My first Sweeney Todd fanfic – hope it's not too bad. Tell me what you think of it. Love.

During these cold and lonely nights, time seems to race at a speed that takes her breath away.

She lies alone. She is used to it – her Albert died so long ago, and though she cried over her loss, sleeping alone was close enough to relief. Yet it is painful, an ache in her heart that seems to worsen every night. Her body is cold and hollow with loneliness. You can't babble to yourself at the middle of the night, you just can't and as the silence drags, the familiar ticking makes her want to scream.

Tick tick tick – she knows that it isn't real, she knows, it is inside her mind. Tick tick tick – the clock, the noises of the street. The low footsteps of the pacing man, the restless soul above her head. It keeps chanting around her, and she wants to put her hands over her ears, yet she knows that it will carry on in her head, and she doesn't want that, she won't stand it.

Tick tick tick – the seconds go by lazily, and the night slides away. Another day – she'll babble her way through it, she'll smile and pat her Toby's head and fight, when he is in her eyesight, not to let his misery get to her and the fact that he is so, so far away, she'll never reach his heart, when he is not, not to let the hollowness swallow her soul.

Another night. The ticking goes on. Her life goes by, and the sea is there somewhere, so far away. How do they manage it, those people who have peace and happiness? She deserved it, too.

He will never be whole. Neither will she.