A/N: Yes, I know - shoot me! It's very late, but I have legitimate excuses this time! Uni work - plus sending off my novel to the publishers kept me busy the past few weeks. =D But I'm back, and we're all going to get a little crazy with this chapter. Thanks for reading and reviewing - you all know who you are!
~Fail~
"You fail, sir," sneered the Judge, staring at the raised pistol as if it were a mere child's toy. "I suggest you learn to load your weapons before facing your foe."
He grasped Nellie tightly by the arm, and began to haul her away from the middle of the empty square.
Sweeney tossed the gun aside, unable to fathom….so many things. Why the weapon didn't work. Why the only woman in London with a scrap of pity left had betrayed him. Why a monster won all the women worth winning in the world. Why he was condemned to suffer. Why, why –
"You shall hang, Mr Todd," said the Judge, curdling his words with pleasure. "The law is upon you as we speak!"
The sound of bells rang true. Down the end of the street, Sweeney heard the clang of several bells, and saw the black helmets of officers wielding bludgeons. He would rot in gaol again – be sent off to that hellish island – or worse still – hung.
"You is mad, Mr T," was the last thing he heard the baker shout after him. The Judge had led her away. And she wouldn't think of him any more.
Briefly, he wondered if he might overpower the officers, steal a bludgeon, and go after the Judge…"No." Even in his head, the plan sounded folly. He needed to return to his original method. If he could not lure the Judge to him, he would have to wait by the villain's house – night after night, until he found a way to sneak in unseen and slit his throat until the skin bled dry with that longed for river of blood.
"Until then, mighty Judge Turpin," he said to the now-empty square. He picked up a fallen apple and loaf of bread, and made for the alley.
The sounds of the bells filling the square, and the shuffling and shouts of people coming alive out of the rubble came long after the Demon Barber had fled into the dens and secret nooks where the filth of London thrived.
The Judge whisked her along the now filled up streets.
"I know of a skilled surgeon, my dear."
"Oh." She kept her tone even. "And wot could I be needin' him for?" Wot was all this talk of doctors, then? Hadn't he promised to take her out for a treat? Take her away from the madness in her head – the same thread of Sweeney Todd actin' and speakin' as if he were truly hers and they were in a wind-swept cottage by the sea – wasn't the Judge supposed to be helpin' her, not pushin' her closer to the cliff-edge?
He was weaving them quickly along the main road, knowing that the barber could be on their heels any moment. Turpin's mind raced fast. The woman was shaken by his reappearance – clearly. Her mental state was already fragile – that was also well established. There only need be another little incident of this sort to topple her over the edge. Yet there may be a remedy, if Turpin could only remember the house number –
"A pity the Beadle is dead," muttered the Judge, walking briskly with his prize clinging to his arm with the ferocity of a crab tethered to a rock before the coming tide.
They stopped before a white marble house with an elegant black door and a brass-lion knocker. A doctor's name was engraved in gold beside the door.
"He will help you, Eleanor," said the Judge in that thriftless tone of voice designed to show his generosity.
She scoffed. "Help me 'ow? Turn me into one of them mindless women you've doubtless locked up in Bedlam?" Her good eye accused him – smooth, liquid ebony – but as hard as a vulture's when trapped. "You won't 'ave me that way Turpin – don't even think on it!"
"I'm afraid that decision is not yours to make," he said seriously, appraising the still scarred side of her face – the more than slightly wounded eye – the false red curls masking tufts of short brown hair. He would make her new again – and she would thank him for it.
Nellie caught the fever in his eye – and it terrified her more than Sweeney's wild waving of the pistol in St Dunstan's square.
"Let me go," she said determinedly, as the door swung open to reveal a young maid bowing and bobbing her head like a newly fed lamb. "Send me anywhere – Fogg's asylum, if you like – but not this." She couldn't know the truth of it – but Mrs Lovett had an inkling of what the Judge had planned for her. Had she been in her right mind anyway – to trust such a man? Where had it let her?
"I've a patient here," insisted the Judge, pushing past the maid and propelling Nellie straight through.
This must have been a snippet of wot poor Lucy felt that night, Mrs Lovett thought, coming face to face with the surgeon in the hallway.
"What should I do with her?" he asked the Judge.