The sunlight danced along the Earth in a tender breath, like a delicate exhale of warmth that flooded the blades of blooming grass with just enough heat, that it banished every last trace of the previous winter season from reality and whispered the promise of balmier days to come.

For even as the England rain had coated the cobbles in a downpour of chilling precipitation just the night before, while its grey clouds that coated the sky in a haze of smoke like trails strived to stay, the sun broke through the melancholy presence that consumed Birmingham and endeavored to impart a single day of warmth and hope into the atmosphere.

Out in the countryside, miles down a single narrow winding road that they traveled on until the smoke and the smog and the pure misery of life in Small Heath, became a memory of a past long behind them, the sunshine felt unscathed. Like as it beamed down in delicate rays of soft honey and sharp marigold, through clouds fluffy and free of any lingering trace of a staining grey hue, it met the Earth with a purity that seemed like a beautiful fantasy.

For the sky was a vast blanket of the faintest breath of blue, dusted with wispy clouds that held not a single droplet of rain to spoil the day, and it stretched further than the eye could see. It seemed grander out there in the countryside, like the universe unveiled itself there in the fields of lush chartreuse, and as Tommy Shelby laid beneath its overwhelming scale, one couldn't help but feel small beneath the all-consuming evidence of a world far larger than any one soul could ever know.

The weeping willow shielded Tommy from the sunlight that rained down from the open heavens. An enchanting tree, blossoming up from firm roots and an inexplicable placement in the middle of a field, as though it was God's own hand that had come along and planted the tree there, right where he saw fit, in the midst of an empty and uninhabited land. He laid stretched out on his back beneath the beautiful tree, with his right hand resting behind his head as a pillow made of bone and soft flesh, knuckles just barely beginning to brush against the bark of the stump behind him. The ground beneath him solid and yet, soft and welcoming.

For the grass that had erupted with the enrichment of life and summertime warmth, was lush and soft beneath the brush of his left palm. Blades of intertwining emerald and deep jade tones, with the light hues of chartreuse sprinkled within as though nature itself couldn't choose just one shade of green to paint the open rolling land with, like a mosaic of the countryside untouched by the scathing hand of man.

It smelled of the Earth, rich like the soil lingering beneath their softly swaying blades that captured the faintest current of a timid breeze. The slightest hint of damp soil, as the remembrance of last evening's showers lingered in the air. And it held that inexplicable scent that one simply knew. That kind of warmth that tingled one's nose with the faintest evidence of pollen and the knowledge that the field was alive and beaming with a presence that could only be extinguished when the threat of a freezing autumn came back around.

It was quiet out here, that might've been one of the things Tommy loved most about this secret oasis he'd discovered years ago. For he couldn't hear the churn of the factories, the sharp pinging of metal hitting metal, the eruptions of sparking embers in a blistering fire, the rambunctious squeals of children running amuck in the cobblestone streets or even the belligerent slurs of drunks stumbling their way home late into the evening hours. The sounds of Small Heath, the sounds of home, were lost out here. Not even that of faint whispers echoing in the background, it was simply peace and untarnished silence.

A soft sound broke the void however, a timid breath exhaling deeply beside him as a rustle of grass danced along the current of the gentle breeze. But the sound was a welcome one. It was a sound that Tommy Shelby had grown accustomed to over the years, the adorable musings of his girl as she woke. Whether it be in that snug little twin bed back in his bedroom on Watery Lane, or the mattress and nestled quilts he'd drag out to the stables every once and a while for them to share, or even here... in the middle of an empty field that only they knew, she awoke in the very same fashion each and every time.

She slept as if she feared he'd disappear into the dark of the night, a ghost slipping through an abyss and never to be seen in the light of day. For she clung to him in her sleep, some nights it was her entire body coiled around him as though she were ivy growing up and down his body, some days it was simply a hand pressed along the flesh that housed his beating heart right beneath.

Today, it happened to be the curl of her fingertips holding onto left shoulder, buried tightly into his side. She'd slowly unfurl herself from his body, nuzzle her nose against him ever so faintly as sleep seeped from her consciousness and awaken with a few quick flutters of her thick lashes. Today was no different. For Tommy felt her fingertips slacken and begin to slip down from their placement against his shoulder blade, and sparking a smile that curled up the edges of his nicotine laced lips, she buried her face further into the ridges of his ribcage, until she began to pull back and allowed for the fresh sunshine to coax her from slumber.

They'd driven out to their special little place that afternoon, needing to get away from the city and the building tension of war that loomed too close in the future, as Tommy's duty called for him in only three days time. They'd laid beneath that weeping willow for hours, listening to the rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the soft exhales of each other's synchronized breaths. Speaking every so often, as if for nothing more than to simply remind the other that they were still there. It was only as she'd begun watching the clouds, as they drifted slowly along the blanket of untouched powder blue, pointing out shapes that she saw clearly yet Tommy couldn't make out even if they were to come alive in front of him, that she'd fallen asleep.

But Tommy hadn't dared to wake her. Maybe it was because she was beautiful when she slept, never knowing it was possible for someone to look as stunning asleep as they did when they were wide awake. Maybe it was because he liked to listen to the sound of her even breaths and the way she nestled closely to him with her warmth and her softness. Or maybe, it was due to the fact that she needed this sleep.

For she had barely slept a wink this week, the impending moment when Tommy left for war keeping her awake with endless fears and anxieties that wrapped itself around her bones and snuck into every last crevice of her mind like a cancer. She seemed utterly at peace out here, cuddled up beside him as the sunlight bathed her like a blanket of warmth, as if even nightmares and fears of the future couldn't reach her out here.

"You should've woken me." She hummed softly, her eyes fluttering open but the lasting trails of sleep lingering in the base of her throat as she spoke.

Tommy smiled softly before bringing his freshly lit cigarette to his lips, "Why would I want to go and do that, ey?"

Even as his gaze was steadied on the open skies above him, lost in the blue that churned with not a single wave of darkness or melancholy, he knew she smiled at his words. For he could nearly feel it in the air, like a special warmth that only she could create, beamed up from beside him and ignited the breath he inhaled with a level of heat that not even the bright sunshine could ever hope to evoke.

"So that I didn't waste away the day."

Tommy chuckled at her words, leaning down to press his lips against her scalp, letting them linger as the warmth of her sun kissed strands soaked into the flesh of his tender touch. "There's nothing to go to waste love."

"I don't want to waste a single second with you Tommy, I can't go and sleep them all away." He knew she wanted to say something more, hearing the slight catch in her voice that was nearly completely roused out of sleep. And Tommy knew exactly what it was that she wanted to add, but something stopped her before she could let the words slip from her lips. Maybe it was her voice that betrayed her, maybe it was her mind or maybe, it was her heart that halted her.

I don't want to waste a single second with you Tommy, I can't go and sleep them all away. I might not get many more.

But she didn't say them and Tommy didn't dare speak them for her. Today was supposed to be a day just for them. A day to forget, even if only for the briefest of moments, what awaited them in the days to come. A day to be together and ingrain every sensation, every sound, every smell, every word into their memories to sustain them in the distance that was to separate them. This was a day to be as they always had been, madly in love with each other.

She shifted from her place beside him, his lips ripped away from her strands of thin and wind tousled locks as she pulled away, leaning up on her elbows before propping herself up and resting her arms down across his chest. She leaned her chin back down, balancing it along the exposed flesh of her forearms, as the straps of her long sundress threaten to slide down her freckle dusted shoulders. She peered up at Tommy through the fluttering sprawl of her lashes, and even with his neck slightly cramped from his position staring down at her and the way she hovered over him slightly, she was breathtaking.

For her long locks that were caught up in the tender whistle of the dusk tinted breeze, cascaded down the left side of her shoulder until they spread like golden strands along the curvature of his chest muscle. She wore not a trace of makeup, she never had. Not even when John had married Martha and she'd dressed up for the occasion, she adorned not a single speck of makeup. She wore her flesh like she knew it was as beautiful as Tommy always knew it to be.

It wasn't flawless in the way that not a single inch of her flesh was scathed, but rather that she had little imperfections that made her beauty real. She adorned a scar above her right eyebrow, tiny and nearly faded with the mercy of time, but every so often Tommy found himself running the edge of his index finger along the mark that she'd gotten when she'd been just a little thing.

Freckles dotted her complexion like sprinkles of the sun embedded in her otherwise pale skin. She wore bags under her eyes, proving that not even the most beautiful of those that walked this Earth, was immune to the way this world could surely drag them down. She was not spotless marble, chiseled to be perfect without a single trace of inconsistency. She was better. She was real and by some remarkable twist of fate, she was his.

"You promise you won't forget me while you're over there?"

God, she was beautiful. It wasn't that Tommy didn't realize it each and every day he woke up with her nestled beside him, it wasn't that he didn't think it every time she walked down those cobbles as though she was pure light radiating down a pathway of darkness. It wasn't that it didn't shake his core when she looked at him, with those bright beaming orbs like he was the most brilliant human she'd ever met in her life. She had always been beautiful, but every once and a while, it was like the universe went out of its way to remind the blue-eyed Watery Lane gypsy.

For the sunlight kissed her like a glow from the heavens. As if there were angels up there under the instruction of the Lord himself, raining down an ethereal light down upon her flesh, illuminating her like it was possible that she could ever fade into the background that this life had to offer. It glazed her skin with the softest peck of a marigold hue, almost making the porcelain nature of her complexion glisten as if she were formed from the particles of lost star dust or a thousand diamonds that had been hand selected especially for her.

Tommy smiles softly at her words. Her tone saturating them in a breath of vulnerability and delicateness, one that Tommy wants to simply place his hands upon and strengthen until there isn't a doubt or shred of fear residing in the depths of her bones. Letting his tongue glide swiftly over his bottom lip, tasting the smoke trailing on the tip of his tongue and the faintest remnants of her cherry tainted kiss, he lifts his left hand and tucks a single strand of her fallen hair away from her eyesight and safely behind her ear.

Her scent carried through the timid breeze, as though each and every breath she exhaled became entangled with the current of the gentle wind that coated her skin in a cooling whisper, and just the tucking of a fallen strand, sparked a flurry of her intoxicating aroma to invade his senses all over again. For she smelled of spring. Of honeysuckle and lavender, of the crispness of fresh fallen rain. She smelled of sunshine and warmth and something intangible, like that of pure hope.

"I could be fucking six feet under, swimming in hell fire and even then, I still don't think I could forget you."

Her hesitant smile touched his heart, but it was the gentle patter of her fingertips that touched his flesh, as she straightened her stance and reached her right hand up to cradle the warm skin of his cheek. The pad of her thumb swept through the faint sprinkle of freckles that dotted his cheekbones, tracing the sharp structure of bone that resided beneath, before letting her hand falter slightly. Letting her fingertips brush ever so gingerly against the curve of his lips.

"I'll miss you something awful when you're gone, Tommy Shelby."

Her whisper tugged at the strings of Tommy's beating heart. For he knew she spoke in the only volume that she could muster, not because of sorrow or depressing fears for the future, but rather at just how much love consumed her very being for the man that didn't deserve a droplet of it. She sounded as if a part of her soul was being threatened, like someone had come around and was about to rip it straight out of her chest. But she stared down at him, with eyes wide and filled with a churning current of emotions, as though Tommy Shelby possessed each and every inch of it.

"Ey," Tommy himself whispered, letting his voice seep over flesh like the rolling haze of his dwindling cigarette smoke. "I won't be gone long enough for you to miss me. I'll be back before you know it and it'll all be as it was."

She chewed on her bottom lip for a brief moment, absorbing his words as she tugged the thin flesh between her teeth. Releasing it only as words found her, and she tightened the press of her palm flat against his cheek. "You promise?"

Maybe Tommy Shelby knew better than to promise the things that he knew he couldn't. But he looked at her face, watching the delicate glow of a thousand heavenly lights descending down upon her flesh and illuminating every inch of emotion that consumed her soft and beautiful expression, and found that he needed to say the words not only for her, but for himself.

He knew he hadn't a right to say these words to her and yet, he found that he had to say them, that he might just regret it if they never spilled out. Because even if they were lies, hollow little words wrapped in a shiny red bow, they sure sounded sweet like the truth.

"You promise you'll come back to me, and it'll be like nothing has changed?"

Tommy's hand reached out again, balancing the burning cigarette securely in his fingers as his knuckle grazed against her cheek. He didn't have a fallen strand to tuck away or an eyelash to brush from her skin, he simply needed to feel the warmth of her flesh against his own and be as connected to her in this moment as humanly possible.

"I promise," Tommy whispered, with every ounce of his heart pouring into the words he knew he had no such right to say to the woman he loved. "I will come back to you, and it'll be how it is right now. Always."

His hand slid down from her face as she brought herself down against his chest, keeping her own hand firmly against the chiseled structure of his cheek bone, but letting her ear fall to listen to the melodic beats of his own thumping heart.

"Are we foolish, do you think?" She whispered against the soft cotton clothing his chest, as the quiet began to slowly seep back into the atmosphere they inhaled in deep breaths. "To believe such a thing?"

She took his words to her heart, letting them coil around every last string that held the beating muscle together, but her words signaled the way she wasn't naive, and she wasn't oblivious to the notion that perhaps the sweetness of his promise, wasn't something that existed in this world. Her tone wasn't cynical, and it wasn't ominous, in fact, it was rather bathed in the sweetness and velvet like ease she always spoke with. Like her words were merely that, words pondered aloud. But Tommy couldn't help the way he felt his chest tighten with the knowledge that what she inquired, was a question he himself had asked too many times to count on his two hands alone.

He didn't tell her though. Tommy just leaned down and let his chin rest against the top of her scalp, breathing in the deep scent of her until it nearly eradicated every last trace of smoke clouding up his lungs. And as he stared up at the sky that seemed to encapsulate a world that mocked reality, dangling a beautiful oasis in front of the eyes of those that would soon witness the cruelty that lingered beyond its abyss of breathless blue, Tommy Shelby whispered to her softly as he held her a little bit tighter.

"Maybe."

* * *

The autumn season exhaled over the Earth, a steady breath bathing the rolling land in a presence permeated by the sharp bite of the chilling temperatures. For the warmth of the sun had since abandoned this place, long ago fading into the horizon like it had discovered its rightful place, leaving the outskirts of Birmingham for a paradise far from these depressing fields and lifeless land. Replaced by the bleeding shades of grey, melancholy but familiar, they painted the atmosphere as though the smoke from the city had traveled all the way out here and tainted even that of the open countryside skies.

The blue once breathed into the air, like you could damn near feel the comfort of a life beyond the trees and the rolling bounty of fresh land, left not a streak within the bleak horizon. A blanket of ashen haze consuming the sky, like not even the heavens wished to waste an ounce of sunshine on this place.

The weeping willow still stood; its roots buried deep beneath the grass that had long ago turned to brown, its swaying blades of jade now crumbling sheaths of land that simply blew like desolate particles of a dry and dying being in the cold winds that whipped across the empty field. But the tree that had once hovered with such beauty and sanctity, like a protective embrace that only you and one other soul had ever known, was now saddened.

There was a melancholy essence to its being now, like it truly embraced the call of its name, as it wept above you. Crying out for the sun, crying out for the life that had once blossomed within this land, crying out for a time long before the world had been shaken apart by war and hardship and such irrevocable pain. Perhaps, you wept with it for the very same reasons.

For as you leaned against the bark of the tree, pricking the wool of your cardigan and threatening to scratch at the flesh awaiting beneath, you stared out at the sight of the horizon and the edge of the land meeting in a fine line that bled into the far beyond. It was a sight you'd witnessed more times than you could count, in another life it felt like, as you no longer recognized the sight that had once been burned into your memories.

For it was like looking at two completely different portraits of the very same place. There was something familiar to this place, this countryside oasis you'd discovered with Thomas Shelby all those years ago, but as you stared out at the sadness that encapsulated the land now, there was something about it that felt like a stranger.

For the summer season began to wither away like the recollections of your past. Autumn leaves fluttering to the Earth with their final breath, like pieces of your memories crumbling apart and pooling at your feet. You sat beneath that weeping willow that cried for your aching soul, and it was like witnessing the death of a place that had once held such a beautiful life. Like the memories of this place and all of the intimate moments you'd spent here with the man you loved, were lost promises put out to field. Decaying into the Earth when the tangled roots simply refused to take.

"Isn't a cloud in the sky to watch today, is there?"

Perhaps you'd heard the engine, the monotone hum of the car driving up the gravel road and signaling his sudden arrival. But perhaps, you'd simply been too lost in the way that this place felt as though everything about it had changed, to truly notice.

He approached as a stark silhouette of black, striding across the open and baren land a vision of ebony that even in such a darkened hue that consumed his entire being, still managed to be the sharpest sight for miles to come. You peered at him through your peripheral, not quite craning your head back to face his proceeding frame, but letting your eyes flicker slowly over to witness him growing closer with each strong conviction filled step he took.

Tommy Shelby strode like fire burned on his heels. Like wherever the sole of his boot landed upon the dried-out Earth, a print of his strong presence would be singed in the remnants. For Tommy strode with an unshakable confidence that resided deep in his bones, like he was sure of each and every step he took and the steadiness of the ground beneath him. As if not a single trace of doubt lingered in his body, at the prospect of the world suddenly coming apart at the seams.

His confidence was intoxicating. It was enthralling and damning and at times, bewilderingly reckless. But it was Tommy. This air that followed him as though his shadow was a tangible sensation one could feel on the very tips of their fingers. It was a part of him, this confidence. Like he was sure of his place in this world, and you knew when the day finally came for Tommy Shelby to perish, that he was to be sure of his place even then.

He smelled of smoke. Rich and tantalizing, as Tommy finally reached you and knelt down to sit beside you. His looming frame hovering like an exhale of a whisper over your petite presence, as he engulfed the space to your left with such ease, it was as if the dormant grass he sat upon had called out his name and was formed for the shape of his company. His fingers were left bare of a cigarette, but as soon as a soft sigh passed through his lips like it traveled along an invisible current of smoke, Tommy soon dug through the pocket of his long black coat for his case of rolled white sticks and a match to go with.

He smelled of cigarette smoke, woven into the threads he adorned, deep ebony and the faintest hue of a softened ash grey peeking out from beneath his jacket. The tobacco embedded its essence into his very flesh, like it clung to the man for dear life. For even when you watched him wash away the traces of day, as midnight loomed high in the darkened Birmingham sky, listening to the echoing slosh of the bath water, the smoke persisted on his flesh. Melding only with the crisp tinge of soap and fresh water that coated a body once bathed in blood and sweat and impossible grief.

But he also smelled of the smoke back home. The kind of smoke that churned through the streets, as though it were a whisper haunting the cobbles that absorbed the pungent scent into its every crevice. The kind of smoke that you simply couldn't wash out of your clothes or the flesh of your lungs. It was a smoke that cemented its scent into every aspect of your life, until life simply smelled of rich smoke and constantly churning factories.

You noticed the sharp flicker of citrine out of the corner of your eye, the flame blistering as it ignited the end of the cigarette Tommy has swept along his pouted bottom lip, before he extinguished the match with a single shake of his wrist. Tossing the wooden stick out amongst the field that shared its very same shade, like a needle in a haystack, never to be seen again. Tommy spoke not a word, his greeting long ago lost in the open air that bit with the threatening menace of winter on its trail. But he looked at you. You could feel it, far before you endeavored to meet his gaze.

"I used to watch them sometimes," Your tongue swept along your lips, as though wetting the sudden dry flesh would in some make the lump in your throat suddenly disappear. "Those or the stars. And I'd like to think that maybe somewhere over there, you were looking at them too."

It had been a year or so since the last night you'd spent leaning on your windowsill, staring up at the night sky and the flickering evidence of stars piercing their mighty light through the only break in the smog. Or your weekly drives out to the countryside, just to gaze up at the clouds and wonder if wherever he was, he might just see them too. But you could still remember them as if they had just been the night prior.

For that kind of fear and anxiety that resided in the very base of your chest, beating away with your pulse like it wove a noose around the tender muscle of your heart and controlled your each and every breath, never went away. The tears that would soak your pillowcase and nearly bleed your cheeks raw with their never-ending paths of staining salt, didn't just disappear. Every sensation of those years Tommy had been away, they lived inside of you. Still to this day, they continued to breathe in some form that refused to perish.

"It helped me sleep better, I suppose." You shrug with a soft breath, as you lean forward barely an inch and wrap your arms around your knees bent gently out in front of you. The skirt of your cream-colored dress spread against the lifeless ground and even as the weather assaulted your flesh, your toes sat bare as you flattened them against the hardened soil and the prickling evidence of a grass once bright and green. "To think that you were still alive and that if you could see the same sky, the same stars, that maybe you weren't as far away as you felt."

Perhaps, you knew Tommy Shelby far too well or maybe, it was simply in the way you felt his eyes upon your frame that had yet to face him. For you swore with every shred of certainty that you possessed, that he resisted the urge to reach out and rest his hand against the top of your knee. Like every muscle in his body, chiseled by life as a solider and hardened by elements that made him impenetrable and reserved, screamed out for him to touch you in some way. The clasp of a hand, the brush of a knuckle, the mere graze of a fingertip. But like a tangible air, you could feel like it was the very oxygen you inhaled, you knew he held back.

You knew he restrained himself these days, something inside of himself shifting and refusing to allow him the ease he once possessed when it came to his affection with you. But perhaps, it ought to mean something if he still had the instinct somewhere inside him, at the very least.

His exhale of smoke traveled through the whipping wind that grew colder with each passing minute, letting the pungent yet comforting scent of familiarity and warmth coil its presence around your senses, until your lungs burned as though it was your own lips that took a drag from the burning stick of nicotine. Tommy turned his head, staring down at the cigarette he fiddled with in between the calloused pads of his fingertips, before letting his words spill out over his lips.

"You don't have to look far now though, yeah?"

It was those words that finally prompted you to face Tommy. Turning your head against the cold call of the wind, as it blew the strands of your loose and cascading locks away from your sight, you stared at the man sat beside you. It was bewildering and slightly unnerving, to feel your breath hitch even to this day, when your eyes swept over the sight of Tommy Shelby. Even when it was just a glimpse of his side profile, the sight of him was enough to hinder your ability to breathe for a moment, until you finally caught your breath in the base of your thundering heart.

He always said you were beautiful, but between the two of you, it had always been Tommy.

He was beautiful. In the way a man who'd seen the horrors of war and been all but torn apart himself, should have never been. But it wasn't that his beauty created perfection or eradicated the evidence of hardship that muddled his veins. It was that he could wear scars upon his flesh and wounds upon his war-torn mind and all the while, his beauty still remained as though his pain never quite scathed its surface. It was inexplicable and bewildering and beguiling. That someone could still be an immaculate picture of a man, even when his interior all but crumbled to cold and desolate dust.

"When you stepped off of that train platform," Tears collected like stones in the base of your throat, tying knots around the words climbing their way to freedom, threatening to sink them back down into your burning soul. But what you found could make you weak each and every time, suddenly gave you the strength to speak, as Tommy turned his head and his gaze washed over you like a tide of overwhelming cerulean. His eyes like artifacts of chiseled stone, in a shade of blue that the sea had never known.

His eyes had the ability to disarm you, without a single word muttered from his lush lips or clear expression paved along the worn lines of his face, his eyes had the power to destroy with just one peer into your own. But in this moment, as the blue that churned like a never-ending current in his orbs, made you wonder if it was there in his possession that the sky had been drained, that they uplifted you in the smallest of manners.

Without words to prompt you, without a touch to spark against your flesh, it was the way he looked at you that gave you the strength to continue speaking the words you both already knew simmered in the background. Like a storm cloud coming further and further into fruition with each passing day.

"When you stepped off of that train platform, I felt all of the breath I'd been holding every single day for all of those years, rush back into my lungs."

It was like being capsized and nearly overrun by a tidal wave. For it wasn't until that moment, when his boots pounded the pavement of Birmingham once again, and you saw the beam of cerulean that had lacked from civilization all the while he'd been absent, that you realized just how little you'd been breathing for all of those torturous years. Like the moment he'd left for war, your breath hitched, and it wasn't until that moment when he approached you with a lifetime of horror residing deep in the basis of his bones, that you finally felt it relieve and funnel through your lungs.

"I felt all of my blood seep back through my veins, like I'd been numb all that time, but still alive enough to know every fiber of my body just hurt while you were away."

"But I look at you Tommy," You whisper in the only voice you muster, as the tears glossing over your vision threatens to sabotage your voice. "and I feel I've lost you anyway."

You loved him the way he couldn't dare to love himself. You loved the parts he knew didn't deserve a shred of care or compassion, the parts bloodied and bruised, the parts dark and futile in the notion of redemption, but you loved them all. Every fractured piece, every scrap left lingering behind, every broken and tormented inch of his soul.

You wished to heal him, if there was healing to be done. You wanted to aid in the recovery of his weary heart, mend the shattered bones and his torn-up flesh, as though all of his broken pieces were simply a jigsaw puzzle yearning to be put together again. But it was difficult to heal something that didn't wish to be whole.

For Tommy didn't contest the scars that scathed his surface, or the way blood surely dripped from the poorly sewn wounds on his heart. He simply carried on. He wiped the blood from his eyes, pushed the pain out of his mind and walked on, as though each and every step did not scream out in anguish.

Tommy stared at you, watching the tears glazing your sight with a sheen of melancholy and a deep-rooted ache, but it felt like more than just two eyes simply observing you. For Tommy's eyes had that ability to puncture holes through your flesh, like he could peer into your soul and uncover all of the unspoken words, all of the hidden pain, all of the dark little secrets you'd concealed from the world and from even yourself.

The ice that coated his orbs of impenetrable cerulean, like the tides themselves had frozen overnight but their currents still remained underneath, was sharp enough to break through the surface. Like blades he adorned in his eyes, leaving the ones that glinted a deep silver gleam around the crown of his peaky cap useless in comparison. But when they finally peeled back the slashed flesh and exposed the beating cavity of a soul lingering below, the harshness they had torn through with, suddenly ceased to appear.

For Tommy had a way of keeping his face completely stoic and void of any readable expression, as if to protect the remnants of his fragile heart that beat inside of his chest in pieces and broken shards, but when he peered into your open soul and saw what resided inside, his eyes softened. They softened just for you.

"I'm right here."

His words traveled along the current of a smoky exhale. His tone softer than the sharp bite of the tobacco scent that coiled itself around you like arms of a dark but familiar friend.

You weren't certain in that moment, if the words that fell from his lips were bathed in the truth or the sweetened coating of a protective lie. Because although Tommy hated keeping the truth from you and struggled at times to keep it out of his eyes, he would surely bend it if it meant saving you even a sliver of pain.

Shifting ever so slightly, feeling the brittle blades of once lush and soft grass crunch beneath your weight, you reach out to the Peaky Blinder beside you. Letting the flesh of your fingertips dance along the worn and scarred surface of his own, the pads of your fingers tiptoeing over the lines that marked his skin beyond its rightful years and over the tender sprinkle of freckles that dusted his chiseled cheekbones.

He was always inexplicably warm. Even as the weather around him gnawed at your own skin and bones, sending shivers running down your spine when the wind blew a touch too harshly, Tommy always managed to radiate a source of heat as if he carried flecks of the burning sun right there beneath his skin. Like popping embers lingering in the darkness, heating him from the inside out.

Did he believe his own words? You wondered as the cold palm of your hand gingerly cradled his left cheek of unwarranted warmth. Did he believe them as he heard them echo around his own senses, or did he just hope you might believe them enough for the both of you?

There was something about the softness of his tone, the cool tide of his demeanor that tickled at your flesh but his warmth like a blanket fastened over your shoulders, that made you want to wrap yourself in his words. To place them like bandages over the wounds that pained your heart and tore at his mind. But as your thumb swiftly and ever so gently brushed back and forth beneath the bright beam of his gaze, feeling the weight of all his sleepless nights sinking below like anchors dragging him towards the Earth, you found that you couldn't.

He was lost. For his body was here on solid ground, the warmth of his flesh bleeding against your very own. But his mind and his soul, they traveled along a current a thousand miles away from this place.

His soul rattled with the shattered pieces of himself, the remnants of a man blown to bits by a war that might've spared his life, but had undoubtedly stolen his spirit in return. They jostled like change in the bottom of his coat pocket, but you saw the way they were put together as if they were merely missing jigsaw pieces. Except these ones were sewn by shaky hands, woven thread holding them together like the navy stitches weren't dripping in blood.

They were sturdy enough that one could look at Thomas Shelby from the outside, and swear he was whole. But you could see the cracks below the surface, the foundation hollow and bloody. The lingering parts of himself were hanging on by those haphazard stitches, tethered string worn and frayed. And you feared the day when they would finally snap and the shattered pieces of your Tommy, would obliterate into dust.

Feeling the rough pull of your teeth sinking into your bottom lip and curling inward, as though a protective measure to keep the tears building like boulders in the base of your throat from climbing any further towards freedom, you let your hand drop down from Tommy's stoic face. Collapsing into your lap, the touch of him left tingling on your fingertips as if fireworks erupted underneath the swirls of your fingerprints.

But your eyes remained locked on his unwavering scrutiny, like he'd pulled you in with the freezing tide of cerulean and you bobbed there helpless in the waters.

"I think," You swallowed with a strong blink of your gaze, letting the pause wash over you like it might make the words teetering on the tip of your tongue any easier to say. "I think we were foolish. Foolish to think that everything could be as it was, that we could be as we were."

But that was the thing, wasn't it? For even as the words left your lips with every truth fueled intention, there was something stuttering in your heart and perhaps palpitating somewhere inside of your soul, that told you something else. Because although back then, you were two people blinded by love and naivety, starry-eyed from the notion of a forever in a place where such a thing was not guaranteed, foolishness got you through.

Maybe you were a fool to believe it then, maybe you were a fool to even ask, maybe you were still a fool to this day. But it had gotten you through the time you'd been apart. Because false hope was still hope, wasn't it? Blind faith was still faith?

"I think perhaps we were."

Tommy was the first to break eye contact, almost as if his words couldn't quite endure under the weight of your gaze, for he fixed his sight back down to the cigarette burning away between his fingers. Bringing the stick short and nearly done to his lips, taking a long slow drag like he might uncover a breath for his soul deep inside that tightly rolled stick. It was only as he withdrew the cigarette and allowed an overwhelming cloud of ashen haze to immerse him in its smoky fumes, that Tommy spoke again.

"I should've held your hand more often."

You blinked at his words, as his tone carried softly and dangerously low over the desolate land, as if you hadn't quite heard him correctly. But you knew in the way your heart beat with a thunder and a fury inside of your chest, as the air in your lungs slowly petered out, that you'd heard him clearly.

"I should've kissed you every chance I had."

Tommy didn't look at you, he didn't make a single effort to lift his head from his slightly hunched position, that stared down at the cigarette nearly burnt to ash in his fingers. He didn't wear the emotions on his face, never quite letting them sink into the valleys of war-torn and stress laden lines across his flesh, but they resided in his voice. It was faint and ever so fleeting, but you recognized them, emotions in the only way Tommy Shelby could carry.

"I should've held you in me arms every time you asked."

The world seemed still as Tommy spoke, as if time itself had been halted and if he were to pull out the golden watch in his pocket, the hands that ticked would suddenly be motionless. It was an overwhelming sensation, feeling as though it was only you and Tommy in all of the world, and it was only your two breaths combined that entered the air in those measly few minutes.

You were afraid to blink, suddenly wondering if this was all some elaborate and heart-retching dream. You were afraid to speak or even take a breath, like he might just fizzle away into the atmosphere like lost particles recollected.

"I should've told you I love you, until the words bled out me fucking ears."

His words were spoken with a sharp huff as he exhaled the last of his cigarette, flicking the stub off into the distance to roll into the mercy of oblivion, as the words tore past Tommy's lips as though they ailed him.

Breathless and the slightest bit apprehensive, you felt your lips part with a single inquiry spilling over the tip of your tongue. "Is that regret Tommy?"

Tommy stared off at the melancholy sky ahead of him, eyes gazing off into the haze but not truly looking at anything at all. His lips pursed ever so slightly, not enough to make even the faintest twitch of his skin crease. "No."

"It's knowing what I know now and knowing that I should've done more when I could have."

It might have seemed like regret, at least a fair version of it. But to Tommy, it was different. He didn't see it as regret because he hadn't known that he'd go off to war and come back the man that he is today. A changed man, a different man, a broken man.

He didn't know the last time he kissed you would be one of the last ones to mean something. He didn't know the last time he held you would be the last night unplagued and soiled by nightmares of war. He didn't know that the last time he'd held your hand, would be last time he didn't see your own flesh become tainted by the uncleanable red of his own when he touched you. He didn't know that it would feel nearly impossible to tell you the very words his heart ached for you to know.

You didn't know what to say after that, if there was anything really to say at all, so you didn't say a word. You simply turned your gaze out towards the grey and empty field just the same as Tommy had, staring out into the horizon saturated in the depressing hues of a saddened sky and leaned over. Stopping only as your head finds the sturdy build of his shoulder, and upon the Earth dried out and dead, your hand slides gently over the back of his own.

Seconds tick by before you feel the warmth of his own fingers weaving their way through your own without much hesitance, until your hand is firmly resting and secure in his own. It's the first time you realize, that Tommy's held your hand since he'd gotten home.

The purity of the moment is intimate and rare and something that seems out of place amidst the anguish that taints the two souls and yet, you feel as though you could stay right here in this moment forever if time would allow.

Tommy shifts ever so gently beneath you, feeling as his head turns towards your small frame tucked against his side and it's the warmth of his touch that seeps in through the wind-blown strands of your scalp. For Tommy presses his lips against the top of your head, kissing you silently and softly, letting them linger within the aroma of wind and honeysuckle for an extra second or two, before whispering against your flesh.

"I love you."

A/N: AHH! When I say I am obsessed with this piece, I mean absolutely OBSESSED!😍😭

I fell in love with this idea when it came to me one day, the dialogue of both the past and the present coming to me immediately and with such ease and sparking this plot that I was so desperately excited to begin crafting! There's something so freeing in writing these rare pre-war Tommy moments and although I don't do them often, I absolutely adore getting to write them! I love the chance to explore who he was and who he might've been before France and the kinds of freedoms that allows in terms of softness and romance and certain ways of being that we don't see in the present day Tommy Shelby. Its such a joy to dive into that and just let it all burst alive on the page!

But in the very same breath, I love writing the sharp contrast between the two. Even when post-war Tommy is full of anguish and pain and trauma that hurts me to write, I love getting to explore both sides of the coin so to speak. I wanted every aspect of this piece to emanate those two different but hauntingly familiar sides. I wanted the scenery and the imagery and the location itself to truly mirror the changing of the character and the time, reflecting in even the smallest of details that hopefully made it come alive in a nearly palpable way. I wanted the emotions and the dialogue to intertwine like the melding of past and present. But also that they stood alone in their specific pre-war/post-war times. I wanted you to be able to feel this piece, from the very begining to the very end and I am so incredibly proud of what I've created here!

This piece poured out of me. The words flowing effortlessly from my fingertips, as the emotions bled from my heart and the images stuck vividly in my mind. I am so in love with this piece and what I've surprised myself with the beauty I've created here and I am so proud to share it with you all! It's definitely a longer one and one of my favorite pieces I've written thus far and I can only hope that you all love it as much as I loved getting to write it!❤