The rain trickled down in a melancholy drizzle, as your boots sloshed through the dense mud collecting amongst the saturated grass, puddles of the moistened Earth suctioning to your each and every step. Growing up in the core of Birmingham, where the Small Heath skies were always grey and constantly thick with the collection of hazy smog and suffocating smoke, the ashen overcast that consumed the Warwickshire evening sky didn't faze you. However, even as the depressing cloud coverage of a shadowy grey appeared as it always had been, there was something about this evening's looming dreary rain, that felt different than any you'd braced in the past.

For as your boots trudged through the mass of squishing mud, the air that funneled into your expanding lungs in breaths of crisp and precipitation tainted oxygen, felt as though it soared through your chest as if it could clear away the emotions darkening the crevices like cobwebs. The air that smelled of the Earth, rich with the saturated soil and the growing scent of the stables coming into view, felt like the first deep breath you'd inhaled in months.

The evidence of winter had since melted away, gone were the mounds of snow muddied by the sloshing of passing tires or the little footprints of your son's snow boots, leaving dead and dormant grass rolling on for miles to come in its place. Snowflakes no longer sprinkled from the skies, bathing the land below in a light that made up for the absent of the moon, but it's chill remained in the air. Vicious as it nipped against the exposed flesh of your neck, blowing the whispers of the lingering season across your skin, as it spit the rain that felt like melted icicles pattering against your cheeks.

There was nothing to soften the blow of the cold, no spectacle beautiful enough to make up for the numbing temperatures that threatened your very bones, as the last of the snow had melted off the roof a week prior. It was the time in the season that seemed to drag on longer than any other, when the Christmas Tree laid dead at the curb with the memories of a happier month before, with rarely a day graced by the subtle pierce of sunshine. It was with the rolling out of a new year, that the days were long and the skies were perpetually grey.   

The path you walked down slowly, became shadowed as the cast of the large stable structure engulfed the remaining trail. Darkening the mix of thick mud and rough gravel your boots trudged across, making the ground below your steps look as though night had completely taken over the land. The shade making the air that wrapped itself around your warm navy blue coat even colder. As though it could prick through the layers of fabric adorning your body, as the roof locked in the winter chill and forced it upon your exposed flesh.

The world fell quiet, as the only sensation that echoed with a presence through the late evening air, belonged to the strong whistle of the rustling wind and the soft exhales of horses safely tucked in their stalls. If the air had not held such a painful pierce and the sky lacked it's deeply melancholy shade, there could be peace discovered in the silence that rolled out across the land. 

The rich scent of dampened soil and the strong smell of the horses only a few feet away from where you slowed in the threshold, were soon joined by a scent that overpowered them. You could no longer smell the comforting tones of a nature dead but ever present around you, or the aromas of the stables you had grown to enjoy over the years spent tending to them. For as your footsteps pattered to a halt at the edge of the threshold, peering into the stables that were concealed from the shadowy sky above, you inhaled the sharp and familiar stench of smoke.

It was a smell you'd lived with for more years than your memory could surely count, as it permeated each thread of fabric woven into every article of clothing you owned and tainted the depths of your lungs, even as you'd only touched their smoke once or twice in your formative years. But it's evocative presence captivated your life, much like the very man who smoked them. It was a bewildering comfort, one that clung to your skin and lingered in the air that swirled itself around you, for they smelled of him. 

Thomas Shelby's voice carried along the whistling gusts of wind, only dwindled by the shade of the stable's sturdy roof and trailed through the chilled evening air along with the thin streams of exhaled smoke. For it drifted through the atmosphere as though father winter himself, breathed his harsh breath out into the January night, only it carried with it an ashen shade that nearly matched the sky stretched vast above and a scent that permeated your lungs.

The thick fur of your collar brushed against the flesh of your neck as the wind blew in from behind your stilled frame, leaning your right shoulder against the post of the threshold, wrapping your arms around your body in a search of warmth and comfort as you lingered on the outskirts of the small stable. Resting your temple against the wood that had absorbed the chill of the surrounding night, your eyes pricked by the sharp sting of winter, gaze forward as the trail of Tommy's softly blown smoke made him easy to spot amongst the building shadows. 

They sat amongst the hay bales, two sturdy rectangles sufficing as chairs beneath their hunched frames. Tommy's elbows rested forward on the tips of his knees, as his feet spread flat against the ground beneath his stance, as his shoulders loomed forward nearly displaying the weight that hovered with a consistency upon their bones. His hands hang out in front of him, not relaxed against his legs but rather tensed in the air readied to pull his cigarette from between his lips at a moment's notice. He adorned his coat of pure black fabric, tailored to perfection against the sculpt of his physique, realizing he must've returned home only shortly ago as he'd yet to strip from the winter wear that strived to keep him warm. His peaky cap, however, laid at his hip on the bale to his left, leaving his dark locks hanging in a low sweep along the smooth flesh of his forehead. You stood at a distance that left you obscured from his view, but exposed him to you in all of his entirety, allowing you the peace to stare at him without the chance of his eyes meeting your own.

Tommy looked as though he sat in a schoolhouse chair, as his figure shadowed over the hay strewn ground with a staggering height, but it was the sight of a boy merely a third of his size sitting beside him that made him seem taller than he was. For on his right, on a smaller but seemingly larger hay bale, your son sat just as his father did, only his legs spread out in front of him as they were too short to dangle over the edge.

At only five years of age, your boy was already more like his father than he even knew. For not only did his eyes shine brightly with the same cerulean blue that demanded instant attention and breathless amazement, but his mannerisms mirrored Tommy as though the boy followed him around day after day just to practice. The only difference you'd been able to spot in the years he grew, was the smile he adorned every day of his life. He was genuinely happy and unafraid to show it, and that was where he had Thomas beat. 

The two men did not look at each other, as they both stared straight ahead at the horses in the stalls just across the path dividing the stable, but they sat in comfortable silence together, as though the presence of one another was enough.

Your boy was adorned in his new winter coat that draped a size too big against his tiny frame, but the mittens Francis had knitted him for Christmas, he adored as you found him wearing the soft wool even indoors. His boots tied by your own nimble fingers earlier in the day, kicked back and forth against the hay beneath him as his little body never seemed to cease from fidgeting. And his hair, resembling the deep brown of Tommy's own, was concealed by the warmth of his own peaky cap his Uncle Arthur had given him on his birthday only days before the holidays. You knew better than anyone how looks could be deceiving, but as your eyes watched the two boys sitting together in the peaceful sanctuary of the stables, you couldn't help but see your little boy becoming Tommy Shelby right before your very eyes. 

Just as your eyes begin to blink away the glaze of tears brought on by the sharp blow of the wind around you, the sound of your little boy's innocent and earnest voice recaptures your attention and you watch as he look up at his father before pulling at Thomas's sleeve. Prompting his hand to raise and withdraw the burning cigarette from between his pouted lips and turn his gaze down towards his son, before his brows lifted with a soft hum for the boy to continue. 

"Why is momma so sad?"

It was an inquiry you hadn't expected to hear, much less from a boy who's only understanding should pertain to the joys of his own childhood, but it broke your heart nonetheless. It took all of the strength inside of yourself to keep from running towards him, scooping him into your arms and assuring him that what he thought was surely wrong. But as you watched with widened eyes that burned with a new type of tear, pressing your red stained lips together so tightly it nearly vanished the red from view, you waited for your husband's response to your little boy's question. 

Thomas's shoulders lifted with a deep inhale, before his exhale blew a trail of swirling smoke out into the cold air in front of him, straightening against his bale as his scrutiny loomed over his awaiting boy's frame. "She's unhappy here, that's all."

"How come?" The boy's head tilted to the side as if it might in someway help him to understand, peering up with the same blinding blue eyes at his father who stared right back. "I'm happy here daddy, I'm happy with you."

Although they were both clear to your eye, Thomas had his head turned towards your son in way that shadowed the expressions worn along the lines of his face. Obscuring any sign of a smile or a frown, any semblance of an emotion that might be visible beyond the look in his eye. For even when he was standing right in front of you, Tommy Shelby could be impossible to read. He concealed himself away from the surface as not to let a single soul in and even after endless years of scraping for any sign of emotion and learning to recognize them in the smallest shred of an expression, there were times you still couldn't read him. As if he were made of stone, without a beating heart and a breathing soul. But you liked to believe, as you watched your boy look to his father with a young innocence and an earnestness in his eye, that Tommy's lips twitched with the faintest ghost of a smile at his son's words. 

Your son's words hit your own heart however, for you saw the happiness in his eyes and you'd heard it in his giggles that echoed down the long corridors of Arrow House day after day, he was happy here. Somedays, he seemed like the only person who was.

Your boy had been a baby in Small Heath, born on a snowy December night at 6 Watery Lane. He'd never known the place his father had called home for all his life or the place his mother had conceived him with the love of his father she'd met there years before. Arrow House was all he'd ever known as a home and so he saw the place as he should, through the eyes of a child. With an estate that rolled on for further than the eye could see, giving him endless room to run and play and just be a kid in this ruthless world. With a house that provided him with more amenities and space than Thomas ever had growing up, with people working in the house that loved the little boy as if he were family. A stable where his father had shown him how to ride and spent most of his free time in the company of horses, just as his father had the day you first met him.

Your boy never knew different, so you couldn't blame him for loving where his father had planted down the family roots, even when there were days you wished to be back in Small Heath on Watery Lane with the man you'd married there. For one day, the world had shown Tommy Shelby that he could possibly have more, and he hadn't hesitated in taking it, no matter the cost to those around him. 

Tommy took a long drag from his cigarette as he pondered his son's words, whether stalling until he could concoct an answer that would satisfy the five year old or merely thinking before he spoke truthfully. But it was with the knowledge that Tommy preferred to speak to his son openly and honestly, blunt and to the point rather than sugar coat the truth from the young lad, that made you step forward. For there were times for truth and your son had plenty of life left to experience being treated as an adult, but there were some truths that your boy simply didn't need to know. Your footsteps crunching over the dried up hay windblown across the stable floor alerted your boy first, watching as his head snapped towards your approaching frame and his eyes lit up with a wide smile to match. 

"Momma!" He jumped from his bale before Tommy's hand could dart to the side to help him down, sliding to the ground with soft thud before he sprinted the short distance towards you. Wrapping his arms around your legs that were concealed by the long sweep of your burgundy skirt, bending down to embrace his small frame in your own arms before pulling back to look at his beaming face. His smile stretched far as dimples powdered into the fullness of his cheeks, the blue of his eyes bold as though you were staring into a smaller version of Tommy's and you smiled warmly at the sight of his button nose blistered red from the cold.

"Why don't you go tend to your horse baby, hm? You can use that new brush daddy got for you on his mane," You stood up slowly as your son unlocked his arms from around your thighs. "Go on now, I'll be there in a moment to see him for me-self, I'm going to visit with your father first." 

The horse of a beautiful powdery silver grey was your son's most recent Christmas gift, picked specially by his father's eye for horses and although your heart melted at your son's overwhelming love for that stallion, you couldn't help but question your husband's motives behind the outrageous gift. Watching as your boy darted towards the stall he knew by heart, as he visited a good three times a day, you slowly turned your attention towards the other man who remained in the space.

Slowly, as you inhaled a deep breath that flushed out the building nerves from the tightening cavity of your chest, your boots began to stride across the hay and gravel coated ground towards Tommy. He hadn't shifted since your presence announced itself, his stance remained hunched and still as he nursed the cigarette that was nearly out of life, and he didn't move even as your shadow cast over him as you met his proximity in hesitant steps. 

Taking your right hand, you sweep the cotton dyed a shade as deep as wine beneath your legs as you take a seat beside you husband, on the hay bale once occupied by your son who was off babbling softly in the distance with his prized horse. Tommy's head didn't turn to the side to look and you were rather thankful.

For there was something disarming about his eyes of cerulean blue, a sharp icy gaze that could dismantle your clear thoughts and inner strength with a single swoop. But the strong scent of his lasting cigarette swirled itself around you, dancing across your senses as it carried with it the worn aroma of his cologne, something poignant and masculine that managed to enhance the natural musk of his flesh. It was an intoxicating combination, one that had made you weak more times in the past than you were willing to admit, but inhaling a deep breath you willed yourself to find tones of the Earth that could wash the scent of him from your lungs. 

His side profile was one to behold however, no matter the ache in your chest and the anger simmering in the base of your memories, the sight of Tommy Shelby beside you made you feel something you reckoned you'd never cease to feel when your eyes fell upon him. For as your head turned with the faintest tilt, peering upwards through your lashes at the man, who even slouched, could hover above you with a dense shadow casting over your chilled frame, you were captivated by the sight of him.

There were days, ones such as these, when you looked at Tommy and it felt as if you were looking at him for the very first time all over again. For even as age had slowly begun to etch itself across the expression of his face, with immeasurable stress and inner turmoil destroying his skin far more than time itself could, with bags weighing beneath his eyes where sleep was a distant memory of a past long ago, somehow he was just as beautiful as the day you'd met him. A day much like today, with the sky a saddened grey, in a stable beside him with the view of his side profile on full display. 

Watching as his cheeks hollowed faintly as Tommy took another drag from his cigarette, letting the smoke stream from his lips like a gush of quick flowing water, his long eyelashes were the only part of his face that appeared to move. For they fluttered in soft beats against the faintly freckled flesh of his sharply chiseled cheekbones, as he stared straight ahead. You knew that if you wanted to speak with Tommy, you would have to be the one to start. Whether it was because he hadn't known what exactly to say to you anymore, having said it all only a month prior when you'd certainly not wanted to hear what it was he was trying to explain, or because he hadn't a single thing left to say to you, you couldn't be sure.

There were a million different words you could think of to say, a thousand things that you wanted to scream at the man beside you, but as your eyes scanned the stalls across the way and fell upon the shape of a tiny frame, you found that you settled on four words that fell from the half of your heart that remained intact and unscathed by the brokenness of the other.

Releasing a deep exhale that blew in front of your lips in the blowing chill, resembling your own trickle of smoke that dissipated without a trace, your voice punctured the atmosphere with a tenderness and nearly breathless tone. "He loves you Tommy." 

Wringing your hands together against the soft lap of your navy blue coat, you peered over at Tommy who took another drag before responding in a low voice. "I haven't the damnedest idea why."

Tommy Shelby hadn't turned his head to look at you, your shoulders still left untouched by the harsh scrutiny of his powerful blue eyed gaze, but it was something about the touch of his voice that felt as though he was looking straight at you anyhow. And just as his gaze left you weak and vulnerable before him each and every time, you found that the way his deep rumbling tone that was bathed in his distinguishing Birmingham accent washed over your skin, had the same profound ability.

For in that moment, as your eyes danced over the sharpened lines of his face and the way his deep lashes bounded against his flesh only to reveal soft glints of a blue behind the blinks, the way his voice settled over your cold flesh as if to warm it with the mere touch of his words, it felt as though he'd managed to disarm each resentful remark you wished to say. The anger that held your heart captive, the ache that healed slowly with each passing day, it all seemed to fade to an indistinguishable collection of words. For as his words settled against your ear as your eyes studied him closely, you could only whisper one thing. 

"I do."

For you remembered how effortless it was to fall in love with Thomas Shelby. It shouldn't have been such an easy feat and yet, just as the sun rose above the horizon each and every morning, it was a deed far beyond your power. Tommy might not always be easy to love, as you'd learned early in your Small Heath days, but loving him certainly was. For even when you cursed his very name and regretted the very bond that wove your lives together, you couldn't unlove him. It was simply impossible. Even after he'd broken his vow and tarnished the sanctity of what bound you together, you still loved him, even then. You weren't sure why, you couldn't begin to comprehend how, but you did. For you questioned if there would ever be a moment in this lifetime, when your heart didn't belong to Thomas Shelby.

It was with those two mere words, falling in a breathless whisper beneath the imperceptible shake of your voice, that Tommy turned his head to look at you. A smooth but undeniably slow motion, one that made the growing impact of his gaze drag on with an agonizing speed, as it span across your face like the heat of the rising sun, only colder as the ice of his blue orbs nearly froze you where you sat beside him. He stared at you in silence, his intense scrutiny falling like a shade over your shivering body as you waited for a single blink of his eyes.

It felt as though his sight swept over every inch and dove into every crevice of your expression, exposing you in a way that made you feel small beneath the weight of his heavy gaze. But it was as his eyelashes finally fluttered to touch down upon the soft flesh of the bags shadowing darker below the swell of his eyes, that you watched his adam's apple bob slowly with a deep inhale. Words teetering on the very edge of his tongue, just as the ash of his nearly stubbed out cigarette swayed before flicking down towards the stable floor. 

"Think we'll ever get back?" 

It was the very inquiry that you'd asked yourself every single day since you learned of Tommy's indiscretion. In the mornings when you woke to a bed empty and cold as he'd left before the very break of dawn, to the evenings you laid beside a man who held your heart but in turn, the irrevocable power to crush it in the grasp of his hand, you wondered if there was anything left to save and if there was, if it could be saved.

It had been nearly a month since he'd told you the truth, the night before your son's birthday, a cruelty you found as it took all of your strength to smile through the storm cloud that consumed you the next day. Tommy had given you space, he'd allowed you to feel all of the emotions you had every right to feel, but he had never been a patient man and as the weeks passed by, he grew colder to the notion that you might still be hurting by his actions. He may have made peace with his mistakes, he may be able to look at you and see a future past it all, but you didn't know. You still weren't completely certain. For your heart was torn between the strings he'd severed with his betrayal and the love that kept the other half beating as furiously as it was before the damage.

Was it that you loved the pain Tommy Shelby put you through or did you just love the man so fervently, that it made it possible to put up with the ache? 

Releasing a breath you hadn't realized was trapped in the core of your lungs, you turned your head away from Tommy's overwhelming gaze and watched as it filtered into the air before you in a pale frozen cloud. The world felt staggeringly silent in that moment, even as the neighs of your son's stallion and his own boyish giggles echoed through the howls of strong evening wind, there was a pressure descending down upon your shoulders that made the world feel dense and nearly suffocating. For it was the moment you knew was coming, the conversation looming in the distance of what your future with Tommy would look like, and it fell upon your shoulders in that moment with a crushing weight that nearly broke the bones it sat upon. 

Swallowing a deep breath, your eyes look to your peripheral at the sight of Tommy's tense hand clutched tightly around his knee as his shrinking cigarette sat secure between his fingers, and before you could think of your actions, your hand reached over and plucked the burning white stick from his hold. Feeling it's heat beneath the thin white paper and the warmth of Tommy's body still lingering as you brought the stub towards your lips, you took a drag from the habit you hated. Feeling as the smoke flowed through your lungs with a darkening presence, before exhaling it out into the air before your face, watching it twirl with an ashen haze instead of the clarity of your breath once before. You balanced it between your fingers just as Tommy had and as you fought the sting of the nicotine lacing your tongue and the tears piecing your eyes, you returned your gaze to the man's who hadn't yet abandoned your frame.

"I don't know." You admitted truthfully in a trembling breath that you didn't try to disguise. For even if you made your voice even and your tone stronger than the meek that consumed it now, Tommy would've seen the reality of your feelings in the swell of your tearful eyes. For the man who you could hardly ever see in the honest light of day, could read you like an open book.

Inhaling another deep breath, your gaze dropped as you looked towards the ground and the cigarette you let slip from between your fingers, smashing it beneath the sharp sole of your boot. Lifting your head up, gazing forward, you watched the sight of your son coming into view. Adorned in his oversized coat and peaky cap that made him look like a blinder at the gentle age of five, he skipped along the stable floor in front of his horse's stall, as if he hadn't a single notion that the world he lived in was a cold and painful place. He was an innocent, even as he'd been born with a father who's hands were more red than flesh toned, he was bathed in a purity that you prayed every day he could hold onto for a little while longer. And it was with the realization, as your eyes danced with the joyful smile of watching your son's infectious happiness, you discovered the answer you hadn't been able to find for a month, in the span of a single minute. 

"But for him," You didn't have to look over at Tommy to know he was still looking right at you, for his gaze was like the beaming glow of the sun, when it shifted away you would surely feel it's retreat from your flesh. Nodding your head forward as to display you were speaking of that little boy across the way, unbeknownst that his parents had ever suffered a turmoil. "and perhaps, even for myself, I'll try."

It was then, as your confession and the answer Tommy had been impatiently searching for since the week after he'd told you fell into the open air, that you turned your head and looked to your husband. Instantly, engulfed in the crushing weight of his blue eyed gaze, nearly drowning your already breathless being beneath his strong waves. You watched his lips closely, the light that reflected in the delicate icy swirl of his orbs, all of him in an effort to capture any sign of a shift or a perceptible emotion, but you found none as he stared at you. But as if to make up for the lack of words, you watched his right arm twitch as his hand reached to the side. Sliding against the hay until the warmth of his skin collided with your own.

It was bewildering, how the mere touch of his fingertips grazing against the side of your palm, burned with something foreign that nearly set your skin ablaze and yet, his touch was just how you remembered it to be. It was a staggering sensation, feeling the yearn for his hand, all the while, cursing the very fingers that touched you as they held the distant memory of another. But as you watched his fingers twist over the ridges of your knuckles, until he could entwine them beneath, sliding against the lines of your palm, and the way his eyes broke contact only to stare down at his hand's embrace, you accepted his olive branch. You accepted his hand in the place of words you'd spoken and you let him hold you. For the first time since that night when it felt like your entire marriage came crashing down at your feet. You weren't sure how, but as you wrapped your own fingers around his grasp until you were locked in his steady hold of warmth and security, it felt like returning home. 

Maybe you'd never know if it was the pain or Tommy himself that kept you here, that kept you irrevocably tied to him. But you realized that perhaps, with Tommy Shelby, there wasn't much difference. With his love came pain, and with the pain, you learned you loved him still. Maybe that was all there was to it, and that at the end of the day, as long as you loved the man, you might just be able to make it through anything. 

A/N: I fell in love with the idea for this one shot and couldn't wait to get writing for it, but wow, this one was a little heavy on my heart!😭❤

My inspiration initially came from the moment and conversation between Tommy and his son, and then the entire plot came together around that. I was very interested in the prospect that there would always be turmoil or toxicity or pain in a relationship with Tommy Shelby (even though I would happily marry him in a heartbeat😍) I don't think that any relationship, no matter his amount of love for the woman, would be easy or smooth for the entirety of it. And I wanted to explore that in this piece, while keeping it vulnerable and angsty with all of the conflicting thoughts and emotions.

I am really happy with how this piece turned out, it felt like the paragraphs just flowed from my fingers and I tried my best to make the emotion of the scene and imagery of the environment itself fuel each other, and I put everything into making this piece come alive for you all! I hope you enjoyed this angsty little piece!!❤