And so the household of 186 Fleet Street falls into the comfortable familiarity of domesticity for the boy, the barber, and the baker. Their days, respectively, are spent running errands and serving pies, shaving customers and slaughtering the occasional man who won't be missed, and baking pies and chatting up townsfolk. Their nights, also respectively, are spent drinking gin, butchering men to bits, and rumpling bedding (with some overlap of the doers here).

As happens with domesticity, time passes in relative monotone, days disappearing into weeks and weeks into months, a whirl of shop-keeping and recording and talking and listening and ruminating and brooding and pacing, pacing, pacing . . .

"Toby!"

"Coming! – 's'cuse me – "

"Ale there!"

"Right, mum!"

"Quick, now!" Nellie chirps, flapping her hand at him, whirling around to greet a new customer as she takes the money of another, gliding from person to person, serving pies, reheating food, refilling drinks, talking, laughing, grinning. Perfectly at ease.

Facades can become a comfortably familiar part of domesticity too.

"Just passing through London, y'say? You mean to tell me you've never been to our grand city before? Well, before you leave, darling, you simply must go stop by the new ballet. . . . No, I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's to die for and that no traveling experience's complete without it. Of course, a trip to London's never complete without seeing Big Ben either, or without a visit to Mr. Todd. . . . What d'you mean, you don't know of any Mr. Todd? He's as much of a staple of London as Big Ben, he is! Best barber in London without question – don't raise your eyebrows at me – I never lie, love. Ask anyone here, really, they'll tell you just the same. . . . Yes, yes, just right above my pie shop. Tell him I sent you up. He might just give you a shave free of charge. . . . No, 'course I'm not pulling your leg! It's his way of expressing his thanks for a visitor coming to his humble abode. . . . Yes, you're very welcome, darling."

And so yet another stranger mounts the staircase leading to the tonsorial parlor for the first and last time.

When she looks up, Sweeney's eyes glow like black moons from behind his window. She grins and winks at him. The black moons wax full with appreciation before vanishing from her sight. Her grin broadens.

Life could not be better: A booming business, food in her stomach, a child who is almost her own, a man who follows her every beck and whim –

A woman unavenged, a bastard still walking free . . .

Her stomach burns angrily and for a moment the façade crumbles. Then she pounds her feet into the ground and marches away to stack her empty tray with more pies and fills her head with her soothing drum.

Yes, fine, life could be better.

But it will be. Eventually. Someday.

Soon.

Later that evening finds her reposed on the settee with no more energy allotted to her than to hold a gin glass in her left hand and a book on manners in the other. Even these simple tasks are daunting enough: her hands and eyelids weigh very heavy. She would not give up her current business situation for anything, and she may not require much sleep each night, but not even she has an endless well of energy. The book in her hand flops repeatedly over her face as her arm numbs; her drowsy state allows her enough energy to place the gin glass on a shelf before it too topples over her eyes.

Nellie has never been a good sleeper. Even when her body is utterly spent, her mind continues cantering about, spitting up thoughts, memories, soliloquies, wails, screams, images, plans, ten thousand musical instruments of recollections and grievances that refuse to sing in time to each other or to silence.

Tonight is no different. Tonight her brain sounds with strings keening for days past, reeds crying for the judge to come, winds calling back that he never will, brasses demanding vengeance, demanding what all of them are due, soon, someday, never, now, oh God . . .

Snick.

Her body jolts and she yelps, eyes flying open, startled from being jerked so abruptly from her swim between sleep and consciousness.

"Sorry," says Sweeney. He sits perched on the edge of the armchair, razor sliding in and out from its holder. He watches her with that usual moth-drawn-to-the-flame expression he wears in her presence.

But who is really the moth between us? Who is more dependant upon the other?

Blinking herself away from this hazily ridiculous thought – her mind is still detaching itself from the numbing fingers of slumber – she pulls herself into a sitting position on the settee. "How long you've been sitting there, love?"

Sweeney raises and lowers one shoulder. "A while."

She stretches her mouth into a grin and wags her finger at him. "Haven't we had this conversation, Mr. T? About announcing your presence when you come into a room so's not to startle everyone out of their wits? What were you doing watching me sleep, anyway? Quite a boring occupation, I'd think."

He presses his lips together but says nothing. Nellie raises her eyebrows – both because she expects more of an answer; she is no longer accustomed to utter silence from her lover – and also because she is genuinely perplexed. Really, she knows the man is salacious for her, but this is extreme even for him: people half-caught in slumber are not exciting to watch.

"Well, Mr. T?" she asks. "Why were you just watching me sleep? 'S'quite boring, y'know. The picture never changes. Isn't a person actually doing something more interesting?"

Because that's what you do when you're in love, he thinks, looking at her, unable to bring himself to say the words aloud. Because you are perfectly content just watching the rise of their chest, the slight movements beneath their eyelids, the sublime stillness and tranquility never captured in a moment of activity. Because sometimes the most beautiful moments are those without activity.

"Well, whatever your reason," says Nellie, realizing he's not going to reply, sinking back into the cushions, "don't do it again. Startles me, it does."

"Sorry," he says again, though not as genuinely this time, eyes cloudy and yet focused upon her.

The corner of her lips lifts up in comprehension. Oh. So that's why he's not talking. His mind is far too preoccupied with everything but the matter of words.

Smirking, Nellie stretches to her feet, then slinks towards him. "Sorry, love," she purrs, "I didn't realize you wasn't interested in conversation just now." She perches herself on his knees and canters her fingers along the length of his arm, leaning her head into his shoulder. Trailing her lips along his neck, she whispers, "We don't have to talk anymore."

He shifts beneath her. She pulls back to find him staring, brow furrowed and mouth frowning, at some point over her head.

"Actually, Nellie," he says, "I am interested in conversation just now."

Her eyebrows raise. The man never ceases to surprise her. A bloody wonder to the utmost degree. She stops her seduction attempts but remains seated in his lap; she quells some strange disappointment stirring in her stomach by telling herself it is simply because she spends her entire day talking that she doesn't want to right now.

"Alright, love," says Nellie. "And just what would you like to talk about, hmm?"

Face still carved into a pensive scowl, he shrugs.

"Well, that's not much help," she informs him. "And since you didn't much like my conversation topic, I think it's your turn to suggest something."

His frown twitches to one side as though fighting off a sneeze, then straightens. All the while, he continues a staring contest with the wall over her head. Just as stubborn as he is, Nellie merely adjusts herself in his lap, resting her cheek on his shoulder and leaning into his unyielding chest, holding her silence. He'll break his fast from words eventually.

Sure enough, after three minutes time, he growls, his voice rumbling in his chest and vibrating in her skull, "The future."

Nellie lolls her neck around so the back of her scalp leans against his shoulder and her eyes stare up at the underside of his tense, smooth-shaven jaw. "What about the future, love?"

His jaw shifts, struggling over syllables for a moment, before stilling. She watches his Adam's apple bob.

"What will happen in the future," he says.

She laughs. "Why, isn't that obvious, love? Haven't we gone over this time and time again – and isn't it usually me chatting about the future? I'd figured you'd be sick of hearing about it again and again. Why, we're going to get him, you and me – we're going to wring all the blood out of his vicious neck and watch it all spill out onto the floor . . ." Her eyes fog over just from speaking the familiar words aloud. "But first, of course, we're going to remind him who we are, and who Lucy Barker was – not that he can feel guilt, but I want him to taste his murderers' name on his lips just before he dies . . . I want him to know what's coming to him just before it does, and for what purpose – have his final sentence be one that he's committed to rather than one he commits to someone else, and – "

"No," says Sweeney.

" – and then – no? Whaddya mean, no?"

"I mean, yes," says Sweeney, his jaw shifting faster now in strange chewing motions between each of his words, "yes, of course that's what will happen – but I meant after that. After he's dead. What happens then?"

"What a stupid question, love," she snorts. "After that, we – we just go on as before."

Truth be told, she's never considered it. Truth be told, her mind can't picture an 'after' any further than Turpin's blood dripping in glorious vindication all over her floor.

But, well, now that she is considering it . . . her words are true. Naturally they will just go on as before. Well, maybe not precisely as before. Once Turpin is gone, she won't need Sweeney around. One less hassle in her life, having him persistently at her heels and making her well-placed steps stumble. Then again, Sweeney does make her business successful, and then again, she does like having money, and then again, there is still much injustice to liberate the world of. . . .

Well, she'll consider it when the time comes. After Turpin is mangled by her hands, after Lucy is at last avenged, after Nellie's soul can at last rest on Earth before its inevitable descent into hell . . . yes. She'll consider it then.

"How is that?" Sweeney questions her.

"How's what, now?"

"How will we just go on as before?"

"Well, we – we just do, that's all," splutters Nellie. "What am I s'posed to say to a stupid question like that, eh, love?"

He still isn't looking at her, just some spot on the wall. Normally, she doesn't mind he not looking at her. In fact, normally, she greatly appreciates the rare occasions he stops gawking at her like she's a circus animal on display.

Today, his refusal to meet her eyes increases her irritability.

Since she can't glare into his eyes, she glares at the underside of his jaw, wondering if perhaps the heat of her gaze will scorch his skin and force him to tip his face down to avoid further burns.

"You once wanted to live by the sea," Sweeney murmurs. "I was wondering if that still held true."

Oh – she did once desire to live by the sea, didn't she? Yes, that had been her once, long ago, hadn't it . . . that silly little girl whose entire world revolved around dainties and romantic ideals and fancies of becoming a lady . . .

Was that really me?

It seems so improbable now, so unlikely. Sweeney Todd may be the one bearing the new name, but it is she who bears the new soul, irrevocably altered by her past. Oh, no doubt he is altered by the past too, but to a far lesser degree. He is the same man; she is a different woman who merely happens to house the body of someone who came before her. Someone who died long ago.

"Nellie?"

He looks at her now, face turned minutely down and to the side, their noses and eyes and lips a breath apart.

She snaps her eyes away from his and lifts her head from his shoulder, positioning her back against his chest so both of their gazes are aimed in the same direction: far ahead at nothing.

"Yes, the sea," she says easily. "Of course that's what I want, love. I didn't realize you was thinking that far ahead. I'm surprised you still remember that, truth be told. Dear God, d'y'know, I've had that dream since I was a little slip of a thing – when my rich Aunt Nettie used to take me down to the seaside on August bank holiday . . . I didn't know you shared that same dream, love . . ."

Her words flow on but his ears cease to listen, heart rattling too loudly in his head for comprehension of any other noises.

Because he doesn't share that dream. He doesn't like the sea. He never liked the sea. And he knows that she no longer likes it either. But the Nellie Lovett of sixteen years ago did. The Nellie Lovett of sixteen years ago desired nothing more than to one day own a little cottage on the shore, spending her days and nights listening to the swell of the ocean, the call of the gulls, the rustle of sand between toes. And pretend though she might that that woman is dead, he knows better. He knows that woman filled with daring and dreams and love lives on. He just has to locate her beneath the miles of facades and grievances and vengeances and penances she's covered herself with, that's all. She will be found at the sea. He knows she will be found there.

Or, at least, he knows he must tell himself this in order to survive.

A/N: I apologize for the shortness and uneventfulness of this chapter. It was necessary in order to progress to much more exciting things in the next installment . . . ;]