#shock tw

You had led those men to their deaths. Even if Tommy hadn’t explicitly told you what was to happen once you lured them to the stable, you should have realized what he planned to do. You knew his reputation for dealing with threats to his empire and yet, you had agreed to do what he wished with only the slightest of hesitations. If not for you, those men would be home with their wives or children at the moment instead of lying in a heap in an empty stable waiting for a handful of Peaky Blinders to come to dispose of their bodies.

That thought was the final straw. You dropped to your knees as you emptied the contents of your stomach across your floor. Over and over you retched, even past the point of having anything left in your stomach to expel. Every time you thought the nausea had settled, the memory of the blood-soaked stable would flash in your mind and you would gag once more.

Finally, once your body physically could not take anymore, you rolled over and curled up next to the fire. With tears streaming down your face and a weak whimpering in your burning throat, you slipped into unconsciousness only to find the horrors of the night were waiting to torment you there as well.

The next few days were some of the worst of your life. At first, you tried to push what had happened to the back of your mind and move on as you attempted to continue about your days as normal. However, that was much easier said than done. The feeling of nausea failed to leave you and all you could manage to hold down was broth or a little bread. 

After the initial horror of the experience settled a little in your mind, you realized it wasn’t even the fact that all those men died that was really bothering you. Yes, the taking of any life was a tragedy but they were gang members who voluntarily chose this life. They knew the dangers involved with it and the potential consequences. And it wasn’t as if you weren’t used to witnessing violence after spending your entire life in Birmingham. It was just a way of life here.

No. What was really making you sick to your stomach was Tommy and how he had involved you in his feud. You were used to him using your body on a weekly basis—you gladly offered it up—but this? This was something completely different.  

He had made you an unwilling, unknowing accomplice to his dastardly deed. Then he had forced you to stand there and witness every last horrifying second of it. The image of his pale blue eyes boring into you from a crimson-drenched face, his outstretched finger pinning you in place from across the room, was burned into your soul. 

Why had he forced you to stay? You had done everything he had asked of you, so why did he want to punish you so? Why did he feel the need to curse you with these images that would haunt you for the rest of your life?

The dread in your chest only grew stronger with each passing day as Tommy’s scheduled visit approached. Wednesday simultaneously came too quickly and seemed to take an eternity to arrive. 

Usually just before he was set to appear, you would put on your finest dressing gown and style your hair just the way you knew he preferred. Then you would wait by the entrance with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey ready for him. However, this time when Thomas Shelby walked through your door, you were seated on the edge of your bed in a simple shift dress that laced up the front. As he entered, your shoulders folded in on themselves as you shrank slightly away from him. Hesitantly, you glanced over at him out of the corner of your eyes. 

If he noticed anything was different, Tommy did not address it. He simply strolled over to the table, took off his coat, and began unbuckling his belt as he asked, “Shall we get to it then?”

You made no move to stand or begin removing your clothes. Instead, you wrapped your arms across your chest, and with a slight quiver in your voice, you whispered, “H-how can you just walk in here as if nothing happened? As if this were just any other Wednesday and nothing has changed?"

He paused as he pursed his lips and gave a slight shrug. "Nothing has changed. I'm here for your services just as I am every week."

"Tommy, I watched you murder an entire room full of men right before my eyes. And I-I helped you do it. I mean, I know I agreed to help you but you never told me I would be leading them to you like lambs to the slaughter.”

His icy blue eyes took on an extra chill as he took a few steps towards you. With a slight bite to his words, he said, “You are neither foolish nor naive. You knew what would happen once you got to the stable.”

“I thought you would talk to them! Give them a warning, maybe send a message! Yes, I knew violence would probably be involved but I didn’t expect you to massacre every single one of them!”

A cunning, almost bordering on cruel, smile spread across his face. “Oh, but I was sending a message. Now anyone else out there who thinks they can fuck with the Peaky Blinders will see what will happen if they come for us.”

“But why did you have to involve me? What did I do to displease you to the point you would—” Tommy’s face dropped as the first tears spilled from your eyes and you took a wet, shaky breath, looking to the ceiling as you blinked rapidly and tried to maintain your composure. You had to know. This question had been haunting you almost as much as what you had witnessed. “I haven't been able to eat or sleep since that night. I feel as if I’m going mad. Every time I close my eyes all I can see is blood and I hear the howls of pain as those men died. Tommy, I have to know why you made me stay. What was the point? I tried to leave but you….Why did you make me witness that?”

For a moment, the room was still as the suffocating silence filled the room. Why wasn’t he answering your question? Maybe he didn’t have an answer. Maybe it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision in the heat of battle. Maybe to him, it meant nothing at al—

“You had to stay because I needed you to see the man I truly am.” 

Your eyes snapped to his face as you looked at him directly for the first time, your brow furrowed in astonishment. “W-what?”

Reaching into his pocket, Tommy pulled out a cigarette. However, unlike usual, he didn’t light it. He just rolled it between his fingers thoughtfully. Then he tapped the end on the table before looking back at you. “The last time I was here you spoke of the Peaky Blinders as if I was not part of them. As if I was not the one in charge of them. Just because I don’t talk about that business with you does not mean it isn’t my life. That I am not as guilty if not more of their ‘transgressions’ as you put it. And I needed to remind you of that.”

“I have never had any misconceptions of who you are or what you do. Even before the first time you came to me, I knew the name Thomas Shelby and I knew the stories. And though the man I have come to know here in this room is far different from what I expected from those stories, they were never far from my mind.”

“But knowing and seeing are two very different things, eh?” Tommy asked. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you are keeping your distance? The way you are too afraid to even look at me directly?”

“I’m not afraid of you, Tommy.”

“Is that right?” He placed his cigarette down on the table and began slowly strolling over to the bed. “Then if it isn’t fear, what is it? Disgust? Loathing? What is it that you see when you look at me now?” He stopped as he reached the foot of the bed. 

Shaking your head, you said, “Tommy, please—”

He stepped closer until he was less than an arm's length in front of you. You dropped your eyes to the floor as he towered over you. 

“Look at me.” When you continued to avoid his gaze, he firmly grabbed your chin between his fingers and forced your head up so you had no choice but to look into his startling blue eyes. “Look at me! And tell me what you see.” You opened your mouth to speak, but he added, “The truth.”

Trembling, you gazed into his eyes and whispered, “I… I see a man capable of unspeakable horrors. One who has washed in the blood of other men, and will readily do so again.”

Tommy stared back at you without the slightest reaction to your words. Then he nodded softly and released your chin. You slid closer to the head of the bed and wrapped your arms around yourself as he turned. Silently, he walked across the room, grabbed his coat, and began to put it on. 

However, you weren’t ready for him to leave. Maybe it was his explanation and reasoning as to his actions or maybe it was the idea that if you let him walk out that door you may never see him again, but something deep inside you had shifted as you answered his question. What you had said was your honest answer, but the truth was so much more complicated than that. And you couldn’t let him leave without hearing the rest of your response.

Taking a deep breath, you stood off the bed, walked over to him, and placed your hand on his forearm. He paused, one brow raised as he waited for you to explain your action.

Wetting your lips, you softly said, “But I also see a man who only does these things for the sake of his family and their interests.” Tommy’s face remained emotionless, but you felt some of the tension ease out of him under your touch so you continued. 

“I don’t think I can ever support your actions that night and it still makes me sick that you made me a part of it and then forced me to watch. You should have at least warned me or let me leave because I didn’t need the lesson you tried to teach me. I hate what you did, but I understand why it was necessary. And as much as I’m loath to admit it…. There is a sort of honor in it. Those men posed a threat to the lives of every member of the Peaky Blinders as well as their loved ones. And you shed their blood so the blood of your people wouldn’t be.” 

Your hand slowly trailed up his arm and across his chest until it rested just over his heart. Feeling it drumming steadily against your palm, you softly added, “The Peaky Blinders are lucky to have someone like you watching out for them.”

As usual, Tommy maintained his mask of indifference, but not even he could control his heart. You felt it jump underneath your hand as the drumming began to pick up its tempo. He blinked, long and slow, before gazing at you once more and it seemed as if some of the ice in his eyes had melted ever so slightly. 

He placed his palm over top of where your hand still lay on his chest. “I hope you know that you are one of the people under my protection. I swore I would never let any harm befall you, even that by my own hand.” His other hand reached up to cup your face, his thumb gently tracing the dark bags that had formed this past week under your eyes. “And yet it seems that is exactly what I did. I thought by making you see me for who I really am I would be protecting you. But I was so blinded by that thought I did not see the hurt I would cause instead. I am truly sorry.”

You were utterly speechless. As long as you had known him, you had never once heard Tommy admit fault or apologize for any of his actions. He only ever brushed off these incidents and changed the subject, but for him to tell you he was sorry? He must honestly regret his poor decision.

“I-I forgive you,” you whispered, your eyes fluttering as his thumb continued to caress your face. “Just don’t ever put me in a situation like that again. Please.”

“I promise.” His hand slid down your cheek slightly until his fingers brushed against your lips. “Shall we seal it with a kiss?”

Faintly, you nodded, your head spinning with anticipation for what was to come. Tommy bent over until his lips lightly grazed yours, the feeling no more than a whisper. For a moment, your heart dropped in disappointment and you figured you had misread the situation. However, when Tommy’s hand wrapped around the back of your neck and he pulled you into him, the kiss became something else entirely. 

You sometimes kissed Tommy during your weekly appointments but even then, at the peak of pleasure, it never felt like this. Now, there was a heat, an urgency, a need behind his lips that made your knees grow weak. It was something you had never experienced with any man, let alone Tommy.  But the fact that it was him kissing you like this made everything more intense and overwhelming in the best way. You never wanted it to stop.

As you began kissing him back with the same intensity, Tommy’s hands came to rest on your hips and he guided you over to the table. Dropping into one of the chairs, he pulled you onto his lap, your legs spread on either side of his waist. You could feel him already hardening in his slacks and you wrapped your legs around his hips to draw yourself in even closer. 

He buried his face in your hair, his long eyelashes fluttering against the edge of your face for a moment until he turned his head. Slowly, his lips slipped across your jaw, breathing ghostlike kisses in their wake as his mouth traveled along the curve of your throat. When he reached your shoulder, he bit down lightly. This drew a soft gasp of pleasure from your lips and you felt him buck against you in response. 

Yet before his mouth could dip any lower, you tilted his chin so you could see his face. 

His usually pale blue eyes had darkened with lust and the hunger you saw there made you ache deep within your core. This was a different side to Tommy, a side that you had never seen before. While your time together was always pleasurable, you were providing him a service and that was always apparent in his actions. But now…it felt about you just as much as about him. It felt like something deeper than just his regular weekly appointment. Yet before you lost yourself completely to him, before you let yourself believe it could be more, you had to know for sure.

Holding your breath, you murmured, “What is this, Tommy? Business or pleasure?”

Brushing his fingers across your cheek, he responds in a low, husky whisper. “For me, it stopped being business long ago.”

A brilliant smile spread across your face as you surged forward to recapture his lips. Kissing you back with the same fervor, he stood, his strong arms supporting you so you remained wrapped around his waist, and carried you over to your bed. Without breaking your kiss, he laid you down and settled above you. 

Your eyes drifted shut and you could feel his nimble fingers begin fiddling with the laces across the front of your dress, even as his tongue slid past your lips. You arched your back to allow him easier access to the ties as the aching between your legs intensified. But after a moment, he froze and then suddenly pulled back. At first, you were worried you did something wrong, but as you opened your eyes, you saw all of his concentration had shifted to the laces still perfectly fastened in place.

As he continued his futile attempt to untie your dress, he cursed softly and muttered, “Damn you woman for wearing this infernal thing."

Leaning forward, you smiled into his neck before teasing, your lips brushing across his skin, “Come now, Tommy. One might think you’d never undressed a woman before.”

He paused, his head tilting until he locked eyes with you. Then, without breaking eye contact, he curled his fingers into the fabric of your bodice and gave a firm pull, causing the dress to rip open down to your waist. You let out a gasp of surprise but Tommy swallowed the sound as his mouth found yours once again.

With your legs still encircling his waist, you pulled him in closer until his hips were flush with yours and you could feel him straining for release against your clothed core. Slowly, you began rolling your hips to rub against him and you were rewarded with a deep rumble deep within his chest. 

“Not so fast, you little minx,” Tommy growled, nipping at your lip. “There’s no rush tonight. You wanted to know what this was between us? Well, I’m going to show you. Over and over and over, until you never again doubt that this is all about pleasure.” A soft shudder of pleasure shivered down your spine at his words and he smiled. “Now, let me watch you take off what’s left of that dress then our night can begin.”

You had serviced Thomas Shelby more times than you could count. But that night became the first time you and Tommy made love….over and over and over and over, just like he promised. 

Remarkably, you slept like a babe that night—the first real sleep you had had since the night in the stable. Even though you hadn’t opened your eyes yet, you could tell you had slept through the rest of the evening and well into the next morning by the warmth of the sun trickling in through your window onto the bed. The sunbeams felt heavenly on your bare skin and you hummed contently as you basked in the glow. 

Stretching to help wake up your sluggish limbs, you opened your eyes and found yourself staring directly into a pair of familiar glacial eyes. 

“Tommy!” You were instantly wide awake as you scrambled out of bed, dragging the bedsheet along with you to wrap around your naked body. “Wha-what are you still doing here? I mean, you don’t stay afterward. You never stay afterward.” You felt your face grow hot as you realized now that you had stolen the sheet, he was lying bare in your bed, fully on display. It took all of your willpower to keep your eyes locked on his face and not let them drift down the muscular planes of his body or linger on the hardness between his legs.

Completely unfazed by your reaction or his naked state, Tommy propped himself up on one elbow. “You said you hadn’t been sleeping this past week yet you looked so peaceful last night I didn’t want to disturb you.”

You blinked several times in quick succession as you tried to process that information. “So you stayed….for me?”

He shot you a coy grin. “Yes, I stayed for you. Though my motives may not have been as selfless as you make it seem.” His expression softened and he opened up his arms inviting you back to bed. “The truth is, I too found myself more at peace with you by my side than I have in a long time.”

You relaxed slightly, the motion causing the sheet to slip down until your breasts were almost completely uncovered. Tommy’s eyes shifted down to them and you had to bite your lip to keep from smiling. Apparently, for once you had more self-control than the great Thomas Shelby. But that feeling of superiority didn’t last long as your nerves once again gripped you as you faced the situation at hand.

“So, if that’s true….What do we do now?” you hesitantly asked as you worried the sheet between your fingers, afraid his answer might have changed now in the bright light of day. “Do we resume our business as usual or has this become something else? Something more?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Tommy reached over to the small side table where his pack of cigarettes and lighter were waiting and pulled one out. Once it was lit, he took a long drag, held it, and slowly let the smoke stream from his lips. “I told you last night that this has not been business to me for a long time. I’ve respected what you do but if I had my way, you’d be mine and mine alone.”

This time, you didn’t even attempt to mask the smile spreading across your face. In fact, you embraced it until it was shining almost as brightly as the dancing across the room. “And what would you do with me, Thomas Shelby? If I was yours and yours alone?” you teased, leaning forward to show off even more of your exposed breast.

“I’d give you the fucking world.”

All of your playfulness evaporated with your sharp intake of breath. You scanned Tommy’s face for any indication he was joking or teasing you back, but there was none. As you locked eyes with him, all you saw was sincerity. It was truly how he felt. 

Trying to project the same level of honesty back at him, you whispered, “I don’t need the world, Tommy. As long as I have you…that’s all I’ll ever need.”

“Well, you are in luck, love,” he said as he stubbed out his cigarette on the edge of the table. His eyes swiveled back to yours and he added matter-of-factly, “Because you’ve got me.”

You nodded, tears slightly blurring your vision. “And you’ve got me too. For forever. Starting right now.”

You dropped the sheet to the floor, pausing for just a moment to let Tommy take you in. Then you climbed back on the bed and into his waiting arms. 

I am toying with an idea for a Part 3 so let me know if you would be interested!

It was Sam’s birthday in just a little over a week. You really wanted to get him something. Sitting at home wasn’t giving you any ideas, so you had decided to go around to the other side of the big lake and try your luck at the engraving shop there. It had worked and you ended up placing an order for an engraved pen. It was a simple black fountain pen, part of which was made in obsidian, so your message could be engraved. Even if Sam used it regularly, it was supposed to be very durable and you were extremely pleased. You were also particularly proud of the quote you had picked. It wasn’t romantic in any way, but you had heard Sam read it out to you from your favourite book many times in that lovely voice of his.

You hoped Sam would carry the pen to work. Things were hard for him in New York right now, living by himself. He wouldn’t tell you if he ever had troubles at work, but you knew enough of the profession to know that it was ruthless, and sometimes hard. You couldn’t be there with him to tell him that things would be alright. Maybe if he looked down at the pen, the quote would remind him of that.

“Y/N? A storm’s about to hit that side, ” Jo fretted, slightly frustrated on the line. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” you said, peering into the horizon just beyond the lake, beyond the pitter patter on the glass. It really was getting dark. “I’ll be home in a few minutes. In fact, I’ll come over directly to your place. I think Dean could use another apple pie.”

“No!” Jo shouted. “You go to your house.”

“Oh-kay.” Not suspicious at all. “What’re you not telling me?”

“Nothing!” 

Jo’s voice was too high to be believable. Either way, it wasn’t the best idea to stay out any longer. 

“I’m parked at a shoulder,” you told her. “I’m gonna hang up on you so I can get back on the road.

“Okay. Drive carefully.”

“See ya in fifteen,” you grinned as you cut the call on her vague protests. She really did want you to not visit her. Maybe she was throwing you that surprise baby shower afterall. 

“Looks like you and I have to pretend to be surprised, Chirp,” you muttered. 

Slowly, you reversed the car and eased it back onto the road, thinking about how cold it seemed to suddenly feel. Maybe you should turn the heat up further. 

It came out of nowhere. The blow. One minute you were sliding the car onto the road, next minute you were sinking, drowning, the shock not even letting you register what had happened. There was a bright, blinding yellow light- straight in your eyes at first, from a direction it shouldn’t have been coming from. The confusion just spiraled when the road which should have been beneath you was over your head, and then you were spinning out of control. You closed your eyes, unable to understand what was happening till the water hit. Then you started thrashing, trying to get the seat belt to loosen, to get yourself out of the vehicle, but even with all the whipping around, you couldn’t free yourself. The water rose higher and higher in the darkness as you struggled to strain your neck to rise above it… until you couldn’t.

Seconds… then your throat was hurting. No- it was burning. The world was turning upside down and you were in a torrent of water. Frantically, you tried to unbuckle yourself, but your swollen middle made it hard. That thought cleared your head more than anything else and you doubled, tripled your efforts to get out, finally managing to free yourself of the seat belt and open the door. For all your effort, it wasn’t soon enough because the van rolled in the dark water and hit something, plummeting you to the side, against what could only be jagged metal and pieces of glass.

You wanted more than anything to just go to sleep now. Maybe then the cold will seize and so would the sting. Everything was stinging. The cold water was biting into your skin like a thousand knives and the cold was so cold it burned, it set you on fire. But the shards, they were a different kind of ripping, tearing- outside on your skin and… inside.

No. You opened your eyes, and with every last ounce of strength, made your limbs move. There was pain. You knew it deep down that you were in a lot of pain, though right now you couldn’t feel anything beyond the haze in your brain and the ice under your skin. The burning in the throat was dulling, but you used it to remain conscious, to propel yourself up, because there was something infinitely more important in this world than your life. You had to force yourself to swim to protect that thing. 

The ripping once more and a stab… It was gut wrenching to keep pushing the water down with your hands, the consciousness was slipping again. Another convulsive spasm from the inside now… to the point where you felt something other than the cold… you felt it, you felt the pain, primal and devastating inside of you. The blackness overwhelmed you.

Something was patting your face and then something soft was on your lips. Soft and warm. 

“Jesus Christ,” a voice hissed, desperate, then shouted away from you, “She’s not responding! Jesus!”

“Stop with that, you moron,” another scared, deeper voice in the distance yelled. “Get the water out.”

“I-I can’t… I can’t roll her over on the stomach. She’s… she’s… Fuck.”

“Press her chest. We’ve got to do something till the ambulance comes. Slap her face again.”

pat pat pat.

The rain was thudding hard around you, hitting your face like arrows.

“Fuck, I can’t,” the first voice answered. “Her lips are blue and all this blood. Shit!”

“She’s not even shivering.” The other deep voice cursed. “Move aside, you idiot.” A different set of hands replaced the ones on you.

Pumps on your chest and then something on her lips again.

The first man, far away now, was shouting. “She’s gonna die… she’s gonna die… and they’ll think we did it. That bastard drove off and you- you had to stop driving.”

The voice near you growled in frustration. “Oh, fuck off!” He said urgently in your ears. “C’mon dammit! Keep fighting.” The pumping continued, but you didn’t fight to live. You knew it in your frozen bones that the reason you had been fighting for was gone. It was in the blood seeping from your middle, the blood rapidly staining your already drenched pants. It was in the glass and metal sticking out of your body. It was in the unbearable pain and the bone crushing cold, it was in the scared and defeated voices over you… he was gone. 

Pump. Pump. Pump.

“C’mon! Fight!”

You fought, yes. But not to live. You fought to go under, to never resurface ever again. What was the point? 

“Check her wallet,” the man over you commanded. “She’s married. See if you can get a hold of the husband.”

Sam.

“I can feel a beat. Fuck. Thank God.”

The tensed, shrill voice yelled from far away. “I think I hear the ambulance.”

“You hear that?” The voice, soft now commanded. “Stay with me!”

You heard it… you heard the siren… farther and then closer. The pain felt sharper now, agonising like hellfire burning in your veins. More voices, more pain… and then nothing.

***************************

26th April 2008

“Sam?”

“Sam, seriously. If you stop responding, I’ll slap an answer out of you. I swear I will.”

He looked up at the girl standing over him. Jo was scowling down at him, her voice high pitched and reedy.

“You need to eat something.”

He said nothing.

She grabbed him by the shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle. “Are you even listening to me?” Jo might have tried to shake him, he didn’t notice it. “Mom’s sent some food.”

“I’m not leaving her.” 

Jo’s body relaxed just a bit at his response. At least she had gotten one. He felt her take a seat next to him, without letting go of his shoulder. 

“You’re not helping her by starving yourself,” she said. “You think Y/N would want you to torture yourself like this?”

“I wouldn’t know what Y/N would want now, would I?” His voice sounded muted, dead, even to his own ears.

She sighed. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. The baby… Y/N…. you couldn’t have done anything.”

There’s nothing you could’ve done.

They were only words. His brother had said them, and Jo and Ellen; so many times that they had lost meaning to Sam now. Not that they had ever held any to begin with.

“Why’re you doing this to me, Jo?” He asked flatly, without even the intention of an inflection.

She took a deep breath. “Because Dean’s losing it, Sam. He’s fucking losing it seeing you like this. I’ve never seen him look this… this…” Her hands flailed in the air. “Crazed! He’s blaming himself for everything.”

For the first time, he turned to look at her and actually see her. Jo’s hair was coming out of the plait that she hadn’t combed out of for almost two days. Her face was grimy and blotched. Her eyes were red and nose shiny. She looked on the verge of tears still.

“It’s not Dean’s fault.” 

“It’s not yours either,” she yelled, exasperated,

“I should have been with her! Maybe then she wouldn’t have gone out.”

“It was a perfectly good day to drive. She was barely even out of town and it wasn’t her fault that a trailer doing ninety miles decided to make a bend on the wrong side of the road.”

Sam flinched.

The hand on his shoulder slid down and wrapped around his waist. “It was a freak accident. I know you’re hurting, Sam. I have to be blind to not see what this is doing to you, but think about what you’ll do to Y/N if she sees you like this.”

“I thought I lost her, too,” Sam whispered. “The way she looked.” A shudder ran through his body and Jo threw her other arm around him, as if to protect him, as if she could shield him from what had passed and what was to come. 

Sam had stayed with Y/N as long as they would let him. However, no one was allowed in the ICU, so he was forced to remain in the waiting area outside. Be that as it might, no one had been able to move him from here since that wretched phone call.

It felt like eons ago- Sam had paced the living room in their home impatiently, waiting for Y/N to come back from wherever she had driven to. Jo had arranged for a surprise baby shower, and to add to it, Sam had flown in a day early. It was a wonder to see her look of sheer joy each time Y/N found him home! He had spent the hour fixing that one odd joint in the crib, and then another trying to get the rainbow mural stuck on the wall opposite to the crib. Y/N would be so proud. He had been congratulating himself when the shrill ring of the phone interrupted his reverie. The phone call that had changed everything. 

“Y/N’s tough, Sam,” Jo whispered in his ears. “You heard the doctor, right? He said no one that far gone had managed to pull through all in one piece. She had a cardiac arrest from the hypothermia and she’s still with us.” Jo rubbed soothing circles into his back. “Shhh… it’ll be alright. She’s tougher than she looks, that one.”

“I don’t know how to tell her… how to face her.” Only when Sam’s voice broke did he realise that he was already crying. “I can’t see her in pain, Jo. It will kill me.”

“No, it won’t. You need to let others in. Let people help you first, so you can be there for her tomorrow. If you let yourself go to pieces, who’s she gonna turn to?”

Sam simply shook his head as the tears overwhelmed him. He knew he couldn’t stay weak, couldn’t afford to be fragile… especially not now.

Someone cleared their throat and Jo pulled back to reveal the nurse standing in the hallway. “Mrs. Winchester just regained consciousness.”

************

“Y/N, Darling.”

Sam’s voice. The only sound that could mean anything.

“You said she was awake,” he spoke, voice sounding farther.

“She is…” said another doubtful voice. A woman’s voice. “At least she was.”

“Y/N, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

His voice was dim and strained. You didn’t need to open your eyes to see the expression on his face.

“Doctor,” he said, frantic now. “What’s wrong with her?”

Cool hand pressed against your wrist, then another lightly prodded at your eyelid, trying to pry them open. You turned your head to the side, not willing to look.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Darling?”

“Mr. Winchester, could I please request you step outside while I examine her?”

There was a pause, then the door opened and closed. 

“Mrs. Winchester, my name’s Richard Hawke and I’m your doctor. Could you please turn your head this way?”

You did. 

Against your hazy vision, much couldn’t be made out about Dr. Hawke except his kind eyes. “How’re you feeling? Is there any pain?”

You shook your head. Physically, you only felt numb. Your throat felt scorched, but that pain was welcoming. You needed it to feel something.

“Do you remember what happened?”

One dip your head.

Dr. Hawke looked at you for a long moment. “You’ve been through one hell of a trauma, Mrs. Winchester. It’s a miracle that you survived.” He gave you a compassionate smile.

You knew what his words really meant. ‘Be grateful that, at least, you survived.’

He studied the file he was holding, then said. “We had to perform a surgery when they brought you in. Thankfully, there are no fractures, just deep lacerations on your stomach, back and chest. To let you heal from the surgery and for the stitches to hold, we had to keep you under sedation for over a day and half.”

Dr. Hawke waited for you to give a sign that you understood, when he didn’t get one, he continued. “You need complete bed rest for a couple of days. That means no moving around or even standing for too long. If you’re in pain, please immediately call for the nurse.” His voice softened. “Do you want me to send your husband in?”

You looked him right in the eyes and very deliberately shook your head. 

He nodded and you closed your eyes, not wanting to see a world where your baby would never exist.

***************************

30th April 2008

“Y/N, do you want to take a walk?” Jo asked, trying to make her voice bright. “The doctor said you need to move around a bit, sweetie.”

“C’mon, sweetheart,” Dean added, in the same tone. “There’s actually sun outside today. No more gloomy, rainy weather.”

Sam felt himself stiffen and Dean shot him a wary glance. No one had mentioned rain in front of her. Their careful exchange was lost on Y/N though, just like everything else had been up until now. For all they knew, she hadn’t heard a word of the conversation. Her gaze was fixed, unseeing on the blinders of the window, through which some of the sunlight that Dean was talking about trickled in. The expression on her face was blank, exactly how it had been since she had first opened her eyes.

No one had told Y/N that she had lost the baby… she had already known. Not that she had told anyone that she knew. Hell, she hadn’t spoken a word in the four days since gaining consciousness. But it was just there, in that hollow look, like a blackhole. Each time Sam looked at her, the pit in his stomach would grow deeper, threatening to swallow him whole. His heart, which felt heavy in his chest beat frantically like its beats were numbered. It scared Sam… it made him feel as if the cataclysmic loss wasn’t behind him, rather it was in front, drawing close with every second that Y/N didn’t speak, didn’t look at him.

Forcefully, Sam shook his head, dislodging the thought. He got to his feet and walked over to the window Y/N had been looking towards. Slowly drawing the blinds away from the glass, he let the sunlight flood the room. He turned around to see Y/N closing her eyes. 

Over her Dean and Jo exchanged a distraught look, then looked at him. Their expression made Sam realise that he hadn’t been meant to see their exchange.

“Okay, rest up, then,” Dean said, in a low, kind voice. He bent down to kiss Y/N on her forehead. “We’ll be waiting outside.”

Jo ran her fingers through Y/N’s hair, then with one dejected sigh, followed Dean out of the room. It didn’t miss Sam’s attention that his brother gripped her hand tightly on their way out.

Sam took his place on the steel chair next to Y/N’s bed and reached out to take her hand. She didn’t shirk it away like she had for the first two days. Now, it lay there, dead, without any movement. Sam might as well have been holding the hand of a marble statue. Cold and hard. The doctor had said not to touch her skin at first… that it might be painful for her after the hypothermic attack, but even after they were sure that it might have passed, Y/N had recoiled from his touch and it had hurt like the lash of a flaming whip against his raw, exposed skin- her rejection. It had been the only visible reaction she had shown to his presence or even his words at first.

Sam had tried, he knew that much. He had tried with every ounce of his soul to put on a smile and call out to her. He had dried his eyes of the last drop of moisture, rid his expression of the last spasm of pain and smoothened it into a smile for her. If it was the only thing he could do now- bury his pain- he would do it for her. He would do it all. If only he knew that he was getting through to Y/N, if only she would spare him just one glance. When he forced himself in the way of her gaze, she would simply look through him. He could touch her and he could kiss her, but it was showing love to only her inanimate body, not his Y/N. She didn’t seem to be in there.

Bile rose to his mouth each time he skimmed his fingers along her cheek, and not even her eyes blinked. The heat didn’t rise to her cheeks. Nothing happened. 

Now, Sam sat next to her, reading out loud, “… Jem finally realized that he had been done in by the oldest lawyer’s trick on record. He waited a respectful distance from the front steps, watched Atticus leave the house and walk toward town. When Atticus was out of earshot Jem yelled after him: “I thought I wanted to be a lawyer but I ain’t so sure now!””

He stopped when the nurse came in with a bowl of soup and placed it on the table next to her bed. “Here’s some soup for you, honey.” 

“Thank you,” Sam murmured, placing the copy of To kill a mockingbird on the table.

“You’re welcome,” she said in a pleasant voice, giving Sam a pitying look before exiting the room.

“C’mon, love,” Sam coaxed, helping her into a sitting position. He settled besides her with the bowl in his hand, dipped the spoon into the thick soup and brought the spoon to Y/N’s bruised lips. She didn’t resist as he tipped it into her mouth. She never resisted anything. Sam wished with a yearning that was acute to the point of pain that she would just raise her eyes and look at him. Look and actually see.

His hopeless longing had led him to tilt the spoon sideways and a line of soup dribbled along her chin. Sam hurried to wipe it off with the folded sleeve of his shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

Y/N hadn’t even noticed. 

Slowly, she finished the soup, one spoon at a time. 

“That’s my girl,” Sam encouraged, cleaning the last of it from her lips, and raising a glass of water. 

“Do you want to go out?” He asked, trying and failing to keep the despair out of his voice. This time, however, Y/N shook her head and hope, even more painful than the yearning, roared through Sam’s chest. She sometimes reacted to his words, something she never did for anyone else. And that was the one string he had clung to…. one golden string of faith.

“Later, then?” It was there in his voice, too… that same hope.

Slowly she nodded, then turned her head away and closed her eyes again. Sam knew she wanted to be by herself.

He almost bent down to peck her on the forehead, that unsettling fear of impending loss, urging him to do it… but then he thought better of it and stepped outside. When Y/N was ready, she would come out herself. She had said so… she would have to. 

In the strangest way, without even having known her, Sam missed his mother. He knew that if she had been around now, he would have hidden his face in her lap and allowed himself to cry to his heart’s content. He loved Karen, and she loved him, too… but it was different with her. She felt like his favourite aunt. Dean had called both Bobby and her to let them know what had happened. They wanted to come over immediately, but one look at Sam’s face had made Dean decline their offer. Sam didn’t think he could pretend to be alright for any more people than he already had to. 

Everyone else could afford to show weakness. In fact, they did. Jo had broken down more than once right in front of Y/N, and Dean could clench his fists and grind his teeth in frustration about how unfair this was. Ellen was so defeated, she could hardly even be around Y/N without crying. Sam, however, couldn’t show a flicker of what he truly felt. It didn’t look like she registered most of what was happening around her… but on the off chance that she did, Sam would die a hundred deaths before let her see what the grief was doing to him.

He slowly walked to the seating outside, crumpling on the bench at the corner. How was any of this happening? What deity could have been so cruel as to hurt the purest person to ever breathe? Sam had never gotten over how infinitely good Y/N was. For as long as he had known her, she’d never said one mean thing about anyone. Never. He knew he wouldn’t ever stop marvelling at her goodness. He would marvel as long as he loved her… as long as he lived. And yet, if something this horrifying could happen to her? What hope did the rest of the world have? 

There must be no God, Sam decided. There must be no higher power that weighs good and bad in the world, that takes one look at a person and decides how much suffering or happiness they deserved. Because no such entity would be so callous, so stone-hearted to sentence Y/N to this! 

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and Sam felt his brother drop into the seat besides him. 

“How’s she doing?”

Sam shrugged. “Much the same.”

“Did Bobby ever tell you that I didn’t talk until I was six?”

Sam turned to his brother with what must have been a look of shock. 

Dean’s eyes tightened, as he stared straight ahead. “He didn’t? I could swear the old man loved to tell that one.”

“I didn’t know.”

Dean tilted his head. “Well, I didn’t talk for two years after the fire. Honestly, I don’t remember it all that much, but death and trauma does that to a person, I’ve been told.”

“She doesn’t even know the extent of it, Dean,” He gasped, his heart doing that thing again where every breath seemed to labour it. 

“Will you love her less for it?”

Sam whipped his head, angry. “Of course not,” he spat. “Nothing would make me love her less!”

Dean sighed tiredly and Sam realised that it had been a rhetorical question. Sam put his face in his hands, speaking into his palms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that something feels essentially broken inside her. And I don’t know how to fix it… fix her. It makes me feel helpless.”

“You’re not a frickin’ miracle man, Sam! And there isn’t a magical solution for this. Sometimes you have to let grief run its course.”

Dean was making sense, Sam knew that… but he also knew Y/N. Better than anyone alive. He was sure of it… the blankness behind her glassy eyes wasn’t the type that complied with sense or logic. It was a feeling in his gut that he couldn’t explain- not even to Dean, that there was something terribly wrong with her. That it wasn’t simply grief holding her vacant, it was something incomprehensibly beyond that.

“I know you want to be there for her,” Dean said, quieter now. “I know you’re worried, but you’re grieving, too, man. You lost your kid.” His voice broke. “That’s not something you can sweep under the rug.”

Sam bit back the ‘watch me.’ 

He felt too tired, too weary and too scared. 

“How am I going to tell her?” He whispered, staring at the floor in horror. “How am I ever going to tell her that she can’t be a mother again? That they had to remove parts of her body because they were too damaged, crushed? She’ll lose it, Dean. You don’t know how much she loved Ch- Ch… “ He choked up… The name just wouldn’t come out. “It was her dream to have her own family.”

She’d whispered it at night, in a awed, hushed voice, under soft sheets about how she had never really had a family. Just Gran and her- two souls shouldering the burden of memories of people they would never see again. Is that what Y/N would think when she found out? That she and Sam would become two such souls?

“She’s coming home tomorrow, right?” Dean said. “We’ll do everything we can to make it okay. With time…”

Even now, with his brother’s hand on his shoulders and his words in the air, Sam knew that this was not the type of grief he would ever get over. No amount of time could bury the dreams and expectations of the little life they had both yearned for. Sam knew that someday it might get easier to bear, even if it seemed impossible right now. However, it would never truly go away. 

With a fierce resolution, he vowed to love Y/N twice as hard! He would do whatever it took to get that smile back on her face, the light back in her eyes. He knew it in the depth of his being that if they were going to make it through this, he had to figure out a way to get her back first.

What Sam didn’t know was that he wouldn’t get the chance. What he didn’t see was the slight figure, standing at the far corner, behind the door, fingers clutching the frame till the knuckles strained. If he had turned, Sam would have known that Y/N had listened to him after all. She had come out for a walk… seen him slumped over in agony and heard his words of anguish. 

She had heard other things in the short nineteen years of her life. Whispers had followed her everywhere since her parents had died in the car crash. Awful words…

“… Her parents didn’t even live to see her sixth birthday…”

“… It starts before that. I heard she wasn’t even three months old when poor Gertrude’s husband passed away…”

“… Girl’s a jinx if I saw any… No survivors… ”

Sam had heard some of it at her Gran’s funeral, and it had boiled his blood. But he hadn’t dreamed, hadn’t estimated for how long Y/N had heard them, how word by word, piece by piece the rumours had lodged themselves in her mind. They had been lost in the recent bout of happiness, but very much there, waiting to cut her open the moment she tripped. She’d never spoken of them to him, afraid that she might really jinx her luck… terrified, in fact. Now she knew that you couldn’t jinx what you didn’t have.

“…How am I ever going to tell her that she can’t be a mother again.,.”

Sam didn’t see her turn around. For now he let his brother hold him, feel some of the grief ebb away from him into the vastness of his brother’s love. Sure, Sam didn’t have a mother, and he might miss the idea of having her, but he hadn’t ever missed that unconditional love. Dean was there, always had been and always would be.

Sam would need his brother more than ever tomorrow, when in the ten minutes that it took him to park his car in front of the entrance, the private room where his wife had stayed would be deserted. He would shout her name till his throat was sore, and lose his mind trying to look for her. There would be a missing person report filed which would soon be disposed off, because CCTV grab from the Hospital cameras would show her walking out by herself with the bag that they had brought for her. It had some of her clothes, her wallet recovered after the accident with her identity proofs. There was nothing left behind, not the book, not the brush, not even a note. She had left willingly and without a word.

They wouldn’t believe it, though… He, Dean, Jo and Ellen would all get into their cars and drive for a day and a half, checking all hotels, bus stops, gathering spots, showing her picture to see if anyone recognised her and despairing when no one did. Sam would push himself into a craze over finding his wife, the closest he would come to insanity.

When two days later- having driven almost across two states into Texas- Sam would return home, he’d find the gift delivered to him on the correct date- 2nd May. An etched, black obsidian fountain pen, wrapped in fine silk; the note over it proudly proclaiming: “With undying love- Y/N Winchester.”

The etched inscription on the pen would be seared into his soul:

It’s not time to worry yet - Atticus Finch

Sam didn’t know any of it. For now, he was simply allowing himself to be comforted by his big brother. Surely finding some peace again wouldn’t be that impossible, right? Surely this agony would have to end sooner or later. Everything seemed possible in Dean’s arms. 

***************************

A/N 2: Not gonna lie, this chapter was VERY hard to write. I rewrote it twice and edited it thrice. I can only hope that I did justice to their pain and suffering. This is the first time I’ve ever written something so irreversible in a series… and boy, was it painful!

Anyway, we can finally return to happier times! Next chapter takes us back to a very hungover Y/N! Who’s excited?

I’ll try to post the chapter early. You guys can brush up on Part 12 for hints and clues about what is coming ;)

The feedback is literally what’s keeping this story going right now. My immense thanks to all you lovely people who take the time out to be SO kind to me. I love you <3

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