"Lovett's Meat Pies..." Your mother muttered over and over again. She was always thinking about what we were going to do once we moved to London and it always came back to meat pies.

"Jeez, mum, can't you think of anything else?" You ended up speaking, sounding snottier than intended. You started calling her mum since you started packing up to move to London. You wanted to fit in as much as possible, but God forbid you started talking like your mother. She had this weird accent that made her seem like she didn't have a basic understanding of grammar.

"Looks like you're gettin' the hang of the whole Brit thing!" She acknowledged your attempt, giving you a couple of pats on the head. "Now finish packin' up, dear, we've got a big day ahead of us, we do!" You sighed before getting up, leaving to go to your room and pack up whatever was left unboxed.

~~~ Around 3 Hours Later... ~~~

You've finished packing up your things and were now carrying it out to the carriages you and your mum rented to carry all your stuff. It wasn't much; never had much money. You compiled the rest of your savings to rent out a suite beneath a barber shop in London. It was the best you could manage with the money you had, but your mum was happy with the choice. At least it was on a busy street: Fleet Street.

Once you arrived in London around half an hour later (your previous home resided on the outskirts of town), you were quick to run inside of the building that you rented out for now. You said for now because you might get a better place later on. Your first impression of the place? Definitely needed remodelling.

There were rats and roaches crawling all over the place and it was so dull, you'd think it was a solitary confinement cell. Well, renovations were yet to come, you still had to unpack, after all. First on your priority list, though, was to meet your new neighbours. It'd be nice to know the people you're sharing a building with, wouldn't it? Even if you're on separate floors.

You walk out of the suite that would soon become Lovett's Meat Pies just as your mum started taking some of the boxes inside. You smiled at each other before you headed up the stairs on the side of the building. It was a barber shop, so you simply walked in, not thinking much of it as a bell dinged and caught the attention of a man with around jaw-length, slightly curly hair. He smiled at you as he turned away from what he was doing at the little table in the corner.

"Good day, ma'am! Nellie Lovett, I take it?" He speaks in a slightly happy tone, still smiling. "Actually, that's my mum. Name's (Y/N) Lovett." You respond and rub the back of your neck slightly. He walks over and holds out his hand. "Barker. Benjamin Barker. Nice to have someone finally take the area downstairs. The place is riddled with rats." He chuckled slightly before you lightly giggled yourself, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake. You looked around the place to see a woman by a crib in one of the other corners of the room.

"Oh, that's my wife, Lucy, with my lovely baby daughter, Johanna," Benjamin spoke as you walked over to them and waved. Lucy turned to face you, waving as well. She had a baby in her arms and you saw Johanna smile and coo with a happy little baby giggle once she saw you. It was a pretty lovely baby, you had to admit.

"Well, it was nice meeting you all! Looking forward to working under the same roof!" You exclaimed happily as you walked out the door and waved behind you. They all waved back, Benjamin saying "Nice to meet you too, Ms Lovett!" before you closed the door behind you. You walked downstairs to help your mum move the rest of the packages into the house. She looked at you, almost surprised that you were helping her.

~~~ Lazy Author Has Another Time Skip... ~~~

About a month or so after, business was going great. People always came in to try a pie, you had managed to get the whole rodent and insect thing under control, and you still had the Barkers upstairs with their barbershop. It wasn't until you walked around the market and saw the small family near the garden area where everything went downhill and changed for the worse.

You were simply buying more ingredients for the meat pies, walking around the place and looking for what you needed, when you noticed a sign that mentioned that their meat had the best flavour. Of course, being the curious little being you were, walked up to the shop and purchased around a kilogram of the meat for (surprisingly) only 3 pounds. The butcher thanked you for purchasing the meat before you smiled as a way to say "you're welcome", turned around, and walked away.

The first things you noticed when you made your way further into the market were Ben and Lucy Barker in the floral area of the market. You were about to head over to say hello, but you stopped dead in your tracks when you noticed two officers making haste with speed walking to Benjamin and whacking a club against the back of his head. He seemed dazed, but he didn't pass out immediately as the officers dragged him off.

Your first reaction was shocked before it turned into worry. You followed the officer carrying Ben to see where they were taking him and you caught up just in time to see the officer pull him up onto a ship headed for the prison labour camp in Australia. After you witnessed what had happened, you didn't know how to react. What did Mr Barker do? You couldn't think about anything else as you headed home. You told your mum what you saw and you noticed Mrs Barker crying and running up to her own flat once you were finished with your story.

It has now been 15 whole years after the incident, and plenty has happened in that span of time. Lucy had been stalked and raped by Judge Turpin before she drank arsenic in hopes that what it did to her would get Turpin off her back, causing her to lose most of her sanity and she became homeless after Turpin stole Johanna and taken her in as his own. Business has also gone down after we lost the money to be able to buy good meat and control the roaches and flies. The pies lost their quality and the shop was infested with insects, which, of course, pushed customers away.

"Do you think we'll get a customer today, mum...?" You spoke, your voice shaky from the fact that you knew you never got any customers and the lack of income rendered you unable to afford food, so your diet was pretty bad, too. "... Maybe, love. Times is hard with the price of meat, what it is."

this was more of an intro chapter, but hope you enjoyed the first chapter! i hope to get the next chapter up as soon as possible!                                ~Author-Kun, Jean