"We live somewhere, between life and death, waiting to move on"

For Tommy was not only hellbent on finding his wife, he'd be heaven-bound, born again into believing anything if it meant you returned unscathed to the safety of her walls and his arms. 

And as I sit here, watching his tyres tear up gravel and grit as he flew back down the drive, functioning on fury and a bottle of John Jameson finest Irish, there's not a shred of doubt in me that your husband wouldn't run headlong right into hell and fight the devil one handed, heart on his sleeve just to get you back.

“ I want men on every street. On every road out of the county, from here to Hadrian's wall” Tommy's voice boomed through the foyer as the Shelby siblings followed a foot behind looking worse for wear after a night of carrying the grief-stricken gangsters orders out. 

It was unfeasible. Impossible. It was bloody madness.

And now, it was his brother's job to follow through, or face his fury. 

“ We've got everyone out there, Tom” Arthur ran a hand down his face as he came to a stop, watching his brother march towards the pile of maps that had driven him into an obsession over every ridge, bridge and overpass. 

“ Our boys have their orders. Been called back from the search for Arney. Everyone's out there looking for her, you hear me? ” Arthur's jaw worked tight against the bone, slowly losing patience with his brother who wouldn't listen to anyone, wouldn't answer to anyone but the rabid worry in his own head.“ Tom?” 

“ Every town, Arthur. No excuses. No exceptions” Tommy remained locked on the map of the River Trent, eyes unable to tear themselves away from every route leading out of the West Midlands. 

“ They're looking, Tommy. Been looking. Every night for three days straight” John attempted to reason with a man rapidly losing all sensibility, a man fueled by every fear that tired head of his had ever conjured. 

“ Then look harder” Tommy's voice took on something dangerous, daring his brothers to talk back, daring them to breathe even a single syllable against his orders.

“ Hadrian's wall. Go” 

He was ready to snap. 

He was gonna bloody snap.

And of all the idiots in Warwickshire, the perfect prat stepped forward and gave Tommy every reason to erupt. 

“ Here to Hadrian's wall? We don't have enough men” Finn, the youngest Shelby scoffed. Yes, scoffed, at a man that was rapidly losing his mind in search of the woman he'd married, warred with, and widowed all in the space of a mere month.

“ What did you just say?” your husband's voice dropped into a low gravel, eyes fixed on the twenty something year old.

Brother be damned. Blood be fucking damned. 

“ Shut the fuck up, Finn” Arthur growled, half way to pulling the posturing pup out of Tommy's warpath before he got bit. 

“ I said, we don't have enough men” Finn's final words of foolishness came with contempt, ignoring every chance he'd been given to get out of dodge before Tommy lunged at him. 

“ It's mental. You're fucking mental” 

The youngest Shelby barely had time to move before Tommy whirled on him, slamming him into the foyer wall with the strength of a dozen men, with an anger that had been simmering to a boil for three days straight. 

“ Then I'll call in every favour…” Tommy's voice dropped to a whisper against Finn's ear, fist curling into his shirt as Arthur and John moved towards him before he murdered their baby brother. 

“...on every bastard that owes me his life” his voice twisted, face turned into something dangerous as Arthur's heavy hand yanked him away. 

“ Starting with you, Finn” Tommy pointed, breathless, every muscle straining against the quiet fury coiling around his spine like a death grip as he was dragged backwards. 

“ Starting with you…” 

Half mad, half gone, Tommy’s exhausted mind had been tricked into conjuring every possible image of you without a flicker of mercy, without even an ounce of sympathy for his slipping sanity. 

Dead body. Beaten body. Body in a ditch. Body degraded. Body missing.  

Every minute that passed was another without you.

Every order unanswered was another attack against his authority.

He'd lost it. 

Arthur knew it. John knew it. And Tommy, God help him, knew it too. 

“ Enough, brother. That's enough” Arthur hauled him aside, straining to snap him out of it, snap him out of grieving a wife he believed he'd already lost to his own way of life. 

Breath coming heavy, chest heaving hard, Tommy scrambled to regain control, to reign in that sharp, calculating composure that had kept him alive for so long. 

“ Do as I say. The lot of you” he pulled free, dragging a hand down his face as he forced the madness behind something manageable. 

“ Or start picking out your funeral suits” The threat had been made. His body already retreating. Boots carrying him to the only place where you still lingered. Where you'd let him hold you like a husband should. Let him be the one you grieved for your uncle against.

Bedroom door swung open, he was met with nothing but silence. No sharp words. No witty woman staging a coup against his whiskey or weary mind. Just a strained silence, and a silk gown laid crumpled across the bed. 

Body finally giving in, Tommy sank heavily onto the mattress, tired eyes red raw as he tried to focus, tried to think through the thick fog clouding his mind.  

If he didn't find Arney, he'd have to live with the guilt until his dying breath. 

And if he didn't find you…

…it would kill him before he ever drew that last lungful. 

Fist clenched around your muddy dressing gown, Tommy released the pressure from his knuckles, thumb turning his signet ring around and around again, twisting every tortured worry into the worn gold until a quiet prayer finally found its way from his lips. 

Not to God. Not to some otherworldly realm beyond his reach. But to you. Just for you. 

“ Come home to me, darling. Come home”

It was bold. It was brazen. Frankly, my dear, it was exactly how your own husband operated. 

Because while Tommy was running himself rabid, thinking big, thinking beyond the county's borders, you had been hauled away and hidden right there. In the belly of the beast. 

See, you weren't just in the West Midlands. Weren't just in Warwickshire. You were a mere four fucking miles away. 

It was wicked. A cruelty you were feeling the full force of as you sat shivering in the groundkeeper's hut in the neighbouring farm’s field, Arrow House lighting up like a beacon in the fading evening light through the weathered slats of wood. 

Three days, going on four, you had sat there in nothing but a cotton slip, cold to the bone as your three captors drank themselves halfway to an early date with the Devil down in ol’hell.

“ Got nothin’ to say today, lass? Nae smart-arse remarks for us, eh?”one of the Glaswegians drawled, digging deep in a battered crate for another bottle of whisky next to a sprawled-out, sleeping Scotsman. 

“ If I did, you wouldn't understand it anyway” you muttered, hauled up in the corner of the hut, looking like some wild thing that had run straight out of England's muddy moors. 

“ Are ye callin’ me thick?” he spluttered, swaying where he stood, all six feet of him looking, well…thick as a bloody brick. 

“ Away with ye, Fraser. Sit yeself down” McConnell, the one who was seemingly in charge barked. The same one who had slowly been drinking himself into oblivion, while he waited for the Billy Boys to find a route into Warwickshire your husband hadn't blocked or barricaded. 

“ Wasn't slow when I gave ye that wee little mark to yer face now, was I?” Fraser's face flashed with a smugness that made you feel sick, the sting to your cheek, where he'd struck you for one remark too many, throbbing hot with hatred. 

You'd been riling them up. Winding them up.

And I would say, hammer them to hell with every witty concoction of words imaginable, darling. 

But I'm worried, you see. Fearful that the fuel feeding your resilience was about to snuff itself out. 

Because that head of yours, that traitorious noggin, had started thinking too much. And thinking too much made for false thoughts. Thoughts I could hear loud and clear...

He'd given up. Given you in. He'd abandoned the wife he'd been burdened with to save his business. 

And as you shrank in on yourself, watching the Scotsman slump in front of your only way out, you didn't think of your husband who was supposed to save you. Your thoughts turned to the man who was supposed to always keep you safe. 

Arney.

Dad.

“ Where is my father?” your voice came quieter now, careful not to rouse the emotions you'd choked down with every spent tear for your uncle. 

“  Dinna fash about that deadbeat dad o’ yours, lass. He's long gone now” McConnell murmured lazily, limbs loosening after the near liter of whisky he'd consumed within the past couple of days. 

“ Life's dealt ye a rotten hand. Da sold ye out. Uncles dead. Husband dinna care” he lifted the bottle in his hand, as Fraser, the fucker with a problem for women who knew their worth glared at you like he wanted to give you another wallop for good measure.

“ The bastard is long gone, lass. They're all gone” 

Gone. Was that it? Was that truly it? 

Every call for justice unheard? Every demand for retribution unanswered? 

For every life story came with a villain. Be it drink. Be it drugs. Be it the mind. Be it yourself. Or the ones that claimed to love you. 

Some would be conquered, some overcome. And some…some just simply slipped away. An anomaly in life where everything felt like fate. 

“ Aye, yer a misfit of misfortune, lass. We've all been there” McConnell murmured as he watched you swallow back the bitter realisation that awful Arney, dad, was one of the ones who got to slip away. 

“Sleep. The telegrams been sent out. McCavern is coming for those Liverpool lines” he muttered before the whisky took him and he slumped back against the barn, eyes shut and off guard, leaving you with the woman hating wanker. 

“ He who can't handle his liquor, makes for merrier men” Fraser, Franky, whatever the fuck he was called nabbed McConnell's bottle, guzzling it down his gullet like some show off to his own stupidness. 

“ Well done. You're almost house-trained” you praised the prick, sarcasm slipping through the fatigue of four nights locked in limbo. 

Civilised, darling. I think your best bet was the word civilised. 

Though if your intention was to insult the fool, then house-trained appears to have struck a nerve.

 Because would you look at that? The Six foot tall Scotsman was halfway to murdering you.

 Splendid work, dear. 

“ Ye callin’ me a beast now?” He slurred,  stumbling forward from the door, clearing the way for an escape. 

“ I dinna care for yer words, lass. I weren't a bairn born in a barn” he puffed out his chest, words coming out…wobbly.

Christ. 

Clearly, domestication, barns and being born in one were a touchy subjects for the drunk Scotsman who was now slumped against the wall, glaring at you like he could send your royal Arrow House arse straight to the gallows. 

So be it. 

Two down one to go. 

Drink up you devil. Drink up. 

Lined up. One by one. The staff of Arrow House had been herded into the foyer looking as though they were about to face the firing squad for acts of treason against the Crown. 

Because standing before them was a man who looked every bit the executioner. Down to his waistcoat, shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms, face filled with nothing but fury.

Tommy was a King. A battle weary King without his Queen.

And he was pacing. Prowling. Looking for a fight. Looking to pick on anyone that showed even a flicker of disloyalty. 

“ You” Tommy turned on the groundskeeper, boots marching across the foyer floors towards the fifty year old stood, cap steady in his hand. 

“ A week ago. No…two weeks…” your husband interrogated then corrected, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes squeezed shut, trying to fight through the fog of exhaustion that had clouded his memory. 

Christ. He was exhausted. Arthur stood in the shadows, exhausted. John, head lowered, leaning against the door, exhausted. 

Everyone. Every connection. Every debt owed. Every man who had ever promised Thomas Shelby a favour. Exhausted. 

“ You were seen. Walking the grounds with my wife's father” Tommy stood there waiting, like the next words out of the grey-haired man's mouth would be the ones that brought you back to him.

“ Speak” 

“ Aye, sir. A fortnight ago. He was enquiring as to how many acres Arrow House holds” his Black Country accent came out thick, without pause, without so much as a flicker of that disloyalty Tommy had gone full bloodhound in search of sniffing out. 

Before the groundskeeper had even drawn another breath, your husband had already moved on, turning his attention to the maids stood trembling under the tyrant's temper.

But Frances, with ten years of dealing with angry gangsters on her résumé, wasn't about to let Tommy bully the youngest of the household staff into saying what they thought their master wanted to hear simply to ease the pressure. 

“ Yes, sir?” she dutifully stepped forward, unblinded by the fear that had etched its way into every line of his face when came the last voice your husband wanted to hear. One that made far too much sense, far too often.

“ Thomas” 

Polly. Polly Gray. 

With something that sounded close to a growl, Tommy spun on the heel of his boot, outright ignoring his aunt in favour of barking more orders. 

“ Arthur. John. With me” the words had barely left his mouth before he was already in motion, already out the foyer and onto the steps, when a lad, no more than three foot tall came hurtling down the drive with another telegram clutched within his hand. 

McCavern. It had to be Jimmy McCavern. Finally making his demands, finally giving Tommy something he could work with. 

“ Telegram for you, Mister” the young messenger skidded to a stop, the very picture of youthful innocence with muddy knees and dimpled cheeks, blissfully unaware that the Glaswegian group had used him as nothing more than a paper boy, unknowingly putting his own life at risk.

Seal torn beneath Tommy's thumb, his eyes raced across the page then widened in complete and utter horror as the second verse to the nursery rhyme sat staring back at him. 

Last night as I lay on my pillow. Last night as I lay in my bed. Last night as I lay on my pillow, I dreamt that my Bonnie was…dead.

The telegram slipped from his fingers, feather-like to the ground where it settled once again, without fuss, without fanfare as your husband stood silent. Still. 

“ Tom…?” Arthur carefully ventured as he stepped forward, eyes searching his brothers face when Tommy suddenly turned, took three unsteady steps towards the stone pillar beside the door, and retched. 

Nothing came.

Four days of whiskey, cigarettes and sleeplessness, had left nothing to give. Nothing to quiet the terror. Nothing to loosen the grief that had gripped him by the throat. 

And as panic rose behind him, the muffled voices of his brother's insisting McCarvern was playing games, playing with Tommy's head, feeding the paranoia already eating him alive, your husband lifted his eyes.

And there, beyond the gates, a lone figure stood stoic amongst the low-lying miss rolling across the fields of Arrow House. 

Greatcoat buttoned high. Service cap pulled low. Hands clasped neatly behind his back. A soldier, taking the watch.  

“ Richie…” Tommy stumbled forward, trembling hands finding the cold stone as it guided each faltering step, boots dragging across the grit of the drive.

“ I've got her. I’m standing watch…” his voice cracked, the promise he'd made beside your uncle's body, to you, no longer sounding like the unwavering pledge of a soldier. But the desperate plea of a broken man. 

“Rich…I've got her” he muttered, eyes red raw and unblinking as Richie turned into the mist, into No Man's land, where promises either died, or were delivered at the break of dawn. 

“ Thomas…” the steady voice of Polly pulled him from the depths of despair, her firm hand guiding him away from the dead man's silent judgement. 

“ Tommy, you're no good to her like this” she followed his gaze to the empty fields of Arrow House, thick with morning mist and frost bitten dew. 

“ You must rest. You must sleep” 

Sleep. 

A foreign word. A word that finally, after four relentless days, made Thomas Shelby snap before his aunt, his siblings, his men and staff who'd never once seen their master so completely undone as he stormed back into the halls of his great home. 

“ I will not sleep until my wife is in bed with me!” 

True to his word, Tommy found no sleep. No slumber came to ease his exhausted mind. 

He'd searched through the night, and when nothing came of it, when no trace of you turned up, he stayed awake on whiskey and willpower, searching through endless rolls of maps until dawn steadily broke over the hills of Arrow House, where he sat slumped on the edge of your bed, head buried in his hands. 

He could feel himself slipping closer to madness with every minute that passed. Roused only from the limbo he'd been living in for five days straight, when he heard your voice. 

It was a whisper at first. Then louder and louder, a torturous taunt from a mind pushed beyond its limits. 

“ Stop…” he mumbled beneath his breath, to himself, to his own thoughts, as the muffled call of his name began to break through the morning mist. 

“ TOMMY!” 

It screamed for him. Screamed for help. 

“TOMMY, PLEASE!” 

There It came again. Louder now. Loud enough to make him lift his head, for his brow to furrow, his spine to straighten as every instinct in him violently snapped awake. 

“ HELP ME!” 

It cried, you cried. Sprinting down Arrow House's long drive barefoot in nothing but a thin slip against the winter morning, hair wild in the wind as you ran like you'd never run before.

Shooting to his feet, Tommy grabbed his gun as he flew from the bedroom bare-chested, barefoot, suspenders hanging low against his trousers. 

“ RUN TO ME!” his voice tore from his throat as he raced out the front doors, down the drive to your frantic figure running through the morning mist, headlights burning behind you. 

“ DON'T STOP!”

“Tommy…” your cry broke, as your head whipped over your shoulder to see your captors gaining on you, windows rolling down as Arthur and John tore out the house behind their brother, guns already raised. 

“ No…” your husband's eyes widened in horror, as the barrel of a gun appeared from the car window. "NO!”

“ GET DOWN!” Tommy's roar ripped across the grounds, face twisting in fear as shots fired from both sides, tearing through the crisp air as you raced towards each other. 

You didn't listen, didn't stop, couldn't stop. Not when you were running towards the place your heart had finally found its home. Not when you were running towards your husband, now meters away. And not when you finally collided into his arms, a strangled sob breaking against his chest. 

“ I've got you” his voice broke against your hair, eyes squeezing shut as his arms wrapped tightly around you with relief. “I've got you, darling”

The men still shouted. The sound of tyres still screeched. The sharp whistle of bullets  passed through the air, still, after everything you'd survived. Every mile of distance, every wounding word, every quiet goodbye. 

Surely, surely now the world owed you a moment's peace? 

And to anyone else it may have seemed impossible, but somehow, in and amongst the chaos, it was only him. Only you. 

Only the two of you sharing one breath after believing there wouldn’t be another. 

Every tender touch slowed beneath the steady beat of his heart as he cradled your face in his hands, pressing a soft kiss against your lips until your heavy breaths settled into rhythm with his. 

And there, in the arms of his wife, forehead pressed against hers, as chaos raged around them, Tommy understood something he'd spent a month running from. 

If he was ever granted another dawn. Another chance to leave words behind on paper. 

It would not bear his initials. Not be signed with the coldness of a man who kept the world at arms length.

It would carry the only words he had left. The only ones that mattered. 

Love, Tommy.

The End. 

* A huge thank you to every one who stuck with me throughout this whirlwind series. Every read, reblog and show of support kept me going through all twelve chapters. I'm very sad to say goodbye to this story, but I hope you'll stick around for my next Tommy series. I'll be posting its trailer and masterlist very soon! Thank you once again for all your love and support 🖤.*

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For Tommy was not only hellbent on finding his wife, he'd be heaven-bound, born again into believing anything if it meant you returned unscathed to the safety of her walls and his arms. 

And as I sit here, watching his tyres tear up gravel and grit as he flew back down the drive, functioning on fury and a bottle of John Jameson finest Irish, there's not a shred of doubt in me that your husband wouldn't run headlong right into hell and fight the devil one handed, heart on his sleeve just to get you back.

“ I want men on every street. On every road out of the county, from here to Hadrian's wall” Tommy's voice boomed through the foyer as the Shelby siblings followed a foot behind looking worse for wear after a night of carrying the grief-stricken gangsters orders out. 

It was unfeasible. Impossible. It was bloody madness.

And now, it was his brother's job to follow through, or face his fury. 

“ We've got everyone out there, Tom” Arthur ran a hand down his face as he came to a stop, watching his brother march towards the pile of maps that had driven him into an obsession over every ridge, bridge and overpass. 

“ Our boys have their orders. Been called back from the search for Arney. Everyone's out there looking for her, you hear me? ” Arthur's jaw worked tight against the bone, slowly losing patience with his brother who wouldn't listen to anyone, wouldn't answer to anyone but the rabid worry in his own head.“ Tom?” 

“ Every town, Arthur. No excuses. No exceptions” Tommy remained locked on the map of the River Trent, eyes unable to tear themselves away from every route leading out of the West Midlands. 

“ They're looking, Tommy. Been looking. Every night for three days straight” John attempted to reason with a man rapidly losing all sensibility, a man fueled by every fear that tired head of his had ever conjured. 

“ Then look harder” Tommy's voice took on something dangerous, daring his brothers to talk back, daring them to breathe even a single syllable against his orders.

“ Hadrian's wall. Go” 

He was ready to snap. 

He was gonna bloody snap.

And of all the idiots in Warwickshire, the perfect prat stepped forward and gave Tommy every reason to erupt. 

“ Here to Hadrian's wall? We don't have enough men” Finn, the youngest Shelby scoffed. Yes, scoffed, at a man that was rapidly losing his mind in search of the woman he'd married, warred with, and widowed all in the space of a mere month.

“ What did you just say?” your husband's voice dropped into a low gravel, eyes fixed on the twenty something year old.

Brother be damned. Blood be fucking damned. 

“ Shut the fuck up, Finn” Arthur growled, half way to pulling the posturing pup out of Tommy's warpath before he got bit. 

“ I said, we don't have enough men” Finn's final words of foolishness came with contempt, ignoring every chance he'd been given to get out of dodge before Tommy lunged at him. 

“ It's mental. You're fucking mental” 

The youngest Shelby barely had time to move before Tommy whirled on him, slamming him into the foyer wall with the strength of a dozen men, with an anger that had been simmering to a boil for three days straight. 

“ Then I'll call in every favour…” Tommy's voice dropped to a whisper against Finn's ear, fist curling into his shirt as Arthur and John moved towards him before he murdered their baby brother. 

“...on every bastard that owes me his life” his voice twisted, face turned into something dangerous as Arthur's heavy hand yanked him away. 

“ Starting with you, Finn” Tommy pointed, breathless, every muscle straining against the quiet fury coiling around his spine like a death grip as he was dragged backwards. 

“ Starting with you…” 

Half mad, half gone, Tommy’s exhausted mind had been tricked into conjuring every possible image of you without a flicker of mercy, without even an ounce of sympathy for his slipping sanity. 

Dead body. Beaten body. Body in a ditch. Body degraded. Body missing.  

Every minute that passed was another without you.

Every order unanswered was another attack against his authority.

He'd lost it. 

Arthur knew it. John knew it. And Tommy, God help him, knew it too. 

“ Enough, brother. That's enough” Arthur hauled him aside, straining to snap him out of it, snap him out of grieving a wife he believed he'd already lost to his own way of life. 

Breath coming heavy, chest heaving hard, Tommy scrambled to regain control, to reign in that sharp, calculating composure that had kept him alive for so long. 

“ Do as I say. The lot of you” he pulled free, dragging a hand down his face as he forced the madness behind something manageable. 

“ Or start picking out your funeral suits” The threat had been made. His body already retreating. Boots carrying him to the only place where you still lingered. Where you'd let him hold you like a husband should. Let him be the one you grieved for your uncle against.

Bedroom door swung open, he was met with nothing but silence. No sharp words. No witty woman staging a coup against his whiskey or weary mind. Just a strained silence, and a silk gown laid crumpled across the bed. 

Body finally giving in, Tommy sank heavily onto the mattress, tired eyes red raw as he tried to focus, tried to think through the thick fog clouding his mind.  

If he didn't find Arney, he'd have to live with the guilt until his dying breath. 

And if he didn't find you…

…it would kill him before he ever drew that last lungful. 

Fist clenched around your muddy dressing gown, Tommy released the pressure from his knuckles, thumb turning his signet ring around and around again, twisting every tortured worry into the worn gold until a quiet prayer finally found its way from his lips. 

Not to God. Not to some otherworldly realm beyond his reach. But to you. Just for you. 

“ Come home to me, darling. Come home”

It was bold. It was brazen. Frankly, my dear, it was exactly how your own husband operated. 

Because while Tommy was running himself rabid, thinking big, thinking beyond the county's borders, you had been hauled away and hidden right there. In the belly of the beast. 

See, you weren't just in the West Midlands. Weren't just in Warwickshire. You were a mere four fucking miles away. 

It was wicked. A cruelty you were feeling the full force of as you sat shivering in the groundkeeper's hut in the neighbouring farm’s field, Arrow House lighting up like a beacon in the fading evening light through the weathered slats of wood. 

Three days, going on four, you had sat there in nothing but a cotton slip, cold to the bone as your three captors drank themselves halfway to an early date with the Devil down in ol’hell.

“ Got nothin’ to say today, lass? Nae smart-arse remarks for us, eh?”one of the Glaswegians drawled, digging deep in a battered crate for another bottle of whisky next to a sprawled-out, sleeping Scotsman. 

“ If I did, you wouldn't understand it anyway” you muttered, hauled up in the corner of the hut, looking like some wild thing that had run straight out of England's muddy moors. 

“ Are ye callin’ me thick?” he spluttered, swaying where he stood, all six feet of him looking, well…thick as a bloody brick. 

“ Away with ye, Fraser. Sit yeself down” McConnell, the one who was seemingly in charge barked. The same one who had slowly been drinking himself into oblivion, while he waited for the Billy Boys to find a route into Warwickshire your husband hadn't blocked or barricaded. 

“ Wasn't slow when I gave ye that wee little mark to yer face now, was I?” Fraser's face flashed with a smugness that made you feel sick, the sting to your cheek, where he'd struck you for one remark too many, throbbing hot with hatred. 

You'd been riling them up. Winding them up.

And I would say, hammer them to hell with every witty concoction of words imaginable, darling. 

But I'm worried, you see. Fearful that the fuel feeding your resilience was about to snuff itself out. 

Because that head of yours, that traitorious noggin, had started thinking too much. And thinking too much made for false thoughts. Thoughts I could hear loud and clear...

He'd given up. Given you in. He'd abandoned the wife he'd been burdened with to save his business. 

And as you shrank in on yourself, watching the Scotsman slump in front of your only way out, you didn't think of your husband who was supposed to save you. Your thoughts turned to the man who was supposed to always keep you safe. 

Arney.

Dad.

“ Where is my father?” your voice came quieter now, careful not to rouse the emotions you'd choked down with every spent tear for your uncle. 

“  Dinna fash about that deadbeat dad o’ yours, lass. He's long gone now” McConnell murmured lazily, limbs loosening after the near liter of whisky he'd consumed within the past couple of days. 

“ Life's dealt ye a rotten hand. Da sold ye out. Uncles dead. Husband dinna care” he lifted the bottle in his hand, as Fraser, the fucker with a problem for women who knew their worth glared at you like he wanted to give you another wallop for good measure.

“ The bastard is long gone, lass. They're all gone” 

Gone. Was that it? Was that truly it? 

Every call for justice unheard? Every demand for retribution unanswered? 

For every life story came with a villain. Be it drink. Be it drugs. Be it the mind. Be it yourself. Or the ones that claimed to love you. 

Some would be conquered, some overcome. And some…some just simply slipped away. An anomaly in life where everything felt like fate. 

“ Aye, yer a misfit of misfortune, lass. We've all been there” McConnell murmured as he watched you swallow back the bitter realisation that awful Arney, dad, was one of the ones who got to slip away. 

“Sleep. The telegrams been sent out. McCavern is coming for those Liverpool lines” he muttered before the whisky took him and he slumped back against the barn, eyes shut and off guard, leaving you with the woman hating wanker. 

“ He who can't handle his liquor, makes for merrier men” Fraser, Franky, whatever the fuck he was called nabbed McConnell's bottle, guzzling it down his gullet like some show off to his own stupidness. 

“ Well done. You're almost house-trained” you praised the prick, sarcasm slipping through the fatigue of four nights locked in limbo. 

Civilised, darling. I think your best bet was the word civilised. 

Though if your intention was to insult the fool, then house-trained appears to have struck a nerve.

 Because would you look at that? The Six foot tall Scotsman was halfway to murdering you.

 Splendid work, dear. 

“ Ye callin’ me a beast now?” He slurred,  stumbling forward from the door, clearing the way for an escape. 

“ I dinna care for yer words, lass. I weren't a bairn born in a barn” he puffed out his chest, words coming out…wobbly.

Christ. 

Clearly, domestication, barns and being born in one were a touchy subjects for the drunk Scotsman who was now slumped against the wall, glaring at you like he could send your royal Arrow House arse straight to the gallows. 

So be it. 

Two down one to go. 

Drink up you devil. Drink up. 

Lined up. One by one. The staff of Arrow House had been herded into the foyer looking as though they were about to face the firing squad for acts of treason against the Crown. 

Because standing before them was a man who looked every bit the executioner. Down to his waistcoat, shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms, face filled with nothing but fury.

Tommy was a King. A battle weary King without his Queen.

And he was pacing. Prowling. Looking for a fight. Looking to pick on anyone that showed even a flicker of disloyalty. 

“ You” Tommy turned on the groundskeeper, boots marching across the foyer floors towards the fifty year old stood, cap steady in his hand. 

“ A week ago. No…two weeks…” your husband interrogated then corrected, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes squeezed shut, trying to fight through the fog of exhaustion that had clouded his memory. 

Christ. He was exhausted. Arthur stood in the shadows, exhausted. John, head lowered, leaning against the door, exhausted. 

Everyone. Every connection. Every debt owed. Every man who had ever promised Thomas Shelby a favour. Exhausted. 

“ You were seen. Walking the grounds with my wife's father” Tommy stood there waiting, like the next words out of the grey-haired man's mouth would be the ones that brought you back to him.

“ Speak” 

“ Aye, sir. A fortnight ago. He was enquiring as to how many acres Arrow House holds” his Black Country accent came out thick, without pause, without so much as a flicker of that disloyalty Tommy had gone full bloodhound in search of sniffing out. 

Before the groundskeeper had even drawn another breath, your husband had already moved on, turning his attention to the maids stood trembling under the tyrant's temper.

But Frances, with ten years of dealing with angry gangsters on her résumé, wasn't about to let Tommy bully the youngest of the household staff into saying what they thought their master wanted to hear simply to ease the pressure. 

“ Yes, sir?” she dutifully stepped forward, unblinded by the fear that had etched its way into every line of his face when came the last voice your husband wanted to hear. One that made far too much sense, far too often.

“ Thomas” 

Polly. Polly Gray. 

With something that sounded close to a growl, Tommy spun on the heel of his boot, outright ignoring his aunt in favour of barking more orders. 

“ Arthur. John. With me” the words had barely left his mouth before he was already in motion, already out the foyer and onto the steps, when a lad, no more than three foot tall came hurtling down the drive with another telegram clutched within his hand. 

McCavern. It had to be Jimmy McCavern. Finally making his demands, finally giving Tommy something he could work with. 

“ Telegram for you, Mister” the young messenger skidded to a stop, the very picture of youthful innocence with muddy knees and dimpled cheeks, blissfully unaware that the Glaswegian group had used him as nothing more than a paper boy, unknowingly putting his own life at risk.

Seal torn beneath Tommy's thumb, his eyes raced across the page then widened in complete and utter horror as the second verse to the nursery rhyme sat staring back at him. 

Last night as I lay on my pillow. Last night as I lay in my bed. Last night as I lay on my pillow, I dreamt that my Bonnie was…dead.

The telegram slipped from his fingers, feather-like to the ground where it settled once again, without fuss, without fanfare as your husband stood silent. Still. 

“ Tom…?” Arthur carefully ventured as he stepped forward, eyes searching his brothers face when Tommy suddenly turned, took three unsteady steps towards the stone pillar beside the door, and retched. 

Nothing came.

Four days of whiskey, cigarettes and sleeplessness, had left nothing to give. Nothing to quiet the terror. Nothing to loosen the grief that had gripped him by the throat. 

And as panic rose behind him, the muffled voices of his brother's insisting McCarvern was playing games, playing with Tommy's head, feeding the paranoia already eating him alive, your husband lifted his eyes.

And there, beyond the gates, a lone figure stood stoic amongst the low-lying miss rolling across the fields of Arrow House. 

Greatcoat buttoned high. Service cap pulled low. Hands clasped neatly behind his back. A soldier, taking the watch.  

“ Richie…” Tommy stumbled forward, trembling hands finding the cold stone as it guided each faltering step, boots dragging across the grit of the drive.

“ I've got her. I’m standing watch…” his voice cracked, the promise he'd made beside your uncle's body, to you, no longer sounding like the unwavering pledge of a soldier. But the desperate plea of a broken man. 

“Rich…I've got her” he muttered, eyes red raw and unblinking as Richie turned into the mist, into No Man's land, where promises either died, or were delivered at the break of dawn. 

“ Thomas…” the steady voice of Polly pulled him from the depths of despair, her firm hand guiding him away from the dead man's silent judgement. 

“ Tommy, you're no good to her like this” she followed his gaze to the empty fields of Arrow House, thick with morning mist and frost bitten dew. 

“ You must rest. You must sleep” 

Sleep. 

A foreign word. A word that finally, after four relentless days, made Thomas Shelby snap before his aunt, his siblings, his men and staff who'd never once seen their master so completely undone as he stormed back into the halls of his great home. 

“ I will not sleep until my wife is in bed with me!” 

True to his word, Tommy found no sleep. No slumber came to ease his exhausted mind. 

He'd searched through the night, and when nothing came of it, when no trace of you turned up, he stayed awake on whiskey and willpower, searching through endless rolls of maps until dawn steadily broke over the hills of Arrow House, where he sat slumped on the edge of your bed, head buried in his hands. 

He could feel himself slipping closer to madness with every minute that passed. Roused only from the limbo he'd been living in for five days straight, when he heard your voice. 

It was a whisper at first. Then louder and louder, a torturous taunt from a mind pushed beyond its limits. 

“ Stop…” he mumbled beneath his breath, to himself, to his own thoughts, as the muffled call of his name began to break through the morning mist. 

“ TOMMY!” 

It screamed for him. Screamed for help. 

“TOMMY, PLEASE!” 

There It came again. Louder now. Loud enough to make him lift his head, for his brow to furrow, his spine to straighten as every instinct in him violently snapped awake. 

“ HELP ME!” 

It cried, you cried. Sprinting down Arrow House's long drive barefoot in nothing but a thin slip against the winter morning, hair wild in the wind as you ran like you'd never run before.

Shooting to his feet, Tommy grabbed his gun as he flew from the bedroom bare-chested, barefoot, suspenders hanging low against his trousers. 

“ RUN TO ME!” his voice tore from his throat as he raced out the front doors, down the drive to your frantic figure running through the morning mist, headlights burning behind you. 

“ DON'T STOP!”

“Tommy…” your cry broke, as your head whipped over your shoulder to see your captors gaining on you, windows rolling down as Arthur and John tore out the house behind their brother, guns already raised. 

“ No…” your husband's eyes widened in horror, as the barrel of a gun appeared from the car window. "NO!”

“ GET DOWN!” Tommy's roar ripped across the grounds, face twisting in fear as shots fired from both sides, tearing through the crisp air as you raced towards each other. 

You didn't listen, didn't stop, couldn't stop. Not when you were running towards the place your heart had finally found its home. Not when you were running towards your husband, now meters away. And not when you finally collided into his arms, a strangled sob breaking against his chest. 

“ I've got you” his voice broke against your hair, eyes squeezing shut as his arms wrapped tightly around you with relief. “I've got you, darling”

The men still shouted. The sound of tyres still screeched. The sharp whistle of bullets  passed through the air, still, after everything you'd survived. Every mile of distance, every wounding word, every quiet goodbye. 

Surely, surely now the world owed you a moment's peace? 

And to anyone else it may have seemed impossible, but somehow, in and amongst the chaos, it was only him. Only you. 

Only the two of you sharing one breath after believing there wouldn’t be another. 

Every tender touch slowed beneath the steady beat of his heart as he cradled your face in his hands, pressing a soft kiss against your lips until your heavy breaths settled into rhythm with his. 

And there, in the arms of his wife, forehead pressed against hers, as chaos raged around them, Tommy understood something he'd spent a month running from. 

If he was ever granted another dawn. Another chance to leave words behind on paper. 

It would not bear his initials. Not be signed with the coldness of a man who kept the world at arms length.

It would carry the only words he had left. The only ones that mattered. 

Love, Tommy.

The End. 

* A huge thank you to every one who stuck with me throughout this whirlwind series. Every read, reblog and show of support kept me going through all twelve chapters. I'm very sad to say goodbye to this story, but I hope you'll stick around for my next Tommy series. I'll be posting its trailer and masterlist very soon! Thank you once again for all your love and support 🖤.*

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