Chapter Twenty Two

A/N: Thank you to Cinomarsh, bellovettrix and Guest for reviewing the last chapter.

From a distance, Nellie watched as the stone was finally fixed in place. Six months had been given, for the grave to cool and settle, but now the time had come to place the marker of the life that had been lost to fill it.

Despite what she knew the man would have wanted, Nellie had given the order to mark the gravestone as 'Benjamin Barker', for she knew that while he was a man people may want to remember, Sweeney Todd was a name she would much rather have the chance to forget.

Once the workmen had been paid and departed, Nellie knelt down beside the grave and placed down the bouquet she had brought with her from the marketplace. 'Gillyflowers and daisies.' she thought, stroking the petals fondly. 'Those were better times, before it all went so wrong.'

As she had walked to the churchyard, the baker had planned any number of things she could say, but now that she was here, none of them seemed right anymore. She had wanted to speak of the better times, back when they were younger and he was merely the lodger of the baker's wife, many years before they became Sweeney Todd and his willing accomplice.

Nellie heaved a sigh of despair. Here she was, struck dumb before the barber in death as she never had been when he had still lived. 'I don't know why I'm being so foolish.' she berated herself. 'It's not as if he can hear me. Now, just say something before nightfall and let it end.'

"Hello, Mr. Barker." she greeted formally, and cringed at how ridiculous she sounded, giving greetings to a grave. "I know I'm 'ardly the first person you would've wanted 'ere at your graveside. I know you would've wanted your wife or your little Johanna, maybe even Anthony... but Lucy's dead and the other two are hundreds of miles away now in France. So, it looks like I'm all you've got."

Shrugging her shoulders, Nellie continued. "It's quite appropriate really, isn't it? Given that ya were all I 'ad for so long. After me poor Albert went, the only company I 'ad was you and your Lucy. Then, when ya came back, it was just us. And now, it's just me."

That was not entirely true, of course. She still had her little boy, her darling Toby, to keep her company, but in the time that had passed since they had left Fleet Street, he had grown so very much. Now, he had a sweetheart in the neighbouring village, and he went over to the market where she worked to see her thrice as many times as he went to get her some ingredients. When she asked him about the girl- Beth, she was named- Toby professed that this was simply a little fling to keep him occupied. But he looked at dear Beth in the same way that she had once looked at the man she loved- not her Albert, but someone else.

"I'll miss you, Mr. Barker. I won't lie and say that I won't. In any case, I 'ope that you're with your Lucy now. Maybe then you can finally be 'appy again."

Nellie began to get up from her seat, but then she stopped, struck with a thought of the upmost importance. She had bade farewell to Benjamin Barker now, but not to the other man who was buried beneath the same soil. 'I will have to say goodbye to him as well.' she thought. 'If I don't, I'll never be free of him.'

So Nellie seated herself once more and found herself struck dumb again. She had had words of love for Benjamin Barker, fond memories that had sustained her through the darkest of days. But she had no such words for his alias, only words of bitterness and spite. How could she possibly speak such words to a grave?

"Mr. T, you'll never get the chance now to say sorry for the things ya did to me," Nellie began. "But I can say sorry for the part I played in 'em. All those murders ya did and all those pies I made, it was wrong. I can see that now, but I couldn't then. I s'pose I was just a bit blind."

Nellie breathed deeply once again, feeling the fear rise in her chest. Sweeney Todd was cold in his grave, yet a memory came to the front of her mind, of the last time she had tried to tell him this truth. She had almost been burnt in her own oven; now her heart was burning with the need to unburden itself.

"And I was blind, Mr. T, because... well, ya already know, don't ya?" she sighed, smiling sadly. "I loved ya, Mr. T. More than I've ever loved anyone in my life, except Toby, of course. And I s'pose I thought I could change ya, to make ya better... to make ya love me. Looks like I was wrong in that too."

Nellie rose to her feet, brushing down the dirt from her dress and blinking back the tears from her eyes. She had to make sure she had made her peace with the barber, for she imagined she would never visit his grave again. It caused too much heartache to remember what he had been, what they had been, and what she had taken from herself when she had let him die.

"I still love ya, Mr. T." she confessed. "I s'pose a part o' me always will. But I'm not gonna let it get me down. You're gone now, and I've got to lead a life on my own, just like I 'ope you'd want me to. I just want ya to know, though, that when I'm old and grey and on my deathbed... I'll be thinking o' you. And one day, I'll see you in Heaven, if I ever get there, and I 'ope you'll have forgiven me as well."

With that, Nellie turned her back on the stone. 'I've said all I need to say.' she told herself firmly. 'And now it's time to let him go.' And so it was that she left the gillyflowers and the daisies beside the grave to rot.

In fact, they never rotted, for every day, a woman in a dark-coloured dress would bring new blooms from the market to replace them. And every day, no matter what promises she had made to herself, she would sit and talk to the man she had loved, hoping that out there, somewhere, he may be listening.

A/N: So that's it, folks! Hope you liked it. I just wanted to thank you for all the support I've had during this story; it's really meant a lot to me. As always, please review!