Sweeney Todd was not a stupid man.
He had known exactly what would happen the moment he saw her face in the firelight. It was amazing, he thought numbly, how similar she looked after all these years. The light in the bakehouse even removed most of the scars, the wear of age from her features. How could he have missed it before?
The weight of this discovery sank slowly from his mind into his body. It was immeasurable, this new feeling of loss constricting him. Images of Lucy, bright and vivid as he'd ever hoped any life could be, flashed beside the new one of her dead body in his aching arms. His grief was beyond tears, beyond screams. It had been bad enough when he had thought her dead, but now stricken with the knowledge that he had ended her life made him suspect his heart would cease to beat right there on the bakehouse floor.
Just minutes ago, he had stood triumphantly above the dying body of the Judge. Oh, that had been enthralling. He had worried, in the back of his mind, that finally killing the bastard wouldn't bring him the satisfaction he wished it would, but to his great pleasure he'd found most of the fulfillment he'd longed for. He had lusted, planned and plotted for this day for so many nights, and now here it inevitably was.
Still covered in the Judge's blood like a royal coat, he felt demonically cheated out of his accomplishment. After all, hadn't he been doing everything for Lucy? He doubted he would've taken revenge only for himself. Every shaky, painful breath he'd taken for the last fifteen years had been because of her and Johanna. How could he possible revel in killing the Judge when he had killed the woman he'd been fighting for all along?
All the brilliant elation Sweeney Todd had felt earlier curdled to black disgust.
He was gradually aware of someone else in the room – her – who seemed well aware of the circumstances they now sank in, and he felt a familiar spark of vengeful anger settle in his stomach. It was a delicious comfort. He would've never killed Lucy if not for her, the lying, deceitful witch. It was because of her that all his work had gone to waste. All those years of surviving in Australia, flamed by the hope of coming home to Lucy and Johanna. When that hope had been extinguished, he'd worked for the salvation of revenge through slitting the throats of Turpin and the Beadle. Now even that was sullied. There was nothing left, and all his efforts were stained with unnecessary monstrosities, which even in his mind seemed regretful when he stared at Lucy's body in the firelight.
What had happened to them? He clung to the intoxicating anger, as he'd always done in the last few years, and stood to address Mrs Lovett.
She was rambling, lips forming a string of excuses that only half processed in his clouded brain. She had lied to save him, Lucy was just a beggar woman now… They dripped off his mind like rain, barely considered. No matter what Lucy was, no matter what happened to her, he would always be utterly devoted to her. Mrs Lovett should understand that, the twitches at the sides of his mouth suggested; they were both committed to loving people who only returned their love in their fantasies, in their memories, in their stubborn dedication to cling to long-extinguished embers. That was probably their strongest similarity, although it hadn't occurred at all to him until now.
He beckoned to her with his bloody fingers, picked her up in his arms and began to dance. It was easy, frighteningly easy now that there was nothing else at stake. The remainder of his life had been reduced to this short, mocking game of fireside waltz, and he felt himself even more volatile than usual.
It was easy to say the things she wanted to hear. He heard them pouring, out of his mouth, although their tone didn't reach his eyes or the depths of his voice. She seemed to lap them up anyway, the smile on her face growing with each passing sentiment or turn of step. Still, he noticed the glint of fear never entirely left her eyes, and the beginnings of tears starting to form even where happiness appeared to transform her entire face.
The smile – or snarl – on his own face, as one could rarely distinguish the difference these days, grew steadily opposite of hers. This was what he had wanted, and this was what she deserved. It would have been just as easy, if not more so, to slit her throat in one quick flick of his wrist, but that didn't seem fitting after everything they'd been through. After all, she had made him murder his beloved Lucy, snatching from him the last vestiges of love he could've had in this hopeless pit of a world. It was only right for him to dangle them in front of her in the same way, only to wrench them back from her at the last second.
He suspected that she knew his intentions. After all, Mrs Lovett was many things, but she was not a stupid woman. As they grew nearer and nearer to the burning radiance of the open oven, he grew more certain that she knew of her treacherous fate. They were almost at the burning door, the heat of it soaking through their dancing bodies. His smile had warped completely into something darker, and still she smiled.
So she wanted to die, did she?
He screamed as he tossed her into the flames, marveling at how ridiculous she was. She screamed as well, and he was surprised to find that this merely brought him resolution rather than pleasure. His arms shut the door with a highly satisfying metallic thunk. A few more swift turns and the oven was locked up, Lucy was avenged and Sweeney Todd was left alone in the bakehouse, breathing in the hot, stale air that burned down his throat.
He had known this was coming, ever since he first saw Lucy's face in the firelight. That not only had he nothing to continue living for, but everything he had lived for was now in vain. There was no more vengeance to take, there was no more Lucy to come home to, and surely Johanna would not be able to live with what he had become. He himself could barely remain standing.
He focused instead on the remains of everything once beautiful in his life, now lying on the ashen floor. Sweeney Todd let his precious razor fall to the ground. He took Lucy in his arms, finally allowed himself to properly mourn his wife, and waited.
He did not have to wait for long.
Behind his soft, mournful singing, he heard the faint sound of footfalls in the darkness. In the back of his mind he noticed the shadow moving on the wall, heard the scrape of the razor as it moved quietly from the stone floor. Sweeney Todd cradled his wife, gradually tilted his head skywards, and continued grieving.
The razor passed swiftly over his exposed throat, just as he'd wished. Just as he'd known it would all along. There was no more fitting end for him than here, dying with his wife, his blood cascading from his neck onto her own dead body.
He left only one soul alive in the building, and the boy took the razor and retreated upstairs to Fleet Street. No-one ever did anything because of hate, Toby had learnt; they acted that way because of love. Hate was simply a by-product.
Toby emerged in the cold night air of London and cleaned the bloody razor on his shirt. They were gone, all of them, because of love, and he wished they hadn't done it so much.
A/N: May be a few days until I can update again, but we'll be back with Toby soon for where we left off with Mrs Lovett's story...