A/N: So here's the second part! I'm not really that happy with how either part came out, but I liked the idea, so maybe I'll come back and revise them again someday. But for now, here they are! (:

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Nellie Lovett sighed, watching Sweeney Todd hurry out of the heavy doors of the bakehouse. Yes, she was glad they had not found Toby, but he was sure to return to his efforts after he'd seen to the Judge. Squeezing her eyes shut, she presses her palms against her eyelids in a hopeless effort to keep the tears back that had been threatening since the boy had professed his true feelings about Mr. Todd. Mrs. Lovett had known the boy wasn't exactly fond of Mr. T, but she never would have guessed he'd suspect him. The lad had seemed simple enough, unquestioning about Pirelli's absence, and he took quickly to life with Nellie. She came to think of him as a son and liked to think he shared her sentiments. And obviously he had. A bit too much.

Swallowing, Mrs. Lovett pulls her meat cleaver out of the table, setting to work on the ribcage she hadn't quite finished with. She hacks into the meat, forcing the thoughts from her mind. She did this for him. For him for him for him. And for what is not the first time she wishes there was a way to break through to him. She has tried seducing him, caring for him, speaking to him, and even attempted to grow with child. But nothing has worked. He laid with her almost every night since she'd finally broken him down, but instead of falling for her Sweeney Todd was able to use her without feeling. It was almost worse than when he had ignored her completely.

Tears sting her eyes and she wants to slam a fist on the table, to hurl the cleaver at the wall and overturn the table and rage until she feels better, but she doesn't. Instead, she wipes at her eyes and blinks away the grit, clenching her teeth and slamming into the meat again. She will get to him somehow. Now that he will have the Judge, spill his precious rubies, perhaps his revenge will be taken and he will forget his past. Perhaps she can convince him that the bright blue shimmer of the sea at noon is just as beautiful as the crimson that he spills at midnight. As it always has been, the bakehouse is her refuge, and somehow knowing the corpse she is decimating is human makes it all the better. She can pretend it's her, that she is exacting the revenge she has deserved for so long.

Only when the body lying on the ground begins to moan does Mrs. Lovett realize she has let her tears spill. She jumps and hiccups, wiping at her eyes as she whirls around, fear wrapping its fingers around her heart. The Judge lies there, deep gashes marring his neck and face, but he still moans, slithering towards her like some sort of sick animal. She screams, backing hastily into the work table, but when he corners her she attempts to leap over him. The Judge's wandering hands find purchase and he clings to his skirts, his body convulsing. The air whistles as it leaks from his slit windpipe, and for the first time Mrs. Lovett thinks that perhaps death is a disgusting and revolting thing rather than a beautiful one as she had previously thought.

Finally, finally, the thing dies. His grip relaxes and his body squelches on the blood-soaked stone. She stares for a moment, her eyes torn between the mutilated man in front of her and the bloody handprints on her dress. Blinking, Mrs. Lovett stumbles away from the man, her eyes catching sight of a new body she hadn't noticed before. It was a woman. Why a woman? Mr. T only ever killed men, the men who came in for a shave. But suddenly, the grimy hair and tattered clothes make her gasp, and she flies toward the body of Lucy Barker.

"You," she spits, her heart clenching in fear, and she kneels beside the body, brushing hair that once was golden from the woman's scarred face. No. Oh no oh no oh no. Shit. Mr. Todd was sure to have heard her screaming a moment ago; he would be here any second. He couldn't find out she lied to him. He couldn't see his wife here. He would kill her. He would kill her. Her heart jumped into her throat at the thought, and Mrs. Lovett hastily stood, tripping over her skirts in her rush to drag the small body to the oven. The dead weight pulled behind her like a ton of bricks, and she was so close so close when the bakehouse door burst open. Her heart stopped and she jumped, whirling toward Sweeney Todd, baptized in blood, and just knew.

"Does the Judge live?"

She wrings her hands in her lap, trying desperately to keep her eyes from Lucy. "I- 'e was hangin' on me skirts but he's finished now," she says, making a split instant decision to throw the body in the fire before he can recognize it. Desperate hands reach for Lucy again, and she uses all her strength to pull her toward the fire. But Sweeney Todd crosses the bakehouse in two strides, reaching for the beggar.

"Leave her to me."

Mrs. Lovett moves so her back is blocking Lucy as she drags her. "No." Mr. Todd freezes, and his brow furrows.

"Leave them to me I said!"

"NO!"

He pulls her away roughly, shoving her toward the oven. "Go open the doors."

She does not move, praying perhaps her hair is too dirty to appear gold or that her face is too scarred to be recognized. But as he reaches for her, she lunges for him.

"NO DON'T TOUCH HER!"

Sweeney Todd freezes, his arm outreached toward his wife. His lips part in a silent 'oh,' and he falls to his knees. Everything is gone, all that there is in this world is Mr. Todd and his dead wife and the way he cannot speak and Mrs. Lovett wishes for the first time that she had not done this terrible thing.

"'Don't I know you,' she said..."

Mrs. Lovett trembles, wiping sweaty palms on the already soiled skirts of her dress. And then he turns to her, and his eyes are so dark, so black with hatred that she presses a hand to her chest and staggers backward, eyes wide, as her heart beats a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

"You lied to me..."

And she gives a hysterical laugh as she pleads with him, backing slowly away as he comforts her, but something is so wrong about this that she does not stop until her back is pressed against the brick wall and still her instinct screams to move, to get away from him. And then he smiles, and her heart stops.

"What's dead is dead."

He pulls her to him, his arms surprisingly strong, and she stifles a sob, resting her head on his shoulder. Mr. Todd leads her quickly away from the wall and the walk together, almost a dance, never breaking contact. His hand finds its way to her waist, and the other grasps her wrist tightly. His roughness almost makes tears spill down her cheeks, but she doesn't care because he is touching her and he loves her and he will take her to the sea.

She is murmuring to him now, excited whispers about the seaside and their marriage echoing around the bakehouse filled with nothing but the dead, but he cuts her off, whirling around quickly. And Mrs. Lovett knows he remembers. He taught her to dance so many years ago, and now he was reassuring her in the same way. Soon they are spinning, spinning through the cellar. Faster and faster they twirl, and just as she leans toward him to kiss his bright red lips and caress the crimson lines on his face, his mouth turns into a sneer and she feels the most unbearable pain of her life, and as agony wrenches through her soul and body, Mrs. Lovett hates to think his breathless laugh is the last sound she will ever hear