Okay, frankly, I have no idea what this is. It started out as me trying to shake my writer's block, which has been driving me mad lately, and then it sort of developed a plot, allbeit a really weird and random one. Anyway, let me know what you think, and maybe I'll continue it...

She couldn't stand the anguish in his face. Day after day she saw it, sometimes glinting only faintly underneath a chilly smirk or a feral smile, sometimes burning as clearly as it had the day she'd told him what had happened to his family. It broke her heart to see him in such distress, and even more to know that she could do nothing to try to ease his suffering. He didn't let her touch him anymore, not since her advice to be patient had cost him the judge. It was like he was afraid she would distract him from his deadly purpose, that he might miss something important while he was wasting time with his business partner.

So he had distanced himself from her even more than before, hiding up in his shop for hours on end, polishing those razors with the care and tenderness of a much gentler man, and avoiding the woman downstairs at all costs. In fact, Mrs Lovett had hardly seen her tenant for days now, not since he had danced with her around her little kitchen, praising her genius and plotting their latest business endeavour.

Now, when she brought him his meals—(and came back later to collect them after they had grown cold, sitting untouched on the bureau)—and when she took his bloodied clothes from him at the end of the day, Mrs Lovett tried to get him to engage in conversation. But this was as futile a quest as trying to get Sweeney Todd to indulge in such other frivolities as eating or sleeping; his responses were minimal or nonexistent, and if she pressed him for too long, he would tell her to leave, softly at first, but snarling at her like a wild animal if she dared to linger.

Lovett tried to understand how he must be feeling, but she knew she could never really comprehend what it would be like to have love—such a perfect, blissful love—yanked away. This was namely because she had never had a love like that to begin with. Albert had been a marriage of convenience, not an entirely unpleasant union, but certainly not an adoring one. As for Benjamin Barker and Sweeney Todd both, she had had no sign that that feeling was reciprocated, or even know of by the object of her affections. It was with a bleak little laugh that the baker realized she had never actually experienced real love—to care for someone and have those feelings returned. She would have despaired for herself and her future were it not for Sweeney Todd.

For in that man she saw hope. Hope for a new life, and for the love she'd been dreaming of for well over fifteen years. Mrs Lovett might not be able to understand exactly what her neighbour was going through, but she could still help him. If only he would let her. If only he would realize.

Gazing up at the ceiling above her, Mrs Lovett heaved a sigh and actress would have envied. If he only knew. It was late now, though the moon was only just rising, round as a coin, but somehow drained looking, as though all the colour had been bled out of it, leaving behind only barren whiteness. The silence from above told her that Mr Todd was sleeping—even demons had to rest sometime, she supposed. Recently, Lovett had taken to staying up even later than he did, forced to wait to burn the piles of stained human skeletons until the city of London was safely asleep, for fear the smell and clouds of greasy black smoke might arouse suspicion.

She had only just come upstairs after finishing this gruesome task, and a glance at the clock told her it was nearly two in the morning. She should go to sleep, she knew, but still she didn't move from the kitchen. The baker gazed out at the bloodless moon and wondered what Mr Todd looked like, sleeping under its light. She didn't think she'd ever seen him sleep. Would his face hold the same sorrow it did by day, or would that be chased away, flooded, perhaps, by some warm dream of the perfect past, like milk poured into dark tea.

Without realizing it, she had put a hand on the doorknob, and was now gazing wistfully at the moon-bleached stairs outside. Surely it couldn't hurt just to go and check on him. H would probably be asleep anyway. He'd never know, and it wasn't like she had any malevolent intent. She just wanted to look at him, to comfort him. With these self-justifying arguments playing over and over in her mind, Mrs Lovett opened the door.

It had been growing colder lately, and tonight was no exception. The rickety wooden steps had been gilded in silver frost, the unsteady light of a streetlamp edging it with glittering gold. It was funny to her that something so drab and unattractive by day could be made so beautiful by night, like a poor serving girl who puts on a sparkling gown in the evening to go dancing.

Mrs Lovett giggled at her overactive imagination and made her way up the stairs, treading on her toes so the heels of her boots wouldn't clunk on the frozen wood. It was silly, what she was doing: risking Sweeney Todd's anger (which she was sure would be extraordinary, if he caught her) simply so she could satisfy a foolish desire to try to comfort the man while he slept, if he wouldn't let her when he was awake. She did wish she could help him, though, aid him somehow in his daily struggle to keep from drowning in his scarlet sea of grief and rage. She felt sorry for him, almost as sorry as she felt for herself, and it was pity for the tortured man that made her hand reach out, without any consent for the rest of her body, and open the barbershop door.

But when she looked in at the dark little shop, still untouched by the deathly moonlight, Mrs Lovett stopped. What on earth was she doing? Sneaking upstairs like a criminal to watch her neighbour while he slept. She really was as mad as they said if she thought she could get away with that. Marveling at her own foolish impulsiveness, and wondering half fearfully what might have happened if she'd allowed herself to continue, Lovett closed the door carefully, so the little bell wouldn't give her away, turned, and nearly jumped out of her skin.

'Mr Todd!'

He was there. Standing on the stair, his silhouette was thin—almost spindly—yet also oddly elegant against the smoky, moon-drenched sky. His face was almost completely obscured by black shadow, and so she couldn't make out his expression, but she got a feeling, from the two cold pinpricks that were his glinting eyes, that it was not brimming with kindness and understanding. He took a step forward, and his voice was low and dangerous.

'What're you doing here?'

Mrs Lovett had the urge to back away from him, but in an effort to appear innocent and unafraid, she stood her ground. Her voice betrayed her, though, trembling like a candle flame in a high gale. 'N-nothing, Mr Todd, I… I just…'

No excuses came and he took a step towards her, his shoulders blotting out the moon. Mrs Lovett's breath caught, and she realized that for all her undying affection, she still didn't completely trust Sweeney Todd. 'What are you doing here, Mrs Lovett?' He said again, another step further dissolving the distance between them.

Her voice was small. 'I… I don't know.'

Another step, and she could feel the whisper of breath on her face as he hissed, 'You're lying.'

'No, I—'

Her voice choked off, throat closing in surprise as Todd's pale hand snaked up to caress her neck ever so softly. 'The wise thing to do,' he whispered, causing her to shudder with mingled fear and desire, 'would be to cut your throat… But I'll let you go.' His thumb suddenly pressed down on Mrs Lovett's neck, extracting a strangled noise from her as she fought for air. 'Do not let me catch you up here again.'

Then the pressure of his hand was abruptly lifted, and she heard the bell sound and the door snap shut as Sweeney Todd retreated back into his dust-smothered, silver-lined lair. Though he was no longer casually choking her, Lovett continued to hold her breath as she made her way back downstairs, along the hall, and into bed. It was a long time before she let it out again.