Frog

- Writing for Kratos has actually proven to be a really difficult feat. On one hand, he’s such a complicated character with so much depth. But on the other hand, he has very simplistic motivations throughout all his journeys. I would even go to say that he is peak character design.

- But anyways, onto the general romantic headcannons!

- Kratos is not a man of many words (I think the modern God of War instalments really show this) and I think he wouldn’t be too fussed with whether his partner was chatty or quiet. Though you would have to be interesting in some fashion in order to at least interest him. I can see this relationship between the two of you developing during the first game concerning the Norse pantheon, where we first meet Atreus, and after the death of Feyre. I think in this scenario you would be a Valkyrie, maybe even a disgraced one later on. You originally were ordered to accompany Baldur to the home of Kratos and the young Loki, not as a bodyguard because who could hurt Baldur? But rather as a reliable set of eyes to report back to Odin, without the bite and bitterness of Baldur and his situation.

- The Greek doesn’t even register you as a threat, despite the very obvious weapons you carry, and keeps his focus on Baldur. Maybe its a little sexist, but Kratos tends to focus on one threat at a time. He seems to ignore you completely as he and the Norseman wreck the nearby landscape.

- A mistake on his part as you began to investigate his home. Unlike a lot of the other Nordic deities, you actually respected and secretly admired the giant Feyre, not only for her battle prowess but also her wisdom. You had encountered her once or twice many centuries ago, where you arrogantly challenged her as a fledgling Valkyrie, and whilst you lost she used it as an opportunity to teach you invaluable information about battle tactics and defence. Your ego wasn’t the only thing bruised but it lit a fire in your mind, pushing you to challenge yourself in training and beyond to become the best of the Valkyries possible. If you didn’t defect in the near future, then you would surely inherit the position of Captain of the Valkyries, taking the position from Sigrún (whose was cursed by Odin to be insane and unpredictable as a punishment for letting you and a few of your sisters doubt him and challenge his rule).

- Within their home, you see a very cosy hunter lodge-like atmosphere. The small, open flame braziers swung gently with an unseen draft and casted wobbly shadows across dense wooden walls and thick fur decorations. Dotted around the home was evidence of people living there, a couple homemade bedrolls, used tools waiting to be cleaned and dried herbs lining the walls where shelves accumulated dust amongst bottles and jars of unknown products. The dry air smelled like ash and something metallic, the type of smell similar to when fresh game is immediately put upon a fire, still bloody.

- Your sandalled feet clicked across the worn floor in short, certain steps as you took it all in. The sound of the ongoing battle, the very ground splitting, faded as the two combatants moved farther and farther from the homestead. Nature claimed the silence as hesitant bird song and insect calls slowly filled the air. And if you strained your hearing, you barely picked up a small, ragged breathing coming from somewhere below you. False floors perhaps? Or maybe, a trapdoor?

- With a nonchalant attitude, your eyes swept over every crack in the floorboards and attempted to make out any shapes the weak lights would allow you to. The Valkyrie headpiece made it difficult to angle your head the right way but as you inclined it towards the hidden cellar, eyes catching the faintest of movements belonging to a small frame. That made you pause. Odin had knowledge of Feyre’s death, yes, but there was nothing on another inhabitant. And with them being so small, and hidden…

- With the slam of the door, Kratos came heaving into the small enclosure and stared you down. His body, pale save the tattoos, dirt and blood of Baldur, was tense as he took a step forward. You must admit, seeing him like this, with that crazed look in his eyes… It screamed danger. But you had clear orders to not engage, only reconnaissance.

- Kratos shot forward like a viper and his muscled hands barely grazed your side before you leapt under them and spun around, backing out of his home. The further you went from his home, the less he wished to chase you as he stood by the edge of the forest and stared at your retreating form. You had chuckled, for he reminded you of a bear protecting its young in the dead of winter. Any other time, you would have engaged in battle and shown him the true might of the second most powerful Valkyrie of your era but for now, you have an Aesir Prince to pluck from the deepest cracks of the Earth and return to Odin with some new, promising information. So, with Baldur slung over your shoulder like a wet piece of cloth, dripping with blood and writhing not in pain but anger, you returned to the Great Lodge.

- We may be playing with cannon now as it was after you gave your testimony about the fight, their lodgings and the unexpected addition of a potential godly child that the fate of the other Valkyries was shared with you. Odin was deceptive though, as he played into your ambition and used your years long mission of accompanying Baldur to plant small ideas into your head. You heard rumours and whispers of your sisters being disobedient and acting out of term. Odin even hinted that he may be looking for a new leader of them, you would go from a potential Valkyrie Captain to maybe even the Valkyrie Queen. It was like he was a drug, one that got you coming back for more as his promises and suggestions seemed to overtake you.

- Let’s be very clear, the reason that Odin retaliated against the Valkyries was because of their connection to Freya. He was anxious that they would betray him. However, due to you being a relatively new addition, with strong Aesir roots due to becoming a Valkyrie as a part of the marriage deal, he didn’t want to waste the potential he saw in you. And by potential, I mean something like a puppet because that’s kind of how he sees you. Something that he can control and shape to the needs of his regime. So he made you feel important by pairing you with his son, the very son of the woman you once sworn fealty to. He warped the rules slightly, saying that you could still be loyal to Freya by being loyal to her son. Who was, naturally, loyal to Odin.

- The Aesir Lord spoke with deep anguish and regret about how the other Valkyries failed him and that he had to teach them the faults in their way of thinking which you understood, they had always had a sense of disconnect about them when the realms needed unity. But then Odin spoke of their punishment in more details: he bound them in corporeal forms. That made you pause.

- Valkyries are beings not fully physically there, on any which platform. Their essence mainly exists outside all realms until it is time to collect valiant heroes and bring them into the halls of Valhalla. To say you were disturbed was an understatement. Hell, to say you were disgusted was too little of a word. The man whose word that you had followed for the majority of your life had just admitted to your face that he had banished your family to the worst fate imaginable. The only way it could be described, in my opinion, is cramming every inch of your body in a small box with the lid closed. It’s physically impossible and would feel absolutely torturous. There’s also the sense of awareness in it too, like you can feel every nook and cranny of the imprisonment and the awareness of it would drive you crazy.

- Odin must have a lot of faith in your loyalty to him because he didn’t question your silence, just praised you for the reconnaissance and dismissed you for the rest of the day. You blindly wandered to your quarters, pointedly looking away from the doors and corridors that would lead you to your sisters’ chambers. A cold sweat had built on the back of your neck as your jaw clenched and then unclenched in a staggered rhythm. You didn’t sit down when you got in, instead deciding to pace back and forth as you tried to come up with an excuse for your Lord’s behaviour. But you couldn’t find any. Sure there was the small rumours of insubordination and disrespect but thats all they were, rumours! You didn’t hold much credit to them, at least not any more.

- You remembered Sigrún’s look of fondness when you first dressed in the Valkyrie uniform, how she called you ‘little one’ and how you fought tooth and nail to be able to stand by her side, not only as family but as equals, as someone worthy of the Valkyrie title. The training sessions she used to indulge you with, where you would try your best to disarm her with new and creative ways only to end up lying flat on your face after two minutes. She had accepted you with open arms when the others had taken much longer to warm up to you. If you had a mother, you hoped she was like Sigrún.

- It didn’t take long for reckless thoughts to develop in your mind, you were the most rash of all the fighters at the end of the day. And it was surprisingly easy to get past the guards, as all it took was a lie. A very probable lie. You had said that Odin had sent you on another mission, and at the mention of the Aesir the guards all but ran to do as you wished. Had you been like that once? Hanging onto every word he had said and doing anything he wanted at the drop of a hat? How far would you have gone? You have already killed for him, what else would he have had you do? You had stupidly thought he had seen you as an equal, not as the obedient soldier he had forged you into.

- Oh, how you wanted to run your blade through his blackened heart though you would not dare tarnish your blade. Nor should he be granted such a swift end. Perhaps a rusted axe to lop off his engorged head would do the trick?

- You weren’t stupid, someone would notice your less than present attitude and would surely report it to Odin. And with the shiny, bejewelled armour you were currently donning; it would be easy to spot you. You had to do something quickly.

- With a clenched jaw, you channeled yourself onto Midgard. It hurt, but only for a moment as your form shifted to fit your vision. It was like a similar enclosure to that of your sisters, but with looser boundaries. Your essence was concentrated enough on Midgard that you could not be sensed outside the realms, and with enough effort you would not be sensed within the realms either.

- Your armour was surprisingly easier to deal with, having discovered a travelling blue Dwarf named Brok who reforged your armour to fit your needs. You had paid him with the very jewels you had once worn with pride. A small price to pay for survival, and revenge. There was something off about the fellow, you could tell that he wasn’t completely all there spiritually. It was a sad thing to see, as the soul was split between the physical and spiritual plains. Though there was nothing you could do besides offer the occasional companionship.

- It was through Brok that you encountered the Greek and his son once more. The Dwarf had requested they meet with his business partner (you) and deal with Fafnir, a dragon who had been plaguing the Midgard realm for many, many years. By bringing him to peace, not only would you be releasing the many souls tied to greed but also rescuing the mountains of valuable materials and loot. Word had come through the Dwarf’s Yggdrasil portals that you would be expecting some help, something you weren’t opposed to per se but something you weren’t used to.

- The stare down between you and Kratos when you met again was charged. Old instincts told you to take flight and charge him with your weapons but you held off, instead choosing to introduce yourself with your name and explain how you were once a Valkyrie who had defected. The older man hadn’t taken his eyes off you but Atreus, ever the curious little boy, began hurling question after question at you. He had been stuck with his brick wall of a father for weeks and barely had the opportunity to have a proper conversation with another person. You regarded the boy with something akin to curiosity and amusement, as if you were judging him for the actions he had yet to take. The conversation came easily though, as you answered most of his questions and deflected where you felt necessary. He didn’t dare get close to you, probably due to his father’s lingering paranoia, but you could see him eyeing your legendary weapons with barely contained awe.

- As the boy was yapping away, you had made eye contact with the bare chested man. A beat of something passed between you, perhaps recognition or respect, and you nodded your head and he grunted in return. A man of few words it seemed. Though you doubted he needed words when you could sense the sheer power radiating off his form. The upcoming fight with the dragon Fafnir was becoming more doable by every minute.

- And it was. The dragon had been vanquished in less than ten minutes, with Kratos’s heavy blows and Atreus’s accurate piercing arrows. There wasn’t much you could do besides offer aerial support and act as a distraction by flying in the dragon’s face and capturing his attention. But this provided essential moments for the others to regroup and stage the next round of attacks, making short work of the beast.

- It seemed that after the fight, Kratos regarded you with something positive. Not friendship or trust, nothing so heavy. But perhaps his eyes saw potential in you, and perhaps he wasn’t so opposed to fighting with you again.

- Brok was delighted with the many goods you had retrieved for him, promising upgrades for all parties involved. He got started on the Leviathan Axe first thing as the rest of you relaxed around his travelling stand. It was here that you learned of their quest to scatter Feyre’s ashes atop the tallest peak in all the realms. A lengthy journey for certain, but one you have no doubt they can accomplish.

- And from there, you continue to come across the duo as you journey through the nine realms yourself. You often battled alongside them or acted as a diversion so they could escape from potential enemies, like the other Aesirs.

- Once, when Kratos had stumbled across a chained Valkyrie, he had spotted you discretely placing food and drink near them so that they were taken care of, even in the midst of their madness. He did not speak of this to you, nor did he mention your tears as he freed each one from their physical bonds. He pretended to not notice as you approached their fallen form to give them their last rites and blessings for the afterlife in Valhalla. And he would never mention how you guided each and every one across from the mortal to the spiritual world. A soldier never says anything when another is hurting. Instead, Kratos shows you a rare kindness. He cleans your weapons. It happened once, after Sigrúns passing, where he wouldn’t give it back until it as done and whilst doing so, he offers a rare chance of a conversation. He shares a story about loosing a comrade during a war, all the way back in Greece. He spoke about their haunting presence and the poison that is revenge. The words he spoke lifted a weight from your chest, not fully as grief will never leave you but it softened the edges and made it easier to breathe each day. It was the ease of understanding that flowed between the two of you which the basis of a friendship was built upon.

- Okay, so now we have the basic sort of backstory built up we can talk about the start of a romance. I’m sorry, I know i got carried away here but I’ll actually get to the request now!

- I don’t think Kratos would really consider relationships until after God of War: Ragnarok, as he would be too preoccupied with protecting Atreus from Odin and his lackeys. But post Ragnarok Kratos would be different. With Atreus going travelling and discovering himself, the older man is left with an empty home and not a lot of positive relationships. I feel that most of his connections with others usually stem from Atreus, so one of the only people he could really connect with or tolerate would be you. You weren’t connected to him through his son, no. You were entirely his friend. It was odd for him to have friends, people to care for outside of blood but you were one of the only exceptions.

- The romance that would bloom between the two of you wasn’t an immediate or quick thing. It was slow and steady, each step feeling natural and going at its own pace. You didn’t even realise what the two of you were forming until it was too late to go back.

- It started with random visits. You were lonely, with your sisters gone and not feeling comfortable with the new order of gods, you decided to spend most of your time exploring the nine realms. This meant you would often pop in to visit Kratos, see how he was doing with his hermit lifestyle. Sometimes you would come bearing gifts, like fresh game or strong mead in which the two of you would indulge in that night. Once, you had brought him a set of horn mugs from Svartalfheim which were painted with miniature renditions of his Nordic adventures. They were never used, and were left to sit on a shelf for decoration when you realised they were much too small for his big frame. One of those cups looked as though it was meant to be for a child in his hands. He appreciated it regardless, even though he never actually told you.

- This then evolved into going on hunting or foraging trips together. Which became more frequent when he realised that you would often pick up any forgeable and eat it, not caring if it was safe or not as you trusted your Valkyrie powers to deal with the aftermath. This meant that more times than not, you would be curled up under some furs as your stomach cramped violently. You were used to prepared feasts and had little to no knowledge of self-provision beyond hunting. It often gave the Greek a headache.

- Kratos slowly started to teach you more about the local flora, not trusting you to forage by yourself either. It was like you were slowly giving him another reason to live. To keep you alive, or well more accurately, to keep you from accidentally killing yourself as you go exploring. You may be a Valkyrie, a being of some immortal strength and origin, but in his eyes, you could barely fend for yourself in the wild. Though, he supposes he could sympathise. You had so much new freedom, having never really explored the realms whilst under Odin’s rule. You had quotas to hit and missions to enact, there was little time for relaxation and joy.

- May-haps this is why the two of you seemed to work so well together. You were both learning how to live without a purpose. Kratos had no revenge to exact, and no son to protect and train. You had no orders to follow nor any title to defend. You both existed in this quiet companionship, as equals. As friends.

- Things began to shift when you didn’t visit for a while. He wouldn’t admit it, but not having you in his sights made him anxious. He was getting used to your presence and to not have you there left him stress and a little paranoid. He was worried that something had happened to you, though he would never say that out loud. At least not yet.

- Weeks passed and he didn’t even hear a peep from you. He even approached Sindri who affirmed that you hadn’t reached out to anyone.

- He would be out of his house more often than not, as though he was running from his shared memories with you. You had carved out a place for yourself in his home and neither of you realised it. It felt natural at this point for him to return home and find you lounging on a bedroll or drinking from his stores. He would huff but never get mad, just accept the cup you would hand him and sit with you by the fire. It was a routine he was beginning to expect, enjoy even. And to have it snatched away without any explanation was disconcerting.

- Then one fateful day, you returned. Though you were…different.

- You explained that Freya, the new leader of all in the nine realms, had called you to a meeting concerning the fate of the Valkyries. She had asked you to rejoin them as the leader of a more peaceful, democratic force. And you had spent the last month or two organising the training, hierarchy, recruitment, etc. It was in the dead of night, when you were nursing the last of your drink in front of the long-extinguished brazier that you admitted to Kratos that you wished to retire. These new responsibilities thrust upon you were giving you nightmares as echoes of Odin’s rule clung to your subconscious. You admitted, almost bitterly, how you envied him. He had no pressing matters. He was practically living life to enjoy it, not working towards a goal.

- You had begun to rant and pace, letting years of unspoken frustration, anger and guilt pour forth from your heart as you spoke about your sisters, Odin’s cruelty and the life you wished you could have but couldn’t afford/feel like you should have. There were no tears, you had used them all when each of your sisters had been free from their binds but there was a lingering tightness in your throat and a heaviness behind your eyes that threatened to become known. Your breathing was heavy and laboured as your eyes flickered about almost manically.

- And Kratos sat there. He sat there and let you release it all, you clearly needed to. And when you finished? When you slumped back into your seat, body limp and exhaustion haunting your every twitch? He picked you up and laid you in a bedroll, and, against his better judgement, he let you cling to his arm as you settled into calm sleep.

- In the morning, he didn’t offer any answers or words of advice. He just gave you a look and everything just seemed to click in your brain.

- That day, you travelled back to Asgard and declared your retirement. You explained to Freya how you didn’t have a place in this new order and how it was okay. You offered a few recommendations to fill your position, selected from the limited recruits who appeared after Odin’s defeat before returning to Midgard. (Freya was not happy, you were an invaluable asset to her sovereignty. She may or may not have sent a strongly worded message to Kratos for stealing her best advisor from right under her nose. He pretended to have not recieved it).

- Like I said earlier, there is no concrete start of your romantic relationship but what I can say for certain is that after this point, he becomes a lot more touchy. It’s not everyday that someone chooses him out of free will (and forcibly moves into his home, under the guise of keeping him company in retirement so he doesn’t go crazy). It’s the type of touch where you can’t tell if it’s platonic or something more. Like, holding your waist and tracing shapes onto bare skin when he cheekily slides his hands under your shirt. Or when you’re talking and he brushes your hair out of your face, and promptly ignores your flushed face and stuttered sentences. Neither of you mention it, lest you break the spell of comfort around you.

- I’m not too sure when it comes to a head, but all I know is that one year where Atreus visits, you guys are just close friends who like to drink together, and then another where you and Kratos share a bedroll, call each other names of endearment and stay close all the while claiming you are just really good companions. It drives the kid crazy! He’s not necessarily against his father having another partner after Feyre, but at least have the decency to say exactly what it is.

- For the two of you, you don’t need labels. Everything just seems to fall into place right when it needs to.

- So let’s talk about how the two of you act once you get to this relationship stage.

- The way Kratos shows his affection, I think, is through two main ways:

Acts of service:

He will ensure your weapons and armour are polished and repaired to better-than-new quality, often spending hours polishing them himself or paying Sindri a large sum to get the best service possible. He also likes hunting for you, it scratches that provider instinct deep in his mind. It’s like he’s ensuring that you’re safe and healthy when he’s around, reinforcing the idea that he can be a good partner when he gets some trauma bubbling to the surface. Once, he tried to do something a bit more detailed, like cooking you a nice meal in the kitchen area of his lodge rather than over a campfire, and lets just say if it wasn’t for your quick thinking, then he would have to reinforce most of the walls with extra logs.

Contrary to what most might think, Kratos has a steady hand and he can be gentle when it comes to it. Which is why he’s the best at helping you maintain your wings. Since they’re so large, they are plenty of areas where you cannot reach and plenty of old feathers that need to be plucked. At first he is kind of hesitant, afraid he may hurt you by mistake or tug of the wrong feather but with your guiding, he is able to remove most of what needs to be done. He actually finds it relaxing and grounding with the repetitive motions ensuring a chance for his mind to slow down and take a breather. He also may or may not have kept a couple of feathers in a persona stash, sometimes he takes one for when he’s away from you to remind himself of why he needs to return.

Gift giving

He would 100% make you little wooden carvings of random animals he has seen that day, and you always keep them. There’s a shelf hanging above your shared bedroll that’s just crammed full of random animal statues. It become an obsession for the both of you, so much to the point where Atreus will gift his father foreign wood as he knows that it will bring more joy to him than any blade or beer will. Sometimes, for rare occasions or when Kratos wants to spoil you, he will approach Freya when she is not busy and request her help in selecting an outfit for you. He often worries, silently, that he cannot provide you with the luxuries you deserve so he tries his best. He simply cannot get over the fact that you left a position of power and luxury to retire in the forest, on Midgard, with him.

- Any arguments you have are very short lived. He is a stubborn man and his main way to diffuse a situation like this is to leave and go on a hunting trip for the rest of the day/night. Is it healthy? No. But it sure is effective. You will have to get used to it. It’s his way or the highway, especially if it concerns anything to do with your safety because thats when his over-protective streak comes out.

- When it comes to sleeping, he is a big spoon through and through. And you’re practically his teddy bear. No matter how tall or thick you may be, he is significantly larger and will lift you up to sleep on his chest no matter what. He sleeps astronomically better when you’re with him and he loves the sight of sleeping face when he wakes up hours before you. It brings him a sense of calm and certainty, like yes, this is his life now and boy, does he love it.

- Nightmares do happen. And often between the two of you. When you’re not dreaming of Odin’s cruelty or your sister’s agony, he’s dreaming of loosing his family over and over again. Sometimes he sees you dying at his hands, or Lysandra or Feyre. Sometimes all your faces seem to bleed into each other as his past nips at his heels. Those nights he spends awake, not daring another second of sleep, preferring to instead watch you breathe in and out as he reminds himself that you are alive and well. Should you have a nightmare, it’s like he senses it and wakes up with you. He lets you talk about it you want, tracing small symbols on your skin with his thumb. If you have trouble sleeping then he may even offer to hum or sing a Greek lullaby like he did for Calliope and Atreus once upon a time.

- Any bedroom activities are rather relaxed. He’s not going to choke you or be extra mean. He’s a retiree, he just wants slow sensual moments with his partner as they enjoy each other’s bodies. Though, there may be a moment or two when he feels invigorated and makes love to you with the passion of a man half his age. His favourite thing is when you are on top and he gets to marvel at your beauty in the soft morning light, it’s the best way to start a day in his opinion.

- I can’t really see the two of you getting married, or at least having a ceremony. It just isn’t the way of your relationship dynamic. Kratos isn’t bothered with last names or official titles or anything like that as he knows his is yours, just as you are his. He doesn’t need no one’s permission or declaration to decide that. If you are really hung up on having a ceremony, then he might be willing to cave. It would have to be a very small ceremony, like the people who would be there would include Atreus (naturally), Freya (for your side of the ‘family’) and then Sindri who would either be there to officiate or just because he happened to be there when you mentioned it and basically took over planning it. If this happened before Brok’s death, then he would also be there. And he would totally let out a few manly tears before making a toast and providing a lot of alcohol. Actually, scratch Sindri officiating, it would be Tyr. He would just turn up, regardless of Kratos’s wants. He would have a beautifully vague speech about union and cry a little. (Atreus would be the ring bearer, and you would definitely have to ask his permission to marry his father. Also, there is no way that Kratos would be proposing).

- In regard to kids… I don’t think Kratos would want any in his retirement to be honest. Like, he killed his first one and his second turned out to be the secret to starting the apocalypse. I think he wouldn’t be all that interested, like he had his chance and he doesn’t want another one… unless you (if you could get pregnant) got pregnant with a daughter. I think this would change a lot. It wouldn’t a redo of Calliope nor would the new baby girl be a replacement for her, but rather it would prove to him that not everything he touches would be damaged in any way. She would grow up without violence due to Freya’s new reign and policies, and she wouldn’t have a crazy destiny like Atreus. He feels guilty for feeling happy but the moment anyone in the family, including the friends we made along the way, gets a glimpse of her, they all understand. He would also be so protective during pregnancy, like he wouldn’t eve let you sit up by yourself kind of overprotective. Freya would totally be your midwife and I can imagine labour happening when Kratos has to go do something important, like warding enemies away from his home, leaving Sindri and Freya to help you with your labour. Sindri fainted like six times.

He shook his head and levelled a flat, unimpressed look toward the sound. “They’re an unasked-for gift from Kuma.”

“Kuma? He always gives us the strangest things.”

And rarely were they without meaning. You wondered what he had planned with this.

Mihawk gave you a tired look. “And never with appropriate warning. How were your travels?”

You fought the urge to sigh in exasperation. “Testing of my patience. I was – ”

The door screeched against the stone floor before you could finish your sentence and you turned, interested in the argument that had finally made its way to the table. What they were talking about was beyond you but it took them both a second to notice there was somebody else in the room.

Four ghosts drifted in during the sudden silence that followed, their forms pale against the dark stone, their faint murmuring just loud enough to be heard when the room went still. You watched them for a moment, mildly amused. The house was officially haunted then, you supposed.

“If you two are to remain here, you are to do so with far less noise,” Mihawk said sharply. “What do you want?”

They both opened their mouths to answer but it seemed your unexpected arrival had caused them to forget their argument entirely. Instead, the boy settled on speaking about something else.

“That’s a good sword.”

You followed his gaze to the side of your chaise where your weapon rested. Its plain leather scabbard said little for the quality of the blade inside. You lifted it and held it out toward him and he watched you warily before he stepped forward to take it.

“It was a gift,” you said. “I believe I recognise you. Pirate Hunter Zoro, no?”

He nodded stiffly, far more interested in the weapon than you. He looked uncomfortable. Not as though he was seriously injured but more as though he was recovering from such an ordeal and already pushing himself too hard.

You gave Mihawk a look. “You’ve always been too harsh with your training.”

He tilted his head to you. “If your skills ever fail you, then you can complain about my methods.”

“I can do both,” you said with a small chuckle. “I’ll complain and appreciate your techniques at the same time. Though at the time, I remember nothing but complaining.”

He breathed out quickly. “True. My ears rang for days at the pitch.”

Zoro drew your blade, holding it out in front of him and you turned to the girl instead whose face certainly wasn’t as common on wanted posters.

“We haven’t met,” you said and she frowned at you.

Then she propped her hands onto her hips and nodded. “I see what’s going on.”

“What’s going on?”

Mihawk gave you her name later, after she marched off to find something to eat. You also learned the ghosts were hers and they gathered around her eagerly whenever she laughed, bobbing around. They added quite nicely to the aesthetic of the place – you’d always suspected it had to be haunted by at least one spirit.

You considered it as you lounged atop the silken sheets of the four-poster bed, the fabric cool beneath your skin. The room pressed in around you with its age, stone walls holding onto a quiet that felt older than either of you, thick with a history no one had bothered to remember.

And broken by the occasional laugh echoing down the halls.

“Do they sleep?” you asked.

“Most of the time. I’m still considering putting them on a boat and letting it set sail,” Mihawk said. “If the current is merciful, they may reach land alive.”

“The boy has potential enough for you to let him stay then?”

“Some. I’ve still yet to determine it.”

You hummed softly under your breath. “But the girl has no skills to be trained.”

“No. She seems to have spent most of her life around Gecko Moira.”

“Unfortunate.”

He took his place next to you and raised a book, flicking lazily through the pages until he found his spot. You leaned closer, curious to see how far he’d gotten since you’d last seen him, only to find you remembered the page almost exactly.

“Rereading?”

“I didn’t take it with me. I thought that if you returned earlier than I did, you might want something to look at it.”

You smiled softly. “I should have arrived earlier but things turned sour on the archipelago. There was chaos enough I almost skipped the stop. Did Kuma send them when you got back?”

“I don’t know when they arrived. I found them here after my return.”

You twisted onto your side to look at him better, expression aghast. “Dracule, don’t tell me they were abandoned here for potential days. We had no food here after we left.”

He shrugged. “They survived. I’m certain there are berries or something growing outside the west wing.”

The next morning, you got up early to prepare breakfast, your brain still lingering on the berries outside. You were quite sure those weren’t edible.

You busied yourself around the far-too-big kitchen, your footsteps echoing faintly against the stone as you moved between counters. Pots and pans hung where they had been left months ago, a thin layer of dust settled over some of them as you reached up to pull them down.

Something shifted behind you, light but noticeable in the quiet, and you turned with a small smile already forming. “Good morning.”

Perona gave you a look you didn’t quite understand. “Men are rather stupid,” she said. “You have to do something more obvious, especially with men like him who are more interested in swords.”

You frowned, a little confused by the morning’s topic but happy to accept it. “I imagine it depends on the man. Would you like some pancakes?”

“Sure. I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter how big you make your ‘I love you’ eyes because he won’t even notice,” she said.

“Are you talking about Dracule?” you asked.

She blinked at you. “First names are a bit too forward.”

Perona clearly enjoyed cuter things so you took a little more time to decorate her pancakes, making two small bear faces surrounded by (edible) berries and a little bit of chocolate you’d carried back with you. It wasn’t the best creation you’d ever made but it was adorable enough that you held out the plate to her.

“He’s never minded what I call him,” you said. “Dracule is a lot less formal than – are you alright?”

She stared at the plate for a moment too long, eyes brightening. You froze for a second, still holding the plate out. You flipped the pancakes cooking with your free hand, not sure what to do now. Had you offended her?

Then she flicked her head up to look at you and nodded, grabbing the plate. “These aren’t that impressive but fine, I’ll help you organise a date with him,” she said. “Not because these look like Kumashi or anything but you know, because you look sad and he needs to mope less.”

You had no idea what a Kumashi was but you assumed it meant she liked them. You could have corrected her then but the determined tilt of her chin made the misunderstanding too charming to ruin.

“I wouldn’t say he mopes,” you said. “Though he can be a bit miserable when he hasn’t slept enough.”

“It’s probably also because this place is depressing,” she huffed. “It’s so gloomy and… cold.”

“It does need a good clean,” you admitted to yourself, looking up to the ceiling where cobwebs stretched between the beams and gathered in corners that had not seen a broom in years. “It’s just a bit of a pain to get up there. The last time I climbed into the rafters, I was attacked by a ridiculously sized bug so I’d rather not do it again.”

“Perhaps you should take your sword with you,” Mihawk said as he stepped in. “You could easily kill one insect.”

“It’s far harder to clean with a blade,” you defended yourself though you remembered him getting rid of that very bug not long after it scared you. “Do you want some breakfast?”

Perona held up her pancakes for him to see. “She’s very good at making cute meals. You should get her to move in so she can bring some more life to this place. It’s got a good creepy castle vibe but it could use more colour.”

Mihawk stared at the plate for a second. “That’s not a reason to ask somebody to move in?”

You handed him a plate of his own bear pancakes. His fingers brushed yours as he took the plate, lingering just a fraction longer than necessary before he withdrew. “I was considering adding something brighter to a few rooms. Maybe a lighter red for the curtains.”

“Do as you wish,” he said. “Why bears?”

“I saw one while I was out. Technically a mink but just as cute.”

He left to wake up the younger swordsman after breakfast, telling you to leave the kitchen mess for him to clean later. Perona nodded approvingly the whole time; her ghosts peering their heads around the corner to watch him leave.

“You’re doing well,” she said. “Next you have to dress up for him. What kind of outfits do you think he likes?”

You looked around yourself at the grandiose kitchen with its dark oak cabinets, intricately designed gothic fittings, and gold-tinted décor. “I think his preferred aesthetic is obvious,” you admitted. “Do you want to look at the clothing I have already?”

She shook her head fiercely. “No. No. I think you need to look a lot cuter. We’ll set up a date for both of you tonight.”

“Alright,” you said, bemused. “I’d never say no to a date.”

It turned out that when Kuma banished her onto this ‘vacation’, he hadn’t sent many of her things with her. She started to try planning with what little she had until you offered to take her to a nearby island with much better stores. It was no grand marketplace, just a narrow stretch of shops pressed close together near the docks, but her excitement still had her bouncing on her heels as she looked from window to window.

She adored the colour pink – that you learned quickly – and she had a withering tongue when she came across something that was ugly.

You took the time to grab a few items for the pirate alongside all that Perona wanted which… was honestly a lot. You watched her with faint entertainment as she gathered everything for this dinner date of yours, intervening only to point her toward a wine you knew Mihawk preferred.

“Alright, so you should cook him something cute for dinner,” she insisted. “Try and focus on heart shapes where you can.”

“He cooks more often than I do,” you said. “But I should know what he likes to eat.”

“See? You’re not hopeless.”

You couldn’t help but laugh softly at that. “Have you ever done this for a man before, Perona? You seem very confident in it.”

“Ew, no,” she said with a wrinkled tongue. “Why would I want to make food for somebody who smells bad?”

It was an answer younger than her years but you were starting to get the feeling that she may not have met many outside her home island. And from what little you knew of Moira – admittedly, you had avoided the man since the first time you met him – he’d always kept questionable company.

“Thankfully, Dracule rarely smells bad,” you admitted. “Though he does have his own questionable habits from time to time.”

“How long have you been in love with him?”

You smiled to yourself. How long had it been now? The years had passed before you even noticed them going.

“A while.”

“Good. That means you’re not going to change your mind.”

“Most certainly not.”

Perona eventually found a very frilly choice for you. A ridiculously frilly thing that you would never wear for yourself but she insisted would suit you well. Part of you wondered if she was using you to play dolls with but you’d entertain her for now. Especially because it seemed to make her very happy to do so.

She set up the dining hall while you cooked that evening, before either swordsman returned from their training. Candles flickered above you, their light shifting softly across the walls as you sat and allowed her to do your makeup, her hands tugging gently at your hair until you caught your reflection and found you did indeed resemble a doll.

You touched your lips delicately with your ring finger as you considered yourself.

The pink tablecloth hung unevenly over the long table, one side slipping lower than the other, and the heart-shaped placemats sat bright against the dark wood. It was gaudy by any standard, but she seemed to be having fun, so you left her to it;

“Why are you making four plates?” she asked.

“You two still need to eat,” you reminded her.

“Okay but leave it here then. If you let Zoro in, he’ll ruin everything by talking about swords.”

“I rather like talking about swords,” you said.

She groaned. “No but it’s every night! They never talk about anything else!”

If you had planned this dinner by yourself, it would have been very different to what Perona suggested. The décor would have featured fewer horizontal stripes at least. You poured two glasses and settled into your favourite chair at the table while she waited with her head out into the hallway.

“He’s coming,” she hissed. “Don’t ruin it by looking nervous.”

“I’ll try my hardest.”

Mihawk stepped into the room and paused, his gaze moving slowly over the table, the candles, the colour that did not belong. The curtain so clearly hiding a woman. His gaze settled on you after only a moment, the rest of the room dismissed as quickly as it had been assessed.

“This seems like you had fun today,” he said.

“We went shopping,” you said. “And Perona curated us a lovely date.”

“No,” she hissed. “You’re meant to take credit for it.”

You looked toward the curtain. She’d stuck her head out to stare at you and you laughed softly.

“Honey, I would love to claim it but I think it’s quite obvious you were responsible for all of this. Whenever I set up for dinner, I do it quite differently.”

Mihawk raised an eyebrow and you gestured for him to take his usual seat. “A date?” he repeated. There was the faintest shift in his tone of something quieter beneath the question.

“She thinks we would make a very cute couple.”

He looked at the girl with a deadpan expression. “I did too. That was why I asked you to be my wife.”

You tilted your head slightly at that, amused by how easily he said it. Always so certain.

You laughed softly behind your hand. “Was that the only reason?”

“Among others.”

“But isn’t this sweet?” you asked as you took a sip of your wine. “It reminds me of the first time you made me dinner though… perhaps with less pink.”

“Wife?!” Perona exploded, seemingly having caught up. She stepped out from behind the curtain with an accusing stare. “You’re not wearing a ring!”

You reached behind you and touched the scabbard of your sword where it rested against your chair. Attached to the hilt by woven leather, your ring glinted gold. “It gets in the way if I’m wearing it while wielding a sword,” you admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me this morning when I said something?!”

“Because I found it sweet how you wanted to help me win his heart,” you said. “I think the best thing I did for that was when I stole his hat and didn’t give it back until he kissed me.”

Mihawk gave you a look. “I had already taken you out several times before then.”

“But that’s the moment you fell in love with me.”

He neither confirmed nor denied anything; simply breathed out and held his glass toward you. You clinked yours to his gently, the soft chime of crystal familiar in a way few other sounds could be.

“Why don’t you join us, Perona?” you asked. “It’s not quite the date you wanted it to be but we can enjoy dinner right?”

Zoro appeared in the doorway, looked from the pink tablecloth to Mihawk’s expression, and frowned. “Did I interrupt something weird?”

She huffed and crossed her arms but she was smiling. “Alright fine. I guess I can but at least get him to say you’re pretty or something.” She grabbed Zoro’s arm and practically hauled him from the door. “Come get your food.”

“Don’t drag me!”

You watched them go, stifling your laugh the entire time.

“She chose your outfit too?” Mihawk asked.

“Mm, do you like it?”

“There’s very little I wouldn’t like if you’re the one wearing it.”

You rested your hand over his own, squeezing slightly. “I like your new children,” you told him. “They’re very sweet.”

“They’re most certainly not mine,” he said. “But I suppose they’re tolerable.”

“That’s what you said about me the first time we met.”

He shook his head but you caught the faintest hint of a smile before you heard arguing start up in the hallway again. Zoro must have returned then. You had to admit, it may have only been a day, but the castle felt different already, less hollow than it had and you were growing quite fond of having them here. And though he would never admit it, they’d definitely won a little favour from your forever-stern husband.

Homelander, despite his sociopathy, craved affection, genuine adoration and genuine love. Of course he felt it was never really real. From Madeline Stillwell, to Queen Maeve to Stormfront. Everyone was fake.

None of them really gave a fuck about him, and they were scared of him, which he did like, but only when he wanted them to be scared, not as some consistent underlying feeling.

Anyone who got to know Homelander personally, fucking hated him, or was scared of him. He knew it, of course he did. He felt it in the air, he heard their racing hearts and the blood rushing through their veins. They couldn’t hide it if they tried.

Then there was you. To Homelander, you were more of a gimmick supe. nothing worth The Seven, but Sister sage insisted you were part of the plan, along with Firecracker, so Homelander bent his knee.

When you were first introduced, he didn’t expect much, and that expectation (or lack thereof) continued until they day they caught the suspected mole. Some spider freak Homelander couldn’t care to remember the name of.

That day you stood alongside him as he ripped the supe clean in half, watching as blood exploded across Homelander and the floor. Any other person, he would’ve heard the racing heart beat, or the gulping noise of nervousness. But you? You just grimaced at the sight, a soft ‘yuck’ coming from you shortly after.

From then on he’d noticed you more, and it seemed you noticed him too, always flirting with him, touching his arm, bringing him snacks, and milk. It was obvious to everyone, your not so subtle blooming affection toward him.

When he was angry, you weren’t fearful or cowering, you let him get angry, let him rant and rave. He felt idiotic for the amount of times he found himself in your room just to lay his head on your lap and complain.

He took notice of how you never tried to kiss his ass out of fear, only fussing over him out of genuine care. He couldn’t fully believe it, and his doubt caused him to have mood swings where he would be cruel to you. Like he was sick of anticipating when you’d finally hate him and so he tried to force it with his behaviour.

It didn’t ever come though, you were patient, and you frustratingly gave him his time to brood and be angry. It wasn’t until he saw some security guard flirting with you that he realized he needed you all to himself, that no other person would care for him the way you did. With the security guy dead, he finally asked you to be his partner, and made you official to the public as fast as possible, wanting to stake his claim for you to everyone.

Once Homelander started to realize that he heard your heart flutter around him, that he could see the dilation in your eyes when you looked at him, or smell the arousal when you were worked up over him, he knew that there wasn’t any questioning whether or not your feelings were true.

John had just killed every scientist who’d tortured him growing up, his body still shaking with adrenaline, anger, and self hatred. The realization that he’d been raised like a dog to be obedient, made him so angry, he could barely contain it.

He touched down on the Vought towers covered in blood he dragged his feet into your shared bedroom, where you were already up making your way to the door when you heard it open.

“Are you okay?” You whispered upon seeing him, opening your arms to him despite his body being covered in bloody. Homelander slumped into you without hesitation, his gloved fingers digging into your flesh. “I’m nothing but a product.” He whispered with a wavering tone, though clear anger cracked through his pain. “What happened baby?” You cooed brows pinched together as your fingers threaded through his crunchy blood soaked hair.

He shook his head pulling back a bit. “They’re dead.. no sense in talking about it.” He huffed looking into your eyes, his expression tired or rather, drained. “You’re the only one who sees me like this..” He muttered making you smile, his gloved hand raising to run his thumb across the apples of your cheek.

“Wanna bathe?” You offered in an affectionate tone, making his face twitch with differing emotions. One of those feeling was cringe; unused to being so genuinely cared for, and the others being exhaustion and gratitude. “Yes.” Homelander grumbled, allowing you to guide him to the bathroom like he was just some lil’ guy and not a murderous superhuman.

“You look so handsome covered in blood.” You hummed sliding off his cape from the clasps, before staring to undo the back of his suit. Homelander scoffed stood obediently in front of you as you undressed him. Sometimes it was hard to believe you meant what you said, on days like these all he wanted was to believe you.

“You can talk to me you know... I won’t ever judge you for what happened.” You assured softly, undressing your own body as you watched him slump into the warm water. Once you’d settled into his lap, his arms around your waist, bodies resting in the warm luxury’s tub, he finally spoke again.

“I was raised in a lab, tortured.” Homelander spoke, his voice low, your eyes briefly meeting his as you got a rag, gently washing the blood from his face. “I killed them, it doesn’t feel satisfying enough…” He trailed soaking in the loving look you had in your eyes as you washed him up. “I’m glad you killed them.”

Homelanders face twitched his expression showing confusion for a split second. “You’re… glad?” Homelander murmured as your lips met his nose. “Yeah, fuck those asshole, supe or not you were a little boy being abused and treated like a lab rat.” You hummed out setting aside the wash rag to cup his face, he looked sad, like a kicked puppy. “You’re just… okay with how I kill?” Homelander scoffed, his hands on your hips tugging you closer as he leaned back.

You nodded, clinging to him. “I love you John,” You shrugged, moving your hands up to attempt to get some of the crusty blood off. “There’s nothing you can do that will stop that, even if I get angry, grossed out or off put for a bit, that won’t outweigh how I love ya.”

Homelander felt for the first time that maybe he’d finally found someone who did love him. Originally Stormfront felt like she was Homelanders match, but sadly, all she cared about was her Nazi bullshit. “I love you too.” He grumbled lowly his fingers coming up to pinch your cheeks.

the way everyone keeps shifting around you like you are something set down wrong in the middle of the room. something breakable. something dangerous. something nobody wants to touch unless they know exactly where the sharp parts are.

you stand just inside the door after the van empties, one hand hanging at your side, fingers still half-curled around a knife that is no longer there. frenchie has it. you remember that in pieces. cloth around the blade. his hands gentle for once. his eyes not meeting yours.

the room moves.

mm drops the bag of manuals onto the table. frenchie sets his equipment down too carefully. kimiko locks the door behind everyone, then checks the window, then the hallway, because motion is better than standing still. annie stays beside you, not holding you, but close enough that if your knees decide to quit their job, she’ll know before the floor does.

hughie hovers by the couch with bloodless lips and shaking hands. “i’m sorry,” he says again, voice small enough to make your stomach twist. “i’m so sorry, i—”

“hughie,” annie says. not unkind. not angry. just stop. he does. his mouth shuts, but his face keeps saying it.

you cannot look at him for long. he is alive. that should help. but it doesn’t. not in any way you understand yet. it only makes the feeling sharper. one alive because one is dead. one breathing because one stopped. easy. simple. brutal enough to make your chest feel hollow.

butcher steps in front of you.

that surprises you. not because he has been absent, exactly. butcher is never absent. he has been in the room the whole time, carrying the stolen manuals like they weigh less than what happened, jaw tight, eyes too sharp, cigarette at the ready between his fingers. 

but now he is in front of you, close enough that annie shifts slightly, ready to interfere if he says the wrong thing.

he looks at you with an expression you almost don’t recognize on him. not pity. not softness. butcher doesn’t really do softness unless it’s been dragged out of him with pliers. but there is something steady there. something firm enough to lean on without asking permission.

“look at me,” he says.

you do.

his eyes don’t move to your trousers. don’t move to your hands. he keeps them on your face. “you did good.”

your stomach turns. “jesus christ.”

“no,” he says, and there’s no cruelty in it. no bite. just command. “you listen to me now.”

your mouth closes.

he nods once, like that’s better. like you are still on mission and he is giving you the next instruction. maybe that is the only way he knows how to be kind without choking on it.

“you were focused. you were ready. hughie’s alive because you moved when you had to.” his voice lowers, rough around the edges. “that’s a bitch of a thing. i know it is. i’m not dressin’ it up pretty for you. but it was good.”

good. the word doesn’t fit. it scrapes against what you remember: the blade going in, the guard’s body jerking, the sound he made against your shoulder. not loud. barely even human by the time your brain let you hear it. good is too clean for that.

“i killed him,” you say.

“yeah,” butcher answers. no flinch. no denial. “and hughie’s standin’ over there because of it.” butcher glances briefly toward him, then back to you. “you think i’m gonna tell you it doesn’t matter? i’m not. it matters. it’ll matter tomorrow, and the day after, and whenever your head decides to be a real bastard about it. but tonight, you’re alive. he’s alive. we’re all alive because you didn’t freeze.”

you don’t understand it. not fully. your body is too cold, your hands too wrong, your brain still kneeling on concrete beside a dead man even as you're staring at him. but you understand the warmth under his words, even if the words themselves are hard and ugly. you understand that butcher is not looking at you like a weapon. not right now. he is looking at you like someone he brought home.

that makes your eyes sting so suddenly you almost hate him for it. butcher sees that too. his jaw works once, like he has realized he has accidentally stepped into concerned father territory and would rather walk directly into traffic than remain there.

“right,” he says, voice roughening back toward familiar ground. he looks past you. “annie.”

“yeah,” annie says immediately.

“get her cleaned up. fresh clothes. whatever else.”

you blink, a little slow. “i can shower by myself.”

butcher looks back at you, sarcasm dragged along the way. “didn’t say she was gettin’ in there with you, did i?”

annie’s mouth tightens, but not with humor. “come on.”

you let her guide you down the hall. not because you need help walking. you don’t. mostly. your legs still work. everything still works. a body should not work this well after doing something it can’t take back.

annie brings you to the bathroom and leaves clean clothes on the sink. soft sweatpants. one of your old shirts. underwear folded neatly under both. she does not crowd you. does not stand in the doorway with her arms crossed. does not watch you like you are about to vanish down the drain.

she just touches your wrist once before leaving. “i’ll be right outside the hall if you need anything.” 

you nod. the door closes. the bathroom becomes too quiet.

for a while, you just stand there with your back to the door, listening to the pipes, the old fan ticking overhead, the muffled movement of people outside trying to pretend they are not worried. then you look down.

the blood is darker now. almost brown in places. stiff in the fabric at your knees and thigh, cracked where your legs bent in the van. it takes you too long to make yourself touch the waistband. longer still to peel the trousers down your legs.

they make a wet, awful sound where the fabric sticks.

you stop breathing for a second. then you throw them into the corner like they burned you.

the shower turns on with a shriek of old pipes. the water comes out cold first, shocking over your fingers when you reach in. you wait for it to warm. then hotter. then too hot. you step under anyway.

blood runs pink at your feet. you watch it spiral toward the drain and your mind does something strange with the sight—turns it unreal, turns it into a thing happening to someone else in a bathroom that is not yours. 

you scrub your arms first. your neck. your face. your knees. the place where the blood soaked through. you scrub until your skin burns and the water runs clear.

then you wash your hands. once. twice. again. 

the soap smells sharp and cheap. it gathers white between your fingers, under your nails, around the tiny splits in your knuckles. you dig your thumb beneath each nail until it hurts.

clear water. still, you see it. you wash again.

your breathing goes wrong somewhere around the fifth time. not crying, not properly. just your chest catching, throat closing, the hot water running over your bowed head while you hold your hands under the stream and wait for them to feel like yours.

eventually, the water starts to cool.

you turn it off.

the bathroom mirror is fogged over, which is a mercy. you dry yourself with slow, mechanical movements and pull on the clean clothes annie left. the sweatpants are soft. it feels obscene to wear something comfortable after cold concrete and blood. your hair drips down the back of your shirt. you wipe the mirror with one hand and regret it immediately when your face appears.

you look tired. not broken. not changed in a dramatic way anyone could point at. just tired. 

that feels unfair too.

when you open the bathroom door, soldier boy is there. you stop so suddenly your damp hair slips over your shoulder.

he is leaning against the opposite wall in the hallway, still in the loose shirt and stupid shorts he must have changed into after the mission. not drinking. not pretending he accidentally passed by. he’s just standing there, hair mussed like he dragged a hand through it too many times and got annoyed when that didn’t fix whatever was happening inside his head.

his eyes move over you once. not like before. not the slow drag meant to provoke. this is quieter. checking, maybe. cataloguing. the clean clothes. wet hair. raw hands. trembling mouth you immediately try to control.

“what are you doing?” you ask. your voice comes out husky, too close to breaking.

his jaw tightens. “walking.”

you stare at him. “in the hallway?”

“looks like it.”

you almost snap at him. you want to. it would be easier. familiar. instead, your lips tremble. just once. barely. but he sees it. something crosses his face so fast you might have missed it if you hadn’t learned to look for damage in the smallest places. annoyance, maybe. but not at you. not really. more like his whole body is offended by the fact that you are standing there clean and shaking and trying not to cry, and there is nothing in him built neatly enough to handle it.

he huffs. rough. irritated. his eyes cut away for half a second, like looking at you directly is causing him physical inconvenience. “come on.”

“what?”

he turns toward your room. “you deaf now?”

“i’m not—”

“move.”

you follow because arguing requires a version of yourself you left somewhere on a warehouse floor.

your room is dim when he pushes the door open. annie must have turned off the overhead light earlier, leaving only the lamp near your bed on low, gold around the edges. your gear is still on the chair. your vest folded badly. the deep poster still hidden under the magazines. normal things. stupid things.

soldier boy walks in and takes your bed.

sits first, then shifts back against the headboard, one leg stretched out, the other bent slightly. he looks absurd there. too big for the mattress, too broad for the room, too alive and warm and present in a place where everything feels hollowed out.

you stand near the door. “absolutely not.”

he looks at you. “shut up.”

“that’s my bed.”

“so?”

“get off.”

“no.”

“soldier boy—”

his eyes sharpen. “ben.”

the name lands between you. not soft. not sweet. a correction. a reminder. a demand. your throat closes around whatever you meant to say next.

he holds your gaze for a beat, then lifts one arm. not tenderly. he just opens it, elbow bent, hand loose, like the whole thing irritates him and he intends to blame you for it later. “get in.”

you stare at the space against his side. “are you insane?”

“probably.”

“i’m not sleeping on you.”

“didn’t say sleep.”

“then what?”

“lie down.”

your eyes sting hard enough that you have to blink. “why?”

his mouth tightens. for one second, you think he’ll make it crude. he could. he has a thousand ugly lines stored somewhere behind his teeth, all of them easier than this. something about women needing to be held together. something about you looking like hell. something about finally getting you in bed and having the worst timing of his life.

he doesn’t. “because you’re standing there like you’re gonna fall over.”

your face twists before you can stop it. the tears don’t fall yet, but they fill your eyes. hot. humiliating. your voice comes out smaller than you want. “i don’t want to think.”

he huffs again, but this time the sound is almost painful. his chest lifts with a breath he doesn’t use properly. “then don’t.”

“that’s not how it works.”

“tonight it is.”

“you can’t just order my brain around.”

“watch me.”

a wet, broken almost-laugh catches in your throat and dies there. your lips tremble again. you press them together, but it’s useless now. he’s seen too much.

his expression does something strange. hardens and cracks at the same time. “stop playing rough,” he says, voice lower. “just get in.”

that does it. not because it’s pretty. not because it fixes anything. because it’s him, and it’s awful, and it’s the closest thing to please he can drag out without bleeding from the mouth.

you cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed first, careful not to touch him. ridiculous, considering his arm is still open and waiting. he watches you with growing impatience, then finally hooks a hand around your upper arm and pulls.

you fold against him with a breath that nearly breaks apart on the way out. your cheek lands against his chest, over the loose cotton of his shirt. not the glowing place exactly but close enough that your body remembers the heat of it. one of your hands braces awkwardly against his stomach before you curl it into a fist and tuck it between you instead.

he is warm. solid. your body hates how badly it needs that. “this is stupid,” you whisper.

“yeah.”

“you’re in my bed.”

“yup.”

“wearing shorts.”

“you want me to take ’em off?”

you let out a small, strangled noise that is almost a laugh and almost a sob. “don’t ruin this.”

he goes quiet. his arm settles around your back. heavy. steady. not stroking, no. not petting. not making a production out of tenderness neither of you would survive. his palm rests between your shoulder blades, broad and warm, pressing just enough to hold you there when your breathing starts to shake.

he doesn’t say it’s okay. he doesn’t say you did what you had to. he doesn’t say he’s killed more men than he can count, doesn’t turn your first blood into one of his war stories, doesn’t offer you the cheap comfort of comparison. he just stays under you, breathing slow enough that your body can steal the rhythm if it wants.

for a while, you fight it. you lie stiff against him, eyes open in the low light, staring at the fold of his shirt near your fist. your hands still feel raw. your skin still feels too clean and not clean enough. every time you close your eyes, there is concrete. blood. hughie’s white face. the small sound the guard made when the knife went in.

your breath catches. soldier boy’s hand presses a little firmer against your back. just there.

“i can still feel it,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.

he doesn’t ask what. he knows. his jaw moves above you. you can feel it more than see it. “yeah.”

one word. no comfort in it. somehow, comfort anyway.

your eyes burn again. this time, tears slip out, quiet and hot, soaking into the front of his shirt before you can hide them. your whole body tenses in immediate shame.

“don’t,” his hand stays steady. “not like that.”

your voice is almost gone. “like what?”

“like you’re gonna apologize for it.”

you close your eyes and the tears keep coming, silent now. not enough to make you sob. just enough to make your face wet against him, enough that he definitely knows. enough that he could say something awful and ruin it.

he doesn’t. he looks toward the door instead, jaw tight, eyes hard in the dim room like he’s daring the whole world to come in and make noise. no one does.

down the hall, the safehouse moves in soft pieces. a cabinet opens. someone speaks low. pipes knock once in the wall. life continuing with infuriating nerve.

soldier boy stays.

after a while, your breathing evens out. not sleep. not even close. but less jagged. your hand unclenches against his shirt, fingers relaxing one at a time without permission.

his palm remains at your back. steady. all night, as it turns out.

you drift, wake, drift again. every time your body jerks with some half-formed memory, he is still there. same stupid shorts. same loose shirt. same heavy warmth beneath your cheek. he does not move you off him. does not make a joke when your hair dries messy against his chest. does not complain when your hand ends up gripping the fabric near his ribs.

once, very late, you think he might be asleep. then you hear him breathe in, slow and controlled, and realize he has been awake the whole time, listening to you. watching the door. counting your breaths. never telling you it was okay. never leaving you alone with it either.

you don’t sleep. not really. but you stop shaking before morning.

He stood near the window with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, his coat laid over the back of a chair and his cap resting beside an untouched glass of whisky on the dresser. He had taken a cigarette from his case a little while earlier, but it remained unlit between his fingers.

Every time you looked toward him, his attention was already on you.

The knock at the door came softly. Frances opened it, and the man who entered carried a familiar black leather bag beneath one arm.

You recognized him before he could offer a polite greeting.

“Dr Pritchard.”

He stopped just inside the room.

The pause was brief, but it was there. Then he recovered, smoothing concern into his expression as if he had only just understood the seriousness of what had happened.

“Miss Y/n,” he said. “I understand you have had a bad fall.”

Thomas turned his head from the window.

“You know him?”

You nodded, suddenly feeling less steady beneath the blankets. “He was the doctor I saw before.”

Thomas’s gaze remained on Dr Pritchard a moment longer than necessary.

“Then you already know what you are checking for.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Yes, Mr Shelby. Though I will need a little room to examine her.”

“You have room.”

Polly gave Thomas a sharp look. “She does not need you making the man nervous while he tends to her.”

“I’m staying.”

“Tommy,” you said quietly.

His eyes came to you immediately.

You had no strength for another argument. Not while your hand throbbed beneath the hastily wrapped cloth, not while every unfamiliar ache in your body made panic threaten to rise all over again.

“Just stay out of his way.”

The cigarette shifted in his fingers as he nodded once.

Dr Pritchard approached the bed and set his bag down. When he took your injured hand, his fingers were cold. His eyes lowered to the cut across your palm and the small pieces of glass still caught near the base of your thumb.

“There are fragments remaining,” he said. “Removing them will hurt.”

“It already hurts.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “I expect it does.”

He cleaned your hand slowly. The first sharp pull made you tense beneath the blanket, and Polly moved to sit beside you, resting one hand near your knee without crowding you. You concentrated on the steady pressure of her hand and the sound of the rain rather than the sting in your palm.

Thomas stayed where he was.

He did not pace. He did not interrupt. He barely seemed to breathe whenever you winced. Once, when you pulled your hand back slightly, his shoes shifted against the floorboards before he stopped himself from coming nearer.

The doctor wrapped your palm in a fresh bandage and began asking questions about your escape. Whether you had landed hard. Whether the cramp had returned. Whether you had seen any blood after the fall.

“No,” you said. “I saw blood on my dress, but it was only from my hand.”

Thomas lowered his eyes at that. His thumb ran slowly along the cigarette he had ruined without ever lighting.

The rest of the examination seemed to take forever. You kept your gaze on the blanket, afraid that if you looked too long at Thomas you would remember his hand resting over the curve of your stomach earlier, the hurt still in his face even while he tried to touch you carefully.

Eventually, Dr Pritchard stepped back and closed his bag.

“I see no sign tonight that the pregnancy has been harmed,” he said. “She needs quiet and rest for the next few days. No lifting, no unnecessary stress and certainly no more climbing out of windows.”

Thomas’s jaw tightened at the last remark.

“The baby is all right?” he asked.

“As far as I can determine tonight, yes.”

A breath left Thomas so quietly you might have missed it if you had not been watching him. He lowered the unlit cigarette to the dresser beside his cap and pressed his hand briefly against his mouth.

You closed your eyes.

The baby was all right.

For one small moment, the room loosened around you.

Then Polly, who had reached for your torn coat at the end of the bed, made a low sound beneath her breath.

Something had slipped from the ripped seam near the shoulder and fallen onto the rug by her shoe.

A small folded square of paper.

Thomas saw it before anyone could speak. He crossed the room and picked it up, opening it beneath the bedside lamp.

You watched his eyes move across the page.

His expression emptied so suddenly that your relief vanished with it.

“Tommy?”

He folded the note again.

“What does it say?”

“Nothing you need tonight.”

Your throat tightened.

“Give it to me.”

Instead of answering, Thomas looked toward the doctor.

Dr Pritchard had stopped fastening his bag. His hand remained on the clasp, fingers still, and the look he gave Thomas was over too quickly to be innocent.

You understood before anyone explained it.

“What does he know?” you asked.

The doctor turned back to his bag. “I am afraid I do not know what you mean.”

Thomas’s voice became very quiet.

“Arthur.”

Arthur appeared in the doorway so quickly he must have been standing close by the entire time. “What is it?”

“Take the doctor downstairs.”

Dr Pritchard stiffened. “Mr Shelby, I have completed my work here. I need to return home.”

“You will,” Thomas said. “After we have spoken.”

Arthur stepped into the room, his gaze moving between Thomas and the doctor until his confusion sharpened into suspicion.

You pushed yourself higher against the pillows. “Give me the note.”

“Y/n, lie back.”

“Do not tell me to lie back while you hide something from me.”

Thomas finally looked at you, and in his eyes you saw the mistake already taking shape. He thought he was sparing you something. He thought because you were hurt and shaken, the truth had become his to decide when you were ready to carry it.

Polly stood from the bed.

“Hand it to her, Thomas.”

His gaze cut toward her.

“You have already made one poor choice tonight by assuming what she needed,” Polly said. “Do not make another.”

Arthur glanced toward the floor, his mouth pressing briefly into a line. Even under different circumstances, Thomas would not have appreciated being corrected in front of his brother.

But after a moment, he brought the note to the bed.

You took it with your uninjured hand and opened it.

The writing was large and dark.

TELL SHELBY CONGRATULATIONS.

For several seconds, you could not speak.

Your fingers tightened slowly against the page, bending one edge into your palm. You read the words again even though there was nothing difficult to understand about them.

“They knew,” you said.

Thomas stood beside the bed, silent.

“Those men knew about the baby.”

Dr Pritchard did not meet your eyes.

The sickness that rose inside you was different from anything the pregnancy had brought. You remembered sitting in his surgery alone, your hands twisting in your lap while you tried to explain that the father did not know. He had spoken kindly. He had assured you that nothing discussed there would leave the room.

You had trusted him because you had been too afraid to trust anyone else.

“They knew before he did,” you whispered.

Arthur turned slowly toward the doctor.

“What the fuck does she mean by that?”

Dr Pritchard took one step backward.

Thomas’s voice cut through the room. “Downstairs.”

Arthur moved before the doctor could object. He seized him by the upper arm and pulled him toward the door hard enough that his bag struck the frame on the way out.

You looked at Thomas, the note still crushed slightly in your hand.

“Where are you going?”

“To find out what he told them.”

“And after that?”

His eyes lowered to the paper.

“You do not want an answer to that tonight.”

“That is why I asked.”

His face tightened, but he did not answer.

He reached for his coat and shrugged it on before taking his cap from the dresser.

“You told me you would listen,” you said.

Thomas stopped with his back to you.

“I heard you.”

“That is not the same thing.”

For a moment he stayed there, one hand around the brim of his cap, his shoulders held too firmly beneath his coat.

Then he put the cap on and walked out.

The bedroom door closed softly behind him.

You stared at the message in your hand until the sound of his footsteps disappeared down the stairs. Polly sat on the bed beside you, but she did not reach for the note or tell you Thomas would set everything right.

“I thought it was private,” you said eventually. Your voice sounded distant even to yourself. “I thought at least that much belonged to me.”

Polly looked at the folded paper, then toward the bedroom door through which Thomas had vanished.

“Nothing remains quiet for long when men decide it is useful to them,” she said.

A car engine started outside.

You turned toward the window, knowing Thomas was inside it without needing to see him.

The note remained in your hand long after the car had gone.

༺ ☾ ༻

Dr Pritchard lasted seven minutes in the back room of the betting shop before Arthur put his fist through the cabinet beside his head.

The doctor flinched so violently his chair scraped against the floor, one hand coming up to protect his face while splintered wood dropped onto his shoulder. Arthur stood over him, breathing through his nose, his injured knuckles already beginning to redden.

Thomas remained seated across the table.

His coat was folded neatly over the back of his chair, his cap placed beside the glass of whisky he had not touched. He had said very little since leaving the house, and that silence had only made Arthur worse. Thomas’s anger rarely needed volume to fill a room. It sat in the careful way he watched the doctor, the stillness of his hands, the cigarette case resting unopened beside his drink.

“You examined her tonight,” Arthur said, voice rough with disbelief. “You sat in that bedroom telling her she were all right while knowing bloody well why those men had gone after her.”

“I did not know they would go to her home,” Dr Pritchard said quickly. “I swear to you, I never thought they would lay a hand on her.”

Arthur made a sound in the back of his throat and stepped closer.

Thomas lifted his eyes. “What did you tell them?”

The doctor looked toward him at last. Blood had not been drawn yet, but fear had already taken the strength out of his face.

“They came to me over debts,” he said. “The Hanleys knew I had treated men connected with your family before. They asked for names. Information. Anyone close enough to be useful.”

“And you gave them hers,” Thomas said.

“They threatened my wife.”

Arthur caught the back of the doctor’s chair and turned it sharply, forcing him to face him. “So you handed over another woman instead, did you?”

“I did not hand her over. I did not give them her address.”

“You told them enough.”

“Arthur,” Thomas said.

Arthur’s grip stayed tight for another second, then he let go with a hard shove that made the doctor rock forward in his seat.

Dr Pritchard clutched his hat in both hands. “I told them only that a young woman known to have been seen with you had come to my surgery. That she was pregnant. They asked whether the child was yours, but she had not told me that.”

Thomas looked at him steadily. “You did not need her to tell you.”

The doctor’s mouth opened, then closed again.

“She came to you alone,” Thomas continued. “She kept my name out of your office because she believed that would keep her life private. You looked at her, understood enough, and sold it to men who knew what to do with it.”

“I had no choice.”

Arthur laughed once, sharply. “No choice.”

Thomas did not look away from the doctor. Upstairs, you would still have the note with you. He could see the way your fingers had folded over it, the words doing more damage than the broken glass in your hand. He had spent weeks believing your distance was something you had chosen against him. Now he understood how hard you had fought to keep even one part of your life out of reach of his enemies.

“The Hanleys,” he said. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

Arthur seized the doctor by the collar and jerked him halfway out of the chair.

“You don’t know?”

“I know they have a place near Bordesley!” Dr Pritchard blurted, grabbing at Arthur’s wrist. “Men go in and out at night. I have treated one of them there before. That is all I know, I swear.”

Arthur stared at him, breathing hard. Then he let go with enough force that the doctor collapsed back into the chair.

Arthur struck a match with unnecessary force and lit a cigarette, hands unsteady with rage. “Say the word, Tom. Give me five minutes with him.”

Dr Pritchard went rigid.

Thomas took his cap from the table and rose to his feet.

“No.”

Arthur turned toward him. “No?”

“He has given us the Hanleys.”

“He gave them Y/n.”

“Yes.”

“And you are letting him walk away from it?”

Thomas buttoned his coat slowly before walking around the table. Dr Pritchard pulled himself as far back in the chair as he could, but there was nowhere left for him to go.

“You will close your surgery,” Thomas said. “Tonight. You will take your wife and leave Birmingham by tomorrow evening. You will never speak Y/n’s name again, and you will never mention the pregnancy to anyone, not in confession and not with a gun at your head.”

The doctor nodded desperately.

Thomas leaned down only slightly, his voice dropping further.

“If I hear that you have spoken about either of them, I will send Arthur to find you, and this time I will not be there to say no.”

Dr Pritchard’s breath left him in a shudder. “Yes, Mr Shelby.”

Arthur exhaled smoke through his nose, still staring at the doctor as if Thomas’s decision had cheated him of something necessary.

“Should’ve given me the five minutes.”

Thomas pulled his cap low over his eyes.

“Save it for the men who put their hands on her.”

Arthur went quiet then.

His cigarette lowered slightly between his fingers, and for a moment his anger seemed to settle into something uglier, more focused. He reached for his coat.

“John will want to know.”

“Get him,” Thomas said. “We are going to Bordesley.”

Arthur headed for the door, then paused with one hand against the frame.

“She going to forgive you for this?”

Thomas took his cigarette case from the table, though he made no move to open it.

“No.”

Arthur turned partly back toward him. “Then why do it?”

Thomas’s face remained unreadable, but his eyes shifted once toward the ceiling, as though the distance between the betting shop and his bedroom were nothing at all.

“Because I cannot ask her to understand it.”

Arthur watched him for another second, then opened the door.

Outside, the rain had begun to fall harder. Thomas stepped into it without putting up his collar, and Arthur followed him toward the car.

You slept only because your body eventually stopped giving you a choice.

When you woke, the room held the grey, tired light of early morning. The bed beside you had never been slept in. Your hand ached beneath its dressing, and the note lay on the table near the window, folded carefully now but no less cruel than it had been in your fingers during the night.

You rested your hand over your stomach and stayed quiet for a minute. Dr Pritchard had said everything was well. Whatever he had betrayed, whatever Thomas had gone out to do because of it, you held onto that one fact.

When you sat up, movement beyond the glass caught your attention.

Two men stood outside the house. One remained near the gate, cigarette between his fingers, while the other crossed slowly along the pavement and returned to the same place again. When his coat shifted, you caught the outline of a gun beneath it.

You stared at him until your chest began to feel too tight.

Thomas had not waited until you woke. He had not sat beside you and asked what would make you feel secure. He had simply filled the outside of the house with armed men while you slept inside it.

A soft knock sounded at the bedroom door before Polly entered carrying a tray.

She followed your gaze to the window and sighed.

“Where is he?” you asked.

“Out.”

“Still?”

Her silence answered you.

You pushed the blankets aside and lowered your feet to the floor.

“You ought to remain in bed longer,” Polly said. “You have had no proper sleep.”

“I cannot sleep in here.”

“Y/n—”

“I woke up to men with guns outside the window, Polly.”

Her mouth closed.

“He stood in this room and told me he would listen,” you continued, reaching for the dress Frances had left folded on the chair. “Then he waited until I was asleep and did precisely what I said I could not live with.”

Your bandaged hand made the buttons difficult. You tried once, then again, jaw tightening when the fabric would not cooperate.

Polly set down the tray and came closer.

“I can do it,” you said.

“I know you can.” She held out her hand for the dress rather than taking it from you. “But unless winning an argument with a row of buttons improves the morning somehow, let me help.”

You looked at her for a moment before loosening your grip.

Polly fastened the dress quietly, her fingers quick and practical. When she was finished, you reached for your shoes.

“What do you intend to do?” she asked.

“Leave.”

“You cannot go back to your home yet.”

“I know.”

“There may still be men searching for you.”

“There are men outside already. The only difference is which Shelby told them to be there.”

Polly glanced toward the window again. When she spoke, there was no scolding in her voice.

“Where will you go?”

You shook your head. “I do not know.”

“Yes, you do.” She turned toward the wardrobe and pulled down a warm coat. “You will go to Ada.”

You looked at her. “Ada?”

“She will not turn you away, and she is the one person in this family Thomas cannot intimidate by going quiet in a doorway.”

Despite everything, a small, tired breath of laughter escaped you.

“He will blame you.”

Polly helped you slip one arm into the coat, carefully avoiding your wrapped palm. “Thomas has blamed me for most things since childhood. I should miss it if he stopped.”

“And the men outside?”

“I will tell them I have sent you somewhere on my instructions. If they take issue, they can come inside and explain it directly to me.”

You glanced toward the table and the note resting there.

For a moment, you considered leaving it behind. You wanted nothing else to do with it. You did not want to carry those words into another house and allow them to follow you any farther than they already had.

But it was yours, in the same terrible way the wound on your hand was yours.

You tucked it into your coat pocket.

Polly brought you downstairs by the back staircase. Frances already had a car waiting behind the house, the driver an older man who barely lifted his eyes before opening the door for you.

“You are not coming?” you asked.

“No.” Polly straightened your coat collar once, the movement brief and neat. “If Thomas comes back to an empty bedroom and an empty house, Arthur will not be the one foolish enough to stand in front of him.”

You almost smiled.

Then the emotion rose too quickly, and you looked away before it could show too plainly.

Polly gave your arm a gentle squeeze.

“Go on, love.”

You climbed into the car alone.

As it pulled away, you looked back once at Thomas’s house. The men outside turned at the sound of the engine, but neither attempted to stop you.

Thomas returned shortly after nine.

Arthur followed him through the front door, his coat marked with mud and his expression drawn with the dull aftermath of violence. Thomas had washed his hands before coming home. He had changed nothing else. There was still a dark stain near the cuff of his shirt, hidden only until he removed his coat.

Frances met them in the hall and immediately lowered her gaze.

Thomas noticed.

“Where is Polly?”

Frances hesitated. “In the sitting room, sir.”

He turned toward the stairs instead.

His bedroom door was ajar.

The bed was empty. The breakfast tray sat untouched near the window. Your torn dress had been removed from the chair, but the blanket remained rumpled where you had slept beneath it.

The note was gone.

Arthur came up behind him and looked past his shoulder into the room.

“Oh, fuck.”

Thomas turned.

Polly was standing at the bottom of the staircase, hands folded in front of her.

“Where is she?”

“With Ada.”

His expression hardened. “You let her leave.”

“I helped her into the car.”

“She is injured.”

“She is not imprisoned.”

“There are men who know about her.”

“And she woke to find armed men outside this house without having been told a word about it.”

Thomas descended the stairs slowly.

“They were there for her protection.”

Polly held her ground. “Did you expect that to matter once she looked out of the window and saw precisely the life she had begged you not to give her?”

His jaw flexed.

“She cannot be left without protection.”

“That does not mean you decide how she lives before she is awake enough to object.”

Arthur shifted behind him.

Thomas looked over his shoulder. “Get the car.”

Arthur did not move.

“Arthur.”

“No, Tom.”

Polly’s eyes flicked toward him, briefly surprised.

Arthur scrubbed a hand across his mouth, then gestured toward the empty room upstairs.

“She were terrified last night. The men came into her home, the doctor gave her away, and all she kept telling you was that she did not want to live surrounded by this. Then she wakes up and finds your men outside every door.” He shook his head. “What did you think would happen?”

Thomas’s stare turned colder. “You believe I should have done nothing?”

“I believe you should have spoken to her before making her feel like she could not breathe in your house either.”

The words struck harder coming from Arthur, perhaps because he rarely found such careful accuracy when angry.

Arthur stepped down from the stair behind him, voice roughening.

“You cannot close your fist around every person you love and call it protection, Tom. Not if you want them to stay.”

For a moment, Thomas did not answer.

Then he reached for his cap from the entrance table.

“Bring the car.”

This time, Arthur went.

༺ ☾ ༻

Ada opened the door in her dressing gown with a cigarette between two fingers, annoyance already settling across her face at the interruption.

Then she saw you standing on the step alone.

The cigarette lowered.

“What has happened?”

You had managed the car journey without crying. You had managed the walk from the curb to her door, one hand tucked in your coat pocket around the folded note and the other resting lightly near your stomach.

But you could not answer that question.

Ada looked at the bandage around your palm, the coat Polly had wrapped around you, the exhaustion you knew must be plain on your face, and immediately opened the door wider.

“Come inside.”

You followed her into the front room.

She did not question you until she had brought you tea and found a blanket to put across your knees. Then she dressed quickly, tied her hair back and settled into the chair opposite you with her cigarette case near her elbow.

Once you began speaking, the story came out in pieces at first and then all at once.

You told her about discovering the pregnancy and sitting alone with it for weeks. About pulling away from Thomas because you knew exactly what would happen once he learned there was something more important than you for his enemies to threaten. About the men outside your building, the broken door, your escape through the window. About being found in Thomas’s bedroom with nowhere left to hide the truth.

Ada remained quiet, listening.

You told her about his anger, the doctor, the note that still seemed to weigh down the pocket of your coat, and waking to find men stationed around the house while Thomas was out answering danger with blood.

When you finished, your tea had gone untouched.

“He will come here,” Ada said.

“I know.”

“Do you want me to keep him out?”

You stared into the cup in front of you. “I do not know.”

“That is an answer for now.”

You drew the note from your coat pocket and set it on the table without unfolding it.

“I love him,” you said after a moment. “That is the worst part. I knew what he would do once he found out, and still some part of me wanted to tell him.”

Ada rested her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Loving my brother does not make you foolish. It only means you have unfortunately become acquainted with his way of handling anything he cannot bear to lose.”

“I wanted one thing that was not tangled up in all of this. Something nobody else could take and turn against him.”

Ada’s eyes moved briefly toward the folded note.

“Tommy loves like a man preparing for war.”

You looked down at the bandage around your hand. “I don’t want to be another war.”

“Then do not let him make you one.”

A car stopped outside before you could answer.

Ada glanced toward the front window and sighed.

“That will be him.”

Your stomach tightened.

She rose and took her cigarette with her. “Stay where you are. He does not come through this door unless you decide he may.”

A knock sounded a moment later.

Ada opened the door only partway.

Thomas stood on the step with his cap in one hand. Arthur remained near the car, smoking and looking deliberately away from the house.

“Where is she?” Thomas asked.

“Inside.”

“I need to speak to her.”

“You need to consider whether everything you want becomes necessary simply because you have decided so.”

“Ada.”

She looked down briefly at his cuff and then back to his face.

“You look exactly how she feared you would.”

His mouth tightened. “Move.”

“No.”

Thomas took one slow breath.

“She is in danger.”

“She is aware of that. She was rather thoroughly informed of it when men came through her door last night.”

“Ada—”

“She got away from the men who came after her, Tommy. She should not have to escape the house you put her in as well.”

The silence that followed reached all the way into the front room.

You closed your eyes briefly, then turned toward the doorway.

You could ask Ada to send him away. You knew she would do it without hesitation and stand there until he understood that no amount of fury would get him past her.

But you needed to hear what happened after he left you. You needed the truth, even if it only gave you more reason to be angry with him.

“Let him in,” you said.

Ada held Thomas’s gaze for another second before stepping aside.

He came into the room slowly. His eyes found you on the sofa almost immediately, moving over the blanket, the bandage around your hand and the folded note resting beside your cup.

He began to step toward you, then stopped.

Ada remained near the doorway behind him.

“What happened to Dr Pritchard?” you asked.

Thomas looked at the note rather than your face.

“He told the Hanleys you had seen him. Told them you were pregnant.”

The words still landed sharply, even though you had already known.

“Did he tell them where I lived?”

“He denies it.”

“Do you believe him?”

“No.”

You drew a slow breath through your nose.

“What did you do to him?”

“He will no longer practise in Birmingham.”

“That is not really an answer.”

“It is what I can give you.”

Your eyes shifted to the cuff of his shirt.

“And the men who came into my home?”

His silence was brief, but it was enough.

A sick ache moved through you.

“So you left me in your bed after I told you what this life does to me, and you went out and did exactly what you always do.”

“They broke into your home.”

“I know what they did.”

“They laid hands on you while you were pregnant.”

“And I was there, Tommy. I do not need you to make it sound worse so your choices seem kinder.”

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“What would you have had me do?”

“Tell me.” Your voice rose despite your attempt to keep it controlled. “I would have had you tell me about the note without Polly making you. I would have had you tell me where you were going. I would have had you wait until I woke before arranging my life around your fear.”

“My fear?”

“Yes. Your fear.” You pushed the blanket aside enough to sit forward. “You did not put men at that house because I asked you to. You did it because you could not stand the thought of something happening where you could not stop it.”

“I will not apologize for trying to keep you alive.”

“I have not asked you to. I am asking you to understand why being loved by you feels so much like being watched.”

He turned his cap once in his hands, his composure narrowing around anger he was trying, and failing, to contain.

“Do you understand what I found last night?” he asked. “Your home torn apart. Your belongings on the floor. Blood across the window. I believed they had taken you, and I had no way of knowing whether I would find you alive.”

His voice had gone rougher, but you did not look away.

“Then I found you upstairs and learned there was even more to lose than I had known. You expect me to wake the next morning and pretend the danger has not changed?”

“No. I expect you to remember that I am standing inside that danger too.”

“You will be protected.”

There it was again: the decision already made, the sentence with no place for you inside it except obedience.

Your eyes filled.

“You do not even hear yourself.”

“I hear you perfectly well.”

“No, you hear the part where I could be taken from you. You do not hear what it would cost me to spend my life kept in place by your fear of losing me.”

His face hardened, hurt moving too quickly into the words that followed.

“It stopped being only your decision when you kept my baby from me.”

The room went silent.

Ada did not move behind him.

Thomas seemed to realize what he had said only after it was already between you, as if his own anger had handed him a weapon he had not meant to use until it was too late.

You stared at him.

“My baby,” you repeated quietly.

“Y/n—”

“You said it was ours last night.” Your hand moved beneath the blanket, resting instinctively where the small curve of your stomach was hidden. “Now you are angry, and suddenly it is yours. Suddenly I lost the right to choose for myself because I did not trust you soon enough.”

“That is not what I meant.”

“It is what you said.”

He stepped forward.

You moved back without thinking, your shoulders pressing into the sofa.

Thomas stopped immediately.

The hurt in his face should not have mattered in that moment. You wished it did not.

“Then I was right not to tell you,” you said.

He lowered his gaze for a second, his fingers tightening around the cap in his hand.

When he looked at you again, there was no anger left in him that could defend what he had said.

“I am sorry.”

You shook your head, the tears finally slipping loose. “Not now.”

“Y/n—”

“Please leave.”

Ada stepped forward and opened the front door.

Thomas remained where he was for another moment, his chest rising with one controlled breath. You knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to speak until the words were less final. He wanted to stay in the room until you understood that he had said it from hurt, not because he truly believed you belonged to him.

But staying after you asked him to leave would only prove the very thing he had been trying to deny.

He put on his cap.

At the door, he turned once.

You held his gaze, crying quietly now, but you did not ask him back.

Thomas stepped outside.

Ada shut the door behind him.

You remained still until the sound of his footsteps faded from the path. Then your breath broke, and you pressed your good hand over your mouth as a sob escaped you.

Ada returned to the sofa and sat beside you, pulling you against her shoulder without trying to speak too soon.

“I wanted him to be different about this,” you managed after a while.

Her hand moved slowly through your hair.

“I know.”

“I wanted him to choose me before he chose the fight.”

Ada held you a little more firmly.

For a long moment, the room was quiet except for your breathing and the faint sounds of the street beyond her windows.

Then something strange moved low in your stomach.

You drew back from Ada suddenly.

She looked at you at once. “What is it? Are you in pain?”

“No.” You pressed your hand carefully over the place where you had felt it. “I don’t know. It was just…”

You waited, hardly breathing.

There it was again, a soft fluttering sensation, so delicate you might have mistaken it for nothing if every part of you had not been paying attention.

Your eyes widened.

“I think the baby moved.”

Ada’s expression softened completely. “Oh, love.”

Another tear slipped down your cheek, but this one carried something different with it. Wonder rose through the grief so quickly it was almost painful. You kept your hand there, feeling for it again, a small laugh breaking weakly through your tears.

It was beautiful.

And it hurt, because the first person you wanted to turn toward was the same man you had just sent out of the room.

Ada seemed to understand without needing to ask. She rose quietly and moved to the front window, lifting the curtain only far enough to look into the street.

After a moment, she let it fall back into place.

“He is still outside.”

You looked up. “What?”

“He is sitting in the car across the road. Arthur has gone. Tommy has not.”

You stared toward the window.

For all his faults, for all the ways he had hurt you, Thomas had listened when you asked him to leave. He had managed the distance from Ada’s front door to his car and no farther, because leaving the room was the most he could force himself to do while you remained inside it.

Your hand stayed over your stomach.

“You do not owe him this moment,” Ada said quietly.

“I know.”

“Then only ask for him if it is what you want.”

You nodded once, gathering a breath that still trembled on the way in.

“Will you bring him in?”

Ada studied your face before reaching for the door.

“Yes.”

Thomas entered without his coat.

Either he had removed it because of the stain at his cuff or left it in the car because he did not trust himself to leave again once he came inside. His cap was held loosely in one hand. His hair had been dragged slightly out of place by his fingers, and there was a careful stillness in the way he stopped near the doorway.

Ada closed the door behind him.

“She asked for you,” she said. “Do not mistake that for permission to hurt her again.”

Thomas gave one restrained nod.

Ada left the room, though you knew she had only gone far enough to give you privacy without leaving you alone entirely.

Thomas did not move toward you.

“You asked me to come in.”

“The baby moved.”

His face changed at once.

“What?”

“Just now.” Your hand remained beneath the blanket, over the slight curve of your stomach. “I think it was the first time.”

For a moment, he looked stripped of every prepared sentence.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” You almost smiled, despite yourself. “It is a good thing.”

He nodded, his grip tightening slightly around his cap.

“Good.”

The answer was so quietly Thomas that your mouth trembled with a breath that might have become a laugh under easier circumstances.

You moved the blanket aside a little and held your uninjured hand toward him.

He approached slowly, sitting beside you only after you shifted to make room. His body remained rigid at first, as though he was afraid the smallest wrong movement would end whatever mercy had brought him back into the room.

You took his hand.

His fingers were warm against yours.

When you guided his palm to your stomach, his breath caught softly.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Thomas kept his hand entirely still beneath yours, watching where it rested as though looking hard enough might make him understand the life changing quietly below his palm.

“You may not feel anything,” you whispered. “It was very faint.”

“I can wait.”

You looked at him.

He meant it, and not only about the baby.

Then the flutter came again.

Thomas froze.

His eyes lifted to yours immediately, and for once there was no guardedness in his expression, only a quiet astonishment that made your throat tighten all over again.

You nodded.

“That was it.”

He looked down, his fingers spreading gently beneath your hand.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The note was still on the table. His words were still between you. The men who had come into your home had not disappeared from your memory simply because Thomas was now sitting close enough for you to feel his warmth beside you.

But this moment was yours to give, and you had wanted him in it.

“I am sorry,” he said eventually.

Your eyes remained on his hand.

“What I said before was wrong.” His voice stayed low and steady, but you could hear what it cost him to say each word plainly. “You carrying this baby does not mean your life belongs to me. It does not mean I can decide what happens to you because I am angry you did not tell me.”

“No,” you said quietly. “It does not.”

“I wanted to punish you for keeping me outside of something that mattered more than anything has mattered to me in a very long time.” His thumb shifted almost imperceptibly over the fabric of your dress. “That does not excuse what I said.”

You swallowed hard.

“I cannot be scared to tell you things because you might use them against me when you are hurt.”

His jaw tightened, but he nodded.

“No.”

“You cannot put men around me without telling me and expect me to call that love.”

“No.”

“I know there is danger now,” you said. “I know the note changed things. I know you will not simply leave me with no protection at all.”

“I cannot.”

The honesty of it mattered, even though it was not the answer you would have wished for.

“But I cannot wake up to guns outside every window,” you continued. “I cannot feel as though I have simply gone from being watched by your enemies to being watched by you.”

Thomas looked down for a moment.

“You will not see them at your home,” he said. “No men at your door. None outside the window. I cannot leave you without someone close enough to help if trouble comes again, but they will not be placed where you have to live with them in every room.”

You considered him.

“And you will tell me.”

“Yes.”

“Before you decide.”

“Yes.”

“You say that easily now.”

His mouth moved slightly, the shadow of something tired and rueful rather than quite a smile.

“I have recently learned what happens when I do not.”

The answer did not erase the fight. It did not pull the hurt cleanly from you.

But it made room for the possibility that he understood it.

“I am still angry with you,” you said.

“You should be.”

“I do not forgive you simply because you apologized.”

“I know.”

“And I do not know what happens after tonight.”

Thomas lowered his eyes to the place his hand still rested beneath yours.

“Then I will not ask for after tonight.”

The baby moved again.

This time, he was ready for it.

His breath caught in a small, involuntary sound, and the look that crossed his face made fresh tears gather in your eyes. Not because everything had been repaired in one conversation. Not because the danger outside Ada’s house had disappeared, or because the man sitting beside you had suddenly learned all the right ways to love someone.

But because, for the first time since you had discovered you were pregnant, you were not alone with the enormity of it.

Thomas lifted his eyes to yours.

“I love you,” he said.

There was nothing theatrical in the way he spoke. No softness put on for your sake. He said it like a truth he had held back too long and had finally understood he no longer deserved to keep unspoken.

Your lips parted, but he continued.

“I should have told you before this. Before you believed there was no place beside me that would not cost you more than you could bear. Before you had to decide whether it was safer to have our baby without me.”

Tears slipped quietly down your face.

“I love you too,” you said. “That does not make this easy.”

“No.”

“It does not make me yours to manage.”

“No.”

“And it does not make what happened disappear.”

Thomas shook his head once.

“No.”

Your hand remained over his, holding him to the place where the baby had moved beneath his palm.

“May I stay?” he asked after a while.

You looked at him for a long moment.

At the cap forgotten against his knee. At the bruising across his hand. At the man who had hurt you and angered you and still left when you told him to go. He had returned now only because you had asked for him.

“Tonight,” you said.

Something eased in his face.

“Tonight.”

From the next room, Ada called, “The sofa remains the only place available to you, Thomas.”

The smallest laugh escaped you through your tears.

Thomas closed his eyes for half a second. “Of course it does.”

You leaned your head gently against his shoulder.

He remained very still at first. Then, carefully, his cheek rested against your hair and his hand stayed beneath yours over the small curve of your stomach.

Outside, Birmingham had not changed. The men who bore Thomas Shelby’s name or hated it had not become kinder. The future had not been made simple by an apology, and neither of you was foolish enough to pretend otherwise.

But Thomas did not order a car. He did not tell you where you would sleep or what tomorrow would require. He did not try to take the moment from you simply because he loved what it held.

He sat beside you in Ada’s front room, quiet and careful, his hand warm beneath yours when the baby moved once more.

You were there with your man: John Shelby. Forever by his side, you sat next to him in a booth and he had his arm draped lazily around your shoulder. He was playing cards with his brothers and you were happy to just observe them. Silently. ‘You all right, love?” he’d ask you, every now and then. And you’d nod softly at him or offered him a quick kiss by way of reply. And then he went back to arguing loudly with Arthur or laughing with Thomas. This was just the way you were together. John had always been playful, loud and cheeky almost. You loved that about him, but you were very different. You were more practical, easily content, and introverted. Maybe you were an unlikely pair, but it just worked. John seemed so carefree, but you knew his past was haunting him via the constant nightmares. And you could calm him during those long nights, like no one could. Or when he got so angry, he couldn’t contain himself: a simple hand of yours on his arm would make the fury ebb away. You were his quiet and steady port in any storm.

When you noticed his Mild was finished, you offered to get him a new one. So, you walked over to the bar to get him and yourself another drink.

An unknown man approached you, saying, “Hi.” “Hello,” you said shortly, and quickly you turned to Harry to tell him what you wanted. Then you looked back at John: he was still happily playing cards with his brothers. Thank God. “Are you alone?” You had no appetite for trouble, “I’m sorry, do I know you?” The man smirked, “No, I just thought you might be in need of some company? Pretty girl like you...” From the corner of your eye, you tried to check on John again. You could see at once that he had noticed. Fuck. “No, thank you,” you quickly and politely told the man, “I’m here with someone.” “Who?” he wanted to know, but you turned around and walked back over to your table. Flashing your most carefree smile at John, you prayed he could forget about the man quickly. But then you saw how Tommy and Arthur exchanged a quick look, and you braced yourself for what was to come. John chewed his toothpick and didn’t say anything at first. Then, casually, while laying down a card, “Who was that?” “Are you jealous?” you tried smiling, but his face told you to maybe not joke about it. “I don’t know him. I told him I was with someone.” He practically growled, “I’m not jealous. I just want to know why the fuck he was even talking to you then.” Arthur picked up on it at once, and trying to avoid a fight, he joked, “Ah come on, brother. You know you’ve snatched the prettiest girl in all of Small Heath. Can’t blame a man for bloody trying!” John smiled a little at that and you quickly added, “Don’t worry, baby. I’m your girl. Remember?”

And it worked: he exhaled and continued playing. You shot Arthur a grateful look and sighed in relief, hoping the rest of the night would go by uneventful. But it didn’t. “Miss?” Harry walked over to your table, with some horrific-looking pink drink in hand. “What the fuck is that?” Arthur nearly spit out his own drink laughing. “It’s for the lady,” Harry explained apologetically. He clearly didn’t want to be seen with the drink either. “It’s from that gentleman, over there,” he pointed.  It was the same one. You shot both Arthur and Tommy a pleading look, but in a split second, John had jumped up and was gone. Arthur practically jumped down his back to drag him backwards and Tommy started saying things to John in a hushed tone, might even be in another language, to try and calm him down.

But you, meanwhile, walked over to the man that was either trying to start a war or the most oblivious man in all in all of Birmingham, and said to him, “Do you know the man who I’m here with tonight?” “No, I don’t. Listen, I just wanted to offer you a drink…” “I know.“ You realized he really was just an idiot who had wandered into any old pub on a Friday night, “But he is known around here. You may have heard of the name Shelby?” He went pale. “You have,” you nodded and out of instinct, you put a hand on his arm to soothe him. Because it didn’t matter who you were with; you had no intention of intimidating or scaring anyone. All you wanted now was to avoid any more trouble. “That there is John Shelby. And I’m his girl. You understand?” “I’m so very sorry, miss…” “No, don’t apologize,” you tried to calm him with you voice, and it worked, like it always did. “He just gets jealous.” You looked over your shoulder and noticed the brothers had indeed managed to ease John’s anger too. You locked eyes with Arthur for a second, and he nodded, as if to say: Go on. We’ll manage here.

You turned to the man again and said, “It’s probably best if you leave now, alright?” You motioned Harry over with a hand, “This gentleman here will see you on your way out, around the back. That way you won’t have to… It’s just better that way.” “Thank you, miss,” he still looked quite shaky. “Don’t mention it,” you smiled. “And I hope you have a lovely rest of your evening.” When he’d gone, you took a deep breath to let is all go and walked back over to John. “Where the fuck did he go!” John demanded. “I swear to God, Y/N, I will fucking…” You put a hand to his cheek and said, “I told him to go. He’s gone.” “Why the fuck did you…!”

Because you didn’t want John to kill the man. You knew he could, and maybe he would have too. John was probably the most jealous man you knew, though the least likely to admit it. But that’s what you liked about him too: he was possessive, protective of you, and not at all willing to share. And to be honest? Neither were you.

But you just said to him, “Don’t worry about it, love. I’m all yours now.” And eventually he did calm down. You took your rightful place by his side again and Arthur lit John a cigar. But when you looked at Tommy, and he mischievously mouthed the word jealous at you, you almost burst out laughing.

You drew up your knees and almost crawled into John’s side. He liked that; you could tell. Maybe it was the alcohol that made you a bit more talkative. Maybe it was a;; that had happened that made you brave. “I like it when you are jealous,” you flirted, softly. He still didn’t quite melt yet, “I don’t.” And so, you tried to push him just a little bit more and added, “Oh, so you were jealous?”

Finally, he sighed and dropped the act. He softened and smiled at you, “I’m not jealous, sweetheart. But just remember: you are my girl.” “I can live with that,” you whispered, as you climbed up onto his lap. “What are you doing?” he almost giggled, as you started undoing some of the buttons on his shirt. You went in for a long, deep kiss, “Come on, let’s give these fuckers really something to be jealous about, yeah?” You didn’t have to tell John twice. *****

Masterlist

You were there with your man: John Shelby. Forever by his side, you sat next to him in a booth and he had his arm draped lazily around your shoulder. He was playing cards with his brothers and you were happy to just observe them. Silently. ‘You all right, love?” he’d ask you, every now and then. And you’d nod softly at him or offered him a quick kiss by way of reply. And then he went back to arguing loudly with Arthur or laughing with Thomas. This was just the way you were together. John had always been playful, loud and cheeky almost. You loved that about him, but you were very different. You were more practical, easily content, and introverted. Maybe you were an unlikely pair, but it just worked. John seemed so carefree, but you knew his past was haunting him via the constant nightmares. And you could calm him during those long nights, like no one could. Or when he got so angry, he couldn’t contain himself: a simple hand of yours on his arm would make the fury ebb away. You were his quiet and steady port in any storm.

When you noticed his Mild was finished, you offered to get him a new one. So, you walked over to the bar to get him and yourself another drink.

An unknown man approached you, saying, “Hi.” “Hello,” you said shortly, and quickly you turned to Harry to tell him what you wanted. Then you looked back at John: he was still happily playing cards with his brothers. Thank God. “Are you alone?” You had no appetite for trouble, “I’m sorry, do I know you?” The man smirked, “No, I just thought you might be in need of some company? Pretty girl like you...” From the corner of your eye, you tried to check on John again. You could see at once that he had noticed. Fuck. “No, thank you,” you quickly and politely told the man, “I’m here with someone.” “Who?” he wanted to know, but you turned around and walked back over to your table. Flashing your most carefree smile at John, you prayed he could forget about the man quickly. But then you saw how Tommy and Arthur exchanged a quick look, and you braced yourself for what was to come. John chewed his toothpick and didn’t say anything at first. Then, casually, while laying down a card, “Who was that?” “Are you jealous?” you tried smiling, but his face told you to maybe not joke about it. “I don’t know him. I told him I was with someone.” He practically growled, “I’m not jealous. I just want to know why the fuck he was even talking to you then.” Arthur picked up on it at once, and trying to avoid a fight, he joked, “Ah come on, brother. You know you’ve snatched the prettiest girl in all of Small Heath. Can’t blame a man for bloody trying!” John smiled a little at that and you quickly added, “Don’t worry, baby. I’m your girl. Remember?”

And it worked: he exhaled and continued playing. You shot Arthur a grateful look and sighed in relief, hoping the rest of the night would go by uneventful. But it didn’t. “Miss?” Harry walked over to your table, with some horrific-looking pink drink in hand. “What the fuck is that?” Arthur nearly spit out his own drink laughing. “It’s for the lady,” Harry explained apologetically. He clearly didn’t want to be seen with the drink either. “It’s from that gentleman, over there,” he pointed.  It was the same one. You shot both Arthur and Tommy a pleading look, but in a split second, John had jumped up and was gone. Arthur practically jumped down his back to drag him backwards and Tommy started saying things to John in a hushed tone, might even be in another language, to try and calm him down.

But you, meanwhile, walked over to the man that was either trying to start a war or the most oblivious man in all in all of Birmingham, and said to him, “Do you know the man who I’m here with tonight?” “No, I don’t. Listen, I just wanted to offer you a drink…” “I know.“ You realized he really was just an idiot who had wandered into any old pub on a Friday night, “But he is known around here. You may have heard of the name Shelby?” He went pale. “You have,” you nodded and out of instinct, you put a hand on his arm to soothe him. Because it didn’t matter who you were with; you had no intention of intimidating or scaring anyone. All you wanted now was to avoid any more trouble. “That there is John Shelby. And I’m his girl. You understand?” “I’m so very sorry, miss…” “No, don’t apologize,” you tried to calm him with you voice, and it worked, like it always did. “He just gets jealous.” You looked over your shoulder and noticed the brothers had indeed managed to ease John’s anger too. You locked eyes with Arthur for a second, and he nodded, as if to say: Go on. We’ll manage here.

You turned to the man again and said, “It’s probably best if you leave now, alright?” You motioned Harry over with a hand, “This gentleman here will see you on your way out, around the back. That way you won’t have to… It’s just better that way.” “Thank you, miss,” he still looked quite shaky. “Don’t mention it,” you smiled. “And I hope you have a lovely rest of your evening.” When he’d gone, you took a deep breath to let is all go and walked back over to John. “Where the fuck did he go!” John demanded. “I swear to God, Y/N, I will fucking…” You put a hand to his cheek and said, “I told him to go. He’s gone.” “Why the fuck did you…!”

Because you didn’t want John to kill the man. You knew he could, and maybe he would have too. John was probably the most jealous man you knew, though the least likely to admit it. But that’s what you liked about him too: he was possessive, protective of you, and not at all willing to share. And to be honest? Neither were you.

But you just said to him, “Don’t worry about it, love. I’m all yours now.” And eventually he did calm down. You took your rightful place by his side again and Arthur lit John a cigar. But when you looked at Tommy, and he mischievously mouthed the word jealous at you, you almost burst out laughing.

You drew up your knees and almost crawled into John’s side. He liked that; you could tell. Maybe it was the alcohol that made you a bit more talkative. Maybe it was a;; that had happened that made you brave. “I like it when you are jealous,” you flirted, softly. He still didn’t quite melt yet, “I don’t.” And so, you tried to push him just a little bit more and added, “Oh, so you were jealous?”

Finally, he sighed and dropped the act. He softened and smiled at you, “I’m not jealous, sweetheart. But just remember: you are my girl.” “I can live with that,” you whispered, as you climbed up onto his lap. “What are you doing?” he almost giggled, as you started undoing some of the buttons on his shirt. You went in for a long, deep kiss, “Come on, let’s give these fuckers really something to be jealous about, yeah?” You didn’t have to tell John twice. *****

Masterlist

He had not expected the boy to hold out a folded scrap of paper with your name written across the front.

“What’s this?” Arthur demanded, cigarette already paused halfway to his mouth.

The boy swallowed. “Found at Y/n’s home, Mr Shelby.”

Thomas’s hand stopped before it reached the paper.

Arthur was looking at him now. “What woman?”

The boy shifted his eyes between them, already regretting being the one sent to deliver it. “Y/n, Mr Shelby. Front door of the building were hanging off. Mrs Palmer from downstairs said two men went in not ten minutes before she heard the crash.”

Thomas took the paper from him without speaking.

There were only four words inside.

We know her name.

For a moment, Arthur said nothing. He had never been especially good at silence, but even he understood the look that came over his brother’s face. Thomas did not swear. Did not throw the paper. Did not reach for his cap or glass.

He simply folded the note once and slid it into his coat pocket.

“Get the car,” he said.

“Tom—”

“Get the fucking car, Arthur.”

Arthur moved.

Your building was three streets over from where Thomas had last seen you, though it felt longer than three weeks since you had stood in his office doorway with your gloves clutched in one hand and told him you would not be staying that night.

You had not made a scene. That was never the kind of woman you were.

You had only become more difficult to reach.

At first, he had allowed it. Thomas Shelby had never chased a woman down to ask why she had stopped warming his bed. If you wanted something said, you would say it. If you were tired of him, that was your right. He had told himself he understood. There had been nights when he wanted you beside him badly enough that he poured himself another whisky instead of sending for you, but he had left you alone.

Then he started noticing the details.

You did not come into the Garrison anymore.

When he caught sight of you on the street and stopped the car, you made some excuse about being late and kept a careful distance between your body and his.

Once, when he had stepped close enough to touch your cheek, you had caught his wrist gently and given him a smile that had looked too tired to be real.

“I ought to go home, Tommy.”

He had let you.

By the time Thomas reached your building, the front door was hanging from one hinge.

He stepped through first, Arthur hard on his heels. The downstairs hall had been pulled apart. A small table lay on its side beneath the stairs, its lamp smashed across the floor. Arthur swore under his breath as Thomas took the steps two at a time, reaching the landing above before him.

Your door upstairs had been forced open too, splintered wood scattered across the floorboards.

Someone had broken into your home because they knew you mattered to Thomas Shelby.

Thomas entered first.

The little front room had been pulled apart. Cushions slashed open. Your drawer turned onto its side. A cup smashed beneath the table, tea stained dark across the rug. There was a fresh dent in the wall beside the door where someone had thrown it open with enough force to break the latch.

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur muttered.

Thomas scanned the room quickly, then moved into the bedroom.

Your handbag was on the floor, the contents scattered near the bed. A comb. A little coin purse. A handkerchief. Two hairpins. Your bedcover had been dragged halfway off the mattress.

No you.

He opened the wardrobe. Nothing disturbed except a missing coat and one empty hanger left swinging.

“She got out,” Arthur said behind him. He spoke too quickly, as though saying it firmly enough might make it true. “Her coat’s gone. She heard them, got out before they could get her.”

Thomas did not answer.

His eyes had caught on the window.

One pane had been smashed through from the inside. Jagged glass remained in the frame, and along the lowest edge, where someone had pushed a hand through to unlatch it, there was a thin red smear.

Thomas crossed the room and touched it with one finger.

Still tacky.

Arthur saw it a second later. “Tom.”

“Get John to the station,” Thomas said, his voice quiet. “Get boys at every road out of Small Heath. Check her friends, the dressmaker on Camden Street, the church she goes past on Sundays.”

“Right.”

“And find out who the fuck was at that door.”

Arthur turned, then stopped. “Where are you going?”

Thomas took one last look at the blood on the window.

“Everywhere else.”

༺ ☾ ༻

You had known someone was outside your building before they broke through the front door downstairs.

The feeling had settled over you sometime after supper, a crawling unease you could not explain. You had been standing at the washbasin, trying to hold down a piece of bread and half a cup of tea, when you glanced through the curtain and saw a man leaning against the lamp post across the road.

He had not been smoking.

Had not been waiting for anyone.

Only looking at your window.

Your stomach clenched, one hand instantly moving beneath your loose dress. The gesture had become habit before you even realized it: every sudden noise, every jolt of fear, every time a man lingered too long behind you in the street, your hand went to the quiet little secret tucked beneath your clothes.

You backed away from the window.

Perhaps he had nothing to do with you. Perhaps he was waiting on a woman downstairs, or watching the rain, or drunk enough not to know where his own feet had brought him.

Then you heard the front door of the building give way with a violent crack below.

Your breath stopped.

Heavy footsteps charged up the stairs.

The floorboard outside your door creaked once.

Someone knocked.

“Miss Y/n?”

You did not move.

Another knock came, harder this time.

“Message from Mr Shelby.”

The baby seemed suddenly impossibly precious inside you. Too small. Too helpless. Your own heart began beating so violently it made you feel sick.

Thomas would not send someone to you like this. Not with a voice you did not know. Not at night, after you had spent weeks making it clear you did not want his men turning up at your door.

You took one careful step toward the back window.

Your door shuddered beneath a heavy blow.

A frightened sound escaped you before you could swallow it down. You seized your coat from the hook, pulled it over your shoulders with trembling hands and climbed onto the narrow ledge outside the kitchen window just as the door split open behind you.

A man shouted when he saw you.

You slipped.

For one awful second, your stomach dropped as your foot skidded on wet brick. Your palm came down hard against the shattered corner of the pane, glass biting into your skin, but you managed to catch yourself before you fell fully.

Pain tore through your hand.

You did not stop.

You scrambled down the back stairs, one hand clasped beneath your stomach even as blood ran down your wrist. Behind you, boots hammered against the floorboards. A hand caught the back of your coat as you reached the alley, jerking you off balance. You twisted out of it so quickly the fabric tore at the shoulder, leaving the man with a fistful of wool while you ran.

You did not think about where you were going until your legs had already taken you there.

His house.

The place you had sworn you would not return to. The bed you had stopped sleeping in. The door you had avoided because the longer you kept away, the more possible it felt that you could have this baby without his world closing around the both of you.

But when men came into your home because of Thomas Shelby, it was Thomas Shelby’s house you ran to.

The maid who let you inside went pale when she saw you.

“Miss, are you injured?”

“No,” you lied quickly. “No, I only— I need somewhere to sit. Is Mr Shelby here?”

“No, miss.”

Relief and terror moved through you together.

“Please don’t send for him,” you said, too fast. “Please. I just need a moment.”

She looked at the blood dripping from your hand, then at your face, but you were already past her, climbing the stairs with your heart trapped somewhere in your throat.

You knew his bedroom too well. Knew the handle that stuck slightly before it opened, the heavy curtains, the smell of tobacco and clean linen and the faint cologne that clung to his collars. You locked the door behind you and stood very still, trying to breathe.

You were safe.

You thought you were safe.

Then a cramp pulled low in your belly, and all thought vanished beneath a wave of panic.

You looked down at yourself. Your coat was torn. The side of your dress was wet from the rain and streaked with grime where you had scraped against the wall. There was blood on it too, though you could not tell at first whether it had come from your palm or somewhere else.

“No,” you whispered.

Your fingers fumbled with the buttons. You tore the dress down from your shoulders and let it pool on the floor, then pulled your damp stockings away, barely aware of your own movements. You were left in your brassiere and knickers before the long mirror by the wardrobe, bare skin prickled from the cold, hair loose from its pins, your cut hand shaking badly.

Your eyes dropped instantly to your stomach.

There was no blood there.

Nothing wrong that you could see.

Only the slight roundness that had become harder to disguise these past few weeks, rising softly beneath your navel. Nearly four months, the doctor had told you. Soon enough you would not be able to hide it beneath wide coats and lowered eyes. Soon enough the choice would be taken from you.

You turned slowly to the side, pressing your uninjured hand beneath the curve.

For weeks, you had avoided looking at yourself for too long. It made everything too real. The nausea. The tiredness. The quiet terror that would come over you at night when you lay alone and tried to imagine raising a child whose father carried a razor blade in his cap and enemies in every street.

But now you could not look away.

Your eyes filled with tears before you felt them fall.

“Please be all right,” you whispered, smoothing your hand over your stomach. “Please, darling. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Downstairs, the front door slammed open.

You did not hear it.

You did not hear the voices, the hard rhythm of men’s boots on polished floorboards, or Arthur demanding where Thomas thought he was going when he suddenly changed direction at the bottom of the stairs.

You only saw them when the bedroom door opened behind you.

In the mirror, Thomas stopped dead.

Arthur nearly walked into him.

Neither man spoke for a moment.

Thomas had come into the room with his pistol still in one hand, his coat wet across the shoulders and his cap low on his forehead. He looked as though he had been running through the whole of Birmingham with murder on his mind. Arthur stood just behind him, face flushed, breath heavy, mouth already parted around whatever he had been about to say.

Then Thomas’s eyes moved down the reflection of your body.

Your bare shoulders.

The torn dress on his floor.

The blood dried across your palm.

Your hand, resting carefully around the little swell of your stomach.

The color drained from his face.

You turned too quickly, reaching for the first thing within reach: one of his white shirts lying folded at the foot of the bed. You held it against your front, shame and panic rushing through you at once.

“Tommy—”

Arthur leaned slightly around his brother, squinting as though the answer would change if he stared a little harder.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed. “Is she—”

“Out.”

Thomas’s voice was so low that Arthur did not immediately understand him.

“What?”

“Get out, Arthur.”

Arthur stared at him. “Tommy, is that yours?”

A silence passed through the room that made you wish the floor would open beneath your feet.

Thomas turned his head only slightly.

“Go downstairs.”

“But, Tom—”

“Now.”

Arthur’s gaze flicked to you again, his expression part shock, part alarm, as though he wanted to say something kinder and could not find the words quickly enough. Then he retreated into the hall and shut the door behind him.

You and Thomas were left alone.

He had not looked away from you.

Your shaking fingers worked at the shirt, forcing your arms through the sleeves and dragging the fabric around yourself. It smelled like him, which made the tears threatening behind your eyes feel even closer. The hem fell over your thighs. You buttoned it badly, missing one near the middle, but it covered enough of you that you no longer felt completely stripped before him.

Thomas put the gun down on the dresser.

He took off his cap next.

Slowly. Carefully.

As though the smallest sudden movement might break whatever little control remained in the room.

His eyes lowered to your stomach beneath his shirt, then moved to your face.

“How long?”

You swallowed. “Tommy…”

“How long, Y/n?”

You pressed your lips together, unable to soften the answer no matter how badly you wanted to.

“Nearly four months.”

He stared at you.

“Four months?”

You nodded once.

Something moved in his jaw. His gaze dropped from your face, as though he needed a moment before he looked at you again.

“Is it mine?”

It was the wrong thing to ask. You saw him know it almost as soon as the words had left him.

Still, it cut.

“There hasn’t been anyone else,” you said quietly.

“I know.”

“Then why would you ask me that?”

“Because I have just walked into my bedroom and found a woman I have been searching half this city for standing here carrying a child I knew nothing about.”

His voice had started controlled, but the last few words sharpened. He moved away from the door, dragging a hand over his mouth as though trying to pull himself back together.

“You knew,” he said. “All those weeks, you knew.”

You looked down.

“When you stopped coming to see me, you knew.”

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“You tell me.” He turned toward you suddenly. “That is what you do.”

“Is it?”

The question came out smaller than you meant it to, but it struck him all the same.

His eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we were never anything, Tommy. Not properly. You never asked me to stay. You never said what I was to you.”

“You know what you are to me.”

“No, I knew where I was expected to be when you sent for me.”

The hurt in his expression only lasted a moment before anger covered it.

“That is not fair.”

“Perhaps not.”

“No.” His voice rose. “No, you do not stand there with my fucking child inside you and speak as if you were some woman I used and discarded when you know damn well you were more than that.”

You flinched before you could help it.

He saw.

But the shock and hurt in him were already burning too fiercely for him to stop.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he demanded. “Were you going to come knocking at my door when it were born? Or was I meant to hear about it from someone in the street?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I said I don’t know!”

“You had four months to know!”

His voice struck through you so hard that one hand went automatically to your stomach again, covering the baby through the thin white shirt.

Thomas saw the gesture and went still for half a second, but his breathing remained heavy.

“I had men tearing your home apart tonight looking for some sign of where they had taken you,” he said, lower now, though no less furious. “I stood with your blood on my hand and thought you might be lying somewhere because of me. And all that time, you were carrying my child.”

Your mouth trembled.

“That is exactly why I couldn’t tell you.”

His brows drew together. “What?”

“You think keeping it from me keeps it safe?” he asked, bitter disbelief breaking through his voice.

“No.” Your voice cracked before you could steady it. “I think staying away from you might have.”

The words landed between you harder than any shout.

For one awful moment, Thomas did not move.

Then he laughed once, without humor, looking away from you as though you had slapped him.

“Staying away from me.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.” He paced toward the window, then turned again, his face drawn tight with anger. “You’ve got my child growing inside you, and you thought you could simply disappear from my life to keep it from my name?”

“I was trying to protect it.”

“From me?”

“From this!”

You gestured at the discarded dress, the torn coat on the floor, your injured hand. Your voice wavered violently, but you could not stop anymore. Everything you had been forcing down for weeks was coming up too quickly.

“From men kicking through my door because I once let you into my bed. From running through an alley believing somebody might catch me and hurt my baby because hurting me would hurt you.”

His gaze snapped to your hand.

For the first time, he seemed to truly see the blood.

“What happened?”

You shook your head, tears starting to spill down your cheeks.

“What happened to your hand, Y/n?”

“I broke the window getting out.”

“Getting out of what?”

“Men came into my home because of you, Tommy. Because they knew I meant something to you.”

His face went still.

“Two men,” you continued through your tears. “One was outside the building and the other came up the stairs. They said they had a message from you, and then they broke into my home. One of them nearly caught me in the alley.”

Thomas’s expression changed.

Not softened. Not yet.

But the rage was no longer all pointed at you.

“He put his hands on you?”

“He grabbed my coat.” You looked toward the wool torn across the floor. “I got away.”

Thomas turned his head toward the door, as if Arthur might somehow hear the order he had not yet given. His hand flexed once by his side. He looked terrifying in that moment, quiet in the particular way that meant someone would be bleeding before the night was done.

And still, the sight of him frightened you.

Not because you thought he would hurt you. Never that.

Because this was exactly what you had tried so desperately to avoid.

The violence. The fury. The men being sent out after other men. A child growing inside you who would one day see the way a room shifted when Thomas Shelby became angry.

Your tears began coming harder.

“I can’t do this, Tommy.”

He looked back at you.

“I cannot live like this.” You tried to wipe your face, but the cut across your palm stung and made you wince. “I cannot have a child and spend every night wondering who knows about it. Wondering whether someone is watching my door. Wondering whether you are coming back alive.”

“You think I would let anything happen to you?”

“You cannot stop everything!”

Your cry seemed to knock the rest of the anger out of the room.

Thomas went quiet.

You took a shuddering breath, wrapping both arms around your stomach now, his shirt bunching in your fists.

“I am scared all the time,” you said, hardly louder than a whisper. “Since I found out, I’ve been scared. I wake up scared. I walk down the street scared. Every time I see your car or one of your brothers, I think somebody else has seen it too. Somebody else has figured out that I mean something to you.”

“You do mean something to me.”

“I know.” You let out a broken little sob. “That is the problem.”

His expression tightened.

You looked at him through blurred eyes. “I’m not frightened of you, Tommy. I’m frightened of what loving you costs.”

He looked away then.

His hand went automatically to the cigarette case in his pocket. He took it out, thumbed it open and drew one cigarette free, but when he went to light it, his hands were not quite steady. He stared at the tremor for a second, then closed the lighter again and set the cigarette down unlit beside his cap.

The sight of that nearly broke you more than his shouting had.

Thomas always knew what to do with his hands.

He took a breath through his nose and glanced back at your belly.

“You saw a doctor?”

You nodded.

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Alone?”

The hurt in that single word made you lower your eyes.

“Yes.”

He swallowed, the muscles in his throat shifting. “And?”

“He said everything looked well. I’ve been sick, but not badly. He said that was normal.”

“And tonight?”

“I don’t know.” Your voice became small again. “I slipped climbing out. I didn’t fall badly, but I was frightened. There was blood on my dress from my hand, and I didn’t know where it came from at first.”

Thomas crossed the room before you could think to move.

You shrank back on instinct, only half a step, but he stopped immediately.

His face changed again when he saw what you had done.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

The question came out rougher than he intended. He rubbed his thumb against his fingers once, looking down at the floor between you.

“I should not have shouted at you.”

“You’re angry.”

“Yes.” He met your eyes. “I am.”

You nodded, tears still sliding silently down your face.

“I don’t know what to do with the fact that you kept this from me,” he said. “I do not know how to look at you and pretend four months is nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“I don’t want you sorry because I frightened it out of you.”

You did not answer.

For a moment, the only sound was the faint clatter of movement downstairs, Arthur likely pacing holes into the floor while trying to decide whether he ought to interrupt or run to tell Polly what he had just seen.

Thomas looked at your wounded hand.

“Let me see it.”

“It is only a cut.”

“Let me see it, Y/n.”

This time there was no anger in the command. Only the familiar certainty in his tone, made gentler by something neither of you quite knew how to name.

You held your hand out.

Thomas moved slowly, taking it in both of his as though even your fingers required care. His touch was warm against your cold skin. The cut across your palm had already begun to crust with blood, but there were tiny shards glittering near the base of your thumb.

“There’s glass in it,” he said.

“I know.”

“You need a doctor.”

“Tommy, please don’t start sending people everywhere.”

“I’m sending for a doctor because you are hurt.”

“And then what?”

His eyes lifted to yours.

“And then he checks the baby,” he said quietly. “And then we know you are both all right.”

Your throat tightened at the word both.

He released your hand carefully, then stood in front of you without touching anywhere else. His gaze dropped again, almost helplessly, to the slight curve under the white shirt.

You saw him hesitate.

For the first time since you had known him, Thomas Shelby looked uncertain of whether he was permitted to reach for something he desperately wanted.

“May I?” he asked.

You started crying again before you could stop yourself.

It was ridiculous, perhaps. After everything. After his raised voice and your terror and men breaking through your front door, it was the quiet request that undid you.

You nodded.

His hand came to rest over your stomach with unbearable gentleness.

He did not press. Did not pull you to him or act as though that single touch had made you his possession. His palm only settled against the small roundness beneath his shirt, fingers spread carefully around the place where his child was growing.

Thomas looked down.

His lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

You saw a dozen emotions move across his face in the space of a breath: disbelief, pain, fear, something so soft it almost looked foreign on him. His thumb shifted once, scarcely more than a brush of fabric.

“That’s mine,” he said finally, so quietly you nearly missed it.

“Ours,” you whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment.

“Yes.” His hand remained where it was. “Ours.”

You stood there in silence, close enough now to feel the warmth from his body. You wanted to lean into him. You wanted to push him away. You wanted him to promise nothing bad would ever happen again, even though you knew the promise would be a lie.

When he looked at you again, there was still anger there. Not the shouting kind anymore. Something deeper and wounded.

“I am not finished being angry with you,” he said.

“I know.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know.”

“I would have wanted to know from the first day.”

Your mouth tightened. “That’s what frightened me too.”

His brow creased.

“That you would want it,” you explained, looking down at the hand covering your belly. “That you would put your hand there and I would see this look on your face, and I wouldn’t know how to take the baby away from you even if I still believed I should.”

Thomas’s jaw worked slightly.

“You were planning to leave Birmingham?”

“I thought about it.”

The words wounded him visibly.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere nobody knew your name.”

“There is no place far enough for that.”

“I know.”

It was the sort of thing he might once have said with pride. Tonight, it sounded like a confession.

A knock came at the bedroom door.

Both of you stiffened.

“Tom?” Arthur called cautiously through the wood. “I ain’t trying to interrupt whatever… whatever the fuck this is, but Polly’s downstairs, and she knows something’s going on because I apparently don’t have the face for keeping secrets.”

Thomas exhaled slowly through his nose.

Despite everything, a small, watery laugh escaped you.

His eyes flicked to your face, and for the briefest moment, something close to relief appeared in his expression at the sound.

“Tell Polly to send for a doctor,” Thomas said.

Arthur paused. “A doctor?”

“Yes, Arthur. A doctor.”

“Right. For the…” He cleared his throat loudly. “For her hand, yeah?”

Thomas gave him no answer.

“Right,” Arthur muttered. “Doctor. Going.”

His footsteps retreated quickly.

You wiped beneath your eyes with the heel of your uninjured hand. “He is going to tell everyone.”

“No, he won’t.”

“He already brought Polly into it.”

“Polly does not require Arthur to tell her anything. She looks at a man and knows what he had for breakfast four days ago.”

You let out another tiny, unsteady laugh, then immediately pressed your lips together as guilt came over you for finding anything funny while the night still hung so heavily around you.

Thomas noticed.

“You are allowed to breathe,” he said.

“Am I?”

His face sobered.

“Tonight, yes.”

“And tomorrow?”

His hand remained on your stomach, but his eyes held yours.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we speak properly.”

“Meaning you decide what happens?”

The question made his mouth tighten.

You expected him to say yes. Expected him to begin immediately: which house you would move into, which men would guard the door, which streets you were no longer permitted to walk alone.

Instead, he looked down at your bare legs, at the torn dress, at the blood dried on your palm.

“Tonight I want you somewhere no man can break through your door,” he said. “I want a doctor to tell me you and the baby are unharmed. And I want the men who frightened you found.”

“Tommy—”

“I know.” His voice dropped. “I know what you are going to say. That this is the very thing you were running from.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The honesty of it stopped you.

He drew his hand back from your stomach, slowly enough that it seemed difficult for him to do it, then reached for the blanket at the end of the bed and placed it around your shoulders. He did not fasten it around you himself. He allowed you to take it and close it across your chest.

“I do not know how to make being near me harmless,” he said. “I cannot stand here and tell you danger ends because I know about the child now.”

Your eyes filled once more.

“But I can listen before I start making decisions for you,” he continued. “I can try.”

You held the blanket tightly around yourself.

“Are you only saying that because I might run again?”

A faint shadow passed over his face.

“I am saying it because you looked at me like you thought I might lock you in this room and call it love.”

You looked away.

He reached up then, very carefully, and wiped a tear from the edge of your cheek with his thumb.

“I may not be good at gentle things, Y/n,” he said. “But I know I don’t want my child’s mother frightened of speaking to me.”

The words settled painfully in your chest.

Not his woman.

Not his wife.

His child’s mother.

It was not romantic, exactly. It was larger than romance. More permanent. More terrifying.

“I don’t know what happens now,” you confessed.

“Neither do I.”

You almost smiled at that. “Thomas Shelby admitting he doesn’t know something?”

“Do not repeat it. I have a reputation.”

The softness disappeared quickly, but not entirely. His thumb moved once more along your cheek, then lowered.

A second knock sounded, followed by Arthur speaking before he was invited to.

“Doctor’s coming. Polly wants to know whether she can come up, and I told her I did not think now was the moment, but you know Polly, Tom, she’s already halfway—”

The door opened before he finished.

Polly stood behind him, perfectly composed except for the sharp worry in her eyes. Her gaze took in the blanket around your shoulders, the blood on your hand, Thomas standing close beside you, and then the gentle shape beneath the oversized shirt.

She looked at Thomas.

Then at you.

No surprise reached her face. Only understanding.

“Oh, love,” she said quietly.

That nearly set you crying all over again.

Thomas shifted at your side, his shoulder brushing yours as if to steady you without drawing attention to it.

“Someone came to her home,” he told Polly. “She got out through a window. Doctor checks her hand and the baby, then she rests.”

Polly’s eyes sharpened at the mention of the men, but she nodded once. “Of course.”

Arthur remained in the doorway, still appearing as though someone had struck him over the head with a chair. His eyes moved down toward your stomach once before snapping quickly away in awkward embarrassment.

“So,” he began, pointing vaguely downstairs. “I’ll, er… go see about tea.”

“Whisky,” Thomas said.

Polly turned on him. “Not for her.”

“For me.”

“You’ll have tea as well.”

Arthur gave you a helpless look from behind her shoulder, as though to say this was how every family crisis ended: with Polly taking command and no man quite brave enough to stop her.

For the first time since the door to your home had splintered open, you felt a little of the panic inside you loosen.

Not gone.

Never gone.

But loosened.

Polly and Arthur disappeared downstairs again, leaving the bedroom door cracked open this time.

Thomas did not move away from you.

He lifted your uninjured hand and brought it briefly to his mouth, his lips pressing once against your knuckles. The gesture was so quiet, so unlike any grand claim you had feared from him, that you could not find words for it.

“I should have told you,” you said finally.

“Yes.”

You let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “You could pretend to make that easier for me.”

“No.” His gaze stayed on yours. “Not tonight.”

Strangely, you were grateful for that. Grateful he was not making the hurt prettier than it was.

After a moment, his eyes lowered to the blanket over your belly.

“May I again?”

You nodded.

He placed his hand against you for the second time, warmer now through the layers of cloth. This time, when his fingers spread over the small curve, you covered them with your own.

His breath caught slightly.

Downstairs, Arthur’s voice rose in an argument about where the good tea had gone. Polly ordered him to stop shouting. Somewhere outside, rain struck steadily against the windows, and somewhere farther away, men were already being sent into the streets to find the ones who had come for you.

None of that had been solved.

The Shelby name was still what it was. The child beneath Thomas’s hand was still bound to a world you had tried to keep away from them. Morning would bring questions, decisions, and fear that love alone could not take from you.

But Thomas stood in front of you with his forehead gently touching yours, one hand covering the life you had hidden from him and the other keeping yours carefully raised so the glass would not press farther into your palm.

“You are not alone tonight,” he said.

You closed your eyes, tears slipping quietly down your cheeks.

Zaun tonight was surprisingly quiet. For the first time in a long time, you could hear the water flowing through the windows of your room, and a cool breeze carried the scent of your daughter’s freshly washed hair through the corners. It was an incredibly comforting moment to care for her blue locks; it always brought an inexplicable peace to your mind. You really needed it after the exhausting day you had.

The affection that surrounded those moments, with both of you sitting on your bed, gently running your fingers through her strands and laughing at how Jinx always ended up sleepy, warmed your heart. But tonight, that warmth felt strange and discomforting. You tried to ignore a sudden dizziness and the chills, keeping the window open as you brushed through her long hair to continue braiding it. Was tiring work, but you loved.

“Is it going to take much longer?” she asked impatiently, something you had already expected. Complaining about the time was part of Jinx, but you took it with indifference.

“I’m almost halfway,” you tried to reassure her with a gentle, maternal tone, something she liked. “Just this one left.”

“Ugh, I hate when it takes so long,” she grumbled irritably, throwing herself back into your lap. Her movement made your hands lose the strands, messing up part of what you had done.

“Jinx!” you called her name, annoyed, but softened when you felt her cling to you even tighter, wrapping her arms around your waist and burying her face in your belly. Her body started warming yours even more, pushing the cold away, and you stayed silent, appreciating the closeness.

“Can we do it later?” she asked in a low voice, almost needy. Jinx had a thing with physical contact; it was something she appreciated when it came from the right people. That’s why she was now closing her eyes while you stroked her cheek and the side of her head.

“It’s going to be harder to fix,” you tried to argue, struggling with the duality of wanting to stay cuddled with her or return to the hard work of finishing her hair.

“You’re warm,” she murmured, and you couldn’t see, but she furrowed her brow, feeling your body temperature against her pressed cheek.

“I think so,” your whisper came without weight, not caring about the statement. Or maybe you just didn’t have the strength to think properly anymore.

You felt drained, and your daughter had noticed your lack of energy when she took your hand to play with your fingers, interlacing them in a sort of waltz but seeing how you barely reacted to her movements, letting her have fun on her own. And you always used to play along.

“Let me finish,” you asked with much effort, confused by the new sign of your condition that had just emerged: a sharp pain in your forehead. But it wasn’t common for you to get headaches.

Luckily, Jinx obeyed without further rebellion. She stood up to allow you to finish what you had started. She pulled her legs up to her chest on the bed, pouting with a dissatisfied expression while she felt you place the golden pins.

When you had just finished braiding, your fingers fell, sliding down the braid’s length, as if keeping your arms raised for just one more second was extremely difficult. And it was.

Your dizziness worsened, leaving your limbs weak, and now you couldn’t avoid feeling a hint of nervousness as your breathing became irregular, along with the dryness in your throat.

“My love, can you close the window?”

Your request alarmed Jinx, who turned toward your voice but not enough to look directly at you. Hesitant, she stood up, and when she returned, a look of confusion took over her face.

“What...?” The word got stuck as she quickly approached, placing one hand on your back and the other on your shoulder. “What’s going on?” Her desperate tone cut through you like a blade, filling your chest with guilt.

“I... I think I’m not feeling well.” You tried to hold back the tears, but your trembling voice betrayed the effort. Just a few tears fell, as if they had run out, and the pain in your muscles and joints, which had started as a discomfort in the morning, had become unbearable. The discomfort had been easy to ignore before, but now it seemed impossible to divert your attention from it.

You hadn’t paid much attention to the dizziness that had disrupted your day, but sitting for a moment seemed to amplify all the symptoms. Maybe they had always been there, silently growing, until they reached this point.

“Say something!” Jinx’s voice sounded choked, pulling you out of the haze. You tried to open your eyes, but it was hard. She was scared—you could feel it in the way her hands trembled as she held your face. She shook you gently, the urgency clear in every movement. “Don’t close your eyes!” she screamed, her voice breaking as darkness overtook your vision.

When consciousness started to return, you opened your eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the dimness of the room. A faint light illuminated the room enough for you to realize you were lying down, now wrapped in a blanket. Your hearing seemed muffled, as if you were submerged, but amid the confusing sounds, Silco’s voice emerged.

He was calling for Jinx, trying to calm her. “Jinx, listen,” he repeated, his voice deep and firm, but filled with concern. His tone seemed to seek her attention, trying to contain the emotional storm that was overwhelming the girl. “Jinx, I told you it is fine. It is nothing serious.”

Silco’s deep voice, usually so controlled, was now filled with a disturbance he could barely disguise. As he spoke, he repeated those words mentaly, as if trying to convince not only her but also himself that this was just a temporary illness.

“B-but...” Her voice broke, and the rest of the words got stuck in her throat. Jinx seemed unable to look directly at her father; her eyes nervously scanned the room, searching for an answer where there was none. “She... she just suddenly got like this.”

“Was not sudden, Jinx.” Silco took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. “We just did not notice before.” He adjusted his tone, seeking a firmness he didn’t feel, hoping to convey some confidence. “It is common. People get sick all the time. She will be fine.”

He continued, repeating the words like a mantra, silently praying they were true.

“Do you promise?” Jinx’s question came loaded with urgency, almost like an ultimatum.

Silco hesitated for a moment, swallowing hard at the weight of that word. Promising meant more than just reassuring her; it meant banishing any possibility of loss or failure. He knew he couldn’t say “yes” lightly, but he also couldn’t imagine denying that reassurance to his daughter.

His gaze shifted behind him, seeking your figure lying down. When he noticed you trying to sit up, despite visible effort, Silco felt an unexpected relief. It was a sign, even if small, that gave him the strength to respond firmly.

“I promise.” His voice came low but firm, as he squeezed Jinx’s shoulders, trying to convey a security he could barely feel.

Jinx followed her father’s gaze, and upon seeing you move, her behavior shifted instantly. With the frantic energy characteristic of her, she ran to you.

“Calm down!” Silco tried to call to her, but she was already on top of you.

You, however, were lost in confusion. Your mind felt like a blur, and the unbearable weight on your eyelids made it impossible to react or understand what was happening. The last thing you felt was Jinx’s hesitant touch, quickly replaced by the touch of calloused hands, before everything went dark again.

Silco watched as your eyes opened and closed again, what seemed like the thousandth time that night. It was as if you were waging a battle against your own consciousness and body, trying to hold onto reality as it slipped through your fingers.

He hadn’t slept. He had spent the night by your side, patiently waiting for that moment when you would finally wake up for real. Making sure you didn’t hurt yourself with the needle stuck to your wrist, connecting you to the IV that kept your body hydrated, had been an exhausting task. Every time you briefly stirred, it seemed like you were compelled to move your arms, as if testing your own strength, and he found himself forced to intervene.

“I thought you were going to pass out again,” he murmured, his voice low and strangely gentle, something rare coming from him. He carefully placed his hand on your forehead, checking the fever that, to his relief, was starting to subside.

“What do I have?” you asked, the words coming out slowly as your mind pieced together recent memories and adjusted to your surroundings.

Silco let out a long sigh, somewhere between irritation and relief. The corner of his lips curved into a dry smile, as if he found the situation so absurd it was almost comical, yet no less serious.

“You spent the whole day without drinking water.” His voice carried a hint of exasperation and he carefully brushed away the hair that was sticking to your face. “Dehydration. How, for the love of everything, did you not feel thirsty?”

His question was genuine, a mix of confusion and disbelief.

“I don’t know,” you whispered, feeling small and stupid under his analytical gaze.

Silco didn’t say anything more right away. Instead, his eyes studied you for a moment longer than necessary before he leaned back in the chair next to the bed.  

“Whatever the reason, this will not happen again,” he declared firmly, his voice carrying a tone almost possessive as he crossed his arms, as if imposing his will on the universe itself.

“Sorry,” you said, the weakness still evident in your voice, but there was also a trace of embarrassment, making your words almost a whisper.

He watched you in silence, his gaze fixed as you stared at the pillow. Even pale and visibly fragile, you were still the most beautiful woman he had ever known. The soft moonlight illuminated your face, highlighting a few strands of your hair, and in that moment, something inside him softened. The hard expression he always carried melted away, replaced by a rare tranquility—a surrender to the simple relief of seeing you there, breathing.

You saw the IV, something Singed must have done, and noticing it was almost empty, Silco carefully leaned forward to remove the needle. His movements were almost methodical, but there was an uncommon tenderness. His fingers slid lightly over the skin of your wrist before touching the catheter, and that seemingly small gesture sent a shiver down your spine.

It was as if, in that touch, he wanted to send you a message: I’m here, and I will be gentle.

“Jinx will be on your case the whole week,” he stated casually, though his tone was firm, as if warning you about your foolishness that caused all this.

You laughed, the weakness in your voice softened by the playful tone. “I can handle it.”

Slowly, you pulled his fingers, as an invitation for him to come closer. Silco accepted without hesitation, climbing onto the bed beside you. He positioned himself behind you, wrapping his body around you in an embrace that, though silent, carried a desperate intensity.

His hands tightened around your waist, the fingers interlacing as if he feared that if let go, you might slip away. The warmth of Silco’s breath brushed against your neck, bringing with it the scent of the cigars he always smoked. On anyone else, or in any other situation, the smell would have been overpowering, almost repulsive, but from him, there was something strangely comforting about it. It was a subtle reminder that, despite everything, he was there—solid, present, and, above all, familiar.

Silco squeezed your waist tighter, his deep voice cutting through the silence, almost a controlled growl as he whispered against your ear:

“Do you really think you will achieve something important if you forget the basics? Forget to drink water, to take care of yourself… That is not just foolishness, it is pure recklessness.”

He held you close, his eyes wandering to a distant point in the room, as if searching for something to focus on, while trying to make you understand the weight of his words. Silco knew you had this habit of putting yourself second, neglecting your own needs for what you thought was more urgent or important.

“Stop putting yourself at risk like this,” he continued, his voice firmer, “or I woll not have any choice but to take care of everything.”

His voice, cold and incisive, sounded almost like an attempt at humor, but you knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t one for jokes. Silco didn’t care for casual remarks, and the lightness in his tone was just a mask for the frustration he felt. You worried so much about not overburdening him that you ended up ignoring your own well-being, making his biggest concern a reality: he would have to carry the weight for you.