"I'm sorry, Rosie! Alright? I let my anger get the better of me and I shouldn't have said all of that so publicly," James said. He threw his arms up in the air in frustration and returned to pacing back and forth across the living room floor.

After his outburst at the restaurant, I refused to speak to him for the rest of the evening and spent most of it curled up in the art room trying to work my way through a book that Christopher had given to me. The morning after, James forced me into the living room to talk about what had happened before we went to the shop. His idea of talking about what happened had escalated into a rather loud disagreement and even Kitty kept her distance from the living room.

"That's the understatement of the year and you know it! All you had to do was sit there and think about something else until she walked away, and you couldn't even do that. No, instead you decided to air our grievances out in public for the entire restaurant to hear when I told you to leave it be. It was a simple enough request, James. If I wanted to discuss everything that had happened, I would have done it, but I don't, and you need to learn to respect that. I'm not seven-years-old anymore and I can make my own decisions."

"You're fourteen, Rosie, still a child. When it comes to your safety, I know more than you do, and someone needed to hold her accountable."

"My safety? Where were you when the foreman put me through hell? Oh, I know, getting married and opening a tailor shop."

"That's not fair, Rosie."

"Fair? Since when has any of this been about what's fair? If you wanted things to be fair, you wouldn't have said what you did, and you would have let it be. Being fair would have meant you keeping your mouth shut, but you couldn't even manage that."

I didn't wait for a reply. I grabbed my coat from the hallway, pulled it on and walked out into the London streets. James had a rule that I couldn't go anywhere without telling him where I would be and most of the time I couldn't go alone. Despite not being seventeen and therefore unable to start the whole business of courting, James still insisted I needed a chaperone. Most of the time, Christopher would go with me and then keep himself busy whilst I spoke to Suzanna and Lucy.

James made no attempt to follow me and if he had, I would have found somewhere to hide until he gave up. My weekly visits to Doctor Ealing's office meant I knew the ins and outs of most of London and could escape him easily.

I made my way through the London streets and towards one of the houses near the tailor shop. The sun shone in the sky, but the breeze felt like ice against my skin and I hoped it would be a sign that snow would soon follow. I jogged up the steps leading to the house and knocked on the door. I tucked my hands into the pocket of my coat and waited on the balls of my feet to try and keep the cold at bay. The coat only offered so much protection.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Mrs Ainsworth smiled at me from the threshold. She had taken Mathias in after the factory and helped him get back on his feet after he lost his arm and almost died. She asked no questions, and only had a few rules for him since he had turned eighteen just a week before the accident and could be legally classed as an adult. Despite that, Mrs Ainsworth had agreed to let him stay since he struggled a lot after the factory.

"Hello, Rosie. I wasn't expecting you today," she said.

"James is slowly turning me into a lunatic and I need a break," I said.

"Say no more. Mathias is in his room and Tommy is here as well." She stepped aside.

"Thank you."

"If you need anything, just ask. Oh, I'm going to send someone to tell your brother where you are, just so he doesn't worry."

"I can't argue that."

Mrs Ainsworth chuckled slightly and motioned into the house with her head. I smiled back and stepped through the threshold and into the house. I shuffled past the living room where Mrs Ainsworth had lit the fireplace to fight against the cold wind outside and the draft that came through the gaps between the window and the windowpane.

I moved past the living room and up a set of stairs off to the side. The Ainsworth planned to move to a flat once their children had grown up and moved out, but they didn't expect to pick up Mathias. Since then they had decided to stay where they were and ended up offering the two other spare rooms to some of the other factory children. Their house had become a sort of refuge for those who ended up with nowhere to go after the factory. I barely saw the other two they had taken in as they were both working to make money so they could move out.

Mathias' voice carried through the door at the far side of the room and down the hallway. Tommy and Mathias saw each other so much I remained surprised that they had anything else to talk about. Most of my conversation with Tommy had been around his work at the butchers and nothing more than that. Mathias, I saw frequently as Christopher had recruited him to work in his office.

I walked the length of the hallway and lightly knocked on the wood of the door.

"Come in!" he called from inside. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"Rosie? Wha' are you goin' here?" Tommy asked.

"I needed to get away from James, he's going to send me to the lunatic asylum, and I've been with him a month," I said.

"Wha' happened?"

"He yelled at Mrs Ealing yesterday in a restaurant about everything that happened during my time working for them. He doesn't think he did anything wrong, but he told everyone in that place what had happened."

The two of them watched me as I crossed to the chair by the window and collapsed into it, resting my elbow on the window ledge. I stared out of the window at the streets below and watched a small puff of smoke trail up from one of the chimneys and merge into the clouds. Mathias had propped the window open slightly, for reasons completely unknown and although I hated the cold wind, it certainly helped to calm me down.

Mathias pushed himself off the bed and grabbed the chair that sat just beside it. From there, he dragged it over to me and placed it next to the window before falling onto it. Tommy also dragged his own chair over to the window, so we ended up sitting in a triangle shape. He rested his elbows on his knees and placed his chin on his fists.

"All of this over the Ealing's decidin' to go to the shop on Friday?" Tommy asked.

"How did you know?"

"I did a delivery on Friday, Esther was talkin' about it."

"Was this after I left?" Mathias asked.

"Yes. Mrs Ealing felt the need to announce a potential joining between Robert and Maisie Blackwood. James didn't take it to well and them following us into the restaurant yesterday was the last straw for him. You should have heard him, I thought he would never stop talking."

"Aren't they supposed to be going back to the shop today?"

"Later this afternoon. I'm supposed to be there, but I'd rather stay here."

"Not goin' to 'appen. You've never been one to shy away from anythin', Rosie and I expect this to be the same. Whatever happened between you and James, you 'ave to face it.

"I hate it when you're right, you know that don't you?"

"Yes. Go on, go the shop and deal with it, you're a factory kid, aren't you? Dealin' with the bad is what we're good at."

Mathias grinned at me as though he had just said the most profound, poetic thing imaginable. Although I didn't want to admit it, and never would to his face, he was right. I had dealt with a lot worse at the factory than a simple disagreement and I never ran from it, never hid from it and instead ended up confronting it face on. It was the only way to survive back then and I had to apply that thinking to the situation with James. The factory followed us no matter where we went and although it had been the worst time of our lives, we learnt a lot.

I stared out of the window one last time and caught the last puff of smoke from the chimney as it curled its way up into the sky and merged with the clouds. Tommy cleared his throat and gestured his head towards the door, his way of telling me to leave without having to say the words themselves. I held my hands up and pushed myself up from the chair and away from the window. They watched me intently to make sure I actually left the room and I gave them a little wave before leaving.

Mrs Ainsworth called goodbye from the kitchen as I walked down the stairs and left the house, returning to the cold air of London. The shop was only a short distance from the house, but I walked as slow as possible to figure out just how to handle James and the Ealing's after what had happened.

What I said to James had been out of line, especially when I mentioned the factory and how he had lived his life during that time. He had no idea I had been there for so long and I doubt he would have thought to look there at all had it not been for the fire. He had crossed a line by yelling at Mrs Ealing and I had crossed one by mentioning the factory. We both had things to apologise for.

When I reached the shop, I could see James walking around inside, playing with one of the mannequins, but his mind seemed distracted. I pushed the door open and the bell above chimed softly. James glanced up from the mannequin and watched as I walked to the other side of the room and hung my coat up on the stand. My hands trembled from the cold and I rubbed them together to try and get some heat into them.

"There's a mug of tea in the other room for you," James said after a few minutes. "It might be a little cold, though."

"How did you know I'd turn up after leaving the house like that?"

"You always do. Even when you were younger, you always came back."

"Seven years and nothing has changed," I mumbled.

"Well, your vocabulary has certainly improved since you were seven, so I'll give you that."

James smiled slightly and I knew he wasn't as mad at me as I thought he would be. He would know better than anyone whether something had been said in the heat of a moment or if it were a genuine comment. This had been one of those moments. The fight hadn't been our first and I had brought up my time at the factory on more than occasion, but each time it had been said within the moment and I never meant any of it.

I stepped away from the shop floor and into the side room where James had left a mug of tea on the side. Steam flowed up from the mug, so it hadn't cooled as much as James thought it had. I wrapped my fingers around the mug and took a sip, trying not to cringe at the taste and instead enjoyed the warmth that flowed through my body and warmed my fingertips up. The gloves I wore on a daily basis worked to keep the palm of hands warm, but not the tips of my fingers which were exposed. I didn't have time to change into a pair of woollen gloves before I left the house.

With the mug in hand, I returned to the main shop floor and watched James as he sat down on the sofa and started to route through the notes he had made during the Ealing's last visit. He had somehow collected an awful lot of papers in such a short space of time and had even put some squares of fabric to the side so that he could help them choose without having to go through the scanning of the current shelves. Two of the swatches came from the material they picked up on Saturday, everything else we already owned.

He thumbed through them all and posted each sheet of paper into different piles so he could keep them as organised as possible, though with James that was difficult.

"What time are they going to be here?" I asked, perching beside him.

"Five, ten minutes give or take."

"I might hide in the office until they leave, probably better that way."

"Christopher went out to get some cakes so he'll be back soon, and he can hide with you. I think he has some paperwork he needs help going through."

"Fun, I do love paperwork."

"That's the enthusiasm I like to hear!" Christopher said as he nudged the front door open. He held a paper package in his hand and used his back to open the door. "I have plenty of sugary treats to get us through the workload."

James looked at me and rolled his eyes as Christopher crossed the room and placed the paper bag in the office for later. If there was one thing we all agreed on, it was that Christopher should never have too much sugar as it made him more energetic than usual and he was bad enough without it. Still, James said nothing and just watched him put the paper bag down and return to the room with a grin on his face.

The two of us watched James as he continued to sort through the collection of paperwork, all of us waiting for the bell above the door to sound and we could make our escape to the office until they were gone. Every few minutes, James would glance up to the window and keep an eye out for the Ealing's when they finally decided to show their face. It took fifteen minutes before the bell above the door finally chimed and Mrs Ealing made her grand entrance. This time, she didn't have the twins with her.

"Right, come on you. This paperwork won't sort itself," Christopher said, nodding his head to the office.

"If it did, your life would be so much easier."

"And you would have nothing to do. Come on."

I drained the rest of my mug and took it by the handle as I pushed myself off the sofa and followed Christopher into the office. Mrs Ealing watched us as we went, and her eyes didn't even waver as Christopher closed the office door and blocked them from sight. We could still hear the low hum of conversation from the main room through the shut door and Christopher took to mocking Mrs Ealing whenever he got bored with paperwork, which was most of the time.

Although we knew they were talking, we didn't know what they were talking about and Christopher found himself slowly walking to the door and opening it a fraction so we could listen to the conversation. Both James and Mrs Ealing darted around the argument they had the day previously and instead focused on the fabric and designs James had drawn up for the outfits she had requested. The tension in the room could have been cut with a spoon, but it would have been worse had I stuck around to hear it all in person.

Christopher ate his way through several cream cakes before we had even made the slightest of dents in the stack, he had bought with him. By then, he was almost bouncing off the rules of the confined office space and I wanted to be anywhere but in a room with him. Sometimes he was worse than Sebastian, and Sebastian could be a nightmare when he wanted to be.

Still, even with Christopher bouncing off the walls from the cream cakes, we managed to sort our way through most of the paperwork. He had brought a lot of paperwork back from America for some reason or another and needed to know what he had to keep, and what could be put away. Most of it was useless since it related to cases, he no longer worked on but some of it could help with possible future case.

When we were finished, the Ealing's were still in the shop talking to James and Christopher and I found ourselves slowly edging our way out of the office to the main shop floor so we could find something else to do.

"So, we can do the fittings in a week or so and then I'll add the beadwork when they arrive per the design you've agreed with. There will be one final fitting once the beading is complete," James said.

"All before Christmas?"

"Yes. I'll be working every day on the build-up to Christmas to ensure all orders are fulfilled in time."

"That leaves me in charge of organising the old Greyson Christmas party tradition!" Christopher added in.

"Unfortunately."

James shook his head as Christopher grinned at him from across the room. With all of the orders he had received over the first few days of December, James had been forced to entrust the part to Christopher though he didn't want to. The Greyson Christmas party had been set up by our Mother when we were children, but they had stopped hosting it when Father sold me to the factory all those years ago. Now that I was back in the picture, they decided it would be time to host it once more.

Mrs Ealing's eyes followed me as I walked the short distance from the office to the side room and put my mug on the side to be washed at a later date. I stood in the doorway and watched them finish up the conversation they had been having. James tucked all of the paperwork together and stood up, though Mrs Ealing looked as though he wanted to say something to either James or me.

She didn't get the chance.

The moment Mrs Ealing opened her mouth to speak, a loud explosion sounded just outside the shop and a plume of smoke blacked out the room.

~~~

A/N - We are back! You guys are not prepared for the drama that is to come in this book, honestly, you should already feel the hype! This chapter is just the start of the chaos so be ready and be afraid. Very afraid.

Anyways, we have finally seen Tommy again and he and Mathias are giving out some great advice xD Do you think Rosie was fair in her comments to James? Also, the ending. Thoughts on the next chapter?

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to jordn_hali who I see lurking on TFG xD

First Published - March 3rd, 2020