Work Text:
Act 1
It is less the sound of music that fills the party but more of gunshots. Bang, in the beginning, she couldn't even tell she had been shot. The sting of the wound comes delayed, only when suddenly Tommy grabs her. Bang, she falls unto the floor, her satin baby pink dress drapes around her body like one of those paintings Tommy buys from Italy (how ironic, she thinks, how completely ironic). Bang, the last bullet doesn’t touch her, though. Instead, it pierces through the walls of the function.
Before darkness, she sees Tommy and Charlie, playing on the bed with one of the many wooden horses Ada often gets for them in London (every time Grace rejects, thinking how much of a burden it seems having to buy Charlie a new toy every time she comes over, Ada tells her that it’s one of Karl’s old toys. But looking at the very, very new furnishes and the tag plastered on the box, Grace can easily tell that it’s very much new. Then again, she was never one to refuse gifts, especially for her son from dear Aunt Ada). She sees him, shirtless, with his scars from France still visible, though slightly fading away, just like the sound of the shovels through the walls and the way his nightmares likes to creep in on some nights. Slowly fading away. Just like the image of Tommy, picking Charlie up, laughing at whatever it is he’s muttering. It fades away, slowly, then all at once.
And then ... she sees glimpses of Birmingham. Of well before Charlie was born, before she called herself a Shelby. Because before that, she was her whole person first. She not only was the pretty barmaid that stole Tommy Shelby’s heart (one that (rumor has it) has been long gone, even before France. And gone even more after. But then she sees him looking at her, that one night in The Garrison and she knew. Tommy’s heart was still very much there — and perhaps, very much her’s.) she was a sister first, a daughter who’s father had been stolen away, she was Grace Burgess before she was reduced to only becoming Tommy’s girl.
She hears her own voice — of her serenading Tommy at The Garrison, standing tall on that creaky wooden chair, singing the sweet tunes of ‘Black Velvet Band’. Hearing him say ‘already broken’ over and over again. And her heart breaks a little — for him, who’s going to deal with her death, as she feels it creeping up on her. In the bleak mid-winter, she whispers to herself.
In the midst of all of this, she realized that she is selfish. Instead of thinking of the conditions her family will become after she’s gone, she pictures Charlie being carried by some brunette (God forbid, Tommy marries another blonde. God forbid, Tommy doesn’t find her in every other women he sees), she pictures Tommy slowly walking up to them, with all his legitimate businessman glory. She pictures him caressing his hands over her belly, so soft and delicate, something that he was not — except to her. And maybe once she’s gone, that might change.
She doesn’t want him to lose her, is what she thinks for a split second. Scratch that, she doesn’t want him to let go of her so soon. She thinks of him again and of Charlie and of how far they’ve gone — truth is: it’s all very unfair, the way they’ve got it. And perhaps, she’s scared. Scared of the fact that Tommy might eventually marry some younger, prettier girl and she’ll have to look over them (just like the way she believes her father looks over her) and she won’t be able to tell him what she thinks. She won’t have a say in who he trusts Charlie with — and maybe most of all, she’s scared of looking down on them and hearing Charlie murmur ‘mommy’ to Tommy’s new girl. She’s scared of looking down on them and seeing Charlie, much older, go to Tommy with a picture of a young blonde woman standing in a red dress next to his papa, and asks ‘papa, who is this?’
Perhaps it is true, that we don’t get to choose how we go. But if anyone deserves an exception, Grace surely should be one of them.
The last thing she hears is Tommy desperately shouting, ‘Grace, I need you. I told you need you. Charlie needs you, he needs you most.’
And then the world around is engulfed in darkness.
Act 2
She wakes up in a frantic state months later. Around her, the walls are dark grey. Birmingham, she thinks. Dark and ugly Birmingham, a place she’s come to fall in love with. That city is what this room resembles. It’s all so confusing to her, being gone for so long — so unattached to the world makes it seems as if she was born again. All skin and bones. Although the thought doesn’t come as quickly as the sound of gunshots in her head, still ringing even after all this time, she looks for Charlie. Charlie and his blond curls, little Charlie and his piercing blue eyes courtesy of his dad, little Charlie who’s only so young yet have gone through more than what he should — sweet, sweet Charlie. And although she tries to think of him the least, she still, somehow, remembers Tommy. After all, it was him who she saw last before she woke up in this unfamiliar place. And then, she thinks, it is Tommy who’s stolen the one thing she thought was far too unattainable for even Campbell to take away from her: time.
But she still doesn’t hate him. Even when the nurse walks in, looking as if a miracle just happened (Tommy doesn’t believe in miracles, and she’s come to think so too). Even when all her questions about her conditions are shut down by a ‘the doctor will explain.’ Even when she waits and waits and waits only to find out that no one knows she’s here. And perhaps, not even Thomas Shelby was smart enough figure her out.
She’s still confused, even when the doctor tells her that she was shot at some family dinner (it was far from a dinner, a dinner sounds way too pleasant; so far from what that night was: a glorified disaster with a ticking bomb, displayed with her sapphire necklace and the looks of lust Duchess Tatiana threw at her husband that night. And with the course of time she’s been gone, she likes to think they have probably slept together — she feels sorry for herself that this is even a concern.) How on earth did the most feared gangsters in London lost track of Grace so easily the second time around? For a split second, she thinks (although she shakes the thought away instantly): Have they forgotten about her?
The doctor says that after she was shot, presumed dead, her heart started beating again. They had tried to inform the Shelbys and her family back in Dublin, but none of them seemed to believe. Thinking it was just some sort of tricks the Italians were throwing at Tommy to break him again. And so they stopped trying, thinking that once Grace wakes up, she’ll be the one to inform them that although her heart stopped beating for a few seconds, she was able to fight through it.
And indeed Grace did.
Act 3
She calls Ada first. Somehow able to find her phone number through people, knowing that out of all people, Ada would be the one to tell Tommy. She had to be. The phone rings once, twice, and then, ‘hello?’ Grace flinches at the sound of someone familiar, something she hasn’t come across in the past six months that she’s been gone — most of it brain dead.
‘Ada?’ is what she says first. Knowing fully well that Ada wouldn’t disappoint, that Ada would realize. Ada would understand.
The line is quiet for a moment, Grace hears Ada’s murmurs telling someone to leave the room. She needs to do this alone. ‘I’m sorry,’ Ada is breathy, ‘you just sound awfully similar to someone I know.’
‘Ada this is Grace,’ Grace, even in her state, manages to still sound so soft. So unlike everyone else in the Shelby family, so far out of reach. And perhaps, Ada thinks, is the reason why it took so long for her family to genuinely accept her. And once they did, those bastards took her away from them — yet again.
‘Grace is dead. Stop this.’
‘Ada, listen. I’m not dead,’ Grace thinks she sounds a little bit out of her mind, but continues, ‘well I was, but then the doctors told me that my heart started beating again. And I was brain dead for a little while too, until they figured out some new medicine to bring me back, completely. And here I am, Ada. Please tell everybody. I have nowhere to go.’
‘They buried you. We all came to the funeral. Who are you?’
‘None of you bothered to check inside the coffin. Danny died twice, why can’t I?’ Ada finds Grace Burgess in those lines, younger grace. Unmarried, without a child, Grace. The Grace that comforted her when her brother and the father of her baby were fighting. The Grace she knew very well (at least, well enough).
‘Hold on, let me, let me ask Lizzie where Tommy is. Hold on.’ Lizzie Stark. What the hell does Tommy have to do with Lizzie Stark? The sound of her name doesn’t even sit quite right in Grace’s ears. But she tries to understand — Lizzie had been sleeping with Tommy way before she met him. Perhaps, just another of his awful casualties.
To the least of her expectations, is the real Lizzie Stark, now speaking to her through the phone (and she’s never wanted to hear Ada’s voice more), ‘hello? Are you looking for Mr. Shelby?’
‘Yes, I’m his wife.’
‘I’m sorry, Ms. But his wife is dead,’ the thought of Lizzie Stark being in the close proximity with Tommy, her Tommy sickens her.
‘No, Lizzie. She is not. Because she is talking to you right now, what do I have to prove? Go tell the Peaky Blinders to dig up my coffin. See if I’m there. Maybe they’ll believe me,’ she doesn’t need Lizzie Stark’s approval on whether or not she is alive. Because truthfully, she just doesn’t agree with whom Tommy’s been fucking around with nowadays.
Act 4
Grace knows that the Peaky Blinders works fast, but she didn’t know that they had worked this fast. In just two days after the phone call to Ada, another call comes in, this time; a voice all too familiar to her is what greets her through the line. Somehow, his voice has gotten deeper, much more rough that she remembers it to be (perhaps it’s just the amount of cigarettes he’s been smoking). And Grace is even more out of breath than when she called Ada, she doesn’t think that she can talk — no; this is way too hard for her.
‘Grace?’ Grace flinches at the sound of his voice, she has always liked the way he said her name, always so soft and so, so different from the Thomas Shelby he chooses to show the world — as if it was their own little secret (and perhaps Charlie’s too).
‘Tommy,’ it still comes as a surprise to Grace how easily his name rolls of her tongue, ‘Tommy, it’s me. It’s me, Grace.’
On the other side of Birmingham, Thomas Shelby clenches the telephone — how angry he is at himself for not connecting the dots sooner, for breaking the promise he made to his wife again and again.
‘Yes, Grace,’ not a lot of things startles Tommy Shelby, yet just the sound of her voice through the phone is enough to send the already existing shivers down his spine to become more than what it already was. Through the phone, she seems off-guard, like the way she is when she’s at home, like the way she was when she hid him in her apartment the first time they spent their night together. And it almost comes like a wave of realizations to Tommy, how safe she is, although so alone, when she’s away from him. How utterly safe.
‘Take me home, Tommy. I need to see my Charlie,’ she begs as much as Grace Shelby can beg.
‘We’re leaving tonight, Michael and I. We’re coming to get you, love,’ and for the first time, she feels safe again.
It’s strange how paradoxical their relationship had always been and will always be. Grace realizes this the moment Tommy walks into her dark hospital room, he looks just as beautiful as she remembers him to be, and yet so on-guard. As if someone, somewhere has their gun pointed at him. Yet the moment his eyes meets Grace, all the roughness seems to have been taken away — he looks rather soft that morning.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I had known—‘ and despite Grace’s stubbornness days ago and her thoughts of Tommy that were so full of spite, the moment she hears this; the moment she hears Tommy practically begging, she softens up. Like she always does when she’s with him. Like he always does when he’s with her.
‘If only you bastards hadn’t been so stubborn,’ Grace tries to insert a joke in between the room that’s almost overflowing with tension — she remembers the night when they reunited after being separated for two years, Tommy commented on Grace’s lack of humor — she doesn’t want to lose any part of herself ever again, and she’s not letting a few months of loneliness do that to her. And so she tries to lighten up the room.
‘Wondering what could have been is only going to make the condition worse,’ Michael says, almost sounding like something he’s said in his head instead of trying to barge into their conversation. He is standing a few feet away from Tommy, blowing out smoke from the fresh cigarette in his right hand.
Act 5
The house seems bigger than the last time she was there, granted, Tommy might have extended the right wing three months ago (she’s heard from Mary that someone’s staying there, yet not having enough energy to argue – because she knows they will – she brushes it off as if it was for Finn on days he’d like to bring someone home). But Grace knows, in the span of six months, things have changed for Tommy. And it’s only a matter of time until she finds out exactly what they are. Because that’s always been their problem, Grace not knowing enough, not involved enough.
‘I’ll go change.’
‘Sure,’ Tommy puffs another cigarette, his eyes pinned to Grace until he loses sight of her through the staircase – as if he could lose her any second. Somehow he still feels like he could.
Their bedroom smells like her perfume, the smell of lavender engulfs the room – sneaking into the crevices of the huge bedroom they had shared (Grace never really liked how big the room was, she preferred smaller ones, ones that felt more intimate – but Tommy wanted to impress her, and in some ways, that’s what he did). She scans the room, trying to find traces of different girls he’s brought home since the night she left – yet nothing. Nothing seems to be significant enough to have stayed lingering, even after the girls have left.
In the back of her mind she could tell that he’s brought that Russian Duchess here though, perhaps her instincts – or perhaps it was just the unavoidable scent of the lavender perfume she hasn’t used in months, months before she left.
‘I hope you at least changed the sheets,’ Grace mutters as Tommy stares at her expressionless, leaning against the wall.
To say that Tommy wasn’t still overwhelmed by the sudden presence of the reason he’s been drinking himself to death for months should be an understatement – but just like the way he is when he’s scared, he can be fucking overwhelmed carry on. Something, unlike moments filled with fear, he is not familiar with.
‘Grace I-‘
‘I know. I understand.’ And Grace does. Grace understands.
‘So I heard you extended the house,’ she changes the topic, trying to find something else, something less painful to talk about.
‘Yeah. Mary must’ve told you?’
Grace nods. And the room is so quiet that she’s hearing her own heartbeat.
‘About the wing. Is there something else, Tommy? Something I should know?’ her heart is beating rapidly and she hates it. She dislikes having to admit that she’s scared – that she’s nervous. Because Grace Shelby does not get nervous, for heaven’s sake, she nearly ruined the Peaky Blinders. Nervous shouldn’t be in her dictionary. But from the way Tommy seems to be looking for the right words to say, Grace knows that there’s ought to be something incredibly wrong.
‘Lizzie. She’s staying here.’ And there it goes, Tommy, Grace thinks. There it goes.
‘Why? Why her? Why here?’ Grace’s voice is calm. Tommy always liked that, her elegance, her unnerving calmness when dealing with difficult situations. Usually, though, it’s genuine. It’s natural. This time, it’s one filled with anxiety and regret – regret of not waking up soon enough, of not letting Tommy go all the way with someone else, yet. But just like him years ago, not coming to meet her in New York, she’s just too late.
‘I,’ it could’ve been May fucking Carleton, Tommy, ‘she’s pregnant,’ you could’ve been in love with her instead, Tommy, ‘she says it’s mine,’ I wish I was dead instead, Tommy. And in that moment, Grace would very much prefer she was buried six feet underground than being in the close proximity of Thomas Shelby.
The sudden, most painful realization hits her then: it’s not just the three of them anymore. It never has been – and never will be. Perhaps, here, Grace wishes that Tommy could just see right through her, so that she wouldn’t have to say anything – comment anything. Just a simple nod would do – all she wants to do now is to sleep besides Charlie. Just Charlie.
And Grace, although she’s tried with all her might, still doesn’t understand.
Act 6
Ada visits Birmingham more often, sometimes with Karl, more often alone. She comes late at night, carrying chocolate and cake from a famous café in London, knocks on the master suite and usually, she would find Grace with Charlie in the nursery room. Though on rare nights, she would find Grace alone, and on even rarer nights, she would be crying.
Grace doesn’t blame Tommy – or even Lizzie. Truth is: despite how familiar everything is, despite being able to be with Charlie again, ever since she came back home, she’s felt like an intruder – as if she’s some puzzle piece Tommy had let go of, like a scratch on one of his paintings. It hurts the most, she says often to Ada, to feel like you’ve intruded something in your own home. Your own family.
On nights like this, without the two women even realizing, Tommy often hears this conversation through the door. Not with intent, but after a day full of work he doesn’t take for granted the act of sitting on the sofa against the nursery room wall in their bedroom sipping his whiskey. And Tommy hates it, hates that this is how his wife feels and there’s nothing he can do about it – because no matter what, Ruby is still his daughter, still Charlie’s younger sister. And she deserves at least that much.
Usually, when Ada finally realizes Tommy’s presence by the sound of glass through the door, she scurries off, making up excuses, giving the two a space to talk. Usually they don’t. Usually they dance around whatever it is that’s bothering their minds. But tonight is different. Tonight, Ada doesn’t leave as soon as she hears the noise of Tommy’s whiskey bottle through the door.
Tonight, Ada says to Grace, ‘sometimes, you need to forgive people for what they are. And this is just who Tommy is. You know that. Believe me, out of all people, Lizzie Stark just doesn’t seem to be the most ideal woman out there to be the mother of your husband’s second child but,’ Ada pauses, contemplating on what to say, but says it anyway, ‘but you are the one that he loves. You’re the one staying in this room, with him. You’re the one that he’ll choose over and over – over the goddamn horse, Grace. Over the goddamn business, it’s still you he prioritizes. You and his children, well, soon to be, at least. Yes, plural. But you’ve got to get used to it, sometimes people just make mistakes they can’t undo. And Tommy’s no exception to that. If Polly could forgive you, would you at least forgive Tommy? And maybe, someday along the road, Lizzie too?’
For the first time, Grace finally sheds a tear. One she’s been holding back for months. There it goes, Grace, rings through her head.
‘Love her, Grace. Love her,’ and Grace pictures Charlie, running down the stairs on Christmas day, still stumbling, yet so happy, while a little girl follows him. She has her father’s eyes, Grace thinks (she’s not even born yet, but Grace wishes, at least, for her to have Tommy’s eyes, maybe then it will be easier for her to warm up the little girl) and she’s laughing with Charlie over some joke they’ve made up. And Grace understands. I have so much beautiful time, she thinks.
Tonight, instead of sleeping next to Charlie in the nursery, Grace quietly opens the bedroom door, finding Tommy staring blankly through the window – he’s been getting nightmares lately, perhaps sleeping alone triggers that. In that moment, she feels a variety of emotions for him. Regret. Love. Adoration. And she feels sorry for him most of all. For blaming him over something out of his control.
Tonight, instead of talking, Tommy slowly undresses Grace, under the dim light of the moon through the window. Grace unbuttons his shirt flawlessly, she still remembers exactly how she used to do it months ago – everything about him, she knows like the back of her mind. Tonight, they make love. In the moments when their lips are not touching, they murmur sincere apologies. Tonight, and to so many other nights, they slowly put each other back together. Tonight, they heal each other’s wounds with the touches they haven’t (and would not) found in other people.
‘Will you help me, again, Grace? With everything,’ Tommy whispers into her ear.
‘I will, Tommy. I will.’
‘I found you. And you found me. That’ll never change, Grace,’ and with that, they begin to feel whole again.