The dark shadows of night shrouded the small bedroom, fighting for dominance over the timid candlelight that flickered in a soft sway, nearly extinguishing the single flame beneath the weight of it's suffocating indigo presence. The Small Heath sky was void of starlight that night, lost like the sliver of the moon behind the haze of cloud coverage. But you couldn't help but wonder, if the stars themselves had simply ceased shining when the constant breath of smog, that didn't even disappear in that of the evening's shadows, threatened their twinkling light. Resulting in a blanket of indigo that was more black than blue, casted across the city, bleeding it's darkness into the very air of the Watery Lane walls. 

Silence trailed on it's heels as though it was a packaged deal, the faded wallpapered walls eerily dense with the void that engulfed the bedroom. You sat alone, the only soul in the house, having pulled the small metal bathtub to the foot of the bed, beneath the window cracked open barely a sliver for the crisp evening air. Your toes pressed softly against the smooth metal, as the tips of your bare knees met the cool air as they bent and broke through the surface of the now lukewarm water.

The tub was cramped and when you reclined your neck back, the edge grew to dig into you skin like the winter wind biting at your flesh. But there was something in the feeling of washing away the day, even with lukewarm water in a narrow metal tub, that relaxed you. A calm that cascaded over you just as the rinsed soap trickled down your flesh and back into the gathered water in the tub, cleaning the grim of the city from your skin while easing the memories of the day in a breath of relief. 

You hadn't heard him enter the bedroom, as the only sound that echoed against the four surrounding walls, belonged to the timid trickles of droplets as your arms swished softly through the bath water pruning up your bare skin. But even if you had rested soundly in bed, you knew you wouldn't have heard his steps ascending the stairs, because for a man who held a profound presence that immediately demanded the attention of whoever stood in the same room he inhabited, Thomas Shelby could be as silent as the hand of death itself.   

It was only as the softest creak echoed through the air from the pressure of his side leaning against the doorframe, the aged and worn foundation groaning beneath his presence, and the distinct scent of cigarette smoke funneling into the room in the thinnest breath, that your head turned to the side and peered towards the doorway. His shadow cast across the hardwood, as though the hovering shade beamed from that of a fully bloomed sycamore.

For even as the dim light of the flickering flame, danced in a gentle beam of bright citrine against the adjacent wall, it was as though the shadows that engulfed his frame extinguished the glow before it could ever graze across his flesh. The faintest hint, glinting across the shaved side of his scalp and reflecting back in the sheen of his orbs, but ultimately falling futile at his feet. But you'd learned to view Tommy Shelby in all of his forms, even if it meant training your eyes to seem him as clearly in the darkness of all-consuming shadows, as you did in the overcast light of day. 

His left hand clutched tightly to his peaky cap, nearly crushing it in the grasp of his coiled fist. It was damp, but you knew from the lack of rainfall occupying the still and sullen night sky, that the moisture soaking through the tweed fabric was one in which you preferred not to ponder longer than necessary. His knuckles, braced so tightly that it bled a striking white against his warm toned flesh, were torn. Caked in crimson that adhered to his skin, no longer trailing down his long fingers or the curl of his wrist, a dark trail of red peeking out from beneath his cuff. His right, concealed by the way his shoulder leaned that arm against the wooden doorframe, was bound to be just as bloodied and bruised as the one visible to your eye. You couldn't see the bruises along his left hand, from where he stood in the doorway and where you remained submerged in a tub of lukewarm water, but you could imagine the sight of the shades blending into the shadows. A deepening purple that teetered upon the line of a emboldened blue, days from now turning to a ripe and aching greened hue that consumed the entirety of his cut up knuckles. 

His ankles were crossed one over the other, a deceptive appearance of relaxation, for the word could hardly be used to describe the man hovering in the doorway. For even as his body sagged against the frame, you knew it stemmed from a deeply rooted exhaustion and whatever exertion this evening brought him, rather than a calm and slackened demeanor. Witnessing Tommy Shelby in a moment of relaxation or peace was a rarity, one in which you did not often see in this life. 

Smoke billowed from his full and naturally pouted lips, in harsh puffs and thinning streams of a nearly invisible grey, disappearing into the shadows of the bedroom as though the tobacco was simply a part of the atmosphere itself. The crinkled white stick hung from his lower lip, burning closer to the end, as ash broke free from the edge with each new drag watching it fall to the hardwood, knowing that you would sweep it up in the coming morning hours.  

His flesh, shadowed by the lack of sufficient light, was still visibly marred by a deep slash across his right cheekbone. The blood dried just as it did around the cuts on his torn knuckles, a deep crimson smudged across his warm flesh, as though he'd run the back of his hand across the cut in an effort to erase the evidence of an injury. An action made futile, as the inflammation of the wound screamed a bloody red hue and the blood he strived to wipe away, only smeared and stained further across the smooth skin of his cheek.

It was a jagged line, as though it represented a trailing river on a crinkled and worn map, accentuated by the sharp cut of his cheekbones that were defined as if someone had chiseled his bone by hand. But as your eyes edged upwards, washing your gaze further up the sight of his shadowed face, you saw the swollen flesh practically throbbing against his furrowed right brow. A cut hidden amongst the dark brown sweep of eyebrows, free of blood but swelling massively as the entirety of his right eye beamed a beating black and blue. 

His eyes twitched not a fraction beneath the throbbing ache however, steadied forward upon the sight of your bare body all but concealed by the silver tub and water that absorbed the darkness of the night around you. Thomas Shelby was a man consumed by darkness and shadows he spent every day trying desperately to fight, practically living in the bleak and the colorless, but remarkably, he'd been gifted with the brightest set of eyes you had ever seen in your life.

They burned a cerulean blue that put the very sea and the sky on it's most powerful of days to shame, for it was a hue unmatched by a single thing ever witnessed by your eye and made real by the man who adorned their shade. It held a power that men could only hope to pine for, a power to make one breathe and cease to inhale a second in the very same span of a single second. The power to stop one in their tracks, to silence and to embolden ones confidence. That blue could drown you, cutting you down with a single stare, or it could uplift you, as it did every moment you awoke to their awaiting gaze. It was a shade of blue unlike any other, but their power came not just from the saturation of cerulean, but rather the man who directed their scrutiny. 

Listening to the slosh of the water swirling around your waist, as you slowly brought your knees towards your chest, wrapping your arms around the bare and wet skin of your shins, you kept your eye contact steady. Resting your chin against the tip of your knees, feeling the instant chill of the room settling over your exposed flesh, goosebumps arising in the place warmth once resided. Your voice spoke up softly and broke through the void of silence captivating the bedroom. "I hate to think what the other man looks like."

It felt as though your words simply ricocheted as soon as they pierced through the sullen and still atmosphere. For they bounced back with a resounding echo, meeting your ears as though the words spoken simply thundered in the base of your conscious as if they'd never left. Pinging off of the brushed metal of the tub and bouncing off of the walls encompassing your body, before the old fashioned design that lined them even had the chance to absorb your softly spoken words.

Your tone was gentle, cautious as though your very words traveled along the floorboards on the tips of their toes, stepping carefully as they reached Tommy's ear. Your words eased with the softest hint of mirth. For they felt heavy with the truth that weighed their meaning towards the floor, knowing that whoever had the guts and sheer stupidity to take an aim at Thomas Shelby and manage to leave a mark, would most certainly turn up a bloody pulp on the cobblestone streets of Small Heath. But still you spoke in the faintest ghost of a bantering tease, for not only could you not help but spill the first thought that floated across your mind, but from time to time, you just couldn't help yourself from trying to make Tommy laugh or even crack a measly smile that might just suffice.  

But as you listened to the water sloshing around your thighs yet again, as you reclined back against the cool metal rim and allowed for your legs to stretch back to where your toes pressed against the base of the tub, Tommy's lips moved not a fraction. Stilled lines of full and softly pursed flesh, taking drags from a cigarette just about at the end of it's life, not even the corners twitched as they remained without a single semblance of altered emotion. His mesmerizing eyes were no different, for they bored into you as though when he stared at you, he saw straight through your bare flesh. Piercing holes as his burning gaze washed over you in an all-consuming wave of rich and daunting blue, all the while, soothing the ache as though his gaze was both the pain and the remedy all at once. 

Goosebumps trailed across your flesh, as the cool air circulating in slow motions danced upon the dampened and exposed nature of your skin. Shoulders uncovered by the chilled water, the tips of your toes open to the air, and although the water consumed the shadows of the night, your bare body was all but on display beneath the stilled collection of less than clear bathing water.

But remarkably, as Tommy Shelby had a keen ability of stripping every possible inch of fabric from your body with a single look, a way of looking at you as if he were a lion stalking in the long grass, where you stood simply prey at the mercy of his hands, there were moments such as these, when Tommy could look past the fact that you were completely naked in his presence. For his eyes never drifted as he leaned against the doorframe, his stillness to the likes of chiseled statues in museums, but instead remained entirely locked on your own. The boldness of his blue eyed scrutiny, washing across your face, as he looked no where else but in the depths of your own ever present expression.  

The seconds ticked by on the hands of Tommy's golden pocket watch and yet, as he stood in that doorway watching you relaxed in the cramped confines of the bathtub, it felt as though it trudged through fresh mud. The moment slowly freezing where it stood, as time continued on, but feeling like it had only just begun. The room was shrouded in silence, void of the motion of the water now completely stilled around your bare body and lost of any sounds of the night lingering outside. But with a single step, two sensations rattled the walls and consumed the silence with their soft but powerful presence.

Tommy's boots fell heavy against the floorboards, creaking beneath the shift in his weight, as he pushed himself from the doorframe by the bone of his concealed shoulder. His strides appeared as though he walked in slow motion, for each sole of his shoes hit the floorboards with a meticulous step, inching forwards into the bedroom cautiously as if the floor beneath him might all but give out. But even as they traveled hesitantly, the sound of their conviction was strong, for Tommy Shelby certainly knew no other way. The second sound that nearly fought with the raw clumping of his boots against the worn floorboards, thundered as though it lived in the background of the moment itself. But you could feel it radiating through your body and echoing low in the base of your head. Your heartbeat, picking up a beat or two, not quite racing but quickening as your eyes followed Tommy as he ventured deeper into the shared bedroom. 

His footsteps lead him to the small wooden dresser on the other side of the room, the low light of the flickering candlelight reflecting in the small and rather clouded glass mirror hung above. His steps stalling as his toes nearly brushed against the legs of worn down mahogany, and his fist that clutched tightly to his blood and sweat soaked peaky cap, relinquished it's hold and dropped the tweed accessory down upon the table.

If it weren't for the newly appeared thumping of your heartbeat, you swore the silence would've echoed with the sound of the razors stitched across the rim, hitting the wooden surface. The same hand that had held his cap and the evidence of his bloody altercation, lifted towards his lips and clutched the stub of a cigarette in the tips of his fingers, lowering it down towards the ash tray just beside his discarded cap. Extinguishing it with a single smash down upon the tray, smoke trickling from his lips in one last nicotine laced exhale, clouding around his face before disintegrating into the air never to be seen again. 

Tommy's silence could be wholly unnerving, but tonight, as he turned away from the dresser and let his footsteps begin to lead him slowly over to the edge of the tub, it was anything but. For you'd experienced the anxiety that flooded your veins, when Tommy's silence felt as though a storm brewed within it's all-consuming void. You knew the faint tremor in your bones, the lump in your throat, the ache in your chest when you saw that disconcerting blaze in the iced blue of his eyes and felt it in the dense quiet of his impending voice. But there were moments, when his silence was easy and held no ill-will. Nothing bobbed beneath the surface of this sea, there was something in this silence that settled over the two of you, that simply spoke of an intimacy that you found rare with the man you couldn't help but love day after day. 

The echoing clomp of his footsteps didn't halt until the very tips of his soot dusted boots, nearly brushed against the edge of the metal tub. His shadow, even in the dimmest of flickering flames, engulfed your body as his frame hovered above you. Darkening the water around you and forcing a chill from the newfound shade to crawl up your dampened flesh, but still banishing any sign of goosebumps as you peered up through your lashes at the man bathed in shadows all his own.

Tommy stood above you for the briefest of moments, his icy blue eyes trained downwards upon your exposed body, and it appeared as though his mind was lost in deep contemplation. But you rather supposed he always was in a sense, for it never seemed that his mind was ever at rest. Always thinking, always planning, wheels perpetually turning as if they hadn't a single set of brakes. 

In the close proximity that wafted the rich scent of his flesh across your senses, the tobacco that wove its aroma into every stich of thread that adorned his slender but undeniably strong physique and the depth of his faintly worn cologne enriched with spice and masculinity, the sight of his altercation became clearer to your curious eye. For even as his suit was expertly tailored to his frame, accentuating every inch of muscle and form, the tweed of his charcoal grey jacket appeared disheveled. Elbows of the fabric adorned in dark soot and muddied puddles left over from yesterday's rain. The white of his button down shirt was no longer spotless as it was when he retreated that morning, bidding you goodbye with a chaste kiss to your slumbering cheek, dressed in his sleek and unscathed attire. But now, small trickles and spots of a crimson red splattered itself in the smallest but most apparent of marks across the white of his shirt. The cuffs caked with the red that had trailed down from his knuckles.

To most, Tommy Shelby appeared close to composed and without a detail out of place, for that was simply the way he paraded himself around. But to you, even the slightest shift in his features, a crease or a speck of blood out of place upon his perfectly tailored suit, and you knew that trouble had paid him a visit.

Tommy's shadow sinks like the setting sun, as his knees begin to bend slowly and bring him towards the floorboards beneath his feet. A silent motion, swift and effortless, as he kneels beside the tub with his right leg tucked beneath his stance, as his left remains bent as to support his elbow if need be. His eyes pull away from your own keen gaze, watching as his head turns as looks down to the ground in front of his boots and his shoulder moves as his hand reaches forward. Straightening his form as his head swivels back to look in your direction, and clutched in his right hand is a dry cloth fallen beside the bathtub. You had set it there for when you wanted to rinse the lathered soap from your rather pruned skin, but had opted for a relaxing soak up until Tommy appeared in the doorway. 

The soft flicker of citrine danced across the shadow of his face, illuminated his skin in the tenderest of breathless glows. His eyes, that managed to capture the core of the swaying embers, glinted a blinding blue that even in the midst of night, held a brightness that one ought to believe only appeared in the light of day. His long eyelashes fluttered in slow and soft bounds against the freckled flesh of his sharp cheekbones, his gaze trained downwards as his hand rested with the white cloth on the rim of the tub. The light casting in a faint glint against the band of gold entwined around his fourth finger, watching it twinkle in the most subtle of light as his right hand dipped down into the tub where your chilled body lay and dunked the cloth into the cool water. Listening to the way his hand disappeared under the surface of the nearly ink black water, the water rippling around your bare body after being completely still. His hand retracting with the cloth clasped tightly, saturated in the bath water that weighed the thin fabric down as though it was drenched in lead. The echoing sensation of trickling water resonated through the quaint bedroom, as his hand simply squeezed with a tightening fist the access water, raining back down into the tub as if it fell from the clouds upon the puddles on the Small Heath streets below.  

Tommy's eyes never lifted to meet your own gaze that had yet to shift from him the entire time. Instead, beneath the thick sprawl of his dark lashes, they studied intently on the matter at hand. For he reached towards you, until his fingers pressed the soaked cloth down upon the bare flesh of your exposed shoulder. Feeling an instant chill of the water that had long ago turned cold, but watching Tommy regard the action with such close attention, warmed you in ways a steaming tub never quite could. For his eyebrows were an even line, same as his pale and pouted lips, but his eyes were focused with keen intensity as his washed the cloth over your shoulder and down your right arm in gentle strokes.

The cloth soft and warmed by the heat of his palm that radiated through the damp fabric, banishing the cold of the water that slid down your skin in thin streams, trailing back down into the tub with a gentle splash. His fingers worked diligently and with a precise care that one wouldn't expect from hands that adorned torn knuckles, blistering bruises and blood that lingered beneath the seemingly clean appearance of his palms. But for you, his fingers had never been rough. They always touched you as though you were the most fragile object he had ever held in his hands. Even when they were bloodied and cold, in more ways than one, they were always warm and tender with you, as if he hadn't in himself to touch you with anything but. 

Minutes passed by in a comforting and incredibly intimate silence, only broken by the soft trickles of water dribbling back into the tub. Tommy's fingers having guided the cloth down your arm and across the structure of your collarbone, before dipping down through the valley of your breasts with tender fingers that made your chest heave a breath or two beneath his welcome touch. Each action methodical and soothing, eased and without a single care for the new day that inched closer with each passing minute. But it was as his fingers guided with the warm cloth downwards, over the ridges of your ribcage to the expansion of your swollen belly, that his hand stalled on the bare flesh just above your belly button. 

The cloth became bunched in his hand, slipping further into his palm, allowing for the tips of his fingers to press against the slickened and warm flesh of your body. Feeling the growth of your belly under the faintly calloused pads of his fingertips, as the sight of his firm hand was a stark contrast to the skin it rested upon. With knuckles torn and throbbing with a swollen rhythm, the faintest hint of a blueish hue against his once bloodied fingers, propped still against the smooth and water soothed skin of your bare stomach. 

Your eyes peered up at Tommy, away from the sight of his fingers resting against the swell of your stomach, as though you might be able to explore the sight of his hooded expression concealed by the downward cast of his gaze. For his hand was still, his movements ceased and frozen against the evidence of an addition to the Shelby clan only a few months away. Smiling softly to yourself, spreading your fingers across your lips in a faint attempt to conceal your adoration, as you felt the tender sweep of Tommy's warm thumb, rubbing back and forth against the bump like the pendulum of a clock. 

"Aunt Pol says it's a girl." You remark in a soft breath, dropping your left arm back down against the rim of the tub, dragging your fingers away from your smiling lips. 

Little expression washed itself across Tommy's face, if there were a shift it would've been imperceptible, even to your eye. But the stoic reaction did not take you by surprise, for Tommy was never one to willingly show off his emotions at first. It took time for the truth of his thoughts and feelings to emerge in the faintest of glimpses across his eyes and in the lines of his softly worn expression. You'd stuck through that time, the times when the words you spoke made little impact to his reaction. All so that the times when he felt comfortable enough to display them, they would shine as though his expression held the moon and all of the stars.

The day you'd told him you were pregnant was certainly one of the days when you had to wait for his comfort in showing his true reaction to grow. For it was a day later, on a night much like the one you found yourself in right now, when the night had consumed the bedroom in deep shadows and Tommy found himself walking in rather late, that the honest reaction of pure and unbridled happiness exposed itself across the timid but endearing smile of his lips and glimmered brightly in his loving gaze. Tommy Shelby was a man of few words and mere ghosts of winsome gestures, but when they did reveal themselves in the form of the softest smile or the whisper of three little words, their weight was immeasurable. 

"She's ought to be right then, ey?" 

His voice resounds in a low hum, the sound of his words barely climbing higher than that of a hushed tone, one that he knows will carry to your ears. Tommy's tone is incredibly even, calm and composed, to the point where somedays you question whether the steady ground it stands upon will ever shake. His eyes don't shift to peer up at you, as his blue eyed gaze remains still on the sight of his fingers brushing back and forth along the swollen skin of your expanding abdomen. But there is a warmth in the sound of his soothing, chest rumbling, Birmingham voice that washes over your bare flesh. One that threatens to melt you into the rippling water surrounding your frame and while he speaks only when reason or influential meaning presents itself, you know you could spend the rest of your life listening to his voice. 

"Could still be a boy," You muse in a soft breath, feeling as your lips curl upwards around the thought teetering on the tip of your tongue. "another little Shelby boy running around raising hell." 

Your words hadn't even a full minute to settle into the crisply chilled atmosphere of the small bedroom, before Tommy shook his head emphatically, with a stern expression etching itself across the faint lines of his face. His dark brows furrowing for the first glimpse of an emotion, a simple bend that barely crinkled the skin of his forehead, but you could see the way the intensity of his stare upon your belly deepened. 

"It's a girl, can feel it." Tommy hums softly, the words nearly slipping beneath his breath. But even in the breathless and quiet voice in which they enter the air, its still loud enough to spread a burning fire through the core of your heart as your slow stretching smile returns against your lips. His fingertips appear to tighten their caress against your flesh, as if his movements coincide with the words that fell effortlessly from his parted lips. "She's got your temperament, bloody blessing there." 

They were words you'd never hear fall from his lips, a statement never to form and climb up the base of his throat, but rather simmer in silence and agony in a cavity of his mind he pushed them through. But as you watched Tommy's intent gaze upon the sight of his flesh and blood growing inside of you, the arrival approaching quicker with each passing day, you saw the words he obscured from your view and failed to allow your ears to hear in the sound of his voice.

Tommy Shelby would never admit it aloud, never say the very words while looking you in the eye, but he was scared. He was fearful of becoming a parent, having been a part of creating a brand new and innocent life and being instructed with the daunting responsibility of keeping it safe. It made him worry, you observed in the nights where his hand rested upon your bump while staring absentmindedly up at the ceiling above him, that he hadn't any experience with a sense of fatherly love and pondered just how on Earth, he could ever be capable of loving his child with all of the care it needed.

They were words and confessions and all-consuming feelings that he would never say aloud, allowing them to wreck havoc on his mind in the silence of his own overwhelming captivity, but he didn't have to. For you heard every worry he carried, every fear he developed, every doubt that weighed him down and you helped him through it. Even when Tommy hadn't the slightest clue that it was your gentle touch that made each passing day, with the prospect of a baby on the horizon, bearable. 

Your hands retracted from the edge of the tub and from below the cold circling water, clasping over Thomas's own in a tender touch of both dry and damp and pruned fingertips. Curling against the curve of his own swollen and sore knuckles, until his hand was all but hidden within the confines of your careful embrace, and the soft squeeze forced his bold blue eyes upwards. Snapping up until they skidded to a halt as soon as his breathtaking orbs of blinding blue locked with your own attentive gaze, and it was the first moment since he entered the room that his face was on full display. No longer hiding away the sight of himself in the shadows that engulfed nearly every corner of the bedroom, or in the downcast of his stare. Every inch of his flesh, from his chiseled form with warmth and the softest sprinkle of freckles dotting around his cheekbones, to the inflammation that swelled a beating red along the jagged line running across his cheek and the cut through his slackened brow, revealed itself to you. Illuminated by the timid glow of the single swaying flame, dwindling down as the wax melted away, but despite the citrine light, your eyes could see every detail of him as though he stood beneath the brightest ray of sunshine.

"The blood on your hands Thomas," Your voice felt raw as it croaked through the void of silence, that had built in the moments that passed since his voice disintegrated from the atmosphere swirling around your bodies. Your tone gentle as though it touched upon Tommy's senses in the form of a timid caress of your fingertips. You spoke softly, a hushed murmur, when in reality it was the only volume your gentle voice could muster, as you stared into Tommy's staggering gaze of overwhelming blue. "is nothing like the blood beating in your heart."

A pregnant pause floated on the trail of your softly spoken words, for even as your lips parted faintly with the next set of your heart filled words readied on the tip of your tongue, you almost expected for Tommy to say something in objection to your honest words. For it was hard for the man to accept that you saw something in him, something good, something pure. Something beyond the blood that coated and could never be completely cleansed from his hands. Something more than a gypsy bookkeeper who wore razors in his peaky cap. There were days when he wouldn't hear of the words you spoke, turning away and walking out the door before you could finish, cutting you off with words of his own that silenced your candor, but there were times of rarity, such as this, when he remained silent and listened to the things you saw in a man like him. The things that you saw in him. 

"You are a good man, I've seen it... I've known it." The edges of your lips curl upwards in a soft twist, smiling at Tommy who simply studies your expression as though he might uncover the real reason behind your bewildering care and adoration for him. "All of the good in you Thomas, our child will have as well. I'm sure of it."

You weren't sure if you could ever fully convince Tommy that the things you spoke were the pure and honest truth, that they were not simply words to fill a void or to ease his mind in the form of things he might like to hear. But rather, that they were the honesty you held in the deepest part of your heart. You might never be able to get Tommy to believe them, he might never understand just how dearly loved by you he truly was, how he was more than just a peaky blinder or the shell of a man the war turned him into. But even when he absorbed bits and pieces of your truth, fighting to expel the kind nature of your beating heart that saw too much inside of his darkened and cold one, you refused to give up.

If it took you this entire life time and possibly the next, to get Tommy Shelby to finally believe that he was worth something, you'd do it without a single breath of grievance or exasperation. He was worth that much, a lifetime or two, or as much time as you were lucky enough to have with him here on this Earth. 

Tommy's eyes bore into your own, nearly capsizing your gentle gaze and drowning you in the overwhelming waves of bold cerulean. But just as your lips began to part in a silent gasp for a fleeting breath, the intensity of his keen scrutiny breaks as he shakes his head in a slow motion. It was not a harsh action, possessing not a shred of empathic displeasure or a hint of frustration, but rather he shook his head in a soft breath of disbelief. For it was with his next set of low trickling words, that washed over your body like the smooth flow of whiskey, that spoke of how he had finally come across a single notion that he simply couldn't wrap his mind around . 

"You're too good for this world, too good for me." 

Squeezing his fingers that remain warm over the swell of your belly, you force him to return his strong gaze back to your own awaiting look and respond without a single beat passing in between. "But I'm right here anyways, aren't I?" 

You'd never forget the sight of Thomas Shelby's smile before he left for war, before the harsh reality of sights and loss far beyond your comprehension, stole the very foundation of his personality and softness from his beating heart. For you could still see in the images recollected in the back of your mind, the way he smiled at you as you bid him goodbye on that train platform. As he kissed your cheek, shot you a smile to warm your heart while he was away, and promised he'd be back before you could even begin to miss him. That was the last time you ever saw him smile like that, wide and uninfluenced by forces far beyond his control.

For even as he smiled at the sight of you when he finally came home, it wasn't the same smile. The smile that met you was extinguished of light, it breathed of a level of pain you couldn't even begin to imagine and of a relief in the thought that his eyes would never land upon your frame again. It was still a beautiful smile, one that brought tears to your eyes and felt warm when pressed to the crook of your neck, but the smiling man who left was gone and you slowly but surely had to learn how to live in a world where Tommy Shelby's breathtaking smiles were a rarity. 

But it was in moments such as these, when the smallest thing would inflict an emotion inside of Tommy, that was strong enough to override the barriers protecting his heart and shine over the muddied shambles of his mind. For you watched with a smile of your own twisted warmly against your own lips, as the edges of his full ones twitched and began to turn upwards. Once a year, Tommy would smile a smile that showed off his teeth for the mere tenth of a second, but the rest of the time, they simply twirled the edges up until his lower lip stretched an expression that made your heart skip a beat.

But even as they were faint and sometimes too short to fill the void of longing you felt for his beautiful smiles, you learned he smiled in a different way these days. For even as his lips may appear barely shadowed by a wide smile, his eyes danced with the sight of his happiness and contentment. The rich waves of blinding blue, glittering like light reflecting off of a glorious gemstone and somedays, the smile that reached his eyes were brighter than any that could expand across his nicotine laced lips. 

Through softly smiling lips and a faintly arched brow, he bobbed his head in a gentle nod as his eyes never left the sight of your own. "Yeah, yeah you are and I'll never bloody understand it."

You gripped tighter to his hand, the cloth having long ago slipped from beneath his palm and dunked back into the water wading around you. "Sometimes there are powers at be, we simply can't understand, even you Thomas Shelby, don't have all the answers." 

His smile twitched further across his shadowed lips as the sight of it intensified in the blue of his gaze, making you nearly laugh beneath your breath as the moments when he seemed at a semblance of ease and softer in the privacy of your company, were your favorite spent with him. 

The rich aroma of his cologne, mixing with the scent of the smoke that tainted every breath of Small Hearth air and the tobacco woven into his clothing, wafted across your senses as he leaned forward at a leisurely pace. But there was something incredibly intoxicating about Tommy Shelby's scent, something oddly comforting found in scents you'd never think could hold such an essence, but when it entwined itself along the trail of his flesh and the soft exhale of his breath, you felt safe. Your eyelashes fluttered as Tommy's face inched closer to your own, feeling the warmth of his exhales dancing along your skin as he gently rests his forehead against your own. Feeling the softly disheveled locks of dark brown brush against the crown of your forehead, as the heat of his flesh instantly soaks into your own. 

The breath you breathed was shared as you inhaled a soft and shallow breath that felt of the warmth of his tongue and hinted of the whiskey that danced along his taste buds. But only as his nose shifted along the ridge of your own, as though he traced the silhouette of your nose as if the tip of his was a sharpened edge of charcoal, feeling as it spread across the flesh of your cheekbone, did the space lingering between your lips disappear. For Tommy nudged his lips closer to yours until they landed with a swift motion, colliding softly as he took them into his care and control. He tasted of the smoke that had long since dissipated from the air, the salt of his sweat and the faint metallic nature that had slid down his skin from his torn through wounds. But he kissed you gently, as if it were you who had injuries plaguing your skin and he did his best to ease the inflammation.

Tommy Shelby had kissed you a thousand different times, in a hundred different ways, but this kind, where the fire behind his action was certainly not lost but did not blister in a fiery blaze behind his fervent lust, was one of your favorites. For it was a flame like the one dwindling behind you from the shrinking candle. For it was gentle and intimate, and spread enough warmth through you, that it banished any sign of the cold seeping through the bedroom.  

Days would always be hard for Tommy, since returning from the war they were made longer in ways you were still desperately trying to understand. Nights, you knew would always be worse. But even when he showed up close to dawn, with blood and cuts marring his flesh, with troubles weighing like a boulder upon his broad shoulders and tortures wrecking havoc in the center of his aching mind, at the end of the day, Tommy Shelby still had you. And maybe, just maybe, one day that would be enough to make up for all the rest.

A/N: Ahh!! My very first Thomas Shelby One Shot up is up and oh my goodness, I am in absolute shock right now with this piece!!😭😍It is one of those pieces of writing that I start but have no idea how exceptional it will turn out to be, one where the words literally flow from my fingers and from my heart! I am so incredibly proud of this piece, it's surprising myself with what I've created here!❤

This was one of my very first one shot ideas I had for Tommy Shelby and it has always been one of my absolute favorites! Something about the intimacy and all of the words spoken in the silence between more so than the limited dialogue itself. I fell in love with the scene, each part vivid in my mind as though it was an actual scene playing out and could only hope to do justice to that vision by getting it to display across the page for you all to see as well. I loved the tenderness of this piece, all the while, keeping the essence of where it's truly taking place and making it true to the time and to Tommy's character. I poured my heart and soul into this piece, putting time and care into crafting it to the utmost perfection possible!

Tommy Shelby is by far, the most challenging character I have ever ventured to write for, but he is completely worth the time and intent care. Tommy Shelby is one of my absolute favorite characters and seriously owns a piece of my heart! He is a layered character, a man tortured and flawed beyond belief, but still a man redeemable with hidden parts of himself that make him so. I fell in love with him as soon as I watched Peaky Blinders for the very first time, and have only fallen deeper with each re-watch! He is a beautiful character, both on the inside where although he might be damaged, glimpses of goodness still linger and on the outside because wow that man is breathtaking! 😍

I am so proud of what I have created here, from the details and descriptions that lift the scene off the page and the emotion that grounds the moment in your mind, I am beaming as I view this completed! I hope that you all enjoyed this first piece and that you endeavor to join me on this new writing journey, I can't wait to see where writing Thomas Shelby will take me!❤