A Gangster With Roses • Tommy Shelby

the most of everything

She focuses her attention back on him. They were stood by a closed door. Rose felt too afraid to open it.

But she does anyway.

The room was neat, and so empty and so silent. Strangely silent. It was then Rose could fully understand why people ran away from silence their whole lives. Because right now, all her worst thoughts were as clear as a cloudless day.

Her hazel eyes wander to the hospital bed. She had to blink several times.

Harry.

But only, it didn't look like him.

Wounded. Broken. Weak. Lifeless.

That couldn't be Harry. Not the Harry that was always smiling. The Harry that stayed by her bed side all night when she was sick. Harry was strong. He opened jars in two seconds that Rose struggled with for twenty minutes. When they were younger and she'd fall over, he'd pick her up and clean the dirt out her cuts. That couldn't be Harry. Harry's laugh took up space, it was contagious.

It just couldn't be him.

Yet, it was.

"Oh, Harry." Rose's voice breaks. "What have they done to you?"

Harry was fast asleep. They had finished surgery on him mere hours ago and it was now up to fate.

Rose walks slowly to his bedside, before finally standing there and watching her brother.

All his life, all he had done was protect her. She felt pathetic that she couldn't do the same.

Sniffing, she pulls a chair next to him.

The doctor was gone by now and it was only them and the lamp that burned by his bedside. It was a summer's evening, and the warm orange rays helped light up the room. Weirdly, Harry looked quite peaceful. Resting like that.

"I'm so sorry, Harry." Rose moves his dirty blonde hair out his face, her heart felt so heavy. She promised herself she wouldn't cry and she was trying so hard not to.

"I had twins. We named them Charles and Elliot Shelby." Rose smiles weakly, her eyes glistening with tears. "Just like us, except they're both boys. I remember how you said you wished I was a boy when we were eight." She laughs quietly, remembering.

She felt a bit odd talking to someone who was deep asleep. But it felt nice to talk to him. It felt like old times, like nothing had changed.

"You called me Ronald for a whole a week, Ron for short. You made me play football with you." She laughs again. "It was so bloody stupid, but so much fun. Maybe that's why God gave me twin boys."

Rose stares at Harry, shaking her head. "And now you might not even get to hold them..."

Her sentence finished as a lonely whisper. She didn't know what was worse; when someone's already dead or close to death.

"You always look out for me. You're the best brother in the world. If it wasn't for you, I'd have no love growing up. You made that horrible house an actual home, you're my best friend, I—"

Rose couldn't even finish her sentence, a wave of sobs came over her. She wanted to apologise for every time she let Harry down, every pointless sibling argument. For everything.