Her tears hit the pavement as if they were droplets falling down from the open heavens above. They were streaked with a crimson that tarnished the sanctity of their purity, burdening her flesh with a stain that no matter how hard the water flowed, could never eradicate the depth in which their trace lingered. For the hue of unforgiving red, dark and bold as if its beating pulse was a tangible thing, splattered her flesh like paint on a canvas. Staining where it sat as if it might just turn her soft tone to crimson.

Thomas Shelby was no stranger to bloodshed, for it seemed more than any other man who walked the Earth, his hands carried half the burden in the very lines that screamed out the haunting memory of blood that had flowed across the cracks.

His eyes had acclimated to witnessing such a shade, an overwhelming hue of red that no sight could ever compare. Not the poppies that spread across Flanders Fields, no shade of lipstick adorned on her lips, not even that of a freshly poured tumbler of wine, seemed to meet the shade in which blood settled. Blood no longer turned his stomach quite like it used to, it no longer burned his nose with its metallic spillage, it no longer made him want to scrub the very surface of his flesh raw until he could no longer feel its heat, each and every time some was poured over his body.

But tonight, as the evidence of a once warmed summer afternoon surely parted and made way for the imposing and all-consuming cast of indigo to overtake the skies above, Thomas discovered the bloodshed he witnessed, managed to shake him at his very core.

Arrow House fell upon a crashing wave of utter silence, for every motion Tommy made throughout the house and into the private surroundings of the warm bedroom, seemed to echo with a boisterous presence. Shattering the atmosphere like it were glass to be held, jolting himself every once and a while when a once imperceptible sensation, resounded harsher as though the sound of the world had all been drained.

The night was crisp, as autumn began to slowly breathe its inevitably looming descent into the clutches of the late twilight hour. For warmth had flooded the countryside that day, a break of sunlight peering through the dense cloud coverage as though to grace the souls that walked below it, relishing in the sensation of warmth in its purist form resting gently over their shoulders.

The bedroom whispered the memory of such heat, with the slightest tinge of humidity capturing the scents of mingling fragrances and stale cigarette smoke, as if a blanket of haze forcing the aromas to blend into the very fabric of the atmosphere itself. But with the large set of windows cracked open, letting a cool current of wind seep in and bathe the floorboards, a chill pierced through the room. The curtains of a deep sapphire blue, twirled like fabric of an ever-flowing gown, as they remained drawn over the now open windowpane, allowing the twilight's breeze to simply sweep them away and spin them around until the blue appeared a living and breathing article of life.

The bedroom began to slowly cool down, the wind stealing away the traces of day, trading it in for the presence of night bleeding into the crevices of the open room. But as Tommy's hand delicately turned the door handle to the bathroom where he knew she resided, he found his first breath to be that of what one might find at the welcoming gates of hell itself.

For the steam rising upwards from the running shower, fogged up the small space like Tommy stood out amongst the pastures at dawn. Right as the breath of a fresh new morning rises with the sun, coating the land in a gentle exhale of chilled dew and pale haze that obstructs the far view of the ascending light. For it engulfed the small bathroom, until not a single tile beneath Tommy's hesitant steps was left uncoated by the dense and highly visible vapor that stretched out across the floor. Flooding over the cracks and the crevices, as if water ready to drown the souls that stood within it alive.

It concealed the mirror until not even Tommy's own reflection was identifiable. Seeping along the tiles until it permeated each and every divot left vulnerable to the air around him, clouding the atmosphere above his head like exhales collected in the form of an unrelenting fog. It's hard to breathe the steam hangs so thickly in the room, like Tommy's own breath could become trapped within its clutches like it might just stick there forever. If not only from the density that consumes the bathroom walls, as if it's holding all the air within that tiled space captive, then certainly from the heat that follows.

For it nearly scalds his own flesh, even as he'd fully clothed and free from the cascading rush of the water itself, Tommy can feel the intensity of its temperature the minute he steps through the door. It permeates each inhale he takes, until it's as if the thickening steam and heated spray of spitting water, singes the very fabric of his lungs. Nearly making his skin melt, as though when he strips for the evening, layers of his flesh will be evidently left behind on the trail of his clothing.

But as he rounds the slight corner, discovering her standing stock still surrounded in the tile tub, it's like she hasn't the ability to register the temperature pouring down upon her bare frame.

The steam clouds around her like a formidable haze, as though the burning coals lining hell's gateway are not far off, smoke lifting upwards from the perishing eternity and climbing its way up her body. It threatens to consume her whole, Tommy witnesses, as he draws a soft pace closer to her unmoving stance. But through the dense steam, he sees her for all that she is and all that burdens her now.

Water flicking her flesh like the popping embers of a roaring fire, turning her skin red under its vicious and scalding assault, she stands as though the heat itself has melted her to stone perhaps. Her long strands cascade down her back, following in a sleek and heavy line down her curving spine, as the falling water saturates each and every flattened tendril with a profound weight.

They'd once been free to the open air that night, wind-blown curls wrapping around her shoulders and whipping at the nape of her neck with ease, even as the rainfall back in Small Heath had dampened their appearance. They were soddened now, weighed down upon her spine and void of all life that once danced within those wild tresses.

And her body, bare as only Tommy's eyes had witnessed it to be, had once been adorned in the soft gathering materials of her favorite dress. The palest sensation to blue, nearly teetering on the very edge of a pale white, should the light of the concealed away sun hit it just right.

But gone were the three delicate buttons lining their way down her chest, the ones she loved when he toyed with late in the evenings when she wore the dress often enough, now scattered somewhere on the cobblestone never to be uncovered in the break of daylight. Gone were the sleeves that flowed down her shoulders like the dress itself was a size too large and yet, in the very same sight, seemed to fit her frame as though it would never fit another. Swatches of pale blue fabric, lining the rain-soaked cobbles, tainting the once beautiful hue with the ugly hand of the world.

He'd seen the torn clothing, for it had been Tommy's hands that diligently and ever so tenderly, peeled them from her sodden frame.

Tommy had discovered her late into the evening, once the sign of dusk had already gone and settled across the horizon, the bleeding of a deep indigo presence taking control of the skies above. He hadn't expected to find her where he did, as they'd driven to Small Heath that morning with a few business meetings weighing heavy on Tommy's agenda and she'd merely requested to accompany, so that she might visit with his family and offer a hand in the betting shop should they need. He didn't see her most of the day, not since she kissed his cheek in the way that always managed to leave a tingling sensation budding beneath his skin, when she hopped out of the car when they reached familiar 6 Watery Lane.

It was only as five o'clock rolled around, having phoned the betting shop, that Tommy learned she hadn't come back after taking a short stroll down to the Garrison. Blinders flooded the streets in search for her, Tommy's feet commanding the cobbles with a conviction that might have just rattled the very Earth, it was only as the rain started to pour heavily and the shadows of night closed in, that he uncovered her.

The canal echoed with the resounding pelting of fresh rain, falling upon its surface that rippled from its descent and it soaked the air with a strong scent of the Earth. Rich, overwhelming and yet every sense that reminded him of growing up on these very streets.

Tommy saw her huddled frame, her back leaning against strong stone but still getting splashed with the spray of the rainfall. She hadn't heard his steps, no matter how loud they echoed around him, she didn't even look up. Tommy wanted to snap, he wanted to curse, he wanted to implore her as to why she'd gone and disappeared without a word. But as the relief in her discovery after hours of searching the streets, melded with vexation and fear that felt one in the same really, it was only when Tommy drew nearer that any urge to chastise her actions that had frightened him, ceased to exist.

For she hadn't needed to look up at him, hadn't needed to move her body from the stance in which she coiled her arms around herself and her bent up knees, like she might just be able to curl up into herself and disappear. The ripped fabric of her favorite dress captured his eye first, the way her skin peered through slits and tears that were once concealed in a breath of cornflower cotton. The flesh around her neck and down her arms, beginning to bruise already, traces left lingering behind on her flesh as though a memory to haunt her over and over. But it was the blood, thick and oozing red, that coated her hands and stained her clothing, that forced Tommy to his knees right beside her.

She felt his presence without even having to look up into his eyes that hovered above her and she told him.

She told him how she had killed a man.

She told him how he'd attacked her, dragging her down an empty alleyway, nearly getting what it was that he searched for, if it hadn't been for the weapon concealed in her purse. The very weapon Tommy had insisted she carry, no matter how she feared the powerful object. She told him how she shot him, how she watched him slump to the cobblestone, body coiling around her ankles with a weight she'd never felt in all of her life. She told him about how she wept, out of fear, out of shock, out of every damn emotion she couldn't even name. She told him how she pressed her trembling hands to his wound like perhaps she could stop the life quickly draining.

She wasn't sure why she did so, there wasn't a reason in the world to save that man, but Tommy didn't need her to explain it. For it made sense, it was who she was, it was her heart and it was her soul. Far too good, far too pure, far too empathetic and kind for this ruthless world and it's cruel hands. She told Tommy everything, every last detail, until there wasn't a word left to say.

For she'd said them all and as for Tommy, what could Tommy possibly say to still the shake in her hands, the tremble in her bones that made her quake like the missing thunder rolled under her flesh? What could he say to ease the pain in her head? What could Tommy Shelby say when all he'd done to remedy his own tremors and tortures, was drink until the memories faded into dreamless nights, only to be remembered in the beam of morning light. And so, he just held her. With her innocent hands now covered in a blood not soon to be cleansed from her flesh or the depths of her conscious, Tommy held her.

She stood under the spray of the scalding shower, like her soul had gone and left her body. For her feet stood still upon the tile beneath her, water tainted with the running bloodshed dripping down from her hands cascading beneath the pads of her toes, as it trickled down the drain and out of sight. Her body stood just as it did the moment she stepped into the heated shower, and Tommy was convinced she hadn't even begun to wash away the traces of the night, much less move for that matter.

For she simply stood beneath the strong spray of the rushing water, not flinching at the way its scalding droplets seared her flesh, allowing it to flood her face as she stood straight in its stream, and her chin tipped a faint inch downward as her eyes stared at the object in her hands. Tommy observed her in the void of all-consuming silence and overwhelming heat that was making him swelter in the small proximity. The way her shaking hands held tightly to the bar of soap she'd yet to use on herself and her weary eyes stared blankly down at the bar as though it held the universe's answers.

She was more fragile than Tommy had ever seen her to be, broken and shattered, the pieces of her soul littered around her feet, all but threatening to trickle down that drain right alongside the evidence of blood spilled in the night. It wounded him, Tommy felt instantly, as if the extent of her suffering suddenly became his own.

But as he began to take tentative steps towards her, Tommy would gladly take all of her pain, all of her burdens, all of the anguish that plagued her and put it onto his own shoulders to carry. And so, Tommy continued on cautious feet towards the shower that sealed her away in a cloud of burning steam, endeavoring to collect each and every fallen shard of her shattered self and piece it back together, until his hands were bloody and bruised but hers were whole again.

She didn't acknowledge his presence, perhaps she couldn't register anything around her in this moment in time or maybe, it was as simple as she couldn't bring herself to react even if she had. Tommy approaches the tile until the spray of the water is nearly upon his own flesh, climbing up the sleeves rolled tightly right beneath the bend of his elbow and spanning across the bare flesh of his chest left open by a few loosely undone buttons.

His eyes fall over her, like a second tide coming in to wash over her frozen frame, this one of a magnificent cerulean blue that might just soothe away the ache of the heat scalding her flesh. She doesn't look up at him, even as the formidable scent of his cologne wraps itself around her like arms all their own, and her eyes are too downcast at the unused bar of soap in her hands for Tommy to see them. But he knows, even if they peered upwards through her lashes that were far too still in this moment, still in a way he'd never witnessed them to be before, he knows the tears that would reflect themselves right there across her irises.

"You'll fucking burn your skin off, love." His tone is gentle, harmless and kind. But the way his words resound in the room, bouncing off of the surrounding tiles as if a lonely cavern, startle him slightly. For the softness of his words is evident, coiling their sound around her body like a robe of pure velvet, but the way his voice booms in the dense silence, is far more piercing than he intended his voice to land. But it doesn't seem to startle her, it doesn't seem to faze her, it only makes her chin tip upward barely an inch at the sound of his voice.

Her head doesn't move far enough that her entire expression is visible to his eyes and her body continues its frozen stance beneath the scalding water, but Tommy can see them now. Her eyes, the windows into her very soul, that expose a pain that nearly tears Tommy's own beating organ apart. Drowning in salt all her own, tears glossing a strong sheen over her sight as though it might just blind her vision all together, they sit there engulfing her irises but refuse to fall down her cheeks.

It was bewildering really, the way the shower was a place of solitude and the very place tears were meant to fall, for they could be swept away in the current of flowing water and merely disguise themselves as droplets falling down. But as soon as she stepped into the tiled corner, the tears she'd cried all that night, the ones that never ceased even on the ride back home from Small Heath, suddenly halted. Stuck, obscured, forced away, but it wasn't that she hadn't any left to cry, but rather that her body wouldn't let them go free any longer.

Tommy's softened eyes abandoned her suffering frame for a mere moment, as he took a step over the shower's ledge until he too was under the gushing stream of scalding water, turning his gaze down towards the brass knobs on the wall. Twisting until the spray that saturated his clothing immediately, like he was standing amongst a howling rainstorm, cooled and no longer branded his flesh with a red-hot fury.

She was numb, unable to feel the way the water had puckered her naked flesh bright red as if she'd been ravaged by the open sun, but she was coated in an ice that couldn't melt away even in this stifling heat. For it permeated her soul, every crevice of her aching heart that beat with a heavy and lonesome beat, had been touched by the cold that suddenly ran through her veins, threatening to turn the very blood pumping through solid. It was a type of cold that not everyone experienced in this life, but Tommy Shelby knew it all too well.

He turned to her slowly, the spray of the shower now directly in line with his broad back, obscuring her from the full extent of the current. His clothing stuck to him like it were paper mache adhering to his flesh, for the shirt of pale white suddenly became translucent as the water absorbed into each and every stitch of finely tailored thread. The ink of his tattoos evident and bold through the sodden fabric, as if it might just bleed straight through the material and trickle down to the tiles beneath him in droplets of pure onyx. Watching until it swirls with the rich red from the blood on her hands, down the drain and out of sight.

His trousers heavy and uncomfortable as they cling to his frame, accentuating every aspect of himself from the waist down, while his bare feet burn bright red from the initial sting of the water's harsh temperature. Tommy Shelby stands completely clothed in the shower, absorbing the strong stream of the shower's torrent, while she stands completely naked without a shred of fabric adorning her frame.

Tommy doesn't regard her for being bare however, it's as if his eyes have the ability to scan over her without a single registration or consideration to the way her body is all but open and free to his wandering eyes, the way her body reacts to the sudden cooling of the water or even the inexplicable way his presence makes her body respond even if she herself can't.

For he'd been the one who'd stripped the clothing, sodden with rain and bloodshed, from her trembling body when they'd returned home on the cusp of midnight. He'd been the one to walk her into the bathroom, urging her to rinse herself off for the night while he collected fresh clothing, some tea and warm towels to dry off with in the meantime. But through it all, as his calloused hands guided her into the bathroom when her own two legs deemed unreliable after the shock that sent shattering waves throughout her entire being, Tommy hadn't once reflected on the fact that she was utterly naked under his touch. She was simply the woman he loved, simply a human being in the midst of suffering and he tendered to her with all of the gentleness Tommy possessed within himself.

The veins running beneath the flushed flesh of Tommy's hands stand a bold blue hue, as he watches them extend forward slowly, the red of the steam that captivated his skin emphasizing their swollen state. But as he moves hesitantly, careful not to startle her like she's a fawn deep in a secluded meadow, his fingers gingerly curl around the base of her own. Coiling around her hands that still continue to shake, as if her body has lost all sense of control over them, Tommy withdraws the bar of soap from her grasp.

The gentle aroma of shea and something sweet and floral invades his senses, as the fragrance suddenly coats the lines of his own palms, lathering the soap in his grip until it begins to froth with soft bubbles. She hadn't spoken a word since the canal, even in the car ride home she was utterly silent, for Tommy swore it was like listening to the breaking of something fragile and beautiful beside him. But just as Tommy reached forwards, with his lathered hands aiming to begin washing away the traces of the day from her skin, her lips begin to quiver.

"I killed a man."

Tommy's throat tightens, dries up like a desert storm swirls the heat and the sand around in the base of his chest. For her words, nearly gathered into the suffocating steam never to be heard from again, puncture his flesh with a vengeance. As though the words that merely fall off the breath of a wandering whisper, are edged with the sharp serration of a blade. For her tenor had always been light, airy, warm like honey coated her voice whenever it rang out in the air. Her breathlessness encapsulated her four broken words, yet their weight, simply did not match the tone in which they fell.

They carried with them the very weight of the world, or at the very least, the weight of hers. For it nearly yanked her body to the ground, the weight that saturated those four whispered words, like it had the power to shake the Earth where it sat and shift its very foundation. It drained all the noise from the room, until the very sensation of the falling water above Tommy's head ceased to resound around him. It forced his heart that hammered harshly within his chest to falter a mere pace, skipping over the next beat as his breath hitched with the collision of her words meeting his ear.

The phrase held the universe in its grasp, like the fingers of the very words might just coil and tighten, crushing life as he knew it to pieces. For as her words entered the air and absorbed into his mind, they didn't sound right coming from her. Foreign and misplaced, they were a collection of words Tommy Shelby never thought she'd ever string together and let exit her lips, but here they were. Clear, cutting and heart breaking.

Swallowing the last trace of oxygen left lingering on the tip of his tongue, Tommy's eyes drop down to the sight of his hand reaching out for her own. Her hands shook as if they were no longer her own and perhaps, they no longer were. Collecting the trembling nature of her right hand into his own, as he ever so carefully began to run the slick bar of soap up and down her stained flesh. "I know."

The bubbles lather her skin until the red sitting beneath is obscured from view, but Tommy knew as well as any man, that nothing could hide away bloodshed. Nothing could completely wash away the traces of it spilled over hands and pavement, for it was not just skin that it tainted, and Tommy had yet to discover what it was that could actually cleanse a soul.

"I killed a man." Her voice repeats itself and Tommy can hear the way her tongue wraps around the words as though she's testing them out. Over and over again, he listens to the way she feels the weight of their letters teetering on her tongue, tastes the metallic and nauseating sense of their presence, hears the way they echo around her like the words might just swallow her whole.

With each repeat, her voice breaks just a little bit more. Until finally, her last repetition is croaked out in the nature of a gut-wrenching sob. One that wracks her body, threatening to bring her to her knees if it weren't for Thomas, who quickly gathered her bare body into the strong embrace of his sodden and clothed one.

"I know," He whispered as he pressed his lips firmly against the top of her scalp, feeling the moisture of her soaked down tendrils and feeling even from the very tip of her head, how harshly her body shakes. Like the very fear of God or a strike of lightening soars right through her being. "I know love, I know."

The bar of soap had since faltered to the tile beneath them, slipping from Tommy's grasp the second her body began to give out but its only as she slowly pulls herself back in his tight embrace, that he realizes just how empty his palms are. For they'd never gotten the chance to fully scrub the dried and caked on blood from her hands, cleansing away the cracks and the crevices of her palms and the bending lines that creased around her wrists. And for the very first time, Tommy's hands look pale in comparison to hers. It's a striking contrast, one that turns his stomach like it's his first sight of blood all over again, as he watches the way her red stained palms begin to press firmly against the swell of his soaked chest.

Her nails toy ever so gently with the undone button of his sodden and translucent white shirt, her eyes absentmindedly gazing at his exposed chest as if she's studying the sight of each and every curled strand of hair that coats his chest. But Tommy can see the way her mind runs like the wheels inside are churning out words that her lips have yet to set free, and so he reaches up with his knuckle and lifts her chin up gingerly. "Look at me," He whispers so lowly he fears the rush of the water might just warp the sound of his voice. "Hey, look at me, ey? Talk to me."

Her eyes, glossed over with the sheen of her own shed tears, that seemed to burn away any trace of the white in her eyes with the salt of her anguish, peer up through her saturated lashes. A difficult feat it appears to be, as if her eyes are weighed down with teardrops formed of pure lead. But she gazes up at Tommy and with the encouraging coax of his voice, she speaks.

She ought to have felt utterly fragile standing there in his grasp, vulnerable in front of him as she stands naked and tearful, having to be cared for as if she were a child. But as the wash of his bold cerulean gaze cascades over her scorched flesh and the trails of her burning tears, there's a comfort he exudes only for her.

"How do you do it, Tommy?"

Her words stun him into silence, a void overtaking his body as if his brain suddenly shuts off his ability to think, to speak, to even breathe. For even as her voice is gentle, breath soft and airy like it might just flutter away into the open fog, her words settle with a weight that is enough to knock the air from his lungs. She looks so utterly innocent, peering up into his eyes through the saddened sprawl of her sodden lashes, voice raw from her cries of heartache as she stands almost clawing at his chest for the source of his love and his empathy. But her words, they are laden with a truth so brutal, so formidable, so inescapable, he questions if she even realizes the extent in which they clamber inside of his chest like a bullet in a chamber.

Thomas despised the way she'd been exposed to this, that the ugliness of his life had finally swooped down and taken hold of her with its unrelenting hand. For she'd always had an innocence to her that he'd treasured, a naivety that Tommy knew full well would always become her weakness one day and yet, he wanted to guard it with his life. Keep it safe, banish the world from ever laying its hands upon it. But the day had finally come when it had become scathed, when the precious stone had become scratched, and the purity of her soul had been smudged.

She'd experienced something that Tommy had always known and she could see him now, in a way she never had before. No one could understand what it was like to carry the burden of one's life, until they themselves had taken one.

"How do you do it Tommy, how do you wipe the blood from your hands and not still feel it lingering there like it'd never been washed away in the first place?"

"How do you close your eyes," Her lashes fluttered shut for a brief moment, before snapping open again as if there'd been a shock shot straight through her the moment her lash lines met. "and not see them looking up at you?"

Her eyes peered up at him with a certain degree of earnestness and desperation behind the glean of her freshly fallen tears, "How do you take a life and keep going?"

Tommy couldn't speak, the words simply wouldn't come. For there were no words to be said, they hadn't yet invented them. The words that she sought from Thomas, the very words that he himself wished he had inside, didn't exist for his mind and for his heart to know.

Her nails nearly threatened to tear through the thinning fabric of his shirt, weighed down by the water that made his body feel heavy, as she grasped at his chest while he kept his clasp on her body tight and secure as he gazed down at her expression. For she looked at him, peering up through those lashes almost like a child looking to their parent in an expectant manner, with such a yearn glinting back in the drowning core of her irises, that Tommy realized he'd misread what it was that she'd been looking for.

She'd absorbed his warmth, taken his comfort with open arms, applied his empathy and his compassion upon her heart, but what she truly sought from Tommy in this vulnerable moment, was an explanation. Some semblance, a mere trace, any lingering answer as to how he'd lived all these years with the weight of so many lives resting on his very shoulders.

How could he feel the bloodshed lacing his fingerprints and not feel the desire to crumble when his eyes fell upon the tainted sight? How could he expel bullets as easily as take in air and not appear the slightest bit fazed? Tommy looked at her in this moment, with her soft eyes staring up at him like perhaps he knew secrets the universe didn't, and he saw what it was she really wanted to know. Maybe the thing deep down she'd always wanted to know but loved him fiercely enough never to broach.

How could he kill, how could he take a life, how could he murder and maim and cut up and dispose of and still carry on fully intact? That's what she really wanted to know, the thing she truly searched for as she gazed up into his eyes, hoping it might just linger there in the churning waves of his cerulean gaze. But she wouldn't find it, Tommy knew. For even Tommy Shelby himself, didn't quite know.

Maybe it was the devils he'd shook hands with over the course of his life, maybe it just in his gypsy blood, but what Tommy rather reckoned, was that the truth was as simple as with each action, with each killing, with each loss of life whether he wanted to lose or not, he lost a part of himself.

She looked at him like he carried on a fully intact man when the blood stained his flesh crimson, but she didn't realize that he hadn't been whole in a very long time. He was hollow. If she were to break him open, she'd find that over the years, with everything he'd witnessed, everything he'd done, everything he himself had gone through, that a piece of himself was taken. Bit by bit, coming apart like bricks out of a house, until his foundation was left in shambles and mere splints keeping it in place.

She wanted to know how he did it, how he carried on, but as Tommy looked down in silence upon the woman he loved, he realized he couldn't tell her. For he couldn't tell her that she'd have to sell parts of her soul, that she'd have to let pieces of herself wither away and die like leaves in the autumn season, he couldn't tell her it would break her apart and she'd simply have to carry the shards on her way. Tommy couldn't bring himself to tell her and watch more of her beautiful heart and her innocent soul break and so, he didn't. Instead, he said all that he could say, even when he knew it wasn't nearly enough.

"I'm sorry."

His right hand that had shifted from its close embrace of her bare frame, now cradled her face. The pad of his thumb sweeping gently along the curve of her cheekbones, through the mess of tears that slid along her flesh and blended in with the fall of the water above them. But he could feel the difference Tommy swore, as his skin began to absorb the salt of her tears, burning into his own touch.

His voice was barely heard over the spray of the shower, for it was tentative and solemn. Low as it nearly slipped beneath the makings of a whisper tone, as he gazed down at her. But it was the only voice he could muster and even as his words were few and insignificant to most, they'd been two of the most honest words he'd spoken in a very long time.

For Tommy found himself apologizing for everything, every little thing. It was all that he could say, it was certainly not enough, but it encapsulated every emotion that soared throughout his being.

He apologized for not protecting her like he should have, he hadn't been there when she was in trouble, when she needed someone to look out for her. He hadn't been there, on the very streets that he ruled, he hadn't been the one to halt the danger that found her that evening. He apologized for the fact that she'd had to do what she had done, she should have never found herself in a position where she'd be the one on the other end of that trigger, pulling it in order to save her own life. He apologized for the knowledge that she would have to carry this burden for the rest of her life.

Tommy had never wanted this for her and so he apologized for it all, guilt seeping into each and every crevice of his heart and of his conscious, settling upon his foundation until he knew it would surely begin to erode him away like stone.

She sunk into his embrace once more, as he whispered the words again, letting them land softly along the bridge of her scalp. Her arms wrapped their way around him, holding him tightly like he was an anchor thrown out at sea to save her from drowning. Her tears rolled down his chest and the shakes of her body tenderly began to soften in his strong hold. Tommy embraced her without a moment of hesitancy, his arms coiling around her naked frame as they once had before and they simply stood there beneath the spray of the shower holding each other.

It was then, that Tommy whispered one last apology, one he knew he'd always have to repent for one way or another, but as he held her gentle frame in his arms, he couldn't restrain any longer.

Tommy Shelby apologized for being selfish enough to love her as much as he did, when he knew she deserved more than him and this dreaded life that followed, the life that was always going to get its hands on her one day or another. He apologized for keeping her tethered to this place, to him, just because he needed her far more than he knew she would ever need him.

For Tommy loved her, in a way a man like him should have never loved a woman like her. She was everything his soul needed but didn't deserve. And so, he apologized. Maybe for loving her too much, maybe for loving her at all, or maybe, because he knew what inevitably happened when he loved another human being.

A/N: Ahh, I'm so proud of this piece, wow!😭❤

I've had this plot for some time now, but whenever I sat down to start it, I just couldn't find the right flow of the story. It came to me one day however and wouldn't stop flowing after I started! I've always been so taken with this plot, of not only the darker more realistic side of what life might be like with Tommy, the danger and exposure to loss and bloodshed and death that anyone with him would eventually have to experience, but also the blending of it with the softer, more nurturing and caring side to Tommy that we see so scarcely.

It was different points of the plot I'd had nailed down in my head as far as how I knew the scene had to progress, always knowing I wanted him to find her down by the canals in the rain, I wanted him in the shower fully clothed as he cared for her, the contrast of blood running down the drain and I always wanted that emotion stemming from her begging him to tell her how he'd done it, how she in turn might be able to get through this. The piece evolved from those baselines however, the emotions and depth I was able to weave into this one becoming a life of its own that I hope you all were able to feel. I wanted you to be able to feel the environment it was set in and see Tommy in that way, with all of his closely guarded expressions all the while, knowing that he was feeling a hurricane of emotions inside of himself.

This piece grew and became something I simply couldn't stop writing, it poured out of me, every line, every detail, every description and I am so incredibly happy and proud of what I was able to craft here!!❤