The snow had yet to fall upon the bare and dried up field, but you could feel in the bitter winter air, that it was only a day or two away. A light fog rolled out across the open acreage, coating the horizon in a smoky haze as though Father Winter's breath froze over the land. For the sky stretched vast above you, hovering over the Warwickshire estate as a blanket of an ashen hue, appearing as though all of the blue once there, had simply vanished. Stripped of it's rightful shade that signaled the light of day, leaving the sky a canvas of melancholy grey, any traces that a soft powder blue had once been brushed along the skyline, simply erased from existence.

It was an unnerving notion, as you stared up into the sky that even fell void of the natural light of the hidden sun, the way one's entire memory could be so easily discarded. For what evidence was there, that the footsteps your boots made as you stepped tentatively upon the cold and brittle soil, would remain long after your demise. What proof was there, that anyone's presence truly left a mark strong enough on this Earth, that would allow for one to even know you'd existed when the time came for you to leave?

For you watched through the soft slits of your eyelids, peering up with your chin tilted towards the melancholy heavens above, as your soft exhale fluttered away before your very eyes. Trickling past your parted lips like the rolling ripple of a cloud of smoke, freezing in the frigid atmosphere as soon as it made contact, appearing visible before vanishing as if your breath had never touched upon the air to begin with. What assurance was there, that all of the breaths you had taken before, would amount to anything once you were gone?

Your footsteps, thickened by the rough soles of the hunting boots you'd swiped from Thomas Shelby's side of the closet, had slowed until reaching a pitiful halt in the middle of the vast and barren land. A soft thump falling against the frozen ground, as their imprints left not a trace upon the soil dried and void of moisture to ever remember your steps. What reason was there, to place your feet upon the Earth and walk with a purpose, when they were bound to simply fade away like the tide washing over the sand? Erasing that you'd ever walked the Earth, that you'd ever been apart of it at all. 

The world felt eerily silent, as not even the faintest breeze rustled through the branches of surrounding trees, bare and stripped of their leaves as they awaited the cold sting of winter frost to coat their peeling bark. Not even the blackbirds, that arose with each new day's sun, echoed in the sky. Their songs no where to be heard, as the only sensation heard in the cavity of your sense of sound, resonated from the beating organ in the pit of your chest. A low thump, echoing in the cave of your subconscious, as it's repetitive heaving breathes felt as though they engulfed you in their pained sensation.

But just as you heard the shaky flutter of another frozen breath falling past your parting lips, the faint moan of pain evident in the trail of your imperceptible exhale, a sharp snap sounded from behind you. The rough conviction of a shoe's sole stepping upon a shriveled and dried up twig or a blade of no longer living grass, crunching as it broke in two beneath the weight of he who walked behind you.

You hadn't needed to turn around to know instantly who it was. For if it were not for the fact that Arrow House hadn't a single neighbor for miles to come and the maids rarely made it this far out into the abandoned field, that alerted you, it was surely from the presence that exuded from Thomas Shelby. Radiating off of his lean but undeniably strong frame, like piercing rays of the burning sun, unapologetic and impossible to ignore. His sudden appearance falling over you in a wash of heat, that nearly threatened to melt away the frigid sting of the cold winter air. You could be completely blind, without a single sight to be seen and deaf without a single sound to be heard, and you would still know he was near. For Thomas Shelby's presence was not always seen, it was not always heard, but rather, emphatically felt by whoever found themselves amongst it. 

The world fell silent once again, as the snap of the twig beneath the harshness of his steps had since fizzled from the atmosphere, immersing you in a void of silence so heavy you swore you could feel it in the depths of your trembling bones. For it felt, as you stood with Thomas steady and still behind you, the hidden sun obscuring his shadow from casting against your back, that the world had simply been drained of it's sound. As though, in the fields untouched by the warmth and nurture of the sun and the kindness of spring, that you found yourself isolated away from the rest of the world. That this seemingly large, but realistically measly and insignificant patch of land, was a hidden property. Immune to the noise of the city and the mess of the world, lacking the smog that hovered above London and Birmingham as though it was simply a part of their oxygen. A place, cold and dead, with not a single whisper from the world telling it that it was even a part of the Earth. A patch of land, long since dormant and as good as dead, simply forgotten as life continued to churn forward.  

The breath of winter filled your lungs in a stinging sensation of frigid air, soon lulled by the scent of tobacco wafting around you from the cigarette Thomas smoked. Curling it's ashen haze around your senses, enveloping you in an aroma that clung to the fabrics of your clothing and sheets upon your bed. It fought against the scent of the open air, claiming dominance as it seeped into the cavity of your lungs, each breath expanding with the sensation of Thomas Shelby.

Your eyes, that had been cast upwards towards the secluded and rather depressing heavens, remained closed as you lowered your chin. Not because your lashes, that felt as if the frost had already breathed it's existence across the thin sprawl, had frozen or felt heavy beneath the weight of the cold, but rather to keep yourself composed. For even as Thomas had yet to speak a single word in the frozen atmosphere, observing you in his comfortable sense of silence from behind, you knew that if you were to open your mouth and allow for the words teetering on the very tip of your parched tongue to fall, that he'd hear them.

For there was no wind for your words to become tangled up within, carrying them off to who knows where before ever reaching the intendant's ears. There was no rain pouring down against the Earth, sloshing through the saturated soil and forcing thunder to rattle the melancholy skies, there was no where for your words to hide. As the land laid barren and rather shriveled to a point where it all seemed to blend into a single sight of decaying beige and yellowed remains. Your eyes tightened as you inhaled a shakily deep breath, exhaling in a strong cough that rattled through your chest before you spoke up softly in the all-consuming void of unnerving silence. 

"I know that you resent me for asking, perhaps, something has changed when you look at me now," You whisper with a sharp intake of smoke tainted breath, although never quite feeling the cold oxygen reach your lungs in a way that abled you to speak louder than the meek murmur your pained words fell with. But perhaps, even if you'd had all of the air filled to the brim in your lungs, you still wouldn't have had the strength to speak much louder than you did in that moment. If not for the illness slowly draining the life and sheer will from your weakened body, than certainly for the fact that the words you were about to speak, were words you wished you'd never have to have Thomas hear. "but I'm no different than a lame horse now, Thomas."

It was a fair comparison and Thomas damn well knew it. 

For you stood out in the field of blistering winter temperatures, surrounded by a landscape all but killed off and forgotten about, coughing miserably into the air just to view it freeze before your eyes as if the world wanted to encapsulate the very picture of your agonizing suffering, and no one who saw sight of you in this condition, could dispute the fact that you were ill. As you'd dragged your weakened body from the bed you'd been confined within, trudging with each step as if your body had all but given up on you, tightly bundled in a coat of rich black wool, but still shivering as though you were standing in the midst of the winter winds bare as the day you were born. For your entire body rattled to the point where you couldn't help but question how it was even possible that you were still standing upon your own two feet. For your fingers trembled at your sides, nearly breaking off at the knuckles as your teeth chattered with an echo that slowly descended into the quiet atmosphere, your very bones clambering within your weakened frame, nearly shattering at the motion.

The winter's cruel elements certainly exacerbated the extent of your discomfort, but you'd shaken just the night before when fever had stricken you with sweats and a heat not even the summer could compete with. Your coughs echoing through the corridors of Arrow House for all to hear, the blood coating handkerchief after handkerchief until they were all about tainted with the sight of crimson and anguish. You were sick, consumption having overtaken your being in an iron strong grasp, without a miracle in sight to alleviate you from the reality that dawned with each new falling day. You were dying and no amount of denial could change that.

"I hate that I asked you," You coughed, before making out the words in a pained breathless tremble. "but I despise the fact that I would ask you over and over again, just the same."

You remembered the night as clear as day itself, for even in the haze of your fevers and your disoriented moments where you nearly slipped beyond, you remembered every detail of that night. The flash of rage as red as his boiling blood, surging through Thomas's orbs of blinding cerulean blue that nearly lit ablaze as your timid inquiry met his ears.

You weren't sure why you'd expected anything less of the man, watching as he mercilessly raked his hands through his hair until his signature cut was nearly unidentifiable. The glass of whiskey in his hand nearly crushed before he tossed it with a force you'd never seen into the roaring fire place, as his own lungs roared with the anger fueled and obliviously fearful words he threw the air. Allowing them to slash through the walls of his study, as if they were the razors once sewn into the rim of his caps. You'd seen Thomas Shelby angry, you'd seen him nearly implode, but that night, was the first night in which you saw him simply explode out of an emotion that not even a man as strong as him, could withstand.

"It shouldn't have to be you, Thomas. It shouldn't be your hands that are forced to hold my bloodshed, but you're the only one I want to do it." Your voice broke beneath the weight of your words, clattering to the ground beneath your stilled frame until you could very nearly hear the sound of your broken heart hitting the surface of the frozen soil. 

It wasn't fair, you knew that the night you approached your husband with the question that would change the very way he regarded you from that day forth, but still you inquired. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but you couldn't possibly imagine wanting anyone else to put the bullet, that would surely end your suffering, through your head. And so you asked Thomas Shelby to do it, to take that gun of his that was weighed down with the sins of his past and mercifully put you out of your misery.

"Do it for me Thomas, please. Show me mercy." The words remained within the walls of Arrow House, as if the wallpaper had all but gone and absorbed their very presence. For they echoed in every moment you continued to breathe within the mansion, their weight reflected in each glimpse you caught of Thomas after that fateful night, they were words spoken that you could never take back, no matter how hard you tried. Once they were heard, there was simply no erasing them. Discovering that that, perhaps, was the very thing that appeared to hold a lasting presence long after your retreat from Thomas's destroyed study. For nothing after that night, as a week passed by and your heath continued to decline, was the same. 

"Maybe it's because," You hadn't been able to face Thomas since that evening nearly a week or two prior, only making eye contact as he nursed a cool cloth along the clammy forehead of your fever stricken flesh on the nights he continued to care for you, even through the angst and the rage still simmering in the depths of his chest. You couldn't bare to look at him, after asking him the most impossible and unforgivable notion you could have possibly inquired and now, as your lips formed around your tearful admission, you hadn't any remnant of strength left in your fading body to face him now.

For you feared the look in his eyes, the ones that bored into you with a blue so powerful it nearly took you beneath it's crushing waves, engulfing you in emotions far beyond the surface of his stoic expressions. And you feared letting him see the tears, glistening your own dwindling orbs as they fluttered open, allowing the burn of the cold air to touch upon the stinging heat of your solemn cries. For how could you possibly face him after what you'd asked him to do? What you were still begging for him to do, as your days grew more painful and all the more short as the end dawned across the horizon. "because I want you to be here, with me, when I go. I don't want to be alone."

"I just don't want to be alone Thomas," You repeated in a whisper barely heard by your own set of ears, as the repetition continued to funnel past your lips until the words were nothing more than a silent sob. "I don't want to be alone, don't let me be alone." The heartbreak trailed down your face in the flood of hot tears. Nearly drowning your lungs in the sense of your own anguish. Your entire body shook with your fearful cries, the sound of your sobs audible as they fought with the strangling suffocation of your torturous coughs. The world was void of sound, but in that moment, it rather felt as if it was because the universe simply knew that the echo of your heartache and agony, would be enough to sustain the source of sound in the melancholy sky.

It felt as though you found yourself lost out at sea, in an abyss of suffocating shadows and the death of a land soaked only by the tears fallen from your weary eyes, drowning slowly as your body shook with the harsh nature of your pain. Bucking against the weight of a reality so very cruel and an inquiry fallen from your own lips that was as hurtful as any were to be, wishing in that moment that the waves of unforgiving emotion and the fading of your very existence, might finally drag you under in a moment of spared mercy on your poor and wasted soul.

But as your lungs expanded in the hopes of one last semblance of a bitter breath, a weight descended upon your frame and it felt as though you'd been saved. A life preserver tossed around your floundering being, pulling you in like the light of a glowing lighthouse as you made your way through the crashing waves towards the hidden shore line. And in the bright beam of a rescue holding out its hand for you to take, you found that it was Thomas Shelby, saving you once again.

For as you were drowning beneath the wash of your audible sobs and overwhelming emotion, Thomas Shelby's feet moved upon the dry and lifeless Earth. His fingers that held the lasting source of warmth in the surrounding winter cold, flicking it to the ground before his sole stepped upon it, crushing it into the soil as he strolled forwards. Exhaling a deep breath that froze before his eyes, walking through the cloud frosted over by Jack Frost, tainted by a shade of ash that smelled heavily of his smokes, until he passed through as the breath dissipated from the atmosphere. His shadow still obscured by the lack of sunlight, but it fanned across your shivering body as if it were the sun rising over the horizon. His strides moved with an ease they always seemed to carry, his steps falling with a rightful conviction against the dried up field, until the tips of his shoes fell just an inch behind the heel of your own.

It was as his breath inched closer, the warmth falling from his parted lips as it trailed down the exposed flesh of your neck, that your eyes peered open in realization of his close proximity. But it was as you felt the stern touch of his fingertips, nearly frozen and hardened with callouses and wounds scarred over with some having never quite healed past the surface, slowly extend over the concealed skin of your hips. Encircling your trembling frame as his arms reached forward, and his fingers trailed along your waistline until his palms flattened against the bone. Holding you steady in his grasp, as if he'd sensed you'd been in need of an anchor in that very moment. Watching you bob in the rocky seas of your subconscious, the pain of your remorse and heavy guilt nearly dragging you under, before Thomas reached out and held firm to your frame that had begun to waste away, steadying you until you were able to breathe for the first time since your journey out into the vacant land. 

Thomas Shelby could not be described as a gentle man, but there were times with you, that it felt as if he used all of the strength inside of himself, to handle you with a tenderness not often seen by a man of his stature and past. For you'd seen with your own two eyes the ruthlessness that could surge through the man, the blood he'd spilled and the lives he'd taken. You'd bared witness to the dominance and control he craved and often experienced it beneath the lustful moments when he needed a body to take and you'd willingly given yours to him. Thomas had never hurt you, not purposefully anyway. Even if his words hit with a sting that felt as if one's hand had slapped across the flesh of your cheek or your body ached a little more come the bright break of morning light, you knew in the strongest part of your beating heart that the man who was capable of unimaginable things, was incapable of one... hurting you.

But it was in that moment, when the winter swirled itself in a stilled presence around your connected bodies, that you felt a gentleness from Thomas that seemed to melt away the extent of your shivers. For he'd cared for you, ever since you'd been stricken with fever and discovered the illness ravaging your body. He'd taken care of you in all of the ways he was capable and aimed to make up for all of the ways that he couldn't. But this wasn't the simple blotting of a cool cloth against your forehead or letting you hold his hand through the nights when you feared drifting off and never coming back. This moment, as his hands rested firm against the slimmed bone of your hips, stemmed from a need inside of himself to reach out and touch you. To hold you, to convey with the steadiness of his readied hands, that he was right there with you.

The scent of Thomas Shelby engulfed you, in a sharp breath of smoke and subtle masculinity that seeped into the essence of his skin from his well worn cologne. It embraced you as if the arms already around your waist were simply not enough, and the aroma of the man grew closer as you felt the timid breath of his exhale descend in a soft tickle against the base of your neck. His lips touching down upon the skin chilled by the cold of the winter air, warmed immediately by the heat of his chaste caress. The nape of your neck tingled and exploded with the mere heat of his touch, your eyes fluttering shut at the sensation that eased the anxiety racing through your veins and calmed the rushing waves of your heart. For it felt as though, in the bitter silence that emanated from Thomas's stoic nature, that it was in that single embrace that he assured you that you weren't alone. 

You were thankful that Thomas could not see the extent of your face, for you could feel as the cold touched upon the tears slowly slipping from your shut eyes. Escaping past your salt stained lashes and trailing ever so slowly down your cheeks, until they very nearly froze to the reddened hue of your skin. For as Thomas kissed you softly, almost as if he wanted to feel you one last time for his own well being, you found all you could do was cry in the pit of his embrace. Thomas had lost someone important to him to the very same disease once before, having already lived through the pain of watching one simply wither away. How cruel was this world, that it was to claim yet another life the very same way, from the very same man? 

Your tears fell along with the hopes and the dreams and the regrets that you could see against the dark abyss of your eyelids. The way you were bound to leave Thomas alone in a house far too big for his own good. The kids you'd spoken of, but never had and would never have the chance to bare. The world you'd struggled through, alongside so many others, yet fearing to leave it all so soon. Time was a fickle thing and so was hope, when it was tied up in the very thing you only wished you'd had more of.  

You felt in your heart, as you listened to the soft exhales of his composed breath dance along the nape of your neck, that Thomas Shelby loved you strongly enough to do the one thing no one else would. The one thing that might end up breaking what was left of his heart, beating in mangled shards in the cold cavity of his chest. He didn't say it often, the words scarcely forming against his lips, but he showed you his love from time to time. In the little things he did and said, to the biggest gestures and choices he could ever make in his life. But this choice, this choice he was forced to make right here, was the biggest testament to his love for you. For showing you mercy and compassion in your dying days, ending your suffering when it would undoubtfully trigger his own, was a kind of love and selflessness that was rare in the world. 

Thomas was not always the romantic man, most times, he wasn't even the nicest man. He was flawed and tortured and there were scars amongst his soul that you knew may never heal. But you loved him. Wholeheartedly, you loved him. And you knew, even as he denied your outrageous request, scoffing and cursing and nearly destroying his study in a blaze of fury, that he loved you just the same. Thomas held onto you for as long as he possibly could, as if he drew out the clock, you might in some miraculous turn of fate, get better. He loved you in his own way, his own quiet and concealed manner. He loved you enough to hold your hand when the days got too hard, he loved you enough to stay up just to watch you finally find sleep for a mere hour before the sun rose. But Thomas also loved you enough to know, when it was finally time to let you go.

You felt the air fizzle from your lungs as Thomas pulled away, his fingertips trailing across your clothed flesh until all that remained was the burning memory of hands once there. An absent of warmth, washing over your exposed flesh that became consumed by the cold, as Thomas's lips retreated from the nape of your neck. As Thomas forced himself to relinquish his steady hold from around your dying body, it felt as though his retreating steps took along with it, your very will to breathe. For the cold took his place, engulfing you in the crushing grasp of it's frigid embrace, nearly erasing the trace of Thomas's touch from the surface as a frost blew over the flames, extinguishing the sensation of his lingering embrace.

Thomas's footsteps were nearly imperceptible this time around, as his strides across the barren Earth fell solemn and slow. He hadn't turned around, simply backing away from your frame that remained shivering and frozen in place as though the world had simple planted you there.

But his eyes, the bold cast of cerulean blue that you could feel abandon your flesh, like the sun falling behind the darkest patch of the sky, faltered as Thomas stared down upon the dried up soil beneath his footsteps. For even as he had refused time after time that you asked him, some nights simply unaware in your sickened haze that the words even fell from your lips, there was something about this time, seeing you standing out amongst a wilderness as cold and lost as he knew you'd soon become, something shifted and the decision he dreaded to ponder became clear. It became inevitable and the only choice Thomas realized, that might bring you some semblance of peace.

Thomas's steps halted until he was nearly a foot or two behind you now,  watching the dust of the dormant land coat the tips of his shoes and the way his heavy stance barely made a mark in the lifeless soil. The world around him felt immeasurably cold, a chill he'd never quite felt before in all of his time on this Earth. For it felt as if it swallowed everything around him, the skies and the land, that made him feel it's unnerving chill rest in the very depths of his bones. There was no color left in the world, feeling like he'd simply tumbled into an abyss where the world held not a single distinguishable hue.

His movements felt sluggish as his hand reached into the confines of his jacket pocket, fingertips finding the edge of his leather holster without his eyes ever meeting the object. He'd held the weapon more times that his hands could possibly count, firing it more than any one man ever should, but his gun had never felt heavier than it did in that very moment. As his eyes fell upon the pistol of sleek black that appeared as a simple charcoal outline in his sight, his fingers tense and cold, as they wrapped around the weapon and balanced the pad of his finger against the trigger. 

Perhaps she knew it was coming, as if she could sense Thomas's movements from behind her, before even hearing the shift of the safety on his gun. For her shivering frame straightened as much as her body allowed, but it was as her voice met the bitter atmosphere for the last time, that Thomas's own breath hitch as she whispered to him in her final moments. 

"I love you." 

It was her last goodbye but it was also her gratitude for a service unimaginable to anyone but Thomas. For her cries consumed the three words fallen as delicately as her tears from her lips, freezing out in the air before her twisted shut eyes as if they might just linger there until she was gone. But he could hear, in the tone of angst and a need for him to absorb the truth that beat heavily in the core of her heart, that this was also her thank you.

A thank you for making the hardest decision he'd be bound to ever make and one she knew would forever stick with him. A thank you for taking care of her during her dying days, even when all he wanted was to lock himself away as if he could avoid the inevitable reality, that even Thomas Shelby hadn't the slightest shred of power to change. A thank you for loving her all these years and a thank you, for having the strength to finally let her go.

Thomas's exhale was heavy as it met the atmosphere with a harsh puff of air, freezing before his eyes as his chin lifted and the sight of her stilled frame came back into his focus. Staring straight ahead, as the field lay a dead and browned surface that appeared to roll out for an eternity while the skies above, hovered a bleak shade of grey untouched by the light of day or even the darkness of night. She stood against the depressing backdrop, as if her fading body was a mere silhouette across the melancholy haze.

Thomas's hand shook, just as it had after returning home from France, as he inhaled one last sharp deep breath before lifting his arm up in a straight line. Lining up the aim of his gun with a target he'd never in his days imagined. It was as his finger pulled the trigger and the deafening bang of a gunshot resounded throughout the air, nearly shaking the Earth at it's very foundation, that Thomas Shelby saw the first swipe of color to grace the melancholy grey. A red, so blisteringly deep, as the crimson seeped unforgiving against the vacant soil and it was in that moment that Thomas knew that would be the shade of red he'd forever find himself dreaming in. The world seemed to lose all sense of sound, drained of mere existence, and Thomas could feel in the core of his chest, his reason for breathing slowly dissipating just as her soul had into the atmosphere.

The smallest flakes fell from the skies, as Thomas cradled her head delicately in his knelt lap. Feeling the cold of the Earth, that soaked through the fabric of his knees, contrast with the unwelcome warmth of blood pooling across the sleek black wool of his coat. A stain he'd never be able to wash from the clothing he wore or from his palms that slowly became tainted with a painful crimson hue. The clouds above him, opening as her soul lifted into the place he always knew she would go when her time came. The snow came in soft breaths of frozen air, powdering the shoulders of his coat and sticking to her stilled lashes that Thomas had closed with the soft sweep of his fingertips. It was as though the heavens cried as she made it to their golden gates, the tear drops falling back down to the Earth, becoming frozen in mid fall. 

She'd always loved the snow, Thomas thought as he watched the flakes stick to her pale flesh that no longer held her running warmth and couldn't help but wonder, if she'd sent the snow as a sign to Thomas that she'd made it there safely. 

A/N: Wow, anyone else's heart heavy right now??😭

I've had this idea for the longest time, but kept putting it off until I knew I could sit down and give it my all, because I knew I could create something with this idea and wanted to get it as close to perfect as I possibly could. I finally sat down with it and can honestly say, that I'm blown away with what I was able to craft here! 

The emotion is the driving force in this piece and I wanted to write this one in a way that would assure that you could feel it while you read, that it was not just an overlay but something you could feel in your heart throughout the entire one shot. This one is a heavy one, a seriously angst filled, break your heart kind of piece, and I'll admit it pained me while writing. But I fell in love with the idea when it came to me when I first started thinking about writing for Thomas Shelby.

I wanted to get every detail just right in this piece, because the environment and everything in between the limited dialogue is just as vital to the story. It was a scene I could see so clearly in my head from the very first moment to the last, seeing the field and the sky and world with the spellbinding cinematography we see in Peaky Blinders and knew that I could do something very special with this idea! Even as Thomas didn't have a single sentence of dialogue in this piece, which I realized after I completed it, I feel more was said from him in the silence and the ultimate action he took, than any words he could ever possibly say. 

I hope that you all enjoyed this piece, even if you might have shed a tear or two as I did writing it, and I hope you were able to feel all of the emotion and heart I poured into this piece!! I am so wildly proud of what I created here!!❤😭