LIKE STEEL || Tommy Shelby

I. EVERTHING CHANGES

Finally, her tweezers grasped the bullet and it clinked as she placed in on the tray.

His eyes fluttered closed once again as she finished, whether from relief from the pain or loss of blood.

"What's your name?" he whispered, his voice raspy from shouting and rough from months of inhaling the dirt and stale air.

"King," she replied, placing her tweezers in some sterilizer and pulling a thin blanket over him. "Roseanne King."

"Well, Rose, you tell them I say sorry, okay?" he muttered, barely audible as he fell in and out of sleep. She almost smiled, she hadn't heard that name in years.

"Who?" she asked, gently. Soldiers often rambled endlessly, paranoid and scared by what was to come or had passed.

"Tell them I say I'm sorry. Things won't be the same after this," he repeated, before his eyes finally closed and his breathing steadied.

For the next hours, his face turned in her mind; but as the sun began to set that night, it was time for her final rounds.

Tying her blood-stained apron back on and pinning her hair out of her face, she checked each of the men that she had helped that day.

Some were worse than others, their injuries only progressing. Others provided her with a sense of hope; when she walked by them, they spoke back, thanking her with colour in their cheeks.

Then she saw it. Her clipboard almost fell from her hands at the sight of the empty bed at the end of the row.

Amidst the chaos and commotion of the hospital, the curious man had left his bed. The sheets were open over the bed, small drops of blood speckled across them.

His injuries would have been serious enough to send him back home.

"Doctor Phillips!" she shouted, her mind whirling, thinking about his terrible health.

The doctor of the hospital's eyes widened as he saw the empty bed. The man, his face aged beyond his years, just shook his head.

"What was his name, King?" he asked.

Flipping through her records, she finally found the name that she had taken from of piece paper in the soldier's pocket.

"Sergeant Major Thomas Shelby, Sir," Roseanne replied, her voice only just above a whisper.

The doctor just sighed and rubbed his fingers on his temples.

"Where has he gone, Sir?"

She wasn't sure she wanted an answer. Why would any of these men leave the momentary safety of the hospital?

"Back to the tunnels, Ms. King. Back to the tunnels."

***

September 30th, 1919

It had not even been a year since the War had ended, but it was everything Roseanne could do to drive the memories of her days on the front lines out of her mind.

She had tried to go home. When she got off the ship from France, she had first headed to her family home, but living in an empty house alone did nothing to quell her ever-present nerves. All it took was one newspaper advert asking for an nurse and she was out the door without so much as a look over her shoulder.

As the train pulled into the station and blew it's whistle, she tried not to flinch.

The heels of her shoes clicked on the booming streets; but they were only white noise compared to the screeching industry of the city.

With her suitcase in one hand and address book in the other, she knocked on the door of the small clinic.

"Hello, love," a large woman said, opening the door. "What can I do for you?"

"I-um-I'm Roseanne King," she replied. "I'm here for the position of head nurse."

"Oh alright then, Darling!" the woman cooed, nodding her head for Rose to follow her into the building. She talked as she went, telling Rose all about the previous nurse.

She guided her through the rooms and they stopped in a small little office overlooking the high street.

"So what's your experience then, Ms. King," the woman asked, grabbing a pen and sitting behind the desk. Her thick accent was stern, but welcoming. She rolled her "r"'s and nodded her head as she spoke.

"I spent four years as a doctor in the War, Ms.-"

"Mrs. Powell," she replied with a smile, writing this down on her paper. She paused. "Where'd you serve then, love?" 

"France," she muttered, quietly.

Mrs. Powell quickly placed the pen back down, her eyes wide in shock.

"Four years in France?" she asked, her voice now only a whisper.

Rose nodded, not sure of how to respond.

The woman just shook her head, muttering under her breath.

"Well then," she said when she looked back up at Roseanne, "we better get you started, shouldn't we?"

Before Rose could even respond, a single gunshot rang through the town. Rose clenched her suitcase even tighter, her knuckles turning white around the handle.

"Was that gunfire?" she asked gently, despite knowing exactly what the noise was.

"Mhm," Mrs. Powell sighed. "Welcome to Small Heath, love."

.........

I'm so excited about this, I LOVE Peaky Blinders SO much. This has been a while in the planning, too!

Hope you like it,
Brynn x