It was better that way, easier. She really wasn't sure why she thought this would be a good idea.
"In a moment, Finn," Nel murmured upon remembering the young boy who was waiting for an answer. "You run along now. I bet your brothers are wondering where you are."
The reminder had Finn sprinting through the crowd, eagerly shouting John's name as the man in question searched around for him. The second he was gone, Nel forced herself to stand, hands smoothing out the folds of her blue dress. It was a soft shade, as white as snow, but a hint of blue ran through the seams like tidal waves, like Tommy Shelby's eyes cutting through the crowd like the blade sewn into his hat on Nel's head.
She'd have to return it first. Then, the next train to London didn't look so bad.
"Helen."
He was so close, too close, like a hand wrapped around Nel's throat. Instinctively, she tugged at the collar of her woollen coat, inhaling sharply through her nose.
Was this what it was like to drown? To have your life squeezed out of your lungs?
Tommy's eyes scanned over her face - searching for what? Nel didn't know. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him, though, for he turned away like he never wanted to see her again. Perhaps he didn't. She had refused to marry him, after all.
But Helen? Tommy never called her Helen. In fact, it was he who had given her the nickname Nel in the first place, sometimes even Nellie. She wasn't Helen to him, wasn't the stone-cold woman her parents had desperately wanted her to be. She was his Nellie; the woman who cried when other people cried, who as a kid would collect ordinary rocks off the streets and call them diamonds, who loved horses because he loved horses, who he'd once wanted to spend the rest of his life with. They had plans for children, for a big house with chickens and the lot, plans that Nel had crushed into smithereens.
"Thomas."
Tommy scoffed. Nel never called him Thomas, not unless she was angry. He was always Tommy to her, sometimes Tom, though Tommy rarely ever let anyone call him that. He wasn't Thomas, wasn't his father's son. He was her Tommy; the man who'd kill to keep a smile on her face, who loved horses because his mother had loved them, who wanted to give Nel Mavis real diamonds instead of cheap knock-offs, who once got down on one knee and asked to put one of those diamonds on her ring finger. They had plans for children, one boy and one girl. They'd both have their mother's blonde hair and their father's blue eyes. They'd want for nothing, not like their parents had.
But Nel had crushed those plans into pieces, so perhaps he wasn't her Tommy anymore, for there was no way she was his Nel.
"Here's your cap," she murmured, pulling the hat from her head and pushing it into his hands. Her hair fell in loose waves around her face, lost without his cap to hold it in place, and Tommy had to fight the urge to tuck the stray strands behind her ear, to merely grip the hat like it was a sword - or better yet, a gun. "I was just leaving."
The foolish part of her, the cruel part that broke a man's heart then came back for more, wanted him to stop her, to profess his love again. Would she say yes this time, now that war was behind them and he was there to stay?
In total honesty, Nel didn't know, and neither did Tommy.
"I think that's best."
So she went, not once looking back no matter how much she longed to. She heard Polly and Ada calling her name, the confused questions they directed at their nephew and brother. Arthur and John said nothing, not that Nel had expected anything different from them. They would've known what she did after four years in the gallows with their brother. They had every right to hate her for hurting him, for betraying their family. Soon, Polly and Ada would despise her too, resent her for knowing and not telling them. Finn wouldn't understand, but he'd forget she ever existed sooner or later.
Nel Mavis was officially alone. She wasn't a Peaky Blinder. She certainly wasn't a Shelby. She wasn't even a Mavis, not anymore anyways.
She was just Helen - no, just Nel, with a dangerous world laying at her feet, and a dangerous God waiting for her past to creep into the present.
Really, she didn't know which was worse.
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