Noticing

It was about three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon when Sweeny Todd began to notice his wife. Even in London, the city of sin and filth, he had rarely paid her much attention, and marrying her had changed nothing. Well…almost nothing. He had periodically tumbled her, almost against his will, (for he had never thought of the idea and it was never an agreement to do the thing, only the fact that he had not said no or stopped her that meant that the deed occurred,) when they had lived in London. Now they rarely slept at the same time, let alone in the same bed. Bothering himself to think about it, he realized that he hadn't touched her in over six months. The last time he had touched her, it was to keep her from falling as she climbed into the carriage with 'just married' painted on a piece of plywood dragging behind them. She hadn't been smiling. Neither had he.

Something inside the seaside little cottage was cooking; he could hear the sizzle, smell the grease. Funny, her cooking was actually more-than-decent, she had just never been able to afford the right ingredients until he and his human-meat had come along. Here by the seaside, they got along on his barbering the tourists and her occasional sale of pies. Being by the sea, they contained fish and sometimes potatoes or onions or both, but they sold well. She had a cart she sold them off, not a shop, though. And he had a stand. But it was a living.

He had never really noticed her before, to be honest. It had been the vendetta, and then the mourning, and then just…himself. Depression, he supposed, in his more lucid moments. But he couldn't remember ever looking at her, really looking at her, not once. His eyes had skimmed her body on a rare occasion or two, but it was only a passing glance, a half-scan. And the tumbles had always been her idea, not his. Not that he hadn't taken some small pleasure from them, he had. He had just never paid all that much attention. Because it wasn't important compared to his revenge, he had paid it…her…no notice.

Though he couldn't say what had brought him to notice her, it was like a stirring in his mind. Like his brain had been sleeping, turned off, and it was slowly waking back up, stretching out little by little. He noticed that she hadn't been…herself. Her bodice was laced properly. She barely looked at him, let alone spoke to him. There were no songs as she made pies, no sideways glances. No seductive biting of her full lower lip. She mostly just walked on the beach, or stood there, looking out into the waves.

He noticed that she always smelled like salt now, not like flour. She smelled salty and metallic, like the sea…like blood. And as he almost wondered why, his mind flashed back to his final kill.

"Mr. Todd, please." He could hear the desperation in her voice, in that frail little whisper. Hear how badly she wanted to keep Toby.

"Hush."

His hand clamping over the boy's mouth. How soft his face was, still that of a child's, how Toby struggled only for a moment, opening his mouth to bite the hand that silenced him. And then…the cut. The lightning-quick blade sliding across his throat. Like slicing through butter, it was. How the boy struggled for a few moments before he went limp, his weight becoming dead. How his body hit the stone floor with a thud, an air of finality to the noise. Like he was a sack of potatoes. Like he was meat. Like he was headed for a pie-pan.

The whimper that tore from her throat. The sob. How she seemed to move so fast to his body, but at the same time, how her feet dragged on the stone. The lurching drop to her knees as she slowly pulled his heavy little body into her arms, his dark head resting in the crook of her elbow. How her tears and his blood ran onto her skirt. And the sobs, like her heart was breaking.

How could you, she asked him. And he answered simply. He could see her heart break in two; it was so painfully obvious in her expression.

The wavering song, the last lullaby. And how it cut off abruptly as he walked from the cellar, closing the door behind him. How his own heart was broken, and so hers didn't matter.

He wouldn't call the realization an acceptance of guilt, or an acceptance of any kind. Only a realization. A noticing that she wasn't herself. That she was…broken.

"Dinner." She called, but her voice lacked the life, the energy, the her-ness of her voice. He noticed that it was the one thing that she consistently said to him. How she didn't bother telling him to shed his shoes or to close the door. How she didn't look at him over the table, only wait until he had finished to clear up the dishes, to wash them and put them away in one of their two cupboards.

He noticed that he didn't speak to her either and wondered, as his mind began to awaken, to shed the grey curtains of mourning, if that was why she was silent.

"Dinner was good."

It was perhaps the only compliment he had ever given her. The old Mrs. Lovett…well he supposed she was Mrs. Todd now…would have said something roguish or flirtatious. She might have given him a flash of her breasts, an extra shake in her backside. She did none of these things, only gave a little nod as she walked out the door to watch the sea.

He noticed that something was changing in him. And that in her, the change had already occurred.

Alrighty boys and girls! This is going to be a three or four-chapter fic, I think. So we'll see how everything goes with the next chapter and from there I'll decide where I want to go from there. I really wanted Mrs. Lovett and Sweeny to both end up happy in the end because their lives pretty much sucked. So this is me making an attempt. Reviews please? They are love.