A/N: Glad you liked my last chap! I betta post this up now - it's 11:30 and I'm falling asleep over my laptop.

"Liar!" Sweeney Todd had bellowed.

For the life of her, Nellie Lovett couldn't be sure what had happened next.

Wot next, wot next?

He'd been angry. Of course, Sweeney had been angry. He might have shouted something.

Ah! Now Nellie remembered.

* * *

Mrs Lovett hadn't planned on saying it. But it had to be said. "Yes I lied coz I loved you," she half-sang.

Poor, blond-drenched Sweeney. There was only poverty in his eyes. No love, Nellie briefly admitted.

But what did it matter whether he loved, when she could love enough for two of them?

"Come here my love," he crooned, dangling his fingers near her like bait before a fish.

They were blood-stained fingers, mind, but Nellie was used to blood.

Did he mean it? Could he really mean it?

Nellie gulped her way through those long-recited words. "Could….we…still…be…married?"

He didn't answer. "Not a thing to fear, my love," Sweeney continued.

Had he heard her?

Nellie thought she had better do as he asked. He looked like he'd hit her if she refused.

"Life is for the alive, my dear," he'd soothed, and coaxed her into his embrace like she was a bee working for his hive.

"Leave it to me," Nellie breathed, faint at the thought of Sweeney's arm around her waist, the other clutching her hand. His skin felt a little like sandpaper, and she savoured the sensation.

He needed a shave, she thought absently, and half-giggled, half-sang:

"By the sea Mr Todd where there's no-one nosy….where we're comfy cosy…."

"By the sea Mrs Lovett, by the sea," he grinned.

Nellie saw their two eyes were twin, dark and glittering-gleaming with thoughts that probably no two other human beings on earth would share.

He was spinning her now, faster than one of them horses on a carousel.

Nelly was giddy with delusion. She sunk into him, gave herself completely to his carriage, and let herself fly around like a child spun by its parent.

She laughed, and those eyes laughed back at her. Those thousand year-old eyes.

And he was singing to her. "The history of the world, my pet."

His pet. His love, his love, his love. How she'd longed to hear those words again. She was his love.

By the sea, by the sea, by the sea. "Oh Mr Todd, Oh Mr Todd…leave it to me…"

Nellie had been certain of one thing: they hadn't finished their dance.

There'd been heat, for one thing. And flames, for another.

A fire, Nellie supposed. There'd been a fire.

Flames like circus lights. Fairy-floss.

And a voice.

"Madam, dear lady," it called. Very far away.

An urgent voice.

Hands prodding her like she was driftwood on the beach.

It wasn't Mr Todd. Mr T never called her Madam.

"Dear lady, wake. You must attend!"

There was smoke. Nellie could smell it inside her.

"Mrs Lovett," the strange voice whispered, close by her ear.

Smoke and smouldering flesh rang in the other ear.

Someone was clinging to her, bearing her up toward the light.

"Madam, stay with me," the voice wheezed through the smoke.

Nellie didn't want to stay. She wanted to float – float away on that carousel where Sweeney was waiting for her.

Where he wouldn't desert her.

* * *

It took Nellie two hours to muster the strength, but somehow she managed to ring the bell.

Now she knew. That voice, all too familiar.

She knew who had done this to her. Turned her into one of those Pompeii statues.

Frozen under volcano ashes, unable to move an eyelid.

She found herself ringing the little silver bell by her bedside.

When she rang it, the maid on guard outside popped her head in. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Judge Turpin," Nellie croaked.

Without another word, the maid fled and returned ghost-faced with Turpin on her heels.

"Yes?"

He straightened his vest coat and smoothed his hair down carefully, but it was clear he had come running. His shoes were unlaced and the bottom of his blood-red night socks poked out.

"What is the trouble?"

It was at this exact point that Nellie realised she had some sort of power over the Judge. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it was power.

"I do rememba," Nellie forced herself to sound strong and confident. Instead, she wanted to empty all the tonic and medicines Turpin had forced down her throat all over his shoes.

Inside, her stomach was grinding – just like the meat in the bakehouse meat grinder, and her head pounded as if it were her old bench being pounded by her rolling pin.

"I rememba me rolling pin," Mrs Lovett found herself whispering. "I baked them pies all day long."

"Good, very good," Turpin soothed falsely. He unwrapped the bandages on her left hand. The top of it was smooth egg white, but her palm was black and torn.

It was marked. She'd clung to the handle of the oven with that hand. It was the only way she could have survived, Turpin realised. He stroked the unblemished skin, and watched her shudder. "You are remembering."

She didn't care then if he killed her next for what she said. Nellie Lovett was as good as dead anyway. Even if Mr T were alive out there somewhere, who would want a woman all burnt and shrivelled up like an overcooked turnip?

"I rememba everythin'. Mr T should've…. cut you up good when…. 'e 'ad the chance."

The Judge flinched. It was nearly imperceptible, but Nellie's eye was on him like a crow.

"Why do you say that, Mrs Lovett?"

"I know it wos you," she hissed. Her eye flashed, darting and furious.

"Clearly, madam, you do not know of what you speak. The fire has addled your mind."

"Don't you patronize me. I ain't no fool." Now she was shaking. "You made me wot I am. You made me a monster." She attempted to lift her arm, but it lay uselessly by her side. "Sweeney," she whispered softly, craning her head slightly towards the curtained window.

The Judge followed her gaze. He couldn't guess what she was thinking of.

"You would not speak so fondly of your partner-in-crime," he said bitterly, "if you "remembered everything" that occurred to you that night."

A little twinge of doubt clung in Nellie's mind. Something about liars and being comfy-cosy but Nellie shrugged it off.

"I says I do," Nellie said quietly. "I rememba the Beadle. I belted 'im ova the 'ead, an' it felt good."

Her large eye was on him now, proud and glittering. The Judge shuddered imperceptibly.

"An' if I 'ad the chance, I'd 'ave popped both u an' 'im inta one o' me pies."

"Thankfully my dear," the Judge sneered, "you no longer have the strength for such debased grotesquery. But perhaps in time," he continued, pressing his lips against the tips of her fingers, "you will have strength enough for other activities."

He smiled, scraped his knees on the floor as he got up. The burnt hand flopped back onto the bed like a lonely leg of meat, waiting to be skinned by a cook.

"And you will learn them, Mrs Lovett," he finished softly.

There was nothing soft, however, in his eyes. They reminded her of a serpent's; watchful, unblinking. Unrelenting.

Nellie was in a pretty addled state. Her arms were shaking and the side of her face felt as if it were peeling off. But she could still guess what the Judge had planned for her.

"Sweeney will find me," Mrs Lovett breathed, nostrils flaring like a bolted horse.

"No, madam." Turpin's lips quirked upwards in a delightful smile. "I think you will find, he will not."

"He will," Nellie persisted.

The Judge was at the door now, his hand drawing it ajar so that light spilled across his head like streams of blood.

"You perplex me, my dear. Why would your Sweeney Todd risk his life to save you?"

"He'll come, he 'ates you. An' wot besides, we is partners, he an' me." Nellie was breathing very ragged now.

There was something the Judge was neglecting to tell her.

"How charming. Even now, you're defending him. I can't understand why." The Judge moved to shut the door.

"Why?" Nellie sensed she was sitting on the edge of some terrible truth, like a crop of land about to tumble down into the sea.

"For one very simple reason, my dear. It was your beloved."

"My beloved wot?"

"Sweeney Todd threw you into the fire," he said simply, as if he were reporting the state of the weather to her.

The door shut. Turpin's voice carried through. "He has cursed you, not I."

* * *

Hope it was ok...if you like it I'll post more on Tuesday/Wednesday depending on reviews. =)