Her blood had gone cold, like ice water invaded her veins. Capsizing the once fiery blaze that burned throughout her being, saving her from the flames that numbed her nerves and blurred her senses, only to be submerged beneath frigid waves that threatened to overwhelm her faster than the fire. Body rocking with the currents, dragging her shaken being out to sea without a single lighthouse in sight to guide her back to certain land.

Maybe the smoke arose over the far horizon line, any last remnant of a saving grace tumbling into the atmosphere alongside the ashes of the structure that littered across the shoreline. Bobbing beneath an ocean's grasp, everything she'd been numbed to as her heart beat with a brutal fury, suddenly came flooding back with overwhelming clarity.

The adrenaline in her veins coating the shock that suddenly sent voltage throughout her very bones, the waves only amplifying the static like the salt of the sea hit a live wire, wore off as it floated away in the tide like kelp around her ankles. Leaving her nerves exposed, her mind vulnerable and her chest heaving beneath the weight that crushed down upon it.

The dusky light of the Garrion Tavern that she'd stumbled into, cast shadows over the package of worn and nearly empty cigarettes, her fingers fumbled with. Pads brushing over the creasing and faded label but feeling not a thing as she couldn't keep her fingers from trembling, like an electrical storm shot through each and every one. She'd grip one of the last remaining cigarettes from the carton, only to drop it back into the case or onto the tabletop of the booth she tried to hide within the shadowed upholstery of.

The matches seemed to mock her, as they lay in their own little box that she hadn't dared to touch, as she knew she'd never keep still enough to light the flame to singe her smoke. And so she simply placed the single cigarette between her fingers, bringing it to her lips as though the tightly rolled tobacco could suddenly ignite itself and stream down into her drowning lungs, drying out the ice water that froze her breath and replace it with the heat that had made it possible for her feet to carry her here in the night.

Midnight dawned on the other side of the establishment walls. Darkness seeping in through the paneled windowpanes, but only seeming to make the haze of this place stand sharper in the shadows.

Maybe because it illuminated the very foundation of its purpose, a housing for lost souls and those wanting to merely hide away in the darkness of this world, obscured from the sight of the devils that wanted them gone. Perhaps, the Garrison was a refuge for the damned.

Her hair hung a matted mess over her shoulder and cascading in tangled, windblown knots down her spine. The once neatly coiled curls, loose and spilling over thin fabric of pale evergreen, carried in the scent of the night. Eradicating the breath of perfume that once danced subtly along the curvature of her collarbone, sensual jasmine and softening rose hips, dominated by the smell of the smoke that carried throughout the streets of Birmingham like oxygen in her lungs.

The smell of the wind wove itself into the strands that hung heavy. Split ends tousled with a shade she couldn't see, seeping into the threads of her dress that was fortunately too dark a shade to showcase the crimson it suddenly adorned.

She'd scrubbed her flesh raw before she'd journeyed into Small Heath, over and over again in a basin turned pool of deep maroon, but as she held her unlit cigarette as firmly as she could in her trembling hands, she swore the sight still bled onto the paper. Like beyond the soap that foamed and frothed over her skin and through the valleys of her palms she'd torn through, the metallic nature still loitered, a stain never to be cleansed.

She could feel it still, the thick ooze that coated her flesh in a heat that made her nauseated all over again, collecting beneath her nails and in the whirls of her fingerprints, until she could no longer see the sight of her own skin but rather the bloodshed of his own.

She knew she'd been crying, the itch of the salt stains caked onto her cheekbones proof enough that tears had been shed from her bloodshot eyes, but she couldn't remember when they had fallen.

For when the fire burned, smoke clouding her chest with a thick presence and the embers crackling alive inside of her veins controlled her every step, she didn't remember feeling tears coming when she couldn't feel a thing at all. But when the flames extinguished, doused out by the flooding tide of frigid artic waves, it froze any tears she had to give right alongside, leaving her empty and dry. Even if she wanted to cry right now, something in the shaken core of her being wouldn't let her.

The light is pale as it illuminated throughout the Garrison walls, capturing glints of citrine toned hues and hurdling them through the smoke infused shadows. But just as she pulls her hand up to bring the unlit cigarette back to her lips, a mindless motion, there is just enough light to reflect upon a single sight that forces the waves to crash all over again.

The dusky light slid along the band, gold glittering every so faintly in her sights, as the small gemstone teetering in the center captured the rest. But there along the golden band, a new shade arose, a deep metallic nature of ruby that hadn't been there before. It splattered along the surface of the jewel, like the small diamond simply held hostage another trace of him to assault her senses with.

She'd forgotten she still wore the ring that had tethered itself around her finger all those years ago, never knowing the beautiful band was a mere rusted chain in disguise. But as her eyes fell upon the sight, the weight bore back down upon the bone. For beneath the crashing waves, it threatened to sink her straight to the bottom.

With shaking hands that couldn't still even if the world begged them to hold, she removed the wedding band in a slow motion. Feeling the instant breath of relief when it clattered to the tabletop with a sharp chime, rattling until the blood-stained band sat motionless and freedom flooded into the nature of her hand.

It didn't stop the shakes, it didn't calm the way her blood cooling made her feel worse than when it was popping with flames, but it let a little breath seep back into her lungs. Like it had been the single breath she'd been holding all of this time.

Her shadow wept over the tabletop, like the very tears her eyes couldn't cry, as the darkness of her hunched frame bled along the beer stained surface and enveloped the space in a cloud of deep-rooted misery that Thomas Shelby knew the sight of far too well.

She didn't register his presence in the pub, not even realizing that Harry still hung back wiping down the bar top with a rag in his tired hand. It wasn't that she believed she was rightfully alone in an establishment still open, but rather that a muddled mind could make the entire world sound silent, as if not another soul lingered in the sheltered void.

The door to the snug clicked behind him, as Thomas exited and stepped into the empty room. There was a stark silence to the Garrison after hours, when the former soilders had gone home with booze in their veins to numb their open wounds, only for the flames of their nightmares to burn straight through the coverage and ignite the fuse of trauma searing at their core.

An emptiness that was just as calming as it was unnerving, when all of the patrons stumbled into the cobblestone lane, whether to loiter in the darkness until dawn arose or to journey on drunken feet to their next drink. There was an air to the place, when it wasn't shaking wall to wall with the shouting rouse of men.

The incandescent light burned a sharp citrine hue, coating the walls in a warmth that made the smoke loitering in the air more appearent, glinting off of the furnishings like at this hour of night, it appeared more than just a small local pub in the core of Small Heath.

She wished to merely drift into the shadows, like a lulling tide pulling her out into an oblivion that might just close her wounds and take away her pain. Thomas could see it from where he stood, on the other side of the bar, and he knew just how futile those yearning thoughts were. How foolish they were to allow the mind to believe, but he also knew, just how hard it was to stop them from turning just the very same.

Making his way to the counter, hands in his pockets as his tweed jacket hung behind on the back of the chair in the snug, meeting Harry as he slid down with his rag to catch Tommy's scrutiny. He didn't even have to ask in order to receive the answer he sought. A lonely woman sitting alone in an empty pub, past closing time and having just teetered off the edge of midnight, her entire air was an inquiry that begged to be answered.

"She came rushing down the lane from Digbith, looking like she saw a bloody ghost." Harry murmured in a low voice, as though not to disturb the woman that Thomas knew full well wouldn't register a single word spoken, even if she were sat right beside them.

"She's been sat there for hours now, not a word."

Tommy took the information with a short look back at the woman who hadn't moved an inch, still hunched over that tabletop, with an unlit cigarette balancing between her rattling fingers. With a low clearing of his throat, a deep rumble seeping into the base of his chest, Tommy turns his attention back towards Harry and begins to make his way around the bar.

"You go on home, Harry. I'll lock up."

His eyes didn't meet the bartenders, as Tommy's hands swiftly picked up two clean glasses and swiped a bottle of Irish Whiskey from the shelf beside them. Taking them all in hand as Harry had no reason to argue with the gangster doing him a favor, simply clearing one last smudge before untying his apron and taking his leave for the night.

The Garrison echoed with a stark void, the intimacy of two broken beings resounding in the golden hued space, as midnight settled over the cobbles outside and the misery deepened inside of the surrounding walls.

But Tommy walked towards the slouched and shaken woman, like the weight of his own tortured mind didn't threaten to break the bones it balanced upon. Feeling the pressure upon the surface, creaks groaning out from deep inside of him as the darkness plagued his body like lead soaring through his whiskey-soaked veins.

It wasn't the first midnight he felt the claws of rightful devils reaching up through the mud, talons searching for the flesh of his war-torn mind in order to shred through whatever remained behind, and he knew it wouldn't be his last.

But he swallowed his angst right alongside the whiskey, unsure which burned the back of his throat with a stronger flame and carried on as he always had.

She stared down at the cigarette in her hands, a tumbling mess of wind-torn coils obscuring the sight of her face from Tommy's approaching glance, but he watched the way she tilted her fingertips up towards the dusky light. Up and back down again, bringing them around in every direction in order to get a better glimpse of what lingered underneath. Her eyes entranced by the stains of her nailbeds, the feeling of something wedged deep beneath the curvature and perhaps seeping back into her bloodstream.

Her fingers shook so hard that Tommy could see it from across the room, the way her unlit cigarette threatened to tumble right out of her lackluster grasp, but as he grew closer to the woman, he saw that it really was just her hands that trembled with a fury in her bones. The rest of her body completely numb to the way her hands shook, like the electricity of pure shock had burned straight through the wire but left her hands still popping with lingering embers still emerging.

Tommy recognized the shake in her hands, the uneasy stillness in the rest of her being. He knew the sight of blood running cold. Every solider did.

Tommy approached the table she occupied, his feet quiet as they carried him over floorboards sprinkled with sawdust and chips drawn out from barstool legs. He stood across from her as he set the glasses and bottle of half empty whiskey down upon the tabletop. The clank of glass colliding with metal boisterous in the otherwise silent void. Watching as the single motion sent a current rattling down her spine, like he'd taken the revolver from his holster and shot a bullet up through the Garrison's ceiling.

"What are we drinking?"

A shadow loomed. Basking over her in the dusky lit environment of the Garrison's barroom, it cloaked her shoulders in an all-consuming shade. Like the indigo of the evening sky invading the marigold swept remnants of day.

A voice, deep in the rumble of his Birmingham accent, infused the silhouette. His voice held no malice and although uncertainty ran through her veins at the sound of another human being, his tone didn't aim to intimidate. Just a strong presence woven within the notes of a low, masculine voice that clouded around her fragile senses like a haze of velvety smoke.

There was a disconcerting lull to his voice, a gentle ease that glossed over her scorched veins just enough that it allowed a deeper breath to invade her lungs, a certain level of calm that he emanated, while still enough curiosity of a stranger to allow her defenses to withstand.

Timidly, she peered up from her gaze upon hands that itched with the memory of the blood caked into the lines of her palms, and up towards the stranger that continued to stand in front of her in the silence. Her sight trailing slowly up the figure's lean frame, a thin man by all accounts, but there was still something imposing about his stance, an air of authority and strength that seeped from his pores.

For a man of Small Heath, he dressed impeccably. Although slightly relaxed for the midnight's dark chime, with his jacket missing from his shoulders, the sight of the sharp black suspenders flat along the curvature of his shoulders as they laid a contrast to the pale blue shirt he adorned, spoke of a well-tailored individual who prided himself on the fact.

Orbs of pure blue awaited her apprehensive scrutiny when her chin finally tipped an inch, and the strangers identity came fully into view.

They were a blinding hue, a blue so far away from any shade that resided here in the smoke infested Birmingham land, a sliver of the sea lingering far beyond the horizon line of smog and misery. They glistened with the light of a current that ebbed and flowed with effortlessness in his gaze. An entrancing shade of cornflower that was only magnified by the shirt he adorned but deepened by a rich cerulean that pulled one in like an anchor to the bottom of the ocean floor.

But his long lashes of dark raven, blinked mindlessly, whisps of darkness battering over the inexplicable shade of light, as if he didn't even realize he carried a rarity of power in his possession.

She wasn't sure what told her, as the cap known around these parts for the razor sewn into the rim was missing from his scalp, left with the haircut of a man returned home from war, and there wasn't a hint of blood to be found on his flesh to her keen eye, but she knew who he was. She knew his name before he'd ever imparted the breath that spared it her way. It was whispered around like a loose lipped sin in the air. But she'd never seen his face before.

Thomas Shelby was startingly beautiful, the kind of beauty that seemed foreign on a man, wasted or lost. The kind of beauty that wasn't often seen in this place, in this life, on these streets. It was a beauty unwarranted and inexplicable, like a fluke from the heavens handed down to the wrong man. But bewilderingly enough, it suited him.

Blinking under his icy gaze that felt more like a fiery abyss, she studied him for one more second before deciding to acknowledge his remark. Making her mind up about the Peaky Blinder who stood before her now, as something faint flickered in the core of his eyes. Something trusting, even if it seemed like it didn't quite belong.

"I don't drink."

A ghost of a twitch flittered along the edge of Tommy's lip, an amused sound emanating low from the back of his throat as he tilted his head to the side in a quick motion, before screwing the top off the bottle of whiskey and pouring himself a glass.

"A woman in a pub looking the way you do, and you don't drink."

It wasn't a question, rather an observation exhaled in a sharp tone of bemusement as he brought the rim of his own glass to his lips, and let the burning alcohol coat his throat in a numbing presence. Pouring another round into his glass, Tommy slowly eases into the seat across from her.

Nothing in the air that clouded around his imposing frame like a daunting smoke emanating from a churning factory, told her what he wanted from her, why he'd sat down across from her with such ease. Not a glint of explanation expanding across his expression, the one chiseled into stone right alongside the sharp lines of his bone structure.

The gangster simply sat there on that side of the upholstered booth, nursing his whiskey without a word on his lips or an expectation ticking away in his mind like hands on a pocket watch.

Tommy peered up through the dark sprawl of his lashes, taking in the sight of the shaken woman whose weary eyes were still tightly locked upon his very presence, evaluating her just as closely as she was clearly doing to him.

She didn't seem afraid of him, rather frightened of her own shadow more than anything else. She looked at him with a blend of curiosity behind the blood in her eyes, the bleeding of crimson dying the white waters of her otherwise sharp eyes.

Her lashes were dry and her veins ran sober, but Tommy would've sworn that a thousand tears had swam within her bloodshot depths, alcohol numbing away the pains until it burned every inch of her bloodstream.

She had dark marks beneath the swell of her sullen eyes, makeup smudged across her flesh and smeared into the creases of her expression, they shadowed the bags that were already sunken in beneath the weight of her gaze. Her complexion was pale, color drained from her body like the light source had simply seeped right out of her pores, leaving behind a ghost of a woman wandering around in a shell of the living.

He knew it the moment he laid his eyes on the woman, as though a confession was written in ink along the basis of her flesh, like the evidence drowned her entire being in the sight of a sin only those who committed it could truly see.

Tommy knew the look of someone who'd taken a life. It changed the soul, it altered the very fabric of that individual until the threads that were once sewn into the makings of their humanity, were severed and stitched back together in haphazard lines that would never be the same.

Her eyes blink furiously as he shifts suddenly, one hand relinquishing the grip on his whiskey glass to reach into his pocket, withdrawing a package of cigarettes and small box of matches. The label is worn, crumpled and creased, but still, he slides a single white stick out without a single fumble, brushing the end along the curve of his bottom lip, before letting it hang there.

Tommy's eyes flicker up to meet her nervous gaze, igniting a match without even looking down at the stick in his hand, he gestures with his head towards her own cigarette. The stick that had been absorbing every ounce of heat that returned to her body, as it sat motionless in the trembling and futile grasp of her fingers. With a slow action, she brings the cigarette to her lips and leans forward, meeting Tommy halfway as he cups the flame and singes the end of her smoke, before igniting his own.

The smoke burned as it traveled down her throat and straight into the lining of her lungs, the depths clouding instantly with the presence of an intoxicating haze that set her chest on fire, but all the while, slowly began to thaw through the ice that coated her frigid veins.

Tommy observed her for a moment, eyes scanning over the woman who smoked like her cigarette was suddenly a lifeline, reeling her back in from the thrashing abyss she found herself drowning within, a chilling current bathed in the darkness that sought to draw her under.

Perhaps, it was the familiarity in her, the recognition of not the woman herself but rather the sight of a mirror, showing him the deeds he'd done continuing to reside inside himself like nothing could ever cleanse the sin from his skin. Maybe, it was knowing what she sought in this moment, that all too potent ache for solace and silence, all the while, not wishing to be alone.

Maybe, it was the resonating of this woman's pain, the guilt hanging heavy on her shoulders and seeping deep into the crevices of her mind, that forced him to speak up in the silence. Or perhaps, the words just came because they'd always been there. Always lingering, always waiting.

"It feels like fire for a while," Tommy's voice seeps along the tabletop like the thick smoke he exhales, forcing her eyes to collide back with the rushing tide of his own cerulean blaze.

"Scalding like your blood's boiling. It makes your fucking veins numb to the way it burns straight through the surface."

Adrenaline could ignite the soul on fire, but the bloodshed that coated the hand, it was hellfire rising up from the ashes and consuming the entirety like they'd perished right alongside the life they'd taken.

It was a kind of heat that soldiers in France knew, something to keep them warm in the hours that followed, but like a dying ember, it didn't last long enough to keep the nauseating guilt at bay.

"But then suddenly, without a breath of warning, the flames begin to go out."

Like a candle blown out by the wind, smoke tumbling up in a single streak into the open atmosphere, the chill with a strong vengeance. Surging through the burnt ashes, coating the singed surface in a layer of frost that only amplified the searing pain that was left behind.

"Steadily at first and then all of a sudden, once the blaze is put out, you're cold as ice. Colder than you'd known was possible and somehow, it's worse than the fire."

Tommy didn't ask for her story, it didn't really matter to him. Blood was blood, regardless of who wore it deep on their souls and in the imprints of their palms, the effect on the human being was still the same. He didn't pry, trying to peel back the layers of her cauterized yet gaping wounds. He didn't press his fingers into the raw flesh that burned with the recollections of the past, he didn't endeavor to deepen the scars scoring themselves across her heart like a sharpened blade.

Just in the way she hadn't asked for his. There was a simple understanding, a notion that they both simply knew. Like they'd both had chapters in their stories that the other already knew.

Swallowing a shaky breath, she peers up at the gangster, who appeared more human in this humble lightening at this time of night.

"Does it ever go away?"

The truth flittered from his tongue ever since he'd made it home from France, he wasn't convinced he'd spoken one true word since. But he stared at the woman across from him, soul in shambles and a heart mangled on its tethered strings, and wondered if he could be so careless with the truth.

Perhaps, he could lie. Bathe a twisted slip of his lip in honey sweet coating, until she healed with the hope that Tommy knew was far too nonexistent in this world. Perhaps, he could tell her the things that he knew she wanted to hear, what her grieving being needed to hear.

But he stared at her, the lost abyss in her eyes that called out to his own wandering soul like a siren in the night, and found the honesty buried inside of the broken crevices of himself slowly creeping to the surface.

"I don't know."

She wanted to know if it was possible to make it to hell and come back capable of being whole again one day, like the fire didn't burn the remnants of the soul into ashes to line its gates. Tommy would let her know the answer if he ever made it back.

A/N: I really loved this idea when it came to me suddenly one day. I was really inspired by a different dynamic between the characters, while still having something very poignant being able to bridge these strangers together.

I like exploring different types of relationships or dynamics when writing Tommy Shelby, because I think there's so many perspectives that shed different lights on the character and show certain sides of him based on the situation. I really loved the idea of him being able to immediately resonate and identify something like this in someone, without having to know them or their backstory, being able to see them from across the room and know every detail because he himself had experienced them.

I struggled towards the end of this piece, feeling like I just kept stumbling and unsure what kind of tone I wanted to end it all on, ultimately deciding to make this piece a bit of a shorter and kind of an excerpt style piece, rather than drawing out an ending that tied up a situation that doesn't have a clear or clean cut. But I am really happy with the bulk of what I've created in this one. The beginning really flowed straight out of me, something I'm very proud of and although the dialogue is limited, I liked the depth and emotion that it still managed to carry.❤