The strong exhale of winter nearly froze your bones, seeping beneath the surface of your concealed flesh and curling its forceful presence around the delicate structure, as though it might just crumble your skeleton to dust. The change of the season bled through the atmosphere slowly, like that of a spreading flame and yet, when the first of December rolled around like clockwork, winter fell upon the Earth as if it had never left.

For there was a certain level of comfort the bitter cold derived from engulfing the souls below, in such a powerful gust of frigidness that it nearly paralyzed those who weren't expecting the chill. All the while, leaving those scrambling for a semblance of warmth that simply did not exist in the forgotten streets of Small Heath.

The wind soared through the atmosphere, immersing you in a strong breath of December cold, as it whipped through your tendrils left free to the open air and tore across any exposed flesh it could find. For it felt as though the cold that blew like it were merely an exhale from the lips of Father Winter himself, might just freeze you were you were knelt.

Frost collecting on the fallen strands of your locks, that even beneath the protection of your warm blue velvet hat, remained vulnerable to the elements around you. Your dress, concealed by two layers of a long cardigan and heavy wool coat, were still not enough to banish away the presence of such formidable cold. For it permeated your each and every breath, soaring down into the cavity of your chest along the current of your shallow inhale, only to freeze you from the inside out.

The ground, solid and impenetrable as if only the hand of God had the power to break through the surface laced with leftover soil and icy frost, seeped into the concealed skin of your knees. Kneeling against the Earth's surface, the cold that had settled into the very foundation your shoes had walked across, soaked into you as if it were mere rainwater for the taking.

Staring down at the soil left dried and nearly lifeless beneath you, as your eyes falter down to witness your kneeling upon the Earth, your breath freezes around your frame. For as you exhale softly, a mere trickle through the part in your lips, the cold clings to the evidence of your warm breath and freezes it before your eyes. Like that of a cloud of smoke, billowing out from between your lips nearly blued by the dusk's strong cold, floating out into the frigid atmosphere like the evidence of your presence might just linger in the cusp of the sky forever.

It was a perplexing notion, that as the Earth suffered in the cold that the elements inflicted upon the poor and wounded souls below, that the sky could be engulfed in a sense of warmth that was left visible to those searching for a source of just that. The cloud coverage was dense as they hovered above the outskirts of Small Heath and yet, out here where there was a bit more land than cobbles, light broke through the haze.

For the sky was a contrast of dark clouds, nearing the shade of deep indigo blue of the impending night, as dusk embraced the atmosphere, and a warming pierce of lingering marigold. The lasting evidence that the sun had indeed been present that day, that it hadn't just been dormant within the clouds and left those below aching for the heated beam of sunlight. Only a trace, as it cut through the coverage of the growing evening shadows in thin streaks, as if it were a color upon an oil painting that was running out.

The light of the falling sun painted the backdrop of his sudden arrival, but perhaps, it was the shadows that truly accentuated his presence. Clinging to the wool of his long black coat that flapped at his sides, as the surrounding wind refused to leave even Thomas Shelby unscathed by its powerful and frigid touch.

For you weren't sure if it was the soft crunch of his steps upon the cold and destitute land that alerted you, the familiar scent of tobacco slowly seeping through your next inhale, or if it was merely the fact that Thomas caused a visceral reaction within yourself, leaving it impossible to ignore or remain oblivious to his presence, that told you he had found you. All the way out here, amongst rows and rows of old and tarnished headstones and an Earth that nearly resembled the death the resided six feet below your knelt knees. But you'd realized fairly quickly in this life, that if Thomas Shelby wanted to find you, he would do just that.

You'd known Tommy all your life really, ever since you were six and he was nine, convinced at that young and naive age, you knew exactly what love was. You didn't know what it truly was, it was hard to believe anyone in this place had a true sense of the word and yet, as the years passed and your intelligence of such matters grew, you realized that even if you had never quite known what love was, that it had always been Tommy. That through life on Watery Lane, with your dearest friends who just happened to be the gypsy boys of the Shelby family, one thing remained constant. Your love for the second eldest brother, no matter what age, no matter the innocence that lined your soul, it had always been Tommy and you rather knew there would cease to be another.

But then France happened and rather blew the notion of love straight out of Tommy's head.

"He was a good man."

Tommy's voice reached you before his steps completed their journey, faltering against the ground a few paces after his words all but dissolved into the atmosphere. But that was the thing about Tommy and the profound powers he possessed, his shadow didn't need to encase you as it did now, for his words to settle upon your sense of sound and seep straight into the cavity of your expanding chest. There was something in the way he spoke, even with a tone left low to the ground and steady like the slow-moving churn of the canal, that held a strength that not another man could ever own.

Perhaps, in the way his voice invoked an intangible sensation within yourself that left you vulnerable and rather weak in his presence or maybe, it was simply the way that when Tommy spoke, you couldn't do anything but listen. The Birmingham accent saturating his voice in a way that nearly left his tone hypnotic and melodic and yet, his words could cut through a crowded room with a simple syllable and not a breath of malice.

But these words, the first Thomas chose to acknowledge you with, pulled upon the pained strings of your beating heart. He'd never quite been one for pleasantries, never seeing the need when he could easily begin to voice exactly what it was in which he needed or wanted to say and today was no different.

Only when you'd formally introduced him to your parents one night during your formative years, after they'd begun to wonder if all of this time you'd been spending with the Shelby boy was turning into something more and so, you'd brought him by. They'd interrogated him as good parents do, as you'd voiced that you were both going for a drive that night. Tommy had indulged in pleasantries that night, revealing all of the charm and charisma that had perhaps swooned your own heart in the beginning, but after France, it was as if he hadn't a second to spare on soft and polite pleasantries.

You'd never really wished for any, as this was how Tommy was and yet, today as his choice of words fell steadily from his lips like his exhale of cigarette smoke, you wished they'd been preceded by a breath of lightheartedness or diplomacy. But they expelled across your shoulders in an exhale of intoxicating smoke and the truth to why you were here today, knelt upon the Earth that shot the cold straight up into your very bones.

Your eyes didn't lift to meet Thomas's, as you could feel the cast of his gaze upon your shadowed frame like the crashing of a strong cerulean tide, but rather remaining steady upon the chiseled stone before you. A marbled grey headstone, with etched letters that were nearly glossed over by the sheen of fresh frost collecting within the carved crevices. You'd been visiting more than one gravestone in the past few months, but today, the one nestled within a row of fallen war heroes and lost souls who hadn't a chance, called out your name and dragged you here to this solemn place.

Even as you were convinced many of those who resided beneath you were up above, where the smoke was cleansed from their lungs and the pain of their livelihoods was alleviated, back down amongst the living, there was something about this place that felt godforsaken. But in the same breath, it felt like not even the devil had his hand upon this place either. That this graveyard was no-man's-land and neither the comforting touch of God nor the burning grasp of Satan, had claim to this land.

Your brother, who'd been two years older than you, was one of the men that never made it back from France. Sent off to war with the notion that it would all surely be over come Christmas time, but four years and more lives taken than you could ever fathom later, your brother never made it home. It was a pain unlike any you'd ever felt, the loss that nearly suffocated you as it permanently drowned itself in your lungs and in the frayed strings of your aching heart. But you wondered, as the insufferable days turned to long weeks and those weeks turned to months gone by without his soul living here on Earth, if perhaps the pain was worse because you saw the way men came back.

For you saw Tommy come back home, waiting there on that train platform for the man who you began to wonder a month before France, if you could start a life together, but it was no longer the man you knew. The boy you'd grown up with, the person you'd loved nearly as long as you'd been alive, the man who'd begun to feel for you what you felt for him. But the man who came back in his place, was a broken and vacant shell of the Tommy you'd known all your life. And you couldn't help but wonder, if the pain you carried from your brother's death, was impart to the thought that perhaps he'd found something that the returning men might never find.

For up above, beyond the heavenly gates where France was a distant memory, your brother found everlasting peace. But watching Thomas Shelby for the last two years, you feared that he might never discover it for himself. The pain would last forever, but perhaps, your brother was better off in the safe embrace of the good Lord and not back here, where the men that walked the cobbles, were merely ghosts of the men they were before France.

The bouquet of poppies, resting delicately against the headstone of a chiseled grey stone, had been touched by the surrounding December cold. For the petals, thin and toned with a gentle red, nearly froze as if they might just hang onto that stem for eternity. But as the frost settled upon the delicacy of the flower, you feared as you balanced them against your brother's name etched in the stone, that the evidence of winter would become far too heavy and force the petals to shed upon the grave. But even as their purity of the spring time season had all but disappeared, as winter left not an inch of Birmingham unscathed by its frigid hand, they were still beautiful.

They were beautiful in a way that made your heart ache. For they appeared so out of place out there amongst gravestones of simply aged and depressing stone, a display of color that had no such place in amongst a sea of lost souls. But perhaps, what made the strings of your heart nearly snap at the sight of them, resting against your brother's headstone as if he might possibly sense all the way up in heaven that they were there, was the reason behind placing them here today. For placing flowers upon his grave, solidified the knowledge that he was really gone and that he wasn't coming back.

"You know," Perhaps it had been winter's strong exhale, soaring down into the cavity of your chest with each and every inhale, that made it feel as though your words had become trapped within ice. Frost collecting around the very letters building in the base of your throat, trapping them under the artic surface left behind in its place. "I've never gotten flowers for any other purpose before."

The words burned as they broke through the ice, meeting the open air in a sharp exhale that faded before your eyes and the cold rush of the winter wind made your throat feel raw. You didn't lift your head and you didn't dare look at Thomas, but you knew without a single doubt, that he stood just as frozen to the Earth as you knelt and listened to you. Capturing your words, saturated in candor and pain, before they had the chance to dissipate with the soft cloud of your breath.

You weren't completely sure why you were sharing this with Tommy, perhaps, you weren't completely aware the words were even leaving your lips to begin with. But it was something you'd considered from time to time, as you paid for the flowers you placed upon the graves of your brother, your grandfather, cousins and friends from childhood, you realized you'd never gotten flowers for any other reason than that of placing upon the graves of the departed. Never once had you received a bouquet for yourself, not through that of a gift or a declaration of love, never once for the very fact that they were beautiful and brightened up the depressing hues of living in Small Heath. The only time you had ever gotten flowers, was when someone passed.

"Isn't that sad?"

Thomas didn't say a word, perhaps understanding your words were merely rhetorical and required no response. For even if they had, what could he have possibly said that you didn't already know? The only sensation that sounded from where Thomas's shadow cast over your shoulders, came the soft igniting of a match. The sulfur scent streaming through the air as Thomas lights his second cigarette since seeking you out, only to be replaced by the engulfing scent of smoke that trickles from between his lips.

Your knees nearly snap as you begin to stand up, pulling away from the Earth that had threatened to freeze your very bones. The skirt of your flowing dress falling back down over your legs, but the wind blows straight through the fabric as if weren't even there in the first place. Casting goosebumps across the surface of your flesh, despite the coverage of wool and two layers of long-sleeved attire beneath your coat, as if your body needed a physical reminder of the surrounding cold that embraced you like an unwelcome friend.

You hadn't realized how closely Thomas truly stood, until you were planted on your own two feet again and peered over to the man for the first time since he arrived. Finding that he stood far closer than you expected, with a few mere paces left lingering between your bodies. The appearance of him however, was straight out of the images in your head when he arrived, for he always looked the same.

Adorned in black, wool draping down his frame from the sleek and tailored coat that flapped gently in the blowing wind. Only the timid contrast of a white button down residing beneath the coverage of a black suit and matching black tie. His raven locks, shaven shorter in the recent months, were hidden beneath the coverage of his peaky cap that he pulled far too low over his eyes. Concealing the only evidence of light amongst his presence from others, as if the bold cerulean that resided within his strong orbs, was a secret he strived to keep to himself.

Thomas was beautiful in a way that bewildered you, for not a thing about him should have alluded to such beauty and such profound perfection and yet, he stood breathtaking like you'd witnessed no other man before. It was as if the good Lord had gifted Thomas his looks, before realizing what kind of man he would become. But you'd loved him before the razor blades and the blood staining the crevices of his palms, you'd loved him when he was just that blue eyed gypsy boy down on Watery Lane and even after France, you'd loved him still.

His eyes were not upon you, their gaze leaving you free to breathe and not drown beneath the strong swell of his cerulean tide, for they fell upon the sight of your brother's grave. Perhaps, it was with his scrutiny not upon your shoulders, that you felt strong enough to admit something to Thomas that you never had before. Something that had haunted your heart, haunted your thoughts, every day he was off fighting in France.

"I always thought it would be your grave I'd be placing flowers on."

The words punctured the atmosphere with a presence that was all-consuming, for they permeated the flesh of those who could hear with their honesty and pain. Thomas was not a man easily swayed, he reacted very little to anything anyone said and flinched not an inch in situations and yet, your words were enough for his sight to pull away from the grave and back over to you.

For the strong cascade of his gaze washed over you, as if it were a tide about to take you down amongst its formidable waves. His expression gave nothing away, not a single semblance of what it was that toyed with his thoughts. But as his lips parted, extracting the burning cigarette, his exhale of smoke and candor reiterate the knowledge that Thomas's reactions were far different than that of most people.

"Perhaps one day, you still will."

You weren't sure why you expected anything more from Tommy, you began to wonder if you had truly anticipated anything else to begin with, but still his words managed to settle upon your heart with a staggering pressure. For perhaps, a part of yourself had merely hoped that with your aching truth, one in which you thought would've surely landed upon his soul the very way it tore away at your own all these years, would finally crack through this imperial and practically impenetrable armor Tommy adorned himself with. But staring at the man who owned your heart for far longer than it ever belonged to you, it was the ice that coated his orbs of blistering cerulean, as if the waves themselves were trapped beneath the frozen surface, you saw that what he replied was simply the truth in his own form.

Maybe it was the composure, the calm that exuded him as if the crashing tides in his eyes were suddenly silenced in the essence of his stance, that forced your eyes to tear away from your view of Tommy. Abandoning the sight of the man, who when it came to revealing emotion, resembled that of a chiseled statue more than that of a living, breathing human being. But still, his own gaze lingered upon you, the wash of his sight nearly dragging you beneath the overwhelming waves. But it was the tears piercing your sight, that ultimately pulled you away, for you hadn't wanted Tommy to witness the extent of your own vulnerability. For as he stood a structure of stability, as if not a single semblance of emotion could rattle his foundation, you felt utterly inferior and weak in his presence.

"I can't help but think," Your voice cracked like that of a frozen branch, bent a little too harshly under the weight of the ice that encased its surface. "that maybe he's lucky."

Your eyes, glistening with the strong sheen of tears and winter nipped moisture, looked back down to the etched stone with your brother's name.

"Maybe he's lucky he got to go up to heaven with his soul still left intact," Your words burdened your very soul, as you gazed upon your brother's resting place, perhaps you hadn't a single right to voice the words that you felt in the depth of your aching heart. But all the while, you couldn't help but feel like they were words Thomas desperately needed to hear. Even if they left him unscathed, like that of every other emotion. "Instead of coming home with it left back in France."

It was then, that you pulled your eyes away from your brother's headstone and peered up to look at Tommy one last time. No longer obscuring the extent of your fallen tears from his sight, for the cast of his cerulean gaze felt like the coldest touch upon the trail of shed tears trickling down the freezing flesh of your cheeks. No longer hiding the depth of your pain or your loss. For you realized, as you stood with Tommy out here in this place, that you hadn't just lost your brother in the war. Perhaps, you had lost Tommy there too.

Thomas spoke not a word in response to your haunting confession, perhaps, simply because what could he say? For he knew with every fiber of his being, that what you said was right. There hadn't been a day that went by since he came home from France, that he hadn't wished a bullet had killed him right then and there. That he'd died there, with dignity and honor, instead of being sent back home in shambles and torn apart remnants that could never be put back together again.

Smoke funneled from between the soft part in his full lips, allowing his exhale to simply weave within the cigarette smoke he let free, as his eyes never moved from their placement upon you. Thomas stared at you, because he hadn't a word to say. You stared at Thomas, because you had said them all.

The fallen sun was barely an ember left flickering in the sky. For the extent of the night, deep in its overwhelming indigo hue, embraced the land and shrouded the shadows over the souls below. Thomas nearly bled into the darkness, with his attire almost becoming a part of the deepening skyline but somehow, the sight of him refused to fade from your sight.

For his outline declined to become muddled by the shadows and his face remained illuminated by his own sheer power. The cold that had grasped the day grew harsher as evening engulfed it. Exhaling in sharp bursts across your flesh, with shivering winds that nearly shattered your bones on the spot. But somehow, your feet still began to move. They were no longer weighed down to the Earth, frozen as if your soles might just become part of the landscape. They stepped forward, brushing through the soil left lifeless and abandoned by the touch of warmth.

You continued forward, each step closing the space lingering between you and Thomas. Stepping through each cloud of exhaled smoke and intoxicating breath, venturing so very close you could nearly feel the heat that radiated off of his own flesh. But you didn't stop when you reached him, feeling the graze of his arm against your shoulder as you passed him by, and Tommy made not a single effort to stop you. And so, you journeyed home, leaving Thomas in the shadows.

You didn't head straight home however, for it was if your feet simply wouldn't allow it. For you roamed the outskirts of Small Heath until the cold became too much to bear and you feared you would never find a source of heat strong enough the banish the chill from your bones. You walked until your feet ached and the tears in your eyes threatened to freeze right where they fell, if they dared to keep falling. You couldn't say how long you wandered, heading for home but taking more time than usual to get there, for your head was somewhere else entirely.

You'd had plenty of interactions with Thomas since he made it back from the war and yet, today, out there in that cemetery, it was like speaking to him for the very first time. For it was the first time you'd spoken the truth, the extent of the weight upon your heart and upon your thoughts to him, having never truly talked about the war and what it left behind since he'd been back. You'd never once expressed to him what it was like to watch him return a broken shell, his exterior familiar while what resided inside, was left war torn and utterly depleted.

You loved him long before you should have, and you loved him even after he came home. But it was like loving a ghost.

Your bedroom was shrouded in the twilight's embrace when you finally returned, darkness seeping into each and every crevice, until the flame of a burning match illuminated the space as you lit a few candles. The light dim and orange in nature, as if not to disturb the night, but it cast a gleam bright enough throughout your bedroom that it fell upon something on your nightstand that hadn't been there this morning. Slowly taking off your shoes, the pads of your toes so frozen you could barely feel the pressure of the floorboards creaking beneath your timid steps, but walking over, you gazed down upon the worn wood table.

A delicate bouquet of white roses laid upon the scratched wood, their stems of deep evergreen nearly disappearing into the night, but the hue of their petals, stood the test of the night. For it was as if the word hadn't touched them yet, their purity was left unscathed and their beauty unharmed. The grime of the city, the pain of the land, the very blood that came from the man who delivered them, hadn't tainted a single petal. For a small note resided beside them, telling you instantly who it was who brought them here, leaving them in the shadows for you to find. The paper ripped as if he'd only a few moments to leave what he wanted, but the quick swirls of his penmanship was familiar and wholesome.

You deserve these.
T.S.

You weren't sure how Tommy managed to find such flowers in the dark depths of Small Heath, how they'd been preserved as though the white was a priceless gem. But as you stared at the flowers now in your gentle clutch, bringing them to your nose to inhale the rich aroma of their flawless petals, you knew without a doubt that he'd chosen them just for you. Perhaps, he felt you'd seen too much red, too much blood and carnage and felt far too much pain in your lifetime, that the purity of a white rose might in some way, soften your aching heart and heal the wounds marred upon it.

Perhaps, that was what they represented to Thomas, as he'd discovered and hand delivered them under the cloak of darkness, while he knew you were away. But to you, as you stared teary eyed down at the first bouquet of flowers you'd ever received for yourself, you couldn't help but see it as a sign. A sign that perhaps, the heart that you thought was all but lost to the world, still beat timidly within Thomas's chest.

A/N: This one is an angsty, heart pulling piece and I kind of love it!😭❤

I've actually had this idea for the longest time, it was one I loved when I was first figuring out ideas for making a Thomas Shelby One Shot book, but as time went on, I felt like it would end up just being one I wouldn't use or get around to writing. But one day, I kept coming back to this idea and this scenery and just went for it! I'm very glad that I did, because I'm quite happy with what I've created here.

It's pure angst, it's solemn and pulls at your heart and then in the same breath, there are sparks of softness and romance that are so faint, but just enough to break through some of the heaviness of this piece. I hope you all enjoyed this one and could really visualize and feel the scene I tried diligently to create here!!