220Disclaimer: "Sweeney Todd" characters property of Stephen Sondheim, Dreamworks, Warner Bros., et. al. Used here without permission for entertainment purposes and no profit is being made.
Any resemblance to elements of other works of fan fiction (e.g., words, phrases, scene elements) is entirely coincidental, since DojoGhost simply can't read everything that's out there. No plagiarism intended in any respect. To the best of my knowledge, this plot is my original work.
A/N: Heh, this is up fast. eh? Well, it's been sitting around for a while, so here it is.
I've changed the date from the conventional 1846/7, based on the general Victorian vagueness of the ST film.
This is a new multi-chap and is not in any way, shape or form connected with my other two fics, "When Sweeney Met Lizzie" and "Born with the Devil". It's very, VERY different from either of those.
I figured I'd get this going now since I'm going to be gone for a while taking care of a severe family emergency.
Acknowledgments: To Todd666, whose mention of the American Civil War in her fic "I'm the Only One" (when ARE you updating that again, by the way? ;)) made a light bulb go on in my head...
...and to Pamena, who thought this was a great idea when I ran it by her. So if this is terrible, blame them :D j/k
1
Lies.
June, 1862.
"Come here, my love…"
Imbued with dripping scarlet, baring his teeth in a mockery of a grin, his hard eyes glinting in the light like black marble, his face bathed in the infernal orange glare of the open oven – like a fiend out of Abaddon, he stalked her, the mere force of his fury backing her against the wall in abject terror.
She hadn't known it was possible to love anyone or anything as much as she loved him in this moment.
The look on his face when he'd learned the truth – the look of a man irredeemably shattered and ruined and fallen; the anguish in his eyes, the mourning in his voice as he'd murmured "You lied to me" – the wail of sorrow she hadn't known he was capable of making…All of it had broken her heart. "Yes," she'd said, "I lied 'cause I love you…I'd be twice the wife she was…I love you…"
She'd confessed her love to him before, of course, but now the words were desperate: she had to reach him, right now, or the one last shred of the life she'd so carefully crafted would be torn away forever. She had to make him understand. Surely he hadn't forgotten what they'd been to each other these past few months – all their long sleepless nights, lost in each other, reveling in the secret of the dark life they'd created, drowning in their need for comfort, pleasure, oblivion – surely nothing could wipe all that away. He hadn't longed for his Lucy then – she was certain he hadn't. He couldn't have. Not when it was Eleanor Lovett's name he would roar as if he'd shake the walls down with it…not when he'd murmur things in the darkness that nearly drove her mad, not when those shining obsidian eyes had gazed on her as though –
But here he was, closing in on her with an open razor in the hand that beckoned her to him.
"Can we still be married?" she whispered, hoping the reminder would get through to him, shake the awful madness from his expression. They'd spoken of marriage before, she wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise; he couldn't have forgotten…He was right on her now, only a breath away, still grinning that malicious, feral, terrible grin; and the hand that held the blade rose up –
With a solid chink! that echoed coldly through the chamber, the knife hit the stone floor. But Lovett was still cringing as Todd reached out his hands…
He grasped her arms and buried his face in her neck, murmuring "What's dead…is dead."
Then his hands were at her waist, in her hair; his lips were pressing heated kisses to the skin of her neck, shoulder, traveling across her collarbone to nip lightly at her throat, and she was too stunned at first to react.
"Nellie," he growled, kissing along her jawline. "Don't tell me you were frightened of me, pet."
She smiled, breathless. She couldn't speak for astonishment. He nuzzled her neck again one more time before pulling back just enough to look directly into her eyes, whispering her own words – "Life is for the alive, my dear" – before smothering her mouth with his, kissing her deeply, drawing an enraptured moan from her and offering his own in return. His fingers played with the fastenings of her dress; she laughed inside as she gripped both sides of his collar and tore the top few buttons from his shirt.
He broke the kiss and smiled down at her. "Married," he muttered.
Her eyes closed in blessed relief. "Yes, my love…"
"Of course we can," he said hoarsely, his lips tender now as they glided slowly over her face. "Why couldn't we?"
She tried to reply, but all that escaped her was a deep sigh of ecstasy. She was faint; she grasped Todd's shoulders to prevent herself from collapsing and yet still she felt as though she were falling…or flying…
"The sea, my dear," he was saying, wrapping his arms around her waist and walking her clumsily through the cavernous room, towards the door and the stairs…"your sea…I'll take you there, and we can be married…"
"Yes," she breathed…
"…and we'll enjoy each other every night to the sound of the sea out our window…"
"…oh, love…"
They reached the base of the stairs, and he suddenly swept her feet out from under her, lifting her into his arms, and carried her, never ceasing his kisses and caresses and whispers of their future…through the shop, into the parlor, placing her lovingly on the settee.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you, my love?..."
She was losing her mind from the feeling of his hands roaming her body through her clothing, her heart threatening to burst asunder from perfect bliss. Not because this was the first time they'd been this close, this intimate – it wasn't – but because this time was different: everything she'd dreamed of and hoped and longed and worked so hard for was becoming her reality at last, and she wondered if she could bear it. Her hands twined themselves in his hair as she practically moaned, "You know I would…"
He chuckled – that dark, low, almost coughing sound that she loved so much. "Would it make you happy, my pet?..."
She felt him smile against her collarbone as his lips and tongue captured every inch of flesh not covered by fabric, peppering little playful bites in just the right spots because he knew her so well…she felt the sticky, stinking residue of the judge's blood smearing on her skin, coating both of them now; but she didn't care because this blood was the sign of completion, the guarantee that the miserable existence she'd been trapped in for so long was finally over and done, everything and everyone that ever stood between her and the man she worshiped and the life she knew they could have – all of it was done away with forever; and now here he was, making her own blood race in her veins…God in heaven, she couldn't take much more…She panted his name through her ragged, ever-quickening breathing, begging him…
Then he lifted his head, locked his cold eyes onto hers, and rasped, the savage grin still plastered on his face: "I love you, Nellie."
Everything stopped. Her racing pulse, her gasping breath, her clinging hands – all of it simply, abruptly ceased – then released again in a cry of joy that tore from her very soul, and she pulled him to her again, holding him fast, trying to stop herself from sobbing in happiness.
This was perfection. This was paradise.
He cradled her, rocking her gently, hushing her as if she were a frightened child and calling her all the pet names she so loved to hear. "Don't cry, my dear," he said. "I love you."
She managed to pull herself together enough to mutter "I'm sorry…I never…I love you so much, Sweeney…"
He pulled back and regarded her face, allowing her tears to flow unimpeded, not attempting to wipe them away. "I know you do, my sweet. You have nothin' to apologize for. Now. We've made quite the mess tonight, you and me. People will wonder where Bamford and Turpin have disappeared to. I don't think I can stay here."
His pragmatic words felt out of place in such circumstances; but perhaps for this very reason, they jarred Nellie back to reality. "…Yes," she nodded. "Of course…you're right…"
"I only need to clean myself up," he said, rising from the sofa and moving towards the door, "and I suggest you do the same. I'll be back in a moment."
When he reached the door, Nellie called out to him; and when he turned she said – slowly, relishing the words now that she knew he would welcome them – "I love you."
He only grinned again, and left the room.
She moved mechanically, as if in a dream, forcing herself to believe what had just happened with every breath, every step she took down the hall to her room, where she located the valise she'd prepared in the event of a speedy escape and began tossing various items into it with trembling hands. Her absolute worst nightmare had come to life: he'd found out the truth, learned what his Lucy had become, learned that his own hand had destroyed her…he'd discovered Nellie's deception – and still he chose to be with her. Because he understood her reason. He understood her love for him, because he loved her in return. Enough to make her his wife. And she would be such a good wife to him that he'd never recall he'd ever had another.
He loves me, she silently rejoiced, as she quickly moved to the washstand and sluiced the blood from her skin. He loves me…
The words resounded in her mind over and over as she carried her bag out to the parlor to wait for him, until she realized she was muttering them under her breath and crying again from the impossibility of it all, from the feeling of hope and happiness she hadn't felt since…
Ever. She'd never been this happy. Hadn't known what the notion meant before this night.
She was roused from her musings by her heart's response to the sound of his step at the parlor door – the sound of a new life with the man she adored more than anything. That was all she'd ever wanted; everything she'd done had simply been a means of achieving this…
He was standing in the doorway, smirking, pulling on his gloves, not looking at her. She stood and swiped the last of her tears from her cheeks as she approached him. "Ready, dear?" she asked, beaming at him.
"Yes, I think so." His voice was hard.
"Where we goin'?"
"To hell, the both of us," he answered quietly. "Until that day arrives, however, I'm not sure where I'll be – "
And he turned on her a look of such malevolence and hatred that he might as well have punched her in the face. Startled by this abrupt change in his demeanor, she backed away from him a step.
" – I'm only sorry it can't be here, to watch you hang."
For a sickening moment, she thought he might be serious – the way he was looking at her, his face a mask of undiluted wrath and loathing. But his sense of humor was a dark one; he was more than capable of making a macabre joke from time to time, as he'd proven by engaging with her playful banter when she'd first told him of her plan for the disposal of his victims. Surely this comment was like that. So she laughed.
And soon learned that was a horrible, horrible mistake.
He stepped towards her, sneering, his fists clenched and trembling at his sides as though only just barely managing to contain himself, to keep from striking her. "Did you really think I meant it, Mrs. Lovett? That I'd take you away and marry you? That I love you? Did you?"
Shock and confusion rose in her now, rooting her feet to the floor. He was advancing on her but she couldn't move…When he was only two steps away he reached out and seized a bottle from the bottom shelf of the liquor cabinet and hurled it within an inch of Nellie's head, screaming "Did you?!" The impact, the sound of glass bursting against the far wall, jolted her into reality; and she began retreating from him again, just as she had in the bake house not half an hour before, her hands groping behind her for support –
He looked as though he could kill her with his bare hands, without so much as a blink.
And still, even in her terror of him, she told herself he was only play-acting, for some strange reason known only to himself. This couldn't be real. She'd fallen asleep on the settee waiting for him, she was sure; and this was a nightmare. The other things, the things he'd done and said to her, telling and showing her that he loved her, that was real…
"How does it feel, my dear?" he said, his voice like velvet. "To be deceived?"
Her heart lurched. "Sweeney…what are you sayin', love?…
"Not terribly pleasant, is it?..."
Still moving backwards, she stumbled on the hem of her dress – gasped harshly, managed to catch herself on the back of the armchair. Her limbs were going weak. "Come on now, stop foolin' with me…" He can't mean it, not after all that, not after he said all those things –
"I'm an adulterer because of you," Todd was snarling, the words seething between his teeth. "My wife is dead because of you…"
She swallowed hard, her breath coming rapidly now, making her lightheaded. A creeping awareness that she wouldn't be able to dupe herself much longer was slowly dawning in her mind…" You don't really mean this –"
He stopped moving suddenly, his face giving no indication that he'd even heard a word she'd said. When he spoke again it was with the tone of a revelation hitting him: "Everything…everything that's happened here, everything I've done…is because of you."
Nellie's heart was breaking and racing and liquefying all at once, torn as she was between despair and a will to live and a desire to die, if he was serious about all this. When he took his next step towards her she found enough breath to gasp, "Sweeney...what…what're you doin'?..."
"I'm leaving, Mrs. Lovett."
And somehow, something about those words – his tone, or his expression – told her, finally, that he was serious, that he did mean it, every bit of it.
Her first reaction, when this truth finally sank in, was that she couldn't let this happen, not when she'd held her every desire in the palm of her hand scant moments ago…she had to fight, to hold on to it…
"I know you remember," she said. "What you said to me, how you touched me, all those nights…I know it meant somethin' to you; you can't deny it, Sweeney Todd…"
"Poor, deluded Nellie," he said softly, shaking his head, his voice dripping with mock pity. "What did you think that was? Love? I thought I made myself clear many times. I thought we had an understanding."
Her back hit the bookcase abruptly, painfully, making her draw another sharp gasp; and before she could slip away Todd had an arm on either side of her, his hands gripping the bottom shelf, trapping her, his breath hot on her face; and even now, like this, she trembled with longing to have him so close.
"I never loved you," he hissed, chewing on the words, relishing them. "Lusted after you, yes. Wanted you, yes. But love, Nellie? Love?"
A vicious grin was on his face as he spat the word: "Never."
She felt as though her insides were collapsing.
There had been a time when she'd felt safe to weep in his presence – when (and she was not imagining this, no…she would hold on to this; this had been real) he would gently brush her tears away. But now, she felt the sting in her eyes and fought to hold it all in. She couldn't allow him to see, not anymore…
"What are you gonna do, then?" she choked out. "Kill me? Get it done, then. You'll be doin' me a bleedin' favor."
A slow smile spread across his features. "Oh no, my dear. I'm not gonna soil my hands with you any longer."
She blinked – she hadn't expected this. "Then what – "
The glee on his face was positively diabolical. "I did want to kill you – oh yes. I wanted to cast your filthy lying carcass into your own goddamned oven and watch you burn and hear you scream. But then I realized…death is too good for you, Nellie Lovett. I want your punishment to hurt, you see. Death would hurt, of course – so much the pain would drive you out of your senses. But it wouldn't last. And I want it to last, pet. I want you to suffer with every breath you draw for the rest of your life. I want you to grieve every day for what you believed, for an instant, you could've had. I hope you don't hang after all, you know, Mrs. Lovett. I hope you live many, many years, because I want your every moment of existence to be an agony, you heartless, soulless…"
His face was twisting with emotions Nellie couldn't read. His voice trailed off, and he drew a shaky breath before going on.
"That is the worst punishment I could possibly inflict on you, and the best. The sweetest revenge – one that endures forever." He pressed himself against her then, and reached a hand to her face, his fingertips lightly drifting over her cheek. "Just think, my dear," he said. "I'll be with you always. You'll never escape me."
Suddenly he grasped her hair close to the scalp and pulled viciously, forcing a strangled cry from her as her head tilted back – snarled "Take this with you to your grave, Nellie Lovett" – and kissed her, hard and long and brutal; and she responded desperately, still hoping –
And then he was gone.
Left her trying to stand on shaking legs, which gave out after a time; and she crumpled to the floor, numb at first, for a long while.
The wail that finally ripped from the very core of her being dissolved at last into racking sobs. She didn't know how long she lay there, wrapped in her own torment, before grief so wearied her body that she fell into the welcome oblivion of sleep.
He was hurting. Badly. The pain was like a ball of molten steel in the hollow of his chest, where his heart should be.
He loathed himself for it, for giving her this power over him, to wound him like this, so deeply, as if he were bleeding to death inside. It wasn't just Lucy – and he hated that; it should have been just Lucy, all because of Lucy, of what she'd become, of what he'd done to her. But it wasn't. It was also because bloody Nellie Lovett had deceived him.
It was his own foolish, damnable fault, he told himself as he stalked through the London night, with no destination in mind and nothing in his possession but the clothes on his back and the cash he'd hurriedly shoved into his pockets. He'd left everything else behind – just marched out the door and into the blackness without looking back. He simply didn't care anymore. He laughed to himself when he thought that Barker hadn't really died after all, had he, the naïve jackass? Sweeney Todd, menace of London, was just as stupid, just as gullible – he'd opened himself up, trusted someone, because he thought she understood him. He'd let her in, showed her who he was and who he was afraid of becoming and who he wanted, despite himself, to be; trusted her with his past and his present and God almighty, nearly with his future. He'd stripped his heart naked and exposed it to her. Allowed himself to respond to her care and affection, to indulge his own need for comfort, a companion, an equal.
He'd let himself grow fond of her. It did him no good to lie to himself about it. He'd grown very, very fond of her indeed.
All when he'd sworn long ago to never, ever, not under any circumstances, allow any of those things to occur with anyone again.
Not even, he knew, with Lucy, had she been present and lucid and sane when he'd returned. Even when he'd thought she was dead and longed for things to be different, in the silence of the long nights when he was alone with this thoughts he knew a life with his Lucy couldn't be as it had been before. Too much of him had changed. Even had he not determined to destroy those responsible for her fate, even had he not become the murderer his Lucy would never have wanted…he still would never be the man she had married; wouldn't have been able to give his entire self to her, as he had before.
As things were in reality – he knew now – the best he could have done would be to pay for his wife's treatment in an asylum. A good one, the best he could afford – not like Fogg's…What did Lovett think? That he could have returned to Lucy in the state she was in?
"Don't I know you, mister?..."
Her final words haunted him. He supposed they always would. But what did they really mean?...She may have remembered him in some way, but what of the rest of her mind?...No, Lucy had never been a threat to Nellie Lovett's amorous ambitions. There had never been a reason to lie. But now his wife was dead because of it.
Better off out of her misery, perhaps? Like all the others?...Todd knew he would need to tell himself this for the rest of his life, if he were to stay sane himself.
If only you'd told me the truth…
When he realized where his thoughts were heading, he eradicated them with a fierce shake of his head and a grunt of frustration, indulging instead in the memory of those final moments: the fear in Lovett's voice, the way the light drained from her eyes when she realized what he was doing. A corner of Todd's mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. He'd wanted to hurt her – oh yes, wanted to give her a taste of her own poison; and he congratulated himself on his great success. Ingenious, it was, leaving her with memories to rot her soul away…Judging from the cry that had reached his ears as he'd marched away from Fleet Street and everything it had ever meant to him, her anguish would be intense indeed.
Whatever was left of his heart, whatever part of his spirit Nellie Lovett had claimed, was calcifying now, a hard scab of bitterness forming over the wounds she had inflicted.
But as he'd told her – he wouldn't be there to witness her fate. He had no desire to continue breathing the same air as that traitorous, treacherous Jezebel. He would have to be satisfied with only the knowledge that her lot wouldn't be a pleasant one; but perhaps that would be enough. Aside from that, he needed to get out of here – clear of the city, if not the whole bleeding country – before the law caught up with him, and to scrub himself clean of the corruption that London represented: the pollution of men and systems he despised, yes; but his own pollution as well. He was sickened with himself: he had been unfaithful to his wife. Never mind that he hadn't known; never mind that he'd been duped. Never mind that she wasn't the same, that her mental state would have easily released him from the marriage bond in any court of law. He'd still done a thing he detested, become something he despised, no better than the rest of the philandering scum that so disgusted him. He had to get away from the place where it had all happened.
And so, thus reviling himself, he directed his steps towards the docks.
The stink of the Thames grew strong in his nostrils before the rundown buildings of the waterfront came into view. Automatically, Todd headed for the first building with lights and noise pouring from the windows, and strode through the door.
It was like walking into a reeking wall: the odors of tobacco smoke, stale liquor, and rank human sweat mingling to create a dense, noisome miasma that hit Todd square in the face and then closed around him like a foul blanket. Men's voices assaulted his ears in a drunken, raucous babble; he averted his eyes from the disgusting displays of cackling whores perched on sailors' laps.
Surely he'd been doing the world a favor these past few months, freeing it of the pestilence called humanity.
He stood just inside the closed tavern door, casting his gaze about. He wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. How did one find the right man to talk to? The last time he'd caught a ship, he'd floated up to it on a rickety raft. He wasn't accustomed to this kind of business transaction and hadn't the first clue how to go about it. Now, if Lovett were here –
Todd's scowl, already deeper than usual, twisted into a grimace of revulsion – chiefly at himself, for even so much as allowing her existence into his thoughts, the filthy...
There really wasn't an effective word for her. His mind went blank.
Breathing deep, taking in the noxious fumes of the public house as if in self-punishment, Todd strode to the bar and stood, leaning his forearms against its sticky surface, until the barkeep took notice of him. The barber was on the point of ordering a gin; but the thought of that liquor nauseated him somehow, and he requested a tumbler of rum instead. When it was placed in front of him and the server was turning away, he spoke up.
"Barkeep."
The man turned: a jolly-looking chap he was, with a ruddy round face and a ready grin, and enough stubble on his chin and trailing down his throat to make Todd itch to take a razor to him in the most strictly honorable way.
But then, he didn't have his razors anymore. For the first time, this hit home to him, and he felt an unpleasant pang in his chest. But he'd be bloody damned if he was going to go back there and get them. She could sell them, for all he cared. He wished he could somehow get a message to her: Dearest Nellie, please be assured with the utmost confidence that you may now, at last, sell or pawn my razors without qualm. As I will not be coming back this time, there is no reason why you should cherish them in anticipation of my return.
"Ar, need somethin' else, friend?"
Todd gulped his rum, savoring its burn. "I need a ship out of here."
The barkeep shrugged jovially. "Where to, mate?"
Todd paused a moment, then answered with a morose shrug of his own. He really didn't care, as long as it was far away from merry old sodding England. "S' long as it's not Australia," he finally replied.
The barkeep refilled Todd's glass without being asked. "Always plenty o' ships hailin' outta here, you can find pretty much whatever you like." He regarded the barber with narrowed eyes then, as if appraising him, assessing his intentions. "You've the look of a man what's got nothin' to lose," he commented sagely.
Todd's eyes left the rum and flicked up to the barkeep, who now leaned forward conspiratorially and said, "What is it, mate? A woman?"
Todd's jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together almost painfully. A woman indeed. His wife, the indirect, unwitting, innocent catalyst of his suffering so long ago, his unjust exile, the death of so much of himself – it had been a man's inordinate lust for a woman that had caused all of that. He'd often wondered, these past few months, what it must have done to Lucy when she discovered that awful truth. And now she was gone. By his own hand – but not by his own fault. Another bloody damned woman was to blame for that, and so much more…
my lover, she betrayed me; my love, she lied to me –
To wash those last thoughts from his mind – the recollection of Eleanor Lovett sharing his bed, and worse, his very real and occasionally intense affection – Todd downed the rum; to beat the memories away he slammed the glass onto the bar. "You have no idea," he answered, with a bitterly ironic smirk.
The barkeep just nodded, slowly, empathetically. "Always a man runs to the sea, there's a woman involved. One cruel mistress to another, eh?..."
He moved to replenish the glass again, and Todd let him. "You know there's a war on in America?"
Todd's brows knit. What was this buffoon playing at, suddenly spouting news of the world?...
"Wars are interestin' things, y'know," the barkeep went on, a suggestive, cryptic note in his voice. "They can provide…opportunities for men like you. Men what got nothin' left, but ain't the suicidal type. Lots of things can happen on a battlefield, my friend. You got no control. You just step in front of the line of fire – shot hits you, misses, it's all up to luck, if you get my meanin'. "
Sweeney Todd had never, not for the fraction of a second over the course of his entire life, so much a contemplated getting involved in a war. As Benjamin Barker he'd been too much of a pacifist; now, he simply couldn't see himself as a military man. Too much taking orders, too much kowtowing to superiors, too much camaraderie in the ranks.
Still…
The barkeep was right – uncannily so. Todd didn't have a thing to live for: Lucy was gone, Johanna was gone. There was no restoring his family. Turpin and Bamford were gone. There was no more justice to seek.
Nellie is gone –
He gulped more rum.
What's dead is dead, he'd told her…Whatever we once had, my Nell, is dead…
Her absence from his life was the bloody best thing that had happened to him in a long while, he told himself. But the fact remained that his entire impetus for existing at all, was no more; and all his weary soul desired now was complete oblivion. Yet he wasn't the kind of man to end his own life. That was a coward's way out.
Lucy had tried it –
He cut off this thought at its root and shook it away. That was a different case. Forcing his focus back to his own situation, he found that he wasn't sure how to go about conducting the daily affairs of life while wanting nothing more, the entire time, than death; and yet always unable to turn his own hand against himself. Nor did he wish to subject himself to the hangman's noose – give the courts the satisfaction of triumphing over him.
Any thoughts he'd given to how he would live after dealing with Turpin –
(we could have a life, us two)
– were now null and void, and he found himself pondering the barkeep's words. Combat might suit him, he thought: an opportunity to indulge the ongoing craving for bloodshed that only seemed to be increasing in the wake of recent events, and the possibility of his own annihilation into the bargain. It might meet several of his needs at once.
The barkeep was nodding, apparently sensing that Todd was warming to his counsel. "See that bloke over by the window," he said, jerking his head, "sack coat, slouch hat, smokin' a pipe?"
Todd turned, spotted a man matching the description, and nodded.
"That's Danny Blake, takes a blockade runner into the Confederate States every three months. Just gettin' ready to ship out again. Looks like you're in luck, my friend."
Apparently feeling that his purpose was served, the man turned and moved off to the other end of the bar, leaving Todd to contemplate his course of action.
There was nothing left for him.
Anything could happen in a war.
Todd tossed some cash onto the bar, then rose and slowly made his way to the window where Blake was seated, intending to offer his services as a member of the crew.
He had some experience, after all.
A/N:Please review...I won't be able to respond for a while but I'll be SO happy to see them when I get back, and I promise I'll reply when I can :)
Merry Christmas/happy holidays to all :D