The Darkness Within (Peaky Blinders) Thomas Shelby

13. You're Here

When my time comes around

Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

No grave can hold my body down

I'll crawl home to her

- Work Song, by Hozier

Four years. Fours years after they had left, they returned. Four years.

The men walked down the streets, the Peaky Blinders walking together along with Freddie Thorne who wasn't a member. It was a surprise. No one knew they were to return until a little boy had heard the news and started running down the streets yelling, "They're back! They've come home!"

Of course everyone knew the war was over, they just didn't know how long it would take the men to return to them. Kiara was now 23, the year 1918, Tommy would be 27.

'Has it really been that long?' she thought to herself. She felt older and it felt like it had been twice as long as that since she'd last seen him, but at the same time she couldn't believe it.

People poured out of their houses along the streets of Birmingham, but not her. She stayed in the house, her heart pounding, her hands shaking. Would he be injured? Is he even here? She didn't know. It had been 8 months since the contact she'd had from him, another letter it had been, but it would have been sent a month or two before she had received it. What had happened since then? What if he was one of the last casualties that hadn't yet been reported?

She stood in the kitchen, her back to the door, holding on to the bench top for support. What if his feelings have changed?

"Kiara." A low, calm and quiet voice called from behind her. Oh, how quiet it had been, barely a breathy whisper.

A voice she didn't know she would ever hear again. Slowly she turned, black hair covering one half of her face as she did until she now fully faced him.

There he stood in the doorway to the kitchen. The last time they were in this kitchen together she was cooking breakfast with Polly and Ada for the whole family and he had come up behind her, kissing her neck. Now they stood still, staring at each other, taking in the sight. She didn't even know if this was real.

She smiled, letting out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding in as she did and Tommy took that as his cue to step forward with four fast long strides until he stood before her, immediately raising a hand to brush back the hair that covered half of her face. Her hands may have been shaking, but his were steady.

"You're alive." She breathed. "You're here."

"I promised, didn't I?" He smiled.

She laughed, a laugh of pure relief, a few tears escaping before she leant up and he leant down into the kiss they'd both been waiting for. No one else matter in that moment. No other reunions mattered. They ran up to their now once again shared bedroom and they didn't leave, not even when called for dinner.

They stayed up there all day and then fell asleep. Kiara was woken an hour in. A peaceful sleep wasn't something Tommy was capable of anymore.