Waste Not Want Not

Chapter 2 Leaving Fleet Street

"Brought you some breakfast dear." Nellie Lovett chimed as she entered the room, setting a tray down on the table. Her accomplice and occasional lover was perched by the window glaring and staring at the citizens of London below him. Nellie placed her hands on her hips, the poor man never eats much these days. She'll soon see to that.

"Mr. T? Can I ask you something?"

"What?" he grunted in reply still not facing her.

"What did your Lucy look like?" She could sense his disdain all the way on the other side of the room. She slowly dared to approach him until she was standing behind him. "Can't really remember, can you?" she muttered.

He hadn't moved except his lips that turned even more into his signature frown. "She had yellow hair."

"You've got to leave all this behind you now." Nellie began tenderly. "She's gone... You keep looking down into the grave, you're never gonna look up. And life will just pass right by." The frown on his face lessened, she placed a hand to his shoulder, and he gradually became less tense. "Life is for the alive my dear. We could have a life us two, maybe not I like dreamed and maybe not like you remember... but we could get by."

Suddenly, he turned to face her, neither of them surprised by there proximity. He opened his mouth and she felt so hopeful that he'd heard her rambles this time. He was pondering her words, considering how a life with her wouldn't be so bad. She began to smile as he leaned in a bit and puckered her lips for the kiss that was coming.

"Nellie..."

"Mr. Todd!" the sailor lad burst into the room.

Nellie Lovett had never felt such anger and annoyance in all her life. And she spent seven years married to Albert. She stood off to the side feeling unwanted and in the way as this child and her love discussed freeing Johanna. Sweeney was excited more than she's ever seen him. That hungry look shown in his eyes, she hasn't seen that expression on him since the evening he startled the daylights out of her in the bakehouse while she was working. And the sight of her covered in blood sent him spiraling and they shagged like blood starved beasts long into the night. She woke up terribly swore the next morning, she did.

"Go now, go!" Sweeney was shouting at the lad.

Thankful that dreadful sailor was gone, she perked up thinking her darling would rush back to her, and they could finish what was interrupted.

She smiled in earning as he approached. "Fetch the boy." He ordered.

And ruined. "Don't you think you should leave the boy alone—" she cut her words short, at the look of warning, almost demonic, that he flashed her way. She rushed off.

             

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"Toby. Where are you love?" Nellie says in a sing song tone, her voice reverberating off the stone of the sewer's walls. They searched as long as they could spare, with no luck.

"I have to go back to my shop." Sweeney grasped her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "Keep searching for him, I'll be back. Once the judge is dead, then my dear," he clutched her upper arms harder, a smirk forming his lips, "You and I will leave this place."

She melted in his arms and continued to as if she were made of butter even as he already let go of her and was out of sight. "My love," she mused. So, he had heard her up in the shop. She smiled feeling hopeful, her dream to go by the sea will be coming true. It seemed only fair, the two had been lovers for a year now.

She set to finding Toby. "Come on darling, I'm sorry for what you had to see, but it'll all be over now, I promise." She frowned, not knowing where the boy is located was nerve wracking. "Toby, come on now love, I'll give you a nice warm hug when I spot you."