Rosella Kimber is the daughter of Billy Kimber, one of the biggest crime bosses in 1919 England. Tommy Shelby is the leader of the peaky blinders, a gang on the rise, threatening Kimber's rule.
When Tommy and Billy put their differences away and dec...
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ROSE DIDN'T WANT to die.
She had heard it, the stories of woman dying in childbirth. The blood, the screams, the last breaths, the light— gone.
Just like that life is stripped from you after you bring it into the world.
Rose's mother almost died on that fateful night. The sky was bleak, sobbing showers of rain, crows scattered on the cobblestone streets of Birmingham. Renie said you could hear Ethelinda's screams all the way in Liverpool.
Her father, Billy, wasn't allowed in the room but he watched as Rose's grandmother ran in and out with crimson soaked towels and water.
And now she was here at Epsom, with no doctor or midwife by her side as the labour pains grew and grew like a stubborn weed in a garden. The time was three o'clock in the afternoon; Rose hadn't spoke to Tommy since the morning.
"What if Tommy's dead?" Rose blurts out in pain. Aunt Polly was helping her into a quieter area where the empty horse stables were.
Polly looks up at her, taken by surprise. "Rose, he's not dead. He's just, he's just Tommy. He'll show up."
"And what if he doesn't?" Rose asks, anxiousness flashing in her eyes. "Pol, I can't do this without him."
"Just sit down on this chair here, and we'll figure out a way to head to Ada's house. You'll be safe there love."
Polly rubs her back. "You'll be fine, we'll all be fine."
Now Polly didn't know how much of what she just said was the truth, but she hoped it would give Rose a sprout of reassurance on such a doomsday like this.
"D-Do you think Tommy even wants a baby? I mean it wasn't planned— but that's okay." Rose was breathless now. "Sometimes I think we didn't get enough time to properly love each other and now we have to put all our love into a baby."
"Don't be daft." Polly replies softly. "Tommy acts like he's not listening to a bloody word I say when I lecture him about how to take care of a newborn, but on the inside I know he's taking notes."
Rose chuckles quietly through the discomfort.
"He also tries not to smile when John teases him about becoming a father, but I see it. I see everything. He loves you more than life and his love for you is why you're having a baby."
