#marsie posts

The door stood ajar, and Tommy peeked in curiously, shrouded by the darkness of the hallway. Victoria sat on her bed, knees bent in front of her, both scraped and bruised. Around here laid a mess of pieces of bandages, a rusty pair of scissors, some iodine and oddly enough, a bottle of liquor. A most puzzling scene, especially because Tommy would have never expected his eight year old sister to have the maturity to gather all those supplies and hide in her bedroom while injured, instead of crying it out like a normal child. But again, kids raised in the middle of the war were no normal children.

Vicky had a piece of cloth on her hand and tried to dab at her scrapes, but she hissed every time it came in contact with her injury. Tears streamed down her cheeks, carving lines in the dirt of her skin. Tommy just then realised she was covered in grime from head to toe. 

Vicky again made a feeble attempt to wipe away some of the blood on her knees

“Fuck” She hissed

“Oi, language!” Exclaimed Tommy, entering the bedroom. Vicky nearly jumped from the bed when Tommy marched in; he had the ability to be as silent as a cat, which drove everyone insane since he always startled everyone. The girl looked like she had seen a ghost, but there are worse things than a ghost, like being caught doing things you shouldn’t be by your brother-self-appointed-father.

Tommy sat on the edge of the bed while Vicky watched him cautiously, like a prey being sized up by the predator; Victoria had felt odd around Tommy ever since he came back from France, still struggling to get used to this new self, and desperately trying to find scraps of her old brother in this unknown man. They all had changed, in a way, but Tommy’s switch was most obvious. Sometimes the girl wondered if they had sent her back the right man.

“What happened?” The calmness in his voice was edged by the slightest hint of concern, and a dash of curiosity at the maturity of the littlest Shelby. 

“Street puddles are treacherous places” At her words, Tommy felt a strange pang in his heart. Since when did his little sister use big words like “treacherous”? When they left, she could barely even pronounce her own name correctly, and wanted to be up in someone’s arms all day long. Now she spent most of her days out of the home, either at school or roaming the streets with other rascals. She already knew how to read as well, and clearly used her newfound knowledge to say “big girl words” every time she could. 

Tommy grabbed her leg and pulled her close to inspect the wound, earning a squeak from his sister as she was yanked from a sitting position to be flat on the bed. The scrapes were large, but superficial. Something an adult wouldn’t even notice, but for a child of Victoria’s age it meant the end of the world and certain death. Yet his sister sat before him, teary eyed but otherwise calmly carrying herself. Tommy couldn’t recognise her anymore.

“Why didn’t you tell Aunt Pol to help you?”

For an answer, Victoria pointed to the floor, where her once new white stocks laid in tatters, all ripped up and stained with muddy water. Ada had told Polly that buying Victoria something white and delicate would be a waste of money, but she insisted. She wanted everyone to look their best when they picked the boys at the station, and somehow had stuffed Vicky and Finn in their Sunday best, complete with Finn’s hair slicked back and Victoria with ribbons woven in her plaits.

“Do you want my help?” Tommy felt odd at having to ask his eight year old sister if she needed help with something. In his mind this child had barely left the diapers and had no right to be speaking in full sentences and reading and writing.

“I can do it myself” Victoria sat up and grabbed the cloth again, but her hand shook even before she touched her knees. The sun would freeze over before she was finished.

Tommy snatched the cloth from her hands and dripped some iodine on it “It will not kill you to ask for help” He knew this bravado would crumble soon enough, but he couldn’t quite figure out what she was trying to prove.

“Aunt Polly said we have to fend for ourselves now”

Oh.

Tommy knew Pol didn’t say that. She would never say that directly to a child. But he still recalled the conversation when that phrase had been said. Late at night, the four of them sat before the hearth and passed around a bottle of cheap whiskey. They were due to leave at 9 am sharp the following day. Their hairs cut, their weavings packed and ready. Polly had stuffed their pockets with cigarettes and given them a bit of money in case they needed it. Then she prayed for their lives and commanded the three brothers to return, for they had people who loved them and depended on them. She remarked that even though Arthur and Tommy had no kids of their own they still had their responsibilities, because there were still three children under that roof that would now have to fend for themselves.

He couldn’t even begin to comprehend how Victoria remembered that. Maybe Polly had said those words again to a neighbour, or to Ada who was old enough to understand; and the little rascal had eavesdropped and gotten the wrong idea. A painful coil tightened around Tommy’s throat; the baby of the house had spent all these years under the impression that she only had herself in the world, even if she didn’t quite understand what that implied. 

Tommy didn’t reply. What could he possibly say? How could he erase from her mind that idea that she had to rely only on herself because everything and everyone else around her were not for granted? He couldn’t say that he would be forever with her, because he knew that was a promise he didn’t know if he could keep.

He gently dabbed the cloth on her knee, earning a hiss and quietly muttered curse from his sister, who quickly covered her mouth with her hands.

“Don’t let Pol hear you or she will wash your mouth with soap” Tommy swiftly pulled Victoria into his lap so he could hold her better, and to give her the chance to hold onto him. He got to work on cleaning the scrapes, feeling little fingers dig tightly on the fabric of his coat, and he was pretty sure Vicky bit the arm he was using to hold her. 

Once the grime had been wiped away he began to bandage her knees “What is the liquor for?” Tommy inquired curiously, nodding to the almost empty bottle on the bed. The bottle had some cheap hard liquor that they kept in a cabinet for emergencies, and never for drinking. Not that Thomas believed Vicky to be taking swigs of alcohol behind their backs, but the thought was amusing nonetheless.

“I have seen you and Arthur clean up wounds with that” She shrugged “I don’t think I need it thought” She added quickly

Tommy hummed “You couldn’t open it, right”

“Yep”

The faintest ghost of a smile tugged on Tommy’s lips. A big girl with big words and a big attitude but she still didn’t have the strength to open up a bottle, nor had she figured out how to work the house keys, and still wanted to have her food cut up for her. He finished wrapping the bandages and tied them up neat and nicely “Does it feel okay?”

The girl flexed her legs a few times and nodded “I could do that myself” Victoria could never, ever lose the opportunity to try and up her older brothers. Only when she stepped off Tommy’s lap did she notice the dirt in his trousers and the little scraps of his hands “Did you fall too?”

Tommy’s body immediately tensed up and he put his hands down to hide his reddened palms “Yards are treacherous places”

Victoria immediately tried to pull up Tommy’s trousers to take a look, but Tommy held her wrists to stop her, rather harshly. Both of them stood in absolute silence until Tommy let go of her. He hadn’t intended to be so harsh, but sometimes it happened too fast. His wrecked nerves got the best of him, fueled by the fact that never, ever in his life Tommy had allowed anyone to help him; not before the war and certainly not after. 

But he couldn’t be this way with Victoria, not if he wanted to make up for all the years of her life he lost. And especially not now, when with that little gesture, something as simple as showing concern for him, Tommy caught a glimpse of what his sister had always been before she decided to build up walls, just like everyone around her. War had hardened the Shelby brothers, but it didn’t have to do the same to their little ones. 

Just as Vicky straightened up, slowly as if she feared he would snap again, Tommy released a slow breath and pulled his sister into a bone crushing hug, her arms pinned to her sides as he squeezed her in the way he used to do when she was a baby. In the same way he hugged her when he took the train in 1914, and the way he hadn’t hugged her ever since. He kept her there until Vicky squirmed “Tommy you are squeezing me”

“I know”

“....Can you put me down?”

“No”

In that moment, that hug felt like an anchor to the life he once had and the man he used to be; both things now lost to the war machine. The war life had taken him, chewed him up and spat him back out as something new, something he couldn’t recognise and something that would forever be damaged in a way only those who had been chewed too could understand. But somewhere behind layers of trauma, scars, fears and anger lay a sliver of the pre-war Thomas Shelby, an miniscule sliver of a man who once believed the world could be good and kind. And that sliver belonged to Victoria for as long as she lived, so she could once more see the world through a rose tinted lens and never again had to think that she had to fend for herself. And so he could make up for all those missed hugs, cuddles and tickles.

After minutes of maintaining the hug, Tommy stood up and swung his sister over his shoulder. He suddenly had the vitality and energy he had lacked the last weeks. He marched out the room and down the hallway with Victoria over him like a sack of potatoes.

“Where are you taking me?” Inquired Victoria curiously

“To the bathroom. You are a grime ball and if Pol sees you like this, she will have both of our heads”

Every Saturday he repeated the same routine. Dress as common and plain as he could, take up the most secluded table in the London dance club, and drown in as many glasses of whiskey as the table could hold. He always picked the corner table with the malfunctioning light. The waiters always offered to switch him to somewhere better but he refused. He didn’t go there to be seen, he went there to see something. Or rather someone.

That night you wore white. Oh, how unbelievably gorgeous you looked in white. The straps of the frock wrapped around your neck and crossed at the back. The front hemline reached just below your knees, and the back nearly touched the floor. Your hair pinned up, with that coquettish strand falling on the side of your face. Sparkling with jewels, but Tommy only noticed the glimmering ruby in the ring finger of your left hand. Big and eye-catching, a golden band with the gemstone surrounded by gold petals emulating a rose. All that time together, and your man hadn’t yet learned you preferred silver to gold, green over red, and not shunning the beauty of roses, you had always favoured carnations more.

By your side stood a man, tall and proud, his arm around your waist as he led you to the dancefloor. He looked proud and smug, triumphant in showing off the magnificent specimen of a woman that accompanied him that night, and every night they went to that club. Every Saturday, at 9 pm, he drank whiskey with water and you had a glass of champagne, maybe two, before spending the entire night on the dancefloor, delirious with joy and love.

Tommy had never taken you out to dance.

Tommy still reminisced of the times when he had you on his arm; when your eyes stared at him with adoration, as if he held your whole world in his coarse palm. Tommy always thought you loved too hard; felt every emotion as if you were one of the leading damsels from those silly romance novels you kept in your nightstand. Oh, how late he realised he should have cherished your love more, for he would sorely feel its absence once he no longer possessed it.

Tommy knew you loved horses, so he took you to the races many times, whenever he had business to attend. But you always looked bored and dejected, and more than once left before him. Tommy thought simply you didn’t enjoy seeing horses compete that way. Only when he saw you with his own eyes in the stands with that man Tommy understood that you loved races, but wanted to enjoy them with someone. He saw you nearly jump from the seat, your bet ticket clasped tightly in your fist as the race began; Tommy knew you’d lose your money. You always had a tender heart for lost causes and had surely laid a bet on the horse with the lowest chance.

You had also laid a bet on Tommy’s lost cause, and you had both lost in the end.

You loved cooking for him, even though the kitchen had never been your forte. Tommy couldn’t understand your eagerness in purchasing cooking books and testing new recipes for him, when he had the money to eat in a new restaurant every night, or hiring a cook for your needs. But not even the best foods in the world tasted like the dishes you spent hours carefully preparing for him, served in plain dishware in your modest dining room. He could have appreciated more every little cut and burn you got trying to please him, but instead brushed off your efforts.

Surely you now cooked for him, with your silly flowery aprons tied about the waist and calling him every five minutes to the kitchen to try the soup until it tasted nothing but perfect, holding the wooden spoon to his lips and blowing on the food so he wouldn’t get burned; your brows furrowed and your nose scrunched in anticipation as you waited for approval.

The smallest demonstrations of affection were the ones that brought you the greatest pleasure. Tommy thought it adorable at first, the way you always reached to hold his hand, or felt the need to kiss his cheek every now and then for no reason when you were in public. Caressing his knuckles or laying your hand on his leg. Tommy grew to find your actions irritating and childish, the need to always hold onto someone as if you needed a support person at all times. Only too late he came to understand that you only wanted to feel him close, and to show him with actions what you didn’t always say with words.

Leaving Tommy small, handwritten notes between his work papers, or tucked in the pockets of his coats and pants. More than once Tommy had gotten upset over you messing up his paperwork, or complained over the embarrassment he felt when a note fell from his pocket unnoticed and an important business partner picked it up, handing it back to him with a cunning smirk. You stopped leaving notes after that.

After you left him, Tommy spent days rummaging his desk and raiding his closet, hoping to find any note, forgotten by time and distance, anything to tell him that you loved him still, and this was no more than a test of his will. But there were no notes to find.

The day you walked away, Tommy didn’t bother to go after you, believing it to be another of the tantrums you had been throwing lately. He had a busy day, and figured you’d be at home by the end of the night, sulking in the gardens or buried in a book, ignoring him until he rewarded you with a kiss and some passion. But the house was empty, and your belongings gone, minus a silver necklace he had given you many moons ago, a little heart with his initials engraved in the back. He found the jewel in the hallway, with the clasp broken, as if hastily ripped off and thrown away during your departure.

Tommy waited it out three days before sending his men to inquire about your whereabouts. Finding you was exceedingly easy; Tommy’s own driver had taken you to the train station, and from there, showing your picture around, they were able to find you in Leeds. In just those three days, you had secured room in a boarding house and had landed a job as a cashier in an apothecary. The three days it had taken him to go after you had been enough for you to erase Thomas Shelby from your life.

Tommy still refused to believe it, even after you told him exactly that right at his face, one rainy Sunday after he intercepted you on your way home from the market. He pulled you into his car by the sleeve, covering your mouth with his gloved hand like a kidnapper. The right hook you delivered to his jaw didn’t shake him as much as the storm of profanities and screams you pelted upon him, mixed with your own tears of sadness and rage. Thomas couldn’t quite understand the source of your anger; he had loved you well enough, but it seemed you only wanted more and more. In the end, he kicked you out of his car and back into the pouring rain, saying you were too demanding and had unrealistic expectations of life. You counterattacked saying you felt sorry for him, for he didn’t know how to love or care for someone other than himself, and you prayed he wouldn’t end his days alone, regretting his mistakes and having no one to weep at his grave.

Tommy used every fibre of his being to forget you, but he lacked the strength to let you go, despite the harsh words he gave you in your last encounter. He always thought his life to be grim, but now that you were gone, he realised his life had been full of colours he had been too blind to see until now that he had been plunged back into the true darkness. He craved back every kiss, every brush of your hand, every homemade dish and every silly letter. He ached to feel your body snuggled against his back in bed, even though he more than once complained that the proximity made him too hot and didn’t allow him to move freely, or that your hair got into his mouth.

Very deep down, he still kept the hopes of your returning. Just like every lost cause you picked up, maybe you’d have a change of heart and decide to put your last coin in that walking disaster of a man. He would even settle for something as simple and superficial as calling to inquire about him, sharing banal pleasantries while Tommy strained every fibre of himself to pretend he didn’t want to drop to his knees and beg for your forgiveness.

If he couldn’t get your love, he would be satisfied with your pity.

But all hope was shattered when he saw you again about a year later. One rainy autumn evening, he had just left Ada’s place and was about to mount his car when he saw you. Long coat, brown boots, a matching beret. A man by your side, his arm in your back and holding the umbrella for you. He whispered something in your ear and you giggled, replying with a tender kiss to his lips. Fifty feet behind you, Tommy stood under the pouring rain, feeling his body freezing down to the last nerve, and the blood in his veins turning to ice. He did not move until you disappeared from view into a taxi. In that second business became a secondary priority. He got in his car and followed you around London. From different shops to a small restaurant and then the theatre. Two hours he sat outside, nursing his aching heart in his chest and a Colt in his hands, a bullet in the chamber and his finger in the trigger. He didn’t have a plan, nor any logical thought running through his brain; only the knowledge that his girl sat inside the theatre with another man, and soon said man would have his brains splattered through the pavement.

As soon as you two left the theatre, walking hand in hand, Tommy followed suit, keeping a safe distance and his gun readied like a hunter on a chase. He stalked you across half the city, until the man dropped you off at the entrance of a small hotel; you sent him away with a long kiss, and he in return kissed each one of your knuckles before letting you go. Tommy had him right in his line of view, within perfect shot. No one walked the street at the time and some street lights malfunctioned, giving him the perfect cloak of darkness. All he had to do was aim and…and nothing happened. His index shook in the trigger, pulled almost all the way back, but Tommy couldn’t breach that last millimetre. That miniscule space that made the difference between a killer and a somewhat decent man. He could shoot men for sport but…

But seeing the way you looked at him, seeing the way he treated you. It felt like an awakening, a dawning of realisation that this man, this nobody who didn’t even deserve the ground you stepped on, could probably love you better than he ever did. In just one evening he had fulfilled every task Tommy never could. Took you out to the things you liked, and showed his love to the world without shame. He didn’t recoil from holding your hand, didn’t roll his eyes when you kissed his cheek, and had not left you alone halfway through the play because he had more important business to attend to. A man who could make you happy the way he should have done when he was your man.

But he no longer was your man. Tommy had turned into a ghost of the past, his memory fading more and more with each passing day, until he would one day become just a distant memory, one that wouldn’t be recalled back. Tommy could only hope you would remember him one day with kindness, or pity, or the gentle fondness of sweet moments now soured on. A fleeting thought easily dissipated by the newer memories with the man who had taken his spot. A man who lived that night only because, in his own twisted and broken way, Tommy loved you still, and did so enough to let you be happy with a man who was not himself.

And so he sat, every Saturday at 9 in the same club, watching the life he could have had if he had been different. If he had cherished what he had while it lasted. Another hand now held your waist and another lips laid upon your own, drinking on the nectar of your love while he shattered and fell apart bit by bit.

The first problem arose five minutes after mom set foot out the door. Their eldest son, David, demanded to know the whereabouts of his toy horse. Because none of the other eleven horses neatly stacked in the shelves of his nursery would do, he wanted the one with a missing ear and almost no tail hair left. None of the maids had seen it, and no matter how many beds and sofas Tommy looked under, the toy refused to appear. The funny thing with children’s crying is that it appears to be contagious, for the more his son wept, the more his daughter Vera pouted, until she too let the tears spill from her Shelby blue eyes, bawling like a wounded animal for no apparent reason other than her brother’s own sorrow. This in turn made David cry even harder, which got them stuck into an endless cycle of tears and despair. 

It hadn’t even been an hour and Tommy could already feel a vein bulging in his temple. He could withstand many things, but crying had a particular effectiveness in fraying his nerves. So, in a desperate attempt to placate the storm, he put a child under each arm and marched towards the stables like a man on a mission. He knew from a fact that horses always solved everything, and if they didn’t at least the crying wouldn’t sound so loud in the open fields. But just like magic, the second the beautiful brutes came into view, David scrambled out of his father’s grasp and rushed towards the horses. His favourite in particular was an old one who, much like his own battered toy, had a missing chunk off one ear and virtually no tail nor crin left. His wife had saved that one, having found him abandoned on the side of the road. Tommy suggested putting him out of his misery, but she would have none of it, and she and Curly nursed the equine back to health. He couldn’t trot very well nor reach great distances, but David loved him to pieces, and for that Tommy felt extremely thankful at the moment. 

His joy, however, was short-lived. It is easy to lose track of time outside, and by the time Tommy noticed, Vera had become quite fussy, being way past her usual nap time. Her high pitched wails could arouse the dead, and make the living run for cover; she could be a star of the Royal Opera House one day with that pair of lungs. But for now Tommy wished for nothing more than to soothe her and enjoy five minutes of blessed silence. But he had yet another issue at hand. The stablehands had the day off, and Vera couldn't sleep without her milk bottle and her blanket, but also David could not stay outside alone, but if Tommy took him back inside he would throw a royal sized tantrum. 

He doubted in the soles of his feet, his ear ringing from the deafening wails of his little girl, while his son tried to climb the stable door to get on top of the horse, even if he was still too small to even reach the stirrups. After a few more seconds of hesitation he simply uttered ‘fuck it’ and grabbed David, hauling him under his right arm like a sack of potatoes and carrying him back inside, doing his best to ignore the screaming and kicking. An unfortunately aimed shoe kicked him right under the ribs; the kid definitely had some strength. Now more than ever he admired his wife’s ability to wrestle both kids to bed, and felt a pang of guilt at the countless times he could and should have helped her. 

Thomas marched towards the kitchens with the two howling banshees, startling everyone in his way with the noises, contrasting dramatically with his stony expression. He moved like a man on a mission, seemingly unaware of the chaos surrounding him. He bursted into the kitchen, set both kids down on top of the table, and pulled out the cookie jar from the pantry. Just like magic, David quieted down the second the baked good reached his hands. Meanwhile a warm milk bottle had been prepped, and Vera had fallen asleep halfway through it, slobbering all over her dad’s fancy shirt. David got the privilege of a second cookie to keep him happy while Tommy put his daughter down on her cot, but he had forgotten a little detail; feeding sugar to a toddler was like feeding gunpowder to a cannon. 

Now there was no way to stop the boy, who could run impressively fast for his young age. Now matter how fast he ran, or how long his steps were, Tommy could simply not grab hold of his son. The boy climbed over armchairs, jumped over flowerpots and slid under tables. A porcelain vase they had received for their wedding had already fallen victim to the chase, and Tommy knew he would have to give explanations for it. Just when he thought he finally had David cornered, like a hunter after a long chase, with his clothes in absolute disarray and hair sticking out in every direction, David had the brilliant idea to try and climb the staircase railing. Who knew a little boy could have so much skill? He clambered up a side table, knocking over a chandelier and another vase, and held for dear life onto the staircase railing, his little fingers barely managing to tighten around the smooth wooden bars, and hoisted himself up a couple inches. But the recently polished surface offered little traction, and the toddler inevitably lost his grip and crashed down.

He began crying before he had touched the ground. 

Panic immediately bubbled in the pit of his stomach. He dashed forward, slipping on the fancy Turkish rug and crashing down next to his son. He meticulously inspected every single inch of his body, looking for any injury or sign of internal damage. But it seemed that besides the tears and an already forming lump on the back of his head, his little champ was fine. Tommy sat on the floor, rocking David to soothe him while also trying to calm his own hammering heartbeat. His admiration for his wife and mothers around the world grew with each passing second.

“Oh for fucks’s sake” He could feel the migraine throbbing behind his left eye. 

David had fallen asleep in his dad’s arms, victim of the physical activity and his own pain. Tommy managed to pry his shirt away from the vine grip his son had on it and laid him down to nap on his bed. Silence fell over the house at last. 

For five minutes.

While he occupied his time chasing the devil, Vera had awoken from her nap, happily babbling away at her stuffed animals. But she couldn’t take not being in the centre of attention for long. The maids rushed to her side, but no amount of cooing or soothing would distract her. The cries became so loud Tommy thought his daughter was in great peril. He rushed to the nursery, only to find his little Vee in the arms of a maid, while the other one presented her with different toys and shiny objects to distract her. But all the fuss stopped the second she laid eyes on her dad, her sobs turning into laughter as she made grabby hands at him. Tommy simply could not resist the shine of delight in her eyes.

He dismissed the maids for the evening and sat down on the fluffy rug with his daughter, surrounded by toys and stuffed animals which she showed off to him happily, clumsily stumbling with her chubby legs which had just begun to give her their first steps. Her foot occasionally got stuck into the folds of fabric and caused her to fall, always being saved at the last minute by her dad’s outstretched arm. She remained unbothered and continued to display her vast collection of toys.

“What do you get there sweetie? A teacup? And what do we have here, a teddy bear, poor lad looks worse for wear after being on nap duty for so long. And that’s an - oh fuck” Vee tripped and dived head first into the floor, being stopped and pushed back by Tommy’s quick reflexes. The girl sat still for a moment, wide eyes staring straight at her dad, before her lips parted into a joyous smile “Fuck”

His heart skipped at least three beats. Torn between the utmost joy of hearing a child’s first word, and the sheer panic of said first word being fuck. She was his child, of course her first word would be something of the sorts, but he could be sure his wife wouldn’t be too happy about it and would have his head on a platter for it. He immediately tried to clean up his mistake

“No baby, no fu- no that word, daddy said…he said..erm…duck, can you say duck?” He tried to repeat the word several times very slowly, hoping to reroute her towards that path and dodge the bullet, but Vera would have none of it.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck” The child was delighted at her newfound voice, bobbing up and down and clapping her little hands with each repetition of the word. Even if it sounded strange in her toddler dialect, with the final sound being more like a G, it was still clearly understandable. Oh, nothing like having an eleven month old girl cussing out all day long, following in the steps of her family. 

Tommy tried every single thing he could think of. From repeating several other words a thousand times, to reading her books, playing songs, even trying to maintain full worded conversations with her just to distract her attention. But it seemed to be causing quite the opposite effect. The more he spoke to her, the more she talked back, but all she continued to say was that word. He had already begun to pull on his hair, trying to figure out how to clean up this mess in just the 2 hours he had before his wife returned home. Maybe he could convince her that he had just taught Vera a Roma word…or he could take the next steamboat to America and disappear for a little while. 

In the end, he had to dig out his last resort. He took Vera outside to the stables, let her run freely in the gardens, played with her every toy, danced with her, let her chase after David, all in hopes of wearing her out enough that she’d be fast asleep before mommy arrived, and hopefully she would have forgotten how to talk by the following morning. And it worked. After dinner and bathtime, not only was Vera fast asleep, but David was tucked in and dozed off as well. Somehow he had pulled through.

At half past ten, he had perched himself in front of his desk, with whiskey on his hand and a cigarette on his lips, catching up with all the work he had ignored that day. Stacks of paper littered his desk, waiting to be read, signed and either filed or destroyed. But he had virtually no energy left for that. His back had begun to ache, and he found himself fighting to keep his eyes open. Not even pumped full of spirits and nicotine he would be able to survive even an hour of work.

He didn’t look up when he heard the Bentley pull on the driveway, instead straightening his back and placing a pen between his fingers, hoping to achieve a laid back and relaxed posture, as if he had had an easy day. He heard his wife’s heels clicking towards his office, and he cleared his throat, placing a random sheet of paper in front of his eyes. He could almost see her gloved hand turning the handle, and pretended to ignore her as she walked to his side and placed a tender kiss on his cheek. 

“How was your evening?” He leaned back to lock eyes with her, feeling the tickling of some loose hair strands on his neck.

“Good. Lizzie took us to this new pub near the Bull Ring. Of course they didn’t want to serve us, but she pulled out one of your presentation cards” His wife chuckled, the sweet sound like bluebells on his ears. Her arms laced around his neck, her chin lightly posed every his shoulder. “A guy tried to mess with her and she broke his nose with a single punch. I’m not sure they will serve us again.” She chuckled again and slid her hands down her husband’s shoulders softly “I’ll go tuck in the kids and go to bed. See you upstairs in ten?” He nodded and placed a kiss on the back of her hand. She walked off, with Tommy closely watching her elegant figure enveloped in a green velvet coat disappear behind the mahogany door. He smiled to himself, thinking about how he had almost been surpassed by the day but emerged victorious as usual, and now he got the prize of enjoying the night with his beloved. 

Ten minutes later he had gone upstairs, loosening his tie and undoing the buttons of his shirt on the way there. His wife sat in front of her vanity wearing her silk robe,a silver comb in hand, gently undoing some knots in her hair. She seemingly ignored his presence, waiting until he had sat in front of the fireplace to speak

“Vera had woken up”

Oh.

“Can I ask something?”

He froze for a brief moment, but quickly regained himself “Anything”

She turned to face him, a mixture between anger and amusement in her features 

You were 13 when Thomas taught you to ride your first horse, your knees trembling as you tried to hold onto the shiny chestnut colt he had borrowed from a Lee boy during the fair. Sensing your uneasiness, and fearing you might fall and injure yourself, Tommy hopped onto the animal’s back behind you, circling your frame with his arms as he held the reins and led the beast into a peaceful trot down the bank of the river. When you let the horse rest, you two sat together under the leafy branches of an oak, in a tattered blanket you had brought from home, and snacked on blackberries from some nearby bushes and clear water from the spring. He gave you a makeshift bouquet of wild poppies and daisies; you had never felt your heart leap so strongly in your chest.

He was your Tommy and you were his Poppet.

Often you two would sneak out in the middle of the night and let your hearts run free. From climbing onto rooftops to bathing in the cut, or sneaking to his Uncle Charlie’s yard to help Curly deliver a foal, the night was yours to own and do as you pleased, away from judging comments and criticising eyes. Even if it lasted for just a few short hours,they were just for the two of you, the King and Queen of town. 

The years passed, the two of you grew, so did everyone around you. As everyone expected, you became his sweetheart, and he became the envy of the block, having the sweetest piece of woman Small Heath could offer on his arm. The days flew by, the months became years, and people began to murmur. Why weren’t you two getting married? Why hadn’t Tommy proposed? The nagging gave way to the gossip. Maybe one of them lacked commitment? Maybe Tommy had found a fault with the lady? Or maybe she had found flaw in perfection?

Truth be told, none of you were in a rush. Tommy wanted to build a career and business before focusing on a family, and you had no desire to dedicate your young years to become a housewife. None of you had much money to spare anyway, and you wished for something a bit better than borrowed clothes and an appointment in the registry office. You may not be engaged yet but you had dreams. You wanted a nice party and a pretty dress, and he wanted a celebration that would be remembered for years. And in order to achieve the stars, you had to be patient.

But life had other plans.

You knew about the unrest in the continent. You heard the news of the assasination of the archduke and his wife. But you and everyone around you carried on as usual, too preoccupied with daily life to worry about those living thousands of miles away. Sure, a member of a royal family had been murdered, so what? How could it affect you, in a small town on an island not even remotely close to them?

You had held onto those hopeful thoughts all the way down to that day. You were in your parents' kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner when a young boy ran down Watery Lane, tightly clutching a piece of paper, and hollering at the top of his lungs that the Kingdom had declared war on Germany. People rushed towards their homes in such a haste you would have believed they had the troops on their tails. You tried to keep up with dinner, but your hands trembled so violently you sliced off the top of your index. 

You didn’t see any of the Shelby brothers for three days.

And when Tommy showed up, he knocked on your door like he would do any other day, leaning into the doorframe, with his hand stuffed in his pocket like he had been away for just half a day. You would have smacked him with his cap if you hadn’t been so happy to see him. Truth be told, you had already experienced nightmares of the war generals sneaking into town in the middle of the night and dragging him out of his bed and straight into Germany. 

You two sat in the small kitchen, your hands laced around a cup of tea and his hands over yours. 

“Where did you go?” Your voice trembled at the end

“Tried to run away”

That answer took you aback. You hadn’t expected something like that from him, and by the expression he bore, neither did he. 

“After the declaration, Polly told us to leave. Pack our bags, get on the road with the Lees or the Boswells, lay low until things have calmed down, no matter how long it takes. And we considered it, honestly. She wouldn’t let us go out the house, in case the recruiters came. I actually thought about running away, but that's not who I am. That’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to go down in history as one of the cowards. I want to be one of the heroes. So I will be enlisting”

That’s all it took for you to break down crying. You knew Tommy had a knack for hopeless causes, and he always seeked for the greater good. You had dreaded he would want to enlist before the war office came to drag him. But you had hoped you’d have a bit more time. 

“Hey hey, no need for tears, I am not dead yet, am I?” His dark humour didn’t help, making you in fact cry harder. He placed his index under your chin, gently lifting your face so you’d met his gaze “I will go. I will fight. And then I will return and we will get married with all the pomp and pageantry you deserve” 

And so he went off for his training alongside his brothers. Two weeks before he was due to depart, he asked for your picture to carry with him, close to his heart. You agreed, only with the condition that he’d take a photo with you, so you too would have something to carry close to your heart. He protested, but agreed nonetheless. Anything to help ease your pain. You got four pictures, two of you wearing your best Sunday dress, and two of you together, him standing behind you with his hands on your shoulders.

The last day you had, you decided to ditch everyone around you, packed a basket and went to the river, for the sake of the old times. With a bottle of beer, a bunch of fruit and the same blanket you used ten years prior, you dedicated the last hours for yourselves. There was a lot of kissing, and also a lot of tears. Tommy promised over and over he would return, and entertained you with stories of the future that awaited you, with a nice house, a dog, and no less than three children playing in the garden.

As the sun began its descent, tinting the waters and the sky of a deep red hue, you pulled from your pocket a small box, neatly tied with white ribbon, and presented it to him. Tommy raised his eyebrow, but without asking, undid the bow to reveal the present.

Inside, nested in white cotton balls, laid a locket. Oval shaped, with a smooth, silvery surface. Tommy popped it open, only to find inside a picture of yourself on one side, and on the other, a lock of your hair shielded behind glass. 

“I know you have my picture” You explained, meeting his puzzled gaze “But pictures can get wet or be lost or destroyed. I want you to have me close, as will I” You pulled out from your neckline your own locket, heart shaped, containing his picture and an empty space. Tommy got the hint. He grabbed his pocket knife and snipped the strand which usually fell over his forehead, just a small curl, enough to fill in the space. Now he had as much of you as you had of him. 

“This is a promise locket. Because that locket and that hair is mine. I am lending it to you, so you have to promise to come home to give it back” Despite the painful tightening in your chest, you managed to crack a smile. Tommy leaned in for a kiss, his hand resting on the curve of your hip, slowly descending as the kiss deepened.

Five minutes later, the heart locket was the only thing you had on.

~

4 years of waiting. Four years of anxiety, sending letters every month, and getting replies every 3 to 4 months. Opening the front door every time the mailman walked down the lane, hoping that this time he’d stop at your door, while at the same time drearing receiving a very different kind of letter. The first two years, his letters were filled with sweet nonsense, pouring his love in the paper and adding small anecdotes of the trenches. But over time the letters became shorter, colder. You tried to blame it on the stress, the lack of time, any excuse at all, while you eased your worry by keeping busy helping Polly with the business and looking after Finn and Ada.

It wasn’t until the first days of 1916 that he was granted leave, and you saw him for the first time. You were the only one waiting in the station, since the kids were at school and Polly didn’t want to close the shop. The train came to a halt with a screech, and soldiers poured from the doors like an avalanche, onto the open arms of weeping wives and mothers. You scanned the crowd for him, panic bubbling in your stomach when you couldn’t find him. Perhaps he had missed the train? Or his leave had been cancelled? The station had almost emptied completely when you saw him, but you had to look twice to recognize him. Could that be Tommy? Your Tommy? His sunken face and gaunt complexion resembled more a man on his deathbed than a twenty something year old. He sported a thin cut alongside his left cheekbone, and walked with a limp. He had seen you too, but made no effort to approach you, waiting for you to run to him. When you clashed into his chest, he circled your frame with his arm, but his body felt stiff, and the embrace cold.

Still, you wiped your tears and got the best of the ten days he would be home. You cooked his favourite meals, forewent a few commodities to afford him a bottle of nice whiskey, and generally went out of your way to make his visit pleasant. But something seemed off in him. Something had changed. Not only had his body thinned and his voice deepened, perhaps the effect of cheap spirits and toxic fumes, but something deeper seemed to be off as well. The only way you could describe it was that he had lost the joy to live. Good food and drinks had no effect on him, and not even when you laid on his bed, tangled in his sheets wearing only your promise lockets, did he show any more emotion. He had also begun to sleep during the day and keep vigil at night, his pale eyes fixated on the wall until dawnbreak. 

You didn’t see him again until the end of the war.

For months, no letter arrived, nor from him nor from the war office. You heard at home the horrors of the battles of Verdun and the Somme, only known through those who lived it, since the newspapers refused to publish anything that could tamper with the people’s spirits, and even the letters sent home were subject to censorship. The more days passed, the more your worry grew. You were forced to remind yourself that no news was better than bad news, and perhaps Tommy just hadn’t found the time to write, or had run out of pencil and paper. 

It wasn’t until the beginning of 1917 that you heard from him again. He had received leave and decided to spend it in the north of France, claiming he didn’t have enough days to make the journey back worthy. You tried to understand, but you felt the pain in your heart nonetheless. Perhaps it felt too painful for him, coming back home knowing he’d have to leave once again. Perhaps he wished to rest and did not want to make the journey home and back for just a couple days.

Perhaps he had found a better company in France. 

You pushed those unfounded accusations to the back of your mind, keeping them under lock and key. How could you think that way of Tommy? He loved you, and he would never betray your trust like that.

Right?

His lacklustre writing got you through the war, still clinging desperately to every strand of his love you could. When peace finally came, you awaited eagerly for his return and for your life to go back to normal. But you couldn’t have imagined what normal meant.

You gave the army a man and they gave back a corpse. A living, breathing, soulless corpse. If you didn’t know better, you could have sworn they sent you the wrong man. This…person, the thing he had become, he wasn’t your Tommy. He wasn’t the one you had fallen in love with.

None of them came home the same, truth be told. But obviously your attention focused on the one you cared about. You could bear some aspects, like the nightmares and the initial paranoia. But some became unmanageable. The opium, the alcoholism, the violence.

The coldness.

It felt as if romancing a snowman. Everything inside Tommy had gone cold; not just his joy to live, but also his relationships with others. With his aunt, with his brothers, and with you. He hadn’t ended things with you, perhaps out of respect for your unwavering loyalty, but he might as well have and once and for all end your misery. 

You slept with him for several nights after his return, but he would always be gone before you awoke, and would only take you to his room after dark, as if you were a cheap alleway whore and not the one he had wanted once to marry. During the days you seldom saw him, with his mind buried in the business, or perhaps still buried in the French mud. You had simply faded into the background of his life.

For your own sake, and to not let ten years of your life go to waste, you endured. You could turn a blind eye to his crooked ways, and even could pretend that the pretty barmaid from the Garrison wasn’t batting her eyelashes at him every time their eyes met, much to his apparent delight. You could pretend that you didn’t hear from Arthur that Tommy caught the fucking clap in France.

But you couldn’t deal with the violence.

His anger, rarely incurred before the war, seemed ready to lash out at any moment now. Even the slightless things sent him into madness. His hand didn’t waver to shoot an inconvenient person, or to blind them with those godforsaken blades he had sewed into his cap. It became the murmur of the town that the new copper was after him, and they even said he had killed two men inside the Garrison, before leaving with the pretty barmaid. 

One particular day, he gave you a train ticket, and offered no more explanation that I’d do you good to be away for the day. Go to London, buy some clothes, get some fresh air. Of course you threw the ticket in the fireplace and stayed home all day, knowing he would be up to something if he wished to get rid of you so desperately. News reached you about the shootout in Garrison Lane. Orchestrated by a certain Billy Kimber after Tommy tried to sack him from the races. You knew he had been shot, but didn’t attempt to go and see him. He’d have plenty of company in the afterparty to keep the mind busy and the body warm. But you? You have had enough. You could ignore anything but this. This was just the beginning, and things would only get worse from here. And you hadn’t lived through a war, only to live the rest of your days in another one. 

If this was the path Tommy wanted to take, you’d have to swallow your feelings and go the other way.

~

You were bent over your coarse kitchen table. Beads of sweat gathered at your temples and rolled down the crook of your neck, getting lost in the valley between your breasts. The curves of your body swayed in a slow cadence. You had spent the last 15 minutes working on that bread dough, kneading the sticky lump into shape, while the unforgiving summer sun heated up your tiny kitchen through the opaque window panes. The last thing you wanted to do was light up the stove, but homemade bread was considerably cheaper than store bought, and in the current situation, every penny counted. Oh, what you’d give to be laying under the shadow of an oak, enjoying the breeze and dipping your feet in the river. 

A knock on the door pulled you away from your thoughts. You weren’t expecting any visitors, at least not any that would simply drop by unannounced. The force of habit made you open the door without looking through the peephole, and you found the entrance blocked by the imponent presence of the one and only, Tommy Shelby.

Not Tommy. Thomas. He had long ago stopped being your Tommy. 

“Mr. Shelby, what brings you here?”  The formality in your tone made him flinch. Four years had passed since you walked away, and he still couldn’t get used to it.

“Mr. Shelby? My my, (Y/N) I believed ourselves to be past those formalities”

You were ready to tell him you were busy and send him off, but he decided to push past you and into the house, displaying his lack of care for social formalities.

“Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you?” You crossed your arms over your chest, watching him take a seat in the chair your husband sat in.

“Your husband came today to my office, you know?” Husband. Tommy had never used his name, Daniel. The few times he spoke to you or inquired to others about you, he only called him that. Husband. Trying to turn him into an object and not a human being.

“Did he now?” You asked, uninterested, as you wiped the table clean and covered the dough with a cloth to rise.

“Asking for money” Tommy spoke slowly, letting the words drag to test your reaction “A considerable sum, in fact” He had a triumphant smile, as if he had caught Daniel doing some evil thing and was now exposing him to you “Any idea why?”

You hesitated with your words, unsure on how to proceed. But he would find out sooner or later anyway.

“Babies are an expensive business and we need more space” You turned to face him, seeing the colours drain from his face. His pale eyes scanned your figure, stopping over your belly, covered by a white apron.

“You…”

“Why did you come here Thomas? To tell on my husband, hoping to expose him? To make me upset? What is it that you want?”

He stood and grabbed your hands, making you stumble and forcing you to hold onto him for support.

“That means this is our last chance” You were taken aback by the urgency in his voice.

“What do you mean our last chance?” You tried to step away, but he only held you tighter “We left our last chance behind many years ago. When you almost left to be with Grace in New York. When I told you I would be getting married. Now-”

“Is not too late yet” He cupped your face, and much to your dismay, his touch still sent sparks coursing through your skin “We can be together. We can be happy. I would raise your child as my own and no one needs to know”

Your knees trembled. Your mouth dried up. Had he come here, into your home, first wanting to put you at odds with your husband, and now to ask you to elope with him?

“Tommy” You spoke softly, hoping to reason with him “That is not okay. We cannot do that. Our time has passed. I have Daniel, you are due to marry Grace and have her son. Your son” He raised his eyebrows, puzzled. Officially Charles was the son of the late Mr. MacMillan, but you were no fool. The Shelby eyes never lie.

“Screw your husband. Screw Grace. I know you love me still. Isn’t it all that matters? I need you. We can grab our things and get away. Start over. Be together as we should have. Leave behind the gang, the business, our pasts. ”

Your lips trembled. A tear threatened to spill off the corner of your eye. A knot tightened painfully around your windpipe, making it hard to breathe.

“Tommy, I.. We…No. Is not the right thing. You can’t abandon your boy. And Daniel, he deserves the world, I couldn’t break his heart like that”

Tommy slammed his fist on the table “For fuck’s sake. Do you want to be happy? What is so good about Saint Daniel? He took you from me!”

You immediately became defensive, feeling anger seep into you, replacing your softer emotions. He actually had had the nerve to question your husband, instead of questioning how his own doings drove you away. You took a step back.

“He makes me happy. He loves me. He is a nice man. A nice, good, honest, hard-working man. He…”

“He’s not me. That’s the point, isn’t it? He’s safe. He is honest. He would never hurt a man, let alone kill him. He’s everything that I’m not”

His eyes scanned the room, going from the flowers Daniel had brought you and were now in a vase, to the embroidery frames with sweet little messages hung on the wall, and the two armchairs in front of the blackened fireplace; over the mantelpiece stood your wedding protograph. You saw longing in his features, longing at what his life could have been if circumstances had been different, if things hadn’t gotten in the way, if he had been different, if…

“Tell Daniel to forget about the loan” He couldn’t mask his defeat. Tommy had aged years in just a moment. He had never lost a fight, nor being kept from what he wanted. He had never known defeat. “It's a gift, for the baby. I’ll rip the paynote and we will forget about it” He opened and closed his mouth, wanting desperately to say something else but not daring to “If you ever need anything, and I mean anything at all, just call me. It doesn’t matter when or where, I’ll come to you. I’ll always come to you” 

Tommy hesitated in the soles of his feet, not daring to breach the distance between you two. In the end he leaned closer, just enough to brush a kiss on your forehead. His lips lingered more than it was wise, and you caught a glimpse of silver peeking out from between his clothes. A silver necklace. Blinding pain shot through your chest, making you gasp for breath. You tried to reach out and touch the necklace, but he had already pulled away. He fixed his cap and left.

You rushed to the window, your teary gaze following him until he had disappeared from sight. Even after all those years, your knees trembled and your stomach tickled with butterflies in his presence. Heart aching for the man he had stopped being a long time ago. For the Tommy who had been buried in France and replaced with a new one. One you never knew.

Feeling weak and shaky, you went into your room and reached into your nightstand, pulling off the bottom of the drawer to reveal a small silver chest. It had been a while since you last opened it.

The table remained set in the dining room, the fine silverware and dishware all laid out, perfectly polished, awaiting for those who would not sit at the table that night. The candles had melted halfway through before you had the heart to blow them out. A crystal vase held a marvellous bouquet of your best roses, red and white in full bloom. A red petal had come loose and laid over the white tablecloth like a blotch of spilled blood. 

The housekeeper came to you at least five times, inquiring how much longer the cook should wait to warm up the plates and prepare the rest of the dishes. You kept dragging on what you already knew until a quarter past ten, when you instructed her to bring you a cup of tea and some biscuits only, and to have the staff dine on everything that had been prepared already. At least the food would not go to waste.

You continued to fiddle unceasingly with the weakened stems, hoping that arranging them in a certain way would hide the ruin of the flowers, perfection on the outside to hide the ruin behind. But it was a hopeless cause, and no amount of skill or attention could undo the disaster. 

In a rapture of frustration you smacked the vase violently, as if that piece of green tinted porcelain had become the source of all your discontent. The ornament crashed down obstreperously, sending sharp shards and greenery in every direction of your sitting room. The fury morphed into panic, and you quickly swept the evidence of your riotous act behind the drapes; much like you swept your woes under the carpet to be hidden until you forcibly stumbled upon them again, having blissfully forgotten their existence when not faced with them. 

That fleeting but fierce outburst helped decompress your anger like steam escaping from a teapot, leaving you empty and strangely deflated. All energies left you abruptly, and your legs threatened to buckle under the weight of your body and your worries. You slumped backwards, half sitting, half crashing into a nearby armchair. Your tired eyes went over the spilled water staining the floorboards white, the astray pieces of vase and leaves you had not picked up, and the dent left in the wood by the crashing porcelain. Slowly, gradually like a withering carnation, your body began to slouch, until your elbows rested on your knees and your chin buried in your chest, face hidden in your trembling hands, muffling a saddening mixture of sobs and heavy sighs. 

The clock in the corner chimed again. 

You did not move until a familiar sound snapped you out of your trance. Wheels on the gravel of the driveway, and the steady rumbling of a car engine. The mess of your hair, the wrinkles in your dress, your sweaty neck and the painful stiffness of your joints were compelling proof that you had fallen asleep in the chair. The sky outside had faded from a pitch black to a dark and stormy grey, uncommon but not impossible in those early days of spring. Birds chirped outside, the chickens and roosters cackled in their pens behind the house, and the dogs howled and jumped about to welcome your husband home. A house full of life, while you felt just like a hollow carcass. 

The front door creaked open. Normally you would be quick on your feet to greet Arthur home with a kiss on the cheek, while he would circle your waist with his slender arm and pepper your face with kisses, tickling you with his brush moustache and making you giggle like a schoolgirl in love for the first time. You’d take his coat and cap while he asked about your day, and you would fill him in with small talk about the farm, your painting and drawing and the latest tales from your two young children, William and Helene, with a third one due to join the family in the summer. Arthur would compliment the beauty and the aroma of the new floral arrangements you had crafted to decorate the various rooms of your home, even though he did not understand one bit what he talked about, but he knew how much the simple praises filled your heart. And all would be well.

But things had changed and so had you.

Arthur tried to enter the house silently, as if by making no noise he would just easily slip by and you would miraculously forget yet another broken promise. You peered around the corner in time to see him tiptoeing around the creaking boards, shoes in hand and drenched in what you presumed to be blood from head to toe. Perhaps you should have been worried, and in another time you would have been anyway, but you knew better; that blood belonged to others. Others he had slain with his own hand in the night he promised to be home early for dinner. 

Soon his eyes found you, standing in the foyer all dishevelled, eyes dulled by exhaustion and the corners of your lips downturned by disappointment. Your silent presence surprised him enough for him to drop his shoes, back straightening tight like a low rank soldier facing his war general. He wrung his cap in his hands nervously, his moustache quivering with the anxious flitter of his lips as he mumbled a hundred different apologies so fast and so quietly that it sounded like a low humming, words tumbling over each other as he tried to find the right thing to say to excuse the inexcusable. At last he fell silent, head dropped low, ears braced and heart clenched in anticipation of the impending arrival of your wrath upon him, raining like hellfire, a penance he knew he deserved for his transgression.

But the words never came.

The seconds passed and silence reigned the scene, broken only by the ticking of the clock and the whistle of the breeze entering through the ajar door. After an unbearable pause, Arthur looked up just enough to examine your expression, almost expecting you to be branding a fire poker, arm raised to strike. But the scene before him turned out to be much worse, and he wished he had not looked.

You looked so broken. So defeated. Your shoulders slumped, eyes reddened, aged decades in hours by worry and anger and sadness. Arthur hated your unhappiness more than anything in this world, yet he continues to be the source of all your grievances, then become racked by guilt, apologise and make half hearted promises of improvement that inevitably end broken, only to repeat the cycle over and over again.

Your husband stepped tentatively, forward, a hand raised as if to touch you, but halfway deciding not to push his luck and letting it fall to his side “Poppy” He murmurs, using his favourite pet name for you in honour of your favourite flower. You can hear the edge of regret in his voice, matched by the sorrowful expression upon his face. But you cannot swallow your rightful feelings to coddle his own.

“Save it” You waved your hand in exasperation, moving past him and out the door, not allowing him a chance to stop you.

Your wandering steps took you to your flower garden. In the first months of your marriage, when the future looked rose tinted and joyful and every day felt like a new honeymoon, Arthur had the best gardeners and flower experts come to your newly purchased estate to plant it for you and teach you how to care best for each individual breed, all of that just to celebrate your first month of union. Roses, poppies, carnations, lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots composed the rows of fragrant flower beds, their perfume mixing in the air with the scent of damp earth and grass. 

In the warmer months the garden filled with life, bees and butterflies fluttering about the vibrant buds, drinking the sweet nectar while your children admired them with wide eyed wonder. You loved to have picnics there, all the family lounging in an old blanket with a basket prepared by your loving hands with everyone’s favourite snacks. Arthur loved to lay his head in your lap during your pregnancies, his cheek pressed against the rounded bump and whispering hushed promises to the baby against your skin, never letting you in on the details of those secret conversations. The world looked so vibrant and lively, all filled with brightness and hopefulness and happiness; sheer, untrammelled happiness. 

But now grey skies hovered above you, the insects had hidden and the joy had passed. The world felt veiled in grey, dull and lifeless; even your cherished flowers having lost their shine. You walked through the rows of greenery, pulling your cardigan closer to your frame. A gelid drizzle began to fall, but you felt such cold from within that the droplets on your skin went unnoticed. The breeze grew stronger, loosened flower petals drifting across the ground and being swept away, some weakened flower stems snapping and falling at your feet. If left to the elements and not nurtured properly, the flowers withered and died. 

Just like love.

On one of the bushes, a flower stood out to you. A perfect pearly white rose in full bloom, rows upon rows of soft petals spread open and exuding a sweet aroma. The beads of water gathering on the folds gave it a special shimmer, as if dotted by little crystals. You reached to pluck it, but a thorn dug into your thumb, drawing a gasp from your lips. When you raised your hand to inspect the damage, a blood drop fell on the flower, the pureness of the white ruined by the crimson liquid. The contrast between your blood and the flower gave you a strange feeling, like an unexplainable tightening in your heart.

A pair of slender hands brushed down your shoulders, sliding over them a thick coat and pulling it close to your frame. It smelled of Arthur’s cologne, and you instinctively snuggled on it, feeling the softness of the fabric against your cheek.

“I hope this is not the blood soaked one you came home in” Your murmured, not turning to face him, instead focused on the bloodied rose.

“No…I grabbed one from the closet in the entrance” You heard the hesitance in his voice “You should go back inside… it’s getting cold and the baby…maybe get to bed with some tea and…” Even without seeing, you knew he was rubbing the back of his head, his face tense in concentration as he tried to read your temper and avoid screwing it up further. But things had already hit rock bottom on your side, so he could only go lower by bringing a shovel.

“I’m fine here” You snapped, arms crossed over your chest, your hands tucked under your armpits to warm your stiffened fingers “I need to be alone”

“Love, think of the baby” Arthur tried to gently guide you away from the flowers, but that gentle and caring touch of his riled you up like a bull before the red cloth. You turned around with such violence he stumbled backwards, appalled by the outburst of his usually sweet and amenable wife.

“I said I want to be alone. I need to be alone to think. Think of why I keep giving you second chances, over and over and over again, when I know you will stomp on them!” Your voice rose several octaves, your outraged words booming throughout the gardens and above the rustle of the wind “One night. Just one night I needed you to stay true to your word. But of course I am met with only disappointment. I always come in second place. We are always an afterthought”

His eyebrows knitted together in a furrow as he stepped forward, his gloved hands cupping your cheeks. You didn’t push away, but your eyes never met his “That is not true. It is not. You are my life, the kids and you are all I have, but Tommy…”

Tommy. Of course. What else could be the reason? Tommy never liked you much, thinking you did nothing more than lead Arthur astray from the family, keeping him tamed and calm when he needed him volatile and angry. But again, Tommy rarely liked anyone other than himself, so you never took the aversion to heart.

“You placed your brother on a pedestal so high that he stands even above the stars, and in your adoration for him you have become blind to the world around you. You would dig out the very Earth and catch rain with your hands for him, but would you do the same for me? Would you break a promise to Tommy to honour one made to me?” You did not need a reply, but you needed your husband to question himself on that. And the silence that followed gave you the answer you needed. 

“Do you know what day it was yesterday?” The tone in your voice had changed. The words held not only anger, but hurt. The bitter kind of hurt of a person with no tears left to cry, but with their heart still tightened in a painful coil. A tired pain which has been drawn out too long, which no longer burns but a sting remains everlasting, always nagging in the back and unable to be soothed.

“Friday?” He asked sheepishly

“It was our fifth wedding anniversary. Five years in which you’ve carried that golden band on your finger. In which I’ve given you my heart, my body, all have and I am. I have given you two children and another on the way. And you couldn’t give me one day of your life to celebrate with me”

A gelid silence lingered between you two. You saw the gears slowly turning in Arthur’s brain, his face drooping and eyes widening as the realisation slowly began to sink in. You noticed him silently counting with his fingers, going back and forth on months and days; but truth be told, you doubted he could even recall the year of the wedding had you not reminded him of the pass of time.

“Poppy” He attempted again, hands in your elbows to pull you close to him “I am so sorry, my love. I thought it was today and-”

“Oh please Arthur! After five years you should know me better than to think I would swallow such a lie” An humourless laugh escaped your lips “But again, what more can I expect from you?”

You saw how your jabs hurt him, and deep down you wanted him to be hurt. You wanted him to feel even a fraction of the grief you carried perpetually upon your soul. To understand what it felt when the person who held your heart dropped it and stomped on it with their heel until only dust remained.

You turned away from him, noticing how the breeze had become howling wind, and the gentle drizzle had thickened into a spring rain, the water droplets slipping past the wide collar of the coat and running down the curve of your spine. You crossed your arms over your chest, hands resting upon your shoulders. One might think it a simple gesture to keep yourself warm, but you actually just tried to keep yourself whole.

“You used to buy me flowers” Your eyes closed, evocating in your mind sweet memories of better times to help you steady your heart “You would come home with these massive bouquets and I could barely see your face behind it. They were so colourful and vibrant, and I would take so much care in arranging them in that Japanese vase we got for our wedding. And every time a petal fell off I would press it to dry and then store it. I have the first roses you gave me in a crystal pyx in my vanity. I had the flowers from my bridal bouquet dry pressed and framed. All little mementos of the happiest days of my life” The longing was palpable in your voice, your head tilted to lay on your shoulder as you saw those memories playing behind your eyelids like a movie

But soon those flashbacks faded, and the sweetness turned to bitter bile in your throat “I thought things would be alright. I thought that together, things would improve. You always said you wanted to be a better man, and I hoped I could turn you into one. For some months I thought I did” Your throat tightened and you swallowed the lump down to continue “But every time things seemed better, they ended worse than before. It is always one step forward and three back with you” You dabbed at your hot tears furiously, but they kept mixing on your skin with the freezing rain.

“When I married you, I never thought I would find myself dragging you to the bathtub to wash you clean of your own vomit and spilled gin. That I would have to learn every trick in the book to get blood off your shirts so the maids wouldn’t see them. That I could not let my own children run free around their home until I have made sure you didn’t left your guns or your fucking cocaine laying around”

You heard a thud behind you. Arthur had dropped to his knees, clinging to your skirts like a repentant sinner faced with the Doomsday.

“I can change. I will. This is the last time I fail you” Long fingers tugged on your clothes, like a scared child seeking comfort in his mother. Every fibre of your being urged you to pull him to his feet and embrace him, cradle him into you and promise him that everything would be well in the end. But you couldn’t, because not even you knew if things would ever be well again. Or if you wanted them to.

He noticed the little effect his words had on you, and redoubled his efforts “I-I…I will throw away the whiskey, and the snow and the opium and everything. I will never kill again, never carry a gun with me” His grip on you tightened, arms around your hips with his forehead pressed to your lower back. You felt his sobs against your body, the way he snuggled into you for warmth. In another time, the action would have moved you. But your heart had frozen, immune to hollow words and feeble promises.

“No, Arthur” The impassiveness of your tone caught him off guard, his grip faltering on you “I have given you all I had. I have bled myself dry to keep you afloat. But I can’t anymore. I cannot go on like this for the rest of my days” Your eyes fluttered open, teardrops beading in your lashes like crystals. “I used to think you could be saved”

“You thought I was a savable man” He fell back on the ground, his hold loosening until his arms fell limp at his sides. Your body felt cold without his touch, but even colder with it.

“Yes” You breathed out quietly

“But you don’t think I am no more”

Your eyes fixed again on the bloodied rose. The crimson had dried on the petal, leaving a stain that the pouring failed to wash off. The weight of the water forced the petals down, until they began to split and reveal the very centre of the flower, leaving it exposed to the elements. Some petals drifted in the wind, one by one, disappearing into the storm, until only the red one remained. But that one, too, eventually fell off at your feet, and then the rose was no more.

The clock in the front shop would tick midnight in just five minutes, but there was still work to be done. The other girls had left long ago, their task of cutting and sewing being a hundred times easier with the help of their sewing machines. But they still had not invented a machine capable of embroidering brocades and patterns the way you did. All your hard work was done by hand, working meticulously with your needle and thread, inch by inch to create the exquisite gowns that filled Mrs. Foyle pockets and paid for your dingy flat. 

Half past midnight you had finally locked the front door, keeping the key safely in your pocket alongside a few spare coins and a gun; a rather unorthodox companion for a young lady, but not for a young Shelby. For you were still one, even if you denied it in front of the world. A Shelby by blood but not by family, for there was no family left to be tied to. 

Not after the fall.

Not after your entire family had been filled with lead, all at the same time, on what should have been a joyous Christmas morning. A Christmas Day to celebrate life, and freedom, for not too long ago they had been released from prison, saved by seconds from the drop. Saved by the one who had also been their jailer and now played the part of executioner, albeit involuntarily. 

After that regretful episode, everyone carried on with their lives. Ada travelled to Boston to handle the American branch of the business. John and Arthur moved on with their families each. Polly carried on as best as she could, while Michael drowned in work and snow. Finn lived in Uncle Charlie’s backyard with Isaiah, while you moved to Ada’s home in Primrose Hill to look after everything while she was away. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it worked just fine. They could all carry on pretending to be down one brother, for even the mere mention of his existence left a bitter taste in the mouth and a heavy weight on the pit of the stomach. His name had become taboo, avoided like the plague. 

But per usual, Tommy’s problems had grown big enough to become everyone’s problems. Every wrong step he had taken in the last five years came with retaliation, dragging on and on endlessly like the tail of a never ending snake. It didn’t matter how many ties they cut, or how much distance they put between themselves and him, they always ended up stuck in the fallout. But this time? They didn’t even have time to defend themselves. The warning came too late, and the end came too soon.

But of course Tommy didn’t die, because the Devil looks after his own. He had been the first one to receive the Black Hand, and therefore the only one who managed to get away. In his defence, he tried to round up the others, but it was too late. The Italians came down on the Peaky Blinders like a Biblical plague, and swept them off the map. In the blink of an eye, Arthur, John, Aunt Polly and Ada had been turned into colanders. Michael survived because again, a disaster lasts a millenium, while Finn and you weren’t even considered in the vendetta to begin with. Not that it mattered. They were dead, and you both died a bit with them.

With only two siblings left, Tommy tried to coop you up in Small Heath to keep you within reach, but surely there would be a second intention behind it. Perhaps to shape up the two siblings he never got round to into small versions of the ones he lost. Pick up two defenceless and innocent young ones to do his bidding, since they didn’t have any better option. But he didn’t count with you not budging in. 

Since you were already stationed in London, you had no plan on moving anywhere near Tommy. You couldn’t even bear to set foot in Birmingham, not even for the funerals. Not even to say goodbye to Esme before she hauled all your nephews and nieces into the road with the Lees. Not even to check into your little brother, who surely took the blow worse than you. You dealt with your grief in the same insensitive way the family had drilled into you; push it on the back burner and pretend it is not there. Just wipe your tears and move on with life, forever carrying inside you a burning rage that would never be put out, and try your best to not let it consume you, or you’ll surely lose your mind. 

While Tommy and the Italians chased each other through Small Heath like cats and dogs, you found yourself a job. You didn’t possess many abilities, but you knew enough maths to keep track of money, were decent enough with needle and thread, and wouldn’t shy away from hard labour if it came to it. You decided to start from scratch, sweeping away any link with your previous life. First you began as a cashier in a bakery, which required many long hours standing behind a register. Then you moved on to being a housemaid, an intention which lasted very little, considering your complete inability to adhere to rules that were not your own. For a brief moment you resorted to pickpocketing posh ladies in the train station, but the station master began to get suspicious of you so you had to get away. In the end, in between odd jobs and failed chances, you landed in a dress shop near Primrose Hill, with the same lady who once sold Ada expensive textiles and fancy shoes. She didn’t recognise you, and you prefer it that way.

After you received your first paycheck and rented a shabby flat near Candem Town, you mailed Ada’s house keys to Arrow House, with a very brief and impersonal note to your brother handing back the property to him, as Karl’s guardian, to safekeep it until your nephew was out of age and could claim what was rightfully his. Then you promptly moved on with your life going on with a borrowed surname, (Y/N) Jurossi. 

But of course just by walking away you wouldn’t get away from him. Thomas Shelby never took a no for an answer, nor as a boy nor as an adult. He belived you to be naive, or straight up dumb, but you could see right through him. You knew he knew exactly where you lived, where you worked and where you did the shopping. He knew every Sunday you took a walk through Hyde Park, trying to get in as much fresh air and natural light as possible to last you through the week. At this point, he probably knew how many dresses you had in your closet. 

You knew about him too, unwillingly of course. You knew he had married Lizzie Stark, and now had a baby girl. You knew he had just won a seat in the House of Commons as an MP for South Birmingham, representative of the Labour Party. And you knew the business must have had a lot of money to spare, for the two dumb faced goons who believed themselves to be so sleek and smart, stationed 24/7 near your front door surely must have been costing him a lot of money. 

You thought about him from time to time, unwillingly. Not with fondness, no. Those feelings of unconditional love towards the man who once was like a substitute father had long since dried up. Only a fictional image of him remained perpetual in your memory, with his hands bathed in the blood of your family, while he straightened back his crown. The old Tommy hadn’t died but you killed him in your heart. 

You even went as far as to erase him from the face of the Earth. He had been cut out of every picture you could cut him from, and those who had him front and centre, which were most pictures, had his face covered with a piece of paper stuck to the frame. You had even considered sending back to him even the last penny that Ada ever gave you for maintenance of her house while she lived abroad, since it indirectly came from him, but in all honestly you needed and deserved that kickstart in life. Your payment for putting up with him for 20 years. 

He did try to contact you, plenty of times. Sent letters, called into your workplace, mailed you stacks of bills which you either sent back or gave to charity. But not once he showed up at your door, or invited you to meet him somewhere. Not even in all the time he spent in London working he tried to see you in person. And you knew the reason. He just couldn’t face you, he couldn’t look you in the eye and withstand your judgement. Because he knew he was at fault for everything, and there was no one left to hold him accountable for it. Except you. He didn’t want to be faced with the harsh reality he’d surely find reflected in your eyes. 

But surely one day he’d come to you. Not out of filial love, but out of interest. One day he’d need you for something and he’d recall you back to the whirlwind of disasters he called life, ready to chain you to the bottom. You just didn’t know when.

~

Another late day at work, another midnight walk across town. Nothing out of the ordinary, and you felt quite assured by the gun ever present in your pocket.

But the moment you stood in front of your door, key in hand, something felt wrong. An eerie feeling made the hairs stand on edge on the back of your head. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly the problem; maybe a closed curtain which you swore you left open when you stepped out for work in the morning, or perhaps the plotted plant in which you hid the spare key, which looked a bit rumpled and some of the leaves were on the floor alongside specks of dirt. You swallowed thickly, feeling the saliva in your mouth turn to glue. Your fingers tightened around the handle of the gun, index posed in the trigger as you used your free hand to turn the handle. You bustled into your own home, ready to catch a burglar in. But all you saw was your brother, perched on your sofa and sipping whiskey from one of your chipped glasses. He had a cigarette between his fingers, and his cold eyes scanned the dim room with a hint of mockery.

A groan escaped from the depths of your throat as you lowered your gun and kicked your door closed. Thomas surely had a complete and abysmal disregard for appropriate social conduct. 

“Hello, brother” You didn’t try to sound angry, not even annoyed. Your voice remained cold and formal, as if you were merely addressing a stranger on the street. You crossed your arms over your chest, watching the nearly empty cheap whiskey on the table before him “Do you want a drink?” Now the mockery was obvious.

“Do you call this shit whiskey?” He smacked his lips and set the glass down, wiping his mouth in the back of his hand.

“Economy is shit, money is tight”

“Economy is shit for those who just settle for what they have”

It took every fibre of your being to not roll back your eyes and reply with a snarky remark. Those types of subtleties did nothing to his iron shell “Why are you here exactly? Inside my apartment from all places”

“You need better security. The key in the plant is very 19th century” He tossed your spare key into the table, the heavy piece of rusty metal landing with a dry thud. You snorted, shaking your head. Why would you need more security? There was nothing in the apartment worth stealing, and the two thugs by the entrance would surely scare away any potential criminals. 

“What do you want, Thomas?”

“I have a proposition”

“Of course you do”  Just like that, all your predictions came true at once. The Sun King came to pick up his spare pawn for his immaculate chess game, since he had already lost all his rooks and bishops and even the Queen. Guarded by lower pieces but unable to make a move.

“The thing is, Shelby Company Limited keeps growing exponentially, and we need more people like you”

“Like me? Do you need a seamstress? I thought your suits were imported”

“Young” Tommy pulled out another cigarette, having stubbed the old one out unceremoniously inside a spare glass, completely ignoring the piece of tile which served you as an ashtray “I need young people, new generations. I sent Michael to Boston, and I have Finn on it, but I need more. I need you back to your family”

Family my ass, you remarked for yourself. He didn’t care about the young ones, not even for the sake of novelty. He only wanted fresh meat to supply his death machine and he had found himself the three perfect idiots. Michael, Finn and yourself. The ones to replace those he lost. He wanted to shape you three into the new Arthur, John and Ada. 

Your lack of reply only meant an incentive for him to keep going

“I have a specific job that only you can pull off. It doesn’t need much skill of any type, only discipline and discretion, which I’m sure I can expect from you” He stood up and picked his coat and cap “A car will come pick you up tomorrow at 9. You and whatever belonging you have. We’ll meet in my office. I already have an apartment in your name in Birmingham. Hopefully you won’t miss the rats”

He made his way towards the door, patting you on the shoulder as his way of demonstrating affection for the sister who evaded him for more than a year. He had his hand on the handle when you finally found your voice.

“And what if I refuse?” You didn’t turn towards him. You didn’t trust yourself to have the restraint to not lunge at his face if you had to meet his eye. 

“You won’t refuse. Curiosity has always been bigger than you” He looked around, taking note of the damp stains in the walls, the dirt covered window panes, and the bitten and scratched legs of the chairs “Besides, I already had a talk with your landlady. You can do better than this” He put on his cap and disappeared into the night.

You dropped into the dusty couch and screamed at the top of your lungs, covering your face with a pillow. Be damned the day you decided not to leave the country, and be damned the day you were born a Shelby. 

~

Faced with little options, a steel resolution and, much to your displeasure, incredible and unhealthy curiosity at Thomas’ impudence, you packed your few belongings and waited for the car. You wrote a letter with a sincere apology to Mrs. Foyle and your work mates, and left them some fabrics and sewing kits you had as a farewell gift. At one minute past 9, a Bentley parked in front of your building, standing out like a sore thumb. Before curious neighbours could get a look or anyone pulled out a knife, you climbed in, letting the driver take care of your bags. And of course, your personal bodyguards climbed in too, one sitting at your side and one in the front seat. People had already begun to gather around, making you cover your face in shame as the car finally took off.

The journey back was pretty uneventful, but you could feel the knot forming in the pit of your stomach. Just thinking about home brought back so many painful memories, the idea of being back for good made you panic.

The driver left you in the steps of Shelby Company Limited, while he took off with your suitcase, promising to be back in an hour to drive you to your new apartment. Men and women who entered and left the building bid you hello respectfully with head nods and hat tippings. One of the three secretaries (who needs three anyway?) took your coat, which was much more shabby and cheap than her own, and opened the door for you, leading you into the office which you had never been allowed to see while your family was alive. Decorated with the same rich taste of Arrow House, everything was fine woods and shiny leather. And right at the centre, your brother, sitting behind his oak desk and shuffling through paperwork

“I knew you’d come around, once you had a more indepth thought of the pros and cons” As if he ever took a no for an answer “Whiskey?” He motioned towards a golden bar car, delicate ornate bottles filled with an array of liquors of all sorts, next to six perfectly lined glasses.

You poured yourself what appeared to be gin and sat across him, waving your glass in the air “So, what great trouble of yours is the reason why you forced me here” You made the internal promise to just listen, so he’d get off your back, and then tell him to go to hell. Not even the promise of all the gold in Europe would make you work for him. You’d rather beg for your bread than putting your life in his hands. 

Tommy took some files and pictures from a drawer, and went on detailing your “target” and the tasks of your mission. The more he spoke, the more your blood boiled and heat rose to your face. The nerve one needed to have to ask such things from his baby sister. Putting her right in the line of danger for the sake of greed.

“So, what do you think? Are you in?”

Oh you were going to work for him all right. You’d get right under his nose, stand right in the middle of his trusted circle, make him believe you’d climb a mountain of knives and dive in a sea of fire for him. And you were going to make him pay hell for it. Even if it took your life in the end.