Kidney Pie – Last Chapter

Mrs. Lovett drank tea. Chamomile tea with no sugar, that ran too smoothly over her tongue. She didn't particularly care to drink it, but she forced down another swallow because she'd already had too much of the gin she wished she were drinking.

As soon as Mr. Todd had left in that bloody coach, with Anthony and Johanna and their bags, and hooves and wheels clattering on the stony street, she had sat down with the bottle, and stared into the rain, and drank. She refused to open the shop. She'd hardly even spoken to Toby, who seemed finally to slink off quietly, no doubt worrying himself silly about her. So much for being a better mother.

She had hoped the chamomile would clear her head. It didn't seem like that was likely.

In fact, it seemed as likely as Sweeney Todd coming back to her, carrying with him the sense that those fifteen year of waiting, never mind the last, long, busy months of baking cadavers, had been worth something. Bloody…

She could hear the rain beating on the roof above her. That great window, so perfect for lighting delicate work like shaving, always rattled like mad in a storm. Hearing the sound undisturbed by the barber's pacing only reminded her he was gone.

Nellie drank, and wished again that the chamomile was alcohol.

She considered getting up for the bottle, but, really, she was lucky to get for the tea and make it back to her chair without spilling, breaking, or falling over something. So she sat, staring into the warm drink, weighing the risks of going for gin.

Until, behind her, she thought she heard a careful step. Without turning, she splattered the contents of her teacup across the floor. "See if there's another bottle, Toby dear." Swallowing hard, she stared into the wet and miserable stream of Londoners that flowed down Fleet Street. "If I have to go back to making the worst pies in London, I ain't going sober."

Nellie sat numbly as she listened to the steady paces and the scrape of glass. She ought to say something to the lad. He'd been left behind himself, as much as she had. So bleedin' much for being in it together. Instead, she stared at the wet innards of her teacup, wishing they were already full of gin.

Lots of other wishes occurred to her, too. She wished Lucy could've poisoned Johanna sixteen years ago and saved them all this grief. She wished Sweeney had done like she'd told him and just slit Anthony's throat. Or maybe I could've just let Jack…

A bottle hovered at the edge of her vision, and she laid bitterness aside in exchange for gin. She turned her head as she reached for it. And leapt in her seat. Because the hand that held the bottle wasn't Toby's.

"I don't believe you ever made a bad pie in your life."

Mrs. Lovett took the liquor without looking up. "Yeah. And I don't believe you ever killed a whore, either." She waited, taking a long swallow, before she glanced behind her. The Ripper stood at her shoulder, grim-faced and still wearing the white sling around his neck. Refilling her cup, Nellie looked back to the grey world outside. "How'd you creep in here?"

"I am Jack the Ripper. I can go where I please and be noticed when I care to." A step behind her, and she heard the sound of his battered top hat hitting the table beside her, the scuff of chair legs on the floor, before she watched, from the corner of her eye, his gaunt black shape settling down beside her. "Also, you're drunk, love."

"Not as drunk as I will be, dear." Wincing, she took one more good draught in that direction. "What'd you come for, then?"

"To visit you." His free hand braced on his knee, he managed to sit quietly. Almost still. But she could feel his restlessness like she could hear the rain. Closing her eyes, Nellie waited. "He's gone then?"

"And how would you hear that all the way from Whitechapel?"

"Toby."

She drank. "Left this morning."

She glanced away from the window for just long enough to catch a glimpse of the Ripper's face. She half expected to find him smirking. He wasn't. Instead, he looked confused and vaguely worried. Don't suppose the fiend of Whitechapel gets much practice comforting daft, weepy women. She sighed, and spared him another glance. "Don't worry, Jack. It's just fifteen years gone down the bloody sink, is all."

She looked down at the alcohol swirling in the teacup. "Just fifteen years. But I only thought we were getting close..." A wet spot appeared on her cheek, and Mrs. Lovett brushed it away as impartially as if were a smudge of flour. "Why couldn't I keep him?"

"You could've put chains on him while he was sleeping."

"Not quite what I had in mind, love." Nellie drained the cup and set it down with a sharp click on the table beside her, then resumed her staring. "Where've you been, anyway? I ain't seen you for days. Thought I managed to run you off, too."

"I would've come sooner, only my landlady all but held me prisoner after I came home with a broken arm. It was all I could do to escape with my life."

"She put chains on you while you were sleeping?"

"Everything but!" The Ripper sat stiffly beside her, his left hand clutched into a fist where it hung from the sling. "She don't let me out of her sight! She's trying to smother me to death with tea and biscuits and extra blankets. She's a madwoman!"

Mrs. Lovett took another sip. "At least it worked for somebody."

"You don't have to take it like that, sweetheart." Jack's chair squeaked against the floor as he half-turned to face her. "If he's gone, then good riddance, I say. It's not like you can't do without him."

"Takes more than a few kidneys to run this shop, love. And don't think I'm going to fill my pies with stringy old tarts."

The Ripper watched the rain a moment before he glanced sideways at her. "I daresay you'll make do. Besides, there are all sorts of things you can kill and eat. Last week in Whitechapel, I swear I saw a lad selling rats all dressed out like they was suckling pigs. Some of them was almost as big, too."

"They do say necessity is the mother of invention." Nellie drank, grateful for the burning, numbing gin. And for Jack's chatter. For anything to draw her attention from Sweeney Todd's leaving. "Could always go to a butcher."

"That, too."

Together they watched the crowds hurrying to get home halfway dry. Mrs. Lovett sighed again. Even if she's had nothing else, she at least had a business partner, up till then. The thought of having to go to a butcher, entirely practical, seemed like the most miserable task in the world. It only confirmed that Todd really had gone and left her behind on gloomy old Fleet Street, all on her bloody own.

She shook her bleary head. That's the gin talking. She had Toby, wherever the boy was. He was probably worrying his little head off over her. Lord knows I don't deserve him. The baker reached over to refill her gin.

And Jack…

The lights in the pie shop burned bright enough to impose their reflection faintly over the view behind the glass, and for a little while, she ignored the passersby and gazed, judging, at their own warped and blurry images. Two brooding ghosts, pressed side by side with their chairs turned toward the window, staring at the world that marched on by them. Or, staring anyway. The white face beside hers looked out toward the street, but its eyes were turned toward her.

She took another swallow of gin. "You seen Toby, then?"

The reflection nodded. "Out by the street, watching. He only just came in when I did."

The boy ought to have a father, a real place in the world. Or a proper mother, for that matter. She'd meant to do better by him. If she ever had a chance coming, it was the one that just walked away. With the judge gone, they could've gone off some somewhere, put it behind them, been a respectable family. Mostly respectable, anyway. No point in denying that her Mr. T was an odd one. But here she was moping, while the poor boy had been out wandering the street. She told herself she ought to go to him. She took another drink instead.

"Boy's worried about you, you know."

"Yeah? I'd probably worry about myself, too. No sense in that, now, is there?" Rallying, Mrs. Lovett drained the tea cup and then hung it upside down over the neck of the bottle, and handed the rattling assembly to her companion. "Be a dear, Jack, and get me another cup of tea."

Jack took it hesitantly, reaching awkwardly across with his right hand. It clattered brightly as he stood and brought it back to her counter, and by sound and by the pale reflection before her, she followed his steps across the shop. She'd switched to tea not long ago. The water, she hoped, would still be hot. It was: she watched his image fumble wrong-handed with the warm kettle and heard the stream of water falling into the chipped, white cup. As he started back, Nellie stifled a little twinge of guilt at making him play nursemaid.

"Here you are, my dear."

"Thanks, love." She took the cup as it was offered to her and swished the steeping blossoms around the cup as Jack sat down beside her. The ceramic sides, at least, felt warm against her palms. "You ain't a bad man, Jack the Ripper."

The reflection smiled, glancing at her. "You ain't so bad yourself, Eleanor."

"Do what I can, I suppose." Shame Mr. T didn't think so. The tea wasn't strong yet, but she took a sip, savoring the heat. Outside, the world went by. "It is what it is, though, eh? Life's for the alive, and all that. Here's for… them what's here." Still, the things she'd lost paraded through her mind: no more bringing up his breakfast, no more watching his hands as he polished his razors, no more listening to his pacing as she worked down in the bakehouse.

No more bakehouse at all, maybe – certainly nothing to bake dropping through the trapdoor like gifts, great, bloody, practical gifts from her beloved. That intimacy between partners in crime, even if it fell short of what she craved, was gone.

Absently, she brushed another damp spot from her cheek. "Don't suppose you brought me anything to cook tonight?"

Jack regarded her mournfully. "Not tonight, sweetheart."

Nellie took another drop, watching a man in a dark suit dash past as the rain picked up. "That arm's going to keep you off the streets then, is it?"

"For a while."

The tea leaves swirled and swished in her cup. "Shame."

"I haven't even been able to write them!" Jack half-turned toward her, his knees pressing into hers in the narrow space they shared. His left hand gestured helplessly where is hung from his sling. "They have no idea, any of them – the papers, and the stupid, cursed, useless police – they have no idea that I've anything but just disappeared!" Fuming, he turned back to glare at the passing crowds, who had no inkling that they were being watched by the fiend of Whitechapel.

Or, for that matter, by the woman who'd baked, for all she knew, their friends and family into pies. And sold 'em to them, and watched them gobble them down and ask for more. The knowledge that it was all finished with weighed on her. "Poor, silly, old thing." Leaning sideways against her companion, Mrs. Lovett threaded her arm over the Ripper's shoulders. She thought of him, suddenly, as something more than a footnote to her love for Sweeney, more than an entertaining visitor. "Wouldn't really be so bad, though, would it?"

"What?"

"To just disappear." Nellie stared at the window, not seeing any of the scene outside. "I mean, in the end, if you ain't ever caught, there's nothing else for them to think. Is there, love?" The muscles beneath her arm tensed and shifted as he half-glanced sideways at her, but he gave no reply. "'Jack the Ripper, whoever the hell that was. Vanished without a trace.' Or all that whatever it was that was snatching people away on Fleet Street, for that matter."

At that, the killer did look back at her. "And what plans might that Mrs. Lovett, what used to make them lovely pies, have for disappearing?"

Nellie half-smiled, but said nothing, watching the street go by. You tell me, love. Every plan she'd had, she'd watched ride away that afternoon. Her day-dream wedding, her sea-side cottage, her long walks and long nights with Sweeney Todd…

She almost started as a motion beside her brought her attention too quickly back to Fleet Street. At her elbow, the Ripper absently brushed his good hand across the white sling. Nellie frowned. She had been glad for Jack's company, even if only for a distraction. She would still be glad, except that somehow he didn't quite distract her anymore.

She didn't want to think about making choices. Not until morning. Not until late in the morning. Heaven knows I'll be paying for the gin tomorrow. But his silent reflection begged her for the answer to an unspoken question.

Listening to the rain drumming on Todd's abandoned window, she stared at their image in the glass. He had almost killed her time or two, but then so had her Sweeney. A little less serious than Todd, a little less wounded, a bit less predictable. But he'd given her what the barber hadn't, and he did make her laugh. Even if he is about a top crust short of a meat pie. He just wasn't her Mr. T. She sighed. Moving slowly, she brushed her fingers through his hair. "What are we going to do with you, Mr. Ripper?"

Jack turned his head, and for a moment, his eyes searched hers. Something about him struck her as unusually sober, and, in her own less-than-sober state, Mrs. Lovett didn't want to deal with it. She looked away, her fingers dropping from his hair to hang limply over his shoulder.

Nellie took another drop of tea – strong enough to drink now- and the wet, miserable world dragged on past their window. The same window where she'd watched with Sweeney the day he killed Pirelli, the day they became partners.

She didn't want to think about that either. She took another sip of tea and looked down instead at the soggy bits of chamomile as she swirled them around the cup. Wearily, she leaned into the arm that still hung heavily across his shoulders.

"Stafford."

Mrs. Lovett blinked, glancing up at her companion. "What?"

"My last name." Jack cast her a shifty, sideways glimpse, still stiffly facing the window. "It's Stafford."

Several possible implications of this face presented themselves to the baker's tired and gin-clouded mind and then fled before she could grasp them. She nodded. "Where are you from, then, Mr. Stafford?"

"Camden." Jack paused for a moment, and she watched his face, still except for the wild eyes, in the window glass. "But I lived in Whitechapel a good while now."

She grunted. "That ain't so far. Been out that way once or twice." Her head lolled against his shoulder, whether out of loneliness or laziness or just plain gin, she wasn't sure. Breathing deeply, she let it rest there. "You come down in the world, love."

Her eyes were half-closing when she felt his hand close around her own where it hung over his shoulder. "I'm quite content."

"I'm sure." Nellie sighed. The bunched cloth of his sling pressed against her cheek. "And what on earth was it made you start killing whores?"

The reflection grinned a mild, crooked smile. "Just for jolly. Wouldn't you?"

"Fair enough." As rain rattled the window, they watched silently. If she wanted to be rid of him, Mrs. Lovett supposed, she could go to the police, provided that the name he'd given her was true. And provided she could trust him not to mention little details like the ingredients of her meat pies after his arrest. But her head stayed pillowed on his bony shoulder. It wasn't a bad shoulder to rest on, either, apart from the knotted bandage. "Why you telling me all this?"

His shrug jostled her. He gave no other answer.

Nellie supposed she'd need to know. If.

If she gave any mind to the question nagging at the edges of her thoughts. Her memory managed to drag back the voice of her Aunt Nettie – rich Aunt Nettie who had lived by the miserable, blasted, far-away sea - saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

If only she hadn't had her eye on the one in the bush for such a long time.

Nellie groaned, but her head stayed on his shoulder. "Fifteen years, Jack." She turned her face, and the new dampness about her eyes dried on the clean cloth of his coat.

Quietly, he took her hand again and squeezed it. "I still say you're well rid of him. Only, I should have liked to kill the dirty cuss, what for the madhouse and all."

"I know, love." The baker blinked, weary. The gin and the chamomile and the lazy drumming of the rain took their toll on her, and she really felt quite comfortable leaning as she was. "Can't say you did too well that way, though. You could've saved his life, you know?" Mrs. Lovett took Jack's strangled reply to mean either denial or disgust. Or both, the old devil. She almost laughed. "Well, I appreciate it, Jack, anyway. Think I'd rather have him off with his daughter than moldering away in my basement."

"So she was his daughter, then, that girl?

"Oh, that's a long and tragic story, that is." With her face still pressed into the Ripper's bony shoulder, Nellie smiled bitterly. "The funny thing is his wife. His precious Lucy." Damn her eyes, wherever she is.

"Your Todd! A married man?"

"Widower, so far as he knows. Well, now he is, anyway. She didn't even know herself, never mind him."

"How do you mean?" Jack stirred, trying to see her face without disturbing her. "You ain't good for stories when you been at the gin, Eleanor."

Mrs. Lovett smiled wider, though not kindly. Her hand drew close against his collar as she craned her neck until she was almost whispering in his ear. "That bloody beggar. The one you did in that first night you came here."

And, while Jack sat still as stone beneath her cheek, Nellie laughed, muffling the sound in the cloth of his jacket. She shouldn't. While Mr. Todd was there, she wouldn't've dared to laugh at what he never guessed that foggy night. But he was gone. Why should she worry anymore? Deserve a laugh after all this, don't I?

She laughed, and then, the frame she leaned on shook beneath her and they laughed together, letting London pass by unobserved. Finally, out of breath, Nellie stopped, grinning and exhausted and gleeful and crushed. Leaning heavily on the arm hanging over the Ripper's shoulders, she could feel the hard outline of the knife in his pocket, and his ribs heaving as his last chuckling faded away. Her hand had found its way into his hair again.

Something in her quickened, drinking in the manic energy the killer beside her suddenly seemed to radiate. She stayed where she was, draped against his side, only half paying any mind to trying not to spill her tea across her lap. She supposed it all due to drink, but, for the moment, she was too comfortable to care. She managed a weary smile. "You really ain't such a bad fellow at all."

Jack grinned fiercely. He reached up and touched her jaw, pressed her face against his shoulder. Nellie almost chuckled. Alright, love. I've definitely had too much gin.Careful of his broken arm, she shifted away.

Drawing herself upright again, Mrs. Lovett frowned and stared again into the bottom of her teacup. She suddenly felt that she'd had far too much of sitting in her empty shop. The blossoms swirled and twirled, and she felt just as restless, unsatisfied, just tilting the half-empty cup from side to side. "S'pose it's time I went to bed. I have my famous dust and cockroach pies to bake tomorrow." Beside her, the Ripper slouched down in his seat, turning a sullen glare back to the traffic. Ignoring a sudden swell of sympathy, Nellie drained the tea down to the dregs, then, standing, watched the blossoms clump and settle in the last shallow pool of tea.

She was deadly tired. It hit her as she stood, steadying herself. But something kept her from turning back for bed. She paused, then set the tea cup down with a sharp clack.

Jack looked up at her when she touched his shoulder, and it made the baker smile. Carefully, quietly, only a little unsteadily, she drew him after her, through the half-lit kitchen and back into her home.

THREE YEARS LATER

The windows were open in the seaside cottage, and the air, rich with the smell of the ocean, rolled into Nellie's bedroom. And it was baking hot. Mrs. Lovett lay in her nightgown, fanning herself with the book she'd been trying to read, as she listened to the gulls cry and the tide thump into the sand.

She'd never regretted for a second her choice of location. She loved every second and every detail of her life by the sea. She loved the squawking gulls. She loved the sand that clung to her toes and the soles of her feet as she ran up the beach after splashing in the waves. And she always did play in the incoming water when she could, even if it seemed childish. Even the day trippers, the bane of all the locals, amused her. She liked to think that so many were striving to taste for just a day what she enjoyed all the time.

And the heat, too, couldn't bother her. At least it didn't raise a stink up with it like it always had in London. Besides, it gave her an excuse to take a little swim after she closed the shop. She lay quite contentedly, despite the sheen of sweat that rose on her skin, just listening.

And above the surf and the squeals of the last few tourists still lingering on the beach, her ears picked up another sound, a footstep on the stairs below her bedroom. She perked up, her listless heart, lazy with the heat, stirring faster. She knew already who it was.

Another step. He always came up the stairs so stealthily, but she heard him. Laying the book aside, she lifted herself up on her elbow, her eyes locking on the door. A thrill ran through her as she watched the knob turn. That thrill exploded into a tingling anticipation as Sweeney Todd appeared behind the slowly opening door.

In the sweltering heat, he'd unbuttoned his vest and left it hanging open. His sleeves he had rolled back to his elbows, his collar was undone, and his cravat hung loose around his neck. Nellie eagerly scanned the skin revealed. The very pale skin. She had to admit, the sun hadn't done much for her Mr. Todd. Nor for her either. Even here the world ain't so perfect as that. But the tone of his skin made little difference as those dark eyes fixed on hers.

"Evening, Mr. T."

The barber said nothing as he crossed slowly, deliberately to the bed. Mrs. Lovett propped herself up on her elbow as he sat down beside her, leaning carefully over her. One of his hands reached behind her back, his careful stroke along her spine chilling her in spite of the heat. Her own fingers reached up to glide over Mr. Todd's body and wrap themselves into the fabric of his shirt.

"Thank God for summers by the sea." Nellie's pulse throbbed all through her as she clutched him harder.

Sweeney leaned in closer, his breath hot against her ear. "Have you let the fire die down?"

One of the baker's hands freed itself from his shirt and buried its fingers in his wild hair. "I'll never let the fire go out for you, my love."

Todd's hand carefully stroked the space between her shoulder blades. "I think you have, actually. It's dreadful cold in here."

Impatient, Nellie craned her neck, trying to see her lover's face. "What on earth are you talking about, Mr. T?"

"Eleanor, are you quite alright?"

"Oh, bloody hell." Exasperated, Mrs. Lovett, now Mrs. Jack Stafford, opened her eyes to see precisely what she knew she would: Jack, the sometime Ripper, crouching at their little stove, rekindling the fire as another sea-blown winter storm lashed at the windows. Sighing, she turned to look at the clock beside their bed. One o' clock in the gloomy old morning. She shivered as she sat up, and drew the quilt around her shoulders. Good a time to be dreaming of Sweeney Todd as any.

But it certainly was cold. Maybe the water did it, because their little town on the Liverpool coast seemed to catch more foul weather than London ever did. She stretched, and watched while Jack, muttering to himself, fed shredded paper on the rising flames. She smiled. She supposed the paper had come from the copy of the Liverpool Echo that had just been sitting in their little parlor. "You seen the paper, then?"

"Paper, sweetheart?"

"The one you're burning, for instance?"

For a split second, Jack froze, a sort of flicker, but that mild, contented smile didn't falter, "Oh, not really, love. I just…" He shrugged as his eyes caught hers, and then shoved another page into the stove. "You know."

"Course, dearie. Wouldn't want it cluttering up the table, anyway, when the new one comes tomorrow." Nellie shivered as she swung her feet out of bed. Suppose I should've banked the fire up before I turned in. As she jammed her toes into her waiting slippers, she watched her husband closely, waiting. "Been a couple of women gone missing in the city, they say." He paused again. "Thought maybe you'd know something about it, what with you being coroner now."

"I…" He hesitated, fingers, clamped around a ball of newsprint. "No. Can't say I've heard anything yet."

Nellie shrugged. "Oh well, then." She was careful to sound disinterested but she studied him carefully all the same. "Mostly whores sound from the sound of it."

Another flicker, and those wild eyes darted to hers. "Whores?" He shoved the rest of the paper through the door. "What a shame."

She couldn't help smiling. "Silly old Jack."

Fumbling with the matchbox, the Ripper paused to look at her. "Why do you say that, sweetheart?"

"Oh, no reason, love. Don't pay me no mind. You just make me laugh, is all." He grinned at her as she stood to meet him, and she smiled sleepily back. He still wore his coat, wet with the rain. His battered old top hat, she knew, would be resting on its accustomed peg beside the front door. A crackling rose up louder in the iron belly of the stove, and he shut the door, then stood to face her. "You're home awful late tonight, Jack."

"Sorry, Eleanor. I had to take the 11:00 train out of the city tonight." Jack smiled calmly as he stepped toward her, but she though she saw a crafty gleam hiding in his eyes before he half-turned away to undo the buttons of his coat. "Some little things to do in town, I'm afraid."

Nellie eyed him carefully. He managed to look a little more respectable than he used to. Just as pale, but less disheveled, less gaunt. Less a creature of sin-stricken Whitechapel. Just my domestic touch, I suppose. And besides, she'd known all along that his new position as Liverpool's new coroner would suit him perfectly well. It didn't hurt that it paid handsomely, too. She could almost have told herself that Jack the Ripper was as dead and gone as the baffled Londoners no doubt hoped he was.

Almost.

"Busy day at the mortuary then, my dear?"

"No more so than usual, I suppose. The usual get brought in from the brawls down by the harbor, and the odd suicide. One they fished out of the river. Don't know how long he been there, but he stank alright!"

Nellie, discreetly inspecting the cuffs off her husband's sleeves for blood, quickly let go of his hands.

"But there'll be an inquest next week for that harbor rat from yesterday, and I've got to mind my business well. That miserable old cuss they have for a chief of police wasn't happy after the last job. Just because I might've misplaced an innard or two…"

"Quite an overreaction, I'm sure." No little tidbits had found their way into her kitchen. That she was sure of, unless her Jack had grown much craftier during the three years of their marriage. Nellie grinned up at him. A blind man could tell you're up to something, love. Still smiling, she pushed open her husband's coat and began to unbutton his vest, her eyes searching for any stray red droplets.

Jack let her work, his own hands holding the quilt lightly to her shoulders as it began to slip. "It's not like they need every little scrap of liver to have their investigation. I don't see what the fuss is about." He shivered as he shrugged off jacket and waistcoat. "And how've you been keeping, love?"

"Oh, alright I suppose. Quiet day at the shop." Casually, she took the wet clothes from him and turned to hang them by the fire to dry. She turned towards the stove, and behind her, she heard the easy footsteps that meant Jack was going to their dresser for his pajamas. She would have time, then. Stopping beside the cast-iron stove, she set the bundle down on a plain wooden chair. With a glimpse over her shoulder, she prodded the coat for any hidden knives. She found none. "That bloody Mrs. Brandshaw came back again, harping about my cherry tarts." She shrugged as spread the clothes over the chair back to dry. Long as he ain't using my kitchen knives for his mischief. The oven was just starting to throw off its warmth. "Honestly, if she don't like how I make them, she don't have to drop by for a half dozen every week, does she? Won't find me twisting her arm to get her in, I can promise you that, dear."

The damp from his jacket made her hands cold, and she reached out toward the low, black stove. The flames, visible through a little window in the door, danced wildly away inside. It was much shorter than the big old thing in her bakehouse in London. She smiled. That thing could throw off heat like nothing else. Nellie turned back, shrugging the quilt closer as she watched her husband.

Jack smiled bemusedly and fussed with the buttons of the flannel nightshirt she'd found him last year at a good price. He always seemed to wear that too-familiar look, that distant, mellow grin. Except lately. Looking at it now, it struck her that she hadn't seen it much for a while, and hadn't noticed it. Like my good slotted spoon. You always assume it's right around here somewhere. Only after the last two weeks or so, after a few of these late nights, did his mood seem to brighten again. Mrs. Lovett smiled. "Huh."

Jack looked up at her. "What?"

"Nothing, deary. Just thinking what a cheery fellow you are, is all." Crossing to the bed, Nellie flung the quilt back over the mattress and slipped into bed, grinning up at Jack as she flopped back against the pillows. "Oh my, Jack, I do sometimes miss them old days." The former Ripper gave her a curious look, but still smiled quite peacefully. "A little more excitement in them days than we have now. Don't you think, so, love?"

Jack, walking toward his side of their bed, paused. "What, tired of your seaside dreams already, Eleanor?"

"Oh, of course not, silly thing." She folded back the blankets for him. "Just a little different is all."

That was all true. Storms and all, they had a cozy life, and she was content. But she'd never imagined, when she'd made her newly-wedded husband swear off murder, that she might feel just a bit of regret herself. Of course, she'd been careful to make it sound as though she would, as though they were both giving up something. As if I'd ever miss cooking human flesh. And yet, she found that she did miss her life of crime. Or rather, she missed being somebody's partner in crime.

But not as much as she wagered Jack missed the "little vices" she'd coaxed him into giving up. "There isn't anything about Whitechapel you regret leaving just a little bit?"

Jack stared at her, still grinning that same daft smile. "No." And quickly, he turned away and sat on the edge of the bed.

Nellie cursed silently and rolled onto her side, trying to see her husband's face. Oh, come out with it, love. She supposed that she'd fairly well mastered the managing of madmen, between Mr. Todd and her Jack the Ripper. One way or another, she'd get what he knew about the missing whores. "You finished up all your errands, then?"

Jack paused, halfway through slipping off his socks. "My what?"

"You said you had things to do in town tonight."

"My… Yes." Glancing sideways at her, he went back to his sock. "All finished, love."

"That's nice, Jack." Reaching up, Nellie touched his shoulder and gently, guiding more than pulling, drew him down until he regarded her warily from the pillow beside hers. "And what was it you had to do, now?"

"Oh… things." Jack stared at her, and she couldn't quite miss the calculating gleam in his eyes. "Took a bit of a stroll and all, you know…"

The wind blew another burst of rain chattering against their walls. "Nice weather for a walk, too." Still propped up on her elbow, the baker looked down at her husband, grinning. The fiend of Whitechapel reminded her of nothing so much as a little boy with a secret. I don't know how the bloody police could never find this blighter. "Come on, love. What're you hiding from me?"

"Hiding, sweetheart?" Stock-still, Jack blinked up at her. "Who says I'm hiding anything?"

"I do." Gently, she slid her hand over his chest to rest her fingers threateningly against his side. "What's the secret, Jack?"

Jack glared up at her. "There is no secret. And don't you dare."

"I think I do dare, Jack." She grinned, and pressed her fingertips firmly against the flannel that covered his ribs. "I'm having my own little inquest. So out with it, dear."

"You can't have an inquest because nobody here is dead." Jack tried to squirm away from her hand. "And only the coroner can call an inquest."

"So can his wife, my dear." Nellie had only found out by accident that her husband was ticklish, but she'd found it to her advantage once or twice before, but tonight he batted her arm away. "You going to tell me or not?"

"Hmph!" Jack tucked his arms close to his sides as he turned to face away from her. "Such warrantless treachery, Eleanor. Not fair play at all!"

"Fine. Keep your secrets then." Nellie rolled her eyes as she smoothed the blankets over them both, but she smiled still. I'll worm it out of you one way or another. The sheets rustled, blending with the rattle of the rain on their windowpanes, as she nestled against her husband. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you've been cheating on me."

The figure at her back stiffened suddenly, then drew away. Jack snatched his wife's hand even as she reached to put out the light, leaning up over her. Startled, Nellie looked up to find his face seized with an agony she'd never known in him. She squeezed the hand that held her own. "What's this now, love? What is it?"

When Jack said nothing, she sat up, drawing closer to him, shaking off his grip, she gathered his cold hands and pressed them between hers. She might have expected a fit like this from Sweeney, those years ago, but never from her daft, smiling Jack. It shook her to see him looking so stricken. "Calm down now, Jack. Tell your Nellie all about it."

"Does it count if I only kill them?"

"What?"

"The other women. I only kill them, and I swear that's all there is. And only because I can't do the same to you. Not yet, Eleanor."

Her husband's eyes pleaded with her. Nellie bit back a laugh. I had that guessed right enough after all. "No, I don't think that counts." Quickly, she placed a smiling kiss on his white knuckles, clutched between her own hand. "Besides, you know I ain't the jealous type. I was only teasing you, love."

Finally, Jack let out a shaky breath and seemed to relax, and she took him by the shoulder and coaxed his down again. "You see, now? I only wouldn't want you taking any chances, is all. What would me and Toby do if you was to get caught?"

"I won't get caught. Them missing girls aren't missing at all. They been through the morgue, where nobody so much as thinks twice about them. Properly documented and bundled off to the graveyard with the nameless poor." He sighed as Nellie settled down beside him. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know you meant we should settle down and live quiet, but it just weren't the same."

Old dogs and new tricks. "It's alright, dear. Just have to be careful is all. We'll talk tomorrow and sort everything right out." Mrs. Lovett smiled softly. Gently, she smoothed his hair away from his face. "You just rest now. Tomorrow's Saturday and I promised Toby you'd teach him how to gut a fish. I suppose it can't be too different from anything else you know how to take apart. Only don't go encouraging him to start in on nothing else."

Jack pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You see why I can't kill you, sweetheart, and tear up them other ones instead? 'Cause what would I do without you?" Eagerly, he wound his arms around her, and Nellie lay quietly against his chest. "Or if I did kill you, it would have to be something special. Something better than any job I've ever done before."

"That's nice, love." The stove was just beginning to warm the room in earnest. She could feel it on her face. She felt, too, Jack sleepily nuzzling her hair. She'd keep an eye on him. It wouldn't do to have the Ripper, who vanished, uncaptured, from Whitechapel, make a reappearance in Liverpool. But Mrs. Lovett smiled into the dark. "You know, I really do miss the old days, Jack. Never thought I'd miss Fleet Street, but there you are. Fruit pies and bread and scones are alright, but not quite the same, is all."

Jack mumbled into her still-unmanageable curls. "It's not as much fun if they're already dead, either."

She pulled closer to him, still grinning. "One of these nights, Jack, you bring me home something. Just a tidbit or two." The Ripper's heart thumped against her ear. She could almost feel him grinning. "Maybe I'll make you another kidney pie."

THE END

Please. Don't kill me.
I spent forever deciding how to end this story. I always planned to go Sweenett. I started writing an ending where Sweeney confessed his love and Nellie broke up with Jack (which was frigging epic!) and I loved it and it still kinda bug me... Then I wrote this ending, and I loved it, and the scenes before it... But it drove me crazy for Sweeney to leave! So I started a THIRD ending where Sweeney comes back... And the entire time I was working on a Sweenett ending, I was like, "Maybe I should write a sequel where Todd gets in trouble and Mrs. Lovett has to find Jack for help..." and the entire time I was working on a Jackett ending, I was like, "Maybe I should write a sequel where Mr. Todd comes back and craziness happens..." And the whole time I spent writing ANYTHING for this story, I kept wanting to do alternate endings...

But, fact is, I have other things on other burners, and I need to get to them, so I went with the ending that was ready to go.
At any rate, thank you all for reading this monstrosity. Thanks to everyone who left a review, or added this to their faves or follows. You guys rock. Hopefully I'll see you round the interwebs from time to time. Thanks again. XD