"Police line the street, Toby!" Todd comes dashing in the door of our home. I suppose I shouldn't call it my home, it's only been a few days I've been living here. But Ravinia's father doesn't leave his room much so I feel welcome here. Much more than in Signor Pirelli's cart. That was torturous.

"Fleet street?" I jump from my chair and run to the window to draw the curtains and look out onto the foggy street. The police could come looking for me. Nervousness builds in my gut as I think of me slicing Mr T's neck. What if they came for me and threw me in the madhouse? Or hanged me in the streets?

"Yes, yes. By Mrs Lovett's pie shop!" Todd follows me to the window as he rips his scarf off his neck and removes his coat. I watch the hustle and bustle of the quiet street, Bush street. I'm glad now that I'm not near to the police investigation.

3 days later

I am raised from a nightmare about Mrs Lovett burning in the oven as I try to unlock the door but Sweeney pulls me back and is about to slice my neck when I hear Ravinia's voice.

"Toby…Toby… come back…" I reach out and her face is there waiting when I open my eyes. I touch her pale face slowly, bringing my fingers across her soft cheek. "You were screaming…" That's when I notice the shaking to her voice and the tears streaming down her face. I sit up and hug her. She slows her breathing and sighs.

"It's fine, just a dream. I swear." I hush her. "Not to worry, ma'am."

"But Toby, I'm just scared…"

"Scared?" I ask, pulling back and looking into her bright blue eyes. Although Mrs Lovett's eyes were dark and gloomy, Ravinia's project light and forgiveness. Life and rebirth. In both I can find a love so deep that I just want to fall into them and watch them forever.

"I'm scared… of you. What if you… lost control?" Ravinia asks. She has grown unusually quiet.

"And… did something?" I stutter.

"Yes." Ravinia is crying again. I realize that we are sitting in the dark. It's my week of being here. And as we sit in the bed, I think of my life. Raised from abandonment and loss, I was always compliant to Signor Pirelli- he was the closest I had to a father from age five up. But then I found love and sincerity- or so I thought. To be betrayed in such a terrifying way, and lose more than I ever imagined, I come to a conclusion.

"You're all I 'ave, Ravinia. How could I lose you?" I tuck a piece of black hair behind her ear. She's beautiful. "And at my own hands?"

"I suppose so… But the trauma"

I cut her off and kiss her. I've never kissed anyone since I was at the workhouse and another boy dared me to kiss a girl who was pretty. She got angry and did all but spit in my face, but I apologized right away and told her I never meant it. I wish I could remember her name now.

"Toby." Ravinia pulls away after a moment. She exhales sharply, a smile playing on her lips.

5 years later.

"Happy birthday!" I embrace my best friend, Todd, in a hug. He's twelve today. I remember when I was twelve, working for Pirelli. It was the only life I knew. But now I know love, and recovery. Now I am finally happy. My fiancé, Ravinia, enters the room, taking her brother from me and tackling him with a hug. Sometimes she's so unladylike it's funny.

"Thank you! Thank you! Get off me!" Todd giggles as Ravinia tickles him. He's a feeble young lad, although you'd never know it from his laugh, he has the most wonderful laugh, though he is sick as his father was so many years ago, but now his father has grown even more dead inside. I haven't spoken but a few words to him, and he never really leaves his room. I feel a sad aura lurks around him.

"We baked you a cake last night!" Ravinia smiles to her brother, and lifts him from the floor and to a chair. More like Ravinia baked it. I just pulled it from the oven, I'm still afraid of her walking reaching into it. I keep thinking she'll fall in and burn right up, just like Mrs Lovett did. Although Mrs Lovett didn't exactly fall.

I still have flashbacks that will stop me dead in my tracks and I need Ravinia to tug on my arm a bit. I've become Toby Eve, no longer Toby Ragg, a name given to me by default in the workhouse because I got the first name they pulled out of a hat I guess.

"Toby? Do you want a piece of cake love?" Ravinia asks me.

"No, some gin please, ma'am." I raise a glass from the table and she pours some in.

"Me too?" Todd holds up his own glass. Ravinia rolls her eyes and is about to put the gin away when Todd speaks up. "For my birthday?"

Ravinia looks to me almost for permission and I give her a smile. I was drinking gin when I was only four years old to put me to sleep, to cure headaches, to make us forget our fears and worries. Now, Todd only wants but a pinch of the stuff. Ravinia pours it into his glass, a lot less than Todd probably expected but he's happy for any. Ravinia is severely protective of her brother. I learned about her love for her mother, whom Todd can hardly remember. She died just a few years after Todd's birth. But Ravinia loved her so much, possibly more than Todd, though she'd never let you know.

"So do you have any plans for the night?" I ask Todd. He shakes his head.

"A few of my mates wanted me to travel down to check on old Sweeney Todd's haunted barber shop- but I didn't want to. What if it really is haunted?" Todd sighs. "I think I'll go to Mrs Mooney's and get a meat pie."

"You know what I always say about Mrs Mooneys…" I trail off.

"That she bakes pussycats into her pies, I know. But it doesn't get worse than that!" He laughs.

"I'd just stay away from pie shops in general, Todd." I take one last burning gulp of gin and place my glass on the wooden table with a thump. "For your own good- you don't know what could be happening there."

Ravinia shoots me a look but doesn't say anything.

I walk along the street, Ravinia in tow. The night is cool and the breeze lingering.

"Stroll down Fleet street? I have to pick up some more gin- Todd is trying to drink me out of house and home, I swear!" Ravinia jokes, but I can only remember Mrs Lovett murmuring that to Mr Todd right before I passed out on their floor.

So we saunter down the avenue, and I can't help but to look over to the old bakery with a faded sign.

Mrs Lovett's meat pies

Try it- you'll love it!

I can remember singing about the amazing pies at the grand opening. The bakery has been condemned to the public for years. You can't get in, kids have tried. Not that I would ever want to. Although Ravinia does admire how close a shave I can give to some friends of hers. I would have been a barber maybe, had I never found out the truth about Mr Todd. Now the thought scares me. Ravinia would love to be a baker, but knowing the trauma I suffered at the bake house, promises she'd never become one. She is living off of inheritance though, and soon we'll both need to do something.

"I was thinking, maybe I should move out of my father's old apartment soon, we could find a place of our own- by the sea perhaps?" The words from Ravinia make my skin crawl and I go stiff. Mrs Lovett always wanted to live by the seaside.

"I suppose."

"We could have a beautiful home, I swear. I'd make it look real nice with some flowers, pretty daisies." Ravinia smiles at me. "Or giddy flowers, I like those. What do you think, Toby?" I just shrug my shoulders. Some boy pushes passed me and is yelling about the ghost of Sweeney Todd, back to haunt us all. I stop on the road. Nobody was to know about the crime, it was kept a painful secret from the public, one I would never repeat to anyone, besides that fateful day to Ravinia.

"Toby?" Ravinia looks back with those beautiful blue eyes. "Are you okay? I'll wait for you."

"I…" I suddenly feel a great urge of anger. I look back at the bake house and Ravinia pulls me forward.

"There's no need to fret, Toby. Things are wonderful. You have me now, and Todd. You're fine." Ravinia is worried now, and I sense urgency in her tone. As I turn back to her, I fake a smile.

"Of course, my love." I say and plant a kiss to her lips as we continue down the dark street, but I look back to the bakery once more, almost feeling the presence of Mrs Eleanor Lovett.

Thank you to Hellie Lovett for helping me with uploading this chapter, because I have no idea how this website operates. More to follow! 3