A/n: Hey all my Sweeney readers! Sorry if this chappie seems a bit FANDANGLED (rushed/slapped together) That's my word for the day lol. But according to it also means: "To do eveything *but* have sex with some one, normally during a night of drunken passion whereby the act is practically impossible." I guess that kind of fits the Judge's sick thinking, right? Anyway, some of you asked how it's possible for Nellie to have survived being chucked in the oven. Answer: I don't really know. You're just going to have to trust me, and believe that Nellie somehow survived. After all, we all believed in the tooth fairy once, didn't we? =D Ready for another chapter of sick, twistedness? Here we go!
"Pretty women," Judge Turpin hummed on his way to visit his patient. It was a nice, overcast day in London. Now that he'd sentenced three men to the gallows, his mood had improved considerably, and by god, he was going to enjoy himself today.
To say that Judge Turpin was a perverted monster was a slight understatement. To call him a generous, benevolent sort of man would be an outright lie – but, as all perverts will swear, Judge Turpin swore under the eyes of God that he was a decent man.
He had, after all, saved a woman from certain death. He had the whole of London out looking for that killer, the scoundrel Mr Todd.
"Buh-ba-da-dum, da-dah-dum…"
It didn't even enter his head that keeping a woman locked up in the basement of your house was a criminal offence. He was the law, after all.
"Ah, pretty women," he sang, feeling a spring in his step as he descended down the stairs.
* * *
Eleanor Lovett couldn't speak. She didn't even know her name. But she could smell fear. Sweeney!
Her large, unburnt eye swivelled over to the woman nursing her.
"There, there, miss," said the young maid, Mary. "All will be right, you'll see. You need your rest, that's all." Of course, Mary was lying through her teeth. There was no hope for this woman. Any fool could see that. She gathered up the filthy, blood-soaked gauzes and tossed them into a wicker basket.
Yes, Nellie could smell the fear.
Mary went around the corners of her bed, tucking them in, smoothing them down. But she wouldn't move a step closer to that bed. That thing lying there in the bed wasn't human.
Mary was young, but she certainly wasn't stupid. It was common knowledge that the great Judge Turpin was a pervert, but this – this was a new low, even for him. How could he do that to a human being? Keep her locked up here, day after day?
"How's she doing?"
Mary turned. "Bertha," she said, rushing over to the older maid, "I give up. Just look at her! What's the point? She's just going to die anyway."
Nellie heard them clearly. Clear as the church bells that pealed outside the window each day. She's just going to die anyway. Nellie barely knew who she was, but it still stung.
"Hush!"
They both looked at Nellie guiltily. But neither of them supposed she could hear them. To them, she was a broken little twig about to crumble into ash.
Bertha all but pushed Mary out the door. "We ain't being paid t' question. An' the Good Lord will judge who lives an' who dies. Now be off with ye! The Judge is comin' down for a visit!"
Mary gathered up the basket under her arm, and gladly disappeared.
Not more than five minutes later, the Judge appeared in the room. He was quite put out, considering he'd had to walk down two flights of stairs. He was expecting results.
The room was well hidden. Only the doctors, maids, and servants had access to that dim, pathetic quarter.
"Well?" The Judge was standing in the doorway, looking straight at the old maid. "How is she?"
"You'd best see her for yerself, sir." Bertha moved aside, and went to the curtained window. She pulled the heavy drapes across. Filthy afternoon sun spilled through. Turpin saw every inch of the battered, bandaged woman lying in the bed.
At first, Turpin thought she was asleep. Or dead. But eventually, the power of the sun somehow stirred some sort of life into her. Her head turned slowly, painfully. Her left eye swivelled, large and wounded, looking straight at him. It reminded him of the expression he'd seen on rabbits, when he'd been out hunting in the countryside. It had been a pleasure to see his hounds at that final moment tear into their flesh. But the look Nellie gave him was not a brief spasm of pain. It was true suffering.
Nellie Lovett. His burnt little bride. "Do you know who I am?" He asked, moving to her bedside.
Nellie looked at him for a long time. Turpin wondered if her brain was damaged by the fire, as well as her body. He waited her out – but the patience of powerful men will only last so long. "Do you remember?" He pressed.
She struggled. Her eye looked long and hard. It wasn't just blankness there, Turpin decided. She was evaluating him. He considered the little pale cheek, those odd lips. It was tempting to lean over and kiss her then – the Judge loved nothing better than confusion in his victims. Confusion, and helplessness.
And then, when he was about to give up and call it a night, she spoke. "Sw.." she wheezed.
"There! She spoke!" Turpin looked up at Bertha, then at Nellie. He knelt close by her bedside, so that his knees rested on the dusty floorboards.
"I didn't hear nothin'," said Bertha angrily, yanking the drapes shut. It made her sick. It made them all sick, to see him come in and treat the poor woman like some circus monkey in a cage. But who would dare stop him?
"Leave us now," Turpin said coldly, reaching over to clasp one of Nellie's bandaged hands. The minute Bertha was gone, he lifted the candle over the bed, so that it spluttered over Nellie's face.
"Sw..sw…swe.." Nellie began. Who am I? Wot am I? She thought. All Nellie knew was the days and nights. They came every two hours. Feed, change, wash, talk. Feed, change, wash.
But this man. She'd never seen the likes of him before. He was new.
"Go on," the man encouraged, rubbing her bandaged hand.
Nellie stared at him feverishly. He was greying, fifty or sixtyish, she supposed. Tall, with a long, hook nose. Slightly dishevelled, and intense.
But the first thing she noticed were his eyes. They were light and yet dark, and never blinked. They were always on her. She couldn't fathom why.
He wasn't a handsome man, but compared to all the other faces that had come and gone over the past weeks, this was the face that Nellie seized on. Yes, she realised. This was the ghost she'd been hunting for. This was Sweeney!
"Sw-sweeney?"
Suddenly the man's face twisted into a disapproving sneer. "No. Think again, madam."
Nellie was done with names. How could she tell him his name, when she didn't know hers?
"P-p-pl…" That large, well-cared for hand pinned down her own bandaged hand. It hurt. But she couldn't even beg him to move it.
"Try, madam," he implored, his stern face crumpling. "Look upon this face. Is it not at all familiar?"
The pressure on her hand increased. The bandages were fresh, newly wrapped. The Judge didn't seem to notice the pain shooting through her.
Nellie rolled her eyes downward, and watched as the red stickiness oozed onto the white gauze.
Leave me be, she shrieked silently, wishing the man called Sweeney would break up the nightmare. Leave me be!
"Am I not familiar?" he repeated.
He did look familiar. Nellie bit her lip. Even that hurt. Slowly, she moved her head slightly.
No. She didn't remember.
"How ironic," the Judge said coldly, dropping her hand and getting up from the floor. "How ironic it is, that you remember his name. Of all people. And yet you forget mine."
Nellie shut her eyes, wanting to blink out this nightmare. Go away, go away!
"Well, my dear," said the Judge loudly, "since your memory lapses, I will tell you. I am the Judge Turpin, and you, my dear, are being kept alive by me."
Nellie reeled. Turpin. It reminded her of turpentine, that disgusting, strong-smelling oil.
The Judge watched her face contort and wither. Yes, he saw, smirking suddenly. She remembered.
At first the name meant nothing to her. And then she saw him smirk. She had seen that smirk before. And then it came back to her. Strange images. Pies, blood, revenge, Lucy, pies, blood, smack, Sweeney, blood, pies, fingers, toes, Joanna, pies, blood, Sweeney, get-the-bloody-Judge –
And then Nellie seized on one memory. The one memory that refused to go away.
She was standing next to someone – a man. But the man that had stood before her, the one looking at her, had been the Judge.
She'd smiled knowingly at him, giving a slight, provocative curtsey.
"Sir," the Judge had said to the man next to her, frowning distastefully at Nellie, "there are far more pressing matters than pies."
But he'd looked at her again as she'd left somewhere with short, ugly man. And that look, Nellie somehow knew from experience, was lust.
"Have fun, my dear," said the Judge, smiling and closing the door. He'd done his day's work. She remembered, oh how she remembered.
Nellie lay there, shuddering in the dark. She remembered.
* * * *
Well, now that I've made the Judge happy....what about you?
I know I shouldn't say this, but I was reminded of that creepy Austrian Fritzl guy whaever his name keeping his daughter under his house. Hmm maybe I shouldn't have said that. O_O
Reviews?