A/N: Thanks to Resplendent Shadows, CaptainKrueger, ShadowoftheblackrOSe, Scarlett Masquerade, MireuiLovett1846, ncsigirl, linalove and AngelofDarkness1605 for reviewing! I'M FINALLY FINISHED ALL MY STUDIES FOR THIS YEAR!!!! WOOT!!! Fanfic here I come!!! Now I can update PROPERLY!! =DDDDD
~Surprises~
It came to her a little past midnight.
To Mrs E. Lovett.
There was no address. No sender.
Someone had slipped it under her door. She had not heard footsteps – she never did.
By the time she looked down and saw the gleaming white envelope of the letter, the messenger had long disappeared.
And she barely had the strength to get out of bed and pick it up.
"Another flamin' letter," she wheezed, pulling herself up onto her elbows and slowly easing out of bed.
Her steps were unsteady. Her arms flailed without the sturdy support of nearby chairs, desks, walls. She had to learn to walk all over again.
"Pretty soon you'll be runnin'," she convinced herself. Strong enough to outrun the Judge, that's the aim.
Nellie could not bend her knees yet. Instead, she crawled the rest of the short distance, and clasped the letter to her nightgown.
Twenty minutes later, she was back up in bed, the letter sliced open and read.
Mrs Lovett put it on the pile with the others. Letter number seven.
She was not worried about being discovered; the Judge was far away at some floozy's boudoir.
There was a loose space in the mattress – she would hide them there before his return.
The beadle was also out. He had ducked his head in an hour ago, given her an awful leer, and followed his master down the stairs into the coach.
Mrs Lovett had the strong sensation that if it weren't for the Judge's "protection", Beadle Bamford would have done more than sneer at her doorway at every given opportunity.
As for the Judge – he had not spoken to her since the candle-burning incident.
Altogether, she was more than a little surprised. He had not attempted to injure her or insult her. Nor had he come to her in the middle of the night to have his way with her, as she had expected.
He had simply forgotten her.
She could often hear his footsteps pacing up and down the corridors below. At times he stopped outside her door, as if he were about to turn the knob and enter, but always, the footsteps retreated. For the entire week, Nellie had seen only the two maids. They had said nothing of import, except to comment on how well she was looking.
If having her left eye close over in an incurable scar meant she was looking "well" – Nellie shuddered to think how she must have looked three months ago.
Three months.
She had been in captivity for three months. Could she recall the last time she had seen the sun?
Not that it mattered, Nellie supposed.
Even when she had technically been 'free', she had only that one special picnic in the park with Toby and Mr Todd to cherish. The only sunny summer afternoon she had been exposed to after months of working in the gloomy bakehouse quarters chopping up arms and legs and goodness knows how many other body parts. Perhaps that accounted for the reason Mrs Lovett wasn't overly distraught by the lack of air and atmosphere.
It was the Judge that had her wanting to drive needles into her flesh.
"Well Mr T," she said sternly, contemplating the letters . Nellie had grown used to talking to herself in her frequent solitude. It helped to distract her from the past.
The letter had not moved from Mrs Lovett's night desk for the past two hours.
She had memorised every word, every curve and turn and scribbled scratch of ink.
Sweeney's pen. Tortured, messy, barely decipherable – so typically his.
Until now, the former baker had never witnessed his handwriting.
Now that it lay before her, glowing guiltily beneath the candlelight, Mrs Lovett knew beyond all doubt that it belonged to him.
Dear Eleanor, it read:
I had not expected that night…to find you in such a state.
If you have bothered to read my other letters…you will know how this has affected me.
Your silence has me in two minds: I believe you are ignoring me, and that you are right to ignore me. I would act the same.
I cannot help but wonder…if your silence speaks a far graver danger…to your health.
What if in between now and the last moment we spoke, he has harmed you? I am sure you are alive…I must hope that you are alive.
But a person…a woman may be alive in only one sense of the word. If he has hurt you…if he has touched you – I could not bear it.
You know it is only a matter of time before I turn his neck into a necklace of blood.
Can you understand it? I cannot fathom it. I admit. I confess it.
I wanted to harm you that night. I wanted you to suffer more than any human being has suffered.
I wanted you dead in the worst manner possible. And now I am concerned for your safety.
How am I to reconcile such feelings? How am I to convince you of my sincerity, when I do not even know the reason myself?
Why is it that I must write letter after inane letter, when every night I stand outside your door?
Why is it that I cannot tell it you myself?
I think you know the answer.
Sweeney.
Had Mrs Lovett being given all the time in the world, she could not have deciphered its meaning.
The sentiment – the words did not ring true. How could they be true? Sweeney was not capable of such remorse or tenderness.
Benjamin, perhaps, but that man had died in the same fire Mrs Lovett had almost perished. Wished she had perished.
For half a moment she wondered if the Judge had written them as a cruel joke – but that was not possible either.
The Judge could never feign confusion or uncertainty; all that Nellie knew of him was his confidence, his seductive assurance. The Judge could not have written something so honest.
The best she could come up with was that Sweeney had somehow found a secret passageway that connected from the basement to the hallway outside Mrs Lovett's secret room.
What else could explain it? It wasn't possible for Sweeney to slaughter one of Turpin's red guards every single evening without alerting the Judge...
"You can't write him back," Nellie told herself firmly. "If you do, you'll just give him wot 'e wants. He wants me to make him feel betta. But I won't do it. He don't deserve it."
"Mrs Lovett!"
A door slammed, and a voice rang up from the bottom of the stairs.
Beadle Bamford. The slime-ridden cock-roach infested toad.
Deliberately, Mrs Lovett did not answer. Let him think I'm asleep, she thought.
Quickly, another man entered, and his voice, though quiet, filled the hall. "I must see her."
Judge Turpin.
Nellie swallowed. She seized the letters – she could not let him search the mattress.
She burned them. The candle was hungry, and devoured the papers as a pauper swallows scraps.
"What is that smell?"
The Judge had decided she was worth talking to again.
He had lost no time bounding up the stairs, parcel under arm, unlocked the door and burst in to find her feeding the final scrap of paper to the avaricious mouth of the flame.
"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously, half-wondering if she was planning to throw another candle at his chest.
"Nothing, sir."
By the time the Judge crossed the room, all that was left of Sweeney Todd's remorse was lumped into a neat pile of ashes beneath the candle.
What could he do? The Judge took the candle, put it on the floor, and sat on the end of her bed. If he suspected foul play, he did not voice his concerns.
"I've brought you a gift," he confessed, handing the parcel to her tentatively.
"You can't buy me sir," Nellie insisted, leaving the parcel untouched in her lap.
"Open it," Turpin insisted.
"I can't."
He looked at her damaged hands. Slowly healing, but still damaged.
"Of course," he murmured, and undid the tricky wrapping himself. Even to hold it, the Judge was spellbound. The artist had executed her likeness superbly.
"How did you manage it?" she breathed, after he had placed the miniature portrait upright in her lap. She too, was evidently impressed.
"I had your old wedding portrait salvaged from the…scene. I asked the artist to paint you twenty years older…and that is the result," he finished, as if he had painted it himself.
"I almost look…comely," the woman said, putting the portrait down sadly.
"You are far more than comely, my dear," the Judge intercepted, finding himself on familiar territory at last. "Even in your current state, you are beautiful."
"Not wot you said last week."
"Think, Madam, from my perspective. Any woman who has just attempted to drown herself is hardly palatable."
"You can't win me with gifts," she repeated, stone-faced.
The Judge got to his feet. "Will you join me for breakfast tomorrow?"
"Why? Aren't you afraid I'll stab you with my fork?"
"As you've pointed out, my dear – it is useless to buy you. I could have you now, should I so desire. But you are not Lucy. It would be an insult to your intelligence, if I did not give you the benefit of the chase."
Mrs Lovett stared. "Wot in flamin' jesus does that mean?"
Turpin smiled. "It means, my dear, tomorrow we are going on a little excursion."
"Wot?!" Nellie sat up on the bed. "Where? Wot?"
He patted the edge of her bed, smirked and left.
Long after the Judge had locked the door and descended the stairs, Nellie watched the slow burn of the candle drown itself in its own fleshy wax.
What was happening to London's men? Sweeney Todd was writing letters-of-confession, and Judge Turpin didn't want to take advantage of a captive helpless woman.
Well, Mrs Lovett thought wryly, remembering how much strength she had required to cut the sinew and muscle and fat from the bodies of men. Not quite helpless.
Despite herself, the baker thought of Sweeney, and wondered how many innocent people had met his formidable friends now that the barber was unleashed on London.
* * *
Hmmm is Sweeney capable of remorse? Is Judge Turpin faking it? Questions, questions, questions!
Sorry for the LATE update - I miss hearing from you guys!