𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃, ⁱˢⁱᵃʰ ʲᵉˢᵘˢ

77

A defeated feeling filled Charles as he did so.

Tommy nodded at his uncle, walking toward the caravan. "Is she hitched, Johnny?"

Ada stood, walking after him. "Tommy you tell me right now where you are going," she said in a panic. "You have to carry the bucket on your own this time, Ada."

"Tommy, you come to me with everything. You always come to me."

"Not this time, not this one, sister"

"What the fuck does that mean. Where are you going?" she watched as he walked off. "Tommy!"

-

1 month later

Tommy lay on the floor on the grass hill, outside the small caravan. The sound of a bird woke him and he sat, squinting. He opened a bottle of liquor, sipping it.

He looked at the caravan, walking into it hesitantly.

He placed his gun down on the table full of pictures. Grace, Polly, John. He laced his ring down, his pocket watch, everything he had on him.

Tommy looked out to the hill, lighting a cigarette.

Once he put it out, he picked up the gun, standing at the door and holding it to his head. "In the bleak midwinter"

"Dad, come outside" he heard, "dad it's me"

He stepped out, running when he saw Ruby coming toward him. Tommy picked her up. "Did Polly send you? Did Polly send you? Or am i dead already?"

"No" she spoke. "You're not dead, you're not even sick"

"But i am, my darling" he frowned. "I am sick. Sick like you was"

"No, not true. I know it, you've got to live, daddy." she argued. "You let the fire go out. Light the fire again and get warm and you will see, you must live."

Tommy looked back, Ruby no longer being stood there.

He kneeled down beside the fire, pulling a piece of a newspaper which displayed Mosley and Diana's wedding where his doctors had attended, the Chancellor Hitler attended also.

-

"Have you filled the car with petrol?" Holford asked. "I said, have you filled the car with petrol?"

Tommy grabbed him, covering his mouth and holding the gun to his head. "How was the wedding in Berlin?" he asked. "I hear Chancellor Hitler himself was the best man. You've been my doctor now for three years. I never knew you were so well connected, oh and the doctor at St Thomas' who you send me to for a second opinion. She was a maid of honour at the same wedding. Also very well fucking connected. On your knees, Holford"

His breath was shaky.

"I'm guessing all you people decided that the only person that could ever Thomas Shelby, was Thomas Shelby himself. You made me believe death was coming, let my nature do the rest, eh?"

"You may not have tuberculoma Mr Shelby. But you are sick, i know you. You are sick with guilt. Sick of death at your own hand. Sick of who you were. You are no longer the kind of man who would kill another man in cold blood. Tommy, you have been on a journey from the back streets to the corridors of power. You can't go back. You are a different man. The gun no longer belongs in your hand"

Tommy stared at him. "Oh, but i am back. Back from under the ground. Close your eyes, close your eyes"

He did. A bell tolled. Tommy checked his watch, lowering his gun.

-

Florence looked at the new house that both her and Isiah had moved into, on a large plot of land, far away from the guilt, the murder, the blood, the business.

She walked around, looking up at the large portrait of Micheal and Polly that hung in the hallway. "I always thought that i was insane, i was told that i was insane and quite frankly i was. But now i realise, the person that fed into my  delusion and my issue was the devil himself. Tommy Shelby."

Florence pushed her hair back. "And the devil is finally burning in hell" she raised her whiskey glass to the portrait.

"Peace at last," she whispered.