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The rain comes in soft against the windows of Arrow House.
It's the kind of drizzle that blurs the lines between things— trees and sky, grief and guilt, memory and the present.
Tommy stands at the far end of the room, still in his shirt sleeves, collar undone, cuffs wet with the damp that's crept in from walking too long along the field at dusk.
There's a fire burning in the grate, but it doesn't reach him.
Warmth lives elsewhere these days.
He watches you through the crack in the study door. You're moving quietly through the corridor, barefoot on the wooden floors, a towel slung over your shoulder, having just bathed Ruby. She trails behind you in a long cotton nightdress, dark hair damp and clinging to her cheeks, a wooden horse tucked under one arm like a secret she won't let go.
"Tell Daddy good night, sweetheart," you say softly, nudging her toward him.
Tommy kneels. His bones ache more than they should. She climbs into his arms anyway, and he breathes in the scent of her-rose soap and something wild underneath it, something that's all her. She presses a kiss to his cheek. Her skin is soft, warmer than his own.
"Night-night, Daddy," she whispers. "Tell the bad dreams not to come."
He smiles the kind of smile he wears for her and no one else. "I will," he says. "'ll shoot them through the head if they try."
She giggles, and something pulls in his chest.
Charlie waits in the hall, one shoulder against the wall, trying to look uninterested. But Tommy knows better. Charlie's twelve now-on the verge of the kind of silence that comes with boys who've seen too much and learned to hide it. He ruffles his hair as he passes, the only gesture Charlie will allow him lately. Still, the boy leans into it, just a second longer than expected.
And then they're gone, upstairs with you, and Tommy is left with the crackling fire and the weight of the silence he's cultivated like a field-furrowed and disciplined, but barren.
He pours a glass of water. Once, it would have been whiskey.
But that version of him is somewhere else now. Maybe buried beside Polly. Maybe standing beside Mosley, smirking in triumph at a plan that never came to pass.
The room stinks of things left unsaid.
He leans against the mantle and closes his eyes. His mind is never quiet. Not since France. Not since Grace. Not since Polly's voice was cut from the world like a rope gone taut then snapped.
He finds you later in the bedroom. You're sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing out your hair, the motion slow, rhythmic.
You've stopped asking him if he's okay. He thinks that might be the greatest kindness.
Your voice breaks the silence softly. "Ruby's dreaming about horses again. Galloping, she said. Over fields of gold."
Tommy swallows the lump in his throat. Ruby sees things sometimes. Dreams them before they happen. Like Polly used to. He hasn't told you how much that terrifies him.
"She's got that Shelby sight," he says.
You stop brushing. You don't speak. He watches the line of your jaw shift. You don't want her to carry that, either.
"I've been thinking," you say at last, looking down at your hands. "Maybe we should take her to the coast next week.
Charlie could use the air. We all could."
Tommy nods. "Yeah. That'd be good."
There's a pause. It hangs between you. You move to the pillows, lying back, arm over your head. He hasn't touched you in weeks. You haven't asked him to.
He stares at the curve of your waist under the cotton sheet.
You love him. He knows that. Knows it in the way you make the house feel like a home, even when he's lost inside it. In the way you fold his shirts without complaint. In the way you look at him sometimes, like you remember the boy before the war.
But lately, he feels like you're loving him from a distance. Like you're pulling away gently, kindly. And he's afraid to reach across the space between you because he doesn't know what he'll find if you've already started to let go.
He lies down beside you but keeps his hands to himself. He waits until your breathing settles into sleep before letting his own eyes close.
But he doesn't sleep. Not really.
Instead, he rolls that little glowing thing in his head-the memory of Polly's hand on his cheek, the soft laugh of Ruby, the echo of your voice in the living room, asking what he wants for dinner like that might fix the pieces of him that still crack open in the night.
He rolls the pearl around. Just to watch it glow.
It's still dark when he gets up. The house is silent, save for the faint whistle of wind moving across the moors outside. He dresses quietly-vest, shirt, trousers. No tie. Doesn't need one to walk the grounds before sunrise. He used to do it drunk.
Now he does it stone sober, and somehow it's worse.
In the fields, the frost is silvering the grass. His boots crunch through it. He lights a cigarette even though he promised himself he'd stop. Too many promises these days. Too many lies he wants to believe.
The sky bleeds a pale blue above the trees. And somewhere beneath it all, the memory surfaces again-Mosley, smug and untouched, untouched after all his planning. Polly's wagon, burning in the fire. The call that told him it was his fault. The IRA, pulling strings with invisible hands.
He takes a long drag.
Tommy Shelby. Father. Husband. Member of Parliament. The words feel like masks. Like parts in a play he agreed to perform because maybe, just maybe, they'd lead him back to himself.
He closes his eyes and hears your voice-soft, patient, grounding.
He doesn't deserve you. But he needs you.
There's movement behind him. He turns.
It's you.
You're in his coat, barefoot in the grass. Your arms wrap around yourself.
"You should've woken me," you say. Not angry. Just tired.
He shrugs. "Didn't want to."
You cross the space between you, slowly. You reach for the cigarette, take it from his fingers, and throw it to the ground.
Your voice stays gentle. "You told Ruby you'd quit."
He smiles faintly, sheepish, and for a second he looks younger.
Not by much. But enough that something loosens in his chest when your hand finds his.
"You don't have to carry it all, Tom," you whisper. "Not with me."
That's when he looks away. Because he does. And he always will.
But still, he leans his forehead against yours.
For now, that's all he can give.
That evening, the children chatter over dinner. Ruby talks about a bird she saw. Charlie discusses his reading assignment. Their voices fill the room like a hymn-comforting, repetitive, holy in its smallness.
Tommy eats in silence. He listens to the clatter of forks and the hum of the overhead light. You pass the salt. You smile at Ruby. You brush a lock of Charlie's hair behind his ear.
He watches you. Tries to memorize your every movement.
And he thinks: This could be enough.
If only he weren't waiting for it to fall apart.
You look up and meet his eyes. Your smile fades, just a little.
Later, when the children are asleep, you stand by his desk, arranging letters and papers. He approaches, cigarette in hand.
"Let me," he says.
You move, making space for him. Neither of you speaks.
When your fingers brush, he flinches.
You notice. Of course you do.
"You still won't let me in," you say, drying your hands.
He sets the papers down too hard. They don't tear, but it's close.
"I let you in," he says. Quiet. Controlled.
"No," you reply. "You let me near. Not in."
That hits deeper than anything you've said in months.
Because it's true. And he doesn't know how to change it.
"I'm trying," he says, voice low. "Trying to be better."
Your expression softens.
"I know," you say. "That's why l'm still here."
Then you kiss his cheek. Not like a lover, not like a wife. Like a promise. Or a goodbye you haven't committed to yet.
He watches you go. And he thinks: You're growing tired of me.
And all the things I don't talk about.
Two nights later, the nightmares return.
Not of the war. Not of France. But of Polly. Of her staring at him from the bottom of a river. Her voice echoing in his mind— You brought this, Thomas.
He wakes choking on a scream that never reaches his throat.
His shirt clings to him, soaked through.
You're already sitting up. You've learned to wake with him. To know when the dreams are bad.
"Tommy," you whisper.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. The moonlight catches the tremble in his shoulders.
You come to him gently. You kneel. You put your hands on his knees.
"It was her," he croaks. "She was... blaming me."
You don't say she wasn't. You don't lie. That's not how you love him.
Instead, you say, "She also loved you. More than anything."
He shakes his head.
You rest your cheek against his leg. Like grounding him to the floor. Like reminding him he's still here. Still breathing.
"I don't know how to let go of it," he whispers.
Your voice is almost too soft to hear. "Then don't. Carry it. But let me carry it with you."
He can't speak. His throat is tight. But he places a hand on your head, and for a moment, he lets the war inside him quiet.
Just for a moment.
In the morning, he wakes to sunlight bleeding through the tall curtains. The room is already warm. One of the housemaids must've lit the fire early, drawn the heavy drapes back. They're ghosts in this place, the staff-trained to disappear before they can be felt. The house breathes with them, opens its doors and sets its tables, and no one speaks of how lonely luxury can feel when the walls are too wide and the beds too cold.
He sits up slowly.
You're not beside him. Your side of the bed is made already-pressed clean, as if you were never there.
For a second, he panics.
He finds you in the breakfast room. The long windows are open, spilling in birdsong and fresh air. Ruby is eating porridge from a silver bowl, legs swinging from a high chair she's already grown too big for. Charlie's across from her, toast in hand, arguing about something in a book he's reading for school.
And you-you're standing by the hearth, still in your dressing gown, hair pinned loosely, watching them with that tired softness in your eyes. Not joy. But something steadier.
Enduring. The kind of love that stays even when it's weary.
You glance up as he enters.
A maid appears before he can speak, offering him tea in the good china. He nods absently. She vanishes like smoke.
You join him at the table, quiet. You butter a slice of bread for Ruby, who leans into your arm. Tommy watches the motion.
It's easy. It's practiced. It's home.
And still he can't shake the sense that he's watching something he doesn't quite belong to. Like he's wandered into someone else's life and no one's noticed yet.
You look over at him.
"You're thinking too loud again," you say softly.
He forces a smile. "You always say that."
"Because it's always true."
He looks down at his untouched tea.
"I want to take you all away," he says. "Just for a bit.
Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far."
You raise a brow. "This place has a hundred rooms and thirty acres."
"I mean farther."
He doesn't say away from ghosts, but you hear it anyway.
That night, the manor glows under candlelight. There's a dinner for Labour backers-union men in ill-fitting suits, rising MPs with calloused hands and clean fingernails, firebrands from Birmingham who still bear the soot under their skin. They speak with passion, with urgency. They lean forward when Tommy talks about land reform and housing, nodding when he names Mosley for what he is, even if he doesn't say the word fascist aloud.
These are not the men Tommy hates.
No-these are the ones he respects. Fights for. They are here not for the wine, not for the silver cutlery polished by quiet maids, but because they believe in something. As he does.
But belief doesn't make it easier. It just makes it heavier.
He watches them, listens to their laughter mixing with the clink of forks and the soft shuffle of staff clearing plates. And all the while, he thinks about Polly. About the cost. About how ideals don't bury the dead.
You wear a dark green gown that catches the light like a bottle in the sun. Your arm links with his when the guests arrive, and you smile when they greet you. You laugh, politely. You serve charm like wine-measured, refined. You are everything he needs to appear whole, the half of him that still remembers softness.
He sees the way they look at you. The admiration. The envy.
But he knows you feel none of it.
Because underneath it all, he still lives elsewhere. Half in Parliament. Half in the past.
After the last guest leaves-after hands are shaken and cigars are stubbed out and the speeches have faded into night-you disappear.
He finds you standing alone on the balcony. Smoke coils from your lips in the cold air. You rarely smoke. Only when you're angry. Or when something's come loose and you're trying not to show it.
"You believe in them," you say without turning. "In what you're doing. But they cost you. I see it."
He steps beside you. Quiet.
"I do believe in them," he says. "In all of it."
You nod. Your voice is quiet. "Then why does it feel like you're still pretending?"
He exhales. The night is brittle around you. Sharp with frost.
"Because belief doesn't make the war stop," he says. "It just gives it new ground."
You hand him the cigarette. His fingers brush yours. He doesn't pull away this time.
"I don't mind the fight, Tom," you whisper. "I knew what you were. I still chose you. I always have."
His throat tightens. He can't speak, so he reaches instead-presses his forehead to yours like it's a confession.
"I want to be here," he says. "I'm trying."
"I know," you whisper.
He hesitates.
"But you're growing tired of me."
You don't deny it. You don't say no.
But your arms wrap around him anyway. And for now, that's enough.
For now, he lets himself believe that means you'll stay.
Later that night Tommy sits in his chair, in his study. The children are asleep. The house is quiet. The fire burns low.
He rolls it around again. That glowing thing in his head.
A pearl, not a jewel. Not beautiful. Not cut and polished. A growth. A wound made solid. Born from pain, hardened by years of not speaking.
He thinks about the war. The first one. The one that never ended, really.
He thinks about Grace. About the ghost of her singing.
He thinks about the words of Polly’s ghost. You put us all in danger, Thomas. You knew what would come. And you chose it anyway.
He thinks about you.
The way you stood barefoot in frost. The way you kissed his cheek after telling him the truth. The way you hold Ruby like the world depends on it.
The way you're still here.
For now.
He closes his eyes. Tries to sleep. Tries to find the man you once fell in love with, buried somewhere in the silence.