Before Nellie Lovett falls in love with Benjamin Barker, she falls in love with his wife.

She doesn't realize it at first. That sort of love between two women is not something that she's ever seen, read about, or even heard spoken of. She tells herself she is in love with Benjamin because, even if she can never have him either, at least she has the language for loving a man.

It is only once he is gone that she realizes her mistake. It is only after he's been shipped off to Botany Bay for life that Nellie realizes that, although she tried to fool herself into thinking she was in love with him, she never actually succeeded.

Or maybe she never actually tried.

xxx

Lucy weeps into Nellie's shoulder, and Nellie weeps as she holds her, because she hates to see Lucy in pain, wishes she could siphon away all her hurt and infuse it into her own veins. And yet even as Nellie weeps as she holds Lucy, Nellie trembles with forbidden delight at being privileged enough to hold the woman. At being the one Lucy trusts enough to cozy her through the pain.

Or maybe she just doesn't have anyone else, eh, Lovett?

She shoos that thought away as she strokes her fingers through the soft flaxen curls. Dries her own tears upon those curls as Lucy burrows her face deeper into the crook of Nellie's neck. Nellie inhales Lucy's natural perfume of green tea and sorrow and becomes lost in the dream of what she will never be able to call her own, not really, even as she holds it in her arms.

xxx

"You've got to work."

"I cannot."

"You need to make a living wage." Nellie secures the fussing Johanna in her arms, lets the girl toy with her dress and pat the flour on her neck. "You've run Benjamin's savings nearly bone-dry."

Lucy presses her face against the window, looks down at Judge Turpin; he comes by their street twice daily to stand below her window, but Lucy never goes down to greet him. Her breath fogs up the glass. The press of her skin against the panes makes her flesh seem waxen, a smudged reality. "Yes. I know. But I cannot."

"Wake up!" Nellie screams at her, flaring as sudden as a match, because she's just so damn exhausted and frustrated and hurting. "You think this is a joke? Or that it'll pass if you just lie around long enough? Because it's not and it won't, and you've got to do something. I'm at my wits end helping you. I can't keep tending to you and Jo. I can't support all three of us while looking after a child and an invalid, too. Life's not just going to reach out and pick you up – you've got to help yourself."

Johanna starts to cry when Nellie shouts, but Lucy does not so much as flinch. "This is not a choice, Nellie. I'm not choosing to give up. I just – cannot go on."

And when Nellie starts to cry, Johanna dabs curiously at the teardrops with her fingertips, but Lucy remains immobile, lost at the window as she watches the world she thinks she can no longer be a part of. And this makes Nellie cry harder.

xxx

Why does Nellie love Lucy? Nellie tries to come up with reasons, but is left fishing within dry sand. Lucy is everything she is not. Lucy is everything she should despise. Middle-class, at least before she married below her station to the barber who charmed her heart, with a proper governess-instructed education. Proper physical proportions, even without the help of a corset. Symbiotic and dependent upon men to make her way in the world. Wasteful with scraps of food and mendable goods, always throwing away both. Looking so silly when she tries to cook a meal for her husband and ends up getting soot all over her face or getting static in her curls. Frustratingly graceful when she crosses to the door with her floral dresses and soft eyes to let her landlady inside.

Nellie Lovett does not have reasons, but she does have memories. She thinks she first fell in love with Lucy, or at least first began to recognize her own feelings as love, one afternoon strolling through Hyde Park, an afternoon perhaps three months after the Barkers moved into the room above her pie shop. Benjamin had asked her to take Lucy out for the afternoon.

"She gets so lonely while I work, and never wants to venture out alone," he says with an affectionate chuckle. "But you, Mrs. Lovett, you don't seem to mind such independence."

"For better or worse," Nellie agrees.

"So you wouldn't mind terribly chaperoning Lucy and little Johanna about for the day?"

She does mind terribly, in fact: leaving the pie shop in the middle of the day would mean cutting short the lunch rush and possibly hurting the dinner crowd, too. Unlike the Barkers, she and her husband – though they do well for themselves – are not made of money. But he looks at her with such earnestness, and then again nobody ever really looks at her, and so she says yes, even though she hates her own weakness for scraps of affection afterwards. Even though his kind brown eyes burn in her memory the rest of the afternoon with tenderness and love, but not because she loves him – because she needs to convince herself she does.

But she cannot realize any of that consciously until months later, of course.

Lucy tires easily in the sun, so Nellie pushes the pram most of the afternoon, chooses their route through as many shady-areas as possible. Tries hard to keep up a conversation, but has very little to say to the woman. There is very little that they can understand about each other, or communicate about.

As the hour approaches five, Nellie suggests they head home, and Lucy agrees. Passing by St. Paul's Cathedral, they notice a human-shape puddled beneath a slump of tattered blankets.

Fingers already rubbing against her reticule, Lucy draws towards the heap, but Nellie takes her by the arm. Shakes her head.

But Lucy is not versed in silent gestures, or perhaps she's just rather thick. "What is it?" she asks. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Just don't," advises Nellie. "Don't go over there."

"Why?"

Nellie holds back a grunt of frustration. Isn't it self-explanatory? It is not that Nellie is heartless; on the contrary, she has great sympathy for beggars, having been one herself for numerous stints during her childhood. But she could not afford to give away her own hard-earned coins to every Tom and Jane what needed the money when she needed it, too. And even if she could, well, it's their fault for begging in the first place and not even attempting to get a job, isn't it? Nellie has more sympathy for the children; their parents have dragged them to the point of begging, and they do not have the knowledge or means to do better; but the adults should be able to scrape together a more decent living than that.

"Best not to get involved in others' affairs, love," Nellie offers aloud.

Something shifts in Lucy's open features: a slight drawing in of her inquisitive mouth, a shadowing over her cornflower eyes. Her fingers are soft and gentle as ever as she removes Nellie's hand from her arm, but her gait is quick and firm as she turns and crosses to the beggar.

She kneels in front of the human. Says something that Nellie cannot hear as a face emerges from the heap of blankets – a woman's, surprisingly young for such a cracked and broken visage – and says something back. Lucy removes two pennies from her reticule and wraps the beggar's dirty fingers around the coins. Gives her not just the coins, but a smile.

Then she returns to Nellie's side, takes her landlady by the elbow, and guides her forward, and Nellie's limbs obey, legs shuffling forward as her arms push Johanna's pram.

They are halfway home before Lucy finally speaks:

"We are already involved in others' affairs whether we like it or not, Nellie. That is what it means to be human: to be involved with others. Certainly, we can choose to look the other way. But what we pretend does not exist cannot alter what does exist."

"You can't take care of everyone who's needy," Nellie growls; the malice in her voice surprises her but she can't remove it. "It's trying enough to take care of yourself without also trying to save the whole bloody world."

"I never said that I wanted to save the entire world – nor do I believe that I could. I only want to give a tiny bit of assistance to those I encounter who need a hand." Lucy glances sideways at her landlady, but Nellie keeps her eyes ahead; at least one of them has to keep their feet on the ground and their eyes upon the path home, after all. "Sometimes you don't need to save someone, Nellie – sometimes it's just the tiniest kindness that can make a difference."

"Yeah," snorts Nellie, "I'm sure that beggar's going to turn her whole life around just because of your one little scrap of kindness."

They reach 186 Fleet Street. Nellie's itching to go open up her shop and catch at least some of the night crew, but Lucy's fingers are still upon her arm, Lucy's eyes upon her face, and the malice in her veins hums in confusion as warmth kindles in her stomach.

"I am sorry you're so sad, Nellie," says Lucy.

"I'm not sad," says Nellie.

But Lucy does not seem to hear her. Continues to gaze at her with those doe-like eyes and continues to make Nellie's stomach smolder and curdle. "It must be sad," she says, "to have such a view of the world. I hope that, perhaps, one day you will understand that the world is not as terrible as you believe it to be."

She leaves then, sweeping Johanna into her arms and carrying her up the stairs. She leaves and Nellie is alone, still clutching the pram, still fighting against the nauseating warmth in her belly. Nellie is suddenly afraid of what has happened that afternoon, and what has not happened, and what she would like to have happen, and what never can happen so long as they exist upon Earth – which, of course, as humans, they are doomed to do.

xxx

Nellie would do it all if she could, for Lucy. She would take care of Lucy, tend to Johanna, and earn enough money to support them all. For Lucy, Nellie would do it all, and more, because even if Nellie has no reasons, she has the emotions, and even if she cannot save Lucy, she's going to murder herself trying.

But Nellie cannot do it all. Ever since Albert passed, there is not enough money. Ever since the hard times, there is not enough business. Ever since Benjamin was taken away and Nellie suddenly found herself mother to his wife and child, there is not enough time.

So one night, she begins a second job where she takes men into her bed.

It's not hard. She knows all the words to murmur in their ears. Knows just where to massage her fingers or nibble at their skin. Knows how to keep her body active even as she walls off her mind lest the men see the fissures. And it's exhausting, the hours she keeps, but this provides enough money to feed them all without worry, so that proves she is doing the right thing.

Three weeks now that she's kept them afloat. Three weeks, she thinks with pride, her eyelids sagging with longing as she places a last open-mouthed kiss upon her customer's lips – Harry? Henry? doesn't matter, she crooned the right name in his ear earlier, and he's already paid – before grasping his buttocks and pushing him out the door. Before pushing the coins he'd given her into her dress, snug between her breasts. Before noticing Lucy standing upon the balcony, the hem of her floral nightgown swaying in the wind, her own mouth open, too.

"Get back to bed before Johanna notices you're gone," says Nellie with more strength than she feels.

"Who is that?" asks Lucy.

Nellie draws her nightgown more tightly around herself. "I know you're a proper lady what's offended by the slightest case of impropriety, but 's'not your business if I take illicit lovers to my bed."

"If he is a lover, then why did he give you those coins to put down your dress?"

From inside the Barkers' quarters, Johanna begins to cry.

"Jo needs you," says Nellie, but Lucy does not move to tend to her daughter. Just continues to gaze down at Nellie, her parted lips beginning to quiver.

"Why are you doing this?" questions Lucy.

"Your daughter!" Nellie spits. "She needs you!"

"Why are you working as a prostitute when you've already a job in your own shop, Nellie?"

Nellie thunders up the stairs, shoves past Lucy, and enters the room, drawing immediately to the cradle and scooping Johanna into her arms. "Shh, hush now, love, I'm here now, Auntie Nellie's right here . . ."

Lucy follows Nellie back inside like a ghost, her movements silent and steady, feet gliding across the wooden panels. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because," says Nellie, keeping her voice calm for Johanna's sake despite how much she wants to scream, "it's the only way I could think to keep us alive."

Lucy is crying now. Nellie wants to go to her, hold her and comfort her, but something – fury? pride? fear? – stops her.

"I didn't ask you to keep us alive," sobs Lucy. "I didn't ask you to sacrifice yourself like this."

Nellie strokes a soothing palm down Johanna's back, and the babe quiets a little. "What, you think I'm delusion now as well as immoral? I know you never asked. I didn't need you to ask. And it's hardly a 'sacrifice,' love – it's just a job, like any other." Johanna's eyelids flutter closed, and Nellie fits her back inside her crib. "It's just my body. There's worse parts of myself I could damage." Like my heart, she thinks, each tear that cuts across Lucy's cheek cutting across her own skin with a pain that radiates to her core.

"But why are you doing this?" Lucy whispers. Her blue eyes shine like sapphires through her tears, tantalizing and beautiful, but Nellie has never seen anything that makes her heart weep in such earnest. Lucy moves forward but stumbles, hits her knees against the floor. Remains there, gazing up at Nellie. "I don't want to go on – can't you see that? Can't you just let me alone in my misery and stop trying to save me?"

"Stop being melodramatic," Nellie grumbles. "Get up and get to bed." She stalks forward, leans down, and helps Lucy to her feet, but Lucy refuses to stand even with Nellie's assistance. Just hangs there in Nellie's grasp, with her arms dangling over Nellie's shoulders and her torso sagging against Nellie's chest, limp as a corpse. Nellie staggers under their combined weight, only managing to stay upright by leaning against the bureau.

"Because you can't save me, Nellie," chokes out Lucy. "No one can, so it's best not to waste the energy. Take care of Johanna – take care of yourself – but leave me be."

"I can't do that," says Nellie.

"Yes, you can, and you must, because I cannot bear the idea of you continuing to hurt yourself so much to – "

"I don't think I can save you. I didn't say I could. But I can reach out my hand and give you some help. Just takes one little pinch of kindness sometimes, right?"

Nellie smiles, wondering if Lucy remembers, but Lucy just cries harder, her whole body shuddering to the point where Nellie can't stay upright and has to slide them both down to the floor.

Lucy's head droops upon Nellie's shoulder. "I was wrong," she confesses in a whisper. "Sometimes there is no reason to help others, or even yourself. Not when it's this hopeless."

"Stop that," Nellie growls, feeling her anger rise up again.

"I can't," says Lucy, "but you must stop, Nellie, because I won't allow you to throw your life away on mine when it is beyond help, beyond hope – "

Nellie growls again – then, before her mind forbids it, she presses Lucy's lips to her own.

Nellie kisses her, carefully, as if Lucy is a porcelain doll that she's afraid she'll break with even a feather-light touch. As if they'll both break if either realizes what this means.

Lucy is no longer crying when Nellie pulls away, but she is afraid. That Nellie knows right away from the stillness of her face, the quiver in her lips. Nellie wants to kiss her again, kiss away the fear, but of course the kiss is why the fear exists, and you cannot erase what exists with its very reason for existence. So Nellie only stands, pulling Lucy up with her, and this time Lucy supports her own weight.

"Go to bed," Nellie instructs, and like a repentant child who's been scolded, Lucy goes. And Nellie goes down the stairs into her own bed, feigning sleep until the sun finally creeps through her window and whispers that she no longer has to.

xxx

When Nellie brings up a breakfast tray for Lucy, she expects to find the same scene she always does: an ignored Johanna with a hungry mouth or a soiled diaper in her crib, a room smelling of neglect, and a miserable Lucy slumped by the window.

What she finds is a cooing Johanna, snug in her mother's lap, as she plays with two dollies, and Lucy sitting upright in her rocking chair. Both wear clean dresses and smiles, things Johanna usually doesn't wear until Nellie tends to her, and things Lucy never bothers with at all any more.

"Good morning," says Lucy.

"Hi," says Nellie, setting the tray upon the bureau before her trembling fingers drop it to the floor.

"Did you sleep well?" asks Lucy.

"Perfectly," Nellie lies. "And you?"

"Oh, yes, me too," trills Lucy, but Nellie knows that she is not lying because Lucy is not capable of lying. "Johanna settled right down, too, after you left."

Nellie flushes at this direct mention of their late-night encounter. "Good. That's – good to hear."

Setting Johanna upon her mattress, Lucy rises and joins Nellie by the bureau; Nellie finds herself edging away, backing towards the door.

"Thank you for breakfast," says Lucy. "I never thank you enough, Nellie, for cooking all my meals – Lord knows I'd be living off burnt toast if it weren't for you!" She claps a hand to her mouth even as she giggles.

Nellie hasn't heard that beautiful musical laughter in weeks. She should be delighted. But she can only shiver.

"Well," says Nellie, "'s'not a problem, love, honestly. Not about to let you starve, am I? Anyway, I've got to run down to the shop and get ready for the day." Her hand scrabbles behind her for the doorknob, and she curses as her fingers instead find some splintered pieces of wood. "After all, it's the early bird what gets the – "

Lucy steps forward and, still smiling, brushes her lips against Nellie's. Not like she's a porcelain doll. Not like either of them will break. But only as if this is the most natural thing in the world.

" – worm," whispers Nellie.

"Oh, Nellie," chides Lucy, taking her landlady's hand inside her own, "but you've riddled your skin with splinters. You can't start work like this." Still holding Nellie's hand, she retrieves her sewing kit.

"I'll do it," says Nellie; Lucy can't even boil a potato; there's no way Nellie's letting this woman anywhere near her when she's got splinters.

As if reading Nellie's mind, Lucy smiles. "I have two little brothers, Nellie. Removing splinters is one of my – admittedly few – talents." She takes out a needle and scrapes it carefully over the pad of Nellie's ring finger. Positioning the needle's tip beneath the tiny sliver of wood, she gently wedges the point upward, then withdraws the splinter and sets it upon the bureau. "There. Only five to go now."

"We shouldn't be doing this," Nellie whispers, but she does not mean the splinters.

Lucy makes her next little cut upon the heel of Nellie's palm. "But you were right, Nellie. I did just need a little help. I needed to know that someone not only cared for me, but believed in me. And it's not perfect, even now." She swallows but her fingers do not tremble as she eases the needle beneath Nellie's skin again and removes the second splinter. "The blackness is still there. Still inside me. But with you here . . ." She smiles. "With you here, even though the blackness remains, there's a tiny shaft of light that I see. That I feel."

When Lucy leans forward this time, Nellie avoids her kiss; Nellie's heart protests, wanting nothing more than to fulfill the dream it never thought possible, but her mind sings a different tune. Her mind knows that the dream still is impossible, and if she lets herself be deluded now, it's only going to hurt worse later when the dream inevitably crumbles.

"This isn't okay," Nellie whispers. "This isn't okay and this isn't going to work."

Biting her lip, Lucy returns to Nellie's splinters. "Why? Simply because we have never heard of it working before?"

"Well – yes." Nellie grimaces as Lucy removes the third splinter. "I mean – no – innovation is not something we should reject just 'cause it's new – but this just isn't – it isn't right."

"Not right?" Lucy asks on a breathy note of laughter. "Nothing's ever felt more right in my entire life, Nellie. Nothing's ever felt more right – more natural . . ." She grips Nellie's hand, lifts her gaze up and nearly dazzles Nellie with the assurance of love beaming from her eyes. "It's like – like I've been breathing in poisons my entire life rather than oxygen – and only just realizing what it feels like to taste pure air."

"Bloody poet, you are," Nellie mumbles.

Lucy smiles then, and Nellie has to squint like it's the sun itself. "Maybe. If I am, it's entirely your fault, Nellie Lovett."

When Lucy sweeps her lips against Nellie's this time, Nellie does not pull away, but neither does she kiss Lucy back.

"I'm scared, love," she whispers against Lucy's lips.

She feels rather than sees Lucy smile. "I did not think that Eleanor Lynnette Lovett could be scared of anything." Lucy's soft fingers light upon her face, trace over her jawline. "What is it? What are you afraid of?"

Of feeling this sort of love for a woman. Of for once being dry of all words to express how she feels, what she wants, what's cycling through her mind. Of taking on the responsibility of a wife and mother – or would that be husband and father, if Lucy already occupies both parts? – and failing at both. Of finding this ray of happiness only to have it dissolve the moment she tries to wrap her fingers around it.

"Of knowing that I can't have what I want," whispers Nellie, "and yet, somehow, getting it anyway."

Lucy laughs again; the music rushes against Nellie's lips, floods into her body and tingles in her veins. Makes her dare to hope, despite herself, that what she wants is possible. That despite it all – society, logic, fear – her dream can become reality.

"There's no need to always be such a martyr, Nellie," teases Lucy. "Would it be so terrible to let yourself get what you want, for once?" She pulls away and pouts, eyes twinkling. "Or, if you won't allow yourself to have what you want, surely you won't deny me what I want. Surely you could not be that cruel to your tenant."

A grin finds Nellie's lips before she can swat it away. "Don't tempt me," she whispers as she tangles her fingers in Lucy's curls and draws her nearer.

xxx

"Oh, look at that silly-billy man outside the window again," Nellie coos to Johanna as she bounces the girl in her arms.

Nellie draws shut the curtains so that the subject of her conversation is obscured because, however much she might joke aloud, she's afraid that Turpin will soon start to piece together the current living arrangement of 186 Fleet Street. That Turpin will soon send her off to Botany Bay just like he did to Lucy's last lover.

Nellie refocuses her attention upon her baby. "This silly-billy-boo-boo Turpin." Johanna giggles as Nellie tickles her. "What's he think he's doing, huh? Doesn't he know when to give up?"

"No," laughs Lucy from the rocking chair as she continues with her sewing. "Though that seems to be something that he and you have in common."

"Really?" yelps Nellie with mock horror. "You're going to put me in the same category as him?"

"Just an observation," says Lucy, still smiling.

"Your silly-willy-de-dibbly mommy makes some crazy observations, doesn't she?" Nellie remarks to little Johanna.

Johanna burps in response.

"That's definitely an agreement," announces Nellie.

"Oh, that's disgusting," says Lucy with a frown.

Nellie shrugs. "Humans are rather disgusting, when you think about it. We burp, we piss, we – "

"Stop, stop, stop!" demands Lucy, but she ruins the effect by laughing. She then holds up her sewing for Nellie's inspection. "What do you think? I believe it should fit Johanna in a month's time."

"If Johanna turns into a lumpy, oversized potato, then yes."

"Nellie!"

"I'm just being honest, love. Your stitches are still grossly uneven."

"And you," says Lucy, rising from the rocking chair with a regal, offended air, "are not very kind."

Nellie chuckles, lets Johanna chew upon her index finger. Lucy scowls at Nellie's amusement – but does not resist when Nellie kisses her upon the cheek. Lets herself loiter, in fact, cozied against Nellie's side as she strokes Johanna's hair.

"Let's stay here forever," Lucy whispers.

"Okay," Nellie whispers back.

They are like no family like Nellie knows, but they are a family nonetheless.

And they are a happy one.

xxx

Nellie Lovett is pragmatic. Nellie Lovett stands up straight, looks problems right in the eye. Nellie Lovett does not dilly-daddle over what can't be helped, or surrender to odds she can't surmount, nevermind admit that there are things she cannot surmount. Nellie Lovett is used to surviving upon threadbare dreams that she hopes, but does not dare to really think, can ever become reality.

So to suddenly find her dreams crafted into reality is almost more than she can bear.

"Can't you simply enjoy what you have now?" asks Lucy as she props herself upon one elbow on their shared mattress, outlining Nellie's jawline with one soft finger.

"Of course I enjoy it," Nellie whispers back. "But I am also afraid that it can't last."

Because how can something so perfect last when the rest of the world will, no doubt, steal it away from them at a moment's notice? Yes, there is the now. But each now hefts the weight of tomorrow. Even with Lucy now working as a seamstress (after improving her skills, of course), there is still too little money to keep the three of them going. Even amidst the fresh domestic bliss of their female enclave, their perfect unit of mother and adoptive mother and daughter, Lucy still sometimes awakens in tears at the loss of her husband, and Turpin still stands beneath the window at least twice daily, and Nellie still can't rid the taste of fear from her tongue.

"Such a pessimist," Lucy teases. "Not all good things must come to an end."

Nellie curls a hand around one of Lucy's ears. Even her ears are soft, and although she knows that Lucy is not as breakable as Nellie once thought, Lucy is still too soft to survive this world long. They are too soft to survive long.

"I hope you're right," says Nellie, even though there is not much hope left in her body.

"I am," Lucy reassures her as she cozies against Nellie's side, fitting one arm along Nellie's waist. "I must be. Because I know what it is to reach the bottom of despair, and Nellie, you're the only reason I was able to stay afloat. You're the one who reminded me that, even with Benjamin" – her voice still hiccups a little each time she says his name, like vaulting over a crack in the sidewalk – "gone, I still have so much to live for."

"You do," Nellie agrees, stroking her beloved's shoulder, "but that doesn't mean neither of us should throw caution to the wind."

Nellie feels Lucy's lips move against her collarbone when Lucy speaks, and Nellie shivers: "What's the point of living if we can't enjoy life, however fleeting?"

Lucy pauses and allows Nellie to answer, but Nellie does not have an answer, so Lucy continues: "Life is for the alive, my dear. We have a wonderful life, the pair of us, and we can continue to have it forever – if you cease to fear that word: 'forever.' And maybe this life is not the life we initially dreamed for ourselves – but we have gotten by so far, and we can continue to do so." She fists her fingers in Nellie's curls, tugs at the tangles with urgency, as though Nellie is already running from her. "And we can do more than just get by, if you let us."

Nellie curves her hand around Lucy's neck, protecting the delicate bones and flesh inside the cup of her fingers, but she cannot answer.

xxx

Maybe Nellie does not have hope, but she certainly has happiness. So much happiness. Too much happiness, she sometimes fears, before Lucy reprimands her for being a silly nit who can't appreciate what she has right in front of her because she's so busy fearing and trying to fix the future.

And so she listens to Lucy. She enjoys what she has while she has it. She remembers that life is for the alive, and that it must be lived to be life, and she hangs onto those words, this verbal perfume, and it's almost enough to completely mask the taste of fear still upon her tongue.

xxx

They are hopeful. They are happy. They are a family.

But Nellie still fears the word 'forever,' and Lucy still wakes up in tears at nightmares she can't fully explain beyond the single syllable of Ben, and Turpin still stands at the window.

"Just talk to the man. Let him court you a few times. He's a right bastard, no one's disputing that – "

"Language, Nellie," says Lucy, covering Johanna's ears as best she can while continuing to hold her.

" – but he's a problem, and he needs to be tended to, since ignoring him clearly hasn't worked. And we're not in any position to turn down money, so if he wants to buy you a nice bit of jewelry that we can pawn off later – "

"That is hardly what he wants from me." The skin around Lucy's eyes tightens. "We both know what he wants, Nellie, and it is not related to courtship or jewelry or even those bouquets he brings around weekly."

"Well – and so what if he wants to sleep with you? Is it honestly the end of the world, love, to fool around with a bloke for a bit of cash?"

Nellie knows it is a mistake to have said it, but she cannot retract the words into her lungs once they strike the air.

"It is not the end of the world," says Lucy, and the words are slow, carefully hollowed of emotion, "but it is the end of my respect for myself, and I would no longer be able to return to my husband's arms because I would be forever tarnished by having done that with another – "

"And what we've done?" demanded Nellie, angry heat sweeping through her body. "That counts for nothing?"

"Nellie," whispers Lucy, reeling backwards as though she has been physically hit, "it means everything. You know that."

"It's no fucking different if you sleep with me or him!" Nellie yells, and Lucy reels again, and Johanna starts to cry, but her ears remain uncovered this time.

And it makes all the difference, of course, because Nellie loves Lucy and Lucy loves Nellie and Nellie does not want anyone else to ever touch Lucy again, nevermind actually fuck her – but Nellie must remain pragmatic. They need money, and they need to make Turpin leave them alone before he realizes what's going on inside 186 Fleet Street and throws Nellie into Botany Bay, too.

"Wake up, love," snaps Nellie. "You're already tarnished for your husband, and that husband's never coming back anyhow, so what does it matter how many others you fuck, men or women! Nothing. It matters nothing."

She storms out the front door and down the steps before Lucy can reply. Before she sees the hurt rippling across her beloved's face, or the tears slipping from those sapphire eyes, or the betrayal moist and raw upon her lips.

xxx

When Nellie returns that evening, carrying a tray with Lucy's dinner and a mouth brimming with apologies she does not know how to phrase but desperately wants to say, she finds a strange scene: Johanna already in her crib for the night, though it is not even seven; Beadle Bamford lurking by the door, hands folded atop his cane as he leans heavily upon it; and Lucy before the mirror, donning her shawl and arranging her blonde waves.

"Oh, Nellie, I was just about to come find you," says Lucy, turning and grasping Nellie's fingers in hers, eyes alight. Nellie shifts her gaze to Bamford, but he looks back with mere disinterest. Stop being paranoid, Lovett. Nothing wrong with female pals holding hands. "Would you mind tending to Johanna for the evening? I'm going out and I shall not be back until much later."

"Not a problem," says Nellie. She tends to Johanna every night, of course, as the girl's second mother, but although she will not allow herself to be paranoid, she is cautious. "Where're you off to, then?"

"Well, as Johanna and I went on our walk this afternoon, I decided to call upon Judge Turpin. He refused to see me, which at first I took quite hard, but then Beadle Bamford came by just now and said that the honorable judge refused only because he was so busy with work, and he wanted to give me his full attention. He is most contrite, Judge Turpin – feels so awful about the position he's put me in, a widow with a young child, forced to work just to make her keep."

"Most contrite," Beadle Bamford agrees, not that anyone asked for his input.

"Yes," continues Lucy, "and so he has said that tonight, he shall give me his full attention so that he might properly begin to repent. Not that, of course," she amends carefully, "he has done anything wrong. My husband no doubt deserved his life sentence – as does any man who flouts the law so blatantly." Her fingers clench tightly around Nellie's; lies come naturally to Nellie at this point in her life, but Lucy is not used to the strain. "Nonetheless, it's a hard thing, to orphan a wife and mother so."

"Terribly hard," says Nellie, and her fingers clench, too, because she hates seeing Lucy in pain.

"Ready, Mrs. Barker?" asks Beadle Bamford. "Shouldn't like to keep the judge waiting."

"No," Lucy agrees. "Let's be off, then."

Lucy makes to leave but Nellie refuses to let go of her fingers. Finds her own skin welded to Lucy's, making letting go impossible. She wants to say so much – apologize for everything she said this afternoon, tell Lucy not to go to Turpin, insist that they can get by without she sleeping with the man. Vow that everything will be fine. But the beadle is still there, and Lucy has clearly already made up her mind to go, and so what can Nellie say?

"Good-night, Lucy," says Nellie.

"Good-night," replies Lucy, but then, after the beadle exits and just before she departs, she kisses Nellie upon the ear as she whispers, "and don't worry – I'm not angry with you, and I'm not going to fall into his bed. He and I are going to begin a proper courtship – but it won't change what you are to me."

Lucy kisses her again before she goes, right upon the lips, which is hopelessly foolish with the beadle just outside, but Lucy has always been foolish and Nellie is still in love with her despite such foolishness (indeed, because of such foolishness – because pragmatic as Nellie is, and glad of it too, humans minutely desire now and then to grasp what can never be theirs).

Lucy then leaves with a content smile.

But Nellie does not feel content; she is glad Lucy is not angry with her, but Nellie still knows she must apologize and is dissatisfied that she could not find the words or the opportunity.

And she still tastes fear, worse than ever. Lucy might be confident that Judge Turpin will be content with mere courtship, but Nellie is not so confident. Not so idealistic.

Have a little faith, hmm? The world is not so wicked as you've always believed. Lucy herself is proof of that.

Her fingers remain clenched, but her heart smiles.

xxx

When Lucy comes home, Nellie's world disintegrates.

"Don't touch me," Lucy whispers, her voice rough and broken like the wooden door that splintered Nellie's hands months ago.

But Nellie makes no move to touch her. Could not even if she wanted to.

Because Lucy is already broken, and it has been by Nellie's very hands, and so how could she dare attempt to pick up the pieces of what she has already smashed beyond repair?

Lucy's dress is not torn. Her hair is not mused, her flesh is not bruised or bleeding. There are no physical traces of a fight. Because her Lucy does not fight. Her Lucy does as she needs to so that she might remain alive.

Her Lucy does as she needs to so that Nellie Lovett might remain alive.

But the evidence is still strewn before Nellie's eyes. The evidence in the shape of Lucy's legs, sprawled at unnatural angles upon the ground beneath her puddle of skirts. In the tears standing in those sapphire eyes that either cannot fall or that she will not let fall. In the pout of her lips, red and swollen the way they are after Nellie kisses her – but they never tremble so from Nellie's kisses.

"It will be fine," Lucy whispers, and Nellie's heart pangs, leaps up her chest and smashes into her throat, because she knows that Lucy is not saying that to try and fool herself, but to try and fool Nellie. "I – we will be fine. I just – I must be alone now. Please."

Nellie does not reply. Nellie stalks for Benjamin's work bureau, opens the latch upon his box of razor, and throws the lid up. She tucks one razor between her breasts, another in her corset for good measure.

It is easier to focus upon anger than pain. Anger leads to productivity. Pain cannot. And she has already brought Lucy more pain than any human should be able to handle.

She cannot pretend that she can still save Lucy – but she can still murder Turpin. She cannot take back what she has already done to her beloved – but she can still extract revenge for what has been done.

It is easier to focus upon anger than pain, but of course she feels that too, a second pulse in her chest against the cold metal of the razor, a gasping ache that can never be mended.

Lucy's voice catches her just before she reaches the door:

"Nellie."

Her body fossilizes and she despises Lucy for having this effect on her, she, Nellie Lovett, who until so recently had hardened herself to the entire world. Despises herself for allowing Lucy into her stupidly weak and human thing called a heart.

"He'll only kill you, Nellie – or worse . . . take everything away. As he has for me."

Even to pivot her body takes tremendous strength, but she is drawn to Lucy irresistibly, undeniably, like a magnet.

"Everything?" Nellie whispers.

"It will be everything," says Lucy, her words steady but still a rasp, "if I lose you, too."

Nellie's legs hit the ground. Her knees slam against the floor panes but she cannot feel the pain. "You won't lose me. I'm doing this for you. I'm going to cut his fucking heart out and I'm going to make him watch while I eat the damn thing out of his hand before I plunge the razor back into his stomach and – "

"Nellie. Please. He's a powerful man."

"And you don't think I'm a powerful woman?" Nellie snaps. God, being so close to Lucy, the lure to touch her, to fix her broken angles and let her cry those frozen tears, is stronger than ever – but she must resist. She'll only make the destruction worse. That's what Nellie does best, when the people she loves are in pain.

"He's a judge," says Lucy, "and he can and will manipulate the law to his desires, whether it is just or not."

"Then he must be stopped," says Nellie, and makes to rise, but Lucy grasps her wrist.

"Not by you. Not while Johanna and Benjamin and I still need you. Please."

"Can I at least cut off his prick?" says Nellie.

She regrets the joke the instant it leaves her lip, because in this moment – in the broken splay of Lucy's limbs, in the splitting heartbeat inside her own throat – it is no longer a joke.

But Lucy's lips bubble with laughter, rough and confused, as though learning a foreign skill. She throws back her head and guffaws, clutches her stomach, fights to breathe through her giggles.

Then she begins to weep through her laughs and, like a broken caryatid, beautiful even as her statuesque perfection crumbles, falls against Nellie. She buries her face in Nellie's lap, clutches her hands in Nellie's skirts. Her tears dot Nellie's dress like morning dew, fresh and cool.

And Nellie succumbs to the urge to touch her, to comfort her, to caress her and to pretend that she can still mend the damage she's wrought.

xxx

And for a little while, the pretending works, and life goes on. Not as before, but still, it goes on:

Lucy cannot bear to share her mattress with Nellie anymore. Lucy continues going through the motions of her day, tending to Johanna and mending dresses, but her bright vivacity is gone, and the motions are only motions to be gone through, never to be enjoyed. And there is many a time when Nellie finds Lucy caught in some sort of caricature of survival, caught between the plane of life and death itself: her body paralyzed; her eyes glazed like one blind, focused intently upon nothing no matter how Nellie might cajole or shake or yell.

But her fingers are still soft when they touch Nellie's cheek or trail along her neck. But she still speaks Nellie's name like a prayer. But she still looks at Nellie the way the stars do to the moon.

And so Nellie keeps pretending that this is enough, that it will get better. She still keeps one razor between her breasts, just in case Lucy changes her mind, but for now, she respects Lucy's wishes. She understands why Lucy wishes it, after all: Lucy does not want to lose Nellie in a cyclone of revenge, endlessly circling the same point, endlessly blind to its other surroundings. And Nellie does not want that for herself either – though of course she would become such a cyclone should Lucy only breathe the word.

xxx

But then one day the pretending isn't enough. But then one day Nellie remembers all too vividly why she should have stopped deluding herself long ago. Why she was right to think she should never be allowed a moment's happiness: it will always, inevitably, be snatched away.

"You were right, Nellie," Lucy whispers. She faces the window, turned away from Nellie's motionless body by the door. "It's trying enough to care for one's own self. Too trying. I can't care for myself, much less you and Johanna. I'm sorry. I thought we could – I thought I could . . . but you've always been better at being strong. Be strong when he comes back from Botany Bay, won't you? – and please remember your promise, and keep it. You're better at being loyal, too."

The vial of arsenic touches Lucy's lips before Nellie even sees it clutched inside Lucy's palm.

Nellie runs to Lucy and smacks the bottle out of her fingers. It hits the floor and the glass shatters, but the vial is already empty.

Too late again.

She manages to catch Lucy before she falls, but only barely, and the slump of Lucy's dead weight brings Nellie to her knees amidst all the broken glass. She feels the shards through her layers of skirts and undergarments, but she feels them only like phantom fingers, like fogged memories, not as anything able to hurt her in the here and now.

She cradles Lucy's limp body against her chest as she would an overgrown infant. Lucy's skin is cold against hers, her white skin unnaturally waxen, and although she feels Lucy's heart thrumming with the same certainty as her own, the thrum is soft, only a murmur.

I will save you this time, Lucy, I promise. You'll not die. Not while there's still breath in my body.

In hindsight, Nellie regrets this promise. In hindsight, it would have been kinder to let Lucy die.

But we can only live our lives forward, never backwards, so in this moment, in this space of time, Nellie does not regret and only moves forward.

She sets Lucy upon her bed. Makes her retch up as much of the poison as she can into a basin. Cocoons her with blankets. Wipes away the sweat upon her brow. Spoon-feeds her broth, tips her head forward to sip water.

And so Nellie will not let Lucy die, and so Lucy does not die. But the thing she becomes is worse. Nellie's previous likening Lucy to some being caught between life and death now seems not only frightening, but premonitory, for she watches as Lucy becomes a living corpse: her body continuing on, wrecked and battered but indisputably alive, even though her soul – her self, her everything that Nellie had loved and still loves and can't let go of even after it's gone – vanishes.

xxx

Nellie tries to hold onto Lucy, but all too soon, Lucy refuses to be held onto.

"Devil's wife! Get away from me! Witch, witch, witch!"

"Lucy, love, it's just me, it's Nellie, Nellie Lovett – "

"I know what you are! I know what you do! Lurking around the bowels of hell, doing the work of demons, whoring and murdering and lying lying liar – "

When Nellie tries to touch Lucy, she gets clawed in the eyes or kicked in the shins. When Nellie tries to feed Lucy, she gets food sloshed all over her dress. When Nellie tries to help Lucy toddle from the bed just down the stairs, for a bit of exercise, she gets her arm nearly yanked out of its socket. When Nellie tries to reason with her, she gets shrieked at so loudly that the neighbors stop and stare (though, of course, never ask if she needs help, not even when they see the bloodied claw marks upon her skin or the tears in her eyes, never bother themselves with the burden of helping another human being, just like Nellie never does either – but were Lucy still here, still an inhabitant of her own body, she would help, no doubt, she would go out of her way to help, because that was just who Lucy is, was, oh dear God is is is . . .).

And when Nellie just locks Lucy inside her house and slumps against the wall and cries, Lucy tries to break free.

"Witch! Witch! Set me free from your hellhole!"

"Lucy, this isn't a prison, it's your home, and I'm just trying – "

"Set me free, Devil's wife! I'll not take part in your sinning, oh no, you can't convince me to join your rank, you can't think I'll ever be like you, witch, whore, bitch – "

"Can't you see I'm trying to take care of you?"

" – no pity in your heart! No kindness! No love or even a scrap of mercy! Just cold and dark and sin and witchery – "

Nellie's tears stand constantly in her eyes, as permanent as an extra limb. She has become used to seeing the world through a sheen of water, this prism that turns everything hazy. But never hazy enough to entirely block out reality. Never as hazy as she desires.

xxx

When Nellie finally lets Lucy go, Nellie hates herself.

But Lucy seems happier wandering the streets, liberated from her walls and her sickness and her memories and her self. Getting to roam about. Talking to passerby. Enjoying the sunshine. Feeding stray cats. Throwing up her skirts for any man willing to shell out a few alms.

And it's long and it's hard, but she keeps her promises to Lucy. Well, as best she can. She tries to look after Johanna, but Turpin steals her away to be his ward. She tries to keep the Barkers' possessions, but Turpin takes most of those, too; she at least manages to hang onto the razors by hiding them beneath a loose floorboard. She tries to wait for Lucy's husband to come home, but she starts giving up hope as the months turn to years, as her money runs dry. As loneliness roots deep into her soul.

And she stays away from Turpin, despite how much she longs to murder him, make him pay for what he's done.

She stays away for fifteen years, but the idea of fifteen years more like this proves too many, and so thank God that Benjamin Barker chooses to show up at her doorstep one evening.

Fine. She'll keep her promise to Lucy. Benjamin – Sweeney Todd, he says he's called now – never made any such promise to Lucy. And Nellie Lovett never promised not to help someone else murder Turpin – only that she wouldn't do it herself.

That's something else that I'm much better at than you, my love: bending the truth to suit my needs.

She considers telling him that his wife still lives, but then reconsiders and does not. They both love Lucy, but Nellie cannot afford to lose Sweeney in an endless pursuit to save Lucy, the way that Nellie nearly lost herself. Best they can hope for now is to avenge Lucy's memory.

Besides – and it is a foolish thought, but the thought remains – she cannot bear the idea of sharing Lucy with him. As much as is still possible, she wants to keep Lucy to herself. Sweeney is already her husband – he already took more than she could ever have had. So let me have just this little piece of her. Let me cling to those few months we spent together. To what we shared, me and her, without you.

She loved Benjamin Barker, in her way, and she grows to love Sweeney Todd, too, though never – she knows – as a woman is supposed to love a man. Those kinds of feelings, Nellie thinks, such a deep intimacy, can only flourish once in a lifetime, so those feelings have flourished and withered inside her with Lucy and Lucy alone.

Still, she loves him – or admires him, at least: his single-minded devotion, his tenacity, those strong pale hands. And that makes it easier, but it also makes it harder, because she's forever comparing him to Lucy and because it's not a fair comparison.

And that makes it all the more frightening when she begins to lose him, too.

"What's the point of living if we can't enjoy life, hmm, love?" she asks when she finds him, yet again, brooding against the window. "Life is for the alive, my dear. We could have a life, us two – one that lasts forever, if you stop fearing the word: 'forever.'" They are Lucy's words, she realizes too late: Lucy's words, not her own, that she speaks now. Lucy's words that long ago faded from memory but remained imprinted upon her heart. "Maybe not like I dreamed – and maybe not like you remember . . . but we could get by."

She pretends these words will awaken him to life long after she's given up hope that anything can.

xxx

When she finds Lucy in the bakehouse, her body limp and her neck split open in a horrible bloodied grin, Nellie puddles to the ground and sobs.

Her trembling fingers stroke through Lucy's locks and her eyes litter tears all over Lucy's flesh, mingling with Lucy's blood and making it watery. Her heart trips inside her chest, threatening to give out, and part of her wishes that it would. That everything could just all stop. Now.

And she knows it makes no sense for her to feel this way, knows that the real Lucy died years ago – but knowing cannot change the feelings.

I'm so sorry, my love.

Lucy had been right. The world is not as terrible as Nellie'd once believed it to be:

It is worse.

And when at last he shoves her into the oven, her final thoughts through the haze of hot flames and bubbling skin is that she will soon be home, with Lucy. And she can tell Lucy she was right, and they will be together, forever, mired in their own destruction – but at least they will no longer have to wrestle with this uncaring world.

A/N: About four years ago, I wrote a story that some of you might remember called It Will Not Last the Night (if you don't remember it, that's fine too, as I don't necessarily recommend it, LOL). In this story, I had what seemed a natural opportunity to develop a romantic relationship between Nellie and Lucy . . . but I wimped out and did not. Why, I don't exactly recall. Because I was still a die-hard Toddvett who couldn't entertain any other possible ship, because I was worried about writing femmeslash insensitively, because I could not get over my personal dislike of Lucy Barker . . . take your pick.

Beginning about two years ago, however, I found myself thinking about that fic and wishing that I had seized the opportunity to explore a relationship between Lucy/Nellie. And, last summer, in a fit of writer's block/mild depression, I finally broke down and allowed myself to write what I never before had . . . to write the story that is, more or less, what you have just read.

I honestly never thought I'd share this publicly after I coughed it up, as a) my ability to write femmeslash sensitively still concerns me, and b) I fear some of the prose is (since I wrote this in a different mental space than I do most of my writing) a little purple and/or overly emotional.

And yet there's something about this fic that recently pulled me back to it . . . something that, I have decided, I would like to share with you, my dear readers.

Thank you for reading this story (and for wading through my long author's note). I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts, whether praise or critique, in the form of a review.