Notes: I want to stress again that this is an AU, and that Victorian London was right in the middle of the industrial era. I'm sorry for the rambling in this chapter, but it's necessary. I promise you the next one will be full of action and dialogue.

Also, this story was posted and proofread at two in the morning. If you find any typos or errors, please PM me and I will fix them.

Toby had been procrastinating all day. He had barely picked at breakfast, which had caused Mrs. Lovett to become concerned and suggest that he might be becoming ill; But Toby knew why he had no apetite, and it had nothing to do with illness.

It had everything to do with sickness.

Toby felt sick, though he knew he wasn't ill. He was feeling queasy, his stomach churning while his mind went over and over the facts. They had to be facts, so why hadn't he run to the coppers? Why was he still here in the shop, trying to get up the courage to ask the kindest woman he knoew whether she was an accomplice to murder? Part of Toby's sickness was confusion. He didn't understand how, if what he suspected (so foul in itself that he didn't think he could look at a piece of meat the same way ever again) was true, he could possibly want to protect Mrs. Lovett. He didn't understand how she could be so kind, so loving, and yet so... cold.

The conflict must have shown on his face, his expression made it painfully obvious that he was thinking of something far more serious than stacking plates.

Mrs. Lovett put a sign up on the front door that read 'closed' and drew the curtains shut. She turned to Toby, her face the perfect picture of motherly concern. Toby wondered whether it was fake and his stomach seemed to drop. A sense of vertigo made the room spin, Toby's eyes found a small stack of innocent pasties; Would he be serving customers in a different fashion someday soon?

Mrs. Lovett was at his side before he knew what was going on, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. "Are you alright there, luv?" she asked, worry pitching her voice lower than normal. "Are you feeling ill? Do you want me to fetch you some tea?"

Toby, who had continued to stare at the pasties, dragged his eyes away from the mangled and broiled remains to look at his benefactor. Something of his fears must have showed.

"Toby..." The baker didn't seem to know how to continue. She stood there looking at him, floundering for something to say. A sad smile appeared on her face and Toby wondered whether she had guessed that he knew. "Shall we sit down?" Mrs. Lovett asked, "and have a tot of gin?"

Toby forced himself to nod, knowing that it was a much stiffer nod than he normally would have given. "Yes ma'am," he agreed softly, unable to raise his voice any louder.

Mrs. Lovett shuffled past to retrieve her gin. When she returned Toby was already seated, staring at the top of the table he sat at, procrastinating again. He remained quiet as Mrs. Lovett poured him a drink. He waited until she had one of her own before he spoke.

"Mrs. Lovett," Toby said, frowning at the table top, "I've been doing some thinking... I want you to know that I'm real grateful to you for taking me in and giving me a job when Signor Pirelli disappeared, but that's just it. That's part of what I've been thinking about... Signor Pirelli never left, did he? I think I woul dhave seen him. He would have gone right past that window there, only I wasn't thinking about it at the time. And if Signor Pirelli never left, then I think he must be dead ma'am." Toby glanced up at Mrs. Lovett to see her face, then quickly glanced away again. "I guess I dont mind about Signor Pirelli that much. He wasn't a nice man and... I mean, I would never have got this place here, with you. You're the best thing what has ever happened to me, ma'am. And that's why this is so confusing...

I knew something was wrong," Toby continued, feeling tears prickle in his eyes, staring resolutely at the table, "when I first met Mr. Todd. He was acting all strange, strange for a barber I mean, but I didn't pay it no mind. He's always been cold, but that's not what bothers me. I been here a while now and I started to notice how not every one of his customers comes out of his shop again. And he never eats your pies, and you don't neither..." Toby took a deep breath to compose himself, blinking back the threat of tears. "The meat in the pies," Toby spoke quietly, afraid to look up and see Mrs. Lovett's facade crumble, "it's people isn't it? People what Mr. Todd kills..."

Toby looked up in time to see Mrs. Lovett's mouth begin to open. "I wont tell," he interrupted her before she could make a sound, dismayed to find that he spoke the truth. He really wouldn't tell. He couldn't. Not with what they'd do to her if anyone found out. "Not a soul, ma'am. I just want to know why... how you can do it? How can you stand it?"

Mrs. Lovett drew a square of fabric from a pocket in her skirt, offering the worn down square of cotton to him in silence. Toby realised he was crying. He swiped angrily at his tears, ashamed that he would cry. Boys his age were not meant to cry.

"Toby," Mrs. Lovet gentled, no facade was lifted, a touch of regret making her sound old, "dear Toby... It's not at all what it seems, luv. It's not as bad as it seems. Mr. Todd... well, let me tell you a story."
Toby looked at her, doubt shining through his tearful, red-rimmed eyes. Mrs. Lovett shook her head. "You'll see, Toby..."

"Many years ago there was a young man who was deeply in love with his young wife. She was a beautiful young lady, a real nice lady, so nice that nobody could ever really hate her no matter how much they tried. Her name was Lucy. They had a wonderful life together, Lucy and her husband, what with him renting out the shop upstairs for his business and her looking after their little baby girl. They led a real charmed life. Only nothing that good and beautiful lasts forever.
There was this Judge, a cruel man what didn't care that Lucy was married or in love with her husband. He wanted her for his own, he craved her like nothing else and he was not happy when she turned him down. So this Judge had Lucy's husband arrested. Convicted of theivery what he had never done, an innocent young man was sent away to a prison camp in a land far away, forever exiled.

Of course Lucy was distraught. She was a woman alone now, with no way to support herself or her daughter, still so in love with her convict husband. No matter how many times the Judge asked for her she would never hear him out... Until one night, when he sent his beadle to ask for her. The beadle delivered a message from the Judge that said he was sorry, that he had realised his mistake and had wrongly sentenced her husband. It asked her to go straight to his house where they could begin to set things right.

When she got there the Judge was nowhere in sight. There was a party with everyone in masks so she couldn't tell who was who. Lucy asked to see the Judge but no-one would tell her where he was. He was only waiting. Once Lucy had begun to dispair, disorientated by the drink that had been pressed upon her, the music, and all of the loud talking, the Judge appeared. In full veiw of everyone at that fancy party, he violated her. Though she screamed and cried, nobody would help her, they just laughed at her instead.

When it was over Lucy ran straight to the apothecary. She was in deep despair, everything had been taken from her she thought. He husband, her virtue and faithfulness to him, her child would surely die if she didn't find a way to pay for food. In her sadness she swallowed poison, leaving her baby girl behind.

When the Judge heard what had happened he came and took Lucy's baby. He raised the girl in his house, pretending like she was his own. She was kept locked up inside, hardly ever allowed out of the house even for a moment. That would have been the end of it, Toby, but finally, many years later, Lucy's husband escaped. He changed his name and made his way back to London to be with his wife and daughter... Only he didn't find them, did he? All that kept him going through those years was gone, taken by the Judge that had exiled him. The only thing left behind was his old shop upstairs, and the hope that someday he would find revenge for what had been done. Revenge, and a way to free his daughter from the Judge's grasp.

Time and again the Judge eluded him, always protected, never alone, and never darkening the doorstep of the shop upstairs..."

"He went mad," Toby summarised, glancing up at the ceiling where he knew Mr. Todd would be pacing the length and breadth of the shop. "But you..."

Mrs. Lovett placed a hand over one of Toby's smaller hands, her eyes sad. "I think I went a bit mad a long time ago, back when poor Albert passed away, God rest his soul. And, well, it is a profitable business," she added, the lack of remorse making Toby cringe. Mrs. Lovett sighed. "Go on with you," she said, pulling her purse from its usual hiding place. She selected a penny and gave it to Toby, who noticed now that the purse was one that had belonged to Pirelli. "Why don't you have the rest of the day to yourself, 'ey? Go buy yourself some of them nice toffees and just have a think about things..."

Toby saw Mrs. Lovett's pleading, worried look and nodded. He stood. Suddenly, and impulsively, he quickly moved around the table until he could give the baker a quick hug. "I wont tell anyone anything," Toby said again, a promise this time. Then he fled, before things could get any more confusing than they already had.

Toby's wanderings ranged far and wide. Thanks to Mrs. Lovett's generosity he looked like a respectable young lad, dressed in the trousers, shoes, shirt and vest that he regarded as his shop clothes. Dressed this way vendors and shopkeeps no longer eyed him warily from the second he appeared, leaving him free to browse their wares without fear of persecution. Toby looked in shops, rifling through stacks of books, trinkets, and other such things. He was preoccupied with other things. He touched the large silver coin in his pocket repeatedly as he thought about Mrs. Lovett.

This change was because of her too. He knew without any doubts that had he been dressed in the clothes he had worn in the workhouse, or with Signor Pirelli, these shopkeepers would have turned him away. In the workhouse Toby had not seen a wage, simply working not to get tossed out on to the street. Pirelli had been much the same, if he worked well enough he didn't get a quick whipping with the Signor's cane. But Mrs. Lovett... she had bought him new shoes and a new set of clothes. She gave him a room of his own and never stinted when it came to food.
She even paid him a weekly wage, though Toby didn't see it directly. Instead each week Mrs. Lovett put away a little money for him into an account she had opened at the bank. It was meant for when Toby was older, or for if he ever required a sum of money larger than that for sweets. Mrs. Lovett gave him money for sweets too, he remembered, feeling the coin in his pocket again.

Instead of buying toffees Toby found himself at a baker's, where he bought himself a large, sticky fruit bun. He found a seat in the square and sat brooding while he ate, every so often throwing crumbs for the hopeful pidgeons that gathered. Mrs. Lovett was the closest thing to a mother he could remember having. It didn't feel right for him to run away and leave her alone with Mr. Todd, who if he cared at all had a very strange way of showing it. Just the same it didn't feel right to remain an unwitting accomplice to such awful crimes.

Toby got up and walked again. He didn't realise where he was walking to until he had gotten there. A large factory, pouring noxious smoke into the sky, the building at once familiar and disturbing. The workhouse. It was a textile mill and even from the street he could hear the deafening clack and whir of machanised looms. He was lucky to have all of his fingers, he remembered plenty of boys with missing fingertips, cut off trying to rescue an errant thread or just having come too close to the shuttle.

Toby could remember what happened to those unfortunate boys. No doctor, and beatings for wasted thread, wasted time, and blood that needed to be cleaned from machinery and floors. He remembered the dormitory upstairs, footsteps passing over his bed at night, frightened whimpers and the dead, solemn stares of the better looking young boys.

Toby turned away, fists clenched, just in time to notice a pick-pocket making off with the few pence he'd had left after buying the fruit bun. Toby started to go after the pick-pocket, a tall gangly youth in a battered coat, but stopped after just two steps. The older lad was too far away to catch. Besides, he looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. This thought in mind, Toby just watched the lad go, his eyes drawn to a beggar at the mouth of an alley the pickpocket had disappeared through.

The great London, most civilised place on the planet. A gray, drizzly city filled with smoke, mud, and beggars. They were everywhere these days, old and young, homeless, stark reminders of how easily misfortune can befall us. They shared alleyways and street corners with whores, often in clusters near the opium dens, begging for a blissful puff of smoke to make their fortunes temporarily disappear.

Even if Mrs. Lovett wasn't arrested if someone told the police about Mr. Todd, she would surely be put out of business. Nobody would buy from her ever again, nobody would trust her. In all likelihood she would become one of those ragged faces that lined the streets. As bas - as misguided - as she might be, Toby couldn't let that happen to her. He couldn't leave her either, not like that. She was in constant danger, not just from Mr. Todd. It stood to reason that if Toby could put it together then so could someone else, and that person wouldn't care whether Mrs. Lovett was arrested or not.

That settled things, Toby sighed. He would have to stay and help her, to take care of her, just in case one of those lurking dangers raised its head.