he, had gone through so much loss and injustice and yet continued to look upon the bright side of any situation. He was no fool. Sweeney knew that Mrs. Lovett's life had not been peaches' and cream. He knew she had gone through her own hardships in this giant pit that was considered as Earth. Of course he knew this. He knew how it must have been such a struggle to survive fifteen years without any help of anyone, for her own beloved had gone long before they were able to declare themselves a fully wed couple.
Oh yes he knew all of this. He just hadn't cared.
His obsession was with destroying the main duo who had turned him into the man he was now.
If he could even be referred to as a man.
All of this had mattered. Everything but her. And why should had she mattered. She had been absolutely no one to him. In his past life, sure they had shared a few words with each other, discussed a few subjects but they hadn't been best companions. She had been his landlady. Only that.
But at present? Could he still only refer to her as his mere landlady?
When he arrived, he had thought that he would return to his wife and child. He still had few remains of the man he had once been. But it was Mrs. Lovett instead who greeted him and told him of the gruesome tale that had once been his beautiful life. And even when she knew he would not be able to pay her rent, she allowed him to stay. She welcomed him with open arms and made sure he was properly cared for. Even after knowing what he planned to do to the beadle and the judge. She supported him. Supported a greedy killer.
Then came the Pirelli incident. She saw the once 'Italian' barber beaten and murdered. And she hadn't cared. In fact, she saw reason into his actions and even came up with her wonderful idea as to how to dispose those corpses.
That had made her his accomplice as well as his landlady.
After that came her incident. The argument that was the beginning of her suffering.
That argument. That damn argument that first made him realize that Mrs. Lovett meant more to him than he had thought.
Through that period of having to take care of her for a change, managed to somehow change something in him. He still believed that humanity was a mistake. But now, for some strange reason, he did not think everyone deserved to die.
No. Not everyone deserved to die. Mrs. Lovett had managed to help him see that.
And then there was the lie. Lucy Barker killed herself. A mere fib. He still couldn't understand her reason for lying to him...
"But the poison wasn't enough ta' kill her. Only damaged her brain beyond repair..."
Could it...? Could it be? Could it be that Eleanor was merely trying to save him from more pain than he had already gone through?
Sweeney Todd abruptly ceased his continuous pacing and stared with widened eyes at the floor. He began to ponder. What would he have done, had he found out about the truth earlier? To find out that his wife had not been strong enough to be there for both of them for Johanna. To find out that as a consequence, she would sail the streets of London as well as sell her body, her beautiful body that had been savagely deprived from its purity, for a few bloody coins.
Even now as he thought about it, he could feel his right eye twitch.
In a way, though, Lucy had died.
If not her life, then her sanity had. And what is a person who cannot think sanely? How useful are they when they are mentally incapable of even remembering their own name?
But there was no excuse as to why Eleanor lied! She should not have lied of something so important to him! Even if it was only to protect you?
Todd snarled. Even then! The thing that he hated the most in this putrid hole, were lies. Disgusting, rubbish, unessesary lies!
Sweeney took in a deep breath and unleashed it.
No matter what the reason, he could not kill Mrs. Lovett. Both because of the so many things he owed her and because now he couldn't bring himself to do it even if he had wanted to. The damn woman had managed to snuggle into his crumbling heart and settled herself there. He could not imagine a day where she would cease to exist. Especially since he had finally been able to taste her...
Mr. Todd closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his pallid nose.
He had forgotten about the kiss. That kiss that had deepened their relationship further. Brought them closer together.
As much as he hated to admit it, that kiss had been delicious. It managed to quench the loneliness that had settled into his heart. The loneliness that he had to live through for fifteen years of his miserable life. Which brought back the question as to hat did Mrs. Lovett mean to him?
The sound of a bell shattered all of his train of thought.
"Mr. T! Mr. T, she's awake! She woke up!" Toby all but shouted in an out of breath tone! (Mr. Todd did not find it hard to believe that he had not even heard the boy run up the stairs.)
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for some reason found it hard to breathe.
A roar was then heard somewhere in the distance.
It was going to rain...